S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus (92 page)

Micah grumbles. “At least we don't have to worry about any of the Undead here.”

“
Down here? No, but I've come across them standing right up against the barrier. Some of them don't seem to feel the wall at all. Not many, but enough that you can't let your guard down.”

“
What's up with that?”

“
Yeah,” I say. “It's like those—”

Shinji's bark explodes inside the tunnel and I jerk and bang my head on the low ceiling. I see stars for a moment. He barks again.

“
What's his problem?” Micah hisses.

“
How the hell should I know,” I reply, rubbing the bump on my scalp.

Two more barks and I reach over and try to calm him down.

Micah rests on his haunches and the light on his forehead dances around the darkness. There's a shuffling noise behind us and he turns. The light stabs back at me, right into my eyes, piercing my skull. I try to block it with my hands.

“
Get that light out of my eyes!” Matthew growls. “It's just me.”

“
I heard something.”

“
I said it was just me.”

Shinji starts barking again. I try to quiet him but he won't listen. He pulls away, growling and baring his teeth at Micah. Or at whatever might be in that direction. He backtracks into Brother Matthew, who blocks him from going any farther. He doesn't stop barking. Matthew tries to wrap his hand around Shinji's muzzle, but he bares his teeth and ducks his head away.

“
Take care of this dog!”

“
I don't know what he's barking at!”

“
There a rumble, sounding like rocks tumbling down a mountain, followed by an indistinct hum.

“
Thunder?”

“
Down here? Doubt it. We've got to be—
Shinji! Shush!
”

“
There's probably a vent nearby,” Matthew shouts.

The grinding hum grows louder.

“
What the hell is that?”

“
I don't know, but I'm getting out of here!” Micah turns the light back to the front, but as far as I can see past his body, there's nothing but more tunnel.

“
No, wait!” Brother Matthew shouts, just as I yell, “Shinji!”

I find the dog's collar and pull but he continues to bark and growl. “I think we better back up!”

“
No, we're halfway there!”

The noise gets louder, and now I'm not so sure anymore which direction it's coming from. I'd thought it was ahead of us, but now it sounds like it's beneath us or somewhere in the walls beside us. Shinji suddenly stops barking and starts whining.

“
What the hell?” Micah says. His voice shakes and he keeps flipping the light back and forth.

“
Just keep moving!” Brother Matthew says. “Faster!”

“
There's something up there!”

“
It's just the barrier.”

“
I can hear it! You telling me I can hear the wall?”

“
No, I'm telling you we better hurry on out of here!”

Now I hear panic in his voice, and I don't like it. “What the hell, man?”

I pull Shinji and scurry forward, quickly coming upon Micah. We squeeze past him. I grab the light off his head.

“
Hey!”

I ignore him and push ahead. There's another loud rumble, and it does sound a lot like thunder, but it's too distorted for me to be sure. The grinding noise is what worries me. It sounds like gravel rushing down a chute. Now I can feel it beneath my hands.

I shuffle forward as fast as I can go, all the while pulling Shinji, who digs in his heels and tries to pull me back. But by now I'm half mad with that damn wall inside my head and the noise all around and Shinji barking until I feel like I'm going to explode. I don't look to see if Micah and Brother Matthew are following. I have to trust that they are. Where else are they going to go?

Very gradually the effects of the wall begin to attenuate, though the noise only grows louder. Now Shinji pulls me forward. I'm afraid if I let him go he'll run until he loses us in the maze of these tunnels. He's still barking and growling and the noise is still there inside my head and in the walls and now I can feel it in my chest.

Then, like a light going on inside a dark room, I know what it is.

“
It's water!”

“
What?” Micah yells behind me.

“
Water! From the rain.”

“
How can you tell?”

I hadn't noticed it in the darkness and the greasy feel of the dirt beneath us, but now I do because I can feel it pushing me back. I can feel it on my knees and in my shoes. My toes squish against it and so I wave my hands beneath me and bow my head so the light points at that inky blackness and I can see it now, swirling around my hands and past me. It's rising, and fast.

“
We better hurry!”

“
How much farther?”

“
Keep going straight!”

I push myself forward and Shinji pulls and the water covers my hands and splashes my face. The grinding noise has turned into a roar. We're actually heading into it.

“
There has to be another exit sooner,” I yell. “We're not going to make it another quarter mile!”

Something drips on my neck and runs down my chin. The ceiling is leaking and up ahead a little ways it's actually gushing and now the water is halfway to my elbows. Shinji's whining has grown more urgent.

“
The tunnel will narrow up ahead,” Matthew shouts.

“
Are you freaking kidding me?” I yell.

“
Watch your head!”

“
It gets lower, too? What the fuck?”

I keep moving forward, slogging through the muck. My backpack scrapes against the ceiling. What'll we do if the tunnel fills with water? I still have my mask and a single rebreather cartridge from the bag Kelly had in LaGuardia. I'd almost left them all behind but in the end decided to bring one. I wonder if Micah grabbed one, too.

“
Shinji's collar slips from my wet fingers and he bounds ahead of me and into the darkness.

“
Stop!!” I scream. But he's too frenzied to hear me. He's rushing away and I can't pull him back. He disappears, but his barks linger a moment longer. Then, they too are gone. “Shinji!”

I rush forward to try and stay with him, but then the worst possible thing happens: the tunnel splits.

“
Which way?”

“
Turn—“

RUMBLE!

“—
the split.”

“
What?”

“
Right!” Micah shouts. He bumps into me, pushes, guiding me. “Go right!”

“
But Shinji—”

“
Go!” he roars. “Or we'll drown!”

“
Shinji” I scream down the left-hand tunnel. “Shinji!”

“
GO!
”

The water's up past my elbows, just inches from my chest. “No!”

Micah shoves me aside and heads down the right-hand tunnel. Brother Matthew sloshes up behind me. “He'll be okay,” he says, trying to reassure me. “You won't be though, unless you move. Now!”

He gives me a shove that nearly sends me sprawling. I get to my hands and knees again, flinging water and muck from my face, and yell, “Shinji!” and somewhere in the darkness—I can't tell from which branch of the tunnel—I hear him bark.

“
He's this way!” Micah yells back. “Come on!”

I launch myself after him, banging my head on the low ceiling and blinking away the tears of pain. Water laps at my neck, soaking the rest of my shirt up to my collar and getting into my hair and ears. I move and water splashes into my mouth. I purse my lips and raise my head to keep from getting that ugly thick, black muck into my eyes, but it's no use. It splashes up and into my nose and splatters into my hair. It runs down my cheeks and it feels gritty and thick and smells like shit.

The water clings to my chin like sticky mud and doesn't let go. Now I crawl with my head tilted to the side and the water still rises and the roar increases until I can't even hear the thunder or Shinji's barks or even myself as I grunt and scream at my body to move faster. I'm practically swimming now.

A hand grabs my leg and pulls. Out of fear and adrenaline, I kick back and feel my foot connect.

“
Ow!” Matthew bellows. “Turn left! Here!”

“
Micah!” The roar swallows my voice. “
MICAH!
”

We reach the opening, but there's no sign of Micah. Now the water laps at my right ear and there's barely enough clearance to keep my nose above it.

Brother Matthew grabs my shirt and yanks it to the left, urging me into the tunnel. There's no sign of either Micah or Shinji, but now the water is getting into my nose and the opening is somewhere up ahead and I don't know if we'll make it before we drown, but I know we will drown if I wait even another minute more.

I push against the wall of the tunnel and plunge into the offshoot. The water is rushing like crazy past us and it feels more like plunging through oil than wading anymore. Debris catches in my clothes and scratches my face. Muck flows down my shirt, scratching my chest. My body is too buoyant; my hands lose their traction. Matthew pushes on me. He's got longer arms, longer legs, so he still has traction. But we're both nearly out of room to breathe.

I push on, aided from behind. I push on, half-swimming, half-wriggling, and the water rushes past, rising even higher until I've turned my face nearly all the way around and only my nose and mouth are above it and my hands are on the walls and I'm nearly on my back. I'm so desperate, so focused that I almost pass the widening where the shaft rises. Brother Matthew grabs my leg again and pulls me back. Water is gushing down like a waterfall, but he climbs up into it, finding the ladder on the wall and pulling himself up.

Only then do I see the faint gray of the sky above us, shattered by the metalwork grid. I sputter into that column of muddy water until I find a narrow ribbon of air, and I take in a wet lungful and cough and breathe again. Matthew pushes against the vent, and as I stand there waiting for him I see why he's having trouble with it: there's a thick tree branch lying across it, blocking us in.

I look below me and see that the water has risen nearly to the top of the tunnel we've just crawled through. And neither Micah nor Shinji are here.

Movement beside me makes me turn my head. Matthew steps up a rung as he tries to get more leverage on the vent cover. If it were Reggie, he'd have flung the thing off without a second thought, but Brother Matthew doesn't have the same upper body strength.

“
Hurry!”

He grunts and strains, but the vent cover won't move more than a few inches, and now the tunnel beneath me is completely gone, just a vortex of brown water, rising fast into the shaft.

“
Hurry!
” I yell, but my mind screams for Shinji. And then the water next to me explodes and a body plunges out of it. Micah rises up, standing and gasping, scaring the crap out me. I grab him and hold on as a mixture of relief and grief and hope and bitterness flow through me. His body shudders as he coughs and chokes.

“
Where's Shinji?” I scream.

He shakes his head and spits up muddy water, but he doesn't answer. I want to shake him. He pushes me away and turns and tries to look up through the falling curtain of water.

“
Micah!”

And now he grabs the ladder and climbs it.

“
Micah, where's Shinji?
”

Matthew steps to one side to make room, and now it's two of them pushing, both of them not half as strong as Reggie. But then the vent does move and Matthew yells and strains. Their fingers are bone white, skeletons laced into the metalwork and they push and the vent moves an inch, then two and the opening above us widens: three…four…eight inches.

“
Shinji,” I sob. I think about the rebreather cartridge in my pack and I consider diving down into that river of mud, but then a hand reaches down and lifts me up.

“
Jessie! Come on!”

But I don't. The water has reached my waist and I can't climb. I want to find Shinji. “He's going to drown!”

“
You can't stay here!” Micah screams back at me. He practically flings me against the ladder and orders me to climb.

So I climb. Five rungs, six. I lose count. Hands grab for me and pull me from the shaft and drag me onto the street where the water gushes from all around and flows into the hole like a tub draining. I'm drowning in despair as the sky above us weeps. The ground bleeds so much water that it seems like it might be dying. There's a brilliant flash and the clouds heave a hollow groan and fracture. The world is dying. I'm dying.

I've lost my friend and I'm dying.

But even here, there's no time for that. As I lay here sputtering and spitting and crying, Micah reaches over and tries to yank me to my feet. I scream at him to leave me alone, but he gets right in my face and tells me to move.

I don't want to. I won't.

“
Move!” he screams. “Now!”

And in the next flash of lightning, in the vacuum of sound that slips into the space before the next thunderclap splits the day and turns it into another nightmare, then I see the reason for his fright: we're surrounded by the Undead.