The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology (20 page)

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Authors: Christopher Golden

BOOK: The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology

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‘Not a zombie,’ Daniel said. ‘Next time, Shana?’

‘I’ll ask for a demonstration of resurrection.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Is the lighting adequate, sir?’ Shana asked.

She swept the camera around the dark cemetery. The image jittered as she shivered. November really wasn’t the best time for such things, but she hadn’t complained, of course.

‘Doctor Albright is—’ she began.

The shower turned on in his hotel suite’s adjoining bathroom, drowning her out. Daniel glowered, then scooped up the portable screen and moved into the sitting room. The girl in the bathroom called out, asking if he wanted to join her. He closed the door and settled onto the sofa, then asked Shana to repeat herself.

‘Doctor Albright is setting up at the gravesite. I’m heading there now.’

A yelp, as she tripped over a half-buried gravestone.

‘Careful, Shana. That equipment is very expensive.’

‘Y-yes, sir,’ she said through chattering teeth.

‘Get yourself a stiff drink when you finish,’ he said. ‘That’ll warm you up. Bill the company.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

He smiled. Little things, but crucial in employee relations. Even watching the screen made him chilly. He reached over and jacked up the heat on the gas fireplace, then poured himself a brandy.

He turned up the sound as the girl in the bathroom yelled for the shampoo. He supposed she had a name, but he couldn’t remember it. Not as if he planned to. Just another young woman in a bar, who’d assessed the cut of his suit and spread her legs, a Pavlovian response to the smell of money.

Shana finally found Albright. Along with two assistants, he’d begun digging up a recent grave. It was long, cold work, and partway through, Daniel had to turn off the screen and bid farewell to the girl. Apparently, she’d expected to stay the night and complained bitterly about being sent out with wet hair, so he’d handed her the suite’s blow-dryer and hurried her out the door with a couple hundred bucks ‘for the taxi’.

By then they’d dug down to the casket and were waiting for him, all shivering now, breath steaming in the air.

‘I’ve resurrected the corpse inside,’ Albright announced, talking loudly to be heard over the muffled bangs and cries.

‘Mr Boyd can hear that,’ Shana said. ‘Now, the ritual you used is supposed to return the body to its original form, free of any aftereffects of death, correct?’

‘Absolutely, as you will see in a moment.’

The assistants opened the casket. The man inside jerked, all limbs flailing, then sat up, gulping breaths of air before frowning, as if only just realizing he didn’t need those breaths. He squinted up at the people surrounding his casket.

‘Wh-what’s going on?’ he asked.

‘You’ve been resurrected, Mr Lang. Congratulations.’

The man’s frown deepened as he seemed to consider this. Then he nodded and tried to stand. Shana motioned to Albright, who stopped him. Shana ran her tests, confirming he did, indeed, appear to be dead. Or undead, as it were.

She took out a folder and consulted a list.

‘And you are James Lang, who died in an automobile accident on February twentieth?’

He nodded.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Course I’m sure.’

She plucked out a sheet of paper and showed it to him. ‘Because you don’t look like Mr Lang. And I noticed, Dr Albright, that you began digging before I arrived, contrary to our agreement.’

‘I knew it would take a while and it’s a cold night—’

‘I appreciate your consideration. I do not appreciate your duplicity. You started because you wanted to disguise any indication of recent digging; perhaps to lay a fresh zombie in Mr Lang’s grave.’

‘I didn’t—’

‘Then you won’t mind me returning Mr Lang to our offices, where he can be monitored for signs of decomposition. ’ She turned to the zombie. ‘Don’t worry. Having skipped the embalming phase, it shouldn’t take long.’

As expected, the zombie rotted and, in the meantime, Daniel knocked three more names off the list Wendell had provided, grumbling each time he did so, well aware that his cousin seemed to be getting the best of this deal. If Daniel succeeded, Wendell got a cushy new job. If he failed, Wendell could go to the cabal board of directors and tell them he’d used Daniel to cull their list of zombification experts.

Of the five rejected so far, only the whiz kid seemed to be a career con man. The rest were serious researchers, seriously researching the subject but years from selling a perfected cure. So, like all scientists - desperate for that big windfall that would let them continue their work - they tried to trick him into funding their work. He understood, though that didn’t mean they hadn’t paid dearly for the mistake.

Two more researchers came and went, and Daniel was nearing the end of the list, when one at the bottom, perhaps hearing rumors, took it upon himself to make the initial contact. He came; he requested an audience; he was refused; he stayed. When Daniel left work, the man was still there. When he returned the next morning, he was still there. Daniel decided he could find a few minutes to hear the man out. And a few minutes was all it took, because the man followed Shana into Daniel’s office and announced, ‘I don’t have the cure you’re looking for.’

Shana sighed and started ushering him out, murmuring apologies to Daniel, but the man stood his ground and said, ‘I don’t have it, but I can get it. I’m just missing one crucial ingredient.’

‘Money,’ Daniel said, leaning back. ‘Lots and lots of money.’

The man gave a strange little smile, almost patronizing. ‘No, Mr Boyd. I have many investors. What I lack are test subjects. Seems there aren’t a lot of people willing to die in hopes of being reborn in a rotting corpse.’

When Daniel didn’t respond, the man took that as encouragement and stepped forward, opening his briefcase on Daniel’s desk. He took out a folder the size of
War and Peace
.

‘My project to date. I’m asking you to take this and have your scientists go through it. My work, I believe, will speak for itself. All I need is someone to provide me with an unlimited supply of test subjects.’

‘Unlimited?’ Shana said.

‘My projections suggest I need between ten and fifty, depending on the number of stages required to perfect the serum. That is, however, an estimate at this point. More may be needed.’

‘More than fifty?’ Shana caught Daniel’s look and dropped her gaze, an apology on her lips. She stepped back.

Daniel took the file. He leafed through it. For show, of course. In high school, he’d blackmailed a fellow student to get him passing grades in science.

‘Leave your card with Ms Bergin. I’ll get back to you.’

Two days later, Daniel had Shana call and tell the man - Dr Boros - that he’d get his test subjects, with a cap of fifty. Not that Daniel really intended to cut him off at fifty, but one had to set limits. And it placated Shana, which was, admittedly, important. He couldn’t afford to lose her now.

Within a week, Boros had the first subjects ready for Daniel’s inspection.

‘They aren’t nearly at the stage you need,’ Boros said into the camera. ‘But I want complete transparency, Mr Boyd. You can see how far I’ve progressed and how far I need to go. No charlatans’ tricks. I believe you’ve had enough of those?’

‘I have.’

Boros clearly wasn’t putting his money into his laboratory - a shabby set of basement rooms. It was clean and the equipment was top-notch but hardly the high-tech, gleaming lab such experiments should have.

Boros also lacked assistants. Again, not for want of funds, but in this case, apparently, because of understandable paranoia. He trusted only one young man, a fellow scientist and fellow necromancer. Daniel understood the sentiment: he felt the same about Shana. But more staff would mean faster results, and at this stage, with only three months to go, Daniel desperately needed fast.

Boros’s assistant brought in the first subject . . . strapped down on a gurney. Shana’s sigh whispered across the audio connection.

‘At least he’s conscious,’ she murmured to Daniel.

‘This subject has been zombified for a week, and if Ms Bergin would care to examine him, she’ll see no signs of decomposition. However, we have another problem.’

Shana waved at the restraints. ‘He’s unstable?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

The assistant undid the restraints. The man lay there, blinking at the ceiling.

‘Rise,’ Boros said.

The man didn’t move. He should have: zombies had to obey the necromancer who resurrected them.

‘Well, you’ve cured the control aspect,’ Daniel said. ‘Thankfully.’

‘Actually, I haven’t. On examining his brain activity, it seems he would respond, if he could. In attempting to remove the necromancer’s control, it seems he has lost all control.’

As if in response, a wet spot spread across the subject’s pants.

‘That’s a problem,’ Daniel said.

A small smile. ‘I suspected you’d say that.’ Boros waved, and his assistant brought in the second subject. To Daniel’s relief, this one was walking. He was also leaving a trail of decomposing flesh, falling like dandruff in his wake.

‘That too is a problem,’ Daniel said.

‘Agreed.’

Boros turned to the subject. ‘Clap three times.’

The man only looked at him.

‘Touch your toes.’

‘Why?’ the man asked.

Boros stepped between the two subjects. ‘In one, I’ve stopped decomposition at the expense of bodily control. In the other, I’ve freed him of the necromancer’s control while accelerating decomp. Which problem would you like me to solve first? I know you’d like me to work on both, but my resources here—’

‘You’re not working there any more. Your study is coming here. I’m clearing my laboratory and putting my specialists under your control.’

‘I’d really rather not—’

‘You will. Or you don’t have a client. Now, if you’ll excuse me—’

‘Sir?’ Shana cut in. ‘The . . .’ She paused and motioned for the assistant to remove the test subjects. When they were gone, she turned to Boros. ‘Can they be saved?’

Boros shook his head. ‘One will remain in a permanent state of complete paralysis. The other will continue to rapidly decompose.’

‘So they’ll be terminated? Humanely?’

‘Not so fast,’ Daniel said. ‘If there’s still something to be learned from them, keep them.’

‘But—’ Shana began.

‘Bring them to the lab. There’s a storage room we can use. We’ll keep them there.’

He flicked off the screen.