“I guess not. What’s going on? This a new test?”
“More like an elaboration on an old test.”
“Well? Do I get to know what this is going to be about or are you just going to make it a fun surprise?”
“First, I need to ask you a question. Have you felt any swelling in your nasal cavities?”
“I’m assuming that means my nose. No.”
“Close enough. How about anywhere on your skin?”
“No.”
“Your armpits?”
“What? No! What the hell is this about?”
“We noticed something on the scans we did on you two days ago. There was some inflammation of your sweat glands, especially under your armpits. It reminded me of something else I’d seen. Scans of most reanimated show tumors at certain parts of their bodies. It has been something that has baffled the CRS for a long time. The reanimated are supposed to rot, of course. Their functions slow down so much that all non-vital organs and extremities start to deteriorate, but at a certain point the deterioration stops. They seem to remain in that same state indefinitely, but one part still grows. The tumors. Except they don’t act like tumors in humans. And even more importantly, the sites of these tumors correspond with the inflammations on your own body.”
“Okay then, so what does that mean?”
There was a pause. “I have a theory.”
“Which is?”
She didn’t respond. However, he heard the door unlock, and immediately after two armored guards appeared at the door. There was someone between them, and at first Edward thought it was another guard of some sort. The figure had a mask over its face and thick clothing over its whole body. Then Edward noticed that it had cuffs on its wrists and ankles. There were thick protective mittens on its hands. Edward still wouldn’t have know what it was if the honey scent hadn’t suddenly hit his nostrils. This thing was one of the zombies.
The guards pushed it into the room and then hurried out. It stumbled and fell to the floor, not even trying to break its fall. Edward thought he heard something crack, like a breaking bone, and he winced. The zombie didn’t make any sound like the fall had hurt, though. After lying on the floor for several moments it began to moan and struggle to get up, but it couldn’t manage with the cuffs on.
Although Edward’s first impulse was to back away from it, he resisted the urge. This was the first time he’d been in the presence of a zombie (unless he counted himself) since that first day he’d woken up, but he remembered the way they had practically ignored him. He didn’t think this one was going to be any different, but even if it did attack him he didn’t have anything to fear. He was faster and stronger, and he didn’t even have to worry about getting infected like a normal human would. The virus was already thick inside his system.
Someone on the other side of the mirror, however, wasn’t quite as calm about it. As soon as the zombie had been pushed into the room there’d been a series of noises from the other side, and now that his attention was back on his hidden audience he realized it was some kind of scuffle. The intercom clicked several times like someone was trying to turn it on but couldn’t figure out how, then he heard Liddie’s voice.
“…bitch! You’re going to…Edward! Run for the…”
“Liddie?” he called. “It’s okay.”
There was some more scuffling before Dr. Chella’s voice came back on. “One moment, Mr. Schuett.” The intercom went silent, but he could hear what sounded like a heated discussion from the other side. Liddie had probably forgotten that he wasn’t in any danger, or else she had heard something about this test that he didn’t know yet and she wasn’t happy about it. Either way, anyone on the other side of that mirror was most likely not giving him full attention right now, leaving him alone with the zombie.
It still struggled to get up off the floor. Edward couldn’t help but feel sorry for it. To everyone else in this building, the pathetic creature in front of him was a monster, or at the very least a biohazard. If he took off its mask he would see a haggard face, rotted skin, maybe even eyes that had gone white with cataracts. That was what he had looked like, he realized. He remembered the putrid state of his own skin as he had first glimpsed it in the twilight of the department store, a memory that made him look at his arm again. Perfectly clean and smooth flesh, healthy looking. Even his tattoo was gone, its last remnants having faded away as his body had healed even the scars it had gathered before he’d been bitten. But no one had yet been able to figure out what made him different than this thing in front of him. No, that was wrong to think in those terms. He couldn’t call it a thing. If he was so much like it, and he wanted to call himself a person, then he had to call it a person as well.
All noise from the other side of the mirror had stopped, but he didn’t receive any further information from either Liddie or Chella. This was obviously some sort of new test, but he had no clue what it was supposed to accomplish. He called out, asking what he was supposed to do, but there was no response. The zombie, on the other hand, groaned. In its efforts to get back up it had twisted its body into an awkward position with its arms pinned underneath it at a bad angle. The position looked painful, but Edward wasn’t sure if a zombie could feel pain. He thought back through all the red hazed memories that had come back to him through his dreams. Had he ever felt pain during those missing fifty years? He wasn’t sure. Nothing like that had come back to him. Maybe he hadn’t, but he could feel it now. He was more human than zombie now, even if no one other than Liddie wanted to act like it. And if he could come back, who was to say that none of these others might one day? They’d been human once, they might be human again, so why not treat them as though they were human now?
Edward squatted down next to the zombie and put a hand on its shoulder. It stopped moving. Was it waiting for something? Was it even capable of intentionally waiting for something? He remembered the way the zombies in his memory had moved together as one, how they had stopped and waited to trap their prey. So yeah, the zombies could wait, but what would possess them to do that? He hadn’t remembered thinking anything through, making any plans, and it hadn’t looked like any of the others had either. Yet they had coordinated their movements anyway.
He took a deep breath, not even realizing he was doing it, and the honey smell hit him harder than before. He immediately felt compelled to do…something, but he didn’t know what. He stopped moving, trying to ward off the sudden compelling feeling that he shouldn’t be in control of his own body. The awareness hit him that there was something nearby, many somethings, things that he could consume and become stronger, more stable, more capable of following along with the horde.
He backed away from the zombie, and the bizarre feelings subsided. As strong as they had been, he knew on some level that those compulsions should have been stronger. Had it all come from the zombie?
The zombie started struggling again. The urges came back, although they were still well within his control. Was it the fact that this zombie was in distress? He got closer again, this time putting a hand near the mask like he intended to remove it. The scent subsided, and all inhuman urges disappeared again.
He stepped away again. Edward was sure that to the people on the other side of the glass it looked like he was doing the Hokey-Pokey or something, but the scent grew strong again and supported his suspicions. The odor was some kind of distress call, or at least a way of communicating. It was like the zombie was calling him for help. If he didn’t know any better, he would say the zombie was actually scared.
He wasn’t sure if this was what Dr. Chella wanted and expected him to do or not, but if his hunch was true he couldn’t let this continue. At the very least, he had to get the zombie out of that uncomfortable position.
He went for the mask again, this time doing his best to ignore the changes in the air’s smell. The mask was like a modified baseball catcher’s mask, likely designed to keep the zombie from biting anything. It would be important for the zombie to have it on
around humans, but by now he was pretty certain the zombie posed zero threat to him. With the mask off, Edward helped the zombie into a sitting position and took a closer look at it.
Edward had no way of knowing how old the zombie really was. Its skin decay might have given a clue as to how long it had been dead, but if what Dr. Chella had said earlier was true then there came a certain point where a zombie didn’t noticeably rot anymore. So this one could have been anywhere from several weeks to several decades dead, for all he knew. But there was enough flesh that Edward might still tell about how old it had been when it had turned. At the very oldest, the boy in front of him couldn’t have been over fourteen.
Edward looked at the mirror out of reflex, trying to see Dr. Chella’s reaction to the revelation, but of course he couldn’t see anything. And really, how did he expect her to react? It wasn’t like this would be the first time she had seen the boy. He had probably been property of the CRS for a while now. She had observed him, done tests on him, poked and prodded him, and to her none of that would have been wrong. In fact, to most of the world that would have been perfectly acceptable or even commendable. Even Liddie, despite treating Edward with dignity, probably thought of this boy as nothing more than another test subject. This wasn’t a boy to them at all. It was a thing.
Maybe Edward wasn’t thinking rationally about this. Whatever it looked like, the zombie was completely different than whoever it had been while alive. It didn’t have a personality, morals, hopes, or dreams. And when left to its own devices it would gladly kill a human being. Something like that surely couldn’t be allowed the same rights or status as a person.
Yet there was still that one nagging fact. Edward had been like this once too, and now he wasn’t. Somewhere inside this zombie’s brain it still had all it needed to go back to being the boy he once was. All that was needed was to figure out what could push a person back.
The zombie kid stared blankly at him. That spark of humanity might have still been in there, but there was absolutely no outward sign of it.
The door opened again, and the two guards came back in. The odor in the air grew again, but it had different feel, like it was sweeter. This wasn’t like earlier, when Edward could interpret the sickly sweetness to something like fear. This felt more like…what exactly? Excitement? Joy? Anticipation? He couldn’t say for sure, but it had more of a positive connotation to it. Edward thought he understood. Two real humans were entering the room, but the zombie couldn’t classify them as humans. If his memories were accurate, it couldn’t even classify itself as a human. It had only the most rudimentary self-awareness. To it, the humans were just as much things as he was to them.
Both guards were armed with the same kind of shock prods Edward had seen in Wisconsin, although these looked to be newer models. They both ignored Edward and went for the zombie, prodding it right at the base of its head. The zombie went into convulsions and went to the floor. Edward backed away and both guards surrounded it, one holding his prod ready to shock it again while the other, for some reason, stooped down to unlock the zombie’s cuffs and removed the mittens. They had left the door open, and a few seconds later Liddie came in. Her hair was somewhat mussed up, but otherwise there was no clue what had been going on behind the mirror.
“Edward?” she said as she stepped in. “Are you okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Edward asked.
“I thought it was going to hurt you.”
Edward shook his head. “I don’t have anything to fear from him.” He made a conscious effort to refer to the zombie as “him” rather than “it.” Even if he’d been thinking that way to himself, he didn’t want to continue it.
The guard finished unlocking the zombie and went out the door. The other one gave the zombie another shock, although there didn’t appear to be any good reason to do so. The zombie was still too out of it to react much, but Edward winced. Even Liddie fidgeted uncomfortably.
“Come on,” Liddie said. “I don’t have the slightest clue what Chella thought this would accomplish, but whatever it was it obviously failed. Let’s…”
The door shut and clicked as the two guards locked it from the outside.
“What the hell?” Liddie asked. She ran over to the door and knocked on it. “Hey, we’re still in here. Let us out!”
There was no sound from the other side.
Edward looked back and forth between the mirror and the zombie on the floor. Not only had the guards taken the hand and ankle cuffs, but also the mittens and mask. There was only one reason they would do that with an unarmed human in the room. They intended for the zombie to attack her.
“Hey!” he screamed as he ran up to the window to pound on it. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Even as he said the question, though, he thought he already had the answer. He stepped away from the window, knowing full well that nothing he said would change Dr. Chella’s mind. It was one thing to poke and prod him and treat him like a thing, but she was willingly putting Liddie in danger here. The woman wasn’t just on a power trip anymore. She had crossed the line into full-blown psychopath.
Liddie joined him at the window, being sure to give the zombie a wide berth, and did her own yelling. “Chella, you bitch! What is going on?”
“Liddie,” Edward said, “are you in on this?”
“Huh?”
“Just please, tell me you’re not in on this. This isn’t just a prank you’re in on?”
“I’m not in on anything. I don’t have the slightest clue what’s going on.”
“I think I do,” Edward said. “It’s a test.”
“A test of what?”
The zombie started to moan and twitch. Liddie moved as far away from it as she could. Edward stayed right by her side.
“A test of my humanity,” Edward said. “A test to prove I’m more human than zombie. If I don’t kill it, it will kill you.”
“What? No, Edward, that’s insane. That can’t be what…” She stopped in mid sentence and looked back at the mirror. “Chella, that’s insane. Don’t do this!”
Honey in the air. Edward sensed it before he even looked back over at the zombie. It was getting up, and it knew there was something else in the room, something foreign to it and hostile, but maybe also edible. Something that would help it, be useful to it. When it stood straight, Edward felt a subtle change in the scent. The change was like…an invitation? No, more like halfway between an invitation and a command. Join it. Become part of the horde. Make the horde stronger. Make the horde more capable. Help the horde feed.
Edward was vaguely aware that Liddie was somewhere nearby frantically trying to find something to use for defense. Did she realize at this point that he might be just as much of a threat as the zombie? It didn’t matter, because Edward didn’t succumb to the scent’s invite. He could feel all the subtle changes in the scent and the way it tried to work its way into his system, but it wasn’t built to compel something or someone with conscious control. And as Edward became aware of all those subtleties, he also felt the tiny ways in which he contributed to them.
The zombie took several shambling steps toward Liddie. Without looking at her, Edward heard her fumbling around in her clothes. Of course, he realized, anybody who worked in close proximity to zombies would always keep something on them as protection. Edward didn’t know what it was, and he didn’t look to find out. He was too preoccupied with that heady, unseen mixture that filled the air. The zombie added to it, and Edward added to it. The zombie was what gave the scent its invitational feeling, so what was Edward giving it? The feel of something that wanted that invite? Maybe that meant Edward could take that away, change it. He could concentrate, make it do something…
Liddie was never aware of the minute change in the scent. She wasn’t even aware that some primitive form of conversation was going on directly in front of her. But Edward was aware of it, and more importantly the zombie was aware. If this was a conversation, then Edward guessed that what he had just done
was equivalent to making random barnyard animal noises in the middle of a serious discussion. His end of the conversation made no sense, and it thoroughly confused the zombie.
It stopped. That was all it did. It didn’t even stop for very long, a second or two at most. The instant it did, however, Edward heard a commotion from behind the mirror. The door unlocked and the two guards rushed into the room, but they didn’t both go for the zombie this time. One smashed it across the face with the shock prod, but the other came straight for Edward. He didn’t move, wanting it to be completely evident that he had no intention of doing anything to resist, but the guard either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He brought the prod down on Edward’s head, and Edward fell to the floor.
He had a sneaking suspicion that he had somehow failed the test.
Chapter Twenty Four
Liddie had heard her mother raise her voice on a few occasions, but that had always been the limit to her anger. She’d done well throughout her entire life in keeping any temper she had completely hidden from the public, only allowing Liddie to see it when she had no other choice. Even with that, however, Liddie had expected her mother to at least scream in all her righteous indignation.
What she hadn’t expected was for her mother to punch Dr. Chella in the face right in front of the President of the United States.
“Bitch!” her mother screamed. “Fucking bitch! I’ll rip your lying murderous fucking head off!”
The conference room was in complete turmoil, which was an interesting trick considering there were once again only four people and a television image in it. Dr. Emmanuel simultaneously tried to hold off Danielle Gates and help Dr. Chella back to her feet from where she had fallen on the floor after the punch. Liddie’s mother tried to get past him for another shot while Liddie did her best to hold her back, but that was a challenge. It was like trying to hold an angry rabid ferret. Even the president himself shouted, screaming for everyone in the conference room to calm down and act professional. The only person who was calm at all was Dr. Chella. She’d had a stern and dour expression only seconds before Danielle’s fist had hit her face, but now, even with blood running over her lips from her nose, she smiled. That horrible creature actually smiled. Even as she tried to make sense of everything that had been happening, Liddie realized that somehow Dr. Chella had just won her years-long power struggle.
The Reanimation of Edward Schuett Page 15
