Zombies in Springtime
Chapter 4 – Fingered
Most of his students and friends called Emmit Green, “Doc.” He wasn’t an especially accomplished scientist, nor was he interested in becoming one. In fact, he wasn’t even a PhD. His nickname, “Doc” was gifted to him by his college basketball teammates. He had the highest GPA on the team, and everyone knew he planned on getting a Master’s degree in Biology so he could teach at a community college. The nickname stuck and when he started teaching, a lot of students and faculty started to assume he actually was a PhD. In many circles, he actually became known as “Dr. Emmit Green.” Doc also liked to goof around when the opportunity presented itself.
“Hey Doc.” Lanny greeted.
“Lanny, Lanny, my man. Great to see you. Have a seat. I’ll be right back. I just left something in my bag, I mean lab—down the hall—keys… keys… yes my keys are just down the hall in the lab.” Doc touched Lanny’s right arm, led him down into the chair next to his desk, and exited immediately.
Lanny sat down with a smile and was struck with a sudden sense of confusion. He knew he had brought the finger in with him. He brought it in a Ziploc bag and carried the bag in his left hand. Now it was gone. The finger was gone! He looked around frantically. He must have laid it on Doc’s desk right before he sat down. He scanned the desk, but couldn’t see through the disarray. His pulse raced and he grew hopeless.
Doc re-entered the room. He had a small white box in his hand.
“Lanny it’s been too long. We have so much to catch up on.”
“Yeah, I know, hang on—we have a problem—”
“Nonsense, nonsense. But hold the thought Lanny. First, I simply must show you the amazing discovery I’ve made.” Doc lifted the small white box to chest level. “Here, go ahead. Look inside.” His eyes radiated with excitement. His eyelids were nowhere to be seen.
Lanny lifted the white lid. His heart nearly punched through his ribcage as he watched a rotting gray index finger jab and roll frantically around in the white box. “Jesus!”
Doc crouched and pulled his arms in tight to his belly. His diaphragm convulsed as the laughter ripped through him. “Woohoo! Oh, I got you. You was screaming like a little bitch.” He lifted the white box again and revealed the underside. Doc had cut a hole in the bottom of the box and jammed a popsicle stick up the broken side of Lanny’s zombie finger. When Lanny lifted the lid, he jerked the stick around to control the finger. “Here, here. Oh ho! Woo! Have your funny looking stinky finger back. Oh that was priceless.”
“Very funny.” Lanny did not smile. “Do you know what this is?”
“Yeah, it’s one stank ass finger. Where you had that thing, in your bootie hole?”
“No, not in my bootie—c’mon don’t you find it a little odd that I am carrying a rotten finger around in a Ziploc bag?”
“Hey man, to each his own. I ain’t never judged nobody.”
“Have you ever noticed those funny looking gray kids around campus?”
“Oh. Oh yeah. Is that where this came from? You been hanging around with those weirdoes. You guys starting you a finger collection. Well that’s cool, I’m real happy for you, but I don’t want no part of it. I knew a guy collected toenails one time. That was one weird dude. I think you taking it to a whole new level though, Lanny—”
“Doc, listen to me. We got to run some tests on this thing—”
“Oh you done put it somewhere it don’t belong and you wanna make sure you ain’t got nothing? Well I may not approve of the lifestyle, my man, but I ain’t gonna hang a brother out in the cold like that. We’ll have a look at it.”
“No. Listen to me! I saw it fall off of one of the gray kids. Well, break off. It just broke clean off with hardly any pressure. A rough handshake probably would have taken off his whole hand. There’s something wrong with those kids Emmit. Something is wrong with their bodies. I don’t know what it is, I don’t’ know if it’s a virus—or... ”
“Or what? I’ll tell you what it is. Something we don’t need to be messing with.”
“Emmit, we need to know what these kids are. We need to know if they are a danger to the community.”
“Yeah, I get ya. I done looked at it though. Way ahead of ya.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I checked it out when I was making my finger stick. It’s just a dusty old finger man. There ain’t hardly no blood in it. Looks like it’s been decomposing for a while.”
“How about using the microscope you old phony.”
“I took some samples. I was gonna get to that.”
“We need to run tests. Maybe send some samples to a real lab if you don’t think you’re qualified to assess it for known diseases or unusual characterstics.”
“I got news for you Lanny. If that thing fell slap off that kids hand, we ain’t looking for no known diseases.”
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