Rule Number 8: Closing your eyes won’t stop the nightmare of reality.
We must first return to the beginning; a venture of the non-negotiable kind. I don’t mean the start of this maddened spiral the world has been locked into for an age. If you ask me, I think something’s been up with the world since the very moment of its conception. A small chip off the primordial gears. A minuscule crack in its first layers. A fatal flaw ingrained deep in the universe’s blueprints. Its hamartia, if you will. And in manifesting, simply two things were required: time and pressure.
Everything tends towards chaos. That I firmly believe to be true. The true law that governs the universe. But, curious as we are, we must then ask: is there a purpose to all this or is this an oversight long overdue a correction? Frankly, I don’t have the time or the patience to recount and sort through the largely bleak history of the world for an answer. The place I’m talking about is just a tad bit closer to home than that.
The site of my capture is exactly as I left it. That is to say, disturbingly graphic. Time has not softened the blow when it comes to viewing this scene again. It hits like a truck. It’s hard to look anywhere without catching the horrid, blank stares of a defunct body or, much too often, a brutally dismembered limb. Averting my eyes, I walk briskly to my downed bike, taking care not to place too much strain on my injured leg. I’m here to retrieve the item we came for; my phone. Barely two meters from it, Bobby’s limp body still lies there. As if I expected him to just get up and move again.
There’s a reason I had to come back for my phone: it holds one of two copies of the Apocalist. There are some things I can live without. College, Wi-Fi (God, was that hard), and sweets to name a few. But I cannot, nay will not, live without my music. That’d be asking too much. Our ride home is thus filled with the upbeat tempo of a favourite pick from the Apocalist. “Cruisin’ for a Bruisin'” blasts as loud as my phone’s little speakers will allow. And it feels good. The Duchess doesn’t seem to mind either. I take her silence as proof that I’ve made a good choice.
For security reasons, and also because I don’t want to, I cannot disclose the location of my base of operations. Friends are hard to come by but enemies? They’re a dime a dozen. I would quite prefer it if they were kept in the dark as to where I choose to rest my head. Saying that, I am able to give you a rough idea of what and where it is. On the outskirts of the county, there exists a town with its foot in the adjacent county. Deep within this town an aged, stone bridge crosses a swift, untamed river to a quieter part of the town. If you follow the, at times, undulating and reptilian path of this river you will encounter a cramped complex of stout, grey and brown buildings without much to embed them in memory. Tucked behind these relics and lined by the river on one side is another such building. Similar in colour and build save for one thing: its slanted roof has a glass section. I call it the Observatory. I use it to stargaze.
The Duchess parks Cassie in a relatively obscured recess to the side of the Observatory. In case we need to make a quick getaway. The building’s dismal exterior is nothing to marvel at; plaintive, grey paint peeling off its walls, green vines encroaching higher and higher as time passes, and settled dust on the single arched window, high on the outward facing wall. If anyone were to stumble upon this place the evidence is more than enough to convince them that it has been abandoned all this time. And that’s exactly the goal. Keeping in line with that goal, I’ve abstained from using the front door, a black, cast-iron model that only ever creaks open.
The duchess reaches for the door and I smack her hand away. In an instant she whips her head around at me with an icy glare to freeze me in my tracks. Should not have done that. Hindsight is 20-20 as they say. Hesitant to anger her any further, I shake my head cautiously, pointing upwards to the roof. That same roof is missing a single glass panel. And that’s how we’re getting in. “Follow my lead,” I announce, before I grab hold of a sturdy looking vine and begin the process of pulling myself up to the roof. Not every vine is thick enough to hold my weight. As a result I’m continuously shifting my centre of gravity and hugging the wall as close as possible to reduce the strain as much as I can. I learned that lesson the hard way the first time.
At the top, I take a second to gulp down air greedily and stifle a yelp from the pain growing on my calf. It only grew stronger during the ride and was becoming unbearable as I climbed. I had to endure it then but it’s no longer just aching now. It’s burning, scalding even, like a searing poker digging incessantly into my leg. Sweat pools under my clothes and my feet sway dangerously beneath me while my vision blurs into blobs and shapes. The Duchess’ red shock of hair emerges at the lip of the slated roof as I stagger backwards trying to uphold my balance. I fail. My heel knocks against the edge of one of the glass panels and I fall through the open space where more roof should be. My eyes are already rolling back in my head by the time I cross the threshold into the Observatory. The last thing to reach my ears is an exasperated cry from nearby, in a vaguely Spanish intonation.
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“Hijo de puta!” He can’t actually be serious. He’s dead now, isn’t he? I finally found someone who can help me. I take my eyes off him for one second and he just goes and gets himself killed. Who does that?
“Joder,” I whisper to myself as the gravity of my situation becomes clear. My best shot at finding Gracie gone down a hole. I’ll soon have a Bright on my hands to deal with. My axe is down by Cassie and the only weapons I have are my throwing knives. It’ll be a tough battle but I can make it. I remember he wasn’t the most athletic back when he was alive anyway. That’ll make things much easier. My face sets like flint. I slip a knife from around my waist into my left hand and walk toward the hole with violent thoughts on my mind.
Knife gripped and ready to leap down into the hole, a pained groan drifts out from the depths of the building, stopping me in my tracks. He’s alive! I exclaim in my mind, feeling more relieved than I’d like to admit. That irks me. Now that I know his status, I’m acutely aware of the instrument in my hand and my previous intentions. I was too quick to assume that he was dead. Biting my lip under the mask, I shove the knife back in its belt. Another groan emanates from the building as I peer down the hole. At the bottom, the princess’s body is splayed across a large, mint green mattress.
Dangling a meter or so above his body is a tight cord of sandy-brown rope attached to a metal ring on the roof. Grabbing a section of it, I descend into the building as fast as I can. Dropping down to ground level next to the mattress at the last few meters, I rush to check on him. One look tells me that he’s sweating like he’s in a sauna and his face is strained in pain. I press the back of my hand to his forehead: he’s burning up. This is more serious than I thought.
Infected. These days that means something different than it used to. Antibiotics won’t help with these kinds of infected. You can’t treat symptoms like cannibalism and utter disregard for human life with those. A bullet to the brain is the only known cure. Administering it is the difficult part. An infection, however, is much easier to manage. An important distinction must therefore be made between the two. Put simply, every living thing on earth is infected. Our symptoms may differ but make no mistake, we all carry the same tainted blood. LJ has an infection. In baseball terms, he’s hit a double. I sincerely hope he’s not going for a home run.
I have to find the site of infection and assess the damage. I don’t know how long he’ll last like this. Pulling off his muted pink hoodie proves a bigger challenge than I expected. On account of the lack of effort on his part. Typical guy. Under his hoodie is a white t-shirt that reads ‘Bite me, I’m Irish’. Poor taste, princess. I shake my head in disapproval. Removing the unsavoury t-shirt reveals his bare skin, an ochre colour with a smooth gold undertone. And a hundred little crescent-shaped scars in various stages of healing. They mark his skin like an extensive star-map, even up to his arms. I suspect I’ll find more of the same on his back. But they’re not what I’m looking for. Following a hunch, I roll up the bottom of his black pants on the right leg. Nothing. I do the same on the left. Mierda.
I can’t lie, it’s bad. The wound itself is a jagged gash about the size of my thumb but it’s the colour that worries me: a deathly shade of black and green, seeping pus-coloured tears. The surrounding skin is red and slightly swollen. I’ll have to disinfect and clean it myself. I slap the princess’s face repeatedly, trying to bring him to a level of consciousness where he can answer my questions. His eyes open tentatively, but threaten shut once more at any moment. “Do you have anything I can use to clean a wound?” I ask in a frantic tone. For a few seconds I fear he’s so out of it he can’t even hear me, yet to my surprise he lifts his hand groggily to point at a wall behind me. Hanging there is a dark green case with the words ‘First Aid Kit’ printed on it. Then his eyelids droop and he slips back into another realm far from the one I inhabit. Now I just need water.
In a room located in a section of the building is a sink and a small bucket. I’m surprised to find that warm water still flows. I’ll have to ask him about that when he wakes up. If he wakes up. After washing my hands I fill it up with warm water and within moments I set about my task of cleaning the wound. I’ve never been religious like my late grandmother, bless her soul. She never failed to keep a rosary on her and her beloved picture of Jesus in a pouch. She called him Mi Salvador. For me not quite as much. I don’t believe like she did but right now I must borrow a favourite phrase of hers. “Ay Dios mio, ayuadame.” I hope he can hear me.
When I’m done I apply the antiseptic cream I found in the kit and wrap a white gauze around the wound. I’ve done all I can. The rest is in his hands now. Now I have the chance to take my first proper look at the building he calls ‘The Observatory’. My nose wrinkles at the musty smell in the air, even reaching past the mask. This is either the strangest dungeon I’ve ever seen or the dream room of a thirteen year old boy. Or perhaps both.
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