Forest Park: A Zombie Novel by Jamie Marks Read Free Book Online

compassion. The general then turned and walked away. He isn’t going anywhere, he thought.
    “Is it my turn now, Aleksandr? I promise I won’t run as he did, just make it clean,” said the Doctor.
    “Not yet, old friend, I want you to show me your creations in the flesh,” Shapinkov said as he reached out with a steady hand and placed it on the Doctor’s shoulder.
    “But first I need you to show me how this wonder of yours works. We’ll use subject number?” said Shapinkov as he pointed at Vatutan.
    The Doctor slowly rose and wandered over to where Vatutan lay.
    He was still alive, barely --- but that was all they needed.
     
     
     
    LABORATORY FOUR
     
    The Doctor dragged Vatutan by his ankles as Shapinkov held the door open to laboratory four. “We’ll have to suit up,” the Doctor said.
    “It won’t be necessary,” answered Shapinkov.
    The Doctor shrugged, and then continued to drag his apprentice through the door as the bloodied man moaned and groaned. “I don’t see how this solves anything. It won’t replace Georgi.”
    “That doesn’t matter,” answered Shapinkov. “Not now.” Shapinkov surveyed the laboratory with the eyes of a seasoned veteran. “Very nice.”
    The Doctor grunted. Then the Doctor heard it, the gasp of surprise --- the shock and awe, that moment when someone sees it for the first time, and truly understands. Shapinkov was struck dumb, and sent spiraling. No one ever understood until they saw one in the flesh. After that, they understood they were not like us.
    “My God!”
    “I wouldn’t say he has anything to do with it,” said the Doctor under his breath.
    Shapinkov stepped closer as the Doctor looked the other way and let Vatutan’s feet fall to the floor with an uneven thud, clud-clud!
    It stood, shackled and naked. Its skin was a pale, almost blue-gray --- inhuman. Blue-black veins tracked over its body, converging and separating in all directions like a road map drawn by an asylum lunatic, its head cleanly shaven with nick marks that hadn’t healed.
    Replacing the ghoul’s hands were two, large, blue, rubber cups shaped like thimbles that had been roughly stitched to the creature’s forearms. It’s mouth remained trapped behind a transparent mask, screwed into place from both under the jaw line and from the top of the cheek bones --- the screws sat high on their mounts like horns.
    The creature’s eyes looked almost alive, but soulless, leaving Shapinkov with a sense of its naked aggression. A pure to the touch hate that radiated from the creature’s mutilated and discolored face. It had the look of a predator desperate to taste blood. The thing was a monster.
    Another transparent barrier held the remains of the creature’s stomach inside of its body and acted like a macabre picture window, like at a carnival --- a freak show.
    Shapinkov felt sick as he saw its dead heart, which didn’t twitch or shudder. Its lungs, which hung motionless and drooping above its long digestive tract, weaved back and forth inside the ghoul’s gut like an anaconda waiting for a meal.
    “They don’t feel pain like we do, Aleksandr, in fact they don’t feel anything, nor do they understand fear as we know it, but they can get excited or at least agitated. These creatures can withstand almost anything you can throw at them. I could have even removed this specimen’s heart, and it would still be alive, or Undead, in a manner of speaking. However, if you destroy its brain, it ceases to exist. It doesn’t die, Aleksandr, it just ceases to act. They predominantly prey on other human beings and have not much interest in devouring animals; it seems as if they only exist for the hunt --- that’s their primary purpose. Once the hunt is over, and they make a kill, they move on to the next victim. They’re slow when mobile and have a very limited intelligence probably due to brain death.”
    The Doctor sounded as if he was reading from a script. “It was all there in the permafrost,