The End Games (31 page)

Michael dashed blind into the dark hall.

Where am I going to turn into a Bellow
?

This isn’t happening,
he thought.
I was too careful! I played too well for this to happen! Seriously, it’s wrong, Holly
was wrong, I don’t even know if I’m infected!

But an image came to Michael’s mind: the Bellow that had scratched him, the Bellow
in the miner’s suit.

One crumpled eyeball hanging from the monster’s socket when it attacked him. As if
the Bellow had already undergone the mutation that instructed the Bellows to tear
out their eyes; yes, as if the virus within that miner-Bellow was already changing
into something more dangerous.

Michael’s mind, shrieking like a disaster siren:
Infeeeeeect! Infeeeeeect!

He thought:
ruined everything, oh I hate myself, I hate myself, so freaking
stupid
—

He thought:
Patrick!

“Mike! Hey, c’mon back, Mike!”
Captain Jopek’s voice chased through the echoing black. He sounded friendly enough:
he was even laughing. “
Where you runnin’? Where’s there
to
run, fella?”

Jopek won.

I’m infected, and I’m running away from Patrick. I’m infected and there is no safe
place.

Shut up! Just freaking run! Just run and you will figure it out, the future you will
figure it out!

But the future Me is probably a Bellow
—

Feel—feel—
feel your bl—

Tears scorched his throat and eyes, and Michael wanted to scream but heard himself
just saying,
“Please, please, please, please,”
thought,
Do you pray? No, I run,
and the blood ramming inside was not his blood, it was not the blood he’d gotten
from Mom and it was not the blood he shared with Patrick, it was not the blood that
saved anyone any pain:
it was the blood that was going to kill him—

Michael saw a door, slammed it open.

Michael skidded, stopped no more than inches from the hands and faces shooting through
the chain link: the Bellows were thirty-deep against a single final double layer of
fence.
I’m outside.
From the sound, there were thousands surrounding the Capitol, thousands and thousands
that had surged through all the buffer zones of the bridge or entered through the
Kanawha River, as if the resurrection of Cady Gibson had ignited some riotous undead
beacon.

And the instant of danger, amazingly, made Michael realize:

I’m behind the Capitol.

He could see the Hummer (useless to him without the keys still on Hank’s dead body)
stationed in the clear lane between the fences.

But another transport was back here, too.

The balloon!

The jack-o’-lantern face lolled, grinning, perhaps one hundred yards away, aglow softly,
inflated, its butane burner readied by Hank for Jopek’s night patrol. Michael could
just see the top of it past the camouflage gas tanker beside him, but yes, it was
there. Ready to fly.

Where? Oz?!
he thought wildly.

Virginia!

What!

Other people—cure, cure—

What about Patrick?

I’m saving him—

By leaving him?

Yes! Only way!

Was that true?

He told himself to shut up.

And ran.

In the thin and deadly lane between the fences and the steps of the Capitol, electric
over crumbled concrete, the green smell of death overpowering, every step aware of
an image: Jopek coming out the grand double doors like an insane senator exacting
revenge on his would-be assassin.

Michael gripped the wicker and he leapt into the basket. He tugged the silver lever
on the burner. The flame ignited to life, carnival-colored.

Slowly, slowly, the balloon began to rise.

Hurry!
Please
freaking hurry!

The fire filled the pumpkin face, roared.

The double doors to the Capitol opened, and when Michael spun, he did so already feeling
a phantom bullet in his back.

“Patrick?”
he gasped.

Patrick stood waving at the top of the grand steps to the West Virginia State Capitol,
smiling.
And there was no one else with him.

How did he get out here by himself?

Doesn’t matter, just get him, you—you probably have time to get to Richmond—you can
still save him—

Extra life
. The thought was a sunburst.
Another chance!

“B-B-Bub!”
Michael swallowed, tried to control his voice. Patrick was moving down the stairs
already, with the careful-footed caution of exactly what he was: a five-year-old who
is afraid of slipping on ice.
“Hurry!”

“Trick!” Patrick said, delighted, leaving the bottom stair. “It was all a trick, huh?”

“Yeah,” Michael said.
“Trick”?
What was Patrick talking about?
Doesn’t matter!
Michael suddenly thought of that night they’d spent in the woods. Eighty Bellows
versus one gun. Easy Mode. “It
was
a trick. Pretty cool, the way I—
Patrick—
” he interrupted himself, “
—ya-ya, I ya-ya.”

Patrick smiled, held his arms up in the air.

The basket was hovering a couple feet off the ground.

“Crap, sorry!” Michael said. He considered simply jumping out of the basket himself,
grabbing Patrick and climbing back in, but the image of the unoccupied aircraft hovering
away across the Kanawha River stopped him. Though everything within his brain cried
not to—though there was no time to do it—Michael dropped his hand from the burner.

The flame sputtered,
fwoop
, to a small blue ring.

There was a moment of stillness while the two brothers watched each other, unmoving,
as the snow fell around them. And despite everything, Michael thought that moment
tasted holy.

“It was all a trick!”
Patrick repeated, whispering with bright, coconspirator’s joy.
“It was
such an awwwwwesome one
, Michael!”

Michael leaned over to grab his brother, and Patrick bounded into his arms, hugging
him fiercely. And wild joy was what Michael felt. And that moment would haunt him
forever, because it was, in so many ways, the final moment—the endgame—of everything
he’d imagined his life would be.
“Freeze, sucka!”
Patrick giggled. And as Michael set him back down, Michael thought:
What the?

There was something, huge and dark, in Patrick’s pale fingers.

The fire had sucked the oxygen from the air.

His brother was aiming a pistol, the policeman’s pistol Michael had gotten in the
Walgreens, at his stomach. Its barrel looked large enough to shoot the moon.

A distant thought:
doesn’t work like this.

“Bub,” Michael said. “What are you doing?”

“Tricked you,” replied Patrick. “You’re the
Betrayer
, I
know
it,” said Patrick. He swung his head, saying it singsong. “
Jo
pek, the
Game
Master told me.”

Terror.

“Pffft.”
Michael licked his lips. “What’re you talking about, newb, Jopek isn’t the Game Ma—”

“He
told
me you’d say that!” Patrick laughed.

Michael held Patrick’s stare, and then lunged toward the burner.

“STOP!” Patrick shouted.

“—STOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPP—”

Jopek and Patrick. In the Hummer. Talking.

“Patrick . . . Bub, listen to me, that gun can really hurt people. I need you to put
it down.”

“The Game Master said it can’t hurt people real bad,” Patrick said, confused.

“Jopek’s lying.”

“You said the Game Master is always right.”

Oh God, no.

Footsteps echoed to Michael’s ears, from the Capitol steps.

Tell Patrick
the truth
! There is no Game!

And while Patrick stared behind his gun, Michael stayed silent.

Jopek had known. Because Holly had told him about The Game and the reason it existed,
Jopek had known Michael would never tell Patrick the truth—that he
could
never.

And now Jopek, saying, “’Scuse us, fella,” captured him in a headlock, and pulled
Michael from the basket.

“Let me go!” Michael said, twisting uselessly.

“Ahhhh, I don’t feel like it.”

From some black well inside Michael:
Bite! BITE him!

And horror filled him. What did that mean?

The fences on all sides of them surged and bowed with Bellows. A musical twang of
ripping razor wire. The roar of a thousand dead throats. One of the two remaining
layers of chain link had given way. Bellows swelled across the overturned fence, a
tsunami of flesh.

“Look at this Betrayer!” Jopek called, laughing, dragging Michael up the marble steps
into the Capitol as Patrick climbed out of the basket. “I think these ol’ Bellows
know the Betrayer’s here, don’t you, Bub? I think the Bellows want some
action
! What do you think we should do with Michael? Throw him to the Bellows, maybe? They’re
kinda his new brothers, wouldn’t ya say?”

Michael looked at Patrick, and he remembered telling Patrick that they had to stop
the Betrayer, “No matter what it takes.”

N-no. Patrick won’t hurt me. He doesn’t know if things are safe, but he won’t take
a chance.

And that seemed like it was true, judging from the indecision on Patrick’s face.

They reached the rotunda. “Captain, what is wrong with you,
stop choking him like that!”
Holly shouted.

“Awww, he’s okay,” said Jopek.

“Ho—Holly—
help
!” Michael’s croak seemed to blend with the chorus of the dead outside.

“Michael, listen to me,” Holly said urgently, “you’re going to be okay. I told the
captain, we’re going to keep you safe, right here.”

“No! Please! Have to get to—to Virginia!”

“The soldiers will be here anytime now. They’ll take us, soon. You’ll be fine.” She
added, “I think.”

Now! Tell them! If you do not tell them, there won’t ever
be
another now!

“I lied, Holly! There are no other soldiers coming for us, we have to leave!”

“No. No. Michael. Please, don’t make it worse for yourself,” Holly said, her eyes
pain and pity.

“Holly, please, oh God,
I made it up
! I always make
everything
up
!
”

“See, bud?” said Jopek. “Now he admits it, don’t he?”

“Michael,” said Holly, and began to cry. “Michael, stop lying.”

“
BUB! THERE—IS—NO—GA—”

But he was already at the door of the Senate.

It was open, looked like the mouth of a cave.

Going to run
, Michael saw.
Jopek’s going to throw me in, but I’ll be smooth, I’ll land and Jopek will be surprised
and I’ll grab his gun.

The best Michael did when Jopek launched him, however, was not break any bones.

He stumbled, knocking against congress seats as he fell.

And in the moment before Jopek locked him in alone, Michael looked at his brother,
in the lit doorway. His brother, who always sensed when something was the matter,
even when Michael wished he didn’t.

His brother, next to the pistol tucked unguarded in Jopek’s belt.

Patrick looked deep into Michael, and the understanding came almost immediately, with
a look of surprise and pity for his frightened big brother.

“Michael?” said Patrick.

“Y-yeah?”

“It’s just a Game, it’s just a Game,” Patrick replied, like it was a prayer. “Just
a Game, just a Game . . .”

The door swung shut.

Losing!

Lost!

I am lost!

Michael slammed his shoulder into the door, but it was, of course, strong wood. He
tried to focus on anything. He punched himself in the thigh, hard. His mind ran:
Get Patrick. Get away. Get a plan!

Outside, Jopek was laughing.

Michael paced frantically, feeling that if he paced into a wall he would begin walking
straight up it . . . like that Thing . . . 

Patrick laughed nervously back outside the door. Then his laughter sounded like it
was going farther away.

Michael whispered,
“Bub . . .”

Michael screamed: “BUB? HOLLY?”

No reply from the halls of the Capitol.

The cold column of panic in his chest uncoiled and spread to his limbs and tongue
and eyes. His jaws wrenched open and over them a sound tore forth. Michael slid to
the ground and jammed clawed hands into his face, and yes, and yes, he bellowed.

He ran to the window overlooking the rear of the Capitol, the Hummer, the Kanawha
River.

Jopek was running toward the Hummer
. Michael had not seen Patrick and Holly get into the vehicle, but he thought,
Oh God no, they’re leaving me
.

And that was when something that once had been unthinkable occurred: A seam opened
in part of the last of the Capitol defenses, and suddenly Bellows were pouring through,
coming for the Hummer, twenty feet away from the Hummer, fifteen . . .

Jopek jumped into the car and slammed the door. In his mind’s eye, Michael saw the
Hummer, smashing through the few series of gates and fences that created the exit
path for the Hummer, heading out, bye-bye, Mike, thanks for the memories.

A thought occurred to him:
Pray
.
Michael, pray.

Michael placed his hand on the cold, moon-bright window.