Toxic (54 page)

Annie didn’t respond. She contented herself with putting down the pile on the bed. She was getting ready to leave when Elaine stopped her. “Wait! I want to know what the radio looks like.”

“Why? Are you planning on calling your friends? Don’t worry, you’ll see them soon enough. Men went to go capture them. By now, they should be on their way back here, in time to watch your show.”

All of a sudden, she understood.

“So, you were on their side from the beginning?”

“Yep. That’s my part of the deal: to find out your motivations and to see if you could become one of us.”

“I imagine that Clayton was in on the scam as well.”

“He does like you, but the Reverend has other plans for him.”

Annie left the cell.

Time expanded until unraveling into a series of questions. Elaine couldn’t get any rest. Images of the pit invaded her thoughts as soon as she closed her eyes. She walked along the five meters of space and did exercises, including push-ups, to stifle the fear that she felt increase inside her.

Later on, two men entered the alcove. They looked at the still-folded toga on the edge of the bed.

“I won’t wear it,” Elaine defied them.

The guardians shrugged and grabbed her by the arms. They brusquely led her to the surface through the tunnel. Once they had passed the main entrance to the complex, the evening light dressed the sky with a foreboding blood red color. Heat weighed down the air. Right away, the nurse felt sweat on her neck. Before her, people moved away, giving her sour looks and contemptuous remarks while her indifferent escort led her to one of the three cages.

She spotted the Reverend, his arms crossed and hood raised, looking like a church member during a moment of personal introspection. He was waiting, upright on the small platform that he used as the pulpit of a floating church. The men pushed her inside the cage, which was hooked to a crane via the roof. They checked the closing mechanism before moving away. Then, accompanied by two other unfortunate sacrificial victims, she was raised up into the air.

The master of the insane ceremony came out with his hands in his sleeves, which he raised up towards the sky. The members of the crowd, in close rows, lowered their heads. The disciples were uncovered. Silence ensued.

“My dear friends,” the despot started, “we are once again gathered here to offer these sinners the opportunity to atone for their sins with blood...”

A light wind was blowing, causing the metal jail to sway slightly. Elaine plugged her nose. The rising wind brought the pestilential fragrance of the inhuman wave that awaited her, ravenous and already excited. Her heart rose. On the verge of vomiting, she put her hand to her mouth after a second gag. The grunts rose in a macabre litany punctuated with jeers from the crowd and encouraged by the Reverend, who was spewing out his speech which was as foul as the smell of the horde.

The two machetes on the ground caught her attention. Even if she could get a hold of a blade, she wouldn’t make it through the assault of that many creatures. At best, she would manage to decapitate a few of them. The weapons were only there to prolong the fun and to satisfy the morbid instincts of the spectators, who found a release for their anger. Except that the victims weren’t responsible for their situation whatsoever.

The cages, linked together by a crane, shook, indicating the opening of the games. Off balance, Elaine grabbed the bars. The insults weren’t long in coming from all sides. The nurse closed her mind to the jeers, as she needed to be ready to sprint to get a blade. She didn’t know anything about the physical abilities of the other two women, but in moments like these, the will to survive drove the body and mind and pushed any lamb to become a wolf and to go beyond its limits and commit the unthinkable. She felt as if she were wearing the skin of an animal, that of a race horse high on adrenaline confined to its starting-block and impatient to tear away. She was distressed. Once again, she looked at the other competitors, who were just as determined to defend themselves.

The heavy cage touched the ground. Elaine moved to the center. The crowd continued to shout and abuse the women. Instinctively, she raised her arm to her face.

Then, the doors opened. At once, on the other side of the pit, the fence lowered and freed the horde.

Without thinking, Elaine jumped in the direction of the machete that she had chosen as her weapon. As a relic of her university days when she had been a member of the track and field team, she knew that she was fast enough to outrun her direct opponent, who adopted a completely unexpected strategy.

She ran at the nurse.

The brown-haired woman, of a similar stocky build, rushed at her screaming. Surprised by the behavior, Elaine slowed down. She was getting ready to accelerate when the second woman tackled her and pushed her to the ground. The shock took the breath right out of her. Elaine understood when she saw the brown-haired woman grab the two machetes. Her two rivals had made a plan: to team up against her.

The crowd showed its pleasure at seeing this tactic with its noise.

Elaine spread her legs to take advantage of a lever effect and then pushed on her knees to roll to the side. The infected were already half-way there. The horde resembled the wave of a slow-motion tsunami. Her opponent’s plan was clearly to wait until the last moment before freeing herself and running to join her friend. The zombies would then be too busy to throw themselves onto her and devour her, which would offer a respite to the two survivors. Elaine tried the turn once again, but the blond yelled at her not to move.

“I don’t have anything against you,” she heard, “but I have no choice.”

She tightened her grip to counter Elaine’s attempts to get away.

Jesus Christ
, Elaine barely said to herself,
was this woman a wrestler in a past life or what?

The grunts of the infected approached them. The blond raised her head to gauge the distance that they still had to run.

“Keep still. It won’t be much longer.”

“And you think that I’m just going to let myself be eaten?” Elaine responded, her breath a pant.

Her adversary increased the pressure on her back.

When she turned around to watch the living dead, she had to move her support leg, exposing her knees to Elaine’s teeth. She didn’t hesitate: she bit the flesh with all her might. The woman, perched like a man on horseback, screamed in pain. She moved away, loosening her grip on the nurse, who took advantage of the moment to elbow her violently. With her rival knocked over, Elaine managed to roll to the side and get up.

The shattered mouths walked towards her.

They looked like an invincible army with ferocious movements, unshakable in their common will. The grunts were mixed with the shouts of the crowd, a slave to both its master and its bestial instincts. The two worlds of the same species looked each other up and down, one the mirror of the other through the wire fence that separated them.

The woman who she had just fought with was having trouble getting back on her feet, stunned by the blow to the face. Elaine wanted to help her, but she arrived too late. Two creatures jumped on the unlucky woman. A zombie was within reach of the nurse. With a kick, she broke the kneecap of the man with a broken face. His rotten leg bent at an impossible angles and he fell over. Elaine pushed back the attack of a second infected person. She then ran towards the captive holding the two machetes, who had watched the whole scene, paralyzed in terror, not knowing what to do with these weapons, which must have seemed quite pathetic to fight against the horde.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated incessantly, her eyes red.

She offered her a blade. Elaine grabbed it and walked backwards, her new-found friend at her sides. On a tactical level, they had no chance of getting out. The pit had no ways to escape or ladders. The zombies that weren’t busy feasting on the remains of the blonde directed their interest towards the two survivors. Many of them were already moving in their direction.

The nurse closed her eyes, searching for a way out or a miracle, just like in the Bahamas, when she had decided to get down from the fence. She reopened her eyes and gazed at the dramatic scene in which she was an actress and victim. She suddenly spotted something.

“Holy shit! Come with me! Quick!”

She pulled at her companion’s sleeve. Heavy and solid, the cages were their only lifeline. They wouldn’t allow them to get out of the pit, but they would at least let them get out of the reach of the zombies by getting up high. The hardest part was climbing up on top.

“What’s your name?”

“Marie.”

“I’m Elaine. I’ll climb up first. You help give me a boost and then I’ll haul you up.”

The nurse glanced over her shoulder. Even moving at an unsteady pace, the infected were approaching very quickly. They only seemed slow in moments of pure insanity. Marie put her back to the cage and linked her hands together. Elaine put her foot on them.

“We can get through this together,” she affirmed before jumping up.

Her moist hands slid on the bars. She almost fell, but managed to catch herself. Once she was on the roof, she held out her hands to her former enemy, who didn’t need to be asked twice. The zombies were already surrounding them. With fear in her stomach and the rage to survive, she made one last effort to drag herself into a space that was barely two and a half square meters. The creatures bashed against the metal prison, which was solid enough to resist the attack. They didn’t manage to move it or topple it. Fingers slid along the side, drawing a scream from Marie, who hugged her.

They were temporarily saved. Elaine asked herself how the master would react to this unforeseeable turn of events. She raised her eyes towards the platform. Something was happening. The spectators were looking elsewhere. She couldn’t hear them bellow or yell insults.

Then, an explosion resounded. One ball of fire and then a second lit up the sky. The clamor returned, but it was different. Panic and shouts replaced the jeers and insults. She saw the Reverend leave his platform quickly, his guard arming their guns and preparing to cover his escape. But against whom? The distinctive music of the AKs burst out everywhere. From the bottom of the pit, it was impossible to know where it was coming from and the direction of the shots. A new mushroom cloud rose up in the night sky. Around the women, the infected pushed against the bars. Dozens of torn up bodies worked away at getting to their source of protein, indifferent to the turn of events.

“What’s happening?” Marie yelled, grabbing her arm.

The vibrations from the bangs of the living dead reached them, transmitted by the metal. The cage sounded like an echo of the ferocity of those circus beasts, reinforcing the idea that they were in a trap that was closing up on them. Marie moved around more and more and tapped her feet, unable to control the fear that extinguished her ability to think. Elaine tried to calm her down and to reassure her, telling her that they were out of reach. At the same time, she tried to understand what was happening outside of the pit. The bursts of automatic weapons multiplied and there were many explosions almost simultaneously. Then, she spotted Clayton. He was standing on the edge of the pit, near the crane. With the distance, she couldn’t see his face, but she could see that he was getting ready to keep his word as she watched him climb into the driver’s seat of the yellow machine.

“Clayton is going to get us out of here.”

Marie wasn’t listening to her, her gaze drawn by the horde and her body shaking uncontrollably.

“One of us has to get out of here,” she mumbled, “and one of us has to sacrifice herself.”

The cable that linked the cage to the crane stretched brutally like the string of a bow. Elaine was knocked off balance by the sudden movement. Overcome with panic, Marie, moved by her survival instincts, pushed the nurse. The suspended cage had already moved three or four meters in the air. The nurse stifled a shout and held her hand out to Marie, who remained clutching the rope.

Elaine fell backwards into the pit.

In the distance, she saw a blue light hit the neck of a woman shooting her Kalashnikov at an invisible target. The infected raised their arms towards the fresh flesh that was falling from the sky.

History was repeating itself.

T
he maneuver of the assault group, eighteen troopers on board three T-Js, hesitated for a moment as Kjet, thrown off balance by the blast from the first explosion, fell from the ramp. His suit’s agrav repulsors stabilized him right away and the reptilian floated above the camp. He quickly became the target of the desperate firepower, but that didn’t worry him. No projectiles would pierce the invisible protection around him.

Jave observed the spluttering of small flames on the confinement field signaling the impacts. The humans were spraying the PAS, which was flying over them. One of the mercenaries showed his annoyance with an impulsion shot that tore a sniper perched on the roof of a metal shack into pieces. His entrails sprayed the shadows hidden below him. The emissary reminded them of their orders.