Clickers vs Zombies by Brian Keene, J.F. Gonzalez

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.