ZOMBIE'S DOOM? "Chronicles of Jack Doom" (45 page)

"You mean
we're
going to head back down south don't you?" Beth asked, smiling and raising her eyebrows.

Hoping that Beth would ask that exact question, I responded with a smile and a wink.

"Indeed I do honey, indeed I do."

You see back then I used to call her honey, of course that was before she found out that it was
bee shit
. Since then I have chosen my words a little more wisely.

We scurried out of the neighborhood as fast as we could, fearing that the pack of feral dogs might still be in the area, only hesitating momentarily on occasion, to alleviate any cannibalistic threats that tried to encumber our trek south.

Approximately 10 hours after we left the Sarge wishing that he'd never met me or Beth, the hue and saturation of the daylight began to change rapidly.

"What's happening?" Beth asked. "Everything is getting brighter and turning white.

"I see that," I answered.

Derek yelled. "What the fuck!"

Then we all heard Jolene scream.

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CAPTAIN XARR TO THE RESCUE

"Captain Xarr, all of the successful conscripts have been taken aboard the ship, and the pre-extinction bipedal carnivorous creatures have been released to destroy the remaining control groups left on the planet as per your orders," Lieutenant Zeem reported.

"Lieutenant Zeem, what determination have you made to cope with the remaining test subject groups that our research on this planet have found to be unsuitable for use in the Anunnaki military cause that has brought us to this world?" Captain Xarr asked.

"Captain Xarr, I have ordered that the genetic differentiation chips which were inserted into the pre-extinction bipedal carnivorous beasts prior to their initial release and properly readjusted after Lieutenant Jol's debacle to insure the proper result for our mission, to be again readjusted to reflect our needs concerning the remaining test subject groups." Lieutenant Zeem explained.

"Elaborate Lieutenant Zeem," Captain Xarr ordered.

With the fate of Private Jol, formally
Lieutenant
Jol fresh in his mind the replacement officer answered his captain.

"Captain Xarr!" Lieutenant Zeem shouted, as he snapped to attention for effect. "The latest adjustments made to the genetic differentiation chips will ensure through attrition, that the remaining test subject groups will no longer be able to travel unencumbered on the planet's surface or in their man-made subterranean caverns. All test subject groups or individual test subjects still existing on any one of the seven continents of this planet will be looked at as a main food source for the planet's prehistoric beasts we have released, and be devoured by them on sight."

"Excellent Lieutenant Zeem!" the Captain barked, indicating his approval. "You may not need to join Private Jol in the indoctrinating persecution chamber in Bay 5 after all.

"Yes Captain Xarr, I mean, No Captain Xarr," Lieutenant Zeem replied, as he again felt his over exerted sphincter muscle strain as it put a strangle hold on his overly exercised alimentary canal.

"Now bring me the sole survivor of the test subject group 32452013, the one that the earthers call Jack Doom," the commander ordered. "And see to it that no harm comes to the rest of his newly formed group, or any of the other test subject groups that were brought from the planet's surface."

"Yes, Captain Xarr!" Lieutenant shouted, before leaving the bridge to execute his Captain's orders.

******

The next thing that I remember, I found myself, along with Beth, Jolene, and Derek, sealed in a small metal room, and what could only be described as oversized metal furnishings that were somehow seamlessly affixed to our encapsulating metallic space.

"What the fuck just happened Jack?" Derek asked.

"I have no idea what the fuck just happened," I answered, as I surveyed the enclosure for a door.

Beth looked around the room and at each one of us and remarked. "I don't know what the fuck happened either, but I know I don't fucking like it."

"I'm scared," Jolene admitted, as she clung to Derek.

"Where are all my weapons?" I asked, making a cursory search of myself. "And the rest of my stuff (meaning Cassandra's titty bag)?"

"All my shit's gone too," Derek said, patting himself down.

"All of our stuff's gone, except our clothes," Beth announced, looking around the room.

"I don't see a door or window in this place, how in the hell did we get in here?" Derek wondered, holding Jolene tightly.

"The question isn't how did we get in here, the question is how are we going to get out of here," I said, now running my hands along the surface of the walls. "There are no seams anywhere, not on the wall, or the floor and ceiling, not even in the corners."

Still hugging Derek tightly Jolene recalled her last memory.

"We were just walking along and then we were here," she said.

"Yeah, the last thing that I remember seeing was that cool '51 Chevy sitting right where we parked it, and then everything faded out to a bright blinding white, and then this place," Derek added, with a look of concern on his face. "What the fuck?"

"Whatever is going on, it looks like we're stuck here until someone lets us out," I surmised, still probing for some kind of an opening, and thinking that the confines of the metallic structure reminded me of that burnt out tank, without the dead bodies and smell.

"Well somebody better let us out soon, I'm starting to get claustrophobic," Derek acknowledged, with a hint of panic on his face.

"Me too," Beth said, with the same look on her face.

I didn't say anything, but I was beginning to feel the same way, and with Jolene scared of her own shadow most of the time, I figured that she was more panic stricken than any of us.

Several hours passed and we were all about at the end of our ropes, the hard cold and oversized metal furniture was beginning to get very uncomfortable no matter how we tried to adjust ourselves on it.

We guessed that the shiny metal monolith emitting a very low bass tone vibration that was standing at a slightly awkward height in the middle of the room was a toilet. That was the only thing we could think of that such an odd-looking contraption with a hole in the top could be used for, but nobody was to the point that they were ready to test the theory, at least not yet, especially the girls. However, we all knew that it was only a matter of time before someone in the room was going to have to be the first to make the choice of either testing the metallic megalith, or dropping a series of deuces in their drawers.

Fortunately for me, as fate would have it, I wasn't chosen to be the first one to be put on display in front of my peers. That honor went to Jolene who had consumed a whole bottle of water just before we found ourselves trapped. However, she too was fortunate, that she did not have to drop the kids off at the pool; she only had to adjust the pH balance of the water after several long minutes of doing her version of an Indian rain dance in front of us. That is if there was any water in that strange mechanism at the center of our new metal world.

After Jolene had thoroughly tested the humming monolith and found that it was not only a toilet, but it was a self-flushing toilet at that.

To no one's surprise, Derek decided that if the toilet in the middle of the room was up to Jolene's apocalyptic standards, it was definitely up to his own standards, and quickly dropped trou and conducted his own extensive tests on the metal mechanism.

Moments after Derek had finished his session on the oversized commode, one of the walls of the room seemed to melt away forming a doorway, and an odd-looking, what I believed to be a male, stepped through the opening and addressed me.

His outfit was not one that was familiar to me, however it slightly resembled a uniform that would have been worn by a Nazi officer during World War II.

"Jack Doom?" the uniformed
person
asked in a monotone voice.

Thinking that we were finally about to get some answers to where we were and why we were there, I answered back in a monotone voice.

"I'm Jack Doom, who are you?"

"I am Lieutenant Zeem. I have been ordered to bring you to Captain Xarr," the Lieutenant answered, again in a monotone voice.

"This guy's military," I said, looking back at Derek. "Maybe now we'll get some answers."

"It's about time!" Beth stated. "Tell them to let us out of this tin can, or at least give us private quarters."

"You will follow me now," Lieutenant Zeem ordered, as he turned and walked away, leaving two other odd-looking
people
also in uniform standing on either side of the doorway to escort me.

Anxious to get the hell out of that metal room I didn't hesitate to follow the Lieutenant down a long hallway and into an elevator with the two others at my side.

However, as I walked along, I wondered who in the hell are these guys. I had done my time in the Marine Corps and been many places around the world, but I didn't recognize their uniforms or insignias.

"
They might be CIA or NSA
," I thought. After all, with all the high tech shit I was seeing they couldn't be regular military. But no one in those two organizations wore uniforms, except for their low level security personnel. At least not dress uniforms like these guys were sporting.

Maybe they were some foreign group of fighters like the Israeli Mossad, but then they didn't wear uniforms either, at least not that I knew of.

I didn't have any of the answers I was looking for, and when I did finally did get to the truth, I wished that I hadn't.

So, once in the elevator I asked the Lieutenant.

"What's going on here? Who are you people? Why did you bring us here? When are you going to let us...?"

Lieutenant Zeem interrupted in an irritated tone.

"Captain Xarr will answer all of your questions, please remain silent until you are asked to reply to any inquiries that the Captain may have."

Right off the bat, this clown's arrogant attitude didn't sit well with me. I'd been through too much shit, I'd seen too much shit, and I'd done too much shit, to take a bunch of crap from some want-to-be soldier in a pristine uniform that looked and spoke like he'd never even seen a zombie, let alone killed one.

I thought. "
If we were out on the street, I'd plant my tomahawk in this guy's foot just to teach him a lesson in etiquette
."

However, we weren't out on the street, and I didn't have my tomahawk or anything else.

Therefore, I stood there between the two escorts, kept my mouth shut, and waited to see this Captain Xarr character the Lieutenant kept yapping about.

The elevator doors opened and we stepped into some sort of futuristic looking control room.

The room was configured in a circle with panels of colored lights, monitors, gauges, knobs, and joysticks, and every panel had a person sitting in front of it operating that particular station.

Centered in the middle of the room was a command chair on a swivel, with buttons and switches encased in both arms.

Sitting in the command chair was a very confident looking man in a different colored uniform than the rest of the people in the control room. He was busy attending to his duties and giving orders to the other
soldiers
.

"Captain Xarr, Lieutenant Zeem reporting as ordered."

"Excellent Lieutenant Zeem, I see you brought the test subject as ordered," the Captain remarked.

"Yes Captain Xarr, as you ordered."

"Mr. Doom I presume. May I call you Mr. Doom?" Captain Xarr asked, not waiting for my answer. "Mister Doom, I wanted to meet with you personally and answer any questions that you might have that may concern you."

Deja vu hit me like a ton of bricks, but I just couldn't put my finger on it.

"What's going on here? Who are you people? Why did you bring us here? When are you going to let us go?" I asked, staring at the Captain.