The guards pushed past us, and soon she was cut down. It was evident she’d been hanged alive, as we saw the claw marks and boot scuffs on the inside of the door. The sadistic duo had really done a number here.
“Why put on all of this show for us? To make us mad? To throw us off?” Mary asked, her voice quiet.
Mae stepped toward us and said through pale lips, “To make you hate the hybrids. They hate us for giving in and not following through with killing everyone. They want to turn you against all of us and won’t stop until whatever they want is done.”
I hesitated, not sure I wanted to hear the answer to my question. “And what is it they want done?”
“What we were brainwashed to do: end humans,” she said. For a moment, I forgot she was our friend, the words came out so coldly.
My phone rang, and it was General Heart. I filled him in on what had transpired, and he said a helicopter was coming to bring us to the secret base. Skip sent out an APB on the missing truck, and said they had a GPS unit in it, but it appeared the password for the tracking app had been changed. They were bringing in an IT guru, former CIA, who said it wouldn’t be a problem to hack into.
The guards continued to search the whole campus for any signs of them, or more bodies, but came up empty. Leslie and Terrance were gone, and as the copter came down in the field, the sun was going down in the distance. I couldn’t help but feel we were leaving the camp in far worse shape than we had arrived in.
Skip approached us, bags heavy under his bloodshot eyes. “Catch those bastards. Catch them and make them pay,” was all he said before turning and walking away.
I’d be telling Dalhousie she might want to replace Skip as the man in charge of the camp. I imagined life for the hybrids would get worse before it got better, especially with Skip in charge.
Mae followed us in. For the first time, I noticed she had an extra bag with her. I made a mental note to ask her about that later, when things were less tense.
We left at dusk, with more questions than we’d had when we arrived.
EIGHT
“Dean, wake up,” Mary said through the headset, lightly nudging me with her hand.
If I couldn’t hear the whirring of the helicopter, I might have forgotten where I was. My head throbbed as I looked around the dim back seat; the soft lights of the pilot’s dash were the only source of ambiance, and I wanted to close my eyes and go back to my dreamless slumber.
“Dean, we’re landing for a refuel. Let’s get something to eat. The pilot said he would be a while, and that the food was good at the station. If my memory serves me right, I’ve been to this army base before. It’s in southwest Kentucky,” Mary said. “It was top secret, but I’m guessing that doesn’t matter anymore.”
At the thought of food, my stomach growled and wouldn’t stop.
It was close to one AM when we landed and were ushered to the base’s kitchen. It was quiet there, few people were out, probably all sleeping for an early rise, but I was surprised to see the lights to the kitchen still on.
Mae hadn’t spoken since we’d left Long Island, and I was worried about her for more than one reason. I knew it was hard on her to think about what she was, feeling out of place among the humans when the rest of her kind were caged up like animals, set to menial tasks to keep their bodies occupied. Then the fact that two of them had escaped now, setting up assassinations and terrorist threats out in the real world. It was enough to drive me mad, so it could only be eating her up.
“Mae,” I said, holding back as Mary followed a private, sent to get us fed, through the kitchen doors. “I want you to know we’re here for you, and together we’ll find these two. Then we can rebuild the foundation of a long-term partnership between all of you and us.” I meant it, but she almost rolled her eyes as I said the words.
“Dean, do you really think it’s going to be that easy? Even if we do find them, which I doubt we will, the stigma was already against us. We were never going to be left to roam free amongst you. They only let me walk around because they can trust you two, and Dalhousie knows I’m important to you and Mary. Otherwise, I’d be in that fenced POW camp just like the rest of them. I’m here to keep you on their side, nothing more.”
Her words stung, and hard. I stood there outside, with nothing but a small lantern fixture on the wall by the door giving Mae a stern, shadow-covered face. Moths flitted around the light, casting even stranger shapes over her.
“I hope you’re wrong about that, but if you aren’t, we’re still here for you no matter what. You have my word.” It was all I could say, and she walked past me, eyes downcast, and entered the building. She would get better; it was just too soon.
The smells of camp rushed back to me, and that was all I could equate it to, since I’d never been in the military. The mixed scents of many different foods floated along the air, throughout the mess hall, and from the cook’s kitchen in the back. We walked down the center of the large room, tables and chairs lining the hall, all ready for the morning breakfasts.
The kitchen was immaculate, and Mary was chatting with the private. An alert cook smiled at us as we entered, whisking away in a stainless-steel bowl.
“Omelettes? I make them better than anyone here, and since I’m prepping for the morning, it’s what’s on the menu,” he said with a slight southern drawl.
“Sounds perfect to me,” I said, sitting down at the stools lined up before a metal table, which was covered in flour and bowls.
The smell of fresh brewing coffee wafted over and made me all the hungrier. I knew Mae had a newfound love of the roasted beans, so I got up and gathered a bunch of cups, asking the cook if I could help myself. He showed me where everything was, and soon we all sat with steaming cups of the good stuff in front of us.
Soon we were eating what might have been one of the best omelettes of my life. Mae was almost smiling at the private’s stories about growing up as a military brat, and Mary was on her third cup of java. For a moment, it felt like life was real and normal, and then my phone rang.
A New York number came up, and I slid the bar, answering it.
“Dean, we have some news.” Skip’s voice called through the phone’s speaker.
I muted it. “Guys, Skip’s on the phone. I’m going to speaker him.”
“The IT guy from the CIA has hacked in, and we now have a GPS reading on the hybrids. We have them halfway between Lexington and Nashville right now.” His voice carried through the kitchen, and I turned the volume down, not wanting the whole base to hear.
“That’s only an hour or so south of us. Maybe we can catch up to them,” Mary said, pushing herself off the stool. She looked so beautiful, hair tight in a ponytail, eyes alert. “Private Sama, can you point us to our transportation?”
__________
The clock on the dash read four AM as we raced down the 9002 toward I-65 south, which would lead us directly to Music City USA. I drove as Mary kept track on her borrowed tablet of Leslie and Terrance in their stolen delivery truck. Skip told us their models had a built-in governor, which wouldn’t allow the vehicles to go over sixty-five miles an hour. It was a safety feature they’d needed for insurance before the Event, apparently, and it was one we were thankful for. With those limitations, we could catch them shortly after they hit the city.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t alert the local authorities?” I asked, not sure we were equipped to take these dangerous hybrids down even if we did catch up to them.
“Dalhousie wants this under the radar. We can’t afford to have the link to the hybrids revealed, or else it will be pandemonium… and unfair to the rest of them.” Mary looked back at Mae, who was sitting in the back seat, eyes closed.
“Just where do you think they’re going? What’s in Nashville?” I asked.
Mary shrugged. “Maybe nothing, maybe everything. Maybe it’s just a city on their path to somewhere else.”
I thought about this, and then wondered at the convenience of them being on the sa
me path as we were flying in the helicopter. Did they know where we were going? Were they trying to be obvious? Maybe they weren’t even in the truck but had swapped it out with a waiting vehicle.
“Where do you think that secret base is? It looked like desert, so if it’s in the States, I have to guess New Mexico or Arizona, which would put us on a straight line from New York to here, then to one of those states,” I said. “I wish they would just tell us, but I suppose that’s a risk if someone captures us.” I pictured the two dead bodies we’d just crossed paths with the day before and didn’t want to be on the receiving end of the two we were chasing.
“That’s the deal. Too many loose threads. I tried to text Nat but got nothing back. I’m guessing they have a block on the whole area, which I don’t blame them for,” Mae offered, finally talking. It was good to hear her voice without sadness laced through it. I smiled at her from the rear-view mirror, not sure if she could see it or not from where she was sitting.
“How much farther? I could use a coffee and a pit stop,” I said.
“We’re an hour out of Nashville but closing in on them. I’d say we catch them twenty miles before city limits, but we have time to stop really quickly, because I imagine we aren’t going to ram them off the road if we do find them.” Mary fidgeted with the tablet, zooming in on their location.
“They have to sleep just like us, so they might be taking turns, but if they’re heading to a big city like Nashville, I’d say they’re meeting someone,” Mae said from the backseat.
The dash lights dimly glowed against my face, and I remembered driving a Jeep on our journey a year ago. It had been a lot different, but somehow the tension and the adrenaline were now familiar to me; my days of counting beans for people’s small businesses in upstate New York felt like a lifetime ago.
We pulled over at a truck stop outside of a small town named Portland. It always struck me as amusing how we loved to recycle our town and city names, but then again, how many people in the world were named Dean? Or Mary? I shrugged it off and noticed the gas station lights weren’t on. We had enough fuel to get us to Nashville, but since we’d stopped, I wanted to take advantage of the lost time.
“Dean, I think the pumps are still on,” Mary called.
Turned out they hadn’t been turned off, and we could use our credit cards to pay for the gas. It was more than I expected from an old truck stop, but we were close to Nashville, and I imagined a lot of trucks came that way, judging by the volume of them sitting in the lot across the street. Most of them probably had sleeping truck drivers in them at that moment, and my eyes felt weary as I thought about it.
The lights came on in the attached diner, and the ladies went inside to use the restrooms and beg for some coffee to go. At that moment, I could hardly think of anything other than coffee.
My cell phone vibrated in my left front pocket and I pulled it out, wondering if Magnus had broken free and found service. The number said UNKNOWN, but there was a text message. Don’t trust her, was all it said. Don’t trust who? And who the hell was sending me a text an hour before the sun came up?
Care to elaborate? I sent back. By the time the ladies came back with cups of coffee, there still hadn’t been a reply. Mary was almost running to me, passing me a cup after nearly spilling it.
“I’ll never understand why some places don’t have those little cardboard slips to put around their cups. Seems like almost everyone buying one of these would prefer to not be burned.” She frowned at me, softening when she must have seen my off expression. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I lied and hated myself for it. I just needed to consider the obscure message before I said anything aloud about it. “Bathrooms out back?”
“Just inside to the left. The nice lady said we could use them even though they aren’t open for another thirty minutes,” Mary said, still giving me a sideways glace.
As I walked, the phone vibrated again, and I was anxious to see what the mysterious “helpful” stranger who was sending me cryptic five AM messages had to say. Once inside the doors, I reached for the phone, but stopped short as I saw the middle-aged woman waving at me. The restaurant had that classic Middle America feel to it, and I loved the way the booths lined the walls, and the four-seaters were huddled around the middle of it all. I longed to go sit at the barstools like my father and I used to do when we’d head into town to get something for the farm.
It started off as a benefit to helping my dad do errands and fix something, or do yard work after, but as I got older, we just started to make it our tradition. My mother would often be invited, but she would just shoo us away, knowing it was a special bond between father and son. That, to her, was priceless.
The smell of oil on the grill in the back, right then, reminded me of the last time I’d had breakfast with my old man. I’d headed back to the country the year after Janine and I were married. He was sick but wouldn’t let it stop him from going out for a big breakfast at the diner, just like always. When I tried to tell him we could just stay in, have some oatmeal or something, my mother just shook her head at me, and I knew what it meant. He wasn’t going to live for long. It was prostate cancer, and it hit fast; faster than we could have imagined. I knew he wasn’t well, but my mother, most likely trying to protect me, had kept the severity of it from me for too long.
My little sister had called me, frantic, but she had always been an overreactor. Thinking of her then, I decided to text her as soon as I’d used the washroom. I had a longing for the one family member I had left, even though she resented me for not following her and Mom to California after my dad died. It’d been hard to explain to a heartbroken fifteen-year-old that I couldn’t uproot my life.
When we stepped into their house, the sights and smells of being a happy kid filled all my senses, and then I saw my father. He was sitting in his plaid chair, looking like a skeleton with skin. His sunken eyes creased as he smiled at us, and it had taken all my strength to not fall to my knees in tears.
Janine had held my hand firmly, and I knew she was feeling a portion of what I was. It was so strange, because as soon as I saw him, I felt an overwhelming layer of sadness, mixed with a heavy sense of missing him, even though he was right in front of me. I really just missed the fact that things were never going to be the same, and I could see in his eyes he felt that way too.
“Can I help you with anything?” the lady asked, as I stood there staring at the empty room like a crazy man.
“Sorry, just tired is all. Thanks for the coffee. I needed it.” I smiled and went to the bathrooms, checking the message once I was inside the small room. Think about it and all will be clear. Not wanting to get into a message war with someone I didn’t know, I put the phone away. A minute later, I was heading out the front doors, and back to the Jeep.
The message could mean anyone: Dalhousie, Leslie, Mae… though I didn’t want to go there, it could even mean Mary. There was no sense in speculating. We had to get back on the road.
“You good to keep driving, or do you want to switch off?” Mary asked as I was about to get into the driver’s side door.
“I’m as good as I’ll ever be,” I said, giving her a smile. I popped the top of the coffee, took a sip, and off we went, heading for Nashville.
__________
The sun was rising as we approached the city limits, farmland and small town being replaced with suburbs and chain stores. I’d never been there before and was glad I had someone navigating my way.
“They came this way and seem to veer off toward this industrial area. Looks like nothing but warehouses for a few miles,” Mary said, pointing to the exit east.
Morning light blasted me, and I flipped the visor as we made our way down the secondary freeway. We were catching up and still didn’t know what we were going to do if we caught the killers.
“They’re stopping!” she called with a little more excitement than I was used to from her normally calm voice.
I slowed and exited off th
e freeway, now driving the large Jeep wheels over potholed, worn asphalt. It was Sunday, so traffic was light so early in the morning, and there wasn’t a car in sight in the many parking lots we were passing by. Soon we were nearing an old building, an auto repair shop by the look of it.
Mary gestured to our left, and my heart raced when we spotted the bare white truck: the missing one from the camp in Long Island. Pulling behind a large cube van, I kept my distance and turned the engine off. There was no one in the truck, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have eyes on the street. For all we knew, they saw us driving up.
The sun was still low on the horizon, and here it was blocked by large buildings between us and the rays. I hoped being in the shadows would help us.
“We don’t know what we’re up against here. They could just be hiding out, or they could be meeting more of their brainwashed humans. We have to be careful.” Mary looked at me and held my gaze for a moment longer than she normally would, emphasizing the word careful.
“I’ll go,” Mae said. “Recon, right? And if I get caught, I’ll claim I broke out too, and tracked them. I know for a fact that the one right across the hall looks just like us, and my hair is pretty much the same length.” She pulled her hair into a ponytail, and she was taking off her shirt. I averted my eyes, noticing how much she looked like my wife. I’d spent so much time with Mae that I rarely thought of her and Janine on the same wavelength any longer, but seeing her pulling her shirt over her head reminded me so much of Janny. “I borrowed some items from Donna that Leslie would recognize. I also have some of Leslie’s stuff. You know, just in case.”
I almost laughed at the ingenious planning. Don’t trust her. The words echoed in my mind and I shook them out, knowing it couldn’t be either of these women. They were as trustworthy to me as Magnus and Nat.
“Great thinking, Mae,” Mary said, smiling through an otherwise worried face.
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