by Angel Lawson
Beneath the stars and medals a name tag declares his name: Colonel Erwin. “We moved everything here after Raleigh fell. It’s more secure.” He gives me a once over. “Feel better after that shower and meal?”
“Is my father here?” I ask hopeful. Maybe that is what this is about. They’re bringing me to him. Cole and me. That makes sense.
“The whereabouts of Dr. Ramsey are classified, for national security.”
My first thought is relief—he’s not dead. My second is rage. “He’s my father! I have the right to know,” I yell, my temper at the end of its fuse.
“The security and outcome of the human race depend on his work. Unfortunately, you’re not privy to that information.”
I take a step forward but a hand restrains me on my arm. Cole tugs me back toward him. Hope sinks like a stone in my chest. “If we’re not here to see him, then why have you brought us here?”
“Because even though you cannot see him at this time, we’re aware that you’re in possession of vital information needed to develop a cure for the infection. The fact you’ve been hiding out from us for weeks hasn’t helped matters. The infection has spread across the globe, reaching catastrophic levels—any chance we have of stopping it lies with you.”
I glance uneasily at Cole since he’s the one that suggested I hide it. But there’s something else. Why would my father have told me to take it and run? There’s a reason he doesn’t want this man to have the information. I make the snap decision to lie. “I don’t have any information. My father never gave me anything. And I’ve only been hiding from you so I can get to Atlanta to find my sister.”
I expect Colonel Erwin to call my bluff but he simply looks over my shoulder and commands, “Take her to room eight and prep her for testing.”
Four hands grab me from behind and Cole is shoved out of the way. “Testing?” he asks.
“Yes,” Erwin says. “If the data is gone then we’ll have to start over again to build the cure. Dr. Ramsey isolated Alexandra as his primary test subject. We’ll have to replicate his work.”
“This is crazy,” I say but Walker and Richardson hold tight. They drag me away from Erwin, and I see two more soldiers grab Cole as he starts in my direction. We pass the rows of scientists all deep into their projects. None even glance up at me.
I’m carried, more than walked into the small room. A single chair, much like the kind the dentist’s office sits in the middle of the room. They force me into the seat, quickly binding my wrists to the arms with Velcro straps.
“I suggest you don’t struggle,” Walker says flicking on a blinding fluorescent light.
“What am I supposed to do? Just sit here and wait?”
For the first time she looks me in the eye. The green of her eyes takes me by surprise. They aren’t hard like I expect them to be. She’s not my friend but…
“Follow directions, Alex. Things will go better that way.”
With that she shuts the door and leaves me to wait.
***
After hooking me up to a bag of fluids and prepping my arm, men and women (or rather Drones as I start to call them) in white coats and blue face masks take blood from me like it’s my job.
“No injections?” I ask a Drone—a female with her dark hair wound in a bun so tight I can see where her skin stretches at the temple. She has on thick framed glasses and I can see myself reflected back in the lens. I’d like to say I look menacing and dangerous but the wide, scared eyes mirrored back to me are that of a kid strapped to a chair who hasn’t had a full night’s sleep or a solid meal in months.
“No,” she says, surprising me with an answer. “We’ll just take blood from now on.”
“How much blood,” I ask.
She shrugs, pressing the needle into my skin with a pinch. “As much as it takes.”
This happens three more times before the Drone tapes a bandage to the inside of my elbow and unhooks the tube of fluids. She leaves and Walker and Richardson enter the room.
“Hey guys,” I say feeling a little woozy.
Typically silent they rip the Velcro off my wrists and ankles.
“What? Where are we going?” I ask but my arms are latched behind my back again and we head through the lab.
I scan the room on my way out but there is no sign of Cole among the Drones. I do catch sight of Colonel Erwin in his office, huddled over a computer. His eyes are narrowed and his jaw tense. He doesn’t look happy, no, I know he’s not happy. He finds the closest Drone and begins screaming.
“We’ve got a timeline here! A completely fucked timeline. We’re weeks behind and without Ramsey we have no map to follow. Do you not understand that? We have to get this out there before PC gets their version live. Once they do we’re screwed. Not just us but the whole goddamn planet. ”
Spittle flies from his mouth, and the Drone, a Hispanic guy, mask off, stands ramrod straight in front of him taking it like a champ.
“We’ve only just started processing her blood,” I hear him say. “It’s going to take time to get a breakdown.”
“We don’t have time,” Erwin says glancing away in disgust.
I avert my eyes before he can spot me. I have no interest in being any further on his radar at the moment. Walker’s hand pushes against my back, leading me faster out of the room. She must feel the same way.
We travel the same long hall as before and I realize we’re going back to my room. “So that’s it? Are we done?”
“For today.”
Richardson unlocks the door and they push me inside, slamming the door before I have the chance to ask anything further. Cole is sitting on the bed but jumps up quickly and rushes toward me.
“Are you okay?” he asks taking my arm and lifting the bandage at the crook of my elbow. “Did they hurt you?”
His concern is real. I can see it in his eyes and voice. It stings as much as the injection. It’s his fault that we’re here—or partially at the very least, and I want to be angry, but right now he’s the only one on my side. The only person I’ve got.
“No, I’m fine. They just took some blood.”
“Sit down,” he says leading me to the bed. “Are you lightheaded? Weak?”
“A little. They had me hooked to fluids.” I sit and lay back, resting my head. Cole doesn’t leave me but presses his hand to my forehead like he’s checking for a fever. “I need to know the truth, Cole.”
“Okay,” he agrees. “About what?”
“Everything.”
Chapter Forty-Two
~Before~
3 Weeks Ago
My mother finds me coated in blood, standing over the remains of the Eater. My hands shake but never let go of the hatchet.
He’s dead for real now. I know that since I’m the one that severed his neck, but I keep going back to the restraints, even picking up the heavy chain, lifting his arm like a marionette.
“Someone did this,” I say trying to wrap my head around it. Who had restrained him and how had he gotten loose?
“Come on,” my mother says leading me toward the house with her flashlight. To my surprise she pushes open the back door. I stop abruptly, yanking her back.
“We can’t go in there.”
“It’s empty. We can.”
“How do you know?” I ask.
“I checked.”
I don’t believe her but at the same time anyone in the house would have heard me and the Eater fighting. It’s late, dark and the exposure of being outside freaks me out. Lacking any other option we go inside.
We enter a small room in the back of the house, closed up and dark. There’s another door that leads inside. It’s already shut but Mom secures the locks, pushing an ironing board across the door as well. That’s where we hole up, next to the washing machine and twenty cans of cat food.
“So I guess now I’m a murderer,” I say leaning back against the dryer. The metal flexes against my weight.
“No, you aren’t a murderer,” my mother says, whil
e smoothing my hair out of my face. She pours a small amount of water on a (maybe) clean cloth and begins wiping my face. Dark red stains seep into the fabric. Gross. Eater guts. On my face.
“You and I both know those people aren’t really dead,” I say.
“They may as well be,” she says pushing and pulling at my skin. “It’s not like you had much choice.”
My mother the rationalizer can even make me feel okay about my first kill. It’s not just a character trait. It’s a superpower. The Rationalizer. Her cape would be made out of a sleeping bag, with a fluffy pillow attached.
“Why did the end of the world have to happen during the hottest time of the year,” I grumble taking a small sip of water from my bottle. The room is stifling hot, but I’m afraid to venture further into the house. I know there’s at least one other dead body in there and I have little desire to see it.
“I wasn’t sure how this was going to end,” she says, shifting my face left to right with her hand on my chin, inspecting. “But now I think we’ll make it. I think we will get to the cabin and find your father.”
“Why?”
“Because every day we do something we think we can’t. We walk a little farther. We find food and water. Shelter. We’re not afraid to do what we have to—at least you aren’t.”
“I’m not sure I agree on that,” I say feeling increasingly unstable. The hot room. The sticky blood. The metal head I just decapitated outside. All of it is starting to completely fuck with my head.
But I don’t say that. I keep that to myself and instead say, “You’re getting better at this too.”
She smiles and continues to rub the blood out of my hair. I can tell it makes her happy to have a job—a motherly job. It’s the least I can do.
“There,” she says satisfied with the cleanup. She then makes her little pillow out of her sweatshirt and lies down next to a stack of cans with little gray and white cat faces staring at us in the glare of our flashlight. She closes her eyes and like that, she’s asleep.
Rest doesn’t come as easy for me, even in the seemingly safe room. Something about this whole place makes me nervous. The video and the chained up Eater. It feels off—weird and the feeling in the pit of my stomach coils tight like a warning.
Was the whole thing intentional or did we just stumble into another horrific example of collateral damage? It’s impossible to know and frankly we won’t know more until daylight. God knows what will be waiting for us outside.
I click off my flashlight and listen, faintly hearing the sounds of Roger Upton filter through the door. I don’t want to find comfort in his words but I do. He’s a talisman from the life before. When we held on to a glimmer of hope. Where the warm blue light of the TV made me feel safe. I take a deep breath and strain my ears, listening to his words, allowing them to soothe me.
It’s crazy. I feel crazy, but at the moment it’s all I have.
Chapter Forty-Three
~Now~
From the bed I hear Cole fill a plastic cup with water from the sink. He brings it to me, helping me to prop myself up on the uncomfortable mattress. A long metal bar jabs into my back but I want to see him when he tells me the full story.
His hands are gentle as he positions me and again he checks the crook of my elbow where the Drones drew the blood. “Cole,” I say trying not to be annoyed. To be honest it’s nice to have someone fuss over me. “Stop procrastinating. Just tell me. What do they want from me? Why all the blood withdrawals?”
He sits back on the floor, knees up, pressing his back to the wall. “I took the job as a basic lab assistant—just to make some extra money during school and get a foot into the research world. Being in Liberia during the Ebola outbreak gave me a crash course in medicine—I wasn’t a doctor yet, but I saw and did things there that would take a lifetime of work to experience here, if ever. What really inspired me though, was finding a cure—the research side. Watching those people succumb to this terrible disease made me want to stop it at the source.”
He takes a deep breath before continuing, “Getting an assistant position with your father was huge—but you know that. He’s literally the biggest name in parasitology. He’s made amazing strides and it’s no surprise the public and private sector were fighting over him. Unfortunately, the PharmaCorp not only had the money, they had ties to a terrorist group that were willing to risk humankind to further their cause.”
“What do you mean terrorist groups?”
“They call themselves patriots. Nationalists. Whatever they are they’re extreme—outside the mainstream military for sure,” he answered.
“But what does any of this have to do with me and all the tests?” I ask. “Because trust me, I know how amazingly amazing my dad is.” I’d spent a lifetime second fiddle to his career. Even now, in the possibly post-apocalyptic world he overshadows the rest of us.
“When PharmaCorp sold the E-TR virus to the patriots that dropped the virus on Boko Haram. As horrible as that group is the virus was too unstable. Your father knew it would spread and he was right. It rippled across Africa and then across the rest of the country. Your father started to scramble to create an antidote and vaccine. He needed a test subject and he included his family. If anyone was going to have the active antibodies needed to fight this it was going to be you and your mother.”
“Holy crap. Are you saying I’m immune or something?” The intrigue only lasts a minute when I think about my mother. A lump forms in my throat. “Oh, my God, my mom. Was she immune? Did I k—k—kill her for...”
I lurch forward. Every ounce of fluid barreling up my throat. I race to the bathroom, nearly falling over twice but Cole is right behind me keeping me steady. I vomit into the toilet, a rush of water and not much of anything else.
“Alex, no,” he says pulling my hair off my cheeks. “God, no. She wasn’t immune. Remember? He excluded her from the experiments months before your final injections.”
Relief washes over me, but it doesn’t stop another wave of nausea. I steady myself against Cole, who hasn’t taken his hands off of me. Once I’ve gained my footing he wets a towel and I use it to clean my mouth and face.
Helping me back to the bed he says, “Your mother wasn’t a good test subject. But you? You were his golden ticket. Your body reacted to the vaccine, therefore altering your body to help create the antibodies needed to help others fight the virus. At least that was the ultimate hope before he got shut down.”
I try to let that sink in but it’s too big. “If all of that is true then why shut Dad down? Why not let him finish what he started?”
Cole shakes his head. “I’m afraid those are government secrets above any level I’d have access to.”
I narrow my eyes. “Yeah, you know an awful lot for a basic lab guy. Who told you so much?”
“Your dad. When we left your house that day he asked me to follow up on you. He told me about the,” he touches his chest, still aware that we’re probably being watched, “stuff. When you and your mom took off I followed.”
“Why?” I say leaning toward him. “That had to be outside of what he was talking about. He would never ask you to leave your life behind to follow my mom and me on a suicidal mission.”
“The world as we know it is over, Alex. You may be the one thing that can help us. On a professional level, I have an obligation to see this through—to your father and to humanity as a whole.” His eyes flick downward, toward his hands that have been worrying the Army green fabric of his pants. He speaks again, this time his voice rough and deep, “On a personal level? I knew I wanted to know more about you the first day you stepped into my lab. If the world is going to shit, and it’s very likely that it is, I want to at least have taken a shot.”
I blink, totally overwhelmed by all of the information he just shared—especially that last bit. I try to say something impressive and forget the fact Cole just saw me hurl my guts out in the other room. I open my mouth. “Uh—that’s uh…wow,” is the brilliant statement tha
t comes out.
Regardless of my stupidity, Cole laughs and I see the brightness of his eyes and I realize he’s right about one thing. We’ve got one life to live here and it may be more important than I’d ever realized.
“Well,” I say regaining a little composure. “We need to come up with a game plan. For my dad and Mom, and everyone else that had sacrificed.”
He nods. “I agree.”
“First things first,” I say. “Getting out of here. Dad gave me strict instructions to find Jane, not to find Colonel Asshat. For whatever reason that is not what he wanted me to do.”
“Agreed,” he says again.
“Do you have any ideas?” I ask, hopeful that he’s one step ahead of me—that he spent the day in here plotting our big escape.
He scrunches his nose and says, “Nope. I’ve got nothing.”
I sigh. “Guess we’ll have to come up with one then.”
The sharp click of the lock on our door forces us to both stop talking. Walker enters the room with a two plates of food. One has some sort of grits or oatmeal with a small piece of meat and what appears to be canned cooked carrots. The other plate is the opposite. It looks absolutely delicious—lots of meat and greens.
“Eat up,” she says handing the better looking plate to me. “You’ve got another round of withdrawals coming in an hour. They want you ready.”
“What the hell?” I ask. “Are they fattening me up for slaughter?”
Walker turns to leave without another word and shuts the door with a harsh, echoing click.
Chapter Forty-Four
~Before~
3 weeks ago
At daybreak light filters in a small vent at the top of the wall where the dryer exhaust funnels outside. Inch by inch the light creeps across the floor until it lands directly on my mother’s face. I don’t wake her. I don’t move.
