by Ian Woodhead
“Not too keen on talking?”
From what he heard, this fucker already had Joseph, and if he wanted to keep Kenny alive and as long as Rossini didn’t work out when made him so valuable, there wasn’t much more he could do. Tony gazed at the tablets in the big guy’s hands. He licked his lips, trying to think of how to play this.
“If I tell you, then you’ll have no use for me.” Tony looked at the wall beside them. “I’ve seen how you treat the people who piss you off.” He smiled. “That’s why you set those dim-witted fools on her, isn’t it?”
“It’s not a wise idea to assume the worst, young man. Prepare for it, yes. But try not to believe that’s your sole remaining option.” Rossini pulled Tony away from the wall. “Joseph was trying to reach out and find new unexplored worlds to visit. All the city elders knew that much, mainly because he wouldn’t shut up about it.” He held one of the tablets between his thumb and forefinger and crushed it. “I’ve had this analyzed already. It’s exactly what we expected to find.” Rossini then stopped and turned around. He pushed Tony towards a depression in the grass. The man bent down and picked up half a brick, which he threw into the air. The brick landed in the middle of the depression and a circular area of grass and soil dipped, revealing a deep hole.
“There’s quite a few of these dotted around my arena, Tony. Would you like to take a closer look?” He forced Tony’s head forward. “Look at them all down there, young man, just begging for me to throw you down to them. I’ve watched them take a human body apart, you know. People want to believe that it’s a quick death. Believe you me, it isn’t. The wild ones will go for the throat to make sure you don’t get back up. You see, they don’t want any more like them, all fighting for the same food supply. Down there though? They know you’re not going anywhere, so they’ll take you apart slowly, bite after bite.”
Tony strained against the man’s hold.
“Now you can assume the worst, young man.” Rossini picked him up as if he weighed no more than a small child, and held him over the pit. “This pit was reserved for Natalie and her Source World boyfriend. They have evaded me this time but they’ll be back.” He turned him around and leaned forward. “Now tell me what those fucking tablets do to you!” he screamed.
Tony saw movement behind them. He could hear the things below him, straining to reach his feet. Despite his predicament, he furnished the man with a slight smirk after making sure he had a firm grip on Rossini’s wrists. “I don’t assume the worst,” he said. “Look behind you, Rossini.” His smirk widened into a grin as the man yelped and stumbled back, bringing Tony safely away from the pit.
“Your guards are gone, Rossini,” he said, watching the huge group of dead things shamble towards them. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his remaining tablets. “You wanted to know what these do? Keep watching.” Tony pushed the two tablets into his mouth and chewed before swallowing. He watched the background begin to fade. “It’s such a shame that you crushed yours.”
Chapter Fourteen
Mortimer opened his eyes; it took him a few seconds for his view to solidify. His stomach and his head felt as though they had swapped places. “I want to die,” he uttered. Mortimer quickly turned his head and leaned over, waiting for his guts to realign. His eyes traced a single dark red trail along the filthy concrete floor. Mortimer followed it until the path stopped at a man-shaped bundle of clothes. “Please,” he moaned, “I don’t want to be here again.”
There was no stopping his gaze from following the clothing until he looked, once more, into the flat eyes of his dead brother. “It’s not him!” he cried, shuffling back until he reached the far wall. Mortimer then yelped out when a hand landed on his thigh.
“Why are we here again?”
Just the sound of his brother’s voice, even layered with trepidation as it was, had a cathartic effect on his frayed nerves. His heart still refused to slow down but now he could at least attempt to take stock of their situation without feeling like a lost lamb, hearing the sound of wolves howling.
Mortimer ran his tongue over his cracked lips. “Daniel, you scared the shit out of me.” His voice echoed through the dank cellar. His only source of light filtered down from the stone steps to the left of where they lay. The filtered daylight wasn’t strong enough to banish the long shadows cast from their decaying companions, but there was enough illumination to see that the enquiring voice did issue from his brother’s lips.
“Mortimer, why are we here?”
“Since when did I become the font of all knowledge?” he snapped. “Hush your flapping mouth and let me think.”
The arm attached to his body, as well as the pudgy hand now covered in black dirt, could not belong to anybody else but him. Like his brother, this truly was the real him down here. With his comfort barrier snatched away, Mortimer’s anxiety quadrupled. Without that glimmer of uncertainty that they could still be inside a digital playground, the lost lamb sensation threatened to take control. He’d be a fool to believe that wherever they were, wolves weren’t nearby.
“I don’t like it here,” whispered Daniel.
“I’m not that keen either, but it’s infinitely preferable to where we just came from.” Mortimer stopped talking and turned back, intending to ask Daniel if he felt any different. He couldn’t shake the feeling of belonging when he gazed around this cellar, no matter how bizarre that sounded. His question died on his lips when he saw his brother’s eyes, grown to the size of marbles.
“They’re not all truly dead.”
He hoped there’d be more time to prepare before the meeting with his first wolf. The stink of death increased and he heard a single low moan coming from the other end of the cellar. As Daniel whimpered, Mortimer frowned. He used his brother’s trembling body for support as he got to his feet, turned around and shook off Daniel’s hand.
“What are we going to do?”
Another hand, followed by a skinny arm, pushed up from between two bodies. “You idiot, Daniel.” He jumped over the bodies and grabbed the arm, wrapping his fingers around the wrist. “It’s Joseph. Don’t just stare, help me get him out from under here.”
With his brother’s help, they pulled the unconscious man out from under the corpses and dragged him over to the stairs. The man moaned once more but didn’t regain consciousness. “We ought to count our blessings, Daniel,” Mortimer said, pulling Joseph onto the first step. “Can you imagine appearing under a pile of corpses, unable to breath, feeling their weight holding you down? I’m glad the guy isn’t awake.”
“None of this makes any sense to me, Mortimer.” Daniel lifted Joseph’s face. “You know he only gave us the same tablets that Martin freaked out over. How did we both end up back home?”
This experience was turning into one serious head fuck. Daniel’s words circled his mind, each revolution confusing him more and more. He could still be inside that fucking device, hell, he might not have even left it. A game within a game? Why not? If the designers were able to construct such an elaborate scenario in the first place, it would be easy to fool the user that they had woken up, not once but several times.
“Could we still be sitting in our chairs?”
Mortimer looked into Daniel’s eyes, looking for any signs of real life. If he was still in the game, the original one, then this Daniel was just another digital representation, just like Joseph. As for the tablet they took to supposedly get them into another world, now that did sound contrived. How opportune was it that this Joseph had them upon his person? If this was a game, those pills would make a convenient plot device.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Mortimer shrugged then lashed out with his left leg, his foot connecting with Daniel’s shin.
“You fucker!” he squealed, dropping Joseph and jumping back.
He then threw a punch that Mortimer easily dodged. “Calm down. I was just testing out a theory. I wasn’t sure if you were really here or a collection of pixels.
/> “If you hit me again, I’ll stamp your pixels into the fucking dirt.” Daniel picked up Joseph by the shoulders and dragged the man up the rest of the stairs. “So let’s say we get out of this house and we’re attacked by a load more dead things. It’ll be okay if they kill us all, ‘cause we’ll wake up? You think about stuff, Mortimer. That’s always been your problem. Stop pulling it all apart and go with the flow. Fuck, it’s all we can do anyway.”
“How can you stand there and spout all that bullshit? Just look around you, for crying out loud. We both know this can’t even exist. It’s an impossible place and we both know it.”
“We can’t walk about with our heads in the clouds, hoping everything will turn out for the best. If we don’t work this thing out, we’ll both end up like Martin.”
“That’s utter bollocks. Martin ended up fucking dead ‘cause he did try to work this out.” Mortimer looked at his brother scornfully. Why was he even trying to have a debate with Daniel? He followed him up to the top of the stairs and pushed past the pair of them. Mortimer pulled open the cupboard above the microwave and pretended to look inside. The door provided a convenient obstacle so he wouldn’t have to look at his brother’s simpering face. As he tuned out Daniel’s continued bleating, Mortimer examined the contents of the cupboards.
“Shut up a minute, Daniel, and come here.” He leaned back and grabbed his jacket, trying not to get angry when the man flinched. “Look at this, come on. Tell me why this doesn’t look right to me.”
Daniel shrugged off his hand. “What am I supposed to be looking at?” He moved closer to the cupboard. “There’s nothing out of place, it’s just like I always remembered it. Mom’s well stocked cupboard, overflowing with goodies, strikes again.”
His reaction to the obvious abnormality here reinforced Mortimer’s theory that this really was only a digital representation of his brother. He silently sighed; but then again, maybe not. Daniel had never been that great at picking out the obvious. He lifted out a large square tin. “Nothing out of place, you say? Have you any idea what sliced beef is? It’s from a cow. Come on, who the fuck eats cow meat?”
“What are you talking about, Mortimer? That’s your favorite food.”
“Oh is it? Well how come I don’t know this?” Mortimer dropped the tin and jerked his head towards the ceiling. “Did you hear that?” he hissed.
His brother nodded. “Yeah, we’re not alone in here.” Daniel grinned. “Come on, let’s go explore.” He hurried over to the door. “Look on the bright side. If it is a bunch of zombies upstairs and they do snack on us, at least we’ll end up back on our couch.”
Mortimer shook his head, wondering if he could take out his brother with a couple of well-placed cow meat tins. He followed Daniel up the stairs, despairing at the fact that he was making no attempt at being stealthy. “You’re only saying that because you miss your Legos, you big girl,” he whispered.
Daniel chuckled. “I have a box of the stuff under my bed. It’s a win/win situation for me, Mortimer.”
They both reached the landing. Mortimer sneaked over to the bedroom directly above the kitchen. He glanced at his empty hands and quietly cursed. Why didn’t he pick up a knife while he was in the kitchen? If there were any dead things in there, he and his brother wouldn’t stand a chance. It was too late to go back now; besides, he’d already been in here once, the last time, and he hadn’t found any zombies. Mortimer stopped at the doorframe. Could dead things climb stairs in this world?
“Screw it,” he snarled, walking into the room.
“It’s just like I remember,” said Daniel, looking over his shoulder.
“How can you say that when we both know that this is supposed to be your room? All this gear belongs to Martin.”
“Don’t blame Daniel, Mortimer. It isn’t his fault.”
“How the fuck did you get up here?” Mortimer blinked.
Joseph smiled back at him and leaned back, resting the back of his head on the wallpaper. “I wasn’t sure if you’d both leave without exploring the house.” He idly entwined his fingers in the dark blue quilt cover. “I’m glad I stayed now. Come on in, it’s okay. After all, it is your house.”
“You haven’t answered the question,” said Daniel. “How did you get up here without us seeing you?”
Mortimer sighed. “It’s another Joseph, you idiot. Wait, how can this be our house?” He flicked his eyes at Daniel. “I mean, if we really are here, then doesn’t this house belong to the corpse lying on the cellar floor?”
“The other one that looks like me is here too, I can feel him.” Joseph clenched his fist. “How is he doing?”
Those eyes lost their familiar calmness, and iced-blue chips of diamond stared back at him. They were the eyes of someone who detested his other self. It took a lot of restraint for Mortimer not to ask how this Joseph could even know the Joseph from their world. “He’s out cold,” replied Mortimer.”
“Yeah, I figured that would be the case. This will be the first time he’s been brave enough to bring all of him over, instead of his diseased mind.” He stood up and walked over to the two men. “Guys, I’m sorry to break this to you, but this really is your home. You both belong here, in this world.”
Those cold eyes filled with warmth as Joseph delivered that earth-shattering news. It was clear the man believed his own words. “I don’t believe you,” Mortimer said, slowly. Even as the words left his mouth, Mortimer saw himself standing in this bedroom and looking through the crack in the curtains as the mobile euthanasia vans rolled past his house. He screwed up his eyes, wanting to block out the torrent of old images flooding into his mind.
Mortimer opened his eyes. He looked at his brother and then at Joseph, hot tears rolling down his cheeks. He now remembered the terror he felt at seeing his neighbors all dying from the flu, of watching his mother being pushed into the back of the van, and Homeland Security aiming their assault rifles at Martin when he tried to stop them.
“How much do you remember?” Joseph asked almost kindly.
“Just fragments,” he whispered.
“The flu virus almost wiped out our species. Despite all the horrors, we managed to keep going, to rebuild, and even started to repopulate. None of us believed it could get any worse.” Joseph laughed harshly. “Oh, how naïve were we? We weren’t the only ones who’d suffered an event of apocalyptic proportions.”
Mortimer nodded. His mind had started to settle down. His brother squeezed his shoulder.
“You OK?”
Mortimer nodded, slowly. “How about you?”
He shrugged, “It all came back, Mortimer, all my real memories are back in place.”
“What happened?” Daniel said, looking at Joseph. “I mean, what really happened, that part still isn’t clear.”
“As far as we know, there are three worlds, each one linked. The one named Source World was just like ours. By that, I mean normal, I suppose. Just like us though, they suffered a catastrophe. The dead rose up and ate through the surviving population like a starving fox in a henhouse. No matter what they tried, their shrinking population couldn’t stop this vile plague. They should have all perished.”
Joseph’s face crumpled up. “They would have all ended up dead if it hadn’t been for one man who saw a way out.” He shrugged. “The man was another version of me, another Joseph. He figured out a way to cross into other worlds, looking for other versions of you and your brothers. He knew that your blood held the key to a possible vaccine.”
“He didn’t visit this world first, did he?”
Joseph shook his head. “They couldn’t. This world and theirs are not directly connected. There’s another world that acts as a bridge. You know as well as I how twisted that place is.”
“Look out!”
Joseph swung around. Daniel’s warning saved his life as Joseph’s other self lunged for him, screaming while holding a large kitchen knife in his hand. Joseph dropped to the floor and rolled over to the window.
&n
bsp; Mortimer rushed up to the screaming man, wrapped his large arms around the man’s chest and squeezed tight. He shook him until the knife fell on to the carpet. As soon as his brother scooped up the blade, he released the man and violently pushed him forward. “Stop that, right now.” The other Joseph spun around and glared at them. Apart from their identical faces, there was nothing that connected them. This wild-eyed maniac, with his stinking, ripped, and filthy clothes looked more suited to life lining up outside a medi-center on that other world.
“It’s all lies,” spat Joseph. “Everything he’s told you is utter crap.” He stood up and attempted to brush the grime off his clothes. “I look disgusting.” He shook his head. “He’s distorting everything, Mortimer. Come on, you know me.”
The other Joseph got to his feet. “You just came at me with a knife, my friend. Does that sound like the actions of a man who’s in command of his wits? Joseph, our other self came to you from Source World, begging for your help.” He looked across at Mortimer. “There was a sickness in their world long before the death virus spread through their cities. The Joseph that came through that gate didn’t spread either.”
He pointed at the other Joseph. “They did that. You see, the fuckers had already tortured the information out of our other Joseph and found out about the possible cure in your blood. They had all three of your other selves connected to drips and had already devised an inhibitor. All they needed now was to wipe out their local opposition.”
The other Joseph screamed out and ran towards Daniel. He wrapped his fingers in his hair and slammed the back of the lad’s head into the wall behind him before racing out of the door.
Mortimer ran over to his brother, sobbing at the sight of the huge pool of blood spreading out from under him. “No, this isn’t supposed to happen!” He gently stroked his cheeks, knowing he was dead. He lifted his head and stared at the stricken Joseph, his face wet with tears as well. “Please, tell me I was right and he was wrong. This really is a game and Daniel’s woken up to play with his Legos?”