by Urban, Tony
Phillip’s grip loosened enough to let him breathe.
Doc pulled a cotton swab from his lab coat and dipped it into the open mouth of the gutless zombie. He swabbed it around and, when he extracted it, the swab was dripping slimy yellow saliva.
“I still haven’t solved the mystery of why people who were immune to the airborne version are susceptible to bites. I think the concentration of the virus is higher in the saliva. Their mouths are basically Petri dishes. Perhaps that’s the reason, but no one seems immune to this.”
Please, Wim. Please come. We’re running out of time.
Doc moved to him, holding the swab at chest level. “It doesn’t take an actual bite, of course. Just transference of the saliva.” He was in front of Emory now. The swab was inches from his face. “Now say ah for the doctor.”
Emory clenched his jaws so hard it made his brittle teeth hurt. Phillip grabbed his chin and tried to pull his mouth open, but Emory surprised even himself by managing to resist.
“Have it your way then.”
Doc shoved the swab up Emory’s nostril so forceful and fast the old man thought it might poke into his eye socket. Phillip released him and he fell painfully to the floor in a heap.
“Careful, old timer. Don’t want to break a hip,” Phillip taunted.
Emory pulled the swab from his nose and threw it aside. When he looked up, both men were on their way out of the room.
“What’s that hotel say? We’ll keep the lights on for you?”
And they were gone.
Emory held his finger over the opposite nostril and blew as hard as possible. Snot and the zombie’s yellow, pus-filled saliva shot out his nose and onto the floor and he prayed it wasn’t too late.
Chapter 42
Wim checked his watch. It was 1:27. He didn’t want to wait for the half hour but tried to make himself.
“Getting close now?” Delphine’s voice said behind him.
He didn’t know how she’d managed to sneak up on him and didn’t like it.
She’d come to him earlier that evening, just after he’d finished topping off the troughs with pig feed. She told him that Emory was sneaking in Doc’s lab and that he didn’t want Wim to know until he was already inside, lest he try to talk him out of it. Wim thought the plan brave but foolhardy and Emory was right, if he’d have known about it ahead of time he’d have not only tried to talk him out of it, he’d have stopped him by force if necessary.
If anyone was venturing into Doc’s lab, it should be him, not an eighty-plus year-old man whose arthritis was so bad that he oftentimes couldn’t walk more than a few paces in a minute. But it was done and now all he could do was follow his wishes and wait until 1:30. If he wasn’t out by then, Wim was going in.
Wim turned to Delphine and noticed how the moonlight made her white hair almost glow. “Three minutes. Perhaps two now.”
Delphine nodded then took a puff on a hand rolled cigarette. “Do you expect he’ll find anything in there to make a difference?”
“I hope.”
“I wouldn’t, if I was you. You think the people here will care about what he did? Or what he’s doing?”
“Wouldn’t you? If it turns out he had a hand in the plague, then you’d be living with the man who killed billions of people. Wouldn’t that matter?”
“Depends on your perspective, I suppose. One hand, you could say he’s a murderer. Other hand, you could say he’s a savior.”
“A savior?” Has she lost her marbles?
“He saved them’s what I’m saying. To some people, maybe lots a people, that might be more important than the killing.”
“I’d hope not.” Wim cast another glance at his watch. 1:29.
“People’s selfish, Wim, is what I’m telling you. Long as they get something they want, they can overlook a lot of bad.”
“Are you selfish?”
“I am. You are too.”
“You think so?”
Delphine nodded. “The other day, when you saved all those people from the zombies, twas just one you really cared about. You wanted to prove yourself to Ramey.”
“I don’t know why you think that.”
“Because I know men and they’s all the same. You wanted to be a hero for her.”
He didn’t appreciate this line of questioning and didn’t respond.
“Answer me honest. If there was a group of zombies chasing me and another group of zombies chasing her, which of us is you gonna save? You can only pick one.”
He looked at her long enough to meet her gaze and immediately wished he hadn’t. “Well, I believe Ramey’d have a good chance of taking care of herself.”
“I might could too.”
“I reckon that might be true. But I’d still watch out for you.”
Delphine shook her head. “There’s men that are built for lying. Maybe most of em even. But you ain’t one of em Wim, so you best stop trying.”
Time was up, thankfully, and he moved toward the clinic. “Nice talking to you, Delphine.”
“What I say about lyin?” She smiled a little when she said it.
Wim did too, then he went to see what Emory was up too.
Chapter 43
After regaining his footing, Emory managed to stumble out of Doc’s lab and into the clinic. The further he walked the clumsier his feet became. Twice he fell and each time getting back up proved more of a challenge than the last. He thought his legs might give out so he took a seat at a desk to recuperate and catch his breath, which seemed to come in shallow, gasping wheezes.
Oftentimes since the epidemic swept the land, he found himself wondering what it was like to fall victim to the virus. What they felt. Whether they knew what was happening to them. Now his questions were getting answered.
There wasn’t much pain, which both surprised and relieved him. The arthritis he dealt with daily was much worse. There was a headache, a dull throbbing that felt a bit like a hangover, leaving his head foggy and thoughts slow to come. The thinking was the worst. His memories raced away from him like road signs passed on an interstate. He struggled to remember what happened to him. Where he was. And as minutes passed, who he was.
It came back in flashes. He remembered marrying Wim and Ramey and how happy it made him. Then he remembered Christopher dead after the wreck, crawling soldier style along the pavement with his broken, twisted back. He could see Grant sitting on a dock in Menemsha, eating hot buttered lobster rolls as the setting sun lit him up like an angel. Emory thought he could still taste that lobster, caught fresh from the ocean that very morning, and his mouth flooded with saliva.
So hungry.
He wondered when he’d last eaten. It must have been days because he felt as if he were starving. And the hunger grew and grew, a deep, unrelenting, insatiable need.
Emory could feel his humanity slipping away. There was less of him with each passing moment. All that remained was the hunger. He wanted - needed - to eat. It was all encompassing, all consuming. He had no more thoughts of himself. Of his friends. Of the disease. Every thought he had was the same. Eating.
He rose from the chair on limbs no longer hobbled by pain. Without arthritis to slow him down, he ran.
Wim trotted toward the clinic. Camp was empty at this time of night and that was a relief because he didn’t have time to be covert. Even if the Ark had been teeming with people, he doubted he’d care because Emory should have been out by now. He cursed himself for letting Emory go in alone, for taking all the risk upon himself.
The clinic was in view and Wim quickened his pace. He was thirty yards away when the door opened and a bit of light streamed out, silhouetting the tall man exiting the building. He thought it was Phillip. The long, rangy body had the cop’s quick, leaning forward gait. Like he was always in a hurry to get somewhere and be a prick.
Wim sidled up beside a construction trailer and watched the man approach.
“If you hurt Emory, so help me God, I’ll kill you.” He’d killed hundreds
of zombies but never a person. And up until now he thought himself incapable. But the very notion of his best friend being hurt by that arrogant son of a bitch flipped a switch inside Wim and he was angrier than he’d ever been before.
He wished he’d have kept one of Delphine’s guns as he knew Phillip would be armed. He noticed a toolbox sitting beside the trailer and popped the lid. Inside were an assortment of wrenches, pliers, and hand tools. Wim settled on a screwdriver.
When he peeked around the corner of the trailer he saw Phillip was less than ten yards away. He wanted him gone so that he could continue forward and find his friend, but Phillip kept coming toward the trailer, toward him. Wim gripped the handle of the screwdriver tight in his right hand, in case he had to use it, then waited.
Pass on by, Phillip. Please, pass on by.
But he made a line straight at him. Like he knew he was there. Like he could smell him.
Wim backed away, around the corner, retreating until he neared the backside of the trailer. He could no longer see Phillip but that changed soon enough when the man appeared around the spot where Wim had been watching seconds earlier.
Only it wasn’t Phillip. In the moonlight, Wim could see the ebony skin and realized it was Emory. His nerves settled and he broke out in a wide grin.
“My gosh, you had me scared. I— “
Emory kept closing in. Quick. Quicker than Wim had ever seen him move before.
“Emory?”
His old friend was ten feet away. Five.
When he came within arm’s reach, Wim got a better look and he felt so sick he thought he might pass out. Emory’s eyes were clouded over and gray. His mouth hung open and his tongue sagged out like an overheated dog on a summer day.
This wasn’t fair. Emory was one of the best men Wim had ever known and he didn’t deserve this. No one did, but especially not him. He wanted to cry but there was no time for that.
Emory was on top of him. Wim held him back, one hand on the man’s shoulder, the other in the middle of his chest. His head bobbed at him, trying to get a bite, but Wim held him out of range.
“Who did this to you?”
At the sound of Wim’s voice, Emory cocked his head. His frantic attempts to attack slowed.
“Do you know me?” Wim asked.
Emory’s cloudy eyes stared at his face.
Does he remember? Somehow?
“Emory, it’s me. Wim.”
Whatever recognition Emory may or may not have had disappeared as his upper lip snarled and he bared his teeth. A low, menacing growl rumbled out of his throat and he pushed forward, straining to get him.
“Don’t do this. Please.”
Wim let himself be pushed back a step, then two. Emory kept fighting, if anything with renewed vigor. Wim had seen so much horror in the last half a year, but this was worse than all of it put together. And he knew he couldn’t take much more.
The next time Emory lunged for him, Wim took a step to the side and allowed the man to fall forward. Emory landed face down in the snow and when he crawled back to his knees the front of him was coated in white powder. It stood out in stark contrast to his ink-colored skin.
“I’m so sorry.” Wim raised the screwdriver and swung it downward. The tool connected with Emory’s skull just above his left ear. With a hard crack, the metal shaft sunk deep into his head. Wim jerked the handle back and forth twice and Emory went limp.
Wim pulled the screwdriver free and threw it into the snow. He grabbed his friend under the arms and raised him up. The now limp body sagged against Wim’s chest and Emory’s head lolled back and forth before settling down on his shoulder. Wim carried him like that, their faces inches apart, into the night.
Chapter 44
After leaving the old, black man to die, Doc returned to his cabin and attempted to sleep, an act which had proven to be a great chore in recent weeks. His mind never stopped churning. Between ideas for new experiments, and fear of what was happening outside the Ark, he felt like he was awake thirty hours a day. Resting was impossible, but a few barbiturates kept him dead to the world long enough to keep his body functioning.
Even with the pills, he woke early, well before dawn. He was anxious to see what had become of the man and check on his other creations. When he reentered the lab, the first thing he noticed was the sheet on the floor. It was more red than white and had soaked up so much blood that some had drained from it, onto the floor like an over saturated sponge. He looked up from the sheet to the bed and patient it should have been covering.
What he found both excited and disappointed him. His pregnant, human patient was no longer pregnant, nor human. Her belly, which earlier looked almost ready to burst, had done just that. Tendrils of pale flesh rained down over her torso, and as he followed them upward, he saw the gaping hole where her midsection had been. Now it was just a blackened chasm, void of her own organs, as well as the child she’d been carrying.
As Doc moved closer, the woman’s hand tried to claw at him but the straps held her at a safe distance. She groaned and growled, her teeth clicking together as she bit the air. He leaned in to examine her and realized the flesh hadn’t burst after all. It had been ripped apart. From the inside out.
“Congratulations, ma’am. You’re a mother. And it looks like you’ve given birth to a real fighter.”
But, where is it?
Doc crouched down beside the bed, looking under and around it. Nope, no baby here.
How far could it have gotten? It couldn’t be more than a few hours old, after all.
He followed the path of blood leading away from the mother. It was like tracking a slug that left a slimy trail in its wake, but after a few yards the blood, and the path, dried up.
Behind him, something metal fell and clattered against the floor. Doc jumped, then spun around and saw an instrument tray, which had been setting on a wheeled cart, had fallen. He rushed to the spot and dropped to his knees and saw nothing.
To his right came a gasp. He turned just in time to see the baby coming at him. It was light gray, the color of dirty dishwater, with black veins crisscrossing under its skin like a roadmap. It looked about a foot and a half in length and its belly was fat.
Not fat. Distended. Full of its mother’s flesh. It reminded Doc of a Thanksgiving turkey, ready to carve.
It moved more quickly than Doc could have ever imagined and was only inches away when he swooped out and grabbed it by the nape of its neck. Its eyes narrowed and its tiny palm lashed out. It uttered a squawking hiss, some strange amalgamation of a baby’s cry and a zombie’s growl.
“There, there, little one,” Doc said. “Nothing to be afraid of from me. I’d never dare hurt you.”
The creature again hissed and cried, its tiny arms flailing, its legs kicking.
Doc saw its lips were covered in blood with bits of dried intestines stuck to its cheeks like a macabre Papier-mâché mask. He couldn’t understand how it had done so much damage, especially in such a short amount of time.
He carried the infant to an examination table and laid it on its back. Then he took a speculum, inserted it into the infant’s mouth and pried it open. He gasped at the sight.
“My, oh my. You’re a special one indeed, aren’t you?”
What Doc saw in the infant’s mouth was a full set of tiny, sharp baby teeth. There were even scraps of tissue caught between them.
He held his finger in front of the newborn’s mouth. Its head darted up, its tiny jaws clicking together as it tried to catch his digit but ended up with nothing but air. He set the undead infant on an examination table and grabbed an assortment of instruments. This was going to be so much fun.
Doc was prouder of this little mutant than he’d been the day his own daughter had been born. And with any luck, in another eight and a half months, it would have a sibling because, as his latest tests had confirmed, the zombie that Phillip had inseminated was indeed pregnant.
For a man who’d spent most of his working life toiling aw
ay, unappreciated, for the pharmaceutical companies, this was even more proof that he was every bit the genius he believed himself to be. He half wished he could bring everyone who’d doubted him back from the dead so they could see his creations. On second thought, he’d rather they stay dead. Those who remained would know his greatness soon enough.
Chapter 45
Mitch – Wayne to those on the Ark – hated the cold, which meant he hated almost everything on the island. What kind of assholes build an end of the world compound in somewhere that has winters like this? Even wearing two pairs of sweatpants and a white parka so thick he looked like a Yeti, he felt like he was going to shiver to death. Could you die from shivering? He thought it certainly might be possible and he didn’t want to be the test case.
He picked up the pace as he plodded through the knee-deep snow, which dragged and grasped at his legs as he worked his way to the gate. He wished he’d have taken a snowmobile. Who gave a fuck whether he woke everyone up with the noise. Soon enough Saw’d be here and most of these dickholes would either be dead or bowing at his feet.
It was almost a mile to the gate and that gave him time to think. Maybe too much time. As excited as he was for Saw and the others to arrive, he was still pissed at what the Brit had done to his face. Why didn’t he carve up Lonnie or Denny like Christmas hams and send them here to get poked and prodded? Casper, he could understand, that bastard couldn’t make a friend if his life depended on it, but the other two would have been fine guinea pigs. So why did Saw put him through this ordeal?
He wondered if it was some sort of test. Maybe Saw was trying to find out if he could be trusted. But Mitch thought he’d proved that by ratting out Aben. He didn’t like to think about Aben and especially Prince. He missed the both of them. But Mitch was a good soldier and he knew that meant making hard decisions. And that should have proved his loyalty. So maybe this was all about trying to see if Mitch was tough enough. He knew the other men considered him a kid. Maybe Saw did too and this was the gauntlet he had to run to get his man card. After everything he’d been through, they better tell him he passed with flying fucking colors.
