by Stevens, GJ
As they stared at each other, I noticed for the first time the second set of restraints on the wall next to Jess, the space vacant with steel clasps open and the leather hanging limp down the wall. A rustle of the plastic sheeting to my left turned me away.
Alex stumbled through the sheet much like I had, grasping for air as she fell forward. For a moment I thought it was Gibson risen from the dead and following stone-faced, but instead, another soldier stepped through.
My legs went weak and it was all I could do to hold my weight as hope drained away.
Alex wouldn’t meet my gaze as I stared on open-mouthed.
Footsteps echoed from the doorway behind them and for a moment I expected to see Cassie falling through the doorway with a soaked Sherlock stepping out.
“Jess,” Alex called, the sound so pained as she stared at Jess strung to the wall. The soldier grabbed at her arm to stop her rushing forward. She didn’t fight his grip, instead peering around the room, pausing at the sight of Thompson, then meeting my eyes. Her eyebrows raised and I couldn’t help but shrug, regretting the weakness of my expression.
At the soldier’s back, the plastic sheet fell from the door and settled to the floor.
Despite not being able to move her head, Jess stared to Alex and then to me.
I felt as if her thoughts mirrored mine. All of our effort and struggle to stay alive; all the people, the friends we’d lost for it to come to this ending.
We’d done exactly what they wanted all along.
I wished I could punish myself for my stupidity. It wasn’t enough just to curse at how I could have been so naïve. How else could this have gone down?
Movement echoed from the corridor at the soldier’s back and I expected Cassie to emerge, forced forward, but two soldiers, dressed as the others, came through the doorway carrying the same type of rifle as their colleagues.
With black helmets and black bandanas covering their mouths, all I saw were their eyes set in a squint as they looked around the room before the lead guy spoke.
“One unaccounted for,” he said in a deep voice.
“Cassie,” Doctor Lytham said, looking at first to Jess; when she didn’t respond, she turned past me to Thompson, nodding at his silent reply. She turned to Toni who had followed her. “We administered B23A and Jessica here tells me it was successful. You did it, well done.”
I watched as Toni’s breath caught and her face filled with delight and she twisted away from the older woman to Jess.
“We’ve done it,” Toni said, then moved back around, unsure who to look at. She settled in my direction then turned away, back to the older woman. “We found it.”
The older woman nodded. “Yes,” she said, but her voice and expression lacked any emotion.
“You know what that means?” Toni said.
“Of course,” Doctor Lytham replied.
“We have the cure,” Toni said, her voice rising. “The last piece of the system.”
That was the moment I realised the implication of her words.
The cure. They had cured Cassie. She wouldn’t turn into what Jess had become, and I felt a great weight lift from my shoulders, sending an urge for me to scream for Cassie to run, to get away and go live her life. A normal life.
But I knew she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t go anywhere until she found the children. Until she found Ellie and could take her to safety.
“So that’s it. We’re saved,” I shouted. “You’ve saved humanity.”
Toni and Doctor Lytham span around to face me, lingering for a fraction of a second before they burst into laughter.
85
A sharp pain at my shoulder forced me forward and I stumbled, dropping to my knees. Looking up, both the doctors had already turned away and their laughter halted. Toni stepped towards Jess and I watched, rubbing my shoulder to ease the ache.
Jess tried to flinch away from Toni’s touch and Doctor Lytham took a step forward, grabbing at Toni’s shoulder to hold her back.
“You came,” Toni said, still leaning out to Jess despite her mother’s pull.
“And you survived,” Jess replied, her voice deadpan.
“It was touch and go,” Doctor Lytham said with venom as she let go of Toni’s shoulder.
“It can’t have been that bad. You were up the next day,” Jess said.
“Luck,” Doctor Lytham replied. “If your aim was better, she’d be dead.”
“If my aim was any good, you’d be dead,” Jess said, for the first time taking her gaze from Toni.
Toni’s posture inflated, and she looked back to Jess with her head tilted to the side. “You didn’t mean to shoot me?” Toni asked, her voice rising.
“No,” Jess replied. “Despite what you’ve done.”
Silence hung in the air and I tried to clear my mind and figure out why they laughed at my words, whilst listening to the stilted conversation.
“It worked,” Toni said.
Then I saw Jess look back to Doctor Lytham and with the slight rise in the corner of her mouth, I got it. Everything became clear and I realised I’d been so blind to what was going on around me.
She’d called the cure the last piece of the system.
Jess spoke, pulling me away from the thought. “If you meant to turn me into a cold-blooded killer with superhuman strength and a thirst for human flesh, then yes it worked.”
“But you have control?” Toni asked, looking back to Thompson for a second time.
I went to turn, but I held still with the jab of the muzzle in my back.
The rise in the corner of Toni’s mouth confirmed she’d got the answer she wanted.
“Yes. I’ve turned into your soldier. I can control it at will,” Jess replied, still with a vicious edge to her voice.
Doctor Lytham turned my way, to Thompson at least, and I chanced a twist and saw him nod as if corroborating her story. I twisted back, hoping he hadn’t noticed.
“I just need you to show me how I can live without doing those terrible things,” Jess added, and the room’s attention came her way.
“Cassie,” I said, barely able to make the word come out.
“We still have some things to work out, but with what you’ve just told us about B23A, I think we have what we need to finish the work,” Toni said, her words calm and soft as if she was explaining what she’d be cooking for breakfast. She glanced to the curtains pulled across the bays.
“Like not needing to feed on human flesh?” Jess asked, and her expression hardened, but when Toni slowly nodded, I saw a tear falling down Jess’s cheek to glint in the orange light.
Jess nodded. “If that’s the way it needs to be, then you’ve got me and you can let the children go.”
Toni looked to Doctor Lytham and the old woman replied with a shake of her head.
“Where are they?” Jess asked, looking at the curtains on the other side of the room.
“That doesn’t matter,” Doctor Lytham replied. “What matters for you is if that woman is cured, then we’ve got what you need. She is what will stop you from needing to do those things.” She looked to Toni, but Toni turned away.
“Well done, Major, for thinking on your feet. Now where is B23A?”
Doctor Lytham stared at Jess, then to Alex and my way when no one replied.
“Do you want to stop the hunger? Where is Cassie?”
Jess blinked just as Shadow’s bark echoed from the outside of the room, resounding as if it came from each of the entrances at the same time.
Doctor Lytham raised a brow as if remembering the one kindness I’d seen her show. A loud gunshot ripped through the air, but Alex and I were the only ones to flinch.
Realising the sound wasn’t loud enough to have come from inside the room, I listened, eager to hear Shadow’s call again. Only silence replied.
“Quick now,” Doctor Lytham said, and Toni hurried to the nearest table, pulling up a paper towel resting on the side to reveal a syringe in a kidney bowl. She picked it up, but the doct
or called out.
“Antonia,” she said, nodding back to the table.
Toni glanced her way and then to Jess. Placing the bowl back to the stainless-steel table, she pulled up a surgical mask before wrapping its mint-green material around her mouth and hooking the elastic over each ear.
Jess did her best to shake her head, and I thought about doing something rather than just standing by useless. Feeling the pressure of the muzzle in my back, it was as if Thompson guessed my thoughts. Still, I considered rushing forward.
I didn’t move; instead, I watched as Toni stepped up to Jess who barely flinched when Toni pushed the needle into her forearm to draw blood. My gaze fixed to the bright red liquid, marvelling at how normal it looked.
“Cassie,” Doctor Lytham called. “You can come out now,” she said in a sing-song call.
For a disconcerting moment I thought Cassie would come through the doorway with a smile as if she’d been involved all along. But she didn’t.
“Cassie,” the doctor’s call snapped again.
Like Alex said on the boat, they couldn’t have soldiers rampaging on the enemy and not be able to turn them off when they’d completed their objectives. They had to have a cure for their hunger for the concept to work.
“You need her, don’t you,” I shouted. “You need her to complete your plan. You need her to make this work.”
I looked to Jess, then twisted away, turning instead to Alex. “Cassie is the cure. Cassie is the way they can fix the problem of the hunger.” I watched as Alex’s brows raised, then she turned to Jess as if longing for it to be true. “When they have her, that’s it. They’ve finished and there’s nothing that will stop them.”
“And no reason to keep us alive,” Alex added, shaking her head as she looked up at Jess.
I couldn’t look at her bound to the wall; instead, I called out. “Run, Cassie. Stay away. You’re the answer to their problems.” I didn’t get any more words out before pain flashed across the back of my head to the sound of gasps from around the room as I fell to my knees.
“Keep him quiet,” I heard Doctor Lytham say as the darkness at the edge of my vision faded.
Pushing through the pain, I struggled up from the floor with Thompson gripping my arm.
“Well, if she won’t come voluntarily...” Toni said, and I watched through the crack of my eyelids as she nodded to Doctor Lytham.
Doctor Lytham smiled, raising a brow. “This is it, Antonia. This is the culmination of all our work.”
Without pause, Toni nodded to the two other soldiers. They shouldered their rifles before heading to the door where Toni had entered, whilst she stepped across the room to the first bay and pulled the curtains wide.
The three pale children lay under thin sheets. They were bound to the beds and weren’t moving. If they were breathing then it was shallow at best. Each of them looked nothing like they had when we last saw them; Ellie so old. Tish so young, so small in the bed. Memories surged of Jack, old before his time, and the moment I met Shadow, waking to find him licking my face and the two children were just there.
I tried to push away thoughts of how I’d almost shot Ellie when we’d first met.
Beside them were monitors. For a fleeting moment I questioned why I couldn’t see their heart traces, panicking they much be dead, but then I saw the cables and tubes wrapped in bundles hanging down. A thin metal IV stand stood at each of their sides and a bag of clear liquid hung upside down with a tube flowing to each of children’s arms, giving me the first sign they weren’t dead.
Toni strode to Ellie, pulling back the cover to grab at her wrist. Cassie’s sister didn’t react when Toni held her arm high, not even when she let it fall back to the bed. Toni reached to a cardboard box by the side and unfolded a square of absorbent pad before placing it under Ellie’s forearm.
I turned to movement from where the soldiers had left and I saw the dark back of a soldier with his outstretched hand hidden from view. My mind raced over what he could hold out in front, but the question soon dropped at the terrible stench I hadn’t smelt since we’d left the mainland.
86
JESSICA
With a stilted pace, the soldier stepped sideways into the room with a catchpole, like those used to control feral dogs, held out in both his hands. The noose gripped tight around the neck of a girl, but with her face dark and bruised, her skin slack with decay; it had been a long while since anyone could call her human.
Pulling through the doorway, her mouth snapped closed and open as it stared, locking its gaze to the soldier. I half expected it to grapple with the pole, until I saw the straight jacket with the semi-circle of dried blood at the front, binding its arms at its sides.
A second noose dug into its neck and I followed the second pole heading through the door, gripped by the other soldier gritting his teeth as they held the tension between them to guide its travel into the room.
The soldier walking backwards chanced a glance to his side and the bed where Ellie lay unconscious.
“No,” Logan and Alex called out.
This was it. This was the moment; I couldn’t let this go on any longer.
“Stop,” Logan shouted.
Thompson swung his rifle down on Logan’s back again and he went quiet before collapsing to the floor. With Alex’s furious shouts echoing across the room, I stared at Toni, whose gaze fixed on the teenager between the soldiers. The hunger rose as I watched, holding my breath.
With her head tilted slightly up, Toni looked on, squinting with interest at what was about to happen. I looked to Doctor Lytham to see her wearing the same detached intrigue and the energy surged from inside me.
Holding my breath, I tensed against the bounds and the room grew silent. Out of the corner of my vision, Logan rose to all fours and looked my way as if he knew what I’d planned all along.
This was it; this was the moment. I felt so alive. So full of energy, the power coursing through my veins as I fixed on the flesh at Doctor Lytham’s neck and I pulled my muscles tight, straining with everything I had.
But it wasn’t enough.
87
LOGAN
I watched her effort fade, leaving her panting with the leather holding her tight. Toni turned, catching my eye as she followed my look to Jess where she lingered for a moment. When Jess puffed out a second breath, tears flowed down her face and I knew it was all over. The last hope lost.
Turning back to Ellie, I could barely watch as the soldiers guided the dead creature to the bed. Bile rose and I gritting my teeth.
“No,” Alex screamed, but her cry cut off with the thump of something heavy.
Rising to my feet and finding enough energy, I twisted around, holding my breath for the pain. I surged up and took Thompson by surprise as I caught his eye with my balled fist. He barely moved, instead raising the rifle, teeth bared and glaring back, but he didn’t pull the trigger.
We’d lost and clutching my pounding fist, I closed my eyes, opening them again when I felt another presence in the room. Cassie stood at the doorway behind Alex with her arms held out to the bed, her mouth hanging wide but silent as she looked towards Ellie.
Renewed with rage, I brought my arm back and punched out towards Thompson, but the rifle butt swept across my face, sending me spiralling to the floor, my vision blackening as I slumped to the side of a metal cabinet.
“Stay the fuck down,” he shouted, sending spit my way.
As my view cleared, I looked up to see Thompson turning his rifle away and looking back across to where Cassie stood.
From my low position I could still see across to the beds, but trying to rise, my legs were like jelly.
“Ellie,” Cassie called, her voice high and pained and I knew she must have been held back or she would be across the room fighting with all that she had.
Ellie flinched, but her eyes remain closed.
I called out her name when I saw the pain bunch in her face with the soldiers angling the creature’s head
to her exposed forearm, its teeth grinding into her young flesh.
The room fell silent but for the effort of the soldiers pulling the creature from Ellie’s arm to leave a ragged mess with blood flowing to the absorbent sheet underneath. Tears streamed down my face to mix with the blood and sweat already coursing. Others sobbed around the room but I dared not stand again.
Time seemed to slow and I felt numb, unable to make out the words spoken, barely flinching when a gunshot burst out and the girl creature slumped to the floor. I wasn’t insulated from the smell, which seemed so much worse as they dragged the body down the corridor.
On my knees, all I could do was shake my head, overcome with grief as I watched, waiting for the doctors to rush over and bandage Ellie’s wound. But neither moved. Instead, Toni turned her attention to Jess whilst Doctor Lytham bent to a cupboard built into the table, pulling up an aerosol and spraying plumes of white mist in a circle as her face contorted at the stench.
“Help her,” Cassie’s angry call came out, but dull as if my ears were stuffed with cotton wool.
Still on my hands and knees, I made to stand and rising a little I watched as Cassie fought against her hands held at her back by another soldier. As she struggled, she stared to the bed where Ellie lay with her blood spilling to the floor.
Doctor Lytham raised her hand at Cassie.
Cassie stopped moving, her face contorted with rage.
“Ah, Cassie. That’s not how you save her,” Doctor Lytham said in a voice like they were talking over dinner. “Thank you for joining us.”
“You’re an animal,” Cassie shouted with her face contorted. Then her expression changed as she forced herself to relax. “Help her, please. Help her,” she called out, looking to the doctor as if she was the only person in the room. “Fucking help her.”
I tensed to move, but felt the slap of the rifle across my shoulders and I collapsed to the floor again.
