There are many out on the street that were obviously injected by us last night. They are moving quite well, especially the Lieutenants, and some are speaking to each other. I realize it is getting dark and I can’t wait any longer. I hand out cards that read STOUT GREEN BUILDING all day. Stout’s building is green. The plan all along was to meet there. Many will know who Stout is. He will know them. And the revolution will begin there. I speak with many and they are ready. They are capable. And they are mad and hungry. We go now!
I run back to Stout’s lab and burst through the door with many of my new army in tow. We kill anything in sight. Stout’s guards are our own kind, but they have to be silenced. We get to his lab and I go in first. Chris sees me and her smile asks a question.
“Chris, go ahead.” I say. She leaps on a surprised Dr. Stout. She eats his eyes first, then his face. He screams and falls to the floor. She stops and moves to the wall. “Let them in, Het.” I join her and we watch as they tear into his guts and eat him alive. I look at her bandaged eye.
Chris begins, “Stout made me cut it out to prove I wasn’t involved in what we were doing. He had Allen and Brown’s equipment. I don’t know if he told anyone. I put the eye back in.”
“Leave it in and it should fuse in place now that you have The Vaccine in you. How does it feel?” I ask.
She looks at me. “Doesn’t hurt a bit.”
I will never tell her I saw everything. No need. We have a fight to win and I still blame her for Michelle’s death. I wish I could let go. I know I will someday.
When I was developing The Vaccine I saw infected mice regenerate quite a few nerve connections, including the spine. Doppelganger itself is amazing, and The Vaccine more so. It isn’t likely to grow back body parts, at least I don’t think it will, but it could conceivably reconnect the eye. The virus must be able to see to reproduce, and going with the theory that we are the virus, it should repair what it needs in order to infect more Healthies, but only time will tell. Our friends had finished Stout and we knew our revolution had begun.
This building is our new headquarters. We instruct our new, strong, and hungry army on our plan to take this island. We will attack Maslow when it is completely dark with everything we have. Stout’s building, while old looking is loaded with fairly advanced weapons and ammo so we arm everyone we can. We continue to kill guards and other doctors and scientists that are here, while we vaccinate and recruit all others. We have well over 100 soldiers and 100 more that are less sentient but will follow along. Everyone has probably eaten the immunized food supply by now, so we will find more along the way. They may not be smart, but the docility will be wearing off.
It is pitch dark now and we head out through the streets toward Maslow’s building. Silently we prowl through the night, gaining followers along the way. Three words are spoken to each newcomer.
“Maslow, kill, now.”
They get it.
There are easily a thousand of us when we get about 3 blocks from Maslow’s building. Lights shine on us from the roof. We are noticed! I crow a war cry, and we rush toward the building. Those of us with guns fire as we run. We are fired upon and we lose some. This is a war for our lives and control of this island.
We get to the building across the street from Maslow and we take cover to regroup. It is difficult to organize this mass, and many do not stop. They continue on and draw fire. The more intelligent of the group listen to me.
“We must take this building!” I howl. “We must kill Maslow!” A roar among my troops erupts and we charge toward the building. Maslow’s men are slow and fairly dimwitted. He must have run out of adrenalin for this group. There are so many of them and barbed wire surrounds the entranceways. I should have expected this. Those of us that didn’t stop to regroup are taking on Maslow’s men hand to hand, reaching over the wire. They want in, and Maslow’s men want to keep us out. That is the only way to tell who is on which side.
Machine gun fire rains down on us from the roof and molotov cocktails bombard us. But we press on, laying dead bodies on the barbed wire so we can cross and not get hung up. We continue to move ahead through the firestorm and are finally rewarded. We break through the line of defense and knock down the doors.
We are entering the building now, spilling into the lobby. We begin to make our way up to the next floor. Another wave of defense comes in the form of fresh Maslow troops, slow and deliberate, and smarter than the first group. A veritable wall of flesh.
We meet on the large staircase up to the second floor. Flesh is torn from bodies, the staircase is almost a stage if looked upon from the front door. We are on a mission, and they are in the way. It is that simple.
We level them and continue to the second floor. There are a few to stop us but not many. Instead of rushing to the top, we go up floor by floor, systematically searching and securing each one as we go. This way no one gets out unless they jump. Of the 50 stories, 40 are ours by daybreak and we continue clearing about 1 floor an hour, slowly pushing them back as we go.
The last 10 floors are laden with bear traps, mines, guards in hiding. We have lost many more than half of our people. Chris and I have remained together throughout the battle and have a few minor injuries but nothing stops us. She is an admirable fighter. We are in a constant Frenzy, and it’s been a while for me. I am ravenous and have eaten many of my infected enemies. Attacks by our own ranks on our own ranks are minimal, but they do occur. I had forgotten the uncontrolled feeling of a Frenzy and know when we win this, that will be my biggest problem going forward. I guess it was Maslow’s as well, that’s why he drugged everyone.
By midday the battle rages on and we only have the top floor to go. We get ready to climb the steps and then feel a powerful thud. There is vacuum-like silence and then a loud blast that shakes the building and everything in it, exploding the glass out of all the windows. We go upstairs and the whole floor is gone. I see sky, nothing left here. Did Maslow blow everything up including himself? No other explanation seems logical at this time. We have won! We have taken the island and Maslow is dead! Our screams echo throughout the city! There are thousands of us that are now free. Free of Maslow’s rule. Free to do what we want. Undrugged and beyond control of him or anyone else. Angry, hungry hoards of intelligent infected with no one leading them yet, and who remain in a frenzied state.
Now what?
13
Fort Manhattan
Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it...
A few weeks have passed since we defeated Maslow’s forces and watched as he killed himself and his few remaining men on the top floor of his building. We never found his body, and this concerns me. But we are free of his grip on this island. Organizing all of the infected here in Manhattan, however, proves to be nearly impossible. We do have a larger lab now, and we’ve found a few new scientists on the island. The vaccinations have brought a lot of us to a higher degree of intelligence, but for many it is only temporary--for some it proved fatal. The Vaccine’s effects aren’t always permanent. It sometimes wears off and leaves the subject a staggering zombie like they were before and they usually go into Frenzy, sometimes only eating themselves. The site of a poor soul eating his own flesh until his mouth can no longer reach any more meat is a terrible sight, and nothing can stop this once it takes hold. Others die soon after they are vaccinated. It seems The Vaccine’s meth base just doesn’t work for everyone. Adrenalin might. Maybe the meth is a substitute that isn’t universal. We don’t know why yet, and we hope this isn’t a sign of what’s to come for us all.
Those of us who thrive ban together to try and come up with ways to control the island and the Frenzy that takes over at times. We also realize that trouble could come across by ship or plane at any time, so we must remain vigilant. There is a core group of 50 of us that are completely functional. I am the man at the top again, and for a while Bob was at my side. Yeah, that Bob.
He came walking up to me a few days after the victory, obviously
vaccinated. Said he had left Maslow and wanted to join me. I didn’t trust him, but I wanted to see if he knew anything. He didn’t, so I ran my finger through his eye sockets into his brain and then reached into his chest and pulled his heart out, and ate it.
That simple.
Chris and I are very close and she leads the science team. Smith has since healed and is always by her side. She has come up with variants on Doppelganger and we try to duplicate and grow uninfected human flesh. And for a while, continued to artificially inseminate healthy females and breed them, hundreds, for food.
Breeding Healthies came with much trial and error it turned out. Maslow had perfected it and did it for sport and necessity. It turns out that many Healthies would kill themselves and their young once they found out what we were doing. Then Maslow got smart. He simply kept the female Healthies in an unconscious state most of the time. He also boxed them; removed the arms and legs. This allowed him to easily inseminate them and in nine months get babies.
He of course didn’t care about the baby’s health or what the drugs would do, he was after the meat. He considered it a delicacy. I often wondered why I got so much pleasure out of hearing these stories. It was a necessity to survive, something that had to be done. At first I liked the thought of the pain in the mother’s eye during childbirth, and especially when the child was taken away after it had been born. Yes, Maslow woke each and every mother up for the birth. They had to be conscious and it was like a drug to see the horror in their faces when they realized their babies would be food. He would let them stay awake a few hours after they gave birth, restrained of course so they couldn’t hurt themselves. Then he would knock them out and re-inseminate.
In practice it was just too cruel though. Maslow was a sick bastard. I tried to rationalize it, but it just didn’t seem right; even thought they were the same Healthies that let us suffer. And to be sure, a couple hundred drugged females making babies doesn’t keep my people very well fed at all. It is a waste of time and effort for the return it offers. We did have some success with attempts at growing flesh in the lab, but again it was not enough for the effort.
We had come to an agreement of sorts on food distribution a while back. We make raids on the mainland regularly to find Healthies and feed. The city, it seems, still has quite a few. I wish we didn’t have to, because I worry the raiders may be followed back here. By who, I don’t know. But a world in disarray like ours can only breed unknown numbers of enemies--enemies I care to avoid.
“Morning Het.” Chris wakes up and looks me in the eye.
“Morning.” I say, wishing I could lay here forever.
We stay in bed a while but need to get going. We have a meeting today with leaders from the several clans that have formed here on the island. There will be five of them, one from each of the five major controlling clans.
This clan system was put in place by me. My people, the most intelligent, remained with me. We had to find a way to organize the rest of the infected on the island. I felt the best way was to institute leaders for the 5 major areas that we had on the island. Having just led the assault on Maslow, I had quite a bit of clout so I picked who I thought would be best as leaders, split up the real estate, and carved out the clan system. Civility didn’t last long, I knew it wouldn’t, but how do you effectively control the land of the dead? You don’t. You find a way to let it control itself. And that’s what I did.
We eventually get up and leave. As we walk toward the building, the cold of winter definitely slows us down. The ones who are slow to begin with have it worse. We arrive at our building and walk in. We notice that there is no one on the first floor. The place is empty. We head up to our office and are greeted with blank stares. The Vaccine has worn off many of the people we work with, and they went into Frenzy before we got here. There is flesh and pieces of body everywhere.
“Why is this happening, Het, why is it wearing off?” Chris says. “Why doesn’t the meth in The Vaccine work for everyone? Is this going to happen to us?”
I tell her “We have to keep working on an answer, and if it was going to happen to us, I think it would have happened by now.”
We do need to keep working, but just then our guests arrive.
“Maddennn!” I hear Donny Minutes call out.
Donny has the biggest clan on the island. He got his name because his clan does the most raiding of the mainland and Donny prides himself on raids that take less than an hour; specifically minutes. If he finds out what happened here this morning he will realize he is in a position to take over. Most of my people are scientists, not warriors, and we are even fewer now. The clans let me run the show out of respect and fear. We have all the guns and explosives and they aren’t sure of what we are capable of. I am, and I know it would be tricky but we could probably defeat them, at least individually at the clan level.
“Donny, my friend.” I call out. “We’re coming down.”
Chris and I descend the steps to the lobby and I shake hands with Donny. He takes Chris’ hand and kisses it. He loves to play the gentleman, but looks bad. The Vaccine is obviously wearing off but he still speaks intelligently, albeit a little slurred and very twitchy. The twitching is almost rhythmic, entrancing. Boisterous, like a stage actor playing to the back of the room.
“Where’s everybody else?” I ask.
“Het, there’sss been a change in the clansss.” Donny hisses and rocks. “Not all by me. On our lassst run into the city we saw Rucker’sss clannn and Harrisss’. They were in a huge fight with Healthiessss. The Army I think, and you could tell they were new to the cccity. They took out both clanssss quick, they had gunssss and carsss and motorcyclesss. They didn’t sssee us and we got away. Most of the crewssss are ssslowing down lately. You guysss find out what is making this happen all of the sssssudden?”
We don’t spread the word that our vaccine is failing or that we even gave one. Everyone but our science group thinks its just natural aging/rotting that is doing it.
“Still working on it, Donny. We are making progress. Where are Weinstein and O’Brien?” I ask, referencing the other two leaders of the weaker clans.
“That’s the sssecond part of the ssstory.” He becomes cocky. “When we got back I realizzzed that there was noone to ssstop me from killing thossse two and absssorbing whatever wassss left of hisss people into my clan. One big crew, you know? Ssso I did and here we are. From what I can remember about your people, we outnumber you at leassst 5 to 1 now. Keep that in the back of your head, Het. I gotta go. But I’ll be back.”
Chris and I stand there and watch him leave. After this morning, we only have about 30 people left. And he definitely could have over 500 with the combination of the three clans, even if there were some losses in the skirmish they had. We silently think about this as we head up to the lab.
When we get there I address Smith and the rest of the scientists. “There was a Frenzy in the offices below. I know it is hard to hear with the noise from the lab. Most of our people down there are gone.”
“They were useless flesh sacks.” One of the men calls out. “No loss as I see it.”
“It’s more of a problem than you think.” I continue. “Donny Minutes’ Clan is the only clan now. He attacked Weinstein and O’Brien’s clans and made them his after Rucker and Harris’ clans were killed by Healthies on the mainland.”
This has their attention and they start talking all at once.
“Listen, before--the infighting was bad, but it kept everyone in check. Clan against clan, ignoring us and letting us do our thing for the common good.” I say.
“We have to drug them! That’s the only way to control them!” Dr. Clark screams. “They are animals an..!”
I interrupt. “I am apprehensive about controlling the problem with drugs like Maslow did, but the thought had crossed my mind before. They make raids anyway, so applying the drugs would not have been difficult on the ones left behind and unprotected. However now we are most likely at war and there is no ti
me. We will have to fight.”
I worry to myself that we are starting to sound like the Healthies did when we first got sick. Animals? They are people. But they are now enemies and must be treated as such.
“Donny will be back. And I think he is going to attack us and attempt to take the building. Once that happens, all progress stops and we will no longer be able to work to make sure we all don’t become shufflers again.” I say to a excited group.
“The only thing we can do is get this building ready to defend.” Chris says. She is right. “Lets get guns out. Grenades. Set some traps near the building. We can defend this place and make sure they don’t get in without a fight!”
We could have some boats ready to take us to the mainland, but that could be just as bad with the Healthies organizing there. We stand our ground here; its them, or us.
We get to work setting up defense. Guns are out the windows and we set up barrels of explosives on the street toward the building. Shooters on the roof can set them off. We could effectively take them all out. They won’t be too organized; they are losing mobility and intelligence daily. But they also will not surrender. They will keep coming until we kill them. And then what? We are down to about 30 of us? Ripe for attack from the mainland. It is all falling apart.
Het Madden, a Zombie Perspective: Book One: WRATH 2012 Page 12