by TW Brown
Since then, two more of their test subjects had demonstrated that trait. They were of both genders, so that was ruled out. Samantha had done extensive exploration of their mouths, throats, and lungs, but nothing stood out as what could cause some of them to make that awful noise. From that day forward, the standing rule was to gag all specimens.
This one was staring up at her. Darlene shuddered when she realized that she had been daydreaming. That sort of carelessness would get you killed. Returning her attentions to the exposed brain, she deftly began removing small samples of the ruined gray matter with her scalpel. She marveled at how the creature expressed little or no reaction to having bits of the brain cut away. They had learned early on that damage to the Pons and Medulla would render the specimen useless—in other words, absolutely dead. Of course, enough overall damage would also accomplish the same thing, but they had not actually discovered a specific “breaking point” where the cumulative damage would cause a shutdown. So far, results had varied according to the subject.
Since this one was fresh, Darlene could almost have her way with it. The others, Lena and Samantha, were more interested in working with chemical compounds. That meant they would be thrilled about playing with this syrupy stuff.
On the next table, one of the oldest test subjects made a soft, muffled moan. Glancing over, Darlene felt a chill work its way down her spine. This particular specimen had been worked extensively. Its arms and legs were gone. The entire body cavity had been hollowed out. The entire top of the skull had been removed and several samples of the brain had been taken.
None of them had used that subject in weeks. It was like some sort of unofficial mascot now. At one point, they’d wanted to see how long it would last before starvation took its toll. They had given up on that idea weeks ago. Now it simply lay there watching. They were positive it watched; the eyeballs tracked movement.
At the moment, its gaze was fixed on her! It wasn’t agitated or making any attempt to pull against the restraints that kept it strapped to the table. It was just watching.
Setting down her scalpel, Darlene walked over to the table. Sure enough, its eyes followed. Since it was in no way ambulatory beyond turning its head, she decided to remove the harness that kept it on the table. It continued to remain still even after the last strap was taken off.
“What’s your game, Stumpy?” Darlene whispered. She unhooked the gag after putting on the heavy leather gloves. A bite would cause a nasty bruise through those gloves, but they couldn’t chew through them. At first she let her hand hover over the thing’s mouth for a moment.
Nothing.
She grabbed the thing’s face just under the chin and moved the head side to side. It didn’t resist, and the only reaction she noticed were the eyes trying to keep her in its sights. She didn’t relish the next part, but she was too curious to pass it up. Darlene lowered her gloved hand slowly to the open mouth.
Still nothing.
“And now Darlene the Daring will stick her hand inside the lion’s mouth,” she barked like a circus ring master. She used her free hand to grip the thing’s cheeks like a sadistic aunt on an Easter visit and dipped two fingers of her gloved hand into its mouth.
It clamped down hard, causing her to hiss through her teeth. She squeezed with her free hand and forced the mouth open. She withdrew her fingers flexing them to test for anything more serious than a bruise.
“So much for that,” she sighed, replacing the gag.
“Fall back!” Jody screamed over the roar of shotguns and automatic weapons.
He didn’t know where they’d come from, but there had to be at least five thousand meat sacks headed their way. The radio was buzzing with reports coming in from each of the patrols. The mob was stretched out over a half mile if what he was hearing could be believed.
“No word from Alpha team and Charlie is calling for support,” Danny relayed, covering his comlink.
“Tell Charlie to sit tight,” Jody said. He scanned the scene through his binoculars. From his team’s position on the second floor of a dilapidated farm house, he looked down into the bowl-shaped valley where the unnamed town they’d been searching rested.
Charlie was in an elementary school on the south end of the town. He already knew the fate of Alpha. They had been doing a unit by unit search of a small trailer park. The location, just on the other side of a small ridge, hadn’t allowed anybody to see the mob until it was right on top of them. To make it worse, the ridge was horseshoe-shaped. They were surrounded before anybody could sound the alarm. That was a loss he couldn’t afford. It didn’t do anything to inspire confidence in his ability as the new sergeant.
His team, Bravo, had drawn the task of searching the houses that sat on the eastern edge of town. That had been luck of the draw and nothing more. They were the farthest from the danger and had the best route to bug out.
“Delta is requesting instructions,” Danny announced.
“Tell them to try and draw that cluster away from the school so that Charlie can make a break,” Jody ordered.
“Also, Slider says that they have two civilians, and you’re gonna want to talk to them.”
Slider was Delta’s radioman. He was a recalled vet, which meant Jody trusted anything that came out of that man’s mouth. He’d done five tours in hostile environments, including the original Desert Storm and twice in Afghanistan. He’d only been out for three months when all Hell broke loose and the meat bags wiped out humanity. Chuck “Slider” Monterro had fought his way to his old company on his own. He’d refused any sort of rank and simply wanted to be with his old unit.
“Give everybody the word to fall back to the secondary rally point,” Jody said. He was still watching the mob of undead surging into the heart of town. He was in awe of their sheer power. Due to their numbers, the trailers in the mobile home park were being tipped over and broken open. It was like watching the footage of the tsunami that wiped out Banda Aceh back in 2004. The only difference was that, instead of a wall of brown water, it was a wall of grey-green meat.
Drawing his own sidearm, Jody shouldered his pack and was the last man down the stairs and out the door. Two of his five-man units were already engaged with at least a dozen undead. He hadn’t had time to do his topographic homework for this trip, and it was biting him in the ass. There were too many blind spots. A dry river bed that he didn’t even recall seeing had acted as a funnel for the meat bags.
One thing that Jody was going to bring up at the debrief was the fact that they were wasting bullets and making unnecessary noise shooting singles. In fact, unless there was an imminent danger, he was going to suggest that firearms not be used in the field. The sound was nothing more than a dinner bell.
“Jody…I mean, Sarge,” Danny yelled, “we have a second group coming from our three o’clock.”
Jody Rafe turned in time to see the leading edge of another mob larger than the one down in the town push through the barbed wire fence that ran along the mostly overgrown dirt road bordering the front of this former dairy farm.
“Send the word,” Jody said once he found his voice. “Tell all teams to scratch secondary rally point. Find a way home, and use extreme caution.”
“All teams,” Danny relayed, “scratch secondary. All hogs are to head home. Be advised, cover your tracks and keep the meat sacks away from the pen.”
Bravo Team retreated to a copse of trees on the far side of the farm from the approaching wave. As he ducked into the brush, Jody stopped and watched as the undead began flooding into the open and recently abandoned farm house.
“Throw the switch,” Jody ordered.
One of the men pulled out a small remote with one button. The device had a red light and a green light. The green light was currently flashing. The soldier pressed the button and the red light came on solid. There was a pause, and then a ground-shaking explosion.
“That ought to draw some attention,” Danny said with a smirk.
“Let
’s hope so,” Jody sighed. “Keep me posted on the status of Charlie and tell Slider I will meet him in my tent as soon as he gets back to base.”
His very first mission as the company’s sergeant and he’d lost at least twenty percent of his men. Maybe he would be able to convince Slider to step in. Probably not, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask.
6
The Geek and the Pri ncess
“Two on the left and one on the right,” Kevin whispered, pointing out the zombies pulling themselves through the tall brush.
“Is it normal to see so many without their lower parts?” Shari asked.
“Actually,” Kevin turned to her, “that is a very good question. No, it’s not normal at all.”
“So why have all the ones we’ve seen for the past hour been missing their legs?”
“I guess we should take these three out and have a closer look,” Kevin said.
Up to that point, they’d simply skirted all the zombies because, without having legs, it was unlikely that they would be a threat. However, as they moved further into the small rural town where Sage Farms was located, they began to notice that not one zombie had its legs intact.
“You take the single and I will take the pair,” Kevin instructed. He stepped out from behind the car they’d used as cover and made his way across the debris-strewn street towards the two mewling creatures. Shari followed, just a bit more hesitantly. It took no time and minimal effort to dispatch them, but Kevin was already looking around with a concerned expression on his face. Shari knew that look and it made her uneasy. If Kevin was worried or confused, then it didn’t mean anything good.
“Their legs have been chopped,” Shari said. “Why would somebody take the time to chop off their legs and not just kill them?”
“I have no idea,” Kevin replied. He knelt down beside the two he’d killed and a few more clues became evident. “But that is the least of our worries.”
“I don’t get it?” Shari was looking at the exact same pair of zombies that Kevin was studying so intently, but all she saw were two zombies that had their legs chopped off just above the knee.
“Look at their clothes.” Kevin reached down and rolled one over. It was wearing tattered jeans and a filthy red tee shirt. The other one was wearing jeans and a filthy green tee shirt, and the one she’d killed was wearing jeans and a filthy orange tee shirt. So what?
“I don’t know?” Shari finally shrugged. With Kevin, who knew what he saw. She’d never known anybody as smart as him. Peter was pretty smart; he had to be to become a doctor. Still, while she could never say it around Peter, Kevin was probably the smartest man she had ever known.
“They’re dirty.”
“Still no idea.” Shari could see that, she wasn’t blind.
“If these things have been crawling around for any length of time, they should have long since shredded any clothing they wore.”
“So they should be naked?” Shari asked.
“Something like that.”
Once again, Kevin had proved her point. Never in a million years would she have come up with that.
“So somebody is chopping off the legs of zombies and taking the time to keep them dressed?”
A low gurgle made them both turn around. Coming at them were another pair. Again, both zombies were missing their legs, and both were dressed in jeans and a tee shirt. Also, both were females.
“Ponytails?” Shari blurted. “Something really weird is happening here…and not weird in an evil way…I mean whoever this is could be evil, but it just seems…”
“Freaky?” Kevin said after a moment.
They approached the pair of zombies, walking in a wide arc to get a better look. Actually, Kevin started going wide and Shari followed. Obviously he wanted to get a better look at them. She could wait to finish them off if he wasn’t in any hurry.
“These two have been worked on recently,” Kevin said, kneeling down to get a better look as the two zombies hissed and snarled and dragged themselves forward.
Shari was determined to see what Kevin saw, and so she knelt down as well and really tried to concentrate on what she was seeing. It took a moment, and then she figured it out.
“Their clothes aren’t very dirty…just wet!” Shari blurted.
“Very good,” Kevin said with a nod.
He moved closer and used his booted foot to roll the darker haired one onto her back. He could tell, even with the tee shirt, that this one had lost most of her insides. He also noticed that this one had a smear of fresh blood on her lips. That quickly changed his level of urgency.
Raising his blade to end this one for good, he was about to drive the point into an eye socket when a voice stopped him.
“Don’t hurt Mary,” the voice demanded. Kevin knew before he looked up what he would see.
“Whoa!” Shari squeaked and stepped back behind Kevin out of reflex.
“Hey there,” Kevin said, stepping away from the zombie that still struggled to roll back over and get a hold of his leg. “What’s your name?”
“Valarie Michelle Jones,” the girl said with just a slight lisp.
“And is Mary your friend?” Kevin asked, trying but failing in his attempt to not sound like he was talking to a baby.
“No,” Valarie laughed. “She worked at the gas station. She smoked cigarettes.”
“Okay…then why don’t you want me to…hurt Mary?” Kevin asked.
“Because you aren’t s’pposed to murder. My momma said that is in the Holy Bible.”
“And did you cut off Mary’s legs?” Kevin asked. He was making slow progress to close the distance between him and Valarie as they spoke.
“I had to. I had to with everybody so they couldn’t chase me no more.”
“But why cut off their legs…why not just kill them?”
“Because momma said that the Holy Bible says we shalt not murder,” Valarie said like that was simply the best reason.
“So why did you cut off their legs?” Kevin asked, trying to make it a one part question in hopes for a better answer.
“So they can’t chase me no more,” Valarie answered. “I don’t like it when they chase me. It’s scary. Plus, sometimes they bite me and it hurts.”
“What is wrong with her?” Shari whispered.
“Nothing is wrong with her,” Kevin snapped, spinning around to face the wide-eyed former pop music icon. “She has Down’s Syndrome.”
“She has what?”
“Down’s Syndrome, it’s a chromosomal condition.”
“Chromosomal? Is that a smart way to say retarded?”
“Are you that insensitive, or are you just this stupid?” Kevin barked. Without realizing it, his fists were clenched and he was now towering over Shari, his face red with anger.
“Are you Shari-gonna-make-your-body-hot-gonna-make-your-body-rock!” Valarie hurried across the street as she sing-songed.
Kevin turned, watching the short girl run-walk towards them, he guessed her to be in her late teens to early twenties. She had a huge smile on her face. It was a smile he knew well from the two years he had worked as a tutor at the Bridges House, a place where kids with Down’s and other disorders came when their parents couldn’t deal with raising a child who had special needs.
It was also…he couldn’t think about that now. Not now.
He was initially alarmed to see the bite on her left hand bleeding. However, he noticed a number of scars on both of Valarie’s arms. She was immune to the bite like Heather…like Cary had been. He took a minute to really take in Valarie’s appearance. She was wearing a frilly pink dress with the sleeves cut off. She had a sash that read “Miss Sage Farms” and in her unkempt, ratty hair, their looked to be the remnants of a tiara.
“I have your music!” Valarie stopped suddenly and her expression changed from happy to concerned in a flash. “I have it, but I can’t play it no more because none of the plugs work and Mister Redd won’t open his store so I can have new batteries.”
; “What is your favorite song?” Shari stepped around Kevin and met Valarie in the street, taking the girl’s hands in hers.
“When I dance I like Make Your Body Rock, but my favorite just to listen to is Whispers because your voice is so pretty on it.”
“I like that song, too,” Shari sighed.
Kevin watched the exchange, but his eyes were scanning the area. A few more zombies were crawling in their direction. The two on the ground were still trying to get at them, and he’d been kicking them onto their back for the time being, but this couldn’t continue.
“Valarie,” Kevin stepped forward, interrupting the conversation, “are there any others like you here?”
“Momma says there is nobody like me, because I am special.” The girl faced Kevin, but she didn’t seem inclined to let go of Shari’s hand.
“No…” He thought it over. Valarie was obviously functioning highly, despite her condition, but her grasp on things was a bit skewed. “Are there any people who you didn’t have to take the legs off?”
“No,” Valarie said sadly. “I haven’t had anybody to talk to for lots of sleeps.”
“You have been here by yourself?” Shari blurted. “Weren’t you scared?”
“Only when people would stand outside my house and bang on the doors and the walls. Sometimes they broke the windows.”
“Can you take me to your house?” Kevin asked.
“I can’t go with you because you are a stranger,” Valarie said, then suddenly slapped both hands over her mouth.
“What’s wrong?” Kevin asked.
“I was talking to strangers!”
“But I am here to help you,” Kevin insisted.
Valarie shook her head and pressed her hands to her mouth even tighter. She looked to be on the verge of tears.
“But I’m not a stranger,” Shari purred. “You have my music and you know my name. I sing Whispers.”