“Fuck.” Pete wound the handle again and scanned for minutes, but the voice never came back. He put the radio back in his bag slowly, and then sat down in the middle of the road.
“Fuck,” he said breathlessly.
The town was dead—there was no other way to describe it. The door to the shop hung on its hinges, and the shopkeeper was nowhere to be seen. Other doors were open, and the houses were silent and dark inside. Nothing moved. There were no bird calls.
They filed inside the shop cautiously, dropping their packs in front of the counter. The shelves had been stripped bare and had come off their brackets in places, hanging askew. Chris went behind the counter and lifted a packet of cigarettes from the display. There were hundreds of packets left, but everything else was mostly gone.
Kieran and Pete sifted through what was left, collecting bottles of juice and water and anything they could find to eat. They dumped it all next to the till and started eating and drinking what they’d found. Chris tossed them a pack each and a lighter. They ate and smoked in silence.
“My mum,” Kieran said. “Oh, fuck, my mum.” His hand shook as he put the filtered end between his lips and tried to light it.
“We’re pretty far away from anywhere up here. Maybe it hasn’t reached anywhere else yet,” Pete said.
“But the radio…”
“Doesn’t mean it’s really bad, man. A national emergency, they’ll be putting that on every channel.” Chris tried to sound as if he was convinced.
They heard the scrape of a boot on the concrete outside, followed by heavy stumbling. They looked at each other for a second, and then Pete slipped his hand axe from his bag. Kieran ducked behind the door frame, and Chris opened his knife and ducked behind the counter.
“Hello!” A man’s voice called from outside. “Hello!”
Their stomachs tightened when he spoke.
“I’m not infected. I heard you in there.”
Chris stood up suddenly from where he was hiding. “Come in slowly, man,” he called.
The footsteps were heavy and labored, and after long minutes a tall man wearing torn and blood-smeared camouflage appeared in the doorway and stepped through. Pete held his axe ready for a second longer, and then dropped it to his side. The soldier held his hands up and Chris offered him a cigarette. He took it and lit it shakily, his hands trembling as though palsied. “Thanks.”
“Who are you?” Kieran asked.
“Sergeant Ross,” he said, sounding slightly distant.
“Sergeant Ross, what’s happening?”
“What do you mean, ‘What’s happening?’ Don’t you know?” He looked at each of them in turn. “You don’t, do you?”
“We’ve been camping in the hills—no radio, no phones.”
“Jesus.” He stubbed his cigarette out on the countertop, and lifted a fresh one and lit it.
“Does it have something to do with that satellite that crashed?” Pete asked.
“It wasn’t a satellite. That’s just what they said it was. They dug it up. It had been buried for a long time. It wasn’t from here.” His tone was low and distant, like he was telling a story he had heard second-hand.
“Slow down, you’re not making sense. What do you mean it wasn’t a satellite?”
“It wasn’t a satellite. They just said that to keep people away. They never told us until we got there. They didn’t want to move it, so they brought in teams to examine it. They let something out. Something in the air at first, then it changed…all my men are dead.” He stared at the wall, cigarette burning down in his hand.
“What was it?”
“Something old,” he continued to stare. “It had been here for a long time. Waiting. I only saw it once before things went bad. That’s how I felt when I saw it, like it was waiting. They bombed the site and the towns around it. They’ll bomb this one soon, but it’s already broken through the exclusion zone.”
“What exclusion zone?” Kieran asked, but he could see Ross wasn’t listening.
“What did you mean, it’s not from here?”
Ross looked at Chris and tapped ash onto the floor. “Men didn’t build it. Someone who was here before, maybe. It’s not from here.”
“You said something in the air. What’s in the air? Radiation? Disease?”
“If you see any infected, run. Even if you know them. They’ll tear you apart. I’ve seen it happen…”
He was looking out through the door and down the street. Pete and Kieran followed his gaze, and Chris climbed over the counter and did the same. Through the door, they could see a figure walking down the road. She staggered as though drunk.
“She was dead,” Kieran said quietly.
Ross started to sob softly; he put his cigarette to his mouth, but couldn’t hold it between his quivering lips.
Outside, she stopped. She looked in their direction and started to run, sprinting. She screamed a high-pitched animal scream no human voice could make. Other screams answered her from every direction and other people appeared behind her, running towards the town.
The Blanket Box
By David Murphy
Tony glanced sideways out the car window. Morning sun floated like gold leaf on the surface of the sea. He made the mistake of looking at the beach. Silver-tongued memory rose like a breaker: Matthew playing on white sand. The boy’s first and only kite. Joy on Matthew’s face—one of Tony’s most precious memories of his son, until what happened a month later came crashing over the horizon the way it always did when he drove this, or any other, road.
He parked his car fifteen minutes later. Was it getting easier to park memory as well, now that six months had passed since the boy’s death? He asked himself that question in the elevator to Dawson’s office. Maybe. Maybe not. Waves of memory were not as frequent now, though they still washed over him daily.
His boss looked him in the eye. “Level III today. You may find yourself testing the BlanketBox®. Good luck with that,” Dawson spoke in his gruff way. “Remember, it does exactly what it says on the tin.”
Tony nodded. They had told him how to use the BlanketBox® in R&D.
Angie escorted him to the lab and rigged him up as carefully as she always did. Ten minutes later, he slumped in his seat and stood in the latest edition of Transient City—the Third Tour.
Tony came up in a leafy ’burb, perhaps a park. He felt for what was strapped to his back. The device clung to him like a backpack. Or maybe a parachute. Another blue-sky day. It was always sunny in the city. A kite fluttered above a tree; delta-winged, just like…his breath stuck in his throat. This kite was blue, not red. A movement to his left distracted him. His cyber companion materialized in an instant.
Susie stood before him, a virtual construct but more than a mere cypher. She knew things hidden in the game. At this level, her knowledge could prove invaluable. He glanced at the sky again. The kite was nowhere to be seen. He looked at Susie. He liked her jet-black pageboy hair and had got used to her plastic smile. Those breasts beneath her jungle-colored tank top are too obviously fake. He smiled at her: a transient girl in a pixellated world.
“Where are we today?”
“Top end of Flamingo Street. A small park.”
“Let’s go this way.” He pointed to the nearest of three exits.
They emerged through a narrow gate in the hedge-covered fence that marked the perimeter of the park. A large bowl-shaped edifice rose on the opposite side of the road, looming over them as all city buildings tended to do. “Is it a sports stadium?” he asked. “What’s that noise?”
Susie answered neither of his questions. She pointed at an opening that looked like an entrance concourse to an arena.
Curiosity made Tony lead her along the path. Investigation was, after all, his motivation, his purpose in being here. What’s going on inside that stadium? he wondered. That racket doesn’t sound like spectator noise. Not much of a PA system either, if that’s what it is. Near the entrance, the sound grew louder. Some weird
kind of drum roll? An incessant chirping noise? The angle of their view increased as they drew level with the entrance area. Then Tony saw the name of the arena emblazoned on the wall above the entrance. “A cricket stadium!” he muttered, at once realizing what the noise was—and that the entrance was also an exit.
Huge doors opened. A grinding mass of grasshopper-like insects surged onto the concourse. Susie’s smile turned into a grimace. Tony’s face creased into a scowl. He took her hand as they broke into a gentle jog that soon took them out of harm’s way.
They stood at a crossroads. Behind them was the avenue leading to a stadium far enough away to seem silent now. No threat of chasing insects. Ahead of them, three choices. Tony looked at Susie. She sported that artificial smile again, designed by the programmers to make her appear affectionate and encouraging.
“What do you think of Level III so far? Enjoy our cricket stadium?”
Tony made a mental note to ask R&D to tone her grin down a little. “It’s not like Transient City Level I or II, where the street names are on all corners and junctions so you know exactly what you’re walking into or standing in the middle of—like Flamingo Street.”
“I loved all those pretty birds down there. That was nearly as good as Waterfall Road.”
“What a place, wending its misty way through the ’burbs like something out of Iguazu.” Tony turned around, considering their options. “But no maps this time. No street signs or name-plates pointing out places?”
“There are street names—just not so easy to spot them.”
“A bit of a challenge. Great.” His turn to grin. She was so simple and uncomplicated. A construct to accompany him, to help him out. He liked that. He liked this city. It took him away from the real world, from memory. This third level was just right for him now: a thrill seeker game, designed to scare.
The road ahead did not look inviting. He reckoned his earlier impression was correct: buildings appeared to lean over at a greater angle in this Level III format than they had in earlier levels. The street to the left looked narrow and dark. He gestured to Susie to follow him on the remaining option, a leafy uphill avenue that looked bright and cheery.
They turned right and strolled up a slight incline. Twin rows of elms blocked what view they may have had. It struck Tony as odd that the rooftops he glimpsed between the trees lining the left side of the walled avenue seemed low and small, until he saw the tips of several crosses. He drew Susie’s attention to the roofs. “Mausoleums,” he said softly, as if for fear of disturbing something. He could make out an opening in the wall up ahead, and a name-plate embedded in the stonework confirmed what he already knew.
“Maybe we should turn back.” Susie’s smile looked nervy.
“It’s only Cemetery Hill.” He tried to remember Dawson’s words: “It does exactly what it says.” He walked on, trying to pin down whether his boss had been referring to the BlanketBox® or the Transient City game, or both. By the time he had finished scratching his head, he arrived at the conclusion that Dawson had only been speaking of the box. He also arrived at the cemetery gates, with Susie hanging back a little. The “cricket stadium” had not been what he initially associated with it. So what surprise lies in store in Cemetery Hill? He felt compelled to find out as he stepped tentatively toward the graveyard.
The first apparition appeared from behind the wall to the left of the gate. Tony felt unsure as to the sex of this tattered old wino, so down and out that the man or woman could barely stand. He realized quickly that this was not a he or a she—it was beyond sex. Strips of flesh and sinew hung from the jowls and a loose eyeball jerked about on the cheek as if hanging by a string. Tony also noticed the plodding walk.
“Don’t come near!” he yelled to warn Susie.
As the creature turned, several more living corpses staggered in its wake. Others emerged from the far side of the gate; bloodstained and grunting, turning, arms outstretched, fingers clawing in obscene come-hither gestures. He heard the slithery, creaking sound of cold slabs moving, tombs opening.
“Freakin’ zombies!” He turned to Susie. They might need more than a gentle jog this time. A swift retreat should be sufficient. Everyone knows zombies can’t run fast. Then he saw that dozens of the creatures had dropped off the wall downhill of them, and several had emerged from a side-gate on the uphill side.
“We’re trapped,” hissed Susie. “You’ll need that,” she nodded at what was strapped to his back.
So soon? Tony felt a sense of professional dismay but knew she was right. The zombies were closing in. A group of them had clambered down the wall opposite the cemetery; Tony had no idea how they had got to that side of the road. It was a classic encirclement: Tony and Susie surrounded by ghastly, grotesque faces and slobbering mouths. Hideous hands reached out…To hell with pride. “Go!” he barked at Susie. She winked out of existence as the first sniveling gap-toothed creature came within arm’s length. Tony pulled on the cord attached to his backpack. A cloak of darkness fell over him, blanketing him from danger.
The zombies and their background cemetery complete with mausoleum rooftops and poison elms faded to dim. When it was entirely black, Tony hoped he was safe, and that he was on his way out. To his relief, Angie filled his eyes with a face that was almost maternal.
“Are you ok? You looked like you were having a nightmare.”
Tony breathed out slowly. Level III was like the stuff of nightmares—you had to snap out of it just at the worst possible moment. “I’m fine,” he nodded though his heart beat like a steam piston. Dawson had been right: BlanketBox® had done exactly what they said it would do.
Angie disconnected his info-feeds. Half an hour later, he’d been de-loused by the team shrink, who deemed him in a fit state to make his report. An hour after that, he had tapped in his preliminary log and now found himself sitting before the R&D team.
“That was a quick trip.” A sneer decorated Leary’s face as usual.
By now, Tony was calm enough to deal with anything a Harvard-class geek might throw at him. He ignored Leary and looked at the other two team members, one of whom, a Dr. Gilroy, inquired if the BlanketBox® had activated to Tony’s satisfaction. He confirmed that it had. “Great,” replied Gilroy. “We had considered an imitation wooden box just like a traditional blanket box, with wheels attached to follow you around. Bending over to open it might have cost you valuable time.”
Typical of R&D not to think of practical matters—like small wheels running on cobbled streets. But Tony said nothing about that. “There’s something else you need to look at,” he replied. “The turn-back option needs adjustment. Gamers will need more time to consider the choices facing them in such coyly-named streets.”
“You might have a point there,” said the third board member, a likeable programmer whose name was Rasheed. “Particularly in view of the ambiguous nature of the street name ‘Cemetery Hill’. Perhaps we should locate a more sinister name-plate farther down the hill to give gamers time to think, to plan ahead.”
Yeah, how about ‘Zombie Hilton’? “That may be,” said Tony. “The encirclement was too sudden. Provide another escape route opposite the cemetery gates—an alleyway?” he gestured with open palms.
“An avenue of escape, if you’ll pardon the pun,” said Leary in his cloying way.
Tony shrugged off his dislike of Leary, knowing his bonus for being first in at Level III would be substantial. Dr. Gilroy confirmed this: “We look forward to your full written report. Your analysis is invaluable. That dogged nature of yours, that sharp-eyed and professional persistence, makes you ideal as our man on the ground. We want you to explore Level IV the day after tomorrow.”
“Any clues?”
“Now, Tony. No spoilers. Always best when you go in on the blind and figure it out for yourself.”
He spent an advance portion of his bonus that night in a downtown, real-world cocktail bar. A girl in a Reality Sucks t-shirt tried to chat him up. He was not in the mood and declin
ed her advances politely before turning back to his drink. What that girl declared on her chest was right. For now. Tony needed time to adjust, to mourn his double-whammy of divorce and death. How could any relationship survive Matthew’s passing? He ordered another Piña Colada. It tasted bitter. Meningitis is such a silent, stealthy killer. Stealthy and deadly. And yet, if he had realized sooner that Matthew wasn’t just suffering a summer fever…If only he had got him to hospital a few minutes earlier. So what that Debbie had blamed him. What a dickhead world: full of advanced anti-viral technology yet no one can prevent an age-old disease doing its worst. He put his elbows on the counter and tried to think of other things. The game, for instance.
Level I. Squirrels on Acorn Drive. Rag-trade on Tailor’s Lane. Pomp and ceremony on Military Boulevard. Drunks staggering on Distillery Road. Outstanding sunsets on Great Western Avenue. Cuckoo Lane teeming with squatters. Gorgeous girls on Dame Street. Gay guys in Lad Lane. Offices for shrinks and therapists on Cope Street. Clear skies at night on Constellation Road…Transient City had started so innocently. Educational and entertaining, said the blurbs and reviews. They were right.
Level II. The city split into zones: industrial, where he and Susie admired engineering works, great furnaces, enormous factories and ship-building on a massive scale; the history zone with its various districts; jousting tournaments in the medieval section; conquistadors riding over the Andes; and Captain Cook landing on that island. He and Susie had enjoyed them all. He had also taken pleasure in another Level II zone, without Susie: the Red Light District. RLD was Transient City’s bestseller, the proceeds of which made Levels III through V possible.
Then the fun and games started. Secret Street, for example. Where the hell could that be? Tony hadn’t found it yet, but he would. Gilroy was right, he thought as he ordered a Sex on the Beach. Persistence pays. Tony had it in abundance. Mr. Tenacious. Never one for turning back, he poked his nose down every street and alleyway as far as he could go. Now, with BlanketBox®, he could go further.
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