Dragon

[DerVVulfman]

Chapter Nineteen
Trauma

“Where the HELL is Fred?” Christopher Rabikes shouted in frustration.

“Where the hell are we?” Lizzie asked, dejected. They were still in the air.

“Ohio, from the looks of it.” Chris looked out the jumbo-jet window. Moulty, Pardy, and even David were asleep in the nearest chairs. Lizzie was trying to relax.

“You don’t like to fly, do you?” Chris asked her.

Her eyes bulged. “Forget it. I’m not going through that again.” She changed seats.

“Say what?” Rabikes asked, perplexed.

“Never mind,” she sighed. “I wish I had a TV to scan. Or a radio. Something... anything.”

“Everybody needs a break, Liz. Don’t beat yourself up. Besides, it’s not like these VSO bastards are making it easy for us. They’re not on VHF... or UHF.”

David Furfy stirred, startled, sweating slightly. “God!” he breathed.

“What’s the matter, David?” Lizzie asked.

Furfy looked at them both. “I just... had the worst frigging nightmare in my life... oh, man... you ever see that movie, Being John Malkovich?” Lizzie shook her head no. “Well, in this dream, all of us were back in Beltsville.. you, me, Chris, Becky, John... everybody... but... b-but... everybody in the house... everybody in the city h-h-had Rabikes’s face on them!” he shuddered.

“Oh, my God!” Lizzie gasped, mouth wide with horror.

“What’s so scary about that?” demanded Chris.

“And all anyone said was ‘Rabikes? Rabikes Rabikes? Rabikes. Rabikes Rabikes Rabi-”

“David, stop!” Lizzie pleaded. “It’s so... disgusting!” Then she asked “Pardy and Moulty, too?” There was fear in her voice.

“Yes! Everybody in the whole city! It was awful!” Furfy reached for an air-sickness bag. “It was... it was...” he vomited. Lizzie looked sick, too.

“What’s the matter, babe? Rabikes taunted. “Don’t like my head on your body?” Lizzie game him a dirty look, then ran to the bathroom. Rabikes glanced at Moulty and Pardy -- then decided he didn’t feel like eating at the moment, he looked out the plane window, and decided to pray...

? ? ?

When Becky, Roberts, Hunt and Emerson had returned to the hovercraft in the middle of the night -- other soldiers tending to Emerson, once aboard-- Becky stormed off to her quarters, furious and distraught.

I’m a killer now, she despaired. I didn’t kill the woman, but she would’ve died from what I did to her. Looking at herself in the bathroom mirror, soot and sweat covered her face. Stop it! She tried to kill me! She was racist filth. I probably killed Skumm, but I don’t want to know! They were gonna kill Emerson-- gonna kill me-- what was I supposed to -- OH, GOD, WHY?!?

The screams of Pardy, Fricker, Cath were mixed with the crazed laughing of Pure Skumm within her brain, until Becky snapped. She’d been pacing back and forth, tears streaming, passing the Roy Scheider collection over and over until she knocked them clean off the table with one savage swipe of an arm. Her emotions blazing, Becky melted the tapes, then ran into her closet, tearing at the forty outfits Roberts had provided for her, ripping, then burning them.

On deck 4, a soldier watched Becky on a security monitor. Immediately, he alerted Roberts on the intercom. “She’s going crazy. Tearing up her room.”

The doctor was impassive. “Don’t send anyone in. She’s not going to leave the room. She’s got to vent, that’s all. Keep watching. If she does leave, then call us. She can’t hurt herself in there. She’s immune to fire, remember. Besides, the walls, floor and ceilings won’t melt. My chemical compound protects them from molecular breakdown, no matter how hot it gets.”

“What do you call that stuff, Doc?” Hunt asked him.

“Dolex-138. My invention.” Roberts smiled. “I should’ve sprayed her tapes and clothes with it.” They’d be protected, too,” he said sadly.

“How about people?” Hunt asked, curious.

“No way,” Roberts said. “The chemical’s poisonous to human skin. “Inanimate objects just absorb it, and they’re still safe for humans. Well, there goes the books and CD collection. She’s definitely angry.”

Inside the room, Becky took her frustrations out on the large-screen TV set, which burned into grey goop as the glass cracked and exploded into tiny pieces. She walked around, still angry beyond belief, looking for something else to destroy. There was nothing left but the bed. She advanced.

“Young lady, I realize you’ve had an extremely rough day,” Robert’s voice sounded from the intercom, “but there’s no point in incinerating your --”

She blasted the entire bed to hell. All of Roberts’s gifts and amenities were not toasty ash. If she wasn’t already exhausted from the stress of the previous day (ant its two terrifying missions), she would have filled the entire room with wall-to-wall flames. It wouldn’t have harmed her at all. She’d rather die than kill, but the one thing she couldn’t destroy was herself.

Why? Why, why, why, God, why? Becky curled into a fetal position and lay hopelessly on the floor, trying not to think of anything except happy thoughts, but finding none...

? ? ?

Eight hours later, there was a knock on the door. She wasn’t sure whether she’d gotten any sleep or not. She’d rested, anyway. The fires were all out. She was surrounded by a sea of grey ash and melted debris.

A second knock. “Fox, it’s me,” Hunt said.

“Go away,” Becky hissed.

He entered, carrying a tray. “Breakfast.”

“I don’t want any.” Her back was turned to him. She was sitting on a blackened chair, staring lifelessly at the wall.

“Tough. Take it anyway. I’m leaving it here. If you burn it, I’ll bring in another. Burn that one too, we’ll bring in an IV. Just eat it, okay?”

“Just leave it and go.” She still didn’t turn around.

He placed the food down on the former bed. It was just solid enough. “You shouldn’t obsess about this. You had to do what you did. Skumm was a menace.”

“And now I’m a killer just like you,” she said, her voice breaking. “Thank you all so very much.”

Hunt actually looked hurt. He touched her shoulder. “Becky... you’ve got to...”

“I’d like to be alone now, Kevin,” she cut him off.

He hesitated, then left the room.

She still didn’t turn around.