THE SAGA OF THE DEAD SILENCER Book 1: Bleeding Kansas: A Novel Of The Zombie Apocalypse (31 page)

So he gives me full directions
to this place on Exit Something-or-Other, drive north and it’s completely clean, etc. I thank him and we shake hands. “We’ll be in touch sooner than later!” Dr. Hearn says “We can use a man of your talent! To mate you with a Rebecca Anne Donaldson, imagine the warrior!”

“Imagine trying to get the little son of a bitch to do his homework.”

Dr. Hearn grabs his chest as he laughs and the black-suited bastards on either side glower at me like they’re really going to resent the paperwork on this one. After a scary couple of moments he coughs, cackles, and regains his composure: “Yes, I understand what she sees in you! Very good! We will be in touch, Mr. Grace!”

I’m not quite escorted from the aircraft, but I know their eyes and
gunsights are upon me as I smile and nod my way back to the Big Yellow Truck. I hear a woman’s scream from the auto mall, the cry of a child, followed by the gunfire, as I climb to the running board. I turn to look and see a familiar face commanding a squad of black-uniformed goons coming away from one of the dealerships off the highway. Yes, it’s Evans. Pointedly ignoring me. Which is fine. I imagine it’s galling to see me getting ready to drive away in the truck he’d picked up just days ago.

For that matter,
I can only imagine what his story was after this morning. At least he was on the correct side politically. And now he has a new job. Nice and secure. There’s always going to be someone at the bottom of the social totem pole in need of a bit of discipline.

I
drive at an angle across the median into the westbound lanes. Now I’m on the proper road, driving like a good citizen.  The quicker those helicopters and columns of smoke disappear from my rear-view mirrors, the better.

It was kind of Dr. Hearn to give
me an exit number and an address to stay at. With that woman’s scream and child’s last cry in mind I’ll take any other exit but that one and go as far as I can in the opposite direction.

Fields surround me. The wind turbines spin
furiously in the face of the coming storm. There’s not much between here and Colorado once you’re out of Saline County. After several miles of clean sunlight the clouds overtake the sun. Soon I’m surrounded by that eerie, greenish glow in the air you see just before a tornado. Powerful downdrafts rock the truck on its frame; fat drops of rain smack the windshield.

I
look to either side of the Interstate. An old farmer here, a good old boy in a T-shirt there, stumbling along, their sightless heads turning uneasily about them. I wonder if they’re sensitive to barometric pressure. Me, I’m about to get blown away on the open Interstate so I slow down and pull off at the next exit.

I have no idea where I am. All I know is that Hearn’s secured area was north, so I drive south. The sign promises a town in three more miles. The
clouds thicken, as do the hungry dead along the sides of the road. Their heads follow the movement of my truck. Soon the rest of them are staggering after. I see them following in my rear-view, leaning awkwardly into the gusting winds.

I keep driving
, with an eye on the rear view. I’ll need to hole up somewhere and soon. So far it looks like I’m the only living soul out here.

Good.
I feel so much safer. God bless the Middle of Nowhere.

THE END

Read on for a free sample of Machines of the Dead

Chapter 1

“Damn it,” Dr. Reynolds said when he looked through the glass into the containment room. Homeless person number 14 was dead, the bots taking too much of the man’s energy, sucking him down to almost nothing more than a husk.

“I don’t understand why the programming isn’t working,” he said, and hit the kill switch, filling the containment room with enough electromagnetic energy to wipe out a small town’s electrical equipment. “The bots worked perfectly in the rats.”

“Sir,” said Dr. Chan, his assistant. “The human brain is just too complex. Maybe we—”

“Maybe we what, tell the military that their project is too much for us? That they should find another company to work on this project? We’ll just give back the millions upon millions we’ve been funded, and say sorry.”

Dr. Chan sighed and looked down. “I’ll have more test subjects rounded up. The city’s full of them.”

“Get on that; tell Chambers I want at least twenty—no, thirty.”

“Thirty? Sir that’s too many at one time. We’ve never—” 

“I need to be alone,” Dr. Reynolds said, cutting his assistant off.

“I’ll take lunch then,” Chan said, and left the control room.

When the military first approached him, Dr. Eugene Reynolds had thought it a good thing. Now he wasn’t so sure. What if he couldn’t deliver? What would they do to him? Would he ever be able to work again, or would his reputation be ruined? None of that mattered, because he was going to make the project work; give the government what they wanted. He had never failed before and he wasn’t about to now. With thirty more subjects coming in, plus the ten he had left, he would be able to get the bots to work. He had to.

Sitting down at his computer, he began to re-work the nano’s interface module. He needed stronger bots, and ones that required less host-energy.

Chapter 2

Derek Mayfield had been living on the streets of New York City for ten years, having spent time in almost every borough. At the age of fifteen, he was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, and under his parents’ medical insurance, he received the proper care and medication for him to maintain a normal lifestyle.

At the age of nineteen, he fell in love with Clare Schmidt, a waitress and recreational drug user. Together, they partied at night and on their days off from work; it was a twenty-four hour party. Marijuana and beer were the drugs of choice, until one day, they decided to try cocaine. From that day forward, it was the hard narcotics: cocaine, speed, meth, and heroin.

Off his meds, Derek experienced major mood swings. They could occur at any moment and anywhere. After Clare died from an overdose, Derek spiraled further down the path of destruction. One day, while arguing with his parents over money, he snapped and killed them both.

Since that night, he had been living on the streets, hiding from the cops and society. His weight had dropped to half of what it used to be; he was dirty and had a full, scruffy beard. He was always looking to score, and one day a large, well-built man came to him, offering him a job.

“Work for you?” he asked the big guy. “I thought you brought me to this back alley because you wanted me to blow you.”

The big man smiled, but something about his smile bothered Derek, making his blood feel as if it had turned into ice. 

“I work for a pharmaceutical company,” the big guy said.

Derek’s eyes lit up at hearing the word pharmaceutical.

He was in. 

“My boss,” the big fellow continued, “is looking for test subjects. Former drug users, current drug users, and whatnot.”

“What do I
gotta do, suck his dick?”

The big man laughed. “No, no.
Nothing like that. He needs people willing to go around the bureaucratic tape, the paperwork. Things get done much faster that way. Course it’s all off the record. We keep our mouths shut, and you do the same.”

“How long is the job?”

“Should be no more than a few days and while you’re staying with us, you’ll be fed, bathed, and given whatever you need.” The big man held up a small baggie filled with white nose candy. Derek reached out, grabbed the coke and held it close to his chest. “And you’ll earn a thousand bucks, cash.”

What did he have to lose?

Now, sitting in his room five stories below Manhattan, in an underground bunker, Derek started to feel as if he were in withdrawal. He was antsy and needed a fix. The small room was too claustrophobic. It made him angry. Made him wonder why he was there in the first place. Who were the rich assholes who needed him? How much were they going to make off him?

He deserved more than a grand.

Derek closed his eyes and began smacking himself upside the head until he felt right again. Truth was he needed the money. Didn’t everyone need money? He’d been allowed to take numerous showers. The hot water was something he had longed for, and he was fed and clothed, just as the big guy promised. He could do this, whatever it was. If all they wanted were samples of his blood, they could have them. Shit, they could keep on having them if he could stay here. His brain was so fucked up. He needed meds. Fuck that. Meds turned him into someone else. He needed drugs, the kind he could use to leave the world and enter the land of ecstasy. Once he got paid, he would go out and celebrate in style. Get the good stuff, not that shitty crank he had to settle for on the streets. Maybe, he would even find a woman.

Okay, he could do this. Let them take whatever they wanted from him. A little blood, sure. Some skin, sure. He had done way worse, for far less. Nasty things with nasty people. He should count his blessings and enjoy himself. If only his head wasn’t so fucked up.

Sitting on his bed, he waited for his turn in the lab.

An hour later, a doctor entered his room.

“Hello, Mr. Mayfield,” the man said. “My name’s Dr. Chan. How are we doing today?”

Scratching his head and twitching, Derek said, “Good. I’m doing
good.”

Chan looked at him curiously. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. What have you got for me, Doc?”

“I’m going to give you a very mild sedative, so that when we bring you to the lab, you won’t be as jumpy.”

“I like sedatives. It’s a good idea. I’m a little nervous.”

“Oh, this is nothing really. I doubt you’ll notice a thing, and as far as being nervous, don’t be. All we’re going to do is x-ray your body, take some blood and skin samples and send you on your way.”

“Sounds good, Doc.” Derek held out his arms. “Pick one.”

The doctor approached him, held onto the left arm and injected him with the syringe he was holding. “Okay,” he said, “all done.”

“I’ll just lay back and enjoy . . . I mean, wait for you to come back.”

“Relax, Mr. Mayfield. You’ve got nothing to worry about,” Chan said, then walked out of the room and closed the door. Derek heard the lock click and jumped.

“Fuck,” he said. Why were they locking him in? Precautionary, that’s all, he thought. He laid back and tried to relax, let the drug take effect. However, after a few minutes, he felt the same. He wondered what the hell was going on. He’d been on plenty of sedatives and whatever they had given him, sure wasn’t one.

Shit. They were screwing with him.

Sitting up, his heart racing, he looked around the almost barren room. Cameras! They must have cameras and were watching him to see how he would react. But why?

He searched the room, looking in the corners, under the bed, and along the walls. Nothing; he found nothing. Shit. He was just being paranoid, allowing his condition to get the best of him. If only he had a hit of something, something to calm him down, because whatever they had given him was total bullshit. Maybe, he shouldn’t have lied on the form he filled out and informed them that he was bi-polar, and a heavy drug user, instead of just a recreational one. Maybe then, they would have given him a stronger dose of sedative.

Relax, he told himself, as he paced frantically. All they wanted was some of his stuff, blood and skin, then he was free to leave. Wait, the doctor didn’t mention the money. What if that was a lie. What if there was no money. What if this place was one big sex house and they were slowly dosing him so that he wouldn’t remember getting raped? No, he was being ridiculous. Damn it.

Derek hit himself in the head again, but this time it did nothing to calm him down. Shit, what had they given him? Maybe they knew he was “unsteady” and gave him something to keep him crazy. Watch him suffer.

He needed to get out of there, but if he showed them how upset he was, they might tie him up, or chain him down. Then he would be at their mercy.