DISEASE: A Zombie Novel

by M. F. Wahl

  Judy was undeterred. “They just need someone to love them,” she responded.

  The administrator wanted order above all else. He didn’t want trouble, and he didn’t want waves. “When they’re fourteen they’re not our problem anymore, Judy. They can be released back to their families, or put into the state prison system, depending on what you recommend. I’ve seen a lot of people come through here with lofty goals. They think they can rehabilitate every boy in here.”

  Judy smiled sweetly at him. “I have no such illusions and I know the difference I can make is only a small one, but I’m willing to be happy with that. I don’t think I can save these boys, I only want to improve the time they spend with us.”

  “I’ve stopped counting the number of people I’ve hired for this position. We can’t have someone in here that’s a soft touch. These boys will eat you alive if you can’t follow through with discipline.”

  Judy folded her hands into her lap and considered the man before her. He was short, slightly balding, and a sickly greyish color. Maybe he had once held that same lofty hope to rehabilitate the boys, but true to form they had indeed eaten him alive. She smiled reassuringly at the pallid imp across the desk.

  “I assure you, sir, that I am no stranger to using a firm hand when necessary.”

  She was hired on the spot.

  ***

  They were nearly ready to beat down the door after the incident with Danny. It wasn’t quite a mob, but it certainly wasn’t a calm and orderly gathering. Was Lot okay? Was the search party going to kill Danny? What did he want with the child? Who exactly is Alex anyway?

  Lot let the pot simmer, hiding away and refusing to answer questions. Now, as she stands at the end of a large conference room jammed with citizens, it’s time to bring it to a boil.

  Despite the shocking circumstances that have everyone riled up, there is an electricity in the air that can only be described as festive. The anger-fueled excitement is palpable, the unfolding drama a break from the monotony of people’s dreary existences. Men, women, and children all stretch their necks to catch a glimpse of their beloved leader.

  A hush surges through the crowd as Lot holds up a hand for silence, wincing at the pain in her battered arm. Those close to her murmur in concern.

  Once the room is quiet, Lot speaks, her heavyhearted voice carrying over the heads of her loyal subjects. “Please, everyone. I know you all have questions.”

  A few random people shout displeasure. “What’s going on?”

  “You should have called this meeting yesterday!”

  There is shushing.

  “No, no. It’s okay. They are valid questions. The truth is, it’s taken me so long to gather you all here because I didn’t know what to say. I’ve never dealt with anything like this, and I am also embarrassed, so deeply ashamed to have to share with you my darkest days.”

  Murmurs ripple through the crowd. Opie waves his hand impatiently to calm people down.

  “Tell us, Lot.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I consider you all family, you know this, my brothers and sisters, but there’s only one person I ever considered to be my son: Danny.”

  Hissing and jeering fills the room. Good. Lot looks down at the ground, fending off tears for the benefit of the group. A few voices rise, telling others to quiet down, to shut up. Lot composes herself and continues, her voice wavering with emotion.

  “I have been weak… Danny is a predator… I did my best to contain him, and his urges. I thought I could shelter you all from him, that I had him under control, but I was blinded by my own selfish need to have my son by my side.”

  Her words sit on the room, suffocating it, no one knows what to say or how to react. Lot stands hunched before the crowd, a fragile mother, beaten down by the reality of what her son has done. She wobbles on her feet and reaches out a hand for Opie, who stabilizes her. A few tears escape, sliding down her cheek.

  “I never thought he would do this, that it could come to this. I knew he was… deviant… but I thought I could help him, change him. Now he’s taken the boy Alex, for his own uses. A search party has gone after him with the slim hope of saving the child.”

  Silence. The crowd is breathless, but it only takes one person to burst the levee. Hannah, Jamal’s mother, the defense-lawyer turned mortician, breaks free of the crowd and steps forward.

  She kneels before Lot and takes her leader’s hand. “We can’t begin to repay you for everything you’ve done for us,” Hannah looks over her shoulder challenging the leering crowd. “You’ve done something for every single one of us here. You’ve given us food when we were hungry, antibiotics when we were sick, and shelter when we were cold. You’ve provided us training and taught us skills to survive. You’ve been a shoulder to cry on when we thought we had nothing. You’ve always kept order fairly and selflessly and I’ll never turn my back on you. You are mother to us all.”

  Almost instantly, consoling hands surround Lot. They pat her, and hug her. Lips on her cheeks, hands on her arm. Fingers reach out and brush her hair, touch her blouse and the skirt she now wears. They want to feel her. The crowd churns with worshipers desperate to see, to be seen, to comfort, to encourage.

  They press in, swarming like ants, the entire room a living mass with Lot as its head.

  ***

  Opie holds the door to the hallway allowing a frail and overwhelmed Lot through. The people are still trying to reach her, some are even crying. It’s been going on like this for about an hour, and Opie has never seen anything like it. This is the kind of fervor he imagines enshrouded the followers of Elvis Presley or Mahatma Gandhi… or Adolf Hitler.

  He closes the door, shutting out the crushing force of the crowd, and holds up a candle against the dark. They are alone and can finally breathe.

  The mass religious experience Opie just witnessed is a side note to the metamorphosis taking place before him, right now. He’s seen behind Lot’s mask uncountable times, but this stuns even his jaded eyes. The penanced camouflage of a crestfallen leader slides easily from her face, leaving cold control and manipulation in its place.

  Lot wipes her face free of tears, fake, every single one, and smiles at Opie. “That went well, don’t you think?”

  Opie nods just once. Up. Down. Never in his life has he been so grateful to be on Lot’s good side. He had warned Danny not to poke a stick at the lion and had been ignored. If the fugitive isn’t dead already Lot will surely make him wish he was, and those clowns in the other room will pat themselves on the back for a job well done.

  ***

  Lot stands at a window, staring out. Thick vines grow at her feet and cling to window glass. She’s on the top floor of the hotel, her performance in the boardroom hours past. It’s the only place without fortified windows, the only area that has any natural light.

  Many of the southern-facing rooms have been converted to crop growing space. As the colony grows, so does its food needs, and while the outdoor courtyard in the middle of the hotel produces plenty of fruits and vegetables, it just isn’t an adequate supply to feed all the hungry mouths. For now the indoor farm helps, and is a temporary measure until a safe outdoor area can be constructed.

  On the north side, where the least sun shines, they keep chickens and even a few goats. Eggs and milk are a staple of the community’s diet. Without them, protein would be much harder to come by.

  Lot finds it relaxing to be up here. This is the only place she can find true escape. It’s easy to imagine she’s in an atrium, in some exotic location. One of the only things she misses about the Old World is being able to travel, and to see the sights at will.

  She has been to Paris once, and had always planned to go back. It isn’t a dream she’s prepared to give up. There still has to be functioning jetliners out there in the world somewhere, and the pilots to fly them.

  Lot thinks in a few years, when she has solidified her hold on the surrounding communities, she can round up former electricia
ns and engineers. People that might know a thing or two about maintaining infrastructure. She envisions a time when she commands authority over large swaths of countryside.

  There is a power plant about sixty miles northeast. With the proper people and TLC, maybe it can be brought back online. From there it’s only a skip and a hop to modern niceties such as travel.

  The world would come back to life under her guiding hand. No more politicians, no more pretend democracy. Only what Lot, and others like her, created. Like many things in life, the destruction of civilization is just a blessing in disguise.

  Before The Plague, “The Center” was under investigation for tax fraud. It was a desperate move by law enforcement to find something, anything that could be used against her.

  They were scared of her growing influence.

  It started after the suicide of a church member, who also happened to be the son of a politician. All hell had rained down. First the FBI, then the IRS. There were raids and interrogations, but not a single person broke. Her people always remained loyal, they loved her more than their own children. She made sure of it.

  The authorities discovered nothing. The ruse to investigate her found every “t” crossed and “i” dotted. Even the donated life savings of every member of her group had been claimed as income, but that hadn’t stopped the harassment.

  When the world disintegrated it took with it the e-mail hacking, the wire-tapping, the nonstop phone calls and pointless raids. It took the greedy lawyers, obsessed prosecutors, and disgruntled family members. Lot was able to spin The Plague as evidence of divine intervention to her followers and cinch her position of power even in the face of death.

  Of course very few of those faithful, original followers were spared, just Opie, Danny, and a handful of others. Only two of those people know her true face, and that number is about to fall by one. Should have fallen years ago, Opie has been right all along.

  Anger burns inside of Lot like a hot coal. She just can’t let Danny’s betrayal go. How dare he, the one thought that runs on a loop. How dare he try to turn those that love her against her? How dare he take what is hers? How dare he think he can leave her? She owns him.

  Lot watches the forest. The land is still. Not a single creature to be seen, no movement, nothing. It is deceptively stagnant outside. If she could make the search team appear with sheer force of will, she would.

  They had better locate Danny.

  As much as she wants to see his head on a pike, she wants to see him suffer more. She wants to look into his eyes and see defeat. She wants him to know he never had a chance, not against her. She wants to break his spirit and his body. She wants to see him beg and when he begs, not for mercy, but for death, she will draw out his torture. She wants him to know that she can’t be beaten, that he is nothing. She wants to consume his soul.

  Lost in obsession, Lot continues to stare out the window, longing for the search party to bring Danny back alive. Big plans have already been set into motion and everything will be ready when they drag him back, kicking and screaming. God, she hopes he screams.

  16

  They’ve only been walking for a short while and Danny’s side throbs unceasingly. Each step allows the gods of the underworld to strum their fiery fingers across every nerve bundle in his body. He stares ahead, his arms bound behind his back, his head swimming in a thick fog of shock. Deer flies bite through his shirt and sucking what blood he has left. A rough prod from behind keeps his feet moving.

  Shadows stutter through the trees. It’s hard for Danny to focus; they might not be real. Black whispers. No one else notices; they have their hands full with two gravely injured men. A valiant effort is being made to bring everyone home alive.

  Habib drags between Jamal and Thick Marge, barely conscious. He’s the lucky one. Brody and Dennis toil under Rob’s weight, trying to guide him forward as quickly as possible. He whimpers and moans unceasingly. Noises gargle from the hole where his mouth and face used to be. Hamburger. There was discussion of putting Rob out of his misery, but no one was willing to do it. He has to be given a fighting chance.

  More shadows. Danny’s sure he sees them now and stops. Arnold jams the muzzle of his gun between his ribs and his face deforms as thick ropes of pain constrict him.

  “Get going,” his captor gripes, while looking down at his compass.

  Danny feels like a horse leading a cart in a demented sideshow. “This is the place.”

  Arnold’s head shoots up and he halts the group.

  “Where’s the body?”

  “Over there.”

  Danny nods toward a bunch of low-lying bushes.

  “Where?” Arnold isn’t easily fooled. A creeping anxiety trickles through Danny’s subconscious. He swallows hard, mouth dry, heart pounding, oozing precious blood onto his already saturated shirt. He shivers.

  “I’d point for you but you’ve got me tied up. If you’d be kind enough to cut the zip-tie—”

  “Shut up.” Arnold approaches the bushes uneasily and peers through the branches, trying to catch a glimpse of the boy’s body through the twigs and thicket.

  He cautiously leans closer. A bird shoots out toward the sky with a loud rustle and he jumps back, heart pounding. With a glance back at Danny, who’s unsteady on his feet and barely reacts, Arnold shakes his head thinking they’ll be lucky to get him back to Lot alive. He turns back to the bush.

  Someone screams—the high-pitch of pure fear. With a hand on his knife Arnold spins around to see a ghoul clawing at Brody’s leg. Teeth rip through thigh muscle, blood geysers through the air. Skeletal fingers pry deep, scraping bone and Brody collapses, shrieking in terror and pain.

  Dennis drops his hold on Rob-hamburger-face and fumbles for his weapon. It slips from his fingers into the mud and he backs away from the ghoul that tears Brody to shreds.

  Left alone, Rob panics, running in blind zigzags.

  More creatures pour in from the surrounding forest. They lurch for Thick Marge and she whips out her machete. Next to her Jamal lets go of Habib and the semi-conscious man slumps to the ground.

  A creature barrels for Arnold. It’s fast, but he sidesteps it. It spins on a dime and goes for him again. He jumps out of the way, tries to get behind it, but where he turns, it turns.

  He buries his blade in its decayed sinuses and uses the knife as a handle to control the ghoul’s head, keeping its teeth away. It swings its arms tirelessly, grasping for its prey.

  Rob hits Arnold from behind.

  The impact sends them both plunging to the ground, the creature going down with them, a tangle of arms and legs. Arnold loses his grip on his knife. Snapping teeth whisper by.

  Arnold revolts. He kicks Rob to the side and shoves the creature’s repulsive face and menacing teeth away with his hands. The skin on the ghoul’s face splits and peels like an over-ripe tomato, uncovering decayed muscle. Arnold is left with handfuls of rotten meat.

  The creature sinks its teeth deeply into his arm.

  Terror sweeps through the group. Creatures grapple mercilessly with the living, never slowed, never tired, never-ending. Danny stands untouched as chaos swirls around him. He backs slowly away from the madness.

  The sharp stick of a large-bladed hunting knife pokes him in the back. The point presses almost hard enough to pierce the skin. He stiffens.

  “Over my dead body,” Thick Marge growls in his ear and shoves him to his knees. A decayed carcass slams down right in front of Danny, a knife in its eye. Arnold kicks it once, for good measure, and turns to put down another.

  Thick Marge plunges her knife through the skull of another ghoul that crawls on the ground. It’s missing a leg, lost somewhere in the skirmish.

  Arnold knifes the last creature. He wheezes, trying to catch his breath, trying to subdue panic. Dead bodies litter the surrounding area. All that’s left of Habib and Rob are stains on the ground. They’ve been completely torn to shreds.

  Brody isn’t so lucky. He reaches out, begging w
eakly for help. Great lengths of intestine pool around his body. Half the skin on his scalp and face are missing. The lower half of his body is hanging by threads. There’s no good reason the poor man should still be alive.

  Arnold closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. When he opens them Dennis is standing over Brody.

  Brody looks up at Dennis, eyes wide, not understanding. “Help me stand up, would you, please?”

  Dennis frowns and looks back at Arnold. Arnold nods—it has to be done. Dennis squats and fishes his lost knife out of the mud. Brody reaches up. “Just help me get to my feet man, would ya?”

  Dennis holds his friend’s head gently in his lap and draws his knife across Brody’s neck. It’s quick and merciful. Brody’s hand falls to the ground and he is still.

  Arnold turns his eyes to his arm. It hurts like a bitch. A huge chunk of flesh is missing. Half of the USMC tattoo on his forearm is gone, the eagle missing its head and half its body. Dismembered wings bleed hot and sticky down the side of the earth still clasped in its talons.

  Arnold calmly walks to Thick Marge, stepping around the kneeling Danny, and puts a hand on her shoulder.

  “I’m bit, Marge.” The statement falls flatly from his mouth. He can hear his own words, but they don’t sound real. Thick Marge glances at Arnold’s bleeding arm while keeping Danny in her crosshairs. “How long?”

  “An hour, maybe two if I’m lucky. Then I’ll turn. Could be less, much less. I doubt longer.”

  She nods.

  “Jesus,” Jamal chokes.

  Arnold feels like something suddenly kick-starts. He crash lands back into his own body, ready to live, ready to fight. His heart races. “I could be immune you know. I’ve heard of that. They say the dead rise because hell is full, but I’m not going to hell. I’m a good man. I could have a chance.”

  Thick Marge closes her eyes for just a second and shakes her head. “Javier…”

  “No!” he shouts, pounds on his chest. “I have a chance! I am a God-fearing man!”