Blue Ruin

**Prologue – Annihilan Alpha**

Mountain View Medical School
June 14^th 2011
05:24 AM

The Laboratory was eerily still. I eased myself onto the stool and removed my gloves. That was enough contact with Annihilan for the moment.  As I took my handkerchief from my coat pocket the door slid open with a soft whoosh and in strode Lance Hyren, son of Gregory Hyren, head of the Seventh Legion research project. 

“How go the tests? Have you pinpointed the cause of the defect yet?” he asked, barely hiding his contempt for me.

“Not quite yet, but I am getting closer.” I replied.

“Closer? CLOSER? CLOSER ISNT GOOD ENOUGH CARL. CLOSER WONT GET YOU PAID. This had better get done soon, or my father will have your head. Better yet, we will use you as a test subject.” He raged, punching the desk each time as if punctuating his words. “I don’t even know why my father hired you!”

“You can’t seriously expect us to magically work this shit out in three days can you? If you didn’t notice my team isn’t even here! Maybe if you could get them over here, maybe, just maybe we would get some progress. Now if you wouldn’t mind leaving me to checking my notes, I might be able to continue fixing things.”

Lance just glared at me, and if looks could kill, boy would I be dead right now. He pushed a bunch of equipment from the desk he was standing by with the back of his hand and stomped out of the room.

 “Wonder what his dad shoved up his ass this morning...” I said under my breath as I wiped my brow. I picked up my clipboard and leafed through my notes. Anything. I was looking for anything at all to help fix the damned mess we had gotten ourselves into with Annihilan. There had to be a way to stop it turning our test subjects into... into these things. Hell, we were running out of room to store the corpses, and Christ had they begun to stink.

After several minutes of searching, I found it, and boy was it obvious. Apparently there was a minor mutation in the base chemicals. I circled this, and went over to the chemical storage cupboard to test this theory. Opening it up, I heard a dull thud at the door.

“Come in, it’s only me here. Made some breakthroughs into why the samples have been failing, you can give me a hand!” I yelled, the rooms in here were pretty well sound-proofed so I needed to make sure they heard me. Sure enough, as I grabbed a few Petri dishes, I heard the familiar sound of the door followed by some slow, almost clumsy footsteps. 

“You hadn’t better be drunk, otherwise you can jolly well go back home.” I said as I was backing out of the cupboard.

As I turned around, my heart jumped into my mouth, and I dropped the samples I had in my hands. Immediately the biohazard alarm rang out. There, slowly staggering towards me was a subject that we had disposed of early yesterday morning. How he was moving was anybody’s guess, but having him walk in the lab like that had just endangered the lives of around a hundred of the personnel here, and possibly more if the samples couldn’t be contained. I had to do something.

Sweeping the dishes to the side with my foot, I grabbed my clipboard from the desk and pulled the notes from them, and placed them into my inner pocket. Slowly, gritting my death, I walked towards the corpse and readied my weapon. Those cold, dead eyes unnerved me a little, but that didn’t stop me bringing the clipboard down on his head with a mighty thump. The corpse fell to the floor with a groan and blood pooled from its head. I swiftly dropped it and ran from the lab when the speakers crackled.

“Biohazard leak detected. Lockdown in progress. Purging in t-minus 10 minutes. All personnel are to report to the emergency exit. Please keep your ID on hand.” Came the droning automated voice.
“I repeat. Biohazard leak detected. Lockdown in progress. Purging in t-minus 10 minutes. All personnel are to report to the emergency exit. Please keep your ID on hand.”

Bugger, I thought. I had left my ID in the car. It’s not every day the facility goes into purge. Damn it! I just had to find Lance... I’m sure he could explain the situation. I ran my finger over a facility map stencilled onto the wall. Where could he possibly be... Canteen? Head Office? Was he already at the Exit? I didn’t have time to check them all, so I headed off in the direction of his Office. I rounded the corner and ran almost straight into another cadaver, so close in fact that I could smell the rancid stench coming from its flesh. I backed up and tried to loop around. No good. Two more corpses were stood huddled at the end of the corridor. Damn it all! I had to get somewhere safe, and hope it wasn’t a Class A purge, although I knew in the back of my mind it would be. I ran back to my lab as fast as I could and closed myself in the storage cupboard after moving the body from the floor and locking the lab door. This was as safe as I could get.

**Chapter One – Transit**
Highway 87, Colorado
June 14^th 2011
06:43 PM

We didn’t speak much on the way home. I had surprisingly little on my mind, considering the day ahead.  I wondered how my brother, Morgan, would react to me turning up in Longmont again. It had been almost twelve years since I had seen its streets. Twelve whole years.  My dad, Joseph, didn’t look any different. Well, not counting the greying and balding of course. Here I am, sitting in a car, with my dad, on the eve of my birthday, and I hadn’t a clue where to start, what to say. I suspect he was in the same predicament, but I couldn’t quite tell. It was him who spoke first.

“So, how was Denver?” He said slowly.

I reached down and flicked the radio off. “It’s been... Interesting. I have learnt a lot there, so much in fact that Uncle Adam recommended me to CAA! Can you believe that?”

“Wow, I take it being an Architect pays then?” He replied, clearly perked up at the sound of money.

“It will make for a decent life I suppose, yeah. How are Mom and Morgan these days?” I asked.

Your mother is stressing over her father’s death. Your brother still hates you for leaving like you did... But then he was only young back then.” He said, rather sorrowfully.

“Aye, I heard about that. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the funeral. Everyone loved Grandfather Cole. But Morgan’s attitude doesn’t really surprise me.” I had to fight the resentment welling inside me for my brother as I said this. I reached back down and put the radio back on. After fiddling with the knob I found the news.

“Good evening Folks! I’m Shaun Day with your nine o’clock news. The City-wide rioting that began in the early hours of this morning after the explosion at Mountain View Medical School still shows no sign of stopping. Government officials have been at the school since the incident but have sent no word since. Police have had their hands full trying to contain the fighting all day, but have ordered a full retreat due to the surge in violence several hours ago and have left the army to clear up the situation. In other news the Longmont Lions won-”  Dad flicked the radio back off.

“I can hardly believe they are STILL at it. I struggled to get out of the city this morning because of the damned hooligans. I sure hope your mom kept the door locked.” He exclaimed rather angrily.

“It must be bad if the police are giving the army free reign.” I said.

“Not much they can do on their own I would guess. They would end up being spread far too thin to be of any real help, so letting the army in and taking the backseat is the only logical thing to do really. Thankfully, when I left earlier the rioting was contained in the city centre, but anything could have happened since then.” He sighed.

I glanced out of the window and noticed we were entering the city. What I saw however, told me otherwise. There were wrecked cars, broken tollgates, hastily erected army shelters which seemed abandoned... Even the buildings further in hadn’t escaped the carnage; there were broken windows, graffiti and fire.  It seemed the whole town had gone mad. As we turned onto Lake Park Drive I noticed two figures huddled in the middle of the road.

“What on earth?” I heard my dad exclaim under his breath.

As we got closer, he slowed the car to a stop and undid his seat belt. As he did this, the figures looked over and started to shamble towards us.

“Kyle, wait here. I’ll see what the matter with these two gentlemen is.” He said.

“But dad, they look like drug addicts. I wouldn’t bother myself with them, just drive around.” I said. Something in the back of mind told me they weren't addicts, but I tried to suppress that thought.

“Well, if they are, then they obviously aren’t aware of the danger they are in. I’ll just walk them over to the sidewalk and then we will be on our way, alright?”

After several long moments, I managed to blurt out “Alright.”

My dad flung open the door and started walking towards the figures. “Hey, guys? You know you’re in the middle of the road right? It’s not safe; you might get run down by some careless driver if you don’t move.”

No reply.

“Guys, are you alright?”

Still no reply.

“Guys...?”

As he said that the pair lunged at him, knocking him to the floor and franticly clawing at him. I watched in horror for several moments before jumping out of the car and attempting to wrestle the bodies off of my dad.

“You useless junkies, leave my dad alone! He was just trying to help you!” I cried desperately.

After much effort, the left body came free. With one last push it toppled over backwards, and with a sickening crunch its head bounced off the tarmac. I looked around and noticed the other standing to face me.

“Holy fuck! You aren’t junkies, are you?! What ARE you?! Jesus Christ, what do I do?” I managed to gasp. I started backing away slowly, but my pursuer followed too.

“Kyle. Look in. The glove box. There’s no time to. Explain.” I heard my dad rasp.

Still the figure staggers toward me. I turned to the car and panicked. The door wouldn’t open. The door wouldn’t open! Instinctively I took off my jacket and punched in the passenger side window and fiddled with the glove box door. Seconds pass in what felt like slow motion. I could hear the muffled shuffling steps of the figure creeping ever closer but the door just won’t open. There! A loud click and it dropped open. On the shelf inside was a Sig P226. I scooped it out and without thinking twice I fire two shots in the direction of the figure, but they are incredibly off target. Taking a deep breath I squeeze the trigger once more. The bullet hits home, smashing through the figures left eye socket. It drops to the floor and lands in heap merely yards from where I am standing.

Shaking, I slowly make my way over to where my father is lying on the floor. “Dad, what did they do to you? Are you alright?”

“To tell the truth, I don’t quite know. They bit me a bunch of times... Opened my chest right up. I’m already numb. I highly doubt I’ll make it to a hospital.” He managed to whisper.

“Come on dad, don’t say that. I can get you there.” I said, but before I could say more my dad’s eyes widened in horror and he pointed behind me. More figures were shambling towards us from the shadows in all direction, clearly attracted by the noise.

“Who do these guys think they are?!” I said.

“Son. I won’t make it. You have to trust me. Get back to the hou-” He coughed several mouthfuls of blood before continuing. “Get to the house and make sure your mother and brother are alright. Just leave me here, I will be alright.”

I wiped away some silent tears before speaking again. “Alright. I think I remember the way. I just hope I don’t have to deal with anymore of these... things.”

With a sigh, my dad closed his eyes and led back.

“I’ll be back dad, you can count on it.” I said as I stood. Checking the clip, there were 14 bullets. Not nearly enough to deal with all of them. I had to be conservative, and keep one bullet at the very least for myself. I seriously hoped it wouldn’t come to that though.