#Inktober2019 - Day 11, 'Snow'

As originally posted at https://archiveofourown.org/works/20854958/chapters/49573574

If anything, the blood is getting thicker.

I scowl as I squat next to the thick red smear, as bright against the crisp white of the snow as strawberries atop fresh cream. My stomach twinges in sympathy at the comparison, the rumbling as loud as the cramping in my guts is painful. What I’d give to have a proper eton mess again! I didn’t enjoy my time in Britain much and I’m not looking forward to going back, but whatever else I could say about its people, they know how to make a proper dessert.

The thought is all the more appealing after almost half a decade of freeze-dried ration packs and caffeine tablets, especially since we’re now even rationing those. For all I struggle to keep them down, I know that once they’re gone, I’m going to start missing them. I’m really not looking forward to eating the enemy.

God, I miss fruit.

I force the thoughts of food from my head, trying to will my growling stomach into silence, and stand. After the violence of the fight, the near-silence of the dusky woods is oppressive, thick banks of snow deadening all sound and lending an eerie quality to the blizzard which continues to flutter down around us, already burying the chitinous bodies of our attackers. Even my partner’s footsteps are almost inaudible, the crunch of ice beneath her boots somehow distant and indistinct as she approaches.

“Captain Michaels,” her voice is a whisper, less substantial than the cloud of breath which accompanies it into the freezing air. “Dawes and Picket still reporting no movement and nothing on thermals back at the farmhouse.” She pauses a moment, shrugs her cradled rifle toward the bloody smear on the ground which leads further into the trees. “Is that where he went?”

“Your perception never fails to amaze, Magpie.” I can’t keep the irritation out of my voice, long past tired of her constant attempts to prove herself. “Now tell me what’s wrong with this picture.”

I don’t look at her, already knowing she’ll be pulling that face she makes whenever she wants you to know that she’s pretending not to be hurt by something you’ve said. It takes her a few moments of peering at the trail before she answers, a tone of genuine surprise in her words. “Wait… the blood’s getting thicker. Why would he be bleeding more as he went?”

“That, Magpie, is a very good question.” I thumb the flashlight on the side of my rifle’s barrel into life, sweep it over the forest to make sure there’s no glinting of shells or dark eyes waiting in ambush. Satisfied, I raise a finger to my ear, hold down the transmit button there, and begin to speak. “Picket, we may have one KIA here, we’re moving into the treeline to check now. May as well get your tools ready, over.”

“Copy, captain.” Picket’s voice is flecked with static, and I sigh, knowing that he’s forgotten to charge his batteries again. “Are you and Magpie alright, over?”

“We’re fine. I want thermals on our location until we’re back out, call us if you see movement. Michaels out.”

I let go of the headset, thumb my rifle to automatic, and raise it to my shoulder as I hunch forward and start to creep into the forest. A moment later, I see Magpie’s light blink into life as well, sweeping left to right as she covers the sides and occasionally flickering away fully as she checks the rear. I keep my own rifle trained carefully on the bloody path ahead as I follow it, helmet still hanging loosely at my side to keep my hearing clear.

In the end, it isn’t a long trail. I drop to one knee and raise a clenched fist into the air, cursing inwardly and furiously as Magpie doesn’t pay attention and ends up walking straight into my arm, whipping the barrel of her gun into the side of my head in panic.

I hold the gesture a moment longer than is necessary, just enough to master my anger, before I lower my hand to point at the outstretched leg by the tree ahead, already beginning to vanish beneath the snow. I wait for her to squat and acknowledge, before giving the order to circle around to the other side, and start moving toward the figure.

Though the tree’s branches have kept the worst of the snow away from its underside, where the dead leaves of autumn form a red and brown blanket which is almost enough to hide the expanding pool of dark blood around Abraham. As he raises his head in response to the light, I can see immediately that although his eyes are yellowing and sickly, his pupils aren’t dilating in response. He keeps one hand raised to his breast, feebly trying to keep pressure on the wound there, while the other lies slumped on the ground, next to his discarded weapon. I doubt he’d have enough strength left to pick it up, but I keep my own trained firmly on his forehead regardless.

Magpie isn’t so careful. As soon as she catches sight of Abraham she yelps in alarm, slinging her weapon across her shoulder and scrabbling for the first aid kit at her waist.

I sigh at her idiocy before I speak. “Don’t bother.”

Her faced is shocked as she turns toward me. “Why the hell not?”

“Because he’s one of them.”

Magpie continues to stare at me for a moment, before glancing back at the other, chewing her lip as she’s caught between her need to save him and the fear of disobeying the order. I turn back to Abraham, my voice as cool as the air as I spit the single word at him.

“Traitor.”

He coughs before he replies, dribbling dark, stinking liquid down down his chin and into the scraps of his beard. “Treason is a choice, cap. I didn’t choose for this to happen.”

“You chose to hide it.”

“Hide what?” Magpie’s voice is as panicked as it is confused now as she steps back from both of us, cradling her rifle once again. “Abraham, come on, you’re in shock…”

“Show her.” I know he’ll obey the order; even now, there’s enough of him left to do that much. He coughs again, bringing up more of the inky mucus and slime, before he slowly peels away his shirt and unstraps the punctured armour-vest. I can hear Magpie gasp as the mass below is revealed, accompanied by a stink every bit as foul as the corruption it’s been pumping into his blood.

It’s almost like a lamprey, though with half a dozen heads, all buried into the flesh of his ribcage save for one which twitches as it pours out a stream of bright red blood through a half-severed neck and an open maw.

“How long?”

“About a month. I thought it was just muscle fatigue at first, and by the time it broke the skin two weeks ago…”

“Two weeks. Two weeks you’ve known and put us all at risk. You’re every bit as disgusting as that thing.”

“I’m no traitor, cap.” His voice is a wheeze now, his skin already beginning to blacken and harden as the infestation realises that it can no longer hide. “What would you have done?”

“I’d have been more careful to start with.”

I stand up and step back, unholstering my heavy pistol with one hand as I reach for my full-face helmet with the other. Magpie is still staring at Abraham in horror as I push it down over my head, feeling the seals click into place, and I actually have to tell her to put her own back on before she snaps out of her reverie.

“I… captain, no, come on! There must be something we can do!”

“Helmet on.” I repeat the command once, raise the pistol. “You’ve got five seconds and if you get contaminated, you’re next.”

She stumbles back in alarm, fumbling for her helm immediately. Abraham sighs, leans back and closes his eyes. “It’s all right, Magpie. I’ve known this was coming.”

I give her an extra couple of seconds to finish suiting up, waiting for the click of her environmental seals, before I pull the trigger. Amidst the silence of the blizzard and the confined space of the trees, even through the padding of my suit the noise feels deafening, and even more so when I lower it a moment later and fire into the writhing creature in his abdomen.

I glance over my hands and weapon before I make the pistol safe and holster it, nodding with approval: at the very least, the calibre of the round means that most of the debris has gone through the exit wounds, with no obvious pieces of tainted flesh sticking to my armour. At my side, Magpie’s shoulder slump, and she shakes her head as she starts following the blood trail back toward the edge of the forest. I tap my wrist pad, open the channel to Picket once more, and speak calmly as I turn to follow her.

“Picket, one KIA confirmed, we’re on our way back now. Double up on rations tonight, we’ve got less mouths to feed.”