“Brookhaven?” Micah asks.
I wave him aside. “Wait! You didn’t think of using bikes before?” I demand. “How could you not think of that?”
“Honestly? I prefer to walk, but given the circumstances—”
“Biking’s faster,” Micah says.
“Yes.”
“So there are other ways to get under the wall than the one we took?” Micah asks. He flits around the outside of our conversation like a moth trying to inseminate a light bulb.
Brother Matthew looks over and nods. “Under, through, over. It’s actually quite porous.” He pauses and leans against the counter. “For the living, anyway. Arc wasn’t all that worried about us when they first built it. They didn’t think we’d want to get in.”
“But now?” I ask. “What do they think now?”
He shrugs. “Now they’re probably wishing they’d thought of ways to stop us.”
“Well,” Micah says, exhaling heavily. “I’m glad there are other ways, because no way in hell am I going back down into another sewer.”
“I’m with him,” I say.
“That tunnel was the closest access point to this shop,” Brother Matthew concedes. “It’s also one of the safest. Used to be, anyway.”
“Except when it rains.”
“It never rains like this.”
It’s true. As I stand and watch the fat drops splatter on the road like miniature bombs, I know that what we’re witnessing is a once in a decade event. We’ve gotten a lot more monsoonal type weather over the years as the hurricane alley has expanded northward, but this storm isn’t like that. The wind right now is strong, but not nearly as bad. And this isn’t hurricane season. No, this is just an out-of-season storm bringing lots of rain. Tons of it.
Brother Matthew detaches the pump and slowly spins the tire on its axis, listening closely for any air leaks. “That’s the last one. Now we wait.”
“For what?”
“The sun.”
My heart sinks. The sky is a uniform dark gray. There doesn’t look to be a break anytime in the near future.
Below him on the floor is a pile of inner tubes, stripped from the tires of three bicycles and the trailer. With Micah’s help, they’ve quickly replaced all of them with fresh ones just out of their sealed wrappers. “Dry rot,” he’d explained. “Don’t want to get caught out there with a flat.”
He’s right to be cautious, but this changing inner tubes has probably more to do with keeping us busy. It’s better than sitting around waiting for the rain to stop and the sun to come back out. For the IUs to go back into their holes. But I don’t belabor the point. I don’t mention that the bikes we’d gotten on the other side of Gameland had worked just fine with their old inner tubes.
“There were so many of them,” I say. I stand to the side of the window, just in case one of them should lower its head and see us, and stare out at them. I don’t think they can sense me behind this glass. It certainly won’t be able to smell me, but standing in the shadows feels like the most prudent thing to do.
“The rain seems to be slackening,” I say. “I can see further out into it”
I can see a little more definition to the buildings across the street, though not enough to tell yet what they are. I torture myself with images of a pizzeria or the Golden Dragon Chinese Restaurant from back home, and this just makes me more homesick.
A good twenty IUs are within my view, still standing motionless under the mercury sky while the mercury flood gushes around their ankles. I stifle the urge to yell at them to get out of the rain or they’ll catch their death. That’s what Ashley’s grandmother always used to say. “Come on out of the rain, honey,” G-ma Junie would tell me, whenever I’d come over for a visit, even if it was barely even sprinkling out. “You’ll catch your death standing out there.”
“The rain always brings them out,” Brother Matthew comments.
He lifts the bike off the counter and sets it onto the floor, then gets to work attaching the trailer so Shinji can ride in it. Micah wanders into the back of the store to see if there’s anything to eat and drink. He returns a few minutes later with a stack of paper towels to dry off with, plus an armload of windbreakers topped by a trio of strange-looking narrow canvas packs. They have rubber tubes sticking out of them.
“They’re called CamelBaks.” He pulls the plastic sleeve from one and blows the spider webs and dust out of it. “Fill it with water and suck on the tube while you’re riding. You don’t even have to stop.”
“Great. Now we just need to find some water.”
Brother Matthew lifts an eyebrow. He’s settled himself onto the floor against a wall and is eating a piece of dried meat he’s pulled from his pack. “Water everywhere,” he says, gesturing toward the door. “You’re welcome to it.”
Micah gives me a look of disbelief. I shrug, grab one of the sleeves and quietly slip out through the door. The rain is still coming down pretty hard, but the sky is beginning to lighten. I extend my hand out into it and soon there’s enough water inside the bottle for me to rinse it out. As I wait for it to fill, I’m struck by the strangeness of this scene: me filling a water bottle while fifteen feet away stands a zombie filling its mouth. I should be a lot more nervous than I am, but there’s something about them standing there like that that strikes me as more peaceful than scary.
Micah joins me with the other two packs and repeats the rinsing and filling process, but he quickly grows impatient standing there and takes the three sleeves and props them up against each other before going back inside. After a minute I follow him in.
“So, what’s the plan?” I ask.
“Wait for the sun to come back out, then ride. Assuming we can.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ll be lucky if the roads are as clear as they have been. We may have to do some portaging.”
“Do what?”
“Carry our bikes around impassable obstacles,” Micah explains.
I glance over at Shinji with a worried look. He doesn’t seem all that concerned, so I decide I shouldn’t either.
Chapter 14
By the time the rain stops and the clouds begin to break up, it’s long past one o’clock in the afternoon. The sun comes out, driving the Undead back into their holes like streams of water across the porous ground. It’s eerie to watch them go. They’re ghosts fading into the fog of steam rising off of the pavement.
“Ten minutes since the last IU disappeared,” Micah says, checking the time on his Link.
“Let’s give it another ten,” Matthew says. He watches me prowling the edges of the showroom. All this standing around and waiting has frayed my nerves. All my pacing has apparently frayed theirs.
“Forty-eight hours,” I snap. “That’s how much time you said we have, and we’ve already lost a quarter of that.”
“Forty-eight from when he was bitten. And there’s no guarantee—”
“Then what are we sitting around for?”
“Hey, nobody’s stopping you.”
I chuff. “How can I leave? I don’t know where to go.”
Micah gets up and repacks his bag for the third time. He tries to hand me the last of his stale energy bars, but I wave it away. Between my nerves and Shinji’s iron stomach, we’ve polished off three cans of tuna and a can of sliced peaches. My muscles feel a little stronger, but my stomach and head aren’t doing so well; Shinji, meanwhile, looks about as happy as a puppy at an Easter egg roll.
“Take it,” he says, giving me a worried look.
“You eat it,” I reply. “You could use it. You look like you’ve lost ten pounds in the past week and a half.”
“I’m not the only one.”
“Yeah, well, I could stand to lose a few with this fat ass of mine.”
Brother Matthew chuckles to himself as he pulls the straps of his backpack tight around his chest and snaps them together. He slips the CamelBak over the top and lets the tube dangle out over his shoulder.
“How come they don’t make these anymore?” I ask Micah. Not that I expect him to know the answer to that.
“They’re illegal,” he answers. He shows me the tag. “Just another fatality of the Chinese Embargo.”
Brother Matthew opens the door and looks out. “I guess it’s clear enough now.” Micah and I exhale with relief. Micah wheels my bike with the carrier out, then rests it against the window before returning for his own bike. I hold the door for Matthew. Once we’re all out, he wedges one of the used inner tubes between it and the frame so it won’t blow open.
“Don’t want to let in the riff-raff,” Micah says. Brother Matthew frowns.
Now that the rain had stopped, I get a better sense of where we are. The buildings in the immediate vicinity aren’t very tall or very crowded. The bike shop is a single story structure built around a loose courtyard, but adjacent buildings rise up higher, two or three stories. A couple blocks away and they tower into the sky, reaching twenty or thirty floors.
“Islip,” Brother Matthew tells me.
“What?”
“That’s the name of this town, Islip.”
I slip, you slip, we all slip for Islip, my mind whispers.
Washed of dust, the dead city shines and sparkles in the brand new sunlight. Here at ground level, though, everything has a dingy cast to it. Weeds sprout from every crack—even in places where just the tiniest bit of dirt has accumulated—and bits of rocks and bricks that chipped off the buildings litter the ground. Everything looks old and neglected, which it is. Empty doorways and alleys are suspiciously dark and are most likely to be inhabited by the Undead. The thought sends chills down my spine.
Brother Matthew sees me looking nervously around and he tries to reassure me. “Just be quiet and we’ll be fine.”
I busy myself trying to convince Shinji to get into the carrier. He doesn’t want to, but I finally manage by throwing his stuffed rabbit inside. He still won’t settle down and whines when I zip it up.
“Don’t let him bark,” Micah warns.
I unzip it again, just enough so that he can get out if he wants to. He finally settles down with a groan.
“See?” I tell them. “He’s happy.”
“That didn’t sound very happy. More like a ‘I’m doing this under protest’ type of groan.”
“Oh, so now you speak dog?”
“Sure, why not?”
I get on my bike and push off. I go about thirty feet before realizing neither of them is following. They’re just standing there watching me, amusement on their faces. I stop, raise my hands up. “What?”
“Wrong way,” Brother Matthew says. “Brookhaven is this way.” He stands on his pedal and pushes off, but not before I see the smirk on his face.
I turn around and head back. As I pass Micah I warn him to stop smiling. “Or I’ll sic Shinji on you.”
“Woo,” he croons, waggling his fingers at me. “I think he’s enjoying his chariot ride too much to bother with that.”
We pass the manhole where we came out and Brother Matthew stops just long enough to replace the cover. Already the water has drained nearly completely away, off to some deep recess under the ground. The downed tree branch that nearly trapped us is long gone, swept away by the flood. I can only imagine the crap that has been washed down into the sewer, probably blocking it, and it makes me wonder if any IUs fell in. I don’t mention this, of course. We won’t be coming back this way—at least I hope we won’t—and I don’t want to waste any more time having him check.
After some initial trouble with downed trees along the narrower roads, the ride on the Long Island Expressway seems like a breeze. I feel like I know this road now, I’ve spent so much time on it. I feel like we have a personal relationship, an understanding about each other.
The first several miles pass quickly beneath our wheels, just the standard leaf litter to avoid or the occasional piece of trash blown free from wherever it spent the past thirteen years. Only twice do we have to move a branch out of our way, and only once is the water still too deep to ride through.
Shinji has settled in quite nicely in his carriage. He’s such a good sport, humoring Micah and Brother Matthew despite the fact that he’s a source of amusement to them. They trade banter and tease me about treating him like royalty and call him “His Majesty.” I ignore them, though Shinji grins like a lunatic and licks his plastic window, as if he’s eating it all up. Something about it makes me feel a little jealous. Or maybe it’s the way Micah and Brother Matthew have become chummy all of a sudden. I don’t like it.
But, eventually, the talking and joking give way to the monotony of pedaling and the effort of constantly being on the lookout. An hour passes and the day gets even hotter and unbearably muggy. Micah asks the question that’s been floating around inside my head for a while now: “Where do they all go?” Brother Matthew answers only by saying that we should ask Father Heall if we ever get the chance.
“What is he, some kind of zombie whisperer?” I joke.
Brother Matthew smirks as he rides. “You could say that.”
Micah and I exchange telling glances. More fruitcake religious quackery. Great.
“Was he some kind of new age cultist or something before the outbreak?” Micah asks.
I gasp in surprise.
“What?” he exclaims. “Oh, come on, Jess! You’re thinking it, too.”
“Am not! That’s rude.”
“Father Heall is very devoted to his cause.” Brother Matthew says. Luckily, he doesn’t look in the least bit insulted by Micah’s brashness. “He’s religiously devoted to his cause. As far as being a cultist?” He chews on this for a few minutes before answering. “No.”
Micah makes a smug face at me. I shrug and say, “Well, I don’t give a crap if he preaches fire and brimstone and believes the outbreak was the beginning of the Rapture. As long as he has a way to save Jake, then that’s all that matters.”
“Like I said, there’s no guarantee.”
“A chance. That’s all I ask.”
We lapse again into silence, the heat discouraging further conversation. The humidity leaves us drenched and gasping. My clothes, still wet from the rain, now feel oppressive on my skin. They grow even stiffer with my own sweat and they itch. Despite my careful use of the CamelBak, I’m quickly empty. My throat is parched. The ache in my neck from Stephen’s hands returns. Swallowing becomes a chore. We’re only half way there and we’re already out of water.
Chapter 15
Our second hour passes with us all in abject misery, and now I understand Matthew’s preference for walking. The sun is now behind us, baking our backs through our packs. The wind picks up, sometimes aiding us, sometimes blasting its oven-hot breath in our faces. I tie my hair up to get some air on my neck, but the sun broils my skin. There’s no respite for the heat. Even when the clouds build up again and blanket the sun. Even when their dark shadows chase us down the road, then flee ahead of us across the land. The air is hot and viscous with moisture, like molten metal. It has a thick, swampy smell to it, which seems to coat us. Our sweat clings to us like oil, refusing to evaporate.
“You’re dragging,” Micah says. “Trade bikes with me for a while.”
But I shake my head. Pulling Shinji isn’t what drags on me. If anything, knowing he’s there spurs me onward, more so even than knowing Jake is dying. How sorry is that?
The closer we get to our destination, the more spent my muscles feel. But it’s more than just physical weariness that makes pedaling so hard. My brain hurts and my heart seems to have lost its urgency. A sense of dread has descended over me, a pall of uneasiness that whispers unendingly inside my head that I’m just building myself up to be disappointed. Pessimism tells me that this isn’t going to work, a stubborn refusal to let my hopes get raised. It seems almost too good to be true that we’d stumble across a treatment for the infection just when we most desperately need it.
If feels like just another page out of Arc’s scrip
t.
But what worries me the most is that the very person promising that treatment is also the father of the man we’ve killed. This raises too many doubts and alarms inside of me, concerns that we may be getting ourselves into something from which we may not be able to get out. I need to remember to talk to Micah about it, to ‘get our story straight,’ as Brother Matthew said earlier. I don’t want to slip up and say something we’ll come to regret.
But for now I wave him off with an irritable grunt and make a show of keeping up the pace. I tell myself that it’s senseless to worry now. This has to work. And even if there are so many reasons for it not to—so many forces working against us—it’s not like I can turn back now.
The area we’re riding through is flat and thinly forested. We’ve left behind the skyscrapers of Central Islip, once a burgeoning metropolis of towering glass and metal skyscrapers. I’m glad for it. The cities now make me apprehensive. I worry that they’re all filled with Players. I know there aren’t any CUs out here—not on this side of the Gameland wall—but each time we pass through another city where the buildings crowd together and rise up like mountains on some alien landscape, I can’t help but envision Players hiding inside of them, just waiting to charge out to capture us. Deceivers, my mind whispers. And I can’t help imagining people glued to their television screens cheering them on while commercials for Red Bull and male impotency drugs flash across the screen.
“Have you ever read the book Frankenstein?”
I look up, startled by the sudden sound of Brother Matthew’s voice suddenly layered over the sticky hiss of the tires on the road. I blink stupidly, not understanding the meaning of this absurd question.
“Um… The monster story, you mean?”
He nods.
“It was made out of the body parts of dead people and brought back to life using electricity, wasn’t it?” I say these last words somewhat hesitantly, as I try to render coherent the fragments I barely remember of the tale. It’s one of the books that was banned by the New Merican government years back, and so my knowledge of the story comes from an old black-and-white movie we’d watched in Micah’s basement. I remember the acting in it had been stiff and unrealistic. Comical, even. We’d spent most of the time not really watching, but instead miming the scenes and adding our own lines, much to Kelly’s horror and Reggie’s amusement.
S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus Page 68
