Death Plague Omnibus [Four Zombie Novels] (73 page)

He got to his knees and slowly got back on his feet, using a metal table beside him as support. He looked past the crate over to a heavy wooden door that was open a crack. Through the narrow gap, Tony saw pretty much the same as what this room contained: featureless, grey surroundings coated in thick dust.

“It’s the same room,” he muttered. That much, he was sure about. The positions of the door, the room size and the height of the ceiling told him that, yet there was something else as well. Deep within him, now that his body had returned to normal, he knew that he had not moved one inch since swallowing those two tablets.

“Oh fuck!” Tony pushed his hand into his pocket, trying to suppress the bubbling panic. His tension eased when his probing fingers felt the four smooth pills, nestled together deep in his pocket. He pulled two of them out and wondered what would happen if he swallowed them, here and now. Would he return home, or would he go visit one of the other two worlds?

“What if they’re not a ticket home?” Tony rolled one of them between his finger and thumb, recalling what Joseph said about there being more than one world. He dropped them both back in his pocket and told himself to get his shit together and to stop worrying about stuff he couldn’t change.

Tony walked over to the door that led into the hallway, and opened it a little wider. The air in the hallway smelled different from the room. He detected the faint tinge of flowers. He frowned, wondering if his nose wasn’t just sending him empty promises. The vision of fields full of spring blooms, waiting for him just above this complex, evaporated when his nose detected the underlying taint of rot as well. That was one smell he was very familiar with. Shambling bags of dried-up cadavers had passed this way, not that long ago.

Tony sighed and leaned back, quietly closed the door, and decided that it would be a wise idea to take this situation one step at a time and start by exploring this room first. Finding himself a weapon would be a good idea. If there were dead things prowling about out there, he wouldn’t last that long. Hell, even a thick stick would suffice. “A studded baseball bat would be even better,” he muttered, turning around and giving this dusty place a closer scrutiny. Tony wandered over to the wooden crate and ran the tips of his fingers across the top of the wood, almost expecting his hands to find a projection. The wood felt as solid as that thick door. This was as real as it got.

Was this the same world where that device had taken him this morning before he set off for work? He understood now that the black helmet just moved his mind over, just like it was doing to those two kids. He hadn’t really been there. “I am now though,” he muttered. He tentatively pressed his hand against his guts, feeling the ache still there. “Shit, it must be travel sickness.” He resisted the urge to giggle, thinking that if he started to laugh, he probably wouldn’t stop. “Jesus, I bet the doctor wouldn’t be able to prescribe anything for that.” Tony bent over the crate, and found that it was lying on its side. “Now that will come in handy,” he said, looking into the interior. Tony reached inside and pulled out a small crowbar the size of his forearm. “That will do very nicely.”

He felt much better. Now if he did run across any zombie, at least he’d be able to put them on the floor. The two prongs would quite easily smash through their skulls. He gripped his prize tight and hurried over to the other door. Before he opened this one, however, Tony glanced around the room one more time, just to ensure that his eyes had not missed anything. He paused and ran his tongue across his lips, staring at the only object in here that wasn’t devoid of color.

“You have got to be shitting me,” he muttered, walking back over to his original position. Tony bent down and picked up two bright yellow Lego bricks and grinned to himself. He stuffed them into his front pocket and walked back over to the inner door. He couldn’t explain why he felt the bricks were so important, only that he knew that he’d need them at a later date. “You’re getting weirder by the minute, Tony, you do know that?” He slowly pulled open the door and peered through the opening, seeing not much of anything but more dust. It dawned on him that when he jumped over before, in order to interact with the dead things in there, Tony must have been in someone’s body. He blinked. That idea was creepy. Had the device somehow been able to push his consciousness into another human on the other side? Somehow possessing that person? Tony involuntarily shivered, wondering what would have happened if he’d gotten that person killed. He guessed that his mind would have either found another body or just whizzed back into his own body.

Tony opened the door wider and stepped over the threshold. There were another three doors along the short hallway. Although it was clear that nobody had been in here for a long time, this section didn’t seem so decayed. Tony ran his fingers over the faded wallpaper, tracing the faint patterns as he walked towards the closest door. He lifted the crowbar, stopped, and grabbed the handle. He wasn’t taking any chances. Just because the only footsteps in here belonged to him, didn’t mean that one or more of the dead things weren’t behind this door, just waiting for some unwary victim to stumble inside. Tony counted to three then pushed the handle down and kicked the door open.

He grinned at the sight of one unmade bed, a pile of Legos in the middle of a frayed carpet, an open cupboard and nothing else. “Looks like I really am alone.” Before he checked the other rooms, Tony walked inside, bent over and picked up another Lego block. He pulled the two yellow pieces from his pocket and tried to connect them with the piece in his other hand, not all that surprised that they weren’t compatible. “There you go,” he said. “You really have crossed over.” Tony looked inside the cupboard; the only thing inside was a yellow newspaper. He picked it up and read the headlines. The blown-up black and white image of a street taken from above showed masses of panicking people running from a crowd of walking corpses. Tony closed his eyes, remembering seeing similar photos in newspapers from his world. He dropped the paper and left the room, suddenly not all that bothered about checking out the other rooms.

“How the fuck am I going to find a set of duplicate people?” The enormity of his task now settled upon his shoulders. Tony looked down at the pile of Legos by his feet. Even if he did find them, how the hell would he persuade them to come with him? He didn’t think for one minute that they’d even believe him, never mind wanting to cross over to another world so his boss could drain out their blood.

“What the fuck have I got myself into?” he muttered. Tony felt the tablets in his pocket, feeling the inner workings of his mind begin to turn. The chances of him finding these duplicates were practically zero and he didn’t think that Joseph would be very happy if he returned empty-handed.

Tony left the room, hurried along the hallway and back into the room where he’d appeared. He nodded to himself, then left this room as well. He had no other choice but to at least make some sort of effort. Even if he didn’t find them, Tony could either stay in this world or return, just making sure that when he did go back to his world, he was as far away as he could be from Government House.

That aroma of fresh flowers grew stronger the further away he walked from the original room. He had no idea where it was coming from, considering all he saw was dust-covered tiles and grey, featureless walls. Tony stopped by the first door he reached and looked inside, frowning at the vast array of medical equipment stored on stacks of metal shelving. He shook his head in confusion. He assumed that this building would be similar to the one he’d left. Was this some kind of hospital in this world? Tony sighed and moved along. It would be a good idea for him to find a way out of this place, wherever ‘this place’ was.

He jumped when something crashed onto the floor behind him. He spun around, knowing full well that the noise had come from the room with all the stored medical equipment. Tony felt his sweat making the crowbar slippery. He transferred the weapon to his other hand and wiped the sweat away, keeping his eyes fixed on that door. Shadows began to move and the smell of death grew stronger. There was no denying what was in that room.

He waited patiently, watching those shadows lengthen. “Come on then,” he growled. “Let’s see you.”

His voice echoed along the hallway and was rewarded by the low moan of the dead. Presently another moan joined that one, and one more. Tony took a deep breath and backed away at the sight of several dead things all trying to squeeze through the door at the same time. His bowels loosened when he saw another one leaving the room where he’d appeared. Where the fuck did that one come from?

“Shit, this isn’t fair! He looked at his little crowbar, wondering what possessed him to think that he’d be able to take one of them on, let alone a dozen. It didn’t surprise him to see three more heading his way from the other direction; there was nowhere for him to go. Tony moaned himself when he saw the features of the one leaving the room. It was one of the boys, the one strapped to that helmet in his world.

Four of them had managed to stumble out of the storage room. He turned and raced towards the approaching three, just praying that there weren’t any more behind them. If there were any more, Tony wouldn’t last more than a few seconds. He charged the closest one, using his inertia to slam it into the wall. Tony then swiveled and cracked the crowbar into the head of another one, grinning savagely at the sound of its skull cracking. The last zombie managed to snag his shirt. Tony twisted around and jerked forward, leaving the dead thing holding his jacket.

“That’s mine,” he snarled, pushing the sharp prongs into its eye. The zombie gargled as Tony slammed the crowbar deeper, pushing until he felt the metal scrape on the inside of the dead thing’s skull. He pulled and staggered back as black, foul-smelling gloop gushed from the wound. Tony turned and saw the others further down the hallway were getting dangerously close.

He slammed his boot down on the remaining zombie that was still trying to get up before he raced away from the approaching horde. There were no more dead things ahead. Tony giggled, feeling the adrenalin rush through his system; he’d never felt so alive. Although he had protected himself from the zombies before, he’d never taken on three of them at once. “What a buzz!” he said, laughing.

He stopped at the next door, listening to the low moans of his pursuers echoing down the hallway. His euphoria wouldn’t last very long if he found no way out of this fucking maze. Tony tried the door, grunting in frustration when he found it locked. He then jumped back when someone or something on the other side of the door smacked the wood. Tony sneaked forward and tapped the crowbar three times against the door panel, smiling when the sound was repeated. That made it clear that at least whoever was on the other side wasn’t dead.

“Hello?” he yelled.

“How do we find a way out of here?”

Tony frowned, not expecting to hear what he’d been about to ask. Whomever it was sounded as though they were as lost as him. He looked behind him, acutely aware that he couldn’t stay here much longer. A pity, whomever was on the other side of that door had a cute voice. “I’m sorry!” he shouted back, “I don’t know where I am either.”

With regret, Tony raced away from the door, glancing behind him and watching the dead things veer towards the door. Whomever was behind there continued to bang against the wood. He sure hoped that door stayed locked now.

The urge to swallow two more of those pills strengthened when he found himself rapidly running out of hallway. There was only one more door left. If that was locked as well, he’d have no choice but to take the tablet express to get out of here. Tony had no wish to experience that nausea again but it was certainly preferable to having his limbs ripped off.

Tony skidded to a halt when he saw the door beginning to open. “Thank fuck for th…” his words dried up when he saw a figure lurching into the hallway. His eyes widened at the sight of another Tony, glaring at him before raising a shotgun. “I thought one of you fuckers would try to sneak back,” snarled his duplicate. “Goodbye, you fucking dirty thief.”

Chapter Ten

Several seconds had passed since Mortimer had taken his eyes from the corpse of his dead brother. He gritted his teeth, it wasn’t his brother. How could it be? His real brother stood beside him, shivering like a man in a bath of ice. He turned away from Daniel, unable to stay focused on that face. Mortimer wanted to somehow comfort him, to help the guy get over the shock of seeing his likeness on the floor. It couldn’t be easy to gaze down at your own corpse.

Mortimer couldn’t stand the inactivity any longer and stepped over the other two bodies to examine his brother’s duplicate.

“Get away from it, for crying out loud!” gasped Daniel. “What are you doing? Come on, we have to go.”

“He’s not going to get up and bite me, stop flapping.” Despite his steady voice, Mortimer suddenly felt as uneasy as Daniel sounded. The sight of these two together had triggered another memory, one that didn’t feel as though it belonged in his mind. “Where exactly are we going to go?” Those words left his mouth but Mortimer didn’t feel as though he had said them. It now felt as though there were two people inside his head, both fighting for dominance. He looked at the other two corpses, not sure whether he was relieved or stressed to find that his duplicate wasn’t one of them.

“Please, I don’t care where we go. I don’t want to be down here anymore.” Daniel rushed over to grab Mortimer’s wrist. “We need to go back to the camp. This is all wrong.” Daniel shut his eyes and fell into Mortimer. “Oh, that wasn’t good at all.” He looked into his brother’s eyes. “I want my Legos.”

That single word broke the dam that held back those other memories. Mortimer found his recollections of his past swapping around. He watched as the color of his first ever bike swapped from green to blue. Mortimer saw his first true love change faces. He watched in horror as his father died twice, and then he cried out at the sight of his two brothers dying before his eyes. Mortimer reeled at the assault of the rest of the thoughts tumbling into his mind.

He blinked away the fragmenting images of some now strange encampment and gazed at the figure in front of him. Daniel’s features melted and flowed like bubbling chocolate, until a stranger’s face solidified. Mortimer blinked again. The face refused to change back to his brother.

“Who the fuck are you?” He watched the stranger’s face as it copied Mortimer’s own features. He pressed his hand against his face, yelping out at the feel of facial hair against the palm of his hand. Mortimer brought his hand down, noticing the criss-cross of tiny scars covering the back of the hand. This wasn’t his body. “I feel like my mind is going to explode.”

“Mortimer? Is that you in there?”

He gazed into the other man’s slate grey eyes. It was so freaky. Despite this appearing to be another person, Mortimer was sure that he could see his brother in there, in the way he held himself, through his body language, and in the man’s mannerisms. “Yeah, it’s me, Daniel.” The guy even smiled like his brother.

“I need to …”

The smile fell from the man’s face as he looked back at the corpses once more. He then pushed past Mortimer and stumbled up the cellar steps, leaving a drawn-out, pain-wracked moan in his wake.

“This isn’t fun anymore,” Mortimer said, trying to remember how they had gotten here. He followed his brother up the stairs, the sound of Daniel’s stomach folding over reaching his ears. Mortimer swallowed hard, having no intention of joining him.

“Are you OK?” He saw Daniel’s back through the kitchen window. His brother held up his thumb. Mortimer closed the cellar door and wandered into the living room. He felt so calm, as if none of this mattered. Where were the intense emotions of terror and acute confusion?

Where was the terror hiding? Hell, he didn’t even feel all that confused about this situation. Okay, so his brother was faring a little worse than he was; even so, poor Daniel ought to be curled up in a tight ball and wanting his teddy bear about now. He looked back and watched Daniel open the door and walk back into the kitchen. His new face looked a little pale, but otherwise, the man looked pretty good.

“What do you remember, Mortimer? I mean, before we ended up here, wherever this is.” He ran his finger down the deep red doorframe. “Weird how I remember our dad painting this.” He stared at Mortimer. “Thing is, Martin repainted it yellow a few months before the shit hit the fan. Do you remember that?”

He nodded slowly. Now that Daniel mentioned it, he saw there were a few discrepancies in here. For a start, he had no idea what the black plastic tablet-shaped device on top of the wooden coffee table was. The television in the corner now curved like the cockpit of an aircraft, and there were several small, pink fluffy animals on the bookshelf next to the window. Their mom had sold that collection years ago.

“Come on, Mortimer, tell me what you remember?” Daniel shivered. “Maybe we should go outside first. This place is giving me the creeps now.”

“Listen to you, Daniel.” He walked over to the stranger and stopped right in front of his face. “When you’ve finished listening to how calm you are, look at me, look at this face. We’re not in our proper bodies, brother, this isn’t our house and it never was. You’ve already digested that info, of course you have, so why are you …” He took his breath. “Fuck, why are we acting like this sort of thing happens every day?”

His brother grinned. “Probably because while outside, it finally clicked. What happened today? I mean before we both found ourselves here.”

Mortimer lifted his thickly muscled arm, then looked down at his hard stomach and the hard tendons running down his legs. He closed his eyes, thinking back to earlier, to when these hands held a weapon. “Fuck!” He gasped, snapping his eyes open. “I had a crossbow, I remember now and I …”

He turned and ran over to the living room window. “Am I back in the game again?” He turned around. “I don’t get it, that means you must be in the game as well. How the fuck does that work? There’s only one device and it’ll be on my head.”

Daniel shrugged. “Maybe the program is imagining me? Or how about I have the device and I’m imagining you?” Daniel nodded to himself. “Yeah, that makes more sense. After all, the device already knows who you are, Mortimer, it has probably scanned your brain pattern and replicated a digital version of you to keep me company as I battle zombies in this imaginary world.”

Mortimer made a noncommittal grunt before smiling at the other man. “I don’t really think either of us are imaginary, Daniel.” He picked out details in this room that were familiar to him. The sofa hadn’t changed, nor had the wallpaper. “Just like I believe that this room isn’t a distorted digital representation of where we used to live.”

“You’re scaring me now.”

Mortimer smiled even wider. “Good, I want you to be more than a little frightened. Right now, it’s just a feeling I have.” He saw one object hanging on the wall opposite from him that hadn’t changed. He walked over and took his dad’s oriental samurai sword off the two hooks. “I suggest that we go with the flow and see what gets thrown at us.”

His brother shrugged. “I agree, I can’t think of any better plan. Wait here.” He disappeared into the kitchen and came back a few second later with two cook’s knives in one hand whilst holding a wooden broom handle in the other hand. “Why don’t you check upstairs first while I sort this out. You never know, there might even be a gun up there.”

Mortimer left his brother searching through their dad’s writing desk and opened the door that led into the hallway. From the sounds coming from the living room, Daniel had found the roll of gaffa tape that Mom used to hold down the edge of the carpet that led into the kitchen. It was strange how they both remembered about that.

So now his brother had suddenly turned into some kind of experienced zombie warrior? It did occur to him that his brother’s old personality would have known all about how to fashion an effective weapon from a few household items, they all did. As kids, both the brothers used to dream up elaborate fantasies involving surviving through a zombie outbreak, just like they imagined being on a distant planet or lost, miles from anywhere, deep in the jungle.

He climbed the stairs, listening to the sounds of Daniel wrapping the tape around his improvised weapon. The Daniel he knew though, the one who, for the past few years, never did anything more strenuous than getting up to go to the bathroom, wouldn’t dream of being so creative. “Not unless he could make it out of fucking Legos,” he growled.

Mortimer peered into each room, seeing the same as he did downstairs. Some objects were recognizable, while others weren’t. The biggest difference was that Daniel’s gear now decorated Martin’s bedroom. There was nothing of practical value up here, though. Mortimer looked out of Daniel’s new bedroom window, watching a few figures shamble out of an open doorway on the other side of the street. They were heading towards this house. He ran out of the room and down the stairs. “Time to go,” he said, bursting into the living room. “We have more company.”

“The front door?” Daniel suggested. “I’ve already noticed them, by the way. There’s about a dozen already pressed up against the back door.” He dropped the tape back in the drawer and picked up his newly made weapon. “Can’t wait to try this out, Mortimer, doesn’t it look brilliant?”

The sound of breaking windows prompted Mortimer to move. “Front door it is,” he muttered. As he opened the front door, he heard the cellar door open. His guts coiled up, imagining the bodies on that floor had somehow reanimated and were now on their way through the kitchen, eager to sink their teeth into the arm of this body. Mortimer ground his teeth in irritation before pulling his brother out of the house and slamming the door.

So much for having no emotions left. Mortimer shook his head, wanting to dislodge those vivid images of his dead brother falling out of the kitchen and attacking Daniel. The other Daniel stood in the middle of the street, twirling his new toy around like some cross-dressed cheerleader. If this really was a product of the device’s digital memories, and not his mind feeding him with all this weird bullshit, then he’d like it all to end about now.

“Come on, Mortimer, let’s go bag ourselves some zombies!”

His brother’s new attitude distressed him.
There you go, Mortimer, another emotion has worked its way through the malaise.
The more he figured out about this current situation, the less he understood. Mortimer raced after the laughing man, trying to suppress a whole other bundle of other emotions, all wanting to come out and play. It seemed that the cork in the dam had been well and truly lost.

“I see three dead bastards huddling around that green car.”

Mortimer tightened his grip on the sword handle, looking not at the target but at Daniel’s shining face. The man sounded drunk. Those flickers of the old Daniel that he’d seen molded into the features of this stranger’s face had all but disappeared. He didn’t know who this person was now. The man chuckled before charging towards the car, his new weapon raised above his head, screaming incoherently.

Mortimer ran after him, keeping his distance. Although he didn’t want the dead things to overpower the man, he had no intention of becoming Daniel’s unintentional victim. The knives flashed down, each one finding their target with unnerving accuracy. The dead stood no chance. The sun’s glint vanished from the blades as more black soup covered the metal.

Panting, the man turned around; his blazing eyes found Mortimer. “I’m going to call my new weapon ‘Tony’.” He chuckled to himself.

For the first time since leaving the house, Mortimer heard his brother’s voice hidden beneath the dense slabs of thick muscle. “Where the fuck did you learn to do that?”

His brother’s reply never reached Mortimer’s ears. Daniel’s mouth opened, then the man dropped to the floor. A split second later, a single shot rang out. Mortimer yelped and followed his brother’s action. He rolled to the side, then got on his hands and knees and scurried over to the car. “What can you see?” he shouted, crashing into the asphalt as three more shots blasted out.

His brother reached forward and grabbed Mortimer, pulling him behind the car. Despite the shooting, Daniel’s grin had not moved off his face. “What is wrong with you? Some bastard is trying to kill us!”

“Then they aren’t doing a great job,” Daniel replied, sniggering. “Look, they’re only a block away.”

Mortimer followed the man’s gaze and saw five veiled figures heading towards the car. Two carried long-barrelled rifles. Even from this distance, those crude things held in their arms looked as though they had been fashioned in somebody’s garage. He bit the inside of his mouth to stop himself from laughing. He’d already seen just how effective homemade weapons could be in the right hands. From behind him, Mortimer sensed a shadow moving. He turned his head, thinking that Daniel’s double-blade stick had not stopped every dead thing.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he hissed, watching his brother standing up.

“I thought that was obvious,” Daniel replied, looking down. “We need answers, and hiding like rabbits won’t bring them. Besides, if they wanted us dead, we would be. It’s that simple.”

The five figures stopped moving when Daniel emerged from behind the car. Mortimer placed his sword on the hood of the vehicle and followed him out, keeping his eyes fixed on the two men holding the guns. He sighed when he saw that Daniel hadn’t dropped his weapon.

“Why did you run from the work camp?” demanded the lead veiled figure. The man took three steps forward until only a few meters separated him from Daniel. “We had an agreement, both of you were there.” He looked back at the others. “Have you any idea what the overlords would do to us all if they find us missing?”