INFECTED (Click Your Poison) (27 page)

“I told you, I already got my rifle.”

“Of course, but what about a secondary weapon? How about a pistol that uses the same .22 long-rifle ammunition? And what if that pistol had a one-hundred-round capacity?”

“Shut up. Tell me you don’t have a Calico M-110.”

He produces a black pistol, long and sleek like a blaster from
Star Wars.
Rosie fawns over the thing like a kid at Christmas.

“Where does the magazine go?” you ask, seeing only the short pistol grip and the oversized top.

“It
is
the magazine!” she exclaims, popping off what would be the slide on a normal pistol. It’s a hefty black cylinder, like a cucumber on growth hormones, and she shows you where the tiny bullets feed out.

“I’m afraid Mr. Wizard cannot give me anything new,” Lucas Tesshu says with a kind smile. “I think the sword and grenade combo is just fine.”

The soldier produces a belt of grenades that are more like energy drink cans with pull-pins at the top. “We’re gonna switch you over to concussion grenades; frags might get you in trouble in close quarters. Take these MK3s instead.”

“I don’t have much else to offer, it’s true. What do you buy the man who doesn’t want anything? I thought you might not mind these.” The soldier slides several shuriken-throwing stars across the counter.

“Why would you have these?” Lucas says in disbelief.

The soldier grins. “Clearly, you don’t know any American soldiers.”

“Why don’t you come with us?” you ask. “We could really use your help.”

“I bet you could!” he says with a laugh. “But don’t you want a safe place to come back to? Tell you what, how about we go for the best of both worlds?”

He leads you around to the motor pool, where your jeep is at the ready. Except this time, there’s a modification to the rear. Behind the passenger seats, nestled securely where the cargo would go, a belt-fed machine gun looks out at you. There’s something off, though. It’s raised on a swiveling base, and opposite the ammo storage is a large, multi-lens camera array.

“This is CROWS,” the soldier explains. “I’ll be remotely operating it from the trailer. So in a way, I’ll be right there with you.”

“What’s your name?” Rosie asks. The man merely grins and shakes his head.

“I like it this way,” he says. “Like I’m the man-with-no-name in one of those Clint Eastwood movies.”

“All right, Eastwood. Thanks for the help,” you say.

•
 
Ride out!

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

“I
 don’t know if that’s such a good…” Rosie says, trailing off as she watches Lucas pull the quick release on all ten grenades and toss the thing over the rail. The belt tumbles down sixty feet and the undead crowd below reaches up as if receiving manna from heaven.

Then there’s the boom.

A wave expands across the undead in a black and red ball. You fall back onto the platform as a result of the shockwave, but then the tower lurches and you realize it’s not that at all—the grenade belt must’ve knocked out one of the legs of the tower. Looking back over the edge, you see several zombies getting back on their feet, several more crawling through the blast zone in pieces, and a new wave of undead ambling toward the tower. The structure groans with instability.

“Come on!” you shout, moving toward the stairs. There are no ghouls on their way up anymore; the explosion must’ve shaken them off. You run down, keeping a hand on the rail as the tower collapses. Rosie and Lucas are right behind you.

“Start skipping steps!” Rosie yells.

You bound down the tower, making it to the bottom just as the structure starts to collapse. The metal-on-metal screeching roars out like you’ve just slain
Godzilla.
You let off five quick shots with the combat shotgun, blasting apart as many zombies in as many seconds. Then a sixth blast sounds out: it’s the glass from the tower smashing against the ground.

“They will certainly come now, my friends. We must hurry.” Lucas unsheathes his sword in preparation for slicing through the crowd.

“Over here!” a faint voice shouts. You squint, trying to pinpoint the sound despite the ringing in your ears. “Help, please!” A figure leans out a window from the terminal. It’s the doctor!

•
 
Get going to the terminal!

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

W
ell, you don’t have a pole. Maybe you could try noodling? Just stick your hand in the beclouded sludge, wiggle your finger like a worm, and wait for food to latch on. No, you’re smarter than that. The demolished home nearby has plenty of suburban shards that are more than capable of serving as a spear for this endeavor.

With your new implement in hand, you hover over the deep end of the pool, waiting for those ripples to appear once more. When they do it’s just a—thrust—and you’ve hit the good stuff! First try, and you’ve speared something
big
.

You widen your stance, bend at the knees, and pull up with both hands. With a great perturbation, the water churns and welters and your catch bursts forth from the surface. Not sure what you were expecting, but it’s a zombie—an undead teenager who wandered in a straight-line right into the pool and couldn’t wander back out.

Despite the fact that he won’t decompose, a medley of other horrific things have happened to his flesh. He’s bloated and swollen from the water, and microorganisms have started growing on him. His eyes are wide and yellowed, and he vomits the swampwater in an effort to moan.

You’ve speared him in the chest and he tries his damnedest to reach out to you. “What are you, an idiot?” someone yells from the tree house.

You look up, dropping the spear, and see a man in his late thirties with a woman in her fifties behind him. He’s decked out in military gear and a little overweight; by her demeanor and clothing, you can tell she was a privileged housewife back in the world. “Look out!” she cries.

Yeah, all that splashing that wasn’t going away? That was the zombie still trying to get you. And now he’s got a hand on your leg. Your shoe doesn’t hold well on the slick concrete (no running by the pool!) and he brings you down on your back. Ouch.

The couple rushes over to help, but they’re a second too late as the zombie pulls you into the pool. As you go under, the last thing you hear is the guy saying, “Dumbass.”

A crocodile will drown you so you’re not struggling when it eats you. A zombie will give you no such luxury; this will be a painful death.

THE END

Y
ou don’t need to tell him twice. He’s got a ninety-nine-cent lighter from the rack and is already rolling back the thumbwheel. Hefty and Tyberius stand by the glass doors waiting for their cue.

“All right, one…” Sims says as he lights the rag. “Two…” He runs toward the doors. The guys batter against each side, knocking the ghouls down. Tyberius beats them with his hockey stick and Hefty does the same thing with his machete while Sims runs out.

“Three!” Sims hurls the Molotov cocktail as hard as he can over the zombies’ heads. There’s already quite a crowd gathered; in unison, the undead watch the flaming implement sail over them.

Sims threw the device too hard and it explodes in a ball of fire, completely missing the living corpses. In one simultaneous motion, they slowly turn to look at Sims… and
moan
. Sims makes it back in, panting from the run. The doors are pulled shut. “Man, you suck,” Tyberius says.