Zombie Factor

by Timothy Stelly Sr

  “I can do that.”

  “I don’t think we’ll go through anything like we did last night, but just in case, Cash went to old man Goodman’s apartment and came back with a saw and a few more shotgun shells.”

  “If we have to run, where will we go?” Tanisha asked. “The roads are blocked, and what will the soldiers do if they stop us?”

  “Probably make us turn back and shelter in place.” Then again, this is the U.S. government and we’re black folks, so there’s no telling, he thought.

  Jenny entered the room and cleared her throat. Once she gained Roy’s attention she asked, “Might I have a word with you in private?”

  “Sure.” Roy turned to Tanisha. “Please excuse me.”

  He followed Jenny into the bathroom. She plugged a cigarette into her mouth and let it dangle as she spoke.

  “Roy, I’m feeling like the odd person out.”

  “We’ve got each other’s backs.”

  “No, you and Cash are best friends and…” She took her lighter from her shirt pocket. “You also have family here. Cash and Valerie look like they’re going to make a go of it. The thing is, you only needed me for one thing, and that was to front off as your hostage in the bank robbery.”

  “Jenny, you’re in with us.”

  “Let me tell you what I’m not. I’m not a snitch, so there’s no need for you to keep me around to insure my silence. I’m like Ned, and I think I’m better off going it alone.” She lit her cigarette and blew out three smoke rings. “I’ll pass on an even cut of the money. Give me ten grand and I’ll be on my way.”

  Roy could not help feeing betrayed. He couldn’t explain his feelings, but for a moment considered the idea that he might have to kill her. Instead he pretended to consider her words before he threw out a counter offer.

  “Five.”

  Jenny nearly dropped her smoke. “Five?”

  “Cash and I are taking all the risk. You bounce and get caught, you can sink us and walk away.”

  Jenny shook her head. “Make it seventy-five hun.”

  “And you’d be content with that?”

  “Beats taking a chance on being seen with you two and the FBI or police discovering I was in on it.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “Wherever the wind blows me.”

  “Jenny, you better think this over carefully. We have a better chance of getting out of here as a group.”

  “I feel differently.” She took a long drag off her cigarette. “You give me my bread and I can go back to my Uncle’s house. You know he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, so I don’t have to worry about his figuring out what’s up. There’s also no need for the cops to drop by his house.”

  Roy bowed his head and rubbed his temples. “Okay, I’ll break you off seventy-five.”

  Jenny came over and hugged him. After their embrace, Roy took her hand and they went into the bedroom where Grace was asleep on the bed with the croaker sack full of money being used as her pillow.

  ***

  6:52 a.m.

  Glen Ullin, North Dakota

  In Glen Ullin, North Dakota it was assumed life would go on as usual. Most of the townsfolk rose an hour or so before the sun and prepared for work. Teens got ready for their bus ride to school in nearby Hebron.

  No one knew about the single-car traffic accident involving twenty-six year-old Jason Burchett. After a night of heavy drinking and revelry he refused to hand over his car keys to one of his less intoxicated passengers. During a driving rainstorm Burchett lost control of his vehicle and skidded into a culvert.

  By the time the three travelers died, became reanimated and made their way east they’d left several dead farm families in their wake. The downpour continued and by the time the undead reached tiny Glen Ullin, it was before the first beam of sunlight. The throng now numbered twenty and they arrived in two waves. Some of the teens thought the approaching mob was some sort of elaborate practical joke until the first victim, a fifteen-year-old developmentally disabled girl, had her neck broken by the beast at the front of the pack.

  A group of two dozen boys made up mostly of athletes, fought gallantly but the outcome was never in doubt. By the time the first bloody and dazed victims reached home, the killer mob was twice its original size. The small volunteer fire and police forces were overwhelmed.

  The National Guard didn’t arrive for another hour and the battle raged for more than eight hours against a group of killers that left many of the soldiers shaken. Having to open fire on and behead women and children was mentally taxing for some of them, and seeing them reanimate didn’t help matters.

  A local farmer used a combine to decapitate several of the ghoulish walkers at one time, which turned the battle in favor of the town defenders. A bonfire was built in the middle of town and the headless bodies were dragged to it and burned.

  Two local National Guardsmen were so overcome by grief they committed suicide, which started the nightmare all over.

  ***

  6:59 a.m.

  100 miles off the east coast of the United States

  The drone of airplane engines roused Olivia Greenbaum from her stupor. Her hands were in her lap cuffed together so tight that the metal shackles left a raw, red bruise. Two stern-faced men dressed in military camouflage were nearby. It was tough for Olivia to raise her head, but she managed to, and what she saw outside her window shocked her.

  There was water as far as she could see.

  She bared her teeth and demanded to know, “Where the hell am I?”

  The guards remained silent, their eyes focused straight ahead, in the fashion of the guards outside of Buckingham Palace.

  Olivia sat up and tried to piece together the recent past. She recalled bits and pieces of her arrest. The scenes played in her head like segments from a film shot through a blue lens and condensed into a series of disconnected jump cuts. She recalled the sound of her bedroom door being kicked in, and at the same time her bedroom window being flooded with the glare of searchlights. More than fifty officers from the FBI and U.S. Treasury Department poured into the million-dollar home she shared with her husband and two college-age sons.

  The agencies involved conducted their search and arrests without warrants and since her house sat off the road in an exclusive neighborhood, none of her neighbors could testify as to the goings on. The family was handcuffed and her husband and two sons were placed into three vans. Olivia was pushed face-down un the back seat of a police cruiser.

  Charges were read to her, but she could not recall what they were. She remembered a man with heavily stained teeth telling her she would be flown to Quantico, Virginia, for questioning. The headache she now suffered from was accompanied by lethargy, and Olivia deduced that she’d been drugged.

  I must have been taken to some sort of warship, probably a retired one…that bastard Benton must have ordered me kidnapped… What about Harmon and our children…? I pray they don’t get tortured…

  Olivia had read about waterboarding and the like, and the very idea frightened her.

  I’d rather be shot outright…

  A tall man wearing an olive-colored officer’s uniform entered. The man’s hair was white, and his skin was covered with acne. He offered up a friendly smile.

  “Good morning, Ms. Greenbaum. My name is Earl Hollingsworth. I suppose you know why you’re here.”

  “I’m falsely accused of being the person who botched the SR-Seven episode.”

  “You are being taken to be debriefed.”

  “Bullshit. You could have taken me to Quantico or placed me under house arrest and done the same thing.”

  “There was the risk of media leaks. Oh, I suppose you know about that.”

  “I haven’t mentioned a word about this debacle to anyone except Benton, Crossfield and Admiral Pederson. Now I want to know why my husband and sons are being held, or have they been killed?”

  “I think you need to focus on your interrogation. We need to know why you
lied about the research data.”

  Greenbaum rose to a kneeling position. “What research data?”

  “You claimed no tainted water sources were found east of Lafayette, California. That wasn’t true.”

  “I accurately reported the data that I received.”

  “The research was either fake or seriously flawed. Contamination, even though in minute traces, was found in California, Idaho, Wyoming and South Dakota.”

  Olivia grew wide-eyed. “I warned them about the possibility of airborne transmission.”

  “Then you were correct. Your zombie friends are making appearances all over the west.” His mouth sagged at the corners. “You do see my point, don’t you?”

  “No.”

  “We need someone to take the fall and no one is more qualified to do that than you.”

  “I will not lie to the American people! I will tell them that I did my best based on the knowledge I had at the time.”

  “It worked for Bush and Cheney, Condi AND Susan Rice, but rest assured you won’t be given the same choice.” The man changed his tone. “Are you hungry, Miss Greenbaum? We’ve prepared steak and lobster, rice pilaf, Cobb salad and baked Alaska. We really rolled out the red carpet for you.”

  Her stomach growled, but she had no appetite.

  “You can take the plate you planned to serve that meal on and shove it…”

  The man’s boot heel caught Olivia in the side of the head and the last thing she remembered was being sucked into a dark pit.

  T W E N T Y – T H R E E

  7:21 a.m.

  Having driven just a few blocks, Jayson Owens realized that he might be making a mistake. Jeeps patrolled the streets of Pittsburg, but they made no stops, not even at the checkpoints that were set up along the three main north-south arteries and on the only two east-west arteries leading out of town. The posts had slowed traffic to a crawl and each car that passed the armed soldiers was given an optic once-over and a picture of the license plate was taken.

  Jayson cruised down Main Street and then detoured along a back road to the Willow Apartments. He figured the National Guard would ignore the area and had been assigned to serve and protect the interests of the well-to-do.

  Jayson flicked on the radio to the all-news channel.

  “…Sightings of what witnesses are describing as zombies, have been reported from several western states. These creatures are described as injured and or deformed, but with the ability to move with the speed and agility of a healthy person. Moreover, the creatures appear to have the strength of one many times stronger. Local police have warned citizens to stay indoors and not to approach any suspicious looking persons.

  “The federal government is calling the reports a hoax, but California’s borders are being sealed off by its neighboring states, and CNN has been running footage all morning of what is alleged to be a zombie attack. The Cable News Network is standing by its story.

  “In local news, a bank robbery in Pittsburg yesterday evening has netted no arrests. FBI investigators assert that most evidence of the robbery was destroyed by fire. The Manager of Pittsburg Community Savings is insuring that the robbers will be caught.

  More bad news from Pittsburg: A train wreck on the city’s border shared with Antioch claimed the lives of more than sixty persons last night…”

  He turned off the radio and deduced that if Roy went anywhere it would be to Grace’s. Over the years Jayson and Grace remained civil to one another, but Roy often shined him on and made wisecracks about his sexual preference. He loved Roy, even though he regarded him as a homophobic hood rat.

  He recalled a night when he made the mistake of inviting Roy out for a few drinks. After they’d gone through a pitcher of beer, Jayson suggested he go to church so that he might mend the error of his ways.

  “You’re not as crafty a hustler as you think,” he began. “I would hate to see you spend the rest of your life in prison because you’re too lazy to…”

  Roy punched him in his mouth before he could make his summation, called him a faggot, and left him lying on the floor of a bar where he knew nary a soul.

  Jayson shook the memories from his head and turned into the Apartment complex. The place was drearier than he remembered it and when he spotted Grace’s station wagon parked in her stall, he relaxed and stepped from his car.

  The moment he turned the first corner, he regretted his decision, as he stepped into a pile of what looked like human intestinal tract. To his right lay the heads of the two slain police officers. He knew he’d gone too far to turn back and even after he expelled a pool of vomit, he plodded on. He saw the broken windows and the general state of disarray the apartments were in and called out for Grace.

  He waited several seconds then shouted Roy’s name. When he received no answer, he moved warily toward Ned’s apartment.

  “Roy! Grace!”

  Jayson felt the cold barrel of a pistol press against his neck. He heard Roy’s voice behind him.

  “Stop calling my name, cocksucka!”

  “Roy, is that you?”

  “Who else is it gonna be?” Ray answered irritably. “What the hell brings you to this area? You recruiting sell-outs?”

  “I came to warn you.”

  “Warn me about what?”

  “I’d rather we do this behind closed doors.”

  “Go through the door of the apartment behind you,” Roy said, lowering the pistol.

  Jayson raised his hands and marched toward the house.

  “Put your hands down, fool!” Roy yelled. “I’m not holding you hostage.”

  They entered Valerie’s apartment and Jayson turned and took a survey of the people present.

  “Where’s Grace?” He asked.

  “Sleeping.”

  “Can you, Cash and I speak in private?”

  Roy and Cash showed Jayson into Valerie’s bedroom. Cash sat on the end of the bed while Roy and Jayson stood side-by-side.

  “Now what the hell is the meaning of this?” Roy asked.

  “The evidence of you two robbing the bank has been destroyed. All but one DVD.”

  “What makes you think we did it?” Roy snarled.

  “A close-up of one of the frames shows the Seiko watch I purchased for you last Christmas, and your friend’s chain wallet showed up quite nicely, too.”

  “What’d you do, chump, ID us?”

  “I wouldn’t do anything like that,” Jayson said, surprised by his ability to hold his composure and not release the fecal matter that was on the verge of turtle-heading. “I have to return that DVD to my boss at the bank, but I had a friend of mine come over and alter the picture. He made it look like a video malfunction.”

  Roy smiled and clapped Jayson on the back. “Sweet move, cutty.”

  “I’m not finished.” He shifted his eyes from Roy to Cash and then back to Roy. “When I give that DVD to my boss, it will clear you two, but I made a copy for myself.”

  Roy’s smile dissolved. “You did WHAT?”

  “Listen, I’ll give you the copy, under one condition.”

  Roy aimed the gun at Jayson’s head. “Wanna know what happened to the last muthafucka that tried bribing me this morning?”

  “This is not a bribe,” Jayson shot back.

  “Bribe, scam, rip-off. I don’t give a shit which term you use, I ain’t for it!”

  “Roy…cousin…” Jayson looked as if he might start crying. “I love you, bro, and I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life in prison. That’s why I’m holding on to the DVD.”

  “I ain’t feeling you, man!”

  “SHUT UP AND LISTEN, DAMMIT!”

  Roy lowered the gun and bowed in exaggerated fashion. “Please continue, your highness.”

  Jayson composed himself. “If you stay on the straight and narrow, get a job, clean up your life, then after five years I will give you the DVD.”

  “What are you, muthafucka, my social worker?”

  “I’m something a lot more importa
nt. Your flesh and blood.”

  Roy furrowed his brow. “And if I don’t?”

  “I give it to the FBI.” He turned to Cash. “That goes for you, too.”

  “We ain’t got to let you out of here,” Roy answered.

  No one noticed that Grace had entered and was leaning against the wall with her arms folded across her chest.

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” she deadpanned.

  “It would,” Roy said. He took several seconds to regulate his breathing and soften his gaze. “Okay cousin, I guess you did us a solid by messing up that original DVD. Just don’t get ‘em mixed up.”

  “I plan to drop the DVD off at the bank this morning. Nine o’clock sharp.” He looked first at Cash, then Roy. “What are you two going to do?”

  “Maybe you ought to tell us, since you took it upon yourself to map out our future.”

  “We’re leaving here,” Grace said.

  “Where to?” Roy asked.

  “Do tell,” added an equally surprised Cash.

  “South. Somewhere I can find work as a paralegal.”

  Jayson nodded to Roy and Cash, and then gave Grace a hug before stepping to the door. “Wherever you go, you all be safe.”

  Though Cash and Roy mumbled, the three offered a collective, “You, too.”

  ***

  Jayson stepped back into a world that made him shudder. The Willows was dead, period. The landlord would make out handsomely, for the city was willing to pay him market value for the land. All the presence of the demons and death did was expedite matters. This was the way it always went. An area became depressed and the businesses fled, deflating housing values. The city stepped in under the guise of urban renewal, displaced the denizens of a once closely-knit community and replaced it with homes or facilities the old residents couldn’t afford.

  His thoughts went back to a decade earlier, during the housing boom, when the downtown area was allowed to devolve from a neighborhood laden with mom and pop business and affordable homes, to an area where investment was discouraged and the business fell by the wayside. The old homeowners were bought out by developers, whose efforts were subsidized by the city.