John opened his eyes, tried to look
down. When he leaned up he caught his
throat on the strap around it. He choked
and tried to scream out, no words came.
Without looking he tried to move each appendage but none of them could
be moved either, although he could feel them all. His mind struggled against his tongue, then
further on itself. He could feel
himself, could feel his thoughts but could barely form them into even the most
basic cogent thought: terror. He began
to panic and vainly struggle against his bonds, his mouth producing nothing but
a low, guttural growl. A voice boomed
thunderously in the white, sterile room,
“Another failure. You may dispose of him, private.”
John could hear footsteps from his
left and a young, rail-thin man dressed in fatigues entered his vision. The boy couldn’t have been more than 18 but
no fear shown in his eyes as brought up a .45 caliber pistol and aimed it
John’s head with both hands.
“No!” John knew he had said it but apparently his
tongue had more quickly re-acclimated than his poor, battered mind.
The young man held his gun steady as
he looked up to his left with a look of mere question, devoid of emotion. John lay motionless, using all of his limited
capacity trying to understand what he had just done.
“Stand down, private,” echoed
through the room before the young man silently stepped out of John’s eyesight
and back to his post at the door. Above
him, though, behind blinding lights and bullet proof glass there was a firestorm
of emotion: relief, joy, shame. An older
gentleman, which by current standards put him at the ripe age of 43, turned
around and scowled at the youthful celebration behind him, “Shut up, you little
bastards. We’ve proven we can teach a
monkey to say a word, nothing more.”
The rabble died down and one quiet
“Sorry, doctor,” was heard. The
champagne was still poured though because, as we all know, once a bottle is
opened it must be finished as well. The
doctor stood and peered over his spectacles at the spectacle, “Although, a word
is the most we’ve taught one of these abhorrent creatures in quite a long
time.”
Even with the quarantine zones in
place it was still not uncommon to hear of someone catching the infection. It was usually stupid, drunk teenagers or
young lovers who thought they had no better place to go. Sometimes, though, it was a poor, unlucky
traveler whose car broke down halfway between towns, or a camper who made just
a bit too much noise. John was of the
latter. Unfortunately for him alcohol
sped the infection rate and before his girlfriend was able to get him to a
hospital he was already dead and destined for “quarantine,” which simply meant
he was the freshest test subject.
John, however, was strong enough to
wake after the tests, and smart enough to speak early enough to spare his
life. Dr. Sevylor sat back down and
keyed the microphone once more, “Can you tell me your name?”
John looked up at the lights,
fixated on the single word he had spoken, “no.”
If twenty sets of shoulders drooping
could make a sound, you certainly would have heard it then. Several scientists stood up and walked out of
the room in frustration. But Dr. Sevylor
knew better, he had been there in the beginning. He knew that the methods they were using now
were much more promising than the simple electrical probing they had done years
ago. He knew this method was much more fundamental,
and although slower, was much more likely to yield true positive results
instead of the “trained apes” they had first brought back. He pressed on, “no to what? No to the gun, or no you don’t know your
name?”
“No,” John tried, pushed, wished the
words out of his mouth, “no I don’t.”
At first caution ruled the day. John was speaking in sentences before they
released the straps, and in paragraphs before they took him off intravenous
fluids and gave him actual food. All
along he was measured, scanned, tested, questioned, examined, and charted. He was transferred from the room in which he
awoke to a normal hospital room that had television, books, food and even beer
available. In all this time he never saw
the face of the man who ordered his death.
It wasn’t that Dr. Sevylor was a
coward, not by any means. He had helped
with establishing the quarantine zone and even led the expedition to expand the
colonized zone to include the hospital in which he now sat. He just didn’t want to set the experiment
back by introducing any undo emotional stress to the patient. He looked up from his papers, “Yes, nurse, if
he’s asking for me then of course I’ll come meet him.”
It was an air of respectfulness, not
timidity, with which he walked into the small room, the first time in years the
thought of respecting one of his patients had even crossed his mind.
“I understand why you did it,
doctor. And I don’t take it
personally. I’ve killed them before
myself,” John didn’t look up from his book as he spoke, “I understand you’re
the man I need to speak to about leaving.”
“Yes, John, I am. But I don’t think you’re ready to leave. There’s so much more we need to study about
you to see why the antibody worked on you.”
“It’s interesting, doctor,” John
looked up and down at the older man, sizing him up, “there’s no legal
precedent, before or after the world fell apart, for when a man legally regains
his rights after he returns from the dead.
Well, it’s interesting to me at least, although probably only because I
have a vested interest.”
“John, your condition has been
leaked to the paper. Half the city fears
you and the other half thinks you’re an abomination.”
John swung his feet over the side of
the bed and stood up, “And I’m sure you’ve done all you can to get the truth
out there and dispel these notions?” He
looked up into the other man’s face for the first time. His emotions were quite strong when he first
awoke but he had had plenty of time to take back control of his mind. If there was anything to read in his face
then his eyes may have been pleading a bit with the doctor.
Sevylor looked back and if there was
any emotion in his face it was imagined.
The only reason he had lived through the terror was that he had
dispensed with his emotions long ago.
One has to be a cold, emotionless bastard to look into his wife’s blood
strewn face and pull the trigger, as she pleads for her - admittedly short –
life. If someone had asked, Sevylor
would have said that this was the single most important characteristic to
survival, and one would have been hard pressed to argue with the results. He wasn’t a large man, far from it. But one needn’t be as strong or quick when he
could easily avoid poor circumstance. Sevylor’s
experience taught him that undo actions, driven by emotion, were the single
greatest contributor to any stupid shmuck landing in the middle of poor
circumstances.
A quick smirk wrinkled his face for
a moment as the doctor thought about truth, “I could tell them that you’re the
second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ who had been dead for three days, and
who now has risen in glory. I could tell
them I played Doubting Thomas and shoved my fingers through the holes in your
hands and side. I could tell them that
you walked through this very hospital healing lepers and feeding thousands of
the poor with a single box of Kraft mac and cheese. I could tell them all these things, and more,
and it wouldn’t change a God damn thing.
“In comparison to that, John, where
would your truth stand?”
John stood and squared himself with
the doctor, studying his face for a moment.
“You know, doctor, your face looks much older than it naturally
should. I figure cynicism will do that
to a man.” He got back on the bed, put
his hands back behind his head and kicked his feet up, “But you may have a
point. Say, do you think I could get a
copy of the paper?”
They had electricity and running
water now, just not much of it. There
certainly wasn’t enough power to run cameras, lights, teleprompters and thousands
of televisions. This was new
civilization, though, and accommodations had to be made, even if
difficult. That’s why there was a weekly
newspaper, and a newspaper would naturally need reporters.
“Thanks for meeting with me,
Seth. Did you have much trouble getting
in to see me?” John was sitting on the
edge of his bed, motioning to a chair sitting in front of him.
“No, it was a good alibi,” Seth had
told the nurse in the lobby that he was John’s girlfriend’s brother who had
come to make sure John was safe before he’d allow his sister to come by. It worked better than John had anticipated,
probably because Seth was rather tall with broad shoulders. He looked like the over-protective brother
type.
“Well, I just wanted to get out the
truth about me. I know that if the
doctor who’s been trying for years to accomplish reversal says that he’s
successful it won’t carry much weight.
But if an uninterested, third party reporter comes out and tells the
people that I’m alive, well that’s a whole different story.” John lifted up his hands, palms out, “Here I
am.”
Dr. Sevylor sat down, “thank you for
meeting with me, Mr. Mayor.”
“Not at all, Doctor, not at all,”
The Mayor closed his hands together on the desk in front of him. “It seems I would have to. I understand you’ve had a bit of
consternation about my decision.”
Sevylor laughed to himself as he
looked at The Mayor; consternation was just the tip of the iceberg. “Yes, sir, a bit. It’s not that I have trouble respecting your
decision. I knew what I was signing up
for when I filed my citizenship papers.
And I appreciate the freedom you’ve allowed my men and women over the
years.” They had an understanding of
sorts: as long as the hospital cured the town’s injured, few questions were
asked. “But you could not have picked a
worse time, or a worse case, to come sticking your nose in,” Sevylor realized
he overplayed his hand a bit, “sir.”
The Mayor had grown a bit pudgy over
the years, and was about the only person in town as old as Sevylor. In a previous life he had been an athlete, a
professional some claimed, and his fastball didn’t deny it. He was a part of the small group that
originally started the town, which was before Sevylor wandered through and
suggested the quarantine. Since that
time the rest of the original group had been killed off during “surges”
(intense, concentrated zombie attacks) and through various other means. The original group had set laws guaranteeing
their own power, which may have been their undoing, and now The Mayor was set
for life. Most in the town surmised that
he was as corrupt as Sevylor mad, but little is begrudged the successful, so,
as long as the people were happy and healthy, both men retained their seats of
power.
That’s why the two largely avoided
confronting each other in a manner such as this, but also why it was now
necessary: the article had won over the hearts and minds of the people to the
idea of John and they subsequently demanded his release. But it wasn’t for their hearts and minds that
Sevylor cared, nor their souls or opinions.
He cared for their bodies, had done so for over a decade now, and didn’t
want to see them killed simply because they got lovey-dovey over his seemingly
successful experiment.
The Mayor leaned in over the desk,
“Doctor, I understand the issues you may have with this. But I also know that you understand that
within the walls of this town I am free to stick this nose wherever I see fit
and whenever I see fit.” He narrowed his
eyes and stared down the good doctor on the other side of the desk, “If that –
‘man’ – can walk and talk then he will be released to his adoring public. You know as well as I that every single person
in this town owns a firearm. Hell, I’d
be willing to wager that some crazy bastard guns him down on the steps of your
hospital. But that’s neither here nor
there.” The Mayor leaned back in his
chair and rested his hands on his gut, raised his voice to its more amiable,
public tone, “I do hope we have an understanding now, Doctor?”
Sevylor sat in his chair a moment,
expressionless. He thought for a moment,
then, “Yes, of course. I appreciate your
time, Mr. Mayor.”
John had never had stomach problems before,
“A little too much chili powder in this batch, babe.”
His girlfriend, Jen, had never been
much a pushover, “No, I don’t think that’s it, babe. I think that perhaps
that creep, Sevylor, has shoved too much of his bland hospital food down your throat.”
The good doctor sat in a darkened
office, sullen. This little bastard is going to be the death of everything I’ve made
here. He’s our Judas.
“Doctor, Seth is here to see you,”
the young nurse’s statement revealed her fear of the only tenured man in the
building.
“Send him in, please,” Sevylor
flipped the breaker to turn on his desk light.
The brash man filled the room as
soon as he walked in, as no member of the press ever should, “Doctor Sevylor,
how are you today?” He held out a large
hand.
The old man returned the hand and
smiled, he had a predetermined response for such a question since The Terror
began, “Well, the sun’s shining and my heart’s beating so I can’t complain.”
Seth’s face immediately lit up in a
false smile, “Your wit precedes you, sir.
I just wanted to sit down with you for a moment and talk about John.”
Sevylor tried to prevent his face
from twisting, chances are he failed, “Of course, my star pupil. What did you need to know?” This was the first time since The Terror that
he had felt this sort of pressure, this hope induced garbage.
“Quite simply, sir, what chance of
survival does he have?”
After an unusually grueling shift
Sevylor sat down in his darkened office, not expecting the newspaper that
smacked his desk, “What is this, you snake oil salesman?” It was an unusually harsh rebuke from The
Mayor, yet nonetheless justified, “What do you think you’re doing saying that
this – ‘man’ – could end up being a zombie in the middle of our fair town?”
“Following the Hippocratic oath,
sir,” Sevylor snapped the breaker, illuminating the desk.
“You think you’re a real smart son
of a bitch, don’t you?” The Mayor shoved
a fat finger on the newspaper, “You better not think I’ll forget this
jackassery, I’m no idiot.”
Sevylor’s lips twisted slightly
upward, he thought of John’s simplistic reasoning, “Sir, I would hardly dare to
call The Truth any sort of jackassery.
Do you remember when we originally spoke on this subject? When I told you that I didn’t want politics
to get involved with sensitive patient decisions? When I acquiesced to your decision out of
deference to your accomplishments and your position? Well now I must respectfully ask that you not
interfere with my decisions. I
understand that your power in this town is absolute; I understand that your
word is law; I understand that you keep these people under an iron fist. But, God damn it, if they don’t know the
danger this man represents then there may not be anyone left to feel the crushing weight of that fist! Do you understand what’s at stake here,
Mayor? This man could very well be the
undoing of everything I’ve done, everything you’ve
done here. I don’t want these people to
first find out this man is dangerous when he’s chomping on their necks!” Sevylor was standing behind his desk for a
moment, panting and red faced. When he
realized what had just happened he quickly snapped his hands off his desk and
meekly sat down.
The Mayor waited patiently through
the tirade, silently watching the doctor’s furor quickly build and subside. He watched as Sevylor seat himself and
realize his folly. Finally he stood up
and buttoned his jacket in a dignified manner, “This is a strange time to find
ethics, doctor.” The Mayor turned his
back and walked out of the office.
John winced, started to breath
heavily. The fire in his belly flared up
through his solar plexus, past his sternum and burned out as a deep bitterness
in the base of his throat. Jen looked in
on him as he groaned, she found him doubled over and teetering off the couch,
“John! Jesus what’s wrong?” She ran over and pushed him back onto the
couch, he retained the same position, his knees following his chest.
John whispered in stilts,
“No-othing, don’t, nnnnn, worrrrry. Ken,
ken, ken, eeeeyou… gggget… me… brreah?”
As soon as Jen left him John fell over forwards, his mouth inches from
the floor as he started heaving. The
first heaves were dry but as soon as Jen returned with a plate of bread John’s
black bile spilled over the floor and started to spread like the Plague. His poor body convulsed with his stomach as
more liquid spewed forth. It spread
about him as he continued, soaking the pants about his knees and covering his
fingertips. Within a minute small, red
chunks plopped onto the puddle, bile bubbling around them as soon as they
landed. Blood dribbled down John’s chin
as he fell forward into the fray, the black acid soaking into his white shirt
as he unconsciously blew bubbles through his former insides.
The plate of underneath the bread
shattered on the floor as Jen got down on her hands and knees next to her
fallen love. She shook his shoulder and
elbow as she screamed in terror, “John!
Get up!” Her voice pleading with
no one, “John, come on, just get up. Please get up!”
John’s eyes opened as his mouth sucked
the black goop back into his mouth. His
head turned up as Jen screamed again, her hands still on his right arm as the
left propped up under him. The young
man’s girlfriend breathed heavily as she tried to look into his eyes. His eyes engaged hers for a moment before
they rolled back into his head. He
launched the top half of his body up at her and sank his teeth deeply into the
side of her neck.
“What the hell you do mean?” It took a few hours before the news reached
The Mayor.
“Well, sir, it appears that the two
of them were alone in their domicile when the incident occur-,”
“Cut the bullshit college words,
kid. He went home with his girlfriend,
shut the door, then turned into a zombie and killed her.”
The young man on the other side of
the desk swallowed hard before answering, “Yes, sir. Nobody is entirely sure how they were able to
get out after they both turned into zombies.”
“One man does. Get that psychopath Sevylor in my
office. And get him here five minutes
ago!”
Sevylor walked in with an old rifle
slung behind his back, a handgun strapped to his hip and a vest that bulged out
with as much as ammunition as he could fit, “Christ Almighty! The town’s going to hell and you bring me up
here for a chit-chat? What is wrong with-.”
“Shut your mouth, Mengele! I want to know how this creature was able to
open a door! I want to know how a man
can so quickly revert back to a monster!
I want to know what the hell you’re doing over at that ‘hospital’ of
yours! I want to know what you gave that
animal that made him seem to be normal!”
Now it was The Mayor who rose in the fury of his words, red-faced, as he
shouted across his desk at the uninterested doctor, who quietly leaned his
rifle up against the same desk and calmly sat down.
“The answer is quite simple, Mayor:
the man of which you speak failed to follow doctor’s orders.”
The Mayor’s complexion went from the
color of a jaundiced fire to that of a candy apple, “Don’t you give me that
horse shit, you twisted beast! This has
been your plan all along, hasn’t it? You
bring that reporter into your hospital, you get the public behind your little
experiment, and you force my hand. I
have to look at riots or outbreak and in either case I lose! Then you run around
like G.I. Joe and play the hero,” the Mayor’s screaming subsided just enough to
allow a mocking tone enter his voice, “’The big, bad Mayor made me release this
man, but I’m here now to clean up his mistake.
Once this is cleaned up we should throw out that Mayor, run him out of
town!’ That’s it, isn’t it you little
shit?”
Dr. Sevylor’s lips cracked slightly
as he thought about the accusation, “So you think I slipped a zombie-mickey to
your little political Romeo? And that I
knew he would turn back again with his Juliette around? That I counted on you, and every other slack
brained jackass in this town, to come running to the aid of a zombie?
You think that I’m able to time how long a person can be a person
again? If I had that sophistication do
you really think this would be my first partial success? No, you don’t think any of this. You can’t.
You know, deep down inside, that this is all your fault. That you put your political success above
your responsibility to keep these people safe.
That you wielded your power to get this man released, despite my better
judgment, and that now it’s biting you in the ass. And, on top of all that, you bring me up here
during the most critical time, the time where we can stop this thing and save
the town, and you shout me down with your little tirade just now?” Sevylor
stood up again and grabbed his rifle, “I didn’t care when you orchestrated the assassinations
of your little friends and co-founders; that was your own business. But now you’ve not just murdered someone for
politics, you’ve murdered the politics!
Look out your window, you jackass!
You’ve killed this town and everyone in it! The only justice to be found here is that you’ve
also murdered yourself. Good day, Mr.
Mayor.”
Sevylor walked out of the office,
readying his rifle as he entered the hallway.
The Mayor turned around and saw the carnage spreading throughout the
street below him: the mangled dead rising and pushing the carnage further,
striving for blood. He saw a twelve year
old boy bite on his mother’s calf and start to tear muscle from bone. He saw his empire collapsing.
