Open World Spawn, page 3
“What the fuck?” she exclaims. She takes a moment to work out what she’s seeing. Then she holsters the gun and switches the sword into her dominant hand.
“Don’t,” I say.
She looks over at me. “Terrible waste of good tape,” she mutters, straightening up and lifting her arm.
“No!” I scream. I step closer, but I’m not quick enough to stop her.
The sword streaks through the air as she stabs downward.
Jessi—?
With a sickening crunch, the last whisper of Micah’s voice in my head flutters away into silence.
Chapter 5
“I don’t know if we should watch this,” Reggie says, cringing. “I don’t know if I can. She’s going to get herself killed. That kid hasn’t eaten anything in twelve years. I don’t care if that’s her mother out there, she’s going to attack her.”
Kelly doesn’t reply. He’s in a trance, his eyes glued to the macabre family reunion taking place in the back yard.
The dead girl hasn’t yet sensed her mother’s presence. After wandering into the small spot of daylight, she’d stopped, frozen, as if caught within the beam. She’s just standing there, her head bent at an odd angle and her arms as still and limp at her side as a wet flag on a windless, rainy day.
It’s then that Reggie realizes his initial impression of the girl’s dress was wrong. With the exception of some spots of mud, it’s actually far cleaner than he’d thought. Cleaner and more intact. It’s just that the shadows had made it seem filthy, and the laciness looked like tatters. The girl is, in fact—
Well-preserved, is what he thinks. She looks far better than the dead they’d been seeing since their arrival onto the island two months ago, with the possible exception of that motorcycle couple back there at that apartment complex, the ones that had been stuck indoors. It doesn’t take a genius to realize the girl had also been shut up inside the house, just as White had said she’d done all those years back. She’d only gotten out after Stephen stumbled upon her.
And Jessie and Micah, too?
He knows it was the two of them who had killed Stephen, which meant they’d been in this exact same house, too. Jessie hadn’t mentioned the little girl zombie, though.
But then again, she hadn’t mentioned Stephen being her brother, either.
Half brother.
He’s still trying to wrap his head around that. None of this, he realizes now, was coincidence. He just doesn’t understand how all the pieces fit together.
“I really don’t like this, Kel,” he says.
Kelly still doesn’t answer.
“Can we just... I don’t know. Can’t we just leave now?” he begs.
“Wait,” Kelly whispers.
Reggie frowns at his friend and wonders what’s come over him. He’s itching to move on, to be free of this woman and her demented idea that she can bring life back to the undead. Anyone who believes that’s a good idea is obviously insane. He senses they’re all about to become part of some larger experiment, and he’d rather not stick around long enough to find out.
“We’ve got stuff to do, Kel,” he pushes. He really doesn’t want to see what’s going to happen next. A part of him is curious, the objective part that wants to know what this supposed cure is and how it’ll work. But his intuition is screaming at him that they’ve overstayed their welcome. “I’m serious, Kel, it’s time to go,” he says, growling more urgently than before.
“She might need help.”
“She might need something all right, but I don’t think it’s our help.”
“Just... wait.”
Doctor White is cautiously closing the distance between herself and the girl. At least she seems somewhat aware of the risk she’s taking, the danger the dead girl poses. She’s not just rushing right over and throwing her arms around her for a hug. She moves slowly, keeping her movements steady and smooth, although there’s not much she can do to quiet the sound of her footsteps through the tall, dry grass. When she reaches the old rusted metal swing set, she pauses and takes hold of one of the uprights, as if to steady herself. It’s as if she’s afraid of losing her balance. Or maybe her already tenuous grasp on the world. After a moment’s pause, she lets go and takes another small step closer.
“We have to go!” Reggie hisses.
“Go?” Kelly says, blinking in confusion. He angles his head slightly in Reggie’s direction, acknowledging his presence. But his eyes remain locked on the scene playing out in the backyard. “I’m not going to just leave her. We’re not.”
“You know how this is going play out. Either that thing is about to attack her. Or—”
“That thing is her daughter,” Kelly quietly says, his voice as unforgiving as the disapproving scowl he now casts upon Reggie. “And, no, I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Reggie shakes his head. “She’s dead, Kel. There’s nothing she or anyone else can do to bring her back. And I’d rather not—”
“We don’t know.”
Reggie chuffs in frustration. He looks around him, back inside the house, at the blood stains on the carpet and sofa, at the smashed coffee table. Is there something Kelly knows about what happened here that he’s not saying? There’s still no explanation for why they’ve found Stephen’s body here. Someone needs to explain how this all happened, the connection to White, Jessie’s relationship to Father Heall. Yet Kelly doesn’t seem at all concerned about any of that.
Because he already knows.
Reggie yanks him around, forcing Kelly to face him instead of the scene outside. “What’s this really about?” he demands. “What’s going here?”
“The cure.”
“There is no cure!”
“Yes, there is. She cured Kyle.”
“Kyle wasn’t dead! That girl — that thing out there, and don’t tell me it’s her daughter, because it isn’t, not anymore — is dead. It’s a dead, soulless monster that only wants one thing. It’s been dead for a dozen years. It’s hungry. Starving! It’s going to want nothing but to eat and infect. And if that woman out there intends to inject her with some experimental crap, do we even know what that’s going to do? How do you think this all started? I mean, how many books have been written and how many movies have been made about just this sort of thing? It won’t work. It never — ever — works. In fact, it always goes horribly wrong.”
“I don’t think so. Not this time.”
Reggie tosses his hands in the air in resignation. “It’s fucking hubris. I want no part of it.”
Kelly shrugs and turns back to the glass door. The daylight has faded even more. The clouds are regathering overhead, narrowing the shallow light beam, dimming it. It fades from the girl’s face. Reggie doesn’t understand why Kelly’s so entranced with this, why he doesn’t feel the need to go looking for his wife. It’s almost like he’s no longer the same person, like he’s...
Like he’s someone else. Like someone else is inside his head.
He wants to grab Kelly and shake him until he wakes up. He wants to shake whoever it is controlling him right now out of Kelly’s head. But he senses this won’t help one bit. This isn’t someone else controlling him. It’s Kelly. It’s been him all along. It’s just a different part of him no one’s ever seen before.
Kelly sucks in a sharp breath. Reggie turns, and he feels the hairs on his neck stand up on end. The girl has finally noticed her mother. She’s turning toward her now. Doctor White’s still moving very slowly, almost glacially. So is the girl. It’s like watching a movie slowed way down. Reggie knows the girl’s plastinated joints and muscles will take a bit of time to loosen up. She’s been standing still in the dark inside this very house for an entire decade. But once they do loosen up...
The boys watch as the thing that was once a little girl opens its mouth. Reggie immediately understands what this means. It’s always the first step in an attack. It means whatever primordial thing controlling the girl’s body has focused itself on her prey.
Next, she’ll raise her arms.
He watches her do just that, waiting for her to lung.
Run! he wants to shout, but he just stands there, like Kelly, and stares.
The dead girl steps closer. There’s still no overt sense of threat. Instead of looking like she’s trying to attack, it’s almost as if she’s offering her mother the trinkets she’s collected in death. The toy rabbit swings loosely beneath her fist. The skull grins, catching one last stray beam of sunlight.
Doctor White raises her arm. She reaches out. And in that moment, if one could just ignore the grisly image of the skull, the pair look just like any other mother-daughter pair greeting each other. In that one fraction of a second, Reggie almost believes it all. He wants to believe.
The speed with which the girl attacks is astonishing. Neither boy has a chance to react before she’s on her mother.
But it was as if Doctor White had expected exactly this. She deftly deflects her daughter’s tiny, stick-like arms, bending them back behind the girl as she steps to the side to let her pass. She throws the dead girl down onto the ground and drops a knee onto her shoulder blades. There’s nothing gentle about the counterattack, and yet there’s an expression of tenderness in the woman’s eyes as she restrains her daughter.
“Jesus,” Reggie whispers. “You’d think she’s done that before.”
“I think she’s been imagining this moment every day since she left the island.”
They watch as she quickly binds the tiny zombie’s wrists behind her back, yanking the stuffed rabbit and skull out of her fingers. Then she uses a stick to force a cloth into the dead girl’s yawning mouth.
Reggie curses again. “She actually truly believes she can do this.”
“And I have to, too,” Kelly says. “Because of Kyle. And me.”
“You don’t need her. You’ve got Jessie, remember? The reason we came here in the first place?”
“Jessie?” Kelly’s eyes seem to clear. “Right.”
“Yeah, Jessie.”
“We will.”
“You don’t think we’ll be able to find her in time, do you?” Reggie says, suddenly realizing why Kelly’s not trying harder to search for his wife.
Kelly sighs, but doesn’t answer.
“You’re putting all your hopes on a crazy, half-baked idea from a madwoman.” He gestures at the back yard. “That girl? She’s been dead for almost thirteen years, Kel. Kyle? You? You’re still alive.”
“I wish you’d stop saying that.”
“I just... I just don’t think you should be putting all your hopes on something that’s bound to fail.”
“It won’t fail.”
Reggie lets out an explosive puff of air. “Fine. Then allow me to explain.”
“Explain what exactly?”
“Just gimme a sec while I put on my A-brain, because this might get a bit technical.”
“Stop, Reg. I don’t need this right now.”
“No, you’re going to listen. Let’s say this cure somehow restores a body that’s been dead now twice as long as it was alive. I’m no doctor. I’m not a scientist, but even I know that when cells die, the proteins and everything inside of them break down. It’s basic biology.”
“This isn’t,” Kelly quietly counters. “The whole book had to be rewritten after the discovery of plastination. That’s because plastinated cells don’t decay, not entirely. Not the cells, nor the proteins or anything else. We know they continue to remain, functional but in stasis. The muscles. Vision. Hearing. All of that stuff. Certain parts of the brain remain intact. So why is it so hard to believe that they’re still alive in some rudimentary way that we don’t fully understand? They’re not... dead.”
“I’m not just talking about that, Kel. What about her mind? Her soul? Those things died when she died. They’re long gone, brah. What do you have without a soul? A shell, nothing more.”
“You don’t know. Nobody knows what happens. Maybe they’re still inside somewhere, trapped.”
“They’re not.”
Kelly turns to face Reggie. “They’re not dead. What if they’re just... sleeping? Maybe the cure can wake them up.”
Reggie shakes his head. “I understand why you need to believe in the cure, Kel. But this is different. Anyway, it doesn’t change the fact that we need to find Jessie. Every minute we waste here is another minute Arc’s Live Players have to get to her before we do.”
But Kelly still doesn’t move.
“No good can come of this,” Reggie warns. “It’s just wrong. That girl is long gone, and it’s going to drive Doctor White insane when she finally figures that out. More insane. And what do you think she’s going to do when that happens?”
“It’s already too late,” Kelly whispers, his voice so low that Reggie isn’t sure he’s heard him correctly.
“What?” He shakes Kelly. “What did you say?”
“It’s too late to leave.” Kelly gestures at the sun. “It’s going to be pitch dark soon. Too dangerous.”
“Too dangerous?” Reggie cries. “Jessie’s out there!”
“We’ll set out in the morning.”
“We could be at the mainframe in less than two hours. We’ve done it before. In the dark! Please, man,” he begs. “I really don’t think we should stay. I don’t want to see what happens. I don’t think it’ll be good.”
The girl’s now back on her feet, twisting around and trying to get at her mother. Doctor White is carefully but firmly guiding her back to the house, one hand on her bound wrists, the other planted between her shoulders, propelling her forward.
“Oh, hell no!” Reggie says. “She’s not bringing her in here!”
White glances over the dead girl’s shoulder and sees the boys. She and Reggie lock eyes. She mouths something.
“What’s she saying? What’s she doing?”
Kelly slides the door open. “She says she needs help.”
“No way, man. That thing isn’t coming inside the house! If it does, I’m outta here!”
He turns to Reggie. “It’s done. After this, we’ll go. I promise. Now, you can help or not.”
Reggie reluctantly helps get the girl onto the couch.
The little zombie’s movements are stiff and uncoordinated, but she’s preternaturally strong. She fights the three of them for every inch. But she can’t bite with the gag in her mouth. They roll her onto her stomach, her mother forcing her face into the bloodied cushions. Reggie notices two bite marks on her skin, one on her right forearm, the other on the back of her left thigh. Neither is deep. Neither has any significant accompanying tissue damage. If she had lived — if the bites hadn’t been infected — they’d be little more than odd, moon-shaped scars now. But of course she hadn’t lived, because the bites had been infected.
Touching her makes Reggie shiver. Her skin is as cold as ice and as stiff as thick rubber.
“Hold her still,” Doctor White instructs them. She pulls her pack to her side and unzips it. From inside the bag, she extracts a plastic case about the size of a shoebox, which she thumbs open.
“Oh, so this is happening right now?” Reggie says in disbelief.
“No reason to wait.”
The girl bucks beneath him. One of her arms works free of the bindings. She swipes at his leg but isn’t able to grab him.
“Hold Cassie still!” Doctor White hisses.
They watch as she loads a large syringe with a viscous pink solution in a small IV bag.
“Where’s that going?” Reggie asks.
“In her neck.”
They try to hold her still, but she keeps bucking and twisting, making it impossible for Doctor White to deliver the medicine without injuring herself or the girl any further. She gives up after a couple tries and shakes her head. She recaps the needle and sets the syringe delicately to one side.
“What now?”
“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do this. She reaches into her pack again. “When I say go, I want you both to get away from her. Move quickly.”
“What the fuck for?” Reggie cries.
But she doesn’t give anyone a chance to think about it. She yells, “Go! Now!”
Kelly pushes himself away. Reggie hesitates a heartbeat longer before seeing the EM pistol in the doctor’s hand. He launches himself off the couch and to the side just as she squeezes the trigger.
Cassie immediately rises from the couch, but the blast from the pistol drops her before she can do anything else. Reggie blinks. He’d landed in a heap on top of the shattered coffee table, and he feels like someone walloped him over the back of the head with one of the wooden legs. His skin burns. He’s still conscious, but he feels like he’s going to have a very bad headache for a very long time.
Without hesitating, Doctor White reinserts the needle into the unmoving girl’s neck. It takes all of her strength to force the viscous fluid into the unforgiving flesh.
“Is that it? Reggie says. “That’s the cure?”
Doctor White shakes her head. “It’s an anti-plastination and anti-coagulant solution. It’ll allows the blood to flow again.” She checks the time on her Link.
“How long do we have to wait?”
Two minutes later, she pulls a much smaller needle and syringe from her pack. “Now,” she says. “Now it’s time to wake my little girl up.”
It takes Cassie far longer than Doctor White estimates to recover from the EM hit, even though she doesn’t have an implant and should not have been affected by it that much. But an hour passes without any sign of movement. Doctor White flushes her veins a dozen times with saline and replaces the resolubilized blood with synthetic plasma. When that is done to her satisfaction, she anxiously busies herself checking for signs of life.
Reggie pulls Kelly aside and tries once more to convince him to leave. He doesn’t want to be there, not for whatever might happen if and when the girl wakes up, and especially not if and when she doesn’t. But the sun has fully set, and the sky has turned a deep purple hue by then, leaving only a thin band of gold near the western horizon. Night has swept over the land. He knows the dead will soon be out on the streets, if they aren’t already.
