Dead No More: Patient Zer0

By Dennis Fields

Ever wondered how a zombie apocalypse starts? Meet Dr. Marvin Harris, who while trying to save the life of a family member, inadvertently starts a zombie apocalypse. While rebuilding civilization, he clashes with those who want what he has and will do anything to get it. With the help of old friends and new, he navigates the tragedies that an apocalypse would bring. Join him on his journey that is wrought with twists and turns, humor and heartache, and unforeseen circumstances. Find out how he survives when the dead are Dead No More.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dennis Fields
• Release date: Dec 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463142868

Dennis Fields

Dennis Fields grew up in Detroit MI reading comic books and dreaming of fantastic worlds. It was when he was introduced to the world of mythology that a spark was ignited that lead him of a journey to always strive for a better life today than he had yesterday. A stint in the Marine Corps further fanned his flames of creativity by providing a number stories to be shared.

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DEAD NO MORE: PATIENT ZER0

BY DENNIS FIELDS

BOOK I IN A TRILOGY

DEAD NO MORE: Patient Zer0 Chapter 1

My name is Marvin Harris. According to my father, a man can be measured by three truths; His intent, his actions, and his heart. All too often, we fall sway to those things that are outside the parameters of each. We search for clues as to who we are and wallow in the mire of retrospection.

My dad was a dreamer and he imparted in me the ability to dream. He had faith in mankind despite the hate and callousness witnessed every day. He believed that while there are those who would choose to wallow in the catastrophe that ultimately man would rise to any occasion. He also touted the Yin to every Yang and that balance was imperative.

There is a theory that a dream is a reality that has yet to manifest. Dreams do not become real because there are those who do not try hard enough. No, dreams are manifested by those who forsake all else to make thought real.

The most important thing in my world as a seven-year-old was speed. Not the speed of cars or jets, but of a boy or girl who could run the fastest. In my neighborhood, speed was everything. We lived in a small rural community halfway between Athens and Atlanta Georgia.

Every other summer, my cousin Samantha would stay the summer with us. She hated being called Samantha and preferred Sam. The only one she allowed to call her Samantha was my best friend Taruane. He hated being called Taruane and preferred T. The only one he allowed to call him Taruane was my cousin Sam. Sam and T were a year older than I was. Their eight-year-old legs were just faster than my seven-year-old legs were.

Sam was tall and thin, and very pretty. Whenever she visited, the uptick in male visitors at my house increased. She was a tomboy through and through. She was aggressive in a competitive kind of way. I think she fought and beat almost every boy in the neighborhood at least once.

T was a little taller than Sam and was the only boy she couldn’t beat in a fight. He was naturally more muscular than most boys in that we knew. He was a wisecracking, salt of the earth kind of guy.

When we raced, the races always took place in the middle of the street, and that was the one place which I was not allowed to be. Whenever I was caught in the street, my Ma would embarrass me in front of everyone.

Marvin, you get your little narrow behind out of the street! she would yell. If I have to tell you again, it’ll be with a switch!

The laughter would erupt and my confidence and self-respect would wither. It seems that every summer since I was four; there would be a reminder that I was inadequate. However, the day I turned eight, my whole world would change. This year, Sam and her mom drove down during winter break. It was my second birthdate, being a leap year baby.

My dad was rarely home because his work kept him away. I used to tell everyone he was a spy on secret missions. He made a living that kept us in an upper-middle-class home. Every chance he got, my dad would reinforce that I am only limited by my imagination.

On the morning of my eighth birthday, some of the neighborhood guys showed up with T to challenge Sam. It was unusually warm this winter and kids were out playing. They all lined up in the street, while I stood on the sidewalk hidden by the parked cars.

Sam yelled, Go! We all took off. From my house to Mr. Miller’s house was the chosen route. It was about 100 yards.

Now, what I am about to describe is going to sound crazy. Have you ever felt like you have stepped outside of your body and were able to see events unfolding before you? I could actually see the race unfold before me.

Sam took an early lead. The other boys quickly fell behind. The first boy tripped and fell skinning his chin on the asphalt. The second just stopped as he grabbed his side in agony. T, he was determined to catch Sam, but she would not relent.

The race for second was between T and me. The burning in my lungs and the pain in my legs grew with each beat of my heart. I was about to give up and give in, but then, something happened. The burning sensation in my legs, the pain in my mind faded as an energy I’ve never felt before coursed through my body.

The pain and agony were replaced with a smile and elation. I outpaced T and ran as fast as I could. I caught up with Sam and our eyes met as I made it to Mr. Miller’s house first. I actually won the race. My first time ever.

Everyone was attempting to catch his or her breath as they stumbled in the street. My legs felt heavy but good as the adrenaline wore off. Sam smiled as she looked at me, as if she were so proud. I shook my head to wave off her acknowledgment. I wasn’t ready for the teasing of me running on the sidewalk while they raced in the street.

While we were breathing heavy, a black sedan pulled up in front of my house. Some men in dark suits with earpieces got out and went into the house with guns drawn. Sam, T and I hurried back to the house.

Inside, you could hear a commotion. They were ransacking the house. They flipped over the table with my cake. They destroyed the wrapped gifts looking for something. They carried out all types of boxes and my dad’s computer. It seems that my dad was the project manager and programmer at a secret government installation called ARC: America’s Rebuilding of Communities. Somehow, he locked down the facility and was the only one capable of unlocking it.

I later found out that ARC was built to withstand chemical, biological and nuclear warfare. It was supposed to be the countries failsafe to the end of the world. My dad had yet to transfer control of the artificial intelligence and security protocols over to government officials. There was no way inside unless you knew the password.

My mom, my aunt, my cousin and I were taken into custody and continuously questioned. They were trying to ascertain whether or not my father had shared the codes with us. After three days of questioning, we were released.

The government tried for months to compromise the facility. They tried saws, drilling, explosives, acids, and lasers. Try as they might, there was nothing that could penetrate the security. Some of the greatest minds in the world attempted to access the facility, but they all failed.

Because this project was responsible for the employment of 80 percent of the town when it shut down my mom and I became instant social pariahs. It seems that builders, programmers, construction workers, etc. were shuttled to the site in buses with blacked out windows to perform their work and then returned to their pickup sites at the end of their shifts. There were only a handful of people who knew its exact whereabouts.

The government seized our house, bank accounts, insurance settlements as well as everything else. Mom and I were left destitute. My dad was charged with treason. The majority of the town shut down. Very few of the businesses remained. Most of the workers got jobs at the quarry a few counties over. The town was little more than a ghost town.

My dad’s friend, Charles Williams was one of the unfortunate ones. My dad got him a posh job as a shift manager on the project. Charles was unskilled and when the project was shuttered, he got a job with the county doing road maintenance, which meant digging ditches for runoff water.

Charles was a short, stocky man who looked a lot older than he was due to drinking. He was balding and had cracked, leathery skin. His hands were rough and he had yet to acclimate to having to now do physical labor.

We received one more visit from the government. It was at this time that we were informed that my dad was not missing, but was in fact dead. He died of congenital heart failure. Moreover, when he died, he took all of his secrets with him. The government was desperate for information that we just didn’t have.

When we lost everything, and with this new revelation, my mom just kind of checked out. There would be times when she was completely unresponsive. Mom and I went from house to house looking for a place to stay. We were about to head North to Detroit to stay with her younger sister, Sam’s mom when Charles made her an offer.

He asked her to marry him. Charles had always had a thing for my mother. Three months later the two were married. My mom continued to check in and out. Which essentially meant I was left alone with Charles.

Charles was a bitter man. He was bitter and childish. He truly believed that the sins of the father should be visited upon the son. He blamed me for losing his job, as well as my dad marrying my mom. My life became a living hell. I was bullied at school and I was bullied at home.

One day while on my way home from school, when I was about to get the crap kicked out of me again for the umpteenth time, I heard a voice from outside the crowd of fist and feet pummeling me. It was T.

I think you better let my boy up, said T. If you don’t one of you will take his place!

Who the hell do you think you are? said one of the boys. You’re nothing but a delinquent!

Yep! said T. Delinquent enough to kick your ass!

And with that, T kicked him in the stomach. The boy doubled over and fell to the ground. The boys helped up their friend and they all ran.

T had as much right as anyone to be angry. When the project closed down, his dad abandoned his family. T took a job running numbers and began running with a tough crowd. However, through it all, he never stopped being my friend. My best friend.

Man, you gotta stop lettin’ those guys kick your ass, he said. I mean stand up for yourself. This is almost becomin’ a daily occurrence. It’s embarrassing.

That’s easier said than done, I said. Especially when there is five of them and one of me!

Iunno! If you could just figure out a way to hurt their fists more with your face! T said as he laughed. You’ll be alright.

Very funny, I said. Hey! Do you mind if I crash at your place? It is payday and I’m sure Charles is drinking away part of his pay envelope.

Today might not be the best time, he said. My mom is meeting with the guy she hired to find my dad.

Dude, I’m sorry! I said. For everything!

It’s crazy that people are blaming you and your ma because your dad died! he said. The place he worked was a secret and it stayed that way. Even if it did cost the government millions upon millions. Hell, I even heard they used to blindfold the employees as they bused them to and from work.

I walked home and found the house dark. Charles’ house was smaller than ours and seemed even smaller when he was berating me or kicking the crap out of me, as there was nowhere to retreat. As soon as I walked through the door, he started in on me. He slurred his words and I knew he was drunk.

Where da hell you been? yelled Charles. You was wit dat no count boy who run da numbers? Yo momma done tol ya ta stay away from im, didn’t she?

I got jumped again, I explained. T was there to help.

He stood there in the dark. I could hear him breathing hard like he had just climbed a flight of stairs. He was mumbling something about me being just like my dad. He then mentioned something about hate. His eyes seemed to glow red as the moonlight caught them from the window.

Youse a pansy! he yelled. Um shamed dat people think you ma son! All you do is read dem damn books. Like yo asshole daddy!

My dad wasn’t an asshole! I uncharacteristically yelled back. He was a great man and an even better father!

Iffen he was so damned great, where da hell is he? he slurred. Oh yeah, dats right he died to get away from your sissy ass!

I’m not a sissy! I shouted. One day, I’ll be rich and famous and I’ll take my mom out of here!

Da hell you say, he said as he leaped across the room and pushed me to the floor. You gon take my woman from me? Like he did?!?!

He began to pummel me. I was adept at covering up due to all of the bullying around town. Between that and his drunkenness, I was able to avoid any real connections. But that didn’t dissuade him from swinging. This went on until he heard my ma on the porch. He quickly got up and stumbled to the door.

When she entered the house, he began to attempt to kiss her. She avoided him and commented about him smelling of booze. She persuaded him to take a hot bath and she promised to cook him something. She asked me how my day was and went into the kitchen. It was as if she was on autopilot.

Such was my so-called life. As the years passed, T began to move up in the numbers organization. He became something of a real hustler. When T and Sam were 14, Sam no longer wanted to visit us. She instead extended an invitation to T and me to visit her. We caught the bus to Detroit.

It was kind of odd that Sam just decided she didn’t want to come back to visit. It was what she didn’t say that led me to believe that Charles was the reason. She assured both T and I that he never touched her. She just didn’t want to give him the chance. She said he would leer, lick his lips and make off-handed comments like What a fine woman she was turnin inta. It was this year that Sam became consumed with all things Japan.

It was also this year that I realized that Sam and T were sweet on one another. Over the next four years, the three of us tried our hand at martial arts. Sam had actual lessons, whereas T would learn what he could from the local YMCA and try as he might to teach me. I couldn’t attend myself due to my pariah status. I was a horrible student for anything physical. I knew my strengths lied in academics.

The two of them attempted to make their long distance love a reality. Nevertheless, they were like cats and dogs or oil and vinegar. I mean they would be fine until it was time for us to return home and then a big fight would ensue, with me caught in the middle.

No matter how hard they tried, theirs was a love not to last. When they turned 18 and Sam graduated from high school, she told us she was going to spend a year in Japan to study martial arts with a master. Before she departed, she and T were inseparable. But when it was time to go, they had another of their infamous fights. She told him she never wanted to see him again. When we returned home, T enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and I was accepted to the University of Georgia having graduated from high school a year early.

The next four years went by very quickly. T and I wrote to each other often. I think I received a total of eight letters from Sam. Once on each of our birthdays. I kept her informed on T’s activities, but she never asked about or commented on him in her letters.

It seems that T was becoming a regular G.I. Joe. He was indoctrinated into a program to train with Army Rangers and Navy Seals. He was traveling the world doing God knows what for his country. T had truly left his questionable past behind. I was so proud of him.

After I completed my undergrad work, I was accepted as a Ph.D. candidate in the genetics program. My dad’s death still haunted me and it is the reason I wanted to study genetics. At the urging of one of my professors, I also completed medical school and became a resident at Cook County Hospital with a specialization in research.

While researching tissue regeneration, I stumbled upon a process to reverse the effects of degenerative brain maladies. After months of trial and error, I was able to extend the applications to the central nervous system and the treatment was beginning to show very promising theoretical results on physiology as well.

I was being sought after to consult on a myriad of medical issues. There was a child who almost drowned, a state senator who suffered from a pharmaceutical accident and a farmer who volunteered for early human testing due to being kicked in the head by a horse. While on a hospital team building exercise on an Army base, I was asked to consult on a soldier who went into anaphylaxis shock due to multiple bee stings. There was a 100% recovery rate for each patient.

My career slowly but surely began to take over my life. I had to force myself to visit my Ma and continue my martial arts training. I wanted so much to shock T when he returned home with how far I had progressed. Imagine my surprise when a television station wanted to interview me because of the state senator’s recovery. His people spun a drug overdose into an adverse reaction with two medications. The public will never find out that the medications in question were cocaine and alcohol.

Thus began my flirtation with celebrity. The hospital assigned me a publicist and increased my funding for research. The drug companies began to court me aggressively: Symposiums in lavish locales, gifts of sports cars, use of villas all around the world and the offers of cash.

I spoke at length with my Ma about how to proceed. I wanted her away from Charles, but she stated he was insistent that he could take care of his wife himself. I accepted a deal from one of the larger pharmaceutical companies with some very pointed clauses. I would be a 70% stakeholder of my process but would supply it on a case-by-case basis to ensure that it could not be mass-produced or co-opted.

I was still in negotiations about how to turn over my process when the hospital administrators informed me that I would be receiving an award for my accomplishments in medicine. The ceremony was to take place in a week’s time. Ma showed up without Charles.

DEAD NO MORE: Patient Zer0 Chapter 2

I was still in negotiations about how to turn over my process when the hospital administrators informed me that I would be receiving an award for my accomplishments in medicine. The ceremony was to take place in a week’s time. Ma showed up without Charles.

It is funny the things you remember from your childhood. Here I am being honored along with Dr. E. D. Grey in absentia in the field of genetics, and as the speaker is spouting platitudes at the podium about me, all I can think about are the words of my drunk of a stepfather who was had a sixth-grade education. He was such an asshole. However, my mind continued to drift back to a day like so many others, when a drunken Charles was berating me.

Ya ain't shit! And ya ain't gone never be shit! he said with a snide scowl on his face.

I could smell the liquor on his breath from where I stood. It seems like we had this discussion over and over again when he got drunk.

Readin' dem damned books and day-dreamin' ain't gone do shit for ya! Ya gone end up diggin' ditches just like me! he yelled.

I was only eight, but I had a firm grasp not only on reality but on MY reality.

You've never had a dream? I asked. You've never wanted more for yourself?

Ya sassin' me boy? he snapped as he slapped me with the back of his hand.

No sir! I quickly replied as I caught my face and backed away.

Da home and the livin' I make fo’ yo' ungrateful ass ain't good ‘nough for ya? he screamed as he stalked me.

It’s not that, sir! I was just curious if you ever wanted to do anything else? What were your dreams? I asked while backing up.

He stopped. You could actually see the vein in his forehead throb as he thought about my query. He drunkenly stumbled across the room and fell into his ratty old recliner. He sat in the chair and placed his head in his hands.

Ya think I wanted ta dig dem damned ditches, marry a woman past her prime and raise anudda man's kid? I shoulda been first! She shoulda picked me! he quietly sighed.

It was as if he was talking to a peer. You could hear the lamentation in his voice.

I had dreams. But dey ain't comin’ true, so stop wastin' yo damned time wit dem damned books! he said as he renewed his point.

My stepfather was a drunk. He was a conniving, violent drunk. He verbally abused me and kicked the crap out of me whenever my mom wasn't around. He hated the fact that my dad married my mom and took it out on me every chance he got. I think I reminded him too much of my dad. He and my dad were friends. They both loved my mom. She chose my dad and they fell in love and got married.

When my dad died, it broke something in my mom. That, among other reasons, was the driving factor that caused me to choose the field of genetics. I not only wanted to understand why my dad was taken from me, but I wanted to prevent it from happening to another kid. When he died, my mom was devastated. I think a little part of her died with him that day.

The presenter continued: We're here to honor Dr. Marvin Harris for his outstanding achievements in the field of genetics and curative proteins. His approach has defied a number of degenerative maladies and ailments, both mental and physical. It is believed that they will lead to cures for diseases such as HIV, Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, Muscular Dystrophy and a host of other medical evils that have beset mankind. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Dr. Marvin Harris.

As I walked to the podium, I recounted the people and the work that got me here. Sam, T, my Ma and dad, and even Charles to a certain extent. This was my attempt to make my family proud and to prove Charles wrong. I locked eyes with my Ma and all was right with the world.

Thank you, Dr. Bellows. One little enzyme artificially added to a protein was the impetus for the reversal of Alzheimer's disease. Through a concerted effort, we were able to extend its applications to schizophrenia and other mind-altering ailments. We have since been able to suspend the functions of all the vital organs; the heart, the liver, the lungs, etc. without inducing death or even a coma-like state. With this procedure, we are able to repair the organs and rely less on transplants. We are able to place patients in a waking stasis or as near to death as possible while maintaining complete control over bodily functions and organs. This has allowed the medical community to strive light years ahead in the treatment of their patients. During this stasis, operations and consultations can take with a conscious patient. We will no longer be like children feeling around in the dark to cure what ails you. We will now take control, hopefully over life and death. Thank you all very much.

But it was our hubris; MY hubris that brought on the end of mankind. Just like Icarus, I flew too close to the sun. I reached too far. And all of mankind is paying the price. And to think that it all began with an abusive, drunk of a stepfather with a sixth-grade education.

Even though I despised my stepfather as a man, I never truly wished him any harm. I often thought to myself that his drinking would be the death of him. How ironic, he was only two blocks from home when a drunk driver broadsided his car. The police said