S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11) (109 page)

Kelly cleared his throat to get her attention, and when she looked up he asked her if she knew what had happened with Doctor White. “She's my little brother's personal physician,” he explained. “I heard she'd collapsed in her office yesterday. I just wanted to give her a card he handmade.”

The nurse gave him a suspicious look.

“Please. He's only six years old. And he's very sick and it would mean a lot to him.” He smiled. “They're very close.”

The nurse finally relented. “She's been moved up to the Medical Ward. Room 2374. But you can't go up there!” she called after him as he turned away. “Visiting hours aren't till after eleven o'clock.”

He assured her he'd come back later. Then, when she lost interest in him, he slipped over to the elevators.

The car arrived and the doors opened. A man stepped out. Kelly recognized him as one of the staff members who'd responded to Doctor White's office the day before.

“Excuse me?”

The man stumbled slightly before stopping and looking up. He looked drained, like he'd been on duty the whole time and had witnessed a horrible death. The haunted look on his face caused Kelly to recoil.

“I'm sorry,” Kelly said. “I just have a question.”

“I'm on my w-way home.”

The attendant's eyes were bloodshot. Large beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. He appeared to be shivering.

“I'm a friend of Doctor White's. Can you tell me—”

“Admitted for observation. S-some sort of blood infeh infeh infection.”

“Are you feeling okay?” Kelly asked.

“F-flu.”

“Of course. Sorry. And thanks.” He stepped aside to let him pass, then watched as the man started to shuffle away.

As he went, the fingers of one hand worried a bandage on his other.

Some sort of blood infection.

Kelly didn't like the sound of that.

* * *

Missus Daniels was already awake when Kelly stepped into her room, surprised that she was still here. The television on the wall was on but muted. He was surprised to see that it was tuned to one of the
Survivalist
stations.

She turned her head as soon as he walked in and asked, “Have you heard from my son?”

He shook his head. “I was hoping you had. I haven't been able to get him to answer my pings.”

Missus Daniels's face clouded. “They came and took him away yesterday, the police did. And no one will tell me anything.”

“They arrested him?”

She turned away and sighed. Her face was drawn, the lines cutting deep into the corners of her mouth. Although she'd regained some of the weight she'd lost while being starved in Ashley's basement, the circles under her eyes seemed only to have grown darker since he'd last seen her, her hair grayer. “They shot him, shot my boy.”

Kelly gasped and hurried over to her side. “Is he all right?” he asked in alarm.

“It was with one of those guns they use for the Omegas. I think they thought it was fitting, given his job. They're cruel men, the police.”

A tear slipped out of the corner of her eye and coursed down her cheek. She didn't bother to wipe it away. “I told him not to go into that damn job, but he wouldn't listen to me. I think he felt like he had something to prove to himself. And to his grandfather.”

“Is he all right, do you know?” Kelly asked again. He picked up his mother-in-law's hand and gently squeezed it. “Where did they take him?”

“I don't know. To the jail, I guess. I'm just afraid that they—” Her voice broke. She swallowed dryly, and the lump in her neck bobbed, looking to Kelly like an animal squirming beneath her skin. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath.

Kelly could feel her hand shaking inside of his. She was trying so hard to keep herself from falling apart. He didn't want her to say the words she was thinking out loud, that Eric might have been conscripted.

Finally, she opened her eyes. “I don't know where my boy is. I don't know where my daughter is. They've all left me. I'm alone.”

“They didn't,” he tried to assure her. “Jessie didn't leave you. And you're not alone. I'm here.”

“She hates me. My daughter hates me. I've been such a horrible mother.”

“No.”

He hooked his toe around the leg of the chair behind him and dragged it closer so he could sit down. “I'll find him. I'll find Eric. It'll be okay. And Jessie, too. I swear it.”

He could see some of the tension leaving her face, though not all. He didn't know if she believed him, believed that he'd be able to do what he promised. He wasn't even sure of it himself. Now that Eric was inside the system, what could he do? People had a tendency to disappear once they got taken away.

“Can you tell me where Jessie is?”

Kelly hesitated. “She's out of town. I'll be talking with her soon.”

“I dreamed about her,” Missus Daniels whispered. “About my little girl. The nurse came in after they brought me back and gave me a shot to calm me down. I was so upset over what they did to my Eric. Oh, and it did make me so calm. It calmed me down until it felt like I was floating in the water, down a river. It must've put me right to sleep because then I remember dreaming my Jessie was here with me. She told me to get up and walk, but I couldn't even move.” She looked over at Kelly and squeezed his hand. “Did she come visit me?”

He shook his head. “I'm sorry.”

Missus Daniels sighed. “She was holding me, trying to lift me, to lift my arms and make me stand up out of this bed. I could hear her talking to me, calling my name, urging me to move. I think she wanted me to come with her somewhere. But when I woke up, she was gone.”

A sob escaped her throat.

“Where did she go, Kelly? Why hasn't she come in to see me?”

“She's . . . .”

Kelly had promised Eric not to say anything about where Jessie had gone. He feared it would only lead to more questions, which would lead to the truth about what Arc was doing. Eric feared it would upset her too much. She needed her strength to recover.

But as Kelly sat there with his lips pressed tightly shut, he wondered how long it would be before Jessie's continued absence upset her even more than not knowing? He cleared his throat. “I know she'd want to be here if she could.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “What aren't you telling me?”

“Nothing.” He stood up to leave knowing he'd overstayed his visit, but she wouldn't let go of his hand. “I'm not supposed to be here, Missus D. And you need to rest, and here I am just getting you worried about—”

“That's my job, honey, worrying about my children. I've done it all their lives. What makes you think I'm just getting started now?”

“That's not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant.” She still wouldn't let him go. “My daughter hates me.”

“Jessie doesn't hate you.”

She squeezed his hand to shut him up. “I know she hates me. And you know the thing about that? It gives me hope, because you can't hate what you never wish to love. I'll make no excuses for my failings; they're mine to bear. I just hope she can understand that and forgive me. Forgiveness is the bridge between hatred and love.”

She let go of him then. “You go now, find my children and bring them back to me, Kelly Corben.”

He didn't move at first. Finally, he stood, and her eyes followed him, bright and sparkling with tears.

“I'll do my best,” he began to say, but her face went suddenly slack and pale. “What is it?” he asked, alarmed. “Are you in pain?”

She raised her hand and pointed shakily at the television behind him.

On the screen was a solitary figure moving away from the camera. Beyond was a wooded area, still draped in mist. The scene might've been from anywhere, but Kelly immediately recognized the place. He'd seen those woods too many times to ever forget them. And the drizzle told him that what he was watching was live.

Jessie was covered in mud and limping slightly. The left sleeve of her shirt was stained dark red from shoulder to cuff. Slung onto her back was a full satchel. She held a bloody sword in one hand. The injured arm hung limp at her side.

The camera panned away, showing the gravel path she was walking. It was littered with the bodies of a hundred slain Undead, the thick, black syrup of their lifeless blood washing slowly away in the rain.

As she stepped to the edge of the forest, another figure emerged into view behind her. She did not see him. The man turned briefly in profile before going after her, and in that moment the camera zoomed in. The hollow black eyes and gray skin so characteristic of the Undead were unmistakable on that face. Also telling were the determined movements of a Player under the control of its Operator.

Kelly wanted to yell at the screen, to warn Jessie, but he knew she couldn't hear him. He could only stand there in shock and watch as the man, now dead and a part of Arc's detestable video game, was about to attack the girl he had professed his love for in his dying words just a few days before.

“Micah,” he whispered.

As if she'd heard, Jessie stopped, her head cocked slightly to one side.

Turn around
, Kelly urged.
Please, Jess. Turn around before it's too late
.

But before she could take another step, the screen went blank.

“What's happening?” Missus Daniels croaked in dismay. “Kelly? Please tell me what I'm looking at. I don't understand.
What's going on?
”

But he couldn't move. He couldn't speak. All he could do was stare as those infuriating words scrolled across the screen:

WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INTERRUPTION

BUT ARE EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES.

WE EXPECT TO RETURN YOU TO

YOUR REGULAR PROGRAMMING SHORTLY.

~ ARC ENTERTAINMENT ~

 

Jessie knew that it was all in her head, Micah's voice. It was calling her, telling her to turn around. And she almost did, but she knew he wouldn't be there.

It had been a hard battle, heavily lopsided. But when it was over, she was surrounded by dozens of bodies. Not a single one of them had touched her.

The last to fall had been a genderless corpse, its skin so brown and desiccated that she couldn't tell its age upon reanimation. Its brittle skull dropped to her feet and cracked open, releasing a small puff of dust. She could hear the hard, desiccated brain rattle around inside as it rocked still, like a walnut that had petrified inside the shell. She was glad it was the last one, as her good arm was beyond spent, and the other was throbbing so badly she thought she might collapse, even though she'd not used it at all except to keep her balance.

There was a rustling sound behind her, something large, something coming through the woods. She knew it wasn't a bird. She knew it was coming for her.

Just go
, her mind ordered.

That's when she heard his voice again.
Why did you come back, Jessie?

She set her jaw and stepped down the path. She'd already wasted too much time and energy fearing the ghosts of her friends.

Jessie, please. Turn around.

“No,” she whispered.

She didn't believe in ghosts. She didn't believe the dead could haunt a place, or even a person. The voices she'd been hearing were only her guilt. First, her master's. Then Jake's. And now Micah's.

This was the path they'd taken the day Brother Matthew had led them to find Father Heale. That's why she was thinking of him now.

Damn it, Jessie, turn around!

There was a single low moan, and the hair on her neck raised. Slowly, she turned to face the figure on the path behind her.

And it was him.

She gasped and spoke his name, stumbling backward, yet wanting to run toward him. “How?” she asked.

But Micah didn't answer. He was dead. She could see that. She could tell by the way he walked and the color of his skin and the way the whites of his eyes had turned black that he was one of them now. That despite being so sure just a few days ago that his conscription had been a sham. Now she knew for certain that it hadn't been. He was here. He was dead. And he was coming for her.

Listen, Jess,
he told her inside her head. He took another shambling step and a terrible moan came from between his purple lips.
There's something wrong with the Stream. The network's down.

“W-what?”

Don't let me get so close, Jessie.

“What?”

“
Go!
”

It was exactly what her mind was screaming at her in her own voice.

You have to run, Jessie! Don't let me catch you.

And yet she couldn't move. He was fifteen feet away, twelve. Ten.

JESSIE!

She jerked from the blast of his voice and fell back just as he reached out for her. His cold, hard fingers brushed her cheek and slipped down her chin. They curled around her collar bone and held on. She spun away, crying out in surprise. He followed her clumsily, leaning forward and opening his mouth.

Jessie, please. Go!

She ran a few steps, then stopped, blinking in disbelief. How could he be—

He's not! It's your imagination! Now run! Get the fuck out of here!

She tripped over her own feet and went down. Micah followed her movements. He stepped forward and dropped to the ground next to her. His knees hit the road with a pair of resounding cracks that sounded painful. But his face registered nothing, only the same hungry expression they all wore. He began to claw his way to her on his hands and knees.

“No!” she screamed at him. “Micah, stop!” She kicked at his arms and he toppled face first onto the road.

I can't control myself, Jess. Please.

“Why are you here? WHY ARE YOU INSIDE MY HEAD?”

Listen to me, Jessie! What are you doing here?