Milepost 291

CHAPTER TEN

As Campbell entered the kitchen, three Zapheads followed him like fleshy shadows.

He slid open the drawer beside the filthy sink and studied the utensils. What sort of blade was best for performing an amputation? All he had was memories of old war movies, where the field surgeons performed their grisly work with cleavers and hacksaws. Would a serrated blade do the job effectively, or should he go for the finest honed edge for a cleaner cut?

Hoping to fool the attentive Zapheads, Campbell flung several utensils to the floor. Then he knelt to gather them, and the Zapheads immediately followed suit. While they were focused on their mission, Campbell tossed one of the utensils in the sink. The Zapheads raised a clatter while doing the same.

Campbell repeated the game, and when they stooped to the floor a second time, he slipped a long butcher knife out of the drawer and tucked it inside the waistband of his jeans against his hip, tugging his shirt to cover the handle.

Don’t we boil water and gather towels, or is that for births? Either way, we definitely need antiseptic.

He hadn’t explored the kitchen much, preferring to let the professor prepare their simple meals. The professor enjoyed teaching these human mockingbirds, although they seemed to have little need for nourishment. But now Campbell opened cabinets, knowing the three Zapheads would imitate him. The first contained tin cans of pork-and-beans, boxes of dried grain and noodles, and some home-canned vegetables, as well as a bag of flour that had been ripped open and left amid piles of white powder.

The second cabinet contained spices, a can of lard, and some cookware, but it was the upper shelf that held what Campbell was seeking. He climbed onto the counter to reach the bottles, but he was satisfied with the Smirnoff vodka, 100 proof and stronger than the sealed bottles of rum and whiskey. The master of the farmhouse apparently liked a nip now and again, but the relative inaccessibility of the liquor hinted at a casual drinker rather than a full-blown alcoholic.

The bottle made him think of his friend Pete, who’d been killed by a sniper in Taylorsville. At least Pete had left this world in a state of delirious numbness, a condition that had marked most of his waking days as well. With any luck, the vodka would dull the agony Rachel would soon be facing, as well as kill a few of the murderous germs that would be teeming over their brutal operation.

And if the gore and screams get too intense, I might need some liquid amnesia myself.

On impulse, Campbell took the two full bottles of liquor from the cabinet. He twisted the lid from the whiskey to break the seal, and then tightened it again. Concealing the tip of the bottle with his fingers, he held it to his mouth, tilted, and swallowed loudly. Then he deftly removed the cap and passed the bottle to the nearest Zaphead, a bug-eyed man who looked like he’d lost his spectacles. The man jammed the bottle into his mouth and drank deeply, spilling sweet amber liquid from the corners of his mouth.

Campbell was sure the Zaphead would retch, but it took several deep tugs from the bottle and then popped the opening free with a damp sloosh. The next Zaphead eagerly took a turn, and Campbell left the room as they fought over the bottle.

Killing, sexual torture, boozing. Pretty soon they’ll have all our human sins down pat.

In the living room, the professor stood over Rachel, who was still semiconscious on the sofa. The Zapheads knelt around them like some sort of corrupt manger scene, and Campbell realized for the first time that the professor might be consciously imitating the Jesus in the picture upstairs—since Taylorsville, he’d let his beard grow out and his hair had grown long and wavy.

Was the professor intentionally tricking the Zapheads into subservience, or was he going as mad as an Old Testament prophet? Whatever the reason, the Zapheads were all too happy to clasp their hands in silent prayer, creating a creepy tableau that almost made Campbell erupt in insane laughter. But Rachel’s pale, clammy face and the corrupted state of her leg wound kept him distressingly present and focused.

We might die here, but until then, I’m fighting the good fight. I’ve got to believe we’re better than this.

He gave the bottle of vodka to the professor, who nodded in acknowledgement. Campbell eased the knife from its hiding place, shivering at the blade sliding along his bare skin. He knelt before Rachel, pretending to pray like the other Zapheads, but then dug the tip of the knife beneath the ripped fabric around the wound.

“No,” the professor whispered. “Take them off.”

Campbell tucked the knife between the sofa cushions and reached for the button of Rachel’s jeans. Although she was incoherent with fever, Campbell flushed with anxiety and embarrassment. This seemed too personal of an invasion, even for the purpose of delivering medical care. But he unsnapped her jeans and loosened the zipper and then began working her jeans down her legs, grateful that she was wearing underwear. Blue panties.

Careful not to disturb her wound more than necessary, he peeled her jeans free of her legs. He reached for the vodka, intending to douse her upper calf with the liquor. He didn’t see how the professor intended to penetrate the thick gristle and tendons around her knee, assuming that was where he’d sever the leg. Campbell wiped sweat from his forehead, wondering if the professor was as knowledgeable about human physiology as he claimed.

The sheet rose and fell with Rachel’s labored, restless breathing. Campbell was sure she’d go into shock as soon as the blade penetrated. He might go into shock himself.

“What about the blood?” Campbell whispered.

“What about it?”

Campbell nodded at the assembled Zapheads, who were bowed in creepy reverence. “What if they…get ideas?”

“We just have to be quick and clean.”

Campbell didn’t see how a makeshift surgery with kitchenware could be either of those things. The professor’s eyes glowed with a confident serenity that did nothing to soothe Campbell’s anxiety. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be in the room when the Zapheads witnessed the carnage, but he couldn’t abandon Rachel. Somebody had to hold her down.

“You sure we have to do this?” Campbell said. “Can’t we wait and see if it gets better.”

“She wouldn’t make it to sunrise tomorrow,” the professor said, totally comfortable with his nudity as he stood like some cult leader preparing for a ritual sacrifice.

“Okay, then. Let’s get this over with.”

Campbell splashed vodka over the open wound and around the area where the professor intended to make the first incision. Rachel moaned at the sting of pain but didn’t fully awaken. He wondered if he should pour a little in her mouth, and then decided no amount of alcohol could dull the pain ahead.

The professor massaged the area around the wound, causing glistening, yellowish pus to break and run. A few of the supplicant Zapheads grew restless and several pairs of eyes opened, their strange glittering increasing Campbell’s anxiety.

“Hurry,” Campbell said, although he wasn’t sure how you could rush the nightmare to come.

“I need to determine where the flesh is healthy,” the professor said.

“If you don’t start cutting, you’re soon going to have about twenty eager little helpers. And unlike you, I don’t think they studied biology in college. They studied on the dead people upstairs, maybe, but Rachel’s still in one piece.”

“Let’s do it.” The professor slipped the butcher knife from the couch cushions, still rubbing the infected area with his left hand. The blade seemed ridiculously unsuited for the task, and Campbell wondered once again if the professor had gone absolutely mad from his confinement.

Campbell had never felt so helpless. He didn’t know enough to challenge the professor’s decision—hell, he’d barely been a C student in science—but Rachel undoubtedly was headed for a horrible death if they did nothing. But before the professor could bring the blade to bear, the nearest Zaphead unclasped her hands and laid them on Rachel’s injured leg. The Zaphead beside her followed suit, and the others nearest the sofa shifted forward and reached out their own hands.

They rubbed her skin in imitation of the professor’s massaging motion, and Rachel’s flesh quivered with the attention. More pus ran free, now tinged pink with blood. The Zapheads were no longer praying, instead gathering closer and closer to the sofa.

Campbell felt trapped by the crowd, but he refused to release Rachel’s wrists. He was atop her torso, applying enough weight to hold her down without crushing her, and Rachel’s uneven, labored breath whisked past his ear.

“For God’s sake, put the knife away,” Campbell hissed at the professor.

The Zapheads crowded in so that the professor had difficulty keeping a hand near the wound. More Zapheads reached in, rubbing and stroking her bare leg with all the fervency they’d recently expressed in their mockery of prayer. They muttered in unison, but those weren’t words issuing from their throats. The sounds melded and flattened out into a single sonic vibration, almost like the mantra of meditating monks.

Campbell pushed at the nearest hands, almost in tears. How long before they began digging into the wound and tugging bits of rotten meat away?

“Give me the knife!” Campbell yelled at the professor, who had backed away from the bizarre scene. Campbell planned to launch himself into the pack and chop, slice, and hew his way back to sanity, although he was aware the violence would be met with a like response.

But before the professor could react, Campbell saw something even more utterly remarkable and strangely horrific—the flesh at the edges of Rachel’s wound turned from greenish-red to bright pink, and the pustules began to dry and shrink. The fecund, spoiled aroma of the wound dissipated. As the many hands stroked and smoothed, the wound began to close.

The Zapheads were healing her with their touch.