Eaters: Resurrection

by Michelle DePaepe

  The feeling that that she was trapped inside a totally self-contained city within a building, isolated from all of the carnage in the outside world intensified when she stepped onto the tenth floor. The entire floor was like an atrium, with bright, artificial lighting supplementing the sunlight coming through the south-facing windows. There was lush greenery from one end to the other: small trees, palms, and numerous tropical plants. It was humid, warm, and beckoning after her nomadic journey through the more sterile-looking floors.

  Seeing a bench near the window, she decided to sit and regroup her thoughts. The soothing warmth of the sun at her back, combined with the heavy air, perfumed by a hanging basket of jasmine, caused her eyelids to grow heavy. She didn’t sleep, but she gave in to her exhaustion, letting her eyes close and her body to slump back against the bench.

  “Hey amiga…”

  She popped upright at the sound of the familiar voice and craned her head towards the adjacent bench. There was a man there holding a women’s magazine in front of his face. When he lowered it, she saw Zach sitting there grinning like a fool.

  Chapter 20

  “Zach!” she yelped. “How did you—”

  He motioned for her to lower her voice and came to sit beside her. “Let’s just say…I’ve made some new friends in low places—very low places.” He lifted the security badge on a rope around his neck showing her the photo of him with the name Steve Garcia. “They helped me get in and set me up with an I.D.”

  “But…” She was so shocked to see him; she could barely get the words out. “Seriously…how did you get in here?”

  “I’m not going to tell you right now.”

  “But, if it’s a way in…it’s a way out.”

  “I’m not here to rescue you, if that’s what you think.”

  “What?

  “You told me that I could do more good on the outside. You were right. Now…you can do more good on the inside.”

  “I can’t do anything. I’m like a persona non grata in here. Luke Marshall had me injected with some drug then challenged me to go into a cell with an Eater to test my will.” She couldn’t bear to tell him the fact that it was her dead fiancé…not now. “Since then, I’ve just been wandering around the building. I don’t—” She remembered leaving out one important detail. She grabbed Zach’s arm and squeezed it. “Jeremiah’s here! He’s alive! And Cassie…”

  “I know.”

  “How do you—”

  “I told you…I met some people.” He lowered his voice until it seemed he was just moving his lips. “There are moles in here.”

  Moles…

  She pictured the small subterranean mammals, odd creatures like blind, tunneling rats. It made sense that the only way in to this fortress was through the underground. Whatever it took for the people Zach had met to get in here and get information out, she admired them for their bravery.

  “Diego?” she asked. “Is he—”

  “He’s okay. We’re staying with some people.”

  She didn’t ask where or with you. It seemed the less she knew the better…for now.

  “They’ve done something to Aidan. He’s…different now.”

  “I’ve heard. Now imagine what will happen when they give the Cyclops serum to every live human being on earth.”

  She shuddered at the thought of the human race becoming nothing but automatons, so very similar to the mindless Beasts.

  He took a deep breath and looked out the window, speaking again in a low voice. “We need to know how long until the antidote is ready to distribute.”

  “Jeremiah said a couple of weeks.”

  “We may not have that long.”

  “Why?”

  “Several reasons. First…O.N.E. is on to us. They’re upping their game to stop any sign of resistance. They just arrested one of the RT’s boldest fighters.”

  David. She told him about witnessing his injection and compliant behavior afterwards.

  “We hear they’re close to starting mandatory injections of the Cyber serum in the city. They’re going to start going door to door within days and anyone who resists will be terminated.”

  A chill went through her bones.

  “There’s another reason why time is short. There are factions within the RT here that disagree on how to battle the steamroller that O.N.E. has become. There are those that feel intimidated by One New Earth’s might and want to infiltrate them deeper before trying anything risky. That group is beginning to lose out to another who is tired of waiting and wants a faster, more violent coup.”

  “Which group did you meet up with?” she asked.

  “One that’s more in the middle. They’re weighing their options carefully before making any serious moves, because they’re afraid the antidote may be destroyed before they can get to it. Their number one concern is the hope they have for their loved ones that have been recently infected or have been out there for some time eating garbage and attacking people.”

  “If you’re not here to rescue me…what do you want me to do?”

  “There’s a package for you in the ladies’ room. Last stall. You’ll figure it out from there until I see you again.”

  He rose to his feet.

  “Will I?” she asked. “Will I see you again?”

  He winked at her, giving her a spark of the old Zach that she’d come to know and love. “Count on it, amiga.”

  She stood too and fought the urge to hug him, knowing it was probably best to look like a couple of workers just chatting in the atrium rather than anyone who knew each other more intimately.

  “What do I—”

  Zach walked away, disappearing quickly through the dense foliage. She’d wanted to ask him what she was supposed to do after the antidote was mass produced, that and so many other questions.

  What restroom? She wondered. Assuming it was one in or near the atrium, she wandered through the plants, pausing now and then as if she was admiring the unique shape of a leaf or inhaling the scent of a flower. Eventually, she ran across the sign for the restrooms next to the drinking fountains.

  She entered the ladies’ room and went to the last stall. It looked empty—no package in sight. Worried that her meeting with Zach had been some sort of test set up by Marshall, she sat down on the toilet lid and buried her head in her hands.

  There’s no package. Now what? Had he lied to her? Set her up?

  After wading through a few seconds of confusion and self-pity, something caught her eye in the toilet dispenser. It was white like the paper, but it had a stiffer, more crinkled texture. She reached up and pulled it out. It was a rolled-up paper bag. She shut the stall door, locked it, and opened the package. There was a name badge inside like the one Zach had been wearing. It had a photo of her face on it. That surprised her at first, but then knowing that the building was infested with cameras and apparently moles from the Denver RT, she figured it shouldn’t be that shocking that someone had managed to snap her image. What was surprising was that the badge didn’t have a fake name. It read: Cheryl Malone. Reanimated Assistant Trainer.

  She stared at her picture and the title for a moment before reaching into the bag and pulling out the only other item inside. It was a key that with the number 33 on it. A locker? A room number? After a few seconds of pondering it, she knew where to go.

  Footsteps sounded—high heels going click-click on the tile floor in a slow, plodding motion. When there was no sound of a stall door closing, Cheryl peeked out through the crack in the stall and saw the receptionist from Marshall’s office.

  Dead people don’t use the restroom. Ha! She almost laughed out loud, wondering if the Beasts…er…Reanimated Assistants here were programmed to do normal human functions just for show. Her amusement quickly vanished when she saw the corpse facing her stall, standing there staring in her direction with dark, vacant eyes.

  The atrium was quite far from the receptionist’s domain on the top floor. Had she been sent by Marshall as a warning because the camer
as had alerted him to her meeting with Zach? Or, had she been sent to dispatch her?

  Goosebumps rose on her flesh. She had no weapon, absolutely nothing to defend herself if she was attacked. The bathroom was in a remote corner of the atrium, and she hadn’t seen any other people on the floor. She was on her own.

  She waited for what seemed like an incredible amount of time before deciding that the Reanimated Assistant wasn’t going to leave as long as she remained in the stall. When she finally dredged up enough courage, she unlocked the door and opened it an inch. Her stalker remained in place without moving. Cheryl opened the door a few more inches. When there was no corresponding movement from the Beast, she dared to step out.

  The dead receptionist was between her and the exit. Her plan was to run, hoping that the high heels would slow her pursuer down. Instead, she found herself edging past the eerie being standing there like a statue for fear that any rapid motion would trigger an attack mode. She was sweating by the time she reached the door. With a sigh of relief, she looked back.

  The Reanimated Assistant had turned completely around. She was facing her now, looking at her with black glass eyes that seemed full of malice, but foretold one simple thing.

  You are being watched.

  Chapter 21

  Inside the elevator, the key fit perfectly into the slot and turned easily. Button number 33 lit up this time when she pressed it. There were other people in the car with her. All were silent as they rose upwards and none seemed to notice as she reached into her pocket, pulled out the name badge and put it on. When her floor arrived, she inhaled a deep breath before stepping out.

  The sign on the wall read, RATC. It took a moment before she realized she was in the right place. Reanimated Assistant Training Center.

  She entered through the glass doors and went up to the counter. The attendant was a young man with short, brown hair, a button-up shirt, and fashionable jeans. His nametag said, Wayne.

  “Cheryl Malone. First day,” she said, hoping her tone sounded more confident than she felt.

  “It’s about time they sent in another recruit. We’re short-handed here. Just can’t keep up with the demand.”

  “Yeah. They need lots of workers for the dirty jobs, hunh?”

  “We’ve got plenty of RA’s for the easy stuff. O.N.E. is looking for trainees who can do more domestic tasks—folding laundry, trimming shrubs, polishing shoes. That sort of thing.”

  “Private maids and butlers?”

  “Something like that.”

  Wayne told her to fill out a form, and she made up most of the information she wrote on it. He issued her a fluid-resistant jumpsuit, a box of tools that included a metal prod and other implements for restraining her dead trainees, and instructions for living in the trainer’s dormitory.

  “Monday through Saturday—you don’t leave the floor. Got it? Those days, you’re on call 24 hours.”

  “On call for what?”

  “For emergencies. On rare occasion, an RA that’s been docked for the night loses their EM box and gets loose.”

  There were some more guidelines from him and she was directed to report to the new recruits’ room at the end of a long hallway. She stood in front of the door with her newly received passkey in her hand for several long breaths before mustering the nerve to insert it into the slot. It clicked into place and a green light appeared. Before opening the door, she mumbled to herself, “What the hell have I gotten myself into this time?”

  ###

  Cheryl’s instructor, Oscar, was a man in his early forties with a no-nonsense attitude and a firm belief that One New Earth was going to change the world for the better. She played along, laughing at his jokes and nodding with the other trainees when he went on one of his rants about how the Reanimated Assistants and technology would eventually make all work obsolete for the living.

  Her past experience as a Beast trainer in Sedona (when she’d gone undercover for the Resistance) made her a quick study. It wasn’t long before she was working right alongside the other trainers. She picked up the skills quickly and within days she was teaching the “RT’s” to walk, bend, stoop, and pick up things with their skeletal fingers. It was just endless repetition, making them perform the same task over and over again until it was ingrained in their necrotic muscle memory.

  She did everything she was told until it was Sunday. When that day of freedom arrived, she made a beeline for the elevator and headed up to the 42nd floor.

  After locating Jeremiah, she told him about her meeting with Zach and her new job. He listened as he organized some labeled vials on a workbench then he said, “I’d rather have you here. I could use help with the therapy of some of the resurrected. Speaking of which…Cassie’s having a good day. Why don’t you come see her?”

  Cheryl followed him to a corner of the room that had been cordoned off from the other patients’ beds with a screen. When they rounded it, she saw Cassie sitting on the floor. She had a small, naked, plastic doll, and she was dropping it on the floor then picking it up again, over and over like she didn’t know what else to do with it.

  “I’ve brought someone to see you,” Jeremiah said.

  Cassie’s eyes remained looking down.

  “Look up, Cassie. See who it is.”

  Cassie lifted her head and turned towards Cheryl. Her eyes were still filmy.

  “Do you remember her name?”

  Cassie moved her head from side to side.

  “It’s Cheryl.”

  “Cherrr…” Cassie replied, hissing through her pale lips.

  Cheryl put a hand over her mouth, holding back a sob. The girl’s voice was raspy and didn’t sound quite like the little girl she remembered, but the fact that she spoke at all was testimony that there was a mind in there. It meant there was some measure of consciousness in her which still seemed miraculous.

  “You want to see something else? Watch this…” Jeremiah went to a cabinet nearby and came back with a piece of paper and a crayon. He leaned down and put them in front of Cassie. She picked up the crayon and began to draw circles on the floor instead of the paper. “It’s a start,” he said. “She seems to come back a little more each day.”

  “That’s so amazing!” Cheryl exclaimed. “Where is she going to go when she’s recovered?”

  “We’ll figure that out when the time comes. There are a lot of O.N.E. employee families who lost children over the last year, but I’m not sure who would want to be the first to adopt a resurrected child. It’ll be curious to see if there’s a stigma or if people will have a latent fear about their infection returning.”

  “You could always adopt her yourself.”

  “I doubt O.N.E. would allow that. Once she’s well, she’ll have to leave here. Besides…without Hannah I don’t know if…” His voice trailed off as he bent down and took the crayon away from Cassie to prevent her from making a bigger mess on the tile. When he stood up whispered, “Come back next Sunday. I’ve got over a thousand doses ready.”

  “What will I do with them?”

  “Hide them in your bunk. Someone will find you when they’re needed.”

  Someone? One of the moles in the building? What if O.N.E. was on to the moles and had fleas planted on them? “How will I know if it’s someone I can trust?”

  “I’ll make sure he or she has something special to tell you that will confirm their identity.”

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll have to wait for the right opportunity to smuggle it out. Could be tonight. Could be a week or two from now.”

  “Zach told me that O.N.E. may start forcing the Cyclops serum on people within a few days. Once that happens, there may not be anyone left who will care about the antidote.”

  Jeremiah shrugged. “Once I’ve done my part, there’s nothing else I can do. It’s in God’s hands after that.”

  After she agreed to stay a while longer, he left her with Cassie while he went back to his office to do some paperwork. She got some b
locks and sat down on the floor next to her. As an experiment, she tried lining them up and counting them out loud, but Cassie didn’t seem interested. She only engaged when Cheryl stacked them and allowed her to knock them down—an event that seemed to illicit a muted sense of delight. Cheryl pondered the fact that Cassie seemed be back at square one. Instead of a school girl, it was like she had to start over as a baby and had to learn everything anew. Her recovery was going to be a long, painstaking process, but at the moment there wasn’t anything else that seemed to be more important in the world than making sure she was a part of that progression.

  When Cassie seemed to tire of playtime, her head drooped low. “Beh…”

  After the girl repeated herself a few times, Cheryl finally got what she was trying to communicate. She picked her up and tucked her into her bed. Within seconds, Cassie was fast asleep, her little chest heaving up and down.

  It was only then that Cheryl became aware of the other patients in the room. She heard the soft purr of breathing like the wind soughing through autumn leaves. They were all around her in here—these people caught somewhere between life and death, struggling to regain what might be left of their former lives. Thanks to Jeremiah’s antidote, they were alive…but not alive, patiently resting while they waited for enough living cells to outnumber those that had decayed so their organs could regenerate and finally wake up their dormant brains.

  She heard a whimper coming from one of the beds in the middle of the row to her right. A man who was about her age lay in it. Curious, she went to his side and hovered over him. His eyes were closed, and his eyeballs were rolling back and forth underneath the lids like he was in deep REM sleep. Or, perhaps he was in some similar state of semi-consciousness where he was reliving his nightmares. There had to be unknown implications for the resurrected, an unconscionable amount of guilt and shame. If the man she watched woke and regained his mind, would he always be tormented by memories of the horrifying things he had done while he was dead? Cheryl could see the possibility of a young child starting over, but it would be a wholly different challenge for an adult to come to terms with the fact that they had been dead and had killed others. There could also be lasting physical effects. Their skin might always be off-colored and blemished; they might walk oddly; their speech might be stilted or have a lisp. When she thought about those things, the idea of returning Eaters to their former lives seemed like a curse. What if they couldn’t adjust to their new reality or if they were shunned by society? All that wouldn’t matter the world to their loved ones though, would it? She thought about it some more and decided that the value of their joy could not be discounted in the equation.