Cry Zombie Cry (I Zombie Book 5)

by Jack Wallen

  I propped the laptop back on my lap and minimized the Obliterator application. In its place came the tracker. The application ran in the background, collecting tons of data from the network at large. Any time specific suspect words were captured, traveling across the global network of connected computers and communication satellites, a flag would be raised and the data packets logged. Once the tracker had collected enough data, I could sift through the information and begin piecing together the location of the Zero Day Collective and Jacob. It was only a matter of time before they appeared on my radar. The NSA and Sherlock Holmes had nothing on me.

  As soon as the tracker window was open, Jamal peered over my shoulder, his eyes wide and his mouth agape. I could feel his warm breath on my neck as my eyes ripped through the information. A pattern started to develop.

  Mobile unit.

  Biologist.

  Zero Day Collective.

  Jacob.

  40.0176 degrees North.

  105.2797 degrees West.

  “Bethany,” Jamal whispered, “that’s Boulder, Colorado. But what does it mean by “Mobile unit”?”

  “Well, Jamal, I would assume it means that whoever is sending out these communications happens to be on some sort of mobile Zero Day Collective biological unit. In other words, it’s moving.”

  Jamal sighed. “So getting a fixed location isn’t likely.”

  I nodded.

  Jamal grinned. “Yes, but…if you get a number of consecutive coordinates, you can at least predict where the unit will be at a given time. Of course, that would require knowing what type of unit and at what speed they were traveling.”

  Before Jamal could continue, I silenced him with a palm to the lips.

  “Joshua, how quickly can you get us to Boulder?”

  Josh laughed. “At this rate it’ll take, oh, forever!”

  Again, Morgan smacked Josh across the back of the head.

  “I’m just fucking with you. We get back up to speed soon, and I can have you there in a day…tops.”

  “B, what do you have in mind?”

  Before I could answer Jamal, a soul-destroying roar ripped through the truck. The prehistoric release was followed by the shattering of glass and a pale arm reaching into the truck. Dirty, blood-soaked fingers tangled deep into Echo’s hair and yanked hard. Echo released a cry that was almost too high in pitch to hear as the arm pulled her head toward the shattered glass.

  “What the hell? The Obliterator is running strong.” Josh shouted, as he gave the volume knob for the Obliterator one last turn.

  “Oh my God, look at its ears,” was all Morgan needed to say.

  Blood was caked around both ears. A thick, viscous liquid bubbled from the holes on the side of his head.

  “The fucker cracked his skull on the cement until he went deaf,” Joshua added. “Perfect immunity to the power of the Obliterator.”

  The beast gave another tug that pulled Echo’s head nearer the shattered window. Echo’s arms flailed outward to thwart the thing’s attempts at commandeering her skull.

  “Josh,” Morgan screamed, “your weapon!”

  “Help me!” Echo cried out, the top of her head now dangerously close to the hole in the window. Glass shards awaited her frail flesh.

  Josh had his gun out and was fumbling to free the safety when a shot rang from beyond the truck. Echo’s hair was released and she leaped into my waiting arms. Everyone in the truck exchanged curious glances. Outside, the Obliterator continued its soul-destroying song.

  A fresh face appeared in the hole that had tried to swallow Echo. A pair of kohl-rimmed eyes, filled with an electric energy, looked through. Her jet-black hair cut and tousled like she sang for a Joan Jett tribute band.

  “Everyone okay in there?”

  “Holy shit,” Morgan shouted. “Rizzo, is that really you?”

  “In the flesh and boner. How’s my favorite girlfriend?”

  Morgan nearly squealed before she spoke. “I’m alive and…still not your girlfriend.”

  “Can ya blame a girl for trying? I come bearing gifts, by the way; if you consider gasoline to be ‘of the Magi.’”

  “From God, a gift from God.” Josh hooted as he opened his door and jumped out. Morgan started to shout after him, but stifled her cry and joined the dangerous liaison. Even from within the thick steel of the Hummer, and over the siren call of the Obliterator, the reunion of Morgan and this Rizzo character could be heard.

  I pulled away from Echo’s embrace.

  “You two stay in the truck.”

  Without further explanation, I opened the door and hopped to the ground. When I arrived at the other side of the Hummer, Josh was hauling twin jerricans out of an almost identical truck. All around us, Moaners and Screamers were in various stages of opening their own brainpans onto the cement. The sight was beyond comprehension. What should have had us curling into permanent fetal states was little more than background noise at that moment. This is not good, I thought. If we continued down this road we’d never survive. Desensitization should never reach this level of “meh.”

  “Bethany, this is Rizzo. She’s been my right-hand girl for the last three years. She heads up the NOCAL Zombie Response Team.”

  “No way,” Rizzo beamed, “you mean this is the Bethany, as in Nit-freakin-shimi?”

  Before another word could be said, Rizzo pulled me into a powerhouse of a hug. The strength of the girl took me by surprise. She was small, maybe five foot tall, and had the face and body of a pixie. Her misplaced smile—something the Mengele Virus seemed to have virtually eradicated—shamed the sun. Her hair and dress was a comfortable mixture of goth, punk, and scene. I was looking at Echo’s older sister… or future Echo. Either way, the similarity was eerie.

  “I want to have your babies,” Rizzo grinned, as she pulled away.

  “Cool down, Rizzo,” Morgan laughed. “There’ll be plenty of time for flirting once we clear this mess.”

  Within a blink, Rizzo was all business. “What’s the plan?”

  “First and foremost, were you followed?”

  “No. And no one else knows about my current whereabouts. When I saw your transponder distress I assumed covert ops were in order.”

  As Rizzo spoke, her eyes shifted from Morgan to me. The slightest blush rose on her cheeks. The cutest thing on the planet had officially arrived.

  Would that I were gay.

  “Hummer has enough fuel to get us to the next station—hopefully.” Josh interrupted our little threesome.

  “What do you mean, hopefully?”

  Morgan’s sharp question caught Josh off guard.

  “I mean…well…I have no idea where the next station is. So how can I be one hundred percent sure we have enough—?”

  “There’s a station about five miles north of us.” Rizzo to the rescue.

  Morgan turned to me and raised an eyebrow. “Well, Bethany?”

  What was the plan? The only idea I had was the endgame—stuffing the Zero Day Collective down the throats of the undead army they’d created, then watching them die and turn to rot. We needed more than that. My brain buzzed through every piece of information we had. The single most relevant bit was the location of the ZDC—somewhere in Boulder, Colorado. To confuse matters, they were most likely on the move. With our current vulnerable state, we’d never stand a chance against the same destructive machine that had dropped mankind to its knees.

  We needed to organize. That meant we needed a base of operations.

  I turned to Morgan. “Where is the nearest Zombie Response Team unit in relation to Boulder?”

  “Denver was compromised, so that leaves New Salt Lake City, Utah. It’s not our largest cell, but the base is well protected.”

  “That’s our next move. The ZRT in New Salt Lake City.”

  Morgan grabbed Rizzo and turned her so they were almost nose-to-nose.

  “You’re coming with us. I’ve spent too much time without you by my side.”

  I stepped
into the secretive tête-à-tête to add my own commandment. “And absolute radio silence. No one is to know what we are doing or where we are going. The Zero Day Collective is listening. We cannot give them any information that would tip them off.”

  “Hold that thought.” Rizzo zipped away before I could continue. No sooner had I turned to Morgan to get a bit more information on our newly acquired teammate, Rizzo returned with an army-grade walkie-talkie.

  “If you need me, use this. It runs on an encrypted channel. No civilian unit can pick up on this signal.”

  I glared at the proffered walkie.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. The Zero Day Collective are surprisingly brilliant at breaking the rules of nature, technology, and physics. If they can fuck us, they will. No foreplay, no lube. Fortunately, we have me on our side.” I offered my hand out to Rizzo. “Let me see that walkie for a moment.”

  As soon as the piece of tech was in my hand, I instructed Rizzo to grab its mate and take it to Jamal. The second she was out of sight, I turned to the Hummer and grabbed Jamal’s attention.

  “Remember that radio mod we created in school?”

  Jamal grinned like a boy who’d seen his first naked woman. “I do. It was a thing of beauty.”

  “How long would it take us to reverse engineer this radio and its mate with the same level of encryption?”

  Before I could ask another question, he had the radio in his hands. After a single tilt of the head, his big brown eyes looked up at me and he smiled again. “Give me twenty minutes and a kiss.”

  The second the word came out of Jamal’s mouth, his cheeks flushed brilliant red.

  “Did I actually voice that? Please tell me you didn’t hear—”

  Instead of enjoying Jamal wriggle and writhe his way out of this one, I pressed my lips against his. The moment wasn’t perfect, but it was one filled with certainty and a level of secure familiarity I hadn’t felt in a long time. Even without “perfect,” I wanted to dwell in the moment and forget the shit-storm that drained the planet of the will to live.

  “Okay, you can have them in ten,” Jamal winked, and turned to focus on the task at hand. With his head out of the way, I caught a glimpse of Echo; the look on her face was beyond precious. When she nodded, I knew things were headed down the right path.

  For that one second, I felt alive again, like there was something to pull me out of the downward spiral. Yes, my heart was still broken by the loss of baby Jacob. Yes, I knew nearly every ounce of energy I had was focused on his return. But fuck, my heart still needed to beat a steady rhythm before it forgot how. That kiss was the jump-start I needed.

  A single, simple kiss and I am once again a woman, a human…alive.

  I wanted to cry. My hormones were waging a war I wasn’t sure I could win. I was suffering the first ever case of post-apocalyptic-partum depression. Before I dropped to my knees and let loose a Medea-level wail of sorrow, I rushed away from the Hummer.

  “Morgan,” I called out, the second I spotted her. “I’ve got Jamal modifying the walkies. We’ll be able to safely use them as we travel. Oh, and I don’t think Rizzo should go alone.”

  “Agreed. I’ll send Joshua with her. It’s going to be a long trip. We’ll stop, fuel up, locate some supplies, and make our way to New Salt Lake City. Once we’re there…?” Morgan’s eyebrow shot up.

  “We start planning for world domination.”

  Morgan nodded and sped off toward Rizzo and Josh.

  *

  We finally managed to get on the road. Morgan looked perfectly at home behind the wheel of the Hummer. Out of curiosity, I switched on the radio. The last time I checked, the FM frequencies were a wasteland of static. There were a few pirate radio stations scattered along the AM dial, but most of them filled the airwaves with conspiracy theories born of hatred and ignorance. You never knew what flavor of stupidity you would land on.

  I stuck with FM and pressed the Seek button. Before I could hope for a little eighties or nineties throwback, a familiar voice bounced from the speakers.

  “You’re listening to WZMB, Zombie Radio. Your personal soundtrack to the end of the world. That was Die So Fluid and their anthem for the new world order, ‘The World Is Too Big For One Lifetime.’ As for me, well, as far as you know, I’m a cat and I’ve only run through one of my lifetimes. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the rumors of my demise were just like a teenage boy’s first date…premature. I’m here. I’ve always been here. I will always be here. Veni, vidi, vici. That’s not to say I am to be compared to Caesar; but you get the idea. Caveat fuck you, Zero Day Collective. Now that might be more apropos. If any of you are curious—and don’t deny that curiosity because I will call shenanigans on your ass if you do—I faked my death. That’s right: here on the radio I made it seem like I grew weak in the knees and deep-throated a pistol to end the swelling misery. But like Jesus and Robert Downey Jr.’s career, I resurrected myself to be bigger, badder, and bolder than ever before. I am Iron Man Christ and you, zombie radio nation, are stuck with me—whether you like it nor not. So, with that, I’m going to drop a little metal on your ass that is as fitting as Hailey Williams’s jeans. Hubba hubba, that image makes me smile. How’s about a little Halford and ‘Resurrection’?”

  “B?” Morgan glanced my way. “That’s one wicked grin lighting up your face. What’s it mean?”

  “Just reconnecting with an old friend.”

  The sound of Rob Halford’s voice assaulted the inside of the truck. I closed my eyes and relished the moment.

  chapter 4 | the death and life of richard gerand

  The camera’s autofocus racked in and racked out until his head was perfectly framed and visible. He hit record and took in a deep breath before he began what would hopefully be his last recording.

  “My name is Dr. Richard Gerand. I can’t remember which entry this is; honestly, it doesn’t matter. What matters is this.” The doctor held up a large syringe to the camera. “Within this hypodermic is the culmination of over a year’s work. This…is “fry”.”

  Gerand’s head drooped; his gaze fell to the floor.

  “I should explain.” The doctor looked back up to meet the camera’s gaze, his eyes bloodshot and his pupils dilated. “I was brought in by John Burgess to help the Zero Day Collective create the Mengele Virus.” Gerand held up his hands to the camera. “It was these hands that designed and gave birth to the plague. This was all under the guise of filming a movie Burgess called T-Minus Zero. A lot of people died that night in the tiny city of Templeton. I should have been one of them.

  “Ever since that night I have been doing everything I could to make amends. I believe I have just that in my hand.”

  Gerand held the syringe against the lens of the camera.

  “This is my gift to you, mankind. What you see in this vial is both a cure and a weapon. Thing is, it hasn’t been fully tested. But fear not—what better breeding ground to test this serum than on the man who created its target? You see, I’ve already infected myself with the latest strain of MV—that’s what I’m calling it now, the Mengele Virus. You’re probably asking yourself why any self-respecting scientist would go to such lengths to test a cure that probably won’t work. Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is precisely what I deserve. Should the cure not work, my death will serve as a proper punishment for my crimes against humanity.”

  The biologist pulled the cap off the syringe and pointed the gleaming needle at the camera. A drop of liquid slowly formed at the tip and succumbed to gravity.

  “I read Jacob Plummer’s manifesto. He was right—the sound comes first. It’s not painful in the beginning; it’s more an annoyance, like a mosquito forever buzzing in your ear. As the virus progresses, the sound slowly consumes your every waking moment. The pain has yet to become unbearable, but it’s close. There is no scientific method of discerning the ideal moment for the cure, so I figured it would be best to inject the serum before the pain incapacitates me. Besides, I’ll ne
ed my faculties to be able to record what is happening to me.

  “And so, without further ado…”

  Dr. Gerand plunged the needle deep into his arm.

  “If this works, I’ll be a hero. If this doesn’t work…I’ll be dead, so it won’t matter.”

  As the needle was slowly removed, the skin on Gerand’s face grew noticeably pale.

  “My pulse is erratic. I can feel—”

  A scream tore from Gerand’s lungs and he slammed his arm onto the table, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He stared into the camera, his eyes twitching and watering.

  “The pain is incredible,” the doctor’s voice wavered. “I don’t think I can—”

  Without warning, Gerand repeatedly slammed his head onto the table.

  “It’s too much.”

  Another scream.

  “I can’t…”

  Scream.

  Gerand looked up, his face frozen in mid-scream. Not a sound slipped from his lips. There was only the tiniest of movements—a quivering lower lip. Rivers of sweat ran down the man’s cheeks and neck. For the slightest of moments, it looked as if his eyes would bulge from their sockets. The doctor’s right hand lowered and moved out of frame. When the hand returned, it held a gun.

  “I can’t take this level of pain. It has to stop.”

  Gerand pulled the hammer back on the pistol.

  “I am so sorry I did this to you. No one deserves to live like this. All I can do is hope my death will give some creature comfort to those in need.” Another pain-wracked shout from his lips. “If not, well, then I do apologize from the bottom of my heart. Had John Burgess not known about my darker repasts, this would not be an issue.”

  Gerand slammed his fist down on the table and then brought his forehead crashing down. Over and over the flesh and bone of the man’s forehead met the table. His eyes darted to the left and right and finally focused back on the camera. The look on Gerand’s face went well beyond fear and into some darker realm of absolute understanding. A shock of enlightenment seemed to wash over him before his head crashed to the table for the last time.