“Good, god,” Mr. Terry said, “I can’t fucking believe that Isaiah; Dr. Isaiah I mean. So the chicken thing is just a side effect or something? Not that it matters; this is unbelievable man. I’m stunned.”
“Good question Mr. Terry,” Dr. Isaiah said calmly as he enjoyed the attention of the entire room. “Before I answer it however, I will ask a question of all of you. Who believes that the third subject truly has been reanimated from the dead?”
About three-fourths of the hands in the room went up. Dr. Isaiah smiled widely and said, “You are incorrect!” He loved the confusion on their faces as he continued. “The third subject has not been reanimated.” He turned back to them and shouted above the murmurs, “They all three have been!”
The gasps rose loudly and then as he held his hand up to speak again the room returned to stunned silence, “That is correct! All three of these subjects are living once again after being beheaded. The chicken behavior is intentionally placed so that you would believe that they are reanimated and he only believes he is a chicken because I programmed him to. The enclosures are safe. If you do not believe that they are living from being surely beheaded, feel free to look for yourself.”
Isaiah stepped back and enjoyed the show. Almost everyone in the room went towards one of the enclosures and each one that checked out his story was amazed all the more when they saw the clear evidence that the heads of the zombies had actually been reattached. After a few minutes of admiring the people in the room while they admired him, Isaiah stepped back and stood near the door. That way he knew the commoners would enjoy giving him their praise as they left the room. Instead of that happening however, Dr. Cain and Admiral Bullosky came over to him.
“Dr. Isaiah,” Dr. Cain said, “We need to speak with you in private.” She looked around the room, “I apologize that this will take you away from your new admirers but it is not optional. Follow me.”
With a scowl on his face, Dr. Isaiah did as she said. He was feeling pretty proud and important but that didn’t meant he didn’t have to do what Dr. Cain said. Everyone, he figured probably even Admiral Bullosky, had to do what she said in one way or another. So, he followed as she ordered him to. Having to do what she said did not mean that he had to like it however. Why would she whisk him out of there when the groups of commoners were just about to begin singing his praises? It wasn’t his long-time dream but it was as close as he figured he would ever get and she had taken him out of the room? It had better be good, he decided.
After several turns down narrow corridors, Dr. Cain stopped in a rather small room packed with random equipment. It even had a gun locker along one wall. Standing in the junk drawer of O.A. storage rooms seemed way small for the three of them. Bullosky’s larger frame took up what seemed like a third of room alone. Then again, he considered, he could just be having a few claustrophobic moments. He took a deep calming breath and looked at Bullosky and Dr. Cain with his chin high.
“Dear Isaiah,” Dr. Cain said with a disarming smile, “You care so much about the adoration of others. I know you hate me for this but I must speak to you right now. There is something that has occurred to me and we must act at once.” She looked towards Bullosky, “Admiral, would you be so kind as to send someone to bring me Abel Nichols?”
With a gentle glance towards Isaiah, Bullosky nodded, “Of course.”
Once he left the room Dr. Cain went to the gun locker and looked closely at it. “Dr. Isaiah, I want you to know how much your hard work means to me.”
“Dr. Cain,” Isaiah said with a warm heart, “You don’t have to say that. I’m just doing my job and enjoying every moment of the work that I do.”
“No,” Dr. Cain said, “You have gone above and beyond for us doctor. I greatly appreciate it.” She input a code on the electronic locking system on the front of the gun locker and opened the door. “We have come to a crossroads however, where we need to take a giant step forward. We should be able to take the research you have used and the science you have created in this recent milestone accomplishment and use it as a massive stepping stone to get us where we need to be.”
Isaiah felt the warmth in his heart begin to grow cold as Dr. Cain took a large hand gun out of the cabinet and slapped a clip into it. “Going to the range Ms. Cain?”
She spun towards him and he jumped back a foot as she spoke, “Doctor!” She smiled at him and began looking at the lines of the gun as if examining how it was made. “Please call me Dr. Cain. Anyway,” she sighed, “We have to combine the spiritual things we know with the medical creativity you have established for us. Winning this war depends on it.”
“Forgive me Dr. Cain,” Isaiah risked, “Haven’t we already won this war? I mean you said that Bayne and Destiny are both dead. What else is there to do but run experiments and achieve actual godhood?”
Dr. Cain smiled as she continued to run her fingers along the loaded gun, “I love your brain Dr. Isaiah. You have brought us farther than we could ever have hoped. I must thank you for your time spent here.”
Despite the fact that he considered himself fairly courageous, Isaiah began to fear that she was saying goodbye. Was she about to faze him out? They did have different doctors in the place. Could it be that she wanted him taken out? Maybe Nichols was sent for so that he could help Isaiah’s spirit to the afterlife after Dr. Cain shot him? He certainly didn’t believe in that stuff but they all did and he knew it.
“I have a surprise for you Dr. Isaiah,” Dr. Cain smiled as she began directing the gun in his general direction.
Isaiah couldn’t stop himself, “No! Please don’t kill me Dr. Cain! I have too much work left to do!”
“Too much work left for me to kill you?” Dr. Cain asked with an odd expression as Nichols and Bullosky walked into the room. Cain looked at them and back to Isaiah, “That isn’t a surprise at all doctor. Actually, I have a surprise for both of you,” she looked at Nichols, “Destiny and Eric Bayne are alive.”
Nichols gaped his mouth open, “What?”
Isaiah felt his stomach knot, “They are? Oh no!”
Dr. Cain nodded towards Isaiah and said, “That was your surprise Isaiah.” Looking towards Nichols and smiling, “Abel, here is yours.” She quickly pointed the gun at his forehead and pulled the trigger.”
Isaiah was too stunned to speak.
“By the lake of fire!” Bullosky said in what sounded like shock.
Nichols hit the floor with a large hole at the back of his head bleeding out onto the floor, a neat little hole in the front of his forehead and a blank stare on his face. Dr. Cain looked down at him with a stern expression and said, “So sorry Abel. You know I loved you. I hate that it had to be you.”
Finally Isaiah found his voice, “Dr. Cain, why did you shoot Abel? He,” Isaiah looked down at him as if just looking another time would bring him back to life. After looking back up to Dr. Cain he finished, “He’s dead.”
She nodded expressionless, “Yes.”
“Why?” Isaiah begged with his hands out.
“Yes,” Bullosky added in a curious tone, “Why?”
To her credit, or maybe to her detriment, Dr. Cain held a firm chin and stared at them both in turn. “I will tell you why. I killed him because I want the two of you to bring him back to life.”
“You what?” Isaiah asked.
“I’m confused as well doctor,” Bullosky added.
“I thought you might be,” Cain said with a smile, “I know the two of you worked together to succeed in that little experiment in there. Neither of you could have done it without the other, no matter what you think. It could be argued however that reanimating a zombie is somewhat easy. They are already the ‘undead’ are they not? I think it is a great step forward but I want more. I need to know that the two of you can do this with someone who was once a living human being or even a living animal.”
Isaiah was as confused as ever but he saw that the proverbial light had apparently come on for Bullosky when he said, “Ah, yes, I
see. Yes, it is brilliant.”
Dr. Cain said, “Surely you didn’t think my plan all along was just to reanimate zombies. God knows we have enough of those smelly, worm infested bastards. No, I want Abel Nichols reanimated. I want him reborn! When he comes back, I want him to be a vicious, telepathically and demonically enhanced fighting machine. Do you understand the experiment?”
Bullosky nodded and Isaiah simply looked down at his old friend and back up to Dr. Cain, “Why did it have to be Abel? Answer me that question. You answer that question Dr. Genesis Cain and I will take on this experiment to bring him back.”
Cain smiled calmly, “Because when you have demons in the front office, you no longer have need of a spiritual guide Dr. Isaiah. Every war has casualties. Destiny and Eric Bayne are not dead. They are alive and well, working together and mowing through hell itself striving to win. We need this done to give ourselves some hope of survival. Without it, we probably will be their next victims.”
Dr. Isaiah hated her, he hated this. This was wrong in every way. Even someone who considered himself irreligious had a moral code and this crossed over it by a large margin. Nonetheless, she was right. If Isaiah wanted to attain godhood, he was fooling himself to think it could be done without a few sacrifices. He nodded towards her, “I will begin immediately.”
“No,” Cain said, “Rest first. Oh and Dr. Isaiah,” she waited for his attention to become fixed on her before she finished, “Tell no one of Destiny or Bayne being alive. There is no need for them to know. We should be able to make them being dead true if you can achieve what I am asking of you.”
Isaiah was already walking towards the door, “Have Nichols’ body brought to laboratory three. I’ll rest for two hours and get directly to work. I trust you will be there as well Admiral.”
Bullosky called out after him, “I will.”
Isaiah knew he would not sleep but he had plans to get straight if he wanted to get this done quickly anyway. Pretending to rest would work for that part of the experiment. What he was going to do if he succeeded in bringing an actual human being back, in bringing Nichols back, was another plan altogether because something inside of himself that he could not quite yet put his finger on had just changed drastically.
Chapter 6
Fighting was Eric’s life and it had been for as long as he could remember. For him, driving towards what was bound to be yet another fight for his life was nothing new and actually left him feeling calm. Zombies, zombie crossbreeds, enemy soldiers and even demons really didn’t scare him all that much. One of the sexiest girls he had ever laid eyes on that just happened to be the same girl who had bested him in a few fights and cut off his hand, changing clothes in the back of a truck he was driving was driving him nuts.
“You able to keep your eyes on the road lover-boy?” Destiny said from behind him.
Eric sighed and shook his head. Still refusing to look behind him, even in the mirror, he said, “Easiest thing I’ve ever done girlie.”
“Really?” Destiny said playfully, “You don’t find me sexy? I seem to remember you did just the other day.”
“See, this is why I never went to a fight with a girl,” Eric said flatly.
“No,” Destiny said as she finished her change of clothes, “You never went to a fight with a girl because you never knew one who was a bad-ass like me. Don’t worry about answering the question.” She crawled through the opening in the seats and sat back in the passenger’s seat, “I know you think I’m sexy.”
“Oh yeah?” Eric countered, “You’re that sure about it huh?”
“Well, sure,” she smiled and winked at him, “I cut your hand off lover-boy; I didn’t poke your eyes out.”
Eric stayed quiet for a few minutes. It was fun enough to shoot the breeze but there was nothing too fun about losing an argument. He was sure to lose any argument against her being one of the sexiest things he had ever laid eyes on; so he just shut up. A spared glance or two showed her wearing a shredded military outfit. The left sleeve was completely gone with the right tattered badly. The entire middle of the top was ripped off and it was ripped open down the middle, revealing a low-cut sports bra that did plenty to distract anyone of male origin. She wore boots as if she had gone to some terribly difficult fight and the pants were barely there enough to be called pants at all, with over half of her panties visible and of course her crotch was nearly there for all to see. Finally he had to break the silence with a question he could not make go away. “Please tell me you don’t rip and tear old uniforms on purpose just for these situations.”
“Oh, I damn sure do,” Destiny said, “Not everyone would just be distracted by me walking up in a skimpy bikini like you were when we first met Eric.”
Eric pointed and glanced sideways, “That is absolute bullshit right there.”
She smiled, “It is, isn’t it?” After a moment of silence she added, “Seriously though, these boys from O.A. won’t take time to care unless they believe I am injured or something. I think they believe we are dead though so that could add to the effect. Still, their treatment of me back at the other spot is proof positive that they are out to kill me if they see me at all. I did see one guy talking into a comm. unit so any other teams we see might know we are alive already.”
“That’ll take the element of surprise away,” Eric said flatly, “Not that it matters when you are fighting fucking demons and zombies anyway.”
Destiny laughed, “True, but you can count on most of the guys and gals back at the HQ for not knowing.”
“You think?”
She nodded, “Cain will not tell them I am still alive. For you, it wouldn’t really matter but if they knew I was alive, it might cause half of them to rebel. I was revered by some of the crew there and despised by others. Either way, Dr. Cain will keep telling them all I am dead if she told anyone that I am. In fact, the only strange thing would be if she told someone there that I am still alive. That would be almost scary it would be so out of character for her.”
Eric thought for a minute and the more he thought the more uneasy the whole thing was. “So, we are going to pick a fight with a group that might or might not know we are still alive. Either way, they, their zombie friends and demon friends want us deader than a hammer. If your little sexy girlie plan works, we then will have a way to drive into the belly of this massive beast where no one even knows we are alive except the two bosses. What is going to stop them from just throwing the entire fortress at us when we show up?”
Destiny shrugged as she looked out the window, “They could do that if they wanted to but this is not like a big building that houses a huge army. This is a big facility that includes everything from civilians who drink the O.A. milk, though not many, scientists, doctors and soldiers. They have a lot of firepower but it isn’t actually going to be like walking into a war zone. It will be more like driving onto a military base years ago. The gate will be an issue but after that we should be able to pick a few key battles and hide between each one unless things go wrong right at first. They’ll find us but we should be okay if we can get a few big guns like this bad boy we have here and pick our battle ground.”
Eric nodded, “If you say so. It’d be a shame to survive this long just to throw ourselves on the sword for a few bullets and guns.”
“It’s a hell of a lot more than a few bullets and guns lover-boy.”
“Well,” Eric smirked, “It had damn well better be. If we are going to visit these bastards, I want to take something from them that they can never get back.”
Destiny smiled, “You already did that peaches; you took me.”
Eric refused to take the bait. Destiny knew as well as he did that nobody but herself took her from Organic Ascendancy. The back and forth was decent enough to keep them busy and to keep Eric's mind from focusing too much on another coming battle but luckily that was about to come to an end anyway. In the distance he could see two trucks coming towards them. Right on cue, Destiny began to give orders about her
master plan.
“There they are,” she said in a hushed tone as if they would be able to hear her when she spoke. “This is close enough. Drive just a bit closer and then drive off the side of the road and into the trees on the far side. Make it believable without destroying the truck because we don't know for sure that the other trucks will make it through the battle.”
Eric nodded as he drove off the side of the road. He was going fast and uncontrollable enough that from the distance the trucks were still at it should look like someone was losing control. It didn't really rain anymore so the ground was dry enough for him to go quickly off of the road and then be able to stop the all-wheel drive vehicle before it slammed into a tree too hard. They were stopped for a barely a second when Destiny opened the door.
“Here goes nothing,” she winked, “I'll make certain a team of them are curious enough to come see what's going on in this truck.”
Eric smiled at his favorite part of the plan, “I'll be waiting anxiously.” He wasn't as certain as Destiny was that this was going to work perfectly but one thing was for sure. If it did work like she wanted it to, it was going to be mother-fucking awesome!
**
As quickly as she could run, Destiny hurried up the side road embankment. Once she got to the shoulder of the road she was crawling and sprawling wildly. Finally she dropped to the pavement with her head and chest just crossing into the roadway. The trucks were still far away but were close enough that they would have seen someone crawling and sprawling before collapsing on the side of the road. Of course, she made certain that she turned over when she collapsed so that her bra and panties were visible through her ripped and shredded uniform. While laying there she turned her head away from the approaching trucks and was thankful that her blond disheveled hair covered her well.
It was difficult to be confident when she heard the trucks approach close enough that she could hear the tires on the road. It was possible that they could be screwing off and just drive right over her. That would positively suck of course, but it was a chance she knew she had to take in trusting that they would stop to investigate. Finally the brakes squeaked lightly as the large truck stopped. By her best guess they were probably one hundred feet away give or take a few. Destiny listened to their words as a few of them walked closer.
The Great War (Surviving the Zombie Nightmare Book 5) Page 7