by Jack Wallen
Morgan left her post and raced to the truck. She returned to Josh with a bottle of spray and a handful of wipes. “Where are your damn goggles, Josh?” Morgan dressed down her cohort as she sprayed his face and wiped it clean. When the job was complete, she tossed the can of wipes to the ground and, once again, took her position at flank.
“I didn’t think hand-to-hand would come into play,” Josh answered.
Morgan turned and placed her hands on her hips. I almost turned to Rizzo to give her a “duck and cover” warning.
“Joshua Garcia, you’re a founding member of the Zombie Response Team. You know better than that. There’s no room for error at this point.”
“I know. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
Morgan glanced down and then swung a playful slap at Josh’s oversized truck of a chest. “It better not. I don’t want to have to put a bullet through your head.”
The second the words left her mouth, Josh looked over at me and then back at Morgan. Before his gaze met Morgan’s, my throat tightened and my chest heaved. It wasn’t the lingering pain from the loss of Jacob that stung; it was the reminder of the moment…that moment. Watching the bullet leave the gun and crack through the shell of his skull played through my mind almost every day since it happened. The visions had only recently ceased haunting my every waking hour.
There it was again. The look in Jacob’s beautiful brown eyes, begging me to release him from his agony. I could smell the blood, hear the train, see Jacob’s body fall limp to the floor.
Morgan rushed to my side and put her arms around me. She didn’t say a word; she didn’t need to. Josh followed suit and nearly crushed me with his bear-sized arms.
There was so much to say about that particular moment; but the single most important revelation was how well Joshua and Morgan had worked together and how much energy and effort they’d both given to survival. If our entire group could function in such a machine-like manner, there’d be no stopping us. The Zero Day Collective wouldn’t stand a chance.
“All clear,” Joshua called out to the others, as he pulled away from the embrace. “Stand down.”
He picked up the can of wipes, winked at me, swept Morgan from her feet, and asked, “Who loves me?”
“I loves you, baby,” Morgan replied.
“Did any of the splatter get into your eyes or mouth?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, Bethany, I’m good. I know the drill.” Josh answered, and sat Morgan down. “Besides, Morgan hit me with our special sauce.”
“What are you talking about?”
The left side of Joshua’s mouth grinned, leaving the right side to sulk.
“You won’t believe it,” Morgan chimed in. “We discovered this antiviral spray for pets is the best way to wash splatter from the eyes and mouth. It’s disgusting, but it’s worked every time. So far, no ill effects. Of course”—Morgan took a moment to slap Joshua once again—“wearing protective gear is much better than having to get doused. We’ve collected as much of the spray as we could find. It’s all natural, so it’s not harmful. Crazy, I know—but if it works, who cares?”
“It tastes like cat ass,” Joshua spat.
“And just how do you know what cat ass tastes like?”
Josh and Morgan continued their banter as I turned and made my way over to Rizzo.
“That was an amazing throw.”
Rizzo turned and immediately blushed.
“Are you flirting with me? ‘Cause I can flirt back…although I might get a little embarrassed, because I’ve never flirted with anyone as crazy famous as you.”
“I’m not—” I started.
“Oh, shut up,” Rizzo interrupted immediately. “You are celebrity numero uno on this big ball of bad. You’re like…Oprah famous. You’re going to save the world, Bethany Nitshimi. I can feel it. You’re going to pull the human race out of this infectious cesspool and bring about Human Being 2.0. I can see things. When they scooped out part of my brain, I think they left behind—”
“When who scooped out part of your brain?” I couldn’t help but stop the girl.
“The doctors. I’m a survivor. Brain cancer. Two major surgeries. If I can survive that, no way a punky little apocalypse can take me down. That’d be like Celine Dion taking on Henry Rollins. You know what’s really rad about my brain?” Rizzo tilted her head to draw me in close. “Zombies don’t like it,” she whispered. “I guess they think it must be rotten inside or missing something important to them. They take one drawn-out sniff of me, turn, then walk away. So I guess I have some superpowers, wouldn’t ya say? I’m like their kryptonite.”
Logic begged me to argue with Rizzo. How could a zombie sense she’d had part of her brain removed? But then, logic seemed to be losing what little grip on reality it had once had. There was little place for the rational mind now. Chaos, randomness, and anarchy were now the order of law. For all I knew, hidden within Rizzo’s skull was the solution to all of our problems. That solution would probably forever remain a mystery.
“I want to continue this discussion, but first we need to gas up, gather supplies, and get on the road. I want to know all the details, regardless of how insignificant, about your cancer and what was done.” I started to step away but turned back to Rizzo. “This could be big, girlfriend.”
Rizzo’s eyes instantly widened. I started to speak before her smile and wink cut me off. I returned the smile and took off toward the others.
“She’s all ready.” Josh nodded at the Hummer.
“We didn’t find anything edible,” proclaimed Echo.
“Holy cow,” shouted Rizzo. “Did I ever forget one of the most important items I packed? Get a load of this.”
Rizzo raced to the back of her truck and jerked the doors open. From a box she pulled out packages and turned to us with a wide grin. “MREs all around.”
“MREs? What’s that?” Echo asked, amid the mini-celebrations.
“Meal Ready to Eat,” I whispered, not wanting anyone to catch Echo’s lack of familiarity with basic survival gear. “Army food.”
“Food?” A smile sped across Echo’s face and her eyes lit up. “I’ll take twelve, please.”
We decided to indulge ourselves for a moment and eat our meals seated at a table. The MREs were fairly tasteless; at the same time, the thin-sliced roast beef, thin gravy, and even thinner mashed potatoes was the best damned food I’d had in a long time. The table was actually of the picnic variety, but we may as well have been seated in a five-star restaurant. Of course, what really made the moment was the company.
“So, Jamal, what’s your story?” Rizzo chimed in.
“Oh, I don’t really have a story. I’m just, well, me.”
“Horse hockey,” I chided, with a slap to the shoulder. “This man is one of the world’s most elite hackers.”
“Bested only by this woman.” Jamal slapped back as he spoke.
“So,” Rizzo continued with the questions, “are you two…?”
“A thing?” Jamal asked.
Rizzo nodded.
Neither of us replied. How could we answer when we didn’t honestly know? Jamal and I were certainly something. A thing? Who knew? My last thing was Jacob Plummer and that turned apocalyptic—literally and figuratively. More importantly, is it even possible to have a thing now? I wanted it, badly…even needed it. It was so easy to get lost in the day-to-day necessity of living that it became far too easy to forget to actually live.
“It’s complicated,” Jamal started. “We go way back…and forth, and back, and forth.”
Everyone had a laugh, which we certainly needed.
A comfortable silence wafted over the group. It was a moment of peace I so desperately wanted to bottle up and bring out at a later date. For the first time in a while, there were no sounds of unleashed, unlimited madhouse asylum dancing on the night air—it was calm and quiet. Everyone at the table basked in that moment like it might be the last one they’d ever know.
“I want
this second to never end,” Echo said softly.
Nothing else needed saying. The youngest in our group had summed it up to perfection.
chapter 6 | deus ex mortem
Commander Faddig opened the door to the conference room and slammed it shut behind him. The men and women seated around the table jerked their heads his way and fell slack-jawed when they noticed the look on his face. The commander really only had two looks—not pissed and pissed. Not pissed meant you lived.
His face was covered with pissed.
“I have only one question to ask. The person who answers that question honestly gets a reprieve from my wrath. Everyone else, well, you know the drill.”
The drill was simple—injection. Everyone under a certain rank within the Zero Day Collective clearly understood that failing one’s duty meant failing the whole. When you failed the whole you forfeited your right to live. The method of execution was simple—you were infected with the Mengele Virus and put into a holding chamber with the other undead. Zombies were like kindling to the ZDC—they collected them until it became necessary to use them.
Every time a member of the ZDC was punished in such a way, Faddig knew his own zombie horde had grown larger and larger. It was a necessary measure to ensure workers worked, and that the work on the Great Cleansing continued.
“My question is this: when are you going to deliver to me the goddamn mother of that child?”
It was senior biologist Julian Otte who stood to confront the commander.
“Sir, trust me when I tell you, we are almost ready.”
*
Sealed within a surgical cube of the mobile headquarters, Dr. Frederick Norton stood over the reinforced surgical bed. Strapped to the bed was the fourth test subject to be used for the next phase of the Zero Day Collective’s work.
“You are nearly perfect,” Norton said from under his surgical mask. “When we are through with you…well, let’s just say a few crucial tables will turn back in our favor.”
“Who are you?” the test subject demanded.
“As far as you are concerned, I’m God.”
Dr. Norton turned to one of his surgical assistants. “Is the DNA from the infant viable?”
“Yes, sir. We have confirmation it is ninety-nine percent compatible.” The assistant handed Norton a large hypodermic. Within the glass shaft of the hypo, a glistening clear liquid tilted and swirled.
“And the DNA from Subject 001?”
“Yes, sir. The DNA from Subject 001 is ready.” The assistant handed Norton a glass vial.
The doctor inserted the needle of the syringe into the vial and injected the liquid. Once the glass chamber of the hypo was empty, he shook the vial vigorously and once again inserted the needle to draw out the full contents into the syringe.
“What are you doing with that?”
Dr. Norton turned to the test subject. The look in his eyes twinkled a wicked light.
“This? Oh, you see, I call this ‘Deus ex Mortem’; or ‘God from Death.’ Not that it will make you God. No. This makes me God and it does so with a little help from you.” Norton looked to his assistant. “Check his restraints.”
“Please, just let me go. I won’t tell anyone, I swear.”
Norton offered a chuckle. “Why, of course you wouldn’t. Who in the world would you tell? And what would you say to them? ‘The Zero Day Collective is trying to experiment on me!’ That’s a laugh. We’re experimenting on everyone. You see, the world has become my Petri dish. I can do whatever the hell I want, with no repercussions.”
The assistant nodded to the doctor and stepped away from the bed.
The hypodermic refracted a rainbow of light across the room as it was held aloft over the subject. The man’s deep brown eyes went wide as he saw the point of the needle coming to bear on the flesh of his abdomen.
“This is going to hurt,” the doctor said calmly. “A lot.”
The needle plunged into the man’s flesh to the needle hub.
Just as the patient’s scream reached its peak, the doctor raised his hand as if to quiet the man.
“My good man, that’s not the painful part. This is.”
Without any more warning, the doctor depressed the plunger, sending the clear liquid into the subject’s system. After withdrawing it, he stood and placed the hypodermic on the surgical tray. When no flood of pain crashed through his system, the man strapped tight to the bed opened his eyes and relaxed slightly.
Silence, save for the breathing of the patient.
A burst of laughter took Norton by surprise.
“Is that the best you’ve got?” the man spat.
The doctor grinned wide. “Oh, no. Not at all.” Norton glanced at his watch. “Three, two…”
Before the patient could take a moment to bat an eyelash, every ounce of air was stolen from his lungs in a throat-ripping scream. Sinewy arms thrashed against the woven Kevlar bands around his wrists. Powerful legs kicked against the bonds at his ankles.
The scream continued to tear at his vocal cords.
“Doctor, shouldn’t we sedate the patient?” The assistant confronted the doctor.
“No need.”
“But he—”
“I said, no need.”
Again, Dr. Norton glanced at his watch.
“In three, two…”
The room fell silent again. The arms and legs of the patient dropped to the bed. Erratic and shallow breathing were the only signs of continued life.
“Please prep the subject for surgery. We need to get this completed immediately. Dr. Karem is ready in Sterile 02.”
“The plastic surgeon? Why him?”
“Do not ask questions. You’re my assistant and nothing more. If you stick your head too deep in these waters, you will drown. Certainly you understand that?”
The assistant shut her mouth and nodded. Not another word was exchanged before she unlocked the wheels of the bed and rolled the subject out of the room. Norton pulled out his mobile and tapped a button. On the other end of the line, the familiar voice picked up.
“Dr. Otte, the subject has left for the operating room. We’re almost ready for you and commander Faddig.”
*
By the time Faddig and the doctor reached the medical section of the mobile unit, the surgery was underway. Dr. Norton led them both to an adjacent room. With a flourish, Norton drew a curtain back to reveal a glass wall. “Welcome to the theatre of the damned.”
With a flip of a switch, the room was filled with the audio from the surgery. The clank of metal as instruments were dropped into trays of saline offered an off-kilter rhythm to the event.
Dr. Otte looked between Faddig and Norton. “So what is the endgame here?”
Faddig didn’t even offer a glance toward Dr. Otte. “Absolute victory.”
“I don’t understand.”
Faddig turned sharply to Otte, his eyes narrowed to slits, his nostrils flaring in time with his angry breath. “She has eluded us at every turn. We even stole her child and she hasn’t appeared. What is happening in that room assures us that Bethany Nitshimi will find her way back into our waiting arms. This is our insurance policy.”
“This makes us God…” Norton chimed in.
Faddig glared at the doctor until beads of sweat appeared at the doctor’s hairline.
“…makes you God. I’m sorry, commander.”
A spray of blood fountained toward the ceiling of the room.
“Clamp that.” Dr. Karem shouted in time with another stream of blood that shot nearly seven feet into the air. “You fucking idiot. Can you not handle a simple clamp job?”
Dr. Karem looked toward the window of the room and shook his head. Commander Faddig knew exactly how he felt. His entire career with the Zero Day Collective had been an exercise in patience and frustration. The young soldiers couldn’t fight, his biological crew had the aptitude of two children playing doctor, and now the surgical staff couldn’t clamp off a gushing artery.
“
How long will this surgery take?”
“I’m sorry, commander, it’s hard to say. My best guess would be six to eight hours. This is a very delicate and consuming operation. We’re talking about reconstructing an entire face.”
Faddig turned to Dr. Norton. “I don’t care if Dr. Karem were completely reconstructing the genitals of Bigfoot while blindfolded on stilts. This needs to be done yesterday. We are running out of time here.”
“Sir,” Otte stepped in before the moment could shift. “I understand your impatience; but you have to know we are doing our best. It took months to locate the perfect specimen and an equally long period was given to—”
Faddig pressed himself nose-to-nose with Dr. Otte.
“I only truly care about one thing at the moment—getting Nitshimi back into my hands. Until that happens, I am holding you personally accountable for every mistake made. If that surgery fails, everything we have worked for is a wash. Should that be the case, you will take the full brunt of the blame.”
“Yes, sir.”
Faddig slammed the door as he exited. Otte and Norton stood in silence, staring at one another, while the sounds in the surgery suite continued in the background.
chapter 7 | the road to hell and back
“…that was ‘Sentry the Defiant,’ by Coheed and Cambria. It’s amazing how a simple song can carry you away from your circumstance to help you forget the surrounding nightmare. But when I listen to that song, my mind immediately drifts away to our own Sentry, mankind’s Obi Wan—Bethany Nitshimi…”
Everyone in the Hummer went apeshit at the mention of my name. Echo’s arms wrapped tight around my neck, Jamal’s toothy grin consumed my vision, and nearly everyone shouted my name. It took me a moment to quiet them down so I could hear the DJ continue.
