by Wood, Rick
Chapter Forty-Five
“That’s enough,” said Eugene. “Finish him so we can get on with our lives.”
A brief respite followed Eugene’s instructions. Gus was able to roll onto his side and lay his cheek on the ground, to which it stuck. He pulled it off and saw a blur of blood beneath him, still dripping.
His mind was so groggy, a mess, like a hundred cluttered rooms full of junk. He couldn’t find sense or understanding or thought; all he could find were vague wonders and distant pain.
Despite all of this, he managed to push himself to his knees. His left hand slipped in the puddle of his blood and he collapsed again, and he was sure he could hear laughing, but he pushed himself to his knees once more.
His arms wobbled. He couldn’t keep himself steady.
He threw himself onto his back and leant against the wall. He allowed his eyes to close for a moment, allowing his awareness to return long enough for him to stop himself from passing out.
If he passed out, it was over.
He looked up.
There he was. The empty face of Donny. Out of focus and out of his mind.
“Kill him,” said a voice.
It was Eugene Squire’s.
Gus looked to his side. There was Sadie, laying on the floor, bloody, cowering, shaking, concussed.
“Kill him now,” insisted Eugene.
“I love you, Donny,” Gus said. It was the best he could think of and it only prompted further guffaws from Eugene.
Donny bent over Gus and withdrew the hunter’s knife from his belt.
His own friend killing him with his own knife.
It was kind of poetic, in a way.
Donny pulled his arm back.
“Wait,” Gus said, padding his jacket, feeling for something in his pockets.
“Hurry up, Donny,” Eugene’s voice said, angrier and more direct.
“Wait, I have something here…”
Donny swung his arm down, aiming the knife at Gus’s throat.
Then he paused, the knife an inch away, looking at what Gus had taken from his pocket.
“What the hell are you doing?” Eugene shouted, unaltering abhorrence in his voice and his gestures. “I said kill him!”
Donny didn’t retract the knife, nor did he push it further.
And Gus didn’t move from its reach. If Donny so wished, that knife would be in and out of his throat with as little as a twitch.
But Donny was transfixed. Staring intently, beholding what was before him.
“I think…” Gus said, his voice weak, “that these… are yours…”
Gus held out the item to Donny.
A pair of sunglasses.
Donny stared at them. Gus’s vision slowly returned, enough for him to see the conflict in Donny’s face. His instructions and his programming rivalled by a sombre recollection.
“Remember them?” Gus said.
Donny didn’t answer. Didn’t move.
He looked horrified.
There was something working behind those eyes, something thinking, desperately wondering – those sunglasses.
What were they?
“That’s it,” Gus said. “You do remember.”
He smiled, then stopped, his cheeks hurting from the movement.
Donny’s expression turned to confusion, like he knew those sunglasses, but couldn’t figure out where from.
“I got you them,” Gus announced. “You were yapping on about sunglasses and how you wanted a cool pair of shades. I snapped at you. I was too pig-headed to apologise, so when I got petrol – there they were. And I picked them up for you and I’d never seen you looking so chuffed.”
Donny’s eyes rose to Gus’s face. Still confused. Still perplexed.
“That’s it,” Gus said. “You remember me, don’t you? Hard to recognise covered in blood, but you see me.”
Donny’s knife-wielding hand shook.
“Stab me if you wish,” Gus said. “That’s fine. Just make up your mind. Are you a killer, or are you Donny?”
His arm shook with more vigour. Wanting to push the knife forward and wanting to take it back.
“What the hell is this?” Eugene demanded. “I said kill him, so you damn well kill him!”
Donny’s head turned to look at Eugene.
“You fucking imbecile, do as I say!”
Donny took the knife away.
He stood.
Straightened his back.
And he changed everything with one, single syllable:
“No.”
Chapter Forty-Six
A single memory changed everything.
Donny could see it, like a cinema screen just out of reach, projecting onto the hazy canvas of his memories.
Those sunglasses…
Shades…
He’d been after a cool set of shades…
He wasn’t cool, never had been. He was nerdy, geeky and annoying. But those sunglasses.
Gus had fetched them for him.
Gus.
Who is Gus?
Gus Harvey.
The one below him.
His face. Bloody. So bloody.
Who did that?
Did I do that?
“What the hell is this?”
A familiar voice.
A commanding voice.
“I said kill him, so you damn well kill him!”
He was right. Donny had to kill him.
Had to kill Gus Harvey.
Gus Harvey.
Why?
Who?
I don’t understand…
He held the knife by the throat of the man who was…
Gus Harvey?
Yes, Gus Harvey.
Is that him?
Friend.
Friend?
Didn’t matter.
Friend – but didn’t matter.
Those shades.
My sunglasses…
He wanted to wear them.
Put them on. Look cool again.
No, not my job.
Kill.
Kill Gus Harvey.
He pushed the knife further and resisted. His arm wobbled, shaking his whole body, the knife banging back and forth.
Gus Harvey didn’t move.
Just waited for the knife to meet his neck. To welcome death like an old friend.
An old friend.
Like an old friend…
“You fucking imbecile, do as I say!”
Do as he says?
Why?
Donny took the knife back. The quivering ended.
He stood.
Looked over his friend’s bloody face.
He did that.
I did that.
Why did he do that?
He looked to Eugene Squire. The one behind him. The one who had beat him and hurt him and…
No more.
Never any more.
“No,” Donny said, definitely and decisively.
“What!” Eugene shouted, shock and horror adorning his face; his uppity face; his smacked-arse face; that horrible, conniving face.
“I said no,” Donny repeated.
What was he saying?
How was he saying that?
“Are you disobeying me?”
Donny looked back to Gus.
Dropped the knife.
Took the sunglasses.
Looked to the girl on the floor. Cowering. Also bloody.
“Friend…” she whispered. “Friend…”
He put the sunglasses on.
He felt so cool.
So fucking cool.
“So you’re not going to kill him?” Eugene asked.
Donny shook his head.
“I am not,” he answered.
“Fine,” responded Eugene, stepping forward and picking up the knife Donny had dropped. “That’s just fine.”
Without a moment’s thought or hesitation or a second for anyone to perceive what was happening before it happened, Eugene stuck the knife into Donny’
s gut and twisted it.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Eugene could hear the attempt to scream from Gus, but Gus’s voice gave nothing more than a breath – something he wouldn’t be able to give fairly shortly.
But first, the little rat boy.
The disobedient little shit.
The impudent piece of filth.
How dare he?
To say no to him!
To deny his conditioning, to override his training, to completely undermine the entire operation that twisted his mind because of a pair of measly little fucking sunglasses?
Eugene twisted the knife again, watching Donny’s face as it knotted and grimaced and distorted and misshaped. His mouth hung open like a hungry dog, his eyes wide, a terrified piece of soon-to-be roadkill staring at a superior predator.
“No!” Gus shouted, his voice finally returning. He pushed himself to his feet and stumbled backwards but pushed himself up again.
Eugene wondered how Gus would even consider the possibility of standing a chance against him if Gus didn’t even stand a chance against Donny – then he remembered that Gus didn’t know. A few days ago, Eugene was a feeble dweeb Gus could easily squish.
Not now.
Oh, boy, not now.
Gus threw a punch at Eugene. Eugene didn’t even falter. He caught the fist, then clamped his spare hand around Gus’s neck, lifting him into the air.
“You idiot,” Eugene spat. “You moron.”
Eugene threw Gus at the wall.
Gus looked back, wide-eyed – a new wave of fear.
Gus hadn’t expected this.
Eugene enjoyed his shock, delighted at it.
He took the knife from Donny’s gut, then stuck it in again a few inches over.
Donny went to throw a feeble arm.
“Put your arms down, Donny,” Eugene instructed, and Donny did as he was told.
“What have you done?” Gus gasped.
“What have I done?” Eugene repeated with as much gloating as he could force to his most unpleasant of voices – he may have become stronger, but his irritating voice still remained the same.
Gus stood and charged. Eugene punched him, sending him stumbling backwards once again.
Then something took Eugene by surprise. Which was stupid, really, as he knew she was there – but the girl who had been lying and cowering had leapt to her feet and jumped onto his back, causing him to step away from Donny, and allowing Donny to stumble backwards and rip the knife from his belly.
Donny fell, delirium causing him to collapse.
If Donny was the ratboy, then Sadie was undoubtedly the ratgirl. Bony, revolting features. Quite a pretty face, but dirty and grubby – the kind of animal his servants would have disposed of on his behalf.
As it was, he would enjoy disposing of her himself.
He grabbed her wrists and twisted them. She held on, but yelped from the pain. He grabbed her wrists tighter and she continued to yelp.
“Donny, Donny,” he could hear Gus whimpering. “Donny, come on.”
Eugene did not intend to deal with one problem before he’d dealt with the other.
He grabbed Sadie by the hair, pulled her off him, and threw her down the corridor. She stepped back to her feet and sprinted toward him.
He still had enough time.
Enough time, that was, to charge at Donny’s suffering body.
Enough time to kick Gus out of the way.
And enough time to take his knife from Donny’s limp hands and finish it with a slice across his throat.
The last few gasps of breath slipped past Donny’s lips and his body fell into an empty slumber.
Eugene looked at his watch. He was running out of time.
But he could not deny himself the pleasure of showing off his grand abilities against these other two urchins.
He rolled up his sleeves.
This would not take long.
Chapter Forty-Eight
They were in the fourth and final corner of the room – four more than Whizzo ever thought they’d manage.
This corner, however, felt the most exposed.
There was nothing they could hide behind. Nothing to shield them or cover them. They were just hoping none of the army turned around.
They were paces away.
Training. Eating.
They were even more revolting up close. From afar they looked like humans with characteristics of the infected – this close, they looked not human at all.
They snarled upon every thrust, grunted upon every lunge, and slobbered upon every bite. They had the shape of a person, the body, the features – but none of them were remotely human. Their movements were jolted, like every action was the onset of a seizure – yet their movements were also executed with perfect precision. If they were a sonnet, it would be a mess of chaotic words that, when read aloud, sounded like the most articulate piece of poetry ever written.
“Jesus Christ,” Whizzo said under his breath as they finished setting down the final bomb. “Just look at them.”
“We best not,” Desert advised. “We don’t want them to look at us. Come on.”
She crept back along the wall, searching for the passageway they had snuck along. They reached it just in time, and they both let out a relieved breath that they had made it unnoticed.
“Wait!” Whizzo yelped. “I didn’t put the detonator on it!”
Desert looked at him and they both contemplated the same thing – could we get away with this bomb not going off?
They knew it greatly reduced the risk of success.
They knew this was more important than their lives.
But they also knew that they were just about to escape. One final sprint and they would be out, ready to hit the button and flood the entire compound from the ground up.
“I have to,” Whizzo said, resolved and regretful. “We need them all to go off.”
Desert sighed. Looked over his shoulder at the movement of bodies. Considered every possible way that they could avoid returning.
“We have no choice,” Whizzo said, closing his eyes and hating himself as he said it.
He really did not want to go back.
He would do anything to not go back.
But he had to, and he knew that.
“You can wait here,” Whizzo said.
“Are you kidding? I’m not letting you–”
“We’re less likely to be noticed if there’s just one of us. I’m short, I can sneak, I’ll be fine.”
Desert did not look convinced.
“Honestly,” Whizzo insisted. “It’ll be quicker.”
Desert sighed and looked over Whizzo’s shoulders once more.
“I’ll be right back,” Whizzo said, and instantly thought of all those horror movies he used to watch where a character would say I’ll be right back, only to never return.
He crouched, moving subtly and stealthily out of the door and staying against the wall. He remained unnoticed, but there was still a lot to do.
He realised he was holding his breath. Yet, even though he realised this, he did not let it go.
His footsteps were placed with the lightest tap, his hands guiding him against the wall with the largest quiver, and his eyes staring at the bomb he approached with the widest stare.
Once he arrived, he patted his body in an attempt to remember where he’d put the last detonator.
I didn’t leave it with Desert… Tell me I didn’t leave it with Desert…
He was not prepared to do this again.
Luckily, he found it in the depths of his back pocket. He reached out and placed it upon the side of the bomb.
He went to leave, but it didn’t look right.
It was upside down.
Bemoaning his own stupidity once more, he went to remove the detonator in order to put it the right way up.
But it was stuck. It had fixed itself in place.
He pulled harder, but it did not come off.
He yanked and yanked,
but it barely shook.
Finally, using all the strength he had, he pulled on the detonator and it fell to the floor, creating a large clatter.
His breath stuttered.
He looked into the room.
Heads turned his way. A few, then some more, then even more – until a hundred eyes were fixed on him.
A hundred dead, reddened, evil eyes.
Shit.
He slapped the detonator onto the bomb the correct way around and went to run.
He halted his run as he watched a few of the army stand to block him – and when he stopped, they stopped.
He looked to Desert, waiting in the passageway.
“Fuck it,” he said, as he took out a device with a large button.
He pressed it and each corner of the room exploded with water.
Then he ran.
And they chased.
But it took seconds before he was caught up in the waves.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Despite the ever-aching, agonising pains shooting throughout every muscle of his body, the adrenaline gave Gus the burst he needed to dive to Donny’s side and shake him and shake him and shake him and shake him until…
Everything he’d been fighting for.
Everything he’d been working on.
Wasted.
The life he’d saved, the life he’d picked from morbid obedience, from slavery – done.
Donny was…
Don’t say it. Don’t think it. Don’t even…
Dead.
He’s dead.
No matter how much Gus shook, Donny’s eyes didn’t move and his chest didn’t rise. His body was somehow heavier, his face somehow angelic yet empty.
Gus looked up at Eugene.
Eugene Squire and his cocky chuckle, his dirty leer, his ugly face that provoked such wrath, such anger.
“You…” Gus growled.
I am going to kill you.
Sadie sat in a ball, huddled up, her arms around her shaking knees, staring at Donny.
Gus pushed himself to his feet.
How did Eugene even manage to do that?
Eugene was a weakling.
He was…
“My God,” Gus gasped, looking Eugene up and down with the little clarity his squinting black eyes would allow. “What did you do…”
Gus was surprised that he was surprised.
