Steven Santos - The Culling

I point at it. “That’s gotta be one of the four vials,” I whisper so Ophelia doesn’t hear. Considering both our handicaps, we need every advantage we can get.

Digory leans in, his lips grazing my cheek on their way to my earlobe, penetrating my fever with shivers that tingle through every nerve-ending. “You get that one and then keep looking,” he whispers back. He smiles at me despite the weariness in his eyes. “You’re going to make it, Lucian.”

Something about his tone saddens and frightens me. I clutch his hand. “We both are.”

His smile ebbs. “Of course. Keep moving.” He squeezes my shoulder then moves away, searching through another part of the membrane.

When I look back, Ophelia’s eyes are glued on me. The tendril that gripped her lies torn in her gore-streaked hands, leaking a dark pool by her feet.

She may not have heard us, but she’s seen … she knows …

Our eyes hold one more second. Then she whips around and plunges her hands through the membrane nearest her.

I shove my own hand through the gash.

Sharp fingernails dig into my flesh-

I try to jerk my arm away, but it’s held tightly by an infected man with splotchy, yellow-gray skin and bloodshot eyes. His cheeks are gaunt. Blood vessels underlie his face like a road map.

To make these innocent infected people, whose minds are as scrambled as rabid Canids, protect the very antidote that could save their own lives is truly sickening. Revulsion and pity fuse in the pit of my stomach.

The man opens his mouth wide, releasing a jet of blood and teeth that douses my jumpsuit. That pungent, rotting odor wafts past his cavernous throat, suffocating me. It’s as if his insides have already putrefied.

This is what’s going to happen to Cole, to Digory, to me if I don’t get the vials in time.

Still in the diseased man’s grasp, I stretch my fingers until they’re grazing the packet of precious antidote, pulling it out by my fingertips … slowly … a fraction of an inch at a time … until I’m able to grasp it firmly.

The man senses what I’m doing and leans forward, his mouth opened wide-

I shove my other hand through and grip his scraggly hair, yanking his head back just before he can sink what’s left of his teeth into me.

And then we’re deadlocked, the infected man still grasping my arm, preventing me from pulling out the cure.

Somewhere nearby, Digory shouts something unintelligible even while Ophelia lets out a savage battle cry that pierces through the grotesque chorus of groans.

But I can only focus on holding my attacker’s foaming mouth at bay with the last remnants of my strength. I’m losing the struggle. Strands of his hair rip from his skull and through my fingers.

His mouth hovers above my arm-

My fingernails dig through the packet and grasp the empty hypodermic by the plunger, just as his craggy lips graze my flesh. I jab the plunger through his eye, feeling it sink into the mushy tissue. Warm pulp seeps through my fingers as I rip my hand away, snatching the packet free.

Digory’s perched on a rise above me, the upper half of his body buried inside another membrane. I can tell by the way his body’s thrashing that he’s struggling with someone, just like I was.

“Lucian!” His voice sounds muffled. “I almost have one! Don’t stop! Keep going !”

I’m torn. I don’t want to leave him. I can’t . But already I can feel the sickness overwhelming me, wringing the energy from me, fogging my brain and vision to the point where I can barely distinguish shapes a few feet away. I cough up another wad of bloodied phlegm.

If this is what it’s doing to me , I’m heartsick at the thought of what it must be doing to little Cole. But I can’t chance taking the antidote now-not until I’ve secured another one.

My breath comes in horrible rasps.

“ Got it! ” Ophelia’s shriek sounds like a battle cry. She’s little more than a blur, holding up an equally distorted reddish object.

The second packet.

That means Digory and I have to compete against each other for the remaining two packets of the antidote … and he’s practically got one already …

One of us isn’t going to make it.

Something grabs at Ophelia’s ankle. “ Don’t touch me !” she shrieks. I can just make out the toe of her boot mashing against the thing, over and over. Loud splintering noises assault my sensitive ears.

CRACK!

She stops kicking. That can’t be a head slumping over at her feet, can it? But, as hazy as my eyesight is, I can tell that’s exactly what it is, or was, until she caved in its skull with her unrelenting fury. She flicks a clump off the end of her boot. Then she stoops and rips away more of the membrane, which comes loose with a plop .

Her head swivels in my direction. “I wouldn’t want the two of you to get lonely.” She giggles and sprints up the stairs.

“Ungh!” Digory grunts. He’s climbing the stairs, teetering up them, more like it. His hand clutches blinking green.

It’s official. Only one dose of antivirus left.

My wobbling legs give way and I sink to my knees, bracing myself against the rise above me. Then I’m pulling myself up to the next step, then the next, crawling, squirming like a slug even as I push my face into the slick-coated membranes searching for the final packet.

A choir of growls oozes out of the gap where Ophelia retrieved her vials, freezing me in place. A tangle of limbs pushes through, clawing at the air. Dark forms slink into the outer room with us.

That’s what Ophelia did by ripping out the membrane. She opened up the gap so that-

“ They’re getting through! ” The fear propels me up the next stair.

And there, flashing through the crystalline layer between rises, is the last of the packets, tempting me to my potential doom.

I plunge my hand through, heedless of the possibility that ravenous jaws are waiting to snap at my fingers and chew them off. But nothing stops me as I grasp the packet and pull it back through.

A shadow falls over me.

The infected are busy creeping through the opening Ophelia made for them and heading my way.

I tear the packet open with my mouth, leaving bloody teeth marks on it. Then I’m fumbling with the vial. My heart tries to lurch out my throat when the cure almost tumbles from my grasp. But I seize it at the last moment and shove the hypodermic inside it, letting it gulp up the precious fluid.

Digory kicks a snarling contaminated man in the gut and sends him reeling against two others, buying us valuable seconds. But just beyond them, more dark shapes loom, hissing, reaching for us.

I graze the skin above my vein with the hypodermic. I hate myself for being so selfish and for what this will mean to Digory. He’s going to have to choose between his husband’s life or his own. But if I don’t take the antivirus now, I’ll pass out before I can outrun this diseased mob and make it up to Cole with his vial.

Digory sees what I’m about to do and nods.

Then I can’t bear the pain of looking at him anymore and I turn away, plunging the antivirus into my vein.

It starts off like a small sting, then spreads like wildfire through my blood. I feel like I’m burning both inside and out. The needle clatters to the ground. I grip my stomach against the pain. My eyes dim even further. My head feels like it’s going to cave in and my brains are going to pop through my eyes and ears.

Just when the pain gets the most intolerable, it suddenly washes away like a quick-moving tide. The fever dissipates and the clouds over my eyes disperse. I still feel like a Squawker has plowed into me, but its more weariness than infection now.