HVZA (Book 1): Hudson Valley Zombie Apocalypse

by Zimmermann, Linda

I covered my face with my hands and muttered, “Screw you, Aunt Dorothy. I hope a zombie sends you straight to hell.”

  “What’s that Becks?” Phil asked, pressing closer against the door and spreading his fingers across the glass as if to offer a helping hand.

  “Never mind, nothing. How did it happen? They were okay this morning,” I said in a lifeless monotone that even surprised me.

  God had given me more than I could handle at that moment and I felt like I was speaking from a million miles away.

  “They…they took their own lives.”

  “No! No they would never…Oh god, Phil, the team didn’t kill them, did they? Tell me they didn’t shoot them like Marty?”

  “No, I swear to god, no one harmed them. They aren’t sure, but it looks like they took sleeping pills and then used gas from the stove. I’m sure they…I mean, I’m sure they didn’t feel a thing.”

  I couldn’t speak.

  “They left you a videotape, Becks. No one has looked at it yet. As soon as you feel up to it, we’ll find you a VCR and a television.”

  “I need to see it, Phil. I need to see it soon.”

  “Okay, Becks, I’m on it. And Becks, you don’t know how sorry I am. We all are. And everyone is behind you one hundred percent. They all know you’re a fighter, Becks, and if anyone can beat this infection, it’s you!”

  Only and Always: There was a sliding panel on the bottom of the door through which a gloved hand pushed some dinner and medications. I was advised to eat something with the pills to avoid nausea, but I could only manage a few bites. They were starting me on an oral regimen of antiparasitic drugs, but also planned a course of spinal injections. There were a few other pills in the cup that I didn’t recognize and didn’t even bother to ask about. At this point, I was too numb to care about anything. For all intents and purposes, I was an emotional zombie.

  About an hour after dinner, the panel slid open again, and an old, dusty VCR and a tiny monitor were squeezed through the opening.

  “Sorry,” a young voice said. “It’s all we could find. I’ll have you plugged in in a minute.”

  A red light started to blink on the VCR and the monitor powered up to a blank, greenish screen. The cord reached only about a foot into the room, so I had to sit on the cold, concrete floor to watch the videotape my parents made right before they died. I didn’t know if I could bear to watch, so I kept a finger on the STOP button right after I hit PLAY.

  At first there was only static, and I was afraid my parents had made a mistake with the old camcorder and hadn’t actually recorded anything, but I ejected the tape and saw that it hadn’t been rewound. I smiled, because I couldn’t tell you how many times I told them to please rewind the rental tapes before I brought them back, because the store always charged me a dollar rewind fee.

  Finally, an image came on the tiny screen, and there was my mother on the couch, directing my father behind the camcorder to “stop fooling with that thing and sit down.” My father then came into view and sat beside her, and they held hands.

  “Rebecca, don’t think badly about what we’ve done, honey. You didn’t have the heart to tell us there’s no hope, but you can’t fool your own mother and father!”

  “Becks, the happiest day of my life was the day we came to pick you up!” my father said, as my eyes welled up with tears. “You were so beautiful, and when your tiny little hand reached up and grabbed mine…well, my heart was so full I thought it would burst!”

  “I hope you know that from that day, our thoughts and actions have only and always been for you,” my mom said. “We are so proud of you, becoming a doctor, devoting your life to helping others. We couldn’t have asked for a better daughter.”

  “It’s just that, well, we couldn’t bear the thought of being a burden to you,” my dad said, cutting to the chase, then changing his tone when my mom shot him a sharp look. “I mean, we knew we were goners, and we didn’t want to spend our final days getting poked and prodded and then becoming those horrible zombie creatures.”

  “You need to do whatever it takes to make yourself well, you hear me, Rebecca Mary Truesdale!” my mom said waving her finger, which meant those words were official law. “And I hope someday you can forgive me for making you sick. You know I would give my life for you.”

  “Well, Becks, we don’t want to draw this out. You know we were never good with long goodbyes,” my dad said, then proceeded to reminisce about all the good times we had. My mom did the same thing, and in the middle of another story, my dad just got up and walked toward the camcorder.

  Just before hitting the OFF button, he stuck his face in front of the camcorder, blew me a kiss, and whispered, “Only and always for you, Becks.”

  But oh, that awful struggle: I woke up shivering on the floor, the sound of static hissing in my ear. I had watched the videotape over and over, trying to burn every second of it into my memory. If I survived, I would tell people about the loving sacrifice my parents made for the rest of my days. I know they tried to make it sound like they mainly did it because they wanted the easy way out, but my dad nailed it on the head when he said they didn’t want to be a burden to me. They didn’t want me worrying about their hopeless case when I needed to concentrate on my own health. And even if that wasn’t the case, how could I blame them for not wanting to become zombies?

  I shut off the monitor and VCR and crawled into bed. Even with another sedative I didn’t sleep well, and woke up screaming more than once. A couple of times during the night I heard soft footsteps passing by my door, most likely a nurse making her rounds, which made me think I was not alone in this isolation ward. I wondered who else was here, and at what stage they were.

  I couldn’t tell when it was morning, but I assumed the day shift had begun when there was more activity and voices outside my door. Normally, I would have been bouncing off the walls for something to do, but between all the medications and being so emotionally strung out I barely had the strength to sit up. When my breakfast tray and meds were pushed through the door, I didn’t even move.

  “Ms. Truesdale, it’s time for your medication, and we really need you to eat.”

  I still didn’t move.

  “You must take your medication,” the unknown female voice said with more urgency.

  I didn’t care.

  “Give me the microphone. No, just give it to me,” I heard Phil’s voice, arguing with the nurse. “Becks, it’s Phil. Are you okay?”

  I turned my head to look at him and nodded.

  “I have someone here who wants to talk to you,” Phil said, holding up a cell phone for me to see.

  “I don’t want to talk to anyone.”

  I saw him talking on the phone for a moment with a puzzled expression, and then shaking his head in agreement.

  “He says to tell you he bets you dinner that you can’t beat this infection.”

  Cam! Whenever either of us was being stubborn or feeling depressed, all it took was a challenge and a wager from the other one to get motivated.

  I didn’t exactly leap out of bed due to the soreness in my back, pounding headache, and general weakness, but I made it to the door quickly. Phil’s gloved hand reached through the access panel to give me the phone.

  “Cam, you son of a bitch!” I said with genuine joy.

  “Well, good morning to you, too, Trues,” Cam replied in that stilted cadence that now sounded wonderful. “Hear you’ve hit quite a rough patch, darling. I’m so, so, sorry about your mom and dad. They were two of the sweetest souls on the planet.”

  “Cam, I’m stuck here, if you could see to—”

  “Already being done. I’m seeing to all the arrangements. Now, what about you, my True Girl? I understand you are facing a bit of a physical challenge?” he asked, unable to mask the concern in his voice.

  “You could put it that way.”

  “I don’t know all the details, but I do know my Trues has the brains and the guts to fight this thing.”

  “I ju
st don’t know, Cam. I may have met my match with this one,” I confessed, expecting some sympathy.

  “Okay, I’ll let you get away with that one, ‘cause you’ve been through a lot. But the next time I hear you say something like that I will personally come down there and kick your ass, you whining little crybaby.”

  Cam always did know the perfect thing to say to me. With renewed determination, I repeatedly promised him that I would beat this infection, and by the end of the conversation I actually started to believe it. I owed that to him, and to Phil, to myself, and most of all, to my parents.

  Unfortunately, most things are more easily said than done.

  The ZIPs larvae apparently didn’t appreciate being poisoned and started releasing toxins. These toxins were not potent enough to damage tissue, as they would have been with a mature parasite, but they were more than sufficient to make me violently sick to my stomach. The eggs weren’t going quietly either, as under threat they sped up their development.

  The uncontrollable vomiting made me dangerously dehydrated and weak. The awful, relentless feeling made me come close to calling off the treatments several times. As I lay there day after day in complete misery, I kept telling myself to just get through the next five minutes, then the next five after that, and in that manner the hours crept painfully by. There wasn’t a moment waking or fitfully sleeping that I didn’t suffer more than from any illness I had ever experienced.

  Then there was the catheter in my spine, which allowed for spinal fluid to be removed and tested, and drugs to be injected without the need of additional punctures. It was uncomfortable more than painful, but a bacterial infection threatened to pull the plug on the treatments, literally. The ensuing high doses of antibiotics only caused more havoc with my system.

  ParGenTech had hoped that they would eradicate the ZIPs in my body in a week, but after ten days I had dropped a lot of weight, was sick as a dog, and still my ZIP count was about 10%. And when a count of anything but 0% would eventually kill you and turn you into a zombie, that wasn’t a good thing.

  Imagine the worst flu and headache and backache you ever had, then put them all together and double them, and that’s probably about half of what I was feeling. One night as I tossed and turned in complete despair, I was reminded of something I once read. During the Civil War, a Connecticut chaplain had kept a diary in which he emotionally described the dying men all around him. But it was never as poignant as when he wrote about his dear little son, Hughey, who had contracted a deadly form of pneumonia.

  The boy tried to fight it, and lingered for days. The diary entries tore your heart out with the family’s anguish, and the pitifully slight hope to which they clung through long days, and longer sleepless nights. And I’ll never forget the chaplain’s words, “But oh, this awful struggle for life!”

  His beloved Hughey died in his arms the next night.

  I cried my eyes out when I read that diary. And I cried my eyes out now for my own awful struggle for life, and for the countless others out there who would be undergoing the same torture, or worse.

  Blitzkrieg!: After the first few days of treatments, I had requested a computer and all current test results for myself, and the three other ParGenTech employees suffering through treatments. I often found it difficult to concentrate (ever try to study while vomiting?), but I needed to try to help myself and the project in any way possible.

  I learned that at least two dozen other projects were taking place in hospitals and secret military facilities across the country. While there was some limited success in reducing the ZIPs, no one had yet eradicated them. And anyone who had mature parasites at the time of treatment was seeing little or no results. Time seemed to be the controlling factor—the longer you pushed the ZIPs, the harder they shoved back.

  “Blitzkrieg!” I shouted to Phil when he came to my door for his daily visit on my 14th day of treatment.

  “Okay…” he said, not sure if I was incoherent.

  “Blitzkrieg, Phil, the lightning-fast strikes the Germans used to destroy an enemy before they had a chance to defend themselves,” I said with as much energy as I could muster.

  “What’s your point, Becks? We are already giving you heavy doses—”

  “You’re giving me just enough to really piss them off. I know you’re all trying your hardest, but I’m living this, I’m feeling them. The ZIPs are fighting back, regrouping, speeding up their own lifecycle, for Christ’s sake! You don’t give an organism like this a second chance. My body can’t put up with this abuse much longer. The ZIPs would rather go down with the ship, then let the ship break free. We have to hit them hard with a single, off-the-charts dose of your best drugs.”

  “But we don’t know the effects of a massive dose like that. It could be dangerous for you.”

  “Phil, have you looked at me lately?” I said holding out the sides of the hospital pajamas that hung on my bony frame. “It’s now or never. Blitzkrieg, Phil. Blitzkrieg!”

  Several hours passed as Phil was videoconferencing with other sites. It turned out that Denver and Honolulu had similar thoughts about one “killer dose,” as one way or the other something was going to die. The main concern was the body suffering a major allergic reaction that could prove fatal, but there was general agreement that if the patient consented, it was worth a shot.

  The next morning I was prepared for my last treatment. I had a videochat with Cam right before, and he reminded me we had a dinner bet riding on the outcome.

  “And this is the first time in my life I ever hoped to lose a bet,” he said, fighting back tears.

  Teams across the country had been working overnight to produce their “BG (Best Guess) Solution,” and I made sure to send out a memo to thank everyone for their efforts.

  The other three patients were more than happy for me to be the first guinea pig, and I made sure I flipped them a friendly bird as I was wheeled past their rooms on my way to the treatment room.

  A large staff was present; over a dozen people as opposed to the two or three who usually ran the tests and gave me the injections. I recognized a few as some army big shots, no doubt wanting to see if all their funding was being put to good use. Phil was also there, and he squeezed my hand and gave me a wink with his non-twitching eye. He was apparently as nervous as I was.

  They wanted me to remain conscious so I could tell them what I was experiencing, so I was only given a very mild sedative. They had decided on injections into the spine and an IV push into my bloodstream at the same time. The doses of the several drugs being used were absurdly high, but then so were the stakes. You don’t get any higher stakes than life or death.

  I felt an unpleasant pressure in my spine as the highly concentrated solution was being injected. When the IV began, there was a burning, tingling sensation that rushed through my body, and a foul, acrid taste filled my mouth. I tried to describe everything in as much detail as possible. Then about ten minutes in, I had a little trouble swallowing, because my mouth was so dry and I was so nervous, or so I thought. Then my heart started skipping beats, breathing became difficult, and my tongue felt odd, as if it was starting to swell.

  I knew it was the start of a severe allergic reaction, and my airways were closing. Pointing frantically to my mouth and throat, the team of doctors responded immediately. I heard something about epinephrine and “intubate her, now” before I lost consciousness.

  Hell in a Hand Basket: Was this death?

  I couldn’t move my arms or legs, and I didn’t feel as though I could draw a breath, yet somehow air was filling my lungs. My eyes wouldn’t open, and my body felt very heavy, yet I also felt strangely detached. Was I drugged, dying, or dead?

  I faded back into blackness, and when I re-emerged again my eyelids fluttered, and though my sight was hazy, I could tell I was in a brightly lit room. I also became aware of the sounds of some machines faintly whirring and beeping. I could move my fingers and toes, but not my limbs, and something odd was going on with my throat. I
t took another return trip from unconsciousness for me to be clear enough to realize that I was being restrained and I had a breathing tube.

  Why was I restrained? Had the Blitzkrieg failed, and I had gone zombie?

  I started to struggle against the restraints and try to speak, when a male nurse rushed up to me, grabbed my shoulders, and told me to take it easy.

  “The doctors are going to want to talk to you,” he said. “A lot of people will want to talk to you.”

  I had no idea what he meant, but I didn’t have time to think about it as a stream of doctors and nurses filled my room. Someone explained to me that I had been in a coma and had needed help breathing, and to nod if I understood. I nodded twice. He then said they would remove the breathing tube, if I was ready. I nodded four times. Once that terrible tube was pulled out, they also removed the restraints. Not that I had that much strength to move, but it was good to know I could if I wanted to.

  It seemed as though everyone was busy checking monitors or writing notes, and no one was saying anything about the obvious. I reached for the sleeve of one of the doctors and gave it as much of a tug as I could manage. The doctor turned, and leaned closer to hear my whispered question.

  “Did it work?”

  He stood up and looked around the room in surprise.

  “Doesn’t she know?” he asked the others in the room, as everyone shrugged. The tension was killing me, until he smiled a beaming smile. “You’re clean! Not a trace of any parasites or eggs. You’re the first one to beat the infection! Of course, we damn near killed you in the process, but we’ve already adjusted the medications for the others.”

  You just can’t appreciate life unless you’ve almost lost it. I was thrilled, ecstatic, jubilant, you name the adjective. I survived, and this nightmare would soon be over, for me, and for the world.

  Or so I thought at that moment. I had been in a coma for 11 days, and I had been in isolation receiving treatments for 2 weeks before that. During that time the world was heading straight to hell in a hand basket.