“Oh wow,” Travis said. “You must have studied the infection then.”
“Yes, I have,” she said. “All of my data is here on my computer.”
“Cool,” Travis said, grinning. “I look forward to sharing some thoughts about it.”
“Max,” Jake said, snapping his fingers in front of Max’s face.
“I’m sorry,” Max said, embarrassed. “Forgive me for staring. I’ve long had a giant crush on Beverly D’Angelo of National Lampoon fame, and you bear a striking resemblance to her in her younger days.”
Grace laughed, and her smile pulled at Max’s heart strings, among other things. “Thank you,” she said.
“Make yourself at home,” Jake said. “We’ll crank up the heat for you.”
“Where did you guys find her?” Travis asked. “And where are the others?”
“We were on our way to the impact site to study the black fog,” Grace said. “Just me and three Army personnel. We hit something in the sky and our chopper crashed. These men found us.”
“Were you the only survivor?”
“No,” Eric said. “One soldier survived. Saved her life. The others died in the crash. Dan and the rest went with her to salvage the chopper.”
Travis nodded, folding his arms across his chest. “No sign of Toby, then?”
Eric pursed his lips. “No,” he said, sadly. “He’s still missing. I’m sure they’ll call off the search.”
Max felt a great sense of guilt. If he been able to stay awake, Toby might still be around. But, despite being the night owl, he had succumbed to fatigue and crashed out on the couch. It was a bad move, and he would feel forever responsible. It was only the friendly face of their new friend that kept him from cursing himself.
“We have power,” Max said, trying to keep his mind off of it. “You can charge your laptop if you need to.”
“Thank you,” Grace said, plopping down on the couch. “For now, I just need to warm my bones.”
“Would you like some noodles?” Max asked.
“Why thank you,” Grace said. “That would be nice.”
As Max went to the kitchen, Travis sat down next to Grace. “In a nutshell,” he said. “What are we dealing with? A virus? Bacteria? Something different?”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Grace said. “It’s more like a reset button from space. Basically, all life on Earth is being rebooted.”
Rebooted,
Max thought. That wasn’t a good sign.
Chapter Five
Maynard carried a bucketful of scrap meat around to the back of his cabin. There stood a small stable, boarded up and secure from both the inside and out. He climbed the short stairway he had built along its side, stopping on the landing and opening up a trapdoor that was built into the roof.
Inside, he head the growls and moans of the stable’s occupants as they gathered in anticipation of the evening meal. Maynard grinned when he saw their red eyes. The ragers were always amusing to him, especially when given a fresh supply of meat. Tonight he had a special treat for them; fresh human remains found in the nearby fields, thawed and stinking.
Chuckling, he lifted the bucket and examined its contents. It was prime scrap; chunks of bloody fat, intestines, brains, and even some rib bones with small chunks of meat left. It was all supplemented with the pig’s own blood, and its sloshing sound riled the ragers up into a feeding frenzy.
Maynard poured the contents into the hatch. The ragers immediately mobbed around the pile of slop, falling into it and devouring it like ravenous dogs. Their sounds were pleasing. He loved the pure and unbridled savagery of the creatures, knowing full well that their nature reflected the base instincts of all humans, infected or not.
Here, there was no politeness. There was no pecking order, no respect, no waiting your turn. It was primal instinct to its fullest. Every man for himself. Get what you can, the others be damned.
It was purity at its finest.
“Eat up, my pets,” he said. “Soon you will be free.”
Chuckling again, he shut the trapdoor and turned to walk back down the steps. Sarah was there, wobbling and swaying as usual. Her face was expressionless, and a line of drool ran from her swollen and moldy lips. He stopped and smiled at her.
“Hungry, are we?” he asked, reaching into his pocket. “I have just the treat for you.”
He fished a dead rat out of his pocket, holding it up and dangling it in front of her face. She moaned as she beheld it, slowly stepping forward to reach out her twisted hands. Maynard allowed her to sniff it, and as she opened her mouth to accept it, he snatched it away.
Sarah groaned with displeasure, and Maynard laughed. He stuffed the rat back into his pocket. “Just kidding,” he said. “No food for you. I need you to stay just the way you are.”
Toby lay wrapped in his blanket on the couch in front of the fireplace. He stared at the alcove in the room, thankful the door was closed. He had no desire to keep the pathway to the cellar open. There was no telling if any of the creatures imprisoned there would suddenly escape, climb the stairway, and gobble him up in his sleep.
Strangely, he felt much less secure without Sarah bumbling around. For some reason, she brought him a small amount of comfort. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was the fact that she was about his mom’s size, and probably around the same age when she became infected.
But that would be strange.
Sarah was a walking pile of mold and flesh. She was mindless and heartless for all he knew. She would just as soon eat him if she had the chance. He wondered why she hadn’t tried. Maybe it was the odd little contraption on the back of her head. Maybe that was how Maynard kept her from attacking or wandering off in search of food.
Whatever the case, she was under Maynard’s control.
He was unsure about the strange man in almost every way. Though he had not threatened to harm directly, he was still a scary, scary man. Not only was he weird-looking, but his voice was somewhat frightening as well. It was a soft voice, to be sure, but there was something about its tone that gave Toby the creeps.
But Maynard was not the worst of it. The last creature Toby had seen in the cellar, the demonic-looking thing, was imprinted in Toby’s mind. He could never have imagined a more sinister-looking thing in his wildest dreams. There were no movie monsters that could compare. The creature was even scarier than Giger’s alien. Not even Giger’s alien queen was as scary.
It was dead, Toby knew, but even so, it terrified him.
The worst part of it was that the creature was once human. Why had the man not simply become a shuffler, or a shambler? Why not one of the other mutants? Those stalkers, and the skinless things were frightening enough, but one that could talk and think seemed even more frightening. Why could it still do so? What was different about it? Why had Maynard said that only “special” people could become this thing, this Overlord, as he called it?
What was an Overlord? He could only think of the comic books and movies he had seen. In those, an Overlord was something that ruled over other, weaker things. Did this creature have some power over the other mutants? Did it have power over the infected? Could it raise the dead?
Toby sat up suddenly, remembering some things from a few comics he had read. Dracula could command the dead. So could certain wizards. What were they called? Necromancers, Voodoo priests, other things from other cultures.
Strange, he thought. Those were just legends, fairy tales; stories to make children behave. Even
he
knew that. But this thing was real. He saw it. Maynard had captured it. But how? Something that powerful could easily kill a man like Maynard. Unless, of course, he too had some kind of power.
Maynard had said he was infected. Maybe that had something to do with it. Maybe he would become a creature like that if the infection took over. It was all too confusing. His mind was a whirl. On the bright side, thinking of all these things eased his fear. His curiosity had overpowered it.
Maybe he shouldn’t think too much, though. That might make things worse. He should sleep. Yes, that’s it. No thinking. Just sleep.
Everyone gathered around Grace’s laptop as she brought up photos, charts, and other data. Travis was fascinated by the things she had discovered, especially the nature of the black fog. According to Grace, the fog was simply a cloud of hydrocarbons. It was not toxic, and would in fact replenish nutrients in the soil.
The debris in the sky was just that; debris. It would eventually settle and the sun would return. What troubled Travis the most was the chart she had brought up showing them that other fragments of the comet would also hit in various other places around the Earth; each of them causing their own waves of destruction. There were seven altogether, a fact that led Jake to catch interest.
Travis knew why.
But when Grace brought up an animation, Travis’ interested was piqued. “This,” Grace said, “is the cause of everything. At first we thought it was a virus, and in a way, it is. It is similar to a microorganism that is inside all living things. Its most similar earthly counterpart is inside our cells, and is responsible for naturally occurring mutations.”
“Mitochondria?” Max asked.
Grace nodded. “Exactly. Only this organism is not from Earth. Though if you look closely, it does contain a small strand of DNA inside, it functions as a mutative organism to change the DNA of other living things.”
“That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” Travis said. “It almost looks… artificial.”
“It does,” Grace said. “And I believe it may be.”
“Really?” Jake said. “Like a life bomb from God?”
“Well. From space. Something designed to spread the seeds of life around the universe.”
“Panspermia part two,” Max said.
Grace glanced at him, nodding. “Exactly. Only this time, the target world—Earth—had already been seeded. The existing lifeforms here are being altered, instead of new lifeforms rising from the muck.”
“What about the fungal infections,” Travis asked. “And the mass deaths.”
“According to my tests, the fungal spores were simple airborne fungi that were infected by the microbe. It altered the fungi’s DNA, making it a more malevolent and predatory fungus. It became something similar to the cordyceps spore. They formed the orange fog that fell, infecting anyone who was susceptible. Those people are what became the bulk of the raving lunatics… the zombie-like people.”
“And the mutants?”
“They are the result of direct contact with the microbe itself. It infected them, mutating their DNA into a specific series of new lifeforms. The mutation all depends on the physiology of the host. What we’ve discovered is that the more docile the person or animal, the more likely they are to simply die. More aggressive people become other things. And there are still stranger mutations to be found.”
“We ran across a horde of things that aren’t moldy
or
mutated,” Jake said. “They were just dead people who suddenly decided to stand up and start roaming around.”
“That, I cannot explain,” Grace said. “We did autopsies on hundreds of people who were killed on that first day. The only thing we discovered is that there was still a minute amount of brain activity, but confined to the basic, primitive areas. It was barely even detectable. Their bodies were completely shut down. Total organ failure, with brain activity. It was strange.”
“I dissected one,” Travis said. “And there were still areas of the brain that were working. Just like you said, their bodies were dead and decomposing.”
“Right,” Grace said. “And we’ve found no reason why they would suddenly get up and start walking. There may be something we haven’t seen yet.”
“So what you’re saying basically,” Max said. “Is that all life on Earth is gradually being replaced with an entirely different DNA type.”
Grace nodded. “That’s the gist of it. And there’s no stopping it.”
“Fuck,” Travis said.
He looked up to Eric, who leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. He was speechless and expressionless.
“It’s like Noah’s flood,” Jake said. “The Earth is being cleansed and repopulated.”
“And we seem to be at the bottom of the food chain,” Grace said.
Jake chuckled humorlessly. “Fuckin’ great,” he said. “And me without my flamethrower.”
“No luck,” Dan said as he and others arrived. “No Toby, no crash survivors.”
“It’s okay, man,” Travis assured him. “You did what you could. Maybe he’s out there somewhere safe. We don’t know that. You didn’t find a body, so that’s good.”
“We found some tracks,” Cliff said. “But that’s about it. They disappeared once we got deeper into the forest.”
“Well,” Travis said. “Why don’t you sit down? Grace here has told us a lot about what’s going on. We’ll fill you in.”
Dan was stunned. Everyone else seemed equally stunned as he went to lay down on his bedroll. Not a single soul spoke. It was just all too much for them. From the sounds of it, they were doomed. All of them. Nothing would ever be the same again. There would be no civilization; no malls, no book stores, no internet, nothing.
Nothing but survival against a new breed of Earthlings that were superior in every conceivable way. They weren’t dying off like the preacher in Oolitic had said. They were just changing; getting more dangerous. Soon, the human race would be obsolete, and something new would take over.
Something like Robert.
But what about the masses of the dead? What was their purpose? How did they fit into this whole restocking event? Were they just there to eliminate the remaining humans? When the living were gone, what then? Would the new dominant lifeform simply erase the dead, too?
Grace’s words, and the words Robert had said, brought to mind an alien race. What if this wasn’t a random encounter with an interstellar “seeding” comet? What if it were intentionally created to make Earth more habitable to a potentially invading race? Maybe the creatures like Robert were identical to a race who would come later. They would be, at least partially, similar. But being made from a human, they would differ in some way. Maybe, they too, were just tools to eliminate the population. Or maybe they would be slaves as well.
Dan’s head began to hurt as these bizarre theories unfolded—or shot themselves into his brain. He needed something to make it go away; something to bring his spirits back up, or to quell the thoughts. Though he could easily pop some pills, he didn’t really want anyone to see. Beer might do it, or maybe some of that whiskey in the cabinet.
“Alright,” he said, sitting up. “Who needs a drink?”
Everybody raised their hands.
“Maaaan,” Cliff said, tipsy and slightly incoherent. “It was cold as shit out there. My toes are still numb.”
“My ass is frozen,” Drew added. “Maybe we can kick up the heat.”
Dan was still quiet. Though he had quashed the strange thoughts, he couldn’t shake the pictures of Toby in his head. He liked the kid; that was obvious. There was a weird uncle-nephew kind of feeling that Dan had never really had before. He knew that Toby looked up to him and the others, and they had all let him down. Especially Dan.
“Dan,” Jake said. “Wake up. Join the party.”
Dan smiled humorlessly. Though he knew Jake wasn’t actually drinking, the heightened spirit of the group seemed to have given him a contact buzz.
“I’m alright,” he said. “This is just all so fucked up.”
“It is fucked up,” Gena said. “But we have a good history. Whatever happens, we’ll get through it. Maybe not
us,
but humanity. We’ve been through worse.”