Monster Island(26)

“Waan xanuunsanahay,”the wounded girl muttered.

Garyreturned to her, squatted before her. Whatever this energy was-andGary knew, knew with certainty that it was her life-it was leaking from her. Draining away. She would be dead within the hour, judging by how little of it was left in her. She would go to waste. What a strange thing to think, but there it was. She would die and she would go to waste.

Garybacked off and tore open the plastic wrapping of another slim-jim. Chewed on it pensively. He couldn’t-he shouldn’t look at her anymore, it was giving him bad ideas. He could control himself. It was one of the first things he’d said to Dekalb. He could think for himself. He didn’t have to obey every passing whim. That had been the point of the respirator, of the ice-filled bathtub. He had kept his mind, the rational part of himself. His ability to make plans and decisions.

He pressed one hand against the the windows. The dead outside glanced at his hand for a moment, then went back to pressing their faces against the glass, staring at the people inside. Back to wanting, to needing. He was like them, in so many ways, but he had this one difference. His willpower. His will. He could resist any urge if he tried hard enough.

“Waan xanuunsanahay. Hilib.”

He considered leaving, going out into the throng out there-they wouldn’t hurt him, he didn’t think. He was useless to them. Nothing that could concern them. He didn’t know how he could open the door, however, without letting hundreds of them push their way inside before he could get out and close the door behind him.

There was just no way out. He was stuck in here-trapped, with the rest of them.

“Biyo,”the girl begged.“Biyo!”

Maybe, he thought, maybe her cries would wake the others. Maybe Dekalb would wake up and realize he’d forgotten to post a guard. Maybe the girls would wake up and take care of their commander, give her what she needed. Maybe they would put her out of her misery. But they didn’t even stir.

He ate another slim-jim with shaking hands but it wasn’t hunger that had him so agitated, not the kind of hunger that the meat could quench, anyway.

“Takhtar! Kaalay dhaqsi!”The girl sounded almost lucid.Gary rushed to the far side of the store, to the manager’s office. He found the closet and shut the door behind him. Sitting on the floor with his head between his knees he pressed his hands against his ears.

It would be alright. He could control himself. It would be alright.

David Wellington - Monster Island





Monster Island





Chapter Twenty


In my dream I was driving.

Big car, eight cylinders probably. Leather interior, chrome on the wheels. Hell, let’s give it tailfins. A big-voiced throaty roar whenever I stepped on the gas and one of those radios with a luminous needle that rolled back and forth across the ozone layer scratching for hits. My hands on the scalloped steering wheel were huge and strong and brown.

It was night, and I was driving through the desert. Moonlight picked out the brush and the weeds and the rolling hills of sand and the dead. It was dark inside the car except for that luminous needle and the reflections it made in Sarah’s eyes. Inside, in the dark Sarah looked just like Ayaan but it was Sarah. It was Sarah. Outside the dead were running alongside the car, keeping up pretty well even though the speedo was pushing ninety. I poured on a little more speed and saw Helen smiling at me from the left, her legs pumping madly so she could match velocities with us. Her teeth fell out. Her skin peeled away, she was running so fast and soon she was nothing but bones but still running. She waved and I nodded back, one big round elbow hanging out my open window. My body rocked as the car just rumbled along and my dead wife's skeleton kept up with an easy lope. One hand on the wheel, one out the window, feeling the breeze.

“Dekalb,” Sarah said,“iga raali noqo, but what’s that?” She was staring at my hand on the wheel.

I switched on the dome light and saw my shirt was covered in blood. Great pools of it filled my lap, stained the leather of the seat beside me. “Hell, girl, that’s nothing,” I drawled. “Just a little fluid. Nothing to worry your pretty little head about.” Her pretty little head, yeah. I smiled over at Sarah and grasped her ear between my thumb and index finger. She was the last living thing anywhere and she was good and bright and warm, she felt so warm as I tore the ear right off the side of her head and reached for another handfull.

I woke in sweat. I opened my eyes but there was nothing to see-without powerManhattan was as dark at night as the depths of the country. Darker since the skyscrapers blocked out even the starlight. I lay on my side, stiff and uncomfortable and chilled to the bone. Something wet and sticky had pooled under my hand-sweat, perhaps, or maybe the dream had been so disturbing I soiled myself. Nasty.