Chapter 18: Baptism in Poison
The skiff’s whine was a dentist’s drill against the bone of the sky, dipping and weaving somewhere behind the veil of acid fog. They didn’t run. Running in the marsh meant a swift, sucking death. Instead, they moved with a terrible, deliberate slowness, each foot placed with agonizing care on the uncertain crust.
Zack led them toward the south wall, the promised service runnel nothing more than a ragged, pipe-rimmed hole vomiting a slow, oily trickle of chemical sludge into a larger, bubbling pool below. The stench here was eye-watering, a concentrated wave of chlorine and rot.
“Charming,” Kael whispered, his voice thin. The pale, sweaty sheen on his face had taken on a greenish cast.
“Down,” Zack said, peering over the lip. The runnel was a steep, sloped channel of corroded metal, just wide enough for a body. It disappeared into the glowing, opaque muck. “It’s not a pipe. It’s a spillway.”
“Into that?” Kael eyed the bubbling pool with naked revulsion.
“Heat sigs get confused near active chemical reactions. Basic sensor stealth. You go first. I’ll be right behind you. If you stop moving, you sink.”
“Ever the motivational speaker.” Kael swung his legs over, sucked in a breath that hitched with pain, and pushed off.
He slid with a grinding scrape of synth-leather on rust, disappearing into the fogged-out channel. Zack didn’t hesitate. He followed immediately, the hot, wet metal scalding through his clothes. The world became a claustrophobic, streaking tunnel of brown and orange rust, then a sudden, weightless drop.
He hit the slurry feet-first. It was warm, thick as pudding, and it gripped him with a terrifying intimacy. He fought the instinct to thrash, forcing himself to tread the viscous liquid, his head barely above the surface. Next to him, Kael was doing the same, a look of pure horror on his face as the lukewarm, chemical stew seeped into every seam.
“Don’t open your mouth,” Zack gasped. “Swim. That way.” He nodded toward a denset thicket of the blackened, skeletal trees.
They swam, if you could call it that. It was a nightmarish, slow-motion slog, every stroke an enormous effort. The whine of the skiff grew louder, hovering somewhere above and behind the warehouse. A piercing white light stabbed through the fog, sweeping across the bubbling landscape. It passed over the pool they’d just left, and the gases, agitated by the disturbance, flared a sudden, violent green. The light hesitated, dancing over the phosphorescent glow before moving on.
The flare had bought them a minute, maybe less.
They hauled themselves onto a slightly firmer bank of crusted, spongy matter under the weeping trees. Their clothes were saturated, dripping with the noxious slurry. Kael was shuddering uncontrollably now, his teeth chattering. It wasn’t just the cold; it was the poison leaching into his wounds, into his bloodstream.
“Gotta get it off,” Zack coughed, already peeling his own sodden jacket off with stiff fingers. “Now.”
They stripped with a frantic, clumsy urgency, throwing the contaminated fabrics onto the crust. The air, hot and damp, felt like ice on their wet skin. Kael’s shivering turned violent, his whole body seizing with deep, wracking tremors. In the ghastly light, the inflamed wound on his thigh and the neat wire stitches on his wrist looked like foreign, angry artifacts.
Zack scanned the gloom. There, partly collapsed into the mire, was the low, rounded hump of a pre-fall bunker, its ferrocrete shell cracked and stained. The entrance was a dark, slimy maw half-full of oily water.
“There. Move.”
He didn’t ask. He grabbed Kael’s arm, ignoring the flinch, and dragged him toward it. The bunker’s interior was a shallow, flooded cave. But at the far end, the floor rose into a raised platform, just a few inches above the waterline. It was dry. It was shelter.
They stumbled onto the platform, their bare feet slipping on slick algae. Kael collapsed onto his hands and knees, retching, but nothing came up. His breathing was a ragged, whistling mess.
Hypothermia. Toxin exposure. Shock. The diagnoses clicked in Zack’s head like a rifle bolt. He had to get him warm. Now. All their gear was gone, abandoned with their clothes.
Without a word, Zack sat down behind Kael, pulled him back against his chest, and wrapped his arms and legs around him, enveloping him completely. He pressed every inch of his own body flush against Kael’s shivering form, from shoulders to calves. Kael’s skin was clammy and alarmingly cool.
For a long minute, there was only the sound of Kael’s ragged breathing and the distant drip of water. Then, the shivering began to lessen, incrementally, as shared body heat created a fragile pocket of life in the dank tomb.
Kael’s head lolled back against Zack’s shoulder. His eyes were closed, his face a mask of exhaustion. Then his lips parted.
“Still playing hero,” he murmured, the words barely audible.
“Shut up,” Zack said, his own voice rough. “Conserve heat.”
But Kael’s hand came up, cold and weak, and gripped Zack’s forearm where it was locked across his chest. His head turned, his cheek now resting against Zack’s. His breath was warm against the still-throbbing bite mark on Zack’s neck.
The silence stretched, filled with the slow exchange of warmth, the beat of two hearts too close together. Then Kael moved again, slowly. He tilted his head and pressed his open mouth against Zack’s collarbone. Not a kiss. An assessment. A claiming of warmth.
His teeth found the prominent bone and closed down, not with the brutal, scarring force of before, but with a deliberate, possessive pressure that promised a bruise. He held it for a three-count before releasing with a soft, wet sound.
He let his head fall back again, his voice a low, rough scrape in the dark that was both a challenge and a plea.
“Warm me properly, soldier.”
Outside, through the cracked dome of the bunker, the white light swept past again, closer this time. The skiff’s engine changed pitch, descending into a hover. They were searching the tree line.
Inside, on the narrow island of dry stone, Zack didn’t move. He felt the words against his skin, felt the new ache blooming on his collarbone. He tightened his hold, pulling Kael even closer, until there was no space between them at all, until the heat they shared felt less like survival and more like a kind of combustion.
“Later,” Zack breathed into his hair, the promise hanging in the toxic air. “When we’re not about to die.”
He felt the faint, shaky tremor that might have been a laugh run through Kael’s body. They fell still, two creatures in a den, listening to the hunter circle outside. Waiting.
The skiff’s searchlight bled through the cracks in the bunker dome, painting erratic stripes across the curved wall above them. It passed, then returned, slower this time. The engine’s whine descended into a low, grinding hover just outside. Gravel and muck spat against the structure.
Kael’s shivering had mostly stilled, replaced by a rigid awareness. Every muscle in his body, pressed flush against Zack’s, was coiled steel. “They’re landing,” he breathed, the words a vibration against Zack’s chest.
“Maybe.” Zack’s own voice was barely audible. His eyes were fixed on the entrance, the slimy water at the threshold subtly agitated by the downdraft. His mind worked through angles, through the wretched lack of options. No weapons. No cover. Just two half-naked men in a puddle.
A metallic clang echoed outside, followed by the squelch of heavy boots hitting wet ground. One pair. Then another. They were methodical, the steps crunching on the crust, moving around the bunker’s perimeter.
“Scanner’s picking up residual heat,” a voice called out, filtered and tinny through a helmet comm. “Faint. Could be a chemical pocket.”
“Check the structure,” a second voice answered, closer. “Command wants confirmation.”
Inside, Zack’s arms tightened infinitesimally around Kael. A silent communication. A preparation. He felt Kael’s good hand slide down, fingers curling around a loose chunk of ferrocrete that had crumbled onto the platform.
The shadow of a figure blocked the dim light at the entrance. The silhouette was bulky, armored, backlit by the skiff’s glare. The hunter took a step into the shallow water, his boots sending slow ripples toward their dry island.
Zack held his breath. They were visible. If the hunter’s eyes adjusted from the external lights, he’d see them immediately. The man took another step, his helmeted head turning slowly, scanning the darkness.
Kael moved first. He didn’t throw the rock. He dropped it, with a deliberate, soft plink, into the water just to the left of the entrance.
The hunter’s head snapped toward the sound, his weapon rising. He took two steps toward the disturbance, turning his back to their platform.
It was all the opening Zack needed. He launched forward in a silent, explosive uncoiling of muscle. The water wasn’t deep, but it hampered speed. It didn’t matter. The hunter, distracted, only began to turn as Zack reached him.
Zack’s forearm slammed across the man’s throat from behind, crushing his helmet into his windpipe. At the same time, his other hand seized the weapon barrel, wrenching it upward. They went down together in a violent splash. The second hunter shouted outside.
Under the foul water, it was a brutal, silent struggle. Zack found the helmet’s release catch, yanked it, and drove the man’s head into the bunker floor. The fight went out of him. Zack surfaced, gasping, the captured rifle already coming up.
Kael was there, wading toward him, the other hunter’s sidearm now in his good hand. He must have retrieved it from the fallen man’s hip. His eyes were wide, alert, the pain masked by adrenaline. “One outside,” he hissed.
The second hunter appeared in the entrance, weapon raised. “Jarek? Report—”
Zack fired. The rifle’s report was deafening in the enclosed space. The round sparked off the doorframe, missing. The hunter dove back into cover, yelling into his comm. “Contact! Bunker is hot!”
“They’ll call in the position,” Kael said, scrambling back to the platform for their soaked clothes. “We need to be gone yesterday.”
They dressed with frantic speed, the wet, reeking fabric clinging to their skin. Zack tossed Kael the helmet from the first hunter. “Put it on. Scrambles their ident.” He kept the rifle, slinging the dead man’s ammo bandolier over his shoulder. It was a stark, ugly weight.
They emerged from the bunker into the blinding sweep of the skiff’s light. The second hunter was crouched behind a corroded supply crate thirty yards away, laying down suppressing fire. Chips of ferrocrete exploded near Zack’s head.
Kael, wearing the helmet, raised the captured sidearm and fired two wild shots in the hunter’s general direction. They went wide but made the man duck. “I’m a terrible shot with my left hand!” Kael yelled, a strange, strained laugh in his voice.
“Run that way!” Zack pointed toward a denser thicket of the twisted, black trees. He provided covering fire, the rifle bucking against his shoulder, driving the pinned hunter deeper behind his crate.
They ran, slipping and stumbling on the unstable ground. The skiff’s spotlight tracked them, but its fire was hesitant, confused by the two fleeing figures, one in what appeared to be their own squad’s helmet.
A heavy caliber round from the skiff’s mounted gun tore into a tree trunk ahead of them, showering them with splinters of petrified wood. “They’re getting over their confusion!” Kael shouted.
Zack saw it then—a wider, fast-moving channel of sluggish, iridescent fluid cutting across their path. A main waste conduit. It was a putrid, glowing river of poison. There was no crossing it.
The skiff began to swing around for a clearer shot. The hunter on the ground was advancing, using the trees for cover. They were being funneled toward the conduit’s bank.
Kael skidded to a stop at the edge, looking down into the gently flowing, rainbow-sheened current. “Well. This is a profoundly shitty choice.”
Zack’s mind raced. He looked at the viscous flow, then up at the skiff now turning its nose toward them. He saw the large, corroded letters stenciled along the skiff’s underbelly: T-7 Aggressor. A designation. A call sign. A target.
“Get in,” Zack said, his voice flat.
“Into the conduit? That will dissolve our boots. And our feet.”
“It’s that or be shredded.” Zack slung the rifle over his head and back. “Keep your mouth closed. Don’t swallow. Follow the current. Stay in the middle, away from the edges where the residue is thickest.”
The skiff’s guns whined as they charged.
Kael looked at the oncoming aircraft, then at the glowing stream. He cursed, vividly and creatively. Then he jumped.
The impact was warmer than expected, a sickly, lukewarm embrace. The current grabbed him immediately. Zack jumped a second later, the world upending into a muffled, chemical hell.
The noise of the skiff and gunfire vanished, replaced by a thick, silent rush. The light from above was a distorted, dancing yellow through the opaque fluid. Zack kicked, fighting to stay near the surface, his face tilted up to find the precious pocket of air between the toxic stream and the conduit’s roof. He saw Kael ahead, doing the same, a dark shape in the glow.
They moved with surprising speed, carried by the engineered flow. The skiff, and the hunters, were left behind on the bank. For a few stolen minutes, there was only the silent, nauseating drift.
They scraped against the smoother walls of a junction, the current spinning them. Zack’s hand shot out, grabbing Kael’s wrist just above the wired injury. He pulled him closer, pointing upward where a vertical maintenance shaft rose, a ladder visible just breaking the surface of the stream.
They fought their way to it, hauling their leaden, soaked bodies out of the flow and onto the rusty ladder. They climbed, dripping the corrosive fluid, gasping for clean air that didn’t exist. The shaft opened onto a grated platform in a vast, echoing processing chamber, now silent and derelict.
They collapsed on the grating, heaving. The smell of them was unimaginable. Kael ripped off the stolen helmet and threw it clattering across the metal floor. He leaned over, spitting, trying to clear the taste from his mouth.
Zack sat up, wiping his eyes. They were in the belly of some dead refinery. Conduits and pipes snaked away into cathedral-like darkness. It was a different kind of tomb, but it was, for the moment, empty of hunters.
Kael stared at the viscous, rainbow-patterned drips falling from his fingers onto the grate. A shaky, breathless sound escaped him. It wasn’t quite a laugh. It wasn’t quite a sob.
“Warm me properly, soldier,” he repeated, his voice raw and cracking. He looked over at Zack, his face streaked with filth and exhaustion. “I was hoping for a fire. Maybe a blanket. Not a bath in whatever the hell that was.”
Zack leaned back against a cold pipe, the fatigue a solid weight in his bones. The bite on his collarbone ached. The wire in his leg pulled. He looked at Kael, really looked at him, shivering again in the stale, cooler air of the chamber.
“You’re alive,” Zack said, the words simple and worn out.
“Barely.” Kael coughed. “And I smell like a refinery’s ass crack.” He met Zack’s gaze, the dark humor in his eyes not quite masking the shock beneath. “Your plan sucked, by the way.”
“It worked.”
“Debatable.” Kael pushed himself upright, wincing. “Where now? We can’t stay here. They’ll track the flow, find our exit point.”
Zack nodded, already scanning the maze of pipes and catwalks. He pointed to a narrow service walkway that clung to the far wall, leading deeper into the industrial gloom. “We keep moving. Find a way out the other side.” He stood, offering a hand.
Kael looked at the offered hand, then up at Zack’s battered, resolute face. He took it. His grip was firm, his skin still slick with poison. “Lead on, hero,” he muttered, hauling himself up.
They moved into the shadows of the dead complex, the only sound the constant drip of chemical waste from their clothes and the distant, fading echo of the skiff’s search, now far behind, but never truly gone.
They moved into the shadows of the dead complex, the only sound the constant drip of chemical waste from their clothes and the distant, fading echo of the skiff’s search, now far behind, but never truly gone.
The refinery’s innards were a fossilized ecosystem of steel. They climbed rust-brittle ladders and navigated walkways that groaned under their weight, each step echoing too loud in the cavernous silence. Their breathing was the only other living thing here.
“This place is a corpse,” Kael muttered, his voice hoarse from ingested poison. He swiped a hand across his lips again. “I can still taste it.”
“Keep moving,” Zack said, his own throat raw. “The acid’s eating through the fabric. We need to find water. Real water.”
After what felt like hours of descent, they found a ghost. A locker room, long abandoned, its benches overturned and lockers pried open. But against the far wall, a bank of industrial showerheads rose like dead metal flowers. Zack walked to a huge, flaking valve wheel. He put his weight into it. It shrieked in protest, then gave with a shuddering groan.
A gout of brown, rusty water exploded from the pipes, hammering into the cracked tile floor. It spat and coughed for a full minute, eventually clearing to a thin, lukewarm stream. It wasn’t clean. But it wasn’t acid.
“Strip,” Zack said, already tearing at his own reeking clothes. “Now. Scrub it off.”
They didn’t look at each other. There was no modesty left, only a frantic, clinical urgency. They stood under separate showerheads, scrubbing with flakes of old soap that crumbled to grit in their hands. The water ran in gray, then green, then finally clear-ish rivulets down their bodies, pooling around their feet in a diluted rainbow slick.
Zack watched the dirty water swirl down the drain, taking the immediate threat with it. The tremors started then, deep in his muscles—a delayed shock from the fight, the cold, the bite, the conduit. He braced a hand against the slimy tile, head bowed under the weak spray.
A shift in the air. A presence.
He turned. Kael was there, right there, inches away. The water plastered his dark hair to his skull, traced the fresh bruise on his jaw, ran in paths over the stark lines of his collarbones and the angry, stitched wounds. His eyes were wide, dark, unblinking. The raw, stripped-bare look on his face had nothing to do with being naked.
“You okay?” The question was stupid, and Zack’s voice broke on it.
Kael didn’t answer. He just stared, his gaze dropping to the new, vivid bite mark on Zack’s shoulder, then to the older scar on his ribs, then back to his face. His own breathing was shallow, fast. The violent energy from the warehouse, the shared terror in the marsh, the silent climb through the corpse of industry—it hadn’t faded. It had compressed, crystallized into this single, crushing point of stillness.
He lifted a hand. His fingers, still cool from the water, touched the side of Zack’s neck, right over his hammering pulse. The touch was feather-light, questioning. A silent tremor passed between them, through that point of contact.
Zack didn’t think. He couldn’t. He covered Kael’s hand with his own, pressing it firmly against his skin, an answer. Then he moved.
He closed the last inch of space and his mouth found Kael’s.
It wasn’t gentle. It was a collision. A release of pressure so immense it felt like a structural failure. Kael made a raw, punched-out sound against his lips and kissed him back with a ferocity that was all teeth and shared breath and desperate, searching hunger. His good hand fisted in Zack’s wet hair, pulling him closer, anchoring them together as if the force of the current still threatened to tear them apart.
Zack groaned, his arms locking around Kael’s bare waist, feeling the shudder that racked his entire frame. He tasted like rust and fear and something fiercely, uniquely him. The water beat down on them, washing nothing away, amplifying everything. It was a claim and a surrender, a fight and a ceasefire, all the unsaid words since the warehouse translating into this brutal, perfect silence.
They broke apart, gasping, foreheads pressed together. Water streamed into their mouths, their eyes. Kael’s grip in his hair loosened, his hand sliding down to clutch at the back of Zack’s neck, holding on.
“Zack,” he breathed, just a name, but it held everything.
From deep within the refinery’s bowels, a new sound echoed. Not a skiff. This was metallic, rhythmic, and getting closer. The heavy, grinding tread of a tracked walker.
Their heads snapped up, eyes meeting. The moment shattered, reassembling into cold, hard focus.
“They’re inside,” Zack said, his voice gravel. He released Kael, turning off the shower. The sudden silence was deafening.
“They followed the conduit,” Kael replied, already moving for their piled, wet clothes. He tossed Zack’s to him. “They’re sweeping the whole structure.”
They dressed fast, the damp fabric clinging stubbornly. The grinding tread grew louder, accompanied by the static crackle of a comms unit. It was somewhere on the level above, moving toward the stairwell that would bring it right to them.
Zack shoved his feet into his boots, grabbed the rifle. He looked at Kael, who was hastily buckling his belt, his face once again a mask of sharp, survivalist intensity. The taste of him was still on Zack’s lips.
“We go deeper,” Zack said, nodding toward a maintenance hatch hanging askew on the far wall. “Into the pipes.”
Kael followed his gaze, then looked back at him. A flicker of that desperate understanding passed between them again. He gave a single, sharp nod.
“After you.”