Zombies! (Episode 9): The Changing of the Guard

by Ivan Turner

  As he took aim, he heard more footsteps behind him. The teeth were closing in on his leg and he knew that killing it had to take priority over whatever was at his back. Then he hesitated. Somewhere in the back of his mind was the nagging idea that he was already a dead man. Six months was what he had left if he was lucky. Cancer was eating away at him from too many places to count and nothing beats cancer.

  Except maybe the zombie infection.

  So instead of allowing himself to waste away as a victim of the disease that had taken the lives of so many people in his family, he allowed the zombie to bite him. It sank its teeth into his calf, just as Zoe Koplowitz had done to Johan Stemmy all those months before. He felt the pain and the revulsion at allowing this reprehensible thing to put its mouth on him. Then there were two shots and it jerked as the bullets entered its head. Its mouth came away from his leg and someone was behind him, helping him up.

  "You got bitten," Rollins cried in disbelief.

  "Help me up," Heron said. The zombie from two floors above was actually coming down successfully. It would catch them up if they didn't hurry.

  "I heard the gunshots," Rollins continued. "Jesus, Lieutenant. I'm so sorry."

  Heron refused to respond or even acknowledge what had happened. It was done and there was no turning back. It was all he could do to fight down the panic at the realization of his decision. The pain in his leg wasn't so bad. The zombie hadn't been able to take a piece out of him. Heron was able to walk without a problem. They made their way down the stairs, having to take out two more zombies as they went. When they were on the street and at the car, Heron called in to headquarters and ordered a unit to come in and secure the building. They couldn't demolish it. There might be more evidence inside, more clues as to what plans were being laid. Someone with a zombie army was more dangerous than any terrorist or despot the free world had ever faced. He could put a single zombie in a subway car and spread the infection twenty fold. Heron didn't want to think about it.

  Rollins was staring at him as he gave the last of his orders.

  "I need you to stay here," Heron said. "Baches is on his way but you'll have to brief him."

  "What about you?"

  Heron shrugged. "I guess I'll go to Arthur Conroy, see what Dr. Luco can cook up."

  Rollins nodded dumbly. Even if there were words worth saying, he wouldn't have been able to think about them. He was still staring dumbly as Heron drove off to face his fate.

  ***

  Just after lunch, Ludlow went back down to the Zoo. He was supposed to be working. Luco had ordered another battery of tests based on a new inspiration. She did that whenever she had a mood swing. Ludlow was sure that she was bipolar. When she was on a high she was a flurry of activity and a treasure trove full of ideas. When she was mired in a lull, she was short tempered and depressing. Precious little work was accomplished during those times. Ludlow could only imagine what she must have been like before Naughton.

  The guard nodded her head in greeting as Ludlow came through the security doors. Then she continued on her rounds. Stepping tentatively up to Todd's cell, the geneticist peered inside. Todd sat on the ground, unmoving. He was finishing a meal. Ludlow guessed that Todd was given meals at regular meal times. He wondered if that was enough. It was his experience that a zombie would eat whenever it was given the opportunity. The bacterial parasites inside of its body were ravenous.

  "Todd?" he whispered. There was a button on the side that activated an intercom allowing the staff on the outside to communicate with the patient inside. But Ludlow hadn't used it last time and he didn't use it this time.

  Leave me alone.

  "I just came to say that you were right."

  About what?

  "About me and scientists in general. We don't set limits for ourselves. We blunder into nature's cupboard without any regard for the damage we might do."

  Todd didn't respond, continued to gnaw on a bone of the poor unidentifiable animal that had been his lunch.

  "Well," Ludlow said tentatively, glancing furtively down at the guard making her rounds. "I suppose that's it then. Now it's back to nature's cupboard in search of a cure."

  He pivoted and was going to leave when he felt a cold leash grab hold of him. Turning his head, he saw that Todd was standing at the glass again. Ludlow swallowed the ball of phlegm that had developed in his throat.

  Can you cure me?

  "I…" Ludlow stammered. "I don't think so, Todd. You're already dead."

  I'm pretty spry for a dead man.

  "Agreed," Ludlow whispered. "But that's just the body. We could never restore what was in your mind."

  That doesn't seem fair.

  "No. I suppose not."

  But wait, Rudy. What's wrong with my brain?

  Ludlow stopped talking as the guard came close. He put a hand to the glass and moved it up, down, left, and right. The zombie Todd inside ignored the motion, its dead eyes focused on nothing. Was he really having a conversation with this thing?

  "Do you need something, Dr. Ludlow?" the guard asked suspiciously.

  Ludlow smiled his handsome, charming smile. "I need a vacation. Perhaps together, love?"

  She blushed, then continued her rounds.

  Oh, isn't that just unbeatable?!

  Ludlow looked back at Todd, his smile fading. "What are you talking about?"

  That's how all of this started.

  Ludlow scowled. "How did you know about that?"

  Todd tapped his temple with one bloody finger. My unfixable brain.

  "I didn't know about the infection," Ludlow explained, pleaded. "It's not my fault."

  Don’t tell me. Tell Zoe. It was her mother you shagged.

  Ludlow looked to his left, all the way down the row of cells to where he knew Zoe Koplowitz was housed. He couldn't see her at that distance or from that angle, but he knew she was there. She'd be huddled under the bed the way she always was. Her white hair would be falling over her sunken face. It seemed that she looked less and less like a little girl every day, if there was even any little girl left. It had been more than four months since her transformation. He didn't like to think about it. He didn't like to think about any of it.

  "I don't have to take this from you," he said to Todd.

  Todd smiled. You should go visit her, you know.

  Ludlow shook his head. "I don't need to see Zoe. Even you're just a figment of my imagination at this point."

  Not Zoe. You should go see Lucy.

  Ludlow froze. "She's gone," he stammered. "They told me she'd taken a shot to the head."

  Maybe. I guess she'd be in the morgue, then.

  If Todd truly was a figment of his imagination, then he was a figment with terrifying ideas. Ludlow hadn't ever even thought of what might have become of Lucy. The idea sent chills through his body. Had he been thinking about it all this time? Had it been bouncing around in his subconscious? Well, he certainly wasn't going to give in to ridiculous curiosities. And he wasn't going to indulge this apparition anymore either. Frustrated yet determined to conquer this demon, Ludlow turned on his heels and left.

  ***

  Naughton and Kraemer, the agent from Homeland Security, stayed through the morning and most of lunch. Kraemer had inspected the Arthur Conroy facility with the eyes of a man who is looking for flaws. And he found them. He found them in staffing and security and patient accommodations. For every word that came out of his mouth, Luco bit back a violent retort. At one point, Naughton grabbed her hand in order to keep her quiet and squeezed it so hard that it hurt. Kraemer'd noticed. The one time she did call him on his observations accusing him of making a judgment without a medical perspective, he'd informed her quite casually of his medical credentials and moved on. By the end of the inspection, he was very clear about shutting the place down and moving all of the research to the CDC in Atlanta. Luco managed to hold her temper in check until Kraemer informed her that they were likely going to have to destroy most of the specimens because mo
ving them was too costly and dangerous. It wasn't just the ones in the Zoo, but they had more, dozens more. They'd been corralled into several rooms on a lower level that had been dubbed Storage. This was where they kept all of the zombies that were not in good enough shape for study in the Zoo. This was where they kept the patients from the Ward who died. This was where they drew their stock for the Butcher Shop. There were far more in Storage than they needed and Kraemer thought of it as a time bomb. When he asked why they didn't just destroy them, Luco pathetically told him that they just didn't have the facilities to cremate them.

  She remembered back to the tour she'd given Mikael Seaver, Alan Lochschenborg, and the two men who'd represented Candid Pharmaceuticals. She couldn't remember their names. At the end of that tour, her point had been made. Lochschenborg had stood up for everything she'd been saying and Candid had been forced to recall the antiviral Head Shot and offer up an explanation for their negligent behavior. It had been such a triumph. And now she sat at her desk in utter defeat.

  There was no fighting it. Even she knew that. Kraemer had offered her a position in Atlanta. In fact, he'd all but ordered her to take it. Of all of the people around the country who'd studied the infection, she was the most experienced. Every form of treatment that was being researched stemmed from her discoveries. His judgment of the facility did not reflect upon his judgment of her competence. It was small comfort. They wanted to move everything south, Luco included, and it was going to happen no matter what.

  A few months back, she wouldn't have thought twice about relocating to study this disease. Now, though, she would have to give up Naughton to do so and she wasn't prepared to do that. He was absolutely the best man she had ever met. She couldn't imagine what it was that he saw in her. She was fussy, moody, had the temperament of a jackal, and worked too much. And through it all, he smiled, said all of the right things, and loved her like no one ever had. For all of her life, Luco had operated under the assumption that finding a man was not going to define her. While she still held to that notion, she also knew she'd be a damned fool to give up Lance Naughton.

  The phone rang and she picked it up. Normally she'd be annoyed by the interruption, unless it was Naughton. It wasn't. It was one of the nurses from the Ward. No doubt, another patient had died and they needed a signature on a chart. A signature that nine other doctors could give. But now she couldn't concentrate on her work anyway. She was too preoccupied with the choices ahead of her.

  "Dr. Luco, can you come to the Ward please?"

  "What is it?" she droned.

  "A patient just checked himself in and says he knows you. He's a police officer."

  Luco went cold. She'd met a number of police officers over the past few months, but there was only one name that flashed through her head. Was God really that cruel? she wondered. Would he make her choice so easy and her life so miserable?

  "What's his name?" she managed to choke out.

  "It's Lieutenant Heron."

  Again, Luco found herself unable to speak. The relief that she felt was both enrapturing and shameful. She suddenly understood what it was like to be the wife of a police officer. She thought back over the months, right back to her first encounter with Heron and his infected partner. What had Johan Stemmy's wife thought when she'd learned of his injury? What had Heron's wife thought when she'd learned that it was Stemmy instead of her husband?

  Luco hung up the phone and logged out of her computer. This was going to be bad. Given her adversarial relationship with Heron, she didn't quite know how to approach him. Under the best of circumstances, she was no Florence Nightengale, but this situation was well out of her expertise. She walked through the familiar corridors with barely anything penetrating her thoughts. Another researcher tried to intercept her, but she waved him off with a curt Not now. When she reached the Ward, she inserted her security card, moved between the inner and outer door, and hesitated. For this, she needed to collect herself. The priority was his treatment. Whatever she felt, Heron had to get the best and most successful of all of their treatments.

  Then she would have to call Lance.

  The nurse who'd called her came up to her as soon as she passed through the inner door and sealed it. The Ward was crowded. Luco wasn't sure if there were more cases of the infection or just more cases being reported. They had expanded into two rooms and opened up a number of the private areas to make room for more beds. To her it looked like a makeshift combat hospital.

  "How long since the bite?" Luco asked, taking the chart.

  "Forty five minutes," the nurse, a short Caribbean woman with round hips and round face answered.

  "Did you set him up for chemo?"

  "I tried, ma'am, but he's refusing treatment."

  Luco stopped in mid stride, her eyes never leaving the chart. The nurse stopped with her. She was tense. Luco could feel her tension. She supposed that the nurse expected a verbal reprimand. If it was another day, she might have gotten it whether she deserved it or not. Not today, though. For some reason, not today.

  Handing the chart back to the nurse, Luco marched over to one of the few remaining private areas and passed through the curtain.

  Heron was sitting up in the bed looking at something on his phone when she came in. He looked up and seemed surprised. He offered a good afternoon.

  "The nurse said you've refused treatment."

  He nodded. He was probably wondering whether or not she even cared. "Antibiotics don't work and intensive chemotherapy will keep alive for what? A couple of days?"

  Luco looked away. "Maybe a week."

  He snorted out a bit of laughter. "A week of being bed ridden and throwing up. No thanks."

  She looked directly at him, determined not to be bullied by his attitude. "It's another week of life during which we might have a breakthrough."

  "No thanks," he repeated. "I've already gone through chemo and in this situation, the cost far outweighs the benefit."

  She couldn't really argue with him. Mostly she pushed it on people too frightened to give up. Mostly she used the treatment as a research tool to measure the limits of the body's tolerance. While it did give people extra time, it hadn't saved even one life. Not even one.

  "Is there anything I can do for you?" she asked quietly.

  He nodded. "When it happens, I want to go to the Zoo."

  "What?" At first she didn't even understand the request. She thought he meant an actual zoo.

  "I know you don't believe that there's anything left of a person after he turns and maybe you're right. But I want my fair chance."

  Now that his wishes were clear, Luco was more dumbfounded than ever. Was he really asking her to provide him with a good life as a zombie? "Lieutenant, I'm not sure we can do that. The Zoo is restricted to special research cases." And it's being closed up and the specimens are scheduled to be destroyed.

  "Then make me a special research case."

  "Lieutenant," she began as if talking to a mental patient.

  But he cut her off. "I know it sounds crazy but the world is a crazy place. If there's anything of me left inside after I turn then you will see it. I promise you."