Travis looked in all directions. "Where is she? Do you see her?"
Santiago gestured east. "Over there!"
Travis bounded over the foliage. His foot nearly caught a mat of vines and he sank five inches deep in the tangle. He had nearly toppled to the side but his momentum kept him going and he felt the tendrils snap and separate at his ankle.
Where is she? Dammit! He had told her not to leave his sight!
Leaves and fronds ripped from the branches as their bodies tore through the island forest. As his eyes searched for the dull, mud-stained navy blue of her shirt amidst the green foliage he noticed there weren't any birds. Their commotion should've sent flocks away from the trees and the bushes. He had heard the loons screeching down by the shore and had seen the seagulls hopping over the shit-covered rocks, but that was by the beach in the open air, not inland. Why were there no birds?
Because here there be death, his mind responded, and he felt a little shiver ripple across his clammy skin.
Santiago spotted Zahra first and he pointed ahead and a slight right. She was crouched low and her head was tilted to the side. There was a kind of fear on her face with an assertion of combat as her arms worked on something writhing and jerking on the ground hard enough to violently shake bushes surrounding them. She was screaming still, not a scream of pain, but for assistance. It was a deep, assertive cry for help.
As Travis sprinted closer he saw Jonah pinned under her in some kind of fit, digging his heels into the soil. His eyes were wild and from his mouth, he gasped the words, "It's eating me, it's eating me!"
Jonah ripped at the flesh of his hand, digging his fingernails into his own flesh and meat. Blood poured down his arm as a chunk of skin peeled away like an orange, exposing the dark muscles and white tendons beneath. Zahra pressed her knee against his stomach to keep him from writhing away and she fought to keep his hands separated. The battle was not one she could sustain much longer. When she forced his hands apart, the flap of skin tore off completely and blood spilled across his face. He lifted his head up and Travis watched with revulsion as Jonah pulled his lips back exposing his blood-soaked teeth and attempted to chew away more of his skin.
Travis dropped down at their side. The infection was much worse than Travis thought. The blackish-blue ooze had corroded away the skin of his hand like acid and had dissolved much of the muscle and fatty tissues. Careful not to touch any of it himself, he forced Jonah's left arm to the ground. Jonah replied with an agonized howl. The muscles and tendons in his neck tensed and his veins swelled in his forehead like a garden hose about to burst and the capillaries in his eyes burst, turning the white sclera blood red. Jonah lifted his head again, his teeth gnawing as he struggled to free himself.
Zahra used two hands to pin him down and resorted to pushing her knee into his side.
"We need to sedate him!"
"With what? We don't have anything!"
"Travis!" Zahra begged.
She screamed again when Jonah broke free and his bloody fingers, stripped of skin and nails broken, lunged at her in attack.
Travis barely had time to see Santiago appear with a rock in his hand. In one fell swing, he brought it down over Jonah's skull and immediately went limp.
Travis wiped away the perspiration on his forehead using the back of his sleeve.
Zahra rolled back in the grass.
"Did you kill him? Is he dead?"
Travis's hands shook as he checked for a pulse. When he couldn't find it he felt a flush of panic and fear surge through him, but it took only long enough for his own heart to calm before he was able to identify a stable pulse.
"He's alive."
Zahra inhaled a deep, relieving sigh, but Travis could not stop shaking. They were there to protect each other, but in the last twenty four hours each of them had nearly killed each other and Travis saw now that they were more of a threat than the zombies.
"There could have been a better way. Christ, he could have a concussion now, or be hemorrhaging as we speak."
"I didn't hit him that hard. Besides, I didn't see you coming up with any better ideas."
Travis was certain there were better ideas, he just needed a moment longer to consider them. There could've been a sedative in one of the backpacks. He hadn't seen one, but he also hadn't been looking hard.
"Well, I didn't think so," replied Santiago.
Travis shuddered at Santiago's callousness. He nearly killed his teammate and there was still a chance he could die of the impact later, and still he showed no remorse.
When Travis had nearly let Jonah die, he had felt guilt for nearly betraying a teammate, but Santiago did not appear to feel that same remorse. That lack of humanity terrified Travis, for Santiago demonstrated the same indiscriminate behavior as the living dead. There could've been another reason, Travis figured. Perhaps it wasn't that he was callous, but couldn't emotionally handle knowing he might be responsible for the murder of a good friend and colleague. The mind had an unusual and spectacular power of defense when placed in a traumatic scenario.
Now that Jonah had been sedated, Travis was able to look at the rash closer. The goo had eaten its way through his flesh and was stuck to the muscles and tendons in his hand like glue, corroding them. If Jonah survived Santiago's blow, it would only be a matter of hours or maybe days that the goo would cover a critical mass of his body. When he inspected Jonah's veins, Travis noticed something even more peculiar.
Zahra leaned over Travis's shoulder.
"What is it?"
Travis pointed to the goo that snaked along the vessel up Jonah's arm. "It's in his bloodstream."
Zahra leaned closer to inspect while Santiago watched from over Travis's shoulder.
Travis pointed to the spot on Jonah's fingertips where he had first touched the goo, indicating how it had been corroded away, eating through muscle and dissolving bone. Then he pointed to the large vein where the goo had entered his bloodstream causing a hair-thin line of black to spread up his forearm.
"Look how quickly it ate away his skin. Now that it's in his bloodstream, it'll spread to his entire body."
"How do we stop it?" Zahra asked.
"We can't," replied Santiago. "It takes less than a minute for the blood to make a full circulation. It's been nearly twenty hours. If we removed his clothes, I'm sure we'll be able to see more forming in other parts of his body."
Zahra shook her head in disbelief.
Travis hesitated and, after a brief pause, he unbuttoned Jonah's shirt. The muscles in his chest and stomach were strong, he was a dedicated weight trainer, and without noticing the sinister details of his tattoos, their eyes fell upon the black tendrils of goo in his veins surrounding his naval and under each armpit. When Travis inspected Jonah's legs, he saw more hairlines of black snaking up his calves.
Zahra groaned.
"How much time does he have?"
Travis shrugged.
"I don't know. Ren had only a few hours. So I can only presume Jonah has maybe a half a day at most. I don't know how it works. I just don't know."
Then Travis noticed the tattoos. Tattoos he had seen in the showers after their shift but hadn't really stood close enough to really inspect—to really see the 88 on his chest, the eagle with splayed wings, the swastika, and tattooed in German across his heart, the words, die Juden.
—
Thank you for reading chapter 23 of my novel Evilution!
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-L.K. Scott