The End Games (26 page)

“Just to be careful,” Holly replied. “I didn’t want Jopek to say anything that would
make Patrick realize this isn’t a game.”

“Taking care of Patrick is
my
job, Holly.”

“But why would you even risk someone saying anything that could confuse Patrick, since
we all live together in the Capitol?”

“We’re going to
leave
the Capitol.”

Holly turned away from him, looking out the window of the rear door, stripes of shadow
and light flowing over her face as the Hummer moved forward. She murmured, “Yeah .
. .”

Oh man,
Michael thought, afraid suddenly.
You didn’t change your mind about leaving, did you?

As Jopek drove them across the bridge, Michael’s chest tightened once again: Bellows
on the ledges were throwing themselves over the guardrail, down into the Kanawha River
chopping far below.

“What’s going on?”
Michael whispered.

Holly didn’t look.

The city mutated, Michael. Everything did.

“Holly, we should
not
be in this city anymore.”

The panel to the front slid open; the captain called, “Comfortable back there, lovebirds?”

Patrick chuckled.

The panel sliced shut.

Michael began to bite the nail of his thumb, stopped it at his lips, put his hands
to his thighs, realized his hands were blotting sweat.

He had outsmarted a thousand living dead with a station wagon and rusting gun, but
he hadn’t felt this choking-terror feeling for weeks.

Captain Jopek took the main roads into the downtown grid. Perhaps as a result of the
Rapture’s infiltration of the city’s defenses last night, Bellows now roamed freely
even on these previously secured streets. Jopek sped every few seconds, rammed into
the Bellows, laughed. But bizarrely, as the Hummer progressed farther into the city,
the number of Bellows in the streets actually decreased, until there were practically
none at all.
What are the Bellows doing? Are they all going to the Capitol? Or the river? Why?

It doesn’t matter. I’m still going to get us out of here.

You don’t know what’s going on. You didn’t think of
any
of this
.

Through muscling will, Michael pretended he wasn’t here in the Hummer. He was an avatar
in a video game, waiting for the next screen to load.
Because that’s what’s
true
: this is like a game, and you’re in control of it.
You
are. Do you freaking hear me? This is just a game and
you
are the Game Mas—

The car stopped.

The sliding panel between the rear and front compartments was still closed, save a
thin slit. Michael peered through. Jopek was speaking to Patrick, gesturing with his
hands. His head looked so enormous next to Patrick’s.

Michael leaned closer, trying to hear what they were saying over the loud engine—hoping,
in fact, that Patrick might look back and smile, and Michael could draw just a bit
of confidence and strength from his little brother’s image of him.

Patrick suddenly tossed back his head and burst out laughing at something Jopek said.

Jopek affectionately ruffled Patrick’s hair.

Patrick low-fived Jopek, looking as happy as Michael had seen him since Halloween.

A thread of jealousy and low panic stitched through Michael. But he dismissed it.
Patrick wouldn’t
really
change, not without getting to the Safe Zone ending that Michael and The Game had
promised. Patrick wasn’t capable of that. Definitely not, Michael tried to tell himself.
Definitely not.

A moment later, the rear door swung open and light crashed in.

They were in the parking lot of a shattered shopping center: Kohl’s, a Christian bookstore,
RadioShack, Little Caesars, lots of
FOR RENT
signs. Mountains loomed in one direction, the skyline in the other: the captain had
brought them to the final edge of downtown. A few Bellows staggered about under the
swinging stoplight at the exit of the lot, a hundred yards away. But the Bellows were
separated from Jopek’s Humvee by an obstacle course of Hummers and tanks positioned
throughout the parking lot. The number of military vehicles in this seemingly inconsequential
parking lot seemed bizarre, but Holly didn’t seem to react at all. Jokes came to mind
about why the vehicles were here—a sale on “tank tops”—but Michael said nothing.

“I thought we were going to make sure the roads are clear,” Michael said.

“Just got one last place left to search, big boy,” said Jopek. Affectionate and buddy-buddy,
but Michael sensed a sharp edge under the smooth voice.

Past a pair of overturned, silver-trailered army trucks sat the only non-raided building
in the lot: an enormous and shockingly well-preserved Walgreens pharmacy. Jopek led
Michael, Patrick, and Holly to it, stepping over a few sandbags and several truly
dead corpses clustered beside the trucks.

He put a couple bullets in the Walgreens’s door lock; a kick took care of the rest.
“This here’s the last place on my list to look for any survivors before the soldiers
get into town,” Jopek said as everyone followed him in. “And maybe someone could pick
up some A-t-i-p-a-x, how’s that sound? Faris, you shop for us.”

Jopek thrust a cart to Michael. It rattled quickly. Michael tried to catch the handlebar
one-handed, but it hit so hard that the cart lurched sideways, hitting his foot. “C’mon,
Faris, be a team player.”

Jopek turned away to the heart of the store, cocked his hands on his hips. “Attention,
Walgreens customers!” he crowed.

“
Cuuuuuuussst . . . eeerrrrr . . .”
The Bellows’ echo. It came from the rear of the store, flattened by layers of doors
and walls. The idea of being in a building with Bellows, after yesterday, seemed insane.

“Ready a-go?” Patrick said happily. “The captain and I are going to explore, okay,
Michael?” A genuine request for permission. That made Michael feel better.

Jopek said, “Patrick’s gonna come ’round with me. Boy in this world should learn to
fight.
Has
to. Otherwise—well, s-h-i-t.”

“Yeah, to be honest, I’d rather he not go
looking
for Zeds.”

“Hey, you let him wander ’round coal towns with ya, huh? Let him crawl under a bus,
he was tellin’ me.”

“Always in eyesight,” Michael said, cringing at the childish defensiveness in his
voice.

“’Course, he
must
have been safe ’cause you got them magic, protectin’ eyes. Ha-ha, just teasin’!”

Michael felt a kind of low rage, suddenly wanting to throttle the captain. But he
pushed down his objections. If Michael wanted to get out of here he had to speak
to Holly about what was going on . . . maybe even about how to get away from the captain.
And Patrick
would
be with a man with an assault rifle, which meant he would not be totally unsafe.
“Right,” he returned the smile. “Go for it. Hey, just don’t do anything I wouldn’t
do.”

“Doing what you wouldn’t do,” Jopek called over his shoulder, walking down an aisle,
“is the whole point, kinda.”

They all—Holly included—went.

Michael stood.

Scared. Nervous. Embarrassed. Confused.

And, then: royally fugging pissed.

He swiveled on his heels and marched, gaining speed, the cart’s wheels squeaking to
a higher and higher pitch. He propelled himself down not the medical aisle, but the
food ones; he held out an arm to the shelves and let it knock in protein bars, mints,
crackers, a plastic barrel of pretzels, baked chips. The glass doors of the drink
cases at the end of the aisle were webbed with cracks that had let out the cold, but
who cared, Pibb Xtra and Red Bull don’t go bad. He stuffed the child seat with the
cylinders of pure, sweet, awesome sugar explosions that Patrick loved best.

Who does Jopek think he is? He think he can just jab me around and never be jabbed
back? Who does he think he freaking
is
?

Michael, turning from the drink cases, touched the Hummer keys in his pocket like
a talisman, and shouted, “Whoa, I bet you could live for a
week
on all this food!”

And that’s enough, right, Holly? Okay, maybe you had second thoughts, but once I show
you all this—that I do what I say, that I can do what I want—that’ll be enough, right?
You’ll let me save you, right?

“Liiiiivvveee . . .”
called the Bellows in the parking lot. They had begun winding closer through the
field of Hummers outside.

Doesn’t matter. Move.

He rattled back down the snack aisle, by the book racks, celebrity magazines flapping
in his wake.

At the checkout counter, Michael grabbed Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups with jack-o’-lantern
wrapping, some Peppermint “Batties,” and a display’s worth of 5-Hour Energy. He grabbed
a pair of new aviator sunglasses for Patrick off a spinner rack, put them in his pocket.

The cart was now packed half a foot high.

Andbutso, now what?
He drummed his palms on the handlebar, his eyes going closed, trying to find his
pulse.
So get it out into the car.

He thrust the cart toward the front exit. It powered its own way and stopped between
the anti-theft sensors.
Now . . . now get Patrick and go out to the car—

Except one thing—

—kinda a biggie—

How are you gonna get Patrick out without Jopek being suspicious?

He couldn’t. He knew he couldn’t.

A triple-burst of gunshot leapt from the rear of the pharmacy, silencing a Bellow.
A double burst followed, a single shot, another triple. How long before there were
no more Bellows back there to occupy the captain?

Outside, a scud of phantom-colored cloud loomed over the sun, casting a pallor over
the aisles like early twilight.

3:27. Jopek was going to come out front and announce their departure. 3:28.

“Holly?” Michael said. No reply.

Feel your blood.

He did.

And it told him the logical, pure truth: there was nothing he could do.

Standing there, his heart a fierce coil in his throat, a sudden bloom of despair nearly
overtook Michael.
Why
had he thought he could take control of this?
Why
had he thought he could escape a captain in the army?
Good one, Mike
.
Tell us the one again about the tank tops.
It was just like what Holly said about the virus, his life had returned to where
it had come from: his and Patrick’s lives, commanded by a man who did not play by
any sane rules.

No!
Michael thought.
I am going to get us
out of here
!
But that voice rang hollow.

“Holly?” he tried again.

Not even a Bellow responded.

Do you pray
?
No, I don’t. But maybe I should, because those maniacs in the woods do, and even they
can control their lives more than I can. So, yeah: God, if you’re not too busy figuring
out where to put all the people who showed up recently, HELP M—

And he became aware that he was being watched.

The lot outside was grim with shrouded sunlight. He turned and turned. There were
no monsters near the storefront yet; but goose bumps nonetheless lit across his arms
and neck. A few deer were cantering peacefully just outside. They were arranged, the
three of them, in a triangle. And they seemed, instantly, a family. The spotted fawn
sniffed the cement with a kid’s curiosity; the mother doe’s eyes warily flicked over
the bodies on the ground. The buck led them. It had power, you could see that; its
muscled shoulders and thighs looked thick and fast and beautiful. The sharp spread
of its antlers gestured, somehow kingly, with each stride.

I saw you two nights ago,
Michael thought.
Or something like you. At the cliff. Right before I almost fell off, I did.

That sensation: like clockwork behind a curtain. Filling Michael now. Like
yes-yes
, but not. Stronger than
yes-yes
. Beyond it.

Michael realized that the sight of the deer was making him hold his breath.

He tried to let it out softly, but dust hitched his throat. He coughed.

The doe’s and the fawn’s heads sprang up. They eyed Walgreens. He felt certain that
they couldn’t see him because of glare on the glass, but he froze, for some reason.
The clouds, however, did not: they gusted, spilling sun, so the fringe of the deers’
coats looked momentarily lit on fire, like cave paintings of majestic creatures of
a higher world. Their own sudden shadows frightened them; the doe and fawn fled across
the parking lot, weaving like spirits through the disinterested Bellows now emerging
from the field of tanks.

The buck remained. There seemed to be a field of
power
emanating from it, almost humming. Its moist snout blew two strong plumes of breath.
Its coal eyes held the glass.

Michael told himself,
It’s just looking at itself. It can’t see in.

But no. No, he felt that the animal was staring at
him
.

Chills, not entirely pleasant, powered across Michael’s skin. He stood in stunned
silence, mentally and physically frozen.
I didn’t see the cliff coming, and there wasn’t anyplace left to run . . . but I still
survived.

Was it possible . . . something
was
helping him? Was that real, or was it him
hoping
it?

He felt a quickness of warmth fill him: small at first, a candle in a cave; but it
grew. In truth, it began to torch. There was no reason that he should feel good. None.
There was no clear path for escaping Jopek right now.

And yet . . .