Ashley Drake, Zombie Hunter

by Dana Fredsti

  “General Heald.” Simone's voice was flat.

  “Professor Fraser.” He nodded briefly, as if conveying a favor.

  Wow. Condescending much?

  He turned back to me, steel gray eyes glinting with patriotic fervor beneath thick, unruly eyebrows.

  “So, Miss Drake, are you an American?”

  No, I'm a Commie pinko bastard, I thought, remembering one of my dad's favorite expressions from some seventies sitcom. But I didn't say it out loud. I had the feeling it would get the same results as making jokes about bombs in the airport security line. Instead I gave General Brasshole's question the answer it deserved and said absolutely nothing.

  He harrumphed, one of those throat-clearing noises that can mean almost anything. “Miss Drake, as Professor Fraser has said, you are a very special young lady. Your enhanced physical abilities and immunity to the plague make you the ideal warrior to help control this outbreak. As such, you are to be trained and put back in the field as soon as possible.”

  WTF?

  I stared at him incredulously. “Do I look like Rambo-ette here?”

  Another harrumph. Then, leaning forward, the General tapped me on one blanket-covered knee. “Young lady, when we're done training you, you'll make Rambo look like a pussy.” He gave me a conspiratorial smile. I wasn't buying it.

  “What if I don't want to make Rambo look like a pussy?”

  “Harrumph?” Okay, he didn't really say “harrumph,” but close enough for (heh) government work.

  “No one's asking me if I want this training. You're just telling me what I'm going to do. It's my choice, right?”

  General Heald's bushy eyebrows shot up. “Miss Drake, it is your patriotic duty to do what you're told.”

  Simone shut her eyes. “Oh, that's helpful,” she muttered under her breath, not quite loud enough for the General to hear clearly.

  I folded my arms across my chest and looked at him. “I bet you can see Russia from your house.”

  He glared at me. “Just what are you trying to say here, Miss Drake?”

  “That you're a jingoistic idiot.” Yeah, I said the quiet part loud. I blame the pain meds.

  Heald's face purpled with rage and the harrumphs came so fast, they blended into an incoherent growl. I thought for a second he might hit me—and realized I didn't care. No way I was having this medal-heavy moron tell me what my duty to my country was without giving me a chance to make up my mind.

  “America, land of the free, remember? That means I get to choose.” I looked at Simone. “Last time I checked we didn't have a draft going on for a zombie squad, am I right?”

  “We are not yet taking those measures, no,” said Simone.

  General Heald took a deep breath, then another as he fought for, then regained his composure. “Yes, young lady.” The sarcasm dripping off the word “lady” was as thick as honey. The kind you have to microwave before it's even remotely pourable. “You do indeed have a choice. Allow me to show you what you stand to gain if you say yes.” He glared at Simone. “Bring her to the lab so she can see the holding pens.”

  Simone started to protest. “I must insist Ashley rest up before—”

  “Just do it, Professor Fraser.” He stalked back to the door, stopping to look at me with dislike. Guess I couldn't blame him. “If she's too weak to walk, use a wheelchair. But I want her there in five minutes. We don't have time for this liberal bullshit.”

  “Commie pinko bastard bullshit to you,” I muttered as he slammed the door behind him. I turned to Simone. “Is he for real?”

  Sighing, Simone said, “Despite his clichéd and archaic attitude, quite real. And unfortunately, not without influence.”

  “Why does he want me to see the lab?” I asked. “What does he mean, ‘holding pens’? I mean, what's he talking about, with what I ‘stand to gain’ by joining up with this Z team of yours?”

  Simone looked me straight in the eyes. “Ashley, I think you're a very strong person. And you're going to need all of that strength in the time to come. So—”

  The door opened and Gabriel walked in. “Sorry to interrupt, Professor, but General Heald wants the two of you in the lab. He said Ashley might need some help.”

  Wow. I was so not touched by General Brasshole's concern. Judging by the look on Simone's face, she was equally unimpressed. She nodded politely at Gabriel and said, “Thank you. It probably wouldn't hurt to have some extra support for this.”

  Hidden meaning much?

  Gabriel didn't look at me. Something seemed different about him since before all this shit had hit the fan, before he'd gotten sick, in fact. Grimmer, maybe.

  Of course, having a zombie apocalypse hanging over our heads was enough to make anyone less than optimistic, so maybe I shouldn't read too much into Gabriel's current downer demeanor.

  “Ashley, are you ready?”

  For what? I thought. But I just nodded because ready or not, I had to go the lab. But first—

  “Is there some kind of robe I can put on so I'm not flashing my butt?”

  I felt rather than saw Gabriel's discomfort. Heh.

  Simone procured a set of drab green scrubs for me in record time. Not as cozy as a warm terrycloth robe, but better than the breeze-up-my-ass hospital gown. Gabriel turned his back to me while I slid on the pants and top, baggy enough to fit me half over. Little sock slippers went with them. It felt oddly comforting to have something between my feet and the floor, even if it was just a layer of poly-cotton.

  I stood, feeling a Groundhog Day sense of déjà vu as far as how many times I'd woken up, stood, passed out, then repeated the cycle the last few hours. Hopefully I'd avoid the passing out part this time.

  “You gonna be okay?” Gabriel asked gruffly.

  “I think so,” I said, and I meant it. “But I swear, if I friggin’ faint again, I'm gonna change my name to Satine.”

  “Huh?”

  “Moulin Rouge,” said Simone. I looked at her with pleased surprise.

  To my further shock, Gabriel gave a small sound that might have become a laugh had it lived a few more seconds. I wonder how many of those things he'd suffocated at birth?

  None of us was smiling a few minutes later. We had to go through the med ward to get to the lab. Gabriel marched grimly ahead, while Simone stayed by my side as I tried my best to keep my gaze straight ahead towards the door at the other end of the room (okay, I actually focused on Gabriel's undeniably nice butt), but the smells and sounds were unavoidable. A line from my favorite Johnny Depp movie, Ed Wood, kept running through my head: “You've got to get through that door.” Maybe there'd be mad scientists with cashmere swatches on the other side.

  Out of the corner of my eyes I caught sight of a couple of empty cots, blood, and black bile-soaked sheets the only sign of their former occupants. I stumbled over a twisted sheet trailing off the end of a cot and Simone steadied me with a hand on my elbow.

  Gabriel immediately dropped back to my other side, ready to catch me should I faint again. “Are you all right?”

  I nodded. “Just tripped. Let's just get out of this room, okay?” This time I set a rapid pace until I got through those doors, into another hallway.

  Gabriel took the lead again, heading through a door and down a stairwell on our immediate left. Our footsteps clanged on the metal stairs until we reached the next floor. This door was locked, with a little access pad on the wall next to it. Gabriel pulled out a lanyard from around his neck where it'd been tucked into his shirt-front, revealing a plastic card key attached to the other end. One swipe of the card and we were through the door and in what looked like a very sterile antechamber, with a double door in front of us. This one had a number pad set on one of the doors, butted up right to the middle.

  “Pretty tight security for a college campus,” I said.

  Simone nodded. “You'd be surprised at what you'll find behind the scenes in a lot of places … and not just colleges.”

  “I don't think much of anything would
surprise me about now.” I felt pretty cynical as Gabriel punched in a lengthy numerical sequence, certain I'd seen it all.

  Yeah, not so much.

  When the doors opened the smell was the first thing to hit me: a nasty-ass stew of diseased blood and rotting flesh, similar to the stink in the med ward. In the lab, however, the odor of death was wrapped up in a falsely reassuring layer of bleach and antiseptic. Like, “yeah, there's really bad shit going on here, but we're cleaning it up, so it's okay.”

  I'm here to tell you there was nothing okay about what was going on in this lab.

  A large room, the size of a lecture hall in square footage, but no theater-style seating. Metal tables, all holding groaning, moaning, teeth-gnashing zombies strapped down at the wrists, ankles, and neck. Tubes and needles stuck into their bodies at various points. Fluids pumping in and out of rotting flesh. Hazmat-suit-clad techs all wearing sidearms, cutting away thin slices of flesh like Dad carving the turkey at Thanksgiving, those strips then put under microscopes or into carefully marked containers for future study.

  I recognized both the African-American kid and the woman who'd asked me to help her from the med ward, all remnants of humanity gone from their faces as they writhed against the straps holding them down, unmindful as the tough canvas rubbed away patches of skin.

  At the far end of the room were cages, thick iron-barred contraptions with the bars spaced close together. In those cages were more of the living dead, all jammed up against the bars, trying to shove their hands and arms through the narrow gaps to reach the Hazmat-wrapped meals walking around the room. Those had to be the holding pens.

  “What the hell is this?” I whispered to no one in particular.

  “Research.” Simone kept her volume low as she answered my question. “Regrettable, but necessary if we're ever to isolate the root cause or, more importantly, find a cure.”

  “So all the people you rescued … they're just research animals?”

  “The ones who don't make it, yes.”

  “So if I wasn't one of your friggin’ Wild Cards, I'd be strapped to one of these tables getting pieces parts carved out of me, right?” For some reason, this horrified me more than anything else so far.

  “That's right, Miss Drake.”

  Great. Even through the weird, tinny filter of a Hazmat helmet, I recognized General Brasshole's pompous tone as he strode into the room and looked at me through his Plexiglas helm with what I can only describe as triumph. “And this is what will happen to your former boyfriend if you don't cooperate.”

  WTF? That's what I thought, at least. Out loud it came out, “Are you kidding me?”

  “No, Miss Drake, I am not kidding you. If you join the team, your boyfriend will be given a swift and humane death.” He smiled and it was so not a nice smile. “Or to be accurate, a final death. As far as we can tell, zombies don't feel pain the way humans do.”

  “And if I don't cooperate, you'll use him as a zombified lab rat.”

  He smirked. “She's not stupid.”

  This condescending remark was directed to Simone, who looked at the General with clear dislike as she replied, “No, she's not.”

  Gabriel stayed silent throughout all of this, a slight tic in his right cheek the only sign of emotion.

  The General's attention shifted as one of the zombies snapped at a tech reaching across its face to adjust something on the other side. Its teeth caught in the tech's glove before he could yank the hand away. The zombie worried the glove like an attack dog. The tech smacked the zombie on the head with his other hand and tugged the glove free, immediately inspecting it for rips in the fabric.

  General Heald harrumphed in disapproval. “That kind of carelessness is what gets a man killed in battle, soldier!”

  “With all respect, I'm not a soldier, sir.”

  “No excuse! It's civilians like you who cost me good men!” General Heald began taking the tech to task in a monologue I immediately tuned out.

  Something occurred to me, though, as the General shook his gloved finger in the tech's face. I turned to Simone and Gabriel, catching the former with a look of eye-rolling exasperation. Gabriel was expressionless like a good soldier should be, I guess. “Question,” I said quietly. “If this disease isn't airborne, then why are the suits necessary at all?”

  Gabriel broke silence to answer me. “You've seen the amount of blood and vomit an infected person generates, right?” I nodded. “If it spatters on your skin or clothes, you'd be fine. But get any of it in an open sore of any kind or accidentally swallow it … you might as well have been bitten.”

  “And as I mentioned earlier,” Simone added, “during previous episodes the zombie virus was spread solely through contact with bodily fluids into mucus membranes or open wounds, mainly via bites, scratches, or hot blood. But this time … several members of our team have come down with symptoms without any such contact. Not enough to convince me it's gone airborne, but still … it's worrisome.”

  Which led to my next question. “So why are we the only ones not wearing protective gear?”

  “Ah,” said Simone. “As Wild Cards, you and I don't have to worry about contamination.”

  My eyes widened in surprise. Simone knew what it was like to be bitten by one of those things and survive. It raised my already considerable respect for her up another notch. But her answer left me with another question. “What about Gabriel?”

  Simone hesitated. “Gabriel is … different.”

  “That's one word for it.” I know, but I couldn't resist it. Gabriel shot me a look. “I mean, different how?”

  “Well, Miss Drake?” Before I could be enlightened as to Gabriel's differences, General Brasshole stepped between us. He moved into my personal space, trying to intimidate me by towering all of two inches above me.

  I gave him a deadly look, wishing one of my Wild Card abilities included inflicting death by laser glare. “Don't rush me.”

  “It's not that tough a decision, missy. You do the right thing and your ex will be given a hero's funeral. After all, he died trying to save you.” He poked me in the sternum with a forefinger.

  Oh, you total bastard, I thought. But he was right. Matt died when he came back for me. If he hadn't, he'd still be alive instead of rotting in his Levi's.

  Still, if General Heald poked me again, I'd break his finger.

  I looked at the cages, wondering if one of them held what was left of Matt. A greenish-gray hand thrust its way between two bars. Was that Matt's class ring on one rotting finger? “Is … is he in here?”

  “Oh yes,” Heald said smugly. “Would you like to see him?” The bastard was enjoying this and totally expecting me to say no.

  Simone had had enough. “General, I don't see how this is—”

  “Yes.” They both looked at me in surprise.

  “Ashley, are you sure?” Simone put a hand on my arm.

  I nodded. “I want to see Matt. Then I'll make my decision.” Part of me wanted to do this out of machismo, just to show Heald I could take it. Another part of me needed to say goodbye to Matt, even if he couldn't understand me. And I guess I hoped it would help me decide what to do, although I already had a pretty good idea what my answer would be.

  “Fine, then. Right this way, Miss Drake.” The General waved his hand towards the cages. I slowly moved past him, once again looking neither left nor right so I wouldn't see the Mengele-esque experiments on either side of me. General Heald trailed after me, no doubt wanting to see my face when I saw Matt again. I held up a hand and said, “No way. You stay back here.”

  His face turned red. “Miss Drake, you do not give the orders around here!”

  “If you ever want me to obey any orders, you'll back off and give me my space,” I shot back.

  Heald drew in breath for another round of bullying, but Gabriel stepped in front of him. “I'll show her, sir. It's safer for me.” His tone was nothing but respectful, but I got the feeling Gabriel wouldn't back down if challenged. If he kept
this up, I might find myself actually liking him.

  “Harrumph. I suppose you're right.” Brasshole sounded grumpy, as though agreeing with anything not his idea gave him indigestion. “Just make it quick.”

  Choke on it, pal.

  Gabriel took me by one arm, his hand right above my elbow, and led me to the back of the room. The warmth of his hand and the strength I felt in those fingers made me feel safe. Or at least as safe as possible under the circumstances.

  We stopped in front of the cage farthest from the lab entrance and stood a good three feet away from the bars as agitated moans filled the air. A capture pole rested on the wall next to the cage, the hook end spattered with blood. “Is he in there?” Stupid question, I know. I just wanted to put off the moment of truth a few seconds longer.

  Gabriel shook his head. “No. It is in there. It's not your boyfriend any more. Try to remember that. It'll make things easier on you if you can avoid humanizing them.”

  I bit my lip and turned to the cage. The size of a large closet, it currently contained Matt and three other zombies, all male. The way they all focused on me, teeth gnashing, hands clutching between the bars, pupils what I'd come to recognize as Corpse Dead White—the latest Crayola crayon color—well, his point of not humanizing them seemed like a good one.

  The Zombie Formerly Known as Matt stared at me with those dead eyes, no recognition whatsoever. Every bit of personality that had made him Matt had left the building.

  And yet … even though his only expression was mindless hunger, Matt still looked enough like himself that it hurt my heart to see him.

  It.

  Shit, I couldn't do this. No way I could let what remained of Matt end up on one of those cold metal tables. There may not be anyone home in his body, but what had been there had died trying to save me.

  As though he read my mind, Gabriel suddenly leaned in close and spoke quietly in my ear. “It's not true, Ashley.”