I Zombie I [Omnibus Edition]

by Jack Wallen

  JayLynn nervously shook her head.

  Faddig took in the scent of the young woman. “You smell delicious. I can only imagine what it would be like to experience that sweet aroma through heightened senses. If you fail me, that glorious feminine air surrounding you will stink of rot.” Faddig pressed his lips against JayLynn’s. “Is that clear?”

  She let out a fearful moan. It wasn’t until the commander spun on his heels and strode to the exit that the tears began to race down her cheeks. When he turned back to face JayLynn, she quickly wiped at her eyes.

  “That’s sweet, doctor, showing your vulnerability. Let that slip again and you die. Should you not manage to return Subject 001 to operational functionality within twenty-four hours…you die.” Faddig smiled coldly. “Have a wonderful day.”

  With that, he slipped out of the purified air of the Medical car and into the warm, stale hallways. For the first time in a while, Commander Faddig strolled; as he did, his chest puffed up with purpose and pride. “The days of Jonathan Bumbling Burgess are over. The might of righteousness is on our side. We cannot lose.”

  Without warning, the squeal of brakes shattered the moment of peace. Faddig’s stroll quickly shifted to a march that carried him to the head of the train. He slammed his way into the conductor’s car and shouted, “Why in the bloody hell are you stopping?”

  The conductor turned around, his face a solid block of fear. He pointed a violently shaking finger toward the tiny, forward-facing window. Faddig leaned in to see the sights. A massive horde of Moaners stood, swaying on the tracks. “Son of a bitch,” he shouted. “Why didn’t you just ram into them with the fucking cow catcher and shove the sons of bitches aside?”

  “S-sir,” the conductor stuttered, his nervousness spilling from every orifice available.

  Faddig turned and leaned in dangerously close to the conductor. “What?”

  The conductor took in a deep breath and spoke through a thread of fear, “We wouldn’t have made it through. There are too many of them…sir.”

  The commander shot another glance through the window and turned back. “I don’t give a shit how you do it, but this fucking train better be moving in the next fifteen minutes, or I’ll toss your worthless ass out into the middle of that mob and drive this goddamn thing myself!” Faddig’s voice ended on a screaming note. Blood rushed to his face and veins wormed under his cinnamon-hued skin. “Is that clear…driver?”

  The man nervously shook his head. Faddig continued glaring.

  “Why are you still standing here?” barked Faddig.

  A jet stream of silence followed behind the young man as he sped from the room.

  Once again, power surged through Faddig’s system. His fingertips tingled from the rush of adrenaline. As the effect wore off, the overwhelming silence of the train nearly clobbered his heart. With one hand, he lifted the locomotive’s view port and allowed the monstrous music to wash over him. The look on his face was an exquisite mix of joy and suffering─a dichotomy only one as powerful as Faddig could fully grasp.

  The idea hit him like a prizefighter punch to the kidney. He raced out of the locomotive and back into the Medical car. Doctor Duchamp was hovering over Subject 001.

  “How many doses of the Cradle are prepped?” Faddig asked smoothly.

  JayLynn spun on her expensive heels. “About twenty,” she replied nervously. “Why?”

  “I need them all.”

  “Why would─” JayLynn started before Faddig cut her off sharply.

  “Do not presume to be in a position to question my demands.”

  JayLynn offered a twitching nod, her anime eyes locked on the floor between her feet.

  “I need them now,” Faddig insisted.

  “Yes, sir,” JayLynn replied without hesitation. She rushed to a laboratory-grade cooling unit, opened the door, and retrieved a rack of vials. “Each of these contains enough of the Cradle for one…undead human. Once injected, you must fire up the generator and hit them with a single pulse at 19 kHz.”

  “Isn’t that just below the human range?” questioned Faddig.

  “Yes, but it’s the correct frequency to initiate the Cradle’s reaction. The pulse must also be above one hundred and twenty decibels and sustained for nearly ten seconds.”

  “How am I to remember all of this…and know exactly how to pull it off on a foreign machine?”

  JayLynn scrunched her face up. “All of the instructions for the device are in this binder. Read it and you’ll know exactly what to do.”

  “Duchamp, you may have just borrowed yourself a few more lives,” Faddig whispered seductively into the ear of JayLynn.

  The doctor handed Faddig the tray. “Please be careful. Should this serum make its way onto living flesh, the results would be disastrous.”

  “Maybe I should test that hypothesis here and now?”

  JayLynn instantly flushed with fear.

  “Of course,” Faddig started, “that would ruin my chances at bedding the sexiest woman on my payroll. You’re safe…for now.”

  With the Cradle in hand, Faddig exited the Medical car in a rush. When he reached the Security car, he placed the tray on a table and barked out his orders.

  “I want each of those Moaners blocking our way injected with the Cradle serum immediately.”

  The head of security faced down Faddig with a bravado no one else dared exhibit in his presence. “Sir, we don’t have the luxury…”

  Before the officer finished his sentence, Faddig had his sidearm out and the barrel pressed into the right eye of the offending man. He pressed until the man screamed and a clear liquid oozed down his cheek. “One more word and your brain is porridge,” Faddig hissed.

  The officer fell silent…not even so much as his breathing registered.

  Faddig leaned in so his lips were inches from the man’s ear. “I want you to deliver the injection by yourself. Think you can handle that order? If that is not amenable, fret not–the pain of twenty or so Moaners tearing you to bits won’t last long.”

  “Sir, yes, sir,” the officer called out, then spun on his heels, vials in hand, and marched out of the room.

  “This should be interesting,” Faddig said with a malicious grin. “I want to watch every second of this,” he told the remaining officers.

  A few seconds of the clock ticked off before one of the grunts said, “Here, sir. I have the forward-facing camera on-line.” The man pointed to the wall-hanging monitor. In full, high-resolution color, the scene on the tracks played out in perfect, eerie silence.

  The officer stepped out of the front car. Before him, he held a newly-designed weapon with a full magazine of Cradle-filled darts.

  “That magazine only holds thirty vials,” one of the red shirts said with genuine concern. “There must be fifty Moaners out there.”

  Another grunt added, “Odds are, he’ll be lucky to hit forty percent of those bastards, which will leave around thirty-eight brain-eaters.”

  “Forty-eight,” Faddig said with finality. “There are only twenty doses. He’ll never make it.” He grabbed a walkie-talkie from the bench and hit the talk button. “I need a task force prepped and ready to reclaim a small group of conversions now.”

  From the tinny speaker, a voice replied, “Yes, sir.”

  “Grab your popcorn, boys. This is going to be a piece of theater you won’t want to miss.”

  The red shirt stepped carefully and slowly between the railroad tracks─toward the Moaners─weapon raised. Suddenly, the zombies stopped their rhythmic swaying and sniffed at the air. As one, the Moaners turned to face the officer. Without hesitating, he fired. Liquid vaporized on contact with random zombies.

  “He’s actually fucking hitting some of them,” one of the grunts said with a laugh.

  The Moaners stumbled forward. The red shirt continued firing as he backed away, his heel catching on a railroad tie.

  The officers groaned and shouted as they witnessed the zombies converge on the red shirt. In a sil
ent-movie nightmare, bits of flesh flew up and out in every direction. A scarlet arc of blood sprayed from the center of the maulers.

  Faddig hit the talk button on the walkie and said sharply, “Send the collectors out now. Bring in the converted.”

  As the Moaners dined on the fallen soldier, some fell to the ground…lifeless.

  The collectors entered the scene and dismantled the remaining Moaners with silenced automatic weapons. One by one, the zombies dropped. Soldiers scrambled to drag the converted out of the scene and into the Zero Day Collective headquarters.

  “Good,” Faddig hissed softly. “From the grave to the Cradle, our numbers grow. It’s time to put on our war paint.”

  four | orange purple

  Something deep within my subconscious begged me to fire up my laptop and venture into the realm of social networking. Prior to the Mengele Virus kicking an ounce of humility back into the human race, sites like Facebook and Twitter were little more than cesspools of narcissism, hatred, and pleas of buy my book. Comments inevitably turned rank with political and religious dogma. Anything shorter than one hundred and twenty characters wasn’t generally worth my time.

  The apocalypse changed all of that. Social networking had evolved into a call board of the survivors. Twitter managed to reclaim its value by helping people reconnect and remain alive.

  And then there’s Zombie Radio. Where would we be without our personal soundtrack to the end of the world? I, for one, would be strutting down a padded catwalk styling some serious straight-jacket fashion.

  I logged onto my Twitter account, @_ZeroOneZero, and checked the warp speed feed. To slow things down a bit, I filtered the results down to only those I’d deemed important. Immediately, something of note popped up. A direct message from the Zombie Radio DJ.

  @_ZeroOneZero call me. Number to follow.

  “Jamal,” I shouted in a voice that certainly conveyed far too much concern. When he didn’t appear in seconds, I called out a second time─only with even more urgency.

  “Holy shit, what’s wrong?” Jamal appeared in the doorway, sucking wind like he’d run a marathon.

  “I need one of the burners…now.”

  Jamal vanished. I glanced back at the screen.

  @_ZeroOneZero 555-217-7337

  “Hurry, Jamal,” I cried out.

  @_ZeroOneZero Call me in three.

  “Damn it, Jamal,” I shouted.

  “Here. Sorry.” Jamal spoke, again out of breath. He handed me a burner and I immediately dialed the number…but held off on pressing Call.

  @_ZeroOneZero two

  “What’s going on?” Jamal asked.

  I held up my hand to silence him.

  @_ZeroOneZero one

  Jamal complied.

  @_ZeroOneZero now

  I hit the Call button. A slight pause and the phone rang. After three rings, he answered.

  “Love of my life…and I’m not quoting Freddie Mercury,” the DJ said, his voice still sex in stereo. “I’m going to keep this short, so the call cannot be traced. I need an email address so I can send you an encrypted message with the location of Dr. Richard Gerrand─the man who just might save our asses.”

  I paused.

  “No time for worship or flirtations, my darling dearest. Just recite to me an email address where I may send you a missive to set you on your next mission.”

  I offered up my personal email address. He laughed and said, “I cannot promise you I won’t send you naughty pics of me…someday. Anyway, the decryption password is simple. Ask Mr. Garcia the name of the only song he ever requested I play, and you’ll have the location for the man of the hour. And, Bethany…the man’s legit. And now, before the ZDC has a chance to trace this call, I must bid you adieu.”

  The line went dead.

  “DJ,” I shouted into the phone. “Fuck me in binary.” I slammed the burner down and glanced at Jamal.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  I stood, laptop in hand. “Follow me.”

  We wound our way through the house and located Josh and Morgan in the kitchen─both with steaming mugs in hand. The aroma nudged me in that special place only coffee lovers know about. Morgan held up her mug and said, “There’s plenty.”

  I cut to a very quick chase. “Josh, do you remember the name of the song you requested the Zombie Radio DJ play for you a while ago?”

  Josh laughed. “Damn, girl, I’ve slept a few times since then.” Again he unleashed his big-man laugh. “I’m just fucking with you. Of course I remember. ‘Nightmare’, by Avenged Sevenfold.”

  Without bothering to explain, I opened up the email client and entered my password. One by one the emails appeared. It wasn’t until I saw the subject eyes only that I clicked. When the password prompt appeared, I entered nightmare and was rewarded with an address.

  “Morgan, do you have a unit in Baltimore?” I asked.

  “Yeah, why?” Morgan questioned.

  I turned to her and Josh, took in a deep, nervous breath, and said, “I have the address of the man who claims to have cured the virus.”

  “Gerrand?” Morgan asked.

  I nodded.

  Josh thrust a pair of mean-ass devil horns in the air and shouted, “Hell, yeah.”

  “We have a unit there. I can get them on the road any time.” Morgan withdrew her cell from a cargo pocket. “Say the word.”

  “Word,” I said.

  Morgan scanned her contacts and tapped a number. She placed the phone to her ear and, within seconds, spoke. “This is Morgan. I have immediate, Code Alpha orders for you. A pick-up and deliver. Yes. I will send you the delivery address at,” she glanced at her watch and continued, “orange purple. Yes. Expect it via the standard route, heavy encryption. I cannot stress enough, this is priority number one.”

  She ended the call.

  “Orange purple?” Jamal asked.

  Josh laughed, which drew a glare from Morgan. He held up his hands in mock surrender.

  Morgan answered Jamal. “We use the color wheel to indicate time. Orange is three and purple is six. Orange purple is 3:30.”

  “That’s fucking brilliant,” Jamal confessed. “Elegant simplicity.” He turned to me, his eyes wide with curious delight. “Bethany, we have got to start adopting that kind of analog thinking. It opens up an entire realm of encryption systems the ZDC would never be able to break. Think about it; we could use old television shows to indicate location.” Jamal laced his fingers behind his head and paced. “Mork and Mindy would indicate Boulder, Colorado. One Day At A Time for Indianapolis, Indiana. Alf for San Fernando, California. Breaking Bad for Albuquerque, New Mexico.”

  I held my hands up to stop the J-train from gaining any more momentum. “It’s brilliant, Jamal. You are officially in charge of developing our new communication code. But remember, not everyone knows as much TV and film trivia as you.”

  Morgan took her rightful place in the spotlight. “Can I use your laptop?” she asked.

  I hesitated. This was the very machine that had decoded the Mengele Virus. Not one finger outside of my hands had touched a key. My heart skipped a beat. My brain locked. Morgan was not only a fellow soldier in the fight against the spiraling darkness, but also a friend. Even so, the hacker in me refused to let go of the idea that anyone could walk away with the precious cargo stored on my laptop.

  Against all the objections of my heart and mind, I spun the laptop until it faced her. She smiled and started typing.

  “I just need to send Gerrand’s location to Rondo.” She glanced up to me. “Don’t worry, we use an encrypted remailer. It cannot be tracked.”

  I closed my eyes and drew in a quick breath.

  Morgan steamrolled my complaint before I could voice it. “I promise you…this system is Bethany and Jamal approved.” She vigorously tapped the Enter key and stood up straight. “Done. They have the address and will be on their way in less than an hour. I guess you’ll want to dial up─” Morgan stopped herself and raised an eye
brow. “Does the Zombie Radio DJ have a name?”

  The room fell silent.

  We’d been listening to the man for so long I’d lost track of the time. Yet, during this on-going affair with the disembodied voice, there was no name associated with the man.

  “I’ve only ever called him DJ,” I confessed.

  Morgan chuckled and continued on. “You need to call Mr. DJ and have him relay the message to Gerrand that the cavalry is on its way. I need to set myself an alarm for 3:30.”

  Morgan motioned for Josh to follow. He did, like a puppy─a big, huggable puppy. Watching the two of them helped me to realize there was hope. If such love and devotion could exist amid a hail storm of hatred, humanity could possibly beat back entropy and salvage what remained of our species.

  “So, B.” It was Echo’s turn to yank me from my reverie.

  I shook off the fugue and responded, “Yeah?”

  “Rizzo and I were hoping we could go with you on your next run. We think you could use someone watching your back. You and J-dog are the brains of this operation. We lose you, and the fat lady has pretty much belted her last tune.” Echo batted her lashes at me, her eyes beaming a youthful pretty please my way.

  I nodded. How could I resist?

  I couldn’t, that’s how. Besides, she was right. Jamal and I were near the bottom of the food chain when it came to weapons. Having a small guard detail would help ensure our survival.

  “Listen,” I grabbed Echo’s attention. “That’s all fine and good, but you have to follow rules and stay sharp. Going out there isn’t a game. Okay?”

  Echo nodded quickly.

  I chanced a smile. Echo picked up on the gesture and returned it with gusto.

  “We won’t let you down, B.”

  I pulled Echo in for a hug. “I know you won’t.”

  When Echo exited the embrace, I said, “Lock and load. We’ll head out in twenty.”