by Jack Wallen
“You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen of the Zombie Radio nation. Rip Vanity, lead singer of Doubletap Suicide, inviting the world to experience the greatest metal gathering in the history of the apocalypse. Start your pilgrimage to New Salt Lake City now, so you can fight for the most wicked front row experience of your lifetime. And now, in honor of Rip Vanity, let’s spin one of Doubletap Suicide’s latest tunes. Have a taste of ‘Brain Drainer,’ my lovelies.”
The song sounded flat through tiny computer speakers. Vanity considered plugging the laptop into the outdoor arena’s PA system, but eventually talked himself out of it. He still needed to complete the mic check before the bands started arriving for full-on soundchecks. Hearing “Brain Drainer” played over the airwaves for the first time in years was all the justification he needed for what he was doing. The song was their anthem against corporate culture—the very beast that had capped mankind in the knees.
Rip’s eyes were closed, his mind lost in the thrum and drum of the song, when his assistant slapped him on the shoulder.
“How many fucking times do I have to—?”
Before Rip could finish his tirade, his assistant finally caught his attention and directed his eyes forward. Standing center stage was a lone female, clad in every femme fatale cliché the metal universe had to offer. She stood in silence, a temptress smile across her blood-red lips.
“Holy shit!” Rip jumped up on stage and raced to meet the woman. “Aya!” Rip dropped all pretension of anger and attitude in favor of a thick layer of charm. “It’s so good to see you.”
Finally, a smile broke loose on Aya’s face and she wrapped her arms around Rip.
“It’s been too long.” Aya’s Polish accent was heavy, the twinkle in her eyes as light and bright as the sun. “Are we going to rock the undead back into their graves or what?”
chapter 16 | rip the douche
“Bethany.” Jamal’s voice carried with it a tragic warning I’d rarely heard. “You’ve gotta hear this now.”
He sat a laptop down on the table. Out of the speakers spilled a voice I’d never heard, with a Sid Vicious-thick South London dialect.
“The show will take place just outside of New Salt Lake City. We plan to crank it up to eleven in two days. It’ll start Friday and the metal will continue shredding through the weekend. So if you have any desire to remind yourself of what being human means, you’ll show up, ready to have your soul shocked and rocked.”
The next voice to rise from the speakers I’d developed an almost familial connection with.
“You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen of the Zombie Radio nation. Rip Vanity, lead singer of Doubletap Suicide, inviting the world to experience the greatest metal gathering in the history of the apocalypse. Start your pilgrimage to New Salt Lake City now, so you can fight for the most wicked front row experience of your lifetime. And now, in honor of Rip Vanity, let’s spin one of Doubletap Suicide’s latest tunes. Have a taste of ‘Brain Drainer,’ my lovelies.”
The remaining words ran together in a dreamscape static. It didn’t matter what was said after New Salt Lake City and crank it up to eleven. The noise brigade was coming to our area and every member of the undead army for miles would zombie-stomp their way into town, ready to line up at the brain buffet.
Without fair warning, my fists came down on the table. Jamal jumped back, afraid my rage would spill off the table and wash over him. I stood, trembling with anger at the news.
“We can’t catch a break. The second we manage to get settled in, some arrogant douchebag rock star finds it necessary to feed his ego and draw in the entire walking dead population to our safe haven. This is just fucking great.”
Jamal stepped in close and clasped his hands over mine.
“Bethany, we don’t know what will come of this.”
“You heard the man, Jamal. He said this Friday. He didn’t hint at a date or give an approximate date…he gave a very specific date. This is going to happen, and when it does…we’re fucked. All of us, fucked. We’ll be surrounded by the undead and won’t stand a chance against those numbers.”
Jamal’s arms encompassed me. I had to fight his warmth to remain angry. I wanted to be angry, had a right to be angry.
“Bethany, we don’t even know if the man has the means to pull off such a feat. You know how much power it would take to run a full-on metal fest? He’ll be lucky to power one guitar amp and a spotlight.”
Before Jamal could continue the comforting, Rizzo rushed into the room.
“Oh my God. Did you hear the news? Doubletap Suicide and UnSun are going to be playing at a metal fest just outside our wall. Two of my favorite freaking bands! I have to go. Bethany, you have to let me go to this concert.”
I wanted to turn around and tear into Rizzo for spreading ill-conceived innocence. The apocalypse was no place for naiveté. Our only currency had to be fact and truth. Even plausible denial had to be tossed out the door.
Truth.
Truth was I couldn’t come down on her. The look in the sweet girl’s big brown eyes refused to allow me to raise my voice or my temper. Even so, the concert had to be stopped. No matter what band found their way onto the stage, we had to make our way there and keep this party from ever getting off the ground.
“Jamal, I want you to finish up the solar panel charging system as quickly as possible. Once you have it complete, you and I are going to give old Rip Vanity a visit.”
Jamal grinned. “That’s the B-dizz I know and love. It’s good to see you got your bitch back.”
“Oh, Jamal, it never left. It was just taking a bit of a catnap.”
“Meow, little kitten.” Jamal raised his fingers and mimed a cat scratching the air.
“You can be kind of queeny, you know that?” Rizzo laughed. When both Jamal and I turned to her, our eyes the size of pies, she raised her shoulders to her ears. “What? Oh, come on, I’m allowed to say that.”
“Just because you’re gay, you think you’ve earned the right to use derogatory terminology?” Jamal tossed the question to Rizzo with a bit too much gusto.
“And just because you’re black, you get to use the n-word with your cohorts?”
Tou-freakin-ché.
I broke up the catfight before it could begin. Rizzo raced off, Jamal remained with me.
“What’s the plan, B? We just hop the fence and locate this Vanity dude and let him know he has to cancel the event?”
I nodded. “Yep. That about sums it up.”
The look on Jamal’s face spoke volumes.
“You don’t think we can do it?”
Jamal shook his head. “I’m not sure we should. Think about it, Bethany—the living need to be reminded they’re still alive. Otherwise we may as well be dead. This may not be the best route, but at least this guy’s trying to do something.”
It was hard to argue with Jamal, but there was one bit of flawed logic I couldn’t get beyond—my baby. If this festival happened, there’d be a chance I’d lose my opportunity to reclaim Jacob. I relayed that information to Jamal, which seemed to diffuse his desperate need for justice a bit. Even with Jamal’s anger quelled, I still had a boiling rage churning in my own gut. That emotion wanted to drive me out a window with the hopes that the fall to the concrete would be a few hundred floors…at least. Instead I placed a calming hand on his shoulder and spoke softly.
“Jamal, no matter what we do, we cannot allow that concert to draw in the beast. You help me do this one thing and I will owe you for life.”
“I do like the sound of that,” Jamal said softly. “The things I could do to make you pay.”
Jamal let a maniacal chuckle escape from the depths of his throat. I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Okay, B, I’m on your side, you know that. So what do we do to stop the upcoming metal fest? Oh, and for the record, this really sucks. I’ve always wanted to hear those bands.”
*
Jamal had the solar system up and charging a row of car batteries. It’
d be a few hours before the batteries hit full charge—at least we all knew what we were in for. Morgan and Josh had us all prepped and ready with barrel fires to keep us lit and warm. The idea of open flame in a church had my heart and brain at war with one another. Morgan assured me the fires were built in such a way as to be easily controlled. Having two fully charged fire extinguishers at the ready certainly helped her case.
It was time. We grabbed the keys to the Hummer and made our way to the wall.
“Do you remember that night, back in grad school, when we had the zombie film marathon?” Jamal’s voice had a melancholy undertone. “Just a bunch of nerds, caffeinated beverages, pizza, and Romero.”
“How could I forget? That was the night we held hands under a blanket. What were we, twelve?”
“It was the code, Bethany.”
Laughter escaped my lips. The feeling had become so foreign to me.
“What code?”
Jamal stopped and stared, slack-jawed, at me. “Don’t tell me you knew nothing about the code. You had to. We created the damn thing because of you.”
My curiosity was well beyond piqued. “What do you mean?”
Jamal’s face turned a lovely shade of “busted.”
“Okay, I must preface this by saying it wasn’t my idea. When we started school you were probably the first hot girl to ever grace the hallowed halls of the Littinger School of Engineering. All of the guys from our class got together and decided that, to avoid a minefield of angsty battle wounds, we agreed that none of us would try to get with you.”
“Get with me?”
“You know, hook up…with you.”
It was my turn to pale toward embarrassed.
“I see now. You held my hand under the blanket so the other guys wouldn’t know you broke the code. Oh my God! All this time I thought you did it because you were embarrassed.”
“Embarrassed? Are you kidding me? You were like our Mount Everest. Every nerd on campus had it bad for you, but we all assumed you were way out of our league.”
“Wow…that’s…wow. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. Crazy, right? Here in the middle of the end of times and I’m girl-giddy over a moment that happened more than a decade ago.”
We continued on toward the wall…in silence. It was one of those silences that actually meant something; not the uncomfortable moment when two people have no idea what to talk about. We both reveled in what was and rejoiced in what is—at least the immediate isolated-from-the-apocalypse what is. Nothing mattered but us. So when Jamal grabbed my hand, even with the post-apocalyptic landscape surrounding us, everything felt exactly as it should.
We reached the wall; our eyes followed skyward.
“B, how in the hell did we climb that monstrosity so easily?”
“I think we were chasing our children, Jamal.”
“Remind me of this moment, should I ever mention wanting children. If I do, slap me hard and say ‘Wall, Jamal. Wall.’”
“Anything for you, babe.”
Fortunately, the wall had enough pieces of various scrap attached that made it easy to climb. Easy for the living, that is.
By the time we reached the top, my arms were burning so badly I expected them to catch fire. But we made it and allowed ourselves a moment to rest. The barren landscape tried desperately to suck the life from us.
“On a clear day, you can see forever,” Jamal spoke softly.
“Larner and Lane,” I replied.
“Your intelligence knows no bounds, Bethany Nitshimi.”
“Unless you put a blanket on it.” I gave a knowing grin before continuing. “I’ll never get used to seeing everything in ruins. This wasn’t supposed to happen in our lifetime, Jamal.”
Jamal chuckled as he threw a leg over the wall and began the descent. “I never thought I’d see the day when the great Bethany Nitshimi became a dreamer.”
I had no response. Before I followed suit, I did a quick scan of the area for the various iterations of the undead. Nothing. Small miracles.
“Wow,” Jamal whispered, “it’s quiet.”
“Dead quiet, even.”
“You’re a comedian now, are you, B?”
I hopped into the Hummer. “I’ll be here all night.”
Jamal fired up the truck and we were off to meet one Rip Vanity.
chapter 17 | the language of the mad
“Commander Faddig, I have something you need to hear.”
Faddig was seated at his desk, poring over communications and maps. He waved the young man into his office and nodded. The soldier handed the officer a pair of army-issue headphones. The cups surrounded the commander’s ears, canceling out all external sound. When the broadcast recording played back, Commander Faddig allowed a smile to grace his cheeks.
“This is perfect,” Faddig said, as he removed the headphones and stood. “They think there’s reason to celebrate the spirit of mankind? We’ll show them just how frail and broken that spirit is.”
Faddig grabbed the nearest radio and hit the call button.
“I need full deployment ready by Friday. I want every flavor of undead trash you have loaded up on three planes and ready for takeoff to New Salt Lake City. We have a party to crash.”
The commander hung up the phone and nodded to the other soldier.
“You just made my day, young man.”
The soldier saluted. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Faddig nodded his dismissal. The soldier turned on his heels and marched away. Once the soldier was out of sight, the commander picked up another radio and hit the call button.
“Dr. Otte, I need Subject 002 ready to deploy by Friday.”
Faddig was greeted by silence.
“Otte, do you hear me?”
Again, the commander was met with silence.
“Shit,” Faddig hissed, as he left his office and raced toward the medical wing.
When the commander turned the corner that led directly to Subject 002’s room, the sounds of a struggle quickened his step. He raced to the door and when he yanked it open, Dr. Otte fell backward out of the room. Subject 002 stood in the middle of the room, his breath coming in ragged gasps, the muscles of his chest and arms flexing.
“Secure that…that thing immediately,” Otte shouted.
Faddig raised his hands in a calm gesture of peace.
“There’s no need for violence here. SITREP.”
Subject 002 sucked in a great breath and released it in a low growl.
“He’s confused and violent.”
Faddig turned back to Otte. “I can understand why.” The commander turned his attention back to Subject 002 and raised his hands again. “No one is going to hurt you. Everything is going to be okay.”
Subject 002 turned his attention to Commander Faddig.
“What is my purpose? What am I?”
Faddig glanced back at Otte. “What brought this about?”
Otte finally got back to his feet and stood behind Faddig. His voice was barely audible as he whispered in the commander’s ear. “I was going over the details from Munich and it finally dawned on him that he had no personal memory from that period. It was then that he became violent.”
Commander Faddig quickly weighed his options and decided the truth was the only path to success.
“Your life only recently began. We created you for a very specific purpose. The woman you’ve read about, Bethany Nitshimi, she is your target. We are going to send you to her and you will then bring her back to us. That is all you need to do. Once your mission is complete, we will release you so you can begin to build a life of your own.”
A subtle peace seemed to wash over Subject 002.
“That is all I must do? Bring Bethany back here? Once I’ve done that, I am free to do as I wish?”
Faddig nodded. “Yes, you have my word.”
The man in the room glanced downward as his mind struggled to process the information.
“Why don’t you lay back down and rest?
You have to be ready for your deployment.”
Subject 002 slowly made his way back to the bed. As he shuffled, he whispered nonsense to himself. Faddig leaned in as close as he could in an attempt to make out the words. Dr. Otte glanced Faddig’s way.
“He’s been repeating it for a while now. It’s no language any of us have heard before. We’ve yet to make any sense of it.”
Faddig grabbed the doctor by the shoulder and spun him around so they met eye to eye.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean exactly what I said, he’s speaking in a language none of us have ever heard before. The first time I heard it I thought it was nothing more than gibberish, but then I started hearing words repeated.”
“So?” Faddig demanded.
“So, gibberish doesn’t repeat itself—it can’t because it’s improvised. Unless you had an eidetic memory, there’d be no way to instantly recall what you’d said in context. He is clearly repeating patterns associated with objects, moods, incidents, etcetera. What’s coming out of his mouth is a language and we don’t know it.”
Faddig bristled and grabbed Otte by the lapels. “I don’t give a shit about his made-up language. What I care about is that this thing is ready for transport for the Friday drop. I need it for a very specific purpose and I need to know you can implant that purpose onto its memory before then. If you cannot, I will find someone who can.”
Otte knew full well what that meant. Getting replaced in the Zero Day Collective meant getting decommissioned. At this stage in the game, decommissioning was akin to Soylent Green. Otte was faced with two choices—get Subject 002 ready for action or be processed into a meat pie to feed the underlings.
Or worse.
With the Zero Day Collective, there was always an or worse.
Otte nodded; flop sweat dripped from his nose to the floor.
“He’ll be ready.”
Without another word, Faddig turned and left the medical wing. Dr. Otte slid down the wall and sat on the floor. The sound of the strange language floated in the background.
chapter 18 | the answer