((Erika Stieglitz continued from Leviathan))
There wasn’t much light left in the day by the time she’d reached the Infirmary.
The building was set off to the side of the village and had only one major point of ingress. She knew she could hole up there, and there were woods nearby to flee into if things got bad. It probably wasn’t any more secure than the myriad other structures in the village, but she’d spent more time near it than any of them. Watching Desiree’s group gave her a good idea of at least its surroundings.
The whole way there, she’d had little else to do but dwell on what had happened. What she’d done, and what she was going to do. A few times she’d tried to think of what she’d make of a life after this place, to push her thoughts to the future. It wasn’t easy to come up with anything; more than a few times she found herself staring vacantly off into the distance, her mind grasping desperately at anything that wasn’t here.
There had been enough light to see the mess inside. Erika had methodically swept each room with her PSG-1 at the ready, though the sights before her caused her grip to falter more than once. The trail of blood led her past a decrepit mattress and into the main room of the Infirmary, where she was greeted by an almost unfathomably foul smell. The mixture of blood, vomit, and rot was particularly disgusting, even as much as she’d been quite intimately acquainted with all three so far.
The bodies had both been placed on the beds, and seeing them gave her a moment’s pause. Desiree must have been one of them; there was only so much a sheet could cover. It didn’t look like there was much left of her head, but this was where it had happened.
The first person she’d killed. A fluke. Until now she hadn’t actually seen what happened to her. Even though she knew it had to have been quick, even though Danya said as much, she wanted to see what happened - what she’d done. Erika couldn’t remember what Desiree looked like, from school or in that brief moment as she was pulling the trigger. She still couldn’t, and it felt wrong.
The group that stayed here must’ve moved her body, and put the sheet on it. Out of respect. Treating her with some kind of dignity, as if she hadn’t stopped being Desiree the moment that bullet burst her skull open. Her life ended because Thomas had something Erika needed, and because she had to know she could do it. Just one moment to hurt and hope. To know that giving up wasn’t an option. It wasn't what she intended, and yet it was.
“I’m sorry. It wasn’t supposed to be...”
Staring at a corpse and hoping she’d feel more guilty about it wasn’t going to help. They’d all been taken against their will, and left here to die for reasons the terrorists refused to articulate. That, more than anything, was the reason for this. It wasn’t all on the choices she made.
“It wasn’t supposed to be any of us.”
Erika pulled away the sheet on the other body, finding a face she recognized. It took a moment, as decay had pulled the skin on her face taut. Violet was another one of the photography kids. She had been pretty cool. It was hard to remember whether it was the GSA or anti-bullying club she’d been into. At some point Violet had talked about that kind of thing in class.
Her corpse had nothing to say, outside of put a bullet in Quinn Abert if you see her.
Pressing further into the Infirmary, Erika now realized she was in the part of the building she’d seen from so far away. A hole in the wall near the window and the dried red stain across the nearby wall confirmed as much. She eyed the main room. Imagining the kind of firefight that would take place in here. This side of the building didn’t smell quite as horrid as the entrance, and the storeroom wouldn’t be too hard to barricade. The window opposite was an easy way out, too. Light was falling rapidly, and this place needed work. For a moment, she considered abandoning it in favor of the woods.
Her eyelids felt heavy. Travelling in the dark might as well have been suicide, given how easy it would be to just stumble over someone. More than anything, she needed rest. Erika sighed, wrinkling her nose as the sour smell of decay continued to waft from the two occupied beds.
“Fuck it.”
The abundance of first aid kits she’d scavenged so far meant that she had everything she needed to keep the worst of it off of her. Deaths by trauma didn’t create significant disease risks from corpses in the same way death by disease might. It was the same reason it was okay to handle a fresh kill while hunting, but why one might want to avoid a dead bird in the park. Still, she didn't have to smell like Death to play the part.
It was only beginning to dawn on her that she now had a greater frame of reference for what human corpses were like, than for animals.
Erika dragged Desiree’s putrefying body towards the front entrance, wincing from behind a pocket surgical mask as a few errant pieces of her skull remained on the bed. With some effort, she managed to prop her across the front desk.
A totem. The first thing that anyone would see when they walked in here was the ragged remains of her face. It might keep some of them away.
Violet was next, and she was surprisingly less stiff than Desiree. Dragging the body across the floor left the appropriate amount of gross liquid across the wooden floorboards. There was a pretty large splotch of dried blood near the entryway to the main room, on which Erika left her facing down. Anyone taking a closer look would realize that she was posed there, but the hope was that no one would come close enough to do so.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw what looked like panties on the ground. Erika tried her best to block out any speculation as to who they belonged to, or what they were doing there.
The mattresses were next. It took more than a little while to move them, even more without setting down her rifle. Blocking out the windows made the room quite a bit darker, though she left the one across from the storeroom uncovered. It was her only route of escape in the event the place was compromised, either from a fight she couldn’t win or a designation as a danger zone.
One and the same, really.
After almost an hour, she was done arranging things as she needed them. The reception area now painted a far more frightening picture of what had happened inside, and she’d pushed some debris in the way such that she’d hear someone approaching. The open space wouldn’t present many opportunities for cover if anyone pressed through from the front entrance towards the storeroom.
Erika closed the closet door, wedging it closed with a shelf. Content she could at least try to sleep, she set her duffel bag down on the ground and used it as a pillow. Not once in the night did she move her hands from the rifle lying next to her.
Day 5
Sleep was no reprieve.
She didn’t remember the details of the dreams. Night terrors were like that; they didn’t really manifest clearly, so much as visceral images and feelings. The taste of blood, the sound of gunfire, the feeling of sharp teeth tearing at her arms and legs.
“Saffron! Oh my God, Saffron-”
Screaming.
“You… knew…”
Darkness.
“Make it swift.”
Broken laughter.
"I’ll do my best. I promise you."
The last thing she remembered was a wooden bridge giving way, and the feeling of falling as she descended into a dull grey fog. Erika awoke with a start, her eyes wild and chest pounding as she scrambled to discern the noises she was hearing. Voices, coming from outside.
I slept too long. They’re just outside. They’re here.
Her trembling hands reached for the PSG-1, moving to check the chamber. The magazine fell out - that wasn’t the button she was looking for. She tried to put it back in, but the bullets were facing the wrong way. Did she load it wrong? Had she been carrying it wrong the whole time? No, it couldn’t be put in backwards. Guns didn’t work like that. Why couldn’t she - no, she just had to turn it around. Turn it around and check the chamber. There was one in there. Just like she’d left it. No one was here. Then why did she hear -
‘Erika Stieglitz notched up a double kill when she sniped both Katie Agustien and Saffron Fields. They died holding hands though, which was cute.”
Right. The announcements.
They died holding hands.
She’d die alone.
“...continued her rampage down at the beach, where she shot Oliver Lacroix. Sadly too much time had passed for it to count as a triple. She then capped things off by putting a bullet in Tom Swift's head. Quite the busy day for Ms. Stieglitz.”
Four.
Julien was still alive. Still in pain. Now he knew who did it to him. Erika waited for the name she was hoping to hear, panic overtaking her as Danya read the last ones.
“Then to finish us off, Lucas Brady rammed a branch into Coriander Silverman. Points for improvisation, if not for style.”
“No. No, no no no. Fuck!”
Ty was still alive. Katie didn’t do it. She never would. It was his crowbar that Erika had seen, which meant they’d met. Which meant he had to have known, now. How she didn’t even have the courage to be honest about using him. How she couldn’t even kill him herself.
She should’ve just shot him. Let him kill himself. Anything but this. What the fuck was she thinking?
I didn’t want to get my hands dirty.
As if that mattered now. Six dead, because of her. Because she was a coward.
I just want to survive.
For what? You don’t even know what you’d do with the life you’d save.
“I don’t… I don’t want to die…”
Shaking, Erika leaned the PSG-1 against the wall next to her and wrapped her hands around her knees. Tears streamed down her face as she struggled to slow her breathing, the ragged staccato gradually becoming more painful as it went on.
And it went on for what felt like hours.
Probably only twenty minutes, if her old anxiety attacks were any comparison.
Of course, none of them had been about anything like this.
Simple stuff, like worrying someone at school clocked her.
Or how the planet was dying and no one was doing enough.
Erika always told herself that even if everything did collapse, she’d at least feel better knowing she was on the right side of history.
Where the hell was she, now?
*crack*
Erika opened the second, now-warm soda can and drank from it, looking around at the now dimly lit storeroom. A strange sort of calm washed over her, like she’d walked into a soundproof booth. It wasn’t always like this after an attack. Sometimes more came. Occasionally she’d just pass out.
Sometimes, she just felt calm. Like it was impossible to imagine ever being that upset. It didn’t make any sense, but that was how she felt. She was sure her therapist had explained it once, but she couldn’t remember.
That lady’s gonna have a rough time. Sorry, Doc.
Her mind wandered easily, now.
She reached into the bag and pulled out the weapon she’d taken from Tom. It wasn’t just a sickle - no, it was a tactical sickle. The blade gleamed in the light. Mall-ninjas always went for this kind of thing, but she doubted those guys ever really thought about what it would be like to really use it. What it would do to someone else.
Her gaze drifted to the door. This place was no danger zone, at least not yet. Not for the fifth day. Maybe she could just spend it waiting. Trying to figure out how guilty she should feel. Thinking about her therapist, and what neckbeards in trenchcoats thought combat was like.
Then again, maybe not.
