Clickers vs Zombies (9 page)

“No, and I don’t care,” Gary said. He was seated in the Rocket Launch game, intent on blowing the Evil Lord Balazar back to the galaxy he came from. He was only two levels away from reaching the Zenith level, which would blast him into a completely different stratosphere. “Fuck off.”

“Those weird lobster things that killed those people in Huntington Beach last night ate some chick on Catalina!” Steve exclaimed.

Gary turned to Steve and he saw that everybody within earshot had also heard the news. Whatever games kids were playing were now abandoned as John leaned forward.

“What happened, where’d you hear this?”

“On the radio!” Steve said. “KROQ broke in to an announcement. They’re closing the beaches!”

“Closing the beaches?” Somebody else exclaimed.

The news Steve had delivered echoed around the arcade and within moments the entire place was buzzing with the news and the atmosphere darkened. Gone were the high-pitched catcalls, the excited talk, the jabber of friends. Now the mood had changed. It was not unlike the mood immediately after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Or so Gary had heard. He’d been only five years old when that happened, but he remembered his mother picking him up from day care early that afternoon. He remembered the look on her face, the mood of the day care aides, the teachers, the other parents.

It was very much like this.

Something big is happening
, Gary thought.
It’s like the end of the world or something
.

He climbed out of the driver’s seat of the Rocket Launcher and joined his friends in learning what was happening on Catalina Island. Minutes later, when a swarm of Clickers scrambled over the beach and onto the pier, Gary found out how right he had been.

THREE

San Francisco, California

The oddest thing about the job, Michele McKenzie thought to herself as she walked down the brightly lit corridor, was how normal everything seemed. Anyone wandering in from the street would have encountered just another non-descript office building with an aesthetically pleasing proper lobby and a chipper receptionist. They would have noticed the security cameras on the wall, perhaps, or the curious symbol inlaid on the lobby’s tile floor. But what they wouldn’t have known is that there were safeguards around the building. Indeed, most would have found themselves unable to enter through the building’s sidewalk-level revolving doors—not without saying the proper word or possessing the correct glyph. They would have never guessed that the symbol on the floor was a circle of protection, or that the perky receptionist was a master telepath and fourth level Adept, or that in addition to the security cameras, there were other—invisible—sentries monitoring their every move.

Ninety-nine percent of the world’s population would have never known these things.

But ninety-nine percent of the world’s population weren’t working for Black Lodge—an international organization that worked for no one government or entity, and answered only to a higher power, protecting humanity from supernatural threats. Their origins began during World War One, but there were rumors that the organization had existed in another form much earlier. Indeed, some said that such legendary figures as the Three Wise Men of Biblical lore were early predecessors to Black Lodge. Shortly after the end of the Second World War, the group gained autonomy. Now they answered to no worldly authority. They operated in secret, spoken of only in the dark, conspiracy-ridden corners of the internet, or in the halls of power in various nation’s capitals.

And now Michele was one of them. Granted, she was only a first level adept, and she was still in the midst of her ninety-day probationary period, but just to have made it this far was reason enough to be proud—and she was. They’d recruited her two weeks before she’d graduated from college (she’d been majoring in education). Michele learned that they had been aware of her abilities for years, and had been monitoring her. Once they explained everything, she said goodbye to thoughts of a career teaching elementary school and hadn’t looked back. Now she worked in the Remote Viewing and Astral Projection Department.

Her shoes echoed on the tile floor. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. A dark-skinned man in a crisp black suit passed by her and nodded. Michele returned the greeting. She turned left and entered the break room. She bought a candy bar and a bottle of water from the vending machines, wolfed them down, and then proceeded back down the hall.

She passed by two more people—a man and a women—and overheard a snatch of conversation.

“…Clickers. We intercepted a call from a Doctor Alfred Post to his superiors, and then to the Department of the Interior. More reports are coming in hourly. President Genova has been made aware by now, but on this level, they don’t know what they’re dealing with.”

“Surely the President has dreamed of them, at the very least? He’s one of the Seven, across all levels. Many of his other selves would most likely have had experience with them.”

“I don’t know. We should just be grateful that in this reality, the Dark Ones became extinct thousands of years ago. Otherwise, it would be a lot worse. If they…”

Michele rounded a corner, and the voices faded. She frowned, wondering what they’d been discussing. Clickers? Levels? She hadn’t seen anything about them in her employee manual. And what was all that about President Genova?

She’d forgotten about it by the time she reached her destination—a room at the end of the corridor. She knelt by a panel in the door and allowed her retina to be scanned. Then she entered a four-digit number and the door slid open with a hiss. Michele entered a dark, circular room. The only furnishings were seven black chairs, each one thickly upholstered with luxuriant leather and facing back-to-back in a circle. Each of the chairs was hooked up to an array of cables which ran to a computer and printer in the corner. Runes and symbols covered the floor. Six of the chairs were occupied by her fellow employees. Each one appeared to be asleep, but Michele knew better. All of them had a number of leads and wires connected to their heads and fingertips.

Her supervisor, Clark Arroyo, stood by the computer, monitoring the data as it streamed across the monitor. With a click of the mouse, he switched to a different stream of data. Then he turned as Michele approached.

“I’m really sorry about being late,” she said. “There was—”

“A lot of traffic on the bridge,” he said, finishing her sentence.

“It made the news?”

“No.” Clark smiled. “It’s on the surface of your thoughts. No worries, Michele. I’m just glad you’re here. We’ve got a busy shift ahead of us. Morgan is monitoring some current events occurring deep beneath the surface of Mars. Thompson is spying on the Kwan, and it’s taxing his abilities, I’m afraid. James is observing a ritual being conducted in Brazil. Colbert is currently eavesdropping on the White House. Atkins has the same duty, but at the Kremlin. And Abigail is, of course, on guard for breaches to this level.”

“Wow. You weren’t kidding. We are busy.”

Clark nodded. “Luckily, this isn’t the organization’s only remote viewing site.”

Michele slid into her seat and Clark began to attach wires to her.

“So what am I doing tonight, sir?”

“Walden, Virginia. I want you to focus on a guy there that’s been giving us some trouble lately. His name is Dez. I have a photograph you can use to focus. He’s—”

And that was when Abigail began to scream. Her eyes snapped open, wide but unseeing anything in the room. Her attention was focused on something far away. Her fingers dug into the plush arms of the chair with such force that her fingernails pierced the leather. Her lips pulled back in a snarl, exposing gums and teeth. Spittle flew from her open mouth and mucous ran from her nose. The woman’s body began to jerk and twitch.

“She’s having a seizure,” Michele cried. “We’ve got to get her out of that chair.”

“Don’t touch her!” Clark rushed to Abigail’s side and pulled a digital voice recorder from his pocket.

“But, Mr. Arroyo—”

“Stay back, Michele. That’s an order. She’s still viewing. We pull her out of it now and we could kill her.”

We might kill her anyway,
Michele thought. She stood there, not knowing what to do and feeling helpless and scared. Her fellow remote viewers all remained in their trance-like states, oblivious to what was occurring next to them.

“What do you see, Abigail?” Clark turned on the recorder and held it next to the spasmodic girl’s mouth. “What’s happening? Remember your training.”

“T-they’re…c-coming through!”

“Who? Who is coming through?”

“T-the…the…oh my God, they’ve breached the Void. They’re coming through…the Siqqusim…they who…speak from the head…Ob, the Obot…they’re here, Mr. Arroyo. The Siqqusim are here!”

Michele had no idea what Abigail was talking about, but it had an obvious effect on her supervisor. Clark’s complexion turned gray, and his shoulders slumped. His body sagged for a moment as if he’d had the wind knocked out of him. The digital recorder shook in his trembling hand. When he glanced at Michele, she saw that he was visibly shaken.

“Oh no,” he whispered. He grabbed Abigail’s shoulders, shaking her hard, despite the convulsions already wracking her body. “Are you sure, Abigail? Are you absolutely certain it’s them?”

Instead of answering him, Abigail made a choking cry. Her head slammed against the back of the chair hard enough to rock it, even though it was bolted to the floor. Blood streamed from her eyes, nose, mouth and ears. More of it pooled on the seat beneath her. Her complexion turned red, then purple.

“Get her out of there,” Michele screamed. “Please…”

A huge gout of blood flew from Abigail’s mouth, splashing Clark in the face. More of it flew across the room to splatter on the wall and computer console. Clark retched. Both Michele and Abigail shrieked. Then Abigail went limp.

Wiping the blood from his eyes, Clark checked the woman’s pulse.

Michele gaped. “Is she?”

He nodded. “She is. Find me a weapon.”

“W-what?”

“A weapon. A gun. A fire extinguisher. A broom handle. It doesn’t matter what. Anything I can use to bash her head in before she comes back.”

“I don’t understand, sir. She’s dead. Why would you want to—”

“Never mind,” he snapped. “I’ll do it myself. Call security. Right now! Tell them we have a Code Zulu. Do you understand?”

Nodding, Michele hurried across the room and reached for the phone. Behind her, she heard the door hiss open as Clark ran out into the hallway. She quickly consulted a list of extensions hanging on the wall next to the phone and then dialed a number.

“Security.” The voice on the other end of the line was crisp and quick.

Michele gave them her location and a summary of the situation. Before she could say more, the line went dead.

“I hope that means they’re coming,” she muttered.

“Oh, they are coming.”

Michele jumped, startled. She turned to Abigail, who was sitting up and staring at her. The injured woman grinned. Blood dribbled down her chin and matted her long blonde hair.

“Abby? Oh my God, are you okay? We thought you were dead!”

“Abigail is dead, you fool.
”

Frowning, Michele slowly hung up the phone. Something was wrong here. First of all, Clark had insisted that Abigail had been dead. Was it possible he’d been wrong? Secondly, there was something wrong with her voice. She sounded like Abigail, and yet, she also sounded like someone—or something—else.

“Abby. Abigail. Listen. You should lie back until help arrives. Mr. Arroyo—”

“You stupid slab of meat. I told you that Abigail is dead. My name is Ob. Ob, the Obot.”

“I’m sorry…?”

Abigail sighed.
“Why is it that your kind no longer remember us? No matter how many Earths we destroy, it’s the same on each one. We are forgotten among your kind. We are nothing more than legends now.”

“Who? Abby, I don’t understand what you’re talking about. You’ve been hurt. You’re confused. You saw something during your session. I don’t know what.”

“We are the Siqqusim. We are the abominations that speak from the head. Your kind used to call us demons and djinn. You thought we were spirits of the dead, but we are not. We are among the oldest things in your universe. We existed long before Michael and Lucifer chose sides with their ‘angels.’ They were nothing more than inferior versions of us. We were banished long ago, banished to the Void by the one you call God. But we have returned. Now is the time of the Oberim, what you call ‘the Rising.’ We have laid waste to a dozen versions of your Earth before this. Now it is your Earth’s turn. So many of my brethren wait for release. Our number is more than the stars. More than infinity.”

Abigail removed the wires and leads connected to her and slowly rose from the chair. She stretched out her arms and looked at them, as if seeing them for the first time. Then she put her hands on her hips and wriggled back and forth.