Presently, you find yourself inside a tent, something wet and sticky coating the back of your head. The memories are like flashes. A rifle butt lashing out. The look of the pavement as you’re dragged down the street. The cold, emotionless gasmasks that stare at you.
Now you’re seated on a cot, trying to get your bearings. The police baton you carried is gone, but other than that, you’re in one piece. The surrounding tent is large, constructed out of olive-green canvas—straight out of an old rerun of M.A.S.H. that mama watches. The flaps are reinforced by metal grates like the ones that keep crowds corralled at a concert. The thick canvas has no window holes, so it could be day or night and you’d have no idea. A large set of fluorescent lights hangs from the center and a thick, industrial extension cord runs out and under the flaps.
The tent is packed with other refugees, from the nearest guy, with a splinted and raised leg, to the green-pallored woman on the other side who clutches a vomit bucket. The whole tent is filled by a dozen ragged, tired people held against their will.
And then there’s the nurse walking between the cots, making her way towards you. She wears jeans and a long-sleeved men’s workshirt, latex gloves, surgical mask, and the kind of protective eye-goggles people wear in shop class.
“Let me take a look at that head wound,” she says, pulling your hand away from the spot in question.
“Nurse, I—”
“It’s Doctor, actually. Doctor Abdous. And you are?”
“Tyberius.”
Despite the mask and goggles, you can see the smile in her eyes and hear it in her voice when she says, “What a nice name. Pleased to meet you, Tyberius. I’m going to wrap your head now, okay?”
• “How long do I have to stay here?”
• “Doc, what’s going on? Why’s the army here?”
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
True Neutral
The convict smashes open the glass to the inner doors and is already reaching through to get to the lock when you arrive and smash his knuckles with the police baton. He screams, but backs away from the doors in reflex. It gives you just enough time to slide the heavy, multilayered table of “sales and specials” sitting at the entrance in front of the doors. When the man pushes again, he finds the doors don’t budge against the barricade.
“Fuck you, motherfucker!” he screams.
“I’ll put it on your tombstone, asshole.”
Then his screams become incomprehensible as the infected finally catch up.
Using his death as a distraction, you go out the service entrance with your new clothes and give mama that funeral.
* * *
It’s a strange feeling to dress up a dead body, which is probably why most people pay a mortician to do it. The feeling is even worse when it’s the body of your mother. But she dressed you at the start of your life, so it’s almost fitting that you do it at the end of hers.
Once she’s lying peacefully on her bed in a dress she could have never afforded in life, you shower and put on your suit. You know she’d gush at how handsome you look. You know she’d be proud.
For the ceremony itself, you try to think of a Bible verse, but your mind is blank at the sight of her. You want to sing Amazing Grace, but your throat is a knot of pain and emotion. At length, you kiss your forefingers, then touch them to your mama’s lips.
“Bye, mama.”
The extension cord behind the entertainment stand should work well enough for your own sendoff. Wrapping it tightly around your neck, strangling yourself before lying down on your own bed. After only half a minute, every fiber of your being screams out for air and you claw at the cord, but you did too good of a job with the knot. You struggle for a minute more before you pass out.
It’s all finally over. See you in the next life, mama.
THE END
Trust Issues
“Fucking pendejo!” Celly screams, pacing about the cell with hands out, like he’s strangling your invisible effigy. His muscles are tight and veins bulging. Then, all at once, he calms down. “You think I had that to—man, cabrón, I was just gonna carve some crosses up for Easter, man. For mi madre.”
The hulking man sighs, and turns to face the barred doorway. Then he turns around, looks you in the eye with hatred, and goes for your mattress. He takes the lotto tickets from your usual hiding spot.
“Celly, no!” you try, but too late. He rips the tickets to shreds.
“There, happy? Nobody gets contraband this week.”
* * *
You hardly sleep a wink that night, tossing and turning with dreams of being bitten. You practically sleepwalk through breakfast the next morning, and you’re still dragging major ass when the call comes for Sunday morning church.
“When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve,” the preacher says. He has a Bible in his left hand, but it’s closed; a prop. He has this part memorized. “And while they were eating, he said, ‘Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.’”
A terrible, hacking cough sounds out behind you so loud the preacher has to wait to continue. You look back and see one of the skinheads hacking into his wadded up t-shirt. He releases the shirt and leaves black, sticky phlegm across his chest, like he’d swallowed tar and coughed it back up.
With a new sense of dread, you look back up to the preacher, who’s saying, “…while they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’”
A terrible shrieking roars out, and it takes some effort not to lose your bowels right there. A guard takes an Asp from his belt and, with a snap of his wrist, expands the telescoping baton. That’s when six inmates shoot up, as if suddenly awakened, and surround the guard.
This is it. This is survival. So what’re you gonna do?
• Hide.
• Fight.
• Run.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Tunnel: Your Way Out
Solitary gives you an angry glare as he’s boarding up the windows, but you keep looking for an escape. The air vents are too small, even for you. The only windows are those up front, the one’s presently being boarded up. And there’s no back door.
You’re about to give up, when you notice an odd patch in the side wall. It’s about the size of a door, but blocked up with a poorly-constructed brick-and-mortar barrier. What the hell? You scratch your head at this odd space, but then it hits you—the laundry is on the other side. There must have been a connecting door, but the staff sealed it off to prevent tools from the machine shop going missing in the laundry. But with shoddy workmanship such as this….
The nutter bastards are starting to break through! With renewed vigor, you claim a sledgehammer from the tools and go to work on the wall. On your fourth blow to the brick, you see a crack run through the mortar.
Solitary wrenches the hammer from your grip and goes to work on the wall himself. He’s a much larger man, and in only two massive swings a huge chuck of the wall goes down. The pair of you shove and clear your way through as the undead Nazis do the same at the window.
Inside the laundry, Solitary goes for one of the massive washing machines and you help him shove it on its side—creating a barrier to cover the way through. You look around for another way out, but already human figures stagger outside the windows here too.
Solitary pries open a sewer grate, then pulls a tiny Maglite flashlight from his utility belt. He shines it into the pipe below, then indicates you should go inside. The pipe is tiny, but you just might be able to squeeze through. It’d be an extremely tight fit—no way you could even bring the utility belt—and impossible for Solitary to fit inside.
“No way, we in this together!” you say.
A furious pounding starts against the washing machine barrier with a dozen haunting growls to accompany. The nutters won’t be kept out for long.
“Go,” he says, the command more of a croak than a word.
You look
at the tunnel, then to the barrier, then back to Solitary.
He gets in your face, screaming now. “GO!!!”
Without looking back, he rushes to face the horde, smashing limbs with the sledgehammer as they try to gain purchase on the washing machine and shove their way through. Knowing you’ve got no other option, you drop the bulky utility belt, take the flashlight in your mouth, and slip into the pipe.
It’s so snug, it’s like the damned thing was designed with you in mind, and you’re just barely able to shimmy your way through. Slimy water slops against your chest and neck, and the light shows no end to the tunnel. If this doesn’t lead out, you’re screwed.
Just as panic sets in, you come to another grate. With every last ounce of strength you have, you push through to open air. You dump out into a muddy drainage pool, stand up, and turn to face the prison.
Funny, the damage doesn’t look so bad from here.
• Take one last look, then start walking towards the city, a free man.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Turn for the Worse
You reach out to knock, but Dad’s door must not have been shut all the way, because it cracks open when you rap your knuckles against it.
“Dad?” you say into the darkness, pushing the door open slowly. Maybe he’s still resting? The creaking door gives way to a rasping wheeze. “Daddy?”
“…don’t turn on the light…” a voice says. It’s so faint and breathy, you can’t even be sure it’s him.
“Jay, wait out here.”
“But, Sarah—”
“Jason, get some water or something. Check outside for looters. Make yourself useful!”
He looks down, scolded, then turns and leaves. With mental images of those things in the mall flashing through your mind, you ready yourself for what Dad might look like now. Finally, you step forward into the room. Eyes struggling to adjust, scanning frantically for the outline of your father, who’s nowhere to be seen. Your heart is pounding.
“…don’t—” he starts again, cut short when a concussive BOOM! rocks the other side of the house. Jason!
You’re already running back in the direction of your bedroom when your brother screams and a second shotgun blast goes off. In practiced moves, you unsling your rifle and shoulder the weapon. When you come around the corner, all you see is red. The stranger you’d been keeping in your room now lies on the floor with a gaping hole in his chest. Thick, black blood radiates into the carpet; a Jackson Pollock of devil wings. The second shot took his face.
Jason slumps against your bed, clutching at his left bicep. Bright red arterial blood pulses out from between his fingers and runs down his forearm. Your once-white bedsheets are now a nightmare of red.
“He bit me! Fucker bit me! Cut it off!” your brother cries.
• Tourniquet, then assess the situation.
• No time to waste…TAKE THE ARM!!!
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Twice Shy
The doctor looks away, debating.
“C’mon, who am I gonna tell?” you press.
She shakes her head, then sits down on the cot next to you. She points at a woman in the corner, her gray face barely visible under a heap of blankets. “That one’s up first. Bitten…maybe five hours ago? If you were to look at her left forearm, you’d see the telltale blackened bite wound. The flesh becomes necrotic as it fights off the infection before the body gives up and it reverts to ‘healthy’ skin. The shivering and sweating is normal, then the fever will break and it looks almost like recovery. Until she starts attacking.”
“Why not put her away from us? If this is a quarantine and all….”
The doctor looks at you with sad eyes and practically deflates. “Tyberius…you all are separated from us. This other one probably has dysentery, but it’s hard to tell. The rest of them? Bite wounds and scratch wounds. Everyone is showing some sign of infection.”
Let that sink in for a minute.
“I need to get out of here,” you say, your voice somehow managing a calm whisper.
“The guard outside the tent might not think that’s the best idea,” the doctor says. “Stay calm, don’t make any trouble, and you’ll be okay. The guards take the infected to aggressor tent once they Turn. I’ll come back to check on you.”
• “I’m sorry.” Take the doctor hostage and get out of here. It worked once, it’ll work again.
• Take the proactive approach: Kill everyone else in the tent once the doctor leaves.
• Doctor’s orders: Stay alert, stay out of the way, stay alive.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Unbelievable
Head swimming, you rush back to the garage. There are others out on the street in similar states of panic, and they stumble after one another. Sirens fill the air, peppered by gunshots. Just what the hell is happening?
When you make it back to the garage, you notice the shared look of shock on Josh’s face. The others are gathered around him in the lobby. “I saw…I saw…” he mutters.
“Kay, you’re back,” Owen says. “What’s going on out there? Josh’s smoke break…well, we can’t get three whole words out of him.”
“Everybody’s….” you say, unsure how to explain it.
“Christ, her too?” Brian asks.
• “Come outside, see for yourself.”
• “There must be something on TV. Check the news.”
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Under Cover of Darkness
Though the parents try to convince you not to go out alone (at night!), your calm demeanor convinces them not to belabor the point. You promise you’ll see them at camp Salvation after you’ve completed your obligations, and ask if they’ll look for your sister and tell her you’re on your way.
Where the day was sweltering, you’re grateful for the thick padding of the kendo armor at night. A few vehicles pass in the dark, and you choose to hide from their lights. The kendo armor is dark; black in some places and blue in others, making you practically invisible when you choose to hide.
Once back in the city, you’re forced to flee from the walking corpses. They have no problem “seeing” you, even from behind cover. Somehow they just know. It makes for a hard night, constantly looking over your shoulder, altering your route several times to avoid the ones that cluster together in groups. Your sword may give you an advantage, but you can’t take on an army of the undead.
It’s already daylight by the time you escape the city and almost noon by the time you make it to the twins’ neighborhood. The air smells of rot and excrement. A thick black cloud hovers over the neighborhood, an ominous sign of smoldering house fires. How is it that even a neighborhood on the outskirts of town has already fallen to the scourge? Perhaps the quarantine was not the start of it all, but a last effort to stall the inevitable?
That’s when you arrive. Their house has scratch-marks on the door and boarded windows, and a message spray-painted across the door and siding, “SICK INSIDE.”
• I will heed this warning. Time to focus on the living: Master Hanzo and the twins need me.
• I must see for myself. I’ve come so far; I can at least put the twins’ parents to rest.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Upstream
Several of the men in suits use small-arm fire to keep the throngs of undead away from the Ambassador, but their pistols will only go so far. One of the staffers—the meek man who originally called for help—screams out as a zombie clamps down on his arm. The suited men ignore him; their priority is the Ambassador.
With a shot from your M4, you free him, but the damage is done. Whatever this Gilgazyme® shit is, it spreads through bites. Should you shoot him too? Best to leave it to a medic once you’re out on the tarmac. For now, you need to conserve ammo and focus on pushing directly into the crowd of ghouls.
“Christ, I feel like a salmon swimming upstream,” a suited man with a beard says.
“Yeah, and there’s an overpopulation of bears,” another replies.
Another staffer screams out as a ghoul with a pan-flute hanging from around his neck attacks.
“Corporal Gardner! Make a hole!” you shout, pointing at one of the barricades with a chop of your hand.
A hollow thunk announces the shot, and a moment later, there’s a satisfying KABOOOOOM!!! and a gigantic hole where their barrier once stood. The resultant shock knocks over several fleshies; this is the best chance you’ll get at escape.
“Push through!” you shout.
With some effort, the crowd of survivors makes it through the crowd of undead and out into the open. You lost three more staffers along the way, but the Ambassador makes it out unscathed.
“Damn, that was fucked,” Corporal Gardner says, relief in his voice.
It’s true. You got the Ambassador out, but barely. Not the smoothest operation.
• Tell a medic about the wounded, then help get everyone back on the C-17.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Useful
“A new face,” you say, extending a hand as you approach the man. “I’m sure they told you that I’m the leader of this merry band of misfits.”
“Sergeant Sims. US Air Force electrical maintenance specialist.”
“A pleasure. This here is Jose, man doesn’t habla mucho, but he’s good in a fight. I’m Cooper, and I guess you can think of me as your new commanding officer.”
Even behind the gasmask faceplate you can see the shock in his eyes. He takes your hand and says, “I’m going to signal rescue, at all costs. So…”
“Yeah, sure. Whatever. In the meantime, any chance you can get the power back on in the hotel? There’s a restaurant on-site, and it’d be nice to have a real meal, don’t you think?”
PATHOGENS: Who Will Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? (Click Your Poison Book 4) Page 41
