INFECTED (Click Your Poison) (53 page)

A shotgun cracks to life and throws your face out and across the crowd.

The pawnshop owner was waiting for you the whole time, the bastard. If you saw this coming, raise your hand; if not, fall to the pavement dead. The zombies step over your lifeless body and push their way into the store. A single shotgun won’t do the man any good against the whole neighborhood.

THE END

A
fter a moment, you find a piece of the shattered porthole door-window large enough for your purposes. Like a striking viper, your hand shoots out into the open, claims the glass, and returns without getting blown away. Using the glass as a mirror, you see it’s not an armed civilian at all, but an improvised booby-trap. A thrashing movement comes from inside, then stops.

“Hello?” you ask in a whisper.

You creep around the corner into the house, a death-grip on your axe, and look up with alarm at a body hanging from a noose. Although it is limp, for some reason the body sways. The rope creaks and groans. Then the corpse lurches with life and moans and growls, snapping its jaws. The Hangman Zombie can’t get you as it dangles suspended from the ceiling.

•
 
Agh, a zombie! Ruuuuuuuun.

•
 
Eh, he’s detained. Keep looking.

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

T
he aluminum siding screams “cheap to build,” and probably wouldn’t stand up to a hurricane, but it’s safe enough; the living dead could only pass through the single entrance you now face. This is a full-height turnstile, similar to a revolving door, like those used in some big-city railway stations. Muffled sounds are coming from within: livestock, maybe? Or is that human speech? The hair on the back of your neck rises with a fresh dose of adrenaline, and you proceed with newfound skepticism.

You’ve never seen a barn with a turnstile entrance; the rancher must’ve custom-built it for some specific purpose. The barn curves around inside with the turnstile, and as a result you cannot see beyond this gate. You power up a flashlight, hold tight to your weapon, and push one of the horizontal crossbars—which moves freely.

You push slowly and cautiously; it’s impossibly dark inside. Once you make it inside, you sweep the beam of the flashlight out in front—broad strokes which, oddly, produce no image. From above, you hear a cow moo, quickly followed by a young girl’s laughter. Umm… what? Shining the flashlight at the source of the noise, you find a speaker hoisted to the ceiling. For whatever reason, human and animal recordings are playing through the sound system.

You point the flashlight at your feet and come to the realization that you’re standing on a small platform. There’s a ramp leading down into the barn; you’re
raised
above the entrenched floor level. Leaning carefully, you aim the light downward to see what exactly this barn holds.

The barn is thick with undead. They look up to your flashlight, their eyes not bothering to adjust, and reach up to you in hunger. The howling moans overtake the artificial sounds of life emanating from the speakers.

Suddenly, it all clicks. The single entrance, the sounds of the living, the lowered floor below: you’ve just stumbled into a zombie trap. Without hesitation, you turn back and press against the turnstile, but it’s a one-way model and won’t budge no matter how hard you push.

In panic, you give it a powerful heave, smashing your body against the gate like a battering ram. The final aspect of the trap springs into action—the floor is coated with some kind of grease or oil, and you slip down the ramp under your own momentum.

For a brief time, your screams prove more inviting than the false noises from above—that little girl’s laughing again—and the crowd of ghouls collects atop you in your prone position. You try to flee up the ramp, but it’s far too slick and steep. The first bite comes into your leg. You can’t fight them off, but don’t worry, there won’t be enough of you left to rise again.

THE END

Y
ou arrive at the stockroom and join in the semicircle around a large pallet of beans. Several camping lanterns illuminate the scene, allowing you to see the area better. There could be undead behind any corner, crawling forward through the shadows, or locked in a back office. You’re ready to get back out into the sunlight.

“Trust me,” Sims says. “I’ve done a lot of research on this kind of thing. If you can only take one type of food with you—pound for pound, it’s beans, so…”

“Load up,” Cooper instructs.

Deleon shakes his head. “Look, this is all great, but I need to get to a hospital or something.”

“The hospital was overrun,” Angelica says in not more than a whisper, staring off into nothingness. There’s a moment of silence. Her unspoken pain is thick in the shadowy air.

“What’s your plan then, Cooper?” Deleon asks finally.

“Find guns, lots of them. Then blast my way to safety.”

“Where’s that?” you ask.

“Haven’t found it yet. Look, we’re all the same. Our safe places stopped being safe. We’re all just trying to find a new one.”

“I’m going to signal rescue, at all costs. So…” Sims says.

“Shut up, Sims.”

Deleon shakes his head, pacing. “I don’t have time to waste on a goddamn gunstore. I need a lab where I can devote some serious time to this thing.”

“Which is why you need us, Doc,” she says. “We provide security, you provide the cure.”

Tyberius speaks up. “What about the high school? There’s a chemistry lab, plus it’s got a cafeteria. I know they’ve got emergency supplies.”

Deleon snaps his fingers. “Hey… that’s not bad.”

“They’s a sportin’ good shop neah by,” Hefty says in his deep Southern accent.

Cooper nods. “Good, guns first, then this school.”

“No,” Deleon says firmly. “I need to get to that lab.”

•
 
“Come on, Doc. Just a quick stop. Can’t make the cure while you’re dead.”

•
 
“Let’s get that school set up, Cooper. Then we can send a few of us on a gun run.”