by Jack Wallen
Chapter 21
Undisclosed Location
February, 2015
The computer screen was filled with static and silence, like a ghost had been caught in the Hadron Collider and split into a million billion bits of light.
Static.
“Danielle…”
Static.
“Can you hear…”
Doctor Godwin’s disembodied voice crackled over the speakers.
“Yes, Lindsay, I can.”
“Danielle, I do not have much time, so just listen. What I have been ordered to create will have unknown, untold effects on the very biology of our species. But all is not without hope. Our… no, your sequence might be the only safety net we have. But you must not let anyone know this. Keep the Heizer Sequence a secret or everything you have worked so hard for will be lost. Danielle, there are machinations at work here I never knew existed. Somehow my work has been caught up in a political war between nationalities which I cannot stop.”
“Lindsay, please –”
“Danielle, I am sorry, but I have precious little time. The device is set to be unveiled this December, in Munich. By then I am confident you will have the sequence fully tested. I am going to send you an encryption matrix I developed in order for us to be able to communicate safely. Do not send anything to me unless it is encrypted with this matrix. Do not trust anyone. And, above all, no matter what you may hear or see, do not think ill of me. What I do, I do under duress.”
“But Lindsay –”
“Danielle, I must go. I miss you terribly. I love you.”
The static-filled image of Doctor Godwin blinked out. Not even a ghost remained. The voice was silent, but his words floated gently in the air surrounding Professor Michaels’ head. She wanted so desperately to reach into the monitor and pull her colleague, her lover, through the ether to her side of the world.
Professor Danielle Joy Michaels was unaccustomed to fear. Having such a grasp on the purely logical precluded a need for an irrational fear of the unknown. Because something could not be quantified did not mean that something should be feared. After all, to the scientific mind, the unquantified was nothing more than a challenge to be met, to be bested.
Still… with her standard rationale failing her, Godwin’s words left the taste of fear in her mouth.
Something very bad was about to happen.
Chapter 22
Streets of New York
December, 2015
“I’ve always wanted to know what the U.N. Building looked like,” Dom’s voice carried to each ear of the group. Soon after silence fell, all eyes were locked on the young man.
“What? Just because I’m a football player I’m pegged as ignorant? I was a Rhodes Scholar, thank you very much,” Dom huffed.
Silence fell again, the only sound was the hum of the car’s tires against the pavement. The white fluff of winter mixed with the gray ash of death made a surreal landscape that could have been painted by a depressed Monet.
“How do we get in?” Sellers broke the mood.
“You never pay attention, do you Sellers?” Sam chewed his words in frustration.
Courtney glared at Sam. “Like I can remember every fucking detail with the shit storm around us. Let’s go through the plan again. Fuck you very much.”
There was a sense of hesitation shared between the group. This was the moment most soldiers lived for – the fight, the thrill, the scent of death hanging in the air. The problem was the uncertainty of whose death they were smelling. Each soldier knew they were about to head into what might be the only piece of land more hostile than the streets. Outside the U.N. the danger was the walking dead. Inside? Corporate corruption and political evil. There was no way a horde of zombies could top that.
“What do we do once we’re inside that death trap?” Dirt Bag chimed in with the ten million dollar question.
“Look out!” Dom screamed, but too late for Sam to dodge the Moaner.
The car smacked the undead pedestrian at roughly forty-five miles per hour. The body must have been somewhere in the midst of some serious decomposition, because it exploded on contact. A confetti of flesh and bone went airborne; brown, rotten ooze coated the windshield, making the glass opaque enough that Sam could no longer see the road.
“Wipers! Wipers!” Sellers screamed.
The windshield wipers did nothing more than smear the thick death-smoothie over the glass. Even the washers couldn’t put a dent in the zombie sludge.
Before anything tragic happened, Sam pulled the car over and stepped out.
“What in the hell are you doing, Leamy?” Dirt Bag barked from within the car.
Sam’s intention was to locate something to clean off the windshield. After a quick scan of the area he determined the best, fastest route to clear vision was to rip the shirt off of any given still-dead human on the street.
Out of respect (and a need for a heavier material), Sam opted to disrobe a random, middle-aged male. The shirt was a holdover flannel from the ‘90s grunge area (either that or the man was a lumberjack), so it would do a fine job of getting rid of the goo.
The owner of the shirt had been dead for some time, so removing the clothing was made a challenge thanks to rigor mortis. The freezing temperature did little to help.
The gray ash and white snow easily shook from the clothing and Sam went to work on the glass of the car. With the steady, circular motion of an old pro, Sam scrubbed off the gore. As he was cleaning the wiper blades he heard the warning screams issuing from inside the car.
Too late.
The Screamer had Sam on the ground before he was even cognizant of what was going on. The piercing screech threatened to deafen the soldier, the gnashing jaw to eat him alive – or at least a certain portion of him.
With all of the strength he could muster, Sam pushed up against the undead attacker… but to no avail. The maw of the monster drew dreadfully close to Sam’s neck. With another thrust upward, Sam attempted to dislodge the zombie before the thing tried to make the beast with two backs with him.
Undead lovin’ was not something in Leamy’s boudoir repertoire.
Desperation began to overpower Sam. With every ounce of strength he had remaining, he heaved at the zombie in one last attempt at removing the monster.
The thing wouldn’t budge.
The rotten breath of the beast escaped and poured down over Sam’s face. Another scream was loosed upon the area.
Before the bullet left Sellers’s weapon, the beast’s teeth broke the skin of Sam’s neck. The wound itself wasn’t fatal, just missing the carotid artery. The infection, however, was a different story.
Sellers’s usual, dead-on aim struck the zombie behind the left ear and exploded, in a gush of gore, out of the right side of the head. Thick, sour human gravy splashed Sam’s shoulder and arm.
When the undead assailant went limp, Sam pushed the body off and slowly stood. All eyes, wide with fear, were locked on Sam’s bleeding neck.
“Shit, Sam.” Dom broke the silence.
“That sucks,” Ronald added.
Dirt Bag’s eyebrows shrunk together. “What are we going to do?”
Sellers moped on about shooting one of the zombies sooner.
Sam let the moment extend as long as he could. His conscience finally got the best of him.
“It’s okay. I was vaccinated against the sons a bitches. I’ll be fine.”
Shock and awe.
Every jaw simultaneously dropped to the ground, landing with a surprised and hollow ‘thud’. The word ‘vaccine’ had never been mentioned in the group – especially in the present tense, as in, it is viable now.
“What the fuck? A vaccine? One exists?” Sellers, ever-brazen, was the one to speak the obvious. “Why did we not know this and why have we not been vaccinated?”
Sam immediately understood his mistake, only seconds before he realized there might not be a way to undo said mistake.
“Yes, there is, or was, a vacci
ne. It was experimental. Bethany and Jean were developing it before The Zero Day Collective took them prisoner. We were all given a dose before we came to the States. I don’t really know if I’m safe from the virus or not. I only know I was vaccinated with the same medicine that saved the others,” Sam explained.
“Others? What others?” Dom stepped forward.
“Bethany and Jean, primarily. Look, we really don’t have time for an interrogation. If we make it in and out of the U.N., I can pretty much guarantee you’ll receive the same inoculation. If this rescue fails, so do your chances of avoiding the plague.” Sam let his words sink in as deeply as possible.
The moment could have been revealing – each of the soldiers weighed the pros and cons of their present situation. Trust had become an issue, what with Sam holding back such a bomb as the existence of a vaccination. Fortunately Sam was not dealing with philosophers, moralists, or religious zealots. What he had at his side were soldiers, and when ordered on a mission, soldiers followed – even blindly at times.
“Dibs on the first needle!” Sellers proclaimed, making sure her cohorts knew she was first in line. Everyone knew their softer bits would be in danger, should they try to pry her from that shotgun position.
“Perfect, we can watch and see if Sellers’s balls finally drop and her chest grows hair,” Dirt Bag lobbed out the insult through a deep guffaw.
“I got more balls than you’ll ever have Douche Bag.” Sellers, always the lady.
With the windshield finally clear enough, Sam herded those animals that stepped out for a stretch back into the car. After situating himself back into the driver’s seat, he tore off toward the center of the city.
“So, Sam, who was the suit referring to when he said we had someone on the inside? Was it one of your guys?” Dom broke the silence.
Sam had to think back for a moment. Three people had gone into that building: Bethany, Jean, and Michelle. As far as he knew, none of them were trained to escape a hostile situation. But then, the world itself was a hostile situation and they’d all three made it so far. Each of the captives had survived some serious shit on the streets of Paris. The one advantage they had was knowing how to reach beyond the inhumanity of the undead – the inhumanity of the living was a different story.
“Holy shit!” Sam yelped through a smile that dare outshine the sun. “I know what we need to do. Ladies, we have to level the playing field on the ZDC.” Leamy gave the steering wheel a few good whacks in celebration of his idea.
Chapter 23
U.N. Building New York, NY
December, 2015
I woke in a fog – or at least I believed I was awake. There was no way to be sure, but all around me were gravestones. Each stone was engraved with the name of someone I had either loved, worked with… or both. In the center of the swirling fog was a sizable mausoleum. Chiseled in the stone over the door was the name GODWIN, only the letters were laid out strangely. Instead of each letter running next to one another, the letters were arranged to spell out GOD WIN.
The tomb doors opened with a shuddering creak to shame the best Crypt Keeper horror film. A blast of cold, dark air rushed by, gracing my skin with a goose-flesh kiss.
The entryway greeted me with a veil of cobwebs. The entire scene was a carnival funhouse dedicated to cheap scares, killer clowns, and masked madmen chasing their victims into corners with chain-less chainsaws.
The stone floors chilled my bare feet, and the air grew even colder as I descended into the Earth below. When the stairs ended a strobe light nearly blinded my eyes. Between violent flashes I could make out a crucified zombie in a bloodstained lab coat and glasses.
“Kneel before me. Drop your flesh bag to its knees and offer your soul to me,” the zombie moaned, its jaw desperately trying to remain intact with the skull.
Some unknown power forced me to my knees.
“Gaze into my eyes, and see your truth.” The undead specter’s voice reverberated in my skull.
When our eyes met, a wash of sorrow flooded over my body. Blood tears began uncontrollably pouring from my eyes. I wept openly.
“Yes, my child, release your sins to Godwin, the patron saint of the undead. I am your guide into this new life of pain and fear. Offer up to me that which I require.” The ghostly voice cut through my skull and vibrated my brain.
A scalpel appeared in my right hand. Puppet-like, my hand moved of its own accord, controlled by another master. The scalpel went straight for the skin on my head and sliced around the occipital ridge. With my left hand I slowly peeled back my skin like that of an orange. Blood rained down over my eyes.
A bone saw replaced the scalpel in my hand. My eyes rolled up into my skull as the toothy blade bit into the bone of my head. The sound was like nothing I had ever heard – a giant, robotic mosquito trapped inside my cranium, fighting to escape. The vibrations shook fluids from my nose, mouth, and eyes. This was certainly going to kill me.
After the saw chewed through the entire circumference of my head, I pulled off the top of the brain pan and stood.
“Yes, my child, come and confess your sins so that they may be forgiven,” Zombie Jesus beckoned me from his cross.
I stood and slowly stepped forward until my exposed brain was near enough for Zombie Jesus to reach down and pull out a lobe like it was nothing more than monkey bread. Even without a human au jus, Zombie Jesus put the brain in his mouth and chewed, his milk-white eyes rolling around uselessly in their sockets.
“Forgive me, Zombie, for I have sinned.”
The zombie could do nothing but continue to eat and moan. Piece by piece my gray matter disappeared into the rotten gullet of the undead messiah. As the last morsel of my skull candy was swallowed, the tomb began to violently vibrate. The oscillation of the room was accompanied by a high-pitched noise which brought about a searing pain in the center of what would have been my brain.
“And unto you, a child is born.” Zombie Jesus lifted both of his arms toward me as he spoke.
Without warning, I was pregnant.
Without warning, I was in labor.
Without warning, I gave birth.
The child was born undead. Zombie Jesus handed me a silver-tipped spear and nodded toward the moaning infant. I raised the spear and the words seemed to emanate from everywhere.
“Die zombie die!”
A chorus of disembodied voices sang as I plunged the tip of the spear into the baby. As the baby began singing a horribly out of tune, disjointed rendition of the Hallelujah chorus…
I woke.
The dream wouldn’t leave my conscious mind, which was unusual for me. Generally dreams dribbled away immediately. This one needed to dissipate now or I would be drowning myself in a bathtub filled with hate and self-loathing. The images of me giving myself over to Zombie Jesus were burned into my memory. All I could do was sit in my bed roll to blink and yawn the nightmare away.
When the hazy fog finally cleared from my eyes reality came and smacked me straight in the face. In desperation, I had done something horrible. The young doctor I had infected was still unconscious. Based on the amount of sweat, the rapid breathing and elevated pulse, the infection was already beginning to amplify. What had I done?
Another reality reared its hideous head – this plan had not been thought out beyond this point. I had to do something quickly or the freshly made undead male would wake to do what zombies did best.
I had already given my brain over once to Zombie Jesus – I had no intention of doing so again.
The option with the best outcome would be to time a plea for help just as the zombie came to. This could not look planned, or everything I had worked for would be lost.
It finally dawned on me that what was necessary was completely out of my character. A gun was safely tucked in my desk, to be used for emergency purposes. We all had them… just in case.
This was my just in case.
The most important detail was the timing. I couldn’t just pull out my weapon
and lay waste to the beast as it rested, practically harmless, on the floor of my office. No. This had to look convincingly like self-defense. I had to wait until the beast awoke, made an attempt to attack me, and then send a bullet into the newly born monster’s skull to shred the remaining thought processes traveling across hay-wire synapses.
As crazy as it sounded, that was my plan.
Chapter 24
Streets of New York
December, 2015
The idea developed so quickly in Sam’s brain, it hardly had time to flesh itself out before its owner decided to share.
“We have to open up the U.N. building to a few undead party crashers,” Commander Leamy said with a proud smirk.
“Sweet suicide, Sam, that is fucking brilliant!” Sellers gave the back of her leader’s head a customary ‘atta boy’ whack.
“I don’t get it,” Dom confessed.
“Tactics 101. If the playing field is level, only the most skilled will survive. There are two ways to bring equilibrium to the fight: One – we rid New York of zombies. Two: We lead the zombies into the U.N..” Dirt Bag brought the lesson home. “You see, the ZDC are fighting us and only us. We, on the other hand are fighting them and the festering horde of brain munchers.”
“Difference is, we know how to fight and they don’t.” Ronald nearly giggled his addition.
“And just how are we going –”
Dom’s sentence was cut short when Sam turned the corner onto the block of the U.N. Building.
“Fuck my sister,” Sellers slowly proclaimed.
What they saw went well beyond the realm of bad day, leap frogging over the cataclysmic, and landing directly on doomsday. The entire city block was teeming with the undead. There was hardly room on the streets for movement, the monsters were so thick.
“What in the…”
“How in the…”
“Who in the…”
The questions bounced off of the inside of the car until it seemed there was as much chaos within as there was without. The car stopped, motionless, and finally fell silent as Sam’s brain spun in circles chasing a plan.
