The Zombie Letters (10 page)

LockeII Research Center, Washington DC

IX

NATHANIEL WINTERS EMAIL

SECURITY CLEARANCE ‘A’ ONLY

CLASSIFIED

---------------------

To General Morgan Harden

January 1st, 2016

I will accept Doctor Miles’ request to end his tenure with the team. Due to the stresses of recent events here, he has withdrawn his position. He stated nothing to me other than his need for immediate dismissal. I understand that you wish to have him back at the Iowa State LockeI lab as lead director on a new project. I am sure he will serve you well. I give him my highest recommendation, although his open distain for me has reached your collective ears. Despite that, I wish him well. I would like a copy of his resignation letter sent to me as well as his official transfer request report. I do not wish to be slandered and I want to make sure any words said about me are accurate. I do not believe Darin would do this, but this is just for my own personal satisfaction. Thank you.

-----------------------------------------

-Dr. Nathaniel Winters-

“Without hope, there is no dream!!!!”

LockeII Research Center, Washington DC

X

NATHANIEL WINTERS EMAIL

SECURITY CLEARANCE ‘A’ ONLY

CLASSIFIED

---------------------

Harden,

March 8th, 2016

Your withdrawal and removal of my research must be re-considered, sir. Brian and Samantha’s passing yesterday further cemented for me the extreme need to continue on with this research. LYNN001 was harmless and yielded fantastic results. LYNN002 was incorrectly formulated and concentrated at too high a capacity. My wife WILL be honored and vindicated. Please, allow me to appeal your decision. I will not let her death be in vain.

I WILL NOT.

-----------------------------------------

-Dr. Nathaniel Winters-

“Without hope, there is no dream!!!!”

LockeII Research Center, Washington DC

XI

NATHANIEL WINTERS EMAIL

SECURITY CLEARANCE ‘A’ ONLY

CLASSIFIED

---------------------

To General Harden

March 10
th
, 2016

I know I had a meeting scheduled for tomorrow. Sorry about that. I took a plane back to Iowa. I had some better plans, you see. No hard feelings. You can fucking k  KEe keep Brian. If what I think is correct, you will be seeing him soon. See . . . they are dead, but their mitochondrial function . . . those PPo  power plants I mentioned? They are still active. Think, you dense prick. Dead tissue with living cells. Yeah, I took it. I injected myself and that Kareshi caught me. I convinced the staff to have you terminate him. Some were easier to convince than others. Darin couldn’t handle it and quit. So yeah . . . I took the injection right under your nose. But . . . its not psychosis like I thought initially. This is the next stage of evolution, my friend. I jumpstarted it. We are perfect organisms. If human protein is ingested, the strength of LYNN is exponential.

And the best part? The part I didn’t tell you? Higher concentrations of LYNN exist in a subject’s bodily fluids, especially blood and saliva. Cgh888  nhh  A new development . . . to you, anyway. Blood, spit and sweat. So easily distributed.

Samantha. She is with me. I left to be with her. You should see her . . . so lovely. So raw. Like an animal. She is even
physically
stronger than she was before. My drug is something to behold. I wish I could evolve alongside her, but I only injected myself with LYNN001. I will get LYNN002 soon, but I have work to do. Gotta stay sharp.

You will be hearing from me. I guarantee it. You will come for me. I know you can, but you are already out of time.

-----------------------------------------

-Dr. Nathaniel Winters-

XII

NATHANIEL WINTERS EMAIL

SECURITY CLEARANCE ‘A’ ONLY

CLASSIFIED

---------------------

To General Harden.

Marrrrrrrrhhhch &*[email protected] 200166

Wg;uiB

To whho it may conc

Concer,

Concern,

Can’t think,= cant seem to formulate thought. Eyyes hurt. SAMMANNnthaa. I can hear her. I can hear her scratching at the inside of the tank. Pounding on it.

LET HER OUUUT.

I am going to syat in here. Stay in here. Safe in here. I will not let this take me. I can beat this. Just need to get some sleep. That’s all l l     that  that’s all. Just need sleep. Everything will bBEE B better In EHHOO THhee MOrnringi.

Brucie.

==

Brucie. So sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. SO hungry. I was weak, but niowefg nirrew nott this time. Can CoNTorol it. Jesus, man, get ittt together. 2+1 is 3. Racecar is a palindrome. Grover Vl cjjc Cleveland was the only President to serve two non-consecutive terms in the oval office. Esf  LLLLLL

When I was a little boy, I was walking out by the train tracks. I watched a man get eaten alive by wolves.

Sending t t leters now. I only need hands to do that. While they still work. When you get these letters  LET HER THE FUCK OUT . . afjajajf I will be gone. I hope you can help us.

I hear her.

I need you, Sami.

Come give daddy a kiss.

-----------------------------------------

-Dr. Nathaniel Winters-

CHAPTER 4

I

             
H
e wrote two more emails and forwarded them to me. They were completely incoherent. That’s the last I heard of him. Nathaniel took LYNN002 like he said he would. It affected him quickly . . . but still gave him some time to give him some clarity to do what he needed to do. He sounded remorseful in that unsent email . . . but I know the real reason why he wrote like that. Nathaniel was creating a super-concentrated version of Lynn; one that could kill and reanimate subjects instantly. LYNN003. Nate wasn’t remorseful. Son of a bitch wrote that letter to make himself out to be some kind of mistaken hero. A victim.

              Then, what the emai
ls didn’t tell your General. One of the ones he never sent
talked about what he neglected to tell anyone else. By the time he wrote it, he had already created twenty-five hundred gallons of LYNN003. He . . . oh, god. Quibin Reservoir . . . ground zero. That reservoir supplies the drinking water for all of Des Moines, Iowa. In one night . . . my friend, my mentor and by brother Doctor Nathaniel Winters personally infected 203,433 people by dumping it into the water. The water treatment facility feeds directly from the reservoir. Somehow, I don’t know how he did it, but there is a cemetery down the hill from Quibin’s spillway and campground area. Just right down the hill from the grounds. He found a way to get the solution into the soil. Cambria Cemetery. The largest cemetery in the state.

              See, all Lynn is made up of is the simulated plant material and a basic saline solution. You may think that thousands of gallons of the stuff would be impractical to make, but any concentration of the drug is about ninety-seven percent saline solution. During our tenure in Washington, we had over three-hundred buds of that plant growing there. If just one plant could make that much of the drug, imagine what an entire lab of those things would do.  Man . . . I left the university and didn’t tell anyone how far he’d gone. I didn’t tell anybody just how much he cracked. I know he injected LYNN001 while we were in DC. Christ, I helped him do it. This was all my fault, you know. I said absolutely nothing because I thought he could turn all this around. He grew reckless and unethical. I had no idea he would do something like
this.
The LYNN001 results were fantastic. We were so sure.

              When he escaped back to Iowa with Samantha, he took the stronger LYNN002. After the outbreak, he shut himself inside the university facility. I was at home asleep. That place was impossible to break into. Even for . . . them. It was a fucking fortress. I managed to get there after the outbreak and I saw it with my own eyes. Nathaniel had shot Brucie in the head. It appeared as though Nate tried to eat him first. Brucie had two large bites on his back and was partially skinned. Nathaniel also let Samantha out of the large tank she was locked in. She got out and there was nothing left of Nathaniel. She got out. She got out and ate him alive.

It happened faster than I could have imagined. How I stayed alive was quite remarkable. See . . . the plant, Archaeamphora or Archie for short, is harmless by itself. My study proved that if I were exposed to the plant’s pure PQP, I wouldn’t be affected in a negative way. About two days after Des Moines was deserted, the dead found their way into the lab complex. You can’t imagine how terrified I was. I knew I was going to die. In desperation, I grabbed an Archie Nathaniel had hidden and spread some of the bulb’s oil on my face and hands.

They didn’t attack me.

              I was able to exit the facility and . . . God, what I saw. There were just parts; all parts of people everywhere. People here and there were being dragged out of first-floor windows and cars by their arms and legs. They were torn apart. In every corner of the city, I could hear them eat. I could hear booms off in the distance . . . the smoke from the city still reaching the sky. Fires were everywhere, but no one was there to put them out. I have no idea why the plant extract worked. I figured possibly because of some kind of sensory perception that LYNN003 gave them. They terrified me. I could hear their scratches on windows and outer walls at night. Their footsteps were the only sound in the near-silent streets. A couple times, I felt one breathing on me as I tried to sleep. They’d walk right up to me. These rotted monstrosities . . . they would observe me for a moment and then leave.

I wandered everywhere. Anywhere. I found nobody. I’d stay up at night, listening to someone trying to hide . . . making the slightest of sounds. I would never make it to the person quickly enough. Those things would run after the person and attack them in the hundreds. Then, I would hear the screams.

I found a car with a full tank of gas in Osburg. It’s a suburb of Des Moines. I wasn’t aware I’d walked that far. I sat in that car with Archie, listening to static on a radio for three days. Nothing. No broadcasts. No news reports. Just empty static. Even the radio had become death. I dozed off in a car one night with the potted plant bulb in the passenger seat. I snatched a bottle of water from a ransacked grocery store that had a puddle of blood and teeth behind the counter. I gave Archie a nice, cold drink of the water and I fell asleep. I was so thankful I had read Nathaniel’s emails before I left the lab. I read what he’d done to the water supply. It was too late for me to do anything.

That first night was the worst, though. I found a liquor store that hadn’t even been touched. The reason I didn’t call the General that night was because I had quite a bit to drink. I wish I had a better excuse.