Quarantined
Page 18
“Hurry,” I said.
“Got it.” He hit the ground and rolled toward the hole where I tossed half the blanket over him just as the spotlight legs of the helicopter walked over us.
From under the wall, under the blankets, we listened as the helicopter continued on with its patrol. The sound retreated into the distance until it was only a bad memory.
“That was close,” I said.
Billy's face was covered with mud. When he smiled at me, his teeth looked white as clean cotton.
“We're still going,” he said, and kissed me on the mouth with his muddy lips.
We slid through the hole, crawling on our bellies, and slipped into the water on the other side of the wall. Once we were through, I had a moment when I felt like Lot's wife. I just had to look back.
I don't know. Maybe I expected my first breath of air on the other side to taste sweeter. Maybe I expected the containment walls to look different from the other side. But none of that happened. The air still smelled like water and hummus, and the walls looked just as ominous, a tall, dark sheet against the sky.
“Mommy,” Connie said, tugging on my t-shirt. “What are we gonna do now?”
A good question.
“We're gonna wade through the creek till we get to the Guadalupe River,” I said. “From there, we'll drift down to Culver Falls. We can get on a bus there in the morning and it'll take us far away from here.”
“Where, Mommy?”
“Some place safe, honey.”
We put our arms around each other, squared the blankets over our heads, and together, as a family, made our solitary way out of hell.
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Chapter 29
On October 1, less than two months after we escaped San Antonio, Billy pulled the beat up 1984 Chevy pickup we'd bought from a used car lot in Billings for seven hundred dollars to the curb on the main street of a small town called Morgan's Creek, Montana.
A slushy, wet snow fell, as I got out and ran to a mailbox that stood in front of a tiny drugstore.
I smiled at the gray sky, at the brisk, cold wind on my cheeks, turning them apple red. I hadn't seen snow since I was a little girl, since the same year our beat up Chevy was made. In fact, when San Antonio got buried beneath a freak desert snowstorm of 14 inches, and the whole city ground to a halt for three days, was the last time I'd seen snow.
Even in the grayness of it all, I could look down the street and see the snow-covered mountains rising up into the sky. It felt good, and I felt good, stronger.
Morgan's Creek had a population of twenty-eight hundred people, fewer than the number of cops in San Antonio, and they were good people. They welcomed us, the young couple and their daughter who told everyone they were from Houston and were looking to escape the grind of the big city, and as I looked to the truck and saw Billy and Connie smiling back at me, I prayed that things might really be getting better for us. Maybe here, in the mountains, we could escape the coming storm.
It was with that hope in mind that I dropped my package into the mailbox. The package contained a one hundred and seventy page manuscript, describing everything that had happened to me and my family during our stay under quarantine. I asked only that my family's new location be kept a secret.
I told about Bradley's murder, about Cole's theory, and about Laurent's reckless pride. I told about the cover up, and the truth about the anarchy that constantly threatened to boil over in San Antonio's streets.
My prosecution guide was included. So was a pirated copy of all the evidence Laurent had prevented me from giving to Dr. Herrera, the copy I had made on the equipment in Cole's van while we waited for EMS and the others to arrive. I even tossed in a copy of Bradley's journal.
I sealed it all up and addressed it to Samuel Clayton Walder, a science writer whose work I'd first read in National Geographic, but who was now working for the New York Times.
I ended my one hundred and seventy page manuscript with an urgent plea for him not to ignore the importance of the information in his hands.
“Millions of lives are risk,” I wrote. “Don't drag your feet on this. Tell the world. Make sure they're ready. In less than a month, the first wave of grackles will pass through San Antonio on their way to Northern Mexico. If the world isn't ready by then, WE ARE ALL GONERS.”
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* * *
About the Author
* * * *
* * * *
Joe McKinney is a homicide detective for the San Antonio Police Department and a full time writer. He has also served on the SAPD's Critical Incident Management Team, where he helped coordinate San Antonio's responses to large scale flooding, hazardous materials spills, and the mass evacuations of New Orleans and Houston following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. He has a Master's degree in Medieval Literature from the University of Texas at San Antonio, and currently writes in a wide range of genres, including horror, mystery, and science fiction. Author of the novels Dead City and Peacekeepers, he has been nominated for the Horror Writers Association's Bram Stoker Award.
He has also published nonfiction articles on Texas history and his various culinary interests. It is rumored he makes the best batch of chili in Texas.
* * *
Visit www.lachesispublishing.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Quarantined
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
About the Author
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