by C. J. Boyle
“The doctor? How’d he know where Kera would be going?” Brody shook his head. “Something’s going on between those two.”
Carl chuckled. “Maybe he’s just got a crush on her…like you do.” He leaned forward when he saw something move along the road. It was a German Shepherd.
“He had her kid’s address. How would he have that unless she gave it to him?” Brody protested.
“Yo, man, I think that’s one of our dogs. Pull over.” Brody pulled his jeep over to the side of the road and tried to see what Carl was talking about. Carl quickly hopped out trying to spot the dog again. It was running along the tree line. He put on his best command voice and shouted. “ARE-CHIE!”
The dog stopped dead in its tracks and looked at Carl. It stood still for a moment and then bolted toward him. Carl got back in the car while Archie ran up. He held the door open for the dog.
“Archie! Come! Come on, get in!” The dog jumped into the jeep and sat in the back between the front seats. It whined. Brody drove while Carl checked the dog out. “It’s okay, Archie. It’s okay.” The dog didn’t appear to be hurt. “How’d you get out, Arch? Huh? What happened to you?” Archie whined but licked Carl in the face. He rubbed the dog behind the ears. “Don’t worry, Arch, I won’t tell anyone you were crying.”
Brody laughed, “You talk to that dog like he’s a person.”
Carl let the dog put his head in his lap while he scratched it behind the ears. It was obvious the dog was exhausted. “Archie’s my pal, Bro. They sent the dogs here three months before the prisoners. I was always on perimeter duty so sometimes I’d take a dog with me. Archie was my favorite. Real smart. My brothers will love him.”
Brody smiled and nodded at Carl even though there was a good possibility that Carl would never see his brothers again. “Have you heard from them yet?”
Carl shook his head, “Naw.” He was silent for a few moments as he looked out the windshield. “I read this doomsday article once that said it would take about three or four days for the internet to go down. You know why?”
“No.”
“Spam,” Carl winced.
“Spam?” Brody smiled pulling off the highway into Denver.
“Yeah, apparently all those emails that are being sent with no one to delete them, will bog down the servers and crash them.”
Brody nodded, “I’m not a computer tech but that sounds about right.”
Carl’s attention to his surroundings sparked when he saw several cars that had crashed into the buildings. There was no one in sight. No humans or Links. “This is fucked up, Bro. Look, there’s a baby’s car seat in the road.”
Brody drove by it slowly and looked down into the car seat. “It’s empty.” He had to swerve around several cars. A few times he had to drive on the sidewalk. He pulled his cell phone out of his front pocket and handed it to Carl. “That reminds me. Last night I was in the warden’s safe room. I think it blocked all signals. I might have gotten an email when I got out, though. Can you check it for me?”
“Worried about your mom?” Carl looked through the phone. He sighed loudly and shook his head. “Aw, man, Brody. I cain’t read this to you, you’re gonna have to stop and read it yourself.”
That was enough for Brody. He already knew it was bad news. He was prepared for it. “No. Go ahead, I’m good.”
“You sure?” Carl looked him in the eye. When Brody nodded his acceptance, he read aloud. “My Dearest Broderick,” Carl snickered a little, “By the time you read this email I will…are you sure you want me to read this?”
“Just finish the damn letter, Carl.”
Carl shook his head. “Ok. Where was I? Oh yeah: By the time you read this email I will be somewhere off the Florida Keys on your Uncle Mickey’s yacht…”
Brody laughed, “You’re a shithead, Carl.”
“Your name is Broderick?” Carl laughed so hard he almost cried. “Broderick Johnson? What was your moms thinking?”
Brody stopped laughing and gave Carl a serious look. “She was thinking that I would be a movie star.” He raised one eyebrow and gave him a weird distorted smile.
Carl grimaced, “Don’t do that.”
Brody bent over to get a better look out the windshield. He could see dark smoke rising. He looked at Carl, “You see that?”
“It looks like it’s coming from my Gram’s building.” Carl looked worried.
Brody drove around the building to where the smoke came from. In the middle of the parking lot a group of young men and a few women stood close to what looked like a bonfire. Most of them carried a gun or weapon of some kind. As they got closer the group turned around and started walking toward the jeep. Brody, Carl, and Archie got out and walked towards the group. Brody made sure they could see his shotgun. He didn’t want to use it on any humans but he had a bad feeling. As they got closer they could see two black teens carrying a Link towards the fire. One had it by the arms and the other had it by the legs. It was hanging limp and didn’t move or complain when they dragged it across the asphalt. When they got close enough to the fire they swung it back and then forward hard so they can get it on top of the pile. It was only then that Brody realized that the pile was almost exclusively made up of the bodies of Links. His heart felt heavy. Those kids just spent the night and most of the morning killing Links. ‘This isn’t the way life should be.’
~ The CMC ~
Cockran leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed. He preferred not to look down at the woman with her head in his lap. He had to picture his wife in order to enjoy it at all. He needed a way to relax. He needed a release. His office was dead quiet so when a knock came at the door it was like a clap of thunder. The blonde officer at his lap jumped and looked at the door.
"Don't stop." He made eye contact with her for the first time. She put her head back down in his lap and it started to bob up and down. "Faster."
Another knock came at the door but this time it was more insistent.
* * *
Dr. Decker stood impatiently outside Colonel Cockran's office door. She held a manila folder to her chest. She knew he was in there. He was always in there. She raised her fist to knock on the door again but it suddenly opened and a pretty blonde officer practically ran over her on her way out.
Decker walked into the Colonel's office shaking her head. He was tucking his shirt into his pants. She gave him a disgusted look, "Your wife is downstairs in a cage, George."
He looked at the wall. "Don't ever say that again. I told you, that thing is not my wife."
"Well, however you spell it…that is all kinds of inappropriate." She pointed behind her where the girl ran out.
"So, have me court-martialed." He scooted himself forward in his chair and leaned on his desk. "What do you want, Dr. Decker?"
She looked at the empty chair next to her. She scrutinized it closely. "If I sit in this chair, am I going to get something on my ass?" She gave him a disapproving look.
He shrugged. “What?”
She shook her head. “I’m still trying to shake the image of you and a girl half your age doing God-knows-what in here.” She couldn’t believe he would do something like that so soon after his wife turned and wasn’t herself anymore. ‘What a dick.’
The Colonel smiled. “Okay, number one, she’s a woman, not a girl. And number two, I didn’t make her do anything she didn’t want to do.”
Martha shook her head again, “You’re in a position of power. She might have felt like she didn’t have a choice.”
“What’s the matter? Jealous?” He was obviously serious. He held her stare and waited for her answer.
“I’m in love with my ex-husband.” She admitted it freely. She never really wanted to divorce her husband but the two of them were headed in different directions professionally and it put a strain on their marriage.
“The operative part of that sentence is ‘ex’, and that’s not what I asked you. You can be in love with him and still be jealous.” He was smug and full
of himself.
“George,” she had to pause for dramatic effect, “I’d rather have a Link perform oral sex on me.”
“Jesus Christ, Martha.”
“Now can we get to the reason I came here in the first place?” She had to get back to the lab to check on some results and continue her research.
The Colonel looked at the wall for a moment and then back to the doctor. “Did you find out why the virus only affected certain people?”
Martha looked at the tablet computer in her lap. “No. It’s only been three months since this all began. None of my colleagues know why either. But…” She leaned forward a little. “I have to correct you. All humans were infected by the Link virus. You and I may look normal but it may have changed us in ways we aren’t aware of yet.”
George looked skeptical. “All humans were infected?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “Well, except for maybe a tribe deep in the Amazonian forest.” She clicked her pen a few times. She privately wondered if the reason some humans changed into Links and some didn’t even mattered at that point. It was unlikely that they could change them back. “And there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it either. One brother will change and the other won’t. A mother will change and a son won’t.” She shook her head. “Yet, it almost has to be genetic. It’s a puzzle.”
~ The Turmoil ~
Kera stood on the doorstep afraid to cross the threshold. The door was wide open. She could hypothesize that it meant someone or maybe something left in a hurry. They obviously didn't think they would be coming back so they didn't care to shut the door. She was pestered by the desire to ball up into a fetal position on the doorstep. If she stayed there, it would be much like Schrödinger's Cat. Everything in the house was in a state of superposition. Until she crossed the threshold, she wouldn't know if her son or her sister were alive or dead. But she had to know for sure.
She stepped into the house and was immediately met with the now familiar stench of Link piss and blood. She held the shotgun close to her as a feeling of dread washed over her. She swallowed back vomit and tried to convince herself that the smell didn't prove anything. Even if Charlie turned like all the others, it didn't mean that he killed Julie. She had been a guest in Julie's home so often that she knew it well. She made her way into the living room. The stench practically knocked her to the floor like a defensive lineman. She covered her mouth and nose with her collar. It didn't help. Her eyes watered so much that when she blinked, hard tears practically hopped from her eyes and hit her shirt. She approached the back of a red recliner. She could see someone's hand resting on the side. She opened her eyes wider as fear made every cell in her body want to burst and her brain started to send signals to her legs to run the hell out of there. Resisting the urge to run made her legs cry in pain. She crept forward slowly. There was a pair of boots. Her eyes followed the boots upward into the red chair. There was nothing there except half of a bloodied and decayed head with black hair. She couldn't breathe. Her eyes darted from the hands to the feet inside the boots and then back to the head. Her side began to hurt intensely. She doubled over in pain and held her side. Finally, her air broke. She whooped in air and sobbed it back out. She was hyperventilating. She had never hyperventilated before so she didn't know what it felt like. It felt like she was going to die.
She somehow managed to make her way into the kitchen. She leaned against the counter and tried to concentrate on breathing. Her heart raced and she felt dizzy but she knew she couldn't pass out. Not there. Not yet. The only person that could have been was her sister's husband. Unfortunately, at least one person in her family had fallen prey to a Link. It still didn't mean that her son was the culprit. Of course, she was going to deny it until the end. She concentrated on breathing in and out as her eyes fixated on the stairs. She had the same problem with the stairs as she did with the front door. She didn't know what she'd find up there but she knew it wasn't going to be good. She climbed the stairs slowly. With each step that she achieved, she felt like she was getting a little bit closer to hell. She kept on thinking about her brother-in-law's body parts in the chair downstairs. She knew the Links were vicious and scary but she couldn't fathom what could possibly do that to a human being. His head was half...melted. The chair was wet with blood and fluids. She needed to focus on something else. If she kept thinking about what she saw she might start to hyperventilate again.
She stood at the top of the stairs and looked from one end of the hallway to the other. On one end would be Charlie's room, on the other, Julie's room. In the center was the bathroom.
"Charlie?" She said softly. She knew it couldn't have been loud enough for anyone to hear but she had trouble forcing her voice to be louder. She cleared her throat. "Charlie?"
She slowly headed down the hallway to Charlie's room. A board under her foot creaked and it made her jump. She steadied herself and gripped the gun close to her. She wanted to shoot everything. If she had a big enough flame thrower she'd set the world on fire. She reckoned that it was good that she didn't have any real power because if she did, all would be lost.
The door to Charlie's room was open. She didn't need to step in to know that the pile of clothes, blood, fluid, and various body parts on the floor in front of her was Julie. She knew it was her. She knew it was. She crouched down with tears streaming out of her eyes and snot starting to drip out of her nose. Her face twisted in a sad grimace. She tried hard not to whine, but one escaped her lips anyway. She saw a glimmer of light reflect off a piece of gold on the floor at her feet, so she reached over and picked it up. She looked at the locket in her hand for a moment before it burned her and she quickly flipped it away. She stood up and tried to wipe whatever it was that was burning her hand off. Her hand blistered.
"Shit!" She ran to the bathroom sink and ran water over her hand, but it didn't help much. She reached into the medicine cabinet and grabbed some talcum powder and frantically shook it all over her hand. "What the fuck is this?"
The talcum powder stuck to the burns but it stopped the progression of the acid. She started to sob. That was her sister’s locket. She never took it off. One didn’t have to be a genius to figure out what happened. Her son, Charlie, had turned like the rest of them and he killed Julie and her husband. She went back into Charlie’s room and crouched back down next to the locket. She stared at it for a moment. She knew exactly what was in there. It was a photo of Julie and her son, Adam. They had lost Adam when he was only two. He died of kidney failure after he ingested some chemicals he found under the kitchen sink. Ever since then she showered Charlie will love and gifts. Kera knew Charlie didn’t have hatred in his heart. He would have never hurt Julie under normal circumstances. Tears rolled down her face as she took a deep breath. She noticed a pen on the floor so she grabbed it and pressed it under the chain and picked up the necklace with it. She stood up to bring it to the bathroom to wash it off and douse it with talcum powder. When she turned around she noticed a photo pinned to the wall. It was of her and Charlie. It was years ago, before the Link virus. Their faces were side by side with their cheeks touching. They had the biggest smiles on their faces. In the background, you could see a Ferris wheel. Kera smiled softly as she pulled the photo off the wall and slid it into her pocket with her free hand.
After she covered the necklace and locket in talcum powder, she placed it in a plastic bag and put it in a backpack she found in Julie’s room. She knew she would need some things, so she helped herself to Julie’s stuff. She changed into jeans and a t-shirt, then she picked out a pair of sneakers. Julie’s cell phone was on the corner of the bed. Kera picked it up and swiped it open with her finger. She knew she didn’t need a phone. She had no one to call even if the lines were working. But she also knew there were probably hundreds of pictures on it. She sat down on the corner of the bed and looked at a few of the recent photos Julie took. Charlie might have been a Link, but he looked happy in her pictures. She touched his face with her finger sadly and then put th
e phone in her backpack. When she went into the bathroom to get a few things her eyes fell on a prescription bottle with her brother-in-law's name on it. It was a half full bottle of oxycodone. She picked up the bottle and stared at it. She didn’t know if it was enough to overdose but she was willing to give it a try. What kind of life was she going to have anyway? She was thirty-five and her family was gone. Her child was a literal monster. She could take the pills and just lie down on Julie’s bed and wait for the end. She filled a cup with water, opened the bottle, and dumped a bunch of pills in her hand. Tears streamed down her face. As she was about to put them in her mouth she saw movement out of the corner of her eye from the window. She turned to look. Through the window, she could see three black children walking down the street. She brought the pills closer to her mouth and got ready to take them but her eyes kept wandering to the children outside. It looked like two young boys and an older girl who held both of their hands pulling them closer to her as they moved. The girl kept looking around. Kera wondered if she was looking for help or if she was looking for Links. She knew the thought was utterly stupid. Of course, she was looking for both. She just needed one.
