Still fighting the uncontrollable shivers afflicting his body, he reached for the forceps and lined them up in the mirror, aiming for the centre of the X he’d carved into his skin.
He pushed the two prongs together and plunged them into the hole. His back arched, reacting to the burning surge of pain. This time, he did shout out.
‘Fuuuuuck!’
Anna’s ears pricked up, and she lifted her head from her front paws, but there was nothing she could do to help other than watch him squirm as he opened the forceps inside the flesh and tried to capture the slug between them.
He got lucky and managed to trap the small piece of metal on his first attempt. To his dismay, it slipped from between the forceps before he could remove it.
It angered him so much that he plunged even deeper, sweat and blood streaming from his quivering flesh.
When he finally removed the forceps, the dirty slug was caught in their grip. He opened his hand and let both fall to the floor.
He had just enough strength left to swill his shoulder with another dose of hydrogen peroxide and then grab a handful of gauze. He used his thumb to push the meshed fabric inside the wound and packed it substantially.
A final wave of shivers ran from head to toe as his arms fell limp and he passed out on the medical bed surrounded by the bloody tools he’d used in the procedure.
Once the room was still and silent, Anna placed her head back onto her front paws, never taking her eyes off her unconscious friend.
Out in the corridor opposite, the intruder O.B. had gunned down lay face down in a pool of his own blood. The wound to his gut had eventually brought about his demise, but his body twitched nevertheless, and slowly but surely, the fingers of his right hand began to flex, opening and closing like the rhythm of a beating heart.
3
When Raine came around again, the first thing she saw was Foster sitting opposite her. She was leaning back against the wooden boards of the small structure they found themselves in. One side of her hair hung out of the rubber band she’d used to tie it in a ponytail, and she sported a fresh bruise across her left cheekbone. Her wrists and ankles were bound, and she muttered something under her breath that Raine couldn’t quite discern.
Raine felt the resistance as she tried to move out of her uncomfortable position on the floor and noticed her hands and feet were also tied.
She turned her head to see O.B. slumped to the right of her and instantly felt the stiffness in her neck and the pulsing pain crawling up to the base of her skull. It reminded her of the blow she took during her ill-fated stand-off inside the facility.
O.B. appeared to be unharmed. He gazed down to his lap, wallowing in his own thoughts.
She reached around and groaned as she ran her fingers over the swelling that had formed at the point of impact.
Jason, who sat on the same side as Foster, was the first to realise she’d woken up.
‘You’re back,’ he said. ‘I thought we’d lost you for good for a while there.’ His voice was tinged with relief, and the brief smile he gave her almost reopened the wound on his bottom lip.
‘Is it just the four of us?’ Raine asked, deciding it would be less painful if she left the swelling alone.
‘As far as we can tell,’ Jason said. ‘No one has been back since they threw us in here. We’ve heard a few footsteps outside, some whispered voices. Not much else.’
Raine moved her head gingerly so she could get a better look at their prison. The room was sparse other than a bucket in one corner, which she assumed was left for them if they needed to go to the toilet. From the inside, it essentially looked like a small barn that was doubling as a holding cell.
‘The most urgent question is what the hell happened,’ Jason said.
‘That’s the easiest one to answer,’ Raine said. ‘Jake was right all along. They broke into the gun locker, sabotaged the chopper so we couldn’t escape. They must have been watching us for days, waiting for the perfect moment.’
‘And we certainly gave them one, didn’t we?’ Foster spat, glancing over at O.B.
He didn’t have to look up to know who she was referring to.
Raine took note of the sunlight coming through the gaps in the wooden boarding. Its hue was different from the daylight of the tundra, and it felt much warmer.
‘Any ideas where they’ve taken us?’ she asked.
‘O.B. and I were conscious when they took us away, but they put bags over our heads and they weren’t up for a chat. Believe me, I tried. The only thing I know is we travelled for hours to get here—maybe even a whole day. It’s hard to tell when you’ve got a fucking bag over your head. They switched vehicles after a while, so they must have had transport waiting to go. Wherever we are, I don’t think we’re in Canada anymore.’
Raine’s head began to throb again, and she remembered hearing the explosion and the gunfire that followed.
‘Crawford and Jake were up on that ridge,’ she said.
‘I know,’ Jason said.
Everyone’s heart sank. They’d all heard it.
‘Ethan was hiding with me when I was attacked,’ Foster said. ‘He wouldn’t have put up a fight.’
‘It was a long journey to get here,’ O.B. said, finally breaking his silence. ‘You know better than anyone what kind of condition he was in.’
‘I’m sure you’re crossing your fingers and toes at once,’ Foster snapped.
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘I see. What did you mean when you were sticking a fucking gun in his face?’ Foster sneered.
‘Quit it,’ Raine said. ‘I know you two would probably like to kill each other, but unless it helps us escape, I don’t want to hear it.’
‘Did anyone get a good look at them?’ Jason asked.
‘I saw nothing,’ Raine said.
‘I was face to face with one of them,’ Foster said. ‘We were inches away from each other. I didn’t get a good look because his face was beneath a hood, but what I did see…’
‘What?’ Raine urged.
‘I don’t know for sure. There was something different about him. Something wrong.’
‘They must have brought us here for a reason. Otherwise we’d be dead already,’ Raine said. ‘Finding out what they want could help us get out of here.’
Before they could continue their discussion, they heard footsteps approaching the building.
They all tensed in anticipation, realising there was very little they could do with bound hands and feet.
Raine moved into position to force herself up the wall so she could get to her feet. The pain in her neck, surging up to the back of her head, immediately grounded her again.
The door to the holding cell juddered and creaked open. A young boy entered tentatively, his legs bent, stooping low. He carried four wooden bowls in one hand. They overlapped each other in order to make them manageable. In the other hand, his fingers linked the handles of four wooden mugs.
He placed the bowls and mugs down just inside the door. Some of the water in the mugs splashed over the sides as they hit the ground.
Each bowl contained a piece of cheese, a fresh tomato, and one slice of thick wholemeal bread.
‘This is for you,’ the boy said. ‘Eat, drink, take sustenance.’ He gazed up at the prisoners with his big blue eyes.
He looked no older than ten, his brown hair cropped short, cut unevenly. The only blemish on his porcelain skin was a two-inch scar above his left eye.
The unusual aspect of his appearance was his clothing. He wore nothing but a brown robe made from a coarse fabric and tied together by a length of string. His feet were bare.
As he brought his hands clear of the rations he’d delivered, Raine saw the strange symbol inked on the back of his right hand.
‘Where are our friends?’ Foster asked.
The boy paused, looking to the floor sheepishly.
‘Please,’ she urged.
> ‘They’re with God now,’ he whispered. ‘I have to go.’ Remaining low, he scuttled back towards the door.
‘Wait! What happened to them?’ Foster shouted.
‘Eat your meal. You’ll need your strength for the ceremony,’ the boy replied.
‘What ceremony?’ Raine asked.
Realising he’d already said too much, the boy left and slammed the door.
4
Salty still lay unconscious on the medical bed in the infirmary surrounded by pieces of gauze and bloody implements. His breathing was slow but steady. His scrawny torso gleamed with sweat. The rushed and untidy packing of the wound he’d managed to perform prior to passing out had stemmed the flow of bleeding.
Anna remained by his side, waiting and watching for any signs that he might be stirring. To her, it seemed like an age since he’d drifted away, and there had been no movement except for the rise and fall of his chest.
It was only with the introduction of a new smell that she switched her concern. She’d always been aware of the dead bodies in the hallway, but a subtle change in their odour put her on high alert. Something indiscernible to a human—a minute odoriferous attention that could only be detected by the receptors of a canine.
She knew it spelled danger, and especially so when coupled with the sounds of something dragging against the surface of the hard floor outside.
Anna raised her head to the sensations at first, then got to her feet to approach the almost closed infirmary door.
She made her way with caution, peeping through the gap into the hallway. She saw the now undead creature stumbling to a standing position and turning towards the infirmary.
The dog quickly shuffled back and barked at Salty in an attempt to alert him to the danger.
The piercing call didn’t raise him, but it did confirm to the creature that it was heading in the direction of food. It forced its way inside and immediately clapped its sickly eyes on Salty’s unconscious body. The pronounced veins in his neck and exposed shoulder and the bare flesh on show enticed the monster to salivate, and a long line of drool spilled from its open mouth.
Baring its teeth, it stooped to get down to the bed, stopping short of Salty because something had snagged a leg of its pants.
It was Anna, clamping down on the material with her teeth, jerking her neck violently to tug the creature away from its vulnerable prey.
Rather than attacking her, the creature regarded her as an inferior meal compared to what else was on offer and instead pulled back to try and get free.
The creature wasn’t coordinated enough for what it did next to be intentional, but it managed to kick Anna in her chest. She yelped, and the shock of the impact made her release its leg. It twisted around again and fell onto the bed on top of Salty.
The weight on his body finally woke him, and he opened his eyes just as the creature was about to bite into the wound on his shoulder.
Instinctively, Salty raised his right forearm and jammed it underneath his attacker’s chin. Its bald head was ghostly white, criss-crossed with discoloured veins.
Even amidst the desperate struggle, Salty couldn’t help but notice the peculiar symbol on its forehead. With his free hand, he stretched out towards the medical table and grasped for the scalpel. He accidentally knocked the sharp knife from the table’s edge onto the floor.
Fortunately, Anna recovered from the kick she’d received and ran back to take a section of its pants between her teeth.
In his weakened state on the bed, Salty couldn’t get the leverage needed to push the creature away or move himself clear.
The one item still in reaching distance was the bottle of hydrogen peroxide. He curled his fingers around the bottle’s neck and began to unscrew the cap as the undead gnashed its teeth at him, getting closer to his weeping wound.
He kept twisting until he felt the cap free itself. Then he grabbed the handle and lifted the bottle, throwing its contents into the creature’s face. The chemical splashed into its eyes and temporarily blinded it.
The walking corpse let go of Salty and stood up, reaching to its own face to try and wipe away whatever had rudely obstructed its vision before it could feed.
While it was distracted, Salty leaned over the side of the bed and retrieved the scalpel. He pulled himself back up and lurched at the creature, plunging the blade and half of its handle into its right eye socket.
It tumbled backwards, smashing its head on the sideboard before it landed in a heap.
Anna jumped out of its path, unharmed. She ran to greet her companion, who was in the process of sliding to the floor in exhaustion.
‘I’m OK, girl,’ he spluttered. ‘I’m OK.’
As he comforted her and caught his breath, it immediately occurred to him that the danger he’d just narrowly escaped came from an assailant he’d believed had been shot dead, not bitten. In which case, why had he turned?
He didn’t have much time to ponder the mystery. There were groans and shuffling feet coming from the corridor.
Rather than facing another enemy in a closed space, he collected his rifle and used it as a crutch to get himself up, then stumbled out of the door.
No more than twenty feet away, coming from the east end of the hallway, a second reanimated intruder shuffled in his direction.
Fighting against the pain, he used his wounded arm to steady the aim of his rifle and blasted a round through its skull.
He lowered the weapon and checked both sides of the corridor in case more had been alerted by the shot. Once he thought the coast was clear, he went back inside the infirmary and locked the door. He had to search the compound eventually, but his most pressing concern was to seal up the opening in his shoulder before infection could set in.
He refocussed his mind on the task at hand and plundered the medical cabinets again for a needle and thread.
Perching himself on the edge of the bed and realigning the mirror, he started to pull out the gauze from his wound, piece by bloody piece.
Once he could see it was clear, he bent down to pick up the bottle of hydrogen peroxide. It had tipped on its side, but there was still enough left to douse the serrated flesh again. Then he threaded the needle and carefully sewed the wound up, making sure he made a good job of it, as he knew he may not get the chance to do it again.
He allowed himself a few more minutes’ rest and popped two extra painkillers.
As he sat there, his gaze wandered to Anna, patiently waiting for him, then to the body of the undead intruder.
He walked over to the corpse and kicked it onto its stomach so he could remove its jacket. When he rolled the left sleeve of its arm, he discovered a bite mark. It hadn’t healed, but it looked far from fresh.
Salty ventured back out into the hallway and examined the body of the creature he’d put down. Same thing—old bite wound on the left forearm.
The mystery surrounding the intruders and the trauma of the attack was making his head spin. The image of the arctic fox he’d found hanging upside down in the cave on the strange apparatus flashed into his mind. Whatever it all meant, he realised he had to secure the rest of the compound before he could give it any more thought.
He chose to head east, Anna in tow. When he turned the corner at the end of the hallway, he came across the other man O.B. had killed. Sure enough, he found a similar bite mark in the same place, but this man had been shot through the head. There would have been no way for him to rise from the dead.
He found nothing else in the east wing other than a few spent shell casings. Doubling back on himself, he went from room to room along the main hallway. When he opened the door to the recreation area, he saw the blood on the floor and readied his rifle.
He crept over to where the majority of the blood had been spilt and noticed the bloody boot prints leading to one of the lockers against the wall. He aimed his weapon at it, again using his injured arm to steady it, and moved closer.
There we
re no sounds coming from inside, so whoever was hiding in there had not joined the ranks of the undead—at least not yet.
Salty took his arm from the fore stock and reached out for the locker’s handle. He was close enough that all he had to do was pull the trigger and he couldn’t miss.
Anna barked a short, sharp warning to him just early enough for him to spin around to face the attack from behind.
A man wielding a knife jumped at him, and Salty lifted his rifle up to defend himself against the blade. The force of their coming together knocked Salty back into the locker.
The man’s hood was down, and his sickly face was exposed. He was bald like the others. His eyes were discoloured, his skin almost translucent. He didn’t look too dissimilar to how Ethan looked in his current condition.
The sharp edge of the knife cut into the wooden frame of the rifle, and its point stopped no more than two inches from Salty’s left eye.
Both men were weak from their ordeals and found it hard to muster the strength to overcome the other.
Salty happened to glance down and saw the bandage wrapped above the man’s waist. He located the wound from the patch of blood seeping to the surface and jabbed his thumb into it.
The man yelled out as Salty’s thumb punctured the cut, causing the blood to flow and spread through the dressing. He fell to the floor, holding his side, trying to put pressure on his leaking wound.
Before he could react, Anna pounced, biting his wrist so his hand opened to release the knife.
‘I’ll be takin’ that, if it’s all the same,’ Salty said, placing his foot on the knife and dragging it towards him. ‘Wouldn’t want you havin’ any designs on slicin’ your own throat before we’ve had a chat.’
Salty looked the intruder up and down, realising he also had a bandage wrapped around a wound on his thigh.
‘Who made such a mess of you? My money’s on Miller,’ Salty said. ‘What have you done with her?’
The man seemed amused by the question, doing his best to smile through his pain.
Everything Dies | Season 3 Page 11