The Enoch Plague (The Enoch Pill Book 2)

by Matthew William

Another older woman with dyed brown hair stood atop a wagon and was pleading with the crowd.

  “We’ve survived for twenty years here, we’ve built our homes and raised our daughters. We can’t turn and run now.”

  So that’s what this was all about. The women were fleeing the country because of the mutant attacks. It was an ironic outcome, as if the lies they told their children had suddenly become true. But how could they have known about the impending doom? Only a select few in the city were privy to that information.

  Among the crowd Leo noticed Diego, barely conscious, being brought into a red house by two women. Another woman emerged from that house and stood on the porch. She shouted out to the crowd to quiet down. Everyone stopped what they were doing and gave her their full attention.

  “You don’t need to leave your homes,” the woman said. She spoke with authority and the crowd hushed. “We have a plan to deal with the mutant threat.”

  “Who is that?” Leo asked the old woman.

  “Mrs. Palmer,” the old woman said. “She’s the farm boss.”

  “See this,” Mrs. Palmer said. She hopped off the porch and walked over to something covered in a large blue tarp. Two women yanked the cover away to reveal an old black pickup truck, its bed loaded up with explosives.

  “When the men come out from the city,” Mrs. Palmer shouted, “and they will come, they’ll be after the Cartwright girl. When we capture her, we’ll set her in here and the men will surround her. We’ll pull the trigger and blow them all to bits. Turns out Miss Baker here is quite the explosives expert.”

  “Geez, this is a freak show,” Leo said to himself as he moved around the edge of the crowd and towards the house where Diego had been brought.

  “How are you even supposed to find her?” a woman from the crowd asked.

  “We’ve got a homing device on the constable’s jeep,” Mrs. Palmer said proudly. “And we’re going after them now.”

  Leo was in the early stages of formulating a plan to get Diego out of the house when he heard a voice from behind him yell “Freeze!”. He turned to see a woman with a rifle pointed at him.

  The camp of women spread open wide when they realized there was a man in their midst. For many, this was the first time they had seen a man in 20 years. For others, he was the first they had ever seen. Leo raised his hands and was guided towards Mrs. Palmer. This was typical of his luck.

  The woman waved him on and went up inside the house. The crowd began to murmur.

  Once inside they threw him down in a chair and secured his hands behind his back with duct tape. There was a lone window in the room. Diego was laying unconscious against the wall. Leo had succeeding in finding to him, although these were not the ideal circumstances.

  “You’re the cop who was with Kizzy,” Mrs. Palmer said, once the door was closed.

  “Yeah, I came back for the kid.”

  “You can’t have him, he’s bait.”

  “That’s what we figured,” Leo said.

  “And where is Kizzy?” Mrs. Palmer asked.

  “What, so you can blow her up?” Leo said.

  “Do you think I would really be that stupid? I’m just trying to get the crowd behind me. It’s called politics. We raided an old army base for weapons.” Paige pointed to the corner of the room, to a stack of boxes containing heavy weaponry. “We can deal with the mutants.”

  “Then what’s with the car bomb?”

  “Something we rigged up to deal with the mutants. But Kizzy’s too valuable to be wasted on that. I need another daughter.”

  “She’s not up for adoption,” Leo said.

  “Are you stupid? She’s going to give me a daughter.”

  “How are you supposed to do that without a father?”

  “Ever hear of a sperm bank? There’s tons of them out there, still frozen on reserve power. Unicorp has one not too far from here.”

  “You’re one messed up joker,” Leo said.

  “That’s what people tell me,” Paige said. She took a pistol from her pants and cocked it. “You’re not getting out of here unless you tell me exactly where they’re going. They’ve stopped at a nuclear reservoir and left on foot.”

  “Are you’re gonna shoot me to find out?” Leo asked.

  “Eventually, but maybe we could start with him.”

  She turned the gun to Diego who was just awakening from his stupor.

  “Now hold on,” Leo said.

  “He’s going to be a mutant. He’s a hazard,” Paige said.

  “You can’t do this.”

  “Five… four… three… two… one.”

  “They’re turning on a computer program.”

  “You think I’m stupid, don’t you Leo?”

  “No, I think you’re very smart.”

  “You’re lying to me.”

  “I swear I’m not.”

  She struck him the face with the pistol. The metal cracked the bone above Leo’s eye. A warm trickle of blood fell down his cheek.

  “There nothing but the nuclear plant there. I’ve looked at the maps myself. Now tell me, what are they doing there?”

  Leo sat there shaking his head. He was terrible at making up lies on the spot and now his life depended on it.

  “They want to start up the nuclear power business again,” Leo said. “They heard the profits are unbelievable.”

  Paige’s eyes grew big, she raised the gun to give him another slap. Leo winced and turned away. From the opened window came the screams of women in the distance.

  “Do you hear that?” he asked.

  “Don’t change the subject,” said Paige walking to the window.

  The sound of panic and chaos grew louder. Worry wrinkled the skin around the woman’s eyes.

  “Does anyone have visuals?” she called into her walkie-talkie.

  There was no answer and in a panic she ran outside.

  Leo glanced around the room, still tied to a chair, looking for a means of escape. He’d have to act quickly. Diego immediately perked up and crawled over to him and began to untie his hands. It appeared he was only acting incapacitated. He was a pretty good actor, Leo noted.

  “Ah kid, you’re brilliant,” Leo said. “I’m gonna get you out of here.”

  “No, I’m getting you out of here.”

  Suddenly Leo heard footsteps approaching on the porch. “Quick, get back.”

  “What?” Diego asked.

  He kicked Diego back to the spot he had been laying. Leo tried to look still and peaceful in the chair as Diego went back to his catatonic state. Paige burst inside, went to the weaponry boxes in the corner of the room, and took out two large assault rifles. Without a glance she marched back out.

  With the start Diego had given him Leo was able to finish the job of freeing his hands from the tape. “It’s me saving you.”

  He crept to the window and looked out. It was pure chaos out there. Four mutants were coming through the valley, plowing through the retreating women. They appeared to be headed straight for the house. On the porch Mrs. Palmer and two other women took shots at the mutants with the rifles.

  Leo went to open the door and Paige saw them. She turned with the rifle and fired at them.

  Leo dove for cover as the bullets whizzed past him. He looked to Diego. “Try the back door.”

  Diego noticed the doorknob had been broken off. “It won’t open.”

  Leo looked back to the porch to see Paige and the other women hopping off and fleeing into the woods. The mutants galloped straight up to the front door. Leo backed away as they tore it from the wall. Screaming, struggling, black foam coming from their mouths.

  “Upstairs!” Leo shouted.

  Diego was way ahead of him and already halfway up the rickety old stairs.

  “Are these things strong enough to hold...” Leo’s foot burst through the old wood and he fell in up to his thigh. He turned. The mutants charged straight at him. This was it! He’d be torn to pieces. He put his hands up to defend himself. But to his
disbelief they all stopped.

  Leo’s heart was nearly exploding from his chest. What the heck was this about?

  The mutants stood for a moment completely still. They all appeared to be staring off into space. They turned and ran out the door. They came in wild beasts, snarling and out of control, froze for a minute as if their brains had to reboot, and ran out the door like men, with none of the beastly mannerisms.

  Leo pulled his leg from of the hole in the stairs and went up to find Diego. But the kid was nowhere to be seen. There was an opened window at the end of the room. He must have gone went out that way. With silent steps Leo crossed the roof, climbed out above the porch and jumped down to the ground below. He was right outside the pickup truck loaded with explosives. It looked like he found them a getaway car.

  “Diego?” Leo hissed, trying to be loud and quiet at the same time. He tried to unload the explosives from the truck, but they were bolted to the bed.

  “He’s outside!” came a voice from the house.

  Leo left the explosives where they were and jumped into the driver’s seat. To his surprise the keys were in the ignition. He started the engine and peeled out. Rifle shots blasted out from the house. One shot shattered the window behind him, exploded his rear view mirror, and left a clean hole in the windshield. This fascinated as much as it terrified him.

  The women would be coming after Kizzy now. They may already be en route. He had to get there first. The nuclear reservoir was a huge place. How was he supposed to find them there?

  18

  The curved roof of the Uncle facility had an overhang that had kept the weather from the window. Nonetheless, it was still tinted green and had weeds growing up the glass from nearly twenty years of neglect. Kizzy could only vaguely see through to the inside. When Josephine opened the door the emergency lights flickered to life.

  “Back to work,” Josephine said. “I used to come here every day and it felt like it would never end. It feels so… foreign.”

  “I still can’t believe all this was right under my nose,” the constable said.

  Kizzy followed her inside. Of all the abandoned places she had been this was the only one that didn’t smell... abandoned. How could that be?

  A cleaning droid poked its head out from behind the front desk. It was made of a dull, gray metal and was human in form.

  The constable drew her gun.

  “No, it’s alright,” Josephine said. She waived to the robot. “Hey, Charlie.”

  “It’s been a long time Josephine,” he said in a synthesized voice. “Were you on vacation?”

  “Something like that,” Josephine answered. “We’re going to take a look around if that’s alright?”

  “Of course,” the robot said. “Have a great day.”

  The robot went back to sweeping the floor.

  “He’s a sweet thing,” Josephine said as they entered the main hall. A reception desk sat at the end of the room. Josephine walked up to the far wall and pushed on a nondescript square that lit up. There was a soft ding and a door appeared in the wall. Josephine took a flashlight from her backpack and waved the others after her.

  Inside the secret door was a large lab, with all its equipment covered in clear plastic sheets. It was all so orderly and clean, as if no time had passed. However, the lights in the room didn’t turn on.

  “Hmm, there must be something wrong the reactor,” Josephine said. “This place should have more than just the emergency lights.”

  “Maybe that robot’s been sucking up all the power,” the constable said.

  “We’d have some serious problems then.”

  At the far end of the lab was a door that was labeled “Uncle Communication Room”.

  “Is that where you’d talk to him?” Kizzy asked, nodding to the room.

  “Yes,” Josephine said. “It was a type of workshop with an interactive interface. It’s easier than just speaking to a screen.”

  Kizzy looked forward to talking with him, if Josephine would let her. What would she ask the mind that knew everything? Why was she here? What was the purpose and meaning of life? How could mankind be fixed so that she wouldn’t need to have children? Hopefully he had all the answers.

  “But if we don’t figure out what happened to the power...” Josephine trailed off, trying to start up a computer. She shook her head and took her laptop from her backpack and plugged it into the computer’s display. “That’s strange. The backup generators are completely drained. That shouldn’t be happening.”

  “Can we check them?” the constable asked.

  They entered the reactor room. Josephine opened the glass doors and there sat the main power cable to the facility, completely chopped up. The copper insides of the main cable were exposed and had turned green over the years.

  “I think we figured out why the power’s not working,” Kizzy said.

  “Looks like somebody did it with an ax,” the constable said.

  “How can you possibly tell it was an ax?” Josephine asked.

  The constable pointed to an ax that was leaning against the wall.

  “Who would have done this?” Josephine asked.

  “Patel?” Kizzy asked.

  “That’s impossible. He doesn’t have the security clearance to get in here. And in any case, he has too much respect for science to ever in a hundred years do anything like this.”

  “It probably has something to do with that black Mercedes that was sitting outside,” the constable said. “So what are our options now?”

  Outside, in the daylight, they spread out the map on the hood of Patel’s car.

  “The power plant is less than a mile away,” Josephine said.

  “Would we have to run power cables from there to here?” the constable asked, showing in her voice how little faith she had in the idea.

  “After we get the plant up and running.”

  “And do you know how to do something like that?” the constable asked.

  “Technically speaking, no, not really,” Josephine said.

  “Okay,” the constable said. “So we restart the nuclear reactor that we don’t know how to restart, run power lines a mile to this location using cables we don’t have, so that we can start up a computer that may or may not know how to cure the mutation that has infected all the men on earth.”

  “All the while dodging the mutants that will tear us to bits if they get a hold of us,” Josephine added.

  “How could I forget about them?” the constable said.

  Kizzy’s stomach grew sour with anxiety. The prospect of speaking with Uncle had just gotten further from her reach, even though they were standing just outside the building. Kizzy wondered if it would ever really happen, or whether had it all been some cruel dream.

  By the time they got back to the car and drove to the nuclear facility it was late afternoon. Kizzy noticed Josephine biting her fingernails as they approached. This had not been her best day.

  “Ever have a project so big and complex you just want to take a nap instead of working on it?” Josephine asked as she stepped from the car.

  “Never,” the constable said.

  The nuclear plant was large and imposing. Stacks of concrete cylinders reached for the sky in an intimidating, phallic shape.

  Josephine let out a big sigh.

  Kizzy realized this all may have been hopeless. Chances were slim they would be able to get the plant working in time, and even if they somehow managed it, there was still the chance that Uncle wouldn’t be able to give them a cure.

  They walked through the quiet offices, then through the cafeteria where the workers would eat their meals, back before Josephine had killed them. There was a purple beer can sitting at the end of the table. ‘Graham Beer.’ It reminded Kizzy of her mother.

  “What’s this?” Josephine asked.

  “Post-plague beer,” the constable said. “Pretty awful stuff.”

  “How did it get out here?”

  “That’s a good question actual
ly,” the constable said. “Maybe some girls snuck out here?”

  “It’s a weird place to hang out,” Josephine said. “Isn’t it?”

  They went in the direction of the main office. Fortunately, all the doors of the facility were opened and soon they stood before the large control panel.

  “Okay, so this here should be the main operating station,” Josephine said, scanning the panel. “Now all these switches to load the uranium… should be turned off.”

  “Meaning?” the constable asked.

  “Either the uranium has been out in the open and this plant won’t ever work again...” Josephine said. “Or someone else has already turned it on.“

  Kizzy turned to see two men standing at the door. One was young in black jacket and spiked hair, the other was an Indian man, his black hair in a Mohawk, and was wearing a white lab coat.

  “Nice haircut, Bryson,” Josephine said.

  “I figured with the apocalypse upon us, it would be fitting. Do you have time for a meeting?”

  They went back to the lunch room and sat around the table. Kizzy, Josephine, the constable, Patel, and the young man with spiked hair. A couple of police officers stood watch at the door. One was chubby and casual, the other looked worried and had curly blond hair.

  “We saw you coming in,” Patel said, pointing out the window to the jeep down below. “We didn’t want a violent encounter.

  “What is it you want?” Josephine asked flatly.

  “The same thing you do I imagine. To stop this plague. I’m going to have the plant up and running in less than an hour. Unfortunately we have less time than expected to figure out the cure...”

  “What?” Josephine cut him off. “Why?”

  “The men are turning faster than anticipated,” Patel answered.

  “Where’s your evidence?”

  “He’s tied to a tree a few miles behind us.”

  Josephine’s eyes grew big and she glanced at Kizzy, as if to say, ‘Don’t say a word.’

  “Then you and your men could be turning at any moment,” the constable interjected.

  “Not us. My men and I are a control group that didn’t go on the new pill. Morrigan had a supply stored up that I lucked onto. Turns out my waste-not want-not attitude is the only thing that saved me.”