S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus (149 page)

“
Reg—”

“
No! Everyone knows what happened. Everyone knows the story. We had to fucking memorize it in school! And that stupid song… It's history. Everyone knows it! He died and he came back as a zombie and he killed your father.
He killed your father, Jessie
. You didn't meet him. You didn't fucking
talk
to him. Zombies don't talk. Everyone knows that. The man you met is someone else.”

“
You're right. The man I met wasn't a zombie.”

“
Then it's not Halliwell! Halliwell was a zombie. The song, Jessie. Remember the song?
Brains, brains everywhere. On the
—”

“
That's enough!” Eric says, raising his voice for the first time. “You don't have to remind us of that.” He paces, muttering to himself, grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes.

“
When I was in the Marines,” he says, “I thought the other guys were just screwing with me, telling me some urban legend about a guy living in the wastes, teasing me because of who I am, who my father was. I never believed them. ‘Heall, that's his name,' they told me, as if it was some kind of sick joke. ‘Get it? Will Heall.' Just some stupid pun. The guy who thought he could cure reanimation. The same stupid letters as in Halliwell. Everyone said he was here somewhere, still trying to find a cure. The mad scientist, half living, half dead. But these were marines, so I didn't believe them. They hated what Halliwell stood for.”

“
You hated him too,” I whisper.

“
No, Jess. I didn't.”

“
He killed Dad. I understand how that makes you feel, but you can't kill him. Not now.”

“
No, Jessie, I hated Dad just as much. For what he'd done to the world. For what the world was doing to you. I hated him and I hated Grandpa for making him do what he did. I
wanted
to believe that there was someone out there looking for a cure—mad scientist or not. It didn't matter if it was the same man—or thing—who had killed Dad.”

They lied to us. All these years, saying Halliwell had turned into a zombie. The whole time he was immune.

Not just immune, something more.

Walking right past that IU. Immune to the infection. Immune to
them
. Half alive, half dead. Whatever he did to himself all those years ago, it pushed him right to the edge. Now he straddles two world, one living, the other not.

Reggie doesn't speak. He blinks rapidly, still shaking his head. “He escaped his lab. That's the history. He went to your parents' house and killed your father.”

“
From Montana all the way to Virginia?” I ask. That part had always bothered me. Nobody had ever explained how that happened.

“
So what? Everyone knew Halliwell hated your father.”

“
Zombies don't think. They don't hatch murder plots. If Heall is Halliwell, then he didn't die.”

“
But he did die,” Brother Walter quietly says. “That much is true. And he did come back.”

For a moment the world stops. Even the breeze falters and the birds in the forest pause their singing. Everything is quiet and still.

“
No—”

“
The cure he was working on did fail. But not because it was faulty—although we'll never know for sure now, since his records have gone missing. It failed because he miscalculated the titer of the virus and injected himself with a thousand times too much. Even if the cure had been effective, tested like that on anyone else, it wouldn't have been able to save them. They would have died and been reanimated from so much virus. But not him. Instead, his body—his own immunity—brought him back.”

“
Brought him back from what exactly?” Reggie asks. “And
to
what?”

“
I don't think anyone really knows, least of all Father Heall himself.”

But Reggie is beyond simple logic. He's mired in horror and denial. He turns to me, a look of revulsion on his face. “
You did not put zombie blood into your spine!
”

“
Stop it, Reggie!”

“
What?” Eric cries, shocked. “Put what
where
?”

“
It's okay,” I tell them. “Just calm down. Everybody calm down. Reggie…Eric.”

I turn to Sister Jane because if I don't hold onto what little control I have left, I think I'll go insane. “You knew? About Father Heall being Halliwell?”

“
Of course I did. We all knew.”

“
Before?” I ask. “Did you know before you were treated?”

She takes in a deep breath, slowly lets it. She and Brother Walter look at each other. Then Brother Walter shakes his head. “No. Not before we were treated. Just like you didn't.”

“
I think very few of us did,” Sister Jane adds. “Not till afterward. But it doesn't matter. He saved our lives. Just as he's saved yours.”

I reach into my pocket to fetch my inhaler, but it isn't there. I can't remember what I did with it. “Did Grandpa know?” I ask Eric. “Did he know the truth about Halliwell?”

He frowns. “I don't know. Probably.”

“
What about my medicine? What's the truth about that?”

“
I don't know what you mean.”

“
The medicine in my inhaler, what is it for?”

“
Your immune sys—”

“
Don't feed me that bullshit line, Eric. What was it for?”

“
Honest, Jess. I don't understand why you're asking about that.”

“
Because Brother Matthew told me the medicine did something to the treatment, masked it or blocked it or something. He said the treatment wouldn't work. If Hea— If Halliwell knew that, then Grandpa had to have as well, since he was the one who kept pushing me to take it.”

Sister Jane shakes her head. “Well, it obviously didn't block the treatment. When we found you, you were clearly feverish. You were going to turn.”

“
That's because I ran out of the medicine days ago. It would've been out of my system.”

Eric's face grows dark. The muscles in his cheek ripple and he struggles to control his emotions. “I always thought there was something fishy about it.”

“
So, all this time,” I ask Sister Jane, “you knew I was Richard Daniels' daughter. That's why you distrusted me. Did Micah tell you?”

She shakes her head. “I actually didn't know until yesterday morning, right after he told me to accompany that boy to fetch his son.”

“
Father Heall told you who I am?”

She shakes her head. “It was Sister Dorothy who did. She said Brother Matthew accidentally let it slip at breakfast. She wanted me to know who you really are—who that boy I was supposed to watch was associated with—so that I could protect myself.”

“
That's why you were so cold to me yesterday. The other night, when Micah and I showed up, you didn't know. You'd been really nice to me then. But yesterday…”

“
It was your father who made the Deceivers, turned the Children into abominations.”

I tear my eyes from her and turn back to Eric. “And you don't have an inhaler?”

“
Me? No. My immune system is fine.”

“
Well, turns out, mine is too.”

“
I'm still not sure I believe all this,” Reggie says, “but why do you think Micah's going to kill him?”

“
Because that's what Ben was planning to do. He said the SSC wanted him dead, out of their way. Arc was content not to kill him because they could control him here on the island.”

“
Then you'd better get moving. Micah's already got a good head start on you.”

“
He's right,” I say, turning to Eric.

“
Even if you do find him,” Sister Jane warns, “Father Heall will never come back with you.”

“
He has to. He'll die here if he doesn't, and I can't let that happen.”

“
They can't bomb the
whole
island,” she argues. “Can they?”

“
I don't know. I suppose.”

“
What about the others?” I ask.

“
They won't go, either,” Brother Walter says. “None of us will. We'd rather die here.”

“
What about Julia?” I ask.

He doesn't answer.

“
I'm not going to argue with you people,” Eric says. “You can do what you wish, but I have to take Halliwell back. On that point there is no debate. He's just too valuable to the world.”

He turns to me. “I'll pack up some supplies. You should eat something before we leave.”

I want to ask him if he thinks he's up for a sixty-mile round trip across zombie infested lands, but I can see he won't be swayed. Even as I watch him walk away clutching his side, I know it's a moot point. He'll go. He intends to find Father Heall.

Professor Halliwell.

He needs to find the man who can save me.

The man who killed our father.

He needs to bring him back to the world to right the wrongs my father and grandfather caused.

For revenge.

Brother Walter and Sister Jane walk off in the opposite direction, whispering anxiously to each other.

Finally, when we're alone, Reggie asks the question he's been waiting to ask since I got back: “So?”

I sigh, shake my head. “Ben's dead.”

“
And?”

“
She shot him. It was the last thing she did.”

He nods once, then walks away.

 

He adjusts his pack and keeps walking.

“
Are you sure they're going to bomb?”

“
They were planning to already, Jessie. Air Defense was set to start last night. I got them to back off twenty-four hours once we learned you were still on the island. But there's no way they'll wait any longer.”

“
You? You got them to postpone the bombing? Air Defense?”

He sighs, stops and turns to me. “I told Grandpa. He's still got connections. He did it.”

I can imagine how much it pained him to beg Grandpa to help, even with something like this.

“
So, he knows I'm here?”

“
Yeah. We may not see eye to eye on much, Jess, but we do share one thing in common: our love for you. We'd both do anything to protect you.”

My throat threatens to close off. I try and swallow to loosen it, but it doesn't help.

“
He may not be very well liked anymore—none of us is, to tell the truth—but he still has friends in high places. When I pinged him and told him I'd found you, he managed to call in a few favors. Including the fly-over clearance so I could get here. And the evac. You may think he's been out of the loop for a while, but he's still very much involved where the Omegas are concerned.”

I don't say anything for several minutes as we continue on our way. We're heading due south, toward a residential area Micah and I had seen on our way here days ago. But without Micah's tablet and the map, we're relying solely on my memory of the area, and considering that we were being chased at the time, I just can't be sure we're even in the right place. When I mentioned this to Eric, he shrugged and said, “Do your best, Jess. We walk in any direction long enough, we're bound to hit some houses.”

“
Why houses?”

“
Cars,” he'd answered. “Specifically, cars stored inside garages. It's the gasoline inside the tanks I'm worried about. Stored properly, gas can last almost indefinitely. Exposure to heat and air can make it go bad.”

“
But the noise…”

“
It's worth the risk, Jess. It's the only way we'll get there and back in time.”

“
And when we reach the wall?”

“
Find a way through. Then start again looking for another car on the other side.”

“
And if we get trapped?”

His hand drops to his EM pistol. The meaning is clear. But even I know EM is of limited benefit. Its range is small—maybe thirty feet—and the avenue it clears for escape from attacking zombies isn't very wide. “A forty-three degree arc,” he'd once told me. It scrambles implants for a good thirty minutes, and even messes up non-implanted IUs for about half that amount of time, but it also takes about three minutes to recharge. More than enough time for a large enough swarm of zombies to close any gap opened up by an EM blast.

I reach back instinctively for my pistol before remembering I no longer have it. I do have the rifle, though, slung over my shoulder. But it too has it's disadvantages.

For being in such pain as he is, he walks quickly, stepping lightly over downed branches and making sure to place his feet on the soggiest leaf litter to avoid making any unnecessary noise. He's much quieter than I am, and it makes me appreciate him a little more.

We emerge from the wood into the bright daylight on a road buried inches deep in a decade's worth of fallen, rotting leaves. The only way we know it's a road is by the relative lack of growth on it. Give it another five years, though, and I think it'll be completely buried.