by Josiah Upton
But the 2/3 that return, the Hybrid Reanimates, don't quite resemble the undead from the days of The End. They can breath, communicate, some can talk. Some can even remember their names and family members, if given certain mental cues. Research estimates that Hybrid Reanimates retain a little over half of their intelligence after they return. Their hair is gone, their skin is gray with dark blue veins, their eyes are white and glazed. But they are still nonetheless very human. And when your teenage child comes back from the dead with a glimmer of recognition in their eyes, and they don't automatically lunge for your throat, it isn't as easy to pull the trigger.
But they still come back from the dead. Their actions are still erratic and violent. The strength of the smallest Hybrid Reanimate is unsurpassed by the strongest of humans. The Rage and Lust of their condition make them a liability for viscous crimes such as murder and rape. And they still hunger for human flesh.
And that is what I am. After years of gleaning only a few clues of my origin, in one class I learn it all. If Hybrid Reanimates keep roughly half of their intelligence when they return, then I must have been a near genius before my transformation. It's the only way to account for my average intelligence now, how I am able to listen and learn, how I could regain mental functioning at such a level so as to act somewhat normal. How my brain allows a certain amount of restraint that would be impossible for the typical Hybrid, to the point that I can even attend school, unnoticed for what I really am, while the rest of my kind are locked up in containment.
I now know how I am different than others like me, and Gibbs thinks I should be grateful for this. But I am not.
My ability to think and restrain myself doesn't make resistance to my desires any easier, just more possible. I'm still driven to crush and destroy every little source of annoyance or frustration. I still can't be within a few yards of an adult female and not have sick thoughts and carnal urges battering me from within. I still hunger for the flesh of humans; beings that once conceived and bore and raised me. Something I once was, before my sickness killed and resurrected me, transforming my very genetic makeup, creating the unnatural freak of nature that I am today.
However different I may be from the average Hybrid Reanimate, I'm still a very far cry from what I'm pretending to be. Too dead to be human, but just alive enough to think and feel. Caught in the middle, with only a cold and bitter shut-in to offer guidance. Right now, as Gibbs's wheelchair slowly rolls out of the kitchen, I feel compelled to shove all of the pig into my mouth, then throw the plates through the gate at his disfigured head. But I'm not that coordinated. And though I could easily disobey his command and devour everything, I don't. Another note is attached at the top of the gate, with that same damn question: Who are you?
I defiantly refuse to answer it out loud, but the words flash through my mind anyway. I've been exercising this routine, this lie, for so long that it's almost impossible to consider any other way of living. I don't even know why I do it, I just do. As if following a silent stranger down a dark and confusing hallway will somehow make more sense the further you go. Gibbs is that silent stranger, and I follow his orders down the stairs and back to the fridge. My prisoner isn't happy about it, but I put the extra helping back in its containers and return to my lonely table at the top of the stairs.
Gibbs is back in the kitchen, rummaging through his own refrigerator. He insists that we eat together, even though we don't actually interact at our shared meals – and we're separated by a heavy steel gate. He rests some food on his lap and wheels over to a table opposite mine. I can smell what he plans to eat as he goes by, some sort of pasta concoction with vegetables. My nose wrinkles. I would call it “human food”, but such a title might needlessly excite my Prisoner.
Occasionally we have training days dedicated to me choking down garbage like that, in case I'm in a situation where not eating what everyone else is eating would raise suspicion. Luckily, today is not one of those days, because that stuff makes me want to vomit. Only raw pig portions for me.
The reason my Prisoner prefers swine is because, so I'm told, it's quite similar to human flesh. And though the brains are the most delectable portion, I do enjoy eating the whole of the pig. Each section has a distinct flavor, and it all comes with its own marinade – the thick and salty blood it was born in. Delicious. I do, however, implement one “normal” culinary aspect into my cuisine, and that is spice. I love spice. Today I have a craving for cayenne, so I grab one of the few spice bottles on my table and dump a liberal amount of the pepper onto a pork lung.
“What became of your sack lunch?” asks Gibbs. He's referring to a meager portion of pig liver I packed this morning, drained of blood and put between two slices of bread. It's supposed to resemble something called a sandwich. While walking home I tossed the bread on the street and shoveled the liver in my mouth.
“It's downstairs,” I lie, picking up the bloody pork lung with my bare hands and bringing it to my mouth. Gibbs stops eating, and looks at my display. I can't see his one remaining eye from under his sunglasses, but I can feel its criticism. Animals don't eat with forks and knives, he always say. Who are you? he'd ask. What does it matter if I eat with my hands? I'm already consuming raw swine organs, I'd think the facade would be beyond hope for this meal. But I know he won't resume eating until I act what he considers civilized. I place the lung back down, almost crushing it into the plate with my anger, and pick up my eating utensils.
The shared but divided space of our two tables falls silent again. He eats his disgusting pasta thing, and I gorge myself on lung, intestines, kidney, skin, and half a heart. I save the best for last, the ultimate in Reanimate fare: Brains. I garnish the top of the wrinkly mass with the pig's own eyeballs, set side by side and facing front, so it appears as though he is looking at me. He's going to watch me eat the last of him. A sort of giggle escapes my mouth.
“Don't play with your food,” chastises Gibbs. He finishes his meal and wheels out of sight, where I hear the sound of running water. He comes rolling back a minute later, retrieving a newspaper from his satchel and placing it on the table. He reads silently for a while, then clears his raspy throat. “How did your medication work today?”
“Well enough,” I say, swallowing my last bite. It was a good meal, but like Gibbs predicted, I'm still very hungry. I always will be. “My symptoms were there, but it was easier to ignore them and focus. I needed to take more than we planned, though.”
“How much?” he asks, still looking down at his paper.
When he was plotting out this ridiculous scheme of a Hybrid Reanimate attending an actual school, he thought one pill every two hours would suffice. But being around all those bodies, the sights and smells... I ended up taking four in the short time I was there. “About four times more.”
Gibbs pushes the newspaper away from himself and slowly rotates his chair to face me, mechanical parts whirring laboriously. “Four times? Are you serious? Do you know how much that stuff costs?” I don't – my parents pay him, and he pays one of his many black market suppliers. Judging from his reaction, though, I can tell it's quite expensive.
But I needed those pills. If I hadn't downed them, someone might be dead right now, and I wouldn't be here. “My dosage needs to go up,” I assert. “If I'm not taking two pills every hour, I won't be able to do this. Maybe, with time and concentration, I can take less, but for now...”
“Okay, okay,” he says tersely, his one hand up in the air. “If that's what you think you will need, I can make it happen. I'll need to contact your folks, though. This will be pretty pricey. And I'll need a new supplier, I won't be able to get that much every month from the guy I use. I think...” He taps the side of his head, deep in concentration. This is the most frantic I've ever seen him. “There is somebody I can use, but...”
He falls still and silent. “But what?” I ask.
“He doesn't make deliveries.”
“So you have to meet him, then.”
“No, you
do.”
“Me?” I ask, filled with confusion and distress. “Why me?”
“Look at me, Zaul – if you can't tell, I don't get out often. And this guy lives about 40 miles away, in Cañon City. You'll need to take a bus out there. And the sooner the better. In fact, I'll call him right now.”
“Wait!” I scream, but he's already wheeling out of the kitchen and into the living room, out of sight. I can't do this. I can't. I've only recently gone from confinement in a basement to surrounding myself with the very objects of vile longing that my Prisoner craves, and that's bad enough. But now, traveling on a public bus loaded with reeking meat sacks, forty miles away to make a black market drug deal with a stranger? That's too much for me. I can't.
My stiff body quivers and shakes, Rage building into a crashing wave. I pound on the steel gate, and attempt to rip it from the wall. It doesn't budge. I growl at Gibbs, whom I can't see, spewing primal groans and snarls that make no sense in the language I took years to relearn. I'm falling apart, and in a way it feels good. I turn to my stupid, pathetic, weak little table – an object that a monster like me shouldn't even bother to use – and toss it down the stairs, hearing it crash at the bottom. Yes, it feels good. I stand at the top of the stairs, body constricted and lungs that once laid lifeless now heaving up and down.
I lose track of time. The animalistic state that I'm reveling in is broken by the whirring motor of Gibbs's returning wheelchair. How ever long I've been standing here, it was long enough for him to make his call. I'm still staring down at the smashed table when I hear him stop at the gate behind me.
“Are you done?” he asks. “All out of your system?”
“Yes,” I grunt, between heavy breaths.
“Good – now go down there and clean up your mess. Then, get ready to leave. We got lucky and he's able to see you today. But if you miss your bus for Cañon City he won't be available again for another week. It leaves in an hour.”
I turn to face him, and briefly consider throwing another fit. Yelling and screaming, finding more things to break. But my eyes catch the note taped to the top of the gate. Time to get back on track, even though I don't know exactly where that track is headed. “What's his name?” I ask.
“Caesar Ortega,” he answers, voice almost cautious as he utters the name. “He's a rough guy, but he's the only one who can get the amount we need. Got his hands in the pharmacy up at the Colorado Territorial Containment Facility. It's stockpiled with plenty of Mortetine, so he can pocket enough without the APA noticing. How much do you have on you right now?”
I pull the bottle out of my pocket and view the contents through the amber hue. “Couple days worth. Why?”
“Take four now, then six more when you get there.”
“What?”
“Trust me – when you meet this guy, you'll be glad you did.”
Chapter 6
After suffocating for almost an hour on the bus ride over, alternating between fits of hungering for my fellow passengers and paralyzing waves of Mortetine-induced nausea, I arrive in Cañon City without incident. The streets are quiet and barren, and many of the buildings seem unoccupied. It almost appears to be a ghost town. The only noticeable amount of activity I see is when the bus comes closer to the edge of the city, where a complex of tan buildings stand behind tall metal fences near the foot of a small mountain range. The Colorado Territorial Containment Facility.
This is where the bus stops – in fact, it is the only stop it makes in the city. Part of me is glad the ride is over, but another is terrified at how close I am to the Facility. It's basically a maximum security prison for Hybrid Reanimates. What I am. If the APA knew what I was, I'd be locked up in there with them. Most of the passengers move towards the complex when they exit the bus, and I quickly realize this is the only industry keeping this city barely alive. Everyone here is somehow involved in containment, and I am a disguised Hybrid among them, on a task to obtain black market Mortetine from one of the Facility's employees. I don't know how Gibbs thought this was going to work.
I go the opposite direction as everyone else, following the handwritten instructions down a string of residential streets just a few blocks away from the Facility. The houses look about as old as the ones in my neighborhood, but nearly all seem abandoned, overrun with patches of grass and dried weeds. Tombstones marking a life that expired long before I came to exist.
I almost pass by the address I'm looking for – the house is just as unkempt as the ones before it, and the number on the curb is almost unreadable. What catches my attention is the muffle of loud music, and the faint scent of human flesh. At first I think it's coming from the next house, which is surprisingly well-kept, but an ancient sign on the address before me reads Ortega. This is where the noise is coming from. I quickly take the Mortetine out of my pocket and shove six in my mouth, then approach the front door.
Just as I am about to knock, the door swings open, the muffled music now blaring loudly out to me. A man is standing in the doorway, his closely cropped hair a silvery-gray, deep lines of premature aging marking his face. His arm is raised above his head and resting on the door jamb, a pistol in his hand with the barrel pointed carelessly in my direction. He dons a mixed look of confusion and irritation. This must be Caesar. I'm glad I took all of that Mortetine.
“Who are you?” I can barely hear him over the obnoxious music blasting from his living room.
“My name is Zaul.”
His bloodshot eyes squint, staring off into the distance as his mind works in ways I cannot see. Then an unreadable expression rolls across his face, and he slams the door. That's it? All this, just to be turned away at the door? The Rage gives only the slightest hint of emergence, and a painful flash rocks my body. Too much Mortetine. I almost turn and hobble away, but then I hear the music shut off and frantic steps moving closer to the door. It opens again, and Caesar is back, gun still in hand. “What?” he asks.
“My – my name is Zaul.”
“Oh,” he says, realization coming to him. “Ohhh... what the hell kinda name is Zaul?”
“It's... my name.” I don't know what else to say. The gun in Caesar's hand demands answers, and prompt ones. He looks me up and down, chuffs his breath sharply, and shakes his head. My very existence seems to offend him, and he doesn't even know what's under my wig and makeup. But I must have passed his test, because he lowers the weapon and stands aside. His gun hand lazily waves me in, and I step through the entryway. No turning back now.
The inside of the house is like the outside – filthy and in disrepair. Trash and heaps of dirty laundry pile up against the walls, making a narrow valley for me to walk through. The paint is peeling, floorboards are creaking, a few of them broken or missing. This place was definitely built before The End, and hasn't been properly maintained since then.
The only recent human touches are the decorations on the wall. Newspaper clippings, large pieces of colored paper with pictures on them. One reminds me of the poster I saw on Vicky Womack's office door, except instead of a student at a desk it's a man lying down in the street, dark blood seeping out of a small hole in his forehead. I gravitate towards the large picture, noticing a caption at the bottom reading Purge The Sludge.
Sludge... I've heard that before. In class Mr. Neal said the blood of the first Reanimates was thick and dark, like sludge, and that a slang term for Hybrid Reanimates is the Sons of Sludge. I take a closer look at the man in the picture, and all of his hair is missing. His skin is gray and his body is marked with dark blue veins. He looks like me. Other pictures and words on the wall mirror this, every single one having something to say about Hybrid Reanimates. All of it negative. All of it depicting and calling for their swift eradication.
“Pretty cool, huh?”
My joints creak as I turn around too fast, almost tripping on myself. Caesar doesn't notice, he's too busy admiring the things on his wall. I take a moment to get a better look at him. He's wearing tattered camouflage pants and a slee
veless shirt, which reads Gerald's Genocide. His exposed arms are covered with more words and pictures in ink, echoing the decor in front of us. He couldn't make it any more blatantly obvious – he hates Hybrid Reanimates. It's all he seems to care about. If he only knew what I was, I'd be finished. No dealings with the APA, no containment. The last thing I would see is the barrel of his gun before a bullet sinks into my skull.
I start to panic. As miserable as my existence is, as cursed as I feel, my natural instinct is to survive. Keep walking down life's dark hallway, hoping there's something worthwhile at the end. But what can I do? Leaving right now would be too suspicious, and even if I manage to get back home, Caesar probably knows where Gibbs's house is...
Gibbs. I can't believe he sent me here. If I make it out of this alive, my condition still a secret, I'm going to find more things to break at home. More guttural obscenities to shout. The Rage culminates, I'm hit with another flash, and I feel the need to sit down. At least the Mortetine will ensure that I don't kill and eat Caesar. In fact, I can barely smell him among all the disgusting scents hanging in the stale air.
“You want some?” Caesar is holding out a small, rolled cylinder of paper, the end on fire and sending a pungent odor to my nose. It looks like a cigarette, something I once read about in a book from the collection in my basement, but this seems a little different. Must be some type of drug. I don't need anymore drugs in me right now.
“No thank you, I have...” I struggle to find the word, another obtained from an ancient basement book, so I can complete my lie. “...ass-tha-mah.” He looks confused – I don't think I said that right. “It's a breathing thing.”
“Huh.” His eyes squint, bringing the paper to his mouth and inhaling deeply; once, twice. Then he pulls a bottle of pills out from his pocket, pops the cap and ingests a few. This man is under the influence of multiple drugs, perhaps mind or mood altering, he has a gun and he's likely willing to shoot a Hybrid Reanimate on the spot. I need to speed this transaction along a little.
