I snap to attention and sprint in the general direction of the cry, feeling dry leaves and branches crack and snap beneath my feet in an explosion of noise. Discretion and pain are thrown to the wind as I fly through the night, swatting low hanging branches from my face and still managing to catch a few swipes of them on my cheeks. The scream, raw and harsh with agony, sounds again, muffled this time, but it still seems to echo around me, swell at the trees’ canopy, and bombard me with the helplessness of the cry. Panting, I burst into the clearing, gun at the ready in one hand and the other clenching my aching side.
It takes me a bit to realize that no one is in sight. I cautiously circle the perimeter, following the muffled wailing, and soon discover that one of the guys must have triggered a trap. A gaping hole about ten feet in diameter has swallowed them.
Rushing over, I crouch at the edge in a defensive position, sweeping my gaze over the trees. Rigs people don’t usually attack unless you get right up to their encampment, but Andy has drilled us all to be prepared for anything and everything. I deduce that it’s as safe as it’s ever going to get out here and turn my eyes towards the bottom of the hole.
Lying in the muddy bottom of the trap is Dev, huddled against the curved dirt wall, sobbing hysterically and blindly clutching at the skin of his face and neck while Ríjez is clamping a jacket-covered hand over the man’s mouth. Though I can barely catch the movements in the darkness, I see him shoot me a quick glance, then look pointedly at Dev’s right side.
Instantly, I know what happened to the zombie-girl’s body.
I look up to the trees, and sure enough, a large vat is hanging on its side, dripping some steaming liquid that looks like mere water but so obviously isn’t.
Dev’s noises calm down to a wet, raspy whimper, enough that I can hear the faint sizzle as the liquid eats away at his flesh, his face, as it evaporates the blood and eyes on contact.
Ríjez and I share a glance. There is nothing we can do for him. It’ll reach his brain or some other vital organ before we even manage to drag him from the hole, much less get him back to the compound where Mella wouldn’t even know what to do with him.
I quietly load my handgun. Breathe in. Aim. Fire. The crack echoes with grim finality throughout the forest as Dev’s body sags lifelessly in Ríjez’s arms.
Guilt wells up inside me, weighs in my chest like lead and makes my eyes sting with unwanted tears. The cold metal of the gun burns my palms, and I drop it to the ground with shaking hands. Andy would be sickened that I am fighting back tears for a man I barely knew. Maybe I’m just too human for him. For any of this.
I force myself to remember that Dev isn’t the first to fall prey to these things and probably won’t be the last. But it still feels horrible to know that I could have done something and didn’t.
Useless. Always useless.
“Hang in there, kiddo,” Ríjez tells me quietly, rising from the mud and carefully edging his way closer to me. He has a prominent limp; he’s favoring his right leg. I realize that he must have dragged Dev from the opposite side of the pit right after landing. The pit is dug at an obvious slope; one section is dramatically lower than the other, and it’s apparent that if either of them had completely fallen into the lower side, I wouldn’t be able to tell their remains apart.
Ríjez tries to scrabble his way up, but the dirt is too loose, and he slides back down. Grunting, he makes a second attempt with no more success than the first.
Rising from ground, I scan the nearby trees for any branches that may help me tow my PO up, but I find nothing but rotted stumps. I sigh regretfully. Even if I find something, I probably wouldn’t be strong enough to lift him out.
“Here, throw me your jacket,” he orders, voice still soft in case of attack. I want to tell him that if the Rigs were going to attack us, they definitely would have done it already. A speaker is clearly visible in the knot of a tree. They’re most likely hanging on every word we utter. But I do as I’m told like a good little grunt and toss him my clothing. He sheds his own and ties them together with a knot that I’m sure he has taught me but that I never remember. Once finished, he chucks the end result to me and tells me to brace myself and try to haul him up. I’m hesitant to do this since I’m pretty sure any bracing I do along the edge of the pit will only land me in it as well. Luckily, the dim shadows of the night throw a small slab of stone sticking from the ground into relief. I brace my weight against this and heave as hard as possible in my injured state. Ríjez does his best to help me out, and he finally scrambles his way out on the fourth attempt.
I clear my throat painfully, but it still comes out croaky. “Are we just leaving him here?” At this rate, I’ll never speak normally again.
“I don’t see what else we can do right now. We’ll make sure we come back and take care of it later, but right now it’s gonna be hard enough dragging ourselves back.”
I nod and hook my arm around his waist while he leans against me, adding almost too much weight for my aching ribs to handle. I have no idea what kind of damage has been done to his leg or any other part of him, but if he’s feeling any pain, he’s careful not to make it obvious. The thin slice of the moon is glowing above the treetops by the time we begin hobbling back to the compound. It fills me with a brief fear of the upcoming Harvest less than a month away. As usual, I won’t be the one lashing out and trying to gnaw someone’s arm off, but I worry that Ríjez may have contracted it. And Andy is never hesitant about taking care of that particular problem. Every month, he’s ready with a loaded shotgun, just waiting for the blank eyes of insanity and ravenous hunger to overtake someone in the compound. I’ve seen him use it without a second thought. Ríjez would be dead before I could get a word in edgewise.
I briefly wish for a cell phone or a walkie talkie or a freaking telegraph because we’re stranded out here in enemy territory, both injured and relatively useless when it comes to defending ourselves, and it would just be really nice if we could maybe call home and say “come get us!” to the people who can actually use a gun.
The air that used to be soothing is now chapping my exposed skin with its harsh temperature and brutal winds.
Nuclear winter. It’s fun stuff.
We’ve cleared the forest and are loping through the barren meadow that separates the compounds from each other, but I’m regretting it with every frozen cell in my body. Ríjez’s body provides some warmth, but it’s slowly being sapped out of both of us. Already, I can’t feel my hands, and my toes have been numb for an hour now. My jaw is locked, so I’m not shivering anymore. I can’t feel my ribs screaming at me, which I can’t tell is a good thing or not. It feels like my heart is pumping slush instead of blood. I have to keep squinting my eyes because I’m pretty sure I feel ice crystallize over them. Or maybe it’s just my imagination. Was that a sign of hypothermia? Hallucinations? I’ll have to ask Mella.
“Th-think we’ll…muh-make it back?” I croak between muscle spasms that really can’t be called shivering.
I get no immediate answer, which makes me fear that I’m just dragging a dead body. Is dead body an oxymoron? I’ve never quite understood that…
C’mon, focus, Vess…
I feel my frigid heart thump painfully against my sternum when I get an answer. Not a verbal one, but an answer nonetheless. Ríjez grasps my shoulder with stiff fingers and turns us back to the woods. Okay, so he thinks that we can’t make it back right now and the forest will provide us cover. Okay. I can deal with that. Nooooo problemo.
Except now my legs are as stiff as a board, and I’m not feeling as light as a feather…
I drop to the hard ground, falling face first into a clump of shriveled brown grass, dragging Ríjez down beside me with a dead-weight thud that makes the loose soil jump slightly. The ground sucks out whatever heat I’ve been clinging onto, and I’m left with nothing but the hollow shell of my skin and bones, no warmth to keep my heart beating or my brain functional.
I think I hear something hit the ground in the forest. Maybe a tree? I don’t know. I don’t really care.
The cold isn’t so bad now; it’s there, certainly, but suddenly it doesn’t matter because I can’t feel it. It’s actually quite comfortable, this feeling. Makes me want to just snuggle up somewhere and go to sleep. Ríjez will keep me warm and safe, he always does.
Feels like I haven’t slept in ages…I think my eyes finally shut, I’m not sure, I’m not sure that I care or want to care because I’m just so…tired.
Nap time…