by Ian Woodhead
Tony skidded to a halt when he saw the door beginning to open. “Thank fuck for th…” his words dried up when he saw a figure lurching into the hallway. His eyes widened at the sight of another Tony, glaring at him before raising a shotgun. “I thought one of you fuckers would try to sneak back,” snarled his duplicate. “Goodbye, you fucking dirty thief.”
Chapter Ten
Several seconds had passed since Mortimer had taken his eyes from the corpse of his dead brother. He gritted his teeth, it wasn’t his brother. How could it be? His real brother stood beside him, shivering like a man in a bath of ice. He turned away from Daniel, unable to stay focused on that face. Mortimer wanted to somehow comfort him, to help the guy get over the shock of seeing his likeness on the floor. It couldn’t be easy to gaze down at your own corpse.
Mortimer couldn’t stand the inactivity any longer and stepped over the other two bodies to examine his brother’s duplicate.
“Get away from it, for crying out loud!” gasped Daniel. “What are you doing? Come on, we have to go.”
“He’s not going to get up and bite me, stop flapping.” Despite his steady voice, Mortimer suddenly felt as uneasy as Daniel sounded. The sight of these two together had triggered another memory, one that didn’t feel as though it belonged in his mind. “Where exactly are we going to go?” Those words left his mouth but Mortimer didn’t feel as though he had said them. It now felt as though there were two people inside his head, both fighting for dominance. He looked at the other two corpses, not sure whether he was relieved or stressed to find that his duplicate wasn’t one of them.
“Please, I don’t care where we go. I don’t want to be down here anymore.” Daniel rushed over to grab Mortimer’s wrist. “We need to go back to the camp. This is all wrong.” Daniel shut his eyes and fell into Mortimer. “Oh, that wasn’t good at all.” He looked into his brother’s eyes. “I want my Legos.”
That single word broke the dam that held back those other memories. Mortimer found his recollections of his past swapping around. He watched as the color of his first ever bike swapped from green to blue. Mortimer saw his first true love change faces. He watched in horror as his father died twice, and then he cried out at the sight of his two brothers dying before his eyes. Mortimer reeled at the assault of the rest of the thoughts tumbling into his mind.
He blinked away the fragmenting images of some now strange encampment and gazed at the figure in front of him. Daniel’s features melted and flowed like bubbling chocolate, until a stranger’s face solidified. Mortimer blinked again. The face refused to change back to his brother.
“Who the fuck are you?” He watched the stranger’s face as it copied Mortimer’s own features. He pressed his hand against his face, yelping out at the feel of facial hair against the palm of his hand. Mortimer brought his hand down, noticing the criss-cross of tiny scars covering the back of the hand. This wasn’t his body. “I feel like my mind is going to explode.”
“Mortimer? Is that you in there?”
He gazed into the other man’s slate grey eyes. It was so freaky. Despite this appearing to be another person, Mortimer was sure that he could see his brother in there, in the way he held himself, through his body language, and in the man’s mannerisms. “Yeah, it’s me, Daniel.” The guy even smiled like his brother.
“I need to …”
The smile fell from the man’s face as he looked back at the corpses once more. He then pushed past Mortimer and stumbled up the cellar steps, leaving a drawn-out, pain-wracked moan in his wake.
“This isn’t fun anymore,” Mortimer said, trying to remember how they had gotten here. He followed his brother up the stairs, the sound of Daniel’s stomach folding over reaching his ears. Mortimer swallowed hard, having no intention of joining him.
“Are you OK?” He saw Daniel’s back through the kitchen window. His brother held up his thumb. Mortimer closed the cellar door and wandered into the living room. He felt so calm, as if none of this mattered. Where were the intense emotions of terror and acute confusion?
Where was the terror hiding? Hell, he didn’t even feel all that confused about this situation. Okay, so his brother was faring a little worse than he was; even so, poor Daniel ought to be curled up in a tight ball and wanting his teddy bear about now. He looked back and watched Daniel open the door and walk back into the kitchen. His new face looked a little pale, but otherwise, the man looked pretty good.
“What do you remember, Mortimer? I mean, before we ended up here, wherever this is.” He ran his finger down the deep red doorframe. “Weird how I remember our dad painting this.” He stared at Mortimer. “Thing is, Martin repainted it yellow a few months before the shit hit the fan. Do you remember that?”
He nodded slowly. Now that Daniel mentioned it, he saw there were a few discrepancies in here. For a start, he had no idea what the black plastic tablet-shaped device on top of the wooden coffee table was. The television in the corner now curved like the cockpit of an aircraft, and there were several small, pink fluffy animals on the bookshelf next to the window. Their mom had sold that collection years ago.
“Come on, Mortimer, tell me what you remember?” Daniel shivered. “Maybe we should go outside first. This place is giving me the creeps now.”
“Listen to you, Daniel.” He walked over to the stranger and stopped right in front of his face. “When you’ve finished listening to how calm you are, look at me, look at this face. We’re not in our proper bodies, brother, this isn’t our house and it never was. You’ve already digested that info, of course you have, so why are you …” He took his breath. “Fuck, why are we acting like this sort of thing happens every day?”
His brother grinned. “Probably because while outside, it finally clicked. What happened today? I mean before we both found ourselves here.”
Mortimer lifted his thickly muscled arm, then looked down at his hard stomach and the hard tendons running down his legs. He closed his eyes, thinking back to earlier, to when these hands held a weapon. “Fuck!” He gasped, snapping his eyes open. “I had a crossbow, I remember now and I …”
He turned and ran over to the living room window. “Am I back in the game again?” He turned around. “I don’t get it, that means you must be in the game as well. How the fuck does that work? There’s only one device and it’ll be on my head.”
Daniel shrugged. “Maybe the program is imagining me? Or how about I have the device and I’m imagining you?” Daniel nodded to himself. “Yeah, that makes more sense. After all, the device already knows who you are, Mortimer, it has probably scanned your brain pattern and replicated a digital version of you to keep me company as I battle zombies in this imaginary world.”
Mortimer made a noncommittal grunt before smiling at the other man. “I don’t really think either of us are imaginary, Daniel.” He picked out details in this room that were familiar to him. The sofa hadn’t changed, nor had the wallpaper. “Just like I believe that this room isn’t a distorted digital representation of where we used to live.”
“You’re scaring me now.”
Mortimer smiled even wider. “Good, I want you to be more than a little frightened. Right now, it’s just a feeling I have.” He saw one object hanging on the wall opposite from him that hadn’t changed. He walked over and took his dad’s oriental samurai sword off the two hooks. “I suggest that we go with the flow and see what gets thrown at us.”
His brother shrugged. “I agree, I can’t think of any better plan. Wait here.” He disappeared into the kitchen and came back a few second later with two cook’s knives in one hand whilst holding a wooden broom handle in the other hand. “Why don’t you check upstairs first while I sort this out. You never know, there might even be a gun up there.”
Mortimer left his brother searching through their dad’s writing desk and opened the door that led into the hallway. From the sounds coming from the living room, Daniel had found the roll of gaffa tape that Mom used to hold down the edge of the carpet that led i
nto the kitchen. It was strange how they both remembered about that.
So now his brother had suddenly turned into some kind of experienced zombie warrior? It did occur to him that his brother’s old personality would have known all about how to fashion an effective weapon from a few household items, they all did. As kids, both the brothers used to dream up elaborate fantasies involving surviving through a zombie outbreak, just like they imagined being on a distant planet or lost, miles from anywhere, deep in the jungle.
He climbed the stairs, listening to the sounds of Daniel wrapping the tape around his improvised weapon. The Daniel he knew though, the one who, for the past few years, never did anything more strenuous than getting up to go to the bathroom, wouldn’t dream of being so creative. “Not unless he could make it out of fucking Legos,” he growled.
Mortimer peered into each room, seeing the same as he did downstairs. Some objects were recognizable, while others weren’t. The biggest difference was that Daniel’s gear now decorated Martin’s bedroom. There was nothing of practical value up here, though. Mortimer looked out of Daniel’s new bedroom window, watching a few figures shamble out of an open doorway on the other side of the street. They were heading towards this house. He ran out of the room and down the stairs. “Time to go,” he said, bursting into the living room. “We have more company.”
“The front door?” Daniel suggested. “I’ve already noticed them, by the way. There’s about a dozen already pressed up against the back door.” He dropped the tape back in the drawer and picked up his newly made weapon. “Can’t wait to try this out, Mortimer, doesn’t it look brilliant?”
The sound of breaking windows prompted Mortimer to move. “Front door it is,” he muttered. As he opened the front door, he heard the cellar door open. His guts coiled up, imagining the bodies on that floor had somehow reanimated and were now on their way through the kitchen, eager to sink their teeth into the arm of this body. Mortimer ground his teeth in irritation before pulling his brother out of the house and slamming the door.
So much for having no emotions left. Mortimer shook his head, wanting to dislodge those vivid images of his dead brother falling out of the kitchen and attacking Daniel. The other Daniel stood in the middle of the street, twirling his new toy around like some cross-dressed cheerleader. If this really was a product of the device’s digital memories, and not his mind feeding him with all this weird bullshit, then he’d like it all to end about now.
“Come on, Mortimer, let’s go bag ourselves some zombies!”
His brother’s new attitude distressed him. There you go, Mortimer, another emotion has worked its way through the malaise. The more he figured out about this current situation, the less he understood. Mortimer raced after the laughing man, trying to suppress a whole other bundle of other emotions, all wanting to come out and play. It seemed that the cork in the dam had been well and truly lost.
“I see three dead bastards huddling around that green car.”
Mortimer tightened his grip on the sword handle, looking not at the target but at Daniel’s shining face. The man sounded drunk. Those flickers of the old Daniel that he’d seen molded into the features of this stranger’s face had all but disappeared. He didn’t know who this person was now. The man chuckled before charging towards the car, his new weapon raised above his head, screaming incoherently.
Mortimer ran after him, keeping his distance. Although he didn’t want the dead things to overpower the man, he had no intention of becoming Daniel’s unintentional victim. The knives flashed down, each one finding their target with unnerving accuracy. The dead stood no chance. The sun’s glint vanished from the blades as more black soup covered the metal.
Panting, the man turned around; his blazing eyes found Mortimer. “I’m going to call my new weapon ‘Tony’.” He chuckled to himself.
For the first time since leaving the house, Mortimer heard his brother’s voice hidden beneath the dense slabs of thick muscle. “Where the fuck did you learn to do that?”
His brother’s reply never reached Mortimer’s ears. Daniel’s mouth opened, then the man dropped to the floor. A split second later, a single shot rang out. Mortimer yelped and followed his brother’s action. He rolled to the side, then got on his hands and knees and scurried over to the car. “What can you see?” he shouted, crashing into the asphalt as three more shots blasted out.
His brother reached forward and grabbed Mortimer, pulling him behind the car. Despite the shooting, Daniel’s grin had not moved off his face. “What is wrong with you? Some bastard is trying to kill us!”
“Then they aren’t doing a great job,” Daniel replied, sniggering. “Look, they’re only a block away.”
Mortimer followed the man’s gaze and saw five veiled figures heading towards the car. Two carried long-barrelled rifles. Even from this distance, those crude things held in their arms looked as though they had been fashioned in somebody’s garage. He bit the inside of his mouth to stop himself from laughing. He’d already seen just how effective homemade weapons could be in the right hands. From behind him, Mortimer sensed a shadow moving. He turned his head, thinking that Daniel’s double-blade stick had not stopped every dead thing.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he hissed, watching his brother standing up.
“I thought that was obvious,” Daniel replied, looking down. “We need answers, and hiding like rabbits won’t bring them. Besides, if they wanted us dead, we would be. It’s that simple.”
The five figures stopped moving when Daniel emerged from behind the car. Mortimer placed his sword on the hood of the vehicle and followed him out, keeping his eyes fixed on the two men holding the guns. He sighed when he saw that Daniel hadn’t dropped his weapon.
“Why did you run from the work camp?” demanded the lead veiled figure. The man took three steps forward until only a few meters separated him from Daniel. “We had an agreement, both of you were there.” He looked back at the others. “Have you any idea what the overlords would do to us all if they find us missing?”
“I don’t even know who you are,” Daniel said.
His words electrified the five strangers. The man in front staggered back and Mortimer’s heart leapt into his mouth when the other two men lifted the rifles. He now found both barrels aimed at his face.
“Put those down!” screamed the man. He hurried forward. “Tell me who you two are,” he demanded. “Do it now, body thieves.”
“Why don’t you tell us who you are?” asked Mortimer. “I don’t mean to sound impolite here, but do you always fire on strangers?”
The lead man raised his hand. He took hold of the veil and pulled the material back. Mortimer found himself staring into Joseph’s eyes.
“No, no fucking way!”
Joseph stepped forward. “I see that you recognize me? At least, you recognize one of me. Why don’t you tell me who you are, I mean the man inside the flesh of one of my friends.”
Mortimer watched the other four men approach. He reached out and wrapped his fingers around his brother’s wrist.
Joseph smiled. “Don’t worry, although I know you don’t belong in those meat coats, even I can see that you’re not part of the security forces. I do know that you don’t belong here.”
“Is this a game?” asked Mortimer, knowing that it wasn’t, that notion had left him when they left the house and he saw the look on his brother’s face as he dispatched those shambling dead monsters. Even in another body, that face expressed utter joy at making sure his enemies stayed on the ground. Daniel hated the shambling corpses as much as anyone, but he would much rather hide, or run away. This Daniel couldn’t wait to carve up the bastards.
“It’ll be easier to show you.” Joseph looked back at their house. “Am I right to think that building holds some kind of hold over you two?”
“We used to live there,” replied Daniel. “At least, we lived in a house like that one.”
“Unreal,” grinned Joseph, “talk about providence. I think yo
u two should follow me. It’ll be better if I show you.”
An avalanche of questions lined up, each one demanding room in Mortimer’s increasingly confused head. Did this other Joseph know how close he’d come to having that smug grin sliced off his face? Mortimer saw Daniel’s expression and guessed that he felt the same way. He picked up the sword as the group passed the car and promised himself to bottle up his feelings, just like before.
“Can you tell me anything,” he pressed, staring at Joseph’s back. “Anything at all?”
The man spun around. “Sure, how about we start with the word luck. You see, I know all about you, my friend. At least, I know where you come from. I’ve never been there, but I do know that life is pretty shitty for the general population. You live in a huge city, right? Surrounded by high walls with millions of zombies surrounding you.”
Mortimer nodded.
“And you all would have joined the dead if it wasn’t for some tiny pills that keep you human?”
Joseph’s grin chilled Mortimer’s blood.
“Sounds like a horrible place to live. Still, it could be worse, you could live here.”
“When are the shipments starting up?” one of the other men demanded.
Mortimer stared at the man holding a rifle. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“We need more pills!”
Joseph took Mortimer’s arm. “Look at this, my friend.”
He turned and saw two rows of long, single-storey buildings stretching out to the horizon. Mortimer looked back at the man. “What am I supposed to be looking at here?”
“Should they be there?”
“There should be fields here,” murmured Daniel.
Joseph beamed. “Your friend is asking the right questions! You’re not on your world any more, my friend.” He pointed to a large black tower to the left of the buildings. “That vile-looking structure should be familiar?”
Mortimer looked closely and slowly nodded. “Yeah, it looks like one of the corner buttresses from Government House.”
