Death Plague [Four Zombie Novels]

by Ian Woodhead

  The sound of breaking windows prompted Mortimer to move. “Front door it is,” he muttered. As he opened the front door, he heard the cellar door open. His guts coiled up, imagining the bodies on that floor had somehow reanimated and were now on their way through the kitchen, eager to sink their teeth into the arm of this body. Mortimer ground his teeth in irritation before pulling his brother out of the house and slamming the door.

  So much for having no emotions left. Mortimer shook his head, wanting to dislodge those vivid images of his dead brother falling out of the kitchen and attacking Daniel. The other Daniel stood in the middle of the street, twirling his new toy around like some cross-dressed cheerleader. If this really was a product of the device’s digital memories, and not his mind feeding him with all this weird bullshit, then he’d like it all to end about now.

  “Come on, Mortimer, let’s go bag ourselves some zombies!”

  His brother’s new attitude distressed him. There you go, Mortimer, another emotion has worked its way through the malaise. The more he figured out about this current situation, the less he understood. Mortimer raced after the laughing man, trying to suppress a whole other bundle of other emotions, all wanting to come out and play. It seemed that the cork in the dam had been well and truly lost.

  “I see three dead bastards huddling around that green car.”

  Mortimer tightened his grip on the sword handle, looking not at the target but at Daniel’s shining face. The man sounded drunk. Those flickers of the old Daniel that he’d seen molded into the features of this stranger’s face had all but disappeared. He didn’t know who this person was now. The man chuckled before charging towards the car, his new weapon raised above his head, screaming incoherently.

  Mortimer ran after him, keeping his distance. Although he didn’t want the dead things to overpower the man, he had no intention of becoming Daniel’s unintentional victim. The knives flashed down, each one finding their target with unnerving accuracy. The dead stood no chance. The sun’s glint vanished from the blades as more black soup covered the metal.

  Panting, the man turned around; his blazing eyes found Mortimer. “I’m going to call my new weapon ‘Tony’.” He chuckled to himself.

  For the first time since leaving the house, Mortimer heard his brother’s voice hidden beneath the dense slabs of thick muscle. “Where the fuck did you learn to do that?”

  His brother’s reply never reached Mortimer’s ears. Daniel’s mouth opened, then the man dropped to the floor. A split second later, a single shot rang out. Mortimer yelped and followed his brother’s action. He rolled to the side, then got on his hands and knees and scurried over to the car. “What can you see?” he shouted, crashing into the asphalt as three more shots blasted out.

  His brother reached forward and grabbed Mortimer, pulling him behind the car. Despite the shooting, Daniel’s grin had not moved off his face. “What is wrong with you? Some bastard is trying to kill us!”

  “Then they aren’t doing a great job,” Daniel replied, sniggering. “Look, they’re only a block away.”

  Mortimer followed the man’s gaze and saw five veiled figures heading towards the car. Two carried long-barrelled rifles. Even from this distance, those crude things held in their arms looked as though they had been fashioned in somebody’s garage. He bit the inside of his mouth to stop himself from laughing. He’d already seen just how effective homemade weapons could be in the right hands. From behind him, Mortimer sensed a shadow moving. He turned his head, thinking that Daniel’s double-blade stick had not stopped every dead thing.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” he hissed, watching his brother standing up.

  “I thought that was obvious,” Daniel replied, looking down. “We need answers, and hiding like rabbits won’t bring them. Besides, if they wanted us dead, we would be. It’s that simple.”

  The five figures stopped moving when Daniel emerged from behind the car. Mortimer placed his sword on the hood of the vehicle and followed him out, keeping his eyes fixed on the two men holding the guns. He sighed when he saw that Daniel hadn’t dropped his weapon.

  “Why did you run from the work camp?” demanded the lead veiled figure. The man took three steps forward until only a few meters separated him from Daniel. “We had an agreement, both of you were there.” He looked back at the others. “Have you any idea what the overlords would do to us all if they find us missing?”

  “I don’t even know who you are,” Daniel said.

  His words electrified the five strangers. The man in front staggered back and Mortimer’s heart leapt into his mouth when the other two men lifted the rifles. He now found both barrels aimed at his face.

  “Put those down!” screamed the man. He hurried forward. “Tell me who you two are,” he demanded. “Do it now, body thieves.”

  “Why don’t you tell us who you are?” asked Mortimer. “I don’t mean to sound impolite here, but do you always fire on strangers?”

  The lead man raised his hand. He took hold of the veil and pulled the material back. Mortimer found himself staring into Joseph’s eyes.

  “No, no fucking way!”

  Joseph stepped forward. “I see that you recognize me? At least, you recognize one of me. Why don’t you tell me who you are, I mean the man inside the flesh of one of my friends.”

  Mortimer watched the other four men approach. He reached out and wrapped his fingers around his brother’s wrist.

  Joseph smiled. “Don’t worry, although I know you don’t belong in those meat coats, even I can see that you’re not part of the security forces. I do know that you don’t belong here.”

  “Is this a game?” asked Mortimer, knowing that it wasn’t, that notion had left him when they left the house and he saw the look on his brother’s face as he dispatched those shambling dead monsters. Even in another body, that face expressed utter joy at making sure his enemies stayed on the ground. Daniel hated the shambling corpses as much as anyone, but he would much rather hide, or run away. This Daniel couldn’t wait to carve up the bastards.

  “It’ll be easier to show you.” Joseph looked back at their house. “Am I right to think that building holds some kind of hold over you two?”

  “We used to live there,” replied Daniel. “At least, we lived in a house like that one.”

  “Unreal,” grinned Joseph, “talk about providence. I think you two should follow me. It’ll be better if I show you.”

  An avalanche of questions lined up, each one demanding room in Mortimer’s increasingly confused head. Did this other Joseph know how close he’d come to having that smug grin sliced off his face? Mortimer saw Daniel’s expression and guessed that he felt the same way. He picked up the sword as the group passed the car and promised himself to bottle up his feelings, just like before.

  “Can you tell me anything,” he pressed, staring at Joseph’s back. “Anything at all?”

  The man spun around. “Sure, how about we start with the word luck. You see, I know all about you, my friend. At least, I know where you come from. I’ve never been there, but I do know that life is pretty shitty for the general population. You live in a huge city, right? Surrounded by high walls with millions of zombies surrounding you.”

  Mortimer nodded.

  “And you all would have joined the dead if it wasn’t for some tiny pills that keep you human?”

  Joseph’s grin chilled Mortimer’s blood.

  “Sounds like a horrible place to live. Still, it could be worse, you could live here.”

  “When are the shipments starting up?” one of the other men demanded.

  Mortimer stared at the man holding a rifle. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

  “We need more pills!”

  Joseph took Mortimer’s arm. “Look at this, my friend.”

  He turned and saw two rows of long, single-storey buildings stretching out to the horizon. Mortimer looked back at the man. “What am I supposed to be looking at here?”

  “Should t
hey be there?”

  “There should be fields here,” murmured Daniel.

  Joseph beamed. “Your friend is asking the right questions! You’re not on your world any more, my friend.” He pointed to a large black tower to the left of the buildings. “That vile-looking structure should be familiar?”

  Mortimer looked closely and slowly nodded. “Yeah, it looks like one of the corner buttresses from Government House.”

  “That’s because it is. That part of the building occupies the same space in three worlds, my friend. Your security forces streamed out of that building a few years ago. What was left of our population didn’t stand a chance against your brutality.”

  Mortimer stood back, almost stepping on the toes of his silent brother. “Where the fuck are we?”

  Joseph laughed. “Welcome to Food World! This is where all your meals come from, processed in those factories by your enslaved survivors. If we don’t work, we die, it’s as simple as that. Not only did you murder most of us, you brought your fucking plague across as well. We don’t get pills if we don’t work.”

  The two men raised their rifles again.

  “Now, why don’t we start with something simple, like your names?”

  The man’s voice lowered in tone. Mortimer watched one of the men tighten his finger on the trigger. Several black bears roared out in anger, the landscape blurred, every color washing out of the scene and flowing towards a single point – where the muzzle of the gun ended. It took his brains a moment to understand that the man had fired the gun, and yet the shell must have somehow travelled through his chest without leaving a mark.

  The colors compressed into a single spear of golden light before flowing up the barrel. He tried to turn around, to see his brother, but could not even move his neck.

  His eyes closed involuntarily; as soon his sight changed from a million shades of grey to pitch black, Mortimer picked up the sound of a quiet voice by his ear. The words wouldn’t mesh but the comforting pitch helped him to lose some of the tenseness in his muscles.

  “Stay quiet and try not to move. They kill you here and now if they know you’re conscious.”

  Mortimer opened one eye a crack. The voice could wait for a moment. Several breathing bodies, the sense of movement as well as being unable to move his arms and legs, gave him enough information to tell him that his situation had taken a turn for the worse.

  He watched the florescent light above him slide past while listening to the heavy breathing. That voice belonged to his ‘old friend’ Joseph. He opened both eyes and stared at the man, noting the slight differences between this one and the Joseph from the other place. No matter how hard he tried, Mortimer could not believe that he had somehow just travelled to a parallel world. The whole idea was too ridiculous for words. Even so, what else did that leave? Mortimer had already dismissed the idea that he’d been wondering about in a digital reality. His brain hurt.

  “The others are really pissed with you, Joseph. I mean pissed enough to have your rank stripped.”

  Mortimer summoned enough strength to lift his head until the strap around his neck tightened. His restricted view showed three figures above him, two walking beside this trolley, and a white-coated figure pushing another trolley. Mortimer assumed that the other trolley held his brother.

  “The only one who sounds pissed, my friend, is you.”

  The recognition didn’t take long to arrive. Anyone who watched television would have known the other man opposite Joseph. Rossini looked smaller in real life. Mortimer closed his eyes and tried to slow his heat beat down.

  “At this rate, Joseph, you’ll end up as bait on one of my shows.”

  “Threaten me one more time and you’ll be the one who’ll find himself hung upside down over one of your zombie pits.” The man put his hand over Mortimer’s wrists. “I have no respect for the others, Rossini, they’ll never see sense. You though, come on, you saw what happened to Martin when we attached him to the drip. It didn’t work for him, why do you believe that these two will be any different?”

  Mortimer’s eyes snapped open at the sound of automatic gunfire. The large man standing above him was too busy looking behind him to notice that his prisoner had regained consciousness.

  “We have no other choice, that’s why. They’re turning faster than we can stop it. The pills are failing. We need a concentred supply, it’s that simple.”

  “It isn’t that simple, you stupid fat fool. Thinking outside of the box is all that is required.”

  “You’re a fucking idiot,” Rossini snapped. “Your thinking outside of the box almost killed us all. What possessed you to reopen the gates to both Source World as well as Food World? Thanks to your meddling, we’ve lost a lot of people, including some of my prized contestants.”

  “Is that all you think about, Rossini?”

  The big man shrugged. “If it wasn’t for the games, we’d have a revolution on our hands. Look, you’ve tried and failed to sort this, Joseph. Let me try.”

  The trolley stopped. Mortimer found himself being pushed into a bright but small room. The steel bars on the only other door in the room told Mortimer enough about this place.

  “Get them prepared, Joseph. I’ll go see if I can hold the dogs off your back for a few more hours. You can thank me later.”

  Rossini and the two attendants left the three of them alone. Mortimer waited for Joseph to unbuckle the neck strap before looking to see if Daniel was okay. When he sat up, Mortimer saw his brother’s eyes staring back at him.

  “I wanted to stay there. I don’t like being this fat loser.”

  “You two are the most important people on the planet. The most important people on all three worlds.” Joseph finished unbuckling Mortimer’s straps before hurrying over to Daniel’s trolley. “You certainly are not a loser, young man.”

  “Is it true, Joseph, I mean about enslaving the population?”

  “Of course it isn’t, Daniel. Is that what they told you? Look, it is true that we inadvertently brought the plague to them. I can’t tell you how much guilt I feel about that.” The man paused. “All those deaths.”

  Mortimer watched the man closely; now that he’d seen the other Joseph, he began to see just how alike they were, not only in their appearance but in their mannerisms as well. Something about Joseph’s reaction felt somehow false. He looked away and gazed at the door that led to the corridor. What did it matter anyway?

  They both had used Martin’s name in the past tense. It didn’t take a genius to work out what that meant. This drip thing brought up an image of a huge mechanical vampire that would drain them both dry. They didn’t have much longer to live.

  “Why not just move there, Joseph?” asked Daniel. “From what I saw, there weren’t many dead things.”

  “Don’t you think we tried? There are only a few who can make the physical shift between worlds.” He gently tapped Mortimer’s head. “Those devices only took your mind across, your bodies stayed here.”

  It all sounded so plausible until Mortimer remembered what Rossini said about people disappearing through gates. “Are you sure about that, Joseph? I heard what that bastard said to you in the hallway.”

  “Yeah, great, I’ve managed to open a couple of random holes that appear and disappear. Well guess what?” Joseph cried. “I haven’t a fucking clue how I did it.” He raced over to the door and locked it. “We need to get you two away from here,” he muttered, walking back and forth. “They just don’t get it, none of them do. Then again, what else should I expect from that bunch of clowns.” He stared at Mortimer. “I might be able to work out how to control the jumps, I just need more time.” He laughed, “That’s one luxury that none of us have right now. I still need to find a cure.”

  Mortimer’s heart skipped a beat. “Wait, you said we were supposed to be the saviors of the human race.”

  “Both of you are immune, but the compound in you won’t replicate in another body. That’s why we need to keep taking the fucking pills
. It’s like wrapping tape around a leaking pipe. Now, even that is beginning to fail.”

  “What’s going to happen to us?” Mortimer wasn’t sure that he really wanted to know the answer to his question.

  “The others in the council believe that completely draining you in one go and transfusing a selected few will somehow produce a cure. I didn’t vote for this, believe me.”

  “Oh fuck that,” muttered Daniel. “I’d rather you didn’t. I want my blood to stay in my body.”

  Joseph sat on the side of Mortimer’s trolley and pulled out a brown plastic bottle. Mortimer knew immediately what they were. Those pills were the main cause of Daniel’s fuck up. Mortimer watched Joseph unscrew the lid and pour out a small pile into the palm of his hand.

  “There’s a reason why I plugged you both into those devices, you know.” Joseph poured a pile into Mortimer’s palm and repeated the action with Daniel. “Don’t stare at them. Eat the bloody things.”

  Mortimer watched his brother tip his head back and shove them into his mouth. Joseph did the same. Within a couple of seconds, his brother’s body faded away, and his sheet fell from the trolley. He heard footsteps coming down the hallway. “What the fuck have I got myself into,” he muttered, watching Joseph’s body vanish too. He opened his mouth and pushed every pill inside.

  Chapter Eleven

  Kenny slid down the filthy wall. The smooth, solid surface felt fine against his aching back. Every muscle and tendon cried out for rest. He wrinkled his nose as the odor of rotten meat filled his nostrils as he sank to the floor.

  “That’s bad,” he whispered.

  Some distant voice casually informed him the wall’s thin coating of gelatinous black fluid now covered his clothes and his palms.

  Not that he cared. That voice could fuck off. Kenny no longer gave a shit about anything. Why should he let something as irrelevant as that concern him now that he could count the grains of sand left in his hourglass? Thanks to his dark friend, the sickness bubbling up to the surface, Kenny knew he only had a few more minutes left to enjoy his life.