⁍ CONTENTS ⁌

EPISODE 07

CHEAT PROTOCOL

« Part One »

CHAPTERS

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

« Part Two »

CHAPTERS

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

« Part Three »

CHAPTERS

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

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For more about the series, visit:

Tanpepperwrites.com/gameland

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Copyright

Acknowledgments

About the Author

* * *

Brinestone Press

(rv.210914)

Cover by Deranged Doctor Design

⁍ THE ZPOCALYPTO SERIES ⁌

EP01: Hacked Into the Game

EP02: Failsafe Codex

EP03: Deadman’s Gambit

EP04: Sunder the Hollowmen

(includes the prequel “Golgotha”)

EP05: Prometheus Mode

(includes the companion title “Velveteen”)

EP06: Every Dead Player

EP07: Cheat Protocol

EP08: Jacker’s Exploit

EP09: Live Another Play

EP10: Return To The Arcade

(includes supplemental material “Infected” pt 1)

EP11: Augmented Zeality

EP12: Reckoning The Dead

EP13: Glitch In The Script

EP14: Open-World Spawn

(includes supplemental material “Infected” pt 2)

Episode 07

CHEAT PROTOCOL

PART ONE

Miles to Go

Chapter 1

I’m starting to really worry about Reggie. He’s acting more and more confused. Not even a half hour ago, he was ready to let me go find Ashley alone. He knew he couldn’t walk very far, not with that injury to his hip. But now he’s pleading to let him go with me. I think his concussion is getting worse. It’s affecting his reasoning. He thinks only he can save her.

“Reg, you can’t—” I start to say.

“No!” he cries, limping across the room and shaking his head, as if to dislodge the cobwebs. “We have to go now! All of us!”

“Sit down, Reg,” Kelly tells him. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re hurt. You can barely even walk. And your head—”

“My head’s fine!” He groans and grabs it, then lets out a frustrated grunt.

Kelly shoots me an anguished look. I can tell he wants me to reason with him. But I can’t, not right now. I have my own issues to deal with, like trying to move past this overpowering sense of doom that has fallen over me. I don’t know why, but I’m convinced Ashley’s dead. Ben’s already killed her, just like he killed the others topside.

And the overwhelming sense of certainty that the treatment we just gave to Jake won’t work. I stand before him and stare down at his face, waiting for a sign that Father Heall’s blood is killing the virus inside of him. If I just get a sign, some small hint that he’s getting better, then maybe I can break out of this deep funk I’m in. If he starts getting better, then maybe I’ll be able to dismiss this feeling I have about Ash, too, and I’ll feel better about committing to finding her. And with leaving Kelly here to watch over Jake. I don’t want him to be the one who has to decide that the treatment failed, to be forced to reckon with Jake dying. To have to face dealing with the aftermath.

Trust that it works, Jessie, my conscience tells me. You’ve done all you can.

Meanwhile, another part of me, the realist, refuses to accept it: You know he isn’t going to make it.

No, Jake’s in good hands. Now go.

His face is waxy and pale, fixed in a mask of torment. I can’t imagine what must be going on inside of him. Did we give the treatment to him in time? And in the right way? Or did we just delay the inevitable death and turning? And even if it does work, what then? Will he be brain dead? Will he wake and be whole again?

His eyes suddenly flutter open, surprising me. They’re startlingly clear, no longer the gray, bloodshot, cataract-filled orbs from before. His deep brown irises have even turned a brilliant sunrise gold sparkling with light. I totally had a crush on you last year, he whispers conspiratorially to me. He gives me this sly grin and winks. I choke down a sob of relief. But then the smile twists, becomes a misshapen sneer of contempt. His mouth opens wide, wider, becoming a gaping black hole, and I can’t stop myself from tumbling into it. “You treated me like shit!” he roars. The angry wind from his yell smells of old boarded up cellars and death. I gasp and stagger backward, blinking in shock.

Kelly grabs me. “What? Jessie, what’s the matter?”

The vision’s gone. The comatose version of Jake is back, his face slack and gray, his body radiating heat, and his breath smelling of decay. Unmoving. Unresponsive. Unreachable.

Unliving, yet not dead, either.

Ghosts and memories, guilt and regrets and self-doubt are tearing me apart.

Reggie paces like an injured animal in a cage. He’s now gone fifteen minutes without suffering a relapse of his concussion symptoms, although he still thinks he can accompany a search party. It’s odd that his head would suddenly just clear like that. But I can’t think about him right now.

Kelly advises him to sit down and rest. He notes that his limp is getting worse. Reggie refuses.

I raise my hand and let it float over Jake’s arm. The heat rolling off of him startles me again. I nudge him, but he doesn’t wake. He doesn’t open his eyes and whisper to me. He’s completely inert. The whispers are inside of my head. They’re mine, my fears and regrets, not his.

I don’t know what I’d been expecting, when I injected the treatment into his spine. Something, I suppose, anything. Just not this complete absence of anything. He never showed any sign of pain or discomfort. Not one single twitch. And the longer it goes that he doesn’t stir, the more certain I become that my suspicions are correct, that he was simply too far gone and that we’ve just wasted the last dose on him. I should’ve given it to Kelly. I knew that was the opportunity I was being given when Brother Matthew showed up with it. Father Heall said I’d be faced with tough decisions, and once again, I’ve made the wrong one. I let the people around me make me second guess myself.

Novak knew what a fuck up I am. She told me that straight to my face. This is all my fault. That’s why I’m still here, frozen by my own doubts. I know I should just leave, slip out while Reggie’s not paying attention and let Kelly deal with him. But I need to know. If I leave now without seeing any sign of improvement, I’ll carry that failure with me. It’ll weigh me down, and that’s not going to help me when I finally have to confront Ben.

Reggie’s trying to hide the pain in his hip. It’s as if he’s ashamed of it, like it proves he’s human after all. I want to scream at him that he was shot, for fuck’s sake. I want to scream to stop pretending all the time that he’s tougher than he is. I can’t imagine the bruise he must have now on his hip. I wouldn’t even be surprised if he has a fracture. Either way, a normal person wouldn’t be able to walk on it at all. He needs to stop pretending.

But that would make me a hypocrite, wouldn’t it, demanding that he stop acting like it’s nothing? I’m pretending, too. I’ve been pretending for so long that I don’t even know who I am anymore.

“Reggie, please,” Kelly says. “Would you just sit the hell down?”

Reggie glares at him. “I’m fine,” he says, but then he takes another step and something finally gives, or maybe he just twists his leg the wrong way. He stumbles and goes down to one knee with a grunt.

I hurry over to him. “We already agreed that I’d go alone, Reg, so—”

“No, damn it. I’m coming with you! Now! Just as soon as I— Jesus, what the hell’s happening to me?” he shouts. He flails as he tries to wave me off. I brace myself, and his hand hits my thigh. By rights it should easily knock me away. Instead, it’s his own balance that gets thrown off. He drops to the other knee with an anguished cry and looks up at me with a look of betrayal in his eyes. Then, with a defiant growl, he lurches back to his feet. But even he can’t power through what his body simply cannot do. He collapses again. “Son of a bitch!” he screams. “I wish that son-of-an-asshole who shot me wasn’t already dead, because I’d kill him myself!”

“And that’s why you need to let Jessie go,” Kelly quietly says. “She’ll find Ashley and—”

“Don’t fucking tell me what I already know!” Reggie roars. He tries again, and this time manages to remain on his feet. He towers over me where I’m crouched. “Ashley needs me! Now, get out of my way, or else I’ll—!”

But then something happens. Reggie’s face goes white. The rage leaks away with the color. He looks confused, like he can’t remember where he is. “I need to go,” he pants, his voice almost a whisper.

Kelly guides Reggie over to a chair. He acquiesces. I can see him shaking.

“You really stink,” he says, weakly. “You know that, Kelly? Both of you do.”

“It’s for the best, Reg. You’re hurt and—”

“No, I mean you smell bad, brah.”

He lurches over, gagging. But nothing comes out. He coughs a few times, wipes his mouth, and says, “Christ, what’s that smell?”

Kelly puts a hand on Reggie’s shoulder to steady him.

Suddenly, as if just the mere mention of it is the trigger, I smell it, too— us, our funk. My nose fills with it, the thick cloying earthy aroma of the clay, and underneath it, old sweat. My torn jeans are stiff with mud, and there’s more of it caked in my hair and behind my ears. My feet are swimming in muck inside my boots. I feel like I haven’t been clean in months. It makes me nauseous, too.

I close my eyes and try to gather myself. I picture the last time I was clean. I remember the bed in that old dilapidated house in Brookhaven with the warped piano and the grand staircase with the threadbare carpet, the peeling wallpaper, the photos of the white-haired man and the old woman. Where are they now? I imagine the sheets on the bed, so nice and cool, stiff and rough on my skin from being line-dried. Had the bed belonged to one of their children? I recall the spaghetti I’d eaten for dinner and the smell of the kitchen this morning as Julia made my breakfast. What was the family’s last meal like, the day of the evacuation?

No, stop thinking about them. Focus, Jess.

I wrest my thoughts away, but they settle stubbornly on that bed again. I think about Shinji lying next to me, his cold, wet nose on my skin and his snout a comforting weight on my arm. I remember the soft wheeze of his breathing. And the tuna fish smell of his breath.

My stomach lurches. I burp, put the back of my hand against my mouth and turn away.

Reggie moans and grips his head in his hands. Kelly stands helplessly beside him, his body rigid and his face filled with alarm. He also shakes, slightly, partly from exhaustion, partly from all the physical and emotional turmoil. I want to go over and grab him, and yet, at the same time, I think if I did, he’d suddenly just crumble away.

Or turn to stone.

Turn to stone and crumble away to dust.

Reggie somehow gets up again and limps toward the hallway, but he stops abruptly and gazes down at Brother Matthew’s body. There’s a look of confusion on his face, as if he’s just now noticed him for the first time.

A small pool of blood has accumulated underneath Brother Matthew’s neck. It started right after I severed his spine, but then quickly stopped. What came out had already begun to congeal inside of him, even as his dying heart pumped for the final few times, forcing it out of the new gash I’d created, thick and black as oil. I remember it had smelled both sweet and rancid, like meat starting to spoil. A few tepid spurts, then a dribble. He’d already lost so much. He was empty long before he showed up here, just a shell of a man with only one purpose left to fulfill. The undead had taken everything else from him.

No, we had taken it.

I hadn’t felt anything when I did it. Not like I had with some of the others. I would’ve expected something, a twinge of guilt or remorse, a sense of release, appreciation for his sacrifice. Pity even. He didn’t have to come here. He didn’t have to bring the syringe for Jake. That was his choice. He was a good man, I can see that now, and he didn’t deserve the way I’d treated him. And yet when I did it, when I severed that cord and delivered him to eternity, there had been nothing, no sense of anything, neither guilt, nor relief. Just... nothing.

I can’t even begin to imagine how he got away from the horde of undead back there. How he managed not to die. How he found his way all the way back here, half insane with pain and fever. Bleeding out. I can’t comprehend why he would even come. He didn’t owe us anything. And yet here he is. Was.

He knew he was already a dead man, would soon die.

Would soon come back.

Yes. He needed you. He didn’t want to turn.

Then why was his last dying wish for us to just leave him?

He was delirious.

Delirious enough to maybe give us the wrong instructions for helping Jake?

He wouldn’t have wanted to go like that, to persist forever in between life and death.

That’s why he came here. The syringe was...

The syringe was his ticket, his payment to you to do the right thing. He knew you’d do the right thing.

Except, what if I didn’t do the right thing?

“Christ,” Reggie says, staring at the mutilated corpse. Not an inch of his skin has been left untorn. Even his face has been shredded.

“You know what we should do?” Kelly says. “We should burn him. You and me, Reg. It would be the proper thing. Let Jessie go and find Ashley and deal with Ben.” He gives me a little nod. “We owe Brother Matthew that much.”

Reggie gives him a look of disbelief. “You want to waste time on someone who’s already dead? Ashley’s out there somewhere—”

“He deserves it, Reggie, for his sacrifice. For saving Jake.”

“He’s saved nothing!” Reggie cries, gesturing at Jake. “Look at him! He’s—” His face twists, and he presses a hand against his injured hip. Sweat drips from his forehead. “We are not going to waste precious minutes giving anyone a damn stinking funeral.”

“Reggie, please,” I say. “Before you—”

“Brother Matthew is gone!” Reggie screams. “They’re all gone. Jake’s gone! But Ashley’s still out there! She’s still alive, and we have to—”

But he doesn’t finish. His eyes suddenly lose focus. He shakes his head groggily, pinches the bridge of his nose and groans.

“It’s your head, Reg,” Kelly tells him. “You’re making it worse.”

Reggie stumbles back and collapses against Jake’s table. He’s panting heavily now. The table squeals as it slides a little across the floor. One of Jake’s arms flops over the side. Drool drips from Reggie’s lips as he fights to maintain his balance.

“Reg?” I say, alarmed. “Please, sit down.”

He swallows, wipes his mouth, shakes his head. “I’m fine, just...” A sound rises in his throat, half sob, half plea. “Damn headache’s coming back again.” He lets out another long, deep, shuddering breath. “I just want to go home. I want us all to go home. We have to get Ash and get the hell off this island.”

“We will, Reg,” I lie. “I’ll leave right now. But I’m going alone.”

“Over my dead body,” Reggie weakly replies, as he sinks to the floor.

And I grimly realize it may just come to that.

Chapter 2

I help Kelly roll Brother Matthew’s body onto an old rubber floor mat, and we drag him into one of the smaller rooms in the back, out by the bathrooms. It’s not where the boys stacked up the IUs or Players that attacked them yesterday. We give him his own room, which just seems right. As we’re leaving, Kelly hesitates at the door. He looks back and crosses himself. His lips move in a silent prayer. Then he shuts the door, closing Brother Matthew in. These little acts startle me. As long as I’ve known him, Kelly never showed any hint he believed in any of that religious stuff.

He sees me watching and he shrugs, then walks back into the main room.

Reggie almost immediately starts up again with the pacing. The limp doesn’t seem to be as pronounced at the moment. In fact, movement seems to help. Whenever he stops, even if it’s just for a few minutes, he stiffens up. But a new, troubling symptom has appeared: he’s rubbing his eyes like they’re dry and irritated. They’re red and look like they might be bulging a little from their sockets. I pray it’s just a weird delayed reaction to the knockout gas, rather than something far more ominous, like pressure from a bleed inside his skull.

When I ask him if he’s feeling okay, he doesn’t answer directly. He just grumbles impatiently and mutters for me to stop procrastinating.

“Okay, but I’m going alone,” I say.

“Fine.”

“Let me just first check to see how far they’ve gotten. We’ll use the tracking app on Micah’s tablet.”

Kelly nods. “It’s still attached to the mainframe.”

“We should also warn Father Heall, just in case he gets there first.”

“How?”

“Micah’s Link,” I say. “The brothers confiscated it. Can you go topside and ping it?”

“I’ll do it,” Reggie says. He heads for the elevator. “I need some fresh air anyway. It’s hot down here.”

Hot? Kelly mouths. It’s downright frigid down here. If Reggie thinks it’s hot, then he’ll be roasting upstairs.

I watch Reggie stagger across the room. When he gets to the elevator, he leans heavily against the wall. He misses his first two attempts to hit the button.

“Stay inside the building,” I warn him. “Ben left the gate wide open.”

“Fine.”

“Tell me you understand.”

“I understand.”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Kelly adds.

I wait for the door to shut and the first chime signifying the elevator is rising before chiding Kelly. “He’s not stupid, you know.”

“I never said he was stupid. I told him not to do anything stupid.”

“I heard what you said.”

“Look, Jess, you know him as well as I do. You know what he’s like and what he’s capable of. He’s reckless. If it weren’t for that injury to his hip, he’d have run off after Ashley himself forty minutes ago without a thought in his head or a plan to follow, everyone and everything else be damned. And he’s clearly not thinking straight now.”

“He’s stressed. And he has a concussion.”

“Exactly. He’s reckless even in the best of times. Now add the fact that his marbles are scrambled, it’s a recipe for disaster.”

“Just cut him some slack.”

“There’s no more slack, Jessie. Remember, it’s Ashley out there. That alone will make him do desperate things.”

“And what if it was me out there instead of Ash? Would you be calm and rational?”

“I’m not playing the what-if game, Jess.”

“You think I’m playing a fucking game?”

“I think we need to stop playing the game we want to be in, and start playing the game they’ve thrown at us.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“He needs to stop believing Ashley’s still alive. You, too.”

I stand in stunned silence, unable to respond, even though I’ve already come to the same conclusion. But I just didn’t expect to hear him say it.

“Don’t give me that look, Jess. I know you’re thinking it, too. Ben killed everyone up there. He’s got no reason to spare Ash.”

“No, I won’t accept that.”

“He has no use for her. He thinks he knows where to find Father Heall. Why would he take her? She’d just slow him down.”

“He doesn’t know exactly where Heall is.”

“And neither does she. How long do you think it’ll take him to figure that out? You know it’s true. I can see it on your face.”

I open my mouth to tell him he doesn’t know shit, but of course he’s right. Instead, I tell him she’ll find a way, no matter what he or I might think.

“You know what she’s like,” Kelly says. “She’s weak. She’ll fold.”

“She’s not weak!”

“Christ, Jess, we all saw it upstairs. She was crying like a baby. Novak saw it. Why do you think she chose to keep Ash with her? Because she knew she could break her. Hell, she’s already broken.”

“She was just scared!”

“You were scared, Jess. We all were. But we didn’t breakdown like she did!”

“She’s not weak. She knows how to survive. She’ll tell Ben whatever she thinks he wants to hear just to stay alive.”

“So then tell me, and be honest, why haven’t you left yet?”

I don’t answer.

“I know it’s a terrible thing to say, but deep down, you know she’s dead. Otherwise you’d be gone already. You’re procrastinating because you know what you’ll find. As long as you don’t go, you won’t have to tell Reggie the truth, and he can go on believing she’s okay.” He pauses, then adds, “But you’re not just worried you’ll find her body, are you?”

“What do you mean?” I demand, but then I say, “No, don’t,” because I don’t want him to answer. I know what he’s going to say, and I don’t want to hear it. “Ben wouldn’t,” I whisper.

“You heard the way he talked about her. The way he looked at her. You’re worried about how that might affect Reggie.”

“It’d destroy him.”

“He’s already destroyed. We all are. You have to stop protecting everyone.”

I push him away.

He rubs his face with both hands, as if trying to scrub away the terrible visions we’d just shared. “Our best option is to stay put until Jake recovers. Then we make our way back to LaGuardia and get the hell off this island.”

“He won’t just let her go. He won’t leave.”

Kelly glances once more at the table and the creases on his forehead deepen. “Ashley’s gone. Maybe Jake is, too. We need to cut our losses. Now. We should’ve a long time ago.”

“So, you’re giving up.”

“Yes.”

As much as I know he’s right, I’m shocked that he would say it out loud. I’ve never seen him give up like this before.

“You can’t,” I remind him. I know I’m grasping at straws, since he refuses to accept that Stephen injected him with a variant of the virus. “You can’t leave, not without the treatment. And not even then, not permanently.”

“Jess, you don’t—”

“You’ve been infected, Kelly.”

He sighs impatiently. “Okay, so then we go to Arc’s headquarters like you said. We demand the antidote. Or whatever. They must’ve developed one when they made whatever Stephen injected into me.”

“Stephen wasn’t working with Arc, remember?”

“Not anymore, but that’s where he started.”

“What if that was a lie? He’s lied about practically everything else.”

He shakes his head in exasperation. “We have to get off the island, Jess. The longer we stay, the more danger we’re in. That’s reality.”

I detect something in his eyes. I think it’s panic. Something’s got him terrified.

“Do you know something I don’t?”

He shakes his head too quickly, and it makes me suspicious. “I just feel like we’ve already pressed our luck way too much, Jess. I feel like it’s going to catch up with us.”

“If there’s no cure for you out there, then you need Father Heall’s blood. If you leave, you may never get back. And if Ben gets to him first...”

“No,” he says, adamantly. “I need to get you home safe. Before it’s too late. You’ve already been put in too much danger.”

“Don’t make this about me.”

He sighs. Finally his shoulders droop. He turns and walks away.

“Where are you going? Come back here! Kelly!”

“I’m going to check the tracker,” he snaps. “Why don’t you just—” He waves his hands. “I don’t know. Maybe you can get Jake ready or something. Get him dressed. I don’t care.”

I watch him walk away, my frustration spilling over so that I’m dangerously close to losing control again. I want to scream at him, hurl another horrible profanity at his back like I did the day we first came here. But I know it’d be an even worse mistake this time. Still, I can’t help wondering, why is he suddenly acting this way? I glance resentfully down at Jake. If he were awake, I’d take out my frustrations on him.

His skin is as pale and husky as someone who has been dead for a week. He lies as still as a corpse. I know he’s still alive. I sense more than actually see his chest rise and fall with each microscopic breath he takes. I sense the tiny spark of life he still clings to inside. Is it just fatal optimism? Or dread? How easy would it be to snuff out that last ember, to put him — and us — out of our misery? I reach a hand out, and for a moment it hovers over his mouth and nose. I half expect him to wake, to open his eyes, to challenge me not to do it.

I totally had a crush on you last year.

His words to me, the day we first broke into the island. After I’d cursed at Kelly. It’s now just a distant memory, from a previous life, yet still crystal clear in my mind. How many weeks has it been? Two? Three? I can’t even remember anymore. It hurts my head to think.

Had a crush.

On you.

He’s just a kid. Sixteen. Ashley’s age, I remind myself. A kid who thought he knew more than he did. A kid who desperately wanted to fit in, to be liked. Who looked up to us gamers and hackers.

To us jackers.

I frown and my thoughts stutter to a halt. The first time I’d ever heard the term was when he’d spoken it back in the dojang, the day I’d first met him. He was talking about how he knew Ashley.

She’s a jacker, right?

Jacker?

Game hacker. That’s what the kids call her and others like her.

Like Ashley. And me.

I’d actually liked the sound of that word then, even though it didn’t really apply to me. I was never that much of a hacker, not like Reg and Ash and Micah. I’m a gamer, a programmer. I always preferred nascent coding, creating new protocols, building new things. I wasn’t into undoing things, destroying them, tearing them down. I’d told Jake exactly that, but he’d just nodded smugly, as if he knew better, and that it was our little secret, a game we were playing. Coded dialogue. Say one thing, but mean another. He believed I was more than just a good girl, sticking to the safe side of the law. He thought I was a—

jacker

—someone dangerous. A renegade. Someone to admire.

I’d totally forgotten about it. After that initial thrill for being admired for something I wasn’t— not because I wanted to be a hacker, but because it seemed to impress the likes of Jake. I’d dismissed it from memory. Especially after the effect it seemed to be having on Kelly.

Until now.

Ben had used the exact same word this morning. She’s one of those jacker kids Lena’s team is tryin to find. He’d called me the queen of the jackers.

Coincidence that the two would use a term like that, and I had never heard of it before?

Now I look down on Jake’s face, the shadows spreading over it like bruises. “Who are you really?” I ask. But he just lies there, dying. Dying and not dying. Suspended upon that razor-thin tightrope between life and afterlife. He’d said he had a crush on me. But did he really?

Or maybe I’d just heard what I wanted to hear.

I lower my hand and touch his cheek. His breath is hot, but his skin does feel slightly cooler than it was. It’s been less than an hour since the injection. The fever still rages on inside of him, burrowing down deeper, trying to hide from Father Heall’s blood. Virus swimming inside his bloodstream. Virus leaking into his blood. Virus entrenched within his cells.

I wonder, how can an injection into his spine save his body, if the treatment injected into his bloodstream can’t save his brain? Isn’t the blood-brain barrier a two-way wall? Something’s not adding up.

Brother Matthew hadn’t lived long enough to explain any of it. He’d died halfway through telling us what to do. Now I wish I’d asked Father Heall more questions when I had the chance. But I’d been so tired, so overwhelmed. So...

I frown.

I’d been so relaxed, like I wasn’t alone in a strange house with a strange man for the first time. Like I’d known him forever.

Did he drug me?

No, he couldn’t have. I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink while down there. Although I had eaten before going down. Maybe—

No. I know they hadn’t. Sister Jane wouldn’t have done that to me.

Not knowingly.

She said she prepared the food.

Still would’ve been easy.

A groan escapes Jake’s lips. It’s not the first time it’s happened. Nevertheless, it startles me. I wait for more, but his chapped lips don’t move. They’re graven, still as stone, unspeaking, unmoving. Not a whisper of a sound. The air passes dryly through them a teaspoon at a time. Barely a mouse’s breath. How he manages to survive baffles me.

I watch his eyelids for underlying movement, but they’re inert. I wonder, do zombies dream? And it makes me think of a movie we once watched in Micah’s basement about synthetic humans pretending to be real. Micah had told me it was based on one of the banned books he always seemed to have lying carelessly around, as if daring the police to come and arrest him for illegal contraband, daring them to add years to his LSC. Like he a death wish. What was the title of that book? I close my eyes and picture the cover, the faded paper, the well-worn corners.

Something about androids and sheep. Seems like an odd thing to dream about.

Electric sheep, no less.

That’s right. That’s what it was. I wonder, then, as I press my hand against Jake’s skin, do the undead dream? What would they dream about? Surely not electric sheep. Maybe electric people.

Uninfected people.

But then I silently chastise myself. First of all, the dead don’t think or feel, so how could they dream?

Except, maybe they do.

Secondly, Jake isn’t dead. He hasn’t turned. He isn’t one of them.

Not yet.

Once again, I revisit that day at the studio, that first sparring match. Jake had thrown me onto the mat with a cheap shot. Completely disrespectful of the art. In that moment, there had been... something. I’d felt it, underneath my humiliation and anger, something... unfamiliar. Something... electric. He’d made some lame excuse about the training at his old dojo, of course, the philosophy of his old master. He’d been so nervous, had stumbled his way through the conversation. I really enjoyed you this morning.

Such an awkward thing to say. But had he really misspoken as I’d thought? Was it a Freudian slip? Or had it been intentional?

I’d never really had a boy flirt with me before. Kelly had never flirted. We’d just started being together. We never really did any of that dating stuff, not with each other. We were just... Well, we were. We’d both woken up one day and understood that he was my boyfriend, and I was his girlfriend. As if it was meant to be. I’ve always been his girlfriend.

Well, except for those six weeks last year.

We’d needed time apart. I’d needed time, anyway, or so I’d thought. Micah had suggested it, after Kelly and I had been going through a particularly rough patch. His little brother Kyle was suffering badly. For a while there, everyone thought he was going to die. Kelly was really on edge. In fact, Kyle almost did die and probably would have if they hadn’t managed to find the right treatment for him. He started to get better, but Kelly was in this dark place, and he couldn’t stand anyone being around him, even me. I told Micah I couldn’t just abandon him, and he told me I didn’t deserve to be ignored. I had needs, after all. And if Kelly wasn’t meeting them, then there were plenty of others who would.

I didn’t like thinking I was that selfish. But after thinking about it some, I told Kelly I thought it would be for the best if we took a little break. It kind of hurt that he didn’t protest.

Now I’m angry that I let Micah talk me into it. If I’d only known then what I do now about that traitor, I’d never have let him come between us. He almost wrecked our relationship.

Kelly has always treated me well. He can be a bit overprotective at times, but he never — never — stopped caring about me. In fact, he always placed me above himself. Just like he did Kyle.

Ashley tried to set me up with a few guys. They were never anything serious. A hazy few weeks marked by awkward meet-ups in coffee shops I’d never usually be seen in, awkward chats strolling through town. Each date ending with even more awkward kisses or attempts at kisses. Christ. The kinds of guys who felt entitled to me, who gave me the sense that I was lucky to have them.

I went back to Kelly. He was there all along, waiting. He never left.

But then came Jake, and there was something different about him. He didn’t act entitled. In fact, he’d acted like he didn’t deserve me. I’d sort of liked the attention he’d given me that day, even exploited it for my own amusement. I let him know upfront I already had a boyfriend, because I’d believed it would turn him off. But I’d also hoped it would do just the opposite.

God, he was right calling me a jacker. I’d jacked him around. I’d jacked Kelly around.

“Who the hell are you?” I ask again, but he still doesn’t answer.

Or maybe you should ask that of yourself, the voice inside of me demands.

But I know who I am. I’m a cheater, I always have been. A cheater in a game full of cheaters.

Which is exactly why I belong here.

Chapter 3

“What are you doing?”

I look up, blinking away the past. Reality rushes back and momentarily overwhelms me. How much time has passed? A few minutes? An hour? I see the worry on Kelly’s face and suddenly I want to apologize to him for everything. He doesn’t deserve my anger. I don’t deserve him. I see the exhaustion and the pain in his eyes, and I recognize how much it’s changed him from the boy I first met. Suddenly, time becomes a meaningless construct. There is only now. There is only us. I want so badly to go to him.

“Jess? What are you doing?” he asks again. His eyes drop down to my hand resting on Jake’s face.

I jerk away.

What were you doing, Jess?

“I was just checking Jake’s fever,” I mumble.

We stare at each other for a moment, uncertain. I desperately want to know what he’s thinking. I want him to read my thoughts, to know I hadn’t meant any malice. But there’s a silence between us that extends beyond our ears. It spills over into our souls.

Somewhere in the ceiling the air conditioner hums away, blasting cool air into the room, keeping Jake from overheating, just as they’re meant to do for the computer servers. It strikes me that both are just dense bundles of nerves and connections, their brains wired to control complex systems whose sole purpose it to keep those brains operating. Both of them have become breeding grounds for evil. Is there a cure for Jake? Is there one for Long Island and the undead? Would we be better off if we destroyed them both?

“Reggie’s not back yet?” He goes over and calls the elevator, frowning.

I notice his hands are empty. “Where’s the tablet?”

“I need Micah’s password. I don’t want to disconnect while there’s scripts running.”

“You know Micah’s password. Everyone does.”

“He must’ve changed it, then. Maybe Reggie knows it.”

“I’ll go find him,” I say. “I have to go to the bathroom anyway. The one down here reeks.”

Kelly sighs. His spine seems to curl inward, collapsing upon itself, and he nods and says fine. It’s better this way anyway. He knows he and Reggie don’t always agree, and the tension between them now is thicker than it’s ever been.

“When you find him,” he says, exhaling noisily, “don’t say anything about—”

“I know.”

“Just tell him that I want Ashley back as much as he does.”

His body language tells me he believes it’d be best if we never found her. It makes me wonder if he ever stopped hoping for Kyle. Was there ever a time when he said, “Let’s just cut our losses before it destroys us all?” I find it impossible to fathom. So why now? What’s different? Is he?

Ashley’s not Kyle.

Maybe not, but the five of us were like a family to each other. We’d always been pretty close knit — not just him and me, but all of us, including Micah — even in spite of all the things that constantly conspired to tear us all apart. I think about how loose and comfortable and familiar we were with each other, how we always stuck together when it really mattered.

All of that is gone now. We’re all spinning away from one another.

The elevator car arrives, and I get on it. The door shuts on Kelly with a ding. While I rise, I think about all the dings our friendships have suffered in the past couple weeks. I become all the more resolved to bring us home again, to bring us back to what we had before, the friendships and the bonds. I know it’s hopeless. Micah is gone, a lost cause. Even Jake will leave a hole, regardless of how tenuous his association with us was. And now Ashley.

See, even you can’t deny it. She’s gone.

But Kelly isn’t. And I’m not. And neither is Reggie...

Maybe Kelly was right about cutting our losses. Maybe he just sees a little more clearly than I do.

The elevator dings one last time and bumps to a stop and the doors swish open. I brace myself, but nothing’s waiting to attack me.

The doors begin to close before I move. I reach out and stab the OPEN DOOR button, but they keep closing. I knuckle it twice more before extending my arm into the closing gap, scowling at the damn button for not responding. The door bumps me, and I have a moment of panic when I think it’s not going to reverse and cuts my arm off. But then it stops and pulls back. I step out.

“Reggie?”

Nothing.

A quick search tells me he’s no longer in the building. I silently curse, thinking he’s gone after Ashley. But as soon as I step outside, I see him squatting on his haunches, his back resting against a building across the way. He has his head buried in his arms, and his shoulders hitch. I take a step closer, ready to yell at him for doing exactly what Kelly told him not to do. I stop when I hear his sobs.

I don’t know whether to approach him now or not. He wouldn’t want me to see him like this.

But he must sense me because he raises his head and looks over. His arms are up around his ears and he’s holding his Link in his hand. His eyes are dry, but his face is pale.

“You okay?”

He exhales and leans his head back against the wall and looks up at the sky. It’s considerably brighter now. It’s stopped raining and the sky is still gray, but the clouds are thinning. The grass is an impossibly bright shade of green, so intense that it looks almost fake. I want to sink down into it. I want to lie down and be swallowed up by all that lushness.

“Kelly’s checking the tracker now to see if he can locate Ashley’s Link.”

He just nods and shakes his head.

“What are you doing?” I give the Link in his hands another hard glance. “What’d you do, Reg?” There’s a flicker of guilt in his eyes. “Reggie, did you try to ping Ash?”

He swallows, looks away.

“Reg?” I say again, my voice rising hysterically.

He nods.

“Damn it!” I cry. “How could you?” Panic fills me. I can’t believe he’d do something as stupid as that. He has to know that we can’t let Ben know we’re still alive. We’ll lose any advantage we might have. “Damn it, Reg. Kelly was right! You—”

“It didn’t go through,” he whispers. “I tried, but...”

“But what?” I ask, afraid to hear his response. “What happened?”

He shakes his head. “My Link froze just as I tried to ping her. I knew I shouldn’t do it, but I couldn’t help myself. I guess somebody up there is looking out for us after all. God protects fools and children, right?”

“You didn’t think about what would happen if that psycho answered? He thinks we’re dead. We need to keep it that way. It’s our only advantage.”

I reach over and remove the Link from his fingers. He lets me take it. My hand is shaking.

He’s reckless, Jess.

Kelly knew. He’d warned me. He even told him not to do anything stupid.

“You were supposed to ping Micah’s Link.”

“Tried to. Same problem. Even rebooted. The damn thing freezes whenever I try to connect to the Stream. It’s never done that before.”

“Well, it’s not stuck now,” I say. “And it looks like there’s nothing in your OUTGOING box, so I think we’re safe. Those pings never got sent.”

I hand it back. I can feel the groove left by the bullet, and it amazes me that it’s still working. These things really are almost indestructible.

Except it’s not working like it’s supposed to.

“Come on,” I say. “Let’s get you back downstairs. It’s not safe up here.”

Reggie looks up at me and the despair I see in his eyes terrifies me. He’s lost hope.

“We’ll save her,” I promise him. “I’ll leave just as soon as we get you back downstairs and I get my stuff.”

The muscles in his cheeks ripple as he studies my face. Finally, he nods and gets to his feet. I get the sense he knows I’m not being fully honest with him. He wouldn’t like it if I were.

Chapter 4

“How’s your head?”

Reggie gives me a tentative smile. “Still hard as ever,” he jokes, then sobers up. “Better than before, anyway. Although I feel like I’m nursing a really bad hangover.”

“Maybe it’s withdrawals,” I tease.

He lets out a shaky sigh. “Maybe. We never really talked about us being a couple. But after everything that’s happened...” He pauses. “I guess everything’s changed.”

I cringe, realizing he thinks I meant withdrawals from Ashley, and my eyes fill with tears. “I was talking about caffeine, dummy,” I manage to choke out. I turn away from him to hide my face. “When was the last time you had a Red Bull?”

“Oh.” He sniffs. “Been years since I’ve gone this long without.”

Still keeping my face turned away, I reach over and push the elevator button. It dings, but the doors don’t open. Somewhere far below, I hear the motors wake up and begin lifting the heavy car.

“Did Kelly come up with you?” he asks.

“No, why?”

“Then why isn’t the car here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he called it.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

The elevator dings. “This fricking thing’s so goddamn slow,” Reggie mutters. “Piece of crap.” After another ding, he turns stiffly around and starts to limp out of the room and toward the stairs. “I’m not waiting.”

“Just be patient, Reg,” I say. “It’ll be here soon. Your leg won’t—”

“Never mind my leg. Damn elevator’s taking too damn long. We could’ve been down there already.” He pushes through the doorway to the stairwell and starts going down, half hopping, half sliding with his weight on the banister as he nurses his bad hip. Behind us, I hear the elevator chime again and the distant clunk of the motor braking.

“It’s almost here, Reggie.”

“Nope. Taking the damn stairs,” he says stubbornly, as he stumbles down another flight.

I stare at his back, sensing that there’s more than impatience propelling him down to the basement. “What’s going on?” I ask. “Reg?”

“I’m worried about your boyfriend.”

This surprises me. “Kelly?”

“I mean, why would he call the elevator? He knows you’re up here. He’s not going to call it down unless there’s been an emergency.”

A bubble of fear rises inside of me. I glance back the way we came. I wonder if he’s on it. If Kelly’s on the elevator, he won’t know we’ve taken the stairs. “We should go back.”

He ignores me and just keeps going. Once he sets his mind to something, he won’t be stopped. And for someone who nearly got their leg shot off, he’s actually moving pretty fast. We’re already a third of the way down.

“I’ve been thinking about Jake,” he says, panting both from pain and exertion. “I feel terrible. Honestly.” He pauses to look at the old blood splatter on the wall. “I’d understand if you...”

“If I what?”

“If you didn’t feel bad. I’m not saying you don’t,” he hastily adds. “But nobody would blame you if you didn’t, especially after the way he treated you back there. He was a total prick.”

Sweat pours down his face, and he winces just a little more with each jarring step down.

“That doesn’t mean he deserves what happened to him,” I answer.

Reggie’s quiet for a moment. Then he nods. “No, but he has no one to blame, either. He did that to himself. Nobody else did. I mean, nobody deserves to be infected, and nobody deserves what Jake’s going through — except maybe the asshole who took Ashley, and also the others — but Jake asked for it by making it all about him. He was trying to impress you, you know.”

“I know.”

“You know what he told me? He said he couldn’t understand why you and Kelly were together. He said you deserved better.”

I think about how similar it is to what Micah said to me last summer, and anger blooms inside of me. Jake didn’t know me. He didn’t know Kel and he certainly didn’t know either of us well enough to say a thing like that.

First Micah, and then Jake. Why is everyone always trying to get between me and Kelly?

“It was his own stupidity that got him infected,” Reggie presses. “No one else’s.”

“Reg, don’t.”

He stops and regards me.

“Just... Can we not talk about it? He made a terrible mistake, and now he’s paying for it. Nobody deserves what happened, no matter what they’ve done or what they’ve said, not even Jake.”

He sighs. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. It just pissed me off hearing him talk about you two like that. You guys are like... I don’t know. Ashley and I always talked about you guys getting married and having kids. We even joked about doing it ourselves. Like, how ridiculous would that be, right? Except, after Kelly proposed, something changed. We stopping thinking about it as something theoretical, but something... something we really wanted, too.”

“You and Ash?”

He chuckles weakly. “Jake had no right to say any of that. He doesn’t know you or Kelly. He doesn’t know any of us.”

I don’t answer. After what Micah did, I’m beginning to wonder if any of us do.

We reach the bottom of the stairs and he’s at the door before I’ve even stepped off onto the landing above. It’s still propped open from when I needed it to help circulate the air. He turns back before going through it, though, waiting for me. There’s pain and worry in his eyes, along with the pain and fatigue etched on his face. I feel guilty for not insisting her take the elevator. Climbing these stairs can’t have helped his injury. But he cares just so much, not just for Ashley — well, especially for her — but for all of us, even Kel. He absently rubs his hip. He’s so focused that I think he’d keep going, powering through the agony, even if his leg was amputated. He’d do it for Ash. He’d do it for any of us.

I reach him, but he still holds back.

“Look,” he says, “I just wanted to say I’m sorry about freaking out down here before. You were right. Kelly, too. I can’t go after Ashley. You should’ve gone without me. Now I’ve probably made things worse by making you wait.”

I nudge him toward the hallway with my hand. “To be honest, Kelly thought you were going to tear the place apart. You had me worried, too, but just for, like, half a second.”

“Ashley’s always telling me I’m a big, stupid brute.” He chokes on a laugh. “You promise you’ll get her back?”

I nod. But I know what he’s really asking, my promise that she’s okay. I want to tell him that she is, that she’ll probably kick Ben’s ass just for looking at her the wrong way, or even suggesting anything untoward, but we both know that’d be a lie. Ben’s a murderous psychopath with no regard for anyone but himself. The things he’s done to others, I realize how lucky I am to have survived with just a few bumps and bruises.

“Watch the hip, sister,” he grunts, and I realize I’m pressing on him in my eagerness to get back to Kelly. He chuckles at my apology, then steps out into the hallway.

“While we were up top,” he says, “did you happen to notice the smell?”

I frown at him. How could I not notice? The place is covered in blood and gore, some from corpses that have been festering for a dozen years and only now beginning to rot. I don’t know what happens to the undead after they’ve been killed twice, but I imagine that once the virus stops circulating and whatever mechanism turns flesh into a sort of decay-resistance plastic goes away. Does the rotting resume then? Is it accelerated? The bodies the boys moved into the empty rooms up there should be getting pretty ripe real soon.

“The burning smell,” he clarifies. “Outside.”

“Burning?” I think for a moment. “No.”

“It was like metal and plastic. I mean, it was really faint, but, you know, wet and oily, too. It was definitely something burning.”

“You sure it’s not that brain tumor inside your head? I heard you can get phantom smells. Or, you know, a concussion?”

“I’d need a brain first for there to be a tumor.”

“Well, we know you’ve got one, or else those zombies wouldn’t want to keep eating you.”

He laughs. “That’s an old wives’ tale. We all know they’ll eat just about everything, not just the brains.”

“Yeah, all too well.”

We enter the main room. Jake’s exactly where I left him, lying atop the table, still unconscious, still half naked. The straps Novak cut sit in a pile on the floor underneath him. His arm dangles limply over the side. I don’t know if that’s a good sign or not. Before, it remained stiffly at his side, even when we lifted him up. Either Father Heall’s blood is fighting back the virus, or Jake’s living death has progressed beyond the rigor stage.

Reggie frowns as he scans the room for Kelly. There’s no sign of him anywhere. Furniture is scattered randomly about, chairs upended and thrown onto their sides, desks pushed up against the walls. Just like we left it. Items of clothing — Jake’s, mostly — litter the floor, along with our packs and their contents. Old papers left here from before the outbreak spill off a metal cabinet and onto the floor. And everything is covered in a thin, white dust from the knockout gas. A pair of scorch marks on the far wall tells where the canister finished spewing.

“Maybe he’s up top,” he says.

But I shake my head and point to the residue left on the floor. There are only two sets of footprints leading to the elevator, Reggie’s and mine. More scuff marks crisscross the room, some of them leading toward the hallway where the mainframe sits behind glass doors. “He’s probably still in back.”

“It takes all of, what, ten seconds to disconnect Micah’s tablet?”

“He didn’t have the password.”

“I thought he knew it.”

“Didn’t work.”

“Yo!” Reggie shouts. “You back th—” He suddenly stops, wincing and hunching over. His hands fly up to his temples and squeeze.

“Headache coming back?”

“Buzzing,” he grunts, “like a million bees trying to bust out of my skull.”

“You should sit after walking down the stairs.”

I try to guide him to a chair. His hand feels heavy on my back.

“Running on fumes,” he pants. “I’ll be fine in a sec. Let’s just go find— oh, holy fuck!”

“Sit, Reg!”

“No! Where’s that damn boyfriend of yours?”

He staggers off toward the back hallway, swiping an arm over his forehead. He’s sweating like we’re in a sauna down here, but it’s so cold I’m covered in goose bumps. Just a few minutes ago, he was fine, and the temperature outside had to be close to ninety, yet it hadn’t seemed to bother him at all.

We find Kelly sitting on a folding chair in front of the stack. He looks up when we enter. “Good, you’re back,” he says. His eyes flick once between us, then returns to the tablet, though not before I catch the troubled look on his face.

“What’s the matter?” I ask.

“The tracking script.”

“You couldn’t get in?”

“Managed to through a back door. But no admin privileges, so all I can do is observe what’s already running.”

“And the tracker? Did you find Ashley?”

He shakes his head.

I go and check over his shoulder. Superimposed on the map of the island is... nothing, no little red dots, not even our own. Of course, it shouldn’t be able to see us while we’re off-stream down here. “Can you zoom in?”

He shrugs. “Doesn’t make any difference.” He reverse pinches the screen until we’re peering at a detail map of the Hill. I can see the surrounding woods and the road where Micah and Brother Matthew and I came out on our way to Brookhaven. I can see the parking lot where Micah and I were attacked by the Player. And where Shinji rescued us. And I can see the outline of the buildings we’re in. But there are still no red dots. None whatsoever.

“Where’s Ashley?”

Reggie stares at the screen, his face pinched in confusion. I worry he’s going to have another outburst, when he suddenly lurches forward. For a split second I think he’s going to crash into Kelly, but he catches himself. Kelly jumps up out of his chair and tells him to sit down.

“He was fine just a few minutes ago,” I say.

Reggie gestures at Kelly, his hand shaking. “Maybe she came back down,” he says. “That’s why the elevator was down here.”

But I shake my head. I’d searched every room in the building for him before finding him outside, so I know she wasn’t there, and she could’ve gotten in without us seeing her.

“Did you call the elevator?” I ask Kelly.

“No.” He frowns at us. “I’ve been in here since you left.”

“Odd,” I say.

“It was Ash,” Reggie insists. He tries to stand. “That’s why you can’t see her. She’s down here.”

Kelly shakes his head. “I wasn’t getting any signals, even when you guys were topside. Should’ve seen you two, but I got nothing. Tapped into the mainframe like this, you’d think we’d have access to everything the tower topside picks up.”

“Maybe the tracker’s gone bad,” I suggest. “Ben said they tried using it on us but it stopped working for them after we left the airport.”

“Yeah, but it worked perfectly fine for us right up until we got here,” Kelly counters.

“Maybe it’s because you’re not in as an admin?” I shake my head, knowing I’m wrong. “Let me try logging in with Micah’s password. Maybe you mistyped it.”

“You can try, but I don’t think you’ll get in. I think somebody changed it.” He looks like he wants to slam the tablet against the wall. After a moment, he hands it over to me. I backtrack out as far as I can. But instead of going back to enter Micah’s credentials, I decide to check the process registry. Sure enough, there’s a script running in the background, sucking a tiny fraction of the processor power. A script that shouldn’t be there. I’d never have noticed it if I hadn’t gone in specifically to look for it. Next, I retrace my steps through Kelly’s backdoor until I’ve found the tracking script again. As before, it shows me a map of our location, but still no signals from any of our Links. And when I check to see what scripts are running in the admin and guest accounts, neither of them shows any activity at all.

“Someone’s set up an isolated partition,” I announce. “It’s running a script in the background.”

“Micah?” Kelly guesses. “Maybe so the SSC could keep track of us?”

“Either Micah or Ash.”

“Why would Ashley do something like that?”

“I don’t know, Kel. But that’s how we’re connected to the mainframe right now, through a ghost account. That’s why Micah’s password wouldn’t work.”

“So, what now?”

“I’m going to see if I can hop across partitions without triggering this one to shut down.”

It takes me a few minutes, but I finally get to the main login screen, and when I tap in Micah’s password, I’m able to get to the right partition. I open the tracker app, and a map loads up right away. And right in the middle of it is a single red dot.

“Ash?” Kelly asks. Reggie glances over at us. His face is pale and slick with sweat, but at least he doesn’t look so green anymore.

“No,” I say. “It’s Micah.” I confirm his identification with a finger tap. The signal is situated far to the east of us, outside the wall. I slide the map westward, back to the Hill, and pass several more red dots. But they’re nothing but random CUs scattered throughout the arcade. Closer to us, the field is clear. Ashley’s just vanished.

“She must be off-stream like us,” Kelly says. He glances at the glass door, as if he expects to see her standing there, just the other side of it.

“There’s no way,” I reply.

Reggie groans. “Fuck this damn head of mine,” he mumbles. “If she’s here, I’ll find her.”

“We’ve been through this already. You’re not going anywhere, Reg.”

“I’m ffffiiine...”

“Breathe through your nose,” Kelly advises, unhelpfully. “Long, deep, even breaths.” Then he turns back to me. “You can’t find her if you can’t track her.”

“I think Ben must’ve destroyed her Link. He knows we can track each other.  Anyway, it doesn’t matter. If she’s...” I pause, and Kelly nods that he understands: If she’s alive. “She’ll be with him,” I say, confidently. “We know where he’s going. I just have to go after him.”

“But you don’t know which route they took.”

“Back the way we came. The hole is the wall is the only way he knows to get through it.”

Kelly purses his lips. “I should be going with you.”

“Reggie’s in bad shape. He can barely stand up on his own. I need you to keep an eye on him. And Jake.”

“...ssshudddupppp,” Reggie murmurs. “I’mmm finnne... Just nee... geeetttt... shleeee...”

“He’s getting worse,” Kelly whispers.

Reggie shakes his head and tries yet again to stand. He gets halfway up before collapsing in a heap on the floor.

“Reggie?” I cry. I try to roll him onto his back. “What the—? Reggie?”

His eyes roll back into his skull, and he starts twitching.

“Kelly?”

“Give him room!” Kelly shouts. “He’s having a seizure!”

Chapter 5

“Reggie!” I scream. “What the hell is going on? He was fine just a few minutes ago!”

“I don’t know!” Kelly drops to his knees, shoving Reggie’s chair out of the way. “Just clear everything out—” He doubles over as he catches a knee to the side, and he falls back on his heels.

“What if he’s got a brain hemorrhage?”

Kelly scrambles back and holds Reggie’s arms from flailing. He leans in closer.

“What are you doing?” I shout. “Get away. Give him some room!”

“Checking his eyes.”

“What the hell for?”

“Hold him down, Jess!”

“How the hell—”

“Just hold his head still!”

He uses his fingers to raise Reggie’s eyelids and peers at his face for a moment. It’s everything I can do to keep his head from jerking out of my hands. “What are you looking for?”

“Pupils,” he says. “They’re not dilated. And they’re equal. I don’t think it’s a concussion.”

“Then what the hell—”

“Where’s his Link?”

“What the hell do you want that for? Going to ping for an ambulance?”

“Damn it, Jessie!”

He starts digging through Reggie’s pockets and finds it in the second one. He pulls it out and thumbs the screen to wake it. “Crap. I was afraid of this.”

“What?”

“His Link froze. His implant is starting to activate!” He hammers at the screen, trying to get the thing to respond. “We need to get him upstairs! Now!”

He starts dragging Reggie by the arms toward the hallway. “Get the elevator!”

“Stick something in his mouth,” I say. “He’s going to bite his tongue!” I yank one of the spare computer cables from Ashley’s backpack for him to use. If he doubles it over a couple times, he can stick it between his teeth. Then I sprint out of the room. I pound the damn call button about a hundred times before he reaches us.

“Where the hell is it?” Kelly shouts, appearing from around the corner. Reggie’s seizure is getting worse.

“Check his breathing! I think he’s choking.”

“He’s not choking, Jess. I can hear him breathing! Where the hell’s that elevator?”

“Don’t yell at me! You called it back down after I went up to get Reggie. We called it, but Reggie couldn’t wait! He decided to come down the stairs, and now it’s back up there!”

“What are you talking about? I said I didn’t call it down!”

“Well, we thought you did!”

He lets go of Reggie and jabs at the button, cursing at it. Then he pounds his fist on it.

“Stop it, Kelly! You’re going to break it!”

“I’m not going to break it.” He slams his palm against it again, and this time it stays depressed. The light inside the button blinks a few times, then fizzles and goes out.

“Shit! I told you—”

“I didn’t break it! It’s just... It’s just stuck. I can hear the car coming. It’s just slow.”

I glance down at Reggie and gasp. Blood has begun to drip out of one nostril. “Shit. Kelly, did that ever happen before?”

But Kelly’s too busy to answer. He’s trying to call the elevator, get the stupid Link to turn on, and keep Reggie from physically injuring himself all at the same time.

“Kelly!”

He glances at Reggie’s face, and another string of curses tumbles from his lips.

I pull the penknife from my pocket and try to dig out the stuck button, as if it’s going to make any difference. The car is coming. I can hear the motor whining. The thing is just going to take its damn time getting down here. Finally, the button pops out, although the light remains off.

“It’s taking too long,” Kelly says. “We need to take him up the stairs.”

“No! We can’t carry him!”

“He’s going to die, Jessie! What the fuck do you want me to do? We can’t just stand here and—”

But then it dings and the door opens. I toss the knife into the car, then reach down to help him drag Reggie in. I stab the button to send us up and the door starts to close. It shuts halfway before opening up again.

“What the hell?”

“Reggie’s foot!” I scream. “His foot’s in the way.”

Kelly stumbles over Reggie’s arm trying to reach past him and ends up sprawling over his body. He grabs both of Reggie’s knees and folds his legs into the car. I hit the button and the door shuts for good this time. The car jerks once, then begins to rise.

“Is he still breathing?” I moan. His seizures have calmed somewhat, but now there’s blood trickling out of his other nostril, too.

“Yeah.” Kelly reaches over and wipes the blood away. Fresh streams quickly form. “Jesus. What a goddamn mess.”

“I told you not to push that button like that.”

He doesn’t answer, just wipes away the blood and grimaces as even more spills out.

“Is he going to die? Kelly?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Goddamn it!”

I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t stand being trapped like this. I turn around and start banging on the walls, pounding with my fists and kicking. The car judders with each blow. Kelly doesn’t stop me. He crouches beside Reggie, a stunned look on his face. I keep banging. I know I’m bruising my hands and feet, but I can’t feel a damn thing. My pain is somewhere else. It’s some distant, far away thing, no longer a part of me except only in some disconnected way. I pound and cry until Kelly stands up and wraps his arms around me and urges me to stop. The car rises, inch by glacial inch, and the bell dings like it’s counting down the moments until something even worse happens. I sink to the floor, onto the bloodstained carpet. It’s been worn down to bare rubber in places. It’s filthy with mud and dust and gore. Sobs wrack my body. Kelly pulls my bloodied fists away from my chest and gently pries my fingers open. He holds them in his hands and kisses them as I cry and scream and shake with anguish. I just want it all to end. I’m so tired. I’m just so goddamn tired. I’m so tired of everything and I want it all to end, but everything stays on this same track and it never gets better. The elevator crawls slowly to the surface, far too slowly to save Reggie. He lies there, twitching on the floor, bleeding, and I feel nothing but helplessness.

The ride is interminably long, long enough for me to cry the bitterness from my system. Reggie’s convulsions begin again, growing worse the closer we get to the surface. Neither of us knows if this is a good sign or a bad sign, but Kelly reaches over and shakes him when the shivers stop again and he grows still. He doesn’t respond. He just lies there on blood that other people spilled, while his own blood replenishes it. He breathes in irregular gasps. He bleeds and shakes, but he doesn’t wake.

When we’ve reached the top, he’s still trembling off and on and drooling and making horrible choking sounds, even though the failsafe signal from the towers outside should easily be able to reach his implant by now. I worry that it means it’s too far into the activation cycle to be reversed.

The moment the elevator door opens Kelly starts pulling Reggie out. I follow them, but I feel like I’m floating, like I’m still outside of my own body, my own head. “Reggie?” Kelly says, and slaps him across the cheek. The sound is like an explosion inside my head, shocking me out of my daze.

Kelly slaps him again.

“What are you doing?” I demand.

“Trying to wake him. He won’t wake. Why won’t he wake?”

I bend down on the other side. “Reggie?” I grab his shirt and start to shake him, but he still doesn’t respond. “Reggie? Wake up!” Reggie’s head jerks from side to side, but his eyes stay shut. “Reggie, please, don’t die on me. Please I don’t think I could...”

And then I’m pummeling him, pounding on his chest and screaming at him to wake up.

But he doesn’t wake.

He doesn’t move.

And the blood keeps trickling from his nose.

Kelly pulls me away. I realize he’s shouting at me, and suddenly I have nothing left. I’m empty inside. I collapse in his arms. He drags me over to the wall. He’s speaking, but I don’t hear what he says. His words mean nothing. I see his lips move, but I don’t hear him. I bury my face in my hands, and I close my eyes.

I just can’t take anymore of this.

Chapter 6

“You slap like a girl.”

Kelly glances up from Reggie’s Link. He’s removed the backing using my penknife and is digging around inside trying to figure out what’s broken.

“You’re probably right,” he mutters, “but you were going to hurt him if I didn’t stop you. Or yourself.”

I let out a deep breath and look away. My hand does hurt. I flex it and it feels bruised. But it’s from hitting the wall of the elevator, not Reggie. Still, I feel ashamed for lashing out like that, like a toddler having a tantrum. I hate when Kelly sees me acting that way. “Yeah, well, his head’s too hard for that to happen.”

“I hope you’re right.”

I watch Kelly a few minutes more, biting my tongue. A part of me fears he’ll do more damage to Reggie’s Link. I want him to stop messing around and just put it back together. But it’s not like the stupid thing is helping him now. His Link may have saved his life from Shane’s bullet, but it damn near killed him anyway, because it’s broken now. So it’s not like Kelly’s going to make things any worse than they already are. Besides, I remind myself, he’s better than any of the rest of us taking stuff apart and knowing how they work.

“Remind me to never pass out when you’re around,” he says. He sighs and leans his head back against the wall. “If you ever shook me like that, I’d have some serious whiplash.”

I picture myself hitting Kelly like I did Reggie and I cringe. “Well, don’t pass out on me then.”

“I’ll try not to.”

He sticks the end of a paperclip underneath a component and gently pries it up to look underneath.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing with that thing?”

He squints for another second or two, angling the device toward the overhead lights. He heaves a sign, then snaps the backing back on. After it’s secure, he shakes the Link up by his ear. “I can hear something jiggling around inside, something loose, but I can’t get to it with these rudimentary tools.”

I push myself away from the wall and go over to where Reggie’s still passed out on the floor. Twenty minutes have passed, and the bleeding from his nose has stopped. The tremors have quieted, too, but he still hasn’t woken up. At least his breathing has grown steadier, less rapid and shallow. Just that slow, deep rise and fall of his chest, like he’s sleeping.

Unlike Jake downstairs.

You should go and check on him, Jess.

I’m starting to wonder if maybe Kelly was right. Maybe we should cut our losses and leave.

And go where?

We still don’t know what’s going to happen to Kelly. He still hasn’t shown any sign of having been injected with anything, not like Tanya did those last couple days of her life. I hate feeling this way, not knowing whether or not he’s going to suddenly start going into these trances.

He sets the Link down on the floor beside him, then asks me for mine.

“What are you going to do with it?” I ask, warily.

“I just want to check something.”

“Why don’t you check on yours?”

He rolls his eyes, sighs. “Fine.” But he doesn’t reach into his pocket for it.

“What do you think we should do?”

“You mean Ashley?”

“Yeah.”

He shakes his head. “After Jake, and now Reg... It’s just you and me now. I think it’s too dangerous.”

He looks exhausted, not just physically, but spiritually. I know how that feels. Getting Reggie back from the dead earlier — or at least from believing he was dead — had given me a huge emotional boost. But to lose him again so soon afterward, it’s just taken the wind from my sails. Kelly, too. We’re both drifting on a dark sea where monsters lurk in the depths, and making any move now only risks bringing them up to the surface.

“I’m going to check on Jake.”

“It’s only been a half hour since we left him,” I argue. I don’t want him to leave me. “Nothing’s changed.” Except I know that’s not exactly true.

Kelly reaches over and drapes his arm around my shoulders. It feels so heavy on me. I feel so heavy. I’m not even sure I want it there, but I don’t ask him to remove it. After a few minutes, I realize I don’t want him to ever not be there. I lean into him, remembering how it feels to be safe. I remember why I love him, why I want him, why I want to be close to him. It’s that same feeling I had when I came back to him after our break last summer. Sometimes we forget what it feels like when something’s just right. This has always been right. And those few times when it wasn’t? It’s not because of him, but because of me.

“How did we ever get into this?” I wonder aloud.

He makes a clicking noise with his throat. “Because no one ever said stop.”

“You did say no.”

“I know. But ‘no’ has a tendency to get steamrolled in this group, particularly when it’s Reggie doing the steamrolling. Also, I guess a part of me didn’t want us to stop. Can you believe that crap? Me, wanting to do something stupid like breaking into Gameland, actually going along with it when there were so many reasons to back away.”

“Not Gameland. That never was the plan,” I correct him. “Not initially. We were just supposed to come to LI.”

“Right.”

“Then Jake got stuck and...”

“And we came back.” He sighs.

“Was any of it accidental?” I ask, rhetorically. “It feels like everything we’ve done, or had done to us, has been preordained.”

He grunts. “Fate’s just a word we use when we think our lives are controlled by some invisible, unknowable being.”

“We were being manipulated,” I point out. “Just not by anything supernatural.”

“Yeah.”

“We should’ve known when it was so easy to break in. We should’ve gotten suspicious.”

“Yeah, and now getting out’s a damn killer.”

“All just part of the game.”

He sniffs humorlessly. “The Game. Right. Arc wanted us here. Pretty sure they’re the ones who cleared out the Midtown Tunnel for us.”

Something comes back to me then, a man’s voice: They were supposed to stay on the island the first time. Why else would our guys go down there and block the tunnel? The man I’d heard speaking to Nurse Mabel outside my door in LaGuardia. Beaucorps? But they were Coalition, not Arc.

“The SSC were the ones who built up that blockage,” I say, “while we were messing around in Long Island City. They were the ones who didn’t want us leaving.”

“If that’s true, then they did a crappy job of it.”

“I don’t think they realized how motivated we’d be to leave.”

“We nearly died.”

“Yeah, but we didn’t.”

“I still haven’t figured out how the SSC and Arc are connected,” I say, although I think I’m beginning to understand what Father Heall meant by there being different agents. “Stephen was the bridge, whether intentionally or not. He either started out working for Arc and defected to the Coalition, or he believed he was with Arc the whole time.”

“So, the Coalition used Stephen to infiltrate Arc,” Kelly says.

“Or they recruited him after he’d already joined. I just wish I knew how or why they decided to use us as guinea pigs.”

He shrugs. “Because of our hacking or gaming skills. Or both. Micah couldn’t have written that codex breaker without Ashley’s help.”

“What about Heall?” I ask.

“What about him?”

“Do you think they used us to get to him?”

“How?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel like a coincidence.”

“Sometimes things just are.”

“Do you really believe that? Stephen being Father Heall’s son and all.”

“Heall’s his father? Shit.”

“Yeah, and you can’t tell me that’s just another coincidence.”

He doesn’t answer.

We sit in silence for a few minutes. I’m antsy, knowing I should be going after Ben, yet also feeling guilty for even considering leaving Reggie now. I tell myself that the moment I do leave, he’ll die. It’s the same thing I went through rationalizing my procrastination earlier. I guess it’s my subconscious mind warning me I shouldn’t be running toward danger. Or maybe it’s just plain cowardice.

“You know, we deserve some of the blame, too,” I say. “If we hadn’t wanted to come—”

“Sure, but nobody wanted to be kidnapped.”

“Yeah, but we kind of made it easy, don’t you think? Gave them multiple opportunities. Ignored every bad thing that happened that should’ve been a warning for us to stop. We just kept making excuses that it was going to be okay. Ashley nearly drowned that day at the reservoir, yet we kept pushing on. The cop at the Manhattan side of the tunnel should’ve been a warning that we were getting in over our heads. My rebreather cartridge failing soon after we started; we could’ve turned back right then and given up, and we’d all be sitting in Micah’s basement and...”

I drift off, realizing we’d never have found out about his betrayal.

“That damn zombie in the tunnel,” Kelly whispers. “So many chances to say let’s think about this a little more. But nobody did. Not me. Not even Ash.”

“I know why you couldn’t.”

He takes in a deep breath, lets it out slowly through pursed lips.

“How much did you know?” I ask. “About Arc. And about the SSC and Micah. And when did you know it?”

He’s quiet for a long time. I can see him mulling the question over in his mind, deciding how much he wants to confess. But I deserve an honest answer, a complete answer. I deserve the full truth about his involvement. “About the SSC,” he begins, “I knew nothing. As for Micah...” He shakes his head. “It was only when Ashley showed me how his hacker signature was present in the tracker app that I started getting suspicious. That was — what? — two days ago?”

“Not before?”

He looks away. “In hindsight, sure, it seems... obvious? Maybe. There was this one time: we were in Micah’s basement, him and me and Ashley. You were at your karate— hapkido, I mean. You were at hapkido practice, and Reggie was... I don’t know where he was. Anyway, we were just sitting around and Micah brings up the idea of hacking into The Game. Ashley jumped all over it. She said she’d been wanting to test out this new experimental script she was working on.”

He stops then, and when I look over I notice he’s frowning. “What?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I just thought of something that... Never mind. It’s probably nothing. Anyway, Ashley jumps up and starts messing with Micah’s computers and going off about the ArcWare codex and how she thinks she could write a script that would be able to teach itself how to speak the same language. Some kind of interface. Anyway, after that, I just sort of zoned out.”

“When was this?”

“A week or two before we all decided to do it.”

“And Arc? When did they contact you to spy on Micah?”

“It was that same night that Reg brought it up. That was when they asked — extorted — me into doing it.”

“Not before?”

“No, definitely not before. In fact, I remember thinking how strange it was that Arc would ping me within hours of that discussion. I knew it couldn’t be a coincidence. I spent that whole night lying in bed wondering if they’d bugged his place.”

“And Reggie definitely wasn’t there that day Micah brought it up?”

“Definitely not.”

“So how did he get the idea for us to break into the island? There’s no way he’d come up with that idea just spontaneously like that, not all by himself. Somebody had to have planted the seed in his mind.”

“Well, it wasn’t me.”

“Then it had to have been Micah or Ashley.”

I feel the slight lift of his arm as he shrugs. “I always just figured he made the connection on his own. It’s really not much of a leap when you think about it, from Ash hacking The Game to us breaking onto the island. We’ve all been obsessed with the undead since Zpocalypto came out years ago. And with all the Survivalist brainwashing lately—”

“I hate that show.”

“Yeah, you and two or three other people in all of New Merica.”

“There’s a lot more than that.”

“But definitely a tiny minority. As far as Reggie goes, I suppose it’s possible Micah mentioned it to him, hoping he’d run with it. But that seems like a stretch.”

“Too bad we can’t ask him.”

“Wouldn’t matter. Reggie probably believes it was his idea from the start.”

“The way he remembers it, he didn’t think it was such a great idea.”

I push my foot out and nudge his still body with my toe. His head bobbles, but he doesn’t respond.

“Do you think the damage is permanent?” I ask. “I mean, how many times can you begin to activate an implant before it causes permanent brain damage?”

“I don’t know, Jess. This is at least the third time. The previous two didn’t seem to have any lasting effects, but who knows? What worries me is that one of these times his implant won’t revert back into its quiescent state. What’ll happen then?”

“He’ll either stroke out or his body rejects it.”

“So, one way he dies, the other he’s free of it.”

“What if we could somehow encourage his body to reject it?”

“How?”

“I don’t know. I mean, look at me. I did it.”

Kelly winces. “Yeah, and you could’ve died. In fact, you’re the exception, not the rule. Trying to force someone to reject their implant would be like playing Russian Roulette, except that only one of the chambers is empty.”

“Maybe not. Maybe there’s a way to better the odds.”

“What are you talking about?”

“When I was in Brookhaven, I overheard Father Heall and Brother Matthew talking about my inhaler.”

“Your inhaler? You know, I haven’t seen you using it in a while.”

“It’s empty.” I reach into my pocket and pull it out. “Father Heall and Brother Matthew knew about it. They even suggested that it interfered with the test they gave me to see if I was infected.”

“How?”

I shrug. “It contains something called deprolidone. I never really cared to ask what it is or why I have to take it. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always needed it, so I never bothered to ask. But it must mean something.”

“And you think it helped you reject your implant?”

I stick a thumbnail under a corner of the label peel it off to show him the ArcBio logo. “I think whatever’s inside this interacts with a protein made by the virus. Brother Matthew explained it to me in the car. Something about a prion, which is a different form of a protein we already have inside our bodies.”

“I still don’t see the connection.”

“The deprolidone interferes with the test that detects it. And I think it may be why the treatment won’t work on me, like maybe the medicine masks the prion somehow.”

Kelly stares at me.

I shrug. “That’s what Brother Matthew said. He never got a chance to explain how or why. I’m not even sure it’s accurate, but...”

“I think you’re grasping at straws. But let’s just say you’re right. What’s that got to do with implants?” I can hear the exasperation in his voice. It’s a lot of assumptions I’ve just made.

“If not for Reanimation technology, there wouldn’t be any l.i.n.c. technology,” I explain. “Those two things go hand-in-hand. New materials, new virus that remains dormant, just like the implants. I think the deprolidone maybe caused my body to reject the new materials they’ve incorporated into the new implants.”

He still looks skeptical. And I don’t blame him. I’ve done a terrible job of explaining my suspicions to him. Maybe it’s because it’s more intuitive than factual. I can’t really explain why I feel like there’s a connection.

“You know,” he says, “some of the others were talking about that before, you rejecting the implant.”

“Others?”

“Jake mostly, but Ash, too. Reggie wasn’t buying it at first.”

“What were they saying?”

“Jake thought it was suspicious that yours was the only implant rejected.”

“What? He thought I—”

“It doesn’t matter now, Jess. I think he was just looking for any excuse to make them doubt you.”

“Did you?”

“Never.”

“But you let him convince Ash and Reg. They’re the ones who said I shouldn’t be making the decisions anymore. You didn’t stop him. In fact, you let him take charge.”

“To protect you.”

“And see how well that turned out? Jake’s infected. Reggie’s probably brain damaged. And Ash is...”

He looks appalled.

“I’m not saying you’re responsible, Kel.”

“Maybe I am. Anyway, I’m sorry I made you feel like I didn’t trust you. I just wanted to keep you safe.”

“By keeping me alone with Micah.”

“Yeah, I didn’t know about him then.”

“Novak said the same thing, you know, that I was responsible, that it was my mistakes that—”

“That bitch was attacking you because she knows you’ve been the one holding us together. None of this happened because of decisions you made.”

I hurl the empty inhaler across the room. It clatters against the wall and slides halfway back. “Grandpa knew what was in this. He was the one who kept pushing for me to have it, kept reminding me to take it. ‘Three times a day, Jessica,’ he’d always say. God, I hate him! He always said it was because I had a weak immune system. That’s exactly what the doctors said too, word for word. The same doctors he always told Mom to take me to. Like they were reading off a cue card.”

“But you have your doubts?”

“My immune system is fine. It’s been days since I’ve used the damn thing.”

Kelly doesn’t answer, but I know he’s thinking about it, trying to figure out what it all means.

“So,” he finally says, “what do you think happens when you reach your LSC age?”

“What do you mean?”

“You rejected your implant. How’s the government supposed to know about it if you don’t tell them? They won’t. And when you reach your Life Service Commitment and they give you the shot, what happens when you reanimate? They won’t have control.”

“That’s what you’re worried about?”

He shrugs. “It just popped into my head.”

“Do you actually think we’re going to live that long? After all this—”

“Okay, well, it’s not just you, is it? You’re not the only one who’s rejected their implant. There have to be others. Even if it’s, like, one out of a hundred thousand, that’s still a lot of people. What happens to them? They could go on and infect others. You wouldn’t want that, would you? What if they cause another outbreak? What if...”

“What if I do?” I chuff. “At this point, I honestly don’t care.”

“You should. You were in Seattle when it happened there, Jess.”

“We left before it started.”

“But it still happened. You could’ve been there.”

“It was put down before it spread very far.”

“But it did spread.”

“That was how long ago? Five years? There’s better controls in place now. Anyway, why does any of that matter right now?”

“I guess it doesn’t.” He digs into his pocket for his Link, then thumbs the screen to check the time. “It’s been an hour, and he’s still not waking up. It’s the longest yet for any of them. I don’t think he’s going to wake.”

I stare at Reggie and watch the tidal rise and fall of his chest. I think about Jake downstairs. We really should check on him. I think about Ben, and I realize the urge to go after him is completely gone.

“I wish there was some way to know,” he says. He leans over and pats Reggie’s cheek. He gets no response. “Some way to know if he’s even still with us.”

“Take off his shoe,” I say.

Kelly gives me a strange look, but does as I’d asked. He makes a face when the ripe smell of Reggie’s filthy socks permeates the room. “Damn, I had my mouth open,” he says, gagging.

I ignore him and run the blunt end of my pen knife over the sole of Reggie’s foot. His toes immediately curl, and his leg bends at the knee.

“What’s that mean?”

“It means he’s not brain dead, anyway.”

“Then why won’t he wake?”

I jump to my feet. “I’ll be right back. Stay here!”

“Where are you going?”

“I’ve got smelling salts in my backpack. Don’t leave, in case he wakes on his own. I’ll only be gone a few minutes.”

“I’ll come, too.”

“No, stay here with Reg.”

But there’s worry in his eyes. I know what he’s thinking, and it’s confirmed when he hands me Novak’s knife. “Just in case,” he says.

I don’t want to take it. Doing so would be like tempting fate. “Jake’s not going to die,” I say, firmly. “He’s getting better.”

But the problem is, I don’t really believe it.

Chapter 7

He hasn’t. Died, that is. Died and turned. Jake’s still breathing. Easier than before, in fact. Longer and deeper and quieter breaths. The improvement is undeniable. It’s starting to look like the treatment is working.

I place the back of my hand on his neck, and his skin is considerably cooler. It’s barely feverish anymore. But the pessimist in me can’t help looking for the worst possible explanation. Instead of getting over the infection, maybe he’s finally dying and his body is beginning to chill.

He’s breathing better now, Jess. Stop killing him in your mind.

I lift his arm. It’s not stiff anymore. In fact, it’s limp and pliable. Too pliable. It feels like a water-filled sack, like his flesh is liquefying.

Stop it.

I imagine it full of dying virus. All that pus...

Jesus, Jessica Anne. Stop it. Just stop freaking yourself out.

Okay then. I try instead to focus on the positive, like how his skin appears to be a little less pasty. It’s still splotchy, and it might just be my imagination or the dim lighting, but there’s more color to it now. There’s also a new smell about him. It’s not exactly rancid, but mediciny, although not the kind of mediciny you get inside hospitals or doctors’ offices. It’s more earthy, clean like old leaves and... and ancient dust that has sat untouched in caves for tens of thousands of years. And for some strange reason, it calls to me visions of one of those post-mortem centers they used to have a long time ago. I’ve never been to one, so I’m not sure why the association. Eric once described them to me. I think they were called funeral homes, where they used to embalm people. We don’t have them anymore. We have life service conversion centers.

I watch Jake breathe for several seconds, listening particularly for that rattle in his chest. Although it’s still there, it’s not as strident as before. It’s as if whatever had its fist clamped around his throat is starting to lose its grip. He’s not having to fight so hard just to live.

I shake my head in wonder, and I allow myself to believe that he may actually recover. Maybe not fully, but a good long way past what I’d thought possible.

I pull up one of his eyelids. The wan light from the ceiling strikes it, and the pupil barely responds. It’s just the tiniest of contractions, but it’s something. More than before. The eyes aren’t just windows to the soul, but also to the brain, and right now Jake’s curtains are still drawn shut. Maybe not as tightly as before, but enough that I still can’t tell if anybody’s home.

I rub a hard knuckle over his sternum and get no response. Nor is there any when I drag an old pen across the bottom of his foot. Not even the slightest of twitches. If Jake’s in there, he’s too deep inside of himself. I don’t know if or when he’ll ever find his way out again.

I pray the same isn’t true for Reggie, that he’ll be awake by the time I return topside.

I retrieve the ammonia ampoules from my backpack. The white box they’d come in is brown and disintegrating. One of the capsules has burst. Only two remain intact. Both go into my pocket.

I toss the backpack aside and head back to the elevator, hesitating one more time as I pass Jake’s table. I’m almost tempted to crush one now and stick it under his nose, just to see what might happen. But I can already guess. He’ll just lie there and not respond. If the other tricks didn’t elicit a response, then smelling salts won’t either.

Curious, I carefully remove the bandage on Jake’s shoulder. The stench hits me square in the face, a nauseating miasma of infection and decay. I draw back, hand to mouth and nose, gagging. The wound is no longer bright red or rimmed by heavy bruising, but almost blanched to a pale, colorless gray, as if it’s been submerged in water. I suppose because of Brother Nicholas’s poultice, it has been in a way. The edges are the same hue as damp campfire ash, pale and translucent. There’s an almost greenish tinge further out, which blends into the paleness of his skin. The edges of the teeth marks are dry and chapped due to his excessive sweating. They’ve puckered and pulled away, leaving ragged edges around three distinct puncture wounds, each having swollen enough that I could poke my finger into them halfway to the first joint. I shiver at the thought and quickly replace the bandage, grateful to get it out of my sight. Grateful to block that noxious smell.

I’ll leave Jake uncovered for now, since he’s still warm. After I check on Reggie, I’ll return to prepare him for whatever we decide to do next.

I don’t want to think about what that might be.

* * *

KELLY’S GOT REGGIE sitting up with his back against the wall when I return upstairs. At first I’m relieved. But then I’m confused. Reggie’s head hangs loosely over his chest, and he doesn’t respond when I say his name. But then I see the old plastic trashcan Kelly’s positioned under Reggie’s chin, and I smell vomit. A thin line of spittle dribbles from Reggie’s chapped lips.

“Is he conscious?”

“Semi. He started coming around a few minutes after you left,” Kelly explains. “He’s still really out of it, though.”

“Has he spoken? Said anything?”

Before Kelly can answer, Reggie lurches forward, his jaws gaping wide. For just a fraction of a second, he looks like one of the undead. An unearthly sound comes out of his mouth. He coughs and gags, but nothing else comes out save more drool. When the spasms pass, he leans back again, a soft groan of despair rising from his throat. He says nothing, and his eyes remain shut. He looks absolutely shattered.

“Reg?”

Kelly shakes his head. “It’s only been a few minutes like this. Give him some time. How’s Jake?”

“Fever’s broken,” I say, letting out a shaky exhale. Yet again, I feel like we’ve dodged bullets. Jake’s starting to look like he won’t die, and even though I don’t know what that means in practical terms for him, I do feel hugely relieved. And now we know Reggie’s not going to die, either. Although I’d feel much better if he spoke. “I left him as he was.”

“Think we should cover him up? It’s cold down there.”

“Not yet. He’s still a little warm. But he’s definitely a lot cooler than before. Still completely out, though. No response at all.”

“You did the foot thing?”

I nod.

Kelly shrugs. “That’s something, I guess. The damn stuff might actually work.”

“Yeah, I didn’t believe it, either. But he’s still very sick. He’s got a long way to go before he’s out of the woods.”

“Yeah, but an hour ago he was just about dead.”

An hour ago, I was prepared to put a knife through his spine.

Kelly wedges the trash can between Reggie’s legs and gets to his feet. He moves stiffly, looking more like a man in his sixties and just about to reach his LSC age than a boy on the verge of manhood. The lines on his face have deepened and there’s a somberness in his eyes. He comes over and pulls me into his arms. I press my ear against his chest and listen to the sound of him breathing, the slow, smooth whoosh of air and that familiar, steady, comforting beating of his heart. He runs his fingers into my hair, pulling it away from my face. I close my eyes and picture other times and other places, when we were happier.

When were you not happier? Even at the worst of times, you were happier than this.

I wonder, what does he see in me? Why does he love me? With my history — my family’s history and my own — how could anyone love someone as flawed and burdened as me?

You deserve better, Micah’s ghost voice whispers at me. Then he laughs, because he knows it’s actually the other way around. It’s Kelly who deserves better.

I fret over these things, while my heart tells me to stop beating myself up all the time. It’s a hard habit to break. I should just be happy knowing that he loves me, and that it doesn’t matter why or how or in spite of whatever. But I’m so good at sabotaging myself. Do I love him? I wonder. Do I really love him as much as he loves me?

I do.

I think I do.

I don’t really know. I thought I did once, but now I don’t know what to think.

You do, my heart reaffirms. Stop doing this to yourself.

“What’s this?” he asks, his fingers picking at a snarl of hair at the back of my head.

“Ouch!” I yelp.

He pulls his fingers away and studies them for a moment. “You’re bleeding.” He tries to turn my head to see, but I resist.

“Your implant—”

“It’s not the implant. Casey shot me— well, shot at me. It was when we first met. He missed and the bullet hit a tree I was standing next to. Some of the splinters hit me pretty hard.”

He gently teases my hair apart to look. It feels limp and dirty, and it must stink.

“I’m fine, Kel. Really.” I push him away, irritated that the moment of closeness is gone again. Irritated with Casey for shooting at me. Irritated with myself for being spiteful about it. Irritated with Kelly for being so easily distracted, even if it is out of concern.

You’re doing it again.

I glance over at Reggie. He hasn’t moved, just sits there with his mouth hanging open over the bucket. At least he hasn’t tried to throw up again. I wonder what’s going through his mind right now, whether it’s still just a lot of white noise left over from the implant inside of his head trying to murder him, or whether he’s even aware of what’s happening. Has he remembered Ashley’s gone?

“I think we’d better start planning what to do next,” Kelly says, expectantly.

I can feel the heat in my face rising. I know he’s right, but I also just want him to make a decision that doesn’t involve sitting around and discussing things ten different ways till Tuesday and studying every goddamn nuance. Unfortunately, I’ve been doing just that for the past hour inside my own head, and I still haven’t decided anything.

“Regardless of what we decide,” I say, “the first thing we need to do is warn Father Heall.”

Kelly starts to nod, but our attention is drawn back to Reggie when he suddenly starts breathing faster and louder. His hand is twitching on the floor beside him. We wait to see if he does anything else. But soon enough, he quiets down again.

“So, we ping Heall. And Ben? Do we go after him?”

I pull my Link out, shaking my head. I find Micah’s identifier and connect. “I’m hoping we don’t have to.”

Kelly watches over my shoulder while we wait for the ping to go through. The screen lights up, and the timer in the corner starts counting. “Hello?” someone says. The image is blurry at first. I can hear the crunch of gravel beneath heavy shoes, so they’re outside, walking. “Is that you, Jessie?”

Kelly’s face fills with alarm. “I thought you said they took his Link away,” he whispers.

“They did, Kelly,” Micah replies. His face resolves on my screen. “But I got it back.”

Chapter 8

My mind freezes. My head fills with white noise. It’s like the roar of a giant cataract, like I’m at Niagara Falls again, and water is rushing down over me. It’s a suffocating feeling. The floor tilts beneath my feet. I’m barely able to catch myself. “Wh-what?” I stammer. “How did you—?”

There’s a flash of emotion in Micah’s eyes, something exceedingly rare and frightening to behold. It’s a look of betrayal, like he’d never in his wildest dreams ever imagined that I could wrong him. And now it terrifies me, because the fact that I’m seeing it, that I’m hearing his voice now, on his own Link, tells me something has gone terribly wrong. I feel like the game has just thrown us another curveball.

“Oh, you were expecting someone else?” he asks. His voice is thin and even. “Brother Walter maybe? Sister Jane? Guess I’m not who you were hoping to see, eh?”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I can’t seem to form any coherent thoughts, none that my mouth can translate into speech anyway. I can only stand and stare stupidly while he shakes his head contemptuously at me and says, “Never mind.”

A thousand scenarios speed through my brain, a thousand different explanations for how he’s the one now answering his Link. He escaped somehow. Which raises a whole slew of questions: What did he do to the people holding him? Did he hurt them? Murder them? What about Sister Jane? What about Sister Dorothy and Julia?

Or did something unrelated and unexpected happened?

Is Ben there already? Did he let Micah free?

No, that can’t be. It’s too soon. He can’t have reached Brookhaven yet.

The tension leaves Micah’s eyes. He smiles, and once more I understand what it means to be confronting pure evil, because there’s no trace of animosity left. He really is that good at controlling his emotions.

What did you do, Micah? I silently beseech him. What have you done?

But it’s just the same old Micah there once again. It’s so convincing that I almost believe that maybe we’ve misjudged him. “It’s cool,” he says placatingly. “I don’t... I don’t blame you for anything. I can’t. I guess I’d do the same, if I were you. I’d expect it. You’re a smart girl, always have been. But they—”

“Where the hell are you?” Kelly demands.

“On my way back, actually. Feeling... refreshed.” He grins sinisterly. Or maybe that’s just how I see it. “I’ve also got my full memory back now. I don’t know what triggered it. Maybe I just needed a change of scenery. Anyway, I’m seeing everything with a clear mind again.” He pauses and looks to the side. When he returns, a crease furrows his brow. Fake concern to cover over his fake smile. “I was worried about you, Jessie, when Brother Malcolm didn’t return this morning. I’m glad to see you made it back to the Hill. Did you get the treatment to Jake in time?”

My mouth pops open. He does look worried. But then again, he’s a master of making us believe he’s something he isn’t. “We’re still waiting to see,” I murmur.

“And everyone else? They alright?”

I feel Kelly shake with rage, and the air in the room suddenly becomes very thin. He sucks in a breath to say something, but there’s a loud bang right then— not on Micah’s end, but here, outside the room we’re in, like a door being slammed open.

Kelly and I jump and look up. Micah asks what that noise was, but we don’t answer.

The sound repeats, although not as loud this time, and out of the corner of my eye, I see Reggie’s body twitch in response.

“What the hell was that?” Kelly asks.

“Sounded like the door to the outside.”

“Wind?”

It comes again, still not quite as loud as the first time, more of a knocking sound than a bang.

“Must be the wind. Did you latch it when you went out earlier, Jess?”

Micah asks again what’s happening. I thumb the Link off and shove it into my pocket.

“What about the fence?” Kelly whispers.

“Fence?” I ask, confused. The fence wouldn’t make a noise like that. Nor would the gate. Besides, they’re too far away.

“Was the electricity on when you went out earlier?” Kelly asks, impatiently.

Understanding washes over me like a cold shower. “Shit. The gate.”

“What about the gate?”

“It was open! I mentioned it before!”

“You didn’t close it?”

“No, I... forgot.”

Another pair of thuds, these in rapid succession.

Kelly holds his finger up to his lips.

We don’t move. We strain our ears for the slightest sound. But other than the rasp of Reggie’s breathing, there’s nothing for several long minutes.

“It’s got to be the wind, Kel.”

He starts to edge his way toward the hallway. He keeps one finger pressed to his lips and gestures with his other hand for me to stay put.

“It’s the wind, Kel.”

“Shh!” he hisses. “If it’s the wind, then it’s the wind. But if it’s not... We need to be sure. Now stay here or—”

Bang!

My Link pings right then and I yelp.

Then comes another bang, and it’s the loudest yet. And it’s followed by a new sound, like something heavy being dragged.

Kelly’s eyes bulge as he edges toward the hall. It’s definitely not the wind. The wind doesn’t sound like that, not unless it’s caught something. And even then...

I slip over to Kelly and grab his arm, halting him. “It might be Ben,” I whisper.

“He’s far away from here by now,” he quietly replies. “Miles away.”

But what if he isn’t? What if he came back, and I don’t mean for us, but came back after dying?

Thinking this, I squeeze Kelly’s arm even tighter. He gives me an alarmed look. He puts a hand on my elbow and pushes me away. But I hold him back. “Jess, stop. Ow! Damn, it’s okay. I’m just going to take a quick peek.” He looks around and sees the knife on the table against the back wall.

“I’m coming with you,” I say.

“No. Stay here.”

But I hurry over and grab the knife. I just wish I had the pistol. The last bullet is still in my pocket and—

Where’d I leave the gun?

I reach around and find it tucked into my waistband. I don’t remember putting it there. I must have done it when I went down for the smelling salts. Just holding it makes me feel better, even if it is unloaded.

Kelly edges closer to the doorway. He waits until I reach him. I hand him the knife and flip the pistol in my hand to use as a bludgeon. He peeks around the jamb to look.

“IU,” he whispers.

“Just one?”

He nods, and ducks back. “But where there’s one...”

BANG! goes the door.

Swish shh... shhhhhhh, goes the walking corpse out there.

“It’s not very fast,” Kelly says quietly. “Should be an easy kill.”

Except the moment we step out into the hallway, it’ll know we’re here, and it’ll have a few seconds to react before we reach it.

A crazy thought slips into my head: Why did it take so long for the zombie to cross the road? Because it kept dragging its feet.

I wonder if this is what insanity feels like.

My fingers fumble with the bullet in my pocket. I pull it out and try to load it into the gun without looking. Kelly’s hand sweeps back. He finds my wrist and squeezes it warningly. I’m making too much noise. Keep it down, he silently communicates. He lets go and makes patting gestures toward the floor.

But then he accidentally knocks the bullet out of my hand. I try to catch it, and for a split second I have it. It tangles up in my fingers, then slips away. I see the thing spin off, and it’s as if time shifts into slow motion. I see it tumble end over end, bright coppery casing catching the artificial light from the ceiling, throwing off sparkles. I reach out reflexively, thinking I can snatch it out of mid-air. But I miscalculate. The round hits the back of my hand and flips up, even farther away from me, heading straight toward the hallway.

Kelly’s fingertips brush across my shoulder, trying to gain purchase on my shirt to hold me back. But I’m fully committed by now, too far off my center of gravity as I dive forward in a desperate attempt to stop the round from hitting the floor. And I almost succeed. It’s right there, tumbling right in front of my eyes, flipping and spinning like a tiny yellow ballerina dancing on thin air. I see my hand reach up. I see my fingers start to close over it, closing like the jaws of a trap. I’m on one knee and my other hand is planted on the floor, the pistol still in it. And I realize my Link is pinging again. I don’t hear it, but I feel the vibrations in my pocket. I lunge forward to capture that damn bullet. And then, from directly overhead, I hear a gasp. And from down the hallway, there’s another odd swishing sound. I turn to steal a glance, and in that split second of distraction, I lose track of the round. My fingers close over empty space. The bullet arcs away from me, continuing its glacial descent to the floor, falling like a shimmering meteor on a distant horizon.

The moment it hits the floor and sends out a sharp ping, time speeds up again.

Kelly shouts for me to get back. He drops the knife when he tries to push me away. Then he spins around and lunges to release the fire door from the anchor in the floor. My muscles turn to rubber when I catch a glimpse of the scene at the other end of the hallway. I crash to the floor. Then I’m scrambling backward like a crab, just as the first infected undead steps through the doorway. It extends its arms and rakes its scabby fingers across Kelly’s face. He ducks back and kicks out, sending the IU reeling backward. But it doesn’t stop. It bounces off the wall of bodies behind it.

Kelly swings the door shut. A hand slips through at the last possible moment, but the bones and flesh are so brittle that it snaps off mid-forearm. The door shuts and latches. The hand flops to the floor and twitches a few times. It looks like a giant brown spider, and I expect it to scamper away. But the fingers curl and go still. Kelly grabs a chair and wedges it under the knob. He kicks the severed hand away in disgust.

He looks at me, panting. There’s this look in his eyes, a realization of the reality of our situation that takes me another second before it strikes me: The place is packed with hungry zombies. There’s nowhere for us to go save back downstairs.

Except this time, we can’t take Reggie with us.

Chapter 9

My Link’s still buzzing.

It’s buzzing, and in the deepest recesses of my mind I’m thinking, Not now! I can’t deal with your bullshit right now, Micah!

Kelly leans back against the door and shuts his eyes, as if he can block out the scratching and moaning sounds coming through from the other side. “See what the asshole wants,” he grumbles.

Then his eyes snap open. “No, wait! Don’t... Just be nice.”

I can see how much it angers him to ask me to do this. But he’s already assessed our situation and realized that Micah might be our only chance of getting out of here now.

I stumble weakly to my feet and pull out my Link. But it’s not Micah’s identifier on my screen.

“It’s Ash,” I say, surprised. “It’s Ashley’s Link.”

Kelly frowns. “How is that—? She’s alive?”

Outside the room, the moaning grows louder. The door rattles.

I connect and quietly ask, “Ash? Are you okay?”

A blurry image moves on the screen. Then Ben comes into focus, and my heart sinks.

“The cunt’s a little busy right now,” he growls.

“Where are you?” I demand. “What have you done to—”

“I shoulda killed you when I had the chance.”

“Oh, you’ll get the chance,” I snarl. “Because I’m coming for you, you piece of sh—”

“I just knew Lena didn’t have it in her to finish you off,” he drawls, ignoring my threat. “She claimed she did. But then again, she was beggin for her own life at the time. I guess I shouldn’ta believed her.” He snickers. “Luckily, I heard you screamin the little bitch’s name. ‘Ashley! Ashley! Where are you?’ But damn if you kids ain’t resilient. Had you stayed inside, or waited just one minute longer, I would never have known and been halfway to the good father’s hideaway by now.”

Halfway?

He’s still close by. He hasn’t left yet.

“Where are you?” I growl. “Is Ashley there? Let me speak with her.”

“Ah, see, that ain’t gonna possible.”

“What the hell have you done to her? Show her to me right now!”

Ben’s sneer returns. “Christ, but ain’t you a bossy little cunt.” His laughter hurts my ears.

“Tell me where you are, so I can come kill you.”

“Oh, I’m gonna do better than tell you. I’m gonna show you. But you ain’t gonna get the chance, I’m afraid. Seems you’re gonna be a little preoccupied for a time.”

Kelly and I exchange alarmed looks. What’s he talking about? Kelly mouths.

“You can watch while me and the ginger bitch get it on,” Ben finishes.

The smile fades from his eyes, and now there’s a different kind of insanity in them, the kind of insanity that screams of uncorrupted evil.

“If you so much as—”

“Did you get the package I sent for you?”

I hear Kelly suck in a sharp breath. “What package?”

Visions of severed body parts invade my thoughts. I imagine him cutting off little bits and pieces of Ashley and delivering them to us, just to torment us.

“Guess not,” he says. He feigns disappointment. “Well, you should be receiving them soon enough.”

“Receiving what?”

And now my thoughts go to Micah. Is that how Ben plans to deliver Ashley back to us? Did he dispatch Micah to come to us here?

“Just some lovely partin gifts for our contestants,” Ben teases.

Kelly’s jaw clenches. He swipes a finger across his throat and mouths for me to cut him off. But I need to know what he’s done with Ashley. I need proof she’s still alive. If he wants me to come after him, he’s going to have to provide it. I don’t know how I’ll get out of here with those things out there in the hallway, but I will. I’ll find them. I’ll kill Ben, and then I’ll bring her back.

“I want to talk to Ashley. I need to know she’s okay.”

“Oh, she is. I’m treatin her just fine and dandy, just like a lady should be treated. Now, she ain’t no lady, that’s for sure, but she sure is fine. And pretty soon I am gonna be just dandy.” He laughs.

“You sick fuck!” I scream, “I’m going to—”

The door shudders and the moans grow frantic.

“Keep it down!” Kelly hisses.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Ben says. “And here I was thinkin my present hadn’t arrived yet. You sly devils. You really should say thanks. It’s what proper folk do where I come from.”

“The dead?” I cry. “You sent them here?”

“Herdin them’s just a little trick I picked up.” The scene behind him swivels. Now I can see he’s standing just outside the gate of the compound. He wasted hours so he could gather the dead from the forest and send them into us just because he saw I was still alive? The man’s even sicker than I thought.

“It’s just so annoyin when people ain’t dead like they’re supposed to be,” he says, chuckling. “But now that’s taken care of, I can be off and on my way knowin you’re all properly seen to. Gonna find me the good father and make sure he gives me what I’m due. Just too bad you won’t be there to say goodbye to him. Or your cunt girlfriend.”

“Fuck you!”

“You know, I weren’t sure whether to send flowers or zombies. Then I remembered that filthy mouth of yours. Ladies deserve flowers, and you ain’t no lady. You ain’t even half as fine as—”

“I going to fucking kill you, asshole!”

“Hope you like the gift.” He cackles madly. “But just in case it ain’t enough, I’ll be followin up with something just a little extra special. It’ll be arrivin real soon. Because, you see, I’m a real gentleman.”

“You’re no gentleman,” I sneer. “You’re a monster.”

He laughs and waves goodbye. Then he leans toward the screen and winks. In the close-up, I notice his eyes are bloodshot and his skin is pale.

“You’re sweating,” I say. And when he frowns, I add, “You’re not feeling well, are you? Feeling hot? Achy?”

This has the exact effect I’d hope for. He blinks, as if startled. “What did you say?”

“I bet you are. Maybe you chalked it up to the heat and humidity. But in the back of your mind, you know something’s wrong. You can sense your body not behaving the way it’s supposed to.”

“What are you doing?” Kelly whispers.

Ben scowls. “Shut up, you bitch,” he says.

“That injection you gave yourself? Turns out you did it wrong, Ben. I hate to tell you this— No, wait. I don’t hate telling you this. I’m enjoying it. But that stuff’s not supposed to go into your arm. And it definitely isn’t supposed to go into your veins. It has to get into the brain. Otherwise, it won’t work, not for very long.”

His gaze flicks downward and to his right, and his face blanches. “You’re lyin.”

“You’re infected, aren’t you?” I say, and his reaction tells me it’s true. “Was it intentional, like Casey? Or did you get bit when you were herding the dead into the building?”

I catch another flicker of panic in his eyes.

“Maybe some of the virus will enter your brain, where the treatment can’t get to it. Your body might be able to fight it off, thanks to the shot, but your brain won’t. The virus will multiply, and your brain will turn. You’ll die and become undead, except that your body will rot, because the treatment will eradicate the virus there and keep it from plastinating. But not your brain. Your brain will keep—”

“I told you to shut up, bitch! Shut the fuck up or I’ll kill her right now.”

“I can save you,” I lie. “I know how.”

The scene spins dizzyingly again, and I catch a flash of red.

“Ashley!” I shout. She looked terrified. I hear her trying to speak, but she’s gagged.

Ben reappears before I can say anything more. “Lyin cunt,” he accuses me. He’s considerably calmer already, but he can’t completely hide the fear in his eyes. He laughs uncertainly. “You almost had me.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Won’t matter. I still got time. I know where your precious Father Heall is. The bitch told me. I got time to fix everythin.”

And that’s when I know I’ve struck a nerve. He’ll leave now, rather than wait around for whatever else he’s planning to do. And he’ll be in a hell of a hurry, which will make him reckless. He won’t waste any time molesting Ash. He won’t kill her, either, because he needs to be absolutely sure she’s been honest with him.

“You won’t make it,” I say, just to be sure he understands the stakes. “If you wait too long, you’ll be just as dead as the ones waiting for us outside this door. Maybe, if you’re lucky, I’ll find you and quiet you once I’m done here.” I sneer. “Or maybe I won’t kill you twice. Maybe I’ll just shoot your bottom jaw off and remove your teeth so you can’t feed or infect.”

“Jessie, stop,” Kelly hisses.

He chuffs. Sweat drips into his eyes, but I don’t know if it’s because of the heat, the infection, or anything I’ve said. “Gotta get out first,” he grunts. “That ain’t gonna be so easy. Then you gotta find me. And, darlin, that’s gonna be impossible.”

“You don’t think we can track you?”

Another flicker of alarm. “You can’t. You need one of them implants, and I ain’t got one.”

“Don’t need an implant,” I say.

The screen goes blurry and there’s the sound of a muffled impact as Ashley’s Link strikes the ground. Then I’m looking up at patch of blue.

I hear footsteps.

Then a high-pitched scream.

Then more footsteps hurrying off.

Then nothing. And I realize I’ve made a fatal mistake.

PART TWO

Dark and Deep

Chapter 10

The sounds of the undead scratching and clawing at the door aren’t things any person could ever easily forget. Assuming they live long enough to try.

The tiny glass window in the center of the door fills with a nightmare view of rotting flesh, of torn and frayed fingertips, some worn down to the bone, scraping and tapping. They leave behind greasy brown streaks. The dead moan as they stretch to reach up, forcing dead air across dead vocal cords. The door rattles and groans in its frame.

Kelly pushes back on it, as if he’s worried it’ll break from all their weight. He leans and waits for me to figure out how we’re going to get out of this, motivated as I am by my promise to kill Ben and recover Ashley. His shoes slip on the dust on the floor. He snatches for the knob, as if suddenly sure the undead might remember how it works.

But then it jiggles, as if one of them really is trying to open the door, and he throws me a terrified glance. My heart leaps into my throat. For a second I wonder if maybe, somehow, they do remember.

“We need to block this better,” he grunts. “The chair won’t hold if they manage to break the latch.”

The room is furnished with a half dozen metal and plastic chairs, three metal desks, some cabinets, and Reggie’s trashcan.

“The filing cabinet!” he says, pointing. “Next to the water cooler. Get the cabinet!”

Plaster drifts down from the seams between the door frame and the wall, dusting Kelly’s shoulders. In a few minutes, it won’t matter whether or not the dead know how to turn door knobs or the latch holds. The weight of their bodies is already starting to knock the whole frame out of the wall. If they come through, they’ll overwhelm us in an instant. Kelly and I can save ourselves by going down the elevator, but what will we do with Reggie? With his Link broken, he needs to stay up here.

I run over and grab the cabinet by one of the handles, but when I pull on it, the cabinet doesn’t budge. Instead, the handle breaks off in my hand. I’m tugging so hard that I land flat on my ass. I scramble back to my feet and go around to the other side to push. “It won’t move,” I shout, putting my shoulder into it. “It’s too heavy!”

“It’s filled with papers! We need it to be heavy!”

I try again, and it barely wobbles. “Won’t help if I can’t move it! I think it’s stuck to the floor!”

After years of slowly sinking into the soft linoleum, plus years of floor wax, it might as well be glued down. I try again, and it tilts a little, crackling as the seal breaks.

“Damn it, hurry up!” Kelly yells. He spins around and leans even harder into the door. But he won’t be able to hold them for long. And once the door breaks free, they’ll run him over. He’s too light to hold them back.

By now the undead are really in a frenzy. Now their scratching and moaning has grown so intense that I can feel it in my bones. It’s the toneless wail of dozens of parched throats, stiffened by dry air and disuse, of leathery lungs expelling air they last inhaled when the living last walked the empty cities here and the country was called something else.

I ram the cabinet with my shoulder, but it simply won’t budge.

“I can’t move it, Kelly! It won’t—”

But then a hand paws at my back. I let out a scream and fall to the floor, every muscle in my body contracting into a ball of quivering flesh. “No no no,” I moan, and wait for the inevitable bite. A drawer handle presses painfully against my ribs. I gasp for air and try to scream again, but my lungs refuse to allow it. I can’t breathe. I can’t catch my breath. All I can think is how the hell did it get inside so quickly? Followed immediately by, Kelly’s already dead. It was so quick, he didn’t even have time to yell.

The dead hand rakes at my back. I wait for the IU to drop, to press its dead weight against me. To put its dead mouth on my neck. I shudder at each new touch. I cover my head with my arms. I lash out to push it away. But it’s too heavy.

The door shudders and slams back, and Kelly roars. “Hurry, goddamn it!”

I feel the thing shift over me, now pulling instead of pushing, yanking my arms. I hear its ungodly gasps and feel its breath on the skin of my neck. I want so much to scream, but I can’t.

It wraps me up in it arms and lifts me bodily, like I weigh like nothing and—

—like I watched them lift Brother Nicholas by the car—

—lifting and biting and tearing into his flesh, his toes dangling and jangling and dancing on the drenched roadway and—

—and now I feel the pain as it tears into me, my injured shoulder burning in agony and—

—and only then do I find my voice.

Air surges into my lungs. It burns like freezing water. It enters me in a mad, frigid rush of cold and pain, swirling and expanding, boiling and then gushing out again like hot vomit, like molten metal erupting through my throat, a flood of lava, the scream of ancient glaciers melting and frozen cataracts turning to steam.

The thing violently shakes me. It speaks my name. My head whips back and forth and from side to side, and I—

And suddenly I realize that zombies don’t have hot breath, and they don’t speak or say names.

“Jessie!” Reggie gasps.

I turn my face upward, and it is him. His eyes are unfocused. The right side of his face looks horribly slack. But he’s holding me up and swaying, like a tree about to crash to the ground. My feet are barely touching the floor. They’re—

dancing and jangling

He’s trying to make me stand. He’s holding me up and urging me to stand. But my knees feel like gelatin.

He pushes me away and lets me fall. My legs buckle. I begin to sink to the floor.

“Reggie,” I gasp. “Hurry! The cabinet!”

But he’s already there, already trying to dislodge it from its foundation.

“Bring the goddamn cabinet over here now!” Kelly screams.

The door slams against its frame, and the frame squeals in protest. More dust cascades down, followed by larger bits of plaster as the wall begins to come apart. A bulge appears on one side, and the sheets of drywall start separating at the seams. A crack forms. It starts small, but quickly spreads. Then it suddenly unzips toward the ceiling.

Reggie grunts and strains. There’s a sickening sound as several linoleum tiles rip out of the floor. The cabinet suddenly breaks free. It teeters for a moment on one edge and threatens to fall over. Reggie stumbles and pulls back. He grunts and scrambles. It tips even further off balance, teetering like a man balancing on a ledge. He pinwheels his free arm like mad. And then his grip fails him. The cabinet starts to fall. But then the bottom edge crumples beneath its own weight. The whole thing drops vertically an inch. Reggie skips over to the other side, stops it from tilting any farther.

Without thinking, I lunge for the top corner and push. I begin to think we won’t make it. It’s going to fall and crush Reggie. I scream and push. Reggie grunts, and the cabinet shudders. The strain in my back becomes unbearable. Finally, the damn thing starts to right itself. “Push, Reggie!” I scream.

He rises up, the veins on his face popping out. He gets up onto a knee. Then one foot. And then he’s standing up and shouldering me out of the way. The cabinet slams back onto its base with a loud crash. Without taking a moment to catch his breath, he grabs the handle two drawers down. The muscles in his neck pull tight as he lifts and rocks. And now he’s dragging the thing toward the door, walking it from one corner to the other, inching closer to the door. The linoleum pieces still stuck to the bottom fracture and fall away. I step behind the cabinet and push from the bottom. I have to brace my feet against the wall for leverage. The cabinet moves, but it’s not fast enough. The door splinters down the middle. The wall judders from the strain outside.

I peek around the edge of the cabinet. I can see the far corner of the door frame pushed inward an inch. There’s nothing holding it now, nothing but Kelly and the chair beneath the knob. He’s shaking like a leaf from the strain. The cracks in the door and wall spread. The gaps widen. More plaster showers down. Then a piece of it rips away. It falls, but catches when one corner holds and it dangles for moment. Then that fails, too, and it slams to the floor, shattering. A ceiling tile comes down, followed by heavy dust. The whole building seems to be falling apart.

We can now see the underlying supports behind the drywall— thin metal strips, like gray ribs, buckling from the pressure. That’s it, just cheap steel and drywall. A bundle of red and blue electrical wires swings free. I push harder, grunting and gasping. Reggie cries out as he pulls the cabinet from the front.

“I can’t hold it much longer!” Kelly shouts.

There’s a BANG! and one side of the door jerks free. Kelly tries desperately to shove it back, but it won’t slip properly into place.

The glass in the tiny square window shatters. It’s supposed to be bulletproof. I can’t understand how they could break it. But then I see how deformed the door has become. Hands reach through the opening. The thin wires slice through them. They start to break, twanging each time another one snaps.

“Out of the way!” Reggie shouts. His voice trembles, but it’s weak and sounds faraway. “Move, Kelly!”

“I can’t!”

“Get out of the way!”

I can see that we’re nearly there. Three feet, two and a half. I shove, but the cabinet won’t move. Reggie spins around to the back and forces me away. He bends down and starts to pedal. At first, the cabinet refuses to budge, but then it starts to slide. It picks up speed. Reggie grunts. I can see the pain on his face.

“Get out of the way!” I shout to Kelly. “Now!” He jumps to the side, pulling the chair along with him a fraction of a second before the cabinet slams into the door.

But it still doesn’t stop the undead. In that tiny moment when the door was unprotected, they gained nearly a foot of ground. Reggie shoves them back, but the gap has sprouted arms and legs and heads. Reggie keeps shoving, bulldozing them back. Kelly and I join him. My feet slip on the floor. There’s a sickening crunch as bones snap and severed limbs fall to the floor. Yet the dead are unstoppable; they keep moving forward, into the room. And we all know that the cabinet alone won’t hold them back.

I let go. Kelly shouts at me to come back. But I hurry over to the closest desk and begin to slide it over. I jockey it into position, not directly behind the cabinet, but off to the side. Then I grab another and line it up right behind it.

“We need to use the back wall to keep them in place!” I shout. I jockey the third desk into place, then grab whatever else I can find to fill the remaining space.

Kelly joins me on the other side, ready to shove it all into line. “Move, Reggie!” he shouts. Get out of the way!”

Reggie steps to the side and collapses. We slide the desks into the cabinet as quickly as we can.

But it’s not quick enough.

Chapter 11

With a screech of metal on linoleum, we slide everything into place. The door slams back against the wall, but it’s crooked, and several body parts are now wedged between it and the frame. Still, the gap is too small and too packed for any more to come through. I squeeze the last piece of furniture into the gap at the back end, jumping on it to wedge it in good and tight against the wall, while Kelly turns to deal with the dead that made it inside.

“Get up, Reg!” he yells. He grabs the front of Reggie’s shirt to drag him out of the way and kicks at the closest IU. Reggie’s head lists to the side. He’s out again. “Wake up, damn it!”

“Leave him!” I shout.

Kelly kicks another of the undead back. His heel connects just above the hip, and the IU folds from the impact and crashes into another one just behind it. They both drop.

Two more immediately step forward, heading straight for Kelly. They knock into one another and carom to either side, buying us another precious second. The smaller, speedier one recovers and jostles its way to the front. Behind it, the one Kelly kicked gets up. A strange hissing sound accompanies its movements, but it’s not coming from its mouth. In fact, someone has sewn it shut. I stare at it for a moment, stunned. Who the hell would do such a thing? my mind screams. I can see its jaw working, trying to open its mouth so it can bite. It reaches a hand up and tears at its own lips, as if it’s trying to rip off its own jaw. There’s a hole below its chin, and the skin on the edges draws inward, then flaps out again as it moves. The escaping air sounds just like wind scouring the eaves outside my bedroom window on a winter’s day. I used to actually take comfort in it, knowing that I was safe and warm beneath my blanket. But now it sends chills through me. A noxious smell fills the room. It’s thick and swampy. For a second I think it came out of that zombie’s neck. But then I realize their clothes and skin are covered in mold.

“Jessie!” Kelly shouts. “What are you doing? Get the one in back!”

“The bigger one?”

Before he can answer, the smaller one lunges at him. He throws his hands out instinctively and somehow gets lucky. His fingers close over its throat. But he loses his footing, and the two of them go down.

Jessie, goddamn it! my mind screams. Get moving!

I catch a flash of movement beside me, a blur of faded colors, a little blue and brown, but mostly gray, I duck out of the way and spin into a kick. My foot connects with something so solid it feels like a tree trunk. I immediately follow with a second kick, chambering quickly and throwing my foot up and out even higher. I put all of my weight behind it. The impact sends a shock wave up my leg and into my torso.

I land on all fours facing in the wrong direction. I scramble to the side, bracing for the attack that doesn’t come, while stealing a glance behind me. I see the IU in the middle of falling over. It doesn’t try to catch itself. It doesn’t wave its arms defensively. It just drops.

Like a tree.

But trees stay down once hewn. This thing won’t stay down for long.

I pull the gun from my waistband and aim it at the thing’s head, following its downward track, ready to squeeze the trigger as soon as it hits the floor. The thing takes a ponderously long time to fall. It drops as if frozen, arms fully extended in front of it, reaching out like branches. Its mouth gapes open like the hollow in a rotting trunk. It rolls and crashes onto its side with a heavy crunch, all of its weight focused on one shoulder, forcing the collar bone out through the other side of its neck. Its head slams into the floor with a thud. I feel the impact through my boots. With it square in my sights, I squeeze the trigger.

And nothing happens.

No bullets, you idiot!

Something slams into my side. The gun flies out of my hand in one direction. I go down in another. I’m already rolling before I land, part reflex, part training. One moment I’m in the air, the next I’m on my ass, then on my feet and spinning to face my attacker.

“Where’s the knife?” Kelly shouts. He’s flat on his back, the small zombie bearing down on him. He jerks his head away as it strains downward to bite him. “Throw me a knife!”

“You had one!”

“I dropped it somewhere!”

The large IU starts to get up. Each time it tries to use its shattered arm, it falls again. I spin around to locate the knife, but the other IU is standing between me and it. The skin on its face draws taut as it tries again to open its mouth. I can see its teeth in the gaps beneath the laces. They clack each time its jaw hinges shut. And each time it opens again, the laces strain a little more. Suddenly, the leathery flesh of its lips tears. The stitches pop like a series of buttons, leaving ragged holes that immediately ooze black ichor. Its tongue lolls out, a fat stump, dried to the consistency of jerky. The tip is torn and frayed. The dead man crouches, expelling through its mouth its first breath in who knows how long. My stomach clenches from the smell. But there’s no time to be sick, no time for the luxury of disgust. I plant my feet, spin, and thrust out my rear foot, landing it square in the middle of its abdomen. It lets out another lungful of moldering air and folds.

I locate the knife again, but the damn zombie is already climbing to its feet. I run over while it’s still unbalanced and knock it back down, then grab the knife. Three steps and I’m back by Kelly’s side. The IU is leaning all its weight on him, and his arm shakes like it’s about to give out. He turns his face away, squinting as it snaps at him. He reaches out for the knife with his free hand, waving it right in front of the zombie’s mouth.

He’s going to get himself bitten!

I bat it away, then swing the knife beneath the thing’s neck and quickly draw the blade up, intent on severing its head. But the heel of the blade catches on the collar of its New York University sweatshirt, and I nearly lose my grip. I wrench it free and swipe again. Now the thing’s head is connected only by its spine and a few ropy tendons. Yet, incredibly, it’s still intent on biting him, even though its jaw hangs slack. The ends of the severed tendons in its neck ratchet uselessly.

Kelly punches upward and slams his palm under its chin. The head snaps back and the spine breaks.

“Get it off of me!” he yells, as a thick, oily, sludge dribbles down onto his chest.

But I suddenly don’t want to touch it. I don’t want that fusty skin and those moldering clothes to touch me. I don’t know why it’s affecting me like this. I’ve had my arm inside the chest of a dead woman while she was still lukewarm. This corpse looks like it spent the past decade rotting away beneath a pile of manure. It stinks so badly that I don’t ever think I’ll ever get that smell out of my nose.

You won’t have to worry about that if you just keep standing there!

So I reach over and grab the first thing I can think of. I get a fistful of hair and yank just as it lunges for a final desperate attempt to get a mouthful of Kelly. Its momentum lifts it onto its toes. I swipe the knife down and yank hard upward in one swift motion. I can feel the stiff, hardened tendons resisting the blade, and I realize it may take several more swipes. But then the head suddenly breaks free. I’m pulling so hard that it throws me backward. I land hard on my knuckles and collapse to my elbows in pain. Both the knife and the several head skitter away.

“Look out!” Kelly shouts.

I react instinctively, ducking out of the way just as a hand swishes through the air where my head was. It still manages to get a handful of my hair. My head snaps back as it draws me toward its mouth. The pain is excruciating. I scream and lurch to my feet. Another moan slips up the monster’s chest as it pulls me close.

“Kelly!”

I catch a glint of metal and hear a shing! I see the zombie’s head bounce off the floor and roll toward the door. As the rest of its body falls, it drags me down with it. I land mostly on top of the corpse, but as I’m unable to brace myself, my head gets wrenched to the side, and pain flares in my neck.

“It won’t let go!” I scream.

But Kelly’s busy stabbing the knife into another zombie’s throat. It waves a short stump of an arm at him. The avulsion is fresh, the rest of the arm probably left behind in the crush at the doorway. Thrusting upward, Kelly pierces its skull from underneath, much the same way Ben did to Shane. But this one proves far more effective, and the IU collapses.

There should only be one left, I automatically calculate.

Unless more have gotten in.

I still can’t untangle the damn IU’s fingers from my hair. “Kelly,” I say. “Little help here!”

He reaches down to assist me, but the last zombie crashes into him. They fall onto a desk, knocking it nearly out of the line. They roll to the floor on the other side. I can’t see them now. I can’t even turn around without risking the top of my skull being torn off. I hammer at the corpse with my fists and pry at the twice dead fingers, but they’re locked in a death grip and won’t let go.

I can hear Kelly fighting. I can hear his grunts of effort and the zombie’s snapping teeth. But I can’t see what’s happening.

“Jessie!” he shouts. “I need— ahh! Help!”

“I can’t! I can’t,” I scream. I pull, but it feels like I’m being scalped. “It won’t let go!”

There’s a loud crunch! followed by smacking, and again I hear teeth clacking and grinding. It sounds like it’s chewing. This sends a bolt of electricity through me. I reach out, blindly sweeping the floor. I know there’s a knife somewhere. My knuckles knock something, and I know without being able to see it that it’s there. But I can’t seem to get a hold of it. It’s just out of reach.

“Let go of me!” I scream. “Goddamn it, let go of me!” I stretch and reach and try to grab the knife. I brace myself for the pain that I know is about to come, then lunge toward the side. For a moment, I can’t think. The pain is so intense that it leaves me breathless. But then I’ve got the knife handle in my hand. I reach up and stab blindly at the zombie holding me.

Kelly lets out a bloodcurdling scream.

“No!” I cry in anguish. “No!”

I twist the knife and slice through my hair instead. Suddenly I’m free. I jump up and dive over the desks. Kelly and the IU have slipped into the narrow space underneath. There’s no room to move, no way to escape. The monster’s mouth is so close to Kelly’s face that they could be kissing.

I reach under and yank it by its collar and the fabric of its shirt somehow holds. I slide them both out. I stab madly at the IU’s neck with the knife. Kelly hisses, and for a split second I think I’ve hit him instead. But as the zombie falls away, there’s no sign of fresh blood.

I thrust the knife into the IU’s ear for good measure, and the damn thing goes limp. I collapse to the floor, panting and sobbing.

Kelly sits up. He’s shaking like crazy.

“Are you hurt?” I ask. “Did it bite you?”

He inspects his hands, then checks his neck and face. “I don’t think so.”

“What was that scream?” I ask.

He reaches up and gingerly touches his ear. His whole face is red, but the ear’s swollen. “I scraped it against the side of the desk. Felt like half my face got torn off.”

“Tell me about it.”

“What do you mean?”

I turn my head so he can see my butchered hair.

“It’ll grow back,” he offers.

“Gee, thanks for your sympathy.”

He snorts. “No bites, though, right?”

“No bites,” I say. “We both came close though.”

He nods. “Too close.” He gestures toward the hallway. “That was only four of them. There’s ten times that many out there waiting to get in.”

“Yeah, and these desks aren’t going to hold forever,” I say, shakily. I get up and shove the one back into place. “And neither are we.”

Chapter 12

We reinforce the blockage as best we can with the remaining furniture, piling up chairs and a small cabinet to keep the undead from pushing through. Even the old water cooler gets crammed into place. But now we’re stuck in here, and it doesn’t sound like Ben’s IU’s are going anywhere anytime soon.

Reggie regains consciousness twenty minutes later. “Where am I?” he says.

“Shh,” I urge. Out in the hallway, the zombies have calmed down. They’re mostly silent now, but we can still hear the occasional shuffle of their feet and the infrequent moan or thump of a body.

Reggie takes one look around, sees the dead IUs, and asks, “Did I do that?”

“Singlehandedly,” Kelly quietly teases. “You don’t remember?”

“I remember...” He blinks. “Last thing I remember is Brother Matthew arriving. Did he...?”

I shake my head. “Relax,” I quietly tell him, and place a damp cloth on his forehead. “You didn’t miss anything exciting.”

He closes his eyes and sighs. “That feels good. My head’s killing me.”

“You honestly don’t remember anything after Brother Matthew?” Kelly asks.

I give him a dirty look.

Reggie concentrates for a moment. “I remember being topside,” he says. “Outside. It was raining, I think. Everything’s fuzzy.”

It hasn’t rained here since before my return from Brookhaven, so he’s mixing up his timeline. In any case, he doesn’t seem to have any idea of our predicament or the danger we’re currently in. The last two hours are lost to him right now.

Reggie opens his eyes again. This time, alarm flashes across his face. “Where’s Ashley?”

Kelly kneels down beside us. He rubs his cheek. The whole side of his face is still red, and there’s a bruise running from his ear to the base of his neck. “We need to tell him,” he says.

“Tell me what?”

“Ashley’s not here. Ben’s got her.”

“Who’s Ben?” His forehead wrinkles. Then his eyes widen. “That bitch— what was her name? Novak? She kept Ashley. What’d she do with her? Is she okay?”

“Reg...” I give my head a quick shake. “You’ve been out for nearly an hour. Your Link is damaged and the failsafe...” I sigh. “It tried to activate again. Do you remember—”

“Being shot? Hell yeah I do. That fucker got me on the leg.” He pats himself, frowning in confusion when he can’t find a wound. “Where is he? I’m gonna kill him.”

“He’s dead, Reg. So is Novak. Your Link deflected the bullet, but now it’s glitching. It kept shutting down, so we had to bring you up from the basement, or else you’d die. In fact, we thought—”

“We were worried you wouldn’t recover this time,” Kelly interjects. His eyes flash, warning me not to go where I was about to go.

“Are you telling me I’ve been unconscious for an hour?”

“Actually, you’ve been out of it for a while longer. Except for a few minutes in the middle. Some rather well-timed minutes.” Kelly gestures to the blockade of furniture. “You remember helping us move that into place?”

Reggie shakes his head. His frown deepens, and for the first time he seems to realize that we’re locked in here. “Where’s Ashley?” he repeats.

“Ben took her. He pinged us and—”

“Ben? Ben...? Are you talking about that asshole who killed Brother Nicholas? I thought— The shot he got in his arm, I thought it killed him.”

“It didn’t. In fact, it did something to him. He ambushed Novak and the others and killed them. Ashley’s still alive. He took her and is on his way to find Father Heall.”

Reggie struggles to stand up, but Kelly holds him down. “We need to go!” he says. He shoots me a glance. “Why are you still here?”

Kelly urges him to keep quiet. “Because the hallway’s filled with IUs. We can’t get out.”

“How the fuck did that happen?”

“Ben sent them,” I say. “He found out we were still alive and he somehow managed to herd them here from the woods.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s insane.”

“What I don’t understand,” Kelly says, “is how. I mean, these were IUs. He couldn’t control them. Nobody can.”

“You don’t have to be able to control them to herd them. All he had to do was open the gate and make noise from within the compound. Our own shouting drew them into the building.”

“How many are out there?” Reggie asks.

“Lots. Dozens. There might be more now.”

“Or fewer,” I add.

“Not the last time I checked.”

“There’s something else,” I say, haltingly.

They wait for me to continue.

“Ben said he was sending something else after them. He said that if we got past the dead out there, then—”

“We’ll never get past them,” Kelly snarls.

“He said if we get past them, then there’ll be something else waiting for us before we can get out of the compound.”

“More IUs?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

Reggie exhales. I can see the muscles in his neck trembling. He’s still shaky. I don’t know how much damage his implant may have done to him trying to activate. He still doesn’t look right. His eyes still haven’t quite focused. “Ashley?”

“I think he’ll probably keep her with him,” I say. “At least until he’s found Heall.”

“The good thing is, we know he’s closer to us than we initially thought,” Kelly adds. “That gives Heall time to get away.”

“That would be true if he knew Ben was coming for him,” I say.

“Don’t they have Micah’s Link?” Reggie asks. “You could ping it with your Link and—”

“We tried that. Micah answered.”

“Micah?” Reggie frowns. “I don’t understand.”

“He’s on his way back here. I think he escaped.”

“Or maybe they let him go?”

“No. They were supposed to hold onto him until I returned to Brookhaven with Kelly and Jake.”

“Why me?” Kelly asks.

“The treatment isn’t a cure. It only works for a limited time. Jake will need repeat injections. And so will you. Forever.”

He grunts. “This again?”

“What do you mean repeat injections?” Reggie asks.

“Just what it sounds like. The treatment keeps the infection from killing you, but it needs to be re-administered whenever the effect wears off. Jake won’t be able to leave the island, either.”

“But why Kelly?”

“The injection Stephen gave—”

“We don’t know what he gave me, Jess.”

“I can’t take that chance, Kel. You saw what happened to Tanya.”

He gets up and starts pacing. I can tell he doesn’t want to have this conversation again. And, frankly, neither do I.

“Maybe if we just get Heall’s recipe?” Reggie suggests.

“We can’t make it,” I say. “Only Father Heall can.”

“And how does he make it?”

“By bleeding.”

They both turn to me, startled.

“It’s his blood. The treatment is his blood. I watched Brother Matthew extract it from his neck. He makes it in his blood. There’s a stabilizer added, but that’s it. So, if he dies, then no more treatment.” I turn to Kelly. “And both you and Jake will die, too. I don’t know when, but it’ll happen. Jake will become undead. And you’ll turn into whatever Tanya became.”

I stand up and walk over to the barricade. The dead are back to being agitated, roused by our conversation. They try to reach inside past the body parts wedged between the door and the wall.

“Well,” Reggie says. “Then why are we sitting here doing nothing? We need to go after Ben. We have to kill him. Then we save Ashley and Father Heall.”

Chapter 13

Reggie staggers to his feet and surveys our twenty-by-twenty prison cell.

His appearance has improved considerably just in the past few minutes. He’s still stiff and shaky, and he keeps blinking and shaking his head, as if he’s trying to clear it. He cradles his Link in his hand like he’s afraid of it, like it’s the most delicate thing in the world and he must protect it at all costs, yet he also keeps glancing at it like he wants nothing more than to crush the life out of it.

“I tried to fix it,” Kelly quietly tells him. He’s perched beside the door, careful not to get too close, in case an IU reaches through and tries to grab him. “I think something’s loose inside, a connection or something. I can hear it rattling around.”

The news doesn’t make Reggie feel any better. He grunts and paces some more, muttering to himself.

“How many?” I ask Kelly.

“More than twenty. Maybe forty. Hard to tell. Can’t see very far down the hall.”

“What are they doing?”

“Just stand—”

He ducks his head back, looking like a turtle that’s been spooked, as a hand swipes through the air.

“Look through the window.”

“I’d rather not again.”

“They can’t see you,” Reggie snorts.

“The hell they can’t.”

“I’m beginning to think they can,” I say.

“Not according to Baghani,” Reggie retorts, referring to our Anatomy and Physiology of Reanimates instructor last year. “They can hear, yes. But the eyes die.”

“I don’t know how, Reg, but I think they can see, even if only in a very rudimentary sense.”

Reggie shivers. “It just isn’t supposed to be possible, any of this. They’re supposed to be dead. They have no heartbeat. They don’t breathe. How does any of it work?”

I know the question isn’t meant for me, and yet I feel like it is. It was my father who made it all possible, after all. But he died when I was too young to understand it, and it’s nothing my grandfather ever felt obliged to explain to me.

“Their blood clots because there’s nothing pumping it,” he goes on. “Their damn brains turn to dust after a while. And their eyes are all fucked up. How in the hell can they see or hear? How in the hell can they do anything? They haven’t fucking eaten anything for thirteen years! It defies all known laws of nature!” His voice rises. “How are they even possible?”

“Calm down,” Kelly says. He shoots me a worried glance. The last thing we need is for Reggie to start freaking out again. What if it triggers another relapse? “This barricade isn’t going to hold forever. The less strain we put on it, the longer it’ll last.”

“We don’t need it to last,” Reggie says. “We need to get out of here.” He glances at the elevator door and scowls. He knows escaping into the basement isn’t an option for him. It’s why neither Kelly nor I have mentioned it. But I have to assume it’s been on Kelly’s mind, because it’s surely been on mine. If worse came to worse, at least the two of us would be able to leave this room. I just don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to consider leaving Reggie behind, not after all he’s been through. Not now that he’s back.

But we may not have a choice.

“Any ideas yet?” I ask. “For how we’re going to get out of here?”

“Maybe they’ll just wander off,” Reggie says. “Maybe they’ll get bored.”

“Not if we keep riling them up,” I note.

“Even if we were quiet, I don’t think they’d leave,” Kelly whispers. “They know we’re here. They can out-wait us. They’ve been waiting twelve years.”

“Thanks for that little bit of cheerful news,” Reggie grumbles. He tries to boot his Link up again. After a few seconds, he hisses in anger. It’s doubly upsetting for him because I know he wants to ping Ashley. He glances over and sees me watching him, and I expect him to ask to borrow mine. I know he wants to. The thing feels heavy in my pocket, more like a liability than an asset right now. But he doesn’t. I think he’s worried I’ll say no, and he’d be right. The worst thing we could do right now is give Ben any sign we’re still alive after his little party-crashing trick.

I also worry that anything Ben might say could anger Reggie enough for him to lose control.

Reggie’s right about one thing, though, and that’s needing to stop Ben before he can find Father Heall. And if I believed he was on his way to find Father Heall right now, I’d be a lot more anxious. But despite what’s been said, whether by me or Ben himself, I’m not convinced he’s left yet. In fact, I have this nagging suspicion he’ll want to watch us suffer. He was a sick man to begin with, sick and twisted, but after his injection he’s become completely irrational.

Reggie bends down over one of the IUs we’ve killed and nudges it with his hand.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

But instead of answering, he grabs the knife off the desk and inserts it into the back of the IU’s neck. After digging around for several seconds, he wipes it off onto the IU’s moldy clothing. “No implant,” he says.

“They weren’t Players, Reg. We already knew that.”

“I know. I just thought... I don’t know. How could someone make them all come in here and attack us?”

“They came in because we were making a lot of noise. They attacked because they’re hungry and we’re food.”

“Damn good thing they weren’t Players,” Kelly mutters. “They were a bitch enough to kill. If they were CUs, we’d all be dead.”

“Arc wouldn’t allow it,” Reggie says.

“I think they would,” I counter. “In fact, I think that’s what Arc has been planning for its next iteration of The Game: live hunters pitted against the dead.”

“How can that be legal?”

“How can volunteering?”

He grunts.

The next several minutes pass in silence. Both boys continue fidgeting. Nobody comes up with any ideas for getting out. Kelly keeps an eye on what’s going on outside while Reggie paces. His hip is still bothering him. And when he can’t take it anymore, he sits against the wall and stares at his Link. A few seconds will pass, and then he’s right back up and pacing again.

I’m agitated enough to want to pace, too, but with the room divided in half by the barricade, the space is far too small, and I don’t want to get in Reggie’s way. I try to sit still, but I can’t. I’m exhausted, yet restless, full of pent up energy. I’m also afraid if I sit down, I’ll crash from exhaustion and overload. I think about taking the elevator downstairs and checking on Jake, but I don’t want to leave Kelly alone with Reggie up here. It’d also mean leaving him without the elevator in case something happens quickly. I could send Kelly down to check on Jake, but I don’t think he’d leave me for the very same reasons. And there’s no way in hell we’re both going to go down. It’d feel too much like abandoning Reggie.

I exhale with frustration, noisily enough that they both look at me expectantly, as if they think I’ve come up with a solution. Hope turns to disappointment when they realize I’ve got nothing.

If the barricade is breeched, then the elevator car will be a measure of last resort. Even for Reggie. We could all escape inside of it and then just shut the door but not go anywhere. We’d be safe like that for a little while. The zombies wouldn’t be able to get in.

Not unless one of them managed somehow to push the button to open the door.

This worries me, so I go over and inspect it. It’s the usual recessed kind of call button, not the kind that sticks out from the wall. But it wouldn’t take much to press it — an elbow or a bony hip — and the door would slide open and we’d not be able to do a thing to stop it. We’d be trapped inside an even more confined space than we’re in now. They’d quickly overwhelm us. We’d all die in there.

Suddenly, Ben’s aversion to the elevator makes all kinds of sense.

“What are you doing?” Kelly asks.

“Just looking to see if it’s possible to cover the button.”

The boys seem to understand my intent. They start looking around, too. It’s something to keep them busy, something to distract them from not figuring out how to escape.

“Not a goddamn thing,” Reggie grumbles. “Cardboard and tape. Is that too much to ask? Nothing but a few paperclips and some rubber bands. Not even MacGyver could MacGyver something from this.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Remind me to show you the tapes when we get back home.”

I think some more about Jake downstairs. I worry because we don’t know what’s happening to him. Has his fever fully broken? Did the treatment truly work? Or was the drop in his temperature a prelude to death? If his fever broke because he’s getting better, then he could be seriously hypothermic by now.

And what if he wakes up?

He won’t. He’s brain dead, Jess.

But what if he does? What if, by some miracle, he wakes and he’s conscious and aware? He’ll soon realize he’s alone. He’ll be scared. And if he’s suffered brain damage, won’t that just make him even more frightened? He might panic and call the elevator car.

“I going to check on Jake,” I abruptly announce.

Neither of them answers.

I keep pacing in front of the elevator door. Kelly keeps watching the hallway. Reggie dominates the center of the room, squeezing his Link like he’s doing fist exercises.

Finally, I just give up. With a sigh, I turn and press the button. Kelly asks if that’s a good idea.

“It’s been over an hour. Somebody needs to check on him.”

Reggie glances at Kelly. Kelly purses his lips and says nothing. I know he wants to, but he can’t, not without looking foolish. Or selfish.

“I’d go with you if I could, J,” Reggie offers.

“I know.” It’s a nice gesture, but we all know it’s purely rhetorical. With his Link on the fritz, he’s stuck up here. “And I’d take the stairs,” I say. “Leave the elevator for you two, but—”

Kelly’s head jerks up. “Damn it!” His face twists, and he gestures toward the door to the hallway. “Did you leave the door propped open?”

“What door?”

“The stairwell door! Downstairs! You had it open to help circulate the air.”

“Shit!” I say, and we stare at each another, realizing what this means. Anyone who goes downstairs could be walking right into a bunch of the undead.

“But Jake’s safe, right?” Reggie says. His voice breaks. “They won’t bother with him because he’s already infected.”

The elevator door starts to shut. I don’t stop it. I’m remembering what Brother Matthew told me: The Elders still attack us. They make no such distinction among the living, whether infected or not. There’s something in the living brain that triggers the instinct in the dead to feed, some sort of electrochemical signal or something.

In other words, not even the bitten are protected, as long as they’re still alive. Maybe that’s what explains why the dead keep after some people and not others. Maybe some people die right away and their brains stop sending out signals triggering the dead to feed, whereas others take a long time.

I remember how they took after Brother Malcolm, dragging him from the car. How they packed so tightly around to feed on him that he was actually lifted up off the ground. He must’ve still been alive, just unconscious, even after he fell to the road with half his face chewed off, because they kept right on attacking him.

When they’re done feeding on me, on my flesh, they’ll be coming for you. They like young, uninfected meat. They like the young hollow ones.

I shiver at the memory. I’d thought he was already dead.

But it’s Kelly who shoots down Reggie’s query by speaking up. “They attacked Brother Matthew, Reg. So... no, Jake’s not safe.”

“What if he...” Reggie begins. His throat bobs as he swallows. “What if Jake’s...?”

I turn and press the button again. If the undead can get down there, then we need to bring Jake up here. Immediately. We should’ve done it already.

“I’ll go with you,” Kelly says.

“I’m okay,” I say, registering the flash of panic on Reggie’s face. He doesn’t want to be left up here alone, and I don’t blame him.

Kelly looks over at him. “Reg?”

He stands up and shakes himself off, like he’s a prizefighter ready to go back into the ring after the bell despite knowing he’s about to get his ass handed to him. “It’s cool,” he says. “I’m fine, really. See?” And he does a little jog in place and nearly falls over. “Okay, maybe still a little woozy. But I’ll be fine. Go check on Jake. But be careful, okay? I mean, it’ll only take a few minutes, right?”

“I can do this alone,” I grumble.

“Take Kelly with you, J. I mean it.”

“Fine,” I concede. “But we’re just going to get him and the rest of our gear and come right back up.”

“And if the coast isn’t clear—”

“We’ll come right back,” Kelly reassures him

“Ten minutes,” I tell him. “Figure two or three minutes to get down there, seven or eight to check around and get Jake. If you don’t hear the elevator coming back up in ten minutes, you push this button. You hear me? No matter what, you call the car back.”

“I don’t understand. Why?”

“So it’s here for you in case they break in. You get your ass inside that car and shut the door, and you stay inside it and wait.”

Kelly walks over and places a hand on Reggie’s arm. “Ten minutes, Reggie. Just like Jessie said. If you don’t hear us coming back by then, it means we’re not coming back at all.”

I nod. “You call it, and you get ready to kill whatever’s inside it. You got that? Even if it’s us.”

Chapter 14

“Ten minutes,” I remind him. Reggie nods, but I can see it in his eyes that he’s not going to press that button, not when he’s supposed to anyway. If the ten-minute mark passes and we still haven’t starting coming up, he’ll know we never will, and he’ll just stand there and wait and not do anything. Another minute will pass. Then two. Finally, at some point he’ll be forced to call the elevator— maybe after another ten or fifteen or twenty minutes have gone by and he’s absolutely sure we’re gone. But it won’t make any difference. We’ll be dead.

“Try not to miss us too much,” Kelly jokes. He laughs lightly as he pats Reggie’s shoulder, but it doesn’t make any of us feel better.

“Just sit tight,” I say. “Don’t worry. We’ll be fine.”

“Oh, I’m not worried,” Reggie snaps. “I’m too fucking terrified to be worried.”

We both turn and look at him. Reggie stands there, his face pale as a ghost. He never used to admit his fear. He’d always deny it, or cover it up with bluster. To witness this is like glimpsing something profoundly secret and sacred. We all know it’s there, that it’s always been there. To have him confirm it feels a little like the earth crumbling beneath our feet.

I remember what Micah had said about Ashley, how she has this hard shell to protect her while she’s nothing but marshmallow inside. It’s the same thing for Reggie. I don’t like seeing beneath his shell.

“Hey, man—” Kelly begins.

But Reggie cuts him off: “You don’t know what’s down there, brah. Those... things... Just be careful, okay? Jake could’ve—”

“Jake’s fine,” Kelly says. “We’ll be back before you know it.”

“Just sit tight,” I tell him. “Sit tight and be quiet. Don’t do anything to rile them up out there.” I hand him my Link so he can watch the time. “Do not ping anyone,” I warn him.

He nods. “I won’t. I promise.”

“On second thought,” I say, taking it back. I hate doing this, but we can’t afford any more mistakes. I slip it back into my pocket and pull out the replacement Link. “Use this one.”

He frowns, but he knows I’m right. I can’t trust him, not when it comes to Ash.

We step into the elevator. Kelly pushes the button. The door shuts. And we begin the interminable ride back down into that dungeon.

Once again, it seems to take forever. Kelly positions himself in the corner with the button, while I move into the opposite corner. And for the second time in the last ten minutes, I’m reminded of those old boxing matches they used to have before the LSC Personal Safety Commission outlawed them for being too dangerous. The only way I know about them now is from Micah’s bootlegged recordings. The boys always seemed to enjoy watching them. Even Ashley got into it. But I just couldn’t. It didn’t make any sense to me why a couple of men or women would voluntarily go up onto a raised pen and beat each other up. Not even for a lot of money.

Kelly glances over and happens to catches me looking at him. I turn away. But then I look over at him, and he’s the one averting his eyes.

“Go ahead,” he finally says. “Say it.”

“What?”

“You blame me for all this. You think I should never have gotten involved with Arc.”

“Feeling guilty?” I sigh. “I wasn’t even thinking about that.” I’m not even sure what I was thinking about, but it sure as hell wasn’t that. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s too late.”

“It does matter. I wanted—”

“We’re in this effed-up situation because of Micah,” I remind him. “Plain and simple. Not because of you. Even if you had said no to Arc, we’d still be here. I thought we cleared this up.”

“I might’ve been able to stop it.”

“You tried.”

“I could’ve tried harder. I should have.”

“Look, Kel, Micah planned this from the very beginning, probably even before we first met him over a year ago. He needed physical access to the system inside the wall, and we helped him get it.”

He shakes his head in frustration. “See, that’s been bugging me. If he infiltrated Arc, why not just get the codex from them?”

“You think they’d just hand it over to him?”

He shrugs.

“Maybe he tried, Kel. In fact, I’m sure he would’ve. But Arc isn’t going to just give anyone access to the codex, especially not someone with his history. His family defected from a Coalition state, for chissake.”

“If that’s even true. We don’t know if he made that up.”

“Well, maybe not. Either way, he betrayed us. That’s all we need to remember.”

“Yeah, but he got direct access to the nodes that first day. Why bring us back?”

“That wasn’t his ultimate objective, Kel.”

“The mainframe downstairs?”

“Why do you think he’s coming back?”

The car jerks to a stop, and we brace ourselves. After a few seconds, Kelly pushes the open door button, but nothing happens. “What the hell?”

I lean over and start pressing random buttons. None of the lights comes on. I don’t know why. “I don’t think we’ve reached the basement,” I say, troubled. “The ride seemed too short.”

As if to confirm, the car jolts, and we start to descend again.

“That was weird,” he says.

I nod. “What does Arc have to say about what’s happened?”

He looks up sharply.

“Oh come on, Kel. I’m not stupid. You’ve been sending updates back on all of us. You had to be.”

His face flushes red. “That first day, yeah. I stopped after Shane and Casey tried to kidnap me.”

“Because they said they were Arc?”

He nods. “Arc kept pinging me, but I ghosted them. There hasn’t been any communication whatsoever in either direction since we left the airport. I think they’ve completely wiped me from their systems. Micah, too, if they’ve figured out what he’s done. And the rest of us, for that matter. That’s what I’d do, disavow any and all knowledge of us.”

“Maybe,” I muse. It might explain why the Coalition’s attempts to track us failed. Arc wiped our Link and implant identifiers from the system entirely.

Except they didn’t, Jess. Ashley found them in Stephen’s failsafe scripts.

“There might be another reason they’ve stopped communicating with you,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

“On the way here, Ben said something strange. I didn’t know what he meant at the time, and I tried to push him on it, but he never got the chance to explain himself. It was when I warned him that Arc would be sending people in to find out why their wall had been blown up, and he replied that they’re too busy right now to deal with it. My first thought was that there was another outbreak somewhere, but now I’m not so sure. Yesterday, I saw this strange black cloud in the sky to the west. Micah said it looked like smoke. I forgot all about it until just now.”

“The SSC? You think they might be scorching Gameland?”

“No, it was farther away. Maybe LaGuardia? We know the Coalition have explosives.”

“But why?”

“To get rid of evidence maybe.”

“I don’t see how that would distract Arc very much.”

“We know the SSC are here and we know they’ve been at war with New Merica since the truce. And New Merica is essentially Arc these days, so if the SSC can take out Arc...”

“They defeat New Merica.”

“Right. Father Heall mentioned a war, too, but at the time I was thinking something more figurative, or at least something a lot less conventional. The kind of war corporate enemies wage. But what if he really was talking about a war between New Merica and the SSC? What if we somehow got caught in the middle of it? You know how the South feels about my family. And it’s not just them. A lot of people blame us for what happened to the country. Think of the coup it would be if the SSC took out the first family of Reanimation.”

“It’s been years since your family has been associated with it.”

“Yeah, but everywhere else in the world, Daniels is probably still synonymous with the undead.”

Kelly’s eyes darken. “So, what? The SSC gains access to the codex, then what?”

“They take control. Arc’s codex is the basis for everything, Kel. All the CUs the government uses for civil projects. Even the ones in the military.”

“Then why go after Father Heall? To eradicate Reanimation?”

“That or to protect their own people against the inevitable counterattack. You know Government won’t hesitate to send in the Omegamen to defend the country.”

“But if the Coalition have the codex, they’ll have control of the Omegamen, too. They could just shut everything down. Why would they need Father Heall’s treatment?”

“Because Arc has been changing things up. I think that’s why they’ve been testing these new implants. New materials and new programming running a different codex, which the SSC won’t be able to hack. Arc knew their scripts would eventually be broken. The SSC knew this. That’s why they infiltrated Arc and stole their new implant technology, to stay one step ahead. And possibly do something even worse.”

“Worse how?”

“Nurse Mabel. Beaucorps. They all worked for the Coalition, not Arc. After they got a hold of us, they wanted to see if they could do more than simply control the undead. They wanted to see if they could control the living, too. You and me, Kelly. Ashley and Reggie and Tanya. They’re not just here to destroy Arc or take out the undead. They want to control the living, too. They’ve come to conquer us.”

He frowns, and I can see he doesn’t believe it. I admit it’s a stretch, but it’s the only way I can make all the pieces fit together.

“And maybe,” I add, and I know I’m just spitballing now, especially since it’s got to be the tenth different theory I’ve come up with, “maybe the injection Stephen gave you is another part of that. Maybe the injection prevents implant rejection.”

Chapter 15

The car slowly descends the final dozen feet in silence, sinking like a bathysphere into the unknown depths of the deepest ocean. What will await us when we arrive? Two more chimes sound out before the brakes take hold and the motor chunks to a stop. “What have we done?” Kelly wonders to himself. He looks overwhelmed with the enormity of our predicament. “I should’ve known better the moment Arc contacted me that it wasn’t as simple as they were making it.”

My first impulse is to defend him, but I don’t. A part of me still resents him for what he’s done, despite knowing he really had no other choice, not when it comes to Kyle. But if he deserves any blame, then the rest of us deserve even more. We ignored so many clues, failed to take so many opportunities to put a stop to this whole thing, even before the idea of coming here was spoken out loud. Micah’s odd living arrangement. The way his parents never seemed to be around. How not a single one of us had ever met them. How he always had all that computer and gaming gear. How it was always better than the rest of ours, good enough to keep us going back to his place but never so good that we’d become suspicious. Professor Halliwell’s identification card, the man who killed my father. It always goes back to Micah.

“We all knew better,” I tell him. “Every single one of us. Micah duped us all. ”

“He was the one who suggested Ash go talk to Jake’s uncle for the rebreathers,” Kelly remembers.

“And now that I think about it, I’m sure he was the one who pushed you over the railing at the Midtown Tunnel.”

“So, you do believe me about that now.”

I nod. “I didn’t want to at first, but what other explanation can there be? You’re not clumsy enough to fall over a railing like that. And I doubt you’d jump in on purpose, not and then lie about it. Now that I think about it, I think he did the same thing to Stephen. Remember? On the other side of Gameland, when Stephen disappeared for those few hours? He said he was pushed down the embankment.”

“Why would Micah do that to him if they were both working for the Coalition?”

I shrug. “Stephen knew about the Coder, but not who he was. Maybe Micah thought Stephen was going to say something incriminating that would clue us in sooner.”

“Hmm, that’s possible, especially after Ashley discovered his tracking software on their servers.”

He leans forward, his brow furrowing, and presses the button to open the elevator door. “What the heck’s going on with this thing?”

“Just give it a second, Kel.”

“It should open automatically.”

I shrug and shake my head. The damn elevator has never worked properly, why should it now?

“I always thought that excuse he gave us about the tracker script that first day was lame,” I say. “Field testing a way to track the CUs by following us? He knew we’d let it go if we thought it would get us access to Players.”

“Jake didn’t buy it. But then again, he never had any interest in The Game.”

“There’s one other thing,” I say. “Yesterday morning, when we were in the stairwell, Micah tried to extract one of the Player’s implants. It exploded, of course. You know what he told me?”

Kelly shakes his head.

“He said, ‘I always wondered if Arc made it so people couldn’t reverse engineer them.’ I didn’t think about it at the time, but now it seems so obvious he was lying.”

Kelly thinks about this for a moment, frowning. “You think he knew about the self-destruct already?”

“Of course he knew. It’s common knowledge.”

“Maybe, but just because everyone believes something doesn’t make it true.”

“The Coalition knows. Don’t you think that after all these years since the War, they never got their hands on a CU and tried to extract the implant?”

“So if he wasn’t trying to confirm a suspicion, then why would he—”

The car suddenly jolts as it drops a couple inches. The door opening mechanism engages. We immediately brace for whatever might be waiting for us on the other side. Kelly glances grimly at me and nods. He lifts a hand to the button, ready to close the door in a hurry just in case the situation inside is bad. There’s a three or four-second delay, which feels like an eternity. But when the door finally slides open, nothing greets us. No IUs rush in. Nothing makes a sound but the fans blowing cold air through the vents. Neither of us moves. We wait. Kelly taps the side of the door with the knife. The sound reverberates into depths of the underground complex, but everything remains quiet.

Almost too quiet.

We slip out and quickly scan the room. It’s empty. Jake’s table glimmers in the dim light. His skin appears waxy and pale. It almost seems to glow. The elevator door shuts, and the shadows deepen.

We exchange glances. He nods, then we advance cautiously, knives held out, eyes and ears straining for any sign of intruders. We take care not to bump anything or step on anything that might make noise.

After a full minute of this, I tap the pistol on a metal chair.

Nothing.

Kelly relaxes. “Guess we got lucky. Looks like they didn’t make it into the stairwell.”

“No reason to,” I surmise, and let out a sigh of relief. “All the food’s upstairs.”

Kelly makes a face and I shrug. We split up then. I slip into the hallway to check the other rooms and the staircase. Kelly heads toward the back, to see if anything may have gotten to the servers. I find nothing out of the ordinary, and when I slip into the stairwell and up several steps from the landing, there’s not a sound. Everything is as silent as a tomb.

You had to go there, didn’t you, Jess? You had to think about tombs.

“It’s just a saying,” I mutter.

So cliché.

There’s a reason it’s cliché. Tombs are ancient history, no longer necessary. The dead do not get to rest for an eternity anymore. They’re put to work.

So?

So, nothing is as silent as a tomb anymore.

They still exist.

And I’ve never been inside one, so I wouldn’t know. Besides, nobody ever said something was as silent as a cremation furnace.

“Or a toe.”

Toe? What the fuck, Jess? Where the hell did that come from?

I start to giggle. I must be more tired than I’d realized, because I have no idea what made me come up with that.

“Silent as a toe,” I say, chuckling out loud.

Shh!

But I can’t stop myself. The relief of finding the place empty washes over me. Laughter starts to bubble up my throat. I snort through my nose and hiccup. I have to push my hand against my mouth to keep from busting out.

Just get your backpack and Jake and get out of here. Stop messing around.

But the stillness and the quiet are suddenly shattered by a loud crash and clatter coming from the main room. I nearly jump out of my skin. I freeze, waiting and listening. My body goes ice cold.

“Kelly!” I hiss, after a few seconds pass.

Above me in the stairwell, the door opens, and I hear my first moan. The IUs up top have heard. Now they’re coming.

“Kelly?”

“Jessie!” he shouts. “Get in here!”

I sprint back. Kelly’s standing beside Jake’s table, except it’s on its side and Jake is sprawled out on the floor.

“What did you do?” But I know it wasn’t him. Jake’s seizing. I bend down to help, but Kelly gestures for me to stay back.

“He’s going to hurt himself, Kelly!”

“I’ll do it.”

“Then do it!” I snap at him, exasperated. I jump back to my feet and pull the table out of the way to give him room. Then I spin around and sprint for the hallway.

“Where are you going?” he shouts after me.

“The IUs are coming down. I need to close the door so they can’t get in.”

“Great,” he mutters.

The distant thuds of the zombies falling down the steps and their hungry moans reach my ears before I reach the stairwell. “Get Jake onto the elevator,” I yell as I slide to a stop. “I’ll be right there.”

“Damn well better be.”

I step inside the stairwell and glance up. Elbows and hands appear over the railings as the undead relearn how to descend steps. Those that don’t figure it out just let gravity do the job for them. They fall, and in the process they trip those ahead of them. Down they go, like dominoes. But they get right back up and start all over again.

The noises grow louder, fuller. It sounds like the whole lot of them up there are coming down after us now.

A hand clamps over my arm and spins me around and I let out a squeak.

“Whoa!” Kelly exclaims. “Jake’s in the elevator. We need to go!”

“No, wait!” I say. “I just thought of something.” I start clapping and shouting up the stairs. “Come on, you assholes!”

“What the hell are you doing, Jess?” he hisses. “You’re going to draw them all down here.

“Exactly. If they’re down here, they’re not up there. If we trap them in the stairwell, we’ll be able to leave.”

“Genius!”

He starts yelling and banging his knife on the metal banister. The sounds of the dead crescendo. Amplified by the confined space, the few dozen plodding, falling, moaning undead begin to sound more like a hundred.

“Christ,” Kelly says, shivering. “I think that’s good enough. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

I kick the doorstop away and pull it shut behind us, making sure it latches. It’ll be a pull from the inside, so they won’t be able to open it. Once they pile up against it, their own weight will prevent them from opening it. If the learning curve for falling stairs is flat, climbing back up them again will be practically vertical.

We hurry over to the elevator, and Kelly hits the button. After a long couple seconds, the door draws open, grinding a bit as it goes. “Come on,” he growls, impatiently. The sound of the undead in the stairwell is muffled but growing louder. They’re getting close to reaching the bottom. The sooner we get back upstairs, the sooner we’ll be able to leave, and I certainly don’t want to be around for when Ben sends us his next surprise.

Nevertheless, I pull back. “Hold the elevator,” I say.

“What are you doing?” Kelly asks.

“I need my backpack. And Jake’s clothes!”

“Forget the clothes! Just get in here! Let’s get Reggie and get the hell out this place before Ben sends us more! We might not have much of a window.”

I gather Jake’s pants and shoes from the corner of the room and throw them into the elevator. Then I hurry over to the back corner of the room, back to where the shadows are deeper and the debris is heaped up into haphazard piles. Jake’s shirt hangs on the back of a chair, but it’s shredded. Kelly tore it up when he used it to bandage my hand earlier.

“Jessie!”

The door dings and begins to shut. Kelly stops it with his foot, cursing.

“I can’t find my backpack.”

Another quick chime, and this time Kelly looks up in surprise. “What the hell!” He jabs the button inside the car and the door reverses once more.

“Where is it? I can’t find my stupid backpack! It was right here!”

“Just leave it!”

“No, I need it!”

I won’t leave it behind. I can’t. My stuff is inside of it, stuff I need.

Another ding. Then several more in rapid succession: Ding ding dingdingding!

“What the hell?” Kelly says again. “Is that Reggie? What’s he doing up there?” He steps into the middle of the car, looks up, and screams, “We’re coming! Stop calling the elevator! It hasn’t been ten minutes!”

I skid to a stop in the middle of the room and look over, worried. If Reggie’s calling the car now, then that means he’s in trouble. “Go!” I tell him.

“What?”

“Leave me down here! I’m not leaving until I find my pack.” I start checking behind desks.

“The hell with that.” Kelly steps out, knocking his shoulder on the door as it starts to slide shut again. “Son of a bitch,” he screams, and he kicks at it. “Stay the hell open!”

“Leave, Kelly!”

“No way!” He punches the button. The door judders to a stop short of being fully open. It doesn’t move. He forces it fully open, and it makes a dull grinding sound.

“What’d you do?” I cry. I run over and push the button, but nothing happens. My nose pinches and my eyes burn, as a sharp tang of burning metal and oil seeps out from somewhere inside the elevator. “What did you do? You broke the elevator!”

“I didn’t—”

“How the hell are we supposed to get out of here if the elevator’s broken?”

He turns toward the hallway and the stairs. The IUs haven’t quite reached the bottom landing yet, but they will soon. Not that it matters. The stairs are no longer an option for us.

“It’s a pull, right? The door, from the inside of the stairwell, it’s a pull?”

I nod. He already knows this.

He turns back to the elevator and steps inside. The button still doesn’t work. Even the chiming has stopped. “Reggie!” he screams. But, of course, there’s no response from eighty feet up.

“I think he’s in trouble. Why else would he call for it?”

“He’s not in trouble. He’s just being impatient!”

I spy a dark bundle beneath a chair and run over and snatch it. I can feel the comforting shape of the stuffed rabbit still inside.

“What the hell was so important that you couldn’t leave your pack behind?” Kelly demands, as I rejoin him inside the elevator car.

Instead of answering him, I bend down to check Jake. His skin is cool now, almost cold. It’s just as I’d feared. The fever’s completely gone and he’s started to become hypothermic. That’s what the shivering was about. He’s still shaking, in fact, just not as badly as before; the elevator car’s a little warmer than out there in that room. Anyway, I hope it’s just that, and not due to any damage to his brain.

“Answer me, Jess. What was so important?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.” He tries to muscle the door closed, but it resists. There’s an angry whine, and he stops. Panic crosses his face.

“Don’t do that,” I say.

“Don’t do that?” he cries. “We should be on our way upstairs. We would be if you hadn’t stopped to get that goddamn pack.”

“Don’t blame me! You were the one who kept slamming your hand on the damn button! We wouldn’t be stuck here if you hadn’t broken the elevator!”

He grabs at the pack, yanking it off my shoulder. I tell him to stop, but he ignores me and unzips it.

“Stay out of there! Kelly, stay out! That’s mine!”

“This?” he screams. “This is what you needed so damn badly?” He throws the rabbit to the floor and for a brief moment I think he’s going to stomp on it. “A goddamn toy?”

I retrieve it and brush it off. He wouldn’t understand. How could he? He wasn’t there when I saw the girl in the backyard. He didn’t see the photos on the wall. And he doesn’t know that when Shinji followed us and saved us, it was because of the rabbit in my pack.

He wasn’t there for any of that.

I have to keep it. I can’t explain why, but it feels right. If I lose it, I lose everything. And I can’t do that.

I just can’t. Not now.

Chapter 16

“It’s well and truly fucked,” Kelly says. He slaps the elevator door one more time before sitting down next to me. When I don’t respond, he nudges my shoulder playfully with his.

Like that’s going to make things better.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with it. I think the motor burned out.”

So much for Mister Mechanical.

Shut up. Why won’t the stupid voice inside my head shut the fuck up? I just want the whole world to shut up for one goddamn minute.

“Truth be told, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, either, lately,” he confesses. He sighs and glances down at the stuffed rabbit in my hands. I rub my thumb over its face, over its plastic eyes and plastic nose. The softness has long ago left its fur. It’s dirty and matted and smells of—

—dead girl. It smells of someone who died thirteen years ago, of rot and—

—old dry dust and emptiness. It smells of abandonment.

A tear trickles down my cheek.

Stop being so damn sentimental!

“I’m sorry,” he finally says, awkwardly. “I shouldn’t have done that. I guess I just freaked out. I’m—” He gets back to his feet. “I just wish things weren’t so bad. We just can’t seem to catch a break. Just when something seems to go right, something worse happens.”

“I know,” I mumble. How many times have we all thought this? How many times in the past two weeks have we said it to ourselves as we’re trying to fall asleep and can’t because we’re terrified of what might come next? I’d laugh at the irony if I weren’t so tired.

He sighs and tries the buttons one more time. They still don’t work. “I’m going to try the breakers.”

“You already did. What makes you think it’ll work this time?”

“Well, what else do you—” he starts to say, frustrated. He bangs his fist in the door again and falls back against the wall. The car shudders. “We can’t use the stairs now because of those— those things in there! Damn it!” he screams.

“Hey, you thought it was a good idea, too!” I yell. “Besides, they were already coming down after the noise Jake made falling off the table. So don’t blame me.”

He glances over at Jake. No more shivering, still barely breathing. Is this how it’s going to be with him from now on? A coma? It would’ve been better if he’d just died.

I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m sorry, I whisper inside my head. I didn’t mean that. It would’ve been better if he’d never been bitten.

“—and who the hell knows what’s happening with Reggie up there,” Kelly finishes gruffly. “It’s been ten minutes. He should be calling the car up now.”

I shake my head. I missed the first part. “Maybe he is. Or maybe he got distracted. He must’ve seen all the zombies leaving.”

“He wouldn’t forget us. If he hadn’t freaked out—”

“Who said he freaked out?”

“He’s the one who broke the elevator by calling it early.”

“You don’t know that.”

“He probably— You know what he’s like. He doesn’t know his strength.”

“Stop blaming him, Kel. I’m tired of all the blaming. We have to stop it. We need to start working together.”

He looks at me, nothing but hurt and irritation on his face. We’re both avoiding the real issues, arguing about nothing. Reggie might be dead up there. We can’t leave. We have no way of warning Father Heall. We can’t rescue Ashley. We don’t even know for sure that she’s still alive. And the rest of the world might, right at this moment, be turning into a zombie wasteland for all we know. And if they are, then we would’ve had a hand in it.

“I’m going up.”

“What?” I say, startled. “But the stairwell is full—”

“Not the stairs.” He drags a chair into the elevator and steps up onto it and opens the hatch in the ceiling of the elevator car. “Through here.”

“Are you crazy? You can’t go up the elevator shaft! It’s eighty feet up.”

“What other way is there, Jessie?” he yells. “We’re stuck! We. Are. Stuck!”

“Stop yelling at me! I can hear you just fine. Why are you such an asshole sometimes?”

His face flushes. He steps down and comes over to me. I push him away, but he doesn’t give up. Finally he wraps me up in his arms. “Listen to me,” he says, and I can feel his breath on my hair, on my neck. “I’m sorry. It’s just that this is so crazy, and our nerves are absolutely frayed, and... And I know we’ll get out of this. I promise you, Jessie. I’m going to climb up and see if I can get out. I’ll take the wire cutters, just in case I need to pry the door open. And if by some chance the IUs got into the room upstairs, then... Then we’ll figure something else out. But we’re going to get out of this. I promise.”

I made promises, too, I want to tell him. I made promises and didn’t keep them.

Instead, I swallow and nod. I want to be positive. I know he’s trying hard to do that as well, but hope takes so much effort. Blame is easy. Giving up is easier still. “Maybe we can fight our way through them in the stairwell.”

He doesn’t dignify that with a response, because he knows it’s rhetorical. There must be over thirty of the dead in there by now, maybe as many as fifty. We can’t fight that many. We can’t even get in to fight them. That door will be impossible to open, as packed in as they’ve got to be by now. He’s right: our only chance is up through the elevator shaft, whether in the car or not.

“I hope Reggie’s all right,” he says. “When I’m sure it’s safe up there, I’ll come back down for you.”

Neither of us mentions Jake. We don’t even look at him. He’s just an undead body lying there on the floor, inert. Less than either of us alone, and yet his presence seems to fill every square inch of space around us. How are we going take him with us? Neither of us could possibly carry him up the ladder. Not even Reggie could do it, not eighty feet up. Not with his hip the way it is. And we have no ropes to lift him out, either.

“It’s the only option left, Jessie.”

“I know.”

He starts to pull himself through the hatch.

“Do you have a light you can take with you?”

“Got a flashlight, but I won’t be able to hold it and climb the ladder at the same time.”

We settle with him taking it in his back pocket, along with the pistol with the last bullet chambered in it again. We rig a hook from some wire and he loops the wire cutters through it and attaches it to his belt.

“Leave the latch open so we can communicate,” he says. “And don’t push any buttons. Hopefully Reggie won’t, either. Or if he does, hopefully the damn elevator doesn’t decide to start working again. In fact, leave something in the opening so the door can’t close. I don’t want to be crushed.”

He slips through the hole in the ceiling and into the darkness above.

I stand on the chair and watch him fade into the inky blackness. He disappears quickly. I can hear him for a long time after, the scuff of his shoes on the rungs and his labored breathing, the occasional clang of the wire cutters hitting the metal parts of the ladder. Every once in a while, I’ll see a flash of light as he stops and checks his progress. After some time, even these are so faint and flickery that they remind me of fireflies in the night, or stars a trillion miles away. The shaft seems to go on forever, darker and deeper than anything I’ve ever seen. And even though it rises above me, it feels like Kelly’s falling down into it.

Fifteen minutes after the last sound drifts down to me, I call out to him: “Kelly?” My voice sounds hollow and empty.

“Here,” he answers a moment later, and his voice sounds even more ghostly, like it’s coming to me not just from a very long way away, but from a different time altogether. “Still a ways to go. I had to stop and catch my breath.”

I step down off the chair, but I’m hesitant to leave him. Not that there’s anywhere for me to go or anything for me to do. But I’m restless.

“Kelly?”

Then, “Yeah?”

I can’t tell if it’s the distance or the distortion or the exertion of climbing, but he sounds irritated.

“I’m going to go check the stairs. Make sure everything’s holding.”

[...]

“Kelly?”

[...]

“Kelly?”

“Still here. Be careful.”

I hesitate. Then I step down off the chair.

I check on Jake one more time before heading over to the stairwell. He’s breathing a lot easier now. His skin’s cool to the touch but not cold, since I’ve covered him up. Still unresponsive, of course, but that’s not surprising. I feel weird just leaving him here.

He’s not going anywhere.

“Don’t go anywhere,” I tell him. Then I add, “I’ll be right back,” just in case.

The IUs have crowded the bottom level of the stairwell. I can see them in there through the tiny window, a sea of bodies crawling over and around each other, like worms in a can.

A hundred for a buck, the guard at the Port Chester checkpoint echoes in a memory. A hundred bloodworms, as if someone actually took the time to count them. How could that be just a couple weeks ago?

Hands and feet and heads, that’s what I see through the little square window into the stairwell. A roiling stormy sea of corpses. It’s an eerie sight.

They must sense me out here, because they’re soon clawing at each other to get to the door. The window fills with their horrid faces, with their empty eyes and tattered mouths full of licorice tongues and gray teeth and rotting gums. I step back reflexively. They can’t get to me. They can’t open the door. And they can’t get through it. Unlike the door we had to brace upstairs, this one is framed in metal and anchored in concrete. It opens in toward them, rather than out. It’d take a battering ram to get through it. Even so, the door creaks and tiny sounds of strain tell me it’s not wise to test that theory.

I slip silently away and decide to make another full circuit before settling back in to wait for Kelly in the welcome brightness of the elevator car and the less-welcoming presence of Jake inside of it. I slip through the main room and into the hallway leading to the mainframe. It’s dark back here. The hall lights are on manual, and Kelly flicked the switch off after checking here earlier. A drab green glow spills out through the glass door, last room on the right. It settles onto the floor like radioactive dust. It’s so quiet out here that the soft hum of the machines comes through. I imagine I can feel it through my feet, the drives churning away. They produce a faint smell of ozone and burnt dust while they sit and perform their endless calculations.

I pull the door open and the air whooshes out at me, ten degrees cooler than out here. It’s so frigid that I almost expect to see my breath in it. But the servers produce so much heat that it creates its own little microclimate. The warmer air caresses my face. The thousand blinking lights greet me like a long lost friend, a starry night in some alien world that feels both familiar and strange at the same time. I don’t know why it would, though. All this equipment is an anachronism, something out of place and time. It’s like finding an outbreak survivor with an implant. It strikes me as strange to think of these computers here, a much larger and more powerful counterpart to the bank of computers in LaGuardia. It reminds me of an animal, a dinosaur, still living and breathing, but dozing. Sleeping, and yet somehow always aware of everything.

Micah’s tablet dangles like a forgotten marionette from a tether of plastic and wire. The cable is connected to a jack in the middle stack of servers. I wonder briefly why Kelly left it behind this time, then realize that he probably intended to grab it when Jake fell off the table. He just forgot about it in all the chaos afterward.

I’m about to pull the cable when Kelly’s voice whispers at me: Don’t want to disconnect while there’s programs running. So, instead, I wake the screen. It immediately begins to fill, scrolling from top to bottom, a gush of green characters vomited up from whatever process it’s currently running. I watch the code for several seconds before recognition hits me.

It’s the tracking program, or the raw script anyway. We’d left it on after Reggie collapsed.

I switch back to the login level and am about to enter Micah’s password when I stop. Instead, I search for the ghost account.

It’s not hard to find. Most people wouldn’t know where to look for it, but I do. I know where these things like to hide.

I try to access it, but Micah’s password doesn’t work.

I try a different login and hit enter. The tablet seems to freeze for a moment, then a new window pops opens. A map appears. I recognize Long Island immediately. The center of it is covered with various swarms of red dots. The sheer number of them makes me gasp.

This isn’t just the tracker. What I’m looking at is some sort of accounting tool for The Game.

It takes a moment for this to register, but then the surprise drains away, and it suddenly makes sense. This is the kind of high-level overview Micah was trying to get access to. Now I’m seeing everything, all the Players, not just the ones that can be engaged, but both active and inactive Players, as well as whatever NPCs Arc uses to keep things interesting. And there are literally tens of thousands. I reverse pinch the screen and swipe to the side. The map zeroes in on the Hill, where a splotch of red resolves into discrete dots, dozens of them. I zoom once more and I’m startled to find my identifier code in the middle of them. How is that possible? I should be off-stream. But then I spot Kelly’s and Jake’s, as well. We’re all here.

No, not all of us actually. I don’t see Reggie’s.

I scan the dots in the area surrounding the compound, thinking he took the opportunity to go after Ash. But where would he start looking for her? He doesn’t know where she is.

No, he wouldn’t just leave like that. Would he?

And there’s something about all of this that doesn’t make sense. Why did Ashley’s password work to get me into this ghost account? Did she create it, or did Micah? And if him, why would he use Ashley’s credentials?

So we wouldn’t trace it back to him.

I suppose it’s possible. But why not just create a different account altogether?

And that begs another question: why doesn’t the tracking app in Micah’s account work properly? I can clearly see everyone now — well, almost everyone — so it can’t be that Arc wiped our identifiers from the system. Was there a reason Micah didn’t want us to be able to track ourselves?

But what’s most alarming is, why isn’t it seeing Reggie? Is it because his Link is broken? Is that what’s making him invisible to the tracker? Micah did say the tracker only connects to our Links, not to our implants. If that’s true, then Reggie’s broken Link would be invisible. But CUs don’t carry Links.

I scan the nearby dots and finally locate Ashley on the other side of the woods surrounding this complex. Ben tossed Ashley’s Link by the gate, so either he picked it back up again, or this script is seeing her implant. I’m relieved that it’s not very far away. And it’s not moving now, so maybe they’re waiting.

There appear to be two distinct swarms of CUs nearby, each consisting of a couple dozen red dots. As I stare at the screen, I notice that one swarm is slowly moving toward Ashley’s location. The other is farther away, but it’s clearly making its way toward the front gate of the compound.

“Ben,” I whisper.

I recall what he’d said earlier: Hope you like the gift. But just in case they don’t do the trick, I’m followin up with something a little extra special. They’ll be arrivin real soon. This is his doing.

He’s sending in Players to finish us off.

Chapter 17

I drop the tablet and stumble to my feet. I need to tell Kelly. We need to get out of here. I mean, we knew that already, but now we really need to leave, or else we’re really going to die. And we don’t have much time.

I jerk the glass door open, wincing when it slams against the wall and half expecting it to shatter. It bounces back and knocks my shoulder hard enough that I run into the door jamb. I spin away and hurry down the hall and into the main room, where I nearly collide with a desk.

Slow down, J! You’re going to kill yourself!

“Kelly!” I scream, as I run for the open elevator car.

Only the dead in the stairwell answer me.

I climb the chair inside the car and peer up into the darkness above me. “Kelly!” I shout, loud enough to wake up all the zombies from here to the Gameland wall. I don’t care. In less than half an hour, this place will be overrun with Players. “Kelly?”

Nothing.

“Damn it!”

I scratch my cheeks, thinking. Should I go after him up the shaft? What about Jake? I can’t just leave him down here. Can I?

I glance down at him and—

What the fuck?

I blink stupidly at the spot where we left him, trying to make sense of the empty pile of clothes. He’s not there. I know I left him lying on the floor when I went to check on the stairwell. But now that I stop to think about it, I don’t remember seeing him before I checked the servers.

“Kelly?” I call.

Did he come and fetch Jake? There’s no way he could’ve come back down, lifted him through the opening and up into the shaft, then carried him all the way to the top in the few minutes I was gone. Could he have?

I step out into the main room. “Jake?”

Nothing but that scratching sound from the stairs and the occasional thump of a body part hitting the door.

“Kelly? Stop fooling around.”

My entire body prickles. It’s cool down here, cold even, and yet I’m suddenly feeling very hot. The air is stifling. A trickle of sweat leaks from my brow and drips down my face.

“Jake?” I whisper.

No, he couldn’t have gotten up. He was out cold — literally — just a few minutes ago. No way he could’ve woken up and wandered off.

Could he?

The kid’s got brain damage. Who knows what he’ll do.

Suddenly, every overturned chair, every table and every cabinet is a hiding spot. Micah’s sing-songy voice whispers to me, except this time it’s calling out for Jake: Olli, ollie, oxen free. Come out, come out, come find and chase me.

I remember the games the neighborhood kids used to play. I’d watch them from the front window or the front step of the house, wanting terribly to be out there with them. Occasionally, someone’s mother would take pity on me — likely because they didn’t really know who I was, just some sad little lonely girl who didn’t have any friends — because eventually the kids would, often reluctantly, invite me to join in. But there were always these rules, because the kids always knew. My family was the zombie family. They’d tell me that since I was the newcomer, I had to be It. I had to be the one to count and then find everyone else. I had to be the one to chase after them before they touched Safe. At first, I wouldn’t care that they were doing this to tease me. I’d finally been included. But they’d always make it so I could never catch anyone. They’d tease me afterward, calling me “loser” and “whiner.” But if I threatened to leave, they’d coax me into staying by suggesting I’d probably get lucky the next time. Or the time after. And if I actually did tag someone, they’d say it didn’t count because I’d cheated, or that they’d let me catch them. And I’d get frustrated again, so they’d bribe me by letting me be the one of the ones to hide. Except they’d then team up and send signals to whoever was It telling them where I was hiding, so that I would always be the first one to get caught, and would have to be It all over again.

If we were playing Tag, they’d poke me or punch me so hard that I’d fall down. If I complained, they’d say, “That’s how you play. That’s the rules. Stop being such a baby.” They’d scream and laugh and shout, “No tag backs!” and run away.

One time, somebody realized it would fun if, instead of playing Tag, we played Zombie. If you got touched by whoever was the Zombie, you’d reanimate and you’d get to touch someone else and turn them. In theory, everyone would be dead by the end of the game. It was pretty much the opposite of Tag, because it was more fun being dead and chasing after the kids who were still alive. But nobody would ever touch me. I’d be the last one left alive. Everyone else would be infected and were supposed to chase after me. Instead, I’d be the one running after them, trying to get infected. They wouldn’t let me catch them. I remember walking home crying, and my mother asking why. I told her it was lonely being the only one in the neighborhood who was still alive.

I shake these random memories from my head. Here I am feeling sorry for myself and Jake’s body has disappeared.

Not disappeared. He’s turned.

No. That’s impossible. He just regained consciousness is all. He woke up, and in his addled state he just wandered off. Calling him won’t do any good. He won’t understand. He won’t even recognize his own name.

What if he tries to open the stairwell door?

He can’t, I remember. The weight of the bodies piled up on the other side won’t allow it.

I listen for any stray sounds. But there’s nothing I can’t attribute to the IUs in the stairwell.

Shadows leap out at me as I silently make my way through the main room. My own shadow stretches out before me, and I realize I’m totally exposed standing here, silhouetted in the light from the elevator. I urge my body to move faster or step to the side, but I feel like I’m walking through mud. Every move takes a herculean effort.

The air conditioner turns on again, rattling the vents and making me jump. Something catches my eye in one dark corner, a whisper of movement, slipping quickly from one shadow to the next. I flinch. But it’s only a piece of paper slipping off a table. I let out a breath, slow and even, through clenched teeth.

“Jake?”

He won’t answer.

Where the hell did he go?

The rest of the basement complex awaits. The vents quietly tick. The walls breathe. This is what emptiness sounds like. It’s what loneliness feels like. It’s like teetering on the edge of insanity.

But the building isn’t empty. And I know I’m not alone down here. Either somebody is playing a really bad, stupid trick on me or Jake got up and is walking around down here somewhere.

Or maybe climbing up the elevator shaft.

This stops me cold. Is it possible? An hour ago, he was dying of fever. Is it possible he regained consciousness and enough self-awareness and physical ability to climb up and into the elevator shaft?

Kelly got him.

No. He wouldn’t just do that. He’d come find me first. He wouldn’t take Jake without—

The sound of breaking glass nearly stops my heart. I spin to the left, my heart pounding in my ears. I pinpoint the location and realize the reinforced window in the stairwell door has broken. The moans start again, louder now. Fingers poke through. They keep pushing, until the wires break and they can push entire hands and arms through. Did Jake come this way? Did he rile them up?

I slip silently down the hallway, past the dead in the stairwell to the last door, and I rest my ear against it. I don’t hear anything inside, so I quietly turn the handle and crack the door open.

Nothing rushes out to attack me, just a waft of stale, sour air. The room is dark as night. I hesitate, reach in, feel for the light switch. It’s not where I expect it to be. I have to stretch. I choke down a whimper as I sweep my hand over the wall. It makes a sound like harsh whispers. Finally, my fingers find the switch and I flick it on.

Light floods the room. It’s full of the dead undead.

I lurch backward, stopping only when my back hits the opposite wall. The door swings shut and quietly clicks.

Just the twice dead, nothing to be scared of.

So that’s where the boys put them.

I open the door again and quickly scan the room. Nothing moves. The stink of plastination hits me. Rot hasn’t yet set in. I flick the light off and turn toward the only other door at this end of the hallway: the bathroom.

There’s no handle, just a push, which means no latch. A zombie could manage that. Jake could manage it. As soon as I crack the door, the rancid smell of urine wafts out at me, stale and pungent. Urine, and the cloying aroma of shit and fossilized hand soap. Our urine; our shit. No rot. No disease. The toilets down here haven’t worked since we arrived, even though there’s water in the faucets, so no one’s been able to flush. The ceiling lights flicker and buzz, and my heart nearly stops.

He’s here, I think. The lights were already on. He activated the motion detectors.

“Jake?”

It’s a small bathroom. Two sinks sprout from the wall on the left. Straight ahead is a pair of stalls, their doors partially closed. There’s a single urinal to my right.

“Jake? Are you here?”

I bend down and peer underneath the stall partitions. Unrolled toilet paper litters the floor of one. The other is clear; the only other thing occupying them besides the toilets is an old paper coffee cup.

The dangling paper in the other stalls jiggles. The cup rolls slightly.

I freeze. I’m stuck in the doorway, the door propped open against my shoulder. Behind me, the zombies in the stairwell chip away at the last few shards of glass. Each piece makes a brittle ticking sound as it hits the floor. The air conditioner hums and rattles, then clicks and shuts off a second later. The air around my face grows still and suddenly very hot.

I wait, because I can’t be sure it wasn’t just air from the vent. But then the toilet paper moves again, and I gasp.

No, it’s just the air moving.

I wait some more.

The paper jerks again, then unrolls all the way to the floor, as if an invisible hand is tugging at it.

I filter out the moaning behind me. Every nerve is focused on whatever’s inside that stall.

“Jake?”

He must’ve needed to take a hell of a dump to get him up like that, my mind crazily suggests.

Where’s his feet?

There’s no one in the stalls, not unless they’re crouched on the toilets.

It’s a ghost.

Ghosts don’t take craps.

I take a tentative step inside the bathroom, and out of the deepest recess of my mind comes that chant: Ollie, ollie, oxen free.

Something tiny quickly squirts out from under the stall and it heads straight for me. I squeal and stumble back against the door, careen off it, then bounce and crash into the wall before realizing it’s just a mouse. The little creature veers off to the left and disappears into a crack in the wall beneath one of the sinks. The door clicks shut behind me.

“Jesus Christ!” I cry, swiping the tears angrily away from my eyes. “Jesus fucking Christ. Just a goddamn mouse!” I’m crying with fright and relief. “Scared the fucking crap out of me!” I rest my hands on my knees and pant. Just a goddamn mouse is all. I slide down the wall until I’m sitting. “Fuck!” I scream. The zombies out in the stairwell react to my voice, but I don’t care. Their door will hold. A goddamn fucking mouse is all it was.

I pick myself up off the floor and brush the dirt off my ass with my hands. More habit than anything. I probably left more dirt where I sat than I just picked up. I reach for the door handle and pull it open.

And Jake is standing right there. His eyes are black as death, and his mouth hangs open. He reaches out and touches me. And in my mind, I hear the other kids chanting in their mocking voices: Ollie ollie, oxen free. Now you’re dead, just like me.

PART THREE

Sleep

Chapter 18

If insanity had a sound, it would be the roar of a trillion gallons of water crashing down all at once. It would be the sound of Niagara Falls on a crisp, clear winter day, the crackle of ice floes shattering below the cataract. It would feel like cold sleet on my face and the bottom of the deepest ocean. It would be as wet and as hard as all of that, and it would annihilate all sense.

If insanity had a smell, it would sting of plastic smoke and burning hair and scorched metal. It would stink of the inside of a volcano and taste of ash.

Jessie?

It would be the rot of death and blood and the soft marrow inside our bones.

“Jessie?”

And if it had a name?

I open my eyes and look into his face. But it’s all wrong. He looks like so much like Kelly— thinner, hollow brown eyes, curly hair turned brown from the dirt and grease. I blink and he blinks back and now I see that his eyes have turned blue.

He looks like Reggie now.

I must be dying. I’m dying because I’m seeing everyone I ever loved.

I feel my body being grabbed and shaken. I feel stiff and numb. My head wobbles on my neck and my teeth clack. I want to cry out in pain and despair. But only the slightest whisper of a moan escapes my lips.

The lighting is all wrong. And the angles— the angles don’t fit right. And sounds are...

It’s too quiet.

No rush of water. No roar, just a quiet insectile drone of lights.

And the cold, cold air.

Kelly?

Another whisper of a breath from my lips.

Did he hear me? Did I speak?

Kelly rocks back on his heels and exhales heavily. But then he lunges forward again, grabbing me, burying his face in my chest. He’s holding me and I’m falling, plunging. I don’t react. I can’t move. I’m stone. I’m water. Air.

Ice.

He sweeps me up in his arms and holds me to him and whispers into my ear, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I left you. I shouldn’t have left you.” And he’s crying, sobbing. “Aah, God,” he wails. “I’m so sorry. I did this to you!”

“Fuck.” Reggie says, angrily. “Fuck!”

“R-reggie?”

He looks over at me. I can see the tears in his eyes, the redness. He wipes them furiously away and sniffs. A thin smile plays over his lips, but his eyes betray pain and guilt. “It’s okay now, Jess,” he says. He stands by the door and looks out. It looks like the glass door I smashed that first day we broke onto the island, at the fueling station. Except it’s not the same door. It’s not broken. There’s still glass in this one.

And we can’t be all the way back there. Not unless...

Did I dream it all?

That’s wishful thinking.

The lighting is all wrong for a dream. It’s too...

Everything’s tinted green.

The mainframe. I turn my head. My neck feels stiff and resists my efforts. We’re back inside the computer room. Under Jayne’s Hill. In Gameland.

Still.

All of it was real. None of it was a dream.

But that’s not possible. Reggie can’t be down here. I reach out to him. “How are you...?”

“Shh,” he says. “Lie still.”

“What happened?”

“Jake,” he says, but doesn’t finish.

“What— Where is he?”

They don’t answer.

“Kelly? Where’s Jake?”

He won’t look at me.

“H-how did I get in here? How did you get here, Reg? Down here? You’re not... The failsafe?”

Kelly rocks me like a child and weeps. A part of me grows impatient with him. He’s acting like I’m dying. I’m not dying.

Am I?

“Tell me,” I say. “Where’s Jake? Did you see him? He woke up. I went looking... I saw him.”

Reggie turns and stares out through the door into the hallway. He won’t look at me either.

No, that’s not entirely true. He’s doing more than just avoiding my eyes. There’s a look in his, more than hurt. It’s... alertness. He’s keeping watch.

But for what?

“What the hell’s going on, guys?” Panic creeps up inside of me. I try to sit up, and my side suddenly hurts real bad. “Kelly, let go of me. You’re hurting me. Reggie? Why am I...? I-I don’t feel right. I...”

My head feels heavy, my body too light.

Reggie turns and comes quickly over. He crouches down in front of me and takes my hand. “You were bitten, Jess.”

Kelly begins to moan and rock. I don’t want to be rocked. I don’t want to be touched. I don’t want to be held. I don’t want to hear this.

And yet I don’t want him to ever let me go.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “But I thought you said—”

“He bit you, Jessie. Jake bit you.”

“You don’t know it was him,” Kelly mutters.

“What?” I say. “How? No! I saw... I saw him. He was—”

Alive?

I’m not sure.

“It had to have been him,” Reggie says. He shakes his head, as if he doesn’t believe it. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, either. He’s all movement, nervous energy, restlessness. He won’t sit still. And he still won’t look me in the eye. “Jake’s turned,” he whispers. “He attacked you.”

“We don’t know that, Reg.”

“Did you...,” I ask Kelly. “Did you kill him?”

He shakes his head. “We don’t know where he is.”

“That’s why we need to find him!” Reggie wails.

“We don’t know it was him.”

“Who else could it be, Kel?” he shouts. “Huh? We got here, and he was gone. We found you in the bathroom, but you were... You were already...”

I tilt my head down to try and see. My side burns. My gaze sweeps past Kelly’s arm around my middle. Past his elbow and the muddy landscape of my shirt and—

No, it’s not mud. It’s blood, bright red but appearing brown in this lighting. It’s coming out of me. I can feel it. That’s my blood, finally, all of it. It even feels like mine and smells like mine. I know it’s mine. Leaking through the fabric somebody wrapped around me.

How long ago did it happen? How much blood have I lost? How much time do I have left?

“We shouldn’t have waited,” Reggie whispers. “We shouldn’t have stayed up there as long as we did. We might’ve gotten down here in time to stop him.”

“We don’t know it was him, Reggie!”

“It was him, Kelly,” he snarls back.

“How could you not know where he is?” I ask.

Kelly shrugs. “We looked. He’s not here.”

And suddenly the world is melting, metal and rock and ice and air dissolving and stinging my eyes and nose, filling the back of my throat with acid. It’s all pouring over me, roaring. Freezing me. Filling me.

I’m drowning.

I’m turning to ice.

Freezing solid.

I’m like those frozen ice floes beneath the falls. I’m shattering.

Chapter 19

A stinging cold mist envelops me, heavy and sharp, like a million tiny icicles piercing my skin. It sticks to my face and hair, condenses and forms rivulets that drip into my eyes. I’m surprised it doesn’t freeze again in the arctic gale. Eric looks over at me and smiles and waves for me to join him at the railing. “Impressive, isn’t it?” he shouts.

Water roars all around us, tumbling over the edge far above our heads and exploding at our feet. It’s breathtaking, being down here right in the midst of the cataract, showered with its billion smashed little bits. How amazing is it, that the river can be so completely torn apart by the violence and chaos, yet is somehow able to reform into a seamless new river that keeps on flowing like nothing ever happened to it?

It’s beautiful, I’m forced to confess. I just do so privately, so as to not give him the pleasure. This place, these Niagara Falls, it’s all so beautiful.

Outwardly, though, I act like I’m not very impressed. I scowl resentfully at him, and he shrugs it away because he knows it’s what perpetually angry nine-year-old little sisters do. But today he won’t be discouraged by my negativity. Not the day he’s chosen to bring me here to tell me he’s joining the Marines. He figures I’ll be too overwhelmed by the majesty of the falls to fight him on it. And he’s almost right.

“Does Grandpa know?”

He nods. “I told him this morning, just before we left the house.” He chuckles grimly.

I halfheartedly call him a coward. I know he’ll still have to face the old marine when we get back home tomorrow. If he was a real coward, he would’ve just left without saying anything.

This is the culmination of seven torturous hours spent alone together in the car, nothing but stony silence between us for most of it. I couldn’t understand why he chose the coldest day in two decades to do it, not until we arrived and I saw it. Somewhere in Upstate New York, we passed our first snow on the ground, like actual real snow. It was dirty from the highway grit and salt, but I’d still wanted to get out and touch it. He quieted my protests with promises of something far more thrilling than dirty snowballs and sad little gray snowmen. I told him I didn’t think a big hole in the ground and a bunch of water falling into it would be very exciting.

“You’ll change your mind.”

“I’ll change my mind when you stop pretending you’re my parent.”

I spent most of those hours with his headphones in my ears listening to the Music Stream on his Link, my head turned resolutely toward the side window so I wouldn’t have to look at him. And he wouldn’t get to see me. I just watched the alien gray and white landscape drift by. All that snow and ice out there waiting for me to dig my hands into it, and here I was sitting in a car with the heater we rarely ever used anymore blasting stale hot air onto my face and smelling of burnt plastic and metal and dust.

“I know you’re angry with me,” he says, draping his arm over my shoulders. Water drips from his fingertips. “That’s why I wanted you to see the falls first before I told you. Anyway, I’ve always wanted you to see them in the winter, when it was cold enough to freeze, and the air’s just so crisp and clear. We don’t get very many days like this anymore.”

The icy mist settles on everything, turns the world into a frozen wonderland. The lanterns along the walk up top are chubby glowing angels standing guard over the cataract. The handrails are like the railings of ghost ships lost long ago in the Arctic north before the ice caps began to melt, icicles dangling down like skeletal fingers. Somewhere over us, the sun’s shining, and yet it’s so damn cold it feels impossible.

“I’m just glad the borders are still open.”

He was talking about the border to between Connecticut and New York. Canada was already closed to New Mericans by then, and the wall is currently being built. Government had said they needed better control over interstate crossings, for national security, but so far it’s just been manned checkpoints and ID verifications. Eric’s convinced it’s all about to change soon.

I turn around and peer at the opposite railing of the boat, the Maid of the Mist. It’s also covered in a thick layer of crystal rime. I can see the lanterns far above me, the ghost lanterns that look so much like angels floating above us on the cliff’s edge, and the observation walkway that makes it feel like we’re in the bottommost hull of a giant haunted ship. I lean backward and hang my head over the side and stare up at the freezing water boiling high above us. The mist is so thick I can barely see blue. It’s the same with the surface of the water below. If I jumped, would I just keep falling through it? Would I evaporate away? Would I turn to smoke? Would all my broken bits become one with the river?

“You’re not even looking at the falls,” Eric yells, squeezing my shoulder. His cheeks are ruddy, a flash of red in all this white. “Come on over to the front.”

“No,” I tell him. “I like it just fine where I am.”

I feel at peace here, with the ghosts and the angels and the ice. I think about what it would feel like, falling forever. I long for that sensation. I imagine what it would feel like to drown. I think it would be the most peaceful thing in the world.

Chapter 20

“We need to find him,” Reggie says. “We need to find Jake and... We need to take care of him.”

“We looked for him already,” Kelly says. “He’s disappeared.”

“He’s not disappeared! He can’t be gone! He has to still be here!”

“What do you want me to say, Reg? We looked.”

“Then where the fuck did he go? He’s a fucking zombie, Kel. Huh?”

“He’s hiding.”

“Zombies don’t fucking hide! They don’t run away!”

“Exactly. He’s not dead.”

“Then why the fuck did he bite her?” Reggie cries.

I try to sit up, but the ache in my side is too big. It’s a lake of pain, an ocean, and I’m sinking down into it. I collapse back against Kelly, gasping, “He’s not... dead. He hasn’t turned. You can’t... You can’t... He’s not undead. He can be fixed!”

Reggie spins at me, his lips pulled away from his teeth in a vicious sneer. “He. Bit. You!”

“We didn’t see—”

“Fuck you, Kelly! Why are you denying it?”

I push Kelly away, but he resists. “Let go of me!” I scream.

“You need to lie still, Jess. Please. Moving only makes it—”

“He’s not dead!” I gasp. “I saw him. I— I don’t know what happened, but I do know he’s not dead. There was recognition in his eyes, a spark. He’s alive.”

“Jessie, lie down—”

“I won’t lie down!”

Reggie steps over to intervene. He takes me by the arms and holds me for a moment. The world tilts and spins as a wave of nausea overtakes me. “If he didn’t bite you, then who — what — did?”

I don’t have an answer for him.

“Even if he isn’t dead, he still bit you,” Reggie says. “That means you’re... That means you’re infected.”

“No,” I say. I won’t accept it. “The treatment was working. He’s not...”

“Either way, we still need to find him.”

“You can’t kill him. Please, Reg.”

His eyes flick over to Kelly. There’s a dark look in them. Finally, Kelly winces. He seems to shrink a little as he gives Reggie a nod. Before I understand what’s happening, he releases me and steps out of the room. In one of his hands is the knife, in the other the pistol.

“No!” I scream. “Kelly!” I struggle against Reggie, but he’s too strong and I’m too weak and suddenly I’m so faint that my legs feel like brittle sticks, like slender stalks of dry grass that’ll bend and break in the slightest breeze.

He guides me to the floor where I lay panting, exhausted. “You did everything you could for him, Jessie. You tried.”

“Not hard enough,” I sob.

“He bit you. He took a piece out of you. He was eating you. If we hadn’t come down when we did—”

“Nooo.”

“Yes.”

I pant and hold my side. It hurts terribly now. Reggie lets go of me and I feel like water again, slipping away into the cracks and seams of the world, breaking apart, waiting to become me again, but something else, too.

“It shouldn’t be Kelly,” I moan. “It should be me.”

“Shush. You’ve carried enough on your shoulders. You’ve carried everything.”

“It’ll kill him,” I whisper.

Reggie looks guiltily away because he knows it’s true, yet he’s too cowardly to take on the task himself.

Kelly returns a few minutes later. I check his face for any sign of what happened out there, but it’s hard and stony and conveys nothing. It reminds me of Grandpa’s face. I’ve always hated that look. I hate that I see it on Kelly.

“You found him,” I say.

Reggie waits without saying anything. Finally, Kelly shakes his head. He says he checked every room and couldn’t find him. I let out a heavy sigh of relief. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath. They turn to me, shame on both their faces. Kelly may not have been able to find Jake, but already I can see that something has died inside of him. Just knowing what he was prepared to do took a piece of his soul and crushed it.

“You checked the bathroom again?” Reggie asks.

Kelly nods. “Of course I checked there. I looked everywhere.”

“How can that be? There’s no place for him to go!”

“The tracker,” I murmur.

They both turn to me. “The what?”

“The tracking script. On Micah’s tablet.” I lift a shaky arm and point. “It was working before. I saw everyone, including Jake.”

“Down here?”

I nod. The boys exchange puzzles glances.

“Still won’t help,” Reggie offers. “We have his Link. It won’t show us where he is.”

With a sigh, Kelly reaches for the tablet. He wakes the screen and squints at it for a moment, frowning. Then his eyes go large. “What the—?”

The Players, I suddenly remember. I’d forgotten all about them.

“Holy shit,” he whispers.

“They’re here, aren’t they?” I say. For some reason I want to laugh. I don’t find it funny. I’m scared to death, but suddenly everything just seems hilarious.

But it hurts too much to laugh.

“You knew about this?” Kelly says. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“Excuse me,” I shout back and immediately regret it when a sharp pang shoots through me. “Little busy dying here.”

Reggie snatches the tablet out of Kelly’s hands and nearly yanks the wires out of it in the process. He starts trembling all over.

“Oh god... Oh fuck! These aren’t... Oh my god, they’re fucking everywhere! Kelly?”

“We need to try to climb out of here,” he says. He looks over at me, but I shake my head. “Jessie, we—”

“I can’t. I’m too weak. You go. There’s still time.”

“I’m not leaving you. I can’t leave you.”

“You have to. For yourself. And for Reggie. And Ashley. You have to go save her. She might still be alive. Check the screen. And you have to warn Father Heall. Just... just leave me here.”

“I’ll carry you,” Reggie says.

“Don’t be stupid. You can’t carry me and climb the ladder at the same time. Thanks, though.” I give him a weak smile.

Something comes over me then, a sense of peace. I don’t know if it’s the infection eating into my brain or not, but I’m ready. I’ve been ready for a while, I guess, just hadn’t really realized it. Ever since the day Reggie first mentioned we should come here. Maybe even long before that. I’ve been ready to die all my life. How else can I explain why, despite each increasingly stronger hint telling me what we were doing was suicide, I knew deep down that it would always end this way. Even that day when I last saw the dog in the woods by my house, the day I met Kelly. I would’ve died then, too, happier than I am now though. And that day I lost my Link in Seattle and watched the judge snicker when he sentenced the thief to early LSC. That day I came home for the first time and found my mother beaten to a pulp by her boyfriend-du-jour. And each time after that, whether it was the second or third or fiftieth time. That day I attacked Eric and made him bleed.

I’ve been ready. I never deserved to live.

Reggie pulls at his hair and paces. His eyes are wide and jumpy. He’s on the edge and about to tumble over. I can see it. I want to ask him how he can be down here when his Link is broken, but that seems almost inconsequential anymore. He is, somehow, so they must’ve figured out how to fix his Link. He moans to himself. “No no nooo...” He stops at the end of the room, turns, and comes back. “No, please no...”

“You’d better hurry.”

“No!” Kelly snaps. “No! I’m not leaving you here, Jessie. They won’t come down here. They can’t, not through all those IUs. We’ll be safe as long as we stay here.”

“But for how long?” Reggie cries. “And what about Ashley? What about—” He looks at me, but doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to.

I say it for him: “What about me? Who’s going to take care of me when I turn?”

He ignores me and picks up the tablet again. He stares at it, shaking his head, as if he can will it not to be true. “Why are they coming here? How could they know?”

“Ben.”

He utters another curse. “First IUs, now CUs? What the fuck is wrong with him?”

“He’s crazy.”

“How do you know?” he demands, shaking the tablet. “How do you know he sent them?”

“Because he told us he would,” Kelly says.

I hold out my hand and gesture for the tablet. He gives it to me and I pinch it expand the map’s coverage. Several new dots come into view. I pinpoint one signal in particular. “Ashley’s still nearby, close to the gate in fact, which means that Ben is, too. You can kill him and save Ash.”

Kelly sets the gun on the floor between them, but Reggie grabs the tablet instead. “She’s so close,” he says. I can tell he’s encouraged by this, but also frustrated by the choice he’ll have to make. “Why is she not moving?” His voice rises hysterically. “Is she—?”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” I say.

“She’s right, Reg. We don’t know,” Kelly tells him. “If you go now, you’ll be able to reach her.”

I nod. “Before the Players get here. Go. Go save her.”

But he shakes his head. “It’s already too late,” he moans. “They’re there. They’ve got her. It’s too late.”

I glance at the screen again. The second group of CUs is all around her now. I assume Ben must be watching from a safe distance. How is he controlling them?

But why? my mind puzzles. Why not just send them all here at once, rather than in two separate waves?

It doesn’t make any sense.

It only makes sense if you’re crazy.

Kelly looks worried. “Which one of these is Ben?”

“None. He’s SSC, remember? He won’t have an implant.”

“Mabel did. And so did Stephen.”

“They weren’t mercenaries,” I say. “They were the Coalition’s Volunteers.”

“Ash?” Reggie moans. He pets the screen. “Ashley...”

“Leave, Reg,” I tell him. I look over at Kelly and nod. “You, too. Leave me here.”

“No. I left you once and look what happened. I’m not leaving you again.”

“It’s too late, Kel. We don’t have any more of Father Heall’s blood. And besides, it won’t work for me.”

I try to hide my discomfort as I shift into a different position. Kelly sees me wince, and he lets out a choked cry. His eyes fill up with tears.

“We can still get out of this, babe.” He reaches down, intent on pulling me to my feet.

“What are you do—”

“I’m not leaving you! We’ll get you to Father Heall.”

“I told you, it won’t work.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Even if we weren’t surrounded by Players waiting to attack us, there’s simply not enough time. It’s too hot outside. I’d die of the fever long before they could get me to Brookhaven. It’d take too long, even if they knew exactly where to find Father Heall. I’m done for. I stop resisting. I don’t have the strength to fight anymore. He realizes this, too, and stops fighting me back. We stay like that, frozen in each other’s arms. He gives me a brokenhearted look.

“I can’t climb the ladder, Kel. We’ll both die if you don’t leave right now.”

“We’re gonna die anyway,” Reggie quietly wails. “It’s too late, even for us.”

He tilts the tablet over so we can see. The red dots have reached the fence. There must be forty or fifty of them. They pour through the gate, both groups. If the boys left right now, it’d take them twenty minutes to climb up through the elevator shaft. The dead will have breached the building long before that.

Kelly gently lays me back onto the floor. The muscles in his face ripple with emotion. For a moment, he looks like he wants to yank the tablet out of the mainframe and hurl it across the room.

But then he sighs and his shoulders droop. He shuts his eyes, and I know he’s finally accepted the truth. “We’re dead,” he says. Tears roll down his cheeks. “We’re all dead. There’s no way out of here.”

On the floor next to me is the pistol. I know it’s selfish, but I edge my hand over it and furtively slide it behind my back. Then I slip it into my waistband and settle back against the wall. One bullet. That’s all I’ll need.

Kelly shouldn’t suffer. I’ll make sure he doesn’t. I don’t care if I do, but he doesn’t deserve to. Reanimation is the Daniel curse. I just can’t let him come back.

Chapter 21

“How did you do it?” I ask Reggie. “How did you fix your Link?” I don’t actually care anymore. It truly doesn’t matter. I just want to distract myself from what we’re waiting for.

“Shh. Don’t talk.”

“Why not? It takes my mind off the pain.”

His mouth pinches. He looks away for a moment.

“I’m just worried about you,” I tell him. “If your Link is glitching...”

“Don’t worry about me, J.”

“You fixed it. I want to know how.”

He sighs. “Fine.”

He reaches into his pocket and carefully draws out a thick bundle wrapped in a piece of cloth. Inside it is his Link and the replacement I’d given him upstairs. They’re bound together with a shoelace and some rubber bands.

“I remembered what Kelly said about something being loose inside,” he says, “so I thought I’d take a look while you guys were down here. Kelly’s always been a lot better at fixing this kind of shit than I am, but that doesn’t mean I’m totally clueless, either. It’s these massive fingers of mine that always get in the way. They’re like bludgeons.” He chuckles, but it sounds half-hearted. “Sorta like my personality.”

“Nobody ever said you were clueless, Reg,” Kelly says, defensively. “Maybe you have a way of coming across that way, but—”

“Kelly,” I mutter.

“No, Kel’s right. It comes with the territory. People instantly have these expectations when they first meet me. They see a big lughead. I just give them what they expect. It’s easier that way. People tend to trust you more, think of you as less of a threat.”

He carefully flips the bundle over in his hand, and I see that the Links are joined together by more than the shoelace and rubber bands.

“It was the transmitter,” he says. “It was fried. Must’ve been damaged when the bullet hit it, though it took its damn time failing for good. I cut the wires and connected them to the transmitter in yours.”

I frown. “The replacement Link doesn’t have a fully functional transmitter. They said it had limited ping capabilities.”

He grins a little and shrugs. “It’s actually a fully functional Link. It’s just programmed with half its functions disabled so they can’t access the transmitter hardware. You probably could’ve unlocked it pretty easily, I’m sure. Here, look. It still works.”

He shows me the screens, both facing out. He taps a few things on the Link I’d given him and it appears to be working just fine. So is his.

“Still can’t get a Stream down here, of course,” he says. “But it’s fully capable of sending out the failsafe signal from my Link via the transmitter on yours.”

“Pretty smart of you figuring that out,” I tell him.

“MacGyver,” he says, winking.

I still don’t have a clue what that means. I suppose I never will.

“I do have to be careful,” he continues. “The connection’s not very stable. One jostle and bam! Back to La La Land I go.” He wraps it gingerly in the cloth, handling it like it’s a ticking time bomb that could go off at any moment. I suppose it is.

Only now does he seem to catch on to what I’m doing, using him to distract us. He gives me this look, like he’s really sorry for forgetting for a moment that we’re about to die.

If anything, I’m relieved to know he’s got an easy way out of this mess. When things get bad, as they’re about to become, all he’s got to do is pull that bundle out of his pocket and yank those wires. Without the failsafe signal, his implant will immediately begin to activate. And this time, it won’t take very long to kill him.

From somewhere else in the building, somewhere down here in the basement, there’s a loud crash, followed by the clatter of bodies crashing to the floor. All at once, the moaning of the undead gets a lot louder.

“They’re in,” Kelly quietly says. “They finally pushed through the door.”

He seems relieved, almost serene in fact, like the waiting was worse than what’s coming next. He leans against the glass door, closes his eyes, and silently counts. Or maybe he’s praying. His lips are moving. If he’s praying, it’s not for the dead. This time it’s for us.

When he’s waited long enough, he takes in a deep breath, pulls the door open, and steps out into the hallway. He hesitates just outside, taking a few last moments to prepare himself before the undead find us. He braces himself against the door with a knee against the frame. He holds the machete out with both hands. He stands proud, defiant, and terrified. This is his last stand— our last stand. He’ll take out as many of them as he can. But we all know there’s just too many. And when he falls, I hope Reggie will step up to take his place. He won’t want to, but I think he will. They’ll both do it because they think it’s the right thing to do, the chivalrous thing. And when Reggie can no longer fight them off, either, he’ll pull out his Link, tear out the wires, and die.

I watch Kelly plant his feet. I watch him square his shoulders as the moaning and shuffling noises grow louder. It’ll be the IUs first, whichever ones of them are left after Ben’s CUs get through slicing through them. They’re drawn here because they sense our presence. They can smell us. The Players will follow after them. Ben won’t sic them on us until we’re already worn down. I don’t know how he’s controlling them. Maybe he simply let their Operators know we’re here. Those rich fuckers can smell opportunity. It smells like fame and fortune.

I keep expecting Kelly to run up the hallway to meet them. I know he’s not eager to face them, but it’d give him more ground. Maybe he stays because he won’t leave my sight. In any case, this is where he’s chosen to fight. This is where I’ll watch him die, not just once, but twice.

First at the teeth of the dead. Then by the gun in my hand.

I just hope I can hold my arm steady by that point. I pray I’ll have the strength to do what I have to do. I hope my aim is true and that the gun still works.

“School starts on Monday,” Reggie says, his eyes glued to Kelly. Now it’s his turn to do the distracting.

“Oh?” I reply, obligingly. I’ve lost count of the days.

“Yeah, so much for going back and bragging about breaking into Gameland.” He sighs. “I knew this was a terrible idea. Right from the start I said that this was bad and that we shouldn’t have come here. Isn’t that what I said? I’m pretty sure that’s what I said.”

I chuckle and it turns into a cough, and the cough sends a spasm of pain tearing through my side. I can feel fresh blood trickling out of me, the warmth spreading through the makeshift bandage. Reggie sees me wince and he leans into my side, pressing into me, pushing all of his weight onto the bandage as if he’s trying to stop all of my insides from spilling out. But I have nothing left inside of me. I’m hollow. I’ve been hollow for so long.

I don’t want to look into his eyes. I don’t want to see the madness in them. And I don’t want him to see the madness in mine. Can he read my thoughts? Does he know what I’m thinking?

I glance down at the tablet. All of the red dots have left the place where Ashley was just outside the gate. They’ve swept her up and have entered the compound in a second wave. She’s caught up in the middle of them. She’s a part of them now.

The first phalanx has entered the building. I look up, as if I can see them up there through the ceiling, but there’s nothing but the old tiles. They’re stained with mildew and dust. In the middle of them sits one of those mute black domes, like an eye staring down at us. It enrages me seeing it there. I wonder, is all of New Merica watching this now? Are they cheering for us? Are they cheering for the Players?

Is Ben?

I’d give them all the finger, but I won’t give them the pleasure. And it’ll hurt too much to lift my free hand.

The Players are coming down the stairs now. They know exactly where to find us. After the IUs have had their taste, before we’ve died, the CUs will take over. They’ll finish us off, or so they think. I hate to disappoint them.

Not really.

I wish I could see Ben’s face.

I look over at Kelly. He glances over one final time. His eyes are empty, devoid of anything now. There’s no light in them, no emotion. All hope and caring wiped away. He’s already died. This is just a formality. Now I see that he was right. He was right all along, and he knows it.

He really should’ve tried everything to stop us from coming.

As I lie here dying, lost somewhere deep in the Wastes with the undead closing in on us and wanting nothing more than to feed on the living, the truth hits home for the last time: what Kelly wanted, what I wanted, never mattered. Arc Entertainment wanted us here. They planned it from the very beginning. They wanted us in The Game so we could try and break it for them, to test its limits, make it hack-proof. That’s why it was so easy for us to get in. The rest of it was the SSC. They’re the ones who kept us here, so we could break Arc.

They all wanted us here, even us. That’s why getting out has been such a killer.

I glance again at the camera staring down at us. I imagine the swarm of red dots from the Players Ben sent us, and I think:

It doesn’t matter who or why. They’re all equally culpable. We’re all culpable.

I start to hear the first patter and shush of naked shuffling feet on the linoleum. Kelly raises the machete. Shadows stretch over him. His eyes grow wide and his face blanches. But he takes a half step forward and swings. A body falls to one side of him, just out of sight and little more than a shadowy reflection in the glass. Then another swing, and another corpse falls. He’s a madman out there, killing them again and again, and killing himself with each swing he takes. They keep coming and he keeps swinging, and the bodies pile up and the gore coats his arms and his shirt and his neck and his face. For a brief few moments, I dare to believe that he might actually hold them off. He’s a machine, showing no fear now, no fatigue. He’s in game mode.

Hope. It’s a terrible thing to be infected with. It takes over your mind when you’re at your weakest. I can feel the germ spreading its fever inside of me. Not for me. I’m done for. But for him and Reg.

But hope is a weak parasite, easily cured by despair, and the first time I hear Kelly cry out in pain, all hope dies. I see him shake his arm, trying to dislodge the zombie that has sunken its teeth into his wrist. The momentary lapse in focus is all the undead need to overwhelm him. They push him back. Another falls beneath his blade, but it’s not a fatal blow. It grabs his leg and pulls itself up, and he collapses beneath their weight. They pile on top of him. My eyes fill with tears. My vision blurs.

He stands again, shrugging the bodies off of him. He staggers backward, stops. He steps forward and climbs the mound of corpses. He fights, falters, falls.

It’s almost time. I feel the cold metal of the gun against my back. One bullet. Just one. This must be what I’d been saving it for all those times I might’ve used it but didn’t. I must’ve known from the very first day I’d found it in that little gas station in Long Island City. And Kelly must’ve known when he found it and brought it back to me at LaGuardia. He knew I’d need it. All those years ago, he saved me from myself. It’s now my turn to return the favor.

My fingers fit perfectly around the grip. They find the safety and flick it off. They touch the curve of the trigger and gingerly test its resistance. Reggie sees the wince on my face as I pull it free, but he thinks it’s just pain from the infection. He doesn’t yet see the gun. All he knows is that the disease is spreading inside of me. He knows the agony I’ll soon be going through. He knows the monster I’m about to become. He just doesn’t know I’ll become it before I’m even dead.

I cough and my bandage leaks some more. “Got any antivenin?” I joke. “I don’t think I’ll be leveling up this time.”

He smiles a wistful smile, stands, readies himself for when Kelly falls.

Outside the glass door, Kelly somehow manages to stay on his feet. They force him to retreat, then he pushes them back. He leans against the glass. It’s splattered with clotted blood. He lowers his arm wearily, and I realize it’s time.

But they’ve stopped attacking. Kelly looks over at us through the splotches and smears on the glass, confused, exhausted.

I look down at the tablet. It’s the Players. They’re here. They’re down here, and they’re drawing the IUs away before they can finish us off. I hear them out there now, engaging them, a battle of dead against dead. For their Operators, these are nothing more than practice kills, worth little. But for Arc, they’ll make for some thrilling promotional clips on Survivalist.

Blood drips down Kelly’s arms, fresh blood. His blood. Gore coats his shirt and pants.

I lift the gun.

Kelly and Reggie see it at exactly the same moment. It doesn’t register with them right away where I’m aiming it. Maybe they believe I’m going to shoot the Players when they come. What a joke. One bullet might stop one if I’m lucky enough with my shot, but there are dozens more out there. My arm shakes. It droops. I’m weak. I lift it up again, steady it. And then, all at once, they know — or they think they know — and they start yelling for me not to do it.

But I don’t hear them. All I can hear, as I squint into the site, aim, and curl my finger, is Kelly — my poor, dear, lost Kelly — whispering inside my head how much he loves me.

I know, I whisper back. I’ve always known. I love you, too.

He nods then. He was always a better player than I was. Better than I ever realized.

The blast is the last thing I hear, long after the bullet has already exited the gun and the recoil jerks my body back with such force that the pain rips through me and takes away all sense.

Darkness envelops me as glass shatters and showers to the floor.

I am hollow. Nothing remains. Not even despair.

Chapter 22

I never deserved anything good. I have bad blood flowing inside of me, always have. The blood of my father and the blood of his before him. Blood that introduced a contagion into the world that tore humanity apart. Blood of my mother who had given up living long ago and was, instead, in some kind of perpetual living death. I was bad right from the start, and I never deserved anything good.

When Kelly came, he filled a void in my life, made me complete. But I was a fool and never fully realized it. Last year, we went through a rough patch. We’d broken up. I tried dating other guys. More than I can remember. More than I care to remember, in fact. But I was never with any of them. Not like I was with Kelly.

He always feared I was becoming my mother.

“You’ll drink yourself to death, Jessie. I can’t stand to see you doing that to yourself.”

I’ve tried to blank that time out of my mind. I hate what I did to myself then. What I did to him. He filled a void in my life, but what I didn’t realize was that I was also filling one in his. When I left him, it was like tearing holes in both of us.

What brings me back now is the smell of his hair and his skin, the sound of his voice, the feel of his arms around me. All of these things pull me from the edge of consciousness and back to myself.

He was good, and I never deserved anything good, but he was what I got anyway. I needed him. And he needed me.

“Jessie,” he says. I can hear it in his voice: he doesn’t have much time left.

I look up at the shattered black globe, that all-seeing eye. It’s blind now. And I say, “I didn’t want them watching us die. They don’t deserve it. They don’t deserve us.”

None of them do. Not Ben, not any of them.

He gently pries the gun from my fingers and sets it aside. It’s useless now. It’s done its job. He can barely even lift it.

Reggie stands over by the door, holding it shut. He presses his cheek against the glass and strains to look down the hallway and into the other room. “They’re fighting,” he reports. “The Players and the IUs, they’re fighting each other.”

The sounds of the battle out there grow loud. Soon, the Players will finish off their mindless, clumsy opponents. Then they’ll come for us.

“You know what needs to be done, Reg,” I say.

He looks over. I take Kelly’s machete and shove it toward him. It comes to rest at his feet.

“Kelly first, then me,” I tell him. I won’t let Kelly watch me die. “Don’t wait for them to come. Then you use your Link.”

He shakes his head. He knows this is my last gift to Kelly, but still he resists. “I can’t, Jess.”

“You can. You have to.”

His eyes lock on the gun. His mouth becomes a thin white line. He thinks I’ve wasted the last bullet shooting out that damn camera in the ceiling. Maybe I have; I don’t care. I just couldn’t do it, not to my dear, sweet Kelly. But if I can’t save us, at least I can save our dignity. I won’t be fodder for the Media Stream. I won’t be just some ratings gimmick for Survivalist. Let us die here in peace. Let us die; don’t watch us come back.

I turn to Kelly. “Does it hurt?”

He shakes his head. “Not yet.” He’s still high on adrenaline, numb. But I know the pain will come. Soon. First the pain from his wounds, then the pain of the infection as it spreads. As it enters his brain.

The sounds of the fighting diminish. It grows eerily quiet out there, just the sounds of moaning and a few more bodies falling, telling us it’s nearly done. The undead, whether controlled by some living person somewhere, or by nothing but viral instinct, have no need for shouting in the heat of battle. They don’t cry out over wounds they receive or inflict; they do not cry out for those who fall before them, neither in celebration nor anguish. For the IUs, this is nothing more than the rote execution of some primal directive, like code carrying out what it was written to do. This is the game being played out, for both sides, according to script. The sounds of metal on flesh and bone? Of tendons separating and limbs and heads falling? They’re all a part of it. They’ll be recorded, catalogued, and repackaged for optimum entertainment.

Reggie looks back out through the glass and shakes his head. “I can’t see anything. It looks like the Players might be falling back.” I can hear the hope in his voice, and I want to warn him not to fall for it. I can sense his confusion. He still believes there’s a chance we can get out of this alive— or at least himself. I wish he was right. But the battle out there will ebb and flow on its own inexplicable and unpredictable schedule. But like the tide, it will eventually sweep back in again. Right now the Operators are too focused on the IUs, but they’re mere irritations, requisite challenges before they can graduate to the final battle. We are the real prize, the end-game, the highest level. When the infected undead are all killed, then the Players will march for us.

Hopefully to be disappointed. We will defeat them by dying first.

“Reggie,” Kelly says. I can hear the first hint of pain now in his voice, how it strangles the breath in his throat.

“No, wait...”

“Reggie, listen,” he says, “they’re going to come.”

But Reggie doesn’t listen. He leans against the door, then slowly opens it and looks out. He holds his hand up, as if warding us off. Or beckoning us to come. I can’t tell anymore. My mind’s too foggy. I don’t even have the energy to stand, and Kelly’s beginning to shake. I can see the shock of all those injuries beginning to slip over him. I can see the life beginning to leave his eyes.

“You h-have— have t-t-to,” Kelly says. “Quick, before they c-come back.”

The fighting sounds are nearly gone now, and I wonder if maybe I’m beginning to fade away, too. Everything seems so far off now.

“They’re leaving! The Players are leaving.”

I blink until I can keep my eyes open.

Reggie rushes over and crouches before us. “Can you walk, Jessie?”

I laugh-cough and shake my head. Kelly lets out a deep, shuddering breath. He doesn’t even respond. He leans back against the wall next to me and already I can feel the heat coming off of him. Isn’t it strange, I think, that I can feel his fever, but not mine?

“No,” Reggie says. He looks at Kelly’s wounds and repeats himself again and again: “No, no. No. I won’t let you. I won’t!”

“You have to,” I whisper. “Ashley’s gone,” I tell him. I don’t tell him she’s already reanimated. She might even be out there, already switched on and under someone else’s control. But I can tell he knows; he just needs to accept it. “Jake is gone. Now Kelly and I are gone, too. If you can get out, then go. But first you have to finish us. I reach over and it feels like my hand weighs a million pounds. I reach over and grasp his wrist with the machete in it and pull it up. It’s like lifting the weight of the world. “Kelly first.”

“No,” he moans. “I can’t.”

“You’re saving us,” I tell him. “You’re saving us. You’re letting us go into that long sleep without nightmares. I’m so tired. I just want to sleep.”

I reach over and pull Kelly to me. I lay his head in my lap. He comes so willingly. I can feel his breath on my skin. It’s feverishly hot. I can feel his life leaking away like the heat rolling off a sidewalk after the sun goes down at the end of the day.

“Please, Reggie.”

I run my fingers through his hair one last time. Kelly sighs and shuts his eyes.

“No,” Reggie says. He’s crying now. The big brute is crying. “I love you guys,” he says. “I can’t.”

But he lifts his hand and stares at it like he can’t stop himself, like his body already knows what his mind refuses to accept. He watches in horror as the blood and gore-streaked blade rises, as his own hand betrays his will by lifting it.

I pull the curls away from Kelly’s neck, his beautiful neck.

“We love you, too,” I whisper.

There’s movement now in the hallway, shuffling footsteps drawing near. The dead are coming back. This time they’ll have the benefit of a living intelligence to guide their decisions. There’s no time to waste.

Hurry, Reg.

The machete hovers over Kelly. I see Reggie strain, like he’s sending his arm conflicting commands. A shadow falls across the wall outside the door. No one looks to see what’s coming. We know.

It’s now or never.

Hurry, I scream inside my head. Hurry. I close my eyes and say goodbye.

The door begins to open. The air makes a whooshing sound as it escapes the room. I feel the breeze on my tear-streaked face.

“Now, Reggie,” I murmur. “Do it!”

But he lets out a yelp of surprise. I feel his body jerk. And I open my eyes just in time to see the machete skitter away across the floor. It disappears beneath the stacks of computers. Then, as the Player sweeps down and pulls him away, I realize it’s already too late.

He delayed too long.

And that stupid, silly question comes back to me again, when I know that we’ve lost. The real game — the real nightmare — is about to begin.

Do zombies dream?

Chapter 23

“What the hell are you doing?” a familiar voice shouts. There’s a blur of movement. Reggie tumbles onto his back and lies there staring up, too stunned to move or speak.

“Micah?” I gasp and barely recognize him, covered in as much blood as he is.

Kelly struggles to lift his head, but he’s too weak. He collapses with a groan. The sound makes me shiver, so full of pain and death, harkening of the darkness that awaits us.

“Move,” Micah orders Reggie. He gestures impatiently. “Damn it, Reggie, give me some room.”

“Let us finish, Micah,” I beg. “Please. Kelly’s dying. We’re both dying.”

But Micah steps over Reggie and kneels down. He urges Kelly to relax. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

And suddenly I realize how Ben was able to control the Players. He had his Coder, Micah, do it. That’s why he created the tracking script, not for us to control them in The Game, but so he and the Coalition could control them themselves.

“Hold still!” he tells Kelly. “You need to hold— Okay, never mind. He just passed out.” He turns and shouts over his shoulder: “In here! I found them. They’re in with the computers!”

“You brought Ben here?” I say. I’m furious, but I’m too weak to do anything but murmur.

“Who?”

“The Coalition.”

He scowls at me. “I can’t leave you guys alone for a minute without you...” He growls bitterly. “Why the hell are you even still here? You should’ve been gone by now. Where’s Brother Matthew? And Brother Nicholas? Where’s Ashley and Jake?”

Reggie stands up again. “No, you don’t get to ask about them, Micah. Why the hell did you come? Wanted to watch us suffer?”

Micah chuffs. But instead of answering, he starts to pull at the bottom edge of Kelly’s shirt, lifting it up, exposing his torso. He swears under his breath at the collection of wounds. “He’s lucky. Most of these are pretty superficial,” he says. “They’ll scar, though.”

“Scar?” Reggie screams. “Those are bites, you asshole! He’s infected. They both are! Now get the fuck away from them!” He reaches down to yank Micah off, but Micah casually swipes his hand away and warns him to shut up in a tone we’ve never heard him use before. Reggie immediately backs off.

“Just sit down,” Micah says. “I’m saving your asses, so a little thanks would be nice. Now, just give me some room.” He turns and yells over his shoulder again: “Hey! Are you still out there? We’re back here!”

Footsteps pound the hallway outside. A moment later a shadow appears on the other side of the blood-splattered glass. The door slams open.

“Sister Jane?” I exclaim.

She quickly surveys the scene. “You,” she says, pointing to Reggie. “Are you hurt?”

He stammers out a negative.

“Good, then step aside.” She’s a foot and a half shorter than he is, but she’s not intimidated in the least by his size. “Just stay out of the way so we can take care of the ones who are.”

At this, Reggie’s face flushes. He doesn’t like being scolded, not by anyone, especially Micah. But it’s even worse when it comes from some strange woman he’s never met.

She turns to Micah and hisses, “I told you we needed to stick together. That’s what you agreed to. And here you are yelling with those things out there. That’s not very smart.”

“You had it under control.”

She scowls.

“Sister Jane? Why are you here?”

She spins around and tuts when she sees me. “Are you alright? You look alright.”

“Does she look alright?” Reggie squeaks. “She’s been bitten. It’s been almost an hour!”

She waves him back. “Show me.”

I lift my arm.

“Just the one? You’ll be fine. It’s the boy I’m more worried about.”

“B-but...” I say. My eyes bounce between her and Micah as I try to understand what’s happening. Our fortunes appear to have changed, I just can’t figure out how. A moment ago we were dying, prepared to do what needed to be done. And now...

Now I’m not even sure what’s going to happen to us.

“Are you with the Coalition?” I ask her.

“The what?” she asks, frowning at me.

“Wait a minute,” Reggie cries. “Wait just a goddamn minute! What about the Players out there?”

“They’re still out there,” Micah says. “But they won’t stay out there if you keep shouting like that.” He cringes at the sight of the bite marks on Kelly’s arms and chest, and he swears under his breath. “Yeah, these are definitely going to leave some nasty scars.”

“Just keep the noise level down,” Sister Jane warns. “It riles them so they’re harder to manage.”

“Riles them?” Reggie yells. “What the fu—”

“Reggie! Shut your damn mouth!” Micah hisses.

Reggie stumbles back like he’s been slapped across the face. Sister Jane ducks beneath him to get to Kelly’s other side. She got a pouch slung over her shoulder, which she now rotates forward. She opens it, reaches in, and pulls something out. “Hold this,” she tells Micah.

“Is that what I think it is?” Reggie asks, stepping forward again. “Is that the treatment? It looks like the treatment.”

She and Micah nod grimly. Micah shoulders him away again and tells him to stay out of the way.

“Reggie, why don’t you watch the door?” I suggest.

“No need for that,” Micah quietly barks. “It’s all under control out there. Just stay in here, but keep out of the way.”

Sister Jane gestures at Kelly. “On his side. Pull his knees up to his chest and hold them tight.” When Micah does as she instructs, she reaches over and quickly pours a brownish liquid over his lower spine and swabs it around. It puddles onto the floor, looking a lot like the blood that comes out the dead. But it smells of antiseptic. She glances up and catches my eye. “Disinfectant,” she explains.

“Are you kidding me?” I exclaim.

“Spinal meningitis,” she replies. “Or staph. Or any number of nasty bugs. They’re the biggest risks of doing this in the field. Won’t do us any good if we kill him trying to save him.”

And then I realize what she means. She’s going to deliver the treatment into Kelly’s spine just as I had Jake. If it stops the virus but introduces a new pathogen, she’ll have done nothing.

I think about the water and the mud I was swimming in earlier. The needles I’d carried with me, the ones that Ben and Casey had gotten, were almost certainly contaminated with any number of pathogens. Casey’s dead, so no worries there. And Ben... well, for all I care he can go to hell with a raging syphilis infection and I won’t shed a single tear.

But what about Jake?

Jake’s dead and risen, J.

No, I know he hasn’t. The dead don’t run off and hide.

He’s dead. He bit you.

Then I remember that it was Brother Matthew’s syringe, and it didn’t get a mud bath. But I didn’t use any disinfectant. I hadn’t had any.

“What happens if he gets meningitis?” I ask.

“First, it’ll put him in terrible agony,” Sister Jane explains. “Then it’ll kill him. We don’t have antibiotics to treat meningitis anymore, not here.” She takes the syringe from Micah, bends over and, with quick, precise movements, positions the tip of the needle between two slight knobs on Kelly’s back. Then she pushes it in. I watch as she aspirates to check for blood. There isn’t any. “Okay, I’m in. You take over,” she tells Micah, letting go of the syringe. “My hands are too weak. Damn arthritis.”

The syringe just floats there, suspended in mid air on the end of the needle, quivering like an arrow shot in a tree. Micah reaches over and carefully takes hold of it.

“Don’t push or pull, just depress the plunger. Good. Slowly,” Jane instructs. “Too quickly and you’ll destroy the blood cells, which will reduce efficacy.” Micah does what she says. His hands shake as he strains to push the thick fluid through. “Be careful,” she warns. “Make sure the needle doesn’t pop off, either.”

“All of it?”

“Yes.”

“What about the pressure in his spine?”

“We want some pressure. It’ll make microscopic tears in blood-brain barrier, which will allow some of the prion to pass through and enter the bloodstream. He’ll have one hell of a headache when he wakes up, but it should be gone by tomorrow.”

“What’s prion?” Reggie asks.

Jane ignores him. She turns and elaborates on her previous answer to me instead. “If a person dies from meningitis and rises again, they’re much worse than the other Children. There’s nothing worse than a bad-tempered Child with a terrible headache that never goes away.”

I frown, confused, not sure I’ve heard her right or whether she’s serious. The dead don’t feel anything. They’re not aware.

“There’s a lot you don’t know,” she says, in lieu of further explanation. She shrugs and cracks a sad smile. “They even have personalities. Some are worse than others, some... better.”

Micah finishes and pulls the needle out of Kelly’s back and tosses it aside. A drop or two of a slightly pinkish fluid leaks from the tiny hole in his skin. He doesn’t bother to wipe it away before slapping a bandage over it. When he’s finished, he folds Kelly’s shirt back over it. “He’ll be fine soon. Just keep him still for a little while.”

“Is that what happened to Jake?” Reggie asks. “Did we give him meningitis?”

Sister Jane turns to him, frowning. “What do you mean?”

“We gave Jake the injection, but we didn’t have that brown stuff.”

“Disinfectant,” she reiterates.

“We didn’t have any,” I say. “And we didn’t have time.”

“Most likely he’ll be okay. It’s more of a precautionary measure.” She doesn’t look at either of us when she says this, so I can’t judge just how truthful she’s being.

“Brother Matthew never told us to clean the site,” I whisper.

“He’ll probably be fine.”

“Where is he anyway?” Micah asks.

“He’s not fine!” Reggie cries. “He attacked Jessie! He bit her!”

Micah looks over at me, startled. “He’s the one who bit you? Show me!”

I tug my shirt up and peel away Kelly’s crude bandage. He sucks in a sharp breath. “Christ.” He turns away, but not before I see the pain in his eyes. “Fuck!” he growls. “How could this happen?”

“Hey, it’s cool, Micah,” Reggie says. “I mean, you have more of that stuff, right? Just give Jessie a shot, okay? Please tell me you have more of those syringes.”

“Yes,” Sister Jane replies. She nods to Micah and reaches into her pouch.

But I shake my head. “Brother Matthew said it won’t work on me. He said it had something to do with the medicine I was taking, the deprolidone. But I haven’t taken it in a couple days.”

She shakes her head and prepares a second syringe. “I don’t know anything about that.” She turns to Reggie. “You can relax. She’ll be fine. We’ll give her the injection, too. I’ve got two more syringes. You weren’t bitten? Are you sure? Good.” She turns back to me and instructs me to lie down facing the wall.

Micah nods at me. “I’d do as she says.”

I don’t know why I should trust him. Or her, for that matter. But I do. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have let them inject that stuff into Kelly.

“Left side, now,” Sister Jane says. “Pull your legs up. Mister Sandervol, give her something to bite down on, please.” She bends over until her mouth is near my ear. “This is going to hurt something terrible, honey,” she whispers. “And I’m sorry, but we don’t have any anesthetic to numb you.”

It hurts all right. The needle going in isn’t so bad, but when they start injecting the blood into my spine, the pain is excruciating. More than once the thought crosses my mind that maybe I’ve made a terrible mistake. But I just clamp down harder on Micah’s makeshift bite stick and try to think about anything else.

Like, what she’s doing here with Micah.

And why he’s free.

And what they might’ve done to the others at the house.

After a long time, I finally feel her tug the needle out of me. She tells me to remain still while she covers it up with a bandage. Then she warns I should remain still for at least another hour. I’d be perfectly fine with that, because it feels like my head’s going to explode, but I ignore her advice and try to sit up— and immediately pay the price for it. The pounding becomes ten times worse. I want to be sick. I want to tear my head off. It feels like my whole body is being yanked apart by some medieval torture device.

Sister Jane clucks and tells me she told me so, but she doesn’t make me. She busies herself replacing the bandage on my side. “This actually needs some attention,” she says. “I have supplies in the other room. I’ll go get them.”

I don’t care anymore. I just want to curl up and die.

No, I don’t want to die. As bad as it hurts, I find that it’s nothing like the pain inside me I’d felt before, the pain of having lost everything. That pain is gone. I want to live.

Amazing what a tiny bit of hope can do, how quickly it can spread.

“You’ll get worse before you get better,” she advises me. She pushes herself up, and her knees crackle and pop. She breathes a little heavier. “But you will get better, I promise you that.”

Then she heads out, leaving the four of us alone.

Reggie gawps after her for a moment, unable to speak. Finally, he turns and glares at Micah, who returns the look with an infuriating shrug of his shoulders. “You really want to do this now?” he asks.

Same old Micah. It makes me want to scream. Reggie’s face reddens, and for a moment I’m sure he’s going to wig and punch his lights out. But he doesn’t. Instead, he turns to me and says, “You damn well better get better, Jessie. Kelly, too. Or there’s a certain Texas boy who’s going to have to answer for it.”

Micah sniffs and rolls his eyes.

“Doesn’t mean I’m not gonna kill you,” Reggie adds. “I still am. I’ll just do it a little more mercifully.”

Chapter 24

“I don’t trust him,” Reggie whispers at me, after Micah leaves us with orders to stay put. “Or that woman, either, for that matter. I don’t like that he’s telling us what to do now. I don’t like that they just waltzed right in here through those Players like that. What the hell is that about? Something’s fishy. It’s not natural. It’s not—”

“I get it!” I say, irritably. My head is really pounding, and I just want him to shut up. I wish I’d remembered to search Casey’s pack earlier for those pain pills. I could really use one right now.

But once Reggie gets started he’s impossible to stop. Like a boulder careening down a hill, you best just get out of his way. “And where the fuck did they go anyway?” he gripes. “They just come in here and then leave without saying where they’re going or what they’re doing.” He tries to look out through the door. I can see he wants to open it and step out, but he’s a follower at heart, and that includes rules. “Why are we supposed to stay in here while they go traipsing around—”

“Reggie! Oh my god, please.” I squeeze my head in my hands. My skull’s about to explode, and his voice is grating my ears like someone tumbling rocks inside an empty fifty-gallon drum. Sister Jane warned me it would be bad, but I never imagined it would be like this.

I manage to get myself sitting up, though the pain in my back feels like somebody implanted a meat grinder inside me and switched it on. It’s now chewing its way out through my spine. Still, it’s better than lying down. Not physically, but mentally. Being down there on the floor makes me feel vulnerable. I hunch down over my knees and try not to puke. I take in long, deep breaths and slowly let them out through pursed lips. The nausea passes through me in waves. It’s a strange, dull, burning ache that infuses my whole body. It makes me want to tear out my intestines.

Kelly just lies there, neither conscious nor unconscious. He’s delirious. I wonder if he’s aware of what’s happening. A piece of me wishes I could be in his place, oblivious to all of this.

I keep going back to Brother Matthew telling me the treatment won’t work. If that’s true, then all of this pain will have been for nothing. The infection will spread. I’ll die. Then I’ll turn.

But at least Kelly will live.

Once more, I punish myself for not asking why Brother Matthew believed that. I’ve always been too lax about wanting to know what my inhaler was really for. All my life, I’ve been too complacent. I should’ve pestered the doctors more.

It’s a blocking agent.

That’s what Brother Matthew and Father Heall said, over in Brookhaven. They said there was something inside of it that blocked... something, I don’t know what. It messed with the test. Is it some kind of experimental medicine? A secret antidote? With my grandfather involved, I can’t rule that out.

Have I been a guinea pig my whole entire life?

Does Eric know?

No.

I don’t know.

I don’t think so.

Sister Jane returns with fresh bandages and a freshly prepared bowl of the same poultice Brother Nicholas had slathered onto Jake’s neck yesterday. She chides me for not lying down, but she doesn’t push it. She gestures for me to lift my shirt, and she gently pries at the bandage. It’s already saturated with blood, but the edges are dry and stiff. She winces sympathetically every time I whimper or take in a sharp breath.

Finally, she gets it off and lays it on the floor beside her. It sits there, thick and bloody and looking like a big, fat leech. “You’ve lost a fair amount of blood.”

“I can make more.”

“You’re going to have to. At least it’s stopped.”

“Look,” Reggie says, losing patience. “I think it’s time you answered some questions.”

“That will have to wait.”

“What, you get to decide everything now?”

“That’s right. Now sit down before I knock you down.” She gives me a wink.

“The hell you will, lady.”

“Reggie,” I tell him. “Not now. Please. Just... just go sit down over there.”

I hear him grumble unhappily, but he backs up a few steps. He doesn’t quite reach the spot I’d waved him to, but at least he’s out of the way. And he keeps quiet.

Sister Jane pours cold water from a bottle on the wound. I hiss because it burns, but the pain quickly fades.

“There’s some extract in it,” she tells me. “Drink some. It’ll help.”

“It already is.”

“Drink.”

I don’t know what triggers the change, maybe wishful thinking, but I suddenly believe her. I still don’t understand how she and Micah came to be here — together — and I plan on getting that information out of her soon, but for now I’m content enough with her gentleness. That, along with the kindness she showed me last night, help me relax.

She urges me to finish the bottle. The liquid has a bitter aftertaste. When she’s satisfied, she takes the empty from me and drops it into her satchel. “You’re lucky,” she says. “This is a deep bite, but it’s mostly flesh, muscle. And it’s all intact. No damage to your organs.”

“More fat than muscle,” I grunt through clenched teeth. “I needed to lose a few pounds, anyway.”

“You’re far too skinny already.”

“Too bad that thing didn’t bite me in the ass...”

She chuckles. “It’s good that you can joke about it.”

I know it’s silly, and maybe there was something in that water she made me drink, but I’m starting to feel a little euphoric. “It’s called the Forbidden Zone Diet,” I say, and giggle. “Everyone’s dying to try it.”

“Such drama. You’re not going to die,” she gently chastises. “Not just yet, anyway.”

“Not yet?”

She shrugs. “Everyone dies someday. You’ve got many more years ahead of you. Trust me. Both of you do.”

Next, she starts packing in the poultice, and soon the pain begins to lessen even more. The relief is far from complete, but it does take the edge off. Even the gnawing sensation in my gut feels less insistent.

“The anesthetic is only temporary. But if things go as they should, you won’t need it for long.”

“If?” I say. “You don’t sound very confident.”

“The treatment isn’t foolproof. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t say anything.” I wait and she sighs and shakes her head. “I’ve seen it fail, once, out of hundreds of applications over the years. So your chances are very good. But there’s always that small possibility.”

“Why?”

“We don’t know.”

“Brother Matthew also said something about side effects.”

“There can be some. They mostly happen because of problems during administration. Mostly.” She doesn’t elaborate.

“Like secondary infections?”

“The sooner we can get you and the boy to Father Heall, the better off we’ll—”

“Um, no,” Reggie interjects. “We need to get home.”

Sister Jane looks up at him. “That’s not going to happen anytime soon.”

“I already explained to him about the repeated injections,” I tell her. “He knows. He’s just stressed.”

“Damn right I’m stressed.”

Sister Jane nods. “Well, then you know. Now,” she adds, turning to Kelly, “let’s have a look at this one.”

“How bad is it?”

She begins to cut his shirt away. “I’ve seen far worse. Most of these are superficial.”

From the looks of the scars on her back, I believe she’s personally experienced worse.

I lean against the wall and sigh. The poultice feels cool on my hot skin. Already, the pain is subsiding. Even the ache in my back and head are becoming more tolerable.

“You really should be lying down,” she says, removing another of Kelly’s bandages and applying the poultice. “And keeping still.”

“I don’t want to. I can’t.”

“Speaking of moving around, where did Micah get to?” Reggie asks. “Why isn’t he here? What’s he doing?”

Something flickers across Sister Jane’s face. I don’t know what it is, and it’s gone before I can figure it out. She doesn’t answer.

“Why is he here?” I ask. “Why did you come?”

The line of her jaw tightens. “It was Father Heall’s decision to send us.”

“Here?”

She shakes her head. “To retrieve his son’s body. To bring it back.”

“Stephen?”

“His real name is Enoch Bloch.”

“Why would Father Heall trust Micah to bring his son’s body back?”

“I don’t know if he does, but he is the only one who knows where it is. Besides you, of course.”

“Do you trust him?”

She pauses. “No.”

“Do you know what he did to us?”

She doesn’t answer.

“How did you know we needed help?”

“Can we do this another time?” she says, impatiently.

“No.”

She sighs. “We found the washed out road, traces of blood on it, broken glass. And Brother Malcolm’s shoe. We knew there had been an accident, so we searched for the car in the ravine. We found it a few hundred feet downstream, partially submerged in mud. There were no bodies, so we assumed the worst.”

I nod. We could’ve walked away from the accident under our own volition, as I did, or as one of the infected. Or we could have been washed away in the flood. The only way they could be certain how we were would come to come here.

“It didn’t take us long to find the break in the wall,” she continues. “We found the house where you stopped. More blood. And this.” She reaches into her breast pocket and pulls something out and hands it over to me. It’s the photo of the little girl, Cassandra, the photo I’d found in the house just inside the Gameland wall. Shinji’s girl.

“Mister Sandervol recognized it. He said you wouldn’t have left it behind unless you were in some kind of trouble. We let him use his phone to try and call you.”

“His Link? I never received—”

“He tried, but he couldn’t get through. Something about not being able to connect. He said it meant you were probably here, underground. We were on our way when you called him back.”

“It’s called pinging. You ping someone on the Link; you call someone standing across the room.”

Her jaw throbs with mild irritation. “He was angry. Understandably. But when the call — or whatever you call it — was cut short, he started getting worried.”

“Worried,” Reggie scoffs. “Right.”

Sister Jane doesn’t argue with him. She shrugs and asks him to help her turn Kelly over.

“Does Micah know where to find Father Heall?” I ask. “Did you take his Link away from him again?”

She raises her eyes to mine, her forehead pinching. “If you think the boy is a danger to Father Heall, then why did you bring him to us?”

I open my mouth to protest, but I realize she’s right to be angry. If I tell her Father Heall’s safety hadn’t been a concern, how does that make me look?

“He isn’t anywhere he can be found,” she assures me.

I breathe a sigh of relief.

She ties a knot in the bandage. “I think it’s only fair that you know, young lady, I don’t trust you, either. That photo wasn’t the only thing I found back there.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m still not sure why you came looking for Father Heall, but it seems clear to me that you—”

“I didn’t come here looking for anybody. I didn’t even know he existed before we met Brother Matthew and Brother Nicholas.”

She studies my face for a moment, then pulls another bandage from her pack. I watch her as she cleans another of Kelly’s wounds, applies the poultice, and covers it. She works quickly and efficiently. She repeats the process until he’s covered with bandages. When she’s finished, she places the unused supplies back into her pack and stands up.

“We should move everyone upstairs as soon as we can.”

“The elevator’s broken,” Reggie reports, unhelpfully.

“We know. You’ll just have to carry the boy.”

“The whole way?”

“There’ll be more help coming soon enough.”

“Help? Who’s coming?” Reggie asks. “More of your brothers?

“Not mine,” Sister Jane says. She turns to me. “Hers.”

Chapter 25

“Mine?” I ask. “Eric’s coming here? When? How?”

Sister Jane shakes her head. “I don’t know all the details. It was that boy, Mister Sandervol, who arranged it. Another reason I don’t trust any of you. You know how we feel about Deceivers. That goes for their sponsors. I would rather we—”

But Micah comes in right then and she shuts her mouth. He gives us a suspicious look, sensing we were right in the middle of a conversation. He thinks it’s about him. I guess it is, in a way.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I cry. I struggle to raise myself to my feet from where I’m crouched, fighting the pain and nausea that well up inside of me. I grit my teeth and step over to him. “Why didn’t you tell me that Eric is—”

“Keep it down!” he says. “Those Players out there aren’t barely under control.”

“Fuck them. Fuck you, too! How did you contact Eric? Why didn’t you tell me he was coming?”

I try to raise my hand to point jab finger into his face, but the motion sends a spasm of pain across my middle. I double over in agony, bracing my arm to my side. I’m breathless until it passes.

Reggie grabs a hold of my arms and supports me. My knees buckle, but he doesn’t allow me to fall. “You need to take it easy, Jess,” he tells me. “You’re going to makes yourself sicker.”

“No,” I pant. I try to push him away, but he refuses to let me go. Sweat and tears pour off my face. My nose decides right then that it’s the perfect time to start running like a faucet. I can’t even lift my hand to wipe it off. “I have to... I have to go.” Another spasm hits me, and I groan.

“I’ll help her,” Sister Jane quietly tells him. “You two, see about getting the other one upstairs.”

“Now?” Reggie exclaims.

“They won’t be here for awhile,” Micah says, sympathetically. “They’re still waiting for clearance to fly over the wall.”

“It’s better if we wait up there than down here. You two boys can carry him, can’t you?”

Reggie throws Micah a fierce look, then he bends down over Kelly. I can tell he’s trying to hide his hip injury, but he’s still limping, and he winces when he puts his weight on that side. I don’t know if it’s conscious or not, but he doesn’t want Micah to see him hurt. Maybe he thinks Micah will take advantage of him while he’s vulnerable. But if what Sister Jane has said is true, then we’re already in his debt.

He lifts Kelly to his shoulders like a sack of potatoes, little more than a grunt slipping out of his throat.

“Let me help,” Micah says. “Come on, man.”

“You don’t get to touch him, traitor,” he spits, and heads for the door.

Micah turns to me, pain in his eyes. I shake my head, and whatever he intended to say remains unspoken.

“You wanna help, Texas?” Reggie sneers. “Then shut the fuck up and grab this door.”

Micah doesn’t move. “Are you planning to just go running out there defenseless? Those Players may not be receiving Operator input right now, but that doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous. They’re still capable of breaking the override and attacking you if you’re not careful. You have to walk slowly. Don’t make too much noise.”

“How are you overriding them?” I ask.

“Arc,” he replies.

“I don’t understand. Arc’s helping? You?”

Sister Jane nods. She steps over and lifts my arm over her shoulder so she can help carry me. I cry out when another spasm rips through me and ask her to stop so I can catch my breath. “Why?” I ask, first chance I get. “How?”

“Why? Because I asked,” Micah says. “How? It’s a simple command override to their implants.”

“That’s some Grade A bullshit,” Reggie says. He shakes his head. “Why would you ask for their help?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Reggie sniffs and shakes his head.

“I’m telling the truth.”

“Don’t they know who you are and what you’ve done?”

“Of course they know.”

“Then why?”

“Enough!” Sister Jane says, impatiently. “Do we really need to discuss this here?” She gestures for Micah to get the door. Reggie’s already straining under Kelly’s weight, so I honestly don’t know how he thinks he’s going to make it all the way up the stairs with him like that. Maybe the thought of Micah offering to help him will give him the strength to power through.

Micah purses his lips, then pushes through the door. “Keep quiet,” he warns, as we file past. “We’ve been able to move most of the Players upstairs to beyond the fence. But there are several still down here. The override won’t work if they get too agitated.”

“Why don’t you just kill them?”

“We can’t. That’s our agreement with Arc.”

As we enter the main room, I catch sight of a trio of Players standing against the far wall. They sense us and begin to moan. One takes a step forward before it stops and backtracks. I keep my eyes on it as we go. I can almost imagine the struggle going on inside its head, the battle between its own internal urges and the overriding control exerted by some Arc Operator with his finger on a button somewhere.

“Are they sending this to the Stream?” I quietly ask. “Is anyone watching this?”

“Arc’s Streams have been down for days,” Micah replies, startling both Reggie and me. “One of their main control hubs went down.”

“The how are they overriding them then?”

“Talk later,” Sister Jane warns quietly.

Reggie reaches the stairwell first, followed by Sister Jane and me, then Micah in the rear. The door has been shorn off its hinges and now stands propped up against the wall. We step carefully around the bodies of the IUs that the Players killed. Micah slips past us and tries to move the bodies so we don’t trip. But Reggie trips anyway and nearly dumps Kelly onto the floor. Micah catches him. “Don’t touch me, man,” Reggie snarls.

“Your leg—”

“I said don’t touch me. I’m fine.”

“Just let me help.”

“If you so much as lay another finger on me, I will break your goddamn arm,” Reggie growls.

“Let him help, Reggie,” I say, partially because I don’t want him to drop Kelly, but also because I’m starting to get this nagging feeling that maybe we’re not getting the full story about Micah. He sure acts like he’s guilty, like he knows what he’s done to us and knows he deserves our spite. Other times, I sense he’s genuinely perplexed by how we’re treating him. So either he’s still suffering some of the aftereffects of losing his memory—

If he actually ever did, my inner voice reminds me.

—or he’s a really good actor.

You can’t act physical wounds, my inner voice counters itself. He really was nearly killed.

I still can’t trust him, though. All I know for sure is that what we think we know about him is incomplete. Whatever the full truth may be, it’s probably not as simple as him being an SSC agent and using us to secure direct access to Arc’s secure codex.

Reggie pushes past him and mounts the stairs like he plans to sprint all the way up them. He’s clearly not having second thoughts about Micah like I am. He genuinely can’t stand the sight of him right now. But after topping the first flight of stairs, his pace begins to slow, and by the fourth landing, he’s breathing heavily and gasping in pain.

I take my time climbing the stairs. Each time I lift my left leg, another flare of white hot pain burns through me. My head’s not pounding so much now, which is a relief, but my back still aches, and all my joints feel loose. It feels like it’s taking forever to climb up. After a while, I pretty much go on autopilot. I lose count of the landings and instead focus on my breathing. In... out... in again. I tell myself that I’ll have to stop by the dojang when I get back and thank Master Rupert for all his help. If it wasn’t for him and his discipline training, I’m sure this would be a lot more tortuous than it is.

“It feels like your fever’s breaking,” Sister Jane tells me.

“You said it would.”

“I did, but this is very quick.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Yes.”

“I guess Brother Matthew was wrong.”

Reggie’s still plugging away. He’s a few flights above us, but moving considerably slower now. After Micah tries again to help and is once more rebuffed, he falls back to us. I try not to catch his gaze. I worry that I’ll see something in it that will make me once again doubt my feelings. I remind myself that he’s a good liar.

“Halfway there,” he says, encouragingly. No one acknowledges it.

“I don’t know how you can say my fever’s gone down quick,” I tell Sister Jane. “I’m still sweating buckets.”

“You are, but that’s mostly from pain and effort. You’re a strong girl, stronger than I was when I was first bitten. I cried like a baby, and not because I believed I was about to die. The pain was something awful.”

“The first time?” Micah asks.

She doesn’t answer him.

“How old were you?”

“Thirty-six.”

I think about Julia. I wonder if she’s a strong girl. She’ll have to be, now that her father is dead. I’m surprised Sister Jane hasn’t asked about him. Or the others. I wonder what she would’ve done if she’d seen Brother Matthew’s body. I’m glad we moved him into one of the rooms, out of sight.

But then I remember that we just left Brother Nicholas upstairs where he fell, a hole in his forehead from Casey’s rifle. She had to have seen him. And yet. Here she is, focused on me. For all she knows, I could’ve been the one who put that bullet in his head.

Before I realize it, I’m crying. My vision blurs. I can’t see shit.

“Do we need to stop?” Sister Jane asks, thinking I’m in physical pain. I mean, I am, but it’s not anything I can’t handle.

“I’m so s-s-sorry,” I sob. “They’re all dead. Brother Matthew and Brother Malcolm, Brother Nicholas. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry imsuh-suh-sorry...”

Sister Jane gently lowers me to the step and sits me down. Micah lingers a moment, but then continues on up the stairs without saying a word. She must’ve signaled for him to leave us. She wraps me in her arms and rocks me. And it only makes me cry even harder. No one has ever cradled me like this, not that I can remember. Kelly doesn’t count, because he’s my boyfriend. This feels like I’ve always imagined what it must be like to have a mother who actually remembers she’s a mother.

She doesn’t say anything, just lets me cry. And when I’m done, she helps me back to my feet, and she carries me the rest of the way up the stairs with just her gentle touch.

Chapter 26

The late afternoon sun feels impossibly good on my skin. I wipe the tears from my cheeks and raise my face toward the sky. Eric’s coming, I remind myself. He’ll fix everything.

I know I’m deluding myself, but after so much trauma and heartache, I just want to believe something positive, even if it’s only for a moment. And so I don’t have to face the dire truth that we are in deep, deep trouble. I let myself believe that once he gets here, he’ll whisk us all back home and will somehow sweep it all away so I don’t have to deal with the consequences of my reckless decisions, just as he always has.

Sister Jane releases me, although she keeps her fingers on my elbow. I’m glad for it. It’s a comfort just to have her touch.

It’s been at least an hour and a half since I was bitten, a half hour since the injection, and I’m stiff and achy, but I’m not spiking a fever or turning into a quivering mass of decaying flesh, so I guess the treatment must be working. My head and back ache, but they’re nothing now compared with the trauma I’ve suffered in the past two weeks. I almost laugh, thinking this. Had someone told me before all this that I’d survive a shoulder dislocation, multiple punches to the face, two near drownings, a gunshot to the head, and a bite from an infected undead, I never would’ve believed them.

I take in a deep breath, inhaling the fresh air like I can’t get enough of it, like I’m starving to death and it’s the first nourishment I’ve had in ages. Every sense seems sharper. I hear the buzz of the cicadas in the trees. I hear the soft hush of the wind over the tall grass and through the leaves of the trees in the woods. I feel the springy earth beneath my feet. I just want to lie down in the tall grass so I can block out the whole world, close my eyes, and go to sleep. I want to wake up in my bed and realize this was just a long, terrible dream, and everything will actually be alright.

“When can I talk to my brother?” I ask.

“He’s supposed to call.”

Ping, I almost correct.

Reggie has placed Kelly on the ground in the shade between buildings and is crouched down beside him. I don’t know how he did it, but he carried Kelly all the way up those stairs, but he’s paying for it now. He’s completely wiped out.  I look around for Micah and am surprised to see him over with Brother Walter, who’s speaking with someone on a Link.

“I thought you guys didn’t have Links,” I say to Sister Jane. “Brother Matthew said you didn’t like them because they could be tracked.”

“He’s using the boy’s.”

“Do you know who he’s talking to?”

“The Arc people would be my guess. The ones who’ve taken control of the Deceivers.”

“Do you know what’s happening with Arc? I’ve heard things, but nothing specific. One of the men who held us here, the one who sent the Players — the Deceivers, I mean — said Arc would be too busy to deal with the hole they blasted into the wall. What did he mean by that?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know much, just what I overheard this morning after you left. A fire was set in Arc’s Manhattan headquarters a couple days ago. It’s disrupted all sorts of communications.”

I look up, expecting to see the strange, dark cloud that had discolored the sky yesterday, but it’s gone now, leaving nothing but a patchwork of deep blue and towering white clouds.

Given the proximity of Arc’s Manhattan site to Gameland, it’s likely that it’s also where their main data hub lives. Taking it out makes sense if the Coalition wanted to blind Arc. That must also be how Ben was able to take control of these Players so easily: without Arc running interference, it would be a simple hack into their systems, especially if you had physical access on the inside. He would’ve been to tap directly into the transmission tower here on the Hill to assume local control. That explains why he didn’t leave, and how he was able to see me when I went searching for Ashley following Novak’s attempt to kill us.

“If the network is down, how is Arc able to control these Players?”

“They can’t. The best they could do was to instruct Mister Sandervol on how to activate the temporary override to block their ability to move.”

“It was the Southern States Coalition,” I say. “They’re the ones responsible for taking out Arc’s Manhattan headquarters.”

“Yes, we know.”

“And Micah works for them. He’s a Coalition spy.”

She gives me a startled look.

“We just figured that out,” I tell her. “That’s why we don’t trust him.”

She considers this for several seconds. “Then why would he ask Arc for help?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, perhaps your brother will be able to explain it.”

“I’m worried he told the Coalition where to find Father Heall.”

She turns to me, her face grim. “I told him he was making a grave mistake trusting that boy to fetch back his son. But maybe he was right to send him away...”

She glances over at Micah, and out of the corner of my eye, I notice her hand slide to her pouch. I know it doesn’t just hold bandages. I’d felt something hard and heavy inside of it bumping me on the walk up the stairs.

She’s got a gun. And now I’m wondering what she intends to do with it.

Chapter 27

I’m sitting with Kelly, brushing his hair and waiting for him to regain consciousness. His fever’s broken. Reggie’s sitting on the other side of him. He’s leaning back against the wall, his knees bent and his head cradled on his arms. He’s taken as much physical abuse as the two of us, most of it from his own damn implant. Plus he’s gotten just as little sleep, so I’m surprised he hasn’t simply passed out yet. His shoulders twitch as he cries. I don’t like seeing him cry. In fact, I’ve seen far too much of it the past couple days. I’m sure he’d prefer not to be seen crying, so I act like he’s not there.

I stand up as quietly as I can, which isn’t easy given how sore I am all over. Thankfully, the wound in my side doesn’t hurt as much as it did. I keep waiting for the poultice to stop working and for the pain to return, but it hasn’t yet. The infection part is being beaten back. It’ll take a bit longer for Kelly to catch up, since his wounds are far more numerous and his infection far greater than mine, but he’s definitely getting better. He’ll never be cured — neither of us will be — but at least we’ll go through it together.

I finger my Link in my pocket, tempted to ping Eric. Micah has informed me he’s spearheading our rescue, but also warned me not to distract him. “He’ll call you the first chance he gets,” Brother Walter says, trying to be reassuring. He’s not a tall man, but like the other brothers he has presence. So I heed his advice and wait. But patience has never been my virtue, and it’s hard for me to just pull back and let other people take charge. Plus, it won’t seem real until I hear his voice.

I go out and stand in the full sunlight and soak in the warmth. I can almost feel my body repairing itself — my soul, too — so that when my Link finally does ping, I’m ready. There’s no apprehension anymore. I finally feel like I can have a real conversation with my brother.

“Jessie?” he says, his relief evident even in the tiny Link screen. “Thank God!” His forehead creases. “What happened to your eye?”

I almost laugh that he would ask about that, after everything I’ve been through. I reach up and gently touch my puffy cheek. It’ll definitely blacken. “I’m... okay,” I tell him. “When are you going to get here?”

“Soon. Listen, I wish I’d known. I mean—” I can see on his face all the things he wants to say. “I’ve been pinging you nonstop since you disappeared, but I just kept getting the same message as before telling me you were off-stream. What the hell were you—”

He stops, his lips pursed, and looks away for a moment.

“I know I screwed up,” I say.

He shakes his head. “After I found out you were here, I came as soon as I could. But once I arrived on the island, I was unable to connect.”

“We were in Arc’s underground mainframe, out of range of any transmission towers.”

Once more, he opens his mouth to say something, but this time he’s stopped by someone in the background shouting. And now I hear other noises. “It’s a madhouse here.”

“Where are you?”

He shakes his head. “I’ll tell you everything in time. But first, how are you? Are you... Are you really okay?”

I consider telling him that Kelly and I have been bitten, but I don’t know who else might be listening and how they might react. I don’t know what Arc knows about Father Heall’s blood. Eric will find out everything soon enough anyway, just ideally after Reggie’s already headed back home.

“I’m okay, Eric. I just... I’m really am sorry about everything.”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

Yes, I do, I think. Ashley and Jake are dead. Kelly and I are infected.

“Listen,” he says, leaning close to his Link, “I have to cut this short. We’re at the old LaGuardia Airport. We found SSC’s base of operations and the—” He breaks down then. “Mom and I have been scared half to death, Jessie.”

At the mention of my mother, my mood sours. “We didn’t plan on coming here, just the island, but—”

“Not here, Jess,” he warns. His face grows neutral, confirming my suspicions that he doesn’t want me saying certain things on-stream. “We’re still waiting on flyover clearance for the wall from NatSec. They’re sending in a chopper for support.”

“A helicopter? How long will that take?”

He shakes his head and shrugs. If I’d known it was going to take this long, I’d’ve hoofed it out there already on my own. We know there’s access hatches in the wall around Gameland, and we’ve got keys to get in.”

“We?”

He lets it go without a response.

“The wall’s been shut down,” I say.

“Parts of it, yeah, we know. Found out this morning. Apparently, there’s a lot that’s gone to hell recently. Luckily I was already on the island by then.”

“How did you know?”

“Lots of little things. But mostly we searched Micah’s house. There were enough clues there to lead us to Long Island— maps and notes. Checked your ping records. Took us a few days just to get clearance to get onto the island. Government got involved. Damn bureaucratic red tape. Then Arc was firebombed, and suddenly everything became a lot easier. They gave us more access in exchange for keeping them in the loop. We got lucky and caught a break that led us here to the old airport. We found the tunnel, where you’d been held, the medical Links and records, which Arc immediately confiscated, of course.” He shakes his head. “After seeing all the blood and the bodies, I thought we’d lost you...” He swallows and takes in a shaky breath. “Arc locked the site down.”

“The bodies weren’t Arc. They’re not the ones who brought us there. It was the Coalition. But Arc’s still—”

“Yeah, we know,” he says, flashing me a warning look. “Arc’s going to be leveraging their involvement like crazy. They’re already distancing themselves from all of this. And you.”

“How much do you know?”

He gives his head a quick shake. “All I can say is, Arc’s spent the past two days conducting a massive sweep, weeding out anyone on their employee rolls who might be suspicious. Unfortunately, they’ve got far bigger problems at the moment.”

“Micah’s with them, you know, the SSC. He betrayed us.”

Eric’s face clouds for a moment. His face pinches as he mulls this over. “It’s not going to be easy getting you home. Manhattan’s under quarantine. All the checkpoints are on lockdown. There’s an outbreak spreading in lower Manhattan right now. Government’s about to announce it’s fully contained, but I have my doubts. Arc’s control systems are barely limping along. I’m worried they could collapse at any moment.”

“We’re the ones who started the outbreak. We let the dead back into Manhattan when—”

“No, it wasn’t you. Arc’s security network was been sabotaged.”

“The fire?”

He nods. “It looks a lot like the Coalition, same tactics, but between you and me, I don’t get the sense Arc thinks it was the Coalition. There’s something else going on, something a lot bigger than this quarrel between us and the Southern States. Arc’s Civil Projects Division lost control of their network a few times, so it seems to be an ongoing, coordinated attack by a much more powerful enemy. Each time was only for a few seconds, but a few seconds is more than enough to initiate an outbreak.”

“Who could be more powerful than the SSC?”

“China and Russia come to mind.”

Great. It’s the scenario Grandpa was so afraid of living to see.

“Arc’s engineers are working around the clock to shore things up, erecting new firewalls and blocking a barrage of attacks, but the virus the attackers planted is tricky. It’s replicating itself, spreading, evolving. It’s like a living thing, and it’s learning faster than Arc can immunize its systems against it.”

“Evolving? Learning?”

Eric looks away again. Now I hear rhythmic wup wup wup of a helicopter in the background. He turns back. “They’re here. Looks like we got clearance, finally. Should take us only about twenty minutes to get there.”

“Who’s coming?”

“I’ve got a team of fellow NCD officers I trust, and the Marines are supplying a squad of Omegas to secure the site.”

“Omegamen? You’re bringing more dead here? You just said the networks have been breached.”

“Government has military grade hardware and software, and it’s all air-gapped. So, for the moment, they’re resisting the software attacks. And Arc’s reporting difficulties controlling their assets inside the arcade.”

“The Players.”

“Right. So Government’s using the Omegamen to secure the perimeter while we extract you. They’re a lot safer to use against the dead than live troops.”

“Why don’t they just keep using the override?”

“Doesn’t work on the unimplanted, Jess. You know that.”

“Do you know who’s in charge of them? Do you trust them?”

“I’m not privy to that sort of information anymore. I just know that— Look, as far as you have to worry about, we’re here to rescue and extract you and the others. Arc and the government? Well, their focus is on this being the initial phase in a national security offensive.”

I can tell he’s pressed for time, and I have more questions, but he cuts me off with a warning: “When we arrive on scene, everyone is going to need to be careful what is said and done. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I nod. “I’m really glad to see you, Eric. I know I really screwed up this time.”

He sighs and gives me a wan smile. Then I hear a shout, and Eric turns, giving someone off to the side a nod.

“I have to go now, Jess. Twenty minutes. And Jess... I’m really glad you’re all right. I love you.”

The screen goes black before I can echo the sentiment. I can’t remember ever having said it to him before, and it crushes me that I didn’t get the chance just now. I’ll just have to remember to say it when he arrives.

After talking to Eric, I realize I’ve wandered some distance away from the others, and I now find myself near the gate. I’m startled to find that a small group of Players is standing there. They’re as silent as night, their dead, black eyes staring blindly at nothing at all. The sun is setting behind them, a large orange ball of fire, and it makes them look like cardboard cutouts. I count at least ten in this group.

“Sister Jane?” I call, trying to be as quiet as I can.

She’d gone off into the woods to gather more of the plants to make more poultice for when Kelly wakes. Brother Walter and Micah aren’t anywhere in sight. I think they’re trying to figure out where Jake might have gotten to.

The Players moan at the sound of my voice and grow restless. This only lasts a few seconds before they settle down again.

Something shiny glints in one of the Player’s hands, and for a moment I think it’s a knife. I can’t really see what it is from this distance, not with the sun behind them. But as I draw nearer and see that it’s cupped almost entirely in its palm, I realize it’s far too small to be a knife. Curious, I step closer.

The Hill is quiet, just the late afternoon breeze and the early evening bugs as background noise. There’s no hum of electricity; the current is still off. Thankfully, the gate is closed and latched. I supposed if they’d wanted to, the Players could’ve opened it and come in. If their Operators wanted them to. Then I remember the network’s been down. There’s no one giving them orders, just whatever override Arc triggered to force their implants to make them stand still.

I draw to within a couple yards of them, still well out of their reach and separated from them by the fence. A faint musky, synthetic smell wafts off of them. Their skin hasn’t yet achieved that deep brown color yet. They still have all their hair. Their coveralls are made of thick denim, able to withstand the harshness of constant exposure to the elements and to battle. The CU Micah and I had encountered before arriving here was dressed like this. Some carry clear signs of having been in other fights. The older wounds are crusted over, while the fresher wounds weep some sort of amber-colored fluid.

I’m not sure how long I stand there, staring at them before I realize I’m trying to see if I recognize any of them from the show. I don’t. But then again, I was never much of a fan of Survivalist. Over the years, I must’ve seen hundred of Players, and I couldn’t describe a single one of them. Plus, there are probably thousands in here by now.

Tens of thousands.

“Why did you volunteer?” I ask. I speak in a tone that’s barely above a whisper, and yet the closest ones shuffle their feet, like they’re ashamed of what their answers might be. The effect propagates through them like a ripple spreading across the surface of a pond. But soon enough, they grow silent and still again.

How does the override work? I wonder. Is it a script, like the failsafe? Does it need to be constantly transmitted? Is it like a command line prompt that takes priority over everything else until it is either removed or deleted? Does it recode the implant’s firmware? Whatever it is, I’m glad Arc had the foresight to create such a contingency.

I raise my hand and wave it in front of one of their eyes.

The nearest on lurches forward and I draw back with a yelp. My heart yammers in my ears. Was it a reflex? It shouldn’t be able to see me. The only reason Operators can see to play is because of the ocular implants, tiny high-resolution video cameras. But those feed directly to the network and from there into the Operator’s graphics hardware; they don’t connect in any way to the Player’s brain.

After taking half a step, it lurches to a stop, then slowly pulls back. It’s like a toy resetting.

I move over to another and repeat the wave. This one manages to complete the step and begin another before it pulls back. Its movements are slower and jerkier than the first. I think it’s because it’s older. Its clothes are more faded.

Cheaper model. Cheaper hardware, probably with higher data latency.

Or maybe it’s just older and less responsive to begin with. Which, ironically, makes it more responsive under these circumstances.

Yeah, to its internal drives.

I start to notice physical differences among the others. There’s one with far more wounds, even though it appears to be more recently reanimated. Does that mean its Operator is greener? Or perhaps more willing to take on more risks? Is its l.i.n.c. connection to The Game not as fast? Even a few milliseconds difference in data transmission latency can make a big difference during battle. Or is it slower because the person it was when it was alive was slower?

The last one in the front row is muscular. I wave my hand in front of its nose, and it barely flinches. It must have the latest, top-of-the-line hardware. Its neural connection must be very strong. It has only one visible wound, an inch-long flap of muscle dangling from its left cheek. It seems to be a common injury. The flesh there is more exposed and more prone to tearing. It’s too bad, because otherwise, it could almost pass for the living, just a little makeup and—

And suddenly I’m on the bus again, coming home from Hartford, and Tanya’s on the seat beside me. I’ve been watching that new Player, she says. What a hunk. I bet he was a hottie when he was still alive. People say he’s going to outlast any Player that ever played The Game. There’s a rumor he was a Volunteer.

I don’t know if it’s him or not. Chances are it isn’t. But it could be. This one was a good-looking man before he died.

“How much did they pay you?” I ask. I can feel my resentment burning inside of me. I wonder what happened to that money. Did it go to pay for some poor child’s hospital bills? Did this Player have children it left behind? A sister with cancer? A mother nearing retirement age? How much to buy out someone’s LSC?

How could anyone just leave their family like that?

“Parents have left their families for far less,” I whisper, spitefully. “Sometimes for no reason at all.”

I look deeper into its eyes, past the point of fear, deep inside to where I wonder if someone’s there looking back out at me, an Arc Operator waiting to hand control back to its paying customer, perhaps, or maybe its actual Operator waiting to resume playing. “How much did this one cost?” I demand. “Two million? Three? Ten?”

The Player doesn’t move. It doesn’t answer. It just stands there staring at the distant trees over my right shoulder. I imagine its Operator sitting there in his or her gaming dungeon with all their cybernetic gear. How old are they? Ten? Twenty? Fifty? I picture them sitting there, regarding me with their own unanswered questions. Would they be amused by what they see? Horrified?

“How much!” I scream at it, suddenly furious. “How much did you cost?”

My voice ricochets sharply off the buildings behind me. The Players all step forward as one. They all open their mouths, and for just a moment they are nothing more than IUs, uncontrolled, driven only by that instinctive hunger. They lurch into the fence. They try to reach through. The fence shakes and bends. I hold my ground. They abruptly draw back again and go quiet.

“What the hell are you doing?” Reggie hisses into my ear, startling me. He grabs my arm and tries to pull me away.

But then I remember the shiny object I’d noticed earlier in the one Player’s hand. It’s no longer there. Instead, I see it on the ground at the base of the fence. My agitating them must’ve caused the dead man to drop it. Cautiously, I reach through.

“Jessie, get the hell away from there,” Reggie whispers. He grabs my shoulder, but I brush his hand off.

I keep an eye on the Players, waiting for them to attack again. But they remain motionless, staring off over my head. My fingers close over the object. It barely fits through the opening. I have to wriggle it to get it through.

“What’s that?” Reggie asks, when I stand up again.

I turn it over and see the message Ben has left for me to find.

“No,” Reggie moans, when he recognizes Ashley’s Link. He snatches it away from me, then lets out a string of curses when he sees the text:

< YOU’RE NEXT >

“What the fuck does he mean by that?” he demands.

On the other side of the fence, the Players grow restless at the sound of his voice. They lurch forward before the override forces them back again. They send their moans out into the approaching evening, but my ears are deaf to them. I click the text, because I notice he’s attached something. It takes a moment for the image to load.

Reggie cries out and crumples to his knees. The ground beneath my own feet shifts violently. Meanwhile, the sun goes quietly down and the sky begins to bruise. But I’m not conscious of any of this. I’m too busy seeing that picture of Ashley. She’s lying peacefully in a field of daisies, her eyes shut as if she’s asleep, and her face is covered in blood.

‡   ‡

CONGRATULATIONS!

You’ve survived EP07: Cheat Protocol

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Get EP08: Jacker’s Exploit here

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My undying thanks to the devoted people of Brinestone Press for their keen eye and gentle but firm touch in helping me bring this story to life, for believing every step of the way that I could raise the dead.

To my devoted fans and followers on Twitter, especially the zombie apocalypse junkies. Everything’s better with the #zombie hashtag.

My deepest gratitude goes to my family for their unflagging support. Without them, I would not be able to create worlds with such richness to them.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Saul Tanpepper is the speculative fiction pen name of Kenneth James Howe. A former combat medic and molecular biologist originally from Upstate New York, he now calls Northern California home.

If you are enjoying his ZPOCALYPTO series, then make sure to check out his other titles, including the post-apocalyptic series BUNKER 12 and the international thriller companion series THE FLENSE. All are available in digital and print form.

For more information about the author and his writings, please check out his website: http://www.tanpepperwrites.com and Facebook page.

Cheat Protocol

Episode 07 of ZPOCALYPTO

by Saul Tanpepper

Copyright © 2012, 2021 by Saul Tanpepper

All rights reserved.

Previous edition published Oct 31, 2012 as

Tag, You’re Dead

Episode 7 of S.W. Tanpepper’s GAMELAND

by Brinestone Press, San Martin, CA 95046

Cover: Deranged Doctor Design

Copyright © 2021

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

THIS BOOK IS A WORK of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

LICENSE NOTES

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

http://www.brinestonepress.com

Tanpepper, Saul (2021-10-05). Cheat Protocol (Episode 7 of the Zpocalypto series)

Tanpepper, Saul (2012-10-31). Tag, You’re Dead (Episode 7 of S.W. Tanpepper’s Gameland series)

Brinestone Press Digital Edition

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Cheat Protocol (ZPOCALYPTO, #7)

Episode 07

PART ONE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

PART TWO

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

PART THREE

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

CONGRATULATIONS!

READY TO LEVEL UP?

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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