Deadman's Switch & Sunder the Hollow Ones (23 page)

 

 

The hum of the wall grows louder.
I can feel it in my bones. Then, coming from somewhere inside of it, beneath and above it, someone moans.

“What the fu—”

“Shh!”

“I don't like this, guys. What's taking so long? Are we stuck?”

I hold my hand up to my face. I can't see a thing. I pull out my Link and try to wake it. It stays dark. “My Link won't work.”

“Mine neither.

The moaning comes again, louder, more urgent.

“Christ,” Jake suddenly cries. His voice rises to a shriek. “Oh, Jesus Christ! Oh, god! No. No! Get away from me!”

There's rustling and somebody shoves me up against a side of the chamber. Ashley shrieks. It sounds hollow and lifeless, and yet it still manages to send shivers down my spine.

Then, without warning, the opposite wall slides open. We all pour out into the blinding sunlight. I immediately feel the effects of the wall's irritant, a buzzing in the back of my head, pressure that stretches around to my eyeballs. My skin itches. My joints ache.

Kelly drags Stephen out and throws him to the ground. He just lies where he falls, as if unconscious, but then he lets out an even louder and deeper moan.

Except it isn't coming from him.

We all spin around.

Tanya's lying on the ground, thrashing and grunting.

“She's having a seizure!”

“Someone help her!” Jake screams, but the look on his face is terror and he's backing quickly away.

“Keep it down!” Reggie says.

I step closer, but what I see in Tanya's eyes isn't pain, but ecstasy. Confused, I reach out to her. Kelly yanks my arm away. “Get away from her!” he hisses. “Everyone, just back the hell up!”

“But she's—”

“Look at her!”

Her body arches and her eyes roll back in her head. She gurgles and chokes as her tongue pistons in and out of her mouth. A moan of such utter agony and depth comes out of her that it sends another, deeper shiver through me. Everyone takes a hurried step back.

“Shit!”

“Ahh God!” Jake screams. “Aah, no. No! Not her.”

I snatch the gun from my waist. But I don't lift it. I can only watch in shock as Tanya continues to struggle before me. Blood leaks from her nose and eyes. She arches up, shaking so badly that it's hard to imagine her joints not dislocating.

“Christ,” Reggie whispers.

“Put her out of her misery, Jessie,” Reggie pleads, the knife in his hand forgotten.

She howls and flops over onto her front. She twitches a few more times, then lies perfectly still.

“Jessie—”

I hold my hand up to Kelly. “Shh!”

“She's dead, Jessie. And soon she'll become—”

“I said quiet!”

My voice ricochets off the wall. We wait and listen to the silence that grows around us for what seems like a thousand years.

I'm the first to break it: “She's breathing.”

Nobody says anything. We all just watch as Tanya's back rises and falls.

“What the…” Reggie finally says. “But zombies don't breathe.”

“Exactly.”

“I don't understand,” Jake says, falling to his knees beside her. “Tanya?”

Kelly edges closer. He stretches out a toe and taps her on the side. We all take another step back. Neither she nor Jake moves.

“I am really not liking this so far,” Ashley says. “Please, Jake, move away from her.”

Tanya's breath gurgles in her throat.

I raise the pistol and point it at her head. Everyone moves away. I feel my hand clench. My wrist feels hot and stiff, my shoulder burns. I focus down the barrel just as I'd been taught during the gun classes my grandfather took me to.
Forget all that new age karate crap your brother's trying to make you learn
, he'd told me.
A shot to the head is quicker and more sure.
And then, just in case I had any doubts what his reasons were, he'd added,
Less risk of getting scratched or bitten that way.

Silence smothers us as I squeeze the trigger. The gun twitches in my hand.

“No.” I lower it, exhaling, removing my finger from the trigger. “I can't. I can't do it.”

Everyone blinks and stares, surprised.

Jake stands up. He moves so quickly that nobody has a chance to react. He grabs Reggie's knife and lifts it over his head.

“Jake, no!”

Kelly whirls and lands an elbow to Jake's face. It takes us all by surprise, Jake most of all. “Stop it!” he whispers, as Jake staggers back. Kelly steps forward and again I beg for them to stop. I realize too late that the gun's in my hand and pointed directly at them.

“What the fu—” Jake says, reaching one hand up to his cheek, the other out to me. “She's infected. You said!”

I hesitate a moment before forcing my hand down.

“Aw, god,” Reggie says. The way he says it sends shivers up my spine. We all turn. He's pointing to the ground.

Tanya's arm twitches and uncurls from beneath him. Then the other does the same, elbows out to the sides. She plants her palms on the ground and tries to rise.

“Jessie, if you're going to shoot her,” Reggie says, “I'd say right now is good time.”

But still I don't. I watch her back fill and empty and remind myself that zombies don't breathe. Zombies don't breathe. I hope they don't breathe. I pray it's not one more thing we were wrong about the Undead.

The muscles in her arms tremble as she pushes herself off the ground. Her torso rises, head hanging down. I want so badly to be able to see her face. I want to check her eyes, to see if there's anything in them, a spark, something other than that flat, black, dead darkness of hell. And yet I know that's exactly what I'll see, regardless of any rules about breathing. We already know what we know about the Undead is seriously incomplete.

“Jessie?” Kelly says.

“Tanya, look at me, damn it.” The gun in my hand is shaking like crazy. I'm not even sure I could pull the trigger if I needed to. “Tanya!”

Her body shudders once and stops rising.

“I think she heard you,” Reggie whispers.

Ashley starts laughing hysterically. She raises both her hands to her mouth to stifle it.

“Tanya, if you can hear me, you need to say something. Please. I don't want to have to do this.”

“Damn it, Jessie,” Kelly says. “I don't like this, either! Do something.”

“Shut up! Everyone just shut the fuck up!” I yell.

“Shoot her!”

Slowly, her head turns to toward us. It's still mostly hidden in shadow, silhouetted against the gloom. Her eyes are too dark to see.

I hear a gasp and turn toward it. It's Stephen. He's standing now, erect, very much alive and very much the picture of health. His eyes are aglow with excitement. “It worked!” he cries. He runs over to Tanya. “The alpha worked. It took a long time, but it worked.”

“What are you talking about?” I snap. “She was bitten.”

“No.” He smiles and finally I understand that everything he told us was a lie. Jake was right; I was wrong. And now we're all dead because of me.

“The green stuff you injected into me?” Kelly cries.

“What?” I shout, blinking uncomprehendingly. “I thought—”

“I couldn't tell you, Jess. I wanted to, but—”

“A week,” Stephen says. “That's how long it took for her.” He laughs and I realize he'd given himself the vaccine. “The incubation period is a week. A living, breathing zombie in a week. Stronger, conscious.” He laughs maniacally and turns his eyes to Tanya. “What a glorious day!”

Jake roars. He raises the knife again and slashes down.

Everything goes silent—the wind, Stephen's laughter, us. There's only the thump of a body hitting the ground.

Ashley throws her hands to her face, but she can't stop staring. She makes a choking sound.

Jake throws the bloody knife down. “I told you I wouldn't hesitate,” he growls at us. He points straight at me and says, “You did. You broke your promise, and now we're all dead.”

Then he steps over Tanya's lifeless body and walks away.

 

‡ ‡

 

[END OF EPISODE THREE]

 

GAMELAND

PART ONE: Rend

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

PART TWO: Repair

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

PART THREE: Reunite

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

† † †

“
Nooo!
”
Stephen wails, collapsing onto the hard-packed dirt next to Tanya's body. He looks up and stabs the air, pointing an accusing finger at Jake. “You did this! Now look at what you've done.” He buries his head in his hands and sobs. “All my work… You've ruined everything!”

Nobody sympathizes with him. In fact, I feel nothing but disgust. What Stephen did to us is wrong. What he did to Tanya is beyond forgiveness. All Jake did was…

What he did was keep his promise to kill any of us that showed the first signs of the infection. And Tanya had. She didn't deserve what happened. She didn't ask for it. Jake didn't either. It was Stephen and Arc. They'd done it. All Jake did was…

What he did was murder her.

Not murdered
, I remind myself.
Quieted
.

I turn my shocked gaze to Stephen. If anyone deserves to die, it's him. “Not Jake,” I whisper. “You did this.”

He ignores my words and my gaze. He ignores us all.

I get up from the dirt where I've fallen and stumble over to him and—

And I stop at the sight of the blood. I can't go any further.

Oh, god, it everywhere! So much!

“This was not to supposed to happen!” Stephen shrieks, jumping madly to his feet.

His words carry away into Gameland. I grab him by the collar before he can get away. I'm fully prepared to hurl him back to the ground. I really want to kick his ass for what he's done to us. For what he's done to Tanya. And my Kelly.

He raises his hands to defend himself, but there's a flicker of movement below us and we both see it. Suddenly everything changes.

Tanya's foot twitches a second time. She's not dead. Not yet. Jake thinks he's killed her. He thinks he's
quieted
her. A single thrust of Reggie's knife into her neck. One and done. That's what he thought it would take.

But now Jake knows what I already knew: killing isn't so easy.

Unless you don't mean it. Then it's easy.

Her body spasms and a moan escapes her lips, followed by a bloody froth. She's still breathing—I can see and hear her doing it and—

And the Undead aren't supposed to breathe.

They don't breathe.

“Ah! She's okay!” Stephen exclaims. “I can save her. I have to—”

I yank him away from her. “It's too late,” I growl. “Are you blind? She's lost too much blood already.”

“No,” he says, pleading. “She's special.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, shaking him. “Special how?”

Kelly speaks up then, demanding answers, too. “What did you mean when you said you created a living, breathing zombie? What the hell does that mean?”

Stephen gapes at our faces. “It— I, uh—”

“Answer us!”

“S-same as the dead ones,” he stammers, struggling against me. “Same as the Undead. Except alive. The Controlled Living.” He glances down at Tanya, then back at me, desperation in his eyes.