by Gayle Katz
“That’s awful.”
“Yeah, but it’s not all bad. These days I do what I need to do. I learned that no one will help me if I don’t help myself. It’s because of what happened to me that I’m dedicating my life to curing this zombie plague and all its mutations once and for all. No one should have to suffer the pain of losing a limb or turning into a zombie. Nothing will stop me from making this right. Not Lance. Not you. Not anyone. So… are you going to make our lives count for something? Will you help me?”
I’m silent for a moment. “I’m sorry about what happened to you, really, I am, but help you? How about if you help me? Look at it from my point of view. Lance tricked me. He lured me here on purpose and, once I did his bidding, he held me hostage. Not only that, he traded me to you like I was his to give away. It’s barbaric! And now you want me to help you? Who’s looking out for me? No one! That’s who. I’m sick and tired of getting screwed over by you people.”
“I know how you feel, believe me, I do—”
“How could you possibly know how I feel?”
“If you just let me finish… what I’m trying to say is that if you work with us, I promise to help you in return. The only catch is that you have to help us first. We have to develop the cure. That’s our top priority.”
“What would I have to do?”
“It won’t be easy, but you’ll be helping to fight the zombie plague and save millions of innocent lives in the process.”
“That sounds great, but… I don’t know. I need more details. I have to get back to my life and let people know I’m all right.”
“That’s not possible right now.”
“What do you mean?”
“You already know. Don’t play dumb,” she says, as she walks to one corner of the lab. She comes back, rolling over a computer monitor and a keyboard. After turning on the screen and punching in a few commands on the keyboard, a video comes up. It’s Jack.
“I know about Jack. I know about the clone. Is this how you want to spend the rest of your life? Watching Jack live out the rest of his without the real you?”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because I need your help and I’m not going— I can’t take no for an answer.”
“I-I…”
“Think about my offer. Don’t forget. This plague is about more than you and Jack. It’s about the survival of the human species. When you’re done with your pity party, I’ll be back,” she snidely remarks as she looks around at the other cages. “In the meantime, take another look around at your neighbors. Maybe that’ll help you make the right decision.” She walks to the door.
“No! Wait!” I shout as I press myself against the bars of my cell. She doesn’t give me a second look and leaves me alone with the zombies roaming around their cages retching and screeching. When she closes the door behind her, she also turns off the lights. I’m surrounded in darkness once again.
I drop to the floor, arms around my knees, rocking back and forth. Jack, help me. Please wake up. Wake up and figure out that something is wrong. You can’t believe that clone woman is me. You just can’t. You have to come and save me. Like I did for you. What am I supposed to do now? Help someone else who’ll probably end up screwing me over? Either way, I’m probably dead so why do I want to help this strange woman? How do I know she’s on the same level, that she really wants to find a permanent cure? How do I know she won’t keep the cure for herself or try to profit off of it? She’s keeping me in a cage, for God’s sake, just like she’s doing with these zombie animals. I want to believe her, but I just don’t know if I have it within myself to trust anybody anymore.
While my eyes take their time to adjust, my other senses are heightened and I start to hear odd sounds. One is a disgusting squishing and the other is a set of jaws chomp chomp chomping away. I look up and can make out the shadow of a deformed head trying to fit its way through the bars of my cell. I stand up and back away from the wretched sight. “Go away!” I shout.
The zombie responds by clicking its jaw. Over and over again. I have to put my hands over my ears. I can’t take that relentless sound anymore.
On the other end of the cell, another zombie grabs my hair and pulls me toward the bars.
“Ah! Get off of me!” I shout as I punch it in the face and pull away before it bites me. As the original zombie is still trying to push its head through the bars, some of its skin peels loose and falls to the floor. So disgusting! That, plus the incessant clicking noise of the other zombie’s jaw, is driving me insane. These guys must be hungry, but I refuse to be their dinner.
The sounds are still getting to me. Even with my hands over my ears, I can’t completely block them out. I decide to sit on the side of the cell that’s adjacent to the wall, close my eyes, and stick my fingers in my ears. After a few hours of dealing with the stress, I’m too exhausted to do anything else and I fall asleep on the floor.
Chapter 4
________________________________________
Half asleep, I stare into the darkness of the room. As my eyes adjust to the pitch-dark space around me, I see zombies idly standing around. It’s then that I notice someone, or something, present who wasn’t here before. I stare and try to get a sense of their movement patterns before opening my mouth. If I’m going to cause a ruckus, it better be worth it.
Continuing my surveillance of this potential compatriot, I see them stand up, sit down, and get up again to pace around their cell. So far their behavior isn’t totally unlike that of a zombie, but then I see this person get down on their knees and begin to pray. No zombie I’ve encountered has ever done that. I’ve never been big into religion, but I know people who are. We’re all different, so what gives me strength may not be what gives someone else the fuel to go on. For me, it’s simple. I think about Jack and that helps me stay the course. I guess that loving Jack, in some strange way, is my religion. For others, talking with their God might be how they handle difficult situations. And what we’re going through here is definitely problematic.
I’d like to know that I’m not alone here so I decide to offer up an olive branch and reach out, figuratively, to this stranger a couple cells down the way.
“Hello?” I whisper.
No answer.
“Hello? Can you hear me?” I ask again, louder this time.
“Yes,” the shadowy figure responds. This unknown person is a woman. “What do you want?”
“I just want to talk.”
“Talk? I haven’t talked with anyone in quite a while.”
“That’s OK. What’s your name?”
“Cate. My name is Cate.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Cate. I’m Jane. If you don’t mind me asking, how long have you been stuck in here?”
“Uhhh. I don’t know. I can’t remember. I’ve lost track of the days. In the beginning, I tried to keep a record of every 24 hours that passed, but they blur together so easily in here as you can probably imagine.”
“Yeah, I understand that. Do you know how you got here?”
“Ummm. I think so. It’s been a while. Gimme a second to remember.”
“Sure. Take your time.”
“If my memory serves, my husband and I were visiting his parents. Yeah. That’s right. It was their anniversary. Their 50th. We were eating lunch at a fancy restaurant when there was an outbreak in the kitchen. We heard a man screaming and dishes crashing to the floor. W-We tried to get out…”
“Take a breath if you need it.”
“The stupid host sat us at the table closest to the kitchen because the place was packed. It was already getting late. And we didn’t want to go anywhere else so we took the last table. And… and…”
“It’s OK. Take your time.”
“I heard about outbreaks on the news, you know, but I had never been in the middle of one before. It was surreal, like a nightmare. I didn’t know what to do. I’m so ashamed of myself. I just froze and watched these things, these monsters, attack us. Then one o
f them turned and bit me. It was then that another couple grabbed me and got me out of there. I pleaded with them to get my husband, but they said it was too late for him. I didn’t want to leave him, ya know? When you see your family being killed in front of your eyes, you just want to do anything you can to save them, even if it means dying with them.”
“Cate, I’m so sorry about what happened to you and your family. Did you ever see them again?”
“No. That was the last time I saw Rob and his parents.”
“Were you able to find out any information? Do you know what happened to them?”
“No. I-I didn’t get any information. And I still don’t know…” she begins to cry. “I don’t know what happened to them. I guess they’re all dead or zombies now. I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“That must have been horrible.”
“It was. And I can’t get it out of my head. Every time I close my eyes, it’s like it happens all over again. When I’m awake, I feel guilty for surviving. At night when I try to sleep, I relive what happened. Every time I struggle to do something different in my dreams, but it always ends the same way.”
“Did you say one of them bit you?”
“Yeah, but this couple injected me with something. They said it was a serum to help slow down the virus or something like that. Things happened so quickly, I can’t remember much of anything else, but I thank God for them because I haven’t turned, at least not yet.”
“If you haven’t turned, why are you still here? Shouldn’t they have let you go by now?”
“Well, things are sometimes touch and go. One day I feel OK, then the next I can’t breathe and I’m sweating. Every time I feel like things are going well, they give me another dose of something and I get worse. For now, they said I’m here for my own safety, but when I’m completely cured, they said they’d let me go.”
“That seems to be a common promise they make around here,” I mumble under my breath. “When you’re feeling better, why do you let them inject you with anything else?”
“The doctors here tell me if I skip a dose, I may relapse and I don’t want that. I don’t want to turn into a zombie.”
“Right, but if the treatments make you sick, why not just decline them when you’re feeling good and see how things go?”
“I don’t know. I never thought about it. I guess I can do that next time. If you don’t mind me asking, why are you here? Are you infected?”
“I was infected a long time ago, but not anymore. I’m here because… uh… because…”
“Yes? Because?”
“Because some bad people kidnapped my husband and are using him to hold me here. They want to experiment on me.”
“Oh my God. That’s terrible.”
“I know. That’s why I mentioned it. Cate, I know you don’t want to hear this, but it sounds like they’re experimenting on you too, and it’s not right.”
“These are good people, Jane. They just want to help me.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Well, yes. Err, at least, I hope so. Anyway, what can we do? We’re stuck in here.”
“Yeah, that’s a problem. I’ll have to think about it.”
“Jane.”
“Yeah?”
“Can I tell you something?”
“Of course.”
“Promise you won’t tell anybody?”
“I promise.”
“You swear?”
“I swear.”
“That restaurant we went to. The one I told you about.”
“Yes?”
“I’m the one who didn’t want to go anywhere else. I’m the one who made us stay and take the table by the kitchen. If I would have just listened to them and gone to another restaurant, none of this would have happened and my family would still be alive. It’s all my fault,” she chokes out.
“No. That’s not right. It’s not your fault, Cate. None of this is.”
“Didn’t you hear me? I’m the one who made them stay.”
“I heard you.”
“I killed them.”
“Come on. You don’t believe that, do you?”
“How can I not? I picked the day. I picked the restaurant. I made us stay at the restaurant, even though they gave us the worst table in the place. If I would have just changed one thing – another day, another time, or another restaurant – maybe things would have turned out differently.”
“You can’t think about the what-ifs. You’ll drive yourself crazy.”
“But they’re all dead. And it’s because of me.”
“No. They’re dead because this zombie plague is driving us all toward extinction. It’s not right. Nothing about this is right, but it’s also not your fault. You have enough to worry about without torturing yourself.”
“Jane?”
“Yeah?”
“I miss them so much.”
“I know you do. You sound like a good person, Cate. Your family didn’t deserve what happen to them and you certainly don’t deserve to be trapped here.”
“Thanks for that.” I can hear from her voice that she’s probably got a smile on her face, most likely for the first time in a long while. “You think we can get outta here?”
“I don’t know, but I’m gonna try. And I’m gonna make sure we both make it out of here.”
“Me too?”
“Of course, you too!”
“Thanks, Jane. It’s good to feel like a part of something again.”
“Thank me when I get us out of this place.”
“If anyone can do it, I know you can.”
“I hope so.”
While it’s debatable if we’ll ever make it out of here alive, at least I’ve lifted her spirits and done some good for us both today.
Chapter 5
________________________________________
I hear a loud metallic clang and awake, startled. My body aches from the crouching position I fell asleep in after talking with Cate and my head is still pounding. With a click, the lights flip on again. At first, I have to cover my eyes because the light is so bright. As I squint through my fingers, I see the same blonde woman standing in front of me.
“Wow! You look like shit.” Brie says.
I stare at her, still hunched over on the floor.
“Have you made up your mind yet?”
I don’t know what to say. I glance over at Cate’s cage. She’s not there anymore. I look back at the woman standing over me. “What did you do with the woman who was over there?” I point down the row.
“Who are you talking about?”
“Cate.”
“Oh, Cate! She’s being treated for a zombie bite.”
“Being treated or being experimented on?”
“There’s no need to worry about her. She’s receiving the best care possible.”
“Forgive me if I don’t believe you until I see her again with my own two eyes.”
“OK, Jane. Stop stalling for time. Last chance. Maybe this will help you come to a decision,” she says as she touches the video monitor she rolled over last night. She pops in a DVD and presses the PLAY button. “We recorded this fun little video last night. We watched it live and ate some popcorn. Everyone loved it, so I think you’ll enjoy the replay. Let me move the screen closer so you can see. Since the video is recording through Jane’s eyes, it’s like you’re right there.”
“Please stop saying that. I’m Jane, OK? She’s not.”
“Sure. Sure. Can you see all right?”
I stare at her.
“Good. Good. Enjoy.”
We both watch Jack come close to the screen and kiss it. I instantly recognize the come-hither expression on his face and I’m not pleased with what I believe is going to happen next. A woman’s arms reach for him. “Let me unbutton that for you,” she croons.
Watching Jack with someone else is making my stomach turn. She’s pretending to be his wife, though, so what else did I expect would happen between them? Hus
bands and wives are intimate with each other. It’s completely normal, but she’s not his wife. That bothers the crap out of me, but what’s worse than knowing it’s happening is being forced to watch it happen. Helpless, I grapple with the growing jealousy and anger building up inside me.
Jack looks at her as a smile appears on his face. When his shirt opens and falls to the floor, a bare-chested Jack kisses the clone me again and whispers into her ear. “I’ve missed you so much, babe. I’m never going to leave your side again.”
The clone me responds, “I’m just glad that you’re all right.”
“I’m better than all right,” Jack says as he leads the clone me to our bedroom. “We’ve been apart for too long.”
“Please stop,” I plead.
“We’re just getting to the good part. Are you sure you don’t want to keep watching? Now I understand why you travelled halfway around the world to save him. He’s a catch. Sexy. Passionate. Very good in be—”
“Stop! Turn it off. I’ve seen enough,” I choke out at this still-unnamed woman screwing with my head. Tears run down my cheeks. Watching this filth crushes me. That’s one wall I don’t want to be a fly on. “Why would you show me that? Why?”
“Because I knew that would get you talking and we need your help.”
“I see you get your brilliant negotiation tactics from Lance.”
“There isn’t much time,” she replies. “So? Can we count on you?”
“Fine. I’ll help, but what you say better be true. You’d better be working on a real cure.”
“We are.”
“And will you keep up your end of the deal? Letting me go?”
“Yes. I promise.”
“Are you sure about that? You’ve been dangling that carrot in front of Cate for a while now. That you’d let her go, too.”
“Getting chummy with your neighbors. Are you friends now? How nice!” The woman chuckles. “Don’t worry about Cate. She’ll be leaving us soon. And I promise to hold up my end of our bargain.”
“And what about my clone?”
“What about her?”