S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11) (143 page)

Rage flashed through her. Who the hell were these people to treat her so cruelly? What had she ever done to them? Were they like this when playing
The Game
, so sadistic? Were they like this in real life? It made her sick to her stomach.

She curled her hand about the can and squeezed as hard as she could, feeling the metal crimp hard against her fingertips. She drove the pain deep, adding to all the other indignities she'd suffered — her shoulder, face, hip and thigh — but nothing could drive the anger from her.

She tried to beckon Rupert's teachings from her mind, to recall the three principles of hapkido, but other than the meaningless words
hwa
,
won
, and
yu
, they refused to come. It had all died with Master Rupert. The wisdom was gone from her mind just as was his voice.

The can flattened. She bent it back, working the metal one way, and then the other, feeling it warming beneath the pads of her fingers. The crimp softened, and the metal split. She kept at it until the tear worked its way through and split the can into halves, each with a sharp, jagged edge.

Now, with the flattened top half of the can, she reached down as far as she could and rubbed the edge on the plastic tie around her ankles. Eventually, the band snapped, releasing her legs and relieving the cramp that had been building.

After a short rest, she started on the bindings around her wrist. It was an awkward angle, and she feared her efforts would not be enough.

Silence now reigned in the camp. The sound of the metal abrading plastic was loud in her ears. Where were the women? What were they doing? Had they gone to sleep?

Would they sleep if they didn't trust one another?

Forget about them. Just get free.

But the idea of leaving them unharmed appealed little to her. They both wanted the money and the accolades that killing her inevitably would bring. It was only by virtue of their personal distrust of each other and the fact that the Stream was currently down that they hadn't already done the job.

Jessie, on the other hand, should have been more proactive in eliminating the threat they posed. Her failure had cost her dearly, cost Brother Walter his life and taken Micah from her. Without him, hacking the codex would be that much harder.

Kill them.

But what good would it do to keep killing people? Arc would just send more. They'd never stop until she was dead.

She had to stop Arc first.

She ran a finger along the plastic tie to check her progress. The edge was rough, starting to fray, but it was far from being cut through. With a sigh, she resumed sawing.

The metal was cutting into the skin of her wrist. She couldn't help it. Each stroke was like an electric shock, and yet she pressed harder, wincing at the pain and the noise. It had already taken too long. Her arms were getting tired.

“Pretty resourceful, aren't you?” a female voice whispered.

Jessie stopped and turned her head.

Rosie knelt down beside her. “Not a word out of you,” she quietly warned. She held her knife up so Jessie could see it, the blade of blackened carbide steel a single shade darker than the night.

Seeing it, Jessie realized the sky had begun to lighten; it was coming close to dawn.

Rosie deftly flipped the knife in her hand and brought it quickly down. The bindings snapped, freeing Jessie's hands. “
Shh
,” she whispered. She reached a hand out to help Jessie up. “Your pack is over under that tree.” She pointed. “Go.”

“Why are you doing this?”

Rosie glanced away a moment, her lips pursed. “Grant told me what happened back there at the portal. He said you weren't to blame for what happened to that security guard. I've always been a little leery of Arc, but lately, the things they're doing just don't make any sense to me.”

“Like what?”

“Like why the network keeps coming on and going off in here. It's like they're playing with us.”

“Except they gave you trackers. And guns. I don't think they're playing at all.”

“It doesn't seem very sporting.”

She still thinks this is just a game, that what Arc is doing is manipulating the rules.

Jessie rubbed her wrists as she stood up. She saw that she'd made herself bleed, though the scrapes were minor compared to everything else she'd suffered. It felt good to stretch.

“What about Jo?” she whispered.

Rosie stood too and met her face to face. “I'll try and buy you some time.”

“She'll kill you.”

Rosie chuffed. “Oh, I'm certain she'll try.”

“You could just kill her first.”

“I could. But I'm not going to. That's not why I'm here. I didn't come here to kill people.”

“Just zombies.”

“Yeah, just zombies.”

Jessie nodded. “I'm sorry to hear that.”

She brought her hand up quickly, flicking her wrist as it crossed the space between them. The bean can shard sliced clean through Rosie's carotid. The woman's eyes widened in surprise. Jessie guided her silently to the dust.

“They're people, too,” she whispered. She pried the knife from the dying woman's fingers and stuck it into her belt. “As you'll find out soon enough.”

* * *

If she hadn't been trying to retrieve her katana, and instead had simply done to Jo what she'd just done to Rosie, maybe she would've gotten clean away. Maybe Jo wouldn't have woken and sprung from her sleeping pad. Maybe she wouldn't have screamed and brought the Undead. And maybe Jessie wouldn't have had to fight her way out of the mess, leaving Rosie mortally wounded with a painful stab wound to the abdomen.

But that's how it had happened, and as the sun rose and found Jessie once again on the road, all she could think about was how the woman had probably suffered. And how much pleasure it brought her to know that both women were out there now, trapped inside their own little prisons.

She hated herself for feeling that way.

She had been lucky enough to find her Link still in her pack, along with the EM pistol and the book she'd taken from Brother Walter. She'd hoped to grab the other gun, but there hadn't been time. The gun and the food, even if it was beans.

“That's six,” she muttered to herself, as she swept down the aisles of a small market, rummaging through shelves which had obviously been looted. She wondered how soon Arc would send in another team.

The headache was gone. She hadn't noticed it until later. Her neck didn't hurt like it had during the night. She didn't know what it meant, whether the activation had been aborted or if it hadn't been started at all. All she knew was that she was still alive, and that meant there was still time to stop them.

The store shelves had been stripped bare of the most useful stuff. A lot remained, useless items like unopened decks of playing cards, plastic cutlery, batteries which had lost their juice years back. She stuck a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste into her pack, then turned down the next aisle.

On her left were racks of greeting cards. The display showed the usual arrangement of banal birthday wishes and get well sentiments. One section was dedicated to the upcoming Halloween which never happened. She passed them all without so much as a second glance.

Her feet stopped when she came to the magazine section. She wasn't consciously aware that she was looking for anything in particular until she found it. She plucked the issue from the rack and stared at the topless figure of
Playboy
Magazine's
Miss March 2032.

Titty Lovin'
. That's what Jessie had called her, all those weeks ago as she tried to embarrass Jake. She'd teased him for being a virgin. God, she was such a dick to him.

And now he was dead. They were all dead. Just Reggie and Kelly left, and who knew where they were or whether they were even still alive.

She found a stack of cans in the next aisle over, a whole undisturbed display of white asparagus. She wrinkled her nose, but decided it was better to eat something than nothing at all. But when she opened one and started to eat, she could only make it halfway through a single stalk before it came back up again.

She filled up on corn nuts and as much warm water as she could swallow from the cooler in back. The beer had all been stolen.

After a short rest, she set out for Jayne's Hill.

 

The boys spent the last hour before dawn sitting at the kitchen table with an antique pack of cards between them. They were in the middle of a game of
War
, since it was the only card game they could remember how to play. Neither of them was paying much attention. It was more just a way to pass the time until the street out front cleared enough for them to depart.

A pair of sevens currently occupied the table. They'd been sitting there for at least five minutes before Kelly said, “War.”

Reggie blinked. All of his senses were on high alert, but his mind was elsewhere. The complete silence from the back of the house made him nervous, and each passing minute made him more antsy to leave. He wished the sun would just rise and the Undead would go back into their hiding places.

“War, Reg.”

“Huh?”

“Sevens.” Kelly tossed three more cards face down on top. He was poised to flip the next from his stack. It was a queen.

Reggie nodded, but didn't move. “Did you hear that?”

“What?”

“I thought I heard a moan.”

“Probably from outside.”

“No. It sounded like it came from the back of the house.”

Kelly shook his head. “You're imagining—”

He froze. He'd heard it that time.

Reggie lifted a finger to his lips. The look on his face said
Not a sound!

Silently, they pulled away from the table and crept down the hall. The moaning sound came again, louder this time. Reggie's palms were sweating. He'd left his machete in the car and now he had nothing to wield.

They poked their heads around the corner into the living room and saw that both Cassie and her mother were still in the same position they'd left them in. Cassie's breathing was much more distinct, the sound of the air passing through her mouth hollow and dry. The girl was, in defiance of everything Reggie believed, alive. She rotated her head away from them and into the back cushion of the couch, but otherwise didn't move.

There was an old towel on the floor to cover the blood stains, another spread out over the front of the couch. The moaning sound repeated, not from the girl, but from Doctor White's throat. She was dreaming.

The darkness outside was lifting, yielding to the pre-dawn glow. Red tinged the clouds far to the south. The air smelled of rain.

“Should I wake her, tell her we're leaving?”

Reggie shrugged. He couldn't take his eyes off the girl. The flesh around the bite on her arm had begun to pink-up, but the bite itself had turned darker, almost black.

Kelly reached down and placed a hand on White's shoulder and gave her a gentle shake.

Her head rolled off the cushion, startling her awake. She jerked upright, then spun around in Kelly's direction. Reggie caught a glimpse of the animal look on her face the moment before she sprang at him. Kelly stepped back with a choked cry and shouted, “Hey!”

She stopped after taking another step, stumbling awake with a sharp inhale. The wild look disappeared, replaced by surprise, then confusion. “What—?”

“You were dreaming,” Kelly said.

“I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me.” She made her way back to the couch, shaking her head, then lowered herself onto the floor.

Kelly's eyes flicked from her to Reggie. There was worry in them, alarm, and Reg knew that they shared the same thought. It sure hadn't looked like a dream to him. It looked . . . .

He pushed the thought from his mind. The girl was Infected, not her mother.

Kelly knelt down beside her and cautiously asked, “Are you feeling all right?”

“I'm fine. Really. I just . . . .” She lifted her head and peered at Cassie, then touched her forehead. “She's definitely warmer.” The hand slipped down her daughter's cheek, down her neck to her shoulder. It stopped just short of the old bite. Doctor White stared at it for several seconds.

“We're going.” He turned to leave.

“I did this to her,” White said.

“Excuse me?”

She looked up at Kelly, then turned to look at Reggie. “It was the beginning of the outbreak. There was so much confusion. Some people thought it was an animal disease at first, before the truth became known. Cassie got sick, but we didn't notice it right away. When we did, I thought that she'd contracted it somehow. It was, and yet it wasn't what we thought.” A sob escaped her throat. “It was worse.”

What could be worse than this?
Reggie wondered.

“I thought she was going to die. I thought I was going to lose my little girl forever.”

“Doctor White,” Kelly started, “you don't have to—”

“No, I do. I did this to her, and everything I've done ever since that day was meant to make it right again.”

“The cure will help everyone, Kyle and me,” Kelly said. “And now your daughter. Think of the people out there getting infected. Think of the people in here who already are.”

“I wasn't thinking about anyone else!” she snapped. “Don't you see? I didn't care about them. I didn't care about your brother!”

Kelly didn't move. He seemed frozen.

“I did all of it for my little Cassie. Everything!”

Reggie felt his skin go cold at the look in her eyes. They were black, dead, without emotion.

“The man whose bone marrow infected your brother,” she whispered, “that was my husband.”

Kelly still didn't respond. He seemed unable to move past her previous statement.

Reggie stepped over to her. “Your husband? Bone marrow? What are you talking about?”