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

by Saul Tanpepper

  “You can’t do this to me!” Micah shouts, startling me. He continues to yell, his voice fading, blending into the murmur of the second voice. It sounds like they’re going downstairs.

  The distance between Father Heall and the Undead closes. And then he does something completely unbelievable: he reaches out and pats the thing on the shoulder as he passes.

  “What the fuck?”

  The IU turns and watches, but it doesn’t attack.

  Father Heall steps lightly down the drive and is quickly out of sight. I drop my eyes back to the Undead. But it’s already gone, disappeared just like all the rest.

  The window frosts up with my exhale.

  Behind me, someone knocks on my door. It’s followed by the sound of keys jangling. I hurry back to the bed. “Come in.”

  The door opens and Brother Matthew comes in. He stares at the lock for a moment, as if trying to remember something.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Hmm? Ah, good, you’re dressed already. You slept well?”

  I nod.

  “Quite a storm we had last night. There’s some flooding. We’ll have to be careful.”

  “It’s not raining now. Just spitting.”

  He shakes his head. “No. There’s breakfast waiting for you downstairs in the kitchen. You should grab something before we leave.”

  “Is Micah okay?”

  “We’ll talk about him shortly, but first we eat. I don’t like serious discussions before my first coffee.”

  “Where’s my gun?”

  “Breakfast first, Miss Daniels. Please. And hurry. We need to leave before the next storm hits.”

  He slips out the door, closing it behind him as he goes.

  “Okay, then.”

  I gather my things and consider changing back into my jeans. Instead I stuff them into the backpack. There’s almost no more room, not with Shinji’s rabbit and all the other crap I’ve gathered. But in the end, I toss the Seattle Seahawks football jersey we’d gotten on our way from LaGuardia onto the bed. It’s torn and bloodstained anyway. And it reminds me of Eric.

  The hallway outside the room is empty. Brother Matthew is waiting for me at the top of the stairs. As soon as he catches my eye, he starts heading down. I have to run to catch up. A million questions jockey inside my head, each vying with the others to be the first to be asked. After last night’s secret eavesdropping, I have more questions than answers. Nevertheless, what comes out first is the question I already know the answer to:

  “Am I going to see Father Heall before we leave?”

  “Father Heall has gone to pray.”

  I frown at the lie. I know he’s not praying. It’s all smoke and mirrors, this religious stuff.

  But I play along: “What is he praying for?”

  He stops and looks up at me from two steps down. “For salvation, of course.”

  “For himself? Or for the world?”

  Matthew stares at me for a moment before turning and stepping down the last few steps and spinning around the banister into the vestibule. “We’ll talk more once we get on the road. Father Heall has given me permission to take the car.”

  My heart leaps at this news. But the excitement is quickly tempered by reality. “What about the Infected?”

  “It’s very loud outside. The wind. Any noise will be masked. But once we reach the arcade, we’ll have to walk. Brother Malcolm will return here with the car.”

  “Where are all the women? How come it’s almost all men here?”

  “Not a lot survived the outbreak, even fewer after the evacuation.”

  “Infected?”

  He stops and looks me over, as if debating whether to tell me something I might not be old enough to hear. “Not all of them,” he finally says. “Life was hell for a while. The Elders were just one part of it. The uninfected can be just as cruel. Crueler, in fact.”

  I picture the chaos and the atrocities that might’ve occurred, even though I don’t want my mind to go there. But he smiles then and says, “Fortunately for us, some survived.”

  He slides open a pocket door revealing the kitchen. There are two other people in it, both undeniably female: an older woman and a girl slightly younger than me. They both look up with curiosity. I give them a tentative smile and say hello. They nod and eye me cautiously.

  “Sister Dorothy and Julia Nguyen. This is Jessica Dan—er, Jessica.”

  “Julia? You’re Brother Nicholas’ daughter!” I exclaim.

  The girl’s eyes widen and she looks quickly at Matthew. He nods once.

  “You saw my father?”

  “He helped save my friends from the Players.”

  She looks confused.

  “Deceivers,” Brother Matthew explains. “The Sinners brought Jessica and her friends here against their will. Two of them have been infected. We’re helping them.”

  “Is that wise?” Sister Dorothy asks. She has a no-nonsense look to her and her mouth squeezes together as if it’s been stitched shut. “This will only bring the wrath of the Sinners upon our heads.”

  “Father Heall has given his blessing.”

  The hardness deepens in Sister Dorothy’s eyes, but now curiosity comes over Julia’s face. “Is my dad all right?”

  “He’s fine, Julia. Why don’t you make some eggs for Jessica?”

  Julia gives him a disappointed look but gets up and moves over to the stove and turns it on. A red glow forms almost immediately on its glass surface. “Scrambled?” she asks.

  “Yes, please, Sister Julia,” I say, my stomach growling. She blushes and mutters that it’s “Just Julia.”

  Sister Dorothy stares relentlessly at me, hiding none of her animosity. I don’t like the look in her eyes, all calculating and distrustful.

  “What’s going to happen to Micah?” I ask, turning to Matthew, if only so I don’t have to suffer from looking at those eyes. “Will I be able to see him before we leave?”

  “He’s already eaten,” Brother Matthew says, not answering my question. “Toast?” He holds the plate in front of me.

  My stomach makes another complaint and the lure of freshly cooked food finally becomes too much for me to stand. I sit in front of a clean plate. “Is that apple juice?”

  “Not fresh,” Sister Dorothy quietly says. She leans to push it across the table and her shirt gapes open, exposing the tops of her breasts. One of them is badly scarred. Visions of uninfected men going feral come to me, of rape and torture. But when she reaches up and buttons her shirt, only then do I realize that I’m staring at another bite.

  And a new understanding comes over me: these people have all been bitten. Sisters and Brothers.

  But not Julia.

  And not Enoch, at least not until Tanya.

  “Aged for thirteen years,” Brother Matthew says, grinning. He nudges the apple juice bottle closer. “But there’s a lot of that where it came from and it’s okay to drink.”

  I tear my eyes away from Sister Dorothy and give him a tentative smile and utter thanks.

  Julia finishes the eggs and plates them before setting them before me. Then, from a signal from Sister Dorothy, they both disappear out of the room, leaving me alone with Brother Matthew.

  “I think I’m beginning to understand,” I tell him between mouthfuls.

  He sits and watches me without saying anything.

  “You’ve all been infected and cured—”

  “Treated. We haven’t been cured. We’re still infected. And we can still infect.”

  “Is that why you won’t leave the island?”

  He sighs and looks away. “There’s more to it than that.”

  “What? You don’t want to leave?”

  “We are the children of a new breed.”

  The thought gives me a chill. His use of the term children resonates in my head. The Elders created them, so I guess it makes sense in a warped kind of way.

  And then I think about what Father Heall said about them being in the middle of a war
. He hadn’t just meant Arc and the government. He wasn’t talking about a war between people who wanted to ensure the disease survived and those who hoped for its eradication. He was talking about a war between an ancient branch of the human race and a brand new one.

  The coldness spreads through me. Have I made the right decision coming here?

  “Finish up,” he says, putting an end to further conversation. “We need to hurry.”

  But I have to know.

  “The treatment,” I say. “It has to be given more than once, doesn’t it? Without it, the infection eventually takes over? That’s the real reason you can’t leave, isn’t it?”

  Brother Matthew leans back in his chair. Finally he nods.

  “So, even if I get the treatment to Jake and Kelly, they won’t be able to leave. Because the treatment doesn’t cure the disease, it just keeps it from getting worse.”

  Not just them, all of us. Remember, you’re infected, too.

  Brother Matthew lifts a bag from the floor, a small black satchel I’d noticed him carrying before. I know what’s inside even before he shows me, so I’m not surprised when he pulls out the bundle of syringes. The light crimson liquid inside has darkened to a deep red. He carefully arranges them in a row on the table.

  “The first order of business is to get these back to your friends, to treat them. Then we can discuss what needs to happen next.”

  “Is one of those for me?”

  He looks startled by the question.

  “There are only four. I already know Micah doesn’t need one. Who are the other two for?”

  “The others. In case they’re infected, too.”

  “And what about me?”

  He frowns again in confusion.

  “I’m infected, aren’t I?”

  “What? No! What gave you that idea?”

  “I— You—”

  “We tested you yesterday. The cheek swab. You’re clean.”

  “You’re sure it wasn’t positive?”

  His eyes narrow.

  “I saw you,” I tell him. “I heard you two talking last night, down in the cellar. I didn’t mean to—I mean I didn’t plan on going down there, but my door was unlocked and I came down and you and Father Heall were down in the cellar. I watched you draw those from him.” I gesture at the syringes.

  He stares at me for a moment. Then he finally lets out a noisy exhale and chuckles. “Then you should already know why there are only four.”

  I shake my head. “I must’ve missed that part.”

  He takes two from the pile and moves them to the side. “For the ones that are already infected. The other two for your other friends. Hopefully we won’t need them. I’m taking a couple test kits to check. If they’re clean, we’ll do what we can to get them off the island without being bitten. These syringes are just in case.” He shakes his head and holds one up to the light. “If only you knew how precious these are.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why there isn’t one for me.”

  He reaches into the satchel and draws one last thing from it and rests it on the table, his hand cupping it. When he lifts it away, the familiar object rocks for a moment, the quiet ticking sounding like one of the old fashioned clocks. It’s my inhaler.

  “Because, for you, the treatment won’t work.”

  Chapter 23

  Raindrops pelt the windshield as we pull out of the garage. The wind howls, whipping Brother Malcolm’s hair about his face. He leans close to the wall. Leaves tumble from the trees, their soft clatter lost to the tumult of the storm, becoming soft projectiles. The man hides his face and waits for the car to clear the door before yanking it closed behind us. He’s a blur of color—dark blue and pink flesh—as he hurries past Shinji’s window and slips into the shotgun seat beside Brother Matthew. Rain splatters in when he opens the door; the wind slams it shut again. Brother Matthew puts the car into gear and we roll down the driveway.

  Above us, dark storm clouds press against the sky, rolling like ocean waves over an inverted ocean. Beside me, Shinji pants happily out his window, excitement on his face.

  “I still don’t feel right leaving Micah behind,” I say.

  Brother Matthew glances at me through the rearview mirror. “It was your choice,” he reminds me. “Either take your friend back with you or the treatment. Not both.”

  “That’s a horrible choice.”

  “I agree.”

  In all honesty, I’m almost relieved Micah isn’t here. I just hope I’m right.

  He lied to us.

  And I still can’t believe it. How could he? How could he pretend to be someone he isn’t? Why would he?

  We head down Patchogue Avenue, then turn back onto Dunton, and then Sills. We weave between a half dozen long-abandoned cars with weeds growing up through them, and alongside and on top of them. Are there corpses hidden inside, lying dormant, waiting for someone to come along? Like Cassie in her bathroom? How many more Undead have been trapped inside tiny rooms and locked sheds for the past thirteen years?

  I can’t believe I almost feel sorry for them.

  Five minutes later we reach the entrance ramp for the Long Island Expressway and the road suddenly empties out, becoming wide and clear.

  “Where are all the cars?” I ask. It’s a question that has bothered me since we first stepped foot on the island. “I thought the outbreak spread quickly. Why aren’t there cars all over the place?”

  “The milit’ry cleared the roads a few years back,” Brother Malcolm offers. “Course, by then twas pretty obvious to those of us remainin that we woon’t be allowed to leave. Had orders to shoot on sight. Shoot t’ kill. We quickly learnt t’avoid them.” He rambles cheerfully on, as if we’re discussing nothing more tragic than the latest fashion flops on Media instead of the blatant murder of innocent civilians.

  Brother Matthew remains silent, concentrating on the weed-strewn road and carefully guiding the car over the blips of the faded white line. He looks for blown debris and potholes in the road too big to drive over. And Infecteds, which thankfully there aren’t too many of. His knuckles are gray on the steering wheel, his eyes dark.

  “And you’re not worried about the military now?” I ask.

  Brother Malcolm waves a hand, dismissing the danger. “They’s gone now. Given up on t’ island. It’s that dern company pesterin us, causin all the grief.”

  “Arc,” I mutter. I lean toward the window and peer out into the driving rain, at the ghost towns we pass. At the road signs informing the illiterate dead of places they no longer care to know about.

  “Dern right, them,” Malcolm exclaims. “Plus, who wants be out in this weather? Nobody. At least them Arc people finished the job.”

  “What job?”

  “Clearing the cars! Sheesh! Ain’t it what you jest asked? Off’n the main roads, anywho. Easier to travel ‘round, now. Less risk from th’Elders that way.”

  I chuckle quietly to myself over this. He’s not fooling anybody. After watching Heall walk right past that IU this morning, I now know being infected makes them invisible to the Undead.

  “Yep,” Brother Malcolm goes on. “Don’t want a buncha them getting in the way. Been bit once, don’t rightly want to agin.”

  “Why would they?”

  He turns in his seat and stares at me.

  “Why would they bite you again? You’re infected, right?”

  “The Elders still attack us,” Brother Matthew quietly answers, glancing back at me in the mirror. “They make no such distinction among the living, whether infected or not. There’s something in the living brain that triggers the instinct to eat, some kind of electrochemical energy or something.”

  “Father Heall didn’t seem to have any problem this morning,” I counter. “I saw him walk right past one.”

  Brother Matthew shrugs tiredly. “Father Heall is…different.” He checks his watch. “We’ll be at the edge of the arcade in less than an hour. Half that if there aren’t any obstacles. This weathe
r is going to slow us down a bit.”

  “As long as we get back in time. It’s still a lot better than biking.”

  “Twould be next t’impossible,” Brother Malcolm exclaims.

  As if to prove him right, another gust of wind slams into the side of the car, jarring us. We slide into the left lane of the highway. Brother Matthew pulls the wheel gently in the opposite direction until we’re straddling the dotted white line again. The tires thump over the cracks in the asphalt.

  Nobody speaks for the next half hour. We’re all lost in our thoughts. I run my fingers through Shinji’s fur and he rolls onto his side exposing his belly. He groans and pants happily. I wish I could be that happy. I can’t remember the last time I was happy.

  Brother Matthew breaks the quiet. “I think it would be best if we discussed the treatment.”

  “What’s there to discuss?” I ask, resentfully. I had been thinking about Kelly and I’m reluctant to put the memory aside.

  “The half-life of the serum once it’s been activated is eleven hours,” he says. “It degrades rapidly. After two half-lives it becomes ineffective.”

  “How long ago was it activated?”

  “Shortly after it was added to the stabilizer.” He glances at his wrist. “Almost four hours ago.”

  Five hours ago I was in the cellar watching him draw the blood out of Father Heall. The whitish liquid inside the syringe must’ve been the stabilizer.

  “That gives you about a seventeen hour window to administer the treatment.”

  “Me? Don’t you mean you? I’m not giving it to him. Besides, we’ll be there in less than four hours.”

  “You should know this in case we get separated.”

  “We’re not going to get separated.”

  “It could happen.”

  Brother Malcolm nods and smiles idiotically. He reminds me of Shinji. “Ayup. Never know what might happen out here.”

  Or in Gameland, I think.

  “The chemical formula for the stabilizer is written on a card inside the satchel with the syringes. Instructions for how to prepare—”