As Serafina watched, the young woman drew back and spit in the man’s face. The man on the motorcycle didn’t flinch. He brought his hand up and wiped away the woman’s spittle, then pulled back and unleashed a furious backhand that rocked her head backwards. The woman stumbled on her feet, dazed. Grinning, the leader nodded at the man with the buzz cut, saying something. The hood was placed back over the woman’s head. Buzz cut and the skinny man lifted the woman onto the back of the motorcycle, then tied her in place, facing backward on the motorcycle, her arms wrapped around the high backrest. The two men backed away, speaking to the man as they did. Satisfied, the man started the bike, gunned the engine, did a U-turn and sped away, heading north with the women. The two other men on bikes turned around and followed him, the sound of their motorcycles slowing fading as they drove away.
Serafina, having seen more than enough, slowly ducked back down from her vantage point. Heart pounding, she slithered to the back of the truck bed, reached up and pulled herself over and out of the bed, careful not to cause the truck to rock too much.
Daniel waited for her when she got down. Heart pounding, she told him what she’d seen.
“Shit. That’s fucked up.” Daniel turned and looked in the direction of the checkpoint, anger on his face. “How many did you say there were?
“Ten, and don’t even think about it.”
“Fuck.” Daniel’s fist clenched, his blood boiling. Serafina knew he wanted to try to help those people, but it would be a suicide mission. Only she and Daniel had any proficiency with guns, and for her it was only with the Glock. The teenagers were unfamiliar and untrained with firearms, and going into a fight they’d likely lose meant putting the girls in jeopardy of being taken by those despicable men.
Daniel must have figured out the same thing, turning away. He nodded. “OK. Let’s get out of here.”
They headed back to the Jeep, working twice as hard to remain stealthy now that they knew the danger that lay behind them on the road.
Back at the Jeep, they began weighing their options. The girls and Paul had wanted to know what they’d seen, and they’d simply replied told them that it wasn’t safe. Now, they were trying to figure out where to go to get around the trap.
Looking at the map, they saw only one real option: to travel back about a mile to the last offramp and cut over to Old Highway 395, which ran north and south like the 15. In this area it curved east, widening the distance to about half a mile when it was parallel to the checkpoint. They’d be well out of sight.
The only part that Daniel didn’t like was the fact that it was a two-lane highway. Anything more than a single vehicle stopped on the road had the potential to become a roadblock.
Nevertheless, it was their best option. Placing the vehicle in reverse, Daniel backed up and executed a three-point turn, heading south. Driving back in the direction they came, he felt a bit frustrated, but also took solace in the fact that he and Serafina had properly identified and avoided danger.
Now they just had to hope that the 395 would take them around wherever the motorcycle gang was camped out.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center, Virginia
Deep in thought, Andrew was looking at the dual 45-inch computer monitors, his eyes going back and forth between them as he looked for variations in the data presented. On the two screens were four pages, each showing the blood work from one of the autopsy subjects. While he did see differences, his experience told him that the differences were so small it would be difficult to classify them as anything more than negligible. Frustrated, he closed two of the reports and opened two others, comparing those numbers. Still nothing.
He slammed his fist on the desk, shaking the monitors. “Dammit!”
Lisa and Jonathan looked over, their eyes questioning his actions.
“Sorry. I’m just frustrated. None of this makes sense. There are no similarities whatsoever.”
While they had expected and accepted the fact that the blood work on the first group of patients would all show similar composition, they’d decided to explore the other victims, asking for and receiving the autopsy reports for each. Once they had the reports, they’d split the reports up, each taking eleven of the records and analyzing them line by line.
And still, nothing.
Taking off his glasses, he leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, trying to gain some kind of insight into what he was missing. Without looking, he reached onto the table, grabbed his open bag of Skittles, poured some in his hand, and brought his hand up to toss them into his open mouth. ‘I’ve got to start eating better and exercising,’ he thought. ‘Maybe I should ask Jonathan for some tips. Maybe start doing pushups and sit-ups -’
“Andrew?”
Doctor Chang let himself return to an upright position and put his glasses back on, looking over at the owner of the voice. It was Sergeant Mason. “Yes, A.J.?”
“We’ve been looking at so much of the victims bank records and other legal stuff, that I feel like we’re probably missing the most obvious way to find out what they were doing.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. Social Media. Their Friendzone accounts could be the easy way to find out what they were up to.” Friendzone had become a massively popular social media site over the last fifteen years, and the young Sergeant was right. It most likely would tell them exactly what was going on in the victims lives. Chances were pretty high that all of them did, too.
“I agree. That probably would help. So, why are you telling me?”
Sergeant Mason shrugged. “I’ll have to go back to Secretary Donnelly to request that we get access to these accounts. He’ll have to push the request to the FBI, who will contact Friendzone’s higher ups. I think it’s the right thing to do, but I’ll need your endorsement.”
Andrew stuck out his hand. “Phone.” Sergeant Mason grabbed his cell phone, pulled up his contacts list and selected Secretary Donnelly’s number. As it began ringing, he handed it to Doctor Chang.”
The Secretary’s gruff voice sounded in Chang’s ear. “What is it, Sergeant?”
“Secretary Donnelly, it’s Doctor Chang, I - ”
“My apologies, Doctor, I thought it was - ”
“Don’t worry about it. Now, please listen. My assistants here - Sergeant Mason, Corporal Richards, and Corporal Johnson - need access to the victims’ social media accounts.”
“I don’t know if we can get that…”
“Sir, we both know you can. Please. I know it will be hard, but at this point, we have to do this.”
Donnelly relented, knowing that the doctor wouldn’t be asking for it if it really wasn’t needed. “Let me see what I can do.”
“Please hurry, Secretary. You know how dire the situation is.”
“I know. I’ll get back to you ASAP.” Secretary Donnelly hung up the line and Andrew passed the phone back to Sergeant Mason.
“You should have it soon.”
“Thanks, Andrew. If it’s okay, we’re going to go get lunch while we wait.”
Andrew leaned back in his chair again, taking off his glasses and turning his closed eyes toward the ceiling as he returned back to his thoughts. “You don’t have to check with me, A.J.. We both know the situation, and I know you won’t take any longer than necessary. Enjoy your lunch.”
“Thanks, sir.” A.J. turned and began walking to the door, motioning to the two Corporals to join him.
“Don’t call me ‘Sir.’”
“Copy that!” With that, the trio was gone, leaving the doctors alone with their thoughts.
Andrew let his chair drop back down to the floor and stood up, putting on his glasses. “You two want to grab some lunch, as well?”
Doctors Reed and Bowman nodded, looking relieved. Lisa stood up, shaking her head. “Let’s do it. I’m getting nowhere fast.”
Reed put his arms above his head, stretching until his fingertips nearly touched the ceiling. “Same here. Everytime
I think I see something, it turns out to be another dead end.”
Andrew looked at the screen one more time before he turned away. He was unable to help it. He hated being stumped, and honestly, he wasn’t used to it. “Yep, it’s like the second group of victims have the same substances in their bodies as the first.”
Jonathan grabbed his water bottle and finished what was left in it as he headed to the door. He capped the bottle and held the door open for his comrades, following them after they’d passed through. His long legs brought him alongside them in less than ten feet. “What are the military folks asking for?”
Andrew looked at his feet, caught between the conversation and the challenge they faced. “They want access to the victims’ social media accounts, specifically, Friendzone.”
Doctor Bowman nodded, chewing her lip. “Make sense. People put everything on there.”
The group went quiet and walked the rest of the way in silence. Arriving at the dining facility, Andrew stepped forward and held the door for his teammates. “Food will help,” he said, before following them into the large room, which they crossed on their way to the slightly smaller but more comfortable officer’s dining area.
Four hours later, the account information arrived, surprising everyone. Although they knew the FBI could get the information they needed, they also knew that private companies were typically reluctant to cooperate with law enforcement when it came to user privacy matters. The desperate nature of the situation most have made the leadership at Friendzone a little more cooperative.
Within minutes, the military team was scouring through multiple accounts, now able to see what they were previously unable to. While they waited for the accounts access information to arrive, they’d stayed busy, finding accounts for each of the victims that had one, or at least narrowed it down to a couple within an age range when there were multiple accounts. Out of the entire forty-three person list, only four people appeared not to have an account, all older people who hadn’t been convinced to share their lives on a social media platform.
Less than forty-five minutes later, Corporal Richards spoke up. “I’ve got something.”
Sergeant Mason, Corporal Johnson, and the three doctors gathered around the young corporal. Andrew asked her what she’d found.
She flipped between four tabs. “This guy, Brandon Elliot, posted that he’d been cured of cancer a week before his incident. This woman, Raylene Harris, posted that she’d been cured of breast cancer a week before her incident.” The team leaned in closer, sensing a breakthrough. Richards went on. “Raymond Liguria posted that his mother, Bertha Liguria, had been cured of cancer a little more than a week before his incident in Pike Place Market in Seattle.”
“Holy shit.” Doctor Chang’s heart was racing, his mind working a hundred miles an hour as he began planning his next moves.
“If it’s okay, I want to show you this: this is the one that got me looking for a cancer theme: This guy,” She used the cursor to point to a medium height, medium build, semi-good looking guy with brown hair, leaning on a BMW 135, “Michael Worthington, shows up in a handful of pictures with this woman,” she switch the tab on the browser, “Bethany Simon.”
“Okay….” Sergeant Mason used his hand to indicate that she should continue.
“So, she never really said that she had cancer. I checked it out thoroughly. But I did notice that she was attending a cancer support group, one for family members of people who had been diagnosed with cancer. Turns out her father, Gerald Harrington - her biological parents had never married - had been diagnosed with cancer.”
“Nice find.” Doctor Bowman said, nodding in approval.
Andrew chimed in, “Agree, but how does that tie to the Worthington guy?”
Sheila shook her head, anger showing in her eyes. “Apparently they met at the cancer support group.” Her hand clenched the mouse tightly as her jaw tightened. “Son of a bitch” she muttered.
The others looked at each other in confusion. Reed asked, “What are we missing?”
“I was curious, too, so I looked at some of the other women he’d posted pictures with. They weren’t victims of the virus, but they did have family members who had been diagnosed with cancer.”
“Still not getting it,” Andrew began. “Maybe he has - ”
“Nope.” Sheila said, staring at the screen with fury in her eyes. “None of his family members had cancer.”
Lisa Bowman stood suddenly, realization dawning on her face. “Do you mean?”
“Yeah. Asshole was using cancer support groups to meet women.”
Sergeant Mason pulled away, anger on his face. “Piece of shit.”
“No kidding.”
Doctor Chang felt the anger they did, but knew they had to remain focused. The guy was a piece of shit, but they had a bigger challenge to deal with. He gently clapped his hands together, gaining their attention. “Okay, so - ” He walked over to the dry erase board and erased the word ‘something’ from the bubble it was in. He added ‘cancer cure’ to the bubble so that it read, ‘Celebrating Cancer Cure’. On the opposite side of the board, he wrote:
1 2 3
He turned back to the military group. “I need you three to take all 43 of the people we’ve identified and trace it to ground. If they had cancer and were cured, they go in the first column. If they had a family member or loved one that had cancer and were cured, put their name in the second column and find out who their loved one was and put their name in the first column. Finally, if the person had no link to anyone with cancer, put their name in the third column. Got it?”
Sergeant Mason nodded, repeating the instructions. “Easy peasy.”
Doctor Chang turned to Lisa and Jonathan. “Alright, let’s see who was running clinical trials for a cancer cure.”
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
Strapped to the backseat of a motorcycle that was cruising down the freeway, Melanie Akers was terrified. At 17 years old, she was well aware of what bad men would do to young, attractive women, and it gave her a sickening feeling. She also knew that there was likely little that she could do about it. She was much smaller than these men and knew nothing about self-defense.
With the sound of the roaring motorcycle engine filling her ears, she cursed the men that had stopped her family on their desperate attempt to flee the city.
Driving north, the family loaded in a minivan, they’d all been tired and scared. The decision to leave had been a hasty one, but after they’d watched three of their neighbors tear apart a jogger in the street before turning on each other, they knew they had no choice. Her mother contacted her sister, who lived up north on the outskirts of Hemet, and she’d been willing to take them in, though she warned them that her house was very small and Melanie, her little sister Sara, and little brother Zach, would have to sleep on the floor. Looking at the bloody corpses in the middle of the street, their mother barely hesitated, knowing safety was more important than comfort.
The drive through the city had been a harrowing one, and on multiple occasions they’d seen some of the infected attacking innocent people, savagely beating them with their fists or anything they could get their hands on.
An hour into their drive, one of the infected, a massive black man had sprinted after their vehicle. Looking through the back window of the van, Melanie estimated the man to be 6’ 6” and well over 260 pounds of pure muscle, and his long strides were helping him close on their vehicle rapidly.
As her father whipped the vehicle back and forth to avoid the wrecked and abandoned vehicles on the road, Melanie watched the man, unable to look away. The man’s eyes were bloodshot, bulging out of his head. What remained of his clothing ripped and covered in blood, flying in the wind as he ran, intent on catching them. The crazed man seemed oblivious and unaffected by the fact that he wore only one boot, the other foot clad only in a dirty white sock. The man got within five feet before her father was able to accelerate temporarily. Looking forward, she saw her dad’s eyes, fill
ed with terror, switching back and forth between the rear view mirror and what lay ahead.
With her siblings screaming in terror, she urged them to put their heads down, covering their heads with her hands in an attempt to shield them from the terror. She heard her father yell, “Sonofabitch!” as the van swung wildly to the left, then back to the right. Holding onto the headrest of the backseat, she looked back to see what he’d maneuvered so wildly to avoid. It was an open manhole cover. Nearby were the cones and warning tape that normally surrounded such a hazard, knocked aside by a previous driver.
She felt the van brake hard as her father yelled again, turning the wheel to the left again.
“Shiiiittttt!!!!!” Melanie heard her mother screaming as the tires left rubber on the street as the van slid to a stop, inches to spare between their vehicle and an ambulance that was blocking most of the road, lights flashing and rear doors left open. The vehicle had two blown tires, both on the right side, leaving it resting with an awkward tilt to the right. Blood was everywhere in the back of the vehicle. A pair of motionless legs protruded from under a gurney.
Melanie looked back for the man and saw him still running after them, his feet pounding the pavement. The man’s dark muscles rippled in the afternoon sun as they worked effortlessly, propelling him towards their stopped vehicle. He was twenty yards away and closing fast.
“Dad!” She yelled, urging her father to get moving.
But the van had stalled during the sudden stop, and its fifteen year-old engine wasn’t cooperating. Her father turned the ignition, willing the vehicle to start as Melanie and her mother looked back, watching the crazed man run towards them.
Unbelievably, the man never saw the pothole. Running full speed, his foot landed where nothing was, falling into the hole. His forward momentum kept the rest of his body moving, and with his right leg trapped in the hole, the force of 260 pounds of forward energy snapped the man’s leg with a crack loud enough for Melanie to hear inside the van. The man fell forward onto the street, his upper body, face, and arms all taking the impact.
Surviving Rage | Book 1 Page 27
