Tala released the knife and Ilya crumpled to the deck, ragdoll. Tala rushed to Katja who had been bound with her wrists and ankles tied beneath her buttocks. Blood and seminal fluid wept from her raw and torn genitals. Jamal felt bile rise in his gullet, Oleg turned away.
Tenderly, Tala parted Katja’s binds. The girl fell limp and apathetic into Tala’s arms. As Tala cuddled and cooed to Katja in the shifting light she left little bloody handprints on Katja’s naked flesh. After hours of torment, Katja was slipping into shock.
“Please, help me.” From beyond the veil of the headlamp, Jamal could see tears streak Tala’s battered face, she looked imploringly to him with one eye. The other was swollen shut.
Oleg and Jamal rushed over. Katja had been stripped in the room and Oleg retrieved her panties and the blue jumpsuit Jamal had given her from where they’d been discarded. Mindful of her ordeal, Oleg and Jamal were reluctant to try dressing the girl. She shook in Tala’s arms and her lip quivered. Her neck was striated with lurid purple bruises, at some point ligatures had been placed around her throat.
“I… I don’t know how to stop the bleeding.” The fear in Jamal’s voice was mirrored in Tala’s expression. He glanced around the room, the headlamp cast cavorting shadows amongst the roughshod and sparse shelves of the stockroom.
Outside, there was a second dull thunk and a shrill cry. The sound of the infected was suddenly amplified as the main door to the District burst open. Heavy metallic filing cabinets clattered loudly over. Amid the cacophonous moans, Jamal could hear their besiegers dismantle the final barricades of office furniture.
“There’s no time, just dress her.”
Oleg and Jamal winced as they roughly clothed Katja. Blood immediately pooled through her thin white panties and was spotting through her jumpsuit bottoms even as Tala pulled the top over the girls lolling head. Katja remained silent throughout.
Tala cried as Jamal pulled her from Katja. “We have to move!” Oleg and Jamal bore the girl up, their arms beneath her thighs and her arms wrapped limply, devoid of life, round their necks.
The putrid reek of decay hit them immediately as Tala burst through the door on point, Oleg and Jamal behind. Jamal heard countless shambling footfalls drift across the Districts carpet and could make out various deranged gaits as the infected flooded into his long time home. Stealing a glance behind him as Tala briefly turned toward the door, Jamal could see countless flat eyes, bereft of life, peer out from the blackness and their savaged papery deathmasks. Some lumbered only meters behind. Beyond the bobbing beam of Tala’s headlamp, Jamal heard a feral scream and a wet crunch. “O Bozhe! O Bozhe!”
The screaming soon stopped as another wave of infected scaled the now scattered filing cabinets behind them. Gennady blinked against the headlamp of Tala. He stood in his office doorway, wildly gesturing for them to hurry. His grey pallor and sagging jowls gave him the appearance of the dead.
Tala crossed the threshold of Gennady’s office as their pursuer loosed another moan at their backs. Jamal could feel the infected closing in as he and Oleg entered behind Tala. Gennady slammed the door shut behind them and Tala joined him in bracing the door as the former crewmen of Murmansk-13 crashed against it. The door pitched momentarily ajar before their combined effort secured it.
“The table,” Oleg said breathlessly.
“There’s no time,” replied Gennady as more infected pressed against the door. There was another scream outside and then the infected began pounding into the frosted glass. Huge cracks webbed rapidly across the large, thin pane.
While they’d been away, Gennady had opened up the conduit grating through which Jamal would usually enter and exit the District. He’d also pushed the giant conference table beneath the opening, anticipating the need for easy access. As Jamal marvelled at how the macerated Gennady had managed the feat, more infected began pushing at the door. Gennady and Tala struggled against the weight, both were now near horizontal, their legs bowing as they buttressed against the table, faces reddened with exertion. “Now, go!” Gennady yelled.
Deftly, Jamal and Oleg lowered Katja on the table. Jamal scrambled into the conduit and Oleg lifted Katja to the opening. Roughly, they forced Katja into the conduit as the glass bulkhead popped. Razor edge shards rained over Kirill’s corpse. “Come on!” Shouted Oleg, indicating for Tala to follow.
“Fuck your chivalry, get up there!” Tala hollered back, grimacing against the force of the infected bearing down upon her.
Oleg scrambled into the conduit as the infected began piling into the opposite side of the office, Tala flicked her head toward the onrushing horde illuminating their petrified flesh and rictus maws.
From the conduit Jamal watched as Oleg beckoned to Tala and Gennady. “Tala, you next.” Gennady said, gently. A warm smile creased his stoic face. His words unburdened by the struggle to keep the door closed.
“No, I’m OK,” Tala replied, sweat glistening her bruised features.
“I am old, Tala.” Gennady said, peering over Tala’s shoulder. “They are almost upon us. Someone has to take care of the girl. You have to get them back to your ship, get them back home.”
Jamal could feel warm tears glisten in his eyes as Tala flicked her head once more to her left. The infected spilled through the broken pane; some feasted upon Kirill’s now masticated remains, the majority beelined toward Tala and Gennady. Mummified digits clawed around the increasing opening of the door. Gennady handed Tala something and then she pushed away, the kinetic force ramming the door closed behind her. Several amputated fingers fell to the deck as Tala scrambled onto the table.
A wizened hand clamped onto Tala’s ankle as she stood. Oleg and Jamal watched helplessly as she sprawled hard against the marbled mahogany. More infected closed on the scene, those that had fed on Kirill clambered onto the far side of the conference table. The table shook and wobbled under the unsteady gait and mass of the infected, threatening to collapse beneath Tala.
Oleg held Jamal back as Tala managed to spin in the infected crewman’s iron grip. With her free, barefoot, she kicked out at her attacker. She managed to reach her knees even as it tried to pull her back. Dried tendons pulled taut as the infected’s decaying maw opened wide, preparing to clamp on Tala’s leg. She slipped backward, eyes wide staring at Oleg and Jamal who watched in terror.
Then Gennady was upon it, grabbing it from behind as the office door burst open, unfettered. Gennady snapped its head back and the surprised crewman released Tala, falling backwards atop of Gennady. As Tala jumped into Oleg and Jamal’s outstretched arms, Gennady disappeared. Beneath them the office seethed in a whirlpool of decay.
There were no screams as Oleg and Jamal numbly secured the opening, only the crack of the conference table collapsing under the weight of dead flesh. Scrabbling hands slipped beyond the reach of the grating.
Chapter 16
Three men had gone onto the monkey island, only two came back. Diego watched one of them, Guillermo Hernandez, cutting a line of coarse white powder atop his cabin table. His usually slicked back pompadour fell limp across his face as he snorted the line of speed. Languidly, Diego supped his beer as Hernandez jumped from the edge of the bed and began pacing the deck, muttering to himself.
Hernandez’s cabin was adorned with posters of Tank Girl and Durham Red, gig tickets and flyers from hardcore punk bands and pictures of topless punk rock girls, all colourful mohawks, extraneous nipple piercings and bullet belts dimpling the flesh below the belly button. Diego marvelled at his colleagues ability to cart so much paraphernalia with him on every voyage.