In a mobile supervisors office (the type built inside a container), you find an old DVD player with old TV-shows to watch. The night watch must have used them extensively. The darn thing runs on batteries, so that may be a problem in the future. Still, a good treasure find.
As days pass, you fortify the place and make it your own. At night, you watch a movie or two before going to sleep. For what the zombie apocalypse is, your life is good.
Careful incursions into the mall provide you with some comforts of life, even entertainment. In a hardware store, you find a camping power generator, some fuel, a light grill… The construction area is fast becoming a very nice place to live. It is becoming your home, safe and warm.
You know that one day you’ll have to abandon this place, but for now you are safe. Let the future bring what it wants. Today, the day is yours.
YOU SURVIVED
If you… Go to…
Start from the beginning Section 1
Section 227
Go deep into the shopping mall
Moving forward into the mall, you find a door closed with a lock. Using a crowbar, you force yourself out. The sound has attracts a horde of zombies shoppers. You become the welcomed guest to a dinner party of the dead. After the initial awkward moment, they charge at you screaming and yelling. You close the door, and lock it with the crowbar.
You run back down the construction corridor. The door holds for a while, but the thin dry-wall panels don’t. A tsunami of undead chases you. You explored the place, and you know is locked down on every other end.
Before they get to you, you manage to climb on the truck and close the door behind you. Like ants attacking a prey, the zombies climb on the truck. Soon they rock the vehicle left to right, stronger and stronger until it tips over. The windshield shatters, and bonny hands pull you out… in pieces.
YOU DIED
If you… Go to…
Start from the beginning Section 1
Section 228
Keep climbing the stairs
You look down over the rail. The zombies are almost there. You hesitate to come down. You run away from the zombies. The old man yells at you furiously, cursing you before shutting the door.
You reach the top floor. The outside door is open. The clear blue sky and fresh air welcome you in. You push the door behind you. Panic. The door has no handle, and it won’t lock.
You run through the roof, checking every side. There are no emergency stairs, nor other way to climb down. A flood of zombies bulges in. The first zombies fall to the ground, the rest of the horde walks over them. For a second, you stand with your back towards the edge. The thought of jumping out crosses your mind. But you can’t do it.
You climb over the elevator’s engine box, the horde short behind you. The box is barely as tall as you, but the tallest place you can find. Zombies fill the roof, surround you. You stand in the middle of the small surface, watching in horror the multitude around you. Arms stretched, they scratch your legs and little by little peel of your skin up to your knees. You scream in pain. You endure the pain as much as you can. A zombie bites your calf, and you fall back into the roaring crowd like a rock star in a concert. Bony hands take you in and tear you apart before you can even touch the ground.
YOU DIED
If you… Go to…
Start from the beginning Section 1
Section 229
Go with the old man
You step down and rush inside the door. The old man slams it close. You bend over, catching your breath. Your heart pounds strong. Large drops of sweat come down your face. It takes time to calm down again.
The people around you look like scientists. Skinny people in lab coats. The old man puts a hand on your shoulder and speaks in a calming manner. His name is Steve. After asking yours, someone brings up an office chair and a glass of water. You tell them your story this far. They nod their heads in disgust when they hear how you were held prisoner and the “offer” the fat man gave you.
“The colony below has fallen, then”, says the old man. “We were hoping that at some point those a-holes down there realize what a mess they made. We didn’t know about the cannibalism… we have been isolated from them for a while now. Soon after the military left, the colony split in a half. Most of them remained there, while the rest of us came here to continue the work.”
You look around. The space used to be a marketing company. The logo still hangs on a wall. In the opposite side, there is a mountain of boxes and food supplies, on the opposite side made up labs behind walls of glass. Steve continues:
“We knew the government was doomed. We lost contact with other rescue centers months ago. The last messages confirmed what we already knew. We focused on this project only. It may prevent our extinction.”
“Did you find a cure?” You ask. Steve looks at you with a somber look. Shakes his head.
“There is no cure. It is built into our DNA. We were supposed to end like this. But…”
Steve pauses, letting those words sink in. You feel the weight of the world over your shoulders. If there was never a virus, and this is just the way the humans end, then what else can we do? You look down, as tears gather in your eyes.
“…there is an option. We can reset all this. Now that the colony is over, I see no reason why not to move ahead. Will you join us?”
If you… Go to…
Find out what all this is about Section 245
Decline the offer and stay behind. Section 246
Section 230
Examine patient zero
The moment you walk into the room, a brain spider jumps at you. Lucky for you, the thing has more attitude than skills. You evade the attack and with a heavy folder you smash it against the floor. Just to make sure is dead, you jump on it a few times too.
On the examination bed, a half-headed zombie remains undisturbed. You had enough of this stuff.
Before you leave the room, you check yourself for wounds or scratches. Lucky for you, you have none. You reach out for the door, but it doesn’t open. You try to force it, but it won’t bulge. You try to break it, but the glass resists. Desperate, trapped with a zombie corpse, you sit by a desk thinking what to do. The computer screen turns on. It displays a single message:
“To open the gate, run this program, then open this file”
Relieved that you have a way out, you run the application and the door opens. Curious about the other file, you double click it. A printer starts to work nearby. Curious, you head for the working printer. You take the paper and read the report. The letters on the paper fill you with dread. It reads:
“Thanks for letting us out”
You turn around to see a thousand mutant spider brains surrounding you. One falls from the ceiling straight into your head. It stabs your brain with his spider legs. As you struggle to take it out, his thoughts become your thoughts. Then, your body becomes his body, and your mind fades away… One last thought crosses your mind:
“Now we will conquer the world”
YOU DIED
If you… Go to…
Start from the beginning Section 1
Section 231
Look for the vaccine
It doesn’t take long until you find a fridge with vials labeled “vaccine”. You grab one and empty the content on a syringe. You are bout to inject yourself when you stop. You remember the zombies with the collars, the military group outside, the nightmare this mall has been. You wonder what it all means if the vaccine was here all along. Would it make you immune if a zombie bites you? Will it just cure the virus that all humans carry? You look around for more information. A report next to the vials seems promising. You read it carefully. The vaccine will not cure the virus, but will make you invisible to the zombies. You wonder what that means.
You close your eyes and inject yourself, hoping to get the right dose.
The liquid burns through your veins. You pass out when it hits you brain.
You wake up hours later, but feeli
ng strangely healthy and strong. You grab a cool container and fill it up with vials. You exit the lab through the emergency stairs. There, zombies watch you pass by. None attacks. They ignore you.
It works.
The world is yours now. You hit the road looking for other survivors to share the vaccine.
YOU SURVIVED
If you… Go to…
Start from the beginning Section 1
Section 232
Find a way to communicate with the surface
You look around for a computer but find none. Then, you look at the phone and guess that it must be connected somewhere up. A child of the digital age, these rotary phones look like old alchemy to you.
Having no other options, you sit in silence and dial random numbers on the phone. Then, you start dialing them in order. You do that for hours, for days, and then for weeks… until one day the phone line goes dead.
Sometimes you sit by the elevator’s open door and count the falling zombies from the top. Eventually, the shaft may fill up. But you have no concern with that. You’ll be a zombie yourself long before that.
YOU DIED
If you… Go to…
Start from the beginning Section 1
Section 233
Climb up the elevator’s shaft
You refuse to give up. You check the elevator’s shaft, and see the zombies falling down from open doors at the top.
You put your thinking cap on. Carefully, you measure the distance to the shaft ladder, how much room you have for climbing, and how much space you have to avoid a falling zombie. You take your time, and at night you venture on the shaft.
Slowly, avoiding making loud noises, you climb upwards until you reach the open doors. As you suspected, the zombies have saturated the room. You keep climbing up to the engine room of the elevator. A lid lets you into the room. As you climb in, you take a moment to rest. This place is locked up, and zombie free. The only door leads to the roof. You walk out into open space.
Surrounding the building, you see the left overs of a battle between the soldiers and impossible odds. The soldiers lost, of course. A a few zombies below still wander around in the parking lot, feeding off what they find on the floor. Seeing only a few, you are confident that you can make a run if you make it to the parking lot.
If you… Go to…
Run towards a military truck Section 247
Run away from the mall Section 248
Section 234
Help with the exploration of the city
The scientists look at each other. There is only a few brave ones who dare to go into the ruins. There are creatures of the dark, lurking in every corner.
The camp facilities are safe and secure, but the exploration of the ruins is risky. Still, there are secrets buried in the lost city that may help with the plague above. It was here, were the original mummy that carried the virus was found.
Dressed with special gear, day after day you venture with a handful of soldiers into the ruins of the city. Each incursion produces a new loot of relics. Soon, you gain the admiration of the group and social status in this small society. Someday you will write down your adventures in a book.
YOU SURVIVED
If you… Go to…
Start from the beginning Section 1
Section 235
Help with the cataloging of relics
Playing it safe, you help catalog relics. There are fascinating objects, each one revealing more and more of this lost civilization.
In time, you learn that the whole city was buried in just one day, sometime around 34 A.D. In that year, a gigantic cataclysms reshaped the land. It was the first coming of a vengeful god, visiting them on their sins for worshiping a pagan witch. The ones who survived, recorded their last days and the mayhem that followed. They capture the witch and mummified her alive, in the hopes of finding redemption in the after-life. It was that same mummy who carried the original zombie virus.
Even though your assignment is boring, your work is important. Days and months pass. Eventually the military stops bringing supplies. By then, the camp is already self sufficient and a new society emerges from the old ruins. Who knows, maybe in a few decades they will decide to go back to the surface. The fact is that here and now, you all are safe.
YOU SURVIVED
If you… Go to…
Start from the beginning Section 1
Section 236
Go back to the deposit and make a run for another exit
Before you get into further trouble, you close the door and make a run. There must be another exit in the deposit. Keeping the wall on your right, you desperately seek for another door, while a horde of zombies follows you around.
Venturing in a dark corridor, running at full speed you soon hit something that knocks you out. You fall flat on your back, with your head all but almost split open. The world around you spins as you loose consciousness. The next time you open your eyes, all you can think is…
I need to eat brains.
YOU DIED
If you… Go to…
Start from the beginning Section 1
Section 237
Inspect the laboratory
Strangely enough, the laboratory has working electric lights. The place is full of large transparent containers, where floating corpses are pierced by hundreds of connecting wires. Each tube has multiple screens at displaying information that you can’t decipher.
As the door behind you locks down, you slowly step deeper into the lab. Ahead of you there is a single desk, with a large monitor displaying a single file with the name:
*“Play me”*
Behind the desk, there is a glass chamber with a note on the door that reads:
“Do not open until Christmas”
If you… Go to…
Play the file Section 249
Open the glass chamber Section 250
Section 238
Close your eyes and raise your hands
“Halt”, a commanding voice barks through a speaker. You cover your eyes from the blinding light.
“What is all this?” You ask. A woman walks towards you, dressed in a lab coat.
“You’re alive! It’s been weeks since I’ve seen another human being!” She stares directly into your eyes, as pleading for your attention.
The woman introduces herself as a doctor, the last remaining member of the safe protocol action, an operation to save people by gathering them in the shopping mall. You see around beds, medical equipment and other items. It all reminds you of an improvised hospital. The windows are boarded and the other doors blocked.
“Now that you are here, the two of us can make a difference!” The doctor smiles at you, with an insane look.
If you… Go to…
Don’t trust the doctor Section 251
Trust the doctor Section 252
Section 239
Run away from the light
Lead by pure instinct, you try to escape the reflector light. It follows you. You stop. A soldier tackles you down. You fight him off, but stop struggling when see his face. He’s human!. The army man turns you around and cuffs your hands behind your back. You feel the sting of a needle in the back of your neck. Immediately, you stop moving. As they inject on you something, you feel how your muscles go numb. Drowsiness. You feel like puking.
“It’s alive”, you hear someone say, “and it’s clean!”
A couple of soldiers help you on your feet. They bring you to a chair and unbind your hands.
“Sorry about that”, a tall, mean looking guy in uniform says. “The discomfort will pass soon. If you were an infected zombie, your head would have exploded. Harsh, but we need to be sure. You’re now coming with us. We can’t leave anybody behind.”
You blink repeatedly until your eyes adapt to the light. The drowsiness fades away rather fast. You are sitting in the middle of a loading area. Soldiers move here and there, carrying boxes into large trucks. They don’t look military standard. The soldiers have
fitted them with barbed wire, fences, spikes. Heck, they went full Mad Max with them.
If you… Go to…
Go with the soldiers Section 253
Refuse the offer, and take your chances alone Section 254
Section 240
Cover your eyes and wait
You cover your eyes and wait. Silence all around. Slowly, you lower your hands and squint until your eyes adapt. Beyond the light, there’s nobody.
You explore the room. The bright reflector is connected to a motion sensor, but nothing more. The room is filled with computer screens and servers running. For the good of your soul, you cannot make up what all that information on display means. Some screens display genetic data, others geographical progressions, others some “thingies that move up and down” (yeah, that is as technical as you get).
The floor is covered with papers, hinting that whoever was here, run away in a hurry. In one corner of the room, there are two large tanks, large enough to hold a person. Both have buttons labeled “open”. There is no way to see what is inside each one, save for a tiny label written with a marker.
If you… Go to…
Open the tank that reads “test” Section 255
Open the tank that reads “anti” Section 256
Section 241
Head for the food court
You’re hungry. That is a fact. You can’t remember the last time you ate anything. You stomach roars. If there is anything left to eat, it has to be in the food court. After all, some of the fast food should be still valid to eat, right?
Zombie Mall Page 16