Zach Carter, Zombie Killer

by Frank Giovinazzi

(c) 2009, All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

They had one of the more ingenious rigs we’d seen — taken what had once been an
unorganized junkyard and transformed it into a maze fortress of piled high junkers,
that acted like castle walls, but since nothing could really keep them out, they
had created dead ends, killing zones really, so that they could direct the Zekes
down these corridors, then climb up the wall of wrecks and fire down on them. Plus,
since they had the machinery, cranes and flatbeds, they could move the stuff
around, reposition and strengthen their fortifications as they saw fit, because
ultimately, they still had to keep themselves protected inside their inner sanctum,
which, once you got past the unique nature of their outer fortifications, was just
another island trying to keep itself afloat in front of the tsunami that just kept
coming.

At that point, and I’m talking about a year into the festivities, when most of the
people were dead or newly baptized into the church of the everlasting death, and
those that were still alive were real keen on living, which meant keeping strangers
as well as the Zekes at bay, so it was always a dicey prospect to just stroll up to
what you suspected was a living stronghold, because they might just shoot you on
principle and take whatever it was you were carting around in terms of supplies,
but we had come up with a protocol — as long as it wasn’t an active infestation, we
would park our vehicles in full view, then one of us would approach, calling out,
you know, anybody alive in there and will you grant us shelter kind of thing.

Well, it turns out that day that we were extremely lucky, because it was my turn to
get out and present myself to the lookout, and as I found out later, they had
orders to shoot on site because they had recently taken in a crew where one of the
people was infected and you know how that turns out.

But I was wearing my crossbow, slung across my chest, not my back because you can’t
drive with a weapon digging into you and you can’t shoot if you come rolling across
the occasional Zeke looking for a Happy Meal.

Anyway, in the post-Z world there are only a few commodities that really held any
value — food and water and weapons being the most important, followed closely by
information and sex.

The lookout, who turned out to be the son of the owner of the junkyard, took one
look at the crossbow and as he told me later it was like Jesus Christ himself had
shown up to lead them from the dark slough of despair.

So we got in, but they had gotten smart and forced the three of us to strip down to
our bareassedness, where they made us hold our arms out and spreadeagle and show
them our skin was intact and there was nothing obvious, you know, like a giant set
of teeth marks on our asses, and then we were forced to spend 12 hours in a locked
cargo container before they let us out to have a powwow.

The leader, Ralph Peters, had the crossbow in his lap just like a kid with his very
first Christmas puppy. I am telling you these guys were excited.

“You actually been able to kill many Zekes with this thing?”

“Outside effective range is fifty yards, after that, it’s just aiming,” I said.

“And keeping your cool,” he said.

“Yeah, well, those of us that have lived this long, we know what that’s about.”

“Yep, sure do. They’re gonna keep coming whether you’re cool or not, and they’re
gonna keep going whether you’re dead or not.”

“Right, so the only way to beat the Zekes is to be just like them. No emotion, all
business.”

“Hmmm. You boys been together long?”

“About six months. I was a cop in San Diego. Roy here sold restaurant supplies and
Jimmy was a boxer.”
“What, no mixed martial arts,” Peters said.

“I was a purist,” Jimmy said.

“Kinda small,” Peters said.

“I was a welterweight. With a regular eating schedule,” Jimmy said.

“Food we got,” Peters said. “We found a couple trucks on the road, canned goods and
added them to our fleet. What we’re running low on is weapons, or really, I should
say, ammunition.”

“Gun stores?”

“If you been on the road, you know they got cleaned out — by the way, I figure you
left the coast and drove inland because …”

“Waterzombies, right. A lot of people took to the water, pleasure craft, cruise
ships, ferries, and the infection followed them. If the ships sank or burned or
they got thrown overboard, they just wash up or walk up on land. So the idea of a
coastal defense doesn’t really work.”

“Yet. We don’t know if these things got a lifespan or not,” Peters said.

“Right, but what about police stations, maybe you got an armory around here?” I
said.

“Well, you know the problem with armories.”

“Yours blew up too, huh?”

“After the military cleaned most of it out, the guards they left behind got overrun
by locals who proceeded to shoot it out.”
“What about reloading?”

“We have some capacity but it gets down to the same problem, which is basically
respelling raw materials,” Peters said, hefting the crossbow up and down like it
was made out of gold.

“You figure we can make these,” I said.

“That’s easy, we got metalworking tools and materiel to make all kinds of these.
Hell I may make a bigass one out of leaf springs just for my own amusement.”

“Right. Zeke don’t respond to shock and awe.”

“No, but we do have to figure on human raiders sooner or later.”

“Okay, you have something in mind.”

“Yes indeedy, like I said the real problem is ammo.”

“Think you can make bolts out of what you got here?”

“One at a time, nah, we need massive firepower if we’re going to stay alive, which
means thousands upon thousands of bullets.”

“And…”

“And I knew a guy used to be in the metal fabrication business, not well,
understand, but kind of related, so we crossed paths once in a while. Anyway, he
made this kind of stuff, hollow aluminum tubing, I don’t remember if it was for
marine or aerospace, but the important thing was — he made it by the freaking
MILE,” Peters broke down laughing at the thought.

It was a pretty good plan, we all knew it right from the start, and in the super
fast survival calculus we’d all mastered, we were all smiling pretty big. For us,
we were trading taking a risk for as safe a refuge as we’d come across, and they
were getting the raw material they needed to keep themselves safe for whoever knew
how long this was going to take. The only worry of course, was for a potential
doublecross, as in would we try and take over his little fief when we got back or
would he cut our throats in our sleep that very same night. The thing was, we
weren’t looking for our own little kingdom, for whatever reason the three of us had
come together and we all had the same goal — staying alive by staying in motion.
But we also agreed that we needed a place to crash and regroup for awhile. Peters
seemed to understand this, so drawing up the plans was a formality.

Chapter 2

The stated reason for having the three of us go on this expedition was because we
had the most experience fighting on the run, and that was true, but the closer
truth was that Peters didn’t want to sacrifice any of the people he had under him.

So it was the three of us, plus the owner’s son, Pete, who set out in our two
battle-rigged Ford Expeditions to go looking to harvest an almost ready-made supply
of head splitting ammunition.

“Pete, huh.” I said.

“Yes, Pete Peters, go ahead it used to drive me nuts but like a lot of other things
it really doesn’t bother me anymore.”

“Yea, what we all wouldn’t give for normal problems.”

I let the silence sit there for awhile, checking the rearview for Roy and Jimmy in
the wagon behind us. “Pete, why are you really coming with us.”

“Like we said, you may need me to help load the tubing onto a flatbed.”

“Possible, you have more experience with that kind of equipment. But that still
doesn’t explain it.”

“You got nearly a hundred gallons of our gas,” he said.

“Of which you have nearly a limitless supply. I saw your people taking it out of
the old gas tanks.”

“All resources are vital, we never know when …”

“Okay, I know that too. Now what’s the real reason.”

It was his turn to let the silence sit. And check the side view for Roy and Jimmy.
We were living in world where paranoia was a virtue.

“My sister,” he said. And went silent again. “She had her own place, outside of
town.”

“You think she’s still alive?” I had almost said, ‘you don’t think she’s still
alive,’ but edited myself before it came out.

“Well, officially of course, we don’t think so. You just can’t think that way.”

“But your Dad …”

“I think he’s really hoping, though like I said he won’t say it.”

“And he wants you to do a drive-by.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, and —”

“If she’s turned, I’m going to put her down.”

I exhaled hard. This was one of those things, the line between hard surviving and
holding onto a shred of your humanity. Everyone came up against the line, whether
it was as simple as running back into your house to grab a picture or some other
souvenir from your former life, or trying to help someone under attack, or worse,
trying to shelter someone who’d been bit. The problem is that most people who
hesitated, who tried to hold onto that last shred of their moral code, had lost
their life in the process. As a result there weren’t too many sentimental people
running around.

“I understand. But you understand it makes no sense, and your father understands he
could wind up losing you too.”

“Yep,” the hard line of finality.

“You expect us to go with you?”

“Nope.”

“Uh-hunh. But you’re hoping, and if we go back to the compound without you and you
never show back up, our open-ended invitation would wind up getting revoked,
possibly with extreme prejudice.”

“You caught my father’s Vietnam Veteran routine, hunh?”

“Hard to miss it with those guys, like a fucking tattoo.”

“That’s pretty funny.”

“Yeah. Alright, I think you know the drill. Way we roll is all three of us have to
agree, if we don’t well then, we’ll just bail on you after we set you up with the
load of aluminum.”

“You’ll still go that far.”

“It’s what we agreed on and we stick to our bargain.”

“Well I guess I’ll owe you.”

“What? You going to throw the Jacuzzi suite in?”

I looked down at the GPS unit that showed we were only a couple miles from our
destination. It always amazed me that it still worked, even if it made me think of
how much we had lost.

“Okay, you know the drill. We stop in front while the other Expo rolls around the
back, checking for Zeke. I leave the keys in the ignition and lock the doors with
the panel — you remember the combination?”

“Sure, who can forget the day the world ended — 12-20-20-12.”

We both let the silence sit this time. There was no way to prepare for entering a
building in our world. Zeke was either there or he wasn’t and the way I’d learned
to handle I was to go in empty-headed, you know that mind like water Buddhist shit
that always sounds funny when you try and describe it to someone, but you know, it
works.

Turned out Zeke was not waiting for us inside the ABQ Fabrication Depot, and Pete’s
skill with a forklift came in handy — especially because the overhead hydraulics
weren’t worth shit to us, and he had to balance a load of thirty foot tubing on top
of forks that were made to handle square wooden pallets. It was my job to get the
flatbed into position for him, which meant I had to suck on diesel fumes from a
couple other trucks to get the thing ready. In lieu of a breath mint I threw up the
breakfast served by the comely maidens of the Junkyard Castle.

Roy and Jimmy were patrolling as best they could, taking turns walking the corners
as well as inside the warehouse. Again, the rule is be ready, cause Zeke usually
jumps up like a freaking Jack in the Box. In between gagging on my diesel and eggs,
I told them about our extra trip.

“Extra work, no extra pay, might as well be back in the military,” Roy said.

“Shut your mouth,” Jimmy said. “Could you imagine? Here we are in the third circle
of hell and the only thing that could make it worse would be having to listen to a
second loo telling us it would be a god idea to go and check out that row of empty
buildings.”
“Jimmy, I’m wondering, can you actually have PTSD when you’re in the middle of an
ongoing trauma?” I said.

“Just keeping things straight for when I file for disability, you know, don’t want
my claim getting denied because I can’t sort out exactly which trauma is causing
what degree of stress and all.”

“Do you think we miss the stupid shit from the old world as much as the good
stuff,” Roy said.

“YES!” Jimmy and I agreed.

And so I told Pete that we were green-as-in-go for the recon to his sister’s old
place.

He had been busy, getting six bundles of tubing onto the flatbed, and was
tightening down the final straps to keep the load intact. “Thank you,” he said
quietly and handed me a piece of paper. “Here’s the address for the GPS, and, uh,
I’d like you to drive the truck with the load, in case, um, I get caught up.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “I’ll keep the rig running, circling the property, you and
the boys will run the same drill. You pull up, get out and run in, they follow and
do a quick hop around — but no sign of her and you are out of there inside of five,
we agree on that?”

“Sounds right. If she’s alive, there’s probably only one place she’ll be.”

“Where’s that?”

“She had a panic room. Dad was only to happy to pay for it when she asked.”

We were loitering and that wasn’t like me. “Sounds interesting, here’s a walkie,
tell me on the ride.” I handed him the spare handset and climbed into the cap of
the flatbed.
We had to cross the Rio Grande to get to his sister’s house and rumbling over the
bridge made that shiver go down my spine like I was walking over my own grave.

I didn’t hesitate. “Freddy’s in the hunt, come back,” I said over the open channel.

“And Jason’s got his back,” Jimmy responded.

“Want to fill me in guys?” Pete said.

“Yeah Pete, that’s our code for when one of us gets the willies,” I said.

“Sounds scientific,” he said.

“Science took a hike last year, cherry,” Jimmy said. “All we got is our instincts.”

“That’s about it, kid, just stay alert, I got a bad feeling going over that bridge.
You want to tell us about your sister’s panic room?”

“Like I told you, Zoe asked Dad to help her pay for a hidey-hole after she had a
couple run ins with a bad penny that wouldn’t stay fired.”

“You mean a shithead boyfriend?”

“One and the same. Dad being who he is, offered to relocate the gentleman, but Zoe
said she’d never get another date if Dad put his head on the wall down at the VFW.”

“The best defense is a good offense,” Jimmy said.

“Anyway, these kinds of things got popular for awhile, they were basically just
bomb shelters for yuppies, but nothing was too good for sissy, and she got the full
boat, separate water and air supply, three months of food and a couple hundred
rounds of ammo.”
“No guns?” I said, just as I spotted a couple Zekes stumbling after a runt dog, and
tightened my grip on the wheel.

“Guns are a given in my family, son,” Pete said. “Hey, did you see those Zekes?”

“Indeed I did and we all know the cockroach rule so heads up,” I said. At this
point we knew they were attracted by sound and movement, maybe even smell, and that
meant we were rolling flypaper. They were going to come stumbling after us, and
once a couple got going, it always rolled downhill like a giant ball of flaming
shit in hell. The GPS said we were less than two miles from his sister’s house, and
the close-up view of the neighborhood didn’t make me feel any more comfortable.

“Yo, Sugar Ray.”

“Yo, Rock-o.”

“You looking at the GPS? Grid street pattern, some cul de sacs to get lost in and
only a couple alternate ways out of the nabe if we run into blockage.”

“Copy that.”

“Explain?” Pete said.

“Lot of cars got abandoned or overrun in the side streets that emergency services
never even bothered getting to, so we’ve been boxed in before and it’s not fun.”

“Copy that,” Pete said. “I know the combination to her room, so it’s in and out.”

“Guys, how do you feel if I hang back and ditch driving into the side streets,” I
said.

“Double-plus affirmative,” Roy said, “sky’s closing in.”

“What?” Pete said.

“Remember the monster movie where someone says, ‘I got a bad feeling about this?’”
I said.

“Understood,” Pete said, as I watched him and the other Expo peel off to go look
for his sister.

I kept the truck running up and down a long service road, keeping an eye on the
fuel and the daylight, both of which were losing their early fullness. The way
Jimmy tells it they weren’t even able to get out of the vehicle before they got hit
by a swarm of zombies coming out from the other houses. Armed as they were with
sidearms, they had to let them get close enough to kill, but that meant the Zekes
were right on top of them and they had to keep popping them until their guns got
hot and finally had to go “Zulu-style” with one guy shooting while the other guy
was reloading, just to keep their hands and teeth off of their necks. When you’re
in a firefight time stretches, but they were down to their last clip and a half
when the kid finally came out with the pillowcase and hopped into his Expo, meaning
they had burned through over a 120 rounds each. Taking into account aiming and
reloading, the kid was probably inside for close to ten minutes, so his story could
be true.

What was inside the pillowcase was his sister’s severed head, complete with a
bullet hole in the forehead. He said his Dad insisted, not only for proof, but to
make absolutely sure she couldn’t continue to live as an undead ghoul, feasting on
human and/or animal flesh. That kind of thinking is pretty standard, continuing to
look at the Zeke as if it were still the person you used to know, and that it had
somehow been converted into a perverted version of itself. Therefore, many people
like Mr. Ralph Peters insisted on a medieval style of purging and cleansing, which
I usually left alone. In my book, the Zeke is no longer a person, it’s not even a
former person — it is nothing more than a walking disease without a soul or an
intention. It is a malignant fire that needs to be extinguished.

And I hold onto that belief, because that’s how I’ve learned to deal with this new
world — as light against darkness — despite what Pete told us, and despite, or
maybe because of, what I’ve learned since.

Chapter 3

“Pete, how you doing, son?” I was waiting for him to come back, and his silence
didn’t sit well.
“I’m glad to be headed home.”

“You want to run that by me again?”

“You mean about my sister?”

I let that go. “Yeah, what happened in her house.”

“I’m telling you, she was in her safe room, playing with one of her stuffed
animals, sitting at a table with one of her kiddie tea sets.”

“And you don’t think that stuff was in there before the outbreak.”

“I know for a fact I helped her box that stuff up out of her old room at my dad’s
place and I put that box myself in her attic at her new place. The box was in the
safe room, with most of the contents pulled out.”

“You think she might have pulled it down before the outbreak.”

“Anything’s possible, but I’m telling you she was talking like she used to when she
was little and she recognized me.”

“You sure about that?”

“You ever hear a Zeke call anybody Peepee? That was her baby name for me — and man,
I’m telling you she offered me a little teacup, like she used to when she was
little.”

“Did it — did she make a move to put the bite on you?”

“Yeah. It was like switching a tv channel. One minute she was talking like a little
kid, playing house, the next she was nothing but a hungry animal.”
“Did she —”

“She never got near me. Once I saw the channel changed, I plugged her in the skull.
But no one is going to tell me that my little sister wasn’t still in there,
somewhere. Besides, how the hell did she get back into her safe room — it had a
hydraulic door with a keypad lock — and she was locked in.”

“It’s possible she let herself in after she got bit but before she was all gone.”

“I know. But there was something left of her in that filthy shell I killed.”

“Fair enough. But I don’t think we should let that kind of information out — we
don’t need people having moral qualms if they see dear old Uncle Fester coming at
them on the front line. Maybe he’s still in there, maybe he’s not, but you know
he’s hungry.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m thinking about not even telling my old man.”

“Your decision, but maybe you’re right. A father’s love is different than a
brother’s.”

“Clear on that.”

“You’re a good man Pete.”

Chapter 4

The effect of the raw materials we brought back home was like a combination of
Christmas and hitting the lottery for the tribe. They had reasonable hope, a means
to face the threat that was always out there but ever more maddening because they
never knew when it was going to hit again. I guess that’s pretty much a textbook
definition of free floating anxiety as any, but flesh eating zombies were never
cataloged among the threats facing people in what used to be modern society. The
thing that always amazed me was that I hadn’t run into much in the way of crazy ass
superstition or its more refined cousin, religion, in terms of the way people
handled day to day living in the post Zeke reality. I don’t know if that’s a good
thing or a bad one — isn’t myth supposedly the way primitive man made his way out
of the caves and into the light of day? As a means to keep him moving forward
despite the fears that attacked him throughout the dark and often, during the
middle of the day?

Anyway, what the people of the junkyard had was work to keep them busy, work that
was in direct correlation to keeping them alive, and that proved to be as good a
balm as any.

And Ralph was smart about it, he broke people up into groups, from those cutting
the tubing, to those making arrowheads and tailfins and those putting them all
together, with a separate workshop in charge of manufacturing the crossbows
themselves. Everyone had a job and everyone understood they were an important part
of moving their defenses beyond the brute hand to hand combat they had about to
been reduced to. Maybe this was the birthing ground of the myths that would be told
later, after the sheer mortal threat to the race had been beaten back to the point
people would have the luxury of bullshitting themselves about magic and divine
intervention.

It was less than two months before Peters and his crew had a working arsenal of
crossbows, with an unlimited supply of bolts. They were accurate enough, from atop
the piles of crushed vehicles, that they repelled every random Zeke threat, plus a
couple of mass onslaughts, once with about three hundred zombies that had been
traveling in a pack and somehow got wind of the encampment.

It was hairy though, and a couple of good people got dragged down from their crow’s
nests and torn to shreds by hungry Zekes. That’s what scared everyone the most —
Zeke was now so hungry it wasn’t enough to take a bite out of you and move on to
the next mobile meal, they were tearing people to strings, eating them while they
were screaming for one of us to kill them.

The three of us had done more than our fair share, from the first and subsequent
raids, to standing up and facing Zeke whenever they showed up. We were part of
Peter’s inside crew now, and even though his little world was pretty egalitarian,
we were first among equals as they used to say, in what context I don’t remember
and goddamn don’t I wish the internet was still around so I could look up stupid
trivia like that. Anyway, after we cleaned up the last of the Zekes — and harvested
the bolts from their heads, which was part of the deal, even with a stockpile of
thousands of bolts and a steady stream of new ones coming — we started talking
about what had been obvious to all of us for some time.

“We got lucky today,” Peters said, eating kitty kabob right off the bbq stick.

“We have no way to defend ourselves against a true massed attack — anyone ever seen
thousands of Zekes moving over ground?” I said.
“Like being swallowed up by the night sky,” Jimmy said.

“Sounds like Mr. Peters has a plan,” Roy said.

“I made a fortune in the salvage business while the world was still turning and
that skillset is serving us pretty well — now that we’re in the business of
salvaging what’s left of the human race.”

“At least our corner of it,” I said.

“Right. Well, like you said, we would be pretty much helpless if a large scale
swarm got us in their sights, so I’m thinking we need to improve our defenses.”

“You’re still not thinking about going underground,” Jimmy said.

“No. I still don’t like the idea of taking over that military base and hiding out
in those bunkers. I know I don’t come across the philosophizing type, but if we’re
going to survive as something more than animals, we cannot cede the surface of our
planet just cause some goddamned plague knocked us down. We came up from the dark
slime and I’ll be goddamned if that’s where I’m gonna lead my people. We have to
stand where we are and fight for the right to exist.”

“You’re right,” Jimmy said. “You don’t come across as the philosophizing type.”

“But noble, I’ll give you,” Roy said.

“Ralph, we’re in agreement, I think, but it remains to be seen whether our noble
sentiment is going to lead to us rallying back from the brink or getting pushed
over it,” I said.

“Right, well,” he started, then stopped. “Let me tell you what this is about. They
took my daughter and she was my heart. Before she came along I was just a greedy
scumbag, squeezing dimes out of nickels, but when she was born you know I just
wanted to be a better person because I wanted her to live in a better world. And
now that she’s gone all I can think about is not letting her down. I know she
wouldn’t have wanted me to cave in and close out the rest of the folks still
living. If she was here she wouldn’t let me, but since she’s not, well this is how
I can honor her life. Cause that’s going to keep me human.”

“Damn,” Jimmy said.

“Tell us what you’re thinking,” Roy said.

“In the way back of my mind I remember learning about walled cities, you know, the
first real human settlements that were set up to organize people and to defend
against those that weren’t, you know, interested in playing well with others. And
that’s basically what we got here, Rube Goldberg style, but you know what I mean.
Anyway, so far like we said we been lucky because the threat is larger than we’ve
been prepared to answer, so we got to increase our perimeter, I think that’s what
happened with some of those older cities, they just kept expanding outwards.”

“I thought that was mostly because they had more people,” I said.

“Right, well, that’s part of the plan. We are going to need more folks, and we’ve
been seeing onesies and twosies drift along and we took ‘em in.”

“I noticed you were relaxing your immigration rules.”

“Well I been thinking about this a while,” Peters said.

“Since Pete brought Zoe back,” Roy said.

“That’s right. Once it was known, and since we are relatively safe here, we
actually have time to think about things, and since at ground I am a heartless
sonofabitch I know ain’t nothing we can do about bringing back what we lost.”

“Forward,” Jimmy said.

“Yes indeed. So the people, well, we’ll come to that. But for now, we have to get
busy expanding our perimeter, in two stages, with a larger outer barrier made up of
rows of what I’m calling Z-wire — same concept as barbed wire, but made out of rows
of steel struts with spikes all along, and stacked, so Zeke will have to climb and
rip himself to shit just to get inside. Then, inside that perimeter, another
defense, this one old fashioned, just a deep ass moat that we dig out, and again,
line the bottom and the close in wall with more spikes.”

“You going to fill the moat with piranhas,” Jimmy said.

“Nah, I’m figuring waste oil at the bottom, make it slippery for them to climb up
out of,” Peters said.

“You’re talking really about two layers of slowing Zeke down, when he comes.”

“Yeah, when Zeke and a million of his closest friends show up,” Peters said.

“Beyond the construction, you’re going to need a lot of people to patrol the
perimeters,” Roy said.

“Like I said, I figure we’ll pick them up along the way,” Peters said.

“Because this is going to entail multiple trips into the city for material,
equipment and supplies,” I said.

“Right. In order to build our new world we’re going to have to pick the bones of
the old ones clean,” Peters said.

“Have you thought about what the zoning board’s going to say?” Jimmy said.

Chapter Five

Even though our job was to scour Albuquerque for supplies, killing Zeke was always
at the top of the list. First, if you saw Zeke that meant he saw you and there was
never any such thing as a Christmas armistice. Zeke was always on the attack, he
was never tired and he was always hungry. Plus, any zombie we killed meant one less
Zeke knocking on our door back at the ranch. Other than that, our job became a job
like any other. We got up in the morning, shat showered and shaved, got into our
gear and went to work. I would say we were like the fighting Seabees, at least my
understanding of them, in that we were in charge of building and maintaining
infrastructure in combat situations.

Trips into town were executed in a medium size convoy. A couple strikers in front —
SUVs like our trigged-up Expos that could move and fight, followed by a killing
wagon, which was a heavy duty tractor pulling a flatbed that had a cage built on
top that could hold about 20 fighters — men and women whose job it was to kill Zeke
once we spotted a cluster of them. We would radio back and forth, figuring out how
to deploy the killing wagon, and often, it was as simple as luring a bunch of
shambling Zekes into a parking lot, where they would moan and groan at the tasty
meal inside the reinforced box, while the killers would shoot bolts, or use pikes
or chainsaws to cut Zeke down.

The fighters pulled double duty, of course. When we got to an identified

destination where we were going to pick up canned food, or steel, or tools or
whatever, they would jump down and get the job done as fast as possible. It was
taken as a given that there was going to be the occasional loss during our supply
runs, and there were — a solitary Zeke could pop out of a bathroom in a service
station, or come out of an office or what have you, and as I’ve already said, at
this point, Zeke was hungry, so if you got attacked the only positive is that you
usually got dead within seconds.

So there were losses on the caravans, but it was more the stress of going out
there, knowing you were going to have to kill them on the run like a goddamned
zombie safari, then climb down from your nice safe vehicle and maybe have to deal
with a Zeke in the box, jumping out at you, all that got to everyone, but in a way
that made us all focused on working at breakneck speed to get the materials we
needed for the walled city that many had already nicknamed New Petersburg.

But there were the occasional triumphs, even if they were punctuated by heart-
stopping bits of terror, that kept us going — mostly, I think because we were
sharing them with other people, shoulder to shoulder.

One time, we were on a basic food run, scavenging what was left out of every
supermarket, bodega and 7-11 we came across. Back in the old world, people
completely lost touch with how much raw food people needed to survive, even on
restricted calorie diets and believe me, obesity was pretty much cured once you
entered the Zeke marathon and spent everyday of your existence jogging from the
hungry jaws of death, you still needed at least one pound to a pound and a half of
food per day per person and with closing on three hundred people at the compound
that was a rough figure of at least a ton of food each week. And that number was
only going to keep growing, so Ralph had people working on cultivation, preparation
and cooking, recycling, even animal husbandry. Dogs were easy to catch, even the
feral ones because most of them weren’t too far gone wild and could be coaxed close
to us, even if we took them out with crossbows. Cats on the other hand, seemed to
know better, and except for the breeding stock we had come by, they seemed to know
life was no longer going to be about acting cute and curling up for tasty treats on
the divan.
And even though sooner or later we were going to run out of Dinty Moore cans of
mystery meat to scavenge, even after going house to house, we still had to devote
at least one full raid each week to drawing down the stock of prepackaged junk
leftover from the old world. So there we were, I think it was in a Handy Pantry,
and to be quite honest we let our guard down, seeing as how we didn’t run into any
Zekes on the way in, and the advance team had swept the store, so I let people goof
off a little, strolling up and down the aisles with the stray shopping carts that
were still around, acting as if we were just living like we used to, taking this
incredible abundance for granted, not knowing where it came from or how it was
going to get replenished, because gosh darn it weren’t we just so busy with the
useless errands and problems that used to occupy our days.

Well, the store had been cleaned out sporadically by other scavengers, mostly in
the early days before the lucky survivors got culled or took off for more isolated
regions, and the stuff on the shelves was knocked around, and of course there was
no lighting, so there was lots of shadows to hide trouble.

It was Roy that she got, and we knew It right away because he was strolling up and
down the aisles, calling out the prices and telling us how much cheaper he could
have gotten it for us wholesale and, ‘Hey Chief, would you like to fill out a
credit app so we can get your very first order on the way?’

There was a scattering of boxes, stuff falling to the floor, that we only heard
after he got bit, in that weird way that the mind puts together information out of
sequence.

“Oh shit, I’m done,” he said, like a real pro. “Chief, you gotta come and kill this
Zeke and say goodbye to Old Roy your friend foodservice rep.” Why he didn’t kill
her right away is a mystery that none of us, including him, will ever be able to
answer.

Right after it happened, we heard it scurrying away, making grovel grovel macking
noises like it was chewing on the piece of Roy she took off of him. When I came
around the corner, pistol up but tight to my body, I saw this little Zeke all
curled up on herself and even though I had one eye on Roy to make sure he hadn’t
gone full blown on me, I realized something was wrong.

Because Zeke really just couldn’t eat just one.

“Roy?”
“She — it — bit me on the leg, chief, ankle to be precise and it hurts like a
mother.”

“But you’re not doing the hippie hippie shake are you?”

“No sir, but —”

“And she moved away from you after the first attack?”

“That’s right, maybe cause she’s small?”

“Nah, we seen pintsize killing machines before my friend.”

“You don’t think?”

I didn’t answer, but lowered my weapon and moved closer to the girl, taking my
flashlight out of the belt loop and playing the beam on the floor in front of the
mess of hair where I figured her eyes would be hidden.

“Hey there, little one, wanna play with the flashlight,” I said, keeping the beam
playing on the tiles, wondering for a second if she had ever seen a real circus or
even a play where they used to get the crowd oohing and aahing in anticipation of
the main event.

“Pway,” she said, “wanna pway wit Wachel.” Her voice was cracked, as if she hadn’t
used it in months, at least not in speaking to a real other person, much less an
adult, because it sounded like her mind had retreated back from the five or six
years old I figured she had to be, from her length.

“Rachel. I’m Zach. I’m here to take you home.”

“Howme?” Like the concept, of ever being safe, was lost in her memory.

“Roy, how you doing over there?” MY eyes were off him, and I realized, so had my
attention and that was the first time I could remember being careless in the year
or so since Zeke had come to town.

“I was thinking about heading over to the patent medicine aisle and checking on the
bacitracin supply,” he paused. “Unless you think she’s a carrier as opposed to a
full-blown Zeke.”

“Shit, that’s a scary thought. Seeing as how you just dodged the Z-bullet train
express, you might want to see a therapist about your catastrophic mindset.”

“I’m good with the bacitracin if you are.”

“Go ahead,” with my attention away from her, the girl was looking up at me from
behind a rat’s nest of hair, and I played the beam of light from her chest, hands
and the floor so that she played with it, like a puppy might. “Rachel, we really
ought to be getting you home now,” I said, using the universal kind voice for
children I had even forgotten I’d ever possessed.

”’kay,” she said, and inched toward me along the floor.

“No knowing whether she could even walk, I bent down to her and said, “Hey, I’m
gonna’ carry you … but no biting okay?”

”’kay.”

Chapter 6

I had saved plenty of people’s lives since Z-day, plenty of them just inches away
from being eaten alive, but none of them felt like they’d been rescued from such
distant odds. Chances were we’d never get the full story from Rachel herself. I
checked her eyes as I carried her to my Expo, and they were hazel, not the blood
black of a zombie, but I also knew that look in them from my previous life, and she
had been through a lot of trauma, most of which, mercifully or not, kids never
directly remember.

After putting her in the front seat and belting her in, I saw most of the crew
standing around, staring. “Let’s go people — snap out of it! Nobody’s gonna’ want
to admit to fucking up a miracle, so get your goggles back on and keep ‘em open
until were back at the compound. Zeke don’t believe in Hallmark Cards.”

Over the walkie, I told Roy to go to a private channel. “Roy, how many zip codes
did you cover in your previous stint of employment?”

“42.”

“I take it you’re still with us in the realm of the human, then?”

“Yeah, she’s no carrier.”

“That’s a little morbid, dude.”

“Let me be the first to talk to you after you’re bit by a feral child.”

“Fair enough.”

“Uh-hunh. And Zach — remember that asshole mathematician from the first Jurassic
Park movie — the guy that used to talk about probability and when shit hits fandom
you don’t know how weird it’s going to get?”

“Yeah, Jeff Goldblum, made for the part.”

“Uh-hunh. As an asshole, probably. My point is, I just don’t think Zeke is

necessarily going to be the end of our troubles in this life.”

“Point taken, friend. And you’re probably right. But can you quit pissing in my
cheerios, we got a righteous reason to celebrate today. But we should talk about
what you’re thinking. Later on, though.”

“Check.”
Chapter 7

I was about to radio in the news of our unexpected find, when Peters came on air,
which was sign enough there was trouble.

“Carter, we got a Zeke formation headed our way, approaching the north perimeter.
Advise using southern entrance, we’ll have people there for you to cross.”

“How many?”

“Looks to be about a couple dozen, but that’s not the real problem.”

“Whad’ya got Ralph.”

“They’re being pushed in our direction by unknown aircraft.”

“Pushed?”

“Herded’s more like it. If it wasn’t so damned strange I might be scared.”

“Gotta’ be a point to it,” I said.

“And more of it where that came from, so for now I’m voting against shooting them
down.”

“Copy that.”

“We were moving fast on the road, and were inside the southern gate in time to see
the Zeke herding helicopter doing its thing. Since this scraggly bunch weren’t
heading our way because they had caught wind of us, the chopper alternated between
getting behind the crew of zombies and using the force of its engine to push them
forward, and then jumping up and moving to the left or right to keep them in a
tight group. Finally, one of the Zekes caught wind of whatever it is that says
human to them, and then they started at us on the run, like they always do, only
this time it was kind of comical the way they had to get coaxed into it, so that it
looked like a zombie special Olympics race, where every retard gets a medal, just
for trying.

At this point Peters had one solid string of defense laid down around the entire
outer perimeter he had planned, enough to stop some Zekes, and slow down the rest
so that shooters could pick them off as they impaled themselves on the hooks and
barbs he had welded together. The plan was to build several layers of the barrier,
atop and then behind the first layer, but this was going to be a good tactical
test.

Except for what the helicopter did next. As the Zekes came within a hundred yards
of the barrier, the chopper shot toward us, climbing along the way, then pivoted to
face the Zeke attack — and then opened fire with whatever crazy ass Gatling gun
those things had before the Pentagon shut down for good, and put thousands of
rounds into the Zekes, turning them into shop meat and, finally shutting down their
brains as well. When the guns stopped spewing, there was nothing but a pile of road
kill sizzling in the desert.

“Ralph, this is Carter, come back,” I said into the walkie.

“Yuh?”

“Your scout see anything further out — Zeke or otherwise?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Alright, copy you loud and clear,” I said, acknowledging what he hadn’t said.
There was more of where this helicopter came from, which meant we should give the
people landing inside the perimeter a cordial a welcome as you had to when superior
firepower made an appearance in your war zone.

But Peters and I had privately worked out an arrangement. Since he was the chief of
the tribe, and technically I was still a hired hand, I could be the wild card
whenever a situation arose and I figured this was it.

The guy walking up to me was actually wearing a flight suit and aviator glasses,
and just the way he was wearing them, like he had picked up a macho macho man
outfit at the supply shed for a day out on the town told me most of what I needed
to know about him. The technical term for guys like him is, was and always will be:
douche bag.

I ignored the salute he fired off, because it was about as authentic as his
uniform.

“You mind telling me what that was supposed to prove, asshole?”

His smile faded.

“When we see settlements like this sprout up, we like to pay them a visit and show
them the United States Government is still a functioning entity.”

The enormity of what he was saying actually left me speechless.

“Are you saying, you motherfucker, that in the aftermath of humanity getting wiped
within an inch from the ledge of existence that you scumbags still have space in
your little fucking bureaucratic brains for a motherfucking turf war?”

I didn’t realize it at first, because the sounds of the chopper’s engine and rotors
was still winding down, but I was screaming at this guy — and the hand that clamped
down on my wrist told me I was reaching for my sidearm.

A sidelong glance revealed a guy in a more suitably beat up flight suit with
sergeant stripes was standing next to me, which said two things. First, the guy was
good enough to get to me without me seeing him, and second, that his boss was
enough of an asshole that it was part of his job to keep people like me from
killing him. So we immediately had the understanding of mutual respect that only
middle managers in police and military hierarchies ever really share — that is, if
we killed all the assholes we had to take orders from, then we’d be left in charge
and would then become similar order giving assholes that our subordinates would
have to kill and the process would never end until the fucking civilians were in
control and since we all hate civilians, middle managers such as sergeants and
street cops generally refrain from killing their asshole superior officers.

At this point, Peters pulled up in his quad with the tricked out Rolls-Royce grill,
driven by his son Pete and her surprised me by looking every inch the regional
governor.
“Carter, thanks for welcoming our guest to the largest colony of surviving human
beings in the greater Albuquerque area.” He strode over to the bureaucrat with his
hand out. “Ralph Peters, at your service.”

“James Breem, Refugee Coordinator for the Western Region of the United States of
America,” he said, returning the handshake. I could swear the guy barely restrained
himself from clicking his heels together.

Roy had been hanging back, mostly because he had collected Rachel out of the Expo,
and when Peters saw her, I realized the power of what we had going here, and it
made the negotiations go a lot smoother.

Chapter 8

The government man only confirmed what we already knew. Zeke had wiped out 99-plus
percent of the population, most of the survivors were on the run or in hiding, and
the only known cure was to kill ‘em all. Ralph’s burgeoning village was one of
about twenty that had reached this size in this section of what used to be the
United States, and we faced the same challenges everyone else did — keeping Zeke
out and putting him down, and then feeding and watering the survivors.

We also learned the Feds, along with governments around the world, had taken to
bombing its own cities, at first in an attempt to contain Zeke, but then to
eliminate some of his raw numbers, and finally, though Breem didn’t go so far, they
just kept dropping bombs because it was the only thing they knew how to do, the way
a kid throws a chessboard when he realizes he’s been so easily beat.

“No nukes?” Jimmy asked. We were in Ralph’s council chambers, and Roy was hanging
back, bouncing Rachel up and down on the knee of the leg she hadn’t bit. They were
cleaning her up a little bit at a time, wiping her down with washcloths and even
trimming her hair back once she got over her fear that the scissors were not the
same as Zeke’s incisors. It probably would have been better to take her away and
take care of her in private, but none of us wanted her out of our sight. She was
giving us the courage we needed to handle what Breem the douche bag was about to
ask of us.

“I’m sure you have the same question we all do,” Breem said, finally getting to it.
My arms were folded, but I was taking my cue from the tech sergeant, whose name was
Rice, and was wearing a look that said, ‘this sucks, but it’s the kind of suckitude
that we’re paid to take care of.’

“Right,” I said. “Where is the Zeke and two hundred and ninety nine million of his
closest friends.

“Precisely,” Breem said. “As amazing as your story is — and you and the other
settlements are all made out of mostly extraordinary human beings — the fact is we
shouldn’t be here at all.”

“There’s not enough bullets or bombs to wipe them all out,” Jimmy said. “Or bolts.”

“Yes, and we don’t have the answer — we can see pockets of Zombies with our
remaining satellite and aviation capabilities, but the numbers don’t add up, taking
into account probable destruction and strength estimates.”

“You can’t find them?” I said.

“They don’t give of body heat like people, so we can only eyeball the ones we can
visibly see, and …”

“You’re saying that Zeke goes dormant,” I said.

“In the absence of food supply or organized human activity, yes.” Breem said.

“Let me guess — you don’t figure Zeke dies of hunger,” Jimmy said.

“There’s no indication the infected actually need food to survive, nor do their
bodies appear to deteriorate beyond what the virus initially robs from them.”

“So this is just beginning,” Jimmy said.

Breem was nodding, while Sgt. Rice looked like he was waiting for the big finale.
“In the absence of organized human activity,” I repeated Breem’s words back to him
and he looked at me like a hopeful third grade teacher. “That implies strategy.”

Everyone waited for Breem to fill in the blank.

“We — we don’t know what it implies, and it could be our bias, that by looking at
Zeke doing nothing, there must be a grand plan, but it’s also possible that simply
because they can’t strategize, and thus go marching for living people to take down,
they go dormant.”

“But there is something weird about Zeke wiping out most of us and then just
standing down.”

“It looks like there’s something to it, but we don’t understand it.”

“And you want us to find out for you,” I said.

Finally, Rice smiled.

Breem cleared his throat. “Well, even though the government is still functioning,
we have limits as to what we can accomplish. The satellites for one, while still
functioning, are only god to us as long as the earthbound computers and
communication are still operational. And then there’s the question of aviation fuel
…”

“There’s a limit to the salvage operation, there,” Jimmy said.

“Yes, contrary to what conventional wisdom, the most important personnel right now
are anyone with petroleum mining and refining experience. But we have secured
several facilities in California.”

I was thinking. Mostly stewing, but it came to me. “You can’t fly around looking
for what you’re looking for because the aircraft attracts Zeke.”

“Yes. And going back to what I said before, Zeke seems to get really worked up when
they see helicopters or aircraft of any kind. Think about it — are they more
violent when you’re on foot or in a vehicle?”

“You really are suggesting they have some sort of grudge against technology — or
mankind’s highest expression of organized activity.”

“Either that or their just savages that get agitated at loud noises.”

“Could be both,” Jimmy said.

“So you want something from us,” I said.

“We are recruiting ground teams to investigate several areas of interest,” Breem
said. “And news of Carter and his fellows actually filtered back to us.”

“What are you offering?” I said.

“We’ll put this compound under our high value asset category, meaning they can
expect regular supply runs, communication and defense in case of massed attack, and
information sharing. But mostly, a chance to be part of rebuilding the larger
society.”

Still stewing, I said. “You’re recruiting us because you don’t want to jeopardize
your own shaky resources. If we succeed that’s great, if we fail, too bad too sad.”

Now Rice was beaming like a recruiter who just gotten a sig on the bottom line —
Welcome to the United States Army Son!

Chapter 9

“Can you believe these corny ass badges, right out of SG-1,” Jimmy said over the
walkie.
“I do believe I saw you walking a little more upright once you slipped into your
BDUs,” Roy came back with.

“Yeah, well, in case you hadn’t notice there’s no clothing factories running
anymore, so we got new threads that’ll last us awhile,” I said. “Even if we are
tagged with being part of the Zombie Expeditionary Detail.”

“That spells ZED, in case you didn’t notice,” Jimmy said.

“I did, and you know dickhead came up with that one,” Roy said.

“Yeah, well, what are we going to do? At least we were able to negotiate some
goodies for Peters and his crew,” I said.

“And we all caught the veiled threat if we didn’t get all patriotic,” Jimmy said.

“Uh-hunh. That they would use Peters as bait and draw out a couple thousand Zekes
to the compound with their whirlybirds — and then leave ‘em hanging,” Roy said.

“But seeing as how we did, Breem had his crew send out sorties into the city and
drew out a couple hundred Zekes they mowed down in the streets,” I said.

“And they did get those supply drops, and radio equipment tying them back into
what’s left of civilization, and access to answer if they come up against stuff
they can’t handle,” Jimmy said.

“And don’t forget the ammunition,” Roy said. “Crossbows are great, but nothing’s as
satisfying as pumping Zeke full of lead.”

“So why are we so bitter,” I said.

“Because we’re out here on our own again,” Jimmy said.

“Yeah, I’d like to see how that kid Rachel turns out,” Roy said.
“There’s a good chance you will, buddy, all we have to do is stay alive. Besides,
didn’t you see the way Peters took her right over?” I said.

“Yep, funny how this plague may have turned out to be the best thing in the world
for him,” Roy said.

“It certainly helped him become the guy who’s capable of taking care of a whole
lotta’ other people,” I said.

“You know guys, I’m really glad we’re talking out all our angst here, but maybe we
should get back to work,” Jimmy said.

We had been on the road west out of Albuquerque for going on eleven hours, and were
closing in on our destination. But since it was closing in on four in the afternoon
we had already decided to bunk in for the night. We had to go inside a formerly
secure facility and chances were Zeke was in residence, so we didn’t feel like
fighting in close quarters, in the dark, after driving all day.

Another thing we got in the Fed goodie bag — antipersonnel mines, with a quick
tutorial on how to set up a tripwire perimeter.

“Be careful to set ‘em higher than dog height,” Roy called out to Jimmy, who was
busy setting wire between temporary posts around an old gas station. I was scanning
the horizon for any shambling Zekes. The good part about the southwest was the long
line of sight. We were far from any old town or city here on the Interstate, but
Zeke had a habit of turning up when you least felt like dealing with him. I didn’t
spot any movement, at least not on the ground. High overhead, I could hear an
aircraft at the outside of my ability, which would have probably gone unnoticed
back in the day when the world was full of machines running us all over the globe.
Even with the mil-spec glasses Rice had gotten for me, I couldn’t make out any kind
of markings on the plane, but it looked more like a private jet than anything the
government would be using nowadays and that made me realize there was a dimension
to human survival I hadn’t even considered.

Raising Breem’s HQ on the shortwave unit they had also provided us with, I asked if
they had anything flying over this section of the country at the moment.

A grunt radio operator got back to me with a standard non-reply: “Government flight
activity is non-disclosed information. Sir.”
Sir. Everyone who’s spent any time around the military knew it was a non-standard,
all-purpose acronym for ‘fuck off.’

“Let Breem know we will be addressing our target in the morning,” I said, and
ignored whatever cozy, I’m sitting in my radio shack nice and safe smartass
response he may had had for me.

At dinner, I told the others about what I’d seen.

“Fuck all, you figure some billionaire holed up when he saw it was coming down,
stocked himself up with like a little city’s worth of shit,” Jimmy said.

“Exactly,” I said.

“Tough keeping all that staff alive, pilot, ground crew, mechanic,” Roy said.

“Never mind the stewardesses,” Jimmy said. “And the chefs, maids, gardeners.”

“Yeah, real tough. Must’ve broke his heart to treat them like human beings,” Roy
said. “Probably had to let them sleep in the big house.”

“What do you think, chief,” Jimmy said.

“I’m betting that Breem is just as worried about some rich guy’s plans as he is
about Zeke’s non-strategic strategy he’s got us looking after.”

“Government hates competition,” Roy said.

Chapter 10
The first Zeke hit the first wire about three in the morning. We had long perfected
the art of sleeping light, and rolled up, weapons drawn. No Zekes inside, all three
of us hit the exterior of the gas station, to watch three other Zekes get blown
apart by the waist-high, outward facing charges. Night vision goggles were useless,
as they gave off no body heat, and thus didn’t day-glo green. But there was enough
starlight out here, to see there weren’t dozens of shambling figures looking for a
midnight convenience store snack.

But there was one Zeke, standing alone, at what must have been another tripwire,
because you could see a little glint coming off the posts that held it taut. He had
stopped short, he might have even been pressing against the wire, but not enough to
trigger the mine. I lit up his forehead with the red dot that means go. Jimmy and
Roy both yelled over to me that they didn’t see any more Zekes moving around. I
didn’t answer them on first call, keeping the laser steady on his forehead. And he
kept standing there. Second call, I answered Jimmy, told him I had a Zeke lined up.

“What are you waiting for?”

“He’s just standing there, against a tripwire.”

“He stuck,” Jimmy said.

“No,” I said.

And Zeke kept standing there, red dot on his forehead.

“Is he thinking?” Roy said.

“I wouldn’t call it that,” I said, the chill night air running through my t-shirt.
“But I think he learned not to keep coming.”

“What are you waiting for,” Jimmy repeated.

“I don’t know,” I said, and pulled the trigger. The Zeke went down, twice as dead,
the way they all do.

After a brief powwow, we decided to restring the perimeter with fresh mines and get
a couple more hours sleep before heading out on our first assignment.

Over coffee, Jimmy said, “you sure you weren’t having a bad dream.”

“No. He wasn’t about to ask to borrow a cup of sugar, but I think he saw how his
hunting buddies bought the farm and he stopped short of getting his own head blown
off.”

“But he didn’t know what else to do,” Jimmy said.

“Right. It was like the one great idea of his undead life,” I said.

“But it acted out of a self-preservation instinct,” Roy said. “We’ve never seen
that before.”

“Yeah well, don’t worms avoid the petri dish full of bleach? That doesn’t mean
they’re going for their driving test next week. It could just mean that some of
them have some rudimentary reflexes left,” Jimmy said.

“Or are rediscovering them,” Roy said.

“Why don’t we go take a look at him and see if he was carrying a copy of ‘Avoiding
Zombie Deathtraps for Dummies,’” Jimmy said.

He was still there, and still twice-dead.

“Looks kind of fresh. What are we, over a year and a half out, now?” Roy said.

“Yeah, he doesn’t have the Zombie lifestyle written all over him, make the hard-
core homeless look downright well-groomed,” Jimmy said.

“Roy, you want to secure him,” I said, and he took a sharpened spade to Zeke’s
neck, then kicked the head away.
“I figure he’s only been turned a couple months, tops, if he was staying inside,” I
said, turning out his pockets and pulling out a wallet, that I handed to Jimmy.

“Charles Pendergast, Arizona DL, US Air Force ID card, couple CCs, couple buyer
loyalty cards, couple family pics, the usual,” Jimmy said.

“Yeah, but he’s also carrying this,” I said, after wedging out a personal GPS
locator from inside the small coin pocket of his chinos.

“Think maybe his wife didn’t want him going to titty bars,” Jimmy said.

“No. I’m thinking someone’s tracking the migratory patterns of the undead,” Roy
said.

“I’m starting to think you were one of those government conspiracy dudes, Roy,”
Jimmy said.

“There are a whole lot of possibilities here, guys,” I said, “Let’s mull it over
and discuss enroute.”

I used the shortwave to contact Peters, on a different band than the official
channel we used to talk to the government dweebs. “Be advised. We have spotted
unknown aircraft, possibly privately controlled, and we have also encountered Zeke
displaying possible intelligent behavior, over.”

“Acknowledged.” It was Peters himself. “Now just so you don’t have to agonize about
it, Petey already told me about the way he found Zoe. That makes two known
incidents of Zeke being more than just a killing machine.”

“Ralph, at the time I just didn’t think it would have been a good idea.”

“And I know you left it up to Pete. He kept it to himself, but it was eating at
him, and when we adopted Rachel, he thought it was too important to let it go.”

“You adopted her?”

“Easy to do make the rules when you’re in charge. ‘Sides, she’s everybody’s kid
here, we’re still small enough to be a damned commune.”

“What do you think it means?”

“Nothing. I mean, it changes nothing, except as a reminder we gotta’ stay on our

toes. Zeke was impossible to begin with, remember? Now if he picks up a couple
skills along the way it just means the enemy is adapting, which means we’ll have
to. It’s good intel, that’s all.”

“But do you think it means there might be a cure?”

“Absolutely not, there’s no making someone human again after going Zeke.”

Chapter 11

None of us felt like scrounging among the bits and pieces of shattered Zekes to see
if any of them had tracking devices, so we packed up and set out on our field trip.

“What do you think Breem really has us looking for?” Jimmy said over the radio.

“He want us to piece together the vision he can dimly see,” Roy said.

“Bottom line, we agreed to help because this isn’t going to be over until the last
Zeke is down,” I said. “And we all know it, so stay alert, stay alive and let’s see
what we find.”

It wasn’t long before we pulled up to the military facility that wasn’t much of one
when the world was turning. Now it looked like hubris crossed with folly, a toll
plaza on the Ozymandias highway.

SOP, we circled the fence that had always been an arbitrary line in the desert, in
order to provoke any Zekes to perk up and give us open shots instead of having to
take them on close quarters. Nothing, which was more cause for concern than if we
had twenty semi-retired human beings on the attack. Out here in the Arizona desert,
where would the dead make off to? Once they turned, Zeke wasn’t a big traveler.

“Man, either they all got wiped out by a big bad Zombie hunter or they’re all
hanging out in the shade,” Jimmy said.

“Killing Zeke inside is like fighting in a bathroom stall,” Roy said.

“They could all be alive,” I said.

“And what? Off the air so that Breem doesn’t know any better?” Jimmy said.

“Yeah, it’s willy, but we have to check it out, I said. “Why don’t we set up a wide
tripwire perimeter so we don’t get boxed in,” I said as I drove up to what looked
like the main building.

“Copy that,” Roy said, and the two of them went to work as I entered the single
story block structure.

It had the abandoned feel of the exterior; when I threw a rock toward the back of
the large room, the echo died as if there wasn’t any point. And no Zekes came to
greet me.

When the others joined up, we entered the small rear room that was also empty —
except for the high-tech looking stainless steel elevator doors in front of us and
the emergency staircase to the right.

“Hello, Area 51,” Jimmy said.

“Shit,” Roy said. “Breem didn’t tell you about this?”

“No,” I said. “Let’s just get to it.”

The stairs were empty. All five flights of them, all dark because the battery power
had faded long ago, so it was like a space walk on the dark side of the moon, cold
and dark and dead. Even stopping every flight and listening for sounds of a Zeke
answering the dinner bell didn’t make us feel any better. Zeke may not be alive,
but at least he moves with a purpose.

At bottom, an electronic security door was propped open.

“It’s like they wanted us to come in here and see what happened,” Roy said.

“Let’s get it done,” Jimmy said.

Even with headlamps and barrel-mounted flashlights, the dark barely gave way. But
not so much that we couldn’t see what had happened to the staff of this place.

“Headshots, every one of them,” Jimmy said as we swept past dozens of men and
women, all in uniform, several with their own service pistols still clutched in
their desiccated hands.

We had split up by then, and were going room to room and cubicle by cubicle in what
was obviously a highly guarded military science lab. We counted thirty six dead,
with no Zekes in the bunch.

Until we got to the quarantine room. There were still fourteen Zekes inside, behind
Plexiglas walls that looked three or four inches thick. They had been standing
around, doing nothing, the way livestock look in a barn in the early morning before
the humans put them to work.

In the split-second it took for them to register the human hands behind the
flashlights, they all rushed the glass, clawing at it, smearing their distorted
masks full of dried blood against it, in an attempt to destroy what they used to
be. They were all wearing the remnants of uniforms.

“When we get to the point that Zeke activists talk about the inhumanity of keeping
them in zoos, we’ll know the world is back to normal,” Jimmy said.

“What should we do with them?” Roy said.

“I don’t think they’ll accommodate us by backing away from the door,” Jimmy said.

“Yeah, that’s a problem, but let’s keep looking for what’s going on here,” I said.

Beyond the quarantine enclosure there was another lab, with an old fashioned
blackboard that had a message scrawled on it.

“Think that’s the teacher,” Jimmy said, indicating the slumped white coated figure
sitting at a high-top bench.

“School’s out. Forever,” Roy said, moving forward and using the barrel of his AR-15
to pick up the man’s head, lifting the loose scalp instead.

“Tell you what, this is some extreme unit discipline here,” Jimmy said.

“Yeah. Like they knew what this was going to turn into,” I said.

“What, you think this is a case of mass existential suicide,” Jimmy said. “I think
they were infected and decided to beat the devil.”

“I think we’re going to find the answers by following the instructions written on
the blackboard,” I said. “Let’s do it topside, though.”

Jimmy went to the blackboard and removed the item duct-taped to the surface,
underneath the large letters that said: “WATCH THIS DVD.”

Chapter 12

“Awfully nice of him to leave a portable DVD player — with two kinds of power
cords,” Jimmy said.
“What do you want, he was a military scientist, if they could figure out how to
over engineer how to take a piss they would’ve,” Roy said.

“You know, I believe there was a field manual addendum of human waste functions in
the Army if I remember correctly,” I said. I was so happy to be out of that
underground tomb I was actually almost smiling.

“I particularly like the fact that it’s a Mickey Mouse official DVD player,” Jimmy
said.

“Probably his kids,” Roy said.

“Don’t be so sure about that. There were a whole lot of adult Disney fetishists,
back in the day,” I said.

“Yeah well, we don’t need it, the Expo’s all got overhead players,” Jimmy said.

“Still, whatever he wanted to say was important enough for him to go to the trouble
to save it — either it was a futile gesture or one of amazing faith, so let’s see
what he had to say.”

Even with the tripwire perimeter around us, and the Zekes locked in the quarantine
room, one of us had to stay outside and patrol. Roy volunteered.

In the backseat of the Expo, Jimmy said, “Hey there’s no reason for us to be
uncomfortable, I’m turning on the A.C.” and leaned forward to turn the ignition on.
“Think maybe there’s some microwave popcorn back in the kitchen, we could —”

“Let’s watch the DVD,” I said.

The video opened to a shot of the blackboard filled with the kind of arcane
notations that you never know are for real or if they’re just gibberish, and then
the scientist we saw downstairs came on camera, with his scalp intact but his
confidence was clearly shaken.

“Hello, my name is Doctor Robert Townsend, that’s a PhD. Doctor, in astrogeology,

and I am recording this in the hope that surviving humans find it someday — sooner
would be better than later, of course, considering what we’re dealing with, and
that they will be able to use what I am presenting to help preserve our species.

As of this recording, that statement is somewhat hyperbolic — is that a proper form

of the word? — but from what I understand at this point, it will prove to be true.

What we do here, at this Air Force facility, is catalogue and inspect space rocks,
in simplest terms. Except for the very few specimens that have been brought back
from manned space flight, most of our working stock comes from debris that falls to
earth as a matter of course. And this happens with far more frequency and in more
volume than the layperson would suspect, nothing on the scale of something you’d
see in a science fiction movie, like Armageddon, where the miles-wide rock
threatens a dinosaur level extinction event, but mostly fist-sized samples, a
boulder here and there and lots and lots of pebbles. Ha, co-co pebbles my little
girl used to call them, because they came from comets, or at least she thought that
was where they all came from. No matter, now.

The importance of these rocks, to the layperson, might even seem even less
significant than their size. I mean, what is the big deal, right, essentially it’s
still just a rock, even though it came from somewhere else.

But they’re important because they help us understand how the universe was born,
and when, and then there’s also the matter of the theory that holds that life on
earth actually came to be because of amino acids that cam from off-world — which
has lead to the typically bad scientist joke, ‘E.T. Didn’t Have to Make a Long-
Distance Call.’

The study of these organic compounds is important for several reasons, in that they
can better help us understand what our pre-historic origins looked like, expose us
to proteins we weren’t aware of, which leads us to question what life might be like
elsewhere, and also has long-term possibilities in genetic research and therapy.

We are, unfortunately because we are a military facility, also looking out for
compounds that might have military applications, either through germ and-or genetic
warfare, metals that might have interesting properties or crystals that might prove
useful in developing more advanced computer applications.

It sounds ominous but it’s mostly mundane work, because at the end of the day we’re
little more than glorified sea shell scavengers strolling along a planet-wide
beach, picking up things that wash up on our shore.

Sorry for the long-winded explanation, but I have to assume this is going to be
found by non-technical folks. On the other hand, assuming another astrogeologist is
going to find this would be pretty absurd. By the way, I hope those of you watching
this are safe and able to use this to deal with the horror from space — it’s quite
Lovecraftian, actually, though I don’t believe he ever used microscopic organisms
as a plot device.

Well — I’ve gone and spoiled the ending, haven’t I? The short answer to the
question you may have asked yourselves — where did this mutation come from — is
that it came from outer space, which was actually used as a title for a movie about
aliens crash landing in Arizona, but that story had a rather more benign ending
than this one.

Since you are watching this, I just want to assure you you’re under no danger of
contracting the disease, even though you obviously have been in the lab to retrieve
this DVD.

In its original format, the pathogen, which I believe to be a virus of some sort,
was alive and capable of airborne transmission and infection. And that was part of
the problem, its original form I mean, because those who are infected via the
airborne delivery take a much longer time to demonstrate symptoms — on the order of
about sixteen hours. It’s only after a person has been fully transformed by the
airborne virus —”

Roy broke in over the walkie: “Guys, we got a Zeke problem down the road, couple
dozen it looks like, fight or flight?”

I had already turned off the DVD as Roy was talking.

“Both,” Jimmy and I answered.

Chapter 13

I had my own glasses out and up to look where Roy was pointing. About a mile or two
out, coming over the hazy rise, was a line of Zekes out for a stroll. They were
definitely headed in our direction. A quick scan showed no other activity.

“Okay, we’ve got some time,” I said. “You two take down the tripwire mines, I’m
going to blow those interior doors and seal Zeke downstairs.”
“What if someone comes along down the road,” Roy said.

“Ah, I’ll paint a sign on the front door, best we can do, but I don’t think
anyone’s going to just amble along, and if they do I want to make sure some
scavengers don’t open up a can of trouble for themselves.”

The timed mine took down the rear roof of the building, all in a neat pile over
where the elevator and stairs led down to the laboratory. In a supply locker I had
found a roll of duct tape, no paint and didn’t have time to forage.

Jimmy and Roy watched from their Expos as I taped a giant letter ‘Z’ to one of the
outer doors, and a triangle to the other.

“Delta Zulu lives here,” Jimmy called out, “Let’s roll, amigoes!”

In the Expo and on the walkie, I asked, “Do we have a head count, number one, and
number two, Roy, have you calculated how far the closest town is?”

Jimmy: “We got twenty-eight Zekes that are in sight.”

“In sight being the operative word,” I said.

“Yeah, and the closest town is 32 miles out,” Roy said.

“At Zeke’s typical one-point-five mile an hour shamble, that means what, they been
on the move since, what, last Wednesday,” Jimmy said. “And this is the first we’re
seeing them.”

“That’s assuming they stuck to the road and does it really matter,” I said.

“Don’t suppose you want to play Death Race 2000,” Jimmy said.

“No, let’s preserve the metal until we’re actually in a jam where we have to rely
on it,” I said. “Standard V-formation, stop three hundred yards out, fifty wide,
use bipods for early shots.”

“10-4,” Jimmy said, followed by Roy’s, “Copy that.”

The Zekes kept shambling out of the haze as we got into position, and waited for
them to get into range. Even with the promise of resupply, it was a bad habit to
spray bullets at Zeke, unless you had a fifty and could afford to just throw the
Cusinart at them, so we waited, took our shots and put them all down in under five
minutes.

“Roy, keep scanning for Zeke, Jimmy, hold your position,” I said, getting back in
the Expo and driving up to the bodies. One of the early shots was still twitching,
looked like an eye shot, so I aimed the front right tire for his skull and squished
him, extra dead. The slow drive confirmed what concerned me — several of these
Zekes were fresher looking than the rest, their clothes not tattered and what was
left of their bodies not as ravaged by their Zeekiness.

I suspected one or more of those tracking devices could be found in the clothing of
the fresher Zekes, but messing around in a pile of dead zombies was not something
you undertook lightly. Drop ‘em and keep moving.

“Okay, guys, let’s saddle up and get on out of here,” I said over the walkie.

“Where we headed,” Jimmy said.

“San Diego,” I said. Breem’s HQ.”

“Short way takes us along the border, long way will take all day if we push
through,” Roy said.

“Border road has a greater population, so we’re avoiding it,” I said.

“Bet they have real hot showers, not any of those damned solar showers,” Jimmy
said.

“And secure perimeters, Roy said.

“Okay then, we’re motivated, so let’s get moving,” I said. “You two pull ahead,
I’ll follow.” Pulling the Expo well away from the downed Zekes, I stopped the
vehicle, retrieved the DVD from the car’s player and set up the portable on the
passenger seat, to finish hearing Townsend’s story.

“It’s only after a person has been fully transformed by the airborne virus, that
they become the flesh-eating monstrosities you are most likely still dealing with.

And that explains the unaltered, but still dead, bodies you have discovered here in
our laboratory. The zombies locked up in the quarantine room were originally my
esteemed colleagues that had been working on the rather unusual space geode we had
discovered. A geode, of course, is an otherwise normal rock that is hollow, and
often contains rather pretty crystal formations. As per our usual protocol, we had
x-rayed some specimens that had been brought in and discovered the hollow center.
Even in our relatively ignorant state we knew that simply cracking it open could be
dangerous, so we approached it with biohazard protocol — meaning, the quarantine
room.

But I didn’t supervise the cracking open of the specimen, and one of our more
impulsive junior researchers did it in the open air, that is, not in a sealed
biosafety cabinet.

I didn’t learn this of course until I came in the morning after the damage had been
done. When I walked up to the glass of the q-room and saw the specimen sitting out
in the open, it sent a chill down my spine, that, even now, I can’t equal.

I immediately spoke to my senior colleague inside the room, informing him I was
shutting the entrance until I could run tests on those outside the room. As you saw
for yourself, there were a few dozen people down here, but outside the room. By my
calculation, they had been infected about six hours after the people inside the
room had been — and those people had all gone topside.

The blood tests confirmed my fears — something was inside us — all of us, even me,
and we locked down the station.

And waited for the effect to come over the people in the quarantine room. While we
waited, I tested every person outside the q. We all had it in us.

Which meant what was happening to them would happen to us.”

Chapter 14

Townsend took a drink of water before continuing. “In short, we knew we were going
to turn into those things — hah, not very scientific, but there you have it.

Since I am not a biologist or medical researcher, my conclusion that there is no

cure for this virus may prove to be partially or completely incorrect. But I know
there is no fixing this problem in the little time we have left and so we had a
meeting of all the personnel down here and have decided to euthanize the infected,
which is a fancy way of saying committing mass suicide.

Partly, I think, is guilt. We let the cat out of the cosmic bag, and worse, which I
haven’t gone into yet, some of the people who were in the q-room yesterday had a
day off today — meaning they are out there, in the population and passing on the
infection via violent means. We have already had reports of these — these things —
tearing into their family and neighbors, and as you know, those so infected in turn
become carriers and spreaders of the disease.

We have contacted our superiors and staff at various agencies, asking for a
complete quarantine of this region of the United States, but as you might expect
there is simply no protocol for locking down a huge area of the country, and even
if there was, it couldn’t happen fast enough to halt the spread in time.

The only hope that I do have is that our sister lab, the one up in Oregon, may have
better luck with either not spreading the virus, or, since they are a med facility,
in coming up with some kind of cure, or perhaps a vaccine.

That’s right, we sent a geode that was almost identical to the one we had here, to
another lab. For all we know, they made a similar mistake to the one we did, and so
there are now two epicenters for the spread of the virus. We — or at least, I —
will never know. That’s because the lab went dark, meaning we can’t get in touch
with them. So they either succumbed to it the way we did, or figured it out and
decided to take themselves offline, in order to defend themselves. Or maybe
something in between.

So there you have it. On a separate disc, which you’ll find in the carrying case,
is all the science we were able to extract in the last day or so, along with the
contact info for the Oregon lab. For those of you viewing this, you have probably
made it through quite a lot, which should give you hope. And I wish you well. As
you are well aware, the fate of our species lies in your continued ability to
survive. Farewell.”

Chapter 15

“Life is … a mistake.” The detached head stared out of black eyes, pointed in the
direction of the researchers, who couldn’t tell if they were being seen.

This was the fifth zombie they had decapitated and hooked up to the monitoring
equipment, and the first they had managed to stimulate into language.

“I don’t know whether to call that progress or not,” said Dr. Melissa Schwartz,
second in charge of the Biological Defense Lab, outside of Medford, Oregon.

“It is possible it’s just being petulant,” said Vinny DeMaio, her assistant. “You
know, like a captured Taliban fighter or something. Allah is on our side, and will
rain death upon you infidels.”

“Hah! Remember when people running around pissed off at Pamela Anderson fake boobs
was our biggest problem,” Schwartz said.

“So what should we do, keep shocking it until we get the whole story? And does this
fall under the no torture memo regarding enemy combatants?” DeMaio said.

“You are a laugh riot today, Vinny,” Schwartz said. “Yes, we need to understand
more of what’s going on here.”

“You still wedded to the idea that there’s a design behind this — that it’s not
just a bad draw on the cosmic dance card? I mean, live by the big bang die by the
big bang kind of situation?”

“I understand that’s possible. Maybe the dinosaurs were running around saying, ‘why
me,’ after the asteroid hit, and maybe we’re just looking for meaning in a
meaningless void, but understanding the virus is a legitimate step in figuring out
how to deal with it.”
“Alright, we’ll get back to philosophy another time, but I still think you’re
asking a paramecium to explain its raison d’etre,” DeMaio said, and pressed a
button that delivered an electrical stimulus to the zombie’s brain.

“Must consume life … erase mistake … not-life is the standard … must douse flareup
of error that is life … end nuisance that prevents reversion to mean,” said the
head.

“That was quite the entropic soliloquy. Makes Hamlet sound like a real estate
agent,” DeMaio said.

“Yeah, it’s always sunny on the south side of the property,” Schwartz said. “Shock
it again.”

“Aaargh. You make brain talk your filthy language. Thinking is pain, talking is
making pain heard. You … all must die. Join us … go back to nothing where there is
no pain no talk no think.”

“Again,” Schwartz said. “Until it stops.”

DeMaio shocked the head again.

“Darkness is truth. Nothing … extinguishes pain. Silence is beauty. No mind to

disturb ultimate truth. You will die … and know truth, then smile as you think no
more.”

“I get it. Zombies are Goth, Goth are zombies,” Schwartz said. “Let’s hold off a
second. What do you think this thing is trying to say?”

“Well, if indeed the remaining portion of the human brain is processing its new
orientation verbally, then I would say it’s purpose is literally the extinguishing
of consciousness first, then, it appears it also has a permanent grudge against
basic life metabolism and ultimately, energy production,” DeMaio said.

“Meaning, just as we — and all living creatures — seek more life, this dark virus
seeks to undo any life it encounters,” Schwartz said.
“From the sound of it, going back to my pithy comment, it appears to be an agent
that actively promotes entropy, as its organizing goal,” DeMaio said.

“My first thought is that that isn’t possible, but of course, we’re looking right
at it. So going beyond my existential distaste, I would say we have to consider the
possibility this is an engineered agent,” Schwartz said.

DeMaio was quiet for a moment. “That’s a pretty big wagon you just unloaded.”

“Right. It assumes there is an actor on the scene — somewhere — that seeks to

destroy life in the universe as we know it,” Schwartz said.

“In favor of its own destruction?” DeMaio said. “Hard to fathom.”

“Perhaps. If not that, then it’s nothing more than an active entropic agent, as you
just said. Sort of something that seeks to unravel creation.”

“In one case we have an active enemy, in the other, a simple threat,” DeMaio said.

“Either way, we have to fight it,” Schwartz said.

“But in the former case, we have to worry about something beyond just these
zombies,” DeMaio said.

“Let’s ask it,” Schwartz said, as she powered on a microphone that fed into a
speaker in the q-room.

DeMaio delivered another shock to the severed head.

“Are you the only threat to life on this planet?” Schwartz said.

The head’s face curled into a grimace. “Thissss … is the beginning … of the end.
There are others behind us.”
To DeMaio, Schwartz said, “again,” clicking the mike, “when will they come?”

“When … you are one with death. Then … the rain. Then … the fire.”

Chapter 16

“What do you make of it?” said Richard Sinclair, head of the Oregon lab.

“One of two possibilities. Either the head was indulging in doomsday-speak, that
is, uttering its pronouncements through its own altered view of reality, or we
actually created a bridge between the human form and the virus — that told us this
is only the first wave of destruction in stages of the planet,” Schwartz said.

The two were seated alongside each other in chairs that faced a wall of video
screens, most broadcasting an image of the work being done in various laboratories
of the underground complex. DeMaio was pictured on one screen, alternately shocking
the head, asking questions and recording the answers in a log book.

“What do you think?”

Schwartz didn’t hesitate. “We are dealing with an engineered agent. The delivery
capsule was too perfect, and the destructive power of the virus is too — vindictive
— to be just a garden variety cosmic super flu.”

“Hmmm. Right. It certainly appears as if part of the effect is to punish life for
having the temerity to exist,” Sinclair said.

“If this were psychological warfare, let’s say, on a galactic level, the message
would seem to be that surrender is the only logical option,” Schwartz said.

“Again, I concur. Though us trying to figure out what the larger game looks like is
like a dog having a glimmer of understanding that humans have a reason for
existence beyond care of the mutt,” Sinclair said.
“This sort of throws us into a god versus the devil situation. If they both exist,
are they evenly matched, and if so, who’s going to get to us first,” Schwartz said.

“And we don’t have Winston Churchill to consult,” Sinclair said, thrumming his
fingers on the armrest of his chair.

“We don’t have anyone else to consult. Sir,” Schwartz said.

“No, and thank the god we don’t know exists for that decision. It’s been only six
months, and life as we know it has pretty much been obliterated, topside. Going
dark was the smartest thing I could have done. That’ll be all, Melissa. Good work
and keep pursuing the line of inquiry. If your current specimen burns out, let me
know, I’ve got a more where that came from,” Sinclair said, nodding his head at the
screen showing a battened down break room where twenty or so zombies milled around,
with nothing to eat.

“Sir,” Schwartz said, getting up from her chair and leaving the office.

Sinclair pressed a series of buttons on a remote, bringing one of the dark screens
to life and opening a communications channel.

“Wolfie, how are you proceeding with the latest vaccine trials?” Sinclair said.

A gaunt man wearing thick glasses turned and looked up to face the ceiling mounted
camera. “We’re about to test the third variation, Dick.”

Sinclair grimaced. Amazing how people who are truly indispensable will push your
buttons. Jaime Wolfberg was the only scientist still alive who was capable of
altering vaccines based on the zombie infection. And he hated being called Wolfie,
hence, Dick.

“Are these subjects the ones we harvested from topside?” Sinclair said.

“Yeah, poor bastards. Thought they were getting rescued — ‘we’re from the
government and we’re here to help,’” he said, and laughed his best mad scientist
cackle. “They’re sedated. I told them we were putting them through a series of
tests, so no matter how they wake up, as zombies or inoculated humans, they won’t
know any better.”

“Rather humane of you,” Sinclair said.

“Not really. I can’t stand all that wailing and gnashing of teeth. No reason to
have the human skin lampshade right out in the open, now is there?”

“Now I’d say you’re being morbid, but things are rather past that, now aren’t
they?” Sinclair said.

“There’s no getting around it. This mutation has overrun the human race. We either
find a way to inoculate ourselves and live alongside them, or get extinguished.
Either way, we’re done,” Wolfberg said.

“Like Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon man,” Sinclair said.

“Mmmm. This is a rather more distinct leap, into an unknown genus, but roughly
correct.”

“And you still think an inoculation will render us … uh, unpalatable to our zombie
cousins.”

“They don’t attack each other, we know that. At what strength will a vaccine repel
their appetite? I’m not sure. Maybe none. Science never did create the foolproof
mosquito repellent, the claims of Avon salesladies notwithstanding,” Wolfberg said.

“And the Cro-mags finally did get tired of their lesser cousins,” Sinclair said.

“And in the ocean, everything gets eaten,” Wolfberg said. “If we’re done trading
vapid observations, I will get back to work.”

“Very well. Oh, one last thing, and I know you won’t like the disruption in your
careful progression, but do you think you could use one subject to test the X
variation?” Sinclair said.
“Cut to the chase, eh? What’s the matter, Dick, you don’t think we can eke out even
a minor victory? If the Internet was still available I’d look up Quisling’s first
name. Yes, I’ll do it, now let me get back to work.”

Chapter 17

Sinclair muted the sound to Wolfberg’s lab, and then, killed the video. The guy was
a royal pain in the ass, and necessary only as far as this line of inquiry. What if
they just gave up the ghost and stopped trying to find a cure? What was the point,
they were all dead anyway.

He spent a few minutes, more than usual, ruminating on this possibility, and
dragging himself down more and more into a funk.

“Oh, bosh!” he said to the dark room. “Scientists don’t give up, we keep searching,
that is the basis of our lives. And if we make mistakes, so be it.”

He stood and retrieved a satellite phone stored in the locked desk drawer and
powered it on. There was always someone on the other end.

“Hello, is he available at the moment? Yes I can wait,” Sinclair said, mildly
burned that even at the end of the world he found himself taking orders.

“Whadyayouwant,” came the brusque voice, and Sinclair realized for the first time
he could hear the hushed rushing sound of a jet in flight. Wouldn’t it be nice to
be able to keep flying above all the problems of a dying world.

“If you can still tap into satellite information, you may want to use the space
telescope to check for long range ah, UFOs.”

“That’s your conclusion? That Zeke is an ET, hunh? Interesting. Makes sense, sooner
or later we should have expected a visit. What do you suspect their goal is,
slavery, mining or destruction?”

“The latter, I’m afraid.”

“Yes you are, you fucking pussy. What is it with you scientists? You can figure out
ways to destroy the world ten times over then you can’t decide what you want for
lunch. Myopic weasels is what you are.”

“If you insist.”

“If what you think is true, it comes down to the age old question in matters of
force — beat ‘em or join ‘em.”

“I have come to the same conclusion.”

“Right. After I showed up and explained the big picture to you, you fucking mutt.
Where are you with the vaccine?”

“No success to report.”

“What about the catastrophic option?”

“I have my man running that experiment now.”

“Right. The question is, can you manage to formulate a serum that maintains higher
brain function in an essentially dead corpse.”

“For a non-scientist, you have a remarkable grasp of the issue.”

“Of course I do you fucking moron, I’m rich because I understand problems and how
to solve them. And now that the world took a dump I’m still here and trying to
figure out how to sty alive, and, if possible, take over what remains of this
fucking miserable race of upright monkeys.”

“I’m curious, do people like you grow up thinking of how to take over the world, or
is it an acquired trait?”
“You fucking smartass. In my case it’s an acquired trait because it didn’t take me
until third grade to realize the world was run for and by total fucking weaklings.
If I’d had another decade I would have figured out how to buy Africa.”

“Are you going to access the telescopes?”

“Yeah, I can do that. Could you imagine if the world was still here, what a fucking
panic that would cause? Jesus Christ All-Fucking Mighty, billions would be made
overnight. Goddammit.”

“Well, I will get back to you when I have test results.”

“Don’t fucking bother me until you get something that I can use. In the meantime, I
need a half dozen of your fresh ones.”

“What do you want them for?” Sinclair asked, then immediately regretted it.

“You motherfucker none of your fucking business, what did I tell you? A billionaire
is nothing but an applied scientist. You know, with a pair of hairy fucking balls.
I want to keep an eye on some activity I’m seeing, of you know, the humans that are
out there fighting to stay alive, as opposed to the ones who curled up like a
goddamned pillbug and sealed themselves off in a fucking concrete hole.”

Sinclair really wanted to tell the man off, but he also believed that if anyone was
going to come up with a viable plan to save at least some of the human race, it
would be this uncouth cretin.

“Very good, we have eight former staff members in one of our rooms. They’re
originals, infected by the airborne contaminant, and have never been outside or
fought live human being.”

“You mean they haven’t torn anyone apart. Fought, my ass. In the beginning most
people were to surprised by what was happening to even conceive of fighting back.
Later on, any survivors were too terrified by what they thought they were to defend
themselves. It takes a special man to get into a fistfight with a fucking zombie.”

“You’ve seen that?”

“Seen it? Hell, what the fuck do you think we do for entertainment? Seeing a man in
a ring with a Zeke beats the hell out of MMA. Now I understand why the Romans loved
gladiators, fuck, but if that ain’t about the most real thing I even seen. And the
winners, they got it good, they come right on staff, most of the time as perimeter
security. And the losers, well, after a couple minutes of screaming, they never
know the difference.”

Sinclair had to believe it, but wished he couldn’t. What he wanted to tell the man
was that people became scientists because they hated other human beings.

“Very well, we will have them in a transport topside when you say,” Sinclair
finally answered. “We also want the usual — beer, wine, alcohol, steaks and fresh
vegetables.”

“What, no porno?”

“Several of our staff members had apparently misappropriated some servers before
the epidemic. We possess the world’s largest collection of porn.”

“Really? Like how much?”

“All of it.”

“All of it? Hmm, I guess that’s possible, have one of your guys load up a spare
hard drive for me, include it in your data package with the transport.”

“Very well, sir.”

“Maybe I misjudged you assholes.”

Chapter 18

I sat with Breem through the entire viewing of the Townsend testimony. Roy and
Jimmy were off on their own, taking long showers and eating hot, fresh food. I had
told him about the private jet, and the clean Zekes that seemed to possess some
rudimentary form of intelligence — and saw that this was also information he
already knew; the game now was how much he was going to share with a hired gun like
me.

“What is it you want from me,” Breem said.

“We went in there and verified what you either knew or suspected — that Zeke is an
off-world cause. What do you make of it?” I asked.

“We don’t know, of course, which is the biggest problem. Did we just get tossed
like the dinosaurs, or is something else going on?”

“Like War of the Worlds going on?”

“Right, only this time ET is using the microbe as a weapon, to kill us off in
advance of the invasion,” Breem said.

“Well if this is only the first round, we look kind of screwed,” I said.

“We need to know what happened to the Oregon lab. If they’re still there or if they
met the same fate as Arizona,” Breem said.

“You have no contact with them?”

“None. They went dark, after putting out a contaminated distress call, and we
haven’t been able to get a team in there.”

“Why not?”

“The ground approach is overrun with Zekes. There are heavy concentrations in that
area of over a million undead, that, for some reason, refuse to disperse. They’re
not following the patterns of other infestations.”
“You mean of killing everything, then wandering off.”

“Right. It’s like they’re being fed fresh meat on a continual basis to keep them on
site.”

“Standard moat defense, only instead of deadly flesh-eating piranhas …”

“Right.”

“Have you tried dropping teams in there?”

“Twice, and each time they came up against the hardened exterior of the compound,
before the Zekes finally got to them.”

“That answers the question why we should even care about getting in there.”

“Right again. If they’re dead, or just surviving, why are they trying so hard to
stay out of sight.”

“You already know the answer.”

“Yes. The Oregon facility is a bio-weapons lab. It’s billed as specializing in

defense against biological weapons, but as you know …”

“The best defense is a good offense. Meaning …”

“Chances are they are working on either a vaccine to help us or something worse.”

“And either way, we need to know,” I said. “So what’s the plan?”

“The modern Oregon lab is built on the bones of a cold war facility that was itself
designed to be impregnable to a nuclear bombardment. Part of the cold war bunker
was cannibalized for the new structure, but part of it was mothballed and
backfilled. And the parts that were abandoned are underneath the newer lab.”

“And they don’t know about this?”

“The military being what it is, the new plans do not include surveys of what
previously existed.”

“How do we get in?”

“That’s the easy part. Since it was also over engineered, there’s a back entrance
to the old structure via an abandoned mine.” Breem reached under his desk and
pulled a stack of architectural sheets out, placing them on the desk. “You’ve got
about a hundred yards from where the old structure ends to where you can get into
the lab.”

“Can I assume you’ve got some James Bond laser shit for us to cut through that?” I
said.

“No. There’s no such thing, believe it or not. You’re down to shovels and picks.
You’re looking at two weeks, minimum,” Breem said.

“That’s a lot of risk, and a lot of time for something that looks like a random
walk. What aren’t you telling me?”

Breem massaged the bridge of his nose. “You know you aren’t the only asset we’ve
deployed in the field?”

“Uh-hunh.”

“Well, we’ve retrieved more of those so-called GPS devices you found.”

“And?”

“And they do more than just track Zeke. They appear to be able to direct the zombie
to a specific location, the way you’d follow directions, but this seems to impel
the zombie forward, left, right, what have you. And as you know, Zeke operates like
a herd animal. All it takes is a few of them stalking with a purpose and pretty
soon you’ve got a mob.”

“How do you figure that happens? The low-level intelligence we’ve seen?”

“I wish. It’s much more — sinister, is the only word I have. Apparently, these
devices use a form of magnetoception to impel the Zeke’s primitive brain.”

“Magnetoception, are you kidding me?”

“Basically it’s the ability to follow or respond to the earth’s magnetic field in
birds, for navigation, and other life forms, to orient themselves along the field.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re saying someone is harnessing the primitive remnant of the
Zeke’s brain as a weapon.”

“Yes. This took a lot of thought, first of all, to even conceive of the notion,
them to engineer and test it, then to implement it. What we’ve got, then, are human
actors trying to figure out how to deploy Zeke against the survivors.”

“What do you mean?”

“As you know, we’ve still got some satellite capability left. We’ve seen instances
of Zekes massing against human enclaves, and we’ve been able to locate these zombie
pied pipers, if you will.”

“What happened.”

“In one case, several thousand Zekes surrounded a shopping mall that had been
fortified by a couple dozen survivors. After a week of milling around, moaning and
groaning, the Zekes dispersed.”

“An experiment?”
“Again, I wish. More like a demonstration. The next two instances we observed were
outright attacks. One of them involved over a hundred thousand Zekes, and they
overran a well-fortified public arena that was housing about five hundred
survivors. Even with air support, they all perished.”

“Have you received any demands?”

“None. Whoever it is, is just fucking with us. They know that we know that they
pulled these attacks off.”

“How?”

“Remember I said we had partial satellite control?”

“Whoever is doing this is able to override the satellites, and let us see through
them whenever they want.”

“Who do you think it is, another faction from the old government, a inter-branch
pissing match?”

“No. We may suck most of the time, but we’re always good when it counts. Whatever
remains of the government and the military is together in this.”

“Except for Oregon. Then who?”

“Basically, it’s some rich dude. We know where his base is, but can’t get to him
with conventional means. Probably the guy in the plane — you didn’t happen to catch
his tail numbers did you?”

“No,” I said, and let go of the tension building in my neck. “Oh fuck — have you
warned Peters?”

Chapter 19
“Petey — you out there, son, come on back?” Ralph Peters had one eye on Rachel,
playing in the corner with a doll and a Chihuahua puppy, and one on the horizon
from the conning tower they had built in the middle of the compound. He didn’t have
the heart to outright take the dog from her, that she had mistakenly seen — and
rescued — from the livestock pen, but considering what was coming down the pike,
maybe he would never get the chance.

Every day now, for the past couple week or two, Zeke had been coming out of the
haze, toward the compound, from all directions. Most days it was a singleton, or a
pair or as many as half a dozen. And they had all been dispatched by roving crews
that patrolled the thousand yard external perimeter he’d established, once he
realized that letting them walk right up to the razor wire was a little too passive
for his taste.

Then the scavenger crews had reported something even more disturbing — large
numbers of Zekes were strolling into town, from all direction — down from Santa Fe,
up from Socorro and Las Cruces, from the east and from the west, hell, plenty were
coming in straight from the desert and out of the hills.

Peters had gone with the same tactic — get out there and take them down in small
groups, rather than trying to police them all at the razor wire, or worse, from
behind the concrete moat he had built. Even as he was directing the earth movers
that were digging the pit, he knew that if a million Zekes came at them from all
sides, their bodies would fill up the hole and the remaining Zekes would walk over
the bodies of their undead foot soldier brethren, right into the compound that now
held close to a thousand human beings. In the case of an all-out massed attack, New
Petersburg would be overrun and might as well be named New Masada. And Peters was
damned if he was going to allow his people to be forced into that situation.

So they had kept pushing people, from the early days of crossbow weapon and ammo
manufacture, to building the dual hard perimeters, to now, exhaustively patrolling
their close and long-range borders, just to keep sniping at Zeke, so he couldn’t
build up the massive numbers that would make the Chinese infantry look like a
Memorial Day Parade.

“Hey Dad, I’m here and not liking what I’m seeing,” Pete said over the radio.

“Whattya’ got, son?”

“Group of twenty Zekes coming down the street at us, and I’ll be godamned but if
they ain’t marching like an army squad. Oh yeah, and the leader is one of them
clean Zekes — no blood on him, relatively clean clothes, and you know, just recent
looking.”
“Alright. ‘Member what we talked about. These groups, sooner or later, are going to
be used as decoys. Don’t just bring everyone to the front and start turkey
shooting, watch your rear and your flanks — and drill that into everyone’s head.
The day you let your guard down is the day you get it in the neck.”

“Oka — WHAT? Dad, hold on, I’ll get right back to you.”

Peters had other radios on, monitoring other channels, and he already knew what his
son was hearing — there were other, similar columns of Zekes being spotted marching
down different streets by the other teams. Damn, what he wouldn’t give for air
support. But Breem and his lackeys had actually told him the truth, which shook him
up more than the usual propaganda: other survivor camps were dealing with increased
massings, and there simply wasn’t enough equipment or personnel to do simple
reconnaissance. They were on their own.

And that bit of news had come after Peters had already implemented his search and
destroy teams, based on his own noodling through the problem. What went unsaid was
that they were dealing with the second wave of the zombie outbreak, and this time
it looked and felt like it was more organized than simply undead fuckers running
through the streets taking random bites out of people. This time the zekes were in
it to win it.

Carter had pretty much said the same thing, in that brief transmission he made,
‘before he had to go dark on another bullshit mission.’ But his advice was clear —
sty alert, fight them where you find them, and start thinking about an exit
strategy.

Peters watched Rachel as she pretended the doll was talking to the Chihuahua, then
watched as the puppy growled at the doll, then locked its annoying little incisors
around the raggedy head, and then run away with it under his desk. “Oh well,
honey,” he said to the girl and shrugged his shoulders.

Peters listened as the reports came in, as the teams fought the columns of Zekes,
and tried to advance, or back up, and then encounter still more groups. The smart
thing for them to do would be to coordinate, team up, and blast their way through
any spot. When it came to Zekes, the only thing that mattered was numbers. He
listened as his son was firing his weapon while communicating that same idea to the
other team leaders. Some were panicking, some were taking losses. It sounded like
they were facing a couple hundred Zekes, separate columns lead by what were clearly
platoon leaders.

All Peters could do was listen as some of his people died, and some kept their
heads and shot their way out of trouble. His son was one of the survivors, again,
and he listened as Petey fought, kept his own team together and cobbled together
the rest of the squads into a unified column that finally rolled its way out of the
streets of Albuquerque and headed for home.

Chapter 20

“Let’s get something straight right now — I don’t want to hear any John Henry
jokes, ballads or witticisms,” Jimmy said.

“But would you take a steam-hammer,” Roy said.

“Alright, I asked for that one,” Jimmy said, “but no more.”

“Chief, you want to explain to us one more time why we’re going to spend the next
two weeks digging a tunnel into a government facility,” Roy said.

“If the scientists are still alive in there, they’re either working on a cure or
trying to turn Zeke into a new kind of weapon,” I said.

“As if the original recipe wasn’t tasty enough,” Jimmy said.

“What do you think the odds are they are being held hostage,” Roy said.

“Possible, but slim. These kind of science geeks do stuff that’s so esoteric they
could just carry around an empty bucket all day and no one would no any better,” I
said.

“Ah, ha! The empty bucket! Then you were in the military,” Jimmy said.

“Why aren’t you stripped down to your mythical chest?” I said.

The digging went pretty much as expected, hard and slow, but we made better time,
almost 30 feet a day, because we all knew about the organized attacks on the
survivor camps. Along the way the only levity we had was the mental wagering we did
on whether or not we were going to break through into a room full of pet Zekes. And
the general weirdness of using a glorified bomb shelter from a threat that never
came to break into a similar facility that was probably conspiring to amplify the
one we now faced.

The bomb shelter was in the same condition in which it had been abandoned — spare,
clean, stocked with probably inedible, 50-year old MREs, though the guys debated on
whether aging might improve the stroganoff, and most of all, spooky. It had been
built to protect us against a threat of our own making, and I couldn’t help but
wonder how many groups of survivor had opted for subterranean hidey-holes, that
people like Ralph Peters had rejected.

For security reasons, it had been decided that we wouldn’t use power digging tools
or blasting equipment, and that radio silence would be observed. We could figure on
the guys above us monitoring military radio, and maybe even shortwave and sat-
phones. We just didn’t know what we were up against, and since it was just the
three of us, we didn’t even know what we were going to do once we got inside —
beyond a quick sit-report back to Breem, we were going to take it as it came. Jimmy
said our job was the same as always, ‘to do some VanDammage,’ and Roy, well, his
feelings had not taken an optimistic turn.

That was likely due to our short list of options — if we felt we, or what remained
of the world, faced unacceptable risks, we were authorized to use the explosive
charges we did bring to cripple whatever the mad scientists were working on. And
there was another option that Breem had told only to me.

So we dug, and hauled dirt, and laughed and, on some days, forgot what we were in
the middle of, and just became guys doing a tough, shitty job, like in the old
days, when someone was always stepping on your head while feeding you a line about
what a great country we lived in. When I went to sleep those nights, I often
thought about how civilization was just a dressed-up charade to make you forget
about your mortality, whereas in the new and improved world of Zeke-dom, we had
been thrown back on the veldt, running away from tigers during the day and reliving
the terror in the night. And still, we were too exhausted to invent a mythology or
a religion out of it.

When we came up against the wall of the lab, it was early afternoon, and we had
already been digging since five in the am, so we decided to take a siesta and try
for the element of surprise. Before withdrawing, Jimmy agreed to widen the final
approach area, and Roy set about planting a few charges along the walls, in case of
a hasty retreat.

The next morning, we found luck upon luck. The wall we broke down was the back area
of an abandoned break room. No lights were on, and it obviously wasn’t in use and
hadn’t been for some time.

“Looks like their not at full strength,” Jimmy said.

“Which was just under a hundred full-time geeks that lived here around the clock.
Security and day workers came and went and it looks like most of them are MIA,” I
said.

“ZIA,” Roy corrected.

“You want to lead the way, fearless leader,” Jimmy said.

I was already at the door and realized I might as well have been in Hitler’s bunker
to deliver the message, ‘hey, why don’t you guys chill the fuck out?’

“Times like this, I’m glad we got uniforms,” I said.

“I thought they told you guys in the academy that the uniform is a target,” Roy
said.

“Let’s put the ‘ary’ in expeditionary and see what’s going on,” Jimmy said.

I upholstered my sidearm and opened the door, just as Vinny DeMaio was coming
around the corner, eating a burrito with one hand and carrying a stack of papers in
the other.

“If you don’t like what’s going on here, now’s your chance to tell someone,” I
said.

Chapter 21

DeMaio’s eyes scanned the ceiling before he hissed, “get back inside that room,
I’ll be right there.”

Remarkably, I did what he said. Once inside I told the others, who immediately
backed up to the tunnel, just in case.

DeMaio was back inside of five minutes, having lost the papers. And the burrito.
“Dude, you are lucky. There’s no surveillance cams down this end, and all the
testosterone is guarding the labs.”

“I’m Sergeant Zach Carter, of the Zombie Expeditionary Detail.”

“Wow. The fucking world as we know it has come to an end and someone had the time
to come up with an inanity of that magnitude.”

“Wasn’t my idea.”

“Fair enough. After what I’ve done I make Eichmann look like a pitiful bureaucrat.”

“We’re here for information, this lab has been dark since the beginning.”

“Right, that would be thanks to our shit for brains director, who kept coming up
with bright ideas that led us straight into the mouth of madness.”

“What have you guys been doing down here? Besides eating fresh burritos.”

“Very observant. Yeah, we’re getting resupplied by some rich guy who’s been pushing
Sinclair, that’s the director, to come up with some answers, and maybe a cure, or
maybe a weapon.”

“Pretty much the outline we have.”

“Yeah well, think the worst, take some acid, read some Lovecraft and then stare at
a Hieronymous Bosch painting until your brain slides off its axis.”
“Melodramatic, but not very helpful. Let me guess, you haven’t seen the sun in
almost two years.”

“That wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t been string into the abyss,” DeMaio snorted.
“And the abyss has proved to be very talkative, my friend.”

“What’s the short version?”

“First, there’s no cure, and there’s no vaccine. The only way to fight Zeke is to
kill every last one of them.”

“That’s not a revolutionary concept.”

“No, but we did the science, and couldn’t find any way to either prevent or reverse
the infection. If you got it, you got it.”

“The whole world already got the bad news, what else?”

“Two things. First, for our part, our very own homegrown Doctor Mengele came up
with a variation that kills the host but preserves brain function.”

“You’re talking about a thinking zombie.”

“Oh yes, and so much more. Thinking, talking, planning — and just as dead and just
as nasty as your standard zombie.”

“Why would they do such a thing?”

“Immunity. Zekes don’t eat dead meat, and our super-Zs are dead. So they can go
into a room full of Zekes and act like it’s a cocktail party of the Undead High
School Reunion. Apparently, they might also be immortal, or virtually so, since
Zeke bodies don’t seem to degrade.”

“Why is that?”
“It’s akin to embalming. They’re not going to get any prettier, but they’re
preserved.”

“It still doesn’t make sense.”

“No more than assisted suicide, but in case you hadn’t noticed we don’t have a
branch of the Bioethics Society down here. So, in the absence of what we learned,
yeah, it doesn’t really make sense to turn your self undead just so you can
socialize with the natives.”

“Why do it, then?”

“I was working on getting information from some standard Zekes when we stumbled on
it.”

“What?”

DeMaio hesitated. “I want to get out of here. You guys are here for intel, and I’m
sure there’s some plan to knock this place on its ass, and if my finger was on the
button, I’d do it right this minute. But there’s a couple folks here who don’t like
what’s going on, don’t want to take the next step and would love a chance to rejoin
the living. I take it you’re not a suicide squad.”

“Not our first option.”

“Can you take a half dozen with you?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I’m going to bring you a DVD of the Final Solution, Zombie Style. That’ll
give you more than enough reason to nuke this place hot. Tomorrow morning, they’re
scheduled to administer the serum to those of us who haven’t already bought the
farm either by experiment or their own hand.”
“Scientists are committing suicide here?”

“Dude, we may not be tight with god, but the devil don’t scan.”

“Okay, get the DVD — what about telling your comrades?”

“If I don’t tell them, a couple may off themselves between tonight and tomorrow, if
I do tell them, they might blow it.”

“Exactly. It’s your call.”

“Let me think about it. I’ll be back in five.”

Again, we retreated to the back of the break room, and waited.

“This is a lot of risk to save half a dozen people,” Roy said.

“You one of those guys used to walk out before the movie’s over?” Jimmy said.

“One thing we’ve learned guys, is that everyone needs a little bit of hope. I think
that’s pretty much the business we been in since this thing started,” I said.

“Fair enough,” Roy said.

DeMaio came back, with a portable DVD player that was more government than Disney-
issue. “I’ve decided to tell everyone tonight, but we have to wait before mess to
bail. Everyone’s working right now, and security would just shoot us as talk us out
of resigning. We can all leave safely in the am. They’re busy with their end of the
world sonata.”

“Agreed,” I said. “Good luck.”

Chapter 22

“Do we bunk here or back down in our hole,” Jimmy said.

“Here. We’ll barricade the door, take turns on watch,” I said.

“Don’t give up ground that’s hard won,” Roy said.

“Hard dug,” Jimmy said.

“Both,” I said.

“You going to call in this mess, to Breem,” Jimmy said.

“You may be surprised at this, but I am going to wait. Most of the damage is done,
and in this situation, bad guys usually come up with a way to foil their own
plans.”

“Spoken as only an eight-year man could say it,” Roy said.

“What does that mean,” Jimmy said.

“It’s actually quite astute. In most jobs, after the learning and infatuation curve
is over, you learn what’s worth doing and what’s worth watching it undo itself,” I
said. “It’s applicable across many professions.”

“Yeah, I know that from boxing. After you got a couple dozen under your belt you
can tell how a guy’s gonna ask you to knock him out.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Let’s watch Dr. Evil,” and turned on the DVD.
“Christ, he looks like a Vulcan with cholera,” Jimmy said.

The image on the screen was of a man whose skin was mottled so dark it looked
green, with pure black eyes, magnified by coke bottle thick glasses, that he might
have no longer needed. He was clearly dead, a Zeke. And still alive, after a
fashion.

“Hello, friends and colleagues. Well, let’s face it, I don’t have any friends in
the lab, but indulge me. Those of you still with us were surely aware we were
working along several lines of inquiry, searching for a vaccine to counteract the
undead virus. We were unable to locate such a formula. The next best solution was
to inject subjects with a near-full strength version of the virus, in an attempt to
maintain brain function. I have chosen myself as the subject of this stage, and you
can see the results. My tenure as a human being ended at eleven-thirty five pm,
Wednesday, and I reanimated in this state some twelve hours later. I am no longer
human. The virus, as we have previously theorized, is a life form that is literally
connected to the dark matter of the universe. Thankfully, I shall be able to
continue research along these lines, but I will tell you that, much as humans
possess intuition and some mild psychic sensations connecting them to the weak life
force present in the galaxy, I now have intimate knowledge of the force that is
attempting to extinguish the rise of individual cognition, or self-awareness. The
dark frequency, for lack of a better term, is as any basic scientist understands,
the vast majority of what comprises the known physical existence. This dark
frequency seeks to eradicate the life force, seeing it as an affront to what
existed prior to the big bang. It’s quite fascinating, really — entropy as a self-
reinforcing vector. For our immediate purposes, what you need to know is that the
virus which humanity encountered was, for all intents and purposes, an engineered
bioweapon designed to wreak the havoc we have witnessed. It is the first wave of
destruction for our planet, that will soon be visited by a planet killing drone
that will extinguish animal, plant and microbial life, then roast and crack the
earth like a walnut. I am not the first, formerly sentient creature to sacrifice
myself to the dark frequency. I believe that any of you who join me will be able to
hitch a ride, so to speak, on the drone, which travels the universe, attracted to
planets where the majority of sentient creatures have been destroyed by the advance
bioweapon. Quite ingenious really, somewhat like a cosmic minefield that gleefully,
yet impersonally, tears apart the living into so many little bits and pieces. The
drone, apparently, is fitted with long-range sensors that can detect mass die-offs
of life, in the same way we might have observed a loss of oceanic algae colonies.
So the actors who are intentionally directing this campaign are both methodical and
elegant in their design. I can offer no guarantee that we will be able to join
these forces, but I can assure you that the drone is on its way to our little rock
and there is no means to deflect its approach. After all, being a civilized planet,
we outlawed space-based nuclear weapons several decades ago. And the means to
launch ICBMs has been neutralized by our very own director’s outside patron. By the
way, Mr. Sinclair is no longer in charge of this facility. He is still alive, but I
have placed him inside a quarantine room that is populated by our compatriots who
were turned into lower-level undead in the initial infection. In the time before
the drone arrives we have much work to do, some scientific, some tactical. The
scientists will work with me on questions of the dark frequency — namely, what is
life, for lack of a better term, going to be like once our new sponsors work is
done. I conjecture, at this early stage, that it will be much like what the mystics
used to promise — conscious union with the all-that-is. But they were wrong by a
matter of degree. The overwhelming force of the universe is not life, but the
absence of life, and the true nature of reality is emptiness. I have already
glimpsed, in small snippets, what this ultimate nothingness has to offer. Truly, it
is the peace that passes all understanding. And given that the state I have
converted myself to offers practicable immortality, those of you who are inoculated
herein will be able to directly experience this eternal state. In the meantime,
several of you will be put to the more mundane task of leading massed forces of the
standard undead in attacks on remaining human survivors. It is my belief the drone
is pulled in the direction of loss of life in direct proportion to the percentile
destruction. Simply, the more we kill the faster comes our salvation. Our still
human patron is interested in hastening the drone’s arrival and has already been
conducting rather ingenious experiments of his own to direct the undead against
human outposts. With our still intact cognitive abilities, we will be able to more
efficiently destroy our former cousins. Your choice is simple. You can volunteer to
be transformed into such as myself, an Alpha Zombie, or we will allow you to be
infected by a standard undead where you will become a foot soldier against the
remaining humans. This gesture of generosity is clearly a vestige of my former
human condition. It is the last you will witness.”

Chapter 23

“Oh man, Dr. Evil is right — hey you think he’s got six fingers? He could be a
stand-in for chi-hil-errr,” Jimmy said, waving his fingers in the air.

“Really — anti-depressants — they’re what’s for breakfast,” Roy said.

“What a chump,” I said.

“You think that hocus-pocus is for real,” Jimmy said.

“Oh yeah, absolutely. Especially what we learned from the Townsend testimony,” I
said, “but this guy is making a classic mistake.”

“What’s that,” Roy said.

“Counting on honor among thieves,” I said, “add in the natural bias for hubris of a
super-smart scientist —”

“Especially one who thinks he just made a deal with the devil,” Jimmy said.
“Yeah, can you see this guy as a kid, watching James Bond movies and rooting for
the super-creepy megalo-nut job bad guy,” Roy said.

“Too bad you won’t be around to see me rule the world, Mr. Bond,” Jimmy said.

“Yeah, but guys, I’m glad you found his schtick so entertaining, listen up,” I
said. “This guy’s making at least two mistakes, like I said — counting on honor
among thieves, number one and number two, assuming his conspirator has the same
goals he does.”

“Do tell, copper,” Jimmy said.

“Exactly, I’ve seen this scenario before, and Dr. Evil is getting played by a not
necessarily smarter, but definitely more pathological bad guy. You heard him say
their rich patron was still human, right? And you also heard him say the bit about
no nuclear weapons in space? And we also know that said rich guy has assumed
control of satellites? Well, you know what I think? I think said rich guy is using
Dr. Evil and the rest of these scientists to give him the effective Zeke troops he
needs to gain control of what’s left of the human race — and then he’s going to
hang him out to dry.”

“Damn. That’s cold,” Jimmy said.

“So are you going to have this place cooked after we get out of here?” Roy said.

“I have to ask Breem something first,” I said. “For now, let’s just content
ourselves knowing we fought the good fight — these fuckers are sick.”

Morning came quick. DeMaio showed up with four other scientist-types. One of them
couldn’t take any more and took themselves out of the picture.

Once we were through the tunnel, Roy blew the charges. It wouldn’t be long before
they figured out that five of their number had flown the underground coop and they
would search until they found the tunnel entrance behind the soda machines we
pulled in front of the entrance.

I got on the sat-phone and asked Breem the question that had to answered. The
fucker actually hesitated, again with the government secrecy nonsense, until I
explained the full concept to him. Then finally he admitted it and said, yes, it
was possible for someone who had access to the satellites and the codes. I said it
was amazing what money could buy.

Breem agreed to let the super Zekes get evacuated from the Oregon lab. Let the
bastards think they had gotten away with it. I prayed that Peters and his crew
would be able to weather the storm that was likely to come his way.

And hubris, apparently, was not restricted to undead scientists. Whoever was
controlling the satellites allowed Breem’s people to get a peek through the space
telescope. The dark frequency drone had already passed Mars, and would be within
range in less than a week. Breem agreed to let Mr. Unknown do the heavy lifting for
the human race.

“The only problem we have now, Carter, is that we can’t get you out of there?”
Breem said.

“Why not?”

“There’s about two million Zekes milling around over your head right now. We figure
part of the plan is to march down the coast and push all the remaining people into
a single locale.”

“Whoever doesn’t get eaten you mean,” I said.

“Well, there’s that,” Breem said.

“After the drone gets taken out, see if you can come get us,” I said, “we’ll sit
tight.”

Everyone was watching and listening to the conversation by the end of it, but only
a couple understood why I was grinning from ear to ear.

“Breem’s going to let Mr. Rich Shithead take out the alien drone with space-based
nuclear weapons. Once that’s done, they’re going to take him out with a tactical
warhead from one of our very own, still fully operational nuclear submarines. We’ll
still have plenty of Zekes to clean up, along with some of these super freaks, but
at least the playing field will be back to cavemen versus the saber-toothed. And we
won that one once before.”
End

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