by TW Brown
More coffee? Alec thought dubiously. Jeremy had been downing the Haitian Rouge like they had an endless supply. If all of their customers were that enthusiastic about it, it would likely become a staple at the Cabin, but it also meant they might run dry quite quickly until they could bring in more, considering their limited sample. He made a point of reminding the assistant manager of this, following after him.
“Don’t you think you ought to take it easy on that stuff? We only have so much.”
“Nope—the sign says ‘limited time offer’ and Clyde thinks it will create a bit of a buzz if we run out sooner rather than later. He’s encouraging us all to drink it. You want some?”
Alec shook his head.
“No, man, you know I only drink Hawaiian.” And not the garbage that passes for Hawaiian here, he thought. He was very particular about his coffee. He bought his own beans by the pound and ground them at home. He would probably get an earful from Clyde if their manager ever discovered that he brought his own coffee in with him to the Cabin…in a thermos.
“Ladies?” Jeremy inquired, waving the pot that he had been using to refill his cup.
“No, thank you,” Crystal said politely. “I’ll stick with my tea.”
Nora shook her head vehemently with a look of disgust. “Gm coffee, not organically certified, and not fair trade? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Jeremy shrugged nonchalantly and gave a little laugh. “Suit yourselves. All the more for me.”
Dancing to the music that played inside his head, he returned the pot to its perch and made for the door.
“Time to let in the early birds,” he declared in a sing-song voice. “Get ready, get set...”
He clicked the latch unlocked and darted back behind the counter as the small horde that had gathered outside spilled into the Cabin.
It was a typical morning, with the exception of pushing the new promotional offer. Several of the regulars were wary about trying anything new, but the free muffin drew in the more adventurous souls, and by the end of the rush, the foursome had run through almost all of their ready supply. Jeremy would have to grind more later.
“See? This could be a wonderful seller,” Jeremy commented, somewhat breathlessly, after the last of the early birds headed out the door. The Cabin was quiet now and all but abandoned with the exception of a couple of loners occupying two of the sparse seats at the rear of the shop.
The buxom Crystal glanced at him with anxious eyes. “Jeremy...you don’t look so good. Maybe you should sit down.”
Alec gave him the once over. Crystal was right. Jeremy’s earlier pallor and jitteriness had worsened. He was now a rather unnerving shade of grey, and his limbs were shaking with a constant tremor.
Jeremy returned her stare. His eyes were bloodshot and he was perspiring heavily.
“Maybe you’re right,” he agreed, trying to draw in air in stilted gasps. “Now that you mention it, I don’t feel so good.”
He moved to sit, taking two staggering steps towards a chair, before he clutched at his chest and collapsed on the floor. He began to convulse where he lay.
“Jeremy!” Crystal shrieked, and threw herself onto her knees beside the fallen young man. In a panic, she hurriedly rolled him over. He twitched spastically, his eyes rolled back, his mouth frothing, and his lips turning a distinct shade of blue.
“Jesus!” Alec yelped. “Maybe there was too much damn caffeine in that new coffee. I swear he drank a gallon of that stuff. Do you think he OD’d?”
He knew Crystal had always seemed a touch overly sensitive, but he did not expect to see tears streaming down her face when she stood again.
“I’ll call 911,” she said, as she headed for the phone in the staff room.
After she was out of sight, Jeremy stopped twitching and suddenly lay very still. Nora craned her neck, curious and trying to get a better look.
“Do you think he’s dead?” she pondered aloud.
Alec glared at her. He could not tell if there were any actual concern behind the statement, or if her Machiavellian mind was busy plotting Jeremy’s succession.
“I don’t know—I don’t know any first aid, or CPR. Don’t you? Why don’t you get a closer look?”
Alec knew that little Miss Know-it-All would never be able to resist such a challenge. With a small huff of disdain, she crouched by Jeremy’s still form.
“Of course I know first aid,” she muttered, gazing down at him. “But your gal pal certainly doesn’t. Anyone adept in first aid knows the proper recovery position, and this isn’t it.”
Nora reached down and began to carefully reposition the body. As her arm passed before Jeremy’s placid face, his glassy eyes widened and he lurched forward, sinking his teeth into her flesh. Nora screamed.
She jerked back reflexively, standing again, and then she backpedalled away from Jeremy who was flailing about on the floor once more. This time his movements were stiff and erratic.
“He bit me,” she cried, half moaning, half sobbing, as she clutched at her arm. “He tore a chunk right out of me.”
Still paralysed from shock at what had just happened, Alec stood and gaped, but he could see that Nora had not been exaggerating. There was a hollow in her forearm spurting blood where skin and muscle had once been. Crimson rivulets ran down her hand and dripped off her fingertips. Jeremy, his face splotched with coagulating redness, gnashed his teeth and groaned. The sound was deep and guttural.
Crystal chose that moment to return from the staff room. Spotting the carnage, she gasped, blanched, and clamped a hand to her mouth, either to stifle a scream or to keep herself from puking—Alec was not sure which.
When she finally managed to recover some of her senses, she informed her co-workers that the paramedics were on their way, and she pointed out that someone should bandage Nora’s arm to staunch some of the bleeding until they arrived. She rushed off again to get the first aid kit, also kept in the staffroom.
Her words brought Alec back to reality, but instead of attending to Nora and Jeremy, he swivelled around the room. It was not clear to the others, but he was counting, and looking for signs. He noted the two regular patrons slumped over in their seats, and then glanced over at the sidewalk beyond the large front windows. Several of the early birds would wait for a bus to the other side of town there. A few of the more unhealthy ones, the frail elderly folk, the dramatically unfit and the unusually sickly who had partaken of the Haitian Rouge started to drop there. They collapsed to the pavement, much the same way that Jeremy had toppled to the floor in the Cabin, clutching at their chest or head in obvious pain. Those who remained standing reacted as Crystal and Nora had, calling for help on their cell phones and stooping to see if they could aid the fallen in some way.
Alec could not bear to watch. He dashed over to the front door, clicked the bolt into a locked position, and dropped the blinds over the windows. The screams and chaos outside could be barely heard from the well-insulated interior of the Cabin.
“What the hell are you doing? You’re locking us in here with him!” Nora gestured at the slathering Jeremy who was eying the three of them hungrily from his place on the floor, “And locking the paramedics out!”
Crystal, however, recognized what he was doing.
“No,” she said. “There’s going to be more of them out there than in here. We’re better off keeping them out.”
“My thoughts exactly, Crys, but I wasn’t planning on sticking around. Jeremy’s just a start.” He nodded towards the other two regulars slouched lifelessly in their chairs. “He won’t be alone. I was going to make a break for it out the back, if anyone cares to join me. This job’s not worth that much to me.”
As if on cue, the two other still forms began to shudder and moan very quietly, almost as if they were waking up unhappily from an unexpected sleep. That was enough for Alec. He started for the back exit, giving Jeremy, who was unsuccessfully trying to struggle to his feet, a wide berth.
Alec had not conside
red the fact that the back door did not open directly onto the alleyway behind the Cabin. In order to get to that exit, one had to pass through a short corridor that served as access to the stockroom and Clyde’s office. When he stepped into that hallway, he could clearly make out the sound of a low throaty growl. The gears in Alec’s mind began to churn.
Clyde...in the office doing paperwork...prime candidate for a heart attack or stroke...thermos pitcher full of the new Haitian blend—Alec put the pieces all together, despite his befuddled state. This was fortunate for him, because it meant that he had already begun to close the door again as the bulky form of his manager emerged from the office and lurched unsteadily towards him, pus leaking from his eye sockets and bloody spittle flecking from his lips. He looked much worse than Jeremy, his skin a mottled greyish-yellow colour, and dried blood crusted around every orifice. Although equally shaky, he also moved much faster than Jeremy.
Gagging, and then reining in a wave of nausea, Alec hurriedly finished closing the door just before the shambling Clyde reached him. There was a loud thud as Clyde’s heavy body collided with the opposite side of the door, followed by quiet scraping sounds as the dead-looking man tried to claw his way through. His breath coming in frantic gasps, Alec turned to look at the two women who were standing well away from Jeremy, avoiding the assistant manager’s flailing limbs and attempts to grab at them.
“We’re not getting out that way,” Alec informed them.
Crystal had fetched the first aid kit and was binding Nora’s arm. The scrawny woman was looking paler than her normally pasty shade, and Alec was hopeful that this was just because of blood loss. He was unsure if whatever afflicted Jeremy, Clyde, and some of the early birds could be transferred by a bite. That thought drew his attention another way, and he glanced over at the two regulars who had been slumped in front of their half-eaten muffins. They were continuing to stir, and looking a little more animated.
“Great,” complained Nora. “We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place—and trapped here with whatever it is that Jeremy has become. What the hell are we going to do now?” She did not want to say zombie, no matter how many horror movies she had seen. That would be defining the situation in a way that her fractured psyche did not want to accept.
Alec glanced around the shop, surprised that Nora was redirecting the dilemma back at him, rather than attempting to assume command. Then again, she was not exactly in the best position to concentrate, and Alec had seen her flounder before when faced with circumstances where she could not play the part of the expert.
“Well, for starters,” he suggested, “we need to restrain those three before they try to go for seconds on you, or firsts on me or Crys. I’m thinking if Clyde is any indication, once they’ve had some time to adjust to their transformation, they’re going to get faster, stronger and more determined to eat us.”
“E-eat us?” Crystal stammered. “I thought he bit Nora out of some sort of delirium-induced aggression.”
“Haven’t you ever watched any zombie movies,” Alec said with a snort, waving his hand at Jeremy. The fallen wrangler was still trying to get to his feet, stumbling about clumsily and clearly both severely irate and disoriented. He hissed in their general direction, unable to focus, and reached out for them semi-blindly. “They eat people.”
“Zombies?” she gulped. “You mean he’s dead...I mean, undead?”
Alec nodded as he scooted behind the counter and started unplugging the equipment there. He scooped up a couple of extension cords and shoved them at Crystal and Nora.
“I’m going to grab him and you two have to tie him up. You’ve got to make it fast, or he may get the chance to bite me, too.”
Crystal, however, was hesitant. She stared at Nora fearfully. “Don’t people who get bitten by zombies turn into one,” the buxom girl mumbled.
Nora rolled her eyes, crossed her arms over her flat chest, and headed for the staff room, her nose obviously out of joint.
“Never mind her. She wouldn’t be much help with one arm anyway. If we don’t tie him up, he’s going to start to be a real problem, and there’s no door between us and him.” He could still hear Clyde clawing at the door behind him, and there was some commotion happening in front of the shop, the activity there obscured by the blinds. “Okay? Now!”
Alec leapt at Jeremy and grabbed him by the shoulders, trying to flip him and pin him to the floor. His target fought back with more strength and ferocity than Alec had been expecting, and Jeremy almost overpowered him. As they wrestled violently, Jeremy gnashed his teeth and flailed his bloodied tongue in Alec’s face. Crystal gaped at them, frozen in place. His face reddening from exertion, Alec yelled at her.
“Damn it, Crystal! I can’t hold him off forever! Hurry up!”
Snapping out of her stupor, she rushed over to try and help him. After a few false starts and a great deal of trepidation, she finally looped the extension cords around Jeremy’s wrists and cinched them tight. With a solid jerk, she pulled Jeremy off of Alec and, in unison, Crystal and Alec bound him until they were sure he would not be able to escape.
Jeremy moaned and thrashed helplessly on the floor, frothing at the mouth. His moans were echoed by those of the two regulars that Alec had temporarily forgotten, as they started rising shakily in place.
“Shit!” Alec exclaimed and raced to gather more cords.
Running out of extension cords, he resorted to hacking them off of a couple of the spare coffee urns with the knife they used for slicing bagels. A frightened Crystal followed at his heels, and as he turned to make his way back to his other two targets, Alec collided with her. They fell into a tangled heap, and, red-faced, Alec scrambled back from her, trying not to look at her or to think about where his hand had just made contact with her. He apologized profusely as he refocused on the shuddering forms of the elderly men who were more sluggish than Jeremy had been.
The first one was not that difficult to capture and bind, having some practice from their encounter with Jeremy. But as they were intent on making sure his restraints were secure, the second one had shambled towards them very quietly, and was practically atop Crystal before they knew what had happened. The grey and withered looking man, pus gathering in the hair that grew abundantly out of his ears and nose, grasped his female target by the hair and moved to take a bite out of the flesh in the crook of her neck. With a cry of terror, Alec swung his leg around with as much force as he could muster. His foot made contact with the early bird’s forehead with a sickening crunch, and the frail body was jettisoned backwards. The old man’s already damaged head made contact with the wall behind him, yielding a second unpleasant cracking sound, and, as the zombie toppled, blood and brain-matter spilled from the dent in its skull, leaving a ghastly smear along the wall.
Several minutes later, the breathless pair sat on the floor of the Cabin, as far away from their two captives as possible and clutching at each other. The thought crossed Alec’s mind that he had often fantasized about being in this position, but certainly not under these conditions. Despite his fear, he found Crystal’s presence very stimulating. He began to laugh, both out of nervousness and because of the absurdity of the situation. His mirth was contagious, a need existing to purge themselves of some of the tension of the moment. They were both gasping with peals of laughter and rolling on the floor, holding their sides, when Nora’s pasty face appeared in the staff room doorway.
“You might want to come see this,” she declared coldly. Her usual air of superiority had returned.
Alec and Crystal dragged themselves to their feet and heeded her beckon. When they arrived at the staff room, they found she had set up her laptop while they were hog-tying their co-worker and customer.
“What is it?” Crystal demanded. Nora swivelled the screen to face them.
“I browsed on the various websites that I normally frequent and found something of interest on one of the anti-gm sites I like. It’s an article about the Haitian Rouge. The scientists tha
t developed it had discovered the coffee rust was highly susceptible to saxitoxins,” she said in her “school teacher” voice.
“Saxitoxins?” Alec responded with a shrug.
“Tetraodontidae poison,” Crystal stated quietly. Her two co-workers turned to look at her with a startled expression. She stared back unapologetically. “What? I had to do a year’s worth of science university courses to get into the lab tech program. I took oceanography and I loved it. Puffer fish—it comes from puffer fish.”
“Are you trying to tell me they spliced puffer fish genes into the coffee beans to resist the coffee rust? They made them poisonous?” Alec asked, floored by her words.
“Not exactly—” Nora began. Crystal interrupted.
“Not the fish genes. The puffer fish don’t make their poison. They get it from the shellfish that they eat,” she explained.
“Fish genes, shellfish genes, what’s the difference. They made them poisonous and still expected people to drink it without any side effects. That is so fucked up. Everything that happened here today was fucked up,” Alec scoffed.
“That’s not the worst of it,” Nora continued. “There’s more to the story—”
Once again, Crystal did not let her finish.
“Not shellfish genes either. They get the toxin from an algae bloom. That’s where the genetic material would have come from.”
Nora glared at her.
“What else?” Alec demanded.
“Haitian Rouge was still experimental,” the thin woman said. “It was never approved for sale or put on the market. They wanted the toxin to be extremely mild, enough to deter the coffee rust, but too weak to have any effect on people drinking the coffee. They had not gotten to that point of development when that big earthquake struck—the poison content was inconsistent, mild in some of the beans and concentrated in others. The earthquake destroyed the lab and left its contents vulnerable to looters. From there, somebody started growing it and then distributing it illegally.”
