Zombie World (Zombie Apocalypse #3)

by Hoffman, Samantha

  There’s a woman tied down to a metal table, one that looks much like the table we just saw. Her hair is long and dark, and matted to her face with what might be dried blood, like she suffered a blow to the head recently. Her eyes are wide and crazed, and a startling shade of gray. She looks so young that I feel my stomach start to twist into knots. She can’t be much older than me…

  Dr. Richards enters the screen, and I feel a rush of hatred at his calm exterior. He looks over the woman strapped to the table as if she’s nothing more than a lab rodent, something with no value to him other than what information he can get from her. She whimpers when she sees him, but her cries fall on deaf ears as Dr. Richards continues to examine some report in his hand. While he does, she struggles against the belts holding her in place, but I already know it won’t do her any good. She’s small, and the straps are made of leather and fastened tightly in place. She can’t get enough power behind her lunges to be successful.

  Dr. Richards puts the report down and finally acknowledges her. By his side is a metal tray with a syringe full of liquid, just like earlier. “Do you know what this is?” Dr. Richards asks, bringing it closer. “This is the future of warfare. You should be honored that you’re helping the United States of America win future wars before they start. Think of all the American soldiers you’re going to help save.”

  My stomach nearly heaves as he waves the syringe in front of her face, almost taunting her with her fate. I can feel Ryder gently squeezing my hand for support, and I give him a grateful look as he hovers behind us, hands gripping the back of the couch tensely. I’m glad I’m not the only one being affected by this video. All around me I see looks of horror and disgust. Even Reese looks like he wishes he hadn’t found it.

  I look away as Dr. Richards stabs the syringe into her chest, filling her with the thick black liquid. I can’t watch as she begins to scream and thrash, and I close my eyes, shielding myself from the brutality of it. When the screaming stops and the video goes silent, I open my eyes again, and look right into her lifeless ones. Dr. Richards is busy taking notes, but he still manages to catch the movement of her fingers, whereas the others don’t.

  I watch in horrid fascination as she leaps from the table and begins to slaughter all of the doctors and scientists in the room, except for Dr. Richards. He alone makes it out the nearby door, and he seals in several of his assistants, leaving them to their gruesome fate rather than risk letting her out. He watches the massacre from the other side of the glass, and I swear I can see his fingers twitching, as if he’s itching for his notebook and pen.

  The screen goes dark, and the last thing we see is the look of reverie on Dr. Richards’ face as he stares hungrily at the monster he just created.

  “Wish you hadn’t found these?” Daisy asks Reese, her voice cracking a bit. “I wish you hadn’t.”

  He doesn’t answer. He just looks at the stack beside him on the couch solemnly. “There are over twenty more of them,” he says, like he can’t believe it even though they’re right here in front of him. “Do we dare watch any of them?”

  “Yes,” Aaron says without hesitation. “I want to know what this sick monster did to that poor woman. I want to know what the cost of this cure is.”

  Reese doesn’t move from the couch. He’s still staring at the stack of discs in front of him. None of us makes a move to put the next disc in. We’re all thinking of the horrors that await us, and none of us is eager to see it. But we’re going to. We’re going to put that next disc in, because we have to. We have to know what horrors happened in this place, this place that we willingly find ourselves in. Reese’s hand hovers over the stack, like he can’t physically make himself pick it up.

  Surprisingly, it’s Daisy that grabs the next disc from the stack. Her hand trembles as she carries it over to the game console and switches out the old one, but she does it. She manages to get the disc in, and Reese hits some buttons of the controller, starting it up. Like the first one, the screen starts out black, and we can’t hear or see anything until the light switches on.

  It’s the same room as before, but it looks like something out of my worst nightmares. There’s blood splattered all over the walls. It’s pooling on the floors, and I can see bloody handprint smears on the glass where the assistants fought so hard to escape. Nobody has bothered to clean the place up, but they somehow managed to get the woman strapped back to the table, probably at the cost of a fresh body on the floor beside her.

  Tools lay scattered all over the place, but Dr. Richards doesn’t seem to mind or even notice. His eyes are locked on his creation, and he only looks away long enough to put a bullet in the head of the assistant still clinging to life at his feet. When the gun goes off, Daisy flinches, and I put my arm around her shoulders in a show of comfort. Seeing Dr. Richards with a weapon he clearly has no experience with makes me nervous being here. We haven’t seen him with that gun, and if he still has it, there’s no telling when he might decide to bring it out.

  When he gets near the woman, she gnashes her teeth, trying to get a piece of his flesh. She nearly catches his lab coat sleeve, and he steps back, rolling them up and out of her reach. He’s got that damned notepad in his hands again and he starts scribbling little notes as he conducts an examination of her. He looks closely at her hands and her face, and he takes her vitals as well, all with an amazed look on his face. Like he can’t believe how lucky he is.

  He wheels over a cart with some tools on it that managed to escape the mayhem earlier. It finally occurs to me to check the time stamp in the corner of the video, and I feel sick when I realize it’s only one day after the massacre. He probably didn’t even wait for his assistants to be put down and buried before going back to his stupid experiments. The others are probably mourning the loss of their own, but he’s back to playing with his monster already.

  He takes a syringe from the cart with one hand, and grabs her forearm in the other. She struggles at the contact, but Dr. Richards holds firm. Even from here, I can see the dark veins running underneath her paper white skin, and Dr. Richards finds one easily enough. I cringe as the needle slides under the skin of her arm, and feel the need to scratch my arms to make sure there’s nothing there.

  The blood Dr. Richards removes is thick and congealed, which doesn’t seem to surprise him at all. He examines it briefly, before setting it down on the small cart beside him. Next, he grabs a small scalpel and looks over her naked body. The way he looks at her isn’t perverted or sexual at all. It’s far less personal, like he doesn’t even consider her to be a human. To him, she’s just a nameless guinea pig, a means to an end.

  Even though she’s a zombie and I doubt she can feel pain, my stomach still does a flip as the scalpel slides through the skin of her stomach. She keeps thrashing like she has been, but her reaction to being cut doesn’t change. Dr. Richards makes a quick note of it in his notebook, before deepening the incision and sticking a gloved hand inside of her. He pulls out a handful of her organs, and Daisy chokes beside me.

  I feel like I’m going to throw up. A wave of nausea hits me and I have to fight to keep from gagging at the sight in front of me.

  She gets up and leaves the room quickly without a second glance at the TV. Naomi gets up with a sound of disgust. “I don’t need to watch this anymore. I think I’ll go make sure Daisy is okay.” She shakes her head as she leaves, but the rest of us don’t look away from the TV for long.

  Dr. Richards stuffs her internal organs back inside of stomach before moving up further. He grips the scalpel in his hands and swings his arm up above his head. Before I can even blink, he brings his arm down in a vicious movement, stabbing her in the heart. There’s a wet popping sound as he breaks through the skin and hits her heart underneath, but she doesn’t seem to really notice.

  He wiggles the scalpel for good measure, but when he realizes he’s not getting a reaction out of her, he picks up his notebook again and scribbles away. The scalpel is still protruding from her chest, and
a bit of congealed blood oozes from around the wound, leaking slowly just like pus. When Dr. Richards is done taking his notes, he takes off his gloves and washes his hands in a nearby sink. When he’s done, he leaves the room, all without a second glance at the poor creature strapped to the table.

  He flicks the light switch on his way out, and the video goes dark, too dark for us to see anything else. We sit in silence, staring at the blank TV screen while we process what we just witnessed. We already knew that Dr. Richards was a monster—he basically admitted it proudly to us—but we had no idea the depths of his madness. And this is just the first two discs on the stack. What horrors lie further down?

  “Do we even bother to keep watching?” I ask, feeling sick to my stomach. “I don’t think we need to see any more of his disgusting experiments.”

  “I think we should watch the last one,” Reese says, eyeing the stack. “The last one is marked about nine months ago, the time the infection started to spread. There’s a reason he stopped making them, and I’ll bet she somehow got out, or at least bit someone who did.”

  “Reese is right,” Madison says solemnly. “We should watch the very last one, just so we know. Like Reese said, we might even find out how the infection got out. And I don’t know about you guys, but I’d sure like to know.”

  I sigh. “Alright, someone put it in.”

  “You don’t have to watch,” Ryder says gently, his eyes looking me up and down. “You don’t look so hot. I think you should go lay down for a bit. We can tell you what’s on the disc.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I say, dismissing his concerns.

  I love that he wants to make sure I’m feeling okay, but after all the things I’ve seen and experienced, I think I can handle a little video that happened months ago. At least, I hope I can. Ryder is right. I’m not feeling so hot right now, and I think I might actually be sick if I keep watching these videos. But I can’t bring myself to get up and leave; I have to know what’s on them, even if I lose my breakfast over it. I need to see what kind of man we’ve chosen to put our faith in.

  I’ll probably have nightmares tonight, I think to myself sadly. I haven’t had one for awhile now, but feeling sick and watching these is the perfect combination to bring them back. Just thinking about my nightmares has a shiver running down my spine, and I try not to break out in a cold sweat right here on the couch. I definitely haven’t missed them…

  In the weeks following our stay with Frank and his buddies, there were several nights I woke up screaming and thrashing, only to find that the hands holding me down were Ryder’s so I wouldn’t hurt myself or him. When realization finally set in, I would sob as Ryder held me and listened as I relived all of the terror of my nightmares. Then, exhausted, I would fall back asleep in the comfort of Ryder’s arms. It’s been awhile since I’ve had one, but there are plenty of other things to have nightmares about.

  At least I know Ryder will be there to comfort me tonight if I wake up terrified and half-crazed.

  Reese puts in the final disc in the stack, and we all wait with abated breath, wondering what horrors we’re about to see. This time the screen doesn’t start off black. It starts with a close-up of Dr. Richards’ face as he stares into a camera, probably a computer dash camera. He’s no longer in the room with the metal table, and there are no zombies in sight, but I see a splash of blood smeared on the back wall behind him, though he doesn’t seem to care.

  “It’s been two days since my weapon was foolishly released, and she’s managed to wreck her havoc, killing many. Our reports are still coming in, but so far we believe the body count to be well over a hundred. One hundred individuals, snuffed out by a monster of my creation, in no more than two days.

  “An investigation has been launched to find out which of my foolhardy colleagues thought to free her from my grasp while we slept. Cameras were disabled, and the key card from an employee on vacation was used to open the front gate, but it doesn’t matter at this point. The damage has been done, and it cannot be undone. At least not without time…

  “Time we no longer have. Her disease is spreading like wildfire. It’s a force so breathtaking that it would rival that of the Gods, and I believe it to be unstoppable,” he says breathlessly. “Those of us locked away inside this lab are safe for the moment, but I fear for the rest of the world. Those that she has passed her disease to are contaminating more people, and their death toll begins to rise as well. If our numbers are correct, it won’t be long before the state is a lost cause.

  “And soon after that, the world will surely follow. Even now, with such a small area of contamination, her effects are disastrous. We can’t find her, and we couldn’t stop her if we did. We don’t possess the means of creating a cure, and even if we did, there are no means to spread it via this lab. By the time we get to a machine capable of spreading it, I fear too much damage will have taken place. Damage that cannot be fixed with a simple cure.”

  Dr. Richards takes a deep breath, and I feel my blood turn to ice in my veins. No means to spread it via this lab? Does that mean the cure is useless in his hands even if it works?

  “This will be my last recording until this matter is resolved. I must focus what time I have left and find a way to reverse the untold suffering that I have caused this great nation. I only hope we can stop her before things get out of hand. This is Dr. Carter Richards, signing off.”

  The screen goes dark one final time.

  “I wonder what idiot was stupid enough to let that zombie escape and start killing everyone,” Madison says tightly. “If they were alive, I’d kill them myself, right here and right now. How fucking stupid do you have to be to take a monster you know eats human flesh, and just let it go?”

  “They’re long dead,” Todd says, trying to soothe her angry thoughts. “They either died when they were releasing her, or they died during the massacre here. There’s nobody left except for the good doctor, and he sure as hell wasn’t the one to do it. He’d never let his prized guinea pig go.”

  Aaron sighs and gets to his feet. “Well, after the day I’ve had, I think I’m gonna go crash for a little bit. If you need me, I’ll be in my room.”

  I watch him go, thinking that a nap sounds like a really good idea right now. I still feel sick to my stomach, and thinking about what is on the other twenty discs in the stack is just making me feel even worse. Right now, I want to just go lie down and try to get some rest. Of course, now that I’ve seen these discs and what horrible things Dr. Richards has done, I don’t feel safe just passing out in bed now. We’ll have to start a watch rotation again, which means when we have to split from this place, one unlucky person—most likely Ryder—is going to be running on empty right from the get-go.

  It’s always Ryder. He pushes himself too hard for us. I grab his hand, and he looks at me. “I’m going to go lay down for a bit, and I want you to come with me. I don’t feel good, and I don’t want to be alone in this place anymore. Do you mind?”

  He shakes his head. “Of course not.” He gets to his feet and we head for the door. “Would you mind cutting my hair before we lay down?”

  “I thought you weren’t gonna let me anywhere near your hair,” I say with a smile.

  “Well, it’s annoying me so much lately I think I’ll risk losing an ear.”

  I laugh. “What if I screw it up and leave you with a mullet or something?”

  “That’s what they make hats for,” he says with a quick wink that’s just for me.

  We head back for our room, and he digs a pair of scissors out of our first-aid kit and hands them to me. I take them slowly, wondering if he’s actually serious about letting me cut his hair. Part of me is nervous I’ll mess it up, but the other part of me feels strangely good about it, like this is a normal thing that couples get to experience together. It isn’t often that Ryder and I get to do “normal couple” things. All of our dates involve killing zombies or scavenging through abandoned homes for supplies. It’s nice to have a chance to be a littl
e domestic.

  He takes a seat on the edge of the bathtub so the hair will be easier to clean up when we’re done. I turn the faucet on and test it with my hand, making sure it gets warm but not too hot. Ryder strips his shirt off and quickly washes his hair and wets it, just like he would in a real hair salon. I hand him a clean towel and he begins to dry the extra water from his hair while I admire his shirtless physique.

  Ryder tells me how he wants it, but assures me he’ll be okay with whatever he gets as long as it isn’t falling in his eyes anymore. When the time comes to make the first cut, I hesitate, suddenly unsure of myself again. I know it’s such a small thing, but I’ve suffered from bad haircuts in the past, and I don’t want Ryder to hate what he sees whenever he looks in the mirror. Even knowing that it won’t bother him doesn’t make me feel better; I can worry about it enough for the both of us.

  Finally, I make the first snip, and a lock of Ryder’s shaggy light brown hair falls to the bottom of the tub. When I see that I haven’t screwed up his hair yet, I let out a sigh of relief. “I can do this.”

  “I have total faith in you,” Ryder lies with a smile.

  I make another few snips, starting in the back where it’s the longest. I run my fingers through his hair, untangling any snarls that might affect how his hair looks when we’re finished. This isn’t so bad. Even if I screw up, it’s just hair. It’ll grow back eventually. I make another snip, and a larger chunk than I expected falls to the bottom of the tub, clogging the drain along with the rest of it. “Oops.”

  He panics. “Don’t say oops. You don’t get to say oops when you’re cutting my hair.”

  “It’s okay. I just took off a little more than I thought I would. It’ll even out,” I assure him, though I’m not entirely sure myself.

  He relaxes again, and I start cutting. I go much slower this time, making sure I’m only cutting what I want to cut. I rather like Ryder’s hair, and I’d like it if he didn’t have to be bald because I screwed up his hair beyond repair. When I make another snip, I stare at how much I still have left to go. I should have asked Daisy or Naomi if they’ve ever cut a guy’s hair before…