High Water (10 page)

For Pete, the rescue was incredibly thoughtful for Walter, who wasn’t always the most responsible person. “Well damn. You did good, Walter,” he said. “Great story too.”

Walter nodded, and they shared a moment of silence. Pete thought about the people he’d ruthlessly savaged and whether they could have been saved. He thought of how close he was to losing Liz when she turned her head and he saw a yellowing bruise at her hairline. He thought of the events that led to such a catastrophe and what neglect could wreak on you if you let it.

Liz grinned and broke the silence first, “Well, after
that
story, I’m feeling pretty thirsty.”

She dreamt of a place she didn’t recognize, red heat coloring her mind’s eye. The underground chamber was cold and damp and stank of the grave. Berenice saw her dead relatives, frozen in stillness. Her heart broke all over again. Her favorite, Uncle Shank, sat in his antique chair with a full glass of whiskey and a word halfway formed on his lips. A woman she barely recognized, maybe his first wife, stood with hands on her hips and a genuine smile resting on her face. An ancient couple, her great grandparents, sat to the side. They held hands while watching the generations arrive to the dark hall one by one. Figures more ancient still paraded into the background. There was a fisherman holding up a brace of saltwater fish and shouting. Beside him was a man hanging mid swing from a gallows. Far, far away, Berenice could just make out a proud, beautiful woman.   Bedecked in fine gilded riding clothes, the woman smiled sublimely at her through the ages.

The dank chamber was a place for the dead.

Around the corner of her uncle’s ancient wooden chair came an orange, white and black cat, stalking through wooden and fleshy legs. Emotion swelled in Berenice’s breast. She cried out:

“Apricot! Come here, girl!”

At the sound of a voice among the silent dead, the cat dodged around her late father. A long piece of ash dangled precariously on his cigarette from his infinitely long pull. Shivers ran down the dreamer’s spine as she remembered what her father had done to her.

The feline purred as it rubbed against her leg and drove the chill from Berenice’s veins. The touch filled her with longing and love. Pets had always been more than family and had been solace from the pains of her life. As suddenly as it had touched her, the creature ran slipping around her into the inky blackness.

“No! Don’t leave, Apricot, not again…” she moaned.

Berenice turned fully around, and a host of eyes stared back at her. Far, far above and beyond loomed a giant, a titan with a feline countenance. It beheld her with great interest. Berenice couldn’t focus on its enormous, dizzying stature.  Instead she looked at the legion of glowing eyes, gasping, and then crying out in joy at what she saw. Apricot, her dearest cat, had been dead three years now but she stood proud like a lioness. All of her cats joined the multitude of souls resting eternally in the darkness: Tammy, black except for a patch above her right eye. Squire the tri-color male, a rare specimen indeed and Clarence, the grey fool.

The loud sound of a metal door opening caused Berenice to cry out loudly. One by one the eyes closed resembling points of light blinking into darkness. As the last cat closed its eyes, the looming titan burst into a thousand fluttering beetles.

Berenice kicked in her sleep, vaguely aware that she was also in a room of sleek metal surfaces and cold tile.  Her wrists chafed against the restraints as she writhed while her sweat pooled on a cheap plastic mattress. The thigh length cotton shift she wore was in disarray. Her hair in, a similar state about her face, irritated two big swollen eyes. A cold numbness beginning in her arm swept through her as a liquid injection from an IV did something insidious to her body. A pounding headache knocked away behind her forehead at the beat of her heart and a sickly fruit smell seemed to ooze from her pores.

Her mind was aware but ravaged by disease. Berenice felt the presence of others through her fever dream. Something else was at the foot of her bed. Two of them loomed over her.

“So this is patient zero?” a gruff male voice asked. He sounded unenthusiastic. “No small feat sneaking her out of the hospital.”

A cold, winter-like voice answered back, a woman, “She wasn’t missed, if that’s what you mean. Just another crazy cat lady, sick in the brain not even aware of it.” There was icy pause yet it was full of thought. “Then the local hospitals had their hands full after the disaster. Your soldiers found it was not difficult to spirit her out. You know we
had
to find her after we received the sample.”

Berenice’s fever-addled brain supplied spectral faces for the voices. His, a blank faced grizzly bear, hers a snowy owl.

“How
did
you get that sample, after all?” the bear said, flicking its ears.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” the owl replied. “In any case, we can back track the mutation from what was in the water in that god forsaken playground back to our patient zero here.”

“Hmmm… helpful.” the bear said.

“Undoubtedly.”

The bear asked, “She stinks. How have you kept her alive?”

“Very carefully.”

There was a pause. “I still find it hard to believe she’s forgotten,” the bear asked. He sounded bored.

The owl responded, contempt bleeding into the reply, “If Highwater wanted the research necessary to fully understand the mutation, they could have found the time and space to do it themselves. At least they could have done the legwork to get a sample that wasn’t locked down. As it is, we are handling
both
the sample and patient zero.” The owl paused when the bear said nothing. Berenice had no idea what they were talking about.

The owl provided a somewhat tempered afterthought: “I am certain that Highwater’s investment will pay off.”

The bear grunted, “Make certain it does.” Berenice heard the sound of his footsteps leaving.

A hard hearted chuckle followed from the owl as she flew away. A door slammed, jarring the dreamer from sleep.

Alone in the darkness, Berenice screamed as the protozoa continued its heinous claim to her body and mind.

Continued in Part 2…

The genesis of this story was a “
highdea
”. Smoking and grooving to
last.fm
one night, my wife and I saw a picture of a Bob Marley concert where a crowd of listeners were standing in a waist-deep pool below the stage. Such a foul idea, when combined with a zombie-infection leitmotif, was perfect fodder for a horror story. I am forever indebted to my wife for the inspiration and the help with the story along the way.

MM was the first to read a draft, back when this was a (very) short story, and told me that it needed more. The story really came alive after that small piece of advice. My mom helped out quite a bit with editing, and of course, talking me into publishing this like it was actually something people would read! Thank you for that encouragement.

The story wouldn’t be what it is without the kung fu. SD was a great teacher (while it lasted), and my own fucked-up imagination really worked wonders in conjunction with my Shaolin training. I still train to this day, albeit on my own. You don’t forget things like how to tear out someone’s throat or work their arms in the most painful possible direction. Everyone in the studio, including my lovely wife, has my thanks for my own lack of skill, and all the times I accidentally hit them in the face.

Have to thank my brother for beta-reading, and the several people that were an inspiration for Walter, including RM, JG, MT and MC. My dad has always said the line about “old age and treachery”, which makes more sense the older I get.

Thanks to DH and NM for answering my newbie questions about self-publishing. It was truly helpful.

Special thanks to two scientists that helped me get started on
Toxo’s
trail, KD and JW.

The cover artwork was done by VE, and he put up with my requests long enough to create it. Thanks dude!

The font used on the cover image was “Heavyweight”, which I found on Font Squirrel. Pugnacity just seemed to bleed off my screen when I brought it up. It’s my go-to for this series. 

In terms of film, gaming, and literature that inspired this book, I think some of it is obvious: George Romero,
28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead
,
Dead Alive,
Half Life, Versus,
D&D,
Urban Dead
, and so much more
.
I’ve been a big fan of our undead/infected brethren for as long as I can remember, and ‘killed’ more zombies that I have seconds to breathe this earth’s air. But to keep our zombies smelling fresh, you have to make it your own, and hopefully I did that in this book and the next two.

When it came to writing, I have to thank George RR Martin for emailing me back that one time to tell me about his creative process. Stylistically, everything I read informed the text. Horror, sci-fi, romance, whatever, it all bleeds into your prose. Let it bleed.

Also worth noting is that I basically wrote this story during my downtime at work. Thank you, folks, for refusing to give me that promotion and letting me continue to work a job where I can get away with something like this. Somehow it still always felt like stealing, but I suppose aimlessly surfing the net on work time counts as stealing too. The end result is much cooler in this case, though. My supervisor and mentor, DC, told me to write under a
nom de plume
without even asking what I wrote about (hilarious), and that was sound advice.

Finally, thank you to all the other tokers out there, who make the world a kinder, more caring place to live in and continually reinforce the importance of sharing.

Be sure to pick up Part Two of
High Water
on Amazon.com, Createspace, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, available now!

Visit our site,
www.potfiction.com
or on twitter @pot_fiction. You can find suggested soundtracks, updates, and release dates there. 

If you have something to tell us, please up
[email protected]
.