Eaters: Resurrection

by Michelle DePaepe

  Cheryl let go of Cassie’s wrist and touched the girl’s forehead, smoothing down a few flyaway hairs. “It’s still a lot to process. It’s so incredible.”

  “It’s not the first time it happened, you know.”

  She stared at him blankly.

  “Two thousand years ago in a tomb in Jerusalem.”

  Cheryl had almost forgotten…she was talking to Pastor Jeremiah.

  “I once told you I found God because of my work at XCGen. The horrible genetic experiments I witnessed and participated in there also made me wonder if it was possible to undo the terrible evils we were birthing into the world. So, for every progressive step we made towards creating the disease in the dogs and the human subjects, I also tinkered with remedies to undo them. Now that I’ve succeeded, I don’t claim to be a miracle worker or have any sort of divine gift. It’s all science…but who’s to say when it’s obvious that my prayers have been answered?”

  “What work for me were you talking about?” she asked, remembering what he’d told her before bringing her into this room.

  “Oh…yes. Well…I’ll get to that. So, now that O.N.E. is satisfied with the latest version of the Cyclops serum, they intend to mass produce it and eventually inject every live human on the planet with it so they’ll be no one to oppose them. You understand that, right?”

  “Unfortunately. But, why?” she asked. “Why focus on that with your miraculous work here? They could—”

  “Could what? Undo everything they’ve worked so hard to create? They have no intention of doing that. The antidote work here is secret research. No one knows about it except the science team in this building and the O.N.E. hierarchy who aren’t intending it to be a cure for the public. They only want it for themselves, for any of their valued minions that become infected. Except for Cassie, every patient in here is one of them.”

  “So what can we do to stop them?”

  “A few of the other like-minded scientists here and myself have been quietly putting more of our time into mass producing my antidote. Our hope is that we can find a way to distribute it to the citizens here to bring back their loved ones and then rally them to stand up against One New Earth.

  Her jaw dropped in wonder at such a profound idea. “That sounds wonderful, but it also sounds impossible.”

  “I know.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “You’ve got to trust me. You’ve got to have faith, my dear. Believe this can work. Once we’ve got enough of the serum, you’ve got to find a way to help get it out to the world.”

  Cassie’s eyes fluttered open. They were hazy and didn’t seem able to focus, but there was a spark there, some sort of recognition as they looked in Cheryl’s direction.

  “Okay,” Cheryl said, after Cassie shut her eyes again. “You resurrected this little angel. You brought her back from death. Now, I think anything is possible.”

  Jeremiah smiled as he adjusted the blanket that covered Cassie.

  “How long will it take to have a sizeable batch of the antidote?”

  “A couple of weeks, maybe more before we’ll have enough to start distributing.”

  “How are you going to get it out of the building?”

  “That’s the tricky part. None of the scientists are allowed to leave the building. So, I’m praying about it. Hopefully we’ll come up with something.”

  “What about me? Am I allowed to leave here? Can I just walk out?”

  “It’s doubtful. You’ve got to have clearance to get in or out. Marshall cleared you to come in, but he probably didn’t think about the possibility of releasing you. If you’re not on their exit list, there’s no passage.”

  “So, I’m trapped here?”

  “In a sense. They just haven’t put you in a cell. Be thankful for that.”

  Cheryl was at a loss for ideas. Even if she could get out of the building, she didn’t know if she knew a single soul still alive in this city. And most of the survivors here had likely managed to stay alive this long only because they were following O.N.E.’s orders, so they were unlikely to take her in or help her out.

  Ideally, she and Aidan could find a way to bust out of here, but he seemed to have gone over the dark side. Since he was Marshall’s new pal, she wasn’t sure he’d go with her even if she begged.

  “Don’t you know anybody in town that could help me get out of here?”

  “I’ve lived all my life in New Mexico and Arizona. This is a foreign city to me. I’d never set foot in it before O.N.E. brought me here. Even if I did know someone…we’re so isolated in here…there’s no communication from outside these walls.”

  “I’ve got to find Aidan…wake him up from whatever spell they’ve put him under.”

  “Aidan’s here too?”

  “Yes,” she said. They separated us when we first got to town. When I saw him again in Marshall’s office, he was acting strangely like his whole personality had turned upside down. He had another head injury when we were in Quimera, New Mexico. We were lifting a car when someone hit him in the head with a baseball bat.”

  “Oh…” Jeremiah winced.

  “He was a little out of it after that. Now, I don’t know if his behavior is from the head trauma, or if they’ve given him the Cyclops serum and it’s changed him.”

  “Could be both,” Jeremiah said. “Unfortunately, if he was injected by someone other than me, he got a full dose of mind control.”

  “I need to find him and talk to him again away from Marshall, but I don’t know where he is. This is a big—”

  “Try hanging around the cafeteria on the 4th floor. There’s more than one place to eat here, but he’ll show up there eventually.”

  “Great,” she said. “I’m going to go look for him.” She took a few steps away.

  “Wait…”

  She came back towards him, and he lowered his head and put a finger over his bottom lip. “Please tell me what happened to Hannah. I need to know…”

  After a moment’s hesitation, she gave a quick and sanitized version of her death, and consoled him with the fact that Hannah probably hadn’t even known what had happened to her.

  “If only I’d been there…if only—”

  “I don’t think there was anything you could have done. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t bitten, and if you hadn’t come here, you wouldn’t have created your improved antidote.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” he said. “The Lord works in mysterious ways, especially for the greater good. But still…I do miss her.”

  Cheryl gave him a hug. “I know you do, and if there is a Heaven, you’ll see her again someday.”

  “Yeah…I know.”

  “Okay…” she said, pulling away. “I’m going to try to find Aidan.”

  “You know where to find me.”

  Cheryl looked down at Cassie again and put a hand to her cheek. She imagined someday seeing the little girl’s cheeks look rosy again and hearing her laughter. With reluctance, she pulled herself away and said, “I’ll see you again soon. All right?”

  Jeremiah nodded then went to tend a patient in the next bed, a young man who might have been one of One New Earth’s soldiers. He checked his tube, fussed with his sheet, and put a hand on the man’s shoulder as if trying to transfer some of his own vitality.

  She paused at the door. “Is there some sort of telepathic feature to the Cyclops serum?

  He looked at her curiously. “The Cyclops serum? Not that I know of, but I’ve heard about something like that with some of the vaccines. Why do you ask?”

  Cheryl had never told him that when Mark was alive, he had been able to telepathically communicate with her on occasion. She didn’t know why she hadn’t mentioned it. Maybe the subject had just never come up. Or, maybe she’d been afraid that Jeremiah would have told her there was something diabolical about the voices in her head. “It’s probably nothing,” she said. “There was a moment when I thought I’d heard him say something as if he was inside my mind.”

  “Be careful. If y
ou hear a voice, you can’t be sure who it’s coming from. Sometimes I’m not sure all my thoughts are my own, either.”

  She tightened her lips and gave him a quick nod to acknowledge the advice and slipped out the door. A soldier with a rifle slung over his shoulder passed her in the hallway without giving her a second glance. When a scientist in a white lab coat also walked by without acknowledging her, it emboldened her. She decided to look for Aidan and explore the building at the same time.

  She got on the elevator and headed to floor 41, the one just below. There were no labs there—just offices. Some of the workers nodded their heads or smiled as she walked by. Others, whose minds seemed absorbed in some task didn’t acknowledge her at all. After seeing some single letters on doors and cubicles, she wondered if the offices were divided up by different zones around the country: Zone A, Zone B, etc. And, she wondered if they’d all been brainwashed by some chemical serum, or if they really had bought the story that One New Earth had the well-being of the human race as their end goal. For fear of drawing attention to herself, she dared not ask any of them.

  There was nothing but more offices on the next floor.

  When she pressed button 39 on the elevator panel, it didn’t light up. Neither did any of the floors from 30 to 38. It seemed that the entire 30th floor had restricted access.

  On 29, she got off and found herself in what appeared to be a dormitory. It was quiet and no one was in sight, so she made her way up and down the hall, hoping to see a name plate or run into someone she’d feel comfortable asking about Aidan’s whereabouts. After finding neither, she headed back to the elevator. A couple of teenaged boys passed her, chatting about some sports team she didn’t recognize. She thought how strange it was that everyone in this building behaved as if it was just another normal day in an average world. They talked and laughed, not a one seeming like the stressed out inhabitants who once lived with her in Fort San Manuel. Then again…that had been a place of survival…and this was the epicenter of their conquerors’ empire. Everyone who was willingly in this building probably felt like they were on the side of the winning team. They’d subjected themselves to hard task masters but someone who clothed them, fed them, and kept them safe from wandering Eaters. She didn’t expect to find any friends around here that would help her out.

  After trying a few more floors, she gave up her random search of the building and decided to head to the 4th floor cafeteria. The delicious smells wafting from it hit her as soon as the elevator doors opened. She followed her nose to the bustling room. There were easily three hundred or more people squeezed in there, shuffling trays, talking, eating, and clinking classes. She stood near a condiment center for a few minutes, watching each patron scan a wristband across a red beam at the checkout area. As she watched them, perusing each face, her hopes for finding Aidan or snagging a meal dwindled.

  With her stomach growling in protest, she exited the cafeteria and checked out the signage for the other businesses on that floor. There was a general store, a juice bar, a dentist’s office, an information center, and a coffee shop on the far end. As tempted as she was to go to the information center to see how she could get one of the wristbands so she could eat, she decided to continue to keep her low profile for a while longer.

  She watched the people come and go while she strolled down the floor, noticing that not all of them were alive. Some were Beasts with EM boxes working as clerks in the stores, carrying packages, or wiping tables. Most had buttoned-up collars, long sleeves and pants, and significant amounts of pancake makeup covering the off-color of their faces and hands. Although there was a spark of life in their limbs, their eyes were as dull, cloudy, and sunken in as those of a dead fish past its prime, and many of them had a camera that replaced one of the decayed orbs.

  At the coffee shop, she scanned the faces waiting in line and sitting at the small, round tables. After a fruitless search, he was ready to give up her search for Aidan on this floor. Despair settled over her. How was ever going to locate him in a building this—

  A man, sitting at a table towards the rear of the shop lowered the large piece of paper he’d been looking at. She stared at him for a moment before realizing that it was Aidan. Because of his new look, she hadn’t recognized him at first. He took a sip of his coffee and stared in her direction, but his mind seemed far off.

  She almost shouted to him then thought better of it. Inching through the crowd, she made her way towards him. When she pulled out a chair and sat down across from him, his eyes finally met hers.

  “Can you talk?” she asked.

  He looked at her through his biological eye, the one she knew and trusted, and through the other bionic orb that was cold and distant. He raised the paper again. “I have a lot of work to do.”

  She smashed the paper down to the table with her fist, causing some of his coffee to slosh onto one corner. She looked around to see if anyone was paying attention to them. If they were, it wasn’t apparent. Even so, she decided to stifle the scream inside of her and lower her voice. “Work? You work for Marshall now? For O.N.E.?”

  He dabbed at the blueprint with a napkin. “I tried to tell him—I’m just a carpenter, a construction worker really, but he was interested in listening to my ideas about how to improve the design of the offices and the dormitories. If he likes my proposal, he’s going to let me lead a team to do some renovations. I’ve never had such a responsibility, such a challenge…”

  “Aidan,” she said, leaning across the table. “Is that really you talking? Are you in there?”

  “Of course,” he said, looking at her directly, holding her gaze for a long couple of seconds. “Where else would I be?”

  “You’re not yourself, you know.”

  “Who is these days? We’ve all changed in some way. And we’ll have to change even more if we’re going to meet the challenges of the future. This world needs a new direction, a leadership that can—”

  “You sound like you’re reading from a script.”

  He looked away, seeming to feign interest in the barista wearing a black box on her head like the latest fashion accessory—a young woman who might have been attractive when she was still alive. Under his breath, he mumbled, “Some people just aren’t going to get it. They might have survived the apocalypse, but they’re not going to survive the reconstruction.”

  “Is that a warning or a threat?” she asked when he looked back her way.

  “It’s reality now, darlin’. You cause Marshall any more trouble, and he’ll squash you like a bug. If you’re lucky…that’s all he’ll do to you.”

  She’d already had a taste of what Marshall could do to her. She desperately wanted to tell him about being put in a cell with Mark’s reanimated corpse, about finding Jeremiah here, and the antidote that could resurrect the dead, but she didn’t dare. There was no doubt that Aidan had been chemically or surgically brainwashed. She couldn’t tell him anything. She shouldn’t even be talking to him!

  As she rose from the table, she felt his fingers brush against her leg. It startled her, and she wasn’t sure if it had happened on accident or on purpose. She tried to search his eyes for some sort of clue, but he was looking away again, lost in the crowd surging by the coffee shop.

  Okay, she’d play along, play his game and see what that got her. “I don’t want to lose you in here. It’s a big building. Since I may be staying a while, I suppose I’ll be getting a job too. Maybe we can meet for lunch sometime. Where are you staying?”

  “My apartment is—” he stopped just before revealing the location. “Don’t worry. If I need to find you, I’ll check with Marshall.”

  Marshall wouldn’t know where to find her, not if she had anything to say about it.

  She stepped away from the table, pausing in her tracks when she became aware of a pulsing inside her head. It wasn’t audible, and it wasn’t something that she could feel vibrating in her bones like a bass. It was more like an electric sensation, a zap of voltage buzzing between her
ears.

  The voice she heard was a monotone, neither discernibly male nor female: There is only one way. One way to survive. One way to live. Be one and be well.

  She looked back at Aidan, wondering if he’d heard it too, but he was looking down, focusing on the blueprint again. He raised a hand and touched his right temple, scratched it for a second then returned his hand to the table.

  Her feet carried her out of the coffee shop as the strange feeling in her head continued, but the voice was silent. She had no idea where she was going. Now that she could cross Aidan off her short list of friends, she was going to have to find a way to remain in the building a little longer without being noticed until she could find a way out. Knowing that her every move was potentially watched, she felt like a rat allowed to wander in a maze with some impending doom looming over her.

  Did the cameras in every room, hall, and elevator have facial recognition technology? If they did, it would be nearly impossible to sneak around the building incognito, even if she could find a way to change her appearance. It wouldn’t matter if she put on a hat, or glasses, or changed her hair again, O.N.E. would still knew her every move.

  Feeling lost in mind, body, and spirit, she found herself wandering again, and checking out floors that she’d passed up before. She found a medical floor with doctors, dentists, and mental health specialists; a gymnasium with exercise equipment, a small pool, and a sauna; and a whole floor devoted to entertainment. The latter had a movie theater, a miniature golf course, and a game room, amongst a slew of other less wholesome diversions.