Deep Into the Game (S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Book 1)

Chapter Fifteen

Reg and Ash join our floating circle. Everyone’s speaking all at once, asking questions, laughing, yammerinng, demanding where the hell we were and what took us so long. They don’t realize anything terrifying happened down there.

Jake notices my missing goggles and asks about them. He seems more worried about them than he is about me, but that may just be me being oversensitive.

Neither Kelly nor I answer any of their questions. Kelly brusquely waves them off, growling that we need to get me to land. I’m grateful for his strength. I’m grateful that I don’t have to say anything or even think. I wouldn’t be able to string two coherent thoughts together, must less words.

My shaking has grown much worse, as if my body knows that safety is within reach.

Or knowing that I’ll have to face that horrible experience aging on our way back. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it. Or how.

I’m faintly aware of Micah talking. He’s telling us that the overpass where we’ve surfaced is too high to climb. It rises six feet over our heads. The wall extends to both sides, stretching about a hundred and fifty feet before turning back toward us. We spin around. The water reaches into the distance, fanning out wider and wider as it reaches the horizon.

Reggie points to a place where the chain-link fence has been pushed from its poles and now dangles into the water. It’s only thirty feet away.

“We can climb that,” he says.

He sounds as tired as I feel, and now I can see the fatigue on everyone else’s face, the strain. And maybe a little disappointment, too. I don’t know what they were all expecting—I know what I was before my underwater encounter: Pristine buildings, a preserved city. But all I see here is bleached out structures that look run down and dirty. The place is a ghost town. But, thankfully, it appears to be just as abandoned as Reggie had claimed it would be.

Or maybe that’s why they’re disappointed.

Kelly pulls me toward the fence. I let him. I can’t seem to find the strength to move, so I just drift. Where does he find the energy? I look over at him and notice that he’s straining his neck above the surface. He’s scanning for any signs of trouble on land.

Despite having to tow me, Kelly’s the first to reach the fence. He makes sure I’m holding onto it before he peels off his flippers and tosses them over. Then he climbs up. The fence sways and clangs, sounding too loud in the eerie quiet.

“Looks clear,” he says, after a quick but thorough look around. The rest of the group begin to clamber up. Kelly reaches down and helps me. My arms are shaking so badly that I can barely hold on. I still have my flippers on. He practically has to drag me up.

I immediately sink to the ground. Everyone else is peeling off their equipment and unzipping the tops of their wetsuits. The sun is baking us, but I’m shivering.

Kelly doesn’t bother with his equipment. He finds an abandoned car on the tunnel overpass and climbs up onto its roof. It’s covered in dust and rust and tufts of grass. It creaks and rattles. He cups his hands around his eyes and scans the horizon. Reggie is the first to notice his odd behavior. He chuckles.

“Check out the brah! Already looking for IUs. I told you before there won’t be any.”

Kelly’s eyes flash and he jumps off the car and rushes over. He slams Reggie in the chest and screams, “No zombies? Then what the fuck was that down there?” He points at the tunnel and everyone looks, confusion clouding their faces.

“Where?”

“In the goddamn tunnel, asshole! Where the hell were you?” Kelly turns to each of the others, glaring. “We were attacked by one down there! Jessie could’ve been…”