Zombie Zero (6 page)

“She did,” Mallory nodded. “Then she wrote nothing but non-fiction for the rest of her life.”

“So why not write a compelling story to exorcise your demons?” Dreece suggested, ignoring the comment. “You can’t write about men’s rights, John. A non-fiction book about gender inequality from a privileged white male perspective will do nothing but get you excommunicated from society and fired from your job. Leave that field to the few intelligent women willing to see the disparity. Christina Hoff Sommers has a slim chance of being heard, but she’s already brilliantly saying everything that needs to be said. If the people want to listen, they will more likely listen to her than you. Write about overpopulation if you want to, but don’t alienate most of your potential audience with the title. ‘Parents, The Selfish Ones’? Please, John. Seriously.”

“The first chapter explains how I’m not talking about parents like you, or me, or the many other people who actually take responsibility for their children’s upbringing,” Mallory said, a little defensively.

“I don’t know that by reading the title,” Dreece pointed out.

“Well, the abstract should take care of that,” Mallory retorted. “The full working title is ‘Parents, The Selfish Ones: A Study On How The Lack Of Personal Responsibility In Many Modern Parents Has Produced A Nation Of Largely Worthless Offspring.”

Dreece whistled. “Your abstract is too abstract, and that title is way too long. And, again, alienating. Think of a story, John, for your sake and mine. Take down the blog. I can’t resist the pressures of the powers that be any longer.”

Mallory frowned. “I’ve got tenure.”

“John, please.” Dreece folded his hands in front of him. “I know you are trying to get fired. Is this your alternative to going to Mars? Exile yourself from life on Earth but still live here?”

Mallory’s eyes went wide. “What the hell? I never told you I applied to go to Mars.”

Dreece nodded. “I know. Some friend you are. I had to find out when I got a call from the selection board. The selection board for who would be the first to colonize Mars. At first I thought it was a joke.”

“What did you say to them?”

“I told them that I need you, that this school needs you, that Earth needs you,” the dean scoffed. “They won’t let anyone from the first wave come back, you know. Ever.”

“I know,” Mallory retorted. “You son of a bitch. You may have ruined my chances.”

“I doubt it,” Dreece said. “If that kind of statement doesn’t move you up the list, the people putting it together are fools. I wished afterwards that I had told them you were a bumbling idiot who could barely tie his own shoes. Nonetheless, I was glad when the list was announced as completed that I didn’t receive a letter of resignation from you.”

Mallory watched the dean drain his drink. The professor raised an eyebrow at the empty glasses, together on the desk between them. Dreece shook his head.

“What about Elayna?” Dreece asked quietly. “Did you tell her?”

Mallory frowned. “I didn’t. She would have taken it the wrong way.”

“The wrong way?” The dean narrowed his eyes. “Is there a right way to take the news that your only surviving parent is leaving the planet for good, and you have no option to follow?”

“She doesn’t need me any more,” Mallory frowned. “She never really did. Elayna raised me more than I raised her. The last thing she needs is her irrelevant old man casting the same shadow over her adult life that I darkened her childhood with.”

“Is that how she feels?” Dreece demanded.

Mallory shook his head, almost imperceptibly.

“Is that why she chose this school to pursue her degree, to get away from you and your dark shadow?” Now Dreece was the angry one, Mallory sinking back in his chair to calmly accept the barrage.

“Is that why she stops between classes to talk with you on a regular basis?” Dreece pressed him. “Is that why you have dinner together two or three times a week? You’ve given her her freedom, John, too much too soon if you ask some parents; but she never went far with it, and she always comes back to you. Why can’t you simply accept that your daughter loves you, and wants you in her life?”

“She’s just taking care of me, like she always has,” Mallory sighed. “I thought if I could put myself beyond her reach that she might finally let herself outgrow me.”

“Who’s being the selfish parent now?” Dreece scoffed.

He stood, signaling the end of their conversation.

“Please, John,” the dean said, calm once more. “Take down the blog. Use the time you have been putting towards pointing out what’s wrong in the world to look at what’s good in your life. Consider the possibility that this is just a mid-life crisis. Buy a sports car, or sleep with a student. That I can get you out of. But not this. Listen to your friend’s advice before it becomes your boss’ ultimatum.”

Mallory’s eyebrows shot up, and the dean nodded. They shook hands over the desk. The professor silently turned and walked away, and his hand was on the doorknob when he stopped. He looked over his shoulder at the dean.

“Thanks, Adam,” he said. “I hope the John Mallory in every world has an Adam Dreece to keep him in line. You’re a good friend.”

“Get the hell out of here,” Dreece grinned.

Chapter 3

In harsh and lush environments around the globe, peoples native to the land stopped as one. Those that slept woke from their slumber to leave their shelter and lift their faces to glow in the light of the full moon. They stared together to the heavens, some at a dark and starry night and others at a bright sunny sky, lost in a shared inner vision. When the vision was over, the dead that awaited ceremony or consumption were burned immediately. The people near the oceans began to work. They chopped at trees and peeled at vines, stacking them for curing and wrapping. The peoples that lived inland began the long trek to the ocean, quietly moving across desert plains and through dense jungle foliage. Any who died were immediately burned, even in the tribes where the valuable protein was needed. In the same moment, in what many would call America…

Mallory looked out over the sea of blank faces. Most of the students had recorded the lecture, or taken notes in a detached and routine manner. He couldn’t blame them for not being excited by what he was teaching; the most interesting aspects of his field were the most controversial, and those were specifically excluded from the curriculum.

“So let’s talk about what they don’t say in the books,” Mallory said.

It was a transformation that he was used to seeing. Most of the class turned off their recording devices or shut their notebooks. About a quarter of them roused themselves from their bored reverie and leaned forward in their seats. This was what they were here for. Mallory fought the urge to smile: this was what he was here for too.

One student called out. “Will this be on the test?”

“No.” Mallory did smile now.

The student crossed his arms before him on the desk and laid his head down to take a nap.

“When I first started teaching it was believed that mankind had been nothing but a thinking animal until a few thousand years ago.” Mallory heard his voice change as his audience did. “The oldest complicated architecture we knew of were the pyramids in Egypt, and they were estimated to be about two or three thousand years old.”

One student guffawed at that. He was always the one most interested in these talks. He was also the only student failing the class.

“It is difficult to find a common consensus among archaeologists,” Mallory continued. “But quite a bit of evidence has shown up regarding both the pyramids and a number of other sites that suggest that mankind has been working with far more than flint and clay for much longer than two or three thousand years.”

“Gobeki Tepe!”

“Göbekli Tepe,” Mallory nodded, slipping in the subtle correction. “That’s right, Josh. One of many sites that suggest that civilizations greater than our own in every way existed tens of thousands of years ago. The evidence of their technology is in the same place that ours would be if you went looking for evidence of it ten thousand years after we all suddenly disappeared…in the dust under our feet, and in the air that we breathe. The stone structures appear to be specifically built of natural materials that would stand the test of time, as if some of these civilizations knew that all other evidence of them would one day disappear. Göbekli Tepe was deliberately covered up thousands of years ago, and would be nothing but dust if it hadn’t been.”

“Are you suggesting that people ten thousand years ago had cars and mobile phones?” A young woman piped up skeptically.

“Or their own versions of such things, possibly,” Mallory shrugged. “You’ve all seen the ancient drawings of what can only be described as airplanes and tanks on stone walls. You’ve all read the King James version of the Christian Bible, with descriptions of ‘angels’ that flew using devices that sounded like rolling thunder and spewed white clouds out behind them. To modern man, that sounds like a description of technology, not magic or divine intervention. Many indigenous tribes have knowledge of our solar system and the universe beyond that suggests that some advanced civilization knew a great more about the stars than us and passed that knowledge to them.”

“Most people know that science is discovering that there are many planets within a relatively short distance of us that could likely support life. This generation may be the first to seriously consider that we are not alone, no matter how lonely our corner of the universe. We may not all be so arrogant about being the most advanced version of life in the universe anymore; but perhaps we are mistaken in thinking that we are the most advanced version of humanity on Earth to date.”

“So what happened?” The skeptical young woman had the best grade in this class. She was no Maya, or Allen; but she was one of the few pairs of eyes that he saw every day that were not dull and glassy. “Where did these civilizations go?”

“Pole shifts happened,” Mallory answered. “Sun flares, climate changes, meteor impacts, tidal waves and tsunamis, massive volcanic eruptions, global flooding. You name it, the Earth has survived it. Not all of her inhabitants have, however. Geological studies show that our planet endures a catastrophe of such epic proportions that nearly everything is wiped clean every six to eight thousand years. It’s like nature’s reset button. Genetics traces all of our roots back to two or three thousand people who were likely the only human survivors of the last extinction event.”

“And when was that?” The skeptical student looked a little concerned.

“About six or eight thousand years ago. There is no reason to think that was the first time, either; evidence to the contrary already exists. Human civilization has risen a number of times, only to fall and be forgotten. We are likely the descendants of a group of people that started as a small tribal band, fighting for survival in a harsh environment few of us could withstand. They were likely survivors of a huge extinction event, the few that were left of the billions they once were. Perhaps they knew that they too came from a small group of survivors, and so on.”

Mallory felt the device in his pocket buzz. He pulled it out and looked at the lighted screen. There were a half dozen missed calls, and a text message.

“That’s all for today,” he announced. He slipped the device back in his pocket and headed for the exit.

Chapter 4

On a high mountain plane, a stone’s throw from the Canadian border, a lone figure rode the worn trail along a high fence. It had to be done daily, more to keep her promise than to keep anything in or out. When Susan’s daddy had been dying he had made her swear to ride the fence line every day, and keep it in good repair. The livestock never wandered this far, and there was always plenty of deer and elk and small game on both sides of the towering electrified barbed wire. Still she rode it each morning, usually on horseback, only going back for the four wheeler when she needed to make a repair. She kept her promise, and it helped clear her head. There was no one in the compound that she felt close to since she had taken over her father’s role. Susan’s entire sheltered existence had become a slave to his legacy, and she woke every day with a desire and a plan to make her dead daddy proud. Hundreds of miles away…