Untitled Zombie Story - Chapter 1.

1.

“If You Are Reading This, I Am Most Likely Dead”

Athena sits alone at the head of a long mahogany table in an extravagant dining room, appearing rather distant amidst the sounds of hammering, shouting, and an air of panic. Though she bears resemblance to a strong and steadfast Amazonian warrior princess, she is the emotional antonym. The jet-black haired Greek beauty trembles, somatically working through her trauma, a tear running down her lightly tanned olive skin, her mascara starting to bleed somewhat down her cheek. She was trying, but couldn’t remember the name of the little boy - who could have been her own son were she a teenage mom - that saved her with his selfless bravery, giving his own life for hers. She couldn’t remember if she even asked his name before it all happened. She could just remember promising the boy everything was going to be okay. She could only remember blood. Blood, it was everywhere, on her Lulu Lemon track suit, her Nike running shoes; it was on the hands and in the faces of everyone around the house. There was even blood on the table and the floor around it she began to notice as her spacial awareness returned to her, but this blood was dry she realized. Athena collects herself and scans the room. High ceilinged walls peppered with beautifully framed family portraits, carefully hung around display cases containing exotic statues and artifacts. Along the floor, lengths of broken “Do Not Cross” police tape dragged into the room by the entranceway that Mark - a handsome thirty-something fellow - led her into the room from to sit her down before running back out to help the others. Athena suddenly collects a chill amongst chills down her spine. She is familiar with this house, she had heard about it in the news seven days earlier. An entire dinner party of family and friends hosted by wealthy philanthropist and anthropologist Norman Goldberg was drugged then murdered, along with the entire house staff and caterers. The story made her nauseous, but then that was nothing compared to the events of the days that would follow. Athena takes a deep breath attempting to center herself, and glances at a half opened backpack on the table, noticing the cover of a notebook that says “READ ME” inside. Athena, ambient and compliant, takes the book from the bag and begins to read.

“There are extremely important notes in these pages that you should know about if you care for the way things used to be. If you are reading this it means I am most likely dead and this is all over, or more likely I am dead and the responsibility has fallen on you to continue my work. For this I am sorry, not because I was to blame for any of this, but because of what has been theorized that will have to be done to change it all back; things I don’t even think I could do. There are items needed, that I do not at this moment have. I will get to all of that in great detail, but before I do I want to you to know who I was, so that when these horrors have come to an end, I will not be forgotten.

My name is Richard Peter Johnson. A note on that... I’ve always disliked my name. Some people call me Dick, I’m content with that. I’ve accepted the innuendo, because I have been a dick before. We learn from example. So, if ones given name was directly related to their personality I would in fact be three times more a dick than a majority of the male population, as has been assumed in my life coming from a family of Dicks, I am however a remarkably nice guy. Very few people, with the exception of my few closest friends, and family that has taken advantage of it for almost my whole life (thirty years), have ever come to know that of me though. I’ve heard people say “Oh, he’s polite”... I’ve spent so much time studying, leisurely reading, or working diligently, that I wasn’t very social growing up, might have even seemed shut-out and distant with people... I’ve never really noticed how much that bothers me. Christ, the last time I made any sort of personal journal entry was when I was in grade one and our assignment was to write one page - double spaced - about our day, every day for the month, and reflect on the lessons we learned, the things that happened, and how we felt about all of it. Any other journal entry since then has been to document results of studies and projects. Funny now when I think about it, those personal journal entries from my youth were very much the same thing, experiments, only I never saw it that way. Isn’t that almost always the case though? We never fully understand what things are while they’re happening, while we’re immersed in them, and what the point is of anything until the time in which the events take place has passed. Despite the complexity of this moment, unfathomable in its nature, I’m certain that I get what is going on, the how and why, and I hope beyond all hope that it’s not too late to do something about it. I also wish there were some other way... I think I’ve felt that way about a lot of things in life. I feel like I’ve wasted a lot of my life missing out on life, but it was to do what I thought was right. In university I was that ‘uptight’ guy who showed up at parties late and left early because an extra credit assignment was due, or someone required academic assistance and I offered them my brain for picking, then I’d get frustrated with them because they weren’t catching on as quickly as I hoped. Maybe I am a dick? Maybe I avoided people socially because I don’t understand them. I suppose none of that matters anymore. For years I have been as dead to the world as it has been to me, and now where am I? Trapped in the basement of the city morgue where I work as a pathologist, surrounded by corpses.

Fuck. These candles are burning rather quickly. Here is the situation. The next page has an image of what you’ll need, everything that follows it will explain why. I came to the morgue not expecting to find what I found, the source of this nightmare you’ve come to know, not believing it to be real even though I had been warned it might happen. I was hoping to keep what I thought couldn’t possibly exist contained it but it was too late. The power went out shortly after I got stuck in this meat locker with what sounded like an explosion outside of the building, and I have little hope that it will come back on. It is too dark and exponentially more dangerous outside of this room with no light. I have to escape though, and I’ll have to move fast. My only chance is to protectively suit up and wait until sunrise. Using the flash on my camera I’ll navigate through the path of horrors for the first two subfloors, where on the next two up - pray the sky not be overcast or thick with smoke from raging fires - the east windows should catch enough sun to light the rest of the way out, at least to the surface. That is as far as I plan to make it. I have to get to the surface, even if it means death.”

“Hate To Say I Told You So.”

Kenneth Harris sits with nervous anticipation on his comfortable Herman Williams home office chair, cycling through data on his computer with the receiver of his telephone pinched between his left shoulder and ear, waiting for his call to be answered on the other end. He has let it ring five times already as his friend, “Dick”, Richard Peter Johnson - or “Cock Trio” as he calls him, with whom he desperately seeks dialogue - doesn’t have voice mail. Kenneth, it appears, has not breathed fresh air or showered for about two days. His face and hair are glazed with a light film of oils and sweat, his clothes musty and stained with food from a previous meal eaten in obvious haste, all for reasons some might say were paranoid delusions at best. Kenneth was always the suspicious type. His friends, or at least those few who still communicated with him, would say his tendencies to draw elaborate imaginative conspiracies and fantastical conclusions began in university with his studies of ancient civilizations and cultural behaviors, but the truth was it began long before that, with his parents who had long passed away, that were avid human rights activists and protestors for all sorts of international causes. This was genetic, it was in his blood.

“C’mon, pick up the fucking phone already, Jesus...” Kenneth remarks with slight impatience on the tenth ring, almost ready to give up until...

“Hello?” answers a female voice on the other end of the line, Veronica, Richard’s on and off girlfriend who doesn’t quite like Kenneth. Their feelings, mutual.

“Hi Veronica, I was hoping to speak to Dick, can you put him on?”

“Oh, Kent. Why do you want Richard?” Veronica asks, unenthusiastically.

“I really don’t have the time to explain this twice, I just need to speak to him.”

“Well is this, like, a matter of life or death, or something?”

“Yes, a matter of death actually, quite important that I speak to him, like, pronto.” answers Kenneth, clearly mocking Veronica’s goth-valley-girl qualities.

“Death? Really? I’m curious now, oh please tell me?” begs Veronica, for the first time actually conveying genuine interest in conversing with Kenneth. Death as it is, was Veronica’s favorite subject, a fetish of sorts. It aroused her, Kenneth knew, it was in fact the only reason he was certain she was with Richard, who was also aware of the fact, but couldn’t resist her not having much luck elsewhere with the opposite sex.

“Just give me Dick, would you?” insists Kenneth.

“Funny. Usually I’m the one saying that.” jests Veronica.

“Didn’t need to know that.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I offend your delicate virgin ears?”

“Dick, please?”

“Fine... RICHARD!? Come get the phone dear, its your loser friend! Kenneth.”

“Thank-you...” Kenneth remarks, followed by a silent “...you awful bitch.”  before waiting silently for Richard, stewing in his hatred of Veronica, and flatulence.

“Hey Cunt Hairs, what’s this life and death matter I’m hearing about?” Richard says affectionately. They’ve insulted the other’s name since the dawn of their friendship.

“Hey Cock Trio. Is that goth emo cum sponge still in the room with you?”

“No, she’s about to take a shower and I want to join her, so make it quick.”

“Whatever, the dumb bitch has to stop fucking with your important phone calls.”

“She’s not dumb, Kent.” 

“Please, she thinks ‘taking dictation’ is terminology for giving oral.”

There is a momentary pause before Richard responds as he recalls the memory from a few months earlier. “You got me there. What’s so urgent?”

“Did all of the bodies from the Goldberg estate murder land on your tables?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Where and how exactly were the family members and friends killed?”

“This is what was so important?” Richard says in disbelief.

“Yes! Very. I have to know, seriously.” declares Kenneth.

“Most of them were drugged, and then stabbed in the heart. Satisfied?”

“ All in one room? Did the police find that murder weapon?”

“Man, I don’t know.” Richard blurts, somewhat annoyed with the questions.

“You have to call your friend in the department and find out, immediately.”

“What are you on right now?”

“What I’m on has nothing to do with what I’m asking! Just do it.”

“Why?”

“Norman Goldberg had just recently acquired some rather ancient Egyptian artifacts, one of which I believe has been used historically to raise the dead.”

“Raise the dead?”

“You heard me. Those bodies are going to rise soon, and it could get ugly.” says Kenneth with a unmistakeable matter-of-fact tone to his voice.

“Seems rather, fictional, and irrational.” says Richard, not taking it seriously.

“Just because you don’t believe something doesn’t make it less real.”

“Just because you believe something doesn’t actually make it real.”

“If I’m right, everyone in that morgue is in danger, and my gut tells me I’m right.”

“Is this another one of your far out of left-field hysterical theories?”

“I’m not fucking with you Dick, I’m seriously freaked out here!” shouts Kenneth, a genuine fear in his words, as he often believed all of his crazy notions.

“The bodies are in storage, immobile. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Not yet. Dick, and I’d hate to say I told you so. Promise me you’ll make the call.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll call Kenji and I’ll ask him about the investigation. Happy?” says Richard, hoping Kenneth will cease bothering him further on the matter.

“If they have the blade, tell him we need it, and have him meet you tonight.”

“The police aren’t going to release evidence from a murder!”

“Whatever, just do it, then I need you to come over before you meet with Kenji.”

“Seriously Kent? I have plans tonight.”

“Tell Veronica to keep the drinks cold next to her heart, it won’t take long. Kenji can meet you at the morgue. That’s where you’re taking that bitch anyway, right? To fuck by candlelight near some corpses?”

“Maybe.” says Richard completely guilt-laden.

“I’m not judging you, just promise you’ll call Kenji then stop here first, okay?”

“Christ. I promise, alright? You owe me, fucking lunatic.”

“Bitch please, I’m doing you the huge fucking favor, you don’t even know it.”

“Well then thank-you, I suppose, asshole.”

“You’re welcome. Sorry I interrupted your pre morgue fucking shower sex. Go get some STD’s then hurry the fuck over, just make it quick. We’ve got work to do.”

“Unfinished Business”

He had never been late when it came to his work, ever. “They weren’t going anywhere” he thought, so why not finish the previously recorded episode of The Sopranos and then get his things together and go? He hated watching things half-way through and then getting back to them later. The momentum of the story, although unchanged in its telling, to him would be lost, so he let it play out to the credits. He would still be arriving early he speculated, just not the extra hour early that he scheduled. This was going to be a walk in the park compared to the rest of his contracts, and the client wasn’t going to complain if he were to be late. Why worry?

“Are you fucking kidding me!?” He exclaims, surprised with the seething tone of his usual subdued voice, watching the smoke billow from the hood of his Mercedes, then silently but surely cursing Murphy and his ridiculous law. He had to break down right then and there, four miles away from his destination. He was, for the first time in his professional career, late. With an exhale of disappointment he removes the keys from the ignition and pops the trunk before exiting the vehicle. He straightens his custom tailored navy pin-stripe suit and adjusts his fedora before retrieving his matching briefcase then locking the vehicle. He closes his eyes and exhales again, frustrated. “At least it’s not raining” he thinks, knowing he was going to have to walk. He wasn’t carrying any cash or credit cards with him. He wasn’t even carrying identification, but then he rarely ever did. Malcolm Fox, a sly and slender silver-haired gentleman several days shy of forty-seven. He had rapidly started going grey before his twenties and been monikered Silver Fox, but most people only knew him as Mr. Fox. His appearance, along with his demeanor, was very deceiving. His name suited him well.

Almost four miles and seventy-four minutes later, having barely broken a sweat, Malcolm recognizes his destination in the distance, the city morgue, well lit by the surrounding lamp posts and bright lights of the hospital straight across the main road, and continues forward. “I’m not that late” he convinces his mind, “it makes more sense to arrive when there is less staff there anyway”. This contract was the most outrageous and irrational of all he was ever hired to carry out. Appearing at the morgue to stab the corpses with the same blade that killed them. Preposterous, but he was paid well to do so. As he reaches the opposite street corner of the morgue a police car speeds by, sirens wailing. Two very confused and somewhat bloodied Emergency Medical Technicians stand outside their ambulance out in front of the hospital gazing in the direction of the speeding police unit. In the distance Malcolm can hear a car alarm going off, and sounds of discord in the streets. His smile fades as an uneasy sensation suddenly washes over him. He no longer anticipates his contract to be carried out with the previously forethought ease. He contemplates for a brief moment the possibility of turning around and walking back to his car, curling up in the backseat, and going to sleep. He could syphon gas from another vehicle in the morning. “Why didn’t I just think of that earlier?” and “Too late for that now!” crosses his mind with a myriad of thoughts, as he realizes the abrupt deafening sound he heard while in a state of rumination was a speeding car pinning him to a lamp post, wrapping around them like a blanket tucked-in too tight for comfort. Malcolm straightens his suit and tie one last time... “I shouldn’t have taken that contract.” he laments while exhaling his final breath, fading into oblivion.

“The Goldberg Family Estate Murder Case”

Detective Lui stands near by the head of the long mahogany table in the large dining room where his investigation is taking place, stepping in slow observation, following behind police photographer Janet Dagnet, as she takes stills of the seventeen victims that fill the one room alone. Throughout the house, twenty-three dead in total.

“What in God’s name happened here Kenji?” asks Janet, unemotionally.

“That is what I intend to figure out.” responds the detective.

“I’ve seen some pretty disturbing scenes doing this work. This is nowhere near as gruesome as most, I’ve gotta say though, it takes the cake when it comes to being erie.”

“Agreed.” says the detective, pressing record on his iPhone.

“I’m curious old friend, what are your thoughts?” asks Janet, giving her camera a momentary break, aware that Kenji is about to speak his mind. She liked his voice, he didn’t have his parents Asian accent at all, but he did develop a methodic and well spoken tone to his speech, possibly she thought from hearing his parents trying to speak English as clearly as properly as possible. She liked doing her work while he spoke aloud, piecing together elements of an investigation, and often stuck around until he was finished whenever she happened to be snapping for his cases. Janet Dagnet, only twenty-seven but appearing slightly weathered from odd work hours and emotional work stress, met her old friend Kenji Lui, an almost ageless looking thirty-five year old, five years earlier. It was for both of them the first time they were on the scene of a murder, and despite their professional requirements to remain attentive to the situation at hand, they had both taken notice of each other physically. Although both still thinking the other was attractive, the affectionate thoughts faded rather quickly and over the years transformed into a solid friendship, for Kenji because his parents were traditional and expected him to marry within their culture, and because Janet was at the time engaged, now unhappily but still faithfully married.

“My thoughts...” the detective thinks aloud, scratching the back of his head. “Questions Janet, lots of questions, questions that lead to other questions. Questions like, what was Norman Goldberg into that would provoke an action such as this? This is a man, whom as far as the law and public was concerned, was a saint. Who would want to kill a saint?”

“Maybe he wasn’t such a saint. Maybe he was responsible for all this?”

“Nothing should ever be ruled out, I wouldn’t say thats likely though. Goldberg spent a fair amount of time and money on dealings in rare antiquities. He could have crossed a dealer, or perhaps another buyer. I’d question his known associates with knowledge of his dealings, they are however at the table in this room. I have doubts as to their being very helpful.” Janet continues to do her work as the detective thinks silently for a few seconds, the sounds of the camera shutter clicking, triggering thoughts in his mind, walking around the table taking note of how each victim is hunched forward in their seats, face down on the table, a puncture wound in their side straight into the heart, and by the appearance of coughed up blood from some, pierced lungs. The detective begins to feel a grumble in his stomach. He skipped out on lunch earlier in the day and now, even amidst the dinner party massacre, was hungry, the food on the table taunting him. His mouth watered as he feasted his eyes on the entrees. Asiago and spinach stuffed grilled chicken lightly drizzled with a red pesto sauce. Garlic stuffed roasted plum tomatoes on a bed of black-bean quinoa salad, with a side of lightly salted steamed asparagus. All of the food, barely eaten, going to waste. Detective Lui takes note of the one place setting with the most consumed food and drink at the table, a seat without a victim. His thoughts perturb him, because if the rest of the victims in the house were staff and caterers, whose spot was this? “The victims were most likely drugged and then sequentially dispatched, right in the place wear they were seated. I’ll require a toxicology report to determine that. There is an empty seat with a place setting where it appears someone was served food and drink, yet the rest of the victims in the house were hired help... Who was this guest, a possible suspect? Questions...” The detective walks to the entrance of the room and stands over the bodies of two servants, the trays of food they were carrying laying near by, delicious tropical fruits and skillfully crafted deserts spread out in a circumference from where they were dropped. The detective can clearly see that these two victims were also killed with a blade which was not yet found, however in a different and more violent manner than the rest in the room. “The help entered the room, no doubt horrified to discover the dinner guests being murdered, at which point they were slashed and stabbed at, killed quickly as to not alert others in the house to the happenings in the dining room.  Afterwards, they were dragged into the room away from the door to prevent them from being visible from the hallway, where the suspect, when finished with the dinner guests, proceeded down towards the kitchen to execute with a pistol, any possible witnesses who might identify him.” The detective stops recording his monologue.

“What the hell, Kenji?” sighs Janet now, with sadness in her voice having just taken several photos of a young girl the age of seven. Jenny Goldberg, Norman’s youngest child, and only daughter. Janet had wanted to have children of her own, a daughter especially, but her husband turned out to be sterile. Dead children always irked her more than anything else. 

“I know Janet, I know. You never get used to it, you just learn to accept it.” says Kenji, putting his left hand on Janet’s right shoulder to comfort her. “It may not be the most positive thought to entertain, but when it comes to children like this, I often try to convince myself that their life was soon going to be full of suffering and pain, horrible things that they’ll no longer have to face.”

Janet raises her right hand and puts it on top of Kenji’s. “You might be right.” she says, knowing that trying to convince herself any different would only make her feel worse. He was always a great comfort to her, more than her husband ever was. It was difficult for her to seek comfort in her marriage when it was her marriage where most of her problems stemmed from. His friendship made her happy, and equally sad. Janet feels Kenji’s hand slipping away from under hers with the sound of a vibration, the detective’s phone, the slight smile that was rising in her face, diminishing.

“Excuse me” says Kenji before he answers, “Lui.” A few moments pass as he makes the mental transition from friend mode back to detective mode. Janet returns to taking stills of other victims before her friend speaks again, “I’ll be right out.”

“You’re leaving?” asks Janet.

“There was a witness, a young boy. He’s outside.” replies the detective, pausing for an uncertain moment. “I’ll catch up with you in the kitchen” he says before leaving Janet alone in the room with the bodies.

Upon exiting the house, Kenji notices a young boy across the street standing in front of his mother, appearing somewhat overwhelmed with shock. An officer approaches Kenji and verifies that the boy is in fact the witness he seeks to question.

It had been one day since he saw her in the front yard of her house, where they usually played together. He didn’t really know anything about girls, he just knew that he liked her. It was all so clear in his mind, which made it ever more cloudy in his eyes.

“I don’t get it” he told Jenny, not having played the games girls play.

“Just hold hands with me, and sing along like I told you while we spin in circles, okay?” explained Jenny. He nodded, then she took his hands and began to spin him in circles, singing some sort of riddle he didn’t understand the slightest. “Ring-a-ring-a-rosie, pocket full of posie, ashes, ashes, we all fall down!” she said with laughter, letting go and dropping down in the green lush grass, alone, as he chose not to join in the singing, nor the falling. “Why didn’t you fall with me?” she asked him.

“I don’t get it. Its a stupid game.” he told her, causing tears to well up in her eyes.

“You’re stupid!” she cried as she got to her feet and ran back towards the house.

“Lucas?” says his mother, bringing him back to the moment, standing behind him with her hands on his shoulders, drawing his attention to a man wearing a suit in front of them. “Lucas dear, this man needs to ask you some questions.” says his mother.

“Okay.” responds Lucas, appearing rather sad with his thoughts.

“Hi Lucas, I’m Detective Lui. You can call me Kenji. Okay?” says Kenji, getting a nod from Lucas. “Your mom told a police officer that you said you saw someone leaving that house yesterday. Would you be able to describe that person to me?”

“Go on Lucas.” says his mother, but Lucas remains silent, so she speaks for him. “I bought Lucas a suit for his first communion. Its navy colored, and pin-striped. Lucas said the man’s suit looked the same, and that he had a matching hat, and briefcase.”

“Was there an accident? Is Jenny okay?” asks Lucas, desperate to know.

Kenji looks at Lucas’ mother, unsure of how to treat the situation. She nods to him, trusting he will be compassionate. Kenji responds, “I don’t think it was an accident Lucas, but it is still bad. If we want to help Jenny, we have to find the person who... Who made her not okay. Do you understand?”

“I told her that her game was stupid, I made her cry.” Lucas sobs, his mother kneeling down to hug him. “I didn’t tell her I was sorry. I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

“Shhh, its okay love.” says his mother, hoping to comfort him.

“I’m sorry Lucas. I know this isn’t easy, but we’re almost done. I need you to help me, for Jenny. Can you tell me if the man was tall, or short? Thin or fat? What color his hair was, and if he had any on his face?”

“It was white. It was white and it was only on his head. He looked as tall as you, but thinner, and older.” replies Lucas, fighting back tears. “That’s all I can remember.”

Kenji thanks Lucas and his mother, who then retire to the comfort of their home. Kenji releases a deep breath and turns back to look at the Goldberg estate, where he catches Janet in a second story window snapping a photo of the activity outside of the house, or maybe of him. She lowers her camera and shoots him a meager wave before moving away. Kenji proceeds back towards the house, making verbal notes from his talk with Lucas. “It’s going to be a long night” he thinks to himself, but then they always are.