Rising: Parables From The Apocalypse - Dystopian Fiction (2 page)

Girls Club

The elevator door opened on the main medical floor and Leekasha started to get off.  Christa grabbed her lightly by the wrist, and said, “No, actually we’re going down one more.”

Leekasha looked at her, confused.  “I thought we weren’t allowed down there.”

“Well no, not usually, but I’ve made some special arrangements just for today.  Let’s just say that one of the security staff got the notion to add my biometrics to the database for a certain lab downstairs.”

“I see,” said Leekasha. “So I suppose we’re going on a secret girls’ outing, are we?”

“Well, yeah, I suppose you could say that.  Not like we’re heading out for martinis and manicures or something fun like that. To be honest, I’d rather stay away from this floor altogether.  It brings back too many bad memories.”

The elevator chimed their arrival, and the doors opened.  Neither one was keen to step out first, but Christa led the way.  They headed past some storage rooms and labs that looked like they hadn’t been used in years. 

“Where are we going?” Leekasha asked.  “This place is looking a little sketchy.  You’re not planning to off me in some dark corridor and throw me into the basement furnace, are you?”

Christa managed a smile. “No, nothing quite so horrendous.  We’re just going to meet an old friend.  We haven’t talked in a while, so it might be a little uncomfortable.  To be honest, it’s going to be very uncomfortable.  Ah, here we are.”

Christa scanned her finger over the reader and the door lock clicked open.  Christa pushed the door open and went inside, followed closely by Leekasha.  The room was half lit, and none of the light switches Christa tried made a difference.  In the middle of the room, suspended from the ceiling, arranged in anatomical order, were an array of tanks each containing a major body part.  The tanks had a bluish liquid circulating through them and around the body parts.  One tank contained the head, one contained the torso, and the remaining four tanks contained the arms, legs, feet and hands.  The tanks were supported by an intricate arrangement of wire strands. Tubing and additional wiring ran from tank to tank, allowing the flow of fluid through them. 

As they moved closer to the center of the room, the fluid glowed brighter in the tank.  The fingers moved, and the head rocked back and forth within the tank. 

“This is your old friend?”  Leekasha asked. “Damn, where are her eyes?  It’s missing its eyes.  Everything else is there but the eyes.”

“Yes, her eyes are missing.  They were removed long ago.  They nicknamed her Patzy.”

“Sounds like a grandmother’s name.  Who picks a name like Patzy?”

“It’s not her real name, the lab techs gave it to her.  I don’t think anyone knows her real name.  She’s patient zero … PATZy for short.”

“I don’t understand,” Leekasha said.  “Patient zero for what?”

“She’s the first of us.  She’s the one that started the zombie wars all those years ago.  The very first mutation.  There were a bunch more after her, before you and me, but she’s the first.  You could say she’s our great-great-great-great-grandmother.”

“What the hell is she doing in there?  Why is she all in pieces?  She still alive?”

A young girl’s voice emanated from speakers connected to the tanks.  “Alive it asks.  She knows little … why?”  Loud feedback screeched from the speakers and Leekasha jumped.  Christa laughed.  “Why so little … broken it seems.”

“No need to be afraid, Leekasha.  She won’t hurt you.  I told you, she’s one of us.”

“Yeah, right, nothing to be afraid of.  If that’s true, then why is she locked down here in the basement and stretched out up there like some kind of Frankenstein freak?”

“Freaks they called them.  Once upon a time.  All freaks … all of us.  Afraid this one is.  Freak afraid of freak … funny not.”

“They had problems with her when she first came in,” Christa answered.  “They didn’t know how to control us back then.  This was the best they could come up with at the time.”

“She’s a damn nightmare. How is she even alive?”

“Nightmares dreams dreams dreams … no difference.  This one confused.  Guidance. Direction. Many paths. Choose.”

“Patzy,” Christa said. “You know me.  Do you remember?  We’ve talked.”

Patzy answered, “Remember I do … the next one once … no more … this other is next copied.  The better … maybe last better?  Why here … go!”  The fluid in the tanks glowed red for an instant, then back to blue.

“She needs help, Patzy.  She’s not the next mutation, but she was close to him.  He’s dead now.  You need to guide her.  Help her to understand.”

“Dead?” Patzy answered. “He?  Him?  Male … no more … end of line … males can’t birth again … endings.”

“What the hell is she talking about, Christa?  She makes no sense.”

“She does,” Christa answered.  “You just need to listen.  I think she’s saying that because the last mutation was a male, that’s the end.  There won’t be any other mutations.  All the others have been female, that’s what kept them spreading.  Andreas’ mutation was the last.”

Patzy spoke again.  “Not better one … only copy.  Not better … different only … time to go.”

The lights in the tank dulled, but the fingers still moved.

“Is she dead?” Leekasha asked.

“No, I don’t think so.  I’d feel it if she died.”

“You feel her?”

“Yes, it’s how we communicated before.  When they held me here, I never got to see her face to face, but I could sense her.  Just a feeling, but I knew she was here.  They all did, years ago.  It’s why they all came to this place, before the Pacize drug, when zombies were everywhere.  You don’t feel her?”

“I just feel creeped out, like something’s going to jump out of the shadows and grab me.  Is that what you feel?”

“No, not really.  A little scary maybe, but not evil scary, just confused scary.  Like you’re unsure of which way to go.  You’ll get used to it.”

“Used to it?  No, I don’t think so.  I’m not coming back here again.”

“You won’t have to,” Christa smiled.  “She’ll remember you now, she’ll find you wherever you are.”

Leekasha closed her eyes and shook her head.  “Great, more nightmares to keep me awake at night.”

They walked out the lab doors and back towards the elevator.

“You have to go there now.  Out into the world,” Christa said.

“Why would you say that?”

“She said Andreas was the last.  The last of the mutations.  You’re going to be the best chance we have at reviving the others.  Those others that Andreas and you revived from the plant are dumber than posts.  Something was wrong with them.  They’re actually regressing.”

“Yes, I know, I heard.”

“I can’t help the others,” Christa said regretfully.  “I can’t control others once they come out.  It has to be you.  You’re stronger than I am.  Your abilities are still improving and getting stronger.”

“They just need to stop using the drug.  I thought Montgomery was coming up with something better with what she learned from us.”

“We can’t wait for Montgomery.  Even if she’s successful, the government will stall things for who knows how long.  I want you to try as well.  The more of us working on fixing this, the better.”

Nobody Cares

The hell with them all,
thought Leekasha as she made her way down the road. 
They said I could go.  Chambers said I was free to go whenever I want.  Christa seems to think I should get out here and help the other zombies, because no one else will.  My people … ha!  I’m a kid from Richmond, Virginia.  So, I may have all these abilities, so I was a zombie for a while.  I don’t remember killing anyone as a zombie, so I was probably a better person back then.  Maybe being under the drug wasn’t so bad.  Sure, it hurt like hell.  All I remember is the pain, but at least I wasn’t hurting anyone else.  That’s gotta count for something.  Now, there’s all this pressure to do the right thing.  Christa wants me to do the right thing.  Montgomery just wants me to stick around, get poked with needles and answer a bunch of physiological questions.  Who knows what that bastard Chambers wants.  Warmongers.  He’s probably just pissed he doesn’t have another war to fight.  That’s all soldiers are good for.  Maybe it’s better this way, with all the freaks under the drugs.  No one calls them that much anymore, and it does feel dirty calling them that.  I probably shouldn’t.  And now Patzy.  What was that?  If anyone was a freak, she was.  She’s an encyclopedia of nightmares that I just can’t get out of my head.  Ever since Christa took me down there, I feel like someone’s following me.  This change of scenery will do me good.

Leekasha walked down the side of the entrance ramp to highway 64-E and past the sign that said
Motorized Vehicles Only
.  She stood along the side of the road, within inches of the cars whizzing past.  She mentally touched each driver as they got closer, veering them a little closer to her side of the road, with their tires almost in the gravel.  Then, just before they struck her, she inched the drivers’ hands a touch to the left so they skirted around her.  She spread her feet a little further apart to brace against the wind rush of cars at highways speed.  It made her feel alive.  Little spikes of adrenaline coursed through her every time the cars zoomed by.  The transport trucks even more so.  She learned early on playing this game that truckers needed a little more time to veer away from her. 
That’s OK,
she thought. 
All part of the game.  Now, if only I could find the right car.

Leekasha played her game for a little longer, watching the transports and utilitarian minivans racing by.  They were all so bland and boring. None of them caught her attention.  Then she spotted the one.  A late model candy-apple-red Mercedes SLK with gull wing doors approached.  Leekasha didn’t know the make, model, or price of the car.  She just knew what she liked.  She stepped into the middle of the near lane and mentally directed all the drivers for several miles to change into the far lanes.  All of them changed lanes simultaneously but miraculously there were no accidents.  The cars all sped up or slowed appropriately to facilitate the multi-car lane merge.  All the cars except for the candy-red SLK.  It actually sped up and raced straight for Leekasha.  She could sense the apprehension of the driver, an older gentleman with his wife sitting next to him.  Their hearts raced the closer they came to Leekasha, but still the driver’s foot put more pressure on the accelerator. 
I could just let them keep coming,
Leekasha thought. 
It would be a spectacular way to go.  If it actually killed me, that is.  I assume it would, but hey, with what I’m capable of, who knows.

She could feel the beads of sweat on the driver’s forehead.  She could hear his wife’s screams in his ears.  She could feel him struggle to move his foot from the gas to the brake, but she held it there for just a little longer. 
It looks so pretty moving that fast.  That’s a really cool car. 
The car passed the point of safe stopping distance for most average vehicles when Leekasha released control of the driver’s foot, but not his hands. 
There’s no swerving out of the way,
she thought. 
That would be cheating.  Besides, you’d likely ruin my new car. 

Unable to swerve out of the way, the driver slammed both feet onto the brake.  German engineering is a thing of beauty. Mercedes SLKs are not only gorgeous to look at, they also have German engineering up the wazoo which makes them incredibly functional.  Leekasha walked towards the car as it screeched to a halt.  Its front bumper stopped just inches away from her knees as she bent at the waist to look through the front windshield. 

“Hi,” she said as she waved to the driver and his passenger.  “Oops,” she said.  “This is only a two-seater.  Where am I going to sit?”

The driver and his wife were breathing heavily, in a state of shock.  They didn’t answer.

“I’ll tell you guys what.  You two look like such a cute couple I’d hate to split you up. How about you two just get out, and we’ll switch cars.”

They all stood by the side of the road, with the Mercedes parked in the middle of the road.  The couple huddled together a distance from Leekasha. Leekasha watched for a while, watching the other cars racing by until she found the one she wanted.  A nice safe Volvo SUV with a single young male driver at the wheel.  She had the driver pull into the other lane and stop right behind the Mercedes.

“Perfect,” Leekasha said as she directed everyone to switch vehicles.  None of them said a word as they moved to their assigned vehicles.  They acted as if the whole thing was their idea.

Leekasha smiled at her driver as they tore down the road, leaving the Volvo behind to merge in with the rest of the daily traffic.

***

Eleven hours’ driving to Virginia Beach was not so bad when you had the right car and the right company.  Leekasha had both.  Conversation wasn’t much as there really wasn’t any the entire trip.  What’s the point of conversation when you can just rummage around in someone’s head. 
It’s kind of nice to be able to skip past all the lies and false pretenses and find out what someone is really like.
 
I could have used this in a few of my past relationships,
Leekasha thought.