by Mark Kelly
He’s not a nobody.
“Your friend made good time.”
She peered out the rear window and searched for the van. She saw the white nose of the Econoline poke out from behind a large semi-truck only to disappear as the ongoing traffic forced it back. It reappeared a few seconds later.
Mei shook her head. She’s crazy.
He reached for the GPS mounted on the dash and toggled through the menus. “We’ll stop just before Leesburg—two hours from now. That is long enough to give us a good lead.”
They drove in silence for a while and Saanvi fell asleep, her head resting on a package of toilet paper.
“Where were you going?” he asked casually. She looked at him and he added, “Before the men.”
“Fort Detrick. To meet a friend.”
He nodded. “So am I.”
A few miles before Leesburg, at the turn-off to highway fifteen, they pulled off to the side of the road and climbed out to wait for the van.
They didn’t have to wait long. The blare of angry horns announced its arrival. They watched Lucia force the vehicle across three lanes of traffic, her hand out the window waving curses at the drivers who dared to honk at her. She parked behind the car and climbed out to join Gong and Mei.
Gong spoke first. “It will be dark in a few hours. I’m not certain we should be on the road at night.”
Mei shook her head. “I’d rather keep going if we can.” The Walmart parking lot was still fresh in her mind and they were close, too close, to Tony to stop now. “Do we have enough gas to reach Fort Detrick?”
Both he and Lucia shook their heads.
Mei looked anxiously down the road. “We need to keep going.”
“I think we are safe,” Gong said. He looked at Lucia.
“Yes, we are,” she answered. “There’s no one behind us. We’re safe.”
“Okay,” Mei said reluctantly. She looked down the highway in the direction they had just come. “But we still need gas and a place to sleep.”
THE CAMPGROUND WAS a horror straight out of Africa with tents jammed on top of each other, and burning piles of garbage. Dozens of people were queued up to use the handful of outhouses that were built to handle a fraction of the business they were getting.
Even so, there were cars lined up to enter. Each waited to pay an admission fee to the man who stood by the gate, one hand out for the money and the other on the butt of his gun. Mei didn’t need to tell Gong to keep driving, he saw the same thing she did.
“How much gas do we have?”
He looked down at the fuel gauge. “Very little.” She looked over at the console. The yellow LED showed a single bar.
“What about that place up there?” she asked and pointed to a gas station five hundred yards down the road. Like the campground, there was a long line of cars waiting to fill up. A pair of men, armed with assault rifles, kept order as they walked along side the road.
“It will do,” Gong said. He joined the line and turned the ignition off.
Forty-five minutes later, it was their turn and the man at the pumps motioned them forward.
He wore a pistol holstered on the side of his jeans and stood a few feet back from the car. His hand rested on his hip, just above the gun. Mei watched Gong slide his own weapon under the jacket on the seat beside him.
“Filling up?” the man asked.
“Yes,” Gong answered. “For the car and the van behind us.”
The man laughed when he saw the van. “Bet that’s a thirsty beast.” He leaned in closer to the car and ran his eye over them. His eyes lingered on the supplies in the back seat. “Gonna cost you. No credit—cash or equivalent only.”
“Equivalent only,” a second man said. He had appeared from nowhere, and judging from his manner was the boss. “We aren’t taking cash no more.”
He pointed to a box of energy bars in the back seat. “That’s worth two gallons and the toilet paper next to it is worth a gallon—“ He stopped when he saw the ammunition on the floor. “Each box of the 9mm is worth three gallons.
He stared at Gong and assessed him. “If you have more, I can give you a better rate.”
“We don’t have more,” Gong said in a flat voice.
The man shrugged and pointed to Saanvi who sat with her head resting against the window. The gold hoop earrings she wore shone against her brown skin.
“If that’s real gold, it might be worth a gallon or two.”
“It isn’t ours to give,” Gong said sharply.
Mei nodded in agreement. “What about this?” She pulled a gold chain out from beneath her shirt, slipped it over her head and handed it to Gong.
“Two gallons,” the man said after inspecting it.
“Give it back,” she demanded indignantly. “It’s twenty-four karat gold and worth about five hundred dollars.”
“Hold on just a minute, Miss, how do I know this is what you say it is?” He held out his hand to stop her from taking it back.
She leaned across the seat. “Look on the back of the pendant, see where it says twenty-four and beside that .999—That means it’s pure gold.”
He inspected it as if he were a jeweler and then after great deliberation announced. “Okay, this will get you a fill-up.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said in disgust. “Give it back.”
“How about a fill up for the car and five gallons for the van?” He cocked his head and waited for her to counter.
She held her hand out and wiggled it.
“Look, Miss,” he said with exaggerated seriousness, “that necklace won’t feed my kids.”
“And five gallons in the van won’t get us where we need to be,” she shot back.
“Just a sec.”
He stepped away from the car and argued with the first man. After a few minutes, they both returned. The first man sighed and then spoke. “My brother says it ain’t enough to fill up both the car and the van. That thing has a big tank.”
She pressed her lips together in a tight smile. Good cop, bad cop…but they want it. “Make me a counter offer then.”
Gong looked at her. “Are you certain you wish to part with it?”
The necklace had been a gift from her parents on her sixteenth birthday. It was all she had left to remember them by.
She nodded.
Gong turned back to the man. “We will throw in two boxes of ammo and a pack of toilet paper.”
The second man spoke from behind the first. “Done.”
Mei watched the necklace disappear into the man’s pocket. Over all the years she had worn it, she never really noticed it, but now that it was gone, she missed the warmth of it brushing against her skin
By the time the car and van were filled, the sun had disappeared over the horizon. It would be dark in a few minutes. There was a chill in the air. They pulled out of the gas station and stopped by the side of the road.
Mei motioned at Lucia and Emma to join them.
“We need to find somewhere to sleep,” she said when they reached the car.
The sound of shouting and gun shots from the campground down the road interrupted them. They watched the orange glow of a giant bonfire fill the sky. Sparks flickered and floated upwards, and then more gunshots.
“Wow, that’s crazy. I don’t want to be anywhere near that place,” Emma said her mouth agape.
Gong left them and returned to the driver’s seat. Mei watched as he played with the GPS. He was back a couple of minutes later.
“There is a side road, just past the next long curve. It runs down to the river. We will be hidden from the main road.”
“Okay, let’s go,” Mei said.
She looked at Lucia. “It wouldn’t be the first time we slept in the van.”
29
FOUND YOU
April 9th, 13h45 GMT : Fredrick, Maryland
The dead-end street that led to the back of the industrial park was littered with potholes, some the size of baseballs, others large enough to bre
ak an axle. Gong drove slowly, weaving the car between them as water splashed up from the ones he hit.
1427…1431…1435—it has to be here somewhere, Mei thought as she read the street numbers bolted to the side of the run-down buildings that lined the road. Maybe just a little further, probably the one at the end.
An eight-foot high rusted chain-link fence enclosed the property and a set of industrial truck scales sat beside a small shack just inside the gate. EnviroTech Waste Management. God, I hope this is it. She sucked in an anxious breath and ran her eyes across the lot as Gong pulled up to the gate and stopped the car.
It was the ninth or tenth location they had visited that morning. When he called Emma for help, Simmons hadn’t been able to provide any more detail beyond “I’m at a garbage dump somewhere outside of the city.”
A quick search through the yellow pages Lucia had snatched from a broken down phone booth listed twenty-seven potential locations. There were scrap-yards, plastic recyclers, collection services and a myriad of other companies. Who would have guessed that garbage was such a big business?
“I bet it’s this one,” Emma chimed from the backseat. “It looks good. Best one we’ve seen so far. Anyone want to make a bet?” She looked at Saanvi. “What do you think?” The younger girl smiled weakly but said nothing.
Mei sighed. If talk was rain, Emma was a hurricane, a relentless downpour of words that lashed you in a never-ending torrent. After spending the entire morning listening to her, she almost wished she hadn’t agreed to let her travel in the car with them. But it was better for Saanvi to be near someone closer to her own age.
The supplies from Gong’s car were now in the van. He didn’t object and somehow it was just taken for granted that he would continue to travel with them.
He rolled the window down and sniffed at the damp air. “I think you are correct,” he said, agreeing with Emma. She smiled back him. Mei didn’t understand, but somehow he wasn’t the least bit bothered by Emma’s non-stop chatter.
“Why this one?” she asked the two of them.
“I can smell the garbage,” they said together.
“Jinx,” Emma shouted. Gong looked confused.
As Emma explained what jinx meant, Mei looked around. The other locations didn’t have much of a smell or what smell they had was of oil and metal, the smell of plastic. This one smelled of vegetables and compost, a rich pungent odor that lingered in your nose. It was worth a look.
“Okay, let’s check it out.”
He turned the car off and they tumbled out of it. Lucia joined them, making every effort to not lock eyes with Emma. Mei stared at the sky in silent prayer. They hadn’t come to blows yet, but she could tell that Lucia didn’t think much of the college student.
A thick steel chain wove through the two halves of the gate. It was locked with a large padlock. Gong rattled it. “I will use the car to break it open.” He walked away without waiting for a reply.
Mei felt a tug on her arm. It was Saanvi. The girl pointed across the building’s grounds and then stepped behind her for protection.
A homeless man wearing a green garbage bag as a raincoat emerged from a covered building at the back of the property. He carried a steel bar and shook it in their direction. As if he were trying to scare off a barking dog, Mei thought. He reminded her of the bums in New York who stood guard, protecting their space on top of the subway grates.
Halfway across the yard, he stopped and dropped the bar at his feet. “Thank god…” he cried in a hoarse voice.
Tony?
Emma ran to the gate and shook it. “Professor Simmons…Professor Simmons!” She turned to the rest of them and cried out. “Look, it’s Professor Simmons.”
Mei gawked in astonishment at the figure that hobbled towards them.
“Tony?”
His face was splotched with dabs of grease and rotten vegetables. He had tangled knots in his hair that looked like they would need a pair of scissors to free them. She couldn’t see his shirt beneath the garbage bag, but his beige dress pants were splotched with stains the color of stagnant swamp water. He was missing a shoe.
He placed his hands on the fence, wrapped his dirty fingers around the chain links and choked out two words.
“Water please…”
Emma ran to the van and returned with a couple of bottles. The first bottle disappeared in one continuous swig and he signaled for the second.
When he finished it, Mei motioned the others away from the gate.
“Tony, get back. We’ll use the car to break the gate open.”
Gong slowly reversed until the rear bumper touched the gate. With one final check to ensure everyone was clear, he gave the car a shot of gas. The gate buckled inward for a second and then violently snapped open. The two halves slammed against the fence with a rattle and bounced back.
Mei and Emma ran through the gate towards Simmons. When they reached him, his eyes darted between the two women until they finally settled on Mei.
“You’re here—I can’t believe it. You look good.”
She smiled as she studied him. He was a mess, nothing like the man she once knew. But still, it was him. “I’m here…but you don’t look so good.”
He grinned and pointed to the garbage bag that hung from his shoulders. “If I’d known you were coming, I would have dressed for the occasion.”
He turned to Emma and spoke warmly. “I owe you. Thanks.”
She gave him an aw-shucks grin and sniffed the air. “No problem, Professor Simmons, but wow… you smell pretty bad…like the garbage under my sink when it’s hot, and I put a piece of meat in and forget it for a few days. You really—“
“I think he probably knows,” Mei said with a laugh.
“Yeah, but phew!” She wrinkled her nose in disgust.
Mei watched as he looked over to the side of the car where Gong, Saanvi, and Lucia stood.
God, where do I even begin?
“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”
A short while later, he emerged from behind the building, barefoot and wearing a pair of Gong’s black pants. They were tight around the waist and three inches too short. An over-sized woman’s nightshirt hung loosely from his shoulders. He handed Mei a pair of white tube socks.
“I’ll save these until I find a pair of shoes.”
Emma whistled in feigned admiration.
He smiled at the college student. “I know…not exactly stylish but beggars can’t be choosers. Do either of you have anything to eat? I’m starving.”
Mei handed him an energy bar.
When he finished, she took him by the arm. “Come on, Tony. Let’s get caught up and then I’ll introduce you to the others.”
They left Emma and walked to a bench by the side of the small shack. The ground was littered with cigarette butts and shiny metal pull tabs. She brushed them aside with the toe of her shoe and motioned him to sit. She sat down next to him.
“Emma said the army took you to the base to work on something related to the bacteria. How did you end up here?” She leaned in towards him and listened intently as he told her the story.
When he finished, she stared at him, slack-jawed. He looked lost for a moment.
“You believe me don’t you?”
She squeezed his hand. “Of course, I believe you but I don’t understand why this Raine guy tried to kill you. What is it that you discovered? And how is Dr. Mayer involved?”
He stared off into the distance. “I don’t know. They were worried about files I saw on her computer account.”
“What was in them?”
He shrugged. “No idea, I never had a chance to look at them closely, but it had something to do with antibiotic resistance.” His nostrils flared as he began to get angry. “They were hiding something, Mei. Something important. I need to tell someone but that bas—”
“We’ll figure it out,” she said calming him. “But first, we need to get out of here, find somewhere safe to plan our next steps.”
>
His eyes regained their focus and he nodded. “We weren’t allowed to leave the base, what’s it like out there?” He looked at her. “I heard about the quarantine. Did they lift it?”
“It was awful, Tony, worse than you could ever possibly imagine. We couldn’t sanitize quickly enough to contain the spread of the infection. After we were quarantined, it moved from room to room and floor to floor. The patients fell ill and then the staff. Nothing worked. At the end, there was almost no one left…just me and Lucia and a few others.”
“How did you get out?”
“Through the tunnels.” She told him about Charlie and the time they spent on the road, glossing over some of the details and leaving their experience in the Walmart parking lot completely out. She’d tell him about that later.
“Who is she?”
She followed his eyes to Lucia who stood by the side of the van, aloof from the others.
“A patient—well, she wasn’t a patient, her children were. A little girl…a beautiful little girl and a boy.” She stopped and kicked at the pile of cigarette butts as her voice broke. “They died…I tried to save them, but nothing worked.”
“Mei, a lot of people have died and a lot more are going to.” He placed his hand on her knee.
“What about those two?” he asked with a nod towards the car. Saanvi had returned to the back seat while Gong stood by the open door watching them intently.
“They’re both a bit of a mystery,” she said and told him about the events at the boarding school. “Saanvi won’t talk about it, but I think she was raped by those men.”
She stole a glance at the Asian man and lowered her voice. “We’d probably be dead if it weren’t for Gong, but you should talk to Emma about him. She’s convinced he followed you and her from the university and then watched her house after the army took you away.”
Simmons’s eyebrows shot up. “He’s the man from the restaurant?” He jerked his head towards Gong who nodded as if he knew they were talking about him.
“I don’t know who he is, but he shot and killed those men like it was a walk in the park.” Her stomach knotted up as she remembered the gunfire and screams that followed. “He must be military or police.”
