Norton sat on the corner of a nearby desk, set down a folder, and addressed Tom once more. “I did do you a favor though,” he said leaning closer to Tom. “After all, we used to be pretty close, you and I, and I felt bad about our misunderstanding when I thought you took my money and I held Holly hostage. I know they wiped that memory from you, but I still felt I owed you something.”
Tom seethed at the words he was hearing.
“When Fleming offered me a chance at freedom, one of my conditions was that he release Holly. Of course, to do that he had to convince her that he was just trying to save you both from me when he accidentally shot you and that you’d died at Fort Sheridan. Fleming’s good; I’ll give him that.
“Holly’s safe at home with your ex; still grieving your loss, no doubt.”
Fort Sheridan. Tom locked that name into his memory along with all the other information he was gathering. The best information was knowing that his daughter was safe.
“It’s not like you’ll be in Holly’s life anymore anyway since Fleming brainwashed you into believing that she is dead as well so you’ll be his puppet.” Norton leaned closer and whispered, “Besides, you’ll be dead in twenty-four hours, so what your kid believes about you will be true soon enough.”
Tom felt rage welling up inside him toward this man who claimed to be his old partner.
“Now, stand up, Tom.”
Tom obeyed the order and stood up abruptly, smashing the top of his head into Roger Norton’s already battered nose.
Norton reared back from the blow, his hands now covering his face.
“Goddamn it!” Norton glared at Tom who was standing upright and seemingly indifferent to Norton’s condition. The vacant stare Tom wore hid his internal satisfaction of inflicting even a modicum of pain to Norton.
Shaking off the throbbing in his face, and wiping the blood from his nose, Norton retrieved a dark gray vest from the satchel on the floor and he maneuvered Tom’s arms like a mannequin to put it on him.
Tom felt the odd bulk of the vest, glimpsed wires taped to the lining and knew distinctly that it was rigged with explosives. He noticed that the detonation mechanism was not yet connected, and that Norton had laid it on the desk.
Norton commanded Tom to sit back down, and then began to spread out several photos from the folder onto the desk. Tom fought the urge to look immediately at the photos until instructed to do so.
“Tom, I need you to remember what I’m about to show you, so listen to me carefully,” Norton said. He reached in his pocket, retrieved a piece of paper and studied it for a few seconds to make sure he would pronounce the word that was written on it correctly. “Resurrecturo,” he slowly spoke.
Tom’s mind felt a surge as if floodgates in the recesses of his mind and memory were being opened.
This new word in Latin, meaning to rise again, was a second post-hypnotic trigger word that was not anticipated. The first, obedire, was stage one to get the subject to obey commands. The second word was designed to trigger total recall in what the subject was about to be presented, and absorbed as programmed instructions.
The two words used in tandem educed the desired result. Without being under the submissive state triggered by the first word, the utterance of the ressurecturo trigger word buried in Tom’s subconscious had an unexpected effect.
Rather than preparing his subservient mind to remember new programming, Tom’s mind began to remember old things. Memories came forth that had been blocked. He could now remember everything about his old police partner Norton. The good and the bad. He could conjure up memories of saving his daughter from a zombie attack at the Navy Pier and trying to escape Fort Sheridan. He remembered everything right up until the moment he saw Major Fleming’s smug expression as he shot him and heard Holly scream.
Tom’s eyes were blinking as rapidly as his breathing while his memories regained their rightful place.
Norton noticed Tom’s odd behavior and the perspiration beading up on his brow, but before he could react to it Tom leapt from his chair, shoved Norton away from the desk, and snatched up the photos and envelope. Bolting from the room, Tom peeled off the heavy suicide vest and slid it back across the floor at Norton who had begun pursuit.
Norton leapt clumsily over the vest, and cautiously stepped into the hallway. Unlike the room they were just in, where outside street lights beamed through the windows to provide adequate illumination, the hallway was dark.
Listening for any sound that would betray Tom’s whereabouts, Norton was satisfied when he heard footsteps trailing away on the stairs a few floors below.
Tom flung open the front door leading to the street, but retreated back down a first floor hallway hoping Norton would hear the heavy thud of the door and think he had left the building.
Navigating through the dim light there didn’t seem to be an obvious back door escape route. Tom had slipped the envelope of documents he’d taken from Roger Norton securely under his shirt and into his waistband in order to make use of an alternate exit.
He hoisted himself up to a high broken window that had a plank from it spanning the alley and leading to a window in the next building. Tom was nearly across when he heard the cracking of the wood under his weight. Just five more feet and he would be completely across.
The alley ten feet below carried its own sounds. Though it was too dark to detect anything below him with any clarity, Tom didn’t need light to know what the sound was. Murmurs of low groans, and the hissing noise of air escaping from decaying lungs from which a putrid odor wafted up to Tom’s nostrils, could only be one thing. It gave Tom pause to realize that if he were to fall he would land in the middle of a pack of zombies.
Tom inched his way across the plank in his seated position and tried to will the board not to fracture any further, but that proved futile. With one sharp crack it gave way and Tom plummeted into the darkness below.
He lay motionless, his back aching against the hard ground. Dark figures loomed over him, sauntering to and fro. He’d grazed a few of them on the way down, and Tom suspected that any second the ghoulish creatures would consider him a nice midnight snack plopped into their midst. He was wrong. The monsters stepped around him and carried on their way.
Prepared for some sort of battle for his life… some hand to hand combat, Tom was stymied for the moment at what was happening – or not happening as the case may be. He wondered why these rancid beings weren’t tearing him apart.
#
Roger Norton bolted out of the front door of the building and stood on the steps peering down the street to his left for any sign of Tom. He saw nothing. He looked to his right and spotted a male figure standing fifty yards away under a street lamp. Not the right body type to be Tom. This was a younger man, yet Norton continued to stare at the person who was now frozen in the street. He noticed something moving from the shadows beyond the street lamp and it lunged at the young man from behind.
Startled, the man screamed as a dark haired, dark clothed creature with outstretched arms grabbed him and buried its deformed face into his neck.
Norton watched as the man was dragged back into the shadows; another inconsequential victim of the zombie menace that inhabited such abandoned neighborhoods.
“I told you to keep to the shadows,” Jemma whispered to Mark after she dragged him out of Norton’s line of sight. “Good thing I look the way I do so I could save your arse.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Mark gulped. “But you didn’t have to really bite me.”
“Sorry. Got carried away.”
From their hiding place, the two watched Norton go back into the building and they began to assess the situation.
“Do you think Tom got away?” Mark wondered aloud.
“Looks like it. He must have gotten the information he was after,” Jemma surmised.
“I told you he didn’t need our help.”
“Then where is he?” Jemma asked.
#
Tom navigated his way through the throng of zombies t
o make his way out of the alley and was still amazed that not a single putrefied hand or gaping, rotten maw attempted to do him harm. The stench was gagging as Tom elbowed his way out from the group onto the street as if he were being emptied onto a train platform during rush hour.
In the distance he heard screams. Tom rounded the corner of the building to see Jemma and Mark being backed against a chain link fence by three advancing zombies that had preceded Tom from the alley.
Seeing a zombie up close and personal was a new experience for Jemma and Mark.
Like most of the city, they typically remained insulated, carrying on about their normal life, and relied on the efforts of the local police and military to protect citizens from the ever increasing scourge that had, for the most part, been contained to the abandoned parts of town. Several zombie attacks had occurred in more populated areas, but they had been as frequent on news reports as any animal attack.
Seconds before a bony, soiled finger could grab hold of the twosome, Tom had plucked a wobbly stop sign from its broken cement hole and wielded it like a scythe, slicing off the head of the nearly bald female creature, and partially embedding the sign into the neck of the chubby male fiend next to it in one fell swoop. Bodily fluid spewed from the necks across Jemma’s chest and splattered onto Mark’s face and glasses. Too horrified to be disgusted at the moment, the duo watched as Tom dislodged the sign from the neck of the still groping zombie. The head flopped to one side, snapping the spinal cord, dropping the creature to the ground.
Turning the heavy sign around, Tom impaled the third monster, which looked to be a teenager, with the U-channel shaped pole.
The weight of the entire sign through its body caused it to stagger and tip forward until the sign end skimmed off the pavement and bent up like a shovel. The force of the dead weight body slid further down the pole until it reached the ground.
Behind them, more zombies were slowly approaching from the direction of the alley.
Jemma reached into her pocket. “Here, use this,” she said, handing Tom the gun he left at her apartment.
“You had this gun?” Tom asked out of exasperation, “Why didn’t you use it?”
“Blimey! I’ve never used a gun before,” Jemma said flatly. “We brought it for you.”
“You shouldn’t have followed me. These abandoned neighborhoods are not safe.”
“Watch out behind you!” Mark shouted.
An approaching zombie had moved to just inches from them.
Tom simply outstretched his arm to block it, preventing it from advancing. Jemma and Mark were shocked and amazed that Tom’s arm was not torn from its socket.
“I know. It’s the damnedest thing. I can’t figure it out,” Tom admitted. “I think we’d better just make a run for it and get the hell out of this neighborhood. There are a lot more of these things in that alley.”
Tom gave the zombie he was blocking a good shove backwards and it fell into the path of several others that were shambling in their direction. The monsters fell in a heap on the ground, fumbling like newborn fawns trying to get back up.
Jemma noticed that the back of Mark’s sweater vest had a patch of fresh blood on it. “Are you alright?”
“You get bit?” Tom asked with great concern.
Jemma and Tom slowly lifted the shirt and sweater, but were relieved to discover that Mark hadn’t been bitten. He did, however, have a gash on his back from a jagged piece of chain link fence from when the three zombies had cornered him and Jemma earlier.
“I have an idea. Gimme your sweater,” Tom instructed.
Waving the sweater in the night air, Tom approached the shuffling crowd that was emanating from the alley. Jemma and Mark saw that he was using the blood like bait to attract the zombies and lead them in another direction.
Tom slapped the sweater onto the pavement and dragged a bloody trail to the front of the building. Some of the vile creatures dropped to the ground to lap up the blood, but the majority followed the sweater as Tom went up the steps and tossed the bloody garment through the doorway. The shambling gang followed eagerly.
“That should buy us some time to get away,” Tom said as he quickly rejoined his young friends to escort them out of the derelict neighborhood.
#
It was supposed to be simple. Program Tom Dexter; same as last time. No need for a gun because Tom would be under mind control. Now, Tom was gone.
Roger Norton regrouped for a moment, gathered up his satchel, vest full of explosives and the loose detonation button still on the desk, and was left with his frustration wondering what went wrong.
Did he say the word wrong? Did Tom just short circuit from the brainwashing that caused him to bolt from the room? Norton thought for a moment.
It was apparent that Tom knew what he was doing, and was not under any mind control, judging by the way he grabbed the envelope containing all the mission details from the desk and took off. Without controlling Tom the mission plan was ruined.
With no mission Norton knew that he wouldn’t get his money and his freedom. That was the deal.
Furthermore, Norton suspected that Major Fleming would certainly pass some retribution upon him for failing so completely.
Footsteps in the hallway gave Norton pause, and a small sense of hope.
“Tom. So you’ve decided to come back and face me man to man, eh?”
As Norton peered into the darkness of the hall, a grotesque figure stepped in to view. Strings of bloody saliva hung from the lips and jaw of the monster now entering the room. Several more followed behind it, arms reaching, groaning raspy, guttural sounds, giving voice to their innate craving.
“This was supposed to be simple,” Norton thought aloud with bemused resignation. Everything went to shit; the plan, his chance at disappearing with his freedom, and now he was beset upon by zombies with no ready weapon to defend himself except for the few items he held in his hands.
Tom, Jemma and Mark felt the shock wave from a block and a half away. Behind them, plumes of smoke rose against the fire glow from the blast that ripped through the building they had stood in front of only minutes ago.
Tom paused a moment. He knew that Roger Norton didn’t have a choice, and although his regained memories caused his feelings to be mixed, he was morbidly thankful that his former partner didn’t suffer at the hands of bloodthirsty savages.
Part 6
The full plan of what Tom Dexter was to be programmed to do was all contained in the envelope he took from Norton. Maps, photos of various views of the McCormick Place Convention Center, and a schedule of events for the two-day NATO Summit to be held there, along with instructions that Roger was to impart to Tom, made it all clear.
It was unthinkable - as unthinkable as a zombie epidemic, and no one saw that coming either.
By the size of the blast from the suicide vest that killed Norton it was clear that Tom’s intended suicide mission was more than for a single assassination, as with Congressman Price’s death. The latest mission had apparent global repercussions. It appeared that the intended targets were none other than the members of NATO, which included the President of the United States! But… why did Fleming want all these people killed?
An Internet search on Jemma’s computer for Major Fleming’s name, associated with Fort Sheridan, produced a broken chain of command.
Apparently, Fleming’s direct superior at Fort Sheridan was a General Madsen. The general’s name linked to articles and photos with heads of state, but the most interesting information came from varying blogs by several of the zombie sympathizer groups, which claim the General was cited as being an advocate for using zombies for a military advantage as a counter-terrorism tool or as a ground fighting force. Many opposed such a notion - calling it unconscionable and ill-conceived. Notably, among those opposed were Congressman Dennis Price, the President of the United States, and several members of NATO.
The NATO position maintained that zombies were a threat and needed to be eradicated,
while the sympathizer groups were trying to defend a zombie’s right to die humanely and with dignity. Other, more extreme, groups fought for an American zombie’s right to the pursuit of happiness.
“Crackpots,” Tom grumbled.
General Madsen’s proposal of using zombies for military use provided Tom a solid theory as to motive. Fleming and his superior must have wanted to kill Congressman Price and members of NATO because they openly opposed whatever plans the general had intended for using the zombie menace to advance any anti-terrorism tactics.
Tom remembered marveling at how he was able to be among zombies and not be attacked. It was a bizarre discovery at the time, but the mystery was making more sense now. Tom surmised that, in addition to the brainwashing he underwent at Fort Sheridan, they must have also done something to him that made him invulnerable to zombies.
“Damned if I know how they did it, but they did it,” was the only explanation Tom could conceive and further theorized that such a thing would also certainly have value to the military.
Tom reviewed the instructions in the envelope once more and knew what he had to do.
An explosion in downtown Chicago wasn’t going to go unnoticed. Fleming would recognize the location of the blast and presume that Norton had gotten careless.
If the NATO Summit was the major’s window of opportunity, he would surely find a way to carry out the mass assassination plans.
The fact that Fleming would have naturally presumed that Norton and Tom both died in the explosion was something Tom knew he could use to his advantage.
#
Throughout the first day of the NATO Summit the convention center area had experienced a deluge of marches ranging from anti-government, anti-war, anti-free trade, anti-zombie and even pro-zombie rights. Skirmishes between marchers and police erupted and officers on bicycle patrol were forced to use their bikes as weapons.
Obviously, any NATO gathering brought out all manner of protesters and supporters, but the reason for this particular summit was evident. While the government protesters carried signs reading: Occupy Chicago, the zombie activists mimicked the slogan with signs reading: Zombify Chicago.
The Tale of Tom Zombie (Book 2): Zombie Lies Page 3