The War On Horror II: Return of the Undead Menace E-Book

Nathan Allen

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

The world remains in a state of flux, but life in a post-zombie society goes on.

It’s now three years since Bernard Marlowe’s stunning election victory. Incidents involving the undead have fallen to an all-time low, and great strides have been made in the development of a groundbreaking treatment to reverse the devastating effects of the infection.

The new prime minister is still grappling with the realization that running the country isn’t quite the walk in the park he thought it might be. The one-time flavor of the month is now the most unpopular leader in recent memory. His scandal-plagued government has degenerated into a laughing stock and is hurtling head-first toward a humiliating electoral defeat. Regaining the public’s trust, or restoring their deepest fears, may be his only chance of winning – and there is nothing he won’t do to hold on to power.

Leseprobe

The War On Horror II: Return of the Undead Menace

By Nathan Allen

Copyright 2019 Nathan Allen

[email protected]

Cover image by Monira Mussabal@99designs

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Chapter 1

Jack Houston had just settled into his seat when an email alerted him to an unexpected windfall.

“How about that?” he said, his hirsute face breaking into a wide grin. “It appears I may be eligible for a compensation payout due to a loss of earnings caused by undead beings. All I have to do to claim my entitlement is click on this link they sent me.”

Miles sat opposite and said nothing. He wasn’t sure whether Houston expected a response, or if he was just thinking out loud. He opted to play it safe and go with a non-verbal reaction – a knowing smile and a slight raise of his eyebrows.

He rubbed his palm and opened and closed his hand a couple of times. His fingers were still smarting from the bone-pulverizing handshake he had been greeted with a minute earlier. The Z-Pro boss was the kind of guy who filled a room, in every sense. A bear of a man with a booming voice and a personality to match.

“You think anyone ever falls for these scams?” Houston said.

“I guess a small percentage does,” Miles said. “If they send it out to a million people they would only need a few responses for it to be worth their while.”

“Hey, you know what I should do? I should write back and string them along.” Houston let out a wheezy laugh that grew to a sharp cackle. “I’ll tell them my business has been running at a loss for the past five years due to all my undead-related expenses.”

Miles laughed along, partly because the notion that the undead had adversely affected Jack Houston’s business interests was absurd – Z-Pro was the country’s only remaining undead management and control firm, and zombies had made Houston a millionaire – and partly because this was a job interview, and it would be unwise not to laugh at a potential employer’s jokes.

Houston’s finger jabbed at the keyboard to delete the email. His attention turned to Miles. “Enough fun and games. Let’s get down to business, shall we?”

He sifted through the jumble of papers and miscellaneous documents in front of him. The desk, like the rest of the office, was as messy and unkempt as the man whose name was on the door. Bins overflowed with a month’s worth of trash, shelves groaned under the weight of old manuals and files, and the remains of a half-eaten days-old sandwich sat neglected on the windowsill. A musty smell of dampness and body odor hung in the air. He was the opposite of Miles’ previous boss; Steve kept neither a hair nor a paperclip out of place.

Houston discovered the résumé beneath a racing guide and one of the many disposable coffee cups he had strewn across the desk. He shifted around in his seat until he was comfortable, then ran his index finger across the text as he speed-read the first page. He was doing what all employers did in job interviews – scanning through the key points as if he was so pressed for time he didn’t have a spare two minutes to read the whole thing prior to this moment.

An uncomfortable silence filled the room. The only sound now was the ticking of the wall clock and Jack Houston’s unusually loud breathing. He wheezed like he had just sprinted up ten flights of stairs.

The two bushy caterpillars resting above his eyes shot up. “You ran your own business?”

“Uh, yes. That’s right,” Miles said. “Me and a friend. We ran it together for a few years, until we sold it.”

“Good for you,” Houston said, in a tone Miles couldn’t decide was encouraging or patronizing. “That shows real initiative.”

Another silence. A draft brushed against the back of his neck. It came from a window that hadn’t been shut properly.

“Ah. I see you were at Dead Rite prior to that?”

He swallowed. “I was there for about two years.”

He hoped Jack Houston hadn’t detected the nervous tremor in his voice. He had fudged the timeline on his work history slightly by moving the end date forward by one year. The dissolution of Dead Rite had been a messy affair, and he thought it would be best to avoid the sorts of questions that would inevitably crop up if he told the truth. He gambled that Houston wouldn’t be making any follow-up phone calls to verify these dates. In any event, it was unlikely he could check even if he wanted to – the business no longer existed, so there was no one left to contact. He felt he was on safe ground with that lie.

“Probably a smart decision to get out when you did,” Houston said. “The two guys running the joint, Steve and Adam. I don’t know how much you knew about them.”

“I didn’t really know them at all,” Miles said. Another lie. He’d gone this far, he may as well keep going.

“Well, anyway. They were nice enough fellas I suppose, but pretty clueless when it came to running a business. Didn’t know the first thing about the UMC industry, either. Ran up huge debts, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth. They got caught breaking the law, and then vanished off the face of the earth once it all got too much for them. They ended up owing money all over town.”

“Oh, really?” Miles said. He spoke as if he was hearing this for the first time.

“They weren’t an isolated case, either. Not by a long shot. The industry attracted its share of crooks, especially in those early days. A lot of people just out to make a quick buck. Things have changed a lot since then, though. Much better regulated, less of a free-for-all. At least compared with what it was. All the cowboys and shonky operators have been shut down.”

He flipped over to the next page and read some more. Miles noticed a fat bead of sweat forging a path down the middle of his forehead. This was despite the cool weather outside, the lack of heating inside, and the fact that Houston was wearing nothing heavier than a short-sleeved polyester shirt.

“It’s strange you and I never crossed paths before,” he continued. “A lot of my staff actually got their start at Dead Rite. You must have made your escape before I had the chance to recruit you.”

Miles answered with a tight smile. This wasn’t actually his first face to face encounter with Jack Houston. They had met once before, in a pub a few years ago. That was the night Houston tried to lure him away from Dead Rite by offering him a job with Z-Pro. The night that Miles, fueled by the kind of bravado and certitude that only a half-dozen whiskey shots could provide, flatly and rudely turned him down. Fortunately for him, Houston was probably just as inebriated on that particular occasion, and he appeared to have no recollection of that night.

“So tell me.” Houston dropped the résumé onto the desk. He sized Miles up with his beady eyes. “It’s obvious you have the experience, and just by looking at your work history I’m confident you’re more than qualified to do the job. But in your own words, tell me why you’re the applicant we should select for this position. Why would you be the best fit for Z-Pro?”

As soon as he heard the question every synapse in his brain ceased to function, and all the answers he’d spent the past few days rehearsing disappeared. Whywouldhe be the best fit for Z-Pro? More to the point, why did he even want to work for them at all?When he left the industry years ago he assumed it would be for good. As far as he was concerned, that chapter of his life was closed. He was grateful to have escaped relatively unscathed when he did. Others weren’t so lucky. But now here he was, doing something he never thought he’d do, attempting to return to a job and a life he had left behind long ago.

He silenced the doubting voices chipping away at the back of his mind, took a deep breath, and he rattled off an answer with as much forced enthusiasm as it was possible to fake. He spoke of his passion for the industry, and his unwavering belief in helping people and performing his civic duty. He emphasized his desire to work for a respected organization with the potential for long-term career advancement. All the usual hot air usually spouted in a job interview. Stuff that sounded good, but was essentially meaningless.

It was exactly what Jack Houston wanted to hear, judging by the way he nodded along with everything that was said, but Miles could feel his soul slipping further and further away with every word that left his mouth.

Chapter 2

The title of the video was “sk8r dude gets head krushed by zombie”. It was accompanied by an extreme content warning. Devon Spooner debated whether that was something he really wanted to watch. His cousin had sent him the link. He clicked on the thumbnail and waited for it to load.

He viewed the first fifteen seconds before shutting it down. He immediately regretted doing that. There was once a time when he would scour the web for the goriest and most depraved zombie videos he could find, but not any more. He’d had some bad undead experiences since then. After seeing some of the things he had seen, they weren’t so funny anymore.

The clip delivered on what the title promised. Some idiot had ventured too close to a rabid zombie and had his skull opened up like an Easter egg. He should have known better than to click on anything his cousin had sent him. That guy wasn’t right in the head.

There was a knock at the door. He closed the laptop and pulled on a t-shirt.

He wasn’t expecting visitors today, and his customers knew never to turn up unannounced. He checked to make sure his baseball bat was within reach. He didn’t think he’d need it, but he felt safer knowing it was there.

He pressed his eye to the peep hole. A young girl, probably mid- to late-teens, waited on his doorstep. It was no one he knew, although she did look vaguely familiar.

“Yeah?” he said. He tried to convey a kind of belligerent toughness.

“Um ... I’m looking for Devon?” the girl said. “Devon Spooner. Is that you?”

“That depends on who’s asking.”

“M-my name’s Brianna.” Her voice was shaky, her words coming with reluctance. “Brianna Goodman. I live a few blocks over. On Fountaineer Parade. Opposite the park.”

The name wasn’t ringing any bells. He still didn’t know what to make of this. “Is that right?” he said.

He studied the girl through the peep hole. She didn’t appear to be particularly threatening, and if someone was planning on ripping him off it’s unlikely they would knock first. But he also knew he could never be too careful, especially with the amount of cash he kept around the house. The moment you let your guard down, that was the moment you found yourself face down on the floor with someone’s foot pressing against the back of your neck. And if he was thinking about robbing someone, sending a pretty young girl to get inside and lower your defenses would be one way of doing it.

But something told him this girl was genuine. She seemed especially nervous and upset. Her eyes pinballed from side to side, and her face twitched with involuntary tremors. If this was all an act, it was an impressive performance.

“Please ... can you let me in?” she said.

“Alright. I’m opening the door. But don’t try anything. No sudden moves, and keep your hands where I can see ‘em at all times. Got it?”

She gave a quick nod to show that she understood. Devon flicked open the deadbolts.

Brianna forced a smile of gratitude as she stepped inside and followed him into the lounge room.

“So, Brianna Goodman.” He lowered himself onto the sofa. “What can I do for you?”

The girl stood awkwardly near the lounge entrance. She looked for a place to sit. The chairs were covered in old pizza boxes and empty cans and other random junk. The only available seat was on the sofa, next to Devon. She chose to remain standing.

“I’m here because –”

She faltered when the words didn’t come. She cleared her throat and tried again.

“It’s my father ... it happened last week ... we, we noticed he had this nasty cut on his arm ... it looked really bad, like it had become infected ... he told us he came off his motorbike, I don’t know why he said that ... maybe he was embarrassed, or in denial ... we told him he needed to get it checked out, but ... you know ... I think he thought maybe if he ignored it, it might go away ...”

Devon nodded. “I know what you mean. Some men won’t go to a doctor unless their toes are about to drop off.”

Brianna was silent for a moment before continuing.

“We woke up in the middle of the night to find out he was undead.” Her voice cracked as she sniffed back tears. “We’ve looked into treatment options, but it’s all so expensive. His insurance won’t cover it, and there’s no way we could ever afford it ourselves. We have nothing to sell. We live in a rented house, so we can’t take out a second mortgage. I don’t know what we’re going to do. You’re our only hope.”

“It’s okay,” Devon said. He was doing his best impression of what he thought a compassionate person might look like. “Maybe I can help. Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

He considered offering some sort of comforting gesture, such as a light pat on the shoulder, or maybe even a hug, but he worried that might come across as too forward. Instead, he fetched her a can of Mountain Dew from the refrigerator before retreating to his bedroom.

He yanked off his t-shirt and tossed it on the floor. It had stopped being wearable at least four days ago. He drenched his chest in a liberal spraying of deodorant, and added another burst when he couldn’t remember if he’d showered that day or not. He slipped his gold chain around his neck, the one with the diamond-encrusted Uzi-shaped pendant, and he threw on a clean t-shirt. It was his new Metallica shirt, the one with the snake fromThe Black Albumon it.

“Who are you getting all dressed up for?”

The voice startled him. He spun around. Oh, no. She was still here, in his bed. The psycho hose beast he had tried unsuccessfully to break up with for the past three months. He assumed she had left hours ago. This chick was harder to shake than a venereal disease.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” he said. “It’s two in the afternoon.”

A pile of dirty laundry sat in the corner of the room. Devon pushed it aside with his foot. He got down on his hands and knees and peeled back a section of carpet.

“Who were you talking to out there?” the woman said, speaking through a yawn.

“No one.” Jesus, she looked rough when she had just woken up and he was sober.

He lifted up a loose floorboard and reached into the floor. He pulled out a brown shoebox.

“Doesn’t sound like no one,” she said.

“It’s no one you have to worry about, alright? Just a customer. Go back to sleep.”

“Make up your mind. Do you want me to leave, or do you want me to go back to sleep?”

“Either. Both. Whatever, just don’t bother me when I’m doing business.”

He slotted the floorboard back into place and moved the carpet over the top. He pulled the bedroom door closed on his way out.

Brianna was where he had left her, standing rigid by his shelf of BluRays as if she was afraid to move. The can of Mountain Dew remained unopened in front of her.

“Now, has your father been safely secured?” Devon said, reverting back to his sympathetic voice.

Brianna nodded. “We managed to tie him up. He’s in the tool shed, at the back of the yard.”

“That’s good. That’s the most important part. How long ago did this all happen?”

“He transitioned, um ... four, no, five days ago now.”

“Five days shouldn’t be a problem. His organic material will still be in fairly decent condition. There won’t be too much decay yet. If you leave it too long they sometimes need organ and tissue transplants, but he should be fine. He’ll probably require a blood transfusion, but that’s easily arranged.”

He removed the lid from the shoebox. Inside were several smaller white boxes, each containing a dozen clear vials.

“First thing you’ll need to do is set up an IV. You’ll have to give him a large dose of Nembutal to sedate him. That will put him in an induced coma. Once that happens he’ll need to be injected with one vial of Zaracaine-9, three times a day.”

He held up a single 10ml vial between his thumb and forefinger.

“This is Zaracaine-9, and this is what destroys the infection. One of these, three times a day, and in about two weeks he’ll be ready to be brought back to life. You do that with a shot of adrenaline and a series of shocks with a defibrillator.”

He searched around for a pen. He found one in between the sofa cushions. He tore off a piece from a takeaway food menu.

“That’s usually done by a medical professional, but I know a guy who can do it for about a hundred bucks.” He scrawled a number on the scrap of paper. “He has his own homemade device. It’s basically a car battery hooked up to these two pads, but the end result is the same. The body gets shocked back to life and the organs start working again.”

He wrote a second number below the first.

“And this is the number for the guy who can do the transfusions. You’ll probably need three or four in those first two weeks. He keeps a small supply of blood on hand, all different types, so you can buy it from him. He charges less if you can find someone with a matching blood type who can supply it for you.”

He handed the piece of paper to Brianna.

“He should emerge from his coma within four to five days. After that, he’ll need to keep up a steady dose of Zaracaine-9. One injection in the morning, one at night, for the first three months, then one a day after that. This information is all available online, by the way. I’ll send you a link to this page that has all the dosages and step-by-step instructions, so you won’t need to memorize –”

Devon’s mouth stopped working mid-sentence as he became lost in thought. There was something strangely familiar about Brianna. He didn’t know what it was, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He thought he recognized her when he first saw her. He assumed their paths must have crossed around the neighborhood at some point. But there was more to it than that. He didn’t just recognize her; heknewher. They had a shared history, somehow. It was her mannerisms, and the way she spoke. The way she twisted her hair around her middle finger and chewed on her lower lip between sentences. It gave him the weirdest feeling of déjà vu, as if they had met in a previous life.

“Sorry, what did you say your name was?” he said.

“Um, Brianna?” She spoke as if she wasn’t sure this was the correct answer. “Brianna Goodman?”

Goodman. A name he had heard before, but not for a long time. Distant memories were prodded somewhere in the recess of his brain. A bolt of lightning struck.

“Are you related to Alison Goodman?” he said.

“Um, yeah? That’s my mother.”

A wide smile appeared on Devon’s face. That was it. “I thought I knew you from somewhere.”

“What, you know her?”

“Yeah, I actually ... yeah. I mean, I used to. Kinda. Haven’t seen her in ages, though.”

Devon had known Brianna’s mother when he was younger. They had attended the same high school, although this was a fact he hesitated to divulge at this stage. He was trying to conceal his true age from Brianna for the time being.

Alison Goodman was two years ahead of him at Golden Hill High, as well as several rungs higher on the school’s social hierarchy. The last time he saw her was just before she dropped out, aged seventeen. No official reason was ever given for her sudden disappearance, but with her cravings for peanut butter and Cheetos sandwiches, multiple reported incidents of projectile vomiting in public, and a belly that was visibly expanding by the day, it wasn’t too hard for everyone to figure it out for themselves.

Seventeen and a half years later, Alison’s teenage mistake stood in his lounge room, fidgeting with her bracelet and compulsively tapping her foot. She was a near-replica of her mother at the same age, just with a nose ring, purple streaks in her hair, and a much slimmer waistline. He didn’t know who she was really buying the medication for, but it certainly wasn’t her father. Not her biological father, anyway. No one ever found out who knocked up Alison Goodman all those years ago. Even Alison was said to not be one hundred percent certain of the parentage. There were multiple rumored candidates, ranging from a married thirty-eight year old nightclub owner to the school’s art teacher to the bassist for a touring nu-metal band. In any case, the culprit hadn’t bothered to stick around to help out with the raising of his child. Brianna was probably buying the medication for whoever it was her mother had shacked up with. She would have told Devon it was for her father to play up the whole sympathy angle.

He chuckled to himself and shook his head. “Small world, huh?”

“I guess so,” she shrugged.

“So anyway, I’ve had to raise my prices a bit.” Devon switched back to business mode, speaking in his professional voice. “It’s unfortunate, but unavoidable. Getting this stuff through customs has become a total ball-ache. They’re really coming down hard on it.”

“I understand,” she said.

“So with that in mind, I can offer this to you today for six-fifty.”

Brianna’s mouth fell open an inch. She looked at Devon, trying to figure out if he was playing some sort of cruel prank on her. The regeneration process was prohibitively expensive. This medication would have cost close to thirty grand had she gone through the official channels. He was offering it to her for a small fraction of that price.

“Six-fifty? You mean six hundred and fifty ... dollars?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Is that for ... does that ...?”

“That covers everything you’ll need for the initial regeneration, plus enough Zaracaine-9 to last three or four weeks after that. You can come back for more refills as you need them.”

Brianna hurried to get the money. Her hands trembled as she counted out the bills. “I honestly ... you don’t know what this means to us. I don’t know how we can ever thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me. I’m happy to help out someone when they need a hand. It just infuriates me to see these huge corporations exploiting desperate and vulnerable people. That’s the main reason why I do this.”

He kept a straight face as he said this. Devon was in it for the money and nothing else.

Brianna handed over the cash, and she shoved the package into her backpack. He gave her his phone number and told her to call if there were any problems. She thanked Devon several more times before leaving.

He returned to the lounge and opened his laptop. He logged on to an online poker site. He had promised he wouldn’t do this anymore after gambling away a sizable chunk of his savings a couple of months back, but he figured a few quick games couldn’t hurt. He was in a good mood, and he was feeling lucky. His hunch was justified fifteen minutes later when he found himself eight hundred dollars ahead.

Today’s transaction had netted only a small profit. The real money would come through repeat business. Brianna would have to keep coming back for refills, and his prices would gradually rise – unforeseen supply issues, danger money, inflation, or some other invented reason. She would have no choice but to keep on buying through him, over and over, for as long as the old man needed the meds. He was the only one in the area selling it, so it wasn’t as if she could take her business elsewhere. And if she had trouble coming up with the cash – well, he was sure they would be able to come to some sort of arrangement.

For years the devastating and apparently incurable contagion known as zombism had destroyed innocent lives and plunged the world into a state of chaos. The sheer magnitude of the epidemic was bewildering, tearing a path of destruction and inducing mass panic on a scale not seen since the Spanish flu a century earlier. More than sixty million people had been affected since it emerged, initially in Germany, before spreading throughout Europe and beyond in a matter of days. The threat subsided after the first few tumultuous weeks, but by then the world had been irreversibly altered.

Despite having some of the greatest scientific minds working together to study the contagion, no one really knew anything about it. It didn’t behave like a typical disease, or a virus, or a plague. It was unlike anything they had ever encountered; a mutant man-made strain that did not fit comfortably into any pre-existing category. Even though the existence of zombism and the potential for large-scale outbreaks had been known for decades, biologists and epidemiologists were still no closer to knowing what it was, let alone how to treat it. It was eventually given the official title of the BNBO-511:17 pathogen, although most continued to refer to it simply as “the infection”. Transmission occurred through blood and saliva, which typically came after one infected carrier sunk its teeth into the flesh of the uninfected. A short incubation period followed, after which the victim metamorphosed into a dangerous and ravenous savage.

Debate still raged as to whether infected humans should be categorized as alive or dead. Some of the characteristics exhibited were consistent with that of the deceased; primarily a lack of heartbeat and limited brain activity. But they also displayed several traits not commonly found in the dead, with aggressive movement and an insatiable appetite for human flesh being the most obvious examples. They were eventually classified as being undead – not alive, not dead, but caught in a state of limbo, inhabiting both states simultaneously.

The military were deployed in those first few weeks to round up the hordes of infected. Once that had been taken care of, they next had to figure out what to do with them. Many believed the undead should be euthanised, both for compassionate reasons and to prevent further spread of the infection, but this was met with strong opposition. Families and friends of undead beings objected to the slaughter of their loved ones, especially as they were still moving and behaving in something resembling a lifelike manner. A grass-roots movement formed that campaigned for their protection and demanded the undead be treated humanely.

The various governments and world bodies eventually reached a compromise whereby any infected humans would be quarantined and held for an indefinite period of time in the hope that a way of reversing the condition would soon be found. The National Law to End Violence Against the Dead Act (NEVADA) was introduced, prohibiting civilians from causing unnecessary harm toward any undead being.

While the public accepted these measures to begin with, support soon fell away once the spiraling costs associated with capturing and housing the undead mounted. There was a growing animosity, helped in no small part by a scaremongering media and opportunistic politicians, both of whom sought to exploit the tragedy for their own benefit. A significant number of people regarded the entire process as a waste of money, while others claimed that by not putting them out of their misery they were prolonging the undead’s suffering. The consensus was that a cure was unlikely to ever be found, and they were simply delaying the inevitable.

But against the odds, a stunning breakthrough came when Zaracaine-9 hit the market courtesy of Elixxia Pharmaceuticals. The drug was hailed as the greatest medical achievement of the twenty-first century, a scientific milestone comparable to DNA mapping, the cure for polio and the discovery of penicillin.

Zaracaine-9 was labeled by some as a miracle cure, but this was inaccurate as the medication did not completely rid the body of the infection. Instead, it worked to suppress the majority of the debilitating symptoms, and returned the patient to a state of health similar to what they experienced prior to becoming infected. While some after-effects continued to linger, it allowed sufferers to manage their condition and enjoy a reasonable quality of life.

It was far from perfect, and there was still a great deal of work to be done in developing a permanent cure, but after years of being terrorized by this malicious and insoluble scourge the world was finally given a glimmer of hope.

Chapter 3

An array of conflicting emotions tumbled around inside Miles’ head during the drive home from Z-Pro. He didn’t really know how he should feel about this. The interview went fine, as far as he could tell. He was confident in the responses he gave, and Jack Houston seemed to take a liking to him, if the bone-mashing, shoulder-dislocating handshake he left him with was anything to go by. But still, did he actually want the job? Heneededthe job – or he needed a regular income – and after close to a year out of work he was eager to avoid the stigma associated with long-term unemployment. Just not in undead management and control. Anything but that.

Three years ago, shortly after the collapse of Dead Rite, he and Felix started their own business. Felix had used his time at Dead Rite to build a small catalog of inventions and innovations that could be utilized in the UMC field. He had a handful of products ready to go, along with sketches and blueprints for several more. It was Miles who came up with the idea of using their Dead Rite payouts to develop and market these products on a wide scale.

Their success was almost immediate, and they were turning a profit within the first six months. They scored contracts to supply several government agencies, both locally and around the world, and were soon hiring extra staff to keep up with demand. There were long hours, high stress levels and a steep learning curve, but Miles was more than happy to be there. Compared with what he had to deal with at his previous job, this was a walk in the park. There was none of the dysfunction and chaos that marred Dead Rite’s final few months. The threat of bankruptcy was not constantly hanging over their heads, and at no point did anyone have a near-death experience. He would have been content to continue on like that for the foreseeable future.

Felix had other ideas, however. After a couple of years, the daily grind of running the business had worn him down and drained his creativity. He found himself with less time to tinker away in his workshop and develop new ideas, which was what he really loved to do more than anything else. He also had the foresight to see that demand for their products was likely to drop off sooner rather than later. Undead populations had peaked, and a sharp decline was predicted for the coming years. Recent developments in treatments to combat the infection was likely to reduce these numbers even further. Now would be the best time to sell. The two of them had taken the business as far as they could on their own, and it was time to hand the reigns over to someone else. Miles resisted the idea at first, but he soon came to see that the numbers didn’t lie. If they wanted the best price they needed to strike while the iron was hot.

The business was purchased by a German conglomerate, and Miles received fifty percent of the payout, collecting more than seven times his original investment. He thought Felix was being overly generous by agreeing to divide the proceeds equally, especially since Felix could take the majority of the credit for their success, while he mostly handled basic ordering and administrative duties. He felt guilty for accepting more than he deserved – although not guilty enough to suggest he receive a smaller share. Any residual guilt he may have had disappeared soon enough once the new owners re-hired Felix to join their product development and innovation division, with a hefty six-figure salary to go with it. Miles used his money to take a well-earned break.

He enjoyed his time off for a start. The funds were enough to allow him to relax and consider his options for the future. He didn’t need to rush into anything just yet. He wasn’t rich exactly, but he was comfortable, and for the first time in years he was free from all commitments and responsibilities. The mortgage had been taken care of, and his sister Shae had left for college. The money wouldn’t last forever, but it was a nice buffer. He stretched it out further by moving into a smaller apartment and renting the house out to bring in some extra income.

But the months flew by fast enough, and he saw that he would eventually need to look for a regular job. He wasn’t panicking quite yet, but his indefinite vacation had already created a small dent in his savings. His years of financial hardship were still fresh in his mind, where he existed pay check to pay check and the fear of losing the house was constantly hanging over his head. That was a period of his life he had no desire to ever revisit. In any case, he had to find something to fill in his days, if only to maintain his own sanity and sense of self-worth. It didn’t have to be his dream job. Anything would do. He applied for dozens of positions, and he asked friends and former work colleagues to let him know of any potential leads, but he never heard back from anyone.

Last month he learned that Z-Pro was hiring. Ordinarily he wouldn’t have given it a second thought. After everything he had been through at Dead Rite, a job that had almost cost him his life, this was the last avenue he should be considering. But at that moment, for reasons he still didn’t fully understand, he contemplated making a return to the UMC industry. It may have had something to do with the fact that his twenty-seventh birthday was now only a month away, and he had been thinking a lot about what that meant for him. The infinite possibilities of youth were growing distant, and the world was no longer his oyster. He had to face up to reality – he had very few marketable skills, his options were diminishing with every year that passed, and he was in no position to be selective about the type of work he would or would not do. He applied for the job before he had the chance to talk himself out of it.

He arrived home just after four p.m. His new living quarters were far from glamorous, and a little cramped, especially after spending most of his life in a spacious three bedroom house with a large backyard, but he didn’t mind too much. The rent was reasonable, it was close to the city, and – most important of all – he could afford to live there by himself. After years of being trapped in that madhouse with inmates coming and going at all hours and never getting a moment’s peace, this was bliss. Some people craved the company of others, but he knew it would be some time before he grew tired of living alone.

The rest of his evening was spent watching YouTube clips of rare live performances from obscure bands he hadn’t listened to since he was a teenager. It wasn’t his intention to waste hours in front of the computer. It just kind of happened that way. He ate a bowl of cereal and half a box of crackers for dinner. The guilt kicked in soon after. He made a promise that, starting tomorrow, he would try to live more like an adult.

He was jolted awake the next morning by his phone buzzing a few inches from his ear. He flung an arm out and swatted it off the bedside drawer.

He pried his eyes open. Daylight was peeking in from behind the curtains. His alarm clock told him it was almost nine. He never slept that late.

His throat was like sandpaper, and his pillow was cold and damp. It was that dream again. The one where he was trapped in the back of the Range Rover. Rotting flesh pressing against the glass. Dead arms clawing at windows filled with hairline cracks, seconds away from shattering. He had been abandoned in a small town in the middle of nowhere, with no one knowing where he was. It was so vivid he almost had to check himself for bite marks. The dream had tormented him on and off for the past few years, although it had been a while since he’d last had it. He thought maybe he was over it. He didn’t need an expert dream analyst to tell him what might have prompted its ominous return.

He waited a moment to let his mind settle before reaching down to pick the phone up from the floor.

It was a message was from Jack Houston. He was offering him the job.

A head filled with nagging doubts and a knot in his stomach prevented him from getting more than a few hours’ sleep the night before the first day of the new job. He had tried over and over to rationalize his actions and convince himself that he wasn’t making the biggest mistake of his life. This was nothing more than a temporary arrangement. It was a placeholder, something to keep himself occupied until a better opportunity came along. It would prevent difficult-to-explain gaps from appearing in his résumé, and it would ease some of the concerns he had about money. For the first time in his adult life he was financially comfortable, and he would prefer to keep it that way. Working a crappy job would give him the necessary motivation to find something more meaningful to do with his life. But no matter how many times he told himself this, he was never really able to believe it.

Morning came around in the blink of an eye, and he found himself entering the foyer of the Z-Pro building, fighting off insomnia-induced butterflies and a chronic case of anxiety perspiration.

“I’m Miles,” he managed to croak at the woman at reception. He swallowed, then forced out the words he really did not want to say: “I’m starting work here today.”

The woman lifted the phone handset and dialed a number. “Take a seat. Somebody will be with you soon,” she said.

He settled into one of the white plastic chairs lined up against the wall, in between two artificial pot plants. A poster hung opposite, directly in his line of sight. It was a community service announcement that had been left up from last Halloween, warning of the dangers of dressing as undead beings for that year’s festivities. There had been numerous reported incidents in previous years of revelers in costume being mistaken for actual zombies. Not only did this cause unnecessary alarm among the community, it also placed a huge strain on UMC services when they were called out to false alarms. Worse, it often ended with the person in costume being attacked by members of the public who may have believed they were in danger.

As well as creating a nuisance, many considered dressing as a zombie to be insensitive and disrespectful toward former humans and survivors.

An older man in a green and white checkered shirt and wire-framed glasses appeared a few minutes later. He introduced himself as Dr. Sloan, the company’s on-site medical officer. He took Miles into a small room near the back to undergo his pre-employment physical and medical examination. The test consisted of straightforward stretching and lifting exercises to gauge his strength and flexibility, as well as hearing and eyesight examinations, to determine if he was capable of doing the job. It was similar to the one he undertook before commencing work at Dead Rite several years back. The only difference now was that this one required him to submit a blood sample. New laws were introduced last year that gave businesses the right to screen all current and prospective employees to determine if they were or had ever been undead. Anyone returning a positive test could be refused employment or instantly dismissed, with no legal recourse available.

He was given a clean bill of health, pending the results of the blood test, and he returned to his seat in the foyer. The woman at reception advised him the team leader would be with him in a few minutes.

Those few minutes stretched out to ten, then to twenty minutes. Then to thirty. The longer he waited the further his mind drifted, and the more he began to question just what he was doing here. He was already regretting his decision. By accepting the job he felt like he had regressed five years in life. He flirted with the idea of getting up and walking out the door with no explanation, simply leaving and not looking back. He soon dismissed this as a stupid idea; he was a grown man, and he couldn’t just run away from every difficult or unpleasant situation he encountered throughout his life. But as the minutes ticked over, the more appealing the notion became. He could go now and this whole episode could be laughed off, a terrible lapse in judgment before he came to his senses.

Finally, after forty-five excruciating minutes, a door opened behind him and he heard a voice. “Michael?”

“Uh, Miles,” he said.

He rose from his seat and put on his best fake smile. It took all his strength and willpower to hold that smile in place when he came face to face with his new team leader.

Oh, no. Not her.Anyonebut her.

“Sorry, Miles,” she said, holding out her hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Erin?”

“Yeah. I know.”

Erin. His colleague from Dead Rite and, prior to that, his classmate at Acacia Hills Secondary College. In addition to the humiliation of returning to the UMC industry, he would now be subservient to his high school nemesis. Just when he thought this couldn’t get any worse.

Despite his misgivings about working for Z-Pro, not once did it cross his mind that he might encounter people he knew. He should have run out the door when he had the chance.

“My reputation precedes me, does it?” Erin said with a heavy laugh.

“Your ... I’m sorry, what?”

“Whatever you heard, don’t believe a word of it. Less than eighty percent of it is true.” She headed toward the automatic doors leading to the building’s main area. He hurried to catch up. “Sorry I’m late, by the way? My fiancé cracked a tooth trying to open a bottle this morning and I had to take him to the dentist.”

She laughed again, and it soon dawned on him exactly what was happening here. Once again, Miles had been erased from Erin’s memory. They had attended the same high school for six years, but when she first came to work for Dead Rite she appeared to have no recollection of ever meeting him. They worked side by side for a further two years, and now she was speaking to him as if this was their first ever meeting. As far as she was concerned he was a total stranger.

He wondered if he had really changed that much since they last saw each other. He didn’t think he had, although he probably wasn’t in the best position to judge. Erin was more or less how he remembered her. She had a new bright fuchsia hairstyle and several more visible tattoos, but apart from that she was the same. She still had a speaking voice pitched at a volume that suggested everyone around her was hard of hearing. She still made every second sentence sound like a question. A more likely explanation for her lack of recognition was that Miles just wasn’t that memorable.

“I haven’t had the chance to look at your application yet,” Erin said. She swiped her access pass across a scanner to unlock a door. “Jack told me you’ve done UMC work before?”

“Yeah, I used to work for Dead Rite,” he said.

He thought that might jog her memory, but she remained oblivious. “Oh, I worked there too. With Steve and Adam, right? A lot of us at Z-Pro started off at Dead Rite, actually. Kaylan, Nathaniel, Alex. And Brock, that’s my fiancé, he also worked there briefly? You must have left before I started.”

“Right. I must have.”

He decided to leave it at that. There was nothing to be gained from dredging up the past, other than further discomfort. If Erin thought they were meeting for the first time it would probably be better if he allowed her to believe that.

“Anyway, I’ll introduce you to the rest of the team?” Erin said.

She led him down a corridor and toward the main staff area. Miles’ career as a UMC agent had officially resumed.

Chapter 4

The first few hours of the new job served as a reminder of just how tedious being a UMC agent could be. Erin spent about twenty minutes showing Miles around the site and introducing him to the other team members on duty that day. All were strikingly similar in appearance – shaved heads, Viking beards, neck tattoos and perma-scowls. After that it was on to the break room, where he sat around and waited for the work to come in.

Lunch time came and went, and he had still done nothing more than watch TV and regret his life choices. He listened to Erin as she recounted all the funny things that happened to her during her Dead Rite days. He laughed along and pretended he didn’t already know these stories, and in some cases he was directly involved with the incidents she described. He also heard her mention her fiancé a further four times, in case he’d forgotten she was now engaged.

The first job for the day finally came in at around 3:45 p.m. It was delegated to Brandon, an employee whose one point of difference from all the other bearded and tattooed guys with shaved heads was that he was also the size of an ox. Miles was assigned to accompany him to the location.

They climbed on board the company truck. Brandon fed the address into the sat nav, and they took off.

At least the Z-Pro vehicles were more comfortable and modern than the rattling carbon monoxide-spewing sweatboxes he was forced to ride along in at Dead Rite. This one in particular was impressive. It was the newest addition to their fleet, and had quickly become the most popular one for staff to take out on jobs. With its car fridge, leather seats, heating and cooling, and state of the art sound system, it was about as close as a work truck could get to being a luxury vehicle. The front section had space for the driver and three passengers, with an area at the back separated by a glass partition that could hold as many as fifteen former humans. It was all-white with giant Z-Pro logos airbrushed on both sides.

The staff had christened this vehicle the White Tiger. An army-obsessed former employee had come up with the moniker, inspired by an indestructible tank from one of his favorite war movies. Miles had to agree the name was appropriate – riding in the front felt like cruising the streets in a military vehicle. He suspected that if they were T-boned by another car they would barely even feel it.

The address was about ten minutes away, situated in a neat upper-middle class neighborhood. This in itself was unusual. Zombie sightings in this part of town were rare. They drove past an antiques store and a café, and they turned into a quiet residential street.

“This looks like us up ahead,” Brandon said.

A half-dozen vehicles surrounded a property, a few houses down from the corner. Most were police cars, and there was one ambulance. Yellow crime scene tape cordoned off the front.

Miles could feel his pulse accelerate, and it wasn’t just first-job nerves. The number of cop cars was a sure sign this was more than a routine capture and collect job. Something serious had gone down here.

The truck pulled over a few houses up. They stepped out of the vehicle and onto the road.

Police officers knocked on doors of neighboring homes to collect statements from the residents. Several more photographed the scene. Two paramedics pushed a body bag on a gurney into the back of the ambulance.

At least one person was dead. This explained the police presence.

They crossed over the road. Two cops stood guard out the front of the property. “You guys UMC?” the older of the two said.

Brandon nodded. “How many you got for us today?”

“Just the one,” the cop said.

“Or a bit less than one,” his partner said. “About nine-tenths.”

The younger cop lifted the yellow tape for Brandon and Miles to duck under. They were led down the driveway and into the backyard.

“Over there.” The older cop pointed to the rear of the property. “He’s all yours. Good luck.”

Brandon and Miles took two steps in that direction before coming to a complete stop.

“God in heaven,” Brandon said as he laid eyes on their target for the first time. “What the hell happened here?”

The corpse was propped up against the back fence. It was upright, slumped forward slightly and surrounded by a plague of insects. There was no sign of movement.

A wide broom head protruded from the middle of its torso, just beneath the sternum. The rest of the broom wasn’t visible. They could only assume the handle had impaled the former human, going all the way through its body and wedging in between the fence boards. This was what held it up. The zombie was pinned to the fence like a flier on a bulletin board.

They each took a few cautious steps forward to get a closer look at the extent of its injuries.

Its neck had a gash several inches deep, displaying glimpses of windpipe and vertebrae. The skin around its face and neck was charred black. Its lower lip and most of its left cheek had been ripped clean off. It had a mouthful of broken teeth. Its jaw hung several inches lower than normal, like a mailbox with a busted latch. Its left eyeball bulged from the socket. Its rib cage was exposed, showing rapidly decomposing internal organs.

Brandon shook his head with disgust. “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

Miles went to speak, but he was hit by the stench as soon as his mouth opened. He had forgotten how putrid these things could smell, especially ones that had spent hours baking in the sun. He needed to step back to compose himself and allow his stomach to settle. He was grateful to have skipped lunch today. He would probably be skipping dinner as well.

He didn’t know what had happened here, but it wasn’t too hard to imagine. Someone, or most likely a group of people, had tortured this zombie for no other reason than they were bored, or they thought it would be funny. Judging by the body bag Miles saw being loaded into the ambulance a few minutes ago, the zombie managed to dispatch a small amount of payback.

He had encountered some disturbing situations during his time at Dead Rite, back when anti-zombie sentiment was at its peak, but never anything quite this shocking.

“Anyone seen it move yet?” he said.

“Don’t think so,” the younger cop said. “I haven’t, anyway.”

Brandon came to within a few feet. He studied it for movement. It remained perfectly still, hanging there like a repulsive scarecrow. He gave it a gentle poke in the side with his snare pole. There was no response. He poked it again, harder, with the same result.

He gave it a quick jab to the face. The zombie’s head jerked up. It belched out an angry howl and lurched forward, arms flailing as it tried to claw at Brandon. The broom lodged in its midsection prevented it from moving more than an inch or two.

Miles flinched in fear, then immediately felt embarrassed. He looked around to see if anyone noticed. He didn’t think they had.

“Ah, that’s disappointing,” Brandon said. “I was kind of hoping they’d finished it off for us.”

He returned to the truck to collect two sets of protective workwear. There was no way they were getting anywhere near that thing wearing just their regular clothes.

They pulled on the disposable polyethylene suits, the masks and the latex gloves, and then set about the delicate task of securing and removing the zombie from the property. They couldn’t handle it like a regular undead being. It was in such a fragile state that any rough treatment could result in body parts dropping off and internal organs spilling out. That would only prolong the process, and nobody wanted to have to clean that up.

Brandon positioned the snare pole’s prongs around the zombie’s neck. He was careful not to exacerbate the deep wound. Miles put the cable ties around its wrists and slipped the grill over its face. Snapping the muzzle shut took several attempts due to its broken and misshapen jaw. He dislodged the broom from the fence and gently removed it from the zombie’s midsection. The handle came out coated in a thin layer of green-brown sludge.

“Enjoying the job so far?” Brandon said with a smirk.

Miles tossed the broom to the ground. “What do you think they do with cases like this?” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“You know, when the condition is so severe that nothing can be done for them. Like this guy. There might be treatment available to help reverse the symptoms of zombism, but I’m not sure there’s much they can do to fix the gaping hole in the side of his neck.”

Brandon paused to consider this for a moment. “I never really thought about it. To be honest, I think that’s one of those things I’d prefer not to know.”