He looks you up and down, as if formulating some decision. His eyes squint at you and you wonder what could be going through his mind. At length, he grins. Then it becomes a playboy’s smile.
“I like your style, Janitor. Nobody else gets me here. I was thinking about having some girls up to my place, throwing a real party in style. Why don’t you join me? Strictly as friends, of course. Though, who knows, get enough cocaine in me and I may change my mind—if that’s what you’re into. What do you say, want to see somebody stop aging for the first time in history?”
• “Count me in!” This could be exactly your way inside the Company.
• “Sorry, I value my job as a janitor too much to fraternize with the boss. I mean, in this economy, you know?” Wait until he leaves, then go check out Deleon’s office.
• “Sorry, I value my job as a janitor too much to fraternize with the boss. I mean, in this economy, you know?” Wait until he leaves, then go check out Rodent Testing.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
You’re Sick
Better go to the hospital, right? The place is categorical pandemonium, and you’re here to help. The morgue completely rose, the mental ward went mental, and the ER declared a state of emergency. But be careful, there’s bound to be security in here somewhere, and they pack a sidearm full of brain kryptonite—bullets.
You moan. You can’t help it. It’s like humming when you’re happy, and you’re practically pulsating with excitement. Other gods and goddesses touched by the divine hand of Gilgazyme ® roam the halls. Some were brought here, while others were drawn, like you.
Throngs of humans arrive with every passing minute. A paltry few hope for a cure for loved ones; more are trying to rescue those already interned within. Either group is certainly doomed.
A doctor chases after a nurse, his bloody teeth champing from behind a torn surgical mask. She flees into the crowd forming in the halls; close enough for you to see, but far-off enough that it’s a missed opportunity. Then your chance arrives: Meals on Wheels. A wheelchair-bound human pushes his way through the hall with manic terror. Being one who doesn’t discriminate on handicap, you follow him.
A corpse picked clean serves as enough of a speed-bump, stopping your prey in his tracks. And oh, sweet day! He’s unarmed. If that weren’t convenient enough, he’s seated at a perfect height for you to dig right into his neck. Seriously, neck meat is the best.
Well, that was delicious; what’s next?
• Umm, this bone has just begun to get gnarled on. Keep looking in the hospital!
• The crowd is too thick; why not see what’s going on outside? You could valet in the parking lot.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Yum, Hippies
These people are organic, free-range fed, hormone and antibiotic free. In short, delicious and nutritious. They’re unwashed, but you don’t mind. How the hell has a peaceful commune survived this long? Don’t ask. Never look a gift horse in the mouth; just eat it.
So with arms spread wide, a man with dirty blond dreadlocks and hemp clothing greets you. “Hello, friend!” quickly turns into, “Get it the hell off!”
The great thing about pacifists is that no one tries to fight back. You get the unaware first, the infirm second, and the stoned out of their minds last. A few run away, but they’ll find an equally hospitable welcome by your fellow immortals before they get too far.
You’ll certainly never get this lucky again. The rest of humanity will be locked up tight if they’re not already dead. You’d better start looking for them.
• Get to wandering.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
THE END
Okay, so you died. Don’t beat yourself up over it, 95% of everyone die during the zombie apocalypse. That’s why it’s called an apocalypse. If everyone lived, it’d be called a “zombiepalooza.”
Luckily for you, this is a book, and you can keep trying. Remember what the last chapter was called? Click it below. Don’t remember? Pay more attention next time and click here to start over.
Airing the Dirty Pawndry
Alarming
Another Way
“Anybody at Home?”
Area One
Area Two
Area Three
Armed and Dangerous
Armored
Asylum
Away We Go
Bang
Bare/Arms
Biker Gang
Black Swan Dive
Blood Is As Thick As Blood
The Brave
Bravery’s Reward
Bring Me My Brown Pants
Brutal is the Survivor
Buy (or Loot) Local
Bystander Effect
Cabin Fever
Cafeteria á la Command Post
Call in the Cavalry
Camping is Intense
Caution: Student Driver
Charge the Ramparts!
Cleaning Up
Clean Living
A Closed-Door Policy
Club Members Only
Coke Fiend
Coming Out
The Compound
Control Room
The Coward’s Reward
Coyote in the City
Crack Shot
Crossroads
The Cure
Dead of Night, Rise of Day
Defend the Homestead!
Deleon’s Office
Devoured
Dig Deeper
Disappointment
The Doctor Is In
Door-to-door Anarchy
Downstairs
Down to a New Low
Driver
Ears Are Everywhere
Elapsed
Empty
En Fuego
Escape Route
Escort Duty
Eternity
Et Tu, Reader?
Executioners
Feeling Tipsy
Fight Reflex
The Final Countdown
Fire in the Hole!
A Fisher of Men
Flame On
Flight Reflex
Food Generator
Foragers
For Guns and Glory
Fresh, Local Produce
From Whence Thou Came
Fun with Deleon and Cooper
The Gang’s All Here
Gear Up
Getaway Driver
Getting Schooled
Gilgazyme®
Gods of the Underworld
Gone in a Flash
Goodbye
Go, Go, Go!
Gothic Horror
The Great Escape
Grin and Bare It
Gunner
Hammer Time
Hanging Around
Hanging Out with Dr. Armageddon
Hanging with Hefty and Tyberius
Head for the Hills!
Hello, Mr. Scientist
He Wasn’t Bluffing
Hiding Out with Dr. Apocalypse
High School Reunion
Hold Your Ground
Homebody
How High…
How Incredibly Pedestrian
Humane
Humanity’s Last Hope
Hunker Down
If You Play with Fire
If You Say So
Into the Hornet’s Nest
Into the Light
In Vain
Iron Will
It Favors the Bold
It’s Him or You
It’s the End of the World as We Know It
It’s You or Him
Journey to the Underworld
Just a Peek
Just In Time
Just Picking a Few Things Up
Keep Waiting
Killed With Kindness
Lady Killer
The Last Supper
Leap of Faith
Les Toilets
Let me Axe You a Question
Life Attic
Lighten the Load
Li
ke a Raging Bull
Like MacGyver
Listen to Ackbar
Lock, Stock and Barrel
Lone Wolf
The Long Slog
Lost Vegas
Machiavellian
Many Moons…
The Marshes
Mayday, Mayday, Mayday
Mexican Food
Moan, Sweet Moan
The Morning After
My, What a View
The Nachtmare
Nice Jugs
Nice Try
Night of the Living Swamp
Night School
Nobody Puts Baby Out of Her Misery
No Light at the End
No Loitering
No More Orders
Nothing In or Out
Not Interested
Not Without a Fight
Of Rats and Men
On a Mission
On a Spree
One Less Zombie
Only Fools Rush In
Oscar Mike
Out of Time
Pack Mentality
Pain
Parting is Such Sweet, Tasty Sorrow
Pawn Ranger
Pharmaceuticals
Phoenix’s Office
Playing Koi
Poker Face
Posthistoric Mankind
The Power is Yours
Practice Like You Play
Psycho
Rats!
Receiving Line
Red-Light Special
Regression
Regrouped
Remnants
Rescue Me
The Resemblance is Uncanny
Return Triumphant
The Road to Compromise
The Road Less Traveled
The Road Oft-Traveled
Rough Landing
Safe and Secure
Safety in Numbers
Saint Mary’s
School’s in Session
Sealed In
Search
Self-Fulfilling Prophesy
She’s Dead
She’s the Boss
Showdown
Shuffled Off This Immortal Coil
Shut the Front Door
Sickly Green Acres
The Sidekick
Slug It Out
The Social Elite
So Full You Could Burst
Staff Offices
Stairway to Hell
Stand and Fight
Strawberry Fields… Forever
Swamp Things
Sweat Generator
Sweet Relief
Taking Inventory
Taking It to the Streets
Team Cooper
Team Lucas
Team Rosie
Terminal Velocity
There is No Try
There Was a Firefight
There Will Be Blood
They Tell No Tales
This Isn’t According to Plan
Three Weeks Later…
To the Rescue!
To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
Tower of Terror
Under Control
Underneath It All
Understanding Sims and Guillermo
Undeterred
Unlocked
The Un-Necropolis
Un-Undead
Upstairs
Urbane Decay
Voyeur
Wait for Rescue
The Wanderer
Welcome to the Company
Welcome to Salvation
Welcome to Z-Mart
Well, Shoot
Whatever
What’s Cookin’?
What’s Going Down?
What’s Reasonable?
What’s Up?
What’s Your Emergency?
Who is Angelica?
Who’s the Boss?
With Friends Like These…
Women and Children First
Yacht Club
You Always Need Rope
Your Call
You’re Fired
You’re Really Sick
You’re Right
You’re Sick
Yum, Hippies
MURDERED
You’re in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in the days before Carnaval. You’ve only just arrived, less than three hours ago, but any travel weariness is replaced by the rush of Rio nightlife. You’re here on vacation with friends, ready for The Biggest Party on Earth, but right now you’re alone.
It might still be four days until the giant flotillas re-imagined as hummingbirds or jaguars parade down the street, covered in exotic, scantily-clad dancers like an infestation of glamorous fleas. It might be less than a week until the party really begins, but right now you can’t tell the difference. If this is merely part of the pre-festivities, this raucous, impromptu street party, you can scarcely imagine the pandemonium of full-blown Carnaval.
In four days, the whole country will cut loose, but already the streets are packed with singing and dancing crowds, like a cultural flashmob unconcerned with cameras or irony. They’re here for the samba and for the caipirinha—sugarcane liquor with lime and more sugar. You’ve had some already, but thankfully, you’re far from drunk. Otherwise you might not be concerned that the crowd has swept you up in their current and dragged you away from your friends.
There’s not a familiar face in sight.
In fact, all you see are Brazilians. Either gaunt, hard-workers, temporarily enraptured by the glee of Carnaval; or those who live for the party and so tonight is simply another Monday. Black descendants of former slaves freed into lives of poverty and revelers with Portuguese heritage mixed with a flourish of native Amazonian tribesmen—their traditions now intermingled into one novel culture.
You snap a picture—the scene is amazing. Still, you look around for your friends, scanning each face, and appearing very much like the hopelessly lost tourist that you are. Maybe for the rest of the week you should tie a rope around the lot of you; anchor yourself together as if you were summiting Mt. Everest.
Now the avalanche of humanity takes you further down the street, the relentless drumbeats threatening to set you dancing. You seek shelter in an alleyway, catching your breath, wiping sweat off your brow, and taking a moment to get your bearings. The ground in the alley is typical of these concrete passages, speckled with black tar-patches of gum and other residue, and cracks in the pavement sealed with collective detritus. A bird’s nest of telephone and electrical wires hangs overhead, nearly within reach. It’s much cooler here in the alley, away from the pulsing heat emitted from the dancers in the street proper. The alley walls are claustrophobically close, and stretch way down around the corner; they’re red brick, lacquered with teal green everywhere an arm could reach. Your camera rises as a reflex action; you take a picture.
In the preview on the LCD screen, you notice there’s the beginning of a graffiti mural sticking out from the adjoining alley. You peek around the corner to see the full image. It’s an angel, larger than life and in stunning detail. His hair is long and his face is placid, much like a beardless Christ. Yet this is a dark angel; his wings, not feathered, are formed from two AK-47 machine guns divided in broad symmetry. Two snakes wrap around his legs, originating from behind his ankles and enveloping his lower half like the caduceus, their heads biting his wrists and spreading his arms. A nuclear mushroom cloud which serves as his halo bursts forth from behind his flowing mane. In stylized calligraphy, the caption above reads, “Vou testemunhar.”
Just as the shutter clicks on your camera, a wooden slam from behind injects you with a shot of adrenaline. You turn and, seeing only a door flapping loosely in the cross-breeze, let out a sigh of relief. But as the door swings wide once more, you find your spine tingling.
There’s someone lying there, recumbent on the floor. Another tourist, passed out from too much caipirinha, perhaps? The opening to the doorway glimmers crimson under the streetlights.
As you step forward, your unease gives wa
y to a newfound terror—there’s blood, and lots of it. You lean inside the porthole and snap a picture of the room, just to be certain.
From your vantage point in the doorway, a woman’s shoe is illuminated, and a pale foot with painted toenails; that’s all you can see from this angle. Trembling, you step forward into the dark recesses of the room, careful not to tread in the blood. You want to call out, to ask if she’s okay, but right now concentrating on your breathing is the only thing fending off all-out panic.
And so you move forward in silence, teeth gritted and heart pounding. She’s not okay, you soon discover, not okay at all. More blood is spattered on the wall behind her. She is lying on the floor, facing away from the door, her blood pooled in a greater quantity than you realized was inside a human body.
When you come around in front of her, you see that her face has completely caved in under the force of some great trauma. You cover your mouth in horror at her injuries and quickly turn away.
Atop a large crate opposite the woman rests a snub-nosed, blue-metal revolver and a note that reads:
“PICK ME UP.”
• Pick up the gun.
• Leave it.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
INFECTED (Click Your Poison) Page 38
