S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus

by Saul Tanpepper

  “What’re you doing in here?” I ask.

  “Ash is being a total bitch.”

  “Dude, that’s my best friend you’re talking about.”

  His face practically glows red. “She’s in with Tanya.”

  “Oh, because Tanya’s better company than you?”

  He chuckles. “At least she doesn’t talk back. I should just learn to keep my damn mouth shut.”

  “Yeah, good luck with that. How is she?”

  “Still a space case.”

  “No, I mean Ash.”

  “Oh.” His face reddens even more. “Okay. Depressed. We all are.”

  “How come nobody’s working on the servers?”

  “What’s there to do? Besides, you can only look at that shit for so long before your eyes go buggy.”

  I grunt, not happy at his snappishness. “Has Micah woken up at all?”

  “Once. Asked for some juice. Otherwise, brah’s been out the whole time. About an hour or so. Been snoring like a log.”

  “Logs don’t snore. I think the saying is snoring like a dog. Or sawing logs. Something like that, anyway.”

  He steps to the door before turning. “I was thinking I’d go up and see if I can break into that Safari World upstairs. I think I saw some rifles hung up on the back wall.”

  I shake my head and roll my eyes.

  “They won’t have any guns, Reg. This is an airport. That’d be like expecting to find a condom dispenser in the bathroom at St. Andrews Cathedral.”

  He laughs. “Then maybe one of those long fishing knives with the serrated edges. Or a compound bow. They’re cool, right? I mean, chicks dig bows, right?” He pretends to draw an arrow and notch it. When he lets it go, I realize I must be even more tired than I’d realized because I actually watch to see where the imaginary arrow hits.

  I shake my head drowsily, chuckling inwardly. “We’re leaving soon, Reg. You know you can’t bring that stuff back with you. They catch you with it at one of the checkpoints, it’ll be a year off your LSC, maybe two. Just see if they have any non-contraband clothes.”

  He looks at my old filthy jeans. I’d put them back on after my “bath” yesterday, discarding the blood and gore-soaked overalls. He’d brought me down a new shirt from one of the airport shops upstairs, since my other one was torn and muddy, but the new one is white and not very practical. Not around here, anyway. It’s already got red streaks on it just from walking through the hallway.

  “Will do,” he says.

  “And see if they’ve got any better shoes than these, too,” I add, showing him the rubber clogs he’d also gotten in the airport shop. They’re so dry-rotted that they’re already falling apart. “Size eights, this time.”

  He whistles. “Wow. Bigfoot. I just figured since Ash is a size six and all.”

  “Yeah, because all girls have the same size feet, Reg. I’m surprised you even know a detail like Ashley’s shoe size. Most normal guys don’t have a clue about that kind of stuff.”

  “I’m not normal.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Yeah, well, I actually didn’t know Ashley’s shoes size until we broke into the ‘Hello Kitty’ shop this morning and Ash found a bunch of those obnoxious sneakers to replace her Nikes. But wouldn’t you know it? Not a size six in the house.”

  “You hid them?”

  “Not saying that, sister.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t blame you,” I tell him. “Zombies won’t give you no respect if they see you wearing ‘Hello Kitty’ shoes.”

  “For that matter, neither will Arc’s people,” he adds, soberly. “Which is why I need to find myself a nine-inch gutting knife.”

  “Not even then, Reg.”

  He shrugs. “I’ll see what I can find. No promises, though. Not unless they’ve got a monster-feet shoe store.”

  “Hey!”

  He scurries out the doorway, but then leans back in. “We’re going to get out of this, Jess.”

  I give him a strained smile. My chest tightens and I want to cry. But I can’t. Not even when I think about my family—my stupid, psychotic brother Eric and my stupid, alcoholic mother and my stupid, overbearing grandfather. I want nothing more right now than to be with them. “I know, Reg.”

  He hesitates, then nods. “Okay.”

  I watch the empty doorway, wondering again for the millionth time how I was chosen to lead this group. I never asked for it. I didn’t want it. It’s either me or Jake, and he’s likely to get us killed.

  Who’s to say you won’t?

  I go and sit down in the chair next to Micah’s bed. There’s a pile of paperback books on the floor next it, rescued from the bookstore upstairs. Real paper with printed words, not the kind where the pages flip on their own and the words zip by and are hot-linked to word definitions or videos on the Government Stream, or Arc ads like the ones on Media.

  I reach down and pull the book off the top of the stack. It’s an Emma Pattingsley thriller, Cutting Ties. Seems strangely appropriate.

  I open it and read the first line:

  Nothing stoked Chicago Special Crimes Detective Norma Galveston’s fire more than a good old fashioned murder. Nothing, that is, save a man with slow hands.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Before I know it, I’m asleep.

  Chapter 16

  Sensing movement next to me, I jolt awake. I’m on my feet before I even realize what I’m doing, hands warding away the imaginary threats that tormented me in my dreams.

  “Hey,” Micah says, his voice sounding dry and fragile. He pushes himself up to a sitting position, tucking his pillow behind his head and wincing. “It’s just me, Jess. Relax.” He chuckles drily. “Did you know you smack your lips when you sleep? And drool.”

  My heart’s racing, ponging around inside my chest, which feels too small, a tiny cage for a raging beast. I take in a deep breath and let out a shuddering sigh. “I—I was…”

  “Having a nightmare?”

  “Something like that.”

  Already the dream is fading. I remember being strapped to the table in INTERVIEW 1 and the blade was coming down on my neck, moving fast and yet somehow taking forever. Maybe it’s true about time slowing down right when you’re about to die.

  I remember looking over and seeing a figure in OBSERVATION 1 approaching the mirrored glass, and just before the ice-cold blade sliced into me I saw his face.

  Everything changed in that instant. Suddenly, everything became clear.

  Micah lifts a shaky hand from the bed, grunting. I hurry over, ready to help him with the cup of apple juice on the table next to him, but, instead, he rubs his palm on his cheek. It makes a dry, raspy sound.

  “Time for a shave,” I say, trying to mask the shaking in my voice. I step closer and smile. I’m genuinely happy to see him sitting up, yet alarmed by how gaunt he’s become. “It’s good to see you back. I mean, you are back, aren’t you?”

  He looks around at the room, at his arms, at me. I can see he’s trying to remember, to piece together the bits and fragments of his shattered memory. I can see it in his body language, how he’s fighting the voice inside his head that’s insisting he’s really at home and that he’s late for school.

  “I’m in the hospital,” he croaks. “How long was I out?”

  I check the time on my Link. It’s late afternoon on Saturday, exactly a week since we first attempted to break into LI. Five days since the bombs nearly killed us. It seems almost incomprehensible that only yesterday we escaped from here—nearly escaped—and now we’re back. This place just doesn’t seem to want to let us go.

  “You’ve been asleep for a few hours. But you’ve been out of it for a few days. Are you feeling any better?”

  “Feel like shit, actually. I could use a hot shower and some hot spicy chicken from Golden Dragon.”

  I give him a wry grin. Yeah, he’s back. Maybe not all the way—that may never happen—but enough that I can see his old self peeking throug
h. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed him. “Good luck with that,” I say.

  “I’ll settle for the spicy chicken, then.”

  “Tell you what. How about a Red Bull and some twelve-year-old beef jerky? But I have to warn you, it’s really tough and tasteless.”

  He doesn’t seem to catch the reference or guess that it means we’re not home.

  “Is that the Red Bull or the beef jerky that’s tough and tasteless?”

  “Both.”

  He chuckles lightly. It’s the first time I’ve heard him laugh in days. It’s also, by far, the most he’s said since waking up. “Well, when you put it that way, Jess, I’ll take a double order of both.”

  “Just imagine that it’s Golden Dragon.”

  “No one’s imagination is that good.”

  He raises his arm again and studies it. The skin’s sallow. He flexes his fingers, winces. The hand falls back to the bed and smoothes the surface of the sheet.

  “What the hell is this?” His fingers pinch the tubing for his catheter underneath. He lifts the sheet, frowning. “What the hell?”

  I know exactly how he feels. I’d woken up three days after the explosion, horrified to find a catheter inside of me. But I hadn’t had the benefit of a syringe to deflate the balloon that kept the unholy thing in place. I’d had to use my teeth to bite through it and suck out the water.

  The thought passes through my head that if it was Reggie in Micah’s place, he’d make some crude joke about sucking on his tube. In the past it would’ve disgusted me. Right now, I’d be happy to hear it.

  “It’s so you don’t pee yourself.”

  He gives it an experimental tug. “It’s…stuck. Tell the nurse to take it the fuck out. I don’t need this shit inside of me!”

  “Okay, okay. Calm down.”

  “Just get the god damn nurse!”

  “There is no nurse, Micah.”

  He looks confused. “What?”

  “Look, I’ll explain everything. We’ll get it out. But first, you need to relax and eat something. You need to eat.”

  After I calm him down and he’s managed to swallow half a Slim Jim and a few stale crackers and drink another cup of juice, he waves the rest off. “Please get someone to take this crap out of me. I want to pee on my own terms, not…this.”

  “Okay. So, here’s the deal. You’ve got two options. You can either let me do it, or you can do it yourself.”

  He considers this for about a half second before telling me he’ll do it himself.

  I give him a fresh syringe from the supplies Kelly brought back from the medical cart on the tram and instruct him on how to remove the catheter. When he’s ready, I close the curtain to give him some privacy.

  After several minutes of grunting and swearing and one or two hisses of pain, he calls out to me. “Done. Damn this thing’s freaking long.”

  I come back around the curtain to find him holding the catheter up in the air so it doesn’t leak, a look of chagrin on his face. I avoid his gaze and instead busy myself taking it and the bag from him. He looks at me with surprise. I’ve had my arm up to the elbow inside a zombie, for god’s sake. A little pee isn’t going to make me squeamish.

  Of course, he doesn’t know any of that.

  He quietly thanks me, then swings his legs over the side of the bed and tries to stand up, one hand holding the sheet around him. He curses, takes a few steps, then turns around again and falls back onto the bed, panting. “How far was that? Felt like a marathon.”

  “Close. It’s a start. That’s why you need to eat.”

  He’s silent for a moment. “I remember computers in here. Or was I hallucinating?”

  “The room next door. We decided to move you. Less noisy.”

  Over the next hour or so, I give him the basics. I dole out the information carefully, watching him to make sure it doesn’t overwhelm him. I begin by telling him that we were all in an accident, but I don’t tell him what kind. That sort of detail will come later. I assure him that everyone is all right, that we all survived. That we’re nearly fully recovered.

  “You were the worst hurt.”

  He frowns for a moment, concentrating. Then his face relaxes. “There was water, all around us. We were in a boat.”

  I nod.

  “We we’re in…East Harlem?”

  Another nod.

  “Yeah, I remember now. Waiting for Kelly and Jake. Planes. I remember planes.” His eyes widen. “They bombed us.”

  “Yes.”

  More concentrating. I wait, but the strain on his face intensifies until I worry he’ll snap. I tell him he needs to rest.

  “I am tired,” he admits. He turns his head and closes his eyes.

  I give him a sad smile. It’s hard for me to see him looking so worn down, so broken and defeated. Is this the new norm? Not just for him, but for us all?

  Each one of us seems to have adjusted differently. In the two days we’ve been here on our own, we’ve reached some new level of normalcy, even if it looks nothing at all like the old normal. And that’s what scares me so much.

  Chapter 17

  “Help!”

  Someone’s screaming bloody murder down the hall. I jump from the cot and race toward the noise that’s coming from Micah’s room.

  Reggie’s already in there, grabbing at Jake and pulling him of the bed. “Get off of Micah,” he shouts.

  “Get off of me,” Jake yells back, pushing Reggie away while Micah struggles underneath the pile.

  Reggie takes a step back, then reaches forward and lifts Jake by the waist of his pants, like he’s a sack of potatoes, and flings him to the floor. Unburdened, Micah jumps out of the bed, naked from the waist down. He continues to thrash, kicking and punching wildly at invisible assailants. Ash steps forward to try and calm him and gets an elbow to the side of her face. She crumples to the floor. Reggie roars with outrage, but she raises her hand and insists she’s fine. Already I can see the bruise blooming on her face.

  “What the hell’s going on?’ I demand.

  Jake scrambles to his feet, knocking into the bedside table. He pushes off of it and tackles Reggie. Together they crash into the wall, then the bed, knocking it a few feet to one side. Micah slips and falls on top of them. I hurry over to pull Ash out of the way.

  “Son of a bitch,” Reggie snarls.

  “It’s not me. It’s Micah,” Jake screams from underneath. “He just started freaking out!” He rolls Reggie off of him—not an easy task—and scrambles away. His face is red. Everything about him screams pent up anger.

  Micah curls up on the floor and sits there rocking, his hands locked behind his head, his elbows together. He’s moaning and crying. Reggie pulls back, panting. They all look at me.

  “What’s going on?” I shout.

  Jake points at Micah. “He just went ballistic!”

  “You were attacking him!” Reggie says. He gets up and reaches under Micah’s arms and tries to pull him back onto the bed, but Micah’s dead weight, contracted into a ball and acting like he doesn’t even know any of us are here. Reggie manages to get him back up and tries to cover him with the sheet, but Micah suddenly goes stiff as a board. The sheet flies off.

  “Maybe you should let me handle this,” Reggie tells us evenly. He glares at Jake when he says this, but when he moves to shield Micah from our view, I know he means all of us.

  Ashley pushes herself up the wall, trembling, her eyes jumping anxiously from Micah to Jake and back again. Reggie’s concern for Ashley takes over and he gives up trying to shield Micah. He gently turns her face. I tear my eyes away from the bed, horrified by the way Micah’s face is twisted, by the bruises on his body, his lack of awareness of what’s real.

  “I’m fine, Reg,” Ashley says. But there’s a broad cut on her cheek. It’s still white, beginning to swell, not yet bleeding. It will soon.

  “You’re not okay,” he replies.

  She pushes his hands away, her eyes never leaving the floor in front
of her feet. She won’t look up.

  By now Micah has curled back up into a fetal position. He’s still whimpering, still rocking with his head wrapped in his arms. Jake stands there paralyzed, useless. I go over and cover Micah up. I tuck in the sheet, make sure it stays put this time.

  “What happened?” I ask for a third time.

  “I came in here when I heard Micah yelling,” Reggie explains. He touches Ashley’s cheek and she winces. “All I saw was Jake on top of him. They were fighting.”

  “We weren’t fighting,” Jake says. “I was trying to keep him from hurting himself!”

  Reggie whirls around. “What are you even doing in here?” he shouts. “Aren’t you supposed to be downstairs watching the tunnel?”

  “Guys, keep it down,” I say.

  “So, I’m not allowed to be in here?” Jake growls. “What the hell is it with you guys? Why are you treating me like I’m a pariah?”

  “A what?”

  “What’d I do to deserve this?”

  “First of all—!”

  “Reggie,” I hiss. “Enough!”

  Reggie points his finger at Jake’s face. His lips mouth what he’s thinking, but he keeps quiet.

  “Look,” Jake says, “it wasn’t my fault I got left behind back there in the Midtown tunnel. And I’m sorry you all had to come back, but it wasn’t my fault. Someone—”

  “You think that’s what this is about?” Reggie says, incredulously. “You think we blame you for this?”

  “Damn it, Reggie. I said enough. Both of you! Christ.”

  Reggie and Jake glower at each other. I turn to Jake. “One at a time, now. Tell me what happened?”

  Jake breaks his stare with Reggie. “I was walking past when I heard Micah call out. I came in here and found him standing by the bed, leaning against the wall. He was shaking. I thought he was cold, because he was…you know, naked.”

  “What were you even doing down at this end of the hall?” Reggie asks.

  Jakes eyes flick to the hallway, and his eyes narrow. “I was getting something to eat.”

  I wave Reggie off. “Then what happened?”