Surviving Arkadia

I ran straight for the busted door.

The door led to an office of some kind. Inside it Amris, with his back to me, was beset by a couple of soldiers. Several others lay about the room, all of them badly clawed and bleeding. Amris had one soldier pinned against a desk but couldn’t finish him because the other was behind him trying to choke him out.

I distracted the soldier trying to choke Amris by kicking him in the back of the knee. He crumpled slightly and let go of Amris. I pressed my slight advantage by grabbing his head with both of my hands, digging my claws into his face, and dragging him backwards out of the office.

Just in time to see the officer come out of the lab across the corridor. He paid me absolutely no attention. He only had eyes for Trudy and the children, who were still messing with the door that led out to the chicken-wire corridor and, beyond that, freedom.

At some point after I used it the wind had blown the leaf litter and rubbish from the garden up against the door. When Tommy tried to push the door open it jammed on the detritus. Tommy panicked and tried to force himself through the gap but not even his skeletal frame was thin enough to get through.

Trudy tried to pull him back so she could get her shoulder to the door and force it but he was too frantic. Angela joined Trudy at the door, kicking and shoving at it until it shuddered open, millimetre by millimetre.

I still had a soldier’s head in my claws. I felt like time had slowed and stretched and turned a second or two into minutes but it couldn’t last. The Officer still had a gun in his hands and his eyes on Trudy and the children.

I bounced the soldier’s head off the floor as hard as I could and then I interposed myself between Trudy and the officer, hoping that he’d been too focused on Trudy to realise that I had just concussed one of his men.

He was staring at Trudy with a terrible focus.

“Just let us go,” I said. “We don’t have anything you want.”

“Oh but you do,” he said, dragging his eyes away from Trudy and briefly meeting mine. “Or your citadel does.”

I did not like the look in his eyes at all.

I heard the scraping of the door being forced open and risked a glance over my shoulder. Tommy had wiggled through and was pulling Angela after him, while Trudy put her shoulder to the door and forced the gap wider.

I refocused on the officer. Behind him I could see the soldier that I had concussed struggling to his feet.

“Ooh, one of your boys is looking unsteady on his feet. Could be he needs help,” I said, hoping that he would turn his head, even for a moment, and give me an opening to get out of the door.

“He’ll be fine,” said the officer.

I felt Trudy’s hand on my shoulder, yanking me through the gap in the now half opened door. I was through the door in an instant and I helped Nurse Trudy close it behind us.

We could see the officer reach the door through the glazed upper panel. He didn’t look like he planned to stop. Over his shoulder I saw the unsteady soldier yanked out of view by an unseen hand.

“Angela, get him out of here,” said Nurse Trudy.

The commander had locked eyes with Nurse Trudy and I saw something I really didn’t like on his face. I didn’t know what it was but it felt familiar and bad. I ran to help Angela get the wire mesh gate open. Behind me I heard the officer kicking his way through the stuck door. Then I heard the glass of the glazed panel shattering as it hit the floor.

“We’re here to help you,” said the commander and my heart sank. When someone in that kind of uniform says there here to help you know it’s going to be bad. “You need to excise this infection that you’ve been harbouring.”

“No,” said Nurse Trudy. Just a flat refusal, so certain it wasn’t so much a reply as a proclamation.

Surprised, I looked back to see what she was refusing. The commander wasn’t staring at her, for once, and I realised that perhaps he’d never been staring at her. He was staring at Tommy and Angela. I hurried after them.

The children had reached the wire gate at the end of the chicken wire passage but they were having difficulty getting it to open. The crooked gate was jammed into the differently crooked frame and the wires were hooked up on each other.

“This is a weakness that will not be tolerated,” said the officer.

I looked back to see who he was talking to. He had grabbed the front of Trudy’s uniform.

“It’s not weakness to care,” said Trudy, trying to break his grip by peeling his gloved fingers out of the fist he’d curled them into.

I used the pry bar from my pack to force the wire gate open again and pushed Angela and Tommy through. “Run, as fast as you can. Tell Sarah we’re coming and to get her bow ready.”

I turned back, pry bar in hand, to help Trudy.

“Protecting children isn’t weak,” said Trudy and she’d managed to prise his little finger up. It looked like she might have broken it. “It is the highest calling.”

“It is weakness to refuse to cull those who are a danger to the herd,” said the officer.

Trudy finally wrenched herself free of his grip and turned her back on him to run.

He shot her in the back.

She fell, clearly dead, and he raised his arm, aiming at the running children. It was the last thing he ever did.

A huge shadowy form bounded out of the door behind him, dark hands with bright claws grabbed him and pinned his gun arm to his side. Then a fist full of claws tore his throat out. He fell to the ground and bled out into the dusty leaves.

I picked up his discarded gun.

Amris picked up Trudy’s body.

We ran for the train.