The End Games

by T. Michael Martin

  But an image came to Michael’s mind: the Bellow that had scratched him, the Bellow in the miner’s suit.

  One crumpled eyeball hanging from the monster’s socket when it attacked him. As if the Bellow had already undergone the mutation that instructed the Bellows to tear out their eyes; yes, as if the virus within that miner-Bellow was already changing into something more dangerous.

  Michael’s mind, shrieking like a disaster siren: Infeeeeeect! Infeeeeeect!

  He thought: ruined everything, oh I hate myself, I hate myself, so freaking stupid—

  He thought: Patrick!

  “Mike! Hey, c’mon back, Mike!” Captain Jopek’s voice chased through the echoing black. He sounded friendly enough: he was even laughing. “Where you runnin’? Where’s there to run, fella?”

  Jopek won.

  I’m infected, and I’m running away from Patrick. I’m infected and there is no safe place.

  Shut up! Just freaking run! Just run and you will figure it out, the future you will figure it out!

  But the future Me is probably a Bellow—

  Feel—feel—feel your bl—

  Tears scorched his throat and eyes, and Michael wanted to scream but heard himself just saying, “Please, please, please, please,” thought, Do you pray? No, I run, and the blood ramming inside was not his blood, it was not the blood he’d gotten from Mom and it was not the blood he shared with Patrick, it was not the blood that saved anyone any pain: it was the blood that was going to kill him—

  Michael saw a door, slammed it open.

  Michael skidded, stopped no more than inches from the hands and faces shooting through the chain link: the Bellows were thirty-deep against a single final double layer of fence. I’m outside. From the sound, there were thousands surrounding the Capitol, thousands and thousands that had surged through all the buffer zones of the bridge or entered through the Kanawha River, as if the resurrection of Cady Gibson had ignited some riotous undead beacon.

  And the instant of danger, amazingly, made Michael realize:

  I’m behind the Capitol.

  He could see the Hummer (useless to him without the keys still on Hank’s dead body) stationed in the clear lane between the fences.

  But another transport was back here, too.

  The balloon!

  The jack-o’-lantern face lolled, grinning, perhaps one hundred yards away, aglow softly, inflated, its butane burner readied by Hank for Jopek’s night patrol. Michael could just see the top of it past the camouflage gas tanker beside him, but yes, it was there. Ready to fly.

  Where? Oz?! he thought wildly.

  Virginia!

  What!

  Other people—cure, cure—

  What about Patrick?

  I’m saving him—

  By leaving him?

  Yes! Only way!

  Was that true?

  He told himself to shut up.

  And ran.

  In the thin and deadly lane between the fences and the steps of the Capitol, electric over crumbled concrete, the green smell of death overpowering, every step aware of an image: Jopek coming out the grand double doors like an insane senator exacting revenge on his would-be assassin.

  Michael gripped the wicker and he leapt into the basket. He tugged the silver lever on the burner. The flame ignited to life, carnival-colored.

  Slowly, slowly, the balloon began to rise.

  Hurry! Please freaking hurry!

  The fire filled the pumpkin face, roared.

  The double doors to the Capitol opened, and when Michael spun, he did so already feeling a phantom bullet in his back.

  “Patrick?” he gasped.

  Patrick stood waving at the top of the grand steps to the West Virginia State Capitol, smiling. And there was no one else with him.

  How did he get out here by himself?

  Doesn’t matter, just get him, you—you probably have time to get to Richmond—you can still save him—

  Extra life. The thought was a sunburst. Another chance!

  “B-B-Bub!” Michael swallowed, tried to control his voice. Patrick was moving down the stairs already, with the careful-footed caution of exactly what he was: a five-year-old who is afraid of slipping on ice. “Hurry!”

  “Trick!” Patrick said, delighted, leaving the bottom stair. “It was all a trick, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Michael said. “Trick”? What was Patrick talking about? Doesn’t matter! Michael suddenly thought of that night they’d spent in the woods. Eighty Bellows versus one gun. Easy Mode. “It was a trick. Pretty cool, the way I—Patrick—” he interrupted himself, “—ya-ya, I ya-ya.”

  Patrick smiled, held his arms up in the air.

  The basket was hovering a couple feet off the ground.

  “Crap, sorry!” Michael said. He considered simply jumping out of the basket himself, grabbing Patrick and climbing back in, but the image of the unoccupied aircraft hovering away across the Kanawha River stopped him. Though everything within his brain cried not to—though there was no time to do it—Michael dropped his hand from the burner.

  The flame sputtered, fwoop, to a small blue ring.

  There was a moment of stillness while the two brothers watched each other, unmoving, as the snow fell around them. And despite everything, Michael thought that moment tasted holy.

  “It was all a trick!” Patrick repeated, whispering with bright, coconspirator’s joy. “It was such an awwwwwesome one, Michael!”

  Michael leaned over to grab his brother, and Patrick bounded into his arms, hugging him fiercely. And wild joy was what Michael felt. And that moment would haunt him forever, because it was, in so many ways, the final moment—the endgame—of everything he’d imagined his life would be. “Freeze, sucka!” Patrick giggled. And as Michael set him back down, Michael thought: What the?

  There was something, huge and dark, in Patrick’s pale fingers.

  The fire had sucked the oxygen from the air.

  His brother was aiming a pistol, the policeman’s pistol Michael had gotten in the Walgreens, at his stomach. Its barrel looked large enough to shoot the moon.

  A distant thought: doesn’t work like this.

  “Bub,” Michael said. “What are you doing?”

  “Tricked you,” replied Patrick. “You’re the Betrayer, I know it,” said Patrick. He swung his head, saying it singsong. “Jopek, the Game Master told me.”

  Terror.

  “Pffft.” Michael licked his lips. “What’re you talking about, newb, Jopek isn’t the Game Ma—”

  “He told me you’d say that!” Patrick laughed.

  Michael held Patrick’s stare, and then lunged toward the burner.

  “STOP!” Patrick shouted.

  “—STOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPP—”

  Jopek and Patrick. In the Hummer. Talking.

  “Patrick . . . Bub, listen to me, that gun can really hurt people. I need you to put it down.”

  “The Game Master said it can’t hurt people real bad,” Patrick said, confused.

  “Jopek’s lying.”

  “You said the Game Master is always right.”

  Oh God, no.

  Footsteps echoed to Michael’s ears, from the Capitol steps.

  Tell Patrick the truth! There is no Game!

  And while Patrick stared behind his gun, Michael stayed silent.

  Jopek had known. Because Holly had told him about The Game and the reason it existed, Jopek had known Michael would never tell Patrick the truth—that he could never.

  And now Jopek, saying, “’Scuse us, fella,” captured him in a headlock, and pulled Michael from the basket.

  “Let me go!” Michael said, twisting uselessly.

  “Ahhhh, I don’t feel like it.”

  From some black well inside Michael: Bite! BITE him!

  And horror filled him. What did that mean?

  The fences on all sides of them surged and bowed with Bellows. A musical twang of ripping razor wire. The roar of a thousand dead throats. One of the tw
o remaining layers of chain link had given way. Bellows swelled across the overturned fence, a tsunami of flesh.

  “Look at this Betrayer!” Jopek called, laughing, dragging Michael up the marble steps into the Capitol as Patrick climbed out of the basket. “I think these ol’ Bellows know the Betrayer’s here, don’t you, Bub? I think the Bellows want some action! What do you think we should do with Michael? Throw him to the Bellows, maybe? They’re kinda his new brothers, wouldn’t ya say?”

  Michael looked at Patrick, and he remembered telling Patrick that they had to stop the Betrayer, “No matter what it takes.”

  N-no. Patrick won’t hurt me. He doesn’t know if things are safe, but he won’t take a chance.

  And that seemed like it was true, judging from the indecision on Patrick’s face.

  They reached the rotunda. “Captain, what is wrong with you, stop choking him like that!” Holly shouted.

  “Awww, he’s okay,” said Jopek.

  “Ho—Holly—help!” Michael’s croak seemed to blend with the chorus of the dead outside.

  “Michael, listen to me,” Holly said urgently, “you’re going to be okay. I told the captain, we’re going to keep you safe, right here.”

  “No! Please! Have to get to—to Virginia!”

  “The soldiers will be here anytime now. They’ll take us, soon. You’ll be fine.” She added, “I think.”

  Now! Tell them! If you do not tell them, there won’t ever be another now!

  “I lied, Holly! There are no other soldiers coming for us, we have to leave!”

  “No. No. Michael. Please, don’t make it worse for yourself,” Holly said, her eyes pain and pity.

  “Holly, please, oh God, I made it up! I always make everything up!”

  “See, bud?” said Jopek. “Now he admits it, don’t he?”

  “Michael,” said Holly, and began to cry. “Michael, stop lying.”

  “BUB! THERE—IS—NO—GA—”

  But he was already at the door of the Senate.

  It was open, looked like the mouth of a cave.

  Going to run, Michael saw. Jopek’s going to throw me in, but I’ll be smooth, I’ll land and Jopek will be surprised and I’ll grab his gun.

  The best Michael did when Jopek launched him, however, was not break any bones.

  He stumbled, knocking against congress seats as he fell.

  And in the moment before Jopek locked him in alone, Michael looked at his brother, in the lit doorway. His brother, who always sensed when something was the matter, even when Michael wished he didn’t.

  His brother, next to the pistol tucked unguarded in Jopek’s belt.

  Patrick looked deep into Michael, and the understanding came almost immediately, with a look of surprise and pity for his frightened big brother.

  “Michael?” said Patrick.

  “Y-yeah?”

  “It’s just a Game, it’s just a Game,” Patrick replied, like it was a prayer. “Just a Game, just a Game . . .”

  The door swung shut.

  Losing!

  Lost!

  I am lost!

  Michael slammed his shoulder into the door, but it was, of course, strong wood. He tried to focus on anything. He punched himself in the thigh, hard. His mind ran: Get Patrick. Get away. Get a plan!

  Outside, Jopek was laughing.

  Michael paced frantically, feeling that if he paced into a wall he would begin walking straight up it . . . like that Thing . . .

  Patrick laughed nervously back outside the door. Then his laughter sounded like it was going farther away.

  Michael whispered, “Bub . . .”

  Michael screamed: “BUB? HOLLY?”

  No reply from the halls of the Capitol.

  The cold column of panic in his chest uncoiled and spread to his limbs and tongue and eyes. His jaws wrenched open and over them a sound tore forth. Michael slid to the ground and jammed clawed hands into his face, and yes, and yes, he bellowed.

  He ran to the window overlooking the rear of the Capitol, the Hummer, the Kanawha River.

  Jopek was running toward the Hummer. Michael had not seen Patrick and Holly get into the vehicle, but he thought, Oh God no, they’re leaving me.

  And that was when something that once had been unthinkable occurred: A seam opened in part of the last of the Capitol defenses, and suddenly Bellows were pouring through, coming for the Hummer, twenty feet away from the Hummer, fifteen . . .

  Jopek jumped into the car and slammed the door. In his mind’s eye, Michael saw the Hummer, smashing through the few series of gates and fences that created the exit path for the Hummer, heading out, bye-bye, Mike, thanks for the memories.

  A thought occurred to him: Pray. Michael, pray.

  Michael placed his hand on the cold, moon-bright window.

  What if Bobbie had been right about there being Something that could help you? What if . . . what if he had misunderstood why the deer made him feel safe and good? What if it wasn’t some deep yes-yes aspect of himself that controlled things, but some other Power?

  What if he did pray?

  Please, he thought. Please . . . God. Please—Universe, whatever—if you’re there, you’ll help me! Please help, please let me not be infected, please save me, please make Jopek stop!—

  —and Captain Jopek, at that very instant, got out of his Hummer.

  The captain threw open the roof hatch and climbed out onto the vehicle’s roof: the gunslinger, stark and great against the stars.

  “Oh-my-God,” breathed Michael. A dizzying hope raced through him.

  Only for a moment.

  Captain Horace Jopek of the United States 101st slammed a clip into the SAW atop the Hummer and tugged back the machine-gun’s slide. The snout barked, hurling deadly fireflies into the gas tanker staged between the Hummer and Michael’s window. Flame, gory-bright, pyred up and out of the tanker. Bellows tossed and Bellows flew.

  Please God.

  The window roared in. Solid heat found Michael.

  He lifted, watching his own feet rise over his eyes, like a kid zooming on a swing.

  Please no. It was the last thought he remembered. And if anyone did answer his plea, he didn’t know it. Michael soared, and when his head struck the corner of a senator’s desk, the world went funny, upside down, back-asswards, game over good buddy, try again with your eyes open, newb: everything tumbling up and up into his own starless void; everything falling lost and gone, like the worldscape of a game board that has been overturned by a very mad man.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Rock-a-bye . . . Rock-a-bye . . . Mom hummed. Rock-a-bye . . .

  Her bracelet, the one with the fake acorns, tapped on Michael’s ear as she placed the damp washcloth on the back of his neck.

  “Any better? Do you want more saltines, baby?”

  Michael tried to answer, but felt too weak. Oh, pizza line. Why oh why oh why had he gotten in the pizza line? Bad call, newb. That stuff was famous for making stomachs stand straight, salute, and go kamikaze. Seventh grade sucked enough without puking lava, thanks for asking.

  Mom had called in sick to work to take care of him, and she had her hair in a ponytail and was wearing an N*SYNC T-shirt and jeans. She smelled good, too: like soap and hot water, not like too much makeup. And her boyfriend wasn’t here.

  “No more saltines, baby?” Michael shook his head. “That’s good. Because I ate ’em all. That was a joke. Do you think you’ll laugh later?” She snorted: he felt her breath, cool and good, on his neck.

  “Upboy . . . ,” someone called. “Get up. . . .”

  Michael’s heart fell a little. He tried to open his eyes . . . and he found he couldn’t. Sweet mother of crap, I am siiiiick.

  “Upboy!” called Ron’s voice.

  Michael opened his eyes.

  A shocking, thin blue in the sky. The sun ate up his vision like a white bomb. He blinked and looked away, the stalks of his eyes aching.

  Michael tried to sit up, and saw he already was. F
ell asleep sitting up? Huh. Hadn’t done that in a long time. Not since the night before Halloween, when he’d stayed up so late putting the finishing touches on his wonderful and 100 percent foolproof escape.

  His arms were stretched above his head. Reeeeach fer the skyyyy, he thought dimly. And when he tried to lower his arms, he couldn’t. There were glittering loops on his wrists. Metal.

  He was handcuffed to a wicker pole that stretched above his head.

  Jopek, across from him, blew smoke in his face.

  “God!” Michael shouted. He tried to dance back. The wall behind his back was solid, but shifted at his push; the floor swayed.

  Jopek said nonchalantly, “I get that a lot.” Behind him, clouds dipped and nodded.

  He sat on a short stool across from Michael, his hand draped over his crossed legs, his flak jacket casually open, his presence impossible. This couldn’t be real. Michael had been scratched, and the captain had left him behind. Michael’s bad blood was now just showing him a nightmare, that’s all, because he was in the Capit—

  Not the Capitol.

  Balloon, Michael thought. I’m in the balloon.

  “So, soldier—”

  “What’s going on? Where’s Patrick?”

  “—hope you’re rested up ’cause—”

  “What happened?” blurted Michael. “Am I still infected?” He recognized the desperate hope in his voice: it was the same that Bobbie’d had in the moments before her death. That feeling made him sick, but he could not stop it.

  “I know I said it before, but shoooo,” Jopek replied as if to just make conversation, “you sure sleep like the dead.

  “So Mike, did I pick the right size? Hope it ain’t uncomfortable—just gotta make sure you don’t bite or scratch nobody.”

  Size?

  Jopek indicated the space suit Michael was wearing.

  In his shock, Michael had not even noticed. He had seen such things in newspaper photographs before: a camouflage, full-body biowear suit. His breath bounced off the plastic faceplate and hissed back on his cheeks. The sleeves were clammy and tight, an alien skin pasted on his own. When Michael jerked in surprise, Jopek threw back his head and laughed.

  “Boyyyyyy, you’re funny, but you’re sure not sayin’ much today. You learn that stealthiness from the soldiers you saw? You like tryin’ to sneak up and kill people?”