Zom-B Fugitive

ONE

NOW…

I left Mr. Dowling unconscious. I zapped him with enough electricity to put a normal person out of action for a whole day. But the clown is far from normal and I can't bank on him staying down for too long. I reckon I might have as little as an hour or two before he stirs and calls for help. Maybe less if Kinslow or one of his other mutants comes to check on him. Time, as they say, is of the essence.

The trouble is, the shape I'm in at the moment, I'd struggle to win a race with a snail. Although Mr. Dowling repaired the worst of the damage, I hadn't fully recovered from Dan-Dan's mauling by the time of my wedding. The babies reopened lots of old wounds when they attacked me, and inflicted plenty of new ones.

Every step is agony. The recently restored flesh of my stomach has been clawed away. Most of my replacement ribs have been snapped off. Bones are broken. I'm bleeding all over, thick, gloopy blood slowly oozing from my injuries. I didn't think there was that much of the crimson stuff left–Dan-Dan drained off lots of it while he was torturing me–but there must have been hidden reserves.

I'll have to do something about the blood. The loss won't really harm me, but if I don't stop it, I'll leave a trail that even a blind mutant will be able to follow. Still, I can't worry about that until I locate the vial of Schlesinger-10. If Mr. Dowling recovers sooner than I anticipate, he'll know exactly where I'm going and he'll set the mutants on me. No point wasting time. My priority has to be to lay my hands on the vial. Only then can I start planning my next move.

I stagger along, picking my way from room to room through the maze that Mr. Dowling and his assistants have built over the years. If this wasn't the day of my wedding, there'd be mutants relaxing, working and patrolling the corridors, even this far from the center of the complex. But the celebrations must still be going strong, because I encounter no one. They're all toasting my health in the wedding chamber, unaware that their master is lying on his honeymoon bed unconscious, while their newly crowned mistress is plotting their downfall.

I'd love to return to Mr. Dowling's bedroom-cum-laboratory and immerse myself in the pool of restorative blood and brains. A long soak in that would cure many of my ills. With all the mutants still celebrating the wedding, there's a chance I could steal in, rest up, then slip out again without anyone spotting me. But it's too risky—if one of them spots me in my bloody, bedraggled state, they'll know something is up and raise the alarm.

I don't even stop for a few minutes to rest, since the clock is ticking. Instead I push myself as hard as I can, ignoring the agonized protests of my body as I force it through the pain barrier once again.

I come to a room that looks the same as the others. I would have passed through at any other time and thought nothing of it. But I know from Mr. Dowling's stolen memories that there's a hidden door here, so I stop, treat myself to a short pause, then go looking for it.

I shuffle to the wall on my right and lift down the upper half of a woman's carcass from where it hangs on a hook. The wall behind her is caked with dried blood and dung. The babies bit off some of my artificial finger bones, but several remain intact. I use them to chip away at the mess. After a while, it starts to fall off in chunks and the outline of a door is revealed.

There's a small, old-fashioned combination lock in the center, the type where you roll the tumblers one at a time until they click into place. I prised the numbers from Mr. Dowling's memory and they're somehow still clear in my mind—it's like I have perfect recall. I start entering the digits until they read 528614592. Then I push down on the slim handle and the door opens.

I stare suspiciously into the gloom of the tunnel on the other side. I still don't know how I wrung so much information out of Mr. Dowling. I hadn't planned to squeeze his secrets from him. I didn't think that I could. Something happened in the bridal suite that I had no control over, and it unnerved me. I don't like the fact that I operated on auto-pilot like a cold, calculating, experienced spy.

But what are my options? I can't go back. Mr. Dowling will slaughter me on sight if I don't get out of here. I might be his beloved, but he can't let me live, knowing what I know. I've got to press ahead as fast as I can. It doesn't matter how I came by this knowledge. I need to cash in on it, and quickly, before the mutants lock down the complex and come hunting for me.

I enter the tunnel and push the door closed behind me—there's no way of operating the lock from this side, so I just have to hope that Mr. Dowling's mutants don't spot the disturbance and investigate. Then I press on through the gloom. This area isn't brightly lit, just the occasional light. But that's okay. I know the way. I could find it blindfolded if I had to.

The tunnel forks and I take the left turn. Then a right, another right, a left. These tunnels are roughly carved. Mr. Dowling only used a few of his mutants when creating them, in secret, away from the gaze of his other followers. All of the workers were killed once they'd finished, like the slaves who built the tombs for the pharaohs in ancient Egypt. He didn't want anyone to know about this hidden network. It was created for his personal use only.

More twists and turns. I take them without thinking, following the map that was clear as crystal inside Mr. Dowling's brain. He often comes here to check on his deadly prize, standing before it in ecstatic but horrified awe, like a worshipper at the shrine of some all-destructive god. There are several entrances and routes. He tests them all out on a regular basis, making sure the doors work, that the paths are clear of cave-ins, that no one has been sniffing around his toxic treasure.

It's not a long journey but I make poor time. I'm incapable of rushing. Still, as slow as I am, I'm dogged, and eventually I draw to a halt at another locked door. This one is protected by four combination locks, each requiring a twelve-digit code, and you'd need a serious stash of dynamite to make an impression on the door or wall. It would take a crack team a lot of time and hassle to break through. Even Ivor Bolton, an Angel who can open almost any lock, would have to admit defeat if confronted with these devilish beauties.

But I have the inside scoop, the elaborate string of numbers flashing in my mind's eye as if highlighted on a neon billboard. I start spinning the tumblers and soon I've set all forty-eight windows correctly. I grasp the round handle and twist. There's a sighing sound and the door opens inwards, widening the more I turn the handle, like a giant opening its mouth.

I step into a small, steel-lined room. There's a single light hanging from the center of the ceiling. It switched on automatically as the door opened.

A safe sits in the middle of the room, bolted to the floor. The code for this lock is simpler than any of the others. Mr. Dowling figured that if someone made it this far, the game was up. He set the code out of a sense of irony more than anything else, aware of the things that Dr. Oystein has said about him over the years. I chuckle weakly as I spin the tumblers to the most diabolical of numbers—666.

The safe opens and I sink to my knees. I reach in and pull out a clear tube, no more than twenty centimeters long. It's sealed with what looks like a plain rubber cork, but I know the cork is made from a special material and is absolutely airtight. It will never shrink or shake loose. And, although the tube appears to be just glass, again it's been carefully manufactured from a far tougher substance. You could put it on the floor and whack it with a sledgehammer, over and over, without even cracking it.

Just to be safe, there's a second clear, corked tube nestled within the first, every bit as indestructible as the outer container. And then, snuggled within that, is a vial, maybe fifteen centimeters long, filled with a milky-white liquid. There's no label on any of the containers, but I don't need one.

"Schlesinger-10," I croak, holding the tube up to the light, watching the liquid as it splashes around inside the vial.