“Well, this mission is getting complicated.”
“Fucked beyond measure, Sergeant.”
“Best go down and tell the Captain.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Everyday Occurrences
Private Ken Ridley had nearly caught up with the escapees only a few minutes after his own getaway. A lightning strike had lit them up. The image was still burned into his retina, guiding him in their general direction. He put his back into his paddling.
Doctor Smith, who had grabbed a rowboat with Will, was at the oars and thus facing backwards. He was the first to spot the fleeing guard. “We’ve got company!” he shouted.
The others turned and stared into the soaking gloom, their rhythm thrown.
“One guy,” continued Smith.
Jon said to Nikki, “What do you think?”
“I think he’s the only one who got out of there.”
“Yeah, but about letting him catch up with us?”
“He’s gonna do what he’s gonna do. He’s probably armed, but I seriously doubt that he intends to threaten us. Nobody wants to be alone out here.”
Jon called out to the others, “Let him come. We’ll see what he wants.”
“Fuck that!” said Miller.
Will piped in, “What are you going to do, David, hit him with your paddle?”
“Fuck that guy. He can fucking get eaten with the rest of them.”
Ken called out, “I can hear you. I’m only fifty yards away.”
“Good! Fuck you!”
Nikki said, “You should paddle somewhere else, soldier. It doesn’t seem you’re wanted.”
“Paddle where?”
“To fucking hell, asshole!” yelled Miller.
Ken pulled close enough to become a shadow, his flashlight feebly cutting through the rain. His voice rose to a pleading level, “I didn’t agree with Deighton. I thought what he was doing to you guys was terrible.”
“Bullshit!” yelled Miller.
“I swear! If I didn’t think I would get shot, I would have let you out. A lot of others were talking about it.”
“But you didn’t did you?” said Will.
“You left us in there to die,” said mousy Ingrid.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please let me stay with you.”
No one said anything else so it was assumed, without objection, that Ken would continue paddling with them. Their boats were becoming heavy with the accumulating rain. They’d have to find shore soon or risk getting swamped.
The rain was coming down in huge black sheets. The sound as it churned the water was almost deafening. Nikki felt rather than saw the ground as the canoe slid over the rocky bottom at the edge of some kind of landing. “We’ll have to risk pulling out here.”
They turned the water out and then dragged their boats ashore. With one uncoordinated effort, they all tipped them over, each couple pulling their shivering bodies underneath. Ken considered asking Will and Smith if he could join them under their rowboat, but knew the answer already. Feeling miserable and awash with guilt over both leaving the castle door open and then these people, he credited them with not beating him to death, then decided that they were probably too tired and cold anyway. He’d have to watch his back in the morning.
Jon and Nikki huddled under the pitch-blackness of the canoe and tried to ignore the drumming of the rain on the hull. To add more misery to the situation (not that it really mattered to their shivering soaking wet bodies) small streams of water ran under them on their way to the lake. Jon pulled Nikki to him, spooning her for warmth. She didn’t resist; instead pushing her backside into him. He tried to cover as much of her body as he could. She pulled his arm around her tight, interlacing her fingers with his and pressing his hand to her rising and falling stomach.
Her breath was hot and surprisingly sweet as it rose to his nostrils, and to Jon’s astonishment, he felt himself getting erect. Nikki had to feel it too; her thigh was pressed against his groin. He tried to adjust himself away from her, but she pulled him back.
“It’s okay. Stay. You’re warm.”
To his dismay, his erection became even stronger. The situation was absurd. He was stunned at the sudden awakening of his libido.
“I, I’m sorry…I…”
Nikki found the pressure coming from Jon’s groin a pleasant surprise. Here she was, having just survived another harrowing escape, lying under a canoe on a soaking wet pebble beach, the rain so loud she couldn’t hear herself breathe, and she was suddenly contemplating having sex with this guy.
They lay holding each other like that for several minutes. Jon tried to remain still, wishing away his excitement and then she pushed into him even harder.
He almost had to yell into her ear to be heard, "Are you? Do you want…"
Nikki said, “Hell with it.”
“What?”
She turned her face to him. “I said, hell with it.”
She began to unbuckle her belt and unzip her fly. It was pitch black, but her actions were clear enough. He could feel her movements and he started to do the same, quickly releasing his straining lower half from the grip of the leather riding pants. Nikki shoved her pants over her hips and spooned back into him, and just like that, he drove himself inside her. She grabbed his hip and pulled him in tight and he found his hand cupping her strong stomach muscles as she pushed onto him. It was quick and they moved with ferocity, discharging tremendous amounts of stress. At the last moment, Jon had a flash of clarity, the risk of an unintended pregnancy overcoming his animal urge, and he pulled away leaving them both hanging with the fierce exhaustiveness of the act, the moment incomplete. The lack of a crescendo left their nerves pulsing for more, but they said nothing. They pulled their pants back on in silence, words being too messy to fill the new odd void. She stayed with her back to him, but allowed a small gap to exist in the space between.
Despite the awkwardness of the moment, the noise, the miserable wetness and hardness of the ground, Jon felt a minute of peace for the first time in seven months and he used it to fall asleep. In her mind, Nikki shook her head at her compulsiveness. Some things about her would never change. She lay awake for a little while, reminiscing over other reckless exploits and then she shrugged, letting the sound of the drumming rain carry her away. As sleep took her, she pushed herself back into him. Jon reflexively held her tight.
It was light out when Jon woke to the feel of Nikki's hand over his mouth and her whispering in his ear, “I just heard a light scream and a scuffle.” When his eyes focused, she took her hand off and looked over her shoulder. The canoe was naturally tilted to one side creating a smaller gap behind her. Jon looked past her shoulder, but could only see gravel and forest debris. He grabbed one edge of the canoe and with a nod from Nikki they flipped it over. They stood and looked around quickly at their surroundings, their backs to each other. At almost the same moment Smith and Will climbed out from under the rowboat and Ken from under his canoe. It was sunrise but the light was diffused with continued overcast and light drizzle. There was a gurgling gasp from under David and Ingrid’s canoe. Ken was closest and noticed a trail of blood seeping out from beneath. He drew his sidearm and cocked the hammer. Jon and Nikki grabbed their paddles, the others followed suit.
Using hand signals, Jon indicated to Ken that he would flip the canoe over and that Ken should have his weapon ready. The others crept closer and raised their paddles and oars. Jon stepped to one end of the canoe, took a deep breath, and as quickly as he could, flipped it over while positioning his paddle to fend off any attack.
Ingrid was alone. Her eyes were wide with fright, the last of her life escaping out of a huge bite in her shoulder. Her face was bitten, her nose and lips were completely missing and her body shook with cold and shock. Everyone was momentarily too horrified to move and that’s when David, or what had been David, made its move.
With an inhuman scream, it ran out of the bush and latched itself to Ken’s back. David-the-Fiend’s f
ace was covered in Ingrid’s blood and it growled with gleeful malevolence as it gnashed its teeth into Ken’s neck and shoulders. Ken’s gun arm swung up and he pulled the trigger randomly while screaming with fright. The first bullet found Doctor Smith’s throat, severing his spine and dropping the professor like a brain-punched cow. Everyone else hit the deck. Bullets shot off into the woods and sky until Ken bent his elbow back and jammed the gun into the socket of infected David’s right eye, blowing his infected brain across the shiny wet rocks.
The whole event took maybe five-seconds. Two people were dead and two others were either going to die or turn with infection. This was common. This was every day. The population of the United States had been cut in half in seven months due to compounded five-second moments like this.
Ken stepped away from the brain-splattered corpse and sat down limply on crossed legs. He held his shoulder with one hand and with the other, his now deafened and powder-burned ear. As the survivors came off the adrenaline Ken stared at the gun in his lap with a surprised look, like the thing was talking to him, saying, you know what to do. Ingrid sputtered an unintelligible bloody word and then her eyes went blank.
First Jon, then Nikki, then Will stood. They checked themselves for blood splatters and then all looked to Ken. What was there to say? It was yet another mind-boggling tragedy that for these people was now just matter-of-fact. David had clearly become infected from having a Fiend hiss right into the open wound on his scalp. He had turned in the night and made his breakfast out of Ingrid.
Ken pulled his bloody hand away from his shoulder and stared at it. “So I guess that’s that. It’s hard to survive this thing, you know? I mean the whole thing, not just the infection, the collapse of the world and everything.”
The three others just looked at him. Will finally said, “What’s your name?”
“Ken, Ken Ridley. I’m twenty-four and I was really good at shooting pool, playing Xbox and I was a ski instructor for a few years. I was a bad soldier.”
“I’m sorry, Ken.”
“I’m not. Living’s not so fun anymore anyway.” He stood, leaving the pistol on the ground. “I’m going to walk that way now. Good-bye, okay? Sorry for what I did to you, you know, back there.” He absently brushed off the seat of his pants and began to slowly walk into the woods.
The others looked at the gun on the ground, but no one moved. Finally Nikki said, “Fine, I’ll do it.” She picked up the gun, aimed at Ken’s back and fired. The bullet pierced the top of his wounded shoulder, sending up a small spray of blood. Ken stumbled but then stood again keeping his back turned.
“Fuck,” said Nikki. “I’m sorry, Ken.”
"It’s okay. I’ll just stand instead. You can – "
The second bullet hit him square in the back. He dropped to his knees and fell forward dead.
Nikki handed the gun to Jon and said, “Next time it’s your turn.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Dungeon
Jones and Copper waited for the air to clear and then both crawled forward from opposite sides of the room. Copper only had a knife, but a knife was a handy thing in close quarter combat with an uninfected person. At least he assumed the person was uninfected. Fiends had lost their ability to process language. Man, were his ears ringing. They heard the intercom come alive again. “Hello, can anyone hear me there? This is Specialist Alexander Melman of the Seventy-Fifth Rangers. Can anyone hear me?”
“Fuckukukuk yououooouu,” came lilting down the hall.
When the two Rangers got themselves on either side of the hall entrance they stopped. Jones took a quick peek around the corner and looked down the hall. He gave the all-clear signal to Copper, who then signaled that he would crawl in first, Jones covering him. Copper got on his belly and started to worm his way forward. Jones pointed the machine gun around the corner and watched for the slightest movement.
“One, two, three, six, which one surprises the fufufucking dicks? Fufufufuck yooooouuuyouyou, fufuckers,” came down the hall, followed by the gentle click of a shutting door.
Copper got to the first door and put his ear to it. There seemed to be no sound beyond, but to be sure, he lifted his arm and tapped the wood lightly with the tip of his knife, hopefully giving the impression that he was standing there rather than lying on the floor. No hail of bullets came through the hollow core door. He listened again, decided the room was empty and slithered forward to the next one, going through the same routine - empty. When he reached the entrance to the communal bathroom he could smell water and a hint of mildew coming from under the crack. He could also smell something else; something that he’d only smelled once before in Chad and that he didn’t want to smell ever again. It was the distinct odor of blood mixed with urine and feces. It was the smell of fear, the smell of pain, the smell of torture. While he was distracted by the memory, the door opened behind him. He turned and got a brief glimpse of a man in a rumpled army uniform with a kerchief tied around his head. He held a filth-covered baby, no, a little demon out in front him like some type of talisman. Its black eyes were positively huge. Copper was suddenly filled with terror. His muscles locked up. A buzzing noise filled every inch of his mind like he’d become ensnared in a cloud of locusts. He could see himself on the floor, then his hand gripping the knife – he couldn’t control it – he watched as his own hand raised the knife to his throat, the sound of his days old beard scraping against the blade, then it was cutting. He wanted to scream, but couldn’t.
The man said in a half possessed voice, “Scary, isn’t it?”
At the same moment, Jones let off a burst from the M240, with a round hitting the assailant in the shoulder and spinning him back into the room.
Suddenly Copper had his mind back. He pulled the knife away that had started to cut into his own neck, warm blood soaking into his collar. His heart raced and he was vaguely aware of Jones charging up next to him, firing into the open door. He caught the briefest glimpse of the assailant’s head disappearing in an explosion of brains and bone, followed by the destruction of the demon infant. Jones then turned and kicked in the remaining doors, finding them all empty until he came back to the communal bathroom. When he opened that one, both men’s faces twisted into a grimace. Copper pulled himself up and they stepped into a dungeon from hell.
With her hands tied to a fire sprinkler pipe above her head, a naked woman hung with her chin resting on what was left of her chest. She had been badly mauled, as if by a wild animal. Her breast tissue was mostly chewed off and there were obvious human bite marks all over her body. Blood, piss and shit, mingled on the floor at her feet. To her right, two women and a man were shackled naked to a handicapped rail inside an open toilet stall. They all burst into involuntary tears at the sight of the Rangers.
“Jesus,” muttered Jones.
“For serious?” asked Copper who took a shaky step toward the hanging woman.
“No. Don’t!” yelled one of the women.
Copper stopped and just then a huge male Fiend, also naked, came charging out of a shower stall, surprising both of them.
The thing let out a piercing scream and launched itself at Copper. Its teeth snapped in front of Copper’s gas mask just as it was yanked back off its feet crashing to the floor. It writhed in fury, trying to pull a metal collar off its neck.
Jones fired a fusillade of bullets into the thing, hammering it into the floor. It had been chained so that it could only reach as far as the victim hanging from the sprinkler pipe.
The woman shackled in the stall cried out again, “Get away from her! Get away from her!”
Suddenly, the naked, chewed up girl, snapped awake and faced the soldiers with infected eyes. She gnashed at Copper, and again teeth clacked together only inches from his face. He nearly slipped on the feculence at her feet as he reeled back.
Jones lifted his gun and put one round through her head.
The people who were tied up burst into further tears and wails, the relief of rescue overcoming e
very other emotion.
“I’ve seen some chron shit, but this is some fucking jacked up chron shit,” noted Copper, his Newark inner-city Italian/Indonesian roots wrapping his words with personal comfort.
A search of headband boy’s headless body came up with a key to the handcuffs. As they released them, the victims all hugged Jones and Copper without conscious notion of their nakedness. The soldiers were at once proud of saving these people and utterly repulsed by their wretchedness.
“The baby?” asked one of the women. “Tell me you killed it?”
Jones looked at Copper and then tried to soften his stance, his body language offering bad news. “I’m sorry, I’m pretty sure I did.”
The woman burst into tears of relief.
The trapped and separated Rangers and scientists explained their respective situations to each other over the intercom. O’Shea decided to call in another air strike of nerve gas over their position. Problem one solved. Problem two was the civilians, now cleaned up, clothed and fed, but without hazmat suits. They were also suffering from the extreme psychological effects of their captivity. There was no way to continue on the mission with these people in tow and not have them affect the situation with what would obviously be special needs.
Captain O’Shea conferred with Ottawa via the bunker system’s satellite relay and it was decided that they would have to leave these people behind. The bunkers were secure with plenty of fuel, food and water. Jones and Copper would seal off the rooms that held the leftover carnage. A psychologist would be made available to the victims via the satellite system and they were repeatedly reassured that the team would try to pick them up upon their return from Florida.
All three of the victims found themselves repeatedly falling into fits of tears. Jones and Copper provided them with scrounged up blankets, pulling the doors shut behind the carnage. Copper privately hoped that they wouldn’t completely lose it (like so many of his buddies with PTSD had) and off themselves while they waited in solitude. He couldn’t imagine being tied up naked to be fed to one of those things, watching the horror and knowing you would be next. Shit, if he was honest with himself, after the tore-up chron shit he’d seen over the past few years, he needed some serious mind magic too. It was only his fierce loyalty to Jones and Ghost – well Ghost is all ate up now idnit? – that kept Copper going. If Jones bought it, Copper would probably step up and fade to black, be done with the whole fucking badong shit storm.
Of Sudden Origin Page 14
