The Village of Dead Souls: A Zombie Novel (23 page)

Prometheus turned to the new arrival and interjected, "Your skills may be of better use to the clan
,
if the two of you join together
,
and
you both
forget the feud you had in your prior life. Remember
,
we are all one family now."

Bartholomew answered, "The Greek man be correct. We all
be
sailing the same ship." He stepped back to the map table and said to Patricia, "I be giving ye command of a new crew. Even as ye be me enemy on the seas, I be recognizing your skills as a ship's captain. We be taking our soldiers to the apothecary
,
while ye cover our stern out here on the street." He pointed to a section on the map. "If the descendants attack, ye best be using the gray skins as da first line of defense. They will bring disorder to the ranks of the livings and allow your modern body soldiers to move in on da flanks."

The lady pirate asked, "Do we have cannons and flintlocks?"

The Captain smiled and said, "Oh
,
wait til ye see what kind of madness the descendants have fer weapons this day. You'll be proud."

Prometheus asked, "My good
sister,
Patricia, what did the gods give to you to pass on to the living?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "A remedy for something called the Omega virus."

* * *

An explosion in the middle of the street tore apart several of the decayed zombies and scattered the flock of ravens gathered on the streetlights. As the smoke cleared, another wave of gray skins staggered into the front lines of the military spread across the street and sidewalks. They surrounded the human
military
that
fought back
,
swinging baseball bats and the butts of the weapons at the heads of the grays. At close range, some of the living fired shotguns and blew the heads of the dead off their bodies. Several of the militia charged past the line of decayed undead
,
but were met by Captain Bartholomew and his more able body soldiers.

The pirate drew his
sword
in one hand, and a
dagger
in the other, as he fought
through
the crowd like he had boarded an enemy ship. Prometheus stood towards the back of the
zombies,
watching the Captain take
pleasure
in the fight, as if it reminded him of his days
of storming merchant vessels
at sea. One of the human soldiers raised his bat to swing at Bartholomew's head, but he was quick with the sword to man's midsection. Decayed zombies immediately swarmed on the man biting and tearing away his body. As another human soldier leveled his shotgun a foot from the Captain's head,
but
before he could pull the
trigger
, Patricia's sword slashed down and cut off the man's hand. The weapon fired as it hit the ground with the hand still holding the gun. The lady pirate quickly turned and fended off a living, armed with a baseball bat
,
dueling with him as if in a sword battle.
Hod,
the
caveman,
jumped from the top of a car onto a soldier and hit him with a handmade stone
axe
.

Several smoke canisters flew threw the air and bounced on the asphalt, creating a white cloud
,
which added to the chaos. Dark silhouettes inside the
smoke, revealed
humans
who were
being pounced upon by large
groups
of the living dead, as they bit into the
flesh
of their victims,
tearing
off skin and muscle with their teeth.  The pirate Captain called out, "Form a circle!" 

The undead formed an arc around the front door of the lab
,
allowing Prometheus to take a group of soldiers into the building. Several living dead picked up a gray skin and used him as a battering ram to smash through the glass door at the entrance. Shredded from the glass shards, they tossed the gray aside.

Inside the dark hallway, Greg led the way with his samurai sword drawn
and
ready for battle. He no longer wore his suit
jacket,
and
he
had cut
off
the sleeves
of
his white dress shirt. At the end of the passageway, he slammed his shoulder into a door and burst into the lab. A human man and woman next to a table
,
hurriedly buttoned their shirts as they stepped backward to the opposite end of the room. As they bumped against the wall, they held each other in their arms, with expressions of panic across their faces
,
while the room filled with undead who began to smash equipment. Greg stomped over to the two living and held the blade of his sword against their throats. The humans called out in the strange language, but it was easy to understand they begged for mercy.

"Wait!" Prometheus called out. "One of them might be the apothecary we need. It is best if we leave them unharmed
. After all,
they do not appear to be a threat."

Greg pulled his sword back from their necks
,
but
he
remained in front of them, making it clear
that
he did not want them to move. The man and woman spoke quietly to each other as they stared at Greg.

Prometheus turned to Tewy and asked, "What do we do now?"

Tewy scanned the room until he saw a shelf with supplies. He yelled out to the other zombies, "Stop smashing stuff. We need this guy to be able to do his work." He grabbed an empty Petri dish and held it up in the light. "This looks clean. We just need to get some of your DNA inside it."

"How do I do
that
?"

Tewy set the
dish
on the
table
and grabbed a scalpel. "Give me your hand." He took the Athenian's hand and cut across his palm
,
but very little fluid flowed out. As a few drops of thick dark brown blood dripped into the dish, he commented, "I guess blood samples from the dead might not be the best." He gazed at Prometheus' mouth and said, "Spit. Try spitting into the dish. Your saliva should work
better,
than your dried up blood."

The dead Greek man leaned over and spit into the dish mixing his saliva with the drops of blood. Tewy placed the lid on the dish, grabbed a black marker and wrote across the top, "Zombie DNA – It has the cure." He placed it on a shelf in the cooler, as a loud explosion from the street rocked the room. Greg called out, "It is time for us to leave."

* * *

Dr. Daniel Cronsworth ran his fingers through Dr.
Tower’s
hair
,
as she stood with her back against the wall in the lab. He reached over and turned up the volume on the stereo,
filling the
room with music. While she unbuttoned his shirt, Lisa asked, "Why did you turn the music up?"

As he unbuttoned her shirt, he answered, "In case any lab assistants are in the next room, I don't want them to hear what we are about to do."

"And what are we about to do?"

Daniel finished the last button, pulled off her shirt and threw it over his shoulder. "We are about to be naughty scientists."

She pulled his shirt off and tossed it across the room. "Is that your hypothesis or your conclusion, Dr. Naughty?"

He leaned in to kiss her and felt a slight tremor in the floor. "Wow, you're actually making my knees shake."

She turned her head and placed her hand in the center of his chest
,
stopping
his
forward movement. "No. I felt that too." Lisa moved him back a foot and turned the radio down. With the room void of music, they heard the muffled sounds of
a
battle taking
place
on the
street
outside the lab.

Daniel turn
ed
toward the street-side of the room and said, "That can't be a re-an conflict. We're too far into the green zone. They never venture this far out of the quarantined zone. It must be the military conducting drills or something."

Another explosion from the street shook the room and caused the glass vials to shake and rattle. Dr. Towers stepped away from the wall. With a confused expression on her face, she turned back to her colleague and said, "It sounds like they are in front of the lab. Why would they conduct drills here?"

The sound of shattered glass from the entrance way reverberated down the hall outside the lab. Daniel blurted out, "They're inside the building."

The two scientists scrambled across the room to find their clothes. As they hurriedly put them back on, a black re-an wielding a Samurai sword burst through the door and charged them. Daniel and Lisa backed across the room
,
until they bumped against the wall
,
still trying to button up their shirts. The re-an with the sword moved within inches of the humans and placed his blade against their throats.
The
skin on his face, appeared dry and leathery with rotted patches
,
revealing his gray teeth inside his mouth. The sleeves of his blood
-
soaked dress shirt had been torn
off,
exposing the muscle and bones of his arms.

Dr. Cronsworth yelled, "Please, let her go. I'm the one who started this project. She was ordered to join the study. I'm the one you want, take me!"

Lisa responded, "I volunteered for this assignment. I'm just as much committed to this project as you."

"This is not a time to debate semantics. I'm trying to get them to spare your life."

"They don't understand language. How can we reason with them?"

The re-an
,
holding the sword
,
pulled the blade back and relaxed his stance
,
but
he
remained in front of them. He watched as one of the undead cut the palm of another and let the aged blood drip into a Petri dish. Lisa whispered to him, "This has to be some kind of ritual. Why else would they be doing this?"

Daniel answered, "If this is a ritual, it would indicate more than just a pack mentality. This would show they have developed an entire social structure
,
which would require complex communication and three dimensional thought."