In the lab, he sat on the edge of the cot while Dr. Martire retrieved a jar of Boolean Glue. In silence, she applied the green gooey substance to the wounds on his neck. The loss of blood made him feel light-headed. The pain the glue brought was intense but darkness overcame him quickly.
His sleep was restless. Strange visions, of symbols and equations, filled his dreams. Masked shamans hovered over him on the cot. He awoke, briefly, to find Angelina sticking a needle full of serum into his arm. His hallucinations turned into scenes of volcanos. Pools of lava spilled over the rim and ran down hillsides in bright orange streams. Even in his deepest sleep, he could feel his body convulsing with spasms, it was as if every bone in his body wished to detach itself from his muscle.
He awoke with fire burning in his veins. It was too hot on the bed so he lay on the floor. The cool cement felt good on his back. Out of habit, he began to do situps. He was amazed at how easy they were. He looked at his body in awe. He could see the outline of every muscle group and each was perfectly toned. He had never been in this great a shape before.
The professor walked in as he was doing pushups.
“No need for that,” she remarked, “the serum is based on a new type of steroid, hopefully, you won’t get brain cancer.”
When he heard that, he stood up and faced her, clad only in his white wool pants. She stared him up and down and smiled with satisfaction. His eyes narrowed as he saw her delight. Anger grew inside him, his posture straightened. His blood boiled, yet he fought to remain calm when he spoke.
“I’m nothing more than a walking, talking science experiment to you, aren’t I?” He said, grabbing her by the arm which she quickly pulled away. “At what point are you going to start removing my body parts and storing them in a jar, like you do my sperm? Do you even enjoy taking it from me?”
“You know,” he continued in his rant, “ever since I’ve met you, my life has one big catastrophe. You did a good job in scaring me into staying after the police shot me but I’m not going to take any more of your crap. Do you hear me?”
Her expression turned serious. She seemed to be studying his demeanor, his flaring nostrils, his reddened face. She looked to the door and bolted.
In one leap, he cleared the marble tables and caught her. He grabbed both her arms and pinned her against the wall, face first. He leaned his head forward to whisper in her ear and her short brown hair brushed his face. He thought it smelled of apples, or grapes. He felt hungry. He was getting aroused. As he became engorged, his fury grew and he used it to justify what he knew, instinctively, that he must do.
He ravaged her while keeping her trapped against the wall. Her breathing quickened but she did not scream. She’s trying to figure out how to turn this situation into a productive ‘session’, he thought, and grew even more angry. He was determined not to let her have the satisfaction.
With his free arm, he ripped her clothes off, savagely. His face contorted into a snarl as he ground his teeth to keep his resolve to do what he must do. What he had to do.
He orgasmed inside her and threw her across the room like an empty milk carton. He walked to the door and departed. He went upstairs, to the janitor’s closet, where the vampire had taken his blood and his seed.
Closing the door, he sat in the chair, brooding. In the silence of the dark, Zac listened to the vibration of the world outside. He could feel the hum of the steam generator that provided heat and electricity to the entire campus. The sound of traffic on Chestnut Street soaked through the walls to his hidden throne in the alcove.
The absence of light helped him to see beyond the walls. His other senses reached beyond the space of his one-room kingdom, to the interstate beside the Schuylkill River. Water pushed against a low-overhead dam by the Philadelphia Boat Club, he was surprised that he was aware of the water's weight upon the structure. He saw shadows moving in various places in the city’s center, on 15th Street, in alleys, in an abandoned building on Buttonwood Street.
He concentrated on the shadows. They seemed to be people but he knew they were not. They were listening to a sound. As he became more aware of them, he could hear what they were hearing. The noise was familiar to him. It was music. There were violins and it was sad. It was tango music. It was something more than music, it was a message. It was a command.
"Find them," it said.
"Find them," it said.
Find who, he wondered? Who were they searching for? Innately, he knew, part of what made them what they were, was inside him, in the Boolean Glue. In the darkness, the answer came to him. They were the Argentine generals of the government of Isabel Peron. She was dead but some of them survived and they were here, in this city.
They were the ones responsible for the kidnapping of tens of thousands of their own citizens. They killed them in caves, deep in the Andes Mountains of western Argentina, near San Juan. They were murdered where zombie moss grew and were buried in shallow graves. Now, they were here to face the Perpetrators…and eat them. They were drawn to them by one of the strings that pervade the universe and tied them to their former captors. It was a string of guilt, of sin, of death.
He had to find them.
It was nighttime when he went outside into the street, shirtless. The chill winter air felt good on his hot skin. The fire still burned intensely within his veins. He felt better now. He had a sense of purpose. He needed to find them, the zombies. A voice inside him told him he could help them, that they needed him. He knew how to find them, he had his own ‘string’ to guide him.
Cars honked at the strange, half-naked man, walking barefoot along Chestnut Avenue, towards center city Philadelphia. He was a sight to see, his skin tinged blue from the frigid temps, his hot breath creating thick clouds of steam in the air, his muscles rippling as he moved like a creature from a comic book artist’s drawing.
He found them in an abandoned storefront, on Ludlow Street, near Independence Hall. Tango music was playing. He found it extremely soothing. The fire in his veins became more bearable. It seemed as if he could think more clearly, now that he was with them…he was home.
In the back of the room was a long countertop from an old barroom. At the end was a Victrola, spinning a record. It sounded tinny. The tin sound struck a chord that aroused a passion within him.
Inside, he waded through the throng of zombies, unafraid. They seemed normal, except for the blank expression on their faces. Their skin color was lightly tanned. Most of them had black hair. There were about forty of them and they were dancing in couples. There were more males than females, some of the couples consisted of two men. They moved about the room, counter-clockwise, in two lanes. The center of the circle was empty.
Zac jumped up on the bar and sat with on foot on top, his knee bent on which he placed his chin, his muscular arms wrapped around his leg. Watching the dancers, he noticed one was out of place. He was old, his hair was white and he wore a smile of delight on his face. In his arms was a dark-haired beauty. He couldn’t see her face for it was buried in the old man’s upper chest, in the nook of his neck, between his collarbone and his ear. His right hand was roaming all around her back and her butt.
This man was one of the Perpetrators, Zac thought, he has no idea he will be tonight’s feast. He sensed the crowd’s hunger for flesh but did not share it. The time to feed was getting close. He was so completely in tune with the zombies, he could tell they were all beginning to drool in anticipation of dinner.
He saw the clock on the tower at Independence Hall in the reflection of a window across the street. It was fifteen minutes before midnight. Then he noticed Angelina in the doorway. He just stared at her, expressionless. In her hands she held a large coffee cup and a bucket of fried chicken. She was smiling, meekly.
When she came over to him, she said, “Extra strength, quadruple expresso from Starbucks. Cost me a fortune. I’m not sure if your developing a taste for flesh so I brought the chicken, just in case.”
He grabbed the coffee and drank it in one gulp. It wasn’t hot but the caffeine quenched his thirst. Opening the bucket, he reached in and pulled out a leg. He devoured it in a few ferocious bites. She leaned against his leg, her back to him, facing the throng.
Zac said, in a soft voice, “You should go. They’re about to feed.”
“I think I’ll be okay with you,” she replied. “I think you have a bond with them now. Normally, one of the men would have offered to dance with me. Something is different now. I can feel it in them, I can feel it when I touch you.”
“I’m sorry,” he confessed. He was glad she was here with him now, the warmth of her body felt good. He felt regret.
“That's okay,” she said, “I know, men are monsters,” she paused for a moment before continuing, “you weren’t a monster when I met you. I’m sorry, too, but you’ll soon see, I had no choice. Time is running out.”
La Cumparsita began. Halfway through the song, the victim began to realize something was wrong. The woman in his embrace began to gnaw on the skin of his collarbone. The dancers had him corralled with their bodies. Their flesh turned ash-white. Their skin was torn in places, on their face and hands, but the meat inside their wounds was dark. The man began to scream as the zombies pulled at his clothes and put their teeth to his skin.
Zac explained to Angelina, “I can tell what they’re thinking. They like to hear the Perpetrators scream. It even makes me feel good. He is one of the men responsible for turning them into zombies, for kidnapping them and imprisoning them, unjustly, in the caves where zombie moss grows. I think I can help them.”
The zombies had the old man on ground. He was naked now and they were eating him slowly, not like they did to the young lady Zac knew, days before. They ate the skin on his back and his genitals, rolling him around with their mouths, like a rotisserie chicken having its skin torn off. They ate his nipples and eyelids and his nose. When they bit off his ears, one of them tossed them out the window.
“Zac,” Angelina asked, “can we go? My stomach’s strong but I can’t take this.”
He replied, “Yeah, I know what I’ve got to do now. Besides, someone will hear the screams, eventually, because they’re gonna eat him slowly. They’ve been waiting for this one a long time.” He hopped off the counter, grabbed the bucket of chicken and said, “C’mon, let’s go.”
As they walked past the ravenous horde, a man reached out and grabbed Angelina’s leg. Zac turned instantly, crouched down and hissed at him, his eyes aglow. The zombie released his grip, reluctantly.
Impressed, Angelina said, “It seems you are at the top of the pecking order.”
“Yeah, seems so,” Zac answered, “they think I’m their king, now. Go figure.”
They walked out the door as the bells on the tower clock began to chime. On the twelfth ring, the screaming became muted.
“I think they’re eating his lips,” Zac said.
Angelina pushed her head into his shoulder and said, “Zac, please….T-M-I.”
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