INFECTED (Click Your Poison) (108 page)

Y
ou’re hiking again. Lucas complied with your choice, but you can tell he’s unsettled as to if it was the right one to make. You start to make small talk, but he interrupts, “Pardon the request, but I need some time with my thoughts.” You shrug; fair enough.

You hike on, burning calories and daylight. It’s quiet and serene, this picturesque landscape, and yet you cannot get the ghouls from your mind. The dead and dying leaves serve as ubiquitous reminders of the moribund world in which you live.

Then a more ghastly sight infects the environment: A zombie, tangled in a heap of barbed wire, crawls across the forest floor. His torso is disconnected and he paws at the earth, inching forward at a snail’s pace. Trailing behind him is a thirty-foot-long mottle of barbed wire—at the end of which his legs are dragging in the mess. You surmise he got stuck in a farmer’s fence and struggled until he’d cut himself in two. It’s amazing he’s able to make any progress, what with the mass he pulls along.

Though, to be fair, he has help. Two other zombies, one male and one female, walk with him, each tangled in the web as well. Lucas skins his katana.

“This,” he says, “Is black and white. There’s no help but release for these. Come on.” He runs down the hillside toward the undead.

•
 
Join him.

•
 
Let him do his own thing.

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

O
ops. Caught red-handed.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, right? I’m standing right here,” he says. “Stay where you are; I’m calling security.”

Didn’t really think this one through, did you? So much for infiltrating the company. Oh, well, back to your normal life.

•
 
Pack up your things and leave.

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

W
ell, you’re obviously a lazy zombie, so you go for the closest easy prey. As it turns out, it’s some kind of YMCA or Big Brothers/Sisters program headquarters. You know the after-school types. From the looks of things, many parents were unable or unwilling to come and claim their child after all hell broke loose.

As a group of gods and goddesses feed upon the adult chaperone, you know there’ll be plenty of unattended morsels ripe for the taking. You shamble past the gorging immortals into the courtyard beyond.

Small eyes look up toward you, doughy faces reddish-pink with tears, like fresh, plump strawberries. Juicy. You shamble toward the bunch, and they flee, like so many games once played with laughter on this very ground. The screams tickle and titillate your senses.

This is fun. Some of these kids are quick, but lucky for you, most aren’t. There was an epidemic before yours—childhood obesity—and now you reap the benefits of the fatted calf. One particular chunky-monkey stands out; he’s out of breath just thinking of fleeing.

Your immortal dodder is faster than his waddle. He’s so out of shape that you catch him only by shambling. Someone call the mothers against bullying, this just isn’t
fair.

You feast. The virginal muscle tissue, never used, is sweet and tender. You want to thank his parents for using the TV as a babysitter and a bag of potato chips as a pacifier. He’s a veal cutlet.

The children chum the waters with their screams. Soon, every interminable being within four city blocks arrives. You get frantic; better move on to more before they’re all gone!

Alas, soon they are. Nothing lasts forever… except you. Where to next?

•
 
There’s a pawnshop across the street; maybe I can help these humans trade in their old life for the new.

•
 
Corner grocery. When hunting, hang out where your food feeds.

•
 
Follow the cars—you may be the tortoise, but the hare is bound to run out of gas sooner or later.