The shock subsided and he began to hear again. The moaning was different on this level. It wasn’t hunger like he heard everywhere else. Instead, it was the dull groan of constant pain. It sounded more like Egypt than he cared to admit.
“Fucking gruesome, huh? That Doctor Miller is a drunk-ass, sloppy surgeon.”
“Do they slaughter pigs in here or something?” Mason asked incredulously, carefully stepping around the smeared blood stains streaking the floor.
Matty laughed. “No, this is how Doctor Miller likes it, though, the sick bastard. Thank God he’s got a job cutting up zombies, because out in the real world he’d be on a CNN manhunt, for sure.”
Even though Mason knew the salivary gland was the point of infection, and that the way zombies were neutralized for domestic labor was to surgically remove the glands, he never imagined it was done like this.
“How are we going to clean all this?” Mason asked.
“What do you mean we, white man?” Matty replied with a raised eyebrow. He let Mason squirm a moment before chuckling and walking toward a door that had the words JANITOR CLOSET on them. “Come on, weak dick, I’ll show you what we gotta do.”
Seven
“Hot damn, first floor,” Matty said enthusiastically as he slid his card over the door panel. It chirped and the magnetic door lock clacked to let them in. “We might actually get out of here by five or six for once. This is the easiest floor. Just shit patrol in the cells.”
Mason yanked the door open and they stepped through a fan-blast of wind to be met with the loud moaning of the zombies held on this level. They sounded normal, that constant plea for food as though constantly starved. Both Mason and Matty stopped and stared at the three figures standing between the rows of cells ahead of them. None of them wore uniforms. Two of them were putting something into a black and red case. The third began walking toward them. He was wearing a brown leather jacket, had long hair with streaks of silver at the temples, and a fake smile.
“Gentlemen,” he said loudly, holding up his security badge to Mason. Mason realized it was because he was the only person wearing a uniform. “I’m Marcus Holden. We’re authorized to be here tonight.”
“I don’t give a shit,” Matty replied. “Get the fuck out of here before I shove those cameras up all your asses. You ain’t filming us cleaning up shit again, you got me?”
The man named Marcus held up his hands innocently, his smile still fixed to his face. The two others stowing the camera gear had closed the lid on the black and red cargo box and began wheeling it toward the door. Both wore lab coats, and one was a woman. Mason looked her over for her badge as she approached. Matty had words for all of them, his verbal abuse hurrying them through the door, but not before Mason could read the scientist’s badge.
Kennedy, D.
Mason stared at her as she passed. She glanced at him and her eyes registered a flicker of recognition, or maybe he had read it wrong and she was just concerned over the intensity of his stare. She was a tall black woman with long, tightly curled hair that appeared several shades lighter than should have been natural. Her bright red lipstick stood out against her white lab coat. Beneath the coat she wore a blue top and black skirt. All civilian attire. She didn’t look back as she walked through the door, in her hand a cell phone in a pink shell. Flaunting it. Nobody was allowed to have a cell phone on the island.
“Who were they?” Mason asked once the door sealed shut behind them.
“Fucking government film crew. They’ve been here ever since that goddamn Senator was here. They’re filming all sorts of things for some bullshit propaganda movie they’re planning on releasing.”
“What kind of propaganda?” Mason couldn’t help but wonder aloud.
“Same shit as always. ‘Look at the deplorable conditions’. They wouldn’t know deplorable from a hot bag full of dicks. I spent time in real prison. These biters have it good,” Matty said, eyeing Mason closely. He had a hard glare, the kind earned in a place like this. “People don’t get it. Biters aren’t prisoners, they’re merchandise in storage. All these lab-coats should know that better than anyone, and yet they’re in here helping all them documentary makers like Smiling Marcus. Cock munching liberals.”
Matty swore their way to the cleaning closet where they broke out the hoses and supplies, including tall rubber wader boots. Mason rolled out the cleaning cart, feeling every bit like a maid at a hotel with all the brooms, blankets, towels, and soap bottles. They both sat down on folding chairs and started pulling on the waders.
“I don’t get it,” Matty said, looking Mason up and down. Aside from discarding his BDU top, Mason still wore only military issue clothing from his brown tee shirt to his black, polished boots.
“Get what?” Mason asked, grunting into one of his waders.
“Why you’re here scraping shit with me. What did you do to wind up here?”
“I don’t know,” Mason said with a shrug.
“Like hell. Everyone here’s done something wrong, pissed off the wrong guy, or is really a sick mother fucker that doesn’t fit in with regulars.”
“Which one are you?”
“Pissed off the wrong guy, of course.”
“Sure,” Mason said skeptically. “Are you sure you’re not one of the sickos?”
“Fuck you,” Matty sneered. “I’ll tell you what landed me here. I kicked the shit out of an Admiral’s son because he was drunk as fuck and trying to get on base with a whore. When I told him to go get a hotel, he told me he’d have me demoted. I told him to get the fuck out of here and he got out of his car and tried to pick a fight with me. So to calm him down, I zip tied his ass to a tree, but I forgot to set the parking brake on his Daddy’s car, and it rolled into the lake. Thing was, Daddy was more pissed about the car, so I got the choice—come here or go back to jail. Same fucking difference, if you ask me. At least here I get to walk around more.”
“Jail, huh?”
“Yeah, I made a few mistakes. What’s your story?”
“Nothing. I just got home from a tour in Egypt and drew a red card,” Mason said. He didn’t like lying, but he wasn’t about to tell any part of the truth to anyone around here. If they knew why he’d been sent home in the first place, much less why he was here, they would zip tie him and shove him in a pen full of biters.
“Huh,” Matty said, glaring at Mason.
Mason looked down and pulled on his other wader.
“You know everyone’s saying you’re a spy, that you’re from the Inspector General’s Office or some shit like that, come here to investigate us.” He left the thought hanging. He continued to stare at Mason, trying to get a response.
Mason sat up and sighed, but said nothing.
“You don’t deny it?”
“What’s the point if everyone’s saying it?”
“Point is I think it’s a load of shit. The IG comes in on red fucking carpets. They don’t send some burnt out veteran Ranger like you.”
“Who says I’m burnt out?”
“I do. I can see it in your eyes, man. You drew the card because of something else. You’re damaged goods, just like the rest of us. If you ask me, it’s all just a big coincidence, on account of what happened on the Hill and that zombie half-breed they brought back from Midamerica with that Senator’s kids. That bunch was here for a couple of days and stirred up all kinds of shit.”
Mason shook his head. “I don’t think I understood a thing you said.”
“Don’t you watch television?”
“I saw the news about the Hill, yeah,” Mason said. Who hadn’t seen it? It was on every day on every channel, even though no one said anything more than they were continuing their ongoing investigation. Drone videos were all over the Internet and news stations with experts telling viewers that with this kind of devastation, we may never know the cause.
“Yeah,” Matty said, pulling on his second wader. “That Senator was here a few weeks back flapping his ass, collecting his sons—the on
es who survived. He was giving speeches, looking the place over, talking with a bunch of lab-coats, like the bitch we just saw. Look, if you’re really a spy, then you probably already know everything you need to know about her, but if you’re not, watch out for her. That cunt’s twat is more infectious than half of these biters and would eat you alive just the same.”
“Jesus Christ, man,” Mason breathed with disbelief.
“You’re looking kind of pale, foreskin. I thought you were a Ranger.” Matty stood abruptly and smiled down at Mason. “Push the cart,” he said. “I’ll hump the hoses.”
Eight
Mason pushed the cart to the center of the line of cells, with Matty lugging four hoses ahead of him. The moaning had slackened a bit while they were changing, but now that they were in full view of the biters, the groans and desperate wails redoubled. Hands reached out between bars, sweeping at the air, hopeful for a scrap of food or warm skin to grab hold of.
“We keep them in pairs down here,” Matty explained loudly, bellowing his words to make sure he could be heard over the moans and the chirping of one of the cart wheels. “Upstairs, they’re all cut up so we keep them apart. We don’t want them gnawing on one another. But down here, we pop a can of shut-the-fuck-up by tossing them into groups. Here’s three, there they’ve got five. Those lab-coats said the biters complain less when they’re in groups. I don’t know where the fuck those stupid asses did their research, but they sure as shit never spent a night in here.”
Matty stopped, his brow furrowed as he looked past Mason at a cell. “See what I mean? That’s the cell they were looking at, right…am I right?”
Mason looked at the cell Matty was pointing toward. Matty leaned side to side as he approached the cell, trying to look through the bars, moving sideways to get a better view. There were four biters in the cage, three standing against the bars, desperately reaching toward Matty, while one sat in the back on the bedding.
“Another weak-kneed son of a bitch. Those assholes were probably trying to film it to make us look bad. ‘Look at this poor victim of consumption, wallowing in its own feces. Another example of the cruelty imposed by sanctioning.’ Cruelty, my ass.”
“Are you going to help it out?”
“Why? That lab-coat that was up here, she knows about it. She brought them here specifically because of it, I’ll bet you good money!”
“Yeah, but he looks sick,” Mason said with only a hint of the concern he really felt. He didn’t know what the protocol for handling a situation like this might be.
“If he was sick, he’d be whiter than that. He’s got good color. Shit, he looks almost normal. Must be a Mexican.”
Mason didn’t have to ask about such a statement. Pigmentation was severely affected by the consumption pathogen, causing infected individuals’ skin to appear bleached. This was because of a massive imbalance in their cholesterol levels, something that not only drove them to seek only meat for sustenance, but also impaired numerous other bodily functions, including pigmentation. For Caucasians the effect was near albinism. For Mexicans, Italians, Asians, Native Americans, and others with naturally darker complexion, their appearance was that of a fair-skinned Caucasian. For darker skinned individuals, the effect was either large, bleached patches or bright red hues.
“I don’t think he’s a Mexican,” Mason said.
“Like you know shit. What have you been here, all of one day?”
“I just think that—”
“Stop thinking and push the goddamn cart.”
Matty whistled the whole length of the cell block, even as they setup the hoses. He started stuffing orange plugs into his ears once everything was ready for work. Mason was already wearing his. Perhaps over time he’d get accustomed to the noise like Matty seemed to be, but so far it was a haunting drone that he couldn’t ignore.
“Hand me a noose,” Matty said, holding a hand out. Mason was carrying two nooses and sets of arm restraints. He gave half of his bundle to Matty.
“Now this is a little different than the second floor. All these mother fuckers aren’t docile ‘cause they’re not under any meds. You hook them and lock them in, or they’re gonna bite your ass, you got me?” Matty stared hard at Mason.
Mason nodded, trying to appear as sober as he could. It was more than a little distressing to think that he was about to go into the pens with biters. Upstairs, Matty had done all the corralling, showing Mason but not letting him near any of them because, as he put it, they were still contagious.
“This side’s got the quarantines, that side’s safe. You work them, and I’ll take care of these mother fuckers. Don’t try to be a hero. Just do it like I showed you upstairs.”
“Got it,” Mason said.
“Good. Go on and show me,” Matty said with a wave.
The way Matty said it reminded Mason of his own father. You think you’ve got that fast ball figured out? You think you can put that header on without busting a finger? You think you can save the world? Good. Go prove it.
After two years overseas, Mason didn’t think much about saving the world anymore. He had come to think that the world wasn’t worth it. Not if everyone he tried to save wanted to stuff a knife in his back. These biters weren’t much different in that regard.
Mason stepped up to the first cell and took a deep breath. In his training before coming here, he had fought with several zombies. They were much stronger than they appeared, mostly because when they did anything, they used all of their strength. They didn’t temper their actions. As soon as he got the noose through the bars, he knew he was in for a fight. He drove the noose through and missed on his first attempt. The bars of the cell limited his range and he came up short.
“Jesus Christ, don’t pussy foot around,” Matty growled behind him. “One sweep or you’ll be fighting a tug of war with all of them.” Matty shot his hose into the faces of the three biters in the cell. The one Mason was struggling with let go of the noose pole and swept its hands over its own eyes. “Come on, weak dick,” Matty said as way of encouragement.
Mason hooked the noose over the biter’s head and hauled the thing forward, pressing its face into the cell bars.
“That’s it,” Matty told him. “Now use the restraint. Come on, you’ve got to be quick or he’s gonna—” It was too late. As Mason fumbled with latching the restraint to the noose pole, the biter pushed off the cell bars and began yanking at the pole.
Matty shot water in their faces again as a second biter reached over to grab the pole. Matty dropped the hose and grabbed the other end of the noose with one hand, nudging Mason aside. Matty was considerably bigger by bulk alone and easily tugged the biter back against the bars. With his other hand he latched a restraint bar to the noose pole and slid it toward the cell. It swung into place like flying down a zip line, clanking against the bars of the cell. Matty let go of the pole. The restraint bar only slid along the pole in one direction, so as Matty and Mason stood back. The noose pole flailed erratically as the zombie tried to pull free.
“Quicker next time,” Matty said softly.
“Sorry,” Mason said, disappointed with himself for failing.
“Did you think you were going to handle a pen of biters all alone on your first try or something?” He began laughing, picking up his hose and spraying the biters in the faces again. “Now get his arms restrained before he rips up the skin on his neck.”
“Yes, sir,” Mason replied evenly.
Nine
By the third cell, Mason was feeling more comfortable about subduing zombies. He still had to look at the restraint bar to latch it onto the pole, and he had trouble locking the captured biter’s arms to the restraint bar using the harness, but he had captured seven on his own. Done with this cell, he pulled the noose loop off the biter and stepped back to collect the restraints he had tossed behind him. He retreated to the cart to get another bandage, spraying antiseptic over the cut on his forearm. Damned biter fingernails were thick and sharp. Matty hadn’t warned hi
m about that.
“Hey,” Mason called out. “Do we ever clip their nails?”
“What?” Matty snapped irritably. “Does this look like a fucking salon?”
“Well, who shaves them?”
“They don’t need to be shaved. They’re all overproducing female hormones. Only one in ten grow beards, and hunters just kill those ones on sight most of the time. Too aggressive. Either that, or you have to castrate them like angry bulls.”
Mason shivered at the thought.
“You don’t even want to know about the children,” Matty grumbled loud enough to be heard over the moans of discontent and hunger echoing through the cell block. Mason hadn’t seen any children so far, but then again, the trade of underage infected was against federal law, so it stood to reason that none would be here.
Mason started lassoing a biter in the next cell to restrain it. His first batch of females. At first, he expected them to be easier, but their strength surprised him. The female grabbed the pole and nearly yanked Mason to the cell bars. Matty chuckled as he cut loose the group he had just finished. Matty had been keeping an eye on Mason’s progress as he moved along at about twice the pace. He was already four cells ahead. Mason got the female under control and began to restrain her arms.
“You know,” Matty shouted. “There was a guy who used to feel up the females after he caught them. Sick mother fucker. Don’t let me catch you touching any of their titties or I’ll report you.”
Mason only nodded. That kind of debauchery made no sense to him. There were brothels in the Rurals that exclusively used zombies, but the only legal ones were in Nevada, and he thought it was more of a novelty than a real service. He hoped so, at least.
“Shit!” Matty yelled. Mason spun around to see Matty in front of the cell that the film crew had been interested in. “I need another noose!”
The Rock Island Zombie Counteractant Experiment Page 3