Zombie Ever After (28 page)

“Impressive,” said Donovan, unimpressed.

“Well, enough small talk,” Egesa said. “Please, follow me.” Egesa gestured like a bullfighter and allowed Donovan and Cathren to pass him and take the lead.

They walked across the wide room to a bank of elevators on the west side. When they reached the elevators, two goons appeared as if by magic from a small door adjacent to the lift. Egesa pushed the UP button and the rest of the party stepped in.
 

As the doors
whooshed
shut and the elevator began its ascent, the so-called impenetrable front doors caved in with a squeal, a shudder, and a mighty crash. Dozens of hungry, stinking, moaning zombies rushed in, like pumped-up rock fans at a free concert.

The elevator pinged on the top floor, and Donovan, Cathren, and their host disembarked. Egesa led them to a room down the hall, a laboratory. A variety of purpose-built scientific equipment filled the space. On one side sat a rack of test tubes, bottles of chemicals, vials of powders, Bunsen burners, a lunch bucket, and other various and sundry items. On the other side, geological and archaeological instruments sat on worktables: scales, hammers, rocks, bones, a computer. Other tables were held weather balloons, thermometers, pressure meters, and wind meters.
 

All of these instruments were mostly unfamiliar to Donovan and Cathren. That is, except for one or two they remembered from high school, such as the microscopes. Egesa led them though to another, larger room next. Here, the instruments were far too recognizable.

Along these walls, the eggquariums that Donovan and Cathren had learned to fear glowered down at them like malevolent robots. Bright silver gadgets that they knew too well dangled from the ceiling above the operating tables like tiny evil monkeys on electric vines. Small and deadly power saws, needles, and drills.

“Oh, jeez, not this again,” Donovan said, his voice filled with exasperation. “What’s with you, man?” he said to Egesa. “Why don’t you give it up already?”

“I wish I could, but I can’t,” Egesa said. “She’s the reason. Your Cathren holds the answer to everything inside her little body. I must unearth it. I must.” He licked his lips. “Once I have the answer, the world is cured, yes? Perhaps I uncover the secret to immortality at the same time, as well. Then the Nobel Prize is mine!”
 

He balled his right hand into a tight fist and clenched it firmly, then he pounded it into his left palm. He stared straight ahead as if peering into the future at the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm. As if he stood there on the podium, the audience wildly applauding as he humbly accepted his much-deserved recognition.

After a moment, Egesa got a grip and shook it off. He gestured for the couple to move on and one of the goons gave Donovan a small shove for encouragement. A woman stood at the far end of the laboratory, wearing a green lab coat and a rainbow-colored scrub cap that hid her hair. She kept her back to the door as the group approached. Then, she slowly turned to face Donovan and Cathren. She smiled, carefully placing the scientific instrument in her hand onto the stainless steel table beside her.

“Hello, and welcome,” she said.
 

The voice and the smile belonged to Alena Portanova.

“Yes, yes,” Egesa said. “We are back together. The happy couple. All sins forgiven.”

He took a deep breath and a few strides forward and then kissed an unmoving Alena on the cheek. Egesa turned again to his audience. “We shall begin immediately.”

One of the thugs relieved Donovan of his Flying Fox backpack, thus putting an end to Donovan’s dream almost before it began. The goon tossed the package into the adjacent lab like a flattened basketball. The pack bounced and skidded across the stained and pitted linoleum floor, resting about ten feet from the entrance. The man closed and locked the steel doors separating the two rooms and stood there like a sentry.

Donovan whispered to Cathren, “Here we go again.” He felt torn between self-pity for the loss of his beloved Flying Fox and horror at what was now about to befall them.

“No, no, no,” Egesa said, having overheard Donovan’s comment. “No mistakes this time. This time, we will tie you down and only then will we begin the operation. The scientific man does not aim at immediate results, yes? He does not expect his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. No, his work is like that of the planner for the future. So, immediately to work, as I always say, but long to achieve.”
 

Outside, thunder cracked in the distance. A line of lightening scratched across the dark skies, followed right away by a thunderous boom. Egesa snapped on the various controls on the panels in front of him. The devices had so many switches, dials, and sliders it was like a musician’s mixing board. Thunder shuddered through the room again as Egesa pointed over his head.

“Today, we will triumph over Nature—over God himself!” He twisted his face into a half-smile, half-sneer. Behind him, the Tesla coils crackled and sparked, casting flickering shadows against the walls like in a vintage black-and-white movie. “Strap them down!” he cried over the crashing thunder. As the heavies moved in on Donovan and Cathren, Egesa added, “When you’re done, give me a hand over here.” He turned around and continued to yank without success at some cords and plugs.
 

The brutes grabbed the couple. Donovan attempted a counter-attack but he was far out of his weight class. After a brief but valiant struggle, with Cathren unfortunately remaining quite human, Donovan and Cathren resignedly laid down on separate tables, having finally given up the fight, given up all hope. The two goons secured them to the table without further incident and then strutted over to join Egesa. They helped him to pop apart various gadgets, gizmos, and thingamabobs as if they were playing with Legos. When finished, the hoodlums returned to their primary task: guarding the doors.

*
 
*
 
*

Meanwhile, Alena Portanova easily disengaged the eggquarium she had selected from its dock. She rolled the device toward the center of the room. Then she approached Donovan and Cathren and whispered, “I am here to help you. Things they are not what they seem. Do you know the American expression, ‘keep your enemies closer—?’”

“Yes,” Cathren said. “We’re familiar with that one.”

“Well, that is why I am here with Egesa,” Alena went on. “Like him, I believe the answer is in you, Cathren,” she continued. “The cure.” She paused. “Unlike Egesa, I don’t think we should destroy you to get it. That is not good. Anyways, besides, Cathren, I am surprised to be seeing you here. How many times am I to rescue you now? Even by the side of the road I find you, your car destroyed in the gulch below and you unconscious. I nurse you back to health only to have you run away into a city filled with zombies!”

“And your point?” Cathren asked. This woman had saved her in the past, true. Even so, Cathren found it hard to trust the partner of her worst enemy.

“So,” Portanova said, exhaling. “I want to suggest an alternate solution. Egesa wants blood samples for his own experiments. He is misguided, and only interested in fame and immortality. I will take your blood, as requested by Egesa. However, I will take the vials away, out of here, to a safe place. There, I will conduct my own experiments to find the cure to this undead disease.”

Cathren thought this over for a moment as Egesa finally puttered by with the second eggquarium, guiding the machine over to the one Alena had already parked next to Donovan and Cathren. The head within splashed, snarled, and snapped as the contraption was rolled into place.

“Dr. Portanova. What is the delay? Where are the blood samples?
Chop chop.
Soon we shall begin!”
 

“Almost done, doctor,” she said as he strolled back to the control panels across the room and then out the side door. To Cathren she said, “Now, you must hold quite still.”
 

Alena prepped Catherine’s arm with an alcohol swab. She inserted a needle into Catherine’s vein and filled one vial with the blood. And then another, and another, and another.

“Why so many?” Cathren whispered.

“Many tests. I don’t want to run out of your blood before I can find what I’m looking for.” She smiled. “Besides, you may well outlive us all. Do you want to be here all alone?”

“I don’t understand,” Cathren said. “What are you talking about?”

“Donovan. He is mortal. He is not like you. However, he is your lover, am I correct? Forgive me my intrusions, but we have so little time. Your Donovan, he might die. Today, tomorrow, a year from now. His moment will come, we can be certain of that.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Cathren said, her breath catching on a sob.

“Because,” Alena whispered, “I think I might be able to help. I can’t give you any guarantees, but I have a theory about you. Let me put it to the test with your Donovan. Let me put your blood in his body. A transfusion of whatever it is that makes you you.”

“No!” Cathren whispered loudly. “We don’t know what that would do. It could kill him.”

The metal door slammed as Egesa returned. “Are you done yet?” he called out from across the room.

“Doing it now, doctor. Only one more minute is needed.”

“Good, good. Time is of the essence. Tonight we make history!” Egesa theatrically shot his right arm skyward, palm up.

“This way, at least he—and you—can hold on to one small strand of hope in the coming future,” Alena continued, “that maybe he might survive a little longer than the average man.”

Cathren lay silent, tears running down her cheeks and onto the sheet covering the operating table she laid on. “I just don’t know,” she said.

“Do it,” Donovan said, joining the conversation between Alena and Cathren. Both women looked over at him.
 

“Don—” Cathren said. She tried to stretch her arm to reach over to him, but she was restricted by the straps that held her to the table.

“The procedure might kill you, you know,” Alena said to Donovan, “as easily as fix you. Are you sure you’re sure?”

“I’m dead sure.”

Egesa still had his back to the three of them, the electric panel at his side humming. Sparks danced along electrodes, filling the room with an eerie glow and a slight burning odor. Egesa continued his project of connecting hoses, wires, and cables, and screwing in bulbs and transmitters. The slow process was made more cumbersome and tedious by all of the interconnected electrical, ventilation, and irrigation systems attached to the eggquariums.
 

Alena worked at a frantic pace now, setting up a field transfusion system to pump some of Cathren’s blood into Donovan’s body. While the transfusion was underway, she grabbed the dozen and a half vials of blood she had taken from Cathren and sealed them. She then inserted each into a slot in a foam-filled metal briefcase, the exterior of which was bulletproof titanium filled with liquid nitrogen.

She turned to Donovan. “How do you feel?”

“A little queasy, but otherwise fine, I guess,” he said.

“Good, good. What about you, Cathren?”

“I’m fine,” she said, sniffling. “Considering you took half my blood.”

“You’re strong, don’t worry. When, and if, you see me again, a long, long time from today, perhaps I will have the cure to this zombie nightmare. For now, good luck.,” Alena Portanova said, “and Godspeed to you both.”

With that, she undid their straps, picked up her briefcase, and walked away. Donovan and Catherine finished removing their bindings. By the time they sat up, Alena had vanished.

“Ah,” Egesa said, turning away from his machinery at last. “Prometheus and girlfriend, unbound. No matter. Your fate is already sealed.” Egesa waved to his thuggish assistants. “Grab them!” Then he said, “Where’s Alena?” Egesa stood for a moment. He appeared to be lost in thought. “Never mind. Let’s begin.”

The goons held Donovan by his biceps, effectively locking him in place as Egesa approached Cathren. He gripped her by her wrist and twisted her arm behind her. She struggled and squirmed, but Egesa held onto her firmly. He jammed a needle into her arm and she fell to the ground unconscious.
 

“Cathren!” Donovan shouted. “You bastards, I’ll kill you. Let me go!”
 

Donovan attempted to lift himself off the ground as he’d seen done in various spy movies, to leverage the thug on either side of him as pivot points to get up somehow in the air. Then what? Knock them out with an awesome split kick? Donovan continued to struggle, but they had him where he couldn’t do anything. No martial arts, no bar-fight head-butts.

Meanwhile, Egesa laid Cathren on one of the operating tables and strapped her in place. He even had padlocks on the straps in a Frankenstein–looking setup. Cathren was so out of it, she drooled. Egesa powered up the machine above him and selected the sawing device.

“You watch, Mr. Codell. A master at work.”

He was going to operate on her while she was still alive!

“Egesa, you can’t do that! You can’t!” Donovan hollered.

“Shut him up,” Egesa said.
 

One of the brutes cuffed Donovan on the side of the head. Donovan closed his eyes as the room spun briefly.

“And yes I can,” Egesa continued. “In fact it’s the only way. I must have living organs. The heart still beating, the lungs still breathing. Don’t worry, she won’t feel a thing. Not only is she sedated, but her entire muscle and nervous system has shut down. She can’t move; she can’t awaken. She couldn’t sense pain even if I did this crudely. But I’m an expert. A man of science.” With that, he switched on the tiny buzz saw and slowly lowered it towards Cathren’s chest.

The pounding and moaning from the floor below echoed dully in the room. Hordes of the undead could soon be upon them. Donovan glanced at the steel doors of the lab and then back at Egesa.

Egesa had begun his first cut. The blade had ripped open Cathren’s shirt and was now etching her skin right above the breastbone. Despite being drugged, Cathren’s body jerked as if it were connected to high-voltage wires.