The Dying & The Dead 2 (24 page)

Scarsgill stopped walking, and the guard
stopped behind him. Eric knew which bed he’d stopped at.

He stretched out in a way that he
hoped seemed like something a person would do when he was asleep. He turned
over onto his other side so that he could see the doctor, but for the first
minute he kept his eyes closed.

“So sweet when she’s asleep,” said
Scarsgill.

The guard didn’t say anything.

“She doesn’t look well at all,” the
doctor continued. “Has she been eating?”

“I don’t work in the canteen,” said
the guard.

“For God’s sake. I asked for someone
who actually knew the people in this cabin.”

“I’ve pulled guard duty in this
section for the last month.”

“Standing there with your baton and
waiting for them to cause trouble isn’t the same as knowing these people.”

Eric risked opening one eye. At first
the room was too dark, but his vision adjusted. Scarsgill was sat on the end of
Kim’s bed. He didn’t touch her, but he looked at her face with an expression
that seemed like concern.

“Make sure she eats in the morning,
and every meal time after that. I want to see at least a little red in those
cheeks,” said Scarsgill, talking to the guard. “After that, I want you to bring
her to the lab. I need her in there in forty-eight hours. It’s time to start on
the girl.”

With that, he straightened up, nodded
at the guard and then walked out of the cabin. As he passed Eric, he felt a
cool breeze fall over him, as if a sheet of ice followed the doctor everywhere
he went.

He looked over at Kim. She had slept
through the whole thing, oblivious to the plans that Dr. Scarsgill had for her.
Eric didn’t know what they were really, but he knew when they would happen, and
he felt like they needed to be worried. There was nothing else they could do;
he was going to have to bring the escape forward. One way or the other,
tomorrow would be their last day in Camp Dam Marsh.

Chapter
Twenty-Five

Ed

They heard the tortured wails of the
infected as they passed the log cabins and went into the larger building at the
edge of the clearing. They found the double doors unlocked. The Savage opened
them and stepped inside, followed by Ed and Bethelyn.

A long corridor stretched ahead of
them. It was dark save for where thin streams of light seeped in through broken
windows. Lights hung above them fixed in glass casings, but Ed already knew
that there was no point trying to find the power. There was a damp smell, and
as their footsteps echoed against the walls, he couldn’t help but think that
they’d disturbed something.

“Hello?” said The Savage. He stopped
walking and waited, as if he expected an answer.

Hearing nothing call back in
response, they walked on. The building was a central base for Loch-Deep
Meditation Retreat. They found rooms with mats and cushions on the floor.
Posters covered the walls showing images of blossom-filled forests and
mountains greener than anything Ed had ever seen. Some had slogans printed on
the bottom, saying things like
‘Harmony isn’t in the destination, it’s in the
journey.’

Bethelyn walked with her hand pressed
against her shoulder.

“I need saline solution for the
wound,” she said.

The Savage patted his coat pockets.

“I seem to be fresh out.”

His words echoed back at them through
the darkness.
Out…Out…Out…

“There must be a kitchen,” said
Bethelyn. “Maybe we could find something in there.”

Every so often they passed a window.
All of them were smashed, and the broken glass littered the ground outside, as
if they had all been broken from the inside. Ed thought he heard footsteps
crunching on branches and twigs beyond the windows. The wheezes of the infected
drifted toward them, growing louder each time they passed another frame of
damaged glass.

“He’s outside,” said Bethelyn.

“Come on,” said The Savage. “Don’t
let your mind get carried away.”

Ed stopped.

“I feel it too. I’m sure I heard him
walking. Ripeech is nearby, and he knows that we’re here.”

“You two are losing it. You’re both a
couple of Wetgills.”

The groans grew louder. He couldn’t
see them, but the prickles on Ed’s arms told him that infected were walking
toward the building. He didn’t know if they were drawn there by the smell of
live meat, or if something was leading them. It seemed as if they honed in on
their location, guided there by something cognitive that knew where they were.

They took a turn at the end of the
corridor. A hallway stretched out before them. A red-painted box hung off the
wall, attached by a golden chain. ‘
Suggestion Box,
’ it read. Doorways
lined the sides of the walls every few metres. Bethelyn walked ahead of them.

“Slow down, Beth,” said Ed.

She took a few steps forward, and
then stopped outside a doorway. Something was on the floor next to the door. He
couldn’t make out what it was in the darkness, but Bethelyn kneeled down and
picked it up. She turned to them with the thing in her hands.

It was a small teddy bear. Its fur
was matted and rough, as if it was old and the years had taken a toll on it.
One eye was small and black, but there was just a stitch where the other should
have been. He couldn’t help feeling that he’d seen something like it somewhere
else.

Ed had never had teddy bears growing
up. He’d asked for one once, and he remembered his mum looking at his dad and
saying ‘
Well
?’ Dad shook his head and said ‘
Bears are for pansies
.’
At the time he hadn’t understood what a small flower would want with a toy
animal, and it was only later that he came to realise that pansy was an insult,
and that his dad wanted him to be more like James. He liked boys who were smart
and strong, who didn’t need stuffed animals for comfort. It was the first in a
series of things that made Ed realise that he’d never match up to his brother.

Bethelyn held the bear close to her.
The look in her eyes was strange, and at first he didn’t understand. But then
he looked closer at the toy, and realised where he’d seen one like it before.

“Just give me a minute,” said
Bethelyn.

Her eyes looked heavy, and tears
welled on them like water threatening to spill over the edge of a bucket. Ed
realised that her daughter, April, used to have a bear just like this one.

She gripped the handle of the door
behind her. A sign next to the door read ‘Room 17.’

“What are you doing?” said The Savage.

“Just give me a minute,” she
answered, her voice choked.

She opened the door and walked into
the room, taking the bear with her and slamming the door behind her. He and The
Savage stood in the corridor. The stale smell hung around them, and Ed heard
the growls of the infected that seemed to be surrounding the building.

“Just leave her,” said Ed.

“We don’t know what the hell is in
that room. She can’t just wander around like that.”

“Look at her. I don’t know if you
noticed, but she’s gone. It hasn’t been Bethelyn walking with us in the forest.
It’s like she’s empty.”

“Thought that was just her way. I
don’t know either of you very well.”

“I wasn’t exactly best friends with
her. But since April died, there’s been nothing inside. So just leave her for a
minute, okay? She’s gone either way. At least this way, there’s a chance she
might come back.”

“When did you get so insightful?”
said The Savage.

The door opened and Bethelyn stepped
out. Bags hung under her eyes, and her cheeks were red and wet. Her hands were
empty. She looked up at Ed, and for a second he got the feeling he was staring
into an enormous black chasm.

“I never took anything of hers,” said
Bethelyn, voice wobbling. “We didn’t have time. I should have got something
before we left Golgoth.”

“Bethelyn, you didn’t have a choice.”

She ignored him, lost her in her own
thoughts. “And her body. I just left her there like a piece of meat. I should have
buried her, at least. I owed her that much.”

“We didn’t have time. If we’d stayed
any longer, we would have died.”

“I did die, Ed. I don’t see how I’m
ever coming back.”

The Savage sighed.

“You’re not going to last long in
this world,” he said.

Bethelyn nodded. “I know.”

They walked through the building.
Their footsteps boomed off the porcelain floor, and the stale smell grew the
further in they got. Every so often they’d open a door and peer into a room,
but all they found were beds left unmade and possessions left untouched.
Toothbrushes sat in glass cups, clothes were folded neatly on shelves. If he
didn’t know better, he would have guessed that the occupants had all gone out
for the day.

Ed started to notice a pattern. In
every room and along every corridor, anything reflective had been smashed. They
found cracked mirrors and broken windows, and the crackle of glass underneath
their boots soon became as normal as the spluttering hiss of the infected that
followed them through every twist and turn in the hallway.

Finally, they came to the end of the
building. There was a door at the end of a dark corridor, and a sign was fixed
into the wall next to it.

‘Loch-Deep Communal Meditation,’ it
read.

When they opened the door there was a
rush of air, as if they’d opened the vacuum-sealed tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh.
The room was the size of a school gymnasium. Richly-woven mats covered the
floors, and spent incense sticks littered every available surface.

The walls were covered in drawings
like the ones they had seen in the cabin. They were of the same face, repeated
over and over in degrading quality until finally they were just a series of
lines and scratches. It was as if the artist was trying to capture an image
perfectly, but his talent was lacking and his frustration was rising. On one of
them, dark eyes stared out from an oval face. Ed made out a roughly-drawn nose
and mouth, and most of the face had been shaded so that it looked covered in
shadow.

There were eight windows spread
across all sides of the room. The glass was smashed, and Ed saw dew-covered
tree branches and overgrown grass. Weeds reached up to some of the window
frames, as if the forest was trying to climb inside the building.

The Savage walked over to a table and
picked up a book.

“Another diary,” he said, holding it
up. “I feel like this whole place is the bedroom of a teenage girl.”

He opened it up and started to read.

“Day 30. Mind closing, body
submitting. Meditation four times a day and finding inner calm, but the
infection is always waiting. Skin looks grey. Blisters on my arms, have to stop
picking at the scabs. Already survived longer than the incubation period.
Mindfulness keeps the infection from destroying my mind, but I feel weak. Want
to sleep. Want to eat. Oh, how I want to eat.”

Bethelyn’s shoulders shivered.

“This will sound crazy,” she said.
“But do you think this is Ripeech?”

“You’re quick on the uptake,” The
Savage answered sarcastically. “Of course it’s him. I just can’t believe it,
though. I thought there was only one cure when you were infected, but this
crazy bastard tried something else.”

The groans from outside grew louder.
Ed looked out of a window, and his chest tightened as figures emerged from the
forest. They took lurching steps toward the grass, stumbling over the fallen
logs. Some tripped as their feet became entangled in vines, but a second later
they got back up, stares fixed firmly on the room.

Ed looked around him. The air felt
cold, somehow. He imagined this creature, Ripeech, in this room. How long ago
had it been? How much time had passed since this thing, this man or whatever it
was, had been in here making drawings of its own face and writing a diary of
its infection?

The figures walked closer. At first
it seemed like there were dozens, but then more hungry faces emerged from
behind the trees and walked toward them, as if drawn there by something.

The atmosphere turned. Suddenly, it seemed
like something else was there. The air became heavier, and the walls became
just a shade darker. The hairs on his arms stood on end, and he had the
overwhelming sensation that something else was waiting for them outside. He
couldn’t see it, but the feeling was impossible to dismiss.

“He’s here,” said Ed. “Ripeech is
here.”

For a few seconds, they heard nothing
but the hungry cries of the infected. And then a voice spoke to them from
outside.