Waking The Zed

by Katz, ML

  “Are you kidding me? I just had to use this thing to beat my way out of there. Do you have any idea what’s going on back there?”

  “Well, close the door then,” Dr. Klein said. “You will just let the dead in.” Pamela glanced around the lobby as she tried to process her boss’s last comment.

  The receptionist was slumped across her desk, certainly dead. The right side of her suit jacket was tattered and bloody. A thin stream of blood dripped to the floor from a head wound that looked like it came from a neat gunshot behind her left ear. The sharp smell of blood and other body fluids assaulted Pam’s nostrils. Pam had worked with plenty of corpses before, but she had never seen anybody who just been violently assaulted before death. She froze in the doorway.

  Before Pam had time to process the sight and smell, she heard shuffling and groaning behind her. The sound startled her enough to get her to step through the doorway and firmly click it behind her. A moment later she heard a dull thumping as somebody, or something, pressed itself against the door. She had no idea that one of the mad things had been that close behind her.

  “What did you mean when you said I’d let the dead in?” Pamela asked. She stepped forward, away from the thin barrier between her and those mad things that the wounded people had become. The sight of the dead receptionist still appalled her, but at least the poor woman had stopped moving.

  “It’s obvious,” Dr. Klein said impatiently. “The virus re-animated my clients. But it did not restore their brain function. In fact it took over. Those bodies have become one with the virus. That’s the simplest way I can explain it to you.”

  “What about the other people?” Pamela asked. “I saw George, Enrico, and a handful of others. Enrico attacked me in the corridor, and I barely got away. George is bashing his head against the door but can’t seem to remember how to use the handle to open it.”

  “The virus wants to spread,” Dr. Klein said flatly. She spoke clearly, but dismissively, as if she were instructing a dull student. She was not even bothering to offer Pam her full attention but seemed engaged in a text conversation on her cell phone. “The infected attack the living. A bite spreads the virus. The wound must kill the host, and then the virus can reanimate the body.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Pamela said. “Now you’re telling me that these people have turned into zombies? Is that right? The virus spreads with a bite. The bite kills the host and then reanimates it. You have become the mother of a race of monsters!”

  “You want to call them zombies?” Dr. Klein asked. She looked up from her cell phone and pursed her lips for a moment to consider the notion. “I don’t practice Voodoo, but simply science. If you like, we can call them the Zed. I believe I heard that in some old movie or another though I don’t typically watch that sort of thing.”

  “You could’ve fooled me,” Pam muttered. She had spent the day thinking that her employer seemed like the creepy mad scientist in an old horror flick. Now her mildly diverting fancy had been confirmed in the worst possible way. Dr. Klein did not even seem fazed when Pam had told her that Enrico had turned into one of the creatures. Maybe she already knew.

  The double doors did not have a window but now she was pretty sure that multiple bodies were heaving themselves against the barrier. The thumps were not at all rhythmic but they were steady. She stepped around the desk to put something between herself and the doorway. The doors did not even seem to be locked but simply shut securely. At any moment one of these mad creatures could accidently hit the handle and open it. Pam considered trying to shove the receptionist’s desk against the doors, but she was reluctant to disturb the bloody dead woman resting there.

  Now Dr. Klein ruminated over the crisis more. “The virus must piggyback on some of the original host’s brain function. You observed them walking and trying to grab you. They can certainly walk and sense their victims somehow. But I’m quite sure that whatever made the people unique and sentient individuals is quite subsumed.”

  “Is there a cure for this?”

  “How would I know?” Dr. Klein asked. She shook her head as if a dull student had just asked her an obvious question. “I just discovered the disease.” Then she paused and tilted her head in thought. “In fact, I guess I invented it.”

  “Don’t expect another Nobel prize,” Pam said. Then the bodies thudded against the door again so roughly the heavy steel barrier shook in its frame. Yet none of the people on the other side seemed able to turn the simple handle. They had not been simply rendered insane but also somehow insensible.

  “We need to find more help,” Pamela said. “Can we call the police or something? There could still be other people holed up in there too. If I managed to get away then others might be fighting them off or hiding. Those things are determined, but they aren’t exactly smart.”

  “You will not do a thing,” Dr. Klein said coldly. “I am chatting right now with my personal contacts in the military. Can you imagine the potential of a thing like this? Our military could infect a compound of enemies and let them infect and eat each other. We need to have samples preserved so they can be studied.”

  “What?” Pam breathed. Her jaw fell in horrified surprise. This woman had unleashed this unimaginable horror, and now she wanted to contain it until she could find somebody who wanted to buy it. I think I’d rather have live enemies than those things.

  “No,” Pam said decisively. “I’m getting help.” She picked up the desk phone.

  But just then she noticed that Dr. Klein had a gun held just below the level of the desk. She had held it out of sight before. Now the older woman raised the pistol slowly, and pointed it deliberately at Pam’s chest for several anxious seconds. Then she slowly and dramatically moved her arm to wave the gun at the wall.

  Pam was quite familiar with firearms, but she had never stood on the wrong side of one before. The gun looked huge in the doctor’s slim hand. Pam’s breath hitched in her chest. She must have shot the receptionist. Where’s the guy who answered the phone when I called the main number before?

  “Put down the phone and sit patiently by the wall while I work,” Dr. Klein said. “I may not be a farm girl from some cornfield in Iowa, but I know how to shoot a gun.”

  Operation Zed

  Pam reluctantly obeyed Dr. Klein. As she sank down to sit with her back against the wall, her eyes swept the view through the glass doors which separated them from the outside. She could clearly see the nice landscaping and parkway through the glass double doors in the front of the building. A wide circular driveway wrapped around an elegant flower bed giving the building the appearance of a nice hotel or luxury home. Past the circular part, the long driveway straightened out and met the small road that eventually joined the highway. The driveway had flower beds on both sides and a neatly manicured lawn beyond. From Pam’s point of view, the entire outside area seemed deserted.

  Pam visualized moving outside where she would be safe from the mad creatures and the crazy doctor. Maybe she could find a way into the parking garage, get into her car, and drive to the closest police station. She pictured bursting into a police station and then trying to get some stern cop to listen to her insane story. Somehow she would have to get somebody to believe her so she could bring back help. This place should be crawling with police and emergency medical responders. All she had to do was get past Dr. Klein and her very large pistol. Then I could try to get help. I’ll either succeed or end up in a mental ward.

  The glass doors seem to separate two universes, and I’m on the wrong side. Maybe Dr. Klein’s right to hesitate, but probably not for the right reasons. If I open the door I might let the madness out. Suddenly the thought of the story of Pandora’s Box popped into Pam’s head. Of course, Pam’s world was already full of plenty of evil but this was something else.

  Then she saw a large and entirely naked man shuffle into her line of vision. He moved across the neatly manicured lawn and stepped directly on the flower bed that lined the road. It looked like he had
emerged from the side of the building.

  Too late, the door’s already open. What normal person would just step on the flowers without trying to pick their way through them or use the walking path? What am I thinking? This guy’s walking around without a stich of clothes on. Who does that? It would have to be somebody who’s in a great hurry, but this guy is not moving fast.

  Pamela had never seen Mr. Barnes outside of the observation tank, but she was sure that the creature had his square jaw, long nose, and rugged features. The thing wore no clothes, but blood dripped down his cheeks and covered his chest and groin. At first he just seemed to amble across the path in front of the entrance. His mouth opened and Pam saw his teeth were coated with a disgusting mess of blood and gore. She tried not to gag.

  Mr. Barnes, or what was left of him, seemed to become aware of her after a moment. He snarled and changed direction. “I guess they can still see,” Pam whispered to herself. Then she swallowed down her fear and revulsion as he threw himself against the transparent doors with enough force to rattle the glass in the frame. Dr. Klein glanced up, seemingly unconcerned, as she kept exchanging text messages with somebody on the outside.

  Pamela did not think her umbrella would be sturdy enough to fend the monster off. The frame had been bent when she struck Enrico, and she was pretty sure it would break if she used it again.

  Though tentative at first, the thing that had been Mr. Barnes seemed more coordinated than Enrico had. Perhaps the hapless engineer had been injured in some way that affected his movements. Perhaps this creature simply had more time to adjust to his revived body.

  She eyed Dr. Klein’s gun again. The only way out would be through that thing that used to be poor Mr. Barnes. She needed a way to put him down before he could hurt her. As he was clearly already dead, she would not waste a second thought over shooting him, especially not if he seemed determined to damage her. Pam wondered if Dr. Klein was distracted enough so she could grab the gun. Pam was, after all, younger and stronger. But she knew the older woman was wary and sly. She barely seemed to care about her lover Enrico. She might not hesitate over shooting somebody like me that she clearly doesn’t like.

  Then a fast moving runner rounded the corner, raised a large wrench, and hit Mr. Barnes’s head with enough force to send him crashing back off the curb. The body dropped to the ground and seemed to stay still. Pamela stared at the scene with wide eyes. The man with the wrench was Paul, the blonde worker who had been with George, and he was clearly still alive and unaffected by the virus. None of the Zed had been interested in each other at all, and certainly none of them had the wit to use a tool to open a door or smash in a head.

  Pamela assumed that Dr. Klein had locked the front door, but she believed she could use the red unlock button from the inside. She rose quickly, said, “I’m letting him in,” and fixed Dr. Klein with a determined look.

  The older woman glanced up from her cell phone, shrugged, and said, “Be quick.” Then she went back to her texting.

  As soon as Paul stepped inside, Pamela pulled hard on the door to close it quickly. The inside doors still trembled, but held against the onslaught of the creatures who pushed against it. Dr. Klein motioned with her pistol hand and ordered both of them to sit against the wall while she communicated with the authorities.

  “Visitor from the frying pan,” Pam said without humor, “welcome to the fire.”

  Paul looked at Pam, the dead woman, and finally Dr. Klein. Then he turned to gape at the inside doors. The young man’s lips worked silently, but he seemed unable to find his voice.

  Up close, Paul looked very young. His face was pale and unlined. Pamela wondered if he, like her, was simply a college student with a summer job. He may have complied readily with Dr. Klein’s orders because he still believed the gun was only for their mutual protection, and did not also represent a threat. Dr. Klein had not bothered to point the thing at his chest. But then Pam remembered how he had glanced at her in the lab, as if he wanted to communicate something even back then. She certainly could not question him right now, with Dr. Klein standing there armed and only a few feet away.

  The inside doors shuddered again and the metal frame clearly started to bend. Pamela’s nerves seemed to be electrified and it took great effort to stay seated. She had no way to know how many of those things gathered in the hallway so Dr. Klein’s gun did not comfort her much. The woman might be able to take down one or two before they invaded the small reception area. She doubted that Dr. Klein could shoot a half dozen of them though. Every nerve in Pam’s body seemed to tingle with the urge to run.

  Pam urgently wanted to sprint for the outside doors now, but the threat of Dr. Klein’s gun felt real too. She promised herself that she would bolt the second the inside door showed a sign it might give way. She hoped the doctor would be distracted by the creatures and decided she would rather be shot by Dr. Klein than face a horde of those awful dead things.

  Paul kept his eyes on the inside door frame too. His tongue darted out to lick dry lips and Pam guessed he was controlling himself with an effort just as she was. “How long do you think we have?” he murmured.

  “They have done this much damage in a few minutes, and they don’t seem to get tired,” Pamela replied grimly. “As time passes, more of them seem to be piling up behind the first ones. In another twenty minutes we may have a big problem. I just hope they don’t get smarter. If one of them has a couple of brain cells left we’ll be in really big trouble.”

  Dr. Klein finally glanced up from the wide screen of her smart phone. She waved her gun hand dismissively. “The military will be here in less than ten minutes,” she said. “I had this building constructed to very high building standards. That door should hold up against a little pounding. There is no evidence that any of them retain the mental facilities of a toddler, except for the fact they can walk and grab people.”

  “We had a smart dog on the farm that could open doors with his teeth,” Pam said.

  Dr. Klein smiled condescendingly. “Apparently they are even lower on the scale than your smart farm dog then. As I already told you, I believe they could be better compared to the virus being animated in a human body than a human or any sort of higher level animal.”

  “But they can walk,” Pam said. “They can also bite. They must have some control of the host bodies, plus they seem to recognize us as prey.”

  Dr. Klein waved her gun hand dismissively. Then she wiped her forehead with the same hand and Pam noticed it was shiny with sweat. The room was warm, but not hot. Perhaps Dr. Klein’s sudden sweat betrayed her true mood more than her calm and composed demeanor. If so, the woman did have iron control. Pam’s own palms felt slick with perspiration. Right now, it took all of her control to keep from howling in fear and despair.

  “Are you feeling OK, Dr. Klein?” Pam asked. “You look like you may have a fever or something. Of course, it could be nerves.”

  “I’m quite fine,” Dr. Klein said. “It seems to be a bit warm in this room though I am not a person who perspires excessively.” She gestured towards the corridor, blocked by closed doors and the Zed. “Unfortunately, the thermostat for this part of the building is on the other side of those doors.”

  “Let me feel your forehead,” Paul said. “You know I’m a medical student, and I worked in hospitals every summer before this one.” He started to rise from his seated position on the floor by the wall.

  Pamela glanced at Paul with renewed interest. So he was another student. He was probably also being very well paid for this summer internship. She thought it was odd that Dr. Klein had employed a medical student to do simple tasks like pushing bodies around, and she also wondered if his typical duties were as boring as hers were. She also wondered if his job had allowed him to learn more about Dr. Klein’s activities than she did, and that was why he had appeared so concerned before. Maybe Paul could help her figure out how to stop this.

  “Stay where you are,” Dr. Klein ordered. She pointed outside with he
r gun hand. “See, the cavalry has arrived.” She arranged her features in a complacent smile. “I told you I had everything under control.”

  Pam and Paul swiveled their heads from the inside door to the outside door. Two large trucks rumbled into the circular drive in front of the building. Within moments two dozen battle clad men poured out of the back. A portly officer with a bad complexion scampered down from the passenger side of one truck. The drivers remained in place.

  “They arrived very quickly,” Dr. Klein said, looking somehow self-satisfied despite everything that had occurred. “I told you two that we had nothing to worry about. I am quite well connected with important people in Washington, DC.”

  Everything’s under control? We have nothing to worry about? Pam felt a renewed urge to bolt for the military trucks but controlled herself with an effort. She would have plenty of help within moments. It’d be crazy to risk getting shot now when help is a few steps away.

  Paul’s eyes travelled from the front driveway to the dead woman slumped over the receptionist desk. Then he glanced at the straining double doors that led back to the laboratories. His frowned deepened but he managed to keep from commenting. Pam could take no comfort from his expression, but she felt relieved that he remained sitting beside her.

  As Pamela watched two burly, fatigue-clad men advanced towards the door. They seemed to be a sort of advance guard for the officer. The soldiers hesitated at Mr. Barnes’s sprawled form. Dr. Klein approached the doors, slapped the red unlock button, and propped the door open enough to call out to them. Pam saw she still held her gun, but it was dropped down to her side.

  The officer approached with the two soldiers. The rest of the troop fell in behind them. Soon the small reception area was crowded with tall men in heavy boots and battle dress. From Pam’s vantage point, seated against the wall, she mostly just saw a forest of boots. She considered darting between legs and slipping out in the confusion, but she doubted she would get far. She and Paul just slid up to their feet and stayed by the wall.