by Guy James
A few clicks later, Dr. Zamirsky couldn’t believe where the alarm had been tripped...New York City.
He laughed out loud at his good fortune. It was too much.
If it really was Desi, and she had become concentrated enough to set off one of the monitoring alarms, and a concentration that large was in New York...
A grimace of triumph erupted on Dr. Zamirsky’s face. There was no going back now, unexpected and unplanned though this development was.
It was time for self-preservation.
Another alarm blared, and another, even more shrill.
Dr. Zamirsky coughed and cleared his throat loudly. He groaned when he saw the speck of green phlegm that he had launched into the lower left quadrant of his monitor.
Frowning, he opened a desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of moderately-priced vodka. From another drawer he took a wad of cotton. He opened the bottle of vodka, put the wad firmly over its mouth, and turned the bottle upside down. The bottle gulped once when the vodka rushed downward. The liquid bubbled and foamed as it settled in the top part of the upended bottle.
Dr. Zamirsky waited, taking in the resounding alarm, until the cotton wad was soaked with vodka and droplets had begun to make their way through the cotton. Then Dr. Zamirsky replaced the bottle and used the cotton wad to clean the phlegm from the monitor. He moved the cotton wad in concentric circles of diminishing radii. He traced each circle four times, pressing lightly against the screen, before lifting the wad, moving it slightly inward toward the spot of phlegm, and beginning on the next circle. It took him a little over three minutes to finish the job. He hummed all the while.
66
CIVIC CENTER, NEW YORK, NEW YORK, VIEW FROM WITHIN SVEN’S BACKPACK
Ivan was quite unhappy and sad at the moment even though he was in a small space and he liked small spaces but he didn’t like the cold and the people with the bad smell around him who were the bad people and who were trying to hurt Sven and make him bad like they were and the cold kept coming in and Sven was cold and shivering too as he ran around and fought the bad people who were everywhere and smelled like the bad death and Ivan remembered Lorie and Jane and the way that they smelled and it was good and not like the bad people but the smell was everywhere and it kept spreading even in the cold of the small space and it was not good even though small spaces were usually good to stay in but not this time because of the bad people and Sven was in danger again and Ivan was in danger with Sven and he had to help Sven but Sven was so bad at listening when Ivan warned him and that was because it was too cold for Sven’s brain to work well so Ivan knew that he would have to try harder to get through to Sven and lead him to safety.
67
GOVERNMENT RESEARCH FACILITY, UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, U.S.A.
Dr. Zamirsky looked down at the soiled wad of cotton that he was holding. Drying flecks of phlegm winked up at him.
“As you are, so shall we all soon be,” he said.
He placed the wad of cotton gingerly into his trash receptacle and then refocused on the monitor. He clicked through a series of screens, pausing to take mental notes, entered a series of commands, and initiated the computer’s formatting sequence.
“A clean wipe for you, and for all of the planet.”
Dr. Zamirsky was overcome by the urge to make a toast, and his eyes drifted to the alcove where the mini bar was, though the bar was hardly mini. He thought on whether he had time for a toast and decided that celebration would have to wait. Though Dr. Zamirsky’s office mini bar would have been a treasure trove for the average social drinker, the liquors that it held were less than befitting the occasion.
“Would any drink be appropriate for a moment like this?”
He wondered for a little while, and began to daydream of tequila infused with a morsel of human-flesh. It was morbid, really—Dr. Zamirsky did not have cannibalistic tendencies of which he was aware, and the sickeningly sinister thought jarred Dr. Zamirsky back into action.
He left the space behind his desk and walked to one of the nondescript sections of wood paneling on the far wall of his office. Beyond the panel lay the coat closet. He stood next to it, ramrod straight, still and unblinking for a long moment.
“Money still means much,” he reassured himself, “even if only as a marker of achievement…even if it has lost value in the eyes of the masses…or rather, even if the masses no longer have adequate brain function with which to value it.”
Dr. Zamirsky let his shoulders relax ever-so-slightly. “Dominion over the whole of the world is now Desi’s.” He paused. “All that remains is to survive long enough to be able to celebrate this brave new world. What kind of drink…” He shook his head. “Later. Drink later.”
He turned toward the door. “Man’s late, man’s late, for his very important fate. No time to say a single word. He’s late, he’s late, he’s late.”
Dr. Zamirsky glanced about his office, flung the closet door open, and reached inside. From the closet he took a silver briefcase, the contents of which he checked every day and upgraded at every opportunity, sparing no expense.
Inside the case, was, first and foremost, Dr. Zamirsky’s favorite—and only—traveling companion: Desi. Within the case, she inhabited a container that was much smaller than the one on Dr. Zamirsky’s desk. Placed in the compartments around Desi were all the things that Dr. Zamirsky needed to survive the fortuitous incident in which he found himself. There was water, dehydrated food, a GPS tracking device that would lead Dr. Zamirsky directly to his next destination, a knife, a pistol, and a number of gadgets that the military itself didn’t know that it was developing.
“The ultimate contingency plan,” Dr. Zamirsky said, smiling at the contents of the case. He focused on the container that held Desi. “A thing of beauty like no other. What a day… I am the luckiest man in the world.”
Dr. Zamirsky walked back to his desk. With not a hint of uncertainty or remorse on his face, he took another sip of his tea—the last sip of tea that he would ever take in his office. The mouthful of dark liquid was not as hot as he would have liked, but considering the wonderful turn that the day had just taken, Dr. Zamirsky did not even notice. Next, he glanced at the door to his hermetically sealed office—one could never be too cautious when one worked at a biological weapons research facility—and put on his state of the art gas mask.
He gave a moment’s consideration to writing a poetic resignation letter and walking it over to the head of the research facility. The man wasn’t Dr. Zamirsky’s boss, not really—nobody was—but he was in charge of…something…trivial administrative things, Dr. Zamirsky guessed. Dr. Zamirsky found the man pleasant, solely because Dr. Zamirsky thought him a corpulent lout who was curious to stare at. Dr. Zamirsky could not recall his name.
“Perhaps Desi has found him by now.” Dr. Zamirsky grinned. “A most plentiful host he will be.”
Before he left his office for the last time, Dr. Zamirsky looked at the container of Desi that sat atop his desk—a desk whose gleam of prestige seemed brighter than usual at that moment. He gazed at his creation, Desi, his eyes brimming with tears and his hand squeezing the handle of his briefcase, and said, “The world, as promised, is now yours.”
68
COCA-COLA BOTTLING FACILITY, HAWTHORNE, NEW YORK
Aiden Myers pointed to the other side of the glass. “I think there’s something wrong with Ralph. Like seriously wrong, you know?”
“I know that,” Lizzie Westreich said, looking at the rippling muscles of Aiden’s forearm.
Aiden could be so pleasantly distracting, she thought. If only he weren’t so dumb.
“No, I mean more than the usual,” Aiden said, “like, a lot more than the usual.”
Lizzie looked into the quality control room, better known as the tasting room. Ralph Sanders, the head of quality control at their Hawthorne, New York, Coca-Cola bottling facility was there, same as always. Ralph looked as he usually did, creepy, morbidly obese, and creepy.
“W
hat exactly do you mean?” Lizzie asked, growing annoyed. She still had a lot of paperwork to get through before the end of the day, and, unlike Aiden, she didn’t get to leave at the instant the clock struck five.
Aiden turned to Lizzie and huffed. “Are you serious? What exactly? What exactly? Like, just look at him! Look at him!”
Lizzie was taken aback by the abrupt hostility in Aiden’s voice, and the sudden feminine twang in his voice. She had never seen Aiden so nervous or unsure of himself.
“I don’t know what you’re getting mad about,” Lizzie said. “Why don’t we just go inside and talk to him if you think something’s wrong?” She reached for the doorknob of the door that led into the quality control room, but just as her fingers were about to close over the knob, Aiden grabbed her hand and jerked it away.
“No!” Aiden yelled. “We can’t go in there...and we can’t let him out.”
“What? Now you’re just being crazy. Can’t let him out? What the hell are you talking about?”
Lizzie reached for the doorknob again, and just as Aiden was about to stop her again, she pulled her hand back. Something on the other side of the glass had caught her eye.
She swallowed. “Look at his skin.” Her eyes had locked on Ralph’s sallow, exposed neck.
Aiden nodded. “Yep.”
“It’s all cracked and blotchy looking,” Lizzie said, “like that new guy. What was his name? Melvin? Mort?”
“No, Milt. But yeah, it’s just like that. Ralph got this way after that Milt guy showed up.”
Lizzie put her hand to her cheek, feeling the soft, unblemished skin of her face. “What if it’s some kind of contagious skin fungus or something?”
“I think it’s worse than that.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” Aiden said. “I just do.”
“Have you seen Milt today?”
“No. I haven’t seen him, in, like, days.”
Lizzie turned to look at her colleague. “Hey, Aiden?”
“Yeah?”
“Why isn’t Ralph moving?”
“I don’t know. Actually, I think he hasn’t left here in the past few days.” Aiden turned to Lizzie and gave her a conspiratorial nod. “That’s right, word is he’s been sleeping here, probably asleep now. His skin might look like that on account of some crust he needs to scour off under some hot water. I bet a shower would do him some good.”
“Well shouldn’t we tell somebody? Maybe something’s wrong, maybe something’s happened to him.”
Aiden hesitated. “Do you think something could be wrong with the syrup?”
“The syrup? What?”
“Well he’s supposed to be watching it, maybe something’s wrong with it. If he’s passed out and misses a defect, they could shut the whole plant down. We could all lose our jobs.”
“Right, I didn’t think of that. That’s all the more reason to—”
A crash ended the conversation. Ralph had tumbled from his chair. The chair was set to rolling across the room, and Ralph and all of his immensity had fallen backward and to the side, dragging a bucket of Coca-Cola syrup and two clean beakers down with him.
Ralph rolled over and came to rest on his back, his soft belly jiggling slightly. The bucket of syrup had overturned, and its contents were oozing onto Ralph’s neck and jaw. The beakers were stuck in the syrup, a beaker lingering on each side of Ralph’s neck, affixed there by the syrup.
Without hesitating, Lizzie burst into the quality control room, hoping to help Ralph in some way. Aiden followed, and caught Lizzie’s wrist as she approached Ralph’s heaving body. The fallen man’s breathing was labored, and though it looked like none of the syrup was getting into his mouth to obstruct his flow of air, his breathing made a sputtering sound.
“Don’t get too close,” Aiden said.
“What? I think he’s having a heart attack. He needs CPR.”
Lizzie twisted out of Aiden’s grip.
“Lizzie, wait!”
She bent over Ralph, getting a whiff of something strange. Confusion swept over her and Aiden pushed her out of the way.
Her mind returned to her, and she saw that she was in a corner of the quality control room, but didn’t remember how she had gotten there. She looked into the center of the room and gasped.
Ralph and Aiden were there, as if they were actors in a nightmare. Ralph was on the ground, covered in syrup, and there was a beaker on each side of his neck, clinging to him like oversized bolts on a shorter and pudgier Frankenstein’s monster. Aiden was beside Ralph, his face pale and uncomprehending.
Two pairs of undead eyes locked on Lizzie, and her breath caught. She couldn’t scream.
Their eyes were black, shriveled, and sunken in loose sockets. Ralph began to crawl toward her, an unimaginable, syrup-covered monster adorned with beakers. Aiden stumbled away from Ralph, and away from her. Then he redirected himself, and set a staggering course for Lizzie’s corner.
She knew what was happening. It was Sven’s fault—Sven the supposed Outbreak Contingency Planner’s fault. He had brought this evil back with him. He had brought the apocalypse to New York. They should never have let him leave Virginia. The liberals in New York City had gotten their way, as they always did, and they had driven the last nail into New York’s coffin, and probably the world’s coffin. She hoped they were happy. She hoped they were finally happy. But apocalypse or no, she wasn’t going to end up a stinking, mindless, staggering zombie. Apocalypse or no, she was going to get out of here, hide away at—
She looked up, and Aiden was there, on top of her.
Her mind bounded to an image of her father, the great Dr. Westreich. Dr. Westreich’s face was twisted in agony. He was being torn apart by one of his patients—one of his patients who had become an even more literal zombie than was the norm.
The image tugged at the corners of Lizzie’s lips, and her face contorted into a spasmodic smile. That was what she lived for, that was what she had taken this job for—to fuel his disappointment, to justify the hatred that she had always harbored toward him and his pedantic ways. He had paid for her useless liberal arts degree, and then she had flung it in his face when she took the job at the plant.
And now it had all worked out. Now it had all worked out because the zombies had gotten him at last—his very own zombies that he had helped to create through his prescriptions and piddling, self-serving analyses.
The word “transference” resounded in her brain, and then there was a sharp pain—somewhere, she wasn't sure where—and she was transported to her father’s office in Manhattan, the one in which she had spent so many afternoons and evenings after school let out, waiting for her father to finish up with his patients. She had passed the time by eavesdropping, and she had always pretended that she was the patient, and that her father was speaking to her.
Their actual interactions were limited to mundane greetings and one-liners, and rarely more than that even when she had disappointing news for him.
Now if she became a zombie, perhaps he would finally pay attention to her. Perhaps he would finally listen to what she had to say and…and she could pay him. She didn’t have very much money put away, but she did have access to a limitless supply of Coca-Cola products. She could pay him in Coca-Cola.
“A Dr Pepper for Dr. Westreich?” she heard someone gurgle in what seemed to be her voice. Was Dr Pepper a Coca-Cola product? Suddenly, she had no idea. What was Coca-Cola? And why?
Confusion swept over Lizzie Westreich again and the room began to spin out of control. It spun faster and faster and shrunk smaller and smaller until, to Lizzie’s perception, the room had become a spinning point with no dimensions, a singularity of which she was an integral part, primary and inseparable.
69
HUDSON RIVER GREENWAY, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
When Lorie was a few feet away from the mass of zombie students, she turned swiftly to the right and began to sweep past them, running harder and leaning to the outside to offset t
he momentum that was carrying her toward the zombies.
She took a small gulp of air and ran faster.
Moments later she was beyond the high school building and had a full view of Nelson A. Rockefeller Park. It was a beautiful park, and she loved to have lunch there when the weather was nice. It had been weeks since she had eaten there, when the last of the unseasonably warm weather had left New York City.
There was a deli just off the park that had overpriced sandwiches and on days when the weather had been nice, she got her go-to sandwich—tuna salad on a Kaiser roll—and ate it in the park, feeding birds bits of her Kaiser roll if birds happened to be around. She didn’t think of the deli now, as thoughts of food were far from her mind, but she did want to see the park…needed to see the anger of the rolling Hudson from the park’s westernmost point.
Running through the park was not the shortest route to City Hall, but Lorie felt that she had to run to that point that she knew on the river. It wasn’t to see the park that she loved one last time, but for a different reason. She felt like she could pick up some energy there, from the trees and the river, something that would reinvigorate her and help her through the outbreak. It was an odd feeling—she was sure there was something there for her—the energy of the storm, or something, she couldn’t quantify it in her mind.
She ran, and she ran hard.
The wind picked up off the river, pushing Lorie backward and almost lifting her off her feet. Pellets of water from the Hudson River pelted Lorie’s face and body. She ducked and drew her arms into her body, making her form sleeker and decreasing the wind resistance against her body.
She glanced sideways once, and then focused her mind into a pinpoint of will, a singularity of inner power that she had come close to during the Virginia outbreak but had never achieved.
