by Jack Wallen
Dr. Godwin encrypted the email and sent it before he rejoined Danielle in the lab.
Chapter 12
New York City, United Nations Building
December, 2015
The engineer, J.T., had the defense against the horde of zombies nearly complete in less than an hour. He would have had the job completed sooner, but it took longer than anticipated to find enough cable to drop to the ground. Once the cable run was complete and attached to the proper junction box, all that was left was to flood the area and flip a switch.
The flooding was the bigger challenge. The surrounding area needed to be completely soaked almost instantly. There was no sticking a garden hose out of a window for this task. We needed serious liquid firepower. It was finally decided the closest fire hydrant had to be opened up and, as luck would have it, a hydrant was situated right in front of the UN Building. All we had to do was figure out how to open up the floodgates.
It took some time, but one of the less important members of The Zero Day Collective suggested someone volunteer to make his way outside to a car and crash it into the hydrant. With the hydrant unsealed, plenty of water would escape quickly enough to flood the area.
Brave words spoken by a man who would more than likely never volunteer for such a suicide mission. And outside of finding a member of this cowardly collective brave enough to volunteer, the challenges facing the idea were many: Find car. Start car. Plow through horde of undead.
But The ZDC was just sinister enough to include in their recruitment process plenty of young, eager-to-please ‘interns.’ These interns were promised nothing more than temporary protection from the virus and the plague of the damned. Surprisingly, that was promise enough for the younger generations with their sense of entitlement and their belief the world owed them amnesty from the undead.
It took little time to assign one of the interns to the task of getting outside and cracking open a water line. The intern was also instructed, once the hydrant was ruptured, to get to safety and attempt to return to the building. What the intern did not know was his attempt at returning would ultimately be denied. My soul cringed at the whole plan and my conscience and intellect were at war with one another. This plan was our only hope at preventing World War Holy Shit from breaking out inside our fortress of the future, so I knew I had to let the kid leap blindly off this cliff.
Karma was going to have my ovaries for lunch someday.
The intern was given a two-way radio so that he could give J.T. the go-ahead to light up the sidewalk. Everyone not directly involved with the plan thought for sure the intern would turn tail and drive away. Certainly no fully functional human would volunteer for such a mission.
Little did the unwashed masses know.
The Board had been mostly humoring their lead engineer until a better solution could be found. So far, none had been revealed – so J.T.’s plan was moving forward. I was shocked the whole plan was in motion. It seemed so farcical. I was waiting for something to tragically backfire. But when the radio static gave way to the voice of the intern informing J.T. he was in a car and on his way, doubt started giving way to possibility.
“I have the hydrant in sight,” the intern’s voice crackled out of the radio. “Holy shit! They’re everywhere!” Shock registered in his tone.
We heard the acceleration of the car, followed by a loud crash, and then silence.
J.T. attempted to call the intern, but was met with nothing but static. “Hello? Are you there? Hello!”
“It worked!” The voice, undercut with static, erupted from the radio. “Water is gushing everywhere. It’s filling the sidewalk,” the intern squealed over the sound of rushing water and a chorus of zombies.
“Oh no. Oh shit! The car. It won’t start. Fuck, it won’t start! The – no! Oh God, they’re surrounding the car!” The young man’s screaming was distorting the sound of the transmission.
“We have to blow it now.” J.T. was waiting for my signal. “Professor, this is our only shot!” the engineer barked.
I gave J.T. a nod and he sent the signal to the generator. When the power from the backup kicked on there was a momentary pause followed by an obvious charge filling the air. The charge seemed to build, pulling the hair on my arms to attention.
I ran to a window to see what was happening on the streets.
“It’s working!” my voice rose in astonishment.
The zombies covering the sidewalk and street in front of the building were all caught in the violent throes of electrocution. The zombie flash mob was an eerie tribute to a pop song video from days past. The electrical current was obviously more powerful near the source, where the zombies were near grand mal. The flesh of a few undead dancers began to singe, and like flesh-covered kernels of popcorn, the heads of the monsters nearest the electrical lines began exploding. A mist of brownish-red blood briefly hung over the area.
Thanks to the dissipation of the current, out towards the periphery the violence was not nearly as bad. That, of course, meant not all of the zombies would be eliminated. Thankfully, the majority were starting to fall, one by one, lifeless to the ground.
A muffled explosion rocked the windows of the building. All of the zombies near the edge of the water or on dry ground continued lumbering on toward the car. As for the rest of the undead – they could finally enjoy the sweet relief and peace of final death.
The silence that overcame the room was powerful. With one blow we had just managed to take down a large number of moaners. But at what cost? Our souls?
“J.T., that was brilliant. You have successfully, and single-handedly, built our first, best line of defense against the oncoming undead.” I had to feign my excitement.
“Excuse me? No, I’m sorry professor, but this was a one-time deal. The power source we used to charge the flood? It’s irreparably damaged. That’s why I tapped into another building’s backup, so I wouldn’t damage the generator used for our building.” J.T.’s voice was pure snide.
For some odd reason, what the engineer was saying wouldn’t register. “What do you mean?”
“That boom you heard? That was the generator I used. For this little show of power we shorted out one seriously large power plant and we’re lucky the building next door isn’t in the midst of a total meltdown. This was an experiment I can’t repeat.” The veins on J.T.’s forehead looked like angry worms crawling under his skin.
I started to protest before my thought was rudely interrupted by a distant alarm.
“Well, maybe we weren’t so lucky. You hear that noise? That is a fire alarm and it seems to be coming from the building next door.” Abject fear slowly registered in the lead engineer’s face. It didn’t take long to realize why.
“We have to silence that alarm now!” My voice matched J.T.’s in both pitch and timbre.
The sound of static interrupted our frantic conversation.
“Hello?” The voice of the intern crackled from the radio. “Hello? Anyone?”
I grabbed the radio. “Are you okay?” I was shocked the young man survived.
“Yeah, I think so. It worked, but not all of the zombies are dead. The car won’t start. What should I do?” There was a thick undercurrent of terror in his voice.
The intern was moments away from tears. J.T. grabbed the radio from me.
“Get out of the car and run back to the exit. You need to get into the building as soon as you can.” The man’s voice was calm and smooth.
From the crackling radio, the all-too clear sound of Screamers could be heard drawing near.
“Oh no. Oh shit!” the young man cried out.
The sounds of running and heavy breathing were transmitted over the radio. The intern must have locked down the talk button.
“They’re coming… from everywhere! I think it’s the sound of the alarm. They hear it. Oh God no! Help!”
The young man’s shriek was matched, decibel for decibel, by a Screamer. Joining the screaming was the sickening sound of flesh tearing and
bone cracking. When the man’s screams finally subsided, the sucking and slurping sounds of a zombie devouring brain were loud and clear, broadcast over nightmare radio. The intern was gone; In his place a tribe of brain-eating Screamers had gathered to devour what remained of the flesh and meat. The chewing, crunching, tearing, and roaring made me wish I could fold inside out and disappear from everything. The human heart was not meant to experience such horror.
“I can’t re-create the electrocution without destroying another generator!” J.T. began babbling on in a geek-speak I couldn’t understand..
I grabbed the rail-thin nerd by the shoulders and gave him a sound gather-your-wits shake. “What we do is wait to see if these things go away. If they can’t hear or smell us, they’ll leave.”
The engineer took in a deep breath. “I don’t think so. Everything we have seen so far proves they have changed, evolved. Those Screamers are running in packs and from what I have witnessed, they are thinking and working together. That is not typical undead behavior. If we allow ourselves to get stuck on the defense, we’ll never make it.”
The alarm had reached a point where everything seemed to be in sync with the rise and fall of its sound. The lights, the pressure in the air, the temperature – even the muscles in my temples wanted to match the pulsing of the klaxon. As long as that alarm was sounding it would continue to serve as a siren song to every member of the undead nation in New York.
“How do we kill that siren?” I finally managed to arrive at the one question that could give us a purpose besides coming unglued.
The engineer stared at me, lost in the other world that often attracts the minds of the brilliantly inclined. His trip was cut short when he finally proclaimed, “We have to cut the power to the building. Since the emergency generator is already dead, if we cut main power, everything will go with it, including the alarm.”
Before I could ask the next obvious question, J.T. spat out an answer. “We have to hack into the power grid and cut the feed to the building. That should be simple.”
J.T. sat at a PC and started tapping out commands. His pale, bony fingers danced across the keys like a prima ballerina dancing her swan song. On the monitor an overhead view of the city block appeared and then zoomed in on the building currently moaning its disapproval. Once the building in question was centered on the map, it only took a few commands from J.T.’s fingers and the alarm was silenced.
That silence was the most magical sound I had ever heard.
“The call to arms is no more.” T.J. grinned smugly.
Outside, the chaos was settling back into some semblance of normalcy – as normal as could be expected from an apocalypse. Instead of focusing on the source of the siren, the Screamers were methodically tearing apart their slower brethren. The few Screamers that couldn’t seem to find a target to dismantle dashed off in search of bigger and better gray matter.
Inside the UN Building, everything was falling back into place. It was time I checked on my patients.
*
“What happened? Tell me what’s going on!” Bethany’s curiosity offered a unique insight into the woman. Strapped to a hospital bed, heavily guarded and monitored, and her driving concern was the state of affairs outside the building.
“What happened is none of your business. The only business you have is that of your baby. Deliver that infant and you can care about the outside world all you want.” I smiled, hoping to give the woman some glimmer of humanity.
Bethany stared hard at me, searching for some deeper, hidden agenda. Should she dive deep enough, she would find exactly what she looked for. But for the time being, my ultimate goals would remain locked inside.
“Please tell me what has happened,” she pleaded.
I couldn’t leave her hanging on such a precipice. The stress of what she was undergoing was enough to bring down the average human. Thankfully she was far from average.
“The means with which we killed a mob of zombies set off an alarm in the building next door.” My calm words betrayed the event.
“So more came.” Bethany concluded.
“Yes.”
“And you cut the power to the building next door.” Bethany presumed correctly.
I was impressed. The girl was far smarter than I had given her credit for. The Board would not be pleased with this – such intuitiveness could only lead to problems. What they don’t know…
“Why is this baby so important to you?”
And there it was… the golden question. I thought long and hard about answering Bethany, just revealing everything. Ultimately though, it was best she remain in the dark. Should I give her everything I had and that information reach The Board’s ears, all would be lost.
“That baby holds the key to the future. I can’t tell you any more than that… at least not at the moment.” That was all I could reveal.
I gave Bethany a deep look, trying my best to convey to her she would be okay. I wasn’t about to let anything happen to this woman, this miracle of life and hope for the future of Man. After the look I checked her vitals and made sure every monitor and instrument was functioning properly. Check and check.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other patients to visit.”
“No. Please, don’t leave me. Don’t leave me here alone! No!” Bethany’s voice grew desperate.
I couldn’t remain in the room without fear of my resolve breaking and my heart causing my mouth to give away too much too soon. Everything in its time. But for now, the main character in this unfolding drama would have to stay in the dark. As much as it pained me to hear her suffer, it was the only way to ensure all went according to plan.
Chapter 13
New York City Streets
December 2015
“Dude, you realize it’s Christmas Eve, right?” Seller’s complained.
“Does it even matter now? Seriously. What good is a holiday predicated on humanity and humanity’s innate ability to hope, when all hope was lost the minute this virus visited mankind?” Ronald tossed the philosophical bomb out for the group to ponder.
Although known for being a deadly cunning soldier, Ronald was also often seen as a true master of thought, a poet of depth, and bringer of truths most wouldn’t dare breathe.
As Ronald grew ever-more pedantic, Sam pushed the limits of the taxi’s steering and braking system. Each time a Moaner or Screamer presented itself on the street, the driver made sure to skid or slide in such a way as to effectively do the most damage possible.
The innards of yet another Moaner sluiced the windshield of the car. Dom let out a scream to shame a cheerleader in the back seat of a Hummer. “Holy shit!”
Sam turned on the windshield wipers only to discover the car was out of washer fluid. The countless times the windshield had been doused with the remains of unsealed undead had taken its toll. Zombie juice smeared the glass, making it nearly impossible to see the road ahead.
“We gotta make a pit stop,” Sam huffed.
When no arguments flew from the passengers, Sam realized it had been a while since the last restroom break. It should have been a foreign idea – a potty stop in the middle of the apocalypse. But Mother Nature’s grip on the human bladder scoffed at chaos’s grip on the human race.
Dom pointed at an upcoming gas station, food mart combo. Not only could they clear off the bug juice, they could refill their stock of junk food and relieve their bladders and bowels.
“Thank God. I have to shit,” Dirt Bag offered his usual bitingly rude commentary.
“We could just dump you out of the car and say we all dropped a deuce!” Sellers jabbed.
The car exploded with laughter. The backdrop of the apocalypse made for an interesting dichotomy, momentarily lost on the passengers of the Yellow taxi pulling into the Quick Mart. At that particular second in time, the only thing that mattered was a very briefly lightened spirit.
The cab came to a stop.
“Let’s make it, shake it, and take it, ladies,” Sam
barked his standard-issue military pep-talk for ‘get in, get out’.
“Hey Sam,” Dom caught up to the still limping Sam, “I’ve been meaning to ask you – what exactly are we doing? We got enough weapons to take out this entire city. Obviously you are expecting someone or something to put up one hell of a fight. Did I get involved with the wrong people?”
Sam stared hard at Dom, attempting to get a read on the man’s purpose. The commander wasn’t sure of the football player was getting cold feet or just needed a bit of assurance they weren’t being marched into a suicide mission. Sam had already given Dom the ten-cent tour of the plan. Now it seemed it was time for full disclosure.
“I was hired, along with a select few, to locate and capture a civilian. It seems the group that hired me took special interest in a woman impregnated by a journalist that was already infected. Since the lady in question displayed no signs of amplification, this group wanted to know how she managed to dodge that bullet. Thing is, the woman had information about the virus: How it started and how to cure it. The group wanted to prevent that information from making its way to the public sector.”
“Wait… cure? I thought there was no cure?” Dom interrupted.
“See… that’s what ZDC wants you to think. There is a cure, only now that cure is in the hands of the group, which is why we are going into the hornet’s nest,” Sam finished.
“To rescue the girl and save the cure,” Dom added.
“You learn quickly.” Sam smiled and patted the younger man on the shoulder.
After everyone returned to the taxi, Sam punched the gas and squealed out of the station. At the first intersection the cab took a hard right and slammed into a pack of Moaners. The screams from within the car reached the rotting ears of the undead crowd, giving away the fact fresh brains were to be had. Within seconds the zombies had the car surrounded and were doing everything they could to gain access to the fresh flesh within.