Doesn’t matter, really. Whatever the reason, she staggers your way. Leaning back on your cot, you feel the metal crossbeam shift under your thighs.
• Take the beam, kill the bitch.
• Shove bucket-lady in her path.
• Call for the guard, but stay put.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Wake the Dead
It’s hard enough to sleep when every creak or rustle of wind grates on your nerves, but with a gasmask on, it’s impossible. But you figure this place didn’t get hit by the plague, and you’re alone, so you can take the thing off for a night.
Problem is, you snore. A lot. Like, planning on disability pay for sleep apnea levels of snoring.
You shoot awake when you hear a crash. Mitch the M4 jumps to your shoulder. That’s when you register the growling, the moaning, and the crunch of glass under clumsy feet.
When you look out into the main area, you see about thirty zombies rushing in. And they see you. Remember how many shots you’ve got left? Definitely not thirty. Not that you’d have time for thirty shots anyhow.
You spring back to the rear fire-exit and shove at the push-bar. Damn thing is jammed! You put your shoulder into it and use adrenaline to slam against the door. It flies open and you sprawl out into the rear alley.
Another twenty ghouls are there to meet you. Your snoring is so loud that you’ve had hotel complaints. Now? It got you killed. They surrounded the building while you were snoring logs, and there’s no escape from the mob.
Luckily, there won’t be enough left of you to rise again.
THE END
Walked Right into It
“Somebody’s gotta teach you some manners, missy. Duke’ll appreciate it. Hope that dress goes well with black and blue,” he says, fishing out the key to your stall.
He unlocks the door but it doesn’t budge, thanks to the wedged broomhead.
“The hell?” Bud says, “What’d you do?”
“Some tough guy. Can’t even get the door open.”
“I’m gonna enjoy this,” he says, slamming his shoulder against the door.
“I highly doubt that.”
Two more shoulder-slams and the broomhead falls out, the door swings open, and Bud comes rushing in. You swing out the spear, plant the dull end under the toe of your boot, and aim the business end at Bud’s neck.
He never even saw it coming but it hits low—impaling the man in the chest. He falls to the floor, coughing up blood. Slower death, but it’ll do. You scoop up his key to the stalls and head out. Turning to Angelica’s stall, you pass it through.
“Here, take it.” you say, “I’m going to find a bike and get out of here while it’s still dark. I’d recommend you get going too.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No, no way.”
“And we need to let the others out.”
“Go ahead, I’m out of here.”
“Cooper, please….”
Her eyes shimmer somewhere between hopelessness and despair.
• Tell her, “Good luck,” and make your escape while she’s busy freeing the others.
• Help her release the others. Tell her, “You can follow me out of here, but it’s on you to keep up.”
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
A Walk in the Park
The next morning’s meet-up starts over cereal and ultra-pasteurized milk. Cooper scours a park map while Angelica disinterestedly picks at a few dry coco-puffs. Guillermo gulps his food, then sits stoically, awaiting the group’s next move. Tyberius and Hefty look hung over.
Your left shoulder still aches, but in a dull, numb, dead-limb kind of way. Seems like you’ll have to survive this thing with one arm tied behind your back. The good news is that you won’t have to do it alone.
They’re a rag-tag bunch, to be sure, but you know everyone here has the same motivation: Survival. And that knowledge brings a sort of trust. You can lean on them now, while wounded, then just think how happy they’ll be, once you’re able to signal rescue!
Soon enough, you’ll end this nightmare once and for all.
Click to Continue…
Wearing the Pants
“What happened?” Angelica asks when you return to the stables alone. “Where’s Bud?”
“I wouldn’t worry about him, or Duke,” you say. “But there are a lot of patrols out there. The dead are coming in earnest tonight.”
After unlocking your cell, you rush in and get back into your work clothes.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
As an answer, you hold up the key. Turning to Angelica’s stall, you pass it through.
“Here, take it.” you say, “I’m going to find a bike and get out of here while it’s still dark. I’d recommend you get going too.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No, no way.”
“And we need to let the others out.”
“Go ahead, I’m out of here.”
“Cooper, please….”
Her eyes shimmer somewhere between hopelessness and despair.
You look back to the others. Part of you thinks you’re all in this together; the antithesis of these male Mad Max survivalists. That you’ll have better chances escaping the compound together. Then again, part of you doesn’t give a shit.
• Tell her, “Good luck,” and make your escape while she’s busy freeing the others.
• Help her release the others. Tell her, “You can follow me out of here, but it’s on you to keep up.”
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Well-Mannered Meal
You knock softly on the door, but there’s no response. After a moment you rap harder, offering a “Sir?”–but still nothing. Slowly, you turn the knob and push the door open. Just as you step in, the man is upon you.
He heard you all right, but it took him a minute to get out of bed, and his dead hands couldn’t open the doorknob. But now his instincts turn to frenzy as he brings you to the ground. You thrash against the man, but he’s twice your body weight and doesn’t have an ounce of hesitation left in his instinct-driven urges.
Jason’s shotgun turns the Zulu’s head to pulp, but it’s too little, too late.
You’re INFECTED!
What an Asshole
“Just what I thought. Put on that dress and I’ll stop,” he says. Bud takes a key from his pocket and opens the door to Angelica’s stall. She steps away and you take a step forward, right up to the bars. “You’re gonna put it in your mouth until I’m ready.”
“Anything he puts in there—bite it off!” you shout.
“Shut up and put on the goddamn dress! You do as you’re told, Blondie. I so much as feel a nibble and I’ll blow your brains out.”
“You’ll do it without a pecker,” you say.
That gives Bud some pause. Instead, he unzips his pants and plays with himself. Angelica looks away. “Look at it!” he shouts.
“Don’t. You don’t have to do what he says,” you say.
“Shut your damn mouth! Just remember, if you would put that dress on, none of this would be happening.”
Bud drops his pants and turns his back to you as he prepares to defile Angelica. Your eyes go to the dress and you think, There’s always a choice.
So you make a choice: You take the spear and shove the business end through the bars and up Bud’s exit-only chute. The man howls in pain and reaches back to free himself, so you shove harder. In fact, you grab the bars between stalls and use the extra momentum to kick the base of the broom handle as hard as you can. Bud loses consciousness and falls to the floor, blood pooling.
“Get the key!” you shout, but Angelica doesn’t hear you. She simply shivers, huddled in the corner. “Angelica! Grab his key. Let me out! He got what he deserved. C’mon.”
“He was…he was really going to…”
“It’s not your fault. Not…not everything is a choice,” you say, realizing the truth in the words.
“Is he dead?” she says in a mouse’s voi
ce.
“Doesn’t matter. If you don’t get me out of here, we will be when someone comes looking for him.” She nods, steels herself and takes Bud’s key ring. She lets herself out, then unlocks your stall. “Atta girl. I’m going to find a bike and get out of here while it’s still dark. I’d recommend you get going too.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No, no way.”
“And we need to let the others out.”
“Go ahead, I’m out of here.”
“Cooper, please….”
Her eyes shimmer somewhere between hopelessness and despair.
• Help her release the others. Tell her, “You can follow me out of here, but it’s on you to keep up.”
• Tell her, “Good luck,” and make your escape while she’s busy freeing the others.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Wheel in the Sky
The Ferris wheel sits in the center of the park, but you can see the monstrosity from almost anywhere in the city. All you have to do is walk down Main Street and all Rhodes scholars go to Rome, as they say.
From the looks of it, the staff and the day’s tourists abandoned the park when the crowds grew cannibalistic. Tumbleweeds made of flyers and park maps drift across the asphalt. Several displays are knocked to the ground. Carts lie overturned.
And a giant rabbit moans and stumbles your way.
Or, to be more precise, a fleshie in a bunny suit moans and stumbles your way. Looks like the little ankle-biters decided to take their nickname literally and infected the poor stiff. It’s just you and the pay-me-a-buck-a-photo mascot, so you move in with Isabelle to put the thing down before its moan draws in more.
You stab into the cartoonish, oversized mask, bleeding tufts of cotton into the air, but missing the meat. The fleshie lunges and grabs your shoulders, bringing the rabbit-head in to kiss your gasmask while it chews at you from inside the costume.
In an effort to break the hold, you pull the giant rabbit-head off and finally get a sight of your target—a fifteen-year-old girl. For the briefest instant, you stand in shock and the ghoul snaps her jaws, spitting cotton balls like someone on a bad high after wisdom teeth surgery. You push the blade through her chin and into her skull and she drops.
Shit, she was just a kid… Your head spins. Catching your breath, you continue towards the Ferris wheel without incident. Onesie-twosie corpses line the street, but nothing like you’d feared. This place must have held ten thousand, maybe even twenty thousand, people on any given day. Now it’s abandoned—but the wires are still hot!
It takes about thirty seconds to figure out the ride’s controls (dumbed-down for high schoolers and carnies), then you set it to run a cycle and hop aboard. The wheel rotates slowly enough, but with the hundred-plus-foot diameter, your individual carriage moves fairly quickly. Knowing how high this thing goes, you bring down the safety lap-bar.
Each unit has its own viewfinder, the kind you’d find on top of a building or at the end of a pier. The wheel is truly gigantic; it must be one of the largest on earth. No wonder it’s the centerpiece.
When you look around, the first thing you notice is just how empty the interior of the park is. Which is great news. As you get higher, however, you see the bad news. The area beyond the wall is crawling with fleshies who stumble your way.
The city beyond is devastated. You didn’t realize just how bad it was from the ground level, but now that you’ve got some distance, you can see dozens of buildings on fire. And thousands—perhaps even a million—squirming masses in the far, far distance.
There’s no way I’m going to live through this, a voice of doubt says. You look over the edge. If you were to jump now, it’d be at least two hundred, maybe even three hundred, feet down. An instant, easy end to the apocalypse. Your palms start to sweat. You get vertigo being so high up, and you close your eyes hard to get a grip on yourself. It takes a moment to register the last image you just saw down there—someone running.
Then the screaming starts. It’s a woman, her scream perfectly evolved to pierce the cave-man part of your brain into action. When you open your eyes and look down, you see a blonde running from a pack of three crazed admirers.
As the wheel begins its descent and the distance between you shrinks, she grows larger by the second. She’s wearing heels, for Chrissake.
“Please!” she shrieks. “Mr. Army-man! Help!”
So she’s seen you, but have the fleshies? You could just stay up here and contemplate your mortality for another pass of the wheel while the woman below loses her own. Or you could leap off the moving wheel, dispatch the three ghouls, and get the girl. What’ll it be?
• Maybe I’m afraid, maybe I get a kick out of watching people die, what’s it to you? I’m keeping my seat!
• Leap into action! Caveman save girl, ugg. Besides, the more living people here, the greater my chance of getting rescued.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Whistling Dixie
You lick your lips in preparation. Then, with a deep breath, you place your forefingers in your mouth, curl your tongue, and let out a piercing whistle. The shrill sound pierces through the prison and when you finish the full lungful of air, the whistle continues echoing.
All the while, dozens of nutters pour out from the hospital and surrounding buildings. The nearest guard tower spotlight envelops you in its glow. Shit. Just as you start to run, the tower sniper hits you squarely in the back. No warning shots this time, and the frantic horde is all too happy to help finish you off.
THE END
Wild
You’re back out front just as the fastest members of the growing horde arrive. Nothing you can’t handle, though. With all the parked cars, newspaper bins, trash cans, and other urban obstacles, you’re able to outpace them with relative ease. These ghouls are unthinking—they just chase you in a straight line. So when you hurdle a bicycle rack, the undead rack themselves against it.
The bad news is that you’re afforded plenty of time with your thoughts. You try to keep busy, to keep vigilant, but no matter how hard you try, you can’t get the images of mama out of your head. Her face appears on any wandering dead that even vaguely matches her appearance. Even the young black women with two arms become your mother in your head.
What’s the point anymore? She screams. How can you live with yourself after this?
You shake your head to clear it. It’s not her yelling at you. Still, you feel hollow. If you didn’t have this funeral idea, you’d probably still be back home, numb, not sure what to do next.
The miles tick by until you make it to a service station on the outskirts of town. You could use some water or a sports drink, so you turn in. The front window is smashed in, and the place is looted, but they didn’t get everything.
“Hello?” you call. “Knock, knock?”
These things aren’t smart. If one is inside, it’ll come when you call.
Seems like the coast is clear, so you head in. Most of the drinks are gone from the case, but there are a few bottles of unsweetened tea that were left. It’ll have to do for now. On the way out, you see the racks of generic pain-killers, anti-allergens, cough medicine, and various medicinal products. How hard would it be to wash the whole rack down with a couple bottles of tea? End the pain once and for all. Rejoin mama.
No, you tell yourself. If you go now, who will bury her? So you continue walking, trying not to listen to the voice that says, But maybe after…? Wouldn’t it be nice just to sleep and never wake up?
By the time you arrive at the outskirts of the mall, the sun is setting. You’ll probably have to stay the night here, especially with that crowd still following. It should be defensible, though, because this mall sits outside of town, purchased while land was still cheap. Several construction sites are under development and just beyond that awaits the shopping mall with a large “Grand Opening!!!” sign. Brand-spanking new.
The nearest part of the mall happens to be a department store, and you figure the
y’re all basically the same, so long as they have a menswear department for your suit and a place to get mama a nice dress.
• Go for the main doors. The double-wide glass doors should let you see if anyone’s inside.
• Go for the service entrance, where they unload new items. It’s out of the way and should have less chance of trouble.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Winner, Winner!
Celly takes the chicken dinner from the guard, but you have the man’s attention.
“You can pay me?” he repeats.
“Handsomely.”
“Yeah? With what? I need something right now, not promises.”
You hold up a “wait a second” finger and go for your lotto ticket-hiding spot. With your back to the guard, you quickly scratch the other three tickets. Twenty bucks isn’t likely to sway him, but if you can get a $50, you might have a chance. Three tickets left. First one? Dud.
“I ain’t got all day,” the guard says.
Second ticket…dud.
“Quit pullin’ your pud and show me what you got.”
Third ticket—no way.
“Mother fucker!” you shout.
“Asshole,” the guard mutters, then turns to leave.
“Ten thousand dollars!” you shout, voice cracking.
Two years of daily scratch tickets has left you deep in the red, and the most you’ve ever won on a single ticket is a cool $250. Your hands tremble as you hold what you have before you—ten thousand goddamned dollars.
“A lotto ticket?” the guard asks, unsure.
“Ten grand. It’s yours, all I want’s a ticket outta here.”
PATHOGENS: Who Will Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? (Click Your Poison Book 4) Page 43