Cinco De Zombie

by Albert Aykler

  The story is that the accident did not originate in our lab (oh and there is a lab—lots of them, in fact) but in one of the adjacent labs in the facility. They made some nifty zombies, and Sid Singleton lived to tell the tale.

  On June 3, 2013, I suffered bites, scratches, and bodily fluid exposure from infected individuals at the Silvercrest Meade Gorge Facility. I have no memory of how I received any of those wounds. Others on the scene have told me I ran into two infected Silvercrest staff members while exiting the men’s room.

  I managed to get away without further damage, but did not join my co-workers in the first floor secure room. The well armed orange hazmat-suited emergency response team found me on the roof of the building ten hours later, passed out with no evidence I had ever become a zombie. I did not even look sick.

  Covered in blood and gore. Bitten at least five times and with over one hundred scratches and/or skin abrasions. Exhausted. Unable to let go of the bloody fire ax I had used to destroy the dozens of zombies in the facility. But not sick.

  Stranger still, the wounds inflicted by the infected staff members had begun healing. In two more days, they would not be able to find marks or visible indications of any kind from the bite wounds. Within two weeks, I would be in better shape than I had been before the incident. Much better shape. Physically, anyway.

  When I finally came to later that June, I had no memory of what had happened either before or immediately after the incident. Complete amnesia. Attempts to refresh my memory failed. I cannot even remember what they tried to tell me about who I was. Of course, this is some sort of mental block. The folks examining me came up with some doctoral-thesis-worthy fancy names for what is going on, but I call it psychological preservation. I don’t know exactly what I am preserving, but I know I cannot do otherwise.

  I forgot where I went to school, where I grew up, and my parents. If I had any siblings, I forgot them too. I forgot my favorite music and my very own name. But I did remember two things: my favorite food, tacos, and my friend, Ziggy.

  Friendship is the kind of memory that does not always need a lot of detail. I can’t stand the guy most of the time, but there is a trust and some comfort that comes from familiarity, however annoying.

  The day I lost my identity, Ziggy lost his right eye. So, more than one person commented that since that day, both of us only ever see half of what is going on at any given time, my block being the past (and any context) and his being anything to his right.

  Among other things, they had me watch security footage in hopes it would prompt my memory. It didn’t. All I remember is the video. In it, I saved Ziggy’s life (but not his right eye) before he took off for the secure room along with the few other survivors.

  Before the accident, I worked at the lab. That much everyone tells me, and I guess I remember it enough to believe them. Not as a scientist exactly, but maybe as some standard flavor of IT or software or data support dude. Around science but not doing it. That makes sense to me. I don’t believe it, but it makes sense.

  No one seemed sincere about wanting me to know more. They typically gave up trying after I apparently started staring into space, ignoring any further details past “you worked in the lab.” According to Ziggy, I was too much of an asset and too much of a risk to bother trying anything more drastic. Who knew what I could do or what I might spread? Panic, most probably.

  In the end, everyone agreed to keep the real details of the incident quiet. The families of the infected received relatively detailed reports about the sudden loss of their loved ones due to a tragic fire in the facility. A few kept asking questions, but most understood that their spouses, moms, dads, sons, and daughters worked in a classified medical research facility and that was the best they would ever get under the circumstances.

  For me, the institution offered not only a job, but a place to live and some kind of identity and security while I worked to figure out what was up with me and who I was besides some name on a bunch of forms. I agreed to sign everything they put in front of me. Bullshit forms with bullshit names that meant nothing to me. It was during this process that I first heard Silvercrest staff lawyers call me reasonable.

  When one of the other facilities had an outbreak, they sent me to clean up the infected. Then transport of the virus led to another outbreak. Theft and transport to another. And yet another secret facility went wrong. Two years of almost weekly fuck-ups and zombies. Always zombies.

  Never more than twenty or thirty infected in any one locale. Mostly, small(ish) groups. No escapes. And few people lived to tell the tale. All the victims and survivors were motivated Silvercrest employees continuing to work on a secret solution founded on this strain.

  Once the outbreaks slowed down, it was time for more study of me. Beginning with why I was experiencing some rather significant accompanying conditions. No tattoo, scar, or blemish remained on my skin for more than a few days. I had much improved physical fitness, enhanced agility under stress, and new food sensitivities (I used to love licorice, and now it makes me sick, and lately, cucumbers make me irritable).

  All of this was fine. The zombie killing. The made-up name. Long hours. Living in a lab. Switching from licorice to Red Vines. Eating cafeteria tacos and taco approximations. Given the potential for an all-out zombie apocalypse, losing the details of what sounded like a boring life seemed like a decent trade in exchange for immunity. But I could not leave the lab. Ever. I was a prisoner. And every prisoner wants out eventually.

  “You are not immune. You are infected.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Infected by somezing worse. So much worse nozing else can infect you. You are a miracle of viral tech.”

  “What?”

  “Our genetic work didn’t help, of course. Or it did. Depending on how you look at it.”

  “Genetic work?”

  “Oh, come on, you must remember zat.”

  I didn’t. “We’ll put a pin in that one and come back to it. First, what the hell am I infected with?”

  “It doesn’t have a name. Or if it does, I can’t find it.”

  “Where did you look?”

  “Everywhere. Public. Private. Labs zat don’t officially exist.”

  “How did I get it?”

  “I don’t know zat.”

  “When did I get it?”

  “Possibly, I zink probably, when you were quite young.”

  “Infected or not. I do not zombie.”

  “True. But why? Zat is the question for everyone, Singleton.”

  “Oh, shut up, Ziggy.” I cranked the stereo and stared out the window. I am a moderately amenable guinea pig most of the time, but this was well beyond reasonable.

  We drove without speaking for maybe an hour or more. I ate some gummy worms and finished the coffee. Ziggy tapped the steering wheel in time to his Mozart. The sunshine through the trees flashed by in a steady rhythm. I felt self-conscious but warm in my over-branded new hoody and jeans. The coffee gave me the dose of energy I needed to keep from daydreaming or talking but not enough to keep me from dozing off.

  When I woke up, we had stopped at a gas station, Ziggy filling the car, and the attendant or Quickee Mart clerk or associate or whatever they call them now, was checking all the trash bins around the place and cleaning up a mess that looked like raccoons or bears or something had emptied the dumpster. Probably the biggest part of his job. After Ziggy finished filling the gas tank, he poked his head in the driver’s side window.

  “Good. You’re up. Zis is lunch.”

  “I guess I’m not contagious.”

  “I wish you were. Your virus could stop ze apocalypse.”

  We went in and microwaved some questionably optimistic ‘Best By’ dated pre-made burritos, grabbed some chips, and a couple of bottled iced coffees, and were on our way. The clerk seemed disturbed by Ziggy. Maybe his crazy blonde, curly mop. Maybe the eyepatch. And certainly the accent. He didn’t say anything until we headed out the door. “Safe travels.”


  “You too, amigo.”

  “Don’t order the enchiladas.”

  Ziggy stopped. “What’s zat?”

  “You’re headed west, right? It’ll be dinner at El Coyote. Probably late, unless you make good time.”

  “We’ll make good time.”

  “Sorry. Don’t mean to get in your business. It’s just—”

  “Just the only thing that way, huh?” I wanted to help the guy out. He was trying to do us a solid.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. We’ll skip ze enchiladas.”

  “Yeah, too much goop and not enough…enchilada.”

  Back in the car, we ate our convenience store burritos as the old Toyota engine screamed us west towards El Coyote.

  “So, why am I not contagious?”

  “Agh. Terrible question. Good question but terrible.” Sounds of old frustrations filled Ziggy’s voice, like all those times something or someone forces you to remember family arguments about where to spend which holiday. “Ze virus seems to have been built just for you. Or, less likely, you were built just for it.”

  “That’s not at all creepy.”

  “Zis is why I decided I must get you out. Zat und ze trouble mit ze rogue element.”

  “Are you switching to German? Are you scared of something?”

  “Time.”

  “Time?”

  “But we still have time.”

  “Ziggy?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Creepy. Yes. Fucking creepy. No time to keep Singleton on-on-on on…on ze ice.”

  “Who’s the rogue element?”

  “Could be you. You afraid of zat, eh Singleton? What if you are ze rogue element?”

  “Doesn’t seem right.”

  “But how would you know? You don’t remember who ze fuck you are.”

  “Come on, Zig.”

  “Und-und-und…and do we tell you? Nein. Ve have gone kaput. Ve give up on ze old you because veee need the ze new you. Ze Singleton. But…” holding his next statement there like an older brother dangling a piece of candy above my head, leaving me doubting whether or not it would ever drop, taunting and teasing me with something I could not reach and may not even want, “ze old you vas ze new you.”

  “Start making sense, Zig.”

  “How ze fuck do you know what makes sense? For zat matter, how ze fuck do I? Ziggy ze cyclops.”

  We had descended into a long narrow valley. The road ran through a series of pristine meadows someone had fenced in with wooden posts and barbed wire back in the 1870s. But the fencing looked half-hearted to me. It only divided the meadows, maybe keeping the cattle from certain water sources or bogs. The fencing stopped at the evergreen forest that grew close around the tall grass.

  This was the high range. Colorado. Montana. Or maybe Idaho. The place cowboys think they go when they die. Unless they already work it, and then they are basically immortal or something. The lack of speed limit is posted clearly and frequently in these long, mostly flat, valleys. They drop it back to fifty-five miles per hour as you climb out, with signs on the sharp turns advising thirty-five or even twenty-five. Ziggy pushed that old Corolla, and it gave him its all. 110 mph. And his mind and mouth were going faster than that.

  “It’s all crazy, Singleton. Fucking infected. Up from ze dead. For real. Zombies.”

  “I know. Take it easy, Zig.”

  “I cannot do zat. For zat, for taking it easy, I know zere is no time left.”

  “You’re going to have to tell me what’s up, eventually.”

  “What’s up? You’re infected. Ze company wants you on ice. And fucking Kevin—ze rogue element—is going to make us all into…into…into ze fucking zombie nachos.”

  “Kevin. You mean Kevin from the lab?”

  “Who else?”

  “Quiet Kevin?”

  One thing to know about Kevin: he is physically incapable of whispering. As I remember it, Kevin and his epic ponytail joined the lab after the accident, and our eardrums never fully recovered.

  “Yah. Quiet Kevin.”

  “What happened to Kevin?”

  “Silvercrest laid him off. Along mit all ze rest.”

  “Laid him off?”

  “Fuck him. Lucky bastard. I wrote him a-a-a…a very good recommendation on LinkedIn. Ze asshole.”

  “What did he do?”

  “So much. So, so, so, so much, Singleton. So much had happened. I am forgetting. I am forgetting ze old you, my friend. But…”

  “The old me is the new me.”

  “Exxxxxactly.”

  He took another bite of his burrito and something occurred to him. He tapped the steering wheel again, “You know Singleton, you never asked me somezing.”

  “What?”

  “I keep telling you it’s all about time.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You never asked me ze time. Not exactly.”

  “It’s Tuesday.”

  “But zat is now, today, but not all of what makes today today.”

  “Huh.”

  “What day was yesterday?”

  I wanted to answer Tuesday. I remembered eating taco pie with Ziggy in the cafeteria the day before. I did not and could not answer him. Blocked by some kind of memory short circuit. Tuesday followed by Tuesday. A momentary fear (or was it a thrill?) flipped my stomach. Maybe it was Tuesday forever.

  “What month is it, maybe?”

  “September.”

  “Agh. A coincidence. But how do you know zat?”

  “What? It was September yesterday.”

  “Fine. What year?”

  “What do you mean what year?”

  “What year is it now?”

  “2016.”

  “Ha. Wrong. Nein. Nein. Nein. It is September 2019.”

  “What?”

  “My gott. You owe me so big, Singleton.” The world dropped one beat of near total silence. Only the sound of the whining car engine. The music stopped. Then Ziggy looked over at me and started giggling.

  I looked at Ziggy. I looked out at Cowboy Heaven. I could not say anything. I waved at the speedometer, thinking I was somehow clearly motioning to him to stop. Speed blur. Information blur. World blur. Mind blur. Memory blur. Burrito blur. Chips blur. Coffee blur. Gummy worm blur. Blur of blurs. I puked blurriness in every direction.

  3 Big Blue Monsterita

  Back when I puked all over Cowboy Heaven, Ziggy pulled over almost as soon as I began spraying the dashboard with my lunch. I fell out of the car onto my hands and knees and puked myself empty in the dirt and weeds on the roadside.

  While I did that, he removed the floor mat out from the passenger side and threw it in the ditch. Then he wiped down the rest of my mess with paper napkins he wet with water from the ice chest. The swearing ran out of him steady and quiet, the exhaust from an internal motor that kept him calmly cleaning and setting things right.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “It's not your fault.” He looked around the passenger side, making sure he had found and cleaned every last bean of my half-digested burrito and chips. “Not really. I tried to tell you. To warn you.”

  He handed me the rest of the bottle of water he had used for cleanup. I rinsed out my mouth, spit out the water, and took a drink. He leaned back against his tired old car and looked down at me.

  Ziggy laughed and shook his head. “Fucking Singleton.”

  “What?”

  “Singleton. I was telling you and forgot to tell you.”

  “What.”

  “You are only just waking up. You needed to eat slow. Even you.”

  “What do you mean?” Something moved in the grass out in the field. A rabbit. It watched us a moment, then cut sharply into the weeds and disappeared before we could see it run.

  “Come on. Get in. We're running out of time, I zink.”

  I got in, and as we sped across the valley, Ziggy explained that the gummy worms and the convenience store sandwich were my fi
rst solid food in a few years. He and Quiet Kevin had figured out a way to keep me in a low temperature stasis.

  Somehow, my special virus and his genetic tampering worked together to keep my body in decent condition. A basic kind of wellness and fitness. Lots of twitching and periodic shakes, as well as something we will call isometric exercise.

  They had me in a machine that rotated me into weight bearing position and forced my body to walk. I rarely went deeper than semi-sleep. The memories of it, if I ever have any, will likely come jumbled together with dreams as a mental muck. But they could not exercise or use my digestive system. So, my stomach needed to recover.

  By the time he finished talking me through all of that, I was starving. “How soon to tacos?”

  “My phone says four hours.”

  “Where the hell are we going? We’re already in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Not nearly nowhere enough.”

  “What's that mean?”

  “It means Quiet Kevin was an idiot.”

  Three other things you ought to know about Quiet Kevin: 1) he wanted to save the world, 2) he was allergic to avocados, and 3) by any ordinary standard of measurement, he was not an idiot.

  After his twentieth chemical compound patent, a boss recommended Kevin get a hobby, so he took up bar trivia. Not just your pop music, Jeopardy kind of thing, but all the “What was Lindsay Lohan’s first movie?” stuff and hard science and theoretical physics arcana (“What was the first error in the second rendering of the CERN particle accelerator blueprints?”).

  In six months, he had mopped the floor with the local New Jersey talent, basically his lab peers and the professors from the local university (the one with the Ivy), and then everyone in every bar within one-hundred-fifty miles. His string of victories made the papers, triggering action from the Silvercrest recruiting team, who knew a bored genius when they saw one.

  They told him they had something secret for him. Something special. Something weird. And he could save the world. He chased that bait, and they hooked him with a hefty six-figure salary. Two weeks later, he left the pharma job and the trivia circuit and moved to the middle of the desert, where he had the dubious fortune of meeting Ziggy and me.