Aliens Versus Zombies (4 page)

October 14, 2030.

Chick Daniels opened his eyes and panicked.

He lay flat on his back, in pain, and blind. He rubbed at his eyes, hoping against hope. They were slick with…blood?

No, no, no! Please, God, no…

After an all-too-long moment he saw a glimmer of light, and then another. He kept rubbing.

“Whoa, Sarge! Stop rubbing. You’ll just make it worse.”

“What? Make what worse? Wh-what happened to me?”

“Hang on. You’ve got motor oil in your eyes. Try not to blink until I rinse it out with some saline. It might sting a little, but keep your eyes open. Okay?”

“Y-yeah. Okay.”

Fingers raised his left eyelid. Warm water bathed his eyes and splashed onto his cheeks. After a few seconds, daylight penetrated the gloom. He repeated the process on the right eye.

“Okay, you can blink now.”

He did, and the view cleared.

The medical corpsman peered into Daniels’ eyes. “How’s your vision? Can you see all right?”

Daniels nodded. “It still stings a bit, but I can see.”

“Good. I’ve got some ointment that’ll help with that. Your eyes should be right as rain by tomorrow. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“I don’t think…wait. My hip.”

The corpsman turned his head to the side to look. “Yep. There’s some blood. Turn on your side so I can get a better look.”

Daniels did so and the corpsman used his knife to cut open the pants over the wound to get a better look.

“Yep. Not too bad. A little shrapnel; not deep, not too much bleeding. You’re lucky. Hang on a minute and we’ll get a stretcher over here.”

“I’m still a bit woozy. Wh-what happened?”

“IED. Two dead, two injured, including you.”

“Shit. Who?”

“Keeley and Bremmer dead. Wojohowicz lost a foot. He’s stable.”

“God
damn
this place!” Daniels closed his eyes for a moment, shook his head, and then reopened them. “I’ll be so happy when we get the fuck out of this hellhole.”

The corpsman took another look at Daniels’ eyes. “You sure you’re okay? Do you know your name, where you are?”

“Yeah, yeah. Byron Daniels. Afghanistan. Kandahar province.”

“Good. Just another day in the shitty neighborhood. Right, Sarge?”

“Yeah. I’m sick of this place. Nothing but death. They kill us, we kill them. We’ll never kill enough of them to end this.”

“I hear ya. You just lie there for a mo while I round up that stretcher, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Do what ya gotta do.”

The corpsman jogged away.

After he left, Daniels looked up at the sky and squinted at the harsh sun. “God? Are you listening? Can we make a deal? If you get me out of this place alive, I promise I’ll lay down my weapons and never pick one up again. I’ll be a model citizen. Love they neighbor and all that. Deal?”

God was silent on the issue.

* * * *

May 2034.

The quintet had learned to move mainly at night to avoid being seen. The Zoms may have lost most of their ability to reason, but they still had basic animal needs. They had to shit, piss, eat, and sleep—generally at night—the same as any other human being. As a result, despite their qualms about it, nighttime was actually safer for normal humans. After all, even if the Zoms were awake, their night vision and sense of smell were no better than before the plague.

Tonight the group slipped down an alley toward a sporting goods store the next block over. They were low on ammo and Moose’s pistol had begun to jam intermittently. Rather than risk it in a pitched battle, it made sense to just get another one—or two, or five.

The trip so far had been quiet. Jesse Jefferson took the opportunity to say something he’d been thinking about since Daniels and Chrissy had returned from the Hungry Shopper. He spoke softly.

“You know, I think maybe it’s time to get outta Dodge. Grab a minivan or SUV, cram it with food and stuff, and get the hell outta here. If what you two saw was actually aliens, then we’re in big trouble. If it’s not bad enough that we have to duck Zoms all the time, how are we supposed to duck aliens, too, with spaceships and shit?”

“Dunno, Jesse,” Daniels said. “But if the aliens are here, who’s to say they aren’t everywhere? Besides, we’ve done well enough here so far. There’s still plenty of canned food in the stores. Who knows what the next town’ll be like. Maybe it’s been looted.”

Jesse shrugged. “Maybe, but at least that would mean more people. We haven’t seen anyone around here in months.”

“Yeah, but other people might not want to share. It’s a case of the devil you know versus the one you don’t. At least we know what to expect here.”

“Do we? Do we know what the aliens might be up to?”

Daniels had no answer to that and the group trudged on in silence.

They reached Sporty’s Sporting Goods and broke the lock on the back door. Their entry was less noticeable than if they’d gone in through the front.

While working their way toward the counter that had guns and cartridges locked away, Moose Villa started chuckling.

“Something you’d like to share with the class?” Chrissy asked.

“Heh. I was just wondering whether Zoms, you know, do it. Sex, I mean.”

“Yeah, we figured that out.”

“Sure! Why not? As far we know, everything works like before, except for their brains. They bleed when they get shot, they die, so why not sex?”

“What an image!” Chrissy said with a grin. “Two Zoms goin’ at it.”

Chick Daniels laughed, flashing the smile that had earned him the nickname “chick magnet” in his younger days. Maybe his hair was going gray now, and there were crow’s feet beside his world-weary ice blue eyes, but his smile was still as youthful as ever.

“Oh…my…God!” Chrissy exclaimed. “Can you imagine pregnant Zoms running around? Or zombie
babies
?”

Peter chimed in. “Talk about ankle-biters!”

That pretty much ended any serious conversation for a while.

* * * *

FronCar entered the Medical Hub. As always, he was in awe of the scope of the place. Surgical theaters, state-of-the-art diagnostic bays, research facilities, prosthetic/bionic device manufacturing modules, and much more. The place had hundreds of people working in it, with beds and equipment to treat nearly a thousand patients simultaneously. Under intense battle conditions, that often was barely enough. The soft pale blue glow of the walls gave the facility an ethereal quality that softened the otherwise sterile feel.

FronCar walked down four flights of stairs to the diagnostic bay where Fleet Commanding Medical Officer ZemBleth awaited. FronCar was a soldier, after all, not some lazy civilian who needed to use the lift.

“Doctor?”

“Ah, Commander. Excellent. I was just about to contact you.”

“Do you have anything useful to report?”

“Well, I guess that depends on what you mean by useful.”

Before FronCar could respond, the doctor continued. “Here, let me show you the results of the autopsy. Or perhaps necropsy is the better term. After all, the subject is closer to an animal than a person.”

He reactivated the 3D scanners, which projected a holographic image of the indigene into the center of the bay at the doctor’s waist height. He pointed at the transparent image of the torso. “We still don’t know exactly what all the internal organs do, especially with the damage from weapons fire. It would be much easier to tell with a living patient. But some functions are obvious.

“There are two lungs. Less efficient than our three, but serviceable. This organ, in the middle, pumps the blood. The configuration is different from our two hearts, but it’s larger and obviously does the job. There are several other organs lower down that seem to purify the blood and other bodily fluids of toxins—judging by the quantity of the toxins in the organs—digest food, secrete hormones and enzymes, reproduce, and the other usual functions. There are one or two we haven’t figured out yet. This little one, for example, in the lower right abdomen, doesn’t appear to do anything. Maybe it’s vestigial, like our belj. Their blood appears to use iron-based hemoglobin, hence the reddish color, rather than our cobalt-based coboglobin.”

“That’s all very fascinating, doctor, but is there anything that can help us kill the indigenes easier?”

Dr. ZemBleth shrugged. “Perhaps, perhaps not. I can tell you that they’re shorter than we are, with much denser bones. That’s probably due to this planet’s twenty-percent-higher gravity. Most likely they’re stronger than we are, and faster afoot.”

“That’s good to know.”

“Yes, but the most interesting thing I’ve found is in their brains.”

“How so?”

“The brains are clearly well developed. They’re slightly larger than our own, with two large lobes versus our three smaller ones, and significant folds and wrinkles. Typically, the more convoluted a brain is, the more intelligent the creature. It’s impossible to tell for sure from a dead body, but I would estimate that the intelligence level of the indigenes was approximately equal to our own, give or take ten to fifteen percent.”

“Was?”

“Clearly, there is significant brain damage. I can’t be sure what caused it, disease or trauma, but this creature certainly wasn’t born this way. There’s clear indication of damage. See how some parts of the brain are light gray in color and others are white? But these areas here, here, and here, are darker. That’s where the damage occurred, in what I would estimate to be areas that control the higher brain functions. Some of the tissue appears dead. There are even a large number of lesions—holes and tears—in the brain, mostly here in the front. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen that before.”

He paused for a moment before continuing. “You said these creatures acted feral, like wild animals, attacking your men with ferocity. Obviously the autonomic and basal functions of the brain are unharmed, which leaves only the higher functions. The thinking part. Well, there’s your answer. With this degree of damage, if all the indigenes are like this, you won’t have to worry about them firing sophisticated weapons at you. Rocks, sticks, and teeth are about as fancy as these creatures will get.”

FronCar nodded in thought. “Thank you, doctor. You’ve been most helpful.”

“Anything for the Empire, Commander.”

“Please keep me informed if you find anything else that might be of interest.”

“Of course. By the way, what’s the planet like? I haven’t had a chance to get a look.”

FronCar shrugged. “It’s bigger than Draht, mostly water, with several large landmasses, rather than many small ones. Very blue. Pretty, one might say. Extremely hot in places, very cold in others. Not at all like the fairly uniform conditions at home. But the temperate zones are certainly suitable to our kind. Once we eliminate these parasites infesting the planet, we’ll have plenty of room to grow into.”

Dr. ZemBleth smiled. “Excellent. I can’t wait to make landfall and see for myself.”

* * * *

With sounds of Drahtch weapons-fire echoing in the distance, the quintet got close enough to watch as the golden aliens retrieved their dead. Afterward, they moved in on the warehouse to see if they could learn anything about the invaders.

Taking care, they slipped in after dark. Their flashlights illuminated the immediate area, but wouldn’t be visible from a distance.

“I guess we can forget the idea that the aliens are friendly,” Daniels said.

Chrissy shook her head. “We can’t assume that. Maybe they were just defending themselves.”

“Maybe.”

Peter DeBerge was the first to spot the blood. “Huh,” he said pointing. “It’s yellow-orange.”

They spread out to follow the blood trails, each wary, listening for the sounds of returning Zoms—or aliens.

“Over here,” Chrissy called out. When the others arrived, she showed them the piece of wet, blood-soaked fabric she had found. “With this blood on it, it should feel cool; but it’s warm to the touch, like it’s being heated somehow.” She passed the piece to Daniels.

“Definitely not like any fabric I’ve ever heard of,” He said. The others agreed when they had a chance to feel it.

A few more minutes of searching revealed only one other thing of note.

Jesse found a dead Zom in the back, still clutching a shred of alien uniform and with a bit of flesh dangling from her mouth. That wasn’t the weird part.

“I don’t see what killed it. Unlike the other Zoms, this one doesn’t look like it has any gaping holes.” He and Daniels rolled it over. There were no wounds on the back, either, just a rash on her face.

Moose said, “I’ve never seen a dead Zom before with no wounds.”

“It doesn’t look old enough to have died of old age,” Jefferson joked.

Before the smiles even had a chance to fade, six Zoms launched themselves through the opening in the back that the aliens had blown in. Three headed for Peter, who was closest to the hole, two for Jesse, and one for Daniels.