by Guy James
“Then, at unpredictable intervals, the hunger fits began to hit me. They began on the second day after I got home. I thought I was doing alright, and even that my need for water was decreasing, and then, while I was making myself a snack of some vegetables, I completely lost control of myself. My mind filled with thoughts and images of tearing into human flesh, of devouring people, ripping them apart, eating them, and drinking their blood.”
“Oh my.”
“Yes,” the vegan said, “indeed. It wasn’t just in my head, either. It was as if my whole body was taken over by someone else when I suffered from these fits. My limbs and joints went rigid and turned odd angles and I would stagger, clumsily, out of the house and go in search of a person to eat. It was lucky that there was no one around for me to try to devour.”
“Was it?”
The vegan sighed, and then went on. “Eventually, after about ten or fifteen minutes of wandering around looking for someone to eat…my body completely beyond my control…the fit would subside, and I would gradually regain my ability to make my body do what I wanted. Then I would return home, smoke some cigarettes, and reflect on what all of this meant. I found out, by accident, that if I kept my water intake and smoking constant, that the hunger fits rarely came. If I stopped smoking or dried up too much, the hunger fits came at once. So that’s what I did. I drank and smoked more, and by doing that, I was able to keep the hunger for human flesh relatively at bay.”
“And now, where is your urge to tear apart my flesh? You haven’t been staying very well hydrated, I imagine, and there have been no cigarettes for you to smoke in the last few hours.”
The vegan looked down at the bracelet with its projections cut into his wrist. “I don’t know. I don’t feel it now. I don’t want to. I do want to smoke a few cigarettes, though. Do you mind?”
“No, not at all. Please. I will keep your supply of water steady. I don’t want you having a fit and trying to cross out of your boundary. That would end our discussion rather too abruptly.”
“Thank you.”
While the vegan lit up two cigarettes at once and stuck them in his mouth, Dr. Zamirsky filled four metal cups with water and placed them within the vegan’s boundary. The vegan took them and alternated between gulping down the water and smoking his cigarettes.
“I feel better,” the vegan said. “Not that I felt like I had a fit coming on, but I feel a lot better now, after all this.” He gestured with his cigarettes at the empty cups.
“I’ll pour you some more.”
“Thank you.”
“Have you been staying in the same place since the end of the outbreak?” Dr. Zamirsky asked as he began to refill the four metal cups.
“No. I don’t have a television, but I have a radio that I would turn on from time to time. There was nothing for a while, but after the quarantine was lifted, the channels came back. I learned about what had happened, and I realized that I was being irresponsible by staying where I was. Even though my house was in a relatively remote spot, I felt like it was too close to people, and given my new problem, I didn’t want to have a hunger fit around any people. So I moved deep into the woods, into a cabin that my family has owned for years. We used to rent it out as a vacation property. That’s where I stayed…until yesterday.”
“Interesting. Very interesting.” Dr. Zamirsky frowned. “Why did you leave yesterday?”
“I’m not really sure. I think I knew there had been another outbreak. I mean I did know. I was sure of it. I just don’t understand how I knew.”
“Maybe you felt it somehow?”
“I guess I did. I knew that something very important was happening, and that I had to do something.”
“Fascinating, just fascinating.” Dr. Zamirsky coughed up some more phlegm and spat into the sink. Then he sat down again. “Now, as promised, I will tell you what I know. What kind of friend would I be if I kept you in the dark with respect to the very matters you just shared with me?” Dr. Zamirsky sighed contentedly, and then began. “The virus that you now carry is called Desi. She rapidly dehydrates her hosts and makes them seek moisture, preferring the moisture found in uninfected humans above all other sources of moisture. The mechanism by which this works is quite remarkable, but we can discuss that in more detail later.”
The vegan looked at his wrist. “That certainly explains the symptoms I’ve been experiencing.”
“In you,” Dr. Zamirsky said, “the virus is acting much differently than it usually does in its human hosts. Perhaps there was a mutation.” Dr. Zamirsky looked thoughtful, then got up, coughed up some phlegm, and spat into the sink. “No matter. Mutation or not, I do not have the equipment with which to determine that here. It seems, that the dehydrating effects in your case are, based on your appearance and what you’ve told me, reduced compared to what is the norm. You are also, unlike the typical human host, able to keep from spreading the virus by force of will or otherwise. You are able to control you urge to bite and infect others, which is contrary to Desi’s design.
“You also do not carry the viral net…the uh…the out-gassing characteristic that Desi typically imparts to her victims. It is an ingenious component of the virus that uses hosts to trap humans who will become new hosts. Desi’s victims emit an airborne neurotoxin—a unique neurotoxin—that makes humans easy prey. It numbs their minds and bodies, and they are unable to escape, as if caught in a spider’s web, only with less wriggling...much less
“I made sure to test you for that while you were out with the scant equipment I do have here. I suspected that you might be lacking that aspect, considering the unusual effects Desi has had in you. Once I confirmed you were missing that…feature, I removed my mask. I did not want to risk suffering the…long-term effects of exposure to the viral net.”
“Long-term effects?” the vegan asked.
Dr. Zamirsky nodded, grinning. “The effects of prolonged exposure to significant amounts of the neurotoxin are permanent. Those exposed to enough of it for an extended period of time suffer permanent brain damage…characterized mostly by hallucinations and delusions and the like.” Dr. Zamirsky looked the vegan up and down. “And, you appear to be of relatively sound mind—” Dr. Zamirsky frowned, “—all things considered…relatively.”
“Are you saying Sven and Jane and Lorie…that they have brain damage?” the vegan asked.
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“You tell me,” Dr. Zamirsky said. “You, on the other hand, from what I can gather, seem to have retained your mental faculties, to the extent that they were available before the outbreak.” Dr. Zamirsky shook his head and shrugged. “Given genetic variation in the population and the sample size,” he said, “I gather that such things are inevitable. Neat chemical experiments are much less so when they enter the real world and interact with human components. As perfect as I have made Desi, there were still a few kinks that remained to be worked out. For one, a fair number of Desi’s hosts are…how do I put it…overzealous. They sometimes tear their victims apart rather than spread Desi by a neat and not overly aggressive bite. Now, eliminating this inefficiency has become wholly irrelevant. And, as I have to come to know my Desi, her imperfections are what truly make her perfect. Perfection, in general, can be found most easily through a familiarity with a being’s imperfections. In any event, Desi’s actual effect in the field is adequate, as you have witnessed.”
“It’s a terrible disease,” the vegan said.
“Yes, wonderful.”
“Is it true what they say on TV,” the vegan said, “that the virus can be in food?”
Dr. Zamirsky nodded. “That’s correct. Desi can exist outside of a human host for certain lengths of time, depending on the conditions. But she needs a human host to replicate and to continue to exist for any meaningful length of time. Humans are her only food.”
“And animals?”
“Yes,” Dr. Zamirsky said, looking distracted, “what of them?”
“Can they carry it?”
“No,” Dr. Zamirsky said, sh
aking his head. “Animals can carry and transmit Desi for short amounts of time. That being said, Desi requires human DNA to exist and to replicate—outside of a laboratory environment, that is, in which she can live indefinitely.” He glanced at the silver briefcase. “Desi is designed such that when she is exposed to oxygen outside of the presence of human DNA, she begins to disassemble herself after a certain period of time, depending on environmental conditions and the strain in question.”
“So what was in the food supply…what went to Virginia, that wasn’t in a human host...right?”
“Correct. A portion of the food supply was contaminated with a long-lived strain of Desi.”
“What is long-lived for this virus?”
“For Desi, it means six days, and that is under pristine conditions. Had none of the contaminated food been ingested in that period, she would have disassembled herself and dissipated as so many inert molecules.”
The vegan looked at the imaginary boundary line on the floor and then stared up at Dr. Zamirsky.
“Why?” the vegan asked.
“Why? Well, to leave no trace, of course.”
“No, I mean why did you do it? Why did you do all of it?”
Dr. Zamirsky smiled. “You think it was me.”
“I know it was you. It’s your virus. All of this is your doing.”
“And why do you think that?”
“Am I wrong?”
Dr. Zamirsky smiled wanly. “Not entirely. You are right that Desi is my creation. But what is happening now, that is not my doing.”
“You didn’t do this?”
“Sadly,” Dr. Zamirsky said, “I did not. I am not directly responsible for this outbreak. Of course I am very happy with its progress, and I had hoped to unleash Desi upon the entire world within the coming years, but I didn’t think she was ready yet. Now, of course, that is all irrelevant.”
The vegan looked down at the bracelet. “It was someone like me, wasn’t it?”
Dr. Zamirsky grinned. “You are very sharp. Maybe there is something to your diet after all. Anyway, back to what you said, that was exactly the conclusion that I reached. Because Desi cannot survive outside of a human host except in certain laboratory conditions, the virus must have originated with someone who was infected in the Virginia outbreak and who continued to carry Desi ever since. But, Desi’s concentration in New York grew too quickly for this outbreak to have been the work of another carrier such as you, transmitting the infection by bite.”
“So it was done on purpose.”
“My mind is still very sharp too—not as sharp as it used to be, I must admit, all things wear out with time and grow dull, but it is still sharp enough. It took me longer to figure out than it should have. Be that as it may, I was one hundred percent certain in the accuracy of my conclusion even before I met you. I had already ruled out all other possibilities. You, my friend, are simply further proof of my theory of what, or who, to be more precise, is responsible for this outbreak. I have no doubt that the current outbreak was planned, just as the Virginia outbreak was, but on a much grander scale.”
Dr. Zamirsky coughed. He frowned. “It makes me sicker just to think about that mess in Virginia. What a terrible job they did with the cover-up. The explanations put forward by my colleagues in the government reeked of trying too hard. They were completely unbelievable because the false explanations were too aggressive. They left no room for loose ends and that just made everything worse. Isn’t it obvious, Randy, that you’re not supposed to answer all the questions that a situation raises? There have to be some elements that are left unknown for the explanation to be believable.”
“You’re saying people reject lies in neat packages?”
“How eloquent,” Dr. Zamirsky said. “Exactly, exactly. But, to use your phrase, if you give them lies in a package that drags many loose ends behind it, they will believe anything.” Dr. Zamirsky coughed. “Well, there’s nothing to be done about that now. Nothing to be done. But come on, GMO soy? What nonsense. If only there could be more time in the day, then I could do it all myself, and it would be done right.”
“Why did you say that this outbreak was planned?”
Dr. Zamirsky looked at the vegan. “Oh, right. You’re not privy to the information that I have access to. Although you were wandering in the woods when I found you, so I imagine you knew what was going on…somehow.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Anyway, what you probably don’t know is that Desi is at this very moment running rampant throughout America. All the major cities are being overrun by infected automatons as we speak. Soon Desi’s hosts will disintegrate, and pose no further threat to flora or fauna. Humanity’s dominion will be pried somewhat looser. After a time, the traces of the hosts, the footprints they have left, will be swept up. In that I believe, and so, as you see, this is a historic moment of unprecedented quality.”
The vegan sat still as he took this in. “I thought as much. How horrible.”
“Horrible? It’s wonderful. Perfectly wonderful. So, as you can see, it had to be a coordinated effort by a sentient being. Another carrier, like you, decided that it was time to pass the gift to others, and he did so in a big way. I did want to do it myself when I was ready, but I find it extremely pleasing that Desi has found her own way in the world. She no longer needs me to guide her, and so, she has outgrown her creator. Evolution is magnificent.”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” the vegan said.
“Believe it, my vegan friend. It’s the zombie apocalypse, just like on TV.”
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SVEN, JANE, AND LORIE’S APARTMENT, SUTTON PLACE, NEW YORK
“He should have been back by now,” Jane said. She was pacing up and down the living room, her Beretta 92FS in her shoulder holster, which she had put on immediately upon waking and realizing that Sven was gone. “He should not have left in the first place, not without telling me, but either way he should have been back by now.”
Jane looked at Ivan, who was sitting by the dining room window. He was watching the East River, which had calmed significantly. Jane looked for the debris she had seen in the water the previous night. It was gone. She looked at the apartment building that had been burning. She could see no more fire, but smoke continued to roll from the building’s burnt out windows.
“Ivan,” Jane said, “where is he?”
Ivan craned his neck and looked up and backward at Jane. He blinked at her, then returned his attention to the river.
“What about Lorie?” Jane asked. “Is she…is she still…out there?”
Once more, Ivan craned his neck and looked up and backward at Jane. He yawned instead of blinking this time, then returned his gaze to the river again.
Realizing how dry her throat was, Jane went back into the den, gulped down a few mouthfuls of water from the jug, and sat down in front of the computer. She scrolled through the forum, looking for updates.
From the messages on the forum, it seemed that the outbreak was waning, at least in New York. But there was nothing to indicate where Sven had gone, or why. Jane recalled how Sven had looked the previous night when he had said that Milt was gone.
“Is Milt really gone? Was there something unfinished?” Jane shook her head. “Maybe he went looking for Lorie.” She balled her hand into a fist and pounded the desk. “Damn it, Sven.”
She got up, put on a jacket, checked her Beretta, and dashed out of the apartment.
Ivan watched her leave, whined, and turned back to the river.
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CHELSEA MARKET BASEMENT, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Lorie was nauseated from holding her breath. She was growing increasingly disoriented.
A bead of sweat rolled off her forehead. She watched it fall to the cement floor and splat. It lit something up—a strip of some kind—and a liquid fire suddenly coursed through Lorie’s body, igniting and dulling all of her senses at the same time. Time shifted again, as it had earlier, and, with her oth
er-worldly perception regained, Lorie straightened.
Slowly, she raised her head until her chin was parallel to the ground. A calculating, impassive grin was blooming on her face.
The zombies staggered toward her with greater alacrity.
She turned in place, making eye contact with the withering eyes of each of the zombies in turn. And then she had them measured.
The seam that she saw ran through each of them, a sequence that was equal parts elegance, simplicity, and complexity.
She took off.
The pain that she felt was redirected and forged into lightning-fast movement.
She danced within the closing zombie aperture. Her display was punctuated by movements that would have made any Jeet Kune Do practitioner gasp with awe—that would have made anyone gasp with awe, really. The movements were emphasized with the snaps of bones and the final sounds of the virus’s animation departing from the undead.
When her dance was through, she stood within a pile of broken zombies. She hadn’t broken a sweat.
Lorie’s eyes remained focused on the seam, which, now that she had run its course through the zombies, was directing her to a door on the far side of the room.
Then she had to breathe.
Lorie took a breath. She tried to keep it shallow, but her lungs got the better of her will. She inhaled fully.
Her surroundings began to swim around her, but the seam that she saw grew brighter.
“Come on dog,” Lorie said. She began to stagger along the seam.
The Akita seemed uncertain. She looked up at Lorie, wide-eyed, and whined.
“Come on,” Lorie said. “You saved me, and now I’m gonna save you.”
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Lorie stared at the seam. She was standing in front of a door. The seam disappeared under it.
Lorie turned her back on the door, glanced at the obliterated zombies, then looked down at the Akita.
