The Black Hole (The Deep Black Book 5) by James David Victor

Author:James David Victor [Victor, James David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fairfield Publishing
Published: 2019-12-02T22:00:00+00:00

11

Memories plagued Hep that night. He woke unrested, a fluttering in his chest that made him fear he was having a heart attack. He checked his vitals as he sat at his desk. Blood pressure normal, the computer said. Heart rate normal. Oxygen levels normal.

A picture of health.

He pressed his palms into his eyes hoping to scrub the sight of the last day from his vision. The sight of his friend and officer, so distraught, so changed. He needed to understand what had happened to Sig. What was happening. Maintaining his quarantine, they moved him to the sickbay for continued observation. Hep monitored the feeds from his cabin after the docs kicked him out and threatened to drug him in order to force sleep.

But it was the memories that haunted him. One memory in particular. A dog he and Wilco took in after a few months on the street. Hep had been insistent on keeping the mutt, childishly so. He still wasn’t attuned to the harshness of their new reality, the day-to-day brutality it took to survive. Wilco, it seemed, was born with that instinct. Hep wasn’t sure he’d ever developed it.

A week into caring for the dog, who they’d never bothered to name, it got sick. Alternating between eating nothing and eating trash didn’t agree with the creature. Hep had begun dividing what little fresh food and water they were able to scrape together and giving a portion to the dog. Wilco was furious when he found out. He kicked Hep’s wrist, knocking the hunk of bread out of his hand as he tried to feed the dog.

“Not damn likely.” Wilco picked up the bread and shoved it in his mouth. “The mutt ain’t keeping us alive. I am. If you’re stupid enough to give away your food, then it’s going in my mouth.”

“He’s starving.”

“So are we.” The fire in Wilco’s eyes had always been terrifying but never more so than those days when survival was a daily uncertainty.

“Okay, I won’t feed him no more. He can scrounge for himself same as us.”

“No.” The finality in Wilco’s voice confused Hep. “If he’s scrounging around us, that’s still food he’s taking out of our mouths. Mutt’s gotta go.”

“Go where? He’s got nowhere to go. Like us.”

Without a word, and before Hep could object, Wilco was on top of the dog. His arm wrapped around the dog’s neck. The creature barely resisted.

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