Author’s note -
For those of you who have never 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. In fact, if you are new to the site, you may want to start with the first novel, Oasis. If you want to know just as soon as I’ve posted something new, you can watch the RSS feed or follow me on Twitter.
DarcKnyt, Mal, Tyler, Devin – Thanks for saying hi last time.
51: At Another Crossroads
Of course, he wasn’t a zombie yet, so for the time we were going to stick together.
I went over and put my free hand on his back. It was moist with sweat and warmer to the touch than I would have expected. “Come on, let’s sit against the wall and rest awhile.”
Rhett clicked off the light, and we shuffled over and plopped down.
His breath came in shallow, trembling bursts. I heard him unsling his rifle and set it down next to him.
Its hard to describe how completely dark it is when you are deep underground in a mine. It feels like your sight is being swallowed by a great empty nothingness. When you touch a wall a part of you wonders if your hand is playing tricks on you.
Rhett dragged his feet across the floor.
London tripped on me, but didn’t fall. “Shouldn’t we find someplace a little safer?”
I squinted down one direction and then the other. No distant gray, no reflected gleam. Not even a trace of light.
Rhett shifted and groaned again. “She’s right, let’s move.”
I reached out and touched his shoulder. “Just take it easy. Rest for a minute. This is as safe as anywhere we’re likely to find.”
I refused to believe that the aliens could catch up anytime soon. The tunnels branched too often for them to make a quick search of every path.
In any case, I feared our hurry might dump us square in the middle of another group of aliens. As long as we couldn’t see any light coming our way, I figured we’d be okay for a minute.
As if to make up for the lack of light, at least a dozen noises filled the space. I couldn’t make anything out clearly, but there was distant yelling and clanging and scraping. Our breathing sounded to me like a handyman grinding off a sharp metal edge.
So, yeah, I didn’t pick up on any trace of aliens coming our way just yet.
I heard Rhett tinker with his gun, but I couldn’t figure out what he was doing. A moment later he reached over and placed the tactical flashlight in my lap.
“Thanks.” I played with it for a moment until I figured out how to turn it on. I let it shine on the floor for a minute.
Rhett winced and nodded, then licked his lips. “London, do you still have those glow sticks I gave you back at camp?”
London patted the outside of her pants. “Oh, yeah, here.” She jammed a hand into her front pocket and pulled one out, then handed it to Rhett.
He took the light and unwrapped it, then bent it until the little glass vial inside broke. The thin lines of iridescent liquid instantly appeared and began spreading.
I clicked off the flashlight.
When you’ve been used to pitch black for a while, even the light from a tiny glow stick seems pretty bright.
None of us spoke. I’m sure we all worried about Rhett’s worsening condition, but no one wanted to breach the uncomfortable topic.
It wasn’t only that. My head swam with unpleasant topics. Rhett was going to die soon. We had no food. We had no water. I had a wound With the power out the corridor slowly cooled and we didn’t have anything remotely warm to put on. We were lost underground in an extensively caverned alien base. We had no idea which way to go. We are totally and completely-
“What’s going to happen now?”
I looked over at Rhett’s face. Sweat ran down his forehead. His hands shook. You could even hear the warble of pain in his voice when he spoke. Rhett was really going through the wringer, and the pain wasn’t going to lessen. Not until the virus killed his brain and took over his body.
“Corbin. What’s going to happen to me?”
What do you tell a dying man? You can’t lie to him, and you don’t want to tell him the truth.
“It’s hard to say exactly. Back in Oasis, I didn’t really have a chance to observe all that many people going through the process. So I just can’t say what… I mostly saw them right after-”
“Don’t jerk me around. I know I’m going to die. What else?”
I studied his face in the dim green light. Deep lines around his eyes and mouth spoke of the pain and worry. This was a hard man. One that stared death in the face many times before. Even now, he showed no signs of fear.
I rubbed my eyes with the back of my wrist and did my best to switch into nursing mode.
“I’m afraid there is no good news. The fever and other flu symptoms are going to get progressively worse.” I looked away. “You will most likely experience a mixture of nausea, vertigo, and disorientation. These symptoms are also likely to get progressively worse until…”
I looked over at London. She frowned and squinted at the darkness of the corridor.
Rhett touched my shoulder. The contact shot a chill down my spine.
“Until what, Corbin?”
I shook my head and faced him again. “Until the end. Until everything goes away.”
“How long do I have?”
“That I don’t know. Like I said before, I think it usually takes between four and eight hours for the infection to seize control of- for it to run its course. I’m guessing that the amount of physical activity you do and the number of virus cells initially transferred affect that time line, but I couldn’t say how much.”
Rhett turned his attention to the now fully glowing plastic stick in his hand. He stared at it like it was telling him a secret.
“Rhett, I’m sorry. I feel like this is my fau-”
“Well don’t.” He set his jaw. “This is what happens in war. You didn’t attack innocents. You didn’t kill the president. You didn’t try to hold the greatest nation on the planet hostage, and you didn’t inject me. The damn aliens did it all. They are the bad guys. I just hope I get the chance to shoot at least one more of them before I completely slip.”
I closed me eyes and rested my head against the wall. “Yeah, me too.”
My body told me to give in, to pass out right then and there and take a much deserved nap. Maybe I’ll just keep my eyes shut for a minute or two.
I don’t know how long we stayed – it was long enough for all my sore joints and muscles to stiffen up, but not long enough to take a decent nap.
No one said anything out loud, but all at once the three of us knew it was time to get moving. With minor grunts and major creaking joints we dragged ourselves to our feet and plodded ahead.
I couldn’t decide which was worse – walking in the pitch darkness or walking and having only the next ten feet lit by the eerie green light of the glow stick.
We walked for ten minutes, or maybe half an hour. The sameness of the tunnels and lack of sunlight screwed up my sense of time.
London signaled us to stop. “Do you guys hear something?”
Rhett and I looked at each other then at her and shook our heads.
“No, I’m serious. There’s this distant buzzing noise.”
We walked another hundred feet or so before Rhett and I could pick up on it. The further we went, the louder it buzzed until it sounded more like a bubbling hum.
I still couldn’t make out what it was.
New noises joined the mix. These I recognized. Alien voices.
London motioned us against the wall and hissed. “They’re coming.”
Rhett slid the glow stick into his pocket.
A mild yellow light appeared from an intersecting corridor twenty yards ahead.
We readied our weapons and crept toward the intersection.
The yellow light brightened. I could make out at least three different alien voices engaged in a rather lively conversation.
I looked over at Rhett. His eyes drifted up and his eyelids drifted down. He shook his head in a tiny arc and refocused on the lighted intersection. His sweat-soaked shirt clung to his muscled chest. He swayed back and forth and looked like he might pass out at any moment.
The light stopped getting brighter and the voices suddenly dropped a few decibels.
What are they doing? Did they hear us?
I held my breath and tried to focus my whole system on listening. The conversation hadn’t changed. It was just a little quieter.
There must be a room or something just around that corner.
London crept back and whispered in my ear. “Should we see where they go, or should we jump them?”
I bit my whole bottom lip. That’s a good question.
Keep Reading! Chapter 52 is here.
