Dead Meat | Day 5

by Clausen, Nick

  “Don’t say that!” Iver cries out. “Don’t tell the baby he’s going to be okay; he’s not! We’re all going to—”

  “He’s going to make it,” Mille says, looking at Iver, her expression set in stone, her voice offering no room for debate. “You’re going to take him, and you’re going to find a way to get him off this ship.”

  Iver shakes his head. “I … I can’t … there’s no way …”

  Mille steps towards him with great difficulty; pangs of pain shoot from her busted shoulder and the many bite wounds all over her arm. Her body is already aching from the inside, too; she can literally feel the virus coursing through her veins, setting everything on fire, killing her with the efficiency of cyanide.

  I’ll be dead within three minutes.

  The toddler moves a little in her arms, but keeps holding on to her shirt and pushes his cheek against her.

  “You take him, Iver,” she says softly. “You make sure he gets off the ship.” When Iver begins to shake his head again, she goes on: “I thought I was going to save everyone. Turns out, I was only meant to save one.”

  She looks down at the toddler who’s looking back up at her with big, blue, timid eyes, and she smiles as tears begin spilling from her own.

  “But then again, one is better than nobody, right?” she tells the toddler, her voice surprisingly calm. She looks at Iver again. “Do whatever you need to do. But get him to safety.”

  Iver hesitates. But this time, instead of shaking his head, he actually holds out his hands.

  Mille kisses the toddler’s head once more, then hands him over. He gives off a weak whimper, holds on for half a second, then surrenders to Iver and tucks himself in the same way he did with Mille.

  “This is how it was supposed to happen,” she says, not sure where the words are coming from. “I get it now.”

  She steps back a few paces, struggling to keep her balance as her vision begins to go blurry.

  “Get him off the ship,” she tells Iver one last time. “Promise me.”

  “I will,” he says. And there’s sudden conviction in his voice. Maybe he’s simply offering her one final piece of solace, but Mille doesn’t think so; she thinks he really means it, that he’s determined to save the boy.

  “Good,” Mille says, turning towards the railing and the bright morning sky reflecting in the calm ocean several feet below, the light already bright enough to cause her to squint her eyes. “I did it,” she whispers, smiling to herself.

  She reaches out and grabs the cold metal. Then she hoists herself up with a painful grunt.

  “Mille, wait,” Iver says.

  But Mille doesn’t wait. She turns her face towards the sun one last time, as she leans forward and allows gravity to take over.

  And as she falls through the air, faster and faster, there’s no memories passing in front of her eyes, no scenes from her life rushing by.

  Instead, her last thought goes to the toddler and his big, bright eyes, and she imagines how he’ll get to grow into a handsome teenager and how those eyes will one day break the hearts of quite a few girls.

  Mille is smiling by the time she hits the water.

  SIXTEEN

  Eli tries his best to keep the wheel steady, but his hands are trembling and drops of sweat keep running down his forehead, stinging his eyes.

  His ragged breath competes with the scream of the engine as the lights of the freeway zip by. He already passed the exit for Fredericia. He’s not going there; why would he? Malthe’s apartment is in Frederica, and Eli was supposed to spend the night there, but Malthe is dead. So is Axe. Eli can still smell his burning flesh.

  “Fuck me,” he mutters, fumbling for the ventilation, not wanting to take his eyes off the road. He finds it and cranks it up.

  He suddenly feels strikingly sober. Apparently, seeing two bandmates lose their lives within a couple of minutes is enough to kick the brain into gear.

  He passes a sign telling him Haderslev is only four miles out. He pushes the accelerator down even farther, pushing towards 130. Axe didn’t exaggerate when he bragged about how fast his dad’s car could go.

  The thought of Axe makes Eli conscious of the stench again, and he frowns. “Fuck, how can I still smell him on me? Oh, man, I need some goddamn music …”

  He turns on the stereo at max volume. The tunes of Kraftwerk make his eardrums throb pleasantly, soothing his nerves a little. It’s not enough, though, and before he knows what he’s doing, Eli finds himself leaning over and rummaging through the glove compartment.

  “Come on … come on … didn’t Axe say he brought some green?”

  Eli has been clean for almost seven months, the only thing he’s enjoyed being alcohol; no drugs whatsoever. It’s been very hard sometimes, especially that time he almost got run over by a car while riding his skateboard. Or when he found a lump on his balls which turned out to be harmless.

  Fear of death seemed to be the biggest challenge; the thing most likely to bring back the urge for the comfortable numbness the drugs provided him. And ever since he heard about this virus spreading across the country, Eli had been more scared than ever. No wonder he was quick to agree when Axe called him, wanting to go drinking.

  The first time Eli ever used was when his mother killed herself. Eli was the one who found her in the garage. The car was still running, the air thick with smoke. He was only fifteen back then. Finding her like that was the biggest scare of his life. He spent five months having terrible nightmares, trying to shake the image of her sitting behind the wheel, head tilted to the side, her eyes closed and her mouth open.

  It wasn’t until he met Axe and Malthe and they introduced him to pot that he was finally able to sleep again.

  Of course, pot was only the beginning.

  “Shit!” he hisses to himself as he realizes there’s nothing in the glove box but stuff you ordinarily keep there. “Okay,” he mutters, clenching the wheel. “Okay, I can do this. I don’t need it. I can do—”

  Suddenly, he becomes aware of a strange, deep vibrating feeling in the air. He has no time to figure out where it comes from, because without warning, something large and yellow comes into the upper corner of his visual field.

  “Wow, shit!”

  Eli hits leans against the side window to see a spinning helicopter dropping out of the sky at an alarming speed just off the road. It connects with the ground behind a couple of trees, the rotors still spinning as Eli loses it from sight.

  “Holy hell,” Eli whispers to himself as he keeps driving. “Hope whoever was in there is all right …”

  He doesn’t think too long about it, though; he knows he’s in deep trouble himself. Worst off, he’ll likely go to jail. He was at least partly responsible for Axe and Malthe dying, since they all broke the rules and went out even after the curfew had been put out.

  Unless this is the end of the world, of course. Like Axe kept saying it was. Going drinking was Axe’s idea. Come to think of it, Eli has never seen Axe act like he did tonight. It was like he wanted to die. Like he knew they would all end up dead soon, so they might as well get it over with.

  Eli knows Axe has been struggling lately. Something about depression. Maybe that’s why he wanted to go in the first place. Not that it matters now. Axe is dead. And Eli can still smell him even with the ventilation on.

  He rolls down the window, and the brisk morning air comes roaring in, clearing the stench a little.

  Maybe there’s still a way out … Maybe I don’t need to go to jail. What if I simply don’t tell anyone about what happened? Who can prove I was even there?

  The thought brings a glimmer of hope.

  The exit comes up ahead. Eli lets off the gas and turns off the freeway. He hasn’t given much thought to where exactly he’s going until now, but he suddenly realizes he’s heading for Claus’s place.

  It’s silly; Eli is nineteen. He should be old enough to deal with this. But he automatically sought the one person that can help him now.
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br />   Claus has bailed him out of trouble before. He will know what to do. And he won’t judge him.

  As he drives through the city, Eli notices the smell of burning flesh growing stronger inside the car again.

  It’s incredible how strong that smell is; Eli only touched Axe’s body for a few seconds when they lifted it, and yet his hands must be where the smell is coming from.

  He tentatively sniffs his palms, but to his surprise, he can only smell his own sweat. He sniffs his T-shirt, but that doesn’t smell either.

  “The fuck?” he mutters, as he makes a left turn. Claus’s place is still a few blocks away.

  He decides to call up Claus and ask him to come out. Eli finds his phone and turns down the music.

  That’s when he hears it: the noises coming from the trunk.

  And finally, his brain connects the dots.

  The stench. That’s where it’s coming from. That’s why he can still smell burning flesh. They put Axe in the fucking trunk.

  How could he forget? He’s been driving with his dead friend in the car.

  Except that, judging from the thuds and the scraping and the moaning coming from the back, his friend isn’t exactly dead anymore.

  SEVENTEEN

  The impact is hard enough to make her teeth chatter and her vision go blurry for a few seconds.

  When she’s able to focus again, Josefine is amazed that the helicopter is actually standing upright. And that she’s still alive—unhurt, even.

  Which is more than she can say for Michael.

  When they hit the ground, everything went flying, including Michael, who was still sprawled out between the seats. He was thrown hard against the ceiling, then flopped lifelessly to the floor.

  Bodil, who took a rough tumbling herself, has landed on top of him and is now busy working on him with both hands and mouth. What exactly she’s doing to him is mercifully hidden from Josefine’s view, but the wet noises leave little room for interpretation.

  The pilot is unconscious or maybe even dead, tilted over in his seat, not moving.

  Josefine glances dazedly out of the window at the bright, sunny day. They have touched down on a grassy field next to the trees which the pilot must have steered clear of at the last second.

  At that moment, the pilot moans and sits upright, rubbing his forehead. “Goddamnit …”

  Josefine tries to speak, but her breath is still too shallow, and the words come out as no more than a whisper: “Watch out …”

  The pilot gradually comes to, and when he looks to the side, he utters a curse at the sight of Bodil eating away at Michael—who by now, Josefine figures, must be dead, if he wasn’t already.

  “Get out of here,” Josefine croaks.

  The pilot still doesn’t hear her, but he doesn’t need to; he’s finally caught on to the fact that he’s within reach of Bodil, and he immediately begins scrambling to unbuckle.

  Unfortunately, his movements seem to draw Bodil’s attention away from Michael—or perhaps she’s simply done with him—because she looks up with a predatory snap of her head, red droplets flying to both sides. Even from the back, Josefine can tell Bodil’s fat cheeks are smeared in blood.

  “No!” the pilot roars, pushing at the door as Bodil comes at him. “Don’t you fucking touch me!”

  If the door had given way at first try, the pilot may have made it out. But it doesn’t. Maybe the handle slips. Maybe the door just jams slightly after the rough landing.

  Either way, it takes the pilot another violent push to get it open, and that’s all Bodil needs to shoot forwards and bite down hard on his shoulder.

  The pilot roars out in pain, flails his arm in an attempt to get Bodil off, just as the door opens and he tumbles out of the helicopter. Bodil, who’s bitten down on his shoulder like a police dog on duty, follows suit.

  Josefine can’t see from in here what’s going on, but she can hear them fight on the ground; the pilot curses and shouts, Bodil groans and snaps her teeth.

  Then the pilot manages to get to his feet, grabbing the door to gain his balance. He then heads off away from the helicopter, running across the open field, holding his bleeding shoulder as he looks back. He seems to be aiming for the highway Josefine hadn’t noticed until now.

  Bodil’s head comes into view as she too manages to stand up. She takes up pursuit, but she’s hopelessly slow, waddling away crookedly on the broken hip, almost falling over with every step.

  Within ten yards or so, she seems to realize her chances of catching up with the pilot—who has now reached the highway and is running along it—are close to nothing.

  So, she simply stops, turns around and begins trudging back towards the now-closest prey: Josefine.

  At the sight of Bodil coming back this way, Josefine is finally called out of her stupor. She has no idea whether Bodil will be able to climb in through the open door, but she has no intention of leaving it up to chance.

  She tries to get up, then remembers the belt and fumbles to unbuckle it. This time, it only takes her a couple of seconds, but those seconds feel more like minutes to Josefine. When she finally hears the snap of the buckle, she lunges forward and climbs right past the thing still secured to the tipped-over gurney.

  She grabs hold of Michael by his shoulders, intentionally not looking at the bloody craters Bodil left on him. It takes all her strength to haul him up against the sliding door. She grabs the handle and opens the door, then shoves Michael out. He tumbles to the ground.

  Josefine looks up to see Bodil come waddling at her, and she slams the door shut at the last possible second.

  She breathes a sigh of relief.

  Then, she remembers.

  The front door … it’s still open …

  Josefine jolts back into action, squeezes through the seats and reaches for the door, but can’t quite reach it.

  Bodil has made her made around the helicopter and is coming at her as fast as she can.

  Josefine bites down hard and climbs all the way over to the pilot’s seat, leans out and grabs the handle just as Bodil reaches out her bloody hand. As Josefine yanks the door shut, Bodil’s fingers graze the back of her hand.

  Then the door slams, and Josefine screams out in a mixture of relief and terror, staring from the window with Bodil’s blood-red face and white, empty eyes glaring back in at her, to the traces of blood smeared across her hand.

  She recalls Michael pouring the disinfectant over his stomach and looks down to see the bottle on the floor. She picks it up and squeezes out plenty of the chilly liquid, then rubs her hand thoroughly.

  When the blood is gone, Josefine examines the skin closely. It doesn’t appear to be broken anywhere. Hopefully, that means she’ll be okay.

  Still, her system is panicking, her heart is racing, her lungs heaving for breath.

  It’s okay, she tells herself. I just need to calm down. I’m not in any immediate danger anymore.

  It’s true; the situation is bad, but not critical. She has time to think. She can figure out a way to get out of here. The thought actually calms her down a little.

  She turns in the seat and scans the inside of the helicopter, looking for exits. There are four, but the two in the front are impossible to use because of Bodil standing right outside. Which leaves only two of them as viable exits: the right-side sliding door and the rear-end opening through which the gurneys were passed. The sliding door requires she climb over the gurney with the writhing thing on it. The thing has managed to pry one arm free from the straps, which must have given way during the crash-landing, and, looking at the way the others straps are only barely holding on, it doesn’t exactly seem like an inviting choice to scale the gurney.

  Which leaves only the rear opening. Josefine climbs back through the helicopter, passing the gurney at a safe distance, ignores the arm reaching greedily for her.

  She looks at the handle to the rear hatch and realizes it requires some sort of key to open.

  “Damnit,” she mutters.


  Then she becomes aware of the sound of fingers scraping on the outside of the helicopter right in front of her. For a moment, she figures another dead person must have joined Bodil, but then she looks back out the window and realizes Bodil is no longer at the front of the helicopter.

  “She followed me back here,” Josefine mutters. “She can sense where I’m at …”

  This means, of course, that if she wants to get out of the helicopter, she needs to either lure Bodil away or slip past her. If she’s too slow, Bodil will be waiting right outside, welcoming her with open arms …

  Think. There’s got to be another way.

  She looks up, hoping to see a sunroof or the like, but the roof of the helicopter is all metal.

  Then her gaze falls on a square on the floor. There’s a handle in the middle and an unmistakable drawing of a guy running away from a fire plus the words: Emergency Exit – Warning: Do Not Open While Airborne.

  She tries to recall the outside of the helicopter, tries to remember how much space there is below it. She had to take a big step up to get in, which means there’s probably at least a couple of feet. Plenty of room for her to slip out. But will Bodil also be able to get under the helicopter?

  Her question is answered as nails scrape audibly on the underside of the helicopter.

  But, lifting her head back up, she can hear scraping from the back, too.

  Someone else is out there …

  Josefine goes to the window and looks out. Within thirty seconds, Bodil comes waddling into view. And then, from below the helicopter, Michael comes crawling. He gets to his feet and joins Bodil in clawing at the window.

  Josefine steps back, breathing quickly again.

  At the same time, she’s reminded of another, much more immediate danger, as there comes a snapping sound from the gurney.

  Josefine stares at the thing, which is now hanging awkwardly from the two straps still clinging on to the gurney, both its arms are now free and able to grab at the legs of the other gurney, pulling the body forward and putting pressure on the remaining straps.