by David Barker
Electro-Thrall Zombie Series, Book 1:
If I Could Die Right Now, I'd be Happy
David Barker
Copyright 2012 by David Barker
"Turn here."
"Here?"
"Ya, here."
Davey Axton turned his copper 1968 Ford F-100 pickup off the heavily wooded main road and down a dark, unmarked private road that looked more like a gap in the brush than a true driveway. No mailbox, no road sign, no indication that it led to anything promising. He hoped it wasn't a mistake.
All the way up the twisting mountain road, Davey had kept feeding Rick Foster questions. Not that he cared about the answers. He was barely listening. He just wanted noise in the cab. The chatter kept his mind off what they might find up at the Doc's estate, and the eeriness of the dark woods surrounding them.
Rick didn't need much coaxing to start pontificating. He was a born motormouth.
"Actually," he had said, continuing the conversation they'd been having the whole drive from Tusk, "The doctor says there are only four legitimate forms of zombie. He calls it his "Unified Theory of Zombification" -- which makes it sound deeper than it really is. According to him, everything else -- all reported zombie incidents -- are either a misidentification of one of these four forms, or bullshit: lies, hallucinations, urban legend, crazy talk. And one of those four forms is itself most likely only a myth. Are you following this?" he asked, looking over at Davey.
"Sure. Four forms. Are you sure we're not going to catch some bad-assed disease just being in the area? I don't want to be chewing on some guy's arm later tonight.
"No way. What did I say?"
"About what?"
"About the dangers, the risks of the various forms? Come on now, this is a test. Have you been hearing anything I've said?"
"Uh ... let's see. They're not all dangerous."
"Right. You got your Bio-Thralls. Biologically induced resurrection of the dead. Highly infectious, spreads like wildfire. The subject ..."
"Subject?"
"The victim. The dead person. The subject develops a ravenous hunger for living human flesh. They have super-human strength. Now those fuckers are seriously dangerous. Fortunately, Bio-Thralldom is a very rare occurrence. You can bet if there was an outbreak, the Center for Disease Control would be all over that immediately. Quarantines, aerial spraying, the military mowing down everything that moves. It'd all be over in five or six hours.
"And Doc Karshton is not doing Bio-Thralls up here?"
"No. He says that's a really stupid way to go. There's no control of the subjects. Who needs a rampaging bunch of decaying corpses eating their way through humanity? It would only be used as a scorched-earth type weapon, nation against nation, or by terrorists that want to cause major mayhem, random death and destruction on a massive scale."
"Or a lunatic."
"Well, yeah, a madman might unleash Bio-Thrall. If they could get their hands on the biologicals. The virus is rare, laboratory-engineered and highly controlled. You may as well try to buy a nuke. Not too likely any of that shit would fall into private hands. This is something you'll only see being unleashed by governments."
"These are the ones that rot and stink, right?"
"Right."
"None of that up here?"
"No."
"Good. That shit freaks me out."
"As it should. And the other three forms are ..."
"Lemme see. Ah ... the chemically induced one, what's it called?"
"Chemo-Thrall."
"Duh. I knew that."
"Focus, Davey."
"And that form of zombification happens to terminally ill cancer patients?"
"No. Not even close. It's chemically induced thralldom."
"Oh, right. They're dangerous, too, right?"
"They are. Think of it as meth for corpses. They are manic as hell, will do anything, although they highly favor destructive activities."
"But they aren't infectious?"
"Not per se. They're unsanitary bastards, get into all kinds of filth and corruption, so you have that incidental disease-spreading potential, but they don't carry any particular infectious agent. There's no single virus or germ you'd catch from them. You wouldn't want to share a Mountain Dew with one."
"Definitely a wipe-the-bottle-with-your-t-shirt situation."
"For sure. But can they be controlled?"
"Uh ... I'd say no."
"You're correct. And the other two forms of Zombie are ...?"
"I'm not done yet with the test?"
"You still have two to go, dude."
"Okay. Give me a minute."
Davey picked at the steering wheel cover with his thumbnail and chewed at his lower lip, to show Rick he was thinking it over. But what was really on his mind was a mental image of Maggie filling a gas tank at pump number 3, her long blonde hair tucked into her red wind breaker, bending over slightly as she leaned towards the car, her rear-end sticking out in tight jeans. It was a painful thought for Davey, because it represented everything he wanted in this world, and that he knew he'd never, ever get. He shook it off and thought about zombies instead.
"Time's up."
"Well, there's the occult version. Created using Black Magic. What are they called?"
"Para-Thralls."
"As in paratroopers?" Davey didn't sound like he had much confidence in that answer.
"No, dumb-ass, as in paranormal."
"Damn, I knew that."
"Sure you did. What were you really thinking about all that time?"
"Maggie."
"Forget her, dude. She's out of reach for you. It'll never happen."
"I know, but I can't forget her."
"There are girls everywhere. Millions of 'em. They're half the damned population."
"Well, if you're taking a simple head count, yes. But there's only one Maggie."
"And you can't have her."
"No I can't. And it's killing me. I don't want to talk about it."
"Fair enough. Can the Para-Thralls be controlled?"
"Yes they can."
"Correct. Why is that?"
"They're raised by a master magician or some guy who's like an expert in the occult, and they're always under his mental control. I mean, that's where they get their life energy; he's feeding it into them, kind of like he's breathing life into them 'cause he's such powerful dude."
"Exactly. Are they dangerous?"
"I guess. Sometimes. Maybe."
"They're as dangerous as the mind that controls them. They do his bidding. If he wants them to be violent, they're violent. If he wants them peaceful, they're peaceful. They do whatever he tells them to do. They're not inherently destructive, like the Bio-Thralls and Chemo-Thralls. They're not going to come after you for no reason. They're basically slaves. If they even exist."
"You don't think they're real?"
"I'm not convinced. The doc thinks they're undiagnosed Bios, or Chemos on a mega-dose, but that doesn't explain the reports of them being -- at times -- passive slaves. You couldn't get a Bio-Thrall or Chemo-Thrall to tie your shoe laces, let along build a bridge or till your field."
"Na, they just want to wreck havoc."
"That's what they're known for."
"Okay, so I got to name one more kind and I pass the test."
"Yeah, just barely. A "D" minus, but passing."
"Okay, the fourth kind is the electrical zombie. The kind that gets raised by a big-assed bolt of lightning."
"Close, but not quite. The corpse is resurrected by a
highly focused electro-magnetic force field, using principals discovered by scientific pioneers like Wilhelm Reich and Nikola Tesla, and put into practice by medical hacks like Karshton."
"The Electro-Thralls."
"So-called. Are they controllable?"
"Crap, how the hell would I know?"
"They are. They're a lot like the alleged Para-Thralls, in that it's fundamentally psychic energy -- heightened by an electro-magnetic force field -- that raises them from the dead in the first place, and they're under the influence of the mind generating that psychic energy for as long as the juice is on, amplifying it. When the power goes out, they go limp like rag dolls. As with the Paras, they're basically dumbshit slaves that do whatever they're told by their master -- the guy in the helmet hooked up to the wires."
"So they're neither good nor bad natured; they're whatever he wants them to be."
"Exactly."
"Okay, tell me this: why are the first two kinds -- the Chemo-Thralls and Bio-Thralls -- called "thralls." Isn't 'thrall' just a fancy word for slave? If they're not under the control of the guy that raised them, why call them thralls? That doesn't seem logical."
"Because they're 'in thrall' to the agent that raised them: whether chemical or biological. They're under its influence."
"And it tells them to raise hell non-stop."
"It does. For the bios, until they're chopped into a million tiny pieces and scattered, and for the chemos, until the funky brew powering them burns out."
"That makes sense. I never thought of it that way."
"What about that other type of zombie I've heard about, the ones where a corpse is rebuilt mechanically by nanobots, where its tissues are reassembled at the cellar level from the decaying material in the dead body?"
"Ah, you would know about that, being a mechanic."
"Grease monkey's more like it."
"The fabled Mechano-Thrall. I don't think that's gone beyond the discussion stage. It's a hell of an engineering problem. You'd have so many technical issues to deal with, and specialized nanobots required to address each issue. I'll bet you a thousand bucks the Mechano-Thrall never gets off the drawing board."
Suddenly, the conversation came to a lull.
Rick rolled down his window, lit a cigarette and laid back in his seat, his eyes closed. Davey fell silent, devoting all his attention to negotiating the hard bumps and twists and turns of the dirt road. Shortly they came to a chain link gate.
"I'll get this," said Rick. "It's not locked."
Rick swung the gate open and got back in the truck, and Davey drove forward. Soon they came to a clearing in the woods that held a sprawling residential complex.
"The doc's humble abode," said Rick.
"What is it, like fifty bedrooms?"
"Try a hundred, at least. Last time I made the grand tour, I lost count."
Rick had Davey park around back where the kitchen and shops were found and they got out of the truck.
"You wait here. I'll go in and make sure the coast is clear."
"Okay."
Davey watched Rick shamble across the muddy parking lot towards the back door. He looked like he'd put on a few more pounds. His stringy black hair now hung half way down his back over a torn plaid wool shirt. Grubby jeans, ragged tennis shoes. He could get away with being a slob because he was a highly skilled geek.
The deal was that Rick was going to try to get Davey hired on as a mechanic, but first Davey wanted to check the place out for himself, in person -- on the sly -- to see if he was comfortable with being on the property. The idea of working for a zombie master kind of gave him the willies. And being this remote, a half hour's drive from town, he would be expected to spend weeknights on site. Weekends he'd be free to spend in town if he wanted, but basically he would be living out here, with a room of his own in the house. It was not a bad deal: good pay, room and board, perks like a heated pool, free coffee, use of the jacuzzi and gym. Rick raved about what a soft touch it was working for Dr. Karshton. And maybe it was.
Still, when Rick first suggested the plan to Davey, he wanted no part of it. He would have to quit his job at the gas station, which meant no more days and nights spent working alongside of Maggie. Shit, he'd never see her again. And even though he would never be able to marry her, couldn't live with her, couldn't even date her, he valued the time they spent together at work. It was better than nothing. He couldn't be her lover, so he was her best friend. And it killed him to be such a pussy, to be hung up on a woman that way, following her around like a love-sick puppy, but that's all he had, and he held onto it like his life depended on it. In a way, it did.
What changed his mind is when Rick said Maggie might be going to work for the doctor as a helper in the kitchen. Rick was trying to talk her into taking the job. Davey knew it would look bad if he followed her here. Everyone would know why he had changed jobs. But if he made the move first, and she followed him here, no one would think twice about it. So he felt he had to do it, make the leap, take the job and get settled in here, and then when Maggie showed up in a couple weeks, why it'd be "Hello there, Magdalena Jenkins, fancy meeting you here." Because he couldn't imagine not having her in his life.
Rick stuck his head out the back door, nodded Davey in.
"Come on. Everybody's gone to bed. We got the run of the place. I'll show you around."
Rick walked him through a bunch of rooms, some furnished, many bare, and down endless corridors. Within minutes, Davey felt lost.
"Where are the zombies?" he asked.
"Not in the house. The doc puts them down at night. They're out in the bunkhouse."
"Seriously, a zombie bunkhouse?"
"Sure. They're not really asleep. More like in a mild coma. When he's done with them for the day, Karshton takes off his head gear, breaks the mental connection, and turns the power down low. With no instructions from him, and very little energy in their bodies, they fall into a torpor."
"I'd like to see that -- I think."
"We can do that. Once we get through this wing, there's a door to the back of the complex. We'll go out there. The bunkhouse is a short walk."
"In the 'sleep' mode, they maintain basic life functions -- blood circulation, breathing, digestion, sexual response -- that autonomic nervous system stuff -- but they're not really conscious."
"Do they dream?" Davey wondered what a zombie would dream about. Being dead? Fond memories of when they were still alive?
"Maybe. No one knows. Probably not, although if they do, I suspect the male zombies are dreaming about the female zombies."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because while they sleep, the males get erections."
Davey bust out laughing. "No shit?"
"Really. It's a hoot. You walk through the bunkhouse at night and you'll see a few males with their sheets popped up like tents."
"Ha!"
"What about the females? Do they get horny for the males?"
"No way to tell."
"I hate to even ask this, but do the males use protection?"
"No need. A female zombie can't conceive. That's never happened."
"Good. Nothing deserves to be born dead."
"Damn straight."
"Maybe it's just a piss hard on, and nothing more."
"Could be."
They arrived at the back door but it was locked.
"That's unusual," said Rick. "The doors are never locked."
"Really?"
"Yeah. This place is so isolated, there's nobody around to break in. Everyone within miles works for the doc."
"Ah well, another time," said Davey.
"Yeah. I've got a better idea. There's six pack in my shop with our name on it."
"That works for me."
Rick's shop was down in a section of the house near where they had entered, not far from the garage where Davey would be working if he hired on.
It was your typical nerd den. Every surface covered with half completed projects, all of the
m electronic in nature. At least a dozen soldering irons laying in pie pans. Posters of half naked movie starlets on the walls, along with monster movie posters. Clusters of action figures on the window sills. Far too many CDs and books everywhere Davey looked.
"So what the hell is it you do here, anyway?"
"I'm basically the electrical maintenance man. I fix short circuits, debug equipment. If a component burns out or won't play nice with the rest of the system, I solve that."
"And you understand how it all works -- the zombie thing -- technically?"
"No. It sounds like voodoo pseudoscience to me, but somehow it works. Doc never tells me the important stuff. I think he's afraid if I know too much, I'll steal his ideas and go into business for myself. Which of course, I would."
Rick moved a pile of electronic manuals off of two swivel chairs, took the sixer out of the frig by his desk, and cracked two beers open, handing one to Davey and keeping the other for himself. They slumped down into their chairs and took long pulls off the beers.
"So what do you think? Are you in?"
