by Celia Rees
TOM AND EMILY WERE ALONE, standing together on a high ridge, a lookout. A hot dry wind whined in their ears and tugged at their clothes. They instinctively reached for each other’s hand and moved closer together.
The landscape was familiar. It was like the country they’d been flown over in the helicopter. Why waste good graphics? A plain stretched out before them, its distance lost in a brown haze. In the foreground was a town of red and grey roofs, a main street running through it, with traffic lights swinging in the wind, still changing from red to green, but nothing was moving; no traffic and no one to be seen. It had a deserted, empty look about it. The sky had an unhealthy aspect, the clouds bulging down, purple as a bruise, yellowish at the edges. A bad sky was a bad sign. Tom focused on the far distance, squinting his eyes. The remains of a city, towers and tall buildings, black and broken, like tree stumps after a forest fire, windows empty, fretted against the sky.
Tom felt the first spots of rain on his arm. It stung. Acid, no doubt. Had that caused this apocalyptic devastation, or was it caused by it? Who knows? Who cares? That was not how these games worked. You were just there. Something had caused it, that’s what mattered. That—and the stinging rain.
He looked around. There were woods behind them. They could find shelter there. Although maybe it was a kind of survivalist scenario. Heavily armed groups making a life, fighting it out for scarce resources. They seldom welcomed newcomers, unless as a source of food. It could be some kind of cannibal game—where they’d be hunted, captured, kept in a hut, fattened for the barbecue. He didn’t fancy that. They’d have to be careful. Use their wits. Find weapons from somewhere…
“Rogue sent us here?” Emily found that she was whispering, as if he could hear.
“It’s not him,” Tom whispered back. “It’s an avatar.”
She frowned. “The manifestation of a god in human form?”
“Not exactly.” Although the original definition might be accurate in this case. Tom tried to explain. “In my world it means something a bit different. It’s the graphical representation of a person. In a game, you take on a character—it becomes your avatar. Like in Glass Town, Augusta is your avatar. Rogue is—”
“My brother’s.”
“Exactly.”
“Lord Charles is Charlotte’s, so is Zenobia. Johnny Lockhart is me. Well, not me precisely. A version of me.”
“So, you can be more than one person. It’s the same here. There’s someone behind this. The Game Master. That’s who we met. He’s taken on Rogue as his avatar. We have to figure out what he’s about—”
Tom broke off what he was saying, nostrils flaring, picking up the vile stench of rotting human flesh.
“There are people. Down there.”
She put her hand over her mouth as the smell grew stronger.
Tom gave out a groan. Zombies. He hated zombies worst of all.
They were labouring up the slope, a whole lot of them, probably the population from the deserted township below. Dressed in suits and regular clothes. Zombies were always in collar and tie; Tom never knew why. They had the usual chunks knocked off them; grey skin, or black and peeling; empty sockets; bits of skull showing, along with half a jawbone and a line of teeth. They always walked with that lurching gait, and nothing stopped them—not guns nor any kind of weapon; it just knocked off more chunks, removed a limb or two—they always came lurching on.
“What are they?” Emily stared, caught between horror and fascination.
“Dead people walking.”
“But, how?”
Tom shook his head. “Don’t ask for reasons. There are no reasons.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Run!” He held her hand tighter. “Find shelter. Somewhere they can’t get to us. Zombies are really stupid, literally mindless, but it’s best not to get caught out in the open.”
They found a hut, deep in the woods. It was falling apart and wouldn’t hold for long, but it would give them some kind of breathing space—as long as it wasn’t a cannibal lair. Tom looked around. No sign of any other occupation. Not for a long time, anyway. The hut appeared to be long abandoned, with paper peeling off the walls, only a few sticks of furniture. Tom broke a piece up: a chair leg was better than nothing.
Soon enough, the rotting flesh smell heralded their presence.
Fire. Zombies don’t like fire. There was an old lighter on the mantelpiece. Tom prayed it would work. He tried it, spun the wheel once, twice.
They were prowling round now, making groaning zombie noises. It would have been funny if this wasn’t for real—if they couldn’t hurt you, and turn you into a zombie. But that could happen. That was the game’s USP. Then you’d be lurching around here for ever with the rest of the rotting crew.
Tom spun the lighter again. His hands were shaking, which wasn’t helping, but this time it worked. He looked around. A lamp on the table. It might hold kerosene.
The thing about zombies was that they were really dumb. They depended on numbers and the fact that they were dead already so they couldn’t be killed. They were all trying to get in at once, pushing at the door with their zombie numbers, ripping at the flimsy wood with their zombie strength. Blackened, bony fingers curling round gaps in the wood.
The smell was getting worse. Tom grimaced; he really hated zombies.
See how they like this.
He threw the lamp like a petrol bomb. It exploded in front of the door, flames shooting up the dry wood, catching all those reaching arms and groping fingers.
There was a chorus of zombie howls, shrieks and yelps. They certainly didn’t like fire.
“Quick—out the back.”
He grabbed Emily’s hand. Zombies never thought to check for other ways out. They were all out at the front, dancing about, suits on fire, the remains of their flesh burning like candle wax. They would come back as blackened burnt things, but not for a while.
Tom and Emily ran up the slope behind the house, creating distance. There was a building up there, through the trees.
THE DOOR CREAKED OPEN on an abandoned asylum or hospital, or something. Of course. It would be. Big, high ceilings, ancient signage, long corridors with rooms going off, beds rusting in halls. Plenty of places to hide. Plenty of places for other things to hide, too.
“I don’t like it here.” Emily shivered.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to.”
Tom sniffed. The place smelt of nothing worse than damp and decay. No one had been here for a long time; there were trees growing through the floor. He checked the downstairs rooms to be sure, though. Long wards with more rusting bedsteads, tiled wet rooms, basins bearded with stains from dripping taps. The house was a trap in itself, with rotten floorboards and crumbling brickwork. The stairs were a no go. He cocked an ear. Something was up there, stirring, rustling. There always was.
They couldn’t stay here. Tom pulled back mildewed curtains. A fragment of glass left in the frame jabbed into his hand as he made a gap in the rotten plyboarded windows. This room must have been a staff lounge, with its high ceilings, leather armchairs, heavy wooden furnishings. Looked like the rats had been at the chairs and the panelling was springing off the walls. No sign of the zombie hoards, but the creaking on the stairs was getting louder.
“Not my best idea,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
The heavy wooden outer doors were closed against them. Of course they were.
Tom went back into the room they’d just left, picked up a chair and threw it through the window. The boarding gave way under the impact but it just meant easy access for the zombies who were now massing, blackened and still smouldering, in what must have been the car park, and were lowing and groaning in the way they do when they sense warm flesh.
“Wow! They got a move on!”
He grabbed Emily’s hand. They would have to make a break for it.
Out in the hall, weird white creatures were leaning over the banisters, long hair wisped round face
s with empty sockets, withered skin, black holes and skeletal grins; long arms reaching, bony hands with yellow nails, long and sharp, like claws. They were keening and moaning, like ghosts do. It was such an old-school cliché it would even have been funny, except that Tom could smell their long-dead graveyard smell, musty and mouldy; not the ripe and rotten, spoilt meat stench of the zombies, but the smell of ancient decay.
The cut on his hand hurt and it was bleeding. This was the same as Glass Town. You could die here. There were a whole lot of the ghost things and those yellow clawlike nails would do damage. And that wasn’t the worst that could happen. He could hear the zombies tearing at the woodwork. Ghost or zombie? He didn’t want to end up part of the game.
Basements weren’t always a good idea, but this time it was inspired. Tom had noticed the little door when he was making his inspection of the ground-floor rooms. He jammed a handy mop against the door to deter followers. The stairs were pretty rickety but held their weight. The basement was a mess of abandoned furniture, pipes and old plumbing. At least there were no coffins that he could see. That would rule vampires out. Tom broke off a length of lead, testing the weight of it on his hand. It might be a handy weapon.
There was a smeary light coming through small windows set above ground level. He wondered how long it would be before they saw zombie faces peering down at them. Pipes, hung with rotten lagging and cobwebs, ran down tunnels under the building. It looked dark down there. Tom could see pinpoints of red and hear ominous squeaking. Rats. Tom flicked the lighter and wondered how long it would last but it looked like their best bet.
“Come on.”
He took Emily’s hand and led her on down. Soon all light was gone apart from the flicker of the lighter. The red points were growing, the squeaking becoming louder; the rats were getting bolder.
It was wet underfoot. They were soon splashing through water. The pipes had gone. The tunnel was brick lined. They were in a culvert of some kind. The flame of the lighter was getting smaller; just when it was about to give out altogether, Emily caught his arm.
“Look! Up ahead!”
They waded on, sloshing towards a greying of the darkness. Faint but there nevertheless. They came to a turn in the tunnel; from there they could see a distant semicircle of daylight. Tom glanced back. Nothing seemed to be following them.
They walked on, hand in hand, and finally came to the brick-rimmed exit of a culvert. The stream gleamed in the sunlight, chuckling over stones, through overhanging willows. They followed the stream past a children’s play area until they came to a low bridge.
Tom helped Emily up on to the road and looked about, trying to figure out where they were now. The road was narrow, no kerbs, and tarmacked. The sky was blue above them, but he couldn’t see any sun. The air was warm, still; there was the noise of humming insects, but otherwise no sounds. No birds, no animals, no children on the swings and roundabouts, no people anywhere that he could see, although there were houses set back from the road with cars in the driveways. He thought maybe they were in one of those American suburbs that they had recently been flying over: ranch-style houses, double garages, all with their own yards. A country where space wasn’t a problem.
They began to walk along the road. There was a bus stop up ahead and a bench with a backpack on it. Right around the corner, a bike lay abandoned in the road. A bit further on, a car had slewed into the verge. Strangeness on strangeness. A shopping trolley on its side outside a minimart, groceries spilling on the ground. Shop door open; nobody inside.
“Did you see that?” Emily asked. “Little golden lights dancing like fireflies, but when you look again, they vanish.”
Tom nodded—he’d seen them, too. “Could mark where something happened. Someone disappeared. Or could be a guide to a place that holds clues, or a warning—a place to be avoided.”
They went on walking. There was no sense of immediate threat, but the silence made the everyday ordinariness sinister.
Another bicycle, lying on the pavement, the wheels turning, as though a kid had just left it.
They walked past a deserted garage and auto shop. Doors wide open, cars up on ramps, but no mechanics in sight.
“Hello?” Tom called. “Anyone home?”
No answer.
“Let’s try one of the houses,” Emily suggested.
Same thing: doors open but empty. Kids’ toys strewn about, breakfast things on the table. Tom put his hand on the kettle. Still warm. Like whoever lived here had just popped out, but the whole town was like that…
Tom looked round warily. Is this part of the old game? Are they all going to lurch into view as zombies? Or is this some new thing?
“Maybe it’s some kind of Rapture,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“An end-of-the-world scenario. All the Faithful are whipped up to Heaven.”
“What happens to the rest of them?”
“Apocalypse. Like we’ve just seen. Once the Believers are safe out of the way, the world is destroyed by war, fire and famine.”
Emily nodded. She knew the scripture. She’d seen the etchings of John Martin’s paintings.
“And they make a game of this?”
“Why not?” Tom shrugged. “You can make a game out of anything. We don’t know if that is what’s going on here. Sometimes there’s clues as to what’s happened, like those little lights dancing. In the game you go round collecting them to find out.”
“So why don’t we do that?”
“We don’t have time for it.” Tom spread his hands. “We don’t know what they are, or even how the game works. It could take for ever…”
“We do know how the game works,” Emily said. “If you know who made it, you know how it works. There’s a mind behind the Avatar Rogue. I don’t know him, but I do know Rogue. He’s driven by two things: vanity and viciousness, in almost equal measure.”
“Avatar Rogue—I like that.” Tom smiled his appreciation. “He’s got us running around in these games like rats in a maze.”
“‘Game’ is a good name for it. He’ll keep moving us around like pieces on a board until we’re exhausted.”
“Or dead.”
Emily shook her head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think he’ll want that to happen. Frightened, yes. Petrified. Terrorized, certainly, but I don’t think dead. That could play to our advantage. It may be the only one we have.”
“So what do we do?”
“The unexpected. It’s always best to do the unexpected.”
“Which is?”
“Nothing. We do nothing. Stay here.” She went to the taps and turned them on and off. “The water’s hot! I’m going to have a bath. Find different clothes. There must be some here.”
“How do you know?”
“There’s a picture of a boy and girl on the wall over there. They look like us.”
Tom went over and picked it up. So they did. It was like Avatar Rogue had made a home for them in this deserted place where nobody lived. There was something creepy about that.
“Maybe he wants to keep us here.” Tom felt goosebumps travel up his arms. “Like pets.”
“Maybe. We don’t know what he wants, do we? But I know I want a bath.”
“There must be a bathroom upstairs,” Tom said. “You go first.”
The shower worked. Tom showed Emily how to use it and the shower gel and shampoo. She was in there a long time.
There was a girl’s room, clothes laid out ready, as if she’d been expected. There was a guy’s room down the corridor. He looked around. It was a replica of his room at home. The clothes were his clothes. Not his clothes exactly, but in his size and makes and labels he favoured. The weirdness made the goosebumps spread from his arms to the hairs on the back of his neck.
He heard her leave the bathroom then he went for a shower. There was a first aid kit in the cabinet with antiseptic cream and plasters. He put a dressing on his hand, changed into jeans and a sweatshirt and went downstairs. He
sat on the sofa and picked up the remote. Maybe what was playing on the TV would give him a clue.
A blue light glowed on the DVD player. The disc drawer came out and went back in again. A home movie came on the screen. Him and Emily, walking by the little river, holding hands, laughing together. He turned it off quickly.
“What was that?”
Emily was standing by the door. She looked completely different. Like a modern girl, in jeans and a sweater, her hair tied back in a ponytail.
“A…” Tom searched for the right word to explain it. “A moving picture. Of us. Here.”
“Let me see.” She sat down next to him.
He played the DVD. It was them—or it looked like them—walking by the river, playing on the swings, sitting on the bench by the bus stop, walking hand in hand up to this house. Like they lived here, or had always lived here, or always would live here…
“What’s it doing?” Emily frowned as the DVD player began to whir.
“It’s on a loop. It’s starting again.” Tom turned it off.
“What is it for?” Emily looked around. “What does it mean?”
“Maybe it’s meant to spook us.”
“Spook? A ghost?”
Tom shook his head. “Frighten, disturb.”
“Oh, I see.” Emily smiled. “Like seeing a ghost, you mean?”
“Exactly.”
“What do you do if you see a ghost?”
“Run away.”
“Well, that’s what we are not going to do. Rogue was never known for his patience. If we stop playing, we change the game. What else can you see on the moving-picture machine?”
“I don’t know.” Tom picked up the remote.
“You know how it works, though?” Emily stretched out her legs. “Make it work for me.”
HE WENT TO OTHER PLACES, but this was his favourite. Coffee-opolis. Corny name but he liked it. A little independent, fair-trade place, with red and white decor, wooden tables and counters, big, bright murals, vines growing up the far wall. Cookie jars on the counter, gluten-free brownies and muffins, cupcakes and granola bars. Coffee made any way you want it, herb teas, juices and smoothies served by pretty young baristas wearing T-shirts with slogans like But first, coffee, Life begins with coffee and Coffee: always a good idea. He came here often, laptop in his backpack, no different from a hundred other guys in a hundred other coffee shops all over the town, all tapping away, dreaming of their start-ups, the big break, the money they were going to make. He either worked here, or in the sleepy little branch library around the corner from his apartment. It was quieter there—the librarian was strict about no disturbances—but sometimes he liked people around him; liked the anonymity.
