Dead Hunger III: The Chatsworth Chronicles (34 page)

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The next morning when I arrived at the lab, the urushiol and the zombie gas were waiting. I had explained a simple process for collecting the gas – more in line with what I’d done to get the eye vapor as opposed to the balloon Gem and I had used to get the sample taken at the steel mill.  I didn’t want to risk any contamination, and having all the sterile equipment, it made sense to at least instruct them how to collect it properly.

Time would tell if they actually did, or if the container provided really held any of the gas.

As I write this chronicle, all of this has already happened. None of the forthcoming events are a mystery to me.

We’ve called our logs chronicles from the beginning, for they are daily chronicles.  Diaries of what we went through from each of our beginnings to whatever end feels appropriate.  Perhaps there will be a time when we no longer feel a need to record our movements and our every decision.

Right now I believe, as do Flex, Gem and Charlie, that it is still crucial.  Even reading through our own words, we could miss something.  We may point out one particular condition that at the time we didn’t feel was significant, but in retrospect, seeing it on paper and reading everyone’s accounts in order might reveal a pattern of some sort.

So what I’m saying is that even when I’m not actually writing these memories and experiences down, I’m analyzing them.  I’m lying in that acrylic-walled prison and I’m thinking about what is important to record, and what isn’t.  I’m thinking about the experiments I want to perform, the MRI machine and how I could utilize it as part of an escape plan by way of explosion, and of course, about Charlie.

I missed her during those days.  I missed her laugh, her smell, the way her skin felt beneath my hands.  These impressions and memories of her were so powerful that I knew I would see her again.  I didn’t have a doubt.  So I guess what I’m saying here is that from my end, I knew I would do everything in my power to get out of here and back to her.

What I could not control is what she would do, and her safety.  I could only trust that Flex, Gem, Dave and the rest of them would keep her safe until we were together again.  Unfortunately, a large part of the responsibility of that was in Charlie’s hands, and she could be impulsive.

So, amidst all my plotting and thinking, I did a bit of worrying, too.  Worry is a hindrance that only serves to muck up everything else you intend to do.  Worry never prevented bad things from happening.

Only action can do that.  I tried to focus.

I picked up the small, sealed glass tube from rack sitting on the stainless steel counter.  I needed to find a way to blend a portion of this with the
two other components.

Using a syringe, I withdrew 1cc of urushiol oil from the sample they had provided.  The zombies lay nearby on their examination tables, and I never once considered using it on them.  I’d like to say it is to my credit, but my lack of desire to be cast outside covered in blood had a lot to do with it.  I didn’t intend to do any experiments at all with these living cadavers in mind, though.

Carville didn’t need to know that.

Suddenly, Tom Petty’s
Refugee
drifted from the ceiling speakers, and I smiled.
I looked over at Billy, and he gave me a thumbs up and a smile.

It was a good choice of o
ne of the best American bands ever. 
I kind of thought it would help
take my mind off other things and keep it on my work.

But I did wonder what happened to Petty.  He’d make a skinny, but scary zombie.

Refugee
was followed by
Here Comes My Girl
, so I knew they’d put on the
Damn The Torpedoes
record.  I worked to it, actually moving faster and feelin
g as though I were in a rhythm.

By the time
Even the Losers
came on, I wasn’t exactly in the mood to dance, but I realized even more pointedly how I missed the hell out of Charlie.  Rather than feeling better, I felt a couple of tears roll down my cheeks, and I knew then how much I loved that
woman
.  Crying because she wasn’t with me to enjoy something proved it.

It just did.  It was like watching a great
comedy
by yourself.  You find yourself turning to say, “That was hilarious!” and you realize there’s nobody to share it with.

Enough of the sentimental moments I went through.  Back to my experiments.  Sorry for the digression.

I took a sealed glass container with a valve inserted in the bottom for adding liquids and gases.  For this experiment, I would merely mix the zombie gas with the eye vapor and attempt to quickly freez
e it using liquid nitrogen.

I injected a known volume of both gases into the sealed container.  I then topped it off with oxygen.

Now I knew how much oxygen and how much of the other gases were in the jar.  My next step was to bleed off the oxygen and freeze the gases.
  Since both gases were lighter than the oxygen, I had only to withdraw the known amount of oxygen from the container and a
s Charlie might say, “Fuckin’ voila!”

Of course, she would be kissing me first, because when I
demonstrate intelligence
, there is no greater aphrodisiac
for
that woman.

I held up the glass beaker containing the z-gas and eye vapor.  Because of the coral color of the vapor, I could see minute swirls of the two gases intertwining around one another, as though borne of opposite poles of a magnet. 

How could I get these two to blend?

I looked around the lab, and put down the vessel.
  Though I’d not had a need for it prior to this idea, I’d seen the dewar on the back wall counter.  I found it and brought it back with me to the table.

I placed the sealed jar containing my dueling gases in a jacketed beaker of approximately 100 ml in size.  It fit perfectly.

I opened the top nozzle and produced a tempered glass funnel from the tray on the counter.  Holding the tab on the edge of the funnel, I removed the vented stopper from the dewar of liquid nitrogen, and poured it quickly into the jacket reservoir, filling it.

And I watched.

The gases within hyper-responded.  I felt as though I could see the molecules fighting one another, then almost emulsifying as they whipped faster and faster within, until the clear and the coral molecules began to occupy the same space.  The interaction became what I could only refer to as frantic as the two separate gases within appeared to merge together becoming a very fine pink, and finally, nothing.

I peered over the edge, looking down at the bottom of the container.

There was a fine
gel at the bottom of the jar.  Not a powder as I’d expected
. 
It sat there, challenging my intellect.  All of it challenged my intellect, because nobody had ever done any of this before.

I quickly withdrew the container from the liquid nitrogen and unscrewed the jar at its center seal.  Using a small, plastic scoop, I captured the fruits of my experiment
and sealed it within five different glass microscope slides.

Semi-s
olidified version
s
of both gases
, blended for the first time.

I looked at them.  One was the cause of the change in human beings, turning them into zombie-like creatures; the other was an organic byproduct of human decomposition, combined with whatever genetic changes the z-gas wreaked.

I put one of them under the microscope and lowered my eye to it.

And I held my breath.  The blend
I was witnessing
was complete and
unthinkable
. 

I was witnessing glandular epithelium.
  Cells secreting other cells, creating something from seemingly nothing.

From nowhere, the light pink cells would emerge, as though being born before my eyes.  The other cells rotated around the pink ones, like ball bearings around a track.  With each rotation of the cells, a countless amount of pink cells would form.

One was helping the other to generate and reproduce.

I stared at it for so long I lost track of time.  When I removed the slide from the microscope, the size of the sample had doubled.

How to stop it?  What if I didn’t?  Would it become a super vapor, knocking out everyone in the building, me being its first target?

I quickly took the other slides and dropped them into the jacketed beaker, using the liquid nitrogen to slow whatever was happening, if it could.  I just didn’t know.

As I ran to the rear of the lab, I
saw Frank and Billy watching me, their eyes wide.

“Professor!  What’s the problem?  Everything okay?”

It was Billy.

“Yes, yes,” I said, unsure whether I was lying or not.  “I’m just performing an experiment that requires quick action.”

I put the gas mask over my face and saw Frank and Billy draw their sidearms.  I waved them off, but had no time to calm their fears.

I opened the refrigerator and withdrew my sample bottle of urushiol.   I inserted the tip of a syringe into the oil and removed .25cc.  I went back to my sample, which had now grown to four times the size.  I slid the glass apart and dropped the tiny sample of oil in the center, and used the tip of the needle to mix it as best I could.

The top piece of the slide was put back in place, and I slid it quickly under the microscope again.

I pulled off my mask and put my eye to the microscope again.

Everything had stopped. 

But not quite everything.  The three components were congealing, as though I’d added flour to water.  I could feel heat now, wafting up into my face over the microscope, and I lifted my head to see what it looked like.  I withdrew the slide, and saw that it looked like a wafer now.

No longer growing, but it had expanded so much that the slide had cracked.

I put on goggles and checked my gloves.   No tears or rips.  I separated the glass slide pieces and took a tiny, stainless
steel
spatula from the tool tray.

And I easily scraped a dime-sized wafer containing the three most important elements of our time off of the glass.

Like a tiny cookie.
 
Now I needed a rat.

I wasn’t sure why, but I knew in the back of my scientific mind that this mixture would do
something
.  Three components that all affected our physiology in some way could not, when blended, be ineffective, whether in favor of what I hoped to achieve or against.

But the strange thing was, I had just performed an experiment where I had no idea of what outcome I even hoped for.  Usually I had a target in mind; a desired result.  What had happened was completely unexpected, and yes, it could have created a little wafer that, when ingested, would do nothing. Or one that would kill you.

I looked over at my other samples.  The liquid nitrogen had stopped the multiplication of the cells.  That was a good thing.   I didn’t need the Blob on my hands, like that old horror movie from the sixties where the massive jelly ball kept on growing and growing, consuming everyone in its path.

But the very fact that it
would
increase in size on its own meant that theoretically, I’d never have to blend these two components again – just keep them inert until I needed more, remove it from the liquid nitrogen and allow it to get as large as I needed it, then add the appropriate amount of urushiol.

Charlie came back in my mind.

Fuckin’ voila.

Chapter 13

The first day of oil distribution went very well.  Kev figured that nearly sixty percent of the town had gotten their juice.  But things had taken a turn.  This morning, while some others were on their way
to the governor’s mansion
, things went to shit.

We were in Reeves’ office, listening.

“
Jesus, Whit!” shouted Kevin Reeves into the radio.  Gem, Flex, Dave, Lisa and I stood around him.

“Get on channel 19 and tell everyone to stay inside and grab what they have of the oil spray. 
If they didn’t get a chance to get it yet, they’re on their own, and there’s nothing we can do but warn them.  Basement doors closed
, and for God’s sake, tell nobody to even look outside!”

Reeves slammed the radio down on the desk, brushed his hair off his forehead, sweat glistening on his forehead.
  He turned toward us and shook his head. 

The entire town was freaking out.  It began when several people were on the way from the north part of town to the
governor’s mansion
to pick up their supply of urushiol and spray bottles.  A flood of rats had overtaken them, and among the rats were dozens of the human zombies.  The two species had fed together, almost as if in cooperation with one another, at least according to those lucky enough to get all the way to the
governor’s mansion
.