by Jack Lewis
“I know a way we can get to them,” he said. “I can lead you to the Five.”
A cloud hid the sun away and made the air seem grey. The smell of blood and death hung in the air, and he felt his stomach cramp from lack of food. It didn’t matter.
For the first time, he had the sense that he was free. No more Capita, no more Tammuz. And now that he felt this way, he wanted to make sure the rest of Mainland could someday, too.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Ed
An infected reached toward him through the window frame, but Ed kicked it away, splitting its tooth under his boot heel. He lowered himself back into the room. He knew what he needed to do, but he couldn’t be stupid about it.
The Savage stood with his sharpened chair leg in his hand, beating it against his palm. A wood shaving split from the end and fell to the floor. Bethelyn walked over to a wall. The infected pounded against the window frame across from her, and Ed saw an infected man with a ponytail gnaw on the wood. Bethelyn stared at one of the drawings nailed on the wall. There was an oval shape roughly imitating a face, but there were crosses where the eyes should have been.
“What are you doing, Ed?” said The Savage.
Ed ignored the cries of the infected behind him.
“Pass me the map.”
The Savage pulled Cillian’s crumpled map from his pocket and gave it to him. He unravelled it and saw the illustration of Loch-Deep, complete with markings for where the hunter had seen Ripeech, as well as the symbols showing where he had placed his traps. He studied it for a few minutes before he found where they were. A few seconds later, he saw what he had been looking for.
“We have to go. Savage, I need you to go to the window opposite and make some noise. Draw the infected over there, and then we’ll leave by the window.”
The Savage nodded. He walked over to the window frame and started banging on it. A few infected left the other windows, but some stayed, their stares fixed on Ed and Bethelyn.
“Come on you disease-riddled gas bags,” hollered The Savage. “Fresh meat over here. Come get your gums on this.”
More infected moved around the building and over to the window covered by the antique mirror. With the window frame nearest him almost clear, Ed climbed out. Bethelyn followed, yelling in pain as a splinter stuck in her leg. Finally The Savage joined them.
Without the walls of the mediation room warding it away, the wind whipped at them. Ed felt a chill sneak through his sleeves and spread across his skin. He heard the infected on the other side of the building.
He tried to get his bearings. He pictured the map, and tried to work out which side of the building they were on. As he fixed their direction in his mind, he heard groaning coming from the right of him.
A different group of infected approached, their heavy feet snapping on twigs and stumbling over vines, cries sneaking out of their chewed lips. There was a little girl wearing a poncho. She had a large tear across her chest, and Ed saw a bite mark stretching across her skin. The other infected towered over her.
“Keep them away from me,” said Ed. “Make sure they stay busy.”
The Savage tested the weight of the table leg in his palm.
“Where are you going?”
“Just keep them around here. I’ll be back soon.”
He felt his trouser pocket and touched the outline of the penknife resting against his leg. He gave it a tap. He didn’t know if he’d done it for luck, or just to reassure himself that it was there.
Beyond them were pine trees, though the branches had shed their needles. A pathway twisted through them, and the gravel showed through the patches that the needles didn’t cover. From looking at the map, Ed knew where the path led.
He moved toward it. He knew he had to go quickly. He didn’t want to leave The Savage and Bethelyn alone with the infected, but he also knew that if he didn’t act now, his resolve was going to spill out of him and he wouldn’t dare go.
The infected closed in on The Savage and Bethelyn. Ed glanced back and saw The Savage stab his chair leg into the skull of the little girl. A man reached for Bethelyn, but she pushed him onto the floor. Bethelyn stood over his head. She stomped down on his skull again and again, letting his bones crack beneath the soles of her boots. Blood and brain splattered onto the muddy ground. Her face turned red, and she gnashed her teeth as she made a mess of the creature at her feet. She wore a smile on her face despite the violence of the act, as though destroying its skull had helped her work through some of her anger.
The pine needles scrunched under Ed’s feet, and wind snaked through the bare-limbed trees and made a hollow whistle. The further he went the darker the path seemed to get, until he felt it close all around him. The breeze sucked the noise out of the air until he couldn’t even hear The Savage and Bethelyn behind him. He looked back and realised that he had walked so far out that he was alone. Shadows surrounded him, and he wondered if eyes stared at him through the darkness.
He couldn’t turn back. As much as he wanted to, he knew that he had to do this. Finally the path wound through a break in the trees. Beyond them, where the gravel stopped, Ed saw the entrance of a cave. A sign post outside it read ‘Gaspar’s Ruins.’
Ed had seen it on the map. It was listed with a symbol above it, and when he looked up the symbol on the map legend it said that it was part of the retreat. He wondered what it was used for. Perhaps for some people the mediation centre, with its incense and mats, wasn’t quite peaceful enough and they sought solitude inside the rocky hollow.
He stood at the mouth of the cave. Somehow, back in the meditation room, he’d sensed Ripeech sloping away. When The Savage had refused its offer the creature had left, and Ed knew it would be here. Cillian’s markings showed that he had spotted Ripeech in this area a number of times, and a dark cave seemed perfect for it.
He looked into the darkness in front of him and though he couldn’t see anything, he sensed something was inside. A creature waiting in a cave so silent that its own heartbeat echoed off the stone.
He touched the penknife again. His heart was pounding, and for a second the darkness ahead of him looked deep enough to drown him. Taking a breath, he walked inside and felt the gloom fall over him like a drape.
Inside the cave, everything was still. The gloom was so thick that his eyes couldn’t puncture even an inch of it. Something dripped in an unseen corner pattered onto the floor. He walked a little further in. He’d only gone a few metres, but the cave exit already felt so far behind him that he’d never find it again.
Something waited in the dimness. A creature that brooded in silence, observing him with eyes that had long-since adjusted to the all-encompassing black. His hairs curled up on his arms, and a tremor of anxiety went through him as though his body was urging him to leave.
“I know you’re here,” he said.
His voice sounded alien as it bounced back at him from the stone walls. The water pattered, and a faint breeze chilled him. He put his hand in his pocket and grabbed the penknife. Silently as he could, he pushed the lever up, and the blade poked through.
He tried to ignore the fear building in him. He fought the urge to flee, and tried to forget the noise of his own croaky breaths and the pounding of his pulse in his ears. It was in here, he knew. Watching him. Sharing the shadows with him, breathing in the nothingness that only a pure darkness can give.
He tuned everything else out. He remembered the books his dad used to read after Mum died. As much as he’d scoffed at them, he’d read one once. He’d done it so that he could refute everything that his dad believed was good about them, and didn’t find it at all ironic that he read a book about inner peace so that he could win an argument. He knew what mindfulness was, but he’d never really believed it could work. Inner peace seemed like a phantom feeling, like the itch he’d heard amputees got on limbs they had long-since lost.
Clearing his mind of The Savage and Bethelyn, of the infected and their groans, he began to recognise something.
/> It was shape. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it in his mind. It moved along the walls to his right. He felt it walk behind him, metres away, and the hairs on his back stood up. The shape crossed over to his left, staying in the shadows and stalking him as silently as a tiger playing with prey.
He stayed completely still. As he felt the creature move closer to him on his left, he spun around and stuck the penknife into the darkness, thrusting his arm forward until he felt it puncture something solid.
Ripeech screeched. Its cries were so high-pitched that Ed thought his eardrums would burst. The cave was enclosed enough that the noise couldn’t escape into the sky and instead hit the walls and came back at him again and again, a squealing assault on his ears.
He pulled his knife out, and then thrust it back into the darkness. He kept stabbing, unable to stop himself like his arm was a wind-up toy on a loop. The blade punctured Ripeech’s skin over and over. Ed couldn’t see which part of the creature he had pierced, but as the monster cried out he knew he had to carry on.
Then there was silence. The dripping sound returned. He realised that he was panting, and he fought to keep his breath under control.
Something smashed into his face. He felt his bones pop, and his eyes watered with the pain. He tried not to cry out but as it hit him again in the stomach, he felt the wind suck out of him and he couldn’t help groaning.
It cracked the back of his skull this time. He fell to his knees, and the penknife slipped from his grasp. He scrambled in the darkness but could only feel the cold stone floor against his fingertips. The creature stalked around him.
He tried to clear his mind. His broken nose sent pain screaming through his head, and he gasped for air. He felt Ripeech close in behind him. He rolled over to his side just as he felt it pounce.
A dim circle of light marked the daylight outside the cave. He got up. His stomach cramped and he felt blood trickle out of his nose and over his lips until he could taste it on his tongue.
He fixed the exit in sight and ran toward It. Ripeech chased him, this time not caring to hide the sound of his hands and feet on the floor. Just as it caught up to him, Ed reached the mouth of the cave. He ran out and felt the pale daylight stream over him.
The pine trees were ahead. Beyond them and along the hidden gravel path was the communal mediation room. He couldn’t take that direction yet, as much as he would have given anything to see The Savage and Bethelyn.
He remembered the map. He recalled the forest lines and the Ripeech sightings, and he fixed the trap markings in his mind. As Ripeech reached the cave exit behind him, Ed took a right. He ignored the cries of his lungs as they called for air and he trampled through the forest, cracking twigs beneath his panicked footsteps.
He saw it ahead of him. A large oak tree, the biggest in the forest. He remembered the map and knew that this must have been the place Cillian had marked.
Ripeech almost caught up. Ed sensed the creature slowing down, and hoped that his penknife had done more damage than he realised. Despite that, the monster was still faster than him. As Ed reached the oak tree, Ripeech’s feet bounded just inches behind. He looked intently at the ground in front of him. Finally, he saw what Cillian had marked.
Nestled on the forest floor, inches away from where the tree roots submerged from the earth, he saw the glint of a bear trap. The steel was covered by mud and leaves, inconspicuous enough that only an alert mind could see it. Ed ran right for it, jumping over it at the last second.
He heard a scream of pain behind him. He knew that Ripeech had stopped chasing, but he didn’t turn around straight away. It was as though his body wouldn’t let him, or that something pushed him on and forced him not to stop.
Swallowing a glob of blood from his nose, he slowly spun around. Ripeech flailed on the ground, both arms stuck the mouth of the trap. Nothing could have prepared Ed for seeing the creature properly.
He was on all fours like an animal but it was clear that anatomically, he was human. His skin was mottled and grey, marked by the blisters and craters that the infection always brought. There was something human about his face, though his cheeks had bloated as much as his body, and his expression was mangled in anguish. He shrieked as he tried to pull his hands away from the bear trap that devoured them. The noise shuddered through Ed’s whole body, and he couldn’t believe that a human throat was capable of making it.
Seeing that he couldn’t free himself, Ripeech collapsed back onto the floor. Although rags clung to some of his dirt-covered body, his entire torso and legs were naked. His penis and pubic hair were covered in mud from the trees, and every crevice and wrinkle in his body was marked by stains of the forest.
Ripeech looked at him. His face straightened for a mere second, and in that short time, Ed saw a glimpse of the human in him.
“Let it out,” said Ripeech.
Ed shivered at its rasping tones. He stood silent, unsure of what to do.
“It wasn’t always like this.”
He stopped pulling his arms now, and gritted his misshapen teeth as his whole body twitched in pain. Something about it was so pathetic that Ed almost had to look away. He didn’t know what to say or do. Even the wind stopped blowing through the pine trees, as if it had decided to stay still and watch the creature struggling on the floor.
Ripeech gave a drawn out breath.
“Kill it, if you must. But don’t stare at it…it doesn’t like your eyes.”
“What are you?” he said.
Ripeech flopped back onto the forest floor and stared up at the sky. Ed saw the hint of a jawline along his face, but the bones seemed to be broken, lending a misshapen look to his head.
“It was a man, once. Not always like this. But it was bitten by one of the creatures, and it felt the infection take hold. It tried to stop it…”
Ripeech broke into a series of coughs, and blood leaked from his mouth and covered his bloated chin.
“It did not work. It never meant harm… much. But it needed company. The forest is lonely, except for the other creatures and it isn’t like them. It needs others like it. It needs men that are the same. It thought that the hunter could, for a while. But he died like the rest.”
Ed reached to the floor and picked up a rock. It felt hefty in his hands, and his body was so drained that it was a struggle to keep hold of it. He took a few steps toward Ripeech. Somewhere in the distance, he heard The Savage yell.
He moved cautiously, conscious of every jerk of Ripeech’s body. Soon, he stood above his head.
Ripeech looked up at him. He had the ears of a man. His nose was human, and his head still had patches where strands of hair clung to his scalp. His hands were thick with callouses from where he had walked across the forest on all fours. Despite the greying of his skin and bloating of his body, he was still a person. Ed looked into his eyes and he saw something staring back; something that still knew what it was to be a person, yet day by day was losing the battle to remain so.
He felt an overwhelming pity flow through him. Ripeech had been infected. Once he had been a man, but the creatures had tainted him, and he hadn’t been able to accept what would happen. Somehow he had found a way to fight through the infection with a shred of his brain intact, but what he had become was an abomination. Ed watched the creature squirm at his feet, and knew that it couldn’t be allowed to exist.
“Free it,” said Ripeech. “Let it go, and it will leave you.”
He thought about the mutilated deer they had seen on the way here. He remembered Cillian, his chest torn open, worrying about his dog Saxon and knowing that he would die. What if he let Ripeech go? Soon enough the monster would recover and it wouldn’t be long before someone else stumbled into Loch-Deep and Ripeech tried to make them like him.
He remembered what The Savage had told him. The world was a dark place, and he needed to toughen up. The Savage was right. He looked down at the mangled creature at his feet, and he knew there wasn’t beauty in the world anymore. There
was only darkness and shadow, blood and death.
He raised the rock in the air. His arms threatened to buckle under the pressure. They ached at him, and his muscles burned. He looked deep into the darkness of Ripeech’s eyes. As the creature let out a pain-filled cry, Ed threw the rock down onto its skull.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Ed
It wasn’t until they reached the outskirts of Loch-Deep that any of them even considered resting. The treeline was fifty metres ahead. Sunlight streamed through the gaps, promising sight of a land where dead deer didn’t bleed out onto the ground and the lonely wind didn’t swirl around them.
Although the forest was mostly silent, Ed heard a noise drift through the trees. He knew that it was in his head, but he couldn’t shake the sound of Ripeech’s wheezy voice. He heard the words that dripped with hate and pity as they left his bloated throat.