INFECTED (Click Your Poison)

by James Schannep

  You walk across the gym with the other group members, casting glances of doubt to one another. “Don’t be afraid,” Deleon says as he opens the double doors. From the shadows within, there’s a scraping sound, and the wet screeching of skin against the basketball court floor.

  From the recesses emerges a legless zombie, crawling its way out despite the wounds. You all instinctively go for your weapons, but Deleon holds up his hands to slow you. He extends an open hand for you to return his syringe.

  Once you do, he moves in on his guinea pig. The undead man snaps his teeth and claws at the doctor, but Deleon is able to stab him with the syringe and back away.

  “What now?” Sims asks.

  “Just watch.”

  The zombie twitches and turns onto its back. He reaches a clawed hand up, but it’s not the same. A look of recognition comes over his eyes. Human recognition. A noise, barely audible, comes from the man’s throat. It sounds something like a hoarse, “What?” He gasps and spasms once more.

  Then the legless man dies, blood and bodily fluid flowing out of his corpse onto the gymnasium floor. “It didn’t work,” Tyberius says.

  “Yes, it did. He died because of his injuries, not because of the serum.”

  “How can you be sure?” Hefty asks.

  “I’m sure. And in another few hours, I’ll be using the next batch on myself.”

  “All right, Doc, I hope you’re right,” Cooper says. “‘Cause I’ll kill you myself if you turn.”

  “What do we do until it’s ready?” you ask.

  You each look at one another and Guillermo picks up on the pause. “Ven conmigo! Comida, si?” He rubs his stomach, along with an “mmmmmm” sound, and pantomimes eating from a spoon. He then backs away and waves to you to follow him.

  • See what Guillermo has “cooked up” for you.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Dead of Night, Rise of Day

  You lean against a tree, fighting sleep, your eyes jumping at every leaf blowing in the midnight breeze. This, in theory, is your last night out in the woods. If you make it through tonight, tomorrow you’ll be at the compound, swapping stories with other survivors and receiving a well-deserved pat on the back for your fortitude.

  Would you have made it this far without Rosie? Probably not. But what does that matter? There won’t be a sign out front saying, “Only Those Strong Enough To Make It Here On Their Own May Enter.” At least… you hope to hell there won’t be.

  She’s asleep right now. You’re giving her that—the gift of sleep under a watchful eye. Restful sleep. Maybe she wouldn’t have made it this far without you. You’re helpful, and if nothing else, you’ve proven that other people are alive. Hope is invaluable.

  There’s a crunch on the leaves in the distance. This would have to happen while you’re on watch, wouldn’t it? You strain your eyes, trying to see out in the darkness, but the cloud covering the moon makes this night darker than humanity’s future prospects.

  You look back to Rosie; she’s sound asleep, cradling her rifle. She’ll be ready in case you need to wake her. You look back toward the sound. There’s a human silhouette creeping in toward you, but it’s much smaller than normal. As it gets closer, you realize it’s a young Boy Scout, lost from his troop. Kind of makes you wonder: did he get lost before or after he became a zombie?

  You move away from the tree, lift your axe, and prepare to do your gruesome deed. Even if he’s undead it still feels wrong to kill a kid. But it’s easier when you realize that if you don’t, he’ll just try and earn his Feed on the Living Merit Badge.

  You take him out with swift ease, slightly appalled at just how natural your movements felt. Now you wonder why the heroes in movies with evil kids or dolls had such a hard time dispatching said devil-spawn. Stuff like that doesn’t scare you anymore, now that there are real monsters in the world.

  When you turn back toward the tree, you see Rosie awake and holding her rifle. You didn’t even hear her stir. “It’s almost dawn,” she says. “Let’s pack up and get out of here.”

  * * *

  The marshes. Despite the bright day around you, you see darkness within as you approach. The canopy blocks out much of the light, giving the swampland a dim but still visible appearance. You’re immediately glad you waited until morning.

  It starts to form slowly, with a few steps wetter than just the morning dew, the foliage growing denser and greener, until the forest transforms into almost a jungle. Soon the puddles of stagnant water do more than just squeeze out from the grass underfoot, and you find swamp pouring into your shoes from above. The water rises to mid-calf level before you’ve even immersed twenty yards into the bog.

  “Much further?” you ask.

  “Quiet.” You keep moving forward, Rosie a few yards to your side with her rifle, searching for threats. Some steps sink lower than others, but the overall trend is a deepening of the marsh. You’re now wading in brackish water up to your thighs.

  There’s a thick film of algae on the surface, which you break when you wade through, and the stale water beneath is brown and cloudy. You’re hoping it won’t get much deeper. There’s an eerie silence. To your horror, you realize this is patently wrong. In a place as rich and biodiverse as this, there should be frogs or insects at the least.

  “Shouldn’t there be animal noises?” you ask.

  Rosie stops and so do you. Both of you stand frozen, listening. No sounds, just eldritch silence, save for the sloshing water settling into place. A few bubbles percolate in the pool ahead of you. Then they grow in intensity. Rosie Points her rifle at them, just as bubbles start appearing on her side as well. These globules of rank air escape from below and soon you’re surrounded by blistering froth, rollicking something deep from within.

  A wetland zombie comes at you from behind a tree, catching you off-guard, almost as if the bubbles were a planned ruse. “Goddammit—get out of the way!” Rosie shouts. You’re between the zombie and her line of sight, and there’s not enough time for you to flee. You’re forced to fight.

  You crack your axe against the ghoul, instantly collapsing his forehead with the blow. Then another rises from the murk. Dramatically. Slowly. Up from a curled position, one vertebra at time, like a yogi exiting a pose. Crack! Rosie sinks a round into his forehead.

  More of the undead rise from the marsh, four of them, thick brown sludge pouring off their bodies. They’re not decaying, but the flesh is missing in chunks and most of the skin has been picked away by the swamp’s other inhabitants.

  You swing at the one closest to you but the weapon’s too large and ungainly and gets caught in the vines and branches. The nearby zombie moves in on you. Rosie plugs away at the other fiends, taking each of them down with a crack from her rifle.

  Thinking quickly, you pull a knife from your belt and jab it into the ghoul’s eye, pushing it all the way in. The zombie drops. Two more come from behind the trees and barely get a moan out before Rosie fires a round for each; headshots. The bog is silent once more.

  Rosie lowers the rifle with a smile. “You owe me, buckaroo,” she says, already reloading with a fresh clip. “Just you remember this when it comes time to do the cooking at camp.”

  You’re about to say that sounds pretty good to you, but you don’t get the chance. With an unexpected speed and ferocity, one last zombie bursts out of the water behind her and grabs a handful of her hair. Rosie screams and the ghoul brings her down splashing into the water below. You try to rush in and grab her, but you’re greeted with only empty slough below the surface.

  From ahead, through the swamp, another figure rushes in. He’s armored, but running with incredible ease. Although you hold your axe at the ready, you can recognize him as a human man wielding a katana sword and moving with such effortlessness, he’s practically skimming across the surface of the marsh.

  He wears a Kendo uniform—simply put: practice samurai armor.

  He locks in on the commotion in the moor and sinks his blade into the
water right where Rosie went down. With quick, clean movements he cuts at something beneath the surface. “Here!” he shouts, tossing you his blade. You look at the sword, its fine edge coated in viscera and algae.

  From beneath, the man pulls up Rosie; she coughs up water and holds onto her hero with panic. Her eyes are wide and black sludge pours out of her mouth.

  “Are you alright?” you ask.

  She nods, coughing still. “I swallowed some swampwater, but other than that…”

  “No bites?” asks the mystery man.

  Rosie still has hold of her rifle, and moves it defensively between her and the man. “No bites,” she says, all business.

  “That is good,” the man says. He turns to you and holds a hand out for his sword. “I am Lucas Tesshu. I head toward sanctuary on foot, would you care to accompany me?”

  Rosie looks at you.

  • “Absolutely! We’re headed there ourselves.”

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Defend the Homestead!

  You were either born with extra courage or lacking in prudence, but either way, you go to town on these zombies. They break out the boards on your living room window and you crack their skulls open as they start to crawl through. One, two, three zombies down. Your adrenaline is really pumping now.

  From the moaning outside, it’s certain they’re still coming, but there’s a break in the action so you start boarding the window back up. You get two boards up when you hear a crash from your kitchen. There’re a couple of ghouls back that way. Just as you finish fixing the front window, they break the boards down in the kitchen window.

  You sprint back and smash the baseball bat against them as hard as you can. It sometimes takes two or three hits, but you release their brains like hitting a piñata with your eyes open. You take out the two who tried to breach the kitchen but there isn’t time to board the windows back up because the zombies are coming in through the living room again.

  Despite arms that are burning with exhaustion, you keep going strong. The stench of the undead is fearsome, and their bodies start to pile up. The alarm, the moaning, or both—prove more effective than you might have thought, and your home is soon swarming with undead.

  They’re coming through the kitchen and the living room at the same time and then you hear the crash of the glass from your bedroom window. It’s too late to make it down to the basement or up to the attic, and they’ve got your house surrounded, so there’s no chance of escape.

  This is it. It’s just your homerun-slugger versus the dozens of hellspawn streaming into your house. You won’t go down without a fight, and you manage to take two more to the grave before you’re overwhelmed and eaten alive. You watch in unbearable pain as your innards become outards.

  They’re ravenous and don’t leave enough of you to rise again.

  THE END

  Deleon’s Office

  Meticulously clean and spartan, this is the office of someone with an OCD-standard of cleanliness. The only object worthy of interest is the computer. There’s an audio file up on the screen, and you figure it’s worth finding out what kind of music the guy listens to, so you hit Play. But it’s a voice recording, not music. You won’t find out which bands appeal to genetic researchers today. Instead, you turn the volume low and move your mop back and forth across the floor while listening closely.

  Phoenix: I need you to sign this, endorsing the product. Then let’s break out the bubbly.

  Deleon: I don’t know, I’d like to do more tests.

  P: What? Since when? What’s happened?

  D: They just seem… bored.

  P: Bored? Who gives a shit? Let ’em decide how to spend their time after they’ve handed us their life savings.

  D: Certain test groups have stopped sleeping, they don’t eat—

  P: Hell, maybe this’ll end world hunger too!

  (pause)

  P: Okay, look, Deleon, all we have to do is slap something on there saying “Not evaluated by the FDA” and we’re golden.

  D: I’d like to start a new batch; see if I can cut out these outlier groups.

  P: Fuck that. It could take years! You’re still young, but I need this! (pause)

  P: All right, how about this? What if Einstein was still alive? Still alive and in his prime because his telomeres stopped shortening. Think of the discoveries we’d have. You can be that scientist, free to research whatever you want, forever! Not to mention the Nobel Prize…just sign the form, Einstein.

  That’s the end of the clip, and there are no subsequent files, at least that you can see. You’re not going to find anything else in this barren office.

  • The main office. Doc Phoenix is still on the phone, so I can overhear whatever it is he’s saying. Waste not another minute!

  • Rodent Testing Labs… They’re bound to have something valuable lying around.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Devoured

  Nothing is more painful than being eaten alive. You scream; it can’t be helped. The last thing you see is the inside of a zombie as your eyes are ripped out and swallowed. Then your body says enough is enough, and your brain shuts down.

  THE END

  Dig Deeper

  You search the mire for Rosie, desperately feeling for her. Twigs and roots and rocks and earth and God-knows-what-else sweeps past your fingers, but no Rosie. How deep does this thing go? You’re squatted down, digging into the cavern she must’ve been pulled into, the brown water lapping against your chin. And then you feel it—her rifle. You pull it out of the water and sling it across your shoulder. You keep up the frantic search; she must be close. Then, just as you’re about to give up, a hand grabs yours underwater.

  The hand grasps your wrist tightly and so you pull. Only it doesn’t give. As a matter of fact, the hand tries to pull you down into the cavern. You lurch up as hard as you can, gripping your arm with your other hand and pulling yourself out of the water. The hand’s owner comes with it, but it’s not Rosie.

  Like a great white shark birthing from the ocean, the zombie bursts forth from the water with a surge of power and mouth agape. You fall back with a splash of wake and the undead attacker atop of you. There’s no avoiding it this time; he bites full into you.

  You throw him off you and finally get your footing. In a fit of rage, you bash your axe across the zombie’s head, killing it instantly. Standing there, catching your breath, it finally dawns on you… you’re infected. Rosie’s either been eaten, drowned, or both, by now, and in a few hours you’ll be one of them. It’s your choice, though: you do have Rosie’s rifle.

  • True, it was a good run. One last zombie to kill…myself.

  • Never give up! Maybe there’s some help at that compound? Keep looking.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Disappointment

  Their shadows enter the school before them, like giants, washed out in the blinding daylight from the doors beyond. You almost don’t recognize Cooper, clad in motorcycle gear and without her long black tresses. “We ran into some trouble,” she says in response to her new do. She runs a hand over her hair, now smoothed and shaved-down to a buzz cut.

  “So did we. He’s been bit,” Hefty spits out.

  “We missed one when we looked? Where was it?” Sims asks, slipping a pack off his shoulder. They move in, unloading several hiking backpacks full of supplies.

  “No,” Deleon says firmly, desperately. “I’ve been bitten since long before I met you.”

  Cooper raises an eyebrow. “But how? That was so long ago—how are you still… living?”

  “I have a cure.”

  The group confabulates in anger. They’re shouting their betrayal, and Deleon holds up his hands to calm them. He wants to explain. Bad move. All Guillermo sees is the bite wound and he chomps his teeth twice, then says, “Mordido!”

  Guillermo jumps to his feet, cleaver raised, and charges at Deleon, who backs away, hands still raised. “Hold on, estoy bien! Medicina!” The doctor ducks into Guillermo, evadi
ng the cleaver but still taking the force of the chef’s tackle.

  It’s a sight too familiar since the end of the world, that of two men wrestling on the ground while one’s trying to kill the other. Sims and Hefty get Guillermo off Deleon, then Tyberius helps the doctor to his feet. Guillermo paces around, ranting in Spanish about the crazy people he’s with.

  Cooper is not pleased. “I knew there was a reason I wanted to kill you.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us you have a cure? Why lie?” Tyberius looks legitimately hurt.

  “Well… it’s not finished. But as long as I take this inoculation every three hours—I just need to find a lab to finish it—look, I tried to say stay away from me, but you guys wouldn’t—”

  “Where the hell are all the guns?” Hefty asks, interrupting.

  Sims looks down and shakes his head. “It was all gone,” he says. “But we still got some good stuff, so…”

  “God damn it, we are so fucked,” Hefty says. Sims removes the hunting bow and quiver, and hands it over. “Oh what, just because I’m from the South means I can use this? That’s racist.”

  “Can you use it?” you ask.

  “Well… yeah.”

  “Just shut up, everybody. I’m too tired for this shit,” Cooper says. She’s deep in thought, staring at the floor. Then she looks at Deleon. “How much of that stuff do you have left?”

  The doctor’s face is covered in sweat. He looks around nervously. “Enough for now.”

  “We need sleep. We’ll post a guard and decide what to do with you in the morning.”

  • Get some rest.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE