Chapter 13 A needed explanation.

Days came and went. Week after week passed by. My new life grew, each day I discovered and experienced new things. The weekly routine of the dome grew on me. Each week we went on one excursion out of the dome. Each excursion brought new memories, laughs, and adventures. I was having the time of my life. The friends I had made in such a short time grew on me, and after a while we all seemed to forget that I had ever not been here with them. I felt as though each day was a new surprise. This new world seemed free of pain, stress, or even fear….but it wasn’t.
The five of us were on another excursion that day. I had adjusted to life in this new world. As we walked I was able to identify many of the mutants we had encountered before. A few weeks prior I had even been able to settle the score with another long clawed hairy beast, like the one from the ravine from before. We were in a relatively known sector. In fact, we had just done an excursion here about two weeks ago. This one wouldn’t be the same.
Caulin was walking in the lead looking for a fight as always. Gohn strode laxly behind him. I kept pace with the girls talking with Terry as we walked. “ We haven’t been sent out to look for any new species for a while.” I remarked to her as we walked ducking our head through the thick underbrush. “ I wonder how close you guys are to discovering them all?”
Terry laughed like I had said something funny. “ We aren’t even close to identifying all the unknown species.” She replied. “ Frankly, there are just too many for us to identify. I wouldn’t be surprised if we never discover them all.”
I raised an eyebrow. “ I bet we can.” I said optimistically. “ It may take another forty or fifty years, but the way we are going there can’t be to many places left to hide.”
Terry smiled softly and nodded her head. Just then Caulin shouted from up ahead. “look down there!” he exclaimed pointing over a ridge. I jogged up to see what he was pointing at.
Down below us there was a stampede of creatures running faster than I had ever seen anything move before. The strange animals resembled horses in that they shared the same body, but the head was drastically different. Instead of coming up like a horses these beasts held their heads low to the ground as they ran. I was amazed that they didn’t kick themselves in the head as the bolted around. The head was rather flat with large pincers like teeth that swept through the long tall grass of the plain they ran through, slicing it down and eating it in one fluid motion.
Gohn peered over the ridge as well. A perplexed look came over his face. “ That’s weird.” he said. “ The eponi usually don’t run that wildly. They usually just jog slowly eating as they move.” Apparently, The beasts were called eponi, probably a derivative from the Greek name for horse. Gohn continued, “ Lets go see what is going on down there.” We all agreed.
Curiously, we crept down from our ledge to see what had spooked the eponi. When we reached the plain the stampede had long past. We surveyed the area hoping to find some clue as to what was going on.
We followed the trail the eponi had blazed for us back to where they had come from. The trail ended at a clearing right in front of the forest. The grass in that area was covered by a reddish liquid that looked like blood. Terry looked around and scratched her head. “ It looks like something attacked them and that is what spooked them.” She said sounding a little worried.
Caulin cocked his head to the side, “ What on earth would attack a HERD of eponi?” he asked. “ Those things would tear just about anything apart if they were attacked. No this blood must have come from something else.”
“But why else would they be stampeding like that?” Scyll said softly. Gohn, Caulin, and Terry all looked at each other and shook their heads in confusion.
Caulin finally stood and started walking back, “ Well whatever happened, it is done and gone now there is no use trying to figure it out.” There was a sudden crash that came from the forest. Then another. We stood still listening. Not quiet scared yet, but more likely confused.
After a moment had past Gohn walked over to the edge of the forest, and peered in. Gohn face went instantly pale. His eyes widened. “run,” he whispered. We all stood motionless wondering if this was another one of his jokes. Then Gohn turned and screamed “ RUN!!” this time we listened.
Suddenly we were all very afraid. I hadn’t seen what Gohn had seen, but after seeing the look on his face as he ran along side me, I really didn’t want. Unfortunately, human nature got the better of me. I turned and look to see if we were being chased. At that very moment it crashed out of the forest after us. It looked like a thing from a nightmare, and at that moment I prayed that that was what I was having.
The monster stood upright with a hunch back posture. It stood a good fifteen feet high even with the hunch. Its head was lined with hundreds of oversized teeth, forming a gruesome grin. The head protruded outward from its chest below the massive treelike arms. Each hand wielded three, foot long razor sharp claws, still dripping with the blood of the eponi, it had just killed. Its skin appeared thick and leathery, it was the color of mold and had a smell to match. I swear at that moment I was sure I was looking at some kind of demon.
The monster tore after us. It’s enormous stride closing the distance with every passing step. We sprinted, the adrenaline pumping in our veins making us tear across the field faster than we could have ever before. Unfortunately, it wasn’t fast enough.
The behemoth was practically on us it raked its claws out through the air nearly taking off Gohn’s head. In response, Gohn fired blindly backward with one arm as he ran. The darts planted firmly into the beasts chest, but had no effect.
My chest burned, my legs burned, my lungs burned, I felt as though my whole body was aflame. I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep this up for much longer. In fact, as I soon found out, I didn’t have to. Though, the reason gave me no relief.
I saw Terry turn a corner and then stop dead in her tracks. As I rounded the corner myself I saw why. A sheer rock wall blocked our path. The creature slowed behind us, as though it knew we had no way out now.
Caulin was the first of us to accept our alternative, he turned toward the monster, and drew out his symbiote. The monster bounded toward him and swung a massive claw. Caulin ducked and shoved his staff into the beasts stomach unleashing a horrible wave of sparks. I raced toward him to help, as Gohn opened fire doting the creature with darts up and down his arms and head. I grew a long scythe like blade as I ran. When I reached the monster I planted it into its back just between the shoulder blades. The blade sunk in deep. I felt like we were about to bring the monster down, but it had a different idea. To my horror it swatted Caulin like a fly, knocking him about five feet away, where he crumpled to the ground. Then the monster reached around and grabbed me by my foot and yanked me and the blade out in one lightning fast motion. It then slung me like a rag doll. I flew though the air across the plain, and crashed into Gohn, we fell together to the ground in a heap. The monster tore across the field toward us, as it approached it raised its right claw into the air to skewer us. A split second before our doom, Terry’s caudal grabbed us and spirited us away out of its reach. This infuriated the behemoth. It bellowed it’s complaint after us and started in our direction.
At that moment, Caulin was back on his feet. He sprinted back at the monster, and swung with all his strength at the back of it’s knee. The blow coupled with a strong shock caused that leg to buckle, and the beast toppled to the ground throwing up dirt and dust everywhere.
I turn my attention back to Gohn. He was still unconscious. Terry bent over him fumbled through her pouch for different medicines to help him. Suddenly I heard Scyll scream. I turned back to the fight to see Caulin caught up in the beast’s vice grip. The creature was back on his feet and was squeezing the life out Caulin. I sprinted back toward them, vaguely aware of a sharp pain in side most likely from a bruised rib. As I ran a blur of black tore past me. It was Scyll’s symbiote. The swarm of ravenous snakes all latched in unison to the arm that held Caulin. They tore at it until there was blood from the monster’s injuries soaking into the ground.
The creature released Caulin, who fell limply at the beasts feet. Scyll continued her assault now focusing on the monster’s ugly head. Once again Terry’s caudal shot its tail out and pulled Caulin out of harms way. Deprived of yet another prey, the monster turned it’s focus on the snakes, now viciously tearing at it’s face. With a flash reflex the creature caught all the snakes up in one hand and pulled them off its face. It snarled back at the swarm and turned it’s gaze toward Scyll. With a strong yank it started to pull the snakes and Scyll toward it. Scyll fell forward and screamed as she was dragged toward the hungry thing.
By then, I had finally made it to the monster. I thrust my claw out and into the wrist holding Scyll’s symbiote. It released her snakes suddenly, startled by my attack. Scyll’s symbiote shot back into its hiding in her arm, but she continued to lay there on the ground. I squared off with my opponent. I grew a new blade this one as long as I could, making it about three feet and as sharp as I could will it. The creature eyed me, drooling sloppily, clearly perturbed by us but utterly unthreatened.
In the corner of my eye I saw that Gohn was on his feet again. He had changed his pathogen and was taking aim. With unbelievable accuracy, he opened fire. From where he stood over 200ft away he aimed at the cuts Scyll’s symbiote had caused on the monster’s arms. The darts flew each hitting its mark. The creature screeched an awful sound as the wounds on its arm spontaneously festered and blistered.
I took that chance to attack. I swung as hard as I could at the monster’s belly, but it dodged back and the blade cut instead across it’s leg. I knew I didn’t have time for another miss, if I didn’t kill it with my next attack I was almost sure it would kill me. I chose the perfect moment and lunged with everything I had. My blade sped toward the monsters putrid face. In a blur the fiend threw up it’s right hand to shield my attack. The blade impaled the monster’s hand, but didn’t so much as knick it’s head.
The monster closed it’s hand around my arm with the blade still protruding out the other side of its hand. It lifted me off the ground pulling me to eye level with it. I trembled uncontrollably as I gazed into the monster’s cold stare. Everything we had done to it, nothing seemed capable of stopping its onslaught. It dashed me to the ground. As I looked up it’s huge foot filled my field of vision. Gradually the beast brought it down, and began to slowly deliberately crush my skull.
I heard Terry scream. Gohn still pumped dart after dart into the beast, but to no avail. Caulin and Scyll were still unconscious. Everything started to get quiet. I became dizzy, then sick. The pressure continued to build. I blacked out for a second. In that moment of darkness my life didn’t flash before my eyes as it should when one is about to die. No, instead all I saw was Terry. Her face was strong at first and then slowly faded. It was replaced by a deep booming voice. The same I had heard before. “NO! She will be ruined! Stop this!”
I came to a moment later and saw the beast’s foot lifting from my head. I was confused. Why wasn’t I dead? My vision was tunneled and the sound hadn’t yet returned to the world. I looked up and saw the monster being pelted by hundreds of thousands of small projectiles.
I blinked repeatedly trying to regain some focus to make sense of this. I traced the lines of fire to the ridge above us. There I saw a small army of soldiers, armed with the teeth guns I had seen before. They were all firing together at the monster. The tiny bullets did nothing to beast, but seemed to come in such mass that the beast was being forced back.
I spotted Janus up on the ridge. He was walking behind the ranks of gunmen yelling orders. Suddenly four flashes shot out from behind the men. The figures streaked down the cliff and landed on the ground near Terry and Gohn.
These flashes turned out to be giant lizard like creatures, each with two men mounted on them. One steered the lizard the other carried a ten foot long pole. The monster sprinted toward these new targets. The four men carrying the long poles jumped off their mounts and quickly methodically encircled the behemoth. As it approached one of the men shoved his pole into the beasts neck. The pole seemed to be similar to Caulin’s symbiote because as soon as he did this sparks started to fly from the monster. After a moment, the pike man pulled away and one of the others shocked the monster from behind.
They continued to trade off like this, while the gunners still fired from above, and the combined strategy seemed to effectively subdue the creature. They worked together like a well oiled machine. With all the efficiency and crispness one would expect from a military unit.
At the same time that the soldiers subdued the monster the lizard drivers quickly collected me and Terry, as well as the others. Once we were all out of the way, I heard Janus yell, “ Shock team back, Hector, cook us some steak.” A muffled laugh came down the ranks of soldiers as they continued their fire.
A lone soldier dropped his gun and slid down the steep embankment. He was tall with fiery red hair. He wore the standard issue black uniform worn by all the soldiers, but with a strange accessory. On his back were two transparent tanks. In one there was a bluish liquid, in the other a red one. From the tanks small veins lead down to his wrists.
When he reached the bottom of the gorge, he stood only twenty feet from the beast. The beast still swayed from its dizzying bouts of consecutive shocks. Hector clasped his hands together. I saw the strange liquids flow down their veins into his wrists. When he unclasped his hands I saw a small egg had been formed. The egg was divided into two separate compartments by a thin membrane inside it. Hector pitched the egg at the monster. It crashed into the beast’s shoulder and to my amazement, when the egg broke, as soon as the two liquids mixed a terrible explosion occurred. The beast snapped back to focus, as its arm was nearly severed by the blast. Wreathed in flame the monster charged him. Hector stood fast and clasped his hands once again. As the beast sprinted forward it opened its jaws and bellowed in rage. No sooner had the beast opened its mouth then Hector pitched his egg inside. The monster’s jaw snapped shut and a blast erupted inside the monster. The beast collapsed to the ground as a large flame sprouted from its mouth. Making it look like some mighty dragon in its death throws, and true to the scene Hector stood there like a knight and turned slowly and looked up to us on the ridge.
“Nicely done, Hector.” Janus called down. Hector saluted. I looked over relieved to find all my friends were once again conscious, though Caulin needed help to stand. But none the less Caulin couldn’t help, but jeer down to Hector. “ Yea, I see you finished the job we started.” he called down smiling. “ Next time you try that without an army at your back.”
Hector smiled and replied. “ I’ll leave that to you, my friend. You have a much thicker head than I, much better for taking a beating.” Gohn mustered a small laugh at this in spite of holding his side from some bad injuries.
They all smile, my friends. I wanted to smile with them, but I was furious. “Why are we doing this!” I yelled. All the soldiers and my friends turned and gave me a quizzical look. “ This is insane!” I continued. “Why on earth would you people be crazy enough to run around out here with things like that running around?! What is this some sort of cheap thrill?! We almost died, and we would have if it wasn’t for Janus and his troops! Don’t give me any crap about science, or needing to discover all the new mutant strains. That’s crap!” I was flustered breathing heavily, but still I went on. “ If it is so necessary for you to classify these mutants then go out with military attachment. Going out in a group of five, when there are things like that out there. That’s madness!”
I gasped for air and stared at my friends waiting for a reply. Everyone was silent. The soldiers fidgeted uncomfortable by the situation. Janus bowed his head. As I turned my gaze from one of my friends to another they each looked away. As if shamed by my rebuke. A wind picked up and swayed the grass around me. Whistling through the trees in the silence.
I looked to Terry. Tears fell down her cheeks, but she looked away. Scyll biting her lip averted her eyes from mine. Even Caulin wouldn’t look at me. Finally, Gohn cut through the silence. “We don’t have a choice.” He said slowly. I frowned confused. So he continued, “ David, there is something wrong in the Dome.”
I hesitated not sure if I wanted the answer, but I pressed for more. “ What?”
Gohn swallowed hard, and then continued, “ There is a virus. A disease that we can’t cure.” He stumbled searching for the words. “ It kills hundreds every month. We believe if we don’t do something….It will kill everyone.”
I stood there stunned, “ So what do these excursion have to do with it?” I asked.
“A while ago when the disease first started the people living in the dome engineered a tracer. They implanted the tracer and a drop of infected blood into a group of genetically engineered spiders. They release them out of the dome and were able to track them with a sensor on the top of the dome. The spiders infected at least one mutant from each of the new species that lived outside of the dome. The people hoped that some of the mutants out there might be resistant to the virus and we could capture that creature and get some of its DNA and use it to…” he paused, “ solve our problem.” I nodded beginning to understand. He continued, “ The virus killed all off all the mutants it came in contact with….except one. The dome still picks up a signal from that mutant, all the others are gone. We don’t know exactly where it is, but we think it is in the area near the impact crater from the original nuclear detonation site.”
I struggled to take it all in. “ Why don’t, you just send your army out and find it then?” I asked.
“We tried.” Gohn replied. “When they discovered one of the mutants was immune to the virus they sent out a search party for it. There were five hundred men. For some reason they attracted the attention of every predator in a fifty mile radius. It was a slaughter. David one thing you have to understand. That monster down there that we just fought, is nothing compared to some of the nightmares that live closer to the crater. As you get closer and closer the mutants get more and more deadly. We determined that only an elite group of six to eight can sneak through, find the mutant that is immune to the virus, and get back with any chance of survival. That is why we do this, David. Trust me it’s not some cheap thrill. We come out here, trying to go a bit farther each time. So that hopefully, we will one day be able to save the dome…before it’s too late.” Gohn finished.
I felt like I had just been hit by a truck…again. I asked, “ Why didn’t someone tell me?”
Terry spoke first. “ Sometimes, we try to forget. We play like it is just a game. I’m sorry, I should have told you, but it’s just too hard…..” she trailed off unable to say more.
This time it was Scyll who broke in, “ David, have you ever seen anyone older than 27 or 28 in the Dome?”
My stomach clenched, I shook my head and said, “ No.. why?”
“No, one makes it past that age.” She said sobbing. “ David we are all sick.”
I shook my head not wanting to believe what I was hearing. “ NO! you can’t be none of you seem sick, heck you are all in the best shape of anyone I ever seen.”
Gohn shook his head, “ The virus incubates, approximately 25 to 26 years before going active. When it goes active it attacks in bouts. At first once a month, then once a week, until everyday the person is hit by it. It’s a terrible thing to see David. When the disease goes active. The person….” he couldn’t go on.
Caulin finished what Gohn had started, “ The person vomits blood, by the liter, after that convulsions follow.” As he talked his eyes were distant, remembering the horror he had seen first hand many times. He continued his description, in the gruesome detail only Caulin could give. I wanted him to stop, but I couldn’t speak a word.
After Caulin had finished, Terry spoke slowly to me, “ There’s one more thing, David.” She said. “ Everyone is infected by the virus.”
I nodded, “I know you just told me that.” I replied.“No… David everyone, including you.” She said tears streaming down her face. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks. “That is why I went back to the doctor’s office after we found out about your regenerative ability. I wanted to know if maybe somehow with that ability you were immune to the virus, but you weren’t. We were all infected at birth, but you were not infected till we woke you up. We didn’t mean to wake you up… when we saw you there we assumed you were dead, but after we opened the chamber you started to move…. I sorry David…” she said now unable to say anymore.
I walked up to her and placed my arms around her. “ It’s alright,” I said as she cried on my shoulder. “ I’m glad you woke me up.” She looked up into my eyes, tears still streaming down her face. I smiled at her. She returned a weak smile back, there was a look on her face like she wanted to say something more, but couldn’t quite get it out. I didn’t press the issue any furthur. At that point I already knew more than I wanted.
We returned to the dome in silence, escorted by Janus and his men. I was torn apart by everything that had been said. That day I found that this new world wasn’t free of pain, stress, or fear. No quite to the contrary, it was full of it.