CHAPTER ELEVEN
So, is this good news?
“I think that I need to tell you something,” Bruno said. He knew that it was time to reveal his greatest secret, something that only a few people back in Brazil knew, the ones who had witnessed it when it happened. And he never intended to talk about it with anybody in Europe. But he didn't expect things to come this way.
“Are you sure that it cannot wait a bit? I don't want to sound rude, but I think that my problem is more of an emergency,” said Fiona, who was regaining her sarcasm bit by bit.
“OK, let's go to our place and I will tell you while taking care of your wounds,” Bruno said with admirable calmness that was impossible to resist. So they went to their apartment and while Steve was cleaning Fiona's injuries, Bruno narrated his story to them.
“You see, back in Brazil I used to play football, a lot. It's something that people there like to do. And I was a good player, as well. I would rarely finish a match without scoring at least three goals.”
“Fascinating. I got bitten by zombies and now I have the pleasure of hearing a relevant football story instead of going to the hospital. Please, go on. I'd love to hear the rest. It's not like the alcohol hurts me more.” Apparently Fiona's sarcasm had never left her after all.
“I understand how you feel, but let me finish. As I said, I was a pretty good player. One day, four years ago, we were playing on the beach and, as you can guess, sand makes it harder to run or kick the ball properly. It's a great way to practice. After about 25 minutes in the match, I received a pass from the midfield and I passed the last defender. I was now tête-à-tête with the goalkeeper. I was moving fast and, since he had come forward, I decided to dribble and pass him as well. I kicked the ball lightly and low between his legs and, just when I tried to go around him in order to take the ball and score on the empty goal, he raised his leg.”
“OUCH!” Steve screamed in solidarity and put his hands immediately in front of his crotch as he guessed the rest.
“His knee hit me straight on the balls, so hard that I thought that I would die. I remember that I fell down and people were coming and going, someone shouted 'Call an ambulance', some of them were laughing, at least one threw up, the paramedics took me with a stretcher carefully and, when I opened my eyes again, I was in the hospital, going to the operating room. Luckily, I only lost one of them. I was 16 back then and I haven't been able to look at a football ever since. Or at people playing football. Every time I see someone going for a tackle, I almost feel it on my crotch.”
Steve was shocked. He had stopped cleaning Fiona's wounds and, even though she saw him, she didn't want to bother him. But she managed to say a few words. “That's terrible. I'm very sorry for this. Anyway, you must know already that even with one worker, you can still make a construction, if you know what I mean, right?
“Yes, I know. But anyway, I didn't want to be known as 'that guy with one ball'. It's something that I didn't want anyone to know about.”
“But, without wanting to sound insensitive to your misfortune, how is this relevant to our situation here?” asked Fiona, who had something in mind but she wasn't exactly sure.
“Yesterday, in the bathroom, I felt something that worried me. But after checking it a bit more carefully, I realized that my missing testicle had grown back.”
“What?! How do you know that it's your ball? How is that even possible?” Steve managed to say, not knowing how to feel. For the time being, he was between shocked and sad for the pain his roommate had been through, and shocked and happy for him, even if he had a hard time to believe that a missing part could decide to return all of a sudden.
“Well, first of all, it has the exact same shape as the other one. Second, it hurts when I squeeze it. And third, apparently there is something going on that gives people back their eyesight (Bruno pointed at Fiona) or their blown up heads and arms and legs. So, why not the balls?”
Silence. Bruno looked at Steve whose eyes were looking some place on the floor as he was trying to connect the dots and the floor was helping him organize his thoughts. Fiona was looking at Bruno, unsure about whether she should say what she was thinking. But she said it anyway. “So, you think that my wounds will heal by themselves?”
“In about four to five hours, if my calculations are correct.”
“And if they're not?”
“We will see.”
That was kind of cynical. But Bruno felt confident. Fiona and Steve looked at him and, even if the words weren't exactly comforting, his slight smile was saying “Trust me, I know what I'm doing” in an almost smug way He had his own story to back him up. Bruno continued talking. “We also need to keep an eye on the party outside. We should study their progress and write down our conclusions.”
“Their progress? Didn't you kill them?” Fiona asked innocently, like she had forgotten everything they had said during the previous hours.
“Yes. Twice today and once more yesterday,” Steve said laughing and Bruno laughed with him. It was more of a relieved laughter, after their fears about the future Fiona's injuries were almost proven wrong.
“Well, if the dead can resurrect, I don't think that a few bites in my arms will be a problem, right?”
“Don't forget the balls,” said Steve, who was on a roll all of a sudden.
“The balls AND the eyeballs!” Fiona added, moving her index finger in a circle in front of her brand new, perfectly working eyes.
“Let's not be in a hurry to celebrate yet. I know that we have lots of evidence, but we are scientists. We need to observe more in order to make sure. And, also, we need to experiment.” Bruno pulled those silly kids back to earth, like a good parent.
“Experiment?” Steve said. Bruno tilted slightly his head pointing towards the door, implying that they had their lab zombies waiting to be analyzed by the young and ambitious scientists, who were in front of a rare opportunity.
“Aaaah...” Fiona and Steve said in almost perfect synchronization, raising their heads and lowering them slowly as the tone of their 'aaah' was following.
“I think that we should put them all in Mr Simonnot's apartment and use them every time we need them,” Bruno said in an almost sick way that would make Dr Mengele feel proud. A thunder outside would be a good match to this scene, although Bruno's smile wasn't satanic enough. He didn't even bother to laugh. It seems that the thunder would scare him in the end.
“You know that they are actual persons, right? We can find big trouble with the police if they see what we're about to do,” Fiona said, aware of the danger but still willing to participate.
“But they don't act like persons. What kind of person eats other persons? It's like their brain doesn't function correctly. And besides, it's not a murder if after a few hours they are up and hungry!” Steve said very calmly and convincingly for Bruno and Fiona, who were looking for something to convince themselves with.
“That's it!” Bruno jumped in excitement.
“Exactly. We can kill them as much as we please,” Steve answered, not knowing why it came out so naturally.
“No, I don't talk about this! I think that I know why they act like this! They aren't brain-damaged! Their brain works perfectly!” Bruno suggested and started rubbing his chin again, indicating that he was brainstorming. Alone.
“But...?” Fiona was waiting for Bruno's thought. After proving themselves worthy, Fiona was starting to regret calling Bruno and Steve losers earlier at the entrance. “Oh, wait! Let me think!” said Fiona, who apparently wasn't in much pain. “Their brains are back, just like the rest of their body, right? But they don't act as they were before, when they were alive for the first time. This is because when they die, the brain dies as well and everything gets lost after a bit of time as the brain starts decomposing! It's like deleting everything from the hard drive of a computer! The drive is still there, but all the data are gone!”
“Exactly! They have the body of an adult, but their brains are reset, which make
s them practically newborns. Have you noticed how strong newborns are? If they grab your hair, they don't let go easily. Now imagine this with the strength of a grownup plus a fun bonus: teeth.” The answers to almost everything that was torturing Bruno's mind were starting to reveal themselves. But at the same time, they were creating more questions.
“So, those folks celebrating downtown, probably got various problems fixed out of the blue, right? Can you imagine someone walking for the first time after some years?” Steve said, with the thought giving him goosebumps.
“But who could have done this?” Bruno looked towards the window, a move that would have more of a meaning if the blinds weren't closed.
“Let's find out how first and then we will see who,” Fiona said quite confidently.
“Oh, so now we're a team?” Steve said in a mocking way. Well, this makes you Herm... OH, MY LEG! YOU BROKE IT!”
“Don't worry, it will be fixed in a few hours.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Let's do science stuff!
While Fiona's wounds were getting visibly better, Bruno and Steve took the dead bodies -that were also getting better- from the corridor and put them in the apartment of their many times regenerated neighbor. They closed the door and locked it carefully, checking on each other so that they won't forget again. There was a lot of strange and hard work to be done. The 'eureka' moments had passed and the bad-ass scientists had to work and prove their assumptions. But first there were some other little things to be taken care of. After the door was locked and checked for the fourth time, Steve whispered to Bruno:
“We need to check and see if she's infected.”
“Infected by what? I think that it's clear that they are not zombies,” Bruno answered, finding very weird Steve's idea, especially since Fiona didn't seem to have any physical or mental change.
“How can you be so sure? We can't take risks,” Steve insisted while looking nervously towards their place.
“Look, judging by the facts that she can talk and she isn't trying to eat us, I will dare say that she's perfectly fine and her wounds are also almost gone. So, there's nothing to worry about, let's go back in and see how we will start working.” Bruno moved but Steve stopped him by holding his shoulder.
“Wait a bit. Her brain works because she didn't die. And she isn't attacking us because she just had a sandwich. Mr Simonnot is after us because when you come back from the dead, you are hungry! What if she gets hungry for raw flesh?” Steve suggested and looked at Bruno with is eyes open wide, as if they were saying “If we die, I will kill you.” They didn't make sense, in other words.
“What if you think how stupid you sound?”
“OK. It's your call. But if she tries to eat me, I will blow her head off.”
They entered their place. Fiona was on the couch. “I need to get up. Steve, give me a hand.”
Steve gave her his hand to help her and she instantly bit it while growling like a dog that's fighting for a bone with other smaller dogs. Steve jumped up in surprise and tripped and fell back while Fiona and Bruno burst into laughing. “Come on, silly! I won't eat you! I'm not infected! And don't whisper so loud the next time!”
“You know, it's not funny. Maybe we are in the middle of a very dangerous situation here. Don't joke about it,” Steve said very seriously while supporting himself on his elbows and waiting for the adrenaline rush to pass.
“Try to relax a bit. The only real danger right now is if the police comes for the missing people,” Bruno said. “By the way, how do you explain the fact that outside they are celebrating and in here they are trying to eat us?”
“I have a theory.” Steve stood on one knee and pushed to stand up. He checked at his hand. It was bleeding slightly and had some very obvious bite marks. “Damn it, Fiona. I know that it will be fixed but it hurts! Don't bite me again!” He took a deep breath and he changed his tone, going to his classic serious-like manner. “Anyway, what I think is that some dead guy entered into an apartment and was lucky enough to actually kill everyone who was in there and probably take a bite or two as well. Then, the dead guy returned and they were two and they went to other apartments and slowly they took the whole building. I think that's why when we made all this noise the first time, there were no reactions by the neighbors.”
“So, this is something like an MLM, but with more blood and about the same amount of actual profit?” Fiona asked.
“MLM?” It was expected for Bruno and Steve to ask the exact same thing in the exact same way. They had no idea about Fiona's metaphor.
“Oh, MLM's! Little chocolate balls with some kind of surprise in them!” This one was Steve's creation.
“MLM stands for Multi-Level Marketing. You know, when I have some products to sell and I subscribe you to become members under me and when you sell something I get also some of your profits and you can do this to other people and they are all under me and you get royalties from the ones who are under you and so on?” Fiona explained quickly.
“Oh, like Verbalife and Lioness?” Bruno asked.
“Yes, something like that,” Fiona responded relieved.
“No, this is not something like an MLM then,” said Steve. “This is more like 'I kill you, I eat you, you wake up and we go hunting' and it spreads.”
“So, it's not contagious,” Bruno said.
“In a way, it is,” Steve argued.
“No, it's not,” Fiona contradicted him. “In order for something to be contagious, there must be a virus or other microorganisms that get transmitted by contact. Death is not a disease.”
“In a way, it is. When the victims come back, they are in the same condition as the one who killed them. So, in an indirect way, it is highly contagious, even if no virus is involved,” Steve said, very happy with his paradox.
“But only if you die you get like the zombies,” Bruno said, ready to give up the argument if Steve would insist, only so that he would shut up.
“That's why it's contagious in an indirect way. I think that it's pretty clear,” Steve said, wanting to have the last word in this conversation.
Fiona was sort of disappointed because she had realized that the chances for a decent research had deteriorated, mostly because of her companions who, up until this talk, had shown signs of being good at what they were doing. Apparently they were not exactly ready to become scientists but they didn't lack the potential. So, she decided to not let them fight over how contagious death is and leave, but to stay and help them find out what was going on. With that in mind, she grabbed them by the hands and said “Please, stop arguing! We have more urgent things to take care of right now!” as sweetly -and patiently- as possible.
“Wow, what got into you? We're done,” Steve said in all calmness, almost bored.
“So, what do we do if the police comes and how do we start our research?” Fiona asked.
“If the police comes, our only problem is the blood and the cut off limbs outside. It will be kind of hard to prove that nobody is dead. They will start searching everywhere and the weapons we have in here are not gonna help us much,” Bruno said.
“Wait a minute,” Fiona said. “Let's check on TV. We don't know what's going on outside, other than the party at place de Clichy.”
They turned on the TV. All channels had the same story. In a few hours, every single person in the whole city of Paris got inexplicably rid of any health problems and now there were huge spontaneous celebrations all over the city, with the main ones gathered at the area of the Arc of Triumph.
At the same time, people from all over the world were booking last minute flights in hope that they would also heal from the mysterious power that, apparently, was working only in Paris since there were no similar reports from anywhere else in the world.
Most of the channels were focusing on the happy part of the story, but while zapping, Bruno got a news report about some attacks by previously dead people. Although aggressive, the creatively referred to by the blood-thirsty, fear-loving media
, as zombies, were not dangerous (but they kept calling them zombies anyway). The police suggested that the citizens should keep their distance from them, zombies or otherwise, and be ready to give them food in order to avoid being assaulted. Digging out the dead from the graveyards was highly discouraged, but it was too late since most of the people had already pillaged the graveyards. Some of them took the chance to extract the remains of famous dead people. Unfortunately, Jim Morrison was just as brainless and hungry as his less famous neighbors.
Many doctors were trying to find some helpful information, but the first blood tests didn't reveal anything strange. They also supposed that the resurrected persons' brains are equal to those of a newborn in knowledge, which destroyed the hopes of people being able to have their loved ones near them again.
Of course, nobody had the slightest idea as to what caused these changes in people's health. Even most of the scientists themselves, seemed to be more interested in celebrating in the streets than looking for answers in the labs and the TV studios.
Bruno, Steve and Fiona were watching and they were extremely focused in order to get every word out of the mouths of their fellow -as they felt today more than ever- scientists. That's why Fiona's “I have an idea!” caused a little heart attack to the unprepared guys.
She looked at them as they were crawling back to the couch. It was weird of them to get so startled, especially since they are used to all kind of surprises on that couch, with all the games and the sudden zombie attacks. She waited for them to sit before speaking. “Did you hear anything about animals?” Steve and Bruno looked at each other. Not a word could come out.
“What do you suggest?” Steve asked.
“There was no report about if this thing that makes us heal to perfect health, does the same for animals,” responded Fiona, smiling satisfied with her brilliant thought and ready to be accepted as the leader of the group.
Halfway back - Bruno, Steve and Fiona's adventure against zombies that may not be zombies and the secret behind them Page 5
