INFECTED (Click Your Poison)

by James Schannep

  With some ceremony, he lifts and pushes the first remote. A house on the left of Tyberius and Guillermo screeches with alarm as the home security is activated. A few zombies peel off to investigate, but most continue after the men—toward you.

  Sims fishes another remote out of the bag. “Hurry the fuck up,” Cooper says. “Just mash ‘em all.”

  The electrician complies. Four houses in total scream in panic, diluting the horde but not eliminating the threat. Hefty grabs the last trash bag, and the group takes off as the two runners arrive. There’s the tidal wave of beasties behind you, but that’s not your only worry. With the alarms and the chorus of moans, any and all zombies come out of the woodwork. Crashing out of windows, tearing their flesh through planked fences, seemingly birthed from the homes themselves, the neighborhood becomes ensconced in undead.

  “Where are we going?” you ask.

  “Away!” your leader screams.

  The horde behind you isn’t the problem now, it’s those ahead of you; coming at you as you run. You feel like a football player, running down the gridiron, bag tucked to your chest, trying to avoid the reaching hands.

  One of the undead grabs Hefty’s sack, tears it open, spilling the food across the street. Serving as a light at the end of the tunnel, you see the exit of the neighborhood ahead; a nozzle of street out of the suburbs toward downtown.

  The other members of your group start to pass you, and you clearly see Hefty speed up after he loses his cargo. Yours is filled mainly with canned food and weighs heavily. The thought crosses your mind that you’d be faster and more agile without it. What do you do?

  • Toss the food; don’t become it myself.

  • Try harder! Can’t run without food forever.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Team Lucas

  The next morning, you share breakfast together, and Lucas asks you to tell him your story. It’s not very cinematic or detailed, but you comply. After you do so, he agrees to return the favor.

  “I run a kendo dojo back in the city. We practice ancient combat with non-lethal gear. This sword, however, was my father’s. His family came here from Japan after the war. I was raised in a strict household and adopted bushido—a code of honor I take very seriously. That is why I must help others when I can. You must understand this when traveling with me: if we see others in danger, we will stop to help.”

  The way he speaks of his life before the outbreak in present tense assures you somehow. He offers you one of his biscuits. “We should eat that which might spoil first.” He tears off a piece of his own, swallowing the bite before continuing, “I hope to find my sister at this shelter. I stayed back to look after my students, but she fled right away. Come, let us walk.”

  When he mentions his sister, his eye contact breaks. He reloads his pack, removes a large axe and hands it to you. It’s not the sharpest; intended for chopping firewood, but if it can split a log, it can split a skull. You nod your thanks, then follow Lucas Tesshu as he leads you through the woods.

  “We mustn’t panic. My sister fled without thinking, without a plan. As these cadavers do not decompose, the problem could go on a while. I’m sure you’ve noticed they lose very little blood and fluid, because there’s no blood pressure without a beating heart. Somehow their bodies continue to operate even when dead. It makes no sense. And without decay, who knows how long the scourge will last?”

  He stops, stiff against the cool morning air, a hand on the hilt of his blade. Then you hear it too: a moaning on the wind. Lucas motions for you to fall in line behind him. You do so, trying to step as lightly as possible, yet it’s only your steps you hear.

  Soon you’re upon the zombie. It’s a middle-aged man with a beard, most likely a hermit who never saw it coming. His leg is clinched in a large bear trap, the steel teeth ripping flesh from bone as he struggles to get loose.

  “We’d do well to look for other snares like this one,” your guide tells you as the ghoul snaps his jaws. “This was set by someone looking for living corpses, not bears.” Lucas sighs, rubbing his stubble in contemplation.

  “What are we waiting for?” you ask, uncomfortable at the close proximity to the fiend, whose soulless eyes stare at you with hunger.

  “I don’t know what to do. The code says I must help him, but I’m not sure how. Should I kill him, to end his suffering? Or do we leave him be? If there’s a cure, he’d only need that leg amputated. He’s perfectly preserved and healthy otherwise. But if he breaks free, he could follow us and call other ‘Preserved’ to our camp. What do you think?”

  • “Kill him. He’s not human anymore, so I doubt your code applies.”

  • “I guess he’s not going anywhere. Let’s just move quickly.”

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Team Rosie

  “Cool,” she says. After informing you that first watch is yours, she heads into the bedroom to sleep. Twelve hours later, you’ve both gotten six hours of sleep and it’s time to move again.

  She pulls out a terrain map and compass. “There’s supposed to be a compound north of here. Civilian-owned but paramilitary-run. They were broadcasting before the networks went down. That’s where we’re going. We’re going on foot. Quieter, more direct, less chance of meeting Zulu.” She packs up and starts to walk.

  “Zulu?” you ask.

  “Zombie. Zulu’s the phonetic alphabet for ‘Z’, kind of like the Viet Cong were ‘Victor Charlie’ in ‘Nam. I thought it fitting. We can call them Zoo for short if you want.”

  You nod, and having already packed all you can take from your car, start walking behind her.

  “I may only be seventeen,” she continues, “and a girl, but I’m a survivor. I figure all three of those things make me a precious commodity in this new world, and I aim to stay that way. That makes me in charge. Also, I like to talk a lot, and you’ll just have to deal with that too.”

  * * *

  After a few hours of hiking, you stop for lunch. You sit with your backs against a tree, on opposite sides so you each can survey 180 degrees of forest. Rosie continues talking to you, despite the lack of eye contact.

  “Eventually, you need to learn how to use my rifle. It’s a Ruger 10/22. Lightweight, I’m carrying over a thousand rounds, and I can sneeze louder than the shot—which helps when you don’t want to alert Zulu. You’re painfully unprepared for all this. Here, I found this in one of the cabins; it beats your fire poker.”

  Around the tree, she hands you a large axe intended for chopping firewood. It’s not the sharpest thing, but if it can split a log, it can split a skull.

  “My daddy was a combat-seasoned Marine, so I know what I’m talking about. Before you ask where he is—don’t.” She hops up and comes around to your side. “He left me prepared. I’ve got these Kevlar sleeves and this paintball armor. It’s not much, but it’s tight and light, so it helps. We need to get you outfitted soon. I used to work at a firing range back in the world, so I can teach you when the time comes. You done eating?”

  You nod. After packing up, you and Rosie start to hike again. She’s got plenty of spunk, that’s for sure.

  “We should share what we know,” she says. “I’ll go first. From what I’ve seen, it takes about six hours from bitten to biting. These Hollywood assholes have ruined the world, pardon my language, but this is America, so we’ll be fine. I don’t want to hear you say any different.

  “Even so, things are a lot further on than the media would have us believe. Those celebrities made the news for eating each other, but that drug was on the market before they went nuts in public. Wall Street fat cats have been feeding on the middle class for a long time, so it wasn’t really newsworthy when they started doing it in the literal sense. Plus they have whole staffs dedicated to keeping that stuff out of the spotlight. No, I’d say we only heard about the infection once things started getting really bad.”

  She looks at you. You tell her you don’t really know anything.

  “Well, they don’t feel pai
n, I can tell you that for sure. They don’t sleep, need food, or even breathe. And the only way to kill them is with a headshot—‘nuff said.”

  She stops and holds her arm up at a ninety-degree angle, her hand making a fist, the military signal for “halt.” She points two fingers up ahead and checks things out with the scope of her rifle. Then she hands the rifle to you.

  You look where she did, scanning for activity. Up ahead, a man wanders in the woods. He’s a park ranger, or at least he was. His uniform is smattered with gore and part of his face is torn off—exposing his right jaw and teeth.

  “Your shot,” she says.

  • “I guess it’s just one, and I need to learn—how do you work this thing?”

  • “I think we better stay quiet. How about I learn how to use this axe instead?”

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Terminal Velocity

  You kick open the right half of the double doors while Rosie kicks in the left. You flank into the terminal, covering your respective sides while Lucas Tesshu backpedals behind you and ensures your rear is protected. “Make sure you positively identify cadavers before you fire,” he says.

  You see a man in a mechanic’s jumpsuit, his lower jaw missing and his upper lip torn off. Yep, he’s a zombie all right. You blast the rest of his face away with the shotgun. There’s a growling moan off by Rosie’s side, and you glance over just in time to see her put an undead aviator down.

  “Hello!” you shout. “Doc? We’re here to rescue you! Come on out!”

  With that, whole undead families come out of the recesses of the terminal, happy to meet you. You strafe around to line up two men of similar height and blast both their skulls apart with a single shell. Rosie plinks off well-aimed shots at the rate of two per second, and you’ve spread out enough for Lucas to rush up the middle and give several of the snarling fiends the slice-and-dice treatment with his katana.

  Around the next corner, a group of undead surround and pound on the cafeteria doors. They want something inside, and odds are it’s not hot pockets and breakfast burritos. The dozen of them turn around to meet you. Within two seconds, the three of you have dispatched the whole lot.

  You and Rosie reload your weapons while Lucas stands guard. No further zombies appear. Still, who knows what’s inside the cafeteria? You turn the door handles and pull. Luckily for the doctor within, her attackers weren’t able to figure that one out.

  She drops her steak knife when she sees you. “Oh, thank God!” she says. She’s an attractive black woman in her late thirties, and remarkably clean.

  “Are you hurt?” Rosie asks. The doctor meekly shakes her head.

  “If you are okay to run, we have a jeep,” Lucas informs her. To this she nods.

  “All right, let’s go,” you say.

  The terminal is clear on the way out (you made sure of that on the way in), but at the doors you see a sizeable zombie crowd gathered. They’re not trying to break in just yet, but they know something’s up and their collective suspicion is sufficiently aroused. It wouldn’t take much to get them frenzied.

  “I’ve got an idea,” the doctor says, trembling. This must be her first large-scale encounter with the undead. An impressive feat, considering how long it’s been. She produces a flare gun.

  “Do it,” Lucas says.

  She nods and gulps hard. Fractious with nerves and shaking, but barely in control, she moves to the front door. Cracking it open, she pokes the barrel of the gun out into the open and pops the shot off. A glimmering arc streaks across the sky and the horde beyond watches it in unison. The flare sticks to the earth a hundred yards beyond your jeep, and in a few moments nearly every zombie is moving toward the unnatural light to investigate.

  “Now or never,” Rosie says.

  In a dead sprint, the four of you run out toward the jeep and leap in with huffing, panted breath. The engine fires up, and that’s when the flare no longer holds any interest for the zombie crowd. You gun the engine and peel away, the hundreds of ghouls stumbling after you in the dust.

  • Return to Salvation.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  There is No Try

  You pop your knee up, lifting the load higher on your chest. The plastic trash bag clings to the sweat of your arms and face. You just barely see over the drawstring ties, and your breath condenses on the sack with each belabored gasp.

  It’s like you’re running a race, except you’ve suddenly gained fifty pounds. The rest of the group doesn’t look back, and you fall further and further behind. You want to scream for them to wait, but you’re exerting yourself so much you can’t spare the oxygen.

  With a sickening loss of balance, you fly forward. Something grabbed onto your leg and you weren’t ready for it. You careen onto the food sack, the cans cutting deeply into your chest. The bag bursts against the pavement and your precious groceries splay out on the road. The reason for your fall is made clear as you look back—a zombie woman hangs halfway out of a drainage ditch by the curb, clutching your ankle in a bony hand.

  You kick her hard in the head, freeing yourself. But it’s too late. Before you can stand, the mob has you, and in an orgy of violence, tears you limb from limb. You’re eaten alive in bite-sized chunks, devoured down to the bone, so that there’s nothing left to rise again.

  THE END

  There Was a Firefight

  As you hand him the assault rifle, he smiles and says, “You’re one cool bastard, Newjack,” then screams out for all to hear, “We’re still open for business, cocksuckers! Come and get it!” Then he raises the rifle, aims, holds his breath, and cracks off shots at the rate of two or three a second—all of which are somehow lethal.

  You hold the shotgun at the ready, bringing it up to your eye and hovering over the nearest ghoul. Just before you’re about to shoot, the soldier blows her head off. “Watch our six!” he yells. “And don’t shoot until you see the yellow of their eyes.”

  Behind you more undead approach. You rest your elbows against the Hummer’s frame and look out across the vehicle. When the first one’s within range, you point the shotgun at the vicinity of his face and BANG, it’s gone. For close quarters, nothing’s more effective than the shotgun.

  Another three undead come at you from your right, all moans bubbling out of bloody mouths. With three shots in half as many seconds, they’re on the ground and no longer a threat.

  “Nice work, Newjack! Fuckin’ badass!” The combat shotgun is amazing, but you’re acutely aware you’ll need to reload at some point. As if reading your mind, the soldier shouts, “Reloading!” You turn to cover the area while he switches out ammo. With a great roar from the shotgun, you blow another one away. “I’m good,” he says.

  “Reloading!” you shout back. It takes you much longer than him, but you find some extra shells in the ammo bag and slide them into the breach below. You’ve seen enough movies to figure this one out without too much trouble.

  Like the defenders of an undead Alamo, you keep the barrage away as best you can. But in the end, it’s a feckless task. They were gaining in numbers when your friend was firing a fully automatic machine gun. You’ve thinned their numbers more than others can boast, and with the hungry horde closing in, you can take comfort knowing you won’t rise again—as you’ll certainly be picked clean down to the bone. You won’t survive this.

  As they overwhelm you, you’ve got one final choice.

  • Shoot yourself.

  • Get eaten.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  There Will Be Blood

  You head to the nurse’s station with Hefty. Your goal is simply to collect medical supplies, but it appears he’s got something else in mind. There are several bags of blood in storage, evidently, because the Red Cross recently had a blood drive. Maybe to prep for evacuation? And yet the man has no interest in transfusions.

  He takes the bags and hoists them up, mounting them on the hallway walls at various positions. He knows you’re curious, and finally decides to slake
your interest. “I’ve got a theory. When you go hunting, you spread scent to attract the big bucks. So maybe this’ll work as a decoy if any get in. Come on, help me spread these around, then we can scream into some tape recorders.”

  You help Hefty spread his musk, bait the traps, collect some medical supplies, then return to the group.

  • Head back to the gym.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  They Tell No Tales

  You amble past the iron gates, dry roses crunching underfoot, and into the cemetery. The place is a graveyard; no one’s here. You clearly watched too many movies back when you were mortal. And apparently something deep within your psyche told you this would be the place to go. It’s not.

  Humanity no longer has the means to bury their dead in ceremonious plots. The dead here will not rise again. There will be no mourning of loved ones inside this once green-lawned sanctuary of bones. So… better keep moving.

  • I’m still hungry. How about an all-you-can-eat buffet?

  • Hmm, where do scared people go? Police station!

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  This Isn’t According to Plan

  You make it to the third and final stairwell. Cooper and Deleon almost crash into one another coming around the corner. They stop and double-back to their own hallways, then look down the intersection—the undead have already made their way up the stairs and now are meandering down the hall toward you. So much for isolating yourself up here.

  “Hefty?” she asks.

  “Tyberius?” he says in unison.

  They both shake their heads. “Shit,” Cooper says.

  “Any more ideas?” Deleon whispers. Cooper shakes her head once more. “If you can slow them down, I can get to my lab—”