Pandemic Page 2

She again looked at the acetylene torch’s steady flame, a translucent, blue triangle filled with a beautiful light that promised pure agony.

I can’t let them get me again … do it, now, Candy … do it or die …

When the pain came, she couldn’t let herself scream; if she did, they’d find her.

Candice lowered the flame to her flesh.

The blue jewel flared and splashed, blackening the dangling sc.r.a.ps of skin and arm-meat, shriveling them away to cindered crisps of nothing. Her head tilted back, her eyes squeezed shut — her world shrank to a searing supernova point of suffering.

Before she knew what she was doing, she’d pulled the flame away.

Candice blinked madly, trying to come back to the now, trying to clear the tears. The bubbling stump continued to scream.

Do it so you can see your wife again …

Her mouth filled with blood — she’d bitten through her cheek. Candice looked at her shredded arm, gathered the last grains of strength that remained in her soul. She had to keep her eyes open, had to watch her arm or she’d bleed out right here.

See your job and do it, Lieutenant. DO IT!

Candice lifted her severed arm, opened her mouth and bit down hard on the belt’s flopping end. She tasted nylon and blood. She pulled the belt tight, then brought the blue jewel forward. Flame skittered, seemed to bounce away at strange, hard angles. The sound of sizzling meat rang in her ears, partnering with a hideous scent of seared pork that made her gag, twisted her stomach like a wrung-out towel.

This time, she didn’t look away. Blood boiled and popped. Skin bubbled and blackened. Bone charred. And the smell, oh Jesus that smell … she could taste the smoke.

She heard grunts. She heard a steady, low growl, the sound of an animal fighting to chew its foot free of the iron-toothed trap.

The torch slid from her hand, clattered against the metal deck. The blue jewel continued to breathe out its hateful hiss.

She pulled the scorched stump close to her chest. Her head rolled back in a silent cry — How much more? How much more do I have to take?

Candice forced herself to look at the charred mess that had once been connected to a hand. A hand that could draw and paint. A hand that had almost sent her to Arizona State to study art before she made the choice to serve her country. A hand that had touched her wife so many times.

Blisters swelled. Her flesh steamed like a freshly served steak, but the bleeding had stopped. Drops of red oozed up through the blackened stump’s many cracks and crisp edges.

Her right hand was gone … so why did her missing fingers still feel the fire?

With her remaining hand, she reached inside her uniform’s shirt, felt her belly where she’d hidden her drawings — still there.

Candice reached for the door that would take her out of the submarine’s tiny, steel-walled trash disposal unit. She couldn’t hide here forever. She held her breath, knowing that just lifting the TDU door’s lever would make noise, might bring her shipmates.

She closed her eyes again, searching for the strength to go on. Amy, I will never quit. They won’t get me they’re all out to get me they’re all trying to murder me …

Candice slowly lifted the lever.

The door opened to a dark pa.s.sageway, empty save for the few wisps of smoke that filtered in from the fire she’d set in the engine room. The gray bulkheads, piping and electrical conduit looked no different than they had for all the months she’d served here.

Everything was the same; everything was different.

To her right, the wardroom where she had eaten countless meals.

To her left, the crew’s mess: pitch-black, all the lights smashed and broken.

Candice reached to the small of her back, drew her pistol. She’d shot two men dead; how many additional crew had she killed with her act of sabotage? She wished the answer was all of them.

She had to reach the dry deck shelter. The surface … she had to get to the surface.

Sweating, shivering and bleeding, Candice stepped out of the TDU.

She almost slipped when a cracking voice sounded over the intercom.

“This is the … the captain.”

Candice froze as if he was actually in the pa.s.sageway with her, as if he could see her. It was his voice, familiar from so many months, yet not his at the same time. He fought to get the words out.

“Man Battle Stations Torpedo. I say again, man … man Battle Stations Torpedo. That … that is all.”

She flinched at the harsh click of the PA shutting off. Torpedo launch? Against who? There wasn’t an enemy out there, wasn’t anyone at all except for …

“No,” she said. “No.”

She’d disabled the sub’s ability to escape; she hadn’t disabled its ability to fight.

Escape. They were coming for her … she had to escape.

Candice held her severed arm close to her chest, her right shoulder shrugged up almost to her ear. She moved down the pa.s.sageway, waiting for each step to bring one of her tormentors running.

If she could get to the forward escape trunk hatch that led to the dry deck shelter, if she could get into one of the SEIE suits, then she could make it to the surface. The dry deck shelter was amidships, just aft of the control room and attack center. To reach it, she would have to walk through the crew’s mess, past all the dead bodies.

And some of them, she knew, weren’t all the way dead.

Candice felt a vibration under her feet: the torpedo tubes flooding, the final step before launch. Only seconds until Mark 48 ADCAPs shot out at fifty-five knots, heading for ships that had no idea what was coming.