He breathed out his frustration and waited, knowing that Captain Yang was a man who often shot the messenger. He grimaced as he felt his stomach roil again, and then felt the pain drop lower, to force pressure on his bowels. He needed to shit… now.
Liu looked around quickly. The rest of the squad was still a few hundred feet back — he had time. There were a few small places close to the cave walls and he strode into one, already loosening his belt. He dug a small hole in the dark sand, switched off his light and squatted over it.
There was no explosive gas as he expected, but instead a thick stream that fell heavily to the sand. As well, there was little stink, more just an odor he had experienced once when he had been on his father’s farm. His father had slaughtered a pig, and the air had filled with a hot, coppery, offal smell.
His anus itched madly afterwards, and as he had no paper, he had no choice but to pull his pants back up, grimacing at the unpleasant wetness between his cheeks.
He looked back down the cave, and only just made out the glow of the approaching group. They’d be around the bend soon. Liu tightened his belt, his gut feeling slightly better, and went to step away when a tiny sound caused him to pause. A sticky wetness, a movement like dying fish flip-flopping in a puddle. He turned back, knowing where the sound was coming from, and with a rising sense of fear, he lifted his flashlight and flicked it on, pointing it down at where he had moved his bowels.
“Ah no, no, no.” Liu backed up, feeling his stomach contents threaten to explode up and over his lips. The brown red mush puddle was a mass of glossy black threads, some no thicker than hair, but others pencil thick. The things were shiny, eyeless, but coiling and twisting, sliding through his feces as if searching for the warm flesh that they had just been expelled from.
“Eeyaa!” He looked back down the cave tunnel and saw the outline of his squad now appearing. His first instinct was to tell his leader, Captain Yang, but he remembered how he had dealt with Han Biao. Infected, was all Yang said, treating the man like a dog, and calmly putting a bullet in his brain.
His throat tickled now, and the crawling coiled within him from the back of his nose and inner ears right down to feet. Infected, infected, infected.
He made a soft mewling in his throat, knowing that he now had limited choices. Getting out was not his concern anymore, but all his life he had abided by a code of honor. He would not go out like a dog.
He hated them, then. The things inside him that had invaded his body and had won the battle without him even knowing there was a fight. Anger and frustration energized him. He wanted to kill them all… and he would.
He dropped his pack, quickly searching for the small tin of cooking kerosene. He found it, and then fumbled again in his kit, finding his second item. He straightened.
Liu crushed his eyes shut, held an image of his parents standing there, waving, proud of him for attaining his rank in the Special Forces.
No, he would not die like a dog. He would die like a true soldier. He held the image of his parents as he unscrewed the tin’s lid, and in a single motion, brought it to his lips and drained the liquid.
He grimaced as the scalding chemical made its way down his throat and into his belly, stripping the lining as it went. Before he lost his nerve, he opened his mouth, held the lighter to his lips and spun the wheel.
“Stay back.” Yang held up a hand. His men stopped their forward rush immediately. All eyes were on the bucking body, flames shooting from the wide-open mouth and nose. The orange and blue tongues had leaked down over the neck and across the head, and the short-cropped hair of Liu Yandong had singed away, adding to the oily smoke rising to collect under the cave ceiling.
Yang walked forward alone, his flashlight in one hand and revolver in the other. He saw the puddle of squirming excrement, and also the frying worms that exited the dead man’s mouth to curl up on the dark sand.
He grunted and holstered his weapon. He clicked his fingers and pointed at two of his soldiers. “Bury that, it will suffocate us if it burns much more.” He half turned and then looked back.
The men rushed forward to kick the black sand over the body, extinguishing the flames within a dark mound. Yang sauntered towards the cave wall of tumbled boulders, Liu Yandong already forgotten. He put his hands on his hips, surveying the blockage, before turning.
“Professor.”
“That man,” — Shenjung looked panicked — “those men, something infected them, from the water. It must be avoided.”
“And how do we do that? Fly across it?” Yang’s gaze turned quizzical. “Are you sick?”
“Huh? I am not,” Shenjung replied, feeling his torso.
Yang shrugged. “No, you’re not, and neither am I. Han Biao died because his wounds got infected. Liu, because he drank from the stream, when he was warned not to.”
“Liu committed suicide. Horrible.”
“Horrible?” Yang exhaled evenly through his nose. “No, brave. He was a true PLA warrior in his soul. We never surrender, we fight on, past fear, past pain, past all adversity.” He half turned, raising his voice. “Liu chose to fight his inner demons — to the end.” He raised a fist, lifting his voice. “When we face adversity, when we come to a barrier, we do not tremble or wail. We show them that we are harder, stronger… even than stone.”
Yang had his fist still in the air, and held his smile. In the darkest corners of his mind, he wondered if he became infected, whether he would end himself like Liu, or whether he would run screaming into the darkness. In that instant, he resolved that his men would never know. While he remained brave, or at least looked it, then they would hold together as well.
A demonstration of his resolve then. He looked from the men to the tumble of huge boulders, and then pointed. “Blow it up.”
“What? No!” Shenjung Xing waved his hands. “This is not a good idea. The blast could bring the entire cave down on us.”
There was silence as the soldiers’ eyes slid from the scientist back to their captain.
Yang stayed calm. “And what would you have us do, Professor? Go back to… where? Maybe wait here until we all have a belly full of worms? Or perhaps simply sit down here and wait until the wall erodes away by itself?” He scoffed.
“There must be another way. The risks…” Shenjung pleaded.
“Yes, the risks. There are always risks. And men like us are not afraid to face them, so men like you can sleep safe at night.” He turned and clicked his fingers. “Proceed.” Yang started to walk quickly back down the dark cave. When he and Shenjung were a hundred paces back, he stopped and turned.
His soldiers scrambled over the tumbled boulders, planting fragmentation grenades into crevices at a strategic position of the wall. They turned, waiting.
Yang nodded, and the men danced from grenade to grenade pulling the pins and then scrambling down, having mere seconds to try and get to safety. Yang backed everyone around the corner.
The explosion was near deafening in the enclosed space, and the shock wave thumped past the men who were crowded in close to the wall of the tunnel. The monstrous echo was like a titanic drumbeat pulsing away down the cave. They waited, no one moving. Seconds passed, and the echoes had now fallen away to silence.
Yang was first out, waving a hand in front of himself to try and dispel the floating rock dust. He coughed. There was the sound of rocks falling into water, but the air was so choked with dust that visibility was down to a few feet.