Jailbait Zombie

by Mario Acevedo

  The reanimator gripped the handle of a large electrical knife switch bolted to a workbench. He closed the switch and…

  I thought my head exploded. Everything attached to my brain—skull, medulla oblongata, eyeballs—seemed to blast apart. The tornado of pain funneled down my spine, circled my chest, and ran to my left hand. Every nerve ending along that path became a rivet of fire.

  The pain receded, like smoke clearing after a bomb blast. The mental noise of anguish rumbled in my brain.

  The reanimator came back into focus. He studied me, his hand holding the switch at a half-cocked position.

  My kundalini noir flattened, limp as a deflated balloon.

  I fought to keep my eyes open. “Who are you?”

  His expression slipped into pride. “I am Dr. Leopold Hennison. A medical doctor, not some silly academic with a Ph.D.” He pointed to a certificate on the wall. “And you are?”

  “Felix Gomez.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Denver.”

  “A vampire from Denver? I sent one of my zombies to Denver. Barrett Chambers. Would you know what happened to him?”

  “Who?”

  Hennison closed the switch again. The lightning bolt blasted through me again—the world went white with pain—and when I came around, I wanted to melt to the floor.

  “Barrett was the first zombie I made who could drive. You don’t know how much his loss inconvenienced me,” Hennison said. “Let’s try this again.” He tapped his fingers on the switch. “What happened to Barrett Chambers?”

  I lie and I get more pain. Better to tell the truth. “I destroyed him.”

  “Why?” Hennison grasped the switch handle.

  “Because he was a zombie.”

  “So?”

  “We can’t let humans know about the undead. Your zombie could’ve been discovered and captured.”

  Hennison loomed close. “What’s this worry about humans knowing about the undead? They will soon. About the undead. About zombies. About me.”

  Hennison backed away. “And they will know soon enough about vampires.”

  My kundalini noir deflated even more. I had betrayed the Great Secret. How could I undo this?

  “As for Barrett Chambers,” Hennison said, “he was scouting for prospects. Perhaps he wasn’t ready to be on his own. Oh well. Science is all about taking risks.”

  Hennison opened a plastic cooler on the workbench. He took out a Red Bull, popped it open, and guzzled from the can.

  Tall boots girl zombie leaned over me and stared at my naked crotch. Yellow drool oozed from her mouth and splattered on my leg.

  “We better get you some pants,” Hennison said. “Kimberly hasn’t lost her oral fixation.” He chomped his teeth twice. “Just ask him.” Hennison cocked a thumb at cowboy zombie, who covered his crotch with both hands and retreated a step. “Kimberly minds well but let’s not tempt her too much.”

  Lab coat zombie tossed me a pair of filthy sweatpants.

  Hennison finished his Red Bull and dropped the empty can into a recycling box. He drummed the handle of the switch. “Remember. Act naughty and it’s zap, zap.”

  I came to my feet. Kimberly’s greedy eyes followed the angle of my dangle. I pulled the pants over my legs and wondered if out of sight, out of mind applied to zombies.

  I stood, my flesh and bones aching, but I was grateful that my body still worked.

  Cowboy zombie tipped the wooden table vertical.

  Hennison motioned that I back against it. I hesitated as I studied the metal hoops bolted to where my wrists and ankles would rest.

  The doctor started to press the switch handle.

  “No, no,” I shouted. No more pain. “I’ll do it.”

  Hennison relaxed. Cowboy zombie and Kimberly cinched the metal hoops over my wrists and ankles. I flexed my arms and legs to test the strength of the hoops. I could break free but needed a distraction to keep them from frying me with the electricity.

  Hennison tripped a lever on the table. The door pivoted into a horizontal position, stopping suddenly so that the back of my head thumped against the surface.

  Hennison unhooked the jumper cable clamp from my hand and removed the steel cap. “Don’t get any funny ideas. Now you’re wired directly to the generator outside.”

  “Believe me,” I replied, “funny is the furthest thing from my mind.”

  He chuckled. “Don’t get me wrong. We can joke around. A sense of humor makes for good conversation.” Hennison waved to his mute zombies. “Trust me that I’m lacking in good conversation.”

  Hennison was lacking more than conversation but I knew my reward if I said so. He wanted to talk, I needed time to escape, so why not let him gab?

  Hennison took off his fleece sweater and smoothed the lab coat underneath. He faced a large mirror fixed to the wall close to the table. He wiped dust from the glass. He watched himself as he turned his face, lifting his chin, his jaw set, as if he was auditioning to be Benito Mussolini.

  His reflected gaze swung in my direction. Hennison jerked his head over his shoulder toward me. He turned to the mirror and back to me.

  I knew what he saw, or rather didn’t see: my reflection.

  For a short moment, his brow furrowed in puzzlement. When it smoothed, he smiled. “Let’s you and I come to a deal.”

  “Anything you say. Tell me what you want, we’ll shake hands, and I’ll be on my way out of here.”

  “You’re being too optimistic,” Hennison said. “You and I are going to have a nice, long chat. I ask questions and you tell me the answers.”

  “I don’t want to disappoint you but I’m not very good at this.”

  “You’ll do fine, trust me. Just don’t get all macho.”

  “Let’s go back to that deal,” I said, convinced that my choices were bad and really bad.

  “You decide how comfortable you want to be,” Hennison explained. “See, tomorrow I’m going to test your assertion that morning sunlight will destroy you. But until then, we’ll chat, and it’s up to you whether you want to pass the time in comfort or in extreme pain.”

  CHAPTER 41

  Hennison rattled through a pan of tools on the workbench and selected a scalpel. He propped his elbows on the table and prodded my shoulder with the blade. A sting followed the trace of the scalpel on my skin.

  “You’re a walking freak show, Mr. Gomez. A Wikipedia of the fantastic. How do you transform from animal to human form?”

  “It just happens. You might as well ask a duck how it grows feathers.”

  “What about not showing a reflection?”

  “I’m a vampire.” The scalpel bit into my skin. I tried acting like it didn’t hurt but I’m sure I winced anyway. “I don’t know how any of this works.”

  Hennison got another Red Bull. “Let’s not be so circumspect. Work with me, please. Your translucent skin would be easier to examine after I peeled it from your flesh but I’d rather not do that.”

  “I second the motion.”

  “Not that your vote means anything.” Hennison sipped from his Red Bull.

  “What’s this all about?” I lifted my head and motioned with my eyes across the room.

  “This”—Hennison swept his arms to take in the breadth of the room—“is my revenge.”

  “On whom?”

  “Everybody.”

  “Why?”

  “Do you know what therapeutic misadventures are, Mr. Gomez?”

  “It’s when the doctor kills the patient.”

  “A gold star for you,” Hennison said. “I see that you’re acquainted with our medical profession. That’s what I was accused of. My patients kept dying.”

  “Must have been hell on the malpractice insurance premiums.”

  “Not at all. It was a university hospital. The taxpayers paid the bills. What did I care?”

  “Your patients died of…?”

  “They didn’t die. I let them expire. There were no therapeutic misadventures. I
was on a voyage of discovery. Would you call a mission into space a misadventure?”

  Hennison absently rested his hand on the switch lever.

  I gulped. “Of course not.”

  Hennison pulled his hand from the switch. He paced in a circle between the switch and me. I hoped that can of Red Bull lasted a long time.

  He said, “I was testing my hypothesis to unlock the greatest secret of all, the resurrection of the dead.” He waited as if he expected his zombies to cheer him.

  They stared at him with empty eyes. Pus seeped from their wounds.

  Hennison let out a sigh and puffed his cheeks in dejection. “Genius is a lonely vocation.”

  Especially when you’re surrounded by zombies.

  “I take it the medical board didn’t see it that way?”

  Hennison wagged a finger. “You are so right about that. They acted as if my actions would damage the reputation of the hospital. How many patients died to perfect heart transplants? Were those therapeutic misadventures? I flatline a few patients—in the interest of science, mind you—and suddenly my techniques and procedures are called into question.”

  If this delusional bastard didn’t have an advanced degree, I could see him hosing school buses with an AK-47.

  I asked, “Didn’t you tell the board what you were doing?”

  “You ever hear of something called intellectual property? If I blabbed to the administration about this”—he motioned to his lab—“then every idea would belong to the hospital and its corporate sponsors. I’d be given a plaque and a token honorarium for my efforts.” He crushed the can of Red Bull. “Instead they called me a criminal.”

  “That was when you came to lovely Morada?” I asked.

  “Not yet. I tried to interest the Defense Department in my work. I pitched to them, what better weapon against terror than terror itself? We’d free the suspects locked up in Guantánamo after I turned them into zombies. Imagine Osama bin Laden’s face when zombies come after him. We’ll send their dead martyrs back home and on our side. Brilliant, no?”

  “Absolutely,” I replied.

  Hennison’s expression darkened. Shoulders sagging, he turned from me. “Once again, I was cast out. A prophet is never welcome in his own home. The generals thought I was a lunatic. The government would rather waste billions on nuclear weapons, utterly useless toys except to keep their cronies fattened at the public trough.”

  Kimberly’s hand grasped my ankle. Imagine a rotten orange with fingers. She licked her lips and slipped the repulsive hand under the cuff of my sweats.

  I raised my head. “Hey, Doc? Little help here.”

  Hennison stared at the floor and brooded. “Those were trying days. I felt I had nowhere to turn.”

  Kimberly snaked her arm up my leg.

  Cowboy zombie did his undead snicker. “Ghaw. Ghaw.”

  “Hey, Doc. Help.”

  “I watched a lot of television.” Hennison brightened. “There I found salvation.”

  “You mean religion?” I raised my voice to get his attention. “A televangelist?”

  “Of course not. Not those charlatans. I mean the queen of modern wisdom. Oprah.”

  “Oprah?”

  “An American treasure. She did an entire show called ‘Follow Your Dreams.’”

  Kimberly’s cold fingers crawled up my thigh like a thawing tarantula. “Dreams.” The word came from her mouth like a gargle.

  My johnson shriveled. It wanted a pair of feet of its own to run away. “Hey, Dr. Hennison, would you mind?”

  Hennison was reaching into the cooler for yet another Red Bull. He did a double take on Kimberly and threw a can. It bounced off her head and sprayed Red Bull. She shuffled backward, giving a disappointed zombie mumble, and withdrew that cold serpent of her arm from inside my pants.

  “Thanks,” I said. I let sensation return to my crotch. “You were talking about your dreams.”

  “My dreams.” Hennison returned to the mirror. An expression of serenity soothed his face. “Oprah said, don’t give up. Every worthy cause is a challenge. The keys to success are faith, persistence, and to ground your efforts on gratitude.” Hennison paused to stare at himself. “I did exactly that. I downsized my life to the essentials and invested in my dreams.”

  “Zombies?”

  “It’s more than that.”

  “The revenge thing?”

  “Now that I’ve reanimated the dead, I’ve only whetted my ambitions. My goals before were laughably modest. Even juvenile. I wanted to even the score on every nuisance, every inconvenience, every parking ticket, every blind date who wouldn’t return my phone calls.” Hennison marched from the mirror. “Instead, my recent success has fueled my desire for complete mastery of the globe.”

  “World domination?” I asked.

  “For now.”

  The world wasn’t enough? “And then?”

  “Think of it, zombies in space.”

  “I’m thinking. Yes, I see it.” I tested the metal hoops on my wrists.

  “Do you think that’s too ambitious?”

  “For you, of course not. Why would you say that?”

  “Are you aware of Icarus?”

  “I wouldn’t worry,” I replied. “Compared to you, the guy was a loonie. Come on, making wax wings and flying too close to the sun?”

  “I’m glad you say that,” Hennison said. “Sometimes I think I’m getting carried away with my plans. It’s good to get a fresh opinion.”

  “You want a fresh opinion? You sir, deserve a fucking Nobel Prize.”

  Hennison saluted. “Thanks.”

  I knew the way to his heart, on a wide avenue of flattery and bullshit. Now it was my turn to learn about his world. “Hey, Doc, how come some zombies are more animated than others? Take Lab Coat over there.” I motioned with my head.

  “You mean Reginald?” Hennison asked. “The sooner to expiration I complete the reanimation process, the more animated—lifelike if you will—the revenant is. But I’ve discovered another phenomenon. Have you noticed that zombies don’t say much but they seem to know what the others are doing? It’s as if they have a collective consciousness. The deeper the zombification, the greater awareness they have of one another.”

  Of course I had noticed how zombies cooperated to capture me. They moved as if they had one mind. They lacked auras so I assumed they had no connection to the psychic world, but I was wrong. What kind of mysterious connection, I didn’t know.

  Hennison said, “Other than the affordable real estate, the country living, and great mountain views, let me show you why I’ve come to Morada.”

  He motioned to Reginald, who went to the shelf and returned with a cardboard box the size of a small valise. He set the box on the workbench and lifted a metal case from inside the box.

  The case had a transparent pyramid. This was no doubt a psychotronic diviner.

  “Let’s talk more,” Hennison said. “But before we do, let’s look at this.”

  Reginald brought a second box. From it he removed another psychotronic diviner, the one belonging to the Araneum, the one the zombies had stolen from me.

  He placed the diviners side by side. Hennison’s had a plain aluminum case fashioned with rivets and welds and cheap switches. This diviner looked like a garage hobby project, especially when compared to the Araneum’s ornate version.

  Hennison asked, “This is the device taken from your truck.” He caressed the filigreed case. “It’s beautiful but overdone. I would’ve spent the money on something else. Who made this?”

  “I can’t say.” That was the truth. The Araneum could’ve jobbed out its construction.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “It was a gift.”

  Hennison grunted in displeasure. “You’re playing games. Give me straight answers. You know what this is for?”

  “I do.”

  “And?” Hennison circled his fingers.

  Now he was playing games. This was his power trip. I wasn’t goi
ng to tell him anything he didn’t know.

  Hennison pulled a wide plastic tube from the shelf where the diviners had rested. He uncapped one end of the tube and shook out large sheets of paper that he unfurled.

  He laid the sheets on the table beside me and put heavy bolts on the opposite edges to keep them from curling together.

  Hennison grasped my head and tilted it to look at the sheets. They were either copies or the originals of Dr. Blavatsky’s notes from the Rocky Flats UFO.

  “You’ve seen these, yes?”

  “I have, but all I know is they were used to build those things over there.”

  “Things?” Hennison straightened as if insulted. “These things are like discovering fire. You know what they’re for?”

  “Detecting psychic energy?”

  “You don’t sound impressed.”

  “I’m not. Look at all the trouble they’ve gotten me into.”

  “Why are you in Morada, Mr. Vampire?”

  “To find the source of the psychic energy.” And zombies.

  “Which is why I’m here as well. This device is a keyhole into the astral plane. The trouble is, I can see into the astral plane, but I can’t get into it.”

  He pressed his hand against my forehead and pushed my head to the table. He brought his nose close to mine. I could read every pore and wrinkle in his face.

  “If you’re here looking for the source, then you vampires also want to enter the astral plane. So it’s a race.”

  Hennison brought his mouth close to my left ear. His breath puffed warmly against my skin. “And guess what? You lost.” He straightened up. “Which means I’ve won.” He laughed. He motioned for the zombies to join him.

  The room filled with his mad scientist cackle and the ghaw, ghaw of the zombies.

  Hennison wiped a tear from one eye. “We barely know each other and I am going to miss you, Felix. It’s been months since I’ve had a discussion as stimulating.”

  “You that lonely out here?”

  “I have plenty of contact. I subscribe to e-newsletters and Yahoo Groups. I blog. There’s no dearth of communication.”

  “I meant real conversation.”

  “Yeah, that’s a challenge. Reginald”—Hennison cocked a thumb to Lab Coat—“can about pass for a live human but his brain was too far gone. My fault. See, I conked him a little too hard on the noggin. Reginald, turn around.”