by SD Tanner
That struck her as very odd. Tessa was a dark star that couldn’t remember who she was talking to and what she might be saying. She wondered why Gears would keep such a woman on a ship he believed was safe from Ruler.
Jen was even more puzzling. They told her Jen was also infected by the designer virus, but due to the damage it did to her, she was now in a coma. She reached for Jen in her mind, but she couldn’t find her. There was no Jen. Curious she touched the woman’s hand and felt nothing. There was no life, no awareness and no soul and Jen was obviously dead. I wonder why they care for this corpse so well, she wondered. Dead is dead, they should bury her and then she thought, perhaps I simply don’t understand.
Her conversation with Tessa was brief and it was not possible to speak with Jen. Leaving with Gears, he asked, ‘Did ya speak with Jen? Ya know, telepathically.’
Confused, she looked at him and said, ‘No.’
Gears looked confused and said, ‘I thought ya might have been able to talk to her. Tessa says she can still communicate telepathically.’
She replied plainly, ‘Tessa is wrong. Jen is dead.’
Shaking his head, Gears replied confidently, ‘No, she ain’t. She’s in a coma.’
He was wrong and she said plainly, ‘Her body is there, but her soul is gone.’
Stopping at the door to the suite, he turned to her and asked, ‘Whatdaya mean?’
‘Jen is dead,’ she replied simply.
Frowning and sounding puzzled, Gears asked her, ‘Who’s Tessa talkin’ to?’
Puzzled herself, she said, ‘Tessa does not talk to Jen. Jen is dead. If she does not remember talking with her mind, why does she remember talking to Jen?’
Gears frowned and said, ‘I hadn’t thought of that. Jen was conscious when she arrived here. We just assumed Tessa was still able to talk to her, but if Jen is dead then I dunno who Tessa is talking to either.’
She’d seen a super hunter at the CDC that was a dark star and now here, where Gears said it was completely safe, she found another person who was a dark star in her mind. The dark stars were not good and most likely aligned to Ruler. She wondered why he gave his enemies easy access to their safe world. It didn’t make sense to her. Gears seemed so determined to defeat his enemy and yet he gave them access to their inner sanctum, but she didn’t wish to question him, so she said nothing.
Gears opened the door to the suite he said she lived in with his brothers and although it did bear the scars of being lived in hard, the suite was clean, tidy and luxurious. He went into the kitchenette and she walked to a door next to it. Opening the door, she found a large bed covered in a thick quilt and turning around, she saw a mural on the wall with two stunning blue eyes in the center of it. Curious, she opened the cupboard against the wall and saw folded clothes on the shelves. Inspecting the clothes, she saw they were almost identical to her own. Gears walked into the room behind her, put down two cups of coffee on the nightstand and sat on the bed watching her.
Pointing to the clothes, she asked, ‘Were these mine?’
He smiled up at her and said, ‘Yeah, they’re yours, honey.’
Looking down at him, she thought, I know this place, I know his face, but when she tried to bring the memory into sharp focus, it skittered away and she lost the thread in her mind. Frustrated, she turned away and looked at the mural on the wall. She knew she drew those pictures. The images were familiar and she could almost feel the motion in her hand when she made them. More disturbing than the memories she couldn’t fully trace, were the emotions that came with them. Standing in the room and being with this man brought forward a feeling of contentment and pleasure. She enjoyed the emotions and exploring her feelings, she wished she could remember where they came from.
Sitting down on the bed next to him, she asked, ‘Why do I not remember you?’
He shrugged and said, ‘I dunno. Does it matter?’
Suddenly feeling lost and adrift in a world she didn’t understand, she replied sadly, ‘A little bit. I feel maybe I lost something I needed.’
Gears put his arm around her shoulders, she rested her head against him and he said, ‘Don’t worry about it, honey. I’ll always be here, I ain’t goin’ anywhere.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Little Miss never been right (Gray)
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ He shouted.
The hunters had unleashed themselves through the bunker with their heads vibrating manically and their bodies rippling with tension while they ran wildly through the rooms cornering the living. People were screaming and running towards the exit, but there was no safety there. Either they were caught or if they made it outside, there were even more hunters out there, ready to tear into their bodies and eager to feed on their living flesh. There was no gunfire. Ruler stripped the bunker bare of obvious weapons and all he could hear were screams of the frightened and the slowly dying.
The hunters seemed to know their prey had nowhere to run and were taking their time. He’d never seen a hunter eat its victim alive before and he watched with morbid fascination as a hunter brought a woman down, who he remembered was called Zoe, and pinned her to the floor. Rather than kill Zoe, it stripped her shirt as if it were peeling fruit and almost delicately tore a chunk of flesh from her side. Blood burst from the wound, but even he could see it wouldn’t be fatal and wouldn’t even render Zoe unconscious. Zoe would be aware of her death and the hunter shoved the bloody mess of her flesh into its mouth, chewing on it like a contented cow while holding its prey down. Realizing her fate, Zoe tried to wriggle free from its grasp, but she lacked the strength and now she was bleeding heavily.
He looked up into the rest of the cafeteria and saw another woman standing facing Zoe and watching her wide-eyed while she was slowly being shredded and eaten in front of her. This woman had long dark hair, was deathly pale and her eyes were wide with shock and fear. She was leaning against a counter and he thought she might look for a knife to defend herself, but she seemed immobilized. Meanwhile he continued to hear Zoe, still pinned to the floor, crying weakly and the sucking sounds as the hunter chewed on her raw bleeding flesh. In a detached way, it occurred to him the hunters were originally human and their teeth were not designed to eat raw flesh. He felt like his mind had split in two and one half wanted to throw up and the other half felt nothing.
He stood in the cafeteria listening to the sounds of the dying all around him. The noise echoed through the empty corridors and he wondered what was happening to him. It was as if he wasn’t there. He could see the hunter on the ground, hear the cries of Zoe as she lay dying in pain, see the terrified woman at the counter, but it was all happening in a distanced way. He knew what was going on and he knew it was bad, but it had an almost cartoon quality as if it wasn’t quite real. He couldn’t feel anything and he found that odd. He wasn’t hot, he wasn’t cold, he wasn’t hungry and he wasn’t even nauseous anymore. He was blank, empty, detached and uninvolved. Briefly, he wondered what that might mean, but even that thought failed to find a footing in his head and he quickly forgot the question.
There was a plastic chair near him and he walked over, sat down and continued to watch the woman being eaten. Ruler stormed in the through the cafeteria door and glared at him. Looking at Ruler, he absently noted the lower half of his face was covered in blood that spread down his once white shirt.
‘What are you staring at?’ Ruler asked bluntly.
Now seeming to have no emotion, he didn’t feel his usual anxiety at Ruler’s anger and said blandly, ‘I’m not staring.’
Ruler smiled at him and he thought it looked slightly comical. With his pink face above the red kerchief of blood, Ruler looked like he was wearing a red bandanna that covered his face from his chin to his chest. Ruler’s smile widened and he saw his teeth were stained with a red that looked almost black between his teeth. As if realizing his teeth were dirty, Ruler began picking at them and pulling out what he assumed was human flesh and flicking it to the floor. That’s not very hygieni
c, he thought, someone will have clean that up.
Breathing in deeply, he assumed he was about to die. He’d lost track of time, but just a short while earlier and for no reason he understood, Ruler exploded in a rage he didn’t know was possible. As if a demon was released, Ruler began to curse and oddly, the entire contents of the room seemed to be enraged with him. Having nowhere to escape, he curled himself into a fetal position as furniture, equipment and anything else that could move began to fly around the room. At one point, he glanced up to see chairs, tables and computers repeatedly smashing themselves against the ceiling. Unable to hide under furniture, he crawled to the corner of the room and with his head tucked into his body, waited until the noise abated. Over and over, he heard tables, chairs and machines being repeatedly smashed into walls around him and the ceiling above him. Occasionally he felt a sharp bang and something landed on him and he became so frightened he moved beyond the feeling fear and waited for his life to end.
Eventually the room became quiet, he uncurled himself and looked around at what was left of the room. It was as if a hurricane had torn through the room, but that was less terrifying than the noise he could hear coming from outside the room. He didn’t know how long he sat huddled in the corner, his feet drawn up, his knees under his chin and his arms wrapped around his legs. He could remember sitting like that when he was a boy and hearing his parents fighting downstairs, he would wait to see if they would confine their argument to one another or whether he would be dragged out and punished for some perceived crime. While he waited, he withdrew deeper and deeper into himself until he wasn’t sure where he was anymore and it was with his mind in this place, he eventually found the courage to leave the room.
Still picking flesh from his teeth, Ruler said almost kindly, ‘Don’t look so worried, my pretty pet. None of this is for your benefit.’ Sighing indulgently, he added, ‘Every so often, I have to let rage have her moment off the leash.’
He didn’t understand what that meant, but he wasn’t sure his comprehension was needed and he said nothing. Seeing that he was not going to reply, Ruler stood up abruptly and said, ‘Come along, my pretty pet. We have to go. There’s nothing left here.’
Walking behind Ruler towards the exit, he had to agree that there was nothing left in the bunker and he did not bother to close the door behind him. There didn’t seem to be much point. Outside the bunker was his car, a Mercedes S Class, and in it was the man who drove him to the bunker earlier that day. A hunter, still covered in fresh blood, climbed into the front of the car and another climbed in the back. He climbed into the car and a hunter sat between him and Ruler while he waited to see what would happen next.
‘Drive to the camp,’ Ruler said blandly. Turning to him, he said sulkily, ‘I don’t like this car. I want a bigger one. And a better looking driver. It’s cramped in here and the view is dull.’
Swallowing, his throat felt dry and he thought, I need to drink something strong. The bunker was only fifty-five miles from the refugee camp and it took only a couple of hours to get there. When they arrived, rather than stop at the main barracks, Ruler ordered the driver to take them to the area they set aside for the new people Hull captured and brought to the camp. He was relieved when he saw the familiar buildings and grateful to get out of the car and away from the hunters that stank of fresh blood and vomit.
Hull and his men had the people penned in behind a fortified fence that was once used to keep people out rather than in. The area contained a warehouse that stored weapons and ammunition, but now acted as the living quarters for over a thousand people. Ruler told him to keep the healthiest and most able and only send the weaker people to the main barracks. Using more aggressive tactics, Hull managed to gather over four thousand people in a very short time. It turned out the people were not terribly resistant to being taken by Hull. From what he heard, conditions in the region worsened since Ruler turned up and any perception of sanctuary was better than none.
‘Get them lined up,’ Ruler ordered.
He saw Hull walking out from the warehouse and called, ‘Hull! Ruler wants to see them outside.’
In response, Hull barked orders to his scruffy looking troops and they started herding people into lines outside the warehouse. He and Ruler walked the lines and Ruler appeared to be inspecting the people, but he didn’t understand what he was looking for. Hull walked beside him wearing a stern glare, but didn’t speak. He thought the people standing in the roughly organized line looked too tired and shocked to be doing anything other than whatever they were told. They looked beat and blank, as if the past ten months eroded everything they once knew and replaced the knowledge with nothing good. He doubted these people could put up much resistance to anyone or anything and Ruler could do whatever he wanted with them, and no doubt would.
Echoing his own thoughts, Ruler said disdainfully, ‘Pathetic looking aren’t they?’ With his upper lip curled, he added, ‘Fortunately they don’t need to be much for what I plan to use them for.’
‘And what is that exactly?’ Hull asked.
Ruler turned his expressionless eyes to Hull and said, ‘We’ll talk at your barracks.’
On reaching Hull’s barracks, they went to the main recreation room. With a flick of his head, Hull made clear everyone should leave and they did. Seated at the table, he and Hull waited to hear what Ruler wanted. As usual, there were armored hunters and hunters roaming the room, making clear death was always within easy reach.
‘I’ve had a bad day,’ Ruler declared.
He and Hull looked at one another and without casting any expression, he knew they both thought it was everyone else who’d had a bad day.
Leaning across the table, Ruler said conspiratorially, ‘We have an enemy.’ He looked at him, then Hull and continued, ‘It’s time to take out the trash.’
Sighing heavily, Hull asked, ‘What exactly does that mean?’
Leveling Hull with a bland look, Ruler said, ‘It means we need to get more powerful than we are. This enemy has eluded me again and I don’t like that. It’s time we fucked them up.’
‘I’m all for fucking up an enemy, but you need to get more specific,’ Hull said impatiently. ‘Only having half the story means we can’t do what you need us to do as well as it needs to be done.’
Ruler smiled and said, ‘I like the way you think, Hull, but don’t piss me off. I like killing and I’ll kill you. Be assured of that.’
Hull snorted and said, ‘I have no doubt, but be assured I don’t give a shit.’
Ruler threw back his head and guffawed, slapping the table hard and wiping his eyes dry, he said, ‘I’m going to make it my personal mission to make sure you care about dying, Hull.’
With a grin that didn’t quite make it to his eyes, Hull said, ‘Dunno how you could do that, but go on then.’
Still looking happy, Ruler said cheerfully, ‘This is a lovely diversion, Hull, and you’ve quite cheered me up with your bulldog talk, but it’s all beside the point.’ Suddenly looking sober, he added, ‘Those people you’ve set aside aren’t good enough. I need you to weed out the best hundred or so and send the rest to Gray.’
Frowning, Hull asked, ‘What makes them the best?’
‘The healthiest, fittest, best-looking,’ Ruler said. He paused, and added, ‘And get rid of the short ones. And the ones with red hair. I don’t like red hair.’
‘Okay,’ Hull said dubiously. ‘What do you want them for?’
Ruler leaned back in his chair and said, ‘Fresh meat.’
Sounding disgusted, he said, ‘You want to feed them to the hunters?’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Hull drawled. ‘Why would he feed the top one hundred to the hunters?’
Hull was no doubt right, but it was worrying that Hull had thought of that. He realized he was at a table with a pair of psychopaths and was starting to wonder if he should stop resisting the madness around him and join the party.
Applauding Hull, Ruler said happily, ‘Excellent powers of
deduction. You’re not as stupid as you look.’ Turning to him, he said amiably, ‘My armored hunters control the hunters, but they need new bodies.’
Not sure he wanted to know, he asked, ‘How does that work?’
Ruler shrugged and said, ‘They occupy the body. It’s empty anyway. Sort of like moving into a new house.’ Reflecting on his explanation, he said, ‘They can move into a fancy city apartment or a crack den. They prefer a fancy apartment, so we need fresh meat. Healthy meat.’
Even through his emotional numbness, he felt a slight sense of horror and asked, ‘What happens to the people who are already living in the…umm…apartment?’
With an expression of contempt, Ruler said bluntly, ‘They die. What the fuck else could happen?’
His stomach churned a little and he asked, ‘What? We just hand the people over and your armored hunters trade bodies.’
Ruler giggled and said, ‘It’s not a trade. One person dies and the other walks away.’
Shaking his head, Hull said dourly, ‘Yeah, that’s not a trade.’
Shuddering, he said, ‘I guess not. It’s more like a murder.’
‘Speaking of murder,’ Ruler said conversationally. ‘We need to upgrade your army as well.’
Fixing Ruler with a blank stare, Hull asked, ‘How so?’
‘I want to improve your capabilities,’ Ruler said smoothly. ‘It’s time to add some new weapons to your arsenal.’
Hull tilted his head, smiled and said, ‘I’m listening.’
Ruler smirked and said, ‘I want to merge our two capabilities. My armored hunters and their hunter dogs with your troops with their fun toys.’
Hull breathed in deeply and said, ‘Interesting. How do we do that?’
‘Oh that’s easy peasey, lemon squeezy,’ Ruler said happily. ‘We’ll just make sure the hunters don’t bite…or eat your troops and your troops should avoid killing them.’
‘Only avoid?’ Hull asked, raising his eyebrows.
