All The Dark Places

28. The Cat Has Claws

The third day in the hospital, Ivy killed a rabbit in the car park and Rosalind put an arrow through a pheasant that she and Toby prepared for dinner. Rosalind's group refused to eat any of the food offered to them from the hospital's stock. Rosalind and Ivy provided what they could and stuck to iron rations of salt pork they brought from Thornwood. The nurses gave their portions to the patients, though both of them were startlingly thin and needed the food themselves. Sona's stomach rumbled.

"That man you have with you, the healer; I've never seen anything like that. It is too bad he cannot help my other patients."

"I wish he could too, but he can't heal diseases. Only wounds," Rosalind said.

"He's not the first one I've met, you know. There was a woman in here just after it happened, just after everything went crazy. She could change her shape into an animal. She turned into a bear right in front of my eyes. I actually peed myself. Couldn't believe it, but it's true. That woman changed into a bear."

Wolves and bears. The forest has wolves and bears.

"What was her name? I would like to talk to her if she is a local."

"I think it was Emily or Amelia, I think. Oh yes, Amelia. She talked about the spiders too. Felicia drew them on the nursery wall. I haven't seen any but Mrs. Yearling saw several. I didn't see the alien itself but I did see a man who was stupid enough to et stung by one. He came in here with a needle sticking out of his arm, screaming bloody murder. It was Sara who took the stinger out. We watched him. There was nothing we could do to help him. He began to change... his body breaking down like a melting doll. And then he was like nothing natural I have ever seen. He was a pile of flesh, the bones just a heap on the ground. It had... it had a pulse, that thing did. We waited, hoping whatever transformation would reverse but that didn't happen. Five days he stayed there like that, not moving, just a pulse and a lump of flesh. The fifth day it began howling. I'd never heard a sound like that before, that sound of pain and misery. I've seen a lot of things but that... we couldn't leave him that way. I had to... I ended it. That lump of flesh was once a man, with a wife and kids somewhere, and I ended him. And that's life now, isn't it?"

Rosalind wished she had something comforting to say.

They pushed Martin Yearling in a wheelchair with his leg extended in a brace; pillows packed and taped all around the broken limb to keep it from jostling. He had an infection, likely from the poor conditions at the hospital, and the flesh around his knee was swollen the size of a melon. Father Gareth laid hands on him, and an hour later declared that the bone was fused back together, though it would not fuse as it should, having sat so long. The leg would always be crooked, but Martin would likely be able to walk, perhaps with crutches. Martin, in his waking hours, was both relieved to hear his leg would not need to be amputated, and devastated to hear he might be hobbled in this new age. His position was already precarious.

"I am a broken man, Roz," he rolled her name over his tongue drunkenly. The drugs were strong. "My dear Tess has been burdened with caring for me for weeks. Do you know, she went out and hunted. Actually hunted. We ate a stolen goat. My wife, my beautiful London-girl wife, stole a goat! Luckily one of the nurses was able to butcher the poor thing, and we've been living off that for days but the meat started to go off two days ago. We are in a bad way, aren't we Roz?"

"Shh. Just rest. We'll be at the castle soon," she said, and glanced at Thessaly, who pushed him and looked tired. "Tess, if you want, I can take over and push a while."

"That would be nice, yes."

Rosalind and Thessaly guided the wheelchair over cracks in the road from the quakes. Carefully, they edged the man over bumpy ground until they got to the cobblestone of the village. Rosalind stopped, putting a hand to her forehead.