Waking the Zed

Waking the Dead



Dr. Klein rushed back to Preservation Room 17 immediately after Pam called her. The younger woman noted that the doctor’s hair was now loose and her cheeks looked a bit flushed. Did she and Enrico actually find some quiet corner of the building to make a little romance? Pam remembered that Dr. Klein’s office suite contained a plush sofa. She tried to push the image of the two of them together on Dr. Klein’s office sofa out of her mind.

The older scientist fiddled with some controls for a moment. Then she paced back and forth between the two warming capsules. By that time it was obvious that the mouths had opened. Bubbles streamed out intermittently.

It’s not as regular as breathing, but some exchange of gasses is taking place. In fact the two bodies seemed to be working their mouths in a way that reminded Pam of fish in an aquarium. Repelled and fascinated, Pamela was sure she had seen Mr. Barnes’s hand flutter and Mrs. Bell’s eyelids twitch again. Somehow the bodies had become reanimated though Pam was not ready to go so far as to declare them alive. She certainly saw no evidence that either of them was aware of their surroundings.

Suddenly revived like a goldfish in a tank, wouldn’t their faces betray some emotion?

Enrico entered the room a few minutes later. He still looked immaculate, and every strand of his dark hair had been combed in place. Pamela imagined that his mouth curved up slightly in a self-satisfied grin. He glanced at her dismissively and then focused on his boss as if her face was the only thing worth viewing in the room. He barely even glanced at the suddenly animated corpses. What can he be thinking about to miss that elephant in the room.

“Thanks for coming so quickly, Enrico. We need to move Mr. Barnes and Mrs. Bell to the clinical suite soon,” Dr. Klein said. Her tone conveyed nothing but professional urgency now.

“I am here to serve you, Doctor Klein.” Then he pulled out his phone and called for assistance. In a moment two laboratory technicians wheeled in a pair of shiny steel carts. She had never seen these workers before, but she noticed that they each had their name embroidered on the breast pocket of their light blue work shirts.

The short, stocky, balding man was named George. He made up for the lack of hair on his head with a thick mustache. Pam thought it looked like upper lip hair that her old roommate used to call a porn mustache.

The taller blonde man was named Paul. He was clean shaven and looked about Pam’s own age. She could not be sure, but she thought he tossed her a meaningful glance. Then he seemed to casually flick his eyes from Dr. Klein to Enrico. Pam wondered if he genuinely wanted to chat later or was just here as more bait that Dr. Klein had cast about to set her up. Would a common worker even understand what this place was about?

As Pam watched, she saw the carts had been cleverly constructed to hold the cylinder shaped capsules. Under Enrico’s direction, George and Paul removed the capsules from their bases and set them securely on the carts.

Dr. Klein had Enrico and Pamela picked up the tanks of serum to secure them on a lower shelf of the carts so they could be wheeled along too. The whole setup had been efficiently designed and Pam decided that Enrico must be a competent engineer despite his other faults.

After they finished getting the carts set up, Dr. Klein looked at Pamela sourly and said, “You can stay here and perform your regular duties.”

Pam was surprised to note that she actually felt a little disappointed. She did not believe that Dr. Klein could wake the dead, but she did want to know what the scientist actually had accomplished. As much as Pam despised Dr. Klein, she did respect her reputation. Her past work on the virus blocking protein had helped save millions of people from disease and even death.

But as she watched Enrico and Dr. Klein follow the two lab techs out of the room, Pamela felt a chill that did not just come from the low temperature in the room. “Bodies should stay buried,” Pam thought to herself. But would I feel the same if these people used to be somebody I cared about? She shook her head, undecided, and attended to her reports.

It took her two hours to complete her work In Preservation Room 17. She might have completed her logs and reports faster, but she found it hard to focus after what she had seen earlier. She kept closing her eyes and picturing the way that Mrs. Bell’s pale fingers had moved.

After she finally completed her last report, Pam logged onto the touchscreen monitor to check her schedule. She was supposed to move on and check readings in Preservation Room 18, and then she could leave for the day. Most of her work in this place turned out to be pretty dull and routine. A lot of days she could complete her assigned tasks and take off a little early. Pamela did not believe she had learned a lot at Future Faith, except for the fact that such morbid places even existed. But still, the easy job allowed her time to recharge before returning to her demanding schedules. And the place paid a lot of bills.

She had a lot to think about tonight. She certainly did not want to return to this place the next day but abruptly quitting a job went against her grain. Besides, she really did need the money. The same argument between her sense of duty and financial responsibility and her revulsion had distracted her all morning. It ran like a tape on an endless loop through her mind.

Torn between fascination and revulsion, Pamela made up her mind to spend the night deciding if she would return to work in the morning or just abruptly resign and find another job. The thought of calling in and quitting filled her with a sense of relief, but the same curiosity that propelled her through her years of grueling scientific studies tempted her to stay. She could, of course, always wait to see what happened tomorrow before she decided if she would quit or not.

After watching Dr. Klein tamper with people who were, in Pam’s opinion, long dead, her employer disgusted her even more. Beyond Pam’s natural scientific skepticism some primal instinct made the whole thought of animating these long dead people repellant. She was pretty sure the doctor’s actions would offend the people at the Methodist church she had attended as a child and probably people from most other organized religions as well.

And yet she really wanted to learn about the outcome of Dr. Klein’s experiment. She did not know if she could get her better sense to prevail over her curiosity though. Everything about this place made her mind race with indecision. In fact, Pam felt as if her mind felt unusually fuzzy for this time of day. She had a passing thought that she might be coming down with a cold or something.

Pam brushed it off. With her normal tasks completed, she returned the lab coats to the closet and made her way to the door. She decided to pass by the break room for a second cup of the doctor’s excellent coffee.

Suddenly she heard a thump. It sounded like somebody had struck a fist on the outside wall. After being closed up in this silent room for several hours, the noise made her suck in her breath. Startled, she glanced up to see a frightened face in the small reinforced window. As she watched in amazement, the shorter one of the lab techs stumbled through the door.

What was his name? Surprised and shaken, Pam’s mind blanked out. Then she saw that the badge on his breast pocket said his name was George M. Before his beefy face, under the thick mustache, had been ruddy, but now his face was a pale and drawn mask of horror. George’s dark eyes were rimmed with red as if he had been crying. Pamela’s expression reflected his when she saw that the poor man was bleeding from a large oval wound on his arm that distinctly looked like a bite. Bright red blood had dyed his long blue shirt sleeve around the tear.

“What happened?” Pam asked as she reached out to guide him by his undamaged arm.

“They woke up,” he croaked.

Pamela was no medical doctor, but her early days on a farm had given her some experience with bites. She had seen animals bitten by other animals, and on occasion she had even seen people bitten by animals. She had been taught how to manage wounds before she was tall enough to mount a horse by herself. Pam sprang forward to take the arm of the stumbling man. His skin felt burning hot. She managed to steer him to the desk chair she had just vacated.

His skin looked unnaturally pale. “If you’re in shock we need to get you on the floor with your feet elevated,” she said. She ran back to the closet and pulled out a blanket, a pillow, and the first aid kit. She returned to lift him out of the chair and managed to get him to lie prone on the floor. He complied with her directions, but his eyes looked distant and unfocused. He did not speak.

There was only one pillow so she stuffed a spare lab coat under his head and used the pillow to elevate his feet. She covered his chest with the blanket and the two remaining lab coats. Then Pam noticed that the first aid kit actually had a small inflatable pillow. She quickly blew it up and also placed it under his feet on top of the first one. George seemed to be staring off into the distance now.

Then she rose to her feet to grab her cell phone and call Dr. Klein. She cursed as the call went to voice mail. She tried the main number and a male voice answered. It was not the usual female receptionist. She told him about her problem, and he said he would send help as quickly as possible. But she should know that she was not the only one handling an emergency and she should do what she could for the lab tech on her own. “After all”, the man said, “aren’t you studying to be some kind of doctor?”

“I’m not a doctor. I’m a pathology graduate student. All I know is some basic first aid. Why can’t you send help?” Pam asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

“I’m not sure,” the man said. “Somebody said there has been some sort of animal attack or something.” Then Pam was pretty sure she heard a gunshot from the man’s end of the phone connection. The phone went silent.

Pam did not try to call again, but just shut her phone off and slipped it into her pocket. Her heart raced, and she knew she really needed to find help. But some instinct made her reluctant to draw more attention to her presence in this room. She had no weapons of her own. The equipment in this room was either delicate or much too heavy to pick up. The thought of mad creatures and gunshots made her wonder if her best option would be to simply hide until help arrived. She might be able to crawl into the closet, but she could hardly prop up George in there with her too.

For a variety of reasons, Pam was handy with a first aid kit. People growing up on fairly isolated farms had to know how to help each other out. But this poor man really needed a real medical doctor and perhaps a hospital. Pam’s training had prepared her to be a researcher more than a practitioner.

She used the small scissors to cut his shirt away. After she completely uncovered the wound, Pam’s eyes opened in wonder.

She had seen plenty of animal bites in her time. When she had worked for a summer in a day care during high school, she had seen a few toddler bites as well. This looks human. Of course, it was larger than the bites that had been delivered by teething one year old children. Dr. Klein had said she experimented with some sort of primates. Would an ape bite look like this?

Then she tore open a pack of wipes. The package said they were anesthetic and antiseptic. She figured they might hurt anyway, but she carefully dabbed at his wound. He did not even react as Pam swabbed his wound. It was as if his arm had gone totally numb. His eyes were still open but he barely seemed conscious.

As she crouched by the poor man’s side, she could almost feel the heat rising off his body. He couldn’t have developed a fever from an infected bite this quickly. His eyes seemed glazed though they were very red now. They were wide open, but not focused. Except for his staring eyes there was no sign that he was even awake any more. I guess people can still be unconscious with their eyes open.

There was no way she could treat the guy with these lousy little wipes and a few Band-Aids. That is, George’s actual wound did not seem that bad. But his reaction to the wound indicated he needed a real hospital emergency room and a real medical doctor. He needed antibiotics and maybe even fluids to prevent dehydration.

She could only work with what she had. Pamela poured the contents of the kit on the floor and rifled through an assortment of bandages, cleaning swabs, and small bottles of pain relievers.

She thought that a couple of pain relievers might help but she would need to leave the room to get him a glass of water. There was a small sink, and a large cleaning hose for water. But the company forbade any food or drinks in the lab rooms. Dr. Klein had made an exception when she delivered Pam’s coffee this morning, but she had promptly removed the cup when the technicians had removed the bodies. There were no other glasses or cups. She looked up frantically at the lab door but nobody had appeared to help her yet.

“I am going to get some help,” Pamela said. “Can you hang in there?” George did not reply, but just gazed vacantly at the wall. His eyes were still open, but they appeared unfocused and uncomprehending. He had to be in shock and she could not help him. A couple of aspirins or bandages would not be enough either.

Then she rose to her feet and made her way out the door. The wide hallway was empty, but Pam saw streaks of blood on the white walls. A foul smell, like human waste, permeated the air. It looked and smelled like somebody had lost an awful lot of blood and apparently other body fluids. As Pam gagged she noticed that the overwhelming odor was not blood, but more like rot. Besides, George’s bite looked ugly but it could not have bled that much and he had not carried the foul stench into the lab. This had to come from somebody or something else.

Some instinct made her retreat back to Preservation Room 17 to see if there was something she could use as a weapon if she was confronted by some kind of wild animal. Most of the tools in this room were electronic. They would be absolutely useless against a wild and determined attacker. When Pam had first seen the laboratory technician enter the room, she had seen that George had been a sturdy man with a barrel chest and thick arms. Any animal that could get past his guard and deliver a bite like the one that George had must be a lot stronger than she was unless it had just totally taken him by surprise.

Pam threw open the closet door again. A sturdy umbrella had been propped up against the back wall, partially hidden by the lab coats. It was a long, blue striped umbrella with a heavy handle. It reminded her of rental umbrellas she had seen passed out on a golf course. That seemed like an odd thing to keep in a laboratory room like this but she guessed somebody must have dropped it off here and forgotten about it. It hardly seemed like much of a weapon but she supposed it might be better than nothing. A good rap from the heavy handle might get a creature to think twice about attacking her. It’s a lousy weapon, but it’s all I have.

Feeling frightened, and slightly ridiculous, she picked up the umbrella and returned to the hallway. Previously, she had always emerged from a work room or laboratory to see a few workers or scientists heading from place to place. But just then she looked left and right down an empty corridor.

As she turned the corner, she saw more smears of blood on the walls and a reddish-brown pool on the floor. This had to be more blood than George could possibly have lost from one puncture wound in his arm. The punctures did not even seem that deep. There was blood on his shirt sleeve but not that much. To produce this much blood, George’s clothes would have surely been soaked.

As Pam walked down the corridor she noticed that the door to Preservation Room 16 was slightly ajar. She glanced in through the window and gasped. She was sure she saw a pair of feet sticking out from behind the work desk. Startled, she pulled back. She tried to talk herself into entering the room to see if another person needed assistance, but she never had a chance to make a decision.

That was when she saw Enrico rounding the corner behind her. He moved slowly and seemed dazed. Pam stepped forward and started to tell him about poor George, but Enrico just stared at her without any apparent recognition. His eyes looked red rimmed like George’s had. Was there some sort of chemical accident?

He had certainly been cold to her this morning but this was different. He moved towards her slowly. His handsome bronze face looked unnaturally waxy under the bright hall lights. As he got closer, Pam saw that his eyes looked aflame with infection. Maybe he can’t see well.

His slow pace was deceptive. When he was with an arm’s reach of her he groaned and lunged forward. Pam was a good head shorter than the handsome engineer, but she had been raised around nervous horses and angry bulls. Without thinking, she sidestepped and raised the umbrella to block his outstretched arms. He stumbled against the wall, seemingly unable to fully control his muscles. Momentum carried him so his head hit the wall with an audible cracking sound.

Pamela suddenly was seized by the thought that he was hurt and simply reaching for her for support. She felt bad because she had struck out so impulsively. But as she turned towards him, she saw that he had lost a huge chunk of flesh from the back of his neck and shoulder. The wound was streaming blood and matted with gore. There was no way he could be walking around with an injury like that. How the heck is he even conscious?

Enrico regained his balance, snarled, and lunged at her again. His movement surprised her, and it was her turn to stumble back. She caught herself, but as soon as she had her feet untangled, Pam lost no time as she turned on her heel and sprinted back down the empty hallway.

She thought she should return to poor George in Preservation Room 17. The door could be locked from the inside. She had certainly closed the door tightly when she left so no predator could enter. As she approached the door, she saw George’s face at the window. Shuddering with relief, Pam assumed he was not hurt as badly as she thought he was. Perhaps we could get out of here together. Maybe he’s miraculously recovered from the shock on his own.

But when she stepped up to the door the lab tech slammed his head against it, and she saw that his features were contorted with rage. The door was not locked. It would be simple enough for him to open it. But instead he just splayed both hands and tried to push it open with his head and arms.

Pam glanced back. Enrico ambled around the corner. His head seem to hang awkwardly as he made his slow but determined way towards her. His skin was torn from his forehead and nose where he had hit the wall. Oblivious to multiple injuries, he just kept plodding forward.

George still slammed against the door, but Enrico did not seem to display any interest in the man’s frantic antics. His red rimmed eyes seemed vaguely focused on Pam as he opened his mouth to release an inhuman growl.

Unsure where to head next, she only knew she wanted to distance herself from the insane creatures that George and Enrico had turned into. Pamela sprinted down the hallway. The umbrella was clutched tightly in her right first and she spread her left arm out for balance. Tracks of blood could be hazards and she could not afford to slip and hurt herself. Right now, she just wanted to make her way out of the building and find some help.

She had to pass through a set of double doors in order to make it to the exit nearest the parking garage. She started to push through the heavy doors when she saw three more figures by the exit. Thinking that she had finally found some help, Pam sprinted through the doorway. The figures had been standing fairly still, but as she moved into the hallway they all turned in unison.

Pam could see blood dripping down from the nose of the nearest man. Another man had blood and brown fluid crusted around his hairline and jaw. He seemed to stare at her vacantly as he stepped towards her with an old man’s stiff gate. Bits of something that looked like meat were stuck between his teeth. He had the same red-eyed gaze as Enrico had.

The worse sight was the third figure. The woman had blood dripping from her jaws though she seemed to be missing her tongue.

“Oh,” Pam said, “I don’t like that.” Operating purely on adrenaline and instinct, she whirled back. Enrico was only about ten yards away, blocking the corridor. She tapped the umbrella against her right hand to gauge its strength. She believed it was a thick and sturdy golf umbrella, made to stand up under hard use and misuse. She hoped it could stand up under some serious misuse right now.

She tried to sprint past Enrico on the other side of the hallway, but his long legs and arms worked in his favor. As he lunged for her, Pam backhanded his temple with the heavy handle as hard as she could. She had never struck a human or animal like this before. She had played a bit of tennis in high school, and Pam tried to remember how she had delivered her most punishing ball returns. His head, already unsteady, lolled to the side and he seemed to lose his bearings. He did not fall, but took uncertain circular steps as if her blow had taken out some brain function that used to keep him moving in a straight line.

His actions were certainly curious. He seemed to pivot on the one leg that he kept firmly planted on the floor. His other leg jerked him around in a circle. He looked like some sort of grotesque broken toy circling around in a mad dance. That made Pam think of the way Dr. Klein had seemed to waltz around Preservation Room 17 in the morning. For a moment, Pam stared at him. But she did not intend to wait around for the final dance, and she certainly did not want to be his partner.

She raced back down the hallway towards another set of doors that led to the main entrance at the front of the building. She just prayed that she would not run into another group of these wounded madmen. As she passed Preservation Room 17 again she saw that George was still flinging himself against the door, though he had seemed to slow down like a windup clock losing momentum. The small reinforced window was streaked with blood. George’s nose looked broken. It seemed as if he had torn his own head apart in an effort to move the door, but the simple solution of using the door handle escaped him. Pamela froze for an instant to watch, but then quickly started to trot off again.

She passed Dr. Klein’s office. There was no sign of Karen, the doctor’s omnipresent assistant. Pam felt disappointed because Karen always seemed to know everything about the building before anybody else did. Of course Pam hoped that Karen had made it out of danger in time.

Then Pam paused as she approached the set of double doors that would lead her into the front reception area of the building. If more of these crazy people blocked her way to the outside of the building she would either have to fight her way through or retreat and trap herself in one of the inside rooms. She pushed the door open slowly and was relieved to see that the hallway looked clear all the way up to the lobby.

To Pam’s utter shock she saw Dr. Ada Klein emerge from behind the receptionist’s desk. Even though the building was warm, Pam noticed that Dr. Klein had tied a silk scarf around her neck. She was sure that the doctor’s neck had been bare earlier in the morning. No, that’s not right. She had the scarf on in the morning, but neglected to put it back on after her rendezvous with Enrico.

The younger woman thought that it was an odd time to be concerned with fashioned. As she looked closer, she thought she saw a red stain on the edge of the blue silk. The doctor must have been injured and used the scarf as a makeshift bandage.

Pam stopped through the open door. She lifted the umbrella and then lowered it again when Dr. Klein asked, “Are you expecting rain?”

“Are you kidding me? I just had to use this thing to beat my way out of there. Do you have any idea what’s going on back there?”

“Well, close the door then,” Dr. Klein said. “You will just let the dead in.” Pamela glanced around the lobby as she tried to process her boss’s last comment.

The receptionist was slumped across her desk, certainly dead. The right side of her suit jacket was tattered and bloody. A thin stream of blood dripped to the floor from a head wound that looked like it came from a neat gunshot behind her left ear. The sharp smell of blood and other body fluids assaulted Pam’s nostrils. Pam had worked with plenty of corpses before, but she had never seen anybody who just been violently assaulted before death. She froze in the doorway.

Before Pam had time to process the sight and smell, she heard shuffling and groaning behind her. The sound startled her enough to get her to step through the doorway and firmly click it behind her. A moment later she heard a dull thumping as somebody, or something, pressed itself against the door. She had no idea that one of the mad things had been that close behind her.

“What did you mean when you said I’d let the dead in?” Pamela asked. She stepped forward, away from the thin barrier between her and those mad things that the wounded people had become. The sight of the dead receptionist still appalled her, but at least the poor woman had stopped moving.

“It’s obvious,” Dr. Klein said impatiently. “The virus re-animated my clients. But it did not restore their brain function. In fact it took over. Those bodies have become one with the virus. That’s the simplest way I can explain it to you.”

“What about the other people?” Pamela asked. “I saw George, Enrico, and a handful of others. Enrico attacked me in the corridor, and I barely got away. George is bashing his head against the door but can’t seem to remember how to use the handle to open it.”

“The virus wants to spread,” Dr. Klein said flatly. She spoke clearly, but dismissively, as if she were instructing a dull student. She was not even bothering to offer Pam her full attention but seemed engaged in a text conversation on her cell phone. “The infected attack the living. A bite spreads the virus. The wound must kill the host, and then the virus can reanimate the body.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Pamela said. “Now you’re telling me that these people have turned into zombies? Is that right? The virus spreads with a bite. The bite kills the host and then reanimates it. You have become the mother of a race of monsters!”

“You want to call them zombies?” Dr. Klein asked. She looked up from her cell phone and pursed her lips for a moment to consider the notion. “I don’t practice Voodoo, but simply science. If you like, we can call them the Zed. I believe I heard that in some old movie or another though I don’t typically watch that sort of thing.”

“You could’ve fooled me,” Pam muttered. She had spent the day thinking that her employer seemed like the creepy mad scientist in an old horror flick. Now her mildly diverting fancy had been confirmed in the worst possible way. Dr. Klein did not even seem fazed when Pam had told her that Enrico had turned into one of the creatures. Maybe she already knew.

The double doors did not have a window but now she was pretty sure that multiple bodies were heaving themselves against the barrier. The thumps were not at all rhythmic but they were steady. She stepped around the desk to put something between herself and the doorway. The doors did not even seem to be locked but simply shut securely. At any moment one of these mad creatures could accidently hit the handle and open it. Pam considered trying to shove the receptionist’s desk against the doors, but she was reluctant to disturb the bloody dead woman resting there.

Now Dr. Klein ruminated over the crisis more. “The virus must piggyback on some of the original host’s brain function. You observed them walking and trying to grab you. They can certainly walk and sense their victims somehow. But I’m quite sure that whatever made the people unique and sentient individuals is quite subsumed.”

“Is there a cure for this?”

“How would I know?” Dr. Klein asked. She shook her head as if a dull student had just asked her an obvious question. “I just discovered the disease.” Then she paused and tilted her head in thought. “In fact, I guess I invented it.”

“Don’t expect another Nobel prize,” Pam said. Then the bodies thudded against the door again so roughly the heavy steel barrier shook in its frame. Yet none of the people on the other side seemed able to turn the simple handle. They had not been simply rendered insane but also somehow insensible.

“We need to find more help,” Pamela said. “Can we call the police or something? There could still be other people holed up in there too. If I managed to get away then others might be fighting them off or hiding. Those things are determined, but they aren’t exactly smart.”

“You will not do a thing,” Dr. Klein said coldly. “I am chatting right now with my personal contacts in the military. Can you imagine the potential of a thing like this? Our military could infect a compound of enemies and let them infect and eat each other. We need to have samples preserved so they can be studied.”

“What?” Pam breathed. Her jaw fell in horrified surprise. This woman had unleashed this unimaginable horror, and now she wanted to contain it until she could find somebody who wanted to buy it. I think I’d rather have live enemies than those things.

“No,” Pam said decisively. “I’m getting help.” She picked up the desk phone.

But just then she noticed that Dr. Klein had a gun held just below the level of the desk. She had held it out of sight before. Now the older woman raised the pistol slowly, and pointed it deliberately at Pam’s chest for several anxious seconds. Then she slowly and dramatically moved her arm to wave the gun at the wall.

Pam was quite familiar with firearms, but she had never stood on the wrong side of one before. The gun looked huge in the doctor’s slim hand. Pam’s breath hitched in her chest. She must have shot the receptionist. Where’s the guy who answered the phone when I called the main number before?

“Put down the phone and sit patiently by the wall while I work,” Dr. Klein said. “I may not be a farm girl from some cornfield in Iowa, but I know how to shoot a gun.”