INFECTED (Click Your Poison) (96 page)

There’s a hall off to your right, but the backpack is only a little further in, near the overturned dinner table. Take it, be quick, and get out. You will your feet to move. Four steps over and the backpack is yours.

When you turn around, the thieving zombie is there, only a few feet away. He comes at you fast. You drop the backpack and bring the axe to both hands. There’s no room for a full swing, so you plug him as best you can. The axe chips away at his collarbone, bringing his head lower from a break in his connective tissue.

You shove the zombie away, hoping for a full swing with the axe. The ghoul stumbles back and slams into the wall, causing the porcelain dinnerware shelved there to crash down on the floor. You’re just about the take your next swing at him, when a rank and odious moan demands your attention.

It’s Housewife Zombie. She came over after all; wants to see if her neighbor is doing anything for dinner. She comes at you before you can reposition the axe, and in response you pop her in the jaw with the butt of the axe handle.

Somehow (must’ve been all those movies), you thought killing zombies would be easy. Turns out it’s more like wrestling with two coke-addled drug fiends. What they lack in coordination, they make up for in fervor.

They’re both up, and coming at you. Without even realizing it, you scream out a medieval war cry, emboldening your spirit. You swing the axe hard—connecting into the housewife’s ribs and smashing her against the other ghoul.

They fall over again, but the axe remains in her torso. You’re weaponless.

•
 
The hammer! Grab your pack and dig it out quick.

•
 
Run, run, run away; live to fight another day.

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

C
ooper uses her crowbar to pry the lockers open, and you follow her with the janitor’s garbage cart, collecting anything useful she finds. Truth be told, there’s not much of interest; it’s mostly books and notepaper. She finds a prom queen tiara and puts it atop her short-cropped hair. “Whaddaya think?”

“Who
are
you, Cooper?”

“Oh God, not this shit, Newbie,” she says, taking the tiara off. “Why do you need to ‘know’ me?”

“You could be the last person I ever know,” you say with a shrug.

“I can tell you everything you need to know about all of us. We’re all fuckups. If we’d done everything right, we’d be laying low with friends and family. As it stands, you’re with me. Good enough?”

“No.”

She sighs. “Fine. I’ve got two older brothers. Dad didn’t earn enough and Mom didn’t try. Long story short—because this is pointless—life was tough. That’s all you get.”

You continue searching the lockers in silence without finding more than a few pocket knives, and eventually you return to the gym.

•
 
Head back.

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

Y
ou kick out the wood-planked air vent, allowing brilliant streams of light into the attic. One might expect fresh air to come with it, but the outside draft is even worse than your stifling alcove. Harsh chemical smoke sticks to your lungs. The smell of fetid, rotten flesh lingers from your decaying neighbors.

Out on the roof you only start to grasp the magnitude of destruction. Smoldering homes, wrecked cars, and corpses line your block. In fact, the streets are so congested, there’s no point in going for a car. A wind chime clinks in the breeze. Garden-planted pinwheels turn.

Shingles securely underfoot, you position your eyes in a set of binoculars, to better scout the area. Shit—there’s still at least one ghoul wandering the streets, barely visible in the distance, meaning there’ll surely be more lurking nearby. Of particular note are three bodies wearing convict-orange jumpsuits. Must’ve been a prison break in the early days.

Granted, the scale is much larger, but it looks like a fox got into a chicken coop, the fox in this metaphor being a horde of zombies and the coop being acres of ill-prepared suburbia. This sight could be that of a hurricane-ravaged city, save for the lack of flooded streets.

The day is young, and you’ve got to move if you’re to find another safe port before nightfall. You lower yourself from the roof, the rain gutter giving a creak under your wrists. Inside your house, there’s movement in response. You jog away, saying good-bye forever to your home. Keeping a mental note of where you saw that wandering ghoul, you traverse the neighborhood.

Almost unconsciously, you find yourself walking the normal path you use to drive away from home. But there will be no driving, not anymore. As you walk, you notice a large fireman’s axe lodged in the back of a corpse. That could be a lot more deadly than your little carpenter’s hammer; in point of fact, it already has been. The proof is sticking out of the pudding. Like a new Arthur, you remove
axe-caliber!
from the body with a sickening
squick
. It takes a concerted effort not to gag.

Cutting through a side street, you move onto a major thoroughfare. One end is cordoned off by a large wall just above head-level that splits through the neighborhood in an arc. Do you want to peek over the wall and see what’s on the other side?

•
 
Yes, but only real quick-like.

•
 
No, keep moving. No time for distractions.