by David Moody
Kinzer had discovered early on that, while in this hallucinogenic state, his test subjects were extremely susceptible to suggestion in the form of images. One Friday night after a particularly long and exhausting week of work, his niece, Sindra, had come to visit. She was twelve, and very much into horror movies; she’d brought the original version of Dawn of the Dead for their traditional movie night. At first, Kinzer had barely been watching the film; he was entirely lost in planning what he would do with his discovery and how to make money from it when the light of an idea began to burn brightly. It was all he could do to not grab the DVD from the player and head down to his research facility right then.
The moment his niece left Saturday morning, he was off to the lab, George Romero’s masterpiece in hand. The movie worked better than expected. His subjects immediately became violent upon watching it; the pig he had placed in the enclosure with them had been reduced to a pile of bones within minutes. The frantic squeals of the animal only seemed to heighten the subjects’ desire to tear it apart and eat it. He fantasized about throwing a human in among them to see if the response would be the same.
‘Who would care about having one less prostitute in the world?’ He could drive down to a red light district and be back in less than an hour. He wondered how long it would be before the locals would begin to recognize him; he’d already taken seven women on which to test his formula. The government frowned upon using live human test subjects without first going through the appropriate animal trials, especially when they weren’t willing participants. But in any case, there was no chance he would ever get approval for a virus that made people psychotic and violent. He’d been given no choice but to go out and collect his own subjects.
‘You are doing so much more for society,’ he had told his first, scared victim. Lelu, he believed her name to be. She’d died on the third day, before he had sussed out a correct dosage. Brain matter had begun to leak from her ruptured eardrums and clawed-out eye sockets. He’d gone six more times down to that neighborhood, in three different cars, sometimes wearing a large hat or even in one case, a wig. No one cared. Even the women seemed pleased to be released from their bonds of paid rape to support their lives. At what point was the price for survival too high?
The reason he’d not gone forward with the military’s lukewarm pursuit of the virus was that it wasn’t ready for them. Not only was it extremely fast acting, but the host could, and would, fight off the infection. No matter the dose, if it did not kill the injected immediately, the virus would run its course within twelve hours. After ridding itself of the illness, the body would immediately shut down, having exhausted itself and depleted its resources in its attempt to kill off the invading microbes. Kinzer couldn’t imagine in what scenario generals would see putting an army to sleep, one ravaged soldier at a time, as an appealing prospect. Until he could solve that problem, he was stuck.
The doctor finally got his human food tester, but not in the way he’d figured. He had been giving the women their injections for the morning; he’d just finished up on Subject Number Four and returned to his office when an alarm light blared from his security station. What he was doing was highly illegal. He’d taken a variety of steps to prevent getting caught, including having multiple cameras set up around and outside his laboratory that detected any movement. He strode quickly over to the bank of monitors and scanned them, looking for whatever had set off the alarm.
‘A dog... probably nothing but a dog.’ He breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I don’t think I need any more coffee, but I’m going to get some. And maybe a lab assistant as well, so I can stop talking to myself. All in due time.’ He poured himself a cup, placed two sugar cubes into the steaming hot liquid, and sat down. He began to look over his notes from yesterday; he had forty-five minutes to an hour before the women awoke and the virus took hold. Today his goal was to show them scenes from the zombie film 28 Days Later, and see if his subjects behaved any differently. He’d finished reviewing his notes and was halfway through the draft of his Nobel acceptance speech, when the first urgent cries began.
‘Help me, please help me!’ a woman’s voice begged. The doctor had been so surprised that he knocked his mug off the corner of the desk and it shattered into a hundred razor sharp shards. He looked wildly around trying to discover where the distress call was coming from. A blood curdling scream wrenched his attention to the testing pen. Four of his subjects surrounded the fifth and had closed in tight enough that they were able to take bites of their victim.
‘What’s going on?’ Kinzer said excitedly as he ran closer to the cell. He’d never seen anything but cohesion from the group since he’d put them all together. He’d never heard human speech from them once an injection had been given, either. Sure, there were vocalizations from the zombies but they were really just a series of moans in a variety of lengths and pitches—possibly some form of communication that he had yet been able to determine, or perhaps simply random expressions of misery.
‘Pleeeeese!’ Test Subject Number Five was shrieking. One of the infected women had lunged in and torn a chunk of muscle from her right arm. The sight and smell of the blood seemed to electrify the other four, they started clawing various pieces of the woman away, starting on her face. Her screams were choked thick with blood as her facial meat was torn from its moorings. The zombies hardly took the time to chew; they ripped pieces of their victim free and swallowed them down their gullets whole, like ravenous pelicans.
‘Of course!’ He even imagined smacking his palm against his forehead. ‘I must have forgotten to give Number Five her injection!’ Kinzer was as excited as a high school freshman seeing his first nipple. ‘Fascinating. The subjects care nothing that they are eating one of their own. One, until recently, was a friend of theirs—or at least an acquaintance.’ He could not wrench his gaze from the spectacle in front of him. The injected, infected women seemed to savor the brain of their victim. And was that reverence he detected as they silently ate that delicacy? They did not stop there though; they continued on until they had reduced Number Five down to bone. She was stripped clean, as if she’d been dropped into a vat of flesh-eating acid. Even her hair, which most animals will avoid, was consumed. The blood that spilled onto the cell floor had been lapped up as well.
Kinzer wasn’t sure how long it had taken the four to finish up, maybe a half hour. He’d not been able to pull himself away even to check the time; not, at least, until they turned their attention to him. His expression of rapture quickly changed to apprehension as the group stood as one and moved to the front of the pen. He backed up, despite his confidence that they could not get out. Still, that knowledge made him only marginally less nervous.
He returned to his desk and tried to work, but every time he looked over to the pen he realized they had not moved, the entire time he sat there they continued to stare at him intensely, rocking slowly back and forth and moaning occasionally. He decided to call it a day a few hours earlier than he normally would. The gaze from eight shining eyes followed his exit through the semi-darkened building. It was force of habit alone that guided his way. Once he got home, he poured himself a large glass of scotch. The liquid helped to burn the image of the test subjects watching him malevolently from the forefront of his mind.
He sat down on the couch, grabbed the remote, and absently turned the television on, something he usually only did when his niece came over. The Walking Dead was running a marathon in preparation for their upcoming new season.
‘I think I’ve had all the zombies I can take for the moment.’ His finger was on the channel-up button. He pressed it repeatedly to no avail.
‘Come on... I just changed out these batteries... I think.’ He stood and was heading to the kitchen to get some fresh power cells when a commercial came on that completely changed his life.
‘Survivalists! Do you like zombies?’ came an obnoxious voice from the television. ‘Of course you do!’ the overeager announcer said. He was carrying a large rifle whic
h Kinzer thought might be more suited to elephant hunting. The man was dressed all in camouflage. ‘Wouldn’t you love to shoot some zombies?’ There was no pause from his question to his answer. ‘Of course you would!’ The image panned out to show the actor on a field with twelve zombies approaching him, although anyone watching would have a hard time determining exactly what they were because of the safety head gear they were wearing. Their clothes were tattered and their bodies were covered with blood stains. Arms outstretched, the small horde approached the solitary rifle man, with a slow, halting gait.
‘This is so intense!’ the man said to the camera before he turned and began firing paintball rounds at the zombies. ‘AHHHHHH! Die suckers!’ He screamed over the whoosh of air as multiple rounds were expelled from the gun. The ‘whump-splat’ each round made on impact completed the effect as small lights popped up on each side of the shooter’s protective gear, signifying a kill as the pellets found their marks. ‘Dead’ zombies would do a less-than-convincing fall to the ground as the others kept advancing. Ultimately, the hero actor was overrun and presumably consumed; if the various body parts thrown up into the air were any indication. The effects were strictly low budget, yet Kinzer was mesmerized.
The image switched to an attractive couple standing in front of a large field dotted with various small buildings and barricades. ‘My name is Dietrich Reynolds and this is my wife, Jan. Come see us at South Africa’s newest adventure attraction!’
‘Z-Hunt!’ Jan said excitedly. ‘Here you will enjoy all the pulse-pounding action of a true zombie apocalypse.’
‘Without all the risk and brain loss!’ Dietrich tossed in. Kinzer could not help but note that their delivery was atrocious.
There were more pathetic screams from off-camera.
‘Call or come on down!’ A phone number flashed on the bottom of the screen. Kinzer called and the phone was ringing on the other end before the commercial was even finished.
He set up an appointment with the Reynolds under the pretense that he would like to work out a deal to rent out the entire facility over a few days for his fictional employees. They’d been more than happy to meet with him; this could possibly bolster the business of their dying paintball fields. A large, successful party of professional men could bring in loads of other groups. Their business had waned severely with advancements in home gaming systems. No one wants to go out and run around, get dirty, possibly receive angry red welts when they can deliver death digitally. It became clear to Jan and Dietrich fairly quickly however, that the man in front of them had no employees. Not only that, but things were getting weirder by the moment as he began to hint at the real reason he was there. Kinzer had excused himself to use the toilet, nerves had proceeded to move everything through his system at an alarming pace.
‘Zombies, you said.’ Jan looked exasperated and rolled her eyes. ‘Zombies will save our business, you said.’
‘We have seen an increase in sales,’ Dietrich justified.
‘Eight percent isn’t going to save us. Although we have seen a fifty percent increase in nut jobs. Him being one of them.’ Jan lowered her voice and pointed towards the water closet.
‘He sounds so serious.’
‘Delusional is more like it.’
‘Might as well hear him out; it’s not like we’re doing anything else.’ Dietrich said.
Jan thought about it for second and shrugged. ‘It beats looking at the books, I suppose.’
Kinzer came out of the bathroom. He was wringing his hands like he was trying to wipe away years of accumulated dirt.
‘I am an educated man,’ he said, sitting down across the table from the couple. ‘I’ll admit my interaction with people is not my strong suit. I’ve spent so much of my life within the confines of my laboratory—I barely have time for anything else. I never married. If not for my brother’s child, I’d hardly speak to anyone. I can gauge by your crossed arms, Jan, and that you’re sitting as far back as you can, Dietrich, that you are wondering why you agreed to this meeting in the first place. You’re probably also wondering if maybe you should even call the police. Alright, I may have used a small bit of subterfuge, but, otherwise you would not have indulged me thus far. Given the quickness with which you invited me to visit you and judging by the lack of customers here, I believe we both have something to gain from my proposal.’
‘And what is that?’ Jan asked, deliberately unfolding her arms.
‘Money, obviously.’
‘Isn’t that the truth! I mean, from our end anyway,’ Dietrich said, casting his eyes down at the table, as his wife glared at him.
‘I can assure you that it is the same on my end as well,’ Kinzer said. ‘I’m not saying this will be easy. There may be several hurdles to overcome, and well, we could have a few legal issues... but I may have a solution to our problems.’
‘We’re listening.’ Dietrich had now moved closer.
‘I can get you zombies.’
‘We have zombies,’ Jan frowned at him.
‘Real zombies,’ Kinzer clarified.
‘I appreciate your time Doctor,’ she scoffed. ‘We may not be overrun by customers, but we’re too busy to be listening to this.’ She rose.
‘Just... Mrs Reynolds, please. Entertain me for just a moment. How much would a serious hunter pay to shoot a real zombie?’ Kinzer asked.
‘Dietrich escort him out, I’ve heard all I want to.’
‘Real zombies?’ Dietrich asked.
‘You can’t be serious?’ Jan asked her husband.
Dietrich took out his smart phone and typed in a few key words. When the web page loaded he handed the phone to his wife.
‘I thought you looked familiar,’ Dietrich said to the doctor.
Jan was quiet for a moment as she read through the page. She would occasionally look up from the phone at the man seated across from her.
‘So?’ she finally said. ‘You discovered a virus that creates a zombie-effect in people. What are we supposed to do with that?’
Kinzer knew he was walking a fine line here. His research and his subsequent testing were highly illegal; possibly immoral as well. Even if he switched to more mundane scientific work, he would not recover fast enough to stall the foreclosure proceedings that were threatening to take away his building, his equipment, even his home. Everything he had, everything he was, was tied up in this work. Without his lab, there would be nothing left in his life that meant much of anything. Going to jail would not be the worst of it. He decided to trust them. He had no other option.
‘Hunters come from all over the world to shoot big cats, zebras, giraffes, right?’ he started.
‘Exotic game,’ Dietrich said.
‘Yes, and they routinely pay thirty to fifty thousand euros per hunt, whether they bag a trophy or not. The money means nothing to them. They have more than they could possibly spend. They throw it at those game preserves as if they’d printed it themselves,’ Kinzer said.
Dietrich was rapt. Jan, if anything, was becoming even more irritated.
‘What does that have to do with our facility?’ Jan asked. She just wanted the strange little man to go away. She was wondering how her husband could be falling for this obvious bullshit.
‘You could charge double that for a real zombie hunt.’
‘A hundred grand...’ Dietrich said with a far off look in his eyes. ‘Just five hunts and we could be back in the black. All the land paid for. Back taxes—everything taken care of.’
‘So we’re just going to have clients come here and kill sick people? How’s that going to work? Both of you are insane.’
‘They’re not sick people, Madame, they are zombies.’ Kinzer was only willing to press his luck, and his trust, so far.
‘You can’t just round up sick people and shoot them, no matter what you call them. What’s next? We’ll get some cripples out here and gamble on them navigating a minefield?’ Jan was on the verge of anger. ‘You cannot gun down human beings, that’s murder!’<
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‘I can assure you, Mrs Reynolds, that there is no humanity left in them whatsoever,’ Kinzer told her gently.
‘I don’t care. We’re not killing anything that used to be people either. That’s just sick.’
‘Honey, we could make millions in the first month.’ Dietrich was still off in fantasyland.
‘Don’t you dare even entertain this, Dietrich. How would we even get permission to run an operation like that? The government would never agree.’
‘Not our government,’ Dietrich said.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she asked.
‘Botswana.’
‘What about it?’
‘They would welcome us. Money in the right hands and we could set up shop and do whatever the hell we wanted. I could call Yuland, he has a thousand acres there. We’ll pay to lease his land.’
‘This is madness. I will not be party to this insanity. Dietrich kindly escort him off our property and if he won’t go willingly toss him onto his head, maybe it will knock some sense into him.’ Dietrich did not move, he would not even glance over at his wife as she glared at him. ‘Right.’ Jan said as she walked out of the room and slammed the door behind her.
‘So,’ Dietrich said. ‘How many zombies can you get us?’
THREE
It had been nine months since that fateful first encounter. Botswana officials had been all too willing to turn their heads once the money was deposited into their accounts. And to make sure that it kept coming, they had opened their prisons to the enterprising South Africans. Things were going well; Kinzer and the Reynolds had just been discussing expanding their operation. They realized they already had a two year waiting list from sportsmen all over the world who wanted to hunt the most dangerous game of all. Much like the Botswana officials, Jan had finally come around when a hundred thousand euros was deposited into their account from their very first safari. They had raked in a half a million from five hunters at a hundred thousand each. After expenses, pay outs, bribes, transportation, security, and hiring some personnel, they’d still netted a hundred grand. In one weekend they’d made more than they had in three years from the paintball business.