by Josiah Upton
His voice cuts out when Krecker turns off the power. We sit in total darkness for what seems like hours, only the sound of our breath moving the stale air. Horrible thoughts fill my mind, of Zaul getting killed when those doors open, or that it’s him doing the killing. At first I tell myself both options are equally heartbreaking, but it’s a lie. A hopeless need to believe he’s still alive consumes me. No matter the cost, I have to see him again, or all of this was for nothing.
“That should be enough time,” Tran says, breaking the silence. “Turn it back on.”
Machines beep and hum inside the control room, and a moment later the screens blink back to life. At first it’s only gray static, but then the surveillance feed resumes. An all-out battle has begun. Hybrid versus human. Containee versus APA. The Sons and Daughters of Sludge against the children of flesh and blood.
It wages on two fronts, with the females spilling out onto the Facility lawn, and the males packing the tunnel wall-to-wall. There’s so much chaotic movement, so many bodies colliding that I can’t pick out any faces in the crowd. And I don’t want to. I escape to a corner of the control room and refuse to look, just like Zaul told me to.
The minutes drag on at an agonizing pace. Each second that passes guarantees another Hybrid or Human has lost their life. I don’t have to watch to know that’s the reality. I only pray – pray like my father used to – that Zaul isn’t among the casualties. If he dies, I will have nothing left in this world.
“They did it,” Krecker says. “Those bastards actually did it!”
His words can’t be real. It must be a joke. I run back to the screens, and see the bloody terror has in fact ceased. Only a few agents remain in both locations, and have laid down their weapons. But I won’t have peace until I see him, still alive and breathing.
In the tunnel, the Hybrid with the missing fingers approaches the cluster of surrendered agents. He turns, says a few animated words to the Hybrids behind him, then grabs a frightened agent by the throat.
“What is he doing?” I ask. “They surrendered, he needs to stop!”
“And what do you want me to do about it from here?” Krecker asks. “Flicker the lights on and off in morse code? Those men should have seen this coming. Going toe-to-toe with an Ugger only has two options: kill or be killed. It ain’t gonna end civil. A tiger can’t change its stripes.”
But something else happens in the tunnel, something that fills my heart with relief and joy. A Hybrid emerges from the crowd of containees, and knocks down the one attacking the agent. It’s Zaul.
“You see,” Tran says with a chuckle. “He truly is incr…”
Brains and blood splatter onto the control board. Tran collapses to the floor. Krecker turns, raising his rifle. He too falls with a gunshot to the head. The direction of the bullets draws my attention to the control room doorway. In it stands a man covered in sweat, meat slush, and blood from both Hybrid and human. The stains from his murders make crimson lines inside the creases of his face.
“Hello, Ice Princess,” Caesar says. His expression is as empty as when he killed my father. His gun fires, and a bullet rips through my thigh. Torment holds me in its clutches as I fall to the ground. He shoots again, this time in my shoulder. I wait for the finale, but it doesn’t come. Why won’t he just kill me? Why does he insist on prolonging my suffering?
“You will die,” he says, walking slowly into the control room. “I promise that. But first I want you to see something.”
Caesar goes to the tall black column that Krecker used to turn off the collars, the Shock Box. He engages the lever, and a small green monitor on its side glows to life. Letters, numbers and symbols scroll across, until a command prompt appears. He starts typing.
“What are you doing?” I ask in futility. No questions or answers will change whatever he intends to do.
“I’m purging the Sludge from this Facility,” he answers as he types. “Once and for all. And you get to see it firsthand.”
“No!” I scream, and begin dragging myself toward him.
Without taking his eyes off the screen, he raises his gun and shoots again. This time the bullet tears into my hip. I scream and cuss and writhe on the floor. Every movement, every breath intensifies the burning pain. Like the original Reanimates, the only sure way to stop a Hybrid is to kill the brain. But I’m not the average Hybrid. I don’t know if I can survive this without the medical attention that will never come.
Caesar enters one last command, and hits one last key. On the surveillance feed, I see all the containees dropping like flies, grasping their collars as electricity throttles them.
“Uggers can only handle about three minutes of sustained shock, before their heads catch on fire.” He smiles, but it’s devoid of any joy, any genuine humanity. He is soulless. “I’m going to leave it on until the batteries run out. Enjoy the show.”
No. This can’t be the end. My mind searches frantically for a solution, but the only one it finds is fighting Caesar to the Shock Box. I’ve got three bullets in me, and there are many more waiting in his gun. It won’t work. I couldn’t possibly take any more shots…
My eyes flicker to Tran’s body, just inches away. That pill – the Rage Candy – is still in his pocket. I don’t know what it will do to me, but the last time I saw it in action, a barrage of gunfire couldn’t bring down Rigg. And right now, it’s the only option.
Caesar doesn’t notice my hand’s slow journey from the ground to Tran’s pocket. He’s too busy gleefully witnessing the fulfillment of his greatest fantasy. In a moment, the pill is fished out of the coat, and brought to my lips. Fear of the unknown freezes me, but the thought of a thousand containees enduring a horrific death urges me forward.
I swallow the pill.
Chapter 52
Genny
Nothing happens. I sense no change. There is no surge of adrenaline, no destructive whirlwind waiting to be unleashed. I even count to ten in my head, but by the end I’m still in control, and very much aware of the Hybrid men and women riding lightning on their way to extermination. I look to the screens, observing the many faces that I’ve failed…
They’re all mine. Every face is mine. Strewn about on the Facility lawn, collapsed in the dark tunnel beneath the Earth. A thousand convulsing Geneva Grests. No, a hundred of them. A handful.
One.
I stare Genny in the face, her eyes sealed shut. The skin pulsates, little lines running underneath the surface. Snakes in the grass. When her lids break open, crust flies through the air like shards of glass, revealing decayed pupils, black and whithered. She sees me. I see her. I see myself through her eyes, and she sees herself through mine.
She laughs. I laugh. It’s maniacal yet rhythmic, almost like a song. It repeats over and over, slowly morphing into lyrics, into a mantra. An invitation.
Screw Kill Eat Screw Kill Eat Screw Kill Eat Screw Kill Eat Screw Kill Eat…
Blood dribbles down the side of her quivering, rotten jowls. In between laughing syllables of her (our) chanting, Genny stuffs hunks of dripping flesh into her mouth, and offers me a bite. Yes, I respond. I grasp the meat, feeling unseen bones crunch under God-like strength as I pull it closer to my burning mouth. It’s a hand, attached to an arm, attached to a body. The body has a face.
Tran. The name ripples in my burning brain. This food had a name. How did it get here? Who gave it a name?
The Other Genny roars indignantly at me, and takes a bite. The biggest one yet, but still leaving enough to offer me. But behind her is another piece of food, with its own face and its own name. Cracker?... Krecker. A man. These meals have identities. They were people. Once alive, but now dead.
And there is another one here, moving and breathing. Blood pumping through its flesh.
Screw Kill Eat Screw Kill Eat Screw Kill…
The food moves, craning its neck for hours and hours, slowly turning its visage toward me. When I finally see it, I feel deeply unsettled. A pain is connected with this face, one
that digs into my flesh like hooks. I can feel the holes in my skin, the blood seeping out. I grab the food with greedy claws. My teeth bite down. A scream carries faintly in the distance.
I want it to go away. I want it dead. I want it stripped naked and humiliated. I want it pulverized and eaten and gone forever. Because this thing that I consume killed a part of me.
Genny, a voice whispers. A man’s. His face appears on the screens, and I remember where I am. I remember who I am. And I remember the one that gave everything for me. I start to cry.
Genny, my father says again in a hushed tone, like he’s only trying to wake me for school. Get up. They need you. There isn’t much time.
“I can’t leave,” I say. “I’m hungry. So very hungry.” My eyes drift back to the meat. Screaming and shaking. Pleading for its life. Its delicious flesh bounces around in my mouth, grinding under my molars. I swallow. “This is what I want. This is who I am, and all I have left.”
Is it? he asks. My father smiles, and a million memories flood back to me. Who are you?
I shut my eyes. It’s too late for that. The meat has already been eaten. Sliding down my throat, headed toward my gut right now. “I am evil. I am Sludge. I should have stayed dead!”
You are my daughter, he insists. And I love you.
I drop Caesar’s mutilated arm. I drop it like a bag of bricks and run to the Shock Box. How does this work? I can’t focus. The Rage Candy causes my vision to throb in time with my racing heart, a sheen of red distorting everything my eyes take in. My only option is to destroy it all.
I wail, and start bashing, tearing, ripping and crushing. Sparks fly. Electricity jolts my body, but the drugs in my blood power me through it. Within seconds, the Shock Box is nothing but a twisted heap of metal and plastic. Back on the screens, the Hybrids stop shaking. A few moments later, they’re standing up. It’s over.
I’m at the door, ready to bolt, ready to leave this place and this moment forever. But before I’m gone, a high-pitched whimper tugs at my ear. Like a stray dog that was just struck by a bus. Caesar rolls on the floor, clutching his mangled arm. It’s beyond mending, he’ll never use it again. My Prisoner – the Other Genny – stands over his body, beckoning me to finish the meal that my father interrupted. I can still taste the blood in my mouth…
I rip my feet away from the floor to escape, praying that Caesar bleeds out in this room, and finishes the job that I can’t – that I won’t – see through. But deep down I know, if anyone can survive death, it’s this vile cockroach. I hope I don’t regret this act of mercy. Or is it cowardice? And as I run, I hear the Other Genny’s laughter chase after me, nipping at my heels. She’ll never let me forget what I’ve done today.
It isn’t until I’ve passed by the same hallway twice that I realize I’m lost. That’s also when I realize I’m bleeding all over, covered in bullet holes from Caesar’s gun. He shot me everywhere but the head. I can’t feel the pain yet, but I sense dull points of pressure squeeze me, like the fingers of ghosts. The Rage Candy is wearing off, yet still strong enough to disorient me, and utterly destroy my sense of direction. By the time I can get my bearings, my wounds will overtake me. I’m going to die in this place afterall.
“Genny!” a voice shouts from down the hall. It’s Quinn. She looks like hell, but is miraculously unscathed.
“Help!” I scream. My voice sounds strange, hearing it for the first time since ingesting the Rage Candy. Which means the conversation I had with my father was completely in my head. “I don’t know where I am, and… and I’m hurt.”
I feel weak. The ghost fingers press harder. It’s becoming more real.
Quinn rushes to my side, propping me up with her arm, and we begin hobbling down the hall. “We need to leave now. All the agents are dead, surrendered, or gone, and it won’t be long before the military shows up and cuts down anything that moves.”
“Zaul,” I say with a choking cough. “Where is he?”
“The males still haven’t come up from the tunnel to the street,” she says. “I don’t know if they made it.”
“They’ll make it,” I insist. “They had already taken over the tunnel, and then their collars went off. But they’ll make it. They have to.”
Quinn gives me a sideways glance, looking over my wounds. “What happened in there? Where’s Tran and Krecker?”
“Dead,” I mutter, with great effort. Using my throat and lungs is becoming torture. “Caesar killed them, and hit the Shock Box. I stopped him.” Quinn’s eyes travel to my mouth, stained crimson with blood that is not mine. Guilt eats at me. “I…”
“Whatever happened, you don’t need to explain yourself,” she says. “Ever.”
We round a corner, and I see something I haven’t witnessed in several days. Sunlight. As we approach the door, the number of containee and agent bodies littering the hallway increases. I can’t recognize any of them. “Where is Alice?” I ask. All bitterness towards her has evaporated. I just want to know she’s alive.
“I don’t know,” Quinn says. Her aged Hybrid features tighten. “I lost sight of her shortly after the doors opened. If she’s still alive, she probably ran off with the others toward the mountains. I’m the only one that stuck around.”
“To get me?” I ask. I’m starting to feel dizzy, and the sunlight that hits us when we exit the Facility bathes me in winter-kissed warmth. “That’s… that’s sweet…”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Quinn answers, chuckling. Laughter sounds strange, as we step over bodies and maneuver around blood puddles. The battlefield is horrific. She points to a black armored truck, several yards away. I can barely see it through my squinting eyes. “That’s the ride I’m hitching. I don’t think they’ll let me on without you. You’re my ticket.”
“But, Krecker… Zaul…”
My legs give way. I fall to the grass, and land face-to-face with a dead containee. Number 1838. She wasn’t here long. In fact, I recognize her from Rigg’s Hybrid House. Her eyes are dead-white, like all other Hybrids, but I can still tell life is missing from them. Her fingers are around her collar. She was executed by one of the surrendered agents, when the Shock Box went off and made her completely vulnerable. Perhaps if I had acted quicker, if I didn’t get lost in Hunger and revenge…
“No time to lay around,” Quinn says. She picks me up with ease, cradling me like a small child. “Somehow we made it out alive. Let’s keep it that way.”
When we make it to the truck, Quinn barks and pounds on the door with her one free hand. The way she holds me in her other arm, my head hangs over and puts the sun right in my eyes. It’s so bright, so warm. I could just fall asleep.
The truck doors open, and two masked men stand at waist-height. One steadies a gun, while another carries a scent that wakes up my nose. Dalton.
“Holy shit!” he screams, pulling up his mask. He jumps out of the truck and starts slapping my face frantically. “Genny… Genny!”
“It’s not polite to hit a girl,” I groan, my voice almost a whisper. “And we both know I can kick your ass now.”
“You…” he starts, laughing nervously. “You asshole.”
“She’s torn up,” Quinn says. “Badly. And I don’t know what her body can take. She needs medical care. We have to leave, right away.”
“You aren’t part of the extraction!” the other man shouts, pointing his pistol at her. “Step away before I put you down!”
“She’s not a dog,” I retort. “And she’s taking Officer Krecker’s spot. He didn’t make it.”
“That’s not how it works, Gen,” Dalton says. “She can’t come.”
“Then neither am I,” I say. “She saved my life. And many others.”
“Fine,” Dalton says.
The unknown man puts down his rifle, and picks up something else from the truck floor, a slender metal object with a handle. At first I think it’s another gun, but it doesn’t look quite right. “Turn around,” he tells Quinn. She complies, and he places the end
of it against the back of her collar. “There’s a tracker in there that will lead the APA right to us. I’ve gotta take it off. This might get a little hot.”
Quinn’s arms flinch as sparks fly over her head. They remind me of the fireworks at an APA New Independence Day celebration my dad took me to when I was a kid. Bright and dazzling in the night sky.
Dalton steps forward, and looks around at the empty street. The nearest bodies other than our own are the dead ones on the Facility lawn. The females must have disappeared into the mountains some time ago. “Where’s Zaul?”
My heart grows cold. He should have been here by now. I look to the hatch off the side of the road. Closed. Still as a coffin lid. “He’ll be here,” I say. “Just give it another minute.”
“We don’t have another minute,” the other man says. He pulls Quinn’s collar off, and throws it into the bushes, cursing from the scalding heat. “This shitstorm is all over the news, radio. Base said they spotted a fleet of choppers flying over Pikes Peak. If we don’t leave now, we won’t leave period.”
Quinn lifts me up into the truck, but I thrash and claw, clinging to whatever tiny amount of Rage Candy there is in me. “No! I’m not leaving without him!” My eyes stay fixed on the hatch. I focus on it, trying to will it open. Hoping to make Zaul pop up and assure me that he’s alright. If he’s not with me, then this was pointless. Living without him, knowing that I carry on while he rots in a tunnel underground...
I can’t take it. I don’t want it anymore. I’d rather stay here and die.
“Gen,” Dalton says.
I ignore him. I pull harder, against Quinn’s grasp, against the completely present pain that I now feel all over my body. It pales in comparison to what I feel in my heart. Everyone I’ve ever loved is dead.
“Genny!” he screams. “Your dad gave his life protecting you. Don’t waste that.”
I stop fighting. I let go, and fall into Quinn’s arms. Though she doesn’t need the assistance, Dalton helps her lift me up into the truck. As we drive away, I strain my broken body to peek out the window, staring at the hatch. It stays closed, until it’s out of sight.
