by Phil Maxey
“Is it… over?” said Sanchez.
A brief look passed between mother, daughter and Scott.
“I… don’t know. Maybe,” said Jess.
“Can you sense anything?”
“I’m not sure.” She looked at Luci. “How much explosive you got left?”
“Three bricks.”
Jess walked up the first few steps. “It’s going to have to be enough.”
They quickly arrived at the ground floor level, the door already open and made their way along the staff corridor, past the lockers. Each of them quickly heard the difference from when they were last there.
Luci led the way, stepping cautiously into the large garage. She first flicked her flashlight’s beam to the mess of organic material in the middle of the area. The thing they had destroyed was as they left it. She then looked at the truck, which Scott was already moving towards, but Jess was heading to the metal shutter just behind it. She placed her hand on the cold surface then her head.
“Why’s it so quiet?” said Sanchez.
“Maybe, they’ve gone?” said Luci.
“We should be so lucky!” said Scott, pulling the truck’s driver’s door open.
Fear began to creep across Jess’s mind. She expected, hoped to hear a cacophony of noise outside. Silence only served to confirm what she had heard back in the stairwell. She looked at the truck. “Drive it forward, I need to get this door open.”
“Easy there,” said Scott. “We open that door and they all rush in, and we’re finished. Let’s have a better plan than that.”
She shook her head. “Just drive it forward! I need to get this—”
“Fine!” He climbed up as the others raised their weapons towards the shutter, then turned the key, the heavy engine chugging a little, then settling as he eased down on the gas.
As soon as the rear fender was free of the metal barrier, Jess bent down, grabbed the latch and pulled the door up, which slid all the way to the top. The loud clatter making those behind her, wince.
She walked out into the dark, scanning the parking area for any sign of movement, but there wasn’t any. The others walked by her side.
“What the hell,” said Luci, waving her light across the empty lot.
“Maybe it really is, over,” said Sanchez.
Jess turned abruptly to Sam. “When I first found you, you said something about Josh? That someone was going after him?”
Sam looked confused and looked away, searching for the memory. “I… I don’t remember much from when I was inside that thing… There was the crazy man and… someone else… And a woman... I think she tried to help me.”
“Joan?”
“Maybe… I don’t know.”
Scott joined them, then walked a little further, swinging his gun towards the darkness behind the empty window frames of the surrounding buildings. He shook his head, walking back to the others. “There’s no sign of them.” He looked at Jess. “The explosion… killing that thing you fought with… could it have affected the creatures?”
Jess wanted to believe it had, but the sound she heard from the depths kept playing on a loop within her mind. Her son’s name filtering up from below as if whatever was still down there, wanted her to know.
Sam jolted as if being hit by an electric shock. “I… remember something! Yes, Josh! They mentioned, Josh!”
Jess looked at the others. “I need transport east.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
5: 33 p.m. Town of Newgrove.
Landon tried not to look at the posters covering the doctor’s room. All it had taken was five days to make them look like images from another century. The door opened and in walked the tall, gray-haired man he had met just thirty minutes before. Doc Barker was smiling. That was bad.
“So I’ve looked at the X-rays, and the damage to your hand and lower arm is extensive, I’m afraid. I would say unrepairable… Which is why you can’t feel anything below your wrist. You already have signs of infection…”
Landon knew what the diagnosis and treatment would be. “I can’t… I need another day, or two. After this is over, then you can do what you need to, but…” The doctor’s expression had become one of displeasure.
Barker sat on the edge of his desk. “I can give you antibiotics for the infection, but the longer you leave it, the greater the damage, the more of your arm we will have to take. That’s if the infection doesn’t spread to the more vital organs, and if that happens…”
Landon nodded. “I get it. But we just have to get through one more day. After tomorrow, the virus won’t have the affect it’s had on the remaining people.”
“We… don’t know that for sure. It was a hypothesis by the CDC.”
“I’ve seen signs of the creatures dying. I believe they were right. But right now I can’t be laid up in bed. My family are still out there. I just need two days.”
The doc sighed and nodded. He sat in his chair, pulling a piece of paper from a pad and started writing. “Take this to art at the pharmacy over on Highcroft street.”
“I… don’t have any money.”
The doctor smiled, this time it was real. “From what I saw in the back of that truck of yours, you have already paid for these meds a hundred fold. There are some painkillers down here as well. You’re going to need them.”
Landon left the modern white stone building and walked out into the dark. A smudge of dark blue to the west being the only hint of the previous day and the street lacked any lights. He wavered for a moment, due to how odd it felt not to feel any threat from the surrounding shadows.
‘All the creatures left this morning…’
Owen’s words came back to him. Why would they leave? If they were dying what would be the point?
He shook his head and left the sidewalk, walking across the road to the other side and the general direction of the street a block over, which he had a vague memory of containing the place he needed to visit. Despite the dark, he could see hints of clay pots, wooden furniture and wilting plants, behind a glass storefront window and next to it a store with empty shelves that should have contained freshly baked goods. It was an insight into normality. One that he wasn’t ready to believe could be real again. Not for at least another twenty-four hours and once he knew Jess, Sam and Josh were safe.
Footsteps came from behind. He spun around to a figure running towards him. From the slight form he guessed a young person, and soon Lachlan emerged from the gloom, a little out of breath. “At the police station. Message… for… you. From—”
Landon ran past him, the youngster joining and both soon arrived at one of the lit buildings in the town. He pushed open the glass door, walked past an empty waiting room and followed the sound of people talking into a hallway, and then an office. The back of which was another smaller room, where the conversation was coming from.
Owen was standing near the doorway, he looked back at Landon. “We got a message from a Jess. She was broadcasting across a number of frequencies, but we managed to get her a reply. Tell her you’re here.”
Landon looked at the younger man, seated at the desk which contained a stack of radio equipment.
“This here is young Ford. He’s from the next town over, some twenty miles from here. I knew his father… Ford here has a thing for gadgets and got the station’s radio working yesterday.”
The fresh faced individual gave a quick smile to Landon then continued turning dials.
“Is Jess on there now?” said Landon.
Ford shook his head, more for his own inability to get the signal back than Landon’s question. “The signal is real weak. I’m surprised we were able to communicate at all.”
“What did she say?”
“That she has your daughter—”
Landon let out a breath, reaching out for then sitting on a nearby desk.
“— And they will make their way here. She asked if we had seen any of the creatures, but we lost the signal before I could reply again.”
&nb
sp; Landon hadn’t realized just how much he was resigned to hearing bad news until he heard the opposite. He wiped a tear from his cheek and looked at those looking back at him. “But she knows this location?”
“She does,” said Owen with a smile.
*****
5: 58 p.m. Southern Denver.
The drive back to the towering office block, the home of those that had escaped Biochron days before had been surreal for Jess. If it weren’t for the crumpled wrecks and occasional shattered window it would have been just another night time drive in her home city. The things which had drove at them in their hundreds just hours before were nowhere to be seen. But rather than a feeling of peace, Jess felt the opposite. Her daughter’s memory was unsurprisingly patchy, but she did remember someone else with Rackham, and Josh being mentioned. That was enough for the joy she felt on recovering Sam to be blighted. What would he want with Josh? At least Josh was with lots of people, and if someone had gone after him, it would take them until daylight to get there. If she could get to Newgrove, and get back on the road soon after, they could overtake whatever or whoever was on their way to the school.
She stood in the lobby with some others. Gregg walked forward, his hat in hand and hugged her, then handed her an envelope.
“If you see Meg, I’d appreciate it if you’d give her that. Seeing that there are no cell phones anymore.” Jess nodded, placing it in her pocket. “I would come with you, but reckon I’m needed here. Maybe I can come see all of you in a few months.”
Jess smiled. “We would like that.”
Scott came in from the parking lot. “The pickup’s fueled. Everyone ready?” He looked at Jess, Sam and Sanchez. They nodded, picking up their bags while he walked to Luci and Miller. “Few days and I should be back.”
Luci scrunched her face. “I think we’ll manage.” She handed him a sealed lunchbox. “This might come in handy, if you run into those things again.”
He nodded then looked across her and the tall man next to her. “Keep everyone in until the day after tomorrow. If there’s no sign of the things, then start to think about reclaiming the city.”
“If you can keep watch on the Biochron complex…”
The three soldiers looked at Jess.
“I thought it was dead?” said Luci.
“Just to be sure.”
The sergeant looked at Scott. “Maybe I should take my lunchbox back.”
Scott smiled, placing it under his arm. “I’m going to hold on to it. See you in a few days.”
It wasn’t long before Jess was in the passenger’s seat of a black 90s truck, one of a few vehicles in the parking lot, but the only one they could find the keys for, with Scott driving and the other two in the back. The bed had a few boxes of supplies.
She looked in the rear mirror at Sam, asleep. It was an image to give her some solace. If she had been honest with herself at any moment over the past twenty-four hours, she would have to have admitted the chances of getting her daughter back were slim at best. But she couldn’t, wouldn’t let that thought take root. And seeing Sam in the back, she was glad she hadn’t. She had gotten one of her children back, now for the other one.
Scott looked across to her. “Should’t be much more than an hour before we’re in Newgrove.” He had been watching her for the past hour or so and couldn’t miss her pained expression. “You don’t think Rackham is dead, do you?”
She looked at him. “It’s… well, I don’t know. But why would the creatures be gone?” She looked out into the dark, and the silhouettes of trees and farm buildings passing by. “Sam said she heard Josh be mentioned, and there was someone else with him. I thought maybe, Joan, but Sam thought Joan had helped her, although that makes no sense.” She sighed. “None of this makes sense. I just know I need to find Landon and we need to get east. As soon as possible.”
Scott nodded, easing down on the gas a little.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
6: 29 p.m. Western Kansas. Highway 70.
Finn Carrick looked in the side mirror. The things were fast, almost as fast as his sleek sedan, but he eased off the gas to let them catch up, anyway. There was no point him arriving at his destination without his army. Where would be the fun in that?
‘His army…’
He looked again at his rugged features and smiled. The time he had spent in the chamber siphoning off whatever it was that was special about the kid had fixed him. Not only had his wounds healed, but he was sure he looked ten years younger than his actual age of forty-two. That was good. Now the world had been cleansed of losers, those that were left would be easy pickings for a superhuman. What woman wouldn’t want a man that could lift a car with one hand, or run almost as fast as one? And then there was… ‘his army.’
It was the words the boss had used before he was sent on his mission.
‘The creatures are no longer decaying. In fact the serum they have been given has made them even stronger than they were before. Take them. Go collect the other spawn, bring him back and finally I can finish my work.’
He checked the rear mirror again. The things were now keeping up. He reckoned there were at least two hundred. That was the ones he could see. There were others in the air above him. He could feel them. That still took some getting used to. He had missed out on the whole end of the world thing. When the others turned on him because of his little mishap, he thought his time soldiering was done, which was a shame because he had taken his new found responsibility to heart. Being at the forefront of biological technology. He and the others would lead the way to create soldiers that couldn’t be stopped. And he wouldn’t be stopped. He could do what he liked and he did that night in Maine. He had wondered if he had gone too far, but in the moment the rage was intoxicating. Not to be denied. He almost got away with it, but the others tracked him down and despite his ability to heal, his injuries were too extensive. When he was laying in the secret Biochron facility, his spine shattered, depression setting in, a little bird whispered into his ear to wait. Be patient and his time would come. And it had.
Most of what Rackham’s virus had created would be piles of mush by the morning after next and that was unfortunate, but not those things that he was bringing with him to Kansas. These were new and improved. Much like himself. He even thanked the girl for giving him a new lease of life, but she was too far gone when he tapped on her chamber. Still though, he was interested to see how useful the boy would be. Rackham said the genetics mostly ran through the women, but the boy could still be used to some extent.
He sighed. Rackham was a great man. A visionary. The new world would look like something out of a science fiction movie. He was sure of it.
A sign flashed by mentioning the state line and Rackham’s proudest achievement smiled.
“Be there soon, boss!” he shouted.
*****
7: 41 p.m. Outskirts of Newgrove.
Impressions of buildings were all Jess could see amongst the void outside the pickup’s windows. She squinted, trying to see more detail but it was no use, just rectangular shapes were all she could make out. Her eyesight had gotten worse, or was returning to something close to how it used to be, she wasn’t sure and wondered if it was because of the fight with Rackham. Or maybe something else was happening. Could the virus dying out there in the world also be happening within her? Was she returning to Jessica Keller, microbiologist? The woman that stopped existing a few days ago? She glanced in the mirror. Was it was the same for Sam? The girl was still sleeping in the back seat. Glancing to her left to make sure Scott was concentrating on the road she took a peek at her hand. It looked the same, wider, more muscular than a week ago. But her senses were definitely lacking their more recent effectiveness. Was she becoming her old self?
A few days ago that idea would have delighted her, but now…
“I think I see some lights,” said Scott nodding to the horizon.
He was right. Even with her human eyesight she could see them too. Not many, but a scattering
of sparkling points a few inches apart, which blinked in and out when they moved past trees.
“That has to be Newgrove. We’re only a few minutes out. Good to see it really exists.”
Sam stirred in the back, stretching while almost punching Sanchez in the side of the neck, then opened her eyes, blinking and apologizing. She looked to the front. “Are we almost there?”
Jess turned in her seat, smiling to her daughter. “We are. How you feel?”
“Tired.”
“We won’t be staying in Newgrove for long. Just long enough to pickup your dad, refuel then get back on the road east.”
“Are we going after the man?”
“We are. Do you remember anything else?”
Sam shook her head.
“Here,” said Sanchez, offering the girl a water bottle. “You should stay hydrated.”
She took it and took a healthy gulp, passing it back. “Thanks.”
Jess looked back to the highway. There was no sign of the things. No itch in her mind or buzzing, but she wasn’t sure if that was because her brain was now not affected by the virus or the things had just gone?
Scott took the exit, steering them up a slope, then over a crest of a hill where the lights of the town provided some illumination of the buildings surrounding them. They were soon moving past white-gray warehouses, silos and rows of farming equipment, the scene then becoming single-story residences sitting amongst leafless trees. They all saw the headlight beams coming towards them and Scott slowed to a stop, then got out. The others watched him walk towards another man, broad shouldered with a plaid jacket on. They exchanged brief words and Scott headed back.
“They’re waiting for us,” he said, getting in. “We just got to follow them.”
A few turnings later both vehicles approached one of the brighter parts of the town, and a well lit single-story stone building.
