Day 9

Brandon and I tell the others our plans with the door on the fourth floor.

No one is excited about it, considering the fact that we'll all have to enter once the door is opened.

We head up to the fourth floor and remain a safe distance from the door and the smell. I place up flashlights in strategic places so that there isn't a small inch of complete darkness while Brandon examines the keypad.

Brandon sighs. "Yeah, it's gonna take us a while."

"How long, do you think?"

"I don't know how to..." He begins, pressing the keypad until the green turns red. "Okay, good. It's a six-digit access code. It'll take about ninety minutes to guess the first four numbers and a few minutes to figure out the last two."

I try to figure out the logic in that before shaking my head. "I don't get it."

Brandon leans against the wall beside me and crosses his arms. "You'll know you're on the right track when you type in the first four numbers. When it indicates that the first four are correct, figuring out the other two shouldn't be hard."

I groan. "I didn't think it'd take this long."

"Not everything is like the movies."

"I guess not. How do you know about this, though?"

He smiles. "I watch a lot of movies."

I snort. "Okay, we're gonna need to find a pen and paper."

I reluctantly suggest the reception, where there's pens and a sharpie in the drawers.

We push the door to the first floor open and I shiver, the memories of yesterday seeping into my mind.

Apparently, Gwen had banged her head repeatedly against the door, possibly knocking herself unconscious. What killed her was when she fell down the flight of stairs and landed on her neck.

No doubt we were all pretty disturbed. The virus was no longer what it used to be. It twisted the mind until it held it prisoner and did whatever nasty deed it wanted its host to do.

We took a few pens and papers that documented attendance logs, signed names of scientists who had sworn to humanity to rid the world of the virus and then did the exact opposite.

Brandon has a T-shirt in hand and he uses it to wrap it around his nose and mouth as we enter the fourth floor again. "I'd rather not throw up on the keyboard," he explains.

I leaned against the wall across and further down, where my nose was somewhat safe to the scent. Somehow the smell lingered anyway, as if it wanted to remind me of the horrors inside.

I begin writing different combinations of the first four numbers. 1000, 1001, 1002, 1003, 1004...

About a half hour and a self-diagnosis of carpal tunnel later, I throw the pen at the wall as the keyboard determines it wrong.

"I'm sick of this."

Brandon scoffs. "You're not the one on your feet this entire time." The screen turns red again as he tries the next four digit combination. He slams his palm on the wall in frustration.

"Okay, I'm calling it," I declare. "Let's take a break."

I watch him type in the next combination and I cross it out on my paper, already determining that it'd be wrong.

"There's no time for breaks," he says.

The keypad turns red yet again. "Of course there is," I say standing to my feet and wiping the dust off the back of my jeans. "I'm hungry."

"You already ate your rations. There's no..." He turns with a grin on his face. "You're the devil, aren't you?"

I smile innocently.

"Eh," he says with a shrug. "Fuck it, let's go."

I leave the papers there and we sprint down the stairs and open the basement door.

The food pantry is the same as we left it. I've become almost numb to the deaths that had occurred over the past week, to the point that I can almost forget that someone had died in here.

I pause, however, remembering the hallucination that I had. I turn to see Brandon rummaging through the fridge.

"Ha!" He says. "Someone hid lemon water in here."

I make a face. "Lemon water?"

He puts it down on a large table nearby. "Yep. Someone's been sneaking these in. There's six of them hidden in the back."

"Not anymore," I say. We both open up a bottle and drink. It tastes better than I remembered, or that could be survival mode placing taste at the bottom of my priorities. "Brandon, you mind taking down the Nature Valley?"

"Sure."

He climbs on the ladder and pulls the box down. He looks inside and laughs. "That's messed up. Someone's been stealing the snacks."

I grin. "They won't be seeing any of that anymore."

There's only the last two bottom rows of the granolas left. We haul the entire box and place four lemon water in there up to the fourth floor.

Instead of working on the combination, we snack on the stolen goods, making sure to be alert in case anyone comes upstairs. The only one who'd dare to is Jared, and only if he starts to get worried.

"This is fun," I laugh and take another bite. I down it with the rest of my bottle.

Brandon nods with a grin. It's surely been over two hours by now, but we did tell them it'll take a long time and we didn't specify.

I rub the crumbs on my jeans. I'm beginning to run out of clean clothes, but I try not to think about it. "Alright, let's get back to work," I say through a mouthful.

Unfortunately, after a half hour later we decide to take another break.

"Why is it so quiet in there?" He says, his eyes trained on the door. "You think he's dead?"

I shrug, my back against the cold wall. I take a bite of the granola. Somehow after eight of these, it still doesn't get old. "Hey! You're there?!" I yell out.

"Are you crazy?" Brandon says with his brows raised as he turns his head quickly to look at me.

I take another bite. "What? I'm just making sure. Hey!" I yell again, throwing my last bottle at the door.

Silence.

Then the sudden sound of a door closing makes us jump.

We turn our heads quickly to the corridor and see Preeta staring at us with a frown. I pause, the food still halfway chewed in my mouth, Brandon about to take another bite.

"What's that sound? What's going on?" She doesn't take a step further.

I shake my head. "Nothing," I say through a mouthful.

"Jared said to come over and check what's going on. I thought I heard something..."

"No, nothing happened," Brandon says with a shake of his head.

"Okay," Preeta says, looking visibly relieved. "Jared says to hurry up." She walks away after that before we can respond.

Brandon looks back at me and I swallow the food, snickering after we hear the door close again.

"You're crazy," he says with a laugh.

When we get back to it, it takes about five minutes before the alarm finally turns green. "Yes!" Brandon calls, causing me to look up from the paper. I had just been crossing out the next number with the sharpie.

I stand up excitedly and watch in agonizing anticipation as he guesses the last two until eventually the door opens slightly with a click. We both stumble back as the smell hits our nostrils.

I run down the hallway, my food threatening to come back up. I did not eat to my stomach's content only to remove it.

Brandon spits a long one on the ground. "Fuck," he mutters. He had forgotten to cover the shirt over his mouth.

"I can't go in there," I declare. "I'm gonna throw up."

"We should've thought this through," he says, clutching his stomach.

"Yeah. I don't regret it though," I admit.

He surprises me by laughing and then shaking his head. "Stay here."

"Wait! What if he's inside?"

"The door opened when we put the right code. He hasn't come out yet or made a sound. I think he's dead."

I shift nervously, glancing behind me at the dark corridor. "Let's just tell the others in case."

He nods, his face paling each second. "Fine."

"I need something to cover my face, though." We leave the box there and pick up the rest of the uneaten packages, though it isn't many. When we make it to my room, I pick up my large sweatshirt from the dresser and fold it so that it's thick around my nose and mouth. I tie the sleeves tightly around my head.

He shoves the granolas into my t-shirt drawer and places the bottles at the back. For safekeeping, he claims.

"Is that what you care about?" I shouldn't complain, though. I'm grateful for the late night snacks.

He shrugs. "Mind if I use the bathroom real quick?"

He doesn't wait for an answer.

I hear the sounds of vomit coming from the bathroom, making me want to hurl out my food as well. I walk out in the hallway in order to distract my mind from that.

Soft footsteps echoes further down the hallway.

My stomach drops.

I'm about to bolt back inside when I see Jared appear from the shadows. "Everything good? You two surely took your time."

"We're actually... we're not done yet," I explain breathlessly, trying to catch my stolen breath. My voice is muffled underneath the sweatshirt. "We just finally opened the door."

"Why didn't you let us know, then?" His face is full of suspicion before he takes another step forward. "What're you two doing in your room, Kiana? You really think that's a good idea?"

I scrunch my face. "What? No, he's just throwing up because of the dead body!" I point to the makeshift mask on my face.

He shakes his head in disbelief. "Hurry up. We're all dying of boredom."

I wince at the poor choice of words. "Pun unintended, right?"

He sighs, his face transforming into sadness. "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that."

"Jared, what's up?" We turn to look at Brandon, who's face and top shirt is soaked with water, his hair a tangled mess.

Jared squints at both of us before looking at me with only what could only be described as disappointment. He leans down and whisper to the point that only I can hear. "If Brandon has the virus, I'll be looking at you next."

I stiffen. "We didn't-"

Jared doesn't bother waiting for my response. He turns back down the hallway and disappears.

"What's that about?"

I roll my eyes and stifle a groan. "Let's go."

* * *

All of us; Jared, Preeta, Elijah, Henry, Anna, Brandon and I decide to explore the room. Brandon has the metal rod tightly in his grip.

The smell had already hit my nostrils and lingered from earlier, making it hard to determine whether the sweatshirt is actually working or not. I decide that it's doing something since I'm not throwing up on the floor.

My stomach churns as Brandon takes a step inside the room, and then freezes.

He abruptly turns around and pushes me back.

"What? What is it?" Panic seizes my throat and I try to peer around him.

"There's two dead bodies in there," he confirms. His face has paled and he bends down to clutch his knees.

Jared, a grey sweatpants strategically tied over his face, frowns. "I thought you heard noises a few days ago?"

I nod my head. "We definitely did, it must've been him and someone else. He somehow died earlier than we expected, though we literally have no idea how much time has passed. It could be two weeks for all we know."

"He probably died from the virus, not of hunger," Preeta points out. She's the first one to walk in while everyone follows behind her, me being the last.

I freeze in my tracks, feeling the blood draining from my face and my heart noticeably slower.

I remember when my parents died, they were cleaned and dressed, their hair styled in what they usually had on. Their skin was dark, but ghastly, their eyes peacefully closed. I vaguely remember comparing their bodies to wax, as if they had popped out of Madame Tussaud's Museum.

Lying on the floor against the corner of the wall is a dead body, almost as if it was recent. His dark clothes are wrinkled and his sleeves rolled up, revealing olive skin. His eyes are closed and his lips parted, hair sticking up in random places and his shoes kicked off. He died very recently, presumably.

The true horror, though, was when I moved my eyes to look for the second body.

Sitting behind a large oak desk at the far end of the wall, a dead body—or more accurately, a corpse— is leaning back against a chair. The long and straight hair is the only thing that resembles anything human-like. Its body is tinged greenish-red and it's stomach, arms, and face are bloated to the point that it looks like a cartoon or caricature. Its tongue is dangling out, a green ooze dangling from the mouth and nose. It's eyes are pushed out of its sockets, stuck staring at the ceiling wide-opened.

My vision teeters and I stumble back before righting myself by placing a hand on the wall. My stomach responds for a second before I shut my eyes. When I open them, I look around the room, trying not to revert my eyes back to the body. I breathe fast and harsh through my mouth.

Preeta winces in front of me, though she moves to step a bit closer. "Its been dead for a week, for sure. The body is turning red and the organs in the abdomen has already accumulated gas because of all the bacteria." She points at the bloated body.

Currently getting a bachelor's degree in mortuary science, it's no surprise that Preeta isn't afraid of a dead body. In fact, she looks fascinated by it. With my bachelors in literary arts in the works, classes aren't currently available to mentally prepare for a week-old rotting body in a research facility infested with an unknown mutating virus.

I release a slow breath and look at anything besides the body. "The guy on the floor must've died not too long after he was banging on the door. Maybe he knew he was dying and he got desperate."

"I'm going to throw up," Henry announces before rushing out of the room. The sounds of his vomiting forces saliva at the bridge of my throat. I quickly remove the mask and spit outside of the doorway before returning back inside.

The room is three times as large as the dorms, which were pretty big to begin with. The lights have been left on, though the air conditioning has been shut off, making the air a lot warmer than everywhere else. Another desk sits on the opposite end of the first one occupied by the body, with two computers on the desk and a clipboard on top. The chair has been knocked over, several papers laying beside it. A bottle of water is on the floor, a small pool of it spilt from it.

One thing I can safely guess: one left in a hurry, the other didn't quite make it.

The clipboard holds no papers, and the desk drawers are locked. Luckily, my short hair is held back by safety pins. Unluckily, I know nothing about picking a lock.

Anna must've noticed my hesitation because she takes it from my hand and after ten seconds, the dresser smoothly clicks open.

"Not bad." My voice is muffled behind the mask.

The drawers are empty, save for a few scientific equipments that I'm not familiar with and a few papers. Nothing useful is in it.

After making sure there isn't anything like blood on the swiveling chair, I take a seat on it. Jared comes around behind me to take a look. Brandon and Jared are studying the computer with the dead body in the chair (though the chair has been pushed away to the wall so that only the back of the head is in view), Anna and Preeta flip through the books placed neatly on the bookshelf and Henry hasn't returned. I'm too exhausted to care.

I click on the mouse. As expected, the screen comes to life and shows what was previously there.

My mouth gapes open as I read through a list of the patients that were volunteers in the study. The title of the page says: 'Double-Blind Study, Phase III' and next to the row that says 'Name,' it reads 'Status.' The first eight statuses are blank, including mine and Tiana. On the ninth, there's a name, Lisa, and the status reads 'Terminated.'

Another has a name, Dawson, and the status reads 'Terminated.'

Three more names with the word 'Terminated.'

"You were right, Jared," I say in a low voice as I scroll down the screen. "The missing five were killed off on purpose."

I push away slightly in the chair, suddenly afraid to read more. A sharp inhale makes me smell more than what I can stomach and bile rises up my throat. I slowly stand and head to the door, willing myself not to vomit on the floor.

"You won't believe this," Brandon says in a low tone.

Brandon is hovered over the computer and his eyes are wide with shock.

I open the door and peer back. "What?"

"You know that conspiracy theory about the virus being planted by the government?"

My stomach does another drop. "Yeah..."

"It's not a conspiracy. It's real."

I hurl the contents of my stomach outside the entrance, clutching my knees until I can't breathe and my stomach feels a lot lighter.

I eventually stand up and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, leaning against the cold wall for support. "I'm not cleaning that shit up."