As The Flesh Spreads
I woke up. Rising from the flesh. Panic set in as I realized I had slept in too long. The mass of meat had spread faster than I expected. Frantically ripping the foreign flesh that had clung to my skin. I ran. I had to. I had to leave my pack behind. My food, my water, my gear, it’s all gone. They belong to the flesh now. The twitching, undulating mass of meat that is spreading across the world. All I had kept after fleeing from camp was my journal and an old pen. I estimate that I have three, maybe four days left if I conserve my energy. Damn it. I’d say “God” damn it, but there’s no such thing, and even if there was, he has turned his back on us. That’s obvious. So, I guess I take the limited time I have left to write my story, and how the world came to be like this and keep myself from losing my mind before being assimilated into the veiny mass.
My name is Alexandre Loque, I am 27 years old, and the year is 2026. I had just been accepted into the University of Toronto at the age of 23. I started my bachelor’s in cell biology. I had only been accepted because of something I discovered whilst examining cancerous tissue for my father’s company, BioTechnica Ltd. I wasn’t even supposed to be in the laboratory, let alone the Cancer Research Sector (CRS). The only reason I was allowed in is because I’ve always had very keen eyes in biology, I could recognize different types of cancers just from a few seconds of simply looking at a tissue sample.
I had just got into work. It was going to be just me and my coworker, Olivia, for the next few hours. I just finished my first routine; change into my disposable protective equipment. I had barely put my sterile gloves on when I heard a muffled, yet blood-curdling scream.
“Olivia? Was that you?”, I called out.
I ran to the sealed decontamination room and peered in. Empty. I entered the password and hurriedly started the decontamination procedure. A high-pitched hissing filled the room as a gas filled the room. As the pitch steadily decreased, an AI voice from the overhead speaker announced.
“Decontamination Procedure Complete.”.
The doors to the lab hissed open. As I speed-walked into the lab, I saw Olivia huddled on the ground, her pale face staring at nothing in particular, eyes partially hidden by her curly dark brown hair, horrified. I knelt down and laid a hand on her back, her breath was shaky and fast. She says in a shaky voice as she points to the microscope on the lab bench.
“A-Alex, look.”
I stood and leaned over the microscope. What I saw broke the laws of conservation of mass. The sample, which should have only been big enough to fit in a petri dish per the lab procedure’s parameters, was now the size of a 355ml pop can, and still growing. I peered into the lens after adjusting the height. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The cells were multiplying at a torrid rate. The nucleus was 50% larger than it should have been in each cell, genes being copied way too fast for the cells to handle it. I stepped back, aghast. I pulled Olivia to her feet by the shoulder of her lab coat.
“We need to start the contingency decontamination, Olivia, now! We need to move.”
We ran towards the decontamination room. Olivia ran in as I started the contingency authentication process. First, breaking the glass case with a fire extinguisher. I hear beakers shattering on the floor. Looking back, the sample had grown to the size of a large dog. I reached into the broken case and wrapped my hand around the lever. “Twist all the way left, pull out, twist all the way right, push in, then back into the up position”, I thought as I did just that.
“Alexander, hurry the Hell up!”
“Done!”, I shouted as I ran into the decontamination room. “Seal the door!”
The 5” thick steel hydraulic door hissed shut and maglocks clanked into place. Once again, the room was filled with a high-pitched hissing as the room as the decontaminating gas filled the room. I looked through the dinner plate-sized window as a highly potent acidic gaseous compound filled the lab, incredibly deadly to living matter.
“What the fuck was that, Olivia? What the hell just happened?”
“I don’t know, Alex. I did what we do every goddamn day. I took a sample from cryo-storage, cleaned the lab bench, and put the sample in the microscope for examination.”
Her one hazel and one grey eye were filled with fear. The door to the changing area slid open. I looked back at the window. The slab of meat was half melted and stopped growing, I was so relieved. Olivia and I walked into the changing room.
“Acid-based contingency complete. No organic matter detected.” Echoed through the room.
Sighing. “Thank Christ. I’m gonna call Dad, er, Senior Researcher Loque, and ask him what the Hell that was. I’m gonna look through the Security Cameras with him when he gets here. Maybe find what the cause of this was.”
“That *is* what procedure calls for in situations like this, Alex.”, Olivia says sarcastically.
“Yeah yeah, I don’t need your attitude, ‘Miss Freeze When Something Goes Wrong’. Don’t forget to purge your clothes.”
I removed the outer layer of my protective clothing and threw them into the basket for the incinerator. Olivia had finished changing before me and rushed out.
“Olivia? Olivia! You didn’t put your clothes in the incinerator!”, I called out. But she had already left the floor. I started to pick up her discarded clothes. “And she’s the one who’s supposed to be the up-tight one, doesn’t even follow procedu-“. I trail off. While I was grabbing her lab coat, I noticed something that I hadn’t before. Starting at the collar of the coat, and trailing down the back, was thick, clotted crimson blood.
And the chunks of coagulated blood were growing…