Cameron knew what everyone else was thinking and not said: “Thank god it’s not me.” It’s easiest when it’s a stranger, easier when it’s an adult and impossible when it’s a child. Steven slouched as he stamped down the stairs trying to understand, for the umpteenth time, the how and the whys that had placed him in the middle of such… people. The word was bitter to him. Halfway down the stairs, he paused, realizing that Jaira was still up there with Cameron, the one leading this insanity as he quietly turned and proceeded back up.
“I don’t know… three or four ampoules?” asked Cameron. Gunfire echoed as the muzzle flashes from rifle and machine gun threw brief streaks of light through the street. Steven edged ever close, “Five?”
Jaira stared at Cameron with something in her eyes, something, a mix of emotions that he could not place. She flicked several loose strands of hair behind her right ear, “Cameron… we shouldn’t do this. She’s still a child and well, she’s, she’s not one of them… I can’t do this,” she was a principled woman. If nothing else, he had to give her that.
He popped the caps off the five ampoules, “You don’t need to see this, you don’t need to know,” he thought, taking a stedying breath, as he gestured towards the window with a nod, “Get me a sitrep,” he ordered. It worked. Jaira made here way down the stairs, somehow, missing Steven in the narrow confines of the stairwell as Cameron turned, to do the necessary deed, “Hey kiddo. Come on, I’m not gonna hurt you,” he said softly, his words at odd with the gun battle in the street below, She eyed him with a cautious born of experience, eyes wide as saucers, fearful and uncertain, “What’s your name?”
“Jenny,” her voice was soft and quiet, quivering as she twisted a few strands of hair between her fingers, clutching the remains of a blood smeared teddy bear in her left hand, blood from the bites having stained the soft fur of the doll, “What are you doing here when everyone else is outside…fighting?” she asked, sitting the doll upon her knee.
“Jenny, somebody has to stay here and look after you. You’re…” he struggled to find the words, trying hard not to look in to the innocent eyes of a life destined to be cut short, that he would have to extinguish, “… special and I need to give you medicine… to help you sleep.”
Steven was rooted to the spot by horror at what he was hearing, at what he could see, and was about to happen: Sanctioned murder in his mind. Cameron had committed the same crime on numerous occasions and Steven had seen him kill without hesitation and remorse so many times. He would stop it, prevent this murder no matter it cost him as Cameron spoke again, “It's just to help you sleep. Nothing bad is going to happen to you,” he lied. One of the few things you learned how to do in the hospitality industry.
She nodded and he took his time, cleaning the site on her frail arm with an alcohol swab. Outside the gunfire was reduced to the crack of single shots, “This is going to sting,” He gently but firmly pressed down with the five ampoules, and he exhaled as her eyelids dropped and then went limp, resting against him like an unstrung puppet. He lowered her gently to the floor as far from the corpses as possible as he scavenged a pillow and blanket from the wreckage.
He looked down at her sleeping face, her chest moving, a slow yet steady rise and fall as she slept in a dreamless slumber, from which she would never awake. Hardening his heart, he closed himself off, building a wall and barricades around his feelings and emotions, making sure that they could not intrude, so that he could do what must be done. Her angelic features almost had a smile on them. Perhaps she knew, what was coming when he had helped her sleep. And Cameron stopped those thoughts immediately, and tightened his grip till his knuckles turned white and closed his own eyes, unwilling to acknowledge, what he was about to do as he drew the Shotgun and racked the slide.
“No!” It was a shout that snapped him around as he spun, the shotgun turned with him as Steven threw his full weight at Cameron, slamming in to his with the force of a bull, knocking him across the room in to wall, where he impacted spine first with an audible crack as his collided with the wall. The still clutched shotgun went off with a roar, the loudest shot of the night. Stars and static swan before Cameron’s eyes as Steven scooped and ran for the stairs. Stumbling like a hung over drunk, he shook his head, desperately trying to clear his mind and visions as his still dazed brain attempted to register just what the fuck had happened.
Fumbling he found his shotgun and racked another shell in to the breach, the spent cartridge spinning through the darkness. They were both gone and Cameron cursed himself a fool for not having somebody escort that son of a bitch. Miraculously, Cameron survived his descent, and caught sight of them, Jenny limp against the ruined door frame, Steven obviously trying to persuade anyone to his brand of logic,”…drugged and tried to kill her! She’s sick and she need medical treatment for her bite wounds!” several metallic snicks echoed, louder than gunshots as more than one turned towards Steven and Jenny, “Do none of you have any humanity left in you?”
There was plenty of humanity in each of them but to bring her back to Sparta would place all of Sparta at risk, utilitarian ethical theory at its worst. Nobody moved as Natalie put her face within inches of Steven, “Armageddon, made me watch as my husband, killed both of my children. Then I had to kill my husband and within minute of that,” her voice grew grim, “I executed both of my children.” Anger seeped in, “This condition,” acid dripped from her words, “disease, sickness, spreads through their bites, scratches and blood,” she paused to draw her sidearm as everyone else looked away knowing what was coming, “Like all of them, her condition is neither treatable or curable or reversible.” The safety clicked off. “When she stops breathing, it will open her eyes, see us and then rise up and try to kill the nearest human.” A minute passed in silence and sure it enough it came to pass. It opened her eyes and with a hissing snarl, rose to its feet and wobbled forward. The head snapped back as the bullet entered through the left eye socket and exploded out the back of her skull. She dropped like a stone as Steven stared in horror.
Natalie’s demonstration concluded, they made ready to leave. Cameron nursed his head, knowing that it would be a throbbing few days. Steven in the back of the humvee was unable to take his eyes off Jenny, who had lived through seven months of hell, as her ruined shell faded in to the distance and then vanished as they turned the corner.
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