Land of the Dead

by Robert Swartwood

  Except Conrad’s first night, Scott had asked him if he was curious to see the Diggers and what they did, and so they waited the half hour or so until a van pulled up. Two men got out, one carrying a shovel, the other a black container. They instantly got to work, the man with the shovel digging, the man with the black container recording the date and time and location of the Pandora. Once the man with the shovel had dug down to about three feet (that seemed to be the standard depth for these Pandoras), the shovel clinked against something solid. Then, all at once, the men started to move at a slower and more measured pace, the digger handing over the shovel to the recorder, the recorder taking the shovel and opening the plastic container. The digger worked very carefully, freeing the Pandora from the earth, and then handed the quartz-encrusted cube up to the recorder. The recorder took the Pandora, placed it in the foam padding of the plastic container, closed it, locked it, and then that was that. After filling in the hole, they got back into their van and drove away, waiting for the next location to be called in.

  So far tonight they’d found two Pandoras. The average, Conrad was told, was three Pandoras a night. He was beginning to understand a lot more about these pockets of energy. Such as how there was no way to predict how many Pandoras were in any given area. In a mile radius there might be no Pandoras; in another mile radius there might be a dozen. But Garry had confided in Conrad a theory about this. He speculated that while there might be no Pandoras in one area one month, there might be some in the same very area the next.

  “It’s like these things are growing,” he said. “Like the energy—the life—is coming right out of the ground.”

  Before there had been ten teams of Trackers moving about Olympus and the surrounding suburbs—three teams went out to the country on the weekends—but now with the added men the teams had been reduced to five. This meant instead of working with the same zombie almost nightly, they traded off back and forth.

  The other zombie they worked with was Ruth. She was twenty-nine years old and very quiet. She always had her long hair pulled back into a ponytail, though the nights they took her outside to track she was made to hide that hair up into her hat. They all wore hats—no masks—and a form of night-vision glasses. The glasses made the night a somewhat bright and hazy gray. But at least it got them around without the use of flashlights, which would be conspicuous and something they wished to avoid.

  It had rained earlier that day and the ground was still damp and muddy in places. The trees were wet and the leaves dripped.

  “I think he’s got one.”

  This was from Scott, whose voice came through the earpieces they all wore. They were hooked up to microphones, too, and could communicate with each other and call in to the Diggers or, if need be, Living Intelligence.

  The four of them were spread out about fifty yards from James. Scott and Brooks flanked him from the front, Garry and Conrad from the back. It was important—or so Conrad had been told—that the zombies were given enough space.

  They had passed through a grove of trees, had passed a pond with a number of sleeping dead ducks nestled by the water, had passed a gazebo, and were now coming out toward the playground section of the park. Up ahead, by the swings and slides, James had stopped completely. He just stood there, his head tilted. Conrad should have known what this meant the first time he’d seen it, but still he had asked, and was told the zombie was listening for “it.” When he had asked what “it” was, Scott gave him a blank look and said, “The beating.”

  Now the zombie took a few steps forward, toward the swing set, his head still tilted. Suddenly he turned, started walking toward the slides. He came to one slide, touched the ladder, and Conrad, thinking of all those children who played there, had to remind himself that everything was okay and that the zombie was not doing anything harmful.

  James held onto the ladder for a very long time. He bent down, his head still tilted, and stood back up. He let go of the ladder, started moving again, slowly this time, until he was underneath the slide. He crouched down. He placed his hand on the ground, felt around for a moment, and then patted the damp earth twice.

  Scott made the first move. He came in and whispered something to James. James nodded. By then Brooks, Garry, and Conrad had also advanced on the playground, until they all stood around the slide. At the bottom of the slide, where the ground was worn down by constant use, was a small puddle. Moonlight reflected off the muddy water.

  “You certain?” Brooks asked James.

  “I’m always certain.”

  Brooks grinned. He patted James on the back and said, “I know, buddy, I’m just fooling with you.”

  Conrad stood motionless. He didn’t say a word. He still wasn’t comfortable even talking to these zombies, let alone actually touching one. He had gone to visit Gabriel twice already, not counting the first time with Norman and Albert. Both times Gabriel had offered his hand (just like the first), and both times Conrad had refused.

  Garry said, “Let me do the honors.” He took one of the electronic devices from his pocket, flicked it on, and placed it on the spot James had indicated.

  “All right,” Scott said, clapping his hands together once. He looked at James. “You ready to keep going or you want to take a break?”

  James sat down on the base of the slide, and once again Conrad had to remind himself that it was okay, that there was nothing wrong at all about the living using equipment that dead children used every day.

  Left over rain fell from nearby trees. A jetliner flew in the dark sky above their heads. After about a minute of silence James nodded once, took a breath, and stood up.

  “Okay,” he said, looking at each of them, settling his gaze last on Conrad, “let’s go.”

  “So far we’re doing pretty good tonight,” Scott said. “How many more do you think we’ll get?”

  James tilted his head up toward the sky, washing his face in the faint moonlight. He watched the gray and white blinking lights of the jetliner, then said, “Oh, I don’t know. At least one more. Maybe two.”

  “You sound pretty confident. How much do you want to bet?”

  The zombie brought its head back down, and the bill of the baseball cap darkened his smile. “You never pay me when I win.”

  Scott said, “What would you do with money anyway?”

  James smiled, shook his head, and started off toward the opposite side of the park. Scott and Brooks immediately followed, Scott veering off to the left, Brooks veering off to the right.

  Conrad and Garry waited a few seconds before they moved. Garry headed off toward the left, but Conrad hesitated and stayed where he was. Garry didn’t say anything. Conrad guessed the man knew what it was like just starting out as Tracker, all those confusing answers to all those confusing questions, the need to make the unbelievable believable.

  Conrad walked over to the place beneath the slide. He bent down and touched the wet earth right beside the electronic device. He held his hand there for a good thirty seconds, a good minute, but as always, he felt nothing.

  15

  On the way back to Living Intelligence, still in the city, they passed a black Humvee going the opposite direction and Conrad turned quickly in his seat, watching it, wondering who was in there right now. Four Hunters at least, maybe more, all those new men transferred to Olympus from all over the world, and while they were out hunting zombies they had no clue a SUV had just passed them with a zombie in it.

  It made Conrad pause then, thinking about it, realizing that he’d no doubt passed other Trackers and zombies in the night, both of them working toward the same goal.

  They’d just gotten on the Shakespeare when a call came in from Living Intelligence. It went to Scott, who listened for a moment, then passed the message on to Conrad.

  “The doc wants to see you when we get back.”

  And so that’s where he found himself forty minutes later, having checked in, having showered and changed, not on his way home like he’d planned but standin
g in the corridor just outside Dr. Hennessey’s office. But the doctor didn’t seem to be in. The door was locked and there was no answer when he knocked. He decided he was just going to go home after all, talk to Albert later, when he heard the light whine of an electric wheelchair coming his way.

  “My apologies,” said the Director of Living Intelligence, rolling toward Conrad at a quick pace. “I actually didn’t expect you back so soon.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “So,” Albert said, smiling up at him, “how are things going? You are getting well adjusted?”

  Conrad nodded.

  “And your sessions with Gabriel—are they going well?”

  Conrad nodded again, this time hesitantly.

  “I know it’s difficult, Conrad. Especially for someone who’s been trained all his existence to hunt down and kill the living. But you’re just going to have to get over it.”

  “So what can I do for you, Dr. Hennessey? Scott said you wanted to see me.”

  “Please, please”—Albert now maneuvering the wheelchair into a three-point turn—“follow me. I’d like to show you something.”

  They headed down the brightly lit corridor and a minute later came to a closed door. Albert started to press the button on his wheelchair to open the door but paused. He looked back up at Conrad.

  “Let me ask you a question. Have you figured out yet what really goes on here?”

  Conrad scratched the back of his head. He felt a few pieces of hair come off and had to think fast, wipe them on the back of his shirt before bringing his hand back out from behind his head.

  “Well, I think it’s pretty obvious that Tracking is only a small part of it.”

  Albert smiled his usual stiff smile. He pressed the button on his wheelchair, the door opened, and they entered. Here they found three scientists doing work on a young zombie no more than twenty years old.

  “This living’s name is Eric. He is not one of the living we use for Tracking. He is solely used for the purposes of our research.”

  At the moment Eric was running on a treadmill. He wore only shorts and sneakers and the sweat on his living flesh glistened in the stark white of the fluorescents. All kinds of wires were attached to his body: on his chest, his arms, his legs, even his head. When he saw Albert he raised a hand in greeting before dropping it back down to maintain his pace.

  The three scientists in the room were working at different computer consoles. According to Albert, one was tracking Eric’s heart rate, another Eric’s breathing, and the third Eric’s brainwaves.

  They watched Eric for a while, watched the scientists, before Albert motioned for them to leave.

  Back in the corridor, the scientist said, “I’m going to tell you something about Eric, and I want you to be one hundred percent honest with me. Can you do that?”

  Conrad nodded.

  “We made Eric.” Albert waited a moment for that to sink in, then said, “Eric was originally dead. His mother was going to abort him. We stepped in and offered her quite a bit of money to bring him to term. We more or less adopted him, put him up in a place out in the country with a family we could trust, these older pair of farmers, and at the age of ten Eric sensed the Pandora we’d buried nearby in the woods, went looking for it, and turned. We were watching him the entire time, and the moment it happened, we had our men come in and grab him, bring him back here to Living Intelligence where he has been ever since. So tell me, Conrad, was what we did wrong?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  Conrad shook his head.

  “It bothers me sometimes,” Albert said. “Not just what we did to Eric, but what we’ve done to a number of other living here and across the globe. I’d even say it makes me sad but of course I cannot feel true sadness. But it cheats the entire process. Those children, while in a way we saved them, we also didn’t give them the chance they truly deserved. We ... we manipulated them, manufactured them, and that I have never felt right about.”

  They started down the corridor again.

  “The reason I wanted to show you Eric was twofold. First I want you to understand there are no secrets among the staff here at Living Intelligence. Everything we do here is for the good of our humanity, to keep us animated, and so yes, sometimes we are forced into desperate measures—such as infecting that boy with parasites, to keep our secrets. And second ... well, Norman told me about your son.”

  Conrad faltered in his pace.

  Albert slowed his wheelchair and glanced back at him. “Are you all right?”

  He sped up again. “Yes. I’m fine.”

  “Your son turns ten in another five days, and you’re worried. Aren’t you?”

  Conrad didn’t answer.

  “Well?”

  “I am.”

  “Would you like him protected?”

  “How?”

  “In the past we have done favors for employees of LI who have had the very same concerns. I can have a special detail put on your son so he is watched twenty-four-seven.”

  They came to Albert’s office and went inside. In the corner, in the bubbling fish tank, the dead tropical fish swam lazily back and forth. Conrad sat down in one of the two chairs as Albert moved behind his desk. He wasn’t sure what to say yet. This was exactly what he’d been meaning to bring up, some kind of way to protect his son.

  Once Albert was situated behind his desk, he said, “Conrad, please tell me this. What worries you more—the idea of your son becoming one of the living, or the idea of what will happen after he turns?”

  Conrad ignored this, instead asked how they would go about doing this special detail.

  “We can do it immediately,” Albert said. “But I must warn you, it comes with a price.”

  “How much?”

  “Because with this detail we’d be using a lot of man hours. We would have to take them away from our usual operation, which means we might fall back a day or two.”

  “How much?”

  “Then again, it might also be possible to—”

  “Dr. Hennessey, how much?”

  Albert’s stiff face became even stiffer. He leaned forward, placed his hands on the desktop, and quoted the price.

  Conrad was silent for a moment. Then he said, “That’s almost half my salary.”

  The scientist didn’t respond.

  Conrad swallowed. “Can I think about it?”

  “Of course.” Albert sat back, turned to his computer, and started typing on the keyboard. “Now, the other reason I wanted to see you was because I still have something else to show you.”

  Conrad barely heard him. He had slumped down in his chair, his gaze focused on the floor. He thought about his wife and son, how Denise was pregnant with twins, how Kyle would turn ten in less than a week.

  “Do you remember what I’d mentioned before, a possible threat concerning the Pandoras? We call it the Ripple Effect.”

  He had always been able to provide for his family, to give them everything they always needed. But soon Kyle would turn ten, and recently he’d been acting strange, hearing things—

  I thought I heard something

  —and before while it had sent up a black flag in Conrad’s mind, now he knew more, so much more that—

  it sounded like ... I don’t know—it sounded weird

  —that if anything were to happen to his family, to Denise or Kyle or even the unborn twins, Conrad knew he would instantly expire. His hair, his skin, his bones, his dead body parts, they would all decay into nothing.

  “It’s like dropping a stone in the middle of a placid pond,” Albert said. “Once it starts, it’s impossible to stop it, and that’s why we need to take great caution.”

  The price to save his son was an extremely large amount, so much so he had no idea how his family could afford to continue existing like they did. They would have to sell the house, move into the city, maybe rent a condo. How would things be between him and Denise then? How would his son see hi
m?

  “What I failed to mention before regarding some of our experiments is ... well, let’s say that if one in a thousand children actually manage to find a Pandora and the energy inside is absorbed into their bodies, one in one hundred thousand manage to find a Pandora but are stopped before they have the chance to turn. These children, they can never go back into normal society. They have ... crossed a line. What should happen is they should be expired immediately (with a story given to the parents about parasites), but the Government has decided they will serve a greater purpose.”

  The price was the problem, Conrad knew this, but at the same time how could he possibly put a price on his son’s well being?

  “And the greater purpose is that they help us understand more about these Pandoras. We hold these children, not so much as prisoners but as unwilling volunteers, and we test what kind of results happen between them and the Pandora that has now become their own. Remember, once a child has touched a Pandora, that Pandora somehow becomes that child’s. The energy inside cannot be released by anyone else. But after that window of two months passes, that child is no longer affected by the energy inside. He or she can hold the cube for hours, but the energy inside will not be absorbed. However, if there are other Pandoras close by ...”

  There were more questions he could ask himself, more questions regarding his wife and son, but beyond all that he heard the faint echoes of Kent Moss’s screams as Philip began cutting off pieces of living flesh.

  “Here,” Albert said, evidently finding the file he wanted, swiveling the flat screen monitor in Conrad’s direction, “watch this.”

  He heard Eugene Moss begging and begging for Philip to stop.

  “Conrad? Are you watching?”