I Zombie I

by Jack Wallen

  I was left alone. I didn’t miss the irony there. Hell, that same irony just ran up and smashed me in the face. That irony crept up my leg and clamped its vicious fangs on my testicles. Even the thought gave me the chills.

  I hated getting the chills.

  So there I was, standing in the middle of the mess hall, having told the sum total of our little group that I was willingly going to allow myself to become the very thing we were all running from in order to find a cure to save the world, and everyone else seemed to need comforting but me.

  I spelled out that irony, just in case it didn’t get the chance to crawl up my leg and bite my other testicle.

  I wasn’t sure what to do next. I couldn’t have a snack, which was what I normally did when faced with a challenging situation. My comfort food was two slices of whole wheat bread holding in one seriously thick layer of crunchy peanut butter. The only problem was that I knew I’d be able to hold down that tasty snack for about thirty seconds before it would insist on coming back for an encore. And I hated throwing up more than I hated biting irony. So consuming any snack was absolutely out of the question.

  Consuming. Great. A thought popped into my head. How long would it be before the human brain became my one and only comfort food? And for the love of all things fatally sardonic, if I was going to dine on one of our crew. Don’t let it be Bethany. For the first time in a long time, I felt I had a chance for something real. Unless, that is, I chomped on her gray matter first.

  How was that for irony?

  I briefly entertained the idea of chasing after Bethany, but as I knew how little I really understood the human female, I decided that would probably be a serious mistake. Instead, I chose to go back to Room 77. I figured maybe a little news could help. Hell, even seeing that everyone else’s situation was just as dire as ours would help to choke down the bitter pill of despair we had all been forced to ingest.

  On my way to Room 77, a thought crossed my still-processing brain. Eventually, the doctor was going to have to lock me up, otherwise I would wind up ripping everyone to bits to get to that delicious creamy center.

  “Shit! That blows.” My frustration was starting to seriously compound.

  Another jerk of my head caused me to toss a splatter pattern of drool onto one very beige wall. I continued on down the hall of beige-ness, but stopped momentarily to bemoan the fact that I wasn’t ready to go full-moaner yet. That thought urged me to run to the bathroom, grab a towel, and clean up the mess I had made on the wall. I would retain as much humanity as I could for as long as I could.

  Fuck! I just wasn’t ready.

  Chapter 16: Secrets revealed

  The hum of the media room brought some strange comfort. I wasn’t sure why, but the warmth and subtle overtones of the servers and monitors made me feel oddly at home.

  I took in a deep breath. The fired-up electrons in the room made me think of ozone. Tanning beds. I’d probably need one of those in a few days. I was sure my skin would be Dracula-pale soon enough. Again, so much for my chances with Bethany. She just didn’t look like she’d fall for the Goth type.

  I needed a distraction. I glanced at the wall o’ monitors. The list of dead-feed monitors hadn’t changed. The live monitors were all showing bleak scenes of death, destruction, and Mad Max, post-apocalyptic nightmares. The urge hit me to find some evangelical station to see what kind of salvation they were hawking, or better yet, what cross-section of society they were blaming.

  “And God has wrought his vengeance down upon Earth to make us suffer for the sins of homosexuality.” The man wore a white suit and had snow white hair and perfect porcelain teeth. He held his hand up in something resembling the Hitler salute.

  Assholes would blame anyone for anything if it made them seem more righteous. I flipped him off and changed the channel. Ahhh, the power of the remote.

  One particular channel caught my eye. On the green screen behind the newscaster was an image of Dr. Godwin. I quickly punched up the volume.

  “It is believed that the research of this man, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Dr. Lindsay Godwin, may be at the heart of the disaster that seems to have crippled the planet.”

  “Thank you, Elise. I have just arrived here in Munich, where less than forty-eight hours ago Dr. Godwin unveiled his Quantum Fusion Generator to the world. This device was supposed to have been the solution to the ever-expanding threat of global warming. Unfortunately, Dr. Godwin’s device instead opened a veritable Pandora’s Box. The death toll in Munich has yet to be determined. It has been estimated that possibly ninety-nine percent of the total population has been destroyed.”

  “I am with Donald Robinson, our German correspondent. Donald, has there been a definitive answer to what seems like falling snow?”

  “Elise, there is no definitive answer as of yet. But some theories include nuclear fallout, ash from decimated forests, and one rather outside-the-box theory says it is human remains falling from the sky.”

  Silence.

  “Elise, I have just been informed that all living inhabitants in Munich must be evacuated immediately so the government can take care of any remaining threats to the wellbeing of the planet. Everyone is being directed to local airports, where civilians will be transported safely―”

  The newscaster was swiftly taken off screen and the cameraman followed. The newscast flipped back to the original anchorwoman, Elise, who was staring rather stoically at the camera.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we are urging you not to panic…”

  I turned the sound down. The woman’s voice was beginning to annoy me, and her lies were really pissing me off. I wanted to get on the late-night news and inform the good citizens of planet Earth that it was, in fact, time to panic.

  “Oh, wouldn’t that be great?” The idea hit me like a storm front moving across Kansas. A quick scan of the room and I knew I had everything necessary. An HD camera and a satellite uplink were all I needed to broadcast the truth. The only trick would be to spoof my signal so no one would know where it originated.

  I realized immediately it sounded so crazy. What I was thinking of doing was illegal on a federal scale. The last thing I wanted was to be the first moaner locked away in prison, if I made it that long. On top of that, I didn’t want to run the risk of the others getting into trouble. They might make it out of this mess.

  “Jacob! Hi.” Bethany’s voice startled me such that it wasn’t just my head that jerked. “I’ve been looking for you. Dr. Godwin suggested I check this room.” There was a slight seriousness to her tone.

  “Here I am.” I tried to lighten up the mood with a convivial tone.

  “Ummm…” Bethany’s eyes searched the floor in front of her bare, polished toes. “I wanted to apologize for running off on you.”

  “You don’t have to, I understand.” I wanted to wrap my arms around her and kiss her deeply.

  “No, I don’t think you do.” Still searching those perfect toes. “You never bothered to ask why I was in Germany.”

  “I never asked because it really isn’t my business.” I wasn’t sure where this conversation was going, but I figured it offered me more time with Bethany, so I didn’t mind letting it play out.

  “I’ve been in hiding most of my life, from various people, agencies, even countries.”

  Now things were getting interesting. The lady had a backstory worth hearing.

  “There are two things you should know about me. The first is why I’m on the run. The second is why you already know me.”

  Now I was confused. “I know you?”

  “First things first. I’m a hacker. Not just any hacker. You’ve probably heard of me, since you’re a reporter and all. I go by the handle ZeroOneZero.”

  Wow. It took no time for the pseudonym to register. I was actually in the presence of hacker royalty, one I had actually written about. “I did a piece on you a while ago. Damn, I thought you were a guy.”

  Bethany blushed. “Yeah, most people do. It was always crucia
l to be completely transparent. The best way to do that was to make everyone think I was male. It’s actually quite easy to portray the weaker sex.” Bethany smiled coyly, even a bit flirtatiously.

  “Absolutely brilliant.” I was impressed on so many levels. “So, what is this mysterious second thing I should know about you?”

  Bethany stared at me for a moment as if she were calculating her reply or anticipating a certain reaction. “Does the name Blythe Edwards ring a bell?”

  That question took me by surprise. There was only one Blythe Edwards that I knew of, and she was one of my primary sources on at least five of my biggest pieces. If there was something Blythe didn’t know about, she could get in touch with someone who did. “How do you know Blythe? And how did you know I would know Blythe?”

  Bethany hesitated. I wasn’t sure if the hesitation was for effect, or if she was stopping to consider if she should continue. “Because I’m Blythe Edwards.”

  There was simply no way.

  “Do I need to prove it to you?”

  Obviously my face had registered my internal reaction. But, of course she needed to prove it. I had never met any of my sources face to face, so no one was ever in any danger. It happened. An informant ratted someone out, and the next thing you knew, said informant was doing the cement-shoe shuffle at the bottom of the River Noir. It sounded horribly clichéd, but it happened.

  But there was one simple question I could ask that would prove, absolutely, if Bethany was Blythe or not.

  “What was the very last thing Blythe Edwards said to me?” I was certain my smile reflected my smug you’ll never get this attitude.

  “It’s been swell, but the swelling’s gone,” Bethany said without even the tiniest hesitation.

  I couldn’t believe it. She was nothing like I thought she would be. I was sure Blythe Edwards was some average, hermit-like librarian who had an infinite amount of loneliness-induced time on her hands that allowed her to do the research she did. Never would I have thought her to be this… delicious.

  “You’re a lot prettier than I thought you’d be.”

  Bethany, aka ZeroOneZero, aka Blythe Edwards, had a smile that lit up the area as if the sun had somehow managed to manifest itself inside the very room we inhabited.

  “But why Germany? Why are you here?” I had to ask.

  “Hello…largest scientific unveiling in our history! Plus…I knew you’d be here.”

  That last bit caught us both off guard. “I mean, I assumed you’d need a lead for something…so I…ummm…you can interrupt any time you like.”

  Being a long-time reporter gave me a spot-on bullshit detector. My bullshit detector was sounding some pretty serious alarms at the moment. I gave her a look that indicated so.

  “Fine. Okay. Fine. Sure, I just had to see you. I hacked into the system our good doctor was using to run his simulations, and I came here to stop the demo. I knew what was going to happen, and so did he.”

  “Yeah, he already confessed that.” It was my turn to stop her dead.

  “Excuse me? He confessed? Why?” Bethany’s voice registered the complaint a few octaves above her usual sultry tone.

  “Whoever funded the operation was threatening to kill his daughter if he didn’t comply.” I spilled the beans all over the place.

  “Wrong! He funded this entire experiment himself, and I can prove it. Is there a computer in this room? Why am I asking? I know there is, I can hear them…smell them…practically taste them.”

  Something in her body language turned feline, like a cat craving catnip. It was as if the very thought of pressing her fingertips to a keyboard was turning her on. I could get used to that.

  I pointed Bethany to one of the machines that had a working network connection. She pulled out a flash drive and held it up with a wicked grin.

  “Linux on a stick. All the power I need to track and crack.” Bethany put the flash drive into the PC’s USB port and rebooted the machine. When the machine booted, a ton of information flew by on the screen. I was no stranger to computers, but I hadn’t seen this before.

  In just a minute or so, the monitor was filled with an unfamiliar desktop. Bethany pulled up a chair, cracked her knuckles in a cliché of ‘90s pop culture hackers, and started banging out keystrokes. A small window opened where she typed:

  ssh -v -l zeroOnezer 27.100.67.50

  More text flew by the screen so quickly I couldn’t catch a single word, if they were words at all. Eventually the text stopped at:

  > enter password

  Bethany tapped out a rather long string of characters before she hit Enter. Eventually, the terminal stopped again at:

  [zeroOnezero@hell]$

  Bethany turned to me and smiled. “You see none of this. Right?”

  I nodded, and she turned back to the screen.

  “Because if you did see any of this, I might have to kill you.” She looked back again and smiled a smile that launched my thousand ships.

  Back at the terminal, Bethany typed:

  godwin_seek_and_destroy.sh

  The cursor sat and blinked a moment, then finally returned:

  unable to create tunnel

  connection failed

  Retry/Abort?

  She hit “R” for retry, but was given the same results. After a third try, Bethany hit “A” for abort.

  “I don’t understand.” Bethany sat and stared at the monitor.

  “What is it you don’t understand?” I was attempting, in my all-too-male way, to comfort the angelic devil in my presence.

  “Do you speak geek?”

  I shook my head in defeat.

  “Then my explanation would go way over your head.”

  She had me there.

  “Layman’s terms?” I prodded.

  “Layman’s terms? I’ll bite. I’m attempting to run a program I wrote to crack into Godwin’s own network. This program never fails; only this time, it’s failing.” Bethany turned back to the keyboard and continued typing, only to get the same response. The tick-tacking of the keys was soothing my brain, probably a latent response any reporter would have.

  Tick tick tick tick.

  “Damn!”

  Tick tick tick tick.

  “Damn!”

  And thus the pattern continued. I stood in silence, marveling at the speed and grace of Bethany’s fingers. Oh, to have fingers that nimble. I would have already churned out a retirement’s worth of novels and a permanent spot on the book club circuits across the globe.

  But instead, I had become a zombie experiment for a doctor who had committed genocide to save his daughter.

  Fuck me.

  “Fuck me!”

  Synchronicity is not just another song on another album by another eighties band.

  “I can’t believe this. I did a trace on the packets I was sending out. They were coming right back. Here! The machine I was trying to break into was the very machine I’m on…only it’s not the same machine…oh, never mind, you wouldn’t understand.”

  Bethany had rebooted the machine which was now back to its original status quo. She was still plugging away at the keyboard when a new window popped open asking for a password. Bethany slipped in a different flash drive and started clicking the mouse like mad.

  “A little brute-force magic and… Voilà! Instant access to his financial records.”

  She was right. Every transaction Doctor Godwin had made over the last five years was recorded. With this information, it was possible to trace every purchase the doctor had made, as well as where the funds had come from. Bethany clicked some buttons, scrolled through some records, and listed out every source of income. There was no record of any outside funding for the device. All funds had been transferred from one account in Godwin’s name to another.

  “Why the lie?” I asked anyone willing to listen.

  “He probably thought it was enough to protect him. Or that no one would ever ask the right questions.”

  My eyes were glued to the brig
ht green of Bethany’s eyes, when it hit me again. Pain shot from my eyes, to the top of my head, and down the backside of my skull. But this time there was more than pain, there was desire. The desire was targeting Bethany. I couldn’t place my finger on precisely what the desire begged for, but it was powerful.

  “Jacob! Jacob, are you okay?” Bethany rushed over to where I was lying on the floor. “Jacob, open your eyes. Talk to me.”

  “Beth…any―Please, don’t let me―”

  Another sharp sword of pain shot through my skull and raced down to my gut as I let out a throat-wrenching scream.

  There was something I wanted to tell Bethany stuck in the back of my mind, something important, some warning to keep her safe and away from me. But the warning wouldn’t escape from my lips. Instead, we shared a moment of concerned silence.

  “Jacob? Jacob, are you okay?” Bethany placed a warm hand on my cheek.

  “Yes. For now.” I thanked my savior and took in a deep lungful of air.

  Whatever was happening to me was getting worse. I hadn’t informed anyone yet, but every time it happened I felt more and more like I was losing myself.

  That wasn’t all.

  When it happened, I was overwhelmed by an urge to destroy everything living around me. I wasn’t sure if it was out of a burning rage, an uncontrollable hunger, or a blinding pain. Regardless, I was starting to worry about my ability to remain around those I cared about. God, if I wound up scooping out Bethany’s sweet meats or munching on Susan’s face, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself. But then, if I reached that stage, would I really care about forgiveness? I’m thinking not.

  And the irony of it all? I felt like sitting through a Romero film festival! You know, to get to know my roots, embrace the real me, take some notes.

  Anyway, we had all the proof we needed to have Dr. Godwin convicted of multiple counts of crazy. The thing was, there was no one to arrest him, and he was most likely everyone’s best chance of survival. On top of that, it looked like I would wind up being a full-blown moaner any day now. So I had to count on that mad man to either stop it from happening or to bring me back if it did happen. And if he couldn’t? It probably wouldn’t matter at that point. But I certainly hoped I got to taste that fuck-stick’s brains before all was said and done.