Vagabonds

Chapter Forty-Seven: Horror Movie

The first thing Eliza noticed was the smell. The air inside the first-floor apartment was rotten, thick and pungent with unwashed dishes, food going bad, sweaty clothes. She lifted a hand to cover her nose as she climbed over a pile of overturned things in the middle of what used to be a living room. The table was on its side, DVD's were everywhere, and the flat-screen television had a wide slice down the middle, as if someone had taken a knife to it.

"What the hell...?" Eliza whispered.

"Oh my god, Martin!"

Before anyone could stop her, Tori had lunged across the room. Eliza surged after her, ready for anything.

Except what she found lying by the couch.

Martin Bent looked terrifying. He was pale, sweating, shivering on the ground where he'd toppled off the plushy cushions. His eyes were wide and wild as they darted between his sister and the two shadows looming behind her.

"Martin? Martin, are you okay?"

"He's clearly not okay," Eliza said, putting out an arm to keep Joe back. But she couldn't keep Joe from seeing.

Is this what the virus leads to? Eliza thought hopelessly.

Tori was sobbing, her hands on her brother's face.

"Martin, please, tell me what to do?"

"Go away, Mom. Go away, you're not real."

The words were muttered so low that Tori didn't hear them over her desperate sobs. But Eliza did.

"Tori..."

"Come on, Eliza, we have to get him to the hospital —"

Suddenly, Martin shouted, "Go away!"

And then Tori was airborne, flying across the room and smashing into a bookshelf. Heavy instruction manuals and encyclopedias rained down on her as she curled into a ball, but Eliza was powerless to help because Martin Bent was on his feet, advancing on them with barred teeth.

"You're not real," he growled, his eyes both sharp and unseeing, his fingers curved into claws. Eliza shoved Joe behind her, mind whirring into overdrive as she tried to think of a way out of this. Maybe Joe could counter this man's strength, but not without getting hurt. And they couldn't afford another injury, not now when they had to —

Without warning, Martin's eyes rolled back in his head. He collapsed to the floor with a muffled thump.

"What happened?" Joe asked, his voice taut with the unspoken knowledge that his body was swarming with the same agent that had turned Martin Bent into this.

Eliza was already moving, flipping the limp soldier over near the coffee table.

"Joe, find me some rope."

"Eliza..."

"Not now, Tori."

But glancing up, Eliza couldn't help the flush of shame and pity. A massive bruise was already spreading over Tori's cheek where a book had hit her. Worse were her eyes, bloodshot and puffy and frantic. Tori wrapped pale arms around her torso, rocking back and forth as Joe handed Eliza a game controller with a long wire.

"Best I could find," he said.

Eliza began to tie Martin's hands to the coffee table, wrapping the wire around his hot wrists as many times as she could, trying not to think about how feverish he felt.

"It's for his own good," Eliza said as she worked. "This way he won't hurt himself while we're gone."

Tori hiccupped. Panic swarmed Eliza's brain as she thought about how much had already gone wrong. But they had to focus. They had to get to Fitzgerald Base.

They had to save the Vagabonds.

"Tori," Eliza said, trying to keep her voice calm. "Can you find Joe a uniform?"

It took the other girl so long to respond that Eliza had to swallow the urge to shout. With every second that passed, Eliza could imagine the police cars shrieking towards them and the handcuffs snapping around their wrists.

Finally, Tori shook herself.

"They're in here," she said, stepping over the pile of books and to a side-closet.

Eliza kept her attention on Martin as Tori yanked out pants and jackets, throwing them haphazardly at Joe. Thankfully, he didn't need to be told twice, quickly stripping down to his boxers and pulling on the various pieces of uniform. Everything was too large on his lean frame, but it would be enough.

It had to be.

"I feel ridiculous," Joe said, tugging at the ID tag Tori had found on a side-table.

Eliza's grin was strained but sincere.

"You don't look ridiculous."

It was true. Even ill-fitting, the khaki made Joe look intimidating. Official. Handsome even.

"Here," Tori said, interrupting Eliza's thoughts as she emerged from the closet. Something glinted in her hand as she offered it to Joe.

A gun.

"Oh no," Joe said, backing away. "No, no, no."

"You have to, it's part of the uniform."

"I'm too dangerous. I might hurt someone."

Tori lifted one eyebrow, looking almost like herself. "That's kind of the point."

"It's okay," Eliza said, putting a hand on Joe's forearm and accepting the gun herself. She slid it into the holster on her friend's belt. "I trust you."

It took everything Eliza had not to glance at the figure on the floor, the young man who'd become so dangerous that they had to leave him tied to his own coffee table. But when Joe met her eyes, she knew he was thinking about it too.

How long did he have before he was like that?

There was a metallic crash and a curse as Tori continued to rummage through the closet, toppling back out with her arms overflowing with weapons. Revolvers and pistols threatened to spill all over the floor. A hysterical half-laugh burst out of Eliza.

"Tori?" she said in a choked voice.

"No way am I going in there unarmed," Tori said as she began to tuck the guns into her skirt's waistband.

Eliza swallowed. Nodded. And then held out her hand.

"Me neither," she said, accepting a pistol and praying she wouldn't have to use it.

"Hey," Joe said, making them both swing around. "Isn't that a Fitzgerald Jeep?"

All three of them clustered by the back window, peering into Martin Bent's driveway. Sure enough, a green-painted vehicle was pulled haphazardly up beside the neighbor's begonias.

Eliza, still gripping the pistol, cast around the apartment, stepping over Tori's brother.

She found the keys on the coffee table. 

"Well guys, guess it's time for an upgrade," she said, baring her teeth in what might almost be called a smile, jingling the keys with her free hand.