"Fuckin Henderson. What a pussy," Scott mumbled under his breath, swinging his hatchet across the vines that were securing the door to the barracks.
"Too weak to handle his fights and needs a girl to step in and save him," He continued. The vines were thick but easy to chop. His hatchet sliced through them as easily as he had expected it to. It took a little longer than he would've liked, but the door was freed.
"See, who fuckin needs 'em," He said, pushing the door open. The metal door of the two-story building built to resemble that of an apartment building creaked open slowly, revealing a long dark corridor lined with rooms and lockers with slick white floors.
"This feels like a fuckin nuthouse," He said, clicking his flashlight on, and shining it along the wall. As he walked in, the door hissed before latching loudly behind him, startling him as it did. As he walked through the long hallway he found himself peeking in the windows of the mustard-yellow doors that separated the men from each other. Inside each room looked eerily close to a jail cell, complete with a set of bunk beds, a couple of wardrobes, a few desks, and some personal items.
"It's like a jail cell, looney bin, and a dorm room all mixed in one," He said, ignoring the husks that stood in the center of the room. The hall reeked of boot shiner and soapy water. As he continued down toward the stairwell he passed a few husks standing in the hall that looked as if they were conversing casually.
"You're about to die, and you spark a conversation?" He asked, looking at the corpses standing there.
"Maybe this is the fuckin looney bin," He uttered, walking toward the stairs. The other rooms he passed were the same, a few soldiers standing in the middle of a bland room, conversing or doing household chores. Scott scoffed at them, thinking he was better than them physically and mentally. He felt superior strictly based on the fact that he survived and not even the soldiers who were trained for this did.
His respect of the military was already low, but now it was non-existent. In his eyes they were inferior and their deaths were just means to an end.
"I guess the training didn't pay off huh private?" He said, standing at attention and mocking the soldier standing alone in the hallway. He chuckled smugly before turning to continue on his way. Then he noticed a note in his hand.
"Won't need this anymore," He said, pulling the note from the corpse's hand. The piece of paper was a printed schematic for an electromagnetic pulse placed on the side of a nuclear missile.
"What the fuck?" He mumbled as he read the blueprints. As he scanned the page he realized these weren't low-clearance schematics these were the blueprints for the bomb that hit the city. Everything on the page was written in shaky handwriting that made it hard to read. Some of it was written in what he assumed were different languages, most likely from allied countries aiding the development of the new weapon. He read in horror making out the sentence at the bottom of the page that was legible.
Genetic alteration, Mechanical disruptors, sleep paralysis, sleep psychosis, and A highly corrosive chemical capable of eating through human skin.
"Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell were we going to do with this?" He asked horrified. He stopped for a moment and thought about it. He thought about the bomb that had struck the bridge and everything it did. It changed the growing rate of certain plants, created a form of super vines that could cause entire buildings to crumble, caused all weapons and mechanical items to fail, and mummified anyone caught in the wave.
"So Russia took our idea and tweaked it. They then most likely tested it and changed it depending on results before using our improved weapon against us," He said, staring down at the yellow page in his hand.
"So how did none of you know about it?" He asked, looking back at the soldier he took the blueprints from. His mind no longer wondered about the upper levels of the building, all he wanted now were answers to his evergrowing questions. He thought of turning back and making his way to the command center placed conveniently in the center of the base. He thought of bringing his findings to the rest of the group. Then the thought of him answering to Miles Henderson made his stomach curl. His face scrunched as he balled the piece of paper into a tight wad in his hand.
He gritted his teeth angrily before shoving the ball into his pocket.
"They think they can do it without me, so let them," he said smirking and continuing to the stairs. The white floors shined beneath his feet and squeaked when his foot would drag. He shined his light along the painted brick wall as he approached the stairs noticing a thick vine twisting its way along the bricks. He watched it inch further across the wall before he noticed something peculiar. A bushel of lavender had sprouted out of the side of it. He watched it for a moment confused wondering why lavender or any plant for that matter would be sprouting from a vine.
He approached it slowly, extending his hand, grabbing a stem, and plucking it from the side of the vine. Green ooze dripped from the base of the stem and leaked from the hole that it had left behind. He stared down at his hand where he had wrapped a piece of his shirt around the cut he got pulling himself from the river. He unwrapped the fabric slowly, revealing the now infected wound beneath, it had a large yellow ring around it and oozed a clear puss as he removed the fabric. He grabbed the buds of the lavender in his other hand and squeezed them firmly, releasing the oils into his palm.
He took the oils and rubbed them across his deep cut, hissing in pain as he did. As he watched in anticipation the wound cleared itself of all infections leaking puss and build-up onto the floor before closing and scarring over in a matter of moments. He chuckled softly, amazed at what he had seen. When the others mentioned the lavender he was skeptical but now he had seen it with his own eyes. As he watched his hand heal, the vine he had plucked the buds from began to constrict. The painted brick walls cracked and crumbled as husks fell and burst into ash. "Fuck!" He shouted sprinting out of the door he entered from and heading toward the command center, leaving the upper levels unexplored.