by Jack Wallen
Unsaved are forgotten moments
Unchained by our passions stolen
Your moans I’ll forever hear
Through my anguish and my tears
Can you hear my cry
Unsee, take away this nightmare
Untouch my flesh so I cannot be aware
The pale, cold hand of death is close
Please give to me your lethal dose
Take away my cry
I know the reason
My heart beats your treason
Die inside and weave your lie
Cry Zombie Cry
I see the strange behavior
My soul has lost its savior
Die with me and end your lie
Cry Zombie Cry”
The song ended, the guitar and vocals fading to an astonishing silence. Not a word was spoken, not a hand made a move to clap. Before I realized what was happening, I was on the stage and running toward Aya. When I reached the singer, my arms wrapped around her shoulders and neck and I drew her into an embrace. Tears instantly leaped from my eyes and touched down on my forearms.
“Thank you so much,” I whispered in her ear.
“It is I who should be thanking you. Actually, the world owes you its complete gratitude. The things you have done, the sacrifices you have made…you are our hero and that song is my way of raising you up and placing you on the pedestal where you belong.”
I pulled back and wiped my eyes. Aya’s smile brightened up the stage and warmed my heart.
“I love the song. It’s transcendent, it’s—”
“Yours,” was the simple statement that threatened to open the floodgates once again.
Finally, I turned back to Rip and strode to the edge of the stage. I sat down and gestured for Jamal to stand at my side. He complied.
It’s good to be the queen.
“Okay, Vanity, what’s your plan? Obviously you’ve got a massive weapon against the undead. But Mauser’s Answer won’t phase the Zero Day Collective one iota.”
Rip hesitated and the truth flashed briefly in his eyes.
“You don’t have a plan, do you?” I drilled for that hidden truth. “It’s okay, really. You at least managed to come up with something that could do some serious damage against an army of the undead. As for the Zero Day Collective…you just leave that to me and my crew. While you’re raining down this special flavor of hatred on the zombie horde, we’ll go after the ZDC.”
The twinkle reappeared in Vanity’s eyes. Simultaneously, his lips twisted into a smile and his hand reached out for mine. I accepted the offer of partnership.
“Bethany Nitshimi, we’re going to make beautiful music together.”
chapter 19 | t-minus zero
Dr. Gerand woke; his eyes blurred with an unnatural heat, his skin was crawling as if it begged to slough from his meat and bones. The horrific sound, the epicenter resting somewhere in the basal ganglia, was little more than a faint buzz. The arteries trapped within his extremities throbbed as if his heart had grown tenfold in size and strength. Memory was shattered and fragmented. The contrails of pain left behind by his experimentation ripped apart his ability for rational thought.
“What have I done?” was the only question to surface.
Gerand reached out and grabbed his laptop. He needed answers and he needed them now. On the laptop was a note, roughly typed in the throes of misery. The note read:
“I hav e doneee t he impossible. there wasss no chioce. In cas my expermnt fails and I dont mak it out offf this aliv all of my workk iz on this c0mupter. Know th is…it works. My expermntle drugg can cur the Mengelee Viru.”
His vision twisted in upon itself and the act of reading became too painful. The few words he read brought everything back to the fore. The most crucial of the memories was communicating with Zombie Radio.
As soon as the name smacked him across the cheek, he turned the focus of the laptop to Zombie Radio and his Twitter account. With each tap of his fingers, his mind grew more and more focused. By the time he had logged into Twitter, Gerand had full control over his faculties. He was shocked to see his account filled to overflowing with direct messages and mentions, the vast majority of which were invites to various flavors of debauchery. Not a word, however, from Bethany Nitshimi.
Before the disappointment could consume him, he fired up Zombie Radio to take a listen. Gerand knew, at some point, he would have to speak up once again. Although he risked life and limb every time he ventured back onto the WZMB broadcast, there was no other way to get the word out. There was no choice…Bethany had to know. The truth Gerand had to offer could save the human race.
“I’ve often wondered what exactly is the definition of a zombie. If we look to our friend Merriam-Webster, we read that a zombie is ‘a will-less and speechless human in the West Indies capable only of automatic movement who is held to have died and been supernaturally reanimated.’ What do you think, Zombie Radio Nation, does that even remotely fit the needs of the new world order? Or, are we in line for a redefining of the traditional definition of the word ‘zombie’? Can a zombie only be reanimated by means of voodoo-like magic? Or can we all agree on a more Romero-esque definition? And, ultimately…does it really fucking matter? I’m fairly certain everyone on the planet knows what a zombie is at this point. If there’s anyone out there who doesn’t, you might as well deep-throat that pistol and end your miserable sheltered existence.”
Gerand focused his attention back to Twitter and sent Zombie Radio a message.
“What have we here? Well…I’ll be damned. Ladies and gentlemen, we have once again heard from he who makes promises he cannot possibly keep. It’s a Twitter message and it says ’I’m still waiting…Dr. Gerand.’ Well, Dr. Gerand, as are we. You have spoken, from afar, of a mythical cure for what ails this great planet, yet you do so in secrecy. I placed your information out there into the zombieverse and am working on setting up a date with you and the holiest of heroines, one Bethany Nitshimi…”
Gerand opened up his Skype client, entered the information for Zombie Radio, and requested a conversation.
“Here’s an interesting development. It seems someone by the name of Richard Gerand is attempting to Skype with me. What say you, Zombie Radio Nation, dare I take this call? I say I dare. Hello, Dr. Gerand. You’re on Zombie Radio…what ya got?”
Gerand sucked in a deep, nervous breath and froze. What could he say that hadn’t been said? How could he convince her to contact him? Finally, it all came to him.
“I was there…in the beginning. The real beginning, before Munich. The Zero Day Collective brought me in to create the Mengele Virus for a test on a small town. The whole ordeal was couched under the guise of a horror film they called T-Minus Zero. The goal was to make sure the virus had a specific shelf life so John Burgess could control how much of the population would be taken out. It was the start of the Great Cleansing. It sounds horrible, I know, but Burgess had me chained down with a threat that I couldn’t escape. I had to do what he asked. While I worked on the virus, I also developed both a cure and a weapon.”
Gerand paused, unsure if he’d already said too much.
“Bethany Nitshimi, we need to meet. You are the only person on the planet I can trust. If I fail to get to you, I’m afraid all is lost. Please, Bethany, contact me as soon as possible. I’ll give the DJ my information so you can reach me.”
Before Gerand disconnected the call, he gave the DJ his Skype handle and his mobile number. There was no way to know how much longer the phone systems or the Internet would continue to work. All Gerand could do was hope Bethany reached out sooner rather than later.
He finally managed to stand and shuffle to the stairwell. Now that he’d made his discovery public, there was little doubt the Zero Day Collective would be coming after him. At this point in his life, he really didn’t care much for being alive. What he did care about was ensuring Bethany had the information he currently protected.
One by one he climbed th
e stairs until he reached the top. The door creaked open and the light from the basement spilled out onto the kitchen floor. When the squeal of the hinges faded to silence, an eerie blanket of fear settled over the area. Gerand had but one agenda at the moment—to secure the house. Deep within the recesses of his mind, he knew it was senseless to lock doors and draw blinds in the apocalypse. The rule of law was forfeit, so nothing would prevent muggers, rapists, and looters from entering your home and having their way with you or your belongings. It was cold comfort to seal up the house, but it was still a comfort he needed.
As he stepped to the front door, he chanced a glance out through the peephole. On the street in front of the house, a group of Moaners shambled about. There was no sign of life. No black vans, no red dots of laser-powered gun sights. All there was…was death.
Slowly and silently he shuffled about the room, locking doors and windows, shuttering blinds. Nothing could be left to chance. He was too close to making amends for unleashing hell.
With the house locked down, he carefully made his way back down into the basement to stand sentinel over his computer until Bethany finally reached out.
chapter 20 | the hell mouth and doll parts
Jamal and I arrived back within the safe confines of the great wall and raced to our new headquarters. There was so much to do, so much to plan. Before we could entertain thoughts of evil-genius doings, we had to get the gang up to speed on what we’d learned from Rip Vanity.
“You’re kidding,” Morgan exclaimed, “a concert? With the world crashing down around us? That is insane.”
Jamal jumped in. “That’s exactly what I thought, until they demonstrated the firepower they are working with.”
I explained The Answer to Joshua and Morgan. My words couldn’t, in any way, do it justice. Thankfully, Jamal had had the wherewithal to record Mauser’s solo on his smartphone. He pulled out the device, plugged it into a set of external speakers, and tapped Play.
“Holy shit,” exclaimed Josh, “the dude can shred.”
“His ability to ‘shred’ is moot, Joshua. What is significant and, quite frankly, brilliant about this is the underlying sound. Listen more carefully.”
Jamal turned the speakers up until they crackled with distortion. When he lowered the sound below the threshold of pain, Echo’s eyes lit up. “That’s the Obliterator!” she shouted.
It took a moment, but it finally clicked with the rest of the group.
Morgan stood up straight and glanced between Jamal and me. “So this Mauser guy is going to unleash an undead-destroying solo in the middle of this concert hoping the Moaners and Screamers for miles around will start committing mass suicide?”
Jamal nodded. “Yep, that about sums it up.”
Josh and Morgan shared a knowing look. When Morgan’s gaze returned to me, it was filled with doubt.
“You realize how crazy this is? It goes against everything we stand for.”
Jamal sucked in a quick breath to take the stage. Morgan backed him down with an upraised hand and then continued.
“Sure, this could work to stop the first wave of zombies. But what about the next, and the next? Are we really willing to risk the lives of that many people on some whim dreamed up by some burned-out rock star?”
Joshua shifted his eyes to Morgan and spoke out of the corner of this mouth.
“It is Doubletap Suicide. They’re kinda huge.”
Morgan snapped her head in his direction. The look in her eyes alone made the big man wilt. She finally turned back to me.
“What about the Zero Day Collective? How does an Obliterator-laced guitar solo take care of them in any way?”
“That’s where we come in.” It was my turn to stand a bit taller. “We need to form a plan to take them out. In fact, we probably need to form a few plans—in case the first plan fails. We might only get a couple of shots at this and I refuse to fail.”
Jamal chimed in. “Vanity announced the festival on Zombie Radio. It would be easy to assume the Zero Day Collective monitors that station, so we can be damn sure they’ll make an appearance at the show. We just don’t know how.”
“Yes, we do.” Morgan pulled a chair out and sat down. “They’ll do what they do best—fly in a few battalions of zombies and unleash them on the crowd. While the Moaners and Screamers busy themselves with de-braining and infecting the living, the ZDC will sit back and wait until the crowd is more manageable and then swoop down for us.”
“Or better yet, they’ll manage the thing from a distance and never even be seen.” It was Echo’s turn to bring us all to silence. When we turned her way, she innocently waved at us.
“She’s right.” I said. “Echo, you’re brilliant. It’ll be a risk, but if we split up, we can have one group working the show and the other attacking the ZDC HQ.”
Morgan pulled out her phone. “Actually, there’s no reason to split us up, not when I can call in the cavalry. We have at least two Zombie Response Teams close enough to make it by Friday.”
A plan. It felt good to finally have some semblance of organization on our side. I had been so out of my element without an office, a network, and a file to hack. The day-to-day management of living in the apocalypse had proved to be more of a challenge than cracking the CDC security. But here we were…surviving as a group, relying on one another, and doing a damn good job of it.
Morgan passed our best-guess coordinates on to her teams and instructed them to arrive Friday and wait for the signal to attack. When she hung up, she turned to us and smiled.
“It’s all set. The Zero Day Collective won’t know what hit them.”
“Unless they had a tap on your phone.” Jamal spoke up. “In which case, they know exactly what’s about to hit them and how best to respond.”
“Seriously, Jamal?” I slapped his chest hard. “You have to ruin the moment?”
“What?” Jamal’s face twisted in confusion. “I was just hypothesizing—”
I placed my hand over his mouth. “Don’t. Not now. We need this win.”
“Besides,” Josh interrupted, “if they’d had a tap on our phones, they’d already have stormed the castle.”
Jamal shrugged. “He’s right. I’m sorry. But before you make any more calls, please let me have a look at your phone.”
Morgan handed the phone over immediately.
“No need to wait; it’s all yours. Just make sure I get it back. That baby has every contact number for every Zombie Response Team. If I lose those numbers, we’re in trouble.”
Jamal nodded. “Before I do anything, I’ll back the numbers up to a memory card and transfer them to my phone. That way, should your phone die we’ll have a backup.”
Before Jamal dropped into his own personal “techvana,” I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to me.
“It’s late. We better all try to get some rest.”
Everyone departed for the pews in the sanctum. Rizzo was already curled up with a bedroll ready for Echo. I watched her as she wiggled her way into the pew and under the covers. She caught me staring and smiled. In that moment, something washed over and through me—something I hadn’t felt in such a long time.
Family.
Jamal motioned for me to join him. The shallow wooden benches were too narrow to spoon, so we arranged ourselves head to head. Our sotto voce could carry easily to one another.
“Bethany,” Jamal whispered.
“Yes?”
Silence.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
I twisted around so I lay on my belly, my head perched on my hands so I could look into Jamal’s warm eyes. Someone’s candlelight flickered in his right iris. I melted a bit. “Not fair. The never mind game is off-limits in the apocalypse.”
Jamal smiled. A soft beam of moonlight caressed his cheeks and his eyes. The sight was pure art and it swelled my heart to bursting.
“I love you, Bethany.”
Once again, the dams of my eyes unleashed
a deluge.
Concern filled Jamal’s face. “Oh no. No, no, no. I’m so sorry, B. I take it back. Forget I—”
“I love you, too.”
My words silenced the man. It wasn’t until the smile returned to his face that I realized everything was as it should be.
As much as it could be with the world coming to an end.
We didn’t speak another word for fear of ruining the perfect moment. Instead, we turned back over and awaited the soft rain of sleep.
*
“Mother.”
The voice echoed from a distant past and rang out until it reverberated inside my skull. The sharp buzzing of the sound brought a lightning storm of pain along for the ride.
“Mother.”
Again the voice called for me—the age inappropriate for the spoken word.
The landscape shook; the dry, cracked Earth fissured until a blood-red, blinding light beamed from what could only be hell. As the quake subsided the voice returned.
“Mother.”
“I’m here!”
An arm shot out from the hellish hole and slapped down on the dirt. Slowly the arm tugged and pulled until the body of my baby boy stood naked before me, a single gunshot wound in the center of his forehead.
“Mother.” The voice of the man issued from the infant’s mouth. Another hand reached up from the crack and, within a heartbreak beat, a second baby Jacob stood behind the first.
“Mother.” Their voices spoke in unison.
A crash of lightning flashed and struck the first baby. A flood of flesh and blood washed over me.
“Jacob, where are you?” I cried out.
Another arm, another call for “mother,” another flash, another flood.
“Please answer me. I’m doing everything I can to find you.”
“Mother.”
“Stop!” I shouted. My tears did their best to wash Jacob’s blood from my cheeks. The sick, slick fluids ran into my mouth, down my neck, between my breasts.
I finally managed to clear my blood-blurred vision to reveal a dozen or more clones of my baby standing mere feet in front of me. Like tiny Nazi soldiers, they began to march forward, a minuscule goose-step parade. When the infantile army was upon me, the tiniest of fingers scraped and clawed at my flesh and clothing. Somehow the small figures managed to drag me to the ground. Another rain of blood washed over me, flowing deep into my mouth and throat. I tried to call out, but the words came out in garbled bubbles.