INFECTED (Click Your Poison)

by James Schannep

  You’re not totally unencumbered without the food bag. Your backpack could still be a deadly hazard if a gnarled, bloody hand with ripped-off fingertips managed even a tenuous hold on one of the straps.

  Hammer in hand, you tear across the pavement in an effort to catch up to the group. A zombie reaches out at you from a curbside sewer drain, but you see the fiend just in time to hurdle over the outstretched arm.

  An undead teenager tackles into you, but you refuse to be knocked over. You duck down, legs bent, and throw the man off you like a wrestler in the ring. He clutches at your leg, and you bring the hammer down on his head twice; ending the encounter.

  You make it back to the group just as the neighborhood ends and you’re out to a larger road. The bulk of the horde is behind you, but still you must jog to keep ahead of it. No one else has their trash bags of food either.

  “Where to?” Tyberius asks, looking to Cooper.

  “Supermarket,” she huffs. “We will eat today.”

  • Continue to the Supermarket.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Like a Raging Bull

  You slam your axe against the lock with your full strength. However, even the most miserly of pawnshop owners invest in badass padlocks, and you get more feedback rushing up your arms than the heavy steel receives.

  Still, that wasn’t the only swing you had in you. Even if you have to shatter your axe in the process, you’re getting in! Again and again you rattle the cage with your axe, sure to keep the lock square between blows. Small metal filings chip off the lock—progress!

  The first zombie announces her presence with a hot moan on the back of your neck. You turn and cleave the axe against her temple with redoubled effort.

  “I don’t have time for this shit!” you yell as she hits the pavement.

  Killing the fiend reenergized you, and the lock doesn’t stand a chance. Its clatter to the pavement is sweet music to your ears. You wrench the gate back and try the door—locked. Of course. Well, get ready to scream, “Here’s Johnny!” Wood jumps away from the door as you pummel it with the axe. Of course, this is no mere closet partition, this is a thick security door. It’s going to take a little while.

  Two more zombies show up behind you with moans and growls—isn’t it nice of them to announce their arrival? You turn toward them and in your frenetic frenzy, you’re more annoyed with the hassle of dispatching them than you are frightened.

  You crush the skull of the first as easily as your previous attacker, then duck down to evade the grasp of the second. With the gritty pavement securely under one palm, you bash his kneecap with a firm kick. His legs snap backward in a sickening insect-like way. As the ghoul falls, you rise and then it’s just like chopping firewood before he’s twice-dead.

  Examining the horizon, there’s a hard truth: the next wave will be nine undead together. You’ve got about thirty seconds. Reeling around to the door, you set your stance wide, right foot back, and make quick work of the door. Popeye and his spinach have nothing on you and your can of need-to-live.

  You scream, fiercely drowning out the drone of the undead, and finally get a break—the tip on the axe finds open air behind the door. Almost there! You smash it harder and harder. With the same hot growl, the pack of undead are behind you and in range. In one more burst of fury, you smash into the door and burst through it.

  A shotgun cracks to life and throws your face out and across the crowd.

  The pawnshop owner was waiting for you the whole time, the bastard. If you saw this coming, raise your hand; if not, fall to the pavement dead. The zombies step over your lifeless body and push their way into the store. A single shotgun won’t do the man any good against the whole neighborhood.

  THE END

  Like MacGyver

  After a moment, you find a piece of the shattered porthole door-window large enough for your purposes. Like a striking viper, your hand shoots out into the open, claims the glass, and returns without getting blown away. Using the glass as a mirror, you see it’s not an armed civilian at all, but an improvised booby-trap. A thrashing movement comes from inside, then stops.

  “Hello?” you ask in a whisper.

  You creep around the corner into the house, a death-grip on your axe, and look up with alarm at a body hanging from a noose. Although it is limp, for some reason the body sways. The rope creaks and groans. Then the corpse lurches with life and moans and growls, snapping its jaws. The Hangman Zombie can’t get you as it dangles suspended from the ceiling.

  • Agh, a zombie! Ruuuuuuuun.

  • Eh, he’s detained. Keep looking.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Listen to Ackbar

  The aluminum siding screams “cheap to build,” and probably wouldn’t stand up to a hurricane, but it’s safe enough; the living dead could only pass through the single entrance you now face. This is a full-height turnstile, similar to a revolving door, like those used in some big-city railway stations. Muffled sounds are coming from within: livestock, maybe? Or is that human speech? The hair on the back of your neck rises with a fresh dose of adrenaline, and you proceed with newfound skepticism.

  You’ve never seen a barn with a turnstile entrance; the rancher must’ve custom-built it for some specific purpose. The barn curves around inside with the turnstile, and as a result you cannot see beyond this gate. You power up a flashlight, hold tight to your weapon, and push one of the horizontal crossbars—which moves freely.

  You push slowly and cautiously; it’s impossibly dark inside. Once you make it inside, you sweep the beam of the flashlight out in front—broad strokes which, oddly, produce no image. From above, you hear a cow moo, quickly followed by a young girl’s laughter. Umm… what? Shining the flashlight at the source of the noise, you find a speaker hoisted to the ceiling. For whatever reason, human and animal recordings are playing through the sound system.

  You point the flashlight at your feet and come to the realization that you’re standing on a small platform. There’s a ramp leading down into the barn; you’re raised above the entrenched floor level. Leaning carefully, you aim the light downward to see what exactly this barn holds.

  The barn is thick with undead. They look up to your flashlight, their eyes not bothering to adjust, and reach up to you in hunger. The howling moans overtake the artificial sounds of life emanating from the speakers.

  Suddenly, it all clicks. The single entrance, the sounds of the living, the lowered floor below: you’ve just stumbled into a zombie trap. Without hesitation, you turn back and press against the turnstile, but it’s a one-way model and won’t budge no matter how hard you push.

  In panic, you give it a powerful heave, smashing your body against the gate like a battering ram. The final aspect of the trap springs into action—the floor is coated with some kind of grease or oil, and you slip down the ramp under your own momentum.

  For a brief time, your screams prove more inviting than the false noises from above—that little girl’s laughing again—and the crowd of ghouls collects atop you in your prone position. You try to flee up the ramp, but it’s far too slick and steep. The first bite comes into your leg. You can’t fight them off, but don’t worry, there won’t be enough of you left to rise again.

  THE END

  Lock, Stock and Barrel

  You arrive at the stockroom and join in the semicircle around a large pallet of beans. Several camping lanterns illuminate the scene, allowing you to see the area better. There could be undead behind any corner, crawling forward through the shadows, or locked in a back office. You’re ready to get back out into the sunlight.

  “Trust me,” Sims says. “I’ve done a lot of research on this kind of thing. If you can only take one type of food with you—pound for pound, it’s beans, so…”

  “Load up,” Cooper instructs.

  Deleon shakes his head. “Look, this is all great, but I need to get to a hospital or something.”

  “The hospital was overrun,” Angelica says in not more than a whisp
er, staring off into nothingness. There’s a moment of silence. Her unspoken pain is thick in the shadowy air.

  “What’s your plan then, Cooper?” Deleon asks finally.

  “Find guns, lots of them. Then blast my way to safety.”

  “Where’s that?” you ask.

  “Haven’t found it yet. Look, we’re all the same. Our safe places stopped being safe. We’re all just trying to find a new one.”

  “I’m going to signal rescue, at all costs. So…” Sims says.

  “Shut up, Sims.”

  Deleon shakes his head, pacing. “I don’t have time to waste on a goddamn gunstore. I need a lab where I can devote some serious time to this thing.”

  “Which is why you need us, Doc,” she says. “We provide security, you provide the cure.”

  Tyberius speaks up. “What about the high school? There’s a chemistry lab, plus it’s got a cafeteria. I know they’ve got emergency supplies.”

  Deleon snaps his fingers. “Hey… that’s not bad.”

  “They’s a sportin’ good shop neah by,” Hefty says in his deep Southern accent.

  Cooper nods. “Good, guns first, then this school.”

  “No,” Deleon says firmly. “I need to get to that lab.”

  • “Come on, Doc. Just a quick stop. Can’t make the cure while you’re dead.”

  • “Let’s get that school set up, Cooper. Then we can send a few of us on a gun run.”

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Lone Wolf

  You go your own way, looking back not out of indecision or regret, but only to ensure that you weren’t followed. On your own, you roam the wilderness of the apocalypse. You’ve never been a fan of other people and now your misanthropy is justified. After all, the undead pursue the living, so it’s best to avoid both, right? Hiking is nice, but not when you’re constantly looking over your shoulder. Not when you’ve got blisters growing on top of blisters, either.

  In the four days since you struck out on your own, you haven’t seen a single zombie, but you’ve slept in trees just in case. You’ve been slowly whittling down your food supply. In fact, it is this impending hunger that brings you close to civilization once more. You can only be a nomad so long when you’re pursued every hour of the day. The undead scare away any wildlife you might hunt, and it’s not like you can settle down and grow your own food. But scavenging is a different matter altogether.

  You’ve reached a farm, and now it’s time to look for something to eat. There are a couple different options for procuring sustenance:

  • Check the fields. Something smells like strawberries; maybe it’s harvest time?

  • There’s a large aluminum pre-fab barn up ahead. It looks windowless and secure, so something’s bound to be stored inside.

  • The farmhouse. All the goods should be dried or canned already.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  The Long Slog

  You traverse the fields and fountains, moors and mountains all night long, but this marsh is labyrinthine and the dense canopy negates the possibility of navigation by starlight. So you trudge the trenches, unsure of what progress you’re making or if you’re even headed in the right direction.

  * * *

  The sun has long since risen. You’ve walked all night and never found your way out of the bog. The air is humid with the heat of day, but your swamp stays dim and shaded. A young undead woman walks over to you, but then it’s as if you’re invisible. She looks right through you and continues walking past. Maybe she’s not interested because you’ve been bitten?

  Your blood is thick with fatigue. No, not quite fatigue, but your hike slows to a lackluster crawl nonetheless. It’s almost like you’re bored. Like you don’t give a damn one way or another if you make it to shelter. Unless…shelter…full of people. Scratch that—you want to find this place. Desperately.

  You’re on the move with purpose again. You must find this compound, and liberate those within! They live a life of fear and bondage, and you know deep down you can free them of that. Not to mention that you’re hungry, and those people will surely feed you.

  There’s a man in the distance, walking through the marshes. He can feed you right now! You stumble toward him in anticipation, arms out front. What a sight you must be, like a wilderness survivor on the brink of death finding a park ranger at long last.

  A moan breaches the still of the morning, penetrating the deepest reaches of the woods. The moan, you realize, is coming from you. Then another one rockets out from behind. Without looking, you know it’s that same undead woman; the other zombie. Zombie is such a crude term for what you are. The other immortal. The goddess.

  Now the man is onto you. He turns, giving you a good look at the kendo uniform he wears—simply put: practice samurai armor.

  The folds of his robes and armor move fluidly like some great bird of prey. Your quarry seems confident, but you don’t care. You just want to eat him. He removes a katana from its sheath with a metallic shing and before you even know what’s happened—your head falls into the swamp with a ker-plunk of backsplash and sinks, but you’re not dead yet. You can see the murky waters and the detritus floating within. After a moment, you come to rest on the muddy bottom on the right side of your face.

  What now? Perhaps you can get some food when someone else wanders through the swamp? You could bite their ankles if they get close enough, or maybe—nope—the katana slices into the water and finds your head.

  Damn, this guy is thorough.

  THE END

  Lost Vegas

  You’re on a balcony five hundred feet in the air. It’s the balcony of your suite. The wind fluffs your hair and sets your finest duds to dancing. You look out at the strip below. Glittering lights, hordes of people, and wealth passing hands faster than anywhere else in the world. You will seldom find a place more accepting of high rollers than Sin City, and you most certainly fit in that category. This is a city where the rich are literally propped up by the poor; the money of losers built the very floors beneath you. Officially, the hotel only has thirty-six floors, but you’ve got the room on the thirty-seventh. It’s usually reserved for celebrities and foreign dignitaries—you’re the suite’s first immortal.

  But even though you’re on top of the world, you don’t feel it. If anything, you feel bored. Your party awaits you back inside the room; they’re all gathered for your dramatic entrance. Could it be that, knowing you’ll live forever, life has lost its meaning? Perhaps the beauty of a fleeting moment is dulled when you could just repeat the moment a hundred years from now.

  No, that’s not it, either. You’re bored… and kind of hungry. Yet the caviar and champagne holds no appeal for you. So used to getting what you want, you’re now crushed by concerns that there’s no longer anything worth wanting. Oscar Wilde once said, “There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.” Problem is, at this moment, you don’t know what you want.

  Then Stacy comes out on the balcony. “We’re ready for you,” she says.

  And now you know what you want—you’re ready for her. Stacy, your loyal assistant, looks ravishing. Before you even know what you’re doing, you lunge at her, ready to devour her every ounce of flesh. She doesn’t even have a chance.

  Stacy falls back, with you still clawing and biting, through the glass doors and into the room. With a great clatter of designer windowpane and curtains, you sprawl into the suite. Everyone you invited looks on with horror at what the Gilgazyme ® has made you; at the price of your immortality.

  As your assistant bleeds out, your urges change. Once she falls limp, it’s only the fresh humanity before you that can slake your thirst. You amble toward the other guests, who scream in panic and shove one another out of the way in a selfish bid for survival. Hey, works for you. The anorexic-thin dates your male guests brought will serve as a nice appetizer, and in the calamity, they were nice enough to leave two such women behind.

  Stacy may be gone, bu
t she’s not forgotten. The Gilgazyme ® that changed your genetic code is now frantically at work within her. Soon your assistant will be sticking to your side like it’s any normal day. Together, you’ll paint the town red.

  The screams in the hallway beyond the open door of your room prove an irresistible dinner bell and you calmly walk toward them. People flee from the mere sight of you. You see some go into a stairwell, but running doesn’t much appeal to you anymore. The elevator, on the other hand, is a different story. Canned food? Yes, please. The doors begin to close, but you can’t run to catch the food cart; it’s almost like your feet are incased in concrete. Their eyes grow wide and they smash the “close door” button with frenzy. But you’re so incredibly excited, you begin to stumble toward them. It’s not quite a run, but it does the trick. You slip in just before the doors close. Stacy will have to take the stairs.

  Oh boy, oh boy—sardines. You take a millisecond to enjoy what’s about to come, then you dive right in, ripping apart anyone you can touch. And they’ve got nowhere to go; it’s like eating fish in a barrel. It’s a long way down to “Lobby,” so your feasting is about as much as the undead could hope for. Blood and flesh, garnished with sweat and tears.

  With a “ding,” you reach the lobby, and the doors pull open. All your victims cower on the floor; they’ve still got some life in them, but your curiosity gets the better of you. You turn around.

  Casino security is waiting. Seeing your gore-smattered countenance and the victims quaking by your feet, they open fire. The first few shots just tickle. However, unfortunate as it is, one of the guards scores a shot just above your right eye. Right in the brain—you’re dead.