All the Dead Are Here

by Pete Bevan

  John thought about this for a moment. Cadish, for some reason, could feel non-linear time wriggling about in the background as the possibility of this revelation revealed itself like a mass of writhing snakes.

  “So you thought all the Zombies were like this before they died?”

  “Yes. It was the only resolving pattern.”

  “So the Nanodes got something wrong, then?”

  “Not possible. They have 100% success rate at all tasks we agree on,” said Cadish, a little offended it must be said. He contacted the Nanodes. “Oh.”

  “What?” said John.

  “It appears there may have been an iterative error/cock-up/mistake.”

  “What?”

  “Given that the Zombies’ state was a second state separate to that of standard meat structures, there may be a reason for it. Initial subjects did not act like meat structures and the Nanodes could not determine the reason for this. They are not as intelligent/pan dimensional/omnipotent...No...too much ego. Not as smart as me and they looked for a precedent on which to base higher function programming. Seeing as this was not a normal state for the meat structure to return from system failure/death they used a guide to understand higher function programming and not knowing individual psyches/higher functions/personalities/memories they based it on a template,” explained Cadish.

  “What template?” said John pensively.

  “A DVD copy of George Romero’s ‘Dawn of the Dead’,” said Cadish, the room shuddering with embarrassment. “Everyone was the same. It made the programming easy and this was what we assumed the people looked like before death, because they still looked like that in their graves. I think the Nanodes may have become confused and thought it was a historical document. This has never happened before,” said Cadish.

  “So you thought everyone would embrace Zombies as old friends and loved ones and that no-one would notice that they weren’t actually acting like they used to?” said John.

  “This may have been an error.”

  “Yes, Cadish. This is an error,” said John, thinking about what this meant. He rubbed his face and forehead. His head ached and was getting worse. Eventually he looked up at the screen and smiled. “I reckon we can fix it.” he said.

  “Hmmm.” vibrated Cadish. “I’m not sure how wise this is. I don’t want to interfere/spoil/mess up and make the situation any worse.”

  “Can’t you just go back in time and stop yourself doing it?”

  “As you yourself said, JohnKendall, it doesn’t quite work like that,” said Cadish.

  “Really? Ok. Well we’ll just have to repair what you’ve done the best we can,” said John.

  Relinquishing the endless possibility of Cadish’s considerable power to this meat creature was too delicious a opportunity to ignore. He felt positively giddy at the thought, and he could feel non-linear time flapping about like a wet fish with all the uncalculated possibilities that could occur. Cadish tried not to show his excitement.

  “Can you get the Nanodes to relinquish control of the bodies, just let them die again?” asked John.

  “Hmmm. I am reluctant to comply. People will not see their loved ones again, and will be sad. I cannot allow that.” John laughed. Cadish was stunned at this reaction, it was like nothing he had ever seen before, he was quite perplexed as to its meaning.

  “Cadish, I absolutely guarantee that the people will be happy about it,” laughed John, smiling for the first time in hours.

  Cadish negotiated with the Nanodes and, reluctantly, they agreed. On the screen John saw the Zombies drop to the floor, their link severed from their microscopic puppet masters. The image changed to show a group of survivors fighting a running street battle against the Dead. As the pursuing Zombies fell to the floor, the group slowed to a walk, looking dazed and confused. Slowly, one edged back to the now dead pursuers and poked it with the end of his machete. It didn’t move. The grouped started jumping around, laughing, hugging each other, and crying. They didn’t look sad at all.

  “Ooh!” said Cadish, “well that is good, isn’t it?”

  John sagged in his seat, relieved the nightmare was over. Cadish flicked through other scenes of celebration occurring all over the globe, but John couldn’t see the celebrations, all he could see was the devastation the last night had caused. This gave him an idea.

  “Cadish. Can the Nanodes repair inanimate objects as well as living forms?”

  “Oh yes. It is much easier, but the amount of damage done compared to time of my arrival is massive, this may take several linear...sorry...minutes to achieve and may not be one hundred percent accurate, but I can ensure that none of the errors are dangerous. Would that suffice?”

  “We’ll try that then,” said John.

  Cadish was stunned, the meat creature, knowing that the solution would not be perfect, was willing to complete the task anyway! Oh to have such uncertainty, oh to have a wild stab in the dark without calculating the trillions of possible outcomes! Cadish deliberately ignored both linear time and non-linear time, he didn’t want to know what would happen next. It was so exciting. It negotiated with the Nanodes who complained bitterly at the amount of work involved. He promised them a reward for their hard work and loyalty and they agreed.

  John watched the screen intensely as broken glass rose from the floor, millions of pieces coalescing together, forming a white hot ball of glass before stretching out to the size of the window it came from. It drifted back into place, cooling rapidly as it went. A car rolled onto its wheels before the panels buckled out to their former shape, the wing mirror flew in from the left of the image and re-attached itself and it glided gently into the parking spot from which it came. John and Cadish watched in awe as the scene unfolded, in fact, if it wasn’t for the reaction of the people watching the scene it would just look like a film in reverse. After a couple of minutes, the Nanodes reported in.

  “99.14% correct realignment of damage,” reported Cadish, proudly.

  “What about the 0.8 or whatever is left?” asked John.

  “Of the incorrect realignments the most severe is a tree in Idaho which has the DNA of a horse. It will not be a problem... As long as the DNA has no muscle stem cells, of course.”

  “Right,” said John, trying to imagine the horse-tree running free across the plains of Idaho. He shook his head and got back to business.

  “Last thing, Cadish. All the dead are going to rot and cause horrific diseases, can you remove all the bodies? Dispose of them?” asked John. Cadish didn’t answer but on screen all the Zombies corpses instantly bubbled, grew into a sort of small mossy hill then disintegrated into the Earth.

  “Next?” asked Cadish.

  “Next? Well the last thing I think is to return me home isn’t it?” said John.

  “Oh,” said Cadish.

  “What?”

  “It would be unwise, JohnKendall, for your species to know my name / nomenclature / power / existence. I’m afraid you cannot go homeworld,” said Cadish, quite saddened by this turn of events, and the fact that JohnKendall was going to leave this mess a lot less tidily resolved than Cadish would have liked.

  “Cadish. Look up ‘conspiracy theory’ and ‘alien abduction’,” said John.

  “Oh,” said Cadish “They will think you are insane/nutty/mad-in-da-heid/not well.”

  “Yes. That is why I’m not going to tell anyone about this.”

  Cadish thought for a while before agreeing. It had considered the possibility of putting John in his subspace Zoo, but felt this would be a bit unkind given all the help - and fun - he had provided.

  “Well, JohnKendall, it has been an absolute pleasure to meet you.” The blade and rod hand shot up and shook John’s hand enthusiastically.

  “Er, and you,” said John, taking care to not cut his fingers on the vicious looking blades and rods that shook his hand.

  “I’m sorry about all that erm, all those erm, well I’m sorry anyway,” said Cadish, and he meant it, it had been quite the st
rangest visit he had made to anywhere in a long time.

  “Oh that’s ...ok,” said John. Ok? Ok! He had lost his girlfriend and his best mate. God only knew who else and here he was saying it’s ok like Cadish was a seven foot tall body-builder who had spilt his beer in the pub. It didn’t pay to antagonise body-builders and John concluded that Cadish was a lot more powerful than a body-builder in the pub.

  John stood there awkwardly for a moment.”Well then, ’bye,” he said hopefully. He waved his hand feebly to the room.

  “’Bye, JohnKendall,” said Cadish, and in a moment John was back in the alley, tingling all over. In the distance he could hear singing. He walked from the alleyway without looking back and never spoke of Cadish with anyone, however, he often pondered the experience and decided after a few years to join the clergy.

  Cadish hung like a silver star in the heavens for 7.6 nanoseconds. In this time he catalogued the internet, watched the whole of youtube, and everything ever made on television. He read every piece of writing committed to file. He came to the conclusion that he liked Benny Hill, Chess and JRR Tolkien the best but didn’t really like the film ‘2001’. Finally, he filed all the data away in subspace along with the dimensional search results and the trillions of simulations he had conducted, and decided to leave a marker for any passing traveller who happened upon the human race. For his own amusement he decided to leave it as a meat creature email.

  ‘Traveller@Earthorbit.sol

  Dear Traveller,

  If you find this message it means you are in Geosynchronous orbit above a most remarkable planet, whose populace display the most interesting possibility solutions. I would recommend the inhabitants be viewed for a period of linear time, or to see the planet from first-life to fiery end, I suggest a hat-stand of non-linear time be employed.

  However, I most humbly request that you do not interfere or disturb the creatures below as their existence is short, brutal and fragile and any well meaning action can have disastrous consequences as I, Cadish, have learned.

  Best Regards,

  Cadish.’

  He simulated linear time to ensure that all who saw this message obeyed it, and unfortunately, several billion years in the future, Earth would be conquered by a warlike species from the rim of the great event. To counter this he added ‘... However, if you do interfere I will be... displeased’ to the last line, another scan revealed this would do the trick and ensure that the meat creatures would be left well alone.

  Cadish gazed at the planet one last time, thought about what had happened, and vibrated its interior space in a ‘hmmm’. Then it folded space around it like a child folding a duvet around itself in a cold bedroom and was gone.

  The Minister: Verse 2

  Against the gentle whump whump whump of the helicopter blades, Paul Jollie listened to the last thirty seconds of the mp3 over and over again. He’d put the earpieces of his iPod underneath the bulky headphones to try and drown out the noise of the ancient Huey he was now sitting in. He was studying the photographs of the living room of the old croft where the attack had happened. He tried to visualise the knock at the door, the surprise of the occupants, that final, desperate struggle and what had happened after the tape stopped, after the bloody violence had ended. He had listened to the MP3 over and over again, studying every nuance of Joe Wyndham’s voice as he described the Minister and that final line, the voice of the Minister himself, his drawn out Scottish brogue dripping with menace. No matter how many times he listened, he couldn’t garner any further information from it and yet every time he listened to the recording the hairs on the back of his neck stood to attention.

  The pilot leaned round from the front and pointed towards his headphones. Paul lifted each side of the helicopter headphones gently and removed the iPod earpieces. He moved the microphone into position. “What?”

  “Twenty minutes until we hit the Edinburgh drop zone, Sir,” called the pilot.

  “Alert me at five minutes to drop.”

  “Yes sir,” said the pilot.

  Paul relaxed and closed his eyes, his privacy invaded by the grating whine of the chopper as it sped over the desolate British countryside. The cold, misty morning looked almost sepia toned as the sun struggled to fight its way through the wet gloom. His mind wandered back to the meeting with the Minister of Special Circumstances barely eighteen hours before.

  Paul was one of the new breed of Special Forces employed by the British military. He had just turned seven years old when the Fall had happened and in it he had lost his entire family. At nine he had fired his first pistol and dropped his first Z. At sixteen he had found himself on the front line at the Battle of Tower Bridge. The army had tried to reclaim North London by using the bridge as a choke point only to find that the mass of Z’s in that half of London was too great for the bridge and they had risen from the Thames, a mass tide of Z’s that flanked their position, rising up through the water to surround them, decimating the ragged British Army in the process. He was one of barely a thousand survivors of that great battle, who had fought a running retreat through the streets. Ten thousand people who had survived for twelve years swapped sides that day, making the retaking of London all that much harder.

  His skills at knowing how the Z would behave, when to fight and when to hide, had served him well and got him noticed by the newly formed Ministry of Special Circumstances. He joined the unit at eighteen and was trained in the use of weapons, both military and martial. He was taught the newly developed Japanese Z Kata, a martial art specifically designed to keep as many of the dead at arm’s length or further whilst they were systemically and efficiently despatched by the best weaponry British sword smiths had developed. The ‘Union Jack’ was a high quality stainless steel blade with strengthening ribs criss-crossed along it, like the old flag. It was just long enough to sever a head at arm’s length and sharp enough to chop logs. It looked like an ancient broadsword but was considerably lighter and gunmetal grey in colour.

  Paul had helped developed the Special Forces Z-proof armour, lightweight black polypropylene recycled from waste plastic: flexible, strong, yet slippery to hold, with bite-proof Kevlar at the neck, knee and elbow joints. It looked like skinny American football gear crossed with a medieval suit of armour but was considerably lighter and easier to manoeuvre in. He had participated in the live testing, where it was discovered that the facial recognition skills of the Z’s brain was partially how the fresher Z’s homed in on humans, so now a lightweight Motocross mask was used to hide the soldiers’ features. Paul had taken to using a stylised white skull painted on the front which confused the Z’s into thinking he may be a Z himself, this hesitation in their actions was all he needed and he was trained to take advantage of it.

  He was now used by the Ministry to scout cities, towns, sewers and small isolated communities and to generally clean up where a single man could. Sometimes pre-Fall items were required: Laptops with military or scientific data, culturally significant items from museums or libraries needed to be saved, but most of the time it was to help the disparate communities of survivors to clear a local threat or to protect them whilst their community was expanded. After all it made sense that Special Forces worked alone. It was easier to hide, easier to run and it meant that you were not tied to the bonds of friendship which could make you put yourself in a deadly situation to save a comrade, risking you both in the process. It was you alone against the Z. Pre-Fall there were sixty-seven million people living in the UK in a landmass less than half the size of Texas. Fifteen years after the Fall there were less than a million people left and it was estimated almost ten times the population in Z’s. Only Japan still had as many Z’s per live citizen, some of the more densely populated countries had no citizens left at all. Clearance was a morale term, a term to let people know that things were returning to pre-Fall normality. The reality was that this was far from the truth, and operatives like Paul Jollie were merely playing a numbers game. Eventually, his time would come and when
it did he hoped that his kill count was up in the five figures, it needed to be so that there were still humans left when the last zombie was killed and not the other way around.