A man in the tree is worth two in the bush, my mind cackles.
“Shut up.”
“Shh,” Reggie hisses, giving me a strange look.
Some of the zombies stop and turn toward our hiding spot, and for a moment it seems that they might start returning. I hold my breath. Finally, they resume their slow migration toward the shouts.
“ ‘Shut up?’ ” he whispers. “What was that about?”
“Nothing.”
We wait until the distant shouting stops several minutes later, indicating that the first Undead have emerged from the forest and have reached the far end of the compound. They should be far enough away so that we can finish whatever needs to be done here and be gone if they decide to come back.
“I’m seeing six,” Reggie says. He points them out, the ones that stayed behind. They stand at the base of the tree, bumping into one another. Only one of them is dressed in the black and gold uniforms of the Omegaman Forces. It’s a wonder any of them escaped from the burning helicopter. Or maybe this is the one that fell out before the crash. How did it get out of its harness? How did that first one get out so that it could attack the pilot?
“Wonder why these didn’t leave with the others,” Reggie asks. “Seems strange.”
I shake my head in the gloom. “Who knows. But let’s give them another minute or two, see if they go.”
“If we wait too long, the others might come back. I don’t want to be up in the tree when that happens.”
“I don’t think they will. But don’t worry.” I pat the rifle. “I’ll deal with the ones that didn’t have the good sense to stay away.”
“And if they come back all at once?”
“They won’t,” I tell him. I try to sound confident. “They won’t remember.”
“You don’t know that,” he argues. “They— Wait… Finally. That’s two more gone. But, damn, here comes another one.”
“Just passing through. See? We’re down to four again.”
“Which aren’t leaving.”
I grip the handle of the machete in my hand. My palms are sweaty and I don’t know how effective I’ll be fighting with my side as sore as it is and my head and neck feeling like someone rammed a steel rod down my spine. I’ve felt worse, that’s for sure. But what’s worse is I’m beginning to forget what it’s like to feel better.
I glance over at Reggie and I have to chuckle to myself. We’re a sorry-looking pair, me with a chunk of my side gnawed off and him with a bruise the size of Rhode Island running down his hip and thigh. He’s still favoring the leg, but other than that, he’s managed to come through all of this—the past two weeks—remarkably unscathed. Unbelievably unscathed.
“There’s another one gone. We’re down to three.”
“Nope. Still four.” I point. There’s one hanging back, a barely visible shadow only slightly less black than the deeper darkness surrounding it. “Another Omega.”
Plus how many more that we can’t see?
“Looks like four is the magic number.”
“Two for each of us. No problem.”
“You ready, then? Enough procrastinating.”
It’s your brother out there in that tree. It’s your move, Jess.
I stand up. Reggie follows suit, wincing. I reach out to steady him. He gives me a wry smile that makes his face look almost manic in the faint light.
I lift the machete and, as one, we step out to confront the four remaining zombies guarding Eric’s tree.
Except, as I can now see, it’s not just four anymore.
Chapter 7
It turns out that there are actually eight zombies, not four. Four more step out of the shadows the moment we attack.
Ambush!
That’s the word that comes to my mind. As if they’d been waiting for us.
Ridiculous, my rational side counters. Zombies don’t plan ahead.
But that’s what it seems like, and my steps falter because now I’m not so sure that this is the best plan anymore. What if there are more of them?
But there aren’t. It’s just the eight—
Just eight?
—and, besides, it’s too late to stop now. Reggie’s already out there, hacking away with his knife like he’s clearing heavy brush. If he’s noticed the others, he doesn’t hesitate, just wades into the pine-needle cushioned clearing and takes the head off of one before I even get myself moving again. Then dispatches a second just as quickly and quietly.
In the flickering light I catch fragmented glimpses of the battle. Beams filtered through the trees from the distant flood lamps. The ever-dimming glow from the crash. They give the scene an almost surreal feel, like one of those old silent black and white videos we’ve seen in school. It almost feels like we’re playing some retro version of Zpocalypto. The only difference being, in this game it’s either win or die. Win and we go home. Die and we become one more piece for the next player to try and kill.
I land my first blow, a slice to the side of the head of a particularly grotesque zombie that flays half of its skin off. The exposed eyeball glistens in the wicked light, a pale gray orb like a tiny moon in the ravaged nightscape of its face. A second blow sends the flap spinning away. It slaps up against the tree, then smacks to the dirt, sounding like a heavy pancake.
It doesn’t seem to be affected at all and avoids another swipe as I sweep past. I swing my arm back to take advantage of the exposed neck, but miss. My whole body feels miscalibrated. Worse still, the effort is reawakening the injury to my side.
Reggie appears to be faring better. Another zombie goes down and stays down. That’s three for him. But then I hear him grunt in pain as he decapitates his fourth with a vicious swipe of his hand. He stumbles, catches himself, keeps going.
I step forward and under the arms of mine, sweep my hand forward and thrust the machete up and across its throat. This time the strike is true. The thing makes a strange, wet, gurgling sound, and its head hinges to the side. A jet of putrid, black lava spews out of its neck and pours down its chest. A final swipe finishes it off. Five down. Three to go.
And two of them are Omegas.
The remaining Player steps directly into the point of Reggie’s knife, as if impatient to get the fight over with. It jerks and falls, nearly pulling Reg down with it. Reggie’s face twists in agony and he goes down onto one knee. As if sensing the opening, an Omega swoops in.
“Look out, Re—!” I start to say, but that’s all I manage to get out. The last zombie steps into a shaft of light and becomes fully illuminated for a moment. It’s massive. For a split second I think it’s the same monster that attacked me and Micah a few days ago. I see Micah dangling from his shoelace from the fence, kicking and screaming blindly at the growing horde of Undead as the behemoth waded through them to reach us. I remember Micah’s irritation turning to panic when he realized just how big and powerful the thing was. We’d fled then, running until our lungs burst. Micah had laughed. He’d had that crazy wild look in his eyes, like he’d been enjoying himself.
But this isn’t the same zombie. That one back there had been an IU, half-bald, the hair on its scalp worn away. I remember its bone-white fingers wrapped around the metal link of the fence, the blackened scabs—the torn beds of its fingernails, stained with the blood of whatever prey it had managed to capture and eat.
This one is fresh, thick in the neck, ropy muscles bulging beneath its black denim shirt, the hard lines of what was once a man in his mid-thirties at the time he was conscripted. A murderer, possibly, or a rapist.
Do they remember? Do they retain any of those old sadistic feelings? That viciousness?
Reggie tries to get to his feet, but he’s having trouble. And that mountain of a zombie is descending upon him.
“Look out, Re—!”
The Omega strikes me from behind. It feels like being slammed by a bus. The force of the blow sends me sprawling ten feet over the ground, knocking the air from my lungs. An inhuman howl fills the night. It’s so
on matched by another. Then the forest is suddenly alive with howls and moans.
I scrabble to my hands and knees and see Reggie roll just as his Omega throws itself at him. The look in his eyes tells me enough to get me moving again: he’s in extreme pain, weakening. He’s not going to last much longer.
They’re fast. Incredibly fast. We manage to get them between us, but I can see Reggie’s in trouble. He’s putting almost no weight on the one leg and hopping more than walking as we circle them looking for an entrance. They turn along with us, as if each of them had pre-arranged which of us to eat.
“Come on, you dead piece of shit!” Reggie hisses. “Let’s get this over with!”
They both attack at once, as if on cue. Once more I step beneath the sweeping arm of the zombie. Behind me I hear a smack and a grunt and the harsh rustle of leaves. Reggie’s down, but I can’t help him. The CU hammers my back with its fist as it passes, a glancing blow but hard enough to alter my trajectory and send me slamming into the tree. I blink away the stars, but I can’t seem to focus. The thing steps toward me, ready to grab. I drop and spin around the trunk. The tree shudders when the zombie slams into it, and the monster howls again.
I step around the tree and see Reggie and his attacker scuffling in the dirt. They’re matched, size for size, strength for strength. Reggie’s ability to think may not be a strategic advantage; nothing is as dangerous as pure animal instinct and a mindless drive to hunt.
I keep the tree between me and the other zombie, hoping to catch my breath. Branches rustle overhead. I duck, expecting a new attack. The next moment my head explodes as I get slammed into the ground. The thing grabs me around the neck and begins to lift me up, raking me against the rough bark of the tree. The vise-like grip tightens. I feel the strain in my spine. Try to kick. No leverage. Try to disengage. Fingers like cold steel. Too…strong…
Tilting. The rifle slung over my shoulder catching, tilting me. The strap, drawn tight across my chest, forcing the air from my lungs. Try to grab the gun. Can’t…get it…turned around. Jam the butt against the zombie’s side as hard as I can. Doesn’t even flinch.
Distantly, I hear the other struggle. Fading, like the world receding. Reggie cries out. Curses. Screams in fury. Hand on my neck is a metal band, bone and knotted sinew and clotted blood turned to stone. Can’t…breathe. Can’t…
Exhaustion.
Relax…
Warmth flooding through me.
Silence and darkness.
CRACK!
Flash white explosion roar pain head bursting white light blind roar flaring fading falling away…
Darkness and silence again. Loneliness.
The world rushes away.
Goodbye. Goodbye. Sleep now.
Chapter 8
There is no sensation of crossing over, of having left one place and entered another. No moment when life leaves you and death takes your hand and welcomes you like a friend into its country. No moment of clarity, or understanding. No wanting. There is no sense at all. Only a vanishing sense of what came Before. And a growing appreciation of what there is Now.
When I open my eyes, I’m lying on my back in the dirt. My head is twisted to the side at a strange angle. I see something next to me, something moving. I struggle to name it, but I cannot. I want to reach out to it.
No, that’s not true. It’s not an urge at all. It’s instinct.
Something inside of me whispers a sound, a word that signifies a name, but though I recognize what the word is, it holds no meaning for me. All is silence outside of me, only the wind inside of my head, deafening loud yet at the same time not there.
I watch the thing bend down. I watch it thrust something shiny—
knife
—into the earth from which I came. I watch it wipe something thick and black off of the—
knife
—thing before inserting it into its belt.
Belt. It’s a belt.
“Reggie?”
I hear the word slip from my dead lips, a foreign-sounding word, meaningless. A moan. Except it’s not meaningless anymore. I feel its meaning slip into its proper place. A place where it belongs.
The thing—Reggie—looks up and comes over to me holding the knife between us and it speaks.
But I don’t understand.
It grabs me under the arms and drags me over to the—
tree
—tree, grunting the whole time, and leans me up against it.
The tree. Something about the tree.
“Jos ros tejoi…amo men,” he says, and he raises his hand (his hand; I remember it’s called a hand) in front of me and asks, “Hommaneefeengurs?”
Three.
The roaring noise inside of me is diminishing. “Three,” I manage to say. The number spills from my lips like my mouth is a wound and words are blood.
He smiles. “He told me you’d come back quickly. I guess he was right.”
I blink stupidly for a moment. Come back? Have I come back? Have I died and come back?
“Good thing, too,” he goes on, “because we don’t have much time. They others are coming back.”
“What happened?”
Lips no longer numb, just a little tingly.
“EM blast,” Reggie says. He points up in the tree. “Eric. He had no choice. It was either hit you both or… Well, he had no choice.”
I turn my head and see the face of the zombie that attacked me. It seems to be rising up out of the dirt. The headless body lies a few feet away.
“How?”
“I was on the edge of the blast. Still took a hit, but the zombie took the brunt of it. before it took the brunt of my foot in its ass.” He laughs, winces.
“They were Omegas.”
“No shit.”
I struggle to my feet. The roaring noise is almost completely gone from my head now, but the pain in my side now commands my attention.
“You’re going to have to go up for Eric,” he tells me. “I can barely stand as it is. And we still need to get back.”
The lowest branch is eight feet up. Now I see that there’s no way Reggie would be able to get up to it without help, even if he wasn’t in such pain. “How am I supposed to get up there?”
“Stand on my shoulders.”
“You just said you can barely stand.”
“I know, but—”
“I’m…coming down,” Eric says, panting. So much pain in his voice.
“You can climb?”
“Pretty sure I broke some ribs.” The branches rustle. Sharp intake of air. Twelve, maybe fifteen, feet above us. “Better get out of the way in case I fall.”
“You need to hurry.”
“Doing my best, Jessie.” He hisses again. The sound of wood splitting comes to us, followed by several rapid cracks, each progressively louder and closer.
“Eric!”
There’s a thud as his body hits a thick branch just above us and he lets out a cry. A leg emerges from the shadows, dangling down. I can hear him gasping up there, groaning. I want to help. I can’t. I feel so useless.
“I’m…going to…drop,” he says.
Reggie and I don’t speak. We just step back and wait. I reach up, but what can I do? “Can you hang? We’ll guide you down.”
“No! Just get out of the way. I have to—”
And then he falls. A flash and his feet hit first and he crumples, rolling onto his side, letting out another yowl.
I hurry over and place my hands on him as he writhes in the dirt. He pushes me away, grabs my hand, pulls himself up. I try to help. “Ow! Gently…hurry.”
On his feet now, bent over. His face is horribly scratched and he’s bleeding from multiple wounds. His clothes are torn.
“You’re alive.”
“Almost rather…not be.”
“Are you bitten?”
“No. Jumped out when…chopper went down.”
“What happened up there?” Reggie asks.
But he shakes his head.
“Later.”
† † †
Brother Walter meets us halfway across the field and tries to take Eric’s other arm, but I wave him off. “Take Reggie.”
“I can make it the rest of the way.”
“Yeah, that’s why you’re leaning so much on me. I feel like a sandwich.”
He lets go of me just as another crash comes from the woods behind us. This one is louder and closer. Brother Walter hesitates, then grabs Reggie’s arm.
“What was that?”
“Who cares? Keep moving.”
The noise triggers a chorus of moans. The Undead hear it; they’re coming.
Reggie leans his elbow on Brother Walter’s shoulder and limps after us. Eric and I angle for the gate where Sister Jane stands, ready to close it and wrap the chain around the posts.
After we’ve gotten inside, I lower Eric to the floor. Even in his pain, his eyes go wide at the scene, the dried pools of blood everywhere and the splatters on the wall. He doesn’t ask what happened. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.
With my help, he unclasps his belt and folds it and places it carefully on the floor next to him. There’s blood on the grip of his EM pistol and the holster. Next, he unbuttons his shirt. But getting it off causes him to cry out. The bruise on his side stretches from his armpit to his waist and from his spine to his sternum. In the center is a large, very angry-looking scrape. The thins lines of the old scars seem to glow on his skin. I pretend not to see them.
“Hit a branch,” he grunts. “Damn thing probably saved my life, kept me from going to the ground. Might’ve passed out momentarily. Not sure how I managed to hold on. When I came to, the first IUs had already started gathering below me.”
“I saw a couple other people fall out,” I tell him. “One was taken. At the edge of the wood.”
Eric shakes his head. “A marine.”
“How many others?”
“Just me and the pilot.” He stops and grimaces up at me. “Hard to breathe.”
“The pilot’s dead, too. Burned up inside the crash.”
S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus Page 105