Anything But Zombies

by Gerald Rice

  “You’re going to need this,” Eddie said, picking up the penile splint and holding it out toward Dillon.

  “Thank you,” Dillon said, turning back to take it, smiling sheepishly. “I’d forgotten.”

  “Do you think it will be the right size?” Eddie asked, grinning.

  “It’ll work,” Dillon said, laughing and winking. He thought about his own . . . build. If genetics were a good indication, it would work. Close enough, anyhow.

  He left the office suite and turned right, heading to his restoration room. Using his ID card, he entered the last door on his left. From there, he stripped naked, scrubbed down in the corner shower stall, and put on the biohazard suit he would need to protect him from bacteria during the restoration process. After he was prepped, he entered the actual operation room and began checking and prepping the machines needed to rebuild the patient’s body with unique DNA; he managed to resist the urge to check it against his own, just to make sure he wasn’t emotionally stressed out over nothing.

  Everything was ready when Eddie escorted the zombie in. The Undead American before him was disgusting, to say the least. Ninety percent of his skin had been burnt away and naked muscle was visible over his entire body, scorched beyond recognition. His eyes were even discolored to the point Dillon couldn’t tell what color they’d originally been. Even his height was hard to define since he was so hunched from lack of tendon strength.

  Doubt seeped into Dillon’s mind.

  With a deep breath, he told himself he was worried over nothing. This . . . thing couldn’t possibly be his father. But there was enough of a chance that he was still on edge, still curious, and slightly hopeful. The hope rising to create an ache in his chest also told him to be careful. If this Undead American was truly his father, if he came back to his real self after the restore, he would have a hard time making it in current society. Dillon hoped because he had once been a zombie it would make him sympathetic to the plight of all Undead Americans and that he wouldn’t become one of the terrorists that he might have been had he remained human all along.

  Eddie left the Undead American with Dillon and exited the operation room.

  Dillon escorted and helped the Undead American into a chair in the middle of the room. Once he was in place, the arm and leg braces clamped down and Dillon pushed a button that drew the chair slowly from a sitting position to a table with the zombie lying supine. Once the prone position was achieved, Dillon pushed a button on the control panel that scanned the patient to read his embedded chip, which would confirm his number on the restore list, to make sure they were restoring the correct Undead American.

  Everything matched up exactly as it should.

  “Well, it looks like it is you, Dad,” Dillon said softly, still afraid to believe the truth. “Here goes nothing.” He pressed the button to start the process and listened to the machines hum as they started up; all he would do was oversee the restoration, making sure the tanks on the machines had enough plasma, synthetic stem cells, and other chemicals to complete the job.

  Lasers burned away clothing and bad tissue that couldn’t be rejuvenated. After that, a protective metal shell lowered from the ceiling to cover the body while the internal organs were repaired and re-created. Dillon figured it would take a while, considering the damage already done.

  He was lost in thought for a long time, wondering if his dad would even remember him, when he felt the floor under his feet shake. At first, he thought it was one of the machines malfunctioning and checked them all. The shaking increased in intensity, but everything was working properly.

  The red light in the ceiling came on, indicating there was an emergency.

  Dillon tried not to panic. He knew he was supposed to leave the building, to get to safety, leaving the patient to the machines and hope for the best. He just couldn’t bring himself to do it; he couldn’t leave his father now that he’d finally found him.

  The lights flickered. The building shook harder. Dillon heard an audible boom and then what he assumed to be gunfire. Whatever was happening was getting closer and sounded serious, and it explained all the extra security. They’d known of a threat but hadn’t bothered to share the information with the employees.

  Without thinking twice about getting out and saving himself, he hit the emergency button that would seal the restoration room completely from the outside world; it was intended to keep in any contagious bacteria that could infect people. Today it was going to be used to keep people out and keep him and his father safe for as long as possible.

  After the emergency button did its job, Dillon set to work prepping the room’s generator so that if they lost power his dad would still be restored—it needed time to sync with each machine and take over power smoothly from the main source of electricity. No matter what happened, he was determined to finish this restoration. They were three hours in, which meant a lot of significant restoration had been done. In another hour, the restoration would be complete.

  Dillon’s heart was racing and he was sweating profusely inside his biohazard suit. He felt like the universe had blown him a kiss, flirting with him, just to walk away with another man. The unfairness of finding his father, only to risk losing him, had his emotions bouncing like a rubber ball between two hard surfaces forever.

  The vibrations were growing stronger and the booms louder, accompanied by screams and less intense bangs.

  “Damn bastards,” Dillon growled. He was pissed off about not being told of the possible attack, although he should have suspected it with all the added security—he’d been distracted by finally being reunited with his dad. If he would have known something like this could possibly happen, he would have prepped the generator to be ready when the attack started, not waiting until they were three-fourths of the way into a restoration to start it up and hope for the best.

  The lights flickered off for two seconds and came back on after an extremely strong boom that shook the floor so hard that Dillon almost fell over. The brief power outage caused his computer screen to flicker and the machines to stutter.

  The generator wasn’t ready to take over for the main electricity; it was only online for 77 percent of the overall power needed.

  “Come on, come on, come on,” Dillon chanted, watching the computer screen, the lights, and the machines.

  The percentage grew little by little and Dillon’s heartbeat grew louder in his ears with every second that passed. He felt trapped inside his hot suit, sweating to the point of fogging up the clear face shield. He ripped the headpiece off and threw it across the room in frustration. He knew he’d just exposed himself to possible contamination, but he was already at risk with what was going on outside the restoration room.

  The generator was ready to take over 90 percent of the machinery when the wall to Dillon’s left disintegrated in an explosion of concrete, metal, and insulation. Sparks flew and fire consumed oxygen in a plume of heat and light.

  Dillon was thrown off his feet and into the shell that was protecting his father while he was being restored. The power went out the instant of the explosion and the machines ceased their work. When Dillon slammed into the shell he’d cracked it in the middle.

  As he groaned and became aware of his surroundings, Dillon caught a glimpse of his father more than half-restored. His chest was moving up and down and skin was just beginning to cover the exposed muscles of his chest and torso, which was all he could see because he was lying on the bottom half of the shell that was now broken and dented.

  Dillon’s head was fuzzy and the people in their helmets and riot gear coming in through the hole in the wall didn’t seem to be real, waving their large guns around, securing the room that had been more secure without them.

  They advanced toward him, shouting.

  He couldn’t understand what they were saying and he frowned and concentrated, trying to decipher their words.

  He glanced over at his father and saw his eyes flutter open. They were the same shade of blue that he rem
embered—sometimes the restoration process surprised him, even though he saw it every day.

  A smile crossed his father’s skinless lips. “Dill-weed . . .” he sighed, using the pet name he’d always used for Dillon, and his eyes fluttered closed again, his breathing becoming labored.

  “Dad . . .” Dillon said and watched him for a moment. When he didn’t respond Dillon panicked and screamed, “Dad!”

  A single gunshot boomed through the room and a small hole appeared in Dillon’s dad’s head, making sure he would never be able to be restored again.

  Dillon stared at his father in disbelief and dismay. He was officially dead. It had been in Dillon’s grasp to save him and he’d failed. Well, technically he’d succeeded; he’d restored him. These people had come in and killed him when he was just about to have his life back.

  Dillon roared as he stood up straight, despite the pain in his body from having been thrown into hard metal. He was doubly shocked to see that the man with the smoking gun was Eddie, wearing a tactical vest over his clothes and a helmet over his head and face.

  After the moment of shock passed, Dillon roared, “How could you kill my father?”

  Eddie’s face took on a thunderstruck expression.

  Without waiting for an answer to his question, Dillon threw himself at Eddie. He didn’t have time to protect himself and Dillon ripped the man’s assault rifle from his grip, squeezing the trigger and spraying the room with an onslaught of bullets. When the clip was finally empty, Dillon was the only one in the room still alive.

  He fell to his knees as the rage left him and his grief took hold. Pain surged through his entire being. He’d never felt so completely empty, so completely void of hope, not even when he didn’t know where his father was for five years had he ever felt so low.

  He’d played by society’s rules and these rebels—including his new assistant, whom he’d brought into his circle of trust—hadn’t. Yet everything he’d worked so hard for had been taken.

  Dillon decided his father had been right . . . political correctness was a disease. It was an illusion for delusional people who thought doing the right thing made them better people who would get what they wanted in the end, like good guys in stories. In truth, it was just a polite way for people to screw each other over. Political correctness was just a metal fist wearing a satin glove while it beat you to a pulp.

  Crew Chief of the Damned

  * * *

  * * *

  MontiLee Stormer

  The dog greeted him at the bottom of the driveway again that morning. It was a large black German shepherd, whose massive head came to Jonah’s chest. When he first saw the dog a few weeks back, he’d merely assumed it was a neighbor’s dog, waiting for a bus or taxi to bring its master home. But every day as Jonah let himself out of the front gate to walk to work, the dog was there, pacing with him all the way to the corner. Then it sat and watched him cross the street. The process reversed itself on his way home. The dog greeted him at the corner, walked him to his front gate, and sat down at the edge of the walk as he let himself in.

  It had been a bad day at work, but Jonah wasn’t about to tell his mother that, no sense in upsetting her. He was home early, like before the lunch rush, and wasn’t sure exactly how he was going to tell her why. For the time being he just sat at her kitchen table and munched on cookies from a ceramic jar shaped like the open mouth of a whale. He could hear her in the basement, probably folding laundry or ironing clothes. It was her domain and he was happy to let her have it.

  Another munch of cookie and Jonah’s thoughts returned to a few hours ago. There had been what only could be politely described as an incident with the deep-fryers just before opening and with the ambulances and police all over the restaurant, the “scene” had been secured and the employees were sent home. For the first time in as long as Jonah could remember, Burgeropolis was dark.

  Paulo, formerly a really nice guy and alive, brought the temperature of the fryer to proper levels at 10:55 a.m. that morning and was about to drop the first basket of fries. Five minutes from opening, and cars were already beginning to line up in the drive-thru. It started out as a nice morning, but the edges of the horizon were ragged with storm clouds and the light began to shine that odd orangey-red that sometimes precedes a tornado.

  That was when Paulo called out Jonah’s name. “Jonah—boss—it’s almost time.”

  He sounded solemn and it made Jonah look up from prepping the front stations, making sure the bags were filled and the ketchup containers were stocked. “You bet, buddy. Ready for another awesome day?”

  Jonah and Paulo were crew chiefs on the morning shifts and they performed their duties so well, the manager often felt comfortable enough rolling in well after lunch. Once Jonah owned his own chain of restaurants, he hoped he’d be able to find workers as good as him and Paulo, but certainly would make sure a manager was actually in the shop.

  Paulo laughed and it had a hard, brittle edge to it. “For me it will be glorious! I’m the first. I’ve seen the signs and I am honored to serve with you. I’ll see you on the other side.”

  “Other side of what, Paulo?” Jonah stopped stacking packets of mustard, the first threads of concern winding around his heart. Other morning crew workers stopped what they were doing and came from back rooms and front counters to watch. They’d never get the store opened at this rate, Jonah thought.

  He looked up to see Paulo snap a brisk salute and plunge his arm to the elbow into the fryer. His scream became a laugh and his laugh turned inside out and his face was a frozen mask of terrified delight. “I do it for you,” he scream-shouted. “I offer this tribute to you!” The hot oil churned around his arm as the flesh turned crisp and the fried blood turned to blackened nuggets on the surface of the oil. “The glory for you!”

  “Paulo, no!” Jonah shouted, and ran to the fryers to pull Paulo away, but not in time to stop him from face-planting into the still bubbling grease. His gurgling screams were drowned out by the screams of Mandy, who’d just come out of the walk-in cooler to fill the salad case. In three long steps, Jonah reached above the fryer and jammed his hand onto the fire suppression button, shutting down the fryer and sending torrent of foam over the fryer and grill area. It was beyond too late, and Paulo’s knees buckled. His upper body remained over the vats, covered in a layer of foam and his legs and feet twitched on the grease-slickened floor. He was a dead man the second he’d stuck his hand in the grease. There were a few stunted screams from the crew and Jonah could hear someone, maybe Chrissy, talking to a 911 operator.

  Jonah wasn’t telling his mother any of this, and not for the first time he was grateful they didn’t own a TV. When she emerged from the basement, he instead gave her an abbreviated version of the events. She’d known Paulo through Jonah’s sanitized stories and she expressed detached shock and sympathy. She was going to bake some mini-loaves in case his little friends came by to grieve. “Comfort food always helped ease a loss.” She busied herself with pans and flour and Jonah went up to his room.

  Between the accident at Burgeropolis #1334 and the ongoing incidents at the St. Augustine location just a mile up the road, it certainly wouldn’t be too much longer before Corporate sent over teams to investigate. At St. Augustine someone had been impaled on a loose railing when they fell out of a drive-thru window. Jonah had never been to the St. Augustine location and had no idea what railings were doing beneath the drive-thru windows, but that was the story going around.

  “Mom,” he asked before he rounded the banister to head upstairs. “Have you seen the dog on the front walk?”

  “The big black dog, looks like a Doberman?”

  “No, it’s a black German shepherd.” Jonah looked through the semicircle inset in the front door and saw the dog still sitting on the other side of the front gate.

  “I’ve only seen the Doberman. Huge thing. Very pointy.” She was humming to herself, and Jonah could tell she was only partially engaged in the conversation.
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  Jonah found it very difficult to believe there were more large-breed dogs loose in the neighborhood, so he let it go.

  “How is your contest going?” she asked. Jonah didn’t think she had heard much about his employee drive, since he’d only mentioned it once. “Anything exciting?”

  Jonah shrugged. The fast-food business was full of mishaps and accidents the public wasn’t supposed to see. Burns, slips, bangs—these things happened in any workplace. His store in particular had seen its share of accidents; food prep wasn’t the safest occupation, but almost no other shop had a better safety rating, except for the one by the church.

  “It’s really boiling down to us and St. Augustine. A recruiting drive for workers and then an accompanying sales drive.” The HELP WANTED signs had gone up for both stores and they were both angling to get the best of the best when it came to the workers, but he was worried about the applicants.

  For every four that applied, three refused to show up or headed to St. Augustine. Jonah didn’t think the competing store was offering more money, but he wasn’t privy to that kind of information. All he knew was St. Augustine always had a full complement of staff and were pulling close to their goal. Jonah’s team had their own ideas about who should stay and who should go and the undesirables often ran off in a few weeks.

  The store manager of the St. Augustine location, a Michael Something-Polish, always said their numbers were so good because they had the eyes of the Lord looking down on their souls every minute of every day and they worked to serve Him as best they could.

  There was a knock at the door, and Mandy stood on the small front porch, her face puffy and streaked from crying. She hadn’t changed from her uniform, she had probably been with the others at the park or library or wherever it was the rest of the crew gathered as word filtered through the ranks. Jonah had no idea, but he ushered her into the small living room, offered her the couch, and took the overstuffed chair.