Cruel World(131)

~

The rain continued through the afternoon, the sky hanging low and heavy, split only by the occasional streak of lightning. They ate cold sandwiches and hot tomato soup followed by a chocolate protein bar identical to the one Wexler had consumed earlier.

“Eat as many as you’d like. And don’t worry,” he told them as he tossed the bars across the small folding table. “We’ve got plenty of them.”

Quinn and Alice took turns relating their journey with the intermittent comment from Ty to fill in the small things they missed. When they were finished, Wexler and Collincz cleared the table and set up three more cots in the center of the rear room.

“You can stay as long as you like,” Wexler said, opening his cigarette pack again. “We’ve got enough rations available for over a year, and as long as it keeps raining like this, we’ll have water too.” He lit the smoke and took a long drag before motioning to Collincz. “Sergeant Collincz has been staying here for the last few days caring for Doctor Holtz. She’ll get you anything you need. The toilet’s in the front corner, shower on the opposite side, though there’s no hot water.”

“Where are you going?” Ty asked.

“I gotta go keep a lookout up front, bud,” Wexler said, patting him gently on the back. He shot a look at Alice and smiled, his handsome features becoming more so. “But I’ll be around.”

Quinn watched Alice return his smile with her own, heat flaring in her alabaster skin. He pretended to see something of interest across the room and moved there, toying with the edge of a rumpled plastic tarp until Wexler said his goodbyes and vanished into the rain-soaked day. He tugged harder on the corner of the tarp, and it dropped to the floor, revealing a decaying stilt’s arm lying on a dissection tray.

Quinn stepped back, covering his nose as the smell wafted from the rotting flesh. The arm was folded at the elbow and wrist, its skin flayed away in precise lines and pinned back by aluminum clamps revealing the musculature and white bone beneath.

“It always creeped me out too,” Collincz said, stepping up beside him. “A week ago this whole lab and three others like it were full of techs and doctors like Holtz. He was in charge, though. He was the brains the military was counting on. When those things started showing up, he had groups go out and harvest samples from the dead ones before the others dragged them away and ate them or whatever they did after dark.”

“What was he doing with the tissue samples?”

“Trying to determine how we became them,” she said, pointing from her chest to the disembodied arm.

“Did he figure it out?”

“Not that I know of. He was making progress, from what I understood, in the days before his wife passed, but then he shut down. That was it for possibly finding a cure. Not that it mattered by then. Everyone was dying or dead.” She looked out the window still drizzling with rain. “We didn’t stand a chance, and the higher-ups seemed to know it too.”

“What do you mean?” Quinn asked.

She appraised him for a moment. “You saw all those tents set up on the way down here, right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“They were for the refugees that would undoubtedly show up once the government started broadcasting this location as a central haven. But they served two purposes.” Collincz ticked off her fingers. “One, obviously for shelter; and two, they doubled as body bags. Just pull the stakes and yank on the right edge and the whole thing folds over itself containing whatever’s inside.”

Quinn licked his lips and glanced down at the floor. “What was the reason for setting up the haven around a mine?”

“They said it was for fresh water collection. There’s always groundwater forming in a mine and then there’s the runoff from rainstorms like this one.”

“But’s that not the real reason, was it?” Quinn asked. Collincz shook her head, watching him. “It was for the disposal of bodies.”

She nodded. “We were running one big burial ground. That open mine a hundred yards from here was supposed to be the biggest mass grave in the world. While all the officials ran off to their bunkers, we were supposed to deal with the mess.” She looked away and began to chew on her lower lip. “We hauled thousands of bodies down there before they dissolved completely. That’s what the smell is that hangs over this place.”

“My God,” Quinn said. He leaned against the table. “They never thought there’d be a cure, did they?”