Table of Contents
Thirteen Hours
Book Details
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
About the Author
Thirteen Hours
FRANCIS GIDEON
Hans longs to be accepted by his academic peers. When he discovers a cure for the ongoing zombie crisis, he thinks he's finally achieved that goal—only to be stripped of his rank and unceremoniously tossed out on the streets.
With nowhere else to turn, Hans, his wife, and her lover Joan look for solutions in other areas, cobbling together a lab and supplies by scrounging the back alleys of London. The only thing they lack is a body to experiment on.
When the body of a young man shows up, it's almost too good to be true. Hans has only thirteen hours to work, but he's determined to prove himself. The clock is ticking, and nothing is ever as easy as it seems...
Thirteen Hours
By Francis Gideon
Published by Less Than Three Press LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.
Edited by V.E. Duncan
Cover designed by Aisha Akeju
This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.
First Edition January 2017
Copyright © 2017 by Francis Gideon
Printed in the United States of America
Digital ISBN 9781620049303
For Travis. Thanks for listening to all those steampunk audiobooks with me.
Chapter One
"I have found a way to cure the undead masses," Hans Metzger declared. His words fell on the hushed auditorium like the first zombie cry of the decade previously: without notice of its true importance.
Since the first body rose from the earth in the late 1880s, Hans's home of London had been turned into a wasteland. But it was a slow wasteland, eroding after months of isolated incidents suddenly tipped into a pandemic. After a month of confusion and paranoia (most of which Hans spent hiding out in the highest tower of the university), the city of London had been pried back into the hands of the people. The outer edges of the city were now reinforced with barricade after barricade in a zigzag pattern to catch the undead masses as they stumbled towards the population. These creatures were slow-moving, only riled up for blood when they got into close contact with humans. The farther away they kept the monsters, the safer London remained. So the rolling hills of England that stretched on into green became the playpen of monstrosity where they kept the zombies until they figured out what to do.
Bethany University had been dolling out money for undead research ever since the problem reached a critical threshold. When zombies were annexed from the city, research was kicked into high gear, since now professors and scientists had a safe space to work. The doctors at the university quickly realized that severing the brain stem was the most efficient way to remove all of the undead's faculties. The university then appointed watch tower men on the criss-crossing fences to administer the kill shot to the head and neck area. This first discovery allowed the population to dwindle, but never quite disappear. Around the corner, there was always a new infection; a new death that was unaccounted for, a new body that soon rose from the morgue. More and more research funding was poured into the zombie problem. An entire wing was created in the school, where Hans Metzger eventually applied for his PhD. After watching the zombies destroy London from his hiding place, he was more determined than ever before to make things right.
Over the last three years, Hans's colleagues discovered that the undead masses migrated towards the city not because of the warmth of the bodies as previously suspected but because of the sound. A zombie's hearing was inhumanly acute. They could hear blood pumping in a live body the way the people heard the ocean in a shell. Soundproof booths now covered most of the government buildings, university, hospitals, and all other public areas where people needed to communicate. Whenever a person died in the city, there was now a protocol to sever the brain stem and deafen them.
Yet, in spite of all these innovations, no one had solved the menace of infection. It was too difficult to trace, too impervious to human observation to track, and definitely impossible to cure. And besides, many of Hans Metzger's predecessors noted, even if we find the source of infection, it doesn't mean we can cure it. We need to fix the problem as we see it for the living—not skip ahead or behind.
Hans Metzger was determined to not let their small talk stop his own research. After years of study, if he couldn't trace the infection point, then he would fix death itself. By bringing the dead back to life so they couldn't rise again and destroy everyone in their path, he could solve all of London's worries. The population of zombies would become finite, and the last one would be the last one. Not to mention that immortality (or at least a prolonged life) would be the remaining, lingering side effect. If there was anything that Hans had learned from watching London fight over the past decade, it was that they needed a little hope for the future—like the prospect of never-ending progress.
Hans shifted on his feet. He checked the cravat around his neck multiple times. His research the past five years now led up to this lecture. He'd submitted his major dissertation on "The Prospects of Re-animation and Mechanical Thriving" the day before. Now he had to give a lecture on his discovery before the university would read the final work.
He stifled a yawn. All of his experiments had been performed under the cloak of night. Seeing the sunlight dance between the open windows of the lecture hall, magnified even further by the soundproof barrier, made him think he'd wandered into a strange new world. The daylight hours of the living were the odd ones, but he'd need to make his case here first before anywhere else.
"As I have written," Hans went on, motioning to the chalk board and his rudimentary rendering of one of his major graphs, "my discovery hinges on the body of the infected. As many before me have noted, the only indication we have of the infected body is a dark greenish hue that appears around the wound. I've studied these bodies with the hue and have discovered that there is a limbo state each one enters after death. Yes, the body is infected, but there are still thirteen hours afterwards where the body and its organs remain viable. In this state, they will not decay as a normal human's or regress to the zombie state that we are familiar with. They are also not infectious themselves. I know this for a fact because I have spent many nights now around those bodies. And I am perfectly healthy."
Hans tried to laugh, but the crowd was uncomfortable. Some murmured "dirty Hans" under their breath. Hans shuddered at the nickname he'd received during his degree for his late night walks among the cemeteries, alleyways, and morgues. Everyone knew his face on the street, and worse than Jack the Ripper, they'd wanted him gone. But Hans had thought that it was only the commoners who detested his methods. Surely men of science and knowledge would understand the sacrifices he had made?
The room sat silently, waiting for him to move on. Hans drew in a steady breath.
"I am going to give you an example case. A man named John Smith is bitten by one of the undead on his hand. His wound festers, and he becomes septic and dies. A doctor in the local hospital finds the first bite wound in the autopsy due to its greenish hue after death. He severs John Smith's brain
stem and deafens him, as is standard protocol. But instead of placing him on the cart for the outer lands where we have come to bury our contaminated populous, and where his body may rise as a zombie for only mere minutes due to his brain injury, the doctor hands over the body to me. John Smith now has thirteen hours since his earthly death where all his organs are still viable. My job now is to decide whether or not he can become a machine."
"A machine? Ridiculous," a professor of mathematics with a shock of white hair protested. "How can a person become a machine? How does this even work?"
"Machines have evolved right alongside us. The more knowledge and credit we give machines, the more they can do for us. I bring up Lester B. Davis's case, from Belgium, where he used a metal device to keep his patient's heart beating. There are also several other cases from the Netherlands where men and women have both benefited from mechanical limbs when theirs have been damaged. Machines work with us if we work with them. So now, I have taken the same technology advances in other countries, and devoted it to our zombie problem."
"How have you been able to conduct these experiments?" another professor asked. "I have approved no ethics committee for you. No living human subjects. Or undead ones, for that matter. Too dangerous."
"Exactly. I haven't tested it out on people yet. My theories have been conducted using stray animals affected by the disease. I've reanimated many mice, rats, and dogs."
"And then left them around London?" the same mathematics professor asked.
Hans shook his head. "They are in my cages at the university. Aside from the first few, they have all survived as half-machine and half-animal. More importantly, they no longer have the zombie sickness. I have cured all instances of infection. They will not feast upon us the way others have and spread more contamination. As long as I remove the limb or organ affected with green, and replace it with mechanical parts, they thrive again. And our problem is something for the history books."
The crowd tittered. Several professors conferred with one another. Many others took out their fountain pens and wrote feverishly on paper. Hans wondered how long it would take each one of the staff of thirty professors in the room to go through his dissertation. From there, how long would it take for him to have his own mechanical labs? Could he work in the daylight again? Would he be able to save all of London, the city that had been so kind to him as a boy, and live happily ever after?
All of Hans's daydreaming was put to a halt. Doctor Matthew Stevenson, the former head of the biology department turned dean of the school, rose from his seat.
"All of this information is a revelation, dear Metzger."
"Thank you."
"But I'm concerned right now about the applicability to human subjects."
"I know I've only tested on animals. I am willing to do a round of human subjects before I deem anything conclusive. I suspect another six month trial before I see the first genuine results."
"I'm afraid even that is too kind of an estimate."
Hans's stomach flipped. His heart thundered. He wondered if he could breathe, and if he passed out, if they would attend to him like a human being—or as a subject matter to learn from. "I'm afraid I'm not sure what exactly you mean, sir."
"What you have suggested is enlightening. A revelation, like I've stated. But the side effects are too large and with too many damaging consequences to think of."
"There are side effects of any discovery. But what are you thinking of specifically, sir?"
"Well, these zombies. Now, they will live forever."
"Yes. More or less. Mechanical breakdowns will still happen, but they will be both human and machine. They may not live forever in the long run, but they will live quite long. But they won't be undead, either, sir. If we remove the infected part—be it a hand if they were bitten, or lungs if they've inhaled the infection, or even the brain stem itself after being severed, the infection is gone. No more zombies will exist, and with time, the others will be killed off. London can go back to normal again."
"Not normal."
"Why not?"
"Because those who have been dead can never be human again."
Doctor Stevenson's voice was insistent, almost petulant. No one in the room could argue with him, but it seemed as if no one in the room had—but Hans—dissenting opinions. Hans glanced down at the stack of notes in front of him. Of course, this was going to be an uphill battle. He was not quite sure if he was fully prepared, but he wanted to fight for it.
"Sir," Hans went on.
But Doctor Stevenson raised a hand. "I'm not sure if you understand us right now. The dead are dead, and that's that. Our methods of silencing them have worked so far. We are not in the market for anything more. Your dissertation will be reviewed, but it will only be a theoretical quandary. Perhaps better suited for philosophy or even the English department. You will know within the week your standing at Bethany University."
Hans swallowed. He didn't say a single thing, though many thoughts bubbled up inside of him. He wanted to trot out the dog he'd brought back to life after a zombie bite had rendered her leg into a dark green mass. The dog now had a mechanical foot, tail, and collar with her name as Isabella (Izzy) written on it in bold font. She lived on and would continue to live on, giving as much affection as she did before. Perhaps more, now, knowing that life had a second chance.
When the room gathered up their materials and left, Hans felt his heart go with them.
Chapter Two
"The university has written," Therese said.
At Hans's gesture, she stepped into his office and placed the letter on his desk. It was past dark; the candles in their small house close to the university were the only source of light in his study. The letter had no postage, save for the wax seal of the university on the flap. Someone must have dropped it off, but no one left their houses this late at night without a notice of death. Even if the streets were more or less safe if one knew how to protect themselves, the memories of their unsafe times kept many people indoors long hours.
"How long has it been here?" Hans asked.
"The man just came to the door an hour ago, maybe," Therese stated. "I didn't want to disturb you when you were working."
Hans huffed. He'd been pouring over his notes for the last hour and a half, absorbing and accomplishing absolutely nothing. His lecture at the school had been a week ago. This news, coming so close after that abysmal failure, would outline his future.
"I'm sorry. I thought you wanted to catch up on your notes," Therese said.
"I usually do. But my idle hands need something to do right now."
She flinched as he grabbed the letter opener. He wished he could calm his own nerves so Therese wasn't equally wound up. She was the rock in their relationship, the only thing that kept his hopes up each time he returned from yet another failed experiment with rats or mice, and the only person who had been kind enough to also love the mechanical dog he had brought back.
As he tore open the seal, Therese grabbed the dog from her corner and placed her on her lap. The dog's mechanical throat hummed a tinny tune as Therese pet her fur head. Therese seemed to calm and become her normal self, while Hans's blood boiled.
"They cut my funding."
"They what?"
"My funding. The grant the university had given me for the lab space and the small stipend I used to keep food on the table," Hans declared. There was more in the letter to justify their decision, and also a notice that the many animals he still kept in cages would now be disposed of, but all of it meant the same thing. "It's gone, all gone."
"How can they do that? Did they reject your dissertation?"
"They can do that because they're the university. They are the only institution that funds undead research of this calibre."
"And you're one of the best. They don't want to hear about the cure? How could they be so callous?"
Therese stood now, Izzy now on her heart shaped doggy pillow. Therese took the letter from his hands and he let her
. She skimmed the words, no longer needing to stop and ask him to pronounce anything. When they had first been arranged to be married, by a distant relative, Therese had barely been literate, only fluent in the Bible from her time spent at a convent. She'd wanted to learn more and was far more motivated than anyone Hans had ever known, so he taught her in his spare moments. She used this skill to help with his letters and notes for his experiments, while also picking up her own letters and correspondences. She had the room above him in their small house, since they were not allowed to share quarters until their marriage day—a marriage day that may never come now. He always thought she'd tolerated his habits with the dead because of the prestige and payoff. Weddings were a luxury in the time of zombies. No one could spare the expense and now, he was like everyone else.
"This doesn't make sense," Therese stated.
"What word do you need me to spell out to you?"
"No, no. I am quite capable of reading. I always have been, except for the finer details. But this does not make sense in a logical way. They will give you your doctorate, but you are no longer permitted to be part of the sciences?" Therese furrowed her dark brows. "So where does that leave you?"
"Philosophy. Apparently I'm an immoralist, but a smart one, so they'll keep me around for a quandary."
"You're a doctor. A re-animator. Izzy is proof."
"But there are no degrees for reanimation, and there is no use parading Izzy as proof, especially now that they will kill the rest of my animals."
Therese let out a gasp, apparently missing that section of the letter. She and Hans both sent Izzy a fond look, but a forlorn one. She was the last of her kind, it seemed.
"I am nothing but a fool to them," Hans said.
"Perhaps. But your fool-heartedness makes you an idealist, not an immoralist. And you are a fool who can solve the zombie issue, but they'd rather put you in a classroom! Teaching is all well and good—but how can you teach anything without your own research? Without tools? Without your animals? Will they even let you eat?"
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