DISEASE: A Zombie Novel (16 page)

Judy’s mind might have been swirling if it wasn’t for the incessant itching of the damnable uniform against her skin. Rub, rub, rub. It was crazy making. Her skin felt raw and swollen, but she supposed it was a blessing. If the scratching, pulling, pinpricking of the fabric wasn’t there, she’d have nothing else to focus on. It kept her grounded.

She gently played with the blue-spiraled triangle at her throat. It was brand new and beautiful. She felt high. Maybe she was, on the revving cocktail of endorphins. Scratch, scratch, scratch—it was so bad it almost felt good and she was intoxicated on those good feelings, so much so she probably could have pounded a nail through her palm and it would’ve felt amazing.

She quietly surveys the sleeping boys before her. Two rows of young children, not a single one over the age of thirteen. Angelic faces, eyes closed, dreaming of snippets and snails and puppy dog tails. Their blankets tucked under their chins, not a single soul awake.

Now, on her first shift at the Saint Nicolas Institute for Troubled Boys, she felt vindicated. She deserved this—had worked so hard to get here, triumphed against all odds. It was all worth it to be close to them. Every sleepless night spent studying, every meal missed because she couldn’t afford groceries after paying for textbooks and tuition. Every person who goaded her about finding a man and settling down, who looked at her cockeyed for wanting to be a “career woman”. No one would care for these boys as she would.

Judy quietly stepped down the middle of the isle, surveying her sleeping wards. One little face above all the others caught her eye, a thin boy with blond hair. This one had a splash of freckles that highlighted his cheekbones in such a handsome way. He was so peaceful it was hard to imagine he had done anything worthy of landing him a spot in this place.

Judy made a mental note to read over the child’s file. Hector, Hector Griffin. These boys only ended up here as a last resort. Not a single one was as angelic as he looked.

Little Hector, what have you done?

When she interviewed for the position the head administrator had listed off some of the horrible crimes the children had committed. Murder, rape, sodomy… at such a young age. One had even shot, gutted, and skinned the neighbor’s dog because its owner let it shit on his mother’s lawn one too many times.

Judy was undeterred. “They just need someone to love them,” she responded.

The administrator wanted order above all else. He didn’t want trouble, and he didn’t want waves. “When they’re fourteen they’re not our problem anymore, Judy. They can be released back to their families, or put into the state prison system, depending on what you recommend. I’ve seen a lot of people come through here with lofty goals. They think they can rehabilitate every boy in here.”

Judy smiled sweetly at him. “I have no such illusions and I know the difference I can make is only a small one, but I’m willing to be happy with that. I don’t think I can save these boys, I only want to improve the time they spend with us.”

“I’ve stopped counting the number of people I’ve hired for this position. We can’t have someone in here that’s a soft touch. These boys will eat you alive if you can’t follow through with discipline.”

Judy folded her hands into her lap and considered the man before her. He was short, slightly balding, and a sickly greyish color. Maybe he had once held that same lofty hope to rehabilitate the boys, but true to form they had indeed eaten him alive. She smiled reassuringly at the pallid imp across the desk.

“I assure you, sir, that I am no stranger to using a firm hand when necessary.”

She was hired on the spot.

***

They were nearly ready to beat down the door after the incident with Danny. It wasn’t quite a mob, but it certainly wasn’t a calm and orderly gathering. Was Lot okay? Was the search party going to kill Danny? What did he want with the child? Who exactly is Alex anyway?

Lot let the pot simmer, hiding away and refusing to answer questions. Now, as she stands at the end of a large conference room jammed with citizens, it’s time to bring it to a boil.

Despite the shocking circumstances that have everyone riled up, there is an electricity in the air that can only be described as festive. The anger-fueled excitement is palpable, the unfolding drama a break from the monotony of people’s dreary existences. Men, women, and children all stretch their necks to catch a glimpse of their beloved leader.

A hush surges through the crowd as Lot holds up a hand for silence, wincing at the pain in her battered arm. Those close to her murmur in concern.

Once the room is quiet, Lot speaks, her heavyhearted voice carrying over the heads of her loyal subjects. “Please, everyone. I know you all have questions.”

A few random people shout displeasure. “What’s going on?”

“You should have called this meeting yesterday!”

There is shushing.

“No, no. It’s okay. They are valid questions. The truth is, it’s taken me so long to gather you all here because I didn’t know what to say. I’ve never dealt with anything like this, and I am also embarrassed, so deeply ashamed to have to share with you my darkest days.”

Murmurs ripple through the crowd. Opie waves his hand impatiently to calm people down.

“Tell us, Lot.”

“What’s going on?”

“I consider you all family, you know this, my brothers and sisters, but there’s only one person I ever considered to be my son: Danny.”

Hissing and jeering fills the room.
Good
. Lot looks down at the ground, fending off tears for the benefit of the group. A few voices rise, telling others to quiet down, to shut up. Lot composes herself and continues, her voice wavering with emotion.

“I have been weak… Danny is a predator… I did my best to contain him, and his urges. I thought I could shelter you all from him, that I had him under control, but I was blinded by my own selfish need to have my son by my side.”

Her words sit on the room, suffocating it, no one knows what to say or how to react. Lot stands hunched before the crowd, a fragile mother, beaten down by the reality of what her son has done. She wobbles on her feet and reaches out a hand for Opie, who stabilizes her. A few tears escape, sliding down her cheek.

“I never thought he would do this, that it could come to this. I knew he was… deviant… but I thought I could help him, change him. Now he’s taken the boy Alex, for his own uses. A search party has gone after him with the slim hope of saving the child.”

Silence. The crowd is breathless, but it only takes one person to burst the levee. Hannah, Jamal’s mother, the defense-lawyer turned mortician, breaks free of the crowd and steps forward.

She kneels before Lot and takes her leader’s hand. “We can’t begin to repay you for everything you’ve done for us,” Hannah looks over her shoulder challenging the leering crowd. “You’ve done something for every single one of us here. You’ve given us food when we were hungry, antibiotics when we were sick, and shelter when we were cold. You’ve provided us training and taught us skills to survive. You’ve been a shoulder to cry on when we thought we had nothing. You’ve always kept order fairly and selflessly and I’ll never turn my back on you. You are mother to us all.”

Almost instantly, consoling hands surround Lot. They pat her, and hug her. Lips on her cheeks, hands on her arm. Fingers reach out and brush her hair, touch her blouse and the skirt she now wears. They want to feel her. The crowd churns with worshipers desperate to see, to be seen, to comfort, to encourage.

They press in, swarming like ants, the entire room a living mass with Lot as its head.

***

Opie holds the door to the hallway allowing a frail and overwhelmed Lot through. The people are still trying to reach her, some are even crying. It’s been going on like this for about an hour, and Opie has never seen anything like it. This is the kind of fervor he imagines enshrouded the followers of Elvis Presley or Mahatma Gandhi… or Adolf Hitler.

He closes the door, shutting out the crushing force of the crowd, and holds up a candle against the dark. They are alone and can finally breathe.

The mass religious experience Opie just witnessed is a side note to the metamorphosis taking place before him, right now. He’s seen behind Lot’s mask uncountable times, but this stuns even his jaded eyes. The penanced camouflage of a crestfallen leader slides easily from her face, leaving cold control and manipulation in its place.

Lot wipes her face free of tears, fake, every single one, and smiles at Opie. “That went well, don’t you think?”

Opie nods just once. Up. Down. Never in his life has he been so grateful to be on Lot’s good side. He had warned Danny not to poke a stick at the lion and had been ignored. If the fugitive isn’t dead already Lot will surely make him wish he was, and those clowns in the other room will pat themselves on the back for a job well done.

***

Lot stands at a window, staring out. Thick vines grow at her feet and cling to window glass. She’s on the top floor of the hotel, her performance in the boardroom hours past. It’s the only place without fortified windows, the only area that has any natural light.

Many of the southern-facing rooms have been converted to crop growing space. As the colony grows, so does its food needs, and while the outdoor courtyard in the middle of the hotel produces plenty of fruits and vegetables, it just isn’t an adequate supply to feed all the hungry mouths. For now the indoor farm helps, and is a temporary measure until a safe outdoor area can be constructed.

On the north side, where the least sun shines, they keep chickens and even a few goats. Eggs and milk are a staple of the community’s diet. Without them, protein would be much harder to come by.

Lot finds it relaxing to be up here. This is the only place she can find true escape. It’s easy to imagine she’s in an atrium, in some exotic location. One of the only things she misses about the Old World is being able to travel, and to see the sights at will.

She has been to Paris once, and had always planned to go back. It isn’t a dream she’s prepared to give up. There still has to be functioning jetliners out there in the world somewhere, and the pilots to fly them.

Lot thinks in a few years, when she has solidified her hold on the surrounding communities, she can round up former electricians and engineers. People that might know a thing or two about maintaining infrastructure. She envisions a time when she commands authority over large swaths of countryside.

There is a power plant about sixty miles northeast. With the proper people and TLC, maybe it can be brought back online. From there it’s only a skip and a hop to modern niceties such as travel.

The world would come back to life under her guiding hand. No more politicians, no more pretend democracy. Only what Lot, and others like her, created. Like many things in life, the destruction of civilization is just a blessing in disguise.

Before The Plague, “The Center” was under investigation for tax fraud. It was a desperate move by law enforcement to find something, anything that could be used against her.

They were scared of her growing influence.

It started after the suicide of a church member, who also happened to be the son of a politician. All hell had rained down. First the FBI, then the IRS. There were raids and interrogations, but not a single person broke. Her people always remained loyal, they loved her more than their own children. She made sure of it.

The authorities discovered nothing. The ruse to investigate her found every “t” crossed and “i” dotted. Even the donated life savings of every member of her group had been claimed as income, but that hadn’t stopped the harassment.

When the world disintegrated it took with it the e-mail hacking, the wire-tapping, the nonstop phone calls and pointless raids. It took the greedy lawyers, obsessed prosecutors, and disgruntled family members. Lot was able to spin The Plague as evidence of divine intervention to her followers and cinch her position of power even in the face of death.

Of course very few of those faithful, original followers were spared, just Opie, Danny, and a handful of others. Only two of those people know her true face, and that number is about to fall by one. Should have fallen years ago, Opie has been right all along.

Anger burns inside of Lot like a hot coal. She just can’t let Danny’s betrayal go. How
dare
he, the one thought that runs on a loop. How dare he try to turn those that love her against her? How dare he take what is hers? How dare he think he can leave her? She owns him.

Lot watches the forest. The land is still. Not a single creature to be seen, no movement, nothing. It is deceptively stagnant outside. If she could make the search team appear with sheer force of will, she would.

They had better locate Danny.

As much as she wants to see his head on a pike, she wants to see him suffer more. She wants to look into his eyes and see defeat. She wants him to know he never had a chance, not against her. She wants to break his spirit and his body. She wants to see him beg and when he begs, not for mercy, but for death, she will draw out his torture. She wants him to know that she can’t be beaten, that he is nothing. She wants to consume his soul.

Lost in obsession, Lot continues to stare out the window, longing for the search party to bring Danny back alive. Big plans have already been set into motion and everything will be ready when they drag him back, kicking and screaming. God, she hopes he screams.