“I’m here, Tom.” Kim leaned closer.
“You have your ID?”
“Yes,” Kim said, clutching the plastic where it hung around her neck.
“Good. I’ve given you access to everything. All the sub floors. Do you understand?”
Kim nodded.
“Go down the emergency stairs...” Tom swallowed and gasped again. “To Sub Level Three. There’s a gift.”
“A gift?”
“And in my quarters, you’ll find a tablet computer. On it is information on Paul Henderson.”
Kim’s face twisted in confusion. “Paul Henderson. The mycologist?”
“Yes, yes. He’s the man. He has a wonderful place, a lab, in Yellow Springs, Ohio. If he’s still there, he can tweak the B-18 solution. Paul can make it better.”
“Isn’t his work controversial?”
“He’s a very unique guy,” Tom said weakly. “An eccentric. He...he doesn’t work for any government or company.”
“Then how do you know he can help?”
“We spoke when all this started,” Tom admitted. “Before communication broke down. He gave me some ideas for the B-18 solution.” Tom coughed. “You can find him...”
Kim was nodding as she saw what Tom wanted her to do.
Tom clutched Kim’s arm and pulled her closer. “Find some escorts. Bryant, or—”
“I don’t think Bryant made it,” Kim said with a frown. “I think he’s dead.”
“Then call General Miller or one of your CDC field teams. The world needs you to find a cure. Tell them President Christensen authorized the use of government assets for the mission. I want you to beat this, do you understand?”
“I’ll try, Tom.” Kim shook her head weakly.
Nodding, Tom rested his head back on the seat cushion. “I want the best for you, Kim. For your family. For the world.” He smiled. “Where I’ll be, it won’t matter anymore.”
There was a faint pounding on the heavy steel door, and Kim turned to glare at it. Tom was breathing steadily with his eyes closed, so Kim stood, took her gun out, and moved to the door.
The intercom monitor flickered to life to reveal Burke leaning forward in the wide-angled frame. Richtman was behind him with his rifle slung over his shoulder and his palm pressed against his lower back.
“Hello, Kim,” the CEO said, narrowing his eyes as he stepped away from the camera.
“Burke.” Kim nodded. “I was hoping you’d died.”
Burke spread his hands wide. “I have this uncanny way of staying alive.” His eyes fell to Kim’s chest and her bloody bra. “Ouch, looks like Pauline winged you.”
Kim glanced down at her wound. The bleeding had stopped after she’d slapped a bandage over the hanging skin the bullet had shaved away. She might have a cracked rib, too, but she wouldn’t let Burke see her pain.
“It’s just a flesh wound,” Kim said, shifting her weight to her other leg and lifting her chin.
“I was hoping to have a brief chat with you,” Burke said.
Kim glared at the screen.
“I understand you’re a little angry at me,” Burke said, biting his lip innocently. “But you can see why I had to do it. For self-preservation. Your people would have hanged me.”
“And you’ve proven you deserve it.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Kim.” Burke shook his head as he reached out and pressed some buttons on the console.
“I used an override key to lock the door,” Kim said. “You can’t get in, not even with your little hacking tool.”
“That’s too bad.” Burke stepped back from the monitor and gripped his rifle with both hands. “It would have been good to talk to you face to face. Well, then. I’ll leave now, with Richtman and Pauline.”
“Pauline’s alive?”
“Barely.” Burke gave a sad shake of his head. “My bus driver, Charlie, is a decent medic. He might save her, but I’d say the chances are slim.”
Kim glanced over at Tom where his breathing had become shallow. He didn’t have much longer.
“It’s hard to believe you care about anything.” Kim turned her attention back to the monitor. “You just threw away the only hope the world had to beat Asphyxia. You might have found some redemption in that, don’t you think?”
The CEO clicked his tongue and narrowed his eyes in thought. “There’s no redemption for me, Kim. At least not in your eyes or the eyes of the world. But I have always been prepared to live with my decisions, and that’s what separates me from so many others. I’ll live a long, productive, guilt-free life, and you’ll spend the rest of your meager days down here, wondering if you could have done better for a world that never cared about you to begin with.”
“You’re sick.”
“No, I’m a survivor.”
“Get out of here,” Kim said. “You make me want to throw up.”
“Come with us,” Burke shrugged. “We can always use people like you in our new utopia.”
Kim shook her head in disbelief. “You never stop, do you?”
“I’m a businessman, Kim. I’m willing to put our differences aside for our mutual benefit. You could be a scientific adviser to me. We’ll even swing by and pick up your family. I overheard you say they’re in Ft. Collins, right? Just say the word, and you’ll be sipping cocktails on the beach within a week.”
It took every bit of control Kim had not to hit the override button and open the door, blasting Burke and Richtman with her remaining bullets. But who was she kidding? She wouldn’t get a single shot off before they mowed her down.
“I’ll find you, Burke,” Kim said, resting her hand on the console. “I’ll find you and your little utopia and bring it all down.”
She hit the button to kill the feed and turned away from the door.
By the time she got back to Tom, he was dead.
A few minutes later, Kim stood just outside of Samantha Roger’s room wearing spare coveralls and an air filtration mask on her face. As Kim figured, the glass partition was shot out. Bullets riddled the woman’s body and her blood dripped from the table.
Kim hit a button on the console inside the door and stepped back. She watched as a heavy decontamination spray soaked the room, and the door slid shut in front of her face.
Returning to the control room, Kim turned on the facility camera feed. She checked on the quarantine area monitor feed and found the two soldiers, Sims and Gonzalez, dead just inside the door.
With a quiet sigh, she tracked Burke and Richtman as they donned their heavy protective suits and fit Pauline into hers. Placing the assistant on a gurney, they pushed her through quarantine, into the elevator, and out to the waiting bus.
Meanwhile, Richtman grabbed two huge gasoline containers off the back of Bryant’s Humvee and came back to the elevator. Realizing what he was doing, Kim opened the control center door and bolted outside, running to the end of the hallway and turning right toward the staff quarters. She had to retrieve the computer tablet out of Tom’s room before Richtman burned everything down.
As she passed the commons area, she saw the pristine white tiles ahead streaked with blood. Just outside Bryant’s room, she stumbled upon Burke’s other two goons. They were both shot up and laying in a wide pool of blood that stretched across the hallway.
Bryant was nowhere to be seen.
She stepped to his bullet-riddled door and reached up to swipe her ID across the reader. Before she could, the door slid aside with a rattling hiss and Bryant fell out. Kim caught the man as his rifle clattered to the floor, his weight bending her to the ground.
“Bryant, hey!” Kim cried with relief as she lowered the man to the floor and leaned him back against the wall. Her eyes searched him for injuries and saw his right side and lap soaked in blood “Hip, leg, or stomach?”
Bryant clutched her coveralls with a strong grip. “Hip and side, I think.”
Kim glanced back down the hallway toward quarantine. Richtman could come around the corner at any momen
t and blow them both to pieces, but she needed to get Bryant’s bleeding stopped. Her shirt was back in the control center.
“Stay here,” she said, pulling Bryant’s rifle into his lap. “Watch out for Richtman. He’s trying to set fire to the place. I’ll find something to stop the bleeding.”
The facility fire alarms activated, their blaring sound cutting through Kim’s head like a scythe. Bryant’s eyes widened, and he gripped his gun tighter, pointing the barrel down the hall with a nod.
“Be right back.”
Kim sprinted another hundred yards down the long, curving hallway to Tom’s room and used her ID to get in. His room was neat with a full bookshelf full of old, classic titles and one shelf dedicated to pulpy science fiction paperbacks. Kim spotted the tablet laying on his bed, and she rushed over and snatched it up. Then she went to his sock drawer and pulled out six pairs of thick cotton socks before exiting the room.
Back at Bryant’s room, she knelt down and spread apart his torn T-shirt, trying to find the wound. There was too much blood for her to tell. She pressed three socks against the area and placed Bryant’s right hand over it.
“Keep the pressure on it.”
“It looks worse than it feels.” Bryant gave a sudden wince. “Scratch that. It feels terrible. But I can make it.”
She helped the soldier stand and shoulder his weapon, then she got under his right arm to bear some of his weight. She had to be careful if they stumbled upon Richtman. With the tablet computer tucked under her right arm, and her gun pointed down, she’d have to drop the tablet to get a shot off.
They passed the commons area and hobbled Bryant down the control center hall as fast as possible. Once inside the control center, Kim sat Bryant in a chair and returned to the control center door.
She started to shut and lock it but saw Richtman watching her from the far end of the hall. He was dragging a gas can in one hand and held a pistol in the other. She couldn’t read his expression inside his protective hood, though she hoped he was in pain.
Kim would never hit him at that distance, but she raised her pistol to fire anyway. Richtman wrenched the gas can and dragged it hurriedly out of sight.
“I hope you bleed out in that suit,” Kim said, then she hit a button and the big slab of metal slid shut.
Chapter 46
Randy and Jenny Tucker, Center Township, Indiana
It was early evening by the time Randy drove the truck into their driveway. The faint light they’d left on shined through the bay window like a beacon of hope and comfort. And after the day they’d had, they needed it.
After fighting Krumer at the jail, Randy and Jenny had run all over town to help Jones and Bickens find some air filtration masks. They’d turned the police station upside down and then driven to the fire station where they found two no one had claimed.
After situating the former prisoners with the promise to return the next day, Randy had driven Jenny to the library where they’d talked to Mrs. Brody through the front door.
The library folks had ingeniously fashioned their own air filtration masks out of 2-liter bottles, duct tape, and pieces of home air filters they’d been using to protect their vents.
Randy suggested that the next day, he and Jenny would find a van, sanitize it as best they could, and pull it close to the library entrance.
The folks inside would be ready with air filtration masks on. They would exit the library and file into the back of the van. They’d swing by the jail, grab Jones and Bickens, and head for the Indianapolis FEMA camp. Mrs. Brody had agreed, and they’d left it at that.
Finally home, Randy put the truck in park and shut off the engine with a sigh.
“So glad to be here,” Jenny said.
“You and me both.”
“At least we have a home to come back to.”
“I’m going to have a ham sandwich with my soup tonight,” Randy said. When Jenny gave him a questioning look, he shrugged, saying, “It will go bad, eventually. Might as well eat it while we can.”
Jenny mulled it over and nodded. “You know, a ham sandwich sounds amazing right now.”
“I’ll even make it for you,” Randy offered.
“No, tonight is my treat!” Jenny grinned, then she popped her door and stepped out of the truck.
Randy got out of the driver’s side, turned toward the house, and froze.
The front door was hanging half open.
Heart racing, Randy removed his revolver from his coverall pocket and approached the house in a crouch. He still had six bullets left in the gun, and he wouldn’t hesitate to use them.
“Randy, what—?”
Randy jerked his hand up and then pointed to the house. Jenny saw the open door and fell silent. She slid behind Randy, and they approached the door together. Randy picked up the faint sounds of stumbling, something heavy falling over, and tape ripping.
“They’re tearing our tarps down,” he hissed over his shoulder.
Anger rose in Randy’s gut like acid, and he gripped the gun even tighter. He was about to call the person out, but the stumbling and bumping got louder as the person came to the front door.
With a sudden heave, the door flew open the rest of the way, and a short, stocky man staggered out wearing an air filtration mask strapped to his head. The reason for his staggering became evident. He had duct tape stuck to his legs and was dragging half the plastic tarps out with him.
The man turned and hopped and kicked, trying to remove the clinging tape with one swollen hand while holding up a baseball bat in the other. Red stained the end of the bat, sending a chill up Randy’s spine.
“Hey!” Randy shouted, causing the man to jerk around and face the twins.
His Dickie’s work shirt looked familiar, so did his air filtration mask.
“It’s the guy who attacked us at the library,” Jenny said as she stepped out from behind Randy. “And look at his mask. That’s Ally’s.” Jenny’s fists clenched at her sides as her eyes ticked back and forth between the mask and the stained end of the baseball bat.
The man stared at them with a glazed expression, and Randy noticed the inside of his mask was slick with blood and mucus.
“You killed our friend!” Randy shouted as he adjusted his grip on his gun.
The man’s fungus-covered eyes flew wide, and he held out his hands in confusion. The man’s left arm was still bruised and swollen where Randy had struck him with the crowbar, and it looked like the skin might pop at any moment.
“I got a mask.” The man slurred his words. “I finally got one.”
“You killed our friend and tore up our house, man!” Randy raised his pistol and pointed it at the man’s head. The frustration of the past four days rose to the surface on a wave of anger. “I should kill you.”
“Don’t...don’t kill me.” The man coughed violently, half bending over with the effort. Then he straightened and took two more steps, tapping the baseball bat against his visor. “You could have just given me a mask, and I wouldn’t have had to kill her. I wouldn’t have—”
Randy pulled the trigger from five yards away, cutting off the words like he’d snuffed out a candle. The bullet penetrated the visor and exploded from the back of the man’s head in a spray of blood and bone.
His body hit the fungus-covered ground, kicking up a faint waft of tendrils that hung in the air for a long moment before drifting to the ground.
Chapter 47
Bishop Shields, Ft. Collins, Colorado
“Keep in mind, kids,” Bishop said as he pulled into the strip mall parking lot and parked in front of the Starbucks. “We’re here because this is the best chance to reach your mother. This isn’t social hour.”
He’d chosen the neighborhood of Old Prospect since it was right on State Route 287 yet still within walking distance to the college. With a look around, Bishop saw dozens of people walking down the main strip and crossing at the next block up, moving west toward the college.
It reminded him of pe
ople going to a concert or attending a Colorado State football game, except that everyone wore backpacks and carried personal items with them. He looked into the backseat and saw the kids looking around excitedly.
“Are you guys ready to go?”
They answered in the affirmative, each of them squirming to get out of the car. To their credit, they were sticking to their promise to do exactly as he said. Good thing, because it was clear they thought this was more like an adventure and not a life or death situation.
To Bishop, it felt like a trap. There were already too many people for his liking, and it would get worse the closer they got to the stadium. Still, he kept reminding himself that they might find a way to call Kim, once they located some military folks.
And maybe the FEMA people knew what they were doing. Maybe they had state-of-the-art facilities and knew what to do when the toxic cloud hit.
Bishop closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s go.”
He got out of their Lincoln SUV, walked around to the back, and popped the back hatch. The kids met him there, each of them grabbing their respective backpacks and settling them on their shoulders. Bishop shut the back hatch and pressed the button on his key fob to lock the vehicle.
They walked north for several blocks on South College Avenue and stopped at the corner of South College and West Prospect Streets. Excitement buzzed in the air as more and more people filtered in from every part of town. Car traffic was sparse, and people had a hard time turning the corners as pedestrians crossed against the crosswalk signs in large groups.
“I’ve been texting Ariana,” Riley said, shaking her head at her phone. “But my texts aren’t going through.”
“It’s probably just too many people fighting for bandwidth,” Bishop said in his deep tone. “Pretty soon there will be a hundred thousand people down here. Everyone will be texting and calling each other. I wouldn’t expect the signal to get any better if I were you.”
Riley frowned and shoved her phone into her back pocket.
Bishop waited for the crosswalk light to turn green before gestured at the kids. “You guys go ahead of me.”
Spore Series (Book 1): Spore Page 26
