Eaters: Resurrection

by Michelle DePaepe

  “It wasn’t a narcotic if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s the latest upgrade on the Cyclops serum. Just like David received. Some of our scientists call it the peace drug. It calms your mind. Are you starting to feel more peaceful, my dear?”

  She was, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of admitting it. “How long does this peace last?”

  “Several weeks? Several months? There are still kinks to be worked out. We’re hoping to make it an annual vaccination that will be mandatory for everyone to get one along with their flu shot each year.”

  There was an alarm bell ringing in her head, but it seemed far away, deep in recesses of the folds of her brain tissue. It was faint enough that she could ignore it as if it was a tiny, tinkling chime; a pesky gnat she could swat away by simply changing her thoughts to something else.

  They continued down the hallway to the bank of elevators. Marshall hit the down button. When they boarded, he hit the button for the basement. She stared at the round orange light, wondering what could be in the basement. Zombies? Wouldn’t that be a hoot? She almost laughed out loud.

  Marshall stared at the elevator doors as they descended.

  3---2---1---*L---B

  The doors opened at the basement level and screams assaulted her ears. There were ear piercing wails coming from all directions. A lone guard sat at a desk, flanked by eight silent Beasts in dormant mode. He seemed to be ignoring the cacophony around him.

  “The keys to cell number seventy-four, please.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  After Marshall had the keys, they walked down a long corridor lined with steel doors on both sides. There were loud shrieks coming from behind them, and in some of the small, square, eye-level windows there were faces pressed against the glass. Most of the prisoners were clearly the infected dead, their hazy eyeballs and gray flaking skin flattened against the glass as they snarled through their rotten teeth.

  Those weren’t the screamers.

  The loudest captives had reddened skin and wide, alert eyes as they stood at their doors wailing at the top of their lungs, shouting out obscenities or desperate pleas for rescue. They were live humans kept in cages like lab rats. It was wrong to hold them like that. She knew it and yet…she felt no compassion for them. She was oddly calm amidst the sounds of their anguish. There was just that dull numbness inside of her, a curiosity about where Marshall was taking her. She was indifferent about their destination. If this was it for her…well…at least there would be no more running, no hiding, and no fear. Just a quiet, black void waiting her on the other side of life. What about Heaven? She pondered the idea. Maybe Jeremiah still believed, but she didn’t. She was just too weary for anything spiritual.

  “Should I thank you for making my execution easier by doping me up?”

  “Executing you?” he said as they turned a corner. “If that’s what happens…it’s your choice.”

  His statement perplexed her as they stopped in front of door 74.

  Marshall looked through the window then stepped aside and motioned for her to have a look. There was a figure huddled in the corner, emaciated, nearly skeletal and baldish with tufts of fair hair still poking out like a multitude of horns. The Eater gnawed on a long piece of bone, making loud, wet, smacking sounds that were loud enough to hear through the heavy door and made her stomach churn.

  “Another one of your experiments?”

  “Of a sort. This experiment requires a second participant.”

  “I don’t get it,” she said. “What could you possibly want—”

  “You can go in armed or unarmed, it’s your choice.” He walked a few feet down the hall, and picked up a metal bar about an inch in diameter and two feet long. He brought it back and held it out to her. It was heavy enough to do some serious damage with a good blow, but it was smaller than a baseball bat and would require getting into close range to strike.

  “Really? That’s it? You just want me to go in there and dispatch an Eater? And if I do this task for you…then…what? You’ll let me go?”

  Marshall’s eyes narrowed. He blinked for one long second. When he gazed at her again, all the patterns and images had vanished. His eyes were entirely black, and it seemed she was looking into two bottomless pits filled with malevolence. “I want you to go in there and bash his brains in. If you are willing to do that, I’ll know our latest serum is effective. Then, it’s possible that your freedom could be negotiated.”

  “Well…” she said as her feelings of indifference turned into something brighter. “You’d better get your chauffeur ready, because I’m going to need a ride out of this tower of gloom in a few minutes.”

  He handed the bar too her, waited another moment as if giving her time to change her mind, and typed a code on the keypad next to the door.

  “Ready?”

  She nodded and gripped the bar more tightly. Marshall pushed the handle down and pulled the door open. She slipped inside, and the door clicked shut behind her. She was prepared for an immediate attack from the Eater, ready to instantly go on the offense. What would it matter to bash in the brains of another dead thing that should have been put in the grave long ago? She’d be doing him a favor, putting him out of his miserable existence of never ending hunger.

  The foul creature did not instantly attack. He dropped the bone and slowly rose from his crouched position, knee joints cracking until he reached his full height. As he rotated towards her, she stepped back, pressing against the door. Some of her resolve dwindled at the realization that she was in such close quarters with this tall, horrible looking Eater, but that wasn’t why she’d suddenly lost much of her nerve.

  She recognized this man. Though his face was gaunt, his blue eyes were clouded and yellowish, and much of the skin had flaked off of his cheeks and hands, she knew those features. She knew them well.

  A silent scream lodged in her throat.

  Mark.

  It was really him—not some imagined vision like she’d had back in Sabre. He stretched his hands out and came towards her. She froze where she was, desperately trying to wade out of the thick fog, the mental stupor that threatened to keep her paralyzed. Oh my God…oh my God…my God…

  “Not the reunion you expected?” A voice called from the other side of the door.

  At the sound of his voice, the hatred she had for Luke Marshall snapped back into focus.

  “Come on sweetheart…I know you can do it. Aidan told me plenty of tales about your survival skills. I think his words were something like, ‘She’s a heavy metal kind of gal’. That got me thinking about how I could use someone with that kind of fearlessness. You and the irascible David are the perfect sorts to test our new serum, to see if it’s ready to roll out en masse.”

  She inched away from Mark, letting him follow her in a circle around the room, not knowing what the hell to do. Part of her felt an overwhelming impetus to obey Marshall and smash this Eater’s head in, but part of her mind pushed back, wanting to resist the order because there was no way she could destroy someone she loved.

  The thing that used to be Mark lunged for her with a desperate, heart-wrenching moan, and she dodged to the left just in time to keep him from grabbing a fistful of her hair. His paced quickened as she took backwards steps and tried batting him away with the bar. She swatted at his outstretched hands. “No! No…”

  He kept on coming. Thrusting his upper half towards her, he tried to grab at anything—her shirt, her arms, her face. She jabbed at his torso, trying to make him back off, but the bar was no deterrent. He felt no pain and took the pokes with no hesitation.

  “Mark…please…” she begged. She knew her words were in vain, because there was no reason left in his mind. What was she going to do? There was no way she could kill him, and there was no way Marshall would let her out of here if she didn’t.

  She went faster now, zigzagging back and forth to avoid his grasp. The floor was slick with the slime of blood and the fleshy pieces from his meal. Her feet
slipped, but she recovered, pulling away just as his fingers brushed her leg.

  Was there some way she could just disable him? Just make it look like she’d done him in? She was pondering that unlikely scenario when she lost her footing and fell, crashing onto her back. He tumbled on top of her. His open mouth snarled and spewed forth nauseating, fetid breath as it came towards her throat. She kicked and screeched like a banshee, poking at him with the bar, doing everything she could to fend him off. Even though his limbs looked frail, his strength was unbelievable. Within a couple of seconds, she was completely overpowered. Her arms gave out as his full weight landed on top of her. She felt his teeth collide with her cheek. In that instant, everything went black, and she knew it was over.

  Chapter 19

  “Dead! Dead!”

  She woke up screaming, thrashing her hands in the air.

  Jeremiah’s bearded face hovered above her. He put his hand on her shoulder and spoke to her in a warm, comforting voice. “Lie back down, Cheryl. Everything’s going to be okay. You’re not dead.”

  “I’m infected then…” she said, feeling her face and checking her arms for bite marks.

  “You’re not infected either.”

  She reclined back on the bed and realized she was in the lab where she’d seen Jeremiah before, but she was still confused. “I’m not…he’s not…”

  “Mark? You mean? He’s dead...for good. And you’re okay.”

  “But how is that possible? He was on me. His teeth…he bit me!”

  “No. You may remember it that way, but he fell onto that bar you had and his tissues were so soft, it pierced right through him. Right in the—”

  She held a hand up, not wanting to hear any more. Despite what he said, all she could focus on was the thought that she had been the one who had destroyed what we left of her former fiancé. That was what Marshall wanted, and she’d ultimately accomplished what he’d told her to do.

  “How do you know what happened in there?” she asked.

  “Marshall told me. He was disappointed that you didn’t play a more active role in your fiancé’s death, but he seemed satisfied that you had obeyed his order…even if by accident.”

  She rolled onto her side and curled up, clutching her stomach. “All the times I told someone it was okay to put an Eater down because they were no longer the person they used to be…but I’d never had to do it to someone I loved. I get it now…I get why it’s so hard to let go.”

  “I know, honey,” Jeremiah said. “If I’d had to do it to Hannah…I don’t know if I could have. The Lord gave us a kind of love that prevents us from ever giving up hope when it comes to someone we care about…in life…or in death. You couldn’t attack Mark, because you still had strong feelings for him, even though you knew his mind was gone. Those feelings were still there, because the injection I gave you was only loaded with a partial dose of the Cyclops serum. Most of it was just saline solution. There was just enough chemical to make you convincingly compliant to Marshall, but not enough to make you lose your wits.”

  “Thank you,” she said, knowing that he’d taken a risk for her. “What now?”

  “I assume you’ve essentially been set free. Marshall’s mind is always so overloaded; he’s probably forgotten about you and moved on to his next project.” Jeremiah leaned in until his lips were close to her ear and spoke softly. “In that case, we have a lot of work to do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Instead of telling you, it would be better if I showed you.”

  He helped her out of the bed, bracing her to keep her steady, since her legs were wobbly.

  “Maybe you should rest a while. You’ve been through a pretty traumatic experience.”

  She shook her head. “Most of the last year has been a traumatic experience. I’ll be okay.”

  He led her out of the lab and down the hallway. As they walked, she thought about what kind of work he might have for her. Was he going to get her a job here and try to help her assimilate? Could she and Aidan remain here, ignoring all that had happened in the past? She pondered these questions all the way up to a door to a suite at the end of the hallway. She was certain it was Jeremiah’s office.

  Marshall keyed in a code and opened the door. Cheryl stepped in and gasped.

  The only light in the room came from red light bulbs that dangled from the ceiling every few yards. Except for the eerie illumination, it looked like a hospital room with rows of beds on either side. There were people in them with arms and legs tethered to the metal rails. IV’s dripped on poles next to them. All of them had their eyes closed, and they all looked very emaciated and sick. Some had large swaths of bandages covering their faces, arms, and hands.

  “Infected?” Cheryl asked

  “Yes,” he nodded.

  “Are they here for your research?”

  “Yes,” he said again.

  “The Cyclops serum?”

  “No. Look closer. Look at this man here…” Jeremiah went to the side of the man’s bed. “This is Paul.”

  She went to his side, keeping a cautious distance away from his strapped hands out of conditioning to avoid contact with the infected. Even with the dim light, she was able to see that his skin was mottled and grayish in tone, and his cheekbones were sunken hollows. She wasn’t looking at a sick man—she was looking at a cadaver. She backed away. “He’s dead. He’s an Eater!”

  “Correction…he was dead. Now, he’s not.”

  “What?”

  Stepping closer to the bed again, she looked and saw that the man’s chest was slowly rising up and down. He was breathing!

  “Do you remember back in Sabre when I told you I’d been working on an antidote to the virus?”

  She nodded.

  “I’d had some success with it on those who’d just been bitten. O.N.E. wanted me to take it further. They brought me here to see if I could improve it, make it work on someone who’d already turned.”

  “Died, you mean? You’ve actually figured out how to bring someone back from the dead?”

  Jeremiah smiled. “Quite the feat, isn’t it? Of course, it will take some time for them to function even semi-normally again. The red light in here is to protect their eyes when they open them for the first time with their true sight returned.”

  She couldn’t believe what she was seeing…what she was hearing. It was fantastic to think that these Eaters could actually be brought back with their brain function intact and remember who they were. It was a miracle!

  “Has anyone fully recovered and returned to a normal life?”

  “Most of the patients here used to be O.N.E. staff members. They’re the only infected that I’ve been allowed to work with. I’ve had a couple walk out of here on their own, lethargic, impaired, but I believe on their way to a full recovery.”

  She was still so astounded; she could barely think straight.

  “Come…” Jeremiah said. “I’ve got another patient to show you that’s further along. I think this one will make you a believer.”

  She followed him towards the far end of the room. He led her to a bed at the end of the row on the other side, and she recognized the long blonde hair even before she saw the girl’s face.

  “Cassie? Oh…” Tears flooded her eyes as she rushed to the side of the bed, but her elation subsided the second she saw the girl’s ashen pallor and the thin strips of flesh peeling down the sides of her face. She certainly didn’t look alive. She turned to Jeremiah, wondering if he was up to some sort of trick.

  “I know,” he said. “She still looks pretty bad, but look closer. I think you’ll see that most of what’s left of the impact of the infection is superficial.”

  Cheryl leaned down, and sure enough…underneath the visage of death and decay there was a slight pink blush on Cassie’s cheeks. She saw Cassie’s chest expand, slowly, almost imperceptibly…

  She was breathing!

  “If she’s recovered, why are her hands tied to the railing? And why is there
blood on her nightgown?”

  “I’m afraid there was an accident yesterday morning. She worked herself loose and attacked one of the guards.”

  “Then she’s—”

  “She’s not dead. Not anymore. She was just angry about being confined in here with all the “sickies” as she calls them, and she had a tantrum this morning. It frightened the guard, and I had to stop him from hurting her. That’s his blood on her. She scratched the dickens out of him.”

  Cheryl stared, watching the girl breathe for a few seconds, trying to convince herself that the chest expansions and contractions weren’t just in her imagination.

  “She goes in and out of consciousness. After expending some energy, she has to rest for a while. You still look skeptical. Touch her. You’ll see…”

  She reached out and put her fingers on Cassie’s wrist. To her amazement, her discolored flesh was warm, and there was a faint pulse coursing near the surface. She stared at the girl’s curled fingers. Her little fingernails were crusted with black blood underneath. Cheryl remembered that Cassie had been infected when an Eater back in Arizona had bitten off part of her pinkie. To her amazement, the little stub which had been severed at the knuckle looked longer now as if it had begun to regrow.

  “She wakes up a few times a day, and doesn’t stay conscious for very long, but I think it’s just a matter of time. Her recovery will take longer, because she was dead for several days before I was able to get her into the lab here and work on pumping some of the experimental serums into her.”

  “She was dead…for days?” How did—”

  That night back in Sabre when I went out to put a bullet in her head and bury her, I was on my knees, hovering over her and saying a prayer when I saw the headlights pull into the parking lot at Divine Sundaes. My eyes were so blurry from tears, I thought I was imagining them at first—twin moons growing larger, coming at me like a couple of God’s angels coming to snatch us both up to Heaven. By the time, the van pulled up next to me, I was too stunned to move. The O.N.E. soldiers got out and came towards me. I realized who they were and fumbled for the gun lying beside me, accidently pulling the trigger. They cursed at me and pulled me to my feet. I begged them to let me take Cassie’s body with me, so I could give her a proper burial. Of course, they scoffed at first. But, then I told them that the reason they had orders to capture me was because of my work on a virus antidote. I explained that they’d all be heroes if they were the ones to bring me in so I could resurrect the first patient. It took some sweet talking, a whole lot of pleading, and some prayer, but they finally agreed on the condition that she was kept chained up in the van. It was a rough ride up to Colorado. We eventually had to gag her, because she was one unhappy little zombie when she turned.