Authors note:
For those of you who haven’t read any of the Journey Of St. Laurent before: You are now reading an online serial pulp novel. If you didn’t start at the beginning, you may want to do so. Chapter 1: Down By The Bay. This serial is the sequel to my first novel, Oasis.
Chapter 45: Casualty
The strange brownish liquid burned in my mouth and tasted about as bitter as anything could taste. A horrible warning to spit it out or have it forcefully ejected wallowed up from my stomach.
There was no time to waste. I rushed over to the fallen alien and jumped on its back.
It shuddered and groaned.
I sank my teeth into the fleshy part at the base of its neck.
The strong salty taste of warm alien blood gushed into my mouth and mixed with the viral solution. The product of the concoction was disgusting beyond words. My stomach seized up and dry heaved three or four times, but I didn’t pull away.
The alien let out a rattling screech and swatted at me with its hands. It was no use. It was in too awkward of a position to grab a good hold of my head or do much damage.
I released my jaw, bit down again, and chewed on the green skin. The alien’s blood flowed even more freely and I spat blood and viral solution back into the bite area.
The alien whimpered for a second or two then screeched again and pushed up from the ground.
I toppled off the alien’s back and landed square on my butt.
The green beast climbed to its feet and looked around the room. Its eyes were even wider than before and its tiny mouth was clamped shut. It reached around with one hand and felt the damage. When the hand came back around, it was covered with blood.
My stomach churned with the taste, smell, and thought of it all. I put my palms to the ground and scampered back out of the alien’s way.
Big eyes and a green face stared at me with a mix of fear and hatred. The alien took one step toward me, then stopped.
I instinctively spat. And spat. And spat. I had to get the taste out of my mouth.
The alien reached back and touched the wounds again.
I hope London has that thing covered. I stood slowly, shuffled around behind the crates, and proceeded to dump out the backpack I had carried into the room.
The first thing I noticed were the two remaining bottles of water. I tore the lid off one and swished it around my mouth, hoping to get rid of any remaining viral solution, and to wash away the nasty taste.
The alien looked over at London.
She raised the shotgun back up to firing position.
The alien’s eyes opened even wider and with one final look of sheer terror it limped from the room.
I fished around the little pile of supplies I had just dumped out. He’s got to have something-
A little squeeze bottle caught my eye.
I picked up the hand sanitizer and squirted about half the bottle in my mouth.
That burned, too, but it didn’t feel like there was any open cuts in there.
London kept her eyes on the door and sidled over to me. “You’re insane, you know that?”
I swished the sanitizer around for a good twenty seconds, then spat it out too. “Yeah. The needle broke. I didn’t have time to do anything else.”
“Why didn’t you bite him, and then squirt in the virus?”
I stared at her. She may have had a point. “If only I had had the time to discuss my virus spreading tactics before we got down here.”
“Yeah, but are you going to, you know…”
I shrugged and spat. “I guess we’ll find out.”
“Easy for you to say, but what if I’m the only one left?”
“Between the inoculation I was given in Oasis and the rinsing, I think there’s a good chance I won’t be infected.”
“Inoculation?”
“Didn’t I explain about that?”
“Don’t be rude. This trip has been more than a little bit mind-blowing, you know? I can’t possibly remember everything you’ve told me.”
I hurriedly rinsed once more with sanitizer and three more times with water.
I didn’t dare to swallow for a while, even though I knew the human digestive system was a fairly harsh environment for any organism, even viruses.
London lowered the shotgun and shook her head. “Corbin, what are we going to do now-”
Rhett let out a heavy breath and moaned.
I hopped around the crates.
The massive Rhett rolled to his side, pushed himself halfway sitting, and felt his head with his free hand. “What happened? Why does my leg burn?”
My nostrils flared with the next breath. It would take a minute to build up the courage to tell him. I knelt down by him and took a look at his head.
He had a large and growing goose egg back behind an ear. It bled a little.
Or is that the soldier’s blood from the floor?
The lighting was not bright enough to tell for sure, and everything was a grotesque mess anyway.
“He got me, didn’t he? With the virus.”
One thing about only being a nurse is generally I don’t have to give the bad news myself. It is almost always the doctor’s job to do that. There weren’t any doctors around now. I bit my lip and looked up at London.
Her lips pressed close together. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. She looked away.
I looked back at Rhett and nodded. “Yeah. As soon as your head hit the ground.”
“Damn it.” Rhett pulled himself up the rest of the way to sitting, then slammed his fist against the nearest crate. “How long do I have before before-”
“Not long. Four, maybe eight hours.”
Rhett closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. “What else should I know?”
I shook my head and glanced at the door. No need to go into the gory details. He’ll get there soon enough. “There’s not much to tell.” I bit my lip. “Rhett, I’m sorry. I should have been able to stop it.”
Rhett looked from side to side then nodded. “We’ve got to get moving.”
“Yeah.” I rubbed my eyes with the palm of my hands. “Did you have any Ibuprophen or asprin or anything in that pack?”
Rhett stared at the soldier’s corpse in the middle of the room. “I think so. In some kind of breath mints tin I’ve got a bunch of pills.”
“I think you’d better take some.”
London slid over, rummaged through the pile, then flipped me a little metal box.
I opened it to find four tiny Ziplock baggies each containing different pills.
“You know which one it is?”
Rhett shook his head.
I pulled out four pills from the a bag that that looked to me to be the most likely to be pain killers. Something was written on the side, but I couldn’t make it out in the low light.
It can’t possibly make things that much worse if I’m wrong.
“Here, take these.” I handed them to Rhett. “London, could you grab that last water?”
London walked around and handed Rhett the last bottle. He gulped down a good portion of it and she finished it off.
We have to get going before they come back with- I wonder where that weird blade the alien used went?
I found it on the shadowed side of a pile of cut steel cables. I picked it up, then retrieved the vial.
Rhett pulled him self to his feet. He didn’t look steady and he didn’t look well, but we couldn’t stay where we were, and it didn’t feel right to just abandon him.
We tossed what ammo we had left into my pack, and I helped Rhett sling his gun back over his shoulder. London put on Rhett’s little pack and we left behind the rest of the supplies that had been in mine.
Thus prepared, our battered little team stepped back into the main corridor.
Keep Reading! Chapter 46 is here.
