INFECTED (Click Your Poison) (67 page)

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

Y
ou meet the woman who summoned you, a blonde in her fifties, just as the other survivors arrive. They all appear to know one another—two women and four men. The one who shouted was a privileged housewife back in the world; you can tell that by her demeanor and clothing, obviously a beauty in her youth and has tried to stay that way—but now she has the cold eyes of a survivor.

The other woman moves toward her. She’s probably in her early thirties, though it’s certainly possible the last few weeks have aged her. She’s dirty, just like you, but beautiful in a hard-as-nails sort of way. Black hair and blacker eyes. She wears an unbuttoned mechanic’s shirt with a fitted undershirt beneath. The embroidered nametag reads “Cooper.”

Cooper hands her gigantic monkey wrench to one of the men, then slaps the housewife across the face. Hard.

“Don’t you ever… Do you have any idea—the danger? I don’t care if you
did
see somebody.” The wounded woman looks at the concrete, rubbing her jaw. Cooper reclaims her wrench and looks up at you. “What the hell do you want?”

•
 
“Nothing. I don’t want any trouble.”

•
 
“Just some food and a safe place to lay my head.”

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

Y
ou roll onto your belly and lift your broken ankle into the air. Just this movement hurts excruciatingly. Then you move across the grass, low-crawling like some Army soldier in bootcamp. Each set of movements stings your ankle, but you make progress. Slowly.

Eventually, you make it to the front of the house, and see several figures standing out in the middle of the street a few blocks away. You carefully remove your binoculars—thankful they weren’t damaged in the fall—and look at the group. Two women and four men. They’re just talking.

You scout the rest of the neighborhood, at least what you can see lying down, and finally end up looking again at the group. Now they’re all staring off in the distance toward the National Guard barrier wall. You’re about to shout out to them when they all take off running. Then you see it: the wall has collapsed, and a horde of thousands of zombies comes pouring across the neighborhood.

Your only chance is to hide, and you know it. You scoot away from the sidewalk and back toward the bushes. Several house alarms go off on the street; good, you think, that ought to distract them.

Then the alarm goes off inside the house you’re hiding by.

“Shit!” you shout out involuntarily, thinking,
How the hell did that happen?
In the end, it doesn’t matter; the alarm was activated, and that’s not good. You press through the pain of your ankle, escaping to the confines of the hedges. You tuck deep within and up against the house, waiting it out.

Soon you hear the mob. Moaning and shuffling, stumbling and groaning; searching. They’re moving inside the house, seeking out that alarm.

Zombies may be mindless automatons with no pulse, but they’re competent predators. And they find you. The scent of your sweat, the sound of your breath, maybe something unless entirely. There’s no hiding from them. You’re dragged out of the bushes—by your broken ankle—and torn to shreds by a dozen undead. The pain from your wounds is unbearable, so you stop bearing it. You die. There isn’t enough left of you to rise again.

THE END

Y
ou walk toward your soulmate. Heck, you would walk 500 miles—even 500 more. Lucky for you, you don’t have to. You’re close, very close. Remember the whispered sweet nothings? The nibbles and tickles? Well, you don’t, really, at least not in the way of a poet. But you know what? Your desire is everlasting. Not lyrical or even prosaic, but
truly
permanent. Your need for screamed sweet loathings, for nibbles and blood trickles, will never wane. Diamonds may be forever, but so are you now.

Suddenly you’re ready for commitment. You want to scoop your love up in your arms, and say, “’Til death do us part!”—if only you could speak.

You arrive at your soulmate’s doorstep. The place has been broken down, invaded already. You’ve been cuckolded. The door and windows have collapsed under the pressure of a hundred adoring fans. Still, you move inside, just in case.

Nothing left for you but a gruesome story, written in viscera upon the walls you once knew so well. Alas, you’re to be star-crossed lovers evermore. Devastated, you leave your home. Your heart wrenches, and you want nothing more than to take out your frustration on some fresh humans.

You look around. Weren’t you here for some purpose? You can’t recall. It seems like there should’ve been a reason you came here, but it escapes you. The last feelings of familiarity flow away like a final sense of déjà vu as memory gives way to instinct within you.

Time to feed. Where to?

•
 
To the hospital. I want to give back, share this gift, heal the sick.

•
 
I’m gonna keep rockin’ the suburbs.

•
 
Isn’t there a nursery or an old-folks’ home somewhere around here? I like slow prey.