by Rick Wood
At least, he was, I mean, before he became whatever it is I’m making him become.
(long pause)
Is this my fault?
Is all of this my fault?
Like, should I have never volunteered that synthesis? Should I have pretended it didn’t work?
Was I thinking selfishly? Naively?
Like it would make a difference to anything. Like any of this…
Shut up, Janine.
What are you on about?
Just rambling for the sake of it now.
Just… delaying. Going back. Checking on the status of the sub – the human being. The person. The – living – man – that sits in that chair. Without moving. All day, all night. Just sits. Blankly stares.
There’s something behind those eyes, I know it. It’s just, something’s been done to him, something so, so – I don’t know. Something so… bad. So mentally scarring. Something that you can’t recover from.
(sighs)
Oh, Eugene. What am I doing here?
What are you doing here?
What is the subject doing here?
The man. Not the subject.
Donny.
His name is Donny.
What is Donny doing here?
What is the point of this? Of doing this to him?
What is he meant to become?
(long pause)
You know what the worst thing is?
I reckon I know the answer to that question, I just can’t bring myself to admit it.
26 HOURS TO TRAP
Chapter Thirty-Two
It was like being awarded a new life. Like being given something remade, that works even better than what was before.
Every step Gus took, every soft sponge into the surface, every pace his new prosthetic limb took, every superbly executed placement of his new foot on the ground – it was like magic. It reacted to the pressure he gave and reacted with the exact amount of precision his body needed.
Even if he still had his leg it would probably have been worth exchanging it for this one.
“How’s that baby working out for you?” Whizzo asked, catching Gus staring idly downwards.
It took Gus a moment to realise what Whizzo meant by baby. The guy was skilled, but his demeanour was so… youthful.
Only seventeen. Jeeze. So young.
Then again, Gus was already serving in the army at his age. Sometimes you have to grow up fast, and the state of the world must be having such an effect on Whizzo.
I mean, ‘Whizzo’, he considered. Surely you could think of a better nickname than that… It sounds like someone who always pisses themselves…
“Yeah, it’s good,” Gus replied.
“Glad I went ahead and did it for you now?”
Gus grimaced. The cocky bastard.
Still, couldn’t be too hostile – look at what the guy had done.
“Yes,” Gus reluctantly surmised. “Yes, I’m grateful. Thanks.”
“Welcome,” Whizzo replied, completely eluding the word you’re from the beginning of his sentence. You know, because to say a full sentence would waste way too much time.
Kids.
They travelled on for miles. Gus hadn’t moved so much in months, but once he was over his initial stitch, his pride and perseverance kept him going.
Sadie didn’t show any fatigue whatsoever. She ran ahead, excited, like his daughter used to do when they were going to a toy shop. Gus knew Sadie was far from cultured or a normal human being, but so many of her childish characteristics reminded him of Laney.
Bizarre, really. How Sadie could have such childish, pet-like qualities, seeking approval and enthusiasm over social activity – yet, at the same time, be as ruthless as she was. Gus knew that, should they be threatened by someone who wasn’t infected, Sadie would still not hesitate in decapitating them or destroying them with the gusto she would use against the undead.
Donny was not so recognisable. This guy, who had originally been immensely irritating, who couldn’t stop talking at him, still had this expressionless silence, a coldness about him.
Gus knew it would take time. He was a veteran, Sadie was… well, whatever she was. Donny entered this whole façade without any idea about what war was like. This was new to him. And, to have to recover from what they probably put him through, would take time.
Gus decided he was just going to have to be patient.
As they made it through the wilderness, paths entwined between trees, some they had to forge themselves, Gus eventually looked up and saw the sun begin to sink in the horizon.
He caught up with Desert.
“It’s going to be dark soon. How much further?” he enquired.
“’Bout another day, I’d say,” Desert responded.
“In that case, we should find somewhere to rest for the night. It’s getting dark soon, and we don’t want to be caught out.”
“Fair. Right, shall we say, give it another hour or two, see if we find somewhere we can bunk up – if we don’t, we create a camp somewhere? Makeshift shelter with logs or something?”
Gus sighed. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the same conclusion he’d come to.
“Yeah. Sounds like a plan.”
They walked on for a few minutes of comfortable silence. Gus noticed Desert glancing over her shoulder a few times, her face puzzled, as if trying to figure something out.
“What is it?” Gus asked.
“I – I just – I don’t know. I don’t get it.”
“Get what?”
She glanced over her shoulder again.
“How you ended up with those two. You just seem like such a bizarre group. It’s kinda strange.”
Gus smiled. He couldn’t help it.
“Yeah, I guess it is. One could say we are an odd combination.” Gus looked to Sadie, chasing a butterfly. “One could say they saved my life.”
Desert went to speak.
Sadie stopped walking, prompting everyone else to stop. She was motionless, like a statue, poised, unmovable.
“What is it?” Gus asked.
Sadie’s eyes widened. They turned to Gus.
“The infected?” Gus said.
Sadie didn’t move, but her face was his confirmation.
“What do you suggest?” Desert said to him, a sense of urgency compelling her voice.
“It was inevitable,” Gus said. “I’m surprised we haven’t come in contact with them so far. Get your weapons. We carry on, and we fight any that come.”
Groans hovered along the air.
The stench of death caused Gus to flinch.
The rot grew closer. The shuffles along the ground grew closer.
He readied a hunter’s knife from the back of his belt.
He turned to check on the others. Sadie was ready. Donny was…
Not there.
Donny was not there.
The infected approached.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Rain.
Soft droplets of bullet water. Gently collapsing, bombarding Donny’s skin with its harsh elegance.
He looked to the sky.
He’d had to get away. To be on his own. Get a break. It was tough. Not knowing why he felt so detached, not knowing why he no longer felt anything toward his friends.
Were they his friends?
They were miles behind him now.
He shook himself out of it.
Stop it.
He closed his eyes. Tried to silence the ruthless shouts of his mind. Squeezed every word away from his conscious acknowledgement. Pushed every image to the crevasses of his thoughts, quelled every delusion that questioned his sanity.
He just lifted his face to the sky. To the rain. Pounding him delicately. Brushing him with a mother’s touch. It was the only thing that made him aware. Aware of where he was, what he was, what he was doing.
Oh, God, he realised what he was doing.
He fell to his knees.
It all came back. Every droplet another recollection. The
things they did to him. The things they told him, branded against his skull, forced into his thoughts.
Gus Harvey. The enemy. The murderer. The neglectful, suicidal alcoholic. He deserved it. All of it.
Except, he didn’t.
Gus was his friend.
His friend.
Gus had sacrificed…
What?
What had Gus sacrificed?
Why was his memory so distant? Like he was running toward the answer, reaching out and brushing his fingertips, all the while out of reach. Obscured from his…
A sudden cramp in his calf prompted him to fall onto his backside. And then–
His calf.
The pain in his calf.
It all came back. Rushing like a flood that had broken down a dam. Like the rain that grew heavier, the thoughts spread through the rivers of his mind, soaking everything until he was illuminated with the conviction of knowledge.
Cannibals. A family of them. Three. A mum, a dad, a daughter. The dad was dead. Donny did that. He thought he did that. He remembered pointing the gun.
But not the girl and the mum. He remembered his arms being restricted. Like he was restrained. So was Gus. Across from him, so was Gus. Helpless. Like Gus had come back, tried to save him, but then…
Gus did something. What did he do?
What did he do?
What. Did. He.
His calf. A bullet. He had a bullet lodged in his calf. He took it out, put it into a gun, and shot them.
That’s how he lost his leg.
Saving Donny.
His body fell. His head buried in his arms, in the mud, weeping. Uncontrollable weeping.
What had they done, that had hidden this memory from him? Such a strong memory, such an important memory. Gone. Hidden. Obscured. Gus had sacrificed the ability to walk. To save Donny’s life. To save. Donny. And his life.
He thought back to the facility. To being sat in a chair. A woman injected him. He asked her why. He asked her why she was doing this.
But, that wasn’t it – it had come before. Some psychologist.
She had told him stuff.
Boris Hayes.
He had been there.
He had told him who the enemy was.
And the enemy was…
A shuffle in the bushes spurred him to life. He stood. Watched as an infected ran by. Ignoring him.
Gus.
More infected came. Then more. Until there was a horde. Too many to count. All running in the same direction.
A scream.
Coming from across the wooded area. From behind the trees, down the path he had walked.
In the direction that the infected were running.
They wouldn’t touch Donny. He wasn’t sure why. But they wouldn’t.
A scream again.
Sadie.
That was Sadie’s voice.
But Sadie doesn’t get scared. She can handle herself. Of course she can. So why would she scream?
And how could he hear them?
The infected finished running past him. He saw the end.
And he realised his friends were in danger.
He ran as fast as he could.
Chapter Thirty-Four
They were surrounded. There were too many.
The AGA was dead.
They were all dead.
“Form a circle,” Gus said, taking charge, coming up with the only tactic he thought doable.
“What?” Desert responded.
“Let’s play this zonally. We form a circle. We’re all responsible for the ones coming at us.”
“It won’t work.”
Gus lunged his knife hand and sliced through the jaw of an approaching undead, removing the top half of the ill-fated corpse’s head.
“Trust me,” Gus assured her. “Okay, in formation, do not break!”
They did as he instructed. He put Whizzo between him and Desert, knowing they would have to pick up the slack; the kid was good with his gadgets, but Gus assumed that combat wasn’t his forte. Behind him were Prospero and Sadie. He kept Sadie close – strange, really, why he would feel so protective, when Sadie would most likely be the one protecting all of them.
And on they came. Disordered, chaotic, with speed no man could outrun. From behind trees, beyond the bushes, the rumble of thunder accompanying the rumble of the ground.
Their faces appeared desperate. Cuts in cheeks displayed exposed, decaying jaws, open bellies revealed wayward intestines waving in the wind behind them, greeny-pale flesh from their faces to their hands, finished with sharp, dead fingernails. Their jaws chopped, salivating blood. So many dead faces. So many desperate, hungry mouths.
They were everywhere.
Just everywhere.
Gus sliced through another, stuck his knife into the throat of another, then stuck the knife in the gut of one and unseamed it from its belly to its mouth.
A glance over his shoulder told him that the others were doing similar. Desert was picking up a lot of the slack for Whizzo, who stared wide-eyed, clutching his gun in his shaking hands, shooting in the right direction but at nothing in particular.
Just seventeen, Gus had to remind himself. Just seventeen.
Desert was an expert. She had two blades, one in each hand, and she took her enemies apart with precise lunges, ducks, and swipes.
Prospero was like any typical army general, a look of aged defiance in his eyes, snarling as he shot with deadly aim.
The plan was working. Or so he thought. Just as he turned back, following the split-second he took to check on everyone else, he was already overloaded. Another glance told him that so were the others.
Sadie came to his aid. Just as he sliced through another four, finding more on top of him than he could count, she leapt upon them and ripped them to shreds with her bare hands; landing on their necks, pulling their heads off like rubber on the end of a pencil, then diving into another load, that she ripped apart with her hands and teeth.
Desert saw blood dripping from Sadie’s jaw, and immediately turned her gun toward her.
“No!” Gus shouted, hitting the gun away.
“She’ll be infected, she’ll turn.”
“No, she won’t, she’s immune!”
“What?”
“Just – just trust me.”
They fought on, but in seconds they were even more overwhelmed. Sadie was having to take on everyone’s fight for them, and it was getting too much. She’d remove another dozen, then another twenty would appear in their place.
“What do we do?” Desert shouted at Gus, backing away from another load that Sadie dispatched just in time.
Gus looked around himself.
He couldn’t see beyond them.
And, just as Desert held Gus’s eye contact, one of the infected opened its jaw and went for her throat.
Then Gus heard a familiar scream. A scream that changed everything.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The infected halted, still like statues. Desert looked over her shoulder and jumped, abruptly plunging her knife into the head of the nearby infected. But she needn’t have. Somehow, all of them had stopped moving – milliseconds from her demise.
Gus breathed a sigh of relief.
He looked around.
They had all frozen.
That scream he’d heard. It continued, persisting as the infected were all hacked down. Heads beyond the nearest heads to Gus disappeared as they fell, and a familiar face appear behind them.
The infected dispersed. All of them, parting out of the way, as if some almighty leader had appeared, as if it was the undead messiah himself.
But it wasn’t.
It was Donny.
“Let’s go,” he said, an air of charm about him. His face was still cold, but there was some expression there, some reaction.
He walked further into the woods and they all followed without question. At least, at first.
Gus didn’t take his eyes off him.
Th
e stationary infected, standing still like statues, left their surroundings and wandered into a clearing. Donny led the group along an open field until they were out of sight of the horde.
Gus decided he’d had enough.
“Stop!” Gus demanded.
“We can’t stop,” Donny answered. “We need to put some distance between–”
“I said fucking stop!”
Donny stopped.
As did the others. They all turned to Gus. One by one, Gus saw their faces stare at him. He could tell each of them had questions to ask, but astonishment had prevented them voicing any. When it came to their survival, they all gave their trust to the person who freed them; however bizarre the act of liberation had been.
For Gus, his trust was never up for negotiation. This reeked of suspicion. It made no sense.
Donny was the last to turn. Slowly, after everyone else, he rotated to face Gus. His face was empty, yet full at the same time. Something was different. There was more there, more behind his eyes. Donny had returned, but he hadn’t returned the same. That cocky humour had left and was replaced with something far more militarised.
“What is going on?” Gus asked.
“We’re escaping.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“You know goddamn well what I’m talking about.”
Desert, Sadie, Whizzo, Prospero. They remained still, tense observers, waiting. None of them objected to the interruption, but none of them dared speak. This was between two old friends.
And they all wanted the answers.
“This,” Gus continued. “This… whatever it is. This act of yours. It’s getting under my skin.”
“There is no act.”
“Then where is Donny?”
“I’m right here, Gus.”
“Really? ’Cause I don’t see him. I just see some scared little prick I picked up from the compound. I don’t see Donny. I don’t know what you are.”
Donny sighed, hesitated, turned his face away.
“Can we do this another time?”
“No, damn it! We do this now!” Gus took a few steps forward. “For starters, where the hell did you get the ability to take those infected down? Last time I saw you, you could barely lift a gun, never mind rip them apart with your bare hands.”