Dispersal

by Addison Gunn

  Samantha followed Anita up the only flight of stairs inside. The interior was surprisingly lush and clean, more suggestive of a manor house than living quarters for dairy farmers. Up the carpeted stairs were several bedrooms, all crammed wall-to-wall with bunk beds, with little more than a foot between them.

  The women entered the red room, slid down the narrow aisles and filled the bunks, leaving their shoes in baskets at the foot of each bed.

  Samantha, for all her conflicting emotions, was thankful to be back on a mattress, even if it was stuffed with hay and duck feathers and covered in burlap. She fell asleep quickly, slept soundly, and awoke at first light, refreshed.

  After collecting her shoes and walking outside, the sounds of shouting brought her across the field.

  A few of the humans who had been brought in kneeled outside the shed doors, surrounded by Brother Ed and a handful of armed Archaeans.

  Brother Ed took notice of Samantha, but continued to pace back and forth in front of the prisoners, pointing to an empty pail, and an overturned bowl of uneaten mash. As he spoke, a pair of brothers dragged a barrel of sloshing water from the barn toward the group of them.

  “Stubbornness,” Brother Ed said, his voice growing louder, “is the path to Hell. Salvation lies within.” He closed his eyes and turned toward the sunrise, raising his palms to the sky. “Let us take water together, to commemorate your indoctrination into the faith.”

  “Don’t drink it,” said the bald man who had cursed at Anita the night before. “It’s poisoned.”

  Brother Ed sighed and dropped his hands to his sides. “It’s not poisoned, I promise you.”

  Dropping the barrel in front of the captives, the two Archaeans popped off the lid and dipped in several tin cups, handing one to Brother Ed. He took it wordlessly.

  “It’s laced with parasites,” the old man said. “You’ll become one of them.”

  A teen girl—no more than fifteen, by Samantha’s estimation—stared down the row at the older man and sucked back a sob. Licking her cracked lips, she blinked and stared to the ground. Beside her, a woman nodded. Two of the children cried.

  “Mommy,” one of them whimpered. It was the boy who had scraped his knee. “I’m thirsty.”

  “Don’t drink the water,” the mother said, voice hard.

  Brother Ed nodded to the crying boy, a soft smile on his lips. “No harm will come to you, I promise.”

  “He’s lying, Jeffrey,” the mother said.

  “You’ll die,” the older man said. “It’s poison.”

  Stress and strain battled on the little boy’s face. Caught between following his elder’s commands, his fear of Brother Ed, and his thirst, the boy visibly wavered.

  “Do we look dead to you?” Brother Ed argued, waving at the other Archaeans surrounding the prisoners. “Are we not alive? Our hearts beat in our chests. Our minds and hearts are filled with the holy Archaean. You too can become one of us. You too can live here on the farm in peace and tranquillity, surrounded by the love of the Archaean.”

  “It’s a trick,” said the mother. “Don’t listen to him.”

  Brother Ed took a sip from the cup in his hand. “You would rather watch your children die of thirst than allow them to drink?”

  “The others will come for us,” said the old man at the end of the row. “We will be saved.”

  Brother Ed poured the remainder of the water from the cup in his hand and into the dirt at his feet, and shook his head slowly. “Why must everything be so difficult?” Handing the cup to a nearby Archaean, he turned away. He said simply, “Baptise them,” then walked toward the barn, brow creased with sad resignation.

  At the barn waited the two other leaders, the one in the knitted cap and the one who had greeted Samantha’s group in the forest. Brother Ed nodded to them, and all three entered the barn, closing the door behind them.

  Back at the shed, one at a time, the old man and the young boy’s mother were dunked face first into the barrel of parasitic water, over and over, in and out, until they inhaled, choked, and then swallowed.

  Soaked, coughing, sobbing, they were tossed back into the shed to recuperate while the teenaged girl and the two youngsters greedily drank cup after cup of tainted water. All the while, a member of the fellowship stood by, reciting scripture and passages of welcome.

  It took every ounce of mental strength Samantha had not to intervene.

  17

  THEY SURROUNDED THE research facility on three sides.

  As Lewis had predicted, a week earlier, what was left of Jacksonville, Florida was overrun with Infected. It was also five meters under water.

  It had taken Cobalt and a squad of ten security staff the better part of three hours—coming up the St. John’s River in patched dinghies, rowing around the flooded city to conserve fuel—before they were able to moor atop an abandoned rail station north of the Jacksonville Landing. It took another hour after that to make their way across rooftops and through new jungle growth before they were able to position themselves three points around the Winston and Winston medical research facility. By then, it was late afternoon.

  The sun burned hot and the air was thick. The neighbourhood, drowned and covered in vines and greenery, was more like a swamp than the ruins of a metropolis. Herds of watery wildlife crowded Jacksonville. Once-proud skyscrapers had become crumbling, algae-eaten piles of streaked glass and cracked cement. Schools of goliath-brutes and packs of tusk-fiends lurked around every watery bend, while terror-jaws moved in herds atop buildings, and rot-gliders nested high on sunken towers ready to swoop on prey below.

  Miller, who’d fantasized of falling to his knees and kissing the dirt, soon realized there was no solid ground to smooch. From the angry sea to a flooded wasteland: one was no better than the other.

  Mold, algae, and mildew grew on all surfaces. Infected communes popped out of every other building, starved, malicious, peppering them with spit darts and makeshift spears, hoping for one of their rafts to drift closer so they could rip them to ribbons.

  Home sweet home.

  It was a relief when they finally positioned themselves around the office building where Winston and Winston had once had their MRSA research laboratory, for all that the first two floors were underwater, and there was a commune of Infected living on the third floor. From what Miller could tell through his binoculars, there were about two dozen of them.

  “This doesn’t bode well,” Hsiung breathed over the com.

  “I can see fifteen on the third floor—south side,” Morland said from beside Miller. “At least.”

  “Five more here on the west side,” du Trieux confirmed. “Doyle?”

  “Three visible in the north,” he answered, “but it’s dark inside. Infra-red isn’t reliable in this humidity. What’s the play, boss?”

  “Hold on,” Miller said. “I’m thinking.”

  Tempting as it was to open fire on the third floor, the uncertainty as to numbers worried him. A smoke bomb might force some out, thin the herd, leaving the possibility of picking them off one at a time as they swam away. But they’d still have to wade through an indeterminate number of them once they got inside, and it was a twenty-story skyscraper, with plenty of space to hide.

  If they climbed the building’s exterior to the tenth floor—where the laboratory was—they’d be spotted. The building was glass, top to bottom, and a great many panels above and below sea level were shattered and broken. Not only did Cobalt risk being seen, they’d run the risk of being dragged inside and mauled—or worse, falling and being eaten by a school of tusk-fiends. Rappelling from the roof would leave them trapped below.

  “A chopper would sure come in handy about now,” Morland said.

  “Oui,” du Trieux said.

  “Where’s the stairwell?” Doyle asked.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Hsiung said.

  “Cripes, I miss the internet,” Morland spat.

  “All right,” Miller finally snapped. “We’ll
push them toward the north.”

  “Toward me?” Doyle chuckled. “Awww, how sweet. You shouldn’t have...”

  “Can they get out that way?” du Trieux asked.

  “Affirmative,” Doyle answered. “There’s a grouping of broken windows and a crumbled wall. I suppose you could call it a grotto? There’s a handful of Infected trying to hunt in the shallows of the second floor. They suck at it, by the way.”

  “Remind the others to pick off the Charismatics first,” Miller said. “Du Trieux and Hsiung’s squad will cover from the west and flank the rest as they scatter. If they swim off, let them go. Kill any who stick around. Morland and I will wade across with our squad and head up the stairs to the tenth floor. Swim in and meet us there once you’ve got the lower levels swept. Watch out for wildlife.”

  “And if there are more upstairs, boss?” Doyle asked.

  “If we’re overrun, then abort mission and get back to the ship, understood?” Miller waited until each of his team answered in the affirmative, then switched his com to mute and unpacked the rucksack he’d brought from the ship. His MGL Mk 1 grenade launcher was a welcome sight.

  Along the south side of the office building, Morland, Miller, and three of the grunts were crouched atop a two-story train station. Several stairwells rose out of the water to the raised tracks, which rotted like blown arteries above the waves. Hunkered behind the overgrowth on top of one of the arched roofs, Miller raised the launcher and eyed the south side of the tower through the scope.

  He pulled the lever and rotated the load. The Mk 1 had a conventional trigger and a recoil reduction system, making it ideal for launching standard-to-medium-velocity munitions as far as twelve hundred meters. Miller had brought it along in case they needed a last ditch effort for exiting the building. He hadn’t considered they’d need it to get in.

  Miller sought his target through the scope. He was using Hellhound rounds, armor-piercing explosive shells with an effective radius of about ten meters; they should easily clear an entry point into the building, and hopefully push anyone near the explosion clear out the far side.

  He squeezed the trigger, and the shell punched the glass wall of the third floor like a needle. The resultant blast filled the air with fire, glass and smoke.

  “Here we go,” Doyle said on the com.

  People spilled out in two different directions, not quite what Miller had hoped. From his vantage point he spotted a small pack of Infected, covered in moss and lichen—near-skeletal forms of splotchy, gray and green skin—spilling out the eastern side into the murky water like rats from a fire. Then, trickling forth into an adjoining parking lot, they clamoured upwards, climbing atop one another to reach cement pylons in front of a dilapidated office building.

  “I count twelve,” Doyle breathed over the com. A shot rang out, echoing across downtown Jacksonville. “Eleven.”

  “Same on my side,” grunted du Trieux.

  “Take out the Charismatics,” Miller reminded them, slinging the Mk 1 strap over his shoulder. Then he, Morland and the others jumped down into the green sludge and swam across the street toward the office building.

  As careful as Miller tried to be, it was impossible not to get the water on his face; breast stroke wasn’t his strongest. Spitting the sweet tasting murk from his lips, he pushed forward, Morland on his right, the other three a stroke behind.

  Luck was on their side: no wildlife got in their way. At the mouth of the building, the skeleton of a half-moon glass enclosure, shattered and bent, extended from the second floor like a ruptured tumour. Miller helped Morland and their team climb on top of it, then they hoisted themselves over a cement railing, which led to an exterior walkway on the third floor.

  Glass crunched under his sodden boots as Miller crossed the hall into the building. His grenade blast had taken out four to five Infected upon impact, their charred, jagged bodies smoldering beside what had once been a reception desk.

  “Two o’clock,” Morland said, turning to aim at two more Infected, who were wounded but still mobile. Two brief pops and he turned back around.

  As the rest of the group swept the area, Miller got the lay of the land. Elevators stood open on their left. Behind the reception desk was another door, leading to a conference room—also deserted. Another door lead to be a foul-smelling bathroom, past which was a long hallway of cubicles and offices.

  Beside the elevator foyer was a fire stair, the red sign over the door partially obscured by fungal blooms. Miller pointed and led the way.

  Pushing down the metal bar, he jammed his shoulder into the door, which opened a fraction of an inch, then stuck.

  “Jammed,” Miller said.

  “They’ve found us,” Doyle said over the com. “We’ve locked the door, but it won’t be long. Du Trieux? Hsiung? A little help?”

  “Almost...” Hsiung gasped over the com, “there.”

  “Get behind the desk,” Miller said to his team, pointing. He chambered another grenade, blasted the stairwell door and ducked down to wait for the dust to settle. When he rose again, the door had been disintegrated. Someone had stacked furniture behind it—a bookcase, a metal desk, several file cabinets—which were also blown to bits. Scattered papers fluttered around the reception area and stairwell like confetti.

  Once over the desk they sprinted up the stairs.

  “There’s three of them,” Doyle said over the com, “to the east.”

  “I see them,” du Trieux replied.

  “I’m here. Where are you? Did you move positions?” Hsiung huffed.

  “Had to,” Doyle said, shots ringing out over the com. “Got overrun. We’re two buildings west. Busted my knee pretty good jumping, though.”

  Hsiung cussed under her breath and the com quieted for a moment.

  Morland, Miller, and their squad were at the sixth floor and still climbing, when the door burst open and a handful of Infected spilled out. They looked at them quizzically for a moment, then began pursuit.

  The squad turned around and fired, mowing down the front line in a bloody heap.

  “We’re boxed in,” Miller said into the com, taking two steps at a time up the flight. “Gonna need extraction.”

  Morland unholstered his sidearm and risked slowing for a heartbeat to snap off three shots behind him. One round ricocheted off the rusted railing; two snagged the front-most Infected in the chest. Two of the three grunts behind him were swarmed by the horde, unable to keep up. Their screams echoed through the stairwell as they fell.

  At the tenth floor landing, Miller grabbed for the handle and pulled.

  Locked.

  “Move!” Morland shouted.

  Miller stepped back, taking out his .45 calibre Gallican and turning to shoot into the approaching throng. He took out one in the head and another up the nose. The soldier beside him emptied his assault rifle into the crowd, then fumbled to reload. Miller watched as the mob overcame him when he bent to pick up his magazine.

  Morland had emptied a mag into the locked door handle and wrenched it open. Miller dispatched another from the mob, dropped an empty mag on the floor and reloaded, and he and Morland threw themselves through the door and barred it from the inside.

  “I’ve got Doyle,” Hsiung said. “Du Trieux?”

  “We’re cleaning up down here in the water,” she answered. She grunted once, something messy making it over the airwaves. “Find cover back at the dinghy, we’ll rendezvous there. I’m going for Miller and Morland.”

  “Copy that.”

  “You’re a peach, Trix,” Doyle said. “Go get ’em, tiger.”

  “Never mind him,” Hsiung said, as du Trieux snickered. “I gave him morphine. His knee is mush.”

  “Be careful, you two,” du Trieux added before cutting the line.

  Inside the tenth floor, Morland and Miller barricaded the broken door, piling up as much broken furniture and trash as they could find, then lit up their barrel-mounted flashlights and scrambled down the dark, claustrophobic hallwa
y.

  Decay claimed every square inch of surface. Black and green mold, intertwined and swirling like a vast Jackson Pollock, covered the walls and floor. The smell of must and mildew hung thick and heavy in the air.

  At the end of the hall stood double glass doors covered in fungal blooms. Miller and Morland stopped short, aware of the racket from the barricaded doors behind them, and scraped away the thick growth before prising the door open. It gave way with a creak, revealing a large circular room.

  White glass countertops ringed the room. Other than the ubiquitous mold, they were seemingly bare and empty.

  Miller, feeling his panic rise, yanked open drawers and cabinets, only to find rotted—unreadable—papers, broken and crumbling hard drives, and the glassy shards of a laboratory long ago destroyed. “Fuck.”

  “I found a thumb drive,” Morland said, stepping out of what had once been a supply closet.

  “That’ll be some secretary’s holiday photos, then,” Doyle said over the com, laughing and then apologizing under his breath.

  “This has been empty a while,” Miller said, kicking a cracked floor tile with the edge of his boot. “A long while.”

  “A wild goose chase?” du Trieux asked.

  “Afraid so.”

  Morland sighed and pocketed the thumb drive. Bending over, he opened the bent door of an overturned specimen refrigerator with the tip of his rifle, finding nothing but darkness and mold.

  “Take a sample,” Miller said. “Just in case.”

  “You hoping we’re standing in a heap of super penicillin?” Morland frowned.

  “You ever see this much mold?”

  Morland shook his head. “No.”

  “Third floor is clear,” du Trieux said. “But I hear movement above and I don’t think it’s you.”

  “We left a crowd outside the tenth floor stairwell,” Miller said.

  In the distance, a great boom sounded. Three distinct pops resonated off the buildings with a reverberation and an echo.

  “What the hell was that?” Morland asked.

  “Uh, sir?” Hsiung said.

  “Anybody have eyes on that?” Miller asked.