by Rick Wood
He nodded.
“Well you can. You are strong, Boy. So strong. You can beat this place. We both can.”
This place.
This bloody place.
It was cursed.
She hated it.
Nothing good had ever happened here.
She turned to Dalton.
He was staring at her. Why was he staring at her?
And why was he staring at her like that?
“Are you okay?” she asked.
But he just kept staring.
Chapter Fifteen
“Please, Boy, you can’t make that noise or they’ll find us.”
Dalton blanked out Cia’s voice as he kept watching her figure on the screen.
Her father was running toward her now, still shouting after her.
Cia was standing still, so still, next to this Lisker whose eyes were beginning to open, whose body was beginning to twitch.
Everyone looked up, as if there was a noise – Dalton realised that was the point when the emergency voice started telling everyone to evacuate.
In the instant when that voice started, everyone except Daniel and Cia ran out. People shoved off their protective gear, barged others out of the way, fleeing for survival.
Daniel and Cia were saying something to each other. Shouting something. Cia was leaning forward, so aggressively – he’d never seen her like that, but she was going for her father, screaming at him almost. He was arguing back, but she was the dominant one in the argument.
Was all of this because of some feud with her and her father?
The Lisker’s body shook. Its head began to rise.
Its tail rose and bashed into another room, smashing the room apart, destroying the glass and the beakers and the test tubes and all the hard work accumulated over years.
The Lisker battered its tail once more, smashing the wall above a Thoral, and consequently unleashing it.
“Listen to me,” he heard Cia whisper to Boy. “I know it’s this place you don’t like. I don’t like it either. But the only way we can get you out is if you calm down.”
Get out of this?
A place she doesn’t like?
She damn well destroyed it!
The screen showed Cia finally moving, her father following, and they ran with Cia in front, toward the shutters that were slowly descending.
Cia was running far faster, getting closer and closer to escape.
He was stumbling, struggling to keep up.
The creatures were beginning to scream. The Wasters opening their mouths at Daniel streaming past, Masketes battering against their chains.
More clumsiness from the Thoral freed more creatures.
She reached the shutters first.
A Thoral slammed its paws down beside Daniel, and the tremble of the ground caused him to fall.
He reached his hand out for his daughter.
From his place on the floor he reached his hand out, stretched it as much as he could.
She stood, motionless, from a point of safety, just watching him.
Watching him helplessly reach.
And she did nothing.
Absolutely nothing to save her father.
“No noise, Boy, we can’t make any noise.”
The shutters fell almost to the ground.
“You understand?”
The Lisker was liberated.
A large group of Masketes fell upon Daniel and started picking at his body.
Cia just stood there. Still not moving. Just watching. So cold, so stationary.
“Can I take my hand away now?”
The Masketes shredded Daniel and within seconds he was in five or six parts.
Cia watched the whole thing. A blank-faced voyeur.
And then the shutters reached the bottom, and all he could see on the screen were the creatures escaping through the adjacent rooms they had battered down, and pieces of Doctor Daniel Rose left strewn across the floor.
“You’re scared. You think you can’t take this. Right?”
He turned and looked at her. His head a slow rotation, his neck the only thing moving. He watched her as she so lovingly took care of Boy.
“Well you can. You are strong, Boy. So strong. You can beat this place. We both can.”
They can beat this place?
She already had.
The conniving, backstabbing, treacherous…
She turned and looked at him. Met his gaze.
He didn’t falter in his glare.
His expression stayed the same.
And, for the first time since he met her, he was looking into the eyes of a stranger.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He didn’t answer.
He had no coherent thoughts. No articulated response. No perfectly formed act of vengeance.
Just feelings he couldn’t yet fathom, and knowledge he couldn’t yet comprehend.
How could…
Why did…
What should…
Nothing formed. Nothing lasted. Nothing could register.
Boy had finally calmed down.
She was still looking at him.
He had nothing to say.
“Are they gone?”
He robotically clicked off the monitor. He hadn’t looked, but the noise outside the room had gone. It was safe.
Without saying a word he charged to the door, opened it, and, seeing that the coast was clear, left.
She followed.
Chapter Sixteen
Cia kept her eyes loosely attached to the back of Dalton’s head as he led them out.
Though ‘led’ was the wrong word – it felt far more like she and Boy were following him, rather than him leading.
Something about the way he had looked at her had shaken her. Frightened her. It was a look she’d never seen from him before – usually, his gazes at her were warm, full of adoration, occasionally cheeky.
This one seemed cold. Disconnected. Like he was looking at her from far away, where he was actually looking at her from across a small room.
She went to pause at the corner of the corridor, ready to peer round and check what was there before running into it.
Dalton didn’t.
He charged around the corner, his gun pointed, recklessly pursuing forward.
What was going on?
“Dalton!” she called out.
He didn’t turn around.
She took hold of Boy’s hand tighter, pulling him forward, increasing pace, trying to keep up with Dalton. He seemed to be marching on ahead like he didn’t care if they were up with him.
But he did care. He was so caring. He never did anything without checking on her and Boy’s safety first. Just like she did with him – they took care of each other. They were a team.
“Dalton!” she tried again, but he simply turned another corner.
Ahead of them, a single Waster crouched over an unrecognisable corpse, pulling what they could out of its open chest.
It looked up at them, sniffing, its eyes wide.
Cia halted, ready to hide, ready to consider the course of action.
Dalton took aim and unloaded a long succession of bullets at the Waster’s head. Even after the Waster was flat out on the surface, Dalton carried on firing at the spasming body until his ammunition was empty.
He took more ammunition from his belt and put it in.
This was a stupid move. Cia knew it.
They were in a metal box. The stream of bullets were still echoing long after they had finished.
Who knew what may have heard it.
Cia looked over her shoulder, expecting something to come running, to hear the noise of Wasters.
Very, very far away, on a floor far below, thudding sounded.
“Dalton!” she cried out.
“What?” he snapped, turning around to look at her.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m killing a Waster. Is that an issue?”
�
��That’s what we have knives for! God knows what beasts you may have attracted!”
Dalton took a few sinister steps before her and she had to resist cowering.
“Yeah,” he snarled. “Wouldn’t want to be trapped in here with something evil, would we?”
She looked into his eyes, still devoid of empathy, and could not figure out what was behind them.
“What is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me?” He shrugged. Stuck out his bottom lip. Looked around as if mockingly searching for an answer. “Nothing. I’m fine. What’s wrong with you?”
She felt Boy grip her hand.
“You’re scaring him,” Cia said, just as scared as Boy was.
“Why? The Waster’s dead.”
Distant thudding became slightly less distant.
“They heard it.”
“Heard what?”
“The gunshots.”
“What, like these?”
Dalton trudged back to the dead Waster and unloaded another round of bullets into the corpse.
“Stop it!” Cia shouted, her voice breaking against the might of her scream.
He smiled. Not a nice smile – but a smile that went with his eyes.
“Let’s just get out of here,” Cia said. Whatever this was, it would pass.
Or would it?
Suddenly, she realised how little she actually knew Dalton. What small amount of time she’d known him.
No.
That couldn’t be true.
They had spent every minute of every day together. She knew him inside out.
And this wasn’t him.
“You want to get out of here?” he repeated.
“Yes!”
He marched forward and Cia followed, and they stepped into the staircase.
“Dalton slow down!”
“I am slowing down.”
“What is wrong with you? Why are you–”
She stopped talking.
A gigantic roar from below them interrupted her.
She looked below them, peering down the stairs, and saw a Thoral looking back.
Chapter Seventeen
He considered, for a moment, not running, and not fighting.
Just letting the Thoral make its way up.
Letting it devour them.
Letting it eat them up and keep them in this damned pit forever.
Doing to her what she did to everyone else.
Doing it to himself.
After all, he could have easily perished with the rest. He could have easily died amongst the masses.
Did she care about that when she unleashed those monsters?
I bet it didn’t even cross her mind.
“Dalton, we need to go.”
Taking the cue, he turned and walked up the stairs. He stopped marching or running; instead, he began trudging, meandering slowly, in the way of Cia and Boy.
The Thoral’s roars grew louder. He could see its shadow rising upwards, ascending the floors, pounding up the staircase.
He’d forgotten how horrible they looked up close. How big they were. How bloody their drool was. How blackened their eyes were. The sharpness of their claws.
They were evil in the form of a monster.
He looked at Cia.
Just like you.
“Dalton, why aren’t you running?”
Why wasn’t he running?
Huh.
Dalton hadn’t deliberately made the decision to stop running,but he had made the decision, nonetheless. Perhaps somewhere in the hostility of his subconscious.
Cia looked down. Dalton didn’t.
He didn’t have to.
He could see by the look on her face, the tears forming in the corner of her eyes, the way she was clutching onto Boy.
Onto Boy, not him.
She went back for Boy.
After she put this place into chaos, she went back for Boy. Dalton just so happened to be there to help.
If he hadn’t, they wouldn’t have escaped together. She wouldn’t have spared a second thought for him, and he’d have died with the rest.
And now she was holding onto Boy, not him.
Boy was her reason for living, not him.
Boy would always be her priority.
Why do I even care anymore?
The stairs shook, scraping apart. The Thoral’s paw swiped out, and the steps a few floors down detached and fell into the nothingness.
“Dalton, please.”
He looked at her.
Her face. Such a young face. Innocent, but not. Vulnerable, yet conniving.
But she looked scared. Truly scared.
And it pained his heart, and he hated himself for it.
So he ran, and they ran with him.
The Thoral barged its way up to the steps. Bashed its way upwards. They made it to the top floor, but as they sprinted across the room, the Thoral burst out behind them.
Luckily for them, the dwellers and the squatters were slow to react. With those susceptible few between them and the Thoral, they managed to gain ground as the Thoral devoured the helpless survivors.
How simple, really. All they’d had to do was outrun the weaker of their species; to reach the door before the Thoral had finished feasting.
Dalton felt bad.
He was basically putting these poor, starving people to death, so they could escape.
They had led that thing up there and now it was their fault these people were dying, and Dalton hated it.
He wondered if Cia felt the same.
She didn’t even look back at them. Didn’t even flinch.
He did. He peered back to see the poor morsels ripped apart and shredded.
Her eyes were solely on the exit.
He reached it first, ahead of them. He ran through it.
Then he looked back. The Thoral still making its way through the innocents.
Her and Boy yards away.
He went to close the door.
Considered it.
What if he did?
What if he shut the door on them and left them in here?
Forced Cia to die… Forced her to watch Boy suffer…
Would he feel bad, like she didn’t?
Before the thought had come to a conclusion she ran through and shut it behind them, trapping the others in.
She looked briefly into his eyes.
Then she continued running, her hand still clamped around Boy’s.
He followed.
Chapter Eighteen
Cia clutched onto Boy for dear life, never letting go of him, never letting them get separated.
They had been separated last time they were at the Sanctity.
Not again.
Never again.
Dalton paused as they fled the door. Perhaps he was considering whether they should shut the squatters in. But he didn’t need to, Cia shut the door for them. She didn’t do this trap the squatters – she did this to shut the Thoral in.
From the look of it the squatters hadn’t survived anyway. Their lack of speed to react was unfortunate but, just as she was beginning to feel bad, she reminded herself: This is the world we live in now.
Those who aren’t ruthless and quick end up dead and eaten.
She didn’t condemn those people to death. They could have run out too. They could have followed them, and she would have done her best to lead them to safety.
As it was, she, Boy and Dalton were the only ones to make it to the door.
Her brief look into Dalton’s eyes told her that he didn’t feel the same way.
Was that it? Was that what was going on?
No, it couldn’t have been. He’d been acting strangely before that.
They carried on running, and the whole route grew dangerously familiar. Without conferring, they found themselves running the same route they when they’d fled the Sanctity six months previous. Maybe it was habit, maybe it was automatic, or maybe it was just what they knew – they did not stop running until
they were miles enough away and were sure that the Thoral hadn’t followed.
They stopped at a tree, where Cia placed her hand and bent over, panting.
Boy sat under the tree, tucked his arms around his legs, and stared. Didn’t moan, whine, or collapse – just stared into nothingness.
Dalton stopped. He didn’t move. He went from running to completely immobile in a second and stayed there, as if there was no in between.
And he was so still.
So, so still.
He didn’t even pant, or have to calm his breathing down.
He just stood, his fists balled up, his face morphing betwixt confusion and anger. Something was bothering him and he wasn’t going to say what it was but it was tearing him up.
Then Cia remembered – his friend. Brooklyn. He’d seen his dead body, just before they went into the CCTV room.
Was that it?
Was that what was bothering him?
It was the only thing Cia could think of, and decided to try and be more understanding. It can’t have been easy for him to see anyone he knew torn up on the floor, let alone someone he may have cared about.
Once her panting had resided, she walked over to him and placed her hands on his arms. She felt small, covered in his shadow. Nothing but his eyes reacted, turning to look at her as if she was a stranger, but that was okay – if that was how he wanted to deal with grief, she had to let him.
She had to be there for him, just as he was for her. And Boy.
“What was his name?” she asked. “Brooklyn?”
His eyebrows moved a fraction, as if to narrow slightly, a tiny frown.
“I’m sorry you had to see him like that,” Cia said honestly. “What can I do to help?”
He still didn’t react.
He was so damn still.
And she wondered whether it was Brooklyn, or whether she was wrong.
Whether it was something else he’d seen…
She reached her hands up and placed them on his cheeks. Just like she did with Boy. Just like she would do with both of them.
She smiled at him. Even if he didn’t smile back, she smiled at him, showing him that she was there.
She glanced at Boy to check he was okay. He was fine. And she turned back.
“We don’t have to keep walking if you want,” Cia said. “We can rest here. I can get some twigs and logs and build a shelter. It will be fine.”