by Lou Paduano
His fingers grazed her shoulder. They were coated in deep red, the fading light of the crashed SUV catching the color.
“Blood?” she said. Her hand left her leg on instinct. It ran the length of her shoulder and trailed down her back. “I don’t—”
Ben stopped her and returned her hand to her leg. He stood, hand catching the flow at her shoulder then following it up and away from Ruth.
“What is it?” she asked, panic in her voice. “Ben, what do you see?”
He didn’t know how to answer, didn’t know if he should answer. He picked away at the cracked bark of the tree and the flow increased, thick and dark. He pulled his hand away and showed the injured woman as crimson dripped from his fingertips.
“The tree,” he said, staring at his hand. “I think the tree is bleeding.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Signals. We are bombarded by them. Radio waves. Cell phones. Television. Wi-Fi. That dull hum in the back of your mind helping you fall asleep so you don’t realize how alone you truly are in this world. They can be so much more, however. Manipulation—both behavioral and emotional. This one strikes on a physiological level.”
Morgan paced in front of Clevinger as the shabby scientist in the ragged labcoat took a pause for a drink of water. He finished his third bottle of the last hour and tossed it aside to join the mound of emptied containers accumulated during his stay at the electronics store. He opened the fourth immediately.
Lincoln held back, nursing his arm when he thought no one was looking. More was bothering him, but Morgan let the subject lie. She noticed small things, like the sweat beaded along his tight-cropped hair and how hard he leaned against the support beam, but she hesitated to discuss them with the wounded agent. The arguments with Ruth had served as enough of a warning to keep her silence on the subject. Arguments were not necessary. Only answers. That was where she hoped Clevinger led the pair—though with each passing ramble doubt crept across her face.
“Impossible?” He caught her glare. “Your eyes scream it. Let me guess… a medical doctor?”
Morgan stopped and shared a glance with Lincoln.
“Don’t bother answering,” Clevinger continued. He dropped the water beside the chair, then gripped the armrests to steady himself. “It doesn’t matter. The human genome, you see, is malleable—flexible. It changes with our conditions over time. Vast amounts of time in most cases. However, it can be instantaneous with a secondary trigger involved.”
He lifted the bottle of water once more and held it out. Morgan continued to circle around the back of the shop, shaking her head at the offer.
“Smart girl,” he admitted. “Might be viral. Of course there is the chance it’s airborne. Possibly a food source. Milk, bread, eggs: something universal to the population. A vitamin, perhaps? It comes back to our DNA as nothing more than a tool to be used.”
She followed his wild eyes as they sought out something more, some other thread to follow. They sparked and faded under the dim lights of the shop, and they appeared to be unable to focus on any one object. The good doctor seemed unable to grasp reality, at all.
Leaning close, Morgan heard Lincoln’s concern in the form of a grunt. She waved him back, unconcerned as she approached the seated subject. In fact, she smiled at both her colleague and the sweating lump in the chair.
“Someone is awfully chatty all of a sudden, don’t you think?”
“I have threatened to shoot him,” Lincoln said with a shrug. “Repeatedly.”
Morgan nodded. “I think there’s more to it.”
She leaned in, but then almost fell back from the heat rising from his odorous frame. His skin was milky white, caked in sweat despite the bitter breeze blowing from the shattered front window.
Clevinger stomped his foot. “It’s changing this town, Agent! The signal—”
“How far along are you?” she asked, ignoring his ranting. “Sweaty palms—”
“Headache. Outbursts,” he snapped. He returned to the chair. He sank in the cushion like a man lost. “I’m aware.”
Morgan shared the sentiment. June, the clerk from the convenience store, had displayed similar traits. Ruth as well, though Morgan hoped they meant something different. It was a fading hope, but one nonetheless.
“How much longer, then?”
“I don’t know!” He jumped at her. She reeled, kicking away from the man. His hands remained locked on the armrests. His eyes bulged, fit to burst from their sockets.
A gun clicked in the background as Lincoln inched toward his target. The sound snapped something within the frantic doctor, who quickly settled down, his head low.
“I don’t know.”
Morgan approached once more, slower this time. “I have my medical kit. Antibiotics. They might block the symptoms.”
“For a time,” Clevinger said, his voice cracking. “The change will still come, though.”
Morgan shook her head. “A physiological change? How can a damn signal do that?”
His eyes went cold. “Mankind is capable of anything.”
“You think someone is doing this?” Lincoln challenged, gun tight in his hand as he propped himself up against some nearby shelves.
Clevinger read his disbelief warily, yet remained calm at the sight of the gun. “The moon landing. The atomic bomb. Both were seen as impossibilities at one time.”
“You think someone is in that forest drawing people there?” Morgan tried to wrap her head around the man’s ranting. Time slipped away from them. Every second wasted without answers, without knowing what they faced, put Ben and Ruth in danger. The town of Bellbrook counted on their intervention, and they had failed at every turn. She couldn’t let that stand. Not again.
“Why?” Morgan pressed. “For what reason would someone do this? Here of all places? Mass kidnapping? Experimentation? If so, to what end?”
“Don’t you get it?” Clevinger bellowed. “Don’t you see? The forest!”
“The one we passed coming to Bellbrook?” Morgan confirmed.
“Yes. Exactly,” Clevinger announced. “Thank you!”
The forest. Where Ben and Ruth were at that very moment, hopefully putting an end to the nightmare surrounding them all. She was tired of Bellbrook, and she could tell the same from the wounded soldier at her backside. She could tell that and much more about her suddenly silent colleague. Sweat pooled on Lincoln’s skin. The color surrounding his wide pupils dulled to gray.
“What about it?” Lincoln asked.
The joy in Clevinger’s eyes, the shared understanding, slipped to desperation and he let out a groaning sigh. His hands ran over his lips and trailed up to his bleary eyes. He stomped his feet in a panic.
“No, no, no,” Clevinger muttered. “How can you not see? How can you not know?”
“Howard,” Morgan said, her tone soft and comforting. Her hand rested on the man’s, fighting the urge to pull her fingers back from the scar of the number two and the thick layer of grime covering his skin. “We need your help. What about the forest? What are you trying to tell us?”
He snatched her hand and pulled her close. His eyes screamed to be heard. “There is no forest.”
“Let her go!” Lincoln shouted. “Do it now!”
“Howard, please listen to me,” Morgan said. She struggled against the man’s grip. He was stronger than he looked. Could it have been another symptom of the signal? Was he one step closer to whatever was at the end of the journey? “I want to help you. Let me help you.”
“There is no—”
“It’s right there!” Lincoln barked. He ripped Morgan free and shoved her aside in his anger. She rolled along the ground into a nearby display. The gun shook in Lincoln’s hand and he pressed the barrel deep against the sweating man’s forehead. “You sent Ruth there. You know it’s there, so quit dicking around and tell us what the hell is going on!”
“Lincoln,” Morgan called. She rested on her knees. Her hand reached out
for the gun. Lincoln refused to look at her. She turned to Clevinger instead, hoping for another second. “Howard. What don’t we know?”
“There is no—”
“Howard,” she repeated, stronger and clearer than before. “You have to tell me. You have to give me something right now. What is it about that forest that has you so scared?”
Clevinger stared into the barrel of the gun, at the weapon threatening to end his life. His gaze held no fear—no desperate plea. His defiance dared Lincoln to pull the trigger. Silence swallowed the shop and Morgan closed her eyes, wishing it would end.
When she opened them, Clevinger turned to her and let out a breath. “That forest?” he said, fighting through his pain, struggling through his own confusion.
He pointed toward the wilderness at the edge of Bellbrook. “That forest wasn’t there a week ago.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Operations was Zac’s home away from home. Displays along the back wall, typically lit up with bio-readings, were blank thanks to the signal jamming all others within the small town in Ohio. Staff ran reports back and forth, maintaining the priorities set by Metcalf and the bullpen above. Work stations occupied the middle of the room for various members of the team. Communications. Logistics. Everything ran through Operations.
The left-hand corner served as Zac’s office. A short cubicle wall offered him a modicum of privacy, one maintained by a large sign asking for all others to keep their distance when noticing him behind the computer screen and typing away. It wasn’t a distance he wished to keep, merely a necessity to accomplish the work at hand—or so he told himself.
Especially this work. Zac closed his eyes as he collapsed in his chair. He ran his hands through his hair. He needed a donut—or ten. Complete and total sugar rush to dilute the sense of betrayal offered by one boss for another.
Sullivan was new. Appointed by the Council directly, he came from the world of politics, bringing three decades of opinions and agendas with him. Zac understood Metcalf’s reticence when it came to trust. The DSA stood for something better. To spy on his movements though?
Zac ignored the thought and logged into the system. His wife’s picture briefly smiled at him as he keyed in the memorized information. Files ran the length of the screen, blocking Claire from view. Hundreds of reports and images were locked in a series of directories he never heard of let alone noticed within the confines of their server.
“What the hell is the Wellspring?” he muttered as he worked. The secure key directive initiated and he quickly input the encryption key, cycling to the sixteenth digit before finalizing. He jotted the selection of letters and numbers down and ripped the note free from the pad. The paper slid inside his pocket, and he patted it lightly before continuing.
Sullivan’s system sprang up on the console. Emails, reports, files, and photos. The man’s personal collection of phone numbers alone was extensive, though Zac wished he wouldn’t keep them so visible and easily found by unwanted visitors. Zac uploaded the monitor program, then paused. Before he could initialize it, a shadow spread across the desk.
“Something just popped up on radar out of the Chesapeake,” a petite brunette said, her voice nervous at approaching his domain.
“What?” he asked. He ended the monitoring program without initializing it, then turned off his screen. He stepped around the cubicle wall and joined her on the main floor with two other staffers. All looked at the display map tracking two objects over Maryland airspace. “What the hell are those?”
“They’re moving fast, whatever they are,” one said.
“No indication of origin? No flight plan logged in through the tracker?”
“Can’t be commercial,” the brunette said.
“Get me confirmation. Check satellite feeds, anything that can tell us what they are.”
He didn’t say it out loud. Refused to entertain the very idea, though he knew exactly where the objects were headed without question.
They were moving straight toward Bellbrook.
Zac reached for the phone near the door. Stephanie answered after a single ring, though he cut her off immediately. “I need the director down here. Now.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ben lumbered deeper into the forest. His shoes stuck in the muddied earth. The weight of his colleague bogged down their momentum just as much as the relentless rain. The trees did their best for cover, the branches thickening and snapping above as they made their way along the ridge; the town of Bellbrook was no longer in sight. Even with the growing canopy overhead, the rain soaked through their thin jackets and chilled their very bones.
Ruth’s pain grew with each breath. The agony swelled along her head, fingernails drenched in blood as they pierced her temple to quiet the growing cacophony in her skull. Her screams did little to help Ben’s own suffering. He trudged along without a sound.
The cut in her leg aggravated their progress. His tie was drenched in the center by thick blood, constantly flowing like the rain above. Ben thought the forest was the safer route; he believed it to be the faster path back to Bellbrook, where Morgan might be able to aid Ruth’s injuries more than his lackluster effort.
Each step, each cry from his companion, undermined that thought. Bellbrook remained out of reach, out of sight. It was lost to the growing forest that surrounded them on all sides.
“Riley,” Ruth cried as she slipped from his shoulder to the soft earth.
He reached for her hand, but she knocked him aside, her eyes crooked and crazed. “We can do this, Ruth.”
“Just stop,” she said, exasperated. “Please just stop.”
“Stop what?”
She pointed back to the road, back to some semblance of sanity. No mention was made of the bleeding tree, or of what it meant to their search for the townsfolk of Bellbrook. Or what it meant to Ruth’s growing pain.
“Head back. Get Morgan. Tell Lincoln—”
“We can do that,” Ben said over the rain, his hand little more than a wiper along his soaked face. “Together.”
“No,” she answered, shaking her head. “You can.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“I am giving you an order!” Her hands collapsed along her temples, squeezing tight to her skull for relief.
Ben crouched next to her. “I regretfully refuse to follow it, then.”
She batted his efforts back until finally he looped his hands under her arms and pulled her to her feet. Shuffling beside her, he lifted her left arm over his shoulder and resumed their journey through the forest. Both noted the growing limbs, stretching between the trees above like a great yawn. The trunks thickened and layers of bark spread down to the ground.
“You can’t carry me the whole way,” Ruth muttered.
“Won’t have to. The signal. It has to be around here. You said so yourself.”
She shook her head. “It’s dark, and the storm is not letting up. The forest is larger than we imagined and my leg—”
“Will be fine.”
“Ben,” she called. “My head—”
“Is fine!” Ben snapped. He stopped, turning to her with a soft smile and saddened eyes. “That is a direct quote by the way.”
“Don’t remind me.”
Through the rushing wind and the crack of lightning, Ben paused. Fifty yards down the ridge he spotted a small break in the trees. He pointed, excitedly, and the strain of carrying his passenger and the pain running along his cut hands and arms disappeared.
“There’s a clearing up ahead,” Ben said, pulling her along. “Could mean we’re close. We can at least get our bearings, try to see how close we are to town and—”
“The road was safer.”
“Yeah, well, it added a mile to the trek. You can make the decision next time, promise.”
He trudged ahead, her feet shuffling through the growing muck from the storm. The signal had to come from somewhere close. He just needed time—time e
nough to save Ruth and make the difference he hoped to make with his decision to join the DSA.
“I wonder…” Ruth said. “I wonder if Grissom could feel it too. His time, I mean.”
“Knock it off.”
“You asked what happened,” she continued, eyes shut from the world. “It’s what always happens with agents at the DSA. We shouldn’t have been there, but we were. I made a choice, passed the buck instead of owning the decision, and he paid the price. It was my fault, Riley. I should have helped him, fought for him more.” She stopped, planting her tired feet into the earth. It forced Ben to halt at the precipice of the clearing. “But this? Ben, this isn’t on you. You’ve done enough, you hear me?”
He shook his head. “Keep moving.”
“How?” she yelled as she dropped to her knees. “How can you be so frustrating?”
He let her rest, searching the area for signs of life. Some indication they had come to the right place—that his choice was justified. Instead of answers, instead of the clearing offering the absolute truth about what happened to the people of Bellbrook, there was emptiness.
“No,” he whispered. “It can’t be like this. Not after everything…”
Ruth fought to breathe. “Ben. You have to keep going.”
“I thought for sure…” he said. All hope departed the small opening in the deep forest. He started for her once more, refusing to let another moment pass. “Come on. We can—”
She screamed, hands against her head.
“Ruth!”
Her eyes pleaded with him. Her tears mixed with the sweat and rain running along stark white skin. Gray pupils faded to white. “Ben,” she moaned. “I need… I need you to do something for me.”
“What are you—?”
She reached to her hip and drew her weapon. She held it out for him. “I can’t… You don’t know how this feels. That sound, that awful sound in my head. I can’t do this, Ben.”
“No,” he said, moving away. “Not going to happen.”
