by Crist, J. D.
"Little boy! Little boy, are you okay?" Emily called out despite Marley's warning. The boy stopped swinging and slowly stood up. As he turned, Emily could see that this boy was no longer alive. His eyes were the milky white of the dead. He slowly started to walk towards her with his arms outstretched. Emily just stood watching the child and allowed the tears to run down her face. She did not notice anything else until Marley started to bark beside her. Emily looked towards the school to see several other children coming out and a couple of adults. In the houses just across the street, a few of the dead had come outside. They were making their way towards where she stood. If they were sleeping before, she had found a way to wake them up. There was no way she could handle this many just standing out in the open. Emily ran back to the truck and watched Marley jump on the bed. It took only a few moments to get the truck back in front of the house, and she and Marley ran inside, locking the door behind them. Emily looked out the windows and could see that the dead were following. She was sure the door was enough to keep them out, but she would have to wait for them to wander on or go back into hibernation.
"So much for them being asleep!" Emily exclaimed to Marley as she leaned against the wall, watching them walk down the road towards the truck. She could not help but feel frustrated that she could not take care of the ones walking and be that much closer to being done with them. Instead, she counted as they each walked by. They were not moving fast but slow in their typical zombie shuffle. After an hour they all seemed to be gathered around the truck, and a few were moving towards the porch. Emily held her finger up to her lips, signaling Marley to stay quiet, and headed for the study. Marley followed her, and she shut the door behind him. She had wanted more time to read through Ronald's journals to see if he may have known anything about the hibernation of the dead. Maybe he would have some clue how she woke them up or how to put them back to sleep.
There was no way she could take on everyone out there at once, so she would need to wait. She had counted twenty adults and thirteen children, but she could have missed some or double-counted. Especially the children as they were so small and easy to lose track of in the crowd. Emily began to quickly pick up each book and glance at the information inside. Each she grabbed contained information on the town and how Robert had planned to run it. She found an entire book on the currency and work system he planned to use, another regarding laws and regulations and many others that may have been useful if she wasn't the only one alive here.
Emily felt her frustration growing as she slammed the last of the books closed with nowhere else to turn. Robert had been part of how the flash happened. He had to have more information on it. Emily looked back at the bookshelf and remembered the journal she had found in the control room, where Robert had taken his life. He had left a significant number of books under the couch that he said would help whoever found this town. She had looked through a few of them quickly to find the code to close the gate but had not taken the time to go back to them since she had arrived.
She had stuffed the books in her duffle bag, which was upstairs in her bedroom. It was then that she realized she had never unpacked her emergency bag. She turned to signal for Marley to follow her, but he was already standing by her side. She walked to the office door and opened it slowly, looking out into the living room. She was sure that they could not get in but didn't want to take anything for granted. Slowly she moved across the living room and slipped up the staircase. Once inside her room, she shut and locked the door behind her. She then grabbed the duffle bag in the closet. It was heavier than she remembered, but she plopped it onto the bed and sat down. Marley did not jump on the bed to join her but instead laid in front of the door. He could sense that things were not right and had gone back to his protective stance.
Emily unzipped the bag and began to pull out the stuff inside. First were the six books, including Robert's journal.
Emily was about to toss the bag on the floor when she saw the photo album sitting inside. It had been forever since she had looked at the pictures, seen the faces of her family. Part of her wanted to pull it out now and let herself escape into her memories. The slight kick to the belly, though, reminded her that she had to force herself to move forward. There would be time for the pictures later. Emily tossed the bag onto the floor and began to look through the books. The first one she grabbed she knew; it was the journal that Robert had been holding. Emily set it aside and moved on to the next. It was the instructions for the electronics of the town. She had remembered flipping through it to find the control panel code but now took her time to see what other information it had. The book had information on many different devices in the town, but the ones that caught her attention the most were the ones in the armory. It looked like the guns were locked up, and a code was needed to access the central supply room. There were also lockers for individual people that had their own set of biometric locks.
While Emily wanted to read more about the high-tech equipment Robert had built into the town, she knew that this book did not have the information she needed. She set it with Robert's journal and moved on to the next. This book had a map of the town, specifically how it was supposed to look when it was done. In the pages, Robert talked about how the living quarters were designed to put people close to their jobs and family size. There was a lot of structural information about the buildings, and it looked like everything was designed with a purpose. However, Emily did not allow herself to read it in-depth and set it with the others. The next one was larger than even the journal. The cover appeared to be very worn, and the edges of the pages were torn from being turned. Emily opened the book and read the first page, "Research Journal of DR. Robert Devon – Project Light." Emily knew instantly that this is what she had been looking for from the start. She turned the pages and began to read slowly, trying to comprehend everything Robert was saying.
In the first bit of the journal, Robert seemed hopeful and glad of his work. He stated that he had been recruited with five other scientists to work on a project that would bring extinct animals back to life through the miracle of science. Robert listed experiments he performed that, from what Emily understood, attempted to put the DNA of extinct animals into an undeveloped embryo to see if he could get it to change. Instead of growing into the type of animal that created it, it would instead take on the genetic properties of the extinct animal. The journal went on for about a year, and Robert's experiments were unsuccessful, but he remained hopeful. It was after a year that the tone of his writing began to change. He began to talk about how he was no longer allowed to speak to the other scientists. He also says that he was only allowed in his lab or his living quarters. He was being escorted to both by armed guards, and his meals were served to him as a prisoner. He wrote several times that he wished to quit the project but was informed that it was not an option.
After months of doing the same thing and being treated like a prisoner, things changed for Robert but not for the better. He was taken to his lab as usual but surprised to see the other scientists there as well. They were all surrounded by their escorts and looked just as afraid as he felt. Then a man they were told to call General addressed them all. He said to them that the research goals that they had been given were not entirely true. The purpose of the project was to have them each work on a piece of the puzzle to be put together into what was truly needed. However, that was proving impossible, and the process was taking entirely too long. Moving forward, they would all be working together and providing a solution that would save humankind. Robert wrote that he was confused and tried to ask precisely what they were trying to save humanity from, but General grew angry with him. He yelled at him that they did not want to bring dead animals back to life but people. No one gave a shit about animals or plants or any of the other bullshit they thought they were trying to save; it was people.
Robert wrote that after the General was done yelling, he told them to compare their experiments and develop something that would keep the human race coming
back, even if they died. The General then left the room with guards and left the scientists to create a death cure. Robert was the only one to speak when he left. He immediately explained what he had been doing and asked the others. When they remained quiet, he told them that they had to start working or that none of them would make it out. It didn't mean they had to finish it, but they had to appear to be trying. Robert wrote that it was a woman named Sylvia that spoke first. She was trying hard not to cry but could not help herself. She explained that she had been working on a device that could send sunlight around for miles. It was supposed to help plants grow in areas where the smog was so thick that the sun could not reach the plant life. She thought that by saving the plant life, the animals in that area would have a higher survival rate because their food sources would no longer be dying.
Emily stopped reading and looked towards the bedroom window. She could still see that flash of light as it spread across the sky. She knew that it had to have been part of what Sylvia designed though not used how she thought it would be. Emily returned to the book and saw that the other scientists' tasks were also listed. There was one working on a chemical that could spread for miles if released into the air to inoculate the animal life against diseases the humans were introducing to them. The third was working on behavior modification that would allow the animals to be modified to populate different areas and survive the human condition. The last was an engineer, and he had been designing a delivery system that would allow a chemical reagent to be released into the air. Emily could see how these contributions played a role in the light and the dead now walking except for Robert’s experiments. Even in reading his words, Robert didn't seem to understand either.
The next few days' worths of entries, Robert seemed puzzled and worked hard to figure out his role. It was evident by the other's work that the General did not want to grow more humans but wanted them brought back to life. She could tell by his words that he did not understand and the others, according to Robert, did not either. It was nearly a week before Robert learned what his role was in all of this, and it seemed to be the most crucial of all. Robert wrote that he felt like a fool for not seeing it in the first place. Since the DNA he was working with was technically dead, he had to devise a way to bring it back to life. He had discovered this after his first several trials failed. He had worked for months to find the chemical solution that, if added to the DNA, would make it responsive once more. He had overlooked this because all of his trials had continued to fail, or so he thought. The General had grown tired of them trying to figure it out on their own and, in another rant, told them exactly what was wanted.
Robert's last few experiments were successful. However, his team had switched out the embryos during the night so that Robert would remain unaware.
They believed that if his solution could be made into a gas, it would allow humans to cheat death without even knowing they had been made immune. However, the chemical makeup required heat to be activated and a catalyst to travel to make it great distances. The next few months' worths of entries were hard to read as Emily's heart broke for Robert. He talked of how he tried to refuse to cooperate, but the General savagely beat Sylvia until Robert agreed. He worked with the scientist that had developed the gas that could travel great distances and the man who had created the chemical for behavior modification. It was obvious to Robert that the General did not just want people to cheat death but also do as he wanted.
Once the chemical was done, they handed it off to Sylvia and the engineer who crafted a small release device that could not have released the chemical more than a few blocks. The small device had upset the general, but Sylvia was quick on her feet and told him they thought he would want to test it before they made one big enough for the entire population.
According to Robert, this seemed to buy them time, and the General said he would gather test subjects as quickly as possible. A few days later, they were all taken into a new section of the lab. None of them had been to before. Ten cells were lining the walls and in each of them was a man. It was apparent from their clothes that the General had gathered his test subjects from the prison system. The General then instructed them to deliver the chemical to each of the subjects. Robert knew they had to buy for time. Side effects could take days, weeks, or even years to show. He wasn't sure what these men had done, but he was sure they didn't deserve this. However, it was either these ten lives or the lives of everyone in the world. He moved and began putting a device into each containment unit and apologized to everyone as he did. When he finished, the engineer told everyone to look down as the light would be extremely bright and activated the devices.
Robert wrote that at first, nothing seemed to happen. The prisoners complained about the light hurting their eyes, but everything else seemed fine. The General assigned them all shifts in pairs of two to monitor the prisoners around the clock. Robert's only relief seemed to be that he was paired with Sylvia, though part of him seemed to know that the General only did this so he could keep Robert in line.
Roberts notes contained many blood pressure and heart rate readings that started several hours after the prisoners were given the miracle cure. Emily assumed that he was not on the first shift. After each set of readings, Robert had written "Normal." However, twelve hours after the event, the prisoners' symptoms started to change. Three of them had begun to convulse and died within minutes, six had vitals that were dropping and had developed a fever, and one of them remained healthy. When the effects started, Robert worked to save the six that were sick, but within hours, they were dead. Only the one prisoner remained alive and seemed to be just as healthy as he was before.
Robert had asked one of the guards to retrieve the General when everything started to go wrong, but it took him hours to arrive. While he was explaining the situation to him, Robert wrote that the General suddenly called him a liar and said that the prisoners all looked alive to him. Robert said when he looked back that all the prisoners were standing though the vitals on nine of them showed no heart rate. Robert wrote that only their eyes showed the truth of their condition as they had gone milky white. He noted that the chemical had worked, it had brought them back from the dead, but the person they were was long gone. Robert wrote that what stood in the cells no longer had a soul. The General was pleased with the work, though, and remained in the lab from that point on.
Robert wrote that they all tried to get the prisoners to respond to basic commands or words. However, the only actual response they received was aggression if one of them walked towards the cells. The one remained alive and responsive, though Robert feared that he would still die before leaving this place. The General was already calling him a failed experiment but was pleased it worked on nine out of ten. Robert’s notes continued for several months. He said that while the prisoners were dead, their bodies continued to show no signs of decay, and only their eyes showed the truth. They regularly served meals to them per their orders, but the food was always left untouched. He did note that they decided to test one of them differently. They placed a blanket over his cell so he could not see and turned off the intercom so he could not hear. They continued to watch him on the monitor, and after two months of no contact, he sat down on the floor and did not move.
Robert wrote that he had hoped it meant the body was dead for good and it stayed stationary for weeks. The General then ordered them to remove the blanket and start treating him like the others again. It took a few days but the sights and sounds of them moving around caused him to stand once more and behave like the others. Robert noted that the lack of stimulation had led to a temporary suspension of activity but not actual death. Once stimuli were reintroduced, it took time, but the body was awoken once more. Robert wrote that he did not know how to put the bodies into their final rest and feared that the General did not learn that information. He seemed pleased that the prisoners no longer required food and enjoyed that the behavior modification kept them silent.
Robert wrote that he decided to
point out flaws in the delivery system and why it would be impossible to spread globally. There was an obvious flaw with the chemical as one of the prisoners was still not affected, and there was no way to ensure that those in remote areas could all be infected. Robert wrote that he hoped it would buy them time, but it only cost another man his life. As soon as Robert finished, the General ordered that the walls between the cells be lifted. He wanted the prisoners allowed to interact with each other. Robert wrote that the only surviving prisoner was cornered by the others as soon as the walls were removed. The man tried to put up a fight, but the dead do not feel pain and nothing seemed to stop them. The man did manage to crack one of the dead's skulls against the wall, they all heard the crack, and the body fell to the ground, never moving again. Robert wrote that it must have been the damage to the brain that finally kept it down. They all were forced to watch as the other eight proceeded to bite and tear apart the last survivor.
Once they were done with their feast, they began to wander through the cells once more. Robert watched the body on the floor, praying it would just stay that way. However, after only an hour, the body began to twitch and stood to join the others. The General seemed pleased and said that the ones who did get the cure would spread it to the others. It did not matter if the way of spreading it may be a little less than perfect. They were all ordered to make larger batches of the chemical and a much larger delivery system. According to what he wrote, Robert never intended to complete the order. He started to write as if he planned to take his life and hoped this mess died with him. However, an accident in the lab kept him going. Sylvia was attempting to unload one of the small canisters they had made and accidentally set it off. Robert had seen the flash and ran to her as quickly as he could. He wrote that all she kept saying was at least it only got her.