I craned my head trying to see the newcomer. “Oh sorry,” he said when he saw me struggling. His head popped into view and said, “Michael Adams. Nice to meet you.”
“Kyle Moore,” I replied.
“I’d shake your hand if I wasn’t completely freaked out by the fact you were bitten by an honest to goodness zombie.”
“Infected person,” Stephanie corrected.
“Bullshit. Why did we call it the ‘Z Gene’ then, hmm?”
“Because it has all the characteristics of Zyklon B. It killed millions before anyone even knew what had happened.”
“Zyklon B?” I asked.
“Nasty frickin’ poison the Nazis used to gas the Jews,” Michael explained. “And whatever, Stephanie. The “Z” stands for “Zombie”, and that’s the end of that. Now untie this son of a bitch. I want to meet the boy who lived!”
◊◊◊
The boy remembered the old life. The one with color, and shape, and sound, but it seemed so distant that it no longer meant what once did. There was only hunger; the ever-present pulse of the craving against the front of his skull. He felt that the only survival possible was to feed. There was nothing else. He remembered riding his bike and swimming in the pool and climbing trees. He remembered drawing and playing basketball. He remembered Julia Snodgrass kissing him behind the fence at his house. He remembered his friend Rogelio showing him how hop a curb on his bike. All these memories that seemed so important before the hunger were now faded grey and cast aside. The boy would eat Rogelio as soon as he eat would Julia, and he knew it was true but he didn’t care. The only way to silence the voice in his head; the only way to stop the rush of desire; the only way to quench the urge; the only way to soothe the pain; the only answer was to feed. And he would feed on anything. He had eaten the neighbor boy. When his parents tried to pull him off, he ate them too. He tried to eat Mr. Carson’s dog, but the animal’s meat didn’t stop the urge. He needed the meat of people. He used to feel sad at the thought, but the hunger took care of that for him. The hunger loved him and wanted him to be well. If he listened to the hunger, he would be fine. If he obeyed the hunger, he would live and the pain would go away. So he ate. And ate. And ate. He tore homes open and broke down doors. He smashed windows and pushed through fences. The boy was shot, stabbed, and whipped, but nothing compared to the hunger. He was beaten, stuck with arrows, and jabbed with homemade spears. But the only thing the boy felt was the urgent need to feed. He just knew, he could feel it, that if he didn’t eat soon he would burn from within until he was no more than a smoldering glob in the street. He gave no thoughts to cleanliness, or appearance, or society. There was only the gnawing hunger and the boy would answer the call. He would feed until there was nothing left.
◊◊◊
“You are amazing,” Michael said, and not for the first time. In truth it was getting kind of creepy, the level of interest the scientist was taking in me. To Stephanie, I was little more than an interesting lab rat. To Michael, I was a unicorn. My existence didn’t make sense but it verified the presence of something greater and magical in the world.
As if zombies weren’t enough.
“Thanks,” I reply, “but you’ve got to stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re in a strip club and you’re waiting for me to start taking off all my clothes,” I say.
Stephanie looks over and rolls her eyes at us.
“Looks like Dr. Carver thinks your comment was uncalled-for,” Michael replied.
“Looks like Dr. Adams still has no idea how to read my expressions,” she quipped back.
I laugh at the two of them spatting like a married couple. The normalcy of the situation seems perverse when compared to the havoc taking shape outside the building. People are dying horrible deaths just to reanimate and become the thing that killed them, and here we are joking about strippers and misread expressions.
“So what is it, guys?” I ask. “Why am I not dead?”
The two doctors share a look. Based on my short experience with the two, I feel safe saying that Dr. Carver meant something specific when she raised her eyebrows slightly and frowned, and that Dr. Adams had no idea what that was.
“Well?” I persist.
“No one knows,” Michael answers. “We have no idea. There are 11 scientists in this facility, all working to give people what you already have. Who knows how many doctors, scientists and researchers are working world-wide on this problem, but we all want you you’ve got. Problem is, we have no idea what part of you is rejecting the Z Gene. Frankly, I have can’t explain why you are alive.”
“I think I can,” Stephanie interrupts.
“What do you think, doc?” I ask her, and she gives me a look that I probably interpret incorrectly.
“I think the answer is in your blood,” she began. “You have a live Z Gene infection racing through your blood but it isn’t taking. Why? By all accounts you should be back in the lab, fighting against the bonds and trying to eat anything that comes near you. But here you are. I think it’s your blood.”
“What about it?” I ask.
“I think you are an original carrier,” she answers, and I don’t like the sounds of that.
“Original carrier?”
“There are diseases and viruses that remain dormant in a host body, not corrupting or killing that host, but using it to transport itself to other hosts who will become infected and sick. I think you are a dormant host. I think you were born with the Z Gene already, tucked away in your DNA, and it was just waiting for the right moment to become active.
