SurvivorZ: Grave Harbor

46

MIKE

"Burning the dead for electricity," Lloyd chuckled. "Who would've guessed?"

"I know, right?" Mike agreed. "It sounds insane, but it works. At least until trees grow legs and come when we call them."

"I'm glad someone found a use for those man-eating freaks."

"Emerson's smart." Mike shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "I only hope he's not smart enough to see through our ruse."

He stared at the blood pack tapped into his friend's arm. Much like the transfusion Lloyd was getting to help flush out the poisons flooding his veins, Mike feared that his attempt to deceive Emerson and the others was only a temporary fix. If there was even the slightest chance they suspected foul play, he worried that he'd done more than just put the sergeants' lives at risk. He might have killed their only hope for a peaceful confederacy between Mystic and Harvard before it could even take root.

"I don't think there's—" Lloyd started to say, before cupping a hand to his mouth.

"Sick?" Mike searched around his chair for the bucket.

Lloyd shook his head and belched as though he had just devoured a four-course meal. He sunk further into his pillow. "The nausea isn't that bad anymore. Which is strange, I know, seeing as how Bradshaw is still pumping me with enough radiation to turn me into Godzilla's baby brother."

"Is it helping?"

Lloyd shrugged. "Who can say? I'm still packing on the pounds and farting up a storm, but otherwise I don't feel much different. A little more blah, that's all."

"And this?" Mike nodded at the blood pack.

"Yeah." Lloyd followed his gaze. "Bradshaw says it's necessary to keep pace with the crap that thing in my head is pumping into my body."

"Does he have any idea what it's trying to do?"

Lloyd shook his head. "He and Mueller have been studying those bugs day and night, trying to come up with an answer. Near as they can tell, the parasite is just doing its thing. Pumping me full of the stuff it uses to keep the dead mobile. My body's doing all it can to fight it, which is why..." He patted his swollen stomach.

"Man, this fucking world," Mike muttered. "Just when you thought it couldn't get much stranger."

"I'm right there with you, brother," Lloyd added with a stinky wheeze from his rectum.

Mike fell silent. Across the room, the mutant bugs tapped against their reinforced glass enclosure. The bizarre exhibit filled him with unease. He was grateful he didn't have to stare at it for hours, like the poor soldier stationed nearby.

"Dee tells me we have some company downstairs," Lloyd said. Mike looked over to find him studying his reaction to the topic change. "I saw that Graves guy in action when we arrived in Boston. He's a real piece of work, isn't he?"

"You don't know the half of it," Mike grumbled.

"How's Barb doing? It must be strange sharing a roof with the same people responsible for what happened to her husband."

"She had her catharsis yesterday, after telling them off and then dropping the mike as she walked away. Now she seems more at peace than I am. She even—" Mike stopped, suddenly realizing what he was saying. "Um..."

"Yes?"

Mike hesitated. "Uh, well... Last night, we may have..."

Lloyd's hoarse chuckle startled the guard at the other end of the lab. "Oh, you dog. Are you saying you guys finally made it official?"