by Kate L. Mary
The sight of us sent the dead into a frenzy, filling the room with a mixture of moans and growls and snarls. Most reached through the bars as if trying to get us, but a few only watched. The calculating expression in their eyes was one most of my family had probably never seen before, but I had. I saw a zombie just like this only a few nights earlier when Jackson sent a zombie to Dragon’s Lair for Donaghy to fight.
It was the first time we’d ever seen a hybrid, and remembering it sent a shiver down my spine. That zombie had been so different from anything we’d ever experienced before, and Donaghy had struggled to win the fight. The creature’s hairless skin had almost been translucent under the fluorescent lights of the bar, his gaze cold and calculating and his movements quick like lightning. The moment when Donaghy realized the creature wasn’t quite dead, but that his heart was still beating away in his chest, was tattooed on my mind.
I was right behind Mom when she skittered to a halt. “Why?”
She was blocking the way for anyone else to come down, but I doubted anyone was going to complain. Everyone looked as disgusted as she did at the scene in front of us, as disgusted as I felt. It made me think of my uncle Joshua and how he’d popped up in Dragon’s after being gone for weeks, how he had probably been locked up just like these creatures were. They were a threat, they would rip us to shreds if we let them, but they had still once been people and I felt like they deserved more respect than this.
Jada and Jim, who had led the way down, turned to face us. They didn’t seem the least bit fazed by the close proximity of the zombies.
“These are the different strains,” Jada said simply. “Each of these zombies represents what we thought was a different mutation of the virus, but what we now know was just a manipulation by the CDC.”
I found myself moving at her words, pushing gently past Mom so I could travel deeper into the basement. The creatures closest to me were old, decayed so much that bone could be seen beneath rotten skin. They reeked of death and a few even had maggots crawling through their putrefying flesh. Beyond that though, there were different ones. Zombies who were faster, who snapped at me through the bars, and then the ones who looked like they were studying me, searching for a weakness, and then finally, in the last cell, a hairless creature.
“How did you get them?” I asked, turning to face Jada.
“Jim.” She nodded to the zombie slayer at her side. “All except the last one, that is.”
Jada crossed the room so she was at my side, but she wasn’t alone. Most of the group had now moved deeper into the basement so they could get a look at this thing, this hybrid zombie that was caught somewhere between man and monster.
“This one we created on our own.” When I spun to face her, she lifted her hands. “I know, it’s sick, but we had to know what we were dealing with. Helen got us the virus and we used it on a criminal. A rapist.”
Jada held my gaze as if waiting to defend her actions a second time, and all I could think about was that night on the street when I was attacked after leaving the bar. How if Angus hadn’t shown up I would have been in trouble.
“Okay,” I said, because it was.
“What have you learned about it?” Parv asked.
She was standing dangerously close to the bars with her hand on her knife, and I couldn’t help thinking that she was teasing the thing, testing him to see what he would do if he thought he could get her. His eyes, milky but alert at the same time, moved to the weapon on her hip and he tilted his head. He didn’t move. It was as if he knew what she was doing too.
“Technically he’s alive, because his heart is still beating,” Jada said. “But he isn’t susceptible to everything that humans are. He doesn’t sleep; he doesn’t need to eat. He will stand still for hours on end, but strike faster than anything I’ve ever seen if given a chance.” She looked around as if to make sure we were all listening. “We’ve sent rodents into the cell to see what he does.”
“He’s the ultimate killing machine,” Jim said, his voice sounding loud in the confines of the basement. The expression on her face was somber. “That’s what Star is doing. He’s trying to create an army of dead. Not like the zombies that are out there right now and not like this one, he can still be killed the same way a human can, but something in between. Something that is dead, that can’t be destroyed without taking out the brain, but who will follow orders unquestioningly. He wants an army of followers who will help him control the world for the rest of his life.”
“He can’t do that,” Lila said. “Can he?”
My aunt looked around, her eyes wide and a terror in them I’d never seen before. I understood. Star’s current level of control was scary enough, but the idea of him having an army at his disposal, of knowing how dark and twisted Jackson’s mind was and how he would one day take his father’s place, was a horror I never could have imagined.
“He’s very close,” Jada responded.
The group fell silent, but it was broken when Angus swore and turned away. He stalked up the stairs and Glitter was right behind him, hurrying to comfort her father. I wasn’t sure what was bugging him though, the idea of the army of the dead, the memories of what he’d gone through for the sake of creating that army, or the idea that his brother was now going through the same thing. There were too many options to choose from.
“Let’s get out of here,” Charlie muttered, following the others.
They filed up the stairs, but I stayed where I was, staring at the creature. He was thin, not the type of person Star would have chosen to infect with the virus, but I doubted that made the creature in front of me any less lethal. I thought of the hybrid zombie that had been sent to Dragon’s Lair, the muscles the creature had had, indicating he had been a fit man in life. Was this what the future had in store for Donaghy? Was this what Jackson had planned?
The basement emptied out until it was just Jada, Jim, and me. I turned to face the others, stepping further from the cell now that my back was to this calculating creature.
“Tell me you have a plan and that we’ll be able to get everyone out of the CDC soon.”
“Everything takes time,” Jim said.
I turned my gaze on Jada, who seemed to know so much for someone who had never lived in New Atlanta. “Is this what will happen to Donaghy?”
She nodded, but shook her head a second later. “Yes, but probably not yet. This strain isn’t what they want, so I don’t think they’ll inject him until they’ve altered it. They’ll want to test a new strain on him.”
I blew out a deep breath. “How long will that take?”
“It’s impossible to say. It could take days, or maybe even weeks.”
“Or less,” I muttered.
“Or less,” Jada agreed.
Five
Meg
We went upstairs to join the others and found them gathered in the backyard, practically circled around Angus. He’d been locked away for the past twenty years but he’d also been in the CDC, and for the first time it occurred to me that he might know something that would help us get Dad out.
The adults were gathered closely around him while Charlie and Luke hung back a little. I wanted to know what was going on, but like my cousins I felt like I should keep my distance. Right now the conversation probably had a lot more to do with filling in the gaps of the last twenty years than with our present worries, although those were at the forefront of everyone’s minds as well. Only Glitter dared get close to the adults, but mostly so she could be by her father.
It was odd, still thinking of them as the adults when I knew I was an adult now myself, but that was what they were. My mom, as well as my aunts Parv and Lila, and my two uncles, Al and Angus. They had been the adults in my life for as long as I could remember, even Angus who hadn’t been physically present.
These people, my aunts and uncles and mom, were gathered under a large live oak tree, the shade of the branches blocking out the hot Georgia sun but doing nothing to keep the humidity at bay.
Parv and Angus smoked, sitting next to each other in a comfortable way that made it seem as if twenty years hadn’t been lost. Across from them sat Mom, Al, and Lila. They looked up when Jim came over to join them and Mom patted him on the leg. The gesture was so familiar that it sent a shock through me, and I had to remind myself that they had a history I couldn’t possibly understand. They’d been out there on the road, fighting to survive. Whatever had happened to drive Jim outside the walls of the city, it didn’t change what they’d been through. Nothing ever would.
I didn’t know if I’d want to hear everything they had to say, but I couldn’t make myself turn and go back into the house. Instead, I took a place next to Charlie, who barely glanced my way. She was too intent on listening, seemingly holding her breath as she waited for the truth to spill out of my uncle.
Once Angus started talking it seemed to go on forever. He told stories about living inside the CDC, about the tests they’d performed on him and the viruses he’d been injected with. I listened as Angus told my family about the original strain and how it had been released by Star; how he and his team had been behind every single mutation the virus had gone through. He talked about the other immune people who’d been brought in, each of them put through the same torturous treatment he’d endured over the last twenty years, but how none of them had survived it. His voice nearly broke when he talked about watching the progression of victims being brought in alive and fighting, and then wheeled out days or weeks or months later in body bags.
No one interrupted him, but it wasn’t long before I noticed a change in Parvarti. I could see the stiffening of her shoulders and how she shifted her body away from Angus as he talked about Glitter’s mother, a woman named Jane who he spoke about with a mixture of sadness and bitterness that made no sense to me. His voice was pained and angry when he told everyone about having a daughter he knew about but could do nothing to save. He talked about hating the girl’s mother, the doctor who had at one time been Star’s most trusted scientist, but how he had longed for her at the same time. Not just for the human contact, but for her. He’d fallen in love with her, the woman who had helped torture him and Glitter, who had done unspeakable things not just to us, but to the entire human race.
It wasn’t until he’d finished speaking that Parv broke the silence that had settled over everyone. “You can’t be serious about loving that woman.”
Angus nodded, but the way his shoulders slumped said that admitting it didn’t bring him any joy. “She was evil. I know what she did and I felt the pain of it more than anybody else, but she did right in the end. Jane saved Glitter, and she saved me even though she was long gone. I suspect she’s in hell, and she probably deserves it, but I still love her.” He shook his head. “For better or worse and all that bullshit.”
Parv’s deep intake of breath following his statement was so loud it felt like a crack of thunder. “She destroyed me.”
I leaned forward at the same time that my uncle did.
“How’s that?” he asked.
“Joshua was her apprentice and he trusted her. He believed her when she told him there was a new vaccine. Something they were giving pregnant woman so babies would stop dying after birth.” Parv’s voice was so strained that it didn’t sound a thing like her. She turned her gaze on Angus and stared at him, and the rays of sunshine that broke through the trees reflected off the tears shimmering in her eyes. “We trusted her and it almost killed me. It did kill our baby.”
Baby. I remembered the conversation I’d had with Parvarti only a few days ago, after Joshua’s zombie had been brought into Dragon’s Lair. I’d retrieved his wedding ring and taken it to my aunt while she was working the wall, knowing she would want it back and that she needed to know the truth of what had happened to her husband. She’d told me about how they’d fallen in love, slowly and with so much hesitation that it had taken two years for them to admit it to one another. She’d mentioned wanting to have a family, but she’d said it had never happened for her. Now I was about to find out why.
“What’d she do?” Angus asked, his voice as strained as Parv’s was.
Silence followed, and after a few moments it was Mom who spoke up. “The baby tried to rip it’s way out of her. It was—” Her voice broke and she had to pause so she could swallow. “It had turned in the womb. There was so much damage that Parv almost bled to death. They had to do a hysterectomy to save her.”
“That woman stole our family from us.” Parv’s voice was low and fierce.
Angus’s shoulders slumped. He looked resigned and maybe a little tortured when he said, “She’s in hell.”
“I hope she suffered when she died,” Parv spit at him.
He nodded slowly as he took a long pull on his cigarette, the end of it flaring bright and red as if imitating the fiery pits of hell. When he blew the smoke out he said, “She did, and so did I. So did all of us.”
Six
Donaghy
Axl wasn’t brought back to his cell the next day, but Jackson didn’t come back either. Part of me thought that was a good thing, but another part knew it would only be matter of time. He’d lost his shit, but Jackson was the boss’s son and as long as Axl recovered, all would be forgiven. Maybe even if he didn’t.
Only, I had no clue which result I was rooting for.
My day started too early, with the lights in the cell bursting to life and waking me from a fitful sleep where Jackson Star cut my sister’s throat over and over again. I was drenched in sweat, as was the bed under me, and breathing so hard anyone passing by might think I was having a heart attack. It felt like I was. It felt like my insides were on the verge of exploding, and all I could do to hold myself together was press my hand against my chest and pray that God would make this all end soon—one way or another.
The image of Jackson Star’s sick smile stuck with me more than the image of what my sister had looked like the last time I’d seen her or how hopeful Meg had been when she’d learned that her dad was alive, because I knew what fate was in store for me. I had a one-way ticket to zombieville with Jackson in the driver’s seat. That’s why I was here. That sick asshole was going to inject me with something and then watch me turn. What he’d do with me after that I didn’t have a damn clue, but I had no doubt that if he did manage to find Meg and her family and drag them here, my zombie self would somehow be involved in their torture.
I was honored with breakfast in bed, which included a bowl of slimy oatmeal and a huge-ass vial of blood being drawn. Two guards held me down while I thrashed, one sticking his knee in my back so hard that I felt like my spine was about to break in half. It hurt like hell, but I used all the strength left inside me, refusing to let these pricks off easy. Before they left, I got a kick to my already sore ribs that left me breathless and curled up on the floor of my cell.
Lunch came a few hours later, this time with no blood draw, but that was about it. I was locked in a cell with nothing to do but replay every bad thing I’d done in my life that might have landed me in this shitty situation, but for the life of me I couldn’t come up with a single thing that would have deserved this kind of karma. Nothing. Sure I’d been an asshole from time to time, but for the most part I’d minded my own business and worked hard to keep my sister safe. A lot of good that had done her.
My shitty sandwich—something that I thought was supposed to be egg salad—had only been gone for about an hour when the door in the hallway finally opened. I stood, half expecting to see Jackson, but instead caught sight of the head asshole himself. Garrett Star, the big shot Regulator of New Atlanta. He barely looked my way when he passed me, too engrossed in a conversation with the man at his side. I watched as they headed down the hall, pausing outside several cells to discuss something.
From where I was I could see straight into Axl’s cell, which was currently empty, but I also had a glimpse of the one to the right of that. Just on the other side of the glass stood the guy I’d met only a few days earlier in Dragon’s Lair, the
man from Meg’s crew. I couldn’t for the life of me remember his name, and at this point he was nearly hairless, the sprinkling of black hair that had still clung to his chest when I’d been brought in seemed to have vanished overnight. His skin had lost most of its color and was taking on the same translucent look the hybrid zombie I’d fought had. I remembered how it had felt under my grip, soft and thin, as if it would rip if I grabbed him too tightly.
Whatever Star was doing here, he was utterly engrossed in the cell next to me. It was the one that held the teenage girl I’d seen when I was dragged in. Her brown eyes had been sad and swimming with pain, her barely covered body strapped down while tubes ran from her veins to the IV bags that dripped only God knew what into her bloodstream. I had a pretty good idea who she was, but it was an idea I couldn’t bring myself to entertain just yet because it was just too dark, too twisted. Even for this place.
Star and the man stood outside the cell talking for a few minutes before he finally nodded and turned to go, leaving the other scientist to do his bidding. Thinking about what it might be gave me the chills, and I found myself wrapping my arms around my body like they would protect me from the cool air whooshing through the vents in my room. The head asshole glanced at me when he walked by, but it was a passing look, one that told me he hadn’t given me a second thought since I was brought in.
