A Zombie Survival Series (Book 1): Infestation Iowa (14 page)

A click on the other end of the phone brought David back to reality. A man spoke softly.

“Hello?” The man on the phone said. “Who is this?”

“David.” David replied falling to his knees. “Dad?” he continued. “Is this you?” He waited for an answer but there was only silence. Destiny and Holiday both crouched beside him. Both of them knew how much David missed his parents. They believed he was having a hard time coping with the news his parent’s had faked their death before and did it again to him.

“David …” Destiny said moving up against him. She spoke softly and with great care “The odds that they faked their death for you too is-” the man on the other end of the phone sighed loudly causing David to hold his hand up to Destiny’s face as if to say ‘stop’.

“Yes…” The man replied. “Hello son.”

Chapter 12 – Mindgames

“I don’t understand.” David said into the phone. “I watched you and mom die?” David stood up and walked away from the window and into the corner of the room.

“There is no easy answer son ...” His father said somberly.

“Where are you dad?’ David asked as his eyes filled with tears. “I have missed you guys so much.” It was like a moment out of one of his many dreams of being reunited with his parents. Destiny walked over to David as tears rolled down his cheeks. Holiday, looking outside, decided to leave them alone and watch the helicopter.

“We should meet. Do you remember the old log cabin where the accident was son?” His father asked being very affectionate with his words.

“Ya, I just had a talk with Ellen abou-”

“Ellen!” His father raised his voice no longer holding any affection in it. “You tell that conniving little witch-”

“Dad!” David screamed into the phone. “She is on her way to the cabin; we are at Trinity Corp. right now.”

“What?” His father said very shocked. “Why is she coming here?”

“She thinks there might be research for a cure to all of this that you might have written down.” David said as his eyes cleared. His father sighed loudly but said nothing. “I don’t get it Dad if you can help …”

“I can’t help.” He said quickly, “But you can son.” David held the phone tightly against his ear.

“What do you mean?” David asked confused by what his father had meant. Just then Holiday shouted towards him.

“David!” He screamed and pointed out the window. David ran up to beside Holiday in time to watch as Flying Horrors swelled up from the forest and headed for the helicopter Ellen was on. The group watched as the helicopter turned away too late and was enveloped by the black winged monsters. As quickly as it started, the horrors flew back into the forest and the helicopter plunged to the ground in flames.

“We didn’t find a cure David.” His father continued on the cell phone. “We found what we thought was a way to mask the body from the infection.” David walked away from the window and leaned against the board with a map. “But it turned out to be so much more.” His father grew excited. “We created a virus that can heal injuries when the virus is turned into a gas and ignited by fire then applied to the injury. So instead of burning someone it heals them.” David closed his eyes and listened, just happy to hear his father’s chuckle once again. “But it turned out it had a side effect.” He finished saying, still with a slight chuckle.

“What kind of side effect?” David asked opening his eyes and walking back toward the window.

“If used on a deceased human body it reanimated it, bringing it back to life!”

“What!” David yelled.

“At first it worked out fine,” his father continued to ramble. “At Trinity, we brought back a man and woman successfully.” David couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “But then the virus showed signs of mutations.” David shook his head slowly.

“What’s wrong David?” Destiny asked placing her hand on his back. She had been following him around the room deeply concerned. David ignored her and listened closely as his father continued to rant.

“We saw where it would escalate to and knew we had to do something about it. So let’s see um – there was me, your mother and Ellen and we set out to discover a way to tame the virus back into being stable!” His father began to sound like a mad man over the phone. David didn’t know what to say.

“Dad ...” David said, but paused in silence his father continued.

“So much to tell you son and very little time.”

“We have time now Dad, Ellen isn’t coming.” David said trying to calm his father down.

“I know son; don’t worry we took care of it. Now let’s see -” David’s confusion grew to such an extreme he believed he would never get the answers he asked for. His father’s  thinking out loud over the phone was causing David to nearly tune him out. Why had his parents faked their deaths? Twice? How did they think they took care of Ellen coming to the cabin? What has happened for the last four years?

Then David got the answers to almost all of his questions. “Me and your Mother found it one day in the lab at Trinity, an answer to everything we had been hoping for. Using the same method that caused it to mutate we could, with fire and the virus, re-tame it so it would no longer mutate!”

“So you did find a cure!” David yelled excited.

“Well no … not really.”

“Dad you’re not making any sense. Look can we meet?” David’s impatience could be heard in his voice.

“Sure, come to the cabin. We can talk as much as you want.”

“Dad the building is surrounded by zombies. I can’t exactly stroll down to meet you but I will find a way.” David brought the phone away from his ear and went to hang up the cell phone but his father’s voice caused him to put it back up to his ear. “What was that?” David asked.

“You can!” His father said with excitement. “That’s what we discovered!” David’s head was spinning. He thought that maybe his father had lost his mind completely. “When the lab blew up at Trinity we were infected with the newly mutated re-tamed virus! After we had healed in the hospital we thought it best to continue our research alone.”

“Why?” David asked confused.

“We have our reason’s son.” His father replied causing David’s face to turn to anger.

“Reasons? I thought you both died four years ago and your best excuse is reasons?” David looked around the room trying not to draw any attention from the scientists nearby.

“No no, son we had our reasons for faking our death with Trinity but we didn’t want to fake it to you!” His father quickly said as he could hear David’s anger and confusion. “We had to fake our death from Trinity but it doesn’t matter why, that’s all you need to know about that!” His father spoke with a firm tone as if he was being a father once more.

“Then why did you fake your death for me?” David asked almost pleading to know.

“Well you see David, what the new re-tamed virus did was not only heal our burns but caused the old mutated virus to ignore our blood and tissue completely!” David scratched his head and a long silence once again overcame the conversation. “You see son, when we found out that we had caused the virus to ignore our cells we had to go further.”

“What do you mean further. What is further then a cure?” David stared out the window at the distant wreckage of Ellen’s helicopter.

“Well I suppose it is a cure but we made it so it not only acts as immunity but also a controller!”  David sighed loudly leaning his head back as his lunatic father continued. “Those infected with the original strain of the mutated virus, the zombies and stuff you have seen outside, whoever had the immunity virus we developed could not only heal themselves, from almost any injury aside from head wounds, but walk freely past them undetected and with a lot of concentration would be able to will them to do anything they desired.” His father took a deep breath and continued eagerly. “That is why the accident you were involved in happened.”

“I am so confused Dad.” David said quietly.

“I know son, it is a lot. Long story short you have the immunity strain in you too, remember the accident?” David at that point believed his father was completely insane and shook his head in disbelief at what his father had become. “That is why it happened. Your mother and I were trying to infect ourselves with the newest version of the virus: The one that would let us control the original one.” David rubbed his eyes getting a slight headache. “We were going to have a planned experiment to infect ourselves but the people we were trusting were going to give us in to Trinity.”

“You mean the people who were with you at the cabin during the accident?” David asked somewhat clearer on what had happened. “You staged it so you got infected with the new immunity strain and could fake your death to them.”

“But then you showed up,” His father said softly. “So we put you in the car and crashed it on purpose to ignite the virus that was being pumped into the car from the trunk.” David’s eyes grew wide. “We didn’t know you would fly out of the car. After all, you being there wasn’t planned. You have to believe we never wanted to hurt you.”

“I highly doubt that dad.” David said quietly, his right eye twitching slightly. “Sounds like you became obsessed with playing god and didn’t care about anything or anyone else.” David’s voice trembled with sadness.

“Son, you’re missing the big picture. Me, you, and your mother are immune to everything out there right now!” His father raised his voice in anger.

“So give people the cure! Or the immunity or virus of whatever you’re calling it Dad!” David hollered into the phone.

“We can’t do that son.” His father said on the other end of the phone. “We will talk more once you get here. You will see this is for the best son.”

“I will be right there.” David said sarcastically.

“See you soon son!” His father replied excitedly as David ended the call pressing hard on the button and making sure it was ended.

“What’s going on!” Destiny said loudly.

“My father is a complete lunatic!” David yelled at her. Her face flashed with fear. “I’m sorry.” He said, taking a deep breath. “He took the cure or whatever he made and it has messed with his mind.”

“Not much of a cure then.” Holiday mumbled. David nodded in agreement.

“He is insane and thinks he can control the zombies and is invisible to them.” David said as Holiday and Destiny looked at each other in disbelief. “Says I have it too.” David lowered his head and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Makes some sense I guess.” Holiday said jokingly. He smiled for a second and then his face lost all expression. “Actually makes a lot of sense.” He said seriously.

“What are you talking about Sheriff?” David asked with an unimpressed look on his face.

“Think about it for a second.” He replied. “Think back to Doc at the station.” David rolled his eyes and then thought about it.

“What about it? He attacked me and you beat him over the head.” David said quickly.

“Close your eyes.” Destiny said as David looked at her unimpressed by her helping Holiday. “Try it. It helps people remember things sometimes.” David sighed again loudly and closed his eye.

“O.K. my eyes are closed.” He said snarky.

“Just think about what happened with Doc.” Holiday said. Just then David thought back to the police station that first night everything went wrong.

“Doc died.” David said opening his eyes and looking at Holiday.

“Keep going. What next?” Holiday asked

“We don’t have time for this!” David said raising his voice.

“Yes we do!” Holiday said sharply. “This place is safe for the moment, now god dammit just keep going.” David closed his eyes once more and thought back.

“Doc stood straight up facing me when my back was turned. His eyes were pale white and he slowly pushed toward me, nearly pushing me over as I turned around.” David opened his eyes and looked back at Holiday.

“Why did he almost push you over?” Destiny asked as David opened his eyes.

“What do you mean?” David asked as if it was obvious. “He was trying to bite me.”

“Well I wasn’t there but why didn’t he just bite you. He was obviously close enough right?” Destiny asked. David hadn’t thought about it before but now he did. He closed his eyes and pictured it again. He tried to push Doc away as he snapped his mouth while turning his head toward Holiday. David had not realized that Doc was after Holiday the entire time. He yelled at Doc to “Get off!” and struggled to push Doc away. When David released his head and placed his hand around Doc’s throat; Doc nearly pushed him over and lunged at Holiday. The only thing Doc didn’t do was bite David and he could have easily done so. David opened his eyes startled with the realization his father may be right. Then he dismissed the idea.

              “There were other times zombies tried to kill me O.K.?” David said trying to convince them as well as himself. “I mean the gun store? The Beast? Hell I would be dead in the Park if you hadn’t shown up Sheriff.” he said pointing towards Holiday.

“You sure about that son?” Holiday asked, slightly backing away from David not sure how he felt about all of this. David closed his eyes and pictured each moment in his mind. Then it came to him. No zombie had ever directly attacked David; Doc tried to push past him towards Holiday; the zombies in the park ignored him and attacked Destiny and Eric even though he was vulnerable on the ground; the zombies in front of the gun store were only a foot away and still didn’t lunge at him but continued toward Holiday and Destiny.

David thought back to the time the head rolled out of the duffel bag and how it started attacking only as the sheriff ran closer. Worker #938 was only pulling at his leg on that night and could have bit him but never did. He snapped its mouth towards Doc and after Holiday shot him he turned toward Holiday but all it had to do was lower its head and bite David’s foot which slid under his chin. The Beast had never directly confronted David either. At the Gun Store, it ignored his whispers and at his house, it attacked upstairs after he had went downstairs. It held on to the car as they left town but never swung at them which it easily could have.