I Zombie I [Omnibus Edition]

by Jack Wallen

  Sam dropped the passenger-side window and yelled out, “Hey! Wanna ride?”

  The young man turned his head in disbelief and continued running.

  Sam floored the car and turned the front wheel to block the man’s path.

  “Get in!”

  The runner said nothing, grabbed the handle, opened the door, sat down, slammed the door shut, and nodded. Sam backed the car up, turned the wheel, put the car in drive, and took off as quickly as the BMW could manage.

  The two men sat silent for a moment. The only sound was the expensive hum of the car engine. Sam finally broke the silence. “It’s fucking Hell out there.”

  “You can say that.” The young man’s words were blunt.

  “Got a name?” Sam queried.

  “Dominque. Everyone calls me Dom. Thanks for stopping, by the way.”

  Sam glanced at his new passenger a little bit longer than he should. The car began to veer off the street and onto the sidewalk.

  “Whoa dude! You wanna get us killed?” Dom’s eyes had doubled in size.

  “Wait a second, you’re…” Sam’s voice rose half an octave.

  “Yeah, yeah. Drafted by the Jets. I was going to start my first season in the NFL until death came knocking,” Dom interrupted with a mixture of pride and anger.

  “Wow,” Sam said, slightly starstruck.

  “You a fan?” Dom asked, starting to warm up.

  “You could say that. Name’s Sam by the way.”

  A Screamer leaped out from the corner of a building and attacked the car. The Screamer didn’t care that the car was still moving forward at about forty-five miles per hour. Physics, obviously, was not this zombie’s strength. The Screamer jumped up on the hood and started in with a barrage of punches to the windshield. Dom reached out and tried to grab the hitchhiker in order to pull him free from the car.

  “Hold on, Dom,” Sam warned before slamming on the breaks.

  The zombie flew forward off the car and landed on the street. Without thinking, Sam punched the gas. The car squealed and the front end of the luxury sedan’s bumper smacked into the Screamers skull hard enough to send flesh and bone sailing. The Screamer shortly became nothing more than pulp under the wheels of the car. The ooze and oil of the beast made the front tires slip for a few rotations, but not more. Soon Sam and Dom were free of the pack and the worst of the danger.

  “What do we do now?” Dom’s eyes practically glowed white with fear and excitement. Sam pulled the car off to the side of the road, pulled on the emergency brake, glanced at his new sidekick, and smiled.

  “Dom, we gather an army.”

  Chapter 6

  New York City, United Nations Building

  December, 2015

  The screams of the experimental ward ate through the skin and into the soul. We tried to keep all of the subjects under constant sedation, but it wreaked havoc on the results of the tests. So, we had no choice. And since the screams pierced the air nearly twenty-four hours a day, it was impossible to spend too much time in the lab. From my own experience, I could last about fifteen to twenty minutes before the noise threatened to drag me from the comforting hollows of sanity. A few of my younger assistants could last somewhat longer, but twenty minutes seemed to be the average.

  The noise was not the only element of the lab that could eat through your conscience. Some of the newer deformities that had developed were equally challenging to the senses. These “misfortunes” (as my assistants were wont to call them) came to be after an experiment in inbreeding the infected succeeded. We inseminated an infected (but not yet amplified) female with the semen of her infected (and amplified) brother. I wanted to not only test the artificial insemination of the infected semen, I wanted to press the possibility of deformation as far I as could. How better to force deformation than with incest? I had only expected two possible outcomes: The now-pregnant infected female wouldn’t last until the birth of the child or she would change before coming to term.

  What happened was far worse than we could have anticipated. Some time, during the first trimester, the mother to be began developing a very violent disposition. Shortly after the violence manifested, the mother’s body began to transform. The first part of the transformation was in the musculature of the body. The young woman went from an average twenty-three year old female build to a significantly muscular form. This change in physique happened overnight and was not just aesthetic. The mother developed incredible, inhuman strength, requiring the use of sizable restraints to keep her from destroying everything in sight.

  After the unusual development of the muscles another, gruesome, physical manifestation occurred. The young woman’s jaw began to unhinge and bifurcate vertically. The subject could now open her mouth horizontally and vertically, making it possible to place an entire human head in her mouth. We knew this because one of my assistants made the tragic mistake of getting too close to the subject. It was then we discovered the purpose of this evolution. The subject, with lightning speed, opened her gaping maw and had the assistant’s head in her mouth. Before we realized what was happening, the female bit down hard enough to crack open the skull. The slurping sound alone drove nearly everyone to all corners of the area to relieve their stomachs of their contents.

  Neither the experiments nor the deformities stopped there. We continued pushing the boundaries with the hopes of backing ourselves out of the nightmare we were all living. Instead, what we created were nothing more than painful reminders that, when pushed, nature would return the favor with a ferocity mankind could not hope to match.

  The results of our experimentation lived in a secure wing of the UN building. Each evolution was detained in a cell so that we could not only learn from every mistake we’d made, but also have a variety of mutations from which to pull DNA samples. Why? Because the world we’d created was random. Order had been tossed out with the bathwater and we had no idea what was to come next. With Dr. Godwin gone, we’d lost the only true connection to the original experiments, so we had to keep everything intact. When you used every possible spark imaginable to ignite the necessary change to right a wrong as epic as this, you took no chances.

  Now, it seemed, chaos worked in our favor. From out of the heavens dropped a woman, impregnated by an infected man. But it wasn’t just any woman infected by any man. This woman was infected by Jacob Plummer. With the help of Dr. Godwin, I closely monitored Jacob’s change – which was quite unique. Instead of transforming immediately, Jacob’s immune system fought the virus, on its own, for some time. The outcome was his flipping back and forth from human to monster. The fetus Bethany carried within her might well hold the key to unlocking the remaining secrets of the Mengele Virus.

  With Bethany Nitshimi we must use caution. If our earlier experimentation served as a looking glass then we knew how easily it was to upset the biological balance.

  In capturing Bethany, we also procured two of her friends, one of which was female – Michelle. Michelle’s presence allowed me another testing ground for my inception theory well before any harm would come to Bethany and the prodigal baby.

  “Markus, please come into my office,” I hailed my muscle.

  “Yes ma’am?” Markus entered the room, his voice as rigid as his posture.

  “Have Michelle prepped for Surgical Room One. Here is a list of everything I will need for the procedure.”

  *

  Surgical Room One was not really meant for surgery. But since the room was the only one that could easily be sealed off from contamination, it was the only choice we had. The Engineers were working on portable surgical units that could be inflated and sealed in seconds. Their work could not come to fruition soon enough. But until it did, I would work in Room One. Fortunately we at least had all of the furniture and equipment necessary for just about every possible surgery. Honestly, I didn’t want to know how The Collective procured the tools, I just wanted to know that we had them.

  As for my surgical team? Anyone will do nearly an
ything in order to save themselves from the nightmare on the streets. Within the walls of the surgical theatre, I had doctors breaking nearly every code of conduct and morality imaginable. The experimentation these few genius doctors had been privy to would make the average person welcome the sweet release of death. There were times I knew I should have been questioning the ethics of my work, but in the end the means would be justified. If we truly wanted our world to continue, there were prices to be paid… heavy prices.

  With the promise of escaping the chaos, these doctors The Collective had gathered would do anything to keep from being sent back to the streets.

  Anything.

  With the team scrubbed and ready, Michelle was wheeled in, motionless save for sleep-state breathing. On a small surgical tray lay a vial. The contents of the vial? Semen from an infected, amplified male. The donor was yet another one of our failed tests. We infected a healthy young male with the blood of two previously infected males. One of the original infected males was a type one infection (what has been commonly referred to as a “Moaner”) The second infected male was a type two infection (commonly referred to as a “Screamer”) The resulting infection was a hybrid with considerably amplified strength, a vicious disposition, a constant temperature of 40.5 degrees Celsius, and perpetually suppurating sores. The hybrid could not be handled without extreme caution. Any contact with the seeping bodily fluids would result in infection. The monster was a perfect example of how evolution would protect its young.

  The experiment was simple: Artificial insemination with the hybrid sperm. The subject would then be under constant observation until an early labor would be induced in order to see how the actual birth of an infected child would affect both mother and baby.

  It was my belief the infected child would actually hold within its DNA the answer to the cure. But I believed that Bethany’s child would offer to mankind much more than a simple strand of DNA with the exact helical configuration to rid our race of this plague. Something deep within my gut told me this baby was something far more than that.

  “Are you ready, Professor?” Dr. Hawkins spoke through his surgical mask, looking over his spectacles as if he were my grandfather trying to get me to eat my oatmeal.

  “Proceed.”

  I was quite lucky to have gathered the finest surgeons in the area. I myself was neither licensed nor qualified to wield a scalpel for anything other than self-defense. That skill would come in quite handy now. Just as we were about to begin the procedure, a cacophony of alarms flooded the air. The klaxons within the building each had a specific purpose; what we were hearing indicated trouble from within.

  “Dr. Hawkins, continue without me.” I didn’t have time to explain my intent to return after the emergency was put to rest. The door to the makeshift surgical theatre hissed open and I sped off toward my office. My journey was cut short by Markus’s voice.

  “Professor, this way. One of the subjects has broken loose from its bonds and is attacking everything in sight.” Markus had a hint of fear in his voice, a trait he had yet to display. This was bad.

  “Which subject?” I held my breath after the question slipped between my lips. This moment was foreseeable so we had taken precautions to protect against possible attack and contamination. But in retrofitting the facility there had been no way to foresee how far the genetic mutations would travel. The monsters we had locked away were far stronger, far faster, and far more dangerous than we had ever imagined. Because of that, there was no way to predict how the security system would hold.

  “Delta,” was all Markus had to say.

  The reply stopped me in my tracks. Subject Delta was the worst of all the mutations. The Zero Day Collective had demanded its extermination, but I (like a fool) insisted it remain viable. The corrupted DNA would certainly make for some interesting later mutations. I should have realized what a tragic mistake that was.

  When we arrived at the Experimentation Ward all was chaos. Although the beast was unable to gain access to the cells containing the other subjects, it easily reached the members of the staff that found themselves trapped within the lab.

  Seeing Delta loose and raining down destruction made the creature look even worse than it did inside its cell. Since last I saw it, Delta had undergone yet another metamorphosis. Its skin was now translucent, revealing the underlying, over-sized musculature. Delta always reminded me of a zombie gorilla, with arms that reached the ground and a huge, barrel chest. That, of course, was where the similarities ended.

  Delta also had the same bifurcated, unhinged jaw that seemed to be growing ever more common in the mutations. His fingers each ended in razor-sharp points, stronger than hardened steel picks. Along the spine of the beast extended long, bony spikes. But even with the sum total of the more horrendous mutations, it was the eyes of the beast that were the most disturbing, the most frightening. Delta’s eyes were like misshaped balls of hardened cottage cheese that moved with a sickeningly wet sound. The eyes were most likely useless as Delta had an extremely heightened sense of sound and smell.

  When the Experimentation Ward was created, I insisted on the installation of numerous safety precautions. One of those measures was that with the press of a single button, nerve toxin was released. The toxin would render nearly anything temporarily paralyzed. That button was underneath my finger and ready for action. Why I was hesitant to follow through with pressing it, I had no idea. Maybe there was some hideous beauty in the destructive force of Delta that gave me pause. I couldn’t deny there was a sense of self-satisfaction in knowing the power displayed below me was of my creation. This was as close to being a mother and a God I would ever know. However, like all parents, there came a time when tough love was a necessity.

  I pressed the button.

  A loud hissing sound filled the perimeter. The gas that filled the antechamber could not been seen by the naked eye. The only indication was a slight, sugary smell in the air. By the time the olfactory senses registered the smell, it was too late; the body dropped almost instantaneously.

  At least it should have. The system had been used on numerous occasions and never failed. Both human and non-human subjects were affected by the toxin. Delta, however, remained standing. The beast grabbed one of the paralyzed lab technicians, wrapped his jaws around the head, and clamped down. Blood poured out as the head said its last goodbye to the body. Delta tossed the body aside like a chimp throwing feces and chewed through the skull to get to the soft, chewy matter.

  My brain ran itself through every possible scenario as to why this was happening. How could the magnificent beast be brought down without prematurely ending its life-cycle? As my brain scanned through my options, Delta snatched another motionless body from the floor and repeated the process of beheading, chewing, and swallowing. I couldn’t help but stop and wonder what the powerless assistant thought. Would the man’s brain silently scream for mercy as the monster opened wide to end his life?

  Only one living human remained in the lab. The lone assistant had managed to don a protective mask before the gas could take him down. Before Delta could spot the still-standing man, a plan immediately coalesced. I slapped my hand down on the intercom and instructed the man to run into Delta’s cell. I did not bother to explain myself. Within a matter of seconds Delta followed the man into the cell and I remotely closed the door. Both man and beast were trapped inside the confined space.

  I didn’t hear the man perish. The only sign of his death was a splash of blood and viscera on the three-inch thick Plexiglas door. I was thankful time and circumstance didn’t allow for guilt to plague my conscience. Had there been a moment to spare, the thought of sacrificing that man would have had me running to embrace the dark side and give myself over to beheading in Delta’s cell.

  Guilt be damned. My mission was far too important to let the loss of a few men take me down.

  After the chaos settled, my first thought was how to replace all of my lab assistants. Non-zombified humans had grown scarce in New
York. Finding humans with research-grade intelligence was another level of pain-in-the-ass I didn’t care to deal with at the moment.

  Regardless of where I was to find replacements, I had to get a few low-level employees to clean up the lab. When the new assistants arrived, it would be impossible to work on a floor covered with blood, bone, and entrails.

  *

  My office had always been a safe haven for me. There was never any concern for open door policy as my privacy was tantamount to my sanity. No one ever interrupted me; and that moment of privacy was as needed as any I had experienced in a long, long time. So, when my phone beeped, my temper flared almost out of control. I stared at the phone, daring it to chime again. It did. When I picked up the receiver I was pleasantly surprised by Dr. Hawkins’s voice on the other end. Had it been a member of the board I would have yanked them through the phone line and beat their head on my desk until their brains bounced from their skulls like little rubber balls.

  “Professor Michaels, the insemination is complete. I believe we will have a successful conception.” An odd sense of pride carried through the line in his voice. And why not? The man had successfully impregnated a healthy human female with the sperm of what could effectively be labeled a monster.

  Life and reality had truly taken a turn for the unholy.

  Of course Michelle could not know what had been done to her. Eventually she would find out, although we couldn’t be sure how far this particular pregnancy would progress. There was also the possibility the infection from the sperm would carry over to the mother. But if Bethany was considered a reliable control group, infection should not occur. If it did, we would deal with it accordingly.

  I wanted to be in the recovery room when Michelle awakened. There was only one sure way to guarantee the subject did not discover the nature of the surgery… be there to lie to her. I wasn’t sure how much time I had before the patient began to drop the dregs of anesthesia, but there was no reason to take a chance on one of the doctors or assistants spilling the beans to Michelle.