by Wood, Rick
Gus turned to Sadie.
“What’s up with him?”
Sadie looked perplexed.
Oh, yeah. She’s feral. Can’t understand me.
“Donny okay?” he tried. “Donny – he okay?”
Sadie shrugged.
Gus nodded. He wasn’t sure why, but he nodded.
“What did they do to you?” Gus asked, filled with compassion, his chest hurting at the thought of the pain she must have endured.
Sadie’s head dropped.
“Hey,” Gus said, lifting her chin up. “It’s okay. We’re all together now, we’ll be fine. Yeah?”
Donny returned and handed a bunch of clothes to Sadie as if he was handing her a bomb only she could dismantle. He kept his distance and backed away as soon as she’d taken them.
As she dressed, Gus kept his eyes on Donny, who stared absently at the wall.
Was Donny mad at him? Was it because Gus hadn’t done anything to save him? Or was it because they had messed him up that badly?
In which case, did they need to worry about what he was going to do? Was he going to act out, put them in danger somehow?
No. Gus knew Donny. Donny, whom he’d literally given a leg to save. Donny knew what Gus would do for him, what he had done for him. There was something else.
Gus was snapped out of his contemplation by Sadie, who was standing by the door, ready to go.
“Donny, help me walk,” Gus requested.
Donny looked at Gus, paused, then walked over and put an arm around his back. He even managed to do that in a cold manner, such a lack of caring or concern for the friend he was doing it to.
“What’s up with you, man?” Gus whispered to him as Donny helped him to the door.
“Nothing,” Donny blankly replied. “Nothing is wrong.”
“I don’t know, you seem pissed. I’m sorry I didn’t get to you to save you, if that’s what it is, I know they must have done some messed-up shit to you. They did it to me, and Sadie too, and–”
“Nothing is wrong. Let’s just get out of here.”
Gus nodded.
Fine. Maybe it would take time. Whatever had happened to them all, they were going to have to recover. First thing to do was get out, then they could deal with it.
“Okay, Sadie,” Gus said as Donny helped him into the corridor. “Do your thing.”
More infected emerged from the rooms opposite, the announcement of fresh blood approaching.
Sadie went to attack.
She didn’t need to.
They all stopped. Dormant. Unmoving. Just looked at them.
Or, rather, looked at Donny.
“What the fuck…” Gus muttered.
Chapter Seventeen
The compound disappeared into the distance behind them, obscured by the high trees of the forest.
“Man, that really was in the middle of nowhere,” Gus said, keeping his arm around Donny.
Sadie kept a few paces ahead, remaining cautious, keeping a lookout. Making sure there were no surprises.
But she needn’t have.
None of the infected had attacked them. None of them at all. They had stood aside and let them walk out.
Gus was appreciative, but also sceptical.
Why?
How?
And, you know – what the fuck?
Donny didn’t react.
He did as he should. Kept Gus steady. Kept his one leg moving. Helping him slowly meander away. Further away. Away from the compound. Away from what had been their home.
There was no home anymore.
Donny looked at Sadie. Far ahead. Running with a stutter. Moving with jolts that made him wary. She could do anything at any moment.
Gus next to him. Useless.
Donny remembered Gus. Gus used to be so much more. Gus had been a soldier, or something. Someone who’d fought in wars.
What else was there to know about Gus really?
“Over there,” Gus said, pointing out a broken-down house, one that looked like it had been burnt-out long ago. “That can be our shelter tonight. It’s getting dark, we need to rest.”
Sadie rushed ahead to the house. Checked it out.
Donny helped Gus up the messy lawn. For a big, bulky guy, Gus felt weightless. Like hollow air. So when Donny helped Gus to a sitting position on the splintered floor of their night’s accommodation, it wasn’t much relief.
“I’ll take first watch,” Gus proposed. “Sadie, if you want to–”
“I don’t want to sleep,” Donny interrupted. “I’ll take watch.”
“Okay, if you wake us up in four hours, then–”
“No. I’ll watch all night. I’ve slept enough.”
An uncomfortable silence lingered. Donny could tell Gus was unsure.
“Are you positive, mate? I mean, you’ve been through a lot.”
“I’ll be awake anyway. I don’t want to sleep.”
“We’ve had a tough run, you need to rest, gather your energy–”
“I don’t need to gather any energy. I will be fine. Stop worrying.”
Gus glanced to Sadie, who’d already curled up in the corner.
“If you’re sure.”
“Yes. I’m sure. Go to sleep.”
Gus laid down. Slumped onto his back.
Donny stood at the window, looking out, into the dark settling upon the night. It was quiet. He could still feel Gus’s eyes on him. Still watching him. Figuring him out.
Donny couldn’t see the compound anymore.
It had disappeared.
They were on their own.
No.
He was on his own.
They were with him.
The Journal of Doctor Janine Stanton
Day 1
Transcript from webcam journal by Janine Stanton, first entry
I feel apprehensive. I guess that’s natural. This is big, right?
I don’t even know if I should be doing what I’m doing. But, let it be known in case this entry becomes public record, I am doing as requested by the prime minister, Eugene Squire. I am doing my duty.
Right?
I mean, if the prime minister asks you to do something – you do it.
The subject’s name is Donny Jevon. Or, it was, I suppose. For now, I am just supposed to call him the subject. We are always reminded to distance ourselves from the subjects of our experiments, only, before, I was distancing myself from rats, or mice, once even a monkey.
Never from a human.
(pauses)
The first injection went smoothly, but to no avail.
Test Synthesis #1
28% blood of mutation
3% blood of infected
10% blood of subject
18% ketorolac
15% cortisone
26% water
I left the blood of the mutation, infected and subject together overnight to combine and mix together, giving it time to, you know, become one, as it were. When I tested the reaction between the doses under the microscope, there was little reaction, but the infected hadn’t taken over the subject with the mutation present, so I was not prepared to go ahead and shove loads of crazy stuff into this guy’s – the subject’s, sorry – body, without starting on a low dose.
It’s just being cautious, and all that. I know Mr Squire wants this quickly, but I – I – I have to do my job, I guess. And this is no good to the prime minister if the subject is dead.
It’s no good to my chances of survival either. I dread to think–
(pauses)
Anyway.
I added ketorolac to the mixture to remove any pain that may result, and cortisone to help with any muscle growth. I mixed this with water to dilute it, help it enter his bloodstream, but I fear this may have diluted it too much.
Upon initial injection, subject does little to react. Barely even notices when I stick the needle in his arm.
His face twitches, but his eyes don’t move. It’s chilling, how he stays so still.
&
nbsp; I don’t know what they’ve done to him.
I don’t know if I want to know what they’ve…
I’m aware he saw Doctor Emma Saul. I’ve spoken to her a few times, and I know her background. She is a psychologist with a specialist PhD in advanced conditioning. From the look of his records, she spent a really long time with him.
(pauses)
But what could that mean?
What could Doctor Saul have done to him?
What do they need conditioning for? I thought this was purely medical; I didn’t know his mental capacity was being tested or influenced in any way.
I don’t know. Maybe I don’t really know what I’m talking about.I never was interested much in psychology. I loved the biology of how things worked, loved understanding the chemistry of our bodies and which chemicals did what – but I never cared about what was in a person’s mind. That bordered too much on philosophy, and that wasn’t for me – I deal with solid facts, and solid research.
But, right now, I’d love to know what’s going on behind these eyes. This person – subject – their eyes, they just, they seem so…
(shrugs)
I waited for a reaction.
Waited and waited.
Two hours later, subject still hadn’t moved. I took some of the subject’s blood to see how it responded.
It read like human blood.
I placed a drop of infected blood on it, and before I got to the microscope, the infection had already engulfed the subject’s blood and taken over, you can see that without needing to zoom in.
There is no immunity there.
Not that it’s immunity I’m after, but it’s a general expectation that…
This is not the right dose.
This is frustrating me. I thought I had it.
Maybe I just need to increase it.
Yeah, I’ll increase it.
(computer makes sound)
(reads computer screen)
Great. So Doctor Emma Saul will be speaking to the subject again. Alone. Without me.
I objected to this, but no, they’ve messaged back and – well, they do not care. I said that if my tests are to continue, I am to know what all the variables are. This includes what they are doing to him with the psychologist. What it is they need to involve conditioning for.
They told me it’s above my pay grade.
Maybe I can tell them I won’t do the synthesis then. They can find someone else.
(pause)
No, I can’t say that. I wouldn’t.
I want to say it. Tell them they can find someone else.
But, I – I can’t. I know what would happen to me if I did. I know where I would end up.
Then again, I don’t exactly know what would happen, or where I’d end up – that’s why I can’t object to any of this.
I may be good, but there’s nothing that special about what I do. There are plenty of other doctors like me. Plenty who could take my research, take my work, and reproduce it.
If it’s not me, it’s someone else.
So I will prepare for tomorrow.
I will increase the dosage of the mutation.
Hope that this works.
Hope that it satisfies the great, almighty prime minister. And just continue as I am.
I just…
I don’t understand what we’re doing to this man.
Sorry.
I don’t understand what we’re doing to this subject.
48 Hours to Trap
Chapter Nineteen
Gus felt pathetic.
Worse than pathetic.
Abysmal. Humiliated. An incompetent fool.
He was a goddamn army hero, for Christ’s sake. Not some idiot reliant on other people to survive. He’d never relied on another person for a day in his life, and he prided himself on it. Yet, there he was, his arm draped around an impartial Donny, who nonchalantly helped Gus slowly limp between the trees, dodging the bushes and sinking his single, leftover leg into the soft squelch of the watered soil beneath.
It wouldn’t be as bad if Donny acknowledged it. Made a joke, like he often would. Something immensely ill-timed and poorly constructed, but a joke that made light of the situation nonetheless. But Donny just kept his arm firmly around Gus, keeping him balanced, ignoring any attempt at conversation.
Which, of course, Gus was partly grateful for; he was out of breath as it was, and conversation would prove irritating. It was just so unlike Donny to not be talking all the time. So much so, that when his awkward chatter ceased, it left a blank space hovering in the air around him. Like something needed to be filled that he wasn’t filling, a void only his idle chatter would fill.
“You okay?” Gus asked, reluctantly attempting to drag words out of Donny, disguised as a check on Donny’s welfare.
“Fine.”
Donny was more than fine.
He had barely slowed for hours. He had all of Gus’s weight rested upon him, supporting the guy’s balance – and Gus wasn’t a small guy – yet there was no sweat, no break in his strides, no quiver of his strength.
Donny had been unfit and unprepared. Now he didn’t falter one bit. This was too unlike him.
A headrush burst upon Gus’s mind. He’d been getting them more and more frequently in the last hour. Made sense, really; they must have been pumping him full of drugs at the compound after amputating his leg, and he knew he would be getting withdrawal symptoms at some point – but he had to keep going. He couldn’t afford to pass out.
He was already enough of a burden on Sadie and Donny as it was.
Before, it had been the other way around. Donny was the burden on him. Gus would be driving toward London, mind focussed on his mission, trying to do all he could to ignore Donny’s drivel.
“You know what I want,” Donny had blurted out on such an occasion.
Gus had closed his eyes in that way you do when you’re annoyed, fed up, wishing for everything to just go away. He rubbed his hand over his face and just concentrated on the road ahead.
“A sword,” Donny declared. “No, not a sword. A hacksaw.”
A hacksaw?
“What the –” Gus began, then interrupted himself. He mustn’t bite. He mustn’t engage. Otherwise, that would open up pointless conversation.
Too late.
“Yeah, I mean, we all should have a weapon of choice in a zombie apocalypse, right?”
A zombie apocalypse? This guy lives in a bloody fantasy…
“I mean, on my computer game, it was either a sword, machete, or gun. But I always fancied a hacksaw.”
Gus scoffed. The kid was comparing this to a computer game.
Gus had played Call of Duty. He’d also served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The experience was substantially, incontrovertibly, unequivocally different.
“But, see, a hacksaw – this is what I’m thinking – a hacksaw has different functions. So a gun is loud, that attracts a horde, that’s the last resort, right? Well, a knife would also be good. You can get all stabby-stabby. But then what do you do when you need to detach their limb as it grabs onto you?”
Gus sighed. Was the kid still going?
“And you can’t go through a limb in a clean swipe with a knife, and it has no give for sawing something off. So, a hacksaw can act as a stabby-stabby thing, right – and it can also detach limbs. You get my meaning?”
Gus shook his head. Get his meaning? There was nothing about Donny’s meaning he got.
“What would be your weapon of choice?” Donny asked.
Gus didn’t reply.
“I see you as, like, a curved blade kind of guy. What’s those weapons that have a curved blade? Like a moon crescent shape. You know what I mean?”
“A scythe?”
Dammit, Gus scolded himself. I replied.
“Yes! That’s it! Primarily used for gardening, of course, but also good in a fight.” Donny beamed at Gus for finally engaging. “You know your weapons, my friend.”
What a differen
ce a few months would make.
Gus thought about that conversation, with his arm draped around his silent companion, as he watched the oblivious silence of Donny’s face. Reacting to nothing. Not even Gus’s stare, which he was sure Donny noticed.
What he’d give for another stupid conversation about now.
Chapter Twenty
Stealth. A skill normally attributed to being a result of other skills: acceleration, vigilance, cunning.
Nonsense.
Stealth wasn’t the result – it was the cause. Everything about a good spy, a good attack, came down to stealth. Without it, there was no way Desert could have tracked those three strangers without being noticed. As it was, she barely rustled a leaf, barely made an audible breath. Her eyes were glued to them the whole time, as they remained completely and utterly oblivious.
Her home remained unnoticed. Covered by green. Undiscovered and unperturbed.
But these three… miscreants. They were strange. An odd combination, and by the state of them, strange that they would have lasted this long.
A little woman, more like a wildcat than a person, ran ahead; sometimes on her legs, sometimes on all fours. She sniffed the air. She peered into the distance. She was their watch, their protection; she formed the head of the triad, yet at the same time, had an odd dynamic. She would continually look back for the other’s approval. She wasn’t just checking if they were following, she was checking they were happy with her as a lookout. It was like she was part of a pack, and they were the ones she had to lead.
Though, once you looked at the other two, it became clear why she was the one chosen to protect, despite initially being such a surprising choice.
Firstly, the big guy had no leg. He looked like he was in charge from the way he carried himself, like he was the decision-maker – yet he was the most vulnerable of the lot of them. His arm was draped around a man who had one facial expression. As if his mouth and eyes had been stuck in some vacantly demented frown. Still, he loyally supported the other man, with a sturdiness his frame didn’t justify – he just didn’t look like he was meant to be at the guy’s side. Like he didn’t belong.
