The Cult: The Beginning

           He was in love.

           Such elegance and near-perfection — nay, absolute perfection — sparkled in his eyes. A thing of pure beauty. If man strove to create perfection in art, this was nature finally equalling man in his endeavour. He had finally found perfection and it cleansed him, changing him.

           It made a believer out of him.

           With a smile creasing his lips, Dr. Malcolm Holt studied the infected blood sample. The virus sat in the slide under the illuminating eye of the microscope, the only cell within the sample. It replaced … no, Malcolm knew it didn’t replace, but the virus transformed the red blood cells, the white blood cells, even the plasma into itself. He saw the signs in this dead sample.

           The virus had risen two months prior — in three rural, near-nameless, and forgettable towns scattered across the world’s most northern parts — forcing humanity to take its first true step into horror. Not the mundane horror of evil or the lowest levels of humanity or the havoc of some natural storm, but the genre of horror people thought only lived in books and movies. Zombies walked the earth for three weeks.

           These weren’t, however, typical zombies.

           From the recovered bodies and video evidence, Malcolm’s team ascertained that these zombies only shared one common trait with the zombies of the horror genre: their hearts stopped beating, yet they walked. The infected, as they became known, seemed to have only one goal: not to eat, only to infect. If a victim was bitten once and the infection passed on, the infected moved on. Thick black veins appeared first as the blood was slowly transformed. Teeth became black as viral fluid spread over the lips and tongue. Lastly, before the heart stopped and before the infected rose, the person’s eyes filled with the same blackness, almost as if the virus wanted to view the world.

           And why not? It was perfection personified.

           Then winter set in. The freezing north claimed the infected as its own victims. Its frozen grip once more kept the virus contained, imprisoning it and preventing it from blossoming in the world.

           But such beauty needed to be unveiled to the world.

           When Malcolm and his team went for the infected, the bodies seemed preserved by the cold, but they were wrong. So wrong. The tissue of each person was remarkably intact; the damage of everyday movement had been fixed by the virus itself. It was replacing muscle fibre, ligaments, and even brain tissue with itself. In the lab, Malcolm’s team let one infected muscle be completely replaced and it disintegrated. The virus could not be sustained by the muscle fibre alone, it needed something more.

           That was the sign of his first mistake and his first revelation, both born of the exact same discovery: the virus was in larval form.

           But how to cocoon it?

           How to let it transform?

           He needed more samples, living samples. All the samples they were allowed to study were frozen and dead, but the virus thrived on the dead; death would not stop it.

           Then it happened by accident.

           One day as Jeremy, his lab assistant, was bringing in new samples to be studied, the glass container fractured and shattered. With all the cuts he had over his hands, and the glass going right through the protective suit, being frozen didn’t matter. The virus found a new home. Malcolm had his ‘living’ sample. Instead of grief, glee filled his being like he had never known before as those black veins spread over his assistant, as the viral fluid filled the mouth, and as the eyes filled with that same blackness. When the heart stopped, Malcolm was as giddy as a person could be.

           Jeremy was in isolation, of course. Malcolm knew the military would never pass up an opportunity to weaponize a virus. He had seen it too many times, even fought against it.

           He used to get excited about finding a cure to pandemic problems. He was one of the most respected doctors in his field. Finding a new virus and then coming up with the cure for it … that was a rush few things could beat. What could be more exhilarating than defeating Mother Nature, the greatest force on the planet, after all? Nothing. He was purposefully brought in to find a cure. But like so many times before, the goal soon became weaponizing the virus. That was why they kept Jeremy.

           The happiness Malcolm now felt went beyond anything he had known before when he discovered something tiny but new about this virus. The paleness of the infected skin was a direct result of the virus itself, and not because the bodies they recovered were frozen. But why? He needed more data to better understand the perfection standing before him. Man could not create such beauty. Nature, Malcolm found, lacked the ability as well, given that he had always found a counter to it … until now. Beauty, now, began to change him. He needed more.

           “Begin,” he had ordered.

           Placed on a treadmill, Jeremy was forced to run. However, run he did not. The treadmill started and his assistant went flying off. He struggled to rise as the right tibia broke through the skin. Still, to Malcolm’s hidden glee, Jeremy rose. The bone snapped back into place over the next few hours as his assistant simply stood there. The muscle hung loose where the bone broke through. The virus didn’t need the tissue, it seemed, just the bone.

           “Fire,” Malcolm had ordered next.

           Malcolm watched with excited anticipation as the soldiers filled Jeremy’s torso and limbs with bullets. Taking days, the virus repaired what it needed of the body, leaving what it didn’t to wither away.

           “Don’t you see the beauty of this virus?” Malcolm asked his colleague. Barely able to pull himself away from the microscope, he nearly missed Samantha’s lack of understanding, her dismissive head shake, and the sickened expression on her face.

           “Malcolm, it kills people,” she argued. “That’s not beautiful.”

           “Look at its elegance,” he tried to counter, pulling Samantha to the microscope.

           Pulling away, she fired right back. “You are a highly respected doctor in immunization. You’re meant to kill these things, not worship them. What is going on with you? I know Jer —”

           “This has nothing to do with Jeremy,” he cut in. He needed her to understand that it was the virus; it was always about the virus. “Samantha, look at its elegant design. The virus is flawless. No need goes unaccounted for, no energy wasted. Look at Jeremy’s wounds. The bones, certain muscle groups, they’re all repaired, but it doesn’t need the skin, so it doesn’t waste energy fixing it. The virus doesn’t even require the body’s hair, so it’s shedding it. Look!”

           “Elegant? That’s sick, Malcolm. Jeremy was your assistant, your friend, and you seem to care more about the virus than what it took from us. He was my friend, the godfather-to-be to my unborn baby. I mourn and you’re talking … no, you’re praising the thing that took him from us!” Samantha became sullen, her words grief-stricken. “You need help, Malcolm. Grief must be driving you to thoughts you would never have had before. I’m going to ask for your transfer.”

           No! He couldn’t allow it.

           In a panic, Malcolm grabbed a handful of Samantha’s brunette hair with one hand and used his other to subdue one of her arms, the other one flailing widely. It was larval. The virus needed a chrysalis to gestate in. Forcing her forward, Malcolm slammed her into the door of the isolation chamber that held Jeremy, subduing her. Why didn’t he think of it before?

           “What are you doing, Malcolm? Malcolm?” She begged; he didn’t listen.

           It was all so clear to him now. All he had to do was punch in the code and throw the dazed Samantha in. Slamming her head into the door one more time for good measure, he didn’t hesitate; the door swung open and he shoved her in. Jeremy wasn’t quick, but with the blood running down her face, neither was Samantha. His assistant proved the faster and bit into her shoulder.

           Then Jeremy came at Malcolm.

           Closing the door with an ecstatic energy, Malcolm stared through the observation window as Samantha finally composed herself. She was calm, too calm, as she made her way to the observation window. He didn’t like it.

           With a tremor in her hand, she pressed the intercom and asked, “Why?”

           “I tried … I really tried, but I needed living samples. At first, I injected the virus into the food, but no one got infected. There was no small outbreak, no one even got sick. The stomach acids seemed to me, at the time, to be just as deadly to the virus as the cold. But what if it needed to be in the blood to survive? So I caused an accident. I cracked the containers knowing they would shatter within Jeremy’s hands,” he tried to explain, get her to understand.

           “You did this to him?” Instead of understanding, that judgmental disgust was back.

           “Look, in a few hours you’ll turn but … but look,” he couldn’t stop his excitement. “Look. Look! The video evidence was right. Once infected, the other infected don’t bother the victim. It’s not about hunger. They recognize like kind. It’s almost as if they know.”

           “So? Like recognizes like, Malcolm. It doesn’t mean the virus has any kind of intelligence. It’s a fucking virus,” she screamed, her calm facade exposed by her anger.

           “I’ve seen its DNA structure, Samantha. It’s almost as complex as ours. Why not a hidden or subtle intelligence?”

           “Dammit, Malcolm,” she slammed her fists at him, pounding on the glass, “it doesn’t make it sentient. Why did you do this to me?”

           “It’s larval, Samantha. Larval! It needs a chrysalis and your womb, your child, will be that chrysalis. What comes out will be beautiful. It was so simple, I missed it until you threatened to take this away from me,” Malcolm cursed her last actions, but couldn’t hide his ecstasy at how events played out. He was so lost in that ecstatic moment, he forgot one thing: the isolation chamber had a computer tied to the emergency protocols in case an outbreak occurred and isolation was a last resort. It was his protocol from way back. When Samantha turned towards it, panic replaced everything again.

           He was hours away from perfection being born, he couldn’t be done.

           “What are you doing Samantha? Samantha? Samantha!?” He kept calling out, but now she was ignoring him. He found her stoic in expression now, that didn’t matter. “Samantha, don’t do this, please, I beg of you.”

           “May God forgive me,” she said before activating the emergency protocols. “In hours, I’ll transform. I’ll be one of the infected. In thirty minutes, I’ll be ash and so will this entire base. Let’s see your perfection survive that.”

           “No,” he begged. “Samantha please.”

           “It can’t be deactivated except by the person who initiated it. Your protocol, remember! But I won’t deactivate it.” Sitting in a chair, Malcolm watched her sink into herself, but her state didn’t matter. Only the infection running through her into her child did.

           “Samantha, I’m begging you. Please turn it off. Don’t do this.”

           “I won’t have my baby turn into one of those things or something else for your experiment and madness. I don’t know what happened to you, to my friend and colleague, to one of the most brilliant minds and compassionate souls the world has ever seen, but my child will not suffer for your sudden madness.”

           “It’s not madness, Samantha. I’ve seen perfection in all its glory,” he tried one last time, but she was not listening.

           It wouldn’t be long until security checked all internal feeds to see why the protocols were activated; Malcolm had to move. The military would see what he’d done. They would never let him live, but he had to see the virus come to fruition.

           He had to know why it emerged now, what its purpose was. He had to know. No one could stop him, or the virus. It had to thrive. It had to live. There was only one way that would happen now. He had to escape with the virus.

           “Dr. Malcolm Holt,” the solders called out from his door, but he was ready.

           With a vial of improvised acid, he threw the corrosive fluid into the soldiers’ eyes as they entered his lab. Blinded, the four men flailed as he expected and hit the traps he’d set. Needles filled with samples injected the virus into the soldiers. His distraction would sadly work. They would have to execute the soldiers and the infected, couldn’t have an outbreak now. Then, as if fate was on his side and wanted the virus to survive, he made it to cold storage in his mad dash through the facility without running into any other soldiers. The distant gunfire told him what was going on: all infected were sadly dead.

           “Stop Dr. Malcolm Holt at all costs,” the loudspeakers boomed. “Shoot on sight.” Damn them, damn them all. How was he going to escape now? “I repeat, shoot on sight.”

           Standing before the last of the samples of nature’s exquisitely beautiful masterpiece, Malcolm was lost. Not knowing what to do, he was confronted by two cold realities: infect himself, escape, and never see the fruition of the virus, or risk losing the virus completely to the emergency protocols. Protocols that would incinerate the entire compound, gutting it and destroying everything inside.

           But the virus needed to complete its metamorphosis. It was more important. It had to go on, even if he had to sacrifice himself. With a needle in hand, he extracted a blood sample from one of the frozen infected and placed it against his arm. With its black blood oozing in the glass barrel, another realization washed over him: these specially designed needles each had a sealed, glass barrel to prevent infection from accidentally getting out. After removing the sealed, glass barrel from the needle, it was a simple matter of swallowing it. He knew it would get passed any metal detectors and would not dissolve before he could retrieve it.

           More gunfire as he left cold storage, but why? Four soldiers had been infected and they should have been dead by now. Was there something to the virus he had not yet discovered? He had another reason to escape with it. Approaching the exit, Malcolm found his answer. Jeremy was standing at the heavy door, one of the infected soldiers next to him, already turned. “How?” The single word voiced so many questions about the situation. One of the answers was easy. In his mad dash, lost to thoughts and driven to save the virus, Malcolm failed to notice the lights flickering and the power ebbing.

           He would laugh if he could.

           Instead, he silently wept.

           Now, he did grieve in that moment. Not for Jeremy or the others, but for Samantha and her baby and, most especially, himself. Her child could have been something special and he could have brought the final form of the virus to the world. He grieved at the irony of it all: the virus he wanted to save would kill him.

           Then, as despair set in, Jeremy planted his hand against the door and forced it open. A chilled breeze swirled in, causing both infected to momentarily tremor. “What?” Bewildered, Malcolm was not going to waste this opportunity. Rushed footsteps echoed from behind him, so he ran. “Thank you,” he breathed out, dashing passed his former assistant and the soldier.

           “Dr. Holt, stop!” He heard the order as the door clanged shut behind him.

           Making it to the snowmobiles, Malcolm took one last look back. The two infected must have advanced on the soldiers for gunfire erupted and screams followed. By the time the emergency protocols detonated, Malcolm had barely made it beyond the blast radius. Still, he was close enough that the tip of the shock wave threw him and the vehicle into a snowbank.

           Found hours later by rescuers, a half-frozen Malcolm spun a tale that even he nearly believed was real. He was a highly respected immunologist, after all, praised for his work throughout the world. Faking a little delirium was easy; nothing would stop his mission now, a mission that would change the world forever.

           He would need more believers like himself, however.

           He would need a new assistant … many of them.