He shows me the used cartridge, then his Link:
<
Kelly shakes his head and glares as best as he can through his goggles and mask.
As we leave the pile behind, I wonder about that cartridge. Was it just an accident? Could it really be defective? How many of the others’ are as well?
The garbage dam disappears into the darkness behind us. The tunnel ahead is wide and tall and, other than the occasional drifts of garbage along the floor and that one huge pile, it’s remarkably uncluttered.
Micah—or maybe Jake, I can’t tell which, just that it’s someone with a yellow glow stick—shines their light on the sides of the tunnel. We drift pass old traffic signs and ancient graffiti, past the tendril remains of old wiring and pipes. Light fixtures dangle from the ceilings and walls, looking a little like the tropical moss that hangs from the trees along the south Connecticut coast.
A sudden burst of bubbles draws my attention to my right. We all hear it, stop and turn to look. It’s Kelly and he appears to be struggling with his mask. In a panic, I swim over to him. His hands drop just as I reach his side. He frowns, waving me away. Then he points to his goggles. Relief washes over me as I realize he’s just clearing them of water.
Our Links all ping at once:
<
It’s Jake. We all give him a thumbs up. I can’t really tell with the masks over our faces, but the look Jake shoots Kelly doesn’t seem like concern as much as hostility. It’s like there’s this electric current running between them. But I still can’t understand why Jake would harbor such feelings toward Kelly. Or is it just that he’s sensing Kelly’s jealousy? I don’t know.
The look between them lingers a moment longer, then we’re off again. I give a kick of my flippers and propel myself through the group. I want Kelly to catch up with me. I want to be in front for a while, instead of always in back and following.
Also, as long as I’m in front, I won’t feel like I have to keep turning around and shining my light into the darkness, fearing that something is going to come out after us, a large fish or an alligator. Or shark. It’s silly, I know, but I can’t help it.
Even though there’s this fear, it’s not that bad. More like a shadow of fear, or a memory of it. There’s obviously a sense of wariness and caution, just not the alarm I’d expect considering the risks we’re taking. Maybe our excitement is neutralizing it. Or maybe it’s the lack of sleep. I don’t really care.
I keep kicking, feeling the strength in my legs. I know it’ll be an effort for Kel to keep up, but I don’t slow down. My Link pings. I ignore it.
I can feel my pulse beginning to pound inside my head. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a beam of light closing in, then the red glow of Kelly’s chemical stick. He reaches out. His hand brushes mine, but I keep moving. That’s when I sense the change in the water.
I slow. Then stop. Kelly slides up next to me. He holds his hands up, giving a wondering gesture. I look behind us and see that the group has spread out: two blue glow sticks between us and the two yellow ones further back.
I realize I’m drifting toward them. That’s what Kelly’s trying to tell me.
I raise my Link and quickly type:
<
I send it to everyone.
I can see the glow of five more Link screens, twinkling as they close the distance. A flurry of messages scroll across my screen, coming from Ash and Jake and Micah:
<
<
<
The others reach us, motion for us to stop for a moment. Micah types into his Link and sends it out to the group:
<
I can always tell when he sends a message because he hates using vowels.
He looks at me and gestures, as if knowing my thoughts. I nod, slowly and exaggeratingly: We need to push harder now or else struggle later. I thrust myself forward into the waiting darkness ahead. I can feel the others close behind.
I soon find myself pulling away from the group again. The sound of Kelly’s breathing grows fainter behind me. I slow down to let him catch up, but it’s Jake who reaches me first this time, Kelly close at his heels.
Kelly’s breathing hard. The current is definitely strengthening, though it’s not too bad. Yet.
I hear another rush of bubbles, and we all stop and wave our lights around until they find Reggie clearing his goggles. Ash and Kelly take the opportunity to clear theirs. I want to warn Kel to save his air, but I’d only be telling him something he already knows.
My mask is tight against my skin, sealed with Vaseline, as is everyone else’s. A little water has leaked in, not much. I go ahead and raise my thumb and find the button just above the bridge of my nose and push.
Pressure on my eyeballs. My ears pop, then there’s a sudden snap and my goggles slip away from my face. Everything around me suddenly goes blurry. I wave my hands around trying to find them, but I can’t see anything. I drop the flashlight and its beam swings around before dropping to the end of its tether.
Air bubbles burst from my nose. Instinctively, I try to pull them back in and suddenly I’m coughing, choking. My lungs constrict. The air leaves my mouth, but not into the canister. It bubbles past my face and is quickly lost above me. Now my lungs are empty and so is my canister. I can’t even find my goggles to use the compressed gas.
My ears are ringing, my throat constricts. I want to open my mouth and inhale and my mind screams at me, No! No! Don’t do it!
I feel hands on me, on my arms and legs and head. Then my goggles are pushed into place against my face while another hand presses on the back of my head. There’s an explosion of air and my vision clears. My lungs are beyond bursting.
The hand behind me forces my head down and another set of goggles is there. I’m not sure how many releases it takes before I realize there’s air rushing up and into my face. I open my mouth and gasp, taking in putrid river water and air and I cough and gasp and cough some more and I feel like I’m drowning and going to die.
The air suddenly stops. Luckily, I’ve recovered my wits a little and my lungs are full. I feel my mask getting shoved into mouth, but I still can’t see because of the hands holding the goggles into place, trying to fix the broken headband.
I reach up and try to push them away, but they stay. I bite down and exhale explosively into the canister, then inhale just as quickly. The air tastes stale in my mouth, but it takes the edge off, so I repeat the cycle again and again until the dizziness leaves my head.
Finally, the hands holding the goggles move aside enough so I can see the Link held up into my field of vision. I blink and the screen comes into focus:
<
I nod. No shit.
The words scroll up and a second line of text appears:
<
I nod again.
<
The text slides up.
<
I reach up with both hands and push against the mask. I need them to see. The other hands fall away. Now I can look around me, though my own hands limit my peripheral vision. I see the concerned faces gathered in a circle around me, treading water. Without letting go of the goggles, I manage to hold a thumb up and everyone nods and reciprocates.
They pull away, all except Kelly, who lingers a moment longer. Despite how little of his face I can actually see, what isn’t distorted by the goggles and mask, it’s obvious he’s worried. He holds up his Link so I can read it:
<
He leans forward and plants his lips on my cheek. The kiss is cold, but it sends a surge of warmth through me.
He slips beneath me and retrieves the flashlight on the end of its tether and flicks it off, knowing I can’t hold it myself now, not without letting go of the mask.
Jake slides into view, gesturing that we need to go. I’m not sure how far we’ve slipped bac
k in just the few minutes that have passed, but it puts us further away from our destination. Once again, I’m holding the others back.
Embarrassed, I let the others go ahead of me. I hold back a moment, wondering if we should turn around and head home. I won’t be able to swim very fast with my hands like this. And dispensing with the goggles so I can doesn’t seem like much of an option, either.
Kelly tugs me forward, his hand on my elbow. Despite what I’ve just gone through, he doesn’t even ask if I want to go back. It pisses me off. But already the rest are moving on, and I know he has no choice but to follow.
Neither do I.
‡
Chapter 14
My arms ache. My back is stiff. My legs are burning. And still we swim on.
If not for Kelly’s hand on my arm, I don’t know how I’d make it, since I can barely steer with just my feet. Even with him guiding me, I feel like I’m fighting against some invisible force that wants to turn me around. I’m moving as much sideways as forward. I try to correct my trajectory by twisting my body, but it doesn’t help much, just makes me all the more exhausted.
The yellow and blue glow sticks pull away from us, begin to fade in the distance and the murk. I kick harder. My breathing grows ragged. My body’s not used to this particular kind of exercise.
I can hear Kelly beginning to strain, too. Then, without warning, he jerks me to the side. His hand slips off of me and I’m bathed in blackness as the beam from his flashlight winks out.
Kelly?
I twist, but all around me is nothing but black ink and midnight loneliness. I strain my eyes through the goggles. They leak. I push them hard against my face.
Kelly!
But then the beam from his flashlight flickers on. It’s way off to one side. It swings around, jerks, then sinks down to the floor. I wonder if the tether somehow came unattached from his belt.
I spin around, kicking to get myself turned, and my flipper connects with something that feels like it has some give to it. I cringe, thinking I’ve just kicked my boyfriend in the face. But when I extend my legs, there’s nothing there.
The light below me changes. I see the faint outline of a figure holding it. The beam swings up and stabs at me. I swing my feet around and once again I feel a momentary resistance behind me.
A bubble of air escapes from my mouth. Water squirts into my goggles.
Kelly?
The light catches me square in the eyes. But then I feel a firm hand on my leg. I realize one of the others has come back, and I relax and wait for whoever it is to come alongside me. Without my hands, without my flashlight, I feel helpless.
The grips tightens, begins squeezing. I grunt when it starts to become uncomfortable. A second hand grabs my other leg.
Kelly’s flashlight jerks back and forth below me, coming closer. He’s swimming back up. I reach behind me to push the person off—guessing that it’s Reggie by his strength—but when I turn to look, it isn’t Reg. It’s nobody I recognize.
The man’s hair floats wildly about his pale face, and his eyes are gaping black holes. His mouth yawns at me and his teeth are yellow and ragged. He pulls himself toward my body. A tongue lolls out. It takes my mind a moment to process that he isn’t wearing a wetsuit or a mask or goggles. That’s not possible, I think, before realizing I’m in the grip of one of the Undead.
Air slips from my mouth and nose. My body contracts. The movement draws the thing even closer to me. The grip has hardened. It feels like a vise. It burns my skin as I kick desperately at it.
One hand lets go, reaches forward. I kick and scream inside my throat, but the hand finds my upper calf. The second hand releases me and somehow manages to grab me just above my knee. I slap at them with the goggles and kick. The zombie leans in to bite me.
But the grip slips on the slick material of the wetsuit, and it slides down my legs. For a moment I think I’m free. But then the hands catch on my flippers. Icy cold fingers wrap around my bare skin and begin marching back up my legs. I can hear the monster’s teeth clacking together as it extends its rotting neck and mouth toward me once again, desperate to feed.
Then, suddenly, the thing jerks to the side. The motion pulls me along with it. I see a flash of silver and the weight on one of my ankles falls away. The hand is still gripping me, but it’s no longer attached to an arm. I kick wildly, sobbing. Slowly the grip weakens and eventually the hand falls off. The blood seeping from it is thick and oily, staining the water black.
But this only seems to make the zombie angrier. It bats its oozing, jagged stump at me and begins to pull again. There’s another thump from the side, another flash of silver, and I see Kelly’s knife embeds itself deep into the zombie’s neck. He wrenches it free and the wound tears open, revealing a tangled mass of atrophied muscle and veins and the thick cord of the monster’s blackened gullet before the water clouds up with its gore. But still it doesn’t stop coming.
By now I’m flailing my entire body in a panic. The goggles are gone. I’m kicking and it’s not making any difference. I barely manage to remember to bite down and breathe through my mouth into the cartridge. It feels empty.
I remember the knife in my belt. I reach down and pull on the handle, but it won’t come free! More air leaks from my mouth. The monster’s stump hammers at my flipper.
No! No, no no nononono!
Somehow, my fingers find the snap holding the blade. They flick it open. I pull the knife free and try to bend over. Now the zombie is behind me, just out of reach. I twist desperately and hack blindly at the space near my foot.
More air escapes out of me. I’m feeling it in my lungs now, the lack of air. I’m feeling it in my throat. I’m feeling it behind my eyes and in my head and it screams for me to breathe, to open my mouth and take in a huge breath of air.
Blackness pushes against the edges of my vision.
The knife! Use the knife!
A pinprick of light forms in front of me. Grows. It’s warm and whispering comforting things at me: Breathe now, it’ll be all right.
I’m dimly aware that I’m still hacking, but my movements feel weak and pitiful. The blade connects with something rigid, jarring my arm, rousing me momentarily.
The monster twists and clacks. The knife is nearly wrenched from my hand. I feel the grip on my ankle loosen for a fraction of a moment before tightening again. I’ve hurt it!
I yank the knife free and hack again. There’s more resistance, then the weight drops away.
I let the knife go and kick to get away from the body of the monster I can’t see, the remaining hand still attached. Blinded by darkness and oxygen deprivation, my eyes burning from the filthy water, I reach down to pull it away.
The fingers are like plastic bands. I pry desperately at them. My stomach revolts, but to be sick now would be fatal. I finally manage to loosen the hand just as a bright light begins to fill my vision. Kelly, my mind prays, but deep down I know it’s not him. The whiteness is in the space behind my eyes. It’s my brain shutting down. The whispers grow loud inside my head.
I feel something caress my face. I open my mouth and water flows in. I cough, sputter, and open it again. I inhale just as another balloon of air envelops me. Kelly forces the mask into my mouth and holds it there, pinching my nose, willing me to breathe into my canister.
After a few minutes, I open my eyes. He holds me like that for several more minutes, until the black light inside me and the whispers fade away.
When I’m ready, he points the beam of his flashlight down into the darkness below us. I can’t see much without the goggles. I don’t know if he’s showing me the zombie; I kick to get away, but he holds me until I stop struggling.
Once more he points the light down, then at his face, then at me. He means that we need to go down and find my goggles.
Still shaking from the encounter, still weak from lack of oxygen, I try to follow. He goes slowly, waiting for me.
When we reach the floor, he begins to search, swe
eping his light back and forth. The floor is littered with objects washed in over the years. It all just looks blurry and shapeless to me.
I begin to think it’s hopeless when his light reflects off something shiny. Kel dives down and comes up with my knife. He pushes it back into my sheath. Then he goes back down.
After a few more minutes of searching, he returns, shaking his head. He points to his own goggles, offering them to me. I tell him no and gesture that we need to go. We’re completely alone. There’s no sign of the other four. They haven’t even noticed we’re not with them anymore.
Kel grabs my hand and together we rise toward the ceiling. If the current wasn’t pushing at us, forcing us back toward Manhattan, it’d be easy to mistake which direction we need to go. We angle toward the nearer end of the tunnel, not sure if maybe we aren’t making a mistake anyway.
Within minutes, a point of light appears in the darkness ahead. It swings around like a strobe and grows quickly stronger until it fills the tunnel. I shield my eyes. A second beam joins the first. We swim hard for them. Finally, I see two yellow glow sticks dangling just below the light beams. Micah and Jake pull up beside us, gesturing frantically. Micah holds up his Link.
I reach down and pull mine up to my face, holding it close to my eyes to read. There’s an old message there from Micah and it reads:
<
I delete it and a second message pops up from a minute or so later:
<
Micah quickly types in a new message:
<
Anger fills me. There’s no wondering whether we’re okay. No asking what held us up. No apology for leaving us behind. I was attacked by a fucking zombie! I could have been bitten!
Excitement flashes in his eyes. He jabs his thumbs once more at his screen. My Link receives his post:
<
I want to cry. I want to scream and kick and hurt someone, but I’m suddenly exhausted. Numbness overwhelms me. Kelly gently prods me forward and I follow. I can feel myself drifting into shock.
Sometime later—seconds? hours? I have no idea—I sense the blackness of the tunnel begin to weaken. I start to see the faintest details: seams in the walls, objects lying on the floor below. Even without goggles and a light I can see. We’ve reached the end of the tunnel. It begins to arch upwards and light breaks over us in ever stronger waves. We’ve done it. We’ve officially broken into LI.
S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus Page 10