Of course, none of the plebes had done the routine she’d just set for herself. It didn’t really reflect the reality of zombie movements, either. Although the crew had designed the targets to look much like actual undead, they moved too quickly, changed direction too suddenly, lunged and retreated in ways zombies couldn’t imitate. They zigged and zagged, dropped from the ceiling to zoom back up, flung themselves from the ground to trip the unwary. For once, this wasn’t about training.
Neeta steeled herself, found an opening and dove in with a roar. She swung high, tagging the first zombie with the edge of her blade just as it got within her reach.
This was about reflexes.
She jumped over the arm that sprung up in front of her, doing the splits as she brought down her chainsaw to slice the hand off at the wrist.
…About burning aggression.
She spun a full circle, moving the saw in a sine wave. She took one target out at the knees, sliced another sideways across the chest, beheaded a third.
…About moving beyond thought and planning and negotiations with writers and directors and people who cared more for ratings than lives.
She lunged, spun, kicked, and swung; her battle cries a perfect accompaniment to the pounding music.
A buzzer sounded, and the lights brightened and steadied. The targets stopped their frenetic motions and presented themselves for her to examine. She dropped the saw where she stood and braced her hands against her knees to catch her breath. Her arms felt like lead. A good feeling. She moved among the grimacing targets, noting the strikes that would have severed limbs, the ones that would have beheaded... When she came to the long-haired one with the pot belly, she gave a feral grin.
She’s landed the blade in perfect position to slice Dave’s manic smile right off his face.
Chapter Three
Notes from The Zombie Syndrome
A Documentary
By Gary Opkast
Episode: Zombie-ism: Causes and Cures
Interview clip: Dr. Myron P. Leadbetter, biochemist, author: Conservative, male, mid-30’s, wearing a lab coat over a shirt and tie. Leadbetter sat with his legs crossed, ankle on knee. He kept shaking his foot so that the tassel on his shoe shook. Off screen Gary asked him twice to stop, as it made his whole body wiggle. Leadbetter finally grabbed his shoe with one hand, but then he started playing with the tassel. Note: crop that out.
LEADBETTER: To me, the cause is as plain as the nose on your face—provided you’re living and still in possession of your nose, of course, hahaha. But seriously, let’s look at history. 2009: the world is hit with the worst swine flu epidemic in a century. However, thanks to modern medicine, we survive with only a few thousand deaths. (He released his shoe and made air quotes around “thanks.”) Between eight and ten years later, the first zombies emerge here in the United States, the most medically modern country in the world. I think the connection is clear.
(Off camera, Gary prompted, “Could you just state it for our viewers?”)
LEADBETTER: Vaccines! The H1N1 flu vaccine was simply produced too quickly and distributed too readily. Pharmaceutical companies saw the opportunity for massive profits, and congressmen had their careers at stake. They hurried it along to be ready for the next flu season, turned a blind eye to potential after-effects. You did know that entire batches were recalled? They say the percentage of virus was too weak, but I have documents and anonymous statements from people deep in the chain of command who say that even then, they knew there was something wrong. I studied biochemistry in college, but when it comes to flu season, it’s homeopathy and hand washing for my family!
* * * *
Gary marked the end of the clip for use, but continued to let the video play.
On his computer, Leadbetter had paused. “Can we go off the record a minute?”
“Yeah, sure. What’s up?”
“Camera’s off?” Gary had lied with his nod, and Leadbetter leaned forward and spoke quietly, anyway. “Listen, my publicist wants to know when this is scheduled to air. My book, Swine Flu and the Zombie Contagion, comes out this fall, but we can tweak the launch date to match your airing.”
“Uh, well, I haven’t actually sold it yet.”
He sat back, blinking. “Oh? Well, get on it, man! This is vital information. Here, let me give you my agent’s card. If you’re interested later in expanding this segment into a full-hour special, I’d be glad to collaborate with you on it.”
Gary stopped the video and shuffled the papers littering his side table until he found Leadbetter’s agent’s card. Was it worth giving Leadbetter an hour for his theory?
* * * *
Neeta thought about Gordon while she showered. He’d make it. She knew that. He was efficient, thorough and took orders well. He didn’t have any problem destroying what had once been, and still looked like, a human being.
“There’s something very satisfying about killing things,” he’d told her in his audition interview. “Don’t get me wrong—I’m not into murderous rampages or anything, but when something needs to get taken out, best to do it right, do it permanently, and move on.”
She didn’t know why he didn’t get into extermination right off the bat, but instead, he’d wandered from job to job—martial arts instruction, police work—getting fired at each when his philosophy made itself known. Fortunately, before anyone was permanently taken out, the North Korean war started, and he’d joined the Marines, where he distinguished himself again and again for five years. Couldn’t handle the peacekeeping afterward, though.
Neeta leaned her head back into the spray, enjoying the feel of the water sluicing the shampoo out of her hair. Her mind turned to the e-mail she’d gotten from the Marine psychologist who’d out-processed Gordon.
Staff Sergeant Gordon “the Rock” Makepeace (discharged) possesses the natural tendencies of a serial killer. I can only credit strong parenting with the fact he didn’t spend his childhood pulling wings off butterflies and tying dynamite to cats’ tails. The discipline of the Marines kept him from berserker antics in the war—though there was the incident at (Classified information. Text removed and kept as evidence for Article 15 procedures.), but he ended up saving the lives of his fellow Marines. Semper Fi!
Zombie work sounds ideal for Rock. However, he will need a strong hand, firm orders and by no means should he be let loose around (Classified information. Text removed and added to Article 15 file. Please do not inquire Lieutenant Biloxi about it; he’s in enough trouble already. OOH Rah!)
Neeta turned off the shower, squeegeed off the glass, and sprayed the entire stall with disinfectant. She followed the same routine in her decontamination chamber—adding the radiation, of course. She’d never feel clean otherwise.
She was toweling off her short hair, thinking about growing it out, and what it was she needed to keep Gordon away from. If it might be kimchi, this could be a problem this afternoon, and, wow, she was hungry... So when the doorbell rang, she answered it without thinking that she should probably have changed out of her bathrobe first.
Ted grinned at her, his eyebrows raised, while a half step behind him, Gary gaped and blinked.
“Am I late for something?” she asked.
“Not at all,” Ted said, all but purring the words. When Neeta squinted at him, he cleared his throat. “It’s just that Dave changed his mind last night. Said he won’t shoot the—quote—educational boredomness—unless there’s a real challenge involved. Gary and I came up with an idea, so don’t get your robe in a twist.”
“Robe?” Neeta glanced down and blushed. She tried to hide it with an exasperated sigh. “Come in. Let me change.”
She turned and headed into the bedroom, shutting the door. She resisted the urge to whack her head against the closet wall. She also forced her mind to stay away from the image of Ted smiling at her. The last thing she needed was to give Dave an off-stage romance to exploit. Even if Ted did have a cute grin.
Dressed in a pair of Bermuda shorts
and a t-shirt with her company logo (Lyffe Undeath Exterminations), she emerged to see Ted flipping through one of the professional magazines littering her coffee table along with her opened-but-unanswered mail, while Gary looked around the room with a dazed expression she couldn’t figure out.
“Have you eaten today?” she asked him.
He blinked at her as if she were an apparition. “Some toast. We’ve been kind of busy.”
She jerked her head toward the kitchen. “Come on. I’ll make you a Pre-Run Special. Guaranteed to be easy on the stomach and quick to digest.”
She gathered the ingredients and started chopping them into the blender while her guests watched, Gary with that weird look, and Ted with a small frown. Did he think she was going to poison him? He didn’t have to drink it. She turned her back on them.
Gary’s phone rang, and he excused himself to the other room. As she reached into the dishwasher for three clean glasses, Ted moved to stand beside her.
“Uh, Neeta? This was in your magazine, marking the article on budget sprayers. I’m not trying to pry, but...”
She glanced at the letter in his hand, a second past-due notice on her mortgage with a 30-day foreclosure threat.
She hated the concern in his eyes. “Don’t worry about it. It’s taken care of.”
“It was really that bad?”
“Why do you think I’m doing this show?”
He sighed and mashed his lips together. The silence stretched.
She broke it with the blender just as he was breaking it with a question. She snapped it off.
“What?”
“I said!” He stopped, began again at a lower volume. “I said, ‘This is going to be awkward now, considering,’ but I was wondering if you’d teach me to use the equipment. I’d pay for lessons—”
“I don’t need your pity!”
“See? Awkward! Who said anything about pity? I’ve been watching you guys have all the fun for the past six weeks—”
“That’s what you think this is about? Having fun?”
He gave her his most rakish grin. “Looks fun to me.”
Her next angry comment died in her throat. She opened her mouth, closed it, looked from his eyes to the magazine he held, folded to an ad for flamethrowers, then back to his face. Why’d his grin have to turn her insides to jelly? Not what she needed right now.
“Know what? Fine! Twenty dollars an hour, plus fuel and damages.”
“Woooo!” Ted hooted just as Gary walked back in.
“What? What?” he demanded as Neeta poured the smoothies into three cups.
Ted handed Gary a glass then clicked it with his. “Neeta just agreed to give me private extermination lessons!”
“Oh.” Gary’s face fell.
* * * *
Nasir sat in front of his laptop, and made sure the camera could see the large poster of the mountains of Afghanistan and native bowl and artifact sitting on the stand beneath it. The poster was a blow-up of a photo he’d taken on a vacation, but Dave had had the props department make the objects from pictures from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He’d written into Nasir’s contract that he had to show them prominently in the background of all his blogcasts and interviews, along with wearing the turban and scarf when not in exterminator uniform. Still, if it made him competitive for the million, he didn’t care. He’d managed to get a small bonus up front for butchering his grammar, however. He had some pride.
“Oh, yes,” he told the screen. “I am very much excited to be visiting the Zombie Extermination Research and Development Center. I will being especially interested in effective low-budget extermination supplies and techniques. You see, a million American dollars is a lot of money in my country, but it is still not an incredible lot. I am not just to being my own business, but to start a national training center.”
He paused, pressing one fist against his mouth and staring out his window at the palm-tree dotted parking lot of the cheap motel he’d found near the studio. When he spoke again, he didn’t look back to the screen. “My country has been torn by war and insurgency for as long as we can remember. The British, the Russians, the Americans. The Taliban between. When finally, we were on our own, rebuilt, growing strong, the zombies emerged from the mountain hideouts to threaten our peace.
“We don’t want to ask the world for help. We want to be left alone, to do for ourselves on our own. Still, if I don’t win, I don’t know if...”
He switched off the camera. Maybe he’d post it. He’d need to think. He was still thinking when the bus came to pick him up.
* * * *
The Zombie Extermination Research and Development Center looked like any off-campus lab building: large, square, with pastel brick and tinted windows, positioned off the highway and surrounded by a large xeriscaped campus with the mountains in the background. Not until one approached the entrance, did the building’s purpose make itself known and then only by a small, nondescript logo of the initials ZERD.
The Zombie Death Extreme viewers saw, however, an imposing military complex of cement blocks and steel, surrounded by six-foot fences topped with concertina wire and lined with surveillance cameras.
This suited the employees of ZERD just fine.
Inside, Neeta, her plebes, two cameramen, and a somewhat green but determined staff writer followed their tour guide through another set of double doors. The rubber waders they wore over their clean room suits squeaked on the tile floor. Roscoe somehow managed to walk without squelching. They passed rows of people working at computers and microscopes, their backs to the tour group. With their white jumpers and caps, they looked ominous and official. They didn’t need to wear clean suits in this area, but no one wanted to go to get thrown out of the PTA or Rotary club because they’d been identified on Zombie Death Extreme. East Palm Desert, after all, prided itself on its standards, and zombie work did not meet those standards.
Dr. Corriander Spice, who insisted everyone call him Dr. Hansen for the show, waited until they had all gathered around the large plate-glass windows, currently darkened. They couldn’t avoid filming him, but the producer had agreed to use a computer-generated avatar in his place. As such, he was conducting the tour wearing a green-screen leotard with motion sensors dotting its surface. He tried very hard to ignore the giggles of his workmates and to keep his stomach sucked in. At least the director had agreed to replace him with a likeness of Duane Jones. He’d always harbored a secret longing to be just like the hero of Night of the Living Dead.
“So, to recap, we’ve seen the vivisection room—feeling better now, Gary?—and we’ve learned that removing appendages and even evisceration will not do more than slow your zombie down.”
“Gawd, yes! The way that legless one kept crawling on, groaning, ‘Flesh wound! Flesh wound!’ was just too creepy,” Roscoe interjected.
Gary placed a hand over his mouth and his cheeks puffed. LaCenta rolled her eyes at him.
Spice wanted to ask him if he needed another bag, but the director had already chided him several times about talking to anyone but Neeta, the plebes, and the camera. He couldn’t help it; the kid looked so pitiful. He decided to distract him instead.
“’Creep’ is just the word.” Spice laughed, and Neeta chortled, but the rest looked blank. “Sorry. Exterminator humor. You’ll learn it. So the lesson there is, sever the upper spinal column, or...”
He held up his hands like a conductor.
The group chanted, “When the head comes away from the neck, then it’s over.”
He clapped his hands together. “Exactly! And, in fact, federal law now requires all dead have their spines surgically severed before burial. Now, I know Neeta loves her chainsaw, but really, flamethrowers are the most effective destructive tool in your kit. Embalming fluid is highly flammable, especially where older corpses in advanced stages of decay are concerned.”
Neeta growled, “Which is all well and good until you singe some lawyer’s precious back porch.”
“Just
so,” Spice said. “There are too many places where napalm and fuel-injected inferno just don’t fit.”
“No truer words,” Roscoe crooned. LaCenta slugged him.
“Not to mention the fact that a flamethrower in every home really isn’t the best of ideas. So, we at ZERD are exploring safer means not only of extermination but also of protection. We have been doing some very exciting work with antihistamine foam.”
Gordon snorted. “Allergy meds for zombies? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Spice grinned at him. “Watch.” He pressed a button on the wall.
The windows cleared to show a large room empty except for various mechanical arms suspended from the high ceiling, bearing a variety of spray nozzles and hoses. On one end, a small tray holding a pound of ground beef slid out of the wall. On the other, a door opened, and a female zombie clad in the ragged remains of a filthy calico dress shuffled into the room. She hesitated, her head jerking about as she took in her surroundings, then she staggered for the meat.
About halfway across the room, a sprayer whirred into action, coating a line of foam between her and the meat. She jerked to a stop, wavering, her groans growing into panther-like screams.
“You trained it,” Gordon scoffed.
“You can’t train a zombie,” Spice countered. “The part of the mind that processes cause and effect is atrophied. There’s not even enough left for a Pavlovian effect.”
As the zombie paced the line, screeching with frustration, Spice continued. “We aren’t ready to deploy this tool yet, unfortunately. The concentration of antihistamine is way beyond FDA tolerance levels. Unless the exterminator is wearing a full haz-mat suit, including gas mask, she or he will experience dry nose and mouth, irritability, and drowsiness, which is a bad thing when dealing with the undead…and of course, no one exposed should drive or operate heavy machinery for four hours afterward.”
Neeta Lyffe, Zombie Exterminator Page 4