This Mortal Coil (2 page)

The screaming started a few moments later, real and raw and visceral. Whatever was happening one floor below, it was something far, far worse than a simple diversion.

Just as quickly as it started, the screaming ceased. After all that noise, the silence that followed was somehow even more unnerving.
 

Huddled together on the landing above, Willem and Theresa listened for any sign of who or what might be coming for them, hearing only their own ragged breathing in its place. Each second that ticked by felt more impossibly elastic than the last.

“Do you think they got him?”

“Shh. I hear something.”

Below them, Leonard peeked into the stairwell. “Theresa? Willem?”

Theresa breathed a sigh of relief. “We’re okay. Hang on, we’re coming.”

As they emerged from the stairwell, Leonard stood with one of the hunters’ rifles at the ready. Two more of those deadly weapons leaned against the wall next to him like so many stolen trophies.

“How the hell did you manage it? Three against one?” Willem wondered as Leonard pointed to the rifles. He and Theresa each took one, examining them gingerly. They were simple enough, it seemed, their strange lines and slender profiles giving them the appearance of a kind of stunted, carbine-like speargun.

Leonard explained how he had doubled back, hiding in one of the breached rooms while the hunters checked each of them individually. When the first of the them appeared through the door, leading with his rifle, Leonard brought the rebar down on the man’s head and hands, snatching his rifle away. Drawn to the room by their fellow’s screaming, Leonard shot the other two hunters one after the other as they stepped through the breached door. Then he put a barb into the neck of the first hunter, the one he had all but crippled. Convincingly enough, his jumpsuit was spattered with a tremendous starburst of blood and bits of brain. Even more convincing were the three headless bodies still oozing blood a few rooms down.

“Holy hell,” Willem murmured, marveling at the evidence of Leonard’s slaughter.

“You saved our lives,” Theresa added, stating the obvious.

Leonard shrugged as if it was all no big deal. Just another day at the office. “Hunters: One, Hunted: Three. Now, what’d’ya say we get the hell outta here already, huh?”

Willem wished for a fire, a blanket, some whiskey—anything to help warm his bones against the night air’s bite. Realistically, the only option was a fire. Theresa had argued against it, though, and she was right. Fire was not their friend as long as they were on the run. They were cold and miserable, but they were alive. The last thing they needed was to trade that away for a few minutes of warmth sure to betray the relative secrecy of their position.

“Willem?”

The sound of Theresa’s voice roused him from the dark place he had let his mind slip. “Hm?”

“I asked if you were alright. You haven’t said anything in a while.”

A few feet away, Leonard dozed against one of the buildings flanking their lonely little alley. His chin was dipped low against his chest, a stolen rifle draped across his lap. How he managed such a feat given the events of the last few hours was a mystery to Willem, one he wished he could emulate under the circumstances. He was tired. No, not tired.
Fatigued
. That was the word. The kind of tired that denies simple sleep, that sinks its teeth deep into the bones and suckles at the marrow like mother’s milk.

“I’m fine. Just thinking, I guess.”

“About what? C’mon, talk to me.”

Willem weighed his options. His thoughts were about the only thing left that were truly his own. Yet he couldn’t deny her an answer, not after the way they had cheated death together.

“Everything,” he said. “Nothing. Who I was before this. Who I am now. You. Leonard. Why we’re being hunted. The woman I saw earlier today. The look in her eyes when…” He trailed off, sighing heavily as another bone-chilling gust swept through the alley, gobbling up the icy cloud of breath hanging before his face as though it were some hungry demon.

Theresa nodded. “That’s a lot to think about.” She reached out through the darkness between them, offering him her hand.

“What’s this?” he wondered numbly, or maybe just dumbly.

“My hand. Take it. It’ll make you feel better.”

And somehow, as silly as it sounded, she was right. He took her hand, feeling the wrap of her fingers and the lingering warmth of her palm, and it did. It did make him feel better. Less overwhelmed. Not quite so alone. Even hopeful, in a strangely despondent sort of way.

“I’m sorry about before. With the rebar. I thought we were about to die. I was just trying to… I just hope I didn’t hurt you too badly, is all.”

Willem shrugged, immediately thinking better of it. “It hurts a little to breathe, but I think I’ll live. Y’know, everything else notwithstanding.”

“Good.” She smiled, a weak flicker lighting up the darkness between them. A moment later she scooted closer, shouldering her body against his.

“What are you doing?”

“Conserving body warmth. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do in a situation like this?”

“Oh. Right. Sure.”

“Why? Is it making you uncomfortable?”

“No, actually. You’re right. I do feel a bit warmer.”

“Me, too.”

“What about Leonard?”

“What about him? I think he looks comfortable enough, don’t you?”

“I’m actually awake over here, guys,” Leonard intoned into his chest. “Just so you know.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Leonard,” Theresa quipped for lack of anything better to say. “Care to join us?”
 

“Nope. I’m fine where I am.”

“Have it your way.”

“That’s the plan.”

“So, Leonard,” Willem wondered. “The hunters? I mean, it seems kind of weird—”

“—that they weren’t carrying any supplies or extra ammo? Trust me, I searched the bodies. What you see is what you get. Best guess? They have a central depot around here somewhere, a place they can go to resupply and get warm while we’re freezing our asses off.”

The silence that followed hung between them like a lead balloon. Willem had so many questions. One in particular weighed upon him most heavily. Still, he hesitated. Something about Leonard struck him as a man who wasn’t overly fond of being questioned, especially now that the balance of leadership had swung from Theresa to him. Maybe it was the way he had separated himself from the two of them. Maybe it was the way he had played at sleeping while listening in on their conversation all the while. Maybe it was the way he seemed so perfectly at peace with the fact he had single-handedly killed three armed men just as many hours earlier. Whatever it was, the thought of trifling with him gave Willem pause. Finally, though, his natural curiosity won out.

“Leonard?”

“Willem.”

There was a taciturn quality about the man, a way of speaking as much
through
them as to them. It was at once unnerving and intimidating, yet strangely compelling somehow. “How did you know what to do back there? That it would work?”

“Can’t say I did know. Not exactly. Kinda just came to me in the moment.”

“Maybe you were some kind of soldier or something. Before all this.”

“Maybe. Can’t say I know that, either.”

“Do you think there are more?”

“Of who? Them? Or us?”

“Both, I guess.”

Leonard lifted his chin off his chest. He eyed them both for a long, uneasy beat. “Yes,” he finally said, a note of ominous certainty underpinning his answer. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m trying to catch a little shuteye.” He lowered his head to his chest once more, effectively putting an end to the conversation, such as it was.

“I guess we should try to sleep, too,” Theresa whispered.

“Go ahead. One of us should keep watch.”

“You’re sure?”

“I am. I’ll try to wake you before I pass out.” He didn’t think it too unreasonable a plan, what with the cold feeding upon them so insatiably. How was he going to fall asleep, after all, when he could barely keep his teeth from chattering like a troupe of coked-out tap dancers?

“Alright. You’d damn well better, though. You need the rest, too.”

“I will. Just go ahead and sleep.”

It didn’t take her long, her head sagging softly upon his shoulder with his permission. And then before he knew it he was out, too, slipping into the night’s icy yet strangely comforting embrace.

“There’s literally no trace of him. The son of a bitch is just
gone!
Like he was never even here.”

Willem had awoken first, though to say he ever actually slept would imply he felt rested. In fact, it was just the opposite; between the benumbing cold and the haunting barrage of imagery looping ceaselessly through his dreams, he had never felt more weary. Yet as Theresa dozed close against him and the first warm fingers of the rising sun stretched across his face, he couldn’t deny the glimmer of hope welling up within him. Soon the sun would be high and blazing, its presence as much an affirmation of their will to live as the new day that came with it. Maybe then he would regain the feeling in his fingers, he’d thought, lifting his half-frozen digits before his face and flexing them. It was then, his eyes focusing through the spaces between, that he realized the night had stolen more from them than just the sensation in his fingers.

Leonard was gone.

“Do you think the hunters got him?” Willem wondered after rousing Theresa, knowing as soon as he asked how absurd the question was. They had searched the alley high and low, finding no sign of him whatsoever. It was as if he had vanished into thin air.

“If they had, there would be pieces of him all over the place. And besides, why would they take just him and leave us?”

“I’m just saying, it doesn’t make any sense for him to take off.”

Theresa scoffed. “Bastard probably decided he was better off on his own. All your soldier talk last night.”

The remark wounded him more than it should have. He barely knew this woman, yet here he was allowing her to cut as close to the bone as the chilling blades of wind that had knifed through them the night before. “Hey, I was just trying to put the pieces together as best I could. You’re more than welcome to chime in next time if you think you have a better idea.”

She whirled around, squinting hard at him. Almost immediately her features softened measurably. “You’re right. It’s not your fault he took off of on us. Sorry.”

Willem nodded. “It’s alright. I understand. And, hey, at least he left us our rifles.”

“Yeah.” Looking down at her rifle where it leaned against the wall, she picked it up, fingering the stock anxiously. “We should get going,” she announced. “It’ll be light soon and we need to try to find some provisions and better shelter.”

“So, we’re sticking together?”

Theresa raised a brow at the question, her face alighting with a snarky display of teeth. “Well, unless you have a better idea.”

In spite of everything, Willem felt the corners of his mouth pulling upwards, matching her grin for grin. “Alright, then.” Whatever it was uniting them, there was an unspoken recognition they were in this thing together, Leonard or no Leonard. “So, what’s our first priority? Provisions or shelter?”

Their stomachs supplied the answer almost in unison. While it was true that without better shelter they likely wouldn’t make it long enough to witness another sunrise, they were even less likely without first getting some food in their bellies. Even more important was to find a source of potable water or it was only a matter of time before they started to suffer from chronic dehydration.

The sun was both a blessing and a curse as they struck out, giving them light by which to maneuver but also to be seen, as well as slowly sapping them of what little internal reserves they had left. They kept to the long shadows of taller buildings for as long as they could, moving slowly, methodically, doing their best not to draw attention to themselves while still covering a goodly amount of ground. Even so, by midday the heat had grown as oppressive as the cold had been diminishing. Willem could feel his forehead dappling with sweat; ringed stains bloomed slowly beneath the pits of his arms. The starchy orange jumpsuits were doing them no favors. All but useless against the cold, they seemed designed only to magnify the heat of the day. And then there was the bright, eye-catching orange set against the urban palette surrounding them on all sides. It was just one more thing they would need to address as soon as they were able.

If
they were able.

By far, the most vexing aspect of their trek was the sterility of their surroundings. The buildings were uniformly featureless but for the same signs of distress, the alleys the same narrow spits of concrete. More than once Theresa wondered if she was leading them in circles. Yet with no visible landmarks to mark their progress against, they had little choice but to push on as best their instincts dictated.

Finally, with the sun bearing down from the apex of its ascension and no evidence of any measurable progress, Willem put his foot down. “Theresa,” he said, his breathing labored as he leaned against the shady side of the building they were shadowing. “We’re getting nowhere fast. We need high ground, a sense of direction.” He had first floated the notion hours earlier. She was quick to shoot it down, arguing that it increased the odds of their being seen as much as seeing anything. Their best bet, she had said, was to stay small and work through the alleys until they opened out onto something bigger, like following a creek to the river. Now, flustered and frustrated by the lack of any sign or contact—at one point she had groused that even the hunters would be a welcome sight, because at least then they would know they were on the right track—she was ready to relent.