I pull one of his eyelids up and allow the wan light from the ceiling to shine in, but his pupil gives only the barest of responses, the tiniest of contractions. The eyes aren’t just windows to the soul, but also to the brain, and right now Jake’s curtains are shut and nobody’s home. It’s not what I’d hoped, but I when I rub a hard knuckle over his sternum or pull the head of a screw across the bottom of his foot—like I learned from Nurse Mabel—it confirms my fears. I get nothing but the slightest of twitches. Jake’s gone. I don’t know if or when he’ll return.
I find my backpack lying in a heap underneath an overturned chair and I check inside of it for the smelling salts. There’s a moment of dread when I remember Ben dumping everything out onto the floor of the house near the wall where we waited out the IUs, when I think that maybe he didn’t put everything back. I know he didn’t. I remember seeing my other pants sitting on the floor when we left. I find the pistol and stick it into my waistband and continue to dig around.
I find the ampoules buried down near the bottom. The white box we’d gotten out of the nurse’s cart back at the airport is now soggy and falling apart. One of them has smashed, staining the cotton sleeve and the protective wrapping with the faint pink dye. The other two are still intact.
I toss the backpack to the side and stand up. I’m tempted to crush one now and stick it under Jake’s nose, but I already know what’ll happen. He’ll just lie there and not move. If the other tricks didn’t elicit a response, then smelling salts isn’t going to wake him.
I just hope they wake Reggie.
Carefully, I unwind the wrap holding the bandage on his neck in place. The heavy stench of rot hits me square in the face, making me gag. The wound is no longer bright red or blackened by bruising, but almost blanched to a pale gray. The edges are the color of wet campfire ash, pale and translucent, turning an almost greenish hue further out before reluctantly giving way to the paleness of his skin. The edges of the teeth marks are dry, desiccated by his severe fluid loss. They’ve lifted and pulled away, leaving gaping holes big enough that I could stick my finger into each one, probably up to my first knuckle. I shiver at the thought, then quickly replace the bandage, grateful to get that nasty wound out of my sight. Grateful to block that noxious smell. I catch an undertone of Brother Nicholas’ herbal mixture, hovering just beneath the thick, cloying husk of decay, and my eyes stray to the wall where Reggie splashed the unused mixture in his earlier rampage. It makes me wonder if the stuff actually works or if it was just to cover the smell.
When I’m finished, I head back to the elevator. I’ll leave Jake uncovered for now, since he’s still a little warm. I’ll return in a little while to check. Someone will have to dress him and get him ready to take back. I hope Kelly has figured out how we can do that.
† † †
I find Reggie sitting up and leaning against the wall when I return upstairs. Kelly is kneeling beside him with an old plastic trashcan under his chin. Spittle drips from Reggie’s lips, which are shiny with vomit and chapped from dehydration. His face is pale. He barely registers my presence when I say his name.
“He’s still really out of it,” Kelly tells me quietly.
Reggie lurches forward and Kelly thrusts the can in front of him, but though he gags, his mouth open as wide as his jaw will allow and his tongue arching outward and down toward his chin, nothing comes out. There’s a terrible retching sound, followed by weak coughing, a gasp of utter despair. Reggie leans back again, exhausted. He looks absolutely miserable.
“Has he said anything?”
Kelly shakes his head. “It’s only been a couple minutes. Give him time. How’s Jake?”
“Fever’s broken. He’s still a little warm. Definitely a lot cooler than before.”
Kelly shakes his head. “The stuff actually works.”
I frown. “I checked to see if he’s conscious, but he’s totally unresponsive. It’ll be a while before we know anything for sure.”
You already know. He’s brain dead.
“Still breathing? You checked?”
I nod.
Kelly braces the trash can between Reggie’s legs and pushes himself up to his feet. He moves stiffly, more like a man in his sixties, like someone old enough to begin his LSC, than a boy on the edge of manhood. The lines on his face have deepened and there’s a shadow there, and not just from the smattering of unshaven bristles on his chin and jowls. He comes over and wraps his arms around me. I don’t resist.
I press my ear up against his chest and listen to the sound of him breathing, the slow, smooth whoosh of air and that familiar steady beat of his heart. He runs his fingers into my hair, pulling it away from my face, and I close my eyes and picture other times and other places when we were happier.
When were you not happier? Even at the worst of times, you were happier than this.
I wonder, what does he see in me? Why does he love me?
With my history—my family’s history and my own—how could anyone love someone like me?
A shiver runs through my body. My mind worries about these things while my heart tells me not to, to just be secure in knowing that he does love me and that it doesn’t matter why or how or in spite of whatever. But my mind, ever restless and doubting, tries to sabotage me: Do you love him?
I do.
I think I do.
I don’t know anymore.
You do, my heart tries to tell me, but my mind is doubtful.
“What’s this?” he asks. And his fingers pick at a snarl of hair at the back of my head. They pull at it.
“Ow! Stop.”
He pulls his fingers out and studies them for a moment before saying, “You’re bleeding!” He tries to turn my head to see, but I resist.
“Your implant—?”
“It’s not the implant. Casey shot me—well, shot at me and missed. I got a bunch of splinters.”
“When?”
“When I first ran into them outside the wall. I thought Ben was a Player. Casey thought I was going to push him over the edge and into the water. I mean, I was going to. Anyway, I moved right when he pulled the trigger and he missed. The bullet hit a tree and I got a headful of bark. I’m fine. Really. Don’t worry.”
But he doesn’t listen. He pulls my hair up to look. It feels heavy, greasy and filthy.
“That hurts, Kel. Please. I’m fine.” And I move away from him, irritated that our moment of connection is gone. Despite whatever doubts I have about us, at least for those few seconds I’d forgotten them. Or at least forgotten about us being here in this wretched place.
I push away and glance over at Reggie. Still sitting with his mouth over the bucket. At least he hasn’t had to throw up again. He just sits there, one knee bent and an arm draped over it, his head down and a line of drool dripping toward the floor. I wonder what’s going through his mind right now, whether it’s still just a lot of white noise left over from the implant inside of his head trying to kill him, or whether deep down he’s worrying about Ashley. Or maybe it’s both. I don’t know. I worry about him.
“We need to figure out what we’re going to do,” Kelly says.
I can feel the heat in my face rising. I just want him to make a decision—to make a decision that doesn’t involve sitting around and discussing things ten different ways till Tuesday and studying every god damn nuance.
“We still need to warn Father Heall,” I tell him.
Below me, Reggie breathes faster for a moment. His hand twitches, and the spit string breaks and drops.
“Reggie didn’t do it before?” Kelly asks. “I thought he did.”
“His Link was broken, remember?” I pull mine out and find Micah’s identifier. I hit CONNECT.
Kelly watches over my shoulder as we wait for it to connect. Then the timer starts counting and the screen goes blurry as it tries to focus on something. A voice says, “Hello? Is that you Jessie?”
Kelly frowns. “I thought you said they took his Link away,” he whispers.
“Micah?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
Chapter 8
“But…but…” I can’t seem to think. My mind fills with white noise, like the roar of some giant cascade. I feel the floor beneath my feet tilt and once more I’m far away, in New York, at Niagara Falls, and the world is shockingly white and the water is rushing down over me and I feel like I’m suffocating. My lungs feel like they’re frozen. “How…” My voice comes out in a squeak. “How did you—?”
“Oh, that’s right,” Micah grunts. I can see the flash of anger in his eyes, something rare and frightening and unconstrained. A look of betrayal, like I wronged him. And it scares me. He rarely ever let any anger show before. He was always so quick to reel it back in. “Expecting someone else? Brother Walter maybe? Sister Jane?”
Again I try to speak, and again nothing comes out. My mind can’t seem to form any coherent thoughts, or none that my mouth can translate into coherent speech. I can only stand there and stare stupidly while he shakes his head at me. A thousand questions speed through my brain, a thousand scenarios to explain why he’s answering his Link: his escape from the brothers—What did he do to them?—his escape from Father Heall—Did he murder them all? I picture Sister Dorothy and Julia in the kitchen. Sister Jane. Did he hurt them?
He smiles and it’s the smile of something evil.
I moan. What did you do, Micah? What have you done?
But then his face changes, like some magic trick, and it’s the same old Micah again. “It’s cool,” he says. “I don’t… I can’t really blame you for doing what you did, leaving me behind like that. How could you know? I probably would’ve done the same.”
“Whuh—where are you?”
“On my way there, in fact. I just wanted you to know that I’ve got my full memory back now. I don’t know what triggered it, but now I see everything with a clear mind.” He smiles once more. “I’m relieved to see you’re okay. I was worried.”
My mouth opens. He doesn’t look worried. I snap it closed again and my teeth make a clacking sound that reminds me of the Undead.
“Anyway, sit tight.” His eyes flash as they shift a millimeter to one side of his screen. “Oh, hey there, Kel. Miss me?” He tries to smile, but it comes out a sneer. “How’s everyone else?” Fake concern slips over his fake smile. “Did you get the treatment back to Jake in time?”
I feel Kelly take in a breath, and I know he’s going to start yelling a split second before he does. The air in the room suddenly becomes very thin. “You son of a—!”
But there’s a loud bang right then—not in the Link, but outside the room. It sounds like a door being slammed open.
Kelly and I jerk toward the sound.
It pongs through the building and out of the corner of my eye I see Reggie’s body jerk in response. But that’s all the reaction he makes, just that one twitch. He doesn’t raise his head. He doesn’t wipe away the drool from his mouth.
Shhhhh…shhhhHHHH!
“What the hell was that?” Kelly whispers.
“Sounded like the door to the outside.”
“Wind?”
He looks at me with wide eyes. Of course he knows I don’t know what it is either. He knows I want it to be the wind, just as he wants it to be, too.
The sound comes again, not quite as loud this time, just the bang. Then nothing.
“Has to be the wind,” Kelly says. “Did you latch it when you went out earlier?”
“Hey, what’s going on there?” Micah asks through my Link. I thumb it off and stick it in my pocket.
“What about the fence?” Kelly whispers.
“Fence?” I ask, confused. The fence wouldn’t make a noise like that. “What about it?”
“Was the electricity on when you went out earlier?”
Horror flows over me, cold and hot at the same time, a river of ice water and lava that scalds and freezes all at once and I know suddenly what he means. “I—I don’t know,” I stammer. “I didn’t check.”
“You didn’t check? What do you mean you didn’t check?”
“I was looking for Reggie!”
Two more thuds, these in rapid succession, though still not as loud as the first.
Kelly holds his finger up to his lips.
We stand without speaking or moving for several seconds, straining our ears for the slightest sound. But other than the rasp of Reggie’s breathing, there’s nothing.
“I think it’s the wind, Kel.”
He begins to edge his way toward the door, still holding a finger up to his lips. He gestures with his other hand for me to stay put.
“It’s the wind!”
“Shh! Quiet! If it’s the wind, then it’s the wind. We need to be sure. Now stay here or—”
Bang!
My Link pings again right then and I yelp.
BANG!
…shhhhrrruuuupppp…
He looks at me, his eyes bulging wide. We both know it’s not the wind. The wind doesn’t make a dragging sound like that, not unless it’s caught something and is blowing it around in an eddy. And even then…
But then Shinji comes to my mind. Shinji who left me miles away. He’s back! It’s Shinji trying to get back to me. Shinji! Shinji! I almost yell out his name. But reason returns and makes me see that it’s just wishful thinking. Shinji’s long gone, miles away—
and promises to keep
—and if it was him, I’d hear the soft padding of his feet—
to keep
not this eerie swishing noise.
I slip over to Kelly and grab his arm, pulling him back. “It might be Ben.”
“He’s far away from here by now,” he whispers. “Miles away.” And when he says that, I almost squeeze his arm in half. He gives me a strange look—part puzzlement, part panic. A twinge of pain and concern. He tries to pry my fingers off his arm, but I won’t let go. “Jess, you have to let me—Ow! Damn, you need to let go. I’m just going to go take a quick peek.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No,” he insists. “Stay here.”
“Let me get the knife.”
He turns around at me, his eyes flashing impatiently. I let go of his arm and he shakes the feeling back into it. I scurry to the table in the back where I left the knife and I grab it. Then I look around for the pistol. The last bullet is still in my pocket. Where’s the gun?
In your waistband, stupid.
I reach around and find it. I don’t remember putting it there. I must have done it when I went down for the smelling salts. Just holding it makes me feel better, even if it is unloaded.
When I return to Kelly, he’s edged closer to the doorway and is just straining his neck to look around the jamb.
“It’s an IU,” he groans, ducking his head back in. “Must’ve wandered in.”
“Just one?”
He nods. “But where there’s one… If it was Micah out there, I’d smash him in—” But he doesn’t finish this thought either. He doesn’t have to. His knuckles turn white as he makes a fist and the muscles in his jaw bulge with the strain of his anger.
I touch his arm with the handle of the knife and he reaches over and grabs it without looking.
Bang!
Swish, shh…shhhhhhh…
A crazy thought bubbles up in my brain: Why did it take so long for the zombie to cross the road? Because it kept dragging its feet.
This is what insanity feels like.
My fingers fumble with the bullet as I try to load it into the gun. Kelly’s hand sweeps back and finds my wrist and squeezes it warningly. The other hand with the knife in it gestures down toward the floor. Keep it down, it seems to say. You’re making too much noise.
I fumble the bullet, try to catch it. It slips through my fingers and starts to fall away. Then it’s almost as if everything shifts into slow motion. I see the thing drifting away, slowly spinning end over end, the bright coppery casing shining dully in the artificial light. Reflexively, I reach ou
t to grab it, but I overshoot and it hits the back of my hand and bounces up into the air, flipping even farther away from me. But now I’m going after it, throwing myself to my knees, scrambling forward, and I can feel Kelly’s fingertips slipping on the fabric of my shirt on my shoulder, digging in and losing purchase as he tries to pull me back. But I’ve almost got it, the bullet, it’s right there in front of my eyes, flipping and twirling like a tiny yellow ballerina, or a dancing flame on a candle at a birthday party. I see my hand—it’s so close—and then my fingers are starting to wrap around the bullet and I’m on my knees and the other hand is on the floor with the pistol in it and my Link is pinging again in my pocket though I’m ignoring it. And something makes a quiet swishing sound just outside the doorway and it draws my eyes away for just a split second, just enough of a distraction that my fingers close over empty space and the bullet tumbles away again like a mirage, a glowing ball of light.
Somewhere high above me, I hear Kelly gasp. He steps between me and the doorway, but there’s a space between his knees, an opening through which, for just a single heartbeat, I can see before he blocks my view of the hallway outside the room. What I see there makes me stop. The whole world stops and stands still.
Before speeding up again.
The bullet hits the floor and skitters into a corner. Kelly shouts. The knife drops as he tries to push me back while simultaneously reaching in the opposite direction to pull the door closed. I fall away from him, though not from his push. I fall because my muscles lose all their strength. Then I’m scrambling backward like a crab as the first Undead steps through the doorway, its hands clawing for Kelly, raking his face. He ducks out of the way and kicks out and the IU crashes out through the door before being shoved back toward us by the approaching horde. The hallway is filled with them.
I’m distantly aware of my Link pinging again in my pocket, and somewhere in some dark corner of my brain I’m cursing Micah again. On top of everything else, he has poor timing. Kelly manages to slam the door closed, though it catches the hand of one of the Undead and snaps it off. The thing clatters to the floor like a child’s rattle, like a giant brown spider. Kelly reaches for a chair and wedges it under the knob, panting heavily. He kicks the hand away in disgust.
S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus Page 92