S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11) (18 page)

The scream died in her throat, the air escaping in a whimper. “Reggie? What the f— Oh my god!”

She hurried over and unlocked the door, flipping the hallway light on as she did. Reggie stumbled in, tears and dirt streaking his face. He cradled his bleeding arm in his other hand and stepped past her.

“I cut myself pretty badly.”

Jessie guided him toward the kitchen, to the sink, and ran cold water over the gash. He hissed in pain.

“What the hell happened to you?” she whispered. “And why are you here? It's the middle of the freaking night!”

Reggie closed his eyes and sighed. “Cold water feels good.” He began to gently scrub away the dirt and clotted blood.

Jessie left him so she could gather up a few bandaging supplies from the cabinet in the downstairs bathroom. When she returned, Reggie had already removed his shirt. His jeans were stained with blood. Mud streaked his knees and face. Jessie started to wipe it off of him.

The wound on his arm was deep and long, scalpel thin, surgically straight.

Not a bite.

The bleeding had slowed, but the flow was still too much to stop with a simple bandage. She held a clean cloth to it, pushing to stanch it. With a hand on his bare back, she guided him to a chair at the kitchen table. His skin was smooth, and she wondered distractedly if he shaved. Muscles rippled like sheathed cables beneath her fingers.

He sat with a heavy grunt, then extended his injured arm so Jessie could tend to it.

“What happened?” she asked, but he folded the other arm on the table and rested his head in the crook. He was clearly exhausted. She could feel him trembling.

Neither of them spoke as Jessie worked to get the bleeding stopped. After a while, Reggie turned his head and watched her, wincing whenever she pulled the bandage off to inspect it, wincing again when she pressed back down. When she was finally convinced the bleeding had stopped, she applied a clean pad, then wrapped his arm in a thick bandage and tied it tight.

“It's almost four o'clock in the morning,” she said. “You want to tell me how this happened? What were you doing out at this time of night?”

“I couldn't sleep,” he answered.

“So you thought you'd — what? — wrestle with some barbed wire or something?”

He shook his head, not even cracking a smile. “It happened again,” he whispered.

“What happened? Reggie, what are you talking about?”

He sighed deeply, then hissed as he moved his arm. “Remember when I sort of blacked out the other day?”

“You mean zoned?”

“Jessie!”

“Okay fine. You sleepwalked.”

“Ouch! What the hell! Stop messing around with that. It hurts!” He placed his hand over the bandage and gave her a wounded look.

“Stop being such a wimp.”

“I'm not a wimp,” he grumbled. “Anyway, it happened again. In
The Game
.”

Jessie frowned. “You fell asleep and left your Player out in the rain?”

“Damn it, Jessie, I'm serious! I didn't fall asleep. And, yes,” he muttered, rolling his eyes, “I suppose it's probably still just standing where I left it.” He shook his head tiredly. “It doesn't matter. In fact, I hope something got it, because I'm done. I can't keep doing this.”

Jessie stood above him and looked down. An image filled her mind: Reggie as a little boy, she as his mother, chastising him for not putting away his toys.
That's what happens when you don't take care of your zombies. They get ruined.

She sat down. “Okay, so what does any of this have to do with your arm and coming here?”

“The gear's defective, Jess. Has to be. It's, like, screwing with my mind somehow.”

He stood and started pacing, one giant hand covering the bandage, the other flexing and relaxing. She tracked his movement with her eyes and didn't speak.

“So, last night, I couldn't stop thinking about what you said. About Kelly. I kept wondering about that file on your Link.” He stopped and looked over at her. “I waited up. I kept expecting you to ping me.”

“You shouldn't have.”

He waved her off. “I figured something came up and you couldn't. Anyway, that— that's not why I couldn't sleep. I was in bed, and I was thinking how nice it was. You know: clean sheets, soft mattress. And suddenly Ashley's face popped into my head and I kept thinking about her being out there somewhere, nowhere to sleep—”

“Reggie—” She was going to tell him Ashley didn't care anymore. She would never sleep again, never miss her bed again. But he knew that. He didn't need anyone to remind him.

He continued as if she'd not spoken: “—picturing her standing on some hill somewhere, just standing there, watching the moon. Surrounded by all the other Undead. It— You know, it actually seemed kind of peaceful.”

He came back over and sat down again. “But then I saw some Player come. It was a monster, and it took them all out.”

“Just a dream, Reg.”

“And all that was left was her body lying in the dirt, all broken and empty.” A tear slipped down his cheek. “No one came and tucked her into bed. Her bones—”

His voice cracked.

“Reggie, stop it.”

“Her body rotting and her bones drying up, blowing away.” He looked up suddenly, the same dark intensity in his eyes that Jessie had seen yesterday. It scared her. “How long do you think it would take? Couple of years? Ten?”

Jessie shook her head, swallowed.

“I knew I had to find her. I had to take care of her because if I don't, then someone else — some
thing
else — will and I couldn't stand the thought of that happening.” He sighed. “It was late, after midnight, maybe. I went down to the garage and plugged myself into
The Game
and started to gear up. I remember getting on-line. It was—”

He stopped and just stared, his eyes glassy. For Jessie, it was spooky, like he could still see it, and she was tempted to turn her head to where he was looking.

“What was it?” she asked, her voice a whisper.

His eyes shifted, focused. “Them. Hundreds of IUs all around me — I mean the Player — just standing there staring at the moon, just exactly as I'd imagined.”

“And Ashley? Was she there?”

He took a deep breath. “No. I went to them. I checked every single one of them. I looked at each of their faces, into all of their eyes. And they were just so . . . so quiet and peaceful. But she wasn't there. I don't know how many there were, fifty maybe, seventy. One by one by one. Next thing I know, they're all gone and I'm standing in an empty house.”

Jessie frowned. “You? Or your Player?”

“Not the Player. Me.
I
was in a house. I looked down and I wasn't in
The Game
anymore. I still had the gear on, but I knew I wasn't connected anymore. There's something wrong with it, Jess. I'm telling you.”

“Where is it? The goggles and—”

He gestured impatiently. “Back porch. I left it out there.” He looked up at her. She was shocked to see how haunted his eyes looked.

“Why did you come here?”

“The house I was in, Jess, it wasn't mine!”

“Shh!” she whispered warningly. “Kelly's upstairs.”

“
He's here?
”

Jessie nodded. “He came home after midnight.”

Reggie was quiet for a moment.

“It was Micah's,” he finally said. “I was in Micah's house, Jessie. I have no idea how I got there or even how I got in. And you want to know what the scary part about it was?”

Jessie waited.

“I was standing at the window in his living room staring up at the moon!”

A chill went through her. She sucked in a sharp breath. “Just like the Player.”

Reggie nodded. “It got me so freaked out that I couldn't even figure out how to open the door to get out. I just kept thinking that the house was filled with more Undead, hundreds of them. I panicked. I punched through a window and jumped out. That's how I cut my arm.”

He covered his face in his hands. His shoulders hitched.

Jessie went out to the living room and brought back a blanket, which she wrapped around his shoulders. He'd gathered himself by then and was staring at the wall.

Jessie thought about the visions she'd been having, both at night and during the day, the strange sense of disconnect, like she was looking through someone else's eyes. She couldn't believe that it was anything but her own mind playing tricks on her, overstressed by everything that had happened. Everything that was still happening. Maybe they were both teetering on the edge of the same breakdown.

It's the file. It's some kind of virus.

Reggie was shaking.

“I think maybe you should go home,” she told him. “Get some rest. Don't go to school tomorrow. You need sleep. You haven't been getting enough sleep and maybe that's why—”

“
I wasn't sleepwalking!
”

He jerked angrily away from her and went over to the far side of the kitchen. Whatever had happened to him, he was clearly terrified.

Jessie raised her hands and tried to calm him. “Okay, okay.” She pushed herself off the chair, wincing from all the aches in her body, and went over and wrapped her arms around his chest, enveloping all but the injured arm. He was so wide that her hands barely met around his back. She could feel his body hitching as he wept, his sobs wracking both their bodies. His pain became her pain.

She held him like that for several minutes, until there was a sound from the doorway.

“What's going on?”

They both jumped and looked over. Kelly's hair was tousled and there were deep sleep lines on his face. His eyes flicked suspiciously between the two of them. Jessie quickly pulled away.

“Someone want to tell me what the hell is going on here?” Kelly's face was quickly turning red.

Jessie was the first to speak. “It's not what you think. Reggie's been having trouble dealing— we all have, Kelly. You know that. But Reggie's been sleepwalking and he hurt himself.”

She felt Reggie stiffen next to her, but he didn't argue.

Kelly's eyes narrowed. “Still doesn't explain why you're here! In my house!
Holding my wife!
”

“Kelly—”

Reggie stepped forward, cutting Jessie off. He peeled the blanket off his shoulder with a grunt and held out his arm to show Kelly the bandage. “I cut myself . . . like Jessie said. Fell on something, I guess, and it must've woke me up. I was going home when I saw the lights on in here. Brah, honest, you gotta believe me. There's nothing more going on here.”

Jessie nodded. “I came down to get something to drink. It was just a coincidence.”

Kelly didn't look convinced.

“Check the sink. His shirt's in there. It's a mess.”

This seemed to take Kelly by surprise. He took a deep breath and stepped into the kitchen. But instead of looking in the sink, he made his way over to the counter by the fridge. He ran his hand through his hair. In the past, Reggie would've teased him about his cowlick. But nobody said anything. Those days were long gone.

Kelly turned, a look of utter defeat on his face. “You guys want coffee?”

‡ ‡ ‡

“Jessie! Hey, Jess!”

Kelly waved frantically into the milling crowd of students and shouted her name again. He was panting from his jog over from the college track building. Although technically a part of the same high school, the students were actually physically segregated into college and trade tracks for most of their classes. But since they had lunch at the same time, he wanted to talk with her. It was time to confess what he'd done.

But she either didn't hear him or was pretending not to.

He watched, puzzled, as she worked her way toward the main gate, threading her way between two large groups of kids, one a circle of a dozen or so girls, all wearing tennis outfits and chirping excitedly, the other a smaller mixed cluster all dressed in black.

Where the heck is she going?

He became aware that he wasn't the only one watching her. A trio of girls standing in the shade by the fence turned their heads in unison as she passed. The tallest of them was Siennah Davenport.

Why's she so interested in Jessie?

He hurried down the steps, apologizing to the people he bumped into, then slowed as Siennah and two other girls broke their huddle and fell into step behind Jessie.

Someone knocked him on the shoulder and told him to watch where he was going. He ignored them. He didn't want to lose sight of Jess. She exited the school yard just as someone grabbed his shoulder and jerked him around.

“Yo, Corben! Hey, college boy. Slumming it with the tech trackers today?”

Avery Constable stood in his way. “What's your hurry, bro?” he drawled.

Kelly glanced down at the massive paw on his arm. Avery's smile widened. He didn't remove his hand. If anything, he squeezed tighter.

“Leave me alone,” Kelly snarled.

The smile faltered, slipped away, leaving a glimmer of doubt in Avery's giant face. He removed his hand and backed up a step.

Kelly turned, tensing up for the inevitable attack, but nothing came as he hurried through the gate.

He turned left, expecting to see Jessie heading for home, but he didn't see her. He spun around just in time to catch a glimpse of her turning a corner several blocks away in the opposite direction.

Why is she heading into town?

He started to run then, glancing over his shoulder long enough to confirm Avery wasn't following him. He was puzzled that the bully had given up so easily.

Jessie was four blocks ahead, Siennah and her friends nowhere in sight. Kelly called out. His voice ricocheted off the buildings, and this time she stopped.

“Where are you going?” he asked, when he reached her.