“Maybe the offices in the back?” he offered.
“Perfect,” she said. She gave Gauge a look. He fell in beside her, and they made their way to the path between generators, leaving Cutter alone with Dr. Martinez.
“We should join them,” he said. “Then I want to hear the whole story about what is really going on here. Everything—okay?”
Dr. Martinez gave him a nervous look and then nodded.
~28~
Back in one of the offices, Cutter rested on the edge of a desk. Dr. Martinez sat in a chair off to one side. She had the satellite phone in her hands and was turning it over and over. He’d given it back to her so she could call her bosses back home and have them send reinforcements, or even the Russian Military. At this point, it didn’t matter much to him that he and his team were in the country illegally. There were a few more pressing issues—the flesh-eating zombies being the primary concern.
Gauge was leaning against one wall, keeping an ear in the room while keeping his eyes on Morgan, who was working in the office across the hallway from them.
“So what the hell are these things?” Cutter asked. “The whole idea of undead zombies seems a little farfetched, maybe even a little juvenile.”
“Obviously,” she said. “They require too much effort to suspend disbelief. But, it is an appropriate term, nonetheless. Undead, maybe not. Zombies—yes. Do you know the etymology of the word ‘zombie’?”
He partially understood what she had meant, something about Haiti and Voodoo curses and such. “Entomology? Isn’t that the study of bugs?”
She let out an exasperated sigh. “No, not bugs, Mr. Cutter.
Ety-
mology. It is the study of words and their historical origins. I was asking if you knew where the word ‘zombie’ first originated.”
“No, afraid I don’t. We didn’t study that sort of thing in military school.” For half a second, he wanted to take that back. Didn’t seem appropriate.
She shook her head side to side and adjusted her glasses. “’Zombi,’ spelled without the ‘E,’ was originally a West African deity. It later came to mean—” She cleared her throat. “It means the vegetative state when the life force that makes us human escapes the body and leaves only a hollow shell behind. Some call it the fleeing of the spirit or soul, but the basis for the actual condition is much more definable, scientifically speaking. So, essentially, the term refers to any being that more or less lacks any self-awareness or individual intelligence.”
“But,” she continued, “unlike all those fictionalized stories about them, zombies are indeed real. Ask any Haitian. The difference here is that their version of zombies start out dead and are brought back to life fully under the control of the priest or priestess who resurrected them. Some say the reference even goes back as far as biblical times. You’ve read the Bible, yes?”
He nodded. It had mostly been when he was eight or nine or ten, so it mostly consisted of picture books and stories about animals marching two-by-two. But he knew what she was referring to. Sharon, who was far more intelligent than he had ever been, had first offered a theory related to the many references to zombie-like creatures in the Bible. She had just never actually stooped to calling them that and had often scoffed at all the odd names the many television shows, books, and movies used to refer to them. She’d simply called them ‘The Resurrected.’
“Yes,” Dr. Martinez said as she watched him closely. “I can tell you understand me now. Your wife did know a lot more than you currently do about these matters. Maybe you should have paid more attention to her.”
Cutter tightened his jaw and considered walking away. By sheer will, he held himself in place.
She smirked at him. “You see, one notable Biblical verse that applies here is Revelation 9:6, ‘And in those days people will seek death and not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them.’ Do you understand the implications of that, Mr. Cutter? There are many such referrals throughout ancient history to these so-called ‘resurrections’ where those who are supposedly dead walk the earth.”
“And how does that apply here, specifically?” he asked.
Gauge was listening with interest. Morgan was also at the door, looking from Cutter to Dr. Martinez in puzzlement. Noticing them, Cutter held up a hand to interrupt Dr. Martinez for a moment while he dealt with the more immediate issue.
“Are the lights on?” he asked Morgan.
“They will be soon. It’ll take ten or fifteen minutes for them all to come back online, but I think the entire site should soon be blanketed in bright, white light soon enough. Pumps should come online soon after, as will the ventilation systems.”
“Good,” Cutter said. “How about cameras? Are there any cameras in the mines or anywhere on the property?”
She snapped her fingers as if she had forgotten something so trivial. “No,” she said. “No cameras at all. Might have to do with this being an illegal mining operation.”
“Uh, yes,” Dr. Martinez said. She swiveled back to address Cutter directly. “These ‘zombies’ that we have encountered so far are sensitive to bright light. They will shy away from it, but it will not stop them completely. Nothing will short of—”
“Severing their brain stems?” Gauge added. He scratched at the bandage still on his nose.
She nodded, but said nothing.
Gauge grunted.
Cutter bobbed his head in agreement. “So, what else can you tell us about these things? Can they be stopped another way? One that doesn’t mean we kill them? Can they be—helped?”
“They can be killed, yes. Helped? I do not know. But to kill them you will need to shoot them in the head to destroy their hypothalamus—their primitive mind. That will stop them immediately. But—”
“But, what?” Cutter asked.
“You should know that the person whose body has been resurrected—probably remains a part of the entity.”
Cutter made a fist and leaned closer to her. “What—? What does that mean?”
“They, Mr. Cutter, are—in my best estimation—still sentient and fully aware of everything they are doing, but remain unable to consciously control their actions.”
He leaned back and sucked his lips together. “You mean who they were is still a part of them? Thinking and feeling everything they do?”
“Crudely, put, yes. It’s who they are—their essence. Or it is what they once were—their original mind. It is what we call our waking state of consciousness, which is present and very active and alive when we are not sleeping. And this leaves these entities able to feel everything that’s being done to them, but they have no way of controlling it or acting to change their behavior.”
“That’s horrible,” Morgan said. “I get it.” She faced Cutter. “Think of it like being a passenger in your own body, Jack. Wow—heck, if that ever happens to me, just shoot me in the head and put me out of my misery, will you?”
He nodded slowly as he further absorbed the implications.
Morgan rubbed her cheek nervously. “Is what they have infectious? How is it happening to so many, so quickly? And are you sure it is not some kind of disease these things are spreading? Like getting bit by one of those things? With the way their teeth are—”
“No, assuredly not,” Dr. Martinez stated. “The original infection behaves much like chorea, but it is not that.”
“St. Vitus’s Dance?” Cutter asked, recalling something his wife had once said.
Dr. Martinez turned to him and gave him a look of reappraisal. “That’s one term for it. But no, it’s not that. We don’t know for sure what causes it, or what the foreign entity is that controls those it infects. It is either a hive mind or a central control scheme. Right now, it is beyond our understanding. That is why I’m here to determine what is happening to these people and how to control it.”
Cutter asked, “Whatever the hell it is, can it be stopped?”
“Maybe,” she said. “If we find the source of the control.”
He stated the obvious, “The artifact, right?”
“Yes, the artifact,” she said. “If you destroy it then the influence over all those who have come in contact with it should end as well.”
“Should?” he asked. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m fairly certain,” she stated.
It was the typical answer from the scientific types—always one-hundred percent certain of something right up until the moment they are inconclusively proven wrong.
He’d also detected something in the way she had answered, some hidden deception lurking just below the surface. He sat back on the desk and folded his arms across his chest. He had a lot of thinking to do and not much time to do it. On a corner bookshelf, he spotted an old copy of a magazine that looked like a Russian version of Sports Illustrated. Next to it was another magazine featuring a well-endowed topless woman on the cover. He had a simple decision to make and then a much larger one. To make that decision, he needed to go somewhere he could make it alone.
He selected the sports magazine and picked it up and thumbed through it briefly. The other magazine would have proven too distracting for what he had planned and would have not allowed him to think through the next few steps under consideration.
“Is there a restroom nearby?” he asked.
Morgan indicated there was one outside the door and just down the hall. Cutter grunted, tucked the sports magazine under his right arm, and left the small office to go do some serious thinking.
~29~
Cutter sat on his temporary throne, flipping through the sports magazine, looking at the strange pictures inside of Russian athletes and letting his mind wander. The restroom was remarkably clean and the plumbing was much the same as any he’d encountered in the States. It was an odd quirk of his, but he always did his best thinking while his body worked its daily cycle.
Something important wasn’t adding up. If these zombies were all infected by a single artifact, that meant they all had to touch it or somehow come in contact with it directly. He and his team had not been infected, and they’d been here a while. It also was true that the young Russian soldier had been bitten—there were marks everywhere on him—so what Dr. Martinez had said couldn’t be entirely correct. There had to be another form of transmission—through saliva, or blood, or something else.
Why would she want to mislead us about that?
Sharon had mentioned that the artifact they were going after in Ecuador was dangerous, but she had also said it could be handled safely with the proper precautions. So, that meant proximity was not what could lead to becoming one of those things. Sharon had also said that if anyone tried to touch the artifact, they had to be wearing gloves.
Was it as simple as that?
If so—
then how did the infection spread so quickly and so broadly?
And if it spread as far as it had here, what would stop it from spreading further?
Maybe it could spread beyond the mine?
How far? Worldwide epidemic?
The thought of it spreading gave him the chills. It seemed the isolation of the operation here was the only thing keeping the infection from spreading to the much larger general population. There had to be towns nearby.
Had it already spread there?
Which all meant that this infection had to be transmittable in a way other than by touching the artifact—
or as she had called it, ‘the device.’
It had to be transferable through multiple bites, or some other trauma because he’d come in contact with enough blood and slobber from those things that he should have been infected by now.
The dilemma now, too, was if he could keep shooting those that had been infected. If they could somehow be cured, maybe turned back into normal people—
then wouldn’t the right thing to do would be to go after the source of infection and destroy it?
Locate the artifact?
Was it some sort of control device itself? Maybe some kind of central mind?
Or should they all just get the hell out of there and wait for re-enforcements to arrive?
It was down to only the four of them now going up against all of those monsters. Hundreds, perhaps.
How many will I have to kill to get to the artifact? All of them? Will they try to protect it if it were being attacked—?
He sighed. All his thinking was only raising more questions, not reducing them. Maybe he was the only real leader that was left, but his primary thought at the moment was getting the hell out of there and letting someone else solve the problem. He didn’t owe anyone an explanation for that—
not one bit.
Screw the money.
But, on the other hand, it wasn’t just him that was in danger. Morgan and Gauge were hip deep in it now too. They might be thinking differently about all this. They might think that they could save all those people by going after the artifact and would try to convince him likewise.
He drew a deep breath—let it out.
Screw them. It is for their own good.
He had his answer. It was the right answer.
Finishing, he got up and washed himself in the sink to get the dried blood off his skin. His clothes were another matter. He’d have to discard them at his earliest opportunity.
He checked himself in the mirror and nodded at his own reflection. He was right. It didn’t matter what they said. He’d collect everyone still alive and get them the hell out of there. Then he would go—
alone.
It would be just as he had planned in the beginning.
It was just too damn dangerous to risk the lives of his team, his friends. No—
his only remaining family
. No amount of money was worth watching any of them become infected. He’d been with Sharon when she’d died. That had been enough for one lifetime.
He returned to the office and found Morgan working behind a computer monitor, typing away and staring at the screen as lines of gibberish scrolled by. Gauge was resting in a chair behind her, half-dozing like he was wont to do, but with a hair-trigger readiness lurking just beneath the surface.
“So?” Morgan said, turning to him and lifting her fingers from the keyboard.
“We are bugging out,” he said then squared his shoulders, expecting her to fight back.
“You sure about this, Jack? I think we should stay and go after that thing. Destroy it so this doesn’t keep happening.”
Gauge grunted and sat up. “I’m with her.”
“I’m sure,” Cutter said. “This is not worth it. Not for any amount of money. There are just too many unknowns.”
“Okay, Jack,” Morgan said. “I agree with you.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“For what?”
“For not challenging me on this one. We need to get the hell out of Dodge, and we need to do it without killing anyone else.”
“That’s not going to be easy,” she said.
“I know,” he replied, nodding and scanning the room. “Where’s Dr. Martinez?”