The Dying & The Dead 2 (28 page)

As the doctor crossed the room, Eric
felt how cold the chair was against his neck. He was engulfed by its size. He
couldn’t understand why someone had made a chair so large that he could lay on
it fully stretched out, nor why they’d put levers on it so that it lifted off
the ground.

Scarsgill walked over to the metal tray.
He ran his fingers over the scalpel and scissors. He picked up the saw and
traced his thumb along the jagged blades, and then he put the tool down and
faced Eric.

“I remember you,” he said.

His voice was as cold as the
porcelain floor. His waterproof coat looked more stained than usual, and Eric
saw trails of red running up one of the plastic sleeves. Despite the appearance
of his coat, the doctor’s hands were clean, and his fingernails had been
snipped to a uniform size, accurate to within a millimetre.

“You’re the boy from the train,
aren’t you? Did you find your mother or sister?”

Eric lifted his right hand, but the
rope only allowed him a foot of movement. He stared at the doctor and then
spoke. He knew it was useless to lie.

“No. I looked in all the cabins, but nobody
had seen them.”

“And how did you manage that?”

“I sneaked past the guard outside my
shed and made sure nobody saw me.”

Scarsgill perched down on the end of
the chair, centimetres away from Eric’s foot. The plastic cover crunched as he
sat.

“When I was your age, I used to sneak
around,” said Scarsgill. “My father wanted me to study, even when I was barely
old enough to lift the books he told me to read. He used to drink in the
afternoon though, and when he fell asleep, I would creep out.”

The doctor looked at the ceiling, a
wistful smile on his lips as though he saw the images playing out on the tiles
above him.

“I used to collect moths. I’d catch
them with a net, and at first I tried to get them out of the net and hold them
in my hands, cupping them like this.”

He held his hands out so that one
palm closed into the other, leaving a tiny gap in between.

“But I didn’t like the way it felt
when they fluttered against my skin. You get used to it after a while, like you
do with everything. I mean, I don’t always find my work here easy, either, but
there you go. Eventually, I became so comfortable that I could pinch the moth’s
thorax until it relaxed. That’s what we used to call it
: ‘relaxing the
specimen
.’”

He leaned over and took hold of the
ropes tied to Eric’s feet.

“Similar to what we’re doing to you,
I suppose. Listen, I don’t want to hurt you, Eric.”

Eric remembered how nice Goral had
seemed at first, but he would never forget what he had seen him do. He knew
enough to be certain that few adults in the world could be trusted. If his
hands weren’t tied, he could stretch his hand out in front of him and count on
it how many he would place trust in. Mum, Dale, Heather…and maybe Marta. His
thumb would just have to miss out on the counting until he met other adults who
didn’t wear a Capita uniform.

“I wanted my children to take up the
hobby too,” said Scarsgill. “But I was going to start them on butterflies.
They’re much nicer, and they flutter less. Or at least, it looks better when
they flutter. A moth is an ugly thing to most people.”

He stood up off the chair. His legs
were long and skinny and his head almost reached the light bulb dangling from a
fixture on the ceiling.

“I never got the chance, though. I
won’t let what happened to my children happen to anyone else. You can be sure
of that, Eric. And as it turns out, you are very important in that regard.”

Before Eric could even think about
what that meant, the door opened. He expected a guard to walk through, but
instead of the heavy boots of a man in a Capita uniform, he saw a walking stick
prod against the floor.

Goral Vitch followed it, taking
hobbling steps as if he’d fall without the stick to support him. Eric had seen
that the old man didn’t need the prop. He knew what he was really like. And
now, tied to the chair in the white room, he suddenly realised how Allie had
felt. Although he was still wearing his clothes, lying there restrained under
Goral’s gaze made him feel naked.

“Goral,” said the doctor. In public
the guards all addressed the old man as Mr. Vitch, so it was strange to see
another adult use his first name.

“I need a word in your ear,” said
Goral.

Scarsgill crossed his arms. His
plastic coat was starting to fray at the elbows.

“Go on,” he said.

When Goral cast his glance at Eric,
he was sure that there was a sneer on the old man’s face. The thought had
barely registered before Goral turned his stare back onto the doctor. Scarsgill
was a foot and a half taller than Goral, but he didn’t fill Eric’s chest with
dread in the same way as Mr. Vitch did.

“The girl,” said Goral. “Kim. She’s
not well. We’re having her taken to the infirmary.”

Without thinking, Eric tried to sit
up. The ropes tugged sharply on his wrists, and pain shot up his arms.
Scarsgill turned to him.

“Settle down,” he said. Then, looking
back at Goral, “Do whatever you have to. Just make sure she’s fit for tomorrow.
We need her.”

Goral gave him a knowing look. “Oh, I
will, doctor,” he said. “I just wanted to let you know I was moving her, so
that you wouldn’t fret.”

He hobbled back across the room,
tapping his walking stick on the porcelain. When he reached the doorway he
turned around, and he looked beyond Scarsgill and locked eyes with Eric. For a
second, Eric saw a smile curl on the old man’s lips, and then he was gone.

Scarsgill shut the door and walked
back over to him. He started to speak, but the words were lost as Eric worried
about Kim. What was wrong with her? Deep down, he knew that Goral was lying,
and that it was an excuse to have her removed from the cabin. Eric wished that
he was stronger so that he could just move his arms and snap the ropes.

“…and that’s why a place like Camp
Dam Marsh is necessary. I might not like the taste, Eric, any more than you do.
But if the Capita is to find a cure, then work has to be done.”

Eric hadn’t heard any of what
Scarsgill had said, but he didn’t need to. Nor did he have time to dwell on it.
The doctor walked over to the metal tray. He lifted a corner of the cloth that
covered it, and Eric saw something underneath. The doctor picked it up and held
it in front of him. It was a small tube with a needle on one end and a button
on the other, and clear liquid filled the middle.

“You and your sister are the biggest
breakthrough in all my years here, Eric. The key to infection is in your
veins.”

Eric realised that Scarsgill thought
he and Kim were brother and sister. He was going to correct him, when the
thought hit him. Powerless as he was, there was still a way to protect Kim.

“Okay,” he said. “Just leave my
sister alone. Do whatever you need to do on me.”

Scarsgill shook his head.

“If only that were possible. I will
need you both.”

His eyelids drooped as if a weight
were pressing down on them. He walked over to Eric and stood over him with the
needle.

“This is to stop the pain,” he said.

Eric didn’t understand. He didn’t
even feel any pain. He looked at the tray and saw the scalpel and the scissors,
and he realised that it wasn’t for pain that he felt now, it was for pain that
was to come. He couldn’t let it happen. He needed to do something.

He looked around him. He could struggle
until night time and the ropes around his arms and wrists wouldn’t break. He
needed to get out of the chair. He needed to get the doctor to untie him.

He remembered Allie on the train, and
about the damp patch that had spread across his groin when he was scared.

Was he really going to do this?

He became aware of the pressure near
his belly. He closed his eyes, and let the pressure drop. It was just like
untying a knot, except this one was around his bladder. As he let it go, his
pants became wet. Shame rushed out of him and then soaked into his clothes and
over his skin.

Scarsgill stepped back. Eric’s bottom
was damp and he heard liquid patter off the chair and onto the floor. The
doctor looked horrified.

“You stupid little boy,” he said,
eyes ablaze. Then he seemed to collect himself. “I know it’s not your fault. I
understand. But I can’t work like this.”

He put the needle down on the chair.
He took the scissors and snipped the ropes around Eric’s arms. The pressure left
his wrists, though his skin was completely red and the rope had dug gouges into
his arm.

Scarsgill walked across the room to a
white cabinet. He opened it, moved aside some clothes hooks, and took out a
green gown.

“You’ll have to wear this,” he said.

As he crossed the room, Eric had to
hold his breath to stop his pulse firing so quickly that it would burst his
veins. He held his right hand tightly shut so that the doctor couldn’t see what
was in it. He forced himself to stare at Scarsgill and hold his gaze.

As the doctor reached toward him with
the gown, Eric bolted upright. He raised his right hand and stabbed the syringe
deep into the man’s neck. Scarsgill screamed in pain, but nothing else
happened. He realised that he needed to push the button.

He pressed it in and then watched as
the liquid flowed out of the needle and into the doctor’s neck. Scarsgill
clutched his hand to his throat. He stumbled back. He tried to say something,
but the words were lost as he hit the floor.

Chapter Thirty

Eric

It wouldn’t be long until they found
Scarsgill unconscious on the floor. At least, Eric
thought
he was
unconscious. For all he knew he might have killed him, and somehow that didn’t
feel right, no matter what the doctor had done.
But didn’t he say that the
liquid was just for the pain?
It was a pity. As he left the lab and pushed
open the door that led to the yard, he could have done with something for the aching
in his wrists from where the rope had rubbed away his skin.

The yard looked normal, as if
everyone was oblivious to what had happened in Scarsgill’s lab. One DC man,
sleeves rolled up to his scabbed elbows, spread hot tar on the ground with a
shovel. Two guards leaned against the wall of a cabin with water bottles in
their hands. A group of DCs were lined up with their backs to a fence. They
were still a couple of feet away from the infected who reached out through the
gaps in the metal, but even that distance would have felt too close.

It wouldn’t be long until they looked
for him. Either a guard would go and check on Scarsgill and find him on the
floor, or the chemicals would wear off and the doctor would rush out of the
building and tell someone. When that happened, there was no point thinking
there’d be any outcome other than Eric being dragged away. He didn’t know what
they’d do to him, and he didn’t want to dredge the images up from the darkest
part of his brain.

Their escape plan had been ruined by
Martin Wrench’s betrayal, and Eric struggled to improvise. He didn’t really
have many options left; they had to escape
now
. Not tomorrow, not even
in a few hours’ time, it had to begin immediately. The problem was, he was just
a boy in a camp filled with guards.

This was the part of the plan that he
had already worked out. He knew that if they just tried to sneak out of camp,
they’d get halfway to the train before bullets started flying at them. He
needed something to distract the guards.

He crept to the kennels. There was a
metal gate at the front, but it was kept unlatched for easy access. Eric pulled
back the bolt. It gave a whine as it screeched out of the latch, and he almost
dropped to the ground out of instinct, sure that a guard would hear. He looked
around, but he didn’t see any Capita uniforms.

The dogs were kept in cells so small
that their tails touched the walls. Some sat on the floor with their paws
stretched in front of them, while others chewed on the metal bars that were the
only thing keeping them locked away. A few of the hounds looked mean enough
that they could chew right through the metal.

Eric had watched the kennel master
sometimes, and he knew that the cells were all connected to a pulley system. All
it would take to open them was one pull on a lever that was attached to the
side of the first cell.

He hung back. He didn’t want any of
the dogs to see him yet. On his many excursions through camp he’d watched the
kennels and studied the guard’s routines, and he knew that the dogs were fed
late afternoon. Before that, though, the DCs were all escorted into the canteen
for one of their two daily meals. This was the key to everything; if he let the
dogs loose while the DCs were in the yard, it wouldn’t be long until the tired
men and women had slavering animals attaching themselves to their arms and
legs.

He knew that if he let them out while
he was nearby, they would catch his scent and they would be straight after him.
The first step in his plan didn’t call for him being torn apart by a pack of
dogs, so he needed to do something else.

There was a storage shed at the back
of the kennels. In it were four man-sized plastic containers full of water that
was tinted brown and looked as if it had been collected from a nearby river. He
guessed that was what they gave to the dogs. Opposite the containers were some
shelves, and on them were bags full of dried pellets that looked like dog food.

He didn’t know if it would work, but
he knew he needed to get rid of his smell somehow. So he got undressed. Feeling
the chill of the late afternoon wind, he used the water from one container and
made sure to wash every inch of his body. The water smelled like an old shoe,
and he wasn’t sure this aroma was much better than his old one, but at least
the dogs wouldn’t come for him.

Just as he was going to get dressed,
he realised that his clothes would still smell like him. He could wash them
too, but they’d never be dry in time, and running around in soaking wet clothes
was a sure way to get ill. If they managed to escape, he was going to need his
strength for the journey ahead.

He looked around him. There were
leather dog leashes hanging off a hook and a few sticks with nails on the end
and bits of fur stuck on the points. Finally, slung over a wooden chair, he saw
a Capita guard uniform that had tears all over it.
Maybe that’s what they
wear when they trained the dogs
, he thought.

It was adult-sized, but evidently it
was measured for a small man. Eric was able to put the trousers on and roll up
the bottoms enough so that they didn’t trail on the floor, and he did the same
with the sleeves so that he could use his hands.

Stood in the kennel storeroom with
dirty water drying on his skin and the Capita uniform stopping the shivers, he
wondered how his life had come to this. Just half a year ago things had seemed
like they were going to be okay. Dale and Mum liked each other, and even he and
Luna were getting on better. They talked about moving to the south of the
Mainland, near the coast where Dale said his Mum and Dad used to take him on
holiday. There was even an island just off the Mainland called Golgoth, which
Dale thought might have been free from infected.

And now Dale was gone. Dead,
probably. Mum and Luna had been taken by the bounty hunter and seemed to have
disappeared, and it wasn’t long before Eric would die, either by the hands of a
camp guard or by Scarsgill.

Thirty minutes later the sun crept
behind a cloud. A whistle blew shrilly in the air, and three others followed
it. He knew that soon enough the guards would group together and escort the DCs
into the canteen.

He watched as two men in Capita
uniforms walked up to one cabin. Eric waited for them to open the door and let the
DCs out, but instead, they walked past it.

His heart started to pound. He
couldn’t help the rush of thoughts that came all at once.
Why weren’t they
sticking to the routine? Had someone found Scarsgill already? Was the whole
camp on lockdown until he was caught?

Another whistle cut through the
silence of camp. More guards came out. Stupidly, Eric wondered if his new
clothes would fool anyone, and then he realised that to a guard he’d just look
like what he really was; a scared boy in clothes much too big for him.

Two more guards walked to the first cabin
and opened the door. One of them stuck his head inside and bellowed at the DCs,
who probably waited with empty stomachs. Eric became aware of a dim ache in his
own belly, but the feeling of anxiety was stronger. He actually thought he
could be sick.

The cabins emptied and the DCs were
all escorted across camp and into the factory, where they would eat their gruel
under the watchful eyes of the guards. For some, this would be the last time
they’d ever have to eat the slop. Eric wasn’t stupid enough to think that he
could free everyone, but he would get as many people on the train as possible.

With the yard empty except for the
guards not on meal duty, he eyed the lever on the side of the kennel. It was a
long iron bar, the edges orange through rust, and all he had to do was pull
down on it. Just like that, the kennels would open. He already planned that
after he opened them, he would dart back into the storeroom for a few minutes
so that the dogs didn’t see him.

He took hold of the lever. The metal
felt rough in his hands, and some of the rust crumbled away. He recounted the
plan in his head.

Free the dogs to keep the guards
busy.

Go to the canteen. Get everyone.

Find Marta.

Ride the train to freedom.

It couldn’t have been any more
straightforward. Not much could go wrong, except if the dogs turned on some of
the DCs, or the guards started shooting everyone. Maybe Kim would be too sick
to travel, or they wouldn’t be able to persuade Marta to drive the train. Simple,
really.

Breathing in, he pulled down on the lever.
He prepared himself for the hungry barking of the dogs and the scrape of their
feet on the gravel.

Nothing happened. He tugged on the
lever until his face grew hot, but the metal was so stiff it wouldn’t budge. At
least not under the small force his arms could produce. It was times like this
he wished he could just grow up already.

He clenched his jaw. He needed to
think straight, but a headache was building in his skull. He wasn’t going to
come up with a plan, only for it to fall apart because of a rusty piece of
metal. There was no going back. With Scarsgill unconscious on the floor of his
lab, Eric had an hour glass over his head, and once the sand emptied, he’d be
dragged away by the guards. There was no telling what they would do to him, but
he could almost feel the pain already.

He tried again. He put all his effort
into pulling on the lever, straining himself until blood rushed to his head and
his arm muscles started to sting. Nothing happened.

He walked back to the storeroom.
There was a set of keys hanging off a hook, just next to the leather leashes.
He knew that they would be for the dog kennels, but the last thing he wanted to
do was to have to open them one by one. As soon as the first cell swung open,
the dog would leap on him, tear his throat out and then lap up his blood.

What choice did he really have? It
was the dogs or the guards and either way, he wasn’t going to have a nice time.
He grabbed the keys. He opened a bag of dog food. They were dried little balls
that smelled rotten, and he didn’t even want to know what they were made of. He
put a handful of them in his pocket.

When he walked back around and stood
in front of the first cell, he gripped the keys in his fingers. The dog saw him
and got off its haunches. Its ears prickled back, and its nose wrinkled up as
it smelled the air, showing a set of canine teeth sharp enough to pierce bone.
Eric threw a few food pellets into the cage and watched the dog scrabble for
them. His hands shook as he opened the cell.

The dog took a few steps forward and sniffed
at Eric’s leg. He forced himself not to cry out, and it seemed like his whole
body braced for a bite. It didn’t come. He found that as long as he had enough
food to give them, the dogs were content to sniff around. He went from cell to
cell and let all of the animals loose.

With the dogs free, Eric walked over
to the main kennel gates. This was the important part, he knew. While the dogs
bounded around the yard, he’d need to get across camp to the canteen.

“What the hell?” he heard a voice
shout.

Two Capita guards stood in front of
him. Their uniforms were clean, starched, and fit perfectly over their arms and
legs. They stared at him for a few seconds, as if they couldn’t believe what
they were seeing. Eric supposed he couldn’t blame them; it wasn’t every day
they saw a DC boy in a Capita uniform freeing dogs from the kennel.

Eric swung the gate open. The dogs
barked excitedly around him. He took a fistful of pellets from his pocket and threw
them at the guards, then watched as the dogs sprinted forward in a chorus of yelps.
One of the guards mistook the dogs’ intentions, and as the first animal reached
him he swung his plastic baton. There was a crack as it smashed the dog’s
skull, and seeing that, the other dogs’ moods changed. One growled, another bared
its teeth. The other guard looked around him as if he expected support to come
from somewhere.

Eric didn’t want to watch. He shut
the gate and walked around the back of the kennels. As he turned the corner of
the building, he heard the guards scream in pain.

~

It didn’t take long for the rest of
the guards to realise what was going on. Eric hung back and watched them run
out of the canteen, leaving the DCs unguarded. After that it was a simple
matter to sneak across the yard and go into the canteen, and with Kim’s help he
explained what was going on.