Chapter 80: 80 They (Do Not) Live, Part Two

In the afternoon the sound of gunshots.

Jin pushed his feet into his shoes and ran outside, shirt still half-unbuttoned.

He realised, fifty paces outside, that he'd left his gun in Freya's room, sitting pretty on one of the chairs. He couldn't do anything useful without going back to get it but he skid forward just a little more until there were no buildings obscuring his view of the freezer and the altercation he could hear outside of it.

A machine man stood outside of the shed where it was supposed to lie, using a dead body as scaffolding for its moving form. The shed had been shoved open and the frozen bodies inside were stirring. Not the whole pile, just a couple at the edges, one in the middle, and another in the front clawing itself over the threshold metal arms first.

One of the Colonel's friends kicked at the body crawling out and parts of it flew back into the shed, but everything that remained attached to its form kept moving against the resistance.

The Colonel pushed back against the machine man in front of him. The body underneath must have been one of the bodies that burned up in the crash of a craft – it barely looked like anything anymore, just old burnt meat, only just starting to rot. The Colonel sweated from the temples as he pushed against it, even in the icy cold.

A stick, maybe Jin could find a stick. He should have gone back to Angharad and Sophie's room where the long wooden object that Angharad had chosen as her weapon lay, untouched and unused for months, but that would have taken too long.

The machine man had its hands gripping the Colonel's shoulders, but more than that, it had strange metallic tendrils reaching for him, and its head snapped its jaws in front of the Colonel's face even as he held it back.

Jin ran closer and grabbed it by one of its shoulder so he could wrench it away. The Colonel grunted in relief as Jin pulled it away. The creature stumbled at the strength of his push but righted itself immediately.

Jin lunged for it again but the Colonel's blond friend, Patrick or whatever his name was, pulled him back. Jin turned to complain but the other guy near the door, still kicking at the machine man trying to crawl out, had his gun out and pointed at the monster standing between them. That guy fired, head shot, and even that didn't stop it, only pushed it back. It stood up and snapped its jaws at them again, even as the flesh tore from its face.

"That always works in zombie movies!" yelled the guy by the door.

"It's not a zombie," Jin said, finally running away to try to find a stick. "It's a machine. Or a cyborg."

"A cyborg zombie is still a zombie," said quite-possibly-Patrick.

A metal pole – that would do. It was slimy with oil from something in the industrial area, and probably coated in diseases, but it was better than nothing.

Jin turned back with his find. Patrick was shooting at the creature's knees. It fell and didn't seem to be getting up again, only pushing at the ground to lever itself up and then falling back down. Maybe it had to rebuild its own kneecaps.

As Jin got closer, the Colonel said, "Don't touch it. We don't know if physical contact would infect us with what Gael has."

"I already touched it," Jin said.

"So don't do it again, and make sure to wash your hands," the Colonel said.

So Jin turned to the thing still trying to crawl through the door, shoved the Colonel's friend out of his way, and swung his pole like a golf club to send the thing flying back onto the pile of dead. He grabbed the door with all his strength and slammed it shut. That wouldn't hold for long but it was better than leaving it open.

The other machine man, with its broken knees, was still trying to stand. Jin kicked it over, and slammed the pole through its centre, pinning it hard into the ground. It still wriggled where it lay but that butterfly wasn't going to move far enough to attack anyone. He noticed one of its wriggling legs was covered with dirty but un-burnt material – the colours of the navy blue uniform of the southern island of the constructed territories, his old enemy. And even Jin didn't think their dead deserved to have their bodies desecrated like this.

The Colonel slumped over a little, still breathing hard. That was when Jin noticed the Colonel bleeding from the shoulder. Did he let it touch him?

Before Jin could ask he got distracted by the sound of a jogging step, coming near, and looked up to see Angharad, wide-eyed and frantic.

"Are you okay, Colonel Antoine?" she asked, which gave Jin the same awkward feeling he got whenever someone called his English teacher Mr Chris.

"I've told you before to just use my first name, Miss Silver," the Colonel said.

Jin rolled his eyes. He shoved his hands in his pockets and said, "You weren't there when I woke up," to Angharad. And then, half a second later when he saw her and the Colonel freeze in awkwardness, "Uh, that's not how it sounds."

"Yes, we're all well aware that your unfortunate habit of making accidental innuendo where Miss Silver is concerned is not indicative of romantic attachment," the Colonel said. "Unfortunately, my young friends, I must confess that the creature bit me, and so I can safely say that I am not okay."

"Oh, okay," Angharad said, hands spread in the universal signal for 'let's try not to freak out. "Then we are definitely going to the hospital together to get you disinfected. If we can do that without any alcohol-based products in the camp. We probably have stuff. Right?"

"I should hope so," the Colonel said. "If infection here is what finally brings me down that would be a most undignified end to a sterling career."

"Okay, well, you're not allowed to die. You're, like, young and hot and have a lot to offer still," Angharad said.

"He's nearly 50," Jin said, voice flat.

"Forties is young," Angharad said.

"I don't think you should go to the hospital," Jin said to her. "He should go on his own and you should stay with Freya."

"Stop trying to control my life," Angharad said.

"I'm not trying to..."

But Angharad was already walking around, pushing the Colonel by the elbow, fingers only touching the clean part of his sleeve. The Colonel began to laugh.

"Whatever," Jin said, when they were far enough away to no longer hear. "I'm going to make Zelko come here and deal with this. Because I hate that guy and this sucks."

*

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Almost as soon as Angharad was through the hospital door, Antoine in tow, Niall appeared to steer them in different directions.

"Excellent, you've arrived," he said, as if there had been any actual plan for her to arrive. Just because she was always there didn't make it her job. "You're the nursing assistant, you can go make Gael's last hours pleasant, and I will deal with this."

"I'm not the... Wait, his last hours?"

Niall laughed, short and joyless. It was the first sign she'd ever seen that he could laugh. "Even before the internal bleeding there was never any chance we could save him. There's something building inside his body."

"Why are you telling me these things?" she asked.

"I think it might be a good idea to spare the girl the details, Turner," Antoine said.

"If you want to work here, learn to deal with these details," Niall said.

"I never wanted anything I learned here. I want to grow up to be a rich CEO who creates coding languages in her spare time, not grow up to be the sort of person who has nightmares about watching people lose limbs. Unlike you I didn't choose to come here," Angharad said.

"If I'd had any better options for myself and Willow I would not have chosen to come here either," Niall said. He looked at the Colonel's shoulder and lifted the edges of his torn jacket up with a pen cap, then peered at the skin figuring out who knows what. But he wasn't done talking, adding, "But it's good that you can feel angry in this confident way without any of that awkward stuttering and verbal filler you sometimes come out with."

"You're such a dick," she said, and stomped off.

*

Gael didn't seem to be seizing anymore when she walked into his hospital room. He breathed hard like he'd just run a marathon and was very tired, but he sat up and talked to Milo, and almost sort of smiled. Tsuyoshi seemed to be holding Gael up while Milo chained Gael's feet to the bed.

"Um, should I come back later?" Angharad asked.

Milo didn't look up from chaining down Gael's other foot but he did breathe out and say, "It would probably be good to wait until he's properly secured before you come back, yes."

"Okay."

Tsuyoshi didn't say anything, didn't even look at her, but maybe that was because he was stressed out and scared too and it was too much to face.

"You're a nice girl," Milo said, as he pushed Gael back down onto the bed. "I'm sure Gael will want a friend to talk to as things advance."

*

Angharad found Willow in one of the hallways. Angharad wanted to ask if Willow would look in on Darren again but she didn't know how to say it, didn't even know which sign language Willow used. She knew she should have asked Niall, even if he was kind of a pain in the neck.

Willow came close, put her hands on Angharad's shoulders, and turned her around the hallway in a strange, awkward dance.

Angharad looked at Willow's bright, brown eyes and thought maybe Willow wanted to say something to her, too, but didn't know the right words, either.

Willow let her go, and stepped back. Angharad stepped back too, and turned around to walk away, but she couldn't help looking over her shoulder at Willow, who disappeared into one of the rooms.

Angharad looked down the other end of the hallway. Willow had moved her in the direction Tabitha's room was in. Maybe that was a sign? In that moment the hospital was quiet enough that all Angharad could hear was her own footsteps. She wasn't even sure Tabitha was in her room where she should be.

The door was open. Tabitha was sitting up, facing the wall, quiet. Angharad stepped in, too heavy-footed to mask the noise. Tabitha looked at her. And so did Freya, who stood behind the door, half-leaned against the wall. How long had they been looking at each other in this weird, awkward silence? Were they even friends? Angharad felt sure she should know.

Freya pushed herself away from the wall and smiled.

"Um, hi?" Angharad said. Even speaking in barely more than a whisper felt weirdly conspicuous.

"Take this," Freya said, as she unhooked the walkie talkie from her belt and shoved it at Angharad.

"Um, okay."

"That way we can contact you when whatever is going to happen happens, and neither of us needs to leave where we've stationed ourselves," Freya said.

"Sure?" Angharad said.

Tabitha scoffed, but Freya was already walking out the door past them, so that conversation seemed to be over.

Angharad felt kind of lost as she looked at Tabitha. In response, Tabitha rolled her eyes. Okay, that was what she expected, the friendly disdain.

Angharad figured she should be predictable too, so she sat next to Tabitha and leaned straight in for a clingy hug. "Pat me. I'm sad and I need it."

Tabitha wound her arms around Angharad in her usual uncomfortably tight hug. "You have pretty much no shame, do you?"

"None."

They slowly slumped onto the bed. The quiet was broken by the distant sound of Gael's screams returning, but they came and went in waves. Angharad started to get used to it.

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