S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11) (131 page)

The torn end of the building was blocked by piles of scrap metal and wood. And the main entrance, a large drive-through bay door, was chained shut. Nevertheless, they were able to find a loose panel and managed to pry it free. The noise of the metal rippling reverberated through the industrial complex, sounding both loud and strangely muffled at the same time.
It's because of the wall
, Jessie thought.

As if reading her mind, Brother Walter said, “I never liked being this close to the arcade. There's something wrong with it, the way it kills anything living within a hundred feet of it. Anything that can't move away from it anyway.”

The building appeared to be a repair facility of some sort, a large empty shell three-stories high. Rising up through the gloom directly in front of where they broke in was the hull of a large boat. Repairs had been in progress when the outbreak hit. The paint was faded and its surface was covered in a thick coat of dust that sloughed off in sheets when Jessie passed her hand over it.

“Too bad it's not an airplane,” she remarked.

Brother Walter grunted but didn't answer.

Broken glass crunched beneath their feet, echoing against the distant walls. Powder rose from the floor as they walked. “Fiberglass,” he said, coughing into his elbow. “Try not to breathe it in.”

“I don't see any way to get up to the roof.”

“There's always a way. See if you can find a ladder.”

He started around the boat, heading for the end of the building away from the Gameland wall. Passing the front, he glanced around the other side and nodded with satisfaction. “There's one leaning against the hull over here. I believe it'll do the job.”

They passed several pieces of equipment, which Jessie guessed were some sort of furnaces. They sat like imperious giants squatting on their haunches, their boxy faces blushing from years of undisturbed rust, the stubs of exhaust pipes crying dark red tears.

An expensive-looking black car sat just inside a closed bay door. All four tires were flat. The leather on the seats was still as pristine as the day it was new.

Brother Walter hurried along, muttering to himself. Jessie wanted to warn him to be careful, but then she realized that they were truly alone inside the warehouse. Theirs were the only footprints in the undisturbed dust on the floor. Whether consciously or not, he'd already figured that out.

They came to an office, or rather three offices, one stacked atop the other like shipping crates at the far end of the building. The second- and third-floor offices each had a catwalk spanning the entire width, which provided unobstructed views of the interior. Squeezed into one corner, almost as an afterthought, was a spiral staircase. It continued up past the walkways and up into the girders, where it disappeared into the darkness in the roof.

“Like I said,” he told her, “there's always a way.”

He turned on his heels and headed back to get the ladder. “See if you can find us some rope to haul it up with.”

“There'll be some in the boat,” she called after him. She felt pleased with herself for thinking of it.

But he shook the back of his head at her. “It's just an empty hull, nothing in it. Keep looking.”

The door to the ground level office scraped against the floor as she pushed it open. Boxes, which someone had piled up behind it, had toppled over, collapsed under their own weight and rotting sides. Jessie reached over and pulled one of the flaps open, releasing a flurry of dust. The sound of her sneeze bounced through the length of the warehouse. She waited for Brother Walter to bless her, but he didn't.

There was a rustle of noise behind her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the end of a long hairless tail disappear through a hole in the wall.

The pamphlets advertised day cruises launching off Smithtown Bay. Some went out to the eastern tip of Long Island and into the Shelter Island Sound. Others hugged the coast in the opposite direction before entering the East River. The back cover showed a picture of smiling tourists standing at the feet of the Statue of Liberty. For as long as Jessie could remember, the monument had never been open to the public.

She let the paper drop from her fingers.

A quick search confirmed that there was no rope to be found in the tiny, cluttered office, just a lot of records and old advertisements, a few personal trinkets, and, puzzlingly, a single brown and red shoe with the number 12 painted on the heel.

From the second level, she was high enough up that she could see Brother Walter searching through a jumble of loose equipment piled up along the wall to her right. He'd set the ladder down in the middle of the floor.

Looking out through the broken windows running along either side, she could see the wall stretching out like a giant wave frozen in place, ready to crash down upon them. At this time of day, it cast only a narrow sliver of shadow upon the dead ground beneath.

The top of the wall loomed high above her, cutting away the bottom half of the sky and turning it into midnight. A keeper of darkness and death. A killer of life. Even the birds refused to nest inside this building because of its proximity.

Apparently only the rats didn't mind it. Rats and spiders.

The second floor office turned out to be just as barren as the first.

She made her way to the third level. The ladder was still on the floor where Brother Walter had left it, but he was nowhere to be seen. She considered calling out his name. Instead, she turned and opened the last door.

The room was much larger than the office below, deeper and wider, extending far beyond where the others stopped at a back wall. An oaken desk occupied the center. The surface was covered in stacks of paper money and a small rusted pistol with ivory inlays. Both were beyond any value to her now.

To the sides, oak shelves and cabinets stood at attention along the wood-paneled walls. A large black safe stood with its door swung open. Even more cash was stacked inside.

The floor was thickly carpeted, the walls richly decorated with expensive-looking paintings in fancy wooden frames. Everything was ruined by mold.

The skylight above the desk had been smashed, exposing the office to the elements. Concentric rings of mildew, black, then gray and white, then finally orange, spread along the ceiling. A dank, organic smell permeated the air, stinking of dirt and rot.

All this luxury, now nothing more than someone's unfulfilled vision of success. Not even a memory.

She heard the creak of the Infected's stiffened muscles flexing just as she turned to leave. The thing stepped from the shadows in the far back corner and snarled at her. It was dressed in a dark suit, which looked as if it might've been very expensive when it was new. Massive folds of skin clung to its face and neck. It moved slowly, clumsily, the result of a decade without food and no movement.

A gold watch chain hung from its vest pocket, swinging with each lurching step. And the way the suit jacket draped over him, she could tell he'd once been an excessively large man.

“So this is where you chose to ride out the apocalypse,” Jessie said to it, as she backed her way toward the door. She could imagine the man alone here, without a family, his work and money all he had left to occupy him as the world died all around. Expensive suits. Expensive cars, like the one downstairs. Expensive food. Yet here he was, spending eternity alone, starving alone, and none of it could stop the world from decaying. It was sad to think about, really, though only in the most general of ways.

“A dozen years to think about how little you gained and how much you've lost,” she whispered.

The thing picked up its pace, though it was still too slow to hope to catch her. Twenty feet. A shambling step: nineteen. Another step. Another.

It stepped into the circle of sunlight and she saw the ragged hole beneath its chin from where the bullet had gone in. The small caliber round had done the job of ending the man's life, but not enough to prevent what came after.

It stepped forward; she stepped back.

The space between her shoulder blades contacted the door.

It seemed unfair to just leave it. She remembered what Micah had told her, what he and Master Rupert had both said about being ready to die. She would be doing this . . . this thing, this shell of a human being a favor by ending it now. He had probably once been despised, but all she could feel was pity for it.

She reached back over her head and pulled the sword out from behind her.

Fifteen feet.

Fourteen.

So painfully slow.

Could she do it? Could she kill the thing knowing there was someone inside whose life she was taking away?

A cold hand clamped onto her shoulder from behind and pulled her from the room. She swung the katana in a broad arc and it lodged into the wood of the doorframe.

“What are you doing?” Brother Walter hissed, rising from a crouch.

“Son of a bitch,” Jessie huffed. “I could've taken your head off.”

“Maybe if I were a foot taller.”

She didn't know if he was being ironic. The zombie was now eight feet away. “Next time I'll aim lower,” she said.

Brother Walter reached over, extracted the sword, and shut the door behind them. “We don't have time for this.”

“I was going to finish him,” she said.

His eyes glinted hard at her, judging her. “If you think this is some kind of game—”

The Undead businessman slammed weakly into the door. The glass rattled but didn't break. Neither of them flinched. Brother Walter took in the suit and gold watch and shook his head in disgust. “Let it stay in there until the end of time.”

“I'm surprised to hear you say that. Father Heale wouldn't have—”

The zombie smashed into the glass again, leaving a thick greasy smudge.

“I'm not Father Heale,” he told her. He pointed down the catwalk toward the staircase, where the ladder was leaning against it. The top reached nearly to their feet. “The roof's padlocked I don't think we can get through that way.”

The door shook again. The glass rattled but held.

“He deserves to be put out of his misery,” Jessie said.

Brother Walter reached over and shoved the door open, knocking the Infected backward into the room. He then reached inside and grabbed the man's wrist and pulled him out and over the railing.

They watched as it hit the cement below a second and a half later, a clatter of bones and a puff of dust and powder.

“Ready?” he asked her.

Jessie grabbed his arm and pushed him up against the wall. “Don't you ever do that to me again,” she growled at him. “Don't
ever
presume I'm taking any of this lightly.”

Kelly stared in disbelief at the identifier code on his Link and thought:
It can't be her.

He stood up from the chair beside Kyle's bed and stepped into the hallway. He could hear his parents talking softly downstairs, discussing their options. He closed the bathroom door behind himself and turned on the shower to mask the sound of his voice.

“Hello?”

“I need your help.”

No
Hello
back. No
How are you doing?
Or
Thanks for trying to save me.
Or
Sorry I ran out on you.
Just another something for him to do. Like he had nothing better to do than to run to her every time she said his name.

“How did you get out?” he asked. He was very angry, trembling with anger in fact. “I haven't heard from you in days and the first time you get in touch all you can do is ask for my help?”

Doctor White sighed. “I couldn't risk it. I couldn't risk them listening in or putting you or your family in danger.”

“Like you're doing now?” His voice rose. “What changed?”

“What's changed is everything, Kelly. They can't hurt me now. Or you. Not if we do this one last thing.”

“What thing?”

“Go back.”

He knew immediately what she was talking about, but he couldn't understand why she'd want to go there with him. Father Heale was dead. Besides, she had the cure, so the file was of no benefit to them now. What could possibly be left on Long Island for her?

Jessie. She wants Jessie.

“No, I'm going alone,” he said.

“Alone? But—”

“You need to stay here. Kyle needs that cure.”

“And he'll get it, as soon as we get back.”

“Why not now? Why does it have to be after? Is it Jessie? Do you need some more of her blood?”

There was a pause, then: “Yes.”

Kelly didn't believe her. “What is this really about?”

“It's about saving us all.”

“Bullcrap.”

He heard her sigh, then say, “I promise. This will be the last time, Kelly.”

“I'm not your errand boy anymore, Doctor White.”

“I will give you everything you need to know
and
the cure. But
after
you help me do this one last thing.”

“How?” he finally asked. “How are we going to get there?”

“I have a plan.” She told him where to meet her and when. “I'll explain everything then. And Kelly? Don't tell anyone.”

She disconnected before he could protest. He wondered what she would do if he told Reggie. Then he wondered what Reggie would do if he didn't.

Either way, it seemed there was no avoiding it any longer. He was going to have to go. The question was, whom did he want by his side, White or Reggie?

* * *

Doctor White was furious with him when Reggie emerged from the car. To be honest, Kelly didn't care what the woman thought anymore. It was time to do what was right— and not by him or Kyle, but by Jessie, the woman he'd betrayed.

It was time to bring her home.

“So, this is her?” Reggie asked, sizing the woman up. “This is Kyle's doctor, the one who's been secretly treating the little hero all these years with Jessie's blood?” He gave her a withering stare, and to her credit she didn't flinch.