Over the past few days, Mike and the others had become confident that no Skin was left alive in North AM. The only ones they had seen moving about were far away in Africa and the Middle East. But that didn’t mean they were all gone. Perhaps they were just in hiding. The group, hesitant to go outside the ship, finally drifted to the computer bay, where Mike was now sitting, looking at the world outside. Even though communications had been disrupted when they left, the power was still on. Mike had remotely connected to the camera systems on the base through USCAN.
On the various monitors set up in the bay, they could see the ship from the outside, the bones of the bodies of six Skins who had apparently fallen from the ship and died as it took off, the doors from which they had fled, Cain’s body, and several other locations with only bones to show that people had once been there.
The views were depressing and terrible. The growing ease they felt looking at the Skins’ dead bodies was quickly overwhelmed by a thickening sorrow that had slowly dissipated over the past few weeks on the moon. The stark reality of what they had come home to hit them.
“I can’t stand to look at it anymore,” Marilyn said quietly.
“It really is awful,” Neirioui agreed.
The others shared the sentiments, but held their tongues.
After a few more minutes of watching the screens in silence, Street finally said, “Well, let’s get the hell out of here. I’m ready to go kick Cain’s face in.”
Nobody laughed, but a few felt some satisfaction in that thought.
“Maybe we should stay in here a day or two and watch the monitors, just to make sure we’re alone,” Steve suggested.
“I agree,” Neirioui said.
“Are any of you so anxious to go out there that you can’t wait another day?” Shift asked.
“It’s probably a very good idea,” Anta said.
Nobody rejected the idea.
“Then, let’s set up monitor watches and relax a little. Get some sleep if you can,” Shift said. “Mike, get the monitors set up to watch doors, hallways, large rooms, outside areas, whatever you can. Let’s get them on a revolving basis and we’ll all take turns watching for the next 24 hours. If no Skins show up in that time, we’ll get out of here.”
“Got it,” Mike replied. “Do you want to turn the shuttle around in case we have to make a hasty retreat?”
“Not a bad idea. We’ll point her into the wind and set up shop for a day. Weather looks like it will hold at least that long.”
November 20, 2093—Cape Canaveral, Florida
“I think we should leave him alone,” Anta said quietly as she reached over to hold Shift’s hand. She squeezed his hand and looked up into his eyes. Her eyes were filling with tears. They were leaving the ship and Street and some of the others were anxious to have a visit with the dead Cain.
“What’s wrong Anta,” Shift said as he pulled her away from the group.
“I don’t know.”
“Can you feel Cain or something? He’s dead, you know.”
“Yeah, I know he’s dead. Somehow, that saddens me. I have no idea why. It’s like there’s some connection between us that I can’t explain.”
“You’ve tried to explain it before, Anta, and told me you can’t,” Shift said. “I get it. Let’s avoid him, okay?”
“That’s a good idea, I think. But I don’t want Street to touch his body either. Can we get everyone to stay away from him?”
“I don’t know if we can. Cain is responsible for the deaths of many, many people. Some of our friends can’t forgive that.”
“I know,” Anta replied. “I was just hoping they’d let it go. Maybe that’s too much to ask for. Let me get far away though before it happens, okay. I don’t want to feel anything or hear anything.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to Street. I love you Anta.”
“I love you too.”
After speaking with Street, Shift and Anta, along with some of the others, cautiously headed for the parking lot where they knew they would find their choice of hovers with which to leave the base.
Street, John, Mike and Angel headed down to ground level, directly beneath the terminal where the group had deplaned. Shift had convinced them to wait at least five minutes before disturbing the body. It hadn’t taken much to persuade them. They each understood, in varying degrees, the ‘relationship’ between Cain and Anta. They respected her enough to let her get far away.
When five minutes had passed, the small group slowly approached Cain’s body.
“Let me look at it first, gentlemen,” Angel said. “I want to take some pictures and measurements and get some samples before you destroy the body.”
With fascination equal to that demonstrated by Angel when they had encountered the first dead body so many months ago, Angel touched and prodded at the body. Street was fascinated too, but not with the body. It was amazing to watch the woman he loved—at least, he thought he loved her—react so curiously to the dead body of a Skin. Mike and John were disgusted.
“What are you doing?” Mike finally asked, holding his nose.
“What are you doin’?” Street asked Mike. “It don’t even smell.”
John and Angel both laughed as Angel stood up.
“Alright guys, I’m done. Let him have it.”
Street approached Cain’s body, his own body trembling with a mixture of trepidation and anger. His vehemence at this creature who had tormented his friends, especially Anta, had been pent up for a long time. Now was his chance to exact vengeance, even if Cain was already dead.
Street put his weight onto his left leg and brought his right leg back preparatory to swinging it into Cain’s face. Cain suddenly struck out, grabbing Street’s left leg, and yanking him to the ground.
“Ahhhhh,” Street yelled as he began to kick Cain’s head, and the shriveled arm that held him so tightly, with his free leg. Cain pulled Street closer.
John bolted over, pulling his gun as he ran. Cain and Street were rolling on the ground, with Cain clearly having the upper hand despite his weakened body. While Cain was not the creature he had previously been, he was clinging fiercely to Street’s body, trying to sink his teeth into anything close enough.
John and Mike both maneuvered around the wrestling match, trying to find a place to shoot without injuring Street. Finally, John found an opening and slammed a foot down on the back of Cain’s neck, cracking at least a couple vertebrae. But Cain continued to hold tightly to Street. John and Mike, still unable to safely get a shot off, took every opportunity to kick Cain instead. As the kicking continued, both Street and Cain began to loosen their holds. Each was getting tired. Cain’s face became more and more unrecognizable as his features were smashed to pieces by the continual beating he was receiving. But he didn’t let go.
Street’s breathing became labored as he continued to wrestle. His strength was fading much more quickly than Cain’s. Even though his face was severely beaten and swollen, Cain, now holding only Street’s left arm, slowly dragged Street closer to his deformed mouth. That’s when John got a clear shot and unloaded his gun into Cain’s chest. Street relaxed, but Cain still moved. Street let out a blood-curdling scream as Cain’s teeth sunk into the muscular flesh of his left hand. Then he passed out.
“What was that?” Shift asked, as the group stopped to listen to the sound of guns and screaming.
“That was human,” Hasani replied, turning to face the direction from which they had just walked.
Shift and Jonas also turned, simultaneously, and the three began running back in the direction of the ship, pulling guns from holsters at their waists as they ran. The others followed closely on their heels. Moments later, the group rounded a corner to see Mike and Angel holding and comforting Street, who was lying on the ground cradling his hand. John was attempting to wrap a piece of bloody shirt around Street’s wrist to act as a tourniquet.
“What happened?” Marilyn asked in a constricted voice, as she rushed over to help.
&nbs
p; “Cain was alive,” John said. “He was alive.” His face dropped into his hands and he began to weep as the adrenaline began to wear off.
Mike crawled back as Marilyn bent down to help. Angel stood and took two steps backward before settling to the ground, sobbing.
Anta’s face turned white as she stared at the mutilated body of Cain. She didn’t recognize his face any longer, but she knew it was him. She actually felt his heartbeat slowly fade in his chest. Within seconds, Cain’s heart stopped beating. Anta suddenly found it hard to breathe. Nobody was watching as she collapsed to the floor. The gun that she had been holding clinked on the concrete as it slid out of her limp hand. Everyone turned to look for the source of this new noise.
“Crap,” Shift said, rushing to Anta. Others gathered around too.
“Her pulse is fine and she’s breathing,” Shift said after a quick evaluation. “It looks like she just passed out.”
The relief in the faces and body language of the group was profound, and in moments, Anta’s eyelids fluttered.
“Anta, can you hear me?” Shift asked as he gently rubbed Anta’s shoulders and neck.
“Yeah Shift, I can. I’m fine. I think I just fainted.”
“That’s what it looks like. Is anything hurt? Is the baby okay?”
“I think everything’s fine. How is Street?”
With that question, the group turned their attention, as one, back to Street and Marilyn kneeling on the ground next to him.
“He was bitten in the hand,” John moaned.
Marilyn looked over Street’s body quickly, commenting to herself, “Ok, it looks like it’s just the hand; but with the speed at which we know AE travels through a body, if the bite is infectious, there’s nothing we can do. Amputating his hand or arm won’t help. Either he lives—human; or he dies, a monster.” Her voice trailed off as she spoke those last words.
The group sat in silence for a few moments. Finally, Jon Porter spoke. “He won’t die. He can’t. Maybe the bad stuff is really weak, because Cain was almost dead.” Then he cried. Suvan joined her hand to Jon’s and wept with him. Jon slumped to the ground and Suvan lowered herself down too, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“I hope you’re right,” Steve said as joined the kids on the ground, placing his hand on his son’s shoulder.
“We can only hope and pray that is the case,” Shift said. “Is that possible, John?”
On hearing his name, John shook his head swiftly back and forth, to clear away the fog that had formed since the attack. “It might be possible,” he replied. “I hope so.”
“Okay, since we don’t know what’s going to happen,” Hasani said, “let’s get the wound cleaned and bandaged. At the least, we can fight any potential infection, right?”
“Right. I’ll do that,” Marilyn said, more optimistically.
“Neirioui, can you come sit with Anta for a minute?” Shift asked.
Shift stood as Neirioui sat down next to Anta. He walked over to John and helped him up off the ground. “John, we need to figure this out. You and Angel are the only ones with any real knowledge about how AE works. Angel looks like she’s in shock. Can we talk?”
“He was immunized from AE,” John said quietly as they walked away. “But he wasn’t immunized from Toronto’s E-rase that turned everyone into monsters. You guys immunized tons of people who became Skins when they were attacked, even though they couldn’t catch AE. We have no idea how that mutated form of E-rase progressed, or digressed over the months.”
“What do you mean?” Shift asked.
“Even Toronto’s E-rase immunized people from AE, right? That’s why everyone inoculated from AE with that version of E-rase lived. It changed them, somehow, into the Skins; but at least they lived. Then, everyone bitten, but not eaten by the Skins also changed into Skins, right?”
“Right, go on,” Shift encouraged.
“So, based on what we’ve seen with the Skins, it seems probable that Toronto’s E-rase first inoculated the people, but then continued to do something inside the recipients, transforming them into Skins. That mutation continued to progress, with the Skins becoming faster and stronger.
“Then, over the next few weeks, after we left here for the moon, we were able to watch them continue to progress, but that progression was more like aging. They seemed to be getting old very fast. As they got old, just like humans, they got weaker. That means that Toronto’s E-rase didn’t save them from death after all. It either changed the nature of the disease, or it only provided a small measure of protection from it.”
“So what are you thinking? How’s this going to turn out for Street?”
“Well, he shouldn’t die right now, or in the next couple of weeks, if we can keep secondary infection away—who knows what germs were in Cain’s mouth. The real problem is that he may become a Skin. But when the Skins got into our bunker in Boston, we saw how fast that transformation occurred after our friends were bitten. And remember when Andrew was attacked? The morphing was almost instantaneous. If Street’s bite progresses like the others, the transformation should have already happened—he should already be a Skin. Since that didn’t happen right away, maybe the process will happen over time and we can watch for it. Maybe he won’t change at all, but if it occurs slowly, we can be prepared to take action.”
“You mean kill him?”
“What else could we do Shift? If he turns into a Skin, he has to die or we could all die, right?”
“Yeah, you’re right. But the thought of it sickens me,” Shift replied.
“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Maybe, because Cain was so weak . . . well, maybe, like Jon said, the disease inside him was weak too. Maybe Street will just get sick or something, if we’re lucky. Or, even though the bite penetrated Street’s skin, maybe no bacteria was transmitted because of the weak bite. I guess I really don’t know.”
“Do we need to restrain him just in case?” Shift asked.
“Good question,” John replied. “It might be foolish not to. But since he didn’t change right away, it seems more likely that it will occur, if at all, little by little over time.”
“I guess we should tell the others about this little discussion.”
“Okay.”
John and Shift walked back over to the group. Angel had Street’s head resting on her lap, stroking his forehead, and the others had stopped crying for the most part. Marilyn was holding Street’s hand and cleaning it with disinfectant. Anta was sitting in a chair near the wall with Neirioui and Suvan each holding a hand. They all watched Shift and John walk up, anxiety and sorrow written on their faces.
John told them what he believed may occur. As the group processed the information, each had varying degrees of hope or misery. But the resolve was clear. When John was finished talking, he asked if there were any questions.
“How will we know what to do?” Jonas asked.
“I don’t know. We’ll have Angel and Marilyn monitor him.”
“Do we need to restrain him?” Hasani asked.
“I don’t want him to be restrained!” Angel said, choking back tears.
“We probably don’t have a choice in that,” Shift said.
“Is the same thing going to happen to Anta?” Jon asked, obviously thinking about Anta’s tainted blood and the complications with the fetus.
“Good question Jon,” John replied. “Anta’s situation could be totally different. Other than her reaction to Cain’s mental attacks—I’ll call them that—we’ve seen no other indication of a reaction to the contamination, from the scratch she sustained months ago. We should hope that Street’s response to this bite is as benign.”
There were general nods and murmurs of approval. If they could help it, Street would live—as a human—and he would live for a very long time.
Marilyn had already cleaned and bandaged the wound by the time John completed his question and answer session. She had given him a shot of Ibuprofine and an antibiotic too. After the
group’s short discussion, Street began to wake. John told him his potential prognosis and the suggestion that he be restrained as a precaution. He was not pleased. Anger was etched into his face.
“That stupid bastard,” Street said, clearly in pain. “If I turn, I’m going to kill myself and hunt him down on the other side. But until I turn, don’t tie me down man.”
John agreed that Street would not have to be restrained if he would agree to being confined for a few days and having his medical condition monitored by Angel and Marilyn. The unspoken implication was that if his condition deteriorated, he would be restrained, or worse.
November 26, 2093—Cape Canaveral, Florida
“When will they be back?” Suvan asked her mother.
“Today; soon I hope,” Neirioui replied.
The small group of survivors had set up camp in the dorms at Cape Canaveral. The dorms had housed many past pilots and astronauts. Their pictures and statements of their legacies adorned the walls in nearly every room and common space. It was a testament to what mankind could achieve, and a terrible reminder of how alone they were.
Over the past six days, two groups had left the base. Shift, Anta and Hasani had left for Juneau three days earlier. John, Steve Porter, and his son Jon had gone to Massachusetts to check out the farms where the first group had inoculated animals many months earlier. This second group was due to arrive back at the base, and Suvan couldn’t wait to see Jon again. Without their MEHDs, the various groups had to rely on the Net, which was still operating, but was not always reliable. It wasn’t as easy, so communication was infrequent and slow. Those that remained in Florida didn’t know what the others were doing, or how they were faring.
“They’re here,” Mike said, leaning his head into the room where Neirioui and Suvan were talking.
Suvan jumped up from the bed where she had been lying and ran from the room. Her mother followed, slower. Her own excitement would be greater on the return of Hasani in a few days.
Suvan and Neirioui entered the common room just as John, Steve and Jon set their packs down. Suvan ran to Jon and enveloped him in a rather intimate bear hug. Suvan had recently turned 14 years old, and was well on her way to womanhood. Jon was nearing 15, but the embrace by Suvan was a little uncomfortable, with his dad, and Suvan’s mom so near. Steve and Neirioui carefully avoided looking in the direction of their children, but shared a knowing look.
Tomorrow We Rise (The Killing Sands Book 2) Page 28