Cellar Sheep

Chapter 18

All my life I've grown used to pain. In fourth grade I broke my left arm with a clean break right through both bones and in fifth I snapped the tip of my tail bone by accidentally landing on it wrong. I sprain my ankles more times than I could count and dislocated my shoulder once. When I was too young to remember I tripped and managed to chip many of my growing teeth and my parents used to show me pictures of it.

I've even grown to like pain so much I inflicted it upon myself.

But this... I've never felt something so unbearable before in my life. And suddenly all those injuries before felt like nothing, absolutely nothing.

It was too much to even scream and movement in the slightest sent fire throughout my whole body. I couldn't even think straight as the world around me was seeming to fade.

Against all odds we'd made it to the lodge and to a safe part, but barely.

"Karma—Karma!" A desperate voice yelled. There was a muffled sound of a strangled cry. It wasn't me, though, there was too much blood in my throat to even breathe.

It had been forever since I'd been outside and the bright, white snow was beautiful. The air was crisp with a chilling cold that I welcomed and even a light fall of snow fell down. I'd forgotten what fresh air smelled like or what the cold wind felt like on your skin when you were racing by.

"Hey, kid! Stick with me now."

It was refreshing.

So refreshing that even I didn't see it coming.

"Hang in there, Mary, just keep pressure on it. Jesse—" a wrenching pain in my stomach that made everything go black for a moment. "—make sure the door's secured, we don't want to risk anything."

"But Mary—"

"She's strong, she'll be fine so do it! Now!" A cold hand touched my cheek. "Karma, stay awake, alright?"

None of us saw the infectee until it was too late. It flipped one of the mobiles, throwing Caleb and the other two off and into the snow. I jumped off to run to their defense until...

It was like being struck by a train. I hadn't encountered an infectee as big as this one before.

"Keep your eyes open, ok? I gotta help Mary."

It was too late for the three on the flipped mobile. There was no coming back from that sickening crunch underneath the vehicle for one of them, but as for the other two...

There was screaming, lots of screaming. Whether that was the others, me, or the voice in my head.

"Everything's secure, Thomas."

"Good. Now help me out here. I need extra hands." There was a whimper. "Do not lose your cool. I need you here, now."

It's an awfully weird and sickening feeling to have a limb torn from your body from brute force. The sticky tearing right before a pop! as your left femur's torn right from your hip, ball socket and all.

"Jesus Christ, I can't. I can't—"

"Get it together, Jesse!"

Gun shots, yelling, roaring. I hit the cold snow and embraced it like a warm blanket on a cold night. And as I did that, the voice did its thing. I mean, not really much a one legged infectee can do but it had its ways.

Not enough ways to save everyone, though.

I think her name was Karla. The thing swallowed her in one bite. And Caleb...

He was giving us a pep talk seconds before. Now he was... he was...

I rolled over, blood pouring from my mouth and probably many other places too. I couldn't help mangled cry of pain from escaping my throat.

"Those things, those monsters mauled them to death! Caleb, they—" Someone gagged as if they were holding back vomit. Maybe that was me, maybe not. "—they bit off his head!"

...headless. I'll never get that image out of my head as his lifeless, headless body dropped to the ground and was sucked dry by multiple infectee like a little kid with a kapri-sun on a hot day.

"And they nearly ripped the kid in half!"

"Calm down, man! Get it together!"

No amount of bullets, no amount of fire could stop the infectee that just kept coming. There was no saving those three, we had to book it and keep with the mission. Thomas had hauled me back onto the mobile but it still wasn't over.

If I hadn't sensed the extending spear coming straight for his head and took it myself, they would've all been dead.

That managed to take my left torso before I could sever the spear in half.

"Fuck, dude! I can't—" A solid and firm smack silenced the room. Now the only sound was the groaning of who I assumed to be Mary, the eerily creepy of the lodge, and pained breaths by me.

How we made it here, it was a miracle.

But we lost nearly half of us. I couldn't protect them. I got them killed.

It felt like I'd been poked with a white hot iron rode and another mangled cry ripped through me.

Oh pain, the one friend who never left me.

Quick footsteps came over to me and I felt warm and sticky hands gently gripping my face. "Karma, can you hear me?"

It took all my effort to open my eyes slightly and even then I could barely make out anything. I'm pretty sure it was Thomas by the sound of his voice and the faint outline.

"You're gonna be ok. You're gonna be fine." He reassured, but I wasn't really listening as my body instinctively curled at the pain, gritting my teeth so hard I'm sure I was chipping them.

"She lost her whole fucking left side, she's not gonna be fine." Jesse stated, panicked.

"Just shut the hell up and take care of Mary!" He yelled back at him. Opening my eyes again watched as he brushed my hair out of my face. "You're already regenerating, kid, you're gonna be ok."

"It—haah—hurts!" I managed to croak out. I suppressed a cry as another flash of pain smacked me.

You know what? Dying really wasn't sounding like too bad of an idea right now. Or at least passing out, you know? How hard should that be?! Just get rid of the pain!

"It'll pass, just relax."

I can't relax, that's the problem.

"Hey, I've got you." His voice turned soothing. Even with all the events that just happened, the deaths of his friends and horrors witnessed, his voice was calm. I felt his hand grabbing mine in reassurance and comfort. "I won't leave until you're ok."

"I..." I couldn't look to see but I'm pretty sure my leg was growing back right about now. I've experienced it before whenever Arachna skewered me but mending bones was painful. Healing cuts and bruises is like nothing compared to bones which felt like breaking them all over again, but growing bones... "I'm—agh— I'm sorry."

"Karma, this isn't your fault." He told me, but things were starting to fade. I thought that the pain dulling was a good thing but whenever I felt the life fading around me I knew it was an even better thing. "Hey, stay with me now. Karma..."

And without hesitation I let the darkness consume me.