Ten feet.
That was all that separated his front bumper from the large, brown horse that had run in front of him. Instead of continuing on its way, the animal stopped in the middle of the road, looking at him much like he was looking at it, as if neither could believe the sight of the other.
A bray, not from the horse in front of him, but from back the way the horse had come. A moment later a second horse and then a third ran into view, both nearly as big as the first. Behind them a fourth jogged out, this one clearly younger, half the size of the others. Dark gray halters were strapped around each of their heads and noses. The second horse had a dangling rope that looked like it had been cut so it wouldn’t drag on the ground.
The three joined the first on the street, and as a group they continued on.
Ben sat there, parked in the middle of the road, watching in near disbelief until they passed out of sight. Had their owner, knowing he or she was about to die, used a last bit of strength to let them go?
Ben suddenly realized there must be other horses trapped in stables and corrals, unable to get free and forage for themselves. Not just horses—goats and cattle and sheep. Dogs and cats, too, locked in backyards and houses. He had thought about nothing but his family and Martina since the outbreak had begun, hadn’t considered what had happened to all the animals that relied on humans to survive.
He looked around and saw several houses down the road the horses had come from. Were there animals in them? Should he check?
It was a Pandora’s box, he realized. Check one and he’d have to check the next and the next and the next. He made a pack with himself. Any home he came close to in the course of doing something else, he would open a door, or, if it was locked, bust out a window. If there was anything inside, it could then come out if it wanted to.
As the adrenaline that had coursed through him began to subside, he started to laugh.
A horse. He was the only driver on the road and he’d nearly run into a horse. That was not something that happened every day.
THE APARTMENT BEN rented was a small, one-bedroom place over the garage of a house about a mile from the university. His landlords, the Tanners, were a newly retired couple who had treated Ben like one of their family, often inviting him down for dinner.
As he pulled into the driveway, he wondered if they had survived. Probably not, but at least their bodies wouldn’t be inside the house. They had gone to their daughter’s place in Los Angeles for the holidays before all this had begun.
Instead of parking in his usual spot, he drove all the way up to the garage and pulled around the side where the stairs leading up to his place were located. The moment he shut off the engine, he was enveloped once more in the near silence that had taken over his world. The sound of leaves rustling in the trees, the squawk of a distant bird, but that was it.
He headed up the stairs, anxious to get back on the road. The main room of the apartment served as living room, dining room, and kitchen. A small bathroom was directly opposite the front door, and taking up the back half of the available space to the right was the bedroom.
He headed to the latter and went straight to his dresser. The item he’d come for was tucked in the bottom drawer. He moved a pile of sweaters to the side and pulled out the box. Palm-sized and only an inch thick, it was wrapped in red Christmas paper, with a white bow on top that was bigger than the box.
Martina’s Christmas present—a pair of small but brilliant diamond earrings. He’d spent over a week searching for just the right ones. They had cost him more than he had intended on spending, but they were perfect.
It was ridiculous, really, coming back here for this. He could have stopped at a hundred places on his way to Ridgecrest, and picked out something ten times as nice for free now. But he had chosen this, had paid for it himself. To him, that meant something more.
After he slipped the box into his jacket pocket, he grabbed his favorite sweater, a couple T-shirts, and his UC Santa Cruz hoodie before heading back outside. He stuffed everything into the duffel that had the most room, and was about to climb back into the driver’s seat when he remembered the promise he’d made not fifteen minutes earlier.
He looked down the driveway. The Tanners didn’t have any pets, so he didn’t need to worry about their place, but he knew some of the neighbors did.
Three houses in either direction and the ones directly across the street, that’s it, he told himself.
The people right next door had one of those small dogs, a Yorkie or something like that. It was a yappy thing that had kept Ben awake more than once. He went there first. The front door was locked, so he let himself into the backyard and tried the sliding glass back door. It was also locked. He found a gardening trowel and used the butt of the handle to smash the window.
He didn’t bother calling the dog. If it was there, it would find its way outside. Returning the way he’d come, he almost shut the gate before realizing that would be almost as confining as leaving the animal in the house, so he propped it open and moved on to the next place.
Over and over he repeated this procedure. He found some doors unlocked, but most of the places required a window to be broken. Limiting his range to only three houses on either side proved to be impossible, however. His conscience wouldn’t let him stop until he reached the end of the block.
He finished up and headed back toward his apartment, not really sure how much good he’d done. Not once had he seen a pet wanting to get out. Still, he was glad he’d made the effort.
He had just turned onto his driveway when he heard something in the distance that sounded like a voice. He twisted around and looked down the street. No one there.
He was probably hearing things. A few times back in San Mateo, as he cared for his dying sister, he’d thought he’d heard voices, too, but every time he’d investigated, he’d found nothing.
Wishful thinking then, and wishful thinking now.
He turned back toward his Jeep and started walking again.
“Help!”
That was no wishful thinking.
He turned in a circle, trying to figure out where the voice had come from.
“Please! Help!”
To the right. A woman’s voice.
Ben raced up the driveway to his Jeep, jumped in, and backed it out to the street. At the first intersection, he turned right in the general direction toward the voice. Then he threw the engine into neutral and popped up on his seat.
Cupping a hand around his mouth, he yelled, “Where are you?”
“Oh, my God! Can you hear me? Please, get me out of here!”
The voice was closer than he expected, again to his right somewhere.
“I don’t know where you are!” he shouted. “Keep yelling!”
“I’m over here! Please help me! Get me out of here!”
Ben drove slowly forward, zeroing in on her voice.
“Are you there? Hello? Don’t leave me here!”
As he came abreast of a tired-looking Cape Cod place, he rolled to a stop.
“Am I close?” he yelled.
“Here! I’m right here!”
Her voice was coming from between the Cape Cod and a ranch-style house on the other side of it. He killed the engine and jumped out of the Jeep. As he ran across the front yard, he yelled, “I’m coming!”
“Oh, thank God! Thank God!”
He nearly slipped on the grass as he skidded around the corner. About fifteen feet back, a tall wooden fence stretched between the two houses.
“Which house?” he asked.
“What do you mean, which house? This one! Please help me!”
Her voice was coming from behind the Cape Cod. The gate was locked, so he pulled himself over the top, and dropped onto a concrete patio on the other side. She wasn’t in the side yard, so he moved around the corner and came to an abrupt halt. She wasn’t in the backyard, either. What the hell?
“Where did you go?”
“I didn’t go anywhere. I�
��m right here.”
The voice seemed to have come from almost directly behind him. He whirled around.
Low on the back of the house was a basement window, broken and barred on the outside. Looking out of it was the woman. She had a dirt-stained face and a head of tangled brown hair, and looked to be in her mid-twenties.
“Oh, thank God, thank God, thank God,” she said, spotting him. “Please, help me.”
“Are you trapped down there?”
“Yes! Yes! I can’t open the door.”
Ben looked around for an outside entrance to the basement, but didn’t see any. He would have to go into the house. “Hold on. I’ll be right down.”
He needed to smash a window to unlock the back door, but he didn’t think the woman would mind. The smell of death hit him the moment he stepped inside. He clapped a hand over his mouth and nose, and had to blink a few times as his eyes watered up. After his vision cleared, he scanned the interior.
To the right was a kitchen, and to the left, a space that would’ve probably been considered a family room. The only furniture, though, was an old couch and a wooden coffee table. Both the furniture and the rooms looked dated but well maintained.
No basement door, though.
He moved into a hallway. The smell was stronger here, and seemed to be coming from the left, so he went right. He didn’t have to go far before finding himself in a living room where the spartan décor continued—in this case, two chairs, another coffee table, and a magazine basket, the latter filled but neat. Again, no entrance to the basement.
Tightening his grip on his face, he returned to the hallway and began opening doors. The first two led to a bathroom and an understocked linen closet. When he opened the third door, he found a room that, unlike the rest of house so far, was fully furnished—a bed, a nightstand, a dresser, a desk, and a full bookcase. The walls were covered with pictures and posters, most of which featured an early-twenties Justin Timberlake. It was obvious this had been a teenage girl’s room.
He moved on. Only one door was left, the one hiding whoever had died. Ben pulled it open, already sure it wouldn’t be the door to the basement, but he had to check. Sure enough, it led into a second bedroom.
This one, apparently, had been the master. A simple dresser sat against one wall, and a queen-sized bed against the other. The body of a middle-aged man was on the bed, half covered by a blanket. In a rare break from the cleanliness Ben had seen throughout the house, used tissues were scattered on the carpet.
Ben blinked to keep his eyes clear as they watered up again, and scanned the room, looking for a basement door he knew wouldn’t be there. The only things he saw were three pictures hanging on the wall, family portraits of a man, a woman, and a girl. In the oldest one, the girl was maybe twelve or thirteen, and in the most recent, probably almost out of high school. The man was definitely the guy in the bed.
“Hey! What’s going on?” The floor muted the woman’s voice, making her hard to understand.
Ben hurried out of the bedroom and yelled, “I can’t find the basement door!”
“It’s just off the kitchen!”
“I didn’t see it.”
“Come on! Get me out of here!”
The only thing just off the kitchen was a laundry room consisting of a washer, a dryer, and a closet half filled with neatly arranged cleaning supplies.
He started to close the closet.
“Did you find it?” the woman yelled.
Instead of being muted by the floorboards this time, her voice seemed to be coming through the closet. He ran his hand across the back and found a latch. As he pulled it up, the whole back wall moved out of the way. Someone had gone to great lengths to hide the door.
“Found it!” he shouted as he headed down the steps.
At the bottom, he was confronted with another door, this one metal. He tried the knob, but it was locked.
“Open it,” the woman said from the other side.
“It’s locked from this side. You can’t open it from there?”
“Do you think I’d still be down here if I could?”
“Well, I can’t kick it down. It’s too strong.” He turned for the stairs. “Maybe I can find a crowbar or something. I’ll be right back.”
“No, don’t leave me!”
“I’ll just be a minute.” As he headed up, he wondered how long she’d been there. A couple hours? A day? Two?
Reentering the laundry room, he knew there was an easier solution than hunting for something he could break down the door with. There had to be keys somewhere. The problem was, the most likely place they’d be was with the dead man.
Overcoming his reluctance, he went back into the bedroom. The search was mercifully quick. In the top drawer of the dresser, he found a set of keys sitting next to a wallet, and was back at the basement door in no time.
Half a dozen keys were on the ring. The one that worked was the fourth he tried. As he pushed the door open, the woman rushed past him, knocking him to the side.
“Come on,” she said as she started up the stairs. “We need to leave before he comes back.”
“Before who comes back?”
She paused on the steps, hesitating, “Um, my, uh…Mr. C-C-Carlson.”
She started heading up again.
“Wait,” Ben said. “What does he look like?”
She looked back at him. “What?”
“What does this Mr. Carlson look like?”
“Doesn’t matter. We need to get out of here.”
“Tell me.”
She shot a look toward the top of the stairs as if expecting someone—Mr. Carlson, no doubt—to be standing there. When she looked back at Ben, she gave him a quick description that perfectly matched the dead man in the bed.
“How long have you been down here?” Ben asked.
“Please, can we talk about this someplace else? I can’t stay here any longer.”
Not waiting for him to respond, she raced up the rest of the way and disappeared into the first floor of the house.
Before heading after her, Ben glanced into the room where she’d been. It was not what he expected. Modern, a big TV, a large bed, a sitting area, even a refrigerator. The kind of apartment a college kid could only dream about.
Resisting the urge to go in for a better look, he ran up the stairs. It wasn’t hard to tell which way the girl had gone. The front door to the house was wide open. When he stepped outside, he spotted her in the middle of the street, not far from his Jeep, staring at the house.
“Is this your car?” she asked as he neared her.
“Yeah.”
“I need you to get me out of here, okay? Before he comes back.”
“What’s your name?”
“Me? Uh, Iris. Are you going to take me or what?”
“I’m Ben,” he said. “Iris, Mr. Carlson isn’t coming back.”
“How the hell would you know that?”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“I don’t know. A few days ago.”
“Is that how long you’ve been in the basement?”
“Not even close.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know,” she said, defensively. “Why is this important?”
“Has it been more than two weeks?”
“Yeah. I think we can safely say that.”
“Iris, Mr. Carlson’s dead.”
“Bullshit.”
“No, I’m serious. He died of the flu.” Ben gestured toward the other houses. “Everybody did.”
Her lips parted in a wary grin as she backpedaled. “Right. Everyone’s dead.”
“They are,” he said, matching her step for step. “Just listen. Do you hear any cars? Any voices? Today’s New Year’s Day. It’s beautiful outside. Don’t you think there should be people in their yards? At least some kids playing?”
She pointed at him. “Stay right where you are.”
“I’m not trying to scare you, but it’s th
e truth. Look around. We’re the only ones here.”
“I swear, don’t you take another step.”
He stopped. “I don’t know what happened to you in there, but Mr. Carlson is dead, and you don’t need to worry about him anymore. You’re all right. He can’t do anything to you now.” He nodded back at the house. “He’s lying in his bedroom. Been dead for days.”
“Oh, I get it. This is some kind of mind game, right? You’re one of…Mr. Carlson’s buddies he always talks about, aren’t you? You’re trying to screw with me.”
“The only thing I’m trying—”
Before he could finish, she turned and sprinted down the block.
“Help!” she yelled. “Help me!”
Ben stood there for a moment, stunned. He had obviously handled that poorly. The question was, what should he do now? Let her run off and figure things out for herself?
Like you could do that.
With a groan, he took off after her.
Fifteen
MUMBAI, INDIA
11:54 PM IST
SANJAY COULD SEE Darshana, Arjun, and Kusum sitting together in the middle of one of the fenced-in confinement zones within the walls of the survival station. Though they were too far away for him to see any cuts or bruises, they didn’t appear to have any obvious injuries.
After Prabal had shown up that morning, Sanjay had spent as much time as he could searching for the others before the sun rose too high, and then worked his way back to the building where they were supposed to rendezvous. For hours he hoped Kusum and the others had been able to find someplace to hide, and were simply waiting for night to make their escape, but then, not long after three p.m., he spotted Arjun being transported in the back of a UN-labeled truck.
Sanjay had hurriedly worked his way back to the building he had used earlier to spy on Pishon Chem. From there, he watched as Arjun was escorted into one of the holding areas, where he was greeted by an already captured Darshana. The only good news was that Kusum appeared to still be free.
The Project Eden Thrillers Box Set 2: Books 4 - 6 (Ashes, Eden Rising, & Dream Sky) Page 38
