“It was self-defense. Your planes approached armed with missiles.”
“Trying to protect the people in that town!” Levin said, stabbing an angry finger into the table.
“Enough!” Stanley barked. “We’ve got the entire world watching us and we need to respond. Fast. So what’s the plan?”
Colonel Levin looked at him. “We continue trying to establish comms with the town, see if anyone is left alive. We keep the perimeter guarded. No one leaves that town. If they try, we shoot them.”
“Absolutely not,” Wattowski said. “If anyone is left alive we quarantine them. That town has just become the biggest research project in history.”
“Sir!” a technician wearing a Metallica T-shirt called out. “The satellites are starting to come back online!”
“Bring them up!” Stanley ordered, turning back to the room. “Get them on the screen now!”
The technician went into action at his console and the largest screen in the room suddenly flicked to a satellite view over the town.
“Get us in close!” Stanley ordered, as the room fell silent and all eyes turned to watch.
It was blurry at first, but slowly the picture sharpened as they zoomed in on the main street. They saw a few cars positioned haphazardly in the middle of the road. Unmoving. Then they saw what looked like bodies lying on the sidewalk—
Someone gave a quiet gasp, expressing the shared fear of the room. The fear that they were looking at dead bodies.
But then one of the bodies moved.
Then another.
“Oh, my god,” Wattowski said in awe. “They’re still alive!”
“Get the comms back online, now!” Stanley barked. “I want to know everything about that town, and everyone in it! Find us someone we can speak to!”
*
Abbie Randell stirred from what felt like the best sleep of her life. A sensation of heaviness pulled her body down, but her mind began to lift like a balloon. She noticed a mechanical, grinding sound, grating on and off in the background. It was strange. Irregular.
She blinked as her mind awoke. Her vision cleared and she realized she was laying on the floor of Mona’s Cafe at the VAC. Her chicken and gravy roll was splattered along the ground in front of her, among shards of broken white lunch plate.
Faint groans sounded in the background. She wasn’t alone. She sensed movement beside her and saw Josh, the new lifeguard, lying beside her.
Why were they on the floor?
He stirred and they stared at each other blankly for a moment. He looked how she felt: as though she’d just woken from a long, deep sleep, her head cloudy, her throat dry.
She heard more groaning and looked around to see a few bodies beginning to stir on the floor. Which was strange. Hadn’t there been at least a dozen people in the cafe just a moment before?
“What happened?” Josh rubbed the back of his head, his hand shaking his shaggy, dark-blond hair. “Where is everyone?”
Abbie noticed his chin and neck were red and scratched from the fall.
Candy, the other lifeguard, staggered to her feet, and beside her was Justin, a twelve-year-old boy from Abbie’s second swimming class of the day. Austin, a personal trainer from the VAC’s adjoining gym, was the last of the bodies to his feet. He stared around at everyone, his eyes a little accusatory as though they’d been the ones to put him on the ground. Abbie noticed he’d scratched his chin and neck too.
A groan behind the cafe’s counter made them all spin around in fright. Mona, the cafe’s namesake, rose up slowly, holding the counter to steady herself. She stared back at them with her plump face and rosy red cheeks. No one spoke. Groggily they migrated over to the windows to see if the missing customers had gone outside. The grounds were empty except for a few souls who were picking themselves up off the grass. Which was weird, Abbie thought, because on her way into the cafe before she had seen a whole track team out there.
She looked quizzically at the TV located on the wall. The screen was black, yet ripples of static rolled down it, and that strange mechanical noise seemed to be emanating from there. Mona suddenly moved into the kitchen. She picked up a small radio that sat by the sink, brought it back to the counter and began twisting the knobs, trying to pick up a station.
“Maybe we had an earthquake or something?” she finally said, sounding unsure. “That’s why we were on the floor, right?” Mona couldn’t find a station though. All they heard was that staticky, strange mechanical noise. The cafe owner cursed. “What the hell is going on?”
Candy brought a shaky hand up to her mouth; her pretty blue eyes welling with tears. “Do you think it’s some kind of terrorist attack?”
Austin threw her a dark look then pulled out his phone and dialed a number, his bulky personal-trainer body pacing the room. Josh instantly took his phone out as well, and Abbie saw him bring up the number for his mom. She did the same, hands trembling as she called her home number. But it wouldn’t connect. There was no service.
“I think maybe we should head home,” Mona suggested, looking at them anxiously, her double chin bouncing up and down as she nodded to herself. “I’m closing up.”
They all nodded, and Austin and Candy immediately departed, heading off in different directions. Abbie moved to Justin who still stood there, wide-eyed and wordless. Behind in his swim lessons, and not as strong as the others, she’d always given him special attention in class. “Are you okay, Justin?” she asked, placing her hand on his shoulder. His freckled face looked up at her, his body shaking a little. He nodded, but still no words came out of his mouth.
“Are you alright to get home?” she asked. “You want me to go with you?”
He shook his head and immediately headed for the door. Abbie followed him to where his bicycle rested outside the cafe. She watched him ride away, front wheel shaking in time with his body, eyes still wide with shock.
“Let’s go,” Josh’s voice sounded behind her. She nodded and together they left the VAC.
As they headed for their homes, they grew more and more concerned with every step they took. Abbie quickly realized there were very few people around, and those that were seemed to be in a state of shock, panic or tears. They noticed the cars on the road were all stopped. Many of them sat empty, their drivers’ nowhere to be seen. Others sat in their cars, seemingly dazed and confused about why they were there.
“The cars on the road, why . . . why are some of them empty?” Abbie asked, trying to fight the alarm building within. “Where did everyone go?”
Josh responded with a worried look and, as one, they wordlessly stepped up their pace and began to run.
*
Richard Keene splashed water over his face. He studied his green eyes carefully in the hotel room’s bathroom mirror. He’d never fainted before. This was new. He wondered what had brought it on. Stress? The story he was working on had a tight deadline, but that had never made him faint before. This is what he did for a living: work from deadline to deadline, chasing story after story.
And he could hardly say that covering the launch of the Bateson Dermacell project office was stressful. Sure, there was controversy over the funding, but the stories he normally chased were a lot bigger than this. This story was an in-between job. Fly out from New York, cover the launch, interview a few people, fly back the next day and file the report. Simple.
So why the hell did he faint?
He let out a sigh and wiped his face. He headed for the minibar to get a water, combing his fingers through his curly brown hair as he went. Maybe he was coming down with a virus? He had just gotten back from a trip to Malaysia where he’d been working on a follow up to his palm oil story. Could be he’d caught something on the plane; or been bitten by a mosquito or other bug, picked up some tropical virus. Maybe he should take a break once this story was filed—he was probably overdue for one. He thought of his parents again, back in Iowa, and how long it had been since he’d seen them.
Or even called them. He’d better do that once he returned to New York.
He took the water from the fridge and began to drink, but paused when he heard what sounded like a man screaming.
He instantly moved over to the window and looked down to the road below. There were a few cars stopped in the middle of the street. He scanned for the scene of a crash or a fight or something, but couldn’t find any. Then his eyes found the screaming man. He was standing on his own down the road, beside a car, its door ajar as though he’d just exited. The man was looking around, distraught, and calling to no one in particular.
Then Richard finally made out what he was saying.
“Where are they? Where did everyone go? What the fuck is going on!”
Richard’s brow furrowed as he studied the scene below. His hotel was in the main part of town and he realized the number of people on the street had thinned considerably from what he’d seen before. He noticed the few people who were on the street looked equally as shocked and distraught as the screaming man. Richard scanned up and down the street again, then pulled away from the window and turned toward his laptop.
It was coming back to him now. He recalled seeing the large shadow cross over his window. He’d wondered whether a tornado had been on approach, had gone to look, then . . .
Then he’d woken up on the floor.
He darted his eyes around the hotel room. The lights were back on, the alarm clock on the bedside table flashing. He’d thought maybe Lisa had booked them into a shitty hotel, but maybe it was something else? He pressed the power button on his laptop and it came to life. Whatever glitch had caused it to crash before, it now seemed okay. He immediately tried to pull up the CNN website, but the internet connection was still down.
More yelling sounded from the street.
Curious, and with his heart now thumping in his chest, he swiftly moved to the door.
*
Deputy Leo Cann jogged toward the young teen girl lying on the sidewalk with spilled shopping bags around her. He was confused. The last thing he remembered, he’d been on his way home from the Bateson Dermacell opening. Next thing he knew, he was in his car, right in the middle of the main intersection in town. The car was turned off and as he’d looked around he saw other cars had stopped too, and some of them were empty. The traffic lights had been green, he remembered. And as he looked about, dazed, that’s when he’d noticed the teen girl lying on the sidewalk.
He’d quickly snapped awake, got out of his vehicle and raced over to her, panicking for a moment that maybe he’d blacked out and hit her with his car or something. But as he reached her, the girl sat up, her heavily-pregnant frame now visible to him, and she looked as dazed and confused as he.
“Are you alright?” he said, helping her to stand.
The girl nodded, brushing off her dress.
“You sure?” he said, eyeing her large belly, concerned. His wife had recently given birth to their second child, so he knew what kind of toll those last months took on a woman’s body.
She nodded. “Y—yeah, I think so. Did I faint?”
Leo looked around the streets. Slowly but surely an awful feeling sank into his bones. He eyed the empty cars in the middle of the road, saw a few people helping themselves up off the ground.
Why the hell was everyone on the ground?
He looked back at the pregnant teen. “You sure you’re alright?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she nodded again, looking more terrified now, as though the situation was slowly sinking in.
“You want me to call someone for you?” Leo asked.
“Mom’s out of town.”
“You’re on your own? You live close by? You need a ride?” he asked her.
“I’m just over there in the block.” She pointed to the only six-story building in Victoryville. “I can walk.”
“You sure?”
She nodded.
“Alright, just call the station if you need anything. Okay?”
She nodded again, pushed her long reddish-brown hair away from her pale skin, and began to waddle back toward her apartment block with her shopping bags.
Leo watched her for a moment, making sure she walked steadily, then turned his eyes back to the streets. He saw the dazed, vacant stares of a couple of teenagers looking back at him. They both had these strange, long red marks running down their chins and necks. He wondered briefly whether it was some new goth or emo fashion thing.
“Everybody head home,” he called out, waving his arms. “Just head home, alright.” Still somewhat dazed, he didn’t really know why he said that, but it felt like the right thing to do. And as the words settled into his own bones, a thought suddenly struck him. He snapped a turn and raced back toward his car. He wasn’t sure what the hell had just happened to put everyone on the ground, but he felt the urgent need to check on his own family.
He jumped in his car and slammed the door closed. As he did, he caught his reflection in the side mirror. And he paused at what he saw.
Running down his chin, was a single long red welt.
*
Abbie’s pulse hammered in her throat as she saw her street ahead. They’d run the whole five blocks home from the VAC. As they reached their houses Abbie threw Josh a hopeful glance, then split off. She raced across the street from where he lived. She saw her mother’s car parked in the driveway, and burst through her front door. She called for her mother, but there was no answer. Climbing the stairs to the second floor, she searched every room, but only an empty house awaited her.
And then it began . . . the tightening in her chest. The wheezing. The desperate need for air.
It was coming on quickly.
She closed her eyes and knelt down on the floor. She saw spots in her vision, but knew to stay calm. She’d had this condition since she was a child, and with patience and calm it was easily relieved. She fumbled through her bag for her Ventolin and inhaled long and deep, sucking the spray into her lungs. She tried to breathe, but it was still a wheezing struggle, so she sprayed and inhaled again.
She took a few moments, inhaling deeply, feeling the air force its way into each and every one of her alveoli. As soon as she regained control of her breathing, she stood and moved to the bathroom, heading straight for the basin. She splashed her face with water and, looking up, saw herself in the mirror. And then she noticed it.
The single red welt running from her lower lip down over her chin and neck.
She raised her hand to touch it. The red mark wasn’t raised at all. Didn’t hurt. It was almost like someone had just painted or drawn a stripe on her. Her fingers traced its path and pushed open the top of her shirt to see it end over her heart. She wondered whether she’d done it when she’d fallen to the floor, scratched herself on the broken plate? But it didn’t hurt. There was no blood. She suddenly recalled the scratches she’d seen on Josh’s face, and Austin’s. They’d looked a lot like hers did. Except, they had more than one.
A shout in the distance caught her attention and she quickly moved into her bedroom to the window overlooking her street. Mrs. Robson, a couple of houses down the street, had collapsed on her lawn. She was in tears, calling out, “Someone took my little girl!”
Abbie’s stomach pulled tight. She clutched the window frame to hold herself still and darted her eyes across the street to Josh’s house. She saw him through his bedroom window, on the second floor, pacing with the phone to his ear. He threw it down, frustrated, then caught sight of her.
He leaned out his window. “I can’t get through to anyone,” he called. “You?”
She shook her head and he paused, face falling a little.
“Maybe they went looking for us?” he said hopefully.
Abbie stared back, numb, as thoughts of those empty cars surfaced inside her mind. Even from the across the street she saw the look on his face, and couldn’t bear the truth it told.
Just like her, deep down, he knew that something w
as horribly, horribly wrong.
*
Chief Earl Blackstone drove the streets of Victoryville not sure what to do. When he’d woken up on the floor of Betty’s Bagels, he immediately knew something was very wrong. Everyone was on the floor for a start. And some had vanished entirely, including the cashier, who, according to his last memory, had been handing him change. He had stumbled out into the street and soon realized that, whatever had happened, the whole town was affected. He saw people pulling themselves off the ground. Saw Roy Kenny from Roy’s Hardware on his hands and knees. He’d rushed to help him up, and saw Roy had injured his face in the fall by the looks of the four long red scratches running down his chin.
He headed straight back to the station then, calling his officers as he did, trying the other posts in town, but static had been his only reply. He’d found the station open, but Louise Kempton, the officer on duty, was gone, leaving a half-eaten apple and a cup of coffee on her desk. At first he thought she must’ve headed out into the streets to see what was going on, but he knew she was thoroughly professional and wouldn’t have left the station open; she would’ve locked it up. He remembered looking back at the apple and the coffee and realizing that something was not right: a skin had formed over the stone-cold coffee and the apple was so brown it looked like it had been sitting there overnight, but Louise had been on shift barely two hours. He’d been in earlier that morning and her desk had been clear.
Still unable to raise any of his officers, even the ones currently off-duty, he immediately tried to call for outside back-up, but the lines were down. It was then he’d noticed the strange noise coming from the radio on Louise’s desk. It was a grinding sound, industrial, like some machine trying to get itself in motion, but failing. He moved to it, listening. Something about it sent a shiver down his spine. He’d reached out and snapped it off, sending the empty station into silence.
Not knowing what else to do, he got back in his car and hit the streets again. And that was when he had really known something was wrong; that’s when he realized the number of people in the streets had thinned considerably from the moment he’d entered Betty’s Bagels. Of those who were in the streets, most were shocked, crying. And some of them had red marks on their faces . . . just like Roy Kenny had.
The Time of the Stripes Page 3
