Lie Zombie Lie (I Zombie)

by Jack Wallen

  Jamal came to me and gave me that hug he knew I needed. All I could do was breathe in the moment, take in the oh so brief peace his embrace brought.

  “By the way, the Zombie Sensing Obliterator, aka ZSO, is now operational. It wasn’t working when you went up top because we failed to load the main application. Newbie mistake. I blame it on the apocalypse. That’ll never happen again. But this area is pretty much surrounded by the undead just out of ear shot. We’re safe, but we’re not going anywhere for the time being.”

  As the embraced lingered, a rather odd thought bubbled to the top of my mind. “How big did you say this underground city is?”

  When Jamal pulled away, the look on his face was curiosity making love to trepidation. “It’s roughly thirty-five or so square blocks. It’s not that huge, but there are plenty of tunnels that intersect and finger out. Why do you ask?”

  “Just a hunch, but how do we know Gabe escaped? How do we know it was him getting into that car? Isn’t it possible he’s just down here somewhere, waiting to be picked up by the ZDC? My baby could still be here.”

  Before I could continue on, Jamal had me by the shoulders and stared deep into my eyes.

  “B. I’ve had every man and woman I trust scour this place. He’s not here. The possibility of…”

  I stopped his logical train of thought before it could leave the station of his mind.

  “No. I refuse. Knowing what’s out there and him having the encumbrance of an infant, it is possible he could still be down here. You could have missed him.”

  Desperation had crept into my voice. I didn’t want to admit it, but it was there. Before I could swan dive into that black abyss, a stranger’s voice broke through the building fog.

  “I was told you were looking for me.”

  The voice belonged to a wisp of a man, easily in his sixties, skin like hot cocoa, wearing an adorable old-man cardigan, baggy pants, an odd sort of drivers cap, and a very misplaced twinkle in his eyes.

  “Oh my God! I completely forgot. Bethany, this is Dr. Theo Amos Williams. He’s the chemist from Portland.

  The impish man came to me, arms extended, with the biggest, brightest smile I’d seen in over a year.

  “Dear God in heaven, I am so honored to be in your presence Miss Nitshimi. What you have done has been nothing short of miraculous.”

  And he hugged me. Out of nowhere, the smiling chemist wrapped his arms around me and embraced me in that way only older people can pull off. It was charming, touching – but a bit misplaced.

  “I’m sorry Dr. Williams, but the only thing I’ve managed to do is lose what might possibly be the human race’s only salvation.”

  Theo looked at me with the cocked head of a curious spaniel. “I don’t follow.”

  “Jacob was taken from me.”

  I brought the doctor up to speed on the entire situation. When I finished my tale, he wasn’t nearly as convinced as I that all was lost.

  “The miracle that coursed through that baby’s blood was made one with your own. Although no blood would have passed through the placenta, if that baby was born with the infection, you would have shared that infection. If the baby was born immune, more than likely, that immunity was passed on to you. Bethany, you are as your child. If there is a cure to be had, we can get it from within you.” Theo proclaimed with finality.

  The idea that I shared Jacob’s miracle hadn’t been part of the equation. It was too easy to assume there was something genuinely unique about him, or there was something just shy of fictional to his very existence. I fully understood the biology; mother and fetus do not share blood, but there are certain gases and trace elements that migrate back and forth. It wouldn’t be entirely out of the realm of the possible that whatever it was that gave Jacob his immunity could have transferred into my system.

  There was something gnawing away at me. Something angry that wanted to hurt someone.

  “If you think, for a second, I have or will give up on finding my son, you are sorely mistaken. Anyone that gets in my way of finding him will witness a wrath unlike any they have experienced.”

  Jamal came to me with his big eyes and bigger smile. “B. no one is going to try to stop you from finding Jacob. Dr. Williams only wants to work with you to find a cure as quickly as possible. If that means we use you as the prime catalyst for the work, then so be it. Whatever the cost, right?”

  My dearest cohort in crime just had to pull our old motto out of his ass and drop it on the floor in front of me. Jamal knew I couldn’t resist the old tried and true. It was a phrase we came up with back in school, in the middle of the night while trying to complete one of the single most crucial assignments we’d been given to date. Over and over we tried to get the code to compile, but to no avail. It wasn’t until we decided we’d do whatever it took to succeed with the work and wound up bringing in a third party to get an outside perspective. It worked. Of the ninety-seven students in the class, we were the only two to get the code to work. We both graduated at the top of our classes. For all intent and purpose, we were Gods among men.

  Jamal was right to drop that bomb on me. This had to succeed. The cure for the Mengele Virus was beyond me, beyond Jacob, beyond everyone.

  Just as I was about to toss down another barrage of verbiage to ensure everyone involved knew the primary objective was the return of Jacob, my phone went off. It wasn’t a call – it was an email. The script was throwing out hits on the search strings.

  “Shit Jamal.” Was all I got out of my mouth before I took off running toward the studio. From my laptop I could access the dump file and search it for anything that might give us a clue as to what the Hell had happened.

  I could hear the slap of Jamal’s Chuck Taylor’s on the cement floor behind me. He was too gangly and awkward to be quick. Typical nerd. I, on the other hand, had the speed of survival on my side. The third-party sounds of Dr. Williams could not be heard. Good boy for staying behind. I’d have to make a note-to-self memo and chat with the man later – if we all survived this horror-fest.

  As soon as I reached the studio, I threw myself down behind the desk, logged into the laptop and accessed the file. The file was huge. I had expected a few hits here and there. What I got was nearly ten megs of data on a flat-text file. Thousands of lines to search through would take any normal human hours to go through. I, on the other hand, had the power of regular expressions and bash scripting on my side. After a brief moment of cobbling, I had a script ready to sift through the information and leave behind only the bits and pieces that would aid in our search. The resultant file was short enough for both Jamal and I to sift through together.

  “Here’s a communication from someone named Faddig to a Koenig, ordering him to send enough undead soldiers to San Antonio to…” Jamal’s voice trailed off into some black abyss of fear.

  “What is it Jamal?”

  Silence. The only other time Jamal was ever rendered silent was when he heard Firefly was being canceled. That was almost ten years ago.

  “B… The Zero Day Collective only sent enough of the undead to Texas to make you think they were off track.”

  Another rousing round of silence.

  “What?”

  “They knew all along where you were and where you were going. They… fuck. Fuck!”

  “Please Jamal, what is it?”

  Jamal turned and stared hard at me. The look in his eyes was clear – I wasn’t going to like what he had to say.

  “Gabe. He was in constant contact with them. He was a fucking plant! And he led them…”

  Before Jamal could finish his sentence, the roaring and banging began. It was a sound all too familiar to me. It was a symphony of chaos that forced its way into my psyche in Munich. That horrific noise once again appeared to claim its prize.

  “Why is the Obliterator not going off? I thought you said you started the program. Jamal, you said…”

  “I know. I did. I started it. I swear!”

  The poor man was in hy
sterics. And why shouldn’t he be. His Fortress of Solitude had been found and the hand of evil was banging at the door.

  Clang, clang, clang went the zombie.

  “Bethany, what do we do? What if they get in? How will we defend ourselves?”

  I had forgotten the average nerd’s experience with combat ended at the gaming console. Most nerds would be lost in real mortal combat. Add the undead to the mixture and the nerd herd were nothing more than pant-shitting, thumb-sucking, babies. Fortunately, they had me on their side. Since the apocalypse hit, I sort of became the anti-nerd hero.

  “We need weapons. Well, you need a weapon. I need to get into a bag in my room and grab my pike. What do you have down here that can serve as your own personal wrecking ball?”

  “Are you kidding? We have an armory down here. I managed to stockpile every sort of weapon of undead destruction you can imagine.”

  Jamal took off with me close behind. The pounding grew ever more relentless. The monsters knew we were here and they wanted to say ‘hello’. My guide took a sharp right turn and then an almost immediate left. Jamal was showing a grace and athleticism I’d never seen from him before.

  When we finally reached the armory, Jamal stood in the center of the room, arms wide open, spinning in circles to bask in the glory of what seemed like an infinite collection of security blankets.

  “Grab yourself a silent but deadly and let’s go kick some zombie ass.”

  Jamal gestured to the stockpile of various and sundry deadly weapons, most of which fell into the too-loud category for zombie combat.

  “We need stealth on our side. Grab something sharp and pointy and let’s go. I need to get back to my room.”

  And that’s exactly what we did. Jamal opted for a Klingon-like sword that had clearly been sharpened by a master. The song it sang as it sliced through the air was vicious. As soon as we made it back to my room, the first thing I laid eyes on was the blanket I had used to wrap up Jacob. Memory slammed me in the chest. Had it not been for the pressing matter of life and death at hand, I probably would have succumbed to the weight of sorrow. Instead, my fingers jabbed into my bag and pulled out the collapsed pike that had served me so well. In seconds I had the lethal pole extended to its fullest and ready to do my best Faster Zombie Cat, Kill, Kill!

  “Please tell me your plan doesn’t involve tracking these things down and getting up close and personal.” Jamal’s tremulous voice reminded me he wasn’t a superhero.

  “That’s my plan exactly. Now, you’re either with me…”

  “Don’t say it B. Don’t even say it.”

  I didn’t say it. In fact, all I did was take off into the halls, leading with my zombie skewer. As we slowly and quietly made our way through the halls, it dawned on me just how creepy this underground city was. Hollywood couldn’t have chosen a better location for a haunt-fest. Dust kicked up with every step, there were cobwebs hanging from every location a human hadn’t already passed through, doors creaked with a pained effort. This had to be some sort of sick twisted joke fate decided to play on me.

  The screaming and odd roaring of the undead made it very clear this was not a joke.

  “Holy shit Bethany, I think…”

  Another roar confirmed what Jamal was about to cry out. The undead had come to play. The sounds of reckless abandon filled the halls. That sound was soon followed by the shrill cries of human lives being extinguished. I hadn’t managed to get around to visiting the entire underground city to introduce myself to its inhabitants. Looks like I’d never get that chance. Few humans could stand up to screamers and survive.

  Another scream set the molecules around my head on fire. Accompanying the familiar screech of screamers was that same odd roaring I heard a second ago. That sound actually made the hell-born noise from the screamer seem like music from a merry go round.

  “I don’t want to recognize that other sound Jamal.” I had to voice my fear before it tore out my insides. “Can’t we just pretend evolution didn’t take the zombies on its Red Rover team?”

  “Sorry B, those are boners.”

  “And not the good kind right?” I tried to make light. I didn’t work. Not with the crusty call of the undead demon lords spilling out all around us.

  For a split second we thought about taking off. But the sound-proofing Jamal did to the sound booth made the room an ideal hideaway for us. After Jamal closed the door, even the call of the Circus of the Damned was sealed out.

  “Jamal, please tell me you have the means to monitor this underground city from inside this room.” I knew the answer to the question before I asked. I asked any way. Reassurance was a precious commodity these days.

  Jamal huffed, as if I had just dropped the insult of insults at his feet, and sat down in front of one of the keyboards. After tapping a few simple commands, he had a window open that spanned two monitors. Inside the window rested eight smaller windows, each of which revealed the view of a strategically placed camera.

  “There are actually thirty-two cameras. You can cycle through them with the Alt-Tab key combination.”

  Jamal stood and presented the workstation to me. There was something I had to do. In my panic to locate Jacob, I managed to let Echo fall into the cracks. I sat down in front of the pair of monitors and started cycling through the cameras. It didn’t take long before I spotted Echo. She was in a room with Morgan, in what looked like a heated conversation. There was no sound with the image, so I could only assume what was happening.

  “Jamal, I have to let her know where we are. If she…”

  Before I could take in a breath to complete my next thought, Jamal had a microphone in his hand and was broadcasting a message.

  “Echo and Morgan, will you please make your way to the recording studio as quickly as possible.”

  Jamal sat the mic down and looked to me for some sign of approval. “Hopefully the zombies haven’t also evolved such that they can understand the English language. If so, well, we’re fucked. If not – we celebrate the little things. What’s the next move Cap’n?”

  Next move? Was he serious? I had no next move. My next move was cowering in the corner until this all went away. Or at least it would have been – had the world not been counting on me to save its ass. So instead of doing what I’d really like to do, I had to come up with some sort of bad ass way to keep the monsters neatly swept under the bed. Unfortunately, the underneath portion of the bed was already jam packed with horror.

  On the screen, both Echo and Morgan were clearing out of the room they were occupying. As they moved, I did my best to cycle through the monitors to track them.

  “They’re coming our way. It worked!”

  And then it happened. Just as Echo and Morgan were about to turn the final corner that lead the home stretch of their journey to safety, irony pimp-slapped them across the face and planted a screamer in their way.

  “Oh fuck!” My voice leaped from my mouth and was sucked dry by the soundproofing on the walls.

  I reached for the microphone to shout out some random, probably worthless, command to Echo, when the girl went Ninja-style commando. She dropped to a crouch and, when the zombie was near enough, leaped up and scissor kicked the undead monster’s head into the crook of her right knee. When Echo went down, so too did the zombie; only when the zombie went down it was to the tune of a broken neck and severed spine. The screamer lay, motionless, on the ground.

  “How in the name of Kick Ass did she – ” Jamal questioned anyone or anything that cared to hear.

  “Homeless Ninjas.” I muttered, knowing Jamal wouldn’t understand the reference.

  Both Echo and Morgan ran off again. I continued cycling through the monitors until the two of them were right outside our door. I swung the gateway to freedom open and gestured for the two ladies to enter. As soon as they were beyond the threshold, I had the door closed and locked.

  “Where’s Josh? Have you seen Josh?” Morgan was near hysterics.

  I ran back to the moni
tors and started cycling through the cameras. The only moving bodies to be found belonged to the undead.

  “Wait! Who’s that?” Echo screamed and pointed over my shoulder at the fourth window in the second monitor.

  There was a man walking slowly through the hallway. He didn’t have the gate of a zombie, but wasn’t in panic mode like any rational human would be, given the circumstances. None of us, not even Jamal, recognized the man. When a pack of screamers zoomed past the man, completely ignoring him, everyone in the room gasped

  “Did anyone else see…” Morgan whispered the very thought that was clanging and banging around in my skull.

  The strange scene moved outside of the camera range, so I continued cycling through the camera feeds. No Josh. Morgan was visibly shaking. Tears welled in her lower eyelids. I knew that look and I knew the emotions behind that look.

  Loss.

  It had become my closest bedfellow over the last year. Loss seemed the only constant in my life and always reminded me how fleeting life and humanity were.

  “What do we do if they find us?” Echo was crying. Crying was good, it meant the girl did know fear after all. Fear was, at least, some assurance the girl was alive, aware, and human.

  She raised a good question. I had assumed the walking dead wouldn’t be capable of finding something they couldn’t possibly hear. That assumption was based on how much the standard zombie relied upon hearing. But if there was one thing the Mengele Virus taught me was that nothing could be counted upon. Now that zombies could sprout bone-hard armor, who’s to say they couldn’t regain their sense of sight back in full force?

  Like a bolt of lightning, an idea hit me.

  “Jamal, tell me this underground city has a public address system.”

  Judging from Jamal’s grin, he knew exactly what I was planning and his answer to my question was a solid yes. He didn’t even bother to grill me on my plan. Instead, Jamal simply walked over to a console, typed in a few commands, turned to me, and grinned.