by James Axler
He didn't speak, his eyes closed in pain. Mildred was about to interfere when she saw the look of cold anger on Krysty's face and kept silent.
"I mean it, Michael. You hear? Nod if you hear me." There was a slight movement of his head. "Good. Now, when you feel better, you can walk again. Until then, you get carried."
THEY CAME TO AN OPEN AREA, the corridor forking into a letter Y, a sign on the wall between the two options. An arrow pointed to the left, with the single word "Out." To the right was the word "In." "I think we'll go in," J.B. said.
"Hope YOU REMEMBER the way out of here, John," Mildred panted.
They had been past seven or eight multiple-choice branchings of the corridors, each sign becoming more specific and detailed 1C Comms, 2IC Ed, Comp Cont, RR, Tran Pool, Accts, Armory, which interested J.B. a lot.
But the most important one, which they all agreed to follow, was the sign directing them toward Medic.
The farther they went, the more often they had to stop for a rest.
Ryan seemed to have slipped into a sort of coma, occasionally stirring and muttering, but his voice was quiet, the words garbled.
J.B. had carried him for the past fifteen minutes, but even his wiry strength had become depleted.
Once again he laid him down, while Mildred and Dean, who were taking a turn with Michael, also took a break.
"We go into hell," the teenager said quietly, with the total confidence of the totally insane.
"Is the lad recovering his wits, Dr, Wyeth?" Doc asked.
"Not so's you'd notice. He's quietened, but I think that owes more to Krysty scaring the shit out of him than any medical improvement."
They had seen no sign of life.
The air-conditioning hummed deep within the walls, but every breath tasted flat and dull, as though it had been circulating for a hundred years.
They passed a couple of small sections off to the side, and Dean or Krysty slipped in to recce them. But they were all swept totally clean. The evacuation of the redoubt had obviously been carried out with great efficiency.
"Medics along here," Dean called, scouting a little way ahead of the others.
Mildred was sitting down, her back against the curve of the concrete wall, her eyes closed, hands folded together in her lap. "It's going to be just like everything else, isn't it?" she said very quietly.
"Likely," J.B. agreed. "But like Trader used to say, you go the last mile, the last bullet. The last breath. Might find something there that'll help Ryan." Then he added as an afterthought, "And mebbe Michael."
WHEN THEY EVENTUALLY pushed their way through the swinging, airtight double doors at the entrance to the medical section of the military complex, they found it just as abandoned and empty as the rest of the place.
"Oh, Gaia!" Krysty sighed, feeling despair wash up and over her.
Chapter Thirteen
There were nearly eighty beds set out through four wards, each bed bolted to the floor and each with a plastic-covered mattress that had stood the test of time amazingly well. Beside each bed was a small locker and a folding table.
Ryan was laid on one of the beds, with Michael put gently on another one a little farther down the room. J.B. crashed out on a third bed, looking utterly drained by the efforts of the past hour.
Dean sat beside his father, staring anxiously at him. "Looks triple sick, Mildred," he said.
"Can't argue with that, son. Sinking deeper into the fever with that wound. If I can't find some way of dropping his temperature or cleansing the sore, then..."
"Mebbe they left something in the pharmacy," Krysty said. "Let's go look."
Doc was the most chipper of them all, striding up and down like a grenadier, rapping the beat on the floor with his sword stick.
"This is a challenge, and no mistake. To be without our beloved leader, in such parlous straits. If only one could be assured a cheerful outcome."
There was a notice over a door, announcing that it was the pharmacy. Krysty was first there, pushing open the white-painted door, stopping dead.
"Nothing," she announced. "Cupboard's bare."
Mildred looked around the room. There was a pile of neatly folded cotton sheets in one corner, overlooked during the closing of the redoubt. A double sink stood against the far wall, with chromed taps.
"Do you think the water's still on?" she asked, walking over to turn the blue handle.
There was nothing at all for several seconds, then a faint gurgling sound, like an underground river flowing, many miles away.
"Hey," Krysty said. "Something's coming."
"If there's enough water, then there's hope. Drugs'd be best, but water and a sterilized knife, with his strong constitution then..." She spun as clear liquid gushed from the tap. Mildred cupped it in her hands and sniffed at it suspiciously, then touched her tongue to it. "Thank you, God," she whispered. "Fresh as could be."
DEAN WAS FIRST TO DRINK, hardly listening to Mildred's warning not to take too much too fast. The rest of them also drank their fill.
J.B. spotted a foam beaker under one of the beds, and he used that to offer water to Michael, who spit it back in his face.
"The brothers told us that outsiders would try to take us over, steal our spirits, rape our souls. Come in like thieves in the night, as they did in Waco, that terrible time. But we are ready. Armed with the breastplate of wisdom and the shining silver sword of righteousness. Get back to Hell, Azrael, and your brazen hordes."
J.R wiped the drops from his face and neck. "Then I guess you have to stay thirsty, Michael."
Krysty tore off a length from one of the sheets and soaked it in water, squeezing a few drops onto Ryan's dry, cracked lips. But he didn't seem aware of her.
"We should start with him, Krysty," Mildred said. "Longer we wait, the smaller his chances."
"Sure."
"This isn't going to be easy."
J.B. stood with them, looking down at his oldest friend. "Why?"
Mildred sighed. "I know he's spark out, but when I try and burn away the poison, it's going to be agony for a while. And there's no anesthetic."
"I can tie him to the bed."
Mildred considered that. "Danger is that he's so strong that he could tug real hard. Cut his wrists open to the bone. No, I think we have to try and hold him still."
"Who?" Dean asked. "All of us?"
"Yeah. All of you. I'll do the actual cauterization. Dean, you'll have to help me. Wipe away blood and stuff like that. Only leaves three of you to keep him still. If he jerks away or thrashes around, then I could easily end up cutting open the big artery in his neck."
"We have to try," Krysty said.
"Yeah."
IT DIDN'T TAKE LONG to get everything ready for the operation. Under Mildred's supervision they brought in all of the sheets, having soaked some of them in water, ready to try to bring his temperature down. Ryan's own narrow-bladed flensing knife was taken from the sheath in the small of his back and laid to one side. J.B. handed over nearly all of his store of precious self-lights to sterilize the steel and bring it to red heat.
"Ready as we'll be," Mildred announced.
Michael had wriggled over on his left side and was staring at their preparations with a fixed glare.
"The horror..." he whispered.
Krysty lay across Ryan's legs, pinning them down, while Doc and J.B. took an arm each, bracing themselves for the struggle to come.
Mildred took one of the pieces of torn sheet and dabbed very carefully at the hideous cicatrix on the side of the unconscious man's neck. Though her touch was as gentle as a butterfly's wing, Ryan stirred and moaned.
"Infection's gone deep," she said.
"Ready for the self-heats?" Dean asked. His face was as pale as par chment, and he was sweating profusely. Mildred wiped at his forehead.
"Relax," she soothed. "It'll be all right."
"Promise?"
"Sure."
The doctor hoped that the eleven-year-old couldn't detect h
er own anguished doubts. Ryan was critically ill, the poison from the mutie creature's attack eating into his body, attacking his immune system. A weaker man would already have been dead.
She held out the slim-bladed knife, while Dean readied the self-heats. He'd listened carefully to her orders to run the flame slowly up and down the steel, sterilizing it for its surgical use, then holding the matches steady beneath the weapon, until Mildred decided it was hot enough for the task in hand.
"Some blood from the wound, Mildred," Doc said.
"Thanks." She wiped at it again.
But this time the pain from the sensitive sore jerked Ryan back for a moment from the deep unconsciousness and he cried out, trying to kick and flail his arms. It was all that Doc, J.B. and Krysty could do to keep him still.
Mildred jumped back, nearly treading on Dean's foot. "Shit! This isn't-"
"I could sort of hold," the boy offered.
"No. Can't do this single-handed."
"Let me go and I'll help."
Everyone looked at Michael, tied and helpless.
"No," Mildred said.
"You won't hold him."
"We will."
The teenager shook his head. "You saw how he reacted, just at the touch of a soft, damp cloth. How'll he be with red-hot steel on the wound?"
There was a long, taut silence in the hospital ward, broken only by another moan from the wounded man. Mildred looked at the others, wanting some kind of guidance.
"John?"
"He's right, Mildred."
"Why am I tied up? I can't remember anything. Just that we were in that old store, and then we jumped..."
"We could use him," Mildred said.
"No," Dean insisted. "Dad will die if Michael does anything double stupe."
"I fear, young man, that your dear father might not survive if we reject Michael's offer of assistance."
"Untie me. We jumped again, didn't we? Kind of desert. Must*ve made me... Let me go, please."
Krysty felt a wave of certainty. "Cut him loose, J.B., quickly."
"Sure?"
"Positive."
J.B. let go of Ryan's left wrist and walked quickly to the bed where Michael was bound. He drew his own knife and cut through the thin cords around hands and ankles.
Michael sat up, wincing in pain as the blood flowed back again into his extremities. "Hurts like..." he said. "Give me one minute and I'm with you."
Mildred was still standing, waiting. "Doc, help Krysty with Ryan's legs. J.B., the left hand and Michael can hang on to the right hand. Ready?"
A little unsteady on his feet, the teenager joined them, smiling at Dean. "Ryan'll be fine now," he said.
"You go stupe and 1*11 blow your head off your shoulders," Dean replied.
"You do that."
"Self-lights, Dean."
There was a flare of yellow and the smell of sulfur in the deserted room. Mildred moved the flensing knife up and down through the heat, watching the steel change color.
"Good," she said. "Now more of the matches, and hold them still, as long as you can without burning your own fingers. All right?"
Dean nodded. "Right."
"Do it. Hang on to Ryan's arms and legs like his life depended on it. Because I think it does."
The steel darkened, turning black, through cadmium, then began to glow the dark red of a winter sunset. It became brighter as Dean struck another batch of the self-lights.
The steel turned golden, then almost like the fiery, white glow of silver in a furnace. Waves of heat came from it, and Mildred moved her fingers on the hilt.
"Now," she whispered.
Chapter Fourteen
It was the worst kind of endless nightmare.
For the rest of her life, Krysty Wroth would never ever forget that quarter of an hour in the long-abandoned heart of the redoubt in the wilds of New Hampshire. Every detail would come back to her unexpectedly, unbidden-the sight, the smell, the sounds, the shocking physical sensations as Mildred applied the red-hot steel blade to the ghastly septic wound at the side of Ryan's neck.
None of it would ever leave Krysty, nor any of the others there.
Ryan remembered virtually nothing of it, which was some sort of mercy. There was a limit to the amount of remembered pain that anyone could bear.
MILDRED BLINKED SWEAT from her eyes as she leaned forward, her knuckles white on the hilt of the sun-bladed knife.
First came the noise, like spots of water flicked into the heart of a fire. It was a whisper of sounds, followed by a shallow, bubbling as the steel bit into the core of the wound.
The smell came next, a foul, burning stench that was the poison being scorched out by the heat of the dagger. Tendrils of smoke drifted up from the charred flesh into Mildred's face.
Even with his deep coma, it only took a couple of heartbeats for Ryan to begin to react against the searing agony. But it seemed like an eternity, so long that it crossed Mildred's mind that the one-eyed man was actually dead.
Then the pain reached him and he exploded.
Ryan's eye snapped wide open and stared furiously at the ceiling, then found Mildred's eyes and focused on them. His lips peeled back from his teeth, and a roar of shock and horror erupted from his throat. His head flailed back and forth, despite all of Mildred's efforts to keep him steady. His arms and legs jerked into spasmodic action, forcing everyone to hang on for grim life.
Mildred withdrew the knife for a moment, turning to look at Dean. Tears coursed down the boy's cheeks, cutting white furrows through the dirt. "Hold his head still," she demanded, "with all your strength."
The boy put down the matches and the torn strips of sheet, moving quickly, without any argument, and locked his fingers tightly hi his father's long black curls. He leaned down to hold him as still as possible.
"Don't, Dad!" he cried. "Gotta save your life."
But it did nothing to calm the anguished man. The second time that the knife, cooler now, came into contact with the yellowed gash, Ryan screamed and kicked out. Doc and Krysty were nearly thrown off the bed, both J.B. and Michael using every ounce of their strength to keep bold of his arms.
"Matches!" Mildred yelled at the top of her voice, barely audible over Ryan's ceaseless inarticulate shouting.
She wiped the dulled knife on the sheet, holding it still for Dean to run the small flames beneath it. The foul smell was appalling.
"His head again, Dean."
She peered intently at the wound before touching it with the red-hot steel. The core of pus still throbbed, veined with crimson. But the heat of the flensing knife seemed to have cleaned up the area around the edges of the ragged core.
"Again," she whispered.
The smoke was blinding, the perfume of charred corruption sickening. But Mildred persevered, biting her lip so hard that she drew a tiny trickle of blood. She moved the knife, so that it probed deep into the gash, Her love for Ryan made her want to withdraw the blade and spare him further suffering, but her medical training insisted that she should go on, delving deeper and deeper, until every last molecule of the filthy sickness was totally exorcised by the hot steel.
"Pass out, you tough bastard, Ryan," she muttered, hardly able to believe the man's strength and resilience under the cauterizing knife.
It wasn't until Mildred applied the red-hot blade for a fourth time that Ryan's whole body quivered, his eye rolled back in its socket and he finally slipped away into the kindness of unconsciousness.
"He's dead," Dean gasped.
"No. Get a piece of rag and mop away all the blackened shit and blood from the wound. Wipe as hard and as deep as you can. Only way to save him."
The woman stared into the cleaned wound, seeing the free-flowing blood, scarcely able to credit her good fortune hi not harming any major artery. She tested the wound with her finger, finding it a good inch and a half deep at its core, and at least five inches long.
"How is it?" They were the first words that Krysty had spoken during the operati
on. She had been hanging on to Ryan, trying to keep him still, praying to Gaia for his recovery from the ordeal.
"Looks cleaner. I don't know whether..."
"To shrink from the last step could cost his life, Dr. Wyeth," Doc warned sternly.
"I just don't know if his heart can stand up to my doing it again."