INFECTED (Click Your Poison) (82 page)

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“Supermarket. Hospitals scare me; especially when the sick try to eat you.”

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“Why not just a local drugstore?”

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

“O
kay, this is it,” Lucas Tesshu tells you as you come upon a large farm. There are acres upon acres of wheat, and in the distance there’s a home and barn. You turn onto the dirt road leading to the farmhouse, Rosie right behind you in the second jeep, and proceed toward your goal. Just a quick snatch-and-grab job, but that’s easier said than done. Already, you see the wheat parting in odd serpentine trails as the undead are alerted to your presence. Just ahead, the zombie farmer ambles toward you.

“Take me alongside him,” Lucas says, unsheathing his sword. You do so, allowing him a drive-by beheading of the farmer. The blade is so sharp, his arms don’t even recoil when steel meets flesh.

You arrive at the farmhouse, park the jeep out front and hop out, shotgun at the ready. Lucas and Rosie meet you there; Rosie takes aim at a wandering ghoul fifty yards away. After the familiar
crack
of her .22, the zombie falls dead.

“They know we’re here,” she says, “and that doesn’t give us much time. I’ll stay out front and pick off the ones that get too close—make sure we got an escape route. That leaves the barn and the farmhouse for you two.”

Lucas smiles at you. “The decision is yours, my friend. I have no preference.”

•
 
“I’ll take the barn.”

•
 
“My shotgun and I will clear the house.”

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

“F
ine, I could use the help,” Deleon says. “Grab a bag, we’re stocking up and then I need to go speak with Richard—Dr. Phoenix.” He looks at his watch, then adds, “He should be on his way home, but I’ll try to call from the car.”

You help the doctor as best you can. He’s getting ingredients for his formula, the eventual cure he’s working on, and you feel a bit like Dr. Frankenstein’s Igor. Resisting the urge to hunch and recite “Yes, Master,” after each command, you move swiftly.

The thought crosses your mind that this secure facility could be a good hideout spot should the dead start walking, but you quickly dispel that idea. This is probably the worst spot to be; angry mobs will most certainly form right outside these doors should the company’s famed product go massively wrong.

Soon you’re out the door, bags loaded in the back of Deleon’s Jeep, riding toward Phoenix’s apartment. Deleon gets no answer from Dr. Phoenix on his cell phone.

*     *     *

By the time you arrive, the sun has already set. Dr. Phoenix lives in the heart of downtown, in a thirteenth-story penthouse. The millions must already be flowing in, because he’s certainly spent a small fortune on this apartment. You ride up on the elevator in silence. What can you say? Right now, you’re a spectator. You’ve got a front-row seat to the start of one of the most terrifying crises in human history.

Once out of the elevator, Deleon leads you to Phoenix’s apartment. He rings the bell. No answer. He knocks on the heavy, metal industrial-warehouse-chic door. Still nothing. The doctor tries the door handle—it’s unlocked. As he slowly opens it, the door gives a low metallic growl as he pushes.

“Richard?” he calls out. “It’s Lewis.”

He steps inside, and you follow close behind. It’s quiet inside the plush home, but a scene on the couch catches the attention of both of you: a topless woman, wearing nothing but a black pair of panties, sits back on the couch. Her perfect-10 body is pale and emaciated. She leans far back on the sofa, and her comely legs are contorted out in front of her at odd angles. Her head droops away from you, so you cannot see her face. On the table before her sits a
Gilgazyme
 ® inhaler and an area where several lines of cocaine were snorted away; other lines remain. From the looks of her, she may have overdosed. She’s not breathing.

From the top of the stairs, Dr. Richard Phoenix appears, wearing a scarlet bathrobe. There’s blood on his neck and some kind of wound. He starts walking down toward you, in an awkward stumble. With each step, there’s a danger he’ll fall down the landing.

“Christ, are you high?” Deleon asks. Phoenix merely continues walking toward him. “I need you to sober up. We’ve got problems—big problems.”

The topless woman rises from the couch, a little too slowly. She begins to come toward you. Vomit cakes her hair to her face.

Phoenix makes his way to Deleon, who says, “I knew I shouldn’t have gone along with you. The rats are reacting violently—”

Phoenix lunges at Deleon, mouth open and growling. Deleon instinctively raises his right arm to block his face and his coworker bites down into his forearm. Deleon screams out in pain, wrestling with his former partner.

The topless woman makes her way to you, but you’ve seen enough to know that you’re not going to end up like the control group rat lowered into an infected terrarium. You grab a modern art sculpture on the table beside you, and smash it into the ghoulish hooker as hard as you can. It’s not enough to incapacitate her, but the ninety-pound waif of a woman falls to the floor under the blow.

Deleon punches and jabs at Phoenix, but can’t seem to shake his assailant. Another woman arrives at the top of the stairs, this one wearing only a brassiere. She ambles toward the commotion with such excitement that she fumbles and crashes down the wooden stairway. She rises as if it didn’t even happen, her neck limp atop her shoulders, her head hanging at the side, and moans. The broken neck fails to deter her at all. It’s like she’s dead, but not. Like she’s… a zombie.

And now the topless woman starts to stand back up too. Deleon breaks free from Phoenix, losing the skin of his forearm in the process. Just as the bottomless zombie is about to join in, he slips out from between them and sprints out from the apartment. They all look at you.

You’re quick on Deleon’s heels; he’s already at the elevator at the end of the hall. The three undead saunter out of the apartment after you. “Come on, open!” he shouts. Luckily, no one in the building used the lift, and the doors open immediately. The two of you jump in; you press the “Lobby” and “Door Close” buttons repeatedly. The zombies are getting close. Only a few more steps… but the doors shut before they breach.