Winter Cove

by Skye Knizley

  She was shining her light, almost the only thing the sec-men hadn’t taken, into the hole when the door opened.

  “Hey sugarcrotch, did you fall in?” Rylee called.

  “Back here, honey,” River said.

  “Damn, baby, what did you eat?”

  River glanced at her. “I think I found a way out of here.”

  Rylee squatted beside the hole and pinched her nose shut. “The sewer system? Really? I think I’d rather be a zombie.”

  “You would not. Come on, let’s see what we can use to get the hell out of here.”

  They returned to the main room where she and Rylee began tearing long strips out of the blankets. They then braided them into a makeshift rope and dangled it into the pit using the sink drains as anchor points. When they were through, River located Shaw, who was dozing with his wife in the opposite corner near the men’s room.

  “Hey, Shaw,” River whispered.

  He woke and met her eyes. “Yes? What is it?”

  “How long until they come to take the leftovers away?”

  Shaw wiped his eyes and checked his watch. “Not long, they usually give us two hours before coming for the trays and taking blood samples. Why?”

  “Because I’m getting us the fuck out of here,” River said.

  ***

  Sweat dripped down River’s face and pooled inside her bra. It was surprising hot beneath the tureens. She’d managed to fit inside the cart, but it was a tight squeeze. She was hoping her knees didn’t go to sleep before the guards showed up.

  On cue, she heard the now familiar sound of the blast doors opening and a blast of cold air that felt good on her heated skin. A pair of boots came into view, then a mechanical voice.

  “Where is Hunter?”

  “I’m right here,” Rylee said from somewhere nearby.

  “The other one,” the voice pressed.

  Rylee’s familiar boots with the pink pom-poms stepped into view. “She had um…lady problems.”

  River could imagine Rylee pointing at the restroom and making a face of extreme pain and she couldn’t help but smile. There was the sound of boots walking away to check the restroom, then shouts of alarm as they found the exposed pit. River slid from beneath the cart to see four of the six guards missing, likely searching the restroom and calling for assistance. The two nearest her were covering the other detainees and had their backs to her. She stepped behind the closest one and drew the pistol from his belt. She’d put two rounds through his back before he could move then shot the other twice in the face. At that range, she couldn’t miss. Both guards fell to the floor and she scooped up a fallen MP7, which she used to make short work of the other sec-men as they stormed out of the restroom. In a matter of seconds all six were down and done.

  Rylee collected a weapon for herself then looked at the others. “Do any of you know how to shoot?”

  Shaw made a face and picked up one of the discarded MP7s. “This is Maine, shooting guns is practically the state sport.” He nodded at the others. “Arm up and let’s get out of here!”

  Lori hesitated. “What if it is worse out there? What if we are safest here?”

  River reloaded her borrowed pistol and stuck it in her waistband. “I won’t lie to you, Mrs. Shaw. There is some scary shit out there. But out there, you have a fighting chance. In here, you’re a lab rat. Either way, we have to beat feet. If you’re coming, come now. If not, I wish you good luck.”

  She moved to the door and peered out. More guards were in the quad, but it didn’t look as if the alert had been given. It was either a major stroke of luck or there was something else going on. She wasn’t going to find out, she beckoned to Rylee and watched the guard’s movement. There were gaps in their pattern you could drive a truck through.

  Rylee joined her and offered a quick one armed hug. “What’s the plan, lover?”

  River jerker her head at the medical hut. “When the next batch of guards goes by, head for that building. There is plenty of shadow in the lee, take cover and wait for me.”

  “What about the others?”

  “I’m going to get them to the fence then they’re on their own. It is only a few miles into town or they can hide out in a cabin, the mountains are crawling with them,” River said.

  Rylee’s brows creased in concern. “You’re just going to leave them?”

  River blew hair out of her face and turned Rylee to face her. “I can’t save everyone, honey, I can only be in once place at a time.”

  “You got us this far, I will take us the rest of the way. My family has a cabin less than a mile from here, to the south. I haven’t been there in years, but it should be safe enough,” Shaw said.

  Rylee kissed River’s cheek. “Good luck. You better come find me.”

  And then she was gone, running across the quad. River watched until she was safe in the shadows then turned to Shaw and the rest of the detainees. “We’re going behind the building to the fence. It looks like they’ve been keeping the snow shoveled inside, but not outside. You should be able to jump the fence and have a soft landing.”

  “Is that safe?” Gracie asked.

  River looked blank. “Safer than? What? Wondering if these guys are going to poison you or burn you alive?”

  She turned back to Shaw. “Keep them together, keep going. If Rylee and I haven’t come for you in twenty-four hours, you can assume we’re dead. Get off the island and alert the authorities however you can.”

  Shaw saluted then offered his hand. “It is an honor serving with you, Sergeant.”

  River took the hand. “How did you know?”

  “My daughter, Renee. You saved her life outside Kabul, she was the driver of a JLTV hit by an improvised rocket,” Shaw said.

  River remembered. The JLTV had been behind her in the convoy. It had survived the initial blast, but was trapped between the wreckage and hit by some kind of antitank weapon.

  “Corporal Shaw. I remember, is she here?” River asked.

  Shaw shook his head. “No, thank God. She’s at the VA in Augusta. She took a stateside assignment after her last hitch. I hope to God whatever this is doesn’t reach that far.”

  “Agreed. Come on, we’ve got to move. Head for the fence, I’m right behind you.”

  River waited until they were all out then used the sec-man’s key card to lock the doors behind them. The snow would show their tracks, but with any luck it would be a few minutes before anyone noticed they were missing.

  The fence lay twenty yards behind the building, it was chain link seven feet tall with a narrow strip of razor wire easily circumvented by the tablecloth River had borrowed. They were almost over when a single sec-man on foot patrol rounded the corner of the building. Rather than risk a shot, River rushed him. Like many of the guard’s she’d seen, he was patrolling with his weapon slung, which proved to be his undoing. He’d barely begun to move when she hit him at top speed. The impact knocked him off his feet and he slammed into the wall of the building with enough force to knock the wind out of him. He struggled and managed a flurry of punches that left River’s ribs and stomach aching, but she was able to knock him out with a knee to the groin and an elbow to the back of his neck. Once he was down she drew his knife and slit his throat and kicked his body back into the snowbank. The rapidly falling snow would bury his body and hide the direction of their escape.

  Shaw stopped on the other side of the fence. “Thank you again. I wish you the best of luck in finding your friends.”

  River nodded. “Thank you. Get going, it won’t be too long before they find out we’re missing.”

  Shaw waved and walked away. In seconds his silhouette was gobbled up by the snow. River hurried away to meet Rylee in the shadows beside the medical building.

  “What kept you?” Rylee asked.

  “A panhead tried to slow us down, he had to
be dealt with before he could sound an alarm,” River said. “Anything happening here?”

  “Not much. That Lindquist asshole came out of the main building to have a smoke. That is about it,” Rylee replied.

  “Okay. Sit tight, when the next patrol is gone, we crash medical and see what we can find.”

  The seconds ticked by as they knelt in the snow. River was grateful they’d been allowed to keep their coats and some of the contents, but they weren’t near thick enough for the icy chill of the storm. Her hands were shaking when a guard stopped in the lee of the building just a few feet from where they were hiding. She balled them into fists and fought them under control, her eyes on him. He unzipped his fly and relieved himself on the wall, a mechanical ‘ahh’ escaping his helmet in the process. When he was finished, he zipped up and strode away without a backward glance.

  As soon as he was gone, she swiped her borrowed access key in the door’s lock. The door opened with a magnetic buzzing sound and they entered into the warm reception area. Out of habit, Rylee kicked snow off her boots. “Men. He practically pissed on your foot, how did he not see you?”

  River didn’t answer. She was too busy looking at the blood.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The medical building was just as large as the holding cells, with the same sloping walls and curved roof. The lobby, if it could be called that, was rectangular, with a wide reception desk and a selection of uncomfortable waiting room chairs on one side and a pair of double doors leading away to the east. Everything was, or rather had been, painted in shades of white with red trim. The floor was now splashed with blood and it ran feely down the walls from spots higher than a man could reach.

  Rylee stopped mid boot-stomp and slowly lowered her foot. “Good God, what the hell happened and why are the guards just walking by like nothing happened?”

  River jerked a thumb at the alarm panels, which were all dark as she crossed to the reception desk. “The alarms are dead. Whatever happened, it happened fast.”

  The desktop had been left unlocked and she was able to bring up the main screen. Names and numbers scrolled past, a slow march of people who had succumbed to something called the Overlord Parasite. There was no personal information, just names and a serial number that appeared to have been determined randomly at the time of death.

  “They’ve killed hundreds,” River said. “At least a third of Winter Cove has been incinerated.”

  Rylee joined her behind the desk. “That isn’t legal, even in Maine. Does it say why?”

  River shook her head. “It just references something called the Overlord Parasite and Station Malachite.”

  “What the fuck is an Overlord Parasite? Who names these things, John Carpenter?”

  River typed in both Jody and Richard’s full names and breathed a sigh of relief when they didn’t come up in the roster.

  “They’re alive. Richie should be here, somewhere. Let’s find him, maybe he knows where they’re holding Jody,” she said.

  The doors into the treatment rooms were secured, someone on the other side had set the safety locks. But they were intended to keep someone in, not keep rescue teams out. River kicked the door just above the latch and the door popped open into the hallway beyond. The corridor shared the same paint and trim combination as the lobby, complete with splashes of arterial red that still dripped from the ceiling and down the wall. Further down the corridor several of the overhead fluorescent lights had been damaged. Bulbs hung or had been shattered as had the plastic fixtures that held them. Some still swung back and forth on tattered wires, casting sparks and shadows on the walls.

  River motioned for Rylee to draw her pistol and readied her borrowed MP7. Whoever had done this hadn’t gone outside, which meant they were still inside. Somewhere.

  There were treatment rooms on either side of the hallway and they looked into each one. There was evidence that patients had been in the rooms. Half eaten food, turned back and bloody sheets and overturned beds were prevalent, but no signs of the occupants.

  Halfway down, they found the first body. It was a woman, or had been. It looked as if she’d been handcuffed to the bed and been unable to free herself. Her face had been partially gnawed off leaving one eye-socket empty and her nose broken at an awkward angle. Both of her wrists showed where she’d fought in vain to get free, blood covered her arms, hands and the sheets she was lying on.

  “One of those things got in here,” Rylee said.

  “Or they brought it in, that doctor wasn’t wrapped right,” River said.

  She halfheartedly checked for pulse, but knew there would be none. Surprisingly, the woman’s skin was warm and supple. She pulled her hand away just as the woman stirred and opened a mouth full of sharp, darkened teeth. The woman’s one good eye rolled in its socket and focused on River. Her eye widened and she lunged, causing the whole bed to roll back and forth.

  River raised her weapon, thumbed the selector to single shot and put a round between the woman’s eyes. She then walked back into the hallway to continue the search.

  “That’s it? We just execute them?” Rylee yelled.

  River turned on Rylee. “What the hell do you want me to do? They’re not alive, even I can see that. There is no emotion, no soul, no nothing. They’re zombies, like you said before!”

  “But we’re in a hospital, surely someone can−”

  “What? Heal them? Baby, they’re dead. That woman had her face gnawed off and no pulse. She might be moving and gnashing her teeth, but she’s as dead as a doornail. The best I can do is let them have some peace,” River said.

  She turned and continued down the corridor. After a moment she heard Rylee’s boot steps getting closer.

  “I’m sorry,” Rylee said. She touched River’s arm. “I’m sorry, honey. You’re right, it’s just I’m a nurse, my heart says killing a defenseless patient is wrong. I still see humans.”

  “I know, Rye. I get it, just try to remember I’m your partner, not a cold-blooded killer.”

  River shook her off and continued forward. She needed to find Richie and Jody and get the hell out of this madhouse before she became one of the residents. Ahead, the corridor turned and dead-ended at an elevator. She pressed the call button and rested her head against the cool metal.

  “I didn’t mean you were a killer, Riv. I know you’re not, I know you’ve got my back and you’re doing the best you can,” Rylee said from behind her.

  River felt Rylee’s arms snake around her from behind.

  “I love you,” Rylee whispered.

  “I love you too.”

  The doors opened a moment later and River stepped inside with Rylee right behind. It was a large elevator, the kind used to transport patients from floor to floor. Considering they’d passed nothing on the first floor but treatment rooms, it made sense. Any trauma or surgical wards would have to be on another floor. River looked at the buttons and saw that the bottommost was smeared with blood. She pressed it and watched the door close, hoping it wouldn’t be the last time she saw the snow fall.

  The elevator creaked and groaned as it descended, sounding much older than it looked. The doors contained a narrow window covered by meshed glass and she could see the other floor as they passed. In that brief glimpse she saw it was a scene of carnage similar to the first, with overturned gurneys and splashes of crimson blood. In the last moment, the horrific face of one of the infected appeared in the window. Its eyes were yellow with mucus and its teeth had turned to blackened, broken spikes that gnashed at them as they passed.

  The doors opened on the bottom floor with a sound like metal rubbing on metal. A single corridor stretched ahead into gloom lit only by safety lights that spit and flared in the darkness. Bodies lay on the floor in various positions, all clearly dead rather than infected. Blood ran in sticky rivulets across the white-tiled floor, mixed with bits of flesh and what looked like dead
insects.

  “When we get out of this, I am never, ever coming back to Maine,” Rylee said.

  “Agreed. Virginia might even be too cold. Maybe we should consider that Mexico deal after all,” River said.

  She stepped into the corridor and clicked on her flashlight. There were treatment rooms on one side of the corridor while the other consisted of a state of the art operating theater.

  “I’m sure putting the patients sixty feet underground helps with the healing,” Rylee groused.

  “I doubt what goes on down here has anything to do with patient comfort. I’ve seen combat units with lesser facilities. They don’t need these amenities for patients, this is for experimentation on human subjects,” River said.

  Rylee’s face turned grim. “That’s illegal and immoral. How do you know?”

  River looked at the walls around them and the blackness ahead. “I just do. Come on, let’s find Richie.”

  The operating theater had been in use when the attack occurred. The detainee who’d died, Lucas, was still strapped to the table. It looked as if an autopsy had been started, the skin of his chest was folded back and his ribcage lay on a nearby tray. It glistened with the same yellow mucus River had seen in the eyes of the infected.

  Rylee moved closer, stopped only by River’s hand on her elbow. “He’s infected, lover, and his hands are still moving. Stay back.”

  Rylee turned and buried her face in River’s chest. “Dear God, he was alive. He was alive when they cut him open!”

  River stroked her hair. “Not alive, Rye. Infected like the others. Whatever, whoever Lucas was, he was gone. I doubt he even felt it.”

  River held her a few more moments then they separated and she put a round in the infected’s head. She was about to leave when she heard a noise, a thump, come from a storage closet she’d dismissed as unlikely to hold a human being.

  “I think there’s something in there,” Rylee said.