Part 7
Heat blurred vision made the entrance passage to the cavern treacherous. One missed step could send the beast tumbling to its death down the steep way to against the unforgiving stones below. Its mouth was dry, and lips cracked; bleeding near black blood that dribbled down its sun baked, midnight flesh dotted with the gray of peeling skin.
The shriek of welcome pierced its pointed ears and they flatten against its large skull in response.
“What the fuck is that!” a male voice shouts, crackling with lack of water.
It took a moment to recognize the voices, the faces and the scents all mingling with one another, assaulting the beast’s olfactory: Musky leather and acrid spice, chemical fruit, decaying leaves, and two unidentifiable putrid artificial musks.
The long ears swivel forward at the sound of a gun being cocked. It lifts its head to see the human, distantly knowing the gunman as John Sheppard, aiming at the wide space between its eyes.
Decaying leaves filled its nostrils as the hybrid stands and approaches, despite Sheppard’s command to stay back.
I remember you, short faced knuckle-walker. “You’re the one who took me,” she says. “What happened to you, Helena?”
“Helena!” Jennifer gasps.
Myrna squats in front of the disfigured squashed muzzle, her lips pulling into a frown. “How did the knuckle-walkers turn you?” I thought only humans were susceptible to the curse. She didn’t understand it; Helena should have died when her body began its first shift.
She had seen just that twelve years ago. A troop of Wraith visited her village to procure viable breeding stock. Her grandmother had hidden her in the root cellar, where only a small rectangular window sat high on the left wall. Standing on her tip toes, she was able to pull her upper body up on the sill and sneak a quick look outside.
The Commander’s boots passed her face while she fought to keep her presence hidden from their always probing minds. A second pair of less ornate booted feet follow, slower and they stumbled. Pressing her cheek against the glass, she was able to see him.
Pale, more so than the rest, his veins stood stark against his flesh. The lower caste Wraith favored his left arm and the fingers jerked involuntarily.
When he came into view of the village center the shout of “Bitten!” rang out amongst the crowd of humans who had been forced into the open. It was easily recognizable. The slump of posture, the way the body glistened with sweat, despite the frigid weather.
The people back away when the Wraith drops to his knees, retreating to their homes and shops. His Commander turns a shocked face to his compatriot, unable to mask his emotion with the cool aloofness. Nostrils had flared wide in fear; he knew what this was. All the old ones did.
The fallen Wraith’s skin darkened to a near black-blue as blood burst from his veins, slowly. It crept from his spine and spread over his body like seeping paint. When his organs began to shift, it was then the blood pours free of every opening it could find. The pressure building within him, until the inevitable: organ after organ expanded and burst all the while he shrieked in agony, unable to die while his body attempted to make the repairs.
She had looked away before his Commander showed a rare act of mercy, and ended the pain. The wet crunch of the neck snapping still sounded fresh in her mind and Myrna could not suppress the shudder.
Large slit pupiled eyes stare at the hybrid. The sclera blotted with starbursts of blood, leaving little of the blue, and her irises pin points of light against them. Intelligence was overridden by pain and the instinct to feed that drove all creatures. Dark, crooked teeth flash with a glisten of blood flecked foam as the lips rise in a snarl, so close, her prey was sitting within arm’s reach.
“Myrna!”
Blue energy crackles over the beast-Helena’s body, locking her in mid lunge before her limbs crumpled beneath her. A second blast insures she would not shake herself from the paralysis immediately. In her weakened state, the blasts could potentially kill her.
Jennifer steps out from behind Todd’s back, when the Wraith slips his stunner back into the belted holster. Rushing over to the hybrid, she checks over her arms for signs of bite marks. “Are you alright?” she asks.
Myrna nods with a shaken “mmhm.” Lifting her trembling hand, she touches her sheered hair, knowing how it had been removed now. Those terrible needle teeth lay exposed to her, inches from her spittle covered knee. Helena’s great purple tinted tongue lolled on the floor like a slug.
Myrna’s arms were unscathed, though Jennifer still looks them over once more just to be sure. If the movies had any semblance of truth, once nick from a tooth could infect the Hybrid. Feeling, rather than hearing Todd approach, she turns to look up at the imposing figure behind her.
He looks past the hybrid and Jennifer, down at the unconscious creature. “Do you have anything with which we can restrain it?” he asks Sheppard without so much as a glance up from the beast Helena.
“Yeah,” Sheppard replies, releasing the heavy breath he had held when Helena took an offensive stance.
The packs were clustered against one of the walls, away from where to group slept to prevent the urge to snack on the dwindling food supply. John rifled through his pack, pushing past a few energy bars and a copy of Hustler. The rope was neatly tucked against the roll of toilet paper he always carried with him to avoid using poisonous leaves again.
As he begins to rise with rope in hand, John turns to face Todd’s black encased neck. “Jesus. I thought we talked about the whole personal space bubble.” he says, thrusting the rope into the Wraith’s left hand.
John noticed Todd’s eyes flicker down to the pack, knowing exactly what the Wraith saw based on the disapproving look he received when he met that reptilian gaze. Todd had made it very clear he did not care for porn in any form during one of their nightly chats on Earth.
John refused to admit to himself that he misses those evenings with the Wraith.
“At least it’s not as nasty as the shit McKay watches. Two girls one cup has nothing on…”
“It would be prudent to shut your mouth.” Todd interrupts, refusing to dwell on that memory he so desperately wished he could erase.
Sheppard laughs and claps Todd on the back, careful to avoid the raised spinal ridge. “Ah-h-h, that face you made will always be remembered.”
Todd’s upper lip lifts briefly, but long enough for John to pick up on the subtle gesture. Removing his hand, he steps back, away from the Wraith to let him finish his task. John knew that look and knew exactly what could counter it. He had never seen Todd relax, not until he exposed the Wraith to Blue Oyster Cult. The Wraith actually expressed his fondness of the song: Veteran of the Psychic War, rather than the usual grunt if asked if he enjoyed something.
Jennifer watches while Todd crouches beside Helena. He loops the rope around her left wrist, pulling it to her right to bind them both. Without them, she couldn’t move unless she could shift back. It was a risk he didn’t care to take, despite knowing most could not move between the forms. However, Wraith were not supposed to become hosts for the virus, so he grabs her ankles and secures them to her wrists. Stretching the remaining length upwards, he bites roughly a foot from the rope to form a make shift muzzle.
“We’re keeping her in here?” Jennifer asks when she slides next to Todd as he checks the security of the knots.
Myrna had long scooted away from the beast close to the packs. Her knees were drawn up to her chest as the comprehension of how close she had possibly come to death hit her.
A deep “mmhm” was all Todd offers Jennifer in response. He’d rather ignore the obvious question. It seemed to be an Earth based human trait, but he did acknowledge that she spoke so she would not ask again.
That wasn’t the answer Jennifer had wanted. Biting her lip, she looks over Helena’s bound body. The beast was lumpy, as if all her bones had not formed properly. Uneasily, she reaches forward and lifts one eye lid in secret hope that the stun had killed it. The almond shaped pupil constricts and Helena jerks her head towards the hand, straining against her muzzle.
“What the fuck?” Rodney shouts, backing up so that Sheppard was in front of him.
With a yelp Jennifer snatches her hand back, instinctively grabbing Todd’s arm.
The Wraith pauses for a moment while the woman hung on his arm. Her breasts were warm against his arm. The burst from Sheppard’s pistol shook him from the minor distraction. Turning, he watches the beast’s head drop to the floor with a meaty thud. The hole between her eyes seeps clotting black blood.
“Oh my god,” Jennifer murmurs. Her eyes widen in horror as the beast’s body jerks with a squish. Slowly it quivers while bones move under the skin. The muzzle shortens, the legs thin, and the great bulk seemed to deflate in seconds. Before them lay Helena as she was when she was last seen. Her blood shot eyes stare blankly at John’s feet.
Sliding past Todd, Jennifer carefully lifts Helena’s chin. “It looks like she’s been dead for hours,” she says.
“Move aside, Doctor Keller,” Todd says, to avoid the gesture of pushing her out of the way. In a spooked state, these humans could be more trigger happy than usual. They may assume any gesture, no matter how innocent, aggressive.
The knife he always carried on his person flashes into view as he slips it from its sheath in the hidden fold beneath his wrist. Rolling Helena’s body onto its back, he presses the knife into her flesh, just below the resistant sternum. Ignoring John’s: “What the hell are you doing?” and Jennifer’s similar, less explicative question, he slices into her. Cutting downward, he opens her abdomen and pulls the flesh back.
It was just as he had thought. Inside her body, Helena was a bloody liquefied mass. He did not realize how close Jennifer was until she gasps beside him and he felt her breath on his shoulder. “Helena, as you call her, died in a sense, when her body began to shift.”
“But how was she still moving?” John asks.
“Her brain was functioning on a basic level while her body was trying to repair itself,” Todd says as he wipes the knife clean in Helena’s hair. He was careful to avoid coming in contact with the coagulated blood.
“So why did she come back here?” John asks.
“She probably thought this was home,” Jennifer answers. She looks up at John, to avoid seeing the gelatinous mass any more than she needed. “Think of it like a zombie, I guess… I really don’t want to think that, but Helena was essentially running on two things: the need for food and to find a safe place.”
“Alrighty, so Wraith become zombie werewolves when they get bitten. That’s just fantastic,” John mutters. He rubs a hand over his face and looks at the body. It stunk to high heavens. “Either we move her or it’ll be us doing the moving. I really don’t want to spend another night with a rotting Wraith if we’re stuck here any longer.”
Jennifer frowns, but knew they needed to get Helena away from everyone. She didn’t want to risk contamination, if any of the blood accidentally came in contact with someone. I certainly don’t want to be a werewolf.
It was Todd who rises from a crouch to face John, “I will dispose of her.” He pauses and glances at Jennifer when she moves to stand, “When the sun sets, leave the cave and return to the gate site, I will meet you there.”
“It’s going to take that long to bury her?” Rodney asks.
“No. Data needs to be collected from the facility, and it will be quicker to travel alone.”
“But those things are in there,” Jennifer says, pointedly keeping her eyes away from the body behind her.
“If he wants to play with zombies and get eaten, let him. We need to worry about getting home.” John says. He holsters his pistol and looks up: the opening in the ceiling filtered in orange light. “It’ll be dark soon. Everyone get in gear and be ready to move out in an hour.”
Jennifer follows Todd into the small room they had shared during the day. He retrieves the scraps of clothing Helena had left near the back wall. “Are you sure you want to go alone?” he hears Jennifer ask from the left corner.
Despite the darkness, he could see her clearly in shades of blue. “I cannot risk being caught in the open when the day breaks for a third time. My water supply is running low.”
“We have some extra water.”
“Drinking water will not replenish it and I do not wish to tarnish my welcome with your people to get what I need.”
The Wraith saw that his words sank in when she nods. “How does that…outfit work?”
“It prevents my body from expelling excess water. It collects what does release and keeps it close to my skin to keep me hydrated. Unfortunately, the suit can withstand only a handful of days in extreme conditions before it fails.”
“Oh,” That’s kinda gross, Jennifer thinks and her nose wrinkles, giving away what she thought. A blush colors her sun baked, showing near white against the blue glow of her body as he laughs.
With fabric in hand, he moves to leave as Jennifer says: “Wait.”
Turning to her, he tilts his head, a gesture she could faintly see in the near black. With a slight hesitation, she approaches Todd and wraps her arms around his torso in a brief, tight hug. She felt his body tense against her. He smelled heavily of damp leather and uncut cigars. “Good luck.”
Todd gives her a brusque nod, perplexed by the affable gesture. He recognizes it as a hug, and knew the many implications of it. Once she released him, the Wraith took a step back. She had averted her eyes and remains where she was when he ducks out of the room to see Rodney’s accusing glare.
Humans became offensive in many situations, and the right to a female was among the top. However, the embrace Jennifer had offered seemed only friendly. She gave off no indication of desire or any interest further than his well being. He’d been wrong before and considers that and perhaps her means of showing sexual attraction was far different than the humans he had encountered. Either way, Rodney posed no threat to him. He could huff all he wanted over his presumption.
The torn robe and desert suit would provide a cover for the corpse. If the Lantean’s rescue failed to arrive, he did not wish to sleep in a cave contaminated with Helena’s blood. The fear the Wraith held in the back of his mind still sends a chill up his spine and set a weight in the pit of his stomach.
As carefully as he could, Todd wraps the body securely. A brief glance over his hands ensures that no fluids touched his skin. Only the splatter of brain matter and blood from the gunshot remained. The area was small enough to be easily avoided if they were forced to return.
“If you aren’t back three hours after dawn, you’re on your own.” John says when Todd hefts the body over his shoulder.
The Wraith nods. With his free hand Todd opens a hidden pocket in the breast of his suit and fastens what looks like a black oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. The exertion from the long trek ahead would suck far too much moisture from him if he went without it.
When Todd was out of sight, Rodney turns to Jennifer: “What the hell was that?”
“A hug, Rodney. You didn’t complain when I gave Helena a hug,” she replies cuttingly.
“Yeah, well Helena wasn’t Todd.”
“Rodney, leave it alone,” Sheppard snaps. The heat and lack of a real meal was beginning to get to them all. Even Myrna had lapsed into silence. The hybrid was still huddled in the corner, fixated on the blood.
With a sigh, John squats in front of Myrna. “Hey, get up and get ready to go. You’re coming with us.”
Her eyes meet his for a brief moment, and then lower as she nods.
“We got an hour and fifty three minutes until its dark enough. Put the petty shit behind you,” he says pointedly at Rodney, “and get your collective asses in gear.”
The shriek of welcome pierced its pointed ears and they flatten against its large skull in response.
“What the fuck is that!” a male voice shouts, crackling with lack of water.
It took a moment to recognize the voices, the faces and the scents all mingling with one another, assaulting the beast’s olfactory: Musky leather and acrid spice, chemical fruit, decaying leaves, and two unidentifiable putrid artificial musks.
The long ears swivel forward at the sound of a gun being cocked. It lifts its head to see the human, distantly knowing the gunman as John Sheppard, aiming at the wide space between its eyes.
Decaying leaves filled its nostrils as the hybrid stands and approaches, despite Sheppard’s command to stay back.
I remember you, short faced knuckle-walker. “You’re the one who took me,” she says. “What happened to you, Helena?”
“Helena!” Jennifer gasps.
Myrna squats in front of the disfigured squashed muzzle, her lips pulling into a frown. “How did the knuckle-walkers turn you?” I thought only humans were susceptible to the curse. She didn’t understand it; Helena should have died when her body began its first shift.
She had seen just that twelve years ago. A troop of Wraith visited her village to procure viable breeding stock. Her grandmother had hidden her in the root cellar, where only a small rectangular window sat high on the left wall. Standing on her tip toes, she was able to pull her upper body up on the sill and sneak a quick look outside.
The Commander’s boots passed her face while she fought to keep her presence hidden from their always probing minds. A second pair of less ornate booted feet follow, slower and they stumbled. Pressing her cheek against the glass, she was able to see him.
Pale, more so than the rest, his veins stood stark against his flesh. The lower caste Wraith favored his left arm and the fingers jerked involuntarily.
When he came into view of the village center the shout of “Bitten!” rang out amongst the crowd of humans who had been forced into the open. It was easily recognizable. The slump of posture, the way the body glistened with sweat, despite the frigid weather.
The people back away when the Wraith drops to his knees, retreating to their homes and shops. His Commander turns a shocked face to his compatriot, unable to mask his emotion with the cool aloofness. Nostrils had flared wide in fear; he knew what this was. All the old ones did.
The fallen Wraith’s skin darkened to a near black-blue as blood burst from his veins, slowly. It crept from his spine and spread over his body like seeping paint. When his organs began to shift, it was then the blood pours free of every opening it could find. The pressure building within him, until the inevitable: organ after organ expanded and burst all the while he shrieked in agony, unable to die while his body attempted to make the repairs.
She had looked away before his Commander showed a rare act of mercy, and ended the pain. The wet crunch of the neck snapping still sounded fresh in her mind and Myrna could not suppress the shudder.
Large slit pupiled eyes stare at the hybrid. The sclera blotted with starbursts of blood, leaving little of the blue, and her irises pin points of light against them. Intelligence was overridden by pain and the instinct to feed that drove all creatures. Dark, crooked teeth flash with a glisten of blood flecked foam as the lips rise in a snarl, so close, her prey was sitting within arm’s reach.
“Myrna!”
Blue energy crackles over the beast-Helena’s body, locking her in mid lunge before her limbs crumpled beneath her. A second blast insures she would not shake herself from the paralysis immediately. In her weakened state, the blasts could potentially kill her.
Jennifer steps out from behind Todd’s back, when the Wraith slips his stunner back into the belted holster. Rushing over to the hybrid, she checks over her arms for signs of bite marks. “Are you alright?” she asks.
Myrna nods with a shaken “mmhm.” Lifting her trembling hand, she touches her sheered hair, knowing how it had been removed now. Those terrible needle teeth lay exposed to her, inches from her spittle covered knee. Helena’s great purple tinted tongue lolled on the floor like a slug.
Myrna’s arms were unscathed, though Jennifer still looks them over once more just to be sure. If the movies had any semblance of truth, once nick from a tooth could infect the Hybrid. Feeling, rather than hearing Todd approach, she turns to look up at the imposing figure behind her.
He looks past the hybrid and Jennifer, down at the unconscious creature. “Do you have anything with which we can restrain it?” he asks Sheppard without so much as a glance up from the beast Helena.
“Yeah,” Sheppard replies, releasing the heavy breath he had held when Helena took an offensive stance.
The packs were clustered against one of the walls, away from where to group slept to prevent the urge to snack on the dwindling food supply. John rifled through his pack, pushing past a few energy bars and a copy of Hustler. The rope was neatly tucked against the roll of toilet paper he always carried with him to avoid using poisonous leaves again.
As he begins to rise with rope in hand, John turns to face Todd’s black encased neck. “Jesus. I thought we talked about the whole personal space bubble.” he says, thrusting the rope into the Wraith’s left hand.
John noticed Todd’s eyes flicker down to the pack, knowing exactly what the Wraith saw based on the disapproving look he received when he met that reptilian gaze. Todd had made it very clear he did not care for porn in any form during one of their nightly chats on Earth.
John refused to admit to himself that he misses those evenings with the Wraith.
“At least it’s not as nasty as the shit McKay watches. Two girls one cup has nothing on…”
“It would be prudent to shut your mouth.” Todd interrupts, refusing to dwell on that memory he so desperately wished he could erase.
Sheppard laughs and claps Todd on the back, careful to avoid the raised spinal ridge. “Ah-h-h, that face you made will always be remembered.”
Todd’s upper lip lifts briefly, but long enough for John to pick up on the subtle gesture. Removing his hand, he steps back, away from the Wraith to let him finish his task. John knew that look and knew exactly what could counter it. He had never seen Todd relax, not until he exposed the Wraith to Blue Oyster Cult. The Wraith actually expressed his fondness of the song: Veteran of the Psychic War, rather than the usual grunt if asked if he enjoyed something.
Jennifer watches while Todd crouches beside Helena. He loops the rope around her left wrist, pulling it to her right to bind them both. Without them, she couldn’t move unless she could shift back. It was a risk he didn’t care to take, despite knowing most could not move between the forms. However, Wraith were not supposed to become hosts for the virus, so he grabs her ankles and secures them to her wrists. Stretching the remaining length upwards, he bites roughly a foot from the rope to form a make shift muzzle.
“We’re keeping her in here?” Jennifer asks when she slides next to Todd as he checks the security of the knots.
Myrna had long scooted away from the beast close to the packs. Her knees were drawn up to her chest as the comprehension of how close she had possibly come to death hit her.
A deep “mmhm” was all Todd offers Jennifer in response. He’d rather ignore the obvious question. It seemed to be an Earth based human trait, but he did acknowledge that she spoke so she would not ask again.
That wasn’t the answer Jennifer had wanted. Biting her lip, she looks over Helena’s bound body. The beast was lumpy, as if all her bones had not formed properly. Uneasily, she reaches forward and lifts one eye lid in secret hope that the stun had killed it. The almond shaped pupil constricts and Helena jerks her head towards the hand, straining against her muzzle.
“What the fuck?” Rodney shouts, backing up so that Sheppard was in front of him.
With a yelp Jennifer snatches her hand back, instinctively grabbing Todd’s arm.
The Wraith pauses for a moment while the woman hung on his arm. Her breasts were warm against his arm. The burst from Sheppard’s pistol shook him from the minor distraction. Turning, he watches the beast’s head drop to the floor with a meaty thud. The hole between her eyes seeps clotting black blood.
“Oh my god,” Jennifer murmurs. Her eyes widen in horror as the beast’s body jerks with a squish. Slowly it quivers while bones move under the skin. The muzzle shortens, the legs thin, and the great bulk seemed to deflate in seconds. Before them lay Helena as she was when she was last seen. Her blood shot eyes stare blankly at John’s feet.
Sliding past Todd, Jennifer carefully lifts Helena’s chin. “It looks like she’s been dead for hours,” she says.
“Move aside, Doctor Keller,” Todd says, to avoid the gesture of pushing her out of the way. In a spooked state, these humans could be more trigger happy than usual. They may assume any gesture, no matter how innocent, aggressive.
The knife he always carried on his person flashes into view as he slips it from its sheath in the hidden fold beneath his wrist. Rolling Helena’s body onto its back, he presses the knife into her flesh, just below the resistant sternum. Ignoring John’s: “What the hell are you doing?” and Jennifer’s similar, less explicative question, he slices into her. Cutting downward, he opens her abdomen and pulls the flesh back.
It was just as he had thought. Inside her body, Helena was a bloody liquefied mass. He did not realize how close Jennifer was until she gasps beside him and he felt her breath on his shoulder. “Helena, as you call her, died in a sense, when her body began to shift.”
“But how was she still moving?” John asks.
“Her brain was functioning on a basic level while her body was trying to repair itself,” Todd says as he wipes the knife clean in Helena’s hair. He was careful to avoid coming in contact with the coagulated blood.
“So why did she come back here?” John asks.
“She probably thought this was home,” Jennifer answers. She looks up at John, to avoid seeing the gelatinous mass any more than she needed. “Think of it like a zombie, I guess… I really don’t want to think that, but Helena was essentially running on two things: the need for food and to find a safe place.”
“Alrighty, so Wraith become zombie werewolves when they get bitten. That’s just fantastic,” John mutters. He rubs a hand over his face and looks at the body. It stunk to high heavens. “Either we move her or it’ll be us doing the moving. I really don’t want to spend another night with a rotting Wraith if we’re stuck here any longer.”
Jennifer frowns, but knew they needed to get Helena away from everyone. She didn’t want to risk contamination, if any of the blood accidentally came in contact with someone. I certainly don’t want to be a werewolf.
It was Todd who rises from a crouch to face John, “I will dispose of her.” He pauses and glances at Jennifer when she moves to stand, “When the sun sets, leave the cave and return to the gate site, I will meet you there.”
“It’s going to take that long to bury her?” Rodney asks.
“No. Data needs to be collected from the facility, and it will be quicker to travel alone.”
“But those things are in there,” Jennifer says, pointedly keeping her eyes away from the body behind her.
“If he wants to play with zombies and get eaten, let him. We need to worry about getting home.” John says. He holsters his pistol and looks up: the opening in the ceiling filtered in orange light. “It’ll be dark soon. Everyone get in gear and be ready to move out in an hour.”
Jennifer follows Todd into the small room they had shared during the day. He retrieves the scraps of clothing Helena had left near the back wall. “Are you sure you want to go alone?” he hears Jennifer ask from the left corner.
Despite the darkness, he could see her clearly in shades of blue. “I cannot risk being caught in the open when the day breaks for a third time. My water supply is running low.”
“We have some extra water.”
“Drinking water will not replenish it and I do not wish to tarnish my welcome with your people to get what I need.”
The Wraith saw that his words sank in when she nods. “How does that…outfit work?”
“It prevents my body from expelling excess water. It collects what does release and keeps it close to my skin to keep me hydrated. Unfortunately, the suit can withstand only a handful of days in extreme conditions before it fails.”
“Oh,” That’s kinda gross, Jennifer thinks and her nose wrinkles, giving away what she thought. A blush colors her sun baked, showing near white against the blue glow of her body as he laughs.
With fabric in hand, he moves to leave as Jennifer says: “Wait.”
Turning to her, he tilts his head, a gesture she could faintly see in the near black. With a slight hesitation, she approaches Todd and wraps her arms around his torso in a brief, tight hug. She felt his body tense against her. He smelled heavily of damp leather and uncut cigars. “Good luck.”
Todd gives her a brusque nod, perplexed by the affable gesture. He recognizes it as a hug, and knew the many implications of it. Once she released him, the Wraith took a step back. She had averted her eyes and remains where she was when he ducks out of the room to see Rodney’s accusing glare.
Humans became offensive in many situations, and the right to a female was among the top. However, the embrace Jennifer had offered seemed only friendly. She gave off no indication of desire or any interest further than his well being. He’d been wrong before and considers that and perhaps her means of showing sexual attraction was far different than the humans he had encountered. Either way, Rodney posed no threat to him. He could huff all he wanted over his presumption.
The torn robe and desert suit would provide a cover for the corpse. If the Lantean’s rescue failed to arrive, he did not wish to sleep in a cave contaminated with Helena’s blood. The fear the Wraith held in the back of his mind still sends a chill up his spine and set a weight in the pit of his stomach.
As carefully as he could, Todd wraps the body securely. A brief glance over his hands ensures that no fluids touched his skin. Only the splatter of brain matter and blood from the gunshot remained. The area was small enough to be easily avoided if they were forced to return.
“If you aren’t back three hours after dawn, you’re on your own.” John says when Todd hefts the body over his shoulder.
The Wraith nods. With his free hand Todd opens a hidden pocket in the breast of his suit and fastens what looks like a black oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. The exertion from the long trek ahead would suck far too much moisture from him if he went without it.
When Todd was out of sight, Rodney turns to Jennifer: “What the hell was that?”
“A hug, Rodney. You didn’t complain when I gave Helena a hug,” she replies cuttingly.
“Yeah, well Helena wasn’t Todd.”
“Rodney, leave it alone,” Sheppard snaps. The heat and lack of a real meal was beginning to get to them all. Even Myrna had lapsed into silence. The hybrid was still huddled in the corner, fixated on the blood.
With a sigh, John squats in front of Myrna. “Hey, get up and get ready to go. You’re coming with us.”
Her eyes meet his for a brief moment, and then lower as she nods.
“We got an hour and fifty three minutes until its dark enough. Put the petty shit behind you,” he says pointedly at Rodney, “and get your collective asses in gear.”