A thought suddenly occurred to Edward. “So your parents lived through it?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Are there records somewhere of everyone that survived? Somewhere I could look to see if people I knew came through it okay?”
Rae shook her head. “Not really. Not very good records, at least. People weren’t too concerned at keeping accurate records while they were fighting to survive. Lots of journals have survived. The history sections of bookstores have been filling up with them in recent years. Personally, I think a lot of them are fake, but the ones that have been proven real are the biggest source of info on that sort of thing. Other things that I guess were probably around in your time, social security numbers and birth certificates and death certificates and all that, those all have only come back within the last twenty years or so. If you’re looking for information on anyone in particular it will be a nightmare finding anything.”
Edward took a deep breath and stared at his hands folded in his lap. If what Rae said was true, then there likely no way for him to ever find out what had happened to Dana. Except maybe from the personal recollections of survivors, he supposed. If he could do a little more digging there…
“Who were your parents?” Edward asked. “How old were they when the…um, Uprising happened?”
Rae smiled, and Edward couldn’t help but notice that she let the business end of her rifle slip away from him again.
“John Neuman and Annie Heine. They were…oh, I don’t know. Maybe twelve or thirteen when they first met. Just a few days after the zeds really hit Fond du Lac. They found out that a large group of survivors had taken one of the junior high schools as a hideout. Dad came in with his own mother and father. Mom was part of a group of children. A woman had been going around trying to find lost and wandering kids that had been orphaned, and she took Mom and some others to the school. That group eventually grew, and after many years they were able to clear all the zeds out of a central part of Fond du Lac. They created the Empty Zone around it and built the wall, and the city was able to continue on for years before the government finally got around to reclaiming the state, but in the meantime the city was on its own.”
Edward didn’t hear most of what she said. The instant Rae had mentioned the group of children Edward had felt his heart beat faster with added hope. That would have to have been what had happened to Dana. If that woman had found Dana and taken her to safety, then maybe Rae’s mother had actually met Edward’s daughter.
“Your mother,” Edward said. “Is she still alive?”
Rae frowned and sighed. “Mom died a few years after Dad did. Took me a long time to admit it to myself, but she more or less drank herself to death. Couldn’t handle not having him around anymore.”
Edward’s heart sank, but tried not to let his own setback overshadow the pain he figured Rae probably felt at the memory. “Oh. I’m sorry. How did your father die?”
Rae’s mouth tightened into a thin line, and whether she realized it or not she aimed Spanky at him again. “Bit by a zed while guarding the Empty Zone. Mom shot him in the head immediately after. Never had the time to turn.”
And with that, Edward decided it was time to be quiet.
Chapter Ten
Rae felt relief when Edward stopped asking questions, yet at the same time she wished he would continue. It felt good to talk about her parents again. Most people, even Johnny, didn’t care to listen. They’d been brave people who had lived through a bizarre time, and neither of them had deserved to go out the way they did. If Edward had wanted her to continue she would have gladly done so, although it felt strange that the only person willing to let her go on about her life was a zed.
Rae was having an increasingly hard time thinking of him as a zombie, though. As she watched she thought she could see the way the open sores in his face knitted back together, very small but noticeable the harder she looked. And he sounded and acted living. He got angry and annoyed and saddened and hopeful when she said things, the emotions evident on his face. A zombie shouldn’t feel any of those things. A zombie was just a thing, not really even a monster if Rae really thought about it. Zombies were just a part of the environment, a force of nature, and a force of nature didn’t care about anything.
So, by Rae’s definition, Edward couldn’t be considered a zombie. He couldn’t really be considered a living human being yet, either, not when he could heal that fast (and even the cuts on his fingers were gone now, replaced only by scars that seemed to be fading already) or live when there had been so much damage to his body. If he was neither zombie nor human, then Rae had no other way to classify him.
The truck pulled over and came to a stop, and Rae slowly poked her head out of the truck bed to see. They were just down the block from her apartment building. Rae hunched back down and raised a hand to put through the bars of the cage so she could rap on the back window. “Hey! Psst! Ringo, you need to pull up closer. We need to get him in as quick as possible. It’s bad enough I have to take him up three floors before we get to my apartment.”
“Can’t. There’s too many cars parked in the way.”
“Really?” That was strange. Although Rae’s new job paid well, she hadn’t been at it long enough to move any place nice, and this entire neighborhood was full of people that couldn’t afford the luxury of a gas-using vehicle. Everyone used the bus or bikes or walked. Never in the entire time that Rae had lived here had she ever seen more than two cars parked on the entire length of the street.
But as she poked her head up again, she saw that there were at least five other cars parked now, all of them newer models. Seeing new cars anywhere in the city was uncommon, but these all looked especially nice. The only people in Fond du Lac that she knew could afford these things were a few of the higher-ups at Merton Security.
“Aw shit,” Rae said as she slouched down again. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure this one out.”
“What?” Edward asked. “What is it?”
“It’s got to be people from Merton. And there aren’t many reasons why the higher ups would be in this neighborhood.”
“Back up. What the hell is Merton?”
“Well, I guess that all goes back to the Uprising, too. After the first several months of having to randomly fight off zombies, Lyle Merton got it in his head that people would pay to have others doing the zombie killing for them. I guess it was a mess at first, since it was basically a war zone and it was kind of hard to determine what a dollar was worth when no one was even sure if there was still a government. So Merton came in and people gave him all this money they thought was worthless, and boom, when the government shows up and says it still exists, Merton was suddenly the richest man in the whole region and in charge of security for everything. There’s companies like Merton Security all across the country, but Merton doesn’t have the same power it once did ever since Lyle Merton himself died.”
“You know,” Edward said, “for someone who says she doesn’t know that much about history you sure are able to talk a lot about it.”
“Well all the stuff about Merton I have to know. It was part of my orientation. Who do you think owns the gate I was stationed at?”
“So why are they here then?”
“Why do you think?” Rae asked. “It would be great for public relations for them if they suddenly caught the world’s only talking and thinking zombie.”
“Oh,” Edward said. “Oh shit. So what, are you going to turn me in?”
“I don’t know. Let me think,” Rae said. She nervously tapped Spanky’s stock and tried to concentrate. Ringo had said that he hadn’t told anyone about Edward yet, and although Charlie had probably blabbed his mouth around by now he wouldn’t know that she had anything to do with it. So the only person that would have been able to tell Merton anything to lead them here would have been Johnny. She couldn’t remember if she had told him not to talk about it, but even if she had he probably would have said something anyway. He was too much of a compan
y man to keep something like this from them. Rae now had to make a choice. She could either try to take Edward somewhere else, or she could let them have him. She had no idea what they would do to Edward if they got him, although they probably wouldn’t kill him outright. They would probably study him first, but she didn’t think Merton’s idea of “study” would be very scientific.
But why should she risk her job over this man in the cage with her? She didn’t know him, and all debates aside she still couldn’t truthfully call him a man. She looked at him on the other side of the cage and the way he stared back at her. She couldn’t really tell his emotions from his expression at the moment. Maybe he was pensive, but any rational thinking person would be right now while she decided his fate. There might have been a hint of anger at the thought that she might betray him, and there might have been a hint of hope that she wouldn’t. There was no way to be certain, but she didn’t doubt that underneath that scarred flesh he was at least feeling something.
She wondered what her parents might have done in this situation, but they probably would have already shot him. To them he would have been a zombie and nothing more. They were the products of a different time. Maybe it was time for Rae to embrace being part of a new era.
“Okay, look,” Rae said. “They probably don’t even know you’re here. They’ll know that I’ve seen you because I was asking around about zombie experts, but probably not that I’ve actually been with you and talking to you. So I’ll go in alone and talk. I’ll get rid of them as quick as I can, then I’ll be back out and we’ll figure out somewhere else to put you. Are you okay with that?”
Edward snorted, and Rae could hear some of the anger and frustration coming out in his voice. “Not like I have much of a choice.”
“I wouldn’t get too snippy with me just now, Ed. At the moment I’m the only thing resembling a friend that you’ve got.”
Edward stared at her for a moment, then sighed and nodded. “Sure. You’re right. I guess.”
Rae bit her lip, then set Spanky down facing away from him and moved closer. “Look, I’ll help you figure something out, okay? If you want to figure out why you’re like this, if you want to find out whatever happened to your family, I think I can help. We can look through what little records there are and see if there’s something in there that can point towards your daughter. I promise, I’m here to help you. Got it?”
Edward stared at her again, and this time when he nodded he did it with a little more enthusiasm. “Yes. Okay.”
“Good,” Rae said, then went back to the window and knocked on it again. “Ringo, let me out.”
Making sure that no one was watching—and the street was pretty quiet right now with darkness coming—Rae got out of the back and filled Ringo in on her thoughts while she pulled out her bike. Ringo wasn’t happy about any of it.
“So, what? You just want me to sit out here on the street with a damned zed in the back of my truck while you try to get rid of people from the most powerful company in the city?”
“They’re not as powerful anymore as they want everyone to believe,” Rae said. “And fuck no, I don’t want you to sit here. That would be idiotic. When they come back out they would see you, moron. Just…I don’t know. Drive around for a little bit, and then make sure you’re parked near the corner of Merrill and Park in about half an hour. I hope that’ll be enough time. Hopefully I’ll have thought of a new plan by then.”
“Remind me again why the hell I’m doing what you’re telling me?”
“Because you know as well as I do that Edward is something really fucking special.” She pointed at Edward, who was still sitting in the cage staring out into space and ignoring their conversation. Both Rae and Ringo had forgotten to close the cage after taking out the bike, yet Edward had made no move to escape. She lowered her voice just in case Edward was listening anyway. “And the thinking and speaking part, that’s nothing. I mean, look at him. He’s still healing. He looks like he might as well be freshly dead now. Nothing is supposed to be able to do that, not human, not zombie. This is beyond anything you or me are comprehending right now. You got it? This is way bigger than either of us.”
Ringo looked skeptical, but he shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Just keep going with this for a little while longer, okay?” Rae said.
“Sure. I guess. But there better be a whole shitload of money in it for me at the end of all this, you hear me.”
“Fine. We’ll do what we can. Just drive him around, okay?” She snapped her fingers at Edward, and he looked at her. “We’ll keep the cage unlocked, if that’s fine with you. I don’t think you have anything to gain by trying to get away.”
Edward shrugged. He didn’t look so hot, but Rae supposed that was to be expected.
“Alright, Ringo, get going,” she said. Ringo got back in the front and drove off. Rae watched, not realizing until he was half a block away that she had left Spanky in the back.
“Oh shit. Ringo, wait, come back!” She dropped the bike and ran after the truck for several feet before realizing it was pointless. She wouldn’t be able to catch up with him, and it wasn’t like she wasn’t going to see her baby again. The rifle would still be there when she met up with them in half an hour.
Trying to keep herself calm, Rae entered her apartment building and carried her bike up the three floors to her apartment. It would be best if she acted like nothing special was going on. The people from Merton would probably be waiting for her either outside her apartment or, if Johnny was with them and had his key, inside. They would wonder why she had left her job early, but Rae thought she could come up some story that would suitably cover her tracks. The important thing was that they not think she’d had any more contact with Edward other than the brief interaction at the gate. She was just some random peon who had seen something weird and asked a few questions about it. Nothing special, nothing worth talking about further.
The skuzzy hall outside her apartment was empty, but as she approached her door she thought she heard voices coming from inside. Taking a deep breath, she tried the handle to find that the door was already unlocked. Putting on an expression that she hoped was suitably confused and disturbed, she went in.
“Hello?” she asked. “Johnny, is that you?”
“I’m here,” Johnny said. He sat on the sofa in her front room, and stood as she came through the door. The other three people with him stood as well. Rae pretended to be surprised to see them.
“Oh,” she said. “Um, hello? Who are all you?”
“Rae, this is my immediate supervisor, Lauren Aguilar,” Johnny said, gesturing at the stout woman immediately to his left. “I told her everything you told me on the phone.”
“Oh, well, I’m sure that was nothing anyway.”
“Nothing?” Aguilar asked. “Johnny said you saw a zed that could talk.”
“Yeah, it did,” Rae said. “But I’m sure there’s got to be a logical explanation. Zeds just don’t do that.”
“You’re right, they don’t,” one of the other two men in the room said. He was well-built, balding, and stood ramrod straight in a finely cut suit. The other man wore a similar suit, although he was shorter and had a full head of dark hair. “So if you saw one that did, we need to take this very seriously. More seriously than you seem to be.”
Rae went rigid. All of a sudden she wasn’t sure she could control this situation. “I’m sorry, and who are you?”
“My name is Jean DuFresne,” the balding man said. “And my associate here is Mallicka Patal. We are both here representing the CRS.”
Rae’s breath caught in her throat. The Center for Reanimation Studies. Zombie researchers. “Oh, um, hello. I had no idea that you would be able to get here so fast. I assume you’re going to want to find this zed now and study him.”
“No ma’am,” Patal said. “We are not here to study him. We are not actually with the organization itself. They have merely hired us for security purposes.”
�
��I’m not sure I completely understand what you mean,” Rae said. She glanced at Johnny. He was staring at the floor, fidgeting. “Johnny, what’s going on?” He still wouldn’t look at her. “Johnny, answer me.”
Finally he looked up. “I’m sorry, Rae. But they say this is very dangerous stuff. That zed is supposed to be…” He paused as he stared at her hands. “Rae, where’s Spanky?”
Rae debated whether or not she should continue lying at this point. There was obviously more going on here than she had anticipated. Maybe Edward was dangerous. Maybe there had been something about him that he hadn’t been telling, or something he hadn’t realized was wrong. But it wouldn’t feel right to just turn on him because she didn’t know what was going on. She hadn’t really known what was going on to begin with, after all.
“I think I left him in the gatehouse,” Rae said.
“No, you would have gone back for him,” Johnny said. “You never just leave Spanky anywhere. For God’s sake, you take him to bed with us.”
Rae blushed, looking at the three other people in the room. Aquilar looked like she was trying not to laugh, but DuFresne and Patal looked alarmed.
“Did you leave your weapon in the truck, ma’am?”
Rae stopped breathing for several second. “How… uh… what truck?”
“The truck that dropped you off,” DuFresne said. “The one with the zombie in the back.”
“No, wait,” Rae said. “How did you…”
“We were watching you, ma’am,” Patal said, his voice sounding panicked. “We had people watching the truck when it pulled up. Now answer the Goddamned question! Is your weapon in the truck?”
Rae looked at everyone as her heart beat faster, then shrugged. “Yes. I left it in the back.”
“Shit!” DuFresne reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a cell. He hit two buttons then put it to his ear and shouted into it. “The Z7 is armed! Do you hear me? If it looks like it’s about to fight back, you have official permission to blow its head off!”
The Reanimation of Edward Schuett Page 7