“You can’t be serious. She’s not a child, Major Connors. She’s a research subject, a demon with baby doll eyes, and quite poss—” Dr. Shaw is interrupted by the major putting a fist in his mouth. The next thing he realizes, he sprawled out on the floor. He finds himself looking eye to eye with Rose, who’s frightened and concerned for Dr. Shaw.
“I swear to you… as I live and breathe. If you show any more cowardly crap for the rest of the trip, I’ll tie you to a tree and ring the dinner bell, do you get me?” says Connors, waiting for an answer that doesn’t come. “I said do you get me?”
Shaw holds his mouth with one hand. Blood seeps from his nose and runs through the spaces between his fingers. He moves his jaw back and forth, examining it for a fracture. He’s foolish and spits blood on Connors boot, so Connors pulls his fist back again to land, no telling how many more hammering punches to the doctor’s face. Shaw flinches, draping his arms over his head to block the incoming punches.
Rose falls on top of Dr. Shaw, trying to save him. “No, please, don’t hurt him. Please, Major Connors, no. He can’t help what he is. He can’t. Just like Nettle couldn’t help it. Just like I can’t help what I am,” says Rose, pleading with Connors. She stays between the two men and protects the doctor with her small body and her hand raised in the air to defend the doctor.
Connors lowers his fist and shakes his head in disgust, not towards Rose, but towards Dr. Shaw. “Sad. She’s braver and more human than you’ll ever be,” he says. “Now pick yourself up and come with me. We’ve got a shipment to pick up.
Shaw stands. He looks down at Rose. He has been humbled by her self-sacrifice. Before he can help it, he says, “Thank you, Rose.”
They buried Sergeant Hollander on a hill, under a big tree, overlooking a little valley. Major Connors said some nice words over the grave, and the group moved onwards to Fort Worth.
Chapter Nineteen
“If you die before you wake, do not cry and do not ache.
Nothing is ever yours to keep, so close your eyes and go to sleep.”
Leo Montgomery is overweight; by a whole lot. His fat fingers wrap around a silver, fingerprint-congested, flask, with a regal moose emblazoned on the front. On the back, the engraved words reading: Alaska, God’s Country, arch across the top. He bought the flask for himself, three years ago, when he had traveled to Juneau to embark on a research expedition, to study flora and fauna of the region. He takes a generous swig and places the flask on a large wooden table until the next drink is needed.
Other tables, throughout the room, serve as dissecting tables for multiple specimens; Three Wicked Briars lay throughout Leo’s makeshift laboratory. They rest in various positions; supine, prone, and lateral, depending on the specimens being collected, or the anatomical areas of interest to be studied.
Also taking up residence in the room are a Hobble, and a Grub; a mud-encrusted creature that a drunken and desperate soldier dug out of the ground, and three smaller specimens; all children; each having their skulls cracked open and a leafy creature, soaking in a cloudy preservative, and placed in glass jars, sat beside each child.
Tubes and wires hang suspended from the ceiling, and retractors, which have been duct taped into place, hold open a variable mix of fleshy, leathery, exoskeletal, and endoskeletal structures at strategic points. The human remnants are intermingled with the Turned, in ways too complex to separate. He’s tried to isolate and excise the remaining human-hosts’ parts from that of the invading tissue many times. Knives, chisels, hammers, and hooks, used to open the creatures, and get a good look inside, lay scattered about. He enjoys his work, and it doesn’t bother him in the least that the soldiers here consider him to be somewhat of a mad scientist.
He reviews his notes. Takes another swig, while pulling on yellow dishwashing gloves. He prods, yet, another organ that he can’t identify. Maybe the liver… Grabbing a scalpel, he slices a thin sliver from the organ and places it on a glass slide. Taking time for another swallow of three-year-old scotch, before taking his cane and limping across the room to a microscope. It’s an old one… very old, and hard as anything to focus, but it will do until another one with a bit more power can be scavenged.
Leo wedges the sample under the mounting clips, feeling the slight grind of metal skidding across the thin, fragile glass slide. Bending to the eyepiece, he carefully adjusts the stubborn knob to focus in on what he’s seeing. Finally, the lens lowers into the perfect position, allowing him to observe the cells he’s prepared.
“Hey, Leo, those people from Camp Able are coming in,” says a man, sticking his head into the room. “The colonel says you should get out there on the double.”
“Thanks,” Leo says, not bothering to look up from the eyepiece, to see who it is, but it sounds like Private Bardy. leaning on his cane, he sighs, places his flask into a pocket, and works his way to the front gates.
Leo’s heard they’ve found affected children, something he’s seen more than his fair share of. Fort Worth has its own pockets of affected youth. He’s always interested in getting his hands on another one. The soldiers always bring back dead children. That’s not optimal for his research, and no matter how much he’s complained and begged, they always come back with a bullet hole in them. He needs a live specimen, at just the right age to finalize his work and confirm his theory. He’s so close.
As he limps, he drinks, he never gets a good buzz anymore. It’s a shame there isn’t enough scotch around, he would love to get drunk and forget the world as it has become.
Finally, he arrives at the guard house. An ambulance, looking like its been through hell and back twice, has arrived with the people from Able. The colonel and some of the others are out there, already meeting the new arrivals. Shaking hands and sniffing the woman’s scent. It’s been a long time since anyone has seen a woman around these parts, Leo chuckles to himself, wondering how much scotch it would take for her to help him forget how terrible a place the world has become. Probably a lot more than I have. A whole lot more.
“Hello, I’m Leo Montgomery.” Switching his cane from one hand to another, he offers a meaty paw for a shake.
“I’m Major Connors. This is Dr. Merna Valentine, and this…” disgust falls across Connor’s face like he just tasted an unwelcome flavor in his mouth, “…is Dr. Shaw.”
“Good, good, and where’s the creature? I understand you have a living specimen,” says Leo.
“She’s a child, not a creature,” says Dr. Valentine.
“That’s quite enough.” Connors doesn’t want to hear the debate anymore. He’s heard enough from everyone about what the girl is, or what the girl isn’t. If it hadn’t been for her, they’d probably all be hanging on hooks right now.
Leo’s eyes grow as wide as dinner plates and his lower jaw drops when he spots Rose. “Is that…?” He motions to Rose as she’s exiting at the rear of the ambulance. “I’ve never seen a live one before,” says Leo.
“Rose,” says Dr. Valentine, indicating for the girl to come and stand closer to her.
“Yes, this is Rose. We’re hoping you can help us find a…,” Shaw chooses his words carefully. He’s in hot enough water, “…a solution to our uh… our collective problem.”
Rose has never seen a person who’s as large as this man standing before her. He’s looking at her with a funny look on his face, it makes her skin crawl. She has a chill crawling up her spine, and it ends where the little hairs are standing up on the back of her neck.