AN - Sorry for the long delay between chapters. The new and final FS season distracted me with its unfortunate-ness... but here's the new chapter! Hopefully won't be too long until the next one :)
Chapter 28: Underneath
White hot pain seared across the back of Casey's left shoulder and tore her out of unconsciousness. She couldn't move, her vision was blurred and something burnt her back. The acrid smell of fuel and fire singed her nostrils and for a panicked second she thought she actually might be burning. Then Casey felt herself being lifted, and the pressure against her shoulder subsided for a brief moment.
"Careful!" Anne's faraway voice said. "Lourdes, careful where you set her."
Casey's lower half dropped heavily on the ground and that seemed to sort out her sight. She realised was being held up in a sitting position. "Agh!" Casey fought the urge to grab at her throbbing shoulder. She could feel the skin bubbling.
"Casey, you landed on a hot water pipe," Anne was telling her. "It burnt your back. Badly."
"Oh, God," Casey grunted through a clenched jaw. It wasn't even waves of pain, it was just pain. Constant. As though someone just peeled off a layer of skin. "It hurts like hell!"
"I'm gonna rip your shirt, okay?" Lourdes said just as she tore off the left sleeve.
Suddenly Casey remembered there had been four of them. "Where's Matt?"
"I'm here," a small voice said.
The youngest Mason was crouched at Casey's left side; she hadn't been able to see him because she couldn't turn that way. Just a slight bend of her neck to confirm it was Matt who was speaking to her send such a violent tear through Casey's skin she thought she might pass out. Casey had to bend her left arm in close to her chest to try and stop the skin on her back from shifting. But every time she even dared to breathe she felt like she'd sliced a knife across her raw flesh.
"We have to move," Anne said. "Can you stand?"
Casey seriously doubted it, but tried her best to keep her back rigid so the skin wouldn't pull. Anne and Lourdes helped Casey to her feet and held her upright for a few moments. "I'm good," Casey told them. "Let's go."
"Stay close," Anne said as she took the lead. "The stairways this way."
Casey finally got a look at her surroundings. Anne and Lourdes had flashlights so around her feet Casey could make out crumbled plaster and chunks of cement from the collapsed ceiling. Broken wooden brackets dangled from the ceiling in the hallway, and wiring and insulation spilled out like bizarre electrical vines.
"Are you alright?" Matt asked Casey. He was on her right side, it was easier for her to look at him this way. She could see his hair and face were dusted grey with soot. A smear of blood marked his forehead and he had a graze on his chin.
"I'm fine," Casey panted. "I'll be fine." She put her arm around him and let him lead her forwards. Casey tried not to rest too much of her weight against Matt and focused on moving. "What the hell happened?" she asked. "After the gunfire, I heard Mechs."
"Me too," Anne said, shooting her a concerned look. "Guess they found us."
Etta flashed in Casey's mind. Had Lyle given her to Lee? Where had Lee been when the blast had gone off? Was she okay? Did she have Etta with her? Were they safe? Was all of this Karen's fault? What about Weaver? Had Tom and his group come back with Ben? Were any of the 2nd Mass even still above ground?
The door to the staircase was splintered off its hinges so it didn't take Anne much of a push to get it open completely. Anne jogged a ways up the stairs and checked that it was clear, then she gestured for Casey, Lourdes and Matt to follow her.
"Careful," Matt said as he patiently waited for Casey to take one step up at a time.
Upstairs looked basically like the room they had just come from. Whatever had happened—whatever that blast was— it seemed to have sent a wrecking ball through this section of the hospital. Every shelf was knocked over, every pane of glass was smashed, wires and piping jutted out from walls and drooped from above, and chunks of the floors and ceilings were dented and sinking.
"This way," Anne lead them left into the clearer of two hallways, it had fewer broken light fixtures hanging precariously by thin wires.
As Matt and Lourdes helped Casey shuffle along, up ahead Casey heard something. An urgent, pained grunting noise came from the end of the hallway. "Wait," Casey stopped still. "Listen."
The noise came again, more pained. It sounded human, like someone in agony.
"What is that?" Matt asked.
Lourdes looped Casey's arms off her shoulder, stepped ahead of Anne and scanned her flashlight down the hallway. The agonised groan coughed through the hall again, and then a look of shock or fear or both broke across Lourdes' face. "Jamil?!" She bolted forwards. "Jamil! Oh, God, no!"
Anne took off after Lourdes leaving Matt to help Casey wobble after her. Casey shuffled along, following the dim glow of Anne and Lourdes flashlights. She could just see Lourdes kneeling down beside something clinging to the door. As she got closer, Casey realised the something was Jamil.
"Jamil, can you hear me?" Lourdes was saying.
As Casey got closer and gained a clearer view of Jamil; she froze. Her mouth dropped open. He looked like someone had beaten him senseless and then dropped him off a building. His face was so swollen that his eyes couldn't seem to open. Blood oozed from the corners of his mouth and seeped from deep gashes in his throat. His clothes were ripped and soaked with blood. He barely managed to hold himself up by clutching the handle of the door behind. His hand was bloody, too, and he was shuddering like he had hypothermia.
"Jamil?" Lourdes had his face in her hands and was trying to turn him towards her but he seemed to resist.
Anne knelt on Jamil's other side. "Lay him down," she instructed.
"No…" Jamil seemed to stiffen in protest, but he wasn't strong enough to fight both Anne and Lourdes as they laid him out flat on the ground.
"You're okay," Lourdes' voice hitched in her throat. "You'll be fine."
"I don't think the blast did this to him," Anne said as she inspected the slices on Jamil's neck. "These marks, they look internal." As she touched his skin, Jamil let out a loud groan. "We'll have to carry him upstairs. Wait here." Anne got to her feet and headed back down the way they'd come through.
Casey rested against the wall and took her arm from around Matt. The boy was looking upwards, holding his rifle tightly in his hands. He seemed to be listening for something, and then a second later Casey's attention was drawn skyward, too. She heard it. Another noise, but not a groan. This was scratching sound, like little claws were trying to dig their way down through the roof. And the noise was moving across the ceiling.
Jamil's body seized and he moaned again. Casey wanted to kneel down and help but the stinging of her shoulder made it impossible for her to move away from the wall. She wanted to grab for Matt because he kept looking up following the scratching noise and taking steps away from her.
Suddenly Jamil reached out and grabbed Lourdes' hand, his breathing fast and laboured. "I…" Jamil coughed wetly and grabbed Lourdes hand tighter. "I…love…you."
"I love you, too," Lourdes immediately replied. "Just relax. I've got you."
"Found something," Anne announced as she came back through holding a paramedics stretcher. "We'll tie him to this and take him up, okay?" Anne set the board on the ground and she and Lourdes rolled Jamil onto it and began to strap him in.
"Go," Jamil grunted at Lourdes and tried to push her hands away. "Go, go, go."
"No," Lourdes smiled down at him and smoothed her hand down his cheek. "I'm not leaving you."
"This is weird," Matt said.
The little lilt in his voice made Casey look over at him. His attention was drawn to something on the wall. "What?"
Matt began to prod at a circular gap in the wall. "These holes weren't here before." He bent over pressed his eye against the hole in the wall.
Above her Casey heard a loud scrape, and the scratching darted across the ceiling and clattered inside the wall Matt was investigating. "Matt, move!" As Casey reached for him pain seared across her back and made her double over herself.
Jamil, flat on the board, let out an agonised groan and his body went completely rigid. His groan turned into a gurgle and his body violently began to spasm and seize. His eyes rolled back to their whites as his abnormally stretched open.
Lourdes sprang to her feet. "Oh, God!"
Anne jumped up and yanked at Matt's sweatshirt. "Matt, get back!"
Blood spurted out of Jamil's throat as some sort of creature crawled out of him. A bug, some sort of huge insectoid. Just as the thing extricated itself from Jamil, another one emerged behind it. And then another. Jamil's mouth tore open in a silent scream as at least a dozen bugs scuttled out of his mouth. The creatures were the size of a lobsters but had the bodies and legs of some sort of alien ant. They chirped a little chittering noise that reminded Casey of the sound the harnesses made in the harnessing facility.
"He's full of them!" Anne cried. "They used him as a Trojan horse," she shoved Matt forwards and pressed her flashlight into his hand. "Go!"
Matt rushed to Casey's side and put his arm around her waist and the two of them began to shuffle up the hall. Behind her, Casey could hear Lourdes screaming along with the clicking sound of the bugs scuttling across the tiles after them.
"No!" Lourdes howled. "We're not leaving him!"
"You can't help him now," Anne said. "He's gone!"
At the end of the hall Casey steered Matt to the right through a door into some sort of lab. When she got through, Casey knocked Matt behind her and held the heavy metal door open so Anne and Lourdes could come through. Just as Anne skimmed in clutching Lourdes limp body, Casey slammed the door closed behind them and secured the lock. Casey limped back from the door.
Scritch-bang! Scritch-bang!
The solid clang of the bugs colliding with the metal door made Casey jump. And it didn't stop. They were persistent little assholes.
"They're gonna eat us," Lourdes fell to the floor in gasping breaths. "They're gonna eat us from the inside out – just like Jamil!"
"We're getting out of here!" Anne cried and snatched her flashlight back from Matt and pointed the beam at Lourdes. "And I don't wanna hear anything different!" She spun in circles on the spot, scanning her flashlight around the room.
"Are you okay?" Matt quietly asked Casey.
Casey nodded and tried to smile. Matt's eyes were round and glassy; she knew he was scared. How was he not screaming in a corner? If Casey hadn't been in agony she imagined she'd be on the floor with Lourdes. A roof had just landed on them and alien critters had infested and then exploded from Jamil. Now was the perfect time for Matt to have some sort of panic attack.
"Look, see?!" Anne yelped. "I told you!"
Casey followed the dimming glow of Anne's flashlight as it stretched to the back wall of the room and illuminated a small, covered vent. Matt helped Casey over to Anne who was wedging her fingers around the rims of the cover. Casey wasn't sure why she was bothering; the vent was way too small for a grown person to fit through. "We can't fit through there," Casey mumbled.
Matt took his arm from around Casey's waist and stepped forwards. "I-I can."
"No!" Casey gritted her teeth at the pain in her back as she grabbed Matt's wrist. "Those things are in the walls; there could be hundreds in there!"
Scritch-bang! Scritch-bang!
"I'm quick," Matt told her. "I'll be fast. I promise."
"If he can get out through there," Lourdes nodded at the vent. "Those things can get in through there."
"It's our only chance," Matt said.
Anne's eyes suddenly grew wet. She knelt down in front of Matt and held his gaze. "Okay, Matt, tell anyone you find that we're trapped in the blood lab. Okay?"
"In the blood lab," Matt repeated with a dutiful nod. "Got it." He looked about ready to climb through the vent, but then he stopped and handed Anne his gun. "Take this. You'll need it more than I will."
"Matt," Casey clenched her jaw as tight as she could to endure the stinging in her shoulder that came with her kneeling down before Matt. "If you get hear something or see something and you get scared, don't try and be brave, okay? Just keep moving until you find someone."
Matt smiled. "Don't worry about me. I'll bring back help." He ducked down and scrambled off into the vent.
Anne watched him for a few moments, then she secured the vent closed again. Casey noticed she kept her back to her and Lourdes, and her shoulders shook a little. But when she turned around and wiped her eyes, she was back in doctor mode.
Scritch-bang! Scritch-bang!
"Okay," Anne righted a desk chair and set it behind Casey. "Sit down. Don't lean back, just sit."
Casey exhaled slowly as she gingerly sat herself down. The impact of her backside hitting the chair sent a vibration up her spine and made her burn scream. Casey took a few steadying breaths through gritted teeth. "Is it bad?"
"Pain is good," Anne said. "Pain means it's probably not third degree."
Casey winced and scrunched her eyes closed when she felt Anne touching around her shoulder. She sure had plenty of pain.
"You're gonna be fine," Anne assured her. "We just need to think about what we're gonna do if those things get in here."
"That's easy," Lourdes muttered. "We die."
Anne dropped to the floor and grabbed Lourdes by her shoulders. "Pull it together, Lourdes. We need you. We're gonna get out of this but the three of us need to focus. Now find me an oxygen cylinder that still has pressure in it. Let's give these critters something to think about."
As Lourdes climbed up off the floor and crossed the room to the shelves of oxygen cylinders, Casey's attention was drawn back to the closed door. The bugs were trying to bust their way through. It sounded like someone throwing rocks at the door, and as Casey watched she could see dents forming in the metal. It was only a matter of time before those things dug their way inside. Matt was fast, he had to be fast enough.
"Here, this one has some left!" Lourdes rushed over to Anne with an oxygen tank in her hand. ""What are you making?"
Anne took the tank from Lourdes. "If I can find something to light, then hopefully a flamethrower."
Casey stared at her, not sure she heard correctly. "Say again?"
Anne lifted a plastic container and set it on the countertop. "When I was younger, these kids in my neighbourhood made blowtorches out of lighters and hairspray cans." She dug a blue firelighter out of the container. "Used them to incinerate ant hills."
"What if they don't burn?" Casey asked. Anne looked at her, but didn't answer.
Scritch-bang! Scritch-bang!
Casey watched the door. The dents were getting deeper. Those bugs were getting into the lab sooner rather than later.
Anne tucked the oxygen tank under her arm. "Lourdes, get the door."
Lourdes fled to the door and clasped the handle while Anne prepared the firelighter to ignite the oxygen. Casey hung back, she would only get in the way. But she knew, regardless of what happened with Anne's flamethrower, once that door opened she would have to run. Anne raised the oxygen tank and firelighter and nodded. Lourdes yanked the door open and Anne immediately released the oxygen.
Dozens of alien bugs spilled into the room, but Anne was ready. She blasted the oxygen from the tank and created a flamethrower. The bugs screeched and crackled as they burned to blackened crisps. Then another sound. One Casey was much more familiar with. Gunshots.
"Anne?" An urgent voice roared through the hall.
Through the smoke of the burning critters burst Tom, Ben and Pope, all armed with rifles.
"We're fine," Anne tossed aside her flamethrower and backed into the lab to grab Casey.
"She alright?" Tom asked from the hall. Ben and Pope were firing their guns.
"She got burned, but she'll be fine," Anne said. "Is Matt with you?"
Pope stood forwards, draped Casey's arm around his neck and looped his other around her waist.
"He's okay, he's upstairs," Tom said, ushering Anne and Lourdes ahead of him.
"Where's Etta?" Casey asked Pope.
"She's fine, she's with Lee." He broke into a jog squeezed Casey to his side to keep her instep with him.
Casey had no idea where they were or where they were headed, but Ben seemed to know the way so Casey just let Pope drag her through the halls until they came to a staircase. Pope lifted Casey up each step. Ahead of her Casey could hear Weaver's voice urging them on.
"Move it! Move it!" The Captain yelled. "Double time, let's go! Move, move, move!"
As soon as Casey and Pope crossed the threshold, the door was slammed behind them. Pope let Weaver take Casey while he, Maggie, Hal and Anthony thrust themselves against it.
"Seal that door!" Weaver ordered as he pulled Casey into the hall where Tom, Ben, Anne and Lourdes were leaning against the wall and catching their breath. Well, not Ben. He looked like he could run another hundred miles.
Anthony fired up a blowtorch and began to seal the edges of the closed door frame. "It's only a matter of time before they eat their way through, Cap."
"Are you alright?" Weaver asked Casey. He craned his head to inspect her shoulder and his face blanched. "Damn…"
Casey nodded at him, but suddenly she felt crazy tired. "It's fine," she panted. But she let herself lean against Weaver's firm frame.
"What about Boon's patrol?" Tom asked.
Weaver gave Tom a solemn look. "They didn't make it."
The sizzling noise stopped and Maggie, Anthony and Pope pulled away from the door. It looked a lot sturdier than the door from the blood lab. Maggie and Hal joined Tom and Pope hung back with Anthony. Their missing person did not go unnoticed by Weaver. "Where's Jamil? He didn't make it, either.
Weaver turned to Lourdes, his eyes wet. "Lourdes," he reached for her shoulder. "I'm sorry."
Lourdes eyes flooded with tears. She squared her jaw, shrugged off Weaver and fled down the hall. With a sudden spur of energy, Tom leant up off the wall and marched in the opposite direction to Lourdes.
"Where you going?" Weaver called after him.
Tom looked back over his shoulder to answer. "To pay a visit to our honoured guest."
Casey couldn't even bring herself to ask what the hell he was talking about. Her shoulder was throbbing with intense pulses of pain that seemed to get worse and worse every breath she dare take. And some sort of lethargy was really doing a number on her balance.
"Here," Anne took Casey from Weaver and looped her arm over her neck. "I've gotta dress your wound before you get an infection."
Pope grabbed for Casey's other arm again to help, but Casey resisted. "Don't," she knocked him aside. "I can walk."
"Come on," Pope reached for her again. "That burn looks bad, I can-"
"I'm fine." Casey snapped. She shot him a dirty look and could see he was surprised by her reaction. His expression was almost hurt. Casey let Anne help her hobble away without another word.
Yes, Pope had helped her when it was convenient for him. He was probably just happy to be on his feet and holding a gun again. Luck put him in that blood lab when they needed rescue. He was still the same Pope as he was before. The same Pope who had lied and beaten the shit out of Tom for no reason. Pope who had stolen Jimmy's compass, Pope who had allowed Maggie's early days to be a living hell, Pope who was sapping resources from the 2nd Mass. That Pope was not Casey's friend, and she would not allow him to help her.
xxx