INFECTED (Click Your Poison)

by James Schannep

  “He said he needed to hurry and get to the lab,” Sims says, getting up. “I was just resting my eyes.”

  “He’s been out there alone all night?” Tyberius asks.

  Guillermo champs his teeth in quick succession. “Mordido.”

  “Anyone know where the lab is?” Cooper asks, only to be given blank stares in return. She rummages through her pack. “Grab a radio and a weapon. Pair up; this is not a horror movie.”

  Hefty and Tyberius stick together and Guillermo hovers near Cooper. Sims smiles at you.

  • Time to look for Deleon.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Empty

  With a painfully metallic screech, the hangar door slides open. You head in, shotgun raised, alert to the shadows as your eyes adjust to the dim conditions. The hangar itself no longer houses aircraft, but looks like it did at one time. A gas truck parked in the center of the hangar has a sign, “No more fuel. Sorry. God bless.”

  “That explains why she was stuck here, just like the colonel told us,” Lucas says. “But there is no sign of the doctor—Doctor!”

  His voice echoes through the hangar, but there’s only one response: a moan from behind. A pair of zombies come at you from the doorway, and you waste no time in blowing the head off the first. The hangar screams back in a powerful reverberation from the sound. Rosie kills the other, but her rifle has barely a tenth of the echo.

  “They’re coming quick,” you remark. “We’d best get moving…”

  • To the terminal.

  • To the control tower.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  En Fuego

  You don’t need to tell him twice. He’s got a ninety-nine-cent lighter from the rack and is already rolling back the thumbwheel. “Genial,” Guillermo says, smiling for what might be the first time. The chef moves to stand by the glass doors, waiting for his cue. You move to the other door, ready to clear the way when Sims arrives.

  “All right, one…” Sims says as he lights the rag. “Two…” He runs toward the doors. You and Guillermo batter against each side, knocking the ghouls down. Guillermo beats them with his shovel and you do the same with your hatchet axe, while Sims runs out.

  “Three!” He hurls the Molotov cocktail as hard as he can over the zombies’ heads. There’s already quite a crowd gathered; in unison, the undead watch the flaming implement sail over them.

  Sims threw the device too hard and it explodes in a ball of fire, completely missing the living corpses. In one simultaneous motion, they slowly turn to look at Sims… and moan. Sims makes it back in, panting from the run. The doors are pulled shut. “Stupido… culo gringo,” Guillermo says.

  “What now?” you ask.

  The front glass shatters and Cooper screams the obvious. “They’re breaking in!”

  • “Probably time run away, yes?”

  • “Didn’t we just get new weapons? Stand and fight!”

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Escape Route

  Just as an undead hand—with black-painted fingernails—reaches into your tent through the open zipper, you cut an exit into the opposing flap. The knife slices cleanly through the nylon wall and you slip through with ease. You turn to face your attacker: a Wiccan. She’s dressed all in black, her hair dyed to match, with skin as pale as the moon. You wouldn’t know she was a zombie, save for the hungry eyes and the distinctive moan, a moan which, you suddenly realize, is coming at you in stereo.

  You look around: an entire Wicca coven has your tent surrounded. Despite their lack of wounds or blood-spattered lips, you’re certain they’re undead. They must have just performed some kind of eternal life ceremony with the Gilgazyme ®. Wealthy Wiccans, who knew?

  They move in toward you, almost as if this were part of an organized ritual. You instinctively look down, but there’s no pentagram beneath your feet. Despite the dark overtones, this is merely a cluster of individual zombies who have converged on you through the same hunting instincts. What gave you away? You tried to stay quiet and minimize your flashlight use; perhaps it was purely bad luck.

  Either way, they’ve got you surrounded, and you’ll have to fight your way out. With a death grip on that knife, you swing it at the closest zombie. It slices her throat with almost as much ease as the tent escape but the cut wasn’t very deep, there’s no blood associated with the wound, and her attack has not slowed down.

  You stab at her, the knife entering her ashen face, again creating an opening without blood. It’s like butchering a long-dead animal, if it were to get up suddenly and try to eat you. Finally, you plunge the knife into her eye socket and hit brain. She falls to the forest floor.

  Now the rest of her sisters are upon you, and it doesn’t look good. Even dual-wielding the hammer and knife, there’s no way you can take them all down unscathed. Then, from the darkness of the woods, your savior arrives. You can’t see him clearly; he moves like black smoke in the night, and he takes down zombie after zombie.

  At length, you see him brandishing a katana and decapitating the Wiccan ghouls with ease. In a matter of moments, he expertly and deftly dispatches the whole lot. You owe this man your life. He stands before you in a kendo uniform—simply put: practice samurai armor.

  Your mysterious savior says, “Are you hurt?”

  Shocked, but in control, you shake your head. You can barely see his face through the mask; he’s a middle-aged Japanese man.

  “I am Lucas Tesshu,” he says. “I assume the car on the road is yours. If you do not know, I’m sorry to report it has been raided and the fuel siphoned. I head toward sanctuary on foot; would you care to accompany me?”

  • “I appreciate what you did for me, and perhaps I can repay you with food, but I’m a loner.”

  • “That. Was. Amazing. Of course! I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth.”

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Escort Duty

  “This dolly might help,” the engineer says, indicating a wheeled cart, large and flat. Lucas nods his thanks and clears the sound equipment off it.

  With a fresh clip loaded in your shotgun—what is that, number three?—you prepare to head out. Lucas agreed to go for the water jugs while Rosie gets the rope. She takes the lead, while Lucas trails in the rear with the dolly.

  Rosie pushes open the door, pelting off headshots at those in the hall with her massive pistol. If any weapon is oversized for the small punch it packs, it’s this one. But with a one-hundred-round capacity, it’s necessarily so.

  The ghouls fall down before Rosie with ease, and since she’s got ammo to spare, she’s putting two slugs in each cranium before they fall to the floor. The engineer stays by your side, hunched over as if the undead will return fire.

  Lucas peels off to get the water jugs, but Rosie rushes out, blasting away at the crowd that has gathered, and then runs towards the jeep. Eastwood remotely controls the CROWS system, systematically destroying any zombie that comes within its range.

  You turn to run around the side of the building, hurrying to get the engineer to the rear and the tower. The place is crawling with ghouls, but nothing that a depress of the trigger on your AA-12 can’t handle. You blast them away two by two, carefully counting down from twenty shells.

  Around the rear of the building is a large concrete base upon which the tower is built. “Give me a boost!” the engineer shouts, putting his hands on the lowest rung of the tower. You sling the shotgun over your shoulder and do as he asked.

  After he starts climbing, you quickly reload your weapon.

  • Defend him while the others arrive.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Eternity

  “You know what? I’m a generous bastard,” Phoenix says. He pulls out a Gilgazyme® inhaler from the pocket of his robe and hands it to you. “I’m doing my very own human trials, right here, right now. You and the girls get a one-day-only sale—100% off!”

  The inhaler is minimally decorated; no words, only the symbol of infinity, ∞, repeated and interlocking l
ike chain mail in shining silver décor around its light blue slender body. Over the mouthpiece is a red cap labeled, “Remove before use.”

  Without hesitation, you pop the cap and suck down the cool solution from within. As you depress the injector, the formula forces itself into your throat and lungs. You can’t tell if it’s liquid or gas, but it coats your esophagus in a viscous embrace. The effervescent tingling spreads throughout your body and eventually dissipates altogether.

  You don’t feel any differently. But, you realize, that’s sort of the point. You’ll never be any different. Tomorrow and all the rest of your days will feel the same as this day. No more will you age. Your body won’t decay and deteriorate like everyone else.

  The party continues, but you’re not much interested in partying. You’re not much interested in anything. You just sit on the couch, staring out the penthouse windows, losing your zest for life as the Gilgazyme® changes your genetic code within. When Phoenix invites you up for a threesome with the bottomless hooker, you just sit and stare out the window. When the topless hooker tries to seduce you, you just sit and stare out the window. And when she overdoses and dies, choking on her own vomit, you just sit and stare out the window.

  Be careful what you wish for: you’re immortal, but at what cost? You’ve extended your corporeal body indefinitely, but the price was your soul. Now the topless zombie rises next to you, a little too slowly. She looks at you, her matted hair stuck with dried vomit, making it impossible to see her face; glazed, hungry eyes stare out from under the mess.

  Somehow she realizes you’re quickly on your way to becoming like her, and ignores you. You watch as she shuffles toward the stairs, her perfect-10 body pale and emaciated, bare feet padding against the hardwood floor.

  When Dr. Phoenix screams out in terror, it does nothing to you. You’re not interested in eating him—yet—but you’re certainly not interested in helping him either. The two hooker zombies take care of him, while you just sit and stare out the window.

  Soon he will rise again, the hunger will grow within you, and the four of you will want to go find more people with whom to share your gift. Your hands are all but useless, so you won’t be able to open the door. Unfortunately, his penthouse has a heavy metal door: industrial-warehouse-chic.

  • I guess that means I’ll just shamble around this plush apartment for the rest of time.

  • The door is open to the balcony, only thirteen stories down to sweet, sweet civilization.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Et Tu, Reader?

  You crack your bat against Tyberius’ spine, causing him to lurch and release a gasping Cooper to the floor. He’s still crazed and grabs onto your bat. You shove him away, giving up the bat and pulling the rope to stop the flow of undead. But the shove was more than you both expected. Tyberius falls back, down the stairs and onto the landing—just before the barrier comes crashing down atop the welding mask zombie and your former companion.

  Cooper says nothing, but she doesn’t have to. The shock on her face says it all.

  • “Let’s just go find the others.”

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Executioners

  Brandishing your axe, you charge down the hill after Lucas. The two of you huff in silence; only the browned forest floor crunching beneath your feet announces your presence. It’s odd; you feel like you should be whooping out a war cry, but you know better. Your army of two must move like a pair of wisps through the woods.

  The zombies turn as you approach. You can see their faces change from blank, sodden expressions like those of a corpse on a gurney, to lewd joy, like a grifter about to make the big score.

  In movements as elegant as a ballroom dancer, Lucas’ body flows behind the power of his sword. Its edge moves cleanly through the necks of the two standing ghouls, leaving just the one crawling on the ground. The blows are so succinctly perfect, the zombies take two more steps toward Lucas before the muscles realize that their connection to the brain has been severed. They fall to the earth in heaps.

  Your zombie’s lower jaw has been stripped of skin from the days he’s spent crawling on the ground. You can see the tendons and muscle fibers moving as he snaps his jaws at you. Like a hooded executioner before the king, you bring your axe down upon the fiend.

  You tried to make a show of it, like Lucas, by beheading the man. Your axe, however, is far blunter than his katana. You have to hack at the poor soul’s neck six times before you finally sever the connection. Eventually, the gruesome deed is done.

  Lucas tips his face mask back as he approaches. He squeezes your arm and says, “I never thought I would find friendship again in this life, but here you are!” Then the moment is broken as he ushers you away. You both look down and see that the severed head snaps its jaws at you still.

  “Be on the lookout for those,” Lucas says. You bring down your axe down on the head, opening it up like a watermelon and stilling it for good.

  “After you,” and you open your hand to Lucas to indicate that you’re ready to continue.

  Lucas nods. “The shelter should not be too much further from here, but I do not want to go through the marshes at night. Let us stake an early camp up ahead and by lunch tomorrow we will be in the company of other survivors. I cannot wait for you to meet my sister; you will like her!”

  • “Sounds good. I’ll take first watch.”

  • “I bet I will! Do you mind taking first watch? I’m a little tired.”

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Feeling Tipsy

  Whatever Phoenix gave you to drink sure was strong. Your head’s spinning. He makes himself a line of coke on the coffee table and snorts it with labored grunts of delight. He rises from the couch and stumbles over toward the balcony. He slides the glass door open with a pull and staggers onto the balcony with such uncoordinated steps, you think he might fall over the railing.

  But he catches himself, throws up his arms, and yells, “Thank you, Lewis Deleon! I’m gonna live forever, motherfuckers!”

  Either the Doctor slipped you some Rohypnol, or the expensive stuff is far more potent. Either way, you’re feeling like a lightweight. Nothing is steady in your vision. He definitely spiked your drink.

  Coming back into the skyrise apartment, Phoenix extends a hand to the girl without panties, the bottomless hooker, and helps her to her feet. He turns around to you. “I’m going upstairs with this one. You can stay down here with that one… or come on up with us. It’s up to you.”

  • There is no bottom to your need to party. So why not head upstairs with that handsome Doctor and the girl with no bottom layers?

  • “I’ll stay down here, thanks.”

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Fight Reflex

  You were smart enough to tie the hammer on the outside of your backpack, so it’s easy to grab. You sprint over, slide to the floor like you’re stealing home, and slip the tool out just as the pair of zombies make it over to you. Housewife Zombie is out in front, so she’s the first threat—she reaches down for you and you crab-walk backwards to evade her grasp.

  She’d have you, if it weren’t for the axe lodged in her ribcage. As she lunges forward, the shaft of the weapon holds her at bay like the third leg of a tripod. You scuttle backward, desperate to get back on your feet. She pushes hard, the axe ripping her open and spilling out her abdominal cavity.

  Thieving Zombie is now your greatest threat. He’s able-bodied and lunges at you fast. In reflex, you roll back as he falls upon you, kicking him in the chest and sending him over your shoulders with his own momentum. I’ll have to remember that trick, you think. He smashes head-first into a china cabinet, and Housewife Zombie grabs for you once more—thank God for that axe.

  Still, her fervor for your blood proves stronger, and she comes at you with such strength that the axe begins pushing out of her back. First, the blade protrudes, then the handle inches its way out as she inches closer.

  You crack her across the head with the hammer, but fro
m your seated position you’re not able to use your full strength. Her head bobs to the side from the blow but her skull stays intact.

  Thieving Zombie is back on you again. Thinking quickly, you grip the axe handle and maneuver Housewife Zombie into him, using her as a shield. Finally, you’re able to get to your feet again. Now the couple is on the floor, and you’ve got the high ground because you’re standing.

  From overhead, you bring the hammer down on Thieving Zombie as hard as your body weight allows. Crack—dead. Housewife Zombie looks up at you with hungry rage. You bring the hammer down on her head three times, just to make sure the job is done, then you bludgeon Thieving Zombie once more for good measure.

  All is still, it is done. You’re suddenly aware of your pounding heart, glistening sweat, and heaving breath. And… you’re not alone. You turn toward your new visitors, a man and a woman, with hammer raised, but quickly realize they’re human.

  The woman is probably in her early thirties, though it’s certainly possible the last few weeks have aged her. She’s dirty, just like you, but she’s beautiful, in a hard-as-nails sort of way. Black hair and blacker eyes. She wears an unbuttoned mechanic’s shirt with a fitted undershirt beneath. The embroidered nametag reads, “Cooper.”

  The man is most likely in his forties and wears the stained whites of a kitchen worker from a hole-in-the wall restaurant. He’s Latino, short, plain, and his pock-marked face has a calm countenance.

  Cooper holds a giant monkey wrench, and a chain coiled around her shoulder. He wields a meat cleaver and a frying pan. They stare at you; how long have they been watching?