Resurrection: A Zombie Novel

by Michael J. Totten

  That would have been the civilized way to handle it.

  Kyle could be awfully persuasive. He was persuasive when he was naive, and he was persuasive when he was vindictive.

  That made him a dangerous man, one of the most dangerous Hughes had ever known. He didn’t seem dangerous in the slightest, not like Lane or even like Parker, and that’s what made him worse than either. Not even Hughes kept his guard up consistently enough, and Hughes was more allergic to dangerous people and ideas than just about anyone.

  What really shook him was how Kyle had seemed like the most decent of the whole bunch after Carol. Yet look at what he did. Look at what he made all of them do.

  * * *

  Annie slipped out of the guesthouse and into the main house. The rotting corpse in the living room smelled worse every time she walked in there. She was hoping she’d get used to the sight and the smell, but no.

  She crept up the stairs so Parker wouldn’t hear, and he was whimpering and moaning when she reached the door leading into his room.

  Yes, it was his room now. His very own room of torment and horror. No one else in her group would ever use it for any other reason.

  Parker hadn’t turned yet. The sounds he made were too soft and too—human. He wasn’t screaming or violently thrashing about.

  But oh God, was he going to scream after he turned. No one had gagged him or taped up his mouth. Perhaps they should have, but this way his bellowing would allow them to monitor him from a distance. Annie would need to find something to plug her ears.

  She pressed her hands against the door as if she could feel the energy inside. She couldn’t, but all the same she tried to transmit some peaceful energy of her own across the grim threshold. It was useless, of course, but she didn’t know what else to do with herself.

  She wanted to say something, anything, but it would only make Parker feel worse. From the sounds he was making, she figured he was in some kind of delirium. Perhaps that was best. Delirium is its own form of anesthetic.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, knowing he couldn’t hear her but needing to say it.

  She hoped with all her heart that he would recover and make all this worthwhile. It would be a major breakthrough, especially for a small band of survivors without any medical training. She might be able to save lives in the future, but for now she just hoped Parker pulled through so that something decent could result from the horrible thing they had done to him.

  The horrible thing that was her idea, sort of. His body would be shot through with holes and broken at the base of the cliff right now if she hadn’t told the others about her immunity and suggested they test it on Parker, but she had no idea it would be such a nasty business.

  Another thought occurred to her, something no one had mentioned yet and probably had not even thought of, partly because it was a bit early for that, but mostly because the idea would terrify everyone else.

  If her immunity could be transferred, they couldn’t stay in the Pacific Northwest. They’d need to find an operational medical facility, one that could study her and mass-produce a vaccine. Certainly no such facility existed anywhere near Puget Sound. They might have to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles. She’d need to tell the others. And she’d need to tell them sooner rather than later.

  If Parker recovered.

  And there was one other thing. If Parker came back, he’d be the only person in the world who understood what she’d gone through. She needed him to recover.

  She needed him to survive.

  The whole world needed him to recover and then to survive.

  * * *

  Kyle hated that Annie was mad at him. He was beginning to think she’d always be mad at him, or at least think of him differently than before. They could not have a future together if they couldn’t get past this.

  Parker had been right about one thing. Ruthlessness has to be met with ruthlessness. Kyle had been too soft. The cozy and comfortable morality of high-tech Seattle and Portland had no place in a world where life was brutish and short. Kyle understood now. Annie needed to understand it, as well. They needed to talk.

  Annie thought she had sneaked over to the main house to visit Parker, but Kyle had seen her leave. He wouldn’t say anything. It would just create one more thing for them to fight about. Instead he waited on the couch for her return while Frank and Hughes chopped wood for a fire in back.

  She came back a half-hour later. And she looked startled when she opened the door and saw Kyle sitting there waiting.

  “I know why you’re upset,” he said.

  “You do, huh?” she said.

  “It was pretty gruesome what happened up there.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t get it at all.”

  “What don’t I get?”

  “Every day since this virus appeared has been gruesome. I never even imagined the things I’ve seen the last two months. But what happened up there was worse because it was pointless. We didn’t have to do it that way.”

  “It was the only way to be sure.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “We could have injected him with infected blood,” Kyle said, “but we still don’t know if it would work. It’s not like we have anyone else around here to experiment on.”

  “You hate him. And you want revenge.”

  “I don’t hate him.”

  “Of course you do. Not that I blame you. I’d hate him too if I were you.”

  “You’re saying you don’t hate him?”

  “It’s hard to hate someone after tying him to a chair and force-feeding him to an infected. You heard what he said.”

  “I heard what he said.”

  You’re the most wicked people alive.

  “It doesn’t bother you.”

  “Why should it? He’s wrong. This was your idea, Annie. And it was a brilliant idea. This is science. Progress. We’re not the Center for Disease Control here, but there’s a chance we’ll all be immune by the time this is over.”

  Hughes and Frank came in from outside. Kyle needed to dial the argument down. He didn’t want to fight with Annie at all, and especially not in front of the others.

  But Annie retreated to her room and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the windows.

  * * *

  Annie collapsed on the bed. She lay on her back without bothering to put her head on the pillow. All she wanted was a long, deep sleep and the peace of oblivion.

  It was not going to happen.

  “Shit!” she said and bolted up.

  “You okay in there?” Hughes said from the living room.

  She crossed the room and opened the door.

  Kyle was still on the couch, and now Frank was sitting next to him. Hughes was on his feet and looked ready for anything.

  “We are so stupid,” Annie said.

  Hughes seemed to relax slightly. No, she hadn’t seen one of those things out her window, and no, she wasn’t about to stab Kyle.

  “We can’t do this,” she said. “We need a doctor.”

  “What now?” Kyle said. “We’re already doing it.”

  “No,” Annie said. “I mean we really need a doctor.”

  “You sick?” Hughes said.

  “I’m fine,” Annie said. “But Parker might not be.”

  Frank raised his eyebrows. Kyle rolled his eyes.

  God, they hadn’t thought this through at all.

  “Have any of you ever donated blood?” Annie said.

  Frank shook his head.

  “No,” Kyle said.

  “Can’t say I have,” Hughes said.

  “I give blood every year,” Annie said. “Jesus, I can’t believe I didn’t think of this until now.”

  “What?” Kyle said.

  Hughes looked crestfallen. He closed his eyes. He had figured it out. “Your blood type.”

  “Yeah,” Annie said. “My blood type.”

  “What about it?” Kyle said.

  “I can only donate blood to people wh
o share my blood type.”

  “Oh,” Kyle said. “Shit!” He was still mad from their fight, and now she was just pouring it on.

  “Do you and Parker have the same blood type?” Frank said.

  “I have no idea,” Annie said. “We didn’t ask him. He might not even know his blood type.”

  “Do you know yours?” Hughes said.

  “Well,” Annie said, “if I had type O, Parker’s wouldn’t matter. O is the universal donor. But I have type A. Which means I can only donate to people with type A or AB.”

  “How many people have type A or AB?” Hughes said.

  “Less than half,” Annie said. “About forty percent of the population if I remember correctly.”

  “I have type B,” Frank said. “I was in the Army. We all got tested. In case something happened.”

  “And if Parker’s is different?” Hughes said.

  “He’ll have an allergic reaction,” Annie said.

  “What does that mean?” Hughes said. “Will it kill him?”

  “I don’t know!” Annie said. “But either way it’s pretty unlikely that he’ll be immune to the virus if his blood rejects mine.”

  Kyle put his face in his hands and groaned.

  “So if you’re A and I’m B,” Frank said to Annie, “we know I can’t get an injection. But we still have a forty-percent chance it will work out with Parker.”

  “No,” Annie said, “we have a forty-percent chance that his body won’t reject the transfusion. We still have no idea if the antibodies in my blood will kill the virus in his.”

  “So what do we do?” Frank said. “Should we ask him his blood type?”

  “Now?” Kyle said. “It doesn’t make a rat’s-ass bit of difference what his blood type is now. It’s already in his system, and so is the virus. This’ll either work or it won’t.”

  “No sense going up there and looking like a bunch of amateurs in front of him,” Hughes said.

  “But we are amateurs,” Annie said. “And you know what else?”

  “What?” Kyle said.

  “Even if this works, we’re still screwed,” Annie said.

  “Why?” Frank said.

  “I assume,” Annie said, “that since none of you have donated blood, you don’t know your blood type. Am I right?” Kyle squeezed his eyes shut. “Which means you can’t have a transfusion. I can’t pass my immunity on to you even if it does work with Parker. We’ve already failed.”

  * * *

  But they had already moved forward. And Parker turned in the night. They all heard it happen. The walls weren’t soundproofed and no one had gagged him.

  He roared is if he wanted to swallow the world.

  Annie cried into her pillow and refused to come out of her room even to eat.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Frozen. Trapped. Pinned. Tied. Tied to a chair. Tied to a chair by his prey. By his food.

  A hungry hungry predator shouldn’t be tied. Cannot be tied. Cannot be tied by his prey, by his food, or he can’t get to his prey, to his food.

  Pain in his back. Pain in his arms. Pain in his legs. Pain because he was tied.

  Every muscle flexing, relentlessly flexing.

  The ropes were strong, but he was stronger. He’d show them. He’d show his prey, his prey and his food, that he was much stronger.

  Push.

  Pull.

  Yank.

  Strain.

  His back afire and his eyes ready to burst, but the ropes would break because he was hungry strong.

  His prey would pay. With blood, organs, sinew, tissue, and bones.

  He would devour them all, rip them apart with his hands, with his teeth, all his prey in the world, his cattle run wild, he would devour them all and still not be sated, this terrible hunger, so hungry.

  His tongue on his teeth so sharp and biting and strong. Stronger than rope.

  He smelled his prey down the stairs and outside. He screamed at his prey down the stairs and outside. His prey, his food, his prey heard him. They did. He’d find his prey, explode at his prey and rip their throats, screaming and gnashing, from the necks and, biting and thrashing, their torsos from limbs.

  Every muscle flexing, relentlessly flexing, burning with acid, his mind exploding with rage and anguish gone nova, and the rage and the pain and the pain and the rage and his throat raw and burning from screaming.

  Violently shaking in wrath and pain, the chair was going to topple, his throat would burst in his own neck from screaming, then a whispering voice, a tiny flickering thought in the back of his mind: Oh my God.

  * * *

  Aside from the raging of the thing that used to be Parker, a day passed in tense silence. No one knew what to do with themselves or what to say.

  Hughes spent most of his time on the front steps staring out at the sea and listening to the bellowing from upstairs next door. He had to keep at least an ear on Parker in case the man somehow broke free. There was no way to be sure Parker wouldn’t rip through his ropes and break down the door in the state he was in.

  Annie stayed in her bedroom. Kyle sulked on the couch and in the kitchen, his presence and energy baleful enough to keep the others away. Frank wandered around the property, never venturing far in case something happened. Meanwhile, Parker’s voice thundered hard enough to blow down the walls.

  Hughes couldn’t sleep. The guilt got to him. He, Kyle, and Frank would not be able to get a vaccine from Annie’s blood even if Parker did happen to recover. Maybe they shared her blood type and maybe they didn’t. There was no way to tell. It’s not like the Red Cross had an office nearby where they could get tested. Pharmacies had instant pregnancy-test kits, but they did not carry blood kits. They’d need a doctor for that, and a lab. Hughes doubted a functioning medical facility existed anywhere within 1,000 miles of the Puget Sound region. Maybe on the East Coast something was still up and running. Maybe.

  So Hughes just lay there in the darkness and stared at the ceiling, hating himself and what they’d done to Parker. Their nasty experiment would have been justified if it produced a vaccine, but they had not thought it through.

  The thing that used to be Parker finally quieted down, but Hughes still couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t take the suspense or the weight of what would happen next. What if Parker did recover? There was a forty-percent chance that he shared Annie’s blood type, after all. And maybe the inoculation would work. Then what? Hughes no longer had it in him to shoot Parker. Not if Parker recovered. Hughes could have shot him that night on the cliff, sure, no problem, but he couldn’t execute a man who was tied to a chair after putting him through such unspeakable hell.

  Something else bothered him too. Annie had amnesia for a while after she came back. Parker might too. He might not have any idea what had happened. He might not remember that he tried to kill Kyle. He might not remember coming up to the island. He might not remember Kyle at all or that the plague even existed. He’d be innocent in his mind. Innocent and confused. Then what? Shoot him anyway?

  No.

  Hughes could never execute a man for a crime he didn’t remember committing. Wasn’t right. He wouldn’t do it.

  Nor would he allow it.

  Would Kyle be willing? Really? What would Annie think of him then?

  Hughes thought he heard sounds coming from the next house. Moaning. Parker. The moaning sounded—human. Was Parker awake? Had he recovered?

  Hughes bolted off his bed and grabbed a flashlight. He heard doors opening in the hallway. The others were also awake and must have been thinking the same thing.

  They converged in the hall. Annie looked as if she had not slept for days. Kyle looked nervous. Frank was just beat.

  “I’ll bring the shotgun,” Hughes said. “Nobody else bring any weapons.”

  “I’m bringing one of the Glocks,” Kyle said.

  “The hell you are,” Hughes said.

  “Kyle, no,” Annie said.

  “Goddamnit, you guys,” Kyle said. “I’m not g
oing to shoot him right now, but we don’t know what kind of state he’s in. He might still be dangerous. He could have torn through his ropes.”

  “That’s why I’m brining the shotgun,” Hughes said. “And you will stand down. Leave the Glock.”

  “Fine!” Kyle said.

  Hughes led the others through the dark and into the main house. Was it just his imagination or was the corpse in the living room getting riper by the hour?

  They crept up the stairs.

  Annie opened the door.

  When he shone his flashlight on Parker, Hughes could see that the man was still tied. Tied up, hunched over, exhausted, and in terrible pain. A dried pool of brain matter and blood covered the floor where the thing that bit Parker was shot, but it looked like Parker had vomited the gore up himself in the night.

  “Hey man,” Frank said and knelt next to Parker, taking care to avoid the dried blood. He put his hand on Parker’s shoulder.

  “Careful, Frank!” Hughes said.

  “It’s okay,” Frank said. “He’s passed out.”

  “You don’t know if he’s—”

  Parker snapped his teeth around Frank’s thumb and index finger and clenched like he wanted to chew them clean off.

  Frank screamed.

  “Jesus Christ!” Kyle said.

  Annie gasped and backed into the far wall.

  The thing that used to be Parker growled and gnashed his teeth together around Frank’s thumb while Frank screamed and pummeled Parker’s head with his free hand.

  Hughes pointed the shotgun at Parker, but he couldn’t shoot or he’d hit Frank.

  “Get him off me!” Frank shouted.

  “Jesus, Parker, shoot him!” Kyle said.

  “Oh, God, get him off me!” Frank said.

  Hughes jammed the butt of his shotgun into the side of Parker’s head, splitting one of his ears open. Frank pulled his hand free and Annie rushed up and helped him get away.