Deadman's Switch & Sunder the Hollow Ones

by Saul Tanpepper

“Four.”

  “What?”

  “Four. Kelly’s coming with us.”

  My head shoots up at Reggie. “Oh no. You can’t expect me to stay behind when he goes with you. Didn’t you hear a word I said outside? No fucking way.”

  The door opens up behind Reggie and he moves aside so Kelly can come in. Was he waiting just outside all this time? Was he listening?

  “I just spoke with Micah,” he says. “It’s all set. You two will stay here and figure out a way to get through the wall.”

  “What? No fu— Wait a minute. Do you think I’m bad luck, too?”

  “No, of course not, Jessie.”

  “Well, I’m not leaving you. And I’m not letting you leave me.”

  He leans in and grabs my arms hard. There’s a ferocity in his eyes that immediately quiets me. He gestures to the others and they quickly file out of the room.

  “You’re hurting me, Kel.”

  “I…” he stammers, his eyes flicking between mine. He doesn’t loosen his grip. “I need you to stay behind. I need you to do this for me, Jess.”

  I frown. “What’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?”

  “It’s killing me, Jessie,” he whispers in my ear. “But I can’t say anything right now. Just know that I love you. That’s all you need to know.”

  Then he leans in to kiss me. I’m too shocked to respond or resist. At the last possible moment, he tilts his head up and the kiss lands on my forehead, dry and cold. And the look he gives me tells me one more thing: He doesn’t expect to ever see me again.

  He’s out the door before I can move. By the time I can, Reggie’s standing at the door, blocking it.

  “Get the hell out of my way!” I shout at him, trying to push past him. “I hate you! I hate you all!”

  He gently pushes me back into the room with one hand, waggling a finger at me. He opens his mouth to speak but doesn’t say anything. After a moment, he closes the door behind him.

  “No!” I slam my fist against the door. “You bastards!” I grab the knob and rip it open and race out into the hallway. Micah catches my arm before I can get out there.

  “You need to calm down, Jessie.”

  “Oh, so you’re all against me now?”

  “No.”

  “I won’t stay here. I am not going home without you guys!” I try to push him aside too, but he holds a finger up to his lips and gives me a quick warning shake of the head. I can hear the others talking in the other room, discussing their plans. I hear Jake mention that they’re taking Micah’s tablet with the map on it.

  “What—?”

  “Shh! Just listen, Jess,” he whispers. “Kelly didn’t explain everything to me, but I got the sense he thinks you’re in some kind of danger.”

  “From Jake?”

  “I don’t know. I tried to talk him out of us splitting up, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He was very insistent. He doesn’t want you going to Jayne’s Hill.”

  “Why not?”

  “Again, I don’t know. But something tells me he knows what he’s talking about.”

  I run my hands restlessly through my hair and pace from one side of the hallway to the other. Step, turn, step, turn.

  Focus. Breathe. Step. Breathe.

  “He can’t stop me,” I decide. “None of them can. What are they going to do? Have me arrested? Detained? ‘Yes, Officer, my girlfriend is following me through zombie-infested lands because she’s worried about me and I’d really like it if you took her into custody.’ Is that what he’ll do?”

  Micah shakes his head and cracks a smile. “Yes, this I remember, the old Jessie, not the running scared one we’ve been seeing lately.”

  “Running scared?” I sputter. “Who the hell have you been watching?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know, but not this. This is the real you. Finally. Brassy, cocky, indignant. Not the you everyone else wants you to be.”

  This startles me. It’s been a struggle for me lately, trying to do the right thing. Trying to do what other people have told me I should do. Ignoring the tiny voice inside of me.

  “You’re thinking of Ashley,” I grumble. “She’s the one with the ‘tude.”

  “No, underneath her hard exterior it’s all soft marshmallow. You know that. I know that. Most importantly, Reggie knows that. Why do you think he’s so protective of her? You, on the other hand, you wear your marshmallow part on the outside. It buffers the toughness inside.”

  “Yeah, my bad-luck heart of stone. I know.”

  “No, not stone. But you are pretty damn tough inside. Maybe…maybe a little too tough sometimes.”

  I frown at him, but I feel my anger leaking away. “Well, maybe by splitting up, we can accomplish more,” I say. “You and I can work on getting through the wall.”

  “That’s my girl. We’ll get out of this, but not if we’re constantly fighting each other.”

  I stare at him for a moment, wondering if his amnesia has done something to him, changed him.

  “What?” he asks, giving me a bemused look.

  “I think I like this new Micah,” I mumble. “The old one never got this serious about anything. Thoughtful, yes, but not serious.”

  “I’ve always been this serious, Jess. I just happen to be sober.” He laughs. “But if you tell anyone this is the real me, I’ll have to kill you.”

  “Is that the best you can come up with? So cliché.”

  In the kitchen, the others murmur as they make their plans.

  Micah reaches up and is about to touch my face when he suddenly draws back, confusion in his eyes. He looks away. “I— We should get back out there.”

  He quickly turns around and leaves, walking stiffly away. And for the third time in as many minutes, I’m left speechless by a man and the confusion of feelings coursing through me towards him.

  I shake my head and wonder what just happened. Did Micah just come on to me? Ever since I’ve known him I’ve never seen him express any romantic interest in any girl. Or boy, for that matter.

  “That was definitely strange,” I whisper. Then I head out to where the others are preparing to leave.

  Chapter 4

  Stephen’s still sitting on the floor in front of the couch, his head buried in his arms. He hasn’t moved a muscle. I’m surprised—and relieved—to find Tanya still breathing. I can hear the gurgle of air passing through her mangled throat. In the kitchen, the others are gathered around the kitchen table looking at the map on the tablet. Micah looks up, then quickly buries his head as he points to something and makes a comment. The others nod and make agreeable sounds.

  Outside the window, the sun hangs low on the horizon, resting, it seems, right on the top edge of the wall. Two and a half hours of sunlight left, max. They’re going to have to hustle to make it, and they still have to figure out a way through the electrified fence.

  I kick Stephen. “Hey, asshole. Get up!”

  “She’s stopped bleeding.”

  Blood covers his hands and arms. It stains his shirt and pants. It’s puddled beneath Tanya, the stain leaching into the cushions. Her skin is a sickly grayish-white and her eyes have sunken into her skull. They’re ringed by dark circles. Of course she’s stopped bleeding; she ran out of blood. The thought turns my stomach, but then I remember the more immediate concern: she’s close to turning.

  “You need to do something about her. And soon.”

  He looks over and nods. But then he says, “She might pull through.”

  “She won’t, damn it! Look at her. There’s nothing left in her.”

  I reach down and yank his arm. He doesn’t resist.

  “She would’ve been quicker and stronger than any of us,” he whispers. She’d have no fear, be immune to disease, to cancer. Resistant to aging.” He smiles then and caresses her forehead. “She would’ve been immortal.”

  “Not so immortal after all.”

  His face twists and he thrusts me weakly away from him.

  “Is she infectious?�
��

  “What?”

  “Infectious? Can she pass the disease onto one of us?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “What does Arc get out of it? You already have control over the Undead. Why make someone Undead when they’re still alive?”

  “Arc?” Stephen laughs bitterly. “They wouldn’t know what to do with something like this!” He takes in a breath and settles back to stroking Tanya’s hair. “Control,” he answers. “They developed a new generation of implants that could be activated before death. Safer, you know, than waiting till afterward. Problem was, they were failing. People were rejecting them right and left, falling off of streams. The government was in a panic. Can you imagine what would’ve happened if people knew there were twenty six million people out there who thought they were protected, but then could become Infected Undead if there happened to be another outbreak?”

  “Twenty-six million?” I gasp.

  “Arc formed two teams to tackle the problem of getting the body to accept the devices. The first team was looking at new materials. They worked. That’s what you kids got. My team was working on a new serum. But then I discovered this.”

  “Why her? And why Kelly?”

  Stephen lays a hand on Tanya’s wound. He doesn’t even seem to have heard me. “Mabel was my pilot experiment. She was our only Volunteer. Arc paid her family a fortune. The serum worked.”

  “Mabel?” I say. “Are you telling me she was…” I gesture at Tanya. “She was the same as her?”

  My stomach roils at the thought. Mabel touched me. She touched my naked body and did things to me while I was unconscious and she was—

  My skin crawls in revulsion.

  “What the hell was she?”

  “A carrier. Just like Miss Saroyan here.”

  “She spoke. She seemed alive.”

  “She was alive!” Stephen retorts. “Are you stupid or something?”

  I’m so tempted to pull out the pistol and use my last bullet on him, but I don’t.

  “Imagine,” he says, unaware of my thoughts. “A living, breathing zombie, faster and stronger than anyone alive or undead, capable of thinking. And all under Arc control, all using the old implants. I was about to make Arc billions and they snubbed their nose at me!”

  So that’s why Mabel seemed so much stronger than she looked before you killed her. That’s why she reanimated.

  “I managed to kill your superhuman experiment, and who the hell am I? Just a girl.”

  Stephen gives me a dark look. “Doesn’t matter. She was a guinea pig. Beaucorps was already looking for independent confirmation. Four tests. He wouldn’t let me go upstairs with the results until he had it. Unfortunately, nobody volunteered.”

  “Damn right,” I say. “Why would anyone—”

  “We sent Mabel out to find a suitable candidate. It was another test of how well we could control her.”

  “You sent an infected person into the general population?”

  “Beaucorps found Miss Saroyan here. Mabel tracked her down and picked her up.”

  “Based on her ping records.”

  Stephen shrugs. “I don’t know the details.”

  “Was Tanya under Arc control?”

  “When I left the mainland to come here? Yes. She obviously wasn’t when we left LaGuardia, though. Arc must have disconnected from her when they realized what you were planning.”

  “Or she rejected the implant.”

  Stephen shrugs. “That’s what I believed.”

  “Believed? You don’t think so now?”

  “I didn’t think the shot worked at first. That’s why I was coming, to try again. But I knew as soon as we came into Gameland. The signs are unmistakable: the hypersensitivity to the wall. By the same token, it also means her implant is still functioning.”

  “I can feel the wall.”

  He laughs drily. “Not like your friends can.”

  “Why Kelly? Why give him the shot?”

  “I had a new dose made up, planning to give it to Miss Saroyan. I’d tweaked it with a few minor improvements to the DNA codon usage—the way the genetic code is read inside the cells and how it’s utilized to make proteins.”

  “So why did you give the shot to Kelly instead?”

  “Convenience. He was the only other one with a defective implant. It was either inject him or lose a perfectly good opportunity.”

  I raise my hand to hit him, but someone grabs it. It’s Micah.

  “Let me go!”

  “Just calm down,” he tells me. “It won’t help.”

  “It’ll help me feel better.”

  He struggles with me for a moment before letting go. I lower my arm. “Who’s Beaucorps?” I demand. “Is he the man I overheard talking to Mabel that night?”

  Stephen nods. “Head of Neuroleptic Research.”

  “You said he wanted four tests. Kelly gave you three. Was there a fourth?”

  “Yes. I don’t know who it was.”

  “One of us?”

  “I said I don’t know.”

  “Christ.” I run my hands through my hair. It could be any one of us. It could be someone else running around outside of Long Island. I point at Tanya and say, “You need to take care of her before she turns. You won’t be able to control her once she does.

  Stephens swallows and nods. This time he doesn’t argue. Yet he still sits there without moving.

  I go into the kitchen and retrieve a butter knife from a drawer and lay it in his lap. It’s good enough to do the job, yet won’t be much of a risk to the rest of us. “You did this to her. Now you can undo it. Clean up your mess. If you don’t, I will. Five minutes.”

  He doesn’t move. He doesn’t pick up the knife.

  “Make sure you sever the spinal cord.”

  I turn away from him then and head for the kitchen, leaving Micah behind.

  The crew is gathering up their packs and filling them with whatever food and drinks they can find in the cabinets to carry. They’re just about ready to leave.

  Everyone looks up when I walk in. Jake immediately straightens and crosses his arms in defiance, preparing himself for the outburst he expects me to launch into. The others look away. I can almost hear the Old West music, the lonely whistle that signifies the onset of an old fashioned duel. God, I’m exhausted.

  “Jessie, listen—” Kelly begins, coming to my side.

  I wave him off, my eyes never leaving Jake’s.

  Jake lets out a breath and says, “It’s nothing personal, it’s just—”

  I extend my hand across the table and he flinches. “You better bring them back alive,” I say. “Or I will hunt you down myself.”

  He hesitates a moment before grasping my hand. I’m tempted to yank him over the table and onto the floor to beg for mercy. I could easily do it, and I think he knows this because his grip tightens slightly and his eyes narrow.

  “Be quick and safe,” I tell him. “All of you. Micah and I will ping you when we figure out how to get back through the wall.”

  Kelly gives me an almost imperceptible nod. Jake relaxes noticeably. I feel Micah come up behind me. I’m glad he’s there. I don’t feel so alone now.

  Jake shoulders his pack. “I really hoped it would work out between us, Jessie.”

  I stare at him long and hard and am about to reply when there’s a thump and a muffle cry of anguish from Stephen in the other room. Ashley closes her eyes and shudders. It’s over. Tanya’s gone for good this time.

  Jake’s face burns with shame. He made a promise back there in the airport, one he couldn’t keep. Everyone is aware of this. And yet they’re willing to follow him.

  “She wouldn’t have been able to leave here anyway,” Kelly quietly says, his eyes burning darkly and his chin set in a grim line. I hope he doesn’t really mean it, because to do so would be to admit that he’ll never be able to leave here either, and I just can’t accept that. He may be a carrier. He may be stronger and faster because of whatever Stephen
gave him. But as long as he’s not under Arc control, there’s still a chance we can live a normal life.

  Christ. Who are you kidding?

  But then there’s another sound from the living room, an odd strangling noise, followed by a wet smacking, like somebody pounding pizza dough. Confusion comes over all our faces and we turn. Ashley lets out a gasp.

  Tanya is bent over Stephen. She looks like she’s kissing him.

  “What the hell?” Jake exclaims.

  Tanya’s head shoots up and her hollow eyes peer straight at us. In her mouth is a chunk of flesh from Stephen’s neck. She lets him go and his body judders to the floor, his legs shooting out like he’s been hit with an EM pistol. The butter knife slips unused from his fingers.

  He waited too long.

  Chapter 5

  Tanya launches herself from the couch, aiming straight for my throat. Kelly shoves me out of the way and I slam into the refrigerator and slide dazed to the floor. The room erupts into a chaos of colors and motion and noise. Someone trips over my legs and falls to the floor next to me. Reggie’s face swims into view shouting at me.

  Over by the entryway, Kelly and Tanya are doing some kind of strange jitterbug, and, for a moment, I wonder when he learned to dance. But then he slams her head into the door jamb and there’s a sickening crunch as the wood splinters, bleeding a dark red.

  Not the wood, her skull.

  It doesn’t slow her down at all.

  She’s one hell of a party animal, ain’t she!

  “Get out of here!” Kelly screams, jarring me back.

  Jake grabs the tablet off the table and runs outside, slamming the door open. Ashley follows, hot on his heels.

  “Get back in here,” I mumble, blinking hard against the pain in my head. I can’t seem to get my legs under me. “God damned cowards.”

  Kelly’s got his hands wrapped around Tanya’s throat; she’s snarling and hissing. Flakes of dried blood crumble off and shower his arms. She lunges, trying to kiss him.

  Bite, I mean. She’s trying to bite his face.

  His arms shake against her newfound strength; I watch, helpless, as she slowly overpowers him.

  Reggie grabs the corner of the table and flips it across the room. It draws Tanya’s attention and her head turns. She bares her teeth and utters a groan that seems to come from the pits of Hell. The blood drains from Reggie’s face and he hesitates.