TORMENT (24 page)

“Forgiveness, huh?”

“Yessir.”

“You buy all that Bible crap?”

Mark laughed, but the motion caused a spasm of cramping. He grunted. “Look around you. Any of this
seem
more outlandish than what’s in the Bible?”

Collins thought for a moment. “Suppose not.” He took another drink of water, then asked, “And what about the woman? You need to be forgiven for that now, too, or are you in the clear on account of her trying to kill your brother?”

“You really haven’t figured this out yet?” Mark asked.

Collins stared at him. “Figured what out?”

Mark swung his hands out around him, meaning everything. “This.”

“What’s to figure out?” Collins asked. “Nuclear war changed things in ways no one could have guessed. The survivors mutated.
Went mad.
I don’t know.”

Mark chuckled again, but kept it to a minimum. “
You
know it’s more than that.”

“What makes you think that?”

Mark looked him in the eyes.
“Because you’re talking to
me
about it.”

Collins held his gaze for a moment. He opened his mouth to reply, but his nose crinkled instead. “You smell that?”

“What?”

“Smells like rotten meat.” Collins sniffed, leaned closer to Mark and sniffed again. He winced back. “God, it’s you.
Your face.”

Mark put his hand on the wound. There was no pain.
“Feels okay.”

“Smells like death,” Collins said.

Mia sat up upon hearing the word ‘death’. She saw Collins inspecting Mark’s face and moved over to them. “You okay?” she asked Mark.

“His wounds stink,” Collins said.

Mia looked at them. The wounds were full of dark dry blood. The skin around them had turned black. She tried to keep any hint of fear out of her voice when she spoke.
“Could be infected.
Maybe we have antibiotics in our packs. I’ll check with Austin.”

Mark offered a half-hearted smile. “Thanks.”

Crunching leaves announced Mia’s approach. “How are they holding up?” Austin asked without looking back.

Mia stopped behind him. “How’d you know it was me?”

He turned around and showed her a small, handheld mirror.

“Still watching everyone, huh?
The world’s last voyeur.”

He grinned. “Wanted to make sure Garbarino was keeping watch.”

“And is he?”

“Actually, he’s coming this way. Paul is keeping watch now.”

Mia looked over her shoulder. Garbarino was indeed headed toward them.

“What’s up?” Austin asked.

“Mark’s in trouble.”

“How so?”

“The skin around his wounds.
It’s rotting.”

“Rotting?”

“Necrosis.
Some spiders’ bites do the same thing. His skin and the tissue beneath the wound are literally dying. And it will keep spreading unless...”

“What?”

“Unless we cut it away.”

He glanced at Mark. Even from a distance he could see the dark gashes covering his face.
His
face
.
“We’re just as likely to kill him.”

“I know, but...” She could hear Garbarino approaching from behind. She didn’t want to say this in front of him, so she spoke quickly. “His cramps haven’t stopped. I think whatever this is...I think it’s inside him.”

Austin’s eyes went wide. “You think it’s killing him?”

She nodded.

“Give him morphine for the pain.
Should be some in your first aid kit.
But
not so much he can’t walk
. If we don’t move soon, we’re all dead.”

She gave a quick nod and turned around just as Garbarino arrived.

“Everything all right?”
Garbarino asked.

“She was just harassing me about finding a place to hole up for the night,” Austin said, as Mia walked away. “What’s up?”

Garbarino took a seat next to him.
“Wanted to talk to you about our new friend.
You
know,
the one that’s built like a tank and has no face.”

Austin made sure no one was close enough to hear him. As far as he knew, the two of them were the only ones to see the monster up close. “What about him?”

“Don’t feed me any bullshit,” Garbarino said. “You know exactly what about.”

Austin had hoped Garbarino hadn’t noticed. Seemed he had. “The tattoo,” he said.

“Shit, yes, the tattoo. You and I both know we’ve seen it before.”

Austin cracked his knuckles one at a time. He did recognize the tattoo. It belonged to Henry Masters, the leader of a peace protest movement that wanted all U.S. troops pulled out of the Middle East. He led the group, fifty thousand strong, toward the White House, where they were greeted by a wall of riot police, snipers and Secret Service agents. Austin had been in charge of the response. He and Garbarino hadn’t been more than twenty feet from Masters when he tore his shirt off, chanting catch phrases. The tattoo of the eagle clutching a peace banner was etched in his memory when riot police tried to break up the crowd. Despite Masters’s pleas for non-violence, the crowd responded first with stones, then with fists. When the tear gas flew and panic set in, people stampeded. In the thick soup of tear gas, no one thought about what, or who they were stepping on to escape. Masters was trampled and killed by his own people.

Austin pushed on his index finger until it popped. “What I can’t figure out, is how it’s possible.”

“He was dead.
Already dead—in the dirt dead—when the bombs dropped.”

A nod was all Austin had to offer.

“So how’s he alive now?”

“Wish I knew.”

Garbarino sighed. “Ironic though, right?”

“How’s that.”

“Masters.
Peace activist.
Comes back to life as a killing machine.
Became the thing he hated most. Like the rest of these poor schmucks. Can’t stop
themselves
from killing no matter how bad they don’t want to do it. Merciful thing would be to find a way to keep them dead.”

Austin stood. He didn’t want to think about how fucked up the world had become. “We need to find someplace to hide tonight.”

“It’s already night, boss.” He held up his wrist.
“Took a watch from the man-cave house.
Wind-up.
Still works.” He looked at the watch. “It’s eleven PM. We can still see because of all the heat lightning.”

Austin looked up at the shimmering clouds above. Silent lightning flowed through them, glowing orange. The sky was alive. And it seemed, would never grow dark. “Then we’ll stop sooner than later.” He headed back toward the others.

Garbarino gave a chuckle and followed after him. “Man, nothing fazes you, Austin.”

Austin let the comment go because the truth was, he wondered if surviving the end of the world was actually a worse fate than death, even if the dead didn’t stay dead. They were all going to die eventually. It couldn’t be avoided. And then they would be just like Vanderwarf and White. “Let’s go, people,” he said.
“Won’t be light out forever.”

He started ahead of the others as they packed up and followed. Even though part of him longed for death, he wouldn’t give in to it. He looked back at Mia and Liz. Not while there was still someone who thought life was worth living.

29

“This will do,” Austin said to Mia.

They stood over a dry riverbed of smooth round stones and patches of sand. Brown brush and tall dead grass lined the banks. The air smelled of dust and carried a slight odor of dead fish, though none could be seen. The river had been eight feet deep at its deepest, so even standing they couldn’t be seen from a distance.
A ready-made trench.

Mia climbed down and sat Liz on a rock. She and Austin helped Paul lower Mark into the dried out river. His skin fell cold and clammy, and he shook when she touched him. The man didn’t have long. When she looked into Paul’s eyes, she could see he knew it, too. He seemed weaker.
Less resolved.
The hero in him faded along with his brother’s life.

As Garbarino, Chang and Collins slid into the riverbed, Mia, Austin and Paul laid Mark down on a soft patch of sand. He grunted, semi-conscious, and said, “You’re not ready yet.”

“Who are you talking to, Mark?” Mia asked.

“Him,” Mark said.

“Me,” Paul said.

“You.”

“Not ready for what?” he asked. But Mark had fallen asleep.

Mia and Austin stepped away, pretending to scout out what lay ahead around the river bend. “They’re in a bad place,” she said.

“They?”

“Mark is dying and Paul is losing his brother.”

“Seems like a strong guy. He lost men in the war.”

“Not his brother who saved his life. And not after everyone else in the world died. I think Paul pictured things the other way around.
Him dying to save Mark.
Not
him
being the one left behind.”

Austin picked up a stone. It felt cool and smooth in his hand. “We’ll stay here until it happens.”

“Won’t be long,” Mia said. Mark’s condition was deteriorating rapidly. Rotting flesh covered most of his face now, and his abdomen felt firm, like his insides were solidifying.

Austin wanted to throw the rock, to watch it bounce off the larger stones down river. But there was no way to know if something would hear the sound or see the stone’s flight through the air. He gripped the stone tight, pushing his frustration into it.

“You need one of those stress dolls,” Mia said as Austin’s fist shook. “You
know,
the rubber kind with the eyes that pop out.”

Austin’s tension broke and he smiled.
“Had one of those when I was a kid.
Cut its head off with a table saw.”

“Morbid.”

“It was, actually. The liquid inside was red.”

“Probably toxic.”

“Doesn’t matter much now.
Seems the whole world is toxic.”

“Is it the whole world?”

“Mark is rotting.”

“From gouges inflicted by that woman.”

“Do you have any open wounds?”

Mia looked at herself. She didn’t have a scratch on her. “No.”

“Neither do
I
,” he said. “But I can tell you right now, I don’t want to get a splinter and find out any open wound sets a body to rotting.”