by Rick Wood
She reached door 346 and went to open it.
It didn’t open.
“No!” she screamed.
She’d made it this far.
She stood back, prepared her shoulder, and barged into the door. Stood back again, prepared, and barged.
She didn’t have much behind her, and her shoulder hurt, but she didn’t care; she would persist until the door came down or her arm came off.
Eventually, it buckled. One more barge and it flung open.
Behind the one-way window was Boy. Unable to cover his ears due to his restraints but closing his eyes and shouting nonetheless.
Her heart melted. He looked so vulnerable, so weak, so sad. So in need of her.
She picked up a chair and threw it at the window, but it did nothing. It was reinforced, and there was no way she was smashing through it. She noticed an open door and realised it didn’t matter.
She went through it and there he was.
Chapter Fifty-One
Dalton took the stairs down two at a time. The chaos was distant, but it was getting louder. With every floor he went down, he could hear it.
Then, as the facility began to shake, he could feel it. The trembling beneath him, the rumble of a dozen overgrown creatures landing their overgrown claws on the ground.
How had this happened?
“Dalton!” someone called out to him from above. He looked up and there was Joe, higher up the stairs, nearly at the door to the first floor.
He put a hand up to acknowledge him. He hadn’t much time.
“What are you doing?” Joe asked.
“I’m – I’m – I’m just going back for something.”
“Are you crazy? We have to get out of here!”
He sighed. How could he explain this to him?
He didn’t have time for this.
“I know, just – I – I’ll meet you up there, just give me a minute.”
Joe began rushing down the steps.
“No, don’t follow me!” Dalton insisted.
Joe paused. Stuck between coming and going.
“But I don’t understand, mate, what are you getting?”
He sighed.
“Oh my God,” Joe exclaimed. “You’re going back for the girl, aren’t you?”
Dalton said nothing.
“Are you fucking mental? She’s just some random nobody we found on a riverbank.”
The screams were getting sharper. The growls more pronounced, the screeches more ear-piercing, the thudding ground shaking his feet.
“I don’t have time to explain, I have to go.”
“Dalton, man, can’t you hear them?”
“I don’t have time to–”
“There is no point going back. We need to get to the first floor; the evacuation has started and we’re in a low priority queue as it is!”
“No. I’m not going, not yet. I have to get her.”
“But you won’t survive–”
“What is the point!” Dalton threw his hands in the air. “What is the point of surviving if I can’t look at myself in the mirror! Have you seen this place? It’s full of arseholes who wouldn’t give us the time of day – and they still don’t, unless we’re protecting them!”
“They are a bunch of bell ends, mate, I don’t disagree, but now ain’t the time!”
Dalton looked to the door leading to the third floor. Looked back at Joe. To the door.
Was he being stupid?
Was this a pointless quest?
“And so what, you’re going to risk your life?”
“It’s not–”
“Yes you are. You’re risking your life, all for some black bitch.”
Dalton looked back at Joe as if he was seeing his friend for the first time. A whole new character unveiled itself, and it changed everything, destroyed any friendship they’d ever had.
“Goodbye, Joe,” Dalton said, with as little emotion as he felt.
He ran through the doors, around the bend, and to the door reading 346 that had somehow been taken off its hinges.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Cia dove to her knees, grabbing Boy’s face, cupping it in her hands, telling him it was her, telling him she was finally there.
“It’s me, it’s me, it’s okay, it’s me,” she kept repeating.
He was moaning too loud to hear her. His eyes closed, head shaking, battering his wrists against his restraints.
“It’s me! Please, stop moaning, it’s me!”
She covered his mouth, hard, muffling his noise so he could hear her.
“It’s me, Boy. It’s me, Rosy. Can’t you tell?”
He shook his head, refusing to accept it. It wasn’t her. It couldn’t be her. She left him.
She kept her hand in place, moved her lips to his ear, and gently whispered:
“The devil has departed, And you are not alone.”
His eyes opened.
“Take time to rebuild, your love in our home.”
He stopped moaning.
“Shared time it is slowing, The pace of our heart.”
She took her hand away and put it affectionately on the side of his cheek. She looked him in the eyes, deep in the eyes, recognising that fearful look he so often had.
“But from now to the end,” she told him. “We won’t be apart.”
His eyes welled up. His lip quivered. And he spoke, ever so softly: “Rosy…”
“Yes,” she desperately confirmed, nodding, crying. “Yes, it’s me.”
“Rosy!” he cried out.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“You left me…”
She furiously shook her head, wiped her eyes on her sleeve, tears gently sliding down her red cheeks.
“No, no I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.”
He shook his head. “You left…”
“No, Boy, I didn’t.”
“I opened my eyes and you left, and you didn’t come back…”
“I was captured! Something got me, something bad, and I had to fight, Boy, I really had to fight, but I got out – I got to you.”
“You left…”
“And now I’m back,” she said confidently, and his pouting stopped, replaced by a warm, painful look of vulnerability. So grateful, yet, at the same time, having been through so much.
“I am back,” she asserted. “And I promise you, I promise you – I will never, ever, ever leave you again.”
“You promise?”
“Oh, yes!” she cried, flinging her arms around him. She grabbed hold of his shirt, curling it in her hands. In that moment of solitary pain she let everything out.
The Wasters.
The rapists.
The Maskete nest.
All of it came out, in a barrage of weeps and cries and tears and desperate words of “Never again” and “I promise, Boy, I promise.”
“We have to leave,” came a blank male’s voice from the doorway.
She turned her head. It was Dalton, his gun at his side.
Boy immediately grew terrified, but she grabbed hold of his face and focussed his eyes on hers.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. I know he looks like one of them, but we can trust him. All right? We can trust him.”
A reluctant confirmation of trust shone from his eyes, and that was all she needed.
She grabbed onto his wrist restraints. They were secure, bolted to the arms of the chair.
“Do you know where the key is?” she asked Dalton.
“Yeah, it’s with one of the scientists. I passed him on the stairs, he’s long gone.”
Boy began to whine again, but she turned back to him as quickly as he began to worry.
“It’s okay,” she told him. “We’re not going anywhere, we’ll get you out.”
“We need to hurry; those things are out and they’re coming up through the floors. It won’t be long until they get to us.”
She turned to Dalton. “Any ideas?”
He hesitated.
“Stan
d back.”
She stood back and allowed him to go to Boy’s side. He aimed his gun at the bolt securing Boy’s right wrist and shot.
The gunshot was loud, and he began to scream.
“It’s okay!” Cia told him. “It’s okay, look at your wrist.”
He looked down at his wrist. It was free. He looked to Dalton, astounded that someone dressed like him would be kind.
“Got to be a big guy now,” Dalton told Boy. “Got another one to go.”
Boy scrunched up his face, but the gunshot was quick, and his other wrist was free.
He ran into Cia’s open arms. She squeezed him, held him as tight as she could, put everything into that hug.
“Never again,” she whispered in his ear. “Never again.”
“Guys,” Dalton urged them.
She stood, took his hand.
“We need to go now,” she told Boy. “And I need you to be brave and do everything we say. Can you do that?”
Boy nodded.
“Are you sure?”
He nodded again.
She turned to Dalton.
“So what next?”
Chapter Fifty-Three
Dalton led them along the corridor.
The shouts and screams were loud enough to run through every tendon in their bodies. The floor bumped under the strain of struggle and death.
“They’re in the floor below us,” Cia observed.
Dalton raised his gun as they turned the corner, ready for anything.
The lights flickered, quickly on and off, then went. A faint white light shone sporadically along the corridor wall.
“The power’s gone,” Dalton said. “The backup generator has put on emergency lighting, but it won’t last long.”
“So where do we go?” Cia asked.
“First floor.”
“Is there a way out?”
Dalton reached the stairs, peered through the window, and turned back to Cia.
“There will be priority queues for evacuation – obviously, we’ll have to wait for the last one to be let out.”
The corridor shook and they fell to their feet. Cia caught Boy and held him in her arms.
“We won’t have time to queue.”
He peered out the corridor and looked upwards. Three floors to go.
He looked downwards.
A Thoral smashed through the door a few floors down and knocked part of the wall out as it burst into the stairwell.
Dalton went back into the corridor, shutting the door.
“Let’s just get up there first, then we’ll figure that out.”
“Okay. Let’s go then.”
He put his hand out.
“There’s a Thoral out there.”
Cia saw the look of a person who hadn’t experienced a grave death-battling fight with one of these creatures. She recognised that fear from a memory long gone.
“There’s only one way out, and we’re going to have to move quickly then.”
“But it’s–”
Cia clutched onto Boy’s hand and barged through the door ahead of Dalton.
“Are you crazy?” he shouted as he followed.
Looking down, they could see the Thoral, its mouth dripping blood, its cheeks stained with flakes of muscle and splatters of fluids.
“Just keep going!” Cia urged, running up the stairs.
The Thoral battered into the staircase, collapsing a large chunk of wall. This capsized the steps Cia was running up. Taking an extra leap, she and Boy made it to the top step before it went down.
Dalton didn’t. He grabbed onto the remaining step with his legs dangling helplessly.
The Thoral smacked its lips and began to climb.
She considered whether to just run. Whether to just get out. He was one of them, one of the elite. Why should she help him?
But then again, he wasn’t. He was an army recruit that got lucky.
And he’d gone back for her.
Dalton threw his gun onto the step and reached himself up.
The Thoral jumped up and snapped at his leg, but he moved just in time to miss it.
The Thoral readied its next leap, and this one would be better.
Cia tried to hoist him up, but it was no good. She was too weak, and he was too heavy.
“Please, don’t leave me,” he begged.
But Cia couldn’t see how she’d save him.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Boy had never seen a gun before. Not a real one, anyway. One of his cousins once had a BB gun, but that just had little pellets and could barely kill spiders. He remembered sitting in the backyard, watching as the overweight, selfish brat would fire at ants as they ran away, aim at spiders in their webs, helplessly minding their own business in the corner of the garden.
Boy would look to his mother and wonder why she never did anything.
She’d sit there, talking to his aunt, neither of them considering the barbaric actions of this horrible teenager.
Even at that age, he wondered: is this what people do?
Because one thing he’d never understood was people. He’d understood animals, he’d quite enjoyed cuddling a rabbit in the pet shop just a week before, and his other cousin had a pet dog; it was a Chihuahua, and it used to yap. When it yapped its jaw snapped, and this scared him at first, and he hid and covered his ears and closed his eyes so the dog couldn’t yap at him.
But then, he’d seen that dog yapping at his mum and dad. And it did nothing.
Maybe it wasn’t so harmful.
He’d still kept a safe distance, but he’d watched, seeing how that dog played happily.
To one side was his cousin, scourge of the insect and arachnid population, sadistic torturer of helpless animals.
Then there was the dog, playing freely, chasing its own tail and rolling around in the mud.
Boy ran out and joined the dog. He pretended to chase his own tail, even though he didn’t have one, but that wasn’t important, he’d just pretend. He’d play freely, on all fours, jumping up and around. Then he’d roll in the mud, and that’s when his mum would get angry.
She’d shout at him.
And he’d think: why are you shouting at me?
His cousin was acting as an executioner, and all he was doing was playing with the dog.
And now, looking at Dalton’s gun, he felt that familiar feeling of confusion. Why carry it? What are you going to hurt?
Then he saw Rosy. Saw her reaching out for Dalton, grabbing on his arm.
And he saw the Thoral.
He wanted to close his eyes, cover his ears, and shout so he couldn’t hear it, wait until it went away.
But for some reason, he didn’t.
Perhaps, in some part of his mind, he realised he couldn’t play anymore.
He realised that sometimes you just had to pick up the gun and shoot.
So that’s what he did. He picked up the gun, found the trigger, and pointed it at the Thoral.
When he pulled the trigger, the gun kicked, and it hurt his shoulder. The bullets didn’t hit his target and he wanted to ball up and cry.
But this time, he didn’t.
He did what Rosy did. He kept trying. She would always keep trying, and he knew that whatever he did, however bad it was, she would always keep trying.
She was his hero.
So he emulated her.
He pointed the gun at the Thoral and fired a few bullets.
It hit the Thoral and he felt bad, but then he remembered it wasn’t a bug, or an ant, or a spider in a web. You shouldn’t pick on something that’s smaller than you.
And they were far smaller than this Thoral.
It did little to kill the Thoral, but it seemed to be enough of a minor inconvenience to deter it for a moment. The Thoral looked at its side, as if it felt a prick and it was wondering what it was.
That was enough time for Dalton to climb up.
Then Dalton ruffled his hair and said, “Well done, kid.”
He p
referred being called Boy because that’s what Rosy called him – but kid would do. Maybe he’d let this guy call him kid.
“Can I have my gun?” Dalton asked.
Boy gladly surrendered it.
Dalton fired a few more bullets back at the Thoral, then ran. Rosy grabbed hold of Boy’s hand and gave him the biggest smile he’d ever seen.
“Well done,” she said, a look of genuine surprise on her face, and he felt proud, really proud, that he’d finally done something to help her. “You kick arse.”
He smiled.
He liked that.
He liked kicking arse.
They ran up the final flight of stairs. Boy looked back at the Thoral and it was still chasing them, but at least they were nearly there.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Armed soldiers stood at the exit, next to a man with a clipboard. They were just about finished with Priority Queue 1 and were about to get the go-ahead to start letting Priority Queue 2 leave. The man with the clipboard turned to the soldiers and nodded.
“Yes, yes,” he said, his voice like he had spent all his life with a butler doing such menial tasks for him. “Yes, I see, everyone seems to have gone. The prime minister, president, mayors, parliament, all accounted for. I can’t see anyone on this list, can you?”
He didn’t care if the soldier said yes or no, he just wanted to show them that he was the competent one in charge of the list, not them.
“No, sir,” the soldier replied.
“Right, lovely, well let’s get started on Priority Queue 2 then.”
He waved his perfectly moisturised, limp hand at Priority Queue 2.
“First five, please,” he instructed, and the first five came. A family, well-dressed, approached. The father, wearing a silk Dolce & Gabbana sweater, Charles Tyrwhitt chinos and brown Salvatore Ferragamo shoes with brogues, approached.
“So what are the plans?”
“We have an evacuation site a mile away, the soldiers outside will direct you there.”
“Will it be safe?”
“I assure you, good sir, the soldiers have been well-trained for these situations and will escort you expertly.”
The two soldiers looked at each other.