by Mark Clodi
“When?” Heather interrupted, “You never tested the second series and you're telling me you are a generation into the next one? I don't believe you.”
“It doesn't matter, it is all dust now, don't you get that? No, I supposed you wouldn't. This is a world changer.” Sentry pointed to his neck wound. “I am coming back when I die. I can feel the poison creeping up into my brain, down my arm, into my chest and lungs. The bite is fast moving, if I had died I think I would have come back in minutes, if not faster. That is the problem with these damned biological agents; they evolve so quickly!”
After another long pull of breath he continued, “I won't be giving out the second or third series now, I had intended to. But I made a mistake; Vic caught me, pulled me down, then he infected me.”
“I have a hard time feeling sorry for you, given what you've arranged for me.” Heather said.
Sentry didn't reply.
“I'll be dead in hours.” Heather said woodenly. “This isn't what we planned.”
“Everybody wants to live forever, but nobody wants to die.” Sentry chuckled, his voice sounding like rocks tumbling together as they rolled down a hill, “Vic came back; you'll be fine...eventually.”
“What if I like what I am now? Alive, that is?”
“I am not in a good position to bargain, the others might not be enough for me. Vic went through a lot of blood.”
“One was enough.” Heather looked over at the other two men bound on their gurneys. “Three seems like overkill. Push me out into the hall; take them! That should be enough to get you on your feet. Then I can front for more blood from the hospital.”
Sentry seemed to consider her proposal for a moment and shook his head. “I don't think I am going anywhere, I barely made it here.”
“Try, Thomas! We can make it work better if I am still able to front for you to the hospital. And to the prison! Don't forget that!”
Struggling to get up only resulted in Sentry getting to his hands and knees, then his right arm slid out from under him, followed soon by his other hand. This left him up on his knees with is face planted on the floor. Slowly he twisted his head to look at Heather, his eyes lost focus after a moment, he mumbled, “Sorry. I think your way would have worked.”
Heather let out a sob as she watched Sentry struggle for a few more minutes, then give up. “Fuck you! You are going to kill me and I hate you for it!”
“Careful. You'll be back and we'll have to work together. Don't say anything that will strain our relationship.”
“Or what? You'll murder me again?”
Sentry said nothing for a moment, the quietly he explained, “I understand exactly why you are upset, but Vic came back. He was better than before. I know it will work. I designed it to be perfect.”
“How is killing the recipient 'perfect'?”
“Shit happens.”
“That's it? 'Shit happens'? That's your whole defense for what you are doing?”
“If I could do it all over again, I would have taken better precautions. In a week, we'll talk about whether it was right or wrong.”
“I won't...” Heather paused and seemed to reconsider what she was saying, “Okay, you have a week. But how will you bring me back?”
“I have the other prisoners sedated, I was planning on getting you three back up and moving with them.”
Heather laughed, a cruel, bitter sound that lasted only a moment, “And who will you feed to them, to get them back up and running before the prison comes looking for them?”
“I...well, I thought we could get blood for that.”
“We’re about at our limit now. No, I know what you've done and how you will fix it. Does the word 'Ponzi' mean anything to you? You've built the world’s last Ponzi scheme haven't you? But where will it end doctor? Will everyone die with only the last few unfortunates not being brought back to sentience? I doubt you'll get people to go along with you willingly.”
“No. I...Heather we can figure something out.”
Her laughter cut him off. “I am sure 'we' will. I just wonder how they will punish us? Life imprisonment? Fines?”
“Enough, this isn't constructive. We will deal with the ramifications of my actions after I return. After you return. We are smart people, the best and the brightest, we will find a solution.”
“I hope you are right Thomas. I really do.” Heather lay her head back down on the gurney and Sentry finally fell over onto his side where he lay breathing heavily.
Listening to him Heather didn't think he had long to live, she started testing her bonds, slowly at first, then with more vigor when Sentry didn't acknowledge her struggles. 'He is out.' she thought to herself, then upped her movements, struggling to get her hands to the webbing release buckle. It was too far and she knew it, after all it was designed to prevent people from taking it off themselves.
'Maybe the fucker won't die. Maybe the morning staff will arrive before he passes.' this was quickly followed by, 'Don't kid yourself sister. He is almost gone now.' Heather stopped to listen to the Doctor's breathing. He was panting now, taking short, ragged breaths in quick succession.
Finally after one last choppy inhale, he let out a ragged whistle and didn't breath again.
'He is dead.' Heather thought, angling her head to watch him. She jerked involuntarily when he started to move a moment later, laying her head back down on the gurney. 'Okay, don't call attention to yourself, hopefully he will eat one of the security guards first. Then he will come to and release me. He doesn't need all of us.'
She slowly tilted her head again and opened her eyes in a small slit to see what the man was doing. Sentry was staring right at her. His face was drained of all color and his eyes had gone from a hard slate blue to an opaque gray. Slowly the man rose to his feet, using the base of Heather's bed to help pull him up. Sentry's face never turned from Heather's gurney, nor did he bother to stand all the way up, his face just bent towards Heather's legs.
As he began to devour Heather her screaming was muffled by the heavy walls of the clinic, even if someone had been outside in the hurricane winds they would not have heard the woman crying out for help. One person, however, did hear her screams.
Dan's door swung open slowly as the zombie finally pulled the latch, he was drawn initially towards where Vic had called him. Seeing fresh blood splatters on the floor of the hallway outside of his room Dan fell to his belly and began to lap it up like a dog. He followed the trail all the way into Vic's room, but there was not enough blood there to sate him. Soon Dan rose, looking for more food, Vic's body, a thing of dark, inert matter, didn't interest him in the slightest.
Dan shambled back out into the hallway. One direction led to the holding cells, but that was too far away for him to see the prisoners. The other direction led to a fire door and outside, secured only by an alarm. At first Dan was drawn towards the cells, but a rolling clap of thunder from outside turned him towards the fire door. Moments later the only sign that anyone had been in the hallway was a sodden puddle where the fire door had been briefly opened.
Inhumanity
LPA 4C3. LPA 4C3. thought John as he struggled to put one knee in front of the other. He thought he could hear them now, the zombies coming for him. They moved fast. It was dark and he could not see anything. The overcast skies hide the stars and moon from view. John's head cocked sideways as he froze for an instant. No, nothing. LPA 4C3. LPA 4C3.
Up ahead there was an off ramp. The lights were still on, however, there were no facilities, just roads with signs pointing to small towns twelve miles one way and thirty the other. From his position on the side of the road, crawling through the grass on his hands and knees John could not see anybody moving. The overpasses were always the worst. They forced him out onto the shoulder of the road. And the traffic, while inconsistent, was always fast. Some of them would shoot at him too; that had already happened once.
He remembered earlier in the day when the State Patrol Officer Kevin York had driven him west pa
st this exit, towards the nearest gas station that had fuel. This overpass was still about six miles from his car, where his family was waiting for him. Officer York had told him going west was a bad idea, but it was closer than going the twenty miles east and back; it was a thirty mile round trip instead of a forty mile trip. Unfortunately, the officer had been on his way to the 'front' to try and stem the tide of zombies coming up Interstate 76 into Nebraska; he would not be giving John a ride back to his family.
John had thanked him for his time and bringing him to the gas station where he and his wife should have stopped at in the first place. In the excitement of getting away from the horde, which they had not seen, they were paying too much attention to the radio and not enough to the car's persistent beeping about being low on fuel. John had a plastic fuel can in the back piled near the bottom of all their worldly possessions. It had been empty. Not even a few drops of fuel remained in the container and no one, but no one was stopping to give them fuel. York had pulled onto the shoulder of the other lane of the highway and offered to bring John back to the gas station. At the time it seemed like a good idea, fifteen minutes to get there, and a hike of two to three hours back unless John caught a ride with some other refugee. He had been optimistic about getting a ride with someone at the Shell station, however everyone he approached turned him down, they were already full, had no room or just didn't want to help him. After wasting a half an hour trying to get a ride John started to jog down the shoulder of the highway back towards his family. Traffic was lighter even then, only a car every five minutes or so buzzing by.
The first time he was shot at he didn't even know what it was, there was a buzzing sound by his left ear, then a bang, then the car when whizzing by, with screaming people in it. After that he kept an ear out for approaching vehicles and would jog out into the grass, if they fired a gun at him he ducked down. There was little cover to be had on the cleared prairie that made up the shoulder of the highway, so his best bet was to duck down and scoot over in the two foot tall grass. No one fired more than once, that was a blessing. After forty five minutes of jogging John was tired and out of steam, his shirt was soaked through with sweat in the hot August air. It was overcast, but the humidity was terrible. He realized he should have taken more than three bottles of water too. He had one bottle left and he was maybe a third of the way back. Finally, a sports utility vehicle pulled over and three men jumped out and beckoned him forward. They were armed with pistols, and one had a rifle; all were pointed in his general direction.
“Hey, you! You a zombie?” asked one of the men, a tall lanky youth with sandy blond hair, probably twenty years old. Johns alarm bells went off. Something about the man was unsettling; it might have been the blood splattered on his shirt, or the fact that his gun, more than the others was pointed directly at John.
“No way. I am trying to get back to my family up ahead, could you help me out with a ride?”
“That can full of gas?” the blond guy asked.
“Yeah for my car I ran out.”
“Good. We'll take it.”
“Wh-what? No! I need it for my car! We're stranded up ahead, it’s the only gas we have!”
“Your shit for brains got you where you are.” said blondy, bringing his pistol up towards John's head. “Hand it over. I could just as easily take it after I shoot you.”
Reluctantly, John handed the gas can over to one of the men. This one was also around twenty, with a slight mustache and bad acne. The man took the can and popped the back of the SUV open, revealing four other gas cans. John yelled, “But you already have four cans! Why do you need mine?”
“Ain't nobody going to be making more gas anymore, idiot. It’s the most valuable thing you have.”
John looked at the passengers in the rear seat of the SUV, looking for a friendly face. The faces of young women staring back at him were all scared, one brought her hands up above the edge of the seat, just enough for John to see a set of handcuffs on them.
“You got any weapons buddy?”
“No, you think I would let you rob me if I did?”
“Aw, that's too bad. The zombies will get you without a fight then. Tom,” the man said to his other pistol-toting friend, “you got a weapon for him? Something you can spare for the gas?”
The last man, Tom, the oldest of the three in faded black jeans and a beer belly that belied his age said, “I surely do. I got this knife. A family heirloom, but I’m gonna give it to you so you won't be unarmed no more.” Tom pulled a hunting knife in its sheath out of his belt.
John had seen it before, in State Patrol Officer Kevin York's car. The officer kept a box of confiscated weapons in the trunk, things he had found on people he had arrested or that had been turned over to him. He had showed John the box and told him to grab a weapon, just in case he needed it. John had turned down the knife in favor of a short police-like baton, which he tossed away in the grass fifteen minutes ago. Not that a baton would have evened the odds here.
Tom dropped the knife on the ground by his feet and two of the men backed up towards the car, leaving blondy standing in front of John.
“Well, there you go then. You stay back here and lead the zombies off while everyone else gets away. You'll be a hero buddy. I'll be sure to tell your wife.”
He turned to walk back to the driver’s side of the SUV, then paused turned around again, raised his pistol at John's head, then lowered it towards his legs and fired. The next thing John knew he was lying on the ground, with the blond guy pointing the gun at his head, laughing, “The zombies like the smell of blood. They will follow you, now that you can't move faster than they can. Thanks for being a hero, man.” The blond guy then spit on him, kicked him once, and hopped back into the SUV, laughing with his friends.
John sat up as they drove away. Colorado license plate number LPA 4C3. His leg was bleeding, steadily dripping on the shoulder of the road. He got to his feet and screamed at the departing SUV, a primal, insane growl that had no effect on the departing black vehicle. Stumbling forward he barely had enough presence of mind to pick up his fallen water bottle. Taking two steps, he fell forward, head coming down inches from the hunting knife on the pavement. Adrenalin would only take him two steps, or so it seemed. Clawing his way to his hands and knees, he struggled to push down the feelings urging him to run after the SUV. Gaining a sitting position he looked at his leg, his blue jeans were soaked with blood, but most of the viscous liquid was pouring out of the cuff of his pant leg. Touching his leg, brought out a sharp, involuntary scream. John tried to pull his pant leg up to reveal the wound, but the jeans were too tight. Reaching out he grasped the knife and pulled the sheath away from it, revealing the odd blade. This was not a hunting knife purchased from a Wal-Mart or an LL Bean; its style of manufacture appeared to have taken place with a hammer and anvil.
‘So they left me an antique old blade huh? John thought; Well let’s see if it will cut the fabric away from my leg.’
Taking the blade to his jeans, John was surprised how easily the rugged, asymmetrical blade passed through the small hem and slit up the side. He cut it a bit too far, stopping above the knee. The amount of blood was amazing and he nothing to staunch it with. Fumbling through his pockets he came up with a single white napkin, the kind given out at fast food restaurants across the United States. John pressed the crumpled napkin up against the wound. The blood didn't seem to stop. He felt around with his other hand and found a matching, ragged hole in the back of his calf. There seemed to be more blood coming from there so he shifted his napkin around.
He needed a bandage or something to hold the napkin in place. John cast his eyes around looking for anything that might be of use. Getting to his knees he could see a cast off fast food bag about a hundred feet further down the highway, caught in the grass. John tried to get to his feet, but found that walking was next to impossible. He was not a doctor, but it felt like he had a broken bone in his leg. Crawling was slower and hard on his right knee, which no lo
nger had the benefit of denim to protect it from the small rocks and pebbles on the shoulder. A car buzzed by while he was crawling, he tried to wave it down, but like so many others it just passed him by.
Finally he reached the discarded burger bag. A steady thread of blood led back to where he had started. John's face was dripping sweat, his breathing was labored. Is this shock? he thought. Tearing the crumpled bag open he was rewarded with a half dozen unused napkins along with three empty waxed paper wrappers and a couple of empty French-fry boxes. Rolling over onto his butt, he pulled his leg up and re-assessed the damage. The wound at the back of his leg was far worse than that in the front.
His bloodstained hands tenderly probed the wound as he found the edges. He knew he had to stop the bleeding. The front of his leg was also still oozing some blood; however it had slowed to a trickle. Taking four of the napkins John pressed them to the back of his leg. It hurt. Touching the actual wound almost made him pass out again. He didn't have anything to hold the makeshift band aid to his leg. Thinking for a moment he scooted back until his calf touched the pavement, close enough to hold the napkins in place. He then took the knife and cut a long section of his jeans off below his knee and then cut that into strips. Grabbing the burger bag he pulled out one of the burger wrappers then slowly eased forward, lifting his calf off the ground slightly.
Looking at the wrapper he thought it alone was too fragile, so he pulled the other two out of the fast food bag and flatted all three of them together. He carefully slid this composite under the napkins that were sticking to the back of his calf. Once the wrappers were in place, he did the same thing with one of the four strips of blue jeans he had cut. Finally he took the remaining napkins and the white paper bag and put them over the hole in the front of his leg. All of his work in place, he slowly tightened the denim strip until it held the bandages in place. Once the first tie was done, it was relatively easy to angle his leg up and tie the other three around his calf. There was no blood dripping out of him anymore. Relieved, he lay back and passed out.