Dead Science: A Zombie Anthology Page 6

  That's when a stream of blue-white light rushed out of Gopie's eye sockets and into the exposed brain of Mendoza. Mendoza's eyes opened, and now his eyes were flickering like Gopie's. Mendoza grabbed Saunders and bit deeply into his arm. Mendoza must have hit the brachial artery because blood spurted out of Saunder's arm like a fountain. As Saunders was screaming, Peary was already zeroing in on Mendoza's head.

  I had a feeling then, baby, and although such hunches didn't happen often, I've learned to trust them. I told Peary not to shoot Mendoza in the head, not with so many of us near by. Peary told me to go screw myself, and it was all I could do to drag Hadley, a couple of techs and myself further back.

  Peary sneered at me and aimed at Mendoza, who was standing up. He had chewed through much of Saunders's upper arm and was now trying to pull the freaking thing off. There was a sickening wet, tearing sound as the cartilage sheared, and the arm came loose. Saunders had gone white, and was either dead or close to it.

  "Whoa," Peary said, "I didn't think he could do it."

  It was just like Peary to hesitate for some perverse reason like that, but not because someone like me had warned him.

  Peary fired, and Mendoza's head exploded in a shower of flesh and bone and fireworks. "Fireworks" is a lousy word, but there was a shower of sparks and a ball of fire emerged from his exploding skull. The fireball caught Peary and a couple of his staff and reduced them to piles of gray ash. Those between Peary and my group fell to the ground and were still.

  Hadley and the techs wanted to help the fallen men, but I convinced them it was no time to play hero. Those men were lost.

  I hurried them back to central ops. We entered and I closed and locked the door. Hadley thought I had lost my mind. I directed him to a series of monitors that covered the corridors paralleling the path of the Worm. There, where Peary had gotten his, Gopie and the fallen men were rising. All had that creepy jack-o-lantern eye business going on.

  Hadley saw this and went a little pale. For the first time since I joined Project Ouroboros three years ago, it seemed the doc had nothing to say.

  I made an announcement over the PA system that everyone in the complex should lock their offices or quarters and stay put until receiving further instructions. I knew that everything that happened was automatically being sent on an encrypted feed to the top brass in the Pentagon. I wasn't going to do anything else without a directive from a superior. CYA, as we say.

  My radio squawked twice, code that the caller didn't want to be overheard. I only had one real friend on duty at the Worm, and that was Captain Robert "Bobby-Ray" Rayburn. You met him once, Ce, a tall and lanky guy with a gap-toothed grin and jet black hair that looked like it had never made the acquaintance of a comb.

  I moved over to a quiet corner while Hadley and his team were reviewing data.

  "What's up, Bobby-Ray?"

  "We got troubles, Lew," he said, his voice low.

  "No duh, 'Einstein.' Are you in your quarters?"

  "Nuh-uh. Topside."

  I groaned. There was no smoking in the Worm, so Bobby-Ray and others who needed a nic-fix often snuck one topside out behind one of Ord's abandoned barracks buildings. It violated about twelve regs, but it was one of the facts of life at the Worm.

  "Can you get back without tripping the alarm?" It was my duty to rat Bobby-Ray out, but in light of recent events, I couldn't think of anything more trivial than sneaking a cig while off-duty.

  "Neg, bro, the Worm's locked up tight."

  "Can you hang tight, Bobby-Ray? We've got a major sitch down here in the belly."

  "I got news for you, cuz. You've got an even more major sitch topside."

  "What's up?"

  "Check your phone."

  Use of private phones was strictly forbidden, especially during a test. I knew I might finish the day busted back to corporal, but Bobby-Ray was my best friend and wouldn't make such a request lightly.

  I checked, and Hadley and the others were still bent over the monitors, talking in hushed tones.

  I checked on the footage Bobby-Ray was streaming my way, and that's when I first got really worried.

  There were several Ord-inaries on the parade field, and they all had flickering eyeballs.

  Whatever we had unleashed, it had travelled right through our rush-to-get-it-in-on-time shielding and had irradiated several homeless civilians.

  "Bobby-Ray, don't let them see you."

  "No duh, bro, I'm not stupid."

  "Are you strapped?"

  "Yeah, I got my sidearm. Six rounds . . . no, five."

  "How many Ord-inaries you got up there, Bobby-Ray?"

  "Looks like six, and I'm a lousy shot as you well know, bro."

  "Hang tight. I got to check some stuff out with the TB."

  "Top Brass? Are you nuts? They'll put us both out in the freakin' Sahara."

  "Relax. I'll tell them Peary ordered you to go on reconnaissance."

  "He'll never lie for me."

  "He's not a problem anymore."

  "Peary's dead?" Bobby-Ray sounded like he wasn't sure whether to be amused or shocked. "What's going on down there, Lew?"

  "Same as up there. Bobby-Ray, if you have to shoot, don't shoot them in the head unless you've got a good fifty feet between you."

  "I told you, Lew, I ain't that good a shot."

  "Bobby-Ray, you gotta hang tough. Lock yourself in one of the old barracks if need be. I . . . I should warn you those Ord-inaries are probably cannibals now."

  "Canni---What did those eggheads do, Lew?"

  "I'll get back to you. Stay safe."

  I disconnected and put my cell in my pocket. I wished now I had called you, Ce. It would have been nice to hear your voice one last time. Instead, I walked over to Hadley's little brain trust.

  "Doctor Hadley."

  Hadley turned. His face was even more pale than in the corridor. His team looked equally shell-shocked.

  "We have to contact the Pentagon, Doctor. Do you have something to report?"

  "It's too soon to be definitive, Lewis, and it may take years."

  "Doc, I've got news for you: whatever happened out in the corridor is going on topside."

  Hadley's eyes widened. "There are more of these . . . afflicted above ground?"

  "Yeah. I'm guessing our shielding was sub-par."

  Hadley and his brain trust bent together and murmured in low voices. Finally, he looked up.

  "We must capture and contain all the afflicted before they get out into the general population."

  "And that sounds like a job for the big boys to implement. What do I tell them?"

  "We're not sure. We think maybe we cracked an Ur-particle."

  "Is that the same as a god particle?"

  "No, Ur-particles are theorized to form a lattice between dimensions. This keeps various parallel universes separate but essentially in the same space."

  "So you broke one?"

  "Possibly."

  "And this is important because . . ."

  "Because we think something got through."

  "Like what?"

  "Something that seems to feed on brain energy. In fact, in reviewing the sequence of events in the corridor, we think this may be a being of energy that actually consumes the brain for its unique energy."

  "That's all very Star Trek, Doc, but why did Gopie tear Mendoza's face off?"

  "This creature is, shall we say, consumed with feeding. It leaves a dominant pattern in the brain for feeding. The creature feeds on living brains, so its hosts do, as well. They're just not as efficient about it because . . . well, because . . ."

  "Because their brains are being devoured by this creature from Dimension X."

  "It's worse than that, Lewis. Two of the things that define life are consumption of nutrients and reproduction. The creature is also converting some brains into nests for its young."

  I looked at him in disbelief. "Just how do you know that?"

  Hadley motioned me over to the video monitors.r />
  "You were wise, one might say prescient, to advise Major Peary not to shoot Sergeant Mendoza in the head," Hadley said. "We played that sequence in slow motion after seeing the results of that fatal headshot. Take a look."

  I watched as the slo-mo bullet crawled across the final three inches and entered Mendoza's forehead. His head expanded like a balloon and then burst apart. Gore and blackened fragments of skull continued on outward trajectories. However, there were several spheres of energy that headed directly for the living. Some entered the now-affected techs. The others dissipated.

  "We think they're the energy equivalent of spores," Hadley said. "If the creature loses its host, it cleaves to these smaller forms and seeks out new hosts. Luckily you pulled us out of range."

  "That's why you want to gather up the other 'afflicted,' as you call them?"

  "Yes, but any team doing so is going to have to wear some sort of radiation suit impervious to the energy of these creatures."

  "Will our suits do the job?"

  "We won't know without some testing."

  "That sounds like suicide."

  "Not necessarily. We can put sensor pads inside an empty suit and hang it in the corridor. Someone can shoot one of the afflicted from a safe distance and we'll check the readings."

  "Doc, why don't we just shoot the creatures in the corridor and topside and be done with it?"

  "Because these beings are adapting, learning." He pointed to the screen again, and backed it up several frames. "Watch these last two 'spores.'"

  I leaned in. As the other spheres dissipated, two joined together. Combined, they traveled almost twice as far as the others. They nearly reached our group before dissipating.

  "We're afraid the simultaneous destruction of several of the afflicted would create a large number of these 'ultra-spores,' perhaps durable enough to reach a populated area."

  My radio squawked twice.

  "Go, Bobby-Ray."

  "Some do-gooders from a local homeless shelter just showed up," he said.

  "Bobby-Ray, you gotta get those people out of there."

  "I tried. They said they have a duty to help the helpless."

  "Do they know you have a gun?"

  "I can't shoot a civilian, Lew!"

  "Dang, Bobby-Ray, use your head! You scare them with your gun. Fire a shot in the air if you have to."

  "Okay. Is anyone coming to help us?"

  "Hang tough, buddy."

  We switched one of the monitors and saw there were four people in the van. They were motioning to some of the Ord-inaries and apparently were either too blind or too stupid to notice their lost lambs had jack-o-lantern eyes.

  Bobby-Ray ran in to chase them off, and one of the Ord-inaries seemed to come from out nowhere and grabbed a girl in the van. The Ord-inary, who looked like a gym teacher I had in high school, bit deep into the face of the girl. We saw her scream as he punctured her eye with his teeth, and then Bobby-Ray panicked and shot him. For a lousy shot he placed the round square in the Ord-inary's melon. The sucker exploded and Bobby-Ray and the kids in the van collapsed. Within minutes there were now ten of the things on the parade ground, including my old friend Bobby-Ray.

  I sent a report to General David Vincent at the Pentagon, Ce. I had a feeling the brass were monitoring things because phones and radios became useless. All communication was via encrypted text messages.

  I sent the following message: are you apprised?

  Command answered: affirm.

  Me: orders?

  Command: sit tight.

  Me: we need a team topside as well.

  Command: all needs being addressed. go dark.

  "Go dark" means we stop communicating until Command breaks the silence.

  Meanwhile, some people just refused to follow my orders, and now the corridors are filled with brain-eaters. That's what I call them. Doctor Hadley insists on calling them "Dimensional Interlopers" or "Anomalous Lifeforms." I'm happier with "The Brain-Eaters of Dimension X." Anyway, a lot of people are now among the undead, including that pretty lieutenant Peary was so ga-ga over. I guess now that she's missing most of her face and her torso is just one big hole, he might not find her so attractive. You never know with some people. She's having a hard time of it. She's dragging her intestines behind her and other disobedient brain-dead morons are stepping on them. Hard for a woman to make progress in this man's army. Sorry, Ce, it's been a long day and I make bad jokes to keep from crying.

  I asked Hadley if the human hosts wouldn't just collapse once their brain was devoured. Get this: he and the techies think the creature reshapes itself into an energy analog of the host brain. Like a hologram or something. It wouldn't be enough for the person to talk or drive a car, although Hadley thinks there might be further adaptation, a sort of learning curve. One day the hosts might seem just like human beings.

  Except for the glowing eyes and being dead and eating brains, of course.

  Oh, and you might be wondering if only human brains would do. We saw Bobby-Ray attack and devour a dog, so that answers that question. I guess Bobby-Ray would be embarrassed that he's the one we saw eating doggie brains, but what choice did he have? I thought it showed initiative. Sorry, Ce, getting a bit punchy.

  Man, I don't want to spend eternity with some electrical hologram brain making me eat people and pets, the inside of my skull all scorched and my mouth full of raw flesh.

  We've been stuck in central ops for six hours, wondering when we'll be rescued. Luckily we had a bathroom; I'm sure some of the offices have become very unpleasant, even without brain-eaters. I'm a little light-headed, all we've had between the five of us was a couple of stale fig newtons and half a baloney sandwich. You know I get loopy when my blood sugar drops, baby. Anyway, it's given me enough time to record all this. Hadley kept wanting to throw his two cents in but I told him to make his own G-D report.

  LCD, baby, as in Love Celia to Death.

  Now I just want to . . .

  Wait . . . . There's a rumbling. Those morons are bombing the place!

  The monitor screens all go to static as the entire installation shakes. The Worm is really dancing now!

  Celia, the whole place is filling with light! Brightly dancing spheres in electric blues and butter yellows.

  I want to run, but where?

  Ce, please remember I . . .

  It's in my head! In my . . .

  [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

  Oh! It's beautiful! Just beauti---

  * * * *

  Blood, Spit and Aspartame

  by

  Adam J. Whitlatch

  They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Well, if that's true, then young Craig Vincent paved his own private path to the devil's front door when he set out on his mission to develop the perfect zero-calorie artificial sweetener: a non-saccharide that didn't have any of the nasty side effects of others like the headaches, brain lesions, and possible lymphoma caused by aspartame. Saccharin had been shown to cause both weight gain and bladder cancer in lab rats; studies were deemed inconclusive, but Craig still wasn't convinced it was entirely safe. Then there was sorbitol; he'd given that up the day his ex-girlfriend told him the sugar substitute in his favorite breath mints was used as a laxative in the veterinary clinic where she was doing her internship.

  Yuck.

  Craig peered through his goggles at the bubbling green liquid swirling in the glass flask in front of him and adjusted the valve on the side of the antique Bunsen burner. He closed the throat holes ever-so-slightly, dropping the temperature of the flame. He watched as the flame changed from a deep purple to a bright, vibrant orange. He smiled as he made a note on his chipped wooden clipboard.

  A droplet of water from the pipes above him splattered onto his notes, splotching the fresh ink. He scowled up at the pipes, mentally cursing the university for kicking him out and forcing him to work in the substandard conditions of his basement.

  Misuse of university equipment, my eye, he thought with a sn
eer. He didn't do anything to the dean's daughter that she didn't willingly consent to.

  Finally the liquid in the flask had thickened to the desired consistency and he transferred the viscous substance to three waiting Petri dishes, making sure to pour precisely the same amount in each. Once the flask was empty, he pulled three small vials from the fridge and placed a drop from the first vial into the first dish, one from the second into the second dish, and so on. He carefully labeled the dishes, not wanting to mix up which mixture was which before stirring them with individual sterilized glass rods.

  He placed the dishes in the small dorm room beer fridge, right next to a bottle of Smirnoff, and paused a moment to stretch, feeling the bones in his sore back pop one by one. He glanced at his watch; it was getting close to eight o'clock.

  "Well," he said, "those will need a few of hours to cool, and then" ---he approached a shelf lined with wire cages, each cage containing one white fancy rat. He reached out and patted the front of a cage labeled archimedes--- "show time."

  He waved to the inquisitive rat sniffing at his fingers then turned to leave, whistling a happy tune as he climbed the wooden stairs to the ground floor of his home. As he switched off the light in his makeshift laboratory he wondered which sounded better on his pizza, sauerkraut or anchovies. Oh heck, why not both?

  * * * *

  Later that night, after dinner, a cheesy B-movie, and a severe bout of indigestion, Craig staggered down the creaky steps to his basement laboratory and anxiously opened the fridge. He smiled triumphantly as he lifted the chilled dishes out one by one, examining the solidified contents approvingly.

  Carefully, he began to crush the solidified solutions with a spoon, pleased at how easily the mixtures crumbled into fine crystalline granules. He'd have to do something about that color though.

  There was no way people would use green sweetener in their coffee or on their cereal. It was really a trivial matter, but one that would eventually need to be addressed. He remembered one Thanksgiving back home in Davenport when his father, a known prankster, had colored the gravy blue with food coloring. No one would touch the gravy except his father, grinning like the Cheshire cat the entire time.