“Can you communicate with each other?” Jee probed.
“Kind of,” Reece said. “It’s too loud there to talk most of the time, but it feels like I can hear other’s thoughts. I suppose it’s what you would call some form of telepathy.” From the far end of the detention area, Big T let out an incoherent shout. He needs to wake up thought Reece.
“Any telepathy now?” Jee found this fascinating but was also concerned by what Schmidt would make of it.
“I hope not,” Jessy said. “A young child like Lizzy shouldn’t get to see what I want to do to that maniac boss of yours.” Jee’s eyes almost exploded with panic.
“Please,” Jee almost begged, “you mustn’t say things like that.”
“Why,” Jessy persisted, “what’s she going to do, lock me up?”
“I hate to say it Jessy, but I think Jee is right. We need to listen to her. Schmidt isn’t the type you want to mess with.”
“I’ve met people like Schmidt before,” Jessy persisted, “I know how they tick.”
“No,” Jee countered. “No, you really don’t.”
Jessy was about to say something more, but the air around her was suddenly filled with the scream that indicated Big T was in trouble. Everyone looked at once, and they saw their fellow prisoner fall from his bunk where he then proceeded to roll about madly on the floor. An alarm sounded, different from any Reece had heard previously. Schmidt’s experiment was about to suffer a serious setback.
***
He hadn’t been fast enough. No matter how much of a head start he could have had, it wouldn’t have been enough, not when faced with the speed and the persistence of the monsters that chased him.
The pursuit was over now, for they were here. The four horsemen harassed him at first, breaking him off from the bulk of the others, Big T’s size an attraction to them. The one on the pale horse had already collected three heads, each impaled on a skewer that hung from his horse. The woman also had gathered heads, the two above the left shoulder screaming in silent despair. Above the right shoulder, a third head rested, its face deformed by the flesh that had been peeled, exposing moist muscle that mysteriously seemed to avoid the dust that was ever present in the air.
A boot in his back sent Big T to the ground where he sprawled uselessly. Rising to his knees, the skin there splitting a thousand times, Big T lurched for the nearest of his attackers. He grabbed a leg and pulled, hoping that his strength would somehow unseat the rider. But nothing happened.
“Foolish,” an ephemeral voice mocked, and again Dawson’s boot sent him to the ground. So Big T crawled, his belly being opened by the wind sharpened rocks that made the finest razor seem blunt by comparison. The earth below him became stained, the sand soaking up his blood greedily, the first moisture to land in that spot for a millennium. In his wake, obscene and mutated plants began to erupt from the terrain, perverted flowers unfurling to display colours that mimicked the sick and tainted land.
“See how he feeds the land,” Susan’s voice boomed. “By the time we are done, whole forests will grow here. We shall make this land bloom.” One of the horsemen dismounted, the black horse painful to look at. It seemed to decay before Big T’s eyes.
“I will take this one,” the Man on Black said. With a toe, he flipped Big T onto his back, one of Smith’s decomposed toenails dropping off, only for it to slowly start to regrow as if protected by immortality. Smith, the Man on Black, gazed down at this victim who showed only defiance. “Such bravery in the face of what nobody should be forced to suffer.” Kneeling, Smith gripped the powerful man’s jaw with emaciated fingers. The grip was like a vice, the tips of the fingers snaking into the flesh, bringing fresh suffering to a man who thought he had already reached the limit of what man could endure.
Big T screamed in both worlds, causing his tormenters to smile with satisfaction.
“See how they reject their pain,” Smith noted, his fingers worming further into Big T’s cheeks. With the other hand, Smith grasped the back of the man’s scalp and gently began to peel it away, most of the hair already just ash. The bone of the skull, white underneath, soon blackened as it too began to burn. “Your skin is damaged, let me remove it for you.”
The other horsemen watched, no real delight being taken from the act they witnessed. What they did was functional, necessary. So many people to defile in so many ways. It was a task for an army, and yet five was all they were.
***
The alarm seemed to grow louder as men came running. Jee stood from her chair and ran to Big T’s aid. She was still a doctor before anything else, but when she reached his cell, she found herself being repelled by the horror she saw.
Where he writhed, blood had begun to gush from the skin around Big T’s skull. In disbelief, Jee watched as the scalp seemed to detach itself, sloughing away from the bone, as if someone was ripping the hair from his head. At the corner of his mouth, the cheeks began to split, an artificial smile of death tearing all the way to his ears. By whatever ungodly force responsible, the lower jaw yawned wide, completely detaching itself from the base of the skull. There was a wrenching sound as the mandible suddenly dropped loose, the tongue flopping out of the mouth uselessly. The scream still came, and Jee wondered if the patient was even awake. She couldn’t tell of course, because whatever was left of his eyes had been reduced to two crimson holes.
Soldiers appeared, drawn by the violence, Howell one of them.
“Help him,” Jee said impotently to the soldiers now standing either side of her. A spray of blood suddenly hit the inside of the cell door, making Jee jump.
“How?” Howell asked. He didn’t want to go into that cell. There was no way his mind could explain what he was seeing, so instead, it painted a supernatural picture for him, filled with all the superstition his life had accumulated. There was the very real concern that what he witnessed was somehow contagious. What if, Howell thought, that could happen to me?
Fresh torment escaped from Big T’s throat, one of the veins in the neck opening up in a vertical slit. Then the other side, as if an invisible knife was working the vessels open. All Jee could do was stand there and watch him die.
“Jee,” Reece pleaded. Neither of the soldiers made to enter the cell where the dying man bucked on the floor. Another figure appeared: Schmidt. She pushed Jee aside so she could stand close to the door of the cell, her eyes brimming with excitement.
“Fascinating,” was all Schmidt could say. Even Schmidt didn’t try to intervene, instead standing closer to the Perspex, the soldiers stepping back to give her room. Briefly, Schmidt looked at Jee, and although there was no doubting the glee that was painted on the Professor’s face, there was also a faint inflection of concern there. Jee stepped away, drawn back to Reece, whose hand now rested out of the door hatch. Almost stumbling as she backed away from the display, Jee grabbed that hand, noticing the way Lizzy had buried her eyes away from the world in the crook of Reece’s neck.
“You have to help us, Jee.”
“What can I do?” Jee implored. “What can I do against that?”
“You have to keep us awake,” Reece almost ordered. “Asleep, that can happen to us.”
“But how will that help?” Jee asked the question because she knew the limits on how long people could be denied sleep. “And Lizzy will be the one hit the hardest. Children need more sleep.”
“We have to try,” Reece insisted.
“You have to buy us time,” Jessy said suddenly.
“Time for what?”
“Time for the one who can save us,” Jessy answered. Lizzy said something that nobody could hear.
“What was that, honey?” Reece pushed the child away from her slightly so that Lizzy could look at her.
“Azrael,” Lizzy said. “They call him Azrael.”
25.08.19
Peak District, UK
Haggard was woken by a scream right out of the pits of hell. Sitting up in the tent he had set for himself, the voice came again, provin
g it wasn’t something from his fevered imagination. He had heard its like before, in the heat of battle, the ruined bodies of soldiers verbalising their agony. Outside, he could hear other men stirring, shouts of alarm spreading across the farm. Were they being attacked? Were the dead finally here?
Sleeping fully dressed had its advantages, and grabbing his gun, Haggard was up and out of his tent and into the star-filled night. One of his soldiers ran up to him, contained alarm all over the man’s features.
“It’s Corporal Whittaker,” the voice said, and Haggard followed his man to Whittaker’s tent, the way illuminated by the soldier’s torch. Further beams cut through the blackness as others rushed to Whittaker’s aid, guiding Haggard to where the torment was happening. Haggard pushed past more of his men and into the tent that usually slept four. Only one of the occupants was still asleep, Haggard’s Sergeant trying to wake Whittaker up. Sergeant O’Donnell, a good man to have in a crisis, was having no luck getting Whittaker out of the nightmare that held him trapped.
Someone lit an LED lantern, the tent flooding with refreshing light. It became clear that whatever was happening to Whittaker brought unimaginable agony with it.
“Someone go and get Jessica,” Haggard ordered, a figure running off to fulfil the Captain’s command. Nick appeared then, pushing the tent flaps aside, one more person to witness the growing madness.
“What’s happening?” Nick demanded, only for Whittaker to howl again in his madness. Men stepped out to make room for Nick, who witnessed O’Donnell ram his thumb into the columella of Whittaker’s nose. The assault didn’t even seem to register.
“Pain won’t wake him, sir,” O’Donnell advised. As they watched, a bleeding line opened up on Whittaker’s left cheek, a red gash that slowly widened, the skin separating by some hidden scalpel. Then a second, an invisible surgeon going to work in a realm nobody but Whittaker could see.
“My Christ,” Haggard said, unable to truly comprehend what was happening here. As they watched, Whittaker’s right arm shot out from his body, the limb starting to twist, joint cartilage snapping as it went through an impossible rotation. O’Donnell grabbed it by the wrist to try and stop the destructive force, and he managed to briefly, but then the bone broke, the hand going floppy as the arm continued to turn. Just before they feared the limb would detach, the whole thing fell limp and useless. The same happened with the left leg, the sound of bones breaking horrifying in the confines of the tent.
Jessica appeared too late to observe that, but she got to see the worst of it.
Witness to the ghostly assault, she almost fainted, Nick catching her as she stumbled. He helped her over to where Whittaker lay, the eyelids of the Corporal’s left eye pulling out from the face, each one slowly detaching as they were carefully ripped free. For a second they floated suspended in air, before dropping onto the now bleeding wounds. The screams were gone now, Whittaker’s moans replaced by haggard breathing. There wasn’t much more his body would be able to endure.
“We have to wake him up,” Jessica implored. She didn’t understand it. He had taken the amphetamines just as she had. And yet he had fallen asleep.
“We’ve tried,” O’Donnell said. Jessica kneeled down by Whittaker, O’Donnell instinctively making room for her. She slapped the uninjured side of his face with utter futility.
“Chris,” Jessica roared into his face. Could he even hear her?
***
Shah, The White, had been given this one. Even with the blood that came from the wounds he inflicted, not a drop of red stained his fine robes. It was as it should be. So satisfying to end each one, and yet ultimately so frustrating for there were so many that needed their existence correcting. Only The Woman of Skulls had the developing power to drag the immune into the sleep some of them now resisted, so their progress was generally limited to those who were already here.
The problem for the immune was that those present ran, leaving the shadows behind their fleeing ranks. Staying awake was only an escape unless Susan was there to yank that person forcefully into the nightmare world. Even without Susan’s influence, avoiding sleep was also ultimately a fool’s errand, for when sleep finally came, the victims of their immunity would find themselves adrift from the immune pack, easy pickings for the scavengers who circled.
It was just Whittaker’s misfortune that The Woman of Skulls had chosen him to test a power she didn’t even know she had. With her unconsciousness, she could stay here almost indefinitely, waging her continuing war even when Smith and his brothers were awake.
Shah pushed a thumb and finger into Whittaker’s eye socket, plucking out the globe, squeezing it. With a jerk, he detached it and sent the eye flying into the dust. There it rested for several seconds before melting to be replaced by the shoots of some deformed tree. With his one remaining good arm, Whittaker grabbed Shah by the neck, but the grip was pitiful.
“You dare defile me with your touch,” Shah said in disgust. Carefully, he picked the desperate fingers from around his neck and meticulously broke every bone and every joint in that treacherous hand.
“End it,” Susan insisted. Shah looked behind him, saw the gravity in her expression.
“This one is close to the one called Jessica,” Smith advised. “He needs to suffer for his crimes.” His words were respectful, though, knowing that Susan had the power to turn on him as well if she so wished.
“There are too many,” Susan insisted. Dawson and Cartwright were barely in sight, slaughtering all they could find. A hundred meters before them, a phantom suddenly solidified, its form turning first to charcoal and then to ash as something killed the immune in the real world. The landscape was littered with these rapidly deteriorating statues. They did not feed the land and were thus a wasted opportunity.
“See,” Susan insisted. “The longer we take, the more souls the world takes from us. Save the eternal agony for those who have earnt it.” Raising her head, she looked at the horizon. Somewhere out there was Azrael.
Time was running out for him.
Shah acted as commanded. With regret, he took Whittaker’s neck in both hands and squeezed the last of the life out of him. Deep down a part of him knew it was wrong to take pleasure in such acts, but that part of Shah was easily ignored.
24.08.19
Frederick, USA
The body of Big T had been removed, wrapped up in plastic and moved out on a gurney, but it had taken too long, as if those tasked with its removal were somehow afraid of it. The bed linen had almost been dealt with, as had the blood that stained the walls and floor of the cell. Watching the men clean up the slaughter had been difficult for Reece, the child she had now sworn to protect seemingly fixated on the broken corpse. Reece had tried to persuade the girl to look away, even thought about using force, but in the end, she let Lizzy’s curiosity win out.
“I need to see,” was all Lizzy would say about the matter.
Howell was doing the final cleaning out the cell. He was using a jet washer, the wastewater running red down the small drain in the cell’s floor. It seemed the designers of this place had thought of everything, the last of the blood rapidly disappearing under the cleaning onslaught. Howell also sprayed down the mattress, turning it over with his gloved hands. Pulling the sheet away from her own mattress, Reece saw that it was waterproof.
That made sense.
“Will that happen to us?” Lizzy asked her. She thought about lying to the girl, of putting on a brave face. The thing was, Lizzy wasn’t an innocent child anymore. She had seen things most adults wouldn’t be able to deal with, so she deserved to hear the truth.
“I don’t know Lizzy, I hope not.”
“I hate the horsemen,” Lizzy said.
“So do I, sweet pea.”
“But I hate the Professor more.” Reece felt it was dangerous to speak like that when there were obviously electronic ears listening to them all the time, and she gently pulled Lizzy to her, away from where she was standing by one of the walls.
/> “Hush about that now,” Reece warned.
“But I do,” Lizzy insisted.
“I know, but it’s not safe to talk like that.”
“I don’t care.”
“Well, I do. So keep those thoughts to yourself. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” Lizzy relented, “but only because it’s you asking.” They both felt a presence outside their cell.
“Clarice is right,” Howell said. He stripped off the surgical mask he was wearing and gazed down at Lizzy. “Professor Schmidt isn’t someone you want to annoy.” His jet spray had been discarded on the floor of the cell he was cleaning. He had overheard Lizzy’s words, conscious that the child had been watching his every movement.
“I’m sorry you have to work down here, Richard.” Reece felt she understood how things worked in this place. She had been able to tell early on by Howell’s manner, that he really had no choice but to follow the orders given to him. So while he was part of the problem keeping them contained here, at least he tried to inject a bit of humanity into how he went about his duties.
“Thanks,” Howell said. He seemed surprised that someone could accept that he was an unwilling accomplice in all this. He was a good person working in a bad environment. How long he would stay good was a different matter. One had to remember that not all the guards at Auschwitz had originally been monsters.
“Is it safe for you, talking to us?”
“Not really,” Howell admitted, “but I need to know what happened to that man.” He pointed back to the cell he had just cleaned out. “What did I witness?”
“I’m not sure I know,” Reece lied.
“No, you know. I can see it in your eyes.”
“The Man on Black killed him,” Lizzy said.
“Who?” There was an urgency in his voice as if Howell was discovering something that was about to destroy his whole understanding of the world.
“In our dreams, we share a nightmare together,” Reece explained. “In that nightmare, we are chased by forces that we don’t really understand.” Howell stepped back. Reece realised how crazy it sounded, but Howell had asked, so she had told. It was difficult to relay what you knew when you yourself had only just come into a belief about something. Howell looked at Jessy.
The Lazarus Strain Chronicles (Book 4): The Dead Page 6
