Infestation by Jamie Thornton

Author:Jamie Thornton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Igneous Books

19

Sergeant Bennings stood with his legs hip-width apart and his hands behind his back. A clear plastic shield covered his face and his hands were gloved. His eyes skated past me and settled on Dylan. I let out a silent breath of relief. I feared he would recognize me as the one who had killed his soldier on the stage.

“Hello, Dylan,” Sergeant Bennings said, nodding in his direction. “You may not believe it, but I’m glad to see you alive. Infected or not.”

“I can’t say the same,” Dylan responded.

Ricker stepped off the ramp with Maibe leaning against him. When she saw Sergeant Bennings she stopped and became rigid.

“I know him.” She touched Ricker’s shoulder. “That’s Alden.” Her face was blank yet focused on Sergeant Bennings.

It gave me the chills watching her act out the memory-rush right there in front of me. We’d been inside the fairgrounds with our stack of blankets, figuring out a way into the warehouse.

Sergeant Bennings froze. “How do you know about my son?”

“We went to school together.”

He thought she was answering his question but I knew it was part of the memory-rush.

“He’s alive and untainted. He won’t be allowed to have anything to do with you.”

Maibe opened her mouth. Ricker looked at me with wild eyes. I stomped on her foot.

“Ow!” Her face cleared. She blinked and looked at me. “Why did you do that?”

“Shut up,” I said.

“You’ll find things run a little different here,” Sergeant Bennings said. He was talking to all of us but stared at Maibe like she was an insect. “More strict in some ways, more relaxed in others. If it gives you any comfort, I’m not the one in charge. They didn’t like how I ran the fairgrounds.”

“How it fell apart under your command?” Dylan said.

Sergeant Bennings finally looked away from Maibe. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He reached for the stick at his waist.

“Sir, what about my wife?” Laurel left the line and moved to within feet of Sergeant Bennings. Guards leapt forward. The click of tasers went off. Laurel screamed and bounced onto the ground. The rest of us jumped away, but then suddenly we were all surrounded with clicking shock sticks.

Kern dropped to the ground. Dust puffed up. “Wake up, Laurel. Wake up. Come on!”

“He’ll be fine,” Sergeant Bennings said. He wiped some imaginary dust from his right shoulder. “The council has clearly become too lax here. Please remember that infected are not allowed to stand within six feet of any uninfected person, or said infected person risks shock and possible execution. Now—” He motioned for the guards to step back.

“We did as ordered. There’s no need for this,” Kern said.

“Yes, you’re right,” Sergeant Bennings said. “You will be rewarded. Now—”

He surveyed the rest of us. His eyes rested on me for a moment and then slid on. Maibe vomited spindly translucent trails of saliva onto the ground.

“—please follow me.”

“She needs medicine.”

Sergeant Bennings stopped and looked at Ricker and then at Maibe. “She’ll get it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.