Backwoods (22 page)

Where did everybody go?
Andrew crept
forward, curious and cautious. He picked his way across the
infirmary, slipping in and among more carts and tables along the
way. Once he reached the examination rooms, he walked slowly down
the row, pushing each door open and peering inside, flipping light
switches on each in turn and frowning to find everything
vacant.

That doesn’t make any sense,
he
thought.
Suzette
wouldn’t have ordered O’Malley back to
his room. He was way too bad off. She’d have kept him here, where
she could keep an eye on him, give him medical attention.

Andrew stopped all at once, a peculiar,
creeping chill stealing down the back of his neck.
You don’t
need medical attention when you’re dead.

“Shit,” he whispered, because he’d reached
the end of the line, literally. The last examination room was
empty. There was no one in the infirmary.

He heard a loud clatter from behind him, the
tinkling crash of broken glass as something large and heavy fell to
the floor. Andrew whirled, eyes flown wide.

There was no further sound except the rush of
his own frightened breathing. Not at first, anyway. Then he heard
something moving through the shattered remnants of glass. Out of
his view around the nearest wall dividing the main infirmary from
the exam rooms, it sounded distinctively like someone walking, or
shuffling, more specifically, a heavy, clumsy, dragging sound.

That soldier is back. He must’ve gone to get
the pass code, then come back.

“Shit.” Andrew cut his eyes around quickly,
catching sight of an empty IV stand in one of the exam rooms.
Leaning across the threshold, he grabbed it. Twisting the chrome
shaft between his palms, he unscrewed it, leaving the plastic base
behind. Warily, keeping the metal rod poised in his hands, he crept
back toward the main area once more.

He didn’t hear footsteps anymore, but a new
sound had taken their place—a gurgling sound, soft and thick, like
someone trying to breathe through a lungful of oatmeal. It reminded
him of the way O’Malley had sounded earlier that night, congested,
nearly sodden.
Maybe this guy’s sick, too,
he thought,
visions of ebola and anthrax dancing in his head.
Maybe there’s
been some kind of breach in Moore’s lab, that’s what the alarm’s
about. There’s some kind of outbreak they’re trying to
contain.

As he inched forward, ahead of him, he could
see the expansive main room coming more and more into view.
Scattered pieces of broken glass, hundreds of shards, glittered in
the faint light, winking like stars. One of the fluorescents from
somewhere out of view had started blinking on and off as if on the
verge of burning out, a strobe-like effect bouncing off the floor
tiles and walls.

Then he heard something else, a quick,
staccato-like flurry of sounds, sharp inhalations that made him
think of a dog trying to scent the wind.

Sniffing,
he thought.
No—smelling.
Like something’s out there and it
smells
me.

He’d reached the doorway, but didn’t venture
past. Instead, he pressed himself back against the wall. He could
feel fear-infused adrenaline coursing through him, causing his arms
to tremble, his palms to sweat, slick against the chrome IV
stand.

He heard another shambling step, a coarse
dragging sound, the muffled tinkling of glass crunching under foot.
He leaned forward enough to still have the cover and protection of
the doorway, but peek into the room beyond. Though he couldn’t look
back in the direction of the sound, ahead of him, he could see
another wheeled cart. Waist-high and square shaped, its sides were
made of polished steel, and though its reflective quality was
anything but mirror-perfect, through it, he caught sight of a
figure outlined in silhouette against the backdrop of the flashing,
pulsating light.

Shit.
Andrew drew back, pressing into
the wall again. It was the soldier he’d seen looking through the
window in the door. It had to be.
Who else
could
it be?
he thought. I
don’t think anyone
was here when I first got inside. I didn’t see anyone. And who’d be
sitting in the infirmary in the dark, all alone?

If it
was
the same soldier who’d
peered in through the window, then he didn’t know Andrew was there.
Not with any certainty.

Which means I can get the jump on him.
Andrew adjusted his grip on the IV pole, readying himself. One end
of it tapered down to a threaded, three-inch long prong where it
had screwed into the base and the other forked in a T, twin hooks
where bags of intravenous fluid or medicine could be attached.
Andrew raised this end back in his hands, ready to swing around
like a Louisville Slugger and drive it squarely into the soldier’s
head. He took a deep breath, let it loose, then leapt from around
the doorway.

Only it wasn’t a soldier on the other side,
at least not the sort Andrew had been expecting. What stood before
him in the infirmary didn’t even register as
human
at first
in Andrew’s brain, and he shrank back, his arms drooping to his
sides, holding the IV stand with limp-wristed impotence.

It was shaped like a man, upright and
bipedal. From there, most other resemblance ended. Grotesquely
deformed, its flesh seemed to have erupted, enormous overlapping
tumors stacked thickly one atop the other, protruding from nearly
every visible inch. So violently had these growths occurred, they
had actually ripped through the skin in places, peeling it back in
broad swaths, leaving behind panels of red, raw, exposed meat and
tendons. Its facial features had nearly been obliterated by the
disfiguring growths, and its bald scalp had split open and
retracted, the skull bulging out on one side like something beneath
had swelled to near bursting. What remained of its skin was slick
with pus and blood, both of which oozed, greasy and glistening,
from the lumps and cysts covering its form.

It was a mottled pair of fatigue pants and
combat boots it wore that finally gave it away.

“Jesus Christ,” Andrew gasped, shocked,
horrified.
“O’Malley?”

When the deformed man in front of him moved
his head, following the sound of Andrew’s voice, there was a moist,
sickening, slippery sound, muscles and ligaments moving. Again he
heard sniffing, canine-like and loud.

“Corporal O’Malley?” Andrew asked, his voice
little more than a stunned, disbelieving croak. “Is that you?”

O’Malley stepped toward him, his heavy boots
falling loudly against the floor, his right leg dragging behind
him, as if injured or maimed.

“It’s Andrew Braddock,” Andrew said,
obligingly stepping back, hoisting the IV stand again, leveling it
protectively in front of him. “Remember? Just-Andrew.”

The rational part of his mind, usually so
calm and collected, was nowhere to be found. In its place was
something shrill and panic-stricken.
What’s wrong with him?
Jesus Christ, what happened to his skin?

“You’re sick,” he said, inching sideways,
trying to ease his way behind a nearby cart and use it as a crude
barrier between himself and O’Malley. “You…oh, God, you’re in bad
shape, man. Let me go get Dr. Montgomery. She can help.”

O’Malley’s head whipped on his neck again,
his entire body pivoting, squaring off in his direction. Baring his
teeth in a vicious grin, he hissed like a cat, sending a spray of
spittle flying from the loose skin of his lips.

He can’t see,
Andrew realized. In
Dani’s room earlier that night, he’d noticed how the nodules on
O’Malley’s face had swelled around his eyes, nearly sealing them
shut.
It’s happened all the way, then, when those growths on his
head spread. He’s tracking me, but not by sight—with his sense of
smell, his ears.

If O’Malley couldn’t see, Andrew knew he
might stand a chance of reaching the door, getting out of there
without his notice. But when he took a step in that direction,
O’Malley hissed again, aware enough of his footsteps to be alerted
by the sound.

“Listen to me,” Andrew said. “Dani’s worried
about you. She’s right down the hallway. Let me get her. Let me get
Dr. Montgomery.”

He had no intention, of course, of bringing
Dani anywhere near the grotesque thing now shambling in his
direction. The shock alone at seeing what had happened to her
friend would probably have killed her. But he had to say something,
anything to try and reason with him.

It’s still O’Malley, Dani’s friend. He’s a
good guy and he’s still in there somewhere, no matter what’s
happening to his body. He has to be.

Because the alternative was too horrifying to
even consider.

“You’re sick, Thomas. I just want to help
you.” Without abandoning the IV stand, his only semblance of a
weapon, Andrew shut up and stepped again toward the door, this time
quietly enough to not attract O’Malley’s notice.

As he moved, O’Malley hunkered down to the
ground, panning his head this way and that in a sweeping arc,
uttering those loud snuffling sounds again. Morbidly curious,
disgusted but fascinated, Andrew paused, watching. O’Malley’s
movements were primitive, nearly bestial. Using his arms for
forelegs, O’Malley scuttled forward, quick and spider-like,
tracking Andrew to the cart, then pausing there, sniffing
curiously.

He turned his face toward Andrew, and for a
moment, Andrew could have sworn that he could see him somehow, that
he knew who Andrew was.

“O’Malley?” he whispered. “Are you in
there?”

O’Malley sprang at him, moving so fast,
Andrew had no time to recoil or fight back. He barely even had time
to cry out before O’Malley slammed into him, plowing him off his
feet and sending him sprawling to the floor. His voice cut short in
a breathless
whoof!
as the wind got knocked from his lungs
and he smacked the back of his head against the tiles hard enough
to leave him seeing spots of light twinkling in front of his
eyes.

In a flash, O’Malley lunged at him, snapping
his teeth directly at Andrew’s face. When he’d landed, Andrew had
managed to wedge the IV pole between them laterally, and wrenched
it up now in front of his face so the bite—meant for his head—sank
instead around the metal shaft. O’Malley reared back, straddling
Andrew, and shook his head like a Rottweiler shaking off a dousing
of water, trying to wrestle the pole away.

Andrew swung the right side of the IV stand
around, ripping it loose from O’Malley’s mouth and slamming the
T-junction into his head. O’Malley fell sideways and Andrew
scrambled backwards, flipping himself over, hurrying to his feet.
He felt O’Malley’s hands slap and paw for purchase on his pant
legs, his ankles, then slip away as he bolted for the infirmary
door.

Though he reached it, he heard the thunder of
footsteps in heavy pursuit, felt the thrumming in the floor beneath
him as O’Malley approached, and he whirled, again swinging the IV
stand. This time, O’Malley ducked around the blow and grabbed the
shaft. He jerked against the pole, incredibly strong, and Andrew
heard a sharp, metallic snap as it broke in two. He staggered back,
blinking in wide-eyed, stricken shock at the severed remnant of
metal in his hand.

Oh, shit.

O’Malley seized him by the throat, clamping
down with a powerful ferocity that made Moore’s earlier
stranglehold seem now like a snuggle. Andrew gulped, jerked off his
feet and into O’Malley’s face, close enough to feel the sharp,
moist huff of his breath, close enough so that when he bared his
teeth and hissed again, droplets of mucous and spit peppered his
cheeks.

“O’Malley,” Andrew gasped, pawing at the
iron-like grip on his throat. “Please!”

O’Malley threw him like a rag doll, sending
him sailing across the room. With a rush of wind in his ears,
Andrew slammed into the far wall. He fell the floor in a shuddering
heap, panting for breath. Forcing himself to move, he stumbled to
his feet, clutching his broken piece of IV stand in hand.

What do I do?
Andrew forced his lips
together in a tight seal, muffling his ragged gasps. He tried to be
quiet, limping sideways, following the counter, cabinets and wall
back toward the door while O’Malley, crouched again and dog-like,
sniffed the floor and drew closer to his side of the infirmary.

What do I do? What the fuck do I do?
Andrew panned a quick, frantic gaze around him. On one of the
counters, he saw glass jars neatly arranged, some filled with
cotton balls, others filled with paper-wrapped swabs and others
filled with wooden tongue depressors. He inched toward these now,
reaching out and slowly raising the metal lid from this last jar.
It made a soft, nearly imperceptible scraping sound as the threaded
grooves in the lid brushed the glass lip of the jar, but it was
enough to attract O’Malley’s attention. Cat-like, he leaped,
collapsing the distance between him and Andrew to less than three
feet as he landed on all fours, hunkered near the floor, the
bulbous, swollen mass of his nose twitching as he sniffed.

Holding his breath, frightened that the
racing, pounding cadence of his heart would be enough to further
alert him, Andrew dipped his free hand into the glass jar, curling
his fingers around a cluster of tongue depressors. He eased them
out then cut his gaze across the room, away from the door. With a
deliberate flick of his wrist, he tossed one of the wooden sticks,
sending it flipping end over end into the shadows. It hit the
floor, skittered and spun, and O’Malley’s head snapped around to
follow the noise. Again moving with preternatural, impossible
speed, he darted across the room.

For each step Andrew took toward the door, he
chucked another tongue depressor, luring O’Malley away from him,
driving him to the opposite end of the infirmary. Just when he
thought he was nearly home free, well within five easy strides of
the door, he turned around, meaning to risk it and dart to the
threshold, punch in his code and escape. Instead, he stumbled
headlong into the same goddamn crash cart he’d tripped over on his
way into the room, and as he fell, first against the defibrillator
console, then to the floor, its little computer screen reactivated,
its tinny voice loud and shrill.