I, Zombie

by Al Ewing

  He'd slowed down. Gained a few pounds here and there, some more grey in the temples. Stopped waking with the dawn, now relying on the shrill shriek of the alarm clock to wake them both at seven. He was never earlier than nine, and never stayed longer than five. Nobody complained - he was an anachronism now, and he had the feeling Mister Smith insisted on their regular chats out of a need for companionship more than a need for information.

  Still, some things never changed, thought Albert Morse, as he stood in the airlock and waited for the sweep of the scanners over his body. He was getting more and more conscious these days of the fact that a malfunction would riddle him with bullets and drop his body into an acid pit. In fact, he wondered why he'd never considered the possibility before.

  He must have cared, surely.

  He breathed an audible sigh of relief as the door to the inner office opened. Time had changed him.

  Time had not changed Mister Smith.

  "Good morning, good morning..." he murmured, floating upside down, his withered body held in the lotus position. His eyes were fixed on Morse, but he gave the impression of looking at something else that required the bulk of his concentration. "If you take a seat, I'll bring you a cup of tea in a moment."

  "I can pour myself one if it'd save you the trouble, Sir." Morse answered, moving to pour one for each of them. If Mister Smith was scanning the creature in the dissecting lab, he wouldn't have energy to spare for parlour tricks.

  Mister Smith did not respond for five minutes, as Morse took his seat and sipped his tea, watching closely. He'd been through this before, and the result was the same - eventually, Mister Smith drifted over to the chairs by the fire and apologised for being distracted.

  "Think nothing of it, Sir." said Morse, and smiled - a real smile. "Any changes?"

  "No, no... another of the removed organs has developed the beginnings of a rudimentary consciousness, but I expected that. The main corpus itself is still completely dead - inert. Not a single thought structure running through its mind. I'm almost astonished that it's holding a human shape. I imagine it knew what we were trying to do to it and simply shut down completely rather than give up any secrets. It's quite fascinating, quite fascinating..."

  Albert Morse shifted slightly, swallowing another mouthful of tea. He knew better than to speak his mind on the subject - Mister Smith would pick up his thoughts anyway.

  The balloon-headed man smiled indulgently as he revolved in the air, lowering to the table to pick up his cup of tea. "I promise, Albert, we'll dispose of every piece of the creature in good time. But look at this from my perspective, please... it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study one of these creatures - the last of these creatures! We'd be fools not to examine it, fools." The balloon head bobbed as the cup of tea levitated to its lips. Morse shook his head, trying to verbalise his thoughts.

  "I just think it's something of a risk, Sir."

  "The risk would be in not studying it. We know so much about these creatures in terms of their physiognomy - even the make-up of their brain - but so little in terms of their motives. The only person who we can be reasonably sure even guessed the truth is Emmett Roscoe..."

  "...and look what happened to Emmett Roscoe, I know. I'm just wondering whether cutting John Doe into pieces and watching those pieces... mutate... Sir, what if that's how they reproduce? Could we just be breeding an army of these things in our own basement?"

  "No, no." the great head shook again as Mister Smith levitated upwards, the tea replacing itself on the table. "These organs aren't actually gaining mass - just evolving what mass they have. It's my theory that the zombies don't reproduce - they were placed here very early in man's history for an unknown purpose, and whoever is behind that purpose was not expecting their numbers to dwindle." The thin lips formed the ghost of a smile. "They weren't expecting me."

  Morse finished his tea and leaned back. There was something in Mister Smith's manner that was triggering the old snark. "So let me get this straight. The nigh-infinite resources of Military Intelligence 23 are now being used to create a menagerie of frolicking zombie organs? Are we planning on opening a fucking pet shop?"

  Smith laughed, an easy laugh.

  "Not quite, not quite... I believe this is the key to the alien consciousness we were trying to find, Albert. Divorce a part from the whole and the further away from the whole it gets, the more it develops its own lower consciousness in order to follow the directives of whoever created the whole in the first place. You see?"

  Morse did, barely. And the more he saw, the more he didn't fucking like it much.

  "So as the organs grow more and more... animal-like... we begin to see glimpses of whatever process formed John Doe, and glimpses of what it is that drives and directs him, the secret plan of action that his over-personality knew nothing about before we eradicated it. It's vital that we get the opportunity to see what that plan might be. So long as we don't know what directed the creatures, we don't know what else might be out there you see?"

  "Yes, Sir, I see. If I might be so bold - how long before we've torn the tosspot right down to his component parts and shoved each of them in solitary? Because right now what you're describing puts me in mind of a fucking escape committee made up of renegade organs, and I'd like to see these wayward bits and pieces locked up to the full extent of the law. Sir."

  Mister Smith chuckled. "Albert, Albert... It's been three years. Three years without a single thought in his head. I doubt anything could play possum for that long."

  Morse scowled. He didn't want to. He didn't want his cosy life with Shirley and Popeye to be disturbed. He wanted to smile and nod along with everything Mister Smith said, Mister Smith who was so much wiser and more intelligent that he, Mister Smith with his head full of the future. He wanted to retire and pension himself off. But there was a thudding in the back of his mind, a constant pounding like leather gloves smashing hard against a heavy bag...

  Albert Morse's boxer-sense was well and truly tingling.

  "Right. Here's my problem, Sir. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but you said yourself that your new theory, that I assume you're planning to publish in a scientific journal now that we are all over and done for good, was that things like John Doe have been around since before the ascent of man." His scowl intensified. All the old anger wrinkles began to form again around his eyes. "So presumably at some point these undead tossers had nothing to do all day but sit around and watch chimps chucking their shit at one another. For thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of years. Now correct me if I'm wrong, Sir, but don't you reckon that - after you've spent a couple of fucking millennia in a fucking PG Tips advert without even the benefit of the fucking tea at the end of it - sitting still for three fucking years might, possibly, be construed as a walk in the fucking park?"

  Mister Smith stiffened. "Oh my God."

  Morse blinked. "Jesus Christ! Are you telling me you never thought of that?"

  "No, it's worse, it's worse... God, it's like a signal fire. His thought processes have started up again. Primary, secondary... he's back. Good God in heaven, he's murdered the doctor."

  Morse stood up suddenly, spilling his tea. "You have got to be—"

  "No, Morse, I am not 'fucking joking'. I've been a fool. His thoughts weren't absent, they were just - slow. Adjusted time perception, you see? He sped himself up to the point where none of his movements were detectable and then he just waited us out." The massive brow furrowed, huge trenches appearing in the flesh as Mister Smith concentrated all of his power. "The primary thought stream is back in full force. He's in full chameleon mode - masking his true nature even from himself, despite everything. I'm not going to find out anything about his bodily processes now." Mister Smith revolved in the air, turning to face the ashen Morse. "Listen to me, Albert. I've telekinetically released the wolves, and I'm going to attempt to drive them towards Doe, through the secret tunnels that honeycomb this place. If that fails, he'll be on his way here, and I'll happily take him
to pieces. But you're the last line of defence, Albert, do you understand? There are worst-case scenario instructions in our safe house in Centrepoint. Find them and do whatever you have to, even if it means destroying this whole area. There are instructions on that eventuality in the safe house as well, and other agents will be on the way to join you there. If all goes well, I should be able to give you an all-clear within six hours. If you don't hear from me, you know what to do."

  Morse opened his mouth. "I need to tell Shirley—"

  "Forget your wife. Forget your dog. If you don't hear from me, they're dead to you, do you understand? Do you understand, Morse? Do you?" Mister Smith's eyes glowed an angry, fiery red.

  Morse scowled.

  "I understand that you're full of fucking shit! I'm not going to leave my wife to fend for herself in whatever shitstorm you've called down on us! And if you think—"

  He didn't get any further before he was swept off his feet and across the room, slamming into the wall behind him, hard.

  "If you think I'm going to jeopardise the continued survival of the human face for some bleeding heart you happen to be screwing, you're very wrong, Morse. You know what I can do. I tell you now that if you do go to your wife instead of the agreed location then you will find her dead of a massive brain haemorrhage." The eyes in the huge head glowed a terrible, fiery red. "But do please test me. I haven't killed anyone to prove a point in decades."

  Morse hurled himself forward, fingers clawing for the homunculus. He got halfway before he was slammed back against the wall and held there, feet dangling off the floor.

  "I said forget her! There's a back way out of here, Morse. I'm opening it for you now - the security will be disabled for the next thirty seconds. So run. Run!" The command was a snarl at the base of Mister Smith's throat, and it echoed in Albert Morse's mind and soul. Then Mister Smith let him go, and he dropped to the ground.

  "I'll be back for you. Sir." he snarled.

  And then he ran.

  Mister Smith turned slowly in the air, and waited, marshalling his strength.

  "Die, John Doe. Die. For the sake of everyone on this planet, die quickly... and for your own sake, die before you face me."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Big Kill

  I'm lost.

  This place is a maze - endless corridors of grey stone and dripping water, endless twists and turns and stairways that always seem to be leading down, never up. I've just been walking, looking for someone to tell me the way out of here, but it's no go. There must be guards in a place like this. Maybe they're being kept out of my way.

  After all, it's not like I'm going to ask nicely if I find them.

  I'm trying not to think about swallowing my own heart back there, not to mention my lungs, kidneys, small intestine and the rest. There isn't even a scar on my belly now, and it feels like everything's back in place. Frankly, I didn't know I could do that, and I don't know if I could do it again - I never even considered the possibility that I could heal from a simple gunshot wound, never mind being taken apart like a cheap watch and stored in a neat line of jam jars.

  It was like I was in a trance.

  Like an emergency subroutine on a computer made of flesh and bone.

  A catastrophic damage protocol for a meat robot.

  Well, I've got better things to do than think about that, right?

  It's not all damp corridors and wet stone down here - occasionally there are rooms coming off from the main complex, cold stone chambers like cells, dormitories with rows of empty wooden beds, long since fallen into disuse, crowded with cobwebs... I'm getting the impression that this place has been running on fumes for a while.

  Maybe I was the last thing left to study.

  The Boxer mentioned something like that - that I was the last of my kind. In a way, it makes me wish I could have figured out those notes. Or maybe it doesn't.

  Some truths you just don't want to know.

  My head's killing me. I'm going to have to get out into the fresh air before too long. I'm just taking corners at random right now - anything that feels right. That's probably making me even more lost than I was, but what the hell. Eventually I'm bound to come across somebody, surely.

  I push open a heavy oak door and find myself in some kind of mess hall, presumably used by soldiers back when the Tower was more of a going concern than it is now. Or maybe used by whatever secret agents have been running it lately.

  Make that definitely. Someone's been here.

  There are two silver candelabras on each of the oak tables in the room, each one with three candles burning brightly, making the shadows flicker and dance across the walls - none of which makes this place any friendlier. Whoever did the decoration had a strange sense of feng shui.

  Portraits of stern-looking men dressed in everything from doublet and hose to sharp business suits. I can see the Boxer in one of these pictures - 'Albert Morse'. I'll be sure to call him by name when I'm ramming his teeth down his throat.

  Occult runes on some kind of ancient parchment I don't recognise, in temperature-controlled glass cases. Actually, I'm not even sure that is ink on parchment. I think it's a tattoo.

  Some kind of... I'm not even sure what's in this picture, some sort of balloon-headed freak in a three-piece suit that wouldn't look out of place on a ventriloquist's dummy...

  But it's the tapestries that send my blood cold. Great big hanging monstrosities, embroidered with Latin words, occult symbols and God knows what else... and great pictures of snarling wolves tearing into the dead. Everywhere I turn, I can see intricate pictures of wolves, digging at graves, slashing at hanged men, gnawing on skulls.

  All my aggression dissipates. It's like eight pints of ice-cold water's been injected directly into my veins.

  I don't know what the hell I'm doing here. I need to get out. This whole situation is terrifying.

  I'm so scared all of a sudden.

  When was the last time I was this scared?

  Oh, no... it wasn't...

  It was at Sweeney's place.

  When the werewolf was there.

  Suddenly I'm backing away, wanting to run, whatever it was that took me here not enough to keep me from scrambling right out the door and running as far as I can through this goddamn maze until I hit the fresh air.

  But I just freeze in place, looking at those runes, those embroidered red eyes blazing in fur.

  All of a sudden, I can't seem to look anywhere but at those tapestries, and my heart is climbing up into the roof of my mouth and something's going to happen -

  - and then there's a tearing noise and a hairy, clawed hand slashes right through the cloth and suddenly the air is full of howling.

  Oh my God.

  There are tunnels behind the tapestries and they lead right to the wolf pit.

  I don't have time to think of anything else before three more of the tapestries explode into ribbons, the alcoves behind them filled with pulsing, snarling fur and teeth, with cold yellow and blazing red eyes. Four of them. All around me.

  I turn, wanting to run, to get out of there like a hare out of hell, but there's one at the door.

  That's five.

  I'm so afraid.

  They snarl, saliva dripping down onto the wood of the tables. I'm right in the middle of the room. Four of the wolves are circling around the tables, claws clicking on the old cold stone.

  I turn to the one at the door and, Jesus Christ, it's so fast, it's leaping - grab time, grab time and squeeze it like you'd like to squeeze the Boxer's throat, squeeze it tight -

  It's still so fast. My legs give out from under me and I go down and I can feel razor claws raking through my hair, a millimetre from my scalp, one nanosecond away from tearing off the top of my skull like popping a can of mixed nuts. Searing green eyes meeting mine, green as unripe acid apples. Thick, lustrous fur.

  It's young. Untrained. Or that would have finished me. Razor teeth snapping and clacking and chewing me to pieces in quick gulps. Ego and
identity breaking down into chunks. Everything I am chewed and swallowed and shot into the abyss of a wolf's stomach. I'm so afraid.

  I'm looking at the other wolves out of the corner of my eye; fur matted, eyes glowing in red and yellow. Older and more experienced. Easily capable of rending me to pieces. But they're standing there, shifting impotently as this young upstart sails over my head.

  Why aren't they attacking?

  They're shifting around the table, coming at me from around the sides. They're going to get in each other's way like that. Why don't they just jump onto the table and leap from there, catching me between four sets of sharp, savage claws in a slow-motion death scene that I will make last forever, an endless hell of total terror, a fear so deep and terrible that it becomes an agony that never ends, but better than nothing at all, so I'll force myself to feel everything as they —

  Stop it. This is getting me nowhere.

  You were a detective when you got up this morning.

  And that's a clue.

  So why don't they leap over the tables?

  Oh.

  Of course.

  Silver candelabras.

  I break left. Fingers wrap around the handles of the candelabras. It's all so slow.

  I swing the candelabras around, candles flying, flames flickering. The werewolf's already leaping - right for me this time. Great foaming jaws open towards me...

  ...and then the silver sticks smash into them with the kind of force I'd use to knock down a good-size wall with a sledgehammer.

  Stitch that.

  These bastards might be tough as nails but silver is the great equaliser. Sonny-boy's jaw flies apart like a cheap plastic toy from a chocolate egg. The look of fear in those green burning eyes is so goddamned gorgeous I almost don't realise I've left a big hole for the two on my left to come through. They're up on the tables and leaping for my head, claws outstretched...

  Against ordinary enemies this would be a slow-motion ballet, but it's taking everything I've got to keep up with these animals. Candelabras block outstretched claws, smacking them away, breaking the bones of the hands as I jink right, letting them miss me by inches, barrelling into the tables on the other side of the room, burned by the silver.