107.
He didn't mark the exact day, but at some point during his first semester at Cambridge, Knut drifted back into anonymity. This was not just fine with him — it was glorious.
His fame as the teen who kicked zombie ass had prevented him for attending college in America, despite the fact that every prestigious university had offered him a full ride. Knut couldn't stand all the publicity and the adulation, and he knew he would never be left in peace to just study advanced quantum mechanics like a normal genius.
So he enrolled in the United Kingdom, where he was still well-known, but not upheld as a patriotic hero and pestered for fucking autographs. Also, he got sick of Hollywood types asking him to star in reality shows and let cameras follow him around 24/7, a fate that Knut considered worse than letting the damn zombies devour him in the first place.
It was a dreary English day as Knut poured over his textbooks in the Cambridge library. He was so engrossed that he didn't notice at first when a female voice, in a crisp British accent, said, "You're Knut Alvarado, right?"
Knut looked up and saw a young woman, most likely of Indian origin, staring at him. He nodded, concerned that she was just another zombie groupie who wanted to hear about the rotting hands and snapping jaws of the ghouls and what it was like to face them, up close.
But she smiled and said, "I was very impressed with your paper on the theoretical applications of the solution that crystallized the zombies."
Prior to coming to Cambridge, Knut had gotten his analysis of the solution published in a top peer-reviewed science journal. He did this partly to seal the deal for his admission, but mostly because he wanted the formula for the solution in the public domain just in case some freak job created a fresh batch of zombies.
"Thanks," Knut said. "I didn't know anybody had read it."
"I'm studying organic chemistry," the woman said. "Your paper was quite illuminating. May I join you?"
Knut nodded, and the woman sat next to him.
"My name is Zara," she said. "I hope it's not presumptuous of me, but I've taken the liberty of analyzing the solution, and I've reconfigured the compounds into what I believe would be a more stable molecular structure. May I show it to you?"
"Sure," Knut said, a little stunned. "Why not?"
Zara sat and pulled out a notebook. She leaned in close and flipped through the pages of diagrams and formulas. And during her discourse on the calculations and explanations and ramifications of her work — all delivered in that rocking British accent — she smiled at Knut, and he realized that she smelled like jasmine in the springtime.
Knut did the math in his head. And he calculated that, damn it all, he was in love.
"Wow," Knut said.
108.
In was after midnight in California, and three people in biohazard suits worked under the glare of a single spotlight, which was focused on a small patch of grass. The three were crouched over an onyx slab embedded in the grass.
Abruptly, a tremor rumbled, and the three stepped away in panic. Another shaking, this one more violent, sent the three yelling and scurrying for safety. One of them knocked over the spotlight in his mad flight.
The third tremor cracked the black stone in the ground. The fissure parted the words emblazoned on the slab:
Richard Nixon
1913 – 1994
And a great quake rocked the earth.
The End