Harden

by D. J. Molles

  Angela’s eyes widened. Then narrowed again. “Wait. You’re not saying…”

  Staley shook his head. “No, I don’t think the primals cut it. The squad leader that found the lock reported that the cut was rusted over, and the lock was buried in a layer of silt. It was cut some time ago.”

  Angela looked over her shoulder at the others, then back to Staley and lowered her voice. “Sabotage?”

  Staley shrugged. “No way to be sure.”

  “So that culvert gate has been unsecured for God-knows how long.”

  “Yes. Of course, we’ve re-secured it. Welded it shut, actually.”

  “Are there any other drain gates like that?” Angela asked. “Any other places we haven’t thought about?”

  “I’ve got people looking into it.”

  Angela nodded, but still looked troubled.

  Staley looked past her at Abby. “How is she?”

  Angela bowed her head. Lowered her voice even more. “Doctor Trent says…cautiously optimistic. Whatever the fuck that means. Pardon my French.”

  Staley waved off her apology.

  “They say,” Angela continued. “That at this point they would expect to see an elevated white blood cell count. If she was actually…you know…infected.” Angela straightened some. Forced a smile. “But they don’t. They say her white blood cells are good. So. We’re not out of the woods, he says. But it’s looking good.”

  “That’s excellent news,” Staley said. Then looked very seriously at Angela. “And it also raises some very interesting questions.”

  Angela had an expression that said she didn’t want to get into it at that moment. “Just trying not to look the gift horse in the mouth, colonel.”

  Staley nodded curtly. “Of course.” He gave her a platonic squeeze on her shoulder. “I’ll leave you be for now. Lots to do. And you should rest, Angela. Fort Bragg is going to need you.”

  Angela promised that she would, and Staley left the room.

  Back out into the mob of fearful sheep.

  He got about halfway to the exit when he heard someone calling his name.

  He chose to ignore it until it sounded like they were right behind him.

  “Colonel Staley, sir!”

  Finally, with a grumble under his breath he turned and found himself facing Lieutenant Derrick, the Watch Commander from last night. The man looked frazzled and about as tired as the rest of them.

  “Yes, lieutenant?”

  “I’ve been trying to find you, sir.”

  “Clearly. What is it?”

  Derrick glanced around, shuffled closer to Staley. “Sir, I think you’d like to have this conversation in private.”

  Staley pursed his lips. “Alright then. Walk with me.”

  They shouldered through the rest of the crowd.

  Exited the ER.

  Out into bright, midday sunshine.

  Staley kept walking. He’d walked to the Medical Center from his offices in the Soldier Support Center, and he intended to walk back. He kept a brisk pace, and said nothing until they were fully clear of the entrance to the hospital.

  “Alright. Talk.”

  “Well, sir…” Derrick seemed hesitant. “I came across a…discrepancy. With the satphone.”

  “M-hm.”

  “The one we keep in the office.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, sir, I checked the call log. Just…on a whim. You know?”

  Staley didn’t answer. Kept walking.

  “There was a number that was dialed last night. From our satphone. I didn’t recognize it. So I cross-checked it with the numbers we have on file. And…well, it’s not any of the stations in the UES. It’s not a number we have on file.”

  Staley stopped walking. He faced Lieutenant Derrick. Looked the other man in the eye. “Did you call the number?”

  “Yes, sir.” Derrick’s hesitancy had turned to something like nervousness.

  Staley raised his eyebrows as if to say, spit it out.

  “When I called, a man answered. I didn’t recognize the voice. I asked him to identify himself, and he hung up.”

  Staley frowned deeply, feeling the first little primers of suspicion go off in his gut. Lee had advised them of a possible leak here at Fort Bragg. This could be their first evidence of that.

  “Did you record the number?” Staley demanded.

  Derrick nodded hastily and produced a slip of paper from his shirt pocket. He handed it to Staley, then stood there, looking unsure of himself. Looking pained.

  Staley eyed the number. Then pocketed it. “Who was the last person to use the phone?”

  Derrick swallowed. “Well. Angela used it to speak with Lee last night. But…” a deep breath. “That’s why I came to you directly, sir. It was, uh, well…”

  “Speak,” Staley growled.

  “It was Claire, sir. She returned the phone to me last night. She was the last person to have the phone.”

  The two men stood there in the warm sun for a long moment. Staley staring at the lieutenant in front of him like he was trying to turn him into stone. The lieutenant seemed to have run out of words. He didn’t move. Didn’t even sway on his feet. Maybe he had turned to stone.

  It’s a mistake, Staley thought. Some sort of mistake. Claire will clear this up.

  Staley sniffed. “Did you tell anyone else about this?”

  “No, sir. I came straight to you.”

  Staley nodded stiffly. Thought.

  Thought hard.

  Claire will clear this up.

  “This conversation stays between me and you,” Staley said. “I’ll investigate it myself.”

  Derrick’s eyes squirrelled around, like that answer troubled him, but he nodded crisply. “Of course, sir.”

  ***

  After Angela watched Colonel Staley leave the ER, she stood there in the room, peeking out at the hubbub of gathered people, and the woefully understaffed medical personnel flying about, doing their best to try to tell people that they weren’t infected, and that there was no risk simply because primals had gotten inside the wire.

  Some people accepted this. Others demanded to have their blood tested. But the medical staff knew there wasn’t enough equipment to test everyone’s blood. And if they allowed one person to have their blood tested, everyone would want theirs tested too.

  Angela thought about stepping out and trying to address the people.

  Then she thought perhaps she’d just make the situation worse.

  Are you losing control of these people?

  Did you ever have control of them in the first place?

  In all the rushing around she spotted a bald, sweating head, worried eyes behind a pair of wire-framed glasses.

  Doc Trent. Doing his best to be helpful.

  She remembered that he’d been trying to get ahold of her before everything had gone to shit. It seemed that right now was just as poor a time to try to talk with him, but then again, after everything that happened, she wondered if there was ever going to be a good time again.

  She turned back to the bed where Abby lay. She was going to tell Abby that she would be gone for a moment and come right back, but Abby was asleep now.

  She left the room. Plunged through the crowded area beyond, keeping her head down and hoping people wouldn’t bother her. She was lucky. Everyone was too concerned with their own problems to start haranguing her.

  She angled around the nurses’ station and caught up with Doc Trent as he was walking away. He was moving briskly, like he was trying to make a fast, discreet exit.

  “Doctor Trent?” she called out after him.

  She watched his shoulders slump as he heard his name.

  She thought maybe he might continue to try and escape. But he turned.

  And stiffened when he saw Angela.

  “Oh. Angela.” He looked frozen. Caught.

  Angela stopped in front of him. “Sorry, I know you’re busy right now.”

  He gave her a wavering smile. “It’
s like the world’s ending. Again.”

  Angela nodded, but was focused on what she needed from him. “You’ve been trying to get a hold of me.”

  He blinked a few times. His countenance appeared to wither. Then his eyes darted about. “Right. Yeah. Uh...” His smallish hands wiggled in the air, like he was trying to feel his way through this. Then they clenched, and went to his sides. “Not here.”

  He turned, motioned with his head, and began walking again.

  Angela kept pace behind him.

  He led her out of the main ER, into a corridor beyond where there were no less than ten hospital beds with people sitting on them, waiting for blood tests that weren’t going to happen. Some of these people looked up at Angela as Doc Trent led her past them.

  Was that fear in their eyes?

  Anger?

  Resentment?

  Did they blame her for this?

  Doc Trent made an abrupt stop at the end of the hall, at a door with a plaque that said “X-RAY.” He keyed a code into a push-button lock, then swung the door open and slipped in, holding the door for Angela. He peered out as though they were thieves breaking in, then quietly shut the door behind them.

  The x-ray room was dark. Empty. The technician’s station was partitioned off, and the only light in the room was coming from the overheads there, spilling through the observation window. The big hulk of the x-ray machine hung from the ceiling, still and unused.

  Doc Trent faced her in this dim space, his hands now clasped together in front of him.

  “The primal,” Angela prompted. “The one that Lee brought back from Field Twenty-Nine. That’s what this is about, right?”

  Doc Trent wet his lips. Nodded.

  Angela was torn between wanting to tell him to forget it, she didn’t want to know, and a sort of morbid curiosity that gripped her. She didn’t like the way that Doc Trent was acting about this. But…

  She was the president.

  She needed to know.

  “I understand,” she began again. “That you were trying to determine its age. Were you able to do that?”

  Doc Trent shuffled his feet and adjusted his glasses. He seemed agitated. “Yeah. Sure.” A long pause. “It’s somewhere between two and sixteen.”

  Angela stared at him, trying to absorb what he’d said. She opened her mouth. Hesitated. Decided to go with, “Well, that’s a pretty large range of years.”

  Doc Trent let out something like a mad giggle. He didn’t seem to be aware of how ridiculous it sounded. His eyes were locked on Angela’s. “This…this primal. It’s…” He took a big breath. “The size of the creature suggests a juvenile of about eight. The muscle density suggests someone in their teens. The bone plates in its skull suggest a child of about two. And its dentition…its dentition is all over the place. The top and bottom canines are rooted. Like adult teeth. But…no molars at all. The incisors are typical, unrooted baby teeth.” He crossed his arms. “So, you ask me how old this thing is and I tell you: it’s somewhere between two and sixteen.”

  Very suddenly, Doc Trent appeared to wilt. The tension left him, like voicing the words had turned his muscles to slag. He slouched in place, staring off to the right, eyes unfocused, looking at nothing in particular.

  Angela felt her pulse in her head, but it was still steady. She heard her own respirations. They were steady too. Steady, like someone walking a tightrope. Steady, because that’s what you had to do to keep from falling.

  She swallowed. “How is that possible?”

  Another weird titter came out of the older man. “Because it’s not human?” he offered. “That wasn’t a question. It’s a statement. It’s not human. They are not human. I don’t know how such a divergence can happen in such a small amount of time. But it did. They’re not just people that have gone insane anymore, Angela. They’re a different species.”

  “That’s not possible. Did you confirm this? Did you test the DNA?”

  Doc Trent flapped his lips. “Pff. We don’t have the equipment for DNA testing. I can’t prove it. But it’s the only thing that makes sense to me. So I guess…” he smiled unpleasantly. “I guess it’s just a theory. Just like Jacob. I’m a fucking quack like Jacob now.”

  “They’re outbreeding us.”

  “Who the hell knows?” Doc Trent snapped. Then looked ashamed. “Sorry. I didn’t want Lee to be right. I didn’t want to believe…” he trailed off. Took a sharp breath. “It’s menstruating.”

  The statement was so oddball and out of place, that Angela twitched, and then blinked. “I’m sorry. What?”

  “Lee was right,” Doc Trent said. Heavy. Dreamy. “The thing was probably two years old. But it was menstruating. I could see it in the lining of its uterus. Two years old, Angela. And sexually mature. No natural predators. Top of the food chain.” He raised a finger to his eyebrow, swiped a greasy bead of sweat away. “In another year, there’s going to be more primals in this country than humans.”

  ***

  Nurse Sullivan walked stiffly down the sidewalk as the sun set at her back. She saw her shadow stretching out in front of her. Another shadow, to her right, was coming abreast of her.

  She’d already spied Elsie Foster a block back. Elsie had been walking very deliberately toward Nurse Sullivan. Sullivan had hurried on, hoping in vain that she was not the target.

  Her feet moved hurriedly across the sidewalk, all but speed-walking at this point. Like she was terribly late for something. The legs of her scrubs made little swish-swish noises.

  Elsie Foster’s shadow loomed to her right, and Sullivan realized that she wasn’t going to speed-walk her way out of this.

  She slowed to a more reasonable pace, her heart already thumping. Her breathing starting to quicken.

  The nurse glanced to her right. Elsie walked along beside her, eyes forward, a stern expression on her lips.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were just trying to get away from me, Taylor.”

  Sullivan glanced around nervously, but there wasn’t anyone around to overhear them. “We shouldn’t be talking in the open like this.” And then, to make it seem like she was worried about Elsie, she added, “It could be dangerous for you right now.”

  “You let me worry about who I talk to out in the open, okay?”

  Sullivan clamped her lips down.

  They went another three brisk paces.

  Sullivan could see the house that she shared with another family, up ahead. Two blocks away.

  What would they think if they saw her with Elsie Foster?

  Sullivan was nearly overcome with the desire to be rid of Elsie.

  At that moment, she would have consented to nearly anything if it meant that Elsie would peel off and leave her be.

  The problem was, she’d already given her consent, hadn’t she?

  Yes. She’d already agreed to something terrible. Earlier that very morning, actually.

  She just hadn’t gone through with it.

  “You know why I’m here, Taylor,” Elsie prodded.

  “We don’t know yet,” Sullivan snapped. “Okay? I didn’t do it, because we don’t know.”

  “Is she infected, or isn’t she? That should be a pretty simple thing to determine.”

  “Well, it’s not.” Sullivan almost left it at that, but if she left it at that, she knew that Elsie was going to pursue her right up onto the front porch and smile and wave for Sullivan’s house-mates. “She’s still under observation. It might not manifest for another day or so. Sometimes the infection through bites can take a while. And…” Sullivan looked around again, feeling conspicuous. She lowered her voice. “I’m not going to do it if I don’t have to!”

  “If you wait too long, it’s going to look suspicious.”

  “I won’t wait too long,” Sullivan assured her, and felt suddenly sick. Her mouth sweated violently, and she felt like the blood was draining out of her. Was she really saying this? They were talking about a little girl!

  Sullivan almost ha
d to dive for the gutter and puke.

  But a deep breath managed to still her quaking guts.

  “She is going to get sick,” Elsie said, her voice icy and as immovable as a thousand-year-old glacier. “Either by natural causes, or by unnatural causes. And it needs to happen quickly, Sullivan, or we’re going to have problems. You do understand that, don’t you?”

  Sullivan nodded. Felt clammy sweat on her palms. Limbs trembling.

  “Tomorrow,” Elsie said. “Tomorrow, I want to hear the news.” She finally turned and fixed Taylor Sullivan with a firm and meaningful gaze. “Or people are going to find out about what Ben’s been up to. And you don’t want that, do you? Because a boy who rapes the neighbor’s daughter, not to mention his mother who knew about it and didn’t say anything…why, I don’t think they’d be very welcome around here anymore. They’d get kicked out of the Safe Zone. Out of the UES in general. Out beyond the electric fences. Out with all the primals.” Elsie smirked. “And don’t kid yourself, Taylor. You and Ben wouldn’t last a fucking day.”

  Sullivan realized she had stopped walking. She was standing, her face as white as a full moon, staring at the cracked sidewalk in front of her and the leaves and pine needles that cluttered the concrete and the curb.

  “Don’t think about Abby, Nurse Sullivan,” Elsie advised, putting a familial hand on her shoulder. “Just think about Ben. And yourself, of course.” She gave Sullivan’s shoulder a squeeze. “Just get it done and everything will be okay.”

  Then she left Sullivan standing there.

  After perhaps thirty seconds, which is a very long time to be standing stock-still in the middle of a sidewalk, Nurse Sullivan suddenly straightened, as though a switch had been flipped in her mind. Her expression went from the look of person staring at a torture rack for which they are bound, back to the look of someone who is simply walking home from work.