LovewithaChanceofZombies (6 page)

Chapter Seven

Lucas whooped when he heard the news, jumping and punching
one fist in the air. His eyes were sparkling, manic, practically crazed with
energy.

“Do you realize what this means?” he asked as he raced for
the stash of unused seeds still sitting on the lab table by his microscope.

Lena tugged her rifle strap from her shoulder and put it
down, happy to have gotten to use it again. “That we’re going to get the
zombies stoned?”

“Heh. Not quite. I don’t know that there’s enough hemp in
the world for that. No, the hemp seeds aren’t going to be for them. They’re
going to be for…me.”

“Lucas, no. You can’t. You know what I’ll have to do if you
start showing symptoms. Your syringes, you already planned—”

“It’s okay, it’s okay. You don’t know the whole plan.”

“They were still zombies, just pacified. The seeds aren’t a
cure, are they? I thought it was brain damage, and some part of that damage is
what makes the zombies crave myelin, that’s what the news always said.”

“Wrong!” Lucas cried, still high on discovery. “So close,
but wrong. As I suspected, and I think the hemp has proved it. Look, we know
the zombies seem to smell out brain tissue, right? They’ll eat other things,
but the brain is the real prize, and once they get some they finally stop
eating and attacking and go to ground. If they don’t get the brains, they’ll
keep eating until they’re regurgitating. As far as we know, they’ll eat
themselves to death if there’s still food.

“My theory is a little different from the conventional
wisdom. I always suspected the problem isn’t a craving for myelin specifically.
It’s a crossed signal that tells the zombie it’s hungry, and the only thing
that eases it is a concentrated dose of a certain type of fatty acid. A brain
will do it, but so will certain plants. Hemp seeds are chock full of fatty
acids.”

“Okay,” Lena said slowly, trying to work out the
implications, and to figure out where this new information fit into her overall
picture of how the zombie virus worked. “There’s more to it than that, though.
There’s other damage. They can’t really think about anything else but eating.
And if they could, that wouldn’t be so great either, like we talked about.
That’s nightmare stuff, zombies that can think.”

“That’s where the other half of the puzzle comes in.”

“Why do I have a feeling I’m not going to like this?”

He sat on the stool and pulled her toward him until she
stood between his legs. He was still smiling, practically giddy, and Lena
wished she could catch that giddiness to replace the anxiety growing like an
icy flower in the pit of her stomach.

“Here’s the other half. Remember I mentioned rabies
vaccines, and how those turned out to be a bad model to deal with this virus?”

“Smart zombies, yeah. I’ll never forget. Thanks.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Here’s the thing though. There is actually
a cure—a treatment—for rabies. Risky, very rarely attempted, with a low
survival rate. But low is still better than none, and a few of the survivors
have even walked away from it almost unscathed. Even the most badly affected
still have all their cognitive abilities. All their higher brain function, not
just the lizard-brain survival stuff. They’ve shown some other lingering
symptoms of central nervous system damage, some that seem permanent and some
that resolve over time. Slurred speech, gait problems, poor coordination.”

“Like smart zombies?” She wasn’t seeing this as a better
option.

“No,” he contradicted, “like people who have been in an
accident or had a stroke, and maybe sustained some damage that affected their
speech and coordination. Or possibly no damage, like I said. Full recovery.”

“How?”

“Medically induced coma. When the rabies victim starts to
show symptoms, they’re put under and kept under while the worst part of the
virus runs its course. The brain activity is minimized while the patient is
comatose, so there are no seizures, none of the cascading, harmful neurological
effects that would usually take place. The virus just burns out, basically. And
if the person is lucky, they wake up in five or six or seven days, brain
intact.”

“So why haven’t they tried that for the zombie plague?”

“They did,” Lucas admitted. “The first two attempts weren’t
successful, the patients didn’t make it. The third was…a partial success.”

His lips tightened, and he clasped his hands tighter on her
hips. Lena breathed out heavily and forced herself to ask, “Partial?”

“We caught him late. He’d been feverish for at least
twenty-four hours, hiding the symptoms. Finally the headache and photophobia
gave him away. He was cringing at the lights. But he went under, and three days
later he woke up. We kept it shorter than the rabies treatment because the
active, inflammatory stage of AX-1 only lasts about twenty-four hours. There
was some damage, in his case. He could talk some after a few days though. He
knew his name and he recognized us. He seemed like a minor stroke victim, and
his progress was good by those standards. Within a few days, he was walking
with a walker, speaking more clearly.”

“But?” she prompted gently when Nye paused. Lena had noted
the shift from “they” to “we”, knew he was talking about somebody he’d worked
with, but had no way to know how deeply the case had affected him.

“He was hungry,” he said flatly. “He shouldn’t have been
eating solid foods so soon after being anesthetized that long, but after a few
days it became clear the liquid nutrition wouldn’t cut it. He ate, although his
stomach was still rejecting a lot of foods after the anesthetic, but even when
he kept it down it didn’t help. The hunger was constant and unbearable.”

He looked up at the ceiling for a moment, seeming to collect
his emotions as well as his thoughts, before continuing a little faster, as if
he was eager to get the rest of it out at once. “He lasted a week. If we’d had
longer, more time and resources to try different diets, or if we’d had the
chance to try some different psychoactive meds, we might have stumbled on
something. But he couldn’t take it. He said he could… He could smell our brains
in our heads, and he feared it was only a matter of time before the hunger
drove him past the point of control.”

“He killed himself?”

Nye nodded. “He used the same combination of drugs I have in
those syringes in my room.”

Lena ran her hands up Lucas’ arms, squeezing gently. “Who
was he?”

“My mentor, David Pollack.”

“Pollack? As in Pollack’s Disease?”

Lucas nodded, his expression stiff.

The most famous researcher of the zombie virus, dying during
his own best attempt to cure it. And now his protégé was determined to be the
next guinea pig.

* * * * *

“I can’t be hearing this correctly,” Watson said, standing
up in agitation and pacing between the stool he’d been using and the door of
the lab. “You think if you sleep through the worst of this, you’re gonna wake
up and it’ll all be okay? You’re asking me to risk the safety of this entire
colony on a hunch you had about
weed
?”

“Not sleep. A coma,” Lucas explained patiently. “The brain
activity is different, blood flow to the brain is also reduced, and the virus
won’t be able to cause the chain reactions that are responsible for most of the
damage. Once that period is past, the brain can heal and the body’s immune
system can handle the virus. The only other problem was the hunger. If the hemp
seeds correct for that, the subject should be free from that symptom as well. A
regimen of careful diet, regular doses of hemp seed or oil and—”

“Would you still be infectious?”

“I don’t know,” Nye admitted, running his hands over his
face. “We can test for it though. Assuming I survive and my reasoning is
intact.”

“And assuming the hemp works like you say it will.”

Lena jumped in. “The zombies at the gate didn’t even care
about us after they’d had the seeds, sir. It’s also possible that Pollack’s
hunger wouldn’t have been so dire if he’d been treated sooner, right, Lucas?”

“It’s possible, yes.” Nye shrugged. “None of this will help
much with the existing problem, I realize, Admiral. It’s not a practical
solution for any large-scale applications, and the odds are I won’t survive at
all. Even if everything works perfectly, I know I might have to be isolated
from the rest of the compound for everybody’s safety. But at least I’d be alive
and could still keep working on a cure.”

Not caring what Watson thought, Lena reached over and took
Nye’s hand, holding it on her lap as they sat side by side like worried parents
in the principal’s office.

Watson stopped pacing and stared back at Nye, shaking his
head.

“It’s not just a question of what’s right for you, Doc. Or
even what you can do for us. There are other dangers I don’t think you’ve
considered,” Watson said with a frown.

“What do you mean, sir?” Lena ventured.

“I mean it would muddy the waters. Create doubt. Lena, what
are those things out there in the woods, the things you hunt?”

“Zombies,” she said promptly.

“And what are we?”

“Humans.”

Watson turned and lifted his eyebrows, obviously waiting for
her to catch his meaning. When she didn’t, he sighed and returned to his seat.

“Lena, if those are zombies, and we’re humans—what’s he?” He
pointed at Nye, who looked from Watson to Lena and back again with alarm.
“What’s he going to be in a few weeks when he starts to turn? If he goes
through this like he says, and he can walk and talk like us humans, then what
will he be?”

After a moment of confusion, Lena met Lucas’ eyes and knew
the answer and the danger. “Human.”

“Do you know why you can do what you do in your job,
Stanton, going out and shooting those things? It ought to drive you crazy but
it doesn’t, and there’s only one reason for that.”

“I get it now, sir,” she assured him. She thought about
young Gilford briefly; maybe she wasn’t as different from him as she liked to
believe. “They’re not human to me anymore, so it’s okay to kill them. I’d never
see Lucas that way though, you’re right about that. I would hesitate.”

“No,” Lucas started, but she squeezed his hand.

“I would hesitate. I’d take you out after that if I was
still alive, but that’s not the point. The hesitation isn’t acceptable. The
point is, we all
need
to see the zombies as zombies. Not humans. If they
were people to us…that would be the real nightmare fodder, because we’d still
have to go on killing them. Right now we’re all positive they have no memories,
no souls, there’s nothing left of the people they were in there. But a zombie
that wasn’t just an empty husk…that would create confusion. Doubt, just like the
admiral said. People wouldn’t be sure, like they are now.”

“I haven’t said no yet,” Watson reminded them. “It isn’t
only up to me, I’ll need to talk to some folks. Cochrane here and Jackson over
at the farm, at least. How many days into this is it now, Stanton?”

“Fourteen, sir.” Two weeks, but it sounded like half a
lifetime in the compressed timeline of Lucas’ remaining days.

Watson sighed then pressed his hands flat to his thighs,
coming to a decision. “For the next week, I want you to focus on what this hemp
can do for the infected. Baiting them into the open may turn out to be useful
if the seeds make them docile enough to pick off easily. We need to experiment
with different amounts, think about efficient delivery methods. Maybe some kind
of dilution, a spray, something like that. Just to draw them into an area where
they’re easy targets.”

“Yes, Admiral.”

“Carry on then.” Watson rose and strode to the door again,
but turned with his hand on the knob. “Nye, can you teach her what she’d need
to know to help you? IVs, monitoring equipment?”

“Yes sir. Some of my research team will need to help, as
well. If it happens.”

The admiral nodded and waved as he walked out.

Chapter Eight

“Fuck him.”

Back in Lucas’ quarters, Lena nibbled on a hunk of brown
bread and watched her lover pace. “He didn’t say no.”

“He might as well have. God dammit!”

“Have some cheese. Or maybe some jerky.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Lena thought he sounded like a petulant child, but she kept
that thought to herself. “You need to keep your strength up.”

“What I
need
,” he argued, “is more time and a whole
bunch of test subjects. Dammit!” He swung his foot, aiming for the coffee
table, then pulled back in evident frustration and stalked to the eating area
to kick one of the sturdy wooden chairs instead.

In a way, it was probably healthy for him to be angry. Lena
was surprised it had taken him this long. Then again, she wondered how often in
his life he’d ever truly been thwarted. He was the savior, the last-minute
hero, and even this time he’d managed to come up with some sort of plan. But
now, when it arguably mattered the most because it was the one time his own
life was at stake…he might be denied even the chance to try.

Nye, she thought, was a better person when he was getting to
be a hero. But he was a more authentic person when faced with frustration.

She put the bread carefully back in the basket with the
cheese and stood, brushing crumbs from her lap. “We can talk to Watson. There’s
still enough time to convince him. He’s at least talking to the mayors about
it.” When Nye made his next pass, stalking by the couch, she reached out and
intercepted him, grabbing his upper arm. “Lucas. He didn’t say no.”

“He will though. You can tell. He’s afraid people will turn
on him if he takes the risk. When he does say no, you’ll support him, won’t
you? You agreed with him, or at least you understood what he meant by it.”

“I did understand,” Lena said bluntly, “and I think he was
absolutely right to be concerned. It’s hard enough to go out there and kill
horror-show monsters, Nye. If we thought about the fact that those
things
all started as people, as somebody’s kid or mother or sister or husband, we
wouldn’t be able to do it. It only works if they’re not human.”

“That doesn’t mean there can’t be a third option. Something
new, something that could give us all a way forward!”

“When have people ever leapt at the chance to embrace change
and the unknown?”

Whatever Nye wanted to express got stuck in his throat as
conflicting emotions battled for dominance. His hands ran through his hair
again, grabbing two big hunks as if he might pull his thoughts straight out
that way. Then he growled in frustration, brought his hands down and snatched
Lena up by the waist before she knew what hit her.

His kiss said more than words could have about his anger and
fear. Lena took it, accepted his rage and frustration, his wordless rant about
the way his life was ending. It wasn’t fair, she had to agree.

He carried her to bed and tore at her clothes, ruining
scarce resources as he tried to shove them aside enough to bare her, to get
inside her. Her shirt buttons popped off but the tough fabric and heavy-duty
fastenings of her belt and fatigue pants defeated their efforts to rush things
along.

“Dammit!” he said at last, and let Lena push his shaking
fingers from her belt buckle. She fumbled with it, then yanked it loose with a
cry of relief and started unzipping her pants while he managed to undo his own.

Once he’d freed his cock, Lucas took over again, shoving
Lena’s pants and underwear down to her knees with frantic impatience, then
reaching up to push her bra to her collarbones. Lena’s breasts popped free,
nipples reacting instantly to the cold in the room, the heat in his eyes. He
detoured from his original purpose, crawling over her to set his lips around
one tight bud. When he sucked hard, Lena’s pussy responded with an ache and a
wet rush of need.

Her moan seemed to make Lucas pause, hesitate. He released
her breast and met her eyes, and she couldn’t face the anguish she saw behind
his desire.

Lena didn’t want hesitation. She didn’t want time to think
about the future. She rolled away from Lucas’ gaze and pushed up to her hands
and knees, her bare butt pressing into his chest.

“
Now
,” she insisted.

Lucas didn’t argue, just positioned himself against her. “
Yes.
”

He slid in fast, setting a brutal tempo, his fingers digging
into the skin of Lena’s hips as hard as hers dug into the blanket. Fucking, not
lovemaking, but it was what they both needed, like the desperate animals they
were.

She came almost instantly, sharp and fast, and had just
enough awareness to feel faintly ashamed of how easily she’d wrested pleasure
from Lucas despite the pain she’d seen on his face. Her shame lasted only as
long as Lucas did, which wasn’t long at all.

It was hard and raw and at least one of them cried, but Lena
wasn’t sure who.

* * * * *

Lena understood Watson’s viewpoint, because she understood
the value of doing things for the good of the group. She was used to communal
living, even if her first experience of it had been a dysfunctional example.
Apart from a few brutal weeks of solitude before finding a group of survivors
and then the colony, she’d never had only her own needs to consider. To her,
self-sacrifice was not optional. But Lucas was special, and though she knew she
was biased, Lena thought he was probably special enough to make exceptions for.

“There aren’t so many doctors that we can afford to let one
go if there’s any other way,” she argued to Watson.

To Nye, she reported back, “He’s still talking to people. He
still isn’t saying no. And he wants us to get together the supplies we’ll need,
just in case.”

Things looked less and less bleak at her little chats with
Watson. He started to discuss conditions that might be necessary if—
if
—the
procedure were to be attempted. No more than two researchers to assist, a full
written outline of the procedure to work from, and a backup shooter on hand at
the awakening to take care of Nye if he was aggressive or otherwise seemed
unsafe. He would have to be bound when he came out from under the coma, of
course. Lena said she thought that could probably be arranged.

She also went out every night to test Nye’s experimental
formulations of the hemp lure. The raw seeds drew zombies reliably, but at a
huge materials cost; the guards were grumbling about the tragic waste by the
second night. The extracted seed oil was too heavy to work well as a spray, but
certain dilution media like alcohol seemed to render the smell unpalatable to
the zombies.

After a week of nightly trials, they found the magical
balance, a diluted spray of hemp combined with a lighter oil. It brought the
zombies to the treated location and kept them interested and in one place long
enough to be easy targets. An impressive number of kills were added to the
official roster over the following three nights, and all at little risk to the
sharpshooters, as the zombies seemed wholly interested in the hemp-scented
earth or shrubs that received the spray.

It was the hemp, however, that blew Nye’s cover.

One of the farm workers, delivering a bundle of freshly cut
stalks to Watson’s office, stopped in the communal kitchen for a meal before
heading back out of the colony. In the course of his visit, a friend asked him
what Nye was working on out at the farm for so long.

By the time the driver was back out of the compound, the
rumors were starting to spread.

* * * * *

Lena struggled to keep her pace to a casual stroll on her
way from Watson’s office back to the lab. She had to look casual so as not
raise any suspicions about where she was headed in such a hurry, but if she
could have sprinted, she would have. She wanted to see the smile, the relief,
the hope on Lucas’ face when she told him that Watson had come through for
them—for him—and they could try the coma experiment.

They’d finished assembling their equipment days ago, wanting
to be ready in case Lucas turned out to have a short incubation. Now they were
at twenty-four days from infection, and Lucas’ quarters were cramped with a
second, more maneuverable hospital bed, a set of portable vitals monitors, a
few IV poles and a crash cart. Watson had helped them stock up on food and
water. The only thing left was to wait for the symptoms.

She was surprised to find she wanted the experiment to begin
sooner rather than later. Lena was contemplating why this might be, lost in
thought, when a familiar voice hailed her from across the courtyard next to the
medical building.

“Lena! Did you hear?”

“Hear what, Gilford? I’m kind of in a hurry.” She crossed
her arms over her chest, trying to look as stern and unapproachable as
possible. Although she didn’t keep on walking when the kid crossed her path,
she did stay angled toward the medical building, sending a clear signal that
she was in no mood to linger and chat.

“Lucas Nye got bit! They think he’s maybe already turned and
they’re just hiding him somewhere.”

The bottom dropped out of her world for a single moment of
sheer panic before Lena righted herself mentally and shrugged. “Who’s ‘they’?”

The kid opened his mouth then shut it again, bewildered. He
shrugged. “Everybody.”

“Nye is at the big farm doing some research, Gilford. You
should learn not to listen to gossip.”

An angry crease marred the youth’s forehead. “It wasn’t
gossip,” he insisted.

“Don’t you have an assignment you need to get to?” Lena
asked pointedly. She started walking again, overshooting the hospital and
continuing down the gravel road until she was sure Gilford wasn’t watching
anymore. Then she doubled back, this time moving at a slow trot, ignoring the familiar
rhythmic thump of her weapon against her back as she ran.

By the time she got back to the lab, Lena was panting. Fit
as she was, the anxiety took a toll on her stamina, and she had to stop and
gasp for long moments before she was able to tell Lucas what had happened.

“I have to go back to Watson, tell him what Gilford said,”
she finished. Lucas had let her talk, not commenting, not even seeming
especially perturbed. He kept his eyes on the page where he’d been scribbling
notes when Lena ran in.

“Where do you think Gilford heard it?”

“Does it matter? How can you be so damn calm?”

Lucas shrugged. “If it’s just mess-hall gossip, maybe it’s
not such a big deal. I’ve been out of sight for weeks, and it’s been pretty
quiet aside from the incidents at the farm. People will always start making up
stories when they’re bored. The attacks are on the hemp field, I’m supposed to
be there at the farm doing some secret project. Then you show back up at the
gate and start running experiments with the hemp. I’m kind of surprised we
haven’t heard something like this earlier, frankly. It would have been helpful
if you’d questioned him a little more thoroughly though.”

“I’m sorry, I was a little too busy trying to pretend I had
no fucking idea what he was talking about when he said you were being hidden
somewhere!”

Lucas finally looked up, and Lena noticed he didn’t look
quite as tired or pale as he had over the past few days. Even in the weak
fluorescent light, she could see that his color was a bit better—he looked
almost rosy—and some of the strain was gone from around his eyes. But he
reached his fingers up to the bridge of his nose, rubbing there like he always
did when his head hurt, and she automatically chided him.

“You should go sit at the desk where you’d have better
light.”

“I just sit down and start writing when the ideas come.”

“I need to go talk to Watson. We need a plan, just in case—”

“Stanton. Doctor.”

They both turned to see Watson at the door to the lab. The
look on his face broadcast the bad news he bore.

“Admiral.” Lena stood up at something like attention.

“We’ve had an unfortunate development.”

“I saw Gilford—” she started, but Watson cut her off.

“I just came from the mayor’s office. Cochrane called me in
right after you left. He’d just heard a rumor that hit a bit too close to home
for comfort.”

“And?” Lucas asked quietly.

“He wants us to pull the plug. Send you to quarantine, come
clean about the cover-up, make a public announcement.” Watson looked tired,
older than usual. “I managed to get him to wait a few hours. He’s planning to
make the announcement at six. You have a little time to pack a bag, get some
things ready. I’ll have an escort to take you over to the quarantine barracks.
I’m sorry, Nye.”

“You did what you could, sir,” said Lucas. His face was
impassive, unearthly calm, but Lena could see a fine sheen of sweat along his
forehead.

“This is bullshit!” Lena protested. “This could be the cure
we’ve all been waiting for, and you’re just going to cave?” She wasn’t sure who
to address, Watson or Lucas, but neither of them met her eye in any case.

After a moment of horrible silence, Watson cleared his
throat. “Six o’clock, Nye. I’ll do my best to see you’re not bothered between
now and then.”

He left without a backward glance, and Lena stared after him
until the lab door closed. “I can’t believe this.”

“I can. Get the notebook there, please? And anything else
you need from the lab. We won’t be coming back here for weeks.”

“What? Didn’t you hear what Watson—”

“I heard what he said,” Lucas assured her with a grim smile.
“You thought I was leaving this to chance? The cure we’ve all been waiting for?
Come on, it’s time to go to ground. I was hoping for a few more days,
but…probably this timing is for the best.”

He was all the way to the door when he turned around. “You
coming?”

Lena threw her hands in the air. “I don’t know. You planning
to tell me what the hell you’re talking about?”