Dead Meat | Day 5

by Clausen, Nick

  “Uhm, I don’t—” Iver begins, but Mille cuts him off.

  “Sure, we’ll go now.” She drags him past the doctor and the cabin, darting a glance inside as they pass. Another spacesuit-clad person is in there, rummaging through the bed where Torben had lain, as though to find him in the sheets.

  Mille and Iver keep going until they reach the other end of the hallway where it meets up with the wider passage connecting the next hallway to this one. At the intersection, the carpet is replaced with linoleum. And Mille sees the puddle of clear liquid right away; it’s about the size of a half-dollar and has a yellowish hue.

  “Look,” Mille says, pointing. “He came by here. He spat right there.”

  “That could be anybody,” Iver says without much conviction.

  “It’s him,” Mille says. “He went this way. Come on.”

  “Wait!” Iver says, throwing out his arms. “What exactly are we doing?”

  “We’re finding him, of course. Before it’s too late.”

  “And then what? Do we wrestle him to the ground and call security?”

  “I … I don’t know,” Mille admits. “But we have to find him.”

  Iver shakes his head, but still follows along.

  They reach the next hallway where a watercooler has been used by someone obviously not concerned with spilling; water has been splattered all over the wall and formed a pool on the floor. Wet footprints lead to the right, which is the opening to the stairs.

  There are two sets.

  “Looks like he had company,” Iver remarks.

  Mille just stares at the prints—one pair big and clunky and the other a lot smaller and slimmer—as something very unpleasant tries to make it into her conscious mind. She shoves it away, muttering: “Could have been someone who came by later. Come on.”

  The wet marks indicate that Torben—and his possible companion—went upstairs, and Mille and Iver follow suit. By the time they reach the next landing, the prints have dried up.

  Mille steps out into the hallway, looking down both directions, but seeing no one.

  “I think he went up another deck,” she says, and just as she’s about to step back into the stairwell, there’s a wet cough coming from down the hallway.

  Mille looks back.

  And she sees Torben.

  He enters the hallway from a glass door leading outside. He looks horrible, most of the color has drained from his face and he’s barely able to walk. The only thing keeping him on his feet is his companion, who’s doing her very best to support him.

  “Come on, Torben, let’s get you back inside,” Mille’s mother says, and even from this far away, Mille can hear her sobbing.

  “That’s him!” Iver exclaims from behind Mille.

  His voice makes Mille’s mother look up. Her red eyes fix on Mille. “Oh! Mille! I’m so glad you came … please, help us! We need to get Torben to the doctor …”

  “No doctor,” Torben drools, his eyes only halfway open.

  “He said … he said he just needed some fresh air,” Mille’s mother goes on, her voice jumpy with sobs now. “But I think … I think he’s really sick … I think you were right, Mille … it’s that virus, isn’t it?”

  Mille isn’t able to answer, much less move. For several seconds, she just stands there, like a cowboy on the main road of a dusty old Western town, facing his opponent in a draw match. She stares at her mother clutching Torben, who’s all but tipped over now, leaning on her and breathing in sticky rasps. And Mille finally realizes the thing she didn’t want to see. It finally comes home to her how Torben got out of the cabin.

  How could you?

  “Mille, please,” her mother says, all-out crying now, stumbling to keep to her feet as Torben collapses sideways. “Help me!”

  Then the weight of Torben becomes too much for her to bear, as his legs finally give way completely, and the two of them sink to the floor in unison, Torben’s body coming to rest halfway atop Mille’s mother.

  “Torben!” she cries out, trying to free herself from underneath him while shaking him. “Torben, please wake up!”

  “I think … I think he died,” Iver says.

  “He did,” Mille hears herself say.

  “We have to help her!” Iver says. He is about to step forward, but Mille flings out her arm and grabs his shirt firmly.

  “Stay here. It’s too late.”

  Iver glances at her sideways, then back down the hallway, where Mille’s mother has now managed to squeeze herself free. She’s kneeling over Torben, crying and hugging him, begging him to wake up.

  And then he does.

  And Mille thinks she’s prepared to see it happen. But she’s not. And she can’t look away.

  “Oh, my God,” Iver breathes.

  Mille’s mother’s cries turn to high-pitched shrieks of pain and anguish, as Torben reaches up and pulls her head down, biting into the soft flesh behind her ear, ripping out a big chunk of skin with hair still attached to it. The blood begins to spurt out like a fountain, painting Torben’s face red. He doesn’t seem fazed by it at all, though, as he immediately goes for another bite out of Mille’s mother.

  How could you? Mille thinks again, as she watches her mother die.

  Then something else comes into view. Only a few yards away from Torben and Mille’s mother, a door opens, and a young woman comes out, carrying a sleeping toddler on her arm.

  As the woman sees the bloody scene unfolding in front of her, she freezes up, her face going blank, her mouth opening wide, but no words are coming out. She simply stands there, like a deer in the headlights, less than five paces away from Torben, who’s now really getting into it, burying his face in Mille’s mother—who’s already stopped screaming.

  “Get away!” Iver shouts, his voice ringing in Mille’s ears. As the young woman doesn’t seem to react, he tries flailing his arms, like a stranded person signaling to a passing ship. “Get away from there!”

  While his call has no effect on the young mother, it does seem to wake up her child. The toddler—a boy, Mille can tell—lifts his head from off his mother’s shoulder, rubs his eye with one chubby, pink hand, then turns his head and looks at the scene unfolding right in front of him with no comprehension on his sleepy face.

  Iver is still shouting and waving at the woman. Mille is still unable to do anything. The woman is still paralyzed. Torben is still eating.

  And then he’s done.

  And he gets to his feet with slow, cumbersome movements, mimicking how he had trouble moving when he was alive, turning towards the woman.

  At the sight of Torben facing her in his full height, his face and neck covered in blood, the woman is finally jerked out of her stupor. She begins to scream, backs up and clutches her son tightly. Her back meets the wall, and Torben reaches out his arms.

  That’s when Mille realizes she’s begun running. In fact, she must have been doing so for at least a couple of seconds, because she’s already at full speed and closing in on Torben fast.

  Just before he can grab the screaming woman, Mille flings herself into him. It’s like colliding with a rhino. The wind is knocked out of her, and there’s an audible crack from someplace between her neck and shoulder, and she slumps to the floor.

  Luckily, though, so does Torben, losing his balance from the shove and tumbling sideways like an overgrown toddler.

  “Get … out of … here,” Mille croaks, looking up at the woman, who’s stopped screaming and is now breathing in rapid gasps like someone drowning, her eyes darting back and forth from Torben to Mille.

  The boy is crying now.

  “Run away!” Mille says hoarsely.

  The woman blinks, gasps some more, then, just as Torben begins crawling towards her, she finally regains enough of her bearings to turn on her heel and run down the hallway, the crying toddler bouncing in her arms.

  Torben, realizing almost immediately that his easiest prey is out of reach, turns his attention to Mille instead, reaching for her
shoes.

  Mille bites down hard, pulls back both legs and stomps them as hard as she can into Torben’s face. There’s a satisfying snap as both his front teeth break, and Mille thinks with manic elation: I’ve always wanted to do that!

  Then she uses the two seconds she bought herself to get back onto her feet. But when she uses her right arm to push off the floor, a searing pain shoots out from her collarbone, causing her to cry out.

  At the same time, there’s another scream from behind her, and Mille turns her head to see the woman now splayed out on the floor. The toddler is a few feet away from her, rolling around. The woman must have tripped and dropped him, but, amazingly, he seems unharmed as he manages to sit up and look around with an expression of shock and confusion on his little face. His mother screams again, reaching for him but can’t quite make it.

  At first, Mille has no idea why she’s screaming like that, or how she could fall on a perfectly flat floor.

  Then she sees her mother gnawing away at the woman’s leg. Mille’s mother is still lying down, but she must have awoken just as the woman passed by her, and maybe she reached out an arm to grab her, thereby tripping her, or maybe she just sat up and the woman ran right into her; whatever the case, the woman wasn’t fast enough to get back up, and now it’s too late.

  “Mom!” Mille hears herself cry out. “Stop that!”

  Her mother doesn’t react to her call, of course, just working her way farther up the legs of the woman, tearing at the skin and biting off chunks.

  The toddler begins to cry at the sight of his mother screaming.

  “Iver!” Mille shouts, even as she’s trying to get back up herself. “Iver, help her!”

  Iver comes closer with a look of utter horror on his face, but he’s still too far away to do any good.

  Just as Mille makes it to her hands and knees, there’s a growl right behind her and a big hand grabs her by the belt.

  Mille flings back her elbow as a reflex, connecting squarely with Torben’s temple, and she thrusts forward, freeing herself from his grip and stumbling to her feet.

  Iver has almost reached them now, and Mille notices a lot more people behind him, a crowd starting to gather as other passengers come out from their cabins to see what’s going on.

  Mille’s mother has reached the lower back of the woman, and the pool of blood growing on the floor suggests that not much can be left inside the woman. She’s fallen silent and is no longer struggling to get free, only one hand still reaching blindly for the toddler.

  “Get him, Iver,” Mille tries to shout, but only has air enough for another croak. “Get him away from there!”

  Things are moving very fast now.

  Mille’s mother, maybe drawn by the crowd, maybe just losing interest in the now obviously dead woman, decides greedily to move on to the next course and begins crawling down the hallway.

  “Don’t you fucking touch him!” Mille screams, bending down and grabbing her mother’s ankles just as she reaches out her arm for the toddler. Mille pulls her back, but her mother kicks with surprising force, slipping out of her shoe and leaving Mille to stumble backwards.

  The toddler, though, now bawling loudly, seems to have taken matters into his own little hands, because he’s now crawling away, headed for the glass door leading outside. They open for him and let him crawl through.

  Mille’s mother isn’t giving up on her tiny prey, and she, too, crawls for the doors like a big, clumsy spider.

  Mille would maybe have had the time to stop her, if Torben hadn’t made another attempt to grab her pant leg just at that moment, forcing her to once more turn and place a hard kick to his jaw.

  As she turns back around, she sees her mother’s feet disappear through the open door out into the dawn light.

  “Iver!” she shouts—unnecessarily so, because Iver has finally gathered enough courage to come close enough, and is headed towards the door.

  Mille’s shout makes him stop and look in her direction. But he looks right past her, at something going on behind her, and Mille darts a glance back to see Torben attack some old guy in his underwear, who’s just come out of a nearby door. Another, younger man rushes to help but only manages to get his hand bitten.

  It’s happening, Mille thinks.

  But she wastes no time brooding; she simply gets to her feet and runs out the glass door. The fresh morning air is cool and salty and makes her gasp for breath.

  A narrow passageway between the ship and the railing leads maybe thirty yards down, and the toddler is still crawling to get away with Mille’s mother close at his heels.

  Mille feels her heart jump as she speeds up and catches up with her mother just inches before she can reach out and grab the boy.

  Mille throws herself flat on top of her mother, pushing the skinny woman to the metal floor. She immediately begins squirming and tries to reach back and grab at Mille, but Mille gets to her knees and shoves down hard with both hands between her mother’s shoulder blades. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Iver hesitating.

  “Get the boy!” she shouts.

  But Iver can’t seem to squeeze past, and the half a second she takes her attention away is all her mother needs. She twists sideways, Mille’s hands slip, and her mother bites down on her wrist.

  Mille screams in pain and rips her arm back. A piece of skin comes off with a snap and the blood begins trickling immediately.

  Mille tumbles backwards, clutching at her wounded wrist, trying to stop the blood from flowing, but it makes its way through her fingers.

  Oh, no, no, I’m infected …

  “Mille!” Iver shouts from behind her.

  Mille looks up and sees her mother going for the toddler again. He’s reached the end of the walkway and is just sitting there, bawling and looking scared.

  Mille, without thinking, throws herself forward and lands on top of her mother for the second time, this time her mother’s eager hand is even closer to the toddler, almost grazing his feet. But instead of just holding down her mother, this time, Mille locks her arm around her throat and pulls back as hard as she can, craning her mother’s neck back, hoping to break it. She realizes she’s screaming. She pulls back harder as her mother reaches her hands back and claws at her hair and her cheeks. Mille closes her eyes as her mother’s fingers fumble their way to her face. She wrestles her back and to the side, managing to keep herself on top and still keep her mother in a headlock. However, her grip slips just enough for her mother to get her mouth to Mille’s arm, and she doesn’t waste a second, but immediately begins biting at it. Mille screams again, but for some reason, the pain isn’t as bad this time, and that’s good because she can’t let go; if she does, her mother will go right after the toddler, so Mille just holds on with all her might. At the same time, she uses her other arm to reach up and grab the railings. She then hoists herself up, and—with a strength she had no idea she possessed—she pulls her mother to her feet, too.

  Mille isn’t really aware of what she’s doing before she’s doing it. It’s like her body is no longer under her own power but is being controlled like a character in a computer game.

  She slings one arm around the railing, while the other—the one being eaten—is still locked around her mother’s head. She pulls her arms towards each other, forcing her mother up against the railing. Then, with a sudden jerk, she rips her arm free, and for a split second she sees just how badly hurt it is—the skin open like a bloody flower, the flesh gone and revealing the bone—then her arms dip down and go between her mother’s legs, one from each side. It happens so fast Mille barely has time to register anything herself. But suddenly, she’s lifting her mother off the floor. Mille is fueled with the power of panic, and her mother, luckily, weighs below a hundred. And with a twist of her upper body, Mille throws her mother over the railing.

  The movement is far from elegant, but it has enough force behind it to be successful.

  Just before she disappears out of sight, Mille gets one last gl
impse of her mother’s face, as she turns her head in what could be construed as surprise to look back at Mille. The eyes, though, which are white and empty, reveal that Helle Klitgaard is no longer capable of feeling anything, much less surprise.

  Then she’s gone.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” Mille sighs, waddling backwards. Suddenly, she picks up on the noise of the crying toddler, and she turns to see him sitting there, shrinking back and looking up at her.

  Mille smiles at him as she bends down. “Hi there, buddy. It’s all right now. You’re safe.”

  He looks at her questioningly, and he stops crying for a moment. She reaches out her arms, and, to her surprise, the toddler returns the gesture. Mille picks him up and holds him tightly, making sure to keep the wounded arm by her side so as to not get any blood on him. She turns to see Iver still standing there, dumbstruck.

  There’s a scream from the other side of the windows, and Mille looks to see a terrible scene unfold right behind the glass; people scrambling, many of them with bloody wounds, some of them fighting against Torben and the toddler’s mother—who’s now gotten back up and joined the fun.

  The toddler begins sobbing again, and Mille turns towards the sea so he can’t see what’s going on inside.

  “It’s okay,” Mille whispers, placing her mouth close to his little ear. “The bad people can’t hurt you now.”

  Then, suddenly, Iver comes back to life, like a robot being plugged back in. “Oh, fuck! Oh, no! Oh, fuck!” he begins chanting in a shrill voice, holding his head with both hands as he looks from the window to Mille. “It’s all messed up now! It’s all messed up! We should have just jumped ship like Charlotte said. Now we’re all going to die!”

  “It’s okay now,” Mille tells the toddler, hugging him a little tighter, placing a kiss on his temple, as he leans his head against her shoulder and stops crying with a whimpering sigh. “You’re going to be okay; I promise.”