INFECTED (Click Your Poison) (49 page)

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

T
he megastore lies ahead. It’s one of those buy-in-bulk-for-a-reduced-price warehouse types. The parking lot is eerily bare, a concrete savanna before you. “Think we’ll find food?” you ask.

“It’s probably been raided,” Tyberius answers.

“So what?” Hefty chimes in. “Of the good stuff, maybe. There’s probably ketchup or salad dressing or something that’ll keep us alive. Alive, man. Let’s go!” He runs across the parking lot and the group follows. Sims dons his gas mask—that’s comforting.

Cooper opens the door; pitch black within. She says “Flashlights and weapons,” before she heads in. You nod, flick your flashlight on and enter with the group. The megastore is as much a disaster zone as the outside world, if not more so. Entire shelves are overturned. Food containers broken open, rotting. Describe it in a word?
Raided
.

The place has an atmosphere the opposite of its day life. Jungle gyms and trampolines cast ominous shadows. DVD displays reflect your flashlight beam with devious glares. Suddenly, red lights pop on and flood the store. “That’d be Sims with the emergency generator,” Hefty says, answering the look on your face.

You keep looking through the store with your flashlight. Despite the red glow, you can’t see many details, and there could be a zombie hiding anywhere. Sims comes back from wherever he disappeared to.

“Let’s stay together until we secure the area,” Cooper says. You start down an aisle with the group, then—the shuffle of feet. Shoes squeal on linoleum flooring.

You take off down the aisle and steps follow. So do labored breaths. You turn the corner, axe raised in preparation for mortal combat, only to be met by a lone man in a lab coat. You only stop because he raises his arms—one of which is covered in a homemade plaster cast—and recoils. Zombies don’t flinch.

“I’m alive!” the man shouts. He could be a candidate for a GQ model, but instead wears a lab coat for a living. He’s even got the studly five o’clock shadow.

Composed, Cooper slaps a giant monkey wrench in the open palm of her hand while looking the man up and down. She devours his features, digests them within, gesticulates upon some sort of conclusion, then finally shits out, “Give me one reason we let you live.”

“What?” you blurt in shock.

“I’m a doctor!” he shouts.

She looks at him with dark seriousness. “Got some ID?”

He hands her his badge. Line 1: “DELEON, LEWIS M.D.”; Line 2: “GENETICS RESEARCH DIVISION”; Line 3: “HUMAN INFINITE TECHNOLOGIES.”

“Research doctor?” she says aloud. “Who gives a shit?”

“Most of my research was with these—things—we’re dealing with now. I’m probably the foremost expert on the planet.”

“Uh-huh. And that pack you’ve got there, full of supplies?”

“Yes.”

She muses for a moment, then says, “All right, Doc. You can travel with us. Looks like you already met our Newbie.” He looks at your axe.

“Sorry,” you say.

“That over there is Tyberius and Hefty, Sims and Angelica. And this here’s Jose.”

“Me llamo Guillermo. Mucho gusto,” the cook replies.

“You can call me Cooper, and what I say goes. You got a problem with that?”

“No.”

“All right, so we’re gonna—”

“You didn’t let me finish,” Deleon says, cutting her off. “I don’t have a problem with that because I’m not going with you.”

Cooper sizes him up. “All right, Doc, you can leave. But before you go, we’ve got a hurt man here. Can you help him?”

“I’m mostly a research doctor.”

“But you still went through some kind of med school, right? It’s just a bum shoulder. Sims, c’mere.”

Sims moves forward. His left shoulder hangs oddly. Funny, you hadn’t noticed until it was pointed out. Makes you wonder who else might be nursing injuries. Deleon sighs, “First, take off that ridiculous gas mask. It’s not airborne.”

“How do you know?” Sims asks, muffled by the mask.

“Because none of these fine people are trying to eat you. Besides, this pandemic is my specialty. They would’ve come to me for help had the whole network not gone to shit. Now turn around, please.”

Sims takes off the mask and faces away from Deleon.

“It’s dislocated. You’ll feel a sharp pain.” Deleon cracks the shoulder into place. Sims cries out, but moves his arm about; it’s fixed.

“Welcome aboard, Doc,” Cooper says with a slap on Deleon’s back.

“No, no, no. Glad to help and all, but I’m traveling solo.”

“No, you’re not. You’re valuable, so you’re coming with us.”

Deleon looks at their desperate faces. They all see him as hope. “I’m looking for niacin, to develop a cure. If you guys want to walk toward a hospital or a lab, that’s where I’m going.”

Angelica, the blonde housewife, steps forward. “You have a cure?!”

“I said I’m
working
on one.”

“Well, now you’re definitely coming with us,” Cooper says. “Sims, go with the Doc to the pharmacy. Help him find whatever he needs. Everybody else, split up and look for supplies.”

•
 
Go with Sims and Deleon.

•
 
Go with Cooper, Guillermo, and Angelica.

•
 
Go with Tyberius and Hefty.

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

“F
air enough,” Sims shrugs. “Give me a hand with this.” Together, you push a large old-fashioned radio desk against the door. It’s probably in the classroom to give the students a historical perspective on broadcast communication, but it works as a wonderful barrier, since the analog equipment is heavy and sturdily constructed, unlike the microchip-laden control panels of today. They just don’t make ‘em like they used to.

It’s muscle-tearing, backbreaking work—strenuous work—but you lift another desk atop the current one, completely sealing off the door. Then, just for good measure, you add a third and a fourth desk behind these two, so that there are several hundred pounds between the hallway and you.

“That oughta do it,” Sims says, wiping sweat from his brow.

“Are you there, Soldier?” Arthur Gray asks over the radio.

“Roger,” Sims replies.

“Our combat team is out on mission right now, but we might be able to pick you up in the morning.”

“That’ll make for a long night, sir. They’ve found us—all of them.”

“Then God bless you and keep you safe.”

Sims releases the microphone, then mutters, “Gee, thanks.”

And that’s when the zombies arrive, clawing at the doorway like rats in the walls, with great wailing and gnashing of teeth. Somehow they know you’re in there, somehow they always know. You just stare at the desks, watching them vibrate under the furious pounding of the collective group in the hallway.

A ghastly moan sounds within the room, and Sims turns to you. “Not funny.”

“I didn’t—” you start, but your breath is taken away when a zombie bites into Sims from behind. You turn to see four others in the room with you, and still another pushing from behind a curtain at the back of the room. This must be one of those lab-style classrooms where the desk-and-chalkboard learning happens on the other side, and the students come here for their hands-on.

Well, that sucks. The undead are here for their own hands-on portion. Without another moment’s hesitation, you slam the pick side of your axe into the ghoul attacking Sims. It drops to the ground, leaving your companion standing in bewilderment.