by Pippa Jay
Imagine waking up to find the world has ended, but unfortunately you’re not alone...
For Connor Innis, awakening from a year-long coma with no memories, no ability to move, and unable to speak was bad enough. Then he learns that a bioweapon set off a zombie apocalypse—for real—while he was sleeping, and the world he can't even remember no longer exists.
Rehabilitation might be torture, but far worse awaits him outside. All too soon, the hospital Mentor declares him fit to leave with nothing to go home to except a city full of mindless, flesh-eating monsters. That is, until he forms a strange relationship with the one he nicknames 'Zombie Girl'.
Zombie Girl:
Dead Awakened
(Connor’s Story)
By
Pippa Jay
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Zombie Girl: Dead Awakened
Copyright © 2015 Pippa Jay
Cover Artist: Danielle Fine
Editor: Allie Kincheloe
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
Previously published by Lycaon Press,
April 22nd, 2015
Published by Pippa Jay February 2016
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Dedication
For my daughter, in tribute and with thanks to The Wanted, whose farewell concert bizarrely inspired this story in its entirety. Also to my editor Allie Kincheloe and my cover artist Danielle Fine.
Table of Contents
About the Author
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He woke to sensations of warmth and heaviness. The relentless thump, thump of a heartbeat and the rushing sound of someone breathing unsteadily. It took time to recognize the heartbeat as his own, to connect the breathing to air moving in and out of his own chest. How long had he been asleep?
He didn't remember going to bed. He couldn't open his eyes. Confusion muddled his thoughts. Wait. Why can’t I move?
Panic set his pulse racing, but a weight held him down. He choked on something pressing at the back of his throat. Nothing responded as he struggled to move. Damn, am I paralyzed? Trapped under something?
"Please try to remain calm. You are perfectly safe."
Remain calm? What the fuck does this moron expect?
"Please try to calm yourself."
He couldn't place a gender to the voice, and the flat unemotional tone meant it was probably synthetic. What were they called? Mentors. That was it. An artificial entity called a Mentor. The knowledge seeped into his awareness like blood oozing through a shallow cut.
His struggles weren't getting him anywhere except a quick trip to a heart attack. He forced himself to take slow breaths, to steady himself. Not because the voice said so, but because there was nothing else he could do. He swallowed, painfully aware of the pressure of a tube in his nose and down his throat. He tried to talk, and heard a weird gurgle instead of words.
"Please relax. Do not attempt to move or speak at this time. Once you are calm, I will explain your situation fully."
Again, his pulse leapt as a dozen horrifying scenarios flickered to life in his mind. Your situation? What the hell did that mean?
He focused on taking deep lungfuls of air, willing his heart rate slower. The sooner he got himself under control, perhaps the sooner the voice would explain what the hell was going on.
Finally his pulse calmed, and as it did so, as he pushed the panic away, other sensations crept into his awareness. He had only a vague sense of his body, a heavy limp weight that wouldn't respond to his feeble attempts to at least twitch fingers or wiggle toes. He lay on his back, every part of him supported by a warm, firm surface that managed to cradle him as though wrapped in someone's arms. A crimson glow filtered through his eyelids. A faint buzzing hovered on the edge of his hearing, accompanied by odd, random whirring sounds like machinery quietly at work. Was he in some sort of factory?
"Welcome back, Connor Innis. Please do not attempt to move or speak at this time. You have been in a comatose state for three hundred and ninety-seven days due to complications from a minor viral infection that led to secondary encephalitis. While we have attempted to maintain your bodily condition, some muscle wastage and weakening is inevitable. Now that you have regained full consciousness, we will begin a program of intensive physical therapy and rehabilitation to return you to an acceptable level of health and mobility. You will be required to follow all instructions to the best of your ability to ensure you complete the program within the recovery timetable. I am pleased to inform you that minimal brain damage has occurred, and you should be able to achieve a reasonably normal existence."
He listened, the words not quite translating. He'd been in a coma? For over a year? His name was Connor? It didn't feel familiar, like he'd been mistaken for someone else by a passing stranger. And brain damage. Hell, what would that mean?
"In a moment I will remove your eye shield. You may experience initial difficulties with your vision, but please do not be alarmed. These abilities may take significant time to return to full function. We will attempt to establish a basic method of communication until speech therapy and muscle development restores acceptable vocal capabilities."
Acceptable vocal capabilities? He swallowed hard, his throat tight, his head swirling. Would he just be a voiceless, motionless lump for the rest of his conscious life? He moaned. It would have been better never to wake...
A slight tug at the skin around his eyes and a rush of cool air told him the shield had been removed. His eyelids twitched, a nervous tic starting in the left one. He tried to squeeze them tight to stop it, but the tremor only worsened.
"Please attempt to open your eyes."
Terror hammered in his chest, and his breathing hitched. How could such a small request scare him so much? Would he see? Or would he try and fail?
His eyelids fluttered and parted slowly. Dim yellowish light replaced the crimson glow. He blinked several times before opening them fully. All he could see was a big off-white blur, indistinct shapes like girders overhead. He blinked harder, trying to focus. The beams resolved into several mechanical arms arching over his bed. To his left, something like the open door of a submarine blocked his view. His confusion deepened. Had he been on a submarine? In an underwater facility? None of it made any sense. What kind of place was this?
Lights flashed across his eyes, making him wince and leaving dark spots against the white smudge. His eyelids flickered, weird shapes in his vision. Whatever the lights were, they hurt his eyes.
"That's very good," the Mentor assured him. "Pupil and blink reflexes are normal. Please try to blink twice."
He tried it, screwing them tight closed each time.
"Excellent. For now, you will blink twice for yes, once for no. Blink twice if you understand and accept this method."
Again, he obeyed. Just tell me what’s going on!
"Excellent. Communication established. Now I can give you further information. A neural block is in place to prevent spasms or involuntary movement that could cause damage. As you showed signs of recovery, you have been held in a temporary suspension until fully conscious. A program of gentle, but progressively intensive physical therapy and mental stimulation will now begin. You may find this difficult and tiring to begin with. However, do not despair. This is to be expected an
d perfectly normal."
Connor gulped with difficulty. Hell. Again, he made a sound, a gargle, his lips numb.
"Please, do not attempt to speak. In a moment, you will be put back into a short sleep and the breathing tube will be removed from your throat."
No. Don't put me to sleep again. Panic set his pulse rate soaring as Connor fought to escape, to simply move.
"Do not be alarmed. You are perfectly safe. You will awaken again shortly."
Despite his efforts, reality switched off.
****
"Fur...fur..." Connor struggled to form the words. "Thur..."
"Much better," the Mentor said, its tone like that of a mom to a child. "Keep trying."
"Thur... the... ker... quer... quer... quee... kkk... bur... brur..." He swallowed, anger pounding in his head. "Argh!"
"Please relax. It may seem impossible, but you really are making good progress. It will take time."
Connor ground his teeth together. Ten days they'd been at this. Ten days and he still couldn't manage basic words. Still couldn't manage a whole sentence without slurring and stumbling over each syllable like a baby. His mouth refused to obey him, lips and tongue refusing to move right. It made him want to scream. But he couldn't even do that properly.
"Buh...bruh, brow...vos..." He sighed, and swiped away drool from one corner of his mouth. Fuck this. And what he wouldn't give to be able to say that out loud.
"Please continue."
Fucking Mentor. He sucked in a breath, then, "Fuuuckyu."
"That is not a word on the list."
Connor snorted, the closest he could get to a laugh. "Fuckyou. Fuck. Youuu."
"If this is helping you psychologically with your speech therapy, then please feel free to express yourself in any way that you like. However, please try to form the words more clearly if you wish to progress."
Connor sighed again, but at least now he had a goal. Insulting the Mentor was a damn sight more interesting than a sentence about a dumb brown fox...
****
More days of pain, frustration and mental torture followed. It did, at least, expand his verbal capabilities with a stream of expletives as the Mentor subjected him to a program of physical exercises on top of the speech therapy. At least his ability to read hadn't been affected, or his knowledge of basic concepts of the modern world. He'd recognized the hospital Mentor as an artificial intelligence that ran the whole place. His conscious memories remained distant, but part of him retained a wide if gutter-based vocabulary. Was that the kind of guy he had been? Or what the coma had made him?
He could blame the illness, the minimal brain damage, the drugs he'd been given, the emotional trauma. But mostly Connor blamed the Mentor and its rehabilitation program that left him sweating and shaky, aching as though he'd run a marathon. He spent each session of torture venting a steady stream of swear words until he was too out of breath to do more than gasp and think the curses instead. His head throbbed with it, his skull pounding. He had regular headaches, though the Mentor assured him that wasn't abnormal. Each day the Mentor had him flexing toes and fingers, lifting limbs, at first with the help of robotic arms. As soon as he managed to raise and hold his arms aloft for a few seconds, or drag his feet up toward his hips so his bony knees raised the covers, the Mentor withdrew any aid.
Having been fed by tube with liquid nutrition, Connor had to learn to hold a spoon again, and maneuver the mush he was fed into his mouth. To sip water from a straw. He missed often. Choked often. His stomach rebelled, and he was sick several times. His jaw and throat ached. Burned. It felt like saliva permanently dribbled from his mouth. Everything about this disgusted him.
But each day it got a little better. He slurred less. Swallowing became easier. And each meal served to him went down quicker, without spills, and stayed down. The consistency thickened. The first morning he managed toast and only choked on it once gave him a sense of achievement. He was getting better.
"Won't a doctor come to see me?" It had been eight weeks now. He had a calendar to follow, and the Mentor marked off each day, each morning asking Connor if he knew what day it was to stimulate his temporal awareness. He had oatmeal this morning, with actual lumps, and sweet with honey. Having learned the hard way not to bolt his food, he ate slowly, savoring, and testing the texture with his tongue as he swallowed carefully.
"The coma unit is isolated and fully automated, to prevent infections and provide the ultimate level in care. The presence of doctors or other medical staff in this section is considered an unnecessary contamination risk."
"But..." Connor frowned. "Mentor, I haven't seen another human being since I woke up." He discounted the other coma patients, shut away in their medical pods and tended to by the machines. He'd watched them in the hope another would awaken and keep him company, but they remained dormant. The quiet sounds of their life support systems were starting to creep him out. "Is no one allowed in here? Not even visitors?"
"Visitors are now permitted at your current level of recovery." There was a definite grudging edge to the Mentor's tone, the first real inflection he'd heard in it.
But then, who would come to see him? "Do I have family?"
"Yes, Connor. Parents are Margaret and David and two older brothers Max and Darren."
I don't remember. He frowned, and laid down his spoon, his appetite gone. Two brothers? And he was the youngest? If not for a mirror provided by the Mentor when he washed his face, Connor wouldn't know what he looked like himself. As it was, the gaunt face and shaven scalp brought back no sense of familiarity. The trace of acne scarring had hinted at his teenage years, but it took the Mentor to tell him he'd celebrated his nineteenth birthday just a week prior to awakening. He'd not yet needed to shave or require a haircut due to follicle suppression while in the coma.
"Mentor, have my family been told I'm awake?"
"Notifications have been sent."
"But none of them have come to see me?" That hurt far worse than not being able to remember them. Although, thinking about it, perhaps that's why they hadn't come. Maybe they were afraid of how much damage he'd suffered.
"No visitors have come to see you, nor made any such request."
Ouch. The pain in his gut had him swallowing hard for fear of throwing up again. "Mentor, can you send them a request to visit? I mean, you said they're allowed to see me, right?" Maybe being in isolation meant they hadn't been allowed access unless Connor asked for it, even with him in recovery.
"Visitors are permitted in response to a patient's request if the patient is at an acceptable stage of recovery."
"Great. That's great." The nausea that had overtaken his appetite eased. "Please send the request."
A long pause followed, before a terse, "Your requests have been sent."
"Fantastic." Excitement distracted him from the ache in his chest. He had family. Sure, they hadn't come to see him yet. Maybe they'd been waiting for the request. Yeah, that was it! They just wanted him to be ready. Right? He ignored the nasty background voice suggesting they'd never wanted to see him.
Breakfast done, and his bodily needs attended to, Mentor set him to his exercises once more. Today he had to cycle, lying on his back with his feet strapped to pedals. Within a few seconds Connor was sweating, pains in his legs as he struggled to finish the set workout. "Mentor, this is too hard. I think you're setting these too high."
"The exercises are designed to push you to a tolerable limit."
If he'd had any more breath to swear, he would have. Tolerable limits meant nothing to a computer that had no body, to feel or suffer.
"Are you sure about that?"
"Perfectly sure."
Anger spurred Connor to finish. He imagined each push of the pedal as shoving his feet into the soft memory core of the Mentor, crushing the life from its bio-mechanical brain. Sometimes destroying the computerized tormentor was the only thing that kept him going.
***
Once he'd regained enough strength and coord
ination in his arms and legs to keep them raised for a few minutes at a time, the Mentor provided him with a hoist. Several times a day, it encouraged Connor to pull himself upright until he progressed to holding the position for longer periods. When he could sit up without the hoist, the Mentor made an announcement.
"Today we will fit you with a bio-mechanical body frame, enabling you to leave your bed. You will also leave the coma intensive care unit."
Leave? The news gave Connor the shivers, a strange mixture of hope and dread. He didn't want to move on from the familiar surroundings of the unit. He felt safe here. Secure. No, he wasn't ready to go.
He bit his lip. "I...don't agree with you. I wanna see a doctor."
"No doctors are available."
"A nurse then."
"No nurses are available."
"Damn it, they can't all be busy." Connor clutched his bedclothes as if afraid they would be ripped away from him. "When will one be available?"
"Unknown."
"Unknown? What do you mean, 'Unknown'? One has to be free at some point, just to check on my progress, surely?"
No answer.
"Shit. Mentor, how many staff are there in this hospital?"
"There are currently no members of staff in the hospital."
What? Connor’s chest tightened so hard he could barely breathe. There were no people in the whole place? "You mean, it's all automated? Like the coma ward?" That wasn't how he remembered it. He hadn't been out of it long enough for things to change that much, had he?
"Much of the hospital systems are automated, but not to the level of the coma ward."
"Then how come there's no staff? Who takes care of the patients?"
"There are currently no other patients in the hospital aside from the coma patients."