Samuel looked fearfully into his boss’s office, hoping, as he snuck by that he would not be spotted. As he crept past the door, hunched over enough to make Quasimodo proud, he heard a soft growl of displeasure. Freezing all motion and holding his breath, Samuel glanced toward the sea of cubicles just in time to see Fat Wilbur lumbering down the aisle looking in his direction. Without another second of hesitation, Samuel took off in a thundering sprint. You see, both Fat Wilbur and the Boss had become zombies.
Spore like dust danced in the air through the sunbeams that cut through the office windows and illuminated the dark, dank, and devastated interior of Brooks Industries. It had been one whole week since a passing meteor had dusted the earth with these strange gray spores. 95% of humans succumbed to the mutagenic effect of the spores within the first 4 hours, which surprisingly still left about 400 million humans fighting for survival in the week that followed. Zombie attack starvation, dehydration, accidents, and even murder had reduced that number to 80 million by the end of the week. The remainder could be said to be blessed or cursed depending on how you view things.
---Flash back---
Samuel was actually trying to sneak down to the lab of Brooks Industries, because he knew a secret. Old man Peter had been a chief research scientist for the company for the last 40 years. Peter and Samuel were kind of friends, because they would battle each other over a chess board at least twice a month for the last 7 years. During their last matches, Peter had been rambling about the inevitable end of the world and how no one had prepared except himself, Peter. On their last game, which Samuel actually won for the first time, Peter surprised him.
Grabbing a piece of paper, Peter quickly scribbled something. “Here, the prize for winning this game. Well, it’s been fun. I appreciate your attention.” Peter then grabbed Sam’s hand and gave it a good hearty handshake with sold eye contact.
‘Hmm, that felt final’ Sam thought to himself.
“You’ll know what to do with that paper when the time comes. And don’t worry, the system is self-contained”. (Peter)
Samuel unfolded the paper which read ‘Z.S.R.S.’, and under those letters was a long stream of 15 letters, numbers, and symbols. Samuel looked up and watched as Peter walked out of the building, never to be seen again.
---Fast forward to present---
Quickly outpacing the lumbering Fat Wilbur, Sam dashed toward the stairs leading to the basement. As he rounded the corner, he came face to face with 2 more zombies shuffling up the stairs; Secretaries from the H.R. department from upstairs who had wandered down to the basement hallway. Without a pause, Sam leapt over their heads and cleared them and the five steps without missing a beat, he landed in a forward roll, losing no momentum. Sam had hobbies, the primary ones were parkour, surfing, and motorcycle driving. Sam was clearly a typical California adrenaline junkie. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Fat Wilbur quickly round the corner and fall down the stairs utterly flattening his 2 co-zombies (they did use to be co-workers…).
Samuel chuckled. He enjoyed dark humor; dark humor is like food, not everyone gets it. Samuel got it. Furiously running down the hall, he slid to a stop at the end where the lab door was. There was no fear of zombies past this point, because the lab had been evacuated as soon as the meteor had passed the earth. It was a strange protocol that apparently Peter had put into place within weeks before the collapse of the world. Samuel looked at the keypad, and surprisingly it was still lit and functional. He remembered Peter mentioning something about a ‘contained system’. He quickly punched in the 15-digit code that was on the crumpled paper he tightly clutched. He heard a soft click and quickly yanked on the now unlocked door. Passing through the small opening of the only partially opened doorway, he quickly put his muscles and weight into slamming the door shut just as Fat Wilbur came trundling down the hallway at a reckless and alarming pace.
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“Click” went the door lock, and as soon as Fat Wilbur pounded on the outside, an additional 10 cm blast-door dropped from the ceiling, cutting Wilbur’s arms off at the elbows. Samuel was safe for now. Outside, Fat Wilbur continued to ineffectively swing at the reinforced steel door with his elbow knobs that barely could reach past his portly girth to rub on the blast-door, completely unperturbed at the change in his physiology. Such is the peaceful and steadfast mentality of a zombie. How chill. Really, they’re only into people for their brains, not distracted by wealth, status, or looks. Quite the equal opportunity population. O, Noble Zombie!!
Samuel looked around the lit lab, taking in the view of metal experimentation tables, Clean and organized toolboxes, electronics of every nature, 3d printers that used a plethora of different materials in their printing, lots of computer and study stations, and… the entrance to lab 59. The entire lab was subdivided by walls of thick plexiglass and steel doors; all of which were currently open except for lab 59. Sam quickly walked over to the door of lab 59 and approached its locking mechanism. It was composed of a small computer screen and a keyboard. On the screen was a prompt to enter the 4-digit passcode. He quickly typed Z.S.R.S. and with a soft click and a ‘poof’ the hermetically sealed door slowly opened and lights clicked on in the room.
“Please enter lab 59, … Samuel. We have been expecting you”.
With a slight stutter step Samuel came to a stop inside of lab 59’s decontamination hallway. With a ‘clunk’ the door behind him firmly shut, the lights in the hallway dimmed, and a strange white gas began to hiss out of holes in the wall.
“Please close your eyes and count slowly to 10.” Said the same feminine computerized voice.
Wilbur shut his eyes tight and started slowly counting to ten. Almost simultaneous to his countdown, a soft ‘ding’ sounded indicating that the decontamination had ended. He had always had an excellent internal clock. He opened his eyes, the lights came back on full power, and powerful fans had already sucked every molecule of the white gas out.
“Welcome, Samuel. Please have a seat, we have much to discuss” (A.I.?)
“...Wait, you can hold conversations? Aren’t you just the standard digitized voice our computer system uses?” (Samuel)
“Oh, no. I’m ZSRS, and I have a lot that I need to share with you. Please step into the lab. Take a seat on the bed. Please sit so you can see the viewing screen that is on the wall, and I will begin to explain everything to you” (ZSRS)
With a small frown Sam walked over to the white sheeted hospital bed and sat at its foot facing the wall with the screen. Propping up with his hands, Sam gathered his legs up onto the bed sitting cross-legged to be comfortable. About that moment, the screen lit up and Peter appeared on it and spoke.
“Congratulations! I wasn’t sure, but I suspected that you wouldn’t succumb to the spores that were discovered on the incoming Meteor 665. I had investigated your ancestry and found that none in your lineage had fallen ill to the Black Plague, Malaria, The Spanish Flu, Cancer, heart disease, or more recently Covid-19. You have a unique immune system and bloodline. Ask yourself this question; How many actual sick days did you need in the last 10 years?”
Samuel was stunned for a moment, but searching his memories, he couldn’t remember being genuinely sick since… well he couldn’t remember a single instance.
Peter continued after a dramatic pause “We estimate that only 1 million actual humans have an equivalent bloodline as yours, but only a couple of dozen fulfill our additional requirements to participate in the ZSRS program. Your strength, physique, intelligence, and general character make you our #1 top candidate. So… Welcome on board, and … I apologize in advance. Good luck.”
Suddenly, a countdown from 10 appeared on the screen. 10, 9, 8, 7,…
Adrenaline hit Samuel, and he wanted to jump up and run to the door, but he found that his legs wouldn’t respond. The room started to tilt, and his vision grew fuzzy.
“Please don’t resist. You lost this battle the moment you stepped into the room. Don’t take it personal, but the fight for humanities survival is more important than your wishes...”(ZSRS)
The voice slowly faded, as did the light in Sam’s eyes. He remembered the white gas! But it was too late, and he slowly collapsed backwards onto the bed. Looking up at the ceiling, he saw numerous robotic arms extending toward his bed with a variety of dangerous looking appendages. Terror tried to fill Sam’s heart, but his conscience continued to rapidly fade as he vaguely heard a voice.
“3, 2, 1… Begin Initial Formation Procedure.” (ZSRS) And, to the gentle, white-noise background sound of spinning saw blades, Sam completely fainted. Quicker than counting zombies jumping a fence, Sam was fast asleep, unaware of the artful, surgical work that ZSRS was performing on his body.
End Chapter 1
