Lie Zombie Lie (I Zombie)

by Jack Wallen

When I looked between the front seats and out the windshield, my heart leaped into my throat and bile threatened to spill between my teeth. Less than fifty yards ahead of us was a mass of naked zombies, flexing and roaring. The sight and sound was unnerving. Josh stopped the truck, opened the door, and stood up on the door frame to speak to Morgan. What he said was a mystery and he certainly wasn’t about to take time to share with the rest of the class. Instead, he sat back down, closed the door, revved the engine a couple of times, and crushed the accelerator with his size twelve-ish shoe. As soon as the truck tires started spinning, the monster-truck gun started firing. One by one the zombies ahead of us dropped. It was a fairly simple calculation to conclude there would be no way Morgan could take out every one of the undead before the truck reached the crowd. That calculation could easily lend itself to the hypothesis that Josh planned on ramming the truck into (and hopefully through) the remaining zombies.

  “Can Morgan hold on up there?” I shouted over the din of Hellfire.

  Josh laughed. “Morgan’s grip is rated at seven Gs. She’ll be fine.” Josh again gunned the engine to send the beast of a truck lurching forward. The mass of zombies flexed their muscles almost to snapping and took off running toward us.

  It all came down to a game of undead chicken. Either one of us would flinch and dive off the path or we’d collide with such force that someone would go down. If I were prone to prayer, I’d have dropped to my knees and let loose a litany to shame the Tibetan Monks.

  The sound of the gun changed to a deeper, throatier thump. Seconds after the first shot, I realized why it changed – Morgan was unleashing Hellfire grenades from a launcher. One by one the walking dead went up in flames. By the time the truck reached the crowd of zombies, every piece of meat was pre-charred. The collision scattered the ashes of the burning undead to the four corners. One more rev of the engine sent us through the dead-rover line and into the land of the free.

  Or so we thought. Once beyond the first wave, a second wave of the undead made itself known. This time the monsters were the more familiar moaners and screamers. At least with that came a certainly familiarity. Unfortunately that familiarity did us little good, considering the numbers.

  “Holy fuck – there must be thousands of them!”

  “And me without an Obliterator!”

  Echo was right. And I was certain this rolling fortress didn’t carry enough ammunition to take down this undead army.

  “What do we do now?“ I was surprised Jamal asked such a pedestrian question. Normally this was his time to shine – creating resolutions to situations where the odds seemed impossible. His brain worked in just that way. I had yet to see Jamal not rise up to the occasion of disproportionate odds. Certainly he was about to have an ‘ah ha’ moment wherein the resolution to our current oh shit would be forthcoming.

  Nothing came. In fact, we all just stared ahead as the walking dead death machine inched closer and closer.

  From the roof, Morgan began pounding. Apparently, Josh knew the precise pound as he scanned the cab of the truck with a red-light look.

  “Hold on to your butts,” Josh said just before punching the accelerator. The truck lurched forward with a monstrous jerk and was at deadly speeds within a heartbeat.

  “What’s the plan Josh?”

  The man with the white-knuckle grip on the wheel didn’t even glance my way as he spoke. “It’s all Morgan. Three. Two. One.”

  The sound of Josh’s voice was overtaken by the machine gun rattle from above. The fiery contrails of large-caliber bullets flew out from above as the truck of doom sped forward. The parade of death grew closer and closer.

  “This is not happening. Seriously, this is not happening!” Jamal cried out, nearly covering his eyes.

  “Fuck yeah this is happening! Those undead sons of bitches won’t know what hit them.” Josh whooped.

  “Yeah, but we will.” Echo replied, her point understood very clearly.

  Jamal pulled his hands away and started taking in the situation. “Josh, this won’t work.”

  From the mouth of the driver came laughter. Laughter. I had no idea humor could be found in such a situation.

  “No seriously Josh, this will only end badly. But I have a plan.”

  Josh ignored Jamal’s pleas. “Sorry guy, time for plans is over. Now’s the time for action. Our action is to plow through the rank and file of the monsters in our way of freedom. If you don’t like that plan, feel free to hit the ejector button attached to your seat.” Josh laughed again. “I’m kidding! There are no ejector buttons.”

  “Josh, listen to me!” Again, Jamal appealed to the reason we all hoped Josh was capable of. “This is all about geometry…sort of.”

  Jamal’s statement had all our curiosities piqued.

  “If you approach that line perpendicularly, and near the center, if the rank and file is more than one deep, you run the risk of getting engulfed once you run through the first line of defense. If, however, you approach at an angle, toward the outside of the line and away from the center, you’ll break through and not have to worry about what’s behind door number three.”

  Before Josh could utter a word, he jerked the wheel to the left, changing the course to a near perfect forty-five degree angle. And with what might have been one of the most wicked grins I had ever seen, Josh gave me a glance.

  “No, seriously, hold on to your butts!”

  As soon as Josh flipped a switch, something happened and the car jerked forward again, this time doing so with quite a bit of force. The engine wound up and the machine gun above ripped the air asunder with violence.

  “This is still not an intelligent plan of action!” Jamal shouted above the voice of war around us as he grabbed his seat belt with all his might.

  When the truck collided with the wall of zombies it felt as if a nuclear bomb detonated under us. The initial shock nearly snapped my neck in half and slammed the wind from my lungs. But to my shock, the truck continued moving. Jamal’s theory was dead on. The trajectory was nearly perfect and we broke through the death march as if it weren’t twenty deep. Jamal’s theory, of course, didn’t account for the flood of thick, lumpy, brown viscera. When the mass of undead were unsealed the truck was awash in their disgusting oil. The smell was far worse than the site. Zombie stench wormed its way into your system and rarely left. You could blow your nose and hose your sinuses down with every nettie pot in sight – death remained.

  The collision didn’t stop the zombies. Screamers peeled off the million zombie march and, with a scream to shame Jamie Lee Curtis, tore off in our direction.

  From the roof, Machine Gun Morgan again slammed her foot down, indicating to Josh to haul ass. This time the hate-filled tattoo of machine gun fire ripped across the horizon behind us, tagging the undead – and every so often nailing them in the undead off button between their eyes. But their numbers continued after us. Even with the monster truck redlining, the screamers weren’t falling behind. Both Morgan and the trucks pistons continued firing full bore.

  But then, something just short of miraculous happened. The screamers behind us began thinning out their own heard in a maddening display of pure rage. When a screamer would go down, another would pounce to tear the fallen to shreds, and then attempt to return to the chase. But before the attacker could gain any speed they were taken down by yet another member of the undead sprint to dinner. One by one the fallen fell. This nightmare would work in our favor. With a quick calculation, based on how quickly the zombie numbers were dwindling, and the relative speed of the truck, I realized all we’d have to do is remain just outside of the zombie’s reach for about ten more miles, at which point the screamers would be little more than rotting chunks of half-eaten flesh.

  “Oh fuck!” Josh glanced into his rear view and shouted. “One of those sons a bitches made it to us. The fucker is climbing up the back of the truck. Morgan can’t use the gun at that range. She’s not safe!”

  As much as I hated it, that was Echo
’s cue. I gave her the nod and she pulled out her bow. I swallowed a melon-sized lump back down into my esophagus and she opened the door and carefully swung her leg out. My hand reached to her pant leg and grabbed tight. Echo looked down at me and smiled.

  “I live for this stuff,” was all the girl said before she pulled herself out of the car and onto the roof.

  I wanted to stand up through the window of the back door and watch; or at least give Echo a hand with a bullet through the face of the attacking zombie. That would be a mistake and I knew it. Echo was in full-on Ninja mode. If I surprised her and she fell to her death, it’d be Susan all over again. I couldn’t lose another young girl. Susan was a broken promise to a dead lover. I made a promise to Echo and had the same heart-breaking need to protect her that I had with that young girl I pulled from the clutches of the mad man that started this wacky apocalypse. There was no way in hell I could look on to see Echo fall to the ground at sixty-plus miles per hour. She and I had this strange, unspoken bond. After surviving the horrors of the apocalypse together, it was easy to feel a closeness with another human being you might not have felt pre-Mengele.

  Good thing the girl was always full of surprises. I couldn’t see what was going on, but I could certainly hear. There was no pre-teen scream, no ear-splitting roar of victory from the undead. As soon as the machine gun ceased firing, and the zombie thumped off the back of the truck, an arrow protruding from its forehead, I knew Echo had succeeded. Next thing I knew, her Chuck Taylors descended from the roof and she lowered herself back into the seat with a grin to shame the Grinch.

  “I am so bad ass. One shot and that bast…er…screamer, was toast.”

  Echo was right, she was bad ass and I’d make sure she never forgot it.

  Morgan fired up the machine gun again and littered the road behind us with blistering shells. Her aim was erratic, which was odd considering Morgan had already proved herself an incredible shot. Even though the woman was sexy (in a nerd-tinted, fairy kinda way) she would still crush a man’s nuts while batting her eyes and not breaking a sweat. I quickly realized the issue at hand was the pothole-filled road and not a wounded or otherwise fucked up Morgan.

  The bumping, jumping, and ill-fired shots went on for a few miles. Eventually the zombies managed to snack their way to thinner numbers and the road below us grew smooth enough for Morgan to finish off the job. As soon as her shots starting hitting home, the undead army began to dwindle enough to assure us we would survive yet another day.

  I watched out the window. Three. Two. One.

  The last of the screamers went down.

  We made it.

  Our tiny collection of survivors managed to pull out of what could have been the same nightmare I’d lived through too many times since this apocalypse said ‘hello’. Granted we did enjoy the help of an undead civil war. Had it not been for the rage-fueled infighting among the monsters, we never would have made it.

  Josh brought the truck to a slow stop. After he slammed the transmission into park he flung the door open, leaped out, and screamed Morgan’s name. From up top Morgan squealed and laughed before she jumped down and wrapped her arms around Josh’s thick neck.

  And then… they kissed. It was one of the sweetest visions I’d laid eyes on in a while. Their kiss reminded me that humanity hadn’t dried up and died away. Life still existed. Humanity remained. No matter how hard the Zero Day Collective punched us in the gut, we’d rebound and swing our own mighty blow.

  But even with this tiny victory, there was still a war to wage. The Zero Day Collective had Jacob and I wouldn’t rest until he was wrapped up tight in my embrace. I had a new group of survivors along for the ride; and although they weren’t special-ops soldiers or molecular biologists, they were warriors to the core. Together we would march our way across the country until we could reach our fingers deep into the chest of the ZDC and rip out its still-beating heart.

  Chapter 31

  November 27, 2016 9:00 AM

  Unknown location

  The baby cooed and grinned, even as the twenty-five millimeter needle was pulled from its tiny arm. The tests had all been run. Now it was time to get enough blood samples to begin synthesizing what would eventually become the cure for the Mengele Virus.

  Commander Faddig rushed through the double doors of the mobile surgical cube.

  “Commander! This is a sterile environment. You can’t…”

  “Don’t fucking tell me what I can and can’t do. That baby was resistant to everything you threw at it. A little germ here and there isn’t going to do a God damn thing.”

  Tension mounted in the room. Doctor Kinkaid’s jaw flexed in and out as he glared at the commanding officer.

  “Are the results complete?” Faddig demanded.

  Kinkaid continued staring.

  “I asked you a simple question. Either you can answer it, or I’ll have those same tests run on you. I’ll pose the question one more time. Are the results complete?”

  “Yes. The baby is immune to all strains of the Mengele virus. I have injected him with every mutation we have. None have managed to have any adverse effects. The child is exactly as you hoped.”

  Commander Faddig stood over the acrylic bassinet and smiled. The grin on the commander’s face wasn’t something reserved for a child, but a subject – a project. And baby Jacob certainly was the project to end all projects.

  The savior.

  The messiah.

  The second coming of mankind

  “How much longer before you can begin mass production of the anti-viral?”

  Doctor Kinkaid took another moment to glare. “We need to not be working within a mobile laboratory. These are delicate procedures, I need stillness and I need the right equipment. If you can get me a proper lab, I could get production ramped up in a few days time. Working within this environment, it could easily take weeks.”

  Weeks wouldn’t do. Faddig had already wasted so much time the board was already breathing down his neck. They needed results. The window for the human race would close quickly. If the cure wasn’t offered to the public soon, there would be no public to take advantage of. Imminent death was one of the most profound motivating tools. When faced with death, mankind would comply.

  “Fine. You’ll have your lab. We’re being sent to Calgary, Canada. Once there, we’ll locate a suitable lab where you can begin your work. But there is something else you must do.”

  The commander’s voice held an ominous tone. The doctor stood, knowing he was about to be thrown for a significant loop. It had happened countless times, since he took a position within the Zero Day Collective. He’d joined out of fear – he wanted to live, to find the means with which to keep his family alive. But when the ZDC made the initial threats, it was immediately clear he had no choice. Either Jonathan Kinkaid sells his soul or the family he promised to protect, at all costs, would perish at the merciless hand of the makers of chaos.

  “I brought you into this task force based on your research in the field of cloning.”

  “I’m sorry commander, that work was halted over ten years ago when human cloning was banned. It went no further.”

  “Dr. Kinkaid, please do not presume me ignorant. It was not two years ago you presented a viable human cloning process to the Canadian Institute of Health and Research. They accepted your proposal and granted you funding. It wasn’t until the Mengele virus was released that your research halted. We need you to pick up where you left off.”

  The doctor’s legs nearly buckled. He had been at war with his conscience since his first work with the ZDC began. But for the most part he was doing little more than mending the wounded, so the war was an easy win. When he was charged with the research on the baby, that war became quite the challenge.

  “I’m sorry commander, but I cannot…”

  “Doctor Kinkaid, do not act as if you have any choice. You do what we say and your family remains safe. Go against the Zero Day Collective and your family will die – or worse.
Do you understand?”

  The doctor remained silent.

  “I asked you a question. I will repeat it if necessary.” Faddig bristled.

  The doctor stood fast by his silence.

  Faddig pulled out his mobile and dialed.

  “This is Faddig. The Kinkaid family, kill them.”

  Tears instantly streamed down the doctor’s face as if a spigot had been opened and the sprinkler set to soak.

  “No. Please don’t. Whatever you need of me…” Kinkaid hesitated.

  “Belay the order.” Faddig barked and disconnected the call.

  “Anything you want. Just don’t kill my wife and children.”

  Faddig had him exactly where he needed him. With some men, the instinct to protect was so strong, they would go to any length or depth.

  A chilling silence drifted into the room. Commander Faddig stared deep into the eyes of Doctor Kinkaid.

  “I need a human clone.”

  “Of who?” Doctor Kinkaid swallowed a ball of fear into his gut.

  A taught silence blanketed the room. The unsaid words quickly became an elephant, stomping about, ready to crush anyone underfoot.

  “Jacob Plummer.”

  The bomb dropped into the middle of the room and sent ear-splitting shrapnel in three hundred and sixty degrees.

  “This boy’s father? That Jacob Plummer? The man that spent his last months protecting the woman you’re doing everything in your power to destroy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? Why would you want to bring that man back to life? And even if you did, you’d be dead by the time the clone returned to the age in which he died.”

  Faddig stared deep into Kinkaid’s core. He wasn’t used to be told ‘no’. “We live in a new world, with new rules doctor. What was once impossible is now not only possible, but made practical by the whirling hell storm that threatens to take down our very civilization. You will be given the best equipment and assistance in the world. You will be paid with protection for you and your family. In return, you will bring Jacob Plummer back to life for me. That is all the ‘why’ you need to know. Is that clear?”