by Mark Clodi
“Now, Bobby! Before the big one shoots another one of our team.” Scott ordered, “Get on the radio and tell Russell to meet us with the van. We’re heading in.”
The truck bed lurched and shortly after that two doors shut and the truck started moving.
Chapter 38 – Katie
The place was swarming with undead. On one end of the massive building it looked like there was a business; “Lazarus Industries, Ltd”, but all the action seemed to be taking place midway along the building, where there were two massive hanger style doors that opened to the street. There was a sign that read “Marine Restoration and Repair” and that section of the building looked like it could hold several yachts at the same time. There were no boats in sight now, just undead.
“What the fuck are they all doing?” Katie asked herself. She saw the van and the pickup truck, but there was no sign of anyone in or near them. Getting into the strip mall across the street was simplicity in itself. Katie was crouched behind the plate glass of a pizza parlor, hugging the floor and using her rifle’s scope to check out what was going on across the street. With all the zombies around it was a miracle that they hadn’t spotted her. She kept low to the ground to try and stay out of sight, but doing so kept her from getting a good view of what was going on. Katie needed to be on the roof, not hugging the floor.
“Katie.” Randy’s voice came as a whisper out of the darkness behind her.
Whirling she brought her rifle around, there was nothing there.
“Randy?” Katie called.
There was scuffled footstep in the kitchen, then the quiet sound of something sliding to the floor.
“Show yourself!”
“Don’t shoot.”
Katie didn’t recognize the voice, it was male and it wasn’t the same one that had whispered to her before. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“`Cause if you do, all those zombies over there are going to come rushing over here to see what the noise is. And you and me are probably on the same side.” called the voice.
“Katie…” came the whisper again, from the side, looking she again saw nothing.
“What are you…are you doing that?”
“Doing what? No. Are you gonna agree not to shoot me so we can talk face to face or am I going out the way I came in.”
“I won’t shoot you.” Katie lied.
“Good enough for me, I am coming out.”
Katie saw an old man in army fatigues step through the doorway. In his hand he held the map she had left in the kitchen at the yellow house. In a flash Katie recognized the man. She was in Chicago, sighting down her rifle into the park, through the vegetation by the Art Institute. He and a younger man were struggling to drag a wounded comrade towards the building and a zombie was firing at them blindly through the bushes. Katie had taken the zombies out with a single shot and then covered their retreat to a small open park next to the building.
“You.” Katie said, not believing what she was seeing.
“Huh?”
“You were at the Art Institute in Chicago. You were with the guy who could see zombies.”
“Uh, yeah. How’d you know that?”
“I was on the building across the street, I saved your ass.”
The old man cocked his head to one side, still half behind the door frame, and he nodded, as if listening to some inner advice. “That was you? On the building across the street?”
“Me and my partner were there. What in God’s name are you doing here?”
“They sent us to kill this guy. My name’s Ruben. And you?”
“I’m Katie. I am pleased to meet you, but with things being as they are, I don’t think I want to shake your hand or get too close to you.” Katie said, thinking Ruben was a zombie.
“That’s understandable. How did you get here?”
A whispery voice belonging to Randy said, “That is the question, isn’t it?”
Ruben cocked his head sideways and looked at the spot in the room where Katie thought Randy’s voice had originated from.
“You heard that?” she asked him.
“I heard something. What was that?” Ruben asked.
“My partner, he’s not quite dead, more like a ghost. His name is Randy. He comes and goes.”
“I’ve heard of stranger things.” Ruben said with a straight face. “Now I don’t think we have a lot of time, but I was supposed to come here and meet you. I….have a message for you.”
“What?”
“It’s short. I don’t know what it means.”
“Who is it from?”
“God.” The old man shrugged, “Or at least I think it is, do you want the message or not?”
“No.” came Randy’s whispery voice.
“Yes.” Katie said.
“He is right. That’s it. Now I have to go, but we are on the same side and if you see me or Bill or Javier or Max, please don’t shoot us.”
“What do you mean ‘He is right’?”
“I don’t make the messages; I just deliver ‘em.” Ruben hefted the backpack he was carrying and pulled a can of beer from the top flap, he set it on the floor and rolled it towards Katie, it stopped against her knee. He pulled another out and cracked it open and took a long pull from it. “It’s warm as donkey piss, but still good.”
“I don’t get it. Why do you have to go? What are you doing?”
Outside thunder followed a flash of lightning and the first sheet of rain came down.
“Lady, if I knew what I was going to do next I would be a happier man myself. But it’s time.”
With that Ruben stepped back out of sight and left Katie staring at the beer resting against her knee. She was tempted to follow him out, demand the answers he had, but Randy’s voice stopped her.
“Katie.”
This time when she turned she saw him beside her, standing and looking down, his face a dejected mask that he could not hide.
“About time, what was this all about?”
“I’ve figured it out, Katie.”
“Yeah, what?”
“About me, about you. I think I can help us now.”
The lightening flashed again and created a distorted sight for Katie because the light passed through Randy’s form.
“Freaky.” She said, “Okay hit me with it. Tell me what we know. I haven’t got a shot here and this rain is only going to make it worse.”
“When is the last time you ate?”
Katie laughed, “What? Worried about me putting on a few pounds? It’s not going to happen with all this running around…”
Randy raised his hand and sharply cut her off, “This isn’t a joke, when is the last time you had any food? Or water? Or used the goddamned toilet?”
“Why…I…used the toilet this…” She had been going to say, ‘this morning’, but Katie realized she hadn’t. Her brow crinkled in contemplation. ’No, not this morning, but last night before I turned in…’ Only she realized she couldn’t remember turning in. ‘Well operating on low sleep is normal in combat situations. I’ll catch up when I can later.’ Katie’s eyes opened wide, her mouth formed an ‘o’ shape and she started shaking.
“You’re as dead as I am.”
“No!” Katie yelled, hearing Ruben’s voice echo “He is right.”
A torrent of images came back to her, the Farm and Fleet, Samantha. Katie pushing the younger woman to the ground, tearing her throat out before she could scream. Knocking Kent out in the house, and feeding on his two kids, getting stronger as she fed on them and taking refuge in the car before ‘discovering’ them the next morning. Along the way, the woman she had picked up, along with the man who was eaten by her kids. Only the woman was in the car, not quiet dead before Katie came back to her. She hadn’t survived too much longer. Katie remembered the blood, the taste, the delicious feeling as the colors from those she was killing faded to black.
“Follow it back. Remember everything…” Randy whispered, “Don’t stop halfway.”
“No.
Not me. I…didn’t.” Katie felt an almost overwhelming surge to forget everything she had remembered, an insidious voice repeated over and over in her mind.
‘This is not real, you don’t eat people. You’re alive. You’re human.’
The voice, a woman’s, repeated a series of statements, like a music player set to repeat the same tune over and over.
Katie clutched the sides of her head and resisted the urge to forget. Randy stepped forward and interlaced his fingers with hers. She looked up at him, bloody tears streaming down her face.
“Randy…help me!”
“I’ve always been helping you. Don’t forget. Don’t forget.” Outside the storm rose to a crescendo, almost drowning out his words.
Katie screamed as her vision faded, spiraling into darkness, consumed by a storm of madness as she followed the lines of her fragmented memory back to that day in Chicago, when she died.
Chapter 39 – Max
The hood was pulled off his head abruptly. Max couldn’t see anything at first, the white lights above him drowned out everything else. As his vision returned he could see he was in a doctor’s office. It was unlike any office he had visited before, for one thing it didn’t have the battle of chemicals versus sickness that Max associated with such places. It had the metallic tinge that he recognized as blood. His quick glance of the surroundings showed him the source of that odor, the floor was covered in streaks of dark red and black blood. It looked like someone had tried to mop the room up, but gave up in defeat and had left the floor a motley mess of streaked crimson streamers.
“I see you’ve noticed the mess. I am sorry about that. All I can say is this is the cleanest room I have left.”
Max’s head turned towards the voice. It belonged to a man that was very difficult to look at. He was of average height, had brown hair and wearing a white doctors coat with green scrubs pants. Black shoes and a stethoscope completed his ensemble, giving him a ‘doctor’ look, even if Max knew better. The man radiated energy. Max peeked at him with his zombie vision and quickly had to force his mind back to normal vision before his senses were overwhelmed by what he saw. ‘Well, we wanted to find the leader. Now where is that bomb?’ This thought was followed immediately by fear, ‘Fuck, am I screwed.’
“I am Doctor Thomas Sentry.” said the man, extending his hand towards Max, who automatically tried to raise his hand as well. “So, sorry.” Sentry continued, hastily lowering his hand, “I’ve forgotten you are bound, but, well better to be safe than sorry. You would not believe the problems I have been having with the living lately.”
Max was bound with his arms behind him and sitting on a solid chair, which pressed his arms uncomfortably into his back. “What do you want with me?”
“Oh, so direct! I can appreciate that, even if I was expecting a little less rudeness. What is your name?”
Max felt pressure in his mind, it was as if a massive headache was starting, his brain felt like it was going to explode. The pressure shifted from an overwhelming pressure to thin, spikes of pain that were seeking to lance through his head. He broke out in a sweat and shook his head, trying to repel the assault. “Stop it!” he said softly, “Just stop it.”
The doctor shrugged and the pressure eased, “It hardly ever works anyway. But it was worth a try. I can’t seem to get into living brains as easily. But I think I can overcome that. Which brings us to why you are here.”
“My name is Max.”
“Max, I am pleased to meet you. I am very pleased you didn’t perish in the trap I set, but I really didn’t know what else to do to slow you down. It is unfortunate that some of your friends chose to resist, but really I only needed two of you. For now.”
“What do you want with me?”
“First, I want to continue existing. So you soldiers are all going to have to be put in your place and your superiors are going to have to be defeated. The old world is gone. I would like to keep a few of you alive. It isn’t, technically, necessary, but I would hate to have you wiped out and then discover I needed you. I am fairly certain that none of us new types will be propagating and humans are so very good for that. But it comes down to that control issue again, doesn’t it?”
Max wasn’t sure if he was supposed to respond, so he shrugged his shoulders as best he could.
“Of course it does. I’ll give you a little history here, not enough to glaze your eyes over, but I think a little bit is in order. I created this next step in our evolutionary history when I invented a formula for continuing cellular senescence…have you studied biology, Max?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
Sentry frowned, “Biology, the study of life. It should have been humanities number one priority. Extend life and we would have all the time in the world to look into other problems or create wealth or kill each other. Instead we wasted it on…”the doctor trailed off, his eyes, already almost a clear white color, brightened.
Max looked closer, bringing up his second sight, but trying to keep it dampened down. He saw a stream of so many orders being issued from the doctor to his minions that the ‘packets’ might as well have been unbroken lines of light. But he also saw something different; the doctor was also taking in information. Max risked taking a peek at one and what he saw was confusing. The data coming back was in English and looked like a poor resolution video stream.
The vision was in a smoking city that looked poorly built, Max was reminded of some soviet style structures he had seen on the internet, massive structures used as housing projects for the ‘citizens’. There were a dozen such buildings in sight and a mob of oriental undead running through the streets, pouring into one of the buildings. The voice coming through had a southern accent and sounded harried, “….Chen is in the building. I’m sending in forces now, but you can see he is holding them back. China is out of control and I need your help or I am going to lose it. Just give me five goddamned minutes of your focus!”
Max skipped around to several of the other incoming and outgoing data streams, they all seemed to be reports from various places around the world.
“Are you listening to me?” Sentry asked, “You aren’t hurt are you?” The doctor examined Max’s head and looked him in the eyes. Then he took a small light out of his pocket and shined it into Max’s eyes, one at a time. “No obvious sign of head injury.”
“I’m okay.” Max said. He kept his second sight dimmed, so he could focus on Sentry and on the data the zombie was receiving. The man was processing hundreds of thousands of packets a second. Max had never tried to use his power to see in the real world and to see zombies at the same time, it was a new experience and one he wished he had explored before. ‘The real news is, he doesn’t know I can do it. Can I change what he is seeing?´ Max was afraid that doing so might alert Sentry to his meddling, ‘I’ll hold off for a little, see what else I can learn before I try anything.’
“So, as I was trying to explain, I found a way to extend human life indefinitely. The first process didn’t work out so well. You’re looking at the result of an experiment that got out of hand. I am sorry to say that the test subject was, well, rather more clever than I gave him credit for and in my haste to..ah, rectify, the situation I became infected with the series one strain. I had worked up two more series, which were supposed to be tested later, but with all this going on, I hadn’t thought of trying them out. Until recently. Do you know how rare humanity is in this region? Trust me, there is nothing left alive for a hundred miles around here.” The doctor looked at Max, pausing for an overly long time.
Max intercepted another urgent message from halfway around the world. Chen, it seemed was winning.
“I was going to have some people brought up alive from Miami, there is a group of diehards, so to speak, holding out down there and I have a few camps set up in other states across the south too. Then I sensed your helicopters coming in. You’re the first to arrive and I think, for winning that race, you deserve a prize. Don’t you?”
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br /> Max nodded, “I don’t suppose you’d consider letting me complete my mission?”
Laughing the doctor said, “Well, at least you haven’t lost your sense of humor. It’s all the better that you arrived here first. The others are still a good distance away; you beat them by a huge margin. With any luck I will know if the other series works out before they get here. And you brought a woman with you. I was going to use my maid for the series two test, but your soldier will work just as well.”
“No.” Max said.
“No? Well, really you came here to kill me. I should just convert you and send you down to Miami to weed out the resistance. I am giving you a chance to live again. Trust me; this is a very merciful gesture on my part. But I am a merciful god. If it works as it is supposed to you will not die. But I suspect it will give me some, well, control, as it were. An access into your mind that will allow me to use you to infect others and bring the living under my command as well as the dead. You get to live and be the living equivalent of what I am to the dead. You’ll probably get the series three formula. Two should work properly; I think I’ll give that to the woman. I work better with men and you seem easy enough to get alone with. Not like your brawny friend, he wouldn’t even give me his name. So for working with me, you get the reward of, well, working with me forever. It is a glorious journey we have ahead of us Max. You, I, and the woman soldier.”
“You haven’t spoken to her yet?” Max asked.
“Not yet. You’re my second stop, she’ll be the last one.”
‘I didn’t see Ruben at the wreck. Did the old coot die in the crash?’ Max wondered.
Out loud he said, “Well, the ‘woman soldier’ is a little cantankerous, I doubt she will be as co-operative as I am.” To himself Max thought, ‘Stewart will do something, she’ll figure out a way to stop him.’
“So I saw at the crash site. Don’t worry, I can be very persuasive.”
“Why not just use me and see if this, uh, series three, works okay and skip her altogether?”
