by Lucas Cole
Walking back to my room, the corridors empty at this late hour, I have a sense of hope. Perhaps, I can get some rest, keep up my resistance. But Abe’s virus will not let me rest.
Go to Beginning
CHAPTER IX
Fallout
I wake up to a throbbing pain in my sternum and in my hips. A light pain at first, but a pain unlike any I have ever experienced before. A deep pain, not so different from a toothache, except it seems to be coming from my bones, possibly from within the marrow itself.
The throbbing is relentless and steadily worsening, and with the promise of increasing pain—and the anxiety that this thought brings me—my heart rate speeds up…and so does the throbbing. I realize then that it’s my pulse, the pumping of my heart that is causing the throbbing.
I sit up in bed and the pain subsides for just a moment, then returns in full force. My heart is hammering against my chest and with every beat, the pain is bad. The heart action, the normally unnoticed lub-dub, lub-dub, becomes lub-BAM, lub-BAM within the skeleton frame supporting my body.
Sweat breaks out as I swing my legs around onto the floor. Now, the other bones are joining in. The joints first: knees, ankles, wrists, then the long bones: femur, fibula, and tibia of the legs. Then, the humerus, radius, and ulna of the arms. Even the bones of my face hurt. My ribs begin to hammer me with pain and I wrap my arms around myself, afraid the bones will fracture with the next beat of my heart.
Get to the Professor. He’ll help me. But I grasp the side of my bed and hear a horrible sound within my room. A keening moan issues from my tightening throat, the sound escaping through my clenched teeth. I can’t stop it, but I mustn’t attract attention from others in the station, no matter how much pain I’m in.
Something tells me it’s best not to let them know, to find me like this. A survival instinct. I am changing and it will be a change that will not result in help from my fellow men and women. More likely, it will result in a quick pellet in my brain and my body dumped into the furnace. But the pain…it is mind-bending in its ferocity.
I grab my pillow and put it to my face and scream into it, the sound muffled. If this gets much worse, I won’t need to fear Todd or the others: I will find a pistol and end the torture.
Do something, the human remnant of me demands. Think! Yet it’s not thinking that moves me now, urges me out of my room and into the corridor. It’s instinct. Mindless instinct for survival and release from pain. It drives me down the hall with a willingness to kill anyone who tries to stop me. Anyone.
By some miracle, I make it all the way to the Emergency Exit without encountering anyone and I ram my shoulder against the airlock release, my other arm unwilling to let go of the throbbing ribcage I am squeezing. An alarm sounds as the door opens onto the Sybaris night air, but I am free, rambling through the dirt and sand like a frenzied deadhead. Out and over the dunes and away from the noise of the alarm and the human voices it has aroused.
Human voices, the detached part of me notes. Human voices…do you hear what you’re thinking? What does that make you?
Shut up, I tell myself. Shut up, shut up, shut up. I don’t care what it makes me. Human or deadhead, I just want the pain to stop. My hand jerks toward the IMF belt buckle I always wear, but pulls away. Not yet. Just keep walking, heading south. And I sense, with an otherworldly knowledge, where my legs are taking me. To ore storage bins.
Something whizzes through the night air, passing my head by inches. A bullet. Someone is shooting at me.
I zig-zag across the dunes, my gait shambling like a monster, like a zombie, and I laugh at my situation through gritted teeth. Nice ending, Ron. A freakin’ zombie, your head about to be blasted apart, your infected corpse carted away and burned.
Thanks a lot, Abe. Who asked you to carry my luggage, anyway? Why did it have to go down that way? Damn Todd and his trigger-happy egomaniacal…. Stop! Focus! But my brain—my mind—is throbbing with the rest of my body, my ribs about to dislocate with the merciless ramming of my own blood flow. Can a mind dislocate?
I plod through the sand, not knowing what direction I am headed anymore, not caring, actually reaching a point where I am not feeling pain or anything else, my body and brain shutting down. In shock, my voice is telling me from the bottom of a distant well, you’re in shock.
I fall on my face and realize I am spent, barely able to lift my nose and mouth out of the sand, blowing the grit out of my nostrils. My hand fumbles with my belt buckle, but I can’t release the catch, not even to end my own life. Where’s Larry when I need him? I would welcome his rifle barrel right now.
I struggle in agony, my still-human eyes weeping at my impending demise, my soul already grieving for this undignified death I bring to myself. I find myself distracted by a blinking light, my tears obscuring alternating green and red colors. I realize that I am seeing the strobe lights of an ore depot building a few feet away. Some force, something I do not understand yet, has brought me through the dark Sybaris night, over and around the dunes, right to my destiny.
The effort to rise to my knees causes me to moan in pain—but I somehow push up to my feet and then shamble madly toward the building entrance.
A pitiful whine escapes through my clenched teeth as I fall against the cool metal of the entrance door. The door is partially open, the sand of Sybaris having invaded into the recess. I put my hands against the doors and push and they slide open with a metallic grating noise. I don’t stop to marvel at the desperate strength I have, the power it takes to open the heavy barrier; instead I lurch inside to the nearest bin of raw ore, the irregular clods resembling volcanic rock, and with the last ounce of strength remaining in my tortured body, I pull myself up and over the nearest bin to lie among the ore inside.
Beyond any earthly pleasure or reward I have ever experienced is the sensation of warmth and life and the dissipation of pain that bathes me as I fall into a sleep of peace. They will come, they will find me here, and they will destroy me, but it no longer is of consequence, it does not matter. All that matters is the strange nurturing warmth of the ore, the cessation of pain, and sleep.
Go to Beginning
CHAPTER X
Spangler
A loud commotion outside, the stamping of feet and men shouting, then the depot door slams against the wall. Larry and two other men appear, staring down at me.
“What’re you doing in there?” Larry asks.
“He’s a deadhead!” One of the other men says, a grim note in his voice.
“Yeah,” says the third man. “A human couldn’t lay in there atop the ore without his brain frying. Looks like Todd was right.”
“Shoot him,” the second man says.
“No!” This from Larry, but they shove him to the side and pull their pistols.
A series of quick shots—but I am still breathing. Larry’s face appears again—this time, alone.
“C’mon, Ron. Get outa there.” He reaches down, grabs me under the armpits and heaves me up. The red-uniformed bodies of two security guards lie on the floor.
“Wha…what happened, Larry? You shoot these guys?”
Larry helps me out of the bin. “That ore—not good for me to be exposed to it without proper gear. Giving me a headache already.”
“The ore—something about it…”
He steadies me on my feet and then pulls the weapons from the corpses. “I had to shoot them. They were going to kill you. Let’s get out of here. Maybe if I get you back to the lab, Professor Zuckerman can help you. He told me to come find you. Let’s go.” He shoves a pistol into my hand.
The twin suns are shining; I have been sleeping in the depot for hours. The fragrant morning smell of Sybaris flows on the breeze. I dare to stretch and it feels good, the muscles still have blood in them and I am alive. But maybe not for long. “Larry. On that dune.”
Deadheads are coming for us, their odd shambling lope grotesque and jerky in their eagerness, their weapons gleaming in the light of the two suns,
dual shadows of the zombies cast against the sand.
“They’re between us and Station A. We’re gonna hafta fight our way through.”
But there are about thirty of them—wielding knives, axes, hammers, metal bars. “Look again, Larry. You’re going to fight through that?” I don’t wait for his response, but start running, my feet kicking up sand, though my stiff, fatigued thigh muscles burn with the strain. Larry is running alongside.
“What lies ahead?” I ask him.
“Station B.”
“Let’s make for Station B. Maybe we can radio the other station. Get some help.”
“Station B is their headquarters,” Larry says incredulously. “We’re going from one hell to another. We’re dead men.”
“They’re dead men, Larry. We’re worth thirty of them. Don’t count us out.” I glare at him and some spittle forms at my lips in my emotion. “I hate when people count me out, Larry. It’s the best way to make me fight harder. And we have our guns.” This silences Larry for a time, maybe makes him question my sanity, but that’s okay. If I weren’t somewhat crazy, I wouldn’t be on Sybaris, wouldn’t be pursuing my preposterous scheme. I sure as hell wouldn’t be doing dirty work for EMC.
“Look out!” A huge shape launches itself through the air and knocks us both to the ground. I grapple for my pistol and turn to see Larry and a monstrous-sized deadhead grappling. The zombie has a wrestler’s physique, most of his shirt torn and revealing gray skin rotting and oozing in places, but his massive arm muscles still ripple with strength. He yanks Larry’s pistol free and flings it down the hill. He picks Larry up in the air and bends him backwards in half. I hear a terrible CRACK and Larry screams. The creature tosses Larry aside, Larry’s broken body rolling down the slope. The monstrous deadhead turns toward me. He grins with a mouth full of carious, pus-laden teeth and swollen festering gums. He approaches slowly, seemingly enjoying himself at the sight of me lying helpless before him.
Horrified, disgusted, reduced to a cornered animal state, I rapid-fire my pistol at him, round after round, the impacts striking his arm, his chest, his face. This last impact ruptures the left side of his face and brings him down, a 300 pound pile of foul-smelling rotting flesh, to land inches from my feet. He lunges forward, grabs my foot and glares up at me with an intense hatred. The bullet hole in his cheek is oozing blue-black liquid.
I am screaming in rage and horror as I fire my last three rounds into the forehead of this colossus and watch his putrid brain tissue explode from the back of his skull. His face plunges into the sand, the force blowing dust and gangrenous debris through the back of his skull and into the air to fall back to the ground with a wet plop.
Scrabbling noises—no, more like tearing, feasting sounds—come from down the hill. I yank my foot from the creature’s grasp and stumble to my feet. A crowd of deadheads have converged on Larry and are tearing his body to pieces. Some of them cram mouthfuls of Larry into their gullets, while others fling unwanted parts into the desert. Spatters of organs and flesh are flying into the air. My stomach heaves and the retching sound captures their attention. They leave what’s left of Larry and start up the hill toward me.
“You bastards!” I shout at them, and then about to run, I glimpse their leader calmly following them, his embroidered red jacket reflecting the sun’s glare, his twin shadows preceding him, a calm smile on his face. He merely glances down at Larry’s head, then kicks it aside. I point at him, wanting to threaten him, make him fear, but the words don’t come, for I recognize this man—and this makes the horror unbearable. Spangler!
The deadheads are shambling up the hill. The man in the red jacket—a jacket I know to be part of a Roman military dress uniform—points back at me.
“Run, my friend! Run for your life.” His voice is all the more shocking because of the intelligence and education I hear in its tone. But intelligence is no antidote for cruelty. This I know too well. He bends and picks up Larry’s pistol.
I turn and run in a zig-zag pattern. Ahead is an outcrop of rocks and boulders as I find the desert giving way to firmer ground. A projectile zings past my head. Another shot and a puff of dust explodes at my feet. A third shot strikes me in the ear, blood flowing freely down my neck. I leap over a small boulder and the air beside my face makes a whizzing sound with another passing shot. I hear the red leader laughing below. I scamper up a rocky path, the hill becoming more firm and gravelly. The red leader will die, I promise myself as I delve into the safety of a labyrinth of boulders. And then I will destroy his army. Cut off the head and the body will follow.
But the man in the red jacket is playing with me. He is a crack shot, I know. I should be dead already. Just as I reach a turn in the path, a pellet strikes me in the shoulder, only a flesh wound, but knocking me to the ground. The deadheads are on me before I can rise. I wait for the teeth, the claws, for a rending death. A couple of the reds hold me to the ground, their foul breaths hot against me face.
Even amid the horror comes a thought: they breathe, after all.
A familiar face moves into my line of sight and peers down at me with surprise and amusement on his face. And cruelty. “Caesar’s Tomb! How are you, Ronny boy? And more importantly, why are you here?”
It takes me a moment to regain enough breath to speak. “Colonel Spangler. I always knew you to be a perverted bloody bastard, but you surpass yourself. At least, before, you were a soldier. Now, you’re just a leader of freaks and half-men.”
He smiles and presses his boot against my shoulder wound. “That’s okay, Major. We’ll talk later, eh?” The pain sears down into my hand, but I grit my teeth rather than make a sound. He stamps down hard on my arm and, just before I pass out, he orders his creatures to bring me along.
“Dr. Kimbrough, I presume.”
After regaining consciousness, I have managed to get to my feet, my shoulder flaring from the pellet wound and the grinding of the Colonel’s heel. I find myself in the dimly lit med lab, no doubt, part of Station B.
Lying on a gurney is a dark-haired man, his neat mustache and beard lending him an aristocratic air, marred only by the dingy blanket covering his lower half.
“Yes. And I know who you are, Major Crisp. The Red King told me about you. He has plans for you, you know. But not plans to prosper you. Plans for your demise.”
Standing so still that I did not immediately realize their presence are two deadheads apparently guarding us, both of them armed with holstered pistols. My own pistol is gone.
“Yeah, I know all about his plans.” I casually touch my fingers to my belt buckle. It is still there. “I’m not worried. Let him worry. I’ve got some plans of my own.” Gone is the general aching from the virus. My nap in the ore bin was life-saving.
“Am I part of your plans?”
“Dr. Kimbrough, I just want to get you back to Station A and restore some order.” And… get you together with the Professor, to find a cure for Abe’s virus.
“They sent you, didn’t they? Elemental? You’re working for them. You can get them to send us help?”
“We’ve got to help ourselves, doc. Now, let’s get the hell outa here.” I move slowly forward to help him up, but he raises a hand in protest. The guards tense, but their reactions are slow.
“Wait…please.” He offers me a sad smile. “You’ll find that I’m somewhat tied to my present surroundings.” He tries to laugh, but it doesn’t work out. The sound he makes is more like a croak. “It’s only my intellectual curiosity that has allowed me to persevere…to keep my sanity.” And he pulls aside the sheet. His legs are absent. Metal cusps surgically cemented to his hip sockets indicate where prosthetics once had been attached.
“Neuromuscular symbiosis? I’ve seen soldiers have this kind of surgery. Officers, of course. No enlisted. Very expensive procedure.”
“You’re not a medical doctor, are you?”
“No. I’m not.”
“But you have some medical training.”
“Yes, sir.”
He looks thoughtful. “And training of other sorts, it seems. What types of training?”
“Some engineering, languages, history, agriculture, transport logistics, communications, useful odds and ends.”
“Hmm. And weapon technology. Combat strategies?”
“Mostly tactics. The strategies are planned by others, though my…my commanders allow me flexibility.”
“Commanders like our friend Spangler.” He smiles as if he has just solved a puzzle. “You are a spy. A well-trained spy.”
“I prefer the term ‘facilitator,’ if you don’t mind. I fix problems.”
“For Elemental.”
“Yes sir.”
He sighs. “Am I one of your problems?”
I guess he sees something he doesn’t like in my eyes, because he shudders. “I guess you are, doc,” I say. “You’ve just become one. If I’m to keep you alive.”
The doctor lowers his chin to his chest so he can survey his partial body. “If you call this living.”
“This Red King…you’re talking about Spangler? The Station Chief?”
“Erik Spangler. A very determined man. A megalomaniac. He has dubbed himself the Red King. He means to overthrow the other two stations and control all the ore.”
“I need to know more about King Spangler’s operation, but first things first.” I lower my voice. “How quick are these guys, doc?”
“Quick? They are still rather stiff. The injections I have tried—.”
Without thinking, without consciously planning—I step back, pull a small weighted throwing knife from my belt buckle and flick my wrist toward the nearest guard. The blade strikes him cleanly between the eyes—and keeps going. The back of his head explodes in a cloud of brown dust and bone fragments.
Before he can fall, I yank the pistol from his grasp and pivot.
The second guard pulls his pistol from the holster—his movement a little disjointed and a little too slow.