The Darkness. Matt Brennan

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      I lost my dad first.

      Did I already tell you that? I’m sorry, I just I can’t seem to concentrate while I’m unconscious. I guess that’s normal, I don’t know.

      But what I meant was, I lost him before my mom. It was inevitable I guess; I mean we all die, but for him it was destined to be sooner rather than later. You see, he insisted on being the only one who went outside to make repairs. He caught his biosuit on the metal door latch to the airlock. He lasted three whole days. Back in those days, the strain was still in its infancy, evolutionarily speaking that is. Now, it’s evolved to the point where it is lethal in just six hours. The UNN (United Nations Network) claims in its online news bulletins that according to its data the strain is becoming more deadly by the day. It’s too bad Dad couldn’t have waited till when Mom got sick.

      She was gone in just twelve hours.

      She claimed there was a malfunction in her biosphere’s filtration system, but I checked the logs. There was no malfunction. She opened the air divertors manually. I guess she just couldn’t handle the isolation, at least not after we lost Dad. Some days I feel sorry for her. Others I wish she was still here so I could kill her myself.

      It was tough watching her go though. I felt so powerless. If I’d had a gun or something, maybe I could have ended her suffering. I mean, I probably wouldn’t have done anything. She was my mom and all. But Tylenol was the strongest thing we had for God's sake and she was in so much pain. It wouldn’t have mattered though, because when the end came I couldn’t risk getting close enough to do anything. I had to seal them both up in their biospheres. Mom was just too broken up to do it for Dad.

      They’re still in them right now. Their refuge became their tomb.

      I feel a wave of nausea hit me. My eyes flutter open but the light is too strong and hurts my brain, so I close them again and slip back into the blessed darkness of sleep.

      My mind drifts back to the day I died.

      I remember I woke plastered to my sheets and jumped out of bed swinging, like I always do. I’ve had that same dream for as long as I can remember. The location changes and so do some of the characters, but it always ends with that little girl biting me. It’s all so vivid, I can even smell that little girl’s strawberry scented shampoo. Well, that’s a little carry over from my mother I guess, she had this strawberry scented shampoo and conditioner. I always liked that smell.

      Anyway, that morning I woke to find I had lost my signal to the Nexus. That’s the game zone the survivors of the plague had created. It was this huge multi-user online universe and it took the place of our daily human interactions. Some of us Skyped and stuff, but we all just mostly met up on the Nexus. But that day I had no signal. After checking the external cameras I saw what looked to be a tree branch lying on top of the dish. Which was by far the worst news I could possibly have gotten—nobody died till they went outside.

      By the time I had finally got outside, most of that day had gone and I only had a few hours of daylight left. But even in the evening light, I could see that the branch was actually an entire tree. I had no tools to deal with a tree. No saws or anything. I knew I’d have to go back and climb all the way up to the storage closet to see if I had anything that could help me. And I knew at that stage it meant I wouldn’t get it fixed that day.

      Then I’d remembered Ellie.

      I knew I had to let Ellie know I was fine or she’d freak out. I was pissed. It was a nightmare. So like an idiot, I started breaking branches with my wrench, the only tool I had. The branches came off easy enough, but it had taken too long and I was getting real mad at this stage. So I ended up just forcing my way under the tree, loosening the bolts holding my dish in place, and yanking it free from the trees vice-like grip. Then I mounted it against a shed nearby.

      Walking back to the biosphere, I remember I was still so mad I couldn’t see straight. I kept throwing my wrench and running up to it and either picking it up and throwing it again or kicking it.

      Anyway, when I finally got back to the airlock, I slammed the door release back into the locked position so hard that I almost broke it off. Which would have been tragic since I didn’t have a replacement for it. The disinfectant shower had activated automatically once the lock engaged, just like it was programmed to do. But instead of the cool waters drumming against my biosuit, calming my nerves, I feel wetness. It starts on my shoulder blade and then begins to spread out down my back.

      There was only one reason I knew that could explain that sensation—my suit was torn. I was going to die.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      I remember the steady stream of water splashing all over me, the wetness spreading out all over my back and running down my legs. Even after years of reading Stephen King novels and watching horror movies, it took that sensation for me to finally understand what true terror felt like. My father always told me, I’d have to wait until something I truly loved was threatened for me to really get it. Funny, I never in a million years thought it would be my own life.

      I remember thinking, clear as day: “This is it. I’m dead. I just killed myself.”

      I ripped off the helmet, suit, and the rest of my clothes as fast as I could. The disinfectant liquid stung my eyes and my sinuses instantly felt like they burst into flames, but I didn’t have a choice. The suit’s integrity had been compromised—I needed to be cleansed.

      That’s when I noticed the burning sensation coming from my shoulder blade. The same area where I first felt the wetness.

      I had no way to check myself in the airlock, but I knew that pain couldn’t be good.

      I remember I grabbed the suit and clothes and helmet and dumped them in the incinerator. It was more of a bittersweet moment than I expected it to be. I know it all had to burn, but part of me had hoped I could hang on to that suit. After all, it was one of the few things my parents ever touched that I still had left.

      I hit the extended clean button, which meant I’d get disinfected again and then rinsed thoroughly with water. The fluid was cold as ice, but I had to let it run over every part of me. When the water mercifully stopped flowing, I hit the airlock release button and dashed out the door. I remember racing over to a mirror that was built into one of the locker doors, and for the first time seeing the injury on my shoulder. A three-inch long gash started at the top of my shoulder blade and sliced down to just below the bone. I’ll never forget the way the blood was gushing out. So not only had the integrity of my suit been compromised, but my skin as well.

      I threw on a pair of my emergency surgical greens that I kept in the lockers and my shoes and raced down the ladder. When I got to the bottom I stumbled into my room, grabbing a bottle of iodine to pour over my shoulder. I remember I was wholly unprepared for the pain. It felt like I just poured molten metal or sulfuric acid all over my back. I’m not sure how loud I screamed, but I wouldn’t be surprised if my parents had heard me in the afterlife.

      Once the burning subsided, I wrapped up the wound with an ace bandage and put a surgical scrub back on. I tried to convince myself that everything was going to be fine. That it was just a scratch and nothing to worry about.

      But I didn’t believe it.

      I went into my bathroom and popped the last of the penicillin I had. For all I knew, it could have been the last bottle on the planet, because no one else I knew could get the recipe right. My mom, being the genius that she was, had taught me well. Not that penicillin would do a thing СКАЧАТЬ