H Romero - The Girl Who's Made of Leaves - Post Apocalyptic Science Fiction

Dr. Valentine shrugs her shoulders and bites her lower lip.

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s found something,” says Shaw, as if he read her mind.

Am I wrong? Can she be saved? What hope does she or any of the affected have now? She follows Shaw to the lab building. She stops in her tracks. Is he actually holding the door for me? She forces an anemic smile. He follows behind her. “Uh, thank you.” She tries to forget this gesture. Trivial niceties mean nothing. It’s not hard, her stresses and despair flood back into her thoughts like the return of the high tide.

“You wanted to see us?” she says.

Leo is beaming ear to ear. “I have it. It’s been here all along. But I needed a live subject to be sure. It was here the whole time…”

Dr. Valentine feels a small thread of hope tugging at her insides. “What did you find?”

“What is it? The answer? A way to…,” Shaw realizes Rose is listening and doesn’t want to say anything to frighten her. “… a way to resolve… the issue?”

“Okay,” says Leo. He parts Roses hair which has grown longer since leaving Camp Able, revealing the girl’s scalp. There’re small green threads running along it. “I’m not entirely certain, it will take a bit more time to be sure, but rest assured…”

“Leo, just tell us,” says Dr. Shaw.

A loud bell is clanging outside. Someone is hammering on it. Dr. Valentine runs to a nearby window and looks outside.

“That’s the alarm bell, something’s happening,” says the big man. He quick-limps to the window, standing next to Dr. Valentine. “We better go check it out.”

“Rose, come with us,” says Dr. Shaw.

Outside the street is thrumming with activity. Soldiers running, yelling at one another. They are carrying rifles and pistols. Some are toting heavy rucksacks full of ammunition and other items for battle. Tall men are dressed all in red, standing at the end of a long and narrow road. They aren’t doing anything. They’re standing there, immobile, yet threatening, dripping with malice. Watching. Waiting. Chests and shoulders heaving in anticipation.

Behind the gates, the soldiers are taking shelter behind sandbags and cement-filled metal drums, mountains of tires, and a derelict bus of which the windows are used as gun ports.

The Colonel and Major Connors have taken positions, allowing them to view the enemy and determine the strength of this new type of Turned . They shout commands to the soldiers who are following the orders exactly and without question.

Rose is watching the men who are dressed in red. She knows that they are not really men dressed in red, it only just looks like it. They are made this way. Much stealthier than the Doldrums , more cunning than the Wicked Briars , and more ravenous than Grubs. Their reddish color comes from the hard armor that has sprouted from the corpses of the remnants of human bodies, of which only shreds remain. Snakes shedding the old skin, revealing the brightness of their venomous nature in the rebirth of what they have become.

Standing behind the red army is a tall figure, calculating her next move. She calls out something to her red men. Rose can’t hear what she is saying, but each time she speaks, her army does something in response. They’re following every order she gives them. Rose suddenly realized who she might be because thousands of years ago someone wrote about her in the Holy Bible . Satan. The red men are her legion of demons. They’ve come to collect the souls of all the sinners of the world.

She shouts out some important command. Rose can hear it, carried to her on the slight dusty draft, floating down the old bricked-paved street. The army parts like steel doors opening to either side and through the throng, remnants of human beings, genetically altered, comes a strange sight. A red soldier, different than the rest. His appearance, heavily altered, and he is unique unlike the others, who all look as if they were cast from the same mold. Into his hard exoskeleton, there are carvings; a series of symbols and shapes that are unfamiliar, yet familiar all at the same time. They fill Rose’s heart with dread. He carries a very long pike in one hand. He’s riding out on a Wicked Briar, harnessed with old scraps of leather and chains. He’s coming closer and approaches at a galloping speed, making the soldiers nervous.

“Hold fire. Only fire on my orders,” says the Colonel, as he strides cautiously, to the perimeter fence.

Connors sidles up next to him. They wait until the red rider pulls up on the reins of his steed and skids to a stop, kicking dust and debris, until he’s fewer than seven yards from the perimeter fence. The major and colonel are stoic and wait for the red messenger to make the first move. The red man is curious about the base and the humans in it. He tilts his head from right to left, as if he’s considering how small and fragile the humans before him are.

Rose thinks that maybe the red man doesn’t remember being human at all, but the remnants of a human corpse are still embedded into his frame, clearly seen in the lower pair of arms. The red man’s upper pair are much stronger and present as armored sleeves and gauntlets, just like the knight in the Lady Guinevere Cigarettes advertisement.

Then the red rider addresses them. It is a blend of a faintly human voice and overlaid with a stronger voice that seethes with disgust, hatred, and malice for the trivial creatures before him. The Wicked Briar shifts impatiently.

“I am sent…,” says the red man. He searches for the right words. It probably hasn’t spoken the human words in which it used to be so fluent for a long time, “She who rules commands you to give the queen to us. If you do, we will leave you in peace.”

Rose wonders who this queen is that the Turned is speaking of. She looks up to Dr. Valentine; she must be a queen. Perhaps that’s why Rose is so drawn to her. Dr. Valentine is beautiful and strong, just like a queen should be. Just Like Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, or Esther, in the Bible, who risked her own life to save her people.

“I don’t know what you mean. We don’t have any ‘queen’ here,” says the colonel. “What are your intentions?”

Then, without warning, the red man launches his pike through the air. Rose is shoved hard. Her light body soars through the air and lands roughly on the ground. Dr. Valentine and Dr. Shaw land on top of her, covering her body with their own. And when Rose looks she can see, the red man’s pike is stuck into the big man, and it’s sticking out the other side of him.

“MEDICS!” shouts Connors, rushing over to help Leo.

“You have until the sun rises to give her to us. If you do not, everyone here will die.” The red man yanks on the reins, pulling them hard to the side. The Wicked Briar is a stubborn mount, and reluctantly moves back the way they came, and just like that, the red army withdraws and disappears. It was as if they had never been there at all.

“They killed the big man,” says Rose, pointing at Leo’s impaled body.

Dr. Shaw gets up and runs to help Leo. Dr. Valentine helps Rose to stand. She can feel the woman running her fingers across the top of her head, and the feeling is inebriating, much like the first time she experienced the effect of the sun on her youthful body. Except… when Dr. Valentine pulled her fingers across her scalp, Rose could feel small threads where the woman’s fingers caressed the skin.

Rose had never felt that sensation when she would touch anywhere on her own body. She reaches up and touches the spots on her head. They are all covered by her hair. Small bumps; rash-like, have erupted from the skin and fibrous thin vines wind through her hair. She knew they were growing there, but she never said anything to anyone because she was afraid of what it could mean. The big man seemed to think that whatever is growing there is important.