INFECTED (Click Your Poison) (46 page)

Y
ou wait. Soon, without even realizing it, you no longer know what you’re waiting for. Days go by while you simply stand in the middle of the room. Occasionally, you shuffle around, bumping into the desk and filing cabinet, but still you wait. Why? Whatever reason you’re waiting for fled when your thoughts gave way to instinct. But there’s no cues driving your instinct now. You just wait.

Weeks pass by. Months. Nothing ever happens. Your door doesn’t rattle or open, and you don’t age or decay. You stay perfectly as you are, standing in the middle of the room, waiting for all time. Until one day, months from now, perhaps even years (you no longer have any sense of time), the building is destroyed… with you in it.

THE END

S
tarvation is not a painless death. You start to chew on random things for sustenance: shoes, belts, your fingernails—you can’t help it. There is a madness that comes with hunger, and you cry out your last drops of moisture. Well, at least you’ll die on your own terms.

You didn’t beat the plague, but you didn’t contribute to it, either. There will be no marker for your grave, and none to mourn you. You are a collateral casualty in the war for survival.

THE END

R
osie and Lucas are still looking out over the chasm when you step onto the bridge. It sways like a great serpent across the canyon, causing you to hold the ropes for stability. But you don’t look back—the bridge has obviously worked for others, the ones who built it, so it’ll work for you too. Unless, of course, some of the undead below
are
those builders.

The platform lurches again when Rosie steps out behind you. You pause, letting the bridge settle a bit before you take another three-foot lunge. Then one more great sway from Lucas. “Don’t look down!” he says.

“Gee, thanks,” Rosie replies.

You want so badly to look down, not consciously, but because he said not to. You grit your teeth, strengthen your grip on the rope, focus on the horizon, and continue crossing. The wind sweeps down the canyon, blowing you slightly and testing your resolve. Moans permeate your senses from the ghouls huddled below.

Terra firma. Your foot reaches the edge of the concrete and you walk onto the other half of the collapsed road. Before long Rosie and Lucas are with you.

“I’d rather not go that way again,” Rosie says, shaking off the willies.

Lucas nods. Without another word, the three of you take off down the road. The concrete becomes packed dirt and dust. Then just as you feel your body sinking back toward calm, adrenaline shoots through you once more. There’s another split, a “T” intersection road sign reading, “STATE REFORMATORY SERVICE ENTRANCE.” You all smile in unison, taking the road toward shelter.

A couple hundred yards ahead is a crude banner: “Welcome to Salvation.” An arrow points away from the road, down a deer path.

“The survivors wrote that,” you say. “This is it.”

•
 
Continue to the Prison.

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

H
efty screams his pleas as you wrench your hands out from his grip, his fingernails tearing the skin from your wrists. “Please, don’t leave me! Christ, don’t—”

Deleon pulls the release. The bramble of heavy furniture collapses from the nets above. The slam upon the landing is so forceful, you don’t even hear the crunch of Hefty and the zombies. At least you’re granted that small mercy.

The doctor looks at you, betrayal in his eyes, desperate for your understanding. “There’s no way he would’ve made it… right?”

•
 
“Let’s just go find the others.”

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

A
nd you feel fine. You’ve been preparing for this day for years, though for your money you thought it’d be an economic meltdown spurred on by a liberal government and lax immigration laws. But hey, the compound works for zombies too.

You’re the kind that built a bunker during the cold war. The kind that bought a generator and foodstuffs for Y2K. The kind that has been terrified by the twenty-four-hour news cycle since 9/11, and now all your conspiracy paranoia comes off as brilliant preparation in hindsight. There was a chance you and your constituents were going to be wrong, but as you always said, you weren’t going to be dead wrong.