Beginnings

by J. S. Frankel

  With an hmphing sound, Angela turned away, but a second later, she swiveled back with her mouth forming a rather cute pout. Her body lost its tense posture and she nodded a few times.

  “Sorry,” she said to Ooze. “I was out of line. And I was wrong to do what I did, even though that jerk deserved it.”

  “No problem,” he replied. “It’s all good.”

  Since the apologies had been made, Paul asked, “Does CF have basic knowledge of this area?”

  Angela walked over to the window, drew the drapes back an inch, cautiously peered out, and then let the cloth hang. “He knows the layout, but he’s never been outside before or met anyone before. If he did, you know what would happen.”

  Let’s hear it for mayhem, Paul realized. Someone would call the police, then the army then they’d have search teams combing the area for anything not human. He didn’t want to think of what his new girlfriend would do to them.

  “Okay, let’s search,” he said. “I need a map of this place.” Looking at the pile of dirt, he had an idea. “Um, Sandstorm, can you form a map?”

  Immediately, the pile of dirt swirled into a map of the area, using his body like an Etch-A-Sketch. A surprisingly detailed picture emerged. Ooze studied it and gave a few grunts.

  “We’re here,” he said,” as an X appeared on Sandstorm’s body indicating the house. “The river is about a mile away. You’ve been there, right?”

  Paul nodded. “Yeah, there’s nothing but empty land around it.”

  “Right,” Ooze nodded, his body bobbing back and forth. “So either’s he’s at the river or else he decided to hit the highway. My guess is he won’t go where people are, so he may just be hiding in a field.”

  Sandstorm turned himself into a pile and remained on the couch while Ooze moved over to the cabinet. After searching in a drawer, he found a flashlight and brought it over. “This should work.”

  “Thanks,” Paul said as he took the flashlight, tested it, nodded at the bright light coming out and headed to the door. “Sandstorm, can you help us search?”

  No, he signed. I think that I’m going to stay here. You’ll be fine on your own.

  Angela snorted with disgust at her housemate’s recalcitrance. “Thanks for nothing.” Turning to Paul, she said, “I’ve got air patrol. I can cover more distance that way. You take the ground.”

  “How, uh, do we stay in touch?”

  “If I find him, I’ll come and get you. If you find him, yell my name once. I’ll find you. Is that simple enough?”

  It sounded like a plan. By now it was after midnight, the weather outside had dropped to below zero, and a harsh wind had also sprung up. Walking along the dark road, Paul hugged himself in order to keep warm and cursed his bad luck. His first date had been nothing short of a disaster, but the fact Angela wanted to go out again…that made up for a lot.

  Now he was picking his way along a country road and hoping a wild animal wouldn’t pop out and eat him or a car wouldn’t come along and cream him. Hugging the side of the road, he kept watch, but fortunately, he encountered neither animal nor mechanical interference and he used the flashlight to light the way.

  Ominous looking shadows sprang up in the glare of the white light, but outside of a few cats running away he saw nothing else. Occasionally, he shone the beam on the trees which lined both sides of the road, but only the wind was present, that, and the cold. “CF,” he called out. “It’s Paul. Can you hear me?”

  There was no answer and he continued to a fork in the road. Go right or go left? If I was a zombie, would I take the road or the rural route? Decisions, there were always decisions…

  After thinking about it, he took the road to the left, went down the hill and slipped on a patch of ice and slid down to the bottom. Bumpy though the ride down was, he didn’t cry out. Keep a low profile, he remembered as he tumbled end over end and finally came to a rest against a log.

  Now he could groan and did so as he slowly got to his feet.

  “That…hurt,” he muttered.

  Brushing the dirt off his body, he stiffly walked over to the river bank. While the river continued to flow, even in this weather, the smell of refuse hit him. He’d smelled it earlier on, but for some reason it stank worse tonight.

  “Let’s hear it for the tourists,” he said aloud. No one was around, and he wondered why people would just toss their crap away wherever they felt like it. The Bronx wasn’t overly clean, but he’d always swept out his room at the orphanage. It was an old place, but spotless.

  Not here, though. Maybe the visitors had done it or maybe the locals decided to use this place as their own personal dumping grounds. Some more garbage had been tossed into the water along with bags of old food and other unmentionables.

  The wind returned, colder now, and it knifed through his jacket. Shivering, he called out the zombie’s name again, but all he heard was the echo of his own voice. Keep moving, he urged himself. Keep moving, and he shuffled down the river bank.

  While searching, he wondered if anyone who’d been in the store in New York had gotten his picture. The security cameras certainly had caught all the action as it showed the cop sailing across the room. Angela had a right to protect herself, but taking on a cop? If she had been designed to protect people, this did not bode well for the future of law enforcement.

  Another spear of cold wind hit. Between the rocks and patches of ice and the fast-dropping temperature, it was only a matter of time before the cold got to him. “CF!” he called out between chattering teeth. “Are you here?”

  Picking his way along the river’s edge, he came to a small dam. There, he saw a monstrous figure in the middle of the river.

  It was CF. The cold didn’t seem to bother him as he reached into the water and effortlessly hauled out a tire and a rusty bicycle, and tossed them onto the river bank. One item after another—an old mini-fridge, a bumper from a car and a large number of beer bottles—flew out of the water to land on the river bank.

  Seconds later, the zombie turned around and shambled back to the bank where he began to crush the larger objects into small, compact bundles of steel and wire. He laid them side by side on the river bank and stood there, staring off into space.

  “Hey,” Paul said as he walked over. His teeth wouldn’t stop chattering. At the same time, his blood felt stopped up in his veins, so he stamped his feet in order to get the circulation going. “What are you doing?”

  “Cleaning,” replied the zombie. He didn’t seem surprised at Paul’s arrival. In fact, like every other time he’d been spoken to, he acted totally blasé. In a slow and careful move, he pulled a rubber bag from his pocket and began to load the bottles inside. “I like clean places.”

  Looking more closely, Paul could see that it wasn’t a garbage bag. It was a containment suit. CF finished up and hefted the bag over his shoulder.

  “Why are you here?” he suddenly asked.

  For a moment, Paul couldn’t find the right words and fumbled a response between numb lips. “Hey, we got worried about you. Angela and I went out to the city, and, uh, Ooze said you left, so we were, you know, concerned, and we started looking.” Excuse given, he waited and shivered.

  CF nodded, and like most everything else he did, it was a slow and laborious movement. It seemed as if very little air went through the windmills of his mind. “You went out to help…people,” he said.

  “Yeah, that’s right.” Paul didn’t mention anything about the date. “We went and helped people.”

  The zombie offered another nod and started up the side of the riverbank. “That’s good. My way to help is to clean. I know I have to.”

  At least one person wasn’t freezing his butt off in this scenario. The massive zombie began to tramp along the road and Paul followed him, thinking over what he’d just heard. Angela and Ooze knew what to do, but it seemed as though CF had been given a very simple program to follow—clean-up detail. Simple or not, though, it was effective, and the river did look a lot bett
er.

  “Uh, dumb question,” he began, “but how come you decided to start making things all nice and neat all of a sudden?”

  CF continued to shamble along and didn’t speak for a time.

  “I don’t know,” he finally said. “A voice in my head said that I have to keep the house and this place clean. I don’t know the voice, but it said that I had to do it.” He stopped in his tracks, breathing evenly. “Did I do a good job?”

  In spite of his half-frozen condition, Paul couldn’t help but to smile. “Yeah, you did a great job. Let’s go home.”

  Back at the house, Angela had already arrived and was sitting with Ooze on the couch. When Paul entered, shivering and the color leeched from his face, Angela walked over to him. “Now you look like me,” she whispered into his ear, her voice husky and low. “C’mon. You need to get warm.”

  She pulled him over to the sofa, searched through the cabinet, and brought out a couple of blankets. After wrapping them around him, Paul started to nod off. Before passing out, though, he heard Ooze say, “CF, I don’t mind if you’re going to tidy up, but use some trash bags next time, will you?”

  * * * *

  Early the next morning, Paul started awake and remembered the search from the previous evening. No way would he ever go out at midnight again, not without warmer clothes, at any rate. Sitting up in bed, he breathed out a cold plume of air. When he tried to move, he felt stiff and sore all over. As he put his feet on the cold floor and stood up, every muscle in his body protested. Don’t hurt us, they seemed to say, but sorry, he had to get moving.

  Shucking his clothes, he padded over to the shower room. As he cleaned up, he thought about the previous night. Seeing Angela in action, her moves lightning fast, her manner fearless—this was his kind of person.

  Almost getting kissed was the icing on the cake. He only hoped the next date would be better, but a little less painful and a lot more romantic.

  The house was quiet. Since the inhabitants were asleep or at least at rest, he crept downstairs, hauled some fresh clothes out of the dresser, and donning them, felt like a new day had dawned.

  It had, actually, as he peeked out of the drapes and found that morning had come. Frost lined the window, but he saw a few cars drive by and some of the town’s inhabitants passed by without giving the house a second glance.

  Should he risk going out for a quick walk? He wanted to, wanted to shout out that he’d found a maybe girlfriend, had the coolest people ever to stay with and…

  “Keep a low profile,” he whispered and shut the drapes.

  Sighing, he made himself a quick breakfast of toast and tea then decided to go to the lab and see if Ooze had pulled anything out of the computer. Paul figured if he had more Internet access, he might be able to find a link between the mysterious doctor and the company. Right now, it was all guesswork.

  Downstairs, a pile of metal and wiring sat on one end of the worktable. Some chemicals in beakers, all colors of the rainbow, sat on the other end. A note was on the keyboard of the laptop. Written in a shaky hand, it said—

  I managed to find two files on the computer. There may be more, but right now I have to go slowly. I’ll keep working on it. Don’t touch the stuff on the worktable. I’m working on something for us. And don’t use the laptop too much. The cooling fan is busted and it overheats really fast.—Ooze

  Paul smiled at the note, fired up the computer and got to work. Soon the documents appeared and he scanned them intently. No other sounds came to disturb him. He wondered if CF ever slept and made a note to ask him about that one day. Eat and clean up, that was his job. It was simple, but at least he was good at it.

  Ooze…he was the genius here, straight up, no lie. Paul was sure he knew more than he let on. He had the expertise, and who knew what he’d come up with next?

  As for the patrols and the adventures, few as they’d been, fun didn’t totally describe them. For the first time in his life, life was fun. Going out and saving the city, kicking the butts of those who deserved to get their butts trashed? Call it totally awesome.

  Finally, his thoughts drifted to Angela. Having a relationship had never been on the menu before, but it would be now.

  Since time was of the essence, Paul resolved to spend no more than thirty minutes each day following leads. The first file he saw had the information on Bolson. His full name was Walter Eric Bolson, age sixty-eight, according to the latest in the files. That was two years ago. Graduated summa cum laude in chemistry, biology and he had another degree in advanced medicine pertaining to cellular makeup.

  He’d worked for a number of universities in his younger days, researching the merits of stem cells for curing various diseases, but had spent the last fifteen years doing research for Rallan, Inc.

  “And what were you doing there?” Paul muttered as he read over the second file.

  This one had to do with the war machines. As before, it detailed their duties on the battlefield…but Bolson had put in his own notes.

  March 25, 2013. There were many failures at first. The cell integrity of the subjects did not hold. They did not exhibit a full range of their powers. There was a shortage of intelligence or motor skills or both.

  The director of operations, Thurmond Simpson, is an aggressive and arrogant man. He demands results, but at the same time he realizes that failures are inevitable. He has met with the owner of the company on numerous occasions and has spoken on my behalf when I asked for more time.

  July 1, 2013. Simpson continues to push me. In turn, I push myself and through continued effort, I have achieved a measure of success. At first, I thought my success with the four subjects would be appreciated.

  I was wrong.

  A number of half-finished sentences appeared, but they didn’t make any sense, so Paul skimmed down to the bottom of the file where Bolson had written his final entry.

  September 17, 2013. I have grown increasingly dissatisfied with the way things are being run at Rallan. Thurmond Simpson had grown extremely cruel and arrogant. The owner of the company, Andres Peterson, is no different. Both of them want to use my creations in a manner contrary to what I intended them for. When I objected to the usage for warfare, they threatened to fire me then have me imprisoned.

  It figured. Bolson had a conscience and the two other men didn’t…

  I know now that my time is short. I am ill and do not have very much time left. I am still in the process of creating life, but I intend for this new kind of life to help all mankind…not eliminate it. I have managed to procure some of the materials needed in order to help me realize my vision…

  After reading through the transcript, incomplete though it was, Paul felt a sense of vindication. There was a connection after all! Bolson had rabbited from the LA branch and the company sent out Simpson and his goons to try and get him back.

  With a sudden stab of insight, Paul realized the agents hadn’t been trying to catch him. They’d been searching for Angela and by extension, the three other creations. Wondering if there were any more links he could use as evidence just in case the cops caught him, he went back to the computer and checked on the downloads.

  One other file popped up. Entitled Cellular Decay in Subjects, it had a number of graphs and chemical equations filling the pages. After scrolling down to the bottom of the third page, he was just about to read it when the computer began to make an audible clicking sound and the screen began to waver, become indistinct…then the file vanished. Only a black screen remained.

  A knock at the door made him turn around. Ooze stood in the doorway, and the water inside him began to bubble once he saw the black screen.

  “Again?” he asked.

  “Yeah, it, um, just happened. I’m sorry. I didn’t use it that long…”

  Ooze waved off his reply and spoke in a mild tone as if he’d been expecting this to happen all along. “Don’t worry. The thing is old and has a lot of mileage on it. Let me at the computer, will ya?”

  After switchin
g positions, Ooze pulled out a disc from the drawer, opened the side slot on the computer, and slid the disc in. “This is my repair disc. It helps with rebooting the hard drive, but the computer’s jury-rigged at best. This is going to take some time, so you might as well crash for a bit.”

  As Paul headed for the doorway, Ooze called out, “Oh, one of the files I managed to download had some information that can help if you and Angela go crime-busting again. I don’t think Sandstorm is the help-a-person-out kind of guy. Don’t ask me why.”

  Everyone was different. “Uh, what’s that you said about some information helping us out?” asked Paul as he swept his hand at the pile of metal and wire then pointed at the chemicals. “Is this it?”

  Ooze slid over. “Yep, that’s it. The chemicals are us, at least, what Bolson made us from, along with stem cells. He passed most of his knowledge on to me, so I’m trying to, uh,” his voice briefly caught and he rubbed his hand around his head, “figure a few things out.”

  A moment later, he sounded more confident. “Now, we come to the best part,” he stated and tapped a few of the pieces of metal and wire with a loving pseudopod. “I’m going to make communication devices. I need a few hours. I’ll rig something up.”

  It sounded like a good plan, but all the same, Paul wondered what would happen if they both got into trouble. After voicing his concerns, a smile formed on Ooze’s face. “Not to worry, bud. I’ll come and pick you up. You saw the van in the garage, didn’t you?”

  “Uh, yeah, I did.” The memory of the secret door flashed back. “Uh, while I was in there I saw a door in the floor. What is that?”

  Ooze’s eyes widened. “I don’t know. I’ll have a look at it later on. Anyway, we’ve got more important things to think about.” He rubbed his hands together and made the motion of handling a steering wheel. “It’s patrol time.”