S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus (142 page)

And now Ashley is…what? Seriously hurt? Dead? She's out there somewhere in the woods. Terrified. I don't want to think about her like that. Tough on the outside, soft as marshmallow inside. The only way she's not scared now is if Ben killed her. I don't want to think about what she is now.

God, we think we're immortal. We keep pushing forward thinking there's no way it will ever end. Two near-fatal accidents before we even set foot here on the island. No, three. The attack in the tunnel. Stupid! We're not immortal.

We die. We come back.

That doesn't make us immortal.

Stop it!

That's what we have to do: Stop. How can we go looking for her now? We keep saying it's worth the risk, but when does it stop being worth it? Eric's coming with a helicopter. To save us. From ourselves. It's not worth it. She's dead. It's time to cut our losses and go home.

The late afternoon sun is trying hard to ignite the tops of the trees. Shadows are growing long, stretching their eager fingers toward us like midnight monsters ready to clutch at us. They pull the darkness from the woods, drawing it out with the Undead. Shadows come with the twilight. Twilight beckons night.

I check the time on my Link. Six thirty. Sunset won't be for another two and half hours. Eric will come, and then we'll be long gone from here.

Brookhaven first. We need to find Heall. Then…

What?

I don't know.

I don't know.

What will they do with Micah? I still can't figure out why he contacted Arc, why he arranged to save us. Change of heart? What are his true intentions?

Olly olly oxen free
, I think. It's time to show them, Micah.

Will he try to run?

“
We need to tie him up.”

My voice is a frog's croak, hoarse, phlegmy from fighting this infection.

“
Reg?”

He's no longer openly sobbing. He kneels there with Ashley's bloody Link in his hands and his hands between his knees, head bowed. Like he's praying. His head and shoulders jerk with every hitching breath.

The Players outside the fence haven't settled down just yet. They continue to howl and rattle the gate. Uncontrolled? Or just teasing us?

Damn Operators. Stupid rich pricks.

“
Come on, Reg. We need to get away from the fence.”

I check to make sure the gate is latched. I flip the cover on the panel and wait, as if I could force myself to glean the code just by staring at the keypad. Need to turn on the current, stay safe. No mistakes before the chopper comes.

But the numbers don't come to me. Jake knew them. Somehow. I don't know how he did, but he did. The brothers knew the code. Maybe Sister Jane or Brother Walter knows.

I turn back to the Players and I wonder why they haven't tried to come in yet.

They're Ben's.

Yes, Ben's controlling them somehow. His Players.

First you got to get past the zombies.

That's what he'd said. Well, we did that.

Then you got to get out of there. And that ain't goin to be so easy.

No, I guess it won't be. But it's just a few CUs. Ten, maybe. They keep moving. Still, nothing we can't handle. It won't be easy, but we can do it.

Then you got to find me. That'll be impossible.

Impossible now that we can't use Ashley's Link to track him.

I lay a hand on Reggie's shoulder, brush my fingers over his neck. He doesn't respond. He acts like he doesn't even know I'm there. He's lost, trapped inside his grief.

“
Come on, big guy. Time to go.” I grab a handful of shirt and pull, and pain flashes in my side, ripping, arcing down my leg. The salve that Sister Jane put on me is wearing off. I'm beginning to feel a little feverish again. It's probably just my exhaustion setting in again. I need to eat, but I'm not hungry.

Not even for brains?

I tell the noise in my head to shut up, but it laughs at me and won't leave me be.

Why don't zombies eat cheese with their fingers?

Shut up.

Because fingers go better with brain.

“
Reggie, come on. Time to go.”

Get it? Brain?

“
What does it matter now?” he moans.

I've got a million of them. Zombie zingers! Why did the IU go to the doc—

“
Enough already!” I scream. I let go of Reggie's shirt and throw my hands over my ears, as if I can block the voice inside my head. It doesn't work.

Reggie looks up, startled. The tears on his cheeks glisten and he lets the Link drop from his limp fingers and he moans. It's such a desolate sound that it breaks my heart. “She's gone, Jessie,” he says. “I—I feel it. She's dead.”

“
Don't say that.”

“
No, I know. She's dead. I can feel it. It's time to go home.”

 

The voice inside my head
actually shuts up for a second, stunned into silence by Reggie's surprise declaration. I hadn't expected him to give up so easily.

“
Do you hear me, Jessie? She's dead.”

“
You don't know that, Reg.”

He doesn't
want
her to be dead, dummy. He's shutting down. It's better than thinking of her as Undead.

He snoggers and wipes the tears from his face, composing himself. “We got company.”

I turn and see Micah loping across the field toward us, and my anger bubbles up again. I push it back down.

“
What the hell are you guys doing out here?” he asks when he reaches us. “I went looking for you and—”

“
How's Kelly?” I demand, cutting him off. “Is he awake yet?”

He blinks, his eyes bouncing between us and the CUs standing outside the fence. “I—I don't know. I haven't seen him since you came up. What are you doing here? Why are
they
there?”

“
They're old friends of yours,” I snap.

“
What?”

“
Don't bullshit me, Micah. You know what these things are doing here. Your buddy sent them. I don't know how he's controlling them, but he is.”

“
My buddy?”

“
Ben. Remember? Your friend from the SSC?”

“
What are you talking…?” He tries to act confused, but he's tired and he can't control what his face does. It begins to twist. I see something flicker across it—realization, anger, impatience. Something. “You've got it wrong, Jess.”

“
He took Ashley with him to find Father Heall, Micah.” I bend down and pluck the Link from the grass at Reggie's feet and hurl it at him.

It hits him square in the chest. He catches it, almost fumbles it—something I don't ever recall seeing him do—and flips it in his hand. A look of shock comes over him. “Ashley's?”

“
That's her blood, asshole!”

“
No,” he says, shaking his head. “I didn't—”

“
It's all
your
fault!
You
killed her!”

“
Jessie—” Reggie says, laying a hand on my arm to restrain me. I shake it off.

“
Hard on the outside. Remember, Micah? That's what you said about her. Hard on the outside and soft inside. Remember?” I can feel the red-hot anger rising again. “You bastard!
Remember?
But she was tougher than you'll ever be! I'd like to see you stand up to that psycho! Whatever he did to her, I hope they do ten times over to you! She didn't deserve this. She didn't deserve any of it!”

He stares at me, blinking, gawping, not making a sound.

“
Right. What the hell do you care? I should know better than to talk to a fucking traitor! Come on, Reg. I can't stand the sight of this—this—“

“
You're wrong, Jessie,” Micah quietly tells my back, his voice cold and even, almost menacing. I suddenly feel vulnerable, like it would be very easy for him to pull a knife out and stick it between my shoulder blades. “I didn't have—”

“
I don't want to hear any of your bullshit excuses anymore, Micah. Your fucking two-timing crap. I don't want to see you. I don't want to hear you. I don't want you anywhere near me or Reggie or Kelly. Do you understand? You'll be lucky if we don't leave you here!”

He doesn't respond right away. I wait for the knife to hit me. I can almost feel the tip going into my back.

“
You need to know something about me, Jess,” he says, and his voice is different, softer now, almost pleading.

Don't listen to him!

“
I didn't want this to hap—”

The levee breaks and it comes, the flood of my anger. I can't stop it. I never know where it comes from inside of me. I don't know where it hides. It hibernates, waits. A part of me, even since before the day I attacked Eric. I was born with it. I've tried to find it, to call it forth, to understand and destroy it, but it hides well and won't be beckoned. When it comes, it comes of its own volition to fulfill its own purpose, and I can't stop it. It comes now and I can't stop it.

I spin and chamber my leg and I thrust it out. My foot connects, and I hear a crack as Micah's head whips around. Blood and spittle fly from his split lips. He goes down, his body hitting with a soft thud. His arms and legs splayed out unnaturally. He doesn't move.

I turn back toward Reggie. He's looking over at me, his mouth hanging open, shock in his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Jessie,” he whispers. “I think you broke his neck.”

He laughs weakly, almost hysterically, passes his hands through his hair, saying, “Oh my God, oh my God.” And his eyes are all wild and he's stumbling around. He stops, steps over to me and grabs my arms. “What the hell did you do? I—I think he's dead. I think you killed Micah!”

I don't like what I see in his face. It makes me hate myself even more than I already do. It's the same look Eric had in his eyes for weeks after I scratched him, the look that has haunted me ever since: Fear. And it fills me with shame. Already the fury is gone, sunk down deep inside of me, retreated, hiding away from my need to understand it and control it. Gone, until the next time it wakes.

What have you done? You've killed him!

But Micah groans and raises his arms to his head.

As much as I hate him for what he's done to us, as much as I want him to pay, relief floods through me.

The arms waver, then flop lifeless to either side. He doesn't move again.

“
He's not dead,” I say.

But Reggie steps away, terror in his eyes. His back hits the fence and the Players lunge at him and try to grab his shirt and his hair through the chain link. One bends forward and opens its mouth and tries to bite through the metal. Its tongue is the usual black, pitted and moth-eaten, the teeth greenish-white. Long and sharp, flecked with bits of rotting gore.

I reach forward to pull Reggie off the fence, but he cringes away from me. I hate the way he looks. I hate it.

“
I didn't kill him,” I say. But Micah's still not moving and now I'm beginning to have doubts.

You killed him.

“
He's reanimating,” Reggie gasps.

An invisible hand clutches savagely at my heart. “He can't,” I say. “He wasn't infected.” I step over, bend down, reach under his chin, desperate to find a pulse. I don't feel a thing.

“
Oh my God, you killed him. He's—”

“
Damn it, Reggie!” I snatch at his hand, pull. He resists at first, but finally allows me to guide his fingers. “Feel that? That's called a pulse. He's not dead. Christ. You scared the living crap out of me!”

I push him away, snatch Ashley's Link from the ground and thrust it into his hands. My patience is completely shot. “Stop being such a fucking drama queen about everything!”

The Players react to my voice by rattling the fence and raising their own chorus. I spin around and scream for them to shut up, but of course this only gets them riled up even more. “I'm coming for you!” I scream at them, kicking viciously at the fence. Reggie pulls me away. “Do you hear me, Ben? I'm coming for you!”

The Undead hurl themselves at me now, hissing and growling. Their breathless moans sound like the wind through the woods, their cries like the groan of a million trees straining.

“
Yeah, go ahead, asshole!” I scream at them. “Send your fucking slaves in here. I don't care! I'll fuck them up. And then I'll come fuck you up!”

“
Jessie, I—”

“
COME ON YOU BASTARD! YOU CHICKENSHIT BASTARD! I'LL DO TO YOU WHAT YOU DID TO ASHLEY!
”

“
Jesus, Jessie, calm down. Calm down!”

But if Ben is controlling them, he doesn't make them open the latch.

Not yet.

I close my eyes for a moment and take a deep breath, try to calm myself.

“
Do you know the code?” I finally say. My voice shakes with fury. “For the fence. Do you know how to turn this damn thing back on?”

“
No,” Reggie answers. He gives me a guarded look. “Why do you think Ben has anything to do with them?”

“
He's tormenting us, playing with us.” I turn back to them and say, “But we're not playing your game, Ben. Lucky for you. We're jackers, remember?” I laugh drily. “Do you hear me?
We're jackers.
”