INFECTED (Click Your Poison) (35 page)

C
ooper pulls pieces off the barricade. Guillermo joins in. So do Hefty and Sims. Despite giving your verbal approval, you don’t move forward to help; you can’t. Angelica reaches out and grabs your hand. In a way, that might’ve helped you more than it did her—it’s easier to be brave when you’re protecting someone more afraid than you.

They get the way clear but wait a moment before opening the doors. It feels like a point of no return. Looks like it’s your turn to be brave. You nod at Angelica, drop her hand and move forward to pull the handles.

The great doors slowly creak open as you pull. Deleon’s flashlight clicks on. A chorus of moans greets you with a draft of hot and sticky air. The flashlight’s beam searches across the open cathedral, and the candlelight reveals you’ve entered the main stage. The altar sits undisturbed.

It takes great concentration to will your feet forward. Still you move toward the moans. Why aren’t they coming at you? Just as the thought crosses your mind, it’s answered.

Inside, on the ground between the pews, bodies lie wrapped and bound in white sheets. Squirming.

You look down at the sheeted zombie before you. It thrashes, then continues to roll about. Encased head to toe in a white sheet and tied with ropes around the neck, torso, arms, legs and feet. They’re all identically prepared, at least two hundred of them.

“Oh, my God,” Sims mutters.

“We’ve got to kill them. They’ll call others,” Tyberius says, more to himself than anyone else.

Cooper firmly says, “We’re going to burn them.”

Angelica is frantic now. “This is a sanctuary!” she says. “This is the house of God. This is a holy resting place. He made all creation, and on the seventh day he rested.”

“And on the eighth day, Satan laughed,” Cooper replies grimly. “Now c’mon.”

The zombies squirm and moan. Hefty shifts uncomfortably. “It’s true, we can’t just leave them here like this. They need to be… put down.”

“Doc, is this necessary?” Sims asks.

Deleon shrugs. “They don’t feel pain. They probably weren’t even moving until they smelled us.”

“Smelled us? Fuck…” Tyberius mutters.

Angelica turns to Deleon with desperation. “What about the cure?”

“It’s possible,” he replies, resigned.

Cooper shakes her head. “We have to kill all of them, or more will come. Each one of these could start a new outbreak. There’s oil in those lamps, we can use that.”

To burn or not to burn?

•
 
“It’s us versus them, cure or not. Burn the bastards.”

•
 
“We should be so lucky—if we were ever bitten. Leave them be.”

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

T
he horde of a hundred undead swarms the entrance to the store, filing in one by one. They’re hungry and anxious, and throngs more are arriving from the surrounding area by the minute. Something shoots out from behind the crowd: seven figures on bicycles are leaving by the service entrance, speeding by in the background. It’s your group, escaping like a wily cartoon character slipping out from under a pile of animated foes.

You speed away from the danger on your bicycles, but your daring attempt is by no means foolproof. You bob and weave through the stragglers, who are quick to realize their meal is trying to escape. Ahead there’s a body-builder zombie so large it puts 1980s Schwarzenegger to shame. It moves to tackle you with its enormous meat hooks, but you veer away. With a furious roar it tries to stumble-run after the group, almost like a gorilla, but they split around him like a flock of birds and the zombie has no chance to catch up.

For a time, you ride in silence. The only sounds are the zombie moans and the airy whirring of tires. It doesn’t take long until you’ve escaped the thick of them. Feeling victory, you slow to a cruising pace.

•
 
Time to deliver Christmas presents to the school.

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

Y
ou’re inside the annex of the cathedral; the main church was inaccessible. The wooden front doors were thick and heavy in the old style, and no one really wanted to smash in the stained-glass windows, so annex it was.

It kind of looks like a Christmas Eve candlelight service in here. Cooper blows out the camping lanterns once the last candle is lit, saving them for later. There were several boxes of candles in storage, and the center of the room is illuminated by a large advent wreath Hefty found. The group is still settling in and reconnoitering supplies. Dr. Deleon comes in from the bathroom, adjusting his wristwatch. You notice him walk over to his pack and slip an empty test tube vial into it.

“Who wants communion?” Sims asks, returning from one of the storerooms with a bottle of wine he found.

“I don’t drink, never have,” Angelica says. Something in her voice tells you she’s lying, but why is unclear. Maybe she’s trying to brush him off?

Cooper returns from an adjoining hall. “Don’t start the party just yet. Doctor’s orders, we need to check for bites. So, Doc, you and the newbie—front and center. The rest of you, off your asses.”

The group forms a loose circle around the two of you. “Strip,” Cooper commands.

“Excuse me?” Deleon responds.

“You’re the newest, we have to check. Take off your clothes. Nobody’s shy at the end of the world, c’mon.”

“How do we know you’re clean?” you ask in protest.

“That’s right,” Deleon adds. “If this is so you trust us; we should trust you too.”

Cooper pauses a second. Then she undoes and takes off her jacket. “All right, fine.” She unbuckles her belt. “Everybody, clothes off.”

“Yes!” Hefty says,
sotto voce
.

“Girls and boys in different rooms,” Angelica instructs. Maybe she was a schoolteacher back in the world?

Tyberius looks to Hefty. “All right then, we already checked each other, right, Hef?”

“Yeah—we’re good.”

“Yeah… I was there too, so…” Sims chimes in.

Cooper takes a step forward. “No. The only way—” she looks right at you, her dark eyes piercing. “The only way to really trust each other—” then to the others, “is to do it as a group.”

“This is a house of God,” Angelica says, not without some indignation.

“Spare me. This discussion is over.”

The group stares at one another in silence. No one moves. Each person looks deeply into every other person’s eyes. No one wants to say anything, to be the first to move, and the awkwardness hangs in the air for what feels like forever. After a pause, Deleon starts to disrobe.

Everyone follows suit, with various degrees of sheepishness, according to their different personalities. You join in too, knowing you can’t be the odd one out.
It’s for safety,
you tell yourself. Guillermo looks confused, but eventually shrugs and follows the others.

Deleon neatly folds his clothes as he takes them off, but the others do not. After a minute, you all stand in a circle, your clothes strung out all over the floor. Some look around the room with shame, others stare directly at their teammate’s bodies. You can’t help but look; what’s the point of undressing if you don’t look for bites?

Deleon has a fit physique, not what you imagined a workaholic scientist would look like naked. He catches your glance. You both shy away, innocent and embarrassed. Sims and Guillermo look more like expected; each is carrying a few pounds they’ll likely lose in the upcoming weeks and months.