My mind raced but I couldn’t wrap it around anything concrete. I struggled to focus on my own thoughts, which were muddled by panic. Was this the first symptom?
I turned from him quickly and ran back to my car, leaving the sick Undead by the bushes where I found him. Let him die – I didn’t care, but I had to get out of there before I contracted whatever it was he had.
I drove for several hours thinking of the man by the bushes, the sick Undead. For the first hour I was convinced I had whatever he had, hyper-aware of everything happening inside of me. Then, by the second hour I became more aware of something else. How deserted the roads were. Surely I wasn’t the only one deciding to use a car.
Then it hit me. There really were two different classes of Undead. I replayed the last couple of months in my mind and my encounter with my kind and those that were different. It was so obvious, but I had missed it.
They were truly like animals and we were lacking the humanity and morals of the ones we rose above. But, we weren’t as raw as the other group of Undead. It didn’t matter to me, but I wondered if something was happening to that race of Undead and they were dying off.
The curves of my mouth turned up as I smiled.
Twenty-Nine
Dr. Allison Dorsett
FEMA Camp 3
December 22nd, 2021
“Move it!”
The sharp point of the knife poked into my lower back and I wiped the sweat from my hairline.
“I don’t understand what you want from us?” I could barely get my voice over a whisper. We had climbed nearly thirty flights of stairs. It didn’t help that the air conditioning had been shut off, so we were dripping with sweat and breathing was difficult. Penny was just behind me, her hand gently resting on my back. I wondered if she was doing that because she was trying to comfort me or the other way around.
“You’ll see,” the Asian man said.
At first, I thought it was random that Penny and I had been snatched from the group. But, by listening to the conversation of the three men, I quickly realized that wasn’t the case.
“I thought you were dead,” Penny said and I turned back to see her addressing Marcus when the knife poked me again. “Watch that knife, Jamie,” the man with the Russian accent said.
So that was his name. He climbed to the side of Penny with Marcus Bianchi climbing the stairs next to me. Then we had a man in front of us and the Russian one bringing up the rear. So far, I only knew Jamie and Marcus’ name.
“I’m better than dead, don’t you think?” Marcus answered and all four men chuckled.
“Did you know this was going to happen?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“Not at all.”
“Wait,” Penny said, and I knew she had come to the realization of something by that comment, though I had no idea what. “I don’t understand. You’ve been on several missions for the specific reason that you were immune. Are you still human?”
“No, I’m not human anymore.”
“I told you she was a smart one,” the Russian said.
“By the way, Penny,” Marcus said, ignoring the direction Penny was going . “Your sister was brutally raped by one of us. Colonel Tempest shot her dead.” Marcus laughed wildly and a shiver ran down my spine. I felt Penny’s hand slip from my back followed by a choking sound. The ear piercing scream startled us all and Penny managed to lunge at Marcus before anyone could react. That was saying something for her because I knew how fast these guys could be.
“You prick!” she drove her nails into his face but he ignored her.
“Now that I think about it,” he said over his choking laughter. “It was pretty funny. Her limbs were pretty much torn off, flopping around like a fish.” Marcus then did a poor imitation of a fish out of water in the midst of choking laughter. Penny continued to try to beat on him but she wasn’t getting very far. He mostly held her back with one arm pathetically while everyone else just watched on in a mix of abject horror and near amusement.
“Listen bitch, you need to stop that,” Marcus said, and I could see him quickly shift from humor to annoyance.
“Penny, please stop.” I tried to pull her back as my heart drummed in my ear loudly. The look in Marcus’ eyes was undeniable. He was becoming wild with raw anger.
“This is going to get good,” the Russian said again. “You want me to show you just what your sister went through?”
“Fuck you!” she screamed, completely oblivious to the change in his demeanor.
“Penny, please, I’m begging you.” I pulled on her hard and I felt the tears streaming down my cheeks. She just flailed, freeing herself from my grasp.
In one swift move Marcus slammed her head against the concrete wall and I screamed, falling backward into Jamie, who mostly ignored me. The sound of her skull against concrete was sickening, but not as sickening as what happened next.
As Jamie shoved me up the stairs, I kept replaying the image in my head. Marcus, ripping her clothes off in one quick motion and slamming himself inside of her like a beast on a wild rampage. Of course, she didn’t respond. She was already dead and hanging there like a rag doll. The entire event happened in just a few seconds.
Jamie had me shoved through the door into a hallway on one of the top floors near the surface with the other two men closely behind. I could hear the rough grunts from Marcus in the hallway and knew that sound would haunt me for the rest of my very short life.
I didn’t realize I had been racked with uncontrollable and choking sobs until Jamie began shaking me.
“What the fuck?” I yelled at him.
“You need to calm down,” he said.
“Like hell I do! You guys are monsters; just kill me here, please!”
“We can’t do that just yet; we need you.”
“I don’t care. I’m not helping you sick assholes with anything!”
“Quiet her down,” the Russian said. “Shut up, Alex.”
“Marcus is in a rage. If he comes in here and she pisses him off, she’s next.”
“You don’t think I know that? Why do you think we’re in here instead of the stairwell?”
I stood quietly, in shock – whatever was going on I wanted nothing to do with Marcus. I bit the inside of my cheek, struggling to stay quiet but my body shook with silent sobs.
“Here.” Jamie handed me two pills. “It’s Xanax.” “Yeah, right.”
“Like I said, we need you. Which means I need you alive and this will calm you down.”
I swallowed the bitter pills and soon felt the heady effects. Nearly an hour later and Jamie was dragging me up the last few flights of stairs. Marcus followed behind quietly. His blood stained paints nauseated me and I was suddenly grateful for the Xanax, which made me sleepy more than anything. I didn’t utter a word. I didn’t dare. When we reached the surface, the sunlight hit me like a tidal wave. I half expected to see the sun blackened out by ash and dust, not be hit with warm, pleasant rays. It was then that I noticed the four men struggling.
“Sunlight bothers you?” It couldn’t be.
“All our senses are heightened. The sun is too bright for our eyes.” Alex wiped the bloody tears from his eyes. I wondered how long it would take for Marcus’ eyes to change too. “Let’s make this quick.”
I followed Jamie to the hangar, the only building in the middle of the Vietnam jungle. Who would have thought that FEMA Camp 3, the most elaborate and expensive of all the government created bunkers, was in Vietnam?
The other three men followed closely behind. “Get the plane ready, Matthew – we’re ready to go.”
Strangely, the only thing I cared about was getting buckled into a seat so I could fall into a deep, oblivious sleep. I knew the drugs were working because there’s no way I’d want to sleep otherwise. Just as I was drifting off, listening to the hum of the engines, the last thought haunted me.
I knew the drugs were working.
Thirty
Christoph
Washington, D.C.<
br />
December 23rd, 2021
“So you’re the doctor we’ve been waiting for?”
“I guess.” Dr. Dorsett staggered in through the front doors of the White House. She looked around the foyer and I could tell she was both mesmerized to be in the White House and disgustingly in awe of its detriment. I didn’t share her sentiment. The white building had lost all its charm the second I turned.
I watched her eyes roam the walls and the marble, still glass-smooth, floors. She tried to hide when she recognized Mallory, which was obvious, at least to me. Her eyes flicked from painting to painting and even though she was in the presence of murderers without remorse, she was unfazed, except when she would make sidelong glances at the First Lady – or was it former First Lady? I thought all this, and yet none of it affected me. No remorse, no sentiments, no delusions of grandeur.
“You’re getting used to us.”
She looked at me for the first time, which in itself was odd. Who notices a building before they notice their angel of death?
She shrugged in response.
“I still don’t know what I’m doing here.”
“Wasn’t there another doctor with you guys?” Mallory asked. I noticed the distinct shift from Dr. Dorsett and she pressed her lips together. It was Marcus’ turn to shrug and Mallory smiled in return.
“Well then. Shall we?”
“So then, Jamie,” Mallory said as we walked the long corridors back to the underground clinic.
“What does it feel like to be finishing your mama’s work?”
We all spun around quickly to look back at Jamie, who was following behind the group. All of us looked, except Dr. Dorsett, who just looked up at the ceiling as if she were figuring something out. Jamie’s blood filled eyes just leered back at us.
“It doesn’t feel like anything, Mallory, you know that.” She laughed. “Sure it does.”
Mallory was still walking, even though we had all stopped.
“Your mom’s work?” Marcus asked. “This, my friends, is Jamie Choo Uchuda.”
“Uchuda?” Dr. Dorsett gasped. “You’re her son? There
was nothing in the files about a son.” “The files?” Marcus asked.
“No, of course not,” Jamie said. “She wasn’t supposed to get pregnant.”
“Who wasn’t supposed to get pregnant?” Marcus asked. “My mom.”
“No shit,” Marcus responded and lunged at Jamie.
Fortunately, Jamie was just as quick and stepped back.
“Hey!” Mallory yelled. “Keep it together. We need to finish this.”
“Not my fault hormone boy is riled up. Maybe we should be giving him the Xanax instead,” Jamie said.
We made it to the clinic without any further incident, surprisingly.
“Maybe it’s time you explain to our doctor friend here what’s going on?” Mallory watched Dr. Dorsett with childlike glee. It made me cringe.
I watched Jamie open his mouth to start to speak, but it was abruptly cut off by that distinct sound of the Undead
-- the Undead that were infected so wrongly – not like us. The snarling was just behind me. How did they get so close without us knowing?
This Undead looked like he had been infected for a while. His clothes were ripped to shreds hanging on him by a few threads that threatened to collapse at any time. His eye sockets were smeared with dried blood – probably his own tears. He looked around the room and his eyes landed on Dr. Dorsett and he tried to lunge at her right then. Unfortunately, he had three other Undead standing between him and his prey.
The shot rang through the air and landed square between the Undead’s eyes. He stood frozen, for just a few seconds before collapsing to the ground. Jamie grabbed a short ax from his back and with one swift and graceful movement brought the sharp blade down on the stranger’s throat -- beheading him in a quick motion. It was ethereal.
“Well,” Mallory said to the dead silence. “How’d he get in?”
“I’m guessing how anyone does,” I responded. “You didn’t think they’d avoid coming in here did you?”
“I figured they’d sense there were no humans here.”
Me and Jamie pointedly looked at Dr. Dorsett.
“Right, her. Well, let’s get on with this then shall we?
And get rid of her before we attract anyone else.”
Dr. Dorsett lost any of the color she had left, which wasn’t saying much for her already sickening pallor.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Now we’re talking,” I said. “So tell her the story.”
Jamie did. He told Dr. Dorsett the story of how his grandmother formulated the vaccine meant to help eliminate the growing challenge of over-population in the world. There were three different formulas or rather, three stages of vaccines – viruses, whatever the fuck you wanted to call them. I guess it depended on from whose point of view you were looking. From my point, I was laughing my fucking head off.
The first stage was a cognitive enhancer, altering the functions of the neurons in the pre-frontal cortex – the region of the brain involved in attention, decision-making, and impulse control.
The pharmaceutical companies told the public exactly this. Except, they said it helped fine-tune this region of the brain – they made the people believe they were becoming more alert when it couldn’t have been further from the truth. Instead, it suppressed their ability to make decisions and lose impulse control. Basically, the government was injecting people with mind controls and they were willingly volunteering for it. It was bloody brilliant.
The second was the one that fucked everything up. It was the vaccine that was meant to suppress the frontal cortex. This would create the people who would become the mass murderers, the serial killers, the bombers, and the people who eliminated the population in chunks. The conspiracy theorists of the late twentieth century called them Manchurian Candidates. Today, they’re called zombies or the Undead because they’re dead of all humanity and conscience. It was the revelation I had come to in Germany.
Except I hadn’t been the first person to realize it.
Then, the third – was the one that we possessed. The one that Mallory and the rest of us here were on. It was an advanced version of the second formula, only developed within the last few years.
“What’s in your pocket?” Jamie asked Dr. Dorsett.
Color came to her face as she blushed and I could see for the first time her beauty. It had been hidden by wear, exhaustion, and sadness. It was the slightest movement, one a normal human wouldn’t have caught, but we all did. Her hand shifted slightly in her left pocket – where it had been situated since the moment I had first seen her and, most likely, since she’d picked up the vial at the camp.
“It’s the antidote.”
Mallory burst into a fit of laughter, but the rest of us ignored her.
“The antidote?” Alex asked.
She nodded, paling as she backed up to the wall. There was nowhere to go; she must have realized that. Yet, she recoiled from us instinctively.
“To what?” I asked. “And how did you know there was something in her pocket?” I asked Jamie.
“We were watching her in the lab back at camp. Just before the Colonel came in to speak with her. She found my mom’s journals,” he explained.
I watched as her chest rose and fell, her breathing becoming deeper. “Why not just take the vial then? Why bring her here?”
“Because she has the fucking formula!” Jamie yelled and Marcus responded with laughter. Hanging around this group was like walking a tightrope.
“Where is it?” I asked.
“In my head,” Dr. Dorsett said, smiling. “The base formula is in the vial and you mix it with H2O, but too much and it ruins it.”
“So what are we supposed to do with it?” I asked. “I thought we brought her here to launch the virus.”
Mallory laughed again and I was on the verge of killing her, except I really wanted to know what was so
funny.
“It’s not an antidote. Well, at least not in the sense that you guys are thinking.”
Jamie crossed his arms, looking frustrated. I got the feeling that Mallory was stealing his thunder.
She continued, “It’s the only true formula that can kill the rest of the psychopathic Undead. The second formula was meant to wipe out the first of the population. Then, the rest of us, those under the third formula, would wipe out the second when they had completed their job.”
“I don’t get it,” Marcus said. I looked at him – he wasn’t supposed to be in the third sector. Hell, he wasn’t even supposed to make it to the second. I could tell I wasn’t the only one thinking that, by the daggers Mallory shot him with her bloody eyes. The darkened crimson pools reflected like mirrors. It was beautifully eerie.
“We’re-eliminating the population and leaving the rest of us -- the elite,” she hissed the last word.
“How did they decide who was in what sector?” Dr.
Dorsett asked, her voice quivering. “DNA,” Jamie said simply.
“Right,” Mallory added. “The most brilliant of the people would make it. For far too many years we’ve been breeding stupid,” she laughed. “Rewarding those who are unrewarding to the population to repopulate. It never made any sense – and then I found out about this when I was in college.”
“In college?” Dr. Dorsett shrieked. “This has been in the works all this time?”
“You know how long it’s been in the works for. You read the journal that started it all.”
“Yes, but I thought – “
“You thought what?” Mallory cut her off.
“I thought it was just a vaccine gone wrong, something else – anything else. Our government wouldn’t do this, would they?”
“No, they wouldn’t,” Jamie agreed.
“The world’s elite would.” Mallory smiled again. “This is much bigger than just our country. This is the entire world.”
“So what’s going to happen to us?” Dr. Dorsett asked. “You’re all going to die,” Mallory said.
The shade of green Dr. Dorsett turned was comical. “I’m not going to give you the formula,” she said.
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