by Urban, Tony
The Ark’s population had been more than halved that day and that meant every man, woman, and - no children, they’re all dead now - was on deck. Emory’s job was of the janitorial variety. After the bodies were gathered, he was to clean up whatever bits and pieces were left behind, depositing them into a heavy-duty garbage bag. He scooped up a piece of skull the size of a salad plate and took a moment to stare at the long, blood-stained blonde hair that sagged off it, wondering to whom it might have belonged. Whoever it was certainly didn’t need it now and he added it to the gruesome collection.
The bag was growing heavy, a stress that made his hands ache even more, so he set it aside and pulled them inside his jacket sleeves, clenching and squeezing them in attempt to increase the blood flow.
It worked to some extent and he lifted the bag with both hands, slinging it over his shoulder as he trudged toward the next bloody scene to continue his work. Doing so, he felt a bit like a hobo carrying all his belongings in a sack, perhaps running for a train car, hoping to ride the rails to greener pastures.
As he stepped around the corner of one of the out buildings, he saw Phillip and Buck, two of the Ark’s police force, carrying a body. It took him a moment to realize what was different about this scene, which he’d seen occurring all day long, then he realized the arms and legs weren’t hanging limp and useless. Whoever the men were carrying was tied up.
Buck walked backward as they moved and he caught his foot on something, dropping to his knee. When he stumbled, the body jerked and the head swiveled side to side, purposeful. Emory could see it was a woman.
“Watch it!” Phillip barked and Buck jumped to his feet.
“Ssss- Sorry.”
“Sorry my ass. I’ve got the danger end.”
They disappeared around a motorhome.
Emory had been clustered together with all the other survivors when orders had been given out. He’d heard first hand that all bodies were to be taken to the field at the north end of the Ark to be burned. He could already smell the smoke, and the awful, acrid aroma of charred flesh and hair that came with it. And he knew that no one had been injured and survived. So, who were these men carrying?
I’ve got the danger end.
They’ve got a zombie, Emory realized. But why hadn’t they destroyed it?
He set the garbage bag aside and followed, keeping a healthy distance and making certain no one was watching him being a nebby nose. When he reached the travel trailer, he peeked around the corner and saw the two men approaching the medical clinic. Emory also knew that, somewhere in that building, were Doc’s private labs. Scuttlebutt around camp, into which Emory was always eager to insert himself, was that he was doing research for a cure inside there. Emory had his doubts.
From his vantage point twenty yards away, Emory couldn’t discern if Phillip used a key or a card, but a door opened and the men disappeared inside. It banged closed behind them, the sound so loud it made Emory flinch.
Emory crossed the gap to the building. He knew it was pointless, but tried anyway. Locked. He then moved to the front where the entrance to the medical clinic was located. That door was unlocked and he leaned halfway inside where the office appeared empty.
“Hello?”
No response came. He considered continuing in but thought that unwise. Tensions were at an all-time high on the Ark today and 80 plus years of life experience was more than enough for Emory to know that there were times to keep your head down.
Chapter 28
The female zombie laid on its back atop the gurney, naked save for an opaque hood which was pulled tight around her neck and shrouded her head. Her arms were bound behind her back, unseen under her pallid flesh. Her legs were tied to stirrups, spread far apart to put her crotch on display. Black fluid, the consistency of cool honey, seeped from her vagina, a fetid ooze that Doc sponged away with the same amount of concern he’d have shown dusting off an end table.
“I don’t think I can do it Doc.”
Doc looked to the edge of the lab where Phillip waited. The man was naked except for a pair of boxer briefs and his skin had broken out in gooseflesh. Doc realized Phillip was shivering.
“I can turn the heat up a bit if that will make you more comfortable. I’m quite used to the cold down here myself and I forget that others aren’t.”
Phillip stared at him, his beady eyes wide. “It’s not the temperature. It’s…” His eyes drifted back to the dead woman who laid spread eagle before him.
“Oh, come now. We’ve had many discussions about this. You know how important this experiment is. You assured me you were up to the task, Phillip. I put my trust in you.”
“I just don’t know. This is gross as hell. I mean, she’s dead, Doc.”
Doc had been sitting on a wheeled stool for his up-close examination of the zombie’s nether regions. Now he spun and used his feet to move himself toward Phillip. “But is she? Perhaps by conventional standards. Yet, she breathes. She eats. She moves. Is that not life?”
Phillip looked from Doc to the zombie, then back. It was clear he wasn’t convinced.
“Yeah, but you can shoot her in the heart and she’d still be able to walk around. Live things don’t do that.”
“That’s true. But you act as if that’s a flaw. Phillip, that makes them better than us! Humans like you and I are dependent on our variety of organs. If one fails, the whole ship goes down. Yet these creatures, they don’t require a liver or kidneys or a heart. All they need is their brain. It’s astounding! Miraculous even!”
He couldn’t understand why Phillip was being so uncooperative. The dead woman had a fit, toned body. He’d even taken the time to put a bandage over the ragged hole in her shoulder where she’d been bitten.
“I understand you find yourself in a quandary, Phillip, but she is perfect for you.” Doc pivoted on the chair and glanced at the dead woman. “When I first saw her, I suspected she had breast implants but that assumption was incorrect. Check for yourself.”
Phillip hedged.
“Do it, Phillip.”
Phillip crept closer to Doc and the zombie. Doc nodded approvingly and Phillip stepped to her side. He reached out, slow, cautious, and rested his bare palm over the woman’s breast. Doc thought he saw some relaxation come over him. Phillip even gave her partially erect nipple a flick with his index finger.
“There. See.”
Phillip flashed a weak smile. He ran his hand down her breast, across her concave abdomen where a belly button ring, a fake diamond butterfly, decorated her naval. Then, southbound progress ceased. He glanced at Doc, his eyes flitting away.
“This is of the utmost importance, Phillip. It will raise our experiments to the next phase.”
“Can’t I just jizz into a cup or something? And you could use a turkey baster to shoot it inside?”
Doc bit his lip to stop himself from saying something overly cross, but his ire had been raised. “No. We won’t be performing some bizarre redneck artificial insemination. The odds of conception are greatly increased during coitus. And we can’t delay any longer.”
Doc stared him down and Phillip seemed to shrink before him. “Close your eyes, Phillip.”
Phillip did.
“Now who do you see? Who do you want to be on this table before you? A Playboy bunny, maybe? Perhaps a porn star even?”
“No…”
“Who then? A high school crush. Someone here on the Ark?”
Phillip didn’t respond. Doc had long suspected this.
“Ah, I see. You want this to be Ramey, don’t you?”
Even with his eyes closed, Phillip dipped his head to the floor in shame.
“It’s fine. I’ve seen the way you look at her. The way most of the men here look at her. And I understand. She’s young. Innocent. I’d wager to guess there’s a good chance she’s still a virgin. What’s that term you fellows used - barely legal? If you play your cards right, you could be the one to deflower her. Imagine that, Phillip. You could be her fi
rst lover. Her only lover. She’d be an awe of you.”
Phillip’s lips parted and a small gasp escaped.
Doc moved closer to him, examining the young man. The bulge in his underwear hadn’t changed and Doc was growing weary of this. It was time to speed things up.
“Keep your eyes closed, Phillip. Now picture Ramey here before you. Not a speck of clothing on her tight, flawless body. Her breasts pert, perky, practically begging you to touch them. Caress them.”
Doc took Phillip’s hand and placed it on the zombie’s gray, cantaloupe-shaped breast.
“What do you want to do? Squeeze it? Suck it? Taste it? You can do anything your heart desires.”
Phillip pulled his hand back and Doc thought for a moment that he’d lost him. But then Phillip’s palm flashed forward and smacked the breast with an open palm. The sound of it echoed through the small, enclosed room.
“You want it to hurt?” Doc asked.
Phillip nodded, his eyes still closed.
“That’s fine. You can do anything to her. I won’t judge you. And no one will stop you.”
Phillip hit her again. The iron-colored skin flared white.
Doc saw Phillip’s crotch swell. He reached out and placed his gloved fingers into the man’s waistband and slowly pulled them down whispering into Phillip’s ear as he undressed him. “This new world belongs to us. Everyone in it is ours for the taking. No one can stop us. Not anymore.”
Doc grabbed Phillip’s cock. It felt like an uncooked sausage in his fingers. He gave it a light squeeze then pumped his fingers up and down. Up and down.
“Together, we’ve brought down the civilized world, Phillip. Now we’re rebuilding it to be whatever we want. In this new world, we’re Gods.”
Doc’s fingers worked faster as he spoke and Phillip’s uncooked sausage grew and hardened.
“If you want Ramey, she’s yours. If you want to hurt her, you can. I won’t stop you. All that’s standing in your way is Wim. Remove him from the equation and you can do anything you want.”
He steered Phillip forward and guided his hardness toward the zombie’s rotting, seeping vagina. Doc lined up the two and pushed Phillip into her.
“Take her, Phillip. She’s yours. Ramey is all yours.”
Phillips hips thrust like pistons. The wet, smacking sounds filled the room and Doc turned back to his notes and added the date and time.
After a minute or two, the sounds came harder, faster. Doc glanced back and saw the zombie thrashing on the gurney as Phillip pounded away, merciless. Under the hood, she gasped and growled. Her dead flesh jiggled
Soon, Phillip’s buttocks spasmed, clenched, then quivered. He moved to pull out.
“No!” Doc ordered. “Stay with her.”
Phillip laid atop the dead woman, their groins still locked together. Phillip’s entire body rose and fell with each exhausted breath. His face laid against the sack that covered her head and, although beneath it the zombie’s sounds were of rage, Phillip kissed the covering like a man in love.
Doc watched as more black fluid seeped from the woman’s vagina, now intermixed with white opaque semen. Doc believed that, from this new primordial ooze a new species would emerge. That this was the next step up the genetic ladder. He’d destroyed life. Now he was ready to create it.
Chapter 29
“Everyone might have died if it weren’t for Wim.”
Phillip flinched at the fury in her voice. He’d seemed more on edge than usual. He wouldn’t look her in the eyes, keeping his face turned downward. He looked sweaty and paler than normal. Ramey wondered if the recent zombie attack had him behaving and looking this way, or if something else was going on. Maybe he’s getting sick, she thought. If so, what kind of sick was it.
“Well, the way I heard it was that Delphine was the one who saved everyone.”
“Delphine did what you wouldn’t and let him out. Where were you anyway?”
“We had to go for supplies since Wim didn’t bring back half of what we needed the other day.”
“Because he was fighting for his life. Just like yesterday. While you were out there having a circle jerk with your buddies.”
Phillip kicked the wood floor and turned away from her. He clasped his hands together behind his neck, elbows parallel to the floor and paced. He was angry and Ramey enjoyed bringing that out in him.
“Look, I don’t know what you expect me to say. Doc sent us out first thing in the morning. How was I supposed to know all hell was gonna break loose ‘til we got back?”
“How about saying you’re sorry.”
“I am. I never wanted you— “
“Not to me. To Wim.”
Phillip left his arms drop. Now his face wasn’t angry, it was bemused. “For what?”
“For almost killing him!”
“I was doing what I was told.”
“That’s the problem around here. No one thinks for themselves. They just listen to my father like a bunch of brainwashed imbeciles.”
Phillip’s arm darted out fast and before she even realized what was happening he’d grabbed hold of her shirt. He pulled her in close to him, so close that his tuna-scented breath assaulted her nose.
“Don’t you talk bad about Doc!”
She slapped him, her fingernails tearing across his cheek and leaving thin ditches that weren’t quite deep enough to bleed.
Phillip jerked his hand, ripping open her shirt, then lost himself staring at her exposed bra. The distraction was enough for Ramey to slip free, leaving him with just a handful of blue material.
Before she could decide whether to run or to fight back, Doc stepped into the doorway. He looked from Ramey to Phillip, then back. His face emotionless.
“The meeting is ready to start.” He turned and left them without another word.
Phillip took a step toward Ramey who backed away. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, you are. You’re really fucking sorry, Phillip.”
She fled before he could respond but she heard something in the room shatter.
Barely thirty people remained alive on the Ark and almost all of them were at the meeting. Doc stood at the front, but the adulation his followers had shown him days before, when Wim was on his way to being condemned, was missing now. Now most looked at him with apprehension. To Ramey, that was a relief.
“Before the bodies were destroyed, we examined them carefully. Only one had not been bit, which makes it clear where the infection originated. The person who first became ill, who first became a zombie, was Hal Dade.”
The crowd murmured amongst one another.
Beside her, Wim held Ramey’s hand. Emory was next in line. Only Mina was missing - too afraid to leave the trailer. Ramey looked at the men and was proud to sit with them. She wouldn’t distance herself from them now and regretted ever doing so. These people were more humane, more brave, than anyone who’d been riding out the apocalypse on the Ark.
“I’m left to deduce that Hal became infected when William Wagner brought the boy to the Ark. Because they hadn’t been properly decontaminated before contact was made, Hal was exposed to the virus and regrettably, succumbed.”
Ramey squeezed Wim’s hand and leaned in closer. “Don’t listen to him.”
“Are we all in danger now?” A man with long, black hair that framed his face like a china doll, shouted.
That raised the decibel level of the other murmurs.
“The short answer is, I don’t know. After the meeting, everyone will receive medicine and vitamins to boost your immune systems. But if the disease has evolved… become more virulent, as I suspect it has, then we may need to take extra precautions.”
“Like what,” a woman shouted out as if on cue.
“Starting immediately, no one will be allowed outside the walls of the Ark. We will be instituting a ration system to get us through the winter. Details on that plan will be forthcoming.”
The murmurs reached an almost frenzied pitch. This isn’t going over
well for him, Ramey thought.
“I understand this will be a challenge for us all. And if there were any way to avoid it, we would. But after today’s tragedy, we must take every precaution to ensure our safety and survival. Not to be grandiose, but the future of mankind may depend on us.”
“Oh, Heavens, if that’s true I pity future generations,” Emory said. Ramey couldn’t suppress a smirk. He had a point.
“It’s now more important than ever that everyone cooperate and obey.” Doc folded up a paper from which he’d been reading. “Now are there any questions?”
There were dozens but Ramey and her friends didn’t stick around to listen to all of them. Emory went back to the trailer and Ramey was invited along but she wanted to talk to Wim first.
She told Wim about the experience with her father in the cabin, about how she’d realized he wasn’t the man she’d built him up to be. All through the conversation, Wim kept himself at arm’s length and the longer it went, the more frustrated she grew. It was like she didn’t understand anyone anymore. Finally, she’d had enough.
“Wim, all I want is to be with you. But since we’ve been here, it seems like you don’t even want to be alone with me. I don’t know what I did wrong but I want to fix it.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Then what is it?” She didn’t give him an excuse now. She pulled him in close and pressed her body against his. “Why won’t you touch me? Why won’t you be with me?”
Wim pulled his hands free and Ramey thought he might push her away.
“Tell me, Wim. Please.”
“I… I don’t know how to say it.”
“Just spit it out. Whatever it is, I can take it.” Even though she knew that wasn’t true. If he had something bad to say, to tell her he’d changed his mind and didn’t love her any more, she didn’t know how she’d react but it wouldn’t be well.
