“With gravy,” Ashley adds.
“You’re not helping.”
Kelly heads for the corner of the building. He peers cautiously around it before proceeding out.
Everyone trails him, each of us instinctively looking for potential hiding places and routes of escape in case we’re attacked again. If there’s one thing we’ve learned since coming here, it’s that the stuff they taught us in our Physiology and Behavior of Reanimates class in school is either incomplete or patently false. Take the fact that IUs like to hide from the sun, for example. That was never mentioned.
Nor do I ever remember being told that their brains turn into powder after a while. That was a most unpleasant discovery. The first time I blew the head off of one back in Long Island City. I thought I’d exploded a sack of flour.
Before turning the corner, I take a quick look back the way we’ve come. Nothing moves, neither on the path we took through the fence nor on the incline to the overpass. Even the Undead seem to have given up chasing us. Maybe it’s too hot for them. Or maybe they’re just not hungry anymore. Doubt it.
I can almost picture them turning around and drifting back to whatever holes they crawled out of, seeping away into the earth like muddy water into wormholes after a rain. I wonder if each of them has a favorite place. I wonder if they fight when another zombie tries to take it away.
I’m about to join the others when my eyes catch movement near the top of the road, a tiny flicker, a spot, distorted by the heat off the asphalt and the distance in between. I blink and strain my eyes, but if there was something there, it’s gone now. I’m not even sure I saw anything to begin with.
“Jess, you coming?”
I watch for several more seconds, but the scene doesn’t change. “Yeah,” I finally say.
We find a loading dock around back. There’s a heavy panel door with a single small, square window set in it. It’s too dark to see inside. We try the handle but, like all the other doors, it’s locked.
“Looks like we’re out of lu—” Kelly starts to say, when we’re all startled by a quick, loud squeal of metal on metal.
Jake’s holding the handle of a rolling metal door, frozen in the process of pulling it up. There’s a space of a couple inches at the bottom. He winces. “I think we might be able to get in through here.”
Kelly goes over. “Yeah, but can we get it open enough for us to fit through without announcing to every IU on the island that we’re here?”
Jake peels away a scab of dead leaves and ancient plastic wrappers that have blown against the door over the years. Then he gets down on his stomach to peer through the crack. “I can’t see anything inside.”
“Jake, be careful,” Tanya says. She shakes her head warily. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Aw, isn’t that cute,” Reggie teases. “Jake’s got an admirer.”
I see Jake stiffen and his face turns even redder than it already is from the sunburn. Ashley yanks Reggie’s arm and tells him that to stop being such a prick. He protests, and the two of them start arguing in whispers.
“Just keep it down,” I warn them.
Four of us get to work on the rolling door, slowly inching it up while Jake keeps watch underneath. We manage to get it open about a foot and a half without making too much noise.
“Who’s first?”
We all look at each other, all thinking the same thing: Hell no; not me.
“Fine,” Jake says. “I’m down here already. I might as well. Give me five minutes or so to do a quick inspection.”
“’Bout time he took some initiative,” Kelly murmurs, as Jake slides his way through. He obviously already forgot that it was Jake who held up the fence back there.
“Can we stop with the bickering for a few minutes?” I say. “All of you. What is it with you guys?”
“She’s bickering, too,” Reggie says, pointing at Ash.
I roll my eyes.
Five minutes comes and goes.
Then seven.
Then nine.
Nearly eleven minutes after entering, Jake returns, popping his head out through the side door and telling us, “All clear.” One by one, we enter. Once more, I’m the last.
“Red Bull?” Ashley says, handing me one the moment I’m inside.
“Figures you’d be the first to find them,” I tell her, but I gratefully accept it. I dust it off on my shirt and pop the top. I’m so thirsty that I chug the whole thing without stopping, even though I know it’ll give me a headbanger of a rush in about ten minutes.
After we’ve drunk our fill of bottled waters and flavored drinks, stuffed our brand new sports-themed backpacks with energy bars and packaged nuts, the others go off to find new clothes. Kelly and I sit down with a couple bottles of water to clean his leg.
“Seems like a lifetime ago the last time you helped me take my pants off,” he says, joking.
It does seem like that.
I reach up and kiss him on the lips, once, real quick. He looks surprised, then leans in for another.
I feel the faintest stirring of passion inside of me, but it’s quickly doused by the stronger feelings of homesickness and longing for a past we can no longer have. Intimacy with Kelly in this place seems like an alien concept. The knowledge of this makes me sad.
We have to wet his pants down and slowly peel them away before I can finally see the gash on his thigh. He winces and curses under his breath. Finally, his jeans drop to the floor.
“Damn, Kel. That doesn’t look good.”
The gash is roughly four inches long and at least a half inch deep. He places his thumbs on either side of the cut and pushes. A hiss of air enters his mouth. A thin stream of blood pulses out, but it’s mostly stopped.
“Pour some of that water in there to clean it up,” he says.
I rinse until the wound is clean, stopping once when I think he’s going to cry out. His knuckles are white on the front of the chair he’s sitting in, but he doesn’t utter anything louder than a hiss and a grunt.
“This really calls for stitches.”
“Check my pack,” he tells me. “The medical bag from the tram is in there.” He blots it dry, then picks at the dried clots. I slap his hand away.
There aren’t any sutures, which is probably for the best anyway since I sew about as well as a drunk walking a tightrope. Instead I find some skin-closure tape and antibiotic ointment. I do the best I can, finishing with a fat bandage. “That should hold.”
“Anything in there for pain?”
I shake my head and hand him a bottle of aspirin I’d picked up at the cash register. “It’s only expired seven years.”
“Better triple the dosage then,” he tells me, smiling weakly, and he shakes a half dozen into his palm.
“Wimp.”
“That I am. Don’t forget to wash your hands.”
After that, we wander off in separate directions to find new clothes for ourselves. Kelly returns wearing a pair of loose workout pants and an old-style New York Giants jersey. The whiteness of it seems to make him glow in the gloom.
“They’ll see you coming a mile away.”
He grins and reverses it.
The other side is dark blue.
“I also found this,” he says proudly. “It’s an autographed Tom Seever baseball bat.”
“Who’s Tom Seever?”
“Beats the hell out of me. More importantly, this’ll beat the hell out of zombies.”
“It’s not the IUs I’d like to beat,” I say. “It’s the people from Arc. Did you bring me anything like that?”
He reaches behind his back.
“A golf club? Really?”
“It’s called a Big Bertha. It’s light but packs a powerful punch.”
“It has a name?”
Kelly laughs. “A Big Bertha for my badass Jessie. And did you see the price tag?”
I whistle.
“Come on. Let’s go find the others.”
“When are you planning
on telling them?” I ask.
Kelly stops for a moment. He gathers his pack and bat without looking at me. Then he walks off.
We find everyone already sitting or lying on exercise mats in the middle of the store.
“We’re not leaving,” Ashley declares. She’s rubbing her sore feet. “Not until we’ve had a chance to rest first.”
Kelly checks the time on his Link. “It’s a little after three o’clock. If we rest for an hour, that’ll leave us about five hours of daylight. But we need to be out of here by four, no later, so we can get in at least three hours of walking before we hole up for the night. I’ll set my Link to ping in an hour.”
“Already did it,” Ashley says.
“Someone should keep guard,” I say.
Reggie cracks an eyelid. “It’s just for an hour. And I set up a bunch of stuff around all the doors. If anyone—or anything tries to come in—we’ll hear them.” He raises something that glints in the gloom. “And I’ve got this.”
I shake my head. At least he found a knife. It still doesn’t quite make up for the Anaheim Ducks jersey he’s got on, but it comes close.
I lower myself to the floor, groaning from the stiffness and aches. As soon as my head hits the mat, I’m out.
† † †
The sound of falling objects doesn’t fully wake me. Not right away, anyway. I hover in that in-between vacuum that isn’t quite awake, but not quite asleep, either, where breathing is impossible. And so is screaming.
I’d been dreaming of our escape from Long Island City, the dive through the Midtown tunnel. We’d made it halfway through when we were blocked by a mound of storm wash. After the boys cleared a way through it, most of us managed to make it to the other side before the whole pile collapsed. Jake was stranded, but we couldn’t afford to stay and dig him out because our air rebreather cartridges were quickly dying.
I remember the hollow-sounding racket the pile made as it shifted behind us. The sound outside of me in that store only pulls me further into that old memory rather than jarring me from it.
“Jessie?”
I jolt awake. There’s movement around me and my skin prickles. I hear the rustle of clothing, the sound of feet running. Then there’s a crash somewhere in the darkness and someone cursing. A struggle.
“Jess? What the fuck is going on?”
It’s Ash, whispering beside me. I’m already on my feet, but she’s pulling me down.
“Why the hell is it so dark?”
“It’s night.”
“What? I thought you—”
“Shh!”
I pull out my Link and groan when I see that it’s well after midnight.
“Shut it off!”
“I thought you set an alarm.”
“Quiet!”
More footsteps, then another crash and more cursing, muffled this time. There’s the sound of something soft being hit, an “Ooof!” and a cry of pain. Then a beam of light stabs the darkness.
“Damn it, Jake,” Kelly whispers. “Turn that thing off!”
The harsh glare of the flashlight is replaced by the soft glow of a Link, then the boys’ faces appear in the gloom, Kelly first, followed by Jake, finally Reggie. In the middle of them is another figure, his head held down, hidden in the shadows.
“We caught him in the doorway,” Kelly says.
Ashley gasps. “Micah? Was he trying to leave?”
But it’s not Micah. It’s Stephen. And he’d been trying to sneak in.
Chapter 28
“He’s hurt,” Kelly says.
In the wan glow from Reggie’s Link, I can see the dark, sticky sheen spreading over Stephen’s arm and down his side, bubbling up on his bare skin, forming a rough, blackened crust. As they pass us, I see that the back of his shirt is also darkly stained.
“He’s been bitten,” Jake cries. “Get him out of here! He’s infected.”
“It’s a scrape,” Kelly hisses, “not a bite. Now be quiet.”
He gestures to the dressing room. “Get him in there where we can use the flashlights. Try and block the opening with something, a blanket if you can find one. We don’t want to attract the IUs.
“Light alone won’t draw them,” Stephen says, grunting as Reggie pulls him. “Shit! Take it easy, man. That side’s sore, too.”
“Think I give a crap?”
“You should.”
“Fuck you.”
“What happened?” I ask. “How did you escape?”
Kelly bars me from getting any closer. “Let’s take a look at his wound first,” he tells me. The look in his eyes contradicts the assurances he was just giving to Jake a moment ago. He’s trying to protect me in case Stephen is infected. “I’ll see how bad it is.”
“What do you want me to do?”
His eyes drift past me toward the windows at the front of the store. “Just keep an eye out. Check the doors.”
“You think Arc is out there?”
He shakes his head. “They’d have to stop, too, once night fell. No telling how close they are, but they won’t come after us until the zoms crawl back into their holes.”
He turns to Ash and opens his mouth to say something, but then he thinks better of it and turns away. He’s disappointed with her for screwing up with the alarm. But even in the darkness it’s easy to see from her body language that she’s deeply sorry. I feel bad for her, but Kelly’s right to be angry. All the time we might’ve gained running from Arc yesterday has now been completely erased.
After checking the doors, I go and look out through the front windows. But it’s completely dark outside. No street lights. No starlight. I stand there a moment trying to understand where the stars have gone, when suddenly the sky flashes, igniting the thick storm clouds for a moment. And my heart nearly stops when I see the figures shuffling around in the parking lot. There are at least a dozen Undead.
I hurry away, anxious to get out of sight. I thread my way through the aisles to the changing rooms. The murmur of voices comes to me. Jake and Tanya are standing just outside, holding a tarp over the opening to block any light from escaping. I suspect they’re really doing it so they can listen in.
“I told you,” Stephen is saying, “I ran when everyone else ran, same direction as you guys did. But the next thing I knew I was flying through the air, crashing down off the side of the road. I was pushed.”
“By an IU?”
“They weren’t that close to us. No, I don’t know who it was. They pushed me from behind. I flipped over the guardrail and was sliding down the gravel. Tore me up something good.”
“Nobody would push you.”
In the darkness, my eyes meet Jake’s. He holds the stare for a moment before turning away. “It wasn’t me,” he mumbles. The thing is, I know he’s right. He and Tanya were out in front, screaming. I was helping Micah. Which leaves Reggie, Ash and Kelly.
“He’s lying,” Reggie growls. “Why would any of us push you?”
Why indeed, especially since he still hasn’t told any of us exactly where we’ll find the failsafe program. Why would we want to get rid of him until he had? And yet…
All I can keep thinking about is Kelly telling me someone pushed him over the railing at the Manhattan end of the Midtown tunnel, back when we were first thinking about breaking in. Nobody knew if the tunnel was even open. We were there because we’d had nothing better to do, poorly prepared to do a decent job of checking things out.
And the next thing we knew, Kelly was in the water. We’d all thought he’d jumped, but afterward he told me in secret that he’d been pushed. Since then, I’ve wavered between doubting him and knowing with absolute certainty that it had to have been Reggie.
Reggie just being stupid. Reggie being petty.
No, reason argues. Reggie wouldn’t do something like that. Could he have?
Could he have pushed Stephen? Why?
I hear a low curse. “You’re ripping off my skin.”
“Well, at least one part of his s
tory appears to be true,” Kelly says, apparently ignoring Stephen’s complaints. “The skin on half his back is scraped off and there’s a buttload of gravel still stuck in his shoulder.” He raises his voice a little to ask, “Jake, is anyone else out there besides you and Tanya?”
“I am.”
“Get some water, Jess, and a bunch of towels and some bandages. And something to pick out these stones.”
“We’re going to waste good drinking water on this piece of trash?” Reggie snarls.
Kelly ignores him.
I gather the requested supplies and a smaller version of the same Anaheim Ducks jersey Reggie is wearing and slip them underneath the tarp. For the next couple hours, no one speaks. Stephen hisses and grunts as Kelly and Reggie take care of him. When they’re finished, they shut off the lights and emerge. It’s nearly dawn.
Stephen’s wrists are bound with the laces from a pair of boxing gloves. Reggie shoots darts at me from his eyes when he comes out. He strips off his jersey and stalks off to find something else to wear. Jake and Tanya give me a quizzical look and I just shrug, too puzzled to even smile.
“Now,” Kelly says, nudging Stephen toward our sleeping mats, “you’re going to tell us how you managed to escape those IUs. They were everywhere.”
“I’d like to know how he found us,” Jake adds.
I think I have an answer to the second question. I was sure I’d seen something coming over the crest of the overpass just before we went around the corner of the building. It had to have been Stephen. But if there’s one question he needs to answer, it’s the one nobody has yet asked:
“Why did you come back?”
† † †
“Why did you come back?” Kelly asks.
“If you think I tried to run away, you’re wrong,” Stephen says. “I could’ve gotten away from you kids a half dozen times already.”
“Kids,” Jake sputters. “That’s a lot of bullshit coming from a guy whose hands are tied up.”
Stephen shrugs. “Then why do you think I came back?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“Keep it down, Jake.”
S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus Page 44