"What is that?" he whispered. Stellan didn't answer because Edward would figure it out soon enough, and knowing what it was wouldn't make it any easier to bear.
Even with the grand reverb of the empty hallways, they distinguished the sounds of scuffing shoes as the dead moved aimlessly around in the lobby before the lift. They moaned softly like lost children, and they grunted heartily like dogs begging for attention. With their heads cocked and lolling, constricting their airways, their breathing was raspy and dry.
Stellan guessed they didn't need to breathe. From what he'd seen, the dead ones' blood coagulated, and the loss of limbs didn't bother them in the slightest. It might slow them down, but losing blood concerned them as much as the drool that dripped onto their shirts. It didn't appear that their bodies had much use for any of their old support organs anymore.
Daelen had said, while the higher-order brain functions ceased, the brain stem remained active. He knew the brain stem controlled things like breathing and heartbeat. Maybe those parts of the body continued to function because some semblance of who they were remained. Maybe they simply were bored and liked to play with their windpipes to entertain themselves, some weird form of necro-masturbation, a living organism playing with a dead body like a toy.
In any case, it was relevant to him because he knew, even though they breathed, they wouldn't flinch if he shot them in the chest.
Stellan led Edward to where their hallway intersected with the main corridor that would bring them to the lift. He crept slowly toward the corner, crouching low, running his palms along the wall for balance. His fingertips curled around the edge, and he looked back at Edward with authority, a look that told Edward to stay put.
Stellan leaned out of cover and peered at the group of the dead crowding the lift lobby. His training rushing back to him, he took a mental picture so as to expose himself as shortly as possible. Then he returned to where he would be unseen.
"What'd you see?" Edward whispered.
"Nothing good," Stellan said. "We can't go this way."
"How many?"
Stellan reviewed the picture in his mind. "Twenty. Maybe more."
"We can take them," Edward said, holding his weapon as Stellan had shown him. Stellan smiled at Edward's enthusiasm.
"You forget about the 'maybe more' part," he said. "Others may be nearby, and they will come at the sounds of our gunfire."
Edward retreated into thought. "It's odd. I understand them grouping up. That makes sense. But why here?"
"Maybe they remember," Stellan said. "Maybe they're waiting on the lift. A lot of people use this lift to get around the ship. Maybe they're playing out a routine. Maybe something of what they used to be is still there."
They heard the Atlas' signature chirp, and Stellan peeked around the corner again. One of the dead was pressing the call button. Even as the lift doors opened, he pressed the button, his mind stalled on that one action as the bright light held his attention.
"So what are we going to do?" Edward asked.
"We can double back and hit a service ramp up a level and catch the lift there."
"What if there are more of them?"
"We'll figure something out."
They were preparing to move when they detected a faint ringing sound like a bumblebee with tiny bells attached to its wings. It was far off, but after a moment, Stellan identified it as metal dragging against metal. It bounced around in those corridors as if emanating from the very walls.
Pinpointing its origin was impossible, but Stellan guessed it was coming from the congregation of dead by the lift. If it wasn't, knowing how they would react to the sound was valuable information. As in any recon mission, he had to look for signs that his position had been compromised, and it wasn't always as obvious as the enemy opening fire. Even something drawing attention in his area could be disastrous, so he had to make sure the dead weren't moving toward them to investigate.
Stellan carefully peeked around the corner once again and saw them aimlessly wandering as they were. He watched each individually. None of them made the sound.
Then the dead picked up on it, too. One by one, they began to lazily crane their heads and search in every direction. The ringing continued to grow, and they all fixed their attention down the same corridor with their absent, puzzled faces, stupidly wondering about everything and having answers for nothing. He supposed the infection could kill everything else human in them, but for better or worse, the human propensity for curiosity would endure. After all, curiosity had them in this predicament to begin with.
A man emerged from one of the side corridors. Behind him, he dragged a pipe, blood soaking its end like motor oil and leaving a spotted trail on the deck. He gazed dreamily at the dead ahead of him and then stopped, eyeing them like familiar strangers.
The dead at the lift moved toward this man with their moans and puzzled faces. Almost in unison, their pace began as a slow stumble, and as they got closer, it became an awkward run, their faces growing hungrier as they neared.
"I told you to leave me alone!" the man with the pipe roared, striking one of the dead in the head, splashing gobs of red paste against the wall.
Behind him, several other men and women emerged. One of the women looked frantic. She was middle-aged, her silvering hair in tangles. She wore an apron covered in blood.
"Have you seen Justin?" she asked sweetly. "He's such a good boy. The Council man took him away to that war. He should be back any day now."
One of the men in this new group grabbed one of the dead by the collar of his partially disintegrated shirt, singed and charred by some fire that might have even continued to rage.
"It's my land! My home! I can fly whatever flag I choose!"
It took a moment for Stellan to understand the conflict. Knowing the madness' desire to feed and spread, he realized this new group was infected, too. Like Tom in the bar, before Stellan put a bullet through his chest and helped this epidemic start by showering the patrons in Tom's blood, this new group was far along. They'd fallen to madness but had not yet died. The dead sought to hurry the process along for them.
"Why are they fighting each other?" Edward asked.
"I think the ones with the weapons are still alive. They're just mad," Stellan said. "The other ones are trying to kill them. Because then the infection has full control."
"Can it be so smart?"
"It's fighting itself."
Before he was taken down, the man with the pipe swung and caught two more of the dead in their heads, probably putting them down for good. But he succumbed to the group, and when he screamed, it was not of a man who accepted his fate or even of a man who was unaware of it. It was of a lucid man who knew, in those final moments, he was going to die and fought against it with everything he had even as his entrails rose above the crowd like ropes.
In the end, for him, as well as all mankind, that will to live was one of the strongest enduring human traits that even an alien infection could not suppress.
Several of the dead tackled the woman looking for the boy named Justin. She didn't understand what was happening to her. She giggled as if they were playing with her. Indeed, in a matter of seconds, one of the dead toyed with one of her limbs, turning it up and sucking on the bloody end.
As the dead killed and accepted the new members into their ranks, Stellan saw an opportunity. Just before the scuffle, one of the dead must have absently pressed the call button for the central lift, and the control panel announced its arrival with a chirp.
It was reckless, but it would take a long time to double back and catch the lift on another level. And he couldn't be sure there wasn't another group of madmen or the dead congregated there or somewhere along the way.
"Come on," Stellan said to Edward. "Run!"
They both swung around the corner, and when Edward saw the dead dancing with entrails high above their heads, he slowed.
"Oh, Jesus!"
"Move!" Stellan grasped Edward's shirt, pulling him
so hard they both stumbled.
Stellan's heart beat faster when one of the dead saw them, freezing as it identified new prey. His legs pumped harder than he thought possible, and then two, three, four of the dead turned their heads, fixed their unblinking eyes, and began to rise. Stellan saw something in them after all. An eagerness, a happiness, as if they were children receiving presents.
Ahead of them, the doors to the lift started to close, and Stellan thought it would be the absolute worst way the scenario could have played out. The doors would close, and they would be in the open against twenty-plus dead. They would have no choice but to use their weapons, and it would probably draw more of the madmen and dead. He hoped they would live long enough to figure out that problem.
Edward struck out like lightning and dove for the door, hands splayed out, interrupting the doors just before they closed. With the doors opening, he froze and curled into a ball, fear convincing him the dead were right on top of him. Stellan picked him up and dragged him into the lift.
Stellan felt a brief moment of relief. They had made it, but the doors remained open.
Edward frantically slammed the door close button on the holopanel. Stellan aimed his rifle into the hall. He would not fire unless he had to.
He prioritized his targets. The first to fall would be the man in front of the pack wearing an engineering jumpsuit. His head weaved as he lunged forward, but at this distance, Stellan would hit his mark.
The second to fall would be a woman who was missing half of her face in a tear that mirrored the way her shirt had been torn down the center from the collar, exposing one of her breasts and several bite and scratch marks on her abdomen. She had been a course in a feast before the infection gained control of her dead body and grasped eagerly for them.
The third to fall would be a man in an officer's uniform. Stellan recognized him as one of the department heads from the command deck. He thought his name was Dennis. He forgot Dennis' last name, but he didn't have time to wish them dignity or merciful peace. They turned on him now as predators, and he could not afford to pity them.
The dead reached out. Stellan feared the man who led the pack would trigger the lift door’s obstruction sensor again, and if he did, the rest would pour in. Enclosed in a hanging box of steel, Stellan and Edward would have no choice but to open fire. If that first one tripped the sensor, they all would get in, flowing in like water through an open valve.
Stellan's finger began to pull. His instincts took control and knew where the threshold on the trigger was. If he pulled it any farther, his rifle's rail system would engage, charged by an efficient yet powerful amplifier that would accelerate a high-density, tungsten carbide projectile at a supersonic speed with a thunderclap.
His gut screamed for him to pull the rest of the way, that if he shot the first one, there would be a better chance the others would not reach the lift before the door closed. His mind agreed.
So he dropped the first one. In the lift, his rifle's bark was deafening, concussive. His eyes watered. It put Edward on his knees with his hands over his ears.
They were too close. He had to drop the second one. The bullet entered her forehead clean, exploding out the back and spraying the dead behind her with globs of red and chunks of gray. She fell peacefully, and the others stepped over her indifferently.
Stellan couldn't take anymore. The sound was too much. If he fired again, he and Edward both would be deaf. Surely, that would be better than dead, but he felt good about the chances that the doors would close before his third target reached them.
Through his tear-filled eyes, Stellan had trouble gauging depth, and as the group reached for them, he wasn't sure there was space between the closing doors and their fingertips.
Stellan clenched his rifle's trigger, ready for a final blast, when the doors closed without obstruction. The dead pounded on the outer doors in frustration.
They were glad for the ringing in their ears then, and for some reason, laughter overtook them, as Stellan understood sometimes happened when you were so close to death's mouth you could feel its breath and then were miraculously pulled away by the hands of God.
The laughter must have come with the realization, albeit perhaps only temporary, that of course there was a God, a great happiness of overwhelming and sudden faith, and in such circumstances, he was showing you what it would be like without him.
And you were supposed to be thankful.
Five
As they ascended the central lift, the ringing in their ears began to recede and allow them to hear the creaking steel and suspension cables that pulled them upward. The remnants of the concussive blasts lingered in the form of sharp pains splitting the hemispheres of their brains.
The laughter and cheer abandoned them, as well. Like a spring of euphoria that had run dry, doubt returned, and they were no longer preoccupied with things like faith in the divine.
But they felt safe, and some parts of them wanted to simply stay in the enclosed lift. In that box, they would be free to live without fear that they'd be torn to pieces. It wouldn't be a long existence. In the end, death would come all the same, but it would be free of fear and pain. And it would be their choice. That much appealed to them.
Stellan stopped the lift between floors.
"What are you doing?" Edward asked.
"Give me a hand." Stellan pointed toward the ceiling. "I'm not going to let these doors open without knowing what's on the other side."
They had passed the command deck, the facilities deck, and the services deck and were just below Pierce's private residence deck. This lift offered exclusive access to Pierce's cabin. It was relatively secure and isolated from the rest of the ship, but Edward thought it was smart to do something a little less reckless after their last encounter with the dead. After seeing one deliberately pressing the call button, it was possible they were using the lifts. One of them could have taken this lift to the top. Several could have followed. It would fit up to twelve people comfortably. That many infected, whether dead or mad, could pose a significant problem for them, especially in a confined space.
Edward interlocked his fingers for Stellan's boot and hoisted him up. Stellan opened the maintenance hatch in the ceiling and climbed onto the lift's roof, his boots booming like distant thunder.
"What do you see?" Edward asked.
Stellan found himself in what must have been one of the darkest parts of the ship. It wasn't often he saw maintenance areas, and he forgot many parts of the Atlas didn't need to be lit most of the time. He supposed elevator shafts were included, and he had no idea how to turn on any lights.
"Not a whole lot," Stellan replied.
To make do, he opened some windows on his link. The cool blue glow coated the walls in a sheet of ice. Shadows danced around the shaft walls and on the greasy suspension cables, which he grasped for balance. He stepped carefully because he wasn't sure what he was stepping on.
The door to Pierce's residence level gazed at him like a fine cat's eye. A sliver of light shone through.
Edward heard Stellan pry open the door, and the lift groaned under Stellan's weight as he pushed off and onto Pierce's residence deck.
Edward began to feel nervous. With Stellan gone, there was no way he could get out of the elevator. He couldn't reach the maintenance hatch himself, and he wouldn't dare take the lift to another floor and risk a flood of the dead spilling onto him. Suddenly, the safety and protection of the lift interior felt like a prison. He couldn't imagine a worse way to go.
He wasn't convinced Stellan was coming back. If he were Stellan, he would consider just leaving him there. Pitiful Edward. Awkward, stupid Edward. Maybe he should get cozy after all, he thought. Maybe he should just curl into a ball and wait for death.
"Stellan?" he said.
The worst part about it was Edward wouldn't have blamed him. Edward had cost Stellan so much already, and all he wanted was the chance to pay him back. If it meant being left behind, he supposed he would accep
t it.
"Chief?"
A couple of thuds struck the lift's roof, and Edward's first thought was not that Stellan had returned. Panicked, Edward first thought it was one of the dead coming to get him. He heard a dry dragging sound as whatever was up there shuffled its feet, no doubt preparing to climb down the hole for him.
So Edward held his pistol at the ready and pointed it at the maintenance hatch. He wasn't going to give up without a fight. No, not lonely Edward.
A pair of boots dangled through the hatch, and then they dropped.
Edward wanted to squeeze the trigger. In his moment of panic, firing seemed like it was the only choice. It was better to be safe than sorry.
The boots landed on the floor, and when Stellan saw the gun leveled at him, he put his hands up.
"Jesus, man!" he said.
Relief and then embarrassment flooded Edward's face. "I'm so sorry. It's just that you left, and I didn't know where you went, and you didn't answer when I called and—"
"Edward," Stellan interrupted. "Would you put your weapon down?"
Edward looked at his pistol dumbfounded, like he had forgotten he was holding it. "Right." He lowered it to his side. "Sorry about that."
"Stop apologizing. Let's just agree to not point our weapons at each other."
"Agreed." Edward nodded. They both took a breath. "What did you find?"
"All clear," Stellan said. "Something strange, though."
Edward looked to Stellan questioningly, but he simply started the lift once more, completing their ascent to the top of the Atlas.
Six
They found Pierce's cabin mostly as it should have been. The hall from the lift to the door was quiet and clean, but Stellan had found the hatch door left open, and a stack of books had been knocked over into the middle of the living room. A bottle of Pierce's whisky stood on the table in the corner, missing some of its volume since Stellan had last seen it.
Carrier Page 32