by Maxey, Phil
“Whatever you say, soldier dude.”
“Where are you going?” said Jess.
“The hell out of this city.”
“I have to get to Jefferson.”
The light-haired man sneered. “We just came from there. It’s almost as bad as this City. We ain’t going back.”
“We’re leaving both,” said Arlo. “Heading south!”
She sat forward. “You don’t understand. I have to go there. There’s something I need to get.”
“Nothing’s worth dying for, lady,” came from the driver.
“Then drop me and my daughter off. We will find our own way.”
The van’s speed remained constant.
“Letting you out here, would be a death sentence,” said the younger man. “And I’m not about to kill—”
Time was running out and she was trapped in a van heading in the wrong direction. “There’s a vaccine!” The words spurted from her.
Eugene looked incredulous. “It came from another planet. How could there be a vaccine already?”
She shook her head, the effort was becoming tiring. “You just have to trust me, I’m a microbiologist. My company developed a vaccine, which stops the…” The soldier had already turned from her. She pulled her coat off and pulled up her sleeve, holding up her right arm. “Look!”
The soldier and her daughter both looked aghast. Jess’s forearm had the musculature of a weight lifter, but that wasn’t what both of them were looking at, for her skin was covered in what appeared to be a lattice of scales. It was the first time Jess had seen her arm as well and it scared her.
“I’m sorry about your deformed arm, lady, but what’s that got to do…”
He scrambled back, raising his M4 rifle at the same time. Jess automatically pulled Sam behind her.
“Arlo!” shouted Eugene, not daring to take his eyes from the woman just a few feet away. “She’s a mutant. Arlo!”
She shook her head. “I’m not a… mutant. I took the vaccine… twice actually. It stopped me from fully, changing.”
“Yeah, but your arm!”
“Well, I was a bit slow taking it. But apart from this, I’m no different.” She wasn’t sure if she believed that.
He nodded towards Sam. “She take it too?”
“Yes, and a few others whom I was traveling with. But it only lasts twenty-four hours. I know where more of the vaccine is. That’s where I was trying to get to.”
“Jefferson City?”
“Can you lower the rifle?” He did. “Around there. A friend of mine has a place. He told me he has more vaccine.”
“Even if what you’re saying is true,” said Arlo, not altering course. “We’re immune. We don’t need this vaccine, and it’s not going to stop you from being mashed up by those things if you bump into them!”
Jess leaned forward again, Eugene tried not to flinch, but did so anyway. “But it’s my daughter and I’s, only hope to survive this madness. We’re not immune. If we don’t get it soon, we’re going to change…”
Eugene let out a breath. Swiping a hand across his square unshaven jaw. “Well… shit.” He looked over his shoulder to the cab up front. “Arlo. Take the next left. We’re heading back to Jefferson.”
*****
11: 58 a.m. Highway 50, western outskirts of Jefferson City.
Landon glanced over his shoulder to Josh asleep in the back of the van. He was lying in the sleeping bag, Donnie sleeping on the lower part. A piece of plastic bag, hastily taped across the hole in the driver’s door window, flapped in the wind.
“He seems a good kid,” said the young woman.
Landon looked back to the highway and the browns and greens of the trees that bordered it. A white building sat on a hill to his left, which from a sign he saw a few miles back, was a hotel. He thought of all the people that must have been staying there, when the plague hit. “Umm… you got any of your own?”
“Kids?”
“Yeah.”
“Nah.”
“Brothers? Sisters?”
She looked to her right, out of the side window. “Some, haven’t seen them for ages. You really think you’re going to find your wife and daughter?”
They moved under an overpass then changed lane to move around a semi-truck, the rear of its trailer teetering on the edge of the embankment to their left.
“They’re alive and heading to the same location I am, so yeah I do.”
“You’re a cop, aren’t you?”
Landon resisted smiling but did so anyway. “Is it that obvious…”
“The way you ask questions, how you started the van… oh, you owe me for the window.”
“Why you driving this thing, anyway? You could have your pick of vehicles?”
She looked away again. “It was how I left home. I needed somewhere to call my own. Saw some videos online of people living in vans. So I bought this old van and traveled a bit…”
“And you were traveling with your boyfriend and the old guy?”
“Er… well, yeah, I guess, so this vaccine was made by your wife’s company?”
It was obvious to Landon she wanted to change the subject. His instincts were telling him most of what she had told him was a lie, but that was okay for now. “Yeah, looks that way.”
“But… they already had it?”
“Yup.”
She scrunched her face in confusion.
He glanced at her. “We don’t know how they had it. We’re just glad they do… You’re lucky that you were all immune… not being related and all…”
She remained silent as they passed a white spire and red brick of a church perched at the top of a slope. Below it, across a faded beige field were cars, some overturned. They all pointed away from the place of worship, towards the highway.
They both looked away from the scene of a failed escape.
“You seen the things up close?” she said.
“Yeah. Too close. I leaned quickly to stay as far away as possible.”
“They’re… crazy looking up close. Like melted people.” She shivered, wrapping her arms around her elbows.
Landon steered to the right, moving onto the exit.
She looked shocked. “What are you doing? You don’t want to go into the middle of the city! Those things are everywhere!”
“I got no choice. Jess and I agreed that we would find the most obvious landmark in Jefferson, and wait for each other there, if we got separated. We did, so that’s where I’m heading.”
She shook her head. “No offence, I’m sorry for your loss and all, but if your wife went to the center then she’s gone, and we will be too if you take us there!”
“What’s going on?” said a sleepy Josh, appearing between the seats.
Landon continued following the exit, quickly arriving at an intersection. An abandoned brown pickup sat in the center. He steered around it and headed south down a hill, but then slowed. A single story building, a few hundred yards lower down caught his eye. A flag with insignia sat outside, next to a plinth that proudly stated ‘Jefferson country highway patrol.’ He sped up then steered suddenly left into one of the five empty parking slots.
“There are no police!” said Tracey. “They gone! Like the military!” She nervously looked at the buildings opposite. A restaurant, fast food joint and what looked like a dentist sat innocently.
“If we can get into the armory, they’ll have weapons. And if it’s as bad as you say it is a few miles further on. We’re going to need them. You stay with Josh and watch the road. If you see anything, hit the horn.”
“Um, the horn don’t work.”
“Shout, whatever you need to do.”
She let out a breath and nodded.
He looked back at his son. “I won’t be long, maybe ten minutes. Okay?” Josh remained glum but nodded.
“Hey maybe you should take your dog?” said Tracey. “Might warn you or something?”
Landon quickly dismissed the idea. “Better he warns y
ou both, being out there. Right then.” He looked at the same buildings she had and on not seeing any movement from them or at either ends of the street which continued down into a valley, pushed the door open and listened. The silence reflected the stillness. He then jumped down, closed it, ran across the muddy grass, past the plinth and flag pole to the main entrance of dark glass double doors and pressed his face up against the cold glass, trying to make out what was inside. Only hints of seats and a counter could be seen.
He glanced back to the road then the van and leaned on the heavy door, pushing it inwards. The interior was clean and undamaged. A good sign, he thought. A small foyer with a counter and glass shielding was behind a small seating area. A rack of leaflets sat against a wall, with a peg-board behind which was covered in news of local events. He sniffed the air, which smelled… normal. Also good. He made his way to the only other door and listened against the wood and not hearing anything on the other side, pushed it open to reveal a small corridor with two doors. One leading to the area behind the counter, the other to the rest of the station. He had a good idea of where the armory would be and quickly moved down the corridor, not hesitating to push the other door open.
The air was thick with an odor which he instantly recognized as rotting flesh. The kind of death which belonged in the ground, not available to the elements. The room he had entered was large and open plan. An office with desks, computers and potted plants, which were quickly becoming dried and brown. Another wave of the smell hit him, giving away its location in the room, which was towards the back corner, exactly where he needed to go, for on the back wall was the door marked ‘Armory.’ He also knew there was no point trying to get into it without having a keycard. Sometimes he would keep it in his desk drawer while working, and he was hoping others did the same.
All would be pointless though if he wasn’t alone in the station, so he crept along the aisle near the wall, keeping low, his gaze fixed on the far corner. It wasn’t long before his eyes confirmed what his nose already knew. A body, or something that used to be one, lay on the ground. A former detective by the looks of the pieces of suit that resided over the few limbs that still looked human. In a flash of invasive images, it was him on the ground, long since dead. He shook his head to rid the vision from his mind.
He was sweating despite the temperature being not much over zero. He walked closer to the remains.
Immune…
But the individual’s luck didn’t save him as the virus, or perhaps a creature, still tried its best to change the man, killing him in the process.
Landon almost missed it, but what light seeped through blinds in the side windows of the room, glinted off the top of a piece of plastic hanging from the dead man’s neck.
Keycard…
There was no way Landon was going to touch the body, or the brown liquid that surrounded it, so he looked around, finding a pen near a framed photo of the man with his wife then leaned in, doing his best to hold his breath, and poked the exposed chest area until he nudged the—
The body jolted, making Landon jump backwards, almost falling over the office chair behind him.
Eyes.
They were open and for a moment Landon seriously thought he was alive, the idea being worse than if he were dead, but he was dead, for when Landon stood back up, the eyes remained fixed in place, not moving or dilating.
Virus, still… doing something to the body.
He knew Jess would have a better explanation for what just happened, but all he knew was that he needed to get out of the station as quickly as he could. He chose another pen and repeated the procedure, being ready for another movement from the body, but this time the damaged, altered appendages remained still, and he managed to slide the keycard and accompanying strap over the man’s head. He then took it to the water cooler and poured a good amount over it just to be sure. He still wouldn’t let his skin touch it, and by using several tissues, picked it up and slid it into the slot near the secure looking door, which produced a clunking noise and opened a few inches.
Landon pushed it further and moved inside the small room with the racks, which were completely full.
They never even got a chance to fight back.
The idea angered him and he thought about his own station, and the colleges which must have been out on the streets of the Denver when the virus hit. He let out a frustrated breath and looked back into the office, spotting what he was going to need. He quickly walked to a large plastic box which sat on a desk then returned to the armory, immediately filling it with boxes of ammo from the various drawers, then piling four handguns, two twelve gauge riot shotguns, two AR-15s and finally the four radios left on the rack. He also grabbed three, then five flak jackets, placing his arms through the loops, to be able to carry it all, and lifted the heavy box.
A noise came from outside the room. He quietly put the box back down, took out one of the shotguns, making sure it was loaded and crept to the open door, his gun already heading towards the body to the right.
“What are you doing in here?” he said to Tracey, who was halfway between him and the door he originally came in from. “You should be with Josh!”
“You were taking...” She scrunched her nose up. “Man, it stinks in here.”
“Quickly come here.”
She ran forward then stumbled against the wall on seeing the body. “Oh, that’s where the smell is coming from.”
“You handled a gun before?”
“Umm… hunting rifle.”
He showed her the assault rifle. “Safety off. Butt up against your shoulder, aim down the sight and short bursts.” She nodded and he handed it to her then went back in, grabbing a bullet-proof jacket and gave that to her as well. “Put that on.” He did the same and they both quickly left the station.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
12: 21 p.m. Highway 50, western outskirts of Jefferson City.
Jess and Sam sat on the only two seats available in the back of the van. One was close to the small computer desk, which a laptop sat on, and the other was further back, near the stove. Sam had already tried to work the computer, but Arlo somehow sensed when she was near it and shouted. He was a little sensitive about who used the thing.
Thoughts raced through Jess’s mind of how Landon and Josh survived. Despite the reality that they had died, she couldn’t go on unless she believed they hadn’t. And she needed to, for her daughter, but then somehow they had and a part of her still didn’t believe it.
I abandoned them…
A wave of guilt flooded through her. She could have looked harder, she could have done anything but just presume they were dead and leave. The questions wanted to pile up in her mind, but she resisted them. Reckoning would come in four and a half days time when the nightmare was over. All that mattered now was to get to Amos’s home, get the vaccine into Sam and herself, then get to whatever the most obvious landmark was in Jefferson.
Meg will find them, or they will find us.
She didn’t know much about the two that had saved them. Arlo, the older of the two, said he had taken to the road a few months ago. That chat in secret chat servers was mentioning something about a ‘great reset’ was coming and it would involve space. He wanted to be mobile when it happened to avoid the fallout, literally, but hadn’t banked on a virus wiping everyone out, or worse changing them. He also couldn’t believe that he was immune.
The other was a sergeant in the army, stationed at a base outside Kansas City. But the military weren’t prepared for what happened. No one was, but… her company.
Since leaving Rocky Pine she hadn’t thought about Biochron much. But the awkward fact of the vaccine was an itch in her mind that she wanted an answer to. How could they know? There were several possibilities, none of which led to anywhere good. One was they somehow already had a sample of what the probe brought back. Maybe the probe was just one of many, but the only one the public knew about? Or perhaps, and this was the idea that she hated the most, making her sto
mach churn each time she seriously considered it. Perhaps there was nothing alien on that probe that crashed. Perhaps nothing at all? She found it curious how fast the spores spread. Even with jet streams and storms, could the vaccine have spread across the entire North American continent within twelve hours?
She didn’t want to think about the obvious conclusion, but her scientific mind wouldn’t let her ignore Occam’s razor. The simplest solution to why her family had been running for their lives was that the virus was entirely manmade, and had been released at multiple locations across the country at the same time. But as the van turned off the highway, it wasn’t travel sickness that was making her feel ill, but the fact that she used to work for the company that may have been responsible for genocide. Was her own work involved somehow? She had created numerous breakthroughs for them since working there, some which were patented, and she was fired on the day—
“We’re not far from entering the outskirts of the city,” said Eugene, over his shoulder. “Where exactly do we need to go? Because I don’t want to hang around in this place for long.”
“It’s on the river, few miles east… or maybe north. I… remember thinking, it looked unsafe or something, like it was about to fall down the bank or whatever it was built on.”
“Okay, so we head to the river and follow the road, shouldn’t be too difficult…”
*****
12: 26 p.m. Jefferson City.
“That’s got to be it,” said Landon. They were parked at a high point which eventually led to a bridge which spanned the Missouri River, but a few miles to the southwest sat a gray silhouette of a dome and spire, just visible through mist. The clouds were now uniform and the rain was turning to sleet.
