Zombie Fallout 5: Alive in a Dead World (11 page)

I would have completely missed the zombie
pressed up against the fence if he hadn’t spoken.

“
Eat,”
it repeated over and over in my
head.

“Why don’t you kiss my ass,” I told it back.
It actually stopped for a beat or two, processing where that info
had come from. I would bet the thing in front of me hadn’t had a
real thought in its head since it became infected.

I had established that we could talk, but
would it listen? “Dance, fucker,” I said aloud. It licked its lips.
Okay zero for one, Talbot.
What the hell are you trying to
prove?
I asked myself. Okay, so if I’m asking myself the
question, what are the odds I’m going to know the answer? Not
aloud, gotta get into its head.
Dance, fucker!
I screamed in
my thoughts. I wouldn’t bet any substantial amount of money on
this, but I would swear it picked up its right leg and dropped it
back down. Maybe he couldn’t dance. It used to be a white guy,
after all. “Where the hell is a black zombie when you need one? I
really shouldn’t be left unsupervised for too long,” I said aloud
and started to laugh.

I had effectively blocked the zombie’s
repeating message, otherwise I would have just shot him in the
forehead and ended this whole experiment. I was already a little
antsy that I was this close to one of them and hadn’t dispatched
it. I was pacing a few yards up and back trying to decide what, if
anything, my being able to hear zombies could do to help us.
Re-Pete (I named him that because of how he was following my every
move; it seemed fitting) kept following, albeit a second or two
behind, as whatever was left of his mind caught up and sent the
appropriate message.

I walked to the left, Re-Pete followed. I
turned and came back to the right, so did Re-Pete, his eyes never
leaving mine. Re-Pete was starting to freak me out a little bit,
STAY!
I said in my most authoritative “in head” voice. As I
turned to go back to the left, the only part of Re-Pete that
followed were his eyes. I was looking over my shoulder the entire
time, wondering when he was going to follow, but he never did. I
did my complete small circuit and he never moved.

“Well, that’s interesting.” I said,
scratching my head.
On your knees!
I screamed in my
thoughts, convinced I was going to give myself an aneurysm. Re-Pete
dropped to his knees like a choir boy promised a new bike. (You can
go anywhere you want with that, I’m not getting any more
descriptive.) His knees slammed hard into the pavement. I heard
what sounded like his patella on his left leg cracking in two.
Normally, I’d cringe, but the sense of power welling up in me was
invigorating and I was thrilled I had hindered him in some way.

Was the next thing I wanted to try possible?
DIE!
I shouted over and over. I was concentrating so hard,
my body began to sway back and forth. Sweat was cascading down my
forehead. Re-Pete was looking at me like I had lost my mind.

“Talbot?”

My thoughts were snapped; how did Re-Pete
know my name? I bent lower to look into its eyes.

“Mike!” An alarmed voice came from behind me.
“What are you doing?” I heard heavy footfalls coming up fast. I was
physically moved from my spot like a child might move his GI Joe,
quickly and without regard for personal comfort.

“You alright, man?” BT asked me as he kept
running. We were a good thirty yards away from the fence before he
finally put me down. “Are you bit or scratched?” BT asked, trying
his best to look me over.

I peered around him at Re-Pete who had gotten
back up on his feet. “Well, he didn’t die?”

“What?” BT asked in alarm. “Who didn’t
die?”

“Re-Pete,” I told him like he should know
exactly what I was talking about.

“Mike, what’s going on? Is Eliza here? Is she
in your head? Are you bit?” He kept rapidly firing questions at
me.

I was still suffering from mild after-effects
from the disconnection with Re-Pete. I guess that’s what you could
call it. Wonderful! I wonder if they have any medications for
postpartum depression resulting from the lost contact between man
and zombie. It could open up a whole new market for the
pharmaceutical companies.

“Mike! I’m about to slap the shit out of you,
if you don’t start talking to me!” BT roared in my face.

I wasn’t quite ready to come back to this
semblance of reality, but when BT says he’s going to slap the shit
out of you, you tend to listen. “Don’t you dare!” I said, finally
taking my eyes from Re-Pete. “I’m fine,” I was able to grunt
out.

“I don’t know if it’s the moonlight or what,
but you don’t look fine.”

I waved dismissively at his words. “Follow
me,” I told him as I walked past him and back to an eager looking
Re-Pete who now only had eyes for the bigger, beefier BT. “I knew
you’d leave me at the first opportunity,” I told Re-Pete as I
approached.

“Huh?” BT asked. “I’m right here, man. Are
you sure you’re alright?”

“I was talking to Re-Pete,” I told BT.

“That’s hilarious,” BT said without a hint of
humor.

“I’m serious, first he wanted to eat me and
now he’d rather eat you, but to be fair, I’m sure once he was done
with you, he’d want to eat me again. He’s non-discriminatory that
way.”

“I knew it had to happen sooner or later,” BT
stated flatly. “I mean it really was just a matter of time. The
problem now is how do I tell Tracy?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked
him.

“You going crazy, that’s what I’m talking
about. I mean everyone knew you were already precariously perched
on the ledge even before the zombies came. That you held out this
long has amazed most of us.”

“You do know I’m standing right here,
right?”

“Sure physically you are, but mentally you’re
gone, man,” BT said. “I’ll miss you. I count you among one of my
best friends.”

“BT, I’m not insane,” I said. He merely
tapped the top of my head like I was six years old and I had said
something cute.

“Come here, BT,” I told him, approaching
closer to Re-Pete.

“Don’t you get too close to him. There are
some medications that you can take that, aside from some excessive
drooling, will almost make you normal. There’s no cure for zombie.
Tracy will skin me alive if I bring back an insane zombie.”

“All this time, I thought zombies were
already insane.”

“Come on, Mike, let’s get the rest and we’ll
just head back to Maine. Maybe there’s still a part of you that can
be salvaged. A small part, sure, but some is better than none.”

“BT, shut up and watch.”

I said aloud, “On your knees,” at the same
time as I thought it. Pretty talented right?!

Re-Pete didn’t disappoint. He instantly once
again fell to his knees. This time his already cracked patella
completely shattered with a loud snapping noise.

BT had finally shut up and was looking back
and forth from me to Re-Pete. “That’s not some sort of trick is
it?”

“Yeah, I was using finger snacks as a
training aid,” I said sarcastically.

“Coincidence then?” he asked, still not quite
believing what he was witnessing.

“Get up,” I told and thought. Re-Pete stood
with some difficulty and was favoring his left leg, but stood he
did. “Turn around.” Re-Pete did; he was now facing away from
us.

BT’s nose was almost pressed up against the
fence. “You know, this is fucking amazing,” BT said, not turning
back towards me. Now he turned. “How many do you think you could do
this to?”

“No clue, I didn’t know I could do this until
a few minutes ago.”

“Is it hard?”

“I have to concentrate but it’s no more
difficult than listening to you talk.”

“Funny,” BT said turning back to Re-Pete.
“Can you make him hurt himself?”

“I don’t think directly. I tried to make
Re-Pete kill himself.”

“Repeat?”

“Re-Pete, P…E…T…E.” I said spelling the name.
BT was looking at me funny. “He was following me around, I thought
the name seemed fitting.”

BT looked at me like he wasn’t completely
convinced I hadn’t stepped over the edge. “Then what about
indirectly?”

“Well, I think he shattered his knee the way
he’s been dropping to them, but I don’t know if he’s
incapacitated.”

“Is there a certain distance you have to be
from them?”

I shrugged, I had no clue. “He stopped
listening to me when you pulled me away, but I don’t really know
from what point he stopped or if it was because I lost
concentration while you were jiggling me around like Jell-o.”

“Well, walk away; let’s see what
happens.”

“I’d rather just put a bullet in its head;
he’s really starting to reek.”

“We’ll get to that, but we have got to test
the limitation of this. We might never get another opportunity like
this.

“Yeah, that’d be a shame,” I told him,
turning to walk away.

“You’re still concentrating, right?” BT asked
to my retreating back.

“Yes I’m still concentrating, Mrs.
Weinstedder.”

“What?”

“Nothing, just my old algebra teacher.”

“So somehow this whole scene reminded you of
an old math teacher? Who did the wiring in your head? Because you
should get your deposit back.”

“BT what…”

“Stop!” he yelled. “Re-Pete here looks like
he’s about to break free.”

I turned to watch. Re-Pete was slightly
swaying from side to side. I took one step backwards, the swaying
increased.

“Go one more,” BT said, swinging his visage
back to Re-Pete.

I did and Ree turned around to face us. I
won’t say he had a look of confusion on his face, wondering what
had happened, first because the light wasn’t good enough to see
that minute of a facial detail from this distance; and secondly, I
don’t think zombies have any facial expression beyond perpetual
snarl.

“He looks angry,” BT said.

“Angrier than normal?” I asked BT as I came
closer.

He shrugged his shoulders in answer. We were
both up by the fence. Ree was trying unsuccessfully to get his
hands through the chain link.

“He really does have a funk about him,
doesn’t he?” BT asked. “Do you want to try and kill him?”

“I’m having some issues here, BT.”

“I’d like to say ‘So what else is new’ but
that almost seems cliché now. That’s no human,” BT said pointing to
Ree. “And it’s debatable if that thing is even technically alive,
but for the sake of argument, let’s say it is. It is still trying
to kill us.”

“I know all this. I really do, I just feel
like a cat playing with a mouse. It seems much more humane to put a
bullet in its head than mess with it for our amusement.”

“I don’t see anything funny here, Talbot, do
you?” BT asked hotly.

Step back and then get on your knees
,
I commanded my puppet. He complied immediately.

BT turned to watch and see what Ree would end
up doing.

Smash your head against the ground!
I
yelled in my head, showing the motion I wanted him to take.

Ree was mannequin-still; he did not move.

“What’s going on?” BT asked, switching his
view back between Ree and me. I was almost swaying as much as Ree
had been earlier.

“He won’t do it,” I said, blowing out a large
exhalation of air.

“Are you trying hard enough?”

“BT, I just about gave myself an aneurysm. I
don’t think I could concentrate any harder.”

“I bet you got a D in that algebra class,” BT
said, placing a bullet in Re-Pete’s head as he struggled to get up,
his damaged knee finally locking the joint in place. Ree fell over
with a solid thud.

“I failed it.”

BT snorted. “How far you think you were,
fifty, sixty feet?”

“Not much more than that.”

“Could you do that with multiple
zombies?”

I could hear Gary yelling if everything was
alright in the distance.

“We’re fine!” BT yelled, moving away from the
spreading pool of blood by his feet.

“How far are we away from our locker?” I
asked BT.

“A ways,” he answered.

“How did you find me?” I asked him
suspiciously. “And better yet, why?”

“Mike,” BT started. “You’ve gone through a
lot in the last few days.”

“Keeping tabs on me, man?” I asked, more than
a little hurt.

BT didn’t dance around the bush. “Yeah,
actually I am. Do you blame me?”

I was a second or two away from flashing into
anger and then it dissipated like fog in a hot summer sun. “You
know, fundamentally, I’m still the exact same person I was. You
know that, right?” I asked him, seemingly for his approval.

“I hope so, Mike. Because I can’t imagine
doing this shit with anyone but that crazy bastard.”

“What’s going on?” Gary asked, somewhat out
of breath. He took in the whole scene quickly. One dead zombie, me
with a slightly wilted look and BT very standoffish. “Everything
cool?”

“I hope so, I really do,” BT said, walking
back towards the locker.

“Mike?” Gary asked.

“BT isn’t all that enamored with my
upgrades,” I said, walking over to the fence to see if I could
figure out if Re-Pete had a thicker skull.

“Anything I should be concerned about?” Gary
asked, coming up to my side.

“Not yet, brother.”

“How much time we got until Eliza comes?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Do you think we’ll need more weapons?”

“I’ve got a little surprise of my own set up.
We should have plenty of guns for what I want to do.

“What about the zombie?”

“He’s dead now,” I said, walking back towards
the shed. I could not see anything more in the dark.

Paul met me about halfway back. “Hey, buddy,
do you need any help?” he asked still fumbling with his pants.

“It looks like you’re the one that needs a
hand. Now, I’m not offering, I’m just saying.”