by R. M. Smith
No one asked what step three was, but I figured that it was probably death. When you die, your bladder lets go – or they would cut it out of you on the operating table.
Marge was crying, limping badly as the doctor took our blood. He didn’t use cotton swabs to clean the skin first. He didn’t bandage our arms after taking the blood. Again he nodded to Fields, acknowledging that he was done.
Fields went to the door on the other side of the room. He unlocked it. Inside, there was a toilet. He said to us “Now go piss out the rest of your shit.”
We took turns emptying the rest of our bladders. There was no toilet paper for the ladies, no place for Cindy to put her feminine napkin, and no sink to wash our hands.
After this we were led, naked still, out into the hallway down to another elevator. We went up for a while. The doors opened to another hall. This one was longer. The floor glistened with a high polish. You could see the doors along the hall reflecting on the floor as well as the lights overhead. There were alternating black and white numbered doors lining the hallway. Everything else was painted in the dull gray, even the ceiling.
The guards led us into one of the rooms with a white door. There were a few chairs in a line in the center of the room. On one wall there was a large one-way see-thru window. Next to it there was a locked door. We were told to sit down. Fields and his two guards left the room. They locked the door behind them. Marge sat down grabbing her foot. The pain must have been unbearable.
I asked her “You gonna be ok?”
“I have no idea, cowboy” she managed. “I don’t know if any of us are going to be ok.”
Ski asked “What the hell is going on here? Why are they treating us like this?”
Cindy was sitting next to Ski. Her face was lined with tears. Ski was holding her hands.
The locked door by the one-way window opened.
It was Washburn again. He was still wearing his safety mask.
A nurse came with him. She had a cart full of towels.
Washburn said “Now it’s time for the three steps of Induction. We are going to introduce you to your new home. You will be safe here and be well taken care of…”
“Our new home?” Marge asked still holding her foot. “This isn’t our home.”
Washburn nodded to the nurse. She handed lightly colored jump-suits from the cart to each of us. We all quickly put the jumpsuits on. They were light and felt good covering our naked bodies.
I noticed that the jumpsuits were numbered. Mine was Gray 20-15.
The whole group was numbered from 20-15 through 20-20.
Washburn said “You are in the Gray Unit. The numbers and color will correlate with everything you do here on the base. You are safe here.”
“Is this some kind of sick joke?” Ski asked. “What the hell is going on here?”
Washburn pointed up. “When we were topside, I told all of you that all of your questions would be answered. I am here now to answer your questions.”
Ski asked “What is going on here?”
Washburn said “This is a safe zone. The zone topside is safe within the boundaries of the base. Outside the base is what we are calling the unsafe zone. There is nothing safe outside the confines of this base.”
Ski said “Yeah, no shit.”
Washburn continued. “You all are classified as Flesh Eating Enemies or FEEs or FEE-FEES as some of the guards call it. You all are infected with the MCON virus.”
It was in the store where Tara peed herself – on the shelf! My mind shouted. Someone had written Fee-Fee with squeeze cheese!
“The fuck you talking about?” Ski hollered. “We’re alive, not dead! We’re not flesh eating anything. We don’t eat people. We’re living!”
“Anyone outside the safe zone - or anyone who has breathed the air outside the safe zone - is a FEE,” Washburn said. “You may think that you don’t have the sickness, but you do. Your blood tests have all come up positive with the MCON virus.”
“Horseshit!” Ski yelled. “Complete horseshit. I’m not buying this!”
I was trying to remain calm. I asked “How did this happen?”
“There was a low-yield nuclear blast. It detonated 20 miles under the surface of the earth. It was a missile, launched from this base. The missile was intended to strike the South Pacific. Tragically, there was an unforeseen error in the flight guidance system. The missile had a near miss with a passenger jet as the plane took off out of Seattle, Washington. The passenger jet crashed in the mountains, killing all on board. The missile continued on its off-course trajectory. It injected into the mountains. It dug to a depth of 20 miles, detonated, causing massive damage to most of the upper west coast of the United States. The magnetic pulse put off by the explosion caused a reversal of the earth’s magnetic poles. There was a swap, if you will. There was also an unknown side-effect of the swap, and that is, the brain stem of anyone who had died within the radius of the swap was also inverted. Not physically, but at a cellular level. I realize this may be too much information for you to understand, but when the low-yield nuclear bomb exploded, it caused any dead brain to live again.”
I said “Not everyone died on that passenger plane. I survived it.”
He looked at me, dumbfounded. His jaw dropped. “You were on USAir flight 3044?”
“Yes I was,” I said.
Washburn was shocked. He was completely perplexed. We all could see in his eyes that this information was not expected. He leaned down to me as I sat in the chair and asked very intensely: “Did anyone else survive the crash?”
“I didn’t really stay around checking on people,” I said, angrily. “There were fucking deads surrounding me so I got out of there in a hurry.”
“Did you know anyone else on the plane?” he asked, sternly.
“No.”
He asked again “And there were no other survivors?”
I said smartly “I thought you didn’t like to double-speak.”
He gave me a very rude look. I didn’t know why he was so interested in other survivors. What did he want me to tell him: that I knew someone else lived? Were we all supposed to die or something? I didn’t get it.
He leaned down to the nurse and whispered something in her ear. She left the room.
“What do mean when you said the nuke caused brains to live again?” Cindy asked, pulling both of us out of our intense conversation. “Are you saying that everyone in the world is brain dead?”
Gathering his composure, Washburn cleared his throat and continued: “It is difficult for anyone to understand this.” He bent over the nurse’s cart and wrote something on a pad of paper. “Picture the human brain. Now picture the brain stem. This structure is responsible for basic vital life functions such as breathing, heartbeat and blood pressure. Inside the brain stem is the midbrain or the Mesencephalon. In the Mesencephalon you can find fibers which are important for voluntary motor function. Basically what happened is, when the nuclear bomb exploded, it caused a reversal of the brain stem at the cellular level. In other words, voluntary motor function killed the basic life function.”
I asked “So why do deads want to eat us?”
“This information is unknown.” Washburn said. “More studies are needed on this subject.”
“You mean more steps?” Marge asked, sneering.
“I must apologize for the way you were treated down below, Miss Simpson,” Washburn said with no sympathy in his voice. “Sometimes the guards get out of hand down there.”
“We were stripped naked. Our lives were threatened. We had to piss in front of them and in front of each other. We were marched through this place nude, and you only offer an apology?” Marge was steaming mad, and rightfully so.
“Miss Simpson,” he said, “you and your group are now safe. Sometimes it takes people time to realize that they are safe. Sometimes people need to be put in their place so they understand the gravity of a situation.”
“I think it’s a bunch of horseshit!” Ski holl
ered. “It was safe out there! Sure we might have had a run in with some zombies, but we were doing fine.”
Suddenly the door that the nurse had left through banged open. Fields stood in the door.
“Fields, take Gray 20-15 to Interrogation room 6. I will be there shortly.”
“You can’t take him!” Ski shouted. “He’s with us!”
Fields grabbed me roughly and led me out of the room. He led me down the hallway. A few doors later he pushed me into a brightly lit room with one chair in it. He shoved me down into the chair. He didn’t bind me, just stood over me with a pistol at my head.
“What’s this all about?” I asked.
“Wait.”
Washburn came into the room a few minutes later. He didn’t tell Fields to leave. He asked “You were on flight 3044 to Kansas City from Seattle on August 15?”
“Yes I was.”
“Were there any other survivors?”
“I told you I didn’t stick around. There were zombies coming out of the plane. It was on fire. It exploded. I ran away.”
Washburn motioned to Fields. Fields pressed his pistol harder into the back of my skull. Washburn asked again “Were there any other survivors?”
I thought about it.
I remembered the man who had been lying on the stone, ripped in half, his clothes burned off. He was screaming something over and over…a name. Lynn? Lisa Something. I couldn’t remember. But then the man died. I watched him die beside me.
Anyone else?
I didn’t think Norm had been on the plane…or had he? No. Norm had been out on the highway all night looking for his wife and daughter.
“Were there any other survivors?” Fields asked, his voice rough.
“I’m thinking. Hold on.”
I didn’t stay around long enough. There were a lot of deads coming out of the plane. Some were walking around the crash site. I couldn’t remember seeing anyone else alive.
Finally I said “No. I was the sole survivor.”
“Take him back to the others,” Washburn said.
Fields roughly grabbed me and took me back.
As Fields left, Ski asked “What was that all about?”
“They asked me about the plane crash. They wanted to know if anyone else survived it.”
“Why?”
“I have no idea. I thought it was all an accident. Evidently, something else was going on.”
Washburn stepped back into the room, a smug smile on his face. “Shall we continue?”
“Why’d you take him out of here?” Ski asked, standing.
“There was something I needed to clear up before I went forward.”
“What did you need to clear up? What the hell happened with his plane crash? The man is lucky to be alive and now you’re harassing him for it? Come on! What, was the plane crash intentional? This is some jacked-up shit, man,” Ski hollered. “This place isn’t safe!”
“Then why did you come here?”
“Because of Jenny,” Mindy interrupted. “My friend told me to come here on my cell phone.”
“Ah, cell phones,” Washburn smiled. “We have been trying to get a satellite link-up operational. Obviously one worked for you. We are trying to make it easier for people to find loved ones.”
“There are so many dead people,” Cindy said. “I don’t think there’s enough people left out there to find.”
Washburn said “We have reports coming in from all over the western seaboard. You would be surprised how many people are still alive. There are survivors in Salt lake City,” he said, a short smile on his lip. “But! They all have MCON – they all have the visible sign of infection.”
“Visible signs?” Mindy asked.
“Large bruises under the skin that appear to be dripping. The bruise is normally somewhere on the head or neck. This is the first symptom of the infection. Then severe headache, dizziness, a strong craving for food, followed by death. This virus is airborne. After death everyone’s brainstems will swap at the cellular level…unless…we do what must be done.”
I asked “What must be done?”
“Reversal. A reverse high-level nuclear explosion. In laymen’s terms, the warhead of the missile will have a reverse magnetic pulse. In theory this will reverse the poles of the earth. It will also…reverse the cells of the human brain back to where they were before.”
Ski said “You gotta be fucking kidding me! You’re going to launch another nuke?”
“Yes Mr. Markowski. The missiles are already planned to launch.”
“Missiles? You mean there are two more to launch? No way! No! You can’t do this!”
“We are. The missiles are set to launch at 0830 two days from now.”
“What if they don’t work? What if one of them backfires? What about the people you said that are still alive in Salt Lake? How many more people are going to have to die?”
“This is a chance we must take. There are no alternatives. We have been studying the effects of reversed magnetic pulses on the brains of the stalkers. Would you like to observe some of our investigations?”
Marge quickly said “No.”
Washburn smiled slightly at Marge. “I assure you it is quite safe. Please, follow me.”
He went to the locked door, opened it and led us down the hallway to one of the black doors. Inside there was a small room with four of five chairs and another one-way glass window. We could see through this window. On the other side there were three people, all nude. One was a lady who was weeping loudly. The other two were a couple holding each other very tightly. The man’s hand was bleeding badly.
Washburn said “This observation will show you the outcome of people who have failed any of our tests. This is only introduced to groups who cannot pass introduction or inoculation. This group did not wish to participate.” He turned to look at us. “This happens to people who not only fail our steps of indoctrination, but also those who disobey or question the authority of this base. In turn, this allows us to study the cannibalism of the stalkers, and the effects of brain stem reversal. I will allow you all to witness our test structure.”
All of us were open-mouthed. Shocked.
Stalkers. Sleepers. Deads. We all have our own names for them.
Washburn went to a small control panel. He pressed a succession of buttons. In the other room, a part of the ceiling opened. A dead fell down into the room. It was a Marine.
The couple started screaming, clawing at one another, trying to save one another. The single woman who had been weeping loudly screamed. She ran to the one-way window. She started beating on it, trying to break it. “Oh God! Save us please!” she screamed
The dead Marine went after the couple first. The man tried to beat the dead away with one of the chairs, but the zombie was too strong. It swiped the chair away. It literally tore the man’s arm with the bloodied hand from his socket. The man went down. Instead of eating the man, the dead tore into the man’s wife. It pulled the woman’s hair out while she tried to run away. The dead bit into the side of her neck. She went down screaming.
The dead went after the woman beating on the window. It ate her right in front of us.
We all held one another as this happened. Scared. Disgusted. The dead went to the other two and fed on them.
The whole time Washburn stood there, watching, unemotional, his arms crossed.
When the dead had finished feasting on the people, it stumbled around the room, grunting. Washburn pressed another succession of buttons on the panel which caused a different light and a quiet hum to fill the room. The zombie didn’t seem to notice or care. It didn’t look like the brain stem reversal worked. The zombie didn’t change.
Washburn turned off the testing machine.
Minutes later, Fields came into the room. The dead tried to attack him, but Fields put a bullet into its head. After this, two men in lab coats came in. They studied the room, made notes about the people who had been attacked, took some photos of the dead, and left the room.
“Why are you showing us this?” I asked, mad. “We’ve seen enough of this on the outside!”
“This is what happens to FEEs who do not follow the rules.”
“You do this to your own men? He was one of the military…”
He was bitten outside the base. Once he was inside we subdued him and brought him in so he wouldn’t infect others.”
“Is that what you do?” I asked. “Bring people in so they don’t infect others.”
“In a sense, yes,” Washburn said.
“In a sense. So we’re basically prisoners here until we have been cured?” I asked.
He chuckled. “Oh no. There is not a cure. And no, you are not prisoners here. You can leave anytime you wish.”
“Well we wish to leave,” Ski said strongly. “We want out now!”
“All of you want this?” He asked us, a sick smile still on his face.
We all agreed. We wanted out of this madness.
He pressed a different button on the console and said “Gray Unit 20-15 through 20-20 wish to leave the base.”
Cindy asked “Can we get our clothes back?”
Washburn said “They have been incinerated. They were infected with MCON as well.”
“Well Jesus-fuck!” Ski said through clenched teeth. “This is some real fucked up shit here. I want out of this madhouse now!”
“Contain yourself, Mr. Markowski. You will be free soon enough.”
Two guards came in the door.
Washburn said “These people wish to leave.”
The guards escorted us to the elevators.
As we left, I looked over my shoulder at Washburn. He still had his arms crossed. Fields stood right behind him. They both were nodding, sick smiles on their faces. They knew we were going to our deaths. We were being led to our executions and they weren’t going to do a goddamn thing about it.
In the elevator we went up a long time, just about as long as it took us to get down into this hellhole. The doors opened. We were led outside onto a loading dock. It was morning. There wasn’t a parking lot, just a long open field with high fences on either side. It looked like there had been some construction work going on. There were a lot of tools and planks lying around.
