Our Undead (37 page)

Dr. Alyster:
Total control.

Doctor Alyster picks the
glimmering glass controller up, as well as a piece of shortbread
cookie. He floats his hand over the open roof of the case, and the
mouse stands on its hind legs, ready for her treat. The doctor
tosses the small piece of crumble into the corner, and Fausta the
mouse chases it down, devouring it instantly. Quickly, the doctor
takes another piece of cookie and throws it into the opposing
corner. Both men watch Fausta finish eating her first piece and
spot the other. She immediately scurries over to the next corner to
eat her second sweet treat, but when the good doctor presses down
on one of the glowing icons on the controller, Fausta stops in the
dead center of her glass home.

Holden:
What happened? She's acting like the cookie isn't even
there.

Dr. Alyster:
Egzactly. I have total control now.

Holden:
You're actually controlling her right now, with that
thing?

Dr. Alyster:
Yes, super soljiah, but zhis is not all.

For a third time, Doctor
Alyster places the remote down on the high desk and goes over to
his messy one. A little foraging and he again, succeeds in finding
what he is looking for. This time he brings a sheet of wood back to
Holden and the mouse. From the looks of it, Holden assumes the
piece must be about a centimetre thick.

Dr. Alyster:
(coughs)
Vatch
zhis…

The doctor taps another
icon, and Fausta regains control of her own thoughts. Holden can
see in the little mouse's deportment that it has just awoken from
some sort of hypnosis. It looks around in an attempt to collect
itself and gather its composure, until it's sense of smell hones in
on the cookie once again. That's when Fausta makes a break for her
treat. She almost gets it, but Doctor Alyster inserts the wooden
sheet into fittings in the corner of the case. It leaves the little
mouse separated from her prize. She runs around the rest of the
cage, confused and frustrated that she can't get into the corner
her treat is in. The good doctor gets a good chuckle out of it.
Holden looks at him, almost as confused as the mouse, until Alyster
picks back up the remote control. He plays with more of the
brightly lit symbols, and the mouse ceases it's aimless scramble.
Controlling her again, the doctor moves Fausta into the opposite
corner of her obstructed cookie and makes her wait.

Dr. Alyster:
Are you vatching?

When Holden nods, the
doctor flicks another light. As soon as he does, Fausta darts out
of the corner toward the wood with all her might and smashes into
it with her head. To Holden's amazement, the little white mouse
breaks clean through the centimetre thick piece of wood.

Dr. Alyster:
Ah ha! Zhere, you see?

Holden:
Yes… The strength of ten mice. She's
perfect.

Dr. Alyster:
It looks to be his way, but only time vill tell, miene boy.
Let us hope zhat our leetle friend doesn't go shrough a
metamorphosis during zhe night, huh? We shall check on her again
tomorrow.
(coughs)

Holden:
You should really do something about that cough,
doctor.

Dr. Alyster:
I've had zhis cough for twenty yeers, soljiah Holden. I vill
have it until I pass, which vill not be for a very long time. You
see, it keeps me healthy; expels zhe germs.

Holden hears the doctor, but leaves it at that. The old man
has hints of irrationality in his character, but if there is one
thing that Holden knows, it's that Doctor Alyster is no quack.
Perhaps the cough
is
keeping him alive much longer than life intends, it doesn't
matter, as long as the good doctor lives long enough to perfect the
parasite. As long as that happens, everything will be fine. The
super soldier stays sat on the stool looking down on his little
super counterpart. Fausta nibbles away at her well-deserved
shortbread prize.

VIBE RATING

A light tap on the head is
all that Margaret feels when she regains consciousness. The next
thing she feels is the warm concrete under her face and body, and
she remembers that she is lying face down under one of the many
cars that line every lane of the highway they've returned to. She
feels another tap on her head as her eyes come back into focus, and
across from her she sees Billy, laid up under the adjacent car,
ready to toss another pebble. He puts it down when he sees that she
is fully awake, then puts a finger to his lips before she can say
anything. He waves the same index finger around, and she figures it
must be a signal to let her know that the undead are lurking
about.

She mouths him a question,
asking him where Abe is, and he motions to the car in front of her.
Looking up she can only see the bottom of Abe's beat up feet and
crotch under the car ahead. Satisfied, she shrugs at Billy, her way
of asking, "What's next?"

He holds up four fingers
and points toward his feet, then motions for her to hold on. She
does, and Billy shimmies slowly out from under his night's shelter.
Margaret watches his feet walk off in the direction that his finger
was pointing in, the direction of her own feet, away from her car.
She has no choice but to continue lying uncomfortably on her chest,
underneath this metal car in the relentless summer humidity.
Luckily, she doesn't have to wait very long. She sees his feet
reappear within minutes and stop where she has her head laid. Then
she sees Billy's upside-down face.

Billy:
You
can come out now.

Margaret:
Ugh, thank God.

Margaret begins to do some
wriggling of her own, but Billy makes it a bit easier for her to
get out from under the car by lending her a hand. He pulls her out
and helps her dust herself off. Her new clothes have basically been
ruined.

Margaret:
(exhales)
Thanks. Did you… kill
those four things?

Billy:
No.
They had passed us a few minutes before I woke you up. I was just
making sure they were far away enough for us to move on. No point
in making an unnecessary ruckus.

Margaret:
Jesus, I feel like the freaking tin man. Who's bright idea
was it to sleep under cars? Wait, you don't have to answer. It was
obviously yours.

Billy:
It
was the safest way for us both to get some sleep. Otherwise, one of
us would have had to stay up and keep watch. It was worth the
sacrifice… I think.

Billy joins Margaret in a
chorus of stretches. They have both had a very rough night with
only a couple hours of sleep, if that much. When she gets as limber
as her sore body will allow, Margaret walks over to the car that is
parked ahead of hers and looks under it. Sure enough, Abe is lying
underneath, face up, staring right at her.

She thinks back to the
night before, her and Billy having to lay Abe flat on his back and
push him under the car. It was more troublesome than one might
imagine. They easily could've let him stand the whole night, but
Margaret didn't want to risk him wandering off, and Billy didn't
want to risk him attracting attention, so Abe had shared
duplicitously in their discomfort. Together, Margaret and Billy
drag his undead weight out from under the car and into the hot
Oregon sun.

Margaret:
Wait a sec…

Billy stops helping Abe to
his feet, leaving him sitting up.

Margaret:
Abe, get up. Up… To your feet.

She throws her hands to the
sky repeatedly so that Abe will get the message, and it works. The
beat up zombie pushes himself to his feet without any help and
waits.

Billy:
Wow.

Margaret:
Yep,.. he's getting smarter.

Billy:
He's listening better, that's for sure.

Margaret:
Just think, if he can learn this stuff, he should be able to
learn anything, right?

Billy:
That makes sense, but who knows what his capacity to learn
is, really? Only time will tell.

Margaret:
I guess… Luckily, we have all the time in the world.
(sighs)
We gonna
get moving now?

Billy:
That'd probably be the best thing.

Margaret:
K, come on, Abe.

Margaret, Billy, and Abe
traverse through three hours of vehicle congested highway, past
many trapped souls who were abandoned by family and friends, left
to cook inside of cars that literally turn into ovens during the
day. A particularly disgusting corpse has its head resting on the
dashboard in front of the passenger seat. When it hears the group
of three passing by, it lifts its head to look out the window, and
Margaret and Billy see that the flesh of its face has stuck to the
hot leather of the dash. It stretches from it like melted cheese on
a fresh pizza as the deserted corpse lethargically taps at them on
the window from inside.

The smell in the open air
on this part of their journey is even more putrid than it had been
inside of the tunnel they were once roaming. It takes a tremendous
amount of will for Billy to ignore the sensation to throw up, but
will is not a force that Billy is short on. He soldiers through,
knowing that the farther they are able to go, the less time they
will have to spend surrounded by the sights and smells of cooking
bodies, and then...

Margaret:
Can we stop?

Billy:
What? Why? Your ankle? I thought it was better… for the most
part.

Margaret:
No, my ankle is fine,.. or at least I think it is. It's hard
to gauge when your entire body is in pain, you know? I just need to
rest.

Billy:
Are
you sure? The harder we push, the sooner we'll be off of this
highway.. away from this smell.

Margaret:
Don't kid yourself. You know we're going to be on this road
for days, maybe even weeks. What's the rush, right? Let's stop for
a few minutes. We can eat something… so you don't feel like we're
wasting any time.

Billy:
All
right. You're right. Let's rest.

Margaret:
(huffs)
Great.

Upon Billy's agreement,
Margaret promptly swings her knapsack off, drops it to the ground
and takes a seat on the pavement. The heat surprises her and she
pops back up slightly when it scorches her bottom, but settles back
down and cautiously leans her back up against a vacant car's door.
It's pretty much just as hot as the ground.

Billy places his bag down
as well, then sits across from Margaret against the car in the next
lane. Neither of them bother to sit Abe down, so he stands up by
and in between them on the narrow path made by the two rows of
never ending vehicles. Billy watches Margaret drag her bag close
and open it up. She pulls out a little can opener that she had
taken from the store, and then a can of original flavored
Spaghettios.

Billy:
Already? I thought for sure you would be saving those for
later. You know, I still have more ER Bar. You can have some, if
you want.

Margaret:
No, thanks. I have this strong sense of impending doom. Might
as well eat the stuff I like before I'm dead.

Billy:
You're just in a bad mood, that's all.

Margaret:
Last night, I was so well rested that I couldn't sleep, and
now my whole body aches. Sorry, if I'm in a bit of a sour
mood.

Margaret sets the opener up
on the lid of the can and begins cutting it open.

Billy:
You
don't have to apologize.

Margaret:
We had it soooo good. What the fuck
happened?

Billy:
It's just the world we live in now. You couldn't have
expected that we would be safe there forever. You're smarter than
that. Those men came in and the two of us weren't even there for a
week. Who knows what might've happened if they had found us before
we heard them. You should know better than most that anything goes
now.

Margaret puts the can
opener aside, peels the tin lid off of the can and licks the sauce
off of it before tossing it aside. She reaches into her bag for a
spoon so she can begin eating her favorite snack.

Margaret:
You
heard
them.

Billy:
Whatever… Something was bound to run into us eventually.
Wandering survivors, zombies,.. We were bound to be
disturbed.

Margaret:
But did it have to happen so soon?! This sucks to the highest
degree of suckery.