The hideous creature stepped back inside flight deck. The light disappeared as the doors closed.
“We have to fall back,” Tuna whispered frantically.
Zeke pushed open the door to the utility closet. “Jax, there’s no time. Let’s go.”
“Two seconds,” Jax said.
Zeke closed the door. “Tuna, move away.” Zeke pulled out his knife and walked into the center of the corridor. “They’re coming. They know we’re here.”
“Zeke, let’s just get Jax and go,” Tuna said, backing away from Zeke.
The double doors of flight deck slid open. Light spilled onto the floor of the corridor between Zeke and flight deck.
“Tuna, get back to the others. Get to Gen,” Zeke said and then started to run into the light spilling out from flight deck.
“No, Zeke!” Tuna said frozen in place.
The sniffing beast reappeared and ran at Zeke who swung his knife as he collided with the hungry fiend. Two more infected burst out of flight deck and jumped onto Zeke’s back before he could pull his knife out of the skull of the dead beast on the ground.
Tuna reached for his knife but dropped it as a blast of blue energy knocked one of the infected up and off of Zeke. The other cannibal paid no mind to the blast. He dove down with his sharpened teeth and bit a hole in Zeke’s suit.
Tuna fell to the ground in horror desperately searching for his knife. Jax fired again, but missed. The beast’s eyes opened wide as he fought to get his teeth down into Zeke’s warm veins pulsing with pure blood.
Zeke punched sideways hitting the beast in the mouth preventing it from sinking its teeth into his chest. It would have only been a momentarily reprieve from the slithering beast’s relentless need for his blood, but Zeke managed to pull his knife from the dead beast’s skull and firmly plant it in the other beast’s skull.
Tuna and Jax lifted Zeke to his feet. They backed away from the closed doors of flight deck. Zeke searched his chest for a tear. He found it. His gloved fingers felt inside the tear. When he pulled his hand out there was a touch of blood on his glove.
“It’s fine,” Jax said. “We’ll clean it.
Tuna and Jax regarded their doomed friend with stupid denial on their faces.
“You can’t clean it,” Zeke said matter-of-factly.
The doors of flight deck slid open and a pulse of blue energy cut through the dark blowing a black hole in the wall behind Tuna. Zeke pulled out his holstered gun and handed it to Tuna.
“Cover me until I’m on them,” Zeke said. He turned and ran at the beasts with his knife. “And then run.” Zeke’s voice echoed in their helmet even though he was running away from them.
Jax blasted two shots, blowing an arm off one beast and sending the others scattering. Tuna lifted the gun and turned on the power. A red light quickly turned green and he squeezed the trigger. The blue pulse raced past Zeke and splattered an infected man’s head against the wall.
Zeke stabbed a small, preteen fiend who had grabbed onto his legs in the back. More beasts emerged with pulse guns.
“Run,” Zeke yelled in their helmets. Two beasts began firing down the corridor as still more pounced on Zeke who was now on the ground stabbing wildly at the horde overtaking him.
Jax pushed Tuna to get him to run. Tuna glanced back at the beasts tearing pieces of fabric from Zeke’s suit. The blue pulses of energy flew above and around the boys as they ran. It was not easy for the beasts to locate them in the dim light.
Zeke kept fighting, occupying the horde as much as he could while he still had breath. “I know you’re going to make it,” Zeke moaned into their helmets as they turned into the next corridor.
“You’ll always be with us,” Tuna said, but Zeke never responded. Tuna felt his friend’s voice slipping away forever. The boys ran wildly into the dark. “You’ll always be with us,” Tuna repeated, softer this time. It’s what Cassie had said to him, but it wasn’t true. Her light had long ago disappeared from the dark universe and now Zeke had been snatched away from him. He could feel it in his bones.
Zeke was gone. Never again would he be with them.
-14-
They had returned with two new pulse guns and a tranq gun. They returned dripping in sweat and trembling in fear. They returned clean of germs having entered through the cleansing chamber as always.
They returned without Zeke.
The others bounced off the walls while Jax caught his breath and attempted to explain what had happened in fits and bursts of words. Tuna said nothing. He did not take off his suit. He leaned back against the reactor wall and dropped down to the ground. He sat with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.
“They overwhelmed him,” Jax finally recounted. “They tore his suit in pieces from his body.”
Gen collapsed. Trinh hurried over to comfort her. Ethan walked numbly off into the shadows. Jax lined up the four pulse guns and the tranq gun on the ground next to his helmet.
“The waiting is unbearable,” Jax said. “There’s five of us. We have five guns now.” Jax glanced at his friends none of whom even looked his way. “Why don’t we march into flight deck guns blazing? Put an end to this one way or another?”
“They have guns too,” Ethan said from the dark. “And they’ll be expecting us.”
“One boy and one girl must survive in the end or it’s all pointless,” Trinh reminded Jax. “We don’t have people to spare.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jax said under his breath, “we must be ever cautious.”
* * *
GEN HAD FINALLY SLEPT. The night before they lost Zeke, after a long talk with Trinh, she laid down next to him and felt his presence as a calming influence for the first time.
She nestled in next to him to slide her arm under his arm. She rested her right hand softly on his strong chest. His heart beat slowly under the palm of her hand. Eventually, his hand found her hand and covered it.
They remained like that. Their heartbeats learning to beat as one. She kissed the back of his neck. The smell of his skin, the taste of his sweat lingered happily as she fell to sleep and slept peacefully for hours.
The next three nights were unbearable. His absence overwhelmed her while the others slept. He was a life raft in this nightmare and now she flailed away in oncoming waves, drowning in dark thoughts.
They had decided not to leave the reactor for at least three days. They had to ration water and make it last. The infected would be roaming the corridors reminded now of the pure-blooded morsels that still lived and breathed on the ship.
Tuna woke before the others. He drank some water and joined Gen in a space glowing with dim yellow light. Tuna had always felt more like her brother than anyone else in the project.
“When the music stops, the ballroom will be cleared,” Gen said.
“The music?” Tuna took another drink of water.
“The DJ said that,” Gen explained. “He was all alone on his ship in a vast sea. He was waiting for his end, too.”
Tuna dropped his head and looked sideways at Gen. “Waiting for the end? Who’s doing that?”
“Come on, Tuna, don’t be a blind optimist. Not now.”
“I think you’re being a blind pessimist and I don’t want to hear that kind of talk. Not around the others.”
“You’re one to talk,” Gen said. “After Cassie died you were unable to socialize with anyone.” She immediately regretted her words.
He stared at her a long time. “I worked even harder to make sure the project succeeded. I had no desire to socialize. I wanted to make sure her sacrifice was worth it. You should be doing the same.”
“I’m sorry, Tuna,” Gen said. “I shouldn’t have said it like that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “We don’t have time to have our feelings hurt and we don’t have time to grieve.”
“I want to go out with you today.”
“Trinh is coming with me. We can’t have both girls out there at the same time.”
“You’re the commander now,” Gen said. “You can choose who goes out with you.”
“Trinh is an expert shooter,” Tuna said. “She’s been begging to get back out there.”
“We’ve all done weapons training,” Gen reminded him. “I’m not Trinh but I was the sixth highest-rated girl in the dome.”
“Really? Sixth? Are you telling the truth?”
“Tuna, we don’t have time to lie either,” Gen said with a wink.
He nodded his head and considered her request.
“Alright, a short run only,” he decided. “We could stop by the gardens. You would know better than anyone what was useful.”
Gen smiled. She leaned in happily and kissed Tuna’s cheek.
A sudden thought detonated in both their minds. The way things were they might end up having to be mates. They could even end up the last two and be forced to produce offspring. The simple kiss on his cheek suddenly lost its innocence.
Neither liked the idea of mating. It felt like mating with a sibling. They avoided each other’s eyes. Tuna stood up.
“Thanks, Tuna,” Gen said, but she kept her eyes on the ground and he walked quickly away.
* * *
THE GARDENS HAD OVERGROWN after months without care. The water sprinkler still misted from the overhead piping on its usual schedule so many plants continued to flourish.
Tuna and Gen moved slowly in the shadows. Even though the infected were unlikely to ingest any fresh fruits or vegetables, they may have an eye on the gardens expecting the remaining crew to eventually come for natural food when starving.
When the infected could not find flesh to eat and blood to drink, they survived on regular human food. Cold storage would have more than enough for them to thaw and eat for years. The gardens held no significance to them other than being a place to spring a trap.
The kids had purposefully avoided going to the gardens even once in all the months they’d been in hiding, but Tuna figured by now the beasts would have taken their eyes off the gardens.
By the time the dome was built, the entire world knew that even growing vegetables and fruits could possess traces of the airborne C1 virus and so Tuna and Gen were not there for the luscious goodies they could see growing in every direction.
Only at the point of starving would a pure-blooded human eat produce from a contaminated environment.
Gen wanted to get back to her seed vaults where they would find various edible seeds stored in airtight conditions. The vault she had in mind would have small pouches of papaya, pumpkin and tomato seeds. They could load up their sacks and pull them through the reactor pipe.
The concentration of nutrients and vitamins in the seeds would help fortify their imbalanced diets. Tuna would check around for any small tools that could prove useful to their survival.
As they kept low and walked between rows of green plants, the misting timer went off. The water sprayed down onto the green leaves making them shine.
Gen reached her hand out under the gentle spray of water. “I needed this,” Gen said softly. “I needed to see them so full of life.”
Tuna picked up pruning shears indifferent to Gen’s words.
They walked to a silver door under a blue emergency light. Gen punched in a code and the door beeped. She grabbed the handle and pulled it open. Tuna lingered behind, examining more horticulture tools for their potential to inflict harm.
Gen waived to him to enter the vault. When he finally did, she followed him inside and closed the door behind them. Gen quickly snapped on a small flashlight and began to examine labels on storage bins. Tuna moved to a small window to keep an eye on the gardens while she found what she needed.
Lights began to pop on in random spots throughout the gardens. “The lights are coming on,” Tuna said with mild concern.
“It’s the grow lights,” Gen assured him. “They’re timed.”
“What a waste of perfectly good food,” Tuna observed.
“Yeah,” Gen agreed. “What a waste of a perfectly good planet.”
Tuna thought of old documentaries about Earth. He imagined the majestic shadows in breathtaking natural parks, the pristine beauty of snow-covered mountains, river streams glistening in the late afternoon.
“There will be new plant food and wonders to behold on the next planet,” Gen said.
Tuna turned back and shared a smile with her. “Does this mean you’ve come back from the dark side? You believe we have a chance?”
“Sure, why not,” Gen said as she pulled out a long drawer of stored seed pouches. “You believe it and you’re really, really smart. I take that as a good sign.”
“Idiot girl,” Tuna said.
They both grinned while Gen filled up her sack with pouch after pouch of uncontaminated seeds.
“Wait a minute,” Tuna whispered. “I saw something.”
Gen turned off the flashlight. She moved next to him at the window. At the far end of the garden a shadow moved past a series of grow lights.
“There,” Gen said, “I see them.”
“Them?” Tuna said.
“There’s a second shadow.”
“We better stay quiet,” Tuna suggested.
“They can’t hear us in here,” Gen said, “But let’s move away from the window into the dark.”
The two beasts were searching the gardens. Tuna and Gen caught a few glimpses of them. One was in a Hero Journey 1 uniform. Tuna thought it might be the Alpha Beast, the former Commander of the European Coalition ship.
The other beast wore a tattered white tee shirt and held his hands oddly behind his back. They entered the row that led back to the vaults. Gen pulled Tuna completely into the dark as the beasts walked toward them.
“It’s okay,” Gen whispered. “They won’t have the door code.”
Tuna pulled her down behind the door.
* * *
HE COULD FEEL EVERY vein in his body aching. He imagined a long, piercing needle cutting through the tissue in his brain. The roof of his mouth felt like cracked leather. The smell of rancid lettuce filled his nose so horribly that he wanted to scratch violently at his own face to make the smell go away.
Zeke was not fully infected yet and so he could not be trusted. They tied his hands behind his back and kept him on a rope leash. The beast led him down the row of shiny, green-leafed vegetation.
“Your misery can end,” the beast muttered hoarsely. “You can eat them. You will like it. Your headache will go. Your mouth will be saturated. Your veins will be ecstasy.”
Zeke noticed the wet footsteps on the ground and his eyes leaped forward to the door and the wet door handle. His ability to hunt was incredible. He quickly turned his eyes away but it was too late.
“Your eyes speak even if your mouth will not,” the beast said stopping to examine the area. He sniffed but only smelled the unpleasant stench of thriving plant life. He shook his head to clear his nose of it. He stepped back to Zeke to study his face up and down. The beast opened his mouth and his scabbed gums caused Zeke to wince.
The beast saw it. Zeke involuntarily glanced down. The beast stepped back and surveyed the ground between them. Something akin to a smile happened to the beast’s lips as he spotted moist shapes on the dusty ground. Footsteps.
The beast tried harder to smile as he glanced back up to Zeke’s concerned eyes. “Thank you, brother,” the beast mocked as his eyes followed the footsteps to the door and then to the wet handle. “Tonight, I think, we’ll have your friends for dinner.”
The beast leapt to the door in two huge steps. The leash tied to his waist pulled Zeke painfully forward by the neck. The beast cranked madly at the locked handle as he made a croaking sound in his throat.
No good. The door would not budge.
“Open it, my friend,” the beast said collecting himself and straightening his uniform. “Forgive my teasing. I am excited for you to know the ecstasy of this thing. This food.”
A million thoughts raced through Zeke’s
mind as his hunger swelled and he lusted a fleshy feast. He could not control the growing impulses completely, but other thoughts were still fighting to be heard. The only one that seemed to dominate was her name. Gen. If some of his crew were behind that door, and he knew they were, Gen would be among them. That’s the seed vault. Gen’s world.
The beast grew impatient. Zeke did not want to seem too eager. The beast pulled on the leash and Zeke stepped forward to the keypad on the door. He stared defiantly into the beast’s eyes at which point the beast lifted a pulse gun to Zeke’s temple.
Zeke turned to the door. He tried not to imagine Gen’s beautiful, succulent heart beating just behind the door. The beast smacked him in the back of the head. Zeke slowly lifted his hand to the touch pad, hesitated, then quickly punched in the code.
The salivating beast pulled Zeke back by the leash. “We must save one for the Commander,” the beast said as he reached forward again to the handle. He managed to form a credible smile on his face this time, despite all the open wounds on his lips.
Inside, Tuna and Gen pulled out their guns terrified to numbness. They glanced at each other as if to say goodbye.
It happened fast. The beast tried the handle, but it did not give. His anger began to erupt, but Zeke crashed hard against the beast, using his own head to drive the beast’s head hard against the silver door.
The beast already had his gun in his hand as he fell. The second the beast hit the ground, his arm swung up to take aim, but the heel of Zeke’s boot pounded down viciously against the beast’s forehead causing his head to crack open and explode.
Behind the door, Gen’s heart raced not knowing what had crashed against the door. Tuna reached over to hold her hand. He shook his head and they waited.
Zeke pulled his boot out of the squishy mess that had been the beast’s skull. He wiped the boot as much as he could on the uniform of the beast. His hands were still tied behind his back and the leash was still around his neck and fastened to the beast.
He grunted as he tried to walk backward, pulling the entire dead weight of the beast by the rope tied around his neck. His eyes bulged as he screamed and tugged the beast inches at a time.
The Eden Project (Books One & Two) Page 23
