CHAPTER 13
Location Unknown
Nate’s head was swimming as he rinsed out his mouth with a bottle of water. I’m a murderer? Rose had been trying to explain to him that after the assassination attempt on him failed and he disappeared, the only option the WHS had was to discredit him. It made sense, but still, why did they want to have him killed? He was harmless. He did whatever it was they told him to do. He wiped his mouth off on the washcloth, tossed it to the floor, and said, “Okay Rose, tell me, why did they want to kill me?”
She squeezed his hand and began.
“Nate, almost a year ago you accidentally pried into one of the greatest conspiracies of all time. Before the WHS was formed, they were little more than some government program that did research on Paranormal activities: ghosts, vampires, werewolves, mummies, I mean all kinds of fantasy stuff. As it turns out, that was just a cover for another black operation that did biological and genetic research on people … living people.”
“That’s great. Is that where I am now?” Nate asked.
“No, but I’ll get to that. This agency created a biochemical weapon—highly contagious—that could be passed from saliva into the blood stream. This organization, along with our powerful leadership here in America—”
“Ah, I haven’t been deported; that’s good. I know I must be at most ten miles from a Taco Bell.”
Rose rolled her eyes.
“As I was saying, America and the UN came up with a brilliant idea for population control. They created zombies and turned them loose in the most populated cities in the world. As you know, it spread like fire, wiping out over a billion people before you sent the Tweet that saved the world.”
“Ah the good ole’ days,” Nate said with a laugh.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” she said with a grim look on her face.
“Do you have any proof?”
“Not that I can show you.”
“Then I don’t believe you, Rose, so moving on, why did they want to wipe out the world? How did they plan on stopping the virus to begin with? Humor me.”
Walker stepped into his view and said, “I’ll take it from here, Rose. Okay, Turd, I’ll tell you why.”
Nate stared at the man, hypnotized by his words. Walker's voice drew him in like a moth to a flame as the deep Southern voice rolled from his tongue like honey. The brash tone was gone, replaced by something almost poetic, in a redneck sort of way.
“Okay,” Nate said, without realizing he had even spoken.
“Seven billion people and with a billion more, the powers that be won’t be able to control them. I mean what are you going to do when you run out of food, water, medicine and the like? The brilliance of the world leaders was to kill people rather than let nature take its course. Think about it. People are living longer and longer. There isn’t so much famine or disease, and even the death counts from war are down. It’s pretty much up to natural disasters to slow down the population.”
Nate shrugged as he finished off his milk and honey, and said, “That was wonderful, Rose. Can I have some more?”
“I’ll be right back,” she said with a wink.
“But—?”
“Settle down. I won’t shoot you, Idiot.”
“Why do you keep insulting me?”
He could tell Walker's stone cold face wasn’t going to give him an answer to that.
“Okay, Walker, so we have too many people, and they created zombies, and they want to create a new world with less people. Why not have a nuclear war?”
Walker put his booted foot up on the bed, rubbed the toes with the washcloth he'd discarded earlier, and said, “Because of all the fallout. You can’t spend time at the beach in Malibu if there’s a nuclear winter … Idiot.”
Nate was smarter than this. As the veil of fog began to lift from his mind, he began trying to put things together. Greed, power, and control. Sure, he could buy that, but someone, somewhere was pulling all of the strings. The question was, who? The whole idea had to start somewhere.
“I’m not buying it. I just don’t think anybody could pull it off. Not like you said, anyway.”
“You honestly think this is all an accident? Now, think about that. The zombies showed up all over the world, not in just one place.”
“So who did it, then? I mean, you say the WHS, but who is really behind the WHS, and where in the hell am I, anyway?”
“You are safe; that’s all that matters,” Rose said as she re-entered the room.
“What do you mean, I’m 'safe’? Safe from what, zombies? The WHS? Why did you do all this to me?”
Nate could see Rose’s light brown eyes reflecting from Walker’s mirrored glasses. There was a hint of fear in them. Walker shrugged and continued rubbing spit into his black leather boot.
“Nate, you are a hero.”
“So I’ve been told, but now I’m a murderer, so I don’t see how that helps my situation now.”
She patted his hand and said, “Just take a second and think about why you are here, right now.”
He tugged as the short hairs on his beard. It was a new sensation to him, playing with an unfamiliar face. I’ve never had a beard before.
“I’m here because you guys brought me here,” he retorted.
“I told you he wasn’t that smart. It took him seven seconds to answer that question,” Walker said, switching to polish his other boot.
Nate rolled his eyes and said, “Do that somewhere else, G.I. Scarecrow!”
Walker let out a laugh.
Rose continued saying, “Why do you think we brought you here? We could have let you die. Walker and Leo, God rest his soul, risked their lives for you.”
Nate’s eyes narrowed.
“So you say.”
“Why then, Nate?”
“Because I’m a hero?” he said, with a funny look of uncertainty.
“Bingo, Dickwad,” Walker said as he resumed his place back in the wheel chair.
“Nate, you stopped one of the biggest conspiracies of all time and saved millions of lives, maybe billions. People love you. I love you. Walker loves you, even though he won’t admit it.”
“Hah,” Nate said, noticing Walker’s face was downcast toward the floor.
“Doctor Z loves you.”
“The guy that hit you?”
Rose blanched.
“You saw that?” she asked, rubbing her cheek.
He nodded.
“Well, don’t worry about that, Nate. I can take care of myself. He’s just different. Just does a lot of things before he realizes he did them. It’s okay.” She rubbed his ankle and said, “But it’s awful sweet of you to care.”
Her touch was as soothing as her honey and milk. He leaned back, and his eyes became heavy. He yawned. His face started to ache.
“Okay, everybody loves me, but what does that have to do with anything?”
“Nate, we’re WHS insiders. Some of us work for them, but we don’t like them. They’re evil.”
“Aren’t all government entities?” he said.
“No, but this one is. Listen Nate, when some of our insiders figured out you were being terminated, we became furious. There’s a lot of people that work in the WHS just because of you, because—“
“I know, they love me.”
“They were loyal to you, and because of you they wanted to help the zombies, but they were misled. The WHS couldn't care less about the zombies. They only want to control the people with the zombies. Think about it: they’ve taken billions in estates to fund their projects. The zombies' property was seized in that bogus zombie bill that stated all properties belonging to the zombies will go towards the cure and prevention of zombies.”
“It’s bullshit,” Walker added.
Rose nodded. “And now they went and pegged you for a murder. You want to know something, Nate?”
“Anything believable would be nice.”
“Seventy-five out of one hundred people believe you are still alive and you didn't
kill Christy Backwater.”
“Now that, I believe … sort of.” The tightness in his chest began to subside. “Why?”
“Conspiracy. The bogus funeral they threw for you, closed coffin and all, didn’t settle with the American public very well. Well, most of the world as a matter of fact.”
“Except for the Euro-trash. The Norwegians—like me—were pretty sure you did it,” Walker laughed as he lit another cigarette. “Most of Scandinavia, too.”
“So you think of yourself as trash? Me, too.”
Walker blew a smoke ring his way and said, “Well, at least I know who I am when I look in the mirror every day.”
Nate looked back at Rose and said, “I thought you said he loved me?”
“Oh he does; he’s just got a funny way of showing it.”
Rose’s voice was like a mother’s, telling a child a bedtime story. He felt his energy begin to ebb.
Rose said, “I think you need more rest. We’ll come back.”
It was hard to say no. He didn’t want to fight drowsiness, so he motioned for her to continue on.
“Okay, so you guys saved me. I still have a following, and some of you have risked your lives to protect me. But, now you’ve changed my face, I guess so you can hide me. I mean, wouldn’t it make more sense to let me go out in public and debunk the entire thing?”
“You’d be dead,” Walker added.
“True, but we could go viral and expose them.”
“You’d be dead, Stupid, and we’d be dead, too.”
“Oh,” he said, scratching his beard. He was getting used to it. “So, you changed my face to hide me, so other people don’t know me.”
“Yes,” Rose said.
“Kinda like protective custody, huh?”
“Exactly. But they are looking for you, Nate. One slip up and this operation is gone, and it’s the only operation that can stop them.”
“Stop them from doing what? They have all of the power and control it seems. What else are they going to do with the zombie funds?”
“It’s going toward other things, more sinister things.”
“We’ll what could be more sinister than planning a worldwide genocide with zombies?”
He could feel Walker's mirrored eyes on him, and his blood turned to ice when she said:
“Another zombie outbreak.”