Vol. III Chapter 13 Ghoulification
Vol. lll Chapter 13 Ghoulification
The light hurt his eyes. He moved his hand to block it out. His skin felt tight, like paint or glue had spilled all over him. He sat up, vision blurry, and moved to the edge of the bed.
He rubbed his face, finding no hair, not even stubble. Then something came loose and fell away. He prodded at the squishy, black triangle in his palm, then realised what it was. His nose. He pawed at his face, finding a hole where his nose should be. In a panic, he grabbed the nearby surgical tray and used it as a mirror. Even in the hazy metal surface, something looked terribly wrong.
"It's a bad dream." He said out loud, hearing a rasping tone that sounded unfamiliar. He cleared his throat and spoke again. "Hello? Anyone?" Still he rasped. Then he remembered there was no one left to answer. Still convinced he would wake up at any moment, Burton staggered to the bathroom. He wiped the dust from the mirror and stared at the thing staring back.
Eight ball haemorrhaged eyes looked out at him, sunken and black as night. His nose rotted and fallen away. His hair gone, leaving only a burnt and scarred scalp. His cheeks thin and gaunt, covered in the same damaged skin as everywhere else. A voice from the back of his mind spoke. The mark of Cain.
He couldn't take it. Burton staggered to his bedside table, grabbing the pistol from it. He pressed it against his temple and fired.
Burton woke on the floor an hour later. His head pounding and a bone deep wound on the side of his face.
"This is a nightmare. This is a nightmare." He repeated over and over, pleading to make it true.
"You are fully awake Professor Blake." The robotic female voice made him jump.
"What the fuck happened?!" He yelled, hurting his throat.
"The integration was eighty five percent successful." The bot replied, seemingly unaware of what he meant.
"It doesn't know what it doesn't know." Burton said out loud, reminded of his old robotics teacher. He scrambled round the room looking for answers. He found them in the crate of anti rad iv bags, only a single one missing.
"Change the anti rad drip." He barked in a rasping tone he still didn't recognise. The bot walked over to the empty hanging iv bag and took it to the crate. He watched in horror as the bot returned holding the same empty bag and hung it back up. "A glitch. A fucking glitch."
He checked the radiation levels on his pipboy. They were higher than normal, but not high enough to cause damage and trip the alarms. The Geiger counter spat out clicks as he stumbled round the room. It grew in frequency in the bathroom, then went into a frenzy near the bed.
"Open that panel." He pointed to the ceiling above the bed and looked away as the bright red beam cut at the metal.
"Please stand clear." A large piece fell away. Inside the crawlspace Burton saw a row of split pipes. The Geiger counter spiked as he drew closer. Then he understood.
Radioactive gas had been fracked though the rock the Vault sat in. Every broken pipe, every plug socket, every loose rivet, had allowed the radiation in bit by bit. And Burton had lain still in the exact same spot for almost six months.
He'd read a paper on long term exposure. What did they call it, he thought, his mind foggy. Then it came to him. Ghoulification.
"Burton's log, day…" He checked the device on his arm to be sure. "Day three." He'd worked without sleep, without food. Running on cigarettes and whisky. "Subject's...my dna has been permanently altered, mutated on a cellular level. There is no cure." Burton threw back half a mug of whisky like it was water. "Subject's cells are no longer damaged by ionizing radiation, and show decreased decay rate." Burton ran the numbers and waited as they climbed ever higher.
"Please God, no." I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, he thought, remembering what God did to murderers. "Subject's life span likely to exceed five hundred years." In that moment he knew that he'd never see Clara again. Or meet his unborn child. Not because Clara would reject him, she loved him deeply, but because ultimately he'd have to watch her and their child die. He wasn't brave enough to face that. "On the plus side, I can leave this fucking place and never come back. End log."
Burton headed up to the massive stockroom. The only place left that didn't trip the Geiger counter on his arm. He began to pack. Rations and clean water for a week, he could push them to two if his lack of appetite stayed the same. He found body armour, fatigues, and a carbine. Which he instantly knew how to use.
Finally he took a multi-tool, trying to ignore the H and H symbol. He could practically hear the old man mocking him. He pushed it from his mind and headed up to the Vault door.
He hadn't been up here since it closed. He stepped into the booth and keyed in the open sequence. From hidden alcoves, two hulking Sentry bots trundled forward. Both of them stopped either side of the gantry, weapons aimed and ready. Burton stood between them, fighting the urge to stand behind them.
Nothing happened for what felt like an hour. Then everything seemed to happen all at once. The winding arm descended from above and locked in place with a clang. Whirring preceded deep thuds as locking pins retracted. Metal screeched against metal and the Vault door rolled open.
Wind howled down the outer tunnel, chafing at his already raw skin. Something made Burton level the carbine. He walked out into what remained of the world he knew. Burton turned to watch the door close. "Burton Blake is dead." He affirmed, before vowing never to return to the horror of Vault X.