Parasite ; Sleeper Cells ; Kingdoms of the Dead

by Ian Woodhead

  “I don’t understand, Diane. I thought that’s why we needed the gun. You know, to force them at the medi-center to give me the drugs.”

  “There’s no point me asking if you were listening to me last night, because you obviously weren’t.” She kissed him on the nose. “You’re my brother and I love you, but there are times when I wonder if there’s any point in explaining anything to you. We take the gun just as a precaution. We’re not going to force anyone to do anything. If this goes right, nobody will even know we’ve been in there.”

  He nodded, desperately trying to remember what she had told him last night before leaving him alone on that street corner. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember anything she’d said.

  “You don’t remember, do you?”

  He shrugged. “Sorry, I guess my mind wasn’t working at full capacity when you told me.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Kenny. It’s not like you had to do anything. Go on, go fetch the gun.”

  “Okay.” He turned and then stopped. “Diane, do you, by any chance, have anything to eat? I can’t remember the last time I ate.”

  His sister stared at him before a smile broke over her face. “You’re seriously hungry?” She unzipped her overalls and searched through her pockets before bringing out a foil-wrapped ball. “I was given these last night by my neighbor.” Diane unwrapped the foil and dropped the ball into his hand.

  Kenny’s mouth started to water. It looked more like a small ball of tightly squeezed black earth than actual food, but the heavy spices coming from the substance told him otherwise. They engaged his senses while simultaneously telling him to stop torturing his rumbling stomach.

  He pushed half the patty into his eager mouth and bit down, tasting all those exotic spices exploding in his mouth. The meat was just incredible. Whoever had made this certainly knew how to cook. It wasn’t quite a bacon sandwich; in fact, it was way better. Kenny looked at his sister.

  “I guess you like it?”

  He nodded, unable to speak.

  “My new neighbors brought them round last night. As a thank you for saving their lives.” Diane smiled. “One of our helicopters reached another citystate last week and actually found survivors. They were able to hold out until now, before the dead hordes finally swarmed through their narrow streets.” Diane shivered. “There weren’t that many that got out alive. Our company intends to explore the rest of their city this week. I doubt they’ll find any more survivors though.” She pointed to the remains of the patty in the palm of his hand. “They sure know how to cook.”

  Kenny nodded again and pushed the last bit into his mouth. It reminded him a little of the exotic burgers that he and his mates used to eat by the truckload every Saturday night after hitting the bars in the center of the city. There were always dozens of street vendors, all begging for the custom from the drunken lads as they stumbled out of the bars.

  He swallowed the last of it, still able to taste the spices in his mouth. Kenny wondered where the meat had come from. Then decided that he didn’t want to know, considering that the fields full of cows, sheep, and horses went a few weeks after The Turning.

  Most of their food was supplied by the government. They handed out the food bars like candy. The poorer areas of the population had no choice if they wanted to survive; they had to eat the vile tasting things, containing who knows what. The elite and their friends had their own food. Their ration bars ended up thrown away.

  Kenny’s food, when he did decide to eat, came from whatever he could scavenge. He could always find enough discarded ration bars to keep him alive. If he fancied food with real taste, he knew of a few vendors who could make anything from the local population of rat, dog, or cat. While searching through the rubbish, Kenny could usually find enough miscellaneous items that he could use as trade for a burger.

  He ran up the metal stairs, and for the first time in what seemed like months, Kenny actually didn’t feel so bad. When he reached the top, Kenny looked back and saw Diane pulling something else out of her pockets. At first, he thought it was going to be another portion of that delicious foil-wrapped food. But it was a small flask. She unscrewed the top and tipped it over the body. Kenny gripped the railing and watched the contents splash onto the zombie’s flesh. By this time tomorrow, thanks to the liquid, the dockside rats, cats, and other scavengers, there would be very little of that thing left, apart from a few scattered bones.

  Kenny belched and tasted his food again. What a sad turn of events, to think that the zombie had now entered their food chain. Diane screwed on the cap and returned the flask to her pocket. He knew of quite a few people who would kill to get their hands on the stuff that his sister had poured onto the dead thing. It didn’t seem to matter to them that the fluid was deadly to humans; all they cared about was that, apart from the stuff they handed out at the medi-centers, the fluid was the purest known source of Beldazine. They were under the deluded idea that they could somehow succeed in removing the bonded poisonous substances where better minds had tried, failed, and died.

  He headed into the building, wishing that he could remember what Diane had planned for the raid at the medi-center. Kenny walked over to his gun and picked it up. It didn’t make much sense to him. If they were only going to take the gun as a last resort and it wasn’t all that essential to her plans, then why couldn’t they have raided the place a couple of days ago before he almost turned? That way neither of them would have had to have a tumble with that fucking psychopath. God, he should have put a bullet in his head, there and then.

  Kenny closed his eyes and told himself to stop worrying. Everything would turn out okay. His sister had never let him down yet. Diane had told him that she wouldn’t stop until he was back on the right track and off the injections. The thoughts of rehabilitation left him when a violent shiver travelled through his body. He shook his head, trying to calm down his heart as it beat faster and faster. Oh crap, this was not the time to have another fucking relapse.

  He staggered forward, spun around and slammed his back against the wall, then slid to the floor, feeling bubbles of sweat pouring down his face. This was the third time since his sister had left him that this condition of helplessness had crept over him. He refused to let it beat him. Kenny let go of the gun, wincing as it crashed against the floor beside him.

  It would have been the ultimate irony if the gun had fired, slamming the bullet with Rossini’s name on it into his head instead. Kenny rolled onto his front, then rolled back again, onto his gun. He arched his back then relaxed his muscles, groaning in agony as some metal part protruding from the gun dug into his damaged back.

  It did the trick though; the malaise and the nausea suddenly left his body. He felt like complete shit but at least he believed that he would be able to function normally, well, until the spasms hit him again. With luck though he would have as much clean stuff as he could fit in his pockets, all ready to inject, and he just knew that the drug would flush out the crap that was still inside him.

  Kenny made his way over to the door, sighing when he saw the tiny spatters of blood behind him. Past experience made him halt. He couldn’t afford to go anywhere if he was dripping blood. Although the vast amount of scanners all over the city made it impossible for any of the walking dead to stay intact for more than a couple of minutes, he still didn’t feel safe knowing that he was bleeding. Those things could smell fresh blood for miles away and a couple of minutes would be all it took for one of them to rip him apart.

  He grabbed the door handle and counted to ten, looking behind him and watching one more drop of his precious life fluid roll out from under his jacket. It looked as though it was stopping now. As long as he didn’t re-open the wounds, he reckoned that he’d be okay.

  His sister stood at the bottom of the stairs looking up at him. “I thought you’d gone to sleep, Kenny.”

  “I’m fine,” he replied, slowly walking down the stairs. He couldn’t feel any more blood dripping down his back. He took
that as a good sign. Kenny grinned to himself, hoping that this day would turn out to be his turning point. The marker for when he could look back and say that here was where everything in his life improved. He knew that if he could get enough of the drug, it wasn’t just the diluted shit that he’d be able to flush out; with luck, Kenny might even be able to clear out any signs of the main infection. If that happened, he’d be able to qualify for prescriptions for the highly prized pills. Kenny told himself not to get too carried away. After all, as far as he knew, nobody who actually died had come back as human. Did that not make him unique? Just what would those fuckers do to him if he did turn himself into the authorities? Perhaps it would be safer to carry on living on the fringes.

  Anyone who had to resort to injections were classed as non-persons, as far as society believed; anyone using the needle was just a worthless parasite, not much better that the walking corpses. Of course, the media helped to reinforce that attitude by running the news reports announcing that his kind were murdering the rich and the well off and eating their bodies, or that they were breeding a new kind of virus in their filthy bodies. It had even been suggested that it was people like Kenny who had been responsible for the zombie outbreak in the first place.

  Was it all that surprising that, no matter what tragedy landed upon their species, there was still that urge to dominate the ones weaker than themselves? He knew for a fact that the media needed the public to believe their lies. Of course they did. If their receptive customers believed that the ones on the needle were actually humans, none of the television public would watch their TV shows.

  No pills meant no job, no apartment, no rights whatsoever. Even the medi-centers were a huge scam. He saw the sun breaking through the clouds. That had to be a good sign. It hadn’t stopped raining for what seemed like forever.

  “What was taking you so long?”

  “The shit I took last night has been rather detrimental to my already fucked body.” He shrugged. “I’ll be alright. I promise. Here, you don’t have any more of those meat things on you?”

  She shook her head. “No. Come on, time to go.” Diane took the gun out of his hands. “I’ve got loads of them at my apartment. As soon as we get this over with, I’ll sneak you into the habitation zone and get you cleaned up. I’ve already got you some new clothes. Just keep that happy thought in mind.” She kissed him lightly on the forehead. “This is going to work.”

  He followed Diane over to the fence and pointed to the gap that he’d found cut into the chain links by one of the posts. “You can climb over, if you want to, darling, but I’m going through there,” he said chuckling.

  She punched him lightly on the top of his arm. “Oh, thanks for letting me know.”

  Kenny heard the sarcasm in her tone and chuckled again. “I just did tell you. If you hadn’t given me anything to eat, I would have waited until you had climbed to the top of the fence.”

  Diane squeezed her way through the hole in the fence and held the wire back so he could get out. Even with her help, Kenny still managed to catch his back on a jagged fence barb. The pain was intense enough for him to feel as though he was about to pass out.

  “Are you okay?”

  He nodded. “Sorry, I just felt a little faint,” he lied. “I’ll be okay in a moment.” At least the sudden pain would give his mind something else to focus on. With luck, it would stop him from visiting any other star systems on their journey. Kenny eased his body through the hole and stood up, looking back towards the docks so his sister wouldn’t see the discomfort etched on his face. It felt as though his back wound had already begun to scab over. He’d have to take it easy though, he didn’t want it opening up. “Okay, let’s go.”

  He followed her along the dilapidated street, staying close to the boarded-up buildings. As they passed the old café, Kenny was sure that he heard shuffling noises coming from inside. Not that he intended to stop and check it out.

  To stop and investigate. Fuck that. Knowing his luck, it would be where the rest of the washed-up dead things had ended up. He increased his pace to catch up with his sister, daring himself to glance back.

  “Kenny, I want you to tape this over your tattoo.”

  He looked in suspicion at the flesh-colored strip of plastic that Diane had just dropped in his hand. “Are you sure?” He ran his finger over the grooved flesh in the centre of his forehead. Anyone not designated a worker had one of these scars branded into their heads. It made recognition easy, not just for the ‘normal’ classes of the new order, but also so the machines could keep track of your whereabouts. Not that there were many working scanners in the abandoned areas of the city. Those that had been installed only lasted a few hours before mysteriously disappearing.

  Inside the innerzone though, the cursed things were everywhere. “Are you sure, Diane?”

  She nodded. “Yes, I’m sure. Look, don’t worry, the patch won’t burn off. You’re not the only one who’s had to hide their barcode, you know. You’d be surprised what our government gets up to.”

  He peeled off the backing paper and stuck it over the barcode, waiting for the thing to heat up. The bastards that had done this to him and the thousands of others weren’t fools. They knew how easy it would be to fool the machines; it only took a large hat. To bypass this, there were sensors sewn in under the skin, as well as a heating element. If the barcode was ever covered up, the element would be activated with disastrous results. When the technician had branded him with this hateful scar, Kenny had asked what the point was. After all, if they could do this, why not just install a tracker into everybody; they’d know where everyone was all the time then.

  Of course the creep hadn’t bothered to reply, but he had let some of the anaesthetic wear off before performing the simple operation. One of these days, Kenny would find out his name and pay the bastard a visit.

  After a minute, he began to believe that the patch would stay on.

  “It only lasts a few hours before dissolving so we had better make good of our time.” Diane pointed to the huge steel gate in the distance before unzipping the overalls and stepping out of them. She passed them to him. “I made sure they were too big for me so you’d be able to wear them. Even with the patch, you’d never pass as a worker. You really do look bad, Kenny.”

  It took him a few minutes to climb into the overalls. He could smell her perfume on in the fabric. “What about the gun? It’s going to be hard disguising that.”

  Diane just shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. We’ve just done some essential maintenance to one of the transmission towers close to the old dockyard. At least, you have. I’m just your bodyguard. As for the gun, we’re hardly likely to leave the safety of the innerzones without protection, now are we? There’s no telling what the locals would do to us.”

  He couldn’t find fault with her story. Kenny just hoped that the guards wouldn’t decide to question it any further. Then again, considering the color of her uniform, they wouldn’t dare. “When were you promoted, Diane?”

  She turned around. “Fat chance of that ever happening, Kenny. It isn’t my uniform. It belongs to the woman who lives across from my apartment. I just happen to have the key to her door and she works the nightshift.” Diane suddenly hushed and hurried across the empty street.

  Kenny frowned. He couldn’t see anyone near the checkpoint. His sister stopped by the barrier, looked back at him and shrugged. He watched her manually open it and pull down on the gate while looking around. Kenny rushed over and squeezed through the gap. “This is not right,” he murmured. “I’ve never known this to happen.”

  Diane pulled him through and let the barrier drop. “Let’s not question providence, Kenny. To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure that the guard would fall for my bullshit story anyway. Come on, we’re not far from the medi-center now. I think we should move before that guard does come back.”

  His sister had a good point; he already knew that his fate would be sealed if he was caught on this side of the city. T
he volunteers at the medi-center used to make that perfectly clear when he still went there for his injections .Kenny had a feeling that Diane would probably end up next to him against the execution wall as well. He couldn’t allow that to happen.

  Both he and Diane raced down the road. At the moment, the streets were devoid of people, but Kenny knew that wouldn’t last long. He remembered his last visit to the place. The other people like him weren’t too keen on showing their faces either, at least not until they reached the center. Kenny then noticed several moving shadows on both sides of the road; the morning light couldn’t penetrate the overhanging stone roofs. He nodded to himself. They weren’t alone after all. His ex-fellow sufferers were already making their way, no doubt desperate for their next injection.

  Diane had seen the shadows too. He’d already seen her stiffen. Kenny didn’t blame her reaction; even with her enlightened attitude, coupled with the fact that her brother was one of the ‘deviants’, it must be almost impossible to totally dispense of all the bias that the authorities shoved down their throats every minute of the day. He slowed down when the building came into view.

  A cold shiver travelled down his spine. He had hoped that he’d never set eyes on that vile place ever again. It wasn’t the sight of it that had set off the shiver; the building just felt wrong somehow. He just couldn’t put his finger on it.

  “Right,” Diane whispered. “This is going so easy, watch.”

  Kenny had no idea what he was supposed to be keeping an eye on, but he did as she asked. The moving shadows all ended up in the same spot, queuing up in front, patiently waiting for the door to open. Not that long ago, he would have been in that line, wanting nothing else but to experience the high after he had pushed that needle into his vein. Kenny wished that he could share what his sister had told him. Then again, would any of them really believe him? He certainly didn’t, not at first, not until she had shown him the evidence. They used to say that the camera never lies. It took a smuggled portable television to show him exactly why the government was ‘helping’ the unfortunate members of the community. The bastards were using the medi-centers as recruitment places for their vile television shows.