PATHOGENS: Who Will Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? (Click Your Poison Book 4)

by James Schannep

  Nolan accepts the explanation that his parents simply aren’t home more easily than you expected, but you can tell that the state of the house weighs on Nathanael in particular. It’s difficult not to dwell on why the boy’s parents aren’t home.

  You continue hiking towards Haley’s neighborhood in near-silence. Any human noise, and speech in particular, seems to rile up the dead to a frenzied level. A small group of walking corpses clusters on the street ahead of you, though from the look of it, they’re wandering in the same direction you are—towards something else.

  That’s when you hear the squeal of tires.

  “Out of sight, stay down!” you hiss.

  Your three pupils obey your command, ducking behind an abandoned car. From this vantage point, you watch an SUV and three motorcycles come driving like mad. As you get a better look, you see the SUV is actually a Humvee, but civilian-owned. With a barrage of gunfire, they mow down the small crowd of walking corpses.

  • Wave them down. If they have room in that Hummer, this whole thing will go a lot quicker.

  • Duck inside the nearest house. They may be killing walking corpses, but that doesn’t make them good people.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  The Cables Guy

  The Marines form a four-man, side-by-side wall between the Ambassador and the zombie horde, carefully aiming and firing at the wave of former men, women, and children. The collective undead moan is deafening against the reverberating walls of the terminal.

  You shake your head to clear it, doing your best to ignore the sounds of combat and terror. When you open your eyes and focus, the keypad stares back at you with cold indifference, but you can overcome. It looks like an older model, so hopefully there are a few outmoded security features.

  Skinning Isabelle—your 9” razor-sharp officially-licensed knife from Rambo: First Blood—you slide the tip of the blade behind the panel and pry it off. This reveals an array of wires and a circuit board. Just need to follow the wiring, find the right connection, and manually override the system.

  Letting instinct take over, your fingers dance across the wires. You clip and reverse their connections. Beep—just like that, the door opens. The crowd is all relieved smiles.

  “Did I mention God bless the Air Force?” the Ambassador says.

  Everyone floods onto the jetway, just in time. Once it’s just you and the Marines, you cut the wires again and lock the doorway between freedom and the terminal horde. A sense of pride swells in your chest as you hurry back towards the C-17.

  Out on the tarmac, two of the stern-looking men in suits who escort the Ambassador break off and approach you. One is slightly taller, thinner, with razor burn on the creases of his neck. The other is broad-chested and has a trimmed, manicured beard.

  The tall one says, “That was impressive back there. Quick thinking.”

  “No problem. Or thanks, I guess,” you reply.

  “I’m Special Agent Danly,” the man continues, producing a badge, “and this is Special Agent Bertram. We’re with the United States Diplomatic Security Service.”

  Bertram nods his thick, ruddy beard in greeting.

  “Bob Sims,” you say.

  “Well, Bob Sims. We’re taking one of these private planes, and we’d like to invite you to come along,” Agent Danly says.

  “What? Where?”

  “Mercury City,” Agent Bertram says. “There’s a guy we know from training.”

  “I dunno. I’m supposed to meet up with my unit after this mission, so….”

  They both look to the chaos surrounding the runway, then back to you. Bertram shrugs and says, “Suit yourself, but if there’s anyone prepared for surviving something like this, it’s Brendan Droakam.”

  You look to the C-17, nearly finished loading, then across the runway to the scattered private planes and small hangars, and finally back to the pair of agents.

  • “You know what? Screw it. Let’s go find your pal and then hit a private island.”

  • “Yeah, I appreciate the offer, but I can’t just go AWOL with complete strangers, so….”

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Cagey

  “Not everyone in here will get an offer like that, you know,” Angelica says after Craig leaves.

  “So?”

  “So…maybe you should have considered it.”

  “Fuck off.”

  She shakes her head. Using her mom-voice, she says, “None of us want to be here, young lady. But you won’t find anyone else in here with a friend out there. Much less anyone the boss actually fancies. Maybe you’ll regret it? Or maybe you’ll cool off and put on that dress before Bud comes back.”

  “Never kowtowed to a man yet.”

  “I don’t think you have much of a choice.”

  “Listen, bitch, I get it. You had a husband and he made the money. Before that, your daddy made the money. You? You spent the money. And in exchange you cooked, you cleaned, you fucked. Or hell, maybe there was a maid who did all three for you.”

  Something in her eyes says you struck a nerve. Was it a bit harsh? Maybe. But she struck a nerve with you too. Turning away, you pace your cell, thinking, Do I really not have a choice?

  The last time you saw your mom stand up to dad’s drinking, she said, “You always have a choice.” Then he chose to hit her. After that, she chose not to speak up anymore. But that stuck with you: Always a choice.

  So you look around the horse stall for choices. There’s a bucket in the corner for you to “do your business.” There’s a thick woolen blanket on a pile of hay. Then, up on the wall you see a mounted push-broom. Bet they expect you to use it to keep your stall clean.

  Taking the broom, you angle your boot on the wide broomhead and snap the handle off. Where the wood connected is now a jagged end. Your very own spear. Taking the broomhead, which looks very much like a foot-long subway sandwich with bristles coming out, you go to the door. Shoving it through the handle so that it extends beyond the door frame, you lock yourself inside.

  Footsteps sound through the barn—someone’s coming. You step back and position the spear behind your back. Angelica was watching you; now she looks away.

  “Christ, you’re stubborn,” Bud says upon seeing you. “It’s just a dress. If it was me, I’d have made you put on lingerie.”

  You smile.

  “Or maybe you just want me to come in there and put you in that dress myself?”

  “Bud, I’ll wear the dress, okay?” Angelica says.

  “Shut up. This doesn’t concern you,” you snap.

  “Oooh, got a soft spot for blondie, do ya?” Bud says. “Maybe you don’t care if I slap you around, but maybe you’ll put that dress on to stop me from hurting her?”

  • “Takes a big man to hit a little woman. Know this, you touch her and I will kill you.”

  • “Do what you want, but I know the truth: You just don’t have the balls to come in here.”

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Cannot See

  The back alley is clear, but the dumpster in question rests against the building opposite yours. Thankfully, it’s on wheels, so you can move it. The bin is nearly empty, so the task doesn’t take much strength. The big green trash receptacle squeals loudly on rusted joints when you pull and push it into place, and your hands are sticky from touching the filthy surface.

  “Climb up,” you say, before doing the same. The dumpster wobbles on its wheels, and you grab the wall for balance. “Okay, boost me up first, then I’ll pull you up from the roof.”

  Nathanael looks to the side, and you follow his gaze to see a pair of the gasmask-clad soldiers running down the alley towards you.

  “If you’re alive, stay where you are with your hands up!” one of the soldiers shouts.

  “Quickly, we’re almost there!” you whisper urgently.

  Nathanael nods, then interlocks his fingers so you can use them as a stair-step. You climb up, your fingers only inches from the rooftop. Nathanael groans and tries to lift yo
u higher.

  “Oh, shit—is it—are they infected?” one of the soldiers asks.

  “They’ve learned how to do that termite thing!” the other shouts, raising his rifle.

  They open fire, letting off multiple bursts from their rifles in panic, and you drop down to shield Nathanael from the hail of gunfire. Perhaps it works; perhaps you save the boy, but you’ll never know. Blinding pain sends your vision to white, then to black. Your eyes close, never to open again.

  THE END

  Captivity/Depravity

  Serial killers, rapists, psychopaths. There are still animals in the world, just no cages. As civilization’s fire goes out, the darkness creeps back in. You ride in that darkness, bound and blindfolded and tossed in the back of the Humvee.

  It’s impossible to tell how far you’ve gone or even where you’re going, but that hardly matters. You just keep hearing the man’s words echo through your head. He called you breeding stock. All you can do is wait…and plot. If they assume that you’re mere property, it means they underestimate you. And you’ve been proving men who underestimate you wrong all your life.

  The Humvee stops, the doors open, and the men take off your blindfold. A horse barn. That’s where the men take you. It’s modern, with individual stalls that have locking doors; your own personal prison. As you’re led inside, you see that most of the stalls have a woman or young girl inside, sometimes with a bunkmate or two. More are being led in by the minute.

  You’re tossed inside before the men lock the door and leave. Your back sings out in pain and you lie there for several minutes before you can muster the strength to stand up and look around. In the cell next to you, there’s a blonde woman in her fifties. She’s well-dressed in white pants and a floral blouse, bedazzled in gold jewelry. After a second look, you notice the material is blood-flecked. She was a privileged housewife, but those days are behind her now.

  You start to chew on your bindings and she approaches the bars that separate your stalls. She puts a hand through and opens it to reveal a set of fingernail clippers sitting atop her palm. Thanking her, you take the clippers and cut your bonds. It’s almost funny how such a simple tool could free your hands so easily.

  “Angelica,” she says. “That’s my name.” You simply stare at her. What does she think this is? Pledge week at a sorority? “Cooper, is it?” she says, noting the embroidered nametag on your workshirt.

  “I’ve seen kids in the other stalls. Little girls,” you say.

  She looks out to the other cells and you slip the clippers into one of your boots. A simple tool, but one that could prove useful. Angelica turns back, shakes her head, and says, “God, I hope not. I think they’re just planning ahead; it’s what they do. If we do our jobs right, maybe they’ll leave them alone?”

  “Our jobs?”

  “Why do you think we’re here, sweetheart?”

  You’re actually speechless. How do you explain to someone that rape is about the farthest thing there is from a job? But by the same token, is she right that it’s up to you to protect the girls through self-sacrifice? It won’t come to that, you promise yourself.

  * * *

  Days go by. Three? Four? It’s hard to keep track. You don’t talk with Angelica much after that first night, though you can hear her mumbling to herself at various times, either in prayer or perhaps losing her mind. Maybe both. She has an ornate, gaudy candlestick a little over a foot long that she polishes day and night until its golden gleam rivals sunlight.

  You’re given food, but left to sleep on a pile of hay and an itchy blanket. A bucket sits in the corner where you can relieve yourself, but the food guy won’t take it from you and you’re forced to dump it out through the window bars. Well, you threw it at the food guy once, but you didn’t eat for a full day after that. If you’re going to escape, you’ll need your strength.

  Men come for the women in the night. Makes it hard to sleep. Some consummate their urges right there in the stalls, probably getting off on having an audience, while others “check out” women for an hour or the night. One thing you’ve learned: The stalls don’t have unique locks, they seem to operate from a universal skeleton key.

  As each night goes by, the women get more visitors. From the pillow-talk, you’ve heard that more and more of the living dead attack the compound every day, usually at night. So it is that those with close-calls find the need to express their “biological imperative” after a survival situation. Or, even worse, some of those who’ve been bitten come for some sexual healing in their last hours of life. With any luck, the plague isn’t an STD as well.

  For some reason, they’ve left you alone. Until now, anyway. The door to your stall suddenly opens and a dress is thrown in. “Duke wants you to join him for dinner,” the guy at the door says.

  “You and ‘Duke’ can go fuck yourselves,” you reply, harsh as you can muster.

  “Now why would we do that when there are so many pretty faces in here? Dinner’s in an hour. If you’re willin’ to play nice, you get a shower and a shave first.”

  The man locks your stall again and pauses, staring at you. It’s a hot night and sweat drips down his bicep and over his tattoo: stylized-calligraphy that reads, “Ad Vitam Paramus.”

  Eventually he leaves.

  “That’s Bud,” Angelica says. “He’s the one who brought me here.”

  • Put on the dress; see how this plays out.

  • Refuse. You won’t play their games.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Carp’s Lesson in Perseverance

  The students gather in a semi-circle while Master Hanzo bites on his empty pipe. He clears his throat, closes his eyes, and begins, “This story takes place in Kyoto, Japan, over 200 years ago. There was a master painter named Okyo, who was rich and famous, which was rare for an artist at the time. He was so successful that students would leave their homes to come study with Okyo. The greatest pupil he ever had was named Rosetsu, who became one of Japan’s greatest artists of all time, but that would have never happened if not for the lesson he learned from a carp.”

  “What’s carp?” Stella asks.

  “A big fish with whiskers like Grandfather Hanzo who makes kissy faces like this,” you say, puckering up in a silly carp impression. The kids laugh, and Master Hanzo clears his throat for silence before continuing.

  “When Rosetsu first left home and travelled to study under Master Okyo, he was overjoyed. But when he tried to learn the secrets of the great artist, it was like the gods were conspiring against him; like he had a block against learning. No matter how many times he heard a lesson, it didn’t stick. Okyo never had a dumber pupil than Rosetsu.”

  “Sounds like Mason,” Nathanael says to Christian, and they both chuckle.

  “Hey!” Mason says, before he jumps up to hit the eldest boy.

  “Enough!” you chide.

  “For three years, Rosetsu stayed to study with his master, watching other pupils come and go, each learning the trade and going back home to live as successful artists. Eventually, Rosetsu feared he would never learn the secrets of Okyo, and so in the middle of the night, he left. He did not want to face his master and tell him that he quit, so he walked all night until he was too exhausted to walk anymore.

  “When Rosetsu awoke the next morning, it was to a splashing sound. He went to investigate and found a carp in the frozen river, trying to get a biscuit that lay atop a large piece of ice. The carp would batter its own body against the ice, breaking away piece by piece, losing scales and hurting itself in the process. Rosetsu watched for three full hours, fascinated by the persistence of the carp, until the carp—bloody and wounded—finally grabbed the biscuit and swam away.

  “Rosetsu knew the lesson right away, and said, ‘I will be like this carp. I will learn the secrets of Okyo or I will die trying!’ and returned to his master to tell him what he saw. Rosetsu worked harder than ever and eventually surpassed his master in skill. He took a leaping carp as his sigil so his family would nev
er forget the lesson that he learned.”

  “And so each of you are my Rosetsus, if only you keep in mind the lesson of the carp,” you say.

  “Goodnight,” Master Hanzo says.

  The old man abruptly extinguishes the candles with a sweep of his robe, and the room goes dark. The children whisper to themselves for a time, but eventually you all fall fast asleep.

  * * *

  Sometime in the middle of the night, you’re awakened by an urgent pounding on the doors. It takes only a brief moment to exit the dream-state of sleep before the memories of what’s out there come flooding back.

  It’s an urgent, almost animal-like intensity, rapping upon the door, pulling at the handles and groping for a way in. With no streetlights, you can’t see who it is—or how many—out in the shadowy black of night. A huffing voice shouts something, but you can’t make out any words, or be certain there are any to make out.

  • Open the doors. Bushido demands you help any way you can.

  • Leave the doors closed. You can’t defend against a mob with a wooden sword.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Chaotic Evil

  You shout and wave the men down, which certainly gets their attention. Having dealt with the living dead, they rev their engines, peel out, and head straight for you. The children still hide next to the car, but when the gang pulls up, they’re within full view.

  “What the hell? Is it Halloween already?” one of the bikers says, noting your kendo armor.

  “Every day’s Halloween now; didn’t you get the memo?” another asks.

  “Good point. But is it a trick? Or is it a treat?” the first responds.

  “We could use your help,” you say. “I’m trying to get these children to their parents.”

  “Yeah? Where you been hidin’ em these last few days?” the third biker asks.