Purgatory, 7: Sinner vs. Sinner
10 Jan 2024Meowers
Warning: cruelty, violence, graphic descriptions.
"Death comes in many forms. And it is often a reflection of what people did during their lives."
T + 19h 45min. Damn those prisoners. They took all the weapons they had and, seemingly, crawled through the jungle somewhere behind our backs, so we didn't notice them. And they ambushed the godsdamned truck... In the worst way possible. A few of them are on their knees now, waiting to be executed. Most are dead or dying. Now I think they had read too many stories of people being badass and fighting being casual to think clearly. Mercs... I see three or four wounded from here but nothing more substantial. Attacking now.
T + 19h 53min. Gutted the comms guy immediately but the damn mercs had sent an alert signal already, their frequencies are buzzing. Captives... Dead. Every single one of them. Friggin amateurs, I guess people back in the transport don't have even a single pistol to defend now. Fuck. Idiots. At least we found that man who picks the victims in the camp, holding him at gunpoint now. He's going to tell me stuff... One way or another. Much likely, another.
They peppered the engine with holes and blew a couple of tyres, no way this piece of rubbish could move on its own and it's now blocking the road. Copied the map from its nav, it has more roads and points on it, new ones are marked B-something. Should return to the camp real fast and get my folks out of there, going silent for a while.
T + 21h 34min. Pffffff... Carrying a dead body in armour through the jungle isn't the best travelling experience indeed. Took our dead and wounded from the camp, double-checked everything, that place should've been left totally looking like the captives had thrown a riot by themselves. At least the infection survivors can walk now, more or less, even through that shit, couldn't use the machetes since we mustn't leave a trail. Matejić took a hit in the leg in the truck incident, dammit, needed help too.
So, where are we now? Well, it's a hill. Ten, maybe fifteen metres. Less wet than anything else, at least not that muddy.
T + 21h 56min. Making a camp. Of sorts. People are busy pulling the grass out and removing other plant stuff, piling it deeper in the jungle. There's so much of it we could've used it for makeshift beds for the entire platoon, if not for the godsdamned germs. Vaccine or not, I'm not taking any chances. Meanwhile, there's our guy from the truck to provide me with some entertainment... Took a set of engineer's tools to make it a little more amusing.
The loser is tied to a tree. Gagged. Squirming and groaning. Maybe he's uncomfortable. Or maybe that's because of the tools I placed on the ground in front of him, in a nice orderly fashion, from a simple screwdriver to metal shears. Is that a human, homo sapiens, in front of me? Yes, indeed. Is that a fellow human, in the time we live in? No. And that makes the answer to the former question not as clear as it might've been.
But, his datapad first. Okay, it has a password...
A flat screwdriver put under his fingernail ready to thrust upwards, the rag from his mouth removed. Let's start the show.
"Password?" -- "Not telling you." -- "Wrong password!"
The screwdriver went under the fingernail, cracking it with a subtle sound that drowned in the pained scream, and the blood started slowly dripping from the ragged wound. No answer so far... So the same screwdriver is pressed against the second phalange of another finger as a warning, yet the guy doesn't understand it. A more audible crack, a slight push downwards to rip the remaining shreds of skin around the gap, and his moans immediately turn into a scream once again as a piece of his finger falls on the ground, leaving him with a stump, splintered pieces of the joint sticking out of it, blood running down the tree bark.
Finally, the password, and it was correct. Found the same map there, extended to B-class facilities, B-02 and B-06, and a few spreadsheets full of dates, captives' numbers and... Okay, going to ask him what those other numbers, B-02-01 to B-02-20'ish, mean.
"Rooms... Where they were taken..." -- "What for?" -- "To stay there..." -- "You kept people in shitty cowsheds to pick them randomly later and move into the rooms? Nah, I don't believe it."
The same screwdriver is forcefully thrusted into his thigh, tearing the fabric, the skin and that wimpy muscle he has, hitting the femur bone and apparently chipping some splinters off before wandering deeper, almost piercing the leg through and getting stuck handle-deep. His trousers turned red and wet around the wound, blood began to flow down his leg in a steady stream... Faster than I wanted. I pulled the screwdriver out, wiped the blood on his shirt and took my cigarette lighter. Once the screwdriver tip started glowing red and faint waves of vapour enveloped it, I pressed the tool against the wound, stopping the blood and making him let out a high-pitched desperate scream.
"I'm just warming up. So, why do you need them?" -- "HELP!"
Ah, he thought someone could hear him. How amusing. Okay, it's a perfect time for the pliers... Gripping his front lower pair of teeth. And they are to be pulled forward, until the cracking noise indicates his new medical condition.
"AAAGH! LaaaAAARGH! Labphs! No... Shtop... You need me!"
Have to admit, I could've stopped on his second outburst of screaming, but the upper front pair of teeth looked awfully asymmetrical now, and I didn't like it. And, yeah, I did need him, for the information, not for the 'access'. If they have any locked doors, I'll just shoot them to pieces.
"Labs? What labs? What for?"
Research labs. Human experimentation, with involuntary subjects involved. Each phrase said with less and less teeth remaining, with a gurgling, groaning voice, and his mouth turning into a blood-filled dump hole. And he had an access card in his hidden pocket. Okay, now, who needed that and what for? I required more answers that he didn't want to provide me with. That time, a hammer looked like a decent candidate for my assistant's role. Especially a hammer that could smash a human palm against the tree, evoking a distinct low thudding of damp wood, but not loud enough to hide a crisp, sharp sound of cracking bones, instantly followed by a shriek, with the voice getting more coarse over time.
Resistance to... the Thargoid stuff? Reactions to various substances being made there? Oh now that's really interesting. And I knew only one organisation that could resort to such an approach, whilst having enough resources to run a large-scale covert thing. The triple-godsdamned Azimuth Bio-bloody-fucking-tech. However, neither the facilities, nor the mercs guarding them, had any Azimuth identification signs. Or any signs at all. Oh he's going to tell me about the nature of their connection... And that time, I preferred to take the situation into my own hands. Literally.
Carefully, not granting him too much unnecessary freedom, I untied his leg, the one with the intact thigh, and pressed my knee against it forcefully. My both hands clasped on his calf and I pulled it upwards, in the way a human knee wasn't supposed to work. But his one was an exception today. Applying more and more force, I waited for the answer. A slow muffled cracking of overstrained, ripped sinews appeared first yet quickly drowned in a long, high-pitched, disgusting pained squeal, interrupted by several sharp deep gasps. Then the information came out. They were contracted by Azimuth to do that stuff, being an independent shadow faction. Okay, who am I to leave the work unfinished? His calf popped out of the knee joint with a bit more cracking and hung loosely on his skin and clothing fabric, making him let out another scream that later turned into short, pitiful whining moans and deep heavy breathing, with blood gurgling in his mouth and bubbling out. He wasn't supposed to go anywhere, yet now it was too obvious to question.
"Now I know everything I want. No use for you now."
His access card could take me only to those B facilities, since as far as my understanding of that situation goes, their lower level personnel apparently don't know much about what's happening to the captives next. Maybe they don't even know about the existence of those higher-level complex parts. Those first guarding mercs were limited to the A's only, they didn't have anything else on their maps. Now... I had a map and an access card. And no more need for that guy.
His scream reached a deafening level once the metal shears, pressed against his stomach, ripped through the skin, letting a stream of blood gush out of the fresh wound, turning his clothes and the ground under him red. Slowly, filling his very soul with desperation and primal fear of death, I brought the handles together while he hopelessly cried for help, writhing in pain, spitting blood, flailing his mauled leg, thumping the back of his head against the tree in futile attempts to relieve the pain. Metal shears stretched, ripped and cut his skin and insides, until the blades, clanking, finally overpowered the flesh, leaving a clean straight cut line after torn, ragged messy holes in places where they entered the body. Turning the shears in a full circle, I pulled them out of his body and dropped on the ground. Scraps of mangled guts hung down from the enormous gruesome slice in his body, covered in streams of blood and stomach contents. My both hands were free to force his eyes open.
Without saying a single word, I silently watched as his miserable life faded, a contented smirk on my face. Then I cleaned the tools using his shirt once again, untied him and dragged into the jungle, dropping into the mud, away from the camp. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, shit to shit.
* * *
Next part: #8: Outsiders
Next part: #8: Outsiders