Sara Reinke - Backwoods

Sitting back, closing his eyes, daring to hope, Andrew waited. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi

At thirty-Mississippi, he knew the soldier had gone and heaved a sigh of relief. Opening his eyes, he glowered down at the console in his lap. No longer panic-stricken, he realized what it was—a cardiac defibrillator. The irony that he’d damn near suffered a heart attack trying to get it to shut up wasn’t lost upon him.

“Piece of shit,” he muttered, shoving it away from him, sending it sliding across the room, the red and yellow paddles trailing behind like the tails of a kite.

Andrew limped to his feet and looked around, trying to get his bearings. The overhead lights were off, but thin fluorescent tubes mounted beneath periodically positioned overhead cabinets cast dim puddles of pale glow on countertops and the floor. He saw a suite of small examination rooms on one side, rows of supply shelves and medicine cabinets on another

The infirmary .

Though he’d seen Prendick and the haz-mat clad soldiers leaving the infirmary shortly before being locked in his room, and Suzette had said she would bring O’Malley there on the wheeled stretcher, the area was strangely empty and quiet.

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.