S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus (82 page)

He doesn't sense the change in the air. He noticed it before when we were jogging, but now he doesn't. It's just the same obsessed gleam in his eye. This is what he's been training for all his life: to kill zombies. Except this one is real.

“
So was Zombiecles back there,” I say.

“
Zombiecles?”

I wipe a bead of sweat off my cheek with my shoulder, shrugging. “So, what do we do?”

“
You want to go back?” he asks. I know he doesn't mean it. I know he'd be disappointed and argue if I said yes. But he knows I won't say it. He knows I'd rather die than go back now. Now that we're so close.

“
I'm going to ping Kelly.”

“
What? Here?” Micah sighs impatiently. “Text him. It'll be quicker—
quieter
, I mean. Let him know we're coming.”

I hesitate. If I text, I won't know if he's okay. I won't know if he'll even get the message. And I want to hear Kelly's voice.

“
And make it quick, Jess. There's more of them coming.” He gestures off to the side.

I glance over and see the shadows shifting. They're less of a threat to us, because of the fence. But the noise they'll make will alert the one on the road that we're here.

“
I wonder how he got up here,” Micah wonders, shifting anxiously. He looks around. “Maybe there's a hole in the fence.”

Hope not
, I think as I thumb in a quick message to Kelly:

<>

Then I pocket the Link.

“
You ready?”

I nod, though I'm really not ready at all.

Micah grins, and he gets that intense look again. “Good. Let's go kick some zombie ass.”

 

This doesn't feel right.
In fact, it feels absolutely wrong.

This is what I think as Micah slings his pack on his back and tightens the straps. He squares his shoulders and stretches his neck. The knife magically appears in his hand, drawn from some hidden place. I'm sure he'd prefer a light saber. But then again, I think he actually prefers this real crap over
Zpocalypto
.

He waits for me to give the signal. His eyes never leave the figure standing in the road.

The moon hovers expectantly in the sky, shining down on us like a spotlight. The cloud has shifted further over, stretching out even longer and thinner. But I don't have time to think about how unnatural it looks. Every second I waste not moving is another second the zombies behind us and beside us and in front of us have to figure out we're here, to get closer. To surround us.

And sunrise is still more than an hour away.

“
I suppose now's not a good time to ask why I have to carry the shovel,” I say. “I'm the one with the weak shoulder, remember?”

“
What?”

“
Never mind.”

It's not that I mind. Yes, my fingers are cramped and sweaty from carrying it, but it hasn't really been much of a burden. If anything, it feels good in my hands, like a bo staff, a comfortable counter weight while I'm running.

“
Quit procrastinating, Jessie.”

I lift my hand to adjust my backpack, but as I do the strap catches on the handle of the shovel and it slips and goes clattering across the road, shattering the silence of the night.

We both stare at it.

Up ahead, the IU slowly lowers and turns its head. It stares at us without moving. Behind us, the moaning has grown louder. Retreat is out of the question. A single zombie on the road is still a much better alternative to several behind us, even with the fence for them to contend with.

“
Sorry
,” I whisper.

“
Just pick it up and get ready to run,” Micah says, his voice low and urgent.

I reach down and grab the shovel without lowering my eyes.

“
Now!
” And he leaps forward.

At the same moment, the zombie turns and steps toward us. Its first movements are awkward and slow, but it quickly shakes off its torpor. It raises its arms and howls.

And we're running straight toward it!

“
Oh yeah. It's a fast one,” Micah pants. I don't dare look over at him. I don't want to see the look on his face.

“
Go right,” I tell him, raising the shovel. My shoulder twinges, reminding me that it's still not up for a lot of physical abuse. I hope the thing doesn't decide to pop back out again. Not now. “Aim low,” I tell him, “for the thigh. I'll go left and go for its head.”

Micah nods and separates from me. The monster takes another step toward us, reaching out. Tatters hang from its arms as it reaches out, and at first I think it's skin. But then I see it's just its torn shirt, revealing the muscles it once possessed.

It's actually in fairly good shape.

We accelerate until we're both running as close to full speed as we can manage with the packs on our backs.

I focus on breathing. Two quick breaths, one long one. And when the thing is ten feet from us, I inhale and hold it. I swing my arms forward with all my strength, shouting,
“Kiai!”
for power.

But the shovel misses! It passes over the thing's head without connecting and throws me off balance. The shovel flies out of my hands and skitters noisily across the road, then off the shoulder and into the grass.

“
What the hell?” I yelp. “How the hell—”

“
I got it!” Micah yells, ducking under the zombie's arms. The knife slices its shirt but misses flesh. Micah spins and draws back his hand for a second try.

I grab him and yell, “Forget it. Keep running!”

“
But—”

“
One shot, Micah! We missed.”

The thing crouches as it turns. I've never seen one do that before.

I push Micah just as it leaps at us. I spin away, grabbing its wrist and pulling. It loses its footing and goes flying. I don't wait around to see what happens.

“
Run!”

Micah hesitates a fraction of a second, but then follows me as I take off again down the road.

“
I could've…taken it!”

I risk a look back. It hasn't gotten to its feet yet, but it soon will. It's moving too fast, too purposeful.

“
It's coming.”

Micah looks back. “Holy shit!
It's fucking running!
”

He whips his pack off and tucks it under his arm. I do the same with mine. For a second, I'm tempted to toss it over my shoulder as a distraction.
It's not a god damn bear!
I scream at myself. It won't stop to sniff it. It doesn't want canned tuna and water. It wants us!

We both speed up.

“
Still coming,” Micah says, his voice quavering, both with fear and excitement.

I can't keep myself from turning around and looking. The thing is still moving awkwardly, its movements stiff and mechanical. And yet it's frighteningly fast.

I let out a stifled cry. Fire sears my lungs and drips burning lava down my side. Beside me, Micah's face twists in pain. He grabs his side. “It's no fair, you know,” he groans, and his teeth flash. “Zombies don't get cramps.”

“
It's a Player,” I gasp.

“
No shit.” But his next words send an even bigger chill down my spine: “And it thinks we are, too.”

We round a bend in the road and the sounds of pursuit fade away, but we keep running anyway. There's nowhere else for us to go but straight ahead.

I scan the road. Micah does the same. I hope he doesn't suggest that we turn around and fight. I also hope he doesn't think we should hide. Hiding from a normal IU would work, but not a CU. Not when there's a living, breathing human being doing its thinking for it. Our best chance is to try and outrun it.

My chest tightens at the thought. I don't know how much longer my lungs will hold out.

But Micah points and shouts, “There!”

“
No. We have to…keep going.”

“
Cut off,” he replies, “for Jayne's Hill.” He tries to vault over the center guardrail and nearly ends up falling flat on his face. He pinwheels his arms, recovers, and keeps right on running. I slow and climb over it. I'm too weak to jump. Micah's already heading down the entrance ramp. I try to catch up, but I'm too tired. When I hear the slap of the CU's feet behind me, I somehow find something more inside of me.

Just as I slip down the ramp, I glance over my shoulder. The zombie is a hundred feet back, climbing over the rail. It falls, but gets quickly to its feet and continues the pursuit.

My shins cry out in protest as I run down the incline. The sound of my retreat echoes in the darkness. Sweat pours off of me. The distance between us and the creature has grown, but it's still coming. This one won't give up. It's not motivated by its basal instincts to feed. Hunger propels it forward, but murder is its intention.

Murder and money and ratings.

How much for each kill? How much more if it's a living person?

I wonder why and how it could happen. Doesn't its Operator know we're not dead? He has to know we're not Infected. IUs don't run, and we're obviously not CUs, either. Even the freshest Player couldn't leap over a guardrail like Micah just did, no matter how clumsily.

So, the Operator knows, and yet he's still coming after us.

I can just picture the fat, rich asshole grinning inside his fancy VR setup in some mansion somewhere safe. Where? Boston? Santa Fe? Los Angeles? He knows his Player is chasing two living human beings, and yet he's enjoying himself. He wants to catch us. He wants to kill us.

jessie

Would they even televise something like that on
Survivalist
?

stop

Does Arc think it could get away with it?

“
Hey!” Micah grabs my arm and spins me around. “Where the hell are you going?”

We're at the bottom of the entrance ramp and he jerks me to the left, past a sign that says West Hills Drive. Below it, an arrow and letters that spell out Jayne's Hill, one mile away. We begin another excruciating uphill run, sprinting for another solid minute. When the road abruptly turns and ends in a parking lot, I'm almost relieved. I can't run anymore.

“
What…now?” I gasp.

There's a single car in the lot, its color impossible to guess in the darkness and beneath its filthy blanket of dirt and moss. It sits on its rims, the tires long since deflated. Just its being here tells a story. What happened to the person who owned it? Are they still wandering the hills around here?

“
We have to fight,” Micah says, panting.

My heart clutches. “We'd be better off hiding.” When he starts to protest, I say, “You saw that thing duck when I swung at it. It's a damn Player!”

“
I know it's a damn Player! I saw what you saw.”

“
That means there's—”

“
I know! I know. Okay, we hide. Shit, Jessie.”

He spins around, searching. “There's a public restroom,” he says, pointing to a cinder block building. The corrugated roof sags under the weight of a dozen years of pine needles, and ivy crawls up the walls.

“
It's a
Player
, Micah!” How many times do I have to say it? “Hiding is too obvious. It's the first place I'd look if I were its Operator.”

He grunts unhappily, then nods, once, quickly. “Okay, so we need to start thinking like we're playing
Zpocalypto
.”

“
No, we need to start thinking like we're playing
The Game
.”

We should've been thinking this way from the beginning. Instead, we were treating our situation like we were actually in control. That's what Stephen meant when he said we were all players and that it was all already scripted. That's why we've done so spectacularly poorly, because we've always believed we could reason our way out. We're lucky to all still be alive.

Most of us.

Except Tanya turned out to be a part of the story, too.

Christ help us.

I shut my eyes for a moment and try to push her face away from me.

“
Better decide soon, because it's coming,” Micah says. The hard, slapping sound of the Player's feet on the road echoes in the night, sounding somewhere far away and yet frightfully close. Micah gestures to the bathroom. “Behind it then.”

I follow him around the side. There's no time to argue, no time to think. I just wish I knew what he's planning. He slips into the brush that encroaches on the cracked cement apron around the old building. Just behind us is the woods. I pause. From here, escape will be next to impossible. I step in and crouch down next to him. The rustling is loud to my ears.

“
As soon as it comes around the corner,” he tells me, “we jump it.”

I want to choke him right then. I resist the urge. I want to stand up and turn around and race through the trees. In fact, I almost do, but then I feel his hand on my wrist, giving it a gentle but firm squeeze, and all further thoughts of moving get pushed away.

 

I'm scared shitless.
And yet there's something—deep down inside of me—something strangely exhilarating and freeing in Micah's plan. I can't explain it. Maybe it's just his excitement rubbing off on me. Or maybe it's because I'm tired of running from the Undead. Running from anything, actually. I need to face it head-on.