Chapter Twelve
Screening, Valhalla
The rest of the ride was condemned to silence. Logan was understandably furious. He fidgeted in his seat and kept clenching his jaw. Lizzie wanted so bad to make him feel better but she decided it was for the best to leave him alone and just be there for him if he asked. He never would.
The pilot shouted up again with the only break to the numbing silence.
‘Ten minutes out.’ He called over the radio. That was a relief. The two gunners were watching the mushroom cloud behind slowly fall away and rain debris down on the flattened city. The once great city of New York.
Their discipline was admirable. They sat unflinching and glued to their guns. Was it that? Was it a dedication to their cause or was it that they had given up too? Lizzie took out her diary to write another paragraph or two.
I love him. There is no other word that I can find that satisfies how I feel about him. I don’t love him as a woman loves a man in marriage. I don’t love him physically. But I have never met a man so powerful or so caring before. I don’t know what he carries on his shoulders or what drives him to do what he does. I don’t know why he feels so passionately for others and wants to help people but I love him for it.
I would have died so many times, just today, if he hadn’t been there for me. There I was. Kidding myself, balled up like a frightened hamster, trapped in my apartment fooling myself into thinking it was all going to pass. There I was feeling sorry for myself because the few friends I had, had died in the first few waves of the flu and whatever the flu became. Too frightened to make a stand and get myself out of there. If he hadn’t exploded into my life when he did I’d have been vaporized with the rest of my city after probably having been raped.
He kept me alive sneaking through those subway stations too. Then in the fight to get out of the city by helicopter. I trust him completely and I’ve only known him for a day. I don’t know how I feel at the moment. I know that without General Logan I’d be a dead woman and I know that because of who he is and nothing more that I love him.
But I can’t feel anything for the zombies. The “faceless” zombies, like he calls them, that representation of the faceless mass. Maybe he was right though. Maybe it’s because something boiling and simmering below the surface meant that we were starting to hate our lives and the systems that we live by. Sick of this same old democracy, sick of the banks holding all of the money, sick of the way that we all have to live our lives in servitude to something bigger but nameless and in itself also faceless.
We are born. We grow up; hopefully with a sense of innocence while we are young, then we start school to learn how to function in the societal construct that we have made. Then we have to get jobs, pretend we are useful, so we can pay our taxes. Get a house. Pay a mortgage. Pay our bills.
Then they have us right where they want us. Trapped. Trapped in the mechanisms of our own spasmodic economy so the rich can stay rich and the poor can stay poor. Maybe Logan was right.
Maybe I’m not afraid of the zombies, or more that I don’t care for the people they were, because they are tearing the world down for me. Maybe I should be grateful to them. Every day should be absolute. Every day should be a battle to survive. That doesn’t mean we can’t, or we won’t, be happy. Because that way we can be the captains of our own ships. The architects of our own destiny. And if we don’t make it then it’s our own damn fault.
‘Prepare to touchdown.’ That was the pilot again. That ushered her out of her own thoughts and back into the real world. Logan was still staring out the window aimlessly. Letting his anger and rage boil over. His eyes slowly lost their harsh stare as he calmed himself.
The pilot had spotted his landing site. It was nothing more than a sphere of cleared street. The snow had been brushed back with hard work to clear a flat easy surface to land upon. The small town of Valhalla was unrecognizable as a place to live.
The snow was thinner here but it had still covered the whole mass of houses in a white sheet. It was still cold too. The lake had frozen clean over. That was where the containment and screening tent was placed. Logan had insisted upon it being placed right on the frozen river. It was more defendable that way he argued.
There were explosive charges rigged to the ice ready to sink the pop up facility if there was ever a containment issue. Abraham would be inside.
The helicopter touched down but Logan was stood up and ready to jump out. The pilot was back on the radio but to someone else this time. Maybe that tank unit from back on the freeway. Logan quickly remembered that he was supposed to be in charge:
‘Head back for a BDA and get back to me as soon as possible.’ Logan ordered over the radio, awaited the response “Affirmative General, en route” and handed back his headphone set. The pilot kept the helicopter hovering and didn’t quite touchdown. He would head right back the way he came and back to the city for the BDA (Battle Damage Assessment).
It wouldn’t be good. There would be no one left alive to save. At some point the column of refugees would turn into charred remains. And those at the back of the convoy would be lucky not to die an agonizing death with radiation sickness. Becoming a zombie would have been preferable.
Lizzie jumped down from the helicopter seat and patted the gunner on the shoulder in thanks. He just nodded and returned his trained eyes back down the sight of his gun. Logan turned back to see her.
‘Come on.’ He said. ‘There’s someone I want you to meet.’ They stepped out onto the ice after brushing past a few frozen stiff trees. Their icy branches creaked and groaned in protest to having been moved. The snow crunched rhythmically below their heels with each pace.
The containment tent was located some distance out onto the ice. There were a pack of dog’s guarding the tent ahead with a couple of handlers. The dogs remained still so the handlers didn’t even challenge the two of them. They just smiled and half nodded in their direction. They were soldiers sent to them by Cygan. Probably with no affiliation to any Ar5my or unit any more. There really was nothing left.
‘Dogs?’ Lizzie whispered in his ear.
‘Yeah. They have this odd sense for zombies. They can sense things we can’t. See better, smell better, and have more emotional intelligence than most of the guys I’ve ever known.’
There were five gorgeous Alsatian dogs laid out on the snow. They had thermal coats on to keep them warm. They looked cute and nice as anything. But they were massive. Not the kind of dogs you wanted to be on the wrong side of.
The containment tent was white and pristine. It was held up with compressed air, not a rigid frame, so was easily collapsible. There was a huge diesel generator thumping away up ahead. That would be what was compressing the air and keeping the lights on. Hopefully the heating too. There was a guard right by the generator with a sniper partner. One had binoculars and was scouring the edges of the lake. The other had his rifle sight glued to his eye and scanned the immediate forward area. They both wore black and had night vision at the ready.
The night had settled in. Refugees were en route and there were sure to be some zombie stragglers around. The show of force made Lizzie relax quite accidentally. She sensed she was safe and sort of let go a little.
The overgrown tent had a doorway opened up with two guards stationed at either side of it. Logan walked in first. They both raised a salute but it was an unenergetic one at best.
Abraham was there waiting for them. He had a white coat on, just like always, and a breathing mask over his mouth. He was covered from head to foot with protective clothing. Thin pink gloves and waterproof trousers over his jeans. A twitch under his plastic mask gave away his smile.
‘Oh.’ He hadn’t expected to see Lizzie. ‘Refugees to the right.’ He smiled. She could tell because the face mask he had on kept twitching upwards and stayed there as he held out a welcome hand to the ominous looking plastic door to his immediate right. She was so convinced by him that she was about to obe
y and walk away.
‘She’s with me.’ Logan stopped her by grabbing for her hand and pulling her back.
‘Oh I’m so sorry. I hadn’t realized we were recruiting.’ He maintained his smile and his joke was obvious. Just on the right side of subtle to not be offensive. He added: ‘Though by the looks of the WDC talent pool at the moment we really ought to.’ He even managed a nervous chuckle. Logan shot him a confused and somewhat condescending look.
‘You don’t talk to many women do you Doctor?’ Logan smiled and started winding him up, sensing Abraham had become uncomfortable. At that moment, completely unprompted, a group of three nurses dressed exactly as the Doctor, rushed in from the door to the right with two white coats and bottled disinfectants.
They started spraying it liberally over the two of them and ripped Logan’s jacket right off his shoulders without asking. Lizzie started panicking when they progressed to take everything from her, stopping only at her white vest top. They quickly began to stink of strong bleach.
The scent stung the backs of their nostrils but at least cleared their nasal cavities.
‘Hey!’ She screamed in opposition and started tugging for her police jacket.
‘Just relax.’ Logan said softly. ‘Abe likes to be thorough.’ He looked right at his friend, the Doctor. ‘Isn’t that right Abe?’ Abe could have easily made Lizzie feel better but he lacked the emotional intelligence to know he should have. Instead he latched onto what Logan had said before.
‘I’m going to let them do whatever they want to you after that last crack at me. Below the belt a bit General?’ He stood hands in pockets gloating.
Lizzie did relax though. She couldn’t remember when she had last heard someone make a joke or have a stab at situational comedy. Logan just, as usual, bulldozed over the emotional tension.
‘Why the light mood Doctor?’ He asked as the nurses pulled his white coat on for him and slapped a face mask over his growing beard.
‘I have something to show you.’ He raised his eyebrows cryptically and turned to walk away.
They proceeded down the inflated hall behind them and through a set of hinged plastic doors. The plastic, mopped and disinfected, floor creaked below every step. The heating was pumping away liberally but they could feel the ice and powerful cold on the soles of their feet running up from beneath.
He had caught one!
‘Getting those electrodes on wasn’t fun.’ The Doctor joked at the thrashing, sniveling and enraged zombie that was tied to a hospital bed in the next area. It was enclosed in a separate area of the tent. A more secure and thicker plastic formed the walls of its cell.
The only way in was a firm door installed in the only metal frame of the structure that had a separate keypad and card access point. There was no way that door was ever opening again though. The Doctor had electrodes all over the decaying and burned body of the zombie, a male, not too long dead.
He could read any brain signal it sent out and assess the creature from relative safety. Logan immediately went into protective, patriarchal mode.
‘You armed?’ He asked and stared at Abraham for a few seconds. But the Doctor was captivated in the shrieks of the captured zombie.
‘Hmm? Oh yes, yes, I have a pistol on my belt. Besides it’s perfectly secure and how else do you suppose I study it?’ The Doctor had a point. He could learn a lot from a specimen in the rotting flesh.
Logan had other priorities though. His mind was fixated on Cygan. He had destroyed one major city of the world. He had inadvertently opened up the nuclear solution to all and any other governments in hiding too. What one country did the others would follow. He had to be stopped and at all costs.
‘Have you learned anything at all yet, Doctor?’ Lizzie asked while staring at the trapped and enraged creature. He didn’t reply right away. They just watched the beast thrash violently against the leather straps that held it firmly onto the bed. The metal creaked and groaned under strain of its constant flailing. The metal chains rattled together eerily.
Watching the zombie was nauseating for her. She had almost forgotten that dizzy spell back in the subway station and the sneeze with blood in it. She had put it down to nothing, the exhaustion of having to move and fight after a long period of being sedentary, and ignored it. It was just a silly headache and a lack of food or something. It wasn’t going to upset her.
‘No.’ He answered plain and clear but turned to her with a geeky, life filled and enthusiastic smile. ‘But that’s the whole point sometimes.’ He turned his attention back to the dead victim.
This one had obviously been in an accident. It was burned from head to toe. Some of its skin had peeled away to reveal pale bone and flesh. A fracture in its leg resulted in a charred protruding bone sticking out at an odd angle. His hair was charred and frail. It had burned like nylon and matted right into the flesh of his skull. The zombie was revolting to look at. Lizzie was starting to feel a little sick but held it together like a trooper.
‘I don’t get it.’ She had to steady her shaken voice and fight back the bile rising up the back of her throat. A short sentence was all she could manage. Abraham smiled victoriously.
‘Sometimes you can learn from what is not obvious, or what is less obvious, more so than you can learn from what stares you in the face.’ He was happy. He was in his element. He had a puzzle to solve and he had the best mind in the world that could do it.
Lizzie just nodded. Another sentence would have been too much effort.
Logan just stood there. Arms folded with that irritating calm and smug look about him. His face didn’t alter. He was in a trance of some kind it seemed. He was either thinking hard about what his next move against General Cygan might be, or he was studying the creature too. That burned zombie with the crumpled flesh and charred body. But he had no gag reflex or terror in his eyes. Those cold grey eyes.
The Doctor and Lizzie continued their conversation without him.
‘Let me explain.’ The Doctor continued and led her over to a single computer monitor on a lonely white desk in the corner of the inflated lab.
‘I can’t tell you what these creatures are per say.’ He continued and sat down to turn the computer on. He pointed to images that flashed up on the screen. Gold, bronze and pink colored scans of the zombie’s brain in each different stage. Front to back.
‘But I can tell you what they are not.’ He pushed his thin glasses back up his nose and pointed to the screen with a single finger.
‘They aren’t alive.’ He seemed pleased with himself on that observation alone. Lizzie scoffed at him.
‘I thought we had that one figured already.’ She leaned over him and pulled down her face mask. That annoyed him a little but he said nothing after a small irritated sigh. There was no point in protesting.
‘But did we?’ He asked her almost giddy. ‘The high school definition of alive is that an organism must eat, reproduce, move, respire and all of those things they actually do! You see, muscles must be fed in order to move, that is why they still breathe. They reproduce in a sense in that they infect the living and another of their kind is produced. They certainly move. And they certainly eat. So by that definition they do live.’ He turned around to meet her confused facial expression.
She wasn’t the best in the class at school. All she wanted to be was a cop and hadn‘t really stuck school or even let anything much sink in while she was there. She just leaned there against the back rest of his seat and waited for him to continue.
‘Now let’s get technical.’ She though he had already been technical. ‘A living organism must pass the following checklist to be considered alive in medical and biological terms. They must undergo metabolism, they must maintain homeostasis, they must possess a capacity to grow, they must respond to exogenous stimuli, they reproduce, and they must adapt to environmental conditions using a slow process of natural selection. Or evolution.’ Logan had wandered over to join them.
H
e had only been half listening. It was easy to forget, given his more obvious talent as a military leader, that he was also an educated Doctor himself. Abraham was saying nothing that he didn’t know already. That hadn’t stopped him becoming curious though. Abraham carried on riding his own adrenaline.
‘Our zombies do eat!’ He said ecstatically. ‘But their organs are genuinely dead so no metabolism, or digestion, takes place. Any flesh they consume just rots in their non-functional stomach. There’s a fail on point one. They are decaying in front of us. Some of them are even starting to rot as they stand. So they possess no ability to maintain homeostasis. Their entropy levels are failing. Or we could say that they can barely hold themselves together against external forces such as rot and bacteria. The flesh is genuinely dead too. A fail on point two. They do not grow as we have discovered because they do not even eat to sustain themselves.’
‘They eat through instinct not through need. Another fail. They do respond to external stimulus. One pass to three fails so far. They reproduce but only in the sense that the virus within passes from carrier to carrier. Even if I count that generously as a pass that only makes two passes to three fails. Make that four fails when we look at the final point. They cannot grow, do not maintain themselves against entropy, and do not reproduce as an organism. That, therefore, means they cannot partake in evolution.’
That was thorough. Lizzie thought to herself and stood up to see a rare look of fascination on Logan’s eyes. Abraham was looking around at the two of them, almost like he was expecting someone to finish his thoughts for him and wrap it all up. It didn’t happen. Whatever revelation he had stumbled upon was truly his own at that point.
‘So what does this mean?’ Lizzie couldn’t bare the judgmental silence anymore and conceded defeat. Her high school science had let her down. Abraham was stunned, a little insensitively, by her ignorance. Logan had to finish the thought.
‘What keeps them walking and eating then? That’s what it means.’ Logan joined the conversation for the first time in a while. He still had his arms folded over his broad chest. Lizzie couldn’t help but admire him. His strong arms and bulky chest ready to burst out of that white coat he had on. He had ripped off the face mask too. The place was sterile and the virus no longer airborne. What would it matter?
‘Exactly!’ Abraham almost shouted ecstatically. ‘Look, see for yourself!’ He used the computer mouse to bring up more cross section scans of the zombie’s brain. Most of the image on the screen was black but some areas of the brain were lit up in colors of exuberant pink and rosy red.
‘There.’ Logan pointed. ‘What is that?’ He was studying the areas of the brain that were lit up in color. Abraham lost his excitement but slowly answered his question.
‘Those are the areas of the brain that are alive. Those are the areas that the virus keeps awake and functional. They govern basic movement and motor neuron control, but also instinct and very interestingly, memory.’ Abraham trailed off at the end of his sentence there.
Lizzie was lost. She had to admit that. She had fallen into staring right into Logan’s eyes. Those cold grey, but somehow, deep and beautiful eyes. She hadn’t heard a word for minutes. Logan stayed on the same line of inquiry:
‘Why the Hell would the virus keep those parts alive at the expense of every other area of the brain?’ He leaned forward to study the images further.
‘That’s the million dollar question my friend.’ Abraham conceded defeat. This was the furthest he had gotten in his study. He had nothing more to add and could only speculate at the next question. Logan patted him on the back sensing that he was becoming deflated again.
The Doctor had been hard at it for a long time. Much longer than Logan had. Even while he had been out there travelling, trying to enjoy his retirement, kidding himself into thinking he could find peace in the world.
‘Keep on it kid.’ He always used that word when referring to his friends. Kid. He had almost taken offence when Cygan called him that. ‘Ask the questions everyone else is afraid to. Look in corners too dark to see in. I know you can do this Abe.’ Logan squeezed his palm over the Doctor’s shoulder and patted again.
Abe just nodded and held his tired and weary head in his hands. Lizzie was unacceptably jealous of the attention Logan had given to Abe. What is wrong with you? Her angry thoughts bounced around her head.
The radio Logan still had stuffed in his pocked started crackling as someone attempted to make contact.
‘General Logan, Sir, requesting permission to land. Artillery and Mechanized unit safely escorted to base. Congratulations General. I count approximately three hundred refugees saved.’ Was that all?
It was the pilot from the helicopter coming in clear through the radio. He had flown back to escort the rest of his unit home safely after the destruction of the city. At least a small portion of the column of refugees had survived. Logan stood bolt upright.
‘Where are the military temporary headquarters?’ He hadn’t answered the radio call yet and directed his question at Abe. The pilot had seemed calm and under no pressure, there was a small sense of calm from his voice.
‘In the fire station across the road, back on land.’ He pointed vaguely but didn’t lift his head or turn away from the computer monitor. It just cycled through the same hollow images of a dead brain. He held the radio to his mouth.
‘Go ahead, pilot, landing zone clear. Refugees can start filing into the containment tent for screening and treatment. Gather your men and meet me at the fire station.’ Logan spoke clearly and held the radio to his ear for a reply.
‘Copy General. Tank unit ten minutes out.’ The overly calm pilot replied and turned his radio off to maintain power.
Pilots were odd like that. They had a sense of calmness to them, much the same kind Logan had. It was because they observed most of the battlefield from high above and had some detachment from it all. But it was also a personality trait that made them ideal to the job. Nobody could trust a pilot who was nervous and jittery.
Logan stuffed the radio back into the back pocket of his black combat trousers. They were scuffed and a little blood stained from the battles they had fought through in the city. No chance of a clean pair or getting them washed though.
He started unfastening the knot at the back of his white coat and pulled it off his arms and back. He had started walking back through the door they entered through. Abraham didn’t say anything. He was immersed again in his work and didn’t tear his eyes away from the screen in front of him.
Those nurses were in the entrance area again. They must have received the same radio transmission and were expecting the arrival of the refugee column any second. He passed his coat to the closest one and saw his thick leather jacket hung up on a free standing metal rack at the other side of the inflated room. He strode over and threw it back over his shoulders. Lizzie followed and threw away her white, oversized, coat at the first opportunity.
‘Where the Fuck is my jacket?’ She suddenly turned angry and demanded to know where her coat was too when she saw hers wasn’t on the same rack. There was a lot of emotion creeping up on her that she hadn’t dealt with yet. She admired Logan but was trying to keep from falling for him like a silly girl with a crush. He anger was just all of that venting out.
‘Disposed of due to possible contamination.’ One of the female nurses told her but didn’t give her any more time of day.
‘What the Fuck?’ She started to shout and threw up her skinny arms in protest.
It made sense though. She had worn that coat in her last days as a police officer, when the city started to cave in under the pressure of the flu, which was at that time still only a flu. Any chance of contamination was taken seriously and burned at the first chance. It was WDC protocol.
But she was having none of it. That was her last relic to her former life. Her last memory of her time as a police officer. Gone and burned without even a single word.
‘Come on L
iz, let it go.’ Logan protested impatiently. He didn’t have a sentimental bone in his body. Apart from his strange connection to those Desert Eagles of his.
He could just see the clock ticking and time slipping away. Cygan would be planning his next move and Logan needed to be the one to stop him. The world wasn’t going to be saved by blasting it back into the last century.
‘Oh sure, so I’ll just fucking freeze then.’ She tried even harder to solicit a response from the nurse. She just stood there and tried her best to ignore Lizzie. Arms behind her back and waiting a little fidgety for the start of the refugee column. Logan had paced back over to grab Lizzie by the arm. He pulled her away but did it gently. There was no need for this.
Lizzie felt immediately guilty. It was silly. She was just making things harder than they needed to be and this poor nurse had her own problems to deal with. She had her job to do too. To save as many people as possible.
‘Alright!’ She shouted again. Even though she knew she was in the wrong she didn’t back down. ‘I’m coming.’
Logan let go of her as they approached the doorway. Those same guards were still stood there in the icy cold. It stuck to her the second they stepped outside. With nothing on other than her vest top the cold pierced right down to her veins in only a second.
‘Here.’ Logan said gently and took off his own jacket. He pulled it over her slender shoulders and wrapped it tightly around her. It was far too big but she just folded it over and cuddled the excess material around her chest.
‘Thanks.’ She had to admit she was a little embarrassed. He didn’t care though. Something about people with attitude entertained him and he enjoyed being around them.
Lizzie had fight left in her and frankly that just made him like her all the more. He felt the cold immediately but he liked it. The sharp, icy and burning cold just sharpened his senses and made him more alert. He liked it because it tested him too. It tested his calm and staying power. Being comfortable in the cozy warm was easy, something that anyone could do. Being uncomfortable but being ok with being uncomfortable was something else though.
‘Is he your friend?’ Lizzie asked after a few short paces across the snow.
‘Abe?’
‘Yeah?’ She pushed on.
‘I guess he is. Even though I haven’t known him long. Some people you can just trust. You know? Whatever it is that makes him who he is, is built on a trustworthy character.’ Logan didn’t resent the question. He already knew a lot about Lizzie. That she was a cop but worked alone. That she was single and had been for at least the near past and had no close friends. But she knew nothing about Logan other than what she could tell by the kind of man he was.
‘No other friends?’ She pushed the issue further. Logan thought but only for a second.
‘Cygan I guess.’ He smiled victoriously at her. He knew she didn’t get how those two could still be friends.
Logan could put intense, seemingly irresolvable, differences aside from a friendship and see those two things as different entities or different lives. She had no idea how. She slipped into feeling sorry for herself.
‘I think this would have hit me harder if I’d had closer friends. Ones that I knew were dead.’ She admitted. There was a hint of resentment in her voice. She seemed like she almost resented her own life decisions and blamed them for her own isolation. She had consumed herself with work from the very beginning and cared about nothing other than becoming, and then just being, a cop.
That seemed like one intensely hollow victory after all of those things were torn down and being a cop meant less than the three letter, one syllable, word: “cop”.
Logan could sense her regret and he felt compelled through some unknown reason to be the one to comfort her. He had been the one to declare them partners. It was his duty to her on that professional level, and on a friendship level too.
‘Friends are sometimes inconstant anyway.’ He smiled at her through cold, gritted teeth. ‘Friends leave and lead their own lives when you part at the end of school or college, and that’s ok I guess. But some can be fickle if the ties that bind the friendship together brake for any reason. They can fall out over silly little things. Few people discover bonds that tie them together for life. Kind of like a transcendental friendship. I don’t think you should worry too much, or assess your self-worth against, how many friends you used to have on social media.’ She laughed at him.
A cheeky little chuckle that was followed by a smile that just wouldn’t fade. Even there in the dark and the cold she felt warm with him. He kept going:
‘I imagine there are a lot of dead people out there who had three hundred or more “social media friends” but found themselves alone when things got real.’ Logan matched her wide smile. ‘A friendship that ties people together, even tighter than family ties, is the only kind worth having.’ He was talking about her and that made her blush a little. The color change in her freezing white cheeks was embarrassing for her but funny to him. He laughed again and shoved her playfully.
The fire station was dead ahead through a thin veil of lightly falling snow. It stretched over two floors and was connected directly to a three story high house. It was slate colored under the snow. It was a charming place and would have made a nice home for the fire chief of the town before any of this happened.
The window boxes protruded out gently and each had a slated triangle roof of its own. There was no damage and Lizzie liked the thought that entered her mind, that the crew had gotten out, and the family that lived there had high-tailed it north at the first sign of trouble.
That they were alive around a campfire roasting chestnuts and barbequing a deer steak each. It was a comforting and heart-warming tale but one that must have been fiction.
It was right over the road from the frozen lake. The helicopter crew was down already and waiting for them outside.