by Jeff DeMarco
“What the hell?” Colby shuddered, as he propped his elbows under him.
“Sorry, Sir.” Rodriguez helped him into a seated position. “Didn’t think they’d shoot you.”
Colby edged out from the barrier. “What do you want?!”
“We’re not coming back inside!” Cortez yelled. “We need fuel and ammo.”
He rubbed at the pain in his chest. “And you thought waltzing up here and shooting me would get you that?”
“Got a .50 cal on the gun truck,” Rodriguez whispered. “Could take ‘em all out.”
“I didn’t shoot you!” Cortez yelled. “We’re free out here. So, you’re free to walk out here and address the one who did.”
“No,” Colby whispered back to Rodriguez. He leaned back around the corner. “What’re you offering in return?”
“Medical supplies, shelf stable food, canned goods… lots of it. Call it a strategic partnership.”
Colby rocked his head back onto the barrier, an annoyed, tired, painful sigh. “Alright… send in what you’ve got!”
Cranes lifted from the back of various ammo trucks; dropped 12 large pallets of food, each stacked 5 feet high. “That’s half,” the man yelled. “We’ll drop the other half when we get our ammo and fuel.”
Colby grabbed his radio.
“Sir, what’re you doing?!” Rodriguez whispered.
“Rock x-ray, this is Rock 6… Send a fueler up to the main gate. Need a pallet of 5.56, as well.” He turned to Rodriguez. “Business.”
A truck pulled up onto the main road, olive drab with ‘flammable’ printed across the side. A second, similar vehicle drove behind; a single pallet, stacked with green ammo cans. They pulled up to the barrier.
Colby struggled to his feet. “You… Private. Go pull out of the main gate, put it in park and run back in… leave the keys. And you… Go drop that pallet behind the fueler.” He waited, his rifle aimed at Cortez’ head.
Cortez waved his arm, the signal – ‘drop the remaining food.’ He looked straight at Colby. “I see you there.” A sort of coy assuredness to his tone. “We’ll see you in a week… Pleasure doing business with you.”
“Sir,” Rodriguez whispered. “Respectfully, we could’ve-“
“It’s fine,” Colby said. “It’s really no change. Just this way, we don’t have people to house, or to feed, or to manage. They’ll use up the same amount of gas and ammo as they would’ve anyway.”
CHAPTER 56
Droves of hunters wandered to a checkpoint outside the wire; Luca and Taylor waited for them, calling to them; ready to transport them inside the wire. Luca stared out at the horde. “Weird.” He compared the number present, versus the number they had targeted. “I only expected a quarter of this.”
“Virus has spread.” Taylor walked through the crowd of hunters, affixing a red ribbon around some of their necks. “Or maybe you’re just losing your edge.”
“No.” Luca scratched his head. “Pretty sure I would’ve felt it if there were more than that.” He eyed Taylor curiously. “Down draft from the helicopter maybe… Hit a wider area than intended.”
Taylor shrugged, fixing another ribbon around a Hunters neck.
“What’re you doing, dude?”
Taylor scribbled something on a notepad. “Experiment.”
Luca raised an eyebrow. “Go on…”
“Take a corpse, see if I can transfer their consciousness onto one of the hunters.”
Luca glared at him, judgmentally.
“I figure, they don’t remember anything. What’s the harm?”
Luca cocked his head. “What’s your sudden fascination with all this?”
“Don’t know, exactly.” Taylor squinted at the question. “Just seems… important.” He nodded, stoically.
“Hmm.” Luca pursed his lips. “Whatever… Just don’t kill any of ‘em, ok?”
Taylor hummed away, focused on his work.
“Ok?” Luca walked through the crowd of Hunters. He grabbed Taylor by the arm, spinning him to face one another. “Ok?”
Taylor broke his grip. “No promises.” Palm open, he hit Luca in the chest, sending him back into the dirt; then resumed his work.
“Hey!” Luca put his shoulder down, barreling into Taylor.
The nearest of the hunters formed a perimeter, as the two boys scrapped on the ground. Taylor emerged on top, his knee pinning Luca’s left arm, his hand pinning Luca’s right; his other hand squeezing Luca’s throat, cutting off circulation.
Luca smiled, his teeth bared in a snarl; the perimeter now pressing in on Taylor; Thirty-odd sets of teeth aimed at them. “Ready to die with me, brother?”
Taylor moved his hand from Luca’s throat to his forehead; a direct link to the signal. Taylor focused; his own signal generated, jamming Luca’s. Yet, the hunters continued to press in.
“They’re hungry,” Luca whispered, kicking his leg up, he wrapped it around Taylor’s neck; his foot interlocking the back of his knee – he whipped forward, throwing Taylor towards the edge, toward talons and teeth. “Bet we look awfully tasty.”
Taylor pulled his knife, a long sheep-foot point, the top of its back curving down to a sharp straight blade – he slashed at them, keeping them at bay. He turned back towards Luca. “Why do you love them so much?!”
“You know why!” Luca stood, brushed the dirt off himself. “They called me stupid for talking a little slow.”
“Liar!” Taylor said. “I’ve never called you that… and Jacob loved you!”
“Loved me so much he abandoned me.” Luca pulled his ka-bar, ready for another attack. “You weren’t there, with Jacob and Flynn, Kristen and the others; didn’t hear the fear in their voice, feel the thoughts in their head when I was assigned a mission… but their minds, so singular, so dead set on one thing – food. Unable to judge, even if they could. With them, I was free, a master, a god.”
“Yet you were so willing to sacrifice them in your-“
“They died in battle!” Luca screamed. “We should all be so lucky.”
Taylor sheathed his knife, unwilling to risk a fruitless death. “I’ll need the ones I’ve already tagged.”
“You’ll get nothing.” Luca’s eyes wild, ready for the fight.
His eyes tightened in a rage. “I want them.”
“You’ve earned nothing.” Luca motioned to him forward, blade in hand. “So, come… earn them.”
Taylor turned, his hands shot out – the hunters with them, clearing a path for his exit.
CHAPTER 57
‘Whap,’ a piece of lumber landed across the back of Faye’s head; then ‘whap,’ the same across Collin’s. Taylor dragged them back to his tent. Whether he was seen or not, he didn’t particularly care. Rumors had circulated – dead Soldiers, civilians, carnage, experiments. He had enjoyed it, but much to his dismay, it hadn’t made him happy. In fact, nothing had made him happy… not so much since that day at the hospital with Ellen. His new nature had brought him some sense of prestige, a formidable presence; yet, happiness eluded him. Now, the two former lovers would unite as one, laying on the cold dirt beneath his tent. They would come to know what together meant.
He aligned them in the same direction, kneeling, his hands cupped beneath their heads; sensing them, their mass and composition; like that of a scale, he was their judge. He chose Faye’s body; much nicer than the male form, and Collin’s mind; much simpler than the female mind. He fired neurons, not at random, but in an exhaustive manner. He found that some contained a series of memories, others – familiar sensations, still more – wrote commands like ‘breath,’ and ‘walk,’ and ‘jump.’
The memories flowed through him, his mind stored them like a temporary file, waiting to be written into permanent storage. He found Faye’s mind cluttered, yet ample storage for Collin’s mind; a multitude of neurons lay vacant, and waiting to be written. He wondered at how the brain might overcome this ‘occupied storage.’
Further still, he wondered why he was
so enthralled at seeing this obsession come to fruition. It had never been an interest of his, nor something he actively sought to achieve. Why then, he wondered, would he be compelled to alter the lives of these two individuals.
He hadn’t wished either of them harm… Faye perhaps, ‘the bitch,’ he thought, thinking of his run-in with his mother, Ellen. ‘But she’s not my mother,’ he thought, wondering why his thoughts had given her that title. “Hmmm,” he mumbled aloud, working steadily through the transfer of data.
His eyelids sagged, now 2 o’clock in the morning, now only halfway through the brain. He hoped he wouldn’t happen upon some cache of data, and yet, further wondered if all the human brain was just that: data, as he had yet to find a ‘soul’ in all of Collin’s memorative nonsense.
His face pressed between their two unconscious heads. He hadn’t figured out ‘how,’ exactly, but his mind set to autopilot; firing the neurons in geographic zones within Collin, then transferred through his brain and onto Faye’s. He wondered if perhaps he had mis-stepped and Collin would be more zombie-like than he had anticipated; and perhaps Faye would be equal or better to him, intellectually. It didn’t matter; just a fleeting thought as he dozed to sleep.
He was jarred awake by a voice, familiar. A girl, calling out to him by name; obscured by space and time. He was inside the white-space of the void; yet behind him, the data of a million memories clouded his vision. “Where are you?” he whispered and felt the embrace of an old friend, yet further – something neither good, nor evil. A presence, its nature a craving, lusting want. “Brie!” His voice echoed through the grey void, feeling her familiar touch. Also, her short stature and dark skin was a dead giveaway.
“You’ve met him,” she whispered.
“Ummm.” His mind flurried with thoughts, not his own. “Who?”
“Shay,” she said. “The giver.”
“Have I?” he asked, still not quite sure whether he was dreaming or in the void.
“I feel it,” she said. “He’s touched you, like he’s touched me… made you free to have everything you’ve ever dreamed of.”
“Sure,” his cluttered mind echoed without asking further. ”I think.”
Her apparition moved in and out of focus. “You’ll come then? Share in the wonders we’re about to see.”
“I guess,” he whispered, his mind unquestioning the vagueness of her response. “What’ve I got to lose… Not like anyone wants me here.” He thought only briefly of Ellen.
“Come, now.” Her figure fleeting, his mind moving in and out of consciousness. “I’ll see you soon.”
He awoke in a shot, both Faye and Collin laid before him, still unconscious. “Brie!” he called out into the void. “Brie!” She didn’t answer. He placed his hand on Faye’s head; the bleed in her brain from his bludgeon more significant than he had initially thought. He separated a flap of her skin. The collagen and calcium phosphate of her skull split along a square seam, the cranial membrane now protruding through bone. He punctured it with his knife; coagulated blood drained from her.
He felt along lobes of her brain; his mind sensing the internal structure, the lack of blood flow in the microvasculature. Capillaries split, miniature clots pulling loose from the ridges of grey matter. He sealed the blood vessels restoring normal blood flow, as though untouched; replaced the fragment of bone and skin. His hand placed on her head; he sensed bacteria and foreign bodies, cooked them in place.
She awoke slowly.
“Collin,” he whispered.
Faye’s body looked at him for a moment, then responded, “yes.”
He looked down at the lifeless husk. Above, the outline of his own silhouette in grass – blackened. The energy absorbed into him. Still breathing, as he hadn’t taken of any redundant bodily commands from the medulla oblongata or pons. He grabbed the head, twisting quick and sharp, followed by a ‘snap.’
Faye, Collin, either, or both, looked in horror as the neck broke; ending any life that had remained in the body.
He cauterized the wound, leaving a scar; in case a doctor needed to re-address the damage, then he shooed the two from his presence, without so much as a thank you. He removed his shoes and stuffed them into a rucksack. The grass felt prickly on his feet, the energy soaking into him; a black footprint of dead earth and grass with each step. He gathered his things. ‘One final act of benevolence,’ he thought, kneeling down.
Molly crept out, her tail between her legs.
“I’m not me anymore,” he whispered, his hands cupped along either side of the dog’s head. “Whatever it is I’m becoming, I release you.” With a turn, he walked from the tent; Molly slunk back into seclusion. He started off west, outside of the wire.
CHAPTER 58
“No,” Erica muttered under her breath. A piece of her was missing, or so she felt. Trudging through thigh high snow, dotted with blood along her snowy forest path. She could sense them coming; her mind and body exhausted, her sight like tunnel vision, slowly narrowing.
She knelt, packing snow into her wounds; a sharp searing pain when she pressed in. She ran 100 meters north, the crux of a tree, split into two large trunks. A force shot out of her, violent wind blowing, her tracks now hidden. She knelt along the tree, her face skyward, burying herself in snow. Warm blood trickled from her, through the snowpack, down into the root system below. She closed her eyes, visualized a barrier around her.
Then voices, non-rhythmic footsteps plowing their way through the snow. “Tracks end here,” a voice whispered.
“She’s near,” another voice whispered. “Search the area.”
She waited, helpless and bleeding out, warming the frozen dirt; a longing for… something, far more important than herself. She dared not move, or they’d find her, then find… it – Destroy it and her with it. ‘It?’ she wondered. She hadn’t an answer. Another presence lingered – inhuman. She could sense it seeking her out. Oddly, it didn’t feel part of this world within Erica’s mind. A sort of energy outside the void of her dream; then a painful suffering of another. She could feel the presence leave her, drawn to whatever was outside her mind.
In a shot, she awoke, breathless. The sensations still lingering, the cold, the pain, the longing, the foreign presence. She looked over at Ari, sleeping peacefully; then Michael, snoring softly. She looked up – Kristen sat 20 feet from her on a log, mumbling to herself. “Yes,” she whispered. “I want that.” Her face, her mannerisms, as though she was carrying on a conversation. “Death,” she whispered.
Erica stirred, purposefully.
A rustling in the grass; scampering away at the sound.
Kristen looked back, a tearful malaise.
Erica stood and walked slowly towards her.
“Bad dream?” Kristen whispered.
Erica sat silently on the log.
“It’s ok. I heard most of it.” She handed her a canteen of water. “I hear a lot of things… mind hasn’t exactly been in my body lately.”
“I’m sorry.” Erica took the canteen, took a sip. “What happened to you, it wasn’t right.”
“It’s like a piece of me has been ripped out.” She looked over at Erica. “Do you know what that’s like?”
Erica mind spun for a moment. “A little.”
“Long time ago, I had wanted to get away from everything. Just pick up and run so far away that they’d never see me again.” Her eyes fixed in the distance, the black void of forest that laid before them. “But they’d find me… hunt me down, torture me, kill me and… other stuff.” A look of shame in her eyes.
“Don’t think they’d do that now.” Erica looked at her, wanting to hug her, wanting to take the pain away. “Doubt they have the manpower for it anymore.”
“Still, it’s like our paths are destined to converge.”
“Maybe,” Erica whispered. “Maybe not.”
“It’s not fair, you know?” Her gaze shifted closer, resting her arms on her knees, her hands fiddling with a pebble. “That we should h
ave to bear this burden on our own, that we should have to save humanity, when they don’t even want us.”
“Then don’t,” Erica whispered.
“What would I be?” She tossed the pebble aside. “If not what I was destined to be.”
“You’d still be you… And they won’t hunt you, they can barely survive themselves without us.”
“Not The Order. They’re nothing without us… It’s Jacob. He won’t rest until every living thing is under his rule.”
“I remember him,” Erica whispered. “The darkness.”
Kristen shook her head. “There was light in him too. I had hoped in time I could change him, find some sort of life… some sort of redemption after all this. But he’s gone, abandoned me.”
“You owe him nothing, then.”
She shrugged. “Not the way he sees it.”
She thought of Dustin’s words, ‘the struggle for freedom.’ “Then fight him.”
“I can’t,” she whispered, staring down into the dirt. “In a way, I lo-“
‘Pop, pop, pop.’ Bullets whizzed in over their heads.
Ari roused awake. She rolled over and took aim into darkness, firing blindly.
“Take cover,” a voice yelled.
Kristen cracked her knuckles compulsively and moved steadily towards the shooting, her mind deflecting the projectiles as they neared.
“Wait!” Erica yelled, running after her.
Kristen ripped a Soldier from his covered position, holding him up by the throat – his legs kicking frantically. She raised her hand, poised to tear into the man.
“Stop!” Erica yelled, lunging for her arm.
It held fast, as Kristen tried ripping away; stuck in Erica’s grasp. She dropped the Soldier, drove her fist into Erica’s chest.
Erica flew back, skidded into the dirt.
Kristen reached back, drove the dozen Soldiers to the ground, pinned them there – immobilized. She walked to Erica. “Why do you keep doing that?” Her words slow and heavy.