The Heart-Shaped Locket

Blackhawk, California 2030

Elise was woken abruptly by the sound of the sirens blaring loudly. Her sleep had been broken by very vivid dreams and now her heart was racing. She sat to and slipped on her shoes and headphones to block out the noise as if by reflex and started running. The sirens signalled a breach in the outer perimeter of the containment facility which meant having to flee down to the control centre to deploy nerve gas to bring the intruders down.

She scanned her access card and logged her entry into the control room. The date read '10:04:2030' time 06:23. She turned off the sirens. Through the south west side perimeter camera, she caught two dishevelled and ravenous looking zombies trying to scale the gates to get in. She pressed the button to deploy the nerve gas which quickly enveloped them. She watched the seconds until their writhing bodies eventually stopped moving on the concrete ground.

The control room doors opened and Jake rushed in. She took her headphones off.

“Always on top of things” he smiled at Elise. She relaxed and smiled back feeling relieved. “I’m used to it”. She tucked her long auburn tinged hair behind her ears.

Her and Jake were two of 218 lone survivors in a post pandemic world where a disease outbreak 6 months prior had mutated in the world’s population and turned people into mindless zombified animals, whose only desire was to destroy and eat any untouched living being. They had escaped to the fort knox like army base containment facility on the outskirts of San Francisco just in time. A solution to the disease was still being researched. Their base had communication with other army bases around the country and surviving doctors and scientists were furiously working on a solution.

Elise was an immunologist and head virologist at the city hospital. Her expertise had led her to being sought after by the armed forces for solutions in bio warfare. The disease outbreak had been deliberately bio engineered and released on an unsuspecting population. The mutation however had not. Today it was back to the drawing board.

Elise wore a heart shaped locket on her necklace given to her by her parents when she was a girl all of the time. She reached up to feel its familiar shape but in her rush to get to the control room she had forgotten to put it on.

“I need to go back to my room for something” she told Jake.

“I’ll meet you in the cafeteria after for a long black coffee?” Jake asked.

“Sure I need one after that” she responded and left the control room.

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Back in her room she walked to her bedside and picked up the locket and put it back on saying “I love you Mama. I love you Dada.” out loud to herself. Her parents had not survived the outbreak and she felt a surge of sadness welling up at remembering them.

Wiping away some tears with the back of her hand she said out loud “This one’s for you” while wrapping her hand around the locket. She had made up her mind that she was going to find a solution today.

In the cafeteria she was met by Jake holding two big coffee mugs filled with black coffee.

“Thankyou!” Elise said and they sat down. As they sipped it slowly she said to him with a firm resolve “I’m finding the cure today..”

“Wow” he replied in astonishment. “I believe you. Let’s get to it huh!”

Jake was an ex army officer turned scientist. He had been teased for having brawn but lacking in brains too often during his service years so when he finished he went on to study molecular biology. He had met Elise at the hospital she worked at one fateful day when she was giving a presentation on her latest research and he was in the audience. They had become colleagues and fast friends ever since.

“The good doctor is finding the cure today” Jake announced over the microphone after they sat down in front of the computers in the lab room. Other doctors and scientists were tele linked via video cameras.

“That’s great Elise!” said John, another doctor via the video feed. John was based on an east coast army base. “The nerve gas is effective in wiping out the zombies but we don’t want to keep killing them, I mean what if one happened to be an old friend or family member right?”

“Right. Well we’ve already established through the autopsy reports that once the virus mutates it envelops their entire bloodstream, it turns the blood into poison so to speak. This then infects their brains and turns them into animals with only their base instincts intact” Jake said.

“Correct, but what if we could reverse the mutation through DNA splicing?” Elise asked. All eyes went to her.

“We would need a live sample of blood from a zombie donor though” Jake chimed in.

Elise's eyes lit up with excitement. “Those two that I just nerve gassed, I need to get a sample quick!” she shouted. She stood up abruptly and scrambled to find a syringe in the lab.

“Wait, you'll need help!” Jake added and jumped up, joining her in her search.

Elise found an unopened one inside a packet. They both grabbed a gas mask each and put on a zip up hazmat suit.

“Be careful out there!” John shouted over his computer microphone but Elise and Jake had already left the lab room.

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The air outside was damp and tepid. The skies were grey and only slivers of sunlight peeked through the holes in the clouds almost as if bullets had rained through them. Jake tried to keep pace with Elise’s running but the suit was slowing him down.

She reached the perimeter gates first and pressed the emergency open button. The 4 metre tall barbed wire surrounded gate slowly slid open.

On the concrete ground lay the dishevelled bodies of what used to be a man and a woman but consumed by disease which had rotted some of their flesh away leaving gaping holes on the surface of their skin. Elise couldn’t help but gasp at the horrific sight of their twisted diseased bodies. She was used to seeing zombies from a distance but close up it was even more terrifying.

Jake had finally caught up and was watching with horror on his face too. Elise knelt down next to the female body which had fallen face down on the concrete. There was still some blood seeping out from her broken jaw. Something about her felt familiar.

She slowly lifted her head up and turned it to face her. She gasped as she caught sight of the very same heart shaped locket which she had, around the woman’s neck and let go of her face then screamed.

“No... It can’t be! Noooo!” She and Jake were both stunned and frozen in horror.

It was in that moment the other body which up until that moment had laid completely still, started to twitch.