ZOMBIE lost & found

15: Alpha Better

Deep in the sub-basement, Fred wormed his way between boxes swollen and slumped from repeated floods. He held a penlight between his teeth, referring to the stocklist he had found by the door and the labels on the shelves. Everything in here was considered useless, not worth the trouble of getting rid of. Towards the back, there was some semblance of order but the rest of the room was just heaped with intermixed trash and obsolete supplies, \

Not a lot of overlap between medicine that prevents zombies, and medicine that treats their disorders.

Fred felt some strange echo of guilt. he had been turned quite early, and so was never part of the doomed effort of human medicine to resist the zombie contagion. Their efforts had to be seen as heroic as they were hopeless -- trying to defend the humans, the human way of life.  If Hank was any indication, that had become quite a rudimentary sort of thing.

Boxes of masks were burst out their spoiled and molding contents. Colored gloves were strewn and draped about. Surprisingly a few tests for contagion survived, taped shut and labled in Sharpie. Fred added those to his hawl. Once being a zombie became the norm there was not more research done on the issues that would concern him now. Was Hank immune, or was he an asymptomatic carrier? As far as anyone could tell the zombie virus was transmitted by by fluids, saliva to blood typically. Theoretically large droplet to mucous membranes could not be ruled out, so how was he supposed to treat any human patients that he was presented with? He was not so foolish as to assume the reservation was properly set up for human medicine, their budget was lower than for animal control and look how that was working out -- with dogs in he gutters and sheep in the road.

Fred salvaged anything he thought might be useful and dumped it in boxes by the door. It quickly became more than he could carry. Certainly more than would fit in two trunks.

I hope Hank is right about saying I am a good liar.  I'm just going to have to say this is a dination from the hospital and will transport it. And bringing a whole bunch of stuff will help cover my real supplies, for making sure I can be a whole zombie again., and recover from whatever those feral humies might do to me.

Checking his watch, he'd only been about half an hour but Fred was getting nervous about leaving the human up there alone. He kicked his salvage boxes into a group.  There was bound to be more, but he'd just have to find some way to sneak back and liberate it if he needed to. He sure as hell was not handing in his keys before he left. 

To support his story for the mutes he snapped on a pair of gloves and slipped a splash shield over his face. He brought a few other things with him: mask gloves, test kit and a clipboard with an indecipherable chart attached.

He jogged up the stairs and came in the side door to a rater shocking sight.

"Hank, what the fuck are you doing? Get further away from those zombs.  Do you want them to catch it?"

The four zombies in the clinic didn't quite jump, but the three in the rear took a shuffle-step back.  Hank was huddled into the hospital blanket over his head, but his feet and hands were partly visible, a mixture of scuffed and peeling grey paint and around the margins human skin weeping sebum and blood. His paint allergy was continued to kick-off and made for quite a discusting sight. But, credit to Baz, the gray paint he chose for this undead dolls was a great match for the lusterless tone of zombie skin. It could as easily be seen as human patched growing into the grey, rather than grey covering the fleshy pink.

The zombie up front was strangely small and slight but neverthless had an air of command about them.  Behind them was Thorn, Ma Parker, and a new face -- a large man with a profuse black beard and a bald head that showed skull in several places.

"Is it right what this -- individual -- says," the leader asked.

Their voice gave away that this zombies body was that of a child, no more than ten years old and he could not tell if it was a girl or boy.  It happened that way if a child turned.  Most of them didn't survive it but those who did were frozen in their developmental stage. This one was probably resentful of their state if the oversized sweats and built-up boots were any indications.

"For heaven's sake get further away!" Fred forced a tremor into his voice.  "This humanification disease is designed to be highly contagious!"

I know, terrible story but it was the best I could come up with on short notice.

"Hank put this on," Fred tossed one of the less obviously moldy facemasks and two mismatched gloves at him.  The more he  could cover the human up the better. "I don't know where they had him but he must have escaped, whatever they did to him wiped his memory.  But he had this chart, look look."

I shoved the clipboard in the child leader's hands.  

"Unequivocal proof that someone in this hospital has been doing active research on how to rehumanify zombies. It's a secret project, appearing nowhere in the official documents."

"That's... an atrocity!" The child leader's face showed a reflexive grimace at the very thought. Their followers mumbled shocked agreement and edged even further away from Hank. Thorn looked like all his Christmases were coming at once--totally on board with Fred's new twist on his conspiracy.

The relief that they were taking the bait rushed through Fred and for a moment, but he hastened to continue the act and lay it on as thick as he dared. "I had to get help because I think they are onto me.  They've removed me from my post..." I saw that Ma Parher had picked up my reassignment letter, and I pointed at it emphatically.  "You see, reassinging me to the reservation because it's easy to knock me off there.  No one will think anything of it.  Dangerous place you know.  But I think we can use it against them! I mean..."

Fred could see the child's face was starting to look sullen.  Funny thing about leaders, they don't like to lose the initiative.  He immediately dialled up an obsequious tone.

"I mean... please let me make this suggestion. This idea.  Because without your help nothing can stop them.  I am just a scieintist, I can't stop them.  But if I can take this specimen somewhere safe to... uh, study it," Fred waved his hand at Hank, huddled under the blanket, "I can tell you what I learn and maybe your organization can... I don't know... save us? I don't know...."

Fred clasped his hands together and bent forward timorously, slightly worried that he was over doing it. He tried to look at the kid like a stray dog might look at anyone with a hotdog.

"I don't know, Alpha," the big guy echoed suspiciously.

Alpha turned his back on Hank and stepped towards Fred and away from his follower.  "Tell me more," he commanded.