S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus (143 page)

The Players just stand there, suddenly inert. They stand and ogle us with their solemn, soulless eyes. They don't attack the fence or utter a single moan. It's like a switch has been flipped.

“
Fucking Deceivers.”

“
I think whoever is controlling them—be it Ben or anyone else—you just freaked them the hell out,” Reggie whispers. “Tell the truth, I'm a little freaked out, too.”

But thankfully I don't have to dwell on this. The first faint sounds of the chopper come to us then, rising up over the forest. The
wup-wup
beats lightly against the walls of the buildings. I can't see the helicopter just yet, but I can feel it, the throb of the blades pressing against my eardrums and thrumming beneath my feet. “Eric's coming,” I say.

Reggie's eyes go wide. “In a helicopter? He's bringing a helicopter?”

It appears over the trees, as if hatched by the forest. A glorious sight. I grab Reggie and tell him that we need to get the others, but Reggie's not paying attention. For some reason, his attention is back on the Players. A moment ago, they'd been crowding the fence, but now, as a unit, they begin to turn. They hold formation for a moment, then finally seem to yield to confusion. Without warning, some turn back to us and lunge, trying to get in, thrusting their hands through the spaces, reaching. Reggie recoils in terror and exclaims, “What the hell? The noise is making them go crazy!”

One reaches down and fumbles for the gate latch.

“
We have to go!” I hiss at Reggie. “Now! To the other side of the compound!”

“
Why?”

“
Hurry! It's Ben. He's figured out what's happening. He knows we're leaving and he's sending them in!”

But the Players have gone completely ape-shit. They lunge and howl and hiss. They knock the one trying to open the gate aside.

Now the chopper takes on a different sound, a keening whine that doesn't sound right. I look up in time to see it suddenly cant to one side, and I watch with dawning horror as it jerks, then begins to slip out of the sky, heading straight toward us.

“
What are they doing?”

“
It's out of control!” Reggie screams. “Run!”

But just as suddenly, it rights itself, begins to rise again. And now I can see the face of the pilot behind the glass and my first thought is,
His face is all red
.
He's got a nasty sunburn.
But it's not a sunburn, it's blood. His blood. His eyes are white islands in a sea of blood, terror-filled, dying. A shadow emerges behind him as he struggles to maintain control of the helicopter. Then his head simply explodes in a spray of blood. The entire windshield turns red, and I can't see anything inside anymore.

The chopper tilts backward, slides to its left, the rotors screaming like some wounded animal, spewing black smoke from the strain. It rises and begins to slowly turn away.

“
No!” I scream. “Come back!”

But it spins and begins to careen from side to side like a car skidding on a slippery road. An object plummets to the ground. Flailing limbs. I hear it hit the trees a hundred yards away. I hear the splintering of the branches. Another body falls, this one stiff and lifeless.

Omega. It's one of the Omegamen.

A third body, further away.

“
What the hell is happening?”

The Players at the gate are screaming too, attacking the fence. One seems to be trying to climb it. It stretches out a hand, grabs the top.

Run! Run! What the fuck are you doing? RUN!

But my mind is numb.

The chopper disappears, and a moment later the raucous evening is shattered into silence, the rattle of the rotors chopping the air chopping trees stopping so abruptly that it feels as if the thing was never there. Then a ripping scream, the sound of trees yielding to the massive bulk.

Silence.

So much silence.

The first low moan.

Rising in pitch and intensity.

A chorus of moans.

The sun setting over the trees, the trees extinguishing it like a candle.

And the first wisps of black smoke.

 

Without thinking, I take a step toward the gate. My feet fly out from under me as Reggie yanks me back by my collar. “You can't go out there,” he says. He holds me up and shakes me like a rag doll. “Listen to me! You won't get ten feet past those things.”

“
Erri—ri—ri—ic…” I hiccup.

“
Jessie. Look at me!”

But I can't tear my eyes away from the forest. I can't not see the smoke rising through the trees or hear the murmur of the flames. Visions sear through my mind. Eric burning up inside the chopper. Eric unconscious. Dangling from his harness. The Omegas dangling right next to him from theirs.

“
What happened?” Brother Walter asks, running up.

“
They lost control,” I moan.

“
The helicopter crashed.”

“
How?”

“
They lost control,” I repeat. “They lost control of the Omegas!”

Not Omegas anymore, just IUs, like all the rest. They all lost control. Ben did, too. The network is down.

How long before the Omegas realize there's food? A minute? Twenty seconds? Five? The shock of the crash, no shock to them. They can't lose consciousness. You have to be conscious before you can lose it. An explosion, nothing but a momentary distraction for the Undead. Blow their limbs off, douse them in flames, they still keep coming. They know only one thing: hunger.

“
No,” I moan. My knees give out. Still I don't fall. Reggie won't let me. “No…no no no
nonono NOOO! ERIC!
”

“
Jessie!”

“
I ca—I ca—” I pant, and I try to pull away from him. “I can't. Eric! Oh my God, Reggie! What if he's still alive?”

The look on his face tells me he doesn't think it's possible. He thinks my brother is already dead. “You can't go out there, Jessie.”

I feel faint. Shock comes, settling over me like a leaden blanket, smothering me. I'm sleepwalking through a nightmare.

Somebody please tell me what's happening. Wake me up. Please.

He's dead
, my crazy, too-rational inside-voice tells me.
They're all dead. Marching out of the woods for you. They're coming for you: Tanya Ashley Jake Stephen Nurse Mabel. Everyone here. Kelly soon.

“
We'll go look for him, Jess, but we need to find a different way out,” Reggie tells me. “There are too many here.” He shakes me until my head swivels and our eyes lock and he knows that I've heard him. It strikes me how quickly he's shifted from grieving for Ashley to overcoming the shock of what we've just witnessed to being the strong one. “Come on,” he says, pulling me away. “Let's go back inside, recoup.”

He's placating you, buying time.

I push away from him. “No! I have to help him now!”

He slaps me hard across the face. And just like that everything is sharp and focused again. It's not the pain that does it—dull and muted on my cheek—or the loudness of it in my ears. It's the pain in his eyes for hurting me. “Please, Jessie, don't make me do that again.”

“
You slapped me!” I scream. “You fucking slapped me!”

Oh, quit your whining
, the voice cackles gleefully.
Now you're even.

“
I'm sorry, Jess. I'm sorry. I had to.”

Once more we lock eyes and the truth seeps in that Eric really is dead, and something inside of me dies. He sees the change in me, loosens his grip, lets me down. Gently. Like a china doll. Follows me down. Holds me. Rocking.

“
Jesus H. Christ,” he whispers. “Jesus Christ, what the hell is happening?”

I close my eyes, but all I can see is the Omega leaning forward out of the darkness behind the pilot's seat, leaning forward and opening its mouth and biting into the marine's neck. The look in Reggie's face tells me he saw it, too. How could he not? The struggle for control of the chopper. The man's silent scream. The sudden spray of blood on the windshield and the way the pilot's hand streaked across the glass as he slumped forward over the controls.

They would've crashed right on top of us if he hadn't pulled away. A miracle.

A miracle and a sacrifice.

No survivors. How could there be? Even in my shock and denial, I understand this.

But if—

The woods are filled with IUs.

The Players at the gate—Ben's Players—are in some kind of state of heightened frenzy, half of them desperate to get inside to feed on us, the remaining now lurching away, heading for the forest, drawn by the sound of crackling wood. They are divided. Out of control. Not acting in any synchronized way.

Ben, struggling to control them. Failing. Without the network…

That's what happened to the Omegas on that chopper. The same thing that's happening here. No more control.

SSC breached Arc's security network. Their control systems are limping by.

Eric's words, spoken to me not twenty minutes ago.

I don't think any of us is in control anymore.

“
Oh, shit!” I say, looking up, realizing what this means.

“
Jessie.” Reggie tries to hold me down as I push to my feet.

“
The Players that were here already,” I say, “the ones inside the buildings.”

“
What about them?” Brother Walter asks. He doesn't know yet. He hasn't figured it out.

“
The network's down,” I say. “All the CUs are off-line—the Deceivers—including the one's inside.”

“
Oh, shit,” Reggie echoes, but Brother Walter is already sprinting back to the building.

“
Kelly's all alone,” I tell him. “You get him, take him to safety. I'll help Sister Jane.”

He nods, then turns and runs off in the direction of the two buildings where we left him.

I turn one last time to the smoke cloud rising into the sky. Most of the zombies at the gate have already left, drawn to the noise of the fire raging in the forest, the sharp reports of trees exploding and the occasional crash as something large tumbles to the ground.

The Undead seem completely uninterested in us anymore, despite our proximity. Micah lies in the grass, unmoving, still unconscious. I stand, immobilized by despair. They turn toward the roar of the fire and the stink of burning fuel.

Not typical zombie behavior.

Then I see it, movement at the edge of the wood. A shadow. It detaches from the darkness, staggers out into the clearing, half-naked, tattered clothes falling of its blackened body. Just another IU. It takes another step closer before I see the smoke rising off of it and hear the anguished cries of a man in agony. He's alive.

The first Players, the ones that have already made it halfway to the edge of the wood start to shamble even faster, to run. A moment later, a blink of an eye, they fall upon him, and he screams and screams and screams.

While the Undead feed.

 

The screams echo
in my mind till long after he has stopped dying. Beside me, Micah moans. I don't know if he's awake or not. I can't move.

It wasn't Eric.

That's what I tell myself. Still, I hear the screams. I can't not hear them. I can't not see my brother screaming.

He had black hair. Eric's is blond. It wasn't him.

Feet pounding cement. Behind me.

“
Run!” Sister Jane yells. I turn and see her sprinting around the corner of the farthest building, two or three hundred feet away. Twenty feet behind her are three Players. “The Deceivers are out of control!”

God, I hate it when you're right.

Reggie emerges from between two buildings and cuts them off, still limping but moving fast. He's shouting at them, trying to draw them away. Sister Jane is unarmed, defenseless. She doesn't see him. She's too busy screaming.

Screaming all around me. Inside of me.

I clap my hands over my ears, realize I no longer hear them. It's not inside my head. Pull my hands away. The screams are coming from the woods. There are more survivors.

I stop thinking then, stop thinking and start running on reflex. One moment I'm standing by Micah behind the gate, the next I'm streaking across the field, passing Players, shoving others out of the way. I plunge into the forest twenty feet to the left of where the man with the black hair came out. Running. Not aware of my feet pounding the earth. Not aware that my lungs are on fire. My side, where Jake bit me, exploding. I shove the pain away. Trees and branches flash past, slash my face, tear my clothes, arms, neck. More than once I feel myself being grabbed by cold, hard hands. I lose count of how many times I kick them away from me. The forest grows darker the deeper I go, the roar of the fire louder until I can't seem to hear the screaming anymore. Only crackling. Only heat. See the glow building before me, a keening white brightness emanating from the trees, suddenly blooming, searing, eyes white, blind. Nose burning, scorched skin. Stumble into a clearing. Snowing. Flakes, burning my cheeks. My hair, my eyes, my clothes. Keep going keep moving closer feel as if I've become one with the fire burn fire burn burning—

“
Eric!”