true for Akachi, his mother and all the other prisoners within view. My ravenous hunger for brains and raw flesh went away. In fact, the whole idea repulsed me. At that point, the guards served us normal food, with all our meat cooked.
Shortly after I and the other prisoners returned to normal, I noticed how Akachi’s mother cared for him. She spent hours singing African hymns to her little boy, telling him long fantastical tales, rocking him and using her own spit to clean his face. She must have brought him enormous comfort. After a couple of days, Akachi even ventured from her side to play with a pile of dust bunnies in the corner of their cell. As soon as he looked up and saw an older boy watching him from the cell next door, however, he dropped his toys of dust and ran back to hide behind his mother’s legs.
That afternoon, I was startled by the shouts of guards yelling at someone, accompanied by the sounds of scuffling and rattling chains. Within moments, two guards came around the corner, pulling a female prisoner by the elbows. The prisoner’s face was covered by a black hood tied with rope around her neck. Her hands were cuffed behind her back. She moaned every time the guards gave a hard yank to her elbows.
The guards dragged the prisoner directly toward my cell. I panicked. I did not want a cellmate. They passed by my unit, however, and unlocked an empty cell next to mine.
Once inside, they pushed the woman down on the bed. One of the guards shouted at her, “Do not get up from that bed until we leave and lock your cell! Do you hear me? Any funny business when we take off your hood and handcuffs, and you get tasered! You got that?”
The woman answered, “Yes,” through the black cloth hood. There were no eyeholes in the mask. Her voice was muffled.
One of the guards with upper-arm muscles the size of hams untied the rope around the prisoner’s neck. Then he ripped the hood off with a movement so rough, it jerked the prisoner’s neck too far to one side. She screamed in pain. The guard yelled into her face: “Shut the hell up!” He smacked her across the face with the back of his hand. When she stifled any verbal reaction, the other guard unlocked her handcuffs. Then both guards stomped out of the cell and locked it.
Once the guards had moved from in front of the prisoner, I was able to see her face. Her eyes…They were light brown with specks of gold. Every time she turned toward the light, they appeared golden. Dr. Chibueze Koroma. This woman had her same build, her same height.
The words barely found their way from my lips, I was in such shock: “Dr. Koroma? Is that you?”
She shook her head yes. Then Dr. Koroma walked over to the bars dividing our cells. She put her face against the black metal divider and whispered, “I am so glad you’re here. I need to get the word out about something…”
I moved right next to the bars, to better hear what she had to say.
Ripping open a pocket that had been sewn shut on the upper part of the khaki pants she was wearing, Dr. Koroma pulled out a couple of folded papers. She shoved them toward me.
We both glanced around. No guards were in view.
I read through the papers, quickly. I hoped to read them more carefully later.
The pages, wrinkled and stained with coffee and blood, turned out to be the summary of a scientific research report on Mutation Z.
According to the report, Mutation Z, also called Z Serum, is an experimental drug developed by a clandestine pharmaceutical company for a top-secret U. S. military program. Mutation Z changes Ebola victims into Zombies. It was developed as a biological weapon for the U. S. military. Certain characteristics of Ebola made it the easiest way for scientists to create the Zombie disease, something they’d been trying to do for the past decade. Zombie hordes can be sent into enemy territory as weaponized soldiers in order to terrorize the local population. Zombie disease is also contagious, so it will spread as a biological weapon. Genetic code can be written into the disease, so that those infected will die after a certain amount of time, thereby halting the spread of the disease once the enemy has been conquered.
The current form of Mutation Z being tested in our camp has genetic code spliced into it that only activates the Zombie state at the time of a full moon. That can be changed. Future codes will arrange for different activation triggers. The genetic coding for making a human being more susceptible to the full moon was developed by splicing in rat genes that cause rat physiology to be affected by the lunar cycle, specifically their taste sensitivity and the ultrastructure of their pineal gland cells. The full moon trigger was used in our camp because each outbreak of the Zombie disease would be short-lived and would also give the research scientists’ another month to analyze the data and tweak the code if necessary.
And Mutation Z has a second planned use. If Ebola becomes pandemic in Africa, according to the report handed to me, the U. S. military could use Zombies as vulture-like creatures to pick the human carcasses clean and restore Africa to pre-Ebola status. The research scientists have already tested Mutation Z on chimpanzees which had been known to engage in cannibalism to see if they would clean Ebola carcasses, and they did it.
It frightens and seriously creeps me out to realize an additional possibility in regard to Mutation Z. If the Ebola outbreak dies out on its own, Zombie soldiers can only be created by forcibly giving subjects a dose of Ebola Virus Disease before being administered Mutation Z. Surely, our camp is the perfect setting for extensive research into the nature of Ebola itself.
The report states that the pharmaceutical company has developed medicines capable of completely curing the Zombie disease, should that become necessary. I do not believe that once this Pandora’s Box is opened, it can ever be closed. The report mentioned that, like Ebola, Mutation Z is contagious by infected bodily fluids entering broken skin or mucous membranes.
One Month After I Received Mutation Z
The military and the pharmaceutical company believe they can control Mutation Z, but they cannot. How do I know? Half an hour ago, I watched eight fellow patients slip from this building, dressed as medical personnel. The moon is almost risen. They’re in the early stages of transformation from Ebola patient into Zombie—a few patches of dry skin, scabs and ulcers that are barely visible or in a place that can be covered up by clothing. They have escaped, carrying their contagious disease to God knows where. Trust me, the plague is coming. The Zombies will be much more a form of unleashed terrorism than they will ever be a controlled weapon of mass destruction.
Night has fallen. The moon is behind clouds; but it is full tonight, pregnant with the birth of a new race. I am once again ravenously hungry for human flesh and brains.
To hell with scientific reports. My body is consumed with hunger. In the cell next to mine, Dr. Chibueze Koroma has long since tucked away the report she shared with me. She’s become restless. Her golden eyes are flecked with bloodred spots. She paces her cell. In this moment, we are no longer friends or colleagues. We are primal competitors. We are enemies.
A guard ambles down the hallway. He unlocks our cages. We are free to fulfill our role as Experimental Subjects. Tomorrow, we will be subdued. For now, the night is ours.
You should worry. You should be very, very frightened. You’ve been warned.