Fiction: "Clever" by Kenneth Quinnell

I'm a mediocre person with aspirations towards greatness.  I'm above average, but average isn't that great.  I could accomplish great things, but I won't.  I could do great things, but I don't.  I do good enough that people always tell me I do great things.  But they've always been wrong.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday is when I saved the world.

You're welcome.

I've always been a smart guy.  A clever guy.  The problem is that nobody likes clever guys.  Most people hate us.  They think we're arrogant and smarmy and other words that are less friendly.  And they've got a bit of a point.  I was always arrogant.  Not in an aggressive way, but in the way where I always knew the answer to the question.  I always took charge when someone needed to take charge.  I rarely made the big mistakes and when I did, I always knew exactly what to do to fix them and make things better.

People hate you for that kind of thing.

Part of it is jealousy.  Part of it is feelings of inadequacy.  Part of it is fear.  Whatever it is, they always seem to be rubbed the wrong way by me.  I never really developed too many close friends.  And I was almost always a better friend to them than they were to me.  Everyone else always had this casual ease with which they made friends and had fun and interacted with each other.  I never had that. 

I soon figured out that people didn't like me because I was too clever.  That stung.  But I wasn't going to give anyone the satisfaction of knowing it and I wasn't going to dumb myself down.  So I just didn't make too many friends.

And sooner or later, every friend I had abandoned me.  It was always something that they found surprisingly easy to do.  I can't say as I didn't make it easy for them, since I was never the type to try to force someone to hang out with me who didn't want to.  If they wanted to go, let them go.  Good riddance.

So then it becomes easier not to make new friends.  If they all abandon you in the end, anyway, why try.  If they all become so easily offended, why offend them.

It's easy to offend people when you are clever.  You make a comment they don't understand.  You make a cultural reference they don't know.  You point out that they have some basic fact wrong.  You remember things a little better than they do.  You know things they never knew.

And dating wasn't much easier.  The same problem that existed with friends existed with lovers.  Finding lovers was never too hard.  Keeping lovers was never too hard.  When you are clever out of bed, you are clever in bed.  But connecting to those same lovers on a level out of bed that keeps them around once the sex loses its newness is much harder.  It's where that cleverness loses its handiness.

And to be honest, who wants a lover or a friend who isn't clever, who doesn't have a thirst for knowledge and experience, who doesn't want to actually live life and not just survive it.

Certainly not me.

But all that time alone can give you the freedom to learn about all kinds of things.  Including how to save the world.

Oh yeah, I was telling you about how I saved the world yesterday.

That's a funny story.  Not funny like a joke, but funny like something that isn't funny at all.

But who gets to save the world?  I mean, unless you wear tights and work for Stan Lee, it's not something that comes up a whole lot.  Or ever.

And I only was able to save the world because I'm clever.

But, boy do I have a story for you.  It'll be something you can write home about.

And nobody ever tells you a story you can write home about.

So how does one go about saving the world?  It's not something you really have much coursework in.  It's not something that there's an instruction manual for.  Oh, sure, you can read a lot of books, watch a lot of movies, play a bunch of video games.  But despite what the average geek will tell you, saving the real world is not something you can prepare for by leveling up and finding another health pack.

No, this is something you kinda have to figure out on the fly.

But I sense that you are wondering now what exactly it was I saved the world from.  Good question, astute reader.

Well, what could one save the world from?  Let's take a look at the options...

Maybe there was a giant asteroid that was going to hit the earth and I was the first to spot it with my little backyard telescope.  I told someone about it and they sent up Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck and they blew it up and saved the day. 

Nope, that wasn't it.

More realistically, maybe it was some new virus, that if it made the leap over from the monkey world to the human world, it would become a supervirus and it would wipe out the entire human population.  And I discovered it and came up with a cure.

Only problem was that I never went to med school and have no idea how to spot a virus.

Alien invasion?  I've read enough "Science of Star Wars" books to know how unlikely that is.

Nuclear war?  What am I, some kind of diplomat?

The machines becoming sentient and taking over?  I failed auto shop.

Vampires figuring out how to somehow, all of a sudden, survive in the daylight?  What is this, some kind of Twilight bullcrap?

Superhurricanes?  Nope, Al Gore hasn't taken us all out yet.

No, the reality of it all is that I stopped every fanboy's dream apocalypse -- I stopped the zombies from taking over.

Now before you get into all that crap about how zombies aren't real and there's no way they scientifically could come to life and exist, I already told you, I don't know anything about medical science.  Just because I'm clever doesn't mean that I know everything.  I always thought what you thought.  I thought zombies were sci fi.  I thought they were unrealistic.  I thought we had more chance of being taken out by sharks with laser beams strapped to their heads than being taken out by the walking dead.

But I was wrong.

And so were you. 

I can't explain it, so don't ask.  I'm sure when I go on Oprah, she'll ask.  I won't know.  And I doubt the government will let anybody tell me or you or Oprah.  But I'm already telling you my story, so they won't be able to stop it from getting out.  It's already out.  It's not like they started the whole thing, you know, so I don't know why they would want to stop it from getting out, but they always try to stop it from getting out, right?  I mean, I guess we could go with the whole "they don't want the public to panic nonsense," right?  But are you buying that?  I'm not.  They thrive off the public panicking.  That's how they get elected and stay in power, right? 

The reality, of course, is that the "invisible hand" of the free market is what led to zombies and what led to all of us almost being taken out by them.  If it weren't for me, that is.

Again, you're welcome.  It was the least I could do.

I can tell you this much, the zombie "ground zero" was at a lab in rural Kansas that was testing some corn-related stuff for a certain mega-corporation whose name I can't say for "legal" reasons, but we'll just say it rhymes with "Blonsanto."  I think their goal was that by 2050, everything in America would be made from genetically-modified corn.  Corn-based sugar.  Corn-based plastic.  Corn-based gas.  Corn-based alcohol.  Corn-based cell phones.  Corn-based wheat.  You name it, they were working on a corn version.  Or Corn Version 2.0. 

So, I don't know how they did it, but they somehow came up with ethanol zombies.  At least that's what we called them.

How do I know?  Well, I worked for "Blonsanto," of course.  I managed the network for their labs and plants and offices in Kansas.  Good money, too.  Particularly since I didn't have a degree.  But it's still early enough in the game that if you can do the work, you don't need a degree.  Give it ten years or so and you'll need a degree to change passwords for dorks who work in the secretarial pool.

Anyway, I work mainly out of their Lawrence office, but I have to drive around to various offices and labs and factories and such around the state when there are networking problems or the lab geeks can't figure out how to back up their data on the mainframe.  Seriously, in 2011?  Still?

So I was on a call to this little lab in some rural area.  I'd tell you where it was, but then I'd have to kill you.  And let me say, I've had a lot of practice killing people of late, so don't test me on that one.

I arrived at the place to do my service call.  It's a small lab, so usually less than ten people worked there.  I knew the secretary at the front desk.  She's hot.  Beautiful blonde hair.  Way out of my league.  I like to flirt with her, and, to her credit, she always flirted back.  But I knew it doesn't mean anything.  She's not the type that's into nerdy guys.  Very glamorous type.  Lots of make-up.  The kind of girl you'd see in a night club and never ask to dance.  Her name is Shelly. 

Shelly was there when I got there.  She's always there.  Never misses a day.  I probably didn't have to make the service call since I think I could've walked the staff through the fix over the phone, but, you know, Shelly's there, so I told my boss it's a road trip I have to make.  He doesn't question it.  He could care less.  I.T. is not his thing.

I did the usually chit chat with Shelly.  I asked her about some local bar that I once went to.  She said she goes there all the time.  I said I do, too.  She said she never sees me there.  I said I see her there all the time.  Then I realized how creepy that sounded and quickly asked her about the problem with the mainframe. 

If she noticed my creepiness, she didn't say anything.  That was very nice of her.  She could very easily have reported me for sexual harassment or something and I would have had no defense.  I was relieved that she was either very, very nice or she was a complete moron and didn't understand in the first place.  Either way, I was okay with it at the moment, as I envisioned trying to comply with the state's extensive unemployment compensation paperwork.

Funny thing was that she had absolutely no idea what was going on behind her in the restricted areas behind her desk.  It was early enough in the day that I'm guessing she hadn't even gone back behind the protected doors at that point.  Right next to her desk was one door, with a glass window in the middle, which could only be accessed if you had a key card.  I didn't have one, but she did.  Next to the door was the "break glass in case of emergency" box with the fire axe in it.  Beyond that and her desk, there was nothing in the front room except a couple of uncomfortable chairs.  The first time I flirted with Shelly was because I remembered those chairs from the previous visit and had no interest in sitting on them.

Shelly buzzed me back.  I kind of wish she hadn't, but if I think about it, if she hadn't, we'd all probably be dead right now.  I'm sure that Dr. Dole or Dr. Wyden would've come up to the glass window in the door at some point -- completely infected -- and she would've let them out.  Then she would've gotten infected.  And then they would've gone out into the cool Kansas afternoon and started an apocalypse.

Luckily for the world, Shelly buzzed me back.

Luckily for Shelly, I remembered there was an axe in the fire safety box next to the door she sat beside.

Luckily for the employees of "Blonsanto's" secret lab in "If I Tell You I Have to Kill You," Kansas, only three scientists were working that day.  The aforementioned doctors Dole and Wyden were there.  Also on hand was some kind of technician whose name was Woodring or something like that.  In addition to Shelly, those were the only employees on hand that day at the lab. 

I guess you'd probably have to count their test subjects in the count of people on hand.  There were a man and a woman whose names I'll probably never know that were also in the lab that day. Sort of.  It's hard to say whether or not you should count people who were dead when they came to the lab as being part of the body count or not.  This was my first time staving off a zombie apocalypse, so I'm a little sketchy on the statistical analysis of such things.

Now I knew that this particular lab was designated solely as a lab for testing corn-based fuel for cars and such.  Most of the labs they had in the state were single-subject.  Or so I thought at that point.  It turns out that this lab certainly had a bit more going on that what was revealed to the average employee, much less to the public. 

Later, I looked up the doctors who worked there online and it turned out that Dr. Wyden was a medical doctor and he apparently was from some strange unaccredited school that no one I've ever met has ever heard of.  He certainly wasn't qualified to work on ethanol or any kind of fuel, which makes sense considering the other project it turned out this lab was working on.

I should've known something was wrong when I walked through the doors and nobody was there to greet me.  One of the doctors was always there to greet me before then.  They usually quickly escorted me directly to the workstation and watched over me like a hawk.  They never let me wander around or use the restroom or anything.  It's get in, get the job done and get out.  They were never rude, but you could tell I was an unwelcome intrusion.

But no one showed up to escort me.

That should've been enough.  But it wasn't.

I'd been there enough times that I knew where the workstation was.  I knew what they wanted me to do and I knew they didn't like me to wander or to stay very long.  So I made my way down the hall to the only room I had been in except for the one where Shelly sits.  Or sat.  She doesn't work there anymore.

As I walked back, I realized that I was going to have some trouble if someone didn't show up soon.  The room I worked in was always locked.  All of the rooms in this place were always locked.  And without a key card, I wasn't going to get in.  I was just thinking about that when I saw that the door was open.  Something was propping it open.  As I looked, I realized it was a shoe.  A black and white Chuck Taylor.  And it was attached to a foot.  A human foot.  That was still on a body.

Times like that are when you really find out who a person is.  A less clever person would've panicked and probably would've caused the destruction of the world.  I didn't know I was saving the world at that moment, but that's what I was doing.  Rather than running out of the place, I went to check on the Chuck Taylor.  And the foot.

I worked my way around the body and through the door so I could get near the head.  And it was clear that this guy was dead.  Blood was everywhere.  His blood.  It was all coming from a wound on his neck.  A fresh wound.  The blood was still wet and hadn't even begun to congeal.  I was able to figure out pretty quick that it was Dr. Wyden.  Or it had been Dr. Wyden.

I looked around the room.  I saw the workstation that I wasn't meant to get to that day.  I saw a bookshelf loaded with books that only a few people on the planet have ever read.  I saw a few extra chairs gathered around the workstation, as if people were gathered around to look at something on the screen.  I saw coffee cups with steam still coming out of them. I saw a fire extinguisher against the back wall.  I saw a poster with a "hang in there" kitten on it.

Then I heard the gurgling sound.  The gurgling sound that still wakes me up in the middle of the night from time to time.  At first I couldn't tell what it was.  After Dr. Wyden stood up, I realized it was the sound of blood coming up through his esophagus.  Blood that was dripping down his face and onto the floor.  As he looked at me.

This is the part where the clever guy with lots of free time realizes that he's facing a zombie.

I had to quickly figure out what kind of zombie it was.  The different kinds of zombies all have different tactics with which one has to use on them.  I did a quick hop, skip and a leap to the opposite side of the room, testing his reflexes and speed.  He couldn't keep up with how fast I moved.  His head slowly turned as I went, arriving at my new location long after I did.

Okay, so that meant he wasn't a Danny Boyle-type zombie.  That was good.  I'm not that fast.

The next determination I had to make was if he was a Night of the Living Dead-style zombie or a Return of the Living Dead-style zombie.  If he was a Return zombie, there was little I'd be able to do about it in such a confined space.  I'd be trapped in the room with no way to get past him.  And judging by the bite on his neck, he had friends.  There was a good chance they'd be here soon, once the commotion began.

I had previously planned my hop, skip and jump to deposit me right next to the fire extinguisher, the only item in the room that could be wielded as a weapon.  I grabbed it as Dr. Wyden began slowly coming my direction.

This was the first moment of truth.  Could I kill someone?  Well, not someone, but something.  Could I kill a zombie?

And I don't mean that in a "do I have the guts to do it" or a "will my normal pacifism stop me from hurting someone" type of manner, I meant it in an "am I strong enough" kind of way.  I raised the extinguisher over my head and brought it down with all my strength on his head.  Has to be a head shot, right?

The first thing I noticed was that it hurt like hell.  Not him.  Me.  The jarring of the extinguisher hitting his hard skull shook me all the way to the elbow.  It hurt horribly and I almost dropped the extinguisher. 

The second thing I noticed was his skull giving in under the blow.

The third thing I noticed was the squishy sound all his parts made after they initially crunched together.

The fourth thing I noticed was him falling to the floor, apparently dead once again.

I hit him in the head again.  Double tap.

Time to go.  After he stood up, the door had closed behind him and locked itself.  No problem, I grabbed his key card, swiped it and pulled the door towards me.

And that's when Dr. Dole grabbed my shoulder.  Well, what was left of Dr. Dole's hand grabbed my shoulder.  It appeared, when I looked at the hand later that his zombification was based on a bite to the hand.  A bite that took off two fingers and about half his palm.

Of course when Dr. Dole grabbed me, I dropped the fire extinguisher and it skidded down the hall past Dr. Dole and the technician, Woodring, who had also joined the festivities. 

So I was unarmed and alone in the hallway with two zombies, one of whom was holding on to my shirt at the shoulder. 

Don't panic.  Best. Advice. Ever.

I figured pretty quickly that I was strong enough to break the grasp of old-Three Finger Brown there, so I did and ran back towards the entrance.  Luckily for me, I now had a key card. 

A key card I had also dropped when Dr. Dole grabbed me.

I scanned around for it and saw that it was now beyond him down the hall.  No way I was getting it now.  He was coming in my direction, slowly followed by Woodring.

I was starting to panic a little bit at that point, but I did the only thing I could.  I ran to the end of the hall and started banging on the glass window in the door like my life depended on it.  Which it did.

Unluckily, Shelly wasn't at her desk.  Also unluckily, the hall was a pretty short one.

I banged harder and started yelling.  I looked back and realized that if Shelly wasn't back in less than a minute, I would be engaged in fisticuffs with the undead.  Great band name; horrible situation to be in.

Luckily, although barely, Shelly had been outside having a smoke and she was done.  She came back through the door and saw my panicked face and heard me banging and screaming.  It actually worked and she actually quickly came over and swiped her card to let me out.

It didn't work.

She looked at the card and then facepalmed herself.  She had the card backwards in the excitement.  I banged on the glass harder and yelled for her to hurry.  She complied, but she was asking me what was happening.  It was a good thing they hadn't informed her about what kinds of things that were going on in the back of the lab and an even better thing that this lab didn't have higher security measures than it did.  If it did, I'd be dead.  And so would you.

The door opened just in time.  Dr. Dole was about to grab me as I pushed the door back hard enough that Shelly was knocked down.

I turned to shut the door behind me, but I wasn't quick enough.  I slammed it hard towards the door frame, but it didn't shut the way it was supposed to.  It hit Dr. Dole's head hard enough to make a loud thunk.  It didn't hit him hard enough to kill him, though, and it didn't hit him hard enough to knock him back. 

I tried pushing the door harder, but it was no use.  There was no way I was getting that door shut with Dr. Dole still coming after me.  I just wasn't strong enough.  I called for Shelly to help me, but her slight frame didn't bring much to the door-pushing, Dr. Dole-crushing party.

That's when I had to make a decision.  That's when I had to be really clever.

So I was.

Like I said, I'd been to this place a number of times and I remembered the one tool left in this office that would help me save the world.  The fire emergency box with the axe in it.  What better weapon to take out zombies than an axe?  If I had let go of the door, though, then Dr. Dole would've gotten through and taken me out.  And Woodring was almost to the door as well and I doubt I could've held them both off.  So I needed Shelly's help.

I told her this definitely was an emergency and that I needed her to break the glass and get me the axe.  Luckily for the rest of the state of Kansas, Shelly was way smarter and more together than I ever gave her credit for.  She quickly and calmly went to the emergency box, busted the glass with that little metal thing on the chain and carefully took the axe out and brought it to me.  I told her to get out of the building and lock the door behind her.  She started to head in that direction.

I told her she needed run and get away if things didn't go well.  My plan, which I hatched in mere moments, was to let go of the door and take out Dr. Dole the second I did, that way Woodring would be blocked long enough, I hoped, for me to pull the axe out of Dr. Dole and be ready to take Woodring out before he could get to me.  I had to be quick or they'd take me out.  I had to be strong or it wouldn't be enough.  I had to be perfect.

And that's exactly how that shit went down.

I let go of the door, drew the axe above my head and split Dr. Dole's skull like a Ginsu knife cuts a soda can.  The fact that I split it so wide made it easy to pull the axe back out.  I hit his head hard enough that if I were at the carnival using that hammer to hit the strong man game, I would've rung the bell and won a stuffed animal.  That meant that I had enough time to be ready for Woodring, who moved towards me mindlessly.  I lined the axe up like Alex Rodriguez and swung for the fences.  Woodring's head rolled down the hallway like a bowling ball about to pick up a 7-10 split.

I quickly pulled the bodies out of the doorway and shut the door. I took a few moments and relieved Dr. Dole of his head as well.  I've always been a "better safe than sorry" kind of guy.

Next I went over to Shelly and asked her if anyone else was in the building and she said that Dr. Wyden was the only other person that came in today.  I told her that was good news and that we were in the clear because Dr. Wyden was already taken care of. 

Then I remembered the bite marks.  Dr. Dole and his missing fingers and Dr. Wyden and his missing esophagus.  Someone or something had bitten them.  That's how they became zombies.  They didn't bite each other and although I never saw a bite on Woodring, I guessed -- correctly it turned out -- that he wasn't patient zero, either.

I asked Shelly to unlock the door and give me her swipe card.  She did.  I told her to lock me in again and go call the cops.  She didn't understand so I told her I thought there was at least one more zombie in the back and I was going to take care of it before it escaped and did any more damage.  She looked skeptical and then walked off dialing a number on her cell phone.

I wanted to see what I was dealing with, so after I swiped the card and opened the door, I yelled out down the hallway to see if anybody was home.  I yelled out three times, each time louder than the previous. After the second yell, I thought I heard something and after the third it was obvious I had.  At the end of the hall, past the room where I first found Dr. Wyden, a really crusty zombie in a hospital gown slowly came out of a doorway and headed my direction.  This guy was pretty intact and had no visible bite marks, so I was guessing he was patient Zero.  I decided then and there this guy's name was Zed and I proceeded to use my axe to make sure that Zed was dead. 

After decapitating my third zombie of the day, I called out again to make sure Zed was the last.  I heard a moaning coming from the same room Zed exited.  I got the axe ready and waited for the next confrontation.

And nothing happened.

I heard the moaning again, but no other sounds came from the room.  At a minimum, I expected to hear a foot dragging or the sounds that zombies make when they exit lab rooms in rural corporate zombietoriums. 

Nothing.

So I walked on down the hall.  And I came to the door.  I went inside and saw what turned out to be the last zombie.  Or at least half of the last zombie. 

Whatever this thing used to be, I couldn't really tell anymore, although it appeared to have once been female.  It was laying on a metal table and it had no legs or lower body.  What was left of its upper body was made of what appeared to be rotting meat.  I don't know to this day if she was something they found in the wild -- she certainly looked like she could be -- or if Dr. Wyden and Dr. Dole had been doing some Dr. Herbert West-style experimentation on this poor sucker. 

Either way I didn't want to hear any more of the moaning, so I engaged in the next-to-last decapitation I ever hope to participate in.  I quickly went back and made sure that Dr. Wyden would sneak up on me in the final scene by removing his dead, crushed zombie face from his dead uncrushed zombie body.

I went around the building and checked every room I could for anything else, but there was nothing.  The bastards must have kept all their ethanol zombie experiments confined to the one room.  They were all gone and I was ready to get the heck out of Dodge.  And that's what I did.

The police came and the media came and I asked Shelly out and we went out and got married and had three babies and lived happily ever after.  Well, the police and the media came, but I haven't really seen Shelly since.

So, that's the story of how I saved the world.  By being clever.

So now I'm still clever, but I'm famous as that guy who saved the world.

I guess this clever thing is working out for me after all.