“If we don’t take the necessary measures, it won’t be long until what happened in here will be everywhere.”
“That’s what you’re here for then? To round up the rest of us inside and execute us? Just in case we have the infection too. To keep the spread from continuing?”
There was a beat of silence, just a second or two longer than Danielle would have wanted from someone on the verge of the truth, and the pause created a rumble of dread inside her belly.
“Of course not,” Davies replied. “Like I said, I would have killed you already if that was the goal. I’m going to take you out of here, but it’s important we find your friends too. And soon. As soon as possible. When are you expecting them? Tonight?”
Danielle hadn’t trusted Davies, of course, and she had assumed he was going to murder her at some point. But she was still alive, speaking freely, and that had left a lingering grain of hope inside her.
But Davies had paused conspicuously before answering her question about her execution, and that was all Danielle needed to hear. He was there to kill her. Maybe not with the bullet chambered in his rifle—perhaps it would be in some underground laboratory in Montana or Utah—but that she would never know liberty again if she surrendered to Davies was certain.
Danielle felt the sting of tears in her eyes as she thought of Tom and James and Dominic, and she now figured—whether Davies was lying or not—that there was a strong possibility they were dead.
And what of the world outside? Was it truly on the verge of cataclysm? Would Warren and Maripo County be forever known—to some rebuilt society thousands of years from now—as the epicentre of the destruction of civilization? It was an overwhelming thought, and one capable of opening up the path of nihilism and submission. What difference did this moment make if the rest of her life was destined for bleakness and death anyway?
And as that thought passed through her brain and into the heavens, she saw the flicker of light by the door, directly behind the armed soldier.
It was a shudder of moonlight, a passing shadow by the door, and Danielle’s first thought was of the Grim Reaper, that he had arrived just at her moment of pessimism, a timely arrival to pay off her thoughts in real time.
But there was no grand entrance from the smoky manifestation of Death, only the erratic bouncing of black and gray on the sidewalk that led to the entrance of the jewelry store. The shadows were low on the door, just below the Bigg’s name, and Danielle had to move just a fraction to her right to get a better view. But she kept her eyes on Davies as she shifted, not wanting to give away this potential advantage by casting her eyes toward the door.
“No,” Danielle said, finally answering Davies’ question about the return of her imaginary group of survivors. “They’re not coming back tonight. We have an outpost where we stay during these hunts.”
Danielle averted her eyes on the last sentence, signaling to Davies that it was an obvious lie. But the glance was purposeful, since it now allowed her to look toward the door where she could see the shape of two mutant ghost-crabs, twitching behind the glass like demons trying to fathom a way to re-enter hell.
“You’re lying. I can see that even in this light.”
Danielle knew the moment in front of her was the only one she would get; if she was going to make it out of the store alive and free, she was going to have to take a risk.
“And what if I am lying?” she answered, taking in a frantic gasp, and then following it with the sniffling back of manufactured tears. “What do you want from us anyway? We didn’t do anything to you! We’re just trying to survive!”
Her voice came in a steady crescendo, and by the last few words, she was screaming. And with every word, Danielle barked her way forward and was now within a few feet of Davies, who continued his gradual retreat to the front of the shop, his back now only a few feet from the front door.
“I told you I’m not here to hurt you,” Davies replied, still cool and measured. “But if you’re not able to calm down, I will. That is the last time I’m going to warn you.” He cocked his neck and shifted his firing shoulder, positioning the rifle properly once again, preparing to fire, if necessary.
“So why did you do it then, huh?” Danielle’s eyes were wide with indignation, madness. “What benefit did you get from the crab...snow monsters? There’s been a lot of military around here lately...” She chuckled and scanned the soldier from boots to helmet. “...so I guess it’s safe to assume you were...I don’t know...weaponizing them. Weaponizing us. Is that getting warmer? You wanted mutant soldiers, right? And you figured Warren and Maripo were as good a place as any to pool from.”
Danielle took another step toward the soldier, and from this vantage point she could see the ghosts at the door more clearly, though they were still only gray outlines in the darkness. They watched silently over Davies’ left shoulder, staring like mute ghouls in the throes of some catatonic rapture, barely moving as their eyes remained fixed on the scene beyond the door, their heads angling just a tic every second or two, cocking back and forth like an obedient lab awaiting its next command.
“We weren’t responsible for the damage—we never are—we’re just here to make sure it doesn’t get worse.”
“I saw you!”
“Saw who?”
“Not you, specifically, but others. Soldiers. I’ve been seeing them since the day we first left the diner. We were almost killed by your army that first day. You are responsible! You’re as responsible as anyone!”
At that moment, Danielle took the leap of faith that would decide whether she lived or died in Bigg’s Jewelry store, and she lunged her chest and chin toward Davies on the word ‘anyone,’ as if to put a physical emphasis on the remark.
She prepared herself for the pain of the bullet, praying that if it did come, it would enter through her skull and kill her instantaneously.
But Davies only retreated further, two more small steps, just far enough that his back touched the glass and nudged the door open a crack, exposing Bigg’s Jewelry to the awaiting ghosts, still unseen by him.
Two sets of hands were upon him instantly, reaching through the gap in the door as if it were their genetic destiny, the way a Venus flytrap snaps down without thought on a beetle that’s absently trekked onto its deadly leaves.
The ghosts had a grasp of Davies’ cargo trousers around his left ankle and knee, and Danielle could hear the tearing of the fabric mixing with Davies’ screams.
But Davies reacted quickly to the assault, and though he couldn’t position the gun to shoot the creatures, he was able to get enough leverage to slam the butt of the rifle down on the ghosts’ arms and bat them back outside while simultaneously trying to get the door closed fully, essentially locking them out.
Danielle didn’t wait for the struggle to end before she scrambled toward the back room of the store, where she began searching for the rear exit that certainly must have existed. And exist it did, but it wasn’t the traditional kind of emergency exit, the type that locked on the outside but was always accessible from inside to out. The door she found had an exit sign above it, but it wasn’t built for emergencies. It was merely a back entrance to the store and had been key locked from the inside. Not up to code today, probably, but the building had been constructed long before such exits were mandated and had perhaps been grandfathered in.
“Shit!”
Danielle suddenly thought of the shotgun in the front of the store and raced back toward it, but just as she was about to exit through the employee entrance and into the front room, she heard a groan of agony followed by the words, “No. Oh god, no.”
She stopped a few feet from the passage and listened, and within seconds, the soft-spoken words of denial turned to howls of pain and distress.
Danielle’s first thought was that the beasts had found their way inside and were now tearing the soldier apart, which also meant that without an escape route in the rear, Danielle was trapped. Her only hope was to reach the shotgun before
they spotted her, and then take the ghosts out before they disappeared somewhere behind the closely arranged display cases.
She took a breath and walked back to the employee entranceway that led to the front of Biggs, and there she stopped again, pausing in the shadows, peeking out through the entrance, trying to gauge the difficulty.
But there were no ghosts, only the outline of Davies, alive and seemingly unharmed, though his helmet was off, displaying a silhouetted muss of hair. Danielle could see the crabs outside at the door, behaving as they were only minutes earlier.
He’d done it. He’d kept them at bay.
Danielle continued to study Davies from the shadows, waiting for him to regain his composure and begin his exploration of the rest of the store, presumably beginning with the back where she stood currently. It wasn’t a great scenario, but it was better than where she had been five minutes ago, and certainly better than one involving the white killers hopping around the store.
And she’d be ready for Davies this time. The second he walked past the threshold of the employee section of the store, she would hit him with a knee-shot to his groin.
But Davies wasn’t moving. He was just standing in place, his neck dipped low as if examining something on the floor below him, shaking his head ruefully.
“No!” he finally bellowed, sounding exactly as he had only moments earlier. “Goddamit, no!”
Danielle dared not move, keeping open the possibility that this was some type of performance, a trick.
Finally, Davies rubbed his hands across his face and stood tall, and then projected his voice up to the ceiling. “I don’t know if you’re still in here,” he called, “but if you are, I...I need you to come out.” He lowered his head and spoke in a more conversational manner. “I need you to do something for me. I’ve been cut by them. It’s broken the skin and I’m bleeding. There’s nothing to be done about it now. I’m going to...I just need you to come out. Please. You need to end this for me before...”
Danielle listened in terror, bewilderment, immediately calculating all of the times she had encountered the creatures and whether she had ever made physical contact with them. She couldn’t recall, but even if one had brushed against her at some point—like during that day following the landing at Maripo—it had been so cold most days and she was constantly bundled in layers, it certainly hadn’t cut her.
Which meant Davies could be telling the truth.
“It’s the chemicals they used,” Davies continued, his voice now defeated, though containing a mild hint of persuasion. “I don’t know exactly. But it comes through their skin like oil. If it gets into the bloodstream, it spreads. Quickly. That’s what I was talking about earlier. That’s how it’s spreading.”
Danielle waited, not ready to fully believe.
“So I need you to shoot me. This gun is too long or I would do it myself. And besides, this is mostly your fault, so it has to be you.”
Davies lifted the gun and walked to the display case at the back of the store. He laid the weapon on the glass surface before turning with his hands held high and walking back to the front. He paused for a moment at the sight of the crabs outside the door, and Danielle could almost feel his frustration, his fury at not securing his prisoner. He turned back toward where Danielle stood. “Are you still here?”
Danielle still believed a trap was possible, but she decided to take the chance, and without fully weighing the consequences, she stepped from the darkness of the employee section of Bigg’s and immediately grabbed the gun. She pointed it at Davies. “Don’t move again.”
Davies snickered. “I will if it means you’ll shoot me. Didn’t you hear me?”
Danielle shook her head in denial. “I don’t believe you.” And then, “Where did they cut you? I don’t see anything.”
Davies lifted his left leg and rested it on one of the counter stools next to a display case. They tore my pants and had their hands all over me. They don’t have nails, but their hands are strong. They ripped out a good chunk of my lower leg.”
Danielle clicked on the light atop the rifle and pointed it below the soldier’s knee. His shin and calf were streaked with blood.
Danielle raised the rifle and found Davies’ face with the light. His eyes were wide, sad.
And his cheeks were turning white.
“I’m dead. There’s nothing to be done about it. I’ve seen the change. I’ve seen it more times than I care to count.”
“Who have you seen? When?”
“Like you said earlier, I am responsible for this. Just know that I’m telling you the truth. I wasn’t earlier, when I said I was here to rescue you. I would have killed you once I found the others.”
“There are no others.”
Davies gave a weak smile and nodded, acknowledging Danielle’s well-played charade, and then his face turned grim. “Please, do it now. Before the pain starts.”
Danielle took a deep breath and then shook her head. “It might not happen to you as quickly as you’ve seen in others. Maybe we can get a doctor or—”
“Do you think I would have given you my weapon if I thought there was a cha—” Davies slammed the heel of his right hand to his forehead and began pressing, as if trying to drive his hand into his brain. He then gave a staccato Ahhh!, the scream one gives to ward of an approaching evil.
“What’s...happening?” Danielle knew this was no act now; Davies’ fear and pain were real. “What do...what do I do?”
Davies rose tall now and stared at Danielle, and she followed his movements with the light on the rifle. He pulled his hand away and flashed his eyes at her. His pupils were massively dilated, filling their sockets with pools of black, and his face had turned (a whiter shade of) pale, as if the first layer of Dracula makeup had been applied for a Halloween party he’d be attending later that night.
Tufts of hair had begun to fall to the floor around him, and his face was flaked black from the hair of his eyebrows that had begun to scatter.
“Oh, my Jesus.”
“Do it!”
Davies’ voice was barely a whisper, and as he spoke, his body began to shiver as if overcome with chill. And then the contortions began, wild, flailing gestures, as if his body were collapsing in on itself. His shoulders snapped dramatically inward, toward his chest, and his back arched like a startled cat’s.
“Do it!” He hissed again, and Danielle knew these would be the last words he ever spoke.
Davies’ neck twisted upwards now, so that his face was pointing to the ceiling. He screamed again, but this time there were no words, only a gaping white mouth of silent, gnashing teeth. The last of his hair fell to the floor of Bigg’s in a clump.
He began to tear at his clothes now like they were on fire, and Danielle couldn’t help but think of a werewolf in an old fifties horror movie, painfully transforming, clawing his shirt apart at the sight of the full moon. Within seconds, the top half of Davies’ uniform was in a shredded heap on the floor, his hairless white chest now resembling those of the ghosts outside and not the former man whom she’d been speaking with less than two minutes earlier.
Danielle put the sight of the rifle to her eye now and held the man’s face in the crosshairs. She rested her finger on the trigger, and as she was about to squeeze, she saw Davies—or what little of the man who still remained—thrust his head forward and smash it on the glass top of the display case, shattering it into large, jagged chunks.
Danielle lowered the gun and took in the scene with her naked eyes. She was mesmerized by the changing soldier before her, an image that was at once both grotesque and fascinating. Grains of glass which had lodged in the slices on Davies’ forehead glistened in the ambient light as the blood from the wounds flowed absently over his eyelids and across the bridge of his nose.
Then, as if to display one final act of humanity, Davies—a soldier only minutes ago but now as crablike as any she’d ever seen—grabbed a large shard of glass from inside the display case and lifted it to hi
s neck. He closed his white eyelids, turning his face to a blank white canvas, and then carved a valley of red across his throat.
Danielle watched in silence as Davies’ ghost body crumpled below the case of exposed diamond necklaces. He coughed and hacked so quietly it was as if he were a mime imitating the actions, but it was as real and violent as any scene Danielle had ever witnessed, the blood from the thing’s jugular spewing out in a fountain.
She considered for a moment firing a bullet into its brain for good measure, to ensure Davies’ death was complete before he could suffer any longer. But there was danger still on the perimeter, and there was no sense alerting any other hunters who may have been outside. After all, McCormick wasn’t dead, and he could very well have been conscious by now and searching for her.
The Flagon.
If she could return to the bar before McCormick awakened, before he could alert his command of his and Davies’ troubles in the cordon, she might have a chance at salvaging her home.
She checked the status of Davies one last time and then flung the rifle across her back. She walked over to where the shotgun lay and picked it up, chambering a round before stepping forward to the protective glass of the front door. The crabs were still there, hovering like hyenas outside the boundary of a lion pride’s kill.
I guess I’ll have to make some noise, after all, she thought. And if anyone else is out there, I suppose we’re gonna have ourselves a firefight tonight.
Danielle took several steps back from the door and then pointed the shotgun low at the glass and fired twice, turning her head on the first shot as buckshot and glass exploded everywhere, including into the bodies of the ghosts outside.
She turned back to the door and saw that the ghost on the right was clearly dead; Danielle could tell by the twist of his body and the giant hole that had been created in the middle of his chest. The second ghost, the one to the left, had also been badly damaged, but he was still moving, trying to turn his body away from the store and pull his tattered torso out to the street. But he wouldn’t get far. The blast had destroyed its legs from the knees down, and it had barely moved a few inches, its fingers gripping pathetically at the pavement.
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