Sean Beaudoin - The Infects

Something to eat. Nick Sole crouched behind a wall, totally strapped. Steel pipe, survival knife, bone-handled revolver. Problem was, the revolver only had two bullets left. And a Swarm had just turned down the street. Moving slow, but not slow enough.

Nick rechecked his supplies. Food? Not much. Medicine? Gone. Synthetic adrenaline? Hed shot himself in the thigh with a hypo right after the last plane crash. A USWAY Air 767. Just fell out of the sky, broke in two pieces, took out half a strip mall and everything from the parking lot to the river.

Lost a lot of good people on that plane. Or maybe they were all Swarm, so screw em. Hard to know where you stood these days. Unless you were standing on neck. Either way, he and Amanda needed to move. Theyd just done a recon of the Boxxmart by the interstate.

Other peopled had the same idea. The guns were already looted, down to peashooter target pistols that wouldnt drop a Girl Scout, let alone a hungry Lurker. The propane was gone. The first-aid kits were gone. Even the flat-screen TVs were gone. What were they going to plug it into, a Lurkers ass? The only food left was a bag of Blowritos (nutritive value: zero) and a few sticks of beef jerky not counting the walking beef jerky Amanda had spent her last hollow-points on.

You ready? she asked, tying a strip of dirty cloth around an open leg wound. She had a slash across her face, the shaft of an arrow embedded in her shoulder, and dried blood caked in her hair. No complaints. No crying. Totally ready for action. Amanda, his little sister, looking more thirty-nine than nine years old in the diesel-heavy light.

I had a hundred more like her, we might actually hold this city, said the lieutenant in charge of their neighborhood right before hed been dragged, screaming, into a sewer. Nick, on the other hand, was appreciated mostly for his ability to carry crates of ammo and open canned food quickly. Theyre getting closer? Amanda said in her raspy little whisper. We cant stay here? The Swarm was definitely louder, beginning to feed off itself. The first ones had made it over the Prius Barricade, a makeshift wall some long-ago jarheads had built and then died on. I know.

Amanda pushed her thick glasses back up her nose, one lens cracked in three places. She spoke with a slight lisp, voice barely audible above the groans and explosions. I love you? Nick? Me too, A-dog. Okay? Enough sap? I take frontal? You flank? Amanda clambered up onto the jagged brick, shouldered a rocket launcher, and stuck her tongue out in concentration. Nick went around the side, through a crack in the fence, and ran hard for the Quickie Slurp across the street. As usual busy thinking about Petal when he should have been pure commando he didnt see the Lurker coming.

It reached from the cab of a totaled Hummer and grabbed Nicks wrist. Luckily it was still strapped in. Safety first! Nick went with a few front kicks, made the thing eat serious boot, then wedged its head in the door before slamming it shut. Good old Detroit steel. There was a spurt, and then there was a fwooom. Amandas RPG, as always, was right on the mark. It exploded in the main Swarm, concussion to plume.

Lurker parts rained down like a late summer squall. Amanda did a front flip off the berm, then stepped nimbly between the remains of a National Guard unit, picking up gear and ammo as she went. In her thrift-store dress and long black hair, she looked like tiny Demi Moore playing tiny Judy Garland, just two ruby shoes and a killer tornado away from waking up in Oz. What are you waiting for? Run? Nick backed toward the Quickie Slurp, scanned the lot, and opened the door. A welcome bell rang. Just as something leaped over the register.

A Lurker chick. All in leather. Tight and low-cut, sleeved with tats, from hula girls to thrash bands and back. Seriously a Victorias Gossip model, blond hair waving in the wind. Except she was also wearing the kind of two-toned blood mask you could only get from burying your face deeply into another person, a demarcation line just below the eyes, the spot where teeth could reach no farther. Hi, Nick said, raising his pistol.

The Lurker chick howled, teeth claggy with flesh, and lurched forward. Totally skipping the foreplay. Nick managed to get off a shot, which missed, embedding itself in a package of olive loaf even the looters wouldnt touch. The gun slid across the floor. He would have screamed, but there was no time. She sank her teeth into his shoulder.

Then cheek. Then neck. His health rating plummeted. Nick Sole, Totally Fuct. Amanda was already more than six hundred thousand points ahead, and with yet another Maximum Outwit plus Severe Gouging, there was no chance at all he could catch her, even if he cleared the entire next level by himself. Through a red-tinged screen, Nick watched his sister sprint across the street, eat a glazed ham, collect a string of gold coins, and then pocket double-bonus energy points for finding a gassed-up chain saw.

She pulled the ripcord and held it over her head, the motor howling with bad intent. Nick dropped the extra controller. Amanda paused her Palmbot. The screen blinked: S.W.A.R.M. II: What Lurks at Midnight. CONTINUE? Y/N . Again. Again.

What a surprise? Nick ran three fingers through his close-cropped hair, tightened his red Chuck Taylors, and then crawled out from under the kitchen table. The clock above the sink said seven thirty. It was dark already. He had a little less than an hour to make his shift. Done saving the world? the Dude asked, spooning Salisbury steak from the metal tray in front of him. Hardly.

You see Miss Sparkle under there? Miss Sparkle was the cat. Gender never determined, despite the name. Itd slunk off into the night, without so much as a final meow. I dont think so. Shell be back, the Dude said, talking mostly to his watch. Everything comes home eventually.

Nick poured Amanda a bowl of cereal and slid it under the table with his foot. Then he made himself a sandwich, white on white, hold the meat, hold the condiments. Mostly because there wasnt any meat. Or condiments. Or anything else in the fridge, except pickle water and crusty foil. The Dudes philosophy on groceries was pretty much The Dude Has Other Concerns.

Which mostly meant lubing up with a tube of SPF 2 after breakfast and crashing on the rubber lawn chair in the driveway. Even in the winter, the Dude was deeply tanned, prominently veined, sporting a pink polo shirt and a headful of silver dadlocks. Suits and ties and wing tips sat moldering in boxes in the front room, where theyd been since the day he retired. Whats for dessert? Jell-O. The Dude frowned, addressing his spoon: Again? Nick jiggled a double portion into a large white Tupperware, slipped a paper towel into his fathers collar, and then checked his phone. There were three blinking messages.