Zombie Kong - Anthology (3 page)

“I can’t believe he’d hurt anybody.”

“It’s more than that, dammit!” Lindstrom stopped. “Look, I’ll be clear with you, Mr. Ruiz. The experiments I’ve been running on Manny aren’t exactly what the government had in mind. They’re bolder, broader—government bureaucrats are small-minded, and I’m chasing greatness. Do you understand me? If he’s found by animal control, poachers, anyone but my people, and they test his blood or tissue, let’s just say that would be bad. I can’t let that happen.”

He smiled at Cesar then, and Cesar wished he’d stop it and never do it again.

“Neither can you, because if you don’t help me, you’re finished. Your record will list the reason as drug use and violence toward a coworker. Or how about fucking the test animals? Who’ll hire you with something like that in your record? And if you ever try to tell anyone about this conversation, I’ll see to it that your record makes it clear you’re not a man to be believed. Do we understand each other?”

Cesar took a few deep breaths. “Yes, sir.”

“Then why don’t you venture out just a little ways and see if you can get that goddamn ape to come back.”

He shoved Cesar hard enough that he almost fell. Cesar walked deeper into the jungle, felt warm blood in his hand where he’d dug a fingernail in as he made a fist, and thought about plowing Lindstrom and running, not caring about the consequences. His back and face throbbed, and punching that fucker probably would have helped. But he couldn’t. He’d shout for Manny half-heartedly a few times and hope he didn’t show, or if he did, he hoped that he would be able to see Cesar’s face and know not to come.

He hadn’t gone very far when foliage rustled ahead of him.

“Manny?” he whispered. A grunt came back.

“Run, Manny—
run
,” he hissed. But Manny appeared out of the growth, shocking Cesar with his size. He looked unreal, like something out of a nightmare. Cesar could have sworn he was at least fifty feet tall. The huge ape signed
friend
.

Cesar heard shouts behind him, and he held his hands up toward Manny as the ape snarled and growled. Cesar turned to see several soldiers, weapons raised, shouting at one other to hold.
Hold!

Manny charged, roaring.

Weapons popped—Jesus Christ, they used
grenades
—blocking out all other sounds. Cesar couldn’t even hear his own screams as he begged them to stop. The flashes and explosions overwhelmed him, but he ran in their direction to get to Manny.

The air shook with one large explosion, throwing Cesar down. He looked up in time to see Manny fall.

* * *

Cesar headed for Lindstrom when he’d composed himself enough to stand, but a couple of the soldiers held him back.

“You said you needed him! You didn’t want him to die!” He kicked and struggled to get free.

Lindstrom shook his head. “I already have all the data I need. My serum works. The ape proves that. He’d grown too big, too dangerous. And I will admit a mistake in all this––I had no idea it would take full effect this fast. I thought I had time to gradually measure the progress. He’s become a liability, Mr. Ruiz. Are you? You should think about that.”

Lindstrom nodded and they started dragging Cesar back toward the compound. He heard Lindstrom order Manny’s body burned after he took some samples. Cesar wept. “I’m so sorry, little man, oh my God.”

Lindstrom kept him in an office for a long time, and Cesar started to wonder if they were going to take him somewhere and shoot him, claiming he knew too much. Which he did. But what good would it do him to tell someone? First, he might not be believed, and Lindstrom would ruin his reputation. Second, he might be believed. And Lindstrom would still ruin his reputation. Lindstrom was an educated American—he had the advantage in every way. That was probably the only reason Lindstrom let him go with a few more warnings. He knew Cesar was no real threat.

I’ll find another job, he told himself. It will be okay.

He couldn’t return night after night to clean Manny’s old lab anyway. That would hurt too much. Christ, what had he done?

* * *

Cesar left, tears starting again at the idea that he’d never be coming back to see Manny, would never talk to him again or scratch his head. He’d only gotten a few minutes away on the ATV when he decided he couldn’t go just like that. He had to go back, back to where Manny died, and pay his respects. Mourn. Apologize.
Something
.

He rode in the other direction for a while, longer than he thought he should have. A burning smell in the air told him it was nearby, so why couldn’t he find it? He drove into a little dirt clearing that seemed familiar and stopped, trying to figure out which direction to go in. He sniffed and looked down for the source of the smell.

“Oh, Manny.” What had looked like mud now appeared to be a blood-soaked spot of earth. Manny’s blood. Had they moved him to burn him? There was no way the men could have dragged him. More spots led out of the clearing. He cut the engine and followed the trail. At the edge of the clearing, he pushed aside a leafy bush.

A leg sat in a dark puddle: a man’s leg, torn mid-thigh. He lurched away, and the leaves snapped back into place. Cesar tried to catch a breath but it felt like his throat was the size of a straw. He looked to the right. A hand stuck out of a patch of grass. Movement behind him. A growl.

Cesar turned, air finally filling his lungs. “Oh Jesus, Manny, oh Jesus!”

Manny––half his face and chest melted, fur scorched away in places, a chunk gone from his side and one of his legs––held a man in one mammoth hand. The man didn’t scream, so Cesar knew he was dead. Manny’s one eye was no longer black and soulful, but lighter. A thin, white film covered it now. Gore ran from gunshots and larger wounds in Manny’s chest, his face, his legs.

Manny dropped the body with a thud and hooked his fingers together.

Cesar sobbed. “Friend, Manny’s friend, oh
Jesus
.” He signed back, his hands shaking so much he could barely make his fingers meet.

Manny signed again.
Candy, eat, candy.

Cesar reached into his pocket and struggled to unwrap a caramel, his arms, his whole body shaking as much as his hands. Then he unwrapped the other three in his pocket. Manny reached down and Cesar dumped them into the huge, black—
bloody
—palm.

Manny tilted his head back and dropped the candies into his mouth, but then shook his head, groaning.
Candy, candy, eat, want, candy, red, red, red.

Manny scooped the body from the ground––the broken, bloody, dead body he’d dropped––and bit into it, chewed, and bobbed his head.

Cesar’s throat was starting to tighten again. Candy.
Red.

Oh God.

Cesar backed up until he hit a tree, shaking his head. No, not sweet, gentle Manny. This wasn’t right; it wasn’t
fair
. Lindstrom had turned Manny into some kind of monster. He remembered Lindstrom’s words—size, strength, intelligence. The motherfucker never said anything about bringing Manny back from the goddamned dead.

Or making him eat
people
.

The book he’d read said gorillas ate plants, fruits and vegetables. They were
herbi-
something, which meant they didn’t eat meat. Cesar was supposed to be sneaking his friend bananas and nuts and corn on the cob and caramels, not watching this half-burned, dead little man chew on one of the bastards who’d shot him.

The hulking gorilla dropped to the ground on his side with a thud, his massive head in front of Cesar.
Friend
.

Jesus, that eye, that wrong, milky eye. Cesar reached out and patted Manny’s forehead, groaning as his hand slipped into a wound. “Friend, little man… we’ll always be friends.”

Manny rose after a few minutes and stood still, leaning, making no other movement. Like during so much of their relationship, unspoken sentiments seemed to pass between them. “See you later, Manny. See––see you tonight,” he said, as he always did, and that seemed to satisfy Manny. He disappeared into the jungle.

Shaking, Cesar headed back, stopping once to vomit before he reached the compound. Once there, he didn’t go to the camp. Instead, he went around it and kept going until he recognized the landscape, then hid the ATV in the underbrush. He found his way to the bus and rode home as usual, not quite sure how he managed it all.

Once home, he collapsed into an exhausted sleep filled with dreams of feeding candy to half-eaten soldiers’ corpses and scratching Manny’s head, the flesh squishing beneath his fingers and falling away.

* * *

He woke late, only a few hours before the sun came up, grabbing a flashlight and rushing out, cursing that it would be almost daybreak by the time he got back. He argued with himself the whole time, his own fear warring with his feelings of responsibility toward Manny. He’d helped him escape––this was as much his doing as anyone’s. If he hadn’t helped, Manny might not have gotten out and away before someone discovered him and called for help.

But if they’d recaptured him, would they have killed him? And would he have come back anyway?

It was a damn tight knot he couldn’t unravel. What was done, was done. And he’d told Manny they’d be friends until the end. No matter what, he’d meant that.

The bus ride took forever, but once he was on foot, he raced, hating the thought that Manny might think he had abandoned him. He found the ATV and went as fast as he dared, then parked it in some dense brush not far from the clearing. Would Manny even be here, waiting? How long could a 50-foot gorilla hide in the jungle? How long before he wandered out into plain view? Manny was smart, but he was also
wrong
now. Cesar didn’t know what to expect, but he sure as hell hadn’t expected this: Lindstrom was waiting for him, pistol in one hand, dim flashlight in the other. The morning was getting light enough to see now; Cesar had left his light at the ATV. Cesar wondered if the doctor had been out here with the flashlight all night.

Manny surely would have noticed him, if so. But maybe… maybe he truly understood how to hide. Maybe the soldiers died because they were hurting him, and he only hid from Lindstrom to avoid being hurt, as usual. He just didn’t know.

“Disturbances today, Ruiz. The soldiers never came back, and I think you’re responsible for that. At least… in part. Sounds, people seeing things… and no big, burned carcass for me to sample from for follow-up testing. I wanted to see how the tissue broke down, if it burned the same as gorilla flesh that hadn’t been treated with my serum. But I have no body. Isn’t that interesting?”

Lindstrom’s normally flawless hair looked puffy––greasy––instead of carefully slicked. One strand hung down over his forehead. “Let’s you and I have a chat while we walk,” he said. He motioned with the pistol, so Cesar started walking. And thinking.

“You might shoot me, you son of a bitch,” he said, getting a rush from finally telling Lindstrom what he thought of him, “but that little pea-popper won’t do you a bit of good if we find Manny.”

Lindstrom laughed. “It worked, oh my God, it worked! So he
is
out there. And you’ve seen him, you’ve come
back
to see him… you may be the key to controling the resurrected. That’s the only part of the process I haven’t figured out: I don’t know how to control the soldiers once we bring them back. The size and strength were easy. Aggression, anger, hunger… getting them to devour the enemy, not much of a challenge. But we can’t have them killing the wrong side, can we? Be glad you’re still useful, or
your
burned carcass would be out here, and here it would stay.”

Soldiers… my God, he wanted to do this to
men
. Cesar wanted to tell him that if he shot him right now, it wouldn’t be a terrible loss. He’d hate to leave Manny wondering what happened, but it would sure solve a lot of his own problems. And he would no longer be alive to feel guilt about the rest.

Lindstrom stopped, his hand clawing into Cesar’s arm. “Is that him? Hear that?”

Something lumbered through the trees, snapping limbs. Animals squealed, chattered and flapped, clearly agitated. The dense growth before them parted and the smell hit Cesar, triggering his gag reflex. “It’s him,” Cesar said. “Oh, Manny…
Manny
.” The rot was obvious and so much worse than before. Cesar wanted to bawl at the sight of Manny’s eye, now a sick white-yellow where once shiny, black, and
alive,
and
smart,
and
gentle
had been.

Lindstrom stepped forward, something like devotion or awe on his face. Cesar chopped his wrist, knocking the gun away. Lindstrom pushed him down and looked back at Manny. “I did it––I did
this
. I made you, brought you back!” He laughed, but as Manny growled, his giant, darkened teeth showing in the growing brightness, Lindstrom’s laughed choked off. He stepped backward, stumbling a little over Cesar’s foot, but not falling.

Cesar looked from Lindstrom to Manny and knew what was happening. Manny’s growl grew into a roar. Cesar could push Lindstrom, tell him to run, distract Manny so the man could get away.

But why should he?

Giggling, Cesar stood next to Lindstrom, who quickly got behind him, grabbed his arms and started trying to back up. “Tell him no, Ruiz! Make him behave––we won’t hurt him, tell him,
tell him!”

“All right, calm down,” he said, giggling again, a manic sound that threatened to snap what was left of his reason. “Hey buddy, hey little man,” he shouted, waving his arms. Manny stopped roaring, tilted his head.

“Manny’s friend,” he said, hooking his fingers together. Manny touched his knuckles together: not right, but Cesar knew what it meant. He laughed. “That’s right, buddy. Hey, Manny, want some candy?” He twisted his finger in his cheek, lifted his fingers to his mouth. “Eat candy?”

Manny bobbed his head, his poor, misshapen, mangled head, and repeated the gestures, adding a finger brushing from his sagging lip to his chin,
red
,
red, candy, red.