He felt a heavy weight press his legs to the floor. “It’s fine. Let me sit up,” Zeke said, struggling against them. Habib emptied more cold liquid onto his head. This time, the contact with his laceration burned like holy fire. “Fuck!”
Meredith flashed a bright light over Zeke. “He might need stitches, Hab.”
“Nah, it’s just a scratch,” said Luo, sounding bored with the entire ordeal.
“It’s not just a scratch, Luo,” snapped Noah. “He was barely conscious when I found him.”
After several long agonising wipes with a sterile cloth, Meredith declared he would, indeed, need stitches. But first, Habib had to cut a—supposedly small—chunk of his hair off. After far too many scissor sounds than Zeke was comfortable with, Habib rummaged in the first-aid kit beside Zeke’s head before pulling out a rectangular pad with surgical string zig-zagging across it. “This will only hurt for a second,” he said.
Zeke bit down on his hand to spare him the embarrassment of screaming when Habib threaded the needle through and pulled the tab, pulling his scalp together. He then wrapped several layers of bandages around the entire circumference of Zeke’s head. Finally, he released Zeke.
“Nowthatis a look,” said Frankie.
Zeke scowled at her.
There was a knock at the door. “Register.”
Noah opened the door. “Squad E, all present.”
“Why are the ladies up here?” came the reply.
“Theladieswere assisting in first-aid,” said Noah. “But they’re on their way down now.”
When the five women filed out, promising to ring them from their room, Noah headed over to sit on the unused sixth bunk. “Wow.”
“That’s an understatement,” Splat said.
Zeke looked between the other men. “So… is this a typical everyday event or…?”
Noah snorted. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. I mean, I’ve seen people turn, sure. In the field. Never before in the compound, though. Early symptoms of turning always kick in within an hour of contact with RONS, so it would be hard to make it back here in time undetected. But what I can’t get over about today, is how hundreds of highly trained soldiers let their panic turn the situation into a complete bloodbath.”
“The captain… she said something about a breach in procedure?”
Habib turned to Zeke, scratching his thick beard. “Sounded like there was chaos when Sandhurst’s squad was taken down. She must have been bitten but they didn’t catch it. Somehow hitched a lift back to compound rather than going to the isolation booths to be checked.”
“Someone is going to have todoa lotof paperwork,” said Luo.
“Jesus, Luo, at least four people are dead,” snapped Splat, throwing a pillow at him down from his top bunk. “That’s not funny.”
“It’s way more than four,” said Noah. “I saw loads of bodies on the floor when I went back for Zeke. I think everyone got a little trigger-happy.”
Zeke walked over to the window, shifting the curtain. Outside was deserted, apart from two armed guards patrolling the streets. The crisis seemed to be over. For now. He turned and went over to Noah, aware of eyes following him crossing the room.
“Thanks,” he said quietly. “I owe you one.”
“I’ll remember that. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of opportunity to fireman-carrymeout of danger in a few weeks,” he said with a wink.
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Habib said. “Dude can barely lift twenty kilograms.”
Roars of laughter exploded from the other five men as Zeke went to lie down on his bunk.
“Shh, Vitt is ringing,” Noah said, holding up his tablet. “Hello? What’s the latest?” He pressed the screen a few times before turning the tablet towards the group. Vitt’s face filled the screen.
“Good news is, the streets are all clear,” she said. “Bad news, obviously apart from the casualties, is that dinner is in our rooms tonight.”
“We won’t find out what happened until tomorrow then,” said Splat.
“Oh, third bad news,” Vitt continued, “Murphy is calling a ‘lessons learned’ crisis meeting tomorrow with all the lieutenants. To be fair, that’s only bad news for Noah.”
