“Good luck, Hefty,” Celly offers, keeping the loose bar for himself.
One doesn’t earn an ironic nickname like “Hefty” by being sort-of skinny. It has to be you. Hell, you’d have to file through two more bars to get Celly out. Instead, it’s up to you to head down to the control room and open the cell doors.
After a nod, you squeeze through the hole. As you walk past all the other inmates, the men howl at you in a mix of jealousy and pride. You’re out! And soon they will be too. More than a few of the men have blood crusted around their mouths, staining the front of their jumpsuits. These don’t howl; they moan. You walk on the far edge of the catwalk to keep free of their grasping arms.
The control room waits at the end of the cell block. It’s a small room, connecting Cell Blocks A and B, and holding the controls for both. Once inside, you’re greeted with a control panel and several security footage screens. Here you learn there are still a few guards left in the prison enclosure, fighting off the infected nutters from sick bay. They don’t have any reinforcements from the local police like they normally would in a riot. No National Guard, nothing.
Most of the inmates are still in their cells from lockdown, and with a push of a button, you can free them all. Or, it might be easier to slip out of the prison unnoticed, alone.
• Open the other cells. With an army of cons tearing down the walls, you’ll be out in no time.
• Leave the other guys locked up. Less chaos if I go it alone.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Problem with Authority
The guy’s looking salty; he’s the kind of man who would relish the opportunity to thump you over the head. You raise your hands, hoping to placate the police officer.
“Sir, that homeless guy on the bus is trying to…I dunno. Eat people? Ask your buddy.”
Now he looks concerned and takes a step back, hand going for his firearm. “You were exposed?”
“What? No, wait…exposed to what?”
“If you’re potentially infected, I need to hand you over to the soldiers, son. If you do not cooperate, I will be forced to shoot you.”
“Hey, I’m cooperating, man! Sir!”
He nods. “Then let’s go.”
The barrier up ahead is controlled by National Guard soldiers; men in uniformed cammo wearing gasmasks and wielding rifles. These weapons scan the crowd for potential threats and as you approach, some rise to train on you. Suddenly, you’re feeling very vulnerable.
“This one was exposed to one of the infected,” the cop tells the soldiers.
“Okay, sir. Remain calm and everything will be fine. We’re going to take you into a quarantine camp down the street. If you resist—” a soldier says, his words suddenly cut short. Gunfire erupts and you freeze in place, eyes closed in reflex like a frightened child. It’s the screaming that follows that gets you to open your eyes again.
Two men in nurse’s scrubs have flanked the soldiers with an arms-out, mouth-opened, animalistic attack. Several dark roses bloom on their chests where they’ve been shot, but it doesn’t appear to bother the men in the least.
One of the crazed nurses slams into the cop, taking the man to the ground. His police baton falls at your feet. You pick up the weapon, maybe thinking you’ll help, but the barrage of gunfire keeps you away from the action. You look back, afraid there might be more crazies behind you.
Instead, you find frightened men, women, and children fleeing from vehicles—perhaps motivated by the attack—and hear authorities shouting for peace from behind barriers and bullhorns.
• Stay calm, keep out of the way, and don’t move. Wait the firefight out.
• Screw this. Use the distraction and get the hell out of here.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Promise Keeper
It’s almost unfathomable to head away from Salvation and into the city once more, much less downtown and into the epicenter of chaos. Still, it helps to have the skills of a samurai. It might take hours to traverse the city on foot when that same trek would be minutes in a car, but the roads are either impassible or patrolled by roving gangs.
On three occasions, you’re forced to run through buildings and out the rear to escape human assault. Once, a wall explodes just inches from your head; either from a warning shot or a miss by an unskilled sniper. You don’t wait to find out which.
Finally, you turn the corner to the street that houses your dojo. The hardware store across the street is riddled with high-caliber bullet holes and the storefront is demolished from an explosion. When you turn to the dojo, your heart sinks when you see the glass entry demolished.
The practice area is full of meandering figures—time to clear the place.
You turn to a nearby parked car; tires flat and windows broken. Reaching in, you press the horn over and over again, sending a high wail echoing through the city. That does the trick. The wandering dead growl and moan in frenzied hunger and turn your way. Some of the “healthier” corpses even stumble-run after you.
Cutting the fastest ghouls down, you wait for the crowd to leave the dojo. Then you run around to the alley and the back way in. The door sits propped open by a twice-dead corpse and you quickly see that the place is abandoned.
Yet the door to the office remains closed.
You can’t help but hope…and when you open the door, there he is. He lies on one of his reclining pillows, his chest softly rising and falling. Sleeping, but alive!
“Master Hanzo!” you cry, closing the door and embracing the man in a bear hug.
“Easy, easy Lucas-san,” he laughs. “I feared I’d never see you again. The twins, their parents came, but they brought the dead with them. I hope they made it home safely.”
You nod knowingly. “And now you and I will go to Salvation and meet my Imouto. I won’t leave you, Master. Not again.”
He shakes his head. “It is I who will be leaving you, my friend. I haven’t had my pills in days now. My heart won’t take the burden much longer.”
“I—we’ll get your medicine. You can—”
“Stop! Listen. You will let me go in peace. With dignity! I am happy with this. Not one man in a thousand has such a luxury. Remember, a samurai knows when to fight…and when to die,” he says.
The old man lies back down and closes his eyes, breathing heavily. Deep down, you know he can’t hike through the wilderness and fight off living corpses or gangs of raiders. At least there is some solace knowing that he’ll likely die in his sleep. You don’t want to be without him, but it’s a selfish desire. Bushido is to be selfless. Remember, samurai means to serve. You saved your pupils, now save yourself. Go. Find this Salvation, and your own.
Click to Continue…
Proof Positive
The front door is locked; no surprise there. With the windows boarded up as well, it won’t be easy to get in. The garage has a keypad, but with no power, the door would be useless even if you knew the code. You walk around to the back, where there’s a sliding glass door with couches and a bookcase backed up against it from inside. You could probably get in this way, but it’d take just as long as prying open the boards.
Looking up, you see the second-story windows are clear. A support beam runs from the patio up to the rooftop; you should be able to scale it. The attached gutter creaks as you use the anchor pins for toe-holds, but you make it up.
The first window you try, as luck would have it, is unlocked. You head inside what must be the master bedroom and bring your sword to hand just as something lunges at you from the shadows.
A quick parry of the attack and you’re barely able to stop your counter-attack in time. Your sword hovers inches over a man’s brow, his eyes gorgonized from fear and focused on the steel. It’s the twins’ father, and he holds half a wooden baseball bat, sheared from when you deflected his swing.
“Master Tesshu?” he says, dumbfounded.
“I’m sorry,” you say, bringing the sword down into its scabbard, “but with the sign on your door, I assumed
…”
The man nods and says, “It’s a bluff—to deter looters.”
“So no one is actually bitten?”
He shakes his head, then turns and shouts, “It’s okay, honey. It’s just Master Tesshu.”
His wife comes in, the trembling forms of Liam and Stella at either side.
“How…?”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “We were able to make it to your dojo not long after you left, but…those things followed us.”
“Master Hanzo?” you ask.
The man shakes his head. “We barely made it out ourselves.”
“Did you see it?”
“We didn’t stick around, but he was an old man. I’m sorry, there’s no way he….” The man says, leaving the inevitable conclusion unspoken. You nod, then close your eyes and accept the darkness welling up within. He continues, “The kids told us about that camp. Is that where you’ll go now? How do you know it’s not a trap?”
“Salvation…something about the man’s voice. I’m not sure, but my instincts say he’s a good man.”
“Well, I wish you the best of luck, but I think we’re safer here for the time being.”
You nod again.
• “I have a promise to keep. I will go say goodbye to my old master.”
• “Likewise. For now, I will head to Salvation in hopes of finding my sister.”
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Puppet Master
“Not bad, but if we’re going to run this place, we’ll need some changes,” you say, taking his wine glass and pacing the room.
“We? Hang on now, let me tell you something about the Duke—”
“We. Long live the queen. Your men only work for you now because they think you can give them what they want. Food, shelter, women, power. But that’s a fleeting illusion. Men will die for their queen. Will your men die for you?”
“I think so, yes.”
“I’m not sure you know your men as well as you think you do. I’ve heard grumblings, even in my short time here. Men often talk…after, and word gets around the stalls. Hell, Bud thinks he could fill your shoes, that’s plain to see. But the way he was hitting on me the whole way here? That’s the kind of disrespect that could ruin an organization like yours.”
Duke’s face crumbles into a frown. So many new ideas, and all of them negative, it’s almost too much for an egomaniac to process. Which means you’d better keep it going.
“Take Bud, for instance. Do you think he’s the best choice to run a brothel?”
“Brothel?”
“What do you think you have in those stalls? You have a brothel, but not a madam. You need your women to be strong and healthy, and part of that is making them understand their place. Not a job for a man and his belt leather, but making them understand as only a woman can.”
“You…you want to be in charge of the women?”
“Who else? If you want me to trust you, that has to go both ways. If you want my love, you need to earn it,” you say, putting your hand out expectantly.
“Bud!” Duke cries. The man rushes in and Duke adds, “Give me your key to the stockade.” Bud does so and Duke hands the keys over to you.
“Boss, what’s going on?”
“See?” you say. “See how he questions you?”
Duke’s face crumples again, like a toddler being told no. “Bud…do you…do you want to fuck her?”
Bud’s eyes open wide and his mouth drops open. “I…well,” he stutters, then laughs. “Boss?”
“See?” you say again. “He doesn’t take you seriously.”
“Now hang on!” Bud says.
“Answer me honestly, Bud.”
“Boss, c’mon. What do you want me to say?”
“Get your men in order, Duke. I’m going to go do the same with my women,” you say. He nods as you turn and leave, his attention focused on Bud.
You’ve done it, though it’s hard to say for how long. He’s under your spell, but it’s bound to wear off sooner or later. As you close the door on your way out, you see Bud staring at you with a murderous glare. Time to go.
• Straight out into the woods, right now. A dress isn’t best, but time is of the essence.
• Back to the stalls. Take Bud’s key and get back in your riding clothes before you go.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Push Come to Shove
The guard slaps you in the shoulder with the Asp baton, then shoves you against the office desk, cuffing your arms behind your back. The doctor just stays out of the way. You scream and curse at the correctional officer, but this is what he’s paid to do. You’re an unruly inmate, and in his mind, he’s restoring order.
“We’ll be back,” he says.
They leave the office, locking you inside. You watch as they run down the hall to the secure door at the end. The guard does his best to keep the ghouls at bay, but one Asp is no match against a hungry crowd of the things. He screams out just as the doctor gets the door open, and they barely manage to leave before they’re overtaken.
It’s likely he meant it when he said they’d be back, but it never happens. Or, that is to say, it doesn’t happen before the horde comes for you. The office glass is reinforced, but those nutters don’t feel pain. They bash their fists to pulp until eventually, the door gives way.
With your hands cuffed behind your back, you’ve got no chance. You’re eaten alive.
THE END
Quarantined
She shakes her head. “Don’t you watch the news? I don’t mean to lecture, but it’s amazing to me how many people don’t know what’s going on. Haven’t you heard anything? Read a paper or seen what’s happening on the Internet? Follow social media? The city is under martial law. The Governor has declared a state of emergency, but he’s the fourteenth state official to do so. People who should be dead are…well, they’re leaving the morgue, get it? This quarantine was set up to make sure they don’t go too far.”
She examines your head wound while she talks, and it kind of reminds you of the way the guy behind the chair tends to use the barbershop as his soapbox. Captive audience, as they say.
“What do you mean ‘should be dead’?”
“Just that. It’s some sort of infection that paralyzes the body’s pain-response centers and rewires the central nervous system for aggression. The infected patients take a turn for the worse, and that’s what we call the event. The Turn. That’s when people with bullet wounds just keep on coming. I’ve never seen someone shot in the head for an illness before, but I can’t say I blame that response now that we’ve gotten to this point.”
“How bad is it?”
She sighs. “It’s bad. Containment—it—I’m not sure it’ll even work.”
“I see gasmasks. Since I don’t have one, am I already ‘infected’ or whatever?”
“You’re not showing symptoms, and you weren’t bitten, right? That’s the leading theory for disease vector right now. There’s no evidence to support the idea that the plague is airborne, but we’ll know in six hours either way, won’t we?”
“We will?” you say. “Is there like a blood test?”
“There’s an extremely short incubation period.”
• “So will I be free to go in six hours, then? Assuming I don’t Turn?”
• “What about the other people in here with me? Who’s showing symptoms or bitten?”
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Quick Bite
The diner is devoid of people, either living or dead. Unfortunately, most of the “easy pickings” are gone too. The glass pie case has been raided. So has the cash register, by some fool that doesn’t understand how an apocalypse works. When you try the lights, you learn the electricity is gone too. But there is a gas stovetop that should still work without power.
“How about pancakes?” you say. The children all nod eagerly, and you add, “Find what you can and bring it here. I’ll light the stove.”
The electric lighting mechanism is worthless, but gas po
urs out when you test the knob. Just need to find a match. A great clang of falling pots echoes from the back and Nathanael lets out a terrified scream.
When you make it back, you see Haley and Nolan beating a man in kitchen whites with their shinai, but the walking corpse doesn’t even seem to notice as he tears into Nathanael’s prone form. The ghoul’s skin is deep blue from time spent inside the freezer.
Not wanting a bloody death for the sake of the student beneath the corpse, you insert the sword in the dead man’s ear, then kick the twice-dead corpse off your eldest student. Something black pools out from the head wound.
“Have you been bitten?” you ask, your sister’s warning echoing in your head.
Nathanael nods with tears flowing down his face. He touches himself on the shoulder, just to the side of his uniform’s collarbone pads. “Do it quickly, master.”
Instead, you lower your sword. The thick cloth of his kendo armor is unbroken, with no sign of blood. Kneeling, you unfasten his uniform to get a better look. Several dark, purple teeth-marks flush beneath his skin, though it’s just bruising. A pinch, not a bite.
“The world is running short of second chances, but today you’re a very lucky young man!”
Nathanael reaches up and hugs you, laughter mixing with his sobs.
“Do we still get pancakes?” Nolan asks.
* * *
The hike to Haley’s house helps digest the enormous meal you share. Fortunately, you had plenty of water to wash it down because it’s sweltering outside. The humidity by this marsh-side neighborhood is almost unbearable.
Haley’s house has a raised porch, most likely to protect against flooding; the stairs are barricaded by an overturned BBQ, a porch swing, and a pair of couches. With this as the only entry point, the undead don’t seem to have been able to climb up to the front door.
PATHOGENS: Who Will Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? (Click Your Poison Book 4) Page 32
