by Turner, Ivan
Zombies! Episode 8 - The Good, The Bad, and The Zombie
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 by Ivan Turner
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***
What has come before.
The zombie infection began with an experimental bacterium created in a lab in London. The geneticist responsible killed the project after six months, not knowing that he himself harbored a dormant form of the bacterium. After engaging in a short affair with him, Lucy Koplowitz brought the infection back to her family in New York. From then on, it was only a matter of time.
Put in charge of the Zombie Task Force, police lieutenant Anthony Heron has faced both zombies and demons. As reports of zombie incidents across the city increase, the task force is given more money and more men. Heron's schedule has become an impossible eight day a week nightmare that has taken its toll on his psyche. Harried beyond tolerance and obsessed with all of the lives he has been taking, he's gone looking for the humanity in the zombie. When Greg Smith, one of his officers, discovers an unusual zombie, Heron orders it caged at their headquarters rather than at the hospital facility where they've been studied. Lieutenant Heron has quickly become obsessed with this creature.
***
When Linda came out of the bedroom, he could hardly contain his excitement.
"What?" Linda asked.
"You'll never believe it," he told her. "I got a tour of the facility."
Smacking him in the shoulder, she shouted, "No way!"
"They have a place where they cut them to pieces and they call it the Butcher Shop. The place where they hold them is called the Zoo."
"The Zoo? That’s outrageous. Why is it that people have so much trouble respecting a life that isn't their own?"
He shrugged. To be honest, it was a question he'd never asked himself until he'd met Linda. Even then, he hadn't really asked himself the question. He'd just sort of put on a bit of a show to try and win her over. But she was unwinnable. She was devoted to her cause in body and spirit and that devotion was infectious. After three long months of trying to bed her, Mikael Seaver had seen past his petty goals and recognized the importance of what she stood for. And the thing of it was that he was sure she knew. The moment he had sincerely changed track, their relationship had deepened into a strong friendship.
Going over to the computer, he pulled out his cell phone and the USB connector cable. He plugged it in and waited for the familiar alert to come up. After first copying the contents of his camera to the hard drive, he began to inspect them.
"These aren't very good," Linda said, looking over his shoulder.
"It was dark in the Zoo, and I couldn't risk a flash."
In the end, out of sixty three pictures, they decided on four. They had been hoping for more, but the four they chose were good pictures. In the early hours of the morning, they logged onto their server and published their organized content over the web where people all over the world could have a look.
***
"Look at this," Linda said, dropping a newspapaer onto the table. Mikael had been home sick with a cold, desperately frightened that he had caught the zombie infection. He looked at the headline.
"Are they talking about us?"
She nodded, beaming.
"They're calling us the Zombie Rights Association?"
"They even abbreviate it," she said. "They call us the ZRA."
He tapped his finger on the table, thinking about it. "We're not much of an association," he said. "It's just us and the people who've contributed to the site."
"Well," she began, "maybe it's time we did some more and lived up to our name."
***
Linda came home crying.
In all the time Mikael had seen her, he was sure he'd only seen her cry a handful of times. And even when she did cry, he was sure it was for the benefit of someone else. It was almost as if she engineered the tears. But not this time. He was sitting on the ratty futon, watching the television when she came in the door. It was an old episode of Friends, one of his favorite, so he didn’t even bother to look up. But something in the way she was breathing gave her away. He knew her too well.
"I'm fine," she snapped when he asked her about it. She was trying to cover it up. Another person might have been fooled. But not Mikael.
Staring dumbly as she went to her room, he glanced back at the television, then back at the closed door of her room. He didn't know what to do. Their relationship was so unlike any relationship he'd had with any other woman. They were friends. They were roommates. But they weren't lovers. They had never been lovers. And while he was still attracted to her, he'd learned to live with the idea that they would never be together. Or, at least, that's what he told himself.
Mikael went and knocked on her door.
"I'm all right," she said from behind the door.
"Of course you are," he said back. "But I thought you might want to talk about whatever it is that's not bothering you."
He heard her laugh. Then the door opened and she allowed him to see her tears. "Oh, Mikael," she said to him. "A terrible thing happened at Angus."
And that was how it began. Some dumbass kids had discovered that there were zombies there. Of course, Mikael had said again and again that the zombies needed to be kept inside but a lot of others protested. If they locked up the zombies then they were no better than the people running Arthur Conroy. They needed to be "free range zombies". Mikael thought that was stupid, but he was outvoted. So the kids had gone and hunted some zombies, killing a whole lot of them. Not only that, they'd brought the police. Now the police had two cars sitting outside the grounds, always watching for zombie activity. Well, they'd get plenty of that, but Mikael would be damned if he'd show up there himself. He wouldn't let Linda go either.
An argument ensued.
Mikael was a practical fellow and considered the endeavor a write-off. There were still three other locations full of the rescued dead and one other that was at a fraction of capacity. The owner of Angus wouldn't say anything to the police. Mikael was certain of that. They were safe from prosecution and that was the best he could hope for. Too bad that wasn't good enough for Linda.
So they'd had meetings. They'd begun working out a rescue plan.
***
Linda was crying again but this time he knew why. He couldn't believe it. He was watching it on the news but he couldn't believe it. Someone must have known. They had to have known.
A fire had been set at one of their collection sites. One of their zombie safe houses. The entire building had been consumed. Not only that but two firemen had gone inside to rescue the people in there and one of them had lost his life.
Mikael was beginning to have serious doubts about their efforts to save zombie kind. The doctors kept appearing on television and telling people that zombies were dead and that they couldn't be cured. Was it true? Were they simply protecting corpses? No. It was easy to fit them into the stereotype created by Hollywood, but these were real people with real lives and real loved ones. Shouldn't they at least be trying to find a cure?
Still, with what had happened at Angus the week before and now this fire, someone was pushing back hard at the Zombie Rights Association. It scared h
im. He was a young man with a bright future. As much as he, frankly, loved Linda, and as strongly as he felt about her causes, his instinct for self preservation was stronger still. He was determined to call off the rescue plan.
The door to Linda's bedroom opened up and she came out with a tear streaked face and a running nose.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"It's terrible," she said. "It's just terrible."
"I know," he agreed. "But I think, right now…"
"We have to get those people away from Angus right away."
His words died in his throat. Of course that's what they would do. Of course…
***
"Where's Linda?" he said to Rodney as he came down the stairs. Rodney was covered from head to toe in the white bee keeper's suit and smelled of cheap perfume. Cheap perfume confused the zombies' senses. The cheaper the better.
With one gloved hand, Rodney pointed up the staircase.
Mikael, wearing only a T-shirt and a pair of jeans, looked up at the ceiling then back at Rodney. "What does that mean? Is she coming?"
"I don't think so," Rodney said. "She…she's sick."
Mikael might have grabbed him but there was stuff on the suit. Zombie stuff. "You mean she was bitten? How did that happen?"
Rodney shook his head under his helmet. "She didn't get bitten. She's been sick all day. Didn't you notice? You live with her for Christ's sake."
"You need to help me with her," Mikael said, panic stricken. "You need to come back upstairs and help me."
"No can do," Rodney told him. "They need me in the pipe."
The pipe. They'd used the old sewage pipe to sneak onto the grounds of Angus Construction Yard and they were ferrying the zombies out without the cops knowing. It was a great plan. The lives of dozens of zombies would be saved that day. Of course the delivery site wasn't such a great choice. Mikael had never been on board with that.
Mikael pushed past Rodney and went up the stairs, calling for Linda. He found her on the top floor in a small abandoned office. She was sitting on the floor, leaning up against the wall. Blood had bubbled up around her nostrils and her eyes were glassy.
"Linda?" Mikael choked, kneeling next to her. "Come on, Linda. Can you make it?"
She looked at him and her eyes focused for a moment, but he could see that there wasn't much life left in them. Just like that, Mikael realized that it had all been for nothing. He understood now. When you see a faceless, nameless zombie it's easy to find it in your heart to pity it and want to help it. But when it's someone you know, someone you care about, all you want to do is lay it to rest.
Mikael left the room and began looking through the debris in the hallway. He found a two by four with a nail in it and grabbed hold of it. Going back into the room, he hefted it over her head. She looked up at him, but didn't have the strength to move. He didn't even know if she recognized him.
"I'm sorry," he said to her, the piece of wood held high over his head. He was crying now. The tears ran down his face and he had trouble keeping the weapon steady through his convulsive sobs. "But it's all bull shit. All of it. This is the only way. I'm sorry…"
Then he dropped the two by four and fell to his knees once again. For long minutes, he stayed like that, just kneeling on the floor and weeping into his hands. Finally, he managed to compose himself enough to crawl over to her. Her chest rose and fell slowly, her shallow breaths having turned to wheezing rasps.
"I'm sorry," he said again. He wanted to kiss her. He so desperately wanted to kiss her but that would have been the end of him. "I can't do it and I'm sorry. I just…I love you, Linda. Maybe you know that. Maybe not. Just hear me. If it's not bull shit. If you're still you after…after…"
Turning away, he began to cry again. He found his feet and rummaged through the desk. There wasn't much but he found a bunch of discarded stickers. HELLO. My name is… Quickly, he scribbled onto one of the stickers Linda. Please DON'T hurt me. Then he tore it off of the backing and went to her. Sticking it onto her chest, his hand lingered for a moment, feeling the intermittent beats of her heart.
"I'll be waiting for you," he said. "Come back to me if you can."
He moved her under the desk and laid her out as comfortably as possible. She didn't resist. She couldn't resist. Then he tore the tattered drapes from the windows and covered the desk so that she would be hidden from view. He didn't know when the police would come looking but they eventually would. Whatever happened then was…well… He didn't like to think about it.
He didn't say goodbye to her. He couldn't bring himself to do it. Instead, he took a last glance under the drape, replaced it, and left.
***
On Christmas morning, Mikael woke up with a headache. It didn't feel like any kind of headache he'd ever had before and he'd suffered through migraines. Even though he knew it was the zombie plague, he downed four ibuprofen and hoped for the best. While the medicine did help with the headache somewhat, other symptoms began to manifest and he knew that he was a dead man before the clock struck noon. Thinking back over his first experience with zombies in Arthur Conroy Memorial Hospital and through everything since, he realized that he had made some poor choices. He had now seen the zombie plague from three perspectives. Outsider, someone who's lost a loved one, and now victim. Each progressive phase brought him further and further away from any interest in protecting these unnatural creatures. Now that he was going to be a zombie he hoped and prayed that some bold police officer would have the courage to put a bullet in his head and end it all. Meanwhile, what he really wished was that he had the courage to do it himself.
Still, while he could hold a thought, there was work to be done. He quickly turned on his computer and sat down to type out his legacy. As the machine booted up and he saw his hazy reflection in the surface of the monitor, he realized he was angry. Dying didn't matter. His discomfort didn't matter. He wasn't even really afraid. But if he was going to get the damned infection anyway, he should have kissed Linda before she died. That's what made him angry. Since their relationship had become sincere, he had wasted every opportunity to tell her how he felt. He'd justified it by projecting his own impression of her feelings onto her, but in all too many instances the word justification is synonymous with excuse. And then, when she was dying and probably petrified, he didn't give her that last kiss. That first kiss. He was a failure.
He poured all of this anger into the document on his machine, even as he poured whiskey into a tall glass. It took him almost two hours of drinking and writing to complete it and it was barely a page long. But it was good. It was everything he wanted to say, the most important things that he wanted the world to know.
As the hour grew late and the sun began to set, he printed the document and taped it to his chest. He left the computer on in case something happened to the paper when he turned. He turned off the computer's ability to save the screen, drop into standby or hibernation, or turn itself off. His document would be burned into the screen when the police found him. Satisfied with his work, he downed the last of his liquor and then drank a bottle of Nyquil. Before going to bed, he called 911. He gave the agent his name and address and told her that he had the zombie plague and was near death. By the time their conversation was over, he could hardly stand. He made his way to the bedroom and lay down in the bed. He pulled the covers up to his chin and let the alcohol and the medicine work their magic. He was asleep in minutes.
***
Three days before Christmas, Gwen Smith called her son in New York and told him that she and his father had managed to score plane tickets for Christmas and would it be all right if they visited. Normally, such an event in any family would be considered a Christmas miracle and there would be tears of joy. But in the Smith family there was trepidation. The first thing Greg Smith asked his mother was whether or not everything was okay. Was someone sick? No. No one was sick. They wanted to see him and they wanted to meet their grandchildren.
