Zombie Zero (18 page)

Mallory’s hand moved to rub his chin thoughtfully, but the manacles stilled the motion. He glanced down, annoyed, then chuckled.

“What if it’s no coincidence at all?” Mallory mused. “What if some other version of us some long time ago discovered this same technology? Perhaps the biblical reference is a hint at the answer that we need now.”

“Are you saying that you believe that civilizations as great or greater than our own have risen and fallen in our planet’s ancient past?” The general was wearing a wry half-smile, and Mallory didn’t understand why. “Did you say you were a doctor, before?”

Mallory shook his head. “I had a collection of degrees, but I wasn’t a ‘doctor’ doctor. I was a professor.”

“Just the same, I think I’ll call you ‘doctor’, Doctor.” The general was wearing a real smile now, the first time Mallory had seen it. He still couldn’t explain why, but he got the sense that the general had taken a liking to him for some reason. They stood in comfortable silence together and watched the technician start bringing the device online. It took awhile, and the sequence had to be done in order. The young man flipping the knobs and turning the dials made mistakes twice while they watched, and had to start over.

“Not exactly a convenient design, is it?” Mallory smirked. “Maybe you shouldn’t watch, General. I think you’re making him nervous.”

“No offense, Doctor, but I think it’s you,” the general responded. “When you came to us, as the reasonable monster with a long shot at a possible solution, even I had trouble believing what you had to say. What you are is both incredible and disturbing. These troops are all afraid of you, Doctor. If my gut didn’t tell me to trust you, I would be too.”

They shared another laugh, and another quiet moment. The machine started to hum and buzz as the technician zeroed in on the sequence. The general raised his voice a little, over the hum.

“Doctor,” he said, “you wondered if maybe some other version of us had harnessed this technology, perhaps to fight the same threat.”

Mallory nodded, raised his voice too. “I did.”

“Then where are they?”

Mallory almost had to shout over the high-pitched whine now issuing from the device. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” the general shouted back, “what if it didn’t save them? Weren’t they wiped out? Where are the tales of their triumph? Where are their stories of survival? Where are their cities, their people? Why did everything end when the trumpets sounded? What if the Bible is warning us against using this technology?”

“General!” The technician was looking at him, his hand poised over the control panel. He was shouting even louder than they were, his face reddened with the effort. “We’re ready! The device is online!”

Chapter 22

Delia was not a whiner. She had built an empire on shifting sands once, and she was determined to do it again. Land had been dirt cheap in the middle of the desert, and over time she had fortified the warehouse and the perimeter to rival any military installation. The items that she was offered as payment in her business had ranged from simple cash to products that most civilians could never get ahold of, and her high-ranking government clientele had made some interesting payments over the years. No one had known, and no one had needed to, until now. As soon as the fences were electrified and the cannons put in place, she began to broadcast the location of the haven she had made. She invited the humans that remained, and the howlers that were ready to die, leaving the message everywhere she could think to post it. Then she settled back and waited for them to come. Delia was ready. In what used to be the second largest city on the coast…

Allen felt like he had been chewing for hours. Despite the fact that his teeth pointed inward, and pressed the glob of tastelessness insistently at his throat, he couldn’t swallow.

“This is disgusting.” He spoke around his teeth and the glob.

“They’re rations,” Elayna shrugged. “They’re good for you, and they keep a long time. Just try to eat some, Allen. It helps.”

He looked down at his hands. They were smaller, and the sharp nails were shorter, but they were still the hands of a monster.

“I don’t think the pills are working,” he said, his voice still garbled with the mouthful of tastelessness.

“It’s only been a day,” Elayna said. “Your skin is already starting to grow back a little.”

She was trying to comfort him. He looked at his hands again. Allen was as much a monster today as he had been yesterday.

“Your face,” she said. “Look in the mirror. The skin on your face is coming back in. You’re almost handsome again.”

Allen laughed bitterly, swallowed at last. “I haven’t looked at my own reflection since my skin first started to fall off.”

“Really? Why?”

“At first it was what I had become, or what I was becoming,” Allen shrugged. “I saw others change, and I realized they were still somewhat recognizable as their former selves. By that time I didn’t want to see the monster I realized I used to be any more than I wanted to see the monster that I had become.”

“What do you mean?” Elayna frowned.

“I mean that I used to think I was a pretty good guy,” Allen sighed. “I didn’t realize what a scumbag I was until I stepped away from my own life.”

“Come on,” she protested. “You’re a great guy.”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t see it,” he scoffed.

“Are you talking about being in love with Maya?”

Allen waved his monstrous talons dismissively.

“Love?” He laughed another bitter laugh. “Whatever I felt, it wasn’t love. If I was in love with anything, it was the idea of Maya and me together. There was no intimacy there, or reciprocated feelings. It was all me being a bad friend to her, and an even worse friend to Todd.”

“She didn’t ever seem to mind.”

“Todd did,” Allen shot back. “I thought he was such an asshole. But he was the one she wanted to be with. I was the asshole for hanging around and waiting for her to change her mind.”

“Some girls like a safety net,” Elayna shrugged. “They keep other guys around to let their guy know that he better keep his shit in line. They don’t ever plan to sleep with the other guy, or guys, but they give them enough attention to make them think it may happen one day. If you had stepped away from the situation, how long do you think Maya would have taken to find a new male best friend?”

Allen shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I can only take responsibility for my own decisions. I was such a douche.”

Elayna laughed. “Well, I guess you weren’t the only one.”

He looked at her, wondering what she meant. Allen was struck anew by how beautiful she was. He was astounded all over again that he had never noticed before. While he stared at her, his hunger somehow forgotten, a thought surfaced in his mind.

“Hey,” he said, still holding her gaze. “Did you say I was handsome?”

“I said you were almost handsome again.” Elayna nodded. “Come on, let’s have a look in the mirror together.”

Allen shook his head violently. “No.”

“Allen, you need to learn to look at yourself,” she said firmly. “You need to learn to like what you see.”

“Elayna, I killed people, lots of people.” He snorted in disgust. “I ate people. How do I live with that? How do I look at that?”

She reached out a hand, to touch his face. Allen drew back.

“Don’t,” he said. “You can’t touch me.”

Elayna peeled of her shirt and cast it aside. She stood before him in her bra and jeans, looking down at the grotesque swirl that used to be her belly.

“We’re the same, Allen,” she said. “If you don’t want me to touch you, I won’t touch you. But I want to. I want you to want me to.”

His eyes went wide. “Elayna, what…?”

“Oh, come here.” She grabbed his hand before he could pull away, led him across the room. They stood together in front of a wide mirror, her looking at him while he kept his eyes on the floor.

“Look.” She nudged him.

He shook his head, kept his eyes averted.

Elayna sighed. “Alright, I’ll go first.”

She faced herself in the mirror. “I’m a monster. Look at that nasty patch of flesh. I’m so disgusting.”

“No.” Allen still wouldn’t look. “You’re not. You’re beautiful.”

“Really?” Her voice had never sounded so sweet, so vulnerable. “Are you just saying that? To make me feel better?”

“No.” Allen felt like a child, staring away. “I’m serious. I guess I never said so before but…you’re beautiful, Elayna.”

“What about this?” She pointed. “This is disgusting.”

Finally he turned. Allen looked at her reflection, tried to ignore his own. “It’s not, though. You’re the only one of us that tried to save everyone. You’re the only one of us who didn’t eat anyone. That stubborn patch is nothing to be ashamed of, you didn’t ask for it. What you did do is fight it. You fought a hunger that I couldn’t imagine saying no to, a hunger that I helped spread across the world. That should be a badge of honor, a reminder of how good you were when you could have become something so horrible.”

Elayna rested her fingers lightly on his chest. Allen’s heart quickened.

“I like what you see when you look at me,” she breathed. She looked at him in the mirror, her eyes moving up and down his sinewy torso. She went on, her voice still soft and her fingers still touching him.

“When I look at you,” she murmured, “I see the man you used to be, smart and cynical and funny. I see the pain you went through when you faced what you used to be, and the torture of facing what you had become. I also see how walking through those trials has changed you. Give yourself a chance, Allen. See yourself through my eyes if you have to, if you can. You wanted to undo this, it’s why we found each other again. No one told you to try to get some kind of human life back. You went looking for those pills on your own, and you found me.”

“The pills,” he said, turning away. “The broadcast…”

“It’s over,” she said. “You slept through it. I’m sorry, Allen. They’re moving south. They docked in Monterey Bay. I knew we couldn’t make it in time.”

“I might have,” he protested.

“Really?” She looked at him again, and Allen let his gaze follow hers. She was right; his skin was growing back. He flexed his bare muscles. They were smaller, and his arms and legs had gotten shorter as well. He didn’t feel like a fountain of power or a whirlwind of hunger any longer; Allen felt weak and drained.

“Probably not,” he admitted.

“Turning back really takes it out of you,” she sighed. “It did me.”

“I need to stop taking the pills.” Allen turned away again. “It’s the only way I can get to the next port in time. If I leave now-”

“You would have to feed,” Elayna cut him off.

Allen frowned. “I could save you. I could save us both.”

“You would have to feed,” she said again.

“Dammit, Elayna!” He met her eyes in the mirror. “What would you have me do?”

“Stay here with me,” she said, her eyes round and vulnerable. “Take the rest of the pills with me. Eat real food, or the closest thing we have to it. Change with me. Stay with me.”

They turned to each other at the same time. Allen opened his mouth, to protest or reason with her. Elayna stepped up to him, raised herself on her tiptoes, and kissed him.

When the kiss broke, Allen shook his head. “Really? Me? Elayna-”

She kissed him again.

This time Allen kissed her back. It was the first time in a long time that he felt a little like a human being again.

Chapter 23