by Amy Cross
“He must be breathing in there,” she continues, scrunching her scarf up and then laying it over the vent, “and conducting the usual bodily functions.” She takes several rocks and places them on top of the scarf, holding it in place until the entire vent is covered. “I don't know what kind of set-up he's got, but whatever it is, I doubt it'll work very well if it can't vent heat or steam or whatever else he needs to get rid of.”
“So you want to trap him and kill him?”
“Oh, it won't come to that,” she says, turning to me with a smile. “He'll have to open the door and come out to fix it eventually, though, won't he?”
***
By the time I get back to the camp, people are already starting to stir in their makeshift tents. I duck down and creep through the shadows, until I'm far enough past the boundary to stand up straight and start mixing with the others. No-one's really saying much as they haul themselves up and start heading off to work, so I'm able to move more-or-less unnoticed until I get to my tent and crawl inside.
The first thing I see is the radio I was using last night, and suddenly I remember that Elizabeth girl. She sounded so scared, so alone...
“Well?” Melissa says, bursting into the tent.
“Jesus!” I shout, pulling back.
“What did she want?” she continues, keeping her voice low. “You were gone all night! Don't worry, I know you said to tell Mark you'd be back soon, but I didn't say anything to anyone. What happened, though? Did you...” She pauses for a moment, as if there's a hint of fear in her eyes. “Did you do it? Did you kill Quinn?”
I shake my head.
“Why not?”
“It's complicated. She didn't kill Kaylee, though. I'm sure of it.”
“So what did you do out there all night?”
“I just want to get to work, okay?” I tell her. “I don't want Mark to know that I was up.”
“Take me with you,” she replies. “If you leave, I mean. You have a truck, don't you? If you're planning to split, I want to come. I have a daughter, but we'd help, I swear. I can work and -” She starts coughing suddenly, and it takes a few seconds before she manages to catch her breath again.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She nods, but it's clear that something's wrong.
“I just slept badly last night,” she tells me. “I didn't really sleep at all, actually. My shirt was wet and I didn't want to risk taking it off, so -”
She stops suddenly as we both hear footsteps passing next to the tent.
After a moment, she turns back to me. “At least think about it,” she continues. “We won't be a drain, I swear. We'll contribute, and I know the area. Well, sort of. I remember a few of the maps I saw and...” She pauses, clearly a little desperate. “Just promise me you'll think about it.”
“I'll think about it,” I tell her, “but I don't really know whether -”
“Thomas!” a voice suddenly calls out.
“It's Mark!” Melissa hisses. “I don't want him to see that I'm here!”
“Stay inside, then,” I mutter, grabbing some tools before crawling out of the tent to find that Mark is making his way over. “I'm sorry,” I tell him, “I was just getting up, I swear.”
“That's okay, buddy,” he replies, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Did you sleep okay?”
I nod.
“That's good to hear, because I need your help with something very important.” He steers me away from the tent and over toward the main working area. “I'm starting to trust you, Thomas,” he continues, “and with trust comes greater responsibility. A lot of the people here... Well, it's a ragtag bunch of folk from all walks of life, and the thing about life is that different people operate on different levels. You've got your workers, you've got your thinkers, and you've got your drones. Which of those categories do you think men like us fit into?”
“I don't know,” I reply cautiously.
“Yeah, I think you do.”
“Which category do you think we fit into?” I ask.
“Well we sure as hell aren't drones,” he replies with a smile. “Mindlessly following orders, thinking only about the next meal on our plate... It'd be tempting to be like that, to descend from civilized society to savagery, but there are already enough drones at this camp. We have something of the workers about us, but at the end of the day that's still not what we are. We're thinkers, Thomas, and if you ask me, that's the best thing to be. Thinkers are the ones who really change the world.”
He stops outside one of the tents, where a group of people are already gathered.
“Bring her out,” he says finally.
Two of the other men grab hold of a pair of legs that are sticking out of the tent, and a moment later they heave a woman's body out into the morning sun.
“Her name was Jacqueline,” Mark explains, his tone of voice suddenly changing: he sounds more somber now, as if he's sad, but at the same time there's something very fake about the way he's talking. “She was a good worker, an excellent disemboweler of fish, but she was also quite ill by the time she came to join our little community. Unfortunately, she died some time in the night. As far as I can tell, it was a heart attack.”
I stare down at the dead woman's face. Her eyes already look to have sunk a little into her skull, and she seems pale.
“See this?” Mark continues, crouching down and tapping a piece of wood that's tucked under her chin. “Do you know what it's for, Thomas?”
I shake my head.
“It's so that when her body stiffens after death, her mouth isn't left hanging open. The first thing we must do with a body is put a piece of wood under their chin. Do you know why it's so important that their mouth isn't left hanging open when they're dead?”
I shake my head again.
“Dignity,” he continues. “We must maintain our sense of dignity at all times.”
“Okay,” I reply, still not really sure why he's explaining all of this to me.
“And then we must dispose of the body in a respectful manner,” he adds, “and that's where you come in. Dignity isn't easy. Bodies are heavy and awkward, and while human civilization became somewhat adept at covering the realities of death, now we have to face these things head on.” He gets to his feet. “Thomas, today I want you to help me move Jacqueline's body. It'll be just the two of us, and it's quite possibly the most honest and worthwhile job any man can perform.”
“I thought you wanted me to -”
“Come on,” he says, patting me on the shoulder. “We'll get started immediately. Just you and me, carrying Jacqueline beyond the trees on the point.” He turns and indicates the line of pine trees a little to the east of the campsite. “That's where we take all our dead, Thomas. You'll understand why when we get there.”
Elizabeth
“Toad,” I whisper, as the dream starts to clear, “Rachel, where -”
Gasping, I sit up suddenly and feel a crunching pain in my shoulder. Crying out, I grab the metal railing that runs along the side of the bed and I hold myself steady for a moment, but the pain is slowly passing. When I turn and look at my left shoulder, I see that thick bandages have been secured in place, with a hint of blood already starting to seep through.
And that's when I remember the soldiers.
They burst into the farmhouse during the storm and shot me. For a moment, I can hear the echo of their shouts in my mind, and the sound of their guns firing.
I blink a couple of times, and the memory dissipates.
With light now creeping into the room through the blinds, I look around and realize that I'm in some kind of hospital. The beeping machine is still making its rhythmic noise next to me, attached to my chest with a series of wires and seemingly monitoring my heart-rate. I look over at the door, expecting to find that I'm being watched, but the whole place seems strangely silent and I can't even hear any sounds in the distance.
I open my mouth to call out, but at the last moment I decide to stay silent.
; Sitting up properly, I pull my hospital gown open and look down at the various wires that are connected to my chest via adhesive pads. Feeling a twinge of pain in my right ankle, I reach down and find to my surprise that the bandages wrapped around my foot are bulky. One end of the main bandage is trailing loose, so I pull it aside and discover that some kind of gel-filled pouch seems to have been attached to my leg. Peering closer, I'm shocked to see the faintest hint of a few toes poking out from inside. I lost my right foot several days ago, so I can only assume that the people at this hospital have begun to transplant something new to the stump.
Looking over at the door again, I realize that there's no point staying silent. If these people wanted me dead, they wouldn't have brought me here.
“Hello?” I call out.
Silence.
“Hey! Can anyone hear me?”
I wait, but the silence if deafening. After checking that none of the wires on my chest are attached to the wall, I take a moment to steady myself before slowly and painfully swinging my legs over the side of my bed. Taking care not to put any pressure on my right leg, I ease myself up and take a moment to rearrange the various wires connecting me to the machine, before giving the cart next to my bed a tug and finding that it's on wheels. I take another moment to make sure I'm steady, and then I start to make my way to the door, pulling the machine on the cart behind me.
Leaning out into the corridor, I find that there's still no sign of anyone.
“Hello?” I call out.
I wait again, but as every silent moment passes, I start to become more and more worried.
“Is anyone here?” I shout. “I just woke up!”
I limp out into the corridor, but with the heavy machine still attached to me plus the need to look after my right foot, I can only move at a snail's pace.
“Toad?” I shout, even though I know the chances of him being nearby are low. “Anyone?”
I look one way along the corridor and then the other, before spotting a desk nearby. Making my way over, I find that there are various items of paperwork laid out, as if someone was in the middle of some work and then suddenly stopped. I turn a piece of paper around and see my name written in pen, along with a list of times and various medical observations. Most of the data makes no sense to me, so after checking the other papers and finding nothing else that I can really understand, I leave the desk and start making my way along the corridor.
“Hello?” I call out. “I heard you earlier, I know you're here!”
Reaching a set of double doors, I push them open but find that they only lead to another corridor. Up ahead, however, there's a window with bright sunshine streaming through, so I limp slowly onward, trying to ignore the increasingly-annoying squeaky wheel of the cart I'm having to drag along. The journey to the window, which would take a normal person just a few seconds, takes me several minutes, but finally I'm able to lean against the ledge and peer out.
This isn't a hospital.
It's some kind of military facility.
"It's a military base," I remember Toad telling me recently, when we saw the place from a distance. "They used to fly training programs, mainly, although there were always a few crackpot conspiracy theorists who insisted there was other stuff going on there. You know the kind of thing. Strange flights at night, loud booms...”
“Where are you?” I whisper, feeling a rising sense of panic at the thought that Toad might have been caught up in the storm. Outside the window there's some kind of yard, with a hangar nearby and several jeeps that seem to have been abandoned in the sun. Further off, in the distance, I can see the forest, which I guess is where Toad and I were the other day.
And where he might still be now.
"We should go and see if anything's happening there," I remember telling him when we were watching the military base from afar.
"There'll be no-one there,” he replied. “Anyway, even if there is, they're the last people we want to get involved with. I wouldn't trust them, not even for a second."
“It's better than nothing,” I mutter, looking along the next corridor and seeing no sign of anyone. “Just about, anyway.”
Picking a direction at random, I start dragging the cart along another corridor. I figure someone has to show up eventually; after all, I remember people standing by my bed the last time I woke up, and someone has clearly been working on me. At the same time, I guess they're not exactly operating with a full complement of staff, so I shouldn't be too surprised that they're not swarming all around me.
Stopping to catch my breath, I realize that I'm starting to feel weak again. Still, I have to keep going. After two months of thinking that almost no-one else was left in the world, I desperately want to speak to someone who can tell me what's really happening.
Suddenly I hear a scream. It's a woman, and she sounds as if she's not too far away. Turning to look back along the corridor, I hear the scream again, but this time something seems to start muffling her and she falls silent, although I can hear a faint bumping sound. I stay completely still, my heart pounding as I try to work out what to do next, but seconds later I hear the scream again, and this time the terrified woman is able to shout a few words:
“Help me! Help -”
Again, however, something cuts her off, and I hear more banging.
Instinctively, I take a step back.
Seconds later, I hear people running in the distance, followed by the sound of several doors being slammed. A moment after that, I realize I can hear the woman again, but this time she's not screaming: she's sobbing and moaning, as if she's in terrible pain. I can hear other voices now, too, shouting in the distance.
“Hey!” another voice shouts suddenly, from one of the other corridors. “She's gone!”
More footsteps, and someone running.
“The Marter girl's gone,” a female voice says. “Tell them to seal the doors. Jesus Christ, wasn't anyone watching her? We have to find her before he arrives.”
Panicking, I take a few steps back before reaching out and opening the nearest door. Finding what appears to be an abandoned room, I pull the cart inside and then shut the door. Moments later, I hear footsteps racing past, and shouts in the distance and then, finally, I look up at the ceiling as I hear a helicopter approaching overhead.
Thomas
“Careful,” Mark says, struggling to keep hold of his end of the stretcher. “Don't drop her.”
“I won't,” I mutter, even though I'm struggling. I've got the back of the stretcher, and although Jacqueline's body has been covered by a sheet, her bare feet are poking out just a few inches from my hands, and whenever the stretcher wobbles too much I feel her cold flesh bumping against me.
Glancing over my shoulder, I see that most of the people from the camp are still watching us, even though we're almost out of sight now that we've reached the trees on the eastern point of the cove.
“Don't worry,” Mark continues, “once we get around to the other side of the point, the terrain becomes much easier.”
“They're watching us,” I reply.
“Of course they are. They're human beings, it's natural for them to be curious. They're probably jealous. After all, very few people are given the opportunity to come around past the east point.”
“Why not?”
“It's just better that way.”
“But -”
“Did you sleep well last night?”
I don't answer immediately, although I'm worried that he might know that I was away from the camp.
“Sure,” I mutter finally. “Did you?”
“I never sleep well,” he replies. “I feel the responsibility of my new position weighing down constantly, Thomas. I never tried to become the leader of these people, but somehow that's what happened. I even did my best to avoid it at first, but eventually I had to accept that whatever the reason, they seemed to gravitate naturally toward me. I tried setting up a small group of people, as a kind of ruling body or council, but they still just def
erred to me. Now that I've accepted my position, I find myself worrying every day. Can you understand that?”
“I guess.”
“What if everyone starves?” he continues. “Would that be my fault?”
“I don't think anyone would think that,” I tell him.
“So that's why I don't sleep much,” he adds. “I tend to just sit in my tent and think, and listen to the sounds of the camp all around. Sometimes I even go for a little walk, just down to the shore of the lake or something... To clear my head, you know? The silence can be very therapeutic, although occasionally I hear noises in the distance.”
“What type of noises?” I ask cautiously.
“Animals, mostly,” he replies, “although the human mind is capable of twisting these things. You hear a hyena, for example, and you start wondering if it's actually a person, calling out for help.” He continues for a few more paces. “Last night, for example, I thought I heard something in the distance. Like a kind of banging sound. Did you hear anything like that?”
“No,” I reply quickly, although I'm immediately worried that my response might have been a little too quick.
“Sleeping like a baby, were you?”
“I guess.”
“And you haven't seen any further sign of that Quinn woman, have you?”
“No,” I reply. “She's... She's probably long gone by now.”
“I don't like executions,” he continues, “but if she ever returns... We have to establish a sense of law here, Thomas. Human life is sacred and -”
He stops suddenly, and I stop behind him, with the stretcher still between us. After a moment, still holding his end, he turns to me.
“I need you to promise something,” he says calmly.
“What?”
“I need you to promise,” he continues, “that everything you see today will stay just between the two of us. I feel I can trust you, Thomas, but...” He pauses for a moment. “There's a very good reason why I spread rumors about the area of land beyond the eastern point. I can't risk letting most of the people from the campsite come this way. Only a very few people have ever joined me here, and only because I knew that they'd never tell another living soul what they see. If you don't think you can make that same promise, you should stop and go back to the camp.”