Kings of Carrion

by Keri Lake

  “Because Doctor Falkenrath was like a brother to me. If he saw fit to protect you, then it’s only right that I do the same.”

  “Good. You’ll have someone to look after you, then, when I’m gone.” With a pat on the back, Jed steps past him, twisting the diagram Gregor drew and examining it.

  “We’ve discussed this, Jed. You are not going down in those tunnels.”

  “I am, and this is the end of our discussion.” He nods toward the group standing behind me. “That research lab is a maze for those who are unfamiliar with it, and since I spent nearly a decade of my miserable life trapped inside like a rat, there really is no one more qualified to act as tour guide.”

  Lips clamped in obvious frustration, Gregor huffs through his nose “Are you certain about this? What if …”

  “Then, I suppose you’ll find yourself another young piece of ass to fuck.”

  “Enough with the jokes. This isn’t funny.”

  “It isn’t. But I’m done being …” Jed’s eyes find mine before shifting back to Gregor’s. “Indifferent. We should’ve put a stop to this a long time ago.”

  Gregor lowers his gaze and shakes his head. “I helped build this city as a safe haven. A sanctuary for those who survived the Dredge, and whose lives were destroyed as a result of it. My conscience remains clear. But if yours is not, then I won’t be the one to stand in the way of what you feel you need to do. Just know that I’ve never judged you for your past.”

  “You never had to, my love. I judged myself.”

  Chapter 18

  Wren

  Gregor was kind enough to offer us rooms, to get a few hours sleep before the others head out for the tunnels. The plan is to leave before sunrise, when it’s still dark outside. I estimate the tincture of opium I gave to the soldiers will last long enough for the group to escape Szolen, before the soldiers can notice Cali and I missing and alert the whole guard.

  Though we’re supposed to be resting, I couldn’t sleep if I tried. The idea of Six going down to those tunnels, with all the risk I’ve become privy to over the last couple days, is enough to keep me from sleep until he’s returned. It’s enough to overpower the ache still churning in my stomach, and the knot that forms in my chest every time I close my eyes and see visuals of the mutations tearing him limb from limb.

  As Jed said earlier, the ones who stand to gain the most from those samples are the ones pregnant by Alphas. Many of whom were sealed inside Calico and left to die, so in essence, this whole mission, aside from Cali’s determination to find her Alpha, is to retrieve something on my behalf.

  Sickness churns deep inside my gut, and for once, it has nothing to do with the pregnancy. Six pulls me against him and buries his face in my neck. I thought he’d fallen asleep, but it seems I’m not the only insomniac tonight.

  “Promise me. Promise me you’ll return to me,” I whisper, blinking against the threat of tears. “I’ve lost everything and everyone I love, except for you. If something happens to you down there, know that I won’t forgive myself. That I will punish myself for not doing everything in my power to stop you.”

  “There’s nothing you can do, Wren. Your fate is certain. Mine isn’t. Therefore, my will is stronger than yours when it comes to this.”

  I close my eyes over a trickle of tears that fall against the pillow beneath me. “Do you remember the nights you would sneak into my room, after Papa fell asleep? When we’d lie in the dark and kiss until the sun came up?”

  “Yes. Those moments were my salvation.”

  “Mine, too. I remember staring into your eyes and knowing I would never love another for as long as I lived. I’d never even experienced that kind of love before, and yet, there I was, no more than a teenager, certain I’d met my other half.” I lift his hand to my lips and kiss his knuckles. “When I thought I’d lost you, I was prepared to live out the rest of my life alone. But I’m not that strong anymore, Six.” Twisting around, I curl myself into his chest and lift my gaze to his. His beautiful, scarred face passes beneath my fingertips as I drag my finger down his cheek. “My love for you is beyond what it was, and it would physically crush me to lose you. There is no life without you by my side.”

  “Which is why I have to do this, Wren. There is no life for me without you.” He leans forward, slanting his lips over mine in a soft and tender kiss. “I love you, Little Bird.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Chapter 19

  Cali

  Gregor fits a camera to Rhys’s head, overtop of one of four black hazmat suits that Jed supplied, ones similar to those worn by Legion, complete with gas masks. In his lab days, Jed apparently headed the emergency response teams, and he kept a limited supply of suits, in the event he would need them again. It was decided the four going into the old lab would be more at risk than those venturing into the hospital, so the suits have been allocated to them.

  “What about guns?” Brandon asks, as he stands leaning against the wall of Gregor’s study. “How do we protect ourselves?”

  “They’d pose more risk of blowing something up down there. Besides, guns will be useless against both mutations and Ragers.”

  “What’s the difference? Isn’t a mutation a Rager?” The one I’ve come to know as Tinker, the gadget man of the group, asks the question, which isn’t what I’d consider dumb by any means. Even after all the years I’ve spent in Calico, knowing of the experiments performed there, I still don’t quite know the difference.

  “A mutation is a failed attempt at either activating, or introducing, the Alpha gene in a subject that harbors active infection. They found that the two didn’t play nice together inside many subjects, and produced deformities over time. A Rager doesn’t typically carry the Alpha gene.” Jed zips up his suit, leaving the hood hanging off the back of his neck. “As for how to protect yourself? Well, I suppose that’s why we brought along three strapping Alphas. There is no other way. You can try to jab a knife into their skulls, but you’d have to get close enough.”

  “Unless you don’t need to get close,” Titus adds, stuffing his blade into a side holster. Throwing blades happens to be one of his finer talents, something I learned when a man from one of the hives we visited attempted to hold me hostage when we tried to leave. One minute, the stranger had a blade propped to my throat. The next, he was lying on the ground with a blade sticking out of his skull.

  “Wren and I will watch you on this monitor,” Gregor interrupts, pointing to a small screen on his desk. “I’ve charged the batteries, so you should get a good forty-eight hours out of the camera.” Only Rhys is equipped with an in-suit camera, which is attached to his head behind the face shield of his suit. “There’s an external comm, to communicate between suits, and I’ve adjusted the volumes to low. Your packs include flashlights, water, flares, and a small bit of dried meat. I would advise you to get in and out quickly, as those supplies will dwindle fast.”

  Wren stands off to the side, and there’s no doubt her anxiety levels are probably off the charts right now, as she shifts back and forth on her feet, hands fidgeting all the while. If I didn’t know the reason behind her unrest, I’d think she’d gotten into the peyote.

  Cadmus also slides a blade into his side holster and tucks his shirt into his pants. Slung tight across his chest and arms, the fabric makes him look even more massive, if that’s possible. “I know you’ll refuse,” he says, staring down at me. “But I wish you’d consider staying behind, as well.”

  “Not a chance. If Valdys is locked inside, I want to find him.”

  “This isn’t like the Calico we knew, Cali. I’m pissing myself a little, thinking about going back there.” His brows flicker with the unsettled look I’ve come to know. “I told you I’d go back for you, in spite of being scared shitless.”

  I have to look away, to hide the guilt he’ll surely see swirling in my eyes. Of any of us, Cadmus has the most to fear going into those tunnels. Whether his experience before was real, or illusion, doesn’t matter, be
cause his brain will undoubtedly see it as lucid as he remembers it to be. “You don’t have to do this, Cadmus. You don’t have to come with us.”

  “What? Let Titus take all the credit for saving Valdys?” He snorts and shakes his head. “To hell with that. And what’s the alternative?” Leaning into me, he gives a furtive glance around and lowers his voice. “Stay here with the others and watch you die on screen? I’d sooner cut out my own fucking heart.” Cadmus has a fierce way of showing love. One that sounds more insult than affection at times.

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “You can.” He pushes a strand of hair behind my ear, seeming momentarily distracted by the gesture, until his eyes find mine again and he drags his finger down my cheek. These futile affections are nothing more than vestiges of his old self. Tokens of a man who has resigned himself to his own ruination. “I like taking care of you, Sunshine. Gives me something to do.”

  Unlike before, there is no hidden meaning, or agenda, to Cadmus’s words. When he says this to me, he genuinely means it.

  “You could be free. Roaming the desert. Having all the women. What’s left of them, anyway.” I snort to keep the ache from touching my heart, but it’s too late. His words have already embedded deep inside me. “You don’t have to stay with me, Cadmus. It’s okay to make a life for yourself. To find love and feel love in return.”

  “You don’t love me, Cali?” His lip quirks with a sad but devious smile--the wily grin of the man I once knew, and I push up onto my tiptoes, wrapping my arms around his neck.

  “My mother used to tell me, when you love something enough, you let it go.”

  “Except Valdys.”

  Sniffing, I unravel my arms from his neck and lower my gaze. “There have been nights I’ve thought about it. When I allow myself to be dragged into that pain. Let it consume me like flames, to leave nothing but ash. And I can’t. I know he’d be stubborn enough to tell me to turn back. But there isn’t anything in this world I wouldn’t do to find him again. To feel his arms around me once more.”

  Finger hooked beneath my chin, he lifts my gaze to his and raises a brow. “Then, let’s stop talking and go find that stubborn motherfucker.”

  Through a tearful laugh, I nod. “Let’s bring him back.”

  Sunrise is another couple hours away, dawn on the cusp of breaking, as we trudge through darkness toward the forest, where we first helped the group climb over the wall. Nine of us now stride back toward that wall to enter Calico. Cadmus, Titus, Brandon and I, as well as Rhys, Kenny, Jed, Ratchet and Tinker. We’ve already decided to split into two groups. One will venture inside Calico, while the other descends underground, into the old research lab. We’ll meet at the main entrance of the hospital within two hours. Should one group become compromised, for whatever reason, the other is to continue out and be sure to lock the hatch. Communications will be made by walkie-talkies provided by Gregor.

  My stomach is twisted in knots from the guilt of believing that I’m the one responsible for all these people risking their lives to venture back inside. Rhys would’ve never known the cure lies within the tunnels, unless Kenny eventually told him, for Wren’s sake. I doubt it, though.

  If I’m honest with myself, there were moments over the course of the last couple months when I honestly believed I’d never breach those doors again. That, at some point, I’d be forced to accept that Valdys was forever lost to me. There’s a chance he may still be lost. I’ve no idea what we’ll find within that solemn tomb. All I know is, one way, or another, I have to try. He would do the same for me—he’d have clawed at those walls every day, down to the bones of his fingertips, if he thought he’d see me again.

  We reach the tree that hangs over the wall and begin our climb toward the other side. One by one, we traverse the thick trunk, then slip down the rope to the open yard below, where we’re greeted by the familiar grounds of the commissary. Hard to say which wing. Judging by the position of the building, I’d guess it’s S-block, but it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s all one singular hell inside, and we’re all prepared to breach the gates.

  Silver barriers, like the one at the front entrance, cover the openings where windows once cast the false hope of freedom. I remember the days of staring out over the yard, searching for my sister. One of the many reminders why I can’t let this place take another that I love.

  Jed and Rhys assume the lead as we step through overgrown fields, where the remains of starving Ragers lie unmoving, their bodies nothing but bones and mottled skin that have begun to decompose. I cover my nose against the stench on the air, one of putrid death, not like the incinerators, or the soldier I saw cooked over a flame at the marauders camp. It smells of rot and decay.

  Infection.

  “Careful not to disrupt the bodies. They hold pockets of Dredge,” Jed says, stepping over a half-disintegrated Rager.

  “Assuming I’m a carrier of Dredge and bitten by one of these early Ragers, what happens to me?”

  “I suspect you’d eventually turn, though perhaps at a slower rate than most. Alphas are the exception, as I mentioned, and since you’ve been primed with Alpha protein, my best guess is, you’d be afforded some small benefit of the gene, though not much.” His voice arrives slightly muffled through the mask of his suit. “All theory, though.”

  I’m not certain whether I’m a carrier, or not, except Jed mentioned most second generation are. “Why does being a carrier matter? And what does that even mean?”

  “It means, somewhere, you breathed in bits of the disease, though maybe not enough to breach the brain barrier. But your body produced antibodies to it. In Alphas, the antibodies are stronger. Faster. They can fight off Dredge before it has a chance to take root.”

  I step over what appears to be nothing but a skeleton, but a twitch of the bones tells me the damn thing is still alive. “How long can a Rager survive without food?”

  “It depends. Humans tend to live anywhere between thirty, to forty, days without food, so long as they’re hydrated with water. Some go as long as sixty before they die.”

  One of the things I’ve stressed about is Valdys running out of food, so this comes as welcomed news to me.

  “A Rager doesn’t have the same brain function as humans” he continues. “So, where we’d require about ten grams of glucose to keep our brains alive, a Rager requires less, and more energy can be allocated to skeletal muscles. I’d venture to say a Rager can last twice that of a human.”

  Nearly three months without food. Which means, the mutations and Ragers trapped inside that hospital, undoubtedly feasting on the dead for the first couple of weeks, aren’t even close to perishing. In fact, they’re probably ready for their next meal.

  Only a few Ragers stumble along inside the pen that once seemed like an impossible barrier to the world beyond them. When Bryani and I first arrived at Calico, I remember it was this small cluster of the infected that kept me from even attempting escape. A hopeless barricade to the horizon.

  All three Alphas hop the fence, Rhys taking the lead, as they charge toward the Ragers without the slightest hesitation. What begins as a small horde of about a dozen ends with every one of them lying on the ground in various stages of mutilation--most with their heads removed. Once the threat is cleared, we climb the fence and begin our search for the hatch. Flicking on a flashlight, I pan over the heavily-trod landscape, where Ragers have paced enough to pack the sand, preventing any vegetation from obstructing our search.

  “Found it!” Kenny calls out, and all of us gather around a patch of sand that’s shadowed by the dark lid of the hatch. Falling to their knees, both Kenny and Titus dig away the dirt, revealing a thick metal handle and small box, which Kenny flips open to show flat keypad beneath. Without hesitation, he enters the date and tugs at the handle.

  “’The hell?” He types it again, and I watch this time, to be sure there’s no slip, or mistake. One. Zero. Zero. One. Two. Zero. One. Seven. Again, he attempts to lift it.

&nb
sp; At a chuckle from the right, I snap my attention toward Jed, who stands shaking his head. “It seems you’re mistaken. Gregor said D-Day.” Jed kneels down before the hatch and types in a different date. Ten. Nineteen. Two thousand sixteen. “This was the date we officially identified the pathogen, after isolating it from workers who built the facility underground. Ironic that they became infected while trying to construct the very laboratory that would go on to study the disease.”

  The hatch pops up out of the sand, and Jed lifts it with ease, releasing a cold blast of air that ruffles my hair as I bend over it, peering down into the darkness.

  The sound of clanging metal and the click of a chain must be the sliding open of the barriers Gregor spoke of.

  Angling his flashlight, Jed sweeps it over the tunnels below, where we can see metal prongs of a ladder sticking out from the wall of the shaft, which descends down beyond the light’s reach. “I’ll not lie to you. This is, perhaps, the most foolish thing we could possibly conjure.” With a huff, he crouches beside the tunnel’s entrance. “I remember a colleague of mine. Jim Bryson. A very promising young scientist who was responsible for isolating the R-One protein. He was extracting serum from a newly-infected Rager when the alarms first went off. We were separated by a window, and as is standard procedure, all doors locked, and Jim found himself locked inside the room with the creature. The alarms seemed to irritate it—so much so, it broke free of its binds. I had precisely ten minutes to evacuate the building. Five of those were spent watching this beast tear apart my colleague like a killer whale on a seal. He toyed with him for a while. Tossing him about, before he bisected him alive and devoured his insides.” His brow furrows, eyes lost as if to the memory. “It’s important to remember … these aren’t mindless killing machines. They may not have the capacity for logic, but they understand vengeance.” His words strum a harrowing chord down my spine, and I swallow a gulp, peering down into the depths once more.