The group of women had eventually gotten separated in the mass confusion. Summer, Valerie, Maya and Jack found themselves in what looked like a deserted airplane bunker after about fifteen minutes of confused fighting. Valerie slammed the massive door shut and crushed the skull of the one zombie who had tried to enter with them.
“Where did Alice go?” she yelled. Her voice boomed around the empty garage.
“I don’t know,” Summer said. This was not going as planned and she was not happy about it.
“I thought we were following her,” Maya said, still cradling Jack.
“You can let go of me now. I think I’ll be all right.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry.” She opened her arms and Jack could only wish the circumstances were different. He could stay in those big arms all day.
“We were following her. I swear I was right behind her,” Summer said. “Then she just wasn’t there.”
“It’s all right, Summer. Nobody saw where she went.”
“What about the rest of the girls?” Maya asked. “Anybody see any of them?”
“Not after we got off the RV,” Summer said, frowning. “All we can do is hope they found some safe shelter.”
“You got any idea where we are?” Maya asked Summer who just shrugged.
“I think I do,” Jack said. Not having to fight, he had been able to pay some attention to where they were actually going. “This hanger is attached to the main building through a passageway in the back. We should be able to get inside. I think we’re on the south side of the building.”
“Wow, really? How’d you figure that out?”
He shrugged. “I’ve just got a good sense of direction.”
“Well it’s a good thing we brought you, then.”
Silently, they moved to the back side of the building where they found a door with an electronic keypad. Jack went to work on the keypad and had the door unlocked in two minutes.
“You’re amazing,” Maya whispered and kissed him on his cheek. He just shrugged. Summer opened the door a crack silently and peeked inside. There was a deserted hallway inside and they crept through the door and followed the wall.
“Which way?” Valerie whispered.
“Left,” Jack said. “We need to get downstairs. There should be a stairwell down that way.”
Just then they heard a doorway slam and loud footsteps boomed from the end of the hallway. The steps were uneven and were accompanied by inhuman grumbles. But there were also human voices coming.
“Keep moving!” a man ordered followed by a scream that could only come from a zombie.
“Back in the garage! Quick!” Summer hissed. They darted back through the door just as a parade of zombies turned the corner in the hallway and headed in their direction. Summer kept the door open a crack so they could see.
A group of about fifteen zombies passed by the door in bizarrely orderly fashion followed by a man and a woman dressed in clean white labcoats. Both of them held some sort of gun casually at their side. They didn’t seem the least bit concerned with the monstrous zombies they herded down the hallway. In fact they seemed more interested in whatever was on a clipboard the woman was carrying.
After they passed by, they stopped at a door just down the hall and the zombies waited patiently while the man unlocked the door. Then he opened the door and led the zombies into the room.
When the hall was clear again, Valerie whispered, “What the hell is going on here?”
“Nothing good,” Maya muttered.
“We’ve got to find out,” Jack said.
“The hell we do,” Summer said. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t give a shit either. Right now our mission is to find and retrieve the men. When we find them and get them safely away from here, then you can come back and do all the investigating you desire. Personally, I never want to set foot on this complex again.”
She didn’t see any argument from the group so she led them out into the hall and Jack showed them where the stairwell would most likely be. They moved quickly and silently down the hall, found the stairs and dropped three stories where Alice had said the men would most likely be.
“Now where?” Summer asked, directing her question at Jack who had involuntarily succeeded at being their guide. He sighed heavily and said, “I can only make an educated guess, but I would assume a holding cell would be located at the edge of the facility, as far away from anything sensitive as possible. Unfortunately I don’t know the schematics of this place.”
“Fine, so give us an educated guess,” Summer said impatiently.
“Left, toward the exterior. We may have to circle the whole facility, but I believe, if this is even the right floor, they should be along the exterior.”
“Sounds good enough for me,” Valerie said.

Alice walked to the end of the hall and saw that the room where she had been held was in fact a little different from the way she remembered. The computers were different and there were new devices built into the walls. Strange tubes extended from these devices down into the floor at even intervals. Alice had no idea what they could be for.
“Hello, Alice.” The voice came from behind Alice. She turned around and froze. The girl she was staring at could not exist. She was dressed in a labcoat that was unbuttoned low enough to reveal a perfect amount of cleavage. It was impossible to tell if she had anything on under the coat. It stopped about halfway up her thigh and revealed perfect slender, toned and bare legs. Suddenly Alice couldn’t concentrate, her mind seemed to be clouded by the impossibility of the young pretty girl standing directly in front of her. The young girl whose smile was growing ever more sinister.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” the girl said. “Shannon has so been looking forward to this, ever since your last encounter.”
“Who are you?” Alice’s voice was barely louder than a breath. She felt absolutely weak and was pretty sure that if this small girl were to attack at this moment, despite her massive bulk, she would easily fall.
The girl’s smile broadened. “Isn’t it obvious? Don’t try to fool yourself. I am who I appear to be. I am you, the real you.”
“Bullshit.”
“Oh really? Look at me, Alice. Do you even remember when you were as beautiful, feminine and sexy as I am? Do you remember when your arms and legs were slender and smooth? When you could fit into a size one dress? When your husband could wrap his arms around you? Maybe we should ask him.”
“What are you talking about? Where is he?”
“He’s right here, of course.” The woman who claimed to be Alice turned and held her hand out to a man who was walking up to them from a shadow. When he emerged from the shadow Alice saw that indeed it was Richard. Her heart leapt with relief that he was alive and seemingly well.
“Richard!” she gasped and began to move toward him. But then he took the other Alice’s hand and smiled at her. Alice froze and watched her husband kiss this imposter right in front of her.
“What are you doing, Richard? Stop, that isn’t me!”
“Listen to yourself,” the other Alice said. “You sound like a fool. Richard knows the real Alice. Do you honestly think he’d pick a muscle bound freak like you over a hot little sexy girl like me? You’re a god-damned freak, Alice! No man in his right mind could love a freak like you!” The girl’s voice rose in volume and pitch until she was practically screaming.
She stepped right up to Alice. “You’ll never be loved. You know that don’t you? Richard will never love you again. He’s mine, all mine!”
Suddenly Alice knew who she was dealing with here. She didn’t know how Debra could still be alive or how she had turned herself into Alice, but how didn’t matter. She recognized the lie in front of her and scolded herself for letting herself get so flustered so easily.
But now that she knew who, if not what, she was dealing with, her mind cleared and knew what she had to do.
“Fuck you, Debra,” Alice snarled. Her hands by her side curled up into fists. The other Alice grinned. “Richard is my man and you know what?”
“What’s that, Alice?”
“He loves my muscles!” And with that, Alice swung her fist at the much smaller girl with all her strength, enough force to flatten a city block.
But her fist stopped. Alice looked at her hand in confused amazement as she realized the smaller version of herself had stopped her fist with a single hand. She looked at her smaller self just in time to see her other fist come flying at her. But Alice wasn’t ready for it. It hit her in her stomach with ten times as much force as Alice could have created. She crumpled and flew back ten feet, hitting the concrete wall behind her sending cracks up into the ceiling. Large chunks of solid concrete crashed down on her head.
Fuck! She couldn’t believe how she had let this go so far out of control. She was better than this. She couldn’t let Debra destroy her like this. She had allowed herself to be completely manipulated by this woman. No more. Time to fight.
She stood up, brushed the concrete out of her hair and faced her opponent. She took a deep breath allowing her muscles to grow even bigger. Every muscle on her body suddenly flexed and doubled in size. Her arms were now as big around as prize-winning pumpkins and her legs bulged with muscles never before seen on any human. Her clothes stretched to the breaking point. She swaggered as she moved to the smaller woman. Her hands clenched into fists.
The smaller version of Alice began walking toward her. “You think you have any chance against me? I am a thousand times more powerful than you. Come on! Try to hurt me.”
Alice attacked, but for every punch she gave, the younger Alice didn’t even flinch. She was faster than Alice and despite her size, apparently stronger. Her fists flew faster and impacted every time. Alice couldn’t dodge her and finally she found herself on the ground, her wind knocked out of her. The smaller girl crawled up over her and Alice discovered that she was incredibly heavy. She placed her knees around Alice’s thighs and squeezed, pinning her legs in place with impossible strength. Alice tried to swing her hands up, hoping to knock off the girl, but she was able to grab Alice’s wrists and held them to the floor.
“Why don’t you give up, Alice?” the smaller Alice hissed into her face. “Can’t you tell how much stronger I am than you? Or maybe you need to see it.”
Suddenly the smaller Alice’s labcoat began to tighten around her upper body. Her muscles began growing in front of Alice’s widening eyes. Within seconds, the clothes on the smaller Alice could not contain her growing body. Her lab coat split along her sleeve, revealing biceps as big as Alice’s, but still growing. Buttons popped off the front as her chest swelled with pounds of solid muscle. The rest of the lab coat soon fell to shreds as her body continued to balloon. Soon her bra followed, along with her panties until there was nothing left on her massively muscular body.
“Jesus Christ, what the fuck are you?” Alice whispered revealing a hint of the fear that had finally taken hold of her heart.
The woman on top of Alice was now more monster than human. Her muscles had grown to the point Alice couldn’t see how she could possibly move naturally. But the woman did. She stood up, grabbing Alice by her tight shirt and lifted her easily over her head with one arm.
“What am I?” she asked. “I’m the woman who is going to destroy you!” She then threw Alice across the room, smashing her into the wall. She moved to Alice. Her arms clenched and Alice realized that the reason she could move at all was because it wasn’t just her muscles that had grown. Her entire body had grown too. She looked like she could be over nine feet tall.
Alice jumped up and charged. She hit the monstrous woman with all her might and literally just bounced off her.
The nine-foot amazon laughed at Alice’s attempt. She picked her back up with one arm and with her other, began slamming her fist into Alice’s stomach over and over. Alice felt like half her organs ruptured inside her body. She heard every rib in her chest snap and thought for sure her heart had burst. She was then dropped to the floor in a heap.
She could barely open her eyes, but she heard someone say, “Enough!”
Abruptly the Debra stopped her beatings and stepped away from Alice. Alice tried to look up, but it felt like every muscle and bone in her body was nothing but mush. She could barely open her eyes. She saw a woman step up to Debra. “I told you I need her alive!”
“She’s still alive,” the giant woman hissed.
“Barely.” The woman came up to Alice, grabbed Alice’s hand and helped her to her feet. Alice’s enhanced body was already mending itself and she tried to calculate how long it would be before she could get herself back. Soon.
“Hold her,” the woman ordered “and control yourself, Debra. You’ll get your revenge. When I’m finished with her, she’ll be all yours.”
Debra grunted and she shrunk back down to a more normal height. Alice found herself looking into her own face, now on a body equally as big as her own. Debra, disguised as Alice, looked at Richard and grinned. He grinned back and the two of them each took one of Alice’s arms and pulled her back against the wall.
Alice was stunned by Richard’s strength.
“Richard, stop! It’s me! She’s the fake! Can’t you tell?”
“That’s not Richard,” the new woman said.
Alice turned back to her husband and was startled to find Debra staring back at her. And this Debra was as big as Alice.
“What the fuck?!?”
Her eyesight was now clear enough to see that the new woman was indeed Shannon White. Only unlike everyone else she had encountered, this Shannon White was also just as muscular as Alice, which meant she was probably the only real person here.
She shook her head, looking disappointed. “You still haven’t figured it our yet, have you? Oh well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“Figured what out?” Alice asked, blood dribbling from her lips.
Shannon ignored her question, but walked right up to her, apparently confident that the two Debras could hold her. “Alice, I’ve been so looking forward to this meeting: the three of us back together. Just like old times, isn’t it? Well, not exactly like old times, but close enough.”
“What do you want?”
She grinned. “The same thing I wanted last time. I want your muscles.
“I know it’s a little confusing to someone with such an inferior intellect, so let me explain. As you recall, you, myself and Debra were all infected with the most highly concentrated version of the virus. Being as concentrated as it was, it had a different effect on us than anyone else. Debra had the highest concentration since I infected her directly, then myself, who was in direct contact with her and finally you, who had already been infected, but then received a second dose only moments after I became infected. As a result of our unique circumstances, none of us were instantly killed.”
“I saw Debra’s body ripped apart. I saw your body mutilated, and I put my fist in your face.”
“Yes, of course you did,” Shannon said, “and I intend to pay you back for that.”
“Can we finish this?” Debra asked from Alice’s side.
“Of course. You may begin prepping her.”
Then, as if this situation wasn’t bizarre enough, Alice noticed the wall across from her begin to warp. It appeared solid metal, but now it looked like a woman was pushing through from the opposite side. A moment later Alice realized it was actually the wall forming the shape of the woman. The woman, still only partially formed and the color ant texture of the steel wall disconnected herself from the wall and began walking toward Alice. Within a few steps, the woman completed her formation into another Debra, this one the same size and dressed as she had been before the virus had infected her.
Debra walked up to her and typed into a keypad that was on the wall next to Alice. A small box extended from the wall and opened up revealing a complex system of tubes and wires. She pulled out a couple of the tubes which ended in what looked like suction cups. The suction part of the cups had four long needles attached and Debra smiled casually at Alice.
“This is going to hurt,” she said, “a lot.”
She then slammed the suction cup onto Alice’s shoulder. The needles penetrated Alice’s skin and then entered her muscle. The pain was unlike anything she had ever felt before.
“Yes, I know it must hurt,” Shannon said. The needles are barbed so they don’t slip out.”
Debra took the other hose and slammed it into her other shoulder.
Alice refused to scream.
“Yes, you did smash my face in,” Shannon said, returning to her explanation, “but you didn’t kill me, far from it, in fact. Muscle had already taken over my body, enveloping it and replacing most of my organs. By the time you had smashed my head in, my muscles had already taken over the functions of my brain. So, you can see, my old brain was not necessary anymore. My muscles simply regenerated that part of my body. Sure, I laid on the floor, mostly dead for a long time. Even after the entire building collapsed around me, I lay unconscious beneath the rubble.
But eventually, my muscles rejuvenated me, and I woke up. I had to dig my way out, but eventually found myself outside in this destroyed world. I was starving and halfway crazy. The only food I could find was the dead mutants you had left behind, so I ate one. It was disgusting, but my muscles reacted instantly. My body swelled into the muscular goddess you see before you now. My mind cleared and seemed to expand throughout my muscular body and I knew what I had to do. My muscles were my mind, you see, which makes me the most intelligent human ever.”
“And now you want more. Why don’t you just eat another zombie?”
“That’s disgusting,” Shannon said. “I ate that first one because I was starving. I will never do that again.
“I did need help, though,” she continued. “My facility was destroyed, everyone inside killed or completely insane. But then I found Debra, or what used to be Debra, still alive. She was nothing but a huge pile of bulging, pulsing muscle the size of an elephant. I could sense that she was till alive, though. She, too was starving and very close to insane. I went to her and discovered if I concentrated, by literally flexing my mind as you would flex a muscle, I could send a thought directly to her. I told her I would feed her, help her, if she would help me.
“The old Debra was mostly gone. Unlike me, her muscles had eaten up her mind. She could no longer think for herself. She could only react, as an involuntary muscle. She still had her memory, which is why she still hates you, but there is no thought going on in her head. I control her completely.”
Debra slammed two more suction cups into Alice’s quadriceps.
“So I fed her zombies and she grew. I sent my thoughts out to all the zombies in the area, bringing them to me so I could feed Debra. And with each zombie, she grew. I helped her control her muscle and before long she was able to flex herself back to a normal shape. By then she was huge and I still had no facility, so I had her transform herself into something a little more useful: this facility.”
Another suction cup slammed into Alice’s abdomen.
“You’re insane,” Alice said, breathing heavily. The pain was excruciating.
“No, Debra’s insane. I’m perfectly sane. Everything you see around you is Debra. That woman beside you is just a highly controlled flexing muscle. Everyone upstairs you saw was another of Debra’s muscle, flexing just the right way.”
“But they spoke.”
“Their bodies are complete, vocal chords included.”
“Jesus.”
Shannon then stepped up to Debra who held out a tube with a suction cup to her. She took the suction cup and slammed it into her own shoulder muscle. She grimaced with pain.
“So what do you want with me?”
“You have what I need to finish this project. The virus had a different effect on you than either myself or Debra. It allows you to absorb molecules directly from the surrounding atmosphere into your body so you can grow yourself as big as you want. That is what I want from you.”
She put another suction cup into her other shoulder.
“You see, the main difference between you and me, Alice, is you are still human. You are still alive with all your body organs. And that has limited your ability to grow. If you got too big, your bones would get crushed. Your organs smashed between your solid muscles. I’m not exactly human anymore. I’m beyond that, the next step in human evolution: all muscle and mind in one package. Since I am all muscle, there’s nothing limiting me from getting as strong and powerful as I wish.
She slammed the last of the suction cups into her legs and stomach.
“Begin the transfusion,” she ordered.