S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus

by Saul Tanpepper

  With the bed in her way, I gain a few seconds. I look frantically for something to use as a weapon, anything that’ll help me get that cardkey off her belt. But there’s nothing on this side of the room for me to use.

  I move behind the foot of the bed, keeping it between us. Mabel circles toward me in the same direction. I wait until she’s square at the head before shoving all my weight into the bed frame. It lurches forward and pins her to the wall with a loud bang. Her elbow sinks into the drywall. She moans and waves her hands longingly at me, but she can’t get free.

  Still leaning onto the bed, I check the wheels and find a lever. I push it down until I feel it lock into place. Then, ever so slowly, I let up. The bed stays put despite Mabel’s attempts to push it out of her way.

  I move quickly now. The bed won’t hold her for long. I reach up and yank the IV pole down from its place in the ceiling. A tile falls, showering me with dusty bits and cobwebs and mouse droppings. I lift the pole to my side and take aim at Mabel’s neck, angling one of the pole’s feet forward. Then, with a grunt I swing it at her. She doesn’t duck or try to move out of the way. Zombies don’t duck.

  The foot of the IV stand sinks deep into the wall two feet past her head. I lever the pole over her neck and shove the top against the wall on this side until the bag holder penetrates the drywall. It sinks all the way in and the hook acts like an anchor. She thrashes against it, but the pole stays put.

  Now I circle around the bed one last time. She watches me with those dead black eyes, hissing and writhing. I lean down beneath her flailing arms and snatch the lanyard off her belt. It snaps free just as the IV pole explodes from the wall. Mabel bends down and reaches for me.

  But I’m already around the bed again and back to the door. I hear the bed frame groan and the wheels squeal against the floor.

  I slip the key into the slot just as she slips from her trap.

  The lock doesn’t release.

  She steps toward me, her shoes making sticky sounds on the tacky blood.

  I try again.

  Still nothing.

  “What the fu—”

  Another step, a quick glance back to see her jersey caught on the bed. A rip and another step. The hair on the back of my head moves. I duck. My skin prickles.

  I turn the key around and shove it back into the slot. The tiny red light on the locking mechanism turns green.

  I yank the handle just as Mabel’s fingers grab the sheet wrapped around me.

  I don’t even look. I just lean into the wall and do a back kick. My heel buries itself into her stomach. A puff of stale air escapes her dead lungs and she stumbles back. I plunge through the opening, turning to pull the door closed. It resists, hissing on its safety hinges.

  And then it clicks shut.

  I can hear her on the other side, moaning, scratching. She can’t get to me now. I’m safe.

  At least for the moment.

  Finally, once I’ve finally gathered myself, I raise my head and look around.

  I’m not in a hospital at all.

  Chapter 18

  The hallway is short and dimly lit. The floor is carpeted. Several rooms open out into it, but the doors are all closed. All except one, anyway.

  I turn back to the door I just came through. The words on the sign make no sense to me at first:

  DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

  PRIVATE SCREENING ROOM 3

  AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

  It’s an airport. Got to be.

  The Teterboro?

  The lights in the hallway flicker once, fast, bringing me back to reality. I step away from the room that was my cell and step to another door. The sign says the same thing, except that it’s numbered 2. I skip this and go onto the next room down, number 1, where the door is propped open.

  The room is sparsely furnished. The light flickers on when I walk in. There’s a low cot made up with white sheets and a green blanket. It looks recently slept in. I guess that it belongs—belonged—to Nurse Mabel. Well, she won’t be sleeping ever again.

  There’s a medical cart with dozens of drawers filled with needles and syringes and ampoules of drugs with names I don’t recognize.

  There’s also a small desk. A few items sit on top: a lamp, a personal Link, a coffee mug, a cold half-eaten Insta-Meal. A folding metal chair sits behind the desk.

  A backpack leans against the wall in the corner, and I go over and search through it for clothes. There’s two outfits. The pants won’t fit me, but I manage to score a pair of panties and socks, which I put on immediately. I don’t even bother with the bra; I’d need more socks than she has to fill it out. I finish with a new tee-shirt that advertises the TV program Survivalist. She probably gets these for free just for working at Arc.

  I personally never got into the show. I much preferred to play Zpocalypto rather than sitting passively by and watching what happens in Gameland when other people play The Game. Besides, Eric always gives me grief whenever the guys come over to watch it.

  Thinking about Eric makes me angry again. Anger sets me back into motion.

  Beyond this room, the hallway ends at another security door, an unlit EXIT sign above it. I place my ear against the panel for several moments. When I’m convinced no one is on the other side, I try the cardkey. The red light turns green.

  Slowly, carefully, I turn the handle and push the door open. But it’s too dark, hiding whatever is out there, and all that greets my ears is the low grind of a motor running in some room somewhere. The sound wavers and the lights on my side of the door flicker. Electrical generator.

  I let the door slide closed and turn around. I need to find pants and a shirt. Then my friends.

  As I pass each closed door, I stop for a moment and press my ear against it and listen. I hear nothing, no indication that anyone else is here. I begin to wonder if maybe it’s just me and Mabel.

  The supply closet turns out to be the sixth door down the hall. This room is unlocked. When I open it, a light blinks on. There’s a motion sensor above me, winking its tiny orange light. Mouse droppings litter the floor. Leaning against a wall is a petrified mop. Next to it, a bucket on wheels.

  I move the mop and something small and brown scurries out from under the bucket and into a back corner. Mice used to terrify me, but this one barely even registers. I just murdered someone, and that someone tried to eat me. A little mouse isn’t going to do a fucking thing to hurt me.

  Shelves line the back wall, stacked with well-gnawed rolls of toilet paper and ancient bottles of cleaning supplies, the liquids inside oxidized brown, the chemicals settled to the bottom. There’s a half-eaten bar of soap and some dry-rotted rubber gloves. No clothes though.

  As I close the door, I hear something brush against the other side. I glance around the edge and spot a pair of blue overalls hanging on a hook there. They smell of mice pee, but otherwise appear okay. They’ll do for now. I slip them off the hook and shimmy my way into them, kicking the bed sheet into the closet. The zipper catches halfway up. I give it a tug and the fabric tears a little before it reaches my chin. They’re not overly long in the legs and arms, though they are baggy, so I use the IV tubing once more to cinch it around my waist.

  I guess it was too much to hope for shoes. Nurse Mabel can keep the ones she’s got on.

  Before shutting the door again, I grab the mop to use as a weapon. The head sticks to the floor, crackling stiffly. It’s not exactly a bo staff, but once I break the mop part off, it’ll do just fine. With it in one hand and the cardkey in the other, I make my way back up the hall.

  I stop and listen at the door to my room. Mabel has settled down now. I wonder what she’s doing. I picture her standing on the other side, staring at the door with those sightless eyes. I wonder how long she’ll stand there in the darkness like that. Weeks? Years? The zoms on LI have been there for over a decade. They took a little time to get moving again, but they did…

  Maybe Mabel will be there until the end of time. I wond
er what the end of the world will look like. I have a feeling I already know.

  But then I realize she won’t be there very long at all. Someone’ll come in the morning and find her.

  I decide not to leave a warning note. Arc did this to themselves. They can deal with the consequences, too.

  I tap quietly on the door, suddenly sure she’s not there anymore. Maybe she got out when I wasn’t looking.

  A faint scratching comes to me. Then a low moan.

  I stop at a room marked INTERVIEW 1. Once more I listen for signs of anything living—or otherwise—but there’s not a sound. After unlocking the door, I turn the handle as quietly as I can and open it a crack. The lights come on.

  A single stainless steel table sits in the middle of the floor. It looks like an autopsy table except for the pair of heavy nylon straps dangling on either side. Medical-looking equipment surrounds it. A hospital light hangs overhead. At the head is a strange looking contraption, a frame rising to the ceiling, where a long heavy blade has been elevated.

  I realize with a jolt that it’s a guillotine.

  It’s where they planned to inject Ashley. The guillotine must be in case something goes wrong.

  One wall is entirely covered in black glass. When I open the next door down the hall, OBSERVATION 1, I see the same glass on the adjoining wall. This room is empty, except for a row of chairs facing the window.

  I want to supervise the entire metamorphosis.

  “Too bad,” I say to the empty room, and close the door. “There won’t be a show today.”

  Behind PRIVATE SCREENING ROOM 1 is where I find Ashley.

  Chapter 19

  I say her name, quietly at first. Then louder.

  She just lies there looking lifeless, her skin pale, the mound under the sheet seemingly too small to be all of her. Her trademark auburn hair—always her pride and her spirit, as well as her biggest enemy at times—is a flat, drab mess of tangles. It spreads like a dying fire across her pillow and falls across her face likes flakes of rust. It doesn’t hide the bruises. One eye is puffy and has a halo of black and purple around it. Her cheek is scraped. The scab looks several days old.

  “Ashley?”

  I swoop over to the bed and shake her shoulder, but she doesn’t respond. Her eyes remain closed and her head rolls loosely to the side. Her skin feels too cold to be healthy.

  Holding my breath, I press the back of my hand to her cheek: the skin there is a little warmer. The soft whisper of her breaths reaches my ears.

  She’s alive.

  “Ashley, can you hear me?”

  She moans, but doesn’t wake.

  I call her name again, louder this time, and move the hair from her face. A faint smell rises from her, body odor and the metallic scent of blood. There’s something else, something mediciny. A bandage covers the left side of her neck and reaches around to the back. An IV line drips through a tube that passes beneath the sheet and into her arm.

  I decide to try doing the foot thing that Nurse Mabel did to me. I move to the foot of the bed and lift the sheet.

  That’s when I notice the restraints. They’re around her ankles and her wrists.

  …she tried to escape…put restraints on her…sedated her.

  I flash of anger pulses through me, directed at Nurse Mabel and the mysterious man she was talking to. Anger at Arc.

  I find the point where the IV enters her arm and remove the tape. Then I pull the needle free. I clamp the tubing then. No sense to letting the rest of the sedative drip onto the floor. Something tells me I might need it.

  I turn my attention to the restraints. They’re simple fabric cuffs, padded to prevent Ashley from cutting herself. They’re connected with simple metal loop and Velcro fasteners, easy to undo. I free her limbs, then peek even further under the sheet to see if she has a catheter. She doesn’t, but she’s just as naked as I was. Nurse Mabel’s clothes will fit her better than they would have me.

  I hurry back and gather a full set of clothes from the bitch’s backpack and return to Ash’s room with them. I do my best to get her dressed. Urgency forces me to hurry; embarrassment holds me back.

  It’s not an easy task getting someone dressed without their assistance. It eats up a lot of time and makes me want to scream out of frustration. There were countless times I got my mother undressed and into bed after a night of drinking. That was easy compared to this. Physically, anyway. Emotionally…

  When I finish, I’m panting and shivering from the exertion. I notice I’ve put the shirt on inside out, but I don’t bother fixing it. I really need to eat.

  The combination of jostling and the removal of the sedative seems to be working. Ash is mumbling and moving her arms. But she still won’t respond when I call her name. I need her to recover if we’re going to get out of here, and soon. It’s already a quarter past three.

  I prop the door open with the IV stand, but leave Ash in bed with the side rails up in case she wakes and tries to get up. I need to find the others. I pray they haven’t been sedated, too.

  If they’re naked…I’m not sure what I’ll do then. Although I’d love to see the look on Reggie’s face if he were to wake up wearing Mabel’s bra. That would be worth the price of admission.

  I stop for a few minutes to finish Mabel’s half-eaten Insta-Meal. It’s bland, and it barely takes the edge off my hunger. I also find a package of cookies, which I wolf down, washing their dryness down with a water packet. After a few minutes of alternating between looking for something else to eat and wanting to puke it all up again, I get up and go back out into the hall.

  I swipe the cardkey at the next door. The release clicks and I quickly enter without bothering to check inside first. I know I’m being reckless, but desperation is getting the better of me. Time seems to be flying by.

  The light flickers on and the room comes into view. Beneath the fringe of a drawn privacy curtain, I see the wheels of another bed.

  “Jesus, lady.” Reggie’s voice comes to me from the other side. He groans. “Dim the freaking lights, will ya? And why can’t you just let me get a little sleep? Just a few hours uninterrupted is all I ask.”

  “No time for sleeping, brah,” I say, grinning to myself.

  “Jessie?” The bed creaks. “Jessie, is that you?”

  I yank the curtain back before remembering he might be naked. Reggie’s lying there, propped up by pillows, thankfully covered with a sheet. He looks as bad as Ashley did—pale and bruised and scraped and shrunken. His arm is in a sling.

  He smiles when he sees me. Then it fades and is replaced with a look of suspicion.

  “Please tell me you’re not with them.”

  “Them who?”

  “Why are you dressed like that?”

  I look down and realize it’s not a janitor’s outfit at all but a jumpsuit. A patch on the arm says Security.

  He sees the cardkey in my hand and says, “Oh. You are.” He lets his head sink back onto the pillow and closes his eyes.

  My own smile falters. “I’m not with anyone, Reg. It’s just me. I escaped.”

  He lifts his head again and frowns at me. I can see the struggle in his face, the wanting to believe me and the doubt. Another wave of hatred comes over me for Arc. Look what they’ve done to us, made us all suspicious of each other.

  I flash the cardkey at him so he can see that it’s Mabel’s picture on it and not mine.

  “If I get my hands on that bitch,” he snarls, “I won’t—”

  “It’s cool, Reg. Don’t worry. I took care of her.”

  “Do you know what she did to me?” He sputters as he tries not to say words he knows I hate hearing. “I hope you fucking killed her. I hate that bitch.”

  He must see the look on my face. He must know what it means, because he stops and his eyes widen.

  “Did you?”

  I wince. “She’s dead. Except… Fuck, how do I explain this? I’m not even sure about it myself. She’s not dead.”

  “What?
She’s either dead or she’s not, right?”

  “She’s neither.”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  I shake my head and sigh. “Look, there’s no time to explain. Just get your lazy, fat ass out of that bed and come with me.”

  “I would, except…” He tries to lift his good arm. The sheet slips off it and I see that he’s handcuffed to the rail. “I know this has always been one of your fantasies, to get me handcuffed in bed.”

  “Really?” I chuff. “You’re going to go there? Because I’ll just leave your ass here.”

  “Okay, okay.” He laughs. “The key’s on that chain you’re carrying.”

  He gestures at the cardkey.

  I hold up the tiny metal rod. I’d thought it was some kind of trinket. “So that’s what this is. I was wondering.”

  I move over to the other side of the bed. “Promise, no more bad jokes.”

  “What bad jokes? They’re all gems. Now unlock the cuffs. Pretty please.”

  I roll my eyes but go ahead. Too much time is passing to argue.

  Reggie immediately tries to swing his legs over the edge of the bed. He winces in pain.

  “You broke your arm?”

  “Dislocated.” He rotates his shoulder to show me and I see a flicker of pain cross his face. He tries to mask it. “Still a little sore. I can feel it clicking or something inside.” He waves my hand away. “Where’s Ash?”

  “Next door. She’s…okay. Sort of.”

  “Tell me the truth.” There’s that look of fear in his eyes.

  “She’s alive. But she’s drugged. Look, we need to find everyone else and get out of here.”

  I check the time. It’s almost four already.

  Reggie nods. He starts to stand up, then abruptly sits back down again. “Um… Would you mind turning around?”

  “Oh, Jesus, Reg! Really? A moment ago you were joking about handcuffs, and now you’re suddenly Mr. Modesty?”

  “Well?”

  “Just wrap a sheet around yourself and come on. I still haven’t found Micah yet. Or our clothes.”