Zombie Ever After

by Carl S. Plumer

  At last, they entered a mighty chamber, like a nemesis of 007 might have constructed. Egesa wasted no time in giving himself gloating self-congratulations—just like a proper Bond villain would.

  “Well, what do you think? Spectacular, yes?” Egesa said, waving his arms about him like he was attempting to fly away. “HVAC systems using geothermal technology. We get a view of the ‘top world’ thanks to panoptic-video. Cameras are hidden everywhere about the complex, yes? Yes. Complete telecommunications capabilities. Of course, we’re connected to the web 24/7 via fiber optics.”

  “I’m happy for you,” Donovan said.

  Egesa marched around the room, pointing at various mechanical and electrical devices. “The whole thing runs on solar-generated power backed up with gas-powered generators, both topside and buried in the ground with us. We’ve planned for every contingency, yes?”

  “I don’t care, you dick,” Donovan added, out of earshot.

  “Ironically, though,” Egesa continued without any sense of irony, “we did not plan for a zombie apocalypse per se. The solution we created down here, however, allows for pretty much any type of apocalypse. Bring it on, as they say, yes?”

  “Yeah, well, I got to admit, it’s impressive,” Donovan said, reluctantly.

  “You haven’t seen anything, yet,” Egesa said. “Keep moving. Straight ahead.”

  The trio continued through the rotunda towards a large stainless steel door. Keeping the gun on the couple, Egesa moved past them. He held his thumb to the scanner by the door. After the door slid open, Star Trek-style, he waved the pair in.

  The room was bathed in a pale bluish light. The temperature, already cool, dropped considerably, as if they had entered the world’s biggest beer cave. Instead of shelves of six packs, however, there were rows of metal-and-glass eggs. Each egg shape was roughly the size of a man. The egg capsules stood in two symmetric rows, one on each side, against the walls. A low, humming sound filled the room. The lights flickered occasionally to match minor changes in the electric current.

  “Let’s get started,” Egesa said. “I’ll need assistance.” For some reason, he smiled, or at least Donovan assumed it was a smile. That grimace-face did not give away much information. Based on the general upward twist, though, Donovan went with it being a smile.

  “I still have an aide or two available who haven’t escaped from me or been murdered by young Ms. Whitney here,” Egesa continued. He pressed a button on the table next to him. There was no sound, no light, no loud horn. Nothing to indicate anyone had been summoned. Nonetheless, three aides entered from the opposite door: two tall men and a squat woman. Each wore a white lab coat and carried what looked like large metal toolboxes.

  “Gentlemen and lady,” Egesa addressed the aides, “we are about to perform a monumental operation. Today’s the day we awaken a brilliant brain from its frozen dreams, yes? To transplant it into a young, healthy body. The testing phase is over. It’s time for action.”

  Donovan glanced at Cathren, and she at him. She had an odd expression on her face. Not fear, not disgust. Just an unsettling glint somewhere in the depths of her eyes. Donovan reached out and took her hand, trying to read her.

  “We’ll be all right,” he lied.

  Cathren said nothing and turned her face from him.

  “This is a lengthy procedure,” Egesa droned on. “We’ll be working through the night. But there is good news for the two of you,” he addressed Donovan and Cathren. “You won’t need to contribute in any way other than for you, Donovan, to donate your brainless body, yes? And for you, Cathren, to donate, well, everything really!” Donovan took the sound he made to be maniacal laughter.

  Egesa’s assistants, meanwhile, busied themselves with their individual toolboxes. They extracted medical and scientific equipment. These they connected to the massive machine that loomed over an operating table in the center of the room. They attached a variety of devices to it. One resembled a space-age dental drill, another a laser gun. Still another, a miniature chrome chainsaw.

  The technicians fastened these contraptions to various levers and arms on the larger machine, adjusting and tightening and rearranging them with intense concentration. They took out measurement tools, gauges and calipers, and made finer adjustments.

  An aide or tech or scientist—or whatever these people were—strolled over to one of the large egg-pods. He disconnected it from the wall. The pod appeared to include some kind of battery backup. Even disengaged, it continued to hum and emit the blue light like the others. The egg had a metal base with six wheels arranged along the bottom. The aide rolled it over to the operating area. He connected it to various cables, hoses, and plastic pipes via clamps and plugs.

  “Appears we’re about ready,” Egesa said. He snapped his fingers and his assistants grabbed Cathren.

  * * *

  This was too much for Donovan. With a shriek, he rammed the heel of his hand into the nose of the technician closest to him, intending to kill him as he’d seen done in his favorite Asian martial arts movies. Unfortunately, Donovan only managed to give the guy a hell of a nosebleed. The assistant on Cathren’s other side dove at Donovan.

  Donovan swung low and punched him in the balls. He’d bet good money that right now Egesa was realizing it would have been smart to tie his two captives up first. Probably knock them out, too, with one of his experimental drugs.

  Whatever he was thinking, Egesa only picked up his pistol and pointed it at Donovan. The woman assistant was evidently not into brawling, either, as she pulled out her firearm as well. The only difference was her gun swept back and forth between Donovan’s face and Cathren’s, while Egesa’s aimed only at Donovan.

  “Enough!” Egesa shouted. “You ignorant fools. This is science, yes? How can it be that you do not have a clue as to the significance of this moment? We are about to make history! Yet, here you are smacking people around like in a bar fight. These are people with graduate degrees you’re attacking. People who know what they’re doing. Bah—now more wasted time. Tie their hands behind their backs.”

  Cathren kicked and struggled, but Donovan was resigned to his fate. The two male scientists easily laid him down on one of the operating tables. Cathren was more of problem, but they eventually got her strapped down on the other table. The woman scientist walked over. Donovan recognized her immediately.

  A fire hydrant with feet, Mirka Aballona. Assistant to the Assistant. She squinted at Donovan as if trying to remember his name, sucking the straight red line of her mouth into nothing.

  “Ah, yes, Mr. Codell, we meet again,” she said in a monotone, then stabbed him with a needle. Again.

  “Damn, every time, the gentle touch,” Donovan said.

  Without responding, she injected the same thing into Cathren. The drug made them relaxed but not sleepy. Perhaps to take the fight out of them. Then Mirka Aballona hooked up IVs. All this with Cathren yelling, Donovan silent, and the two other scientists mumbling procedural jargon at each other.

  The two male technicians busily placed diodes on Cathren’s and Donovan’s faces, necks, and upper chests. EKG machines were hooked up next, to alert the techs should the pair go into cardiac arrest. Finally, after about a half an hour of this manner of prep, they added something to the IV drip.

  Donovan felt himself begin to drift away, no matter how hard he tried to stay awake. He couldn’t make out Cathren’s yells anymore. He wondered if it was because of the drugs’ effect on him, or if she’d indeed gone quiet.

  Right before he passed out, Donovan heard the whirring of the blade of that little chrome chainsaw.

  Then everything went black.

  Chapter 39

  Someone shook Donovan awake. The room floated in a haze in front of him. Straw filled his brain. Thirst bit at his throat, and his lips were powder.

  He fought to get his bearings. Someone said something to him. Then they poked at his chest. Could he still be dreaming? Or was he using a dead man’s frozen brain to think? Wa
it. That made no sense. He tried to concentrate. Focus.

  After a few minutes, his eyes cleared. As they did, Cathren’s beautiful face rose up out of the depths. Donovan still wondered: could he be a brain in a pickle jar?

  He struggled to sit up but lacked the strength. He made another attempt, this time with more determination. The straps seemed loose. No, they had vanished. Someone had unstrapped him, perhaps during the operation. He was still not certain that he was himself. But he was sure, however, that he was not a brain in a jar. Unless....

  Donovan had read about people who lost an appendage, yet remained convinced the limb was still there. They could feel it. Even move it. They had a shadow arm, a vestige leg. Was that what was happening here to him? Was his brain, in its shocked state, imagining a complete phantom body? Why would Egesa keep his brain alive, though? Didn’t make sense. Wouldn’t Egesa toss the squishy gray thing into the garbage bin? Or recycle it somehow? Can brains even be recycled?

  Donovan managed to sit up at last. The room spun and nausea gripped him. Drool slithered down his chin, as if he had received not only anesthesia but Novocain as well.

  Sitting there, looking around, with Cathren’s hand on his back, Donovan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So he did a bit of both.

  An armless body lay prone on the floor. Another, broken and twisted against the wall. The third, the woman’s, was nowhere to be seen. Then Donovan saw a pair of bare, bloodied legs sticking out from behind some cabinets, posed as if she had been scurrying for the door. Donovan didn’t want to know if the legs he was looking at were still attached to that lumpy, stumpy body.

  He gazed into Cathren’s face and she appeared to be—he wasn’t sure—content?

  “What happened?” he meant to say, but the words came out slurred and mumbled.

  Cathren understood anyway. “Seems the drugs you give a human to knock them out don’t work on us fifty-percenters,” she explained. “Jus’ made me real mad. So I started to zombie up. Boom! Boom!” She flexed her arms like a bodybuilder, a bicep popping with each boom.

  He smiled at her. “I’m glad you’re all right,” he said, chuckling. “I’m not sure how to ask this, though, but, um, am I all right?”

  “Of course you are. No one touched you. I made sure of that. You’ve been asleep for almost an hour. Sleeping like an angel.”

  “What about these, uh, people?” Donovan said, waving his hand across the room like he was sprinkling magic dust around. “What about Egesa?”

  “I can’t control the zombie in me once the process starts. I mean, I’m sorry and everything, and I certainly didn’t intend to kill them. It is what it is. As for Egesa, the slippery eel, he tore out of here like his ass was on fire after I started to morph.”

  “So, uh,” Donovan paused. “How come you didn’t kill me?”

  “I don’t think I could,” Cathren said. She made an upset face. “When my mind is controlled by my zombie side, you stay safe. Even the zombie in me seems to be protective of you. Anyway, doesn’t matter. By the time I had destroyed these three, it was over. I was coming down from my zombie high. So I guess we’ll never know.” She shrugged her small shoulders.

  “That’s not exactly the answer I wanted,” Donovan said, biting his lip. “I need to hear you say that under no circumstances would you, could you, ever, ever kill me. Or that, one day, I’ll find myself with my arms and legs ripped off. Guys like to know that sort of thing.” Donovan smiled.

  “I could never hurt you. Certainly not kill you,” Cathren said. “No matter what form I might take now or morph into in the future. I know that. Deep in my heart, I know that.”

  Donovan felt something close to love bubble to the top of his foggy consciousness. He thought he was picking up a vibe from Cathren, too, that seemed to match his. The way she’d caught his eye, and then looked away.

  She helped Donovan to his feet. His legs were wobbly, but they worked. He was thrilled still to have legs at all. To have his own brain in his own body, with his legs right there at the bottom.

  “Well,” he said, “We know one thing for sure: the way out of this hell hole. Let’s get going.”

  Chapter 40

  Donovan shut the manhole cover and made sure it locked. “No one’s getting out through this exit,” he said. “Unless, of course, they know the secret code.”

  He kicked dirt on the lid and threw some branches on top. Snatching Cathren’s hand and checking they weren’t being observed, he trotted with her back to the car. It sat right where they’d left it. Everything seemed the same as before.

  Except for the zombies clustered around the vehicle like paparazzi.

  “Well, this is inconvenient,” Donovan said, slowing to a walk. “How do we get— ”

  He shut up then and watched. For some reason, the zombies started moving backward, down the street, away from the car. They retreated like an outflanked army of the undead.

  Donovan turned around and scanned ATELIC Industries, or what was left of its burned-up buildings. He saw nothing. No cops. No Humvees. No rushing mob of enraged zombie killers. He looked back at the pack of the undead. They were still shuffling backward, moon-walking off toward the horizon. Some had turned, heading away at high speed, at least for zombies. All of a sudden, Donovan understood: the undead were fleeing from Cathren.

  “They sense you,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I think they somehow sense you’re different. Your reputation precedes you.”

  “I don’t have a reputation, thanks.”

  “No, no. That’s not what I meant. They’re picking up a bad vibe—bad for them anyway. You must be giving it off. They sense it like prey senses a predator.”

  “That’s funny, though. If they attacked, I wouldn’t be able to do a thing. I’m an ordinary, defenseless human. Just like you.”

  “Thanks for that.”

  “I meant I’m not a zombie slayer. If the undead only knew that. I can’t switch it on or off; the morphing just happens. They could turn around right now and attack us, eat us alive, and I couldn’t do anything to stop them. I haven’t morphed yet, right?”

  “Yeah, but I may have an idea why,” Donovan said. “I believe it’s something to do with your emotions. You don’t feel threatened. They ran away before you had a chance to register fear. You know?”

  “Hmmm. I’m not sure I’m following you.”

  “Okay, I’m guessing here, but I think you morph because of hormones. Like the Hulk, you know? In your case, triggered by primal fear, not rage. I’m trying to remember, does the brain release adrenaline when fearful?”

  “Yeah, it does.”

  “That might do the trick, then,” he said.

  “Yeah, perhaps my hypothalamus changed somehow when the thawed head bit me,” Cathren said, scratching her head.

  “What’s this, now?”

  “Hypothalamus,” Cathren said. “It’s the part of your brain where your fight or flight response things are located. Primal fear.” She stopped scratching and pointed at the middle of her head, above her ear. “It works with the pituitary gland to release hormones, like adrenaline, like you said.” She slid her finger slightly lower. “Let’s not forget the amygdala, though. Jeez, didn’t you pay attention in bio?”

  Donovan laughed. “You’re full of surprises. Let’s just say yes, I attended all my classes. Paid attention in every one of them? Nope. You’re obviously one of the rare breed of people who actually learned something in school. Incredible.” He gave her a quick, one-armed hug.

  Cathren chuckled. “Well, what I’m saying is maybe my body is circulating something other than adrenaline. Other chemicals in the body.” She rubbed her neck. “Unknown chemicals.”

  They walked toward the car slowly, still wary the zombies might suddenly attack.

  “Yours is as good an explanation as any,” Donovan continued. He stopped with his hand on the door handle. “There’s something else, though. My guess is whatever mutant chemical squirted
into your blood stream might also have changed your scent. Your pheromones, I think they’re called. You know. That ‘come hither’ scent that keeps the species going.”

  “Yeah, I know what it is. But in my case I think it’s more ‘go thither,’” Cathren said, laughing. She gave Donovan a small shove to get him moving. They climbed into the car and Donovan started it up.

  “Where to, Buffy?” he said. “Although it’s not looking as if any place nearby is safe anymore. There’s been—what’s the word?—an exponential increase in the undead. As predicted.”

  “I have no idea where we should go,” Cathren said. She surveyed the zombies twisting around and slinking their way back. “But I suggest we get there fast.” She snapped her buckle shut. “And don’t call me Buffy again. Ever.”

  “What about Ripley? Or Alice?”

  Cathren made a face. “Just drive, wiseass.”

  Donovan’s big plan was for them to escape, to drive out of town, and never look back. When they got to the interstate, he zoomed onto the on-ramp. Halfway down, he realized the highway wasn’t the same highway of even a couple of days ago. Lots of cars and trucks, just like before. But now, these vehicles were empty, abandoned, and along both sides of the throughway, the undead crawled and crept like scavengers in a dump. They had killed everything in sight. They created more dead, thereby creating more undead. The “regulars”—the walking, talking, living humans—were becoming seriously outnumbered.

  It was clear to Donovan: the highway to hell was ahead of them. He stopped and jerked the car into reverse. He began to back his way up the on-ramp of horrors. Some jerk behind them honked his horn about ten times in a row. Donovan stomped on his brakes. Really, asshole? He slapped the vehicle back into drive and guided it down the ramp. He pulled over onto grass and waved the guy on.

  As the beeping driver roared by, he gave Donovan the finger. Donovan didn’t bother to respond. On any other occasion, flipping the bird in return would have been a reflexive act for Donovan. This time was different, however. He knew that, unless the guy turned around right now, there was no need to tell him to go fuck himself. He was already screwed.