S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus (138 page)

“
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. I'm so tired. I just want to sleep.”

I reach over and pull Kelly to me. I lay his head in my lap, and he comes willingly. I can feel his breath on my skin, feverishly hot. I can feel his life leaking away like the heat rolling off a sidewalk when the sun goes down.

“
Please, Reggie.”

And I run my fingers through his hair one last time. Kelly sighs and closes 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 part the curls on Kelly's neck, his beautiful neck.

“
We love you, too,” I whisper.

There's movement in the hallway, shuffling footsteps approaching. They're coming back. The Players are coming.

The knife hovers, unmoving. The struggle inside of Reggie is as fierce as the one waged outside that door. A shadow fills the glass now, but we don't look to see what's coming for us. It's now or never.

Hurry
, I scream inside my head.
Hurry
. And I close my eyes and say goodbye.

The air makes a whooshing sound as the door begins to open. I feel it 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 the knife skimming away across the floor. It disappears beneath the stacks of computers. Then as the Player sweeps down and pulls him away, I think,
It's too late.

We waited too long.

I wonder:
Do zombies dream?

 

“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.

Kelly struggles to roll himself off my lap, to lift his head to see, but he's too weak. He collapses with a moan and the sound of it makes me shiver, so full of pain and death, harkening of the darkness that lies beyond.

“
Go,” Micah commands. “Get out of the way.”

“
Let us finish, Micah. Please. Kelly's dying. We're both dying.”

But Micah steps over Reggie's legs and pushes Kelly back down. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“
It's too late for us.”

“
Hold still!” he tells Kelly. “You need to hold still. Okay, never mind. He's passed out.” And then he shouts over his shoulder: “In here! I found them. They're in with the computers!”

“
Who are you talking to?” I ask.

He ignores me. “I can't leave you guys alone for a minute without you getting all fucked up. Why the hell are you even still here? You should've been gone by now. Where's Brother Matthew? And Brother Nicholas?”

Reggie lurches to his feet. “Forget about them, Micah. Why are you here?”

Micah ignores him and instead 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 shallow,” he says.

“
Lucky,” Reggie screams. “He's bitten! He's infected. He's dying. Now get the fuck away from him!” And he reaches down to yank Micah off, but Micah casually swipes the hand away.

“
For once just sit down and shut up, Reggie. I'm saving your asses, so just give me some room.” He turns and yells over his shoulder: “Hey! Anyone out there?”

Footsteps pound the hallway outside and a moment later the door slams open again and a woman sweeps in. Her eyes quickly sweep over the scene and come to rest on Reggie. She tells him to calm down. “And stay out of the way so we can help.”

At this, Reggie's face flushes. He doesn't like being scolded by Micah, but when it's even worse when those same words come from some strange woman he's never met.

She turns to Micah and hisses, “I told you we needed to stick together. That was what you agreed to. And here you are yelling with those things out there.”

“
Sister Jane?” I say.

She spins around and
tuts
when she sees me. “Are you all right? You look all right.”

“
She's not all right.”

Sister Jane turns and waves Reggie back.

“
But…h-how?” I ask. My eyes bounce between her and Micah as I try to adjust to the sudden change in our fortunes. A moment ago we were dying, ready to do what needed to be done. And now…

“
Wait a minute,” Reggie cries. “What about the Players out the—

“
They're still out there,” Micah says, gritting his teeth at the sight of the bite marks on Kelly's arms and chest. He swears under his breath. “These are going to leave some nasty scars.”

“
Just keep the noise level down,” Sister Jane warns. “It gets them riled up and makes them harder to manage.”

“
Gets them riled up?” Reggie yells. “What the fu—”

“
Reggie! Shut up!”

Reggie stumbles backward, a look of utter dismay on his face. He holds his hands out, as if to ward Sister Jane away, but she slips beneath them and bends down by Micah's side. There's a pouch slung over her shoulder and now she swings it in front of her and opens it and reaches in. She pulls something out and hands it over. “Hold this,” she tells Micah.

“
Is that what I think it is?” Reggie asks, stepping forward again. His face twists with emotion, confusion and anger and cautious hope. “Is that the treatment? It looks like the treatment.”

They both nod grimly. Micah pushes him away. “I told you to stay out of the way.”

“
Reggie, why don't you watch the door,” I suggest.

“
No need for that,” Micah barks. “It's all under control out there. Just stay in here. Stand still.”

Sister Jane gestures at Kelly. “Pull his knees up and hold them tight.” When Micah does, she reaches over and quickly pours a brownish liquid over his lower spine and smears it around. It puddles onto the floor and paints her fingers. A smell of antiseptic fills the room, partially masking the stench of rotting flesh that wafts off of Kelly's skin and clothes. She glances up and catches my eye. “Meningitis,” she mutters. “Or staph. Or any number of nasty bugs. Won't do us any good if we kill him trying to save him.”

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 it. Casey's dead, so no worries there. Ben… well, he can go to hell for all I care. But what about Jake?

Brother Matthew's syringe didn't get a mud bath.

Still…

“
What happens if he gets meningitis?” I ask.

“
First, it'll put him in terrible agony,” Sister Jane replies. “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 bumps 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. “My hands are too weak.”

I notice her knuckles are swollen with arthritis.

The syringe just suspends there when she lets it go, quivering like an arrow embedded in a tree. Micah reaches over and carefully takes hold of it.

“
Okay, now push it in. Slowly,” Jane instructs, and Micah does what she says, straining against the thickness of the fluid. “Don't force it in too hard or the needle will pop off.”

“
All of it?”

“
Yes.”

“
What about the pressure in his spine?”

“
We want some pressure. It creates leaks in the blood-brain barrier and allows 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.

But Jane addresses me, finally answering my question. “If he dies from meningitis and reanimates, he'll be worse than the others. Nothing more bad-tempered than one of the Child with a bad headache.”

I frown, confused, not sure I've heard her right or whether she's serious.

She shrugs. “They have personalities, too. 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 slightly pinkish fluid leaks from the tiny hole. He doesn't bother to wipe it away before plastering a bandage over it. Finally he lowers Kelly's shirt. “He should be fine now. Just keep him still for a little while.”

“
Is that what happened to Jake?” Reggie asks. “Did we give him meningitis?”

Now Sister Jane turns, frowning. “What do you mean?”

“
We gave Jake the injection, but we didn't have that brown stuff, that…disinfectant stuff.”

“
He might be okay.” But she doesn't look at Reggie when she says this.

“
Brother Matthew never told us to clean the site,” I whisper.

“
He attacked Jessie,” Reggie says. “He bit her!”

Micah looks up, startled. Then he turns to me. “You're bitten, too? Where? Show me where!”

I pull my shirt up and he takes in a sharp breath. “Christ.” He turns away, but not before I see the pain in his eyes, and this confuses me. “
Fuck!
” he cries.

“
Hey, it's cool, Micah. Just chill,” Reggie says. “I mean, you have more of that stuff, right? Just give Jessie a shot, okay?”

Sister Jane reaches up and instinctively I flinch away, but she holds her hands out in a non-threatening way and says, “I'm not going to hurt you.” Her fingers comb into the tangles of hair falling over my face. She pushes it back behind my ear. “So young and so much suffering.”

Reggie steps over and pulls her arm away. “Please tell me you have more of those syringes.”

“
Two more,” she answers. She nods to Micah and reaches into her pouch.

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. Depro…something.”

She shakes her head and prepares a second syringe. “I don't know anything about that.” She sighs and turns to Reggie. “She'll be fine. She should be fine. We'll give her the injection. Were you bitten?” she asks him. “No? Good.” She turns back to me and tells me to lie down.

“
But I thought—”

“
I'm not arguing, young lady. Lie down.”

Micah nods.

“
Left side. Pull your legs up. Give her something to bite down on.” She bends over until her mouth is close to my ear. “It's going to hurt something fierce, honey, and I'm sorry, but we don't have any anesthetic.”

It hurts all right. The needle going in isn't so bad, but when they inject the blood into me, the pain is a horrible, terrible thing, and more than once I wonder if maybe I've made a mistake trusting her like this.

What's she doing with Micah? Why is he free?

And why, when Brother Matthew seemed so sure the treatment wouldn't work, is she so willing to give it to me? Wouldn't she know what he knew?

But it's too late. I feel her pull the needle out and the bandage applied.

My head wants to explode, but when I try to sit up, it's ten times worse. I want to be sick. I want to tear my head off. I feel like all my joints are being yanked by some mechanical torture device.

Sister Jane checks the bandage on my side. I can feel it starting to slide off. “This needs some attention,” she says. “I have supplies outside. I'll go get them.”

I don't care. 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 hope.

That pain is gone. Amazing what a tiny bit of hope can do.

“
You'll get worse before you get better,” Jane warns me, as she stands up. “But you will get better.” Then she heads out, leaving the four of us alone.

Reggie gawps after her for a moment, unable to speak. Then he turns and glares at Micah, who returns the look with an infuriating shrug of his shoulders. 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 out and attack him, but instead he slowly turns and says, “You damn well better get better, Jessie, or I'm going to kill me a certain Texas boy.”

I see him turn to Micah then. “Kelly better be good, too.”

 

“I don't trust him,”
Reggie whispers to me, after Micah leaves us with orders to stay put. “I don't like that he's telling us what to do. I don't like that they just waltzed right in here through those Players like that. What the hell is that about? It's not natural. It's not—”