Revenence (Novella): Dead Red
Page 12
"No," he said. "Please, don't--please...."
Disregarding his objection, Daphne drew her knife across his spinal cord at the base of his skull. She sliced off his ear, then collected those of the other two sadists, adding them to her necklace. She stumbled once again toward the highway. She moaned in protest as she heard movement to her north, two hurried, human treads. Her shoulders heaved, her body convulsed in defeat, and all at once she was certain that she had no fight left in her. She had completed her goal, but she was beginning to doubt that she would make it out alive.
"Daphne!" called a familiar female voice. It belonged to Sonia, a young woman in Daphne's group. She was with Victor, the newcomer who had joined them in Bixby. The two jogged over to Daphne.
"Oh, Jesus, is that you?" Sonia uttered as she reached Daphne, alarmed by the young woman's feral expression and her nudity, save for the wreath of ears around her neck. She removed her leather trench coat, wrapping it around Daphne's chilled, naked body. She took out her radio, pressing the talk button.
"Shari," she blurted, "we found her south of the building, between the highway and the mine."
"I'll be right there,"responded Shari over the radio.
Daphne pointed urgently toward the driveway to the north as her eyes threatened to close.
"What?" Sonia asked, motioning toward the three dead sadists she had seen Daphne eliminate, then toward the building. "Those sadists by the building?"
Daphne nodded.
"They're gone," Victor assured her, looking her dead in the eye. "We took care of them. Just like we saw you do to those three guys just now. You took them all out in less than a minute--that's very impressive."
Daphne wasn't listening. She was taking in the glittering rays of morning sunlight from between her fluttering eyelids. She smiled lightly as her legs went out. Victor caught her before she could crumple to the forest floor, cradling her leather-clad body in his arms.
"We'll talk later," he said as he and Sonia started north toward Shari and at least a dozen others who were hurrying south to meet them, visible through the trees at only about twenty yards away.
"Holy shit, Daphne," Shari said breathlessly as she ran over, hugging her friend tightly while Victor continued to hold her weight in his arms.
"She seems very tired," Victor said.
"And maybe hopped up on something," Sonia added.
Shari frowned. "What? Daphne doesn't do that."
Dr. Liu appeared beside her. He peered down at Daphne's eyes, opening and closing as she ebbed out. He saw the enlarged pupils, suggesting hallucinogens, but as he felt her pulse and observed the state of her skin, he also suspected dehydration and severe exhaustion. He produced a bottle of water and a straw from his pack, inserting one end of the straw into the bottle and the other into Daphne's mouth.
"She's going to need sleep," he told Shari, "probably a whole lot of it."
As the group headed west through the woods, Daphne relaxed in Victor's arms, finally allowing her eyes to remain closed. Smiling broadly, she tilted her face back to bask in the golden glow of the morning sun, radiating from behind Victor. Inhaling fully, comforted by the clean, still air of dawn, she breathed out and conceded to sleep, letting oblivion overtake her troubled mind.