Outside it was dusk with the remnants of the day’s light, giving the surroundings a warm, yellow glow. There was a coolness to the air and when she breathed it, it seemed to calm her some.
Roaming outside though were a handful of zombies, and all of them took immediate notice of the sound of the door slamming against the side of the building. Their reaction time was dulled, but they also saw Kara running across the pavement. As slow as they were, it didn’t stop them from starting toward her in pursuit.
Kara kept running, but there was no direction she could go that there weren’t more of the undead creatures as she ran into their midst. She tried moving in a direction where there were no more zombies, but that was impossible as they were everywhere. The further she ran into the crowds of the zombies, the more of them that pursued her. She continued to move, but running became impossible because they started to clump up around her.
In any typical scenario with the undead, they would have swarmed over her, but she was not a normal creature. Not anymore. She was one of them, but not one of them. She was unique, and there was something about her that irresistibly attracted them. She had a magnetic pull that they couldn’t deny.
She didn’t understand it and, at that moment, didn’t care.
After fifty more staggering steps, she found she couldn’t continue moving forward at any pace and gradually slowed down to a complete stop. The zombies kept gathering around her, growing in number to an almost suffocating degree. When she spun around, she saw more and more of them ambling toward her. When she whirled around again, she quickly saw they were encircling her. The mass of the undead mob effectively cut off all of her escape routes.
The red rage boiled within her again. She twisted around and saw an extra-large zombie standing right in her way. The anger continued to amplify, building to a radiant fury, coming close to the point of an internal supernova. She pulled back her arm and balled her hand into a tight fist. The volcanic anger gave way to hatred, and she let loose with a tremendous punch. Her fist slammed into the zombie’s nose, smashing in the dead thing’s face, cracking bone and driving deep into its skull.
For a moment, the scene held like that. Kara held her fist literally embedded into the zombie’s skull, and that was all that held it aloft. Two seconds passed, then the zombie slowly slipped off her fist and collapsed onto the pavement below with an ugly wet thump. A dark reddish-black goo oozed off her hand, dripping down onto the body of the undead creature.
The other zombies didn’t react at all but instead, stood in place swaying back and forth, seeming incapable of motion of their own accord. If any outside person saw them standing around Kara, they might have come across as a congregation, rather than a horrific swarm of murderous monsters. All their eyes fixated on Kara, coming across as nearly worshipful.
She took them in, all those devoted eyes looking on her, expectantly, as if they were waiting for her to give them a command. Not one of them cared about the demise of their undead colleague. She was all they could see. She was all that mattered.
Her breath came in ragged gasps, the rage still boiling inside. She tilted her head back, opened her mouth, and screamed at the top of her lungs. It was a long and mournful, but angry wail that echoed off the buildings, decaying slowly. It was the scream of the damned.
Chapter 30
Promising News
“Did you hear that?” Richard asked, leaning forward in his seat and turning his head toward the windows.
“Hear what?” Lori said, turning toward Richard.
“That scream,” Richard said.
“I heard it, too,” I said, sitting up in my chair.
Our motley crew gathered around one of the lab tables in Doctor M’s new mad scientist den in a holding pattern. Up until the scream, we had all been expectantly watching the satellite phone in the center of the table. Every week, no matter if there were news or not, the Cincinnati team would call and give Doctor M an update on their progress. Their call was now thirty minutes overdue.
“We got a lot of troop movement to the northwest,” Alex said as she peered out the window. ‘Troops’ in Alex terms was zombies. “They’re past the maintenance building, near Herrick Drive.”
“They’re always moving around out there,” Richard said. “What makes this different?
“They just seemed to be more than usually clumped together near the power plant down there.”
“You see anything else that we should pay attention to other than that?” Richard asked as he eased back in his chair.
“No, just that,” Alex said.
“But what about the scream?” I asked.
“Who knows who that was,” Richard said. “If it was a person, then what are we going to do about it? They’re out there and pretty much on their own. Besides, that scream sounded sort of final.”
Naveen looked to me, her eyes wide with hope and fear, then asked, “What if it was Kara?”
That was the million dollar question. There was no telling if it was her or not. Chances are that it wasn’t. It had been three days since she had left and we had no idea where she was.
And why would she scream? In the brief time we had observed her outside, the zombies seemed to be leaving her alone. Doctor M could not explain that phenomenon at all except for feeble attempts as scientific mumbo jumbo. Unspoken by any of us the idea that she was really and truly undead.
Thoughts shot through my mind, all stopping on what I should tell Naveen. She had just lost Kara, and that had devastated her almost as much as it had me. There was no way I was telling her that Kara was undead now and that we would never see her again.
“It probably wasn’t her,” I said, looking in Naveen’s dark brown eyes.
“How do you know that?” she asked.
That was a hard question to answer, but one I knew I couldn’t avoid. I hadn’t given up all hope, but there was no use dangling any metaphorical carrot in front of Naveen. Of course, crushing any hope was equally bad, so I went down the middle with my answer.
“Kara left for a reason. What she had become probably scared her. There’s a part of me that thought she might come right back, but she hasn’t. It makes me doubt whether she’s coming back anytime soon, but I haven’t given up hope.”
In fact, I was working on a plan to find her, but there were a lot of details and a few thousand zombies standing in my way.
“Hey, Doctor M,” Richard said. “You know we can always dial them.” He pointed to the cell phone.
“That is not the protocol,” Doctor M said as he crossed his arms and put on a determined look.
“You sure it’s not just your pride talking?” Richard said, raising his eyebrows at the end of the question.
“Absolutely not,” Doctor M replied. “They are wasting their time down there. A cure is simply impossible. I tried everything, and it just simply cannot be done. To not take my lead is truly folly.”
“Are you sure?” Richard jabbed.
Lori shot him a hot stare, “Richard, stop.”
Richard tilted his head and gave her an ‘aw shucks’ look.
Doctor M said, “Richard, you heard what Doctor Richter said, the team in Indianapolis are working on a vaccine also and that they found my work here very useful. It is the only way to proceed if we want a functional solution.”
Richard rolled his eyes and said, “Whatever floats your boat, Doc.”
Alex asked from her place by the windows acting as our lookout, “What if they don’t call?”
Doctor M rubbed his chin and said, “It’s not totally unprecedented, but quite unusual. We have communicated every week at this time. It would seem that they would continue with the correspondence.”
“What if they can’t?” Alex asked.
“What are you saying?” Lori asked from her seat at the table.
“What if they’ve been overrun? What if everything went to shit down there and their experiments backfired? What if some other force took them over?” She looked around a
t each of us but ended up focusing on Doctor M. “What if whatever trouble they might be in comes back on us?”
“Alex,” Doctor M said with a slight laugh, “I think you are being melodramatic. Being late with a phone call isn’t a reason to think the worst. I know for myself, that I can become engrossed in my work and the hours just pass by without me knowing it.”
“But any of what I was saying could be possible,” Alex said.
“So, it could be a Gonzoki attack, but I don’t see that happening,” Doctor M said.
“It’s Godzilla,” Richard said. “Geez man, get it right.”
“Oh, Richard,” Doctor M said, rolling his eyes, “I’ll leave the popular culture references to you from now on.”
Alex stepped away from the window and asked, “But why aren’t they calling? There’s got to be--”
That’s when the satellite phone rang. Doctor M smiled at Alex and Richard smugly as he reached over to pick it up. He lifted it up, but let it ring again before answering. It was classic Doctor M -- don’t act like you’re eager. He finally thumbed the talk button and said, “Hello, Dr. Richter.”
Doctor M stood with the satellite phone pressed against his ear, listening and nodding his head for almost thirty seconds. Let me tell you, there’s virtually nothing less exciting than watching someone talk on the phone when you can’t hear the other end of the conversation.
“Wait,” he said, his face scrunched up in consternation, “say that again.”
Again, he listened for another thirty seconds, and he said, “Where are you getting your data?”
“What’s going on?” Lori asked, leaning in toward Doctor M, trying to get some clue as to the conversation.
“Doctor M, why don’t you put the phone on speaker mode?” Richard asked.
Doctor M just shook his head and continued to listen on his own. He finally said, “I find that difficult to believe. We tried something along those lines and made no progress.” He listened again. “Yes, I understand.” Another pause. “Fascinating, but I still find that implausible.”
“Doctor M, please,” Lori said, beckoning with her hand for the Doctor to switch to speakerphone.
Doctor M turned away from her and took a step away from the table and continued to listen, nodding his head every couple seconds.
“For shit’s sake,” Richard said, jumping from his seat and taking two long steps toward Doctor M, who had his back turned to the group. He reached over the Doctor’s shoulder and grabbed the phone from him.
Doctor M whirled around and said, “Richard, I was talking with Doctor Richter.”
“Yeah, and we need to hear what he is saying and not just you,” Richard said. He put the phone to his ear and said, “Hey, Doctor Richter, this is Richard. Can you hold on a second?”
He withdrew the phone from his ear and said, “Doctor M, I think, reading between the lines, that Doctor Richter is making some progress and you’re having trouble believing it. Am I right?”
“Richard, this is much too complex for you to understand,” Doctor M said, holding his hand out to ask for the phone.
“While I’m not a Ph.D., I do have a rudimentary understanding of science, but Lori has an in-depth understanding of all your science shit, so it might be a good idea for her to listen in.”
Doctor M stepped toward Richard and grasped for the phone, but Richard withdrew it. “Richard, give me the phone.”
Richard raised the phone into the air, holding it out of Doctor M’s reach who continued to grab for the phone. This was fun for about twenty more seconds, but an adult had to step in. That turned out not to be me because I started to laugh. That wasn’t something I had done in a long time.
Lori stood up and stepped in between Richard and Doctor M and said, “Give me the phone, Richard.” Richard continued to hold the phone in the air, but Doctor M dropped his arms to his side. “Now, Richard or I’m going to knee you in the balls.”
Richard immediately lowered his arm and placed the phone into Lori’s outstretched hand. She pressed a button on the phone and said, “Sorry about that Doctor Richter. I have you on speaker. Can you tell us what you were sharing with Doctor M?”
Doctor Richter spoke via the tiny speaker on the phone, and his voice was tinny and pinched, “Sure. What I was telling the Doctor was that we have made some significant progress with our work down here.”
Doctor M threw a dismissive hand in the air.
Lori asked, “Can you elaborate on that progress?”
“Based on some of the data you shared with us earlier, we have been able to isolate some of the factors that generate the transformation. It is a prion disease that works a lot like Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease but in a more aggressive fashion. One of my team members had a lot of experience with some advanced work on Alzheimer's disease. Before things fell apart, they had made some great strides toward a treatment. In fact, they had a very promising trial about to go into the field, but the FDA put a stop on that for some procedural nonsense. Of course, we don’t have to deal with that red tape now, do we?” Richter let out a dry laugh.
“What is your progress then?” Lori asked.
“Well, we have our own trials, and while we have a way to go, we have made some very promising strides.”
There’s only so much scientific mumbo-jumbo double talk a person can stand. I stood up and walked over to where Lori held the satellite phone.
“Doctor Richter, you don’t know me, but my name is Joel,” I said. “Someone very dear to me has been transformed by this virus. I’m not sure if Doctor M has told you, but we administered a dose of his vaccine on this person and…” (I searched for the right thing to say, but not being a scientist in any sense of the word, I struggled with what to say) “This person was partially transformed.”
“Interesting. What do you mean partially transformed?” Doctor Richter asked.
“I…” I started to say, but Doctor M stepped in.
“We were not able to directly examine the sub--” he stopped mid-word, but continued, “this person, but she did follow the traditional course for the virus. High fever, organ shut down, and…” He paused and flicked a glance my way.
Richter said, “Did this person expire?”
Doctor M quickly picked it up from there. “Yes, but that isn’t what is most remarkable. She revived as normal, but from what we were able to see, she retained her intellect. And her speech.” He stopped, and I could see that he was working through something in his head. “My vaccine brought her back, but not all the way.”
“So, you’re saying it didn’t cure your subject entirely?” Doctor Richter asked.
“Well, no,” Doctor M said, obviously flustered. “All along, I’ve said that it isn’t a cure. It was never intended to be.”
“Then it sounds like what you did was a bit reckless,” Doctor Richter said. “I mean, given that you only have a limited amount of doses.”
Doctor M stuttered for a moment, then said, “Well, that was out of my hands.” He shot a look my way but quickly changed the topic. “I’m sure my colleagues here would like to hear about your progress.”
“Well, in all honesty, what I’ve told you is about as much as I can,” Richter said. “We had been working with a small team of Alzheimer’s experts, and they were very open with sharing their research. It has been instrumental in the progress we have achieved. Our results have been mixed, but still very promising.”
“I’m sorry,” I interrupted. “What do you mean by mixed?”
“This is Joel, right?” Richter asked, and I confirmed my identity, then he continued. “You see, in research, there is a lot of trial and error. Under the current circumstances, we have had to rush some of our subjects through the trials.”
“Okay, but let’s say that we were able to get Kara -- our person to you, would you be able to help her?”
“I have no idea. She seems to be a tiger of a different stripe.”
I did not like the analogy but didn’t comment on it.
“But would you be able to help her?”
There was a long pause from Richter’s end of the call, but he finally said, “I think we could learn a lot from her.”
“Wait, that’s not what I’m asking,” I said. “I’m not looking to advance science. I want to help the woman I love.”
Again, Richter was quiet for a few seconds, then he said, “We will do what we can, but we would welcome the chance to examine her.”
None of what he was saying was making me very cheerful. I started to ask another question, but Alex beat me to the punch.
“Folks, we have a lot of movement outside.”
“What do you mean by a lot?” I asked.
“Like a shit ton of them coming from the west,” she said. I saw her shift her position to get a better view. “Uh, Joel, I think Kara is at the front of the mob.”
I reached across the table and paused with my finger over the satellite phone, “Doctor Richter, we’ll have to get back to you.” I punched the disconnect button just as Doctor Richter tried to say something else.
Chapter 31
March of the Dead
Doctor M looked at me as if I had just canceled Christmas. “We were talking with Doctor Richter.”
“Yeah,” I said, “that has to take a back seat to what’s happening outside.”
I made my way over to the window and looked down on the plaza to our west and the buildings in that direction. The picture was just as Alex had described. Indeed, a shit ton of zombies streamed our way, walking among the buildings and abandoned cars. They flowed like a dark flood, making their way to us. A flow of undead, stinking flood waters.
And Kara was in the lead of their little undead parade.
I said. “She is out there with them. I have to go down to see if I can get her inside.”
Alex said, “I’m not so sure that is a good idea.” She leaned onto the window while putting her hands over her eyes to get a better view. “If you asked me, she looks like she might just be leading them to us. Plus, she seems like she is really pissed.”
Books of the Dead (Book 8): The Living Dead Girl Page 15
