S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus (106 page)

I find a thick layer of sludge inside and I realize something new: Even if the syringes are there, they might be ruined.

I reach in and carefully dig through the muck and almost immediately my fingers slip around a cylinder, but as soon as I try to lift it out I know it's not a syringe. I pull the gun out and set it to one side. Mud clogs the barrel and bleeds from every crease and opening. The thing is probably useless now. I should've done a better job protecting it. All those times it got wet and wasn't properly dried. It'll be a miracle if it still works.

What good is a bullet if you don't use it?
Jake's voice, echoing inside the empty terminal at LaGuardia. I see Stephen lying on the ground in front of those streaked gray windows overlooking the empty tarmac, his eyes glazed and his body lost in some sort of trance, and the EM wall in the distance. The wall that seems to so badly want to keep us here. Back then, all we'd wanted was to get out past it. Ironic: now I'm trying to get through yet another wall, to make my way deeper inside.

I reach into the satchel again and dig around, and in the corner I find them, both of them. I gently scoop away the mud and pull them out. They appear intact. Mud has gotten underneath the needle caps, contaminating them, but a bacterial infection is the least of Jake's problems right now. We can get antibiotics afterwards.

After he's better.

After I take him back to Father Heall.

I get shakily to my feet and look for a puddle of clear water to wash everything out in. When I'm done, I peel off my pants and check my leg. The first thing I notice is the absence of blood. The second thing is the huge white welt. I check it as carefully as I can, rinsing it and inspecting, carefully pulling the edges apart. But the skin isn't broken. Either the IU that bit me was toothless or it couldn't get through these jeans. I've just dodged another bullet.

After that, I pull the Link out of my pocket to check the time. I'm surprised to find that it's still only a few minutes after eight o'clock. It feels like a week has passed since we left Brookhaven this morning.

My thumbs feel like jelly as I key in a message to Kelly and Reg:

<< GOT IT. ON WAY. SIT TYT >>

As an afterthought, I send another message to Ashley, a longer one telling her about Father Heall and the treatment and asking her to hold off on telling the others that I've left Micah behind. She'll understand and not ask questions, not like Kelly and Reggie will, and I just don't need that distraction right now. I don't mention the accident to any of them. I know she might not get the message, not unless the others have gotten her Link out from underneath the elevator, but it still makes me feel a little lighter, sharing some of the burden like this.

Now I just need to figure out how to get back inside Gameland.

 

“
Kel? I wasn't expecting—”

“
What the hell happened to you?” He squints into his screen, looking worried. “You look like somebody dragged you through the mud.”

Dragged and nearly drowned, I want to say.

I look down, careful not to tilt my Link. I don't want him to see me like this. Of course he's seen me without my shirt on, but I just don't need the hassle of having to answer all the questions.

“
Long story,” I tell him.

“
Where's Micah?” he asks, suspiciously. “Why isn't he with you?”

Either Ashley got the message and told him, despite my asking her not to. Either that or he saw the message.

I exhale, frowning and shaking my head. “I left him behind. Okay? I'll explain after I get back.”

Kelly raises an eyebrow. He opens his mouth to say something, but I cut him off. “Where are you? How come you're on the Stream? Why aren't you down with Jake?”

“
I'm topside with Brother Nicholas. We're getting some more of that plant. Ash and Reg are keeping an eye on Jake. Well, I guess it's just Reg right now. I just saw Ash walk past a few minutes ago. We have to get her out of here. She's going stir crazy.”

“
How is Jake?”

“
Delirious. It was a shitty night. He was screaming like hell. I thought he was going to bring every IU within a five mile radius. Kidding, of course. No way you could hear him up here. That's why Ash and Reg came upstairs, to try and catch some shuteye.”

“
Shuteye,” I mumble, thinking otherwise, thinking that they maybe they just wanted to take advantage of a little privacy.
Ridiculous!
It makes me realize how much I miss Kelly, how much I miss having him hold me. How much I miss the feel of his body against mine.

Then again, what do I have to complain about? At least I had a nice hot meal and a soft bed to lie in, even if it was only for a few hours. And I shared it with a dog instead of him.

“
Did you sleep?” he asks.

“
Couple hours. How about you? Did you eat something?”

“
Don't worry about me. I'm hanging in there. When do you think you're going to get back?”

I look up and around. I have no idea where I am or which way to go. Then, in the distance, I see a squat gray line hovering over the horizon like the surface of a puddle of oil. The Gameland wall. It can't be more than a half mile away, which means I can't be more than six or seven miles from Jayne's Hill. I just need to find a way in. If what Brother Matthew said is true, that shouldn't be too hard. It's crossing the river to get to the wall that might be a bit tricky.

“
It's going to take me a couple more hours, at least. Figure on noonish, maybe. The road collapsed and I'm sort of stuck on the wrong side.”

“
Collapsed? What happened? How? Are you alright?”

“
We were driving and—”

“
Wait. Did you say driving? In a car?”

“
We crashed,” I say, glossing over his question, and yet, I'm sure, adding to it. I just can't seem to stop myself from saying these things. Fatigue. “The road washed away. The water's too deep and wide and the current's too fast for me to swim across. But I can see the wall. If I can just get to it…”

Kelly's face twists with anguish. But then he squeezes his eyes closed to think of a solution. After a moment, he asks, “Which way is it flowing?”

“
The water? Left. South, I mean.”

“
Taste the water.”

“
Excuse me?”

“
If the water is salty, then—”

“
It's not.”

“
Then it's coming from inside Gameland. It's runoff from the rain. Which means the water's getting through the wall somehow.”

“
Inside the wall?”

He nods. “Follow it upstream. I bet you you'll find a breach pretty close by.”

“
How do you know that?”

“
The eastern wall runs north and south along the narrowest and shallowest section of the middle of the island, from what used to be Smithtown Bay in the north to Great Cove in the south.”

“
You remembered all that from the map?”

“
Geography of the wastelands, Jessie. Didn't you even pay attention in school last year?”

“
I don't particularly want to hear about school right now.”

He sighs and shakes his head. “If it were tidal water, then it would taste like the ocean. Since it doesn't, that means it's got to be runoff from all this rain. And since there isn't much elevation change along the length of the wall, it must be coming from inside, from east of where we are on this hill. Water running south means you need to head north.”

“
How far?”

“
Shouldn't be far. If the breach is too far north, the water'd be running the other way.”

I shake my head. “I hope you're right.”

He smiles. “Trust me, babe. Just follow it upstream.”

“
You realize you sound just like Reggie?”

“
What? The ‘babe' thing?”

“
Yeah, that and being all cocky and sure of yourself.”

“
Ha! I can be sure of myself, too.” But then something catches his eye and he sobers up. “Got to go. Brother Nicholas is coming with the medicine. Where's Brother Matthew?”

“
Dead.”

Kelly blinks likes he's just been slapped. His eyes drift over to the side again, presumably to look at Brother Nicholas.

“
It wasn't my fault!
” I whisper.

“
Nobody said it was.”

“
I know that look; you were wondering. Anyway, it might be better if you kept that detail to yourself for now,” I murmur. “We'll talk about everything when I get there.”

“
Is there something you're not telling me, Jess?”

“
No.”

“
Damn it, Jessie. I know you, too. I know that tone of voice. You were never a very good liar.”

“
Okay, fine. I just can't say right now.”

“
About Micah?”

“
Once we take care of Jake and get Ash and Reg off the island, then we'll go back to Brookhaven and sort things out with him.”

“
Why don't we just leave him?”

“
Because,” I tell him. “He's not the only reason we have to go back.”

 

I follow the mad rush of water upstream
, just as Kelly instructed. I can't help mulling over his logic. It's infuriating. I mean, it makes total sense about the water, but that's what bothers me: how much sense it actually makes.
I
should have figured it out.

I'm forced to backtrack a little before I find a road that parallels the water. I could cut through yards between houses and take alleyways, but I feel safer on the main streets where things are more open. It's still raining, but the sky has lightened considerably and the Undead have thinned out considerably. Singly, they're not much of a threat. It's when they gather that they seem to feed off each other's frenzy.

I watch them and they watch me and I see them come, but they're too far away and too slow. As long as I'm quiet, they're quick to lose interest.

I eventually make my way back to the Long Island Expressway, the road we'd been on when we crashed. Stepping out onto it, I can't see the torn edge a few hundred yards away. I can't hear the rush of the water. The road looks intact. Beyond it is the wall, a starker, grayer blur against the melancholy sky. A quarter of a mile away.

All evidence of the accident appears to have been erased. The IUs that attacked us have dissipated, gone now that there's nothing to anchor them here, nothing more to feed upon. But the closer I get, the more I can see the horror that took place here. Bits and pieces of debris and hunks of metal and plastic litter the roadway. One of Brother Malcolm's shoes rests against the center divider. A million pieces of glass—clear from the windows, colored from the head and taillights—glitter on the road. There's a new gash in the cement, an inch deep, a thin runnel of blood still in it, looking as if the road itself is bleeding. To the side, the concrete barrier is chipped, marked with blue and white paint, and stained with blood.

Most of it has already washed away. In another hour, all traces of it will be gone, leaving only shredded clothing and metal and plastic. I find no bones, no uneaten remnants. It reminds me of LaGuardia, after our return from the botched escape attempt. We'd found a bloody mess in the makeshift hospital, pieces accounting for only a single victim. We knew there had to be two—or
thought
we knew—and figured the other had been eaten. It was careless of us to think that. The woman—Novak—had somehow avoided Nurse Mabel. She'd nearly killed Kelly and Jake when they tried to leave the island days later.

I won't make that mistake again. It seems impossible to think that either Brother Malcolm or Brother Matthew survived those brutal attacks, but it doesn't mean they didn't get up and walk away afterward as one of the Undead. I'd seen IUs in much worse condition.

I find a second blood stain in the road, thick and sticky with congealed blood. From its location, I guess that it belonged to Brother Malcolm. It trails off, as if telling me which direction he went, either on his own or dragged.

The only sign I find of Brother Matthew is a single syringe, its barrel shattered and the precious medicine spilled out. I search for the last one, but I can't find it. And as for Shinji, he's long gone, too. Hope turns to hopelessness as I stand and strain my ears against the quiet drone of the drizzle and the louder roar of the water below, but there is no barking.

It breaks my heart to know he's gone. I only hope he's safe.

On a whim, I edge over to where the ground is still crumbling away. The worst of the damage appears to have been done. The water below seems lower than before. Slower, too. The ground feels solid, but pieces of it still chip off and fall away.

About eight feet down, caught on a protruding piece of rebar from a chunk of concrete, is the dark green bundle of my backpack, daring me to go down and fetch it.

If it was just the temporary Link—penalty days for not returning it to Citizen Registration in Hartford notwithstanding—and the spare rebreather cartridge, then I'd probably just leave it down there. I can get another backpack. Hell, that one isn't even the one I set out with two weeks ago. I'd picked this one up on the other side of Gameland.