by Olah, Jeff
Even though the man working on the dog wasn’t looking at him, Devin still shook his head. “No.”
“Then what?”
“I’d rather not say.”
Kevin finally turned. “Really? You came looking for us, remember.”
“He was just someone I used to know, from a different time and a different life.”
Kevin’s words were coming faster now, with less emotion, like he was losing interest or becoming irritated. “Everything was from a different time, a different life.”
“Yeah, one I don’t really care to relive.”
“Again, you came to us. And while my friends and I appreciate what you’ve done, we’re not going to twist your arm. We’re not going to make you stay. You’re free to go any time you—”
“NO!” His voice came out louder than he expected, traveled further. The men by the truck and the children to his left all turned to look. “No, you and your friends, you all have to come with me, that’s why I’m out here.”
23
Owen could hear her voice, but his eyes didn’t seem to be working properly. His world smelled of copper and his throat felt like he’d swallowed a handful of razor blades.
There were shapes, they looked human, but the pain drilling in from the left side of his head seemed to be playing with his focus. There were also no colors, only blacks and whites. Some lighter shades of grey and most everything coated in a hazy film.
“He’s going to need more help than we can give him here.” The voice was familiar. It was Gentry. “He’s stable, but it won’t last.”
The space above him grew dark. There was something or someone very close. “What does that mean, is he going to be okay?”
Natalie. She sounded like she was in her element. It was only a few words, but he hadn’t heard that tone or inflection in more than a year, the last time he had decided to drop in on her at work. It meant that she was agitated or worried, or maybe both.
“I don’t know,” Gentry placed his hand on Owen’s chest. “But like I said, right now he’s stable. I just need to get him back to the lab.”
There were faces now, still blurry, but better than a minute ago. Nat, Gentry, and two others. He remembered being in the cab with Travis, and also the tall young man from the street. He blinked twice and began to raise his hand, wanted to get to that itch that was blooming behind his left ear.
“He’s awake … wait, make sure he doesn’t … get his arm.”
“Nat?”
“Owen …” Her voice broke as she tried to continue. “Stay still baby, you need to rest.”
“Okay, that’s good.” Gentry’s face was now in focus, the fine details coming clear. He looked older now, weathered. “Let’s get him in the truck.”
“Wait.” Natalie moved from his left to his right, now face to face with Gentry. “You’re not serious?”
“We don’t have a choice. I can’t do it here, and he won’t make it otherwise.”
Owen understood their words, but was having a hard time piecing it all together. He now remembered being thrown to the pavement and the searing pain that caught fire to the side of his head, but just couldn’t get from there to here.
He pushed his hands into the cool metal of the truck bed and tried to sit forward. The muscles in his left bicep quickly began to spasm and then buckled under the weight.
Travis came in over him from the left. “Hold on buddy, we got you. Just take it easy.”
Natalie had turned; she now stood between Gentry and Travis. The tall young man Owen remembered as Thomas stood back behind the others, almost out of his periphery.
“What about those men,” Natalie was looking at Travis. “What if they come back, what if they’re there right now?”
Travis had one hand on Owen’s shoulder and the other out at his side. “I have no idea, they took off pretty quick when that kid started firing. Looks like they ran back home, but there’s no way to know.”
“We don’t have the time to discuss this. There aren’t any other options. We go now or he’s going to bleed out.” Gentry was holding his left arm. “This is only temporary, I have to get it cleaned and—”
“Dr. Gentry?”
There was someone out of view. Male, young. Probably not more than twenty-five or thirty, maybe younger. Definitely not Noah, and even a bit older than Lucas. The voice was well past puberty, but had a rasp to it.
Gentry was still focused on Natalie, but turned slowly toward his name, almost like he hadn’t heard it. There was a moment where it seemed that time had stopped. That those gathered around the bed of the pickup had been paused, their expressions a mixture of confusion and disbelief.
They all stared in the same direction, as Gentry finally broke free and tilted his head ever so slightly to the right. “Devin … Devin Fletcher, is that you?”
Owen remembered the name and with it, everything from the last several hours. The footrace through the parking garage. The initial gunfire as the tall young man introduced himself. Kevin firing from the wall and blowing apart that man’s head, and finally the showdown not more than twenty minutes before.
He also remembered the round that tore into his armpit and the one right behind it that branded the left side of his head. And as the pain came rushing back, the bearded man in the dark hoodie who appeared out of nowhere.
“Yes.” Devin Fletcher stepped away from the rear passenger door and looked down at Owen.
“I don’t understand,” Gentry said. “How are you here, I mean how did you know where to …”
“It’s a long story.” Devin motioned toward Owen. “And it doesn’t look like you have the time to hear it right now.”
Gentry looked like he’d just woken from a dream. Like he was hypnotized and was just given the wake word. “Yeah, we have to get him back to—”
“No.” Devin spat the word. “You can’t go back there.”
“We have to.” Gentry moved back around to dab at the wound on the left side of Owen’s head. “There isn’t time for anything else.”
“No,” Devin said again. “That’s why I’m here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You can’t go back there, not now and not ever.”
“We don’t have a choice.”
Devin looked from Travis, to Natalie, and then back to Gentry. “You have to come with me.”
Natalie looked like she was trying to form a question, but then just stared at the bearded young man.
“There’s a place, it’s not far and it’s safe. We can be there in less than an hour.” Now Devin was looking only at Gentry, his eyes wide and his voice starting to shake as he repeated himself. “You have to come with me; it’s the only way to fix all of this.”
24
The road was narrow and the light from the day had long since dropped away. There was a soft rain that patted the windshield and tiny rivers that ran down the window near his left shoulder. The interior of the truck was cool, but not cold. It felt good, like stepping out of the shower in the fall.
Kevin leaned in toward his lap and grinned. “Hey boy, how ya doing?”
Zeus perked his ears and licked at the air. It wasn’t what he was used to, but it was something, more than an hour ago.
Kevin sat in the backseat with Zeus, running his hand over his best friend’s back and watching the trees pulling in closer to the road. He had lost track of time, as well as where they were, but he was starting to think he knew where they were headed.
“When did you leave?” Travis’s hands gripped tight to the wheel as he sat up straight, only briefly turning to Devin in the passenger seat.
Devin pulled the hood off his head and rubbed at the growth on his chin. “Like ten days ago, maybe more. I stopped counting.”
“How much further?”
“It’s about a mile, up on the left. We’re gonna come in through the back. Don’t want to set off any alarms.”
“Alarms?”
“Figure of speech.�
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Kevin turned his head to the right, looked past Thomas, and squinted as he peered through the rear passenger window, the reflection from the dash messing with the optics. “You knew Gentry from before all of this?”
Devin looked back over his shoulder and then shook his head. “Not really, just who he was and that he worked for BXF. I knew his name and heard that he’d left, heard that he basically told Marcus Goodwin to go screw himself and then just walked out the front doors.”
“That doesn’t sound like—”
“Oh yeah,” Devin interrupted, pushing his index finger into his temple. “We did meet, once. We had this really random conversation on a plane a few weeks before all this went down. He gave me his business card, said that this thing was going to be big, that I needed to be worried or something. It was the day of my grandmother’s funeral and super creepy, like he was following me or something.”
That didn’t sound right to him. Like something was left out. “So,” Kevin said, “you’ve only met him once and it was so arbitrary that you’d nearly forgotten about it, but you decided to come out here and find a man you barely remember?”
“No.”
Kevin’s bullshit meter was pegged. “No, to which part?”
“No, I had a reason for coming out here, for trying to find Dr. Gentry, but it had nothing to do with my uncle or running into him on that plane.”
“Your uncle?”
Devin stared through the windshield. “Marcus Goodwin.”
Kevin slid his hand from Zeus to the pistol near his right hip. “Wait, you’re Marcus Goodwin’s nephew? I think you need to explain a few things.”
“Again, my past life has nothing to do with why I’m out here.”
Kevin gripped the pistol and set it on the edge of the seat. “You’re going to need to tell us where we’re headed, who’s there, and why. No more running around in circles. We either get some answers or you get out. I’m giving you thirty seconds.”
Devin glanced back at the weapon. “Listen man, I haven’t eaten hardly anything in the last three days, and only water for the last twenty four hours. My head feels like it’s going to explode, and I was still able to get you and your friends out of that mess. The only reason you’re still here, your dog is still here, is because I left my home to go out and find Dr. Gentry. You would think that alone would afford me at least a bit of your trust.”
“I can see where you would think that, but that’s not the way things work. Not anymore, and especially not today. So either explain why you were out there and how you found us, or I’m going to have to ask you to get out.”
Devin again shook his head. He looked tired, annoyed. “Okay, again it doesn’t have anything to do with my past, nothing from before connects to anything now … well except for Gentry.”
“Okay?”
“I left the city when everyone else did, but went east, away from the crowds. I spent the first few days just trying to hide. But then on like the tenth or eleventh day, while I was out looking for something to eat, I ran across a small group of survivors. They seemed to know what they were doing. They seemed to have things figured out.”
Travis turned in the driver’s seat. “Figured out?”
“I don’t know, they said they were headed somewhere specific, not like everyone else, just running from one place to the next. They asked me if I wanted to come, so I did.”
Kevin arched his back, rolled the stiffness from his shoulders. “Let’s move this forward a bit, get to the point.”
“These people had a place. They said it was secure, even back before the outbreak. There were already ten or fifteen survivors when we got there and one of the women said she knew how to stop all of this, that there was someone who had a cure. But there was a problem.”
“Yeah?”
“The man’s name is Eugene Lockwood, his wife was one of the survivors.”
Kevin sat forward, his mind racing through everything from his former life. “Dr. Eugene Lockwood?”
“Yes.”
Travis looked into the mirror, eyed Kevin for a brief second. “You know what he’s talking about?”
Kevin ignored Travis’s question and tapped the back of the passenger’s seat. “Finish.”
“A few of us went out every day looking for him, places she thought he might be, his house, his old office, everywhere. And then a few weeks ago, I decided I was going to try to get to the old BXF headquarters in the city.”
“And?”
“And, a few blocks from the building, I ran across one of Jerome Declan’s men. He was hurt. He was trying to get out, trying to get away from that monster. He told me that Lockwood was dead, but that there was someone else that could fix all of this.”
Kevin pulled his hand back and again laid the pistol near his opposite hip. “Gentry?”
“Yes, and he knew where to find him, kind of.”
“So how did you—”
Devin anticipated the question, seemed like he needed to get the rest of it out. “I tracked Declan’s men at first, but obviously didn’t have any luck. It was days before Declan showed his face outside the building. I knew something must be up and followed them to your location.”
Kevin rubbed his eyes. “Alright …”
“Alright?” Devin’s voice ticked up a notch. “That’s it?”
“Before I wasn’t sure we could trust you, now I’m not completely sure I believe you. Although, I can’t imagine a story like that being made up.”
“So,” Devin said, “I’ve told you everything, what else do you want?”
“Just one question.”
“Yeah?”
“Why is it that you decided—” There was something out there, something new, something that wasn’t there as they turned onto this road a few miles back. He took a quick pull in through his nose and then a second.
It smelled like smoke, it was faint but it was there, right outside the pickup. Kevin reached for the two-way radio and keyed the mic. “Lucas, you guys getting this?”
There was a short squawk from the walkie and then Lucas’s voice. “Getting what?”
In the seat next to him, Thomas turned his long body and stared at him, confusion riding across his face. “Huh?”
Into the radio Kevin said, “Smells like smoke, like it’s right here.”
Almost before Kevin finished, Lucas was back. “I don’t smell anything, but we’d better be close because Owen’s not doing too …”
As Lucas’s voice dropped away, Kevin saw what he figured had redirected the teen’s attention. “Sit tight buddy, we’ll see what this is.”
From the driver’s seat, Travis slowed the pickup and turned to Devin. “Did you do this, is this you?”
Thirty feet ahead, two men stood in the center of the road, barely visible through the light rain. They had automatic rifles pulled into their shoulders, and were shouting something not quite audible.
25
Kevin held tight to Zeus’s collar and again leaned in close. “Stay,” he said, “That’s a good boy.”
Travis quickly looked into the mirror reached behind his seat, gripping the stock of his rifle. “What are we doing here?”
“Hold on a second,” Kevin said as he lowered his window.
The man on the left, thirty yards away, continued to shout. “Shut off the engine and get the hell out of the truck.”
“Devin?”
The younger man was stiff in his seat. He sat forward and narrowed his eyes as he peered through the windshield. His hands were shaking and he looked like he was having trouble breathing. “Uh, I’m not sure.”
The man in the center of the road raised his voice. “SHUT OFF THE ENGINE. GET OUT OF THE TRUCK”
Travis slipped the rifle into the front seat and placed it between his legs. “Kevin, what are we doing here?”
And before Kevin could answer, the passenger door opened and the interior was flooded with light. Devin stepped out into the intensifying rain, closed the door,
and put his hands in the air. He kept his head straight, staring at the two men before finally dropping his arms and starting forward. “Alex … Bryce?”
Travis pulled the rifle up with his right hand and reached for the door handle with his left. “I knew it, that son of a—”
“Wait,” Kevin said. “I think we might be okay.”
“Whatta ya mean?”
From the rear passenger seat, Thomas leaned into the cab and pointed. “Look … it’s … they …”
The two men ran to Devin. They lowered their weapons and sandwiched him in an embrace. When they pulled back, Devin wiped the rain away from his face, spoke quickly to the men and then turned toward the pickup.
“You’re good with this?” Travis had flipped the weapon, his left hand still on the door, and his eyes darting from the street to the rearview mirror. “I don’t like this man, not one bit.”
The men in the street were now pointing back in the opposite direction, the one on the left looking like he wanted to run. Devin again motioned back toward the pickup as the two men both began to shake their heads.
Kevin began to slide Zeus to his right. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Travis opened his door and had slipped out before Kevin could respond. He stayed to the left of the hood and raised his rifle.
The men beside Devin matched his stance, the one on the left stepping forward. “Put it down man, you don’t want to do this.”
“I need you to stay here,” Kevin said to Thomas as he slid Zeus onto the seat between them. “Stay down and make sure he does too. Got it?”
Thomas was shaking as he nodded his head. He appeared to be just as frightened of Zeus as he was of what was outside the pickup. “Okay … yes.”
Kevin ran his hand over the German Shepherd’s head and stepped out into the rain. He was at his end. For the last several weeks he’d had trouble keeping down the food he ate, hadn’t slept for more than a few hours at a time, and now the pain at the back of his head was starting to play with his vision.
He knew what this was, but was having a hard time admitting that it was back. And without Dr. Roush and his meds, things were probably going to get a whole lot worse. He wasn’t afraid of the end, not in the slightest. He just wanted to get his friends somewhere safe before he finally called it quits.
