Alien Zombie Plague

Chapter 1

A brilliant scientific researcher, Li Xiang never took time off.  His legendary commitment to the CCP drew raves from his superiors.  The Chinese Communist Party expected loyalty and untiring work from all its members.  But this night, Li was tired.  He’d been toiling for weeks on an intractable problem with no success.  The digital clock on the wall read 10:37 PM.  Li needed a brief break.

He carefully stored his papers and locked the drawer, then secured his computer.  Feeling lightheaded when he stood, he swayed and grabbed for the desk.  Steadying himself, he left the room and ventured outside.

The nanotechnology research laboratory had been built at the outer reaches of the city.  Here, in these rare opportunities, Li could see the night sky not completely obscured by city lights or the constant swarm of electrified flying vehicles maneuvering for air space in the city center.  Tonight, even a few stars shone through.  He took a deep breath, coughed, and cursed.  The city’s pollution reached this far and beyond.

Li found a nearby bench and slumped down.  He placed his head between his knees and rested.  The rumble of trucks and the hum of vehicles never stopped.  Their noise was a constant reminder of the vast population of China and the industriousness of its people.  In fact, he spotted several late-working researchers in their white lab coats hurrying from one building to another.  This facility never shut down, as many scientists kept strange hours searching for the right combination of nanotech coupled with artificial intelligence.

A different sound caught Li’s attention.  He straightened and looked around.  Then up.  A shimmering object zipped across his vision.  He blinked to refresh his eyes.  It moved so fast!

Motion peripherally to the left caught his attention.  There it was again.  It appeared close to the ground.  The next instant it headed skyward faster than anything Li had ever seen.  He followed its trajectory with his mouth wide open.  At its zenith, it executed an impossible ninety degree turn to rocket across the arc of the earth once more.  All this time, Li heard a faint buzzing sound aside from the other city noises.  It made no sense to attribute it to the object, but the hum seemed to follow it.

Over the past several years, Li had heard of an increase in sightings of airborne phenomena that no one could explain.  Authorities denounced them as ravings of deluded madmen.  Li wasn’t so sure.  He remembered hearing something as a child that spoke of an alien presence ruling the earth.  Thinking about it now, that would mean they were around just before he was born forty years ago.  Since then, they’d been forgotten or ignored by almost everyone until these unexplained aircraft began recently appearing in the sky.

Aliens walking around the land?  The idea was so foreign to Li’s education or worldview that he couldn’t mentally grasp it.  What else had he heard when very young?  It came to him like the proverbial light bulb popping on in his mind.  Giant beings.  Huge men—like mythic characters of old—who had great strength and prowess.  And who somehow worked alongside the alien gods.  Li shook his head.  Maybe he’d dreamed it all.

The object blinked out of sight.  The scientist rose, feeling every bit his four decades of life.  A brief smile crossed his lips as he thought wryly how foolish it was to seriously consider that inhabitants from another planet, solar system, or galaxy might come to this earth, let alone even existed.  The leaders of this great country were correct.  Someone thinking like that probably was touched in the head.

He took a step toward the research building.  In a nearby open, grassy field, the space began to shimmer.  Li quickly glanced around.  Oddly, there was no one else in the vicinity.  It was as though all his co-workers had vacated the grounds.

The brightness of the flickering lights grew in intensity.  Li shielded his eyes.  The next instant, the object materialized.

He’d seen pictures.  Who hadn’t?  Nobody believed in them, but they’d circulated nonetheless.  As a result, he couldn’t deny the thing appearing not fifty yards away.  Circular, saucer-like, with an odd silvery sheen upon its surface.  Li had no doubt.  It was a classic UFO despite the government claiming Unidentified Flying Objects didn’t exist.  Seeing this thing in front of him, according to party officials, meant that he’d probably tipped over the edge of sanity.  Maybe it was a function of too many hours in the lab and too few resting his weary brain.

He had to find out.  Was he crazy?  Hallucinating?  Or was this real?  He approached the spaceship.

As he came nearer, Li noticed that it didn’t project a heat signature of any kind.  After all its maneuvers in the night skies, he would have thought it might retain some frictional warmth.  Neither did it make any sound.  Maybe he’d heard the earlier buzzing in his head.  Again, Li thought perhaps it might emit a mechanical ticking, like a car that’s been running and stops.

Thinking he must be out of his mind to get this close, he reached out a hand to touch the ship.  Curious, he circled its entirety.  It had no apparent seams for entry openings.  The random thought came that it was too bad he’d never married.  He’d always been too involved in work and shy with the girls.  Still, how interesting a conversation he might have, if he had a wife, regarding this night’s adventures!  A feeling of regret came over him.  Because of his lonely pursuits, he had no one to share anything with.  He couldn’t remember if he’d ever ruminated about such personal feelings.  Funny how the mind worked making strange connections.

Li circled the craft three times over a span of forty-five minutes.  He had work to do but was reluctant to simply walk away.  Yet, nothing had happened, and he didn’t want to spend any more time in a useless pursuit.  With a sigh, he looked over the UFO once more and turned to go.  In that exact moment, a doorway materialized in the smooth surface.

Jumping back, Li watched in unblinking fear as a ramp extended to the ground.  His lightheadedness returned.  He realized he hadn’t taken any breaths in his anxiety.  Then, it got worse.

To his utter astonishment, his legs began working on their own volition.  He walked toward the ramp and couldn’t consciously stop.  “Ting!  Ting!”  (Stop!  Stop!).  But his feet kept walking; his legs didn’t heed his admonition, and he started up the ramp.

He thought, This is not a good idea.

Li’s heart pounded.  He felt faint.  What would happen if he passed out right in the entryway?

He took his next step into a dark cavern.  The door shut behind him.  He whirled, suddenly able to move on his own.  Pitch black inside, he pounded on the walls.

Without awareness of any external motion, the floor receded, and Li found himself floating—weightless.  Nausea rose up within him.  Oh, please.  No!

Through some miracle, he didn’t retch.  His stomach quieted.

When he took stock a little later, he grasped that his body had actually settled into this buoyant state, and he felt . . . comfortable.  Had he been drugged?  With a mental shrug, he relaxed even more.  Might as well enjoy it.

He did . . . for another thirty seconds.  Until gravity returned.  He thumped down hard, his elbow striking the metal floor.

As lights came on, he gaped at the giant being that appeared before him.

 

Chapter 2

The near equatorial Liberian sun beat down on the small village where Warren Gatsby and his wife, Melody, worked with the medical team he’d brought through the auspices of the World Health Organization.  The Gatsby Foundation funded more than half of WHO’s annual budget.  That bought access and the unprecedented means to essentially dictate WHO’s projects.

Gatsby’s passion was vaccines.  For years he’d brought numerous vaccines to Africa and Asia, Third World countries where the poorest of the poor resided.  He’d been on the cutting edge of vaccinating young girls against HPV, one of the most common viruses present in sexually transmitted diseases.  His assumption was that kids would have sex, which led to multiple partners.  This caused high birth rates and many viral diseases.  Gatsby believed that through his vaccines mortality rates would decrease, and the poor would have fewer children—all in the interest of reducing earth’s population—the ultimate passion driving his efforts.

In recent years, a series of regional pandemics had raised Gatsby’s public profile in the area of vaccine development.  His foundation stepped into the middle of the confusion of large pharmaceutical companies vying for leadership in the vaccine marketplace and became the clearinghouse for approval and distribution.  The Gatsby Foundation funded many such efforts.  In turn, it received significant donations from the chosen corporations, plus ones that hoped to be selected.  It was all very lucrative, and caused Warren Gatsby to be celebrated as the most prominent philanthropist in the world.  It was one more notch in his belt after having made billions as head of the premier technology company on the planet until his retirement.

Gatsby joined Melody in one of the two medical tents where the doctors vaccinated the line of villagers that streamed into the street.  WHO had come to town and announced that everyone would be inoculated against the latest flu strain, which originated in Australia among the kangaroo population.  In recent years, more and varied types of animal infections were migrating to humans and causing numerous problems in widespread areas.  The global economy compounded the issue as people traveled far and wide easily and caused diseases to spread.

“Warren, glad you’re back.”  Melody had no direct medical training but assisted the professionals however needed.  She often acted as pseudo-nurse when actual nurses took breaks.  “The villagers are telling us we’re not a moment too early in administering this.  They speak of another village several hours away that wasn’t so lucky.”

Gatsby nodded.  “If it wasn’t for us and our work, the world would be in far worse shape.”  He lowered his voice so that only she could hear.  “Have you had any conversations with the pregnant women?”

Melody drew him aside.  “They are hopeful this vaccine will protect them and their children.”

“They will believe so,” he said, purposely oblique in his response.

“We will be seen as their saviors for now.”  A strange glint entered her eyes.  “Once we’ve left and time has passed…” she shrugged, “they won’t connect our efforts to their tragedies.”

“It is good that benevolence has many forms.”  He gave his wife a quick hug.

“Thank the gods they put us together having the same mind for compassion.”

 

***

 

Half a year later, every child born from the time their mothers received the inoculation died, whether in the womb or outside it.  The scourge appeared to be related to contamination in the water supply.  At least, that’s what the WHO investigation indicated.

When Warren and Melody Gatsby heard the news, they were already on their next project.  They marked down the success as one more where money and access had again triumphed.

 

Chapter 3

Although far from the public eye, Nimrod had watched world events tumble along in their chaotic manner, knowing that when the time was right, he would act.  He and his kind had been out of favor for forty years.  Through an almost universal news blackout since the Watchers had ruled the world, when Nimrod and the Nephilim acted as their enforcers, very few people remembered that era.  The second and third generations were ignorant, because history was forgotten, having disappeared down the memory hole of time.  It made Nimrod think of a ripe peach.  It smelled delicious at the right time to partake of it.  This was that moment for him to reinsert himself back into world affairs.

Since the ignominious defeat of the Watchers resulting in Nimrod’s self-imposed banishment, he had reflected deeply.  During these years of waiting, his bitterness had grown at the loss of his brother, Lamech, at the hand of Arkay-ena, the greatest of the Watchers, before his demise.  Arkay-ena was gone, so Nimrod could take no revenge on him.  However, the Watchers, the bene Elohim of old, remained plentiful and had their own aspirations.  Nimrod hoped to capitalize on that.

Nimrod’s hatred didn’t end with despising the sons of God.  Humans, over which he had exerted much influence, had moved forward and forgotten their overseers.  They’d gotten well past their fear of Nimrod and his kind.  He realized they had challenges in the civilization they’d shaped, but life was too easy for them.  They had comfort and relationships, along with plenty of food and adequate housing.  He had none of these things, and it grated.

His only companionship, if it could be called that, was from the Listeners.  They had arisen from the deaths of the Nephilim of old when the flood destroyed the earth.  The spirits of these long-forgotten giants now roamed throughout the world, always seeking a body to inhabit.  Yet, they also performed the function for which they were named.  They listened to what humans had to say and reported back up the chain of command in the spiritual hierarchy.  The news and information they brought was of vital importance to the Watchers.  Nimrod had always been in this loop.  In his present isolation, they made a good substitute for what humans used to communicate—namely internet, television, and radio.  These distant cousins of Nimrod’s served that same purpose more than adequately, with much more insight.  But to call these buzzing, annoying creatures friends, or even companions, stretched the definition of their relationship too far.  He planned to change that.

Restless today, Nimrod wandered through the caverns in which he’d made his home in the remote mountains of Tibet.  Aside from the occasional Sherpa, no humans ventured to this rugged wilderness of ice and snow.  Cold didn’t bother Nimrod, so that was no concern.  But he’d grown tired of the endless machinations and schemes he’d constantly entertained in his own mind.  He wanted action.

Once more he entered the grotto with the ancient manuscripts.  He’d recovered these from a lost trove in Babylon.  They were his hope for vengeance.  The Watchers of old and their Nephilim offspring had recorded the wisdom of heaven in antediluvian days.  These documents had been preserved through a careful, archival process.  If a solution existed for the shape of his retribution, it would come from these writings.

Nimrod had made it a practice to spend several hours every day perusing the texts.  Over the years he had read them many times.  He found them fascinating, but elusive.  Surely, they held the secret to his future.

He prayed to no god.  His father, Arkay-ena, had been the greatest of the gods.  He was dead, and in any case, Nimrod had never thought him worthy of prayer.  Because of his parentage, Nimrod couldn’t—and certainly wouldn’t if he had the means—pray to Yahweh, God Most High.  That was an impossibility.  Thus, his prayers, if they could be described as such, could only ring in his own ears.  He was alone and could only depend upon himself.

Having made an entreaty for enlightenment, he sat with a scroll open before him.  It described pharmaceutical mysteries the Watchers had brought to earth.  The ancient language posed no problem.  It flowed fluently past his lips.

He read a sentence and paused halfway in the middle of the next.  What had that said?  Revelation flooded his mind.  He leaned back with eyes wide, staring at the dry cave wall—the perfect environment for keeping primordial materials such as these.

A grim smile crossed his lips.  He could use this.  It would take much thought and planning, but it provided the path that would enable him to deal harshly with humans as he had long ached to do.

It might also give him the means to disrupt the natural order so as to rule in place of the Watchers.  If this discovery led to his accomplishing these two objectives, today would be a profitable one indeed.