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

by James Schannep

  “Fucking puns,” you groan.

  The double doors slide open in response to your approach, but you skid to a halt. It looked just like a glare in the morning sun, but now that they’re open, you see the doorway is reinforced by metal siding.

  “Fuck,” you groan, then remember the gunman.

  You duck behind the nearest car just as a rifle blast screams out against the metal doorway of the store. The pawnshop guy is reloading again, and you’re considering running again when a metallic shriek catches your attention. When you turn back, you see the barricade doors have parted and a man stands in the breach with rifle raised.

  He fires over your head, aimed across the street.

  “Coming?!” he shouts.

  Not wasting another breath, you sprint towards the opening and help the guy pull the sliding metal panels closed behind you. Once inside, he engages several locks and latches while you get a good look at him.

  The man is younger than you expected; early 20s, most likely, and tall, like you. Easily over six-foot but lean. You’ve probably got fifty pounds of muscle on the guy. Still, with coal-black hair that offsets his pale skin and a firm, stubbled jawline he looks like he could hold his own. Finally finished locking up, he turns back to you.

  “Welcome to the store. Name’s Sam Colt. And that little lady goes by Lily.”

  You turn back as a woman steps out from behind the first aisle of the hardware store. Strawberry blonde, about the same age as Sam and fit, she looks at you through soft brown eyes. Her air of sweet innocence is offset by a cold, dark handgun hanging in her left hand.

  A man named after a gun, and a woman named after a flower; funny, that.

  “Tyberius. My friends call me Ty, and you two certainly qualify. Not sure why you helped me out, but if I there’s anything I can do…”

  “You tell us. Is there anything you can do?” Lily asks.

  You laugh at the absurd nature of it all. “I can help you deposit a check.”

  “I’d bet you can bash a skull pretty easily too,” Sam says.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t tell me you ain’t fought one yet,” Lily says.

  You look to her, then to Sam for some kind of explanation.

  “Guess you’re gonna want to see for yourself,” Sam says with a sigh. “Up to the roof, let’s go.”

  * * *

  The rooftop of the hardware store is the equivalent of looking out a second-story window, but it’s enough. You can see a city block in any direction, each barricaded with gridlocked traffic. The high-rises of downtown surround your periphery, and there’s the big “H” on the hospital in the distance. Further on the horizon, opposite downtown, a Ferris wheel sits unmoving. A commotion draws your attention down to the storefront, where the National Guard is raiding the pawn shop. They can’t get into the front door, so they drop tear gas canisters through the barred windows.

  “That’s what happens when you take potshots at civvies,” Sam says.

  “Guess the soldiers ain’t all bad,” you say with a shrug.

  “Look! It’s happening,” Lily urges, tugging on your shirt sleeve.

  The block you came from, the one with the stalled city bus, comes alive with excited shouts. You walk to the nearest edge of the roof and crane your neck to get a better view. A thin man in black tights groans in pain and stumbles towards the line.

  “Here,” Sam says, passing a pair of binoculars.

  Through the lenses you see it’s actually a woman, but she’s been badly burned and no longer has any hair. She’s not wearing tights at all; her clothing is mostly burned away and her skin is blackened like BBQ. Her jaw hangs open, slack.

  The soldiers prepare to open fire, but a man exits his car and comes to stand between them. You can tell the man is confused and panicked, unable to understand why the National Guard isn’t helping her. You’re about to ask the same question when she reaches the Good Samaritan and lunges at him.

  He tries to hold her off and she brings his hands into her mouth.

  “Holy shit!” you cry as the soldiers open fire. “What the…what…?”

  Sam and Lily say nothing.

  • “I—I need a minute. Is this shit on the news?”

  • “What the fuck is going on? Tell me everything!”

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Hard Part’s Over

  That’s it! You did it. Stepped into another person’s shoes and survived the zombie apocalypse. Well, at least the initial outbreak. PATHOGENS has one “best ending” for every character, so if you’re satisfied you made it, why not help someone else survive? Click to RESET or go to THE END for the full chapter list.

  If you enjoyed the book, it would mean a lot to me as an author if you were to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads. As an indie writer, word-of-mouth is my best survival strategy, and reviews are the #1 way to help Amazon promote a book to new readers.

  When you’re done, don’t forget to check out the other exciting titles in the Click Your Poison™ multiverse!

  INFECTED—Will YOU Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?

  MURDERED—Can YOU Solve the Mystery?

  SUPERPOWERED—Will YOU Be a Hero or a Villain?

  PATHOGENS—More Zombocalypse Survival Stories!

  MAROONED—Can YOU Endure Treachery and Survival on the High Seas?

  SPIED (coming in 2019)—Can YOU Save the World as a Secret Agent?

  * More titles coming soon! *

  Sign up for the new release mailing list

  Or visit the author’s blog at www.jamesschannep.com

  Hatchet Job

  Without hesitation, you pull Jason into his room next door, jump on the bed, reach up over the poster of Danny Trejo (posing and showing off a massive knife collection tucked inside a leather duster), and pull the machete off your brother’s wall.

  “Jay, grab the bedpost and shut your eyes. Bite down on this,” you say, grabbing a leather belt from a pair of jeans on the floor. His room has always been messy, but it’s about to get a lot worse.

  Your brother complies with a whimper, fearing the pain to come. The machete is real, and sharp. Still, you have to steel yourself. Take a deep breath.

  “DO IT!!!” Jason screams, before biting back down on the belt.

  You bring the blade down just above the bite wound as hard as you can, cleanly shearing through the flesh of his bicep. But the blade catches on bone. Jason screams out in pain, thick gobs of spittle flying around the belt and tears streaming down his face.

  You wrench the blade free from his arm, then slam it back down as hard as you can. The crack of metal on bone turns your stomach and your own biceps scream out empathetically. Jason sobs freely, but you can’t stop now.

  You jump onto his bed, raise the blade up over your head, leap into the air, and slam the machete onto his arm with your full body weight.

  His arm falls limply to the floor and blood spurts from the wound in tune to a quickened heartbeat. Acting as fast as you can, you take the belt from your brother’s mouth, and tighten it around his arm, cutting off the circulation from the wound. Jason falls to his bed; the shock is too much for his system.

  Your own nerves shot, you fall back into his desk chair. Your arms spasm uncontrollably and your shoulders heave up and down with dry sobs.

  “…that…was foolish,” Dad chastises hoarsely from the doorway. He looks like death warmed over—pale and slick with sweat, eyes bloodshot, skin around them dark and bruised. “Circulation…takes under…a minute…. Infected…”

  The old man stumbles back against the door jamb like a drunk, his eyelids heavy. “…blade…not sterile…”

  Now your own tears flow freely. “Daddy, what do we do?”

  His eyes blink open and with renewed clarity, he hisses, “Leave us!”

  • Run now, take the Jeep keys, don’t look back.

  • Do the merciful thing; put them out of their misery.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Headshot

&nb
sp; You depress the trigger and watch Jason’s head flinch back in reflex as the splatter from your shot ripples out across his forehead.

  “Ah, fuck monkeys. Goddamn son-of-a…what the hell, Sarah? Headshots are against the rules!” your brother complains. Bright green paint covers the rising welt on his brow.

  “Jay, language!” you say, turning the situation on him.

  “I don’t give a shit, that hurt,” the fourteen-year-old groans.

  “You shouldn’t try to scare your sister,” you say with a shrug, “Especially when she’s armed.”

  “I’ll get you back,” he says, rubbing the paint off with the back of his sleeve. There’s a halo of blood from where the paintball broke his flesh.

  You turn and start walking out of the paintball arena. “Doubt it. C’mon, I’m late for my shift at the range.”

  • Get driving before dad calls.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Heated Exchange

  The guard raises the bloodied Asp, but the doctor pushes his way between the two of you.

  “We need his help as much he needs ours,” the doc says. “I’ll go on record as such, once this riot is over.”

  You can’t help but laugh. “Paperwork? C’mon Doc, look around. The dead is risin’.”

  The doctor bobbles his head uncertainly. “Technically, the patients’ hearts have stopped beating, but it isn’t until true brain death—as you’ve seen—that I would qualify the infected as ‘dead.’”

  “I’m not sure that matters so much as how the fuck we’re supposed to get out of here,” the guard says, pointing towards the blaze with his baton.

  It’s true, the fire is spreading at such a rate that you can no longer reach the front door. The doctor steps out of the office and points to the ceiling tiles.

  “Up and over?”

  “It won’t take us through the doorway,” the guard says.

  “But it’ll take us thru the fire. C’mon!” you shout.

  The three of you drag the desk from the office to the hall, then one-by-one hop on and pull each other into the ceiling. It’s hard to see from inside the crawl space, but the smoke that seeps through the tiles helps orient you past danger.

  On the other side, you drop down, and the guard opens the door with his key card. Once you’re through, it locks again behind you. Rushing down the hall, you make it out past the visitation area, and the guard lets you out front.

  “If it wasn’t for the fire, I’d lock you to one of these chairs. But you didn’t let us burn alive, so consider us even. I don’t suppose I can count on you to stay put?” he asks.

  You shake your head. “You shouldn’t, neither.”

  “We can’t just abandon our posts,” the doctor says.

  You can only sigh.

  • Wish them luck and be on your way. If they want to get busy dyin’, that’s their business.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Heeding the Call

  The rolling garage door opens with a mighty shriek. The whole time Josh’s eyes stare at nothing, unblinking. Shouldn’t somebody do that hand-down-the-face thing people always do in movies to close his eyes? Yet there’s something behind those dead eyes. Like a growing recognition. Is he “seeing” something in the afterlife?

  “Brian, you and Stephen take him out. Put him in the dumpster for now. It’s not the best place, I know, but maybe that’ll stop those things from eating him. We’ll bury the man proper when this is all over,” Owen says.

  Brian nods and Stephen simply gets to it, but when they grab Josh, his corpse suddenly moves.

  “He’s not dead!” you shout without thinking.

  Realizing your error, you clamp your hands over your mouth. Too late. Both men look to you, and in that instant Josh grabs hold of Brian’s arm and bites into it with a ferocity the man never had in life.

  Brian screams bloody murder; high-pitched like a child. It must hurt to high hell, having someone burrow into your flesh with their incisors. Stephen and Owen tug at Josh to get the undead man off of Brian, while Craig looks out to the dusky streets.

  “Shut him up!” Craig shouts. “There’s more out here…they, they hear him…they’re coming!!!”

  You look out to the horizon and see that Craig’s right. Already, there are a dozen shambling figures. Heads lolling about on uneven shoulders, arms outstretched, moaning with flesh-eating greed.

  • Close the garage. Those who can make it back, make it back.

  • Grab a wrench and prepare to fight the bastards off.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Helluva Thanks

  The booze from the mini-bar bolstering your confidence, you knock on Angelica’s suite. She opens the door wearing her hotel bathrobe, most likely spending her night just like you are spending yours.

  “Milady, how are you this fine evening?”

  “My knight in camo armor,” Angelica says in a thick, boozy voice.

  You grin. Then, after a beat, look past her and say, “So, are all the rooms the same, or…?”

  She doesn’t respond, instead simply tugs at her bathrobe’s belt. She’s nude underneath the fine Egyptian cotton, and though she’s in her 40s or 50s, there’s clearly been a strict Pilates and yoga regimen in her past. She drops the robe, turns slowly, and walks back into the room, giving you a good look at her firm, golden-bronzed body. That is definitely the ass of a 20-year-old and you suddenly find your blood flowing in response.

  “You coming?” she asks.

  And indeed you are, far too quickly, if pride will allow you to admit it. Leaving no room for argument, Angelica throws you onto the bed, pulls your robe open and takes you. The excitement of knowing this night could be your last, coupled with the complete lack of coyness in her almost feral lovemaking brings you to an intense, shuddering climax.

  All you can do is pant in breathless response. She falls beside you on the bed and says, “So you’re taking me with you, right? We could go tonight. Meet up with your army friends at whatever secret base. Or tell them a spot to pick us up. I won’t take up much room or food, and I can pitch in. I’ll cook or clean or—”

  “Hey, hey, slow down a minute. I haven’t signaled rescue yet, but I will, I promise. We’ll all go.”

  “We have to go now. It’s not safe. Cooper and the others don’t know what they’re doing. She’s just an auto mechanic! We’ve got to get out of here, Sims.”

  “Leave tonight? You’re joking, right? This park is an incredible find! Hell, I’d bet the military will want to use this as a camp. They’ll probably come here. And in the meantime, we’re safer together, so…”

  Her face suddenly goes blank, like she just received a botoxic injection. After a moment, she leaves the bed and says, “Okay. Well, I guess we’d better get some rest. See you tomorrow.”

  Then she heads into the bathroom and closes the door before you can respond.

  • Go check on Tyberius and Hefty.

  • Go check on Jose.

  • Go check on Cooper.

  • Head back to your room and get some sleep.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Herd Immunity

  It’s a dark, moonless night, which makes the riot all the more dangerous. The yard is barely illuminated by the lights of the cell blocks, but even so, you can see several bodies sprawled out on the grass. Searchlights sweep from the guard towers and as soon as they come across the flood of inmates, a piercing klaxon rings out, as if the prison itself were mourning.

  Then the tower guards open fire.

  They shoot indiscriminately into the crowd, hoping to cow the inmate population and stop the riots. Instead, that sends the men into even more of a frenzy. The bolder ones climb the guard towers by the dozen, ready to overtake the lone gunmen at the top.

  The rest of the prisoners naturally segregate, as they do every time they head to the yard, each gang pressing their way through the yard fences and out to the larger prison beyond.

  The gunshots cease, giving way to screams as the tower gu
ards are thrown over the edge. In one tower, the shooting starts up again, a bloodthirsty inmate having fun at everyone else’s expense.

  “Hefty, come on!” shouts an inmate, recognizable as a member of the Aryan Brotherhood by his swastika tattoos. He waves you towards the group of white inmates who’ve broken through and are heading towards the side of the prison that has the chapel, hospital, visitation ward, and main entrance.

  With a look back, you see your giant cholo cellmate join the Mexican cartel and the black gangs in pushing down the fence towards the more secure wing of the prison: the SHU, the armory, and the motorpool.

  • Birds of a feather, right? Racist assholes or not, go with the group looking out for you.

  • There’s only the human race now, and two gangs of cons are better than one. Follow Celly.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Home on the Range

  You pull up to “OPEN FIRE,” your family-owned shooting range, only three minutes before you’re supposed to take over for Dad. Jason skulks out of the car, baseball cap pulled down low over his brow, causing his ears to stick out at the sides. With his shock of red hair and his freckles, it makes him look like the reincarnation of Alfred E. Newman from Mad magazine as a 14-year-old boy. You grab the gym bag with your change of clothes and rush inside.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” you say as the shop door dings open, avoiding eye contact and moving straight into the unisex restroom to change for work. You don’t even give Dad time to speak, employing battle-tested tactics used by teenagers for thousands of years. In less than two minutes, you’re changed clothes, hair pulled back into a ponytail, and you’re back out in the shop, ready for work.