Free Beyond Death (Book 2): Apocalypse by Silas Cooper Page A

around his neck. The next thing he knew, everything fell to black.

Chapter Twenty-Two
    Chase opened his eyes to surgery lighting and cool white walls. A man in a uniform had shaken him awake and was propping him up into a line of people. Each looked as dazed and confused as he did. He stepped out of line to find out what was ahead of them all.
    Several people ahead of him, a guard grabbed the man in front and led him to a chair a ways up in the room. After he was sat down, the guy Frank had gone to pick up injected the poor guy in the neck. He tried to fight, but the uniformed men held him down.
    The sight seemed too unreal to believe. He had to wonder if he was still asleep as the naked guy practically hulked out on them. They did their best to hold him down, careless of his nakedness. The more they seemed to restrain the guy, the more he fought them. Mindless of time passing as he attempted to figure out just what was going on around him, he looked down the line at the mindless people.
    He wondered if they were drugged as they seemed to patiently await the same fate. He wondered if he was drugged as well, as he didn’t fight against it all. He just stood trying to pull two thoughts together. Unaware of time passing, he turned back to the events at the front of the room. As if he’d just woken up from a long nap, hung over but still stoned, he watched the guy become really aggressive.
    He slipped from the guards and ran at them. One guard kicked him back, and the other blew his brains out. A tiny shock went through Chase as the gun had rung out in the room. Yet, he just stood there.
    Soon, someone had him by the shoulders, moving him forward.
    “You like to watch, huh? Guess your next then before you become too aware,” the guy said.
    The fact that his voice has been mean and nasty registered in his mind. The cold chair they shoved his naked ass into gave his brain a jolt. He struggled with the hands and arms restraining him as he watched Frank’s friend, now in a lab coat, fill a syringe. As the large needled moved toward him, he mumbled, “Wait.”
    “Ah, I know you,” the scientist guy said as he pulled the needle back a bit. “Frank got you just before he picked me up. You seemed like a strong guy. Smart too. Frank was right. It will be interesting to see the effect this experimental drug has on your cells.”
    The word cells ricocheted through his thoughts.
    “Cell regeneration,” he stumbled. “We stopped the decomposition of the cells in a zombie.”
    The words sounded almost foreign to him, but tumbled out of his mouth as if he’d memorized them at some point.
    “Really?” the scientist laughed. “Good thing you already related that information to Frank so his team of scientists could use it. That is just in case you are the next to die here.”
    He leaned in toward Chase again, and he fought them with all he could muster. Just as the needle pricked his skin, a door opened, and a voice shouted for them to stop.
    “Seems I’m just in time, and that this is your lucky day there Chase,” Frank smiled at him as he walked his way. “Seems someone important was more impressed that I thought by your research and wants to speak with you.”
    Chase tried to focus in on all the words.
    “You didn’t give him anything, did you?” Frank asked the guy in the white coat.
    “No. I’d just pricked his skin with the needle when you barged in. A second later and he could have been toast,” the guy shook his head as he spoke.
    “Release him,” Frank said to the uniformed men restraining Chase.

Chapter Twenty-Three
    Chase was taken for clothing and coffee before being brought by Frank and several guards to an office. As his mind cleared, the events of the last however many hours still seemed too odd to comprehend. Once another guy in a lab coat came in, he seated himself behind the big metal desk. Several more followed and stood in a circle behind the guy.
    “So, this is the guy huh?” the lab coat said to