Open World Spawn by Saul Tanpepper

Author:Saul Tanpepper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: survival, horror, outbreak, zombie, apocalypse, post-apocalypse, cyberpunk, dystopian, conspiracy, virus, implant
Publisher: Brinestone Press
Published: 2022-05-31T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Reggie’s shouting at me. I can see his mouth moving, but I can’t hear him for the terrifying roar of Jake’s voice inside my head. He tries to wrestle me back down to the ground.

Something’s moving in the fire, a dark shape inside that ocean of flames. It crosses the open doorway, moving from one side to the other. Then it collapses, and suddenly the sound in my head winks out.

“—back!” Reggie continues to shout. “We have to get out of here, now!”

I try to push him away. “KELLY!”

“He’s gone, Jess. And if we don’t leave now, we’ll be dead, too. They’re coming!”

A part of me knows it was Kelly’s screams that drew the undead out of the woods. They’ve already started piling up against the fence. It’s straining against their weight and threatening to collapse. And the inferno is bound to draw them in from the front of the compound, too. They’ll be here before long, trapping us.

I know all this, and yet I don’t care anymore.

Reggie wraps his arm around my middle and tries to drag me away. I fight him. I bat at his face with my fists. I kick and scream. But he’s bigger than I am, stronger. He lifts me up and starts to carry me away from there.

The flames tower into the sky, scratching at it with their orange claws. One of the wooden walls collapses with a groan and a shudder, sending up a shower of sparks.

“Stop fighting!” he tells me. “We have to— Shit!”

It’s the change of tone in his voice that snaps me out of my despair. I tear my eyes away from the inferno and see that the infected have reached us. The first appears around the corner of the nearest building. Another follows right behind it.

“Fuck,” he growls in my ear, and swerves in the opposite direction.

“Put me down!”

A third appears, cutting off our escape route. He pauses to consider his options, then charges straight toward it.

“Put me down!” I shout again.

“No,” he growls. “I’m not letting you die, too.”

“It’s not your choice!” I reach over and plant a hand on his face.

He grunts and tries to bat it away. “It’s not yours, either!”

“I’ll die if I want to!”

“You can’t,” he says, adjusting his grip. He spins around to behind us. I can sense him calculating our chances of escape.

“It’s my choice, Reggie!”

“Not anymore, Jess,” he pants. “You’re pregnant.”

He starts running again, bouncing me. We fly past an IU that’s too slow to grab us. I stare openmouthed at the ground, stunned by the outrageous claim.

But then Kelly’s last words come back to me, spoken not to me, but to Reggie: Take care of Jessie, he’d said. Of both.

“Both?” I gasp. I’d thought he was telling Reggie to take care of me and himself.

“You’re pregnant, Jessie.”

“Put me down. Goddamn it, Reggie, put me the fuck down right now!”

He stops, and his grip on me loosens. I slip to the ground. “You can’t kill yourself, Jess, because you’re pregnant. Two months.

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