Seeking Daylight

by Becky Poirier

  “You don’t know that?” Doc tried to offer hope, though from the expression on his face I knew he didn’t believe it. The infection either changed you or it killed you. And from what I understood it only killed you if you were you had some sort of genetic abnormality or if you had a terminal illness. In the beginning people thought it was just a random thing. It took time for people to realize the truth. And suddenly those with chronic conditions became the lucky ones.

  “What about the other one,” Nina said grabbing everyone’s attention away from Wes.

  In the aftermath of the attack on Wes, we’d all forgotten that there was a second demon out there. Nina and I both put our eyes back to the other building, her with her binoculars and me with my scope. My heart sank for a second time as I realized the other demon was gone.

  “Maybe we scared it off,” Seth said hopefully. Nina and I looked at each other and for once we were both in tune. We knew that we were being hunted. This was a co-ordinated attack. The first one was meant to be a distraction. Clearly it had to know its chances of survival were limited, given our numbers. But it had sacrificed itself for this moment. We already had one of our people infected and someone was about to become the next target. Wes insisted the doctor leave him and take up a weapon.

  The doctor rushed back over to where he left his tranquillizer. Both Nina and I rolled our eyes. Well at least there were three of us ready to actually kill the thing. Seth wasn’t taking any more chances. He had his gun out as well, though it was shaking terribly in his hands.

  “Calm yourself,” I whispered to Seth. He was only inches away from me, unwilling to leave my side. “Take a deep breath.”

  “How can you stay so calm in a situation like this?” He asked me.

  “I distance myself from the situation. Don’t focus on the threat, focus on what you can control. You can control your breathing, your heart rate. Focus on calming them and the rest will follow.” My father might not have always been the warmest, but his lessons had kept me alive so far. And for that, I was grateful.

  “I don’t know if I can do that with you in harm’s way. Why did you have to come up here?”

  “I need to do this. I told you that. And if you’re having trouble removing the threat from the situation, then just remember what it felt like to hold my breast in your hand,” I whispered with a smile. He actually smiled back at me and I could see his gun relaxing in his hand just a little bit.

  I inched away from him. Us all huddled together wasn’t going to help us find our target. He didn’t like it but didn’t argue. We didn’t have to time to argue over this. Every moment the demon remained out of our sight meant we were all at risk. The thought of watching Seth being attacked threatened my resolve. My heart raced, despite my counselling Seth to keep his under control. He didn’t want to lose me and I couldn’t lose anyone else. I lost focus for just a moment and that was all it took.

  My body was knocked backward with such force that it took my breath away. My gun fired as it left my hand. The bullet managed to hit my attacker but not severely enough to end the assault. It only grazed his shoulder.

  Seth fired at the demon next but it dodged the bullet as it dug its claws into my shirt and dragged me behind part of the building. I wanted to scream, but I was so shaken I couldn’t get a sound out. When it finally let go of me, I caught sight of it fully for the first time. It wasn’t fully transformed. This demon still had human features. It had torn clothes. Clothes that looked familiar to me, but I couldn’t put my finger on why until it stepped into the moonlight. And I saw his shaggy black hair dangling beside his elongated ears. His face had small patches of hair growing in a wolf-like pattern. His snout had just barely started to form. He bore his still forming fangs at me as I saw his blood red eyes. His eyes had once been what I’d loved most about him, they’d been chocolate brown and when they’d looked at me, I didn’t doubt that he loved me.

  “Alex?” I whispered as a tear fell down my cheek. This was how it was going to end. I was going to be killed by my first love, the one that had abandoned me. He’d already destroyed me once; it was only fitting that he finished the job. Only he didn’t. He stared at me confused, almost like he actually remembered me. And then he shook off his confusion and raised his clawed hand gripping my shirt again, tearing more holes in it as he lifted me up off the ground and got ready to sink his teeth into my arm. I closed my eyes, trying to remember another time when those hands had held me, just to remove myself from the fear.

  I braced myself for the bite. But it didn’t come. I heard the doctor yell “NO!” as a shot rang through the air, nearly missing me by inches. Then another sound came that I didn’t recognize. It was quiet, almost like a rustling wind. It brushed by my ear. I opened my eyes to see Alex staring back at me, his eyes no longer filled with blood lust. They were struggling to stay open. Thankfully, the dart in his neck worked quickly. If he’d been shot by a bullet, he probably still would have had the time to bite me. Thanks to the drugs making their way through his system rapidly, he dropped me as his eyes rolled back and he fell towards the ground.

  I prepared myself for the hard landing, but instead I fell back into Seth’s arms as he braced my fall with his body. “Are you okay?” He asked his voice filled with panic. I looked back at him and saw tears in his eyes. I was still so confused by what had happened, that it took me a moment to process the question. “Did he bite you?” He asked again afraid of the answer. He pulled at the neck of my shirt looking for bite marks. He tugged at the holes in my shirt still searching, only he was revealing a lot more of myself than I wanted. I quickly pulled my shirt out of his grip. His cheeks flushed as he realized what he was doing.

  I shook my head answering his question. The blush faded from his cheeks as he pulled me in tightly and with everyone looking on he kissed me just as passionately as he had when we’d been alone and half naked. My cheeks burned both at the audience and at the memory. Now that I was sobering up, I couldn’t believe what I’d almost done with Seth. When we’d been alone, I wasn’t thinking…at all. All I wanted was to feel again. Now my brain was thinking too much. His lips slowly released mine as he realized I wasn’t kissing him back.

  I turned away from Seth, unable to look into his eyes. Instead I looked back towards Alex’s body. His slow rhythmic breathing caused his whole body to move up and down. It was so strange to be so close to a demon that wasn’t trying to bite you. The terror I’d felt only moments ago gave way to both fascination and confusion. Alex fled with the others. He shouldn’t have been turned. He knew the city better than anyone. He was smart, a good shot. He shouldn’t be one of them. It made no sense. But I knew it was him. Even more than that I was positive he recognized me. It was the only reason he stopped. If he hadn’t seen me then I would have been bitten for sure.

  Everyone was staring at me and for a moment I thought they might have realized that I knew him. But then Doc was by my side, asking if I was okay. It wasn’t like he was asking if I was bitten. He was asking if I was emotionally stable. Relief washed over me. I didn’t want to talk about Alex to any of them and especially not Seth, not with what we’d almost done. I couldn’t look at Seth without feeling mortified and sick. I felt very sick. It came over me so quick, that all I could do was roll away from Seth as I threw-up on the roof top. My head instantly began to throb, only increasing my nausea.

  Seth and Doc hovered over me, each taking turns asking me if I was okay. It was the dumbest thing they could have asked. No I wasn’t okay. My ex-fiancé just tried to infect me. I nearly slept with Seth when I don’t even know what I feel for him and now my partying had caught up with me. And then there was Wes… “Wes?” I asked suddenly remembering that he’d been attacked before me. In the commotion, we’d all forgotten about him.

  My up-chucking episode was nothing in comparison to what Wes was about to face. I turned around to see if he was alright. Seth and Doc both leapt to their feet at the same time. Wes wasn’t where we’d left him. Shakily
I tried to stand. Seth was right there to offer me support as I nearly toppled over. I wanted to push him away, but I couldn’t. I could barely stand on my own, let alone walk. I wrapped my arm around his shoulder using him to prop myself up as we walked around the roof top, trying to find Wes. We were all calling out his name. Under normal circumstances we’d never be shouting at night for any reason. But we were all confident the threat had passed. The nearest hive, that we knew of, was across town. We would be fine, Wes would not.

  When we finally found him, we felt a moment of relief, but it didn’t last. There he was, standing on the ledge of the building. Seth looked at me and it was almost like I could read his mind. He was torn about staying by my side and being there for Wes. I took my arm off of his shoulder. Doc was there by my side, ready to take over. Nina had remained stone cold silent beside Doc as she watched the scene unravel.

  “Wes come down from there. You don’t need to do this,” Seth coaxed.

  Wes stared back at us somberly. “What’s the alternative…a bullet to the head? Make my friends do it for me?”

  “You could give me time,” Doc spoke up. “It’s been a long time since anyone has been able to study the early stages of infection. This could be what we need to find a cure. There’s a chance.”

  Wes laughed. “Doc I have no intention of being your guinea pig. We all agreed that the key isn’t to cure, it’s to prevent the spread of infection. No. This is what needs to be done. I’m just doing it before I become a threat to all of you.”

  “Think about Kyle. He’s practically like a brother to you. Don’t do this to him. We have time. You still have time,” Seth tried to reason with him.

  Wes shook his head. He stared down at the bottom of the building. My heart sunk. That should have been me on that ledge. Wes was so full of life, he wanted to live. He took every opportunity to live life to its fullest. You never saw him moping around about what and who he’d lost. Wes was the kind of guy who could make you crack a smile, when you were so down you couldn’t see a way back up. I was the one willing to throw my life away. It wasn’t right.

  Wes looked back at me. “I think I finally understand you, ‘Amber.’ He said my fake name with a wink. Did anyone believe that was actually my name? “It’s easy to forget how far the world has fallen when you live in this little bubble like we have. But you’ve faced the truth. Coming back from that…that’s not a simple thing to do. You’ve battled with yourself, trying to find the will to go on. That’s why I can’t let Kyle see me like this. He can’t face it and survive. He’s not strong like you.” He didn’t understand me at all. I wasn’t strong. I was weak. If it weren’t for this group, I’d have been dead a long time ago.

  He gave me one last small smile and then before anyone could react he let his arms fly up beside him as he leaned back and fell out of sight.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A fresh wave of nausea hit me. My mind kept imaging what the scene below must have looked like, with Wes’s body crushed into the sidewalk, his insides spilling out. And all the blood. I couldn’t control it as I heaved again. Only a few hours ago we’d been celebrating, laughing. This shouldn’t have happened. I wanted to yell at Seth. He should have known better. We all should have known the whole truth. But beating him up about Wes’s death wouldn’t do any good. He was already feeling it. He let the tears flow freely down his face, without any hint of restraint.

  I don’t know how long we stood in silence up there on the roof top. It felt like hours. We were stuck there until someone decided to come and unlock the door. Doc and Nina were the only ones able to keep a cool head in the situation. They were both sober for one thing. And Doc was used to tragedy. As an E.R doctor, he must have seen it on a regular basis. They got to work tying up their test subject, with both sturdy rope and metal chains. Seeing Alex’s abdomen slowly moving up and down, with every steady breath he took, didn’t do much to comfort me. If he woke, I wasn’t sure that the ropes and chain would be enough. Thankfully, Doc was taking the capture of his ‘test subject’ very seriously. He injected Alex with another dose of sedative just to be sure he was out.

  Kyle was the one to finally unlock the door. He knocked first to make sure it was safe and when we answered he was relieved. My stomach heaved again, but this time I managed to keep it down or maybe it was that there just wasn’t anything more to come up. Even though it was clearly the last thing he wanted to do, Seth was the one to tell Kyle what had happened. He explained, with trembling voice, how we’d lost Wes.

  Kyle had stood numb for several minutes before he broke down and wept. Until I’d joined this group, I never knew that grown men actually cried. My father had always made it sound like a weak girly thing to do, which was one of the reasons I fought my tears back all the time. Neither Kyle nor Seth looked ashamed for the letting their tears go. If anything, they looked relieved to let it all out.

  Under normal circumstances, I might have broken down over Wes’s death as well. We’d become friends, well as much as I would allow, and I wasn’t a heartless person. His death would surely impact me, but at the moment all I could think about was Alex. He’d been a huge source of my pain and now he was just a few feet from me. Doc had his test subject. It had come at the cost of one of our own. And it was killing me to see Alex all tied up like that. I knew it wasn’t really him. What took over, when the human soul was killed off by the infection, was something evil. But still the body was his, the mind remembered me or at least it appeared to. I had to look away.

  My teeth chattered as a cold breeze brushed over my neck. We’d been standing out in the cold air for a long time and this was the first I’d felt it. The adrenaline had worn off and now I was feeling everything. The cold. The fatigue. The emotional exhaustion. The pain from being knocked down. Nina stared at me as I struggled to warm myself, rubbing my arms up and down my thin long sleeved t-shirt. I didn’t get why she was so fascinated by my shirt, until I realized it was still inside out. I knew she’d seen it before but in the heat of the situation she’d let the issue go. Now she wasn’t just looking at me, she was also eyeing Seth whose shirt was on backwards. My cheeks flushed.

  Her staring had caught the attention of the doctor. He hadn’t been around when she’d first picked up on the situation. He looked at me and then Seth and then the lightbulb went on over his head as a huge grin spread across his face. Nina elbowed him in the gut. I appreciated the gesture. Even though I knew it wasn’t out of concern for me. This was not the time to be laughing over such things.

  I was sure my attire would become gossip soon enough. But people had more important things to talk about now. Like what to do with the demon and who was going to clean-up Wes. Kyle offered to help lay his friend to rest. But both Doc and Seth refused his help with that. Seth instead asked Kyle to accompany Doc and Nina to the research lab they would be using.

  They’d decided to go with my suggestion of an old fertility clinic. It would have most of what they needed but not enough. They had some supplies here, but more supply runs would need to be made over the next couple of days. Seth promised to help bury Wes properly with the assistance of some of the others.

  Seth turned to face me, my cheeks were still flushed and my body was shaking uncontrollably from the cold. “We should get you inside. We can’t help here anymore.” His voice was as numb as he looked.

  “I can go back on my own. You should help them,” I offered. The truth of the matter was that I was afraid to be alone with Seth again. I didn’t think he was still in the mood. I certainly wasn’t. Still I wasn’t ready to talk about it. Maybe it was my close call or perhaps all the puking I’d done, but I was sobering up faster than I would have liked. The more the effects of the alcohol wore off, the more embarrassed I was about my actions. It wasn’t like me at all to just throw myself at a man. Every time I thought about his hands on my body, his lips on mine, I only felt more confused. I’d liked it and knowing that I couldn’t blame it entirely on the wine.

  “You
can barely stand. And the last thing we need is for you to fall down a flight of stairs. Please,” he said with more exhaustion than I’d ever heard from him, “just let me help you.” I nodded knowing that if he was begging me, then it was because he needed to do this. It wasn’t so much about helping me as it was an excuse to get away from what had happened. The night’s events weighed heavily on him. He clearly blamed himself. It wasn’t like I could tell him not to. I blamed him, and the doctor, and anyone else who’d been on the mission. They all should have known better.

  The walk back to the room was a silent and uncomfortable one. The way Seth was acting reminded me a lot of how I was the day I lost Molly. I’d walked around aimlessly. If I wasn’t here, I was sure Seth probably would have found a corner to be alone in and just ignore everyone. Even though he didn’t say anything, I knew he needed me by his side. It was like I was grounding him in reality. I didn’t have that when I lost Molly. If I had, maybe things would have been better.

  He placed the lamp on the table, dimmed it and headed towards the door. “Are you leaving?” I asked confused. It was clear to me that he wanted to be with me, so I didn’t understand why he was leaving.

  “I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep and you look exhausted. I don’t want to keep you up.” All the frustration I’d felt towards him, over what I thought he should have done, vanished at the sight of his pain. I didn’t want him to hurt. Maybe it was the mothering nature in me coming through. But I wanted to do what I could to comfort him.

  I placed my hand in his and dragged him towards the bed. “Even if you can’t sleep, you should rest and trust me you don’t want to be alone after…” My throat caught as the emotions threatened to take me over once again. I remembered what it was like, to realize just how alone I was after I’d finally let go of Molly’s lifeless body. No one should have to go through that kind of grief alone.