“Is that the best you can come up with? So cliché.”
In the kitchen, the others murmur as they make their plans.
Micah reaches up and is about to touch my face when he suddenly draws back, confusion in his eyes. He looks away. “I— We should get back out there.”
He quickly turns around and leaves, walking stiffly away. And for the third time in as many minutes, I’m left speechless by a man and the confusion of feelings coursing through me towards him.
I shake my head and wonder what just happened. Did Micah just come on to me? Ever since I’ve known him I’ve never seen him express any romantic interest in any girl. Or boy, for that matter.
“That was definitely strange,” I whisper. Then I head out to where the others are preparing to leave.
Chapter 4
Stephen’s still sitting on the floor in front of the couch, his head buried in his arms. He hasn’t moved a muscle. I’m surprised—and relieved—to find Tanya still breathing. I can hear the gurgle of air passing through her mangled throat. In the kitchen, the others are gathered around the kitchen table looking at the map on the tablet. Micah looks up, then quickly buries his head as he points to something and makes a comment. The others nod and make agreeable sounds.
Outside the window, the sun hangs low on the horizon, resting, it seems, right on the top edge of the wall. Two and a half hours of sunlight left, max. They’re going to have to hustle to make it, and they still have to figure out a way through the electrified fence.
I kick Stephen. “Hey, asshole. Get up!”
“She’s stopped bleeding.”
Blood covers his hands and arms. It stains his shirt and pants. It’s puddled beneath Tanya, the stain leaching into the cushions. Her skin is a sickly grayish-white and her eyes have sunken into her skull. They’re ringed by dark circles. Of course she’s stopped bleeding; she ran out of blood. The thought turns my stomach, but then I remember the more immediate concern: she’s close to turning.
“You need to do something about her. And soon.”
He looks over and nods. But then he says, “She might pull through.”
“She won’t, damn it! Look at her. There’s nothing left in her.”
I reach down and yank his arm. He doesn’t resist.
“She would’ve been quicker and stronger than any of us,” he whispers. She’d have no fear, be immune to disease, to cancer. Resistant to aging.” He smiles then and caresses her forehead. “She would’ve been immortal.”
“Not so immortal after all.”
His face twists and he thrusts me weakly away from him.
“Is she infectious?”
“What?”
“Infectious? Can she pass the disease onto one of us?”
He doesn’t answer.
“What does Arc get out of it? You already have control over the Undead. Why make someone Undead when they’re still alive?”
“Arc?” Stephen laughs bitterly. “They wouldn’t know what to do with something like this!” He takes in a breath and settles back to stroking Tanya’s hair. “Control,” he answers. “They developed a new generation of implants that could be activated before death. Safer, you know, than waiting till afterward. Problem was, they were failing. People were rejecting them right and left, falling off of streams. The government was in a panic. Can you imagine what would’ve happened if people knew there were twenty six million people out there who thought they were protected, but then could become Infected Undead if there happened to be another outbreak?”
“Twenty-six million?” I gasp.
“Arc formed two teams to tackle the problem of getting the body to accept the devices. The first team was looking at new materials. They worked. That’s what you kids got. My team was working on a new serum. But then I discovered this.”
“Why her? And why Kelly?”
Stephen lays a hand on Tanya’s wound. He doesn’t even seem to have heard me. “Mabel was my pilot experiment. She was our only Volunteer. Arc paid her family a fortune. The serum worked.”
“Mabel?” I say. “Are you telling me she was…” I gesture at Tanya. “She was the same as her?”
My stomach roils at the thought. Mabel touched me. She touched my naked body and did things to me while I was unconscious and she was—
My skin crawls in revulsion.
“What the hell was she?”
“A carrier. Just like Miss Saroyan here.”
“She spoke. She seemed alive.”
“She was alive!” Stephen retorts. “Are you stupid or something?”
I’m so tempted to pull out the pistol and use my last bullet on him, but I don’t.
“Imagine,” he says, unaware of my thoughts. “A living, breathing zombie, faster and stronger than anyone alive or undead, capable of thinking. And all under Arc control, all using the old implants. I was about to make Arc billions and they snubbed their nose at me!”
So that’s why Mabel seemed so much stronger than she looked before you killed her. That’s why she reanimated.
“I managed to kill your superhuman experiment, and who the hell am I? Just a girl.”
Stephen gives me a dark look. “Doesn’t matter. She was a guinea pig. Beaucorps was already looking for independent confirmation. Four tests. He wouldn’t let me go upstairs with the results until he had it. Unfortunately, nobody volunteered.”
“Damn right,” I say. “Why would anyone—”
“We sent Mabel out to find a suitable candidate. It was another test of how well we could control her.”
“You sent an infected person into the general population?”
“Beaucorps found Miss Saroyan here. Mabel tracked her down and picked her up.”
“Based on her ping records.”
Stephen shrugs. “I don’t know the details.”
“Was Tanya under Arc control?”
“When I left the mainland to come here? Yes. She obviously wasn’t when we left LaGuardia, though. Arc must have disconnected from her when they realized what you were planning.”
“Or she rejected the implant.”
Stephen shrugs. “That’s what I believed.”
“Believed? You don’t think so now?”
“I didn’t think the shot worked at first. That’s why I was coming, to try again. But I knew as soon as we came into Gameland. The signs are unmistakable: the hypersensitivity to the wall. By the same token, it also means her implant is still functioning.”
“I can feel the wall.”
He laughs drily. “Not like your friends can.”
“Why Kelly? Why give him the shot?”
“I had a new dose made up, planning to give it to Miss Saroyan. I’d tweaked it with a few minor improvements to the DNA codon usage—the way the genetic code is read inside the cells and how it’s utilized to make proteins.”
“So why did you give the shot to Kelly instead?”
“Convenience. He was the only other one with a defective implant. It was either inject him or lose a perfectly good opportunity.”
I raise my hand to hit him, but someone grabs it. It’s Micah.
“Let me go!”
“Just calm down,” he tells me. “It won’t help.”
“It’ll help me feel better.”
He struggles with me for a moment before letting go. I lower my arm. “Who’s Beaucorps?” I demand. “Is he the man I overheard talking to Mabel that night?”
Stephen nods. “Head of Neuroleptic Research.”
“You said he wanted four tests. Kelly gave you three. Was there a fourth?”
“Yes. I don’t know who it was.”
“One of us?”
“I said I don’t know.”
“Christ.” I run my hands through my hair. It could be any one of us. It could be someone else running around outside of Long Island. I point at Tanya and say, “You need to take care of her before she turns. You won’t be able to control her once she does.
Stephens swallows and nods. This tim
e he doesn’t argue. Yet he still sits there without moving.
I go into the kitchen and retrieve a butter knife from a drawer and lay it in his lap. It’s good enough to do the job, yet won’t be much of a risk to the rest of us. “You did this to her. Now you can undo it. Clean up your mess. If you don’t, I will. Five minutes.”
He doesn’t move. He doesn’t pick up the knife.
“Make sure you sever the spinal cord.”
I turn away from him then and head for the kitchen, leaving Micah behind.
The crew is gathering up their packs and filling them with whatever food and drinks they can find in the cabinets to carry. They’re just about ready to leave.
Everyone looks up when I walk in. Jake immediately straightens and crosses his arms in defiance, preparing himself for the outburst he expects me to launch into. The others look away. I can almost hear the Old West music, the lonely whistle that signifies the onset of an old fashioned duel. God, I’m exhausted.
“Jessie, listen—” Kelly begins, coming to my side.
I wave him off, my eyes never leaving Jake’s.
Jake lets out a breath and says, “It’s nothing personal, it’s just—”
I extend my hand across the table and he flinches. “You better bring them back alive,” I say. “Or I will hunt you down myself.”
He hesitates a moment before grasping my hand. I’m tempted to yank him over the table and onto the floor to beg for mercy. I could easily do it, and I think he knows this because his grip tightens slightly and his eyes narrow.
“Be quick and safe,” I tell him. “All of you. Micah and I will ping you when we figure out how to get back through the wall.”
Kelly gives me an almost imperceptible nod. Jake relaxes noticeably. I feel Micah come up behind me. I’m glad he’s there. I don’t feel so alone now.
Jake shoulders his pack. “I really hoped it would work out between us, Jessie.”
I stare at him long and hard and am about to reply when there’s a thump and a muffle cry of anguish from Stephen in the other room. Ashley closes her eyes and shudders. It’s over. Tanya’s gone for good this time.
Jake’s face burns with shame. He made a promise back there in the airport, one he couldn’t keep. Everyone is aware of this. And yet they’re willing to follow him.
“She wouldn’t have been able to leave here anyway,” Kelly quietly says, his eyes burning darkly and his chin set in a grim line. I hope he doesn’t really mean it, because to do so would be to admit that he’ll never be able to leave here either, and I just can’t accept that. He may be a carrier. He may be stronger and faster because of whatever Stephen gave him. But as long as he’s not under Arc control, there’s still a chance we can live a normal life.
Christ. Who are you kidding?
But then there’s another sound from the living room, an odd strangling noise, followed by a wet smacking, like somebody pounding pizza dough. Confusion comes over all our faces and we turn. Ashley lets out a gasp.
Tanya is bent over Stephen. She looks like she’s kissing him.
“What the hell?” Jake exclaims.
Tanya’s head shoots up and her hollow eyes peer straight at us. In her mouth is a chunk of flesh from Stephen’s neck. She lets him go and his body judders to the floor, his legs shooting out like he’s been hit with an EM pistol. The butter knife slips unused from his fingers.
He waited too long.
Chapter 5
Tanya launches herself from the couch, aiming straight for my throat. Kelly shoves me out of the way and I slam into the refrigerator and slide dazed to the floor. The room erupts into a chaos of colors and motion and noise. Someone trips over my legs and falls to the floor next to me. Reggie’s face swims into view shouting at me.
Over by the entryway, Kelly and Tanya are doing some kind of strange jitterbug, and, for a moment, I wonder when he learned to dance. But then he slams her head into the door jamb and there’s a sickening crunch as the wood splinters, bleeding a dark red.
Not the wood, her skull.
It doesn’t slow her down at all.
She’s one hell of a party animal, ain’t she!
“Get out of here!” Kelly screams, jarring me back.
Jake grabs the tablet off the table and runs outside, slamming the door open. Ashley follows, hot on his heels.
“Get back in here,” I mumble, blinking hard against the pain in my head. I can’t seem to get my legs under me. “God damned cowards.”
Kelly’s got his hands wrapped around Tanya’s throat; she’s snarling and hissing. Flakes of dried blood crumble off and shower his arms. She lunges, trying to kiss him.
Bite, I mean. She’s trying to bite his face.
His arms shake against her newfound strength; I watch, helpless, as she slowly overpowers him.
Reggie grabs the corner of the table and flips it across the room. It draws Tanya’s attention and her head turns. She bares her teeth and utters a groan that seems to come from the pits of Hell. The blood drains from Reggie’s face and he hesitates.
“Jesus Fucking Christ, she’s strong,” Kelly grunts. He tries to lift her so he can slam her back down again, but she’s as tall as he is and he can’t get any leverage. He ends up teetering to one side and knocking into Reggie, who slips on a wet sponge on the floor and crashes to the floor.
Except, I realize with dawning horror, that it’s not a wet sponge. It’s the piece of Stephen’s neck.
Micah reappears, swinging the bolt cutters at Tanya’s head.
“Don’t hit Kelly!” I manage to shout. Micah pulls back, then swings for her legs instead. The blades smack into her thigh, slicing through her pants and deep into her muscle. She tilts, then corrects and continues to push Kelly down. The second swing hits her flat along the flank with a sickening thunk! The wire cutters go flying from Micah’s hands and land in the other room.
By now I’ve managed to get groggily to my feet. I do a clumsy sweep kick and Tanya’s feet go out from under her. It’s not pretty, but it connects, and both she and Kelly fall, hands still around each other’s throats. As she lands, the back of her head hits the tile floor and bounces back up into Kelly’s face. There’s a loud crack!
They say you can see when someone’s lights go out. Something about the eyes. That’s what happens right then to Kelly. His lights go out and he crumples right down on top of Tanya.
Reggie’s there in an instant, dragging him off of her. He plants a foot on Tanya’s neck and yanks, stripping Kelly out of her grip. She writhes on the floor, unable to escape, snapping her teeth and scratching at Reggie’s legs.
“Get him out of here!” he shouts to Micah. “Run, Jessie!”
Micah grabs Kelly’s limp form under the arms and drags him out of the kitchen.
I look back at Reggie. Tanya’s thrashing like a stuck snake and Reggie’s got that What the hell do I do now look in his eyes. The way her tongue keeps pistoning in and out of her mouth doesn’t help dispel the image.
“Bind her hands!” he yells at me.
There’s nothing in the kitchen to tie her up with, so I stumble down the hallway and into the parents’ room. I find a closet full of old neckties and grab a handful.
“Take your time,” Reggie says crossly.
“I’m going as fast as I can,” I snap back.
He’s holding onto the countertop to keep from slipping, putting nearly all of his weight on the one foot. Tanya’s still thrashing and growling. A normal person would’ve choked to death beneath Reggie’s foot, but Tanya is not a normal person. And now she’s not a normal Undead.
I manage to get one of the ties around one of her hands and knot it. Bringing the other close enough to it is no easy task, but I finally manage by using Reggie’s leg to restrict her movement. I wrap a second tie around both wrists and cinch it as tight as I can.
“Now her feet.”
“I’m not dumb, Reggie.”
Micah returns from tending Kelly. He bends down to help. “I
think he’ll be fine. Just got his bell rung. Hell of a knot on his forehead. Lucky he didn’t break his nose. But he’ll be back up and with us in a few minutes.”
I give him an impatient look. “A simple, ‘He’s okay,’ would’ve sufficed.”
We finish with Tanya’s feet and get her rolled over onto her stomach. I feel weird treating her like this. I have to remind myself that she’s no longer here. All that’s left is a mindless monster.
Micah takes a couple neckties and brings her ankles up behind her as far as he can. I wince, but he doesn’t seem to even be thinking about what this would feel like to a living person. Then he ties them to another loop around her neck.
“Like roping a calf,” he says.
“You might’ve been a cowboy once,” Reggie says, inspecting the mess. Micah’s tying job is ugly but effective. “But you sure as hell were never a Boy Scout.”
“Speaking of Boy Scout,” I growl, “looks like ours chickened out. And you want him to lead you to Jayne’s Hill? Seriously?”
“Jessie…” Micah says, warningly.
Reggie gives me baleful look. “You’re better off here anyway, Jess. You’d be bored if you came. Once we get inside and Kelly finds the mainframe, there’s nothing for you to do.”
“It was Ashley who put you up to this, wasn’t it?”
His mouth snaps closed.
“I knew it.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Jake?”
He shakes his head and stands up. He won’t look at me. “It was Kelly, Jessie. He doesn’t want you to get hurt. He wants you to stay here.”
“Get hurt?” I sputter, getting up in his face. “What the hell just happened here? How could I get in any more trouble than what just happened? You know I can handle myself!”
Kelly appears right then in the doorway, rubbing his forehead. He looks a little dazed. I walk over to him, but he holds up a hand to stop me. Reggie slips out past us.
“I need you to stay and figure out a way to get through the wall, Jessie,” Kelly says. “You can’t do anything to help us once we get to the mainframe, but you can work with Micah here. And maybe you can get something out of Stephen.”
S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus Page 50