Calico Descending

by Keri Lake

  Swinging my attention back to Neela, I wipe my tears away and wave her toward me. “He won’t hurt you. I promise.”

  Her eyes fall on me and back to him, while the seconds tick off in my head.

  “C’mon, Neela. You’re either with us, or you’re not. What’ll it be.” I’d hate to think Roz died for nothing, but the longer she stands and contemplates, the less patient I become.

  When she finally reaches back for me, I grip tight to her hand and tug her closer. “Let’s get the hell out of this place.”

  Chapter 29

  Neela leans into me, as the five of us sit tucked behind a stack of crates against the wall of the loading dock. Across from us, six silver boxes stand in a line at the end of a ramp, waiting to be wheeled onto the truck—boxes that hold the mutations. Legion soldiers swarm the place, and if not for the back door that Roz pointed out, I’m certain we’d have been spotted and shot down.

  “We need a distraction,” I whisper to Valdys, beside me. “We’ll never get all of us onto that truck without one.”

  “Had it been just the two of us, as I suggested …” He shoots me an unamused glance and nods his head toward the boxes. “I can think of one massive distraction. We let one loose.”

  The thought of such a thing has my stomach twisted in knots, but he’s right. Letting a mutation loose will surely allow us to go unseen. “The one at the end. It’ll come charging out at the first thing it sees.” A shiver winds down my spine at the visual of whatever poor guard happens to be standing in it’s path.

  “Stay here. I’ll be right back.” He lurches forward, but I reach out for him. “Are you kidding me? You’re like a walking bullseye out there.” He could barely squeeze behind the crates, let alone between the narrow boxes. “You’ll be shot dead before the box opens.”

  “And you think I’m going to let you scamper out there to let one of those things loose? It’ll sniff you out before it bothers with any of the soldiers.”

  “Give me your shirt.” Holding out my hand, I flick my fingers toward him, watching his brows lower to a frown. “Four boxes left. We don’t have much time. Shirt, please.”

  With a huff, he awkwardly peels off his shirt, knocking his elbow against the crate in front of him, and when I slide the garment over my head, I’m swimming in his metallic scent.

  Bare chested, he kneels to the ground beside me, with his knee hiked up, shaking his head. “I don’t like this.”

  “I’ll be fine. How do I open them?”

  “The remote would’ve been convenient right now.” He points toward the silver box, the last one I’m to open, where three of them still remain on the dock. “There’s a manual button you can press on the side of it. Do you see?”

  Following the path of his finger sends my gaze to the small black circle on the outside of the cage. “You’ll press the circle, and a panel will slide out. There’s a switch you can flip that’ll open it. You’ll have about five seconds to get the hell out of there.”

  “Okay. Easy enough.” I turn to face him, setting a kiss to his cheek. “I’ll meet you in the back of the truck.”

  He sighs and grips my chin. “Don’t do anything crazy, woman. I’m in no mood to tear off heads.”

  “I promise.” I push up from my crouch and tiptoe around Titus and Cadmus, who stares at the floor, shaking as if he’s just been pulled out of an ice bath. I scan the path to the box, and find a stack of cardboard boxes that will serve as my first stop. From there, I can shoot across to the first silver box. Then the second, hiding behind each one.

  As the soldiers push one of the silver boxes up the ramp, I dash out from my hiding spot, and slide to the floor behind the stacked cardboard.

  Peeking around it, I notice the easy stroll of soldiers off in the distance, telling me they didn’t see me. The two loading the cages reach the top of the ramp, and are quickly swallowed into the belly of the truck.

  I crouch low and shuffle toward the first cage, watching my reflection in the silvery surface grow as I approach it.

  Still no sign of the other soldiers having seen me, as I peer around the corner to see one tap the other soldier and flick his fingers. The tapped one reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cigarette, before the two of them put their backs to me. I scamper to the second cage, and at the sound of voices, the soldiers from the truck arriving to retrieve the next box, I edge myself around the corner, which puts me directly in view of the other two, if they didn’t happen to be facing away from me, smoking.

  “Hate having to transport these fucking things,” one of the soldiers says from the other side of the cage at my back. “Bastards scare the shit out of me.”

  “I heard they had to put them in these boxes to keep them from eating each other. Ate one of the guards who works in the lower level. Fucking scarfed down on his stomach, while the poor bastard was alive.”

  “Do you think that’s helping? That’s not helping.”

  The sound of retreating footsteps follow the squeal of the wheels, as they head back toward the truck, and I slip to the side of the last box in the row, and press the black button. On a blast of air, the panel pops out of a hole and opens to reveal a red switch. Exhaling a shaky breath, I glance toward where Valdys hides behind the crates, his eyes watching my every move. I flip the switch. A beeping sound begins the countdown to five seconds.

  Beep. Beep. Beep. A woman’s robotic voice echoes through the room, and I flatten myself against the cage.

  “Danger. Please step back. Please step back.” There’s a siren, and the steel door of the cage clicks forward, then slides to the side, hiding me behind its panel. “Danger. Please step back. Please step back.”

  “What the fuck?” The voices of the soldiers come from behind.

  I turn to see their reflection in the silver panel of the cage to my left, as they approach the box where I hide. They pause and step back, as something casts a shadow over top of me. At the sound of screeching, I clamp my eyes shut, inhaling and exhaling a breath, and when I open them, a large white object takes up the reflection beside me.

  Screams echo through the loading dock. Gun fire. I crouch down and peer around the cage, where soldiers scramble around the mutation that stands bent over one of the soldiers. An object flies through the air and lands just feet away. A bloody, severed arm, covered in the black fabric of the soldier’s uniform.

  The two on the truck hustle down the ramp, swinging their guns.

  I make a run for it, waving back at Valdys.

  If the other soldiers happen to see me scrambling up the ramp, they’re far too preoccupied to care.

  More gunfire crackles through the building, while the guards dodge sweeping claws. Looking out from the back of the truck, I watch as Valdys carries Neela across the space, with Titus and Cadmus hobbling behind them. They scramble up the ramp, into the covered bed of the vehicle, and I take note of the soldiers fighting off the mutation, oblivious to us. The five of us tuck ourselves among the silver cages, strapped down in steel crates. Breathing heavily, I fall down beside Valdys, who sits with his back to the wall of the cab.

  “So far, so good,” he says, stroking my hair. “I don’t know what I enjoyed more--watching you slip past the guards unnoticed, or watching you do it while wearing my shirt.”

  Before I can so much as smile at that, the truck bounces, jostling us forward, and I twist around, peering through the crates, to see the mutation standing at the mouth of the vehicle. With its head tilted back, it looks to be sniffing the air, and my eyes fall on Neela.

  Her estrus.

  It must smell it on her. Divesting myself of the T-shirt, I wrap it around her, and pull her back, where Valdys is crouched, ready to lunge.

  I shake my head, urging him to stay where he is. I don’t want to risk Legion finding us before we have a chance to escape.

  Gunfire crackles through the air, and the mutation stiffens on one hellacious screech that has me clamping my hands over my ears. I catch sight of Cadmus, shaking
his head, rocking back and forth where he kneels hidden behind crates, with Titus. As if he’s terrified of the sound. The creature falls to all fours and scrambles up the ramp toward us. A thin halo of wire slips around its neck and yanks it backward, severing the head from it’s body before its claw swipes out, just missing Neela’s exposed ankle.

  I don’t dare peek around the corner to see how, or what, managed that feat. Instead, I focus on my breathing to keep from hyperventilating.

  “How the fuck did it get out?” one of the soldiers asks, followed by the sounds of scuffling feet.

  “I … I don’t know. We were careful, I swear.” What I presume to be one of the two soldiers who wheeled the boxes onto the truck answers him, panic still clinging to his voice.

  Gunfire startles my muscles, chased by the thud of deadweight.

  “Clean this shit up. I want Hawkins and Davenport on transport. I’ve had enough of this clumsy fucker’s antics.” This time, I do peek around the corner, in spite of Valdys tugging me back. Half hanging off the back of the truck lies the fallen mutation, and beside him, the dead body of a soldier.

  “Load up the last of the cargo, and get this fucking truck on the road before anything else happens.”

  The silver boxes rattle and shake with the rough bouncing of the terrain, as I sit back between Valdys’s legs. Ahead of me, Neela wraps her arms around her knees she’s pulled tight to her chest. Her attention hasn’t wavered from Cadmus once, since we drove off.

  I’m guessing she thinks he was the reason behind all those days of tortuous pain she suffered. To a certain extent, he was, but much of the credit goes to Doctor Tims. I’m tempted to ask her if she recognizes her old friend from the yard, the one she tearfully watched get dragged off that day. I’m guessing that doing so will only taint the memory of him, though.

  I lean forward and set my hand on her arm, a gesture that swings her attention back to me. “Are you okay?”

  Shrugging, she lowers her head, diverting her gaze from mine. “Doesn’t hurt as much, I guess. Whatever it was, it’s going away.”

  “You were in estrus. From what I understand, its, uh … a reproductive thing.”

  “That he did to me.”

  “He hurt you, yes. But it was the doctors who did this to you. What Cadmus did was a consequence of that.”

  “Are you excusing what he did to me? Do you have any idea how much pain he caused?”

  “I’m not excusing him, at all. What he did to you was wrong. But the pain will come back with your cycle. That’s what it is. A cycle. That’s what those bastards did to us.”

  She lifts a strand of my hair, the evidence of our mutual suffering. No other girls in Calico were permitted long hair. “You, too?”

  “Yeah.” I don’t dare tell her there’s only one effective means of relieving that pain.

  Her eyes shift toward where Valdys sits behind me then back to me. “Did he hurt you, too?”

  There’s a small bit of remorse in my heart when I lower my head. “He didn’t hurt me that way, no.”

  She whips her head toward Cadmus and back. “Why would he do something like that? He was supposed to be my Champion.”

  “I don’t know. Part of it was biological, I guess, but … I’m not going to make excuses for him.”

  In his mind, he was trying to relieve her of the pain, and defied orders to do it, but I don’t tell her that. It doesn’t matter at this point, seeing as she ended up suffering anyway.

  “Then, why did you save him? Why wouldn’t you leave him there? Why bring him out here, where he can do it again?”

  I can feel Valdys’s gaze on me, perhaps waiting for me to answer that question, and I can’t. After all the encounters I’ve had with Cadmus, I can’t explain why I felt compelled to save him. Maybe a part of me feels guilty for the years that followed that day in the yard. Perhaps a part of me feels sorry for what he’s suffered. Or maybe a small part of me was able to bind emotionally to him that night in his cell. There is no solid answer for why I would bother with him. I just know the thought of them sacrificing him to those monsters was unacceptable to me, and seeing him now has only solidified that decision.

  My body is thrown backward, knocking me against the cage beside me, and I smash my cheek into the steel surface of it. The truck squeals to a grinding halt that jostles everyone and everything. Shouting piques my attention, and I push away from the cage, listening to the laughter and gunfire.

  Marauders. Has to be marauders.

  “Check it out.”

  Ducking low, I peek around the silver box, to where a man stands peering into the bed of the truck. From what I can make out in the dark, he’s dressed in leather and the dirty weathered clothing of one who’s spent days roaming the hot desert. Two more hop up onto the bed alongside him.

  “’The fuck is this?” one of them asks.

  The first one jerks his head toward the other. “Go get soldier boy.” When the one on the left hops down, the other two begin their investigation, taking light and cautious steps toward the cages, behind which we still remain hidden. Valdys moves behind me, his muscles tensing, undoubtedly spoiling for a fight. A gurgled scream is drowned by laughter, as the Legion soldier, no more than twenty years old, is thrown onto the bed of the truck. What looks to be blood coats his face, and I notice one of his ears is already missing.

  “What’s the cargo?” the first marauder says to him.

  Wheezing as he pushes himself up to his knees, the soldier doesn’t answer at first. One of the marauders, a heavier man with a long black beard, slams his boot into the soldier’s ribs, knocking him to the floor again. The soldier grunts and writhes, curling into the hit.

  I can almost feel the rage vibrating through Valdys’s muscles, a beast itself, clawing at his skin, not for the soldier, I’m certain, but perhaps imagining those men finding us.

  “You fucking deaf? Do we need to cut the other ear off?”

  “Mutations,” the soldier answers through his nasal cavity.

  “Mutations?” The incredulous tone of the man’s voice carries an air of amusement. “What kind of mutations? Human? Ragers?”

  “Both.” The soldier wipes the blood from his eyes, and manages to push himself onto his knees.

  Behind me, Valdys shifts, jerking his head for Neela and I to get behind him. He crouches at the edge of the silver box, where Titus mirrors his stance and gives a nod.

  Twisting around, I lift the bottom of the tarp that covers the truck, and my stomach sinks when I find at least thirty men standing outside of the truck. Most of them armed with guns.

  The Alphas can take on a dozen each, perhaps, assuming Cadmus plays along, but they’re no match for guns. Dropping the tarp, I turn back to Valdys, placing my hand on his arm. When he turns, perhaps he sees the grim expression on my face as I shake my head.

  Sitting back against the wall puts me in a position to peek through the small crack between the truck and the cages, to see what’s happening.

  “These mutations.” What I’ve determined as the leader of the group, takes a blade out of his pocket, which he uses to dig dirt from beneath his nails. “Any females?”

  “N-no.” The soldier bends forward, coughing up blood, and he spits.

  “That’s too bad. Bastards out in the Deadlands ain’t too picky when it comes to pussy. Hell, I’ve seen ‘em fuck corpses, dogs, just about anything that’ll hold still long enough.” The men laugh collectively, and glancing around, the soldier lets out a nervous chuckle along with them. “Seen them fuck Legion soldiers for the fun of it.” The leader tips forward, setting his blade beneath the soldier’s chin. “‘Specially ones as … healthy looking as you.”

  The man shakes his head, his face screwed up in fear.

  “You get starving enough out in the Deadlands, well, hell, you get a warm hole to fuck and a meal afterward. Couple years trying to survive out here, the line between the infected and uninfected begins to blur. We’re really not much different from the Ra
gers. We just don’t make as much noise.”

  With a jerk of his head, two men nearby drag the soldier from the bed of the truck. As he screams and kicks, Valdys directs his attention upward, and I know what he’s thinking. The mutations.

  Before I can stop him, he pushes the black button on the side, flips the switch, and the leader snaps his attention in our direction.

  My stomach balls into tight knots as the beep beep beep sounds the alarm. The woman’s robotic voice draws the men in. The door slides open. That harrowing screech is the only warning before the screams set in.

  The truck shakes as thunks sound the mutation’s footsteps.

  “Oh, fuck!” The leader’s voice is brimming with terror, and the gunshots must set it off, because I hear its claws scratching against the metal truck like it’s scrambling for traction.

  Closing my eyes, I listen as the mutation seems to wreak havoc on the crowd of men outside, and when I dare a peek, my suspicions are confirmed. I watch from beneath the tarp as men scatter away from the big, translucent creature swiping out at them. Limbs fly in the air, where he’s gotten hold of some. One man’s innards shoot upward, as his severed legs fall just short of the truck. They fire their guns, wounding it, but the mutation keeps coming at them.

  Valdys signals Titus to follow him, and I lurch forward.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Stay put,” he commands, and the two of them exit the truck.

  I twist around and lift the tarp again, to see Valdys passing beneath me, on the way to the front cab. In the distance, the mutation chases after men, who run off into the darkness. Some clamber onto motorcycles, only managing to fire up the engines, before they’re torn away from the seat. The truck engine fires up, too, and I breathe easy, closing my eyes, as it sets into motion.

  Something cold hits my forehead, and I open my eyes to find the barrel of a gun against it.

  Behind the leader, one of the marauders holds Neela against him, his hand tight over her mouth, as she squirms in his arms.