I Zombie I [Omnibus Edition]

by Jack Wallen

  I will call into the station, but first I had to check in on Susan and Sally. I have good news to give, what with a doctor on the way, which could only mean I am getting ever-closer to having that cure in my hands.

  “Bethany?” The deep scratchy voice of Gunther, the man whose train brought us into Paris, jerked me out of my thoughts.

  “I did not mean to frighten you. I heard music. How long have I been asleep?”

  “I’m guessing about fourteen hours. You missed a lot of excitement.”

  I filled our German friend in on the encounter with the damned that went down in Susan’s room. There was a genuineness in his apology for not being there to help. He seemed like a sweet, kind man. I hated to think that the world around him was going to change that disposition; make him hard, make him angry. It will. It’s been trying to pull me under the surface of its hateful water ever since I killed Jacob. I know every damned moaner and screamer I kill will inch me closer to the tipping point where I will finally lose what minute bit of innocence and hope I have left.

  I had to bury myself before I wound up in a medicated depression with a gun pointed at my soft palate.

  “Gunther, we need to make our way around this entire building and check to make sure every external door and window is locked.” My voice had a harsh edge to it that I didn’t like.

  To my surprise, Gunther nodded in compliance and turned to leave. I stopped him before he could get too far.

  “Do you have a weapon?”

  Without a word Gunther reached around to his backside and pulled out what looked like an old Luger. Big point of concern. A Luger is far from a subtle weapon. Too much noise would only serve to point the undead population our way.

  Gunther was happy to agree to refrain from using his trusty gun (handed down from his grandfather, he added with a catch in his voice.) I was eventually able to help him understand that noise would only open the mouth of Hell itself directly into the hospital. We were not ready for any sort of onslaught. This hospital had to serve as our safe house, our asylum, and now is not a good time to have to once again relocate.

  The older gent finally went off to check the doors, but not until he managed to disassemble a metal cart and wield one of its reinforced legs as a weapon. I smiled and nodded as he lumbered off. I didn’t have the heart to tell Gunther that we’d thought our last hideout was safe and secure. It would have been a lie. The truth of the matter is, nothing is safe. There are no hideaways, no safe-houses. If they hear you or smell you, they will get to you. No door or wall, no matter how strong, will hold off a horde of zombies when they know a feast is on the other side.

  I decided to give Gunther a hand in securing the building. Besides, I wanted to be at the entrance when Dr. Chavenel arrived. I had no idea how long it would take him, but I wanted the man to be greeted by a friendly, living face when he arrived.

  After grabbing one of the remaining legs from the cart, I caught up with Gunther and let him know I was heading down to the first floor to wait for the doctor. He agreed to start on the second floor and work his way up.

  I immediately took to the stairs. After my last ride, I wasn’t sure I could trust elevators, even if for only one floor. When the door to the stairwell closed behind me, the sound was instantly swallowed by silence. I stood, motionless, listening to make sure I wasn’t descending into a newly formed coven of the undead. But I heard no moans, no screams. I continued downward. Fortunately I was wearing running shoes, so even my footfalls on the stairs were silent. I was a ninja.

  “Be the ninja,” I whispered to myself, hoping to steel my nerves.

  “Be Chuck Norris,” I whispered again, only this time through a near-silent guffaw. The statement made me wonder exactly what would Chuck Norris do if confronted by a zombie. Would Chuck Norris even have to do anything? Might a zombie, in the presence of Mr. Norris miraculously rejoin the living? Is that what the world needs right now? Chuck Norris?

  I pulled my train of thought from its current wreckage and forced myself to concentrate. One of the downfalls of being a nerd is that there are so many distractions available in the mind alone. I’m just waiting for the inevitable Star Trek axiom to derail my brain at the worst possible moment.

  The bottom of the stairwell finally greeted me without so much as a noise. The cold hand of fear grabbed my wrist and stopped me as I stood at the door and reached out to the handle. Although it hadn’t been that long since I was on the first floor, I had no idea what was on the other side of the door. I wanted to turn around, march back up the stairs, and curl into the fetal position until Armageddon took its leave of Planet Earth. But then I may as well spit on the metaphorical grave of one Jacob Plummer.

  With that in mind I put my ear up to the door and, when I heard nothing on the opposing side, I slowly pressed down the latch and pulled open the door.

  My heart skipped a beat and my lungs temporarily forsook their duty as the door eased open. In absolute contradiction to its normal state, the first floor of the hospital was motionless and quiet. No emergencies, no families huddled together in collective sorrow or anticipation of bad news, no dictatorial administrative nurse barking out orders for “who’s next” or to “stay behind the line.”

  There were bodies. Fortunately these bodies never had the misfortune of dying only to be reborn undead. These people were irrevocably dead, completely dead, dead dead. The comfort of death brought me no solace. The dim, blinking lights, the stale air, and the bodies brought the hair on my arms standing straight up and had me gasping in frightened, shallow breaths. With silent, cautious steps I made my way through the room, hoping like hell nothing decided to animate and make dinner of my head.

  The sweat soaking my palms made it a challenge to keep a grip on the pipe I carried. I dried one and then the other on my pant legs. My heart was pounding in my ears, my breathing shallow. From a distance, a clanking sound shocked my heart. The clanking noise continued with an erratic tempo and beat. Very slowly I continued on, down the hall. My brain started counting my steps like they were some countdown to a final death match. I reached an intersection and peeked my head around the corner and there, guarding the exit, was one of them. A prime specimen moaner doing its gentle swaying as if waiting for some sign that dinner was served. I would not be this bitch’s dinner. Unfortunately I had to get rid of the thing. Should our doctor appear at the front door and spy a zombie, waiting to rip his brain from its stem, he’ll turn around and we’ll never see him again. I had to suck it up and take this beast down.

  I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer to whatever God of hand-to-hand combat there was and dove in for the fight. I came in for the attack, my pipe swinging directly for the head of the moaner. My first swing connected and gave off a deep thud as the metal hit the back of the skull. The beast remained standing, and turned to face me. It seemed my first whack managed to knock its neck out of joint so its head was permanently cocked to the side. I backed up and revved the pipe for another attack. This time the metal pipe connected with the zombie’s nose, completely shattering the meat and bone under the skin. The wet squish of the pulping made me want to vomit.

  And then the zombie had enough and made a lunge for me. A cold, dead hand grabbed my arm and started to pull me in. The pipe was too heavy to swing so I improvised and used it as a battering ram against the thing’s face, managing to gain enough leverage to send the pile of walking death backwards. After a couple of awkward steps, the monster lost what little balance it had and tumbled back. I took advantage of the zombie’s prone position on the floor and swung my pipe as hard as I could, down on its face.

  One final swing was all it took to crack through the skull and make mush of the thing’s brain.

  You know those moments in film where time becomes irrelevant? Where the scope and score of the story takes on a completely new meaning? At that very moment time stops existing as a constant and is often inversely proportionate to the action that is really occurring in the moment on screen. Mere
seconds are drawn out with the help of slow motion to become minutes that transform into a crucial turning point in the story. That is precisely how that moment just unraveled. The very moment that zombie-fuck and I engaged in battle, time became a fluid entity able to easily stretch and shrink at will. That fact was only enhanced by the Concrete Blonde song still ringing in my head. And although the lyrics were often quite fitting, I desperately wanted to believe this boat wasn’t actually sinking and that the captain hadn’t really lied.

  There is one lie that has me baffled though. The moaner could see me. I distinctly remember Jacob saying it was their sense of hearing that was amplified at the cost of their sight. It would seem when you fuck with Mother Nature, you’re going to get fucked back. Even zombies can evolve in this new world order. But just where does the top of the food chain evolve to?

  I have to find a better weapon. A few more swings of this pipe and my arms would have given up. I don’t care how frightened or threatened you are, a metal pipe is a metal pipe and can burn through any adrenaline your body can produce much faster than pulling a trigger or stabbing with a blade. There has to be a better way. I’m in a modern hospital, surely something can be found to serve as an effective weapon against the undead.

  Regardless, I hefted my trusty pipe and, as I stood tall, the sounds of footsteps reached my eardrums. The sound was coming from the entryway of the first floor. The thought of more moaners awaiting their own personal carryout had my fingers white-knuckle-gripping the pipe. Very slowly I made my way to the entrance, my back hugging a wall. At the end of the hall there was a ninety degree left turn that then emptied out to the entryway. With my pipe held up high, in my best batter’s stance, I was ready to come down swinging hard. I turned the corner, ready to bring my weapon of skull destruction down.

  “Wait…stop! It’s me, Jean Chavenel!” the thin, middle-aged man exclaimed, his arms up in a defensive position.

  “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. It’s Bethany. I’m so glad you’re here.” I was embarrassed that I had nearly beheaded the man with a pipe already greasy from death. “Follow me. Susan is upstairs.”

  “Susan?”

  “The patient. The reason I need you here.”

  “But the cure…I thought—?”

  “That comes later. First we have to do something about Susan.”

  We took the stairs slowly, chatting about what we had each been doing when the doomsday device went off. It seems our doctor was in the middle of a fairly challenging surgery, which would have put him in a nearly sealed, sterile environment - hence his survival. When he saw what had happened he didn’t hesitate to rush back to the safety of his below-ground home, where his family was. When he reached his home, he found that his family had perished in the blast…or worse. He had been holed up ever since, not knowing (or afraid of) what to do.

  “What did you find for weapons? Anything?”

  “Yes, I brought knives, a gun, a chainsaw, and a baseball bat. They are in my car. Will you help me?”

  “In your car? Are you serious? Why didn’t you just bring them in?” I couldn’t believe I had to ask the question.

  “I couldn’t carry it all myself, and you seemed in such a hurry to get back to Susan.”

  Jean had me there. Who said the French were any ruder than Americans? Besides, stereotypes were pretty much a moot point now that there are only two: alive and not alive.

  “Come, help me now so we can get the weapons and return to your friend,” Jean said as he turned to make his way back down the stairs.

  Obviously my new friend had no idea just how dangerous the outside world was. But then, without weapons, the inside world could easily be as bad.

  What the hell? Live dangerously.

  We agreed that I would watch from the door as Jean hurried to the car and brought everything, one load at a time, to me. He was smart enough to park the car in the Emergency parking, so the weapons were within very close range. The bags Jean produced were big…and heavy. The man certainly seemed to have come prepared. He brought over the last bag, beeped the car locked, and slipped back into the building.

  Hauling up two bags each, we decided the elevator wasn’t such a bad idea. I had to suck up a great deal of fear in order to step into the elevator car. I was sure that any minute a horde of moaners and screamers were going to fill the elevator shaft and rip us limb from limb, brain from spine.

  It didn’t happen. In fact, the only thing keeping this elevator ride from being totally farcical was a bit of Muzak. I think I would have seriously considered a bullet to the brain if the car was all of a sudden filled with the too-too annoying sounds of Every Little Thing She Does as performed by some generic musician and his pseudo-jazz riffing keyboard.

  “So, what can you tell me about Susan that might help me when I see her? Usually I have an entire case history, or at least some haphazard paper work to go by.” It seemed my new friend was all business. I like that. Jean Chavenel might fit in just fine with our little family.

  “Susan is around ten or twelve years old. Female, Caucasian, and…well…she’s infected.” I tried to drop that last little bomb as easily as I could. It was like informing your parents that you were gay or your boyfriend you were pregnant.

  Jean hit the Stop Elevator button. “Wait. You expect me to treat a zombie? No ma’am, I cannot do such a thing. I cannot heal a monster.” Jean’s tone was definitive.

  If I was to change his mind, I would have to play my hand strongly.

  “She hasn’t turned yet. I’ve been keeping her under sedation so she can’t change –”

  “For how long?” Jean interrupted.

  “I don’t know. I guess that depends on how quickly I can decrypt the file and we get the cure synthesized.”

  “No. I mean how long have you been sedating the girl?”

  “Honestly, I have no idea. I’ve lost track of days. Possibly a week? I don’t really know,” I said, ashamed of my ignorance.

  “You cannot keep her under sedation too long, it’s far too risky,” Jean said as he released the Stop Elevator button and the car began the journey upwards once again.

  “Not sedating her runs the risk of her taking the final plunge into Lake Zombie.” I didn’t want to come off as making light of such a serious situation, but sometimes it’s the only way I can manage to remain upright and not crumble under the weight of the truth of it all.

  “There are better ways. Take me to her so I may assess the situation.” The doors to the elevator opened and Jean marched out.

  In light of my desperation for a doctor, I had no intention of questioning Jean’s sudden change of heart. All I cared about was that he was moving toward Susan with the intent on examining her. I was fairly confident that, once he laid eyes on my little zombie, he’d never leave.

  We walked down the hall of the floor toward Susan’s room. Jean’s stride was serious. I may have pissed the Frenchman off, but I believe his anger toward my folly made him overlook Susan being caught in limbo between human and zombie. I wish I could lay claim to that tactic, but it was a complete accident.

  “Can you tell me how she became infected?”

  A pause hung between us, like a billowing sheet used in a game of parachute. How far back did I want to go in the telling of the story? Ultimately I decided to give the doctor the whole truth and nothing but. When I was finished, Jean knew of Jacob and how he had used Susan as a ploy to get me to take his life. Jean looked at me as if I were fractions of a second away from lunacy. He wasn’t far off.

  When we finally arrived at the door to Susan’s room, Sally stood and introduced herself to Jean. After a few simple pleasantries it was time for the doctor to get down to work. He began by taking the usual vitals. He found a chart to begin what would probably be a lengthy documentation process. Things were starting to have some strange air of normalcy about them. Was it a dream? And if it was only but a dream, how long would it last? In this hateful new world dreams were so easily shattered and morphed int
o nightmares.

  “Can I rely on either of you for help?” the doctor said, looking at both Sally and myself over the top of his expensive looking, tortoiseshell glasses.

  No sooner had I reassured Dr. Chavenel that he could count on me, than he was handing me gloves and instructing me to get sterile. Like a sad little forty-hour a week drone, I complied. I wasn’t used to taking orders. This might take some time to sink in.

  “What are we doing?” I asked, placing a surgical mask over my face.

  “We have to take a few samples so we know exactly what we’re dealing with,” the doctor said from behind his surgical mask, and then set about instructing me in the finer arts of phlebotomy.

  The samples we took went far beyond blood and urine. The doctor wanted to take a peek at our dear little Susan from the inside out and from every hidden corner of her body. I was hoping the man wasn’t going to take scalpel to flesh and reveal Susan’s innermost secrets. Jean needed to get a solid cross-section of what we were dealing with, which meant taking samples from almost every organ he could safely probe. Liver, lung, spinal fluid, bone marrow…it was a marathon of jabbing, slicing, and sucking. All the while we were rolling Susan about on the table as if she weren’t even alive.

  I wanted to cry. I wanted to say I was sorry to the little girl who probably just wanted to have the same life every little girl wanted to have; birthday parties, crushes, a first kiss, a wedding, children…

  But she will most likely never see those things. She will probably last another week or so before we are putting a bullet between her precious, innocent eyes. And I am almost certain the finger that will pull that hateful trigger will be mine.

  Life can really suck at times.

  That thought made me want to smash atoms between my ears, hopefully causing a vacuum, destroying every living molecule on the planet. The very idea that anything can make life suck any more than it does seems preposterous.

  At this moment…