INFECTED (Click Your Poison) (76 page)

•
 
Sims and Guillermo.

•
 
Deleon and Cooper.

•
 
Angelica.

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

R
osie shrugs. “Whatever.” The three of you hike in silence down the pockmarked road, waiting to find out who’s right. Around the final bend in the road, a clearing comes into view and you see a bridge—one that collapsed many years ago.

Rosie spins around. “Whelp, there’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back,” she says as she starts going the other way.

“It was worth a try,” Lucas says in confidence, squeezing you on the shoulder.

But something catches your eye. “Wait,” you say. “Rosie, use your scope.”

“What?”

“There’s something on the bridge.”

Her brow raised with incredulity, she complies. She shoulders the weapon, sliding her eye to the telescopic lens in a second-nature move. “It’s… it’s a footbridge,” she says in disbelief.

Lucas Tesshu’s face lights up. He starts running toward the bridge. You and Rosie run after him. Lucas laughs, giggling like a little child. Rosie skips with excitement. You feel the joy too, for you know this must have been built by members of the Compound!

As the three of you get to the concrete landing where the road ends, what you’re looking at becomes clearer: someone built a bridge to cross over the canyon below.

You look over the edge. It’s a rocky canyon, maybe a forty-foot drop, with sheer stone walls on either side. The floor below appears to be…
moving
. Then you see it—the entire canyon floor is covered in half-crippled zombies, writhing and crawling over one another, unable to escape from the steep walls of the canyon.

Looking back up at the footbridge, you get a clue as to what’s going on. The footbridge has wooden planks and rope, like you might expect if you were in an
Indiana Jones
movie, but in this particular bridge, the planks are spaced out only once every three feet. The result? To cross, you’d have to take enormous steps, stretching and lunging your way across the bridge. And zombies can’t do that.

So there they are, at the bottom of the canyon, where they fell when pursuing the other survivors. No wonder you hadn’t seen any undead since the marshes; they’ve all fallen into the pit below. Now all you have to do is cross, and the compound will surely be on the other side. You’re not afraid of heights, are you?

•
 
“All right, let’s do it.”

•
 
“Hey, guys, maybe we should look for that detour. I’m not so sure this bridge is safe.”

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

Y
ou follow the road away from the sign for the bridge. You’re certain Lucas Tesshu feels it to be a mistake, taking this route, yet he walks upright and with a slight smile. His arms are folded behind his back like he’s taking a pleasant stroll through the woods.

You round a bend and say, “Great, another fork in the road,” as soon as you see it.

“Life is seldom without turning points, my friend,” Lucas muses. “The key is to look for the signs.”

Indeed, there is a sign just on the other side of the next fork, the plain metal backing facing you now. The three of you continue down the road until you pass the sign, turning around to read it in unison: “STATE PENITENTIARY.”

The arrow pointing from where you just came states the obvious, “SERVICE ENTRANCE.” But the other fork is labeled, “MAIN ENTRANCE.” You smile involuntarily.

“See?” Rosie says, playfully slapping Lucas Tesshu on the arm. He merely nods.

All you have to do is continue down this road to the prison, and salvation will be yours.

•
 
Continue to the prison.