by Amy Cross
“It's not as simple as that,” he continued. “A zero-access perimeter has been set up around the entire mountain for the time being, which means no-one is allowed in or out. I'm sure you can understand that we have to take every precaution, even if our measures might seem a little over-the-top.”
“But I'm not infected.”
“And how do I know that for sure?”
“Examine me.”
“I will, but I'm not entirely sure what I'm looking for. Short of cutting you open to take a look, I don't know how to tell whether or not one of those things is inside you.”
“Take an X-ray.”
“That's one possibility, but we don't have the equipment here right now.”
“So what are you going to do? Make me sit here and rot?”
“We're assessing the possibilities,” he replied cautiously. “I just need you to hold tight for a little while longer, Lizzie, and trust me when I tell you that we've got your best interests at heart. We have to balance those interests with the broader need to keep the world safe from a potential outbreak. Every decision we make here is based on that overriding priority. These creatures cannot be allowed to spread past the perimeter of Camp Everbee.”
“But -”
“And everything we do here,” he continued, “has to be with that point in mind.” He paused again. “When I agreed to come here today, Lizzie, I knew that I might not be able to leave again. There's a chance, a good chance, that the situation will still spiral out of control. For now we just have to be careful. And fast. Careful and fast, those things don't really go together, but it's the situation we're facing.” He paused for a moment. “You're smart, Lizzie.”
“Not really.
“Yes you are. I can tell.” Getting to his feet, he grabbed his jacket. “That being the case, I need you to do me another favor.”
“What?” she asked, trying not to let him see that she was terrified.
“I need you to come to the forest with me. I need you to show me exactly where those Leadenford Hospital bags ended up.”
***
“What...”
Opening her eyes slowly, Karen stared up at the ceiling and saw that a bright light was shining down at her. Squinting, she tried to turn her head but found that she'd been clamped in place, with manacles around her wrists.
“Hey,” she whispered, feeling too weak to raise her voice, “where am I?”
“Ms. Freeman,” a male voice said from nearby, “I'm glad you're finally awake. We were starting to worry that your condition wouldn't improve.”
“My condition?” she asked, trying again to move. “What's going on?”
“How much do you remember?”
“About what?”
“About how you got here.”
“I don't know,” she replied, trying not to panic as she pulled at the restraints around her wrists. “What is this place?”
“You're at Camp Everbee,” the voice explained. “Do you remember coming up here during the night?”
“No! What the hell am I doing at Camp Everbee?”
“You're receiving the help you need.”
“Blood pressure is still high,” said a female voice on the other side of the room. “I don't know, normally I'd rule out any kind of procedure.”
“It's not going to drop,” the first voice replied. “We know why the pressure is high, it's symptomatic of her condition. We'll just take measures accordingly. Remember, we only need one of them alive.”
“What are you talking about?” Karen asked. “Will someone tell me what the hell is going on?”
“My name is Doctor Albert Franklin,” the male voice continued, “and I'm here with Nurse Alison January. We're going to carry out an exploratory procedure, Karen, but I want to assure you that despite the somewhat makeshift nature of this facility, every possible precaution has been taken. The room is completely sterile and we're operating under the same kind of conditions that you'd get in any major hospital. The only difference is that, well, there are only two of us.”
“What operation?” she asked, feeling a strange kind of fog in her mind. “I don't know what...” Her voice trailed off as she felt herself sinking into unconsciousness, before she suddenly snapped back into full focus. “What do you want from me?”
“What's the last thing you remember?”
She thought for a moment. “My car. No, wait... My brother. I was at my brother's, there was a storm outside...”
“And then he brought you up to Camp Everbee.”
“I don't remember that.”
“I believe her,” the nurse said suddenly. “It makes sense. If her mind was pushed to one side and she wasn't making conscious decisions, it stands to reason that she wouldn't necessarily have any recollection of what happened. Doctor Lincoln suggested as much when we talked to him earlier, remember?”
“Well,” Doctor Franklin said, suddenly leaning into Karen's field of vision and peering down at her from behind a surgical mask, “I guess that's possible.”
“Please,” Karen whispered, feeling her strength starting to fade again, “I don't know what you want.”
“We want to understand what's happening to you,” Doctor Franklin continued. “We want to know why you're not reacting the way you should.”
“It's okay,” Nurse January added, leaning down to take a look at her. “You're in very good hands. We've studied extensively for this type of operation.”
“I don't want an operation,” Karen told them. “I want to go home. I'm not sick.”
“Of course you're not,” the nurse continued. “No-one said you were sick, just that we need to understand what's happening inside your body.” She turned to the doctor. “Don't you think we should get on with things? If we talk to her too much she might get stressed, and her body would react accordingly. Stress in the host might affect the passenger.”
“You're right,” Doctor Franklin replied. “If we start right now, we can have a report ready for Doctor Lincoln by the afternoon.”
“And may the Great Memnon guide us in our work,” Nurse January replied.
“May he indeed,” Doctor Franklin said, grinning down at Karen. “Don't worry, human. It's not our intention to kill you. In fact, killing you would be an annoyance, since you seem to be a perfectly healthy carrier for our brother. We just need to know why he's struggling to maintain control over your body.” He leaned closer. “For some reason, your original mind just refuses to let go!”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“They were here,” Lizzie said, stopping suddenly. “I'm sure of it. They were right here.”
With the storm having passed a few hours earlier, the forest now felt strangely calm in the morning light. Rivers of mud had begun to dry, although the ground was still boggy and occasional drips fell from the leaves of trees high above.
“I swear,” she continued, turning to Lincoln. “They were here!”
“I believe you,” he replied calmly. “Don't worry, Lizzie, you're not under suspicion.”
“Crystal wanted the bags moved down toward the river,” she continued, turning to look at the water glistening in the distance. “She got all the campers out, but they were barely able to start before...”
She paused for a moment, thinking back to the screams, and to the sight of one camper being dragged down by the creatures' flailing black tentacles.
“You're in shock,” Lincoln said suddenly.
She turned to him.
“It's okay,” he continued, with a faint smile. “It's actually a perfectly normal reaction. Some people collapse into a sobbing heap when they experience a traumatic event, and some go the other way. They harden, they push all the horror to the back of their minds, but they can't get rid of it completely.” He stepped past her. “It's a very human response. I guess you could say it's a weakness of the species.”
“You didn't see those things in action,” she replied. “They were...”
Her voice trailed off for a moment.
“Did it really happen?” she asked finally.
“It really happened, Lizzie. They're real.”
“It feels like a nightmare.”
“It is, but that doesn't mean it's not real.” He turned to her. “A new species, a powerful and intelligent species, has begun to rise up from within the human body itself. Chemicals don't stop them, not on a large enough scale, and neither does radiation. They're strong, they're resourceful, and they're extremely adaptive to their environment. They also believe that they have an absolute right to take over the world and to push the human race into extinction. I think that situation qualities as a nightmare, don't you? At least from the human perspective.”
“But they can be stopped, right?” she asked. “The army, the government -”
“Will do their best.”
“And they'll stop them.”
“Nothing's guaranteed in this life,” he pointed out. “Lizzie, tell me something. Have you heard of the Edwin Smith and George Ebers papyri?”
“The what?”
“They're written records of cancer, dating from more than four thousand years ago. The Ancient Egyptians treated various types of cancer with something called a fire drill, although most of their physicians accepted that there was no effective way of stopping the disease. All this time later, not a great deal has changed. These creatures, Lizzie, have been present throughout human history, growing inside human bodies. In the early years, they tended to kill their hosts before they could develop any form of independence, but they've rapidly begun to evolve and one particular strain is now at the point where it can cause the type of panic you saw here at Camp Everbee. They're remarkable creatures. In true terms, four thousand years is the blink of an eye and they've already evolved so fast.”
“You make it sound like they're inevitable,” Lizzie told him.
“Sometimes I think they are.” He led her down the slope toward the lake. “Sometimes I think that whatever humanity does, these creatures are just going to get stronger and stronger. Case in point -”
Stopping, he looked down at one of the torn yellow Leadenford Hospital sacks.
“That's one of them,” Lizzie said as she joined him. “I think most of the creatures were hiding in these sacks. When the campers came to move them, that's when they burst out.”
“The arks,” Lincoln whispered.
“Beth used that word.”
“I heard them being referred to the same way,” he continued. “Would it surprise you to learn that these creatures seem to have already formed their own basic religion? I know it sounds crazy, but they saw these sacks as the sacred arks that delivered them from the hospital and brought them here, to a promised land. I guess they waited for the time when they could emerge.”
“Some of them came out earlier.”
“Scouts, or pioneers. Maybe just a few brave individuals. The creatures do seem, at least to some extent, to have individual personalities.”
“But if they -” Stopping suddenly, she saw a section of bone poking out from beneath some wet leaves nearby.
Following her gaze, Lincoln spotted the bone and made his way over. Reaching down, he began to pull it out, only to find that it was a section of a human arm.
“Oh God...” Lizzie whispered, taking a step back.
“One of the victims from last night,” Lincoln muttered, turning the piece of bone around in his hands. “Picked clean. Look, Lizzie, there's not a scrap of meat left. Even the marrow has been hollowed out.” He turned and saw the look of horror on her face. “Sorry,” he added, setting the bone back down. “If this is too hard for you -”
“I'm fine.”
“But if -”
“I'm fine,” she said again, more firmly this time.
“It's not weak to admit that you're struggling,” he pointed out.
“This way,” she replied, turning and making her way carefully down the muddy slope, heading for the lake.
“We can do this another time!” he called after her. He waited for a reply, but after a moment he realized that she was determined to keep going. With a faint smile, he began to follow.
***
“Kirsty said they were in the water too,” Lizzie said a little while later, stopping by the lake. “She said one attacked her and tried to drag her in.”
“That's very unlikely,” Lincoln replied as he caught up to her.
“Did you see her foot?”
“I did, but -”
“It stripped the skin away.”
“I'm still not sure that these things can spend long periods of time in water,” he continued, staring out at the calm, glistening water as sunlight reflected off its ripples. “That would potentially be a whole new taxonomy. I mean, they're adaptive, but they're not that adaptive, and certainly not so quickly. They couldn't learn to swim, let alone survive underwater, in such a short period of time.”
“Unless you're wrong,” Lizzie pointed out, “and that's exactly what they've done.” She paused for a moment. “What if that's where they're hiding right now?”
“They're not hiding,” he replied. “They're on the move. I'm sure of that.”
“How can you be?”
“Because it's the only smart thing to do. They're probably moving away from Mount Everbee as fast as possible, making for a population center. That's what I'd do if I was a new life-form seeking fresh meat. Besides, they must have noticed our arrival, and I doubt they'd throw themselves against a military unit. They'd be annihilated pretty damn fast.”
“Unless they're even smarter than you realize,” she pointed out. “After all, they managed to get out of that hospital even though you thought they'd been contained.”
“That was just an accident,” he replied. “We had no way of knowing that the hospital's administrators had started illegally dumping medical waste. If we had, we'd have closed down that escape route too. It's just a matter of knowledge, and this time we know everything about what happened here. We have the entire perimeter locked down.”
“So they definitely can't get away from the mountain?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Which means they'll just double back,” she pointed out. “You can't just assume you're smarter than them.”
“We know their capabilities.”
“You don't even know if they can swim!” Walking away from him, she stepped onto the pier and made her way to the end, before stopping and looking down at the water.
“Lizzie!” he called out. “What are you doing?”
Grabbing the inflatable ring from a nearby post, she dropped it down into the water while keeping hold of the rope.
“Lizzie!” Heading along the pier, he stopped next to her. “What are you doing?”
“Testing,” she replied, keeping her eyes on the ring. “Proving something.”
“You think a big black tendril is going to come rushing up out of the darkness and grab that thing?”
“If you're so sure it won't,” she muttered, “why don't you jump in and swim around for a while?”
Lincoln fell silent for a moment as Lizzie used the rope to drag the ring through the water.
“There's no way anything could adapt that fast,” he said finally. “It's just not biologically possible.”
“Tell that to Kirsty,” she muttered darkly, still moving the ring.
“Lizzie -”
“You weren't here,” she reminded him. “You turned up when it was all pretty much over, but you weren't here when those things were on the rampage. I was, I saw what they can do, and I know that they were in the water at one point. You told me earlier that you believed what I was telling you, so believe me when I tell you this: they're capable of surviving this way, and they attacked Kirsty.”
Lincoln opened his mouth to reply, but at the last moment he stayed quiet. Taking a few steps back, he checked his phone and quickly read a message from someone back at the camp, before watching Lizzie for a moment longer as she continued to move the inflatable ri
ng through the water.
“They're out here,” she whispered finally, her eyes filled with fear as she stared down at the water. “I saw them. They're everywhere.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“No,” Crystal said firmly, standing at the cabin door, “you are going to listen to me. My name is Crystal Wallace and I have a lease on this land. It's my property, do you understand? I demand that you let me out of this cabin right now!”
She waited for a moment, before knocking on the door again.
“Let me out!” she shouted. “You have no right to hold me here like a common prisoner!”
“They'll let us out when they can,” Kirsty said, still sitting on the bed with her leg raised. “There's no point pissing them off.”
“Thank you for the advice,” Crystal replied, “but I think I know how to handle myself, young lady, thank you very much.”
“Whatever,” Kirsty muttered, looking over at Freeman as Crystal started banging on the door again.
“I saw this coming,” Freeman said calmly, sitting on one of the beds with his legs crossed. “I knew it, I said to my sister, I said... Sis, the government's involved in this somehow. I always know when they're mixed up in things, I get a feeling in my water.”
“Ew,” Kirsty replied .”That's gross.”
“You know what those things are?” Freeman asked. “They're the bastard creations of a government-sponsored experiment. Those idiots just love playing god, they probably create all sorts of things in their laboratories, only this time something escaped and now everyone's running around trying to cover their asses. Meanwhile, the supine mainstream media won't report a goddamn word about it, just like they kept quiet about the Leadenford Hospital incident.”
“So,” Kirsty said after a moment, “you're into, like, conspiracies and stuff like that?”
“I'm not into conspiracies,” he replied, “I merely recognize them when they smack me in the face. Who else do you think has the capability and resources to create these mutations, huh?”
