Chapter 2: Those Left Behind VII

A little later Cindy arrived, not expecting so many people in the same room.

—What's going on? —She asked. Cindy took a seat on the couch that had been brought into the room and waited to find out what she had been called in for.

—Cindy... Chelsea told me that you might know something about the whereabouts of my friends. Is that true? About a group of three people who came to Vallimorth as tourists.. —Ashley sat down next to Milford who grimaced trying to remember.

—Ah! Yes... there was this rather pretty girl... Kelly. We immediately clicked. I remember we conducted some research on... some rumors. Apparently someone in town called Kelly and her other friends... they invited them to Vallimorth because they supposedly had evidence that something very bad was happening in Vallimorth. Kelly shared a lot of information with me and I also made my own findings, after all I am the daughter of Donovan Milford, one of the most powerful men in town. It's stupid, isn't it?

—And what exactly did you find? Considering that you are a woman of great lineage and contacts —Nikolai expressed doubt.

—Supposedly in this city human experiments were conducted on people with "no future", usually homeless people or orphans, people for whom no one was going to mourn or complain. Some friends and I came to the mall to talk about our findings... unfortunately all of them died. From what we managed to discuss before the zombies ruined everything, there was an investigation going on to find out what lies beyond death. A friend of mine found information explaining that subjects were being induced into clinical death to analyze the functioning of the brain in its terminal stage. Apparently something went wrong because the people who returned had tendencies to cannibalism and their behavior was no longer the same, so they were violent individuals who were discarded.

—This is new. Usually most of the brain processes shut down... which leads me to believe that, if what you say is true, people who came back from clinical death, that is, who went through resuscitation, may not have come back with all their faculties at one hundred percent. It is known that some people who are revived lose some of their cognition and are not the same... this is due to damage to the brain —George was becoming more and more confused by what he was hearing.

—Could they have experimented with a virus? —Lilly commented uneasily. —We've seen what the bites do... we saw it with Jimmy. Something is definitely being transmitted from the zombie to the person... Could it be that in these resuscitation experiments... some kind of virus was used? That they have manipulated some variant and, unfortunately it could not be contained. We know that we are all infected... dying makes us come back as zombies. So we could confirm that what Cindy says is true? Was this what Vallimorth was hiding?

—It seems to be so —Jason nodded.

—If what Cindy says is true, then we're onto something very big. We don't know who might be behind this... —Nikolai seemed to be starting to distrust people outside his inner circle.

—We're all screwed either way. We don't know what we have in our bodies and there is no way to know any further. We'd better start adapting to this and do our best to survive. I have a sneaking suspicion that... everybody is screwed. We didn't get bitten by a fucking zombie but we're infected. If this shit is in the air... —Cindy was silent trying to process her thoughts.

—It means that whatever's bringing us back is on a microscopic level... which is consistent with almost any virus or bacteria. Maybe we're going to turn soon or the virus or whatever incubates in our bodies, lies dormant without doing anything to us... but it activates in the presence of bites or when we die, so it has control of our brain functions. —George was beginning to think there was something really wrong with the zombies and their origin.

—There are so many microbes that are capable enough to multiply and make changes in organisms... not to mention parasites and viruses. We should probably investigate this whole thing thoroughly... the more answers we have, the more likely we are to fight it. —Lilly touched her chest in dismay. —And maybe we'll find something that will stop the dead from coming back to life.

—What if it's not a virus or a microorganism? —Megan suggested.

—Then we are talking about a mutation in nature... we are talking about something very serious for humans to stop dying and to walk as non-thinking entities. If somehow all our organisms entered this phase at the same time, if all our organisms agreed to stop dying at the exact moment... What will become of humanity then? I fear for pregnant women and for people who are going to have children... we don't know if this shit we have in our bodies makes us sterile or can kill the fetus, forcing it to eat the inside of its mother.

—Oh my God... —Megan was terrified at the idea, so much so that she left the room.

—We'll find out until we find a pregnant woman or hear of someone who gave birth —Lilly spoke up, beginning to yawn. —This talk is entertaining, but my body needs rest. If you'll excuse me... I'm going to retire.

And so Lilly left the conversation, quite tired.

—Anyway... Jason, I think it's time for us to go investigate those warehouses and the Pink Flamingo Plaza offices. I'm very curious about what we might find, maybe we'll have a big riot... —Nikolai changed the conversation as he was getting stressed.

Jason agreed.

It was time to go out again.