Captured by the Chimera Zombie-Master

by Veronica Sommers

  "One of the techs took him some food. They won't let me near him. Too bad. He's a nice plump dish. Annoying bastard, too. No one would miss him. Maybe Reuel will let me eat him tomorrow, as a treat."

  Shaking my head, I stare at him. "Do you hear yourself? I don't know you well, but I've been around you enough to know that this is not who you are. You're one of the defenders of the wall, a protector of humanity. A champion of Slaygate."

  "Not anymore." He straightens, his scaly legs lifting him taller than me. "Now I serve Reuel."

  "Yeah, what's with that? You seem like his pet or something."

  "Not pet," snarls Darius. "But I serve him."

  "Why?"

  His black eyes shift, and his brows pull down slightly. "I—I don't know. But I feel it. He's my leader, he's—above me."

  "Like an alpha. He wrote some kind of damn alpha-beta crapola into your DNA, didn't he? Like a pack thing?"

  Darius shakes off the moment of uncertainty. "Doesn't matter."

  "Hell yes it does! You've got to shake this off, man. We need you back. We need your strength."

  "You need my strength." His lip curls. "That's right. That's all you want, all the humans ever want. You think humans care about us? We're monsters to them. Weapons and shields that they use for their own benefit. We could rule them, Atlan. The soft-bodied fleshies—their time is done. They're food now. All they are fit for is consumption. Think about it—humanity has consumed so much, over thousands and thousands of years. Now it's their turn to be consumed by the stronger species. Chimeras, vampires—even the zombies. What if the zombies were the cleanser that the world needed? Now we have just enough humans left to serve as a food source, and they're all conveniently corralled in the Safe Zone. We can breed more chimeras—repopulate the earth with a better race. Use the humans as a food source, or labor."

  Words swell inside me—protests, rebuttals—I want to yell at him because he's being so damn stupid. It's too much. I've been holding back all day around Reuel, and I can't anymore. Darius, with his stupid hideous wrong face, spewing ideas and plans that are even more wrong—I can't—this isn't something I can solve with words.

  I lunge around the table, vampire-quick, and slam a punch into his face. His head snaps back, the goat's horns flashing under the white overhead light.

  He's on me in a second, ribboning the flesh of my chest with his claws while his barbed tail whips across my back.

  The explosion of pain is so violent that I scream.

  This was dumb.

  A huge mistake.

  He's not another vampire—he's a monster with built-in weapons. I don't have my swords. I'm not used to fighting things that actually fight back. The zombies never attack me—they ignore me, so it's easy to mow them down, but this—this is Death, coming at me with open jaws.

  "Darius!" A crisp voice from the doorway halts him mid-charge, and his teeth snap shut just shy of my face.

  Clarice Corbin stands in the doorway. Instead of her stained lab coat, she wears a pair of leggings and a loose T-shirt. Her thin face is white, but two bright spots of red burn on her cheeks. "Don't tear up our only remaining vampire, please. It's just not smart. We need him, you know—yes we do. And he's so very pretty."

  Darius roars at her, and to her credit, she doesn't flinch. She walks toward him, with her back to me, and she pulls a syringe from her pocket, hiding it behind her back. "Do I need to call Reuel? Does he need to teach you who's in charge here?"

  "Atlan started it," snarls Darius.

  "I did start it." My clawed chest is streaming blood, and my back feels like it's on fire. I ease out of my coat, ruefully inspecting the damage to the back of it. It's shredded. "Damn. You ruined my coat, man. Not cool."

  Darius's gaze follow mine to the coat, and quick as a serpent striking, Dr. Corbin jabs the syringe into his arm. He swears, swiping at her, but she dodges back. As the toxin takes effect, he wavers, stiffens, and topples to the floor.

  Dr. Corbin turns to face me, and I involuntarily recoil from her. She smiles. "Oh, Handsome. Don't tell me you're scared of a little woman like me?"

  "Dream on, bitch."

  "Nasty language." She clicks her tongue. "Look at you, such a mess, with your slave's blood leaking out of you. What a waste. That's bound to weaken you, my dear, isn't it?"

  She's right. My heart pounds heavily in my chest, and there's a fluttering sensation through my limbs. I need blood. I need Finley.

  "Can you—can you ask Reuel if I can see Finley?"

  "Of course. What will you do for me in exchange?"

  "I—" I moisten my dry lips with my tongue, and she follows the movement greedily. "Never mind. I'll be fine. I'm going to bed."

  Squaring my shoulders, I walk past her, tense and ready to react if she tries to stick me with any needles.

  I know the way to the dormitory area from here, and I remember which room Reuel indicated as mine. I head straight there, holding my coat against my chest to keep my blood from dripping all over the floors. Despite my efforts, some of it drips as I'm opening the door to my room.

  With the door half-open, I stop. I'm not usually the plan guy, but I'm assembling the bones of a scheme right now.

  There's no one else in the hallway, but who knows how long that will last. Reuel may not have much of a staff, but they do tend to pop up everywhere.

  Slipping off one boot, I prop the door ajar with it. Using the extra blanket and pillow from one of the cots, I fashion a dummy under the blanket of the second cot. Not much of an imitation of my shape, but hopefully enough to fool someone who might peek into my room during the night. Over it all I spread my damaged coat.

  Slipping back into the hallway, I take off my other boot and set both boots inside the room. Then I slip out and click the lock into place.

  If I'm lucky, they'll think I'm already locked in for the night, and they won't check my room carefully.

  I sprint down the hall to Finley's room. It's unlocked, so I dart inside. I flip the light on long enough to get my bearings. Someone brought her pack in here; it's sitting on one of the beds, half-open, with the romance novel she's been reading poking out of the top.

  The only hiding spot available is under one of the cots, so I pick the one with Finley's pack on it. Turning the light off, I slide underneath the bed, hissing and swearing as my torn back scrapes across the concrete. The pain is worth it though, if it means I get to see her tonight.

  21

  Finley

  Reuel's room is sort of what I expected—plain and practical. The bed is nicer than those in the dormitory wing, and there's an actual sofa—the stiff kind with square chrome legs and scratchy material like you might see in an office waiting area. Not comfortable at all, but I sit on it anyway because during an apocalypse you can't be picky, especially if you're currently housed in an underground bunker with monsters.

  Reuel wanders the edges of the room, straightening a stack of thick volumes that seem to be mostly about animal biology and genetics. There's a computer, too, and an old-fashioned filing cabinet, and plain metal cabinet that might be a wardrobe.

  I gesture to it, merely to have something to say. "You keep your clothes in there?"

  "No."

  "Oh. Okay." I scan the room. There's a nightstand with a few drawers. Maybe his stuff is crammed in there, or packed in storage bins under the bed.

  "Clothes are—difficult, for me," he says quietly. "I have some items, but they don't suit me very well. The tail and the wings complicate the fit."

  "I can understand that."

  "I often walk naked through these halls."

  Okay, I don't understand that. "Um—sure. Yeah, I remember you saying that clothing is a sign of shame, of weakness. A need for armor and walls."

  His brows lift. He sits on a corner of the bed, facing my spot on the sofa. "You remember my exact words?"

  "A girl tends to remember mysterious maxims spoken to her in the dark."

  "Yes, well. I am condemned by my
own statement. I do hide behind walls. And now that you are here, I wear clothes out of respect."

  I prop my elbows on my knees and set my chin on my hands. Too late, I realize that this accentuates my cleavage. Reuel's eyes fix on my chest, but I hold the position, conscious that moving now would signal that I noticed his stare.

  "I don't get you sometimes," I tell him. "You seem so civilized and cerebral, but there's a wild, unfettered side to you, too."

  "I am a walking contradiction." He drags his eyes up to my face with difficulty. "I'm aware."

  "It started after you injected yourself with the serum?"

  "That's what I tell myself," he says. "But in all truth, I wonder if the baser instincts were not always present. Perhaps the truest form of evolution is being able to reconcile certain aspects of civilization with elements of our animal nature—to avoid confusing imposed social constraints with true progress. Perhaps I will be the first to truly synchronize the two, rather than falsely divorcing or clumsily conflating them."

  I'm not sure what he means by that. It sounds good on the surface, but I have a feeling the conclusion he'll draw about how that synchronicity should look won't be anything I'd agree with.

  We talk for a while, about philosophy and anthropology—and although I thought myself fairly astute when I took those kinds of courses in college for my education degree, I quickly realize that I'm out of my depth. Reuel has had years to immerse himself in all sorts of books and papers on these topics, and I'm just the third-grade teacher who barely manage to survive the zombie apocalypse.

  He and his colleagues actually caused it. They actually perpetrated an enormous change, and nearly accomplished mass extinction in the process. It's terrifying to consider the magnitude of what he's done, even if he wasn't the one to actually weaponize the serum.

  "Your colleague, the one who made your serum into a biological weapon—who was he working for?" I ask.

  Reuel's face tenses. "I don't know. I'm not sure he was working for anyone. As far as I know, he died in the outbreak. All of us on the team—we held differing ideas about humanity, our purpose, and our future. We were all what you might call radical scientific thinkers. And he was perhaps the most radical of us all. I'd read his thesis, his case studies—I knew he believed humanity to be generally parasitic and useless, but I did not think he was capable of engineering an extinction-level event."

  "You can never know what people are capable of, I suppose."

  A distant look drifts into Reuel's eyes. "I remember when we got the first word of what was happening. We'd had the bunker ready, so we could go underground in case the government tried to shut us down—again. The rest of them started to panic, but I stayed cool. I pulled them together. I made sure we got to the bunker, with everything we needed. We only lost two members of the team that day."

  I scoot forward, curious. "What did you do next?"

  "What everyone did, I expect. We communicated with the outside world as best we could. Collected information. Learned that the zombies would not attack vampires. That's when we redoubled our efforts to duplicate the effects of the vampire serum." He lifts a hand to his wavy brown hair, touching the places where the antlers sprout from his head. "When we couldn't do that, we tried a new tactic. That's when I developed a new kind of formula, one that turned me into this. I tried it on animals first—you saw some of my original test subjects in the menagerie. I perfected it, tailored it to my wishes, and injected myself. I had hoped it would make me invisible to zombies, like the vampires are."

  "It didn't?"

  "No. Once I recovered fully and adapted to my new shape, I went above ground. The zombies could smell me. I'm not irresistibly appetizing to them like a pure human would be, but if I get too close, they read me as a threat and attack. I was bitten all over, chunks torn out of me. When I dragged myself back here, I was more carcass than man. But my flesh re-grew. My wings repaired themselves." With a flex of muscles, he spreads his dragonfly wings to their full extent. "I survived, and I did not turn. So that part of the experiment was a success, at least."

  "Do you consume blood, like the vampires do?"

  "No, my body replenishes its own blood supply."

  "I don't understand. What makes the vampires' brain chemistry, their brainwaves, so different?"

  "That's one reason we wanted some vampires to study," he says. "We have taken this, and our other experiments, as far as we can without live vampire test subjects. But by the time we hit a roadblock with our research, we were cut off, far from any safe zones. And our communications were spotty at best. We knew we couldn't persuade anyone to come out here, into the Hordelands, unless we had some tangible hope to offer. A solution to the zombie problem. So we started work on the mind-wiping tech. The project changed as it went on—took on new shape. Finally, when we were ready, we sent our message to your people, to the military. We knew they would send vampires along with the extraction team."

  "You wanted the vampires for test subjects," I repeat, slowly. "Like what you did to Darius?"

  "We took scans and samples of his brain first." He says it matter-of-factly as if it was no big deal. As if scoping and scraping someone's brain without permission were as cursory as eating a donut. "Then, once we had what we needed, we performed the injection."

  "You were going to do the same to Atlan." Heat rises along my neck, into my face.

  "Plans changed," he says cautiously, eyeing me. "It would not have killed him."

  "You can't be sure of that. He would have been—different. Like Darius. Is Darius bonded to you or something?"

  "We added DNA pack coding and recognition so that anyone injected with it would instinctively recognize me as an alpha," he admits. "They would see me as someone to be obeyed, someone to whom they should submit. I couldn't have one of my newly made monsters revolting and slaughtering me and my people, or wrecking this place. Though Darius came close to doing that when your vampire let him loose."

  "Atlan was trying to help him."

  A rap sounds at the door, and Reuel stands. "Let's not speak of Atlan for a while. Dinner is here."

  When he opens the door, one of the techs hands him a tray with two steaming plates. Reuel closes the door, sets the tray on a side table, and brings me a plate. It's canned meat, instant potatoes, gravy, and canned vegetables. The aroma makes my stomach twist with hunger.

  We barely speak as we eat. I practically gobble the food, and when it's gone, Reuel sets out a box of cookies and another of crackers. Eagerly I help myself to some of both, not even caring that he's watching me eat with a fascination that's borderline creepy. He eats too, but it's a slow process, savoring each bite.

  "I'm surprised you still have food here, after two years," I say between bites.

  "It has been carefully rationed. And when we brought in our zombie test subjects, we lost a few staff. That was unfortunate, but it did free up additional rations."

  "Are your supplies getting low?" I ask.

  Without answering me, Reuel collects our plates and sets them back on the tray. I watch him, admiring the glint of the wings folded at his back. They crinkle up so tightly, yet they look so stiff and powerful when they're spread out.

  "May I touch your wings?" The question springs out before I can think better of it. Did I really just ask if I could touch him?

  He turns, his eyebrows lifting slightly. "Are you planning to rip one off?"

  "Not right now."

  He returns my smile and approaches me, turning his back and spreading the wings.

  "They look so compact folded, but when they're spread, they're enormous." I trace one of the black veins with a fingertip. It's stiff and hard, almost like wire. The translucent paneling between the veins is smooth, and it springs a little when I press it. Gently I investigate the joints of the wings, where they attach to his back. There's a strange grouping of muscles there, and the skin is darker in that area. I explore the muscles with my fingers, and they flex, hardening. A shudder runs over Reuel
.

  I withdraw my hand. "Did I hurt you?"

  "Quite the opposite," he says.

  Ah. Time to stop the investigation then.

  "Thanks. I was just curious." I return to my spot on the couch, but he stays standing, looming over me. He's staring at my boobs again, so I lean back, trying not to accentuate the area. Not that it helps—in this outfit, pretty much everything is on display. I wouldn't mind wearing the clothes if I had chosen them, but the bold, purposeful objectification of my body is what pisses me off.

  "You look upset," he says.

  "No shit, Sherlock."

  He frowns. "Why? What did I say?"

  "You're staring at me very rudely. And you made me wear this outfit. It's like Jabba the Hutt putting Princess Leia in that stupid metal bikini."

  Now he's staring as if I'm insane. "What?"

  "Hello? Star Wars?"

  Confused, he shakes his head.

  "Oh my gosh, you don't know about Star Wars? It's this old series of movies, with an evil empire that controls all the planets in the galaxy, and there are light sabers and spaceships and special powers—" My voice fades as Reuel smirks.

  "Science fiction," he says, with a curl of his lip. "I never read or watch that—or any fiction, for that matter."

  "Yeah? Well, you should. Like I said earlier, that stuff helps you learn empathy. To understand the perspectives, personalities, and motives of people other than yourself."

  "Why would I want to do that?" He shrugs. "People I don't know—will never meet—characters who don't exist—why would I waste precious hours on such drivel?"

  My faces flames immediately, because before I decided to teach, I wanted to be a writer, and I'll be damned if I let some chimera straight out of a horror movie tell me that stories are useless.

  "Spoken like someone with the imagination of an ant," I snap. "Didn't you ever play-act stories or role-play characters as a kid? That's part of learning to be a good human—putting yourself in someone else's shoes. Don't you remember how that felt?"

  The empty look in his eyes tells me the answer before he speaks it. "I never did any of that. I was alone most of the time, and when I wasn't, I was helping with research."