Waking The Zed Read online

  Waking the Zed

  ML Katz

  The Twice Dead includes the novella: Waking the Zed. The novella has been revised and expanded with extra chapters in both places.

  The story that begun in Waking the Zed continues in The Twice Dead.

  Waking The Zed reminds me of a classic and memorable Twilight Zone episode. So yeah, if you are into zombies, you should enjoy Waking the Zed. GoodReads.com

  “Waking the Zed” is a captivating mix of horror, science fiction and urban fantasy that will keep readers on the edge of their seat until the very last page. It has zombies, graphic gore, humor, witty and believable characters, and an original storyline. Gather.com

  @Copyright ML Katz 2013

  Disclaimer

  Waking the Zed is obviously a work of fiction. The characters, places, companies, and institutions only exist in the author’s imagination. There is no intended resemblance to any people, places, or things that exist in our universe. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or institutions is purely coincidental.

  Copyright

  Waking the Zed belongs to ML Katz. You do not have the right to reproduce this story in any form without express permission of the author.

  You may use a short snippet or blurb if you are mentioning this story in a review or article, but you must attribute it back to the original source. I would appreciate you letting me know if you do that.

  You can find me here - http://mlkatz.blogspot.com/ – That site is also the best place to find news and updates.

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  Here is my Amazon Author Page on Amazon.

  My Blog: http://mlkatz.blogspot.com/

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  You can also connect with me on Facebook – ML Katz On Facebook

  Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6523643.M_L_Katz

  Also By ML Katz

  The Twice Dead – This book includes the novella – Waking the Zed – plus The Twice Dead.

  Will showing up for her summer internship at Future Faith Cryonics be a mistake that graduate pathology student Pam Stone won’t even live to regret? Dr. Klein wants to revive her frozen clients, but Pam thinks the once respected scientist has turned into a charlatan.

  Can expert driver Corporal Gordon, combat veteran Captain Crawford, and a chubby deli owner and part time witch – Hercules Onassis – help Pam find answers to the zombie plague before it goes too far to stop? Take a ride through an urban zombie apocalypse to find out.

  Raft People – How do ordinary people survive the Big Flood? This is a family friendly apocalyptic adventure tale for young adults and adults.

  Closely aligned with the "post-apocalyptic" genre of fiction, "Raft People" uses a premise that is more believable than most and the author tells the story with a voice of realism that will capture your attention almost from the first paragraph.- Gather.com

  The Information Thieves – A high tech, family friendly adventure in post-flood Dallas.

  ML Katz strikes back! Come journey to a future Dallas (not so far in the future) where the eyesore tent cities can't be pushed back, even by giant multi-national companies that are more powerful than the government. - Goodreads.com

  Contents

  Waking the ZED

  Future Faith Cryonics, Incorporated

  Romancing the Dead

  Waking the Dead

  The Hospital of the Damned

  The Lonesome Road

  Morning at the Mediterranean

  Zed Dawn

  Last Words

  Waking the ZED

  "I am alone and miserable; man will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects.

  This being you must create."

  Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

  Future Faith Cryonics, Incorporated

  Dr. Ada Klein’s mood almost appeared rapturous as she made a circuit of Preservation Room 17. Her rubber soled shoes glided soundlessly across the gleaming tiles. Her expertly outlined and tinted lips curved upward in an unusually placid smile. A streak of grey accented her dark and carefully coifed hair. The colorful scarf, draped artfully over her narrow shoulders, fluttered about as she walked. As the slim middle aged woman moved from one gleaming man-sized capsule to another, she bent over the transparent face plate of each tube, considered it, smiled, and then moved on.

  Pam Stone, the graduate student intern, stood stoically as her boss made a circuit of the room. For a moment she thought that her boss’s movements reminded her of a dancer making a grand sweep of a ballroom while curtsying to an array of suitors. Of course, the grey streak in the doctor’s dark hair, her cold manner, and her current occupation also reminded Pam of an old black and white horror movie she had seen at a teenage sleepover. Considering that the gleaming steel and glass cylinders each contained the preserved body of one of Dr. Klein’s clients, Pam thought, not for the first time, that her middle aged mentor’s actions and mannerisms were really quite creepy. An involuntary chill ran up Pam’s spine.

  Pam cleared her throat, reluctant to disturb her boss’s reveries for a variety of reasons. When the older woman glanced over at her, Pam asked, “Dr. Klein, do you want me to run the usual diagnostics this morning?”

  In contrast to Dr. Klein’s slim and elegant figure and carefully coifed hair, Pam appeared sturdy and natural looking. Her unremarkable straight hair fell past her shoulders. She had tied it back in a loose and simple pony tail for work. Some Native American ancestors had bequeathed Pam high cheekbones and a long straight nose. English ancestors had contributed her pale eyes. But otherwise Pam Stone’s pleasant face appeared rather strong but unremarkable. Though trim, her corn-fed upbringing on an Iowa farm showed in her muscular legs, strong hands, and fairly broad shoulders.

  When Pamela stood next to Dr. Klein she often felt like a thick, ungainly, and untutored hayseed. Few people actually ever considered Pam Stone, a pathology doctoral candidate with her own research and publishing credentials, any of these things. She just has that affect o people. Pam frowned crookedly.

  Dr. Klein looked up slowly, as if Pam had just pulled her out of a private fantasy. Though Pam had arrived, on time, at her assigned duty station, she felt like an unwelcome intruder. The older woman considered the request and seemed to study her intern for a moment. Then she shook her head and said, “No, I have something very different planned for this morning. Hopefully, you can handle a change to your normal and expected routine.”

  The doctor did not elaborate immediately, so Pam just continued to stand there uncomfortably, trying not to shift from one foot to the other. Truth be told, the more that Pamela learned about Future Faith Cryonics, the more she thought the whole operation was a giant scam that existed to suck generous annuity payments from each paying client.

  Pam knew that this collection of industry giants and political leaders could have well afforded the price tag of the required annuity fund that had to be established to pay for their care. Their heirs would be unlikely to skip a five star restaurant meal, utility bill, or even a luxury trip to St Bart’s because of the added expense. But Pam also knew that many live people subsisted on less money than Future Faith Cryonics required for the care of the dead. She certainly thought that the money could be put to better use funding care for the living. The whole concept just jarred with her normally practical way of viewing the world.

  There, Pam had thought it, and she knew she believed it. No matter what Future Faith Cryonics called those poor people, they were surely dead and quite likely to stay that way. No matter how much Dr. Klein insisted that Future Faith preserved the cream of society until they could be safely reviv
ed, Pamela believed that her boss either must be lying or deluded.

  Dr. Klein paused and gazed at her young assistant. She kept her placid smile frozen in place, enjoying the younger woman’s discomfort. She imagined how Pamela would look, frozen in one of the gleaming capsules. If Pam Stone could have shared that image she surely would have listened to her instincts and bolted for the door.

  “Ms. Stone thinks she keeps her face impassive, but I know what she’s thinking,” the doctor speculated silently. “Well, she doesn’t have to believe in me. She only has to do her job for a little while longer. After that she can return to school or her parent’s farm for all I care. People like her should be usefully employed teaching middle school science classes. People like me change the world through the advancement of human knowledge.”

  Dr. Ada Klein had surely always believed in herself. Even if her parents had not always lavished praise on their perfect little girl, which they certainly did, she would had been aware of her gifts since before the very first day she had entered kindergarten class. She had certainly never had any issues with her school work, except for being bored by the chore of copying simple words or coloring in boxes to work out basic math problems. Sometimes she had only felt challenged by minimizing her gifts so she would not draw the ire of her more modestly talented classmates.

  As a very young child, Ada had learned that she could not be the first one with the right answer every time. Now as an accomplished scientist, she learned that restriction no longer applied.

  Once the final results of her work became public knowledge she imagined that many of her past acquaintances, including old schoolmates, would be beating on her door for help rather than mocking or shunning her. Everybody will be eager to tell all their friends that they knew me. This simple and cynical young woman she employed as a favor to the university, for example, would be clamoring for full time work instead of regarding her duties as some sort of highly paid nonsense. Then Dr. Klein could decide if she would get more pleasure from terminating the young woman’s employment or keeping her around to torment a bit longer.

  In the meantime, Dr. Klein certainly never minded the fact that she spent most of her time working with the uncomplaining corpses in the gleaming laboratory, away from the chatter of animate people. Her client’s passive faces, viewed through the transparent face plates, seemed calm and restful. She imagined they almost looked hopeful. Her clients certainly would not speak up to censure her when her experiments finally legitimized a lifetime of work. She imagined them rising from their preservations chambers full of praise and gratitude. They would have Dr. Ada Klein to thank because she was their savior.

  Technically, at least in the opinion of Future Faith Cryonics, Incorporated, the hard frozen bodies, resting in their separate capsules around her were not corpses at all. They were her very wealthy clients who had chosen cybernetic freezing, right at the moment of death instead of a burial. She would have harvested them sooner, before a doctor called the time of death, but the laws forbade it. Dr. Klein considered these laws quite silly and old-fashioned, but she had to abide by them to stay in business.

  In the case of the silent and still residents of the frosty capsules, the line between life and death blurred. But in life, they believed they could be preserved at the moment before a doctor would call their time of death. And then they believed in the promise of resurrection when science had advanced sufficiently to revive and cure them. They had believed that Future Faith Cryonics, Incorporated was the best company to insure their destiny.

  Ada’s clients may have believed in the promise of cheating death partially because of the scientist’s global reputation. A few decades earlier Dr. Klein had made a name for herself by working on the team that developed a virus blocking protein that cured everything from common colds to Ebola. She could have retired on her royalties as a rich and admired person. But she had not been content with simply curing the living when she was sure that in many cases she could even raise the dead. Dr. Klein actually lived quite frugally and invested most of her cash back into the company. She enjoyed having a comfortable and secure income but she craved renown.

  Her customer service representatives and expensively printed literature all made a very good case as well. The researcher had spared no expense when she hired gifted speakers, printed expensive brochures, and arranged for luxury seminars. However, Dr. Klein knew that the real reason that she housed the earthly remains of millionaires and billionaires was because she had convinced them that they were the type of people who deserved another chance. The rules of life and death just did not apply to them. They deserved her care and attention just as they had deserved luxury cars, gourmet food, and power when they walked among the living.

  “Dr. Klein, what do you want me to do?” Pamela asked finally, bemused, and more than a bit repelled, by the other woman’s odd behavior. She wondered what distracted her boss this morning. She thought about asking if something was wrong, but decided she really did not want a closer examination of Dr. Klein’s private thoughts at this time.

  “The standard diagnostics won’t be necessary,” Ada said pleasantly, “because I worked late last night and ran them myself. I have something else planned for today. It’s quite important, and I’m just trying to make a final decision about which clients to begin with.”

  “Does it matter?” Pam said out loud before she could stop herself. Ada just turned back to look at Pamela and smiled. The smile did not reach all the way to her eyes though. Something in Dr. Klein’s expression reminded Pam of a very stern teacher she had endured as a bright but somewhat hyperactive eight year old elementary school student. That thought made Pam dislike the woman all the more.

  “Look, Ms. Stone,” Dr. Klein finally said, “I know you don’t approve of my business. You also don’t think that this internship is particularly educational for a pathology doctoral student. I believe you told my engineer, Mr. Sanchez, that you felt like you were babysitting corpses.”

  Pamela could not see her own face but she was pretty sure she blushed as she forced herself to remain silent. She certainly felt heat rising to her face. She knew should not have said anything disparaging to the young engineer who kept the company’s machinery running. She had simply thought he had found her attractive. She had believed she was just making clever small talk to flirt a bit. He had even smiled at her when she said it. Pam had no idea that Enrico would take her seriously enough to report her words back to Dr. Klein.

  “I find your attitude particularly disappointing,” Dr. Klein continued. “When you interviewed for this position, you seemed quite interested in Future Faith Cryonics. I wanted to give an opportunity to a promising young student. I also find your comments quite disloyal and disrespectful. You need to learn to be more professional.”

  “I’m sorry. It was just a joke.” Pam shook her head. “I didn’t mean any disrespect.” She still disliked her boss but the older woman did have a point. She had been happy enough to accept the prestigious internship and the high salary. She did not need to walk around biting the hand that fed her. Chagrined and chastised, Pam waited for her employer to continue.

  Pam had never actually been fired from any job before, but she honestly believed she might feel relieved if she was fired from this one. Then she could see if the therapy ranch job was still open and spend the rest of her summer enjoying worthwhile labor making the lives of disabled people happier and more productive. She had time to worry about her resume later. Perhaps any employer she would want to spend a long time working with would think a therapy ranch job, combined with her academic credentials, would make her as worthy as somebody who spent their time monitoring corpses.

  “No matter,” Dr. Klein said curtly. “I cannot let this little matter distract me from the tasks I need to accomplish today.” She smoothed her scarf and patted her carefully styled hair as if these actions would help her get her thoughts back on track. “Today I intend to experiment with a new serum, and I want to select two clients
who seem particularly hardy.”

  Pam practically grimaced as she choked back her thoughts. None of them are hardy. They’re dead. Despite her internal dialogue, she tried to remain quiet and composed as she waited for instructions. She sucked at her lower lip and had to keep herself from biting it. This was difficult because Pam was sure her bitten lip was the only thing that would keep her from making an ill-chosen response if she had much longer to wait.

  Dr. Klein took her time, moving her head as she considered each of the frozen capsules. “I think Mr. Barnes and Mrs. Bell will be the best choices,” she finally said. Her head moved up and down in a determined nod. “They were both under fifty when they came to us. Poor Mr. Barnes crashed his small plane and couldn’t be revived. Dear Mrs. Bell was hurt in a freak skiing accident, though otherwise she was quite healthy.” She turned back to Pam. “Did you know that she had once tried out for the US Olympic team? Her death was quite tragic.”

  Without waiting for an answer, Dr. Klein nodded and continued, “I need you to wheel in a tank marked Serum A. You will find it in the large cooler just outside this room. Be careful with it and remember that this is quite a big opportunity for you. Deserving or not, you may actually learn quite a bit today. Do you think you can handle it?”

  “Sure,” Pam said, “I can handle the tank. I know how to move heavy things.”

  As she turned on her heel, she had to bite back a snort. Sure, it’s quite a big opportunity to learn to handle a hand truck. Still, she was relieved to leave the company of her eccentric boss and her shiny capsules full of dead people, if even for a moment.

  Since Pamela had chosen to study human pathology, she had no particular problem with cadavers. She had certainly worked with them before in order to gain skills she believed she could use to help living people. She believed that if her work helped living people, and she showed proper respect, she would honor the dead who had donated their bodies to science as a final gift.