SCHIZOMEGA: Zombies Made in the U.S.A. (Ian McDermott Paranormal Investigator series Book 3)

by David Aslin

The lights went off once again. This time they stayed off. One more time they heard the facilities back-up generator laboring to kick itself on. All three men stood still in their tracts hoping for at least the emergency lights to come back on or, for the lightening to flash more frequently. Just then a massive lightening flash occurred. All three men reeled and nearly fell against the dank water-bleeding castle-like prison wall, when they saw what they saw during that great flash.

  “I see at least one of you fellow’s ‘as been bit… or, should I say a bit worse for wear?” E spoke in an almost jovial manner. None of the men, not even Emilio who was the brunt of E’s less than sensitive joke minded; they were more than glad to see him.

  Ian blurted out, “We’re sure glad you made it back in once piece. And regarding your sub-humorous inquiry, you aren’t wrong. Emilio was attacked and bitten by a zom-bie.”

  “That’s unfortunate indeed. Is he showing any signs of infection, yet? Because he most assuredly will.” E said to all present without consideration given to Emilio.

  Emilio hearing E’s words lowered his head and began to sob. Even Jamal who had just minutes ago had been ready to shoot Emilio dead, even he was beginning to become sensitive to what Emilio must be going through.

  The backup generator finally accomplished its task. Once again the emergency lights buzzed, flickered, and then came on. Ian boldly marched up to E and motioned for him to walk with him away from the other two men.

  “E, I know you’re like a, you’re a combat commando, hell we both know you’re more than just that. You’re trained and have abilities because of your, well condition. Look, those guys…” Ian nodded his chin towards Jamal and Emilio. “Those men, they’re just like me and we’re nothing like you. We’re just ordinary guys. They’re just scared like I am. And, Emilio, he’s got to be terrified.”

  “What you’re saying is I should have used more tact? More discretion.” E said very matter of fact.

  “Well … yeah. Yes, that would have been…” Before Ian could complete his sentence E turned and left him.

  E walked briskly up to Jamal and Emilio. “Look fellows I’m real sorry about how I spoke to you a minute ago.’ E looked directly at Emilio. “I’m especially sorry for what I said regarding what happened to you, Emilio. You’re going to be just fine, the infection doesn‘t spread that way, not by bite.” Greatly relieved to hear E’s words, Emilio smiled. Within a split second E unsheathed his sound suppressed pistol and fired one round point blank into the center of Emilio’s forehead.

  “NO!” Ian screamed as he raced towards Emilio. Jamal stood motionless in shock, speechless as Ian now stood above Emilio’s body. Without hesitation Ian delivered a right-cross to E’s chin with everything he had. Ian’s formidable punch did little more than move E’s jaw an inch from the impact.

  “You bastard, what the hell? You just shot him, murdered him in cold blood!” Ian said as tears welled up in his eyes.

  “I know why you done did it, but damn man” Jamal said with a blank voice.

  “It had to be done, and it is as simple that.” E said in an equally blank voice.

  “This is madness!” Ian exclaimed.

  “I like you Ian. I think you know that. So I’m giving you that one for free.” E looked over at Jamal as he continued, “If you ever attempt striking me again, you’ll be dead before you finish your move.”

  Ian didn’t even look up, he was focused on Emilio.

  “He would have been one of those things before sun-up, which is in about three hours. We need to get moving.”

  Ian knew in the back of his mind that E was right. He knew Jamal had been right about what needed to be done in the first place. It’s not that Ian wasn’t man enough to do what’s necessary. In this case he was just too, human.

  CHAPTER 21

  ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFET

  “I’m starving.” Jamal said quietly as he stood at the closed doorway that lead to the commissary.

  Ian remained quiet, still miffed over Emilio’s death at E’s hands. But, the truth was he too was running on empty. He mused, If my stomach growls any louder I’m going to start attracting every zombie in this shit hole.

  As angry as Ian remained at E, he still admired his purely logical mind. Unencumbered by emotion. Ian silently contemplated the facts, He’s like Spock from Star Trek. Almost machine-like, he assesses what needs to be done and does it, without emotion, without regret. He wasn’t wrong, it’s just… Ian’s thoughts were interrupted.

  “Ian. Like me or hate me, that’s up to you. But, we need to continue working as a team; that is if any of us has plans on ever leaving this place.” E said quietly as he placed his hand on the door readying himself to push it open. Reluctantly, silently, Ian nodded his head in agreement.

  E began to whisper, “Okay. When we go through this door, I’ll pan my weapon high and dead ahead, Ian you aim low and Jamal…” Jamal looked directly at E. “Jamal, you keep your eyes on our backs. No more sneak attacks from our rear, understood?”

  Jamal nodded his head in agreement as he quietly replied, “No more!”

  E began to open the door slowly, then stopped. He looked around through the cracked door. He didn’t see anyone or anything out of the ordinary; just the rows of cafeteria tables and a few food-filled and soda pop vending machines located across the room. Even at a quick first glance E noted the place wasn’t set up to serve hot meals, strictly brown bag-it or purchase your meal from the machines.

  E pushed the door wide open and he entered. Ian followed and Jamal entered nearly walking backwards, doing as E had instructed, watching their tails.

  E methodically panned his assault rifle around the room. Ian still wore his rifle strapped over his shoulder. He held his handgun with both hands, and attempted best he could, to focus his aim opposite directions that E concentrated his efforts on.

  Suddenly E stopped cold. He aimed his weapon across the room and low. Ian thought to himself, I thought I cover, low? But then the two humans heard it too. Gnawing,

  Chewing, grunting, and slurping crunching sounds coming from inside the room, just out of their sight. Sounds like a feasting dog in the thralls of a meaty bone.

  E intentionally loudly cleared his throat. Suddenly a shaved filthy head popped up from behind a table at the far end of the large room. E pulled the trigger of his assault rifle but nothing happened. “This piece of, shite, it jammed!” He almost yelled as he checked what he already knew, the safety was off and it should have fired. The head turned towards them. Even at this distance they could see its mouth was full of what appeared to be bloody human entrails. Ian pointed his pistol and squeezed off two rounds back to back, but neither shot found their target. The head hissed at them then dropped back down out of sight. E quickly went to work on his weapon. When satisfied that he’d fixed the issue he aimed his rifle at the table across the room and open fired, firing three bursts into the table-top. The cafeteria table was instantly severed and collapsed to the floor. E ran across the room only in time to catch a glimpse of a bald one-armed man dressed in tattered inmates clothing running up the hallway then ducking into a door out of sight. Ian and Jamal having caught up to E, now stood above the demolished table. They both stared with horror down at the blood pool encircling the corporeal remains of a silver haired black male custodian; who though minus the lion’s share of his intestines still held on with a tight fist, in full rigor, to his blood soaked mop. Jamal gagged at the sight and had to turn away.

  “These, zombies, they’re not all created or infected or whatever, they’re not all equal. By that I mean, this one, this one intentionally crawled, with only one arm mind you, crawled to safety before standing up, to run away.” E said with the sound of astonishment in his voice.

  Ian interjected, “That suggests problem solving and cognitive reasoning.” You say he only had one arm. You figure he had his arm torn off by other zom’s?”

  E replied, “No. Even though I only caught a glimpse, he didn’t appear to
be particularly wounded. I’d say he’s been one handing a cricket bat at this country club, for some time. To answer the rest of your bloody questions, that’s right, at least some of these things are not totally senseless. That makes at least some of these sons-a-bitches more dangerous than…”

  Ian interrupted, “More dangerous than ever anticipated.” E slowly nodded his head in agreement.

  Jamal took a deep breath and rolled his eyes, “What-a-ya’ll-mean more than anticipated. You the agent man. You da man. You supposed to know all that shit. Man we all gonna, die!” Jamal said totally panic stricken.

  “No. We’re not all going to die. Not here, not today anyway. We’ve just got to be aware that we may be up against, at least some of these things might have the ability to reason, a bit, that’s all.”

  Ian was more stunned by E finally calling the things zombies, than by anything else he’d just said.

  “Zombies, huh?” Ian said looking directly at E.

  “Well, when in Rome.” E said slowly.

  “Yeah well, zom’s, zombies, what’s the fucking difference anyway. Sure, maybe they’re not actually walking dead. But, it all amounts to about the same. They’ll eat our intestines and everything else like this poor bastard” Ian pointed his pistol down towards the body laying at their feet, face to god on the floor. What was left of it anyway.

  Ian mused just before speaking, That zombie’s left a bloody trail that’s easy enough to follow. “Well, looks like we’ve got little choice but to follow the ‘red ‘ick road’ if we want to get out of this place.” Ian said nervously trying to lighten up his own nearly shattered nerves.

  “At least for a while we’ll know where that bald, custodian tar-tar eating fucker went.” Ian regaining some of his composure continued, “I’m guessing that the inmates are the most dangerous ones of all. Consider this. Not only were they the subject of the initial experiments; but, don’t forget they were also murderous madmen to start with. Now just suppose for a minute that they are more advanced because they were specifically created and perhaps even programmed to be and anyway, the others, the ones they’ve attacked and not killed. The ones who become, well, zombies by infection, they’re maybe different. You know, not as smart for lack of a better word.” E was impressed and smiled as he replied, “Makes sense.”

  E spoke up, “So if you’re theory is correct, any of the inmates that were patient zero’s they may have at least for a while, they may show less of the nasty side effects and might think and move much faster than, the now infected survivors of their attacks.”

  “Exactly!” Ian replied.

  “Well, now isn’t that’s just great!” Fucking fast moving, thinking, bat-shit crazy zombies. As if the more fucked up ones weren’t bad enough!” Jamal said as he slowly rolled his head and shoulders back and forth.

  Ian started using his highly inquisitive mind. He began processing all that he’d so far observed regarding the behavior of the infected. “E, what if, understand, I’m just spit-balling here, but, what if, among the especially higher functioning patient zero person or persons, what if they can cooperatively organize. You know, coordinate and act beyond just their own primal self-serving desires. What if they can work together to maybe set a trap for us or, distract us to flank us, or well, you get my drift?”

  E smiled as he shook his head, “I seriously doubt that they’ve got enough functioning brain cells to…” E stopped mid-sentence as he reflected on the one armed zombie who appeared to intentionally avoid being shot by crawling from danger, before standing to run away.

  “I can’t imagine they’d have that level of reasoning. Not in their diseased state.” E said. Ian wanted to be convinced that his worries were unfounded, but he detected a decided lack of conviction in E’s words as he uttered them. His disbelief regarding E and his further terrifying concerns.

  “Man this shit keeps get’n better ‘n better. Next thing you gonna be say’n is they got guns and they gonna be shoot’n are asses ‘fore gobbling us up.” Jamal said with panic resonating in every word.

  Ian mused, I’d much rather be shot dead than torn apart piece by piece and eaten. If it comes to that, I hope I have time to swallow a bullet, and chase it with my flasked friend, Jack Daniels. Wait, that’d be the other way around. Shit, how’s that gonna work?

  Ian reached inside his jumpsuit. He retrieved a stainless steel flask unscrewed the cap and tipped it back. Both E and Jamal saw Ian tip his flask; neither man uttered a word of protest.

  Ian held out the flask towards E who accepted it and held it high in salute to Ian. E then quickly tossed back a snort. E handed the flask back to Ian who in turn offered it to, Jamal, whose shattered nerves had him shaking worse than Ian’s recent onslaught of the, D T’s.

  Jamal smiled as he gladly accepted the flask, “What spensive hooch you white boys be drink’n nowadays?”

  Ian smiled back, “That’s my best buddy, his names Jack. Originally from Tennessee he is, Jack Daniels.”

  All three men smiled, nodded and shook their heads side to side. E even laughed at Ian’s levity. Ian’s defense against succumbing to, and becoming actionably impotent from intense fear, was his auto-pilot default setting, tongue and cheek silly humor.

  “Here’s to your main man, Cracker, Jack.” Jamal said with a smile, proceeded by two quick pulls on the flask before handing it back to Ian.

  Ian finished emptying the flask then set it down on an adjacent table. “If we make it out of here alive, remind me to buy a larger one.” All three men smiled. This time at each other. The drink they had just shared somehow served them either unconsciously, or at the very least symbolically as communion; bonding them, solidifying their need for one-another regarding their mutual quest to survive.

  E spoke up in a low quiet voice, “All right, I need to fill you mates in on…”

  “Yeah? What?” Ian said almost blankly. As if nothing more could go wrong.

  “I rigged charges in the boiler room. Next to the main gas line. This entire place is going to come crumbling down like the walls of Jericho in…” E checked his wristwatch. “In about fifty minutes.”

  Jamal almost screamed, “Why’d you go ‘n do a dumb-ass thing like dat? Who knows how long we might be held up by dem things?”

  Ian didn’t say a word. He began silently surmising that the vampire council, perhaps even Clayton as well, beyond any entertainment value, viewed him as a nuisance and maybe even a potential threat. This likely was put into play as a suicide mission right from the start. Maybe the council views E, not being a full blood as expendable as well. We’re their puppets and they, they just pull all the strings.

  E looked over at Ian. “This isn’t easy for me to say. But, I’m sorry that I allowed you to get mixed up in all of this. I should have warned you. Me, I’m just a soldier as far as they’re concerned. I follow orders and that’s that. But still, this could have been handled a lot differently. Air strike, or missile launched from a submarine. With their resources it could have been dealt with and then swiftly swept under the carpet. There must be a larger agenda going on that I’m not aware of. Need to know and all that.”

  Ian just slowly shook his head then nodded that he understood. “That’s right, there’s a lot that they don’t tell me. You’re not the only one kept in the dark.”

  Jamal spoke up, “You two da man. Agent mans, don’t you start losing it too!”

  E smiled, “Let’s get the hell out of this shite hole.” All three men were in mutual agreement with that.

  E motioned for Ian and Jamal to get behind him as the three men slowly started moving up the hallway. Ian couldn’t get the image of the one-armed cannibal back in the cafeteria out of his mind, Cafeteria of Hell, featuring our all you can eat buffet.

  “There’s just one more abandoned section of this prison. Too dilapidated to house even the worst of the degenerates.”

  Suddenly there was a loud grinding noise that sounded like a train attempting an emergency stop, immediately
followed by a huge boom! Then, the lights no longer buzzed and flickered from the generator. In an instant their world had become absent of light beyond the nearly continuous flashes of lightening. Flashes that entered the hallway from the elevated barred windows of the commissary. Creating an eerie strobe-light effect. The stone wall setting they were in, along with the flashing dim light that seemed to cause their shadows to dance across the floor and onto the walls; reminded Ian of every classic horror movie he’d ever watched, but in particular, appropriately, Bela Lugosi’s -White Zombie.

  CHAPTER 22

  CLOCK’S TICKING

  Ian reached out, walking just behind E and gently took hold of his right elbow. E paused, “Tell me straight, no more need to know bullshit. What are our chances of not getting eaten, or turned into one of those things? Do you figure we’ve got much of a chance in getting out of here before the place blows sky high?” Ian asked nervously speed talking.

  E took a deep breath, let out a sigh before answering. “I told you before to not touch me. I tell you this primarily because sometimes I do things, defensive things, faster sometimes than thought. What I’m trying to say is I might kill you before I recognize that you took hold of me just to get my attention. Now, that I’ve said is AGAIN! It’s likely that I won’t be leaving this place. I’ve got a job to do, and like always, I plan on seeing the job completed for God and country, and twelve vampires that I’ve actually never met. Well eleven, I know one of them, Clayton.”

  In a voice that resonated both frustration as well as confusion, Ian replied, “I thought Clayton was just some sort of enforcer for the council? I never get the whole story. Even when I think I have heard and understand it, it changes.”

  E continued, “Don’t get me wrong, I say not likely, because that’s the odds. But, I’ve never failed to beat the odds before and God willing, if there even is a God, I’m not about to start now. I told you at the start that I was going to see that you make it out of here and I meant that!”