Everything we needed.

His feet slapped against the wet cement floor beneath him. The sprinklers must have gone off at some point.He barely had time to think as he tried to remember the way back. God, why does everything look so different in this light? Outside, he could hear the rapid release of bullets into the mass of.. whatever they were now. Even worse, he knew those things were somewhere in the building. Nonetheless, he pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind as he ran, making sure to hold tightly to the sage colored, military ammo canister like their lives depended on it. Because their lives did depend on it. That sage ammo canister, and his ability to remember which corridors led back to the bunker.

She paced the room nervously, trying not to think about the dusty TV plugged into the corner on the wall. News reels played on repeat over every channel, the looped emergency message becoming a dull ache in the back of her skull. Aerial shots of their complex flashed across the screen. “How much time do they have?”

Her colleague checked his watch with an exhausted sigh.“Three minutes,” he replied grimly before taking another breath. “Even if they make it to Marisol’s labs they--”

“--I know what happens,” she snapped back, instantly feeling bad for her tone, but there was no room for apologies as her colleague had already spun, wide eyed towards the TV’s. Watching in horror as the military retreated to the sound of an air-raid siren. Everyone in the room knew that sound. They knew what it meant. Anyone caught outside the bunker wouldn’t survive, including, hopefully, the infected; the sacrifice was apparently worth the potential to stop the spread.

The idea had come to her by a stroke of fate - or possibly pure accident - a few hours earlier, as the last few remaining people who worked at the complex were streaming into the bunker area. An intern, she assumed, had bumped into her, almost throwing her to the ground as the massive vaulted bunker door slid all the way open. Her small black Moleskine notebook spilled open on the ground in front of her. It's spine, curled at the edges from years of use, notes stuffed in between the pages. That was when she saw it. Her own handwriting scribbled into the margins like an afterthought. Kneeling against the cold cement floor, she held the pages in her hands and looked closer at the notes she had taken of the virus a few months earlier.

She looked around at the fifteen remaining souls in the bunker. God, why couldn't it have been one of them who volunteered to go? They knew the facilities, they knew where everything was in the lab, they could easily have found their way back if anything happened to Marisol. Couldn't it have been anyone else? Her body shuddered as she fought back the idea of what would happen if those things found Jonas and Marisol, before they were able to return with the RNA samples.

She swallowed the sour taste in her mouth and turned again on her heels, “Have you gotten a hold of anyone on the outside yet? They have to know we have a cure.”

“Could” the old man near the radio replied. “We could have the cure, given they survive this.”

Left, down the stairs, second right after the bio-chambers, down the hall, breathe. Images of Marisol disappearing under the mass of rotten screaming corpses flooded his mind. Her arms fighting against their bloodied jaws, scratching and biting towards her warm flesh. The sirens had become quieter as he descended towards the bunker, his breath roaring against the still silence that gradually overtook the space. The sage green ammo canister still clutched under his arm.

“We have to close the doors now or we all risk being a part of the cleanup, step aside. Now!”

“If we leave them out here and don’t get those early samples we are doomed anyway, we have to wait! Please” She was becoming frantic trying to plead with the group. How much longer could she stall before the mob mentality took over and her colleagues closed the doors behind her. She wondered if they would do it, if they would leave her behind to protect themselves. Apparently it wasn’t long.

A few people gathered by her side and the larger man stepped in front of her, grabbing her shoulder with a forceful authority. “We’re done, come on in here and let it go.”

No. She thrashed against their grip, tears were starting to blur her vision when they heard Jonas scream from down the hall.

In the second Jonas arrived they were inside the bunker. She donned any excess clothing they could gather from the others in the bunker, and a pair of rubber gloves found in the aid buckets that were regularly replaced each year. Not exactly the hazmat material she had always worked with, but the samples should be enclosed in a smaller container preventing any possible contamination. Still, safety first.

Jonas tried to steady his hands as he passed over the sage canister, blood smeared along the bright yellow letters on its side that read, PROPERTY OF THE WYSS INSTITUTE FOR BIOLOGICALLY INSPIRED ENGINEERING AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY. She took his hand in hers, trying to imagine the trauma he had just faced, and why he had insisted on being the volunteer to go to the labs with Marisol.

As she unlatched the canister she sensed there was something off. She lifted the lid and stared down into the canister, there was a brief pause of confusion.

“Wha- what is this?” The sentence barely came out of her. She reached and picked up one of the stacks of 100 dollar bills, neatly fastened together, and held it closer for examination. In disbelief she looked again in the canister. “This is supposed to be blood samples Jonas. What is this? Jonas! Where are the blood samples?!” Her breathing was becoming sporadic as she upturned the sage canister and stacks of 100 dollar bills fell to the table. Connected to one of the stacks was a note with a single number written on it, $20,000.

“Jonas” she yelled in fear. “What are we supposed to do with this?!”

Others in the bunker were starting to notice something was wrong. “Marisol. She.” Jonas's voice broke for a moment before he quickly continued. “When she came out of her lab she had two canisters, I thought they were the same!” He sat in the corner and cradled his head in his hands. “When those things overtook her I grabbed only one of the canisters. I thought they were the same” he started to rock back and forth, “I thought they were the same.”

The ground rumbled above them as fire rained down from the sky, there would be nothing left of the complex, or life of any sort within miles after this. They all couldn’t help but imagine a similar situation all over the world, and huddled closer towards the ground. She looked back at Jonas, the emotion drained from his body. She knew that the chance to rid the world of the virus had come and gone, and that life was lost, and that it was not his fault.

She finally sat down next to him and reached into her jacket pocket for her small black notebook, as if to write “I love you” on paper would make the world go back to normal. She felt the soft empty satin of her pockets, and she was immediately filled with an overwhelming sense of joy, and then panic, all in one breath.

“Oh god.” She said to herself, “there's another way.”

She leapt up and hurled herself towards the entryway, digging through the empty sage canister, dollar bills, and clothing near the door. All the while praying that her small black notebook had not been left outside. As she pulled the notebook out of the heap, she let herself fall to the floor. Holding it across her chest she could feel the pages scratching against her skin. Jonas stood above her and she smiled up at him.

“We don’t need those blood samples, we will find more.” She sounded tired to her own ear. As she lay in the heap of clothing, debris, and dollar bills she held up her small black Moleskine notebook. “It’s all in here" she smiled. "This is all we really need.”