Lycan Fallout (Book 2): Fall of Man (14 page)

For a little more than two weeks we continued like this, we’d walk, make camp and drink a beer. Not sure why we drank more the previous night maybe it was because we realized the cask was nearing its completion and we were going to celebrate its loss. Whatever the reason, I awoke that morning with a headache that had me convinced I had been smashing a rock against my forehead for most of the night. I stumbled getting up, walked a few feet from camp, took care of some personal business and came back. I was reaching for the heavens when I looked down on Mathieu’s prone form. His eyes were closed and he had not stirred. I was not a quiet riser, I liked to herald in the new day with my morning piss. Sue me, I’d been alone for a long time.

“Mathieu?” I stooped down. He didn’t look good. Pale even. His forehead was lined in sweat. “Mathieu?” I asked again, reaching down. It was then I noted a smell wafting off of him. Smelled of fever and rot. I noticed a large, wet spot on his shirt all across his chest. I pulled his shirt to the side to see a makeshift bandage wrapped around his pectoral muscles. A thick, yellow-green pus like fluid had soaked the entire thing all the way through and was now getting on his shirt. The smell got worse as I got closer. I pulled the bandage down slightly and had to back up. I gagged from the stink of rot.

“Bad?” Mathieu had one eye open and was looking at me.

“It’s not good. What the hell happened?”

“The Lycan sliced my chest when he broke my nose. Didn’t think too much about it until two days ago when it started oozing pus. It went from a clear liquid to yellow, though, in a few hours.”

“Yeah, well it’s got green overtones and hints of brown coming in now, and how the hell are you handling this smell? It’s not good.”

“The reek just started.” He smiled a bit and sat up. He was in some obvious discomfort, and if the way he wobbled was any indication, he was suffering from some vertigo and most likely had a high fever as well to go with the infection.

The only thing I could think to do was pump him with antibiotics and get him to a doctor, both of which were in short supply if they existed at all anymore.

“What can I do to help?”

“You need to help me make it for the next three nights. I haven’t come this far to die by a scratch of the fucking animal that put me in this predicament.”

“Going to need a shelter and plenty of water. Can you eat?”

I spent that whole day building a shelter, using the small rock outcropping as a wall. It was just cozy enough that when he invariably got the chills he would find warmth and just roomy enough that when he began to get hot he had space to breathe. I found a stream and a clutch of rabbits. I’d never been much of a fire starter without a good old-fashioned match. Took me over half an hour to get a friction fire going. Luckily, Mathieu had fallen asleep and could not watch my pathetic attempts at flame. By the time he awoke I had two mugs worth of sterilized water, which he drank down quickly and greedily.

I looked over to the keg. He was going to need more water and much faster than I could sterilize two little mugs at a time. I walked as slowly as I could to the stream, the entire time keeping the keg suspended over my head, letting the beer flow freely into my mouth. In contrast to how slow my locomotion was, I was swallowing as fast as humanly possible. By the time I got to the stream, I realized I’d stalled as long as I could. I was saddened as I watched those two pitchers worth of beer flow down the river.

“I’ll miss you.” I waved, and then plunged the keg into the water to fill it back up.

“Is it cold?” Mathieu was sitting up. “I’m so thirsty.”

“I haven’t had a chance to boil it.”

“Giardia is the least of my problems, Mike. The full moon will have come long before dysentery takes me out. Dehydration, though, that’ll kill me tonight.”

I poured him seven cups of water before he had his fill. He’d also eaten two rabbits while I had gotten the water.

“If this is how much you eat when you’re sick, I’m glad you weren’t one of my kids. I would have had to get a second job to feed you.” He smiled at the words, though I could see it pained him to do so.

I could do little except get him water when he needed it and remove or replace layers of clothes I had placed on him as blankets as he froze or baked depending on what minute it was. That first night wasn’t too bad. I would walk around into the night and check on him periodically. He slept somewhat fitfully, but it was sleep nonetheless. The next day was when he turned a corner and not in the right direction. The wound had begun to turn black. Tiny fingers of red were radiating out from the slash in all directions. At first, they were no thicker than one might expect on a bloodshot eye, nor longer than a normal earthworm. By that evening the fattest of them was as thick as my pinkie finger and it was close to a foot long.

I’m not sure the stench coming off his chest could even be classified as an odor anymore. It had a specter to it, like the physical embodiment of putrefaction itself was sitting on his chest just waiting while his minions finished the job off. His teeth were chattering, at the same time droplets of sweat the size of marbles rolled off his head. This night I hovered over him, although I could have not done much more than say a prayer to his passing. I could not for the life of me imagine how he was going to make it through the next thirty-six hours. As the night turned into day, I would awaken him every so often to keep him as hydrated as possible. He coughed up more than he drank, necessitating that I awaken him more often. I had wet a shirt to wipe the sweat from his head as best I could, most times I would just keep a moist piece of material on him in an effort to cool him down. He was getting hot to the touch. I was concerned that his clothes were going to catch on fire.

It was at this point, as well, I was afraid he was going to fry his brain in fever. I grabbed him and hoisted him up and over my shoulder. He shouldn’t have been so light, it was almost as if the fever was burning his tissue as well. I ran to the river and just kept going until I was nearly halfway across the thirty-foot span of it. The water was just past my mid-section as I cradled him in my arms and let the cooling effect of the water do its magic. I needed to get his core temperature down as best I could. It wasn’t a bathtub full of ice, but it was significantly cooler than the ambient air temperature. I must have stayed in that water for close to an hour. His body had cooled considerably, there was no longer steam coming from where he was making contact with the river. Okay, there never was, but you get the point.

I don’t think a special effects expert with a team of helpers could have made a more gruesome wound than the one I was looking at on Mathieu’s chest. His tissue was dying in a large swath, necrosis was setting in, and being this close to his heart, I could not imagine how I was going to be able to help him get to tomorrow night.

“One thing at a time, Talbot.” I started wading back to shore. Mathieu’s lips were turning blue and goose pimples were beginning to dot his flesh. The pendulum was swinging back to chills. I quickly got his drenched clothes off, placed him back in the lean-to, and covered him up with everything we had that was dry while I also stoked the fire up a bit. I’d love to say that, at this point, I scoured the landside for some local herbs and flowers that would aid in his healing, but I wouldn’t be able to tell poison ivy from aloe. Well, maybe those two, but not much else, and those two plants would do nothing for him. I sat on my haunches to the opening of the small shelter and just watched.

His condition did not improve as night came upon us. Neither did it diminish, so that was a plus. Only once during the night did he cry out, I believe it was his wife’s name. I took that moment to get as much fluid into his system as I could before he lapsed back into his semi-catatonic state. I alternated again between wiping his brow of sweat and placing a cooling cloth there. After a long night of chasing away any harbingers I thought the light of the sun was playing tricks on me. I actually had to stand and look at him from various angles to verify what I was seeing. He was so pale as to look blue. He was as close to death as one can be without having crossed over. I even placed my ear down by his mouth to see if breath was still coming out.

I stood quickly, running both my hands through my hair on either side of my head. “Well that’s it, isn’t it?” Maybe it was for the best. At least now he’d be able to get back to his family, something I’d been trying to do for seemingly eternity. Even as I thought about Mathieu returning to his family, feelings of envy were mixed in with just plain selfishness. If I couldn’t be with my family, why could he? And, I just didn’t want to be alone.

“Mathieu.” I got back down on my knees in front of the shelter. “Mathieu, listen to me. It’s not time yet, man. We still have a bunch to do.” I gripped his face in my hands. A block of ice would have yielded more heat. I expected frost to emit from his mouth.

“Gretel?”

“Who? Wait, your wife’s name is Gretel, right?”

He had a small reaction when I said his wife’s name. “Mathieu, listen to me. Gretel says she’s looking forward to seeing you.”

“Gretel?”

“Just not yet, Mathieu. We have to stop the Lycan.” I was going to burn for this. Oh, I was going to make the Lycan pay for what they had done to Tommy and I was going to drag Mathieu with me. “Gretel wants you to stay here and get revenge for her and your children.”

“Revenge? Gretel?”

“Yeah, buddy, she wants you to make it right down here before you go.”

“So tired, sick,” the words barely able to push past his dry and cracked lips.

“She said man-up.”

The more I talked, the more like a piece of shit I felt. I wouldn’t let a man that so desperately wanted to die, die. Was it the companionship? Please. God, tell me it’s not for the damn beer. No matter how good it is, I shouldn’t be playing the role of soul blocker. Maybe that was the reason, if I couldn’t see my wife, why the fuck could he? So now I was a petty, selfish, alcoholic, and I’m sure if I looked for a few more negative adjectives I could round some up.

“Ah shit, Mathieu, don’t listen to me, man. If there’s a better world for you to go to, by all means, do it. I’m sorry, man. It’s been my honor to get to know you these last couple of weeks. I wish I could return the favor of saving your life but I’m not going to stand in the way of you getting back to your family. You above all deserve that. If you see my wife and kids, could you tell them I’m still trying? Thanks, man. Godspeed,” I finished, placing my hand upon his forehead.

Tears blinded my eyes as I arose. I went back to the river, stripped off my clothes and walked in. I thought about just letting go and letting the river take me where it would, but I still had a duty to Mathieu. I would bury him properly. He was yet another in a long line of people who ultimately had sacrificed his life for mine. I don’t know what made mine so fucking valuable that all these others had to die. I guess now was the time to live up to the hype. I stayed in the water for hours, hoping that somehow the water was blessed and it would absolve me of all my sins. All I really got for my efforts was a severe case of flesh pruning. The sun had set and I needed to go stand watch over Mathieu’s body. I would not let some night scavenger make a meal from his remains. I put my clothes back on. I noticed the reflection of the full moon upon the water as I tied the laces on my boots.

“So close. So fucking close. Not the first death of someone close, Talbot, although it’s getting close to the last. Just not that many people in my sphere of influence anymore.” I was walking with my head down, just sort of keeping an eye on my foot placement. My leg felt pretty good, and I didn’t want to give it any reason to change its disposition. I should have, I really should have noticed just how quiet it was. It’s weird how upon reflection, if you’re given that opportunity, that you realize all the signs were there, you were just clueless of them or just too arrogant to perceive them.

I walked out of the small trail and into our clearing. At first, I thought the Lycan had found us. Then I started to notice the dissimilarities between what was looking at me and what a Lycan was. The beast before me was larger than any werewolf I’d seen and still it would have been smallish on the Lycan side of things. Its muzzle was shorter than its maker, and the fur was a softer brown from the darker colors and grays of the Lycan. Again, I should have been smacked with the realization of what was right in front of me; it’s just that my brain doesn’t work like that. I have to have time to process things out of the ordinary. This could be a millisecond or a decade, but never instantaneous.

I was mid-step wondering what to do. “Mathieu?”

The thing’s head tilted. There was a good chance this was indeed him, but since he was blocking the entrance to the shelter, I couldn’t be completely sure; although the mere fact that he wasn’t attacking me was a pretty good sign as well. How long was that going to be the case, though? I knew turning and running was not an option; that would trigger any predator’s auto response to chase and kill. I then would be forced to defend myself if he caught me, which was definitely a possibility given my still lingering injury, getting away quickly was nearly out of the equation. We could stand here and do this détente shit all night, but at what point would he slip and his mental grip on the beast within give out? Or possibly I would do something as innocuous as scratch the side of my face and he would take it as a sign of aggression and attack.

“Mathieu?” I asked again and again his head tilted. Well, it was safe to say it was either him or someone that knew him and since he’d been in a bunker for the last fifteen years it was safe to assume the former. “I’m going to sit, Mathieu,” I told him softly.