Season 11, Week 16, "Streisand Effect"

THE SINGING DEAD

“Will it ever end?” thought Dr. Harold Bishop, as he looked at the results of yet another failed vaccine.  The CDC virus lab was empty.  Fear had driven everyone but Harold from the building, and he was wearing a Class 3 Medical Hazmat Suit inside the latest in negative pressure testing rooms.  He was as safe as anyone could be, but even he was afraid of what he had to do.

Nobody wanted to be anywhere near the zombie virus, including Harold, but there had been another outbreak, a mutation that could not be controlled by the zombie spectrum vaccines.  It had been twenty-five years since the horror of the zombie plague, which hadn’t been defeated so much as finally burned itself out.  But then, ten years ago, a vaccine had been created and humanity had finally relaxed.  Zombie jokes had become funny again and zombie costumes were Halloween hits.

“No one saw you coming,” Harold said to the test tube containing a zombie virus sample.  “If you weren’t so deadly, you’d be beautiful.”

The normal virus had made its victims act like zombies, with the standard problems: death, cannibalism, growling, shuffling, rotting flesh, poor social skills, and so on.  This new variant did all the usual, but it made its sufferers sing Barbra Streisand songs.  It was a deadly karaoke zombie mutation.

If you couldn’t carry a tune when you were alive, you were even worse as a zombie.  The sounds alone were enough to send people running down the streets, screaming, with their hands over their ears.

“I know everything about you,” Harold said to the sample as he prepared yet another test.  “I even know where you began and why.  I just don’t know how to kill you.”

Patient Zero was an 86-year-old resident at the Sunny Acres Retirement Home.  William “Duke” Abernathy had led an ordinary life, undistinguished except for one curious fact.  He was the last one still alive to see Barbra Streisand perform in person, a stage production of Yentl on Broadway, after which she had retired and later succumbed to declining interest.

Duke had been in the audience with his grandmother when he was eight years old, and he had carried memories of that show his whole life.  He had eventually managed to outlive everyone else in the audience.  Once he died, Barbra Streisand would exist only in the cold world of digital recordings.  “I’m just another carrier pigeon,” he had said in an interview with People Magazine.  But he was a treasure for the legions of Ms. Streisand’s most ardent fans.

This group unfortunately included Prof. Rose Winston, Ph.D., an instructor at Stanford and a member of the Loony Bin, a loose association of scientists from various disciplines trying to push the boundaries of their fields.  Prof. Winston was a biologist using the DNA of vanished species to bring them back.  She was best known for almost reviving mastodons by using elephants.

It had been during one of the alcohol-laden Loony Bin lunches that Prof. Winston had brought up the problem of cultural loss through the death of important figures.

“Wouldn’t you love to interview the last Civil War veteran?” she had said to Marcus Reid, a history professor.

“Not really,” he had replied.  “Albert Woolson was only a drummer boy from Minnesota for the last few months of the war and never saw any action.  Most people are just drummer boys.  Pass the wine.”

But the idea had never left Prof. Winston’s head, and when she had seen the People Magazine article on Duke Abernathy, she had known what she had to do – really, it was what anyone would do under the circumstances.  She had obtained a copy of Duke’s DNA, Ms. Streisand’s DNA, and crossed them with zombie virus DNA, then she had infected him with it, convinced that he would live forever with his memories of Ms. Streisand intact for all to share.

Unfortunately, Duke had died of natural causes before the process had been completed.  Certain problems had arisen when he hadn’t stayed dead.

“Oops,” Prof. Winston had said.  This had been immediately followed by screams when the zombie ate her.  After this first meal, Duke had started singing “The Way We Were.”

“Not bad for a zombie,” would have been the consensus, but no one had stayed around to form one.   Sunny Acres Retirement Home had emptied except for Duke, who had liked the acoustics of the TV room.

The virus had spread slowly at first and had been confined mostly to karaoke bars, female impersonators, and cruise ship lounge acts.  The singing had been awful, but beyond the aural assault, no one had really cared.  “There’s a cure for zombies,” everyone had said.  But it had spread to the general population, and suddenly people had started caring, especially when the vaccine had failed to work on the new variant.

Early research for a cure had been funded by the Streisand Foundation.  “The optics are awful,” spokesperson Amanda Evans had said.  “I mean, our Barbra never ate anyone and just look at the rotting flesh.  Music sales are way down!”

The Foundation’s lawyers had tried to enforce Ms. Streisand’s copyrights against the singing zombies, but the lawsuits had been dismissed on the grounds that dead people could not be sued.  “Nice try,” the judge had said as she hummed “Don’t Rain on My Parade.”  An hour later, and she had become a zombie.

Streisand zombies were now everywhere, some more creative than others.  The Neil Diamond – Barbra Streisand duet “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” was almost bearable when sung by alternating hordes.

The CDC and other medical research centers had worked hard on a cure, but too frequently the lab workers had fallen prey to the dreaded virus.  Eventually, it all came down to Harold.  As far as he knew, he was the only one still living.  He had lost contact with all other research centers.  The last message from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control had been the lyrics to “People.”

Some people had actually welcomed the calamity.  Doomsday preppers finally had their doomsday.  “We told you so,” said Billy Bob “Locked and Loaded” Beane, before sealing his family in their secret underground bunker.  Unfortunately, Billy Bob wasn’t the brightest bean in the bushel – he had installed the lock backwards and it could only be released from the outside.

And then there were the wealthy, ensconced safely in their estates.  “Thinning the herd of losers,” William Smythe III had said.  Of course, good help being even harder to find than usual, he was eventually eaten when the attractive personal trainer had turned zombie mid-session.

“This is it,” thought Harold as he took another sample from the centrifuge and put it under the microscope.  “I’m out of ideas.”

His shoulders slumped as he saw the healthy Streisand viruses, with their tell-tale characteristic.  They were highly organized and moved in rhythm, forming a proto-chorus line.

“I knew it would come to this,” thought Harold, tears forming in his eyes.  There was an alternative.  It wasn’t a cure, but he had to do something.  Darwinism still applied to zombies; he had a way to use this basic principle, but it was brutally effective and he knew he wouldn’t survive it.

Harold left the lab and took off his protective suit.  “It doesn’t matter now,” he said.  He hoped his family understood.  He had left a letter in the lab explaining his sacrifice.

Deep in the CDC was a special storage vault for a project terminated long ago.  It contained sample DNA from hundreds of thousands of people, from the famous to the ordinary, in case the human race had to be re-built after some catastrophe.  It had been the brain child of Prof. Winston during her unfortunate tenure with the CDC.

It took a while, but he found what he was looking for: the DNA of rapper Snoop Dogg.  He took it to the DNA splicer and added it to the original zombie virus.  After the solution was prepared, he injected himself with it and waited for the inevitable.  It didn’t take long, and his death was painless.

After a few minutes, his eyes opened with that fixed zombie stare.  He was hungry – hungrier than he had ever been when alive.  But stronger than his hunger was the urge to rap.  “Doggfather” echoed through the abandoned halls as poor Harold hip-hopped his way out of the CDC in search of food.

It didn’t take long until rapping Harold heard a Streisand zombie singing “Second Hand Rose.”  The zombies quickly found each other and the outcome was as Harold had expected.  Rap zombie ate Streisand zombie.

Rap zombies proliferated until their posses and the Streisand groupies fought only each other.  Sometimes rap zombies won, other times Streisand zombies prevailed.

It took time, but the two groups attacked only each other and the constant combat reduced both sides.  Harold had created a mutual zombie apocalypse with mankind on the sidelines as the ultimate victor.  Darwin would have been proud.

When the zombie population declined enough, humans were able to finish the job.  The last zombies were found just in time on stage in an abandoned Broadway theater.  Both sides had finally started to work together and were learning each other’s songs, but it was too late.

Years passed and the horror receded into the background.  A tasteful life-size statue of Harold Bishop was erected in his honor in Central Park, and was gradually forgotten.

The death of Melinda Knapp at 106, the last survivor of the zombie apocalypse, was duly noted in a few newspapers.  No one had wanted to preserve her memories.  Some things are best forgotten.