HYBRID KILLERS

by Will Decker

  “Thank you, that’s sweet. I’m really glad you feel that way. I hope you still feel that way when we get done with your feet,” she added, the tone of her voice turning to a more serious note.

  “I want you to promise me something, Sandy,” I said, noting her seriousness. “If I’m unconscious, or unable for any reason to tell you what needs to be done, and the infection turns gangrenous, you will take that axe and chop off my feet, or put a bullet in my head. The gun is in the front pocket of my snow suit.”

  “I know where the gun is, I found it when I undressed you. It was the only thing you had on you besides your wallet, which was in your back pant pocket. But John, if you think I could use it on you, whether to put you out of your misery or not, you are sadly mistaken.”

  “Sandy, I’m not kidding myself here, and I’m not holding back any punches. What’s ahead is going to be downright ugly, foul, and painful, for both of us. If it gets too bad for me, and there isn’t any hope, please, for my sake, use the gun.”

  Though I was sincere in my pleading with her, I could feel a palpable resistance, growing within her.

  “I know you’re just trying to get me mentally prepared for the worse, John, but it isn’t going to happen. You’re going to fight it with every fiber of your being, if for no other reason than to prevent me from being placed in that predicament. Do you hear me, John?” she suddenly cried out as she fell into my waiting arms. Her tears broke down the dam, and flowed unabated down her cheeks, soaking the front of my wool undershirt. I continued to hold her tightly while her body shook with uncontrollable sobs.

  Speaking softly into her ear, my face pressed against her hair, I encouraged her to let go, to let it all out. This would be the last time that we would be able to talk this way before the pain in my feet would become unbearable. This was especially true, since I intended for her to begin cutting through the tightly stretched skin, and start the disinfectant process immediately.

  But right now, we needed to share our strength, and to feed each other our fortitude. We were quickly approaching a long famine that would take all of our mental and emotional reserves to get through, if we could get through it at all.

  My faith in Sandy was unwavering. There was a strong woman behind that pretty face and petite build. My faith in her was such that I was confident in her ability to pull through this ordeal and survive. It was my own physical strengths that had me most concerned. Since meeting this beautiful woman, my will to survive has never been stronger. Yet, my physical condition has never been at a lower point in my life. Since losing Amy, I’d neglected even superficial attempts at taking care of myself. But it was the physical tests that were going to be the most demanding on me through this ordeal, just as it was the mental tests that were going to prove to be the most demanding on her. I wished I didn’t have to put her through it now, after coming so close to accepting her drinking problem, and dealing with what she’d done. But it wasn’t going to be any other way.

  When her sobbing finally subsided, we continued sitting together with our arms wrapped tightly around each other for what seemed a very short time, but was in reality, more than an hour. Finally, she pulled away, and looked deeply into my face. I felt an onslaught of emotions pour out to her. She was the most beautiful person on the face of this planet, red and swollen features, notwithstanding.

  Pulling her face to mine, I searched out her lips, and kissed her long and hard, relishing the salty taste of her tears. Through the challenges ahead, I will remember this kiss, and I will draw strength from it in my darkest hour. Like the breath of life, I will cling to it, and when there isn’t any more hope, I will come back to her for more.

  Slowly, hesitantly, we pulled apart, looking at each other in silence, both wondering why life had dealt us this blow. I wanted to scream out and ask why, after we’d been through so much already. It didn’t seem fair, on the one hand, but at the same time, it couldn’t be blamed on anything or anyone but us. We had chosen the paths we were on long before we decided to lease the cabins. If I could have known all the pain and anguish that I was going to have to go through, and was about to continue through, I wouldn’t forgo any of it, if I was guaranteed the path would lead me here. Right here and now, with Sandy holding me, and loving me. She made it all worthwhile.

  The pain in my feet is growing unbearable. My temperature is rising higher by the minute. It won’t be much longer before I go into fever-induced shock. My immune system is being overtaxed. Soon, it will be overloaded. When that happens, it will either shut down, or kill me. Faster than my body can fight them off, the dead and decaying flesh in my feet is sending deadly toxins into my bloodstream. Very shortly, Sandy is going to have to be the strong one, as I’m going to be depending on her to cut away the dead flesh, so that the new can live. The burden of debriding the dead flesh will be solely her responsibility. If I expect her to have the strength to do what’s needed, I must find the inner strength to resist the pain and continue to live. After bringing myself on her the way I did, it won’t be fair of me to put her through the future agony that I’m going to put her through, just so she can watch me die. I can’t do that to her!

  The shivers were growing worse, making it hard to sit upright on the cot, and yet, I knew it wasn’t cold in the cabin. Before long, colder and clammier sweats would follow the chills. It was starting, whether I was ready for it or not, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

  Through rattling teeth, I said, “You’re going to have to cut through the skin, and literally scrape the dead meat from the living tissue. Then disinfect with a watery solution of soap what’s left behind. If my memory serves me correctly, the medical term would be debriding, or curettage. In an operating room, it would be done with a curette, and I would be under an anesthetic. But we don’t have a curette, so you’re going to have to make do with the cutlery that we do have on hand.” I paused as a wave of nausea passed over my body, leaving my feeling faint and slightly off-balance. “I think I’m going into shock. I need your help, Sandy.”

  She got up suddenly and grabbed several pots from the drawer under the stove. Speaking over her shoulder as she headed toward the door, she said that she would be right back. I said to be careful, but I don’t think she heard me as she went through the door in a rush, the steel pots banging and clashing together in her arms.

  While I lay back on the cot, the blankets pulled up to my neck, I listened intently for the sound of the wolf pack. But my ears were met only with silence. As a new wave of chills racked my body, I pulled the blanket up tighter around me, trying vainly to stave them off.

  Suddenly, the door burst open, and she came charging back in with the first of several pots of snow. She set the largest of them on the stove after moving the coffee pot to the table. The smaller kettles, she left on the floor, close at hand to replace the volume that the melting snow would vacate in the larger pot. With that done, she opened the cutlery drawer that was fashioned under the one and only solid wood table, and retrieved all the knives from it. These she added to the largest pot on the stove. I wanted to tell her it would be quicker and easier to disinfect the knives in the flames of the fire within the cookstove. But I knew that she was using the extra time to psych herself up for the ordeal that lay ahead of her, and I kept my thoughts to myself.

  She came back around to the cot, and after appraising me for a moment, said, “I think we need to get you up on the table. I’ll put all the spare blankets on it for a makeshift mattress so it isn’t quite as hard, and then we need to figure out how to move you up there.”

  My teeth were clattering together uncontrollably, and yet, I stuttered, “You have a good idea, there. The table will be much easier to keep clean and dry when you’re working on my feet.” I couldn’t help but be amazed at how quickly I was deteriorating. “It’s not very likely that I’ll be able to walk over there and jump up on it, if you know what I mean.”

  “No, I suppose not. But we’ll find a way,” she said encouragin
gly. “First though, I need to get the table ready.”

  After adding more snow to the large pot with the knives in it, she went to a large sea chest setting against the far wall that until now, I hadn’t noticed. Upon opening it, I could tell that it contained her life in bits and pieces of memorabilia. One of these days, I thought to myself, I will ask her to take me for a walk down that road. Near the bottom, she pulled out several quilts that appeared to have been hand-stitched. They were very ornately patterned. They must be heirlooms that were handed down from her mother’s mother, and eventually to her. To think that she was going to risk destroying them for my sake brought on a wave of guilt. Whether she used them for padding in place of a mattress, or for covering me, they were going to get soiled.

  She spread these on the table top, one over the other, and then carefully flattened them, caressingly running her hands over them to make sure that there weren’t any folds or creases that might possibly be a discomfort to me. Then she came back to the cot where I lay shivering. Carefully, she helped me back into a sitting position with my feet dangling over the edge of the cot. She needed me sitting up so that she wouldn’t have to lean quite so far over in order to get the bulk of my weight aligned with her back. Her intention was to hoist me onto her back and carry me to the table. Although I’d lost a lot of weight recently, I was still considerably larger than her. In addition, I was considerably taller, and she couldn’t lift me high enough to keep my feet from dragging across the floor. There had to be a better way.

  “Before you go any farther,” I chattered out in little more than a whisper. “Maybe you can drag me and the cot over to the table, or drag the table over here. Then all we have to do is get me from down on this cot to up on that table.”

  “That’s a good idea coming from you, since I’m the one who’s supposed to be thinking straight.” She thought for a moment before saying, “I think I’ll bring the table over here, that way I’ll have more room to work around it. Then I can move the cot over there,” she added, pointing towards the chest.

  She went over to the table and grabbed it by the nearest end with both hands. Throwing her weight into the effort, with much protesting coming from the wood floorboards, she slowly dragged it into a position parallel with the cot. She left just enough room between it and the cot for her lithe frame. Stopping for a moment to catch her breath, she also removed her snowsuit. Because she’d cranked up the old cookstove to melt snow and boil water, the cabin was getting hot and humid. Mixed with the exertion from dragging the heavy wood table, her face had turned a bright pink. Even on the brink of being delirious with fever, I couldn’t help but think how beautiful she looked. Standing there in front of me with the glow from the lantern highlighting her face, she was a vision of beauty, easily rivaling that of an angel.

  Just as quickly, I scolded myself at the thoughts that followed, as I took in the thick wool sweater she was wearing beneath her snowsuit. It closely followed the contours of her body, silhouetting her round curvaceous hips and small waist, and accenting her flat tummy, while highlighting her proud, firm breasts. In that moment, despite my pain and the horrible situation facing us, I harbored thoughts that weren’t appropriate under the best of circumstances.

  She turned her back to me and, in a voice that was both firm and demanding, said, “Now, when I bend down, you lock your hands in front of my throat and hold on tight. I’m going to reach around my sides, grab you by your belt, and lift while turning at the same time. If we’re lucky, I’ll be parking your butt on the edge of the table. When I do, I’m going to need you to maneuver yourself far enough onto it so that you don’t fall back off. You understand me?”

  “Yeah,” I stuttered back, confident in her abilities.

  I was shivering uncontrollably, the cold having penetrated all the way to my core. My body was being racked by intermittent spasms of pain that were starting in my lower extremities, searing through my guts, and terminating in the back of my skull. With each spasm, I shook so hard, I was afraid the cot was going to collapse beneath me.

  Bending her knees while lowering herself before me, she took my hands in hers, and carefully placed them over her shoulders, bringing them together in front of her throat. I suddenly doubted that I would have the strength to do what she needed of me, but I was afraid to say so. If I voiced my concern, it might take hold, making it come true. Instead, I laced my sweaty fingers together, and prayed silently that they would stay that way, at least until she got me on the table.

  She reached past her hips, and wrapped her fingers between my belt and body. Softly, she counted to three. Then, inhaling deeply like a weight lifter going after a world record, she straightened her legs with one mighty effort.

  With a tremendous rush that sent the blood draining from my head, I rose upward off the cot, simultaneously spinning dizzily around to the side. My eyes rolled in their sockets, and a dark cloud settled over my vision. I was about to pass out when, just as suddenly as it all began, I was sitting on the edge of the table with my arms still clasped in front of Sandy’s throat. Though I felt sick and nauseated from the movement, I was aware of her butt pushing firmly against my crotch, as she forced me farther back from the edge of the table. Attempting to help, I rocked from side to side on my buttocks. The movement was more than my poor head could withstand, and I immediately grew dizzy and disoriented.

  None too soon, she stopped, satisfied with our efforts, and slowly unlocked my hands from in front of her throat. She kissed them lightly as she held onto them and turned back to face me. Too light headed from the exertion to do it myself, she gently helped me lay down on my back, and then lifted my legs up onto the table, moving one at a time and setting it gently on top of the quilts.

  After positioning a pillow beneath my head, she quickly removed my sweat-soaked underclothes, and toweled my body dry, being especially careful near my feet. Next, she covered me with the blankets from the cot. Though I continued to shiver, the sharp spasms of pain seemed to subside for the time being, and I almost felt the warmth trying to displace the cold in my core.

  Stepping back for a moment to assess the situation, she suddenly went over to the small pile of firewood by the stove and dug through it, looking for just the right piece. When she finally settled on one, she returned to the table and positioned it beneath my legs so that my feet were propped up enough for her to work on them, top and bottom.

  Finally satisfied with her efforts, she dragged the stripped cot across the floor, placing it next to her chest of memories. Sitting down on it, she rested her head in her hands for a moment, staring blindly at the closed lid. I thought she was going to open it and pull something of importance from within. But instead, she was drawing the courage and fortitude to continue, from all that was contained within.

  Ready, she took a deep breath and rose, coming to stand by my side. “I’m going to have to start on your feet now,” she said slowly and softly, almost apologetically. Then, bending over and cradling my head in her arms, she started crying, ever so softly saying, “Please forgive me.”

  Through the chattering of my teeth, I managed just three words, “I love you.”

  She went to the stove and, after satisfying herself with the temperature of the water, removed the large pot and brought it over to the foot of the table before setting it down. Reaching into the steaming water with a pair of tongs, she retrieved a medium-sized knife, and returned to the stove with it. Opening the firebox door, she held it in the open flame for a moment to sterilize it. Returning to the table with a detached look in her eyes, she began the cleaning process. I knew immediately when she cut through the blackened skin, as a putrid odor suddenly permeated through the air, blocking out the beautiful fragrance of her being. She moved quickly and stoically, doing what needed doing with professional detachment and accuracy. But I wasn’t aware of this directly; everything had already grown hazy and distant, even the pain.

  I was no longer lying on an old wooden table that looked as though it ha
d been hand carved out of an old tree over one hundred years ago. Instead, I was drifting toward my future, floating high up in the rafters of an ancient church. A funny thought passed fleetingly through my consciousness, as I wondered briefly, that this must be what it feels like to be an angel. Looking downward toward the doors, they were suddenly flung open, allowing the sun-filled daylight to enter. Shadows filled the doorway, as I continued looking on in amusement. A wedding procession took shape from the materializing shadows, and filed into the church. I was happy for the couple, though I wondered absently if I even knew them.

  No sooner had I formed the thought that I needed a closer look then I was suddenly drifting down to the alter gliding gracefully and invisibly behind the two lovers. There was something familiar about them, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was. I’m almost upon them, when suddenly, I’m pulled back up with such a violent force that I let out an involuntary gasp. The feeling doesn’t hurt since there is no sensation of gravity; it’s a feeling more akin to riding in an elevator and having the floor drop out from under your feet. Yet, it isn’t even that so much, as it’s more just a ‘feeling’ of being there. There’s no feeling of air rushing past me, as I move rapidly upward, toward the rafters again. This time, though, I continue upward through the roof of the church, and into the bright morning sky.

  Flying over the rooftops of the buildings, I can’t help but wonder where I’m going. There is no sensation of time or movement. Rather, I feel as a spectator, watching a movie roll by on a large screen that has the ability to encompass all of my surreal surroundings. I’m acutely aware of a lack of all sensations, though I should be feeling something, even nausea, when I am suddenly being pulled back down toward the roof of another building in another part of this little town.