“Duncan, do something,” he says again more urgently, his eyes as wide and fearful as I assume mine are. She suddenly coughs and coughs, and then . . . stops. Her body falls silent and limp on the bed.
Nausea crashes down on me, my ears ringing. She just died right here in front of me. That really is the end of this place. A nightmare ending for a nightmare nine months. My hand covers my mouth.
“Duncan!” Sanil shouts. “Check her pulse, damn it.”
I jump and check her pulse, but feel nothing. “No,” I whisper and put my ear to her mouth, praying to hear just a faint breath, something, anything, but what I hear is nothing. Silence. She’s dead. I grip the edge of the bed, my eyes going wide. “Quickly, Sanil. Quickly!”
Quickly what? What can he do? What can I do? I start to perform CPR, pressing down on her chest, but every time I press, fresh blood sprays out around Sanil’s hands, which are now wrist deep in blood and still desperately holding the dressing over the hole in her stomach. The other woman is crying now, sensing my panic.
All our efforts are wasted, though; there’s no saving this woman. I can only pray now that they catch the guys who did this to her. I probably added to her death because I moved her, but that might be overshadowed if they catch them. I stand back up, dazed. Jesus, who would do this?
“Do something! Save her.” The woman with the bite mark is hitting my back and arms. “Don’t stop!” she screams. “Don’t stop.”
Sanil stands up, staring down at his blood-covered hands, looking even more dazed than I feel. We look at each other, both ignoring the woman going crazy behind me. She hits me a final time and storms out of the room in tears, running down the hallway and screaming for help. I’m not God, what does she expect me to do?
I look at the blood dripping off the edge of the bed and onto the floor, a large puddle forming underneath. A man did this? That can’t be right. She has to be confused. How could a man do this? But the bite mark on her shoulder didn’t look like an animal bite—it looked human. I look down at my own hands, still gripping the edge of the bed and stained pink with blood, before a movement catches my eye.
Her hand! Jesus, her hand moved.
“Sanil!” I whisper and point to her hand as it twitches again. “She’s alive.” Relief washes over me, though I know she’s not anywhere close to being okay. We both move closer, holding our breath.
I put my ear close to her mouth and tell Sanil to shush so I can listen, though he hasn’t said anything. The other stupid woman is still wailing like a banshee outside and making it difficult to hear anything properly, and I strain and listen harder as I get closer to her face, her lips brushing my earlobe almost intimately. I take another deep breath and after nearly a full minute of listening, I still can’t hear anything, so I pull away and take her wrist in my hand.
“Well?” he asks.
I don’t feel anything though—nothing, not even a weak pulse—but her fingers are twitching. I lean over and put my fingers to her neck, kicking myself for not checking there first, considering that’s where it would be strongest. I press harder. “Come on, come on,” I mutter.
Her eyelids flicker, and both Sanil and I gasp as they open. They’re cloudy, not the dark brown I think they should be. I step back as she pins me with her gaze and growls, her eyes flicking between Sanil and me.
“Halima?” I ask quietly. Something is wrong, other than the huge gaping hole in her stomach and the massive blood loss. “Sanil, keep that pressure on,” I order, but I don’t think it’s actually helping in any way. I reach for her throat again to check her pulse. She seems quite alert, considering I think she just had a near-death experience. “I’m just checking your pulse, sweetheart. You don’t need to worry, just try and stay awake for me. An ambulance is on its way.”
My hand touches her throat. Her skin is cold to the touch and I know I should expect that, but I’m still shocked by it. She reaches up unexpectedly and grabs my shirt, pulling me down to her now snapping jaws. I shout loudly and try to bat her off me, but damn she’s strong. “Sanil!” I shout again.
He comes around to my side of the bed and pulls her hands free from me, her nails digging into my skin and drawing blood as he breaks her grip.
“Get something to hold her down with!” he shouts as he uses his shoulder and hands to pin her to the bed.
She flips herself wildly on the bed like a fish out of water as she tries to shake him off. I can’t move as I watch it all unfold, knowing that this is something else—this is very, very wrong. I want to tell him to let go and we’ll run and lock her in here until the doctors arrive, but I can’t find my voice; my throat feels closed up and suddenly too dry.
She cranes her head forward, her teeth millimeters from his ear as he shouts to me again.
“Duncan, help me, get something to hold her with, damn it!” He turns his face and gets a little too close, her teeth finally making contact with the flesh of his face, and she bites down.
She growls and shakes her head from side to side like a rabid dog, and the sound of tearing flesh is unmistakable as Sanil screams and pulls his face free from her jaws. Blood sprays across Halima’s face, which only excites her more, and she growls louder and reaches for him again. His hands grab at his face as he stumbles toward me and I stagger backwards, moving toward the door and away from the crazy scene unfolding in front of me. Halima sits up, her cloudy eyes tracking him across the room as she pushes her body to the edge of the cot and then falls to the floor. Her body slaps the hard tiles with a splash in the blood pool around the bed, which explodes and sprays up around us like it’s raining blood. She pulls herself upwards and Sanil runs to me crying and shouting, blood pumping between his fingers, but I can’t hear him—the sound of ringing is deafening in my ears. She stands and comes toward us in slow, lurchy movements and I grab Sanil and pull him in front of me like a human shield.
He doesn’t even realize I’m doing it, he’s so panicked. Hell, do I even realize I’m doing it? I look at Halima’s angry, hate-filled face. Yeah, I do. Halima continues to stumble forward, her arms reaching for us, foggy eyes focused solely on Sanil, who’s shaking, his whole body trembling as I hold him in front of me. She growls and coughs again, and as more blood spews from her mouth, I push Sanil forward and into her deathly grip as I run for the door, hearing him screaming loudly behind me.
Two.
My feet pound down the hallway, and I don’t stop as I pass the rest of my employees running to the medic’s room, even when they try to ask me what’s going on. Sanil’s screams are still echoing loudly behind me.
“Duncan, where are you going?” Andrew, one of the full time instructors, grabs my arm as I try to pass him. I shrug him off and keep running without answering, thoughts of his resume running through my mind.
Andrew Collins. Thirty-four, married with two children (both girls) and a third on the way. His hobbies are his X-box, rappelling and mountain biking.
“Duncan!” he shouts after me again. “Where are you going?”
I ignore him, running for the door. I have to get out of here. I hit the outside and slam the door shut behind me as the sounds of more screaming reverberate down the hallway, reaching all the way outside. I press my back against the glass and close my eyes, letting the sounds deafen me.
It was me or them. Wasn’t it?
A cough makes me open my eyes. The woman with the shoulder bite is lying on her side. She’s not looking at me, but focusing on the blood being expelled from her lungs as she coughs and hacks it up. She groans and clutches her sides, retching loudly and sobbing between each fresh burst of coughing. Whatever happened to Halima is happening to her. I can tell by the blood and the crackly breathing coming from her lungs. Even from this distance, I can hear it. She’s going to change and be like that thing Halima turned into, and I’m out here with her.
Fear trembles through me. I scan the area around us, seeing no one but her and me, hearing nothing but her coughing, spluttering, and whimper
ing—and of course the screaming from inside the hub. My hands shake as I pick up one of the canoe paddles and walk toward her. Her eyes look up to me pleadingly, but I can see they are already starting to cloud over.
“I . . . I don’t feel well,” she sobs and coughs again, blood splattering the ground as she bends over on hands and knees. As she bows I see another bite mark on the back of her neck, blood soaked down the back of her shirt. It looks deep, so deep I think I’d probably be able to see bone and muscle if it weren’t for all the blood.
“You’ll be okay. It’ll all be okay.” I swallow down the bile in my throat.
“There are more of them.” She coughs again.
“More?” I whisper, looking around but seeing nothing.
She nods. “More.” She coughs more blood up and sobs loudly. “I don’t feel well.”
“I know you don’t, sweetheart.” I swing back with the oar and catch her in the back of her head. Something cracks, and for a second I think it might be the oar, but when her body drops to the ground, unmoving, I know it was her—her head, skull, whatever.
I just killed someone. I retch and drop the paddle, my hands trembling as I continue to stare at the blood that pools around her body. I look around me and see that I’m still alone. The screaming from inside is still loud enough to hear, but it won’t be long before whatever’s in there makes it out here. I need to contain this—whatever this is. I turn and run back to the hub door, and with shaking hands I lock it and step away. “Now what?” I whisper to myself.
An ambulance should be on its way soon, but there’s no way they’re going to be able to save any of these people. This is a virus, a contamination of some sort, and I need to try and stop it before it gets anywhere else . . . infects anyone else. I need to end this now, before it goes too far. I need to eliminate the infected by whatever means necessary. That’s the lie I tell myself anyway as I run for the storage shed at the back of the building. I know exactly what I’m going to do and where I can go afterwards until this thing blows over. Hell, I’m going to make this work to my benefit. The insurance payout on this will be huge. I can almost see the headlines now:
DISGRUNTLED FEDEX EMPLOYEE ATTACKS AND KILLS CO-WORKERS IN MASS MURDER RAMPAGE, THEN SETS FIRE TO BUILDING.
Yeah, this is going to work. After all, that’s basically what just happened. I just need to make sure that no one who saw me running from the scene survives. Shouldn’t be too hard, considering what I just saw Halima do to Sanil. I can’t imagine anyone could survive that. Plus I just locked them all in there with her.
My thoughts stray back to Sanil—his face as she tore into him and ripped a chunk of flesh away. The arc of blood and the screaming. Jesus Christ, I’ll never get that sound to go away for as long as I live; but hell, at least I won’t be bankrupt.
I unlock the storage shed and pull out a gas can, my old climbing gear that I started this place out with, and a couple of the older sleeping bags. They’re full of mildew and the better ones are inside, but this will still work as a cover story—I don’t intend on sleeping in them anyway. I head to the back entrance of the hub, unlock the door, and sneak in.
No one will have a clue that this was all my doing. I’ll be over at the aerial extreme, preparing for a campout. I might even get a payout from FedEx for one of their employees destroying my business. I smile, feeling a glimmer of hope that this will solve all my problems. Of course I’m saddened that so many people have had to die, but there’s nothing I could do to save them. This isn’t my fault. Anyone would have tried to turn this into a positive—anyone. My mom used to say that you should always look at life with the glass half full, turning negatives into positives, and that’s all I’m doing—just trying to turn my fortunes around, and making all these deaths mean something.
I creep down the hallway, the sound of crying and coughing coming from the medic’s room. At least there’s no more screaming. I swallow down the football-sized lump in my throat, a chill working its way up and down my spine. I head for the dorm rooms—they’re right at the end of this hallway, and there’s no way out from there. If I set the fire there it should spread quickly, because of all the wooden bunks, and block off the back exit—leaving nothing and no one to chance.
My stomach claws at me, my conscience telling me that this is wrong, but I ignore it and press on, knowing that I’ve come too far to stop now.
The female dorms are past the canteen and to the right, and I head there first, intending on starting the fire before running to the men’s dorms and doing the same. I should be able to get out the back door before anyone realizes what’s happening. That’s if anyone is left. We only have two groups here this week, the female FedEx workers and a mixed group of males and females from some new energy-saving firm in a small town on the other side of the lake. They should all be in here now. My stomach twists again, my mouth feeling full of water and ready to spill my guts up. I make it to the women’s dorms and look inside, glad there’s no one there. I take a deep breath, building myself up to do this; once I start, there’s no turning back.
I hear a scream and running footsteps, and I drop the can and duck into a side door, peeking around as a blonde woman runs around the corner and into the dorm room. She slams the door behind her, and I wait a couple of minutes before stepping out and picking the gas can back up.
Shit. Male dorms it is, then, I think as I make my way down the other corridor.
Shouting and more running stop me in my tracks as I hear several people coming in my direction. I dive into another side room, peering around the doorframe and watching as five or six people, men and women, head past the gym and toward the male dorms.
Damn it! Now what?
Groaning follows them, and a minute or two later, some of the sick people lurch past, leaving a trail of blood behind them. I duck back inside the room, deciding to wait it out. You know what? Maybe I don’t need to set fire to this place. Maybe they’ll all kill each other anyway and I can take the companies to court for something. I don’t know what but there must be something I can get out of this, some way to turn this around in my favor. Sweat pours down my face. I can’t believe how bad this day has turned out to be: one minute sinking in debt, the next a mass murderer of all my guests. I shake my head, running my hands through my hair.
I give it half an hour and peek back out, seeing and hearing nothing, and then make my way to the exit. The blood on the floors and walls is enough to tell me that my plan isn’t worth it. Time to move on to Plan B.
I get to the back door, nearly bumping into one of those . . . things, and slip back out, locking it behind me. I head out into the woods, grab the old sleeping bags and harnesses, and head for the aerial extreme. I’ll wait it out there, until the police and ambulance come. After all, I did tell someone to call them, but it wasn’t actually me who made the call, so there’s still the whole plausible deniability factor. I feel like a coward, but to hell with it; at least I’m alive.
It’s a twenty-minute walk through the trees to the aerial extreme, and I climb up with the equipment I brought with me and set about making some of the beds. I need to make sure this looks as realistic as possible. I play out the conversation in my head.
I heard the sirens, officer. That’s the first I knew about it. I was setting up the next sleepover in the aerial extreme section. No one came to get me, and it’s so far out that I didn’t hear anything else.
No officer, I didn’t see anything either. No idea what happened. I do know that we had several complaints from some of the guests about one employee—Halima, I think her name was. She hadn’t been getting along with some of the others. She seemed quite disgruntled to me. (Pause for thoughtful look from police officer.) So, how long do you think it will be before I can reopen? What’s that? You think it will be months for the investigation to finish? Well, I better call my insurance company. I’m trying to run a business, and this could ruin my reputation.
Yeah, this could still work.
T
hree.
Muttering interrupts my thoughts and I look down to see a woman walking with a compass. She pulls a map from her back pocket and checks the directions, heading toward the hub.
God damn it, why can’t I catch a break?
I climb down as quickly as I can. Not an easy task considering how high up I am, and run to catch up to her.
“Excuse me. Hey, you there!” I shout over to her, and she turns with a smile.
“Yes?”
“Uh, what are you doing out here?” I recognize her as one of the guests—one of the FedEx group, now that I think about it. Her English isn’t that good; I think she’s from Germany originally, but I could be wrong there.
“I was on a scavenging mission.” She laughs with a shrug. “My team leader said that we all needed to go find certain colored flags from the forest. They sent me to the lake to get the red one.” She holds it up with a smile. “I think that I am very late with it, but I cannot make a head or a tail of this compass.” She smiles again, her cheeks flushing in embarrassment.
I stare at her for a minute before replying, “It’s ‘heads or tails.’”
“Sorry?” She looks even more confused.
“The saying. It’s not ‘a head or a tail of it,’ it’s ‘heads or tails of it.’”
She cocks her head to one side, still looking puzzled but smiling nonetheless. “I think the center is just over there, no?”
“No.” I nod. “I mean, yes, it is.”
“Thank you. Don’t tell anyone that I cheated please.” She grins and starts to leave.
I watch her walk away, wondering what to do. I can’t let her go over there—she’ll let those things out and end up getting herself eaten. Worse still, she could get me eaten! I swallow hard, realizing for probably the first time what these thoughts mean: This could be it—the end of the world as we know it. Or it could be just an isolated incident, the other part of me says. In my heart I know, though, and I run after her. If this is the end, insurance money won’t mean a thing. Hell, there won’t be any insurance company to get money from anyway. The police certainly won’t be coming anytime soon.
Odium Origins (Book 1): A Dead Saga Novella Page 5