XOM-B (10 page)

My fist passes the moment in time where I’m expecting an impact. But a fraction of a second into my missing swing, something strikes my forearm.

And then clamps down.

The world seems to slow down around me as my eyes widen and shift toward my forearm. I can hear Jimbo screaming something in my ear, but his voice is muted and slowed, impossible to understand. I feel the impact of another step forward vibrate up through my leg, but it feels as though I’m no longer making headway.

The entirety of my mind is focused on the twenty pressure points exploding pain into my forearm. The first thing I see is the skin on my arm, bending inward toward the multiple points of impact. Then I see the shiny white teeth of the fresh zombie pressing down, increasing the PSI with each passing microsecond.

This is how it happens,
I think during this strange break from time. How someone becomes a zombie. In a few minutes I’ll be just another member of the horde, but with all my upgrades I’ll be faster and stronger than all of them. Luscious won’t stand a chance.

A fresh prick tells me the teeth have broken the skin. The virus is being transmitted already, flowing through my system, rewriting my code and changing me.

But my mind, for the moment, remains intact.

Time resumes.

I yank my arm from the man’s mouth, tearing away layers of skin. The man falls to the ground. A surge of anger tells me to stomp on the man’s head. An act of vengeance. But logic keeps its fragile hold and urges me onward. I stumble for a moment, but regain my footing and sprint, quickly reaching my top speed. The zombie hordes conjoin behind us, surging like a river freed from a dam.

When I catch up with Luscious I decide to push my upgrades to the limit with the hopes of distancing her from the zombies. With one hand on her back, I scoop out her legs and lift her into my arms. She shrieks in fright until she sees that it’s me holding her. Relief floods her face and is quickly followed by amazement, which I assume is a response to me carrying her and Jimbo without slowing. In fact, I’ve managed to quicken my pace.

I don’t think she’d feel quite so relieved if she knew I might be one of the dead in the next few minutes, but I think I can get her to the Uppers before that happens.

But then what?
I think.
I become a living dead man? I spend the rest of my non-days killing others, tearing them apart and spreading this horrible infection?

No,
I decide. I’ll find a way to end myself. To take my life. I’m just sixteen days old, but perhaps my sacrifice will make that short time worthwhile? Perhaps this is the purpose I was always meant to discover? Sacrifice. I have yet to perform the act, but I can already feel the power of the word. It’s potent. Like death.

“That way,” Luscious says, pointing to a bridge. The concrete structure looks aged, but is thick like Heap, and I suspect equally tough. I turn left, crossing the street, which is now filling with other people who somehow realized that remaining stationary leads to death.

Among a horde of the living, I put Luscious down on her feet and let Jimbo slide down off my back.

“Thank you,” Luscious says in a way that makes my insides twist uncomfortably.

I give her a nod and turn to Jimbo. “We’re going to have a talk about loyalty later.”

“Screw off!” Jimbo says and makes for the bridge.

“You’ll learn to live with his moods,” Luscious tells me.

I raise my eyebrows. “He meant to leave you behind.”

She looks wounded, but forces her pinched forehead back down and says, “I’m sure he was just—”

A nearby scream spares Luscious from having to lie. Could the people here really be that desperate for companionship that they would overlook such a betrayal? The very thought of it makes me fume. I take her hand. “You don’t have to settle for friends like him.”

Another scream and the conversation is over. We run for the bridge, following the flow of humanity. Moving along the sidewalk, I can see that the bridge spans a wide, slow moving river, a natural barrier … if you ignore the bridge.

Something in my mind clicks. It’s like a sudden understanding.
An epiphany
, I think, like knowledge has been dispensed from some secret reservoir locked away in my mind. And that’s exactly what the case may be. Another upgrade.

The bridge.

I stop in my tracks, tugging on Luscious’s hand.

“What is it?” she asks.

I ignore her, focusing on the bridge. The near side is laden with fleeing people. The far side is empty. But just beyond the bridge, at the border of what people here call the Uppers, is a barricade, very tall men with guns and several vehicles with impossibly large cannons, all aimed … at the bridge.

The knowledge dispensed by some untapped resource in my mind reveals a tactic for dealing with a viral outbreak.

Containment.

Quarantine.

By force if necessary.

I look at the bridge again, viewing the panicked, fleeing mass of humanity through the eyes of the men and women on the other side. There’s no way to tell one horde from the other, not until it’s too late.

“Oh no,” I say. “The bridge.”

I spot Jimbo halfway across the bridge, and I’m not sure why, but I shout to him. “Get off the bridge! Jimbo!”

He doesn’t hear me, of course. The air is filled with panicked voices. My words are lost in a sea of thousands.

Luscious clutches my arm, nearly gripping the bite wound. I yank my arm away. “Don’t touch me!”

She misunderstands my actions, and looks hurt by them, but just for a moment. She hasn’t changed her expression, or figured things out; I just can’t see her now. She’s a silhouette framed by a violent plume of orange light expanding outward from the bridge.

I shove her to the ground and throw myself on top of her, trying to shield her body from the explosion. I suspect this act of heroism might be my last as the shockwave thumps against my back and pushes my face to the pavement beside Luscious’s, drowning us in a concussive roar.

12.

When I open my eyes, I’m blind. Not truly blind. My eyes and all their upgrades are still functioning. But the air is thick with smoke and dust. Thicker with screams. The chaos around me fades to the background as I remember the woman beneath me. I slide off of Luscious and speak into her ear. “Are you injured?”

She looks more afraid than hurt, which is the first indication that she’s okay, but I still need to hear it from her lips.

She replies to my question with a shake of her head. Not injured.

Good enough.

I get to my feet and pull her up with me. As we stand, a gust of wind rolls over the river, swirling the smoke up into the air, revealing wounded concrete and an impassible gap. A sheet of dead forty bodies wide coats the street leading to the bridge. Those closest to the blast are unrecognizable. Arms and legs are missing. Insides exposed. I spot Jimbo among the dead. With a blink and a thought, I activate my zoom upgrade for a closer look and immediately wish I hadn’t.

It’s not Jimbo. Not all of him at least. His head has been separated from his body.

A vile twisting roils from within. I turn away from the sight and lean forward, hands on knees. I’ve never felt such deep revulsion, not even from the bone pit or the walking dead themselves.
It’s because I knew him,
I realize. Death is far more poignant when you know the deceased, apparently even when they’re not kind.

My arm starts to shake and I think something is wrong with me, but then I see Luscious’s fingers wrapped around my biceps. She’s shaking me. Shouting, too.

The world around me returns with horrible clarity. Shrieks of the living. Moans of the dead, and dying.

“Freeman!” Luscious shouts. “Freeman!”

I look her in the eyes. “I’m here.” I stand up straight and my shirt falls away from my body, in clumps. Large patches of the stretchy fabric are missing, melted away from the heat of the blast. I’m sure I’m injured, too, and start to feel the sting of burnt skin, but ignore it.

I switch to infrared, cutting through the smoke clouding the air. We’re surrounded by the living and dead who have run into each other like colliding waves. The dead are cooler than the living, but they’re so intertwined, it’s impossible to tell them apart. But when I look at the big picture, the coolness of the dead is spreading. Soon we’ll be surrounded by only the dead. For now, the smoke is shielding us, but there is nowhere to go.

I look back at the river. “Can you swim?”

“What?” She’s confused by the question. “Of course not. Can you?”

“I think I could, but I haven’t had a chance to try.”

She shakes her head. “I’m
not
going in that water.”

“It might be our only option,” I say. “Better to drown than become one of them.”

“There has to be another way.” The pleading tone of her voice sets my resolve.

I search the area, finding the building on the opposite side of the street. If we can get inside, and up to the roof, we might be able to leap our way to the edge of town and back out into the wilderness. There might be just as many of these zombies out there, but at least there would be room to run.

I just need to find a way through the throng of gnashing teeth and talon fingers. I find my answer impaled in the earth at the corner of the street and bridge. An octagonal red sign with the word
STOP
boldly stamped at the center. I’m not sure what this sign is used for, but it’s heavy steel and sharp.

I grip the metal post and pull hard. The ground doesn’t want to relinquish its grasp on the sign, but the upgrades to my sinews and joints prove too much for the packed soil and grass. I lift the odd weapon in both hands. It’s nine feet tall and the sign is thirty inches across. “This might work,” I say to myself.

Shadows loom closer, shuffling through the cloak of dust.

And then, one emerges. A zombie.

Luscious manages to keep her fear down to a squeak, which is good. A full-blown scream would have attracted the horde.

“Stay close,” I tell her. “Behind me. If someone gets close, let me know and duck.”

She nods and rushes up behind me, ducking before it’s necessary.

I wait for the zombie’s approach. It’s an older, more decayed man. Dead for so long I’m not sure how he’s even able to move. He’s missing some teeth, but those that remain chatter hungrily. When he steps to within ten feet, I give my weapon a try, swinging it in a wide arc with all of my strength. The long pole and heavy sign whoosh through the air and barely slow when they impact the man’s head and cleave straight through it.

The zombie collapses to the ground.

Part of me cheers and I find it strange that I could revolt at Jimbo’s death, but feel something like elation by hacking a dead man’s head in half.
Life is strange,
I decide, before stepping forward and swinging at the nearest deathly cool body moving through the smoke.

There’s a metallic clang and then the body drops.

I step forward and swing two more times. Three of the walking dead fall.

My next step takes me over their bodies and into the throng. I swing, back and forth, grunting from the effort. With each violent stroke and clang of metal, more of the dead are drawn toward us.

The gap I’m creating with each swing shrinks with every step forward. Each swing becomes more difficult as the
STOP
sign strikes multiple bodies, no longer decapitating them all. Some are simply falling over, which leads to a new problem.

“Behind us!” Luscious says.

I spin and swing hard, hoping Luscious has ducked.

She has. The sign passes over her head and strikes down two zombies rushing up from behind. But they’re not alone. Several more disjointed shadows are closing the gap.

We need to get out of here. Now.

“We’re going to run,” I tell Luscious. “Stay right behind me!”

I only half see her nod. She’s been a good listener so far, and seems to have a grip on her fear for the moment, so I don’t wait for her to fully confirm she’s heard or understood what I’ve said. If I did, we’d be dead.

I lower the sign in front of me, gripping the end of the post with my right hand and holding it up with the left. Then I charge, ramming the sign into and through one zombie after another, stepping on or around their bodies as I make a last-ditch effort to reach the apartment building.

Luscious lets out a yelp behind me, but I can hear her running, so I don’t stop or look. I just plow forward, careening through the horde like I did while riding the HoverCycle.

As we reach the concrete stairway leading up to a set of solid wooden doors, I stop, let Luscious pass and swing out blindly, somehow knowing that the dead will have already closed in. The sign vibrates in my hands as it strikes five zombies, killing the first two and knocking down three more.

A roiling wind swirls through the street revealing the dead. Only dead. The living have all been killed and reborn as monsters, or have managed to flee the scene.
Mostly the first,
I think, given the number of fresh-looking bodies lumbering in my direction.

I swing again, taking down two more.

Pounding erupts behind me and I glance back to see Luscious punching the door with her fist and shouting, “Open the door! Let us in!”

Behind a small window in the door is a pair of terrified eyes.

I swing again, but my aim is low and I sever legs instead of heads. But the legless zombies do a nice job of stumbling those already trying to climb over them. I leap the stairs to the top and try the door handle. Locked.

I put my shoulder into the door and give it a shove. It doesn’t flex or even wiggle. I might be able to kick the door in, but then what? We’d be pursued to the roof, if we could even find our way there. And I’d be condemning those inside to horrible deaths. I can’t do that.

I turn back and see a writhing crowd of death condensing around the staircase, trying desperately to reach us.

“What are we going to do?” Luscious asks.

I scan the area, looking for possibilities, but find every one of them starts with a single prerequisite. “I’m going to kill them,” I say. “I’m going to kill them all.”