“I gotta get back to the security office and see this on video. Man, Henry you should have seen your face!” a big black fella named Rod said.
Henry wanted to knock his block off, but he was pretty sure Rod could easily prevent that from happening, being an EFC fighter and all. Still, he managed to shake his trembling fist at Rod. The big man and a few others just laughed and walked away, hauling off their stuff.
“We’ll make a copy and bring it to the party,” a woman named Myrtle said as she limped away.
That’s when Henry noticed something else, too. In his terror, he had momentarily forgotten about Tori, but she seemed to be doing fine, even with all of the tears in her eyes that were caused by all of her laughing.
“You—You were in on this?” he stammered.
She was still cackling, and he couldn’t believe his ears.
“I’m sorry, Lover. It was Rudy’s idea. I didn’t figure you’d fall for it hook, line, and sinker.”
“Hey, roll down your window, Bawk. It’s cool, just a little prank. You know, a little ‘welcome you back’ party. I figured it’d get you back in the swing of things.”
Henry felt like a fool as he rolled down the window, but it didn’t stop him from grabbing Rudy by the coveralls and pulling his head in.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Henry warned as he shoved the man back outside.
Tori started rubbing his arm, still chuckling as she said, “Easy, Lover. I’ll make it right. Man, you’re still shaking.”
“Get out.”
“What?”
“Get out … now.”
“Fine then, you big baby,” she said as she got out and slammed the door so hard it rocked the car on the springs. “I said I was sorry.”
Henry began to drive off as he heard Rudy yell, “Hey, leave the beer, man!”
He stopped the car and tossed the twelve pack onto the ground with a crash.
“Ah, Henry, you didn’t have to do that.”
But Henry didn’t hear him as he peeled away. He hadn’t been back for five minutes and he already wanted to get away. This place is sick.
CHAPTER 8
Location Unknown
The next time Nate McDaniel opened his eyes, he was looking into the face of a pretty black woman with a tiny mole on her chin. She seemed familiar for some reason, possibly the nurse he recalled hearing the first time he woke up. His nose and face were both aching now, and he was still starving as he reached up to rub his eyes. The woman’s hands were warm and soft when she grabbed his, pushing them back down.
“Easy now, big fella. All that moving is what landed you face first on the floor, and after all the work that Doctor Z did to you, you almost screwed it up. Oooh … he was furious,” she said as she put a warm coffee mug to his lips.
“What is it?” Nate managed to ask.
“Just some warm milk and honey to start with. If you can keep this down, I’ll give you something solid, but you have to be still … cause if you misbehave I’ll have to go.”
Nate didn’t like the way she said that as the horror of her leaving the last time flashed in his memory. She was the only link to what was going on. The warm porcelain felt good on his chin as he took a slurp. He never remembered milk or honey tasting so good.
“Ah … you like that, don’t you. Here, let me prop you up some more so you can finish it,” she said, reaching underneath his bed and winding a crank. In a matter of seconds he was almost in a full upright sitting position, and she lifted the cup to his lips again.
He started to reach for the cup, but his arm felt like it weighed a ton, and her eyes glimmered a warning.
She said, “Go ahead, but you better not make a mess. I’m getting tired of cleaning up after you. It’s hard to clean the crack of a big man like you, and Honey, let me tell you, you make a pretty big mess for someone that’s hardly had anything to eat the past few months.
“Months?” he blurted, spitting up his milk.
Her chestnut eyes filled with fear as she waved her hand at him and said, “I didn’t say that. Take care of me, and I’ll take care of you.” She wiped his chin off. “Trust me, you and me both don’t want to upset Mr. Z. No, no, no. I’ve seen too many people disappear after they cross him. I’d take a room full of zombies over a room full of him.” Nate didn’t have anything to say. His sluggish mind was trolling through a whirlpool of thoughts. It was hard to concentrate, and his heavy body was still full of aches and pains. At least the ravenous pangs of hunger were beginning to subside, but he was still tortured with the thought … Where the Hell am I?
She began snapping her fingers in his face.
“Hey, are we good?”
“Huh … uh, yeah, perfectly.”
She tucked the blankets underneath his legs and said as she eyed him, “Perfectly what?”
“Ma’am?”
“Do I look like and old woman to you?”
“Er … no?” he said as he set the glass on a small table by the bedside.
“Do you think I’m pretty?”
“Well, yes.”
“Good, then you can call me Rose.”
“I couldn’t have named you better myself,” he said with a boyish smile.
“Hmmm … I like that. Keep it up, big fella.” She patted his thigh. “Now, you just stay right there while I go and warm you up some more milk and honey. And if you keep talking to me like that, I’ll make you a special treat for later,” she said with a wink.
He was smiling as he watched her walk away in her white scrubs that seemed to enhance her attractive features, but when she opened the door another wave of fear crashed over him. What if she didn’t come back? Had she put something in his drink? Please hurry back! When the door closed, he broke out into a cold sweat as only he and the sound of the rattling air conditioner remained. Where am I? I’ve got to get out of here.
He laid his head back, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples, trying to recall the last thing he remembered. A beautiful woman was dead in his bed. Drugs were everywhere. That evil little man in black and a barrel of a gun pointed in his face—No, put in his hand. There was a loud gun shot. Oh my! It was the last thing he remembered before he blacked out.
“Christy Backwater …,” he muttered. He felt an inner victory for just recalling her name. He took a deep breath as he allowed more of the fog to lift from his brain. He wiggled his toes underneath the stiff cotton sheets, and then he realized he had to pee. Over in the corner of the room was a wooden door with a metal handle, either a closet or a bathroom. The pressure in his groin began to burn, and he figured he had recently been attached to a catheter. Great. He started to sit all the way up, ignoring the aching fire that was building in his nose, when he heard the door handle moving. Thank goodness! He allowed himself to lean back and close his eyes. Rose will take care of me. The tension in his neck eased. I just have to turn on the charm.
The door closed.
He said, “I missed you, Rose. It seemed like you were gone forever. Now, I’ve been good and I didn’t move a hair, so are you going to give me some more of your delicious milk and honey, Sweetie?”
“No,” a man’s deep voice belted out, “I was thinking I’d just punch you in the balls, Asshole.”
Nate’s entire body shuddered at the first syllable of the deep southern drawl from hell.
“I see you remember me,” the man in black said. “What’s that smell? Sniff sniff. Ah, did you just pee yourself? You did that the last time I came to see you, too. Well, I’ve smelled worse.”
This can’t be happening! This can’t be happening!
But it was, and why wouldn’t it be? After all, this was the last man he had seen before he woke up here. Of course, the man in black could only be the reason he survived, who else would have saved him. He assumed the WHS had something to do with it, even though he didn’t really have the time or ability to give it much thought.
He closed his eyes again. Go away! Go away! He didn’t want to open his eyes,
but he did. The nightmare was real. Slowly, his lids opened, and there he was: wearing a black ball cap, mirrored glasses, a burning cigarette, a smirk, a black polo shirt with two bean-pole arms, and a sidearm. His lower lip jutted out below a row of yellow teeth and a thin moustache.
Something ignited inside of Nate McDaniel that gave new strength to his limbs.
The little man hitched his foot up on the bedrail as he dropped a load of tobacco in his bottom lip. “So, Butthole that saved the world, how have you been?”
“You killed Christy. You killed Jeanine! You’re the asshole, not me!”
The man in black was unfazed, a cold face almost grinning like a fool. The man blew a ring of smoke his way and said, “Is that so?”
“Yeah … yeah that’s so!”
“So you want to fight me now, Lard Ass?”
“What? What is your problem?”
“I don’t like you,” the man said, flicking his ashes on his sheets.
“Well, I don’t like you either! Dickhead!” As Nate pulled his legs over the side of the bed the door opened again, and a large vulture of a man stepped through. Nate froze. Doctor Z?
“Get back in that bed, Son,” the man said with the authority of a policeman. “Walker, you better not be harassing the patient.”
Nate slid his feet back under the sheets, all but forgetting the man in black. The doctor was wearing a white lab coat and jeans, and featured the long haunting face of a seventy-year-old. His droopy gray eyes guarded a calculating mind full of secrets. Nate wanted nothing to do with this man. Something about him wasn’t right.
“Did you do this to my face?”
The doctor walked over and leaned over his face with a pen light, causing Nate to flinch.
“Be still,” the doctor said, pushing Nate’s eyelids back.
The doctor’s breath was fresh with peppermint, and his touch seemed squeaky clean as he massaged his fingers all over Nate’s face. Nate grimaced. The doctor took a whiff of air and said, “Did you just pee yourself?”
“No … well, I guess I did when he came in,” he said, sliding his eyes over to Walker.
“Hmph … were you trying to pee on him?”
It was funny how the doctor said it, but he wasn’t sure if he was joking or not.
“M-Maybe,” Nate replied.
“Walker, get the nurse back in here to clean him up, will you?”
“Yeh Doc,” Walker said as he slipped back outside the room.
The doctor sat down on the edge of Nate’s bed and folded his long arms across his lap. He rubbed his cheeks and said, “I bet you’re ready for some answers, aren’t you Nate?”
“Oh, you think?” Nate said, but he held his tone in check. The doctor just didn’t seem like someone he would want to upset.
“Okay, I changed your face. Major reconstructive surgery. It wasn’t my idea, those were my orders.”
Nate started to speak, but the doctor waved him off.
“Why? Well,” he paused, “… we couldn’t let you exist anymore. It was too dangerous.”
Insanity. He was the man who saved the world, so why would anyone not want him to exist? Harry! The man had called him every day for years and was the last person he remembered talking to other than Christy. Was he behind this? Did Harry rescue him, or had it been someone else? His mouth was dry, and he had trouble trying to speak as he shifted in his bed. He could feel the spot of damp pee in his pajama pants begin to cool and stick to his leg. He shifted again.
“Don’t worry about it, Nate. I’m a doctor; I’m used to it. Come to think of it, I think I nearly pissed myself the first time I met Walker. That gangly little redneck could scare the wings off a bird. He’s like a snake made out of ice that slithers up your leg or down your spine. Be glad he’s on our side.” The strange doctor patted his leg. “I’ll tell you a secret, though: I did piss myself the first time I saw zombies. It was early, and I was just starting my shift in the clinic, tending to a comely woman who had a chest cold.” The doctor winked. “My kind of patient. Anyway, next thing I know there is all of this screaming and commotion, and I’m running out to see what in the world is going on. The entire lobby was filled with them, eating my patients and nurses. It looked like something you would see on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, when the jackals eat a gazelle, except it wasn’t natural … just horrifying.” The doctor dazed off, still rubbing his leg, until Nate reached over and brushed his hand aside.
“At least you made it out and lived long enough to screw up my face.”
“True, thanks to my SUV. I ran over about twelve of them that day. I never would have survived without it, that’s for sure. And to think my wife, my 3rd wife, had almost talked me into buying a Prius a week earlier. Hah! She didn’t make it.” The doctor stood back up and sauntered over to the door.
“Hey, where are you going? You haven’t told me anything.”
The man tapped his Rolex watch and said, “It’s my lunch time. I’ll let Walker catch you up. I think it’s time you got better acquainted with him anyway. You two are going to be spending a lot more time together.”
It took a moment for Nate to realize that he was all alone again. The air conditioner still rattled, and the air was stuffy. He shook his head, closed his eyes, and opened them again. He was starting to wonder if any of what just happened really happened at all. He reached over for the mug that he had drank from a few minutes earlier, but it was gone. He didn’t remember Rose taking it. He shook his head. Was any of this real?
“NO! What’s happening to me?” Only the stale air replied.
CHAPTER 9
Institute, WV
Henry wasn’t in much of a mood to party, but it was hard to ignore all the laughter he could hear roaring down the hall at his expense. If there were a door he would have closed it, but there wasn’t. Instead, he was standing inside an open office layout that was filled with outdated desks and cubicles that were actually made out of wood and plaster. There was a large series of plate windows; something like a press box, overlooking another one of the campus’s many courtyards that had his attention. He gazed below at a chain-link fence that enclosed an area that looked like an unkempt city park gone wild.
“BWAW-HA-HA-HA!”
It was Rod from the security team roaring with laughter down the hall.
“LOOK AT HIS FACE! LOOK AT HIS FACE! HENRY, YOU GOT TO SEE YOUR FACE! BWAW-HA-HA!”
Rod was so loud that it seemed like he was in the room with him, but he was almost over on the other side of the building. Myrtle was cackling like a hyena somewhere nearby, and about two or three others were guffawing among the throng. He blocked it out and focused on the morbid procession in the courtyard down below.
Six zombies were at work. One was pushing a lawnmower, and another was pulling a made-for-man plow as the other four stood and seemed to be watching in slack-jawed fascination. Ridiculous. Two men in black WHS camouflage suits armed with shot guns were in the area, while two other figures, in WHS issue lab-coats similar to his, were watching the zombies. They looked like figurines on a television screen from where Henry was standing. What are they up to now?
Henry headed over to the computer station and looked up into the large monitors. Two small joysticks were pinched in his fingertips as he nimbly panned in and out of the images in the courtyard. What? Weege and Alice?
“What are those two doing down there?” he muttered to himself.
“Dude, we have a skeleton crew. All of the complex big wigs are gone. Some big conference or something.” It was Rudy. Great. Henry could hear him gulping down something, but he didn’t bother to turn. “The director is still here, though, hiding somewhere in the other quadrant …”
Henry was panning in on the zombies now. They didn’t seem as horrifying in their forest green jumpers and white hardhats. If he didn’t know any better, they’d pass for people, from a distance. He zoomed the camera in for a closer look at the zombies that weren’t working at the moment. Each sagging gray f
ace had a harness strapped around its mouth. To Henry, it looked more like a retainer, installed by a mad dentist. He could see that the metal brace was hooked inside the rows of rotting teeth, like a bit for a horse, and that it was tethered to a small battery pack that was strapped over the zombie’s shoulders.
“… so, are you still mad? We said we were sorry, Henry. You’re just so sensitive over the zombies. I mean, they aren’t going anywhere, and we have them under control. Come on, have a beer and relax,” Rudy said as he edged closer.
Henry didn’t even realize Rudy was still talking. His mind was somewhere else. It seemed there was always a surprise of some sort, a breakthrough, whenever he returned. The last time, his brother had been back and intent on killing them all. They had also started testing the XT Formula, without his consent, for what reasons he would never understand. Now, he was certain, and he checked every camera from every angle, certain that something had been done. Something they didn’t want to do while he was here, so they sent him away. This time, he was going to figure it out before the big surprise came.
“Hey Henry, quit pouting and get in here and watch this video!” Rod’s hulking frame had entered the room and cast a shadow over the top of Henry and Rudy.
He felt obligated to turn around. The two men were just staring at him as if they were waiting for him to say something. Rudy looked like he hadn’t shaved since the last time he left, and his Quantum Leap T-shirt had tightened around his belly. Rod on the other hand was a figure that would have made the local fans of John Henry proud. The big man was one of the few people that Henry enjoyed talking with, even though he did have a very boisterous standard of behavior.
“Okay, hold on.”
He glanced back over at the screens and almost laughed as he watched the zombie pushing the lawnmower almost run over the little man from India, Weege.
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