Waking the Zed

Zed Dawn



Pam honestly felt surprised when she woke up in an ordinary bed. She did not appear to have any abnormal cravings for human flesh. She was not in the rain ditch, a frozen tank, or even back in the military hospital ward either. The bed felt soft and luxurious, and not like a hard cot or slab. She guessed the whole drive off the military base could not have been an awful nightmare. She opened her eyes slightly. This light only intensified the awful headache with seemed to start at her hairline and extend all the way down to her toes. Pam heard somebody groan, and it took a moment before she realized that the sound came from her own mouth. Her throat felt dry and her voice seemed to come out as a pained croak.

Somebody had cleaned her off. Instead of wearing her stained and smelly work clothes from the day before she seemed to have been dressed in a large undershirt and a modest robe. Captain Crawford’s gruff voice sounded distant but clear. “Ms. Stone, are you awake?”

“Oh,” Pam said, peering around at the small and neat bedroom she had somehow ended up in. “Are you here to murder me?”

“No, I’m not here to murder you,” Captain Crawford said. “You obviously misunderstood a conversation you should not have heard. Though it appears from the holy havoc those things have caused it would have been smart to shoot first and ask questions later. I just wanted the area secured, and I didn’t act fast enough.”

“What happened last night?” she asked. Her voice seemed to emerge from her throat like a croak when she spoke. “I’m still a little fuzzy.” She rubbed her head and winced when she found the spot where she had struck the big rock.

“You stole Corporal Gordon’s vehicle, and he gave chase. That ended up being a lucky thing for you as he extricated you from what would have been a terminal situation and hauled you back here. Your hero is actually in my own kitchen making coffee, eggs, and toast right now for breakfast. This place lost electricity, but we still seem to still have gas to power the stove.”

“Did I get bitten?” she asked because with the mass of scrapes and bruises all over her body she had no way to sort out one thing from the other. Now that Captain Crawford had mentioned food, she did smell coffee. She thought that a hot cup of coffee and about a half dozen pain killers would be just the thing for her right now. Pam swallowed and her throat felt dry.

“You do not appear to be bitten or have the immediately terminal form of the infection,” Crawford said. “In other words, you don’t have symptoms. The truth is, I found out later than I tested positive for the virus just like you did, but also don’t appear symptomatic. I’m sure I wasn’t bitten, so it must also be airborne. Testing positive for the virus does not appear to produce symptoms, at least it hasn’t yet. Right now, you’re just lucky that you didn’t get a concussion when you fell. You were covered with gore when Gordon extricated you, but that alone doesn’t seem to be enough to trigger the symptoms either. At least, it wasn’t enough to trigger symptoms in you yet. So there’s some good news.”

Despite her awful headache, Pam tried to consider the little evidence she had to understand the infection better. She closed her eyes again. Concentrating seemed to increase the pulsing pain in her head. She groaned. “We still need Dr. Klein’s research.” Then she squinted to pry her eyes open again and peered at her companion.

He stood by a window, watching the street. From her vantage point on the bed, it appeared that they were on the upper floor of some sort of an apartment building. A similar building stood across the street. “You said you had people that were better qualified than me to help you. That’s what I heard. Where are they?”

“I’m still in agreement there,” Captain Crawford said. “That wasn’t an insult or anything. But you’re only a graduate student, and you only functioned as a paid intern. Surely there are experienced experts the US Army could command to help out. Maybe some of the other doctors on Dr. Klein’s original virus blocker team would be able to help if we can find them.”

“There were senior scientists working at Future Faith,” Pam said. “There weren’t too many because Dr. Klein’s personality and her type of business did not seem like a magnet for really qualified researchers. But I’m sure there were a few. I mostly just had contact with her though.”

Captain Crawford paused and sighed. Pam wondered why it would be a problem for the long arm of the US Army to find a few famous scientists and haul them in.

“We had time to do some checking. There were three other scientists at Future Faith,” he said. “One was a medical doctor who lost his license in a distasteful scandal after a bout of drug abuse and alcoholism. The other two had doctorates, but they were not MDs. From what we could find out before the Internet went dead, neither were particularly renowned as scientists or publishers. At this point, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that they both lost tenure at the local university for one reason or another before Dr. Klein gave them a job.”

“Where are they?”

“The two professors are amount the confirmed dead and the disgraced medical doctor is reported as missing,” Captain Crawford said with a shrug. Pam blew out a sigh and nodded.

But then Captain Crawford continued, “On the other hand, I’m a pretty good judge of personal. You did manage to evade the creatures in situations that would have taken most people down. You even managed to escape a military compound. All along, you gave us sensible advice though we weren’t prepared to listen. When the situation became untenable, you did the sensible thing. You ran away. You remained loyal to poor Paul even when he became a liability. That may have been an error in judgment, but you had no way to know it at the time. Those are the qualities of somebody I’d want on my team. Dr. Klein didn’t seem to be too picky about her permanent staff but she was picky about her interns. “

“Dr. Klein liked to surround herself with smart people just so long as they weren’t smarter than she believed herself to be. The permanent scientists all had issues, and she figured the interns wouldn’t be around too long.” Pam paused because speaking seemed to make her chest ache. Then she said, “But I guess that’s not important right now.”

“There’re just a few problems we need to solve.”

“Is there a way to contact these other scientists? You know, can you get to the really famous and credible ones?”

Captain Crawford actually smiled then. The expression did not seem to fit his normally severe face. Even though his lips turned up, the expression also seemed to lack any real humor. He just seemed pleased and pained at the same time with Pam’s question.

“That’s another problem. The phones don’t seem to be working at the moment. Even if I had the number for a guy like Dr. Levi or Dr. Winn, I couldn’t get through to them. It looks like you are the scientist we have to work with. I think you have the potential to rise to the occasion though.”

Pam was in no mood to be flattered at the moment. She was still trying to untangle the situation in her head, and the pounding headache did not help to clear her thinking. “Where are we?” Pam asked. “Why are we here?”

“This is my own off-base apartment. As for the other question, if you can stand up, it would be easier to show you than tell you,” Captain Crawford said. He moved over to the bed to extend a large rough hand to help Pam get up. When she sat up a wave of dizziness threatened to overtake her. She moved slowly, favoring the sharp pain in her head and duller aches in a hundred other places. Crawford got her to her feet and led her to the window. “Brace yourself for this,” he said.

At first Pam looked straight across to see residential apartments which loomed over the streets. For some reason Captain Crawford and Corporal Gordon had holed up in an old residential neighborhood. “Why aren’t we at the base?”

“Gordon couldn’t make it back to the base. That was a lucky thing because the base was so overrun I had to leave myself. Mistakes were made and a dozen checkpoints were overrun. We managed to coordinate a midnight rendezvous back here at my own apartment. Even then, I had to clear out the hallways while Gordon carried you. It was no easy night.”

“What do you mean when you say you had to clean the hallways?” Pam asked, still squinting at the buildings on the other side of the street. It looked like early morning. She could not see any activity in the buildings though most shades were drawn closed.

“Look at the street,” Captain Crawford said. He still propped her up with one large hand around her shoulder.

Pam looked down and then immediately took a frightened and stumbling step back from the window. She might have fallen if Crawford had not held her up. They were only one floor up from the street. A dozen feet below the crowds of Zeds ambled about aimlessly. Some walked slowly like they had a destination in mind but no sense of urgency. Others mostly stood still. A couple seemed to lurch about in pointless circles. Two of them dragged themselves across the street because they seemed to have lost the use of their legs. Many of them had visible injuries or limbs that hung at awkward angles. Most had some sort of clothing, though one man only wore briefs and a few women had skimpy nighties.

None of them paid any attention to each other.

A few cars had stopped on the street but no vehicles appeared to move. The creatures had not thought to look up, but they might if she opened the window to make herself more visible. They could be attracted by noise and movement. For all Pam knew they might even be able to smell her. The delicious odor of good coffee emanated from the apartment’s kitchen. She wondered if she would smell like breakfast to the creatures.

Directly across the street, down at street level, there was a small café called The Mediterranean. A couple of chairs and tables had been set out on the wide sidewalk, but a few of the chairs had been tipped over. A prone woman feebly dragged herself across the sidewalk in front of the café’s window. Gore matted the back of the woman’s head.

The store’s sign was dark, and so were the windows, but Pam thought she saw the shadow of a rotund man peering out from behind the reinforced and barred windows. Even from her vantage point, the shaded figure’s actions appeared deliberate, and not like the motions of the dead things that shuffled and ambled and crawled around below. The creatures looked more like a group of some type of handicapped insects, moving aimlessly from place to place. Though Pam detected the shadow of the man across the street, the shadow did not seem to attract the attention of any of the dead things.

She believed the turned things could see, but she figured they could not really discern shadows very well. In other words, they could not seem to perceive a shadow and then automatically figure out it must be caused by a live person’s movement behind a shaded window. The death and the virus might not wipe out their eyesight, but it must destroy a million connections between the brain and the eyes that allowed people to correctly infer things from small pieces of information. Even then, Pam was trying to figure out how understanding that could help them survive.

“It looks like there’s a guy stuck in that deli down there,” she said. “I saw his shadow behind the treated windows, but the creatures don’t seem to notice.”

“There are probably quite a few people trapped in all over the place,” the captain replied. He glanced down at the café window and shrugged. “We really don’t have the resources to sweep the buildings right now. The three of us have to keep ourselves safe while we make our way to Future Faith. Hopefully the base was able to call in reinforcements to try and contain the larger problem.”

Although she found it the stuff of nightmares, Pam forced herself to continue to survey the scene on the street below. The figure in the window had disappeared, and she wondered if he had noticed her. If so, she supposed that trying to signal her was something he had wisely decided would be a bad idea. Any attempt to get her attention would surely draw the Zed’s attention. The barred windows looked strong, but she had no idea how long anything like that would hold up against the weight of hundreds of those things.

She figured she could estimate a rough count of a couple of dozen of the things wandering around on the street and sidewalks. But some disappeared past her line of vision while others moved into her line of sight. She guessed there was no way to count the things. The supply of Zed appeared limitless. What if the whole city was like this by now? How had it happened so fast?

“How can we get back to Future Faith?” Pam asked. “How can we ever get out of here?”

“That’s something we have to figure out,” Captain Crawford said. “We have a vehicle parked in the garage here, but it might be challenging just to get to it.”

“I never want to see that place again.” She rubbed her temples. Pam had considered quitting her job and leaving the creepy place yesterday, before any of those creatures had risen. Now she had no idea where she would find the courage to force herself back inside even if they could overcome other obstacles.

“I understand how you feel, but you know this could be important. You’re the one who convinced me it was important to get back to Dr. Klein’s office. You saw the scene on the street below. Don’t you think it’s your duty to try and help?” Captain Crawford sighed then. “Besides, you’re infected too. So am I. I expect a lot of others are too. It could just be a matter of time before the virus takes over. Don’t you want to save yourself?”

Pam threw up her hands in a gesture of frustration. “It might be too late. On the other hand, maybe it’s only too late after we start seeing symptoms or after the subject expires. We have no idea.”

“Future Faith seems like the right place to start figuring it out then. You said the doctor tested her theories on animals. There have to be some notes or something.”

“I never want to get out of this bed.”

“What about your family? What if this spreads to them?”

“Alright, you got me there. Just give me a moment to process this, will you?”

Just then, Corporal Gordon stuck his head in through the bedroom door and cheerfully asked if they were ready for coffee. Pam glanced at the young soldier. He was young, but still a burly mountain of a man who easily stood over six feet two and must have weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. His weight all seemed distributed in his wide shoulders and a broad chest without an ounce of spare fat. She had not really paid much attention to him the night before.

But yes, this was the same man who had stood outside the vehicle she had stolen last night. She wondered how she had ever summoned the nerve she had displayed when she ran past him and took his car. His arms looked as thick as her thighs. No wonder he had been able to carry her unconscious body up a flight of stairs and into this apartment.

“Sure, I’d love a cup of coffee. If you could also sweeten that with an aspirin or six that would be great,” Pam said as she slowly made her way back to the bed. “A shot of whisky might be good too. Otherwise, I take my coffee straight.” She paused for a moment as settled back on the bed and considered her next words. Her head still hurt, but she felt a little better now that she had stretched out her muscles.

The young soldier regarded her curiously. He had obviously been aggravated with her last night when she stole his vehicle in the midst of a crisis. Now he just smiled blandly and waited for Pam to finish talking.

Then she said, “Oh, and thanks for saving my life. Also, I’m sorry about the vehicle. I’ve never stolen anything before, but I didn’t think I had any choice. In fact, I really didn’t have time to think at all.”

“Happy to help a citizen, Ma’am,” Gordon said in a mild voice. Despite his bulk, the soldier’s manner seemed pleasant and his face appeared boyish. Pam figured that the young man had barely left high school behind. He was probably a few years younger than she was, and she was still regarded as young.

She imagined him suited up for a football game or wrestling match. Instead he wore military fatigues and heavy boots. A spray of freckles crossed his wide nose. He had close-cropped reddish hair and striking green eyes. She figured he was the type of amiable guy who was used to using his muscle to excel at sports, attract the attention of pretty young women, and protect weaker people from bullies.

When Pam thought about Captain Crawford, she immediately assumed he could be a killer. Hero was the word that came to mind when she thought of Corporal Gordon.

So far Pam had not been able to protect anybody, and had been barely able to save herself. She had no reason to mistrust the young man. He had, after all, chased her down to save her life. In her scientist’s mind results still mattered. She glanced back at Captain Crawford. He hadn’t been able to really save anybody either, and she still had no reason to totally trust him. He will do what is expedient, even if it is morally questionable. But maybe right now that is exactly what I need.

“I was pretty angry about the car theft, but Captain Crawford explained it later. I’ve got a sister back in Omaha, and I guess she would’ve done the same thing. That is, I’d like to think I would’ve helped you if you explained the situation, but looking back, I probably wouldn’t have. I probably would’ve hauled you and your friend back to the infirmary, and that would’ve been a big mistake. In fact, drawing me away from the base could’ve saved my life. So, let’s call it even.”

He shook his head and displayed a flash of white teeth and a pleasant grin. His grin seemed much more natural than Captain Crawford’s pained smile. The he frowned just as suddenly. The whole situation must be as confusing to him as it was to her. He gestured towards the bedroom window.

“Did you see the mess out there?” he asked. “You’ve got some kind of nerve, and it looks like you’re going to need it.”

Pam thought about the awful lurching things below. They seemed fairly indolent and purposeless now, but she remembered how they had turned into rabid beasts when presented with the possibility of feasting on her live flesh. Somehow I faced it yesterday. But I feel like a frightened fawn today. I just can’t turn into one of those things.

“I’ll try to help as well as I can, but you have to promise me something.”

“Were not in the position to make promises,” Captain Crawford said. “I’ve already told you we want to get you back to Future Faith. That’s what you insisted on yesterday. We’re prepared to listen to you, but I can’t promise to always take your advice. You can be part of the team, and I’ll make allowances because you’re a civilian, but I’m in charge.”

“Fine, you be in charge.” Her voice was level but determined. She took turns making eye contact with each of the men to make sure they paid attention. Captain Crawford stood stiffly and Corporal Gordon stood relaxed and at ease.

“If I start to be symptomatic, I want you to promise to put me down like a rabid dog. I don’t want to die today any more than I wanted to die yesterday, but I surely don’t want to become one of those things. I want you to do everything you can to protect me so I don’t get bitten. But if I do develop symptoms, I would like to kill me as humanely as you can, just like you’d do for a pet that got sick. Can you promise that, at least?”

Corporal Gordon nodded. “I surely wouldn’t like to do that, but I think I can promise. None of us wants to become one of those.” He paused for a moment, his young face wrinkled up in thought. “Now I know what they mean when they say somebody’s better off dead. It never made sense to me before. I always figured I’d do anything to fight to stay alive.” Then he stood up straighter and nodded. “I guess I’d like you to do the same for me.” With that, he exited to room.

Captain Crawford nodded. “I agree. We do everything we can to protect each other, but when it’s over, it’s over.” In spite of everything, his harsh face broke into a mirthless grin. “I’m sort of surprised you don’t ask for one more thing, Ms. Stone.” He turned to open a dresser drawer. From there, he drew out a key which he used to unlock a metal chest on top of the dresser.

“What’s that?”

Both Captain Crawford and Corporal Gordon already wore side arms. Pam had noticed an assortment of larger weapons leaned against the wall when she had gone to the window. He extracted a compact 9MM pistol and a box of ammunition. He stepped over to the closet and pulled out a shoulder holster. Then he stepped over to the bed where Pam still sat.

With the slow but efficient movements of an instructor, he loaded the small pistol in Pam’s view. Then he showed her the weapon’s safety switch which he flipped on and then back off.

“Can you do it yourself?”

She nodded, “I’ve loaded a pistol before, though I’m more familiar with hunting rifles.”

Then he holstered the gun. He attached the extra ammunition to a clip on the strap of the shoulder holster. Finally he handed it to Pam. “The little gun holds ten rounds. You’ve got two more reloads in the strap. If you need more than that, you’d probably be well advised to save a shot for yourself.”

Pam nodded slowly and accepted the light holster. She started to adjust it to fit her smaller frame.

“Can you shoot?”

“I’ve hunted, and a couple of times I had the unpleasant job of putting down sick or injured animals. I believe I can use a rifle as well as most farm kids can. But I’ve only used a pistol a few times at a shooting range,” Pam said. “It’d sure be nice to have a chance to practice.”

“I don’t want to make any noise right now. The things down there seem to follow noises. Just be sure to remember the safety. Normally I’d tell a novice shooter to aim at the chest, but that won’t work here. You need to shoot something, you aim at the head. You understand?”

Pam nodded. He took a moment to demonstrate a good shooter’s stance with his own sidearm. Pam took out the weapon and copied him. He corrected her. It was as much practice as they could really do without actually shooting at a target.

She nodded and looked into the captain’s rough-hewn face. She still wasn’t certain if he gave her the gun to protect her own life or to end it if she needed to. Either way, it meant she was part of the team. He had, at least, trusted her with a weapon. Finally, she nodded grimly. “I’m the first one who told the military that only a head shot would take those things down. They wouldn’t listen at first. So of course I understand. Thanks.”

Just then, Corporal Gordon returned with her coffee and breakfast on a small tray. He also delivered a bottle of aspirin. After he set the tray on the small table by the bed, Pam thanked him.

The coffee was strong, and the food was basic but well prepared. Last night she had stolen his vehicle, but this morning he seemed happy to serve her. As she ate she wondered about the poor man who must be trapped across the street. All over the city there must be thousands more. In fact they had no way to know if the living even still outnumbered the dead. She imagined they still might, but how long would that last? The virus seemed to spread with impossible speed. This was only a chance to catch her breath before the nightmare continued. This was only the first morning of the Zed Dawn.

The story continues in The Twice Dead.