Break Free The Night (Book 2): Loss of Light (23 page)

              "It's just... I hate this! No x-rays. No antibiotics. No pain killers. Have you had a tetanus shot recently? Who the hell knows?" she yelled, anger flashing over her features like Kaylee had never seen before. "And you know what? I'm not trained for this! I'm a damn psych nurse! I'm supposed to talk to you about how you
feel
. Not this shit! Not blood and constant death and pulling metal poles out of people. Not-"  she broke off, her features crumpling. One hand found it's way to her head, her fingers probing lightly even as tears built in her eyes.

              "We don't expect miracles from you, Anna," Quinton said, his voice gentle. Bill pulled out his knife, cutting Jack's shirt and pulling the wet material away from his wound.

              "And I did have my tetanus," Jack added, his tone soft even through his grimace. "Just before the world ended."

              "Well, that'll help some." A small smile cracked through Anna's features, then her face fell and she grit her teeth. "Alright boys, hold him down."

              The pole slid from Jack's body with a wet slurp. A gush of blood followed, dark and oozing on his pale, olive skin. He grit his teeth, grunting in pain. Bill and Quinton kept him braced against a thin tree that jut from the rest of the woods. She stepped closer and Quinton gestured for Kaylee to take his place. She moved into Jack, snaking an arm around him to help keep him propped up. His head dropped on her good shoulder, his breath hot on her freezing skin as he drew sharp breaths. She looked down at the grass she stepped unto, water pooled by her shoe, seeping in to keep her feet soaked. It sprang from the ground below her, like she had walked from a beach unto a swamp.

              The ground just past them gave way to mud, the tree line first sparse and then thickening. Trees grew in clumps with not much room in between. The ground between the trees was uneven, lumpy, and wet; old leaves and pine needles mixed in with the mud, looked churned together. The sludge was so thick it looked knee deep in places. There was no new growth, no saplings, not even ferns. It looked unnatural. Something was out of place though she couldn't say exactly what. But these woods stretched for as far as Kaylee could see.

              "I need something to pack it with," Anna muttered, her head close to Jack's stomach.

              "Dirt? Pine needles?" Quinton asked, already moving into the tree line.

              Anna was distracted, her hands shaking as she bent and tore strips from her own shirt.

              "No, cloth, the cleanest anyone-"

              Quinton stepped past the tree line, his eyes back on Anna and Jack. Kaylee knew immediately that something wasn't right. It happened fast. Quinton lurched to the side, swaying as if the very ground was moving underneath him. With the squelch of displacing mud, the ground rose, knocking him off balance. He floundered for a minute before his foot found the forest floor again, but as his foot came down the ground rose up and with a shriek Kaylee saw a mud filled bloody mouth sink it's teeth into Quinton's leg.

              "No!" Jack shouted. Andrew jolted forward, his gun pulled out. He shot the bloody mouth and it fell back to the ground with a wet thud. But the damage was done. Jack stood frozen, his breath coming fast as he stared at his friend.

              Kaylee saw it now, saw what not one of them had noticed. The lumps and the misshapen ground, the way there was no growth between the trees. It was bodies. Hundreds of them, if they spanned the miles of this swamp. Mud mixed with pine needles and leaves covered the infected in a swampy paste, but she could see them now, the elbows and ankles and hip bones that protruded from the mud. The patches of grayish skin that was only just now noticeable. They were in there, held there somehow, but put there specifically for this purpose. It was worse than the electric fence, worse than any barbed wire or barricade, it was a living shield of infected bodies, all starving and laying in wait for the next unsuspecting ankle to come near.

              Quinton staggered out of the swamp and came towards them. He looked from each face to Jack before shaking his head.

              "No," Jack whispered, staring.

              "I'm sorry, Jack." Even as he spoke, the whites of his eyes were staining yellow and his breath was coming fast and sharp. Emma stepped forward, tear tracks streaked her face but they were drying now. She took a deep breath and stretched out her hand. And it was now that Kaylee remembered all the times her sister had sat, one on one with Quinton, getting him to agree to shoot her if ever she turned. Maybe their arrangement was reciprocal.

              Quinton locked eyes with her sister. "You sure?"

              "Of course," she answered, her voice low. He nodded. His eyes blinked shut and he opened them, the lids fluttering rapidly as his cornea stained a deeper yellow. It was happening fast. The trembling in his hands was become forceful, spreading up his limbs.

              He tossed his gun at her feet with twitching hands. She bent to retrieve it.

              "I can do it," Bill offered, stepping forward but Emma shook her head.

              Quinton's breath was coming in a snarl now, his hands shaking with sickness, the whites of his eyes completely yellow. With only a moment of hesitation, Emma raised the pistol, pulled the trigger, and shot Quinton straight through the forehead.

              He fell with a smack into the mud behind him, sinking slightly into the soft earth. A halo of blood mingled with the muddy ground around his head.

              No one spoke. Kaylee saw Emma tuck Quinton's gun into her belt and she turned, her back to the rest of the group.

              It took a moment before any one of them moved. Kaylee was empty. Grief would come, devastation and horror would come for what she had become when she brought that ax into Cynthia, for what her sister had to do for their friend, for the incredible loss of life that day. So much waste. First their father and now Quinton. Good and strong Quinton. His body lay in the mud, next to a dozen other infected corpses.

              "We can't leave him with them," Kaylee whispered, her voice low and soft but heard by everyone in their ever-shrinking group. Her fingers, still holding Jack up, clung tighter for a moment. She saw a round of nods, but she had no idea what to do with Quinton's body. There was no shovel, no way to bury him. Just as there had been no way to bury her father.

              The river still moved swiftly behind them. The water was clean and clear now, still the occasional bit of floating debris. It was Andrew who moved back into the water, found the large piece of wood. He dragged it unto the shore, his father moving to help him.

              It was a large, flat slab of wood, something the dam must have dislodged as it exploded. It was big enough to support Quinton.

              Andrew and Kaylee pulled at Quinton carefully, the mud sucking at his body. It took most of them, Emma and Bill and even Anna, but they clumsily got him to the beach and then unto the board. Kaylee crossed Quinton's arms over his chest. His eyes remained unseeing, staring straight up into the sunny sky. He was really and truly dead. It took all of them together, all with injuries and pulling as best as they could, to get him balanced and floating in the water of the river.

              At the very last, just before they let him adrift, Emma pulled her pocketknife out of her jean pocket. She bent over the board near Quinton's head and scratched a clumsy cross over the surface.

              "He was raised Baptist," she murmured in explanation. As one, they let go of the board and Quinton joined Nick. Two Vikings floating into eternity.

              The water was freezing, but Kaylee didn't want to leave it just yet. Jack was breathing heavily, resting back against that one tree. As rest made their way toward the shore, Kaylee squatted low, so the water was lapping at her breasts, and rubbed her hands up and down her arms. Blood washed off her, rippling away with the moving water. Most of the blood had rinsed immediately, as soon as her body hit the water, but the rest was already dried, and she scrubbed at her skin until it flaked away.

              Her wounds started to ache. Not even hurt really, she felt so numb, both inside and out. But they ached enough that she remembered where they were. Her shoulder, the graze wound from the bullet that was further damaged by a broken pipe, her cheek and neck from Cynthia's nails. She brought handfuls of water to her face, scrubbing hard to loosen the blood that was caught there. She bent backwards, soaking her hair again and running her hands through before yanking it into a ponytail. She thought she might have other scratches, but she couldn't feel them now.

              If only they had clothes with them, anything so she could strip off what she was wearing and not be forced to relive the nightmare every time she looked down. But they didn't. And the only person who knew where the motor home was, where every one of their possessions was, had just drifted off down the river after her father. So she loosened her shirt and dragged it over her head, beating it into a rock before rinsing it clean. She didn't bother with the jeans.

              Somewhere, fleetingly and in the back of her thoughts, she dredged up the memory of the framed photo of her family, the one she had had since the beginning, her mother's face smiling up through shiny glass. It was the one thing she took with her, tucked down the front of her shirt as she ran from her apartment building the night her mother was bit. She knew exactly where it was in the motor home, tucked safely into a drawer next to the bed. She'd never see it again. Just like she'd never see her father or Quinton.

              When she looked back to the shore, her eyes searched first for Emma and then settled on Jack. She saw Anna, her head bent close to Jack's side. He was grimacing again, his face twisted in pain. Bill and Andrew each had a shoulder, holding him firmly braced against the tree. Anna stuffed the hole in his side with bunches of wet cloth, using a long piece to wrap around his stomach, holding the rest firmly in place.

              "You okay?" Anna asked him. Kaylee scanned him, her eyes darting over his body. Despite the goosebumps raised all along his abdomen, a thin sheen of sweat covered him.

              "You tell me," Jack answered, breathing heavily through grit teeth. Anna sighed, not answering.

              Kaylee walked out of the water, her eyes on Jack. Bill came up beside her.

              "It's man made," he said, his voice low as he pointed. Kaylee followed his line of sight and noticed a grey, filthy PVC pipe jutting from the mud. It looked like it had been there for ages, seeping water from the reservoir into the surrounding ground. Kaylee scanned the area, she saw another pipe, this one actually pumping water, fifteen feet from the one Bill had pointed out.

              "Something Marsden cooked up to keep visitors at bay?" Andrew murmured. "Like the electric fence?"

              "Does it matter?" Emma asked from his side, staring into the swamp. It stretched for as far as Kaylee could see.

              "No, it doesn't," Bill said. He gestured down the length of the beach. "I say we go the length, it has to end somewhere. We need to get out of here."

              He was right. Kaylee wasn't sure if anyone else had made it out of the power plant. Most of them had been eaten as they crossed the yard and Maggie had flown off in the opposite direction, so there was no knowing exactly where she had ended up, or if she got out safely at all. And Marsden remained unaccountable.

              She looked up at the rest of the group for the first time. Emma was hovering over Andrew, his hand reaching up to grip hers. Anna, Jack, and Bill were staring down the length of the marsh, water still dripping from their hair and clothes. Kaylee felt the muscles in her jaw clench reflexively as she took the first step, knowing the others would follow behind.

              They walked at least three miles before the woods thinned a bit and it looked safe to cross. Emma insisted she go first and she bounded into the woods before anyone could argue. She walked in a zigzag, kicking through the leaves and scattering them in clouds, but she didn't come across any bodies. The group followed cautiously.

              The strip of woods wasn't deep at all. A meadow, wide and empty, was what greeted them on the other side.