The Rising (The End Time Saga Book 3)

by Daniel Greene

  She hovered her cursor over an image and double-clicked it to zoom in. It focused on the part of the cell that looked like a capsid, and it inserted the viral genetic data into the cell.

  “Look here.” She pointed with a blue-gloved hand at the screen. “There is a reason Primus Necrovirus started as a satellite virus. It has only managed to use a single glycoprotein on its outer membrane viral envelope to attach onto new cells. Not very efficient.”

  “That’s why in the early stages it relied on the monkeypox as a vector to host cells.”

  “Correct. It’s a vulnerability point. If we can modify its receptor so it cannot penetrate a cell but the body still recognizes it in dead or live cells, it will have an almost zero chance of infection. Or so I can theorize at this point in time.”

  Almost zero. “So we have to remove the current receptor, modify it, reattach it, and test it. Without the monkeypox to assist in transmission, we can inoculate people against Primus Necrovirus without risking infection.”

  “That’s correct. However, there are at least two different forms of the virus that we are seeing,” she said. She looked back at her microscope. “There could be even more.”

  He nodded remembering the people in the Congo jungle. “The strain with the host virus, it needs the monkeypox virus to transfer until the host dies. Then there is the current one where the satellite virus is on its own.”

  “Those are the main culprits. As far as the original virus goes, monkeypox is a relative of smallpox. If you are inoculated for smallpox, you should have a smaller chance of contracting monkeypox. The problem is, people have stopped being inoculated against smallpox because the first world is free from it. Dr. Hollis has been working on an enhancement to the smallpox vaccines. What if we blended the vaccines together? The modified protein receptor Primus Necrovirus and the enhanced smallpox vaccine. Perhaps that will do the trick. Give people full immunity to both the original variant and the mutated virus.”

  “We will have to test it on people to make sure it works,” Joseph said, cringing inside his suit. People would most certainly die because of their unsubstantiated experiments. “But we don’t have a choice.”

  “This will not be pleasant,” Dr. Desai said.

  “I agree. This will not be pleasant,” he echoed, watching the virus dance on the screen.

  GWEN

  Northern Michigan

  Gwen gritted her teeth to stem the flow of emotion that washed over her, ebbing and flowing like a tide. You don’t have time for tears. You have more responsibilities than tears. The steering wheel was rough and worn beneath her hands; little black flakes peeled off and stuck to her fingers and palms. The night seemed to push in on the RV from all sides, making her headlights dim. It was as if she were driving down a wooded tunnel. Her headlights, faint from age, did almost nothing to aid her.

  Children sobbed in the back. The elderly sat, heads bowed, arms wrapped around the youngsters. Max sat in the pilot’s chair next to her. He nervously scanned the area outside the window, bent forward in his seat as he tried to see everything going on around them.

  Anyone who was a liability in a fight was with her. Dr. Thatcher sat with his little Pomeranian, Gordon, on his lap. Gordon’s little orange head bounced from person to person, shaking with fright.

  She watched the road, struggling with every mile of distance between her and Mark. I should be with him. His fight is my fight. If I can’t fight for my baby’s life, then what can I possibly fight for? She wanted to scream, laugh, shout, and giggle at the same time. Damn hormones. If my body could just pick an emotion and roll with it, I would appreciate it. Mark. Flashes of his laughing face bounced over her eyes. He did this to me.

  She could see Max watching her out of the corner of her eye.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Are you okay, Ms. Gwen?” Max asked from the co-pilot’s seat.

  “What? You don’t think I can drive this thing?” she spat. She gave him a dirty look.

  “No, -no, ma’am.”

  “Don’t call me ma’am. What am I, your fucking mom?”

  “No, Mrs. Steele.”

  She looked at him, furious. “I’m not married either, nor should I be denoted by my marital status. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” he mumbled.

  “Can’t you see I’m fine?” she yelled at him. His eyes widened, and he scootched away from her in his seat. He held a .22 rifle between his legs.

  “Well, Max, let’s talk you through it,” she chided. “I’m in charge of the safety of twenty-six people, most which are under the age of eight. My baby daddy, and not my husband in case you were confused, is playing George Armstrong Custer against a bunch of fanatical Jesus freaks.” She stopped, forgetting where she was going with her harangue. She held up a finger, remembering. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Everyone else in the world is an undead walking cannibal that will stop at nothing to kill and eat you.” She took her eyes off the road to give him the most irate of stink eyes. All confidence the teenager had disappeared, and his shoulders hunched, drooping lower than normal.

  “And my hormones are making me feel a little bit-,” she was cut off.

  “A little bit crazy,” Max said, his voice a fraction of a whisper.

  “Crazy? Did you just call a pregnant woman crazy?” she said, her mouth hanging open. The nerve of this ingrate. This kid doesn’t know anything about anything.

  “Umm,” Max dragged out. He looked like he was about to open the door and tuck and roll out onto the roadway.

  “You, you little boy. You have no fucking idea what crazy looks like,” she said, swinging at him. He dodged her swipe, bending down low into the passenger side.

  “I’m sorry,” he yelped.

  “You’d better be, and keep your eyes peeled for infected. The last thing I need is to end up stuck in some horde.”

  She checked her rearview mirror, glancing at the people in the back.

  “Everything is going to be all right,” she said in her best motherly voice. The voice that came out of her was not her own. Oh, my God, I sound like my mother. The crying continued from the back.

  She looked back in the mirror. The older folks looked like they were on their last leg. A few of the older women held children in their arms, whispering words of comfort. All the children cried except one.

  A little blond boy sat on the far back bench. His legs didn’t touch the floor; they dangled off the seat swinging back and forth. He wore baby blue overall shorts with a white turtleneck as if someone had dressed him up for a summer picnic. It’s him. She slammed on the brakes. People cried out, startled. The inertia tugged them forward in their seats.

  “What are you doing?” Max’s voice came out as a hesitant squeak.

  She turned around. The space where the boy sat was empty.

  “Where’s that little boy?” she cried out.

  Dr. Thatcher looked around. “They’re all here,” he said. Worry crossed his fleshy face. “We have been driving nonstop since Little Sable.”

  She slammed the RV into park and stood up, leaving the driver’s compartment. She stepped over young and old alike. “He was sitting there,” she said. She pointed down to an empty spot on the bench.

  “Where’s the boy?” she asked everyone. The children looked scared.

  “Gwen, everyone is accounted for. Everyone we started with is here,” Dr. Thatcher said. He stroked Gordon’s head with a heavy hand, making the dog’s eyes bulge out more than normal. “I’m positive.”

  Gwen bent low to a little girl. Her hair was in a dirty snarled black ponytail. “Where’s the boy that was here?”

  “I don’t know,” the girl said in a mousy voice.

  A freckled-faced girl next to her spoke up. “There’s no boy,” she said.

  Gwen thrust a finger at the empty space. “Yes, there was a boy sitting right there.” She wanted to pull her hair out. What’s happening to me? She let her hand fall on her forehead, massaging her brow.
/>   “Ah. Ms. Gwen,” Max said from the front.

  “What, Max?” she yelled back at him.

  “You better come up here.”

  “Can’t you wait a minute? I’m trying to figure this out.” Or am I crazy? She started counting the children and then the adults. She only got to five before Max spoke up again.

  “Ms. Gwen. We should go.” She could hear him rolling the manual window down in quick circular loops.

  “Just wait, Max,” she said, starting her counting over again. One. Two. Three.

  A gun boomed in the vehicle making her jump. The children started to frantically scream. Her ears rang with high-pitched whines and screams.

  “Goddamnit, Max!” She brought a hand up to her ears. She leaned down, looking out the front of the RV. Max’s gun boomed again. A figure stumbled and fell. A figure in a mass of hundreds. The infected came and the kids cried in the back of the RV, all except the blond boy just out of reach.

  STEELE

  Little Sable Point, MI

  The taillights of the camper disappearing down the road were seared into his mind. Steele had stood motionless for minutes after they left, watching the night as if he thought she might come back. Knowing that she went into an unknown that was plagued by the undead and riddled with death but would still be safer than staying with him at Little Sable made his insides swirl in a pool of uneasiness. Is this land even worth fighting over? If they die, you sent them to their deaths from the safety of this community with nothing but a teenage boy and a pregnant woman to fend for them. He shot air through his nose trying to relieve his stress. It’s done. She’s gone. The plan is in motion. Now you can fight this dirty war without the innocent getting in the way.

  He marched to the trailer holding Peter. Margie sat in a chair outside the trailer. The older woman stood as he approached, gripping her bolt-action hunting rifle like she was going to use it to club him over the head with it.

  “It’s only me, Margie,” he said softly. She relaxed a bit in the moonlight. “How about you get some rest? We’ve been at this all day. Save some of your strength for tomorrow.”

  “Captain.” She exhaled a deep sigh, smiling faintly in the dark. “I’ve been through longer nights than this. Parenting isn’t a nine-to-five gig.”

  Steele smiled back, lips closed covering his teeth. Her words reminded him of something he may never experience. “I’m sure it’s not, but I need to talk to our captive alone for a minute. Can you send Jason over here in about thirty?”

  “I sure will, Captain. I think you did right by sending Max away with the others. He’s a good boy, but I’m not sure he’s ready for this. And the children. Sparing them this may save their souls.”

  “Or I could be sending them straight to their deaths.”

  Her eyes were pools of black shadowed by the night. He couldn’t tell if she blamed him, pitied him, or respected what he had done. “You made the right one,” she said, squeezing his arm on the way by.

  Steele jangled the chain as he undid the lock. He let the anticipation of his arrival dig into Peter’s brain. Peter shifted inside, his every move echoing in the empty trailer. Flicking on his flashlight, Steele shined it on the man in the back. Peter covered his eyes with his forearms.

  “What? What do you want?” he said. The man was terrified and recoiled from Steele’s presence. He would probably never really recover from the mental strain of waterboarding. The feeling of drowning, the water filling his throat, and the terror of not being able to get air to his oxygen-deprived lungs would stick with him. Those experiences would cloud his dreams, forever turning them into nightmares as he slept.

  “Came to check in on you,” Steele said.

  Peter seemed to recognize every part of his voice, and he shrunk smaller in the light. “Steele. No. Don’t come back here. I told you everything,” he yelped. He shifted himself into the corner of the trailer, legs kicking outward. Steele slowly walked along the inner trailer to the cowering man in the back.

  “Settle down, man. I’m not going to hurt you,” Steele said, grabbing the chain that connected Peter to the trailer wall. The big man flinched.

  “What are you going to do to me?” Peter asked, his hands still covering his face.

  “I’m going to take you back to Temple Energy.”

  Peter’s eyes went wide in the flashlight. “Screw you. You’re just messing with me,” he whimpered. “You’re prolly going to waterboard me again. Or pull off my fingertips. Or cut off my balls!” Peter squealed. The man pushed himself further into the corner.

  “I’m not going to do any of those things.” Steele pointed his flashlight away from the man.

  Peter blinked rapidly in the low light. “I don’t believe you,” he sputtered.

  “Don’t,” Steele said. He stuck a key into the lock keeping Peter bound to the trailer wall. He unlocked him, freeing the chain away from the wall. He tugged on Peter’s chain as if he were a dog. “Come on.”

  Peter sat in the corner, whimpers coming from his throat. Steele yanked the chain a little harder than he wanted to, and Peter tumbled upright. An outline of a person stepped in front of the trailer doors. Too early for Jason.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” came Tess’s voice. Steele relaxed a bit.

  “I’m taking Peter back to the pastor,” he said, flat out with it. No time for deception.

  “Why? We can use him as leverage if the Chosen come.”

  “We can use him as leverage now and maybe prevent them coming at all.”

  “What gave you that idea?” she said.

  He jerked Peter’s chain. “Take a seat,” he commanded the broken man. Peter sat in the trailer doorway, his head bowed.

  “I got this message earlier.” He unfolded a piece of paper and handed it to her. She turned on her flashlight and it shined bright on the yellow legal paper, illuminating the words almost too transparency.

  “You’re kidding me,” she said. She looked at him. “You believe this shit? It’s a trap.”

  Steele reached over and snagged the paper back. He held it in his hand like it was a golden ticket.

  “Sure sounds like it.”

  “He wants to meet you in the middle of the night at the roadblock. Far enough away from us where we can’t help. This is suicide.”

  “Maybe.” He was glad he couldn’t see her well in the dark. The disapproval on her face wouldn’t help.

  “Why are you doing this? If they kill you, we won’t last ten minutes against them,” she said. Less than that.

  Steele pointed to the paper. “He’s offering us an opportunity to live. We only need to pay a tithe to live within his kingdom. We give Peter back as a symbol of good faith, then no one else has to die.” He folded it up and put it in his breast pocket.

  “And you believe this bullshit? The guy burned Pagan alive. How can we come to terms with a person like that?”

  “I don’t know if I will ever come to terms with that, but this is a chance that people here won’t have to die. You saw his group. We’re sorely outnumbered and outgunned.” Steele gave a look over at Peter—he knew he was listening—and Peter dropped his gaze back to the ground like a whipped dog.

  “I don’t think you should go,” Tess said, her lips crunching together.

  “If there’s even a small chance I can prevent the upcoming bloodshed, I have to do it.”

  “I picked you to help me because you have half a brain, and now, Pagan is gone which unfortunately means you’re it.” He felt that he caught a hint of deceit in her voice as if she had forced herself to say it. “And when they crucify you or whatever medieval bullshit they decide to do, I will have no one to help me keep this place afloat.” Steele grimaced at her words.

  “I’m only doing what you asked me to do. And that’s protecting these people.”

  “A leader takes a stand. They don’t die shaking hands with fanatics,” she snarled.

  Maybe she’s right. The only way to curb their fanaticism is to sta
nd against it. “It’s the best the I can do.”

  They stood in silence for a moment, dissatisfaction settling in the air like an ugly cloud.

  “I’ll remember you, Mark Steele, after they butcher you and burn your corpse.” If I’m lucky. “The last knight of the apocalypse.” She planted one right on his lips, shocking him. He could feel his cheeks turning red. Is it because Peter is watching? Or is it because Gwen isn’t here? Or did I enjoy it?

  “Are you going to tell Gwen about that one too?” he said quickly.

  He thought her eyes were playful and sad in the dim light. “She and I came to terms over you. I was supposed to get you administratively. But it looks like that’s coming to an end with your daring ploy for peace.”

  She turned and walked away, her thin form disappearing into the night. This interaction made him glad he hadn’t told Gwen about his secret rendezvous with the pastor. I’m going to pay for this.

  “Chicks,” Peter mumbled, shaking his head.

  Steele gave him an eye with a twist of his head. “Come on, Peter. I’ve got a surprise for you.” He yanked Peter’s chain and he tumbled off the back of the trailer. He caught himself before he hit the ground.

  “I-I, don’t like surprises.”

  Steele grinned at his captive. “You’re gonna hate this one.”

  ***

  Waves crashed on the nearby beach. It sounded like an ocean, but it was the call of fresh water. The moon glinted off the whitecaps as they repeated their endless assault on the shore. The two men walked slowly down the center of a two-lane road. The white moon was the only light illuminating the way ahead. Maples and oaks hung over the road like overarching fingers of a tree giant.

  Steele gave Peter a shove in the back for encouragement. The man sobbed a bit in the night, making him sound like one of the infected. Peter passively resisted his every push like Steele was forcing him down a pirate’s plank.