Derek Goodman - The Reanimation of Edward Schuett

For a moment Edward thought the hunger in his gut was causing an olfactory hallucination, but when he took a deep breath he realized the car smelled like food. And not just the scent of the two men in front (he was too mentally worn out right now to be alarmed that he had just equated them with food) but something else, a scent from long ago, greasy and meaty. He looked up at the dashboard and saw a brown and blue bag sitting there. From the scent and the shape of the contents bulging at the bag’s side, Edward guessed it held a burger of some sort and fries. He’d never seen the logo on the bag before, curlicued letters spelling out the name Zappy’s, but that didn’t matter. It was food.

The man in the passenger seat saw where Edward’s gaze went, and he grabbed the bag to hand back to Edward. “Danielle got this for you. She said that if you really were a Z7 then you would need the protein.”

That made absolutely no sense to Edward, but he snatched the bag from the man’s hand and opened it, tearing the bag a little in the process. The french fries were on top, and he grabbed a handful and stuffed them into his mouth. They were great, despite being cold like they had sat in the car a little too long, but his stomach still lurched a little bit at the taste. He forced himself to chew and swallow, thinking it had been so long since he had eaten that his stomach just wasn’t used to having food in it again, but the more he ate the queasier he felt. As much as he was sure he needed the food, he didn’t want to eat any more. If he threw up, it might very well be the same black maggoty mess he’d had in him back in the Walmart, and he didn’t want to see any of that again.

The other door opened and the black woman who had talked him out of the truck—Danielle, he assumed from the man in front’s comment—got in beside him. She looked at the torn bag in his hands and smiled. “Does it help any?” she asked.

“No,” Edward said. “In fact I think I might throw up.”

Danielle nodded. “I thought that might be a possibility. Why don’t you try the hamburger? Don’t eat the bun or anything, though. Just take off the meat and try that.”

Edward stared at her for several seconds, then did what she said. He pulled the burger, a large and greasy third-pounder, out of its carton and took the meat from the bun. His stomach stopped rolling as the smell of beef hit his nostrils. He nibbled at it at first, allowing the juicy taste to spread over his tongue. It tasted amazing. In his memory it had only been perhaps a week since he had eaten a hamburger, but he had to remind himself that, in truth, it had been over fifty years. After fifty years any burger, even the cheapest fast food there was, would taste like the most delicious thing ever. It also stopped most of the rolling in his stomach. But not all. Edward took another, bigger bite and sighed as he chewed.

“Good?” Danielle asked.

“Yes,” Edward said. “But…”

“But what?”

Edward thought about it. It tasted good and familiar, but it still didn’t feel quite right. Something was missing. Nutrients, maybe, parts that had been cooked off. But that didn’t feel like a natural urge, and he didn’t want to admit it.

“Is it that it’s not raw?” Danielle asked.

Edward paused, then nodded. Danielle nodded back, then reached into her expensive looking jacket and pulled out a pen and a small notebook. She flipped it open and jotted a few words down.

“What are you doing?” Edward asked. “Taking notes on my eating habits?”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

Edward chewed the rest of the meat in silence. He was still hungry, perhaps even hungrier than he had been before, but he didn’t think he could finish the fries or the bun. The driver started the car and drove off, leaving the crowd of onlookers behind. Edward had thought for a moment that he had seen Rae somewhere among them, but he supposed she didn’t matter anymore. Her part in his story was probably over.

“Can you tell me who you are?” he asked.

“Danielle Gates, Chief of Special Projects for the Center for Reanimation Studies.”

“Is that what I am, then? A special project? Some experiment that escaped?”

She chuckled. “I think maybe you might have read too many books in your life, Mr. Schuett.”

“Hate books. They bore the hell out of me. So if I’m not an experiment, then what am I?”

“You are something we have expected could exist for a long time but have never actually seen.”

“I’m sorry, but that kind of tells me jack crap.”

“My apologies, Mr. Schuett. I promise we will give you a more detailed idea of what we know when we get where we’re going. Until then, I’m more concerned about your safety and comfort.”

Edward snorted. “I’m not really sure what kind of comfort you think you can give me right now.”

“We’re going to do everything we can for you. You just need to trust us.”

Edward didn’t say anything back. After everything that had happened so far, his trust was something few people would be able to earn easily.

The car drove through the city and back out through a gate into the Empty Zone. While they went, Gates explained that she and several others in the CRS had flown in on the Center’s private jet as soon as they had heard that some random security guard had been asking questions about zombies that didn’t act like zombies. They had asked local contractors and people within Merton to bring him in to safety, although Gates had a scowl as she said they had obviously ignored the part about “safety.” Edward paid attention to all this but didn’t speak. He listened for anything she might say that would give him any more information, but she was keeping tight-lipped for now. The only information he’d learned had been before she got back in the car, when the man in the passenger seat had called him a Z7, but he had no clue what that was supposed to mean.

The airport was several miles outside of the new boundaries of Fond du Lac, built on the same location as the municipal airport Edward remembered from his own time. It was mostly the same, although there were significantly fewer personal aircraft and much tighter security surrounding it. Edward guessed the security was purely for the purpose of keeping out the few stray zombies, since he couldn’t imagine the place, small enough originally, to ever host commercial flights. That one airstrip had been enough for the jet, though.

The men at the gate let the car through, and the driver pulled right up near where the jet was parked. The stairs were already set up and ready, and a youngish man, maybe around Rae’s age, stood at the base. Edward waited for a moment as everyone else got out of the car, expecting someone to open his door for him and grab him to be detained somewhere. After several seconds of waiting, though, Gates looked back through her own still-open door at him.

“Well, are you coming?”

“I thought I didn’t have a choice.”

“Are you saying you want to stay now? Not get your answers?”

“No. I guess not.”

Edward got out, and while Gates went over to the driver and talked to him in a whisper for several seconds the man who had been at the base of the stairs walked over. He had a leather bag in his hand, and as he approached he opened it.

“Are you him, then?” the man asked.

“Um, I guess.”

“Mr. Schuett, this is Dr. Concordia,” Gates said. She walked over to join them as the driver got back in the car and drove off. “If you wouldn’t mind, he’d like to do a few tests before you get on the plane.”

“Okay, first, what kind of tests?” Edward asked. “And second, where exactly are we going?”