by Aline Riva
Then she left the room and closed the door behind her as David lay back on his bed, looking up at the blank ceiling as his thoughts shifted from Justin and the Arctic to worries for Rick once more.
It was almost evening according to her watch, Lois had lost count of how many times she has looked at it throughout the day – Rick had been eight hours on the operating table and then it had been another hour before she had been allowed to see him. Then she had taken Flossie with her and been escorted to the medical centre on the third floor, a maze of white corridors that led to a white room where Rick lay in bed, on oxygen with machinery around his bedside. His eyes were closed, his face was bruised from the fight and the cut to his cheek and been closed and covered with a dressing. His head was bandaged and with the bruising that marked his face, he barely looked like the man she loved any more.
“Stay there,” she had told Flossie, leaving her at the doorway as the mutant child clutched her icky stick and looked in with a confused expression.
Then as a doctor had entered the room, Lois had waited for him to check the machinery next to the bed, then as he left, she had asked how Rick was doing, and the Doctor had spoken to her and then told her to go with him to the room across the hall where she could view the results of the brain scans and get a better understanding of his treatment.
While Lois was gone, Flossie stepped into the room. She sniffed the air, not linking the smell of the disinfectant that seemed to cover the whole of this area of the building, then through that scent, she picked up another, a familiar scent that she knew as Rick...
She set her dark gaze on the man in the bed. She sniffed the air again, then stared, realising the man in the bed with the bruises and the bandages was Rick – he didn't look how she remembered him, but she was sure it was him...
Flossie walked over to his bedside, leant over him and gave another sniff. Then she paused, recognising the smell of blood and strangely, brains, too... She looked to her icky stick. It had been empty since she had arrived and Lois had said something about food, but nothing had arrived...yet.
Little words were becoming familiar to her now, words like Rick, Lois and food. The word No was another and the phrase Get back here now, which Lois often used when she scampered off. She was sure there was a word for what had happened to Rick and a word for how she felt about it, but Flossie couldn't find it. She leant over him again, sniffing through his bandages, picking up on the scent of brain tissue – living, warm brain tissue... She looked to the icky stick in her hand as she frowned, making a very difficult decision indeed...
As she entered the room Lois froze, her eyes wide with horror at the sight of Flossie next to Rick's bed, as Flossie sniffed again at the bandage that covered his head wound as she raised her icky stick, looking to the stick and then down at Rick, then back to the stick again.
“Flossie...”Lois said in a shaken voice, “Don't hurt him...don't you dare...”
The mutant child looked to her with a sad expression in her eyes, then turned her back, looked down at Rick and then thoughtfully to the stick she clutched tightly.
As Lois crept over to her, she was cold with fear at the thought of Rick lying there helpless with a hole in his head, and Flossie standing there, needing a brain for her icky stick... Her plan was to grab the stick before Flossie could do any harm...
Then as she stepped behind her, Flossie leant over Rick and very, very carefully, set her precious icky stick down on the pillow beside him, letting go of it slowly, drawing her hand back cautiously, parting with her most prized possession as she left it beside him on his pillow.
It was then Lois gave a gasp as she realised how wrong she had been – of course Flossie wasn't trying to hurt him, she would never do that – Flossie only ate the brains of the dead... The little girl had just made the only gesture she could, by leaving him her icky stick, the one thing she never, ever let go of, no matter what...
“Oh Flossie!” Lois said as tears cracked her voice and she placed her hands on the child's shoulders and turned her around, “You gave Rick your icky stick? You love that stick...”
Flossie looked back at Rick, and then she turned to Lois and started making a high pitched whine as sadness filled her eyes.
“I know, I know,” Lois said softly and she hugged her and Flossie struggled, gave a growl between whines then carried on making the sound, “I'm worried about him too,” she told her.
Flossie just stood there, letting Lois hug her as she whined, little sounds that could have been somewhere between a howl and a sob, as Lois shed tears of her own as she looked to Rick, who lay there oblivious to the gift Flossie had handed him, as she wondered if he would ever wake up again.
Chapter 12: Battle Plans
Four days passed by.
The group had been gathered in a small room together for a briefing from Captain Swan. Toby was sitting beside Jason, Vince was in the chair next to him and David and Tara had sat down on the end of the row. As the Captain prepared to explain the reason for this meeting, David was looking at the blank wall, his thoughts far off from this underwater base, back in the past. The forty-eight hours Rick had hovered between life and death before regaining consciousness had been a huge shock. Enough of a shock to make him reach a decision...
“Tara,” he said quietly as he glanced at her, “I need to find my ex wife. I need to know my family made it. I just want to see them.”
“I'll come with you.”
“No,” he replied, “I'm doing this alone.”
Hurt registered in her eyes.
“But why -”
Her question was cut off as the Captain started to speak.
“The reason I've brought you together today is because we've decided to act on the information given to us by, you, David – regarding Justin Frazer. It would seem he is the likeliest candidate, given the freezing temperatures, to be the seed command for the undead. Our plan is to get a team together and go to the Arctic and track him down. If he's still got a fraction of his own mind, we can persuade him to help us to defeat the enemy. He can use his command skills to pacify the undead, to make them easy to gather together and exterminate like pests. The research team has been working on a possible weapon to use against the corpses – a gas that is harmless to the living but can freeze the active part of the virus in corpses. Get enough of them together we can destroy them in mass numbers. Best place to try that for the first time would be the Arctic, to see if the experiment works. And while we're there, we can find out if we can use Justin to help us.”
“When are you leaving?” David asked.
“Not yet, it's going to take time to prepare for this,” the Captain replied, “Three, four months...”
“And you want to know if we're up for it?” David wondered.
“You most of all,” she replied, “You know Justin. He might listen to you.”
David nodded.
“I'm in,” he said quietly, as his heart weighed heavy and he knew for sure he needed to see his family before he left in case he didn't make it back out of the Arctic this time around...
“Me too,” added Jason.
“And me, I'll fight them again,” said Vince.
“I'm coming too,” Tara said, as David shot her a look of alarm.
“You don't have to do this!”
“I want to,” was all she said in reply.
The Captain looked to the group.
“I'm glad to have you all on board, in four weeks time we leave for an inland underground base where we can prepare for the mission. By then Rick should be strong enough to travel with us to the base– although he won't be strong enough or recovered sufficiently to join the mission. He can stay at the base with Lois and Flossie, they'll be quite safe. That's all, I'll tell you more as soon as I have more information.”
Then she left the room and the others got up too.
“I'm glad we're all going together,” Toby said, and as he smiled, he looked to Vince, “If I've never said it before, it's
because I've been too busy getting rest and eating decent meals for once. Welcome to the group.”
The two men shook hands.
“It's good to have you on board,” Jason added.
“Yes, good to have with us,” David muttered, his mind on other things as he got up from the table and left the room and Tara hurried after him.
As they walked away from the meeting room, David turned to Tara with anger in his eyes.
“Go on, say it – you don't want me to look for my family! I saw the look in your eyes, Tara!”
“I just don't want you going out there and exposing yourself to danger when you don't even know where they are! They could be anywhere!” she exclaimed loudly, her voice echoing about the corridor.
Determination burned in his eyes.
“I'm going to find them, and I'm doing it alone,” he told her firmly, then he walked off, heading for the lift to take him to the med centre, because he had much to tell Rick, who was making a slow but steady recovery since regaining consciousness two days before.
A short while later, after sitting at his bedside and repeating all the Captain had explained, David had told Rick about his plans.
“So I'm going back to the Arctic,” he said, “I'm going to find Justin, he could be the key to everything.”
Rick was resting heavily against pillows, his head was still bandaged after a second surgery to replace the bone removed after his collapse, his bruises were still visible but fading well and his metal hand was absent, the shock to his wrist from the punches he had dealt Mortiz had left him with fractures, it would be a while until he could wear the prosthetic again. He was very weak and slept a lot, but right now he was alert and had taken in everything David had told him.
“I wish I could come with you,” he said weakly, “But apparently I'm going to be laid up for a very long time. I'm just glad to be alive – I thought I was dying when I collapsed - I came close enough, but I'm on the mend now, and I've got Lois and Flossie to keep me company.”
At that moment Lois entered the room and Flossie joined her, icky stick in hand, with a piece of cadaver brain on the stick as she walked over to Rick's bedside. He smiled as his eyes lit up and suddenly it seemed as if a little more strength had flowed back to him.
“She's happy now I'm awake, aren't you, Flossie?” he said.
The mutant child looked to Lois then to David, then she looked to Rick as she smiled an eerie grin as her dark eyes glittered.
Rick laughed softly.
“I love it when she does that...she looks so creepy but so adorable!”
“I just bumped into Toby,” Lois said, “The Arctic? You're going back there? Good luck, that's all I can say.”
David smiled.
“I won't need luck,” he assured her, “We've got a strong team assembled. And now I'd better catch up with Tara... Make sure you get plenty of rest, Rick.”
“Don't worry about me,” he replied as he rested comfortably against the pillows, “I've got my little family here to make sure I take it easy!”
Fondness shone in his eyes as David smiled again at his close friend, then he left the room and headed back up the corridor to join the others.
As David walked on, the warmth left his gaze and all trace of softness faded from his expression as he thought of what lie ahead – this could be the last battle, and it would be a big one...the war was yet to be won, but it seemed an end was in sight...
David Harley:
There is a chance, a real chance, that an end is coming to the reign of the dead.
It's going to end where it started.
Before, I fled in terror from the Arctic, but this time it will be different.
I'm going back to fight the final battle.
The end really is in sight now - and it will finish where it started, in the frozen wastelands of Antarctica...
End.