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Heal Thyself

I collapsed onto the platform, rolling over to lie on my back and stare up at the grey sky, still laughing. I reached up, pushed the axe handle downward, felt it tug on the halves of my breastbone, frowned. Someone had filed angled notches along the upper and lower edges of the axe-head, ensuring that it would go in and stay there, like an arrowhead. It had struck home just below the branching of my windpipe; I had to wiggle it back and forth a few times before it came loose. I relished the sensation of bone ends rubbing against each other, flesh tearing, blood vessels coming apart like over-done spaghetti. I lost a lot of blood, but I was alone here, safe; within ten minutes, I'd made it up again. The axe wound was an angry red vagina edged in purple, clear fluid leaking out of the lower edge. I tried to poke my finger into it, but it had closed over. I kept the axe, just in case.

I was reasonably certain that I was alone; in the time it had taken me to recover from the axe attack, I hadn't heard anything other than the countryside background sounds overlaid with distant gunfire. As usual. I got up and made a perfunctory search of the area; yes. I was alone.

Towards the hills there was an old abattoir; it had been a favourite hangout just after clever Mr Horowitz had released his virus. It was the only reason anyone ever came out this far, so I walked in almost the opposite direction, through dense scrub and difficult undergrowth. After half a frustrating hour of this, I found the fire-scarred tree, which marked the site of the underground bunker.

It was actually an old septic tank, but it had been cracked open along the bottom and the contents drained away long ago. Traces of the stench remained. I forced the concrete cover off with the axe-handle and climbed down into the darkness. The lamp was where I'd left it, and the batteries were still good.

The room was about ten meters by twelve; damp, stained concrete with a low ceiling. It was too far out of the way to have been used by teen gangs for a hideout; otherwise the walls would have been covered with graffiti. The only feature in the room was a slab of reinforced concrete the size of two stacked queen-sized beds. I'd made it, about a year ago, using dozens of wooden planks and sacks (leaving slat and mesh impressions along the sides). I'd ferried thirty-four bags of concrete down here, set up six kerosene heaters in order to make the concrete set, and when it was solid I'd levered one end up to the ceiling.

Then I'd found Joseph Horowitz, the biochemist who'd invented the virus which made us all immortal; I shot him dead, dragged him here (I'd had to kill him eleven times on the journey - he kept regenerating), placed his body under the slab and let it drop on him. Once under there, his body couldn't regenerate into its original form, so he was stuck there.

Three fingers on his left hand and part of his face had squeezed out from under one edge of the slab. Since I'd left him, these protruding parts had been trying to heal, with little success. The top left-hand corner of his head bulged out like a balloon under a crate, with a few strands of hair poking up at odd angles. His left eye swivelled up to meet the light of the lamp, but I had no idea how much consciousness was behind the gesture.

I knelt down near his head and held the flame of a cigarette lighter to the open eye. Watching him try and escape the pain was pitiful; all he could do was blink and wiggle his fingers. Yeah, he was still alive.

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