S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus (100 page)

No! The test is wrong. It has to be!

There's a heavy sigh and Father Heall murmurs something I can't hear. I edge closer, nearing the last set of racks, and squint through the slatted wood and into the brightly lit room where I'd spent the previous evening. My heart is a snare drum in my ears.

“
The boy was negative.”

“
Of course.”

“
Uninfected, I mean.”

“
Yes, I know what you mean.”

Brother Matthew is standing at the edge of the table with his back to me, blocking my view. He moves his arms like he's sewing. For some reason it makes me think of that movie again, the one he'd mentioned before we arrived here.
Frankenstein
. I imagine him sewing Father Heall's body together.
First what?
I wonder.

“
That's the first one,” he says. There's a pause, then, “We searched his computer but weren't able to find much on it. The encryption is too sophisticated for Julia to crack. Nobody uses that kind of encryption without having something to hide.”

“
You're assuming that that something needs to be hidden from us.”

“
I'm sure of it. Anyway, I gave it to Brother Ezekiel to look over. As far as the girl goes, I don't think she knows who he really is.”

“
No, she doesn't,” Father Heall answers, and I frown.

What don't I know? Who is Micah? Please, tell me!

“
But I think she suspects,” he continues. “I sensed a distance between them. They're close, but also suspicious of each other. And when I mentioned to her that he hadn't been very helpful, she didn't seem at all surprised.”

“
You trust her?”

“
Of course I do!”

“
Are you just saying that because—”

“
The girl wears her heart on her sleeve. She's just like her mother in that regard.”

Another gasp. I freeze as I experience another moment of panic when I'm sure they've heard me. They're talking about my mother. But how do they know her?

“
You saw how much she cares for that dog. It's the same for her friends.”

“
We could use that—”

“
No! Let her have the dog. We need her trust.”

Brother Matthew nods and says, “You're getting sentimental in your old age.”

“
I'm getting old in my old age, that's all.”

“
Well…there. That's the second. Two down. The boy said she picked it up right after they entered the arcade. It just started following her around. Does that hurt?”

“
You should know better than to ask that.”

I shift to try and get a better angle to see what they're doing, but I can't. My arm knocks one of the racks and it begins to tilt. I grab it before it crashes to the floor and steady it, terror numbing me. Brother Matthew turns around and looks into the darkness for a moment before turning back. He raises his hand and something glints in it, something long and thin and metallic. The image of sewing returns to me.

“
How many did you want?”

“
Four.”

“
Are you sure?”

“
I must do what I can for my children.”

“
We're all your children, Will.”

“
I know that, Matthew, but you know why this is different.”

“
The others may not even be infected.”

“
So test them.”

“
It's a waste.”

Father Heall chuckles. “There's more where that comes from.”

“
Now, but for how much longer?”

Silence. Then: “Go ahead and say what you're thinking, Brother.”

“
What?”

“
You're thinking about Enoch. What he did, going to the enemy, was wrong. I can never forgive him for that.”

“
You shouldn't—”

“
Criticism doesn't blunt a father's love,” Heall says. “It only whets it.”

“
That's three. One more.”

“
Mix it well, make sure it's properly activated.”

What the hell are they doing?

Brother Matthew raises his hand again and this time I see the object in it. It's a syringe. Inside of it, a viscous red and white liquid swirls around. He gently flips it end to end to mix. When he's done, the liquid is a pale crimson.

“
Other side?” Brother Matthew asks.

“
Yes.”

“
The light's wrong. Turn your head some more.”

The conversation lapses for a few minutes. Brother Matthew lifts another syringe and mixes it like the one before and I realize with horror that he's drawing Father Matthew's blood. Is this the treatment? How does he expect me to inject his blood into Jake?

Or Kelly?

“
Rest a moment, Matthew,” Father Heall says. “You're shaking.”

“
Thank you. This gets harder and harder.”

Or is Father Heall drawing his?

Matthew settles into the chair with a sigh. Past his shoulder I can see Father Heall lying on the table, his head toward us, his toes pointed up at the light bulb.

“
We'll have to move again,” Brother Matthew says.

There's a long silence before Father Heall responds. “Let's see what happens.”

“
We can't risk—”

“
I'm tired of moving. So, let them come, if that's what she chooses.”

“
You don't mean that. You're not thinking straight because of her.”

Who,
me?
Are they talking about me? What the hell do I have to do with him? Who am I going to bring?

“—
deprolidone in her system might have masked the test results.”

“
I'm not surprised,” Father Heall sighs. “I always suspected The Colonel knew.”

Grandpa? And then I remember something he once told me:
You're special, Jessie
.
Someday you'll see.
He'd been talking about my medicine. My inhaler.

Something tells me that day has arrived.

“
Does she know?”

“
I don't think so.”

“
Let her have it back. It won't hurt anything.”

Brother Matthew raises the final syringe. “Will you see her off in the morning?”

There's another long pause. Father Heall grunts as he sits up. He rubs his neck with a cloth and looks at it, then wipes his eyes.

“
No. I don't think I better.”

 

I'm still in the chair
by the window at five thirty when the sky begins to lighten, still awake and still trying to process everything I'd heard and seen. Still unable to parse the idea that the treatment might very well have come out of Father Heall's body. Could it be an anti-serum? Still trying to understand why there are only four syringes when there should be five. Who doesn't get one?

Still wondering what the hell my grandfather gave me in my inhaler and why.

Still trying to wrap my head around the idea that I'm infected.

I shiver and wrap my arms around myself. I don't feel infected.

It must've happened when we killed the thing Nurse Mabel had turned into, after the first time I killed her.

I shudder at the memory of my hand sinking into the hole in her chest as I'd fought to keep her from biting me. The offending hand suddenly feels heavy and bloated and feverish. I thrust it deeper beneath my other arm, as if ashamed of it. I imagine the insidious infection that started in it spreading through the rest of me.

The hole in Mabel's chest that Jake had blasted with the pistol that I—

I jerk upright in my seat and snatch the backpack from the floor at my feet and tear open the zipper and begin to search inside of it for the gun, even though I already know it's not going to be there. They've taken it away from me, just like they said they would. They've even taken my little pocketknife.

Stay calm. Just ask for it back when we leave.

The red tinge on the edge of my vision blooms then fades as I work on controlling my anger. They've only taken the gun for safekeeping, I tell myself. I'd do the same thing if the tables were turned.

A few drops of rain splatter the window pane, rippling the world outside. A gray stream trickles across the gravel drive and drains into the flooded field. The moon reflects on it, fractured by the wind, which howls like a coyote. No one in their right mind would want to go out in this weather.

I count backwards from today and realize the infection couldn't have been from Mabel. That was a week ago. Too long. Could it have been from Stephen?

Or did Kelly infect me with a kiss?

I still don't feel infected.

Maybe I heard wrong.

Another gust and scattered raindrops batter the window. The approaching day begins to lighten the world. The sun struggles against the clouds. And just when it seems the clouds are going to win, the first rays of sunlight pierce through them from somewhere behind the house, casting a golden spotlight onto the lawn. It lingers for a moment, then fades and reappears elsewhere.

There's movement out there. The light strengthens and the IUs on the grounds below begin to take heed of it. They start to thin out. I try to watch them, to see where they go, but they're strangely elusive. I lose them in the trees or past the edge of the window frame. They slip away like smoke through cracks in the day. One catches my eye while another disappears. I try to watch this one and another vanishes. It's so frustrating, because I want to see how they do it, how they manage to hide so completely.

I'm about to give up when one stumbles across the road, lurching on a foot bent completely backwards. Every time it steps on it I wince and imagine the pain it doesn't feel. It pauses and looks up and, for just a moment, it almost seems to be looking straight at me. I don't move. It's silly, I know, since those cataract-filled eyes are blind and even if they weren't, it can't get to me in here. It stands there staring in my direction as I stare back, afraid to breathe, unable to move.

Somewhere down the hallway, a couple rooms over, I hear Micah's voice. It rises in anger. But my attention is outside and I tune him out. The IU's face shifts slightly, as if listening. It looks like it's sniffing the air.

“
What are you doing?” I whisper. “Why are you just standing there?”

My breath forms a ghost on the glass. It quickly fades away.

Another voice rises, a counterpoint to Micah's protests.

The front door shuts below me, rattling the house. The sound of footsteps crossing the porch, descending the steps. Someone is leaving.
Look out for the Undead!
I want to yell, but by then the owner of those footsteps has come into view: a large head, nearly bald with wispy hair.

Be careful, Father!

He walks briskly down the driveway and heads straight toward the IU. How could he not see it? The zombie drops its head toward him, but it doesn't move. It just stands there and waits.

“
You can't do this to me!” Micah shouts, startling me. He continues to yell, his voice fading, blending into the murmur of the second voice. It sounds like they're going downstairs.

The distance between Father Heall and the Undead closes. And then he does something completely unbelievable: he reaches out and pats the thing on the shoulder as he passes.

“
What the fuck?”

The IU turns and watches, but it doesn't attack.

Father Heall steps lightly down the drive and is quickly out of sight. I drop my eyes back to the Undead. But it's already gone, disappeared just like all the rest.

The window frosts up with my exhale.

Behind me, someone knocks on my door. It's followed by the sound of keys jangling. I hurry back to the bed. “Come in.”

The door opens and Brother Matthew comes in. He stares at the lock for a moment, as if trying to remember something.

“
What's the matter?”

“
Hmm? Ah, good, you're dressed already. You slept well?”

I nod.

“
Quite a storm we had last night. There's some flooding. We'll have to be careful.”

“
It's not raining now. Just spitting.”

He shakes his head. “No. There's breakfast waiting for you downstairs in the kitchen. You should grab something before we leave.”

“
Is Micah okay?”

“
We'll talk about him shortly, but first we eat. I don't like serious discussions before my first coffee.”

“
Where's my gun?”

“
Breakfast first, Miss Daniels. Please. And hurry. We need to leave before the next storm hits.”

He slips out the door, closing it behind him as he goes.

“
Okay, then.”

I gather my things and consider changing back into my jeans. Instead I stuff them into the backpack. There's almost no more room, not with Shinji's rabbit and all the other crap I've gathered. But in the end, I toss the Seattle Seahawks football jersey we'd gotten on our way from LaGuardia onto the bed. It's torn and bloodstained anyway. And it reminds me of Eric.