They were both half-frozen from the cold. Merna’s shoulders bounced feebly with each ragged breath she took. Her wails were carried away on the thin winter winds, unheard on in the lonely watches of the small hours of the night.
She caressed Savannah’s severely dehydrated and comatose body in her arms. Her last act as a mother wasn’t to tuck her child into a soft bed, safe from the evils of the world or to tell her a bedtime story about princesses, living in stone castles, surrounded by drawbridges and living happily ever after with their gallant princes.
Nor was it to put her child’s long blonde hair up in yellow ribbons and curls. No, her last act was merciful. Merciful, but terrible.
Merna placed her frozen, mud-covered hands over Savannah’s nose and mouth, clamping them tightly to her small face, and suffocated what frail spark of life was left inside the dying girl. The child passed away in her arms to meet up with other little angels in heaven.
Tears flooded and pooled in Merna’s eyes. They fell in large drops, one after another, onto her blouse dampening it, darkening the material in places. Merna did what she felt she must. No matter how horrible.
The vision of those days from not-so-long-ago faded. Dr. Merna Valentine pulled herself away from the thoughts of her tragic past and forced herself to return to the present, where she finds herself standing once again in the darkened corridor, lit only by random flashes of lightning. She continues to sob softly as a clap of thunder rumbles outside.
Tomorrow, she would have to pay a visit to Dr. Shaw. As much as she couldn’t stand the man, this had to be reported… but… tomorrow.
Every discovery of new behaviors could bring them one step closer to saving the affected children and bringing closure to her and peace to Savannah, no matter how slight the chance of it might be.
Chapter Six
“There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.”
The rolling stool, in the dead center of the operating room, squeaks beneath Dr. Shaw, as he turns it from side to side, only inches, back and forth, over and over again.
The overhead light isn’t quite yet in the optimal position. Shaw adjusts it accordingly to minimize the casting of his shadow. His gloved hand grips the center handle and firmly guides it to just the right place, then he says, “There, that’s better,” aloud and to himself because the anesthesiologist isn’t needed for this procedure.
Lily is quite dead now. Several hours have passed since R – Zero – One – E was first wheeled into the room. Her body cools rapidly beneath the skilled fingers of the doctor.
He’s taken multiple specimens tonight: skin, muscle, bone, and samples from her red-colored eyes. Red, like all the others, except for Rose’s, which are an absurd radiant violet-color.
Her eyes glimmered like an amethyst in the operating room lights. And what she did earlier in the research room was remarkable.
He forces himself to deal with the issue at hand, and for now, that’s working on Lily’s body. There will be time enough, and very soon, to get access to Rose. He’ll have to get permission from Connors though. If nothing more than to put an end to Valentine’s constant interference.
Tonight, along with the few samples he’s already collected, he’ll also take Lily’s brain. It will be the first brain he’s been able to study since all this happened.
He is anxious and excited to discover how the affliction has compromised the organ. If the affliction, or infection, or whatever this is that he’s dealing with has managed to cross the blood-brain barrier. He presumes it has. One way or another, the findings should prove rather interesting.
The bone saws have been appropriately sterilized and are waiting on a nearby mayo stand. He hopes tonight he will be one step closer to ending the nightmare that began in Los Angeles. He wasn’t there when it happened. He’d been assigned to Camp Able as the Chief Surgeon, four years before the whole nasty affair began, way the hell off in Cali, before Major Connors and Dr. Valentine showed up knocking on the fence post looking for shelter. And besides the anesthesiologist and a few of the soldiers, the whole lot of the rest of them are transplants from ground zero.
He keeps the faith that he will find a weakness in the what some are now calling the Turned. By studying the so-called ‘children,’ he should be able to find some way of destroying the things in mass numbers.
Once he finds a way to disrupting the homeostasis of the monsters, then he will use it to destroy the research subjects as well. He chuckles to himself. He thinks the term, ‘children’ is nothing more than a joke. That was a thorn-in-his-side. It was Dr. Valentine who started calling them ‘children’ the day she set foot on Camp Able’s soil and found that they were being kept for research purposes. He cringed then, when he heard her say it, and it still makes him feel disgusted. It’s like letting a child name a chicken or duck, knowing how difficult it will be to slaughter the animal when the time comes to eat it.
Repeatedly, in the past, he has tried to redirect her irrational thought processes; her belief that they are the redeemable spawn of human parents. These are not children. They once were, but not anymore. They are most certainly, quite certifiably, monsters. The ‘child’ in each of them, abducted by the affliction.
Shaw knows that Dr. Valentine thinks she can save them all. They cannot be saved. Give it up, Valentine. They can’t be cured. They will never be innocents again. He shakes his head, no, they must all die… every one of them.
Neville.
Dr. Shaw turns the squeaky stool seat, searching for the person who called his name. It was a lady’s voice. It was faint, but he was sure he heard it. A woman called to him, the voice sounded familiar. But he can see no one, through the O.R. window, except for the guards posted there.
Neville.
There it is again. Must be Dr. Valentine coming to stir up the cauldron with the stick end of her witch’s broom. As he turns to continue collecting the specimens. He stops and exhales. He’s exhausted. He lowers his head to where the cleft of his chin rests gently on his chest. He thinks he knows the voice, but it can’t be.
Neville.
No, it is. It’s Laura. It’s impossible. How could he have forgotten the sweetness of it, or the panic within it the last time he heard it calling to him. He’s still haunted by her voice.
He wakes in the night to see her leaning over him, her ghost accusing him of making such a horrendous decision. But it seems so very long ago, and now she’s dead.
It was a long time ago.
“Neville, there’re rats in here.”
“Laura?” he ran to the cramped bedroom they used to share together, off base. His wife was collecting some of their belongings so that she could take them back to Camp Able and set up some semblance of a normal home for them. He has the baby tucked safely in one arm, and she’s chuckling all the way as he bounces her down the hallway on his hip.
He threw the door open wide to find Laura standing on the bed, biting her fingernails, as at least half a dozen large rats scatter into whatever hole or cubby they can find.
Their house was within sight of the base, just a mile or so outside the confines of the fence. What was he thinking? That this was going to be a family outing? The soldiers didn’t want him to go outside the fences. So, in the end, when he insisted that he and Laura were going to retrieve some of their belongings and no one could stop them, one soldier had been ordered to accompany the doctor and his wife and their newborn.