“Dr. Karp, where are my children?”
The doctor’s head tilted slightly to the side, then his eyes narrowed. “Captain…Ash?”
“Where are my children?”
“I’m impressed, Captain. I didn’t know you were this resourceful. Unfortunately, I’m afraid you’re too late.”
“What do you mean?”
“They died in the outbreak at Barker Flats,” the doctor stated matter-of-factly. “You were told that before.”
“We both know that was a lie.”
Dr. Karp lowered his hand, his fingers now resting on the edge of the counter. “Why wouldn’t we have told you the truth?”
Ash took three quick steps forward, closing the gap between them to less than ten feet, and pointed the SIG at the center of the doctor’s face. “Where are they?”
“Seriously, Captain. They’re dead. There’s nothing you can do.”
Dr. Karp’s fingers tapped nervously against the counter.
Without looking at her, Ash signaled Chloe to check the rest of the room. As she moved past Dr. Karp, he eyed her nervously.
“Where are they?” Ash asked the doctor again.
The ends of Dr. Karp’s mouth went up and down in a quick smile. “It doesn’t really matter, you know. You’ll all be dead soon enough. Well, maybe not you, but everyone else. The whole world will be different then.”
“They’re in here!” Chloe yelled.
Ash turned to look. Chloe was standing next to an open door that appeared to lead into the room the window looked in on. Before Ash could react, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and turned back just in time to see the doctor hit one of the keys on the keyboard.
Ash wanted to run over to Chloe, but he sprinted to the doctor instead, grabbing the man by his collar.
“What did you do?” Ash demanded.
“It’s closing!” Chloe yelled.
“I told you,” the doctor said. “There’s nothing you can—”
Chloe screamed out in pain. “Stop it! Stop it!”
Ash looked over. She’d put her leg between the door and the jamb, preventing it from sealing shut. But whatever was closing it was keeping the pressure on her.
“Help her!” Ash yelled at the two men cowering by the window. They hesitated a moment, then jumped up when Ash pointed his gun at them, and moved quickly over to Chloe.
“I’m not sure you want them to do that,” the doctor said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Look for yourself.” Dr. Karp nodded toward the window.
Ash wasn’t about to leave the doctor behind, so he manhandled him across the room, then looked through the window. Josie and Brandon were on the floor. While his son looked like he was asleep, Josie was sitting up, her eyelids only half open.
“Oh, that’s too bad,” the doctor said. “The sound must have woken her. I was hoping they’d both just sleep through it.”
Ash turned on him, and leaned in so that their faces were only inches apart. “What did you do?”
“Once that door seals shut, they die. Moving your friend’s leg will make that happen all the sooner.”
“Open it!”
“Sorry.”
Ash jammed the gun into the side of the doctor’s head. “Open it!”
“If you’re going to shoot me, then shoot. It doesn’t change the fact that once the sequence is initiated, I can’t undo it.” He grinned. “Oh, and if the door remains jammed for more than three minutes, this entire lab will be sterilized at a nice toasty 3000 degrees.”
“Three minutes?”
The doctor shrugged. “Sorry I can’t be of more help.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
Ash moved the gun from the doctor’s head, and shot the man in the hip. The doctor’s face went slack in surprise. Before he could fall to the ground, Ash caught him and dragged him around to the doorway.
The two men had made no progress in getting Chloe free. The moment they saw Ash they started to back away.
“You’re going to help me, or I swear to God I will shoot both of you, but not kill you. Do you understand what I mean?”
Apparently, they did.
Ash directed them to grab the edge of the door and pull back as hard as they could.
“More!” he said, as he watched the gap.
At first it didn’t grow at all, then suddenly it moved a quarter inch, a half. When it reached three-quarters of an inch wider, instead of pulling Chloe’s leg out, Ash shoved the doctor’s injured leg in.
Dr. Karp screamed in pain, then yelled, “What are you doing?”
Ash felt no need to answer as he then eased Chloe’s leg out. Once it was free, he said to the two other men, “All right. Let go.”
The doctor screamed out again as the door smashed against him.
“You going to be okay?” Ash asked Chloe.
She clenched her teeth, fighting off the pain. “Don’t worry about me.”
He knew her leg was probably broken, the bone perhaps even crushed. But she seemed to be in control. “Cover them,” he said.
“My pleasure.” She pointed her gun at the two men. “Sit down. Both of you.”
Ash didn’t stay to see if they cooperated. He knew if they didn’t, she’d shoot them. He moved back around to the window. It was the only other way in, but it wasn’t something he could just break through with a chair.
He pulled out the little bangs, choosing the four special white squares. These were the ones Pax said did more than just cause noise. He quickly removed the projection sheets off the adhesive backs, and placed the crackers near each corner of the window. He thought about adding a couple of the noisemakers just in case they might help, but decided against it. He pulled out the controller, then moved back around to the side where the door was. As expected, Chloe’s two friends were sitting on the floor.
Ash stepped over the doctor, then said into the gap, “Josie! Josie, can you hear me?”
“D…dad?”
“Yes, sweetie, it’s me.”
“Dad? But…but…they told us—”
“Josie, I don’t care what they told you. I’m here and I’m going to get you out.”
“Dad!” She crawled toward the door. “Dad! Oh, my God!”
“Sweetie, you need to listen to me. This is very important. We don’t have any time, okay?”
“Dad. Please get us out of here.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do. Now, listen, I need you to grab your brother and take him against the wall that the window’s on. But in the corner, off to the side. Not in front of the window. Do you understand?”
“Um...uh…I think so.”
“Please, baby. If you don’t do it, none of us are getting out.”
“Okay, Dad. I can do it.”
“Excellent. Do it now. And be ready. There’s going to be a loud bang.”
He moved back around, and watched Josie through the window as she pulled Brandon into the front corner. Once they were there, he returned to the door.
“Cover your head,” he said.
He didn’t look to see if Chloe and the others did the same; he just hit the button.
THE TWO SECURITY men who’d been sent out to check for the missing car came back after fifteen minutes. They’d found the car ten minutes earlier, abandoned at the side of the highway not far from the road to NB7, but when they called it in, no one had answered. After being unable to reach anyone for five minutes, they decided to come back.
Everything looked the same out front as it had when they’d left, so they were starting to think their boss had just gone on a bathroom break without feeling the need to have anyone fill in for him. That was, until Collins, the younger of the two, opened the front door.
“Oh, Jesus,” he said.
His partner, Edwards, started to push by him, but pulled up short when he caught sight of the scene inside. “What the hell?”
The lobby was riddled with bullet holes. And the
re were five bodies that they could see. The two men moved in and checked for pulses. Two of their colleagues were still alive, their hands and ankles cuffed with the same ties the security team used.
“What happened?” Collins asked.
Edwards shook his head, then headed over to the security room. That’s where he found their boss sprawled across the threshold, cuffed and dead.
“Do…do you think whoever did this is still in the building?” Collins asked.
“I have no idea.”
The younger man hesitated, as if he didn’t want to say what was about to come from his lips. “Should we check?”
Edwards looked down at his boss, then at the other men strewn across the lobby. “I’m not sure that would be a good idea.”
Four minutes later, with the pair of unconscious men slumped in the back seat, Edwards and Collins pulled out of the compound then headed south on the highway as fast as they could go.
EVEN THOUGH ASH had covered his ears, the noise was deafening. Debris flew across the room, smashing into the wall where the counter was, and destroying the monitor the doctor had been using.
Ash immediately jumped back to his feet and returned to the window. However strong the glass had been, it wasn’t strong enough to stand up to the little white squares. He climbed through the opening and went to the corner where Brandon, awake now, clung to his sister.
Ash couldn’t believe it. He was looking at his kids. They were alive.
He grinned broadly and held his arms out, but instead of hugging him, they drew back.
“Who are you?” Josie asked, sounding scared.
“It’s me, baby. Dad.”
“You’re not my dad,” she said.
The bandages. The surgery. Even the contacts. He must look like a stranger to them.
“It’s me. I swear. I’ve just had…an accident. We can talk about it later. We need to get out now.”
Reluctantly, they let him guide them out of the room.
He had no idea how much time they had left, but he knew it was probably less than a minute.
“You see that door?” He pointed at the airlock.
They nodded.
“Go in there. I’ll be right behind you. I just have to help my friend.”
They both looked over at Chloe, then back at their father, more confused than ever.
“Go!” he said.
That got them moving.
He knelt down next to Chloe. “Put your arm around me,” he told her.
Once she did, he started to lift her, but then remembered there was one more thing he had to do. He moved over to the doctor.
“I hope you enjoy your trip to hell.”
The doctor forced a smile. “You can’t stop anything, you know that. Your kids would have been better off to go now instead of being alive to witness the world they know melt into nothing.”
“I have a feeling you’re the only one who’ll be doing any melting in the near future.”
“Humor’s not one of your best traits, I’m guessing.”
Ignoring him, Ash said, “Before I go, I have a message for you from an old friend.”
The doctor looked at him, a smirk on his face.
“Olivia says hi,” Ash said. “I got the feeling from her she wasn’t too happy you left her to die. Pointed out something about the irony that you’ll be dead before she is.”
“Olivia? But she’s—”
“Goodbye, Doctor.”
Ash lifted Chloe off the floor and headed for the airlock. Just before he passed through the door, he yelled to the other two men, “Once we clear this airlock, I suggest you get in it, if there’s still time.”
It turned out there wasn’t.
Fifty
IT WASN’T THE starting of the truck that woke Tamara and Bobby. It was the pothole they hit sometime later. According to the clock on the camera, it was 7:12 a.m.
“Do you think whoever’s driving knows we’re back here?” Tamara asked.
“I don’t know,” Bobby replied. “I would think so, though. Wouldn’t you?”
The world seemed to have flipped on its end, so she didn’t know what to think anymore.
“I wonder where we’re going,” Bobby said several minutes later.
“Can’t be far.” The quarantine would prevent any long travels.
But either they drove around in circles or she was wrong, because six hours passed before the engine was turned off for the first time. After a few moments, they could both hear fuel flowing into the tanks.
“Maybe we should get out now,” she suggested.
“We haven’t heard the knock.”
“Maybe there’s not going to be a knock. We’re not on the base any more.”
But neither of them made a move to open the door, and soon they were on the road again. Nearly seven more hours passed before the engine cut out once more. This time, though, there was no sound of tanks being filled. In fact, except for the opening and closing of the cab door, there wasn’t much sound at all.
After thirty minutes of not moving, Tamara said, “I’ll bet we’re in another parking lot.”
“If nothing else, we’re going to get a great story out of this,” Bobby said.
“If we have a job.”
Bobby was quiet for a second, then, “Do you…do you really think Joe is dead?”
She was silent for a moment. “They killed Gavin, didn’t they? And those kids in the desert. So…”
A few silent minutes passed.
“How far do you think we’ve come?” she asked.
“Impossible to know.”
They broke out some food, and had a dinner consisting of apples, bread, and some kind of deli meat. As she’d done all day, Tamara only took a couple sips of water. Even though it was dark in their hiding space, the idea of peeing in front of Bobby had zero appeal to her.
Tap-tap. Tap.
The knock had been on the side of the truck, right behind her head. Tamara nearly leaped forward in surprise.
Tap-tap. Tap.
She wanted to scream, “We’re here! We’re here!” But she held her tongue.
She could hear Bobby already working the door latch. As he opened the door, they could see that the back of the truck was still open, and outside it was night.
“You wait here. I’ll check,” Bobby said.
“Hell, no. You wait here. I’ll check.”
She pushed past him and walked stiffly to the back of the truck. It was cool out, much cooler, in fact, than it had been when she and Bobby entered their sanctuary, making her realize that the box had actually been heated. She crossed her arms and ran her hands up and down her biceps as she stepped onto the back bumper, and then hopped to the ground.
They seemed to be parked on a small grass clearing in the middle of an evergreen forest. Pine trees encircled the part of the clearing she could see. One thing was for sure—they were certainly not in the Mojave Desert any more.
She looked over her shoulder as Bobby stepped down to join her.
“Where the hell are we?” he asked.
She was about to say she had no clue when a voice from near the front of the truck called out, “Hello?”
Tamara and Bobby exchanged a look, then walked over and peeked around the side.
Standing by the cab were a smiling man and woman.
“Oh, good,” the man said, taking a couple steps forward. “I was afraid you guys might have wandered off. I wasn’t looking forward to hunting you down.”
“Hunting?” Tamara said.
“Oh, no, no, no,” the man said with a chuckle. “Bad choice of words. Searching is more what I meant. Come on. You probably want to get out of here.”
Still leery, Tamara and Bobby stepped around the side and walked halfway up to the cab.
“Who are you, exactly?” Tamara asked.
“Me? I’m Mike.” The man closed the distance between them and extended his hand.
Bobby shook it automatically, while Tamara did so w
ith more reluctance.
“And that’s my wife, Janice.”
Janice waved, but didn’t come closer. She looked as cold as Tamara felt.
“So what are you doing here?” Tamara asked.
Mike shrugged. “Offering you a ride.”
“I hope you don’t mind,” Janice called out. “I’m going back inside. It’s too cold out here.” She started walking around the front of the truck. “Coffee should be ready by now, so whenever you’re ready.”
“Coffee?” Bobby said.
Mike smiled. “Sure. Janice makes the best on the highway.”
When Bobby gave him an odd look, Mike smiled and motioned for them to follow him to the front of the truck. From there, they could see an old Winnebago RV parked fifty feet away.
Bobby glanced at Tamara. “Come on. They’re obviously here to help us.”
Tamara looked at the Winnebago. “Do you have a bathroom in that thing?”
“We do,” Mike said with a smile.
She could feel her tension ease. “Then a cup of coffee sounds great.”
“Excellent,” Mike told her. “After you.”
Fifty-One
IT WAS A struggle for Martina to open her eyes. When she did, the brightness of the new day made her shut them almost immediately. She could feel the congestion in her nose, and the rawness in her throat. When she’d fallen asleep, she’d felt fine. Now, not so much.
Her last morning. She was sure of it.
She worked her eyes open again, then rolled over and looked at the spot where Ben had been sleeping. He wasn’t there.
Probably decided to move when he realized I was sick, she thought.
She raised herself up on her elbows. She could hear sniffling elsewhere in the dining area, and even a couple of coughs, her friends all dying with her.
“You’re up.”
She looked over her shoulder. Ben was standing behind her. He must have been in the kitchen. Though he was smiling, she could tell by his red nose that he was sick, too. That depressed her even more. She liked him, and had been hoping that maybe he’d be the one to survive.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked.
The Project Eden Thrillers Box Set 1: Books 1 - 3 (Sick, Exit 9, & Pale Horse) Page 28
