How much weight has he lost, sweated out through his pores?
How much of him is left in there?
He looks like one of them now, the way his skin has turned ash gray. Even the yellow is gone. There’s no color left. The circles around his eyes have deepened. His lips look like he’d eaten licorice.
I wonder if his tongue has turned black.
“Jessie? Give me the knife.”
I think about Kelly taking care of Kyle. Careful, caring Kelly. He’s had it so tough. Poor Kyle, lucky to have a brother like him. I’m lucky to have him as a boyfriend.
“No.”
“Jess—”
“No, I’ll do it.”
He doesn’t relent. He just stares at me, the muscles in his face rippling and his throat working. I know he doesn’t want to do it. I also know he doesn’t want me to do it, either. But I already have, haven’t I? I’m already damaged goods. Finally he nods and steps back.
“Turn him over. It’s easier if he’s on his stomach.”
Kelly begins to circle the table. Reggie stands up to join him. He and Kelly exchange glances. Not a word passes between them, just unspoken understanding. They both reach over and pull Jake toward them, and Jake rolls stiffly, his arms unbending.
Reggie makes a face and turns away.
“God, his tongue—” he begins to say.
“Don’t look at it,” I tell him, and he closes his eyes.
“Make it fast.”
My hands are still shaking, but I wrap them both around the handle and grip it hard. I lift it up and place the tip against the back of Jake’s head and push slightly, watching it indent the skin.
“Close your eyes,” I whisper to Kelly, but I don’t know if he does because I’ve closed mine.
I’m sorry, Jake. I’m so sorry it came to this.
And I lean my body forward and into Jake.
Chapter 23
“Stop!”
My hands immediately loosen from the hilt of the knife, even as my body thrusts forward. But my left hand slides down the blade, slicing into my palm. I pull away, hissing in pain, and the knife clatters to the surface of the table.
Reggie looks up and gasps. His eyes grow wide with fright and he stumbles backward. Kelly also steps away. Now Jake is starting to roll forward off the table. I reach out with my good hand, clutching the other to my chest.
“Uh, Jessie…”
And now the hair on the back of my head is starting to prickle. I turn and what I see steals the breath from my chest.
Brother Matthew is standing in the doorway, his mangled body a vision of horror, more blood and torn muscle than skin, more naked than clothed. Strips of fabric cover him, and everywhere the marks of a thousand teeth. The wounds are now blackened holes, clotted and filled with muddy filth. Parts of him look seared, as if by burning coals. A flap of muscle dangles down the inside of his right thigh, falling to just below his knee. His teeth show through a hole in his cheek. An ear is missing.
He leans his tattered remains against the wall, smearing it with blackened gore, clutching with one hand to hold himself up while the other hand is—
the other hand is—
It’s missing.
“Jesus H. Christ!” Reggie moans.
Brother Matthew slips to the floor, folding in places and in ways that seem impossible.
“Don’t kill him,” Matthew says, then he crumples forward.
Silence stretches out an eternity before Kelly shatters it with an explosive exhale and steps forward. He brushes by me as he angles for the mangled body of the man, knocking me into the table and bringing me back to my senses.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. I reach out to stop Kelly. “No! It’s not possible. I saw him— Kelly, no! Stay back! He’s turned.”
But Kelly rushes forward, snatching a bottle of water off the table as he goes. He slides to a stop beside Brother Matthew and kneels down, opening the bottle then holding it out. But where does he begin? There’s too much blood and gore and filth.
“Kelly…”
He looks over, pleading with his eyes to help. “He spoke. I heard him. He’s still alive.”
And now Matthew begins to stir. He tries to push himself up, but he cries out in pain when he sets the stump of his wrist against the floor.
“What do I do?” Kelly asks. He reaches out, then draws back. He doesn’t want to touch him.
Somehow, Brother Matthew gets his upper body upright again and leaning against the doorframe. He shakes with fever, his head rocking on an unstable neck. The stump reaches up to the middle of his chest, as if he’s trying to clutch his heart, but then it falls back into his lap. He tries again a moment later with his other hand, this time reaching inside the tattered remnants of his shirt.
“Give this…to him.”
I gasp at the sight of the syringe and cry out when I see it’s still full. It’s the last one, the last hope. One last chance to save Jake.
He breaks into a wheezing coughing fit, spitting bloody saliva. “Don’t touch me,” he warns Kelly. “Nobody can touch me. Except her.”
Kelly’s head snaps over to me, his eyes pleading for understanding. But I can’t give it to him. I don’t understand either. I know Matthew’s right, but I can’t explain why.
The syringe slips from his fingers, rolls across his lap and drops to the floor. Kelly tries to grab it but I shout at him not to touch it. “It’s covered in infected blood.”
“We’ve all been covered in infected blood,” Reggie says. He steps over and bends down.
“No!” Brother Matthew grunts. He reaches out with the stump, warding Reggie off. “Only…her.”
Kelly nods and stands up. He grabs my wounded hand and frowns at the cut. “Let me wrap this first.” He takes a strip from Jake’s shirt and covers it. He ties a knot on the back. “Now, hurry.”
“No.”
“Jake needs—” he begins to say, but I cut him off.
“No, it’s too late. Jake’s almost dead. And his brain is— It’s too late, Kel. And that’s the last syringe. You need it…”
He shakes his head. “Jake needs it more than I do.”
“Then give it Brother Matthew! It’s too late for Jake.”
A low groan escapes Brother Matthew’s lips and a spasm passes through his body. “Too late for me. Infection too bad… Wounds…” He coughs weakly. “…dying…”
“Jessie, please, just hurry up,” Reggie says. I can see the struggle going on inside his head: If we give Jake the treatment, then we’ll have to wait here until he gets better; but if we don’t, we can leave right away to rescue Ash.
“It’s your choice, Reg,” I tell him. “You decide.”
He looks up at the ceiling, groaning in anguish. “We can still get out of this,” he says. “All of us. Please, just…just give it to him. Give it to Jake. Make him better. Please.”
I watch him for a moment. I want to believe like he does, but I can’t. Something tells me that I can’t save Jake. Something tells me this syringe is not for him.
“Even if it works,” I tell him, “it won’t make him better. He’ll be a vegetable. And it won’t make any of this go away. It won’t bring Tanya back, or any of the others—”
“I don’t give a fuck about any of the others!” Reggie growls. “Just, please, do it, Jessie.”
“It won’t change the fact that Micah betrayed us, either. We’ll never be able to put this behind us. Never!”
A tear rolls down his cheek. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him cry, and it breaks my heart. “I know,” he whispers. “I know. But we can’t not try, either.”
I reach down and pluck the syringe from the floor. The color of the liquid inside has intensified. It’s a deep, deep red now, almost black.
“It may not even be any good anymore,” I whisper.
“Jessie.” Kelly’s nodding, urging me to hurry.
I’m still not convinced. If I give it to Jake, he might live, but as what? A vegetable
? If I give it to Brother Matthew, he might not even survive the blood loss and bites. “Kelly should get this.”
“There’s time enough for me later,” he whispers. “Give it to Jake.”
“How?” I ask, choking. “All of it? In the arm? Where?”
Brother Matthew doesn’t answer. His body lifts and falls slightly as he breathes through his open mouth, the sound of a high thin wind passing through the grass. Bloody drool slips from his lips. His body shudders. He’s in shock. I reach a hand over and hold it an inch from his face. I can feel the heat.
“When you’re finished,” he says. It’s almost a whisper. His finger twitches. It’s all he can muster. “Just leave me here.”
“In the arm? Into the vein? How?”
“No!” He coughs, spits. “Spinal column. Lower back, between the bones. Anywhere else won’t work, not for very long. In fact…” He shakes his head weakly, the pink drool swinging from his lips. “In fact…”
I look over at Kelly and he nods. I know he’s thinking about Ben.
“What happens if it goes into the vein?”
Slowly, Brother Matthew’s head rises. He looks at me with bloodshot eyes, from a face barely recognizable as human. His hair hangs in clumps over his forehead, plastered with blood and mud. “Living Undead,” he answers. “The prion can’t pass into the nervous system in that direction. The body is treated, but the brain won’t be.”
Understanding builds in Reggie’s eyes, the terror of knowing Ashley is with a man whose body will remain alive while his brain slowly dies, as he turns into an animal driven to feed.
“We’ll get her back,” I tell him.
“On his side,” Brother Matthew pants. His voice is growing weaker. I gesture for the others to hurry. We need to finish with the treatment while Matthew is still alive. And then we’ll have to finish him.
Kelly and Reggie do as they’re told.
“Knees…up to his chest. Won’t be…easy. Stiff from disease.”
Reggie loops his arm under Jake’s knees and pulls them up, bending him at the waist. The muscles strain in his neck and arms. Jake’s joints pop.
“Find the bony pro…tuberances at the base of the spine, then…”
Reggie points. I nod. We wait.
“What, Brother Matthew? What then?”
“Count up two, three spaces. Soft…area…Inject there.”
The three of us look at each other, uncertain we’re doing any of this right.
“Do your best,” Kelly says. “It’s his only chance.”
Brother Matthew grunts out the next set of instructions painfully slowly: “Stick the needle in. Push slowly. Stop when you feel it give.” I do as he says, then draw back on the plunger to make sure I’m not in a blood vessel.
“It’s clear,” I report. “The fluid is clear.”
“Give him the whole thing. All of it.”
It takes a very long time, but finally it all goes in.
“Now what? Brother Matthew?”
But Brother Matthew is dead.
‡ ‡
[END OF EPISODE SIX]
Episode 7
Tag, You’re Dead
PART ONE
Miles to Go
Chapter 1
I’m being torn to pieces. Shredded by circumstances beyond my control, forces too powerful for anyone to constrain. There is a storm, an invisible storm, and it’s tearing me up and scattering me in the wind.
“Guys, come on,” Reggie pleads. He’s desperate. Neither Kelly nor I had answered him the first time he tried to get us to move, but neither of us had responded. He won’t leave it alone. He can’t. “How long are we just going to sit here and wait before we’re sure?”
Kelly shoots me a worried glance. I look away. We both know what Reggie is really asking: Why are we wasting our time with Jake when we should be off rescuing Ashley?
I know we need to go after Ben. I know every minute we delay is another minute that madman has to kill her. Or worse. I hate to think what he’s capable of doing. But I feel like if I leave Jake now—now, after we’ve given him this one last chance at surviving, and not just to continue on, but to not come back—I feel like if I abandon him now it’ll be like admitting he has no chance at all. After everything that has happened lately—
You know he isn’t going to make it.
—it feels like a betrayal.
Betraying Ashley. Betraying Reggie.
I am being torn apart by my fears and doubts.
Would Jake do the same for you?
I look down at his face. It’s twisted in agony. His body convulses as it struggles with the infection. Will the treatment work? Did we give it to him in time? Or did we just delay the inevitable?
He opens his eyes and they’re startlingly clear, their usual deep brown now sunrise golden, sparkling with light, dancing with life. “I totally had a crush on you last year,” he whispers to me, smiling. I choke down a sob. But then the smile changes, twists into a misshapen sneer of hatred, and his mouth opens wide, wider, becoming a gaping black hole, and I’m tumbling into it. “You treated me like shit!” he roars. I gasp and stagger backward.
Kelly hurries over. “What? Jessie, what’s the matter?”
I blink and the vision is gone. The feverish Jake is back, comatose, slack and gray, radiating heat, smelling of decay. Unmoving. Undead.
I’m being torn by ghosts and memories, by guilt and regrets.
Reggie paces. The shock of it all, of being shot at and the knockout gas, is starting to take its toll. Ashley’s missing. Now the pain is returning. He’s shattered on the outside, as well as within.
I keep a wary eye on him prowling the floor. His limping is getting worse. My hand slips over to Jake’s arm and the heat hits me again. He doesn’t wake. He doesn’t open his eyes and whisper to me, neither his fears nor his wants. No accusations. He is inert. The whispers are inside of me, insinuating me. Defining and destroying me.
Jake never flinched when I was injecting the treatment, never showed any pain. Not one single twitch. Nothing. I knew then that he was too far gone. I knew. Knew as soon as the medicine was inside of him and the needle came out. Except… There’s always a chance. Nothing left to do except wait and see. See if the infection stops building. Hoping for a quick end. Unsure what I’m really hoping for. Knowing that if I leave, I’ve made my choice. And if I stay, will I ever be able to live with the guilt?
Except for the occasional spasm and the slight rise and fall of his chest, his body lies still as stone. Nothing comes out of his mouth but the quiet rasp of his breathing, and his eyes never open.
Reggie winces each time he puts weight on the leg. He won’t look directly at us. He’s trying to hide the pain, as if he’s ashamed of it. I want to scream at him that he was shot. I want to scream to stop pretending all the time like he’s tougher than the rest of us, that the injury to his hip is nothing more than a mild annoyance. Shane’s bullet must have left a huge bruise, maybe even cracked his hipbone. A normal person would’ve been crippled.
But that would make me a hypocrite, wouldn’t it? I’m pretending, too.
“You’re in no shape to go anywhere, Reggie,” Kelly finally says, cutting straight to the heart of the matter.
Reggie glares at him. “I’m fine,” he says, but then he takes another step and something gives and he goes down to one knee with a grunt.
I hurry over to him. “Look, Reg—”
“We need to move now!” he shouts. He tries to wave me off. I brace myself, stiffening. He accidentally hits my thigh, and by rights it should easily knock me over. Instead, the motion throws him off balance and back to his knees. With a howl of frustration and despair, he lurches to his feet, then almost immediately collapses again. “Son of a bitch! I wish that son-of-an-asshole who shot me wasn’t already dead, because I’d kill him myself.”
“What you need is to sit down and rest,” Kelly quietly says. “Give your leg a chance—”
“Don’t fuckin
g tell me what to do, Kelly!” he roars. He gets to his feet a third time, and this time succeeds in staying upright. He towers over us, as if he’s grown ten inches, but he looks unstable. “I need to go help her!”
We both back away from him.
For a moment, nobody moves, but then Reggie’s face flushes and he turns to the side, embarrassed. He runs his hands through his hair and it catches on a snag and it only makes him all the more angry. His body trembles with tension. He yanks at the tangle, uttering angry sounds, pulling and crying until I swear he’s going to rip half his scalp off. Again, I want to shout at him to stop, but I’m too torn myself to make an effort.
“We’re all tired and anxious,” Kelly says. He watches Reggie a couple more seconds, then tries to pull his hand away from his hair. It goes willingly enough, but then Reggie just stands there looking stunned, and when Kelly pulls over a chair and instructs him to sit down in it, he does. He collapses with a sob, and his fingers return to the knot in his hair and begins to worry it again, tweezing it. He laughs listlessly and mutters that he could use a bath. “I’ve never been so filthy in my whole entire life.” He scratches absently at the dirt on his arm with fingernails that are too long. He makes himself bleed.
It’s the sight of his blood that makes the world snap back into sharp focus with an almost audible pop. “Stop it!” I scream. “Stop it!”
We’re all tired, in shock. They look at me with their terrified eyes. Suddenly, my nose fills with my own stench, the stink of the clay on me, the thick cloying earthy aroma. My clothes are stiff with dried mud—except the shirt Casey got for me in that house we waited in after I ran into him and Ben—and there’s more of it caked in my hair and behind my ears. My pants are chaffing my thighs. My toes feel like they’ve been swimming in muck for days. Despite that sponge bath last night and the clean clothes I’d put on afterward, I feel like I haven’t been clean and dry in months.
I close my eyes and try to gather myself. I picture the bed I’d slept in up in Brookhaven, in the old dilapidated house with the warped piano and the grand staircase with the threadbare carpet, the peeling wallpaper, the photos of the white-haired man and the old woman. Where are they now? I feel the sheets on the bed, so nice and cool and clean on my skin. Had the bed belonged to one of their children? I remember the warm spaghetti I’d eaten for dinner and the smell of the kitchen this morning as Julia made my breakfast. What was the old man’s and old woman’s last meal like, the day of the evacuation? I think about Shinji lying next to me, his cold, wet nose on my skin and his snout a comforting weight on my arm. The tuna fish smell of his breath. The soft wheeze of his breathing.
S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus Page 87