The panic inside the rover is too much. I crash into a wall as I’m hit in the back of the head. The already overheating rover shuts down and slides along the wall tearing apart the front of the building. My side of the rover is pinned. I wait for others to pile out of the rover as I’m trapped with Marilyn and Kyra. I fall out of the rover onto the ground followed by Marilyn before slamming the door of the rover closed.

“Is anyone bitten, I ask getting to my feet,” nobody responds. “Is anyone bitten!”

Everyone checks themselves for injuries we’re all clean but shaken up. Inside the rover Kyra pounds on the doors attempting to free herself. Marilyn cries and tries to open the door but Aaimina shoves her to the ground.

“How long did you know,” Aaimina shouts while standing over Marilyn.

Karl attempts to stop Aaimina but is quick lifted from his feet and slammed down on a shoulder by Thore. Before Karl can get off the ground Niko kicks him in the chest. Aaimina begins to punch Marilyn, terrible punches, punches full of rage and frustration. Marshall fires as single gunshot in the air to stop the chaos and draw all of our attention to a building he’s opened up.

“Everyone pair up, strip down and check each other for bites,” he demands.

Thore and Niko are the first to enter the building. Marshall and I are wearing armor, so we’re not worried. We check each other for face and neck wounds but we’re clear. Thore and Niko return, Thore gives Niko a passing grade.

“No bites, but the man is big everywhere,” Niko jokes before Thore smacks him in the back of the head.

Marshall goes with Karl and they take longer than Thore and Niko. Nobody pretends that Marshall isn’t beating Karl senseless. Nobody is pretending he doesn’t deserve it. Occasionally, I glance over to the rover, shaking as Kyra bounces around inside, but silent due to the soundproofing on the vehicle. Marshall walks out followed by Karl who attempts to button his shirt with bruised and shaking hands before surrendering to the buttons. Aaimina and Marilyn enter leaving us to discuss what happened.

“How long did you know that your daughter was bitten,” I ask Karl, knowing Marshall probably didn’t get to the portion of the interrogation where questions were being asked.

“I didn’t know, I wouldn’t do that,” Karl pleads with Marshall more than me.

“Is that why you tried to take the rover for yourself?”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“No, I just wanted to get to the rescue location sooner.”

“You realize you just cost us a day of travel?”

“I promise, I didn’t mean any harm,” he continues to beg on the verge of tears.

Aaimina and Marilyn provide a clean bill of health but I don’t believe it. Marilyn was probably feeding Kyra from her hand wound. It’s bandaged now, but I bet it’s a bite. For now we need to deal with the situation at hand.

Inside we all discuss things, but my mind is elsewhere. The grubs are mutating. Kyra has the ability to summon the others. There’s nothing confirmed but her mother’s insistence on keeping her quiet is the first clue. The second would be that every time she started to scream, grubs showed up. They showed up when we caught her father. They showed up at the restaurant but the sound of the storm probably drowned out her screams. They showed up at the loading dock when she started screaming. They knew, at least Marilyn knew the entire time. I call for Marshall and Thore outside.

“We need to kill her,” I speak first.

“That’s some ambition,” Marhsall says.

“How do we get her out,” Thore asks.

“I’m going to climb on the roof and pop it open. She’ll climb out then someone puts a bullet in her head,” I offer a simple plan.

“Let’s go,” Marshall walks towards the rover.

Marilyn must know what’s happening. She rushes over as I open up the top hatch of the rover and snap my fingers to get the attention of Kyra, or the grub formerly known as Kyra. I leap from the roof to the ground as I get her attention. Marilyn screams over and over again, trying to rush forward as Thore holds her off the ground. Karl, the coward doesn’t bother to do anything. Kyra climbs out, unblinking. She doesn’t have all the signs of being a grub but there’s portions of her that are very insect like. As she stares unblinkingly I realize why she didn’t close her eyes earlier, she couldn’t. Insects don’t have eyelids.

I don’t look away as Marshall fires his gun. A single bullet pierces the center of Kyra’s head piercing the wall behind her and splattering the orangish blood against the wall. A few moments later the body drops dead, slamming it’s head on the roof of the rover before dropping back down into the rover silently.

Thore lets Marilyn go as she rushes over to the rover and yanks the door open. She screams and cries as she cradles her dead child’s body in her arms. It should be a heartbreaking scene as we all look on solemnly. Karl walks over and closes the door so that nobody can see his wife grieve. The rest of us return to the building. We’ll be here for the night, thanks to their destruction of the rover. But we’ve got time to make it to the lab and rescue point still. Marshall doesn’t look proud of what he just did, I place a hand on his shoulder and he seems grateful for once. Thore vomits behind the rover, sick from what he just did.

The three of us enter the building where Niko and Aaimina are waiting. Nobody speaks, we just take the moment to rest and understand what just happened. Contemplating on if we’re still human after killing a child. Was Kyra still a child, not some kind of mutant grub? Why can’t I stop calling her Kyra.

“You guys did the right thing,” Aaimina speaks up.

“Yeah, it sucks, but it had to be done,” Niko adds.

The two of us try to comfort us with their words, but in reality, I’m not sure anything can bring you back from killing a child. I didn’t pull the trigger, but I was a big part of her demise. My only justification is that I still have my own life, and an opportunity to get out of here alive.