Evolution Z

by Everist J Miller

  Now he could see why causing the maximum amount of pain indeed enhanced the flavour of the flesh. Endorphins, he reasoned. Nature's opiates. They increased his strength, speed and the ability to think and reason. He understood why the zombies used to rip flesh from the extremities first, working inwards towards the vital organs. It was to inflict the greatest amount of pain, and therefore flavour, before death. The intensity of the flavour was related to the nutritional value. The more pain, the more gain R47 joked to himself.

  Finding Sharpie wasn't easy, and R47 had little time. He grabbed Sharpie from behind. Sharpie winced. He was no fighter. "Who is it? " he asked.

  He struggled to turn and R47 let him. When he saw R47 he let out a muffled scream and his chest shook.

  "The. Meat, " R47 growled. To his surprise he could speak. The first volunteer to ever have done so, he thought. It made him proud. Horror consumed sharpie's face. Despite its value to his tribe, he dropped the package containing the meat into R47's ready grasp.

  R47 turned his attention back to Doug. As he walked, he bit into the meat. He wondered whether it was authentically Mike. He pulled back and rocked his jaw from side to side until he had a juicy mouthful. It was human all right. As his tastebuds engaged, he was enticed into a euphoric pause. All movement in his body ceased to savour the pleasure of the moment.

  Then, as if to intensify the pleasure, he swallowed then accelerated his attack on the remaining flesh until he gobbled it in a frenzy, moaning with satisfaction. The feeling was primal as if it was what he was born to do. Feed on humanity. His only regret was that he had not saved his appetite for live flesh.

  He felt invincible, like there was a force field surrounding him. He broke into a sprint. He felt light, bouncing with huge strides as if he was on the moon.

  Then a thunderous clap. A volunteer's head exploded. Looking ahead, R47 could see Doug already aiming for his next victim. R47 recalled Doug bragging that he had honed his skills in the V-Crisis. Many had. Except that Doug enjoyed killing, he remembered.

  Another startling crack and a second volunteer's headless limp torso sank to the ground. R47 could have ordered the last volunteer to take cover, but that would put him in immediate danger. Instead he commanded it to pick up pace and rush at Doug head on. He saw it try to increase speed, but its limitations hampered it. It was a clumsy attempt.

  He saw Doug take aim. He witnessed Doug's eyebrows lower and one of his eyes squint.

  Doug pulled back. It was the woman. She was caught between Doug and the volunteer. She kept in front of it even though it was zigzagging trying to get around her. It was as if she was trying to shield it.

  R47 picked up his pace. Doug took aim again, his gun pointed at the volunteer. He licked his lips, altered his trajectory and pulled the trigger. The woman's foot lost its grip on the ground and she tumbled.

  Immediately afterwards, the volunteer went down. Then Doug pointed his rifle at R47.

  ###

  It was the absolute worst. The worst had happened. Marcia had been attacked. Bitten. It's what she had feared most during the V-Crisis. It wasn't just the agony of the wound. It was the shear dread of what was to come. How it would feel, not only to die but to become a monster.

  The kids were fleeing in a panic in all directions. The leader was trying to rustle them but they were too freaked out. The clever volunteer was joining his prodigies in the chase for Doug.

  Marcia knew she had limited time to deal with her inevitable transformation. She wanted to die. She knew she had to kill herself. But how?

  She felt woozy. She tried to keep her left arm still. Any movement caused a stabbing pain and then a red hot fire for minutes before it settled into a dull ache.

  It came to her. The quickest way was a shot in the head. She needed to get into the fray with Doug and somehow get hold of his rifle. Andrew was back in the truck. She could say goodbye and then be put out of her misery.

  Marcia felt relieved. It was incredible. All the anxiety left her. No more fretting about her job, death or torture. This was the end for her. She would have nothing else to worry about.

  She dragged herself from the ground and walked, then started for the truck.

  She pierced through the panicked crowd. The kids fell away to make a path for her as if terrified by her. They scattered as she approached. It was how she imagined the red sea had parted for Moses.

  Sudden gunshots shook her. It was happening too quickly. Two volunteers were down. No time to say goodbye to Andrew. It saddened her but it wouldn't matter, anyway. She would be dead. Dead.

  She sprinted seeing that Doug was taking aim at the third volunteer. The third of the dumb ones with standard headsets. Seeing Doug's finger close to the trigger she put herself between the gun and the volunteer.

  ###

  R47 ducked and weaved. He was faster, stronger than the other (now dead) volunteers. He would have been even more skilled if he'd eaten live meat. Maybe one kid. But it was too late.

  A shot fired. R47 felt a pocket of compressed air squeeze past his right hip. Doug was aiming for his body. To slow him down no doubt and cause him pain. Doug still wanted to savour killing him.

  Then R47 felt a sting in his right shoulder. It caused him to recoil but not to fall. It didn't hurt as much as he would have imagined. Maybe the meat he was digesting minimised the pain. But after about a second, there was a concentrated stabbing hot pain. He paused for a breath.

  I'm a sitting duck, he realised.

  R47 looked up and saw Doug's rifle pointed at him. As before, his stabbing blue eye peeked across the barrel taking careful aim.

  I'm dead, R47 thought.

  One kid shrieked in the background. Then others screamed. It drew Doug's attention, and he turned an eye to see what was going on. All the time he kept the gun pointed at R47.

  Doug's mouth dropped. His eyes bulged. He was looking through R47 to something behind him. He lowered his gun and rushed away towards the nearby truck.

  R47 turned to see a blanket of scurrying monsters approaching. Rats. Zombie rats. Rabid naked, some half dismembered, drooling creatures with tongues hanging out of rotted mouths. The one he had bitten had turned, and the zombification had spread rapidly. It was because of their small size and insignificant weight that they had turned so quickly.

  R47 saw his chance and closed the gap with Doug. In the background there were chilling screams. R47 imagined the kids being overwhelmed by the frenzied creatures, but he didn't have time to look.

  Doug was half way into the driver's door when R47 grabbed him and pulled him out. The rifle lay on the passenger seat. R47 also glimpsed the prototype headset, resting next to the rifle. It was good to know its location.

  Doug reached into the truck. He was too far from the rifle but his arm slid into the pocket inside the driver's door. R47 found himself smashed with a metal bar. The impacts were vicious and random. Doug was panting. Each blow was a dull thud with unpleasant pain. He thought he heard a bone breaking, possibly a rib, and recoiled.

  Doug turned to get back in the truck. R47 took his second opportunity, launched himself at Doug and sank his teeth into Doug's arm - the one in which Doug held the metal bar.

  Doug dropped the metal bar and grunted. Thrashed. Then turned and raised his other arm at R47, his eyes wild.

  The warmth of Doug's blood and fat rich flesh complimented the flavour of the raw meat. R47 was caught in the ecstasy of the moment. It was amazing. This is what every zombie craved, and it was rewarding. Devouring the flesh of a panicked man.

  Doug's fist kept impacting him, but R47 was numb to it. He understood why someone caught in the grip of a zombie inevitably surrendered. The ecstasy of the act of feeding and the strength gained made him feel invincible. Whichever bone of his had broken repaired in an instant.

  R47 bit and gnawed. Doug struggled. He hit. Put his hand on R47's throat. Kicked. He ripped at R47's skin suit.

  R47 dragged Doug away from the truck with only the grip of his jaw.
He wanted to continue. To consume Doug. But he also wanted Doug to suffer the worst kind of violence at the hands of the ugly rabid zombie rats. It was exceedingly difficult to let go. Like abandoning copulation before climax.

  R47 struggled with himself. He bit and swallowed as if a meal was being taken from a starving prisoner. He finally let go and pushed Doug to the ground.

  One more bite, he thought. Only to keep him on the ground. That was a good enough excuse. He knelt and sank his teeth into one of Doug's ankles, biting through to the bone. He squeezed blood into his mouth like sucking through a straw. It was heaven, but there was one more thing he had to do.

  The woman prisoner. She was destined to be transformed. It was inevitable. But he had a question for her and he needed to get to her before the rats did. They could still eat her to the bone. She wasn't a zombie yet.

  He dragged Doug away from the truck, far enough that Doug could not hobble away from the approaching hoard. To be sure he twisted Doug's other angle until the bone snapped, drawing a scream from this monster of an empty shell of a man.

  Satisfied, R47 ran to her, dragged her off the ground into his grasp. Then back to the truck. He dropped her on the tray. The boy was already there. He must have escaped the rats. Not that the tray of the truck was high enough to escape them. They needed to get out of there.

  R47 drove the truck to a safe distance for his passengers. The truck wound up a narrow path to the summit of a large incline. It was likely an upheaval for the passengers in the tray. There was no barrier between the truck and the steep deadly drop. The truck halted. R47 was confident that was distance enough. He stepped out. The view below overlooked the battle with Doug and the kids.

  R47 grinned seeing the horde of razor sharp toothed naked rotting rats. Hundreds if not thousands. All racing towards Doug.

  He saw Doug crawling desperately, trying to drag himself away. To no avail. Soon the horde of feeding rats covered him like a nest of ants. Even at a distance, R47 could hear Doug's screams. R47 savoured the moment. Suffering, being defined by excruciating, unforgiving, naked agony. It was all he had ever wanted for Doug. It could not have been any better. The screams were like a symphony.

  Then Doug was silent. His voice consumed. Doug was invisible now. There were only the vicious zombie rats. They covered the ground like an ugly rug.

  Satisfied, R47 stepped back into the truck in the driver's seat and they were away.

  ###

  They set up camp for the night. There was food in Doug's truck for the woman and boy. The tarpaulin that was a cover for the tray of the truck was an unplanned bed covering the ground. The three of them sat in an uncomfortable silence.

  R47 faced the woman. He pointed to his headset. "More," he said. It was difficult to filter out anything other than one syllable. But he was learning.

  At first she looked back at him quizzically. He pointed again at the headset. "There is more," he said. "Of this," he added, tapping on it. He pointed to the truck. R47 had kept the second prototype headset on the passenger seat.

  She nodded. "One more," she said.

  "For you," he said.

  There was a spark in her eyes. "Yes," she said. "I could wear it. But I have to wait. Until I turn." Her face dropped.

  R47 nodded.

  "Then I can still have consciousness," she said. Her eyes lit up again. "Andrew," she said to the boy. "If I wear the other headset, I'll be like him. I'll be able to speak to you. I can still take care of you." She put her hand on the boy's shoulder. He recoiled. She withdrew. "Don't worry," she said to him. "You'll see." Then she said to R47, "We'd better get it quickly. We need to have it ready before I turn."

  R47 nodded. He motioned to invite her to sit in the cab of the truck. He wasn't sure if she understood.

  "Okay," she said. "He'll be happier without me." She glanced at the boy. "For now," she grinned.

  When they were inside the truck, she turned to R47. "I'll be me?" she asked. "The same as now? "

  R47 nodded, but honestly he didn't know and suspected not, from his own experience.

  Still, he needed her. There was no one else like him and he didn't want to be alone.

  She smiled at him. "You're like our test subject," she said. "That's a good thing," she added. After she had turned her head, her eyes to the road, she said wistfully, "I hated that headset, but now it's going to save me."

  She took a long, deep breath. "I'm going to be okay."

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  MARCIA HADN'T BEEN near the Shit Belt ever since the Safety Zone was established. She had travelled along the road that crossed the Shit Belt from the residential zone into the city, but it was well barricaded with guards at the weakest points.

  She surveyed the ruins realising that she had nowhere to run. Doug had made sure that they would meet well into the uneven paths that defined the borders between the decaying houses and buildings. Most were flattened, a remnant of the army's initial strategy of bombing the hell out of areas infested with hoards of uncontrollable volunteers. It was before they stumbled on the gas that would pacify them.

  Since the ten years after what was now called the V-Crisis, they had left the ruins because they could only remove them and rebuild after the city in the centre zone could expand outwards to absorb them.

  The military had designated who was useful, and the rest were discarded. The select few were given jobs in specialisations to insure against another volunteer uprising. They dedicated riches and technology to that task. Those with jobs were technicians on the whole. Engineers. Doctors were not as valuable as you might think.

  Then, when they committed to rebuild, they needed labour. They could have tapped into the masses of abandoned derelicts, but there weren't resources to support them. That's when they realised that it was better to utilise the volunteers. It would further the technology they would develop because they would have to learn how to control the volunteers to make them useful. Control. That's what it was all about.

  Marcia remembered the time she had left her last job voluntarily and the sense of relief it brought. It was over. She didn't have to worry anymore. She couldn't be fired. The thought of starting afresh had brought a sense of excitement. There was no baggage. There were no crocodiles hiding below the surface ready to bite her.

  The relief had been transient. She had felt the sting of fresh wounds not long after starting her new job. Errors she perceived in how she had communicated with colleagues or superiors or mistakes in her calculations or judgement.

  And now she felt she was leaving her final role. Her life. And it gave her the same sense of relief. A lasting relief this time, she perceived. This time she would be freed from tortuous thoughts and memories of pain relived. The rest would be of a permanent kind. Death.

  Her eyelids closed, and she sighed. Her last breaths perhaps. But the volunteer dragged her out of her slumber. "There's… hope," he said with each word strained, like English was a second language.

  She understood. The second prototype headset.

  Starting afresh. A transient honeymoon.

  Her focus turned to her view of the real world. She saw Andrew. Tears silently rolled down his smooth cheeks. A sadness for him gripped her all of a sudden.

  I'll live. I'll do it for him.