We run full out for a good five minutes. He lets me catch up. Then we both slow down again and chance a look behind.
The roadway is empty as far as I can see. We’re the only things on it. The night is quiet and peaceful, broken only by our heavy breathing and the grating whine of the crickets alongside the road. The air is still and thick with dew, invisible in the darkness, materializing on our skin like some sort of chemical reaction, a glue that’s bonding us to the night.
The nearly full moon gleams down upon us, turning the road into a glistening river that stretches out ahead of us, never widening or narrowing, just drawing us down its constant track like thread on a single silver needle.
“What the hell was that thing?” I finally manage to say. I lean against the shovel and pant.
“My best guess?” Micah says, resting his palms on his knees. “Former New York Giants nose tackle.” He looks at me and snickers.
How can he joke about it so easily? I wonder.
But that’s the old Micah coming back. He laughed back there while dangling upside down just a foot from the zombies. I shake my head and make another check behind us to make sure the thing hasn’t suddenly appeared when we weren’t looking. “What the hell is a nose tackle?”
He starts to explain, but I cut him off short. “Forget I asked. Anyway, what matters is that it gave up.”
“You hope it gave up.” But he nods. I can see the look in his eyes, the eagerness, the sense of feeling alive in the face of such horror.
“It’s not funny,” I say, and then I realize something, the difference between him and Reggie. Reggie masks his fear of death with humor. Micah uses humor to hide his fear of not living.
I glance nervously at the side of the road. I strain my ears for any sounds. But there’s nothing to hear or see. Either the monster zombie couldn’t get over the fence, or something else happened to stop it. It’s not here and it’s not coming, and this knowledge lets me relax just the tiniest little bit.
“Whatever,” Micah says, waving a hand behind us, dismissing the thing. “Good riddance.”
If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was disappointed.
The road begins to tilt slightly upward as we get closer to the island’s high point. It’s not enough to be a problem while walking, but we tire out faster when we jog, so we alternate between the two. I’m impatient and find myself wishing more and more we had a faster way to travel. Like Micah’s car. God, I miss that piece of crap.
For that matter, I miss being home.
In the twentieth century, Jayne’s Hill was four hundred feet above sea level. With the way ocean levels have been fluctuating lately, precise elevations are almost meaningless. Regardless, no one expects the sea level to reach as high as the hill. That’s why Arc placed the Gameland mainframe computer there.
We pace ourselves to keep from getting too tired. We need to keep something in reserve for if we run into another IU.
Not if. When.
Packs in hand, our feet quietly slapping the pavement, we run or jog or walk. The further we get from the wall, the more our breathing slips into the rhythm of the night. Do the Undead hear the crickets and frogs, too? The dogs barking somewhere off in the distance? The screech of an owl? What draws them out at night when the world is bereft of the living?
The moon passes behind a cloud and the night darkens. It’s just one cloud, long and thin and strangely yellow, like drawn-out taffy. I sense the rhythm of the night change around us. Micah slows, seeming to become aware of it, too. I catch him glancing around more carefully, straining into the gloom, but it’s too dark to see much beyond the dull gleam of the highway.
“What is it?”
He shakes his head, faltering, but he doesn’t answer. We keep on running.
The cloud shifts and the pall over the world falls away. But the old rhythm never quite returns.
We’d been passing through what might’ve been parklands, back when the island was inhabited. There are fewer buildings and only the occasional IU or two. But now we’ve come to another residential area and we begin to see them again in larger numbers, groups of three or four, dozens standing in the middle of the roads below us. Others dwell in the shadows half-hidden beneath scraggly, unpruned trees, ghosts in the overgrown yards of houses whose windows stare blankly out at them.
My pulse quickens. I’ve learned my lesson not to get complacent. I catch myself scanning every shadow I see, searching for that giant monstrosity that attacked us back there at the fence. But it’s not here. None of the IUs I now see is anywhere near as big as it was.
Micah points to a group of them marching down one of the side streets, almost two dozen, all heading in the same direction away from us. They’re like an army. Or participants in some otherworldly funeral parade. I wonder where they’re going.
What caught their attention? Was it a dog or a cat? Some other animal?
There’s nothing for us to do but to keep running. Nothing to occupy my mind but whatever thoughts happen to wander into it.
Images of Cassie and her parents inevitably come to me—the living versions, not the Undead ones: five-year-old Cassie on her swing, at the beach, playing. I imagine her father throwing a ball into the surf for the family dog to retrieve. I picture Cassie as she might look now. Alive, not Undead.
There, but for the grace of God…
I wonder where she disappeared to after she finally got out of the house. Is she looking for her parents? Are they still alive and living somewhere else? And if so, have they forgotten about her? Or are they Undead, too?
I wish I knew: Do zombies stay close to where they were when they lived? Do they feel a sense of attachment? To places? To things? Why else would Cassie have kept her stuffed rabbit with her all these years that she was trapped in that bathroom? What difference to the Undead does a toy rabbit make?
And why did I decide to keep it, just as I had the photos?
A trophy?
Am I sick? Is that it?
I realize I’ve stopped looking for the giant and am now looking for a much smaller figure out there, even though I know it’d be impossible for her to have come so far tonight.
I’m sorry, Cassie.
I know they sense us. They turn as we pass, but just as they did during our bike ride a couple days earlier, they’re always too slow to react, too far behind when they start to follow. And even if they were quicker, the highway fence would eventually stop them.
Nevertheless, some of them try to give chase. Their low hungry moans and the rattle of the chain link off in the distance giving voice to their primal desire, spurring us on. What else are they going to do on a night like this?
“You think maybe they understand each other?” I ask Micah. “I mean, you know, if one moans, does that sound, like, communicate to all the others that there’s food nearby?”
Micah doesn’t answer. He just keeps jogging, his bag swaying in his hands and his eyes scanning the road ahead and the shadows alongside it. The same obsessed look as when he’s playing Zpocalypto: focused and intense. The same old Micah coming back after the trauma of the past week.
“I hope not,” I answer myself.
We come across our first highway IU a full thirty minutes in. Micah sees it before I do and slows to a walk. He stops, raising an eyebrow at me.
“What’s up?” I say. Then I see the creature, camouflaged in front of an old highway sign, two or three hundred feet ahead.
It’s not moving. It still hasn’t sensed us.
“What the hell’s it doing?” Micah whispers.
“No idea,” I answer. I’ve seen them do this before, staring at the sky like this. It strikes me as creepy, and yet somehow peaceful.
“Waiting for the mother ship,” Micah concludes, laughing quietly.
“Aliens?” I say rolling my eyes. “What have you been smoking?”
He shakes his head. “Maybe that’s the problem. Nothing lately.”
I take a wary glance back along t
he way we came. The road is still empty as far as I can see. My heart is pounding in my ears, drowning out all the other sounds.
No. Wait. There are no other sounds. No crickets. No frogs . They’ve all stopped. The night is unnaturally quiet. Realizing this really starts to freak me out.
“I don’t like this,” I hiss.
“It’s just one.”
He doesn’t sense the change in the air. He noticed it before when we were jogging, but now he doesn’t. It’s just the same obsessed gleam in his eye. This is what he’s been training for all his life: to kill zombies. Except this one is real.
“So was Zombiecles back there,” I say.
“Zombiecles?”
I wipe a bead of sweat off my cheek with my shoulder, shrugging. “So, what do we do?”
“You want to go back?” he asks. I know he doesn’t mean it. I know he’d be disappointed and argue if I said yes. But he knows I won’t say it. He knows I’d rather die than go back now. Now that we’re so close.
“I’m going to ping Kelly.”
“What? Here?” Micah sighs impatiently. “Text him. It’ll be quicker—quieter, I mean. Let him know we’re coming.”
I hesitate. If I text, I won’t know if he’s okay. I won’t know if he’ll even get the message. And I want to hear Kelly’s voice.
“And make it quick, Jess. There’s more of them coming.” He gestures off to the side.
I glance over and see the shadows shifting. They’re less of a threat to us, because of the fence. But the noise they’ll make will alert the one on the road that we’re here.
“I wonder how he got up here,” Micah wonders, shifting anxiously. He looks around. “Maybe there’s a hole in the fence.”
Hope not, I think as I thumb in a quick message to Kelly:
<
Then I pocket the Link.
“You ready?”
I nod, though I’m really not ready at all.
Micah grins, and he gets that intense look again. “Good. Let’s go kick some zombie ass.”
Chapter 24
This doesn’t feel right. In fact, it feels absolutely wrong.
This is what I think as Micah slings his pack on his back and tightens the straps. He squares his shoulders and stretches his neck. The knife magically appears in his hand, drawn from some hidden place. I’m sure he’d prefer a light saber. But then again, I think he actually prefers this real crap over Zpocalypto.
He waits for me to give the signal. His eyes never leave the figure standing in the road.
The moon hovers expectantly in the sky, shining down on us like a spotlight. The cloud has shifted further over, stretching out even longer and thinner. But I don’t have time to think about how unnatural it looks. Every second I waste not moving is another second the zombies behind us and beside us and in front of us have to figure out we’re here, to get closer. To surround us.
And sunrise is still more than an hour away.
“I suppose now’s not a good time to ask why I have to carry the shovel,” I say. “I’m the one with the weak shoulder, remember?”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
It’s not that I mind. Yes, my fingers are cramped and sweaty from carrying it, but it hasn’t really been much of a burden. If anything, it feels good in my hands, like a bo staff, a comfortable counter weight while I’m running.
“Quit procrastinating, Jessie.”
I lift my hand to adjust my backpack, but as I do the strap catches on the handle of the shovel and it slips and goes clattering across the road, shattering the silence of the night.
We both stare at it.
Up ahead, the IU slowly lowers and turns its head. It stares at us without moving. Behind us, the moaning has grown louder. Retreat is out of the question. A single zombie on the road is still a much better alternative to several behind us, even with the fence for them to contend with.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
“Just pick it up and get ready to run,” Micah says, his voice low and urgent.
I reach down and grab the shovel without lowering my eyes.
“Now!” And he leaps forward.
At the same moment, the zombie turns and steps toward us. Its first movements are awkward and slow, but it quickly shakes off its torpor. It raises its arms and howls.
And we’re running straight toward it!
“Oh yeah. It’s a fast one,” Micah pants. I don’t dare look over at him. I don’t want to see the look on his face.
“Go right,” I tell him, raising the shovel. My shoulder twinges, reminding me that it’s still not up for a lot of physical abuse. I hope the thing doesn’t decide to pop back out again. Not now. “Aim low,” I tell him, “for the thigh. I’ll go left and go for its head.”
Micah nods and separates from me. The monster takes another step toward us, reaching out. Tatters hang from its arms as it reaches out, and at first I think it’s skin. But then I see it’s just its torn shirt, revealing the muscles it once possessed.
It’s actually in fairly good shape.
We accelerate until we’re both running as close to full speed as we can manage with the packs on our backs.
I focus on breathing. Two quick breaths, one long one. And when the thing is ten feet from us, I inhale and hold it. I swing my arms forward with all my strength, shouting, “Kiai!” for power.
But the shovel misses! It passes over the thing’s head without connecting and throws me off balance. The shovel flies out of my hands and skitters noisily across the road, then off the shoulder and into the grass.
“What the hell?” I yelp. “How the hell—”
“I got it!” Micah yells, ducking under the zombie’s arms. The knife slices its shirt but misses flesh. Micah spins and draws back his hand for a second try.
I grab him and yell, “Forget it. Keep running!”
“But—”
“One shot, Micah! We missed.”
The thing crouches as it turns. I’ve never seen one do that before.
I push Micah just as it leaps at us. I spin away, grabbing its wrist and pulling. It loses its footing and goes flying. I don’t wait around to see what happens.
“Run!”
Micah hesitates a fraction of a second, but then follows me as I take off again down the road.
“I could’ve…taken it!”
I risk a look back. It hasn’t gotten to its feet yet, but it soon will. It’s moving too fast, too purposeful.
“It’s coming.”
Micah looks back. “Holy shit! It’s fucking running!”
He whips his pack off and tucks it under his arm. I do the same with mine. For a second, I’m tempted to toss it over my shoulder as a distraction. It’s not a god damn bear! I scream at myself. It won’t stop to sniff it. It doesn’t want canned tuna and water. It wants us!
We both speed up.
“Still coming,” Micah says, his voice quavering, both with fear and excitement.
I can’t keep myself from turning around and looking. The thing is still moving awkwardly, its movements stiff and mechanical. And yet it’s frighteningly fast.
I let out a stifled cry. Fire sears my lungs and drips burning lava down my side. Beside me, Micah’s face twists in pain. He grabs his side. “It’s no fair, you know,” he groans, and his teeth flash. “Zombies don’t get cramps.”
“It’s a Player,” I gasp.
“No shit.” But his next words send an even bigger chill down my spine: “And it thinks we are, too.”
We round a bend in the road and the sounds of pursuit fade away, but we keep running anyway. There’s nowhere else for us to go but straight ahead.
I scan the road. Micah does the same. I hope he doesn’t suggest that we turn around and fight. I also hope he doesn’t think we should hide. Hiding from a normal IU would work, but not a CU. Not when there’s a living, breathing human being doing its thinking for it. Our best chance is to try and outrun it.
&n
bsp; My chest tightens at the thought. I don’t know how much longer my lungs will hold out.
But Micah points and shouts, “There!”
“No. We have to…keep going.”
“Cut off,” he replies, “for Jayne’s Hill.” He tries to vault over the center guardrail and nearly ends up falling flat on his face. He pinwheels his arms, recovers, and keeps right on running. I slow and climb over it. I’m too weak to jump. Micah’s already heading down the entrance ramp. I try to catch up, but I’m too tired. When I hear the slap of the CU’s feet behind me, I somehow find something more inside of me.
Just as I slip down the ramp, I glance over my shoulder. The zombie is a hundred feet back, climbing over the rail. It falls, but gets quickly to its feet and continues the pursuit.
My shins cry out in protest as I run down the incline. The sound of my retreat echoes in the darkness. Sweat pours off of me. The distance between us and the creature has grown, but it’s still coming. This one won’t give up. It’s not motivated by its basal instincts to feed. Hunger propels it forward, but murder is its intention.
Murder and money and ratings.
How much for each kill? How much more if it’s a living person?
I wonder why and how it could happen. Doesn’t its Operator know we’re not dead? He has to know we’re not Infected. IUs don’t run, and we’re obviously not CUs, either. Even the freshest Player couldn’t leap over a guardrail like Micah just did, no matter how clumsily.
So, the Operator knows, and yet he’s still coming after us.
I can just picture the fat, rich asshole grinning inside his fancy VR setup in some mansion somewhere safe. Where? Boston? Santa Fe? Los Angeles? He knows his Player is chasing two living human beings, and yet he’s enjoying himself. He wants to catch us. He wants to kill us.
jessie
Would they even televise something like that on Survivalist?
stop
Does Arc think it could get away with it?
“Hey!” Micah grabs my arm and spins me around. “Where the hell are you going?”
S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus Page 59