The Gristle & Bone Series (Book 1): The Flayed & The Dying

by Roach, Aaron

  “You will not bloody my desk or my room,” Francesca snapped as he moved to bring the barrel under his chin. “Now put that away and listen to me. If you want to kill yourself, then you can do so, outside, but only once you’ve heard what I have to say.”

  Sharpe put a placating hand on Hyres’s shoulder. “Let’s hear what she has to tell us, Chief. Besides, I’m not ready to say goodbye to you just yet. I never got the chance with…the others. I’d like to do it right with you.”

  “Me too,” said Maldonado.

  “Yeah,” agreed Thaniel.

  Hyres stared at them for a long moment, and then sighed in resignation. “Okay. Let’s hear it.”

  -72-

  Kat and Sophia walked between the rows of trailers, avoiding the looks of sullen, gaunt-faced passersby as they made their way to their housing unit. Tied over Kat’s shoulder, hidden underneath her jacket, was the sack of food they had just acquired from Ward. Every now and then, the canned goods would clang loud enough to attract a curious eye and they quickened their pace before somebody desperate made a grab at them.

  They were returning from having spoken with Ward over near the barracks. They had gone there expecting to see both soldiers, to check if there were any updates on an escape plan, but Litz wasn’t around and Ward had been in no mood to talk.

  In the day since Ward had warned Kat about Command’s abandonment of the camp, he had somehow acquired a black eye. When asked how he had gotten it, he’d simply tossed the sack of food over the fence and told them to be ready when he came for them in the next few days. Without saying anything else, he’d turned his back to them to return to the barracks.

  “Hey!” Sophia had called out to his retreating form. “Where’s Litz? Will he be coming with us?”

  “He’s on the towers tonight kid, keeping watch,” Ward replied over his shoulder without looking back. He hadn’t answered her other question and now, as they made their way to their housing unit, Sophia walked sullenly and said very little.

  They pushed through the crowd of people and began heading across the open expanse of grass by the latrine pits. Then, suddenly, the hairs on Kat’s neck stood up and she was filled with a paralyzing dread. She knew that feeling. She grabbed Sophia’s hand and began pulling her urgently along. “We’ve got to move, Soph,” she said quietly. No sooner than the words left her mouth, the wind picked up, whipping through their hair like poltergeists. Then the camp came alive with the sounds of sirens.

  The rain is coming.

  They ran. As they sprinted past a barometer mounted on the back of the schoolhouse, Kat glanced over her shoulder to see the needle slowly sliding down the face of it. Ahead, their shipping container home came into view and they ran up the steps and through the door just as the first drops began to fall from the sky.

  It didn’t come in a drizzle. Rather, it came suddenly and heavily, sounding off on tin roof structures like war drums announcing a rapidly approaching enemy. Safely inside, Kat and Sophia turned to see dozens of people caught beneath the falling sky, sprinting towards shelters whose doors slammed in their faces. While they watched, one such individual made eye contact and ran towards them, crying out for sanctuary. Kat and Sophia quickly shut the door before he could arrive, locking it. A heartbeat later he was there, pounding against the frame, begging to be let inside. They tried to tune out his cries as they turned their backs on the door and returned to their bunks, their shoulders slumped with guilt. Their other bunkmates were there too, sitting solemnly on their beds. Some held their hands up to their ears, or lay with pillows covering their heads, trying to ignore the sobbing of those doomed by the weather. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to help, but it was procedure – for their own safety – not to aid those exposed to the rain.

  They all knew what would happen next.

  Kat lie on her bunk and felt the bulky sack still hidden beneath her jacket pressing against her ribs. She made no move to take it out, unwilling to risk alerting the others in the room to the fact that she had food. She knew they were feeling just like her and Sophia – hungry and irritable. Instead, she brought her arm up to her eyes, buried her face in the crook of her elbow, and tried not to think of the sounds of self-mutilation that would inevitably come from outside.

  There was nothing they could do but wait out the rain.

  “How’d you know?” Sophia’s voice broke through the black. Kat felt the girl’s presence standing next to her bed.

  “How’d I know what?”

  “About the rain,” she whispered quietly so that no one else in the room could hear. “You knew it was coming.”

  Kat faked a smile, “Maybe I’m just getting old, kid. Maybe I felt it in my bones?”

  “That’s not it. What’s going on, Kat?”

  Kat lifted her arm to see Sophia staring down at her. She let out a low sigh, “I don’t know, Soph. I really don’t. It’s just a feeling – one that only comes when it’s about to rain. I just…know.”

  “Have you always been able to do that? Know when it’s about to rain?”

  “No. It started on that first day, when people started changing into the skeletals.”

  “Oh,” Sophia paused, “but that’s a good thing, right? Kind of like an alarm in your head when we are in danger?”

  Kat let out a humorless chuckle, “Trust me kid, it’s not a good feeling.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  Kat thought on that for a moment before answering. “It’s more like a sick feeling rather than pain. Like fear, but physical. I don’t know; it just feels like something bad is going to happen, and then it does.”

  Sophia nodded, scrunching her face. “Still,” she said, “if it helps us to find shelter before the rain comes, and it doesn’t hurt, then I’m kind of glad you have it. Could you imagine if we were out there?”

  Outside and above, the sky bellowed a roar of thunder which dampened the muted whisperings of the others in the room. The rain intensified, and Kat could feel it heavy in the air, even from within the protection of their housing unit. With her sensitivity, it felt like walking into a room and instantly knowing a murder had taken place there.

  “Might as well try and take a nap, kiddo. This storm is going to last awhile.”

  “It’s still early, Kat. I’m not –” She was cut short by the sounds of screaming and gunfire.

  It’s starting.

  “Sophia, don’t. You don’t want to see that.” Kat said as Sophia clambered up onto her bunk, standing to peer through the small window above her. But Sophia ignored her, letting her curiosity get the best of her despite knowing full well what was happening on the other side.

  Through the falling rain, Sophia saw soldiers clad in raingear hopping out from armored vehicles and quickly creating firing lines while newly formed skeletals swarmed. A few soldiers went down in a tangle of stabbing limbs, but the soldiers outnumbered the creatures and they quickly organized themselves into walls of gunfire which closed in around the dead. While the soldiers at the front advanced, firing on snarling and snapping skulls, a few hung back to put mercy headshots through downed comrades. Sometimes a wounded soldier’s hand would come up, pleading, before a gunshot sounded and the hand dropped to earth, still.

  Mercy was given, whether it was wanted or not.

  Beyond the battle, over at the schoolhouse, something caught Sophia’s eye. The schoolhouse was built on low stilts, two feet or so off the ground. And there, underneath the structure and peering from behind one of the stilts, there was a face. Its features were too far away to see clearly, but the staring face appeared to be looking directly at their housing unit, at her watching through the window. The battle raged between her and the face, obscuring her view, but she saw it – clear as day – when the face broke into an evil grin. Before she could tell Kat to come see what it was, the face receded into the darkness beneath the schoolhouse and disappeared completely.

  -73-

  “It wasn’t initially supposed to be a bio-weapon,�
� Francesca explained. “This whole thing started as a means to create super-soldiers, impervious to pain, almost impossible to kill.”

  “Well, you succeeded in that endeavor,” muttered Hyres darkly as he mindlessly kneaded his knuckles around the wound on his leg. He was still on the desk while the others sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounding him.

  “It gets worse,” Francesca added. “Command…they wanted more. You’re military, so you tell me, what are some of the biggest obstacles for building an army? Then running a successful operation with said army?”

  “That’s kind of an all-encompassing question with many answers, Doc.” Sharpe replied.

  Francesca rolled her eyes. “Oblige me then, for conversation’s sake.”

  Sharpe shrugged, “Recruitment, keeping the troops clothed and fed, establishing a chain of command, streamlining communication…take your pick.”

  “Yeah, well, Command picked all of them. The result? Those monstrosities out there,” she said, raising her eyebrows to the ceiling and beyond. “Think about it. The stonemen, or ‘skeletals,’ as you call them. They add to their ranks through infection. That takes care of recruitment. Despite their tendency to bite, they don’t necessarily need to feed. In fact, Dr. Neyra never figured out how long they could go without eating. That takes care of making sure the troops are fed.”

  “Okay, what about a chain of command?” Maldonado interrupted defensively. “There’s no hierarchy to those things out there.”

  Francesca raised an eyebrow, “Isn’t there?”

  The men looked around at each other, some shaking their heads.

  Francesca sighed, exasperated. “Perhaps you haven’t seen it yet, but if it’s as bad as you say it is down south, then hopefully those in the infected areas have already begun to put the pieces together. Speaking of pieces, let’s use chess as our metaphor. On a chessboard, which pieces are at the bottom of the hierarchy, the foot soldiers?”

  “The pawns,” answered Thaniel.

  “Correct. Those are the secondary infected – your groaners – slow, limited in their movements, but numerous and just as able to inflict damage as any other piece on the board.” The men nodded their understanding and Francesca continued. “The skeletals, depending on how long they’ve been…well, changed…they may be your knights, bishops, rooks, queens; whatever. The point is they are higher up in the hierarchy.”

  “What do you mean ‘depending on how long they’ve been changed’?” asked Sharpe.

  “I mean the dead. The skeletals, at least, are evolving. Just like any troops in warfare…the longer they’re in, the more accustomed to it they become. They become hardened to battle. Except with the skeletals, their hardening is much more literal. They grow bigger, stronger. Their very structures…their exoskeletons…become thicker and denser over time, like fossils. Stonemen. Get it?”

  “What about the king?” Thaniel asked. “The one at the top?”

  “Well, that’s the thing, now isn’t it?” Francesca answered. “Similar to pack animals that need a leader, the skeletals will fight and kill each other for supremacy. These alphas are the ones that evolve the most, become the most battle-hardened. In any area or territory, where there are numerous infected, the skeletals will fight until one assumes control over all of them, becomes king. Except in this chess game there are an infinite number of boards, where the kings fight to control their own pieces, while also trying to assume control over nearby boards and pieces. Oh, and every time it rains, or if one of them infects a human? More and more pieces are added to the game.”

  “Damn…” Maldonado muttered.

  “Wait,” said Sharpe, refusing to believe, “there’s no way they can be that organized, that structured. They don’t talk. You need communication to run an army, to organize troop movements and relay commands. I’ve killed my fair share of the bastards, and not once have I ever heard one speak.”

  Francesca sighed. “Well, Neyra had an idea about that. It’s only theoretical at this point, but something we have an opportunity to prove now, here, with Hyres. And in doing so, it could save the rest of us.”

  Sharpe snorted impatiently, “Spit it out, Doc.”

  Francesca took a moment to think about how she could explain it without sounding crazy, but there was no way around it, so she just spat it out. “Telepathy.”

  At that, Sharpe stood and turned his back on them, walking away and shaking his head in denial. The others simply balked.

  “Look,” Francesca continued, “I don’t mean telepathy the way you might assume in a science-fiction sense. They can’t invade our thoughts or read our minds. Rather, within their own clans, their own chessboards, they share a collective consciousness – a ‘mind coalescence,’ as Neyra called it. At the center of that consciousness is the king, the alpha, directing and controlling the rest, with the sole intent of growing its army larger and spreading the infection. Think of the workers in an ant colony sent out to get food, or bees sent to retrieve pollen for the hive. It’s the same concept, except infinitely more violent and with the human brain, mutated and evolved, as the foundation.”

  Sharpe grimaced as he listened. He thought of the groaners who’d buried themselves beneath the snow and the skeletals who’d set the ambush as they made their way past the wrecked plane. It was violence, but not mindless violence. There was strategy there.

  Sharpe turned back to the group and his heart dropped when he saw that Hyres had already grown gaunter, paler, his eyes coming in and out of focus. Dammit. The infection was taking hold. “Doc, skip all this chess speak and tell us what this has to do with the chief.”

  Francesca gave Hyres a sympathetic look. “As you begin to transition there will be a brief period of time … in-between… when you will still be you while your mind experiences the merging,” she explained. “The coalescence will be inevitable, but you can fight it for a while, prolong the in-between time, and in doing so the part of you that’s still you can relay to us the thoughts of the king stoneman here on the island, the one in charge. Maybe we can find out how many of the dead there are left, where they are, what they’re thinking.”

  Sharpe listened with growing dismay. He didn’t like the idea of his friend and teammate being used like that, to have his final moments of life be ones of prolonged loss of self. He said as much.

  “Sorry, sir,” Hyres answered back, “that’s not your call to make, not this time.” He turned to Francesca, “I’ll do it.”

  Francesca gave him a sad smile. “There’s one more thing.”

  “What?”

  She nodded past his shoulder to the shackles dangling from the wall on the other side of the room. “For our safety…you know, for after you’ve transitioned.”

  “No,” Sharpe moved to interrupt, “I won’t allow…”

  Hyres held up a calming hand, silencing his friend. “Like I said, I’ll do it.”

  -74-

  The once-Burome stepped into the clearing, presenting itself as a challenger to the alpha whose dominion it trespassed upon. It could sense the Others not yet under its control, unmoving in the trees on the opposite side of the clearing. It felt their thoughts, alerting their master to its presence. Inquisitively, the once-Burome probed at the thoughts, feeling for weakness in the enemy mind-web. If it could find a way through, it could assume control without needing to destroy the leader.

  Its probing was met with strong resistance. This alpha had complete control over its horde.

  It would be a worthy opponent, but the once-Burome was confident in its own strength. The enemy had spent its life out in these woods with few challengers to its domain, while the once-Burome had been born in battle, among thousands of Others, fighting for superiority. Its existence until this point had been one of gristle and bone, and its great horde, which vastly dwarfed the enemy’s, reflected this.

  Across the way, a roar bellowed and trees crashed to the ground as the enemy moved through the forest to meet its challenger. The once-Burome brought its
elf up onto two feet as the alpha stepped from the woods and out into the clearing. It was large, much larger than the once-Burome had anticipated, with massive battle horns that curved menacingly from the brow. The enemy rose up, mirroring the once-Burome’s posture, and clacked its piked forelimbs against its ribs threateningly.

  The once-Burome snorted a dismissal and swiveled its head slowly from side to side, so that the enemy could take note of its antlered crown and larger size.

  We. King. Here.

  Then the once-Burome thumped its own sternum hard one time, before roaring its intent to take control. If the thing submitted now, the once-Burome would show mercy and simply establish dominance over the enemy by enveloping its horde into its own and making it a war chief. If it did not, then the once-Burome would destroy it and take its horde anyway.

  It mattered not.

  Across the clearing, the enemy grunted and dropped to all fours, stabbing its pointed forearms into the soil and bowing its horned head low – an act of submission.

  Behind the enemy, the Others of its horde shrieked and screamed at their alpha’s cowardice and the once-Burome barked in satisfaction. It sent its mind forward, expecting a welcome into the enemy consciousness, but found no entry there. There was still a barrier that turned away its thoughts. The once-Burome snarled at the shrieking Others across the way, confused at its lack of control over them.

  Still, the enemy alpha remained in its subdued posture in the clearing.

  The once-Burome recalled the Foul One who had weakened the links of its control over the horde. And then there was the memory of the girl, who had shattered its thoughts and brought its humanity roaring back. Could it be happening again? The once-Burome snorted, denying the notion. The Foul One was far away, and the memory of the girl was locked deep in the recesses of its mind, away from the mind-web.

  This was something different.