Resistance: Pandora, Book 3

by Eric L. Harry

  “Take cover!” Rick called out, startling Isabel, whose thoughts had long ago turned inward. He dragged her off the road onto uneven ground. She fell heavily and tried to land on her pack but painfully smashed her hip into the ground amid the scraping branches of thick brush. Rick’s joining her suggested this was his intended destination.

  Three cars raced by them at highway speeds. After just seconds, the civilian convoy had receded and all was quiet again save the rustling of the branches in the wind and the settling of roadside rubbish in the caravan’s wake.

  “Alright. All clear.” Rick rose. Isabel, however, did not. “You okay?”

  “I just wanta ress here for a minuh.” She felt invisible inside the leaves and weeds and vines. A shiver rippled up her spine. She didn’t even bother to flick away the bug that alit on the tip of her nose as her eyes had drifted closed. “Juss a minute.”

  “Not here,” Rick said cruelly. “Come on.”

  He pulled Isabel to her feet as she complained in moans and groans and a poor attempt at a whimper. Everything hurt ten times worse than before the cars had passed. To her utter disbelief, he directed them uphill. She grunted in time with each dig of her boots’ toes into the loose soil. Each step up the hill was an act of superhuman willpower. For the first time in her life she didn’t trust her legs, which might buckle on any step. The noises she made evolved slowly into an imitation of sobbing. Real sobbing took too much effort.

  Rick finally said they could stop. Isabel unceremoniously dumped her pack onto the dirt and curled up on the ground beside it into a ball of soreness. She closed her eyes, hugged herself against the threatening tremors, and took inventory. Neck—sore. Shoulders—sore. Back—sore. Feet—

  * * * *

  Isabel awoke with a start to Rick’s gentle nudging. In the dim twilight, she stared at his boots as he squatted on his haunches beside her. Her head lay on his rolled up jacket. His sleeping bag covered her. When she looked up at his head, she gasped. All she saw were otherworldly night vision goggles under the brim of his helmet.

  Her cyborg boyfriend said, “Time to get going.”

  “It’s nighttime,” she objected.

  His binocular goggles nodded. “Your brother and his family will bed down for the night. That’s when we can make up ground.”

  The pain from her muscles, chaffed skin, and blisters on the soles of her feet hurt with undiminished force. But at least her limbs no longer trembled.

  They quickly reached the previous milestone on which Isabel had set her sights and stopped to read, in the fading light, the handmade sign that sagged from the mailbox. It was written in black marker on a white poster board like from some child’s school supplies. “To Whom It May Concern. Bobby McKeever turnt and kilt his wife and kids (Louise, Mary Elizabeth, Bobby Jr., and baby Luke, all buried in back). The house is contaminated. Bobby is a white male, fifty-six, about five foot ten and 180 lbs. If you see him, kill him.”

  That warranted no more than a glance at Rick before they marched on in silence.

  The houses that they passed were widely spaced and dark. Once, they again skidded into the ditch alongside the highway and watched a truck pass. Night fell. Milestones disappeared, but Isabel found the darkness contributed to the blankness into which she happily descended. After passage of a not insignificant amount of time—she scrupulously avoided actually checking her watch—they crested a rise and saw, up ahead, a house that, while not brightly lit, leaked enough light to suggest life inside. Rick’s goggles glanced her way. Yeah, I see it. That house, set back from the highway, became Isabel’s next goal.

  The only sound was from a generator, whose engine noise stood out amid the silence of the empty road. At the foot of the meandering driveway, the mailbox read “Rawls.” Rick headed up toward the house.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “They may have seen your family. Let’s go ask. Plus, we could use a water refill.”

  “Okay, but…but let’s be careful. They’re probably jumpy.”

  “You think?”

  Sarcasm. That was new. Even Rick must be tired. She hadn’t asked, but his pack looked half again as heavy as hers. Of course, he was twice her size, so—

  “Dad!” they heard from the darkness ahead.

  Without being told, Isabel joined Rick behind a rock retaining wall. The lights in the house went dark. The generator sputtered to a stop. All was now dark and still.

  Isabel jumped when Rick shouted, “Hello? We’re not here to cause trouble!”

  At first, Isabel thought there would be no answer. But after what could have been a pause for an unheard debate, a man yelled, “You’re on our property! You’re trespassin’!”

  “I’m an American Marine!” Rick replied. “We’re searching for some people and wanted to ask if you’ve seen them!”

  Another pause. This time, they heard what could only have been a muted argument growing heated. Finally, they heard, “Come on up!” from a woman, not the man.

  “No funny business!” added the man.

  They headed up the driveway slowly. “There’s a man and a woman,” Rick whispered, “just to the right of the house by the garage.” His eyes behind the glowing goggles surveyed a scene that was, to Isabel, vague dark shapes amid even vaguer and darker shapes. “Boy off to the left in a duck blind at the far corner of the house. They’ve all got long guns.”

  “What’s a duck blind?”

  “It’s, like, a…a camo tent with straps and pockets that hold foliage.”

  “Oookay.” She could see nothing, but she gripped her carbine tightly. “I’ll be on the lookout for that, then.”

  “That’s close enough!” came the disembodied voice of the man.

  Rick and Isabel stopped about fifteen meters from the house next to the front walk.

  “My name is Captain Rick Townsend, USMC. This is Dr. Isabel Miller. We’re looking for a group of five people—two men, a woman, and a boy and girl, both teenagers. They should’ve come down this highway sometime yesterday.”

  Again, there was more hushed discussion from beside the house. Isabel glanced up at Rick even though there was no information to be gleaned there other than that his eyes were wary and darting in the glow from the small screens. “There’s good cover,” he whispered, “in a culvert about three or four steps to our right rear.”

  Isabel turned to look but could make nothing out.

  “We can show you a picture,” Rick tried on the homeowners. “And we could use a refill of some water for the road, if you can spare it.”

  The couple’s argument was halted by the women, who said something in a rising voice that ended with, “…we just ask!”

  The man addressed Rick from the darkness. “We ain’t seen nobody passin’ by. But we’ll give you your water, if you agree to take care of a problem we got.”

  “What problem?”

  “There’s this gang of Infecteds livin’ down at the stream in back. Been harassin’ us. Stole our dog and done God only knows what to her.”

  “They’s starvin’,” the woman added in explanation.

  “They’s desperate,” the man continued. “And we’re scared of ’em. We got kids.”

  “What do you want us to do?” Rick asked.

  “You’re the military. Go down there and take care of ’em.”

  “You mean chase them off?”

  “No. They’ll just come back.”

  “So, kill them?” Rick clarified.

  “That’d do it,” replied the man from the shadows.

  Isabel whispered, “For some fucking water?”

  Rick apparently agreed. “Sorry, but I don’t think we’re going to take you up on that. Good luck to you.”

  Isabel turned to leave. Rick followed but walked backwards and kept his goggles on the house.

  “Wait
!” the woman said. “Don’t go.”

  * * * *

  After a long explanation about how they were both vaccinated and immune from Pandoravirus—“So it really works?” asked the woman, Helen Rawls—and amazing hot showers for both Rick and Isabel while the other stood guard outside the bathroom door, everyone sat down to a well-lit dining table. Rick and Isabel wore their one set of fresh camo trousers, blouse, and underwear while their filthy other set was being washed. The generator masked all sounds from outside the house. The teenage boy from the duck blind, and a previously unseen girl of around eight, stared silently at their two guests.

  Rick kept nervously glancing at the heavy drapes that covered the windows. “So, there’s nobody on watch?”

  “They usually only come around late at night or right before sunup,” said Helen.

  “And they haven’t attacked the house?” Rick asked.

  “No,” replied Helen’s husband, Thomas. “They just steal stuff. Lost a hoe from the shed.”

  “And Mister Sniffles,” said the little girl. “Our doggie.”

  Isabel glanced at Rick. “I thought the dog was a she?” Their M4s were propped against the wall behind them. Isabel lowered her hand to her lap nearer the butt of her pistol in its holster.

  “She was a female,” Helen Rawls replied. “But the kids both agreed that cats were girls and dogs were boys, so we named her Mister Sniffles. She had a cold when we got her as a puppy.”

  “We kept her chained up out back on a dog run,” Thomas Rawls explained. “The chain had been chopped through.”

  “And he didn’t bark,” said the boy. “He always barked at everybody.”

  The table fell silent as the parents looked at their daughter, who was on the verge of tears. “He barks all the time.” Her lip quivered. She had probably already guessed that Infecteds had killed her pet. She probably didn’t understand that they may have eaten her too.

  “You’re a doctor?” Helen asked.

  “A neuroscientist. Dr. Isabel Miller.”

  “Hey,” Thomas said. “Hey! I saw you on TV. You’re the one whose twin sister…”

  Isabel nodded. “Yeah. I went on CNN to talk about the virus. My sister was an epidemiologist who got infected when Pandoravirus first broke out in Siberia.”

  Something was wrong. Helen and Thomas exchanged sidelong glances, fell quiet, and picked at the delicious, fresh green beans and venison.

  Finally, Isabel broke the silence. “I’m sorry, but did I miss something here?”

  Rick, Isabel, and the little girl looked from face to face. Thomas Rawls said, “We don’t want any trouble.” That was even more bewildering. “We just wanta live our lives here, not…not choose sides or anything.”

  “I’m sorry. But I still don’t understand.”

  The husband and wife stared silently at each other before Helen said, in an urgent whisper, “Tell your sister that we’ll do whatever they say.”

  “Well…” Thomas began to modify, but his wife silenced him with a hand on his forearm. It took another round of Isabel’s polite what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about queries, minus the profanity, for Thomas to explain. His cousin and his cousin’s family from up in Staunton had stayed with them the previous night. They, too, were fleeing down the highway and had urged the Rawls’s to join them. “But we got our supplies, and our garden,” Thomas reasoned again—to his wife, not Isabel, to whom he finally turned. “Your sister…”

  He searched his memory for her name. “Emma?” supplied Isabel.

  “Right, Emma Miller. She held a meetin’ at the Staunton Holiday Inn. My cousin took a video on his phone and showed it to us. She basically said join up, or else. Either you’re with ’em, or again’ ’em. And she had all these rules.”

  “Like no,” Helen added before lowering her voice, “s-e-x.”

  She glanced at her daughter, who said, “I can spell, Momma.”

  “The point is,” Thomas continued, “that if you break her rules, they’ll kill ya. Who knows how, or where, or when, or who decides. No trial, or probation, or community service, or jail time. Just….” He made the slashing sign across his throat and a sickening sound to go with it. “My cousin up and took off. A bunch did. The Uninfecteds, at least.”

  Helen was waiting impatiently for him to finish. “So when you see your sister, tell her that the Rawls family is, you know, behind her 100 percent. Restore order, stop the violence, give everybody jobs. All the things she said in her little speech. It’s just, you know, we’re good right where we’re at. We won’t bother nobody.”

  Isabel was nodding. That sounded like Emma. Helen and Thomas, however, took her nod for more than it meant, smiled, and seemed greatly relieved. Helen even dumped more green beans on Isabel’s plate. She didn’t refuse them, but shared half with Rick.

  Finally back on the highway after packing their freshly washed spare clothes, Isabel could spot no landmarks on which to focus. Instead, her goal was more figurative. She headed not for a physical milestone, but a concept. She would find and reunite with her family, like the Rawlses stuck together…before it was too late.

  Chapter 4

  THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY

  Infection Date 64, 2300 GMT (7:00 p.m. Local)

  “It’s a trap,” said Noah Miller’s daughter Chloe.

  Noah’s wife and kids were exhausted after hiking only eleven miles on the first day. He’d hoped to make twenty-four miles a day on their 1,260 mile journey from Virginia to Texas. But complaints about sore backs and blistered feet had led to frequent breaks. Now, they had been stopped cold by a little girl playing in the road at sunset.

  His family and the eighteen-year-old neighbor boy Margus Bishop lay on a hillside surveying the odd scene. Chloe and Jake peered through the scopes on their AR-15s. Noah searched the ditches and fields alongside the road with binoculars. His only concern was the dark opening of a large drainage pipe under the highway twenty yards from where the girl sat on an upside down plastic bucket.

  “Why would a ten-year-old girl,” his wife Natalie asked, “wearing her frilly white Easter dress and pigtails, be out playing on a highway just before dark with absolutely no one else in sight? In the middle of a pandemic? It’s beyond weird. She must be infected.”

  The little girl seemed absorbed in scraping a stick along the pavement between her patent leather dress shoes. Her long hair was braided, and her play seemed listless and aimless. “Maybe she’s waiting for a ride to come pick her up?” Noah suggested.

  “After doing what?” Natalie replied. “Why is she even here, and alone?”

  “Maybe she’s been orphaned,” Noah threw out with flagging conviction.

  “It’s a traaap,” Chloe repeated in a singsong voice with one eye to her sight.

  “We can’t stop every time we see someone on the road. We’ll never even get to Tennessee, much less Texas.”

  “There’s a car,” Natalie said. Everyone turned. A dusty sedan with what looked like gold New York license plates approached slowly. Its headlights were off despite the growing darkness.

  “I’ll go flag it down,” Jake said, rising.

  “Wait!” Noah snapped. “We don’t know anything about them.”

  “Yeah, but Dad—”

  “Just wait!”

  The car passed, rounded the bend, and stopped short of the girl, who rose to stand, motionless, in the middle of the road. Their headlights came on. The girl’s head jerked to the side as she shielded her face from the glare.

  Natalie said, “Pupils must be popped. She’s infected.”

  “Yeah,” Noah had to agree. “But they see what we see. And she isn’t armed.”

  The driver’s door opened. “Dad!” Chloe said. “It’s a trap.”

  “They’re closer to the scene than us,” he reasoned as even Natalie raised her rifle to her shoulder. “They may see
things we can’t.”

  “He’s talking to her,” Natalie said as she squinted through her own scope, “but the girl isn’t answering.”

  Noah raised his binoculars just as a line of motley figures came racing out of the concrete pipe almost even with where the car had stopped. “Look out!” Chloe shouted.

  The car’s driver jumped back inside.

  “Dad, I’m shooting!” Chloe said.

  One attacker with a large chunk of concrete shattered the driver’s window. Another man reached inside the car.

  Chloe’s rifle shot flame a foot out the end of its barrel.

  The car was thrown into reverse, dragging and felling attackers.

  Jake’s rifle blazed too, as did Natalie’s and Margus’s.

  Attackers stabbed knives into the rear tires like spear wielding native hunters taking down big game. Sparks flew from the rims of the car’s wheels.

  “Dad…shoot!” Jake called out.

  The driver was easily hauled out through his shattered window, but the passenger, a woman, still wore her seatbelt and had to be cut from it, screaming.

  Noah opened fire. Not at the attackers who beset the luckless couple, but at the others whose attention had turned toward them and who raced back toward the shelter of the pipe. They were only a hundred yards away. He was pretty sure he hit all four of them.

  Within seconds, both the mob of attackers and their two victims lay unmoving on the highway. His family’s weapons fell silent.

  “We shoulda stopped ’em,” Jake said in a quaking voice. Noah knew he was right.

  Jake’s sister kept her eye to her scope. “There’s that little girl.” Noah raised his binoculars. The girl’s pigtails danced as she ran away along the roadside ditch, clearly visible in the car’s headlights.

  His binoculars shook when a shot rang out. “Chloe!” Natalie shouted. When Noah reacquired his view of the girl, she lay face down amid the weeds. Noah and Natalie turned to their daughter, whose rifle was still raised to her cheek. Bam! Flame again shot out, lighting the hillside beneath her. Chloe returned their looks. “She was still moving.”