Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (47 page)

Mark dresses warm, bundling up in a heavy coat and two layers of jeans. His feet crunch in the snow as he walks down the quiet streets that had once been the epicenter of some of Cincinnati’s most vibrant night life. Mount Adams, also known as “The Hill”, and home to the Holy Immaculata, is a Anthony Barnhart

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neighborhood of narrow, winding streets, ornate Victorian homes and once-beautiful gardens. Shops and restaurants line the streets, speckled by villas with panoramic views of downtown Cincinnati, the snaking Ohio River, and the snow-draped hills of northern Kentucky. He walks past the windows of several art galleries and glass-blowing shops, but the dust and ice over the glass prevents him from looking inside. Mark passes a large wooden sign that rests before the entrance to Eden Park, just a few blocks from the church; the sign reads MT ADAMS and gives a short history of the community. It was originally called Mt. Ida, but the name was changed in 1843 to honor President John Quincy Adams, who visited the community to dedicate the Cincinnati Observatory. In the early 1800s, the hill was the home to the Nicholas Longworth Vineyard; the Catawba grape was developed in his winery, and it became the key ingredient of America’s first champagne, “Golden Wedding.” Mt. Adams was, at one time, the center of winemaking in America. Mark walks past the sign, following a snow-covered trail lined with naked trees stripped of leaves. The trail weaves past several benches and an assortment of gazebos, eventually emerging into a large clearing with a reflection pool. The fountain that had sat in the middle of the pool no longer bubbles, and the water is covered with a heavy layer of ice and countless inches of snow, nearly invisible—had Mark not known it was there, he would have imagined it to simply be a low hill. The wind coming up the slopes of the hill cuts through him. His breath crystallizes before his eyes, and he decides to turn back and return to the church. Dinner is approaching, and perhaps the man will feel like eating tonight.

The next day has come, and the boy stands in the library, looking over the books. He remembers his time at the house, remembers the days filled with monotonous boredom. He is thankful for the friendships he has forged, but yet he itches for something to do. This itching has drawn him to the library. He spots one book in particular: a dictionary sitting on a lectern. He finds this strange, a dictionary—of all books possible—given the prominent position. He nearly walks past, amused, but then he remembers the nurse’s words, about the word her son had circled in the dictionary. He refuses to believe that this is the very same dictionary, but he finds himself cautiously flipping it open, perusing the pages. He flips each leaf quietly, so as not to attract attention. He goes through the letters one-by-one. He reaches “V”, and his heart hammers:
What if the boy had circled “Vampire”?
But

“Vampire” sits quietly and unmarked. He draws a deep breath and nearly shuts the dictionary, but a burst of wind from a crack in the high window ruffles the pages, and suddenly he finds himself staring down at a letter circled in crude marker:

He reads the entry slowly:

VARIANT: ALSO ZOM-BI

FUNCTION:
NOUN

ETYMOLOGY: LOUISIANA CREOLE OR HAITIAN CREOLE
ZONBI
, OF BANTU ORIGIN; AKIN TO

KIMBUNDU
NZUMBE
GHOST

DATE: CIRCA 1871

1.

A MIXED DRINK MADE OF SEVERAL KINDS OF RUM, LIQUEUR, AND FRUIT JUICE

2.

INTO AND REANIMATE A DEAD BODY

3.

A WILL-LESS AND SPEECHLESS HUMAN IN THE WEST INDIES CAPABLE ONLY OF

REANIMATED

4.

A PERSON HELD TO RESEMBLE THE SO-CALLED WALKING DEAD

Anthony Barnhart

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5.

It is the last entry that catches his attention and makes his heart freeze behind his ribs:

6.

IN POPULAR CULTURE, A HUMAN BEING THAT HAS BEEN STRIPPED OF ITS

PERSONALITY, EMOTIONS, AND SOCIAL CONDITIONING; A HUMAN THAT IS

V

“I wondered when you would find that.”

He jumps at the sound, spinning around. The dictionary falls to the floor. The blond-haired young man laughs. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“No, it’s okay,” Mark says. “It’s just…” He shakes his head.

“Surreal? I know.” He walks forward, bends down, picks up the dictionary, puts it back. Mark steps away. “It doesn’t sound plausible.”

“You told Kyle you think these things are vampires.”

“Yeah.”

“And that sounds more plausible?”

Mark shakes his head. “I don’t know what the hell to think.”

Anthony nods, looks around the library. “I was at the University of Cincinnati when this happened. I was finishing up my Master’s in Counseling. The MAC they called it. Anyways, in one of the classes… ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY, I believe… we had to research a strange field in psychology. I always loved zombie movies. Hated zombie books but loved zombie movies. So I chose to research zombies. My professor found it laughable, but I did my research well. Do you know where the zombie ‘myth’ originated?”

Mark shakes his head,
No
.

Anthony nods. “I didn’t think so. Around the 1960s, a voodoo priest used neurotoxins from the Japanese blowfish to zombify people and to put them to work on the plantations.”

Mark raises his eyebrows, incredulous.

“There are certain kinds of poisons that slow down bodily functions to the point where a person can be considered dead. One such poison is from the Japanese blowfish. The neurotoxin is extremely potent, and it can render a person paralyzed, to the point of near death: the heartbeat slows so much that only an exceptionally trained doctor can tell that the person is still alive. Now. When the neurotoxin wears off, what happens to the person? The person ‘comes back to life.’ There’s a sideeffect, though: their brains are so damaged that they can only live in a trance-like state, though able to do simple tasks. Like eating and sleeping. Or… working on plantations. This became big news in 1962. Clairvius Narcisse, a Haitian man, was declared dead by two doctors and buried. Eighteen years later, in the 1960s, he was spotted wandering around the village. It terrified the people, of course. Eventually they realized that the culprit was a voodoo priest, ‘killing’ victims with the neurotoxin and then, when they regained consciousness in a nearly brain-dead state, he would put them to work on sugar plantations. He got sloppy with Narcisse.”

Mark asks, “So you think that this is some kind of neurotoxin? An airborne chemical?”

Anthony laughs. “I would say that’s ridiculous, but what other explanations are there?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

Anthony Barnhart

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“Several more, actually,” Anthony says, surprising him. “One example is brain parasites.”

Mark raises an eyebrow. “Brain parasites?”

“Yeah. Scientists have found brain parasites that could turn victims into mindless, zombie-like slaves.
Toxoplasmosa gondii
is an example. If infects rats, but it can also breed inside the intestines of a cat. It only affects rats, and when it gets inside a rat, it takes over its brain, making it scurry towards where cats live. Thus the rat is led by the parasite to a place where it can be eaten, and the parasite then infects the cat. Ironically, this parasite infected at least
half
of the human population, and it has the tendencies to promote personality changes and to even cause insanity. So. If a
toxoplasmosa
were to evolve to the point where it causes the same effects in humans as it does in rats, it could push the world towards a zombie apocalypse: humans driven mad, with no instinct for self-preservation or rational thought.”

Anthony and Mark had talked for several hours that day, and Mark went to bed thinking about what the young man had said. Anthony had mentioned that it was possible for a simple virus to mutate to the point of infecting the entire population with its affects. Theoretically speaking, a virus
could
mutate and turn humans into mindless killing machines. In psychology, several brain disorders have been found that do the exact same thing, though they aren’t contagious. Anthony had brought up the Mad Cow Disease that had swarmed Europe several years ago: the virus attacked the cow’s spinal cord and brain, turning it into a stumbling, mindless, rage-infested animal. When Mad Cow disease entered humans who ate meat, the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease emerged: the symptoms included changes in walking, hallucinations, lack of coordination, muscle twitching, myoclonic jerks and seizures, and rapidly escalating delirium and dementia. While those people didn’t go around killing and eating people, some scientists secretly feared—only to become public about it later—that the virus could mutate to the point of infecting humans with the same violent tendencies that it had displayed with cows. Anthony had also mentioned Neurogenesis, a scientific term for the re:growing of dead brain tissue, practiced—prior to the plague—in laboratories all around the world. Recent experiments, at the time of his writing of the paper, had sought to reanimate dead brain tissue: they were largely successful, except the brain cortex—the part of the brain that made people nice, giving them personality and such—could not be re:grown. The end result was basic motor function and primitive instincts. If neurogenesis took place with a human—whether at the hands of doctors or, even, at the hands of a virus or germ—the result would be a mindless body shambling about, deprived of thoughts and personality, nothing but an organism of primal instincts and impulses. The definition of a real-life zombie: the living dead.

VI

The man is up and walking again. He takes the first few days easily, and then he spends an entire day in conversation with Harker. Harker drained the man emotionally, requesting to know everything the man had experienced, and he was obscenely interested in the man’s study on vampires, despite the man’s protest that all of it was myth and legend with no scientific backing, nothing of use to the community or to anyone anywhere. Mark had waken up the next morning to find the man and Harker dressed in warm clothing; he had walked into the lower level of the church to help prepare for breakfast—it was his turn to help with the cooking—and found the man holding an M4. Mark had asked what was happening, and Harker explained that the man had a serious question that needed a serious answer. That was the end of the discussion. Mark had wanted to come along, but Harker had Anthony Barnhart

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said
No
; not because of Mark’s youthfulness, but rather because Mark already had plans to assist in the breakfast. Harker and the man had grabbed one of the snowmobiles in the basement—an extra had been added to the tally of snowmobiles, thanks to Adrian’s daring navigation through downtown Cincinnati at night—and they passed through the gate in the fence and vanished down towards the river.

The wind bites at the man’s face as they weave between the snow-covered wrecks that line the freeway. The man tries to spot his house, but a slight snow begins to fall, despite the glaring sun, and the speed of the snowmobile tearing through the snowfall blinds him. They take the bridge across the river, and the man is bothered at Harker’s speed. They descend into Newport and are soon driving between abandoned bars and Newport on the Levee. The parking lots are crammed full, the bars having been flooded with people when the plague struck. Eventually they wander down a sidestreet, and Harker slows the snowmobile, and they come to a stop in front of what had, at one time, been a police station. “Here we go,” Harker says; “Stay alert. We don’t want any surprises… As if we have a choice.”

They make their way through the snow to the front entrance. The door is gone, lying underneath the snow, and the sunlight pours within, drenching the walls and the rain-stained carpets. The wintry draft tears through the man’s bones as they make their way through the lobby, past several offices, and finally down a separate corridor. Another door hangs open, long-abandoned spider-webs dangling from the corners of the door. Harker leads the way into the room, steps aside, lets the man come behind him. The man, who is holding the gun rigid, lets it slowly fall down to his side, his eyes engulfing the site.

“We came here a few months after the plague struck. It’s where we got the assault rifles and the ammunition. Some were still alive when we got here. They were reaching through the bars, reaching for us, desperate. But they were so
weak
. It was hard not to… Not to have pity on them. They were caged like wild animals… But I guess, after all, that’s what they were.”

The man almost doesn’t hear Harker’s words. He stares numbly at the line of four cells, each filled with three or four skeletons. The skeletons are covered with tattered clothing, their flesh long since consumed by carrion insects. The stench has gone, replaced only with the stale air that sticks to the crevices of his lungs. He can imagine the scene, the prisoners dying, and then rising—only to be trapped. He can almost hear them crying out for help, suffering in their bodies, slowly starving to death. Harker’s words drip through his mind like a nagging voice:
it was hard not to have pity on them
. The man doesn’t share Harker’s sentiments.

Harker says, “You asked what our purpose was. Why we chose to hole up in a church. Why we seem so… complacent… about remaining in one place. Honestly, I find it ironic to be coming from you. Your friend Mark tells us that you stayed at your own house until necessity pushed you out. He says that you had no desire to leave the place. And yet you are so shocked that a community of individuals can sit tight and be complacent.” He stops speaking for a moment. “Regardless, we are not a community that is just trying to survive without any hope of the future. Our hope of the future is something concrete, something epitomized here in these cells. These monsters, these vampires, these zombies… Whatever the hell you want to call them… They are biological creatures. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s haphazard talk to think of them as something supernatural. They are not people indwelt with the spirits of demons. They are not, despite what Mark may think, vampires who thirst for human blood. They are not zombies resurrected to life. This is no divine apocalypse, no holy judgment imposed upon humanity by a wrathful God. This is a
plague
. Whatever infected these Anthony Barnhart