by SJ Morris
“Okay, let’s hear it,” Dan said with a half-smile.
“The map I pulled off Liam had those locations marked off, and those jerks at Chuck’s said one of the marked spots was where they found of some kind of facility with doctors and military personnel. That couldn’t be a coincidence. Liam and his goons were military with my husband, and they had this map. Those areas have to be secret military research sites or something like that, right?”
“That would be a fair assessment. The government has a few, um, black sites I guess you would call them, in each state for various reasons. Why is this information pertinent now though?”
“Well, if the guy watching us is highly trained like Chris said he might be, he could be reporting to the closest location circled on the map. Troy said the closest spot is in New York and it’s about a two-hour drive from here. It isn’t that unbelievable that the guy scouting us could be heading back there. If we send your drone, we could get there before him, and get bird’s eye view of the location. It would give us a significant advantage to know where they are, and maybe how well equipped they might be especially since they might already know where we are and how many people we have here,” I said hoping I didn’t sound crazy.
“Actually, Abby, that is a good idea. Can you watch the monitors for me and I’ll get the drone ready?” Dan said as he excitedly jumped out of his seat.
Laughing, Tyler said, “Nice job, Mom. You finally had a good idea.”
“What the heck? What does everyone have against my ideas? I’m a scientist, and I have some pretty awesome ones I’ll have you know,” I said defending myself.
“Well, you have to admit, Mom, recently your ideas don’t end well.”
“I’ll pretend you didn’t just say that, Tyler. I’ve ventured out into this crap hole of a world we now live in on numerous occasions, and I’ve come back in one piece every time. Well, kind of. Just keep an eye on your screen, and I’ll watch mine, you pain in the ass,” I replied sarcastically. I took my seat next to him at the monitors as Tyler made a silly face mocking me.
I wanted to end the conversation with Tyler as quickly as possible before I let something slip. We decided to keep my affliction, if you will, a secret. Only a few people knew I was infected-ish. We decided that until we knew more, it was better not to broadcast what happened to me just yet.
The undead wanting nothing to do with me since a psycho cut me with a knife covered in some form of the Z-Strain virus that infected but didn’t kill me wasn’t something my kids nor anyone else at the cabin needed to know at this moment. It happened only a few weeks ago, and I was still healing. The cut on my right side went from my armpit to the top of my hip. The scab was fading, but there was a distinct dark-colored scar where the cut was made, and the veins along my wound were almost black. And it was pretty creepy looking too.
I was surprised it healed at all though because the Z-Strain virus didn’t seem to have the capability to repair damaged organs or skin tissue. The infected’s wounds never healed. They continued to ooze black, infected blood, but I guessed them not healing was because they were deceased and I wasn’t. Not yet anyway.
If any of the infected blood got into your body in any way, the virus took over and killed you, to then bring you back as a dangerous monster whose only drive was passing this virus on by mauling what little was left of anything alive. Whatever I now had must’ve been some sort of attempt at a cure. I just couldn’t figure out why Liam wanted me to have it and where or who he and his goons got it from. I hoped finding out more about these possible black sites would provide some answers.
I was about to fall asleep from watching the blank and boring screens when the front gate alarm went off. One of the monitors Tyler was watching showed Chris and Tom approaching; running was more like it. Tyler quickly punched some buttons on his keyboard, and the front steel gate opened. Still running, Chris and Tom started shouting something, but the sound wasn’t on, so Tyler punched something else in on his keyboard.
“Close the gates! Close the gates!” Chris yelled.
Tyler punched some more keys, and the gate began to close but not before a group of about twenty or more infected made it inside the two fences with Chris and Tom. Gunshots blasted on the monitors and the infecteds numbers slowly dwindled as their decomposed bodies slumped to the ground in oozing heaps.
“Open the fence Tyler!” I screamed.
“No, Mom! They have to clear out the infected before I open the other gate. I’m not going to risk letting any infected inside our walls.” Tyler stood, clutching his keyboard and watching the monitors intensely.
The infected dropped one by one. I couldn’t watch. No matter how many times I’ve seen Chris and Tom take out the infected, watching them be attacked by the undead never got any easier. It’s always difficult seeing the people you love in danger. I knew Chris and Tom could take care of themselves. Hell, they’d saved my ass more times than I could count, but I needed to be out there helping instead of watching. I bolted up the stairs, through the pantry, to my bedroom and grabbed my riot gear helmet and my handgun. I quickly checked that it was loaded and ran outside towards the front gates.
I made it to the cement wall as the main gate started to open. Chris and Tom slowly walked inside and took off their helmets covered in thick, fresh, black muck.
“What the hell happened out there?” I yelled, running to check Chris and Tom for injuries.
Chris just shook his head, “The infected are everywhere. It seems like they’re grouping up a lot more. We ran into only one or two stragglers maybe three times total. Every other time it was like this, fifteen or more in a group, and they’re getting faster it seems. Even the ones that are ratty and beat up are quicker than they used to be.”
I looked over both of them quickly without touching them, “Are you guys hurt?”
Limping slightly Chris said, “We’re both fine. I twisted my ankle, but I’ll be all right.”
“No, you need to go see Doc Baker right away. We can’t have you injuring yourself more because you’re a pig-headed pain in the ass,” I replied sternly.
“I will as soon as we get these bodies moved out to the pile in the woods and get them burning.”
“No, Tom and the others will take care of that. You need to get to the doc, now.”
Chris slumped his shoulders in defeat and headed to the house as Tom made snickering noises behind us.
I gave Tom a small smile as I said, “I’ll send some people out to help you with the bodies, Tom.” He stopped snickering immediately, realizing he was going to have to do his least favorite job while Chris was off to the infirmary.
No one liked cleaning up the infected. They were disgusting and smelled worse than anything you could imagine. We had an ATV with a flatbed trailer dedicated solely to the removal of the bodies. We couldn’t get the putrid stench of death from the trailer after we used it no matter how hard we tried. We had chosen a spot far out in the woods where we would take the bodies and burn them. We did the burning as infrequently as possible because the smell of the fire carried far and lasted for days. We’d been relatively lucky so far. I guess the eight-foot cement wall blocked the sounds of life within our compound and the infected stayed away for the most part. A few here and there came around, but they always seemed to be tracking animals and ended up wandering up to our gates.
We took care of them quietly because we learned fast that sound was our biggest enemy when it came to keeping the infected away. It seemed like they might be telepathically linked, but we found it was just the infected playing a really big game of telephone. One infected would find someone or something to go after and moan. Any infected in the area would hear the moan and come to investigate moaning themselves, calling more to the area. The moaning would continue until there were no more infected in the area to hear the noises. Their moans carried far, and the infected had better hearing than when they were alive. Troy was always talking about how he would give anything to be back at his
home lab where he could map the brain activity of the infected and about how much he could learn if he had his equipment.
We didn’t have the luxury of neuroimaging, nor did I think we were ever going to come across a machine capable of doing an electroencephalogram. If we did, we could monitor the brain activity of the infected to know more about what made them tick and how they communicated. If we could somehow gain access to the black sites, we might be able to learn what they know, and I could only assume they’d have all the toys Troy was dreaming about. Thinking about the black sites reminded me to tell Chris about our plan.
“Chris, Dan is going to send up his drone to see if we can locate the closest black site marked on the map I got off of Liam.”
“No!” yelled Chris turning around to me.
Surprised at his unexpected response, “What do you mean no? It’s a good idea.”
“We can’t. We can’t draw any attention to our location. If they see the drone, they aren't going to shoot it down. They’re going to follow it right back to us,” he explained with a crazy look in his eyes.
“What if that guy watching us is reporting our location directly to whoever is at that site? Then they’re going to know where we are if they don’t already.”
“He won’t,” Chris said, dropping his head.
“What do you mean he won’t? How do you know that?”
“There was a note at a farmhouse we found.”
“What? Why the hell didn’t you say something over the radio when you found it? Where is the note? What does it say?”
“The letter specifically says to limit our radio transmissions. He doesn’t know if they can hear us.”
“Who doesn’t know if who can hear us? What the hell, Chris? Let me see the note.” I was becoming angrier with every passing second, and I felt my face getting red hot with frustration.
“Please, Abby.”
“Please nothing, where is it? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Here.” He handed me a piece of folded paper. “I was going to wait to show you until I could make more sense of it.”
“What the hell is on this that you’d wait to show me?” I asked, softening slightly.
“Just read it.”
I pulled the folded paper open and read to myself.
You need to know there are threats, but I am not one of them. Keep radio traffic to a minimum, those that might mean you harm may be listening. You have to keep Abby safe, and that may mean moving her. I’m not sure the cabin’s location is still unknown to those looking for her. I will get word to you if I find out your location has been compromised. – Geronimo
“This handwriting looks very familiar. Who the hell is Geronimo, and how does he know who I am?” I asked looking at Chris for answers.
“Abby, we need to get you inside,” he replied as he tried to wrap his big arm around my shoulders.
“No!” I shouted pushing his hand away. “You tell me right now who this Geronimo person is and how the fuck he knows my name! You tell me right now!” I demanded.
“Abby…”
“No, Chris! Just tell me!”
“It can’t be who I know Geronimo to be, so I think it’s someone who used to work with your husband. Jack may have told someone inside whoever’s running these sites to keep an eye out for you in case this all went to hell like he thought it would.”
“Okay, but who’s Geronimo?”
“Well...it was Jack. His nickname within our squad was Geronimo. We were on a mission to rescue hostages, and we were pinned down in a bad spot with all of us virtually out of ammo. They started killing hostages. Even though we had heavy fire on us, Jack ran out ignoring the bullets and attacked the other soldiers with just his knife. Somehow, he didn’t get shot in the process and gave the rest of our team who still had ammo the distraction we needed to take out most of the big guns, and we saved the hostages. After that, we started calling him Geronimo.”
“It can’t be. Oh my God, Chris, this looks like his handwriting! No…Jack…he’s dead! Who else could this be? There’s just no way…we buried him,” I said starting to panic as tears welled in my eyes.
“I don’t know, Abby. I’m not going to entertain the thought that it could be Jack. I don’t think I have the brain capacity at this moment for that. Jack did make lots of friends in the military, so it could be any number of people. I just don’t know who else would know about the Geronimo nickname unless he told them specifically to use it.
“Only six of our team made it out alive after that mission. Dan, Tom, Jack, and I. The other two guys died. They were with Jack when you met him at the CDC, Leroy Junth, and Gary Jacobson. There could be others that know the nickname. Maybe Jack told them to use it since he asked Troy to have us meet up with you at the cabin. This way we would know this guy was a friend and somehow connected to Jack.”
“This is too much. Why can’t we just catch a break? Why would these people be after me though?” I asked, feeling a pit of dread growing in my stomach. I knew I didn’t want the answer to my question as soon as I asked it.
“If I had to guess, and this is only a guess, Abby. They know Liam’s guys infected you with whatever form of the Z-Strain they gave you, and since you're still alive, they want to bring you in for testing. Or it could be that you worked on the virus back in Georgia with Troy, and they want you back. I don’t know, Abby. All I do know is I’m scared this place is no longer safe for you.”
“They can’t know I was infected…unless they sent Liam’s team to find me and infect me. They…I…I.”
“Relax, Abby. Let’s get inside and figure this out. Could you help me, my ankle is starting to throb?” Chris asked, trying to get my mind off of the million possible reasons for the warning from this Geronimo person, and whoever he might be.
It wasn’t working, but I still settled underneath Chris’s arm and helped him into the house. If he was going to attempt to take my mind off of everything, I was going to let him think his plan was successful. In the back of my brain, I was wondering if Jack could still be alive. That was virtually impossible though. Justin saw him go down in that burning building. We had a funeral, but then again, we buried only what was left of a burnt body. They confirmed it was Jack using dental records, and no one actually showed me anything that couldn’t be easily faked. No, I had to stop thinking like that. Jack would never leave us like that…would he?
Allycia came running out of the house to help me get Chris inside. She seemed to know something was wrong by the look on her face, but she was a smart girl and didn’t ask until we had Chris inside with his disgusting riot gear removed and had him relaxing on the couch with his foot propped up. Little kids came running from Allycia’s room, giggling loudly. They all wanted to show Chris the drawings they colored. It made me smile to see the kids had no idea what was going on outside our walls. Then it made me sad to think that me being here might be putting all of them in danger.
Allycia walked into the kitchen, “Hey, Mom, can we talk?”
“Sure, what’s up?” I asked trying to put on a positive face.
“Something's going on, and I know you aren’t going to tell me what it is, but I want to make sure you’re okay. You just got back, and you aren’t fully healed yet, but it seems like we’re already on to the next catastrophe.”
“Well, not what I was expecting you to say, but I’m okay, I guess. My ribs still hurt, but I’m getting better every day. You don’t need to worry, Allycia. Everything will be alright.”
“You can’t say that anymore, Mom. I’m not a child, so you can stop treating me like one. Christine, Bernice, Megan, and I are pretty much the sole caregivers for all of the kids here, and we deserve to know what’s happening. Why are we on lockdown, and why were Chris and Tom outside the fence? What did they find?”
“Now, that is what I was expecting you to ask. Chris and I saw someone in the hills earlier this morning watching us. Chris and Tom went out to see if they could track him and find out if h
e was friendly or if he’s someone we have to be worried about.”
“And what did they find?”
“Well, it looks like we're safe, but we have to keep our eyes open and be prepared for anything at any given moment.”
“Like that’s any different than before? We’re always diligent. I can’t tell you the last time I saw Tyler for more than twenty minutes at a time. He spends almost every minute he’s awake in the security room with Dan, and Lance is either training or out hunting with Chase, Chester, and Tori.”
“I know honey. Everything is crazy now, but I think we’re doing pretty well. All things considered.”
“Pretty well? Are you out of your mind, Mom? The dead are eating people, a guy we know nothing about is watching us, my seventeen-year-old brother is becoming a trained killer while my sixteen-year-old brother is a military spy hacker or whatever. And me...I’m a pseudo mom to a bunch of orphan kindergarteners! I’m thirteen! What part of that is pretty good?”
“Allycia, I know it’s a lot. The world has changed for everyone in such a drastic way, and no one’s had time to process it. I understand you’re frustrated and angry, but we’re safe here.”
“You can't believe that Mom, can you? I don’t think anyone is safe anywhere anymore.” She turned and walked away angrily.
I had to let her go. I didn’t want to, but I knew I had to. Even if I went after her, I had no idea what I would say because she was right. No one was safe in this world anymore it seemed. Walls or no walls, food or no food, something or someone would always be after us. My conversation with Allycia pretty much made up my mind. If I was going to make sure the people who were after me wouldn’t hurt anyone I loved, I had to leave. If they found this place and if I weren’t here, they would have no reason to hurt anyone. I’m the one they want. Me and my stupid Z-Strain immune blood.
Chapter 3
I got Chris to the infirmary so Doc Baker could check him out. When Doc and Jasmine had everything under control with Chris, I figured I’d talk to Tyler and Dan to let them know we didn’t need the drone anymore.
