by P. S. Power
Brian laughed and wondered about how his stealing their dinner and needing to be put to bed translated to being a person others wanted to meet, making Karen laugh and rest her head against his shoulder.
"Not that, it was your actually knowing something about Liberia. Go ask a hundred people on the street about the place and maybe two will know it exists at all. They're a poor country without a lot that people normally want, but you knew things about it off the top of your head. That's special you know." Her face lit up as she talked about the idea of him meeting with other senators and representatives as well as ambassadors. "We need all the help we can get with it right now, since people need to see us up close before they vote on the Hooper act. Meeting Infected in person helps people remember that we're just humans like them... That thing is a disaster waiting to fall on us all... Infected and non-Infected alike." Karen shook her head and looked sad and a little scared. Who wouldn't be? It was like someone wanted to start a war or something.
Brian suggested she work it in to his training schedule. He could use one of his rest days for it, as long as nothing major came up between now and then. This made her extra happy it seemed and she forgot about the Becky in his head and kissed him a little too passionately for a bit. Brian laughed and kissed her back while Becky made outraged noises, but he stopped there and walked Karen to the door. He got to bed at his normal time, which was a good thing, since at four-seventeen in the morning Dharma woke him up.
"Armor and knife, shoes...Hurry, there isn't much time!" The voice screamed at him loudly.
She made him go into the hallway and start running as fast as he could, her image beside him the whole time.
"It's them Brian... Those creatures. They're back."
12
He didn't see them at first, the beasts that were once, recently it seemed, human and now had a freaky, walking dead type feel to them. Brian heard them, moaning and howling, as he ran quietly in the dark, avoiding the trees and bushes as well as possible. They had the advantages, all of them as far as he could tell. The only saving grace seemed to be that this time, instead of sixty, he faced something more like six. Unless the others were farther off, or were just managing to remain silent.
The moans were bowel loosening, but the idea of these things moving up on him silently terrified him more. Brian decided that moaning and fear beat being taken unaware hands down. He ran faster, knowing that he couldn't outpace them, but trying anyway. Terror could do that to you, he knew. Trees snapped around him as the creatures came. Not just the snap of branches, but whole trees at times. Some of them sounding fairly large and like thunder as they fell. He managed to run for nearly a full minute before the first one almost caught up with him.
No handy body of water near by this time, he couldn't even smell the dampness that would indicate a small creek. That meant he'd have to fight. In the days he'd rested, a strategy of sorts had come to him. From the autopsies done on the creatures, they knew a couple of things. First, the creatures had fairly normal senses. So they ran through the night no better off than he did, no night vision or super scent tracking.
The second was that they weren't armored on the inside. That, of course, was normal. Most class fives weren't, how could they digest food and stuff if they were, right? But most of them also kept their mouths closed when they fought. These creatures bellowed and moaned, at least in the dark. If he could close with them without them being aware, he might be able to do something.
It wasn't likely to work, Brian knew, but even running as hard as he could, they were closing with him rapidly. After about two more minutes of dodging through the trees like a kid playing tag, one closed. Brian darted behind a thick tree, using it as concealment, given the strength levels here, even a tree like this, bigger than Brian could reach around, wouldn't actually give him cover. The best he could do was hide for a few moments. When it stood on the other side he screamed as loud as he could. "Hey!"
The creature howled, head back and mouth wide open, the black hole visible in the pale expanse of silvery white skin, the light from the moon the only thing that let him see it at all. Knife in his left hand he stabbed as hard as he could, hoping to at least trouble the thing. The dark made him misjudge a little, so he hit the upper teeth first, the thin knife handle sliding in his fingers dangerously. He managed to pull the blade down and thrust again before the creature shied away. His hand in its mouth, the knife, incredibly sharp, severed the brain stem, making the thing go silent.
His fingers, damp now, got scraped by the things teeth, still human in shape, if spread further apart on the elongated jaw. Looking down he saw that all his digits stayed on his hand, which amazed him a little. He doubted that it would work twice. Looking around he found a straight branch within reach, about two inches thick. He cut it from the tree, smoothing it quickly with the carbon blade, so sharp that it hardly felt like he cut anything at all. He sharpened the end to a point, one nearly as sharp as the needles used in the hospital.
He ran again, this time with his makeshift spear in his hands, knife in the sheath that sat flush with his right thigh. After six minutes, scraping himself on low branches, shrubs, and running full speed into the occasional tree, a second beast caught up with him. He used a variation of what he did the first time, stabbing with the makeshift weapon instead of the knife, but as the creature lay dying a second one ran up, bellowing already. Pulling the spear made the sharp end pull off, so he jumped in with the knife, only to hit the things closed mouth, the sharp blade skittering off. The creature nearly took his head off with a single powerful swipe, moving faster than he could track.
Brian ducked it based more on what the creature could do than what it was doing, the way Marcia had been training him to do. It had become his fall back for things with superior speed or reflexes. To win he had to out think his opponents, that being his only real strength. That wouldn't work for long, it would eventually do something that he didn't expect or just outrun his ability to understand what might be coming.
Brian tried yelling at the creature again, trying to get it to moan. It didn't work, this one fighting silently for some reason. Probably just to screw with him, he mused. He faked a turn and yelled again, which finally got a vocal reaction, as if the being was signaling it's friends telling them where Brian was, once it thought he might escape. This time when he stabbed the thing went down. He felt something crunch in his hand as it involuntarily bit down even as it died.
His hand burned in pain, like the time as a child his father had accidentally slammed a car door on his fingers. The fingers were still attached, but he couldn't hold a lot with them right now. Spear held under his right arm, Brian used the blade in his left to sharpen it to a point again. Definitely using the spear if he could from now on.
The next two went down more easily, leaving only one source of sound behind him. The giant one. He couldn't see it, but he knew, a feeling of dread as strong as any he'd ever felt made that clear. It closed the distance more slowly, cautiously, as if testing him again. Or, maybe, and the thought terrified him even more, because it recognized him. Ninety percent of his survival with these creatures so far had to do with them not being very clever. If this one was smart too...
So Brian ran and didn't stop to try and fight at all. He wanted to kill it if he could, since it was likely the specific-infector, but he doubted that was possible if size made a difference. The thing moved fast, but seemed to let him stay ahead of it for some reason rather than just attacking. Letting him tire out or make a mistake? If it was that intelligent and as tough or worse, tougher than the others, this wouldn't be easy.
After several hours of running he found a stream, one wide enough to make it hard for the thing to cross on the ground. Of course it could always just hop over it, but if Brian stayed in the water... It would be tricky to drown it, but he might be able to, if it could be tripped or something. If not, he'd stab it in the mouth.
He stood, spear in left hand, re-sharpened to a point, read
y to use it if he could. The water ran past his legs, frigged and faster than he'd thought when he first went in, slowly knocking him off balance. Small rounded stones shifted under his running shoes, forcing him to spread his legs wide for balance. The large beast saw him... And turned aside, running away from the water. Whatever it was, whoever it had been, recognized Brian and this situation as a threat at least. It didn't come back, so Brian waited for a bit, then climbed out of the water and ran, on the other side of the stream, in the opposite direction. He didn't stop for hours.
After a time, how long he couldn't tell, he noticed Becky running with him.
"Bri, this person, it's the same girl, Melany. I think... Whatever that thing is, it's following her specifically." She didn't have any more information than that, and neither did he.
Brian kept running, trying to get as far away from the thing behind him as he could before he left. It didn't follow directly, but he didn't leave. Dharma held him in place, she told him, not breathless at all.
"But, um, hurry Brian, I can't do this much longer." Her voice sounded worried, so he struggled through the woods as fast as he could.
He figured that twenty miles had been covered since he last had contact with the creature, and nearly six hours had passed. His running was slowed a lot by the terrain, not that he would have covered too much more anyway. Brian worried about how the little girl would survive out here, but the best he could do was stop by water, quickly build a small shelter and draw an arrow on the ground with a note scratched under it in the dirt, telling her to run that way when she could and avoid cities.
Then he found himself standing in the hallway outside his room. Sighing he headed to medical to see what they could do for his hand. It hurt. Doctor Kern treated it, giving him a splint and several shots directly into it, telling him he could do any work he needed as long as it didn't stress the hand too much, since two of the small bones had been broken, cracked really and the soft tissues were damaged as he could see by the bruising.
He looked at the clock. Well, his schedule had been messed up, but at least he got his running in for the day. He found Karen in the gym waiting for him. He shrugged and explained briefly, then threw himself down on the mat and started working on his ab routine. Today wasn't an off day after all and he'd have to go see Carl soon, which would suck. The man was good at making even the simplest things almost impossibly hard.
Karen walked away looking worried, but came back ten minutes later with Marcia in tow, so that he could explain the whole episode again. She didn't let him slack off while he talked, so his report came out a bit breathless.
"So I told her, in the written instructions to go south, but avoid cities. That way if we can figure out where she is, we can get her some help, maybe. I didn't have time to get her any food or a fire..."
Marcia told him to keep working and walked away with Karen. He did back raises until he had to go down to fifteen, probably to be yelled at for getting hurt, because that would disrupt Carl's plans. The man did not like to have his plans disrupted.
The special trainer looked at him hard when he showed up and took his injured hand in both of his. "What did you do?"
"Doctor Kern said I cracked the outer two Metacarpals. Um, fight with a half dozen of those things, like from the lake?" Brian had a suspicion that everyone knew about that, at least the people that worked with him. Or watched the news, though not everyone knew he'd been there personally the first time. A lot of people at the base didn't like to turn the news on, too much of it lately had been vilifying them personally, for it to be more than a giant downer to them.
Carl asked the particulars, if he'd drowned them again and when the answer was no, how he'd stopped them. Brian noticed that the question wasn't how he survived. How he'd stopped them.
That Carl wasn't pleased to hear the big one had gotten away was clear from the look on his face. Brian could understand that, he wasn't any too happy about it either.
Ever practical, he decided that Brian being injured, it would be a good day to run drills where all of the team two members had to go over the obstacle course with a wounded man. Just to make it more fun, they weren't allowed to carry him, which made them all groan. They had to help him navigate the course as fast as possible without letting him fall or injure himself worse than he was. It didn't sound too bad until Brian saw the obstacle course, a half mile track winding back and forth in a serpentine fashion, with structures that had to be gone over, under and around, some as tall as small buildings, others barely big enough for Brian to fit under. It hadn't been there the last time Brian had come down. Fifteen did that, changed suddenly, a lot. This wasn't some amazing automated room or anything either, which meant someone, likely a large team of someones, did a lot of work here in the middle of the night.
It still wouldn't have been too bad, except for the fact that after the first person to take him through - Lauren - each that followed insisted that they beat the best time before them. By the end of it Bridget practically threw him through the course, trying to finish in less than three minutes. They did, which caused Brian to vomit for a while, making almost everyone else laugh, except Carl.
"Pitiful Brian. The slowest time for anyone else on this course is two minutes and forty-two seconds and they don't have super-powered buddies to help them out. Get out of here now, but the next time we run this drill I expect better. Go." The fit man made shewing motions with his hands. "Go!"
Brian went.
After a shower and lunch, which he spent with Penny, who kept staring at his injured hand, he had fighting practice. Marcia and Jason both just made him work with his other hand the whole time, since that's what he'd have to do if he got injured in a real fight. Brian didn't point out that he knew that, having lived it that day already. Extra practice never hurt. Well, it didn't hurt his skill level. Sometimes it was painful, but he could put up with a little discomfort now and again if it made him better when the time came.
Two days later he got sick.
At first he thought he was just tired. Even after those days off, things could build up, he knew. Brian didn't complain, after all, he was supposed to get tired, break his body down and then heal up. The day after that he started getting sick in the middle of the night, retching violently long after being emptied of everything that would come out. He felt like crap and wondered if he'd been poisoned by the bite he'd gotten, but medical told him it was just a regular virus, probably picked up from someone he fought, since no one else at the base had anything of note at the moment. He made himself fight through it, knowing that he didn't have time for things like tummy troubles or a cough.
Running got harder when sick, he found. His body felt heavy and his ankles and knees hurt the whole time, not from the impact stress, but a muscle fatigue burn that normally worked itself out after a few laps. Now it didn't, it just got worse the whole time. By day five no one, not even Carl, would let him near a gym at all. Karen brought him a bowl of soup for lunch and fluffed his pillows, but wouldn't let him get out of bed except to go to the bathroom. She took most of the day off to sit with him, talking and when she got bored, getting him some magazines to read. This went on until bedtime, when she finally decided he could take care of himself, at least until morning.
The next day he woke to find himself in the woods again. Literally waking up in the forest, which meant he'd gone in his sleep.
Fucking hell.
It mean that from then on, just being asleep didn't mean he'd be safe.
This time, thank god, nothing seemed hard on his trail. Since he hadn't been sleeping in the armor, just in a pair of sweats, and didn't even have shoes. Brian wondered if he'd survive the fight, just for a moment. He took a deep breath and steel his nerve. After all, he'd fought without armor before and if he had to, he could chew a rough end onto a stick to fight with.
Eventually he realized why he'd come and moved closer to a source of water, making sure there were no big animal trails to it, so bears at least wouldn'
t be a problem, then caught enough fish for several days, collected berries which he stored in an envelope he made of broad leaves and dug roots, hoping the ones he found tasted better than what he'd had before. He recognized the leaves as being from an edible plant. He tried a bite, which tasted fine to him, like raw potato.
Then he build a shelter and cooked all the food that needed it. Making sure there'd be enough fire wood to get through the night, hoping that it wouldn't draw the creatures to the girl. Brian would have to get into his armor just in case, sick or not. When he had things set up as well as he could for the girl, he left and found himself back in bed, exhausted from the tiny bit of work.
After that he found himself providing food and water for the girl, remaking fires and shelters, though to his surprise, Brian found that on the third time he went she'd put up her own little shelter of branches. He rebuilt part of it, hoping she'd get what he'd changed. It would be annoying and probably frightening if her shelter fell on her while she slept. He knew he'd freak if things started falling on him at least. Especially with monsters hunting him.
Brian finally got back to regular training and got to spend nearly two weeks on it uninterrupted, except for the regular missions every day or two. He still felt a little weak at times, but that was just residual from being ill, he knew, because medical told him to expect it. He hadn't felt that sick, but it seemed like it wanted to linger, refusing to let go of him for some reason. Doctor Burrows suggested that it was because they were working him so hard all the time and that depressed his immune system a little. Not that he could afford to do less yet.
The girl-Melany- seemed to be working her way steadily south and figuring out what to eat on her own, since he didn't have to go and help her as often any more, about once every five days. No one knew exactly where she was, but that seemed to include the big creature that followed her. If it still did.
