Don't Open 'Till Doomsday

Music wafted through the warm spring air like ribbons of sound, reaching my ears in jumps and starts as I went to answer the phone. "...Don't open 'till doomsday, destruction's not far away..." It was the Misfits, playing through my crappy two dollar speakers at the other end of the house. When I reached the phone it had already rung six times. I was really hoping whoever it was would give up; I hate phone conversations. Of course, I had no such luck.

"Hello?" I asked, in that this-better-be-important-or-I'm-hanging-up-on-you tone of voice.

The music continued in the background "...Don't open 'till doomsday, you might not like what you find..."

"Hello, this is Walter Morgan with Morgan and Morgan Wills and Funeral Services; I'm calling for Rose Rogers." He had an incredibly professional voice; deep and mellow, the kind that makes you hate a person right off the bat but you can't really explain why.

"This is she." I responded, still sounding sullen, but not quite so angry.

"I am sorry to have to call under such unfortunate circumstances, but your uncle, Vlad Strongten, has passed away." He really didn't sound sorry, but I wasn't either. I had met my uncle only once or twice in my life, and he was totally nuts. He was a stereotypical "mad scientist", and my mother had never really talked about him. I'm pretty sure he was nuts when they were growing up, too.

"Oh." I replied.

"...Immortal secrets, man shouldn't know..."

Mr. Morgan sounded slightly flustered by my lack of emotion, but recovered himself quickly. "Well, uh, he actually committed suicide in his laboratory two days ago, and was only found this morning."

"How'd he do it?" I asked, morbidly curious.

"He hung himself." Mr. Morgan replied shortly, and continued to explain his call "Your mother is Mr. Strongten's closest living relative, but his will has left everything to you. You are inheriting his house, his money, and a few odds and ends he viewed as valuable enough to give to you directly."

"Cool! When do I get it?"

"...you might not like what you find inside..."

"The paperwork is currently being finalized, everything will be sent to you shortly. Once again, I am sorry to be calling under such unfortunate circumstances; I sincerely hope you have a nice day."

"You too." I replied, and hung up.

I wandered back toward my room, the music growing stronger as I approached.

"...don't open till doomsday, destruction's not far away; don't open till doomsday, you might not like what you find inside..."

The music made me giggle; thinking about what my uncle might be sending me. The most treasured possessions of a mad scientist who hung himself in his laboratory? I probably didn't want to know what was in the package that was arriving! If I had known then what I know now, I would have hung up on Mr. Morgan.

Over the next few weeks, I kept getting calls from Walter Morgan, who I later found out was one of the executives at the company. My uncle must have been a pretty important client to them. We figured out all the kinks in the paperwork and I kept using the fax machine at the law office down the street; thankfully they didn't mind. About a month after the original phone call, I received a package from Morgan and Morgan Wills and Funeral Services. The package was about one foot by two feet by one and a half feet and weighed a ton! It was enclosed in a cardboard box and covered in brown paper, which seemed like a bit too much packaging; but my uncle was nuts. Attached was a note from Walter Morgan:

"Dear Ms. Rogers,

I am writing to inform you of some specific instructions given to me by Mr. Strongten regarding the package you are currently receiving. It can only be opened by the combination lock on the front, and if it is forced the inner contents will be destroyed. I am not to give you the combination until, and I quote, "doomsday." I did ask when that was, and he insisted that I would know when it came, so I cannot give you an exact date for when I will be giving you that combination. Thank you for your understanding.

Sincerely,

Walter Morgan"

The note gave me a cold chill down my spine, thinking about the song that had been playing during that first phone call. Was it some kind of cosmic foreshadowing? In the end, I decided that I was being paranoid and my uncle was simply nuts and this was just a weird coincidence. We're all allowed to be wrong sometimes, right?

I hastily ripped open the packaging to find a beautifully and ornately carved wooden chest inside, protected with several layers of bubble wrap. The chest was very well built, with thick walls, and very heavy. Like a little kid at Christmas I picked it up and shook it, trying to figure out what was inside. It was silent. I looked at the front of the chest to see if I could possibly guess the combination, but that wouldn't be possible. The lock was built into the front of the chest, and the rolling dials were also carved from wood. There were ten dials, each marked zero through nine, and each dial was positioned at its coinciding number. (The first was at one, the second at two, up until the last one which was set to zero.) There was really no way I would be able to guess that, so I let it be, not wanting to lose what was inside. I kept getting small twinges of fear throughout the following years, thinking about the song and the note, and I really did consider simply destroying it but curiosity got the better of me.

Five eventful years passed. I got married, graduated from college, moved on to veterinary school, and even got my own house and a new dog. Life was going well. The money I inherited from my uncle and the money from selling his house were currently paying my tuition and my mortgage (the guy was loaded!) and the chest he sent me was sitting above the fireplace on the mantle. I think Vlad sent such a pretty box to be sure I wouldn't simply throw it away or give it to some charity, which I probably would have done otherwise.

It was that summer that things started getting weird. Hospitals around the world were beginning to be filled with people carrying a mystery disease, which was later dubbed "Africanized Rabies", even though it originated in China. I think it was actually an allusion to Africanized honey bees, also known as killer bees, which makes sense since no one was ever reported to survive. Africanized Rabies was sweeping the globe; it was being called the first modern worldwide pandemic.

Doctors kept trying to assure the public that the bark of this disease was worse than its bite and the media was just trying to rile us into a frenzy, but that was hard to believe after you had just watched live footage of what this virus could do. The most famous video is of a family sitting around a dying guy attached to a heart monitor. You see the screen of the monitor flat-line and hear the machine stop beeping and make that one steady noise in that you-are-so-dead kind of way; and then, as the family crowds around the bed to comfort the man's wife, the man sits up (still flat-line) and bites her upper arm, ripping out a huge chunk. After that there is pandemonium, lots of screaming, and the camera gets knocked over so all you can see is feet and blood. Just thinking about it creeps me out. The camera was found by a neighbor several days later after she began to worry that she hadn't seen them since she returned from vacation, and there was a search for the family but they were never found. Freaky, right? I was absolutely terrified, as was my husband.

The government continued to tell us everything was under control, but it obviously wasn't. Africanized rabies was spreading from its touchdown in the US in New York down to where we were, in Colorado. All efforts to contain the spread had failed, as people would smuggle infected loved ones to what they believed was safety. Then one day there was a breakthrough; not in a cure or in containment, but in the information that was reaching the public. An Army official, General Robert Cook, went on to the public access station and did a show he called "The Zombie Survival Guide." This was the first time the word "zombie" had been used by any government official, and it brought a measure of relief and a measure of panic to the nation. "The Zombie Survival Guide" became the most watched broadcast in the nation, and was played over and over again by the major broadcasting stations. I was actually one of the first to see it because he was using the public access station in my area. (I think that was the only time I ever watched anything on that channel.) He gave us all the nitty gritty on what we were dealing with, how the military already knew exactly what they were and they had been nicknamed "Zeds." He also let the world know that yes, these were the undead. They walked, they ate, but they did not breathe or have a pulse or a heartbeat. They were dead, and they were walking around eating people, and no one could explain it. No one even knew why they ate; as far as we could tell they couldn't even digest it because their intestines didn't work anymore. General Cook explained that these creatures needed no support to make their brains function like humans do. Their brains worked all by themselves. Because of this, one had to destroy the brain in order to stop the zombie. General Cook was also very insistent on making the public understand that stopping a zombie was not the same as killing a person; the person was already dead, now they were something else completely. He also told us that if a person was bitten, they were done for. There was no cure, no prevention, and no one was immune. The country was in an uproar about the lack of information given by the government, and the President would have been impeached if he hadn't been bitten first.

Twenty minutes after the initial airing of "The Zombie Survival Guide" I got a phone call.

"Hello? This is Walter Monroe. I need Ms. Rogers, now." The voice was no longer deep, calm and professional. It was full of panic, and it kept cracking like he was going through puberty again.

"It's me." I said, worried by the tone of his voice.

"This is doomsday." He said, "here is the combination: 1,1,2,6,1,9,8,8,2,7. I need to go, I'm leaving the country. It was a pleasure doing business with you." Click. He hung up.

"Bye." I mumbled, slowly placing the receiver back in its cradle and feeling slightly numbed. I hadn't allowed myself to think of the worst, but Mr. Monroe was right, this was doomsday. Looking at the combination he had given me, I got a chill down my spine. My uncle had known exactly when this was going to happen - the first eight numbers were my birthday, November 26, 1988, and the second two were my current age, twenty seven. My stomach muscles clenched so hard I nearly vomited, but instead I walked over to the fireplace and took the chest off the mantle. I turned all the dials to their unlocked positions and as I turned the last one into place I heard and loud and distinct "click!" I placed my hands on the lid of the box, and stopped. I was terrified. What would I find? Would it be a cure, or would it be something totally random that my crazy uncle put together? Blood started pounding in my temples and that same song started playing in my head again: "...Don't open 'till doomsday, destruction's not far away; don't open 'till doomsday, you might not like what you find inside..." I shook my head, trying to dislodge the song, took a deep breath and opened the chest.

I looked inside and saw a single sheet of paper. I gasped, and then laughed. The message was so brutally clear- there was a badly drawn cartoon picture of a zombie, and written above it were the words "you're all SCREWED!" and below the picture was written, "ha ha!" That was my uncle, brilliant and insane. At that point there was only one thing left to say:

"...Shit."