“I…” Taking a deep breath, I realize exactly what he’s trying to initiate. Ninety-nine times out a hundred I’d push him away and tell him to get lost, but out here in the forest with the fire burning so feebly nearby, I want him to stay. Anything’s better than sitting here alone with just the enfolding darkness for company, and I can’t bring myself to turn away the chance of warmth. “No,” I say after a moment, hating myself just a little for being so weak. “No pain.”
He pauses, before leaning closer and kissing me again. This time I reciprocate fully, even though I know I’m probably making a mistake. For the first time in hours, I don’t feel the need to shiver, and no matter what my mind might think, my body can’t resist the heat.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I whisper, as he starts loosening my tunic.
“Don’t over-think it,” he replies, slipping a warm hand under the front of my tunic and reaching up to touch my left breast. As soon as I feel the extra heat, I realize I won’t be able to turn him down. “You seem like someone who over-thinks everything, Asher. For once, just do what makes you feel good.”
With that, he kisses me again, and I don’t fight back as I feel him starting to pull my clothes off. I focus on reminding myself that I’m doing this purely for the warmth of another body, that it’s a way to help get me through the night, but deep down I’m worried that might not be true. Deep down, I’m scared that I might actually like what happens next.
Chapter Twenty-eight
As soon as I try to pull myself up from the freezing water, the pit’s muddy wall starts to crumble. I desperately dig my fingers in deeper, but finally I feel a sharp pain in the tips as I drop back down and splash heavily into the soupy gray water at the bottom. I try to keep my head clear, but instead, I’m briefly submerged all the way, and I feel scattered bones beneath my feet and hands as I frantically get back up. When I finally manage to life my face above the water’s surface, I start spitting out the soup that managed to get into my mouth.
All around me, the air is filled with the rancid stench of wet, rotten bodies. Every time I reach out, my hands touch either muddy walls or the remains of another poor soul who ended up dying down here. Stumbling in a fit of blind panic, I feel my left hand pressing briefly against a skull, and in the process I smear rotten flesh away from the bone. Pulling back in the darkness, I turn and stumble in the other direction, only to fall and land against yet another corpse. I cry out as I pull away, and then I stop for a moment, desperately trying to ignore the panic and find a way to think straight.
Suddenly there’s a faint splashing sound nearby, as if something moved.
Breathless and exhausted, I immediately start climbing again. The top of the pit is only about fifteen or twenty feet above me, and I’m convinced I can get out of here if I just focus. Hearing a groan over my shoulder, I turn and see that one of the other people down here is trying to move toward me. The gray-green flesh is sloughing off his bones and it’s hard to believe he’s still alive, but after a moment he tilts forward and splashes face-first into the moonlit water. I stare at the back of his head as he floats slowly toward me, and finally I realize that he lacks the strength to get up again. There are no bubbles in the water, and it’s pretty clear after just a few seconds that he’s dead. Nevertheless, as he drifts closer, I reach out with my left foot and give him a gentle kick, sending him back over toward the far wall.
Nearby, an almost-submerged woman lets out a slow, pained groan. Her eyes are fixed on me, but she doesn’t seem to have the strength to move at all.
“Help,” she whispers, barely managing to open her ravaged mouth. Scraps of flesh are hanging down from her rotten lips, exposing her few remaining teeth. “Help me…”
Staring at her, I quickly realize that even though there’s nothing I can do, I still have to try.
“Please,” she continues. “Get me… out of here…”
Wading through the water, I try to work out where I can take hold of her. Finally, figuring that I have no better options, I put my hands under her arms, hoping to at least lift her out of the water.
“Please,” she gasps, “just…”
I start lifting her up, but she immediately lets out a groan of pain. A moment later I hear several small splashes, and in the moonlight I’m just about able to see the lower part of her chest falling apart, dropping its rotten remains into the water.
“Help me,” the woman whispers, “please…”
I try to adjust my grip on her arms, but I’m too late and suddenly her entire left shoulder comes loose, slipping from my hand and crashing down into the water. There’s barely any blood, since most of her body has turned to pulp, but she lets out a final, pained groan as the organs from her belly and chest splash down into the soup, along with her right arm, until I’m holding little more than her spine, a few ribs and her head. For a moment, all I can do is stare at the horrific scene, but then I quickly drop what’s left of the woman. When her head hits the water, it quickly sinks from view and I wade back, desperate to get away.
After a moment I hear another groan from nearby, and I turn to see a younger woman with just her face and part of her neck visible above the water-line. She gasps, as if she’s trying to say something, but it’s clear that these people are beyond help.
Turning, I start climbing again. This time I dig my fingers deeper into the mud, although I quickly notice that my last effort led to two of my fingernails being torn away. Still, I take a moment to steady myself and then I start hauling myself up, pushing through the agony in my arms. My fingers start slipping, but I force them deeper into the mud and continue to climb, finally getting further than before. Somewhere deep in the mud, I feel the tangled end of a tree root, so I grab on tight and use it as an anchor to pull myself up higher. Letting out a grunt of pain, I keep going until I feel my right hand reaching the top of the pit, and then—
Suddenly I feel a sharp pain across my knuckles. Instinctively I pull my hand away, and I quickly tumble back down the muddy wall. I manage to grab hold at the last moment, so that I don’t crash into the water and get completely submerged, but when I look at my hand I see that something sliced across the flesh, and a moment later I hear someone laughing high above. Even before I look up, I know that it’s Walter, and there’s a knife in his left hand.
“You can’t get out,” he tells me, as if he finds my efforts amusing. “Just accept your fate as a contributor to the great soup that I’m making. You know, it’s perfectly safe to drink if it’s boiled first, so you needn’t worry about your little taste earlier. When it’s not boiled, though, and it’s brought up and treated with some extra ingredients and a little sunlight for a few days… Well, let’s just say that there’s a deadly sickness that has a tendency to spread across the island, and the sickness is incubated right here in this pit. Every so often, a new sample is prepared and introduced to another growing community. It doesn’t spread fast, and only five or ten per cent of people actually become ill, but those who do…”
He starts chuckling.
“Well, let’s just say that they don’t last long after the symptoms start to show!”
Again he laughs, as if he’s genuinely proud of what he’s created.
“It’s a miracle of life, isn’t it?” he continues. “When it’s cold, the soup makes people ill, but when it’s warm it provides nourishment and vitality. We live in such a strange world, one that constantly surprises. Don’t worry, though. Only a fraction of the people exposed to the sickness ever fall ill. That’s the whole point. It’s supposed to weaken communities, not kill them off too easily. Harold wouldn’t like it if they dropped like flies.”