“No,” he said, nodding his head side-to-side but still smiling. “You're not. Sorry to be the one to break the bad news to you. You're going to be just fine.”
“I was bitten by a zombie,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “You don't come back from that. Do you?”
I reached down and pulled up my shirt. I had gauze taped to my ribs. I ripped it back, not expecting to be as painful as it was. I winced in pain, closing my eyes as I let out a gasp. When the pain subsided I took a good look at the wound. A crescent shape bite mark the size of a small child's mouth perforated the flesh of my abdomen just below my rib cage, but it had scabbed all the way over. To the casual observer it might have looked like I got tangled up in something, or was peppered with broken shards of glass in a fight.
“You see?” Moto pointed to the wound. “It's almost healed already.”
Despite my mind arguing that it wasn't possible, the evidence showed he was right. The injury was now nothing more than a tiny island chain of hardened blood ringed by puffy, pink flesh. It appeared to be no more life threatening than a cat scratch.
“In no time at all you'll be as good as new,” Moto assured me. “Which is first-rate! I've got a lot to tell you. Gotta get you caught up to speed.”
“How is this possible?” I was still having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I wasn't one of the living dead.
“Apache radioed to us,” Moto said. “We got there as fast as we could.”
“He said you'd been looking for me?”
“I sent choppers up to Vandenberg after I found out,” he informed me. “There were no survivors. None of the deceased matched your description. I knew you'd make it out. I believed it in the pit of my stomach. It's been all that's kept me going since, the thought of seeing you again. You have no idea how happy I was to hear from Apache.”
I thought about the black helicopters that passed over us when we were on the road to New Lompoc. How different would things have been if Benji and I had stayed near the base?
“He told me that you had been asleep for about five minutes,” Moto continued. “We administered the antidote before moving you so we wouldn't lose any time.”
“Did you just say antidote?” My head was spinning. “Does that mean that the outbreak was caused by a virus?”
“Yes,” Moto said. “We know that now for sure. We even know who created it. It was one of our guys, not some terrorist attack like we originally suspected. What we don't know is how it got out. We are still working on that.”
So much for Felicity's fast food theory, I thought. Not that I would be having Arby's any time in the near future, the way things were going.
“So there is a cure for it?”
“Yes and no,” he said, looking around the room nervously. He looked up and over my head, holding his eyes on something for several seconds before returning them to me. “It's complicated.”
I turned and saw he was looking at a camera with a red flashing light on top. I had been so out of it, I hadn't seen that there were several cameras recording our conversation.
“If there is a cure then why are there still zombies?” I wasn't trying to be difficult or ungrateful. I really wanted to understand. “Why can't we just give a dose to everyone that's been infected and end this whole nightmare?”
Moto sighed and rubbed his temples.
“First of all,” he started, “there wouldn't be enough of the antidote to save everyone. It's not easy to make. Many of the ingredients were hard to come by before Z-Day. Now they are virtually impossible to get.”
“Like what?”
“Spider venom for one,” Moto said. “One of the side effects of a bite from a brown recluse is that the tissue around the wound dies. Doctors have to cut the dead skin and tissue away from the wound and a lot of times people end up needing plastic surgery to cover the nasty looking scar. The way in which the healthy cells go necrotic is similar to the way the zombie virus functions, in part. There are a lot of parallels. So we figured out how to isolate the chemical that does that and reverse engineer it as part of the antidote. The problem is that it requires plenty of actual spider venom—or an equally rare synthetic compound that takes weeks to yield small batches under absolutely perfect lab conditions.”
“Let me get this straight,” I said, “you're saying that I'm gonna be like Spiderman now?”
Benji is going to be so jealous, I thought.
“Will I have super human strength and be able to swing through the air and shoot webs to slow bad guys down?”
“Not that I've ever seen,” he said. “But you've always had a supernatural ability to annoy people. Looks like you've retained it. That should come in handy around the base. Really help you win new friends over.”
Moto grinned from ear to ear as he teased me. Things were getting back to normal in some small way. It felt good to have my brother back, even if he was reminding me of what a bossy know-it-all he usually was.
“And you've kept your killer sense of humor,” I fired back.
“That's just one part of the recipe,” Moto said, finishing his explanation. “There are a ton of very complicated steps that go into creating the cocktail. The vast majority of the ingredients are as dangerous to use as they are to locate or whip up.”
“I lost all track of time and space,” I said. “It's weird, because I am sitting here talking to you but I don't even feel like the same person that I was before. The truth is that if the walls melted right now and you sprouted butterfly wings and began singing opera, I wouldn't be all that surprised.”
I half expected him to argue that I had been through a traumatic experience, but instead the smile slid off his face and his demeanor grew darkly serious.
“One of the other ingredients is Ibogaine,” he said. “It's a powerful natural hallucinogenic derived from a root. It's banned in the United States, or it used to be, but you can easily get it in Mexico, if you don't get butchered by surviving cartel members or devoured by hordes of zombies with over a million people in them.”
“So it makes you trip out?” That would account for the wild visions and out of body experiences I had undergone.
“Shamans used to take it,” Moto said. “It's about a hundred times more powerful than LSD or mushrooms. They were giving it to junkies the last I heard because the trip was so heavy it scared them off ever using drugs again, that's if they lived through it. The dose you received was cleaner and more balanced than just eating the plant version, but it was also much stronger.”
“How long does it last?”
“Usually not more than a couple of days,” he said. “We were starting to get worried about you.”
“How long have I been out?”
“Seven days,” Moto said.
Seven days? Is he kidding? How could I be high and locked in a room for a whole week and not know about it?
“I'd like to argue with you but I kind of lost track of time where I was,” I said. “Am I still on it now?”
I turned my hand over in front of my face several times and waved it in the air. Moto laughed at me.
“No,” he said. “You'd know. You were pretty incoherent when you were juiced up.”
I looked around the room again at all the cameras. They'd been monitoring me like a lab rat. I knew it was a small price to pay to not be a mindless zombie, but it still made me uncomfortable. I didn't want to sound ungrateful so I kept my thoughts to myself.
“Will I feel any side effects?”
“It's possible,” he said. “A few people reported feeling mild aftershocks so to speak after being given the antidote—like flash backs, but nothing serious. Walls breathing, people melting, losing track of time, that kind of thing.”
“Oh,” I said. “So nothing too scary like people around me transforming into flesh eating demons that want to kill me . . . or delusions of grandeur.”
“No more than normal for you,” he said, raising his finger to his temple and making a cuckoo bird ge
sture. “You've always been a little Loony Tunes, if you know what I mean.”
“How did I get here?” I asked, ignoring his taunt.
“You were strapped down and transported in an armored Humvee,” he said. “You were too close to consider air lifting. We only have one chopper and our fuel supplies are limited. Apache caught us up to speed on your condition and your friends filled in the blanks.”
“Apache?” I shook my head more. “He told his name was Simon.”
“Really?” Moto couldn't hide his amusement. “We never could get him to tell us his name. Not even to me in private. We took to calling him The Apache because he lived in a teepee and talked like a crazy Indian. It's like the guy speaks in riddles or something.”
I smiled as I remembered thinking the exact same thing. I'd almost forgotten along the way what it was like to have real family that I grew up with. It made the end of the world that much easier, knowing he was with me.
“It's amazing what people will open up and tell you when you are about to die,” I said sarcastically.
“I know what you mean,” he said. “Believe it or not I've been where you are right now.”
“What?”
My mind reeled. My brother had been bitten by a zombie? He'd had to go through all of this alone? It was more than my mind could comprehend.
“I'll tell you all about it later,” he said, “or at least as much as I am allowed to tell you. In case you haven't noticed we're not alone.”
“Who is watching us?”
“I asked the General for permission to debrief you,” he said. “He's been kind enough to give us some leeway considering the unusual circumstances around your discovery. He said only a Macnamara would try to kill a horde of zombies with a toothpick carnival sword to defend his two pals, more or less. I'm paraphrasing. Basically, I think you impressed him.”
“So what aren't you telling me?”
I knew my brother's 'poker tells' from growing up with him. He was definitely keeping something from me, and it was big.
“Let's just start with what I can tell you,” he said. “You are not allowed to tell anyone about being bitten by a zombie or about receiving an antidote. That's the big one. It's not as hard as it sounds though. No one in the outside world would believe you and no one here has the clearance to ask about it.”
“What about the civilians on base?”
“Good question,” he said, patting me on the shoulder. “It brings me to my next debriefing point. There are no civilians at Port Hueneme. If civilians were allowed I would have brought you here from the start. The only non-military personal here are doctors and the wives of enlisted men. This is an advanced military base, the last one on the west coast. If you decide to remain here, you will need to enlist. Otherwise, you will be shipped to a controlled civilian population area, most likely the clean zone out near Las Vegas.”
“I'm not old enough to enlist,” I said. “I'm only sixteen.”
“Age is no longer a consideration for those who wish to serve their country,” he explained, sounding like a recruiting commercial. “America needs all the able-bodied trained soldiers it can get to fight this war.”
“I don't want to be separated from you again,” I said. “Will I get to stay here?”
“The General has assured me that if you are so inclined, I will be allowed to personally oversee your training. You're already temporarily assigned to my unit, just in case.”
“I'm in,” I said without hesitation. Moto smiled, but there was sadness in his eyes.
“Glad to hear it, soldier,” he said. “I assured them that you would react this way. It's gonna make things a whole lot easier for a lot of jumpy people. Now the first thing we got to do is get you changed out of those hospital scrubs and into a proper uniform. After that, we're gonna shave off those curly locks of yours.” He ran his fingers through my hair and messed it up. “If you need a moment to say goodbye to your Justin Beiber fever hairdo, I'll understand.”
“What did you guys do with Benji?”
“You'll be happy to know that your little friend gladly enlisted the minute we got him back to camp and gave him a hot meal and a shower,” Moto said. “He's been assigned a non-combat job working in the canteen. He’s eager to see you so he'll be glad to know you're up and moving around.”
“He was there,” I said. “He saw me get bit. What am I supposed to tell him?”
“It's not a problem,” Moto said. “Benji is a soldier now. He's been debriefed, just like you. If the subject comes up, all you have to say is that the incident is classified and you're not allowed to talk about it.”
“Oh,” I said lamely. It was going to take a bit to get used to this new way of life as a soldier.
“Aren't you forgetting about somebody?” Moto had that knowing grin that drove me crazy when we were kids. It was the same look he gave me when Darla, the girl who lived across the way from us back home, brought me a Valentine's card one year.
“Felicity Jane,” I said. Now it all seemed like a dream that I had been involved with a celebrity I'd met along the way. Then again, flesh eating zombies had taken over the world so everything seemed kinda like a dream.
“Don't be shy,” Moto said. “She's a great girl.”
“Is she still here?”
“She is,” he confirmed. “They tried to send her away to a clean zone when she refused to enlist but she said she wasn't leaving until she saw you. Apparently you made quite an impression on her.”
“What am I supposed to tell her?”
“Tell her the truth,” he said. “Tell her you are not allowed to talk about it and that all that matters is that you are here now, alive and well. She'll understand.”
“Are they going to make her leave?”
“Under normal circumstances they would for sure,” he said. “As I said, this is an active military base. Strictly speaking there are no civilians here, aside from doctors and research assistants. I think we both know she's no ordinary girl.”
“So you're saying that they are looking the other way and letting her stay because she was a celebrity?”
“I'm not saying that,” he said, gesturing to the cameras again to remind me we were being watched.
“Then what are you saying?” I could feel myself bristling at the suggestion that they were giving her special treatment because of who she was. I didn't like the thought of people treating her like a trained monkey that was there to amuse them. She was a real person, and she deserved to be treated with dignity and respect. I could feel the blood pounding in my ears as my desire to protect her at all costs began to override my logic and reason. I didn't even know what I was getting upset about.
“I'm saying that the higher-ups have decided for the time being that she is good for the troops’ morale,” he said. “You should be grateful. If she was just some girl you'd met on the road she'd be in the desert right now, probably working on a farm.”
“When can I see her?”
“Just as soon as we've put you through the enlistment process and sworn you in. In addition to your enrollment application, there is some extra paperwork they are going to want you to sign as well, mostly going over what we've talked about here and how you can't repeat any of it without their permission.”
“What are we waiting for?” I began looking for the exit to the padded white room. I wanted to see Felicity as fast as I could. Moto stopped me and gave me a bear hug that lifted me clear off my feet. I could feel a pinch in my side where the wound was, but I didn't complain.
“Glad to have you back, little brother,” he said.
“Glad to be back in one piece,” I replied.
He gave me another big hug that nearly crushed the wind out of me, but I didn't fight him. For the first time in a very long time, I felt like everything was finally going to be okay again.
Chapter Twenty Six
“So they've had a cure all this time and they don't want anyone else to know about it?”
Felic
ity couldn't stop rubbing my freshly shaved head. It felt good at first but after about ten minutes it was starting to get on my nerves. She hadn't stopped touching me since she caught sight of me crossing the base with Moto, on the way to get a batch of immunization shots. She'd been talking to a group of spell-bound soldiers and stopped mid-sentence, jumping up and racing to throw herself into my arms. I had to practically pry her off the front of me and when I did, she showered me with kisses. Not that I minded, to be honest. I just didn't expect her affection to last this long. I'd never saved a girl’s life before by trying to sacrifice myself. I didn't know how long the effect lasted.
“Keep your voice down,” I whispered, looking around to make sure we weren't being watched more than usual. “They warned me that I'm not allowed to tell anyone, even you.”
“But I was there,” she protested. “How did they expect to hide that from me?”
“I'm just letting you know what they said,” I whispered. “They made me sign a stack of paperwork saying I wouldn't talk about it. You'd have thought that there were camera units waiting outside to interview me or something. It was weird. Then the General congratulated me personally and gave me a medal of valor.”
I absentmindedly ran my fingers over the small medal pinned to the chest of my clean new uniform.
“What are they going to do? Arrest you?” She turned and wrapped her arms around me, putting her head on my shoulder.
“They could,” I said, nodding at some passing Marines who couldn't take their eyes off Felicity. “Technically speaking, they own me now. They can do whatever they want to me if I break the rules.”
“Moto would never allow it,” she said, shaking her head.
We were sitting out near the mechanical generators, staring at the electric fence in the distance. Felicity had offered to give me a tour of the base after I got my shots and Moto had thought it was a good idea. He'd dashed off in a hurry, then caught up with us a few minutes later and given me back my katana.
“Now that you are a soldier you can have this back,” he said. “We'll get you a gun later as well but for now just make sure you don't lose this again.”
Zombie Attack! Rise of the Horde Page 26