SIck

by Brett Battles

  “This is where my children are?”

  “As close as we can get.” Pax tilted his head toward the back. “Chloe will take you the rest of the way.”

  Though they were still taxiing, Pax unbuckled himself and got up. He retrieved the metal case from the cabinet, then set it on the floor between his and Ash’s seats. He undid the clasps and lifted off the top. Protective foam lined the box, while another thick sheet covered whatever was inside. Pax pulled this away, revealing a small arsenal.

  “You liked the SIG so much, I got you three,” Pax said as he touched the hilt of one of the three SIG SAUER P229 pistols inside. “You have four boxes of ammo, three extra mags…well, five if you only use one gun. I also packed a pair of binoculars, and something we call little bangs.”

  “Little bangs?”

  Pax moved a few things around, then pulled out a hard plastic rectangular box about an inch thick, and opened the top. The inside was divided into two parts. On one side was a device that looked like a cell phone, complete with a touch-screen display. On the other side were a couple dozen half-inch squares lined up like crackers in a box, the majority of which were gray.

  Pax pulled out one of the squares. In the center was a smaller black box that barely rose above the surface. Running out from it were tiny wires that spread over the gray square.

  “See the number?” Pax asked.

  Ash took a harder look. On the black box a number had been painted in gray. Hard to read, but not impossible. This square was numbered one.

  “I see it.”

  Pax turned the gray square around. “This other side will stick pretty much anywhere. But you’ve gotta remove this first.”

  He flicked his finger across the edge, and Ash could see there was a clear plastic sheet covering the back.

  “Put this wherever you need it. Then you use this thing here.” He pointed at the black cell-phone-looking device. “This is your trigger device. Interface is easy. You input the unit number, then either set it off manually or set up a timer. These things don’t create a lot of damage, but they’re quite the noisemakers. Good for diversions if you need them.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Careful, though. You see these four here?” He touched four tiles that were grouped together. Unlike the others, they were white. “These do more than just make a noise. They’re what you use if you do need damage. They’ll blow a hole in pretty much anything you’ll come across. There’s only the four, so don’t confuse them with the others.”

  He closed the box and tucked it back in the case. He then gave Ash the emergency phone number Matt had mentioned, making him repeat it several times. It was an easy number. Ash knew he wouldn’t forget it.

  As soon as the plane stopped rolling, Pax said, “I believe this is your stop.”

  There was no one around as they stepped out of the jet. In fact, the whole airport seemed quiet and deserted. It was tucked between several green hills, and though Ash could see a few houses in the distance, there was no town visible.

  Pax nodded toward the hangar. “Your ride’s right over there.”

  Parked near the closed hangar door was a silver Honda Accord.

  The metal case went in the trunk, while Ash put his messenger bag in the back seat. Chloe had a dark green backpack. She tossed that into the footwell up front before climbing into the passenger seat.

  “You got GPS in there,” Pax told Ash. “It’s already preset to get you to the highway. Chloe will take over after that.”

  He held out his hand, and Ash took it.

  “You’ve been put in a terrible position, Captain,” Pax said. “Most people would have given up already. Think they crossed the wrong man when they found you.”

  “Yes,” Ash said. “They did.”

  Pax stepped back. “Don’t be a stranger.”

  By the time Ash got the car to the airport exit, the jet was already racing down the runway and taking off.

  He let the voice of the GPS guide him through the countryside. In his other life, he would have appreciated the beauty of the area, mainly because Ellen would have loved it.

  I should have brought her here.

  I should have brought her a lot of places.

  He gritted his teeth and continued to drive.

  When they finally reached the highway, the GPS stopped giving directions. Ash looked over and saw that Chloe was staring out the window.

  “Which way?” he asked. It was the first thing either of them had said since they’d gotten in the car.

  She didn’t move for a second, then she pulled up her head and looked over at him. “What?”

  “Which way? Pax said once the GPS stopped, you’d know where to go.”

  “Oh.” She leaned forward, looking out the window again, and seemed to notice their surroundings for the first time. “Where are we?”

  “At the freeway. North or south?”

  She started nodding. “South. Definitely south.”

  He headed for the on-ramp. “How far?”

  She glanced at him again, then returned her gaze to the window. “Fifteen-point-seven miles.”

  “Serious?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  He hesitated, then said, “Okay. Fifteen-point-seven miles.”

  “Almost point-six now.”

  • • •

  Since Ash knew he’d be shedding Chloe as soon as he didn’t need her any more, he was content to let the miles pass by in silence and avoid forming any kind of bond. For whatever reasons of her own, Chloe seemed fine with not talking, too.

  The first thing either of them said came from Chloe at exactly fifteen-point-four miles from where they’d entered the freeway. “Next exit.” Once they were on the off-ramp, she said, “To the right.”

  They were in a rural area, probably about fifty miles north of San Francisco. The area immediately surrounding them was hilly and green from recent rains. As they headed west the hills grew larger, and the trees started changing from scattered oaks and a few cottonwoods to a growing forest of evergreens.

  “How far are we going?” Ash asked.

  “At this speed, we’ll turn in nine minutes.”

  Ash was tempted to go a little faster, but the road was only two lanes and had become winding with plenty of blind turns.

  After a few minutes, Chloe said out of the blue, “They changed my face, too.”

  Ash glanced at her, then back at the road.

  “I’d be dead now if they hadn’t,” she added.

  Unable to stop himself, he said, “Is that why you’re helping me?”

  For several moments, she said nothing. Then, “I have to help. I have no choice.”

  Ash frowned. “Are you telling me that Matt forced you to be here?”

  “No. Of course not. After you get your children, if someone else needs help, you’ll have no choice, either. We have to fight them. We have to stop them.”

  “You mean this Dr. Karp? Don’t worry. I’ll deal with him.”

  “You don’t understand. You just don’t understand.” She shook her head, then looked back at the road. “There,” she said, pointing ahead. “Turn there.”

  The new road was narrower and obviously less used. The centerline looked like it hadn’t been repainted in decades, and had become more of a faded suggestion than an actual demarcation. The road was dark, too, the sun hidden from view by a thick grove of conifers.

  “Five miles,” Chloe announced.

  Ash glanced at the odometer and noted the mileage.

  “I’m sorry they took your children,” she said.

  Ash didn’t respond.

  “They took someone from me, too. But I can never get her back.”

  Ash remained quiet for a moment longer, then said, “There’s someone I can’t get back, either.”

  Again, silence descended.

  After a bit, Chloe said, “Slow down.”

  Ash checked the odometer, and saw that they had come almost four and a half miles. He red
uced their speed.

  The area was quiet. They hadn’t seen a single car on this road, nor had there been any houses or buildings alongside it.

  Chloe patted her hand against the air. “Slower.”

  Ash eased back on the gas some more.

  Finally, she pointed at a spot just ahead and across the road. “There. Do you see it? Between those two trees.”

  Where she indicated he could see the ghosts of two tire ruts running into the woods. They were mostly filled with dry pine needles, and looked as if no one had driven on them for a long, long time.

  Ash pulled across the road and stopped just short of the ruts. He stared into the woods. As far as he could see, there was nothing back there but more trees.

  He grimaced skeptically, then looked at Chloe. “My kids are back there somewhere?”

  She hesitated. “The building where I’m supposed to take you is back there.”

  “This isn’t even a road. It’s a path that no one’s used for God knows how long.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Would you rather I take you down the road they do use? Maybe right up to the front door so you can ring the bell? I can do that if you’d like. Except I’d probably just point the way and let you go on your own. I don’t want to die today.”

  Of course she wouldn’t do that. What was he thinking? And if this really was a way in, wasn’t it a good thing it looked completely untouched?

  “Right,” he said, then added, “I’m sorry.”

  He turned the Accord onto the path.

  Chloe guided him through a slalom course of trees, taking them deeper and deeper into the woods. Keeping their speed to a crawl, Ash still managed to scrape the sides a few times.

  After they’d been going like that for about fifteen minutes, Chloe said, “You should turn the car around here. I’ll get out and guide you. Then we’ll walk the rest of the way.”

  It took a little effort, but with Chloe’s help, Ash was able to get the sedan pointed back in the direction they’d come.

  Once out of the car, he went around to the trunk and opened the weapons case Pax had given him. He grabbed one of the guns, then spent a few minutes filling its mag and the three spares. When he was done with that, he almost shut the case. Instead, he reached in and grabbed the box of little bangs before closing it up.

  Chloe had been standing nearby the whole time, watching him. He wasn’t sure if she’d been expecting him to give her a gun, but she didn’t ask and he didn’t offer.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  They hiked for a quarter of an hour, then as they approached a ridge, Chloe motioned for him to get down on his hands and knees. When they reached the top, they dropped to their stomachs and looked down into the tree-filled valley.

  At first, Ash thought it was as empty as the forest they’d just come through, but then Chloe pointed down and to the right. About a half-mile away he saw part of a roof jutting out from the side of the hill, like the structure was built right into the earth. If there was anything else around, he couldn’t see it through the trees.

  She then pointed at one of the evergreens about ten yards ahead of them, then at another about the same distance to the left, then at another and another.

  “Twenty feet up,” she said.

  It took him a couple seconds to see what she was talking about. Attached to each tree at the height she’d indicated were some sort of electronic devices that had been colored to blend in. If Chloe hadn’t pointed them out, he would have never noticed them.

  “What are they?” he asked.

  “Motion sensors. They circle the complex. You can’t see it, but another fifty feet beyond that point is a fence.”

  Ash studied the area for a moment. “I take it there’s a way through there.”

  Chloe shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

  “But Matt told me you could get me in.”

  “That’s true.”

  He stared at her for a moment. “You want to stop being so cryptic?”

  Several seconds passed, then she said, “This used to be an old mental hospital. It was closed sometime in the nineties and the land was turned over to the government, but don’t expect to find it in any of their records. The…others took it over and fixed it up for their own needs. It’s not one of their main facilities so they don’t always use it. But according to Matt, this is where your kids were taken.”

  “You still haven’t told me how I get in.”

  “There used to be a separate building where the mental hospital kept…problem patients. The building’s gone, but the foundation is still there.” She looked at Ash. “It’s outside the motion detection zone.”

  “How does that help us?” Ash asked, still not following.

  “They might have torn down the building, but they didn’t remove the tunnel that connected it to the main hospital.”

  31

  The throbbing in Paul’s knee had become so constant he almost didn’t notice it any more. He wished the same could be said for his growing thirst. His dry mouth and chapped lips were constantly nagging at him.

  He’d reached the summit of the hill that marked the boundary of the quarantine zone thirty minutes earlier, but any elation he might have felt had been tempered by the miles of open desert that still stretched before him.

  He coughed a couple times, then glanced down at his gas gauge. The needle was hovering just above E. He’d be walking soon, and in his condition, he wouldn’t be walking far. If only he could find a road, hopefully someone would drive by and see him. Or perhaps it was his lot to die out here like his brother and his girlfriend. The only difference being that his fate would be delivered by the elements, not a slug of lead.

  The ground was rising again in front of him like a gentle swell in the middle of a dirt ocean. As he did every time he neared a crest, he prayed that he’d finally see a road on the other side, anything that would give him a chance.

  “This time,” he began repeating. “This time. This time. This time.”

  Just before he actually reached the top, he steeled himself and prepared to see nothing. He was so sure that was exactly what would happen, that even as he stared at the distant highway, it took a moment before he realized what it was.

  He stopped the bike, his good foot planting on the ground. Was the highway real? Maybe the pain and the dust and the lack of water were making him see things. He wanted to believe, but…could he?

  His eyes followed the road, then his breath caught in his throat.

  Not five miles away, he saw a handful of buildings grouped together. Parked around them appeared to be several cars and a couple of buses. He blinked. The buildings were still there. The cars and the buses were still there.

  Finally allowing himself a smile, he started down the hill. He was tempted to open the bike up all the way, but he knew even five miles might be too far for the fumes left in his gas tank. So he eased all the way back on the accelerator and let the bike roll free down the hill.

  He was laughing as he neared the bottom, his hand poised to feed the rest of the gas into the engine as soon as his speed started to slow. That’s when he heard it. The thumping.

  He didn’t need to look back to know what was there, but he did anyway.

  Two helicopters, like black blots against the western afternoon sky.

  There was no doubt in his mind that these were the same two that had come to the canyon that morning, that had brought the men who had killed two of the people he loved most. And though he was out of the quarantine zone, he knew they were here to kill him, too.

  He jammed on the gas and shot toward the buildings, already knowing they were too far away and that the helicopters would reach him first.

  If only he hadn’t stopped at the top of the ridge. If only he hadn’t fallen off the bike and hurt his knee. If only he hadn’t delayed himself a half dozen other times. But he couldn’t change any of that now.

  The only thing he could do was ride.

  • • •
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  Martina Gable and the rest of the Burroughs High School softball team were doing what they’d been doing for the last day and a half. Nothing.

  They’d been heading home in a school bus from a tournament in Reno, Nevada, when the quarantine had been imposed over much of the Mojave Desert, including their hometown of Ridgecrest. Unfortunately, one of the girls was pumping a steady mix of pop from her iPod through the bus’s sound system, so no one had been listening to the radio at the time. But why would they have done that? They’d come in second in the tournament, much better than they’d hoped, so they had reason to enjoy themselves on the way home.

  Ten miles past Cryer’s Corner, they reached the roadblock and learned for the first time what was going on. Initially, there’d been panic and fear, of course. But when they went back to Cryer’s Corner—not much more than a wide spot in the road with a café, a gas station, and a small convenience store—they were able to use the land phones there to contact their families and find out that everyone was fine.

  They’d talked about driving back into Nevada to find someplace to stay, but when Coach Driscoll called around looking for a motel, everywhere she tried was full. Apparently the quarantine was stranding people all over the place.

  The Cryer family owned all the businesses at Cryer’s Corner. They offered to let the girls sleep on the floor of the café, so that’s what the coach decided they’d do.

  As the day progressed, a few other cars drove in—a couple of families and some solo drivers. They, too, were offered places to sleep.

  The coaches tried to organize a practice out behind the café that first afternoon to distract the girls, but it didn’t work out too well. So this second day they’d pretty much let everyone do what they pleased, as long as they didn’t cause any trouble.

  Martina had played catch with her friend Noreen for a while, then had thumbed through one of the gossip magazines another girl had brought along. After lunch, she’d found a spot on the side of the gas station, and was idly tossing rocks at a dumpster, wishing the damn quarantine would be lifted so they could go home. This put her at a good angle to see the helicopters the moment they popped over the hill.

  Immediately, she got up and went around to the front of the station where several others were hanging out.