Interactive Case #4: Zombie Outbreak! (Part 6)

You race back to the cop car you had passed earlier, hop inside and drive away. It's actually the second time you've driven a police car. The first time landed you in juvenile hall at age 13.

"A zombie outbreak has traffic tied up along the interstate..."

You make your way south, weaving around all the zombies. As you get closer to Marla's, you see the highway jammed with people trying to flee toward the north. At Marla's apartment complex, there's a sense of a hasty evacuation, like the Fall of Saigon in 1975. Doors are open, and people have left behind the things they couldn't carry, such as microwaves and compact refrigerators.

You knock on Marla's door and ring the bell. Nothing. You climb over a wall to the patio and find the sliding back door open.

Inside, there's a funny smell, like rotting garbage. You walk down the hall and poke your head inside the bathroom. There are drops of blood on the floor, and some bandages and a tube of antibacterial cream on the sink. You continue down the hall to the bedroom, heart thumping.

She's in bed, on her side, turned away from you.

"Marla. You OK?"

No response. You shake her shoulder. Granted, she's never been a morning person, but this is ridiculous.

"Marla. It's me."

Suddenly, she turns and hisses. It's Marla alright: zombie Marla, with blotchy gray-blue skin and red eyes. She lunges at you but you manage to hold her down.

It's strange. She's not as aggressive as the other zombies. She hisses and gnashes her teeth and makes some perfunctory attempts to bite you, but it seems like her heart isn't in it. Is it possible she still remembers you?

Maybe. Maybe she's not so far gone. There's gotta be something you can do. You wrap her in a blanket and help her outside, talking to her the whole way, trying to calm her down as she hisses and tries to bite you.

"Take it easy, baby. We're gonna get you some help."

You head toward the police car when a black van pulls up and three men in SWAT gear burst out and train their weapons on you.

"Step out of the way, sir!"

"Now just a minute."

"Step out of the way!"

"She needs a doctor."

"Negative, sir. Step out of the way!"

"Listen to me. I've been through a lot, and I just need to get help for my girlfriend."

"Your girlfriend's gone, sir."

No, you think. You've come too far. You won't let them waste her. There are times to dig in and fight, and this is one of them.

"She's gone when I say she's gone, you little--"

Just a little feint toward them. The slightest step. That's all it takes. The next thing you know, you're standing in a raging river of bullets. The sensation is like getting punched, hard. The air goes out of your lungs; your legs wilt and you drop to the ground. You might have considered that these men would be a little jittery, what with their first day of zombie combat and all. Maybe even trigger happy. But now it's too late.

You roll your head over. Marla is there next to you, with a neat little hole in the center of her forehead. You put your hand to her cheek. She always had such nice skin. Even in her current state, it has a luster. You stroke her cheek, softly. She seems to be smiling.

Yes, she does recognize me! Look at that smile!

And the last thing you see, before it all goes black, is Marla—the girlfriend you risked life and limb for—opening her mouth and biting your pinkie finger clean off.

---

You sequester the police car you saw earlier and drive it to the highway. After a few miles, you spot a barricade ahead. A line of soldiers aim their rifles at you. You stop 50 yards shy of the barricade, get out and wave your arms. Thankfully, the soldiers don't shoot, the way they did last time. Must be the presence of all the TV news cameras.

Biohazard truck

Quickly, you're ushered away by a couple of dudes in gas masks and rubber gloves. They heave you into the back of a strange-looking truck, and a woman in biohazard gear inspects your bite wound and gives you a shot. She says it's medicine to help you get better.

In fact, it's a sedative, and within a few minutes you're sleeping on the floor. At some point, you're dimly aware of the truck starting up and driving away. The truck drives through the night, while you toss and turn, your mouth dry, feverish visions haunting your dreams.

Later that night, you arrive at an underground facility in the desert. You are carried inside and dropped on a filthy cot in a bunker-like room.

When you awaken sometime later, there is no "you" anymore; only this desire for...flesh. Nothing but an obsessive yearning to sink your teeth into someone, to feel their blood run down your throat. Somewhere, buried deep in your mind, is a self, an identity, but you can't access it. Just when you're starting to remember who you are, the memories fade away, like a radio station with bad reception. Your senses are heightened, but your movements are more spastic. There's a rage boiling over inside you, and you want only to get at the people watching you from behind the glass and...consume them.

If you were capable of a rational observation and thought processing, you might have seen the official story on the TV news. They're saying the outbreak was caused by a mysterious virus carried by illegal immigrants from Mexico. The border has been closed while Centers for Disease Control personnel investigate. You might have believed that account. Or maybe you would have suspected something else: a government experiment gone wrong. You might have found your way to the FVZA Web site, and read of the Santa Rosa Institute. Perhaps you would have speculated that a worker there was bitten by one of the mice they were using for experiments with vampire and zombie DNA. And maybe that worker had gone home without telling anyone. And then he turned and began hunting.

But it's all moot. You're a zombie now. A guinea pig in a secret lab, observed, poked and prodded until you're no longer of any use. Your final resting place is an incinerator out back.

---

You manage to find your way to a nearby five-story parking structure, where you take the elevator up to the top and go out onto the roof. In desperation, you wave your arms at several helicopters flying overhead.

Meanwhile, below, the zombies have followed your scent to the garage. A few paw at the elevator, while others shuffle up the stairs.

"Over here!"

In the sky above, a news helicopter appears to have spotted you. It makes a beeline for the garage and hovers overhead. You can see a pilot and a cameraman up there. However, the cameraman appears more interested in taping your plight than in saving you.

"C'mon!" you shout. "Get down here!"

At that moment, several zombies shamble out of the stairs and onto the roof. The sight of you excites groans from them and they rush your way, practically licking their lips in anticipation. Fortunately, you still have the Mossberg. You put the first six zombies away with head shots. A quick reload, six more shots, and six more kills. That's 14 zombie kills today: you're getting the hang of this. But there's no time to rest on your laurels. More zombies are flooding out onto the roof.

Damn, where are they all coming from?

You look up, and the helicopter is still hovering. You jump, wave your arms, yell, and the doofus just keeps taping you. What's wrong with these people? Little do you know, the video of your battle with the zombies is going out to television sets all over the world.

Several more zombies are closing on you, and now you're out of ammo. You hold the shotgun by the barrel and start swinging for the fences like Barry Bonds. Squish! Crack! It reminds you of a time when, as a kid, you snuck into the local farm stand after hours and played baseball with some watermelons. The zombies fall, one after another, and twitch spastically on the ground.

Finally, the copter lowers itself toward the roof and you grab ahold of one of the skids. The copter starts lifting off and the cameraman pulls you up.

Safe!

But no. A zombie whose face you bashed in somehow gets to its feet and grabs your legs. You kick and writhe, trying to maintain your hold on the copter while the zombie tugs at your legs. The tension is excruciating. Finally, with a Herculean effort, you wriggle yourself free of the zombie's grip, losing your pants in the process. The helicopter lifts you away from danger. In living rooms throughout America, people cheer. You are vaccinated just in time, and make a full recovery.

Your 15 minutes of fame have arrived. You show off your scar on Larry King. Oprah gets you to tear up when discussing the fate of your zombified girlfriend Marla. A book deal follows. You sell the movie rights for a fortune, and even make a cameo in the eventual cinematic blockbuster, Plague, directed by Michael Bay. And when an outbreak hits Miami in 2013, you are there on the scene as CNN's resident zombie expert.

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