J. Knoll - Zoe, Undead

"Explain now!" Zoe cried.

Rachel clenched her jaw as she stared back at the girl. With a slight nod, she closed the distance between them with three hesitant steps and raised her hands to the girl's head, gently grasping the sides of her neck as she spoke very softly. "Okay. I think you deserve to know." She drew another breath. "Zoe, the virus inside of you is still hard at work. Remember how we talked about what it is doing to your autism?"

Zoe hesitantly nodded.

"I think it will completely reverse your Asperger's, and that would be great, but then your brain will function normally, probably better than any of ours, and we think that is what the virus wants to do."

Tears began to well up in the girl's eyes.

Her lips tightening, Rachel gently went on, "We think it is only a matter of time until you…"

"Become like one of them," the girl whispered.

Doctor Caswell nodded and confirmed in a slight voice, "Yes."

"But I don't want to be like one of them!" Zoe whimpered. "Can't you just make me autistic again?"

"I wish we could," Rachel said as a tear rolled down her cheek. "Believe me, we're doing everything we can to save you. That's what the tests have been about the last few days, to keep this from happening to you. I promise you, Zoe, if there is any way we can keep that from happening to you, we will find it."

Zoe reached up and grasped the Doctor's arms, turning her eyes down as she said in a very slight voice, "But for now I guess you have to make sure that I don't hurt anyone."

"I'm afraid so," Rachel confirmed. "We don't know when it will happen, and that means we have to take precautions to protect the people here, your friends."

With a nod, Zoe added, "From me."

"Yeah," Rachel confirmed. "I wish it didn't have to be this way. Look, I'm going to give you something to help you sleep, then I want you to get into bed, okay?"

Zoe nodded again.

She was given a pill and swallowed it with some of her favorite fruit juice. She and Rachel stood by the side of the bed, leaning on it and talking about matters that girl's talk about until a wave of sleepiness washed over the girl and her eyes grew very heavy.

"Okay," Rachel ordered. "Into the bed."

Laying flat on her back, Zoe settled her head onto the soft pillow and turned her half closed eyes to the Doctor who stood beside her, and she watched her reach under the bed for something. Her eyes closed fully, then she forced them back open as she felt something soft wrap around her wrist. "What are you doing?" she asked with sleepy words.

Rachel would not look at her and instead buckled the leather restraint around her wrist. "I'm just making sure you don't sleepwalk. Don't worry. You'll be fast asleep in a moment and you won't even know you're restrained."

"Do you have to?" the girl whined, tears welling up in her eyes again.

Turning to the foot of the bed, the doctor took another restraint and buckled it around the girl's ankle. "I'm afraid so, Sweetie."

Zoe watched the doctor work, and when she stood on the other side of the bed and reached for the restraint, she offered Rachel her other arm and assured, "It'll be okay."

"Yeah," Rachel whispered as she buckled the last restraint into place. She withdrew a strap and locked it around a D-ring on the wrist restraint, then she reached over and locked it onto the other, pulling it snugly across the girl's waist when it was secure. "Too tight?" she asked.

Barely keeping her eyes open, Zoe shook her head and assured, "I don't think I'll be falling out of the bed tonight."

With a smile, Rachel repeated this with the ankle restraints, then she laid a thin blanket over the girl, bent over her and kissed her forehead. "Get some sleep, Sweetie. I'll be in the next room if you wake up and need anything, okay?"

Her eyes closing one more time, the girl whispered back, "Okay. Good night."

Morning meant new misery and awakening from one nightmare to another. A horrifying dream woke Zoe with a start and a breath shrieked into her as her eyes opened wide and were filled with the bland white ceiling overhead that was illuminated by the dim light from the outside. Breaths continued to shriek into her one after another as she slowly got her bearings. Trying to raise a hand to her head, she realized she was bound to the bed she lay on and she struggled to pull her hands free of the soft restraints that held her firmly in place. Another was across her chest, right under her shoulders and had clearly been put there in the night. Her legs were similarly bound as well as her ankles and there was a strap across her knees. Whimpering like a frightened child, she looked down at herself, seeing that only the blanket covered her, and it was held in place by the straps that held her down to the bed. She struggled violently for a few seconds, trying to wrench her way out, but finally fell back to the bed, her head slamming into the pillow as she fought to catch her breath.

Something moaned outside the door.

Her eyes opened wide again.

A shuffling of many feet across the floor outside alerted her further and she looked to the door, seeing a rotted dark gray hand, a bony hand, grasp the inside of the door and slowly push it open.

Slowly shaking her head, Zoe breathed, "No," as the half decayed zombie in the tattered and blood stained medical scrubs opened the door fully and locked its empty eye sockets on her. Its lips had rotted away at some point and yellow and ivory teeth laughed at her as it slowly drew closer. Others were behind it and they followed the first one into the room. Looking around her with frantic movements, she realized that they surrounded her, that her bed was amid a sea of zombies, the very bed she was bound to, and all of the zombies had her in their sights.

Shrinking away from the first as it reached for her, she shook her head and pled, "Please. Just leave me alone. Please!"

It grabbed her arm, another grabbed her, another, another… Their mouths opened and they descended on her like ravenous dogs at a fresh kill.

Zoe screamed and struggled anew, trying in vain to get away. They all began sinking their teeth into her flesh, biting into her arms. She could feel it, but not the pain of what they were doing to her. Others clawed the blanket from her, the gown from her to expose her body. More descended on her and began to bite her flesh away, and tear it away with their powerful, decayed hands. Her intestines were pulled out, her hair torn from her scalp, her skin split open at her chest and belly and thighs.

They were eating her alive!

Zoe sat up, screaming in primal hysterics. Her wrists were still securely bound and the images of the zombies eating her were very fresh, so fresh she could still see them!

The guards stormed into her room with their weapons drawn and she panicked further, wrenching her body back and forth to pull herself free of the restraints, but unable to. Finally falling back to the bed, she turned her head to one side and closed her eyes, crying hysterically, and finally she managed, "Please don't eat me! Please! Go away!"

"Zoe!" Rachel's voice beckoned. "Zoe!"

The girl felt someone grasp her hand, then felt another hand gently stroke through her hair.

"Zoe, it's all right," the doctor assured. "It was only a bad dream. You're okay now."

Dream and reality slowly went their separate ways and Zoe drew deep breaths to calm herself, and finally opened her eyes. Turning her head toward Doctor Caswell, her vision was blurred by tears, but she did recognize who she was looking at. Swallowing hard, she finally relaxed, and squeezed the Doctor's hand in an unspoken sign that she was okay.

Raising her brow, Rachel asked, "Better?"

Zoe nodded.

"Must have been a really bad one," the Doctor observed. With one last stroke of the girl's hair, she pulled the blanket off of Zoe and went about unbuckling her wrist. "I think we can let you up now. It's almost breakfast time, anyway."