Michael Ford - Z

Josh crept closer to the cell that Scrawl was looking into. Inside it was a man wearing a tattered suit. His skin bubbled with lesions, and his eyes were filmed over. He opened his mouth, revealing stumps of blackened teeth and a swollen purple tongue. Seeing Josh and Scrawl, he beat his hands against the glass, coating it with blood-flecked drool.

“He’s alive?” Josh asked, still unable to believe it.

“Alive as he can be,” said Scrawl.

“And Clatter made him like this?”

Scrawl nodded. “Yeah,” he said.

Josh looked into the next cell. There a woman with a rat’s nest of hair sat in the corner, pulling her own fingernails off. Half a dozen of them littered the floor. Josh felt his stomach rise.

“But why?” he sputtered. “Why would anyone want to make meatbags?”

“Money,” Scrawl said. “Like I said, Clatter’s dad studied the zombie virus. He was a chemist. He wanted to find a way to wipe it out. But the government wanted him to do just the opposite. They wanted him to make a weapon that would turn people into z’s. Something they could put into the water or the air or food to infect a lot of people at once.”

“Biological warfare,” Josh said. “That’s sick.”

“That’s what Clatter’s father thought too,” said Scrawl. “He refused to do it. So they decided to give him a little incentive to cooperate. They kidnapped Clatter. He was maybe five or six. They told Clatter’s father that if he did what they wanted, they would give him his kid back.”

“An offer he couldn’t refuse,” Josh said.

Scrawl nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “He just wanted to save his son. He did what they asked, but they killed him. They killed his wife too. They would have gotten Clatter, but he got away. I don’t know who he was before, but since then he’s been Clatter.”

“And now he’s making zombies using his dad’s technology,” Josh said. “That’s messed up.”

“I think what happened to him made him a little crazy,” Scrawl replied. “He’s super smart, there’s no doubt about that. But he’s also twisted. He says making money off of z’s is payback for what the government did to him and his parents. The more zombies he makes, the more Z he makes.”

“Z is zombie blood,” Josh said, shuddering at the thought. Then he remembered that he had taken some himself, and panic filled him. “Z turns people into zombies?” he said.

“No,” Scrawl answered. “Don’t worry,” he assured Josh. “We’ve all tried it. It won’t turn you. Clatter has other ways of doing that. Z is made from z blood, but it’s a diluted form of it. Just enough to make you feel a little bit of what they feel, but not enough to turn you.”

Josh slumped to the ground with his back against the door of one of the cells. He heard the zombie inside start clawing at the metal. He tried not to listen. Scrawl came and sat beside him. “How long has he been doing this?” Josh asked him.

“A couple years,” said Scrawl. “It took him a long time to figure out how to do it efficiently. The first versions of Z really did turn users into meatbags. Then Clatter got it to where it only made them crazy. Now he’s got it pretty much figured out.”

“Pretty much,” Josh said. “Great. And how does the game come into this?”

“It’s another way to make money,” said Scrawl. “And it’s a way to get rid of z’s that are too far gone. That’s when he puts them into the game.”

Josh didn’t want to accept what he was hearing. “We’ve been killing… people?” he said. “I’ve been killing people?”

Scrawl took him by the shoulders. “You wanted to know,” he said as Josh took great gulps of air. “Now you do.”

“And you knew about it,” Josh said. “That makes you as bad as he is.”

“He helped me, Josh,” Scrawl said. “He’s helped all of us.”

“You mean he’s bought you,” said Josh, thinking about Scrawl’s nice apartment. Then he remembered how excited he’d been seeing his first paycheck, and he felt a little ashamed. “How many of the others know?” he asked.

“Only Seamus and Finnegan,” Scrawl answered. “I know they don’t look like it, but they’re science geeks. He’s teaching them how to make the Z and how to replicate the virus. I help him with business stuff. The others he just uses for the game.”

A thought occurred to Josh. “So if somebody gets bit in the game, they’re being bit by a real zombie?”

Scrawl didn’t say anything.

“What really happened to Stash and Freya?” Josh asked.

“Josh, it doesn’t—”

“What happened to them!” Josh yelled. “Tell me!”

Scrawl nodded toward the cells at the end of the row. “Over there,” he said.

Josh got up and walked slowly toward the cells. When he got there, he steadied himself and then looked through the window. Freya—or what had once been Freya—lunged at him, her teeth bared. She’d torn out her hair, which lay in bloody clumps on the floor, and her bald scalp was black with dried blood. Josh looked away.

He forced himself to look into the next cell. Stash was in it, standing motionless in the middle of the tiny space. The place on his shoulder where he’d been bitten was green and gangrenous, and his skin was mottled with dark purple lesions. One of his eyes was missing, the socket where it had been like raw hamburger.

“Who are the rest of them?” he asked Scrawl.

“Different people,” he answered. “People who didn’t pay their wagers. Street people. Runaway kids. People nobody will miss.”

“So first he infects them, then he milks them for their blood,” said Josh. “It’s a slaughterhouse. Like they have for animals. Only these aren’t animals, they’re people.”

“Yes, they’re people. What did you think zombies were?” said Scrawl.

“I thought those were cybers!” Josh said. “And the ones in the hologame aren’t real. It’s just pretend.”

“Still, I bet you never really thought about who they used to be,” Scrawl said softly. “I know I didn’t.”

Josh started to argue, but stopped. Scrawl was right. He knew about his aunt Lucy, and yet he had never thought of her—not even once—when he was torching the z’s in the game.

Freya pounded on the window of her cell and let out a strangled scream. Josh turned away. “Is this what happens to Torchers who ‘retire’ from the team?” he asked.

Scrawl didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. Scrawl’s silence confirmed it.

“So we help him make his money, we kill his victims when he’s done with them, and if we try to get out, we end up like them.” He jerked his head toward Freya’s and Stash’s cells.

“We need to find your friend,” Scrawl said. “And Charlie, if she’s here. He hasn’t turned them yet, or they’d be in here. That means he’s probably holding them somewhere else while he decides what to do with them.”

“Well, I was doing exactly that,” said a voice. Clatter was standing in the doorway, peering at them through his gray glasses. He smiled and nodded at Scrawl, then Josh. “However, I think you gentlemen have just decided for me.”

“Where are they?”

Josh faced Clatter. The anger in him was growing quickly, particularly because Clatter just stood there grinning. Josh wanted to wipe the smirk off his face. He even started toward the man, but Scrawl grabbed him and pulled him back. “Don’t do it,” he told Josh. “You won’t win.”

“You should listen to Arthur,” Clatter said. Then he addressed Scrawl. “I assume this means you’ve decided to end our partnership.”

Scrawl said nothing. After a moment Clatter sighed. “I am disappointed,” he said. “You showed such promise. Now, well…” He waved his hand around the room full of cells. “It’s unfortunate.”