Atomic Horrors by Tim Curran

Author:Tim Curran [Curran, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Weird House Press
Published: 2023-11-24T00:00:00+00:00

Breakpoint.

That’s what Regina called it. In that, something was happening or about to happen. She’d been watching Shaya carefully these past few days, mothering her, studying her symptoms, rarely sleeping. About seven that night, she announced that Shaya’s temperature was pegging at 105°. It was a bad sign.

“She’s still fighting it, whatever it is,” Regina told Rico. “And I don’t think she’s winning.”

Shaya did not look good at all. She was drowning in her own sour-smelling sweat, shaking violently and chattering her teeth. Now and again, her face twisted up in a grimace of pain and her head would thrash side to side.

“Is there anything we can do?” Rico asked.

“We have to get that temp down. It goes much higher and she’s going to die.” Regina thought it over. “Since an ice bath is out of the question, we’ll do the next best thing.”

She grabbed two bottles of rubbing alcohol from the storage room. They stripped Shaya and gave her a rubdown with the alcohol by candlelight until her temp went down two degrees. Her skin felt unpleasantly oily and hot.

“She’s okay for now, I guess. We’ll do it again in a few hours.”

But Rico did not believe she was okay.

It had little to do with the way she shivered or the spasms that made her jerk and twitch. No, this was something else—she looked different. Something had altered. Then he realized what it was: her face had changed. She’d always had a very good face with high cheekbones and a prominent aquiline nose, a strong jawline … but now it was as if her face was sinking into itself, the way the faces of corpses sometimes did when the facial muscles relaxed in death.

He didn’t call Regina’s attention to it.

Not just then.

She was reclined in her chair, eyes closed. She wasn’t sleeping. He could see her eyes shifting beneath the lids. But he didn’t want to disturb her; she needed whatever rest she could get. He walked over to one of the boarded windows. The natives were getting restless out there. They had lit bonfires in the street. Dozens of them were rushing about, shrieking and fighting. They had several well-bloodied captives across the street. Several crazies were prodding them with hot sticks from one of the fires.

Rico sighed.

When the sun came up, they’d slink back to their dens. But for now, they were active and dangerous. If they ever learned where Shaya’s people were hiding, they’d never stop until the door was bashed down.

He sat in his chair, waiting. Even he wasn’t sure what for. He must have dozed, because some ninety minutes later Regina was shaking him.

“Something weird’s happening,” she said.

He saw it himself: the change in Shaya’s face was morbidly apparent. From her forehead to her chin, her face was flaccid as if there was no skull beneath it. It looked like her flesh had gone to gray putty. When Regina touched it with a gloved hand, ripples ran through it like it was made of pudding.

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