The Reanimation of Edward Schuett (19 page)

Edward wasn’t interested in that so much at the moment. He had just found out that his daughter had lived through the worst of the Uprising, had even gotten married and maybe even had children of her own. Did that mean he had grandchildren out there somewhere? But even as these questions went through his mind, his eyes still went to the bottom of the page like she had said.

For the second time in less than a minute it felt like his heart stopped. This time, however, it was not out of joy. Someone—he had to assume it was Liddie—had written something there in a clear feminine hand but with tiny letters. They were so small he could barely read them, but they were there:

Everything in this file is fake
.

Before he had time to say anything she reached over and flipped to another sheet of paper. “You can see here that we found hospital records indicating she gave birth at least once, but elsewhere in the file you’ll see where we think we have evidence she had at least one other child before they started keeping records again.” She pointed at a place on the paper near the bottom, just above another tiny note:

They’re watching. Pretend you believe everything I say
.

Edward knew he should speak, but he didn’t know what would sound convincing. He wasn’t even entirely sure yet what was going on. Either the things she was saying or the things she had written down were a lie, but he was too shocked to come to any other logical conclusions.

“So, um, what did she die of?” he asked. He hoped he sounded sufficiently choked up. It wasn’t exactly an act.

Liddie’s voice was quiet and unsteady. Edward realized now why she had turned up the volume on the television. She wanted to cover up any flaw in her performance for the security cameras.

“Here. We were able to obtain a copy of the death certificate.” She turned to another page. This time she didn’t need to direct him where to look for the next message.

They’re doing this to get your cooperation. They have no intention of looking for any real evidence. You have to pretend this all satisfies you for now
.

He forced himself to look at the fake death certificate. “Accidently killed by friendly fire when her husband was defending their home against an undead attack?” he asked. He felt sick. They had wanted to make it look real, he understood that, but if they were going to give him the false fate of his daughter couldn’t they have at least made it a less bloody and painful death?

“Yes. I’m sorry,” Liddie said. Edward looked up at her. She really did sound sorry. In fact, her eyes looked a little watery. That could have just been part of the act for the cameras, but he found himself meeting her gaze. Her eyes didn’t waver. He thought she honestly was sorry, sorry for being a part of tricking him, maybe sorry for playing with his feelings.

Or maybe he was reading the wrong things into it. For all he knew this was all some complex mind game, another experiment to determine how inhuman he was.

“We know that at least her youngest child is still alive,” Liddie said, gesturing for him to turn to the next page. “So you’re a grandpa.” This sheet was intended to look like an article from a Wisconsin news site. The article was text heavy, but a small portion had been highlighted for his benefit. His granddaughter, the one that didn’t exist, had apparently been named to her school’s honor roll. Underneath, it said:

Rip off these messages as soon as you can and destroy them. Be careful you’re not seen
.

Edward nodded. “This…this is a lot to think about. I think I need some time to sort this all out in my head, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course,” she said. She started to get up, but he touched her arm before she could.

“Liddie, I suppose I should thank whoever did this.”

“I’ll make sure they know,” Liddie said. She hesitated, then leaned in and gave him a hug. She kept her mouth close to his head, presumably where none of the cameras could see her speak, and whispered into his ear. “I swear to God I will help you find out what really happened to her.”

Edward hugged her tightly back, then let her leave.

It took Edward every part of his soul to keep from screaming any time he saw somebody from the CRS other than Liddie. He wanted to beat them, hurt them, and yes, there was even a small urge to try eating them. All of that would be too good for them. They had blatantly played with his emotions in trying to feed him the fake file, and he wasn’t sure that he would be a strong enough person to fight off those animal urges if the circumstances were any different. Liddie was the only one that kept him grounded. Despite some of his earlier reservations, he now believed she was the only person he could trust.

Not that there weren’t still some nagging doubts in his mind. The senior Gates had obviously been a part or at least aware of the plan to trick him, and Liddie had certainly seemed up until this point to be loyal to her mother. He couldn’t comprehend what her game might be, though, if the CRS knew she had told him the file wasn’t real. No. At some point he had to trust somebody, and she was so far the only one who had earned it.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have any chance to talk about it. She visited him regularly, even more now than she had before the file, but they were both acutely aware they were being watched the whole time. They could talk and learn more about each other, but there was still that secret between them that could never get mentioned. Edward felt a constant paranoia that someone watching would see some subtle gesture or clue when they were together and figure out what had happened, but if that happened he never saw any evidence of it.

Enough time passed that he almost forgot about the whole thing. As angry as it made him, he still had almost begun to think of this place as his home. If things had continued on uninterrupted, he might have eventually been able to forgive them.

Then Dr. Chella did something he never would have expected, and that was the beginning of the end of his stay at the CRS. She had an idea. A good one. Too good.

Dr. Emmanuel and Liddie came to take him for the day’s tests like normal, but Edward knew right away that something was different today. Normally they took him in one direction down the hall, but Dr. Emmanuel gestured the other way.

“Where are we going?” Edward asked Liddie. He’d learned a while back not to even bother asking Emmanuel. He never even acknowledged that Edward could talk.

“Not a clue,” Liddie said. “Manny, where are we going?”

“I told you not to call me that,” Emmanuel said, but that was all he gave as a response. Liddie just shrugged and motioned for Edward to follow him. If she wasn’t concerned, then that was good enough for Edward.

He led them to an area close to where they’d kept him on the first day he’d arrived. Edward could smell that familiar honey flavor on the air again, but by now he’d grown used to it. He could smell it on the scientists sometimes when they came to him after observing some of the other specimens. It made him uncomfortable yet calm at the same time, but it had become little more than a background odor. It was stronger today, though. He couldn’t begin to guess why.

Dr. Emmanuel opened a door and pointed for Edward to go in. The door was reinforced just like any of the other doors in this hall, but there was another door right next to it that looked decidedly less secure. With a quick look at Liddie to make sure she still didn’t look worried, he went in and allowed Dr. Emmanuel to close the door behind him. He could hear it lock.

The room was stark white with a high ceiling, completely featureless and without furniture except for the large mirror that took up most of a wall. He’d seen enough cop shows to know it had to be two-way. That could only be where the other door had led. He could hear some vague murmuring from the other side before an intercom came to life and Liddie spoke to him.

“Um, Dr. Chella is here and she wants me to speak to you about a few things.”

“Can’t she talk to me herself?” Edward asked.

More murmuring, then Dr. Chella’s voice replaced Liddie’s. “I suppose I should call you Mr. Schuett. Do you mind if I do that?”

“I guess not. What’s going on? This a new test?”

“More like an elaboration on an old test.”

“Well? Do I get to know what this is going to be about or are you just going to make it a fun surprise?”

“First, I need to ask you a question. Have you felt any swelling in your nasal cavities?”

“I’m assuming that means my nose. No.”

“Close enough. How about anywhere on your skin?”

“No.”

“Your armpits?”

“What? No! What the hell is this about?”

“We noticed something on the scans we did on you two days ago. There was some inflammation of your sweat glands, especially under your armpits. It reminded me of something else I’d seen. Scans of most reanimated show tumors at certain parts of their bodies. It has been something that has baffled the CRS for a long time. The reanimated are supposed to rot, of course. Their functions slow down so much that all non-vital organs and extremities start to deteriorate, but at a certain point the deterioration stops. They seem to remain in that same state indefinitely, but one part still grows. The tumors. Except they don’t act like tumors in humans. And even more importantly, the sites of these tumors correspond with the inflammations on your own body.”

“Okay then, so what does that mean?”

There was a pause. “I have a theory.”

“Which is?”

She didn’t respond. However, he heard the door unlock, and immediately after two armored guards appeared at the door. There was someone between them, and at first Edward thought it was another guard of some sort. The figure had a mask over its face and thick clothing over its whole body. Then Edward noticed that it had cuffs on its wrists and ankles. There were thick protective mittens on its hands. Edward still wouldn’t have know what it was if the honey scent hadn’t suddenly hit his nostrils. This thing was one of the zombies.

The guards pushed it into the room and then hurried out. It stumbled and fell to the floor, not even trying to break its fall. Edward thought he heard something crack, like a breaking bone, and he winced. The zombie didn’t make any sound like the fall had hurt, though. After lying on the floor for several moments it began to moan and struggle to get up, but it couldn’t manage with the cuffs on.

Although Edward’s first impulse was to back away from it, he resisted the urge. This was the first time he’d been in the presence of a zombie (unless he counted himself) since that first day he’d woken up, but he remembered the way they had practically ignored him. He didn’t think this one was going to be any different, but even if it did attack him he didn’t have anything to fear. He was faster and stronger, and he didn’t even have to worry about getting infected like a normal human would. The virus was already thick inside his system.

Someone on the other side of the mirror, however, wasn’t quite as calm about it. As soon as the zombie had been pushed into the room there’d been a series of noises from the other side, and now that his attention was back on his hidden audience he realized it was some kind of scuffle. The intercom clicked several times like someone was trying to turn it on but couldn’t figure out how, then he heard Liddie’s voice.

“…bitch! You’re going to…Edward! Run for the…”

“Liddie?” he called. “It’s okay.”

There was some more scuffling before Dr. Chella’s voice came back on. “One moment, Mr. Schuett.” The intercom went silent, but he could hear what sounded like a heated discussion from the other side. Liddie had probably forgotten that he wasn’t in any danger, or else she had heard something about this test that he didn’t know yet and she wasn’t happy about it. Either way, anyone on the other side of that mirror was most likely not giving him full attention right now, leaving him alone with the zombie.

It still struggled to get up off the floor. Edward couldn’t help but feel sorry for it. To everyone else in this building, the pathetic creature in front of him was a monster, or at the very least a biohazard. If he took off its mask he would see a haggard face, rotted skin, maybe even eyes that had gone white with cataracts. That was what he had looked like, he realized. He remembered the putrid state of his own skin as he had first glimpsed it in the twilight of the department store, a memory that made him look at his arm again. Perfectly clean and smooth flesh, healthy looking. Even his tattoo was gone, its last remnants having faded away as his body had healed even the scars it had gathered before he’d been bitten. But no one had yet been able to figure out what made him different than this thing in front of him. No, that was wrong to think in those terms. He couldn’t call it a thing. If he was so much like it, and he wanted to call himself a person, then he had to call it a person as well.

All noise from the other side of the mirror had stopped, but he didn’t receive any further information from either Liddie or Chella. This was obviously some sort of new test, but he had no clue what it was supposed to accomplish. He called out, asking what he was supposed to do, but there was no response. The zombie, on the other hand, groaned. In its efforts to get back up it had twisted its body into an awkward position with its arms pinned underneath it at a bad angle. The position looked painful, but Edward wasn’t sure if a zombie could feel pain. He thought back through all the red hazed memories that had come back to him through his dreams. Had he ever felt pain during those missing fifty years? He wasn’t sure. Nothing like that had come back to him. Maybe he hadn’t, but he could feel it now. He was more human than zombie now, even if no one other than Liddie wanted to act like it. And if he could come back, who was to say that none of these others might one day? They’d been human once, they might be human again, so why not treat them as though they were human now?