Page 24 of Monsters within Men
“It’s fine,” Zeke mumbled, relieved to be out of there.
Hours later, when all the others were snoring loudly, Zeke tossed and turned. Images of the woman spasming uncontrollably looped around his mind. He could not let that be him. He needed to talk to Doctor Harding and find out why he was arrested. He needed to get back to his real life at Oakfield Institute.
Remembering he’d emailed Zaya, he opened up his tablet to find a reply from her dated two a.m. That couldn’t be right. Zaya was rarely up past ten. They must be screening all incoming emails and approving them at odd hours.
Zeke! I’m so sorry. I’m going to be lost without you. Are you okay? Can they really make you fight them if you don’t want to? Tell them about the time you broke your little finger punching the wall. That should help your case. In all seriousness, what can I do? I’ve got Rebecca and Oliver’s details for you. I’ll attach them in a second, as well as my number. It would be great to hear your voice. I’m sure we’ll see each other soon. All my love, Z. x.
nine
Noah
Allaroundhim,lieutenantsshifted nervously in their seats. The captain had entered the room without smiling. After saluting her, they all waited in pensive silence for her to reach the lectern of the small auditorium. Each stomp of her boots sent a fresh wave of dread through Noah. Five other captains video linked in to hear the report, their mouths set in grim lines as their heads floated over Captain Murphy on a screen.
“Yesterday afternoon, I witnessed some of the most shambolic, abysmal failings I have ever seen in my thirty-year career,” Murphy began, and Noah already wanted to hang his head like a scolded child. “Before we go into detail, I want to share with you the final body count.”
Another screen to the right of the podium came to life. It displayed twelve portrait photographs of officers, Sandhurst among them. Noah recognised most of them. Had spoken to many of them personally over the years. A ripple circulated around the audience.
“Twelve lives. Twelve of our brothers and sisters. Twelve less of us to fight our enemy. Most of them perfectly avoidable deaths.” All eyes locked on Murphy’s as she scanned the room, making eye contact with each of them. Then, Murphy’s gaze flickered to the side as someone entered the hall.
“Welcome, General. Lieutenants, Commander Nathaniel Forrest wanted to attend this meeting personally.” Noah’s stomach twisted as he joined the others in standing to salute their Chief of Defence, dressed in his heavily decorated uniform. He gave Noah a tiny nod on the way to stand behind Murphy. Noah closed his eyes, inwardly groaning. If his uncle had travelled to get here, he wouldn’t leave without first seeing Noah. Ever since he’d been made CO seven months ago, he’d found spending time with him more difficult. He always felt like he needed to prove something to him. Like he was letting down the family name.
“As you were,” his uncle commanded, prompting another flurry of movement.
“Failing one,” Murphy began, “started at the border. After a particularly eventful afternoon, Squad W entered duty on the third rotation. They were assigned Belhus Woods to Thames Chase. Command tasked Lieutenant James with following up a disturbance at South Ockendon Wind Farm. He sent four officers over the wall to investigate, and they located several clusters of types.”
Murphy brought up a video feed. Sandhurst and three others were in close combat with types. TypeAs, judging by their crouched stances. Blindsided, Sandhurst’s body was quickly knocked to the ground. The monstrosity climbed on top of her, gnawing her thigh with its mouth. The feed continued, showing Sandhurst’s typeA being struck down by a swarm of bullets. The monster lay on the concrete, blood framing its grotesquely bulbous head. When Sandhurst rose to her knees, Murphy paused the video and zoomed in on her thigh. The image, although grainy, clearly showed a small rip in the black fabric of her suit.
“Failing one. This image takes us unquestionably over the threshold for Isolation Protocol. Unfortunately, the code never came. The monitoring team, faced with reviewing many feeds at once, did not identify Sandhurst’s laceration.”
Another murmur bounced around the audience. Some sounded relieved, as if they thought everyone else was off the hook. Noah knew better.
“I’ll spare you the rest of the footage. More typeAs take down the other three squad members before Sandhurst demobilises them. Let’s fast forward.”
The display changed to a blurry picture of Sandhurst getting into a transport van. “Failing two and three. Sandhurst calls in a triple CD. A collection team set off to collect the three bodies and met her twelve minutes later. We have no video record of this part of the afternoon, as the team have stated there were no combat helmets left in the box within the station. In debriefing, each member of the team was adamant they followed protocol and completed the required medical checks that allowed Sandhurst to be permitted back over the wall. They are liars, or incompetent fools.” The captain, a slither of rage seeping into her calm composure, paused.Liars, incompetent, or perhaps doing their very best in the most challenging job of their life,thought Noah.
“Failing four. Sandhurst is now over the wall. Within minutes, she is assigned transport to bring her back to Avantis. This is footage from the inside of the van, approximately forty-five minutes after Sandhurst’s initial contact with the RONS virus. As we know, infected victims almost always display symptoms indicating they’re about to turn within the first hour. The driver of the van, despite having full access to this feed, took no action.”
Sandhurst came back onto the screen. This time, she was sitting in the back of a van, hugging her arms around herself as she shook her head and rocked. Occasionally, her mouth would twist with anguish as she cried out. The video played on. At first, Noah wasn’t sure what they were looking for. But then he spotted it. Her eyes. They were flicking up and down. Her body seized. The van jumped, possibly going over a rough surface. Sandhurst’s head flew back and smashed into the headrest. She seemed to recover, returning to her miserable grief by clawing at her hair.
For a fleeting moment, Noah was transported back to the day of Khyan’s death, and the darkness that engulfed him. He had little memory of his behaviour, but felt a rush of gratitude towards his friends, for whom it must have been a truly horrific experience.
“The van reached the compound and Sandhurst jumped out of the vehicle, breezing straight through the checkpoint without being stopped. Her distressed state seemingly confused the pair on duty, who didn’t stop the crying woman running determinedly past them. Failing five.”
“And finally,”—Noah sighed in relief—“failing six. Every single one of you stood there, some with your entire squads, gaping and ogling for several minutes, doing absolutely nothing to intervene. Rather than move everybody along, you helped create the crowd that turned into a stampede that turned into a bloodbath.”
He tried to look at the faces of the other lieutenants around him without turning his head. Did they look as guilty as he now felt? To be fair, he’d arrived later than most. But it was only after Sandhurst started showing signs of infection that he’d started pulling his team away.
“General Forrest is now going to spend the next two hours analysing each of these failings, and produce recommendation documentation.”
Noah caught the slight tensing of Murphy’s face as she handed over to his uncle. Ultimately, it was she who would take most of the fallout for their regiment’s failures. He could only imagine the meeting that took place before this one.
Predictably, two hours turned into three. By the end, Noah was fighting to stifle yawns. When the captain finally dismissed them, Noah filed out with the rest, half-hoping that his uncle would somehow be too busy to speak to him. He’d only taken about seven steps outside of the building, however, before someone grabbed his arm.
“Neef,” his uncle said, his warm and friendly voice making Noah feel awful.
“General Forrest,” he replied, saluting him.
“Oh, stop all that.” His uncle pulled him over to stand on the side, out of the flow of the foot traffic. “We’re the only family each of us has left. I think we deserve a little familiarity, don’t you?”
