Derek Goodman - The Reanimation of Edward Schuett

“Stand down, everyone,” Rae said. “Put all your rifles away.”

“Okay, that is now officially crazy,” Luke said.

“No, it’s not,” Rae said. “This is exactly what we’ve been waiting for.”

She focused the binoculars on one particular zombie, the one at the very front. It wasn’t usual for zeds to follow one leader like that, but apparently they had made an exception here.

Edward Schuett was finally here, and he had brought with him his own zombie army.

At first, Edward made the corpse of Billy Horton follow him as a punishment. He used Horton’s truck to get a reasonable distance from Laramie, but it was an older model with gas mileage more like what Edward remembered from his own time and it ran out in what he guessed was somewhere in Nebraska. He forced Horton to spend all that time in the truck bed. For a while he was even petty enough to force Horton to lean over the side where all the various insects would splatter in his face, but that got old. In fact, the whole idea of vengeance against this man lost its appeal very quickly. The man who had killed Liddie was gone, and he wasn’t coming back. Even if Edward did learn the secret to turning a regular zombie into a Z7, Horton wouldn’t get that treatment. Let the bastard wander around and eventually get shot in the head.

Once Edward had to go back to walking, however, he found having Horton around made some things easier. After some practice he figured out how to use the pheromone to make the zombie flush out small animals from their hiding places, where Edward could then pick them off with Horton’s rifle to feed himself. He used the next zombie he found for pretty much the same use at first, but that didn’t feel right. Edward didn’t give a rat’s ass about Horton, but the new one could maybe be saved by whatever process had turned Edward. It gave Edward some satisfaction that maybe he could help at least one person where he had so terribly failed Liddie. So Horton continued being Edward’s lapdog while the new one was closer to Edward’s equal. He made the next one follow him as well, and the next.

Pretty soon he wasn’t just picking up stray zombies in his path. He sought them out, sniffing for any hint on the wind that a zombie was nearby. And he sent out his own pheromones that grew stronger with every zombie added to his horde. The more he found, the further his reach.

The problem, however, was keeping them fed. He couldn’t stop them from eating entirely, since if they started starving they became slower and less responsive. He could push them to greater speeds with the pheromones, but that only went so far, and the various animals they found were generally too fast for the zombies to get them on their own. The horde grew too quickly for Edward to be able to feed them, especially since he only had a limited amount of ammunition and he had to use that for his own hunting if he ever wanted to reach Winnebago. Eventually he let a few go that were too slow to keep up.

Several times the thought occurred to him that he could feed them all if he just descended on a town somewhere. Even with the security all these places had in mid-country, they wouldn’t be expecting a horde that could coordinate their movements on this scale.

He could save all these zombies easily if he only killed living people. The irony was not lost on him, and he couldn’t bring himself to take that step. Not yet, at least.

Nearly a week after he and Liddie escaped from the CRS, Edward saw the first sign announcing that Winnebago was close. At the start of the journey he thought he would receive this moment with excitement and anticipation, but now there was no real joy at knowing the end was near. He knew that this mysterious old man had all the answers, but Edward didn’t have the slightest clue what he would do with the answers once he found them.

He could smell the group standing in the road at the edge of the town long before he saw them. The other zombies smelled them, too, and Edward had to work to keep them from going into a hungry frenzy. He had to admit that the smell of living meat ahead of them was enticing, then remembered that it wasn’t too long ago that thinking of a human as meat had repulsed him. He snorted at the memory, but without any humor.

Within a couple minutes he could see them. They were all armed, and Edward almost paused to consider what to do next. They hadn’t done anything to him yet that would justify attacking them, but at the same time they stood between him and the last thing in his life that had any meaning. He could send the horde to plow right through them, both taking care of their little roadblock and revitalizing the zombies at the same time. Or the group could be smart and try to run, but Edward didn’t have faith anymore that people could be that intelligent. All those people, the living ones, the humans , they all thought they were so much better. They had never given much thought to what would happen if they pissed off the wrong zombie, because pissing off a zombie had never been possible before. If people didn’t wise up very soon, there was an unfortunate possibility that Edward would have to teach them.

That whole line of thought became moot, however, when he saw one of the people motion for all the others to put their weapons down. Edward continued, hoping this wasn’t some kind of trap, until he got close enough to see the leader. Or, rather, until he was close enough to see her bright pink and silver rifle.

For the first time in almost a thousand miles of travel, Edward smiled.

He didn’t even need to concentrate too hard anymore to manipulate the pheromones into a stop order. The horde instantly ceased moving. He had enough experience now to know they would stand completely still for a couple minutes, and if he did nothing to reinforce the pheromones the zombies would then get fidgety. In about ten minutes they would begin to mill around, in fifteen they would probably try to attack the human in front of them. He had about that long to talk.

Leaving the horde behind at what he hoped was a non-threatening distance, Edward continued on down the road. Rae stepped away from her group but didn’t come the rest of the way to meet him. Edward stopped a couple feet away from her, and she gave him a cautious smile.

“Hey there, stranger,” she said.

“Rae, I never in a million years would have expected to see you here.”

“And I would have never expected to be here. But it’s been a strange couple weeks.”

“Yeah, I know how that one goes,” he said.

“I would say you probably know it a whole hell of a lot better than I do,” she said, pointing first at the horde behind him and then at the large bloodstained hole in the front of his coveralls. Edward had practically forgotten it was there. The wound had healed within a day, although he could still feel the bullet jabbing tender parts inside him if he breathed too hard. “I bet you that’s going to be quite the story.”

“I hope you don’t mind, but it might just be one I keep to myself.”

Rae nodded. “We were told you were coming and you wouldn’t be alone, but I expected at least one more person with a heartbeat. Where’s Claudia Gates?”

Edward sucked in a breath. “How the fuck did you know about her?”

“There’s a certain old man around here. I think you might have talked to him at least once. He claims to have a lot of secret contacts in high up places. Those contacts apparently told him that the CRS was planning on putting you down, and they got him in contact with her. He told me that the younger Gates was with you when he talked to you and that she would be by your side. So where is she?”

Edward said the words slowly. “Wyoming, in a grave a lot shallower than she deserves.”