by A J Donovan
The third one is flailing wildly, there is a flock of birds clawing at its face and the monster is trying to protect its eyes. It bats at the birds with its claws but they just keep coming back, even when some of them take a direct hit and fall lifelessly to the ground. They can’t possibly hope to defeat the beast. It’s a suicide mission.
Molly is controlling them.
Her fists are clenched and sweat beading on her face. The girl is staring at the animals with more intensity than I’ve ever seen on her face, and that’s saying a lot.
The beast I knocked over is back on its feet. I close the distance and drive the icicle into its neck, pouring strength into my arm and reinforcing the ice so it doesn’t shatter. The armoured skin is tough to pierce but the ice is sharp and it breaks through.
The beast roars and tries to get it teeth around me but I’m too close so it swipes at me with its paw. The lethal, serrated claws are several inches long and fear grips me when they fill my vision. I raise an arm and the claws crash against it. Unnaturally strong ice covers my arm, or maybe my arm is the ice, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that the razor sharp claws were blocked.
The beast growls and it stops pushing against my arm, grabbing it instead and pulling me off the ground like a rag doll. It’s going to throw me. The icicle is still embedded in its neck, if I can kick it with enough force I can drive it in further and end this fight.
I swing my leg out but the beast is expecting my move and it drops me to the ground instead. It’s paw is still around my arm and it lifts me and crashes me down again and again. I let the ice spread across the back of my head and neck and the rest of my body. I’m safe for now but I’m losing this fight.
I raise my other arm and another icicle forms. I drive it into the underside of the paw and the monster screeches and releases me with the icicle still in its paw. I land on my feet and force power through my palm. A spear of ice forms as I thrust my hand up at the beast and drive it under its chin.
The screeches stop.
I want to fall to my knees but there was a third monster. I whirl around quickly to help the others, but there’s no need. The other beast is dead. There are several birds on the ground around it, and I can tell that Molly put up a good fight, but it’s clear that a bullet to the brain was how it died. Diana must have taken advantage of Molly’s distraction and killed the beast before it could get rid of all the birds.
Molly is crouched by the fallen birds and whispering something to them. I can’t hear what she says but she looks sorry.
“Give her some space,” Diana says quietly. She must have known I was preparing to go over to Molly and comfort her. “She feels guilty. She needs some time.”
I nod. “We should check out the house.”
“You go first, I’ll stay with her.”
Diana stands guard, surrounded by three dead monsters and half a dozen dead birds, while I walk towards the battered and scratched house holding the stranger we came here to save. I laugh quietly to myself. That’s a sentence I never thought I would say.
The door is stuck. I could kick it down easily, the wood is barely holding itself together, but I don’t want to scare whoever is inside. I carefully pull it and drag it open. It separates from the door frame so I gently place it on the ground.
The interior is dark. My eyes adjust when I step inside and I see a boy, a teenager a few years younger than me. He’s on the floor, holding his stomach and trying to stop the bleeding.
“Help me,” he says.
I scan the door before I cross it and kneel beside him. He’s alone and unarmed.
“What happened?”
“Gunshot wound,” he says, gritting his teeth against the pain. “Long story.”
“You can tell it to me later,” I say. “You’re immune.”
I don’t phrase it as a question but he nods anyway.
“That’s what got me into this mess.”
“Move your hands.”
“No! Are you crazy?”
He’s losing a lot of blood and there’s no time to explain what I can do or convince him to trust me. I grab his wrists and pull them away with one hand. I push the other against his abdomen and ice spreads across the opening like a bandage.
“What is that? What are you doing?” He starts struggling.
“I’m trying to save your life, okay? Trust me.” He’s barely listening and he struggles harder. If he keeps this up he could do more damage.
“I’m letting you go but you can’t take off the ice, it’s keeping you alive.” He’s clearly not listening to me, the shock of everything and the loss of blood must be messing with his head. I let go of his hands but I keep mine over his stomach, just in case he goes crazy and tries to rip it off.
“Jake, are you okay?”
It’s Diana. “I’m fine,” I say, without turning around. “He’s hurt, he needs our help.”
The kid stares blankly at Diana for a few seconds and then his gaze sharpens. “You’re a girl,” he says.
She scoffs. “You think?”
Molly steps in beside Diana. “Did the beasts hurt him?”
He looks at Molly and his eyes widen. “Another girl,” he says. “She’s just a kid.”
Molly glares at him. “No, I’m not. I don’t like him, Jake.”
“Why are you so shocked to see women?” I ask him.
He looks back at me. “The group I was with, before, the ones who... Never mind. There were no women. Well, there were, but...” He trails off again and I realise how gaunt he is. His face and his eyes and everything about him points to some kind of traumatic experience. I can imagine what kind of people he must have been travelling with. I can only hope that they’re far away from here by now.
“Well, there are women in our group,” I tell him. “And families. Kids. Normal people.”
“Actual kids,” Molly says quickly. “Not me.”
“Can I come with you?” he asks.
I look at Diana. “I doubt Reggie will care.”
She shrugs. “Sure.”
The boy relaxes instantly. “Thank you so much,” he says. He starts to say something else but I jump backwards. I feel like something splashed cold water onto my mind.
“What’s wrong?” Diana asks, rushing forward.
“Nothing,” I say, staring at the boy. Or rather, I’m staring at his wound. The skin is closing, knitting itself back together, and pushing my ice out of the way. It’s so completely unexpected that I have no idea what to say. I can feel the ice being shifted and melting in some kind of strange warmth. My power is rolling around in my head, throwing the world out of focus and spinning my thoughts around. I think the ice wants to push back against the warmth but I restrain it. I can see the wound healing. The warmth must be a good thing.
“What is happening?”
The boy smiles. “I’m fixing it.”
I stare at him. “You’re fixing it.”
“You’re healing yourself,” Diana says, awe filling her voice. “Can you heal other people too?”
Our reactions to his power is apparently enough to restore his confidence. He grins up at Diana. “I can heal whoever I want.”
Molly was standing by the door for most of this conversation but now she steps closer. Her expression, as always, is suspicious. “If you’re a healer, why didn’t you heal yourself before?”
His grins falters and he looks almost embarrassed. “I can’t use my powers when I panic. I need to be calm so I can focus. Getting shot doesn’t exactly help with that.”
Molly continues questioning him, but Diana and I both saw the truth when his wound closed itself and disappeared, leaving healthy, unbroken skin behind it.
“He’s a healer,” Diana says to me. “I can’t believe it.”
“I have a name, you know,” he says.
“What is it?”
“Gavin.”
Chapter 20 – Camp Turk
Kim
“She can come in but the monster stay
s outside the wall.”
I want to argue but I can see his point. Rex looks just like all those beasts that have been tearing people apart. Literally. They’re probably even the same species. So I don’t argue with him, even though every part of me wants to fight it.
“Stay here, Rex,” I tell him, patting his neck. “Explore the area, I’ll come out to you later.”
Rex whines but I give him a firm look and he nudges my shoulder with his nose before running off. I watch him for a minute, until he reaches the trees, and then I turn and follow the others inside the wall.
The gatekeeper closes the thick metal gate behind us and locks a heavy padlock around the chain. “Sorry about this, but I’m going to need all of you to take off your clothes.”
I raise an eyebrow at him and I open my mouth to tell him exactly what I think of that, but he laughs before I can say anything.
“Whoa, you look like you’re about to kill me. Calm down, we’re prepared.” He gestures towards a short, curvy woman with dark eyes. “This is Kayla, she’ll be checking you.”
Kayla grins at me and beckons for me to follow her over to a small building. “Don’t worry, we have lots of women here. And they all agree that we need our privacy.”
Kayla closes the door, and once I’m sure there isn’t anyone or anything about to jump out at me, I start pulling off my clothes.
“You don’t talk much, do you?” Kayla smiles.
“Not really. I used to, I suppose, but a lot’s happened.”
Kayla nods. “I understand, believe me. I lost half my family when the outbreak first hit, and I only managed to get three of the ones who survived here. I told them the army would help us but not all of them believed me. I doubt the others made it.”
She stops talking suddenly. She looks embarrassed, like she spoke more than she meant to.
I’m about to pull off my t-shirt when I remember my bite mark. “Do you know about the immune?”
Kayla stiffens, eyeing me warily. “Yeah, what of it?”
“I’m... one of them.”
Kayla looks suspicious. “Okay. That means you’ve been bit, yeah?”
I nod.
“I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but a lot of people have been pretending they’re immune just so we don’t kick them out, even if really they just got bit. Some of them even claim they have those superpowers so they can get inside our walls.”
“I can show you my power to prove it.”
Kayla relaxes instantly. “That’d be great, thanks. I don’t want to have to tell the soldiers that you’re infected.”
I glance at the table. “You don’t seem too worried about what I can do.”
“I don’t judge, you know? Just because it’s something different doesn’t mean it’s something bad.”
I grin. “I think we’re going to get along just fine, Kayla. You’re alright.”
She grins back. “I’m amazing.”
I extend my arm and the air wraps around a coffee cup. After a moment, it lifts into the air.
“Cool! There was this one guy who could breathe underwater, so he had to stick his head in a bucket of water for like ten minutes to prove it. It was pretty awkward.”
I laugh, and then I laugh more because it feels so good. Fun is rare these days.
She nods solemnly. “I suppose this whole examination is kind of pointless now, with you being what you are and all. Where is it, anyway?”
She means my bite. I pull off my t-shirt and she gasps.
“Shit! That looks nasty. I would recommend you put some disinfectant on that, but...” Kayla flashes me a grin and I laugh, rolling my eyes and pulling my shirt back on.
I get dressed again quickly, and we head out just in time to see Will with his trousers off.
“Hey!”
***
“We only have a handful of Unturned in the Camp.” Colonel Hawkins is a man with many scars, and I find myself trying not to stare. He leads Cole, Kayla and me through the camp.
Kayla has appointed herself as my tour guide.
“We try to teach them to improve their control of their abilities, but in some cases there isn’t much to improve on.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“There is a girl, Maria Tanning, who can create force fields. That in itself is an incredibly useful ability, so we have her working on increasing their strength and the amount of time she can hold them up. However, in the case of Greg Holden, who has gained the ability of perfect memory since he was bitten, there isn’t much he can improve on.”
I nod as he speaks but all I can think about is how useful and potentially dangerous this group of Unturned could be.
We reach a large tent and he stops walking. “Holden’s power is also not very useful on a battlefield,” he says. “But that doesn’t matter right now. Go on inside, and meet everyone. Acosta, you can report to Captain Knight when you’re done. Kim, Kayla will show you around afterwards, if that’s okay with her.”
“Sure thing,” Kayla says.
He leaves us and Kayla immediately turns her attention to Cole. She’s been flirting with him since they met but I don’t think Cole has noticed. Unfortunately, the only person he has been looking at is me. I hope he eventually takes an interest in someone else. Cole is a good man, he deserves someone who likes him as much as he likes them.
I push back the flap at the front of the tent and everyone turns to look at us.
“New arrivals!” A man in a cloak rushes forward, waving a wand around in the air. “Welcome to Camp Turk!”
Cole and I just stare at him.
Kayla sighs. “Frank, get out. You know what will happen if they catch you in here again.”
The man gives her his most fierce expression, probably in an attempt to show her that he is serious and won’t be swayed. It just makes him look constipated, to be honest.
“Fine, but I will return!” He dramatically sweeps from the room.
Cole looks so confused by the spectacle that I can’t help but start laughing. When he sees me laughing at him he smiles sheepishly.
“Shut up,” he mutters, turning to the other people in the room.
There are eight of them. Two are soldiers, wearing uniforms and carrying weapons, but the others are all dressed like civilians. Like me. There are a few other people scattered around but I can tell they’re not immune. I can’t sense the infection in them, none of them have abilities. None of them had to survive the fire that almost killed every Unturned in this room.
“Hi, I’m Kate.” She walks over to us and takes my hand in hers. She looks like she could be in her forties and for some reason she reminds me of my mother.
“It’s nice to meet you,” she says.
I smile and take her outstretched hand, shaking it. “I’m Kim. What can you do?”
Kate laughs. “Well, it’s not much of anything, really. I can change the colour of my skin. It’s not useful at all, to be honest. The only thing I can think of is that I could camouflage really well.” She takes a deep breath and her skin turns green and brown, just like you’d see on camouflage gear.
A short girl runs up to us and giggles before she speaks. I immediately don’t like her. “Hi! I’m Maria! I can make force fields.”
Great. Somehow, the most useful power in this room is in the control of a cheerleader.
The only other person of interest is one of the soldiers, a quiet man called Kimura. He doesn’t give his first name. He says he can put people to sleep by touching them.
“For how long?” I ask him after a few minutes. Everyone else has broken up into different conversations.
“What are you referring to?” he asks.
“Your power. How long can you make them sleep for?”
Kimura takes a moment to think. “I don’t know. Usually, I attempt to put people into a light sleep. I have put a few people into a deep sleep that take several hours to wake from.”
He hesitates and looks into my eyes. I get the impres
sion that he’s trying to decide something. I stay silent while he decides.
“I also believe it is possible to put people into a sleep from which they will never wake.”
My eyes widen. “Really?”
“Yes. Of course, I have not tried this, so I can’t be sure.”
“Can you wake them up?” I ask.
Kimura nods. “Yes, otherwise I would probably be dead right now.”
“What do you mean?”
“I had to prove I had a power when I first revealed that I had been bitten. They thought I had killed the man, rather than just putting him to sleep. So I woke him up. It was completely my fault of course, I should have warned them beforehand.” He laughs quietly.
For some reason, his cavalier attitude towards his close call with death makes me laugh.
“You’re cool,” I say.
He frowns. “No, I’m not.”
“Yep, you are.”
“I am not cool,” he says stubbornly.
“You are.”
He is silent for a few moments and then he sighs and turns away.
“I like him,” I say to Cole.
Cole just laughs.
***
Chapter 21 – Healer
Jake
Gavin looks like he spends most of his time in his room, listening to angsty music and being angry at his parents. It seems impossible but the second a man gets shot Gavin transforms into something else. He becomes a healer and moves into action quickly and calmly. If I didn’t see it, I wouldn’t believe it.
We are rescuing a group of survivors. There are two families and a few of their friends, and when walkers break into their hideout, one of them decides to take out his gun. Normally I would think this is great, an extra person helping us fight against the walkers is always good. The problem is that his aim is terrible. He wastes five bullets before he manages to hit a walker, and even then he only got the walker’s shoulder.
His expression is so surprised that I honestly think it was an accident.