Science Fiction by Elliot Bowers

Sure, nobody wanted to take the blame for this one. And what person with any sanity left in their brains would want to? If a shuttle blows up, and all of those wonderful astronauts are vaporized, some folks responsible for building the thing are heaped with blame for perhaps cutting one corner too many. If a plane crashes, those overworked jokers in the airports are slammed with media smear campaigns for being "irresponsible." And whenever bad food ends up on supermarket shelves, some mid-sized megacorporation gets hit with that terrible media glare. There’s always someone to blame.

But then again, those problems are temporary. Media smear campaigns are like those atrocious summer storms on hot days: they hit hard, and then they vanish. The sky clears, and everyone goes about their happy little routine. After being blamed for a while, people responsible for disasters stop getting bad PR, they pay a fine or two, and that is the end of it. Everyone makes mistakes; everyone forgets mistakes.

That wasn’t true this time, though. Even if the rest of the world forgets about this disaster, we will never forget about it—if I can use "we" in talking about other potential survivors. The media cared about us here for a bit. There were all sorts of media conglomerates pleading and pitying our situation. At first, our dilemma was grotesqueBcaptured imaginations. (Indeed, many in the world thought that our problem was faked up.) But then, our situation just turned pathetic as the sickness spread. More people died. They died, and they caused more trouble. I=m sorry, you don=t know the full story. And I cannot blame you; the media doesn=t know anything short of security leaks and inuendo. For once, before it=s over, you deserve to hear it all. You deserve the truthBfrom someone who is still around to tell it here.

First, it seemed like a typical July out here in this western state. It was hot, old and very young people were kept indoors, and everyone else had to bear it. My former friends and I went shopping for junk food. We were careless; we had our far futures ahead of us. We planned on spending the night watching freakish horror movies until dawn. As I was saying for a while, we were out shopping. And then, the first sign of the Disease came up.

Some guy in tired business clothes was browsing through the 1001 different varieties of decaffinated coffee these chain stores so love to sell. But as he was browsing, he kept wiping this half-soaked handkerchief over his chrome dome. Some of us took an occasional glance or so over at this chap; he didn=t notice. This man was burningly hotBeven though the temperature inside of the arctic-cool air-conditioned store must have been close to refridgeration temperatures. (You could almost see your breath.) One of my former friends asked if he was okay. ABack off, brats....@ he mumbled. I looked quite closely at the guy=s skin. And I saw that it was mottled with greenBso was his handkerchief.

We all ambled over to another aisle, looking for popcorn. Then, that jerkBprobably halfway to the Aexotic mocha@ aroma brandsBmade a huge, God-awful wretching noise. AHeh,@ chuckled one of my ex-buddies. AMaybe he swallowed that sweat rag of his.@ We heard cans and cans of coffee grounds then come off of the shelves. Curiousity got to us. We half-jogged over to where Mr. Jerk insulted us.

The man in the tired business suit was doubled over, in a fetal position. He was wretching and coughing. By now, a crowd of voyeursBbesides ourselvesBhad formed. Some other guy in a tired business suit took on some sort of hero pose, got the crowd to back off a bit as he tried to help the sick man. After a while, Mr. Jerk stopped spasmingBhe quickly died. As we all watched, his entire face turned greenish-pale. The crowd, frightened at this sudden show of force by the Reaper himself, was silenced. Like frightened sheep, they stood stillBtheir minds either shocked blank or in contemplation of their own mortality.

Ah, but then the corpse of Mr. Jerk sat up, really quickly! What a sight to see! It would have been damned funny if it happened on TV. And what happened next would have been even funnier. Mr. Jerk=s corpse sat up, swung its dead head right, and took a bite out of someone=s leg-meat. That really sparked the crowd. Everyone ran in all sorts of directions. Coffee and cereal and shampoo and all sorts of other supermarket goods were shoved off of the shelves as the people panicked. They panicked and trampled each other. Meanwhile, Mr. Jerk=s corpse just kept taking occasional chunks out of more hapless idiots in the mad crowd.

It took hours before the police and other emergency personnel arrived to restore order, at least temporarily. First, most of the victims were given stitches and oversized band-aids. Most had to go to the hospital. The police dutifully took down comments and asked boring, typical questions.

ADid you know the sick man?@ ADid he seem to be carrying any illegal substances?@ AWhen exactly did you first notice this?@ With those Keystone refugees interrogating panickers and setting order, the danger seemed over. Sure, my then-friends and I answered questions, answering as honestly as we could then. But really, we thought it just another freak event of the everydayBright up there with airplane crashes and collapsing skyscrapers. And then, the media hit.

Media jackals were all over anyone still at the scene. They came in vans. They all wore cheap businesswear. They all shoved microphones in our mugs. But the questions the newsreporters were asking were more than a little interesting. Questions began in the ordinary way, like the questions from the officers. Of course, the reporters must have been using the same AHow To Interrogate@ guide law enforcement was using; they asked almost all of the same questions at first. Then, some reporter must have heard something from one of the victims. One reporter asked, ADid the sick man really sit up and take a bite out of someone?@ Then, all of the other reporters went into a frenzy. AHow many people were bitten?@ ADo you think the sick man had any sort of very terrible disease, and do you think you=ll catch it?@ Ha, that was a show stopper: Would you want to consider catching whatever that jerk had? Then again, no one ever considered catching what ever it was that the balding man in the rumpled suit had. Would you want to?

That night, the news story hit the city and local press outside the city limits. There were all sorts of extrapolations—and even less cohesion in all of the mess. Those stupid, slick title graphics from the news shows are still spinning in my head: "Sick Man Bites Good Sumaritans," "Supermarket Smashed in Panic," and worst of all was "Do Dead Men Bite?" The panic alone was enough to be splashed all over the media. But the idea of a corpse that sat up and began making snacks of panicking bystanders was a real show-stopper. It was a mini-controversey worthy of the two O.J. Trials read about in 20th century history schoolbooks. News shows and newspapers featured interviews with all sorts of people declared "experts" on biology and forensic science—and many of those "experts" were just hack reporters there to get ratings and stir up a panic storm. Meanwhile, the few real scientists in the news blamed either mass hallucination or just a random thing that happens to corpses. Sure, the media really kept those explainations coming. They had explanations by the bargeful. And the explainations kept coming for days.

The little surprise party in the supermarket with the hungry little corpse was only the first incident. Increasingly more media reports kept cropping up as just too many people were getting fevers, dropping over and biting people. My friends and I tried to go about business as usual that summer vacation, working grunt jobs and living in apartments and trying to plan for weekend parties. But those little incidents just became increasingly regular, with more people suddenly dying and then suddenly getting up to nip bystanders. Hospitals became full of the sick. Before too long, companies began to close for hours, then days. And for once, the media shut up at least temporarily as the press silently moved its studios out of town.

By the way, if you care, the corpses I once called "friends" were as good as dead by now. I called Joe—or at least I tried. His telephone was off the hook. I reached Julie. But Julie just kept mumbling "Go away, go away… I’m so sick. I’m so hungry…. Go away…." before she threw up and hung up. Three other ex-friends didn’t answer at all, even after I’ve tried ringing for them for over an hour. At last, I managed to get through to Samantha: she just kept screaming for me to help her as people that were supposed to be dead were pounding at her apartment door. Samantha was afraid and upset. I could almost see the tears on her face and see those…things pounding at her door. Then, there was this crashing noise. A few seconds later, Samantha screamed in pain. She screamed again The connection was cut. That was it; I was never able to get any more calls through.

They were all pretty much done now. All of my friends were all done in through nasty ways. Those things staggering and oozing all over the streets got to them. Just the thoughts of their deaths seemed to be too much: the pain they must have felt when the corpses came to get them, eating them. The things finished off my friends, one bite at a time. And after death, the remains of my buddies would get up and walk about. Those undead things were now just slack-jawed pieces of walking meat. They should be lying down, six feet under. No, those freaks had better ideas; they would find people to have for dinner. Again, SHOULDN’T THEY BE DEAD?

That was a stupid, useless question. The answer was probably as useful as I was feeling now. I now sit by the window, watching the world go by. Or, at least I can watch what’s left of it. It is just so quiet outside—more quiet than it should have been in this mid-sized city. Occasionally, I see a thing that was once a person stagger and shuffle on by in the street below the apartment windows. Surprisingly, they corpses are still well-dressed—for dead people. As they walk the streets, they have bloodstains on their lips from spreading the disease. Every so often, one of those walking corpses will be carrying the haunch of a dog or the leftovers of a cat—or a piece of a person. Last night, I sat up quietly (the lights still work, but I kept them off) as I heard the last of the screams from outside of my door go silent. You would not have seen me sleep that night. And you would not have been able to make me open the door.

As if things were not so weird enough, not being able to go out and knowing my friends all gone, there are now news stories on almost all the time on both the radio and television. They repeatedly declare it to be "a state of emergency." People are all told to stay indoors as "rescue efforts are underway." Here comes another story:

"This is an actual emergency. Stay calm, and emergency services should arrive. Citizens are advised to be patient, considering the magnitude of the situation. But emergency personnel are getting the situation under control. To help emergency workers, citizens must do the following: stay indoors, keep all doors locked, and keep the shades up to show signs of life.

"Emergency workers will be able to keep basic utilities such as water and electricity running almost indefinitely, but citizens are also advised to ration food and water supplies. Repeat: the

situation is coming under control."

And that was the message they have been giving us for the past few days.

Out of spite to those idiots on the news, I opened the door: I was running low on food and had to get supplies. A quick look out into the apartment hall showed no dangers, living or otherwise. Almost all of the other apartment doors were smashed as people panicked and revealed where they were hiding to the sick corpses. But not seeing or hearing anyone to lunch on, I suppose the sick and the dead went elsewhere. Anyway, I took the elevator to the first floor—the ruined first floor. There was another walking corpse standing and staring at the wall, its fingers covered with dried bloodstains. So long as it didn’t turn around, we would both get along fine. I jogged by.

The outside was worse than it was looking at it from the fifth floor as there was trash and ruin everywhere. But ignoring that, I had to find supplies enough to last me until whenever. It was almost silent as I made a panicky jog for the nearest corner store. (Could you ever run in a state of weakening hunger? Have you ever seriously been hungry before?) And yes, the store was empty—of people. With some compunction, I filled a grocery cart full of all sorts of

high-nutrition and protein foods—not that everyday junk-food that only makes you hungrier. On the way back, I had to stand still as a corpse shuffled and staggered on by. Indeed, so long as they didn’t hear me speak or see me move, everything was cool.

And quite suddenly, I realized that this corner store just didn’t sell "food." No, today’s convenience stores port all sorts of goodies on the side. Some of those goodies are hardware. Well, what sort of hardware was I currently "shopping" for now? In a world of "hand to mouth" survival, I was not going to end up being another one ending up in the mouth of a hoard of those.

The things now roaming the streets were stupid, too stupid and slow to be truly affective against real threats—armed threats. That said, I packed some…extras in with my food supplies. It took just some time to push the well-loaded shopping cart back to my apartment-turned-survival shelter. And when I pushed the shopping cart into my apartment’s elevator, the corpse was still standing and swaying, staring at the wall. Well, it apparently doesn’t take much to keep a dead man entertained.

After I put the food, bottled water and "miscellaneous" away, I decided to go out again while conditions were safe enough to do so. There was still some light in the sky. And then, I saw it. Stopped in the middle of the main street of my block was a black Sedan—with the door open. It was still occupied as one of them was lying in the driver’s seat. Do corpses sleep? A few more steps in its direction, and the opposite was true. Before my steps could bring me within yard of the thing, it stirred. Then, copying every bad movie actor, I decided to shout out one of those one-liners: "Come on, you want a piece of me?" That dead thing was pissed. It got up and began to shuffle after me as fast as it could. But should its shuffling have made so much noise?

That thing in the car was not the only one of them around: they started coming out of everywhere. The dead came out of the alleys. They came out of smashed doors. The dead crawled out of windows, even if those windows were fifty feet off of the ground. And they all

wanted a piece of me, really. So I jumped into the car, rolled up the windows, and was unbelievably lucky when the car still worked even when the last idiot to use it left it in a hurry (or fell over sick). I drove through the streets; I planned on leaving town. But the emergency personnel had other plans.

After half an hour’s drive, I came to a solid metal barricade. Behind those barricades stood rifle-toting guys in bio-warfare gear—gas masks and all. Behind those rifle-toting guys stood machinegun-mounted jeeps. Behind those jeeps stood tanks. And behind those tanks… Why bother going into details? Fifty yards from the barricade, I stopped the car. That was as far as they would let negotiations go. Before I could even crack the door, some wiseguy fired a few warning shots into the dirt in front of my newly-acquired ride. For once, I was dumbstruck throughout this whole mess. From one of the tanks, I heard a loudspeaker say quite as-a-matter-of-factly this: "Go back. You have twenty-five seconds from the end of this warning to back away and return to the center of the city. At the end of those seconds, if you are still here, you and your vehicle will be incinerated. Repeat: Retreat or be incinerated. You have been warned."

That was it. To get over my frustration—or my fear disguised as frustration—I did not swerve as I saw corpses standing or sitting in the road. It felt great, realizing that those walking corpses were just too stupid to move when someone was coming down the street. I managed to get back into my apartment before the sun went down. There are still a few newspapers to read. And if I’m careful, the food left in the corner store should last a week or so. Then again, would I last that long? Or would I decide to go out? And lately, I’ve been seeing less of those not-dead people walking the streets; they’re too busy lying in the street. Meanwhile, the local news media has become less anxious over the city’s situation. I suppose they’re bored of the emergency. So am I.

Since that run-in with the "rescue," a week had passed. And "life" (ha!) was becoming increasingly boring. There was nothing to do as I passively watched most everything. I watched the radio as the world began to go about its business despite the walking and cannibalistic troubles that had overtaken the city. I watched as hordes and multitudes of mindless beings shuffled lethargically through the streets. And that meant that I had to watch the door. In between watching the door and watching the radio and watching the streets I watched wallpaper.

Yes, wallpaper really can be amusing. There are just so many colors and varieties of it. When you truly have exhausted your amusement, just look at it. Note all of those pretty patterns, how they weave and repeat themselves. Whose idea was wallpaper, anyway? Is was there some artist somewhere, mindlessly scratching out patterns of wallpaper for folks to appreciate? Maybe I’ll show my appreciation of it. I suppose I’ll write a nice letter of appreciation to the artist of the wallpaper. Well, let me….

What was that? Really, if the dead freaks out in the streets don’t get me first, I suppose I will get myself first. My mind is cracking. It is beginning to split from boredom and fear. Somehow, at a subconscious level, there is the realization that those moldy, rotting things that roam the roads would find me out. Then, they would have yet another feast. Meanwhile, the feasts around here were getting slim. Perhaps it was time to unpack the "miscellaneous."

The "miscellaneous" were some extras that I had taken up from the corner store, when it had been somewhat safer. Since then, those things have been in a sort of traffic jam as they seem to be clustering around this very building. Any day, I suspect they will find me out. They will find the stairway. They will blunder it open. They will come oozing up the stairs to make a meal of this story’s protagonist. At least, that would happen if I were insane enough to hang around.

First, I unpacked some "borrowed" hardware. From the store, I had borrowed a deer-hunter’s rifle, an expensive shotgun and nice little semi-automatic hand-held job that held 18 rounds in a clip. Both the rifle and shotgun were somewhat thirsty for a little oil, but they would not need it for some time. If it became too difficult, I could use some watered-down vegetable oil from my food supplies. (Well, it had been some time since my uncle had taken me out hunting, but those wonderful childhood memories of cleaning weapons and blasting unsuspecting wildlife came back.) I had boxes of brass bullets and shells. The store seemed to be having a sale: Everything was one-hundred percent off to anyone still alive to shop.

But perhaps I was fooling myself: Could you kill what was already dead? Those things out in the streets already died once, becoming so dead that hitting them with cars didn’t do as much damage as it would to normal people—or normal corpses. But then, I hefted the messenger bag that carried the weapons and loose ammunition. At least, the weight added a little confidence to the experiment I was to pull off. And with the same thoughts that must have gone through a billion living people’s minds before, I told myself, "I hope this works."

First, I put the ear to the door—silence. Other than the sound of the flourescent lighting in the hall buzzing and going bad, there was nothing. The door closed gently and quietly—and wouldn’t have to be locked. Being cautious, this trip to the end of the hallway was taken one step at a time. With the lighting going bad, my mind played on my fears. Were those apartment doors open? And what was in that silent room at the end of the corridor? I had to run; the fear was becoming too high.

And lying on the steps was another one of those undead losers, one of those dearly departed who decided to hang around to take bites out of living folks. The zombie thing slowly raised its head and decided that I would make a tasty brunch. Well, there would be a change in meal plans. That change was to be applied at close range, from the business end of a 10-gauge, with the trigger pulled seven times.

That did it for the undead thing lying on the stairs. The first shot only removed part of its shoulder. Still, it came. I blasted the corpse’s leg, and it fell with a thump against the stairs. And then I blew its undead brains. That did it; that made the undead dead again. I stood as that feeling of conquest and victory swelled the old ego. I stood atop my newly-dead prey as it twitched and stopped moving. My uncle would be proud, but it’s too bad that I wouldn’t want what was left of the dead head as a trophy.

And the little experiment on the stairway proved it: Those things could be laid to rest after all. They could be incapacitated with a blast of a limb. Chest shots slowed those things down. But best of all, head shots put those corpses away. Head shots, though, would require that I get close enough to pull them off—not quite a good idea.

With the messenger bag over one shoulder and a nice big gun in my hands, I took a hike. Of course, as soon as one foot was out of the door, a few straggling corpses decided to come over for a bite or two to eat. What they would get for their troubles would be a round or two each of buckshot. After those three freaks fell twitching, I gave them a blast for good measure. They were "dead," but there was no reason not to play it safe. "Ung," came a phlegm-filled grunt from behind the shell of a car. "Ungh," came a few more groans from the alleyways. Picking out the various directions from where the grunts came from, I decided that there were quite a few of them—too few to hang around for. Before they set their dead eyes on me, I chose to go away from that block.

Half an hour allowed me to cover a bit over a mile of the four that meant a chance of survival. To this point, there really was not much trouble. As long there were no loud noises, they couldn’t see me. They just shuffled along on their business, staggering and wagging their dead heads side to side. At some points along the streets, they had almost seen me. Or did they hear me? My answer would come sooner than I really hoped it would.

Just barely within reach, just a few blocks away was the river. Though I tried to escape through the city roughly a week ago, I really hoped that the riverfront wouldn’t be covered by the "emergency" personnel who decided to quarantine the city. Those thoughts shuffled on through my head—quite conveniently blocking out the sounds that slowly began to build behind me. I nearly fell over a plastic trash can lid; that brought attention to the surroundings. And those surroundings included roughly seven of them patiently keeping pace not too far back. The sight of what was behind me was reason enough to reconsider turning right back around again.

Sure, you know that walking meat can get quite disgusting, but these things were some of the nastiest to be seen at all. These were dead for a week. At fifteen yards, I could see more detail than I wanted to see. Their skins were dead pale with green mottled patches of mold just barely visible below the surface. The clothes they wore were torn in places, exposing ruined patches of skin—with tooth-marks. And where those tooth-marks were deep, some sorts of insect larvae were making homes of gore. Their eyes were the worse, cateract-covered and oozing with pus. Why weren’t they DEAD?

If they wouldn’t lie down like polite corpses, someone had to see to it that they dead. As no one else was around for that sort of business, my old S&W 12-gauge would serve just as well. Indeed, when you party with me, all of your party needs are met! The first of my guests this hour stumbled forward a bit too quickly. As luck had it, the first round of buckshot removed its face quite nicely, ending that conversation. That left the other three. Another round put one of them on the ground. The next pull of the trigger only resulted in a dry click—the loudest clicking I’ve heard in some time. That was when I put a few rounds in my hand as I jogged away. At a safe distance, something caught up with me. The thought of the OTHER weapons in the bag had caught up with me. That said, the deer rifle took out the other three undead jerks without too much trouble. Having learned a gigantic lesson, the rifle and shotgun were both reloaded. But as those things would have most probably heard the shots, I moved on. And I reached the riverfront.

Calling it a riverfront was a polite name for the green, polluted band of moving water at the edge of the city limits. Pollution from research and industry had ruined it years ago. Though it was nasty and foul, the river was now a welcome sight. And it seemed that the riverfront really was not covered by the quarrantine. Close by, I saw the rental canoe dock—with two canoes still available. With a temporary grin, I walked to the canoe docks.

And that grin was still shining when a hand tripped me. One of those freaks was IN THE SAND. It seemed that one of those things was buried up over its head in sand, with only its hand exposed. Its hand held fast to a shoelace. Then, I took the still-unused handgun and used it on the hand. The thing let go, but the noise only made more trouble with the dead locals. It seemed that the "emergency personnel" had used the beach to bury dozens of the corpses—corpses that were now up and awake for a quick bite.

I was on the dock when half a dozen of them came after me. Some of them walked into the water and simply sank. Since when do zombies swim? Then again, it was fun watching some of those idiots try. Meanwhile, some of the less idiotic ones managed to stay on the dock and come after me. Not wanting to shake hands, I found the nearest canoe. And one of the corpses—a former scientist—was in that same canoe. Before the thing could take a bite out of my face, a blast from the shotgun removed its neck. I threw it out of the boat. They were coming closer to the canoe. I blasted the rope, took up the cobwebbed paddle, and paddled away. Those freaks began to tumble into the water and out of sight as they tried to come after me. But they would not bother me. At least they wouldn’t bother me as much as the thin, print-filled booklet that once belonged to the walking corpse of the canoe. When the canoe took me far from the shore, I managed to read some of the details from it.

As suspected, the booklet was succinctly and exactly about the plague that had overtaken the city—giving details about how this whole mess was started. Within the city, a medical research group was playing patty-cake with the genetic structure of some bacteria. They were doing work with the RNA-repairing and metabolic processes of bacteria. Once they figured out the workings of those cells, they decided to make those cells immortal. They brought back bacteria from the dead.

This bacteria found its way into the food of a lab rat. And to stop the rat from becoming a carrier, they decided to kill it. But the infected rat did not remain dead. Within minutes of its death, the rat was traipsing around in its gas chamber. In shock, one of the scientists knocked the cage onto the floor. She shouted about the rat supposing to be dead. Her colleagues had to physically remove her from the room. The rat wriggled out of the cage and bit one of the scientists. Such was the same scientist that was in the supermarket that infamous day.

That was it: Those morons of that medical research group had been responsible for the deaths and the coming of all of those undead in the cities. Of course, most science had been beneficial. And so long as people could keep watch over science, scientists could not do too much harm. But those idiots were working illegally, without regard to the law. The company that was researching the bacteria was a ridiculously wealthy one. And whenever anyone made any sort of protest against what the company was doing, they were either quickly paid off to silence them, or they were made quiet in…other ways. This bacteria was something that the company could not handle. Now some branches of the military were cleaning up what was left.

I put the booklet in the bag. That would be evidence enough of what happened. Throughout the night, I drifted by the city. And I went along far enough to see trees and forest beyond the blockade and city limits. Was I deliberately allowed to escape? Or was the quarantine being lifted? Not deciding to look a gift horse in the mouth for fear of what I would see, I decided to complete the escape. Anyway, at least I lived long enough to write down all of the events into this journal.