Mom and Zombie Slayer

Chapter THREE

As we left,I had to re-evaluate the situation. What were the facts ?

First, it seems that my husband was still alive. My husband, who had left me pregnant and alone.

Second, there was a zombie outbreak right now. As I always did when I was thinking, I took a strand of my hair and started to twist it around my fingers.

Was it possible that the creatures we saw really were zombies?

"Why don't you tell me more about the zombies, Mr.Parker?" I asked.

Mr. Parker kept his eyes on the road and sighed. It was obvious that this was a story he told many times. Before he started, I looked in the back to check on Eliott and he was busy playing with his fingers. I returned to my initial position and waited until Mr. Parker would start to talk. I was starting to get impatient, thinking that maybe, he was not completely there and had forgotten about me.

"You might want to keep your temper in check, Mrs. Walker. I promised John to bring you back, and I will. But I won't tolerate your behaviour in my car."

I was just put back at my place, and I felt humiliated. He was right. I wasn't usually this rude. I swallowed and apologized softly. Mr. Parker nodded and started.

"An explosion in an illegal pharmaceutical research lab in Detroit, Michigan a few days ago. The lab was experimenting with new diseases man made, because they were looking at sending the disease in the public to be able to be the one to cure everybody. It took a storm that blew their generator for one of their sickest disease, zombie, to spread threw their staff. The military went and got the situation under control. Only for a few days." He rubbed his eyes before continuing, "This morning, one patient escaped and the disease is now spreading like wildfire through the entire country."

"But what does that have to do with me and John?"

"Do you know what your husband was doing for a living, Ms. Walker?"

"Of course I know! He is a medical technician for a pharmaceutical company. At least, that's what he did before he... before he left me."

Mr. Parker took a deep breath before continuing.

"That was his cover. John Walker is one of the most prominent researcher in man made disease in the world. He worked for the government all his life. The company he worked for? Eureka Pharmaceutical?" he asked without looking at me. He didn't see me nod, but he continued nonetheless, "Its a military base. Because we didn't want to attract too much attention from our enemies, we stayed under the radar, pretending to be a private company."

"Two years ago, John has been kidnapped..."

"No!" I shouted, waking up the baby. I didn't even realized that he was asleep and in fact, I was so surprised, and shocked, by what Mr. Parker was telling me that I had forgotten that my baby boy was sleeping in the back. Elliott started to fuss but for once, not only I couldn't get to him because we were in a moving car, but my attention was entirely focused on what Mr. Parker was saying. "He disappeared in Dominican Republic. That is where the police founded him!" I said more calmly.

"We had to let you believe this, Ms. Walker. We couldn't tell you where he was because then our cover would have been blown."

I was so angry by what he just told me that I felt my face getting red. I wanted to shout. To scream. I couldn't process the fact that my husband had been kidnapped. That he had not abandoned me. That he had not left me because he had stop being in love with me. A part of me wanted to know more about it, wanted to know everything about what happened and the other part was remembering how alone I was during my pregnancy. My anger, my grief. How lonely and alone I was when I gave birth to my baby boy. How hard the first few weeks of his existence were, while I was dealing with grief and resentment.

"You have to stop thinking that, Ms. Walker. You can't change what happened. You have to look forward, to move on." For the first time, Mr. Parker's voice was soothing, was comforting. He had know what I was going through.

I looked by the window, looked at outside and tried to hide my pain and the tears that were running down my face. I cried even more when I saw zombies everywhere. People were running away from them. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I could see their faces in pain.

"Why aren't we stopping and helping them? We have a gun and we could save them from the zombies." The word didn't seem so strange anymore. Not after what I had witnessed and was witnessing right now.

"The car is packed and the zombies are fresh. They are fast. We have no chances against them."

"So we just ignore them?" My throat was tight. My first impulse was to get out and help them, make them not die. But I understood what Mr. Parker was saying and I didn't want to put Elliott at risk.

I sat back on the seat, looking straight ahead, trying to ignore the blood bath around us.

"Where are we going?" I hoped it would be far, far far away from the zombies.

"We are on our way to Detroit. That's where your husband is. He is in charge of a location that have been kept secret, in the mountains."

It was going to be a long trip.