Reggie emerges from between two buildings and cuts them off, still limping but moving fast. He’s shouting at them, trying to draw them away. Sister Jane is unarmed, defenseless. She doesn’t see him. She’s too busy screaming.
Screaming all around me. Inside of me.
I clap my hands over my ears, realize I no longer hear them. It’s not inside my head. Pull my hands away. The screams are coming from the woods. There are more survivors.
I stop thinking then, stop thinking and start running on reflex. One moment I’m standing by Micah behind the gate, the next I’m streaking across the field, passing Players, shoving others out of the way. I plunge into the forest twenty feet to the left of where the man with the black hair came out. Running. Not aware of my feet pounding the earth. Not aware that my lungs are on fire. My side, where Jake bit me, exploding. I shove the pain away. Trees and branches flash past, slash my face, tear my clothes, arms, neck. More than once I feel myself being grabbed by cold, hard hands. I lose count of how many times I kick them away from me. The forest grows darker the deeper I go, the roar of the fire louder until I can’t seem to hear the screaming anymore. Only crackling. Only heat. See the glow building before me, a keening white brightness emanating from the trees, suddenly blooming, searing, eyes white, blind. Nose burning, scorched skin. Stumble into a clearing. Snowing. Flakes, burning my cheeks. My hair, my eyes, my clothes. Keep going keep moving closer feel as if I’ve become one with the fire burn fire burn burning—
“Eric!”
Stumble. Fall. Get up.
Run.
“Eric!”
Crackling.
No answer. Scream, crackling like some wicked thing. The zombies march past me. Ignore me. Past the wreckage. Veer off and away from the fire. Some rational part, some tiny little fragment of sanity, whispers the most insane thing in the world: Follow them.
I do.
I follow the Undead, ancient, withered in their flimsy tattered clothes, fluttering in the liquid breeze, zombies that probably haven’t tasted human flesh in over a decade. They pass me by.
Why? Why?
Now I see the Players. Fresher skin. Fresher clothes. Eyes just as black. No more or less aware than IUs.
Except they do seem more alive somehow, more agile, more determined. But they too drift past me. Some turn and hiss, then continue their inexorable march. Drawn. The fire at my back, pushing. Shadows quickly growing around us. Roar of flames becoming a murmur.
Then I hear it, the thing that’s calling them forward, the siren call of the Undead: Someone is crying for help. Weak, full of pain and injury. Fading with each breath.
My heart leaps in my chest as the world falls away. It’s Eric. It’s my brother calling. I stop, unable to move. A zombie stumbles into me, doesn’t even seem to know I’m there. It steps to one side and walks on.
I am a ghost to them.
I look down and that is what I see: a ghost. I am a ghost covered in the bones of trees.
“…help me, please. Somebody help…”
The moans.
A cry rises up from deep within me and bubbles out through my lips. A zombie nearby stops and turns its eternal eyes upon me. A moan escapes its lips. A moan slips through mine. It hisses and opens its mouth and begins to step toward me, but then another one crashes into it and it falls to the ground. By the time it has risen again, I’m gone. I am one of the Undead, drawn toward the plaintive sounds of a human being still alive.
“…help…”
Inside, I’m screaming, begging for him to keep quiet. I follow the sound of his voice and another part of me wants him to keep yelling, to keep calling, because I know that as long as he’s calling for help, he’s alive and they don’t have him.
There are dozens of them now, crashing through the underbrush. I follow them, staggering, following Eric’s fading voice. I don’t know what I’ll do once I get there. I don’t even know if I’ll make it in time. I pick up my pace, go as fast as I dare without drawing their attention. The moans of the Undead seem to come from all around. Sound has no beginning or end in here, no source, no destination. How can they know? How can they follow it, be so much surer than me?
I hear him call out again, closer.
There are so many of them now, so many and I’m just one and how can I possibly get to Eric first and save him? What if he’s badly hurt? What if he can’t run? Or even walk?
I take another step. I’m the only one moving now. The world has come to a stop. The zombies around me are gathered around a large, thick pine tree. I look up, can’t see anything in the branches. The light is fading. But I can hear him. Eric’s up there. I can hear his cries of pain.
“Help,” he moans, his voice barely audible now above the resonant lowing of the Undead. “…somebody…help…me.”
They crowd ten deep around the base of the tree. They stand there, reaching out, crawling over one another, falling beneath one another. How can I even reach the tree to climb up? How can I get him down? I can’t.
But neither can the zombies.
Chapter 5
“Jessie? Is that…? It is you!”
Reggie comes running over to the gate just as I reach it. The glare from the flood lights leaves me exposed and vulnerable, but he doesn’t remove the chain keeping the gate closed. Behind me, the Undead are getting closer. He holds the machete and stares at me, his face a pale orb in the failing light, heavily shadowed by fear and dirt. “Jessie? You need to say something. Speak to me.”
I’m out of breath. I know he can see me panting, gasping. The forest is full of the Undead, hundreds of them milling about, and most of them had acted as if they’d been unaware of my presence among them. Most, but not all. I saw one sitting on a fallen tree trunk watching me as I passed. It followed me with those dark holes in its face and opened its cavernous mouth, and yet it didn’t rise and come after me.
Others did.
By then, much of the ash had sloughed off me. At least I think that’s what it was that kept them from noticing.
I tried to be quiet coming back, but the underbrush was thick in places and I had to crash through it. And with evening approaching and the light growing stingier, the darkness encroached like a silent flood through the wood, drowning me. I made for the floodlights; yet every step I took seemed to push them further away.
“Jessie, are you bit?”
“Open the gate, Reg. It’s me. Hurry. I’m okay.”
I see the tension leave him, the way his shoulders drop and his stance narrows. He sheathes the machete in his belt and comes over and quickly unwinds the chain. The rattle seems too loud. He glances to the side, sees the IUs and his fingers fumble. When he swings the gate open, I slip in, help him push it shut with a clang.
“Where’s Brother Walter and Sister Jane?” I ask. “Are they okay?”
“Tried to power up the fence,” he says, warping the chain back around the posts. “The system’s fried or something. The pass code wouldn’t work. What the hell happened to you, Jessie? One minute you were there and the next you’d disappeared.”
“I went to find Eric.”
His eyes pass quickly over me, searching for answers. “What’s all over you?”
“Ash. From the wreck. I don’t have time to explain. Where’s Micah? Is Kelly okay?” I start running for the building.
“Everyone’s fine. We took care of the Players. Jessie—” He runs after me, pulls on my arm. “Did he… Is he…”
“He’s alive. Up in a tree. Somehow. I don’t know how. But he’s hurt badly.” I turn and continue toward the building where I think the others are. “I can’t get to him. I need help.”
“It’s almost completely dark. We can’t go back out there now.”
“He won’t last the night, Reggie.”
“Who won’t last the night?”
Brother Walter again, a silhouette in the open door. Blood and blackened bits of gore spot his shirt, his neck. It’s on Reggie’s shirt, too.
“The Players are down?” I ask.
“The Deceivers are dead,” Brother Walter replies. “We could’ve used some help—”
“My brother’s in the woods.” I interrupt. I already have enough guilt; I don’t need more. “I heard him calling for help out there and went to find him.”
“Alive?” He looks skeptical. “Where?”
“Stuck in a tree. I don’t know how he got there. I just know he’s hurt and can’t get to him. He’s surrounded by zombies.”
“You know for sure it was him?”
“Of course it’s him! I know my own brother’s voice.”
Brother Walter exhales noisily, shaking his head. “Was he bitten?”
I don’t answer.
He repeats the question.
“Honestly,” I say, “I don’t know. What does it matter? You have the treatment, right?”
“We only brought two syringes.”
“Then we go back to Brookhaven, see Father Heall. But first I need your help.”
“You want us to go out there?” Reggie asks. “Into the woods at night. A thousand zombies?”
“There aren’t a thousand.”
“How are we going to find him again in the dark without getting bitten ourselves?”
From inside the compound, I can just make out the glow from the crash site. It doesn’t seem nearly as large as it was. Once the helicopter fuel is spent, the fire will have little else to burn. The trees and ground litter are too wet from this morning’s rain to sustain the blaze for long, much less allow it to spread far.
“Finding our way back to the tree won’t be a problem. At least I hope not. We’ll use Micah’s tracking app.”
“Won’t work,” Reggie says. “The network’s down. Remember? The tracker won’t work.”
I sweep past him and Brother Walter steps to one side to allow me to go inside. I can feel his eyes on the rifle I recovered near the crash site, now slung over my shoulder.
“You can’t shoot your way through them, not even with that.”
“Don’t plan to. We’ll distract them with this.”
He reaches for the grenade in my hand, touches it gently, as if it might suddenly explode.
“So, someone draws them away?” Reggie asks.
I nod. “Then someone else climbs up the tree and brings Eric down. That someone has to be big and strong.”
Reggie frowns. “The hip’s still sore, but I—I guess I can climb.”
I turn to Brother Walter. “Do you know how to use a grenade?”
He chuffs and shakes his head, but he takes it and slips it into the pocket of his cargo pants, muttering to himself about kids thinking they know it all.
† † †
Ten minutes later, Reggie and I are back in the woods, our eyes glued to the tablet’s screen and that one tiny little red dot on it.
“Damn smart changing the tracker’s code from your implant’s identifier to your Link’s,” Reggie says.
It had actually been easy to do. The codes were already in there, since Micah had hacked our Links weeks ago to get to our implants. I just didn’t know if the tablet would be able to pick up the signal from my Link’s short-range transmitter. Not until after we’d entered the wood did it appear.
“You’re holding up well,” I whisper.
“I know she’s gone,” he answers. “It’s killing me inside, but we have to keep focused. Right? I’ll grieve for her later.”
“You don’t know what’s happened to her.”
“Jessie…”
“You don’t know, Reg. If Eric survived that crash, maybe Ashley is still alive, too.”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then he nods and steps forward. “Come on. We’ve got twenty—no, nineteen—minutes before Brother Walter sets off that grenade.”
We stop first near the crash site. The trees in the immediate vicinity are still burning, but those further out are just smoldering, the green wood infusing the air with their thick fog, acrid now with spent fuel and sticky with wet ash. The empty hulk of the machine rises up from the center, glowing embers all around, steel seats like skeletons. Scattered fires burn on the ground all around and in the trees, and it’s hard to breathe.
“I wonder how many there were in there,” he says.
I don’t answer. I try not to think about it. I know of at least two men that died, one of them possibly reanimated: the pilot and the one taken at the edge of the wood. I close my eyes and I see him stumbling out of the trees and the zombies falling upon him like a pack of wild dogs. I don’t know how many other living souls there were on that thing, nor how many Omegas. Eric had said a squad of them, but how many is that?
I reach down and cup my hands into the thick ash and lift it to my face. Then I begin to throw it onto my head. “Try not to breathe it in,” I say.
“You’re sure this is going to work?”
I nod. “They didn’t see me. I was walking right in the middle of them and they didn’t see me.” I don’t tell him about the two that did before I found Eric. I don’t mention the half dozen that followed me on my way back. “Just don’t speak. Or move too fast. And don’t bump into them.”
“I’ll try not to.”
He begins covering himself with ash, putting it on a bit thicker than I think is necessary. I can’t help but smile a little.
“I mean, are you totally positive it was because of the ash?” he asks.
“I’m sure, Reg. What else could it be?”
“I don’t know. Maybe having Father Heall’s blood inside of you?” He shivers, as if realizing for the first time how appalling that sounds. I’d already gotten over my squeamishness after seeing how quickly Jake had recovered.
But the suggestion startles me. I hadn’t considered the possibility that it might be something in my blood. I’d just assumed it was the ash. After all, hadn’t Father Heall just walked right past the IU at Brookhaven? Even slowed down to pat it on the shoulder. And the IU had turned toward him, but it hadn’t attacked.
“I don’t think it’s that. All the brothers and sisters got Father Heall’s blood too, and they’re not invisible to them.”
Reggie watches me, mulling my explanation. Then he grunts and reaches down and scoops up an extra large handful of ash. “Okay,” he says. “All right.” He takes in a deep breath and nods. “I believe you. Now, let’s go rescue your brother.”
I silently pray I’m not wrong.
Chapter 6
“Two minutes,” I whisper. “Get ready.”
I slip my Link back into my pocket and settle onto my haunches for the wait. It was right where I’d left it, on a rock about thirty feet from the tree Eric was in. I assume he’s still there. I don’t hear him now, and while this worries me, the presence of a crowd of Undead still gathered around its base is some assurance that he is.
But there are fewer zombies than before, maybe half as many. The rest seem to have lost interest and wandered off.
“Ready for what?” Reggie answers. “It’s not like they’re suddenly going to start stampeding.”
“For the blast.”
“Oh.” He pauses, then says, “I thought you told Brother Walter you wouldn’t use the rifle.”
“Screw that. I said it mostly to get him to agree to help.”
“Not even sure why you care what those people think. The whole bunch of them are whacked in the head. Brother-this and Sister-that. Calling the Undead Children. They’re nuts.”
“We need their help. Here and now, and then afterward when we go back to Brookhaven. Kelly needs him.”
“You, too. Don’t forget that.”
How could I?
“Which reminds me,” I say. “Don’t get bitten. I’ll kill you if you do. At least one of us should be able to go home.”
“We’ll all go home.”
All except Ash and Jake.
“We could’ve used Kelly here. The brah was a killing machine back there.” He goes quiet for a moment, realizing his mistake.
“I’d even take Micah right now.”
“I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him.”
“He sure put up a fight when we tied him up.”
“You did the right thing.”
“Yeah, but it still kills me to think of him like that,” Reggie says. “I just keep thinking about all the time we spent at his house…”
“Don’t go soft on me now, Reg. He’s a traitor. You know it, I know it. He betrayed us.” I spit these last words out, but I can’t seem to put any real venom in it. I want to hate him. And yet I can’t seem to hold onto that hate.
“He did save our lives, Jess.”
“And you returned the favor by keeping Arc’s Players from eating him after the network crashed, so you’re even. He should be grateful that we’re not feeding him to them now.”
He lets out another deep breath, but doesn’t argue.
Another minute or two passes. I’m antsy. I want to see Eric. I want to know that he’s okay.
“I wish I’d thought of pinging him before I left to get you guys,” I say, and I reach back into my pocket for the Link to check the time again. How can the time pass so slowly? “I didn’t think about it then. It’s too late now.”
Reggie takes my hand. It’s warm—sweaty, but also warm and comforting—and he holds it for a moment before giving it a squeeze and letting it go. “We’ll get him, sister. He’ll be fine.”
“It’s just—”
But there’s a flicker of light and the dull concussion of the grenade from somewhere off to our left, followed by the sound of debris sifting through the trees. It’s not as loud as I’d thought it would be. I’m suddenly afraid it won’t be enough.
“He’s early,” Reggie says. “Let’s just hope it wasn’t accidental.”
But now we can hear them—Brother Walter and Sister Jane—yelling off in the distance and the clamp that has been tightening around my chest loosens a little. We watch the Undead in the wan light that filters through the trees from the complex’s flood lamps, watch and wait as they begin to draw away by ones and twos. They turn slowly and move in the direction of the noise, moaning plaintively, looking for all the world like they’re reluctant to abandon the prey they’ve already trapped.
S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus Page 104
