Chris is beside me. “What are you doing? Is he awake yet?”
I turn back and Maslow is passed out. Did I dream that?
“No,” I stammer, “He’s still out.
Chris looks away and a little smile crosses Maslow’s lips.
This is going to be a long flight....
18
Terra Nova
A wise son maketh a glad father.
-Proverbs 10:1
I sit against the plane wall with Chris’ head on my shoulder and I listen to the hum of the engines; A rare moment of peace that I truly enjoy. I can feel the vibration in my chest and I hum along with it like I did to the fan in my room as a boy. I drift in and out of dreams and wish for a day when I can see Michael again.
“Madden.” Maslow loudly whispers. “Madden come here now, I need to speak to you.”
I slip away from Chris. “What do you want?”
“Madden, I can feel things I never could.” He actually sounds sincere. “In my soul... I can hear the voices of all the dead, I can feel their pain. There are many more of us than we would imagine. And we all hurt the same. You have to lead us, you have to rescue us from our own anger and fear and deliver us into the future. We can have a world of our own, where we thrive... and it all starts with Michael. This is a strange time, an epiphany. Man lived the wrong way, used the earth and each other for his own gain. And lost all spirituality and faith... and fear. Don’t you see? We all had to die for our sins. But heaven didn’t want us. God turned his back on us and left us to live out eternity Godless. He is gone, and he is not coming back. They are all gone, all the gods. Humankind is finally alone, soulless. I think he took our souls with him and that’s why we cannot pass. That’s why we are here for good. And that’s why we need you to lead us to Michael. You must reach out to him. He has already started to lead his people in Newfoundland. He is not a peaceful savior, he is a Lion. Maybe he is who you are thinking he may be right now, but you doubt he is. He is a man, a dead man who has returned like we have. But he is also much more. As am I. You have to deliver us, Het Madden, to where we can thrive.”
And with that he was gone. Not dead, but lifeless.
“He’s right Het...” Chris had heard the whole thing. “You have to lead us; lead us all. I believe in you.”
It had been an entire day and we were nearing Newfoundland. We were going to land in Corner Brook, the old Capital. Very near The Cabox where Maslow said Michael was.
“See Newfoundland.” Bob mumbles. “Descent soon”.
I look out the window and see a burst, an explosion.
“Northern Alliance Anti-Aircraft fire!” Bob shouts.
More black smoke bursts on all sides. Bob and the other pilots frantically climb higher and turn sharply left toward Labrador. Chris is on the radio listening.
“This is not Northern Alliance gun fire, there is no chatter. I don’t know who it is, I.” when she is interrupted by an awake Maslow.
“Its MIIIIIIIIICCCCCHHHHHAAAAAAAAEEEELLLLLLL!!!” he shrieks.
I grab the radio.
“Michael Madden, is Michael Madden out there. This is Hetfield Madden, your father.”
Just then one of the other planes in our group radios that their engine is hit. We run to the cockpit and can see them. Their wing falls off and they’re gone. There are two planes left.
“Michael, if you are there. Remember the Carousel at Ocean City. We would go there every year for your Spring Break when you were young. One year we saw the St. Patrick’s Day parade and you got so many beads from the floats you couldn’t see your chin. Remember?”
I continue talking to no one it seems. We are hit with gunfire, as is the second plane. We have to land now.
“Michael, it’s me your father. I’m sorry I wasn’t there more, I’m sorry for a lot more than that. You have to answer me; you have to be down there. I need you to be down there. I need you to be...”
We hear a crackle and then “Dad? Is that really you?”
“Yes it’s me!” I shout
The gunfire stops.
“Land your planes at the Corner Brook Airport. We will come to you. Out.” Chris says
“He is trying to maintain radio silence. Still when we land, I don’t know what to expect.” I say.
“Hold on.” Bob warns as we dive toward the airstrip.
The plane shudders and moans as we lose altitude. We have been hit many times, like our sister plane, and we hope we can land. Bob pulls out of the dive and hits the ground. It’s rough but we ease down the runway. The other plane comes close and cartwheels down the tarmac and bursts into flames. Everyone is gone but us.
Bob, Chris, Maslow, the copilot, and I deplane. We leave what’s left of Spicer. The remains are still alive, but far gone. It is cold, very cold. Not cold enough to stop us though. We wander around the airport for a while looking for food. There is no life, alive or dead.
“What is that noise?” Chris asks.
“I hear nothing, need to keep moving. Don’t trust Michael, don’t trust YOU!” Bob says as he pokes his finger into my chest.
Bob is entirely intelligent enough to speak correctly but chooses not to. I cock my arm to punch, and then I hear it, too. Is it wind, or no, it’s flapping. Like wings.
“Ruuuuun!” Chris yells. I look up and see what look like a sky full of birds heading toward us. Then I realize they are bats. We run toward the terminal, I am pulling Maslow with me. They are on us in no time. They circle all around us, taking tiny bites from us all and then they leave.
“They don’t eat carrion. They take souls.” A voice calls from inside the terminal.
I look up. It is my son. He is older. When he sees me, he knows... We walk toward each other and hug. It has been too long. We look at each other a while. Michael is tall and athletic, his hair is long and blond.
I think about this.
I bit him when he was a soldier with short hair. It could only have grown after he discorporated, after he died. None of our hair grows at all. He also does not seem to have decomposed at all, and I had eaten a good part of his flesh and organs and see very little, if any, evidence of this. He looks like a Healthy, but isn’t. I can tell by the smell, he is dead like us.
Interesting side effects of being injected with vaccine, by my bite, at the time of death perhaps... Very interesting. He is backed by 50 or so men and women. They are Deads and are not very advanced.
In my head, on the plane when I had time to think, I broke Deads into classes:
Chris and I are Class A. Sentient, as advanced as we were in our lives before we died.
Class B is Bob... Make that B+. Advanced, but not elegant.
Class C are made up of those who can take direction and free think, like Mike and Steve were.
Class D are shufflers but are aware, they live.
And Class F are just what you think. Reactors, flesh sacks, zombies. The folks with Michael are mostly Class C and below. I don’t know how to classify Michael yet. He is different.
“Sorry we shot you down, those were Alliance planes you were flying.” Michael says. “They come back down here and attack us sometimes. The island is ours, they hide north in Greenland where it’s too cold for anyone but me. I don’t know why, but I am different. Like you... Dad.”
“Michael this is Christine. Bob, my boss you probably remember. This is...”
I didn’t know the copilot and don’t remember actually seeing him until we deplaned.
“Gerasene Legoni.” he said. He looked to be Class A like us. As intelligent as us, but hiding something.
I continued “And this is Dimitri Maslow.”
“We know each other, Hetfield.” Maslow smiles and says.
“Yes, Dimitri continually sent me weapons and supplies to ensure I forced back the Alliance and took Newfoundland for us. He shipped humans to us for food and supplied our army up here. But what happened to you Dimitri?”
“Your father blew my head off, literally. Then he put it bac
k together, poorly.” Maslow happily told Michael. “If you are wondering why you are so far ahead of your followers, ask your father. In fact, you two should go sit down. When he gets to the part about how he was the Dead that killed you, you’ll probably want to be sitting down.”
Michael looks confused and frustrated. I take him into the terminal and let Chris and Bob get acquainted with Michael’s people. I tell Michael everything. About how I attacked him. About The Vaccine that courses through his body. About the virus. About everything. It takes a while, but he understands. I then give him the picture I found in his jacket, the one of us. He takes it and smiles. He looks at me, and for a minute he is 13 again. I’m sorry for all the things I missed. If I could only go back. But first things first.
“Dad, I am different and I think you can tell. I don’t look like any of these people at all, I don’t even look like you. I look like one of the living, but I am dead. And I have strange new memories in addition to my own. Hold on, look at this.” He rolls up a sleeve and points to a scar that runs around his left arm. “My arm was blown off by mortar fire by the Alliance. In a weeks time it was completely back. It grew back. Does your vaccine cause this?”
I look down at my finger. It has grown back, but is still a bit translucent. I can, however, move it.
“Michael, I don’t know.” I say. “Maybe when I bit you getting the virus and vaccine from me at the same time did something to you. I know you noticed your skin and flesh doesn’t rot. Mine and Chris’ have stopped since The Vaccine and I have had this finger grow back. Chris had healed a broken back and a removed eye, but they are not as seamless a regrowth as yours. I would like to take some of your blood and do some experiments with it and The Vaccine.”
“Another thing...” He explains. “I don’t have to eat the living. I can, but I also like to fry up cod and eat them. The others get sick when they eat anything but living flesh. I don’t.”
I thought a while and I had to know. I went over to a snack machine in the terminal. It had been broken into so I picked up and unwrapped a bagel. I ate it and immediately vomited.
“I still can’t eat this trash, but you can. Strange...” I say.
“That candy is pretty old.” Michael says smiling.
“Even Still...” I grin. “I think I am looking at the answer to this virus. I think you hold the key to a vaccination to allow the dead to remain dead... to not reanimate. If the Alliance knew this they would capture you and use you to make vaccinations. Not that it would do much at this late date.”
“Oh it would do much, Gentlemen, it would do a much indeed...” Legoni had heard everything. “It would allow the dead to once again pass to the other side. There is an imbalance, can’t you feel it? This year, 2012, is a time of disaster or enlightenment, or both. The dead are walking the earth! Remember this is an abomination! This is a spiritual anomaly! Some say Deads should be allowed to thrive, to enjoy life. Look at them, soulless walking corpses! And you Hetfield, vaccinated and somehow convincing yourself you are alive. You are nothing more than a walking viral plague, like the rest. You are dead, you have no soul, He took it before he left. He left all of us. Michael Madden you hold the key to rebalance everything. To set things back the way they were, and I cannot let that happen. Your blood injected into Healthies would allow them to die, and allow their offspring to die. Now they reanimate, virus or not. Yes it is true everywhere, you knew Hetfield. Simply die and you come back. This isn’t just a virus, it is enlightenment! And it cannot be stopped, it must play out. It is my duty to see that it does. You must be eliminated!”
And with that Legoni draws a sword from under his coat and swings at Michael’s head. He buries the sword deep into the neck, nearly cutting his head off. Michael falls to the ground and Legoni runs off laughing madly. I look down at Michael as he pulls his head back into place. He looks at me and smiles. He was already regenerating everything needed to reattach the nearly severed head. In a few minutes he was up.
“Won’t be back to full strength for a couple hours.” He continues. “Do you know what he was talking about? Legoni? He sounded crazed.”
“Son, I think he may be another Maslow type. I know Maslow helped you, but he is a crazy bastard. I was told by a National Guard leader that there were many like Maslow, thinking they could save the world. He probably had an assignment by the Northern Alliance and it stuck in his head. Either way, look, he is still running.”
Out the window we could see him.
“Toward The Cabox. Could he be Northern Alliance?” I ask.
“Dad, the fight up here is hard and the Alliance have sent spies before, but I think he is just crazy.” Michael says, almost trying to change the subject. “I can only assume your folks are vaccinating my folks and we are going to build an army. I have to warn you though; we have 10 times this many back at The Cabox.”
I assure him “We have enough, it doesn’t take much. The virus spreads it once it is introduced into the body.”
“We are all acquainted and vaccinated.” Chris smiles as she opens the door to lean in the terminal. “What the Hell is up with Legoni? He ran into the hills.”
“Dunno.” I say. “He tried to kill Michael. And I bet we haven’t seen the last of him. Almost cut his head off, but look how it is healing. I know you have noticed Michael’s condition. I have to add his blood to The Vaccine, I hav..”
Chris cuts me off. “We can do experiments later, now we need to organize.” She leaves and walks out toward the rest.
Michael smiles at me and says “Nice pull, Dad.” I smile back. That’s my boy.
We head outside and to the other side of the tarmac where there are five open back trucks, big ones. We get in with Michael.
He shouts “Back home!” and we head back to his base. He explains “They do whatever I say, they need a leader. Sometimes, if they are injured I cut my arm and bleed into their wounds. They heal and become more like me, like you. They notice this and think I am something that I am not. I have been very successful against the Alliance, however.”
Maslow speaks “Michael you have done so much here.”
Michael says “Yes I take care of my people. We need a catalyst to get us going with our attack on Nuuk. We never had the proper transport or organization. The Vaccine will give us the organization to not only attack, but to come up with a method. It is a far journey, over 800 miles. Passage by ship is no good. However we have planes, but until now no pilots. It looks like we have one now, in Bob. He could fly a couple hundred of us near Nuuk. We could land on the ice... but then what.
“Wait, take us back to the plane!” I shout.
“Back to the plane!” Michael orders.
We turn around and head back. Once there, I go inside and search Spicer’s pockets. He has to have a “football” of some sort... A list of codes to identify himself to his armies. Inside jacket pocket is where I find it. A complete list of codes to launch an attack, order supplies, and most importantly, to identify himself. Jackpot.
“We can use these codes to manipulate the Northern Alliance into thinking General John Gordon Spicer is alive.” It worked with that ship we flew over. It will work now.
We need to come up with a plan, and a good one.
“OK here’s what we do.” Michael begins. “We split the Alliance up. Slowly at first. We order an attack on Corner Brook. A Sea and Ground attack. We can order it in the General’s name. Have them send 200 or so men. We will surround them, newly intelligent from the vaccination you gave my people, eating some, turning some.
Then we have guns.
Next we simply call back and say the attack was successful. We have the codes. We can tell them to send more of their folks in planes, to assess.
Then we have planes.
We will keep going as long as we can. Eventually we will make a dent, a big one. But before any of this can happen, we need a reconnaissance mission to see what they have in Nuuk. How many, how well defended. We need information. We need spies.”
“The obvious choices are Bob, Chris, and I.” I say. “We can take a small plane to Nuuk and land on the ice near there. We have the codes so if anyone questions over the radio, we should be able to talk our way out. But a plane that small? They aren’t going to notice, I’m quite sure.
We are taking Maslow with us. The crazy bastard does have an actual clairvoyance, and in an informal casting call, would definitely do the best Spicer impersonation. We will wait until early afternoon tomorrow to leave. That will get us near Nuuk near dark.
We eventually get back to The Cabox. There are probably 500 Deads here, including Legoni.
Het Madden, a Zombie Perspective: Book One: WRATH 2012 Page 17