by J. N. Chaney
I heard all of this happening but refused to take my eyes off the jungle tree line. I remembered exactly how brutal and violent this virus could make people. Legion was out there waiting for its opportunity.
“Did you see the way that rhino alien animal was looking around the courtyard before you rammed it?” Boss Creed asked, joining me. “It was like something was controlling it.”
“And why didn’t they attack?” I asked. “There had to be hundreds of them. They might have been able to overrun us right now.”
“If I had to guess, this feint was only to gather information,” Boss Creed said with a weary shrug. “Maybe they wanted to test our defenses and see how we would react to an attack.”
“We need more guns,” I said. “And stronger walls. But definitely more guns.”
“Not arguing with you there,” he replied without looking at me. His dark eyes still scanned the horizon.
“Defenses are going to be a temporary solution,” Ricky said, joining us at the gates. “Eventually, they’re going to kill us or we’re going to kill them. It’s the way things are out here.”
Boss Creed and I looked at one another, then both of us looked to Ricky.
“What?” Ricky shrugged off our expressions. “I can be thoughtful too.”
“Well, let’s all be thoughtful as we get back to work,” I said, examining the gate, the alien carcass, and the still-smoking crawler. “We have work to do.”
5
Boss Creed took the lead on fixing and reinforcing the gate while Ricky led a team in wheeling back and fixing the crawler. Yours truly was left with the job of getting rid of the giant alien carcass in the middle of the courtyard.
Before I tackled the task, Doctor Allbright insisted on seeing to my hand. The fall from the crawler had left me with a few nicks and cuts, but they were all manageable beside the laceration on my left palm.
“You seem to have a knack for getting yourself in trouble,” Doctor Allbright said, using the Heal Aid to clean then close the wound on my hand. It stung, but the pain was manageable to me by now. I was familiar with the tool like an old acquaintance.
“Yeah well, I guess trouble just seems to find me,” I said.
“I ran into Lou today,” Doctor Allbright casually said. “He was looking for you. Said he found something he wanted to show you.”
My mind went to the padre. Our little excursion together to find the prison section of the Orion ended in our first run-in with the infected. He had pulled his weight and done well.
“Did he say what it was he wanted to show me?” I asked.
“No, but he seemed excited to share,” Doctor Allbright continued. “You should see if you can find him. I think he’s one of the few who still likes staying inside the Orion.”
“I don’t know how people are still doing that,” I said, shaking my head. “Trying to live in a craft that’s on its side day in and day out messes with your mind. The walls are the ground and the floor and vice versa. No thank you. I have enough issues without thinking I’m drunk every time I wake up.”
Doctor Allbright chuckled then stepped closer to examine her handiwork on my palm. There was a long lightning-bolt-shaped scar on my hand. We both took a second to examine it.
She had done a great job repairing the wound. The bleeding stopped and only a dull ache came from my hand when I opened and closed my fist.
“Thanks, doc,” I said. “So, you have any kind of bone saws or drill or anything else around here I can use?”
“No, certainly not for that.” Doctor Allbright gave me a disapproving stare. She turned in the confines of her tent with a whirl from her white coat. “I can’t believe you would even ask.”
“What?” I asked innocently.
“You want to use the few medical tools I have to cut open that alien-infected beast and move its body parts outside the wall?” she asked.
“You catch on quick.” I gave her a rueful smile.
“Well, thank you, but the answer is still no, absolutely not,” Doctor Allbright said again. “You’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.”
“Which is?” I asked.
“Burn it,” Doctor Allbright continued. “You’ll have to drag it outside of our gates and burn it.”
“Drag it?” I screwed my face up in disbelief. “That thing has to weigh a solid ton. The crawler is out of commission for the time being. We’d have to do it by hand. It would take a few dozen able bodies to make that happen.”
“I saw chains in the supply tent,” Doctor Allbright volunteered.
I stood up from the medical table, still flexing my hand. I was thinking over the idea of getting a saw from the supply tent meant to cut metal when Doctor Allbright’s warning removed that option as well.
“Besides, if you cut it open, who knows what kind of toxins it could be carrying from the virus or even in its natural biology. We know nothing of these beings,” she said.
“Right.” I bit back a smart reply and made my way to the animal corpse at the center of the courtyard.
There was a small gathering of people still gawking at the creature. I didn’t blame them. The alien corpse looked like some kind of weird hybrid between a dinosaur and a rhinoceros, its black and red hide pocked-marked by blaster fire.
In that moment, staring down at the impossibly beautiful creature, I felt sorry for it. A new wave of anger toward this virus or Legion or whatever you wanted to call it swelled in my heart.
Here was an animal who just wanted to live. Who would have kept on living had the virus not infected its body and drove it to pure madness. I knew what I had to make my number one goal as soon as I disposed of the body. I had to find a way to take out this Legion, starting with another sit-down with Tong.
Hopefully, another day or two would see his English improve even more.
“How are we going to get this thing out of here?” I turned to see Hannah, the woman who had lost her husband only a week before to the virus, standing behind me, hands on her hips. “Crawler’s still down. We going to pull it out?”
“I guess so,” I said with a shake of my head. “We’ll have to use chains, maybe secure them around the horns.”
I got a whiff of the creature’s carcass. It made my eyes water.
I spat on the ground next to me.
“That’s truly wretched,” Hannah said, raising a hand to her nose. “I’ll grab the chains and some help.”
“Thanks,” I told her.
Hannah nodded and was about to turn away. Over the last few days, I’d wanted to talk to her about her husband’s death. I knew what she was going through on a first-hand basis.
“You know, if you ever want to talk about what happened, Mutt and I are good listeners. Mostly Mutt,” I added.
Hannah already had her back toward me. She stopped in her tracks. I couldn’t see her face, but I knew she heard me.
“Thanks,” was all she said before she continued on.
I didn’t expect anything to be honest. I knew she was hurting from the inside out—the numbness, and how she was throwing herself at anything she could to take her mind off of everything.
“You inhale too much of those fumes coming off that thing and you’re going to kill what brain cells you have left,” Stacy joked, fake gagging as she reached my side. “You should really get a scarf or mask or something to put around your mouth and nose.”
Stacy reached into her own cargo pants pockets and pulled out a white handkerchief. She tied it around the lower half of her face.
“Your suit’s good?” she asked, taking a step back from the aroma of death coming from the creature. “That big guy, Bowers, seemed pretty pissed.”
“Yeah, well, no one’s happy having information kept from them, but most of them understand. Arun and Elon are still fielding questions from anyone who has them. I think that will go a long way now.”
I nodded, deep in my own thoughts.
“You have that look again.” Stacy lifted an eyebrow in my direction.<
br />
“What look?” I asked.
“The look, like you’re about to get in trouble. Like you’re up to no good,” Stacy said.
“That’s just my face,” I protested, feigning innocence.
“Yeah, right,” Stacy answered back. “If it helps, we’re probably thinking the same thing.”
“What’s that?”
“That we’re not going to survive an attack if Legion comes at us in an all-out assault.” Stacy’s eyes made their way to the gates that were under construction. “We need more and better weapons. And we need to take this fight to Legion.”
“I’m not arguing with you there, special agent,” I agreed with Stacy. “Or do I call you captain or something now that you’re in charge of all the suits?”
“I’m temporarily overseeing them until another officer can be selected,” Stacy said. “After Captain Harold went missing, it’s a short list of anyone who has any rank around here.”
We stood in silence thinking over how accurate her words really were. So many lives were lost in the crash. Those few who survived were still in the fight for their lives. Every day we were losing numbers.
Motion to my left caught my eye. I looked over to see Hannah with a heavy chain wrapped over her shoulders. A small army trotted alongside her. No doubt recruits she enlisted along the way to help us move the alien corpse. Meenaz and David walked with her, each shouldering some of the long chain.
It was good to see familiar faces. People I knew who wouldn’t back down from a fight. Because, like it or not, a fight was coming our way.
“Oh my, sweet gingerbread boy,” Meenaz said, souring at the smell. “What is that?”
“Smells like someone burning tires.” David grimaced. He unshouldered the chains he carried.
“Come on; let’s secure the chains around the horns and get this over with,” I said, holding my own breath. I took one of the two long chains they’d brought and went to work.
The chains themselves were nearly as thick as my forearms. They would be able to hold for sure. We just needed to make sure we would be able to provide the moving power to drag the carcass out the gates.
All around me, people were gagging as they helped to secure the chains. To the survivors’ credit, when others saw what our small group was doing, they came to help.
Someone started passing out torn strips of white canvas to people to help with the smell.
“Here,” someone said behind me. A cloth was pressed into my right hand.
“Thanks,” I said, not looking at it. I was in the middle of securing the second chain around the alien’s horns.
I stepped back, examining my work as others began to pick up the chains and form a line. I looked down at the cloth in my hand, ready to secure it around the lower half of my own face.
But the cloth in my hand was crimson. Not bright red or pink, but a very specific color of deep, dark red. I’d seen the color twice before. Once when we apprehended the Disciple named Maksim, and then again when the second Disciple blew herself to kingdom come, taking the Orion with her.
Cold goosebumps raced down my spine. I turned immediately, aware of everyone around me. A throng had come out to help move the carcass from inside our walls. Trying to tell exactly who handed me the handkerchief was impossible. Dozens of people secured the chains while others moved to the opposite side of the alien corpse, ready to pull.
I felt the material in my hand, looking down at it again to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind. No, it was the very same one Maksim wore. I’d bet my life on it.
“Hey, Dean, you good?” Hannah called from her place with the rest of survivors preparing to haul the animal.
“Yeah,” I lied. It seemed I was doing a lot of that these days. “Yeah, I’m good. It’s secure.”
I made my way to the end of one of the long chains, gripping it in my hands. I didn’t put the handkerchief on my face. I couldn’t, knowing where it had been before. Instead, I wrapped it around a palm. It didn’t seem right somehow to just toss it to the side, not after everything it had been through.
“All right!” Stacy’s commanding voice filled the void of my thoughts. “On three, we pull together! One, two, three!”
I laid into it. Eyes still open, examining the courtyard, my body did the work on auto while my mind ran through the possibilities.
To think Maksim was here somehow in the courtyard was delusional, or was it? We didn’t find a body when we examined the prison section of the Orion. We thought we saw him when we buried Ira. He could be here, somehow concealing himself among the survivors. No one knew exactly what he looked like, save a handful of us that had apprehended him.
I kept searching those gathered with no luck. My body went through the movements on its own as Stacy yelled out when we were to pull. The carcass began to move inch by inch, leaving a gruesome trail in its wake. The blood was so dark, it was nearly black, crimson like the handkerchief in my hand.
6
Dinner that night was a lesson in gluttony. I’d missed lunch, and after working all day, I decided to take it upon myself to gorge and fit as much food into my mouth as possible.
I sat in one of the cafeteria tents in a chair by myself. I didn’t mind being alone. In fact, it was something I’d begun to miss. It seemed like every day I was needed to do this or that. I ate with my head down and took a hands-on approach to my meal.
Mutt whined next to me and I threw him a fair amount of scraps. He was more like me than I wanted to admit. We both didn’t care much what we were eating, only that it came in large amounts. He snapped up the goods in midair before they fell to the dirt.
A long pink tongue ran over the outside of his mouth. He sat at attention, wagging his tail, staring at me with baleful eyes that seemed to say, “Come on, are you going to eat that? You’re not going to eat all of that, are you?”
I gave him more than I should.
“Dean, Dean, there you are!” Lou came over to my corner of the cafeteria with a wide grin on his face. “I looked for you outside the gates after that carcass started to burn, but someone said you’d already gone.”
“Didn’t see much of the point in watching that poor animal burn,” I said, popping a biscuit into my mouth. “It had already been through enough.”
“I understand completely.” Lou’s face went from a look of happiness at seeing me to concern at the topic of conversation. “That’s partly why I’m here. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what we faced in the jungle . . . and, well, I want to help.”
Mutt and I both looked at him sideways. Lou was a good guy, maybe even a great guy, but I wasn’t sure what he was getting at.
“That’s nice, Lou, good for you,” I said, getting back to my meal. “I’m sure we could use a padre in here. There has to be a lot of people looking for religion at the moment. When the world is at its worst, the church is at its best, right?”
“Yes, no,” Lou said, taking a seat opposite me. “That’s not what I mean. You see, I was praying in my room aboard the Orion. Something told me to go to the top of the ship. I looked out the way we had come through the jungle when we made our escape. That was when I saw it.”
The way Lou let the words hang, I knew he was baiting me. He wanted me to ask what he saw. I refused to get trapped; instead, I took another bite out of my biscuit.
“Well?” Lou asked.
“What?” I said.
“Don’t you want to know what I saw?”
“Not really,” I said, already feeling the fatigue of the day setting in.
“I saw that,” Lou said excitedly, pointing to the lightning bolt scar on the palm of my hand. “I saw that in the jungle and now you bear the mark.”
“Hate to lay this one on you, padre, but I just got this scar today. It was a memento courtesy of our friend Legion out there—if it is a he, after all,” I said, looking down at the lightning-bolt-shaped scar Dr. Allbright and the Med Aid left me with. “Sorry to burst your bubble. It’s not a birthmark or
anything like that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Lou said, refusing to be put off. “The only thing that matters is that we stand together and keep the faith. Come with me. I’ll show you.”
It was hard to say no to the man. Usually, I didn’t have a problem with that. Right now, the way Lou looked at me, I realized he wasn’t going to go away until he convinced me to come.
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” I asked.
“Nope,” Lou said, cracking a grin through his white beard. “It’ll take an hour of your time. Two hours at the very most. You must see this, Dean.”
I looked down at Mutt, who only had eyes for the food on my plate at the moment.
“Don’t gorge yourself,” I told Mutt as I left the rest of the food on the plate for him. I put it on the ground and looked over at Lou, who was far too eager. “Lead the way, padre.”
Lou jumped to his feet with surprising quickness and took off through the cafeteria. He didn’t waste time either. He wanted to talk the entire way to the Orion.
“The suns are just setting now. It should be the perfect time of day to see it with the Farsight,” Lou said excitedly. “Farsights are the brand of binoculars stowed on the Orion for our use.”
“I know the company,” I told Lou. “I helped stock a lot of what’s on the ship.”
“Oh right, right,” Lou said, not to be outdone. “There are a few of us who have used the very top section as a place of worship and encouragement.”
“Good for you,” I said again.
We reached the very edge of the Orion, where the defensive wall began and ran an oval around the courtyard. Lou was up the scaffolding to the wall before I could ask him how we were going to reach the top of the ship.
“Just—we’re just going to climb all the way up there, huh?” I asked, watching as Lou made his way up the steel side like some kind of spider monkey.
“Don’t worry,” Lou called back. It’s easier than it seems. We’ve been using all the elevator shafts on the perimeter of the Orion to work our way up. There are handholds in place.”