“Fuck…” There was no time to waste. Every minute he spent here squirming meant more minutes for Marie and Vasquez under the scorching sun. Marie… She’d be all right; she’d heal, but Vasquez… She’d be as good as dead if he didn’t get moving soon.
He covered the gaping hole on his stomach with his palm, wincing when acid started to burn through his hand. He’d have to be fast. He sat up and turned on his knees. Nearly threw up when slimy mixture of green and blood oozed from between his fingers. His legs were numb, but he managed to stand up and stumble in to the mess hall.
From the looks of it the people had been at breakfast when the black bitch from hell had crashed the party. Bodies were everywhere, strewn across tables and littering the floor. He slipped to a puddle of blood and crashed heavily against a sturdy table, more of the contents of his stomach spilling through the wound on his abdomen. It wasn’t working. Acid had nearly eaten through his palm. He’d have to find something else than his hands to keep his innards to where they belonged. He grabbed a plate from the table he was leaning against. Perfect size, and spotless. Slapped it over the hole, letting out a relived sob when he could remove his hand from the nasty mess of blood and slime.
He wobbled slowly forward from table to table, stopping to rest when his knees threatened to give up. He could see his destination, narrow metal door of the kitchen. He could see his last obstacle as well. He’d have to cross approximately five meters wide-open gap that separated the last table and the door. There would be nothing to support him, nothing to lean on to.
He stopped to rest, lowering his upper body on to the table, his eyes fixed to the door. Few swift strides and he’d be in the kitchen, standing at the sink. Few swift strides. He tried to laugh, but managed only strangled croak before pain in his abused stomach and thighs nearly made him to fall on to the floor. There would be no striding. Maybe crawling and stumbling if he was lucky. Sweat was dripping in to his eyes, making them burn and sting. He blinked few times and blew off strands of hair that had fallen on his forehead.
“Fuck…” He’d be getting absolutely nowhere just leaning on the table. He took a deep breath, then forced himself to upright position, his back held straight and feet slightly apart.
“Get your act together, you fucking pussy. You have gotten through worse…”
First step unsupported made him stumble, but he regained his balance and managed to walk in to the kitchen, collapsing against the sink and grasping the showerhead meant to clean dishes just before his knees really gave up and he slid on the floor.
“Figures…” He threw off the showerhead he had accidentally torn off. Useless piece of junk now. But he was closer to the water now. All he had to do was to reach under the sink and slice the plumbing in half, and he would have all the water he wanted. Now only question remained which of the pipes he should cut. One would give him what he needed. From the other he would get lap full of raw sewage.
“Well, only one way to find out…” He crawled under the sink, extended his claws and sliced through metal pipe, falling on his back and letting out surprised yelp when crystal clear water squirted out. He yanked off the plate covering his stomach before it dissolved and got mixed with the ugly mess that had previously been his innards, then promptly passed out when cold water flooded his abdominal cavity.
He woke up a good while later, finding himself from a puddle of cold water and shredded innards. Sight and feel of it made him squeak and scramble away, soles of his feet and palms slipping on the floor and splashing the gross substance to everywhere. He was at his feet; rubbing his hands clean to the torn sleeves of his pants before he realized that it had, in fact, worked. There was not a mark on him, aside from torn pants and still tender ticklish stomach that anything at all had happened. It was time to get moving. Judging from the position of the sun he could see through the window he had already squandered almost half a day.
He was hungry, downright ravenous. He yanked open the large, industrial sized walk-in fridge and grabbed the nearest thing he could reach before running off to find supplies and a suitable truck.
Chewing on the chicken he had snatched he entered to a hangar next to the mess hall. Walked past a row of heavily armored tanks before he found what he was looking for. Relatively light truck, equipped with wide tires, and enclosed lorry. He checked the truck, found solar panels clean and intact, batteries full, radio and radar fully operational. All he had to do was to stock up the lorry with food, water and medical supplies, and he’d be good to go.
First aid first. He drove to the hospital and parked in front of it, trying to swerve around bodies thrown to everywhere and grimacing when he couldn’t. Every bump and grinding noise from under the truck reminding him that he had known most of these people, even considered few of them as his friends. Well, what was gone was gone. They had gotten what they deserved. Every one of them. He kept silently cursing the creature that had taken away his revenge, but at the same time he felt strange gratuity towards it. Even pity. Greenies had made it. Made it to be used against men. He doubted anybody had asked its opinion over the matter.
When he entered to the hospital he encountered strange, slimy cocoons on the floor, ten of them placed smack dab in the middle of the entrance hall. He had seen more of those back at the greenies’ base. Nobody had known what they were for, but they had suspected that the cocoons were some kind of eggs, just waiting for hatching. It was easy to picture them blowing open all of a sudden, and black death incarnates straight from hell streaming out from them. He skirted past the cocoons fast, passing the nurse’s desk and wandering deeper in to the building.
First rooms he passed yielded even more torn corpses, but soon he hit the jackpot. Locked door, with a sign ‘storage’ placed on it. Not bothering to look for the keys he just unsheathed his claws and the lasers, blasting the door open.
Cabinets in the room were bit trickier. He couldn’t just blast them open; he would have destroyed the contents of them as well. He concentrated and extended his middle claw, forcing the lasers and rest of the claws to stay back, and picked the locks. Snatched a bag that was hanging on the wall and stuffed it full with antibiotics, painkillers, gauze and everything else he imagined they could need in the near future. Once he thought he heard a sound. Like small claws tapping and scratching against the concrete floor, but when he turned to look there was nobody there.
He left the hospital through the back door. There was no way he would have gone past those slimy cocoons at the entrance hall again, not knowing what they were or what might happen. Instead he braved past the trash bins, nearly gagging from the rank stench they spread around, and ran fast to the truck, throwing the makeshift first aid kit inside and slammed the door shut, cursing his own stupidity. There was a fucking first aid kit in the mess. There was food in the mess. Camping gear was stored in the hangar. He wouldn’t have had to go in to the hospital in the first place if he had used even a fraction of his brain.
Finally, an hour later he was ready to go, truck stocked to the brim with everything even marginally necessary. Only one more stop and he could kiss this cruddy hellhole for goodbye. He turned the truck around and started towards the officer’s district. He was going to make a quick stop at their house. Gather everything he could with him in the truck. He was getting rather tired of replacing every stitch of clothing and item they owned every time they had to move.
Something get rattling behind him in the lorry all the while he drove, but he figured it was just one of the boxes he had thrown in there. He really should strap them down tighter as soon as he got back to Marie and Vasquez. Not that there was anything breakable, mostly tinned food and jugs of water, but noise grated his nerves. Like a constant, false reminder that something was wrong.
Sun was setting when the truck rolled out from the base. He hit a bump on the ground, and rattling noise he had managed to silence by moving some boxes around on the lorry returned. He cursed tiredly. There really was no time to stop any longer. It would take him several hours to reach Marie and Vasquez, and because all of the delays Vasquez was probably already dead, and there was no telling of what state he would find Marie in. He did his best to block out the persistent rattling, and concentrated on thinking how to handle the situation at hand. What to do. What to tell to his pregnant wife. How to explain her why he wasn’t going to be able to tolerate the small, fragile life she was carrying in her womb.
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