“Sergeant Valentine?” she called over her shoulder. “Sir, will you please come in here?”
A man, or so I assumed from his large build, roughly shoved the flapping tent door out of the way before striding in. He had to be at least six-four, two inches taller than me. Similar to the woman, he wore the white biohazard suit and dark goggles.
Fury clenched my gut and made my hands ball into fists. I barely controlled my sneer. MRRA. I was surrounded by the sick people in my tribe while the suited-up Makanza Research and Response Agency soldiers waited for us to die.
The man placed his hands on his hips. Thick rubber gloves covered his hands and half of his forearms. “Who is he?”
The woman shook her head. “Not sure. I haven’t checked his wristband.”
“Why is he out of bed? He shouldn’t be able to stand at this point.” The man pulled out his tablet. “Is he still healthy? He shouldn’t be here if he is.”
“I know,” she replied.
“I have a name,” I growled. “And where are my brothers and sisters?” I stood up straighter despite the pain. It was agony. Fire and a ripping sensation filled my limbs. It felt as if someone were doing surgery on me without anesthetic, cutting into me and continually making tiny, merciless incisions again and again.
It took everything in me not to howl in pain.
“Who are your brothers and sisters?” the man asked.
I took a deep breath, which did little to lessen the torture. “Mina, Lars, Elliot, and—” I cleared my throat as tears pricked my eyes. “And Aurora Kinder. We were all together at our house when the soldiers came.”
I blinked the tears back and groaned, unable to help myself. My muscles! Another fresh round of stabbing began in my arms.
Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to stay upright.
“He’s talking and acting like normal.” The woman muttered the words quietly. “Did we make a mistake? He looks healthy.”
The man shoved his tablet back in his pocket. “Regardless, he won’t be now. He’s surrounded by a hundred infected people on the verge of dying.” The man didn’t try to speak quietly. “He’ll be dead within weeks even if he was healthy.”
The casual way they spoke of me, as if I weren’t even there, made my hands tighten into fists. “My name is Davin Kinder, and I want to know where my brothers and sisters are!”
My feral-like yell tore through the tent.
The woman stepped back, and the man reached for his gun.
“You better calm down right now, Mr. Kinder.” The sergeant’s voice was deadly quiet.
I seethed in frustration. Suddenly, it became too much. More than anything, I wanted to knock the guy out.
With a ferocious snarl, I took a step toward him. The world turned into a blur, and—I stood right in front of him.
The woman shrieked, and the man took a step back so fast, he tripped and fell.
“Help!” the woman screamed. “Help us!”
I stared down at my legs as if they didn’t belong to me. I’d just moved the fifteen-foot distance to the man as if it were nothing. What just happened?
Pounding boots sounded outside the tent. A dozen MRRA soldiers appeared in the doorframe. All of them wore biohazard suits, and they all had their guns raised.
“Get back!” one of them yelled.
I held my hands up. My palms trembled as shock set in. What the hell is happening to me?
“Down on your knees! Hands behind your head. Now!”
I collapsed to my knees. Pain seared through my thighs. It was so intense, a loud groan ripped from my mouth before I doubled over.
“What’s wrong with him?” a soldier asked, his gun pointed at my chest. “How is it possible he’s able to stand?” From the pitch of his voice, he sounded young.
The sergeant, who had fallen over, pushed himself up and dusted his suit off. I could tell he was looking at me through his dark goggles.
I writhed in agony from my position, no longer able to control myself as my muscles tore apart from within.
Not shifting his gaze, the sergeant rose to his full height as though commanding attention from the entire room. “I believe I know exactly what’s happening to him, Private,” the sergeant replied. “He’s Changing.”
CHANGE. THEY KEEP calling it a Change.
They’d moved me to a large, shared room at our local IHS hospital. Six beds filled the room, but I was the only person in there. I’d been in the same room for two days. Two long days. During that time, I hadn’t been told anything about my brothers and sisters. I hadn’t been allowed out. I hadn’t been given any answers.
Nothing.
It was two days of agony and hell wrapped into one. I wasn’t allowed to venture into the hall. I wasn’t allowed to call my mom. Nobody would tell me what the hell was happening to me.
All I knew was that I was different. I could feel it. Whatever the Change was, it wasn’t over. From the pain ripping through me, I knew that much.
But Change was an accurate term. I’d literally changed from how I used to be.
Pacing, I moved back and forth as bright sunlight streamed in through the window. I’d tried the door handle a few times, but it didn’t budge. And the window was a solid pane, so it wouldn’t open.
Tension strummed along my limbs in steady waves. My pacing increased. Before I knew it, I’d walked from one end of the room to the other in less than a second.
Stopping, I lifted my hands and stared at them as my heart slammed against my rib cage. Two hands. Ten fingers. I still looked like myself, but—
I eyed the water pitcher on the table by the bed. Go to it.
Everything turned into a blur.
The pitcher was in my hand.
Not even a second had passed.
Breathing harder, I gazed at where I had been standing. Fifteen feet. I just moved fifteen feet in less than a blink of an eye.
I dropped the pitcher, and it clattered to the floor. Water erupted from it like a geyser, but it didn’t stop me.
The window. Move to the window.
The world became a blur once more, then I stood looking at the street below. The curtains rustled in the shifted air.
It was at least twenty feet to reach here, yet it felt like inches.
My hands trembled as I steadied myself against the wall. Outside, the street was empty.
Closing my eyes, I rested my forehead against the windowpane. Needles continued to stab my arms and legs. The pain was still present—always present—but it was more bearable now. I no longer felt as if I were crawling right out of my skin.
The Change was bizarre, so incredibly bizarre.
If I was standing in the corner of the room, and I wanted to be at the other side, all I had to do was blink, and I was there.
The air would whoosh around me. My legs pumped like well-oiled hydraulic machines. I was impossibly fast, and I still felt like me. Yet. . .
I was no longer the human I’d once been.
THE SOUND OF the blaring TV filled my isolated hospital room. The anchorman from America News Network reported on the grim state of our country. The virus was everywhere, not just South Dakota. It was in every state in the lower forty-eight.
Within weeks, despite quarantining the reservation, it had spread like wildfire. Hundreds of thousands had already died.
The newscaster’s voice shook as he reported from ANN’s main studio in Des Moines. “The Makanza Research and Response Agency continues to work to control this outbreak. Given its severity and its likeness to the outbreak four years ago, the MRRA has begun calling it the Second Wave. The outbreak four years ago is now being referred to as the First Wave.”
“The First Wave and the Second Wave. Does that mean there will be a Third Wave?” I asked the sarcastic question out loud to no one in particular. It wasn’t the first time I’d talked out loud to myself. After all, I was the only person in the room to talk to.
I drummed my fingers on the hospital tray alongside my b
ed. A cool draft from a fan running in the corner blew across my face. The steady tap tap tap of my fingers accompanied the reporter’s sing-song tone.
Disgusted, I turned the TV off.
The First Wave. The Second Wave. Who cares what the hell it’s called?
Leaping from the bed, I began to pace. I’d been locked in this damned room for a week. An entire week.
Seven days of no contact with anyone. Seven days of wondering what had happened to my family. Seven days of being delivered food through a small opening in the door. And seven days of enduring the agony that was my Change.
It wouldn’t have been such a long one hundred sixty-eight hours if I’d had someone to talk to. I wished someone would just give me answers. Maybe Mina, Lars, or Elliot are Changing too. If they are, they’re alive.
The only solace I took was that the pain from my Change was gone. In the past twenty-four hours, it had completely subsided. I felt like myself again. Normal.
Only I wasn’t.
I moved too fast. Inhumanly fast. And the strange thing was, I never grew tired.
Just this morning, as the monotony of another long day rolled out in front of me, I thought I would scream in frustration. So I decided to run.
After my four hundredth lap around the room, I’d stopped counting. But I did know one thing—the room had turned into a blur. And the longer I’d run, the more I realized I could keep running.
I never felt winded.
So is that what I should do again? Run? Just keep running circles in this room like a caged dog chasing his tail?
I stopped my manic pacing as my chest rose and fell heavily in anger. “Damn the MRRA!” I slammed my fist into the hospital tray.
It exploded into a thousand pieces.
My eyes widened as I took an instinctive step back. What the hell?
Pounding blood filled my ears. Plastic shards littered the floor. The internal metal frame of the tray teetered in the air, the squeak squeak of it filling the room.
I stood rooted to the spot, staring at what I’d just done. Lifting my hand, I gazed at my palm and fingers. They were intact. The skin hadn’t broken. My fist didn’t even hurt.
One punch.
One punch from me had done that.
So it’s not just speed? I’m stronger now too?
With a racing heart, I stepped toward the bed. I folded my hand over the metal bed frame and dug my fingers into it. The cool metal felt smooth and hard.
Closing my eyes, I applied more pressure.
The metal bent. An ear-piercing wail from the crushing metal sounded like nails on a chalkboard. It felt as if I were crumpling a paper bag. It was that easy.
My eyes flashed open. Holy shit!
My heart beat so fast, I thought I would pass out. I held my hands up and stared at them as if they belonged to someone else.
I’m impossibly fast and strong. And if I can destroy a metal hospital bed by simply squeezing my hand, then—
I turned to the door.
A door handle and lock were all that stood between me and the outside, between me and answers to what had happened to my family.
11 – BREAKOUT
I was at the door before I could second-guess how wise my decision was. I gripped the smooth door handle. It was a simple doorknob with a twist lock. A deadbolt had been added above it.
With a quick wrench of my wrist, the flimsy door lock snapped.
I rammed my shoulder against the door. The door heaved outward as the solid wood splintered. The deadbolt groaned in protest. Grunting, I did it again but harder.
The door exploded against my body. Only a twinge of pain followed.
“What the hell?” An MRRA guard stationed outside the door bolted to a stand. Shards of wood littered the hospital hallway.
I kicked through the rest of the door and stepped over the threshold. My heart pounded from adrenaline as my fingers flexed into fists before I faced him.
He fumbled for his gun. “How . . .”
I broke into a run and was at the end of the hallway before he could unlatch the gun from his holster.
Stairwell. Look for the stairwell!
Crackling from the soldier’s radio fell behind me along with his faint words as he called for help. “The Kazzie broke out! He’s—”
The words became too faint as I raced toward the exit sign. With a burst of power, I barreled through the stairwell door and was down two flights of stairs within seconds.
Keeping up my sprint, I flew through the main exterior door.
I didn’t stop.
The world whizzed by me in a blur. Fresh air streamed across my face.
Only one thought dominated my mind—find my brothers and sister. Get to the tents!
The morning sun lit the land. Within seconds, I’d left the town’s empty streets behind me as the billowing white tents came into view.
Everything in my peripheral vision morphed into a blurred sea of color. Springtime prairie grass. Blue sky. Bright sunshine. It all became a fuzzy kaleidoscope.
Only one thing stayed in focus—the tents in my direct line of sight.
My legs pumped rhythmically. Oxygen flowed in and out of my lungs as if I were breathing normally. The sheer power that coursed through my limbs created a high in me I’d never experienced before.
For the first time, I understood the magnitude of what Makanza had done to me.
I reached the tents seconds later. They were stationed miles outside of town, yet I’d covered the distance in less than a minute.
I ground to a halt a hundred yards away and collapsed onto the grass, which hid me from view.
Amazingly, my breathing stayed normal. I wasn’t even panting. Peeking over the grass, I assessed my surroundings.
Trucks raced by on the highway. Since I’d stuck to the prairie, the soldiers hadn’t spotted me, but I could tell they were looking for me. MRRA soldiers in their white biohazard suits hurried all around the tents. A siren wailed. The faint sound of a megaphone came next.
“Male, black hair, six-two, blue eyes, around two hundred pounds. Last seen wearing a t-shirt and jeans . . .”
I stopped listening as I scanned the dozens of tents. How am I going to find them?
The tents were huge. Each held at least a hundred infected people. Start with the first one and work your way down. Move fast so they don’t see you.
Adrenaline pumped through my veins like steam through an engine. Focusing on the first tent, I took a deep breath before taking off at a sprint.
The world again turned into a blur. Tall prairie grass swished around my legs as I sped across the land. If I wasn’t running for my life and trying so desperately to find my family, I probably would have enjoyed the exhilarating feeling.
As it was, I skidded to a halt when I reached the first tent before flattening to the ground and rolling beneath the canvas wall.
I rolled right into a large supply chest.
It shuddered against my rolling body but then stilled, inadvertently blocking me from view. In a way, that worked to my advantage since it hid me from prying eyes within the tent. However, that also meant that I didn’t know if I was alone.
The stark-white tent roof billowed above me. For a moment, I just listened. The siren outside continued to wail as commanding officers yelled orders. The tent walls didn’t insulate the interior or provide any sound barrier.
“Which direction was he headed?” The voice was loud and clear.
I stiffened and didn’t move. From the sounds of it, the man was directly on the other side of the tent’s wall—outside. I had been there only seconds before.
“He was heading this way from the hospital. If you see him, shoot.”
My breath stopped. They’ll actually kill me?
“We should have moved him sooner,” the first soldier replied. “Valentine was right. We don’t have the resources here to contain him, and now, he’s out.”
Burning rage ignited inside me. Each day, it became more appa
rent that I was no longer viewed as human. I was something else now. Other. An abomination. Even though everything inside me felt the same—I still had the same thoughts, the same emotions, and the same memories. Yet to them, the damned government, I was a liability, something to be caged.
Don’t think about that now. Just find Mina, Lars, and Elliot.
Forcing the tidal wave of anger down, I waited for the men’s footsteps to pass before I pushed up to sitting so I could peek over the supply chest.
Rows of beds lay out in front of me. Most of them were empty.
My stomach plummeted when I realized why that was. Almost everyone has died. These were full last week.
Only one soldier in a biohazard suit and goggles was in the tent. The person was small, obviously a woman. She walked up and down the row of beds, stopping at the ones still occupied, assessing each dying person’s state.
How do I get by her?
But before I could make a decision, the soldier glanced my way. With a surprised gasp, she stepped back.
Too late. She already spotted me.
I lunged to her side, catapulting over the chest and covering the twenty feet in one impossible leap. Raw power ignited my limbs as I grasped the soldier’s arm.
She screamed, but I brought my hand to her mouth before the sound could fully penetrate the air.
“Don’t make a sound again, and I won’t hurt you.”
Her chest heaved underneath my grasp. Guilt flooded me that I’d terrified her. I had absolutely no intention of hurting her, but she didn’t know that. To her, I was probably a wild-eyed Native American Kazzie who was threatening her life.
I loosened my grip. “I just want to find my family. I’m trying to find my brothers and sister: Mina, Lars, and Elliot Kinder. Do you know where they are?”
My hand muffled her words when she tried to speak.
“If I take my hand off your mouth, do you promise not to scream? Please. I just want to find my family.”
A long five seconds passed. Her shoulders rose and fell as stifled breaths filled her lungs. She finally nodded.
The Complete Makanza Series: Books 0-4 Page 7
