S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11) (89 page)

She shook her head at him.

Cassie was laying on the floor in back, her body tucked into a fetal position. As a mother, Lyssa knew she should go to her, hold her and help her understand what was happening. Reassure her. But she couldn't do any of those things. How could she reassure her daughter if she couldn't convince herself they were going to be all right?

She pulled Shinji from the floor by his collar and pushed him into the back to be with Cassie.

“Where did they come from?” she asked Ramon.

He turned to her, frowning.

“The . . . zombies.” She still had trouble saying it. It just didn't sit right in her mind. Everything she'd ever learned said it was impossible for the dead to come back. “Up there, I mean. One minute they weren't there, the next there were hundreds of them. It was like they were waiting for dark to attack us.”

“Dozens,” he corrected. He sighed at the look on her face. “There were dozens, not hundreds.”

They drove on over the uneven ground, skirting ponds, walls, and trees, looking for a way out of the park which might get them somewhere they could escape. But they didn't even know where that point might be, or whether it even existed anymore.

“That must be
25
up ahead,” Ramon said, nodding at the line of cars in the distance. He cracked a window and put his ear next to the opening while easing up on the gas. “I don't think they've gotten this far yet. I don't hear anything.”

Four miles. Maybe five. That was all the difference in the world. Just a few miles back, the world had gone to hell. A quarter mile ahead lay a pocket of sanity.

“We need to warn them.”

Ramon nodded once, but she could see he was only acknowledging that she'd spoken, not agreeing with what she'd said. Telling the people on that road wasn't high on his list of things to do.

“They need to know what's coming, Rame.”

“And then what? We don't even know how to get ourselves out of this mess. How are we going to help ourselves if they're panicking?” His blunt words made her wince. He sighed and shook his head. “We barely got out of there alive. We got lucky because I took us down into this park. What do you think would've happened if everyone else had, too?”

“You want to sacrifice thousands — hundreds of thousands, maybe — so you can be safe?”

“So
we
can be safe.”

They came to the highway from the south and were surprised to find the eastbound lanes open, a sure sign that incivility hadn't yet spread here. In fact, the smell of barbecuing meat drifted through the air. Out of sight over a slight rise, just a few miles to the west, the world was going to hell. But here, people were acting as if they were on a campout. The night was quiet, just the occasional sound of a motor being started to keep a battery from going dead, and the low burble of a few scattered radios. Most Long Islanders considered themselves much too civilized to devolve simply because they'd been told to evacuate. They'd already been there and done that. This was nothing new.

“We could just get on and drive straight home.”

Lyssa looked to the west, her eyes tracing the line of the empty lanes to the ridge of the East Hills. The sky there did seem a little brighter, as if dusk still hadn't completely ceded itself to night. The lights of Queens were now a dozen miles distant.

But then a pair of headlight stabbed the gray from the other side of the overpass. A moment later, a car hurtled over, engine roaring and its horn blaring. It swerved across several lanes and someone was screaming from inside the car— not screams of pain, but of terror. The words were garbled by the automobile's speed and the rumble of the engine, but the message was clear. The driver was telling people to get the hell away from there.

As it passed, a few people stepped out of their cars in the jammed westbound lanes. They peered curiously at the fleeing car. Some laughed and stabbed their fingers derisively after it and called the driver a moron.

“See?” Ramon said. “I told you.”

But another car appeared, following the first. Then three more, and soon dozens of headlights were stabbing the night.

They flashed past, almost too quickly to see inside. But then there came one vehicle, and it was riding the left guard rail, sparks flying out as it ground against the metal. The driver was bent over the steering wheel, his head thrust forward as if to escape the madness following them.

But the madness was not trying to catch up with him, it already had. It rose up out of the back seat and lurched forward. The window fogged up with a spray of blood. The car swerved away from the rail and spun across the lanes heading straight for the Stemples. Another car hit it, dragging it away, tipping it onto its side. The car began to roll. With a loud crunch, it flipped over the guard rail and caromed into a line of cars in the opposite lanes.

Suddenly the scene of chaos was falling far behind them, and Lyssa realized Ramon was driving again, taking them away. He was trying to escape by fleeing into the heart of the infection.

Long Island's living would soon be chasing them.

And so would all of its dead.

 

“We're almost out of gas.”

But fuel seemed the least of their concerns at the moment. The van was shaking and rattling in the most alarming way, threatening to blow apart. And while they'd managed to keep pace with the handful of bobbing taillights ahead of them, a sea of headlights was swiftly rising behind.

The exit for Syosset was ahead— their exit, if they were going home.

“We can make it to Oyster Bay Harbor,” Lyssa said.

Ramon hit the brakes and skidded onto the ramp. “We're going home!” Ramon shouted. “We can get your car.”

But she knew what he was doing. Oyster Bay Harbor wasn't much further than their house. He was stalling. He was thinking they could still hole up somewhere. He didn't believe they'd be able to get off the island, but that's exactly what they needed to do.

He raced through stop signs without even slowing. They were still several blocks away when the engine began to chug and stall.

The van failed just as they turned down their street, heavy smoke rising from the hood. Ramon guided it to the curb. A couple blocks separated them from the house.

They remained inside for a minute, peering out into the darkness, listening. Nothing moved into the golden halos cast downward by the streetlights. Nothing walked out of the shadows or moaned.

Lights were on in several houses. Lyssa guessed that most, if not all of them, had been left on in the chaos of their owners' exoduses. Strangely, the light only made the neighborhood seem that much more abandoned.

Ramon slipped out of the van and headed around back. Lyssa followed from her side. It was only then that she saw how extensive the damage had been. Deep dents scarred the van all the way around, and blood covered nearly every surface from the rims of the tires to the windows.

She heard Ramon beckon to Cassie, cajoling her to come out. “We need to go now, honey. Quickly.” He appeared around the side with the girl in her arms, hurrying up the sidewalk. Shinji trotted dutifully at his heels. “Come on, Lyss. Just leave the stuff there.”

Their footfalls on the cement sounded loud in the still night, echoing off the houses. They passed one with all of its lights blazing, the front door standing ajar. Lyssa recalled that it belonged to a family with three children, a girl about Cassie's age named Lucy and twin boys still in diapers. She hoped they got out.

But then she saw the dark stains on the front steps and she knew.

Some wild animal brayed off in the distance. A car horn blasted for a long time before fading away. The muffled pops of isolated gunfire.

But their street was strangely quiet. Unnaturally quiet.

Ramon was trying to run. Cassie was jouncing in his arms, her head bobbing over his shoulder, her dark eyes staring balefully at Lyssa. Lyssa could hear him speaking to her, his words punctuated by the running.

Shinji had returned and was whining at Lyssa's heels.

“Come on,” she whispered to him. She didn't like standing out here.

But Shinji had turned. He stared growling toward the darkness between a pair of houses on the other side of the street.

“Lyssa!” Ramon called. His voice pierced the night, bouncing off the fronts of the houses. “Come on!”

Yes, hurry up.

She could feel them out there, the infected. The dead.

Zombies.

She turned, beckoning Shinji again, and that's when she noticed the car, shiny and black.

Not just a car—
the
car.

It was parked a couple houses past their own, across the street. Light glinted off the car's taillights.

She hurried across the road, hoping to approach it from the driver's blind spot. But Shinji began to bark, compromising her approach.

“Lyssa! Shinji!”

She wanted Ramon to go and Shinji to stop.

Ramon turned and cut across their lawn, aiming for the front door.

Lyssa slid along the side of the car in a crouch, found the door handle.

She'd expected it to be locked, but it swung open easily. The light came on inside, accompanied by a soft chime. The keys were in the ignition. The car was empty.

It's not the same one.

Ramon had already made his way inside the house. She watched as the kitchen lights came on, illuminating the side yard. The light in the upstairs hall came next.

Lyssa slipped toward the front of the car and felt the hood. It was cold.

Shinji had run off. She could hear him barking somewhere between houses down the street, the sound echoing in a way that made it impossible to tell where he was.

The barks abruptly stopped with a strangled cry. Silence rushed in to fill the vacuum.

“Shinji?” she whispered.

Her front door never looked so far away.

A breeze ruffled the leaves above her, sounding like whispers. She could smell rain on it. Above her, storm clouds were building. They would soon overtake the moon. A stronger wind blew, gusting down the street and rattling branches, moaning beneath the eaves of the empty houses.

Then: a single frantic bark.

Lyssa pivoted toward the sound. “Shinji!”

The wind gusted, then died. But the moaning continued.

The dog emerged from the shadows and came racing toward her. Behind him the darkness shifted and swirled like the blackest smoke. And out of it they came, the infected.

“Run!” she screamed. And then she turned to run herself.

Straight into the outstretched arms of a giant, and he would not yield.

 

He stood nearly seven feet tall and seemed almost as wide. And in his jeans and flannel shirt, he looked like Paul Bunyan brought to life.

“My name is Marion,” he told them. “Marion Lemas. And what's happening now, here on Long Island, I'm part of a team trying to stop it.”

“You're with the government?”

He shook his head.

“Is that your car out there?” Lyssa asked him. “Are you the one who's been following me around?”

This time he nodded, but he didn't explain.

They were in the kitchen, she and Lemas sitting at the table. Lyssa was grateful he wasn't standing anymore. On his feet, he towered over them all. She'd never before met another human being as massive as him.

Ramon had settled Cassie onto the couch in the back living room and was now pacing anxiously behind the stranger, eying him warily each time he passed. “Okay, so tell us. What exactly is going on here?” he demanded. “And how do you plan to stop it? You going to arm wrestle it to the ground?”

A smile crinkled the corners of Marion's eyes, but it was the only indication he gave of amusement. “You already know what's going on. We're in the middle of a deadly outbreak.”

“But what the hell kind? Is it some weird variant of rabies like they've been saying?”

“No. That's a lie. It's something different altogether, something entirely artificial.”

Lyssa's head snapped up. “The Stream?”

Marion frowned. “I don't understand what you mean.”

But Ramon interrupted. “It's viral, isn't it?”

Marion nodded. “Completely engineered.”

“And how do you know this?”

“Because I helped create it.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Well, part of it anyway. Have you ever heard of Stephen Archdeacon?”

“The scientist who cured Dengue Fever?” Ramon asked. “Of course. Everyone has.”

“I was a post-graduate fellow in his lab when the cure was announced. I helped develop it, a harmless version of the virus which would be much more efficiently transmitted between carrier and host. Being more successful, it would outcompete the natural form while providing immune resistance. It was a long shot, but, to our surprise, it worked.”

“Whatever happened to him, Archdeacon? Everyone thought he'd win the Nobel Prize, but then he dropped out of sight.”

“He discovered a flaw in the cure. He was planning to go public with the news when he was kidnapped. We now believe he was murdered.”

“We?”

“A small group of scientists and strategists.”

Ramon circled the table, his arms crossed. “What was the flaw?”

“The cure was predicated on the idea that the engineered version would integrate in a semi-stable manner into our own cells, and express a protein target for our body's immune system. What we didn't expect was how efficiently and permanently that integration would be. We discovered that it settles into our mitochondrial DNA. It's even found its way into the germline. In less than three generations, every single human being on this planet will have the vaccine in their cells. It's the first case of bioengineering on a global and heritable scale.”

“If it provides resistance to Dengue, why is this a problem?”