INFECTED (Click Your Poison) (90 page)

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

“C
ool,” she says. After informing you that first watch is yours, she heads into the bedroom to sleep. Twelve hours later, you’ve both gotten six hours of sleep and it’s time to move again.

She pulls out a terrain map and compass. “There’s supposed to be a compound north of here. Civilian-owned but paramilitary-run. They were broadcasting before the networks went down. That’s where we’re going. We’re going on foot. Quieter, more direct, less chance of meeting Zulu.” She packs up and starts to walk.

“Zulu?” you ask.

“Zombie. Zulu’s the phonetic alphabet for ‘Z’, kind of like the Viet Cong were ‘Victor Charlie’ in ‘Nam. I thought it fitting. We can call them Zoo for short if you want.”

You nod, and having already packed all you can take from your car, start walking behind her.

“I may only be seventeen,” she continues, “and a girl, but I’m a survivor. I figure all three of those things make me a precious commodity in this new world, and I aim to stay that way. That makes me in charge. Also, I like to talk a lot, and you’ll just have to deal with that too.”

*     *     *

After a few hours of hiking, you stop for lunch. You sit with your backs against a tree, on opposite sides so you each can survey 180 degrees of forest. Rosie continues talking to you, despite the lack of eye contact.

“Eventually, you need to learn how to use my rifle. It’s a Ruger 10/22. Lightweight, I’m carrying over a thousand rounds, and I can sneeze louder than the shot—which helps when you don’t want to alert Zulu. You’re painfully unprepared for all this. Here, I found this in one of the cabins; it beats your fire poker.”

Around the tree, she hands you a large axe intended for chopping firewood. It’s not the sharpest thing, but if it can split a log, it can split a skull.

“My daddy was a combat-seasoned Marine, so I know what I’m talking about. Before you ask where he is—don’t.” She hops up and comes around to your side. “He left me prepared. I’ve got these Kevlar sleeves and this paintball armor. It’s not much, but it’s tight and light, so it helps. We need to get you outfitted soon. I used to work at a firing range back in the world, so I can teach you when the time comes. You done eating?”

You nod. After packing up, you and Rosie start to hike again. She’s got plenty of spunk, that’s for sure.

“We should share what we know,” she says. “I’ll go first. From what I’ve seen, it takes about six hours from bitten to biting. These Hollywood assholes have ruined the world, pardon my language, but this is America, so we’ll be fine. I don’t want to hear you say any different.

“Even so, things are a lot further on than the media would have us believe. Those celebrities made the news for eating each other, but that drug was on the market before they went nuts in public. Wall Street fat cats have been feeding on the middle class for a long time, so it wasn’t really newsworthy when they started doing it in the literal sense. Plus they have whole staffs dedicated to keeping that stuff out of the spotlight. No, I’d say we only heard about the infection once things started getting really bad.”

She looks at you. You tell her you don’t really know anything.

“Well, they don’t feel pain, I can tell you that for sure. They don’t sleep, need food, or even breathe. And the only way to kill them is with a headshot—‘nuff said.”

She stops and holds her arm up at a ninety-degree angle, her hand making a fist, the military signal for “halt.” She points two fingers up ahead and checks things out with the scope of her rifle. Then she hands the rifle to you.

You look where she did, scanning for activity. Up ahead, a man wanders in the woods. He’s a park ranger, or at least he was. His uniform is smattered with gore and part of his face is torn off—exposing his right jaw and teeth.

“Your shot,” she says.

•
 
“I guess it’s just one, and I need to learn—how do you work this thing?”

•
 
“I think we better stay quiet. How about I learn how to use this axe instead?”

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

Y
ou kick open the right half of the double doors while Rosie kicks in the left. You flank into the terminal, covering your respective sides while Lucas Tesshu backpedals behind you and ensures your rear is protected. “Make sure you positively identify cadavers before you fire,” he says.

You see a man in a mechanic’s jumpsuit, his lower jaw missing and his upper lip torn off. Yep, he’s a zombie all right. You blast the rest of his face away with the shotgun. There’s a growling moan off by Rosie’s side, and you glance over just in time to see her put an undead aviator down.

“Hello!” you shout. “Doc? We’re here to rescue you! Come on out!”

With that, whole undead families come out of the recesses of the terminal, happy to meet you. You strafe around to line up two men of similar height and blast both their skulls apart with a single shell. Rosie plinks off well-aimed shots at the rate of two per second, and you’ve spread out enough for Lucas to rush up the middle and give several of the snarling fiends the slice-and-dice treatment with his katana.

Around the next corner, a group of undead surround and pound on the cafeteria doors. They want something inside, and odds are it’s not hot pockets and breakfast burritos. The dozen of them turn around to meet you. Within two seconds, the three of you have dispatched the whole lot.

You and Rosie reload your weapons while Lucas stands guard. No further zombies appear. Still, who knows what’s inside the cafeteria? You turn the door handles and pull. Luckily for the doctor within, her attackers weren’t able to figure that one out.

She drops her steak knife when she sees you. “Oh, thank God!” she says. She’s an attractive black woman in her late thirties, and remarkably clean.

“Are you hurt?” Rosie asks. The doctor meekly shakes her head.

“If you are okay to run, we have a jeep,” Lucas informs her. To this she nods.

“All right, let’s go,” you say.

The terminal is clear on the way out (you made sure of that on the way in), but at the doors you see a sizeable zombie crowd gathered. They’re not trying to break in just yet, but they know something’s up and their collective suspicion is sufficiently aroused. It wouldn’t take much to get them frenzied.

“I’ve got an idea,” the doctor says, trembling. This must be her first large-scale encounter with the undead. An impressive feat, considering how long it’s been. She produces a flare gun.

“Do it,” Lucas says.

She nods and gulps hard. Fractious with nerves and shaking, but barely in control, she moves to the front door. Cracking it open, she pokes the barrel of the gun out into the open and pops the shot off. A glimmering arc streaks across the sky and the horde beyond watches it in unison. The flare sticks to the earth a hundred yards beyond your jeep, and in a few moments nearly every zombie is moving toward the unnatural light to investigate.

“Now or never,” Rosie says.

In a dead sprint, the four of you run out toward the jeep and leap in with huffing, panted breath. The engine fires up, and that’s when the flare no longer holds any interest for the zombie crowd. You gun the engine and peel away, the hundreds of ghouls stumbling after you in the dust.

•
 
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