I Zombie I [Omnibus Edition]

by Jack Wallen

  Whoever was filming the scene zoomed in on the monster’s face. Though the mouth offered a Grand Guignol of the grotesque, it was the sour-milk eyes that stole the macabre show. Lumpy, white orbs stared out useless and motionless. The head of the dead man tilted to the right and then the left.

  “What is that thing doing?”

  “Is it listening for something?”

  “But what?”

  Questions shot across the table from every angle and every possible curiosity. The fainters began to arise and take in the scene once again – only this time with fascination, not fear. John Burgess once again stood.

  “Quiet please. All of your questions will be answered soon enough. What is important now is that you take in this moment. We have changed the very nature of man. Evolution is our toy, our tool, our weapon. Everything we do, from this point forward, is done to further our cause.”

  Another board member stood and swiftly pulled his glasses from the bridge of his gin-blossomed nose. “So… we’re done here?”

  Burgess laughed. “Oh, dear God, no. The show has only just begun. There is an entire population to deal with. We must see how well the citizens deal with their personal apocalypse and how quickly the virus spreads. Our task is complete when the last citizen in this tiny town is either dead or… dare I say, undead. And once we have succeeded here, we then take our special brand of science to another location to ensure the Mengele Virus is viable for large-scale release.”

  Silence again crept over the room. Every eye around the table was locked on John Burgess.

  The slow clap began with L.A. Wenning. As the applause made its way around the table, it evolved into a full-blown ovation. Burgess finally raised his hands to silence the group.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we have made a giant step toward the Zero Day and The Great Cleansing. Soon, the reboot of the human race will be complete”

  Again, the room filled with applause.

  Chapter 16

  Gerand’s return to the lab was barely noticed. Every geek in sight was busy with their eyes buried in microscopes, pouring over data sheets, or running tests on samples returned from the failed subjects. Gerand slipped into his office and pulled the sat phone from the safe. Once the phone was powered up, a simple text was sent:

  signal go

  Once Gerand received confirmation the text was sent, he powered down the phone and tucked it back into the safe. His heart throbbed in his chest. The brilliant scientist was unused to hiding in the shadows. The exhilaration of theft was exhausting. Gerand stepped behind his desk and dropped into his chair.

  “My God I could use a nap.”

  Before Gerand could close his eyes, one of the technicians rudely interrupted.

  “How many times have I told you to please knock?”

  The technician instantly flushed, apologized, and started to pull the door shut.

  “No, no…it’s okay. The moment is already gone.”

  The sheepish lab tech entered the room.

  “Sir, we have confirmation of the first amplification in the wild.”

  Gerand’s pupils enlarged and his skin drew tight with excitement.

  “When? Where? Why didn’t someone come and get me?”

  “I’m terribly sorry sir. We were all so busy; no one was bothering to keep an eye on the monitors. We have the instance recorded.”

  After Gerand’s insistence, the technician led him to a workstation with a high definition, wide-screen monitor attached to a PC. The tech switched the workstation to the recorded feed and rewound to the exact moment of the lip bisection. When the fountain of blood began, the biologists hands unconsciously shot up to protect his mouth.

  “Play it again.” Gerand whispered through his fingers.

  “And again.”

  “What is it, sir?”

  The only reply was for the assistant to, once again, replay the video. Gerand finally grabbed the controls and paused the film right after the zombie’s head was blown apart.

  “Look.” Gerand pointed at the screen, the tip of his finger resting just under the missing face and head of the zombie. “What do you see?”

  The technician looked carefully.

  “A dead zombie? I don’t know. What should I see?”

  Gerand pointed at all of the areas stained with the blood of the ruined beast.

  “What do you make of this?”

  The lab geek stared long and hard, as if he would be tested on the material at the end of class…or as if his life depended upon him having the perfect answer.

  “Honestly, sir, not much.”

  Gerand released a huff. “What color is this blood?”

  “Dark red, almost maroon.”

  “Looks brown to me.”

  Gerand snapped his fingers and pointed at the young man. “Ah hah! And what color should it be?”

  The technician scratched his head. “It’s fresh, it should be bright red.”

  “Exactly. This man was just recently killed. The blood hadn’t time to de-oxygenate – especially not to this level. What does that tell you?”

  The young technicians all stared, doe eyed and blank faced, at Gerand.

  “It means the tissue within the zombie is in a state of rapid decay, which means…?” Gerand drew out the end of the sentence, cuing the lab geeks to finish the thought.

  None complied.

  “It means we’ve succeeded. The Collective demanded a short-term, weaponized virus and we have delivered. Before this zombie had his head removed, he was already in a state of accelerated decay. I can’t give an exact time-frame yet; but once we have that corpse in the lab, we should be able to determine exactly how much time that monster had until he expired.”

  Silence plagued the room.

  “We did it!” Gerand’s shout caused the lab to erupt in celebration.

  “But what about the newly infected subject?”

  The question brought a premature end to the joyous moment.

  Gerand scrambled to the bank of monitors, his hands a flurry of movement over the controls.

  “Someone help me locate that damn thing. And someone retrieve that corpse so we can run the necessary tests!”

  Everyone stood, frozen in place.

  “Now, God damn it, now!”

  Without hesitation, two of the larger technicians ran for the exit, gurney in tow, and the technicians nearest the monitor bank rushed to aid their boss. All else stood back and watched the monitors cycle through the various cameras.

  “There it is. Go back!” Amanda shouted, her short finger pointing forward. “Monitor twelve.”

  Gerand moved over to get a closer look at the feed. The technician cycling feeds on monitor twelve backed up two cameras to reveal the first-ever zombie created in the wild.

  “Look at it. It’s perfect.”

  “Just like in the movies.”

  “How did Romero get it so right?”

  The crowd continued to watch as the zombie stumbled and fumbled its way into the night.

  Chapter 17

  The second I entered the director’s booth, Sonja turned, her eyes wide and white with what I could only guess as shock.

  “You’re not going to believe this shit.” Sonja pointed to the monitor which was still locked on the Mixx feed. On the screen was not Seven-fold, but a younger man. The new character was drenched in dark red blood – as if he’d just stepped out of Caligula’s bath. The flannel pajamas stuck to the flesh of the actor. You could almost smell the coppery assault from all the blood.

  Sonja turned to me. “That’s the first victim of the man in the tie. You have to watch the exchange.” Sonja air quoted the word ‘exchange’.

  The smile that stretched across my face was the love child of the Joker and the Cheshire Cat.

  “Show me.”

  Sonja went to work locating the ‘moment’ in the feed. When it played back I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

  It was absolute brilliance.

  “Do you rea
lize what this means? Post production for this film will be little more than splicing, vocal work, and music. What we are filming is practically editing itself. Holy shit, Sonja, this is big. This is really big.

  I grabbed the headset and punched in Eddie’s number.

  “Eddie, it’s Malcolm. Brilliant job so far. It looks like everyone is starting to awaken. They won’t have any idea they were gassed in the middle of the night. They’ll just assume it’s the next day – only some might have a bit of a migraine. I want you to lead this new guy to another victim. See if you can find someone less likely to beat the crap out of him. Let’s try to keep attacker and victim alive this time.”

  Mixx swung the camera around continuing his line of movement. There were plenty of interior house lights to cut through fog of night. The streets, however, remained empty.

  I placed my hand over the mic. “Sonja, help us out. Find us a new victim.”

  Sonja franticly cycled through the feeds until she found a female. The woman was in the middle of the street on a casual run. She was very fit, quite a lovely sight in the form fitting tights and top. Her breath left her mouth in puffs of white. A pony tail swiftly swished behind her head.

  “That’s good. What’s her location?”

  Sonja tapped her tablet.

  “C-15; but she’s heading in Eddies direction. I’m guessing in about fifteen minutes.”

  “That’ll take too long.”

  “If Eddie leads the zombie her way, it’ll cut the time down to under ten.”

  I relayed Sonja’s information to Eddie who confirmed acknowledgement by changing course toward sector C-15.

  To fill the void, I pulled Sonja over to the desk and removed the schematics from the cardboard tube.

  “What are these?”

  “These, my dear Sonny, should reveal just how Burgess and company are pulling off this little miracle.”

  “How did you get hold of them?”

  I grinned and winked.

  “All it took was a simple show of force. I had Burgess bent over, grabbing his ankles.”

  “In the good way?” Sonja flashed a wicked grin.

  “Have you seen the man?”

  I unrolled the first of the drawings.

  “What the hell?” My voice was barely a whisper.

  “Molecules? What the fuck? Is this a film or a science experiment?” Sonja’s voice fired through the room and bounced off the walls.

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s the chemistry behind the artificial blood they use. Or maybe it’s a code or something. This whole set up is fairly secretive. Seriously, how much do we know about this Zero Day Collective?”

  The more I thought about it, the more I realized I had probably been duped. These plans may well fully detail what is going on – but in some odd code no one could break. The film industry had become a very secretive society in the last few years. With Intellectual Property law suits exploding, people wanted to hold their secrets as close to the chest as possible. The second your secret got out you were last year’s leftovers. Burgess might yet be one of the most brilliant men to ever hold the hand of Hollywood.

  I grabbed another of the drawings and spread it out before us. More of the same stared up from the table.

  Sonja pointed to one particular section of the drawing.

  “That looks like some sort of molecule. Glycoprotein? Matrix protein? Ribonucleoprotein? Membrane matrix? Should that all sound familiar?”

  “Not if you went to the same film school I did. Honey, that’s another language to me.”

  Sonja stared hard at the image and words. She looked back at me and scratched her head.

  “No, seriously, I’ve seen this before. I’m not sure where, but I’ve seen this.”

  She continued staring at the drawing. I returned my attention to the monitors just in time to see Eddie’s camera frame the female runner.

  “Sonja, it’s go time.”

  We took up our positions and readied ourselves for the upcoming action. I had to admit there was a thrill to this process like none other I’ve experienced. This was guerrilla film making, improv at its best. My job really wasn’t so much directing as it was managing cameras and trying to piece together a coherent story line from an entire community of actors waiting for their fifteen minutes.

  I grabbed the headset and tapped the numbers for Mixx’s line.

  “Eddie, you’ve got her in frame. We have two other angles from the wall. Set yourself up so you’re not in their line of sight.”

  Mixx did a graceful, artistic spin with his camera and made his way toward the wall. Once in place, he zoomed in to catch the action up close and undead.

  “Sonja, tap into the two nearest cameras. We’re going to jump between those two angles and Eddie’s.”

  Sonja had both cameras up and ready.

  “Fuck. I wish we could control the pan of those cameras. I’d love to be able to follow this.”

  Before Sonja could finish her thought on the cameras, the zombie did his thing and attacked the runner. The actor made a bold choice and went for more speed than the average zombie.

  “Wow,” Sonja jumped as the actor leaped at the runner. “I’ve never seen a zombie that fast. Well, shit, listen to me; acting as if zombies are real. We’ve been doing horror for too long Malcolm. Too damn long.”

  “Blasphemy girl. Oh Jesus!”

  The zombie had the runner on the pavement, her shoulders pinned under his knees. The woman jerked and squirmed until her right arm was free. The freed arm swung out and clocked the zombie across the jaw. Before the woman could swing another right hook, the zombie grabbed the arm and shoved her index finger into his mouth and clamped down. The woman screamed out and pulled with all of her might. The muscles in the jaws of the zombie flexed and the finger was removed from the hand at the second joint. A fountain of blood sprayed the face of the beast as the woman re-doubled her attempt to escape. To my surprise, the woman managed to toss the zombie to the street and get to her feet. The second her sneakers touched pavement, she bolted. Eddie momentarily gave thought to giving chase, but opted to remain with the zombie.

  “Good call Eddie.” My whisper was as much for me as it was Eddie.

  The camera eye zoomed into an extreme close up of the zombie’s mouth. Blood-soaked lips continued chewing on the finger. Surely the actor was about to spit the prop out and move on. The mouth continued to chew and then, to my shock, swallowed. The next moment would have easily earned Eddie an award for his brilliant work. The zombie slowly turned toward Eddie. With the lens still focused tightly on the mouth, the entire frame consisted of bloody teeth and lips. The teeth chattered for a second and then bloody lips drew back as if the thing took a great sniff of the air. Eddie slowly pulled back on the zoom to reveal the zombie staring his way. The moment sent chills coursing through my veins.

  “Damn that’s sweet.” Sonja’s whisper caught wind and found its way to my ears.

  But then, within a breath, everything went to shit. The zombie roared, stood, and sprinted for Eddie. Gone were the moan and the shambling slow step.

  “Eddie, why are you…” Eddie didn’t move. The zombie split the difference between the space between them and Eddie remained. “Run, Eddie, run!”

  Before Mixx could get to his feet, the damned actor jumped. When the dumb ass came down he took my camera man with him. The six thousand dollar camera tumbled to the ground. By some trick of fate, the lens wound up focused on the fight. The zombie had Eddie’s head in his hands and was smacking it onto the concrete.

  “Jesus fucking Christ! Malcolm, we have to – ”

  Before Sonja could finish the sentence, I was out the door, running for the car.

  “Stay here Sonja. I need you to be my eyes and ears.”

  I slammed the car door shut and pointed the wheels toward sector C-15. Before the car was up to speed, I had my phone out, and Sonja’s number dialed.

  “What’s happening now?”

  “Eddie managed to s
omehow get out from under the son of a bitch and over to the nearest yard. He’s not doing so well. The zombie is back on him but the ground is soft so at least it won’t crack open his skull. Where are you?”

  “On Baker Street. I just crossed Seventh Avenue.”

  The silence could only mean Sonja was checking my location.

  “Next intersection, take a left. First right…take it. Two blocks straight from there you should see Eddie and the zombie.”

  Good girl.

  I hung up and punched the gas. The car’s engine complained a bit, but jumped forward. Knuckles were white on the wheel. Had anyone leaped out in front of me, they wouldn’t survive the collision. At the moment, I didn’t care. My brain was locked on saving Eddie Mixx. In my world, the man was irreplaceable; in the real world, the man had a wife and children. There was no way he was going down on my watch.

  The headlights caught the outline of the two embattled men. The darkness prevented me from seeing who was who. What really mattered was that both figures continued moving. Movement meant Eddie was still alive and kicking.

  I stopped the car on the street and jumped out. Brawling was so far out of my element and weapons were foreign to my hands. Without a thought to consequence, I bolted toward the zombie. As I drew near, I lowered my shoulders and plowed into the moaning man. We rolled across damp, cold grass. Lady luck gave me a little tongue and I wound up on top of the zombie.

  The stench wafting up was horrific.

  “Eddie, you okay?”

  Nothing but a moan from below.

  “Eddie! Get in the car. Are you there? Give me a sign.”

  Nothing.

  “You son of a bitch!” I punctuated the exclamation with a right hook of my own. When my fist met the side of the bastard’s face, the lower jaw disconnected and dropped, useless. The man below me made no sign of noticing his broken jaw, but continued flailing his arms at me.

  “What the fuck?” I hadn’t hit the guy that hard. Hell, I didn’t have the skill or the strength to inflict that kind of damage. Never the less, the thing’s maw now permanently gaped.

  “I’m here Malcolm.”