Chapter 28.
“Derek, what?” Sasha said, shaking off the sleepiness that had just begun to creep in on her.
Derek was making a deep frown, and had cocked his head to one side, listening. He put his arm up to quiet Sasha, and after a moment, he looked her dead in the eye, something that hadn’t happened for a while.
“Sounds like an avalanche or something. You can’t hear that?” He asked. Sasha just stared dubiously. Derek let the Mauler come to a stop in the road. They had just left Raleigh city limits, and Derek had about 30 minutes until he was supposed to wake Hud up to take over the wheel again.
Although Sasha didn’t hear anything, she soon felt something. A vibration, soft but definitely there. She looked around, hoping it was something harmless inside the Mauler. It wasn’t.
Suddenly, there were people everywhere. They were jumping over the guardrail and leaping onto the hood of the Mauler. Sasha screamed uncontrollably, bringing everyone to an abrupt awakening. The entire Mauler was shaking again, being rocked by the hands of a mob of monsters. Several were smashing into the windshield and blood began to smear and drip down across it.
“Drive! Drive!” Hud was yelling, but Derek already had the accelerator pressed to the floor. The Mauler was being slowed by the enormous weight of the monsters on top of it, as well as the sea of swarming bodies in front of it.
Nora was grasping onto Ripley, and Ripley was barking her head off. Sasha couldn’t handle the gruesome self-injury that was happening in front of her, there was more than one pair of bare knuckles repeatedly crashing into the red tinted windshield. Faces with black eyes ebbed and flowed, arms and legs flashed as the infected blindly tried to make their way closer and closer to the fresh, healthy humans inside.
Travis and Adam were stunned into total silence, and Lily was watching the scene with apprehension and fear. She had stopped being afraid for herself, since the monsters didn’t seem to notice her existence, but she was worried for the only people she had left.
The Mauler pushed its way slowly forward, but it was struggling to continue running down waves of fighting bodies. Derek didn’t know exactly how much armor went into building a Mauler, but it seemed that constant weight and the extra workload on the engine couldn’t be good for any vehicle. He continued smashing the pedal to the floor, but he was aware, just as Hud was, that something else was going to have to happen.
Sasha was trying to leave the front seat area, she couldn’t stand seeing it anymore. Nora was alone in the back of the Mauler and she wanted to get to her to comfort her with more stories of Princess Nora and her daring quest. She had just begun to back out of the passenger seat when an acute cracking noise filled the Mauler.
“The window!” Derek yelled.
Impossibly, one of the monster’s fists or feet or skull had put a crack in the reinforced passenger side window. It was only a matter of time before the glass was completely gone, leaving an open, inviting doorway for the hungry infected. Adam panicked and moved towards the back of the Mauler, but Travis was already looking at Hud, hoping for directions.
Sasha stayed where she was, crouching beside the passenger seat, watching the crack get longer with each crash of a fist. Derek was not about to fail again, he let off the gas and lunged over to push Sasha into the back row of seats, putting himself right in front of the window. He was right there when the glass finally fell out. Arms and hands reached inside, blood dripping onto the Mauler’s seats and the smell of decay and infection filling the air.
Hud began firing into the window with his handgun, but it was not effective. He was hitting arms and shoulders, nothing vital enough to make a difference. Derek began kicking at the window, knocking a few of the monsters that had been able to get a good portion of their bodies into the window. Travis was yelling, but it was unintelligible over the roar of the hungry horde, and it wasn’t until Travis shoved a bottle into Derek’s face that he realized what he was being told.
The Molotovs! Derek grabbed the bottle from Travis, and tried to quickly assess his chances of getting it lit and thrown out the window without it bouncing back inside. The last thing he wanted was to spill burning gasoline on the interior of the Mauler.
Hud pressed a lighter into his hand, just as Derek had come up with a better idea. He pulled the strip of cloth fuse from the bottle, and surprised everyone by raising the bottle to his mouth. He then sprayed the gasoline back out of his mouth, into the gaping maws and writhing limbs of those trying to get in. They reacted, blinking and shrieking and trying to scratch the fluid out of their eyes, giving Derek the few seconds he desperately needed to spray the gasoline from his mouth a few more times. He sputtered and spit as he lit the gas soaked strip and stuffed it out the window, using his foot to push the crowd out.
Suddenly orange flames burst through the faces. The fire was enough to send a considerable amount of the monsters to the ground, burning, and the light from it was enough to blind a larger chunk of them. Hud already had another Molotov ready, he lit it and threw it through the more spacious area outside the window. It exploded, and Adam and Travis whooped as it sent another large portion of the monsters to the ground, writhing in agony. The crowd was weakening, Adam threw himself into the driver’s seat, slammed his foot down on the gas pedal. The Mauler ground against the surging crowd outside.
Hud handed Derek another bottle, and now that there was enough room outside the passenger window, Derek stuck his entire arm outside, all the way to the shoulder. He flung the lit bottle over the hood of the Mauler and it landed in the mass of infected right in front of the vehicles path. Derek lost sight of it for a moment, the light was making it hard for him to focus too, but then suddenly another explosion rocked the front of the Mauler, clearing enough space for the Mauler to lurch forward.
Suddenly Hud was at the window, pushing past Derek, who was too affected by the brightness of the fire to continue, and he flung another lit Molotov out, and followed it with Sasha’s shotgun. He repeated this several times until there was more dead bodies on the street than there were attacking live ones.
Adam steered the Mauler as well as he could, as it picked up speed, trying to avoid the areas with the most fire. Travis was handing Hud Molotovs and shells, they worked together seamlessly, whittling down the horde until the threat was diminished. Adam whooped again, once the Mauler was clear for smooth driving.
Lily had been standing in between where Derek was crouched beside the front seats and Nora and Sasha in the back, making herself the last line of defense against the horde. Neither she nor Derek were able to see as well as they wanted, but they were still both willing to use every other sense available to fight off the monsters, since they were both already infected. When the vehicle started rolling smoothly again, they both relaxed, sitting on the bench and breathing heavily.
Hud took over driving while the Mauler was still moving, him and Adam sliding to trade places. Hud gave Adam an encouraging, even if hard, slap on the back. Travis took his position at the passenger seat, the shotgun now in his possession. He seemed to be in his element holding the weapon.
Sasha finally ended her current installment of Nora’s princess story, although she was sure that there was no way that she had been able to drown out the sounds this time. Nora was shaking violently, but she pulled her face away from the shoulder it was buried in. A collective sigh of relief seemed to fill the atmosphere of the Mauler. Ripley even finally loosened her muscles, and sat on her haunches.
After a few moments, the last of the few monsters that had escaped the fire to chase the Mauler were left behind, and Hud turned off of the larger road and onto a narrower street that curved and followed the hilly landscape. It was even darker here than in the city they had just driven through, although there had been no electricity, and the headlights of the Mauler stabbed into the darkness.
Another impromptu meal was eaten, wrappers ripped open and water bottles emptied. Hud continued pushing the Mauler forward, he had announced that they
should make it to the cabin around dawn. No one slept for a long time, not even Nora, as they followed the pitch black road around bends and over hills.
Chapter 29.
The broken window on the Mauler was allowing a cool breeze to sweep through the vehicle, and Sasha was sitting in the back of the Mauler on the palette, with Nora leaning against her. She was trying to imagine herself lying on the beach in her hometown, and that the breeze was the salty wind near the ocean. It had always been so accessible to her that the idea of never again being able to nap on the sand with the sound of the waves lulling her to sleep was detrimental. It hadn’t been easy, but she had been able to avoid making a mental inventory of things she would never see or do again. The one thing her mind wouldn’t let her think about was her parents.
Her eyes were closed and her head was resting against the blanket she had stuffed behind it. She let her mind wander to all the things she would miss in this new, chaotic world, and allowed herself to feel self pity. She did not, however, allow herself to cry.
Of all the things she was feeling in these moments, tiredness was not one of them. Her mind kept working as her body fell asleep, and she didn’t have a clue she was dreaming.
She was running through her parents house, leaping over things from her childhood; toys and books and stuffed animals. Someone was chasing her, but every time she looked behind her she saw nothing but shadows. She burst out of the back door, but instead of being in her parent’s familiar back yard, she was in a dead black forest, and with every step she took, pointed branches were grabbing at her, trying to slow her down to make it easier for the invisible predator behind her to catch up.
The woods were filling up with smoke, and she could hear fire crackling. It was getting harder to see where she was going. She was trying not to trip on tree roots or get tangled in the thickening branches that were reaching for her, but finally the smoke got too thick and the ground became too unfriendly.
She fell, crashing into the ground and rolling violent, ready to surrender to the predator. However, when she turned her face upwards, she saw Derek’s face looming over her, and cried out in relief. Too late, though, she realized that Derek was the predator, as his black eyes flashed and he lunged with an open mouth towards her neck.
She woke up stifling a scream, but to her horror, Derek’s face was still there, looming over her. She flinched and backed as far away as she could, which wasn’t far, and it took her a moment to realize that she was awake and that Derek posed no real threat to her. The cool down from the intense fear left her almost on the verge of tears. She could see Derek’s confusion and concern, and was embarrassed.
“Sasha, I’m so sorry.” He said, more genuinely than Sasha had ever heard an apology. “You were trying to shout in your sleep, you must have been having a nightmare. I was just checking on you, I didn’t mean to startle you.” The tears brimming in Sasha’s eyes was worrying him, what could she have been dreaming about that was so horrible?
Sasha took a few deep breaths, mainly to control the emotional downpour she was about to have. When she felt like she could speak without blubbering, she looked back up to Derek.
“It was a nightmare. A bad one.” She confirmed what he had assumed. As if invited by her admission, Derek sat cross legged in front of her while Sasha eased her arm from around the sleeping Nora. Visibly shaken, she wrung her hands out and tried to stall a little as she realized that Derek was waiting for her to narrate her dream to him. Her cheeks flushed, she could not imagine explaining to him that he was the thing she was running from in her nightmare, and that it was his face she saw that meant death. He still sat patiently.
“I don’t remember what it was now.” She lied. It was totally obvious to Derek that she was covering up the truth, and he felt as if she had just slammed a door in his face.
“Why are you lying?” He asked, his mouth forming the words before he had a chance to think about it.
Her face went white, and she looked directly at the ground. Nora stirred a little, and Sasha was thankful for the distraction when she had to adjust herself to accommodate Nora. She could still feel Derek’s eyes on her, though.
There was no one else in the Mauler, as far as Derek was concerned. It was just Sasha and him, and even though he was not going to have his happy ending, he could not pull himself away to make it easier on either of them. He couldn’t stop the words that were making their way out of his mouth.
“What was the dream about, Sasha?” He watched her jaw clench as she resolved to tell him.
“It was you.” The words rang in Derek’s ears, and the realization of what she said stung. Derek had been prepared to tell her that it was only a dream, nothing to be afraid of, but now that he knew what it was, those words seemed wholly wrong. It wasn’t just a dream, she had realized how dangerous it would be to fall in love with a monster. For her and for Nora. It wasn’t just anger or disappointment that had been making her seem so distant, it was fear and disgust. No matter how much she had felt for him, she was hard headed enough to make herself hate him if she needed to, in order to eliminate a threat to Nora. And he was a threat. He was tainted.
He didn’t want to hear anymore of the nightmare, he didn’t want to know how evil her subconscious really viewed him. He steeled himself.
Sasha watched Derek’s expressions progress from shock, to hurt, then to a cold, resolute stare.
“Well, I’m sorry. But it was just a dream, you don’t have to worry about me now.” He turned away and got up, and headed back to the second row next to Adam. He didn’t look back.
Sasha’s throat tightened up. That was that, she told herself. He couldn’t have made it more clear, she didn’t have to worry about him now. If that wasn’t a pretty good indication that he wanted as little as possible to do with her, she didn’t know what was. She went back in her mind, trying to remember anything that she had done or said that had made him change his attitude towards her so abruptly. Had it been that bad when she had misunderstood his physical cues earlier when Hud had mentioned the attraction between her and Derek? He hadn’t recoiled in horror then, what had changed? She tortured herself with questions like these until her eyes closed again and her subconscious drifted away again.
Trying to distract himself, Hud started up a conversation with Adam, asking him about his life before. Adam gladly engaged, talking about his friends and family, although Derek noticed he spoke of them as if they were still alive. Even Travis joined in a few times with a story. Lily watched quietly but contentedly from where she was sitting, stroking Ripley’s velvety ears. The distraction partly worked for Derek, he was able to keep himself from turning back towards Sasha. But she never left his mind.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Testing.
Testing has begun on several of the variations of the parasite. I have not been able to become involved in the testing of the effects the parasite has, but I do get a vague report of results.
So far, five of the initial variations have been scrapped. Either the parasites didn’t survive, or they had no effect, or they had effects that were not desirable. Part of me wants to be there for the observation of what the parasite will do to a living creature, but the other part of me is a softie, and would probably feel sorry for the lab rats.
What will happen now is that the 3 variations that were not scrapped will be modified further. I think they will be trying a few completely new variations as well, and word is that one alternative to just the gene manipulation is to actually attempt to give the parasite some of the same genetic structures as a virus. That could be interesting.
Either way, I don’t see myself ever becoming bored with this. I’m not sure any intern has ever been so eager to get up at the crack of dawn everyday to get to a lab and work. I’ll keep everyone posted when the new variations are presented.
Happy Holidays!
Posted by Sanjeev at 6:09 PM
Chapter 30.
The sun had broken and the sky was a bea
utiful bright blue. It was a deceptive trick, the weather made it feel as if they were headed on a leisurely drive to a fall baseball game, not searching for shelter in a death plagued world.
Hud had handed the map and the address of the cabin to Travis, who was playing the role of the navigator. For the past half hour, Travis had steered Hud down one long deserted road and onto another, until they had come to a small dirt path that Travis was sure was a driveway to the cabin.
Nobody breathed as they cleared a dense row of trees, and a tranquil, comfortable looking log cabin came into view. Even Sasha, who had just woken up feeling completely unrested, was relieved to see it. As they pulled closer, Derek saw the bright red front door and was elated to know that they had found the right place. He could see the photograph Lawrence had showed him clearly in his mind: his wife standing proudly in front of the very same red door. This was going to be his new home.
Even Hud seemed giddy. He was smiling as he pulled the beat up, tired Mauler up into the yard on the side of the house. As soon as the vehicle came to a stop, everyone was moving, anxious to see what was waiting for them inside.
Derek was the first one out of the door, using his leg to keep Ripley from bounding out.. He was just as excited as everyone else, but he wanted to make sure there weren’t any hidden threats first. Hud met him after coming around the Mauler, and with his gun cocked and ready, followed Derek toward the front door. Derek had pulled Lawrence’s key ring from his backpack a little while earlier, and he tried a few different keys until one made the doorknob comply. He opened the door slowly.
Peeking inside, he strained to hear anything out of the ordinary. It was silent aside from Hud’s heartbeat and the sound of air moving through his body. Derek’s nostrils flared a little as he drew in several breaths, trying to pick up the smells from inside the home. Sawdust, new carpet, laundry soap. Nothing deadly so far. He took a step inward.
The Loki Variation Page 18