The End Games

by T. Michael Martin

Jopek swiveled toward the door. Holly had been entering hurriedly when she stopped short. Her eyebrows flicked up, surprised to see Michael.

  “Well, here he is. And good timin’. This storm’s really kickin’ things up. If we’re gonna get goin’ . . .”

  Jopek shrugged: then we better.

  Captain Jopek was leaving the room, already drawing his key ring from his belt. Finally, Holly looked at Michael, and though it was dangerous, because it was dangerous, before Jopek even sailed out the doorway, Michael reached into his own pocket, grabbed the keys he’d stuffed there, and held them up for Holly to see.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  But she didn’t smile.

  She wouldn’t even look at him. Not when they corralled Patrick at the rotunda, not when Jopek asked Hank to stay behind and be watchman in case the Rapture returned, not when Hank looked outright depressed that Jopek was taking Michael along instead of him.

  Not even when they went outside to the rear Capitol steps, and everything got so weird.

  “What the!” Patrick said—shouted, actually. He had to, it was so loud out here.

  Past the Abraham Lincoln statue and the deflated balloon tethered to it, two hundred eyeless Bellows roared in the falling snow and pushed en masse against the security fences that ran on both sides of the Hummer. Last night, Jopek had relocked the fence systems on the bridge after the Rapture’s invasion; Michael had seen only a couple dozen Bellows on Government Plaza afterward. But somehow the monsters had found a way across the downtown bridge, and they penetrated every layer of the security barriers, except for one final double layer of chain link. He saw, with whooshing relief, that the Hummer’s escape path through the fence system was still intact. But the final layer of fencing was bulging dangerously with the force of the Bellows, and Michael could hear more Bellows on Government Plaza around the corner of the Capitol—“more” as in “freaking hundreds.”

  “Them tricky bastards started comin’ in from the river last night!” Jopek said. He looked almost excited, like this was a fun, new challenge.

  Michael looked at the enormous Kanawha River, past the Hummer and the fence. The river had seemed like peace itself last night. Now Bellows were churning past in the current, sinking and then surfacing downstream, screaming white jets of water into the air. And by luck or something worse, some Bellows were ending up on the shore, were shuffling toward the fences, as if trying to gain the Capitol.

  Michael pictured the fences popping like over-tight wire. We have to get out of here. Like now.

  Jopek, whistling, strolled down the marble steps toward the Hummer, walking needlessly close to the rotting hands shooting through the fences. A Bellow with a LeBron James–caliber reach swiped at him, smearing green goo on the captain’s right shoulder. “Open wide, honey,” he said, and—without looking—unstrapped his ankle pistol and shot off the Bellow’s jaw.

  Michael called to Jopek, “Captain, why can’t the soldiers clear the roads themselves?”

  Jopek put the pistol in his belt, cocked a hand behind his ear, grinned, “What’s that? Couldn’t hear ya.”

  “Is it really safe, Michael?” Patrick said over the din. “It’s really how to win?”

  “’Course it is, Bub!” Jopek shouted, apparently hearing just fine now. “C’mon, now, buddy—let’s get The Game started!”

  The blood pulled out of Michael’s face. He felt his windpipe close to the size of a pinhole.

  How the hell does Jopek know about The Game?

  Hearing the captain speak the term Michael had created to protect Patrick—created to protect Patrick from monsters, and from people just like Jopek—felt like a violation.

  “Okay!” Patrick called brightly, relief in his brother’s voice. Relief, Michael thought, because someone else told him that he was safe.

  As Patrick practically skipped to the Hummer, Michael glanced to Holly. She had bluish circles under her eyes—as if she’d stayed up late last night, talking to someone after she and Michael had parted.

  “Holly,” he whispered, “did you tell Jopek about—”

  She walked away, down the steps, got into the rear of the Hummer.

  Michael, seeing no choice now that Patrick was excited, followed. But when he boarded the Hummer, he saw Patrick crawling through the sliding slot, to the front seat.

  “Hey, Bubbo, what’re you—”

  Jopek loaded into the driver’s seat and looked back at Michael. “Thought it might be neat for him to ride up front. I’ll make him buckle up—standard Game procedure, right, ha-ha?”

  Patrick grinned at Michael.

  Jopek snapped the sliding plate closed before Michael could say anything.

  Outside, the sunlight pulled free through the storm for one split second. Bellows moaned, as if in approval.

  What. The hell. Is going on?

  “Holly, why did you tell Jopek about The Game?” Michael whispered as he strapped himself into the harness across from her. He felt as if Holly had somehow handed Jopek a weapon. Maybe that was just paranoia. But that was only part of the reason that he felt so stung. Holly, I trusted you, he thought.

  “Just to be careful,” Holly replied. “I didn’t want Jopek to say anything that would make Patrick realize this isn’t a game.”

  “Taking care of Patrick is my job, Holly.”

  “But why would you even risk someone saying anything that could confuse Patrick, since we all live together in the Capitol?”

  “We’re going to leave the Capitol.”

  Holly turned away from him, looking out the window of the rear door, stripes of shadow and light flowing over her face as the Hummer moved forward. She murmured, “Yeah . . .”

  Oh man, Michael thought, afraid suddenly. You didn’t change your mind about leaving, did you?

  As Jopek drove them across the bridge, Michael’s chest tightened once again: Bellows on the ledges were throwing themselves over the guardrail, down into the Kanawha River chopping far below.

  “What’s going on?” Michael whispered.

  Holly didn’t look.

  The city mutated, Michael. Everything did.

  “Holly, we should not be in this city anymore.”

  The panel to the front slid open; the captain called, “Comfortable back there, lovebirds?”

  Patrick chuckled.

  The panel sliced shut.

  Michael began to bite the nail of his thumb, stopped it at his lips, put his hands to his thighs, realized his hands were blotting sweat.

  He had outsmarted a thousand living dead with a station wagon and rusting gun, but he hadn’t felt this choking-terror feeling for weeks.

  Captain Jopek took the main roads into the downtown grid. Perhaps as a result of the Rapture’s infiltration of the city’s defenses last night, Bellows now roamed freely even on these previously secured streets. Jopek sped every few seconds, rammed into the Bellows, laughed. But bizarrely, as the Hummer progressed farther into the city, the number of Bellows in the streets actually decreased, until there were practically none at all. What are the Bellows doing? Are they all going to the Capitol? Or the river? Why?

  It doesn’t matter. I’m still going to get us out of here.

  You don’t know what’s going on. You didn’t think of any of this.

  Through muscling will, Michael pretended he wasn’t here in the Hummer. He was an avatar in a video game, waiting for the next screen to load. Because that’s what’s true: this is like a game, and you’re in control of it. You are. Do you freaking hear me? This is just a game and you are the Game Mas—

  The car stopped.

  The sliding panel between the rear and front compartments was still closed, save a thin slit. Michael peered through. Jopek was speaking to Patrick, gesturing with his hands. His head looked so enormous next to Patrick’s.

  Michael leaned closer, trying to hear what they were saying over the loud engine—hoping, in fact, that Patrick might look back and smile, and Michael could draw just a bit of confidence
and strength from his little brother’s image of him.

  Patrick suddenly tossed back his head and burst out laughing at something Jopek said.

  Jopek affectionately ruffled Patrick’s hair.

  Patrick low-fived Jopek, looking as happy as Michael had seen him since Halloween.

  A thread of jealousy and low panic stitched through Michael. But he dismissed it. Patrick wouldn’t really change, not without getting to the Safe Zone ending that Michael and The Game had promised. Patrick wasn’t capable of that. Definitely not, Michael tried to tell himself. Definitely not.

  A moment later, the rear door swung open and light crashed in.

  They were in the parking lot of a shattered shopping center: Kohl’s, a Christian bookstore, RadioShack, Little Caesars, lots of FOR RENT signs. Mountains loomed in one direction, the skyline in the other: the captain had brought them to the final edge of downtown. A few Bellows staggered about under the swinging stoplight at the exit of the lot, a hundred yards away. But the Bellows were separated from Jopek’s Humvee by an obstacle course of Hummers and tanks positioned throughout the parking lot. The number of military vehicles in this seemingly inconsequential parking lot seemed bizarre, but Holly didn’t seem to react at all. Jokes came to mind about why the vehicles were here—a sale on “tank tops”—but Michael said nothing.

  “I thought we were going to make sure the roads are clear,” Michael said.

  “Just got one last place left to search, big boy,” said Jopek. Affectionate and buddy-buddy, but Michael sensed a sharp edge under the smooth voice.

  Past a pair of overturned, silver-trailered army trucks sat the only non-raided building in the lot: an enormous and shockingly well-preserved Walgreens pharmacy. Jopek led Michael, Patrick, and Holly to it, stepping over a few sandbags and several truly dead corpses clustered beside the trucks.

  He put a couple bullets in the Walgreens’s door lock; a kick took care of the rest. “This here’s the last place on my list to look for any survivors before the soldiers get into town,” Jopek said as everyone followed him in. “And maybe someone could pick up some A-t-i-p-a-x, how’s that sound? Faris, you shop for us.”

  Jopek thrust a cart to Michael. It rattled quickly. Michael tried to catch the handlebar one-handed, but it hit so hard that the cart lurched sideways, hitting his foot. “C’mon, Faris, be a team player.”

  Jopek turned away to the heart of the store, cocked his hands on his hips. “Attention, Walgreens customers!” he crowed.

  “Cuuuuuuussst . . . eeerrrrr . . .” The Bellows’ echo. It came from the rear of the store, flattened by layers of doors and walls. The idea of being in a building with Bellows, after yesterday, seemed insane.

  “Ready a-go?” Patrick said happily. “The captain and I are going to explore, okay, Michael?” A genuine request for permission. That made Michael feel better.

  Jopek said, “Patrick’s gonna come ’round with me. Boy in this world should learn to fight. Has to. Otherwise—well, s-h-i-t.”

  “Yeah, to be honest, I’d rather he not go looking for Zeds.”

  “Hey, you let him wander ’round coal towns with ya, huh? Let him crawl under a bus, he was tellin’ me.”

  “Always in eyesight,” Michael said, cringing at the childish defensiveness in his voice.

  “’Course, he must have been safe ’cause you got them magic, protectin’ eyes. Ha-ha, just teasin’!”

  Michael felt a kind of low rage, suddenly wanting to throttle the captain. But he pushed down his objections. If Michael wanted to get out of here he had to speak to Holly about what was going on . . . maybe even about how to get away from the captain. And Patrick would be with a man with an assault rifle, which meant he would not be totally unsafe. “Right,” he returned the smile. “Go for it. Hey, just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  “Doing what you wouldn’t do,” Jopek called over his shoulder, walking down an aisle, “is the whole point, kinda.”

  They all—Holly included—went.

  Michael stood.

  Scared. Nervous. Embarrassed. Confused.

  And, then: royally fugging pissed.

  He swiveled on his heels and marched, gaining speed, the cart’s wheels squeaking to a higher and higher pitch. He propelled himself down not the medical aisle, but the food ones; he held out an arm to the shelves and let it knock in protein bars, mints, crackers, a plastic barrel of pretzels, baked chips. The glass doors of the drink cases at the end of the aisle were webbed with cracks that had let out the cold, but who cared, Pibb Xtra and Red Bull don’t go bad. He stuffed the child seat with the cylinders of pure, sweet, awesome sugar explosions that Patrick loved best.

  Who does Jopek think he is? He think he can just jab me around and never be jabbed back? Who does he think he freaking is?

  Michael, turning from the drink cases, touched the Hummer keys in his pocket like a talisman, and shouted, “Whoa, I bet you could live for a week on all this food!”

  And that’s enough, right, Holly? Okay, maybe you had second thoughts, but once I show you all this—that I do what I say, that I can do what I want—that’ll be enough, right? You’ll let me save you, right?

  “Liiiiivvveee . . .” called the Bellows in the parking lot. They had begun winding closer through the field of Hummers outside.

  Doesn’t matter. Move.

  He rattled back down the snack aisle, by the book racks, celebrity magazines flapping in his wake.

  At the checkout counter, Michael grabbed Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups with jack-o’-lantern wrapping, some Peppermint “Batties,” and a display’s worth of 5-Hour Energy. He grabbed a pair of new aviator sunglasses for Patrick off a spinner rack, put them in his pocket.

  The cart was now packed half a foot high.

  Andbutso, now what? He drummed his palms on the handlebar, his eyes going closed, trying to find his pulse. So get it out into the car.

  He thrust the cart toward the front exit. It powered its own way and stopped between the anti-theft sensors. Now . . . now get Patrick and go out to the car—

  Except one thing—

  —kinda a biggie—

  How are you gonna get Patrick out without Jopek being suspicious?

  He couldn’t. He knew he couldn’t.

  A triple-burst of gunshot leapt from the rear of the pharmacy, silencing a Bellow. A double burst followed, a single shot, another triple. How long before there were no more Bellows back there to occupy the captain?

  Outside, a scud of phantom-colored cloud loomed over the sun, casting a pallor over the aisles like early twilight.

  3:27. Jopek was going to come out front and announce their departure. 3:28.

  “Holly?” Michael said. No reply.

  Feel your blood.

  He did.

  And it told him the logical, pure truth: there was nothing he could do.

  Standing there, his heart a fierce coil in his throat, a sudden bloom of despair nearly overtook Michael. Why had he thought he could take control of this? Why had he thought he could escape a captain in the army? Good one, Mike. Tell us the one again about the tank tops. It was just like what Holly said about the virus, his life had returned to where it had come from: his and Patrick’s lives, commanded by a man who did not play by any sane rules.

  No! Michael thought. I am going to get us out of here! But that voice rang hollow.

  “Holly?” he tried again.

  Not even a Bellow responded.

  Do you pray? No, I don’t. But maybe I should, because those maniacs in the woods do, and even they can control their lives more than I can. So, yeah: God, if you’re not too busy figuring out where to put all the people who showed up recently, HELP M—

  And he became aware that he was being watched.

  The lot outside was grim with shrouded sunlight. He turned and turned. There were no monsters near the storefront yet; but goose bumps nonetheless lit across his arms and neck. A few deer were cantering peacefully just outside. They were arranged, the th
ree of them, in a triangle. And they seemed, instantly, a family. The spotted fawn sniffed the cement with a kid’s curiosity; the mother doe’s eyes warily flicked over the bodies on the ground. The buck led them. It had power, you could see that; its muscled shoulders and thighs looked thick and fast and beautiful. The sharp spread of its antlers gestured, somehow kingly, with each stride.

  I saw you two nights ago, Michael thought. Or something like you. At the cliff. Right before I almost fell off, I did.

  That sensation: like clockwork behind a curtain. Filling Michael now. Like yes-yes, but not. Stronger than yes-yes. Beyond it.

  Michael realized that the sight of the deer was making him hold his breath.

  He tried to let it out softly, but dust hitched his throat. He coughed.

  The doe’s and the fawn’s heads sprang up. They eyed Walgreens. He felt certain that they couldn’t see him because of glare on the glass, but he froze, for some reason. The clouds, however, did not: they gusted, spilling sun, so the fringe of the deers’ coats looked momentarily lit on fire, like cave paintings of majestic creatures of a higher world. Their own sudden shadows frightened them; the doe and fawn fled across the parking lot, weaving like spirits through the disinterested Bellows now emerging from the field of tanks.

  The buck remained. There seemed to be a field of power emanating from it, almost humming. Its moist snout blew two strong plumes of breath. Its coal eyes held the glass.

  Michael told himself, It’s just looking at itself. It can’t see in.

  But no. No, he felt that the animal was staring at him.

  Chills, not entirely pleasant, powered across Michael’s skin. He stood in stunned silence, mentally and physically frozen. I didn’t see the cliff coming, and there wasn’t anyplace left to run . . . but I still survived.

  Was it possible . . . something was helping him? Was that real, or was it him hoping it?

  He felt a quickness of warmth fill him: small at first, a candle in a cave; but it grew. In truth, it began to torch. There was no reason that he should feel good. None. There was no clear path for escaping Jopek right now.

  And yet . . .