Nano Z (4 page)

“We leave him here.”

Mack walked back towards the kitchen. “Sit down, take a load off. I’m going to find something to cook.”

There was a large stainless steel refrigerator. Mack opened it up and found it stocked with all sorts of meats. The man wasn’t much of a cook, so he chose the easiest thing to prepare. He took out two frozen hamburgers.

The grill, where’s the grill?
Not far from the fridge, next to a still on deep fryer, was the grill. Mack threw the frozen burgers on to it. They slid across like air hockey pucks and bounced off the back. He turned the knobs on the front. In less than a minute, the burgers started sizzling.

“Are you hurt?” asked Amber knowing damn well that the man propped up in the chair across from her was indeed injured.

“My neck,” answered Gustavo. His voice was affected due to his ability to only breathe through his mouth.

“Was it them?”

Gustavo didn’t answer.

“Yeah… it was them. So what happened here? It doesn’t look like the meat puppets ran through.” Amber was referring to the fact that Mama’s Place wasn’t a mess. The inside and out simply looked as if everyone got up and left.

“Fine, don’t talk to me.” Amber got up and decided to take a stroll around the restaurant.

On the industrial carpeted floor of Mama’s Place, Amber found a wallet under one of the tables. She picked it up and rummaged through, figuring that its owner wouldn’t mind. The first thing she took out was a card on the left side. It was a driver’s license.

“Bernard Pierce,” she read the name on the license. The picture on it was of a meek looking man with gold framed glasses and a brown goatee. “Hello Bernard. Let’s see what else we can find in here.”

In the opposite pocket of the wallet, Amber found what looked like another identification card. It also had Bernard's face and name on it. “Galatea Systems” was printed on the card in big blue letters. From the look of it, it was a logo. According to the ID, Bernard was the chief engineer.

“You want cheese!” yelled Mack from the kitchen.

“Sure,” answered Amber as she secreted away Bernard Pierce’s wallet, into her hoodie pocket.

Amber sat back down at the table next to Gustavo. She watched the television. It was either turned to the news or every channel became the news. Either way, that was what she was watching.

There was video after video of meat puppet attacks. Some were taken with cell phones. Others were captured with legit news cameras. What was clear was that the creatures weren’t contained to just Texas or even the United States.

No lettuce, tomato, onion or pickles. Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers right?
All Mack had to work with was some buns and cheese. He put them on some plates and carried them towards the dining room. Mack emerged from the kitchen with burgers in hand. Wedged under in his armpits were bottles of water. He saw Amber with her attention on the TV. Gustavo just stared ahead, silent. A little bit of drool started to dribble down his chin.

“You seeing this?” asked Amber. Mack slid the plate with her burger on it, in front of her.

“The news? Let me guess, it isn’t good.” Mack took a bite of his hamburger. “Eat. Who knows when you’ll have hot food again.”

“It’s everywhere. How is that possible?”

“No clue. Eat, I’m serious. We can’t linger,” insisted Mack with a mouth full of bun and burger.

“It doesn’t look like anyone knows what they are. All they said was that people should stay inside.”

Stay inside and you’re dead. All these peoples’ homes will only serve as comfortable coffins. I need to keep moving. Hopefully there’s someone left here in town. There’s no way I can keep looking after this kid.

“What did you do before all this? Were you a fireman or a cop or something? I figure you must’ve been seeing how you used that ax.” Amber ripped her burger in half. While asking her questions she didn’t look up at the man she was addressing.

“I was a prepress technician.”

There was an awkward silence. Both Amber and Mack just ate their food. Gustavo didn’t chime in. Then Amber looked up at Mack.

She has no idea what that is. Why should she? She’s fourteen.
Mack wiped his mouth and swallowed the food inside it. “Back before everything was online, newspapers and magazines were big business. It was my job to prepare the page, make sure it looked good before getting printed.”

“So, like what, font and stuff?”

“Exactly.”

“My mom used to love magazines. She had a pile of them on our living room table. I don’t know about what was written inside, but I loved the pictures. They were so…I dunno the right word.”

“Vibrant, rich,” said Mack with a smile.

“Look at you,” laughed Amber. “Mr. Grumpy all night. Then I talk about magazines and you’re all smiles.”

“How about you? I assume you were in school. Where?”
What are you doing Mack? Don’t ask her any questions. You might become attached.

“Well I did used to go to East Boone Middle School. That was before I got suspended.”

“For what?”
Stop.

“Clarissa, this girl in my class was always being bullied. For whatever reason, she wouldn’t stand up for herself. I kinda got sick of seeing her cry. So I decided to beat up the kids making fun of her.”

“And you got suspended for that?”
You’re hopeless.

“Well… I kind of put one of them in the hospital.” There was a calmness in Amber’s voice which was a little disturbing.

“Oh.” Mack was a little taken aback. The small teenage girl sitting across from him was more formidable and vicious than he thought. Part of him thought that was a good thing considering their circumstances. But her confession of her violent tendencies, combined with her willingness to shoot at people, worried him a bit.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t hurt him too bad. He just needed some stitches.”

“Just some stiches?”

“Whatever, my turn. You have any family? A wife? Kids?”

Tell her the truth. Tell her you’re a loser with not even a girlfriend.
“Nope, neither. I wanted kids but my life just didn’t work out that way.”

“Why?”

Why? How the hell am I supposed to answer that?
“It just didn’t happen. Life has a funny way of speeding up the older you get. One moment I had all the time in the world to start a family. Next thing I know, I had more years behind me than ahead of me. It would be kind of selfish to try and start a family now.”

“Plus it’s the end of the world,” commented Amber before taking another bite of her burger.

“There is that.”

***

Amber and Mack finished their burgers. As the latter cleaned up, the former endeavored to figure out a way to get Gustavo some water. If they weren’t able to feed him or take the poor soul with them, why not give him a drink.

“I know I need to be careful. Broken necks are tricky. Or at least I remember reading that somewhere.” Amber unscrewed the top of her bottle of water. Then she made sure that Mack wasn’t watching. For he wouldn’t likely approve.

“Open up,” asked/ordered Amber as she brought the water bottle nearer to Gustavo’s slowly opening mouth. “C’mon, help me help you.”

Gustavo tried to drink. But moving anything down his throat wasn’t just laborious but painful. And Amber, eager to help but still a child, poured too fast. The man was drowning trying to drink from a bottle.

Instead of sympathy, Amber became frustrated like a mother with a misbehaving child. Amber tried talking Gustavo into cooperating, but the ordeal was out of his control. He certainly didn’t want to die in such a mundane but horrible way. Paralysis had a way of mucking up an individual’s wishes.

In frustration, Amber tried to manually make Gustavo swallow. She manipulated his throat with her hands. With no medical knowledge, she squeezed and massaged a bit too rough.

“Drink.”

Gustavo gargled and choked on the water. The more he struggled, the more upset Amber got. Instead of doing the sensible thing and stopping, she titled the bottle up even more until it was empty.

Somehow, someway, Gustavo was able to will himself to swallow the water and not drown. He wanted to die minutes before. But the prospect of being drowned by a teenager was enough to make him fight for life. At least for that moment.

“You ready to go?” asked Mack as he came back into the dining room with a box full of canned food, utensils, water and other supplies.

Amber had already wiped up the errant water that ran down Gustavo’s chin and onto his shirt. He just looked at Mack with eyes wide with fear. The girl had her arms behind her back and was forcing a smile.

“I’m all set.” Amber replied with fake enthusiasm. It was the type that people often use to distract. Mack noticed.

“What’s going on here?”

“Nothing. What are we going to do with him?”

She’s lying.
Forget it. It’s not important.
“We leave him.”

“But he won’t survive.”

“No, I imagine he won’t.”

Amber and Mack stared at each other. They both understood that leaving Gustavo to die was morally wrong. As unethical as it was, taking him with them wasn’t an option. It was unfortunate.

“Can you take that to the van?”

Amber picked up the box full of supplies and headed outside.

Mack waited for Amber to leave the restaurant before speaking to Gustavo. He looked at the man and the still wet table in front of him. What stood out was the look of pure terror, mixed with relief in the paralyzed man’s eyes.

“Why are you so scared? What did she do?”

“Keep her away from me,” answered Gustavo in a raspy, breathy voice. Even through those filters, Mack could tell that something awful happened.

“Where we going next?” asked Amber as she left Mama’s Place with Mack beside her.

“The church.” Mack was referring to the chapel across the street from the restaurant. It was the only other building downtown that wasn’t boarded up.

“Didn’t take you as the religious type,” joked Amber as they walked across an empty street towards the chapel.

Please stop talking.

The chapel wasn’t a large building. It was built to hold about a hundred people comfortably. Neither Mack nor Amber had seen anything quite so beautiful.

Pristine white covered every surface of the exterior of the Wydell Chapel. It was a cloudy morning, but on sunny days the light almost made the chapel glow. Around it were well kept gardens filled with flowers of every color. Mack was not a believer, but if he was he’d want to worship there.

“What’s that smell?” asked Amber.

Mack and Amber passed through the white picket fence that surrounded the Wydell Chapel property. Immediately they were both assaulted by a stench strong enough to peel paint. Amber almost threw up her burger breakfast.

Large double doors with ornate crosses and gold handles served as the front entrance of the chapel. Mack hesitated a bit before opening them up. He looked back at Amber.

“Be ready for anything.”

Amber nodded her head and readied her almost empty firearm. Mack took a deep breath. Then he opened the doors.

A cloud of flies mixed with the aroma of death flew out of the open Wydell Chapel front doors. Mack swiped at the insects and entered the building. Amber followed with her pistol at the ready.

They lowered their weapons when they saw what was inside. They couldn’t speak or even look away. The depravity of the scene was morbidly fascinating.

I guess this is where all the townsfolk are.
Piled near the altar at the front of the chapel were dozens of dead bodies. They were filled with bullet holes. Light coming through the various stained glass windows illuminated the wall behind them, which was splattered with blood and more holes. Spent shell casings were all over the place. And none of them had heads.

“Dead people. That was what that smell was. Dead people,” said Amber.

It hasn’t even been a day. How could everything fall apart so quickly? Who’s so depraved that they’d do something like this?
Mack slowly walked towards the mound of human death in the front of the chapel. He wanted some answers. Because none of the victims were killed by meat puppets.

“Lab coats,” said Mack as he lifted a flap of one of the corpse’s coat with the barrel of his shotgun. “Hold on, there’s some sort of badge.”

“Does it say Galatea?”

Mack pointed his gun down to the ground with one hand. The other grabbed the badge and wiped off some of the blood. In big blue letters was “Galatea Systems”.

“How’d you know that?”
Please don’t lie to me Amber.

“Know what?”

“Galatea! How’d you know that!?” Mack had lost his patience with her. There was too much lying, too much evasion.

Amber took the wallet she found back at Mama’s Place out of her pocket. “It was on the floor in the restaurant.” She handed it over. “I didn’t think it was important. Sorry.”