by Shawn Kass
Standing up from the microscope, Mr. Ray looks to the ceiling as if he’s deep in thought putting a mental picture together in his head before he finally says, “It’s the water.”
“What?” you ask, not understanding his statement.
“The parasites, they’re in the water.”
“Like the drinking water?” you ask in disbelief. “Yes, and the toilet water, the faucets, all of it.”
“How can that be? I mean, if it’s in the water then wouldn’t we all be infected?” you ask.
Nodding sadly, Mr. Ray says, “Yes, we are. From my best guess, everyone is probably infected with these parasites.”
“No way. That can’t be. I mean, I’m not a zombie, and none of you look like one either.”
“The parasite can’t really begin to do its work as long as the body’s normal immune system is working. It looks like it is just in our bloodstream kind of hanging out and waiting for its opportunity.”
“You mean waiting for us to die,” you say, clarifying his statement.
Shrugging, he says, “Yes, or something else to cause the body’s immune system to stop functioning at which point it goes to work, taking control of certain brain functions so that it can direct the person towards its goal of spreading the contagions.”
Noticing how he pluralized the last word, you ask, “What do you mean, ‘contagions’? It’s the parasite that we have to worry about, right?”
Shaking his head, Mr. Ray says, “No. Actually, since we are all already infected with the parasite as far as I can tell, it’s not the parasite that’s the biggest problem anymore. When the zombies attack they are doing two things. First, it would seem that they try to bite for the neck, the inner arm, or the inner thigh where the arteries are close to the skin. The person’s death will be the most likely, and the parasite can gain control over the victim, or in this case host is probably more accurate a term, quickly. The other issue is the bites themselves. People have a ton of bacteria and viruses in their mouths, and when they bite people, they are essentially spreading those things around. Added to that, as they bite, they ingest the blood and flesh of their victims and become carriers for any additional contagious things that person was carrying. By this point, considering the statistics, the average zombie out there is carrying everything from AIDS and Hepatitis to E. coli and Staphylococcus in its mouth, in addition to the common cold and gingivitis.”
Understanding where his train of thought is going, you say, “So these things are really just vectors for all of the bad stuff out there, and if they don’t kill you outright, their bites will by infecting you with a bunch of nasty stuff?”
“Exactly,” says Mr. Ray, all too excited about the fact that you showed that you knew the material almost forgetting what the implications of the statement were.
“Where did it come from?” you ask.
“That one is a little harder, but I think that when the economy bottomed out and the pharmaceutical plant closed up, they dumped a lot of their stuff into the water. When that happened, it all mixed together, and the bacteria and plants in the water consumed it. Honestly, there’s no telling what that could have done, and how it would have affected future generations of the stuff, but it’s the most likely scenario. I mean to look at this thing under a microscope, it appears to have quite a few characteristics in common with the Ophiocordyceps Fungi.”
“Fungi, you mean like mushrooms?” asks one of the other students in the room.
“Kind of, but this is a parasitic fungi. Anyway, the Ophiocordyceps takes control of the minds of ants and turns them zombie-like. That’s something that’s been around for a while. Now the way I see it, if the pharmaceutical company dumped enough of the right stuff in the water, it could have forced the parasites to adapt or evolve. Either way, they’re here now.”
Asking the obvious question, you say, “So, what are we going to do?”
Thinking about it for second, Mr. Ray says, “Well, the good news is that the parasite will not be able to maintain the human body for too long. It’s like they are the captain of the Titanic after the ship hit the iceberg. The people they are controlling are either already dead, or so far gone that medical science could never bring them back. The only difference is that now instead of them just lying on the ground, or as in my original analogy the captain going down with his ship, it’s trying to hit as many other ships, in this case people, as it can to bring them down with it.”
“How long do you think it will be before they all sink?”
“Not sure, a week or two?” answers Mr. Ray, inflecting his voice at the end to indicate he doesn’t exactly know the timeframe.
Going back into survival mode, you say, “Well, we are going to need to get out of here and find safety at some point. We’ll need food and stuff during those two weeks.”
Holding up a finger, Mr. Ray says, “Yes, I was thinking about how to get us out of here just before you arrived. Using some things from the physics class and the anatomy class, I think I came up with a few options, but I don’t know what’s going to work best, and I don’t have enough for everyone. What I really need is for someone to test them and see what works.”
Looking around the room, none of the others look like they are prepared to volunteer, and you know you still need to get back up to the teachers’ lounge at some point so you say, “I’ll do it.”
Smiling, Mr. Ray says, “I thought you might. Come with me, I have some things I think you’ll like,” before he walks you to the back of the room and opens the door which connects to the shared lab. Following him in, you find the room in complete disarray from its usual tidiness, with equipment, chemicals, and coils of wire scattered about. Somewhere in it all, you spot what looks like three main work spaces.
Looking to Mr. Ray, you ask, “What is all of this?”
“When I first realized what was happening, I took some of my advanced students in here, and we started working on ways to put the creatures down. Now, it’s only been an hour or so, and I don’t have much, but these are the three things that I think have the most promise.” Pointing to the closest workspace, he says, “This is a rolling cart I’ve rigged up with the six car batteries we used in the physics class and a metal rod in the front. It’s a little heavy but you can’t beat the juice that it has kicking through it. Push it into one of them, and it will fry their entire central nervous system. The parasite can’t make them move if the pathways from the brain to the muscles are gone.”
You stand behind the cart and push it back and forth checking its maneuverability before saying, “It looks good, but the school doesn’t have an elevator. How are we supposed to get it upstairs?”
“Either get a couple of people to carry it, or it will have to be a first floor defense item only. The charge on the batteries isn’t going to last indefinitely anyway.”
Thinking about it, you ask, “Is there a way we could just have one battery like in a backpack or something? That way we could have more than one person with a weapon and getting up the stairs wouldn’t require multiple people.”
“We could, but then I doubt you would get more than four or five hits off the battery before it was drained too far to be very effective,” answers Mr. Ray.
Nodding your understanding, you ask, “Okay, what else you got?”
Stepping over to the next workstation, Mr. Ray says, “This is a little more dangerous. I mixed up some chemicals from the back room. This one is a sulfur compound, and this is a catalyst that reacts with it. When the two are mixed, it will melt through pretty much anything organic in seconds. Real nasty stuff, you don’t want to get any on you, but effective as all get out.”
“Cool,” you say, already envisioning the zombies melting before you.
Stepping back, Mr. Ray says, “The last thing I have are these sheep brains which we use in the human anatomy class. The idea is that if these really are brain eating zombies, we might be able to distract them by throwing these.”
“You just said that
these were caused by some sort of parasite. Do you think they’ll still work?”
Shrugging his shoulders, Mr. Ray says, “Honestly, I don’t know. The fact is the chemicals have been sitting on shelves in the back storeroom since the 1980s and are probably heavily oxidized. There’s a chance they won’t work at all, and they might react too well and start a fire. The batteries as I said will only last so long, and the brains, well, they just might not be interested in something that is already dead and soaked in formaldehyde.”
Looking over the choices before you, you can’t help but think a gun would have been a lot better, but there is still some pretty cool stuff here. Reaching out, you make your selection.
If you choose the sheep brains, turn to page ………….. 168
Want to electrocute the zombies, turn to page ……….. 171
If you choose the chemicals, turn to page ……………….. 192
Use the Sheep Brains
Grabbing up the plastic bag with the sheep brains, you say, “Well, a lot of the zombie movies, books, and TV shows used to always depict them going after brains, so I think these should be the first thing we try.”
“All right, let’s see if they go for them.” Stepping over to the door leading back to the hall, he adds, “You might want to go out this way. I think that last one that was following you is probably still at the other door.”
“Good idea,” you say as you slip your hands into a pair of latex gloves you found on a nearby shelf.
Stepping up to the door, you hold the bag in your left hand and reach in with the right to grab the first of the brains. Feeling the brain, even through the latex glove, you can’t help but notice the bumpy texture of its surface and the slimy coating it has from whatever substance it used to be stored in. It both disgusts you as well as fascinates you, kind of like the first time you get to touch a snake.
When you’re ready, you say, “Okay, here goes nothing.”
With that, Mr. Ray begins to open the door to let you out, but as you move to exit, you find your path blocked by the same zombie who had chased you just a little bit ago. For whatever reason, it had followed you from the last room and seems now to have been waiting for you to come out. Backing up, your mind freezes for a second before you remember that you’re holding one of the plans Mr. Ray came up with, quite literally, in the palm of your hands.
Pulling out the softball sized sheep brain, you lift it over your head, ignoring the stench of whatever fluid drips on you in the process, and throw it at the zombie. From as close as you are, it would have been impossible for you to have missed, and the brain smacks directly into the zombie’s face. As the brain bounces off and falls to the floor, you realize that the zombie could care less about the offering. Turning, you try to head back towards the other items Mr. Ray had out, even as the zombie’s foot comes down on the sheep brains and squishes them into something far less recognizable.
You make it back to the workspace and reach for the chemical mixture, but even as you do so, you feel the thing’s cold dead hands grab your shirt and pull you backwards. Your outstretched hand just barely tips the edge of the flask but doesn’t extend far enough to actually pick it up before the zombie’s teeth bite down into your neck. Screaming in pain, you fall to the floor, trying to pry the zombie off when you hear Mr. Ray say, “Hey, you got him. How about you try to get me now?”
Looking up towards Mr. Ray, the zombie moans as if it can’t decide whether it wants to drop you or not. That’s when Mr. Ray pulls back a sheet and lifts up a large contraption. Your eyes are already beginning to go blurry, but from what you can see, it looks almost like a gun. Mr. Ray loads some sort of slimy pellet in the thing, takes aim, and fires directly into the zombie’s still open and wailing mouth. When the pellet hits the back of his mouth, a small explosion of fire erupts from inside the thing’s mouth and quickly burns through the back of its head, killing it for good.
Setting the weapon down, Mr. Ray rushes over to you to assess your injury. After a moment, he convinces you to let up on the wound you’ve been clutching only to say, “I’m sorry. I should have had that ready before we opened the door.”
Still in pain, you can’t help but ask, “Wh…what was that?”
Looking back to the fourth workspace where he picked it up from, he says, “It’s a rail gun. It doesn’t work like a normal gun. It uses electromagnetism to propel the pellet of sodium out. It doesn’t have a very effective range, and it has to hit somewhere that’s wet to react, but with the thing’s mouth open like that, I figured it would work.”
Moving to your next to last concern, you ask, “What’s going to happen to me now?”
With a grimace, Mr. Ray confesses, “You’re going to lose a lot of blood, and then the parasite will take over. When that happens I’ll have to either send you out in the hall or take care of you here.”
“Just do it here,” you say, already imagining what it would taste like to bite into another person.
The End
Use the Electric Cart
Letting your hand come down on the handle of the cart, you say, “Let’s fry these suckas,” a little too enthusiastically. When Mr. Ray looks at you, you say, “I heard it in a movie somewhere. I guess it doesn’t sound as cool in real life.”
Shaking his head, Mr. Ray says, “Most things in movies don’t. We don’t have special effects or retakes.”
Secretly thinking that the phrase ‘Let’s light these suckas up!’ would have been better, you let Mr. Ray’s comment go unchallenged and instead ask, “So, what exactly do I need to do to use this?”
Seeing the cart, Mr. Ray says, “Like I said, the six car batteries from the physics class were run together through a circuit, and all the juice comes to this metal rod here in the front. All you need to do is run into a zombie, and nature will do the rest, allowing the electricity to course through its body and destroy it.”
Looking at the metal rod and then back to Mr. Ray you hesitantly ask, “Does that mean I have to impale them on that thing?”
Shaking his head, Mr. Ray says, “No, it just needs to make contact for a little while. Impaling them would actually be a bad thing because when they get
electrocuted, it’s likely that their muscles are going to spasm.”
“Even though they’re dead?” you ask.
Nodding, he says, “Yup. Remember it was electricity that animated Frankenstein.” Seeing the look on your face, he adds, “Good thing that story was only fiction.”
Smiling weakly as all the horror movie monsters are now cropping up in your head, you agree, “Yeah, fiction,” neither of you bothering to mention that up until a few hours ago, zombies fell under that category, too.
Addressing the cart once again, Mr. Ray says, “I’m not sure how many zaps you have on this, but as long as you stay on this side of the cart and keep it between you and the zombies, you should be able to get around the first floor.”
“Great, I just need to get some food and stuff, and I’ll be back. Then we can all head upstairs.”
Walking you over to the door, he says, “Sounds good, I have a couple more ideas I would like to try out before we go. Maybe I can rig up another weapon for us so we won’t be too exposed when we go.” When he gets there, he looks to you and then to the cart and asks, “You ready?”
Psyching yourself up mentally, you say, “Yeah, let’s do this,” and Mr. Ray opens the door.
There to greet you is the zombie that chased you down the hall to Mr. Ray’s classroom door. The thought strikes you that this thing is dead set to get you, but you shove it aside and push the cart forward. As the metal rod touches the zombie, it seems to freeze up for a second before violently jerking back to fall on the floor. You watch in morbid fascination as a little trail of smoke comes from the zombie’s shirt where the metal rod touched it, and the air smells like a sickly sweet barbecue. Looking to Mr. Ray, you say, “I think we found something that works.”
“Excellent,” says Mr. Ray. “You go g
et the food and stuff, and I’ll try to be ready by the time you get back.”
Pushing your cart out into the hall, you look both ways before turning and heading for the cafeteria. The cart you are pushing has the six car batteries on it, but there is still some room for you to hold a bit more stuff. You figure there is no point in trying to bring back any pizza since it will probably be frozen anyway. Your best bets, as you see it, are going to be the non perishables and perhaps the fruit. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you remember a history teacher telling you something about scurvy and how the people sailing over to the new world had caught it somehow because they didn’t have any fruit or something.
At the end of the hall, you turn left and make it almost halfway to the cafeteria when you notice a growing mob just inside. At first you can’t tell what is going on, but then you catch sight of a few of the people walking about and notice how they keep running into the makeshift barricade made out of furniture, and you realize that they are all infected. Without getting any closer, you realize that there must be at least fifty or more of them in there. You know Mr. Ray’s battery cart has enough juice in it to take down a zombie, and he said it should last you long enough to get some food and back, but he probably didn’t intend on you taking on an entire horde of them.
Want to see what this cart can do, turn to page ……….. 175 Choose to find food elsewhere, then turn to page ...…. 178
Use the Cart Against the Ones in the Cafeteria
Figuring that Mr. Ray said one battery could take down a few zombies, then six should be able to take down at least six times as many, at least that’s how the math of it should work out. So, with this thought in mind you decide to carefully advance up to the cafeteria’s entrance. The zombies obviously know that there is something or someone on the other side of the makeshift barricade, because they keep running into it and moaning their awful wails of frustration and hunger when the structure doesn’t fall. That’s when one of the zombies turns and notices you.