The Reanimation of Edward Schuett (24 page)

She looked over at Edward, who was still staring at the walkie-talkie with wonder. At what point had she made the decision that his life was worth more than all that? From a purely logical perspective, it seemed crazy. He was only one person, and if she had stayed at the CRS she could have gone on contributing to research that could have helped so many more. Now that her mother was very likely fired and going to jail, that meant that Dr. Chella would be in charge, and Liddie was pretty certain she didn’t care a lick about helping anybody but her own reputation.

But that was really a narcissistic way of thinking about things, wasn’t it? Had Liddie’s contribution really been more than anyone else’s? More than once she had felt like she hadn’t really belonged there. She wasn’t a scientist. She’d simply been a bureaucrat making sure all the chemicals and testing equipment had been in the right place. She hadn’t been helping anybody. Now was her chance to do some real good for a real person.

Briefly she thought to herself that Edward was more than just any old person, that he was someone special, but she pushed that thought away for now. That awkward moment in the elevator had been enough to tell her he didn’t quite want anything to do with that. At least, not yet.

“Okay, so, we need to make a plan,” Liddie said.

“Well, the first part of any plan we come up with has to be get as far away from Stanford as possible,” Edward said.

“Yes, but what after that? Do we go find this guy that just called us?”

“I certainly don’t know what else we would do at this point.”

“But can we trust him? How do we know it’s not some sort of trap? The CRS could have found a way to make that call and have us think it came from somewhere else.”

“But why would they send us all the way to Illinois then? If it was the CRS they could spring a trap on us much closer, I would think.”

“A trap from someone else?” Liddie asked. “Is there anyone else you could think of that would want to get their hands on you.”

“Sure, maybe, if anyone else knew I existed. It’s not like any of those conspiracy theorists you were talking about would know your private number.”

“So we’re going to say this guy is the real thing. But saying he created you? That can’t be true, can it?”

“How would I know? For all I know I was made a Z7 by a secret conspiracy of Democrat lawn gnomes.”

“What’s a lawn gnome?” Liddie asked.

“Never mind. I’m just putting my vote in for Illinois. Do you have a vote for anywhere else?”

“No. It’s not like I’ve actually left Stanford enough to know anything about anywhere else, so Illinois might as well be as good a place as any. The only problem then is how are we going to get there?”

“Are there still roads that will take us there, or were they left alone to break up for all these years?”

“A little of both,” Liddie said. She gestured at the terrain around them. Immediately beyond Stanford there was an empty zone, just like Edward had probably seen in Fond du Lac, but beyond that the landscape was much different. Any buildings that had once existed out here had all been bulldozed and the natural landscape had been allowed to grow back. The only thing that didn’t grow out here were large trees. Every so often the area cities would send teams out to trim the trees back, making it far harder for the reanimated to hide so near the city. Further beyond they could both see the lights of other nearby cities. Unlike the cities in mid-country, the cities on the coasts tended to be much closer together, and the roads between them were meticulously maintained.

“Anything that didn’t lead anywhere important has been left to nature over all these years,” Liddie said, “but major interstate highways are still sort of kept up. Or at least they’re supposed to be. Most people with half a brain avoid travelling over land, so sometimes the local government doesn’t bother to keep up with them as they should.”

“So we should be able to drive the whole way?”

“More or less.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, there’s still the problem of gas. Also food. Shelter we shouldn’t have to worry about too much. That’s why I grabbed a van instead of one of the cars. I figure it’s easier to live out of a van.”

Edward looked like he was thinking about that. “About how long of a drive would this be?”

“I don’t really know off the top of my head. How far is it? Maybe two thousand miles? I suppose we could probably make it in two days or so, if we don’t run into any trouble on the way.”

“Okay, so how’s this thing’s gas mileage?”

“Terrible. It only gets 94 miles per gallon.”

Edward made a choking sound.

“Are you okay?” Liddie asked.

“Yeah, I’m, uh, fine. It’s just…94 miles per gallon. Holy shit.”

“Sorry about that. We’d probably get better gas mileage on a riding lawnmower.”

“Um, right. So how many gallons per tank?”

“Only ten on this thing. Nearly a full tank now, so if we really want to use this thing the whole way then we’d need to find fuel at least twice somewhere along our route.”

“Do you think we can do that?”

“We’ll have to actually go into some of the cities, but I suggest we do that as little as possible. Those photos they showed of you on the news were pretty grainy, but all it takes is one mid-country hillbilly to realize who you are and start taking potshots at us.”

“And I suppose we’ll have the same issue with food.”

“Probably, but we may just have to go without that as much as possible. See, our biggest problem now that I think about it might be money.”

“Do you not have enough?”

“I’ve got some pay cards, but most of them are official cards in my name that can be traced. The few generic pay cards I have might be enough, but some of these mid-country hick towns don’t even use the same currency as the coasts.”

Edward nodded. He was quiet for a long time before speaking again. “Do we actually have a chance to pull this off?”

Liddie tried not to hesitate in her response. “We’ll be fine. It will be nothing but a smooth ride from here.”

“Are you lying?”

“Maybe.” She looked at him, being sure to make eye contact in the hopes that he knew she meant this. “But I will do everything in my power to help you.”

He smiled and put his hand between them where she could easily reach. After only a moment she took it. This time he didn’t let go right away.

They drove for three hours before they finally had to stop. According to the van’s built in map device—something that concerned Edward at first, since he thought a GPS satellite could possibly be used to track them, but Liddie assured him that modern systems didn’t work like that; Edward simply had to take her word for it—they pulled over somewhere in the Tahoe Forest. By this point they were pretty certain they weren’t being followed. The expected call had come in on the walkie-talkie about half an hour out of Stanford, which was good since Liddie said they were almost out of range. Edward had pretended to be the guard just like they had planned, and they hadn’t had any reason to believe the CRS even thought they were out of the city yet. It appeared they had gotten out free and clear, at least for now.

They had to sleep, though. Liddie looked pretty ragged by this time, and she wasn’t exactly making straight lines down the road. Edward wasn’t so concerned with her crossing over into the next lane, since they had yet to see another vehicle anywhere past Sacramento, but she hadn’t been kidding about how bad some of the roads had gotten. All it would take was for her to sleepily hit a deep pothole while going seventy-five for them to go spinning end over end into the wilderness. Edward would have taken over, except not only did the van have several controls he was unfamiliar with, but he also hit one of his sporadic tired periods at around the same time. They pulled just far enough off the road where no one travelling by would see them, locked all the doors in case there were any reanimated in the area, and both fell asleep in separate seats.

It didn’t take long before the world was red again. There were other forms around him, but not as many as he sometimes remembered. He couldn’t count to be sure, but he knew this was a very weak horde. Beyond that he didn’t know much of anything.

Several of the forms around him were familiar, inasmuch as anything could really be familiar to him, although one was more so than all the others. He didn’t know why, but he felt compelled to keep close to this one. It just felt right. Sure, it felt right to stay near any form, but this one was…special? He didn’t actually know that word, but he knew the feeling. The honey scent this one gave off felt unique to him. No other form seemed to notice it. If he had been capable of feelings, he would have been proud that he could feel it when no other could.

They were in a field, although he could see a squat building in the distance. He no longer had the capability of trying to figure out what that building was, nor did he much care. The horde had gotten the scent of something meaty, something without the correct scent, and they were making their way toward it. There was a very faint whiff of sweetness on the wind, others like him that had caught that same prey-scent and moved toward it. With a few subtle changes in that distant odor, he started moving in a different direction, still going toward the prey yet now in a zigzag pattern. He had no idea why he should do this, but he wasn’t the only one who followed along. All the other forms in his small horde, including that one he wouldn’t stray from, followed suit. No questioning, no thought, no attempts at understanding it.

The first shot echoed through the air, and the head of one of the forms nearby exploded in a shower of skull fragments and brain matter.

The form collapsed, and the odor it gave off was no longer so sweet or enticing. It was offensive, putrid. It made his head hurt. He tried to move away from it, as did every other form around him, but as soon as he was far enough away from it the distant sweet smell took over again. Back to zigzagging. No stopping. Must follow the horde. So he did. All others around him did. Back and forth, getting closer to the target.

Another head exploded. Again, all the forms attempted to scatter, and again the scent demanded otherwise. Almost time. He didn’t know what it was almost time for, but he knew it was true and he obeyed. He looked at that familiar form, almost as though he was reassuring himself it was still there. It looked at him at the same time.

The next shot was not the clean headshot that had taken out the others. One moment he was looking at a familiar face, something he still felt some phantom attachment to, and then the next its entire lower jaw was gone. He heard the sound of the gunshot only as teeth and destroyed flesh pelted his face. Darkened blood splattered over him, but he noticed none of that. All he noticed were the form’s eyes. He saw something change in them at that moment, but he lacked the ability to understand what that meant. They went wide, staring at him, and then the form dropped. The awful stench it gave off was somehow so much worse than what had come from the others. It offended him in a way the others hadn’t. He felt something from inside, something long forgotten and hidden, wrestle to come to the surface as phantom emotions of grief and horror. All of it wanted to come out in a scream of rage, but all he managed was a low moan.

Somewhere nearby there was a scream, followed by the sound of flesh ripping and tearing. The other part of the horde, the one that had been directing his group on what had basically been a suicide distraction run, had found the shooter. But he didn’t care. He was missing his chance for nourishment, and the sickly sweet odor on the breeze invited him to join, but he couldn’t just yet. He felt compelled to stay here, next to the one that for some reason he didn’t understand he had needed. He knew something was gone, something he could never get back, but his mind simply couldn’t comprehend what was missing.

Then the moment was gone. He didn’t remember why he was standing here, looking down at just another corpse. The world was full of them now, so why would this one be special? He wandered off to join the others, always following the lead of the slight hint of honey in the air.

Edward woke with tears streaming down his cheeks. It took him several seconds before his brain caught up with what his heart already knew, and he realized that he had just remembered the death, or at least the second death, of his wife.

He was draped over the second row of seats in the van, while Liddie snored softly on the back row. He wasn’t sure if he’d been making any noise as he’d cried in his sleep, but at least it hadn’t disturbed her. However, it didn’t feel right to be here next to her at this moment. It felt disloyal to Julia’s memory, almost like he was…well, like he was cheating on her.

There weren’t a whole lot of other places he could go, though. It was either in here or out there, where other zombies wandered around looking either for more zombies to group up with or prey to feed that hunger they didn’t quite understand. But Edward didn’t actually have anything to fear from them, did he? To them, and indeed to most of the world, he was no different. They accepted him among them where no one else would.

He was very careful not to make any noise as he got up from the seat and slid open the back door. He closed it again softly but firmly. Edward wondered for a moment if he should open it again and lock it from the inside, ensuring that nothing would be able to get in and get Liddie, but he didn’t think zombies would be able to open the door. Or, at least, one or two zombies wouldn’t be able to open the door. From what he could remember, a large number of zombies might have been coordinated enough to figure it out. But a quick sniff seemed to confirm there weren’t that many in the vicinity. There was…one. Somewhere out in the forest. Somewhere near. After one last check to make sure Liddie was asleep and content, he walked off in the direction of the pheromones he sensed out among the trees.