And This Too: A Modern Fable (5 page)

             
“Tell her what?”

             
“About Derby.”

“Oh.” Martin pondered for a moment, as Harley looked at him intently. “Well, I don’t know if you saw the news last night.”

              “I did.”

             
“Well, once Missy Roulette pounced on the camera man, Derby panicked, as would be expected. But, it was such an amazing outburst that I find it hard to believe myself. Some families stayed behind, but I’m pretty sure that they’re all ‘dead’ now because none of the other houses are shut up. I’m sure you noticed that.” Harley nodded. Martin pulled up his sleeve to reveal a heavily bandaged wound. Harley gasped. “The convenience store clerk bit me yesterday.”

             
“Dad!”

             
“It’s fine,” he said, pulling his sleeve back down, “I figured it out.”

             
“What?”

             
“I’m pickled.”

             
“What?”

             
Pixel jumped up on Harley’s lap.

             
“I’d been drinking since I was thirteen-”

             
“I thought you were sober!”

             
“I am. I’ve been sober, this is my third clean year, but all that drinking pickled my system.”

             
“What about the others?”

             
Martin shrugged, “I’ll bet frat boys everywhere will survive this.”

             
Harley and Fehny laughed.

             
“People here fled to Sandy’s Beach. I haven’t heard anything about it, but I’m sure that you’ll just find more walkers there.” Martin paused, eyeing his daughter’s long pig tails. “You should cut your hair.”

             
Harley protectively stroked one of her pig tails. “Why?”

             
“They’re grabbers. The walking dead will grab you and hold on. It would be best for your safety.”

             
“I’ll cut it for you,” Fehny added, smiling at Harley.
              “But I
like
my hair,” Harley whined.

             
“Harley,” Fehny said, “You need to do what you can to survive.”

             
Harley pouted at her boots, thinking about her promise to Christian. “You’re right,” she mumbled.

             
That’s when Harley’s stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten anything since her sausages and beans. Fehny set her project aside and stood up.

             
“Dinner time.”

*****

              Sitting around the table, eating Taco Hamburger Assistant, and having dinner time conversation brought about the illusion that things were fine.

             
“So, the thing I don’t understand is why it’s all spreading so fast,” Harley said in between bites of food. “Like, shouldn’t the victims die before they turn? Missy Roulette just puked her guts out and boom, she was a vicious, flesh eating monster.”

             
Fehny pointed her fork at Martin and replied, “Marty has a reasonable theory for this.”

             
Martin blushed and drank some iced tea. “Well,” he swallowed. “This is the age of I-want-it-now. No one waits anymore. I bet the virus adapted or was altered to match the changing times. They can’t pinpoint the source, even though they say it festers in meat. That's merely a media cover up. Plenty of vegetarians, vegans, and those who refuse to eat fast food became infected. Like the Milford’s? They're diehard vegans, but they were the first family in Derby to get the plague.”

             
“Huh.”
              “The symptoms are vaguely similar to a virus called ‘Solanum’. Solanum takes 24 to 48 hours to develop, but Missy Roulette turned in a matter of minutes. It definitely mutated for one reason or another. Once the heart stops, that‘s the end of it; the body regurgitates and becomes a walker. This new strain is definitely a parasite.”

             
“A parasite?”

             
“It kills you, but keeps the vital part of your body maintained enough to know to move around and spread the strain. A parasite.”

             
Fehny paled. All the talk about vomiting and parasites had made her ill.

             
“Or, it could be improperly cooked food,” Martin continued with a shrug. “We all know how the ethics of cooking went out the door with the coming of the microwave.”

             
Harley chuckled.

             
“All I know is that finally, drinking too much has come in handy, and I have a feeling that we will
all
survive this.”

*****

That night, Harley stayed in the bathroom for a half an hour trying to learn how to appreciate her new hair. It wasn’t too bad, but she had worked for years to get her hair the right length. She began to wish that her birth mother was black, because then her hair would be cute and poufy instead of being wavy, yet too straight to form any real curls and too curly and thick to allow any assimilation. Finally, she took a hair tie from her wrist and pulled a few locks into a half pony tail.

             
“I am strong. I am confident. I will overcome.” Harley assured her reflection before exiting the bathroom and joining her parents in the living room.

             
“They come out at night here,” Marty whispered.

             
“What does that mean?” Harley asked, sitting on the hardwood floor and tucking her knees under her chin.

             
“It means that from now until morning, we have to stay downstairs and take turns sleeping.”

             
“You guys do that?”
              “We did last night,” Fehny said, frowning at her cup of tea. “They came at the house and scratched at the doors for hours. Staying up is a safety precaution.”

             
“Alright.”

*****

              Marty took the first shift. He woke Fehny up when it was her turn, and she woke Harley up for the third shift.

             
Harley sat, listening to her parents’ breathing and the unnerving sounds coming from outside. The house was completely dark except for the lone light of a single candle. Ominous thoughts began to troll through Harley’s head. The amount of Derby Deads was overwhelming.

             
She thought about what would happen when she left the next day. Her parents would probably protest, and she would break their hearts. Harley didn’t want to wait too long to go to Sandy’s Beach. Each passing moment was a moment that Allie was either surviving or dying. A car alarm went off outside, causing Harley to jump. Once she calmed down, she realized that a Derby Dead had blindly bumped into a car. She sighed, knowing that what awaited her in Sandy’s Beach would be ten times worse than what she had discovered in Derby.

Four

Sandy’s Beach, Oregon

As the skyline drifted into view, softened by rays of light that were lazily filtering through dissipating rain clouds, tears rose to Harley’s eyes. She needed to be strong, but the thought of leaving her parents behind had chipped away at the wall of strength she had built over the past couple of days. As she drove, visions of that morning danced in her head. Martin and Fehny understood that Harley needed to continue her journey as hastily as possible. However, despite their lack of reluctance, Harley still felt as though she had betrayed them. She didn’t even notice when she reached the cheerful “Welcome to Sandy’s Beach” sign.

             
The unfocused femme's heart skipped a beat when she observed her surroundings. Sandy’s Beach had gone to hell. Buildings were smoking, cars abandoned; and the hollow cry of undead demons echoed through the cityscape. Harley drove slowly through the town, trying not to think about what was lurking in the shadows. She wondered if the government had given up on society, if it really was “every man for himself”. As she crept through the town, going on back roads in order to avoid the blockage caused by abandoned vehicles, sweat dripped down Harley's face. The walkers seemed to be preoccupied by some other lost soul; Harley could hear their moaning across town. Then, something dashed across the road, causing Harley to slam on the brakes. A bedraggled woman with fear in her eyes and blood on her clothes pounded on the window.

             
“Please! Please help me!” She pleaded, shaking.

             
Harley rolled down the window. “Are you hurt?”

             
The woman looked at her limp arm. “One of them grabbed on to me, it’s bleedin’ real bad.”

             
Harley thought back to the conversation she had with her dad about being “pickled”.

             
“Ma’am, do you drink?”

             
The woman shook her head and replied, “No, I’ve been sober for fifteen years.”

             
Harley hung her head. “You’re probably infected, ma’am. They got you, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m sorry.”

             
The woman shook her head, her eyes wide with disbelief. “I can’t become one of them.”

             
Harley had thought that the apocalypse would be cool and that she would have fun staying one step ahead, but after encountering several reality checks like this one, she despised the world around her. Her eyes wandered to the opposite window as she searched for an answer in the dark, hollow cityscape.

             
“Kill me,” the woman pleaded.

             
Harley's gaze snapped back to the desperate woman. “Ma’am, I can’t-” she stammered.

             
“I watched my husband and seventeen year old son kill each other because of this illness. Everything I lived for is searching for the brains of the living. Please…kill me,” the woman begged.

             
Harley began to tremble. She nodded, a wave of nausea passing through her as she pressed the muzzle of her gun up against the woman's forehead. Harley hadn't killed a living person yet. The shot echoed through the city, and the woman collapsed to the ground. Harley was only able to drive a few yards before she had to pull over and throw up.

             
“Never again,” she muttered, using her thighs to support her upper body. “Never again.”

             
Righting herself, Harley contemplated patrolling on foot, she liked the way the gentle morning breeze caressed her face and the Cadillac was not a stealthy car. However, the low, distant howl of the undead scared the zombie huntress back into the SUV.              

             
Pixel was sleeping contently in the passenger's seat despite recent events. Driving along the deserted back roads and alleyways, Harley began craving an order of
Fast Fries
potato cakes. Harley nervously toyed with her chin length hair. She knew it was for the best, but it was hard to get used to.

             
Rounding the corner, Harley encountered her first Sandy’s Beach walker. Someone, or something, had broken its jaw on one side. He limped with outstretched arms. When he caught sight of the Escalade, he let out a distorted howl.

             
“N’aahww fuck,” Harley grumbled.

             
She stopped the car and grabbed a knife from her stash in the glove box.  Hoping that her plan would work, Harley jumped out of the car and ran at the lethargic automaton. The knife ripped through the decaying flesh and struck the bone. Harley tried not to panic as the walker flailed his arms, barely missing her face. The overwhelmed girl whipped the gun out of her waist band and ended the thing's misery.

             
It wasn’t even lunch time and it had already been an eventful day.

             
Harley retrieved the knife from the corpse. Looking at the blade, Harley let out an exasperated sigh. She hadn’t accounted for the fact that small, self-defense knives weren’t sharp enough to cut through bone. She slid into her car and continued to drive.

*****

The White House, Washington D.C

             
The White House was equipped with wall-to-wall security. None of the infected D.C. civies would get to the president or his family. As President Abernathy walked down a hallway to the kitchen to request some food, he passed a conference room filled with hushed whispers. The man stopped and crept closer to the door.

             
“I can’t believe this has gotten so out of hand,” a deep voice whispered.

             
“I definitely thought we could control this,” a woman breathed.

             
“Well, it’s a completely new strain,” another male began. “Solanum B is a monster that
we
created.”

             
“How can we stop it?” A different woman murmured.

             
“I don’t know if we can,” the second male sighed.

             
President Abernathy had heard enough. He pushed the door open and strolled in. He was shocked to find that the whole “Save a Convict” committee was in the large chamber.

             
“What
is
‘Solanum B’?” The president demanded.

             
He watched in disappointment as the five committee leaders hung their heads like shamed dogs. They had been lying to him since he took office. The group looked around the table, wondering who would start. Finally, Dr. Melbourne began. The president recognized his as the second voice from before.

             
“‘Solanum B’,” he stated, standing in order to address the President, “is the cause of this epidemic. You see Mr. President,” Dr. Melbourne looked at his fellow committee members. “There hasn’t been a true transparency with you about the ‘Save a Con’ program.”

             
President Abernathy nodded with a disapproving grimace.

             
“Solanum B is the manufactured version of Solanum, the ‘zombie-ism’ virus. Our plan was to take convicts and make ‘indestructible’ soldiers, soldiers that we could manipulate through hypnosis so they wouldn’t have the side affect of PTSD after extended time in the field. We were hoping that these manipulatable soldiers would be human enough to take part in battle, but would only die if shot in the brain. Solanum took too long to develop testable results in our patients, so in correspondence with our Chinese counterparts, we created a more vicious strain infused with synthetics and a few steroidal enhancements. Solanum B takes anywhere from five minutes to an hour to fully develop. We assumed that after a few sessions with our hypnotists we would be able to train the infected convicts.

             
"Boy were we wrong, we didn’t even get past the animal testing phase. One of our infected monkeys bit my apprentice. We hadn’t anticipated that Solanum B could be exchanged through bodily fluids; we assumed it needed to be introduced via injection. It initially took much longer for the virus to infect humans; I’m guessing that it was because my apprentice was bitten by a G.D. monkey. I know now that when a human bites another human the change is nearly instantaneous. My apprentice, Doug made love to his girlfriend that night. She happened to have another man on the side. Her ‘other man’, Thomas McNaab, worked at a
Fast Fries
location where he was notorious for violating customers’ food. He told us that he had spit on three burgers that day, right before he collapsed and vomited all over the holding tank. As he tried to eat the guard, I realized in that Solanum B spreads like HIV, only much, much worse.

             
“We tried to contain it, but it was too late. That ingrate McNaab ruined it. From there, it boomed across America in a mere matter of weeks. There’s no cure, only death and then reanimation. You have to shoot the infected person in the brain in order to stop the damn thing.”

             
“You
made
zombies. On
purpose
?!”

             
“We’re sorry, sir,” Dr. Melbourne wept, bowing his head in remorse. “The research order was given before you took office, sir.…Out of sight…out of mind.”

             
“You people make me
sick
,” President Abernathy roared, “I
never
would have agreed to this if I’d have been told the truth! In fact, if I’d have known the truth, I would have shut your asses down so far, you’d be shitting out a toilet in China!”

             
“Well, Mr. President. Frankly, Sir, we knew that. That’s
why
we lied.”

             
President Abernathy grew less professional as he became more enraged. “GET OUT!”

             
“Mr. President?”

             
“Leave my sight, leave the White House,” he shouted, “Scum like you people do not deserve aide from this government!”

             
They all got up and quietly shuffled out of the room, tails between their legs. The president slammed the door behind them and began to curse vehemently.

             
With his back against the door, President Abernathy slid to the floor and put his head in his hands. “All I wanted,” he groaned, “was a chocolate lava cake.”

*****

The everlasting moan of undead monsters had stolen Harley’s appetite. She needed to find Allie. Harley turned right and after a block took another right. Her eyes widened when she realized where she had driven. Main Street was laden with shambling automatons. Startled, she slammed on the brakes. Pixel clawed at the passenger seat upholstery.

             
“nUuuuugh.”             

             
All it took was one zombie. It howled and began to approach the SUV. The majority of the crowd instinctively turned and followed the leading monster.

             
“Ho-Leee Fuck!” Harley was overwhelmed by the difference between Sandy's Beach and Derby. Her parents were lucky that the Derby Deads only hunted at night.

             
A swarm of undead in various states of decomposition, mouths agape and arms outstretched, were shambling towards her, forming a circle around the car. Harley’s began to panic. Rolling down the window would be dumb and getting out would be fatal. Trapped, the terrorized debutant revved the engine and sped forward. The sound of bodies scratching the paint and splattering on the pavement made the devil inside her smile sadistically. She mashed the undead with a vigor she had never felt before. Harley swung around and charged at the other walkers. They didn’t have enough brains left to know how to get out of the way. Instead, they continued towards the car. The tires squealed as Harley fishtailed, knocking several monsters to the ground.

             
The walkers kept pouring onto Main Street. Apparently everyone in Sandy’s Beach was infected. Harley was so hysterical that she stopped paying attention to the gas gauge. Pixel, eyes wide and hackles up, was just as frightened as his human.

Just as Harley was about to mash more walkers, the car shuddered and died. Harley turned the key.

              Rrroaw-rrroaw-rrroaw

             
It wouldn’t start. Harley punched the horn, praying that the car would start before turning the key in the ignition once more.

             
Rrroaw-rroaw-rroaw

             
“God Damn it!” She shrieked, throwing her hands up and letting them slap the steering wheel.

             
The gas gauge almost grinned as it maliciously pointed at the cruel, red "E". The automatons continued to close in on the dead Cadillac. Harley began to weep with hopeless abandon.

             
“This is it Pix,” she wailed, pulling the cat away from the passenger’s seat and holding him to her chest. “We’re about to become zombie grub! God, I'm so stupid!”