The Village of Dead Souls: A Zombie Novel (6 page)

Prometheus, with fresh blood around his mouth dripping down on his chest, had no idea what the video device did. The feeling of flesh inside his host body felt wondrous. The stiffness in his joints, disappeared. He had the strength of a mule and the vision of an eagle. "I have to get more of this meat." He said with desire in his face.

Vic pulled him away from the crowd. "Dude, taking a bite out of that guy's arm made you stoned. I can see it in your eyes." Vic viewed the growing crowd and saw two men, next to a police officer point to Prometheus. "Really, we need to get out of here. I'm guessing they still had jails in ancient times. Trust me we don't want to go there."

Back at the warehouse, candles places throughout the building provided a yellow glow. The horde gathered and spoke in small groups as to what happened, at the mall. Gunnar Benwa approached Titus and Prometheus. "It does not sound like you return with news of a successful campaign."

"I fear the task assigned to us may not be as simple as originally thought." Titus glanced at Prometheus and back to the Viking. "Our
descendants
have a natural fear of
us. Perhaps
due to our large
numbers,
they see us as a threat."

Pointing to the dried blood around the mouth of Prometheus, Gunnar said, "It may be more than our numbers they fear. As in our time, the living does not enjoy being the main course of another's meal."

"This is not all there is to the complication. Those of us not familiar with this world can easily fall subject to the dangers
that
are not so apparent to our eyes." Prometheus tried to rub the dried blood off of his chin. "Two members of our merry band burst into flames for reasons unknown to those of us not of this time."

"I say our first order of business should be to only set out in small groups as to not bring attention to ourselves." Gunnar ran his finger through the flame of a nearby
candle sitting
on top of a metal table. "Second, those of us not known to this world need to find a way to become familiar with all the strange contraptions and
the
ways of the living."

"I can help with this."

All three dead men turned toward the source of the voice to see a woman in her mid twenties, shoulder length brown hair, wearing a waitress uniform. A burn ring around her throat told the story of how young lady died by strangulation. "Up until last week, I was a history teacher at the University." She glanced down at her body and smoothed the front of her uniform with her hands. "You
know,
for decades, I always thought how great it would be to be twenty again." She turned and
looked
at the three ancient men. "It's not so good."

Prometheus said, "You mentioned you could help those of us who are not from this time. What assistance can you offer?"

"Like I said, history is my forte. I can give all of you who are pre-automobile and pre-electricity a crash
course
on what's
happened
in the world, since you walked as one of the living."

Titus reached out a hand with his palm up and slightly bowed to the young lady. "I am Titus Arilius a Roman of good standing and I am at your service."

The history teacher replied, "It's a pleasure to meet
you,
Titus. My name is Jennifer." She turned to Gunnar Benwa and said, "…and you are?"

The Viking wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off the
ground
in a great big bear hug, as a smile spread across her face. "Enough of this civilized garbage." He set her back down and she pulled her hair off her face and caught her breath. "They call me Gunnar and it's about time we
started
to get some more Norse ways into our new family."

The college
student
in the elderly man's body moved
closer and engaged
in a loud
conversation
with a nicely dressed black man wearing an expensive pinstripe suit. "It's
me,
Drew. I've been
put
in this old dude's
body,
but you have to know it's me."

The black man said. "I do not know this body or anyone named Drew and stop calling me Greg. My name is Haru Tochigi. I must find my way back to my village. It is under attack and they need me to help defend it."

"You have to be my
friend,
Greg.
That
is his body and
you have
the same suit
on that
he was wearing the last time I saw him. We were drinking….
Oh, wait;
we were both downing a bottle of whiskey. I guess we had the same fate."

The black man took a martial arts defensive stance as if about to attack. "I insist you take me back to my village and return me to the body
of
which I am accustomed." Looking at his
hands,
a confused expression crossed his face. "I have never seen skin so dark. Why is this body this color? No
one
in any of the villages, even as far away as the mountains surrounded by
mist,
have skin like this.” He relaxed his stance and grabbed his groin to make some adjustments. "How did your friend Greg ever fight in battle? With this man part as big as a tree between my legs, I cannot move freely without it
getting
in the way."

Gunnar slapped his hand
down
on the man's
shoulder
and let out a deep laugh. "My new
friend,
Greg
.
If
your ability to drink ale is as great as your willingness to fight, you will make a fine Viking."

* * *

Military personnel and the suit-wearing foundation executives, who fund the lab, occupied all the seats in the large conference room
, Daniel listened to the presentation and wondered if he had ever seen this room actually filled to maximum capacity. General Brown pointed the
remote
at the projector screen. “Local news crews have been airing random videos of people suffering from this sleeping sickness.”

On the screen, the video showed a zombie stagger across a busy street in downtown
Chicago
. He
walked
in front of a city bus, which crushed him underneath the tires. Blood and pieces of internal organs splattered across the windshield. Some of the
suits
cringed at the sight. “Unfortunately or
luckily, depending
on how you see it, the people suffering from this disease have lost their rational mental state.” The video switched to another undead in
Dallas
stepping in front of an
oncoming
train. As his body came in contact with the engine, it vaporized into a red mist. “They have no sense of danger, no basic instincts to keep them from
walking
in front of trucks or grabbing live electrical lines. I’m not worried about a few small news channels.” The screen changed to the video of the zombies from the mall crawl
that
caught on fire. “There are videos showing up on the Internet getting much more exposure than some local TV station. This event occurred last
week,
right here in
Denver
at the Zombie Festival. At
first,
they thought it was some drunken participants staggering into danger. When the dental records came back to identify
those
people, it
turned
out they both died in a car accident two weeks earlier. Their bodies were never reported
missing,
because the Adams County Coroner didn’t want to sound crazy
trying to explain
how two dead bodies sat up and walked out of her office. It’s not just happening here. Reports are
flowing
in from coroners and morticians all across the country.”

The General turned the projector off and opened his
briefcase, which was sitting
on top of the table. He pulled out a silver flask with a small
dent
in the side and an army
star
on the front. After opening the cap, he took a swig. He handed the whiskey to the executive sitting next to him. The
suit
cautiously took the container and glanced around the
room,
giving the impression
that
he didn’t know what to do next. With a bit of fear
expressed
on his face, he took a sip. Immediately, he coughed, choked and almost vomited. The General grabbed the flask back from his hand and said, “Smooth, ain't it.” He almost placed the cap
back
on the
flask,
but
then decided to leave it
off. “The way I see it, if we can’t find an anti-
virus,
they will eliminate themselves by walking into traffic or being attracted to fire like moths. However, until that time, you nerds need to find the cure. It won’t take long before teenagers start treating these folks like a live video game, trying to run them
down,
scoring more points than their buddies.”

The Captain sitting across the table said, “Actually General, reports have come out of
Texas
of kids doing exactly that.”

“Shut
up,
Bill.” The General turned back to Daniel and Lisa. You two are going to stay here 24/7 until you have good news for me. If I have to, I’ll place armed guards at the door to keep you from leaving.” He took one more sip from his flask before placing it back in his briefcase and snapping the latches shut. “
Now,
I have to go out there and give all those media clowns a load of official B.S.”

* * *

A large group of media and protesters
gathered
in the parking lot behind a line of armed soldiers. As General Brown stared at the ground and moved fast to avoid answering questions, the crowd moved across the lot with him. A young journalist
with a microphone
at the front of the crowd,
and
, standing next to his
cameraman
, called out, "General! Is it true the Zombie Sickness is a failed attempt at population control by the military?"

Brown stopped in front of the man. "The what sickness?"

"The Zombie Sickness."

"Who the hell is calling
it
the Zombie Sickness?"

The journalist gave a proud smile. "Actually, I'm the one who came up with the name. I'm hoping it starts to catch-"