by Yates, B. D.
If you move, you might be able to save him. There's no saving his legs, but you could save his life.
Emmit didn't take the time to consider how impossible it might be to carry a gravely wounded kid through the woods while nearly blinded and physically exhausted. He didn't take a moment to consider that as far as he knew, there was nowhere safe to even carry him to. He dropped to his knees beside Pup regardless, gently nudging him over to one side so he could cut the ropes off of his wrists. Pup's skin felt like cold lunch meat.
"Alright Pup," he whispered, leaning down into the cloying smell of sweat, blood, and encroaching death. "Step one, get your hands free. Okay?"
It took longer than he had hoped because Pup kept squirming and writhing in pain, and he didn't want to slip and slice him open with one of the deadly sharp knives he had procured. The broken spearhead lay abandoned on the floor behind him like a fallen friend.
Pup's slim wrists fell free. He made no effort to move or lift his arms. They both fell out of Emmit's shaking hands and dropped limply to his sides, splashing into the puddle around him. Emmit's shoes slid on the greasy burgundy floor as he stood, throwing one of Pup's lifeless arms over his shoulder. The young boy was shockingly light. It felt more like lifting a backpack full of books than another human being. Or maybe like lifting his son up off the living room floor, to shush and soothe his cries after he had pinched his finger in the moving parts of a toy.
Pup tried to stand, instinctively trying to use his phantom legs and instead driving one ragged stump into the hard, unforgiving floor. Pup howled in pain, digging his fingers into the back of Emmit's neck hard enough to make him cry out as well. He accidentally dropped Pup, the poor kid's body bouncing like a KO'd boxer hitting the mat. The two pitiful remnants of limbs wiggled uselessly.
"Jesus, I'm sorry Pup, I'm sorry..." Emmit babbled, resting his hand on the kid's clammy shoulder and keeping his eyes trained on the amorphous blob that was the door. He knew it would fly open at any second. He hoped that if Roy had put someone on watch tonight, it was The Reverend. Someone who wasn’t actively trying to kill him.
Maybe it's worth checking out...
He considered it a moment, then nodded to himself. It was worth checking out. An ally in the hellish situation he was in would be invaluable; especially one that could help him navigate and survive the winter wilderness long enough to find the mythical, ever-sought-after light. Someone to help carry Pup when he got too tired. And, if it came down to a brawl with Roy and his attack dog Poke, two on two was much better odds.
Emmit eyed the door, which he remembered was locked with some mechanism he wouldn’t be able to see, even if his glasses were intact and safely on his nose. That would be the next obstacle to overcome.
He ruffled Pup's oily hair gently and said "I'm gonna go get some help, Pup." He almost told the dying boy to stay there and wait for him, then thought better of it and kept his mouth shut.
Emmit circled the shed like a bat in broad daylight, trying to plan his next move while also combating the gnawing sensation of dread in his gut. It was telling him that he had already seriously pressed his luck, and he would be discovered at any second. He refused to let it in. If he did, it would cripple him; effectively removing his legs. He might as well lay down beside Pup and wait for his turn under the hammer and knife.
Wait, he thought suddenly. That's it.
He slipped one of his knives out, which he had decided to hide in the layered waistbands of his pants, and then snatched the bloodied hammer off the counter. He did his best not to look at the dismembered feet, but in his blindness, he bumped into the table and sent one of them tumbling to the floor. The sole of the foot was a deep reddish purple; full of coagulating blood that had settled to the lowest points. As the foot thumped to the floor, all the stored fluid poured out as if Emmit had knocked over nothing more sinister than a cup of wine. Emmit's stomach did a somersault.
He approached the entranceway and slid the knife blade into the crack between the door and the frame. It was a tight fit for the stone blade, but with a little effort he was able to slide the knife up and down like a credit card. He jammed it in about a third of the way up the crack, then slowly slid it down until he felt it catch on something. It wouldn't be a tumbler and knob, of course, because there was no metal in the time warp. The door "handle" Roy used was nothing more than a hole for your fingers to push and pull. Whatever mechanism Roy had engineered to lock the meat locker, Emmit had found it. And he was going to destroy it.
He poked the knife around, trying to guess where a weak point in the lock might be, but it was futile without his eyesight. One spot felt just as good as another. He shrugged, muttered the words "fuck it", and began tapping the wooden handle of the knife with the stone hammer like an ancient sculptor. When he didn't feel any significant movement from whatever was holding the door securely shut, he added a little force. Then a little more. Then his arms were straining as he pounded the end of the knife. He struck the hilt of the knife so hard that the sharpened stone that comprised the blade splintered into a jigsaw puzzle that clattered around his feet like broken china.
Fuck!
He was growing desperate now, anxious heat coming off him in waves, and he discovered that he no longer cared if anyone heard him. He had a hammer and a spare knife, didn't he? An armory behind him? Let them come. He was done being a prisoner in this blood-drenched tomb, in this claustrophobic camp of cannibalistic criminals, and this frozen arctic wasteland where the living dead swarmed like killer bees.
"I want out, and I'm getting out," he said to himself firmly. Pup mumbled a sleepy response, hugging himself on the floor. Emmit began to slam the hammer into the wood of the door itself.
Heeere's Johnny! He thought to himself, managing a strange and insane-sounding chuckle. Weak and impoverished Emmit Mills had become a powerful machine with a steam powered piston arm. The hammer rose, arced down to slam into the wood, bounced off with a brittle sounding thwack, then rose again.
Someone will hear. Someone is already on the way.
Let them come. I'm ready for them.
The wood of the door had begun to form a question mark shaped crack, splintering around the scuffed and scarred wood where the stone hammerhead kept connecting. It was beginning to cave in, and now each hammer impact made a satisfying crunch. Emmit let the hammer fall to his side and began slamming his shoulder into the door, grunting and snarling with each impact, numb to the shocks that dug into his shoulder bones and the weary muscles that knitted them together. The dulled pain was a fantastic motivator; it hurt him, which made him angry, and his anger made him stronger. A hot stitch began to stab between his ribs, but even as he gasped for breath he did not relent.
Out out out OUT—
The door could stand no more abuse, and whatever locking mechanism Roy had fashioned was suddenly obliterated. Random hunks of geometrically shaped wood and stone rocketed off into the night like cannon fodder, and the door swung open and slammed against the wall of the shed. A long rectangle of firelight stretched out from Emmit's feet, turning the snow into a river of sparkling light. His shadow was a dark island in that river, his shoulders rising and falling, his body impossibly tall and brooding.
He stepped out of the doorway, his foot supported by the snow for a second or two before the frozen crust gave way and he sank all the way to his shin. He leaned around the edge of the shed door to look back inside, unable to withstand the horror of looking directly at Pup but instead picking a spot just above him.
"I'm coming back for you, kid," he said, not bothering to whisper it.
Emmit trudged off in the direction he thought would take him to the cabin.
He knew it was more or less a straight line, but he also remembered watching an episode of some science show once that had proved it was impossible to walk in a straight line when you were blindfolded. He wasn't far off from blindfolded.
Being alone in the darkness of the woods without the use of his eyes wa
s like falling from a sheer cliff face, plummeting Emmit to a darker, more paralyzing level of fear than he had ever felt before. This time, at least, he had layered clothing on instead of his naked flesh against the cold. It was as if he had traded one broken leg in exchange for another broken leg.
Ahead of him, the foliage looked like gargantuan seaweed floating lazily in murky water. There were blobs of darkness with uneven strips of blacker darkness between them, and that was about as much detail as he could decipher. He slogged through the deep snow, keeping his hands outstretched in front of him to avoid any more head on collisions. He frequently snapped his head around to check the trail he left behind for curves and bows. He appeared to be traveling mostly straight, give or take a few craters and drifts where he had stumbled. He should, theoretically, be inching his way into camp at any moment.
He paused like a hunted deer, holding his breath to listen. There wasn't much wind at all, not for the moment anyway. A few lonely snowflakes hovered and spiraled around his tense form like icy fireflies. He felt his sense of hearing already growing stronger, having all but lost his eyesight, and his heart thudding away in his ears sounded loud enough to echo around him. He closed his eyes, focused hard, and listened for any movement nearby. He had spent so much time worrying about Roy and Poke that he had forgotten the pet Link that had been tied up like a mongrel dog, right behind the shed he'd just broken out of. There were no fort walls or chain link fences to keep the rest of them away from him. He was in the jungle now, and they could be anywhere.
At first, he doubted his frantic perception, chocking it up to his frayed nerves— but no. There was something there. He had heard a sound, and it was coming from not so far away. It was carrying across the endless vegetation, coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It sounded like the distant roar of a waterfall, monstrous white noise that peaked and waned as if some fairy-tale giant was fiddling with the tuning knob on a massive radio. It could have been the wind, he supposed, but the sinking sensation in his stomach and the bubbling ache in his lower intestine protested that comforting explanation. It wasn't the wind he was hearing. It was voices. Dead voices.
The Megahorde.
He was drenched with sweat, but a chill tickled up his spine, nonetheless. So many worries and concerns swirled around in his head like a psychotic maelstrom of thought and anxiety, and he could do nothing about any of it. Nothing. He couldn't even remember the solid details of his alleged bank robbery; his mind had not yet healed from the trauma of whatever phenomena had brought him here. And still there was more trauma, piling on, compounding every second like bad debt.
That was when the fear really began to take hold of him, bringing with it a physical sensation of his heart tearing itself apart like an overworked engine as he realized just how hopeless he really was. Emmit thought again about stripping down to his bare ass, pulling armfuls of snow over himself like a comforter, and waiting for death to ease all his problems away. Go out on his own terms, falling into the last nap he'd ever take.
Daddy, what happens when someone dies?
He saw Deacon then, smiling at him for the very first time. It hadn't been like the movies always showed it; nothing quite so extravagant. In fact, he remembered, grinning with chattering teeth, he had been on the toilet when it had happened. Deacon had been one of those babies who thought that if you left the room, even for a quick crap, you had been absorbed into the universe and you were gone forever. He would open his tiny mouth and fat cheeks wide, impossibly wide, and scream with all the shrill volume of a burglar alarm. And so, Emmit had dragged Deek's bouncer (which he liked to rock with his foot to get the little demon to sleep) into the bathroom with him, parked it at the base of the throne, and was rocking him with his bare foot while also trying to focus on relieving himself. Deacon had somehow known how hilarious and awkward this was, and for the first time in his short life, had scrunched his button nose and smiled. It had been wide and toothless, his still blue eyes sparkling.
Emmit had yelled for Kelly to come and see, hyperventilating with excitement. She had burst in, and man, the look on her face...
Emmit was laughing now, even as the tears hardened into icy streaks on his face. He started walking again. He would not be absorbed into the universe and gone forever for real.
I just wish there were a sign, something to let me know I'm not wandering off into the middle of nowhere...
Perhaps something or someone had heard him, and perhaps it was a pure and simple coincidence. Emmit couldn't decide. Above him, at the exact moment that Emmit had been wishing, praying for a sign, one of the twinkling stars in some distant and everchanging galaxy went supernova. The view was obstructed by the canopy of branches above him, but the night sky began to burn with the fiery red-orange hue of a Martian sunrise. The forest looked like it was in flames, and Emmit squinted hard, willing himself to see better, demanding that his eyes not squander the gift he had just been given.
He saw nothing but more amorphous shapes, except for one a few hundred yards ahead of him that had straight lines and edges that were too perfect to have been created by nature. His sense of smell had been stolen by the cold, but he would have bet his biggest paycheck that he was catching wafts of burning wood and roasting meat. In a wide perimeter around him, the bushes and shrubs close to the ground seemed to be swaying and tottering as if their trunks were melting out from under them. Strange, how the wind could ruffle them like that, without disturbing their taller brothers...
He closed one eye, covering it with his hand, then switched. Surely one of them would be stronger than the other.
One of the "bushes" appeared to stretch out blurry arms, one to its side and one that lifted to the sky. Another one toppled and fell over. Two of them collided and disappeared from sight with small, piggish grunts.
Oh... oh, no.
Emmit wasn't seeing bushes at all. He was seeing the smudgy shapes of Links, hundreds of them, silhouetted by the scarlet supernova as they milled and tottered through the trees. Were they heading for camp? Mounting their final attack? Had they always been this close? Was this a small scouting party, or the exploring fingers reaching out from the acidic hand of the Megahorde itself?
Emmit was running even before he had finished asking himself these frantic questions, ducking randomly just in case there were low hanging branches he hadn't been able to see. He felt like he was running through a mine field and gambling with his last penny, but he knew in the deepest chamber of his heart that if he didn't do something soon, the Links would finish each and every one of them.
When the supernova dissipated and he was thrust back into darkness, now all too aware of the creatures dotting the area he was struggling to navigate, he began to whimper with each clumsy footfall. He couldn't stop it. To himself, he sounded like a scared puppy on its first night of crate training, left alone in a darkened bedroom corner. That image made him think of Pup, left alone, suffering and defenseless behind him. It was time for his endgame. The last domino was about to topple, and if he wasn't incredibly careful, it would land on him.
He tripped over a pile of chopped logs and went sprawling into a muddy patch of trampled snow, and knew that he had finally made it back to the Survivor Camp. He could smell the smoke and cooking meat stronger now, and with a bit of eye straining searching, he found the hazy patchwork pattern of glowing red and orange firelight shining through the cracks and splits between the logs of the cabin. He looked to the black rectangle of the front door. No one on guard duty.
God help me, my stomach is growling from that smell.
Oblivious to the cold and damp, Emmit stayed on his belly and crawled like a battle-hardened soldier, barely lifting his head as he half pushed, half swam closer to the front door. There wasn't much in the way of lawn furniture in Roy's camp. He would have to make himself small and hope that he wasn't spotted if the wrong person came outside—
He flinched as the door did swing open, right on cue, and a titanic shape stepped
out through it. Woodsmoke trailed behind it.
Roy.
"Don't worry about where I'm going. I'm taking a piss, alright? That okay with you?" Came Roy's voice, blaring and echoing like a throaty megaphone. Emmit winced, and for some reason covered his own ears as if it would somehow keep the Links from hearing.
Shut up, you fucking idiot, he thought, running his hands through his frost-stiffened hair and tugging at handfuls of it. You have no idea how close you are to killing all of us.
Roy was standing with his legs in a wide stance just outside the door of the cabin, which had drifted partially closed. As he wrestled his penis out and began to urinate, he kept his long-haired head cocked toward the door. Listening to someone else speak.
"I don't care what you think, Poke, if he wants to take the watch then let him take it. I told you already, about ten thousand times, that we have a metric fuck-ton of work to get done tomorrow and I want at least one of you rested enough to help me!"
Me..ee...ee...ee...
Roy's final word came out in an agitated eruption that hit the surrounding trees and bounced back like millions of ping pong balls. Emmit sighed and buried his face in his hands. He knew the Links didn't eat people like the traditional zombies did in all the classic movies, but he was certain that Roy had just rung the proverbial dinner bell.
Emmit could make out the unmistakable arm motions of Roy shaking himself off, and then the towering monster ducked back inside, slamming the door behind him hard enough to knock snowballs off the roof. Emmit couldn't see them, but he could hear them.
Roy and Poke going to sleep. Rev on watch. This is too perfect.
It felt like a "too good to be true" scenario, but he had no choice other than trusting it and letting it ride. His fingers and toes were beginning to ache now, and he could feel the cold penetrating all his layers of clothing and inching into his bones. He ignored it. It was too dangerous to stand until he could be sure it was the Reverend who came out to take watch.