The air smelled of smoke, melting plastic, burning rubber, the rich tang of blazing diesel, and a powerful loamy warmth as the surrounding ground was scorched black. But it was the stench of roasting flesh he would remember forever.
Goyo looked like he should be dead. Maybe he would be soon. Dean’s shock held his fury at bay, but he wasn’t sure the same could be said of Emma and Wren.
Where the fuck did he get that strength? Dean wondered again. It had seemed unreal, watching Bethan and Alile drag their bloodied friend from the blazing cab, seeing him stand and push them away, his clothes smouldering as he staggered to Lanna’s body, picked her up, and then stumbled back to heave her into the conflagration.
Why did none of us stop him? Lanna had been lithe, thin, and Goyo was undoubtedly a strong, wiry man. But it had seemed to happen so quickly. Shock could do that, Dean knew, compress time so that an event felt like a single moment, not a series of connected incidents.
This all felt like a terrible nightmare.
Wren moved first. He stepped in and punched Goyo, one solid strike at his bleeding face that dropped him like a shattered mannequin. He held his fist ready to punch again, hesitated, stepped back.
Dean looked at the burning vehicles. Flames roared, metal distorted, plastics thudded and cracked. A tyre burst, a convulsive boom that sent a breath through the flames, setting them dancing to another song.
He breathed in through his mouth, not wanting to smell, but he tasted the cooking flesh instead. He looked once again at Lanna’s body. Goyo’s throw had been strong, and she’d landed on the Discovery’s bonnet where it was crumpled against the Stallion, before sliding down partly out of sight on the other side. She was just a vague shape now, spitting and sizzling as flames scorched deep. He wondered if he would only ever remember her like this, a dreadful sight scorched forever onto his brain, into his memory.
Wren stepped forward again to kick the downed man.
Dean reached for his arm, grabbed it. “Wren, step back.”
“Dean?” Emma said, aghast.
“She’s gone,” he said, raising his voice over the flames. “She was gone when she came out of the caves. The crack in her skull. And she died lying on the ground. You… you saw that, right? You saw what I saw?”
“We’ve got to get further away,” Alile said. She and Bethan half-lifted Goyo. He struggled to stand, groggy from Wren’s punch. Dean had seen him punch someone once before, two men in a bar fight in Chile. Teeth and bloodied spittle had speckled the floor: walking away, Wren said he’d given them about forty per cent. It was amazing the old guy was still awake.
They moved away from the conflagration. Wren backed up, still focused on Goyo.
“You don’t want to hit him too?” he asked Dean. “After he did that to Lanna?”
“I know why he did it,” Bethan said.
“Because he’s a fucking nut-job!” Emma shouted. “And you two bastards came here with him, helped him!”
“We had no idea what he was going to do!” Alile said.
Dean could see the truth of that in her face, hear it in her voice. One glance at Bethan was enough to convince him. She appeared shocked and hollowed out. She hadn’t even looked like that after that time at the fracking site. He wanted to go to her, then blinked the idea away. That time was past.
“But it’s all your fault,” Alile said. “Going down there, doing what you did. Your fault!”
“It’s your friend who just fucking shot and burned someone!” Wren shouted.
“Someone you’d all left down in the caves for an hour!” Bethan said. “Explain that, eh?” She looked between Wren and Emma, then her eyes settled on Dean. “Explain that.”
“So why?” Dean asked. “Why did Goyo just shoot my dead friend and try to kill himself?”
“He didn’t try to kill himself,” Bethan said. She breathed hard, helping Alile half-drag, half-carry the injured man between them. Wren had stepped away and walked on ahead after Emma. Dean didn’t think that meant the danger from him was over.
“Looked like that to me,” Dean said.
“He wanted to disable both vehicles, and then…” Bethan trailed off and looked ahead at where Emma and Wren had stopped by a scatter of large boulders. Emma sat back on one, shaking her head at something Wren said to her.
“And then see it through?” Dean asked. “What did that mean exactly?”
“Dunno,” Bethan said. She and Alile set Goyo down against a rock. His breathing was uneven, filled with pain, and he looked down at his feet, as if concentrating hard on not puking or passing out. “Maybe we’re all lucky he lost the gun in there,” Dean said, nodding at the wrecked Discovery. Goyo didn’t raise his head, but Dean got the impression he was listening, not quite as groggy as he was making out.
Dean saw something in Wren’s face that brought him up short. Anger, yes, but more than that. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen the big man looking afraid.
“What’s happening?” Wren asked Bethan. “What does he know?”
“Right,” Emma said. “What does he think we’ve been exposed to?”
“What exactly did you see?” Bethan asked, turning the question back on Emma. “I mean, the truth. The actual thing that scared you all so shitless you ran and left your friend behind?” She looked at Dean as she spoke.
“Even back in the cave, she was changed,” Dean said. “She… wasn’t herself anymore.” He expected Wren and Emma to counter him, but their silence was an agreement. They’d all seen it, and with what had happened her reappearance and strange actions took on new meaning.
“There was something alive down there,” Wren said.
“What alive?” Alile shouted. “Just be straight!”
“I don’t know!” Wren shouted back.
“Fuck’s sake!” Bethan said. She glared at Dean.
“Something moved,” Dean said. “One of those old bodies, thousands of years old and mummified down there. It moved, but no, it wasn’t alive. It can’t have been.”
“Heat from our thermal guns,” Emma said. “That’s all it was. Panicked you, Wren, and you ran and the panic spread and—”
“I don’t… fucking… panic,” Wren said, and Dean had never heard him using that tone with Emma before. “I saw it move. It wasn’t just shifting ’cos we’d heated it up. There was…” He frowned, shook his head.
“Purpose,” Dean said softly, remembering.
“In a dead fucking body?” Emma asked.
“Lanna moved too,” Wren said, quieter now. “After she’d died and we covered her, and before he…” He nodded at Goyo, still slumped against the rock. “She moved.”
Something exploded in the blazing vehicles. Glass shattered outwards, and a limb of fire and sparks arced an object out across the landscape. Whatever it was spat and sizzled in the grass, harsh smoke swirling in the breeze caused by the conflagration.
“I think Goyo believes she’d been exposed to some sort of infection,” Bethan said. “It’s something he’s been looking for, something that terrifies him.”
“Like Broughton Haze?” Dean asked.
“Maybe worse than that,” Bethan said. She seemed about to elaborate, but then she shook her head instead.
Bethan stood between her friends, and Dean with his. She’d tucked Wren’s gun into her waistband after knocking it from his hands. Dean figured Wren could have easily wrestled it back, but the shock of all this was settling on him as well as the rest of them.
“What sort of disease?” Wren asked. That fear again, shimmering just behind his eyes. Dean felt it too. It smelled of smoke and roasting flesh. It looked like Lanna’s eyes as she’d emerged from that cave and came for them.
“Old,” Goyo croaked. He sat up, shivering.
“Old,” Emma said. “That’s it?”
“I… don’t know,” Goyo said. “But something bad. Unknown, maybe.”
“You don’t know? You’ve done all this…” She gestured at the burning vehicles, their situation. “…on the strength of that?”
Goyo only shook his head, coughing.
“We need to treat these wounds,” Alile said.
“Fuck his wounds,” Wren said. “He needs to tell us what he knows.”
“That’s it,” Bethan said. “He doesn’t know much. But he’s seen stuff, learned enough over the years to convince him that there are old diseases lying around just waiting for us.”
“And the world’s changing,” Alile said.
“Right,” Bethan said. “And you assholes are pushing that change, trying to capitalise on it. It’s places like this that hold the most threat.”
“We’ve got to go,” Alile said. “Our medical kit was in the Discovery. Goyo needs—”
“We should stay here for a few days, make sure no one else is infected,” Bethan said.
“We can’t stay,” Wren said.
“Why not?” Bethan asked.
“Because your prick friend destroyed our camping gear, comms, most of our food and water, spare clothing—” Emma shouted.
“Okay, okay.”
“Where’s yours, Bethan?” Dean asked.
She blinked. She didn’t need to say. Dean looked past his old friend at the burning vehicles. Nothing could be salvaged from there. The fuel had gone up and the fire was entrenched now, consuming the upholstery and plastics, the clothing and equipment. Everything they needed to survive.
“This place is fucking desolate!” Emma said. “The nearest community is Joyce Sound, and that’s over thirty miles away. We’ll have to hike it.”
“No!” Goyo snapped. He tried to stand, pushing himself half-upright against the rock. He was shivering with shock, his eyes wide, but his voice was strong. “We can’t go back. We have to stay here like Bethan says. Make sure no one else is infected.”
“I’m not sitting here and dying just on the off chance,” Wren said.
“Couple of our backpacks survived,” Emma said. “Got some ration bars, bit of water, some tools and foil blankets. I’m for walking.”
“Me too,” Wren said. “Live off the land.”
“Thirty miles across this landscape?” Bethan asked. “Geysers, sinkholes, quicksand, polar bears, toxic clouds coming up out of the melting ground … we’ll be dead in ten.”
“Who says you’re coming with us?” Emma snapped.
“And we’ll be dead sooner, if Goyo has his way,” Dean said. “Come on, Bethan, Wren’s right. We can’t stay here and wait to die, just on the off chance. The nights are cold out here. The land is dangerous, unpredictable. Why’d you think we came here in the Stallion?”
“Because you can afford to,” Bethan said.
“Thirty miles across this terrain will take us three days minimum,” Emma said. “Lanna can’t have been exposed to anything for more than a couple of hours before… whatever that was that happened. If there is an infection of some sort, it has a short incubation. If any of us has what you think she might’ve had, we’ll know soon enough.”
“And then what?” Bethan asked.
Emma shrugged.
“We’ll deal with that if it happens,” Dean said. “One step at a time.”
“Really, Dean?” she snapped. “You’ll deal with it, will you? All on your own? Seems to me you need someone to hold your hand when you’re—“
“Let’s not forget the crazy old bastard was screaming about seeing it through!” Wren shouted. “Who knows what they’ll try, Emma? I don’t trust ’em.”
“You were going to shoot him,” Bethan said. “Before I, you know, took your gun off you.”
“He shot Lanna,” Wren said.
“She was already dead. You told us that.”
Emma glanced at Wren but added nothing.
“I promise I won’t cut your throat while you sleep,” Bethan said.
“Right,” Emma said. “From what Dean’s told us, you kill people when they’re awake.”
Bethan glared at Dean. Her gaze was harsh and hard, knives pressed against his skin. He couldn’t remember exactly what he’d told his team about his time with Bethan, nor how much detail he’d revealed, but he shouldn’t have been surprised that Emma remembered. It wasn’t something anyone could easily forget. He couldn’t, and it was why he and his best friend hadn’t talked in over six years.
“We’re going,” Emma said. “Wren? Dean?”
“Yeah,” Wren said.
Dean nodded.
Bethan and Alile glanced at each other, and Dean couldn’t tell what they’d decided. He guessed he’d find out soon enough, whatever it was. He wanted to defuse the loaded situation, if he could.
“Can we salvage anything from there?” he asked, nodding towards the blazing vehicles. He knew the answer even as he spoke. They all did. Goyo’s actions had left them with the clothes they stood in, and a few tools and other items in the rucksacks they’d taken down into the caverns.
“You, me and Wren,” Emma said to Dean. “Three days. Like Wren said, we can live off the land.”
“Oh, and I’m sure you know how to do that,” Bethan said.
Dean remembered what they’d seen of this changing, unwelcoming place during their journey here inside the Stallion, and he imagined that living off the land would be a big ask.
“I used to,” he said.
“You know which plants to eat, and those that’ll kill you?” Alile asked. “You know the first signs of methane sinkholes? What to do when confronted by a polar bear?”
“I’ll work it out,” Wren said.
“Oh, ’cos you’re a big strong jock?”
Wren bristled, took a step forward.
“We’ll be fine!” Dean said. He nodded at Goyo. “It’s you guys I worry about.”
“Oh, really?” Bethan asked. “Well don’t. We’re coming with you.”
“Er, nope,” Emma said.
“Really?”
Silence. Dean looked back and forth between Bethan and Emma. Then he said, “She’s right, Emma. Her friend is, too. Safety in numbers. We should stick together.”
“First sign of any of us falling ill, we stop,” Bethan said.
“Whatever.” Emma nodded at Goyo. “You think he’ll come with us?”
“More than happy if he stayed,” Wren said.
Bethan walked a few steps back towards the burning vehicles, perhaps considering everything they’d lost inside. Dean followed her, feeling Emma’s and Wren’s eyes on his back.
“What sort of disease, Bethan?” he asked quietly.
“Don’t think even he knows. But we have to assume it’s something terrible. Don’t we?”
“He shot her. Burned her. I can … I can smell…”
Dean remembered making love with Lanna the night before, tying the rope around the rock with her, crawling after her into the caves. He remembered her ready smile and cutting wit, and the distracted way she sometimes looked at him that had always, always kept him guessing. Now he’d never know anything for sure.
“I really am sorry about your friend,” Bethan said.
“Yeah. Guessed.” She’d always been able to see through him, that’s what had made them such good friends. The fact that she still could now drove a blade into his heart. He guessed not talking didn’t necessarily break that bond.
“Bethan—” he said, but she cut him off.
“We’ve lost too much today to talk about what’s past,” she said. “Let’s just think about how fucked we are in the here and now.”
They returned to their people, separately, and assessed whatever belongings they had left. Lanna’s backpack was somewhere down in the caves, and Wren’s had been run over and crushed when Goyo rammed the Stallion, but Dean’s and Emma’s were whole. They were high-tech packs designed for close-quarters caving and short-term survival, and expensive though they were, he realised they would be of limited use for a thirty-mile hike. There were energy bars and lightweight ultra-warm blankets, first aid and basic tool kits, true. But the bulk of each pack was taken up with surveying equipment and short-distance communications kits, a small, pressurised oxygen bottle and mask, thin nylon ropes, and storage and analysis kit for the stuff they’d come here to find. The idea was that as soon as they were in the cave and digging stuff out, their packs could begin the analysis process to see if where they were was of financial significance.
Still, there was food enough to last them for several days, rationed well. Three of them at least. If they shared with Bethan and her group, it might be just two days’ worth. And those days would be hard work, traversing a constantly changing, treacherous, geologically active landscape. They needed strength, endurance, focus, and the ability to keep their wits about them.
More troubling, most of their water supplies were now hissing away to steam as the Stallion burned.
“So what you got?” Dean called over to Bethan. She glanced up, looked at him and then past him at Wren and Emma.
“Everything we had was in the Discovery,” she said.
“What’s ours is ours,” Emma said.
“Makes for a happy marriage,” Bethan said.
“What about him?” Dean asked, nodding at Goyo. Alile was still tending him, and she heard the question.
“He’s fine,” she said.
“Fine?”
“His nose is broken and he’s bruised his chest, and he’s got some superficial burns. But he’s the strongest man I know,” Alile said. “He’ll be okay.” Dean saw Alile and Bethan exchange a glance, but he didn’t push it. He was with Wren on this one—he’d be happy if Goyo decided to stay behind.
“Has he even decided to come with us?” Dean asked.
“Plenty of time,” Goyo said. “We’ve got to walk, and that’s plenty of time for any infection to show.”
“And if it does?” Emma asked. “You’re going to kill us all?”
Goyo smiled and shook his head, groaning in pain.
“Whatever, just keep your fucking distance from me and my people,” Emma said. “Let’s move out.”