The Zombie Whisperer (Living With the Dead)

by Jesse Petersen

“But?” Dave pushed, seemingly less affected by the good news and pressing for bad like it was going out of style.

  Josh cleared his throat. “We did find some zombie properties when we compared your blood to the baby’s.”

  “Wait, I thought you said no zombie properties?” I asked, pushing to my feet. Josh took that as a threat, apparently, because he backed up a step.

  “Okay, so here’s the thing about Dave. When you look at normal zombie samples or fluids, the cells are completely enveloped by zombie DNA mutation. The cells are dead, but pumped alive by this… this invading force caused by the virus created here in this lab. They’re all just… surrounded.”

  “Okay,” Dave said, but I could see the interest in his eyes. He wanted to know what the deal was with his zombie-ism. “And?”

  “The difference between you and them,” Robbie picked up where Josh had stopped as Josh searched through a pile of papers for something. “Is that your cells are being attacked by the zombie mutation, in fact it’s happening all the time, but because you were exposed to the serum immediately after the first bite, your cells constantly regenerate, rebuild, so a cell is attacked by zombie infection and it immediately regenerates. That’s why you’re stronger, you’re faster, you have like twice the amount of cells you should.”

  Josh held up a still photo that looked like it had been taken off of a microscope. Pink cells, probably from a stain placed on the on the sample, were being attacked by black stuff. The ones damaged were already black around their ragged edges, some were grey and solid, like they were dead. But there were others, dozens of others, hundreds.

  “These are pictures from Dave’s sample?” I asked as I reached out to take it and we put our heads together to examine the evidence of his super powers closer.

  “No,” Josh said. “Um, that’s from the baby.”

  “Okay,” I whispered as pressure stated to build in my chest. “Okay…”

  Dave put his arm around me waist and pretty much held me up. “What does that mean? You said no zombie but this black stuff looks pretty zombie to me.”

  “It is,” Josh said. “But like you, the baby is super-producing healthy cells. Cells that defeat the zombie cells, cells that just overpower them due to their sheer volume. Nadia, can you-”

  He waved in my direction and Nadia nodded, then got up and started toward me.

  I put my hands up, ready to defend myself even as Dave shoved me behind him.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he snapped.

  She flinched. “I just want to look at Sarah,” she reassured him softly. “I’m not going to do anything.”

  I peeked around his shoulder at her. She didn’t look crazy or like a zealot. She looked kind of… sad. Like she felt bad for me.

  “Fine,” I said I moved toward her. “But if you do anything to me or my baby, he’s going to go zombie on your ass. You won’t like it.”

  I motioned to Dave and she nodded. “Understood. Can you lean on the edge of the table there?”

  She pointed to a table up against the wall behind us and I did so. She lifted my shirt a little and glanced at me. “Have you noticed changes in your body?”

  I shrugged. “Pants were tight today, I figure it’s part of, you know, growing a fucking baby in my uterus.”

  “Yeah, but your stomach didn’t look like this three days ago.” She pointed and I looked down. There was definitely a bigger swelling there. A real baby bump, as the stupid tabloids used to call it when referring to celebrities a year ago.

  Robbie nodded. “The cell issue is making the baby grow faster. Considering the growth we saw in the lab and the progress we’re just seeing visually, I’d say you’ll have him in six months rather than nine and he’ll be fully developed. If the rate increases, which it might, we could see a baby from you in even as little as four to five.”

  “Wait, I thought you said I was already four and a half months along!” I burst out, touching that belly swell protectively.

  Nadia nodded. “Actually, that explains the misalignment of your last cycle with the growth of the baby. You are three months pregnant, but the baby’s growth was charted at about four and a half months along. Three days ago, anyway.”

  I swallowed. “So what does that mean? When this baby comes out in two weeks or six weeks or six months-”

  “It won’t be six months,” The Kid interjected and I glared to shut him up.

  “When it comes out,” I continued. “What is it going to be?”

  Colonel Fenton shoved to his feet suddenly. He had been curiously quiet until now, but he stared at me as he said, “That’s the big question, isn’t it? Monster or man? Super soldier in child form? Or just a zombie after all?”

  I swallowed at the possibilities. At the look in his eyes.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked, straightening up from the table to meet his eyes. He didn’t look away, though I wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not.

  “What is there to do, Sarah?” he asked with a shrug. “We wait for your baby to come and then we see.”

  Another wave of relief crested over me. “So you aren’t going to take it.”

  “Him,” Josh corrected.

  I glanced at Dave.

  “Him?”

  Nadia nodded, as if to verifying Josh’s statement in case we didn’t believe him or didn’t understand. “Closer inspection of the pictures, plus the DNA analysis says it’s a boy.”

  Dave stared at me, just stared. “A boy,” he finally repeated under his breath. “Well, that’s… something.”

  “I assume we aren’t under lockdown,” I asked.

  Fenton smiled slightly. “You’ve never been under lockdown. I think your ability to go outside the perimeter of the fence today should have shown you that.”

  “I had your girlfriend as escort,” I hissed. “And she had plenty of ways she could get rid of me or stop me. It wasn’t exactly the freedom train out there.”

  He frowned and shot a quick glance to Lisa, who shrugged.

  “Well, if it hasn’t been made clear, you have never been under lockdown,” he said. “If you want to go, feel free, though I can’t spare the fuel to return you to Montana. You’d have to find your own way home.”

  I dug my fingers into my palms at that. We’d escaped this city once, I knew we could do it again.

  I just didn’t fucking want to. Once was more than enough.

  “Seems like we have a lot to discuss, so since we aren’t in lockdown, my husband and I are going,” I said, grabbing Dave’s hand and dragging him toward the door. “Thanks for the information.”

  With that, we left, slamming the door behind us. We headed down the stairs toward the sleeping quarters in silence, but there were all these unspoken questions, all these unspoken fears between us. And they were going to have to be addressed sooner rather than later.

  Which sucked since I could kill a zombie like nobody’s business, but I still sort of hated interpersonal conflict and avoided it whenever possible.

  Chapter Twelve

  Baby books are great, but never underestimate the power of the advice of other moms… or your own instincts.

  I stared out the window of our room. It was dark outside, of course, but there were still some flickering lanterns around the fence line for the watch to see by. Behind the fence, I saw the occasional dart of movement and I knew what it was.

  Zombies.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I turned from the window to look at Dave. He was standing in the candlelight by our bed. In the weird light, he looked a little… gray. Not quite zombie gray, but still…

  “What? Why?” I asked.

  He sat down with a thump on the hard and uncomfortable dorm mattress (in Montana we’d had a king-sized super awesome bed, I would like to mention) and shook his head.

  “I should have been more careful,” he explained. “I shouldn’t have let you get pregnant.”

  I know I should have acted with a little more compassion,
but I admit, I snorted.

  “Please, that’s the most ridiculous statement you’ve ever made. And that’s saying something, David, because you’ve said some hella ridiculous things in all our years together.”

  “No Jokey Sarah, please,” he said, covering his face with his hands.

  I pursed my lips. Shit, he was really busted up. With a sigh, I came over and sat down next to him, wrapping my arm around his shoulder and smoothing my hand over his warm skin to comfort him.

  “Baby, come on,” I said. “You and I are married and we do what we do when the lights go off. It’s not 1952, you aren’t somehow gender-bound to ‘protect’ me from babies… or zombie babies. Or zombies with babies, even, when you come right down to it.”

  He lifted his face from his hands and shot me a look.

  “Sorry,” I said with a smile. “Jokey Sarah has a strong grip on me. I try to make her hide, but she is mean and powerful.”

  He smiled back and then stared from my face down my body to my poochy stomach. “So, how are you digesting this?”

  “Not well,” I admitted. “I mean, super baby with zombie attributes, growing in my stomach at some kind of accelerated growth rate. Sounds… scary.”

  He nodded. “Totally scary.”

  I touched the newly swollen stomach that said, “Hey there’s a kid in here, check it out.”

  “But, you know, it’s not a zombie. And it’s a boy. And he is probably going to be sort of awesome.”

  Dave seemed to ponder that for a while. “I hope so. But, um, what if we fuck it up as parents.”

  I laughed. “I’m sure we’ll totally fuck it up as parents, David. We’ll swear too much and I’ll be snarky and you’ll make him read comic books that will scare the shit out of him. He’ll probably end up just like The Kid, God help us.”

  Dave laughed. “That wouldn’t be so bad, I guess. The Kid is a little shit, but he’s also sort of amazing in his own way.”

  “So we’ll shoot for that, okay? We’ll make sure our little boy is a little shit, but amazing in his own way.”

  “Seems like a plan.” He lay back on the narrow bed, toeing off his shoes as he yawned.

  “Dave,” I said. “I still want to help here. That may mean I’m going to go out sometimes. That may mean I’m going to fight zombies.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. “Yeah, I know. And you know that I’m still going to be snippy about it and overly protective.”

  “Yeah.” I smoothed the hair back from his forehead and smiled. "It's kind of our thing, isn’t it?”

  He nodded, but I could see he was getting overcome by exhaustion. Emotional sleep I used to call it (though I was much pissier about it back then). Dave had always gotten tired when he was super stressed.

  “I won’t be up too late,” I promised.

  He grunted and rolled over and I left him there, doing his zombie breathing thing and headed into the hallway.

  #

  I don’t know what I intended to do as I roamed the hallways. But unlike Dave, I couldn’t sleep when I was stressed. My mind would race, running over options, scenarios, fears, plans until I wanted to scream from how loud all that shit was in my head.

  Tonight was no different and I moved through the hallways, pondering everything that had happened since all this started so long ago.

  Only one thing pierced my thoughts and that was the faint sound of voices as I turned a corner and headed down a dark hallway. At first I thought they were from people in the makeshift bedrooms in the old professor offices, but there were too many, they were too loud and I moved toward them like a little bee to honey.

  I found an open door and a large room filled with light from lanterns and candles. It looked like it had been a conference room of some kind, but the old table had been shoved to a back wall and replaced with some couches in a half-circle. Couches currently inhabited by Nadia, Drea, McCray and Nicole. There was a big, black dog lying next to Nadia and she stroked his head gently.

  “Hey,” I said softly as I stood in the doorway. The group all stopped talking at once and turned to stare at me. I could see it in their eyes that I had been the topic of conversation. “Is it okay if I join you, or will that mess up anything you’re saying about me?”

  Nicole shrugged. “Of course, come in.” She motioned to an empty seat near Nadia.

  She and McCray smiled and they were totally real, but I could see the others were more uncomfortable.

  “I get it,” I reassured them as I sat down on a comfy chair and tucked my feet up under me. “If I knew someone carrying a sort-of-zombie baby, I would totally talk about them. So if you think I’m pissed or something, I’m not. I’m happy to even talk to you about it, answer questions, though I don’t really know any more than say, Nadia or Nicole or Josh or the freaking child who runs the lab.”

  Drea chuckled. “Man-child, you mean,” she said with a shake of her head. “You certainly gave us a handful when you asked us to keep watch over Robbie.”

  Nadia wrinkled her brow. “You guys gave Robbie over to Josh and Drea?” she asked.

  I nodded. “He’s really competent, obviously. And smart as a whip, as well as annoying as hell. But he’s also still a pre-teen. When we left Phoenix, we knew we couldn’t leave him alone. And he wanted to stay with his lab and keep working. So we tortured our friends by giving them The Kid.”

  Drea’s face softened. “He grows on you. You’ll see when you have your own son.”

  “We’ll see,” I said, noncommittal because I honestly didn’t know how to answer. “I might be one of those awful Moms who hands off her kids to the help or something.”

  “I doubt it,” Nicole laughed.

  “Yeah, Sarah, you run everything around you, I can’t imagine you won’t have that boy marching to your drum five minutes after he pops his head out and says ‘ello,” McCray agreed.

  “Spoken like a bunch of people who never had kids,” I laughed. I turned my attention back to Nadia. “How about you? You said you lost someone on the beach when it started, but do you have kids?”

  She motioned to the dog. “Just Duncan here.”

  “Then you’re the biggest expert among us,” Drea laughed.

  “I wanted kids,” Nadia continued, her eyes going all faraway and sad like pretty much everyone’s did when the subject of Before Zombie came up at any length. “But my boyfriend, Randy, didn’t want them. He said yet, but he meant never. And we had… issues that sort of trumped any ticking biological clock, so I didn’t push it.”

  I nodded. “I get that. So was he the one who died?”

  She hesitated. “Yeah. Well, got turned.”

  I flinched. That was worse. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I headed for Vegas at first, hoping to find my sister, but that didn’t work, obviously. Then I wanted to get to the East Coast and my parents, but… well, there aren’t many ways to get across that wall, are there? So I ended up back here. Like a salmon.”

  I laughed at the image, but said, “Go with a homing pigeon.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because salmon die once they return to their home stream and spawn.”

  “Ah.” She saluted me. “Gotcha.”

  “And you’ve been alone all this time,” Nicole asked and I was surprised that she placed her hand over McCray’s. Yup, totally an item.

  Nadia paled a little. “Mostly.”

  Obviously there was a lot more story here than she wanted to tell. Maybe more than we wanted to hear. We all had seen and heard and even done things during the apocalypse that we didn’t want to share, to remember. Nadia deserved her secrets as much as the next guy. Girl. Whatever.

  “Sarah,” Nicole said and I could see she was trying to give Nadia her space, too. “You’ll be fine.”

  “Assuming Colonel Fenton doesn’t snatch my baby the second it leaves my body or something,” I said.

  McCray frowned and he and Nicole exchanged a brief look that I didn’t particularly care for.
/>   “Fenton is…” he began.

  “McCray,” Nicole said softly and he shut his mouth.

  I pursed my lips. “If the guy is dangerous, I think I should know that for my own safety.”

  Drea shifted a little. “Look, I came into this lab after everyone else, with Robbie. I don’t work with the lab rats, I just organize the kitchen, work on the supplies, that sort of thing, so I don’t hang with Fenton all that much or anything, but he’s… I think he has the right motives. At least in his own head.”

  I stared at her. “Not exactly a ringing endorsement if his ‘right motives’ prompt him to steal my baby or kill my husband or take me off to get probed or something.”

  “He’s a Colonel, not an alien, I doubt he’ll get you probed,” Nicole said with a smile.

  I did not share in it. “You know what I mean.”

  “I won’t say you don’t have to be careful, Sarah,” Nicole said, getting up and motioning for McCray to join her. “We all have to be careful now, don’t we?”

  I nodded. I got it. They weren’t sure of Fenton either, but they weren’t exactly ready to go out on a limb against a guy who was protecting them. Us?

  “At this point,” Drea added. “Getting the serum done and ready to distribute has to be our main goal. It’s how we’re going to save the world. And Fenton is a necessary part of that equation.”

  “Yeah,” I said, but as everyone, including me, got up and started to disburse, I had to wonder what the cost of that necessary part might be in the end.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Expose your child to all different kinds of people and experiences. And zombies. Make sure he knows about the zombies.

  I sat in an office overlooking Red Square and stared out at the rainy red bricks and beyond them to the fence where zombies sometimes shambled by. There were other things I could have been doing, of course. Dave wanted me to come down and help with some of the tests, Drea had offered me a place helping with the supplies, even The Kid had said he didn’t mind having me around (high praise, indeed) but for the moment, all their offers were turned down.

  I just wanted to sit. By myself. Okay, not by myself, with my zombie-benefitted son, and ponder what the fuck I’d done in my life to lead me to this place. My answers were very navel-staring and melancholy, so I won’t get too far into them. Besides, I didn’t have too much time to wallow, because there was a light knock on the wall of the office after I’d been there for only a half an hour or so.