by Burgy, P. J.
“You’re sick in the head, Frankie. The fever burned your brain.”
“The fever woke me up.” He inched closer to the bars and she moved back. “You’ll see soon enough. I know you will. I heard what happened. I wish I could watch you turn, Kara. I do. But I’ll be at Blue Lagoon.”
“Blue Lagoon? No.”
“Does that bother you?”
“You know them. You have family there.”
“If I woke up, Tommy will too. That’s how it works, you know. Genetics and all.”
“Is that what you want for him? For your brother?” Her lips pulled back over her teeth and she slid off toward the back wall of her cell.
“It’s in our DNA that we will survive.” he said, gripping the bars now. “Mothers, fathers, children, brothers, sisters, all different, all die, but twins, perfect twins, they are the same. My fate is his fate. Our blood is the same blood.”
She balked. “Don’t do it.”
“And why do you care so much, eh?” He leaned against the bars, his expression a mockery of concern. “You always hated the fort, didn’t you? I remember. That memory didn’t get burned away. Neither did all those memories of showing you the ropes, showing you the routes we took, showing you maps and listening to you share your feelings about how much you hated everyone there.”
“I didn’t say I hated them.”
He smiled again. “Maybe I'm remembering wrong.”
“I was angry. I wasn't ready to give up the rover life. I was younger and I said a lot of things I didn't mean,” she said. “There are good people in Blue Lagoon.”
“You're talking like we mean to murder them all.”
Not wanting to get too close to the bars, she leaned forward just the tiniest bit for emphasis. “You do. Meredith told me, everyone from Pleasant Tree died. You killed them. You're going to do the same thing to Blue Lagoon.”
“Not all of them died.”
“They might as well have.”
“One remains intact.”
She went stiff. “Who? Your new 'Mother'? Who is it?”
“You'll meet her soon. You'll know her.”
“Tell me.”
“No, I want to see your face. You'll be awake by then too, so it'll be even better. You'll be so happy, Kara. I can't wait to see,” he said. “And when your family, my family, is here with us.”
She crawled closer to the bars, stopping with a few feet left to go before reaching him. “You have to let me go, and let me warn them. You have to let both of us go. His name is-”
“Russell. I know. He told her where you were.”
She went silent.
“Not right away. He didn’t want them to hurt you,” he went on. “But Meredith got the answers she was looking for. She always does. I think she really likes you, even if you made her angry. You did us a huge favor after all.”
“Please...”
“I can tell that Russell really likes you too. I asked him how you were, when I could, since she was talking to him for a while. He didn't want anything to happen to you. That's all he kept saying to me. He let himself waste away for you. I guess I could understand it, even if none of the other Kindred do.” He let out a soft snort, shaking his head.
“Frankie, you have to let us go.”
“You destroyed Salvation for him, didn't you?”
“I needed to get us out of there,” she replied.
“You burned it down to save him,” he said. “We were close, weren't we?”
“We were.” She stared at his face, noting his suddenly dreamy expression.
“It’s funny, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“What we’ll do in the name of love,” he mused, dark eyes on her face. “I wonder how much death and destruction is left in the wake of that single word. What horrors are inflicted on innocent bystanders, the casualties of love? Like the virus itself, it gets in, and destroys from the inside out, continuing its existence at any cost, as if love were a disease, spreading its shadow and smothering all light, bursting cells and burning synapses. Love does far more harm than hate. That is very funny, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Frankie.”
“I always liked you, Kara. That didn’t change,” he said. “Maybe when you’re awake, you’ll like me again too.”
“Letting me out of this cage might help.”
“I wish I could watch when you wake up. I can’t.” He stood up. “No knowing how long that will take. Half a day or two days? We’ll be leaving tomorrow at sunset. Not enough time.”
“Please. Let me out.”
“I’ll see you around, Kara,” he said to her, and then brushed himself off. “Don’t worry about them all. It will be okay. The ones who die, they are in a better place. And some may wake up, who knows? How great will that be? We’ll inherit the earth together. Be happy, Kara. We’ll all be together soon. I’ll see you around.”
She watched as he left, her mouth open, her eyes wide.
She waited there for a long time before testing the bars of the cage. Sturdy. Secure. Strong. Where Russell had given them a good shaking, the bars were a bit looser in the ground. He had broken some of the foundation, and the bars had some give to them. Kara tried to force a bar out of place and found it impossible. Instead, she was able to push it as far as she could, using her body and pivoting just right. Putting her entire weight and strength into it, she found that she could fit her head through. She considered this fact and weighed her options.
She pushed hard against the bar and squeezed her head through. She had to twist just right to get her shoulders out, and then she had her hands on the floor outside. Her hips proved to be the biggest challenge.
It was a slow process, and she had to pivot and flex to slide herself from between the bars. Her calf dragged hard against the broken concrete and a jagged edge slashed her leg, cutting through the fabric. It stung and she bit her lip. After a few more grueling moments, she was on the other side, lying on the platform looking back into the cage.
She’d broken a slight sweat and realized she’d been holding her breath. She took in air and fought off the urge to lie down and have a brief rest. Exhaustion rippled through her. Not physical exhaustion but something else. Her insides ached. It took everything she had to stand up.
She managed to climb down onto the tracks. There was a long stretch of tunnel ahead of her and a section coming up that Kara was not looking forward to passing. As she walked carefully, quietly, through the dimly lit train tunnel, she heard the sound of them breathing, their labored breaths growing louder the closer she got. Their stink became overwhelming and she covered her nose and mouth.
A horn sounded somewhere far off, once and then twice. Reaching the cage of the mindless Wailers, she was surprised to see their lack of a reaction to her. A few stared, mouths agape and drooling, but, when the horn sounded a third time the things tilted their heads and moved to the corner of the cage closest to the origin of the sound. Kara blinked and then continued onward.
She tried to stick to the shadows, hugging the tunnel walls as she crept down the tracks. The candles provided just enough light to guide her way, and she paused every few feet to listen to the sound of the hive. The ground under her feet was broken and littered with trash ranging from discarded clothing to bent car fenders. And the bones・ there were so many bones. Many of the skeletal remains were those of animals, like dogs and pigs, but she recognized a human femur in the mix as well and quickened her pace. The smell was terrible, worse in some spots than others due to the level of decay; some of the bones still had bits of flesh clinging to them, rotting away.
She came to a large pile of clothing and shoes. There were dark stains on most of the shirts and jackets, and the pants she pulled out were ripped to shreds. Her eyes widened as she discovered a utility belt, the small satchel still latched closed and heavy. She opened it and found a multi-lens flashlight. Her pulse quickening, she tried out the red light and found that it w
orked. Searching through the pile of clothing, Kara avoided touching anything that looked soiled while she sought out anything that might be of use. She found a pocket knife in a pair of torn jeans and a thin chain with a heart locket stuck to the frayed threads of a flannel shirt. Choosing to take the knife, she slid it into the same pocket where she kept Renshen's angel.
She took the angel out for a moment to run her thumb over the front of the metallic wings, her lungs burning suddenly as she thought of her father back home in Blue Lagoon. She placed her findings away with the exception of the flashlight, which she kept out and in her right hand, at the ready.
It was getting noisier and noisier the longer she traveled. The Infected must have been having some kind of party by the sound of it. They were hooting and singing, and one of them shrieked. It was the cry of a Wailer, followed by laughter and then a different scream. They were taking turns, competing, perhaps playing a game. Whatever it was, the sound was unsettling. Another hollered for them to 'knock it off', as they were 'scaring the mother', and the shrieking ceased.
Their less frightening festivities were still loud enough to cover her, masking her footsteps. As she sneaked closer to a brighter lit area, she was surprised to hear music playing, one of the Infected strumming on a guitar far off in the distance while others closer by sang and chanted. An argument was ensuing, two or three voices growing in volume as a man established his right in the pecking order for first blood. Two others, one clearly a female, yelled in frustration. She heard the scuffle, seeing their shadows on the tunnel wall to the right of her as they neared the tracks. She ducked down close to the platform, as far to the left as she could go, out of their line of sight. The fight was brief but violent and more bodies joined in the shadow theater on the wall, pulling the two that grappled apart.
The horn blew again, longer this time, and she heard the voices calling to one another. They were leaving then, their conversations fading in volume.
Finally, after it had been silent for a few minutes, she peered over the platform, stealing a glance at the huts and tents. Some of the candles were still burning, and a torch had been lit and fastened to one of the columns next to a stairwell, the tile walls crumbling and painted to her direct left. Her heart skipped a beat. The run back to Blue Lagoon would be treacherous alone, she knew that. They needed warned though, there was no choice. She climbed onto the platform and sneaked to the stairwell, looking up to see darkness.
She looked back and forth, turned on the red light and then dashed up the steps. When she reached the top, she found a platform covered in garbage and ripped fabric, but, more importantly, she found herself staring at a barrier.
This stairwell had been a portal to the street, leading down to the subway, and the enclosure was covered in black tarp, stapled and nailed to the metal structure above and around Kara. The actual opening had been boarded up and the wood was painted black. Pushing against the wood planks produced a creaking that she immediately regretted, but she had seen light through the gaps in the center of the obstruction.
She considered trying to use the pocket knife to pry the nails from the planks, but then imagined the streams of light that would betray her escape attempt. If she were fast enough though, she could manage to get most of the nails out before pushing the planks apart, and she could slip out easily. Using the knife, she began to pry out nails and loosen screws, her palm holding the planks and keeping them still. She frowned, pausing, and remembered Russell's distraught expression in the cage. She thought of his strange smirk in the garage and how he had been hanging from the wall in Salvation as she viewed him through the glass, Elijah's reflection beside her own.
She stared at the pocket knife and remembered Meredith's words, Frankie's words, their voices melding into one strange song, reminding her of the lone survivor. Mother. The thought paralyzed her.
She couldn't leave Russell or the survivor of Pleasant Tree, in whatever condition that they were in. Whether it meant she had to put them out of their misery or rescue them, she couldn't pull the planks aside and fall out in the streets just yet. She did, however, loosen as many as possible first until she was able to feel it all give way. A good, hard push would topple the barrier, and Kara imagined that she would be exiting the hive in such a fashion.
Giving one last look at her only way out, she clenched her jaw and went back down the steps and to the platform below, red flashlight in hand as she took stock of her surroundings. She was all by herself at least, as the Infected were gone, hopefully gathering somewhere else in the tunnels far from her.
Left, she saw the platform end and give way to another train track, another platform on the other side. The station opened up wide down that way, and the Infected had built an infrastructure of homes and tents more densely packed than the collection she had before her. It looked like a little city and Kara wondered how many of them there could be in the hive. She thought she saw bridges across the train tracks. In the low light, and with the lack of candles that way, it was hard to tell.
To the right she saw the tunnel she had come from, a candle lit track leading off into the unknown. She took in a deep breath and watched the candles flickering along the track, wondering what was down there, and why the Infected had left the candles burning. She turned off the red light to save the battery as her path would be lit enough.
She slid down into the tunnel again.
There were a few points during the trek through the tunnel where she needed to use her red flashlight again, where the flames had been snuffed out by the cool air currents. After many minutes of walking in silence, acutely aware of every pebble under her sneakers, Kara saw that the tunnel opened up about fifty feet ahead. There was another platform to the left and the smell of barn animals and filth filled her nostrils. She scowled, confused, and moved quickly. She could hear them now. Snorting. Shuffling. Whining. After taking a look over the platform, Kara's eyes widened and she climbed up to stand on the edge.
This part of the station had been converted into animal housing very similar to the one she'd seen at Salvation, though these pens were far less comfortable for the creatures being kept there. There were stacks of cages filled with various small animals, dogs, cats, rabbits, all distressed, piled up along a wall. The Infected had made the walls surrounding the animals, the fences and gates meshed together against a backing of plywood, haphazardly nailed in uneven segments to create half of a barn. There were only a few candles here, the light low, the shadows deep, and she again needed her flashlight to see. Pigs had been crowded into three pens, as well as some sheep. Another cage, the gate tall and wrapped in barbed wire, was filled with skittish deer.
Many of the animals were injured or bleeding and the flies were massing around a few shriveled carcasses. She had to cover her nose from the smell of death. There was no food or water for the animals, not that she could see, and their bleating cries hurt her ears. This had not been a train stop, Kara could tell by the way the ceiling had been carved in above the animals. This had been a nook, a maintenance platform, and the Infected had dug it out and made it into this gallery of horror. This was a pantry.
She heard a quiet snort and turned to see a large, pale horse standing in the shadows. The animal hadn't made a sound before that and approached her, stopping at the gate, bathed in red light behind the tall fence. It was surreal to see a horse standing so calmly in such a place, in such conditions. The creature's demeanor was serene though, and when she approached it, the horse shook its mane about. It was still wearing its bridle and saddle.
She came closer, holding her hand out, palm toward the white horse. The beast stomped its hooves, shyly moving away. When Kara turned off the red light and slipped it away, the horse tilted its head, watching her with one eye, then turned to her. The horse came up right against the metal gate and she met it there, where the candle light was better. It was a mare, fully grown, with a white coat and a yellowing mane. She placed her hand out and touched the mare's nose, then tsk'd twice. The
horse bowed. When she pulled her hand back, she saw the horse drop down to kneel.
She stepped back and the horse rose to stand, snorting again. Purger horse.
She studied the gate, finding it easy to open and close. The other gates were the same, latched loosely and able to be opened. Swallowing, she nodded to the pale horse and then gazed off toward the next tunnel opening, as the candles along the track continued to lead into further darkness. She hated to leave it there, but had no choice.
The next tunnel was better lit and she reached the opening after what felt like a hundred feet. Again, a platform on the left. This time, however, the stink of the Infected had been growing stronger and stronger the entire way. It was with nervous hands that she pulled herself up to have a look at the platform. There were torches on the walls, a cage built into the recess. Twenty or so Wailers stood swaying behind the bars, their bodies crowded together. She would have continued on, not wanting to linger here, if her attention had not been caught by one of the Wailers in particular.
She crawled up onto the platform and made her way to the cage, slowly. They noticed her, and, like the others before, became interested but made no sounds. Their jaws worked and their eyes trained on her movements. She covered her face but it was not the smell that was making her sick.
She recognized Annie Kalamon, despite her features being warped and smeared with grime. Annie stood with the Wailers, clothes ragged, stomach noticeably flat; she was built like one of them now. Her expression was lax, missing the light that Kara had grown accustomed to over the years she had known her. This was no longer her friend.
“Oh, no, no...” Kara gagged against her fingers, watching as the thing that had been Annie canted its head and snapped its jaws at her, the black drool running down its chin. Those empty black and red eyes scanned Kara once before moving off to the distance beyond the cage, and then to the ceiling. It made sniffing noises and then choked up black bile.
All of them were gagging up now.
