The End Games

by T. Michael Martin

  If I’d just seen the Bellow . . . If I’d just been quicker . . . Bobbie would have been fine, Michael thought. And maybe she wouldn’t have stayed out there by herself at all if it wasn’t for me trying to make her feel better.

  “But how come?” Patrick said.

  Michael lifted his head, began taking in other things around him. Their shapes and meanings vague at first, like pixels seen too up close. He looked at the walls. And understood that Hank’s screams were not totally grief.

  During the captain’s “mission” into the city, his Capitol had been invaded.

  Crucifixes glimmered on the walls. Letters flickered in the twitching light, like runes.

  GUIDE OUR HAND, ALL MIGHTY WRATH. Shadow. GOD O WE BEG FOR THE SON. Shadow. THE SON O GOD GIVE US THE SON. WE SACRIFICE

  WE SACRIFICE ALL

  WE SACRIFICE OURSELVES TO YOU

  Michael swooned with distant horror, because he realized that the markings slashed across the walls were red—and the red did not look like it was paint.

  The Rapture are sacrificing each other now, he thought. Not just other people who try to hurt the Bellows.

  ’Cause, you know what Rulon is doing now, Michael? He’s changing the rules. You know how he’s making his followers believe that they can be saved?

  Just look at the walls.

  He’s making them feel their blood.

  “What’s ‘out’? Why? Bellows aren’t s’posed to h-h-hurt people,” Patrick was saying. He was not even trying to hide his rising anxiety. “Was Bobbie hurt real bad?” He grabbed his right ear and twisted on it once, hard.

  “Bub, don’t—” Michael said.

  Patrick lowered his hand, but his chin still trembled. “I l-l-like Bobbie, she said Mommy was going to see me soon. Where’s Mommy?”

  “They were here, Captain!” Hank said, striding past Michael. The captain had entered from the night, through the double doors. “The Rapture. Bastards came and broke right in!”

  “What gave it away, Detective?” the captain said softly.

  Hank blinked. “The walls—the—over here, see?”

  The captain looked at Patrick, trying to smile sadly about Hank’s stupidity or something.

  “There was a letter nailed on the door,” Hank said. He handed Jopek a closed envelope, which was addressed like this:

  TO THE DEVIL IN CHARGE

  Jopek took it, half interested. Nodded. “Class-A move with that knife in the car, by the way.”

  Hank frowned, blushing and wounded.

  Suddenly, Jopek whirled, drawing his weapon, and firing into the darkness of the hall at his back.

  “I see you, sumbitch!” he shouted, and his machine gun belched a ten-second, sweeping burst. The gun flashed the empty halls, the rotunda, the dome above.

  As randomly as he’d begun, Jopek stopped. “Checking,” he muttered. “I think they’re gone. But, shit, they broke into my base, didn’t they? Got past all the land mines and into my city, didn’t they? Even stole the weapons in the fence maze, I saw. Bet they stole my caches in the Capitol, too. But yeah, I sure reckon they’re gone now. I reckon they don’t wanna screw with ol’ Jopek—GODDAMN YOU—”

  This time, the captain’s bullets were not random: Jopek hollered like a fury of thunder, accompanied by lightning from his own hands, shooting out the chain that held the chandelier within the dome. The chandelier plummeted past the balcony by which they stood, shattering in the well of the lower level.

  “Sore loser,” Michael whispered huskily to Patrick. But suddenly this rotunda felt very small.

  Holly stood from her cot, moving closer to where the rest of them stood, in front of their panting protector.

  “You think they took all our other guns?” she said.

  “What’d I say?” the captain replied petulantly.

  “So . . .” Hank said, a question in his voice.

  So is it safe here? So when do we leave? But Michael said nothing. He didn’t want any attention on himself right now. Or any questions about Bobbie.

  “So . . . do we need to do anything with Bobbie?” Holly asked when Hank didn’t go on.

  The captain shook his head. “She’s in the Kanawha, now.”

  The image of Bobbie’s body, floating in the Kanawha River among six-pack rings and coal-dirty water, sent grippy rolls of nausea through Michael. He felt Patrick’s arms tighten on his waist, questioning. He felt it, but ignored it, trying to think of what to say, what to do.

  “So we should go,” Patrick said.

  The captain looked at Patrick. Michael looked at Patrick.

  “The bad guys are coming. And Bellows’re . . . bein’ jerks. We should go, duh.”

  “No, boy, ain’t nowhere we’re goin’. Ain’t nowhere but bed.”

  “Sleep?” said Hank, a little incredulous, even angry. It was the first time Michael had heard him speak to Jopek with anything other than absolute respect. “Here?”

  “Hankzilla, cool down,” Holly said. She touched his shoulder, and there was real care on her face as she calmed her brother. “The captain’s right. We are all shaky right now. And we aren’t sure what’s going on yet, with anything.”

  “We know the frickin’ maniacs are stealing our shit!” Hank said. “And we know They’re starting to tear out their damn eyes and move around in the day now!”

  “But we don’t know why,” Holly said. “We’re safer here than anywhere; we can put new locks on the gates for tonight, and—Look, I am burnt. I am tired, and I want to lie down. And I want to cry. The morning is when we can figure things out.” She looked to the captain. “Right?” she said, then added, “Sir?”

  The captain held her gaze.

  “Absolutely,” he said simply.

  They stood there, their remade halls rising into new darkness around them and ringing with sounds of the Bellows approaching in the night, and it was a moment Michael would remember for a long time: when he looked back on that night among the wicked graffiti, the night before so much changed, it was the moment that seemed to sum it up.

  Because Hank said, “You’re right.”

  Patrick said, forlorn but cooperating, “I’m hungry.”

  No objections. No fights.

  “So y’all best get on to bed. Me, I got some securin’ of the perimeter to do.”

  No one is asking why the Rapture are attacking now.

  Or why Jopek made us go out.

  “I just got one question,” said Jopek. “You helped Bobbie down, yeah, Mike?”

  Michael’s pulse butterflied in his throat. Slowly, he nodded.

  “Did you know she was bit?” the captain said.

  They watched him. And what Michael realized was, there would be no good in telling them the truth. The words would leave him and become theirs, and everyone would put together the wrong puzzle. They would only see a reckless, skinny kid who’d grabbed the captain’s gun. A kid who’d put them all in danger by trying to save Bobbie, and to what end?

  Michael shook his head. “No clue.”

  “None? Genius,” Hank scoffed. Hank was going to apologize for questioning the captain by being mean to Michael.

  But to Michael’s shock, Jopek only said, “Take the man at his word, Henry.” He rubbed the back of his neck, his forehead crinkled in what looked like pain. “Shit, we got a lot ahead of us now, but I’ll guarantee somethin’ we ain’t gonna do: rip our platoon apart, not trust each other. Now y’all get to sleep. Things’ll look brighter tomorrow, guarantee you that.

  “Anyhow. Like Michael said. The soldiers will be here soon.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Soldiers will be here soon. The words, clanging and swooping inside his head. Like Michael said.

  Patrick lay down on a cot in the Senate chambers later that night, the tips of his hair sharp with water out under the edge of his WVU wool cap. Their previous bedroom, the lieutenant governor’s office, had been ransacked by the Rapture. Black night dipped in through the windows: this side of the Cap
itol was a face turned from the moon, and the objects cast across the floor—an iPod, two toy guns—were only weird buoys floating disembodied in the dark. Hank’s vague form, far away on a cot, shifted. Wind like a far train in the halls.

  Michael pulled Patrick’s blanket to his armpits, to let him tuck it under himself the way he liked. But Patrick didn’t.

  How long do you think until that unit gets here? everyone had asked. What road were you on when you saw them? Are you sure you don’t know? Not in so many words, not in words at all. But building up to words, which Patrick would hear and be confused and frightened by: Michael could hear it in the way their breath kept pausing as if on unformed sentences. And suddenly, barely, Michael got an idea: “I’m going to give Patrick a shower.” They had, after all, not had a real one in weeks. They had, after all, earned it, getting to this, ha-ha, Safe Zone. Hank had still been asking questions as Michael carried Patrick away.

  Who was it that said people need hope?

  It was Bobbie.

  When Patrick stripped in the showers attached to the Capitol’s weight room, the rodlike appearance of his ribs sent a black surge of helplessness through Michael that nearly made him shake. Patrick’s hands were going up to his ears, and Michael knew that he was going to begin scratching at them, yanking at them, and Michael looked in his eyes and saw a flash of what Patrick saw—him, bewildered and depressed and scared—and understood what he wanted to see instead. So Michael “slipped” on the shower’s clean tiles until Patrick smiled. His smile was no more real than Michael’s.

  While they were showering, Captain Jopek sneaked into Michael’s frightened mind. In his imagination, Jopek placed the cold eye of his pistol to the back of his head. “If you care ’bout Bobbie Lou so much,” he whispered, “I’ll be glad to send you to her.” Michael knew it was not real, but he turned again and again, almost expecting to see the captain pixelate into existence from the shower mist, like some grim phantom coming to issue judgment and death.

  Michael sat down next to Patrick’s cot. He noticed dust on the blanket and brushed it clean. Brushed it, brushed it.

  “Michael?” his brother said.

  “Well, better hit the hay,” Michael replied too quickly. He stopped brushing the blanket, couldn’t figure out where to put his hands instead. His thighs.

  Stop looking at me, Patrick. Stop trying to figure out how I feel. You won’t like it.

  “Are you gonna talk to the Game Master tonight?” Patrick said hesitatingly. A bitter, frightening laugh tried to rise in Michael’s throat. “Will you ask him why’s he lettin’ the Bellows change? And the cheaters keep cheating? And what we’re gonna do tomorrow?”

  “Sure.”

  And it won’t matter.

  “Time to sleep, though. Do you want a pill?” Michael said.

  Patrick hesitated, obviously divided.

  You didn’t need one last night, when you thought I got us safe, Michael thought.

  After a moment’s pause, Patrick nodded.

  Michael got the Atipax bottle from their bag, angling it so that Patrick couldn’t see how few were left. Two more pills after this one.

  Patrick stuck out his tongue and carefully put the pill on it. A little water dribbled down his chin as he drank from the Red Cross plastic water bottle. Red crosses. Madness written on the walls.

  “Thank you,” Patrick said, wiping his mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” Michael blurted. Couldn’t help it. I’m sorry I don’t know what to do. I’m sorry that I didn’t realize that the Safe Zone didn’t mean The End. Sorry we’re in this room, breathing the same air as these people. Sorry you want to be like me. ’Cause, what exactly do you think you’ll be if you are like me?

  “Sorry . . . I snapped at you when we were going to the movie theater,” Michael finished.

  “No, you did a good job, Gamer!” Patrick said. His face was a mask of enthusiasm. And right then, Michael realized something. Lying on an abandoned cot in the dark heart of the Capitol and all of its false promises, Patrick was not pretending to be brave or to feel okay.

  Patrick’s trying to make me feel better. Michael’s face prickled, a burn of shame. Michael is my protector, Patrick had always thought. Michael is my own Safe Zone. But that image of Michael was breaking apart.

  Who are you, Michael? he seemed to be secretly asking. Who are you, and what’s going to happen to me?

  Patrick turned onto his side, facing the window. Turning away because he knows I’m upset. Sleep tight, don’t let the Bellows bite, Bub. But they will in your dreams. Because you think I can’t protect you. Because—

  “Do you know what a jack-o’-lantern is?” Michael said.

  Patrick rolled back to Michael after a reluctant pause. “Pumpkin,” he said, his brow knitting, rubbing his nose on his sleeve.

  “R-right,” Michael said, nodding in what he hoped was a thoughtful fashion. “But do you know where they come from, I mean?”

  Patrick answered, “Walmart?”

  “Ha, no. They’re actually this tradition from Ireland. People used to believe that on Halloween night, ghosts came back to earth.” You’re gonna scare him, idiot. “They believed this ’cause they were newbs,” he added.

  “See, the Irish people thought that ghosts would go from house to house on Halloween, so—”

  “Ghosts eat candy?”

  Michael barked laughter. A sleep-mutter and a creak of springs sounded from Hank’s cot across the room. It felt wonderfully warm, wonderfully whole, to laugh like that.

  Patrick’s face brightened a little.

  “No, Bubbo, ghosts don’t trick-or-treat. They can’t hold the bags, for one thing. Ectoplasm all over the candy. Buzzzz killll.”

  Patrick’s smile, touching his sleepy eyes, felt even better than Michael’s own laughter had. Actual fact: it wasn’t even a close call.

  “So yeah, we got Ireland, dead folks, Halloween—”

  “Heh. It’s funny,” Patrick said. “Monster stuff coming on Halloween. Like in The Game.”

  Michael blinked. Jeezus cripes, he thought. Yeah. Wow.

  He felt that feeling of things syncing. He thought of the church, of the hot-air balloon rising out of the night. He understood that Bobbie would perhaps have said that the feeling inside of him was the voice of something supernatural: a whisper emanating from some secret, tremendous Power that commanded everything that had happened in this world and everything yet to arrive. Michael had never believed in that sort of “God” before Halloween—and he certainly didn’t believe in it now, after Bobbie died so hideously, so unfairly. But he didn’t quite know what the feeling was. He knew that it was a little scary, a little out-of-control. But (perhaps because the feeling overpowered the pain) Michael didn’t push the feeling away.

  He rode it. Like a dark wave.

  “Yeah,” Michael whispered, “the ghosts did come back on Halloween. They came to possess living people. They used living bodies, like people-suits. But do you think the Irish wanted to be taken over?”

  Patrick shook his head, happily engaged.

  “Right on, duder. So they found a way to trick the ghosts into taking over something else,” Michael said. “Because the ghosts were looking for a warm body . . .”

  The words hung there, Patrick looking confused.

  “Warm body with a face . . .”

  “A jack-o’-lantern!” Patrick exploded, like a kid yelling BARNYARD BINGO!

  “Hey!” Hank hissed from his cot across the room.

  “Hey-hey!” Patrick replied. To which Hank had no retort.

  “Yep: jack-o’-lanterns. Like guards, to keep things safe. And Bub, guess what we got right here?”

  Michael pointed out the window; they could just see it, the crest of orange-bright canvas on which snow fell. The jack-o’-lantern hot-air balloon.

  Patrick finally slept.

  Bub had just begun snoring when a hand grabbed Michael by the shoulder.

  He flinched, the springs squeaking ben
eath him. But the person who grabbed him wasn’t who he’d been afraid it would be.

  “Good evening,” Holly whispered. He could smell her citrusy gum, but he couldn’t see her expression: his own shadow obscured her face. “There’s something I need your help with,” she said, and cocked her head toward the door, silently leaving the Senate chambers before he could answer.

  He thought: No, I shouldn’t go. I shouldn’t talk to anyone. I’ll have to just lie more, anyway.

  But Michael couldn’t help it: he wanted to follow Holly.

  The windows in the hallway looked out on the courtyard of Government Plaza. Michael saw that, for the first time since he’d reached the Safe Zone, Bellows had breached the defense systems on the bridge between the Capitol and downtown. Two dozen or so monsters—who must have gotten in through the fence’s “buffer zones” before Jopek could relock the gates—roamed freely in the fence maze.

  Holly stood by the last window at the very end of the hall, looking outside, the moon so strong that she cast a shadow. Michael hesitated momentarily again, thinking it would be better to go back, but then walked on.

  “Hey,” he whispered as he reached her.

  Before Holly turned to him, she started a polite grin. The grin never made it to her eyes—although Michael got the sense that she was trying very hard to make it do so. “Hiya,” she said, not quite meeting his gaze.

  There was a long silence.

  Michael said, “Sorry, um . . . you did want me to help you with something, right?”

  “No. Yeah, I mean. Kind of.” Holly gave up her not-smile and shook her head in aggravation—at me? “Sorry I’m weird. Shit.” She didn’t say it with her usual self-deprecating jokiness, though: she was being mean to herself. “I saw that you were awake, and I was thinking I could change that dressing on your neck for you,” she said. And before Michael could respond, she opened a door across the hall into a small fancy-ish sort of break room.

  Disappointment settled heavily in Michael’s chest. Well, what the hell did you expect her to want with you? He’d just been thinking of their possibly flirty conversation yesterday, how good it felt to experience a distraction from the horrors of the “paused” world.