2
O.B.’s eyes flickered and he gazed up at the white ceiling. Even though they were currently inside a mountain of rock, his room carried the same sterile odour of a normal hospital. Just like many hospitals, it seemed unnecessarily humid too.
The sling elevating his cast creaked as he pushed the bedsheets down to his waist. LED lights from the medical equipment cut through the darkness to create some unusual and ominous shadows. It reminded him of the times he and his family would stay in other cities while their father did long term contracted work. He’d wake up in the middle of the night in a strange motel room and experienced that surreal sense of being out of place in the world.
He tried to blow onto his face to cool his skin. When he swallowed, he realised his throat felt like it was coated with sandpaper and he reached out for the plastic beaker of water on the bedside table.
‘Shit, cous. You look almost as bad as I do.’
The voice caused O.B. to fumble the beaker and it slipped out of his grasp and bounced on the floor, spilling the water from inside.
He instinctively tried to scramble to the top of the bed, receiving a painful reminder of his current condition when he snagged the cannula on the back of his wrist.
‘W-what did you say?’
He could only see the outline of the figure standing by the door, but he recognised his voice immediately.
‘You heard me just fine, dude. Although, I think I was pushin’ it to say you look almost as bad as me.’
The figure stepped into the light, and just as O.B. feared, it was his cousin Bruno. He looked exactly as he did the last time O.B. had seen him. His clothing was torn and bloodied in several places. Flesh hung from his cheeks like they had been chewed on. His right eye was completely red—consumed by a haemorrhage. But the worst aspect of his appearance—the part that made O.B. turn to the wall in disgust—was his freshly peeled scalp. Even in the low light, his exposed skull had a polished sheen to it and the folds of skin flapped about at the back of his neck.
‘Sorry, I know it’s gross, but this is my new image. Imagine how I feel when I catch my reflection in the mirror. I look like an old dog toy.’
‘Y-you can’t be here,’ O.B. said, scarcely able to take his eyes off the wall.
‘I know, I know. Visiting hours are over, but I thought Doctor Hot Lips would make an exception, seeing as we’re family and all.’ Bruno moved closer to the foot of his bed.
‘You’re not alive. You can’t be.’
‘Your genius strikes again, cous. I ain’t one of the undead either. I’m positively, well and truly, dead. Check it out.’ Bruno reached back and flicked his dangling scalp so it wobbled about. ‘Doesn’t hurt one bit anymore. Did at the time though. I know you know that. You were there and did nothing.’
Tears welled in O.B.’s eyes and he grasped at the flat wall behind him.
‘I couldn’t do anything. There were too many of them.’
‘Maybe, but you didn’t even try. You think I would have done that to you?’
‘If I’d reached out, they would have taken me too,’ O.B. said.
Bruno sighed and gripped the bar around the frame at the bottom of the bed.
‘Yeah, I guess you’re right. If it had been the other way around, we’d have both been food for the rotters.’
‘I’m so sorry, dude. I was afraid. I’ve always been afraid.’
‘And that’s why I’m here, my man. You remember when I told you that I intended to keep that big heart of yours in your chest where it belongs?’
‘I remember.’
Bruno pointed to the bandage around O.B.’s leg. ‘That right there was a blessin’ in disguise. You’re onto a good thing here, buddy. To find a place as enclosed and protected as this, with trained doctors and a medical bay if anything happens to you? Man, that’s one in a billion.’
‘They’ve been very kind to me since we got here—to all of us,’ O.B. said, wiping away the tears.
‘All of us, huh?’
As Bruno frowned, his facial movement opened up a large rotting gash on his forehead.
‘These folks you’ve been rollin’ with: they ain’t good for you, bro.’
‘I couldn’t have got this far without them,’ O.B. said.
‘I understand why you followed them—I do, but now they got you this far, it’s time to take a step back and really look at what kind of people they are.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That woman—the one who was livin’ on the streets—sooner or later she’s gonna have to make a choice between you or that shit she puts into her body.’
‘She’s doing the best she can.’
‘Hey, man. I don’t doubt that, but do you think that someone whose lived her life is gonna be able to put that behind them. Even in the old world, it’s a stretch. Be realistic. You gotta watch your own ass now, and you don’t owe her shit.’
‘She’s my friend.’
‘You’re a friend to her, but when push comes to shove, she’s gonna leave you hangin’,’ Bruno said. ‘That young guy—the Brit. He got somethin’ goin’ on, somethin’ real weird that you don’t even wanna know about. And that black chick, she’s got a skeleton in her closet that makes everyone else look like the fuckin’ Brady Bunch.
‘Sooner or later, they’re all gonna want out of this place, and if you go with them, you’re gonna end up just like me.’
Still traumatised by the ghostly appearance of his cousin, O.B. shook his head and managed a wry smile.
‘They pumped me full of drugs ‘cause I was struggling with the pain. That’s what this is. I miss you, but when I open my eyes, I want you to be gone, OK?’
He screwed his eyes shut for a few seconds, hoping that his visitor would evaporate in a cloud of delusion. Instead, Bruno stood right by his side, less than two feet away from him, his skull exposed, a cascade of blood caked to his face.
This time, he wasn’t alone. A multitude of bodies congregated around him. They were shoulder to shoulder, filling the entire room, swaying in the shadows. O.B. couldn’t see their faces, but he knew who they were.
‘You know as well as I do that you can’t watch their backs, and eventually, they’ll give up watching yours,’ Bruno said. ‘Listen to what I’m saying, little cousin, or you’ll end up here… with us. Maybe it’s not a bad idea after all. In here, there’s no fear anymore, but it’s colder… much colder.’
O.B. reached up to cover his face. He could tell the bodies were closing in around him. He could smell their putrid flesh.
O.B. threw the sheets away and screamed out. The room was empty again. No more Bruno, no more rotten bodies. The next sensation he felt was the damp patch against his forearm. His body was soaked in a cold sweat. It even caused his injured leg to slide in its sling.
‘Bad dreams?’
The voice from the bedside startled him again. It was Darla sitting on one of the plastic chairs, half-shrouded in darkness.
‘Nightmares,’ O.B. said, trying to calm his pounding heart.
‘That’s good. Means your mind is still keepin’ you on your toes. You start sleepin’ soundly in this world, you’ve already given in to it.’
O.B. recovered from his dream-induced daze and shifted his body on the mattress.
‘How come you’re here? It’s late,’ he said.
‘Same reason I can’t keep anythin’ down for more than an hour, and why I can’t stop my hands from shakin’.’
‘Is the medication doing any good?’
‘It’s takin’ some of the edge off, but there’s a lotta edge.’
O.B. let himself fall back onto the pillows and allowed his body to relax again.
‘There’s another reason I can’t sleep so well,’ Darla said. ‘Miller and Ethan left with the soldiers earlier.’
‘Left? Left where?’
‘They took the chopper to check out a radio distress signal quite a ways from here. The
y’ve been gone a while. Salty ain’t in his room either. I heard him leave in the night. He must be wanderin’ around the complex.’
‘Should we be worried?’
Darla paused to rub at her tired eyes.
‘Don’t know, but whatever’s goin’ on, I think you should start puttin’ weight on that leg as soon as possible. We need to know you can walk if we have to get outta here in a hurry.’
As O.B. lay there, the nightmare and the ominous words of his cousin came rushing back into memory.
3
The floating dust particles of the admin building glistened in their beams of torchlight as they fell upon the tables and chairs of the centre room.
Raine directed her torch towards a display board mounted on a stand in front of the furniture. Pinned to it was a map of the country. There were various coloured pins clustered in certain cities. She moved closer and traced her finger to their location. A red pin had been inserted into that particular area and she quickly deduced that the sparsely featured red pins indicated a government or military contact point.
The sound of clanging metal alerted her and she turned back sharply.
‘Watch where you’re treading,’ she whispered.
‘Sorry.’ Ethan carefully placed the chair he’d collided with back on its four legs before it toppled over and made even more noise.
When Raine’s gaze returned to the map, she noticed something else just behind the display board—two circular holes etched into the stone wall. She stepped up to the wall and scratched at one of the holes with her fingernail. As she examined it, she felt something hard roll under the sole of her boot. She lifted her foot, and as she suspected, it was a spent shell casing.
‘Something serious went down. And it wasn’t that long ago either,’ she said.
‘I know,’ Ethan said.
‘What did you pick up?’
‘I’m not sure yet—something bad. There was a lot of tension in this room.’
He saw a clipboard on one of the tables that had a dark splash of blood over it and picked it up. He gripped it tightly, eyes rolled back in his head.
Raine shone her torch on his face.
‘What? What do you see?’
‘There was a dispute—a big one. Some of the soldiers didn’t believe in what they were doing here. There was a mutiny. The soldiers turned on each other, several were killed, but one of the mutineers escaped.’
Ethan blinked, lucid again. He made his way over to the west side of the first floor, still clinging to the clipboard. When he directed his torch to a section of floor in front of him, it revealed the grisly remains of seven bodies in the latter stages of decomposition. He felt something move beneath his feet and drew back.
One of the half-eaten corpses shifted towards him. It pushed itself up onto the intestine-spilled remains of its stomach so it was upright and reached out into the light of the torch beam. The creature growled softly, as if it had lost most of its will to attack.
Before it could make any more noise, Raine rushed to Ethan and embedded her knife into the creature’s eye socket, silencing it for good.
‘The mutineer came back. He led a small herd right to the gates and let them in. The soldiers that were left tried to push them back, but there were too many,’ Ethan said.
‘What about the officials—the Attorney General?’ Raine said.
‘He was killed in the cross-fire.’ Ethan held the clipboard up to his face and stared at the blood stain soaked into the attached pages. ‘His PA was holding this when the dead broke through.’
‘Where did he go?’
‘Upstairs.’
As Raine led the way up the staircase to the second floor they discovered more bodies—creatures piled on top of one another, a soldier with his face chewed off, each step viscid with blood.
On the second-floor hallway, they spotted more blood. This time forming an intermittent trail that led to a storage room. They entered and Ethan pointed to a small metal locker in the corner. Whatever it contained was forcing itself against the locker door, barely nudging it ajar.
Raine took up a position next to the locker.
‘Be careful,’ Ethan said.
‘Just keep your weapon up and cover me,’ Raine said.
In his anxious state, Ethan had forgotten he was holding the silenced handgun and reluctantly lifted it to waist height.
Raine clipped her torch to her belt so she could grip the handle of the door.
‘You ready? On three.’
As Raine shifted her stance in readiness, it suddenly dawned on him that she was about to use the open door to shield herself from whatever emerged, but also lose any line of sight she might have.
‘One, two.’
‘—Miller, wait.’
‘Three.’
She yanked the door open and what was left of the Attorney General’s personal assistant tumbled out. The former slightly-framed young man raised its head up from a tangle of limbs and through the cracked lenses and twisted frame of its glasses, it fixed its gaze upon Ethan. The creature rose like a mantis and began its awkward hobble towards him.
‘Miller?’
‘Point your weapon and shoot it,’ Raine said, walking slowly behind it.
‘Miller, what the fuck are you playing at?’ Ethan said.
‘What are you waiting for? Take it down.’
Ethan’s attempt to raise his gun made it seem as if an invisible force was holding it down. Tears glazed his eyes and he started to shake.
‘Pull the trigger,’ Raine said.
Ethan finally covered the trigger with his finger and closed one eye. Instead of dropping the being that craved for his flesh, he let out a stuttered breath and lowered his weapon again.
The creature took it as an even greater invitation and came at him with more vigour, a line of excited drool spilling from its mouth.
Ethan recoiled and staggered back towards the door.
‘Come on, Miller. Help me.’
Raine did nothing, except observe Ethan’s behaviour, waiting for his survival instincts to kick in; but they didn’t. He refused to take decisive action and continued to retreat.
It was so close to him now that he could feel the cold exuding from its body as it clamoured for the first meal of its rebirth.
At the last possible moment, Raine responded to his pleas and struck the creature on the side of its head with the handle of her pistol. It fell to the floor and she proceeded to stomp its skull until it shattered.
After the brutality was over, Ethan lowered his hands from his face. He immediately glared at Raine, scarcely able to believe the trick she’d pulled.
‘It’s been pretty clear to me that you were unhinged from the moment we met, but I underestimated just how far gone you were,’ he said.
‘I remember you that night on the roof top at the preserve. You were as scared as anyone, but you volunteered to be first over that ladder, knowing there was a good chance it could fall,’ Raine said.
‘That was a million years ago, when we had a shot at saving that little girl and her family. We’ve all changed our expectations since then.’
‘That’s not it. Something happened when you touched that thing on the beach. And don’t give me any of this “ignorance is better” crap.’
‘A woman,’ Ethan said.
‘What?’
‘It was a woman—not “a thing”.’ Ethan smirked. ‘Is this why you almost got me killed?’
‘What stopped you putting a bullet through its brain just now? I want you to level with me, or next time I might not come to help you at all.’
‘Since you asked so nicely.’ Ethan frowned and ran his fingers through the curls in his hair. His eyes flared, as if he was reliving the moment on the beach that had haunted him ever since. ‘When I touched it. When I touched her, I experienced thoughts… memories. They don’t know exactly who they are, but they receive glimpses of who they were.’
‘You can’t know that for sure,’ Raine said.
‘Look, I’ve been doing this shit for a long time—looking inside of people—into the deepest recesses of their minds. I’m telling you, there’s something alive in there. Something human. I never had the taste for it before, but now…’
‘So what? We’re just supposed to down tools and give ourselves to them? Or is it that you’re OK having your own moral dilemma while the rest of us cover your ass?’
‘We don’t have to be in a position where we have to risk our asses anymore, but you decided to bring us out here unnecessarily just so you could hang me out to dry. Well, you’ve proved your point, G.I. Jane. Congratulations! Besides, I thought you’d like it if I left all the killing for you. It’s what your best at after all.’
His words gave her pause, so he spared her the trouble of responding.
‘You seem shocked. Oh, come on, Miller. All the time we’ve spent together and you thought your past indiscretions would slip beneath my radar?’
‘If you knew me that well, you’d know not to try and blackmail me,’ Raine said.
‘No blackmail. I’m proposing we strike a deal. You keep quiet about my unwillingness to get my hands dirty, and I’ll keep your sordid history to myself,’ Ethan said.
‘Unlike yours, my secret isn’t likely to get someone killed.’
‘I beg to differ.’ Ethan bent down to retrieve the clipboard he’d discarded after Raine had unleashed the creature on him. He scratched at the edge of the dry blood stain with his thumbnail. ‘I think we’re done here. I saw it all. There were no survivors. A few officials ran from the complex, but they didn’t get far. There’s nothing left to search for. Let’s go break the bad news to McCaffrey so we can get out of this hell hole.’
He exited the room, leaving Raine on her own. The PA’s glasses crunched beneath her bootheel as she moved to the window. She gazed out to the south fence where the dead crowded around the second flare McCaffrey had fired. The intensity of its flame was on the wane. There wasn’t much time before the herd would lose interest and start to roam again.
Crawford sat hunched over in the helicopter’s cockpit, her feet up on the dashboard. She had always felt more comfortable at the helm of her chopper than anywhere else. No matter how crazy things got at the facility as they watched the world be consumed, continent by continent and country by country, the extra insurance of having the bird available to escape in managed to get her through.
Everything Dies [Season Two] Page 11