Everything Dies | Season 3

by Malpass, T. W.

Salty shrugged.

  ‘OK then. I see your friends left you for dead. That’s one thing you and I have in common. Unfortunately for them, they ain’t too good at makin’ sure they finish the job.’

  ‘You’ll never find them,’ the man mocked through gritted teeth.

  ‘Well now, I’d say that all depends on you, and by the looks of those wounds you have there, it don’t seem like we’ve got much time to find out,’ Salty said. ‘First thing’s first, I’m gonna tie you up. Then I’m gonna do you a solid.’

  ‘The only judgement I fear is God’s,’ the man said.

  A cold smile broke across Salty’s craggy face.

  ‘Maybe that’s about to change, hotshot.’

  After tying the man to a wall pipe, Salty was true to his word and did indeed do him a ‘solid’. He left the rec room and returned ten minutes later with items from the infirmary to treat his wounds.

  He cleaned the lacerated flesh in the man’s side and leg, sewed up the wounds, and dressed them. He even held a bottle of water to the intruder’s arid lips so he could take on some much-needed fluids.

  Once he was satisfied the man was reasonably comfortable and wasn’t about to bleed to death, Salty got up and left the room again, leaving Anna to keep an eye on their restrained prisoner.

  For the man, the wait for Salty to come back seemed endless. With his hands tied to the water pipe behind him, his movement and his view of the rec room were restricted. Other than the pool table and the stalking dog, there was very little for him to look at, which made the wait even more excruciating.

  He sat up with a jolt as the buzz of the generators kicked in again and the ceiling lights in the rec room came on. Whatever the intruders had done to sabotage the power to the compound, Salty must have restored it. His imminent arrival was signalled by the distant sound of dragging metal.

  Anna’s body jerked and her ears stood up, alerted by the squealing friction and scuttling to the doorway to peer down the corridor.

  To the surprise of his canine companion and his captive, Salty entered the room dragging the frame of a single bed he’d taken from the sleeping quarters. It had been stripped of its sheets and mattress down to its bare frame and springs.

  He found the clearest section of floor space and threw it down.

  ‘Whatever it is you’re doing, it will be time wasted,’ the man said.

  Salty stopped for a moment to catch his breath, reaching up to the tightly stitched area of flesh of his shoulder and then over to pull his faithful cap more securely onto his head.

  ‘Luckily, seems as I’m stranded in the middle of nowhere with you, time’s all we got,’ he said. ‘Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.’

  Salty left as quickly as he’d arrived, leaving Anna to watch over the prisoner once again.

  This time, he was gone considerably longer. The man’s throat grew dry, and he wished he could get to the bottle of water Salty had set on the floor less than ten feet from where he was restrained.

  The morning had broken. In fact, the man surmised that it must have been approaching early afternoon before Salty showed his face again.

  When he did, he had a device cradled in his arms and a bundle of wires. He placed them next to the bed frame and proceeded to connect them together.

  The man pretended not to be interested but was observing out of the corner of his eye. He was uncertain what the device could be, but he noticed there were knobs and switches on the face of it.

  ‘Are you going to blow me up?’ The man scoffed.

  ‘Not exactly,’ Salty said, continuing to work away. ‘You familiar with the term Parrilla?’

  The man neglected to answer.

  ‘It’s a Spanish word. It describes a type of cookin’ grill found in South America… but it also has another use.’

  Salty made sure all the wiring connected to the box was secured properly.

  ‘In Chile under the Pinochet regime, the word became notorious in describing a particular interrogation technique. It’s pretty simple to set up, really. You just connect some wires to a control box,’ he said, pointing to the device he’d placed on the floor. ‘Then you terminate the ends usin’ some electrodes and plug your device into the main power supply. Now you have the ability to control the voltage passin’ through your device via a hand box.’

  Salty got up from the floor after he was sure the device was connected properly and carried the end of the wire connected to the plug over to the wall socket. He approached the man and drew the knife he’d taken from him during the attack. He held the blade close to the man’s face so the tip was almost puncturing his right eye.

  ‘Any screwin’ around and I’ll open up another wound in your neck, and this time, I won’t be stitchin’ you up,’ Salty said.

  He reached around and sliced through the cable ties he’d used to fix the man’s hands to the water pipe. Grabbing the back of the man’s jacket, Salty forced him to stand and dragged him over to the metal bed frame.

  The man started to shiver as he stared at the collection of struts and springs and the realisation of what was about to happen to him became clear.

  Salty looked towards Anna, who sat patiently, her eyes following her companion around the room.

  ‘Why don’t you take a walk, girl? You don’t wanna see this,’ he said. ‘While I was gone, I put some more food in your bowl. It’s OK. You go on now.’

  There were certain words in his remark that she understood, and together with his visual gesture in the direction of the open door, she figured out what he meant and scuttled out of the rec room and along the corridor, heading for the sleeping quarters where her food bowl was situated.

  Salty smiled as he watched her leave, then closed the door behind her.

  ‘Now strip,’ he said.

  The man’s eyes widened, and he shook his head.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Really? You wanna do it this way?’ Salty asked, approaching him with knife in hand.

  Reluctantly, the man unzipped his jacket and struggled to get his arms out of it, still in horrible pain from the stab wounds and being careful not to tear the stitches.

  He discarded the jacket and then looked up at Salty.

  Salty raised his chin to indicate he wanted the man to continue.

  The man removed his sweater and shirt with equal difficulty, along with his undervest. He tried to wrap his arms around himself to stop the trembling. As well as his fear, the compound had also grown cold because the power had been shut down for so long.

  Salty glanced below his waist and waited for the man to undo his thermal pants and pull them down around his ankles.

  He stepped out of them and slid his thumbs between his quivering pale flesh and the elasticated waistband of his underwear.

  ‘Leave them on,’ Salty said, screwing up his face in disapproval. ‘I don’t need to see that.’

  Now that the man was almost naked, the effects of the Necro-virus on his body were obvious. The whole pathway of veins running through him was on display like some lifelike model in a biology class.

  Salty turned away in disgust and waved his knife towards the bed.

  ‘Climb on,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ the man replied.

  ‘You gonna tell me where my friends are?’

  The man didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to for Salty to understand he wasn’t going to play ball.

  ‘Then climb the fuck aboard, sailor.’ Salty gripped the handle of the knife tightly by his side.

  The man got down onto the frame and lay flat on his back. The metal springs started to creak under his weight and his relentless shivering.

  Salty got down to him with some fresh cable ties, securing his wrists and ankles to each corner of the frame. He grimaced as his extended position stretched the stitches running through his injury. Afterwards, he stepped back from the bed, already ashamed of what he was doing. He thought his prisoner looked like the cru
dest version of da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man—this iteration mocking the human capacity for cruelty and moral corruption.

  He quickly snapped out of his malaise, aware that he needed to grit his teeth and work through this if he was going to stand any chance of finding the others. On with the performance, he thought.

  ‘The idea is to connect electrodes to two separate areas so it creates an electrical flow between one part of the body to another.’

  Salty reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bottle of conductive gel in order to wet the surface of the electrodes. He sat down on the floor next to the bed frame and attached one electrode to the skin of the man’s chest and the other on his upper left arm.

  He then turned the power switch to the control box, and the small light turned green. The electrical current caused the box to hum. Salty gripped the voltage knob between his thumb and forefinger as the man bounced on the springs due to his body tremors.

  ‘Let’s start with something nice and easy,’ Salty said. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘You don’t understand. We have crossed over. We are the nameless ones. We—’

  ‘Wrong answer.’ Salty cranked the knob clockwise and moved it to number 10 on the dial.

  The man’s back arched violently as the volts surged through him, his jaw locked and his body rigid.

  Salty held him there in acute agony for about fifteen seconds before he turned the dial back to its reset point.

  His body fell limp again, and his back hit the metal springs of the bed frame. The man began to shiver, and the muscles across his chest and arms convulsed, trying to recover.

  Salty didn’t give him a moment Before he fired the next question at him.

  ‘How come you’re infected but you ain’t dead?’

  The man turned his head to look him in the eye.

  ‘By the grace of God,’ he said.

  Salty smirked. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect an ignorant ape like you to understand the complexities of our creator’s plan.’

  ‘I suppose he planned for you to end up here with me, did he? Gotta say, hotshot, I don’t think God’s all that keen on you.’

  Salty turned the voltage on again, holding it at the same setting as last time but for an extra five seconds.

  The man’s whole body seized up. The cable ties had already started to cut through the flesh they bound.

  ‘I read somewhere that you fundamentalist types believe suffering brings you closer to divinity, so I’m guessin’ you’re lovin’ this. Bet all your buddies back home would be jealous if they could see you now. Why don’t you tell me where they are and I could bring them closer to God too?’

  ‘You don’t hear the word of God,’ the man spat through gritted teeth. ‘All you can hear is the sound of death as it stalks your every waking moment. You’re not meant for this world, and neither are your friends.’

  Salty dropped his head, wearied by the torture and the physical trauma he’d enacted. He removed his cap to wipe the sweat from his hairline and then placed it back on his head.

  The last wave of electricity had well and truly dissipated, and the man’s muscles were working overtime to recover.

  Salty took up the wire attached to the man’s arm and pulled the electrode from it. As it peeled away, a section of skin came with it, leaving a circle of burnt flesh in its place. He traced the wire down the intruder’s shaking torso and hovered just above his navel.

  ‘This isn’t goin’ to stop until you tell me what I need to know. And you might be right. Maybe hellfire is all that’s waitin’ for me in the end, but it ain’t the end yet, and while I’m still breathin’, your life is gonna be a world of hurt.’

  The man responded by closing his eyes and mouthing a silent prayer to himself.

  Salty’s heart sank at the thought of having to do it again, but he had to finish what he’d started, so he reattached the electrode to the man’s stomach.

  ‘What’s that symbol on your head mean?’

  The man didn’t open his eyes and continued with his prayer.

  Salty turned the knob to 15, and the voltage surged through the core of the man’s body.

  Blood seeped from the abrasions growing on his wrists and ankles where the cable ties cut into him. Wisps of white smoke floated up from beneath the electrodes.

  Salty held his gag reflex at bay when he caught a whiff of smouldering flesh.

  As soon as Salty shut the control box down, the man blurted out the answer to his last question.

  ‘It’s his hand and the righteous souls under his protection.’

  ‘Those righteous souls are you and your group?’ Salty asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All right. Now we’re gettin’ somewhere. So, do these righteous souls have a leader?’

  ‘He is The Father, we are The Children,’ the man said.

  The torturer took his hands from the box and leaned forwards.

  ‘That’s real good, hotshot. Who’s the father?’

  Even in his pained, strung-out state, the man still managed to unleash a belly laugh. He laughed so hard and long that Salty suspected the torture may be affecting his mind.

  ‘Mind tellin’ me what’s so funny?’

  The man fell silent and finally looked at him again.

  ‘It’s a shame that you’re never going to get to find out.’

  Salty reverted to the box and angrily cranked it to 25.

  The man’s body convulsed in a violent rage, causing the bed frame to lift from the floor.

  He held the dial there for at least thirty seconds. When he turned it back to 0, he immediately sent the dial to 25 again.

  The arch of the man’s back was so pronounced it looked like it might break in two. The stench of cooking flesh filled the rec room, and the cultist wasn’t shivering anymore. His breathing had grown shallow, the only real movement the twitching of his fingers and toes.

  ‘Look, man, I don’t take any pride in this. It can all stop and I can end your pain right now, quick and easy. All you gotta do is tell me where they are.’

  The man spoke with all the strength he had left. It was barely audible, and Salty got up to lean over him.

  ‘B-Black Temple.’

  ‘Black Temple? What is that? A place? Is that where they’ve been taken?’

  ‘Black Temple,’ the man whispered again.

  ‘Where is this Black Temple?’

  ‘Billings,’ the man said, drifting in and out of consciousness.

  ‘Hey, hey. Stay awake.’ Salty slapped him on the side of his face. ‘Billings?’

  ‘Billings County… North Dakota.’

  ‘Where in Billings County? Which town?’

  The man’s body contorted with a jolt, as if he were receiving another shock, and Salty moved clear of the frame, suspecting the control box had malfunctioned.

  There was no electrical current running through him except for the internal reaction that had now taken hold. He convulsed as much as was possible with his limbs restrained. A white foam began to bubble from between his lips, and his eyes rolled back in his head.

  ‘No, no, no. Not yet.’ Salty held the man by his face and shook him. ‘Stay with me.’

  It was no good. His body eventually fell limp, and the frothing saliva spilled from his mouth and onto Salty’s fingers.

  Salty released him and placed his ear against the man’s chest—no heartbeat. He couldn’t find a pulse when he pressed two fingers into the side of his neck either.

  In desperation, he raised both hands in a clench and brought them down hard onto the centre of the captive’s chest.

  Whether it was a heart attack caused by the trauma of electrocution or internal bleeding from the stab wounds, it didn’t matter. The man was dead, along with Salty’s only source of information.

  Salty got to his feet, raced over to the wall, and snatched up the wire, tearing the plug from the main sock
et. He then returned to the control box and booted it in utter frustration.

  In order to get his head straight, he left the rec room and was instantly greeted by Anna in the corridor. As he knelt to enter a mutually comforting embrace with the dog, he gripped the folds of flesh through her fur and realised he had only one option available to him.

  He gathered as many supplies as he could fit into the Snowcat, including the snowmobile, which secured to the back of it with a virtually full tank of gas. He filled the tank of the Snowcat and stored every last drop of gas he could find in the garage in a couple of carrying cans. If it didn’t get him all the way across the tundra, he’d have to just ditch the vehicles and walk.

  Next, he raided the infirmary for a makeshift field kit and anything flammable that could be used as a potential weapon.

  In the map room, he was able to plot the six-hundred-mile route to Billings County, North Dakota, careful to divert his journey to avoid any concentrated populations.

  He contemplated tracking back down to retrieve Crawford’s body but realised time was running out, he hadn’t recovered from his injuries, and she would already be buried deep beneath the snow by now. He’d take what was left of her cabin’s liquor stash instead and toast her in a way that was fitting to the way she’d lived.

  Salty was soon thankful he’d made the trip to the cabin when he found a 9mm semi-automatic with a couple extra clips and a 12-gauge pump action shotgun with almost a full box of shells stashed in a cabinet.

  Believing he had everything he needed, he was saying goodbye to the place he’d called home for the past five months when something else occurred to him. He’d left his rifle on the floor in the rec room. It was battered all to hell and low on ammunition, but an extra weapon was an extra weapon.

  ‘Wait here, girl,’ he said, leaving Anna in the tractor garage and making his way back into the compound.

  As he expected, the man he’d strapped to the bed frame and interrogated had been given a new lease on life—reanimated and snarling. The circular burns on his body had now shrivelled and were slightly darker than the rest of his skin, the electrodes still attached.

  He knelt down to collect the rifle, running his index finger across the deep groove the man’s knife had made when he’d attacked him.