Under a Graveyard Sky

“Yes, you should,” the EA said, turning her attention away.

Faith continued on her rounds, dutifully dropping packages at offices. She got the usual round of questions. Where’s the regular guy? Didn’t report for work. No answer on his cell or home. Where did your sister run into the zombie? She didn’t. It was a misunderstanding.

There were more rumors. Everybody had a rumor. The H7 was God’s judgement on the world. It wasn’t really the H7 virus causing people to go zombie. It was all a plot by, choose one or more, the DOD, the Republicans, the pharamaceutical companies, the Democrats, Greenpeace, the news media to boost ratings. Until she started delivering the mail, she’d never heard of the Trilateral Commission or Skull and Bones. She’d had to have them explained. And woe betide if she questioned the explainer’s arguments. She was wrong. Anything that she’d heard from Sophia or Tom wasn’t true. It was all a plot by somebody.

“Hey, Gizelle,” she said, dropping off packages for Tom’s office. “Is my uncle around?”

“He is,” Gizelle said. “He just got back from a meeting out-of-office.”

“Does he have a minute for his second favorite niece?”

She typed a message into her computer and then nodded.

“Go ahead.”

“Hey, Uncle Tom,” Faith said.

“Not to be unfriendly, but can you make it quick?” Tom asked. He was reading his computer in jeans and a t-shirt. Not normal executive wear. “I’m sort of swamped.”

“So, who really started the zombie virus?” Faith asked.

“Still unknown actor,” Tom replied.

“So… Not the Trilateral Commission?” she asked.

Tom looked up and grinned at her.

“Never, ever, trust a furfy,” Tom said, still grinning. “Is it possible it was an organized terrorist plot? Yes. What’s the rest? Big bankers?”

“That one never came up,” Faith said, blinking. “Drug companies. The Bush Administration. Something called ‘skull and bones.’”

“If you were working anywhere else it probably would have,” Tom said, leaning back in his chair. “Banks and bankers generally get blamed first and often. The blogs are full of conspiracy theories about the H7. And every group which has previously been cast as the villains in some other context are being blamed by some other group. That’s the way that people handle this sort of thing. During the Middle Ages the Black Death was due to the Devil and they killed cats to get rid of it. Since it was carried by rats, that was the worst thing they could do. But, no, it wasn’t any of the above.”

“I tried to tell people that…” Faith said, desperately.

“Don’t bother,” Tom said, shaking his head. “They won’t believe you. They only believe trusted sources like some guy who says he’s a researcher for the CDC on some forum they read every day who doesn’t know an enzyme from a lyse and is a janitor at a minor research lab in Peoria, Kansas. But they’ll trust them over all the experts because they speak truth to power! So just listen and mostly ignore it.”

“Does it really take two months to just produce a vaccine?” Faith said. “Nobody believes that.”

“I suppose I should get Curry to do a simple explanation and distribute it,” Tom said, making a note. “But, yes, from what I understand. The protein crystals take that long to grow on the matrix. Then you have to start making the vaccine from those. And then there’s a minimum four month approval window. And even with that, the vaccine isn’t going to be the best. They rarely get it exactly right the first time. It’s going to have more harmful side-effects than one that’s been through the full approval process. But if they can get that done before, well, everything comes apart, they’ll distribute it anyway. Because, you know, the world’s coming to an end.” He gestured at his computer.

“Don’t bother arguing, if there’s something that really seems relevant bring it to me,” Tom said. “Anything else?”

“Pretty much everybody knows the Bank has some vaccine,” Faith said nervously. “Some people say it’s from monkeys. Others that it’s from people.”

“The nice thing about all the outrageous rumors going around is that that’s just one more,” Tom said, smiling tightly. “Which is good. Anything else?”

“No,” Faith said, unhappily.

“If I can get in before oh dark thirty tonight, we’ll talk,” Tom said. “But no zombie hunting!”

“Been there, done that,” Faith said, holding up her thumb. “I’m sworn off until I can use a shotgun. Tasers suck.”

“Thanks for this little meeting,” Tom said, pointing at the door with both hands. “Now I have a boatload of work to do. And you should have a cartload.”

“Actually, I’m nearly done,” Faith said. “With this load, anyway.”

Faith dropped off her last few packages, then headed for the elevator. Just getting to the mailroom was a pain. BotA didn’t occupy the entire building but they had the top fifteen floors. The mailroom, on the other hand, was in the basement. Faith really didn’t like heights and every time she got on the elevator she was reminded of that.

There were three other people waiting for the elevator when she got there. They waited for the group onboard to get out, then Faith apologetically pushed her cart into the corner.

“Where’s the regular guy?” one of the men asked. He was wearing a BotA golf shirt and slacks, which Faith had learned was uniform for middle manager. She’d guess he was in IT from the look.

“Didn’t show for work” Faith said. “No answer on his phone.”

“There’s a rash of that going around,” the guy said, shrugging.

“You act like it’s some sort of joke!” the lady snapped. She was probably an EA or typist from the clothes and age. Mid twenties and dressed to show off her talents. She grabbed the manager by his shirt collar. “Bad things are happening!”

“Hey!” the guy said. “Calm down.”

“YOU calm down!” the woman screamed. Then she screamed again and started scratching at her arms. “WHAT’S ON ME? WHAT’S ON ME?” She started stripping with practiced speed.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, NO,” Faith said. “Calm down! Just don’t do this NOW!”

The woman shrieked and continued tearing at her clothes as the two men backed away from her.

“ZOMBIE!” Faith yelled. She didn’t even have her baton so she snap-kicked the woman in the stomach, causing her to double over. Faith picked up the cart and slammed it onto the woman’s head, smashing her to the ground. Unfortunately, the cart was rather light, didn’t knock the secretary out and came flying back up in a welter of undeliverable packages and internal memos.

The woman screamed again and leapt at Faith who had exactly no room for maneuver. Faith blocked the woman’s chomping mouth up and away with a forearm under her chin, then secured her wrist in a come-along. From there she was able to twist under and get a chokehold on the woman’s throat. The zombie was still wearing high-heels, if not a shirt or bra, and as the door to the elevator opened they both tumbled into the corridor. The group that was waiting for the elevator initially scattered, then several of them stepped around the two wrestling women and into the elevator while others apparently decided there were other places they’d rather be. The IT type darted out of the elevator and sprinted in a more or less random direction.

Faith suddenly found herself wrestling a zombie completely alone in the corridor.

“THANKS FOR ALL THE HELP AND SUPPORT!” she screamed. The zombie was incredibly strong for her size and Faith could already feel herself wearing out trying to maintain the holds. “COULD SOMEBODY KINDLY CALL SECURITY?”

“I thought you were security?” The woman was peeking up from over her cubicle and Faith now realized she had gone from alone to attracting a crowd.

“I’MTHENEWMAILGIRL!” Faith snapped out in one continuous scream as the thrashing zombie started rolling her down the hallway. “CALLSECURITY!”

* * *

“Got a report of somebody wrestling a zombie on the thirty-second floor,” Durante said, looking at the alert code. Doing both the BERT thing and his regular job was starting to wear on him. And this was the ninth “zombie” alert today. On the other hand, six of those had been false alarms.