INFECTED (Click Your Poison) (95 page)

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“I’ll start collecting those water jugs.”

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

I
t’s not long before the undead have breached your house. The alarm, the moaning, or both—proved more effective than you might have thought, and your home is soon swarming with them. Even though you can’t see them, you can hear enough to know it’s totally full up there.

Basements are good for a lot of things: kids’ sleepovers, storing wine, hiding from a tornado. What they’re not good for is avoiding crowds of flesh-eating ghouls.

Just as the barriers in your house fall to the zombies, the barrier to your basement—a locked door with random clutter barricading—also falls. The movies have this idea wrong. Now they’re coming down to get you, and you’ve got no way out.

Still, you search your home in desperation: dusty boxes, a laundry basket, an old ping pong table, that nail-gun dad gave you. Wait, what the f—how in the hell did you miss the nail gun when you were securing your home?

Instead of questioning the God-send, you pick it up and pray it works. Just as the first undead man makes it down, you turn and squeeze off a nail into his forehead. His head knocks back and he falls dead. Awesome.

Dozens of hellions stream down your staircase, but as long as you keep your wits about, you’ll be okay! That’s when a ghoulish woman ruins everything. Her teeth are broken into almost shark-like fragments, and as she moans and champs her teeth in preparation of meeting you, the drawstring of your basement light snags in her fragmented face.

Click
, lights out. Time to play “seven minutes in hell” while your amorous companions rush down to
suck face
. In the pitch black of the basement, you’re left no option save for an excruciating death.

THE END

Y
ou walk next to Sims, Guillermo on his other side. Sims removes a shoulder strap on his backpack, allowing it to slide around to his front. From inside, he removes a can of chewing tobacco. He offers it to you, then to Guillermo. “You want some, Jose? Quiero?”

“Me llamo Guillermo.”

“Yeah, no idea what you just said,” Sims replies. “I know you don’t speak a lick of English, but that’s pretty much the extent of my Spanish, so…”

Guillermo stares blankly while Sims puts some of the chew tucked inside his lip. Guillermo points to the pack and says, “Comida?”

Sims gets out a can of food for Guillermo. “Ah, I know that one, but that’s all. Well, other than ‘gracias’ I guess… Gracias?”

“De nada.” He opens the can of tuna.

A loud crack opens in the air. You turn to see Cooper within an inch of Deleon’s face. She looks as much like she could kiss him as punch him. A broken handheld voice recorder lies on the ground next to them.

She whispers something to him, and you can’t hear it, but then intentionally loudly she says, “Why don’t you explain what we’re up against, if you’re such an expert?”

The whole group now waits on Deleon. “All right, good idea. Let’s see… I’m guessing you know that the head is the only weakness. All right, fine. You know they’re attracted to any commotion or human sounds and smells. Including their own moans, right?”

She whispers again. “I want to know how someone becomes one.”

“Well, a bite, even a small one will fester until the person eventually transforms. The gene-therapy is delivered essentially like a virus, meaning for all intents and purposes, this is a blood-born pathogen.”

Cooper finally looks intrigued. Deviously, she asks, “Really? So we should check people for bites?”

“After every skirmish, generally.”

“And there’s no hope once you’re bitten?”

“There will be. Once I finish my cure,” he smiles meekly.

A man screams out. You look back, just as Tyberius nearly gets yanked into a car. He screams as a zombie trapped in a seat belt tries to pull him in. “Get this fucking thing off me!” he shouts.

“All right, all right, pull back,” Hefty commands.

Tyberius pulls away the best he can and Hefty brings his length of pipe down on the ghoul’s arms over and over. The bones snap, but the grip holds. “Hold on.” Sims uses his ridiculous
Rambo
knife to cut Tyberius’ dress shirt in half from the back.

Tyberius manages to slip out and away from the car, his musculature on display in a wife-beater-style shirt.

“Kill it!” Angelica shouts, helpless with panic. Seatbelt Zombie moans.

“Hold it, Sims,” Tyberius says. “Hefty, do me a favor.”

“You got it.” Hefty stands at the back of the car. The zombie leans as far as it can, torso out of the car, growls, snarls, and moans at Hefty. Tyberius finds the giant sledge hammer he carried; as he claims it from the ground, its end scrapes the pavement. Sparks jump from the metal head.

“Kill it now!” Angelica shouts again.

Tyberius raises the weapon slowly and deliberately, then with an athletic fierceness, spins a three-sixty—ending with the zombie’s head caught between the car frame and the full weight of the hammer.

Another five zombies come out of nearby buildings. You’re surrounded. You axe one in the back, sending it towards Guillermo. Guillermo swings his meat cleaver and frying pan as if clapping them together; the zombie’s head caught in the center where they meet. The damage is disgusting.

Angelica and Deleon manage to knock a zombie down and beat it with candlestick and hammer, respectively. The other three ghouls move in. Cooper shouts for the first time: “Hit the pavement!”

You and Deleon look over toward her as the rest of the group dives to the ground. Cooper lets her length of motorcycle chain slide off her shoulder and it unravels to the concrete. She steps forward and begins to swing the chain. Finally, you and Deleon duck. With a whip-like motion, she connects the chain with a zombie’s skull, which gives off an incredible crack. The twice-dead zombie slumps to the ground. She takes out the other two with similar finesse.

The streets are silent now. The group rises from the ground. “We’re getting off the street for the night,” Cooper says. You realize the sun is setting.

“Where?” you ask. She points forward. You all look: a gothic Cathedral sits ahead—stark and menacing. The spires shoot up through the start of dusk, like the claws of some great beast.

“Looks cozy,” she replies.

•
 
Continue to the Cathedral.

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

H
aving a plan is only one part of survival. Executing and sticking to that plan is far more important. Your plan is to survive, and the execution aspect is largely contained in that pack. With the axe held tight, you return to the window once more. Painfully slow, and with deliberate caution, you peer inside the smashed window.

No sign of the thieving zombie. The pack, however, sits a mere ten feet away. Fat with supplies. You check the broken-glass edge of the window: the pieces are sharp and jagged.

A quick glance over your shoulder to the torn-out screen—still no sign of Housewife Zombie. On the house entry, you try the door and find it unlocked. You push the door open, bathing the house in sunlight. There’s enough ambient light between the window and the door to not need a flashlight, though it’s still dim.