Finn filed into the assembly hall amidst the other students as they filled the seats from the front closest to the podium. He looked around and nodded to the familiar faces from his last school. Kids were making polite conversation mixed with nervous laughter. Some tapped their feet against the polished wood tiled floor – At least Finn wasn’t the only nervous kid there today.
He swiveled his head round to the back, looking at the rows of empty seats, but thought no more of it. Then the teachers entered and the noise gradually died down.
“That your mom?” Declan pointed to the tall redhead, the history teacher, otherwise known as Mrs Quinn.
Finn took a large breath and nodded. “Don’t give me a hard time over it, ok?”
Declan held up his hands, “hey – She’s hot!”
Finn watched from the corner of his eye as his mom took a seat at the side of the hall.
Principal Blitzer entered from the stage and welcomed the ninth grade to the school. He continued, “you are a very special year group, as you’ll be the first kids in the history of Wellesley High to be learning side by side with morts.”
A collective silence washed over the assembly. It was like the air had been sucked out of the kid’s lungs. How was it possible for morts to be studying at Wellesley High? All the free homes they’d been given were in the poorer areas of the city. Shouldn’t the mort kids be going to school closer to those areas? It just made more sense.
Principal Blitzer straightened, dipped his eyebrows and spoke in a more rash tone. “You will make your new friends feel welcome.” He looked to the side, at the main doors and nodded.
Finn tilted his chin up as the double doors swung inwards with a thud.
Nothing for a few seconds.
Then the first morts emerged, shuffling into the assembly hall. Their uniforms pristine, yet somehow crumpled at the same time. The first mort dragged his leg along the floor, his pale skin flecked with red gashes – A car crash victim? The next, a female and even paler than the first had no visible wounds, other than the look of permanent displeasure upon her countenance – Drowning?
They continued to enter, some pushing others aside as they stumbled toward the back of the hall toward the spare seats. Overall, Finn counted thirty, which would encompass around one in every ten of the year group. Where the heck did they all come from?
Then the stench hit – A dirty, musky, rotten stench you’d expect only a grave robber would enjoy. The male morts ogled the human girls, some salivating down their uniforms before taking seats at the back.
“Zombie freaks.” One kid yelled from the other side of the hall.
Principal Blitzer clocked him and pointed with a finger. “Out!” He watched as the boy stood and made his way out the hall, eyes fixed to the floor. “You can expect a detention tonight. Wait outside my office young man.” He turned back to the assembly and kept the same harsh tone, “the next pupil who tries anything like that will face expulsion and a black mark on his permanent record that will follow you around for the rest of your life. I’ll also see to it that you’re sent to a re-education camp – You got that?”
Finn, along with the rest of the wide eyed kids nodded their heads in compliance.
*
He knew it before the lab partners were even assigned. It was always his luck. Finn was partnered with Mortimer Jones, a victim of an electrocution who never shut up about how mortist electricity was.
“If you don’t like electricity then just stay away from it.” Finn told him, doubting his advice would be heeded. He remembered falling from a tree when he was nine, breaking his arm. After that he stopped climbing trees.
Even now, Mortimer on the other hand was using a pair of scissors to jab at the centrifuge, a human invention that he obviously despised, yet couldn’t leave alone.
“Electricity be mortist.” He spat, glancing over Finns neck as he finally put the scissors down, only to pick up a glass bottle filled with some colorless acid. His body swayed as he tried reading the label before, after a few seconds, he gave up and dropped the bottle into the sink.
Finn saw the flash as the basin shattered into a million fragments.
*
Kerry looked over her grade 9 history class. Only three morts this morning, so it would be a nice and easy learning curve before the afternoon’s class which contained considerably more.
She scanned down the register at their names; Morton Baines, Mortimer Jones and Mortinez Smith. They all looked kind of similar, with their sickly grey green withered skin and that dead-eyed expression that screamed they had absolutely no interest in learning about the great depression of 1929.
The morts all sat together at the back. A number of the human kids in front had shifted their desks further forward, doubtless to escape the putrid stench of death. It did no good though – Kerry easily smelt them and she was further away than anybody.
She held a closed fist to her mouth and coughed. “You three,” she pointed to the morts, “how about we switch you around.” The guidelines stated the mort kids were supposed to be integrated with the humans and that wouldn’t happen if they all sat clumped together at the back.
No response from the morts. They just continued sitting there, staring blankly forward, that same look of pure hatred in their eyes as though all they wanted was to chew her flesh, or the flesh of their human classmates. Green tinted drool spilled down the chin of one, which one, Kerry couldn’t tell. Had they even understood her? “Morton, Mortimer and Mortinez, could you please switch with…”
…They shot to their feet in unison and banged down hard on the desk, seething from the nose, “we heard,” the middle mort, with a stump for a leg said.
“Well then…” Kerry held out an opened hand, gesturing to three empty seats in the center.
They shuffled forward, scraping their feet along the ground as they did, staring lust at the necks of the female human students. Kerry swallowed and glanced over at Finn who sat at the front, slightly off to the side.
“Ok then, we’ll be making a start today on the…” Kerry paused, squinting her eyes at the text. Why the heck were they learning this? Had they changed the program over the holidays? “…second cholera epidemic.” Sure it was an event in history, but whether it was worthy of teaching the ninth grade was open to opinion.
Kerry read the text and answered questions from pupils as she went along. She noted how the morts seemed more interested in the necks of female students and muttering to themselves under their breaths than in how cholera was brought to the Americas through various shipping routes. That however soon changed as the lesson progressed to the numbers of dead and how there’d been so many bodies that they were piled upon each other in the fields and set alight.
At that point the morts perked up, stared holes of rage through their human classmates as though desiring only the most ugly kind of revenge for past crimes. The poor human kids shrank back in their seats, making themselves small. At least three of them turned to the morts and mouthed an apology for the crimes of their ancestors, even though they had literally nothing to do with it.
Not that the apology appeased the morts. Two of them spat red bile onto the desks in front.
Kerry handed out the tests and returned to her desk. Then during the next hour she spent some time analyzing the plans for the terms remaining lessons. Small pox, yellow fever, Spanish flu and polio were all covered. She swallowed again and felt the lump in her throat. At this rate, the mort kids would be so enraged at their human classmates for past crimes that she feared they’d be targeted in the playground. She glanced over at Finn as he worked, her eyes softening.
Then Finn finished, placed down his pen and sat back. Within a few minutes the rest of the class had also finished despite there still being another thirty minutes of test time remaining. Only the morts still stared down at their papers, one chewing through the end of his pen.
After the allotted time, Kerry collected the papers and dismissed the class for lunch. She
finished marking the tests of the human students and puffed out her cheeks. Every last human had scored in excess of ninety percent. Sure, the tests had been dumbed down to accommodate the morts, but even this was surprising. The three mort tests at the bottom of the stack needed carefully separating from the green tinted bile that smudged the papers and stuck them together. Alas, this green tinted bile encompassed the entire range of answers the morts had given. Not a single question had been answered correctly, indeed not a single question had been attempted.
Kerry took out her red pen and wrote ‘C-‘ on each paper. She was under strict instructions to look favorably upon each mort. She exhaled and joked, “at this rate, they’ll soon be Harvard graduates.”
Meanwhile At Harvard
Harvard Square buzzed with students strolling through the hub conversing with friends, cyclists rode past taking care to avoid errant pedestrians absorbed with cell phones and the restaurants and cafes of Harvard’s social center teemed with life.
As Shannon surveyed the thriving scene, there was however one thing missing. Where the fuck were all the dead students? Sure, Harvard was an Ivy League institution, but that didn’t excuse them from having to admit members from the mort community. Where were they all?
Then she spotted one. Just off Massachusetts Avenue, in the grounds of the Digital Media Academy, a solitary mort raked leaves on the grass. Or at least he attempted to rake leaves, for the most part actually just standing around whilst the leaves scattered on the breeze. His arm bent behind his body to some obscene degree and as he turned around, distracted by a small group of female students who chatted happily as they walked over the grass, the morts mangled face came into view - Motorcycle accident?
Then Gavin and a couple of guys Shannon recognized from Med School exited Dunkin’ Donuts. Her knees almost weak, she grabbed the placard from the floor and held it high. She checked the writing, ensuring it was still readable, ‘End Oppression Now!’ Thankfully the morning rain hadn’t smudged it.
Gavin walked within ten meters - Damn he was just so hot. That hair, spikey at the back, sigh, like that should ever be allowed at Med School, the bad boy.
She inflated her chest and shouted, “End Oppression Now!”
One of Gavin’s friends raised an eyebrow, the tall, skinny one with pockmarks, but Gavin betrayed no reaction.
“End Oppression Now!” She shouted to his back.
“Oppression? What do you mean oppression?” Some spotty kid, probably from computer science appeared from behind and stood too close.
“Huh?” She said, gathering herself.
“What are you protesting about?” The kid sniffed.
Shit – All she’d wanted to do was gain the attention of Gavin. She glanced over at the mort as it abandoned the leaves and lay down on a bench. “I’m protesting about how the zom…Um, how the morts are oppressed within society – Yeah, that’s what I’m doing.”
“Why?”
She gestured out at the square. “Take a look around. How many morts do you see who are students here?”
The kid’s eyes darted up for a second. “But this is Harvard. You ever met a mort who could get in here fair and square?”
She paused for a second. “No, but that doesn’t mean no mort should be allowed in.”
“Why?”
“Well, because, it’s not right. They should make entry easier for them.” She nodded to herself.
The kid sniffed, “but wouldn’t that lower standards for all; morts and humans alike? I mean, I’m all in favor of having morts attend Harvard as long as they’re not given any special treatment.”
Her eyes glazed over, she chewed her bottom lip, something ticked in her brain. The kid had logical arguments but it still meant that morts would lose out and it was all because of the evil human – This could only mean one thing. “You’re a mortist aren’t you?”
The kid stepped back, his mouth dropped open, eyes widened, “w…what?” He asked as though temporarily incapacitated.
“Mortist!” Shannon shouted the word, pointing at the kid. Wow, she’d won the argument by the mere use of a single word. She’d be sure to use this tactic again in the future. “Don’t you see it? Mortism must be defeated so that everybody, both living and dead can live together in peace. The way humans have treated the dead for so long is criminal, it’s nothing short of mortism by hate filled humans. This hate, this extremism, this mortism has to stop. Humans must atone for their past evils and usher in a new era of tolerance.”
The kid turned to the side, wiping his forehead. “Um, I have to go now.” He rushed across the street, almost stumbling over the curb.
Shannon’s heart soared as the mortist retreated back in the direction of the computer labs. How dare he ask questions challenging the wisdom of giving the dead advantages the living didn’t have – That was just soooo mortist!
Damn it – Why wasn’t Gavin around to see that?
*
Shannon took the bus back to Wellesley. She made her way toward the rear as all the seats up front were already taken. Along the dead only section at the back, several morts sat, salivating whilst staring lustfully at the humans. One tried and repeatedly failed to catch a fly in his hand.
Shannon shivered, then took a seat beside a human, a couple rows from the back. She opened her book and tried to concentrate, but the noise from behind proved too distracting.
“Thaoaehrnaleruaer.” One of them articulated, then, “Harrughhhhh.”
Shannon slammed the book closed and exhaled.
The human to her side leaned in close. “The least they can do is talk our fucking language.”
Shannon stood and turned toward the back. She tilted her head up, rolled back her shoulders and then, as if making a spectacle of it all, began walking the three steps to the rear and took a seat with ceremony.
She glared down the aisle from between two rotting morts. Nobody looked, but she covered her nose anyway. “Will someone please fucking notice me!”
Executive Order 11246
Up on the ninth floor, John pondered how long the job was taking. Sure, they’d suffered a major setback, losing poor Jimmy Doyle, but John hoped to start on the tenth shortly. He’d since hired a new guy, Roarke O’Flynn, with fifteen years’ experience in the trade. He was good, knowledgeable, hardworking and would prove an asset to the company. On the far wall, Roarke attached the plaster board with a rare speed and efficiency. They were back on schedule.
The elevator doors pinged open. Roarke who banged nails into the wall turned round to look, causing a ripple effect as twenty heads turned to see Jimmy Doyle dragging his leg along the floor. His right foot, which trailed far behind his leg, pointed the wrong way, his neck hung way off to one side, causing his head to hang beyond the shoulder. On top of all that, he now staggered with a major stoop, as though somebody had taken a sledgehammer to the spine – He was fucked up alright.
The ninth fell silent, save for the scraping of Jimmy Doyle’s foot on floorboard. Roarke dumped his hammer in the tool box and took a step closer, folding his arms across his giant chest. Everybody else ceased what they were doing too. Fergus seemed to take a few steps toward Jimmy Doyle, perhaps to offer assistance but then thought better of it.
John folded his arms as the shambling mess approached – How long would this take? Should he close the gap, help him out? Maybe not.
Finally, after several minutes, Jimmy Doyle stopped a few paces from John, the stench wafting through his breathing apparatus. John felt the overwhelming urge to cover his nostrils, but thought it better to at least try and be polite. “Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused me?” John asked, looking Jimmy Doyle cold in the eyes. “I’ve had the Department of Labor breathing up my asshole.”
Jimmy Doyle didn’t flinch, blink or even breathe, just kind of gazed through John with empty eyes. “Me…Job…Give back…Now!” His jaw must’ve suffered a shattering on the asphalt because the grating sound it made came out louder than the actual
words.
“Fuck off!” John said, turning away, finally bringing a hand up to cover his nose and mouth.
After a few seconds, the shuffling sounds started up again. Then after several minutes the elevator doors pinged to a close.
It was around three hours later when the damn elevator opened again. This time Jimmy Doyle was accompanied by a tall, rake thin, bespectacled human in suit and tie, with the face of a dead fish. The man waited for Jimmy Doyle to suffer his way to John, though he offered no assistance. Had the man nothing better to do? John checked his watch and considered making a start on installing the lighting. Then Jimmy Doyle neared and just as before, the workmen downed tools and stared as the shambling mess that was their former colleague approached the boss.
“Mr Quinn?” The man asked.
“Yes.”
“Hello, my name’s Tony Dankworth and I’m a Mort Assimilation Enforcement Officer from the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.” An ID badge hung around his neck with his name and ‘OFCCP’ printed in large letters. “I’m afraid we’ve received a complaint.”
John bucked. The little snitch. Jimmy stared blankly forward, nothing in those dead eyes. John had a good idea where this was heading. More worthless government taxpayer funded bureaucrats snooping around his business while the real men got on with the work and actually put money into the economy. “Carry on.”
“Mr Doyle tells me you’re discriminating against him on grounds of mort status. As you may or may well not know, Mr Quinn, that under Executive Order 11246, it is illegal to discriminate against somebody just because they’re dead. You must treat the living and the dead equally as according to the law, Mr Quinn.” Dankworth, the sniveling toad took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. He took a few seconds to recompose himself, turning his nose up at the laborers among him.
Zombie Society - They Live Among Us Page 3