by J. K. Norry
They watched the sergeant’s silent screams from the other side of the glass, as the monster rose from the floor to join in the feast. They watched the half man become a full monster as he tore sinew and fat from bone, watched teeth form and flesh drip from his body. Within a minute they were watching two nearly indistinguishable creatures hovering hungrily over the sergeant; then the sergeant opened his eyes, and he began to change as well. His eyes went from a deep brown to a rusted red, and his skin went from light chocolate to dead ashen gray. He went from fighting them off to opening his arms to them, and soon he was embracing a creature in each arm while they feasted on his flesh.
“You’ve seen this before.” Ryan’s voice was accusatory.
The general sighed. He turned to his friend.
“I have,” he admitted. “A long time ago. The few people who know about it would say that it’s the reason for these stars.”
He tapped his lapel with the hand that was not resting on the butt of his pistol. He shrugged.
“I couldn’t disagree,” he admitted further.
“What the hell is it?” The doctor had his eyes on the grisly scene once more. He didn’t seem to notice the general moving away from the glass, positioning himself behind the scientist.
“It’s a zombie,” the general answered. “At least that’s what we called them. It seemed appropriate; their bones become like steel when they transform the second time, and all of their important organs move behind the protective armor of the solid ribcage. They have irregular heartbeats that seem to originate in their brain casing, and that is harder to puncture than the armored ribcage. The only way to kill them is to cut off their heads, or sufficiently stir whatever part of their brain that is still functioning with a very well-placed shot. Their bite transforms humans into a zombie type two; the type two is then overcome with a hunger for human flesh. At it’s first taste of it, it becomes a zombie type one.”
Ryan whirled on him. “You studied these things?”
“I didn’t.” The general shook his head. “I was there with the people who did. It was nearly twenty years ago. The scientists working on the project insisted that the entire population needed to be heavily dosed with a drug that would regulate certain neurotransmitters. They suggested putting it in public water supplies, and advertising it as a fashionable and legal drug under various guises.”
“Wait a minute,” Ryan frowned. “Are you talking about-”
“I don’t know what I’m talking about, Doctor,” he shrugged. “At least not to the depths to which you would like to discuss it. I know how to kill them. I know not to let them bite me. That’s all I need to know.”
Ryan went back to watching the two type ones dine on the type two. His eyes were wide with wonder, round at the amazing new discovery that had created such a horrific scene on the other side of the glass.
The general’s feelings for the man were not new, nor were his memories of him few. That didn’t change what he had to do, however. The general unholstered his pistol silently and put two hollow point bullets in the back of the scientist’s skull. Blood sprayed across the glass, and the sudden flash of red caught the attention of the monsters on the floor. Two of them began to rise as he palmed the door open, and eight more shots rang out before they could take a step. Their eyes were bursts of blood as they went down together.
On the floor, the sergeant rolled in a mess of his own flayed flesh and dripping guts in an attempt to stand. The general put the muzzle of his fifty caliper pistol an inch from the sergeant’s brain and pulled the trigger two more times. The first time, a hole opened in the the sergeant’s face, and he fell forward. The second pull was a quiet click that his ringing ears couldn’t hear, as the slide on the pistol locked open. He was out of rounds.
The general swept the room with his eyes, making sure they were all inert. He dragged the doctor’s corpse into the room with the others, and closed the door on the whole bloody mess.
“Central,” the general said. He couldn’t tell if his voice was a shout or a whisper, or if the disembodied voice responded; all he could hear was a distant dull ringing in his ears. He went on anyway.
“Message my secretary and tell him to bring my lunch down here.” He sighed, and had another look at the pile of bloodied corpses in various stages of strange decay; suddenly he felt very old. “And message my wife. Tell her I’ll be here all night.”
Chapter 1
On a privately owned mountaintop, nature reigned supreme. Over five hundred acres of lush foliage and undisturbed wildlife covered the mountain, and satellite imaging showed nothing but pristine rugged terrain untouched by man. Within this mountain was a facility known only to the sworn members of a certain ancient order. Just below the surface of the earth were hallways that bustled with activity. Some hallways led to sleeping quarters, others to humming banks of data processors; one led to long rows of generators that were so loud they could drown out the loudest scream. Lauren went there almost every day, between lessons, to release her frustration somewhere that the others couldn’t hear. Meanwhile, not far away…
Allen saw Maya before she saw him. He watched her for a moment, from a distance, smiling at the way the sunlight added shifting tones of blue to her midnight mane. Allen felt his shoulders slope as he sighed, and the backpack slipped to his crooked elbow.
Maya sat on the cut lawn, a notebook splayed beside her on the grass and her computer open on her lap. She was typing away furiously, and Allen let himself imagine that she was composing a message to him, professing her love at last. The words in his fantasy came to him like she was narrating as she wrote, and he sighed once more as he watched her helplessly.
A dreamy cloud encircled her through his eyes, and her pale skin and dark eyes seemed to glow like an angel’s. While her whispered voice poured out her heart in his mind, he allowed his gaze to wander over every slight curve of her slender body. Allen managed to forget himself completely for a timeless moment, watching her work and knowing full well that it was likely her term paper on the lighted screen.
It was a sharp painful crack on the back of his head that brought Allen back to the moment. He flinched away from the contact, more from surprise than pain. His leg caught up in the dangling strap of his pack, and Allen sprawled awkwardly across the grass.
“Todd, what the hell?” Allen rubbed his scalp where the big fist had landed.
“That’s what I was wondering,” the young blond ape said, standing over him with a menacing scowl. “What the hell? Does Allen not realize he’s staring at my girl in front of hundreds of students, in the middle of campus?”
“I wasn’t staring,” Allen scoffed. He refused the meaty hand that Todd extended to help him up. Scrambling to his feet, Allen dusted himself off and lifted his eyes to stare his own challenge back at Todd.
“I was thinking,” Allen hissed. “You should try it sometime.”
“What were you thinking about, little man?” Todd poked a finger in his chest. “The way she looks naked? Or how she tastes when she spreads her legs? Or how much she loves to suck my-”
“How many dudes have you seen naked this week?” Allen poked him back. It didn’t have the same effect; his finger bent against thick hard slabs of muscle. Allen felt like a young child squaring off against a full-grown man. Todd towered over him, half a foot taller and at least sixty pounds of solid sinew heavier.
“Todd!” Maya’s voice drifted across the grass. “Allen! What are you doing? Come here, you guys!”
They both turned at the sound of her voice, dropping their hands to their sides. Allen pushed the strap of his backpack up to his shoulder and started walking. Todd caught up in two long strides. He glanced sidelong at Allen, keeping pace while talking out the side of his mouth.
“How many girls have you seen naked this week?” he asked. “Not counting the one you had to blow up before you could kiss her?”
Maya was too close for Allen to respond, and she was smiling sweetly up at them. Instead
he smiled back at her, and lowered himself to the soft green natural carpet next to her. He glanced at the lighted screen on her lap.
“Hey Maya,” Allen said. “What are you working on?”
She brightened. “My term paper for social sciences. I finally came up with an idea. It’s going to be drawing a comparison between the cultural shift that happened amongst Native Americans when Europeans came to America and the cultural shift that is occurring due to the recent legalization of same-sex marriage. It’s going to explore the possibilities passed up by both movements: one mainly rooted in spiritual and religious freedom, and the other involving individual sexual freedom.”
Allen nodded. “I think it’s interesting how oppressed minorities tend to respond to societal acceptance with their own harsh prejudices.”
Todd plopped down on the grass next to them both, with his back to Allen. He leaned over and kissed Maya’s cheek, and she smiled. Todd threw a glance over his shoulder at Allen.
“Shut up,” he said. “You don’t know what she’s talking about.”
“Todd!” Maya punched his shoulder playfully. “Actually, he’s right. Two of the reasons that I chose this comparison is because of the way members of the LGBT community scorn the idea of members of the polyamory community having the same rights as them, and the overwhelming percentage of African Americans that voted against same-sex marriage.”
“LGBTQ,” Todd corrected her. “Try to keep up.”
Maya ignored him, smiled at Allen, and went on. “It seems easy to draw a correlation between a bunch of religious refugees slaughtering indigenous people and one modern set of minorities habitually stepping on another on their way to what they want. It seems to me that culture missed a great opportunity then, just as it’s missing one now. Were we perhaps meant to grow from our contact with Native Americans, rather than wipe out their culture? Are we perhaps missing out on the point of equal rights by handing them out selectively, as one minority after another grows too large and too vocal to ignore?”
“You might get a better response if you make the comparison one on feminism,” Allen mused. “The unspoken rule of society has become the written rule of our higher learning centers: women are the victims, and the only way to give them equal rights is to give them social and legal advantages over men.”
She shook her head. “Actually, Professor Mallory is writing a book on that very subject. He’s going to call it ‘The Majority Minority’, because of the fact that women are both the majority of the population and somehow the most vocal about being a minority at the same time. I told him he should call it ‘Sister Math’. Sort of a clever play on ‘Bro Science’. It’s important to note how many women believe that they make seventy cents on the dollar compared to men. Rather than factor in the myriad of variables that reveal that women typically make the same, or even more, or do any research on the matter at all, they just parrot a statistic that doesn’t even make sense.”
“I’m going to start a company and employ all women,” Todd quipped. “I’ll pay my whole staff thirty percent less, and destroy the competition.”
“That’s Ari Shaffir’s joke, you moron,” Allen spat at his back. “Only with both the logic and the humor removed. Have you even been listening? Is that why you download ‘The Skeptic Tank’? To steal jokes? Hasn’t Ari had enough of his jokes stolen? Jesus, Todd. Not only are you incapable of an original thought, you turn other people’s brilliant observations into tired mediocrity when you steal them. You really were born for politics.”
“You call starting quarterback of the winningest college team mediocre?” Todd called back over his shoulder. “You call an average of over five thousand yards passed three years running mediocre?”
“The season isn’t over,” Allen responded. “Don’t jinx yourself.”
Todd leaned back and thumped him in the shoulder.
“Don’t say that, little man.”
“Ow, you son of a bitch!” Allen rubbed at the ache. “Stop hitting me! I’m not one of your meathead jock buddies.”
Allen smiled at Maya, still rubbing at his shoulder.
“Professor Mallory can’t call the book ‘Sister Math’,” Allen said. “He’s a man.”
Maya frowned. “That’s what he said.”
“He shouldn’t even be thinking of writing it,” Allen added.
She laughed. “And that’s what I said. If he’s going to be pulling punches, even when considering the title, why even write it?”
Allen shook his head. “I couldn’t disagree more.”
“Well, hell,” Todd hooted. “Allen disagrees with you, Maya. Isn’t that one of the seven signs of the apocalypse?”
They said their shared favorite word together.
“Actually…” Maya began.
“Actually…” Allen said, at the same time.
Maya giggled, then waved her hand. “You go.”
“Actually,” Allen repeated, “That’s a common misunderstanding, even amongst Bible readers; but it’s still not true. Nowhere in the book is it ever mentioned that there are seven signs of the apocalypse. It lists the signs, but it’s hard to arrive at seven when you count the list. The only way to count the signs of the apocalypse and arrive at seven is to break one sign up into two, and you have to also count something that already happens every day.”
“The sky goes dark,” Maya said forebodingly.
“Right,” Allen said. “So, one of the signs that the end is near is that it gets dark. Like it was a few hours ago. Other signs are plague, famines and earthquakes. Those are all happening somewhere in the world pretty much all the time. The oceans will turn to blood, which we don’t have to worry about if we keep fishing like we do; there will be nothing left in the oceans to bleed soon enough. And the final sign is not a sign so much as the beginning of the end. The antichrist will emerge to fight the final battle between good and evil.”
“That’s the one you have to split up to get seven,” Maya said, taking up his narration. “But even if it counts as two, it’s hardly a sign. A sign is an indicator of something about to happen, a signal before the event. The antichrist emerging is surely the point of no return, and the battle between good and evil is the actual apocalypse. So…you really can’t count them as separate, or as signs. At that point, it’s a wrap.”
Allen nodded. “The misunderstanding probably comes from the mention of the seven seals, in John’s revelation; as each seal is broken, we move closer to the final end. However, there is no clarification of what is meant by the word ‘seal’. The vision spoke of seals in a book being broken, and events following that break. The first four seals break, and the four horsemen emerge; things get even more vague and symbolic after that. There is also no mention of what causes the seals to break, or what that means.”
“If the four horsemen are literal,” Maya added, “then they will be pretty easy to spot, even if their appearance is indication that it’s already too late. If they’re figurative, as many believe them to be, they could be assigned to many events throughout history, which they already have.”
Todd looked over his shoulder at Allen, then shook his head in Maya’s direction.
“You two are so goddamned annoying sometimes,” he mused happily.
“Right back at ya, big guy,” Allen murmured.
“There’s Elayna,” Maya said, nudging Todd. She raised her voice.
“Elayna!” she cried. “Over here!”
“Maya!” Todd whispered fiercely. “What are you doing? She’s just going to pester me about Ronnie.”
Allen watched her trudging across the lawn. Elayna looked like she had slept in the clothes she was wearing; or perhaps crumpled them at the edge of someone’s bed, not slept at all, then put them back on to drag her feet through campus. She was a pretty girl, even with the dark circles and rumpled clothes and slumped shoulders. Her eyes were downcast as she walked, and her arms dangled limp at her sides. Her feet barely left the ground, dragging each step across the trimmed grass.
Maya called her name again, and she stopped.
Elayna turned, and gave them a little wave. She turned away again.
“Come here!” Maya called out.
Elayna stopped and looked down at her ensemble. She glanced over at them, then sighed visibly and started to trudge towards them.
Todd glanced over his shoulder.
“Hey, little man,” he grinned. “How come you’ve never hooked up with Elayna?”
“Shut up, Todd,” Allen grumbled.
“Maybe she isn’t his type,” Maya pointed out.
“As if,” Todd shot back. “She’s beautiful, she’s got a big ass and titties, and she’s easy. She’s everybody’s type.”
“Cut it out,” Allen frowned.
“Come to think of it, why haven’t we ever hooked up with Elayna?” Todd nudged Maya; she giggled, and hushed him.
“Come on, you guys, stop it,” Allen hissed.
It still took awhile for her trudging steps to reach them. Elayna plopped down in the grass on the other side of Maya.
“Are you hung over?” Maya asked, concerned.
“Nah.” Elayna hiccoughed. Allen could smell the booze from where he sat. “Still drunk. Seems like maybe the mushrooms are still working too.”
Elayna held her own hand in front of her face, splaying her fingers and swirling them about in front of her. She laughed, dropped her hand.
“Yep,” she concluded.
“Real bright,” Todd said. “Who needs brain cells, right?”
“Actually, Todd,” Maya pointed out, “psilocybin is the only compound that has been proven to regrow damaged brain cells.”
“He knows that,” Allen piped up. “Or at least he should. His favorite podcaster talks about it all the time. He’s just too concussed from football and brain damaged from beer to fire the synapses required to store or retrieve the information.”
“My favorite podcaster also says stop being a pussy, and be a man,” Todd shot back. “Who’s not listening now?”