“I've got a guy on the inside who can get word out to Sonya,” Moto whispered. “Just hang in there, and our rescue party will come and save us.”
“I hope you're right,” I answered grimly. I could already feel the noose around my neck.
“Hold up,” Moto whispered. “Someone is coming.”
From out of the darkness, Tank walked a beat-up-looking old man in a white lab coat in our direction. He stopped and opened the cage door, roughly shoving the man inside.
“Brought you some company, runt,” he growled, locking eyes with me. He shut the door and bolted us in again. “Maybe you can entertain him with some of your made-up stories about what a hero you think you are.”
“You seem to be in a good mood,” I lashed out. “For a guy whose best friend has thrown him aside for his new pals. Guess you can't blame them really, seeing as how you're not entirely trustworthy.”
“I am in a good mood,” Tank smiled. “Because in just over an hour, when the sun comes up, I'm going to get to see you hang from the neck until you mess your britches and die. You could say one of my dreams is coming true. Oh sure, it's not the same as getting to do it myself, but it's still gonna be pretty darn satisfying to watch you kick and gasp and fight for life, only to fail and go limp and die.”
I didn't have a good comeback for that. Instead, my mouth went dry and electric fear began to climb from the base of my spine upward, causing all the hairs on my arms to stand on end.
“I'll get to see every last second of it from the moment you drop to the instant the light goes out of your eyes,” he said greedily. “I'll be right up front, so the last thing you'll see is me taking pleasure in your demise.”
I opened my mouth, but no words came out in reply.
“I don't know if you know much about hanging a person,” Tank said nonchalantly. “It's not done regularly anymore, but it used to be an art form before it went out of fashion. You see, you've got to get the drop just right, to use just the right length of rope, otherwise the neck won't break. Instead, the condemned man will just kick and struggle, suffocating slowly in agonizing pain. At that point, the only thing you can do for them is pull them down by the legs to try to speed up the process. Back in the days of segregation, there were guys who were so skilled at determining the precise amount of rope to use they could hang a man over a tree branch or lamppost. Got to the point in the South, you couldn't walk down the street without seeing a man lynched for not knowing his place. Now I'd imagine there isn't one in a hundred with that talent. Chew on that for a while, sport.”
Tank turned and slowly walked away, whistling a happy tune as he went, while my imagination began to run wild with all the horrible things that could go wrong in the next few hours. There was a very real possibility we'd both be dead soon. The old man’s coughing brought me out of my stupor.
“Who is this guy?” I asked.
“He's the one we came to find,” Moto answered, looking suddenly optimistic. “This is Dr. Winterbourne.”
“Pleased to meet you,” he croaked, coughing loudly again.
“Okay,” I said, ignoring the man and turning to Moto. “And why is he locked in the prison cage with us now?”
“That's a good question,” Moto replied. “Care to shed some light on that one, Doc?”
“I'm afraid I've got some bad news for you,” he replied dourly.
“Amazing! More bad news,” I laughed. I felt like my mind was already on the verge of snapping, and anything worse might just push me over the edge. “That's great. Just what we needed in our final moments.”
“I'm sorry, young man,” Dr. Winterbourne sputtered in between coughing jags. “But I don't have much time left now either.”
“What's wrong with you?” I asked.
“I'm dying,” he confessed. “Thank God. It's almost over now.”
“I don't understand,” I was shaking my head in confusion.
“You're not making any sense, Doc,” Moto joined in.
“It is what I deserve, just as Dr. Frankenstein deserved to be killed by his monster,” Winterbourne said in a low, pitiful voice. “It would seem, like the mad doctor, I too, will be taken by illness before the creature can take its deserved revenge. At least this way I can't do any more harm.”
“He's delirious,” Moto said. “He looks like he's burning up with fever.”
Sure enough, there were beads of perspiration forming on his brow as he spoke, and his eyes looked glassy and bloodshot.
“What happened to Dr. G?” I asked. “Maybe he can help you?”
“I'm afraid Dr. G won't be helping anyone anymore,” Winterbourne explained. “Seeing as how he accidentally locked himself in the viewing chamber with your friend, Haki, shortly after you left.”
“Franco killed him?” Moto asked. “Why?”
“Actually, I was the one who did it,” Winterbourne confessed. “He was a terrible man, a murderer who delighted in torturing others. He got a fraction of what he truly deserved. It was over far too fast, if you ask me. But Franco didn't seem the least bit concerned that his old pal from back in the CIA days was no longer with us. By the look on his face you'd think he was actually relieved.”
“So you killed him because he was evil?”
“No,” Winterbourne admitted. “I did it to slow Franco down. You see, the doctor knew that I was lying. Franco had no idea if I was headed in the wrong direction, but Dr. G did. It was for that very reason that the work on the new serum developed so rapidly. You saw what it did to Haki. I am the one responsible for that. Now all Franco needs to complete his diabolic plan is the antidote. Once he has it, he will be virtually unstoppable. So you see, I had to take out Dr. G.”
“Won't he just use the batches of super serum he already has?” I asked.
“He may,” Winterbourne said, “but they will be the last he'll ever get his hands on. It's a complicated formula, not unlike the antidote. Easy to screw up. Unstable. The results often unpredictable. Without someone of my background, it will be nearly impossible to reproduce.”
“What background?” I asked.
“I was a theoretical scientist,” he murmured. “Do you know what that means?”
“No,” I said. “What does it mean?”
“It means I primarily worked in an office,” he patiently explained, “not a lab setting. You see, it was my job to dream up things like killer viruses, to conceptualize what they might look like. It was never my job to design or create them, though admittedly I understood that my theoretical constructs could be reverse-engineered to synthesize a weapon. After all, I worked for the National Security Agency. All my funding came out of defense spending. All my work was highly classified.”
“So you didn't think when you made the zombie virus that you were designing a weapon?” I asked, trying not to sound as judgmental as I felt.
How could a person do that? I wondered. How could they separate dreaming up an end-of-the-world extinction-level-event super bug and seeing it unleashed on the planet.
“Honestly,” he said, looking up at me with pleading eyes. “No. I didn't at first. The idea seemed completely implausible, given the consequences. There'd be no way to stop it, to shut it off. I just assumed I was making the ultimate deterrent to war, like Oppenheimer.”
“Except the atomic bomb was used against actual people,” Moto reminded him. “And so was your zombie virus.”
“You sound like the men who came and took me,” he offered in a sad voice.
“So if you're all he's got left,” I exclaimed, “why is Franco beating up on you? I don't get it.”
“He's mad,” the doctor declared. “He knows I've been stalling on him. He wants me to help him develop a new antidote that doesn't require Ibogaine, but I've told him I can't.”
“But you can, right? I mean, after all, the zombie virus is your baby. You know all about it.”
“That's just it. I am the father of the plague that wiped humanity off the map, but I'm not the one who put it t
ogether. Viruses are tricky work because of the way they mutate. My work was like a blueprint, but only a skilled architect could put it together in a lab. There were other men who took the horror I dreamed up and gave it birth. Without their notes, I'm about as helpful as an elderly university professor lecturing on the subject for midterms.”
“So why did they single you out?” I asked. “If you can't make it, why did they drag you here?”
“And how did they find you?” Moto added, looking suspiciously at him.
“Franco was one of my handlers,” Winterbourne said. “He knew exactly where I'd be. He came and brought me back at gunpoint on Z Day.”
“Hold on,” I said. “You knew him before all this happened?”
“Yes,” Winterbourne confirmed, nodding his head and setting off another round of harsh coughing. “He worked for an intelligence agency in Washington with access to the project. In fact, his boss was the one who recruited me.”
“For all we know, he's been planning this a long time,” Moto said.
“I told him I couldn't make a new version of the antidote, that it would take years and a full team to create something like that, but he just wouldn't listen,” the doctor explained. “He brought me to this hellhole, and began showing me all his big plans to reshape the world. He's gone mad with dreams of power and glory. I can't be part of this. It's already horrible beyond words what I've done.”
“So you're not going to help him? That's why he threw you in with us,” I stated.
“What he doesn't realize is the role the drug plays in the process, not only physically in numbing the pain of regeneration, but also psychologically.”
“Why does that even matter?” Moto asked.
“Ah yes,” the doctor said with a wistful smile, “the power of the mind. A wise man once said that in actuality all things are created by the mind. Science doesn't really understand it yet. You see the mind is a constantly changing shapeless construct. Unlike the organic matter of the brain the mind cannot be observed, but it's crucial to our existence in ways we can't begin to comprehend. Studies have shown that the mind plays a key role in our body's ability to heal itself.”
“You mean you have to believe you're going to get better to heal?” Moto asked.
“Precisely,” the doctor smiled like he was rewarding an apt pupil. “If you believe you are sick, you become sick. If you believe you will heal faster, you do. That's why they say laughter is the best medicine, although I'd still also take your antibiotics in most cases.”
“So how does Ibogaine fit in?”
“The drug is a powerful hallucinogenic,” Winterbourne explained. “It's capable of effectively rewiring the brain, allowing users to essentially wipe out past trauma and come to peace.”
“Is that why I saw people who had died when I was on it?” I questioned the doctor.
“Yes. That's exactly it. You had suffered a terrifying experience, come within inches of death and had your body taken over by an unstoppable disease. In your shock you retreated into a space within your mind to protect yourself, like hiding behind a locked door. Ibogaine doesn't just unlock all the doors of the mind, it melts them away, along with walls and any other obstructions.”
“So basically you're saying I had to believe I was going to live in order to survive?” I asked.
“In a nutshell,” the doctor said, defending the process. “In the past week we've done clinical trials. Patients that were administered the antidote without first having the drug always come back to us so twisted they’re barely human at all; they are vile, wretched monsters. Most died of shock within minutes of being brought back, even the ones who had been recently turned. One man chewed through his own wrists. Another swallowed his tongue. You see, the drug allows the mind the time it needs so it can heal along with the body.”
“How can you live with it all?” I said, criticizing him. “Knowing how you've hurt so many innocent people?”
The words just seemed to slip out before I knew what I was saying. I felt so disgusted; I could hardly look at the man.
“I can't,” Winterbourne sighed. “Franco hasn't left me with many options. I knew if I tried to run he'd just track me down and punish me, probably cripple me so I couldn't try again. Still, I told him I was planning on doing just that so he'd put me in here with you for a while. It worked like a charm. He said time with two men on death row would change my outlook.”
“Why would you want to be locked in with us?” Moto questioned.
“There's only one way out of this,” the doctor answered. “It makes me sad to admit it, but I'm a bit of a coward. I don't know. Maybe it's more than that. Maybe I'm just too egotistical to kill myself. They say doctors are some of the most arrogant people you'll ever meet, next to airline pilots and tyrants. Either way, it's decided now. You're going to put me out of my misery, and keep them from turning the world into their vision of hell.”
“We're not gonna kill you,” I immediately responded. “You don't get to take the easy way out of this.”
“He's right,” Moto backed me up. “You'll just have to do your best to make up for the damage you've done to the world, and keep on fighting.”
“You're not going to have much of a choice, I'm afraid,” the doctor anxiously replied, bursting out in a fresh fit of coughing. “You see, I took a dose of the zombie virus right before I threatened to quit. Judging by the way I keep losing focus, I'd say we don't have much time left.”
“You intentionally infected yourself?” I yelled. “What, are you insane?”
“That's for history to tell,” Winterbourne sputtered. “If humanity still has a future, that is. My guess is they'll say I was mad, that like so many great men who came before me, I simply imploded from the weight of my own genius. It doesn't really matter much. I won't be here so I'll never know for sure, and as far as I'm concerned I've done the noble thing, sacrificing myself for the greater good. I'm at peace with the choice I've made, and that's all that matters.”
He was barely able to choke out the last of his words. His eyes bulged and blood began to run from the corners. He was already changing.
“We gotta tell someone,” I stammered, turning to Moto. “We're unarmed in here, and any moment he's gonna turn. Look at his eyes.”
“Why us?” Moto demanded an answer from the doctor.
“If Franco finds me he will try to turn me back,” Winterbourne struggled to explain. “It will be agonizing torture, and it will fail. I no longer possess the will to survive this. You and your brother, on the other hand, kill zombies all the time. You have a reputation for putting the dead back to rest. Some might call you professionals.”
“That's it. He's officially lost the last of his marbles” I moaned, anxiety climbing in my chest as I searched around for a weapon.
“Please,” he managed to stutter. “Please make sure when I turn, that you kill me with a blow to the head. Only by damaging the brain will you be able to put me out of my misery forever. I'm so sorry for this. I really am.”
He fell over and began convulsing. Blood leaked in heavy trails out of his eyes, drooling onto his lab coat and staining it.
“We don't have much time,” Moto cautioned, moving closer to me.
“I hope you've got a bright idea,” I begged. “Because this isn't looking good.”
“We could tie him up with his own clothing,” Moto said. “Maybe attempt to restrain him.”
“That wasn't what he wanted,” I argued. “His plan was for us to take care of him.”
“Maybe he should have asked us first,” Moto yelled, growing more agitated as the seconds passed.
“How did he expect us to do the job with no weapons?” I said, thinking out loud.
“There's only one sure way,” Moto suddenly looked sick to his stomach. “It's totally gruesome and messed up.”
“He's coming back,” I said, pointing at Dr. Winterbourne. “Do something! Fast!”
“Turn around,” Moto warned me. “You're not goi
ng to want to see this.”
I hesitated, staring at him in disbelief.
What's so bad he couldn't want me to see it? I wondered.
“Turn around now!” Moto roared. I did as he said, still unable to shake the fear that the recently deceased doctor wouldn't spring out at me like a jack-in-the-box and take a good-sized chunk from my exposed back.
I heard scuffling as Moto dragged Dr. Winterbourne and threw him on the ground in the far corner. There were several hard thumps, as if my big brother was beating the corpse up, then a loud cracking sound that could only mean he'd finally broken his neck. I started to turn back, but Moto immediately warned me not to again.
“Don't look now,” he screamed. “You understand? You don't look until I say so!”
“Okay, man,” I said, feeling embarrassed that he was treating me like a little kid.
I stared out of the bars and off into the distance, as I tried to imagine in my mind what the sounds coming from behind me could be. I heard heavy breathing and a loud crunching accompanied each time by a grunt from Moto. Soon the cracked nut sound gave way to a steady slurping rhythm like someone jumping in a puddle. Against my brother's orders, I turned back to see Moto stomping on what once was Dr. Winterbourne's head, but was now a caved-in mess of blood and brains on the concrete floor of the cell.
“It's done,” I shouted, but he just kept going, unable to stop until he was certain the doctor would not be able to rise and attack us. “Enough!”
Moto stopped and stared at me, then looked over my shoulder. I heard the gasp behind me a second later, and whipped around to see Franco, John, and Tank standing there, along with several of Franco's loyal followers, including Zane.
“Time's up, maggots,” Tank said. “What's that behind you? And where is the good doctor?”
“What have you done?” Franco cried out, realizing what Tank hadn't almost immediately. “You've killed him!”
“He turned,” Moto said, panting to catch his breath. “He was going to kill us both. We didn't have a choice.”
Zombie Attack! Army of the Dead (Book 3) Page 11
