“Damn,” Dosa growls. “They’re mission-essential. We have to get him out.”
• Volunteer to lead a force inside.
• Don’t make eye contact, and hang back towards the C-17.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Sick Call
“Well,” she says, dabbing your head with something that stings. “This is the sick tent. So…once you’re no longer sick…I assume they’ll move you somewhere else.”
“Other tents?”
She nods. “The main tent is for voluntary quarantine, but since the men have taken to calling you ‘Troublemaker,’ I’m guessing that might be a hard one to get transferred into. Although I suppose you’ve got a better chance moving there than you do of a field commission into the command tent with Captain Delozier.”
Unable to nod, you grunt in understanding.
“Tell you what, though, I’d consider yourself lucky. There’s also aggressor tent, where they put the real troublemakers.”
“What about the whole quarantine zone or whatever? When can we go home?”
You can feel her tense up, and it’s like the tent grows a bit colder. For a long moment, she just works at bandaging your head. At length, she says, “It really isn’t my place to say.”
“So you’re not part of the army?”
“Well, no, I’m actually a naval reservist, but they didn’t ask me here for my tactical advice.”
The bitter tone of her words hangs in the air, scattered only when the nearby woman starts vomiting in her bucket. The lady groans and her stomach makes an equally pained noise, then she sets the bucket down next to her cot—and starts to unbutton her pants.
“I’ll come by later to check your bandages…and to change her bucket,” Doctor Abdous says at length, her tone changing to professional once more.
• “Wait! I volunteer to be here. Put me in the main tent, please. My head wound isn’t that bad.”
• “I’m sorry.” Take the doctor hostage and get out of here. It worked once, it’ll work again.
• “Go get the guards.” Time to get transferred to aggressor tent.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Sideline Chat
Bubba or whoever comes back, and you remind him that you do not consent to being property. If the guy in charge wants to see you in a dress, it’ll have to be as a corpse. You don’t specify if it’s you that’ll be the corpse or this “Duke” character. Doesn’t matter, he fumes, threatens violence, but ultimately balks and leaves you be.
A few minutes later, a familiar face arrives.
“Craig? What the hell are you doing here?”
The man sighs, then lifts his pant leg to reveal a tattoo: Ad Vitam Paramus.
“I didn’t know it’d be like this, Kay. Believe me. When he posted online about ‘breeding stock,’ I honest to God thought he was talking about rounding up literal livestock.”
“And now that you know…?” you say.
He looks away.
“You’re just as guilty, then.”
“No,” he says. “My family will be safe here. I won’t…just listen. I came to tell you that you can make something for yourself here. Duke really likes you. If you forget about the start, you could end up as the First Lady around here.”
“I bet that’d make you feel a lot better, wouldn’t it? I mean, if I married some redneck, you’d have a much better time sleeping at night than—oh, say—if he’s raping me while you try to sleep, trying to forget that you sold me into slavery.”
He’s beet red now. “It would make me feel better, Kay. Because it’s the best offer I can give.”
• Fine, I’ll put it on. No friends to keep close, but you can keep these enemies closer.
• Tell Craig he can wear the dress. You’re nobody’s bitch.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Sims the Slayer
The old Nazi seaplane idles, engines at the ready, drawing attention from the crowds, but not nearly so much as the C-17. Despite obvious evidence to the contrary, people and undead alike hold out for a miracle to allow them to board. The C-17 rolls right over them in a sickening display.
The powerful engines send the crowd flying as the giant military plane carves a path through the crowd. Garcia taxis out behind the C-17 while you look from the window with fear. A few people sprint towards the plane and many, many more fleshies stumble-run after you.
Something slams against one of the wings, and you jump in response. Then, a moment later, the plane rises into the air. The crowd below continues to scramble in seeming chaos, an angry ant-hill against the shrinking landscape.
The small plane nearly falls out of the sky from the powerful wake turbulence the C-17 gives off, but somehow you stay aloft.
* * *
The old Nazi-bastard plane is slow but ironclad. Still, you might as well be rafting on a lifeboat from Brazil to the US. It took the better part of a day to fly out to Russia in the C-17, and it’s taken the better part of a week to go from Brazil to Mercury City in this bucket of bolts. You even had to take shifts flying to allow sleep rotations.
“Takeoff and landing are the hard part,” Garcia had said. “Just keep the altitude gauge where it’s at, and keep the wings steady. Basically autopilot, no?”
In fact, this godforsaken journey took so long, you had to land in the North Atlantic so the pilot could refuel. Yep, you actually set down on the sea, and watched the infinite blue horizon while Garcia dug out some fuel cans from the cargo. So, yeah, by the time Mercury City finally comes into view, you’re ready to swear off flying for good.
Brendan Droakam’s warehouse is down by the docks in the shipping district, meaning you don’t have to go far on land. This would be great news, except the wooden gangplanks are crawling with the undead.
“Amigos, grab the machine-guns,” Garcia says.
I thought he said he didn’t speak Spanish? you think.
“These work?” Bertram asks with disbelief.
“What? You guys don’t use live ammo in your airshows? That is maluco.”
The agents fight over control of the forward gun, while you take the aft. Garcia makes two passes along the dock, and you obliterate the ghouls below, making them dance Thriller as you riddle them with large-caliber bullets.
“We have a few bombs,” Garcia says, posing the statement as a question.
“No,” the agents say in unison.
Garcia shrugs. “Save them for later, then.”
* * *
“You guys made it!” shouts a man in a red, white, and blue camouflage military uniform. He has the same nondescript military/G-man appearance as the pair of agents.
“Hey, Captain America, what the fuck are you wearing?” Danly says.
“Supersoldier uniform prototype. I’ve got a lot more toys for you boys inside.”
“Uhhh, did you say ‘supersoldier’?” you ask.
“Droakam, this is Sergeant Sims,” Agent Bertram introduces. “He helped get us out of the hotzone. He’s good under pressure and has a gift with technology.”
“Air Force, huh? Well, I’m happy to have you on-board as our test-pilot. I’ll explain inside.”
The warehouse lab is vast and open, modular, with equipment crates too numerous to count. Though mothballed, dusty, and coated in a layer of guano, you can tell this used to be a formidable, Men in Black-style test site.
Droakam continues, “I’m with the FBI’s Supersoldier Unit, and suffice it to say we’ve got every major technological breakthrough in the last 60years, most of which was too expensive or complex to put into production.”
“I’m actually a pilot,” Garcia says, raising his hand like a kid in class.
“Great, I think we have some drones tucked in here. But first, let’s get Sims suited up. After that fireworks display you guys set off, it’s a good bet we’re gonna have some living-dead company real soon.”
Droakam walks over to a crate stenciled with DinoSkin Mark IV. He opens the lid to reveal a mannequin wearing an oli
ve-green bodysuit, scaled and reptilian.
“The newest and best in body armor,” Droakam explains. “Lightweight, breathable, and incredibly durable. The scaling provides multilayer protection against gunshots or knife attack, which makes it an ideal first line of defense against bites and scratches. Hell, a pit bull couldn’t break the surface. Try it on.”
The group focuses on other crates while you change. You’re concerned the suit might not fit, but the fabric sort of “molds” to your body, hugging your gut like a more comfortable version of a corset. When you rejoin the group, you see Droakam opening another crate labeled, ekʞƎ Exoskeleton Loader.
“What’s that?” you ask.
The front of the crate opens to reveal another mannequin, much like the one you found wearing your DinoSkin suit. This plastic man, however, is almost entirely naked—save for an odd line of metal tubing that runs along the arms, legs, and spine.
“Step out,” Droakam says and the mannequin walks out of the crate. “Release.” The metal portion collapses onto the floor, which sends the mannequin tumbling over. “Go ahead, Sims,” the man prods.
You step onto the “feet” and the suit climbs up and over your body, attaching itself to the Dino-Skin with snakelike movements. The process is eerily lifelike. You lift your arms to inspect the add-on, and almost punch yourself in the face. Each movement is effortless, like floating through a cloud in a dream.
Suddenly inspired and energized, you lift one of the larger crates and it comes off the floor as easy as a helium-filled balloon. You toss it into the air, sprint over to its trajectory with ease, and catch the crate once more.
Laughing with glee, you bound through the warehouse like gravity has suddenly weakened. Like you’re playing on the moon. The fun is cut short, however, when several pawing, pounding ghouls find the warehouse. The moan is unmistakable. There are a lot of the fiends outside.
“What about guns?” you ask.
“Even better,” Droakam says, stepping to a slender, rifle-sized crate.
This one is labeled BuzzKill and the agent opens it to reveal an enormous broadsword; something that looks like it fell off the pages of a Japanese Manga. Droakam hefts the weapon out of its case, letting its considerable weight rest on the concrete floor.
“Some of the egg-heads at DARPA figured body-armor might get to a point where guns would soon be obsolete, so they came up with this bad boy. Go ahead, take it.”
Though it was an obvious effort for the man, the blade is weightless, with the help of your exoskeleton. The metallic surface is complex, like it’s been laser-etched with a circuitry pattern. You find a large thumb-switch on the grip just below the hilt, and the sword lets out a soft hum when you switch it on. Touching the tip of the blade against the concrete, it melts through the floor like butter.
“Buzz-Kill. I get it, even if it’s kind of a lame name.”
“Beats calling it The Vibrator of Death,” Droakam says. “Care to take it on a test run against our uninvited guests out there?”
You nod, and agents Bertram and Danly head to the doors, ready to slide the porthole open and allow you to charge through. As a final step, you pull out a gasmask from your rucksack and pull the black, rubbery thing down over your face. What a sight you must make! Like some kind of comic book hero. A masked-man in green-scaled tights with some future snake-thingy against your sides and wielding a fantasy sword, Sims…The Slayer!
The agents barely manage to get the doors open before your super-strides bring you out into the crowd of fleshies beyond. Your sword technique is lacking, so you swing the thing like a baseball bat, but even so, the effect is devastating.
It’s just like in the movies when someone swings a sword and nothing appears to happen until the other guy just slides into two pieces. The zombies fall in half, their innards pouring out like a bucket of nightcrawlers. You wade through the muck, slicing the ghouls with near-effortlessness. A pinch on your leg draws attention to half of an undead man gnawing on the Dino-Skin on your calf.
You pick up the torso and fling it several hundred yards away. This is like fighting a gang of preschoolers. Preschoolers made of play-dough. In a few quick moves you’ve dispatched dozens of zombies. And you’re not even out of breath. Normally, you get out of breath chugging a beer.
This. Is. Amazing! You turn back to applause from the three agents and the pilot. Looking over the hundreds of crates, you can’t help but swell with hope.
“I knew there’d be some kind of government rescue in an event like this, I just never thought I’d be part of it,” you say. “We’re going to save the goddamned world, so…”
Click to Continue…
Single Payer
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think it works that way,” the doctor says with a laugh, though you can tell she knew your question was serious. “Don’t worry, the National Guard has everything under control. You’re safe here. Try to get some rest.”
And with that, she’s gone.
Even though you’re exhausted, you’re pretty sure you’re not supposed to sleep with a head injury. Where did you hear that? From the boys on the football field, maybe. The doc did say to rest, but probably just meant to take it easy.
There’s not much here in the way of entertainment. Somebody has a paperback called Reapers, but that seems a bit morbid, given the situation. You try your cellphone, but the screen is shattered. Looks like the phone’s final act of defiance was to protect your thigh against a police baton.
When you look up, you see people passing around a huge subway sandwich, tearing off pieces in a literal act of breaking bread. The woman with the bucket takes a piece, but evidently she can’t stomach it right now, so she leaves it on her cot opposite the bucket.
Then she passes the sandwich to you.
• Eat up, best to keep your strength.
• Wave it off and lie down for a bit.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Sinking
Two hours later, the scene repeats itself. This time, it’s the man whose cot was next to the last ghoul. Luckily, he was nice enough to bite into the guy with the leg cast instead of you. The guards come, take the Turned man, and day folds into night as you wait for whoever’s up next.
At some point, as boredom sinks in and adrenaline sails off, you fall asleep. You really weren’t planning on sleeping tonight, but despite your best efforts, sleep comes. Exhaustion has a way of doing that.
You have a nightmare that you’re sinking through the inky-black depths of the sea, falling away from the night. When you fall off your cot, you wake up. Only…you didn’t fall. You were pulled off. It’s Bucket Girl and Castman, both Turned. Both tear into you.
A scream bubbles up, but the infected woman tears out your throat before it can manifest. Now that you can’t breathe, it’s easy for the pair to eat you alive.
THE END
The Sixth Man
Jose follows you, well, because he can’t speak English and that’s the man’s modus operandi. You head towards the signs for Squeeeensland, the amusement park’s very own waterpark district. Thinking aloud, you say, “If Hefty figures out the food situation, we’ll need water. Lots of tanks down here. Just need to figure out at what point the chlorine is added and stop the process.”
Jose nods, a blank look on his face.
“You’re a good man, know that, Jose?”
Same reaction.
Gulls and other birds have returned to the park, and you can hear them squawking overhead. As you continue into the waterpark, you’re surprised to hear the gurgling of water and spray of rides, though the groaning equipment seems stressed. A bloated corpse floats in the entrance fountain, which sprays a rosy-pink fondue of viscera.
Catching yourself from retching, you see that most of the waterpark is clogged with bodies and clothing. If there is fresh water, it’d better be upstream from this cesspool.
The main attraction in Squeeeensland is a wave pool, where several ghouls flail about, unable to escap
e the tide. Zombies don’t swim, it seems, and the current is stronger than their will. For now.
“Let’s go,” you say. “We’ll have to do a full cleanup once we know the park is secure.”
Jose nods, a blank look on his face.
* * *
Back at the front, you’re forced to wait for the group. They’re late. Which either means they got into some kind of trouble, or they’re simply undisciplined. As it turns out, they’ve found another survivor.
Tyberius, Hefty, and Angelica approach with a military man in battle uniform and a black gasmask over his face. He’s covered top to bottom with tactical gear and reminds you a lot of the survivalists at Duke’s compound. You already don’t like him.
Still, they don’t look like they’re being held hostage, and the man doesn’t even appear to be armed, save for an oversized knife. But there might be others. Might be a sniper watching you right now. Better find out for sure.
• Take Tyberius aside, ask him for the low-down.
• Take Hefty aside, ask him for the skinny.
• Take Angelica aside, ask her to shed some light.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Skeletons in the Closet (and Trunk)
“Jesus, Kay,” Craig says.
“No, she’s right,” Owen says. “Brian, you and Stephen pick him up. It’s not the best place, I know, but we’ll bury the man proper when this is all over.”
You open the trunk to the Honda sedan sitting on the automotive raising-platform, readying it for the guys. Brian nods and Stephen simply gets to it, but when they grab Josh, his corpse suddenly moves.
“He’s not dead!” you shout without thinking.
Realizing your error, you clamp your hands over your mouth. Too late. Both men look to you, and in that instant Josh grabs hold of Brian’s arm and bites into it with a ferocity the man never had in life.
PATHOGENS: Who Will Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? (Click Your Poison Book 4) Page 36
