Prometheus Mode, page 21
“What?”
“Call the police!”
“Go right ahead. I ain’t done nothin illegal!”
“And give me back her rabbit. Give it to me!”
“It needs to be tested. You said it ain’t never got its shots, so—”
“It wasn’t sick, asshole.”
“You don’t know—”
“I’ll test it, okay? Just give it back to me. Now!”
Mama cried when she buried Ben Nicholas in the garden that night. I remember seeing the tears on her face in the moonlight. She cried just like she cried for my little brother Remy, and it made me so terribly sad that I couldn’t watch no more.
I remember getting up and going outside much later. The moon was full and the grass was wet with dew and glistening like diamonds. I remember crying over the mound and digging my fingers in the soft dirt, but I don’t remember anything after that until the next morning, certainly not bringing him inside. Or tucking him into bed with me.
When Mama came to wake me up, the sour smell of her sickness suddenly grew big and large and dark when she pulled back the blanket and saw him. Then she screamed.
Daddy came and took him away without saying a word, and I couldn’t even argue with him because I feared the anger rolling off of Mama in huge black waves would come crashing down on me until I couldn’t breathe no more.
She made me go and wash out my mouth and brush my teeth until my gums bled. Ben Nicholas should’ve been filthy, coming straight out of the dirt like that, but I don’t remember cleaning him up either.
In the days right after Mama came home from the hospital, I thought I knew why she’d been so sad and crying for Remy all the time, but now I know I didn’t really understand it at all. Because now that Ben Nicholas is gone, now I really know the sadness she felt, how big it is and how it both fills you and empties you out. After he died, all I wanted to do was die, but all I could do was cry because it was taking too long to happen.
I guess it must’ve been the same with Daddy, not being able to understand, and maybe that’s why she’d made him leave, because although he knew about Mama’s sadness, he didn’t really understand how big it was or how deep inside her it reached.
I think he really only finally did understand it after I died.
I stayed in bed for the next several days, except to go to the bathroom or to eat. Mama and Daddy had stopped going to work, but not because of Ben Nicholas (or any of the other animals), and also not so they could stay with me. They were scared about all the changes happening.
I could hear their voices, low and serious in the kitchen, not fighting anymore. They smelled only of fear then, not anger. And I guess they finally got tired of the endless ringing of the phone because they turned it off.
But they couldn’t turn off the people waiting outside of our house.
A couple times I got up out of bed to peek out the window, and I could see in the faces of the people out there that the world was getting sicker and sicker.
Eventually, with all our curtains closed all the time and no one going in or out through the front door, those people must’ve gotten bored and wandered away. For maybe a day or two it was quiet.
Then they started coming back again, except this time they weren’t shouting no more. All they did was moan sometimes.
I went out into the garden one night after everyone had fallen asleep and I found where Mama had buried Ben Nicholas the second time and I dug him up again. His belly was fat and smooshy like a balloon and he smelled different, less like the sickness he’d had and more like dirt and old garbage and really bad farts. But I didn’t mind this smell, because it wasn’t so bad to me anymore.
This time I didn’t bring him inside for Mama to find and take him away again. Instead, I made him a nice little secret bed behind the shed and covered him up in fresh leaves until I could figure out what to do with him. Poor, little Ben Nicholas. Dead, just like poor little Remy.
So much death.
Why couldn’t there be such a thing as a vampire rabbit? Vampires live forever, don’t they?
The people in front of the house looked just like the workers on the side of the road that time we’d gone to the beach. I watched them for the next couple days, keeping the window closed like Daddy told me to. Keeping the curtains closed and the lights off, too. I watched them bite someone who tried to run, but he fell down and I knew he was dead. No one came to pick him up or take him away. No one came to bury him in the ground, like they did Remy. But they didn’t have to. He finally just got up on his own and walked away.
He was all better. They had cured him.
I knew Ben Nicholas wasn’t going to come back, not like those people outside, because
there are no such things as zombie rabbits
he’d had the wrong disease. We had the wrong disease.
It was too late for me to make Ben Nicholas not dead, but that didn’t mean it was too late to help him. All I needed was
a long, long time
more time. Enough to make him Real. Because that’s how nursery magic works: it takes
forever
a long, long time.
And the right kind of sickness.
I don’t remember Mama and Daddy putting me in the car, the day we tried to leave the island, but I do remember the drive. The windows were rolled up tight because they were afraid that the people would try to reach inside and grab us. The car was full of my dying smell, full of Mama’s sickness and Daddy’s, too, because he was also sick by then. It was still sleeping inside their bones, though. They were talking low and fast in the front seats, not exactly arguing. Even so, their sharp whispers felt like fingernails on my skin. I tried not to listen, but I didn’t have my pillow and couldn’t block my ears.
“We have to turn around, Lyssa!”
“We’ll all die if we don’t get off the island.”
“We’re going to die if we keep trying. We waited too long.”
“You don’t know—”
“They’re checking IDs at the bridge. You know we won’t get through, not now. Not us.”
I wanted to tell them to turn around. I didn’t want to leave Ben Nicholas behind. But I was too tired, too weak. Too sleepy.
I woke up sometime later. They were still talking:
“—one bite. No cure. That’s how it goes.”
No cure. Just like Miss Ronica had said. They were talking about me.
“No, Rame! I won’t believe it. There has to be some way.”
“There isn’t.”
We were surrounded by then. The cars weren’t moving and they were all around us. I watched the walking ones stop a man who was running. He was quickly pushed down as they bit him. He didn’t stay down for long before he got up and started biting someone else. Then that person wasn’t sick no more, neither. I fell asleep again, happy.
“Don’t look, honey,” I heard Mama whisper. I thought she was talking to me, but she was talking to Daddy. He was quietly crying as we drove very slowly across someone’s front yard, pushing people down and rolling over them. It was a very bumpy ride. People crunch when you drive over them.
I must’ve fallen asleep again, because the next thing I knew we were home again, and I was in bed. I was shivering, even though it was baking hot in my room. My mouth was dry. The sickness outside the house was beginning to go away. Now there was more sickness inside than out.
Mama and Daddy were hiding somewhere upstairs. Not yet quite
dead
ready to stop running.
I struggled to lift the blankets off my body, to get up and out of bed. I fought the terrible weariness in my bones, the fire in my muscles, the tears pouring from my eyes.
For you, Ben Nicholas.
I tried to push away the roar inside my head.
I needed more time.
I made sure to find a very slow one. She wasn’t much older than me. I didn’t want her to bite me too much. It hurt real bad at first, and I might’ve screamed when it happened, but then it stopped feeling like anything at all.
Pretty soon, I wasn’t sick no more.
This time, when the door to my room opens, I’m ready for
mama?
the light.
I try to speak, but my tongue and lips don’t work. But it doesn’t matter, because she’s not Mama. It’s not her heartbeat I hear; it’s not her smell. This one is sick with that old disease I remember from before.
Just like the other heartbeat and the other smell, the last time the window broke. He was sick, too, but the one thing he wasn’t was my Daddy.
Does that mean it’s not yet time? The door is open, so—
first things first
I reach out to
cure her
ask her if she’s seen my Mama.
please
But her scream startles me, wakens
hunger
something deep down inside of me that I haven’t felt in
forever
so long, and I’m not expecting it when she pulls her arm away and disappears back into the hallway. The memory of
blood
sadness fills me, but all I can seem to feel is
hunger
empty.
I stare at the open door. It doesn’t close. It must be time to
bite
find Ben Nicholas.
Behind the shed.
And then
cure
No!
First things first.
My swing set chatters at me when I pass it, and the moonlight shines down like everywhere and everything are nothing but a faded photograph. Everything looks so much older than the last time I saw it. The grass is dead and up to my knees, my waist, brushing the insides of my thighs and the tops of my arms.
I don’t feel it.
I don’t smell it. I don’t feel anything.
I can’t even
taste
smell myself anymore.
I notice that the window in the shed is broken. It wasn’t before I died and was cured. The door is broken and hanging open on one hinge.
daddy should fix that
The darkness and spiders inside don’t scare me no more. They won’t bite or sting me.
Mister Sam’s house is dark and the fence Ben Nicholas dug under leans over into our yard. I can see the frame of the chicken coop, bleached white in the moonlight, the wire overgrown with dead ivy.
champion laying hens
Their bones are all scattered now and moss-covered. No feathers left except for a few stuck in the old wire.
Not Real. Nobody loved them enough to be Real. Certainly not Mister Sam. He just left them behind and forgot about them.
How long have I been waiting?
forever
Standing?
hungry
All the houses around me are dark, all except mine. There’s a light inside mine and
food
the rancid sick smell of the sick. They need light to see by, but I don’t. Not anymore. I see with my skin, hear with my skin, taste.
first things first cassie
I have to dig through the old leaves and branches before I find him, my bunny, Ben Nicholas. He is no longer white, but all brown now, like he was dipped in chocolate and not washed off. And he is nothing but skin
meat
and bones. He’s
hungry
hungry.
“ ‘By the time you are Real,’ ” Daddy reads, “ ‘most of your hair has been loved off and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.’ ”
I look up, expecting to see him, but he’s not there. It’s just a memory on a breeze, a memory of a book he once read.
Oh, my Ben Nicholas. You are very, very shabby. Yes, you are.
I peel him gently out of the sticky ground where he has been sleeping all this time. His hair has been worn off, and his eyes have dropped out, but at least his joints aren’t loose. And he’s a little
hungry
flat.
Ben Nicholas. My Ben Nicholas. You need to be cleaned off.
The brown on his fur doesn’t taste anything like chocolate. It tastes like nothing at all.
HUNGRY!!
The shout inside my head jerks me to my feet. I look blindly up at the house again and turn toward it.
FIRST THINGS FIRST CASSIE!
I’m only half finished. I hug Ben Nicholas close to me and tell him, “Shh.” His feet poke stiffly out to the side, but he’s very light and very quiet. He’s a good rabbit.
Soon I’ll fill this aching hunger growing inside of me. But first things first, as Daddy always used to say. First things first. First things first.
I push the gnawing feeling back down into the dark hole where it must have slept all this time, hiding.
Beneath Ben Nicholas’s bed is another board. Beneath the board, a hollow in the ground.
Mama and Daddy will be so proud.
My unfeeling fingers find what they’re looking for.
Stop crying, Mama. Please stop crying.
I reach in. Deep, deep into the midnight hole.
hair loved off
Right where I left him, the night I was cured.
loose in the joints
Ah, yes. His old clothes
very shabby
worn nearly to nothing. But he is here. He’s Real.
eyes dropped out
My dear, sweet little brother Remy. I’m sorry I hated you when you were just beginning.
that’s okay my dear. you didn’t know. but now it’s finally time, time to heal.
Everyone was sick in those days, sick and dying. But soon we’ll all be better.
Want to learn more about Cassie’s story and how she died?
Click here for the companion novel and prequel to the series,
A Dark and Sure Descent: Being the True Account of the Long Island Outbreak.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My undying thanks to the devoted people of Brinestone Press for their keen eye and gentle but firm touch in helping me bring this story to life, for believing every step of the way that I could raise the dead.
To my devoted fans and followers on Twitter, especially the zombie apocalypse junkies. Everything’s better with the #zombie hashtag.
My deepest gratitude goes to my family for their unflagging support. Without them, I would not be able to create worlds with such richness to them.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Saul Tanpepper is the speculative fiction pen name of Kenneth James Howe. A former combat medic and molecular biologist originally from Upstate New York, he now calls Northern California home.
If you are enjoying his ZPOCALYPTO series, then make sure to check out his other titles, including the post-apocalyptic series BUNKER 12 and the international thriller companion series THE FLENSE. All are available in digital and print form.
For more information about the author and his writings, please check out his website: http://www.tanpepperwrites.com and Facebook page.
Prometheus Mode
Episode 05 of ZPOCALYPTO
by Saul Tanpepper
Copyright © 2012, 2021 by Saul Tanpepper
All rights reserved.
Previous edition published Aug 31, 2012 as
Prometheus Wept
Episode 5 of S.W. Tanpepper’s GAMELAND
by Brinestone Press, San Martin, CA 95046
Cover: Deranged Doctor Design
Copyright © 2021
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
LICENSE NOTES
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
http://www.brinestonepress.com
Tanpepper, Saul (2021-08-10). Prometheus Mode (Episode 5 of the Zpocalypto series)
Tanpepper, Saul (2012-08-31). Prometheus Wept (Episode 5 of S.W. Tanpepper’s Gameland series)
Brinestone Press Digital Edition
(rv231103)
For more information about this and other titles by this author:
authorsaultanpepper@gmail.com
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Prometheus Mode (ZPOCALYPTO, #5)
Episode 05
PART ONE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
PART TWO | Mould Me Man
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
