by C. J. Boyle
Martha wanted to know her story. Melissa told her the long boring story. Several years ago, when she was only seventeen, she was diagnosed with leukemia. Initially, the doctors believed that she could be treated successfully with chemotherapy. Her parents were devastated and thought they'd lose their golden child. She never really saw herself the way they did. Worse yet, they seemed to treat her brother like he was useless. Willie got himself in trouble with the cops more than a few times as a teen, but that was no reason to write him off completely. Melissa loved her brother so much and it hurt her to watch her parents lose faith in him and treat him the way they did. The look on Willie's face when they threw him out of the house was one of utter disbelief. He joined a gang that promised to be his new family and that was that. She tried to stay in touch with him, but in his eyes, she was the reason why he was treated so badly by their parents. Her heart was broken. She only gave Martha the bullet points of her story. There was no need to tell her how devastated she was to lose her brother's love and trust. She always hoped that she'd have the opportunity to reconnect with her brother, but that wasn't in the cards. His cause of death was gang-related violence. There was no real need to fill Martha in on the details and use terms like 'revenge killing.' She still remembered how the doctor came out into the hospital waiting room and asked her mother if they could donate Willie's organs. Melissa was shocked when her mother informed the doctor that they would need his bone marrow harvested first.
"At first I wasn't going to agree to it. But Willie was dead no matter what. At least this way, a piece of him is always with me." She was staring into the floor and beyond it, remembering the difficult ordeal.
The doctor wrote in her notebook. Melissa found it odd that a doctor of her stature would be so old school and still write down everything with a pen and paper. Martha looked up at her. "How long after the transplant did you start to change?"
"My eyes started changing a few weeks afterward."
"And do you still have a regular menstrual cycle?" Martha asked as if it were an everyday question.
Melissa shifted in her chair, thinking about how much she just wanted to leave and go find Carl's brothers to see how they were doing. "Every twenty-eight days like clockwork."
Martha seemed quite happy to hear that news. "My last questions, can I draw some blood and would you agree to an ultrasound?"
"Sure. Whatever you need." Melissa didn't like the position she found herself in but she wanted to help.
~ The Nursery ~
It was almost pitch dark and freezing. Carl, Brody, and the boy were huddled together shivering underneath a blanket that the boy had been sleeping on. Brody promised himself that, if he got through this, he would carry something that smells good that he could rub under his nose from that point until forever. He was sure he was lying in a mixture of shit and piss, and he had to continuously remind himself that it probably wasn't wise to get up and start screaming and shaking his arms as if he was climbing out of a sea of poo. All he wanted out of life at that moment was to sit in boiling water mixed with a heavy dose of bleach. He held the boy close, trying to keep him warm. Before they all huddled together, Carl had taken his jacket off and tried his level best to fit it to the boy snug enough to keep the chill off. How was it that this child was able to survive on his own in Link country? Did the Links keep him and his mother in storage to eat later? And his unfortunate mother was eaten first? The poor kid has probably been cold and starving for days. When he looked at the sleeping boy he found it hard not to imagine that perhaps one day he and Kera might have a kid. Both of them were still under forty. The smell around him knocked him into reality. As much as he loved Kera, there was no way he wanted to bring a kid into this world. Everyone was just trying to survive and it wasn't exactly going too well.
They had already decided that they couldn't escape at night because they couldn't see anything but the Links could see everything. It was best to wait until morning. Of course, sleeping would be impossible for both he and Carl. Instead, he tried to take his mind off the smell and his surroundings by thinking about Kera. She was a remarkable woman. One of his favorite memories of her was about a week after The Turn. She was in a pretty dark place and had tried to take her own life mere days before. She was in the common area trying to busy herself and wasn't aware at the time that he was keeping tabs on her. She saw a very dirty black man sitting on the bottom of the stairs. He looked lost and a little dazed and confused. Maybe Kera saw in him a kindred spirit or something. She walked up to him. "What are you doing just sitting here?"
The man looked up at her, "What else would I be doing?"
Kera squatted down beside him so that they'd be eye level to each other. "What did you do before?"
The man looked around and shook his head. "Well, ma'am, I didn't do anything." He rubbed his finger under his nose and sniffed. He shrugged, "I was a bum, I guess."
It didn't seem to phase Kera. Nor did she take it as an excuse. "You weren't always a bum. What did you do before that?"
The man smiled and his eyes brightened, "I was a cook in the Navy."
Kera nodded, "Well, go get your ass a shower and some new duds, and then get in the damn kitchen, Cook." She slapped him on the shoulder before getting up. "We don't have anyone who knows how to cook for a large number of people."
Brody watched Kera walk away. The man stayed where he was for a minute. He smiled, laughed a little bit, and then wiped a tear from his eye. She had given the man a purpose. Something he clearly needed. Brody didn't even know what the man's real name was, because ever since that day, everyone called him 'Cook'.
At that point in time, he liked her but he wasn't in love with her. Somehow he got sucked into her gravitational pull. He once watched her help a woman clean her elderly father from head to toe just because it needed to be done. She definitely didn't have to do it. He, himself, probably wouldn't have done it. She just cared about people. He frowned in the darkness. It was just too bad that she didn't seem to care about herself. She was self-destructive and he was very worried about the effect it would have on her if he didn't return.
~ The Confinement ~
Martha stood outside the door where Kera was being held in solitary confinement. The two of them weren't exactly friendly. The door wasn't even locked. Martha went inside and when she saw her, it broke her heart. The skin around Kera's eyes were very red and inflamed. She must have been rubbing her eyes and wiping her face with her hands repeatedly. She never even looked up at Martha.
"Oh, Kera," Martha sat down next to her.
She sniffed hard and swallowed a load of snot down her throat. "What are you doing here? You never cared about what happens to me." Her voice was terribly hoarse and raspy.
Martha assumed it was from screaming so much. "That is not true and you know it," she leaned forward a little bit to try to look into her eyes. "You need to stop messing with your face."
"Why?" Kera bit dead skin off the side of her finger and chewed on it. "It doesn't really matter."
Martha was never one to pull any punches. "Are you planning on offing yourself again?" She reached over and moved Kera's hair behind her ear, "You must have loved him very much."
"I barely know him," Kera looked at her out of the corner of her eye briefly. "Just because I tried to kill myself once doesn't mean I'm suicidal." She chewed on her fingers some more.
"I was there. I saw you go nuclear. I actually got a little scared you might blow up and take us all out. It was pretty drastic," Martha leaned back against the wall. "I mean, I've broken bad news to people before...and I've never seen anything like that."
Kera had a sudden involuntary gasp of air, the kind that always accompanies prolonged sobbing. "I wasn't just losing Brody. I was...I am... losing everything he represented."
"What do you mean?"
"I started to think that maybe I could be happy. That maybe I could have a future with a man like Brody." Kera shook her head, "I should have known better."
"Why don't you come back to the Mountain with me?" Martha smiled.
Kera finally looked at her, "Why would I ever do that?"
Martha shrugged, "I have to use human subjects for an experiment. It could potentially kill them."
Kera furrowed her brow at her but didn't say anything.
Martha reached into her deep, jacket pocket and pulled out a red bottle of Gatorade. "Here, you need to keep hydrated. Drink some of this. It'll make you feel better." She handed it to her. 'Because I put codeine in it,' she thought. She hoped Kera would drink it and pass out.
Kera took it, "Can you just go away?" As Martha passed through the doorway, Kera called out to her and she turned back. "Thanks."
Martha was looking forward to spending the night with her husband. She already decided that she wasn't going to refer to him as her ex-husband anymore. What good did it do? As far as she was concerned, Shawn was hers forever and she was his. When she left solitary and started walking to the main building, she was immediately flanked by the military men who had followed her everywhere. Soon she would have to go back and continue her research, but tonight she was going to get her freak on.
Martha and Shawn lay in bed after playing a game of mattress tag. She spooned Shawn from behind because she was so much taller than him. He had a big grin on his face. She did too until she suddenly had a thought. "I don't want to ruin the moment but...why haven't you gone to see her?"
The smile drained away from his face, "I want to. I do. I just can't stand to see her like this."
She knew he thought of Kera as the daughter he never had. Part of her wished she had that kind of relationship with Kera too. But something didn't click between the two of them. It was probably the fact that Martha tried really hard to correct Kera when she was headed in the wrong direction. She resented it when Martha tried pointing her in the right direction and then when her life fell apart, it was easy to blame her. Shawn was the complete opposite. He tried to let her make her own mistakes and then let her cry on his shoulder when things fell apart. It was the epitome of an unhealthy relationship. Martha had enough when he was willing to break the law in order to keep an eye on her while she was in prison. If anyone had found out he could have ended up in jail too. Of course, they didn't have to worry about that anymore.
Chapter Seven
The Attempt On Lillian
Colonel Cockran sat in the War Room alone in his thoughts. He nursed bourbon straight out of the bottle. The realization that the human race would eventually perish from the world changed his plans entirely. He wanted every Link dead, period. Hawaii had already been cleared of Links and people were rescued and transported there on a daily basis. Life is apparently very good there. People go to sleep feeling safe and don't worry about monsters eating their faces off at all. There were already over fifty regulated safe zones all over the country. It was the unregulated ones that he was worried about. There were gangs taking over cities and promising protection in exchange for food and goods. He supposed he couldn't blame them. Everyone was surviving the only way they knew how. He took a big sip out of the bottle and then put it down on the table.
Reese walked in and sat down. Cockran didn't even look up. "The Phoenix Team reported in."
Cockran finally looked at him, thereby acknowledging that he was in the room. He blinked at him, waiting.
Reese took a deep breath and sighed. "They seem to believe California is Link free." He adjusted himself in the seat, "Sir, in light of recent events, do you think we should continue exterminating the Links?"
"You mean because they might actually hold the key to our survival?" The Colonel nodded sarcastically.
"Yes, Sir."
"I say...If humans are going to be extinct, then so are Links." He went back to staring at the wall.
Reese didn't like confronting the Colonel. "Sir, I think it might be wise to wait until we find out if we can use the Links to..."
"What? Incubate our young?" Cockran knew it was the smart move. He knew he should wait but he let his emotions take control of him.
Reese stood up, "I guess I'm just not ready to give up, Sir." He looked at him as if he had been disillusioned.
Cockran got up and left the room. He didn't need a snot nosed brat suggesting that he's not doing the right thing, even if he was right. He wandered around until he eventually found himself standing in front of Lillian's cell. He cocked his head to the side trying to find an angle where she actually looked like the woman he married. He wanted to choke her to death with his bare hands. If he thought he could do it without getting killed, he would. He couldn't stand that the thing that stood in front of him was alive and his wife was gone. He genuinely believed that, if his wife had a choice in the matter, she would choose death over being a savage monster. He let his anger stew in his mind for a few minutes. He finished off his bottle of bourbon and set it down on the counter. A button caught his attention. He looked at his wife and then back to the button. Without any parting words, he slammed his finger down on it.
Cockran watched the oxygen level go down rapidly. He looked up at his Link wife and watched it struggle to breathe. It soon fell against the glass face first and started to slide down towards the ground. He knew that she couldn't actually see him but he felt like she was looking at him. He watched her chest rise and fall in labored breaths. He watched the heart rate monitor go from rapid beats to slower ones to few and far between. Just as it flat lined he pressed the button to open the cell door and calmly walked over to it.
He stepped inside the cell and looked down at the abomination. Since the oxygen had returned, it was trying to catch its breath. He kneeled down and put his hands around her neck. He felt a sudden rush of anger and excitement. He gripped her throat so tight and so hard that he hoped he would feel a pop or snap. He looked into her eyes as the light inside started to fade. His blood pressure and his heart rate rose out of control. He breathed heavily as he got hot and started to sweat. He embraced the hate that he felt and squeezed.
"Why?"
He didn't know if he hallucinated it or if it was real. Either way, he flinched backward so fast he fell out of the cell. He was suddenly filled with shame and disgust for himself. He put both hands on his head as tears streamed down his face. He watched the thing that was his wife struggle for air. Soon it would be well enough to spit acid in his face and suck the goo he would become through a straw. He closed the cell door, returned the oxygen setting to normal, then left. He crossed a line that most people would never cross. It wasn't self-defense. It was plain old cruelty.
~ The B Team ~
The next morning JoJo walked carefully and purposefully with his new leg. He held one of the cell phones he downloaded the special app on. He knew there was no way he'd be able to find the men who were missing as long as he was in New Hope. He had to be within a mile of them to pick up their signal. The program showed where each person with the app was on a map. He had to find someone who was not only willing to take him to Denver but who was also willing to go in guns-a-blazing. He walked into the cafeteria. Whatever was cooking smelled fantastic. He breathed in the aroma and silently thanked God for bringing him to New Hope. He decided that he couldn't exactly rescue people on an empty stomach. He entered the food line and was pleased to find out where the wonderful smell was coming from. Cook made breakfast quiche. He grabbed his plate and brought it to the nearest table to wolf it down. After all, he didn't have time to dilly dally.
As he shoveled food in his mouth his eyes fell on Dean. He knew that Dean was somehow the only one that returned from the shopping spree the day before. He watched the man chew his food while he tried to figure out what the hell was tattooed on his neck. When he finally realized that it was a gun aiming up to his chin, JoJo rolled his eyes. "Whatta dickhead."
Dean looked at him. "Excuse me?"
JoJo didn't realize he said it out loud, "I said, you wanna head up a mission?"
Dean might have looked like a nineteen-year-old thug slash douc
hebag but he was actually quite well spoken. JoJo explained his plan to him and, even though Dean didn't understand any of the technical stuff, he was on board. He even had a few friends that he thought might be willing to go look for survivors.
"You see," JoJo licked butter off his finger, "when we get a signal from the phone, we can text it to see if someone responds."
"And if no one does, we turn around and come home?" Dean nodded and JoJo followed suite. "Why don't we just do your 'find a phone thing' and go shoot up the place? Regardless of whether or not someone answers."
JoJo paused to look at him to see if he was serious. "Sure, why not? While you're doing that, I'll wait in the truck."
