INFECTED (Click Your Poison) (28 page)

“What now?” Deleon asks.

The front glass shatters and Hefty screams the obvious. “They’re breaking in!”

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“There’s still the service entrance, right?”

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“Umm… Hello? We just got new weapons, let’s use them!”

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

Y
ou know the old joke, the one where the bear starts charging two friends. Then one begins to lace up his shoes and his buddy says, “You can’t outrun a bear!” only to have the other reply, “I just need to outrun you.” Well, two things are true: you can’t outrun a bear, and there’s no one here for you to outrun instead.

There’s a lot less food in an undead world, and that’s true for more than just humanity. You’re now on the menu! With your legs pumping as hard as they can, you’re out of the kitchen in a flash, but you don’t even make it to the front door before the bear brings you down with a swipe of his mighty paws. The claws slash sinew and tendon, and your back breaks under the blow.

This bear will have a harsh winter indeed, but the feast that you provide will at least give him a fighting chance.

THE END

Y
ou walk toward the low grumble, having pinpointed the sound to a ridge above the city. As you hike toward the source, the siren and lights turn off behind you, so you feel like you made the right choice. Now if the people at the generator site leave before you arrive, you’ll really be peeved.

But no, there’s a new sound that tells you you’re not too late at all: gunfire.

When you clear the ridgeline and move through the trees, you see an odd sight. A jeep with a turret on the back is blasting your fellow immortals to bits, but… there’s no gunner. It’s some kind of automated drone turret, and the .50-caliber machine gun slaughters gods wholesale, with no danger to the shooters—wherever they are.

The jeep sits out in front of a radio station, a medium-sized concrete building with a gigantic radio tower in the back. But the building doesn’t interest you. You move toward the machine gun, like a moth toward a flame. You can’t help yourself. The turret swivels, doing the most damage it possibly can, and slowly rotates toward you. But then three figures emerge from the station: a young girl with a scarlet ponytail and paintball armor, a geeky-looking scientist, and a swordmaster in kendo armor.

The engineer sprints toward the outside of the building, around back to the radio tower, escorted by the swordsman. The girl sprints toward you and the jeep, so that’s where your attention goes.

She has some kind of freakish pistol, and pops round after round into the pantheon around you. With quick, nimble moves, she makes it in and claims a large spool of rope, turning and fleeing just before she would’ve aimed the pistol at your head.

Now she moves toward the back of the building, and you follow. Stepping over the corpses of former immortals, you rush as fast as your uncoordinated legs will carry you. Around the back, the scientist dangles on the radio tower while the samurai and the girl deal death. Wisely, you head toward the tower and the dangling food.

He climbs higher and higher, the rope securely around his waist. You wave your hands high above, hoping he’ll fall on you. Eventually he makes it to the top and the tower hums with new life. Electricity flows through as the thing powers up. You can hear the power move down the tower and feel new vibrations come down onto the concrete pad on which you stand.

Your feet can’t move; it’s like you’re glued down. The electricity arcs through you and you can no longer control your muscles. You superheat and your flesh cooks on your bones until eventually—something smells like copper-coated popcorn, and your cooked brain pours out your ears. The engineer ziplines down the rope to safety and the trio escape to the jeep.

THE END

W
ith your axe held in front of you, you move around into the kitchen. Good news! There are no zombies inside. Bad news? A bear, large and brown, turns away from digging in the pantry and stands up when you enter. It paws at the air and snarls with menace. Its large fangs drip with strawberry jam.

Your move.

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Attack the bear!

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Turn and run.

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Play dead.