INFECTED (Click Your Poison)

by James Schannep

  “Fine,” you say in unison with Lucas.

  The three of you rush back up the canyon, the smaller rocks dislodged by your steps, the cool of the night sinking down around you, and the first patter of rain upon your shoulders. Your legs ache with fatigue. The descent was so slight you didn’t even feel the gradual dip, but on the way up you realize how far you’ve come.

  Water begins streaming down the graveled floor and your footing suffers. You slip about every fourth step, though you’re the least graceful of the three. Rosie occasionally reaches for the smooth canyon walls for support, and Lucas is as fox-footed as ever.

  A small torrent rushes down toward you just as the patter becomes a downpour. You’re soaked to the skin, and the new river drenches your socks as well. You’re unable to move quickly because each step is underwater.

  The smooth rocks provide little stability, and you fall into the brook. Your pants are drenched. Then a new sound appears over the rain and thunder. A low grumble. But it’s not the moaning; that was overpowered by the rainstorm. This new sound drowns out the very rain beating against your ears.

  A rush of water, six feet high, pounds around the bend before you. You’ve no option other than to look dumbly at the liquid wall approaching. The smooth canyon walls leave nothing to grab hold of, and no outcroppings from which to resist the rush.

  The three of you are swept away by the torrent. Water makes every effort to rob you of your breath: jumping into your mouth, dunking your head under, slamming you against the canyon wall; but you’re able to cough a breath here and there as you rollick your way down the canyon.

  You’re riding the very forefront of the current, watching helplessly as land becomes river. You travel the ground you reclaimed in a matter of seconds. There’s a recurring sequence of being thrown out in front of the water and getting scooped up again. After a dozen times, the rocks cutting and bruising you, the water finally catches up with the moans.

  And in the next split second, you learn why you’ve seen no zombies hitherto. They were all down here, trapped and broken in the canyon. Hundreds of them piled atop one another inside a steep embankment. Then you are thrown atop the pile. They react as an angry nest of fire ants, whirling about to attack you. The last thing you see before the water comes is a small footbridge, high above the canyon. On your back, looking up, the rapids take you.

  The deluge is something you can no longer resist, not with thousands of zombies grabbing and pulling at you like you’re the lone life raft after a cruise liner sinks. You’re bitten, but not eaten. You’re drowned, but not dead. At least not forever. The Gilgazyme ® makes sure of that. Even as your limp body moves with the current, the plague restructures your DNA. Soon you will rise again.

  You’ll never know the fate of Rosie and Lucas Tesshu, for even if you see them again, you wouldn’t know their names. Feeling and memory give way to instinct. You’ll wash up somewhere, with no recollection of who you are, and then you’ll wander toward civilization.

  • Give way to instinct.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Goodbye

  “Then keep on running,” she says, no remorse in her dusky eyes.

  • Keep on running.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Go, Go, Go!

  This being your first up-close encounter with the undead, you flee in terror. Your backpack bounces awkwardly as you run across neighboring lawns. You breathe hard and fast, bounding with strides longer than you knew you could take.

  Once the lizard part of your brain stops telling you to run, your tunnel vision relents and you actually see what’s around you. Then you stop dead in your tracks, your back up against a house.

  Across the street, a housewife zombie stands inside her home, just behind the screen door. She stares at you. Without any real signs of aggression, she pushes the tattered screen out of its frame and steps through the door.

  As you stare back, two hands crash out of the glass behind you and grab onto your backpack, lifting you up to the raised window. You struggle to get out, thrashing like an angry toddler trying to squirm out of a sweater, and at the last moment slide out onto the lawn—your backpack disappears into the house.

  You get away, but your gear does not. Looking back, you don’t see the undead housewife, either. Luckily, you were carrying the fireman’s axe so you at least have that. What do you do?

  • That pack’s got everything: weapons, first aid, food, flashlight, maps… I’ve got to go back for it.

  • Keep moving. If you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Gothic Horror

  Cooper pulls pieces off the barricade. Guillermo joins in. So do Hefty and Sims. Despite giving your verbal approval, you don’t move forward to help; you can’t. Angelica reaches out and grabs your hand. In a way, that might’ve helped you more than it did her—it’s easier to be brave when you’re protecting someone more afraid than you.

  They get the way clear but wait a moment before opening the doors. It feels like a point of no return. Looks like it’s your turn to be brave. You nod at Angelica, drop her hand and move forward to pull the handles.

  The great doors slowly creak open as you pull. Deleon’s flashlight clicks on. A chorus of moans greets you with a draft of hot and sticky air. The flashlight’s beam searches across the open cathedral, and the candlelight reveals you’ve entered the main stage. The altar sits undisturbed.

  It takes great concentration to will your feet forward. Still you move toward the moans. Why aren’t they coming at you? Just as the thought crosses your mind, it’s answered.

  Inside, on the ground between the pews, bodies lie wrapped and bound in white sheets. Squirming.

  You look down at the sheeted zombie before you. It thrashes, then continues to roll about. Encased head to toe in a white sheet and tied with ropes around the neck, torso, arms, legs and feet. They’re all identically prepared, at least two hundred of them.

  “Oh, my God,” Sims mutters.

  “We’ve got to kill them. They’ll call others,” Tyberius says, more to himself than anyone else.

  Cooper firmly says, “We’re going to burn them.”

  Angelica is frantic now. “This is a sanctuary!” she says. “This is the house of God. This is a holy resting place. He made all creation, and on the seventh day he rested.”

  “And on the eighth day, Satan laughed,” Cooper replies grimly. “Now c’mon.”

  The zombies squirm and moan. Hefty shifts uncomfortably. “It’s true, we can’t just leave them here like this. They need to be… put down.”

  “Doc, is this necessary?” Sims asks.

  Deleon shrugs. “They don’t feel pain. They probably weren’t even moving until they smelled us.”

  “Smelled us? Fuck…” Tyberius mutters.

  Angelica turns to Deleon with desperation. “What about the cure?”

  “It’s possible,” he replies, resigned.

  Cooper shakes her head. “We have to kill all of them, or more will come. Each one of these could start a new outbreak. There’s oil in those lamps, we can use that.”

  To burn or not to burn?

  • “It’s us versus them, cure or not. Burn the bastards.”

  • “We should be so lucky—if we were ever bitten. Leave them be.”

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  The Great Escape

  The horde of a hundred undead swarms the entrance to the store, filing in one by one. They’re hungry and anxious, and throngs more are arriving from the surrounding area by the minute. Something shoots out from behind the crowd: seven figures on bicycles are leaving by the service entrance, speeding by in the background. It’s your group, escaping like a wily cartoon character slipping out from under a pile of animated foes.

  You speed away from the danger on your bicycles, but your daring attempt is by no means foolproof. You bob and weave through the stragglers, who are quick to realize their meal is trying to escape. Ahead there�
��s a body-builder zombie so large it puts 1980s Schwarzenegger to shame. It moves to tackle you with its enormous meat hooks, but you veer away. With a furious roar it tries to stumble-run after the group, almost like a gorilla, but they split around him like a flock of birds and the zombie has no chance to catch up.

  For a time, you ride in silence. The only sounds are the zombie moans and the airy whirring of tires. It doesn’t take long until you’ve escaped the thick of them. Feeling victory, you slow to a cruising pace.

  • Time to deliver Christmas presents to the school.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Grin and Bare It

  You’re inside the annex of the cathedral; the main church was inaccessible. The wooden front doors were thick and heavy in the old style, and no one really wanted to smash in the stained-glass windows, so annex it was.

  It kind of looks like a Christmas Eve candlelight service in here. Cooper blows out the camping lanterns once the last candle is lit, saving them for later. There were several boxes of candles in storage, and the center of the room is illuminated by a large advent wreath Hefty found. The group is still settling in and reconnoitering supplies. Dr. Deleon comes in from the bathroom, adjusting his wristwatch. You notice him walk over to his pack and slip an empty test tube vial into it.

  “Who wants communion?” Sims asks, returning from one of the storerooms with a bottle of wine he found.

  “I don’t drink, never have,” Angelica says. Something in her voice tells you she’s lying, but why is unclear. Maybe she’s trying to brush him off?

  Cooper returns from an adjoining hall. “Don’t start the party just yet. Doctor’s orders, we need to check for bites. So, Doc, you and the newbie—front and center. The rest of you, off your asses.”

  The group forms a loose circle around the two of you. “Strip,” Cooper commands.

  “Excuse me?” Deleon responds.

  “You’re the newest, we have to check. Take off your clothes. Nobody’s shy at the end of the world, c’mon.”

  “How do we know you’re clean?” you ask in protest.

  “That’s right,” Deleon adds. “If this is so you trust us; we should trust you too.”

  Cooper pauses a second. Then she undoes and takes off her jacket. “All right, fine.” She unbuckles her belt. “Everybody, clothes off.”

  “Yes!” Hefty says, sotto voce.

  “Girls and boys in different rooms,” Angelica instructs. Maybe she was a schoolteacher back in the world?

  Tyberius looks to Hefty. “All right then, we already checked each other, right, Hef?”

  “Yeah—we’re good.”

  “Yeah… I was there too, so…” Sims chimes in.

  Cooper takes a step forward. “No. The only way—” she looks right at you, her dark eyes piercing. “The only way to really trust each other—” then to the others, “is to do it as a group.”

  “This is a house of God,” Angelica says, not without some indignation.

  “Spare me. This discussion is over.”

  The group stares at one another in silence. No one moves. Each person looks deeply into every other person’s eyes. No one wants to say anything, to be the first to move, and the awkwardness hangs in the air for what feels like forever. After a pause, Deleon starts to disrobe.

  Everyone follows suit, with various degrees of sheepishness, according to their different personalities. You join in too, knowing you can’t be the odd one out. It’s for safety, you tell yourself. Guillermo looks confused, but eventually shrugs and follows the others.

  Deleon neatly folds his clothes as he takes them off, but the others do not. After a minute, you all stand in a circle, your clothes strung out all over the floor. Some look around the room with shame, others stare directly at their teammate’s bodies. You can’t help but look; what’s the point of undressing if you don’t look for bites?

  Deleon has a fit physique, not what you imagined a workaholic scientist would look like naked. He catches your glance. You both shy away, innocent and embarrassed. Sims and Guillermo look more like expected; each is carrying a few pounds they’ll likely lose in the upcoming weeks and months.

  Tyberius is a man who works out regularly; survival of the fittest, indeed! Hefty is the opposite of his namesake, thin as a rail. Angelica is well-toned for someone her age. There must’ve been spin classes or Pilates in her past.

  Cooper has a taut, muscular frame, but enough fat in the right places to keep her look feminine. As a matter of fact, her athletic body makes you swallow hard. She clearly stares at Deleon. Judges him openly, sizes him up. Then she looks at you, making no effort to hide her appraisal. Noticing your own gaze, she raises an eyebrow.

  You look away.

  “What about that cast?” Sims asks. “What’s under there?” Deleon folds his arms across his chest, the cast close against his body. “How do we know you weren’t bit?”

  Deleon has a look of being persecuted, and is suddenly filled with more shame than mere naked exposure would cause. The group stares in silence. Tyberius breaks in, “‘Cause he’s not trying to eat you right now, dumbass.”

  “He’d be all pale, and sweaty, and—if he were turning,” Angelica adds.

  “All I’m saying is, what’s under there, so…”

  “A fractured radius,” Deleon answers. “Once infected, a person only has six hours before the incubation is complete, and symptoms start as early as the first hour. I was having my bathroom remodeled. Instead I made this.” He holds his arm cast up for examination.

  The group falls to silence, looking at each other for bites once again. Angelica and Sims cover their private parts.

  “Aw, what the fuck?” Tyberius says to Hefty. “Put that shit away, man.”

  You can’t help but look, just like the rest of the group. Hefty smiles and glances down at his growing manhood. “That’s why they call me Hefty.”

  You all try not to notice, giving cries of disgust and disapproval.

  * * *

  Everyone is dressed once more. Suddenly, you hear a moan, soft and distant. You lift your axe and look about for the source. “What was that?” you ask, seeking the far-off sound. The group stops and listens. The faint moan continues.

  “The souls of the damned,” Angelica says.

  Sims points above. “It’s coming from the air vent.” He dons his gas mask.

  Deleon walks over to the vent. “Must be in the main church.”

  “Gear up,” Cooper says.

  Everyone grabs their melee weapons and candles are handed out. Following Cooper, you slip into the cathedral halls. The group moves, silent and fleet of foot. Shadows leap about from the candlelight. Passing through the long, ornamentally decorated corridor, you eventually make it to the cathedral doors. Large, wooden, and barricaded.

  The moan comes from behind these doors. “Are we sure we want to do this?” Tyberius asks.

  “What, are you scared?” Sims responds.

  “Hell, yes.”

  You’re all nerves-pressed-against-cheese-grater. You have to bite the inside of your cheek just to keep some semblance of composure.

  “Look, they know we’re here,” Deleon says, “There’d be scratching and scraping if they were right on the other side.”

  “So, it’s safe?” you ask.

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “If we’re going to sleep here, we need to silence them,” Cooper says, moving forward to tear down the barricade.

  • “I don’t think we should disturb them.”

  • “Just be ready to re-seal that door, just in case.”

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Gunner

  “That’s the spirit! But… no fucking way. She’s my baby. Yeah, I admit it, I’m that spoiled kid and it’s my toy. My toy!” The last bit he screams out in a child-mimicked squeal. Then he laughs a wide-eyed titter and you suddenly feel like you may have accepted a ride from the wrong stranger.

  He takes an assault rifle off the trailer wall and p
resses the stock against your chest. You claim the black weapon, looking it over while he opens a canvas bag and fills it with banana clips. He takes a combat shotgun down as well and loads the breach full of shells.

  “I’ll need to drive us first, so you can ride in the back for a bit… Ah, fuck it—I’m no asshole. We’ve got two boxes of ammo for the thing, and you can have the first. Don’t let it be said I never did nothin’ for nobody. Oh, and this probably goes without saying, but the old man would skin us alive if he finds out, so no bragging to your friends when we get back.”

  You follow him out back, where he opens a massive padlock on the rear gate, pushes it open and bids you follow with a toss of his head. Just on the other side is a combat-ready Humvee. It’s large, massive, in fact, menacing and inviting at the same time. At the passenger side he pumps the shotgun and laughs as he shouts, “Shotgun!” placing the weapon in the empty seat.

  You open the door on the driver’s side, surprised at how light and almost toy-like it feels. “You want this thing in here?” you ask, holding up the rifle.

  “Yup. You should see a rack. Then hop in back.”

  * * *

  Rows of dead corn husks, brown and brittle, stand limply across the massive field. The zombie farmer crunches the dry crops underfoot as he shuffles across his lonely home. He’s not really headed anywhere, just ambling; waiting for instinct to take hold.

  As a mighty engine roar comes closer, his head snaps up like an animal’s. He moves toward the sound just as the Humvee bounds around the corner. The soldier leans out of the window and screams back to you, “Fuck him up!” Your hands are on the .50-caliber machine gun.

  It swivels smoothly as you take aim. You depress the trigger and the field erupts in dirt explosions. You force the firing line up to the zombie and his body is torn to shreds by the dagger-sized bullets. It doesn’t matter if you score a headshot, and that’s a beautiful thing.