Zombie Zoology: An Unnatural History

by Tim Curran

  Morales screamed. Bright red blood sprayed around the chimp's lips as it ripped a mouthful free and bit into his thigh a second time.

  Bellamy flailed, finding a toehold and pushing himself at the fray. His high-tech club struck the ape as he flew by but his momentum was all wrong and he struck the animal with only a fraction of the force he’d intended. The animal lost its grip and spun away, fingers clawing at the air and head tilted back, hissing at them.

  Blood flowed from Morales' thigh like a faucet. A cloud of tiny red spheres expanded into the room, globules joining and rippling in mid-air as they collided with one another.

  Bellamy could see Morales was in shock. The injured man's face was ashen and his eyes glazed over. His breathing was coming in spasmodic jerks.

  Damn! Bellamy looked toward the room the ape had disappeared into. No sign. Probably having trouble orienting just like they were, he thought. He took Morales by the shirt collar and threw him in slow motion toward the hatch leading into the laboratory level and back toward Artemis.

  First things first. He had to stop the bleeding and to do that they needed to get out of this compartment and seal that thing inside.

  Morales bounced against the padded section of ceiling near the hatch as Bellamy swung between handholds close behind. He pushed at Morales, moving him into the hatch as the man's blood misted and pooled in the air around them, beading on his hands and face like water droplets.

  "Stop fighting me!" He held a rung with one hand and shoved the specialist with the other but Morales looked at him, his face limp and his eyes unfocused.

  "Mars," said Morales.

  Bellamy stopped. "What?"

  "We need this to get to Mars."

  Bellamy clamped his eyes shut and shook his head hard. "Get through the damned hatch, Major." He looked back for the chimp. A shadow was moving inside the room but he couldn't make out the source through the airborne blood.

  "Gotta beat the Russkies," mumbled Morales. A milky film had formed over his left eye and specks of white seemed to expand across the other as Bellamy looked on. "I’m going to be mission comm—"

  Bellamy snatched the man from his wedged location across the open port and pulled himself through instead, reaching back down and grabbing Morales by an arm and hauling him through. Thank God for zero gravity.

  "Special process…irradiated virus…preserve…Lazy…"

  "Shut up," snapped Bellamy, tossing the man aside and pulling at the hatch. The hinge, unmoved for years, had seized and did not want to move.

  The ape rolled through the hatch and sailed across the expanse between the forward and aft bulkheads of the relatively huge Workshop. At least they should have a few seconds before it could get back to them.

  Bellamy pulled a piece of hose from a unit attached near the hatch and looped it around Morales' thigh, cinching it up to his groin. They could do something better in the Artemis. Right now, he had to stop the bleeding.

  He pulled his shirt over his head, half-wadding and half-folding it as he wrapped it around the wound. Before applying pressure and tying the tourniquet in place, Bellamy pulled the dressing away. The wound had stopped bleeding.

  What? He'd been bleeding heavily, yes, but not enough time had passed for him to bleed out. He looked into Morales slackened face, at his limp body. But how?

  He stared for a moment and then looked across the expanse between himself and the Airlock Module leading to Artemis. The simian was nowhere to be seen. He whipped his gaze around the cylinder, eyes raking over the equipment, the compartments, the netting along the walls.

  The ape was moving slowly along the far wall, holding onto the netting as it moved, its empty eyes watching him, its teeth snapping together like wood blocks.

  He had less than a minute. Taking Morales once again by the collar he launched them across the gulf. A hiss came from behind and he felt a vise clamp onto his wrist. He turned to see Morales, face contorted, milky eyes swollen in their sockets. The mission specialist that never stopped grinning was opening his mouth now but not to make a joke or erupt into laughter.

  His intent was far darker, far more primal.

  Bellamy spread his legs and twisted hard in the air sending the two of them flying apart but both still on vectors for the Airlock Module wall.

  Morales hissed, his voice a deeper, stronger imitation of the apes.

  They struck the bulkhead at the same time, hard enough to knock the wind from him. Bellamy scrabbled for a hold before he rebounded from the impact back into the open air. Fingers locking around a ventilation duct, he hurled himself along the sloped wall for the hatch that would lead him into the Airlock Module and then to Artemis.

  The hatch was closed.

  Bellamy forced his toes under the ductwork as he bent at the waist and tugged the blue handle aside, hearing the pins snap clear. He looked up as Morales seized his shoulders with both hands, at once trying to dislodge his victim from his toehold and also pull himself the final few inches toward his prey.

  Bellamy twisted and punched his attacker square in the face, hearing the bone in Morales' nose snap. Morales, oblivious to the pain he should have felt, snapped like at animal at Bellamy, still holding onto the older man with one hand. Bellamy gouged at the man's eyes with his thumbs feeling one press deep into the swollen white orb with a sudden pop. Morales tumbled away, hands flailing, tearing at the air between them.

  Mission Commander Francis Bellamy took the airlock door in hand and swung it free, releasing his toehold and dropping through headfirst, spinning like a champion swimmer doing a switchback at the pool's edge. Whipping the tethered toolkit along, he grabbed inner airlock door and pushed it home.

  But the hatch wouldn't seat into the frame. He braced against a metal strut and pushed harder. He flinched as a tiny arm whipped at him from around the door and a deafening hiss filled the air.

  The arm was like a snake and Bellamy drew back as it swatted at him and sprayed his face with compressed air. He laughed and grabbed the hose by its nozzle and opened the door enough to throw the airline into the Workshop.

  The ape catapulted through the opening slamming into his chest and clutching at his throat. Bellamy's fists closed around the animal's neck and squeezed as he spun as their combined momentum slammed the beast's skull into the final hatch leading to Artemis. A crunch echoed through the small module and the creature's body went limp.

  Bellamy opened the airlock door to Artemis and closed both hatches behind himself. The automated system would never let him detach from the station unless there was a good seal on both the station and the Artemis.

  Safety first.

  He floated in the warm confines of the tiny Command Module for long minutes before he heard the first thump against the hatch. Checking that the airlock was secure and locked, he began preparations for undocking. Once clear of Skylab, he'd call for instructions. Damned the radio silence.

  He pulled the tabbed checklist from its slot on the command board and tried to read the smeared words.

  What the…no. God, please, no.

  He drifted to a highly polished stainless panel, studded with gauges and lights and buttons. Between the blinking indicators he could see his face only slightly distorted in the mirrored surface.

  Gouges ran down his neck on both sides, none bleeding and his eyes had lost their luster, their deep brown fading as he watched.

  Bellamy remembered his mission objectives.

  Return with the E-PEP package. Failed.

  Restore Skylab to an orbit-sustaining vector. Failed.

  And his own personal mission objective. Return to Mother Earth. That, at least, he would do.

  ONE MAN AND HIS DOG

  Wayne Goodchild

  -I-

  “Where the hell did that come from?”

  “I found him in one of the traps I left in the old Kelson place, eatin' on the other roaches. Ain't he a beauty?” Burt smiled, revealing a couple of missing teeth.

  “It's something all ri
ght...” Connor continued to goggle at the thing in the glass tank, the old man stood behind it like some kind of proud parent. The cockroach looked to be about three inches in length, a circular plate covering the top of its head with a dark patch in the middle like a face with a halo around it. Translucent wings were folded across its back, jagged veins running through them like pale psoriasis. Its entire body was a queasy off-white, the colour of glow-in-the-dark paint. Everything, that is, except the 'face' on the insect's back, and its own eyes, which shone like black pearls on either side of oversized mandibles. “What species is it?”

  Burt grunted. “Nearest I can figure, he's a Death's Head, albeit one who's stuck in some kinda teneral state.”

  “Like it's just undergone...” Connor closed his eyes as he searched for the correct terms, “ecdysis but its cuticle hasn't hardened yet?”

  The old man chuckled. “Glad you been payin' attention.” He quickly sobered and pointed at the cockroach. “'Cept this little fella's body has hardened.”

  “So he's an albino?” Connor caught himself using the masculine term but couldn't be bothered to correct himself.

  “I don't think so,” the old man mused. “Truth is, I don't rightly know quite what he is. 'Cept a marvel.”

  “A marvel?” Connor had being working for Burt Sanderson for close to a year, and still couldn't quite figure the old man out. He clearly enjoyed his job as an exterminator, yet held a deep respect for insects that bordered on reverential. Once, when Connor'd asked him about this apparent contradiction, Burt simply offered one of his trademark throaty chuckles and said “because even I realize the world could do with losing a few million of the little bastards.”

  “I wanna show you somethin',” the old man hobbled over to the miniature refrigerator in the corner of the room; his 'bug fridge', where he stored live specimens in a docile state, ready to study and run minor experiments on. Pulling out and opening up a plastic tub, he said “Watch this.” He then withdrew a cockroach, small and placid, and dumped it in to the glass tank with the large pale one. Almost immediately, it jerked sideways and snapped the new arrival up in its jaws. The old man waited patiently for the large cockroach to finish its meal, then slowly slid his hand into the tank.

  “Burt!” Connor gasped. The old man held a finger up to quiet him, and gently clasped the pale roach in his hand, before carefully lifting it from the tank. “Now watch this,” he said, a smile wrapped around the words. As if handling a piece of fine antique china, he knelt down and placed the roach on the linoleum floor, where it promptly skittered several inches away from him, antennas twitching. Burt waited a few beats, then placed his hand, palm up, on the floor. Making a few 'kissing' noises, he managed to coax the roach back onto his hand, which he then returned to the tank with as much as grace as he'd used to remove it.

  “That's about the damnedest thing I've ever seen,” his young employee breathed.

  “Pretty neat, huh?” Burt grinned with a wiggle of his busy eyebrows.

  “You said he came from the Kelson place?”

  “Yep. I went back and checked my traps four days ago, found this fella then.”

  Connor tried to work through things in his head as he spoke. “Surely four days isn't long enough to train a roach-”

  “I ain't taught him anything,” Burt said, and the tone of his voice made it clear he was as impressed and bemused as Connor was. “He just seems receptive to me, don'tcha Rex?”

  “Rex?”

  “Means 'King',” the old man explained. “As he undoubtedly is.”

  Connor snorted. “That's what my neighbour calls his dog.” He paced around the tank, staring dispassionately at the roach as he tried to pick the right phrasing for his next question. “What are you, er, going to do about...him?”

  The subtext was clear to the old man, whose eyes all but blazed with something approaching indignation. “I can't in good conscience kill something as beautiful as this-” he spluttered, holding his hands out towards the tank. “No, Connor my boy, I think I can make good use of Rex. Good use.”

  The younger man folded his arms across his chest and leant back against his desk. “I can't wait to hear this.”

  “I've spent most of my working life as an exterminator...” Burt began, his voice edged with nostalgia. “Since 1935. Forty years! Longer than you've been alive, Connor.”

  “Are you going to start going on about control techniques again?” Connor had heard such stories a million times, and couldn't be bothered to even make a pretence of being interested.

  “That attitude will get you in trouble one of these days, my boy,” Burt grumbled. “But yes, that's what I'm talking about. I want to find the most humane way to exterminate bugs as possible.”

  “So you've told me,” Connor stifled a yawn.

  Burt ignored him and said, “I think Rex here might just solve all our problems. See, I been feeding him a variety of insects an' he loves them all,” he proclaimed, a little too proudly. “And it got me thinkin' – you use a mongoose to catch a snake, a hound to catch a fox-”

  “Oh fantastic.” Connor rolled his eyes. “I get it – use a roach to kill a roach.”

  “Exactly!” Burt declared. “I heard of the method before, of course – they call it 'Biological Control', when you use a natural predator to eradicate a pest. It's fairly simple to implement if you're dealin' with crops, say, but interior work...that's a little more tricky. But, I been thinkin', and I reckon I might actually be able to use Rex to clear out properties by allowing him to hunt down other pests within a given area.”

  Connor burst out laughing; he couldn't help it. “I'm sorry Burt, but I can't believe that you – you - would even consider doing something like that. I mean, letting an insect loose...” he trailed off in dumbfounded amusement.

  “I think - no I'm certain - it'll work,” the old man insisted. “I ain't been training Rex but I have run a few tests.”

  “Oh Lord, what now?”

  “I used this room a couple of days ago,” Burt admitted, sweeping his arm across the small office they both shared, its walls decorated with framed insect bodies pinned to card, a corpse to represent each stage of a bug's life cycle. “I let a variety of pests out – cockroaches, moths, beetles – and then let Rex loose-” he cut himself off when his associate gaped comically in response to the news. “I wouldn't suggest the idea of using Rex,” Burt spoke slowly and evenly, “if I didn't have reason to believe it would work.”

  “He ate all the other pests?”

  “Yes. In record time. A couple, like the moths, he had to wait until they settled down somewhere before grabbing them, but otherwise he completely cleared the room in just under an hour. All cockroaches have cannibalistic tendencies but Rex has a voracious appetite for all insects. Well, all the ones I fed him anyways.”

  “And you watched him?”

  “At first. When I saw how concise he was being, I stepped outside and left him to it for a little while.”

  Connor shook his head. “He could have secreted himself in a gap in the floorboards, or anything.”

  “But he didn't,” the old man pointed out.

  “Let me get this straight,” Connor paced across the office, hands clasped behind his back like he was about to make a deal-making presentation, or solve a crime like Sherlock Holmes. “You seriously want to use Rex to kill other pests. A cockroach. That you've named. Like a pet.”

  “He's evidently very tame…” Burt shrugged, tired of his young colleague's impertinence. “Plus, we wouldn't have to worry about him escaping an' mating with other cockroaches, because he ain't got no genitalia.”

  “He – what?”

  “I examined him when I brought him back, and apparently he – it – is sexless.”

  “But...surely that's impossible? How does he reproduce?”

  Burt shrugged again. “If you think about it for a moment, Connor, it makes perfect sense. Where did I find him?”

  “Kelson's house.”

  “
And what was Kelson?”

  “Er...eccentric?”

  “Apart from that.”

  “A scientist?”

  “That's right!” Burt stabbed the air with a chewed nail. “No-one knows exactly what sorta scientist he was, though.”

  “Someone told me he liked to experiment on bums and junkies.”

  “Pah! I don't quite believe that, but I do believe a few the other stories I heard 'bout him.”

  “Stories?”

  “When he died, David Kelson left no Will. He left no Will because he had no family. Hell, they couldn't even find his body. The State tried to find someone, anyone, to take his junk off their hands, but with no success. So they sold his house, and everything in it, at an auction.

  “It was bought by Mary Renmar. She owns most of the buildings in town, and saw the Kelson place as prime redevelopment space. 'I can turn that place into luxury apartments,' she told me, 'but I need someone to clean the place out first'. Thing is, in the time between Kelson allegedly poppin' his clogs, and Mary gettin' hold of the place, a year had passed. And from what I heard, some of his experiments were still going on when the removal men went inside to start shifting furniture and the like.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well...” Burt leant in close and adopted a conspiratorial tone, “I've gotta couple pals who work in the town's Sanitation Department, and they were involved in clearing some of the place out. They told me there were all these vines growing on the walls, 'cept when the workers cut them away they bled, Connor. They bled. An' they found tanks and cages in the cellar, full of weird-looking...things. All dead, mind you. Some had rotted right up but others kinda mummified in the dryness of that place, from what I heard.