Zombies in Love (17 page)

The zombie thumped him on the back of the head. 
Ow. 
“Stop that.  This’ll never work if you’re making that noise."

David Leschke was feeling as cheerful as he’d been in a long time.  He'd been looking at this the wrong way from the beginning. 
Unproductive?  Washed-up?  A has-been?  I don’t think so, dear colleagues!  Have any of you raised the dead?

Well, maybe not
him
personally, but two of his graduate students, which was essentially the same thing.

Nobel Prize, here I come!  And if they say they don’t give it posthumously-- I’ll show them posthumous!

He felt fantastic.  The only downside that he could see was that his head kept keeling over to one side.  But he’d grown his arm back!  That was good!

And also-- he’d never realized how incredible his wife smelled, like honey and burned toast.  She’d been sick for such a long, long time... sick and off limits, so to speak...

“Sweetheart, where are we going?”

“Ahhhrrhrrrr,” he said.  Something was wrong with his voice box, too.  But Miriam seemed to understand him perfectly as they stopped in front of the door to the departmental museum.  It was locked, so he just ripped the door off its hinges.

Miriam followed him inside, giggling like a little girl as she looked up at all the deformed specimens that had been given to Winthrop over the years.  A leg that looked like cheese.  A gangrenous hand.  And-- there was the one he was looking for--

He pulled down a malformed heart in a glass jar and handed it to Miriam.  “Is that for me?” she asked.

“Aaahr,” he said.

She twisted off the glass lid, smelled the jar, and chugged a big gulp of the formaldehyde solution.

That’s my girl. 

She giggled.  “It goes straight to my head!”  She fished out the heart like it was a big olive and bit into it.  “It’s delicious, darling.  Here, have some.”

Now that she mentioned it, he was feeling hungry.  He took the heart from her and finished it.

“Honey,” she said, shyly, “I’m so sorry for what I did.  I can’t say it often enough.  You must have been horrified.  But I love you and-- can we start over?”

He licked his hands clean, picked her up easily-- he was so strong now!-- and set her on a lab bench.  He kissed her like they’d kissed when they first fallen in love.

“Oh, honey,” she murmured.  He began unbuttoning her blouse.  “What are you doing?”

“Graaaaaahr,” he explained, as Miriam started to laugh.

#

It was probably a serious character flaw, Jack reflected, that he was happiest when he was about to lie his head off.

But really, who cared?  He was done being so damn apologetic.

He quickly surveyed the room, the motion making his beehive of a head ache more.  Four large gorilla cages full of unhealthy-looking ghouls, and Arturo, who was doing a good impression of someone who didn’t recognize him.  Two Winthrop henchmen in white jumpsuits, just like the fellows who had attacked them in the cemetery.  The cages were crammed between dust-covered lab benches, in a row down the center of the room. 

His own assets: a fire axe, the cringing kid behind him, and the stream of complete swamp water that was about to pour out of his mouth.

Hit it. 

“Who are you?” asked the redheaded henchman.

He arranged his face into a look of scholarly disdain.  “I’m Dr. Jack Kershaw from the CDC in Atlanta, and I’ve been sent to investigate an unusual outbreak.  And who are you?”

“I’m the hired muscle.  And no one told me you were coming.”

“No one tells you the CDC is coming.  We just show up.  Much like this infectious disease, which-- judging by that--” he pointed towards the cages-- “is not being properly controlled.”

“The Board of Overseers--”

“Sir, the CDC does not give a brass hoot about the Board of Overseers.  We answer to the American public.”  He moved a few steps closer to the cages.  “Have proper protocols been followed?  They have not.  Look at this.  As far as you know, this disease can be transmitted by air.  And here you’ve got all these people in cages.  Congratulations.  By now, we’re all infected.”

He saw the redhead back up a step.  Good.  He moved a little closer to the cages.

That left the second man, whose cheeks were pitted with old acne scars.  “This is actually a very unusual disease.  Not at all a CDC matter.”

“Are you kidding?” Jack smiled.  “We’ve seen zombies before.  There was an outbreak in Beaufort just last year that would make your hair curl.”  He picked up a pack of rubber gloves from the lab bench and waved them at the henchmen.  “Ooh.  Discount rubber gloves.  Zombie spit’ll cut right through these.  I hope they’re paying you fellows well for this, because your widows’ll appreciate it.”

The redhead looked at him as if struck with a new idea.  “How did you hear about this?”

Line, Ian
, Jack thought.

“I called them,” said Ian.  “Last night.”

“Yes,” said Jack quickly, before Ian tried to elaborate.  “Took the red-eye up from Atlanta, just got here this morning.”

“No you didn’t,” said the redhead.  “Logan’s been closed all morning.  I know, because my mom’s flying in from Philadelphia, and her flight was delayed.  Rain.”  He raised a gun at Jack.  “So who are you really, Dr. CDC?”

Jack picked up a glass five-liter jug of ether from the lab bench next to him and hurled it at the redhead, hitting him in the chest and knocking him to the floor.  The other drew his gun and started shooting, but Jack had been careful to stay behind a bench.  As he ripped his lab coat open--
sorry to see that go
-- he heard the door slam behind him as Ian took off for parts unknown. 

Smart
, thought Jack, as he jumped over the lab bench, landing directly on the redhead.  He was alert enough to point his gun in Jack’s face, so Jack grabbed him by the red hair and pounded his skull into the floor. 

Which left the remaining henchman, Mr. Acne Scars, free to shoot him in the back, twice.  “Goddamn, that hurts,” Jack said.  He spun around and threw his axe, watching it fly end over end until--
thock--
the shaft hit the man directly in the forehead.  His eyes crossed and he dropped to the ground.

"Nice work," said Arturo.

Jack smiled at him.  “Where do they keep the keys?”

“Over there, doctor." 

Jack pulled the keys down from the hook on the wall.  “Is this everyone?”  He unlocked the cage with Arturo in it. 

“We’re missing Miriam.”  Arturo came out, trailed by the rest of the lurching, grumbling zombie horde. 

“She was upstairs with me.  She's fine.”

Jack coughed and spat another metal fragment into his hand.

"You okay?" asked Arturo.

"I wonder if I've got anything else stuck up in there."  He dropped the bullet fragment on the floor and wiped his hand on his pants.

"Let me check."  Arturo grabbed Jack's head and shook it back and forth.  "Yeah, I think I hear something jingling."

"Huh," said Jack.  He tilted his head like he was trying to jostle water out of his ear.  He could hear it rolling around in there, too.  So it wasn't a sinus infection.  But he felt good otherwise.  Maybe he didn't need his brain as much as he thought.  "If I lend you my axe, think you can get it out?"

“Let’s get these guys out of the building first.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Jack and nodded. 
Jingle jingle jingle.

#

Ian sidled down the hallway, trying to get out of the labyrinth of the building without going by a security camera.  He was just going to go home, and then he was going to--

He was going to sit in his favorite chair and watch his collection of Buffy DVDs until he was too tired to blink.  And then, and only then, was he going to decide what to do next.  Because he might be broke, he might be unemployed, his academic career might be over, but at least he hadn’t been zombified.

That counted as a win, didn’t it?  Probably not. 

How was he going to explain this to his parents?  His stomach tightened at the thought, and he nearly ran into the two people coming the other way down the hall.

Prof. Leschke and his wife.  His zombie wife, draped on her husband’s arm, kept giggling like she was a little bit drunk.  How did you get a zombie drunk?

“Oh, hi, professor,” blathered Ian.  “I hope it’s okay I got out of your office.  I’m just going to go home now, okay?”

“Aaargh,” said Prof. Leschke.

It was only then that Ian noticed there was something wrong with Prof. Leschke.  Maybe it was the bluish complexion, or the way his head kept tilting over, or-- what
was
that smeared all over his lab coat, and why was Mrs. Leschke’s dress all torn up--

“Okay!” said Ian.  “Going now!”

Prof. Leschke grabbed Ian by the arm--
Too tight!--
and Ian shut his eyes.

#

“I don’t like this room,” said Arturo, looking around at the slate walls engraved with an endless list of names.  “Too exposed.”

It was a creepy room-- at least three stories of open space, as if designed to make Jack feel even shorter than usual.  Under the Gothic ceiling was a set of stained glass windows: a soldier enlisting, with an angel standing behind him; the soldier in uniform, with his mother sobbing at his knee, and another angel; the soldier in battle, with angel covering her eyes; and the angel raising the soldier's corpse, like a winged weightlifter.  Under that was a very long list of places, like Gettysburg, Antietam, Bull Run.  And a lot of Yankee last names with no friendly Gaillards and Pinckneys and Middletons to keep them company.

This was no kind of a place for a southern zombie to waste time.  “Help me open the door so we can get out,” said Jack, slamming into the locked cast-iron doors, leaving a big divot in the metal. 

Arturo thudded into the door beside him.  The other zombies, too hungry to focus on anything for long, wandered aimlessly around, murmuring.  One zombie in a silver tracksuit stood next to a table covered with piles of announcements: guest speakers, parties, pizza delivery menus.  He picked up a piece of paper and ate it.

Jack could see the door start to warp, the lock begin to slide free.  “Nearly out,” said Arturo. 

And then what?
thought Jack.  He could try going back to Lisa’s.  She’d probably chase him down with a butcher knife.  Now there was an image.  Lisa with a butcher knife, and a big white apron.  And what would she be wearing underneath?  Lingerie?  No, she wasn’t the lingerie type.  A pair of jogging shorts, the kind made out of the really thin rayon that would rip just like tissue paper.

So he catches her from behind, and he rips the shorts, and she spins around and stabs him, and he bleeds all over the starched white apron...  Oh, Jesus...

Focus!  Focus!
he reminded himself.
She’ll probably just shoot you again.

Maybe not in the head this time, maybe in the stomach, so he can’t move his legs, drops to the ground, flat on his back, can’t move, and she comes over to him, crawling on all fours, her apron trailing in his blood and gore, she straddles him...

He thudded into the door again with renewed purpose.  The doors swung open with a groan and then stopped, held in place by the chains that bolted through the door handles.

Jack heard a strange noise behind him, like the door of a pyramid opening, and then a buzz like an ancient doorbell.  The slate name-covered walls had slid aside, and behind each one was an open elevator containing a Winthrop man.  And this time they were holding something that looked like giant water guns.  Jack and Arturo both ducked out of the way, but the zombie in the silver tracksuit eating the notice about the vice president's visit to campus wasn’t so lucky; the brownish spray caught him full in the back, flaying the skin from his body, liquefying him into a horrible pink gelatin.  It had happened so quickly that the poor fellow didn’t even have a chance to scream, but Jack wouldn’t soon forget the smell.

“Back downstairs,” yelled Arturo, pulling one of the other zombies with him.

Jack couldn't run.  One of the Winthrop men had his gun pointed at him, from about six feet away.  "Halt, zombie!" he yelled.

Oh, hell,
thought Jack. 
I'm going to die. 
He put his hands up and what he hoped was a big friendly smile on his face. 

The Winthrop man walked closer to him.  Why didn't he fire?  Maybe it was like a squirt gun.  Maybe it took a minute to reload.  In which case--

Jack turned and bolted down the stairs, feeling droplets of acid splash across his back, innocent as water, then burning into him like wormtrails of fire.  He could feel his leg bones crack, the worst shin splints ever, but he ignored it until he slammed the door behind him, and slid his axe between the door handles.

“That’s not going to hold it,” said Arturo, jamming the door shut with a man-sized tank of liquid nitrogen. 

Jack grabbed another tank and blocked the door with it.