“Screw you, old man. I’m not the one who just shot and killed three people in cold blood!”
Shaking his head, Cooper turned his attention back to the girl. Her entire body quaked then tensed up. With one, last burst of air, she was gone. Cooper recited the Lord’s Prayer in silence then stood. He glanced over at the kid with a wild mop of curly, black hair. He’d turned the camera on the corpses of the men. Irritated and ashamed of how the upcoming generation seemed more obsessed with making a name for themselves, rather than helping a fellow human being in distress, Cooper came up behind the boy and snatched the cell phone.
“Hey! That’s mine!”
“Never said it wasn’t. Keep your pants on, junior. Just need to call for help.”
“Won’t do you any good. Phones are out. Net is too. Power probably won’t be on much longer, either. Haven’t you been watching the news, old man?”
Ignoring the brash upstart, Cooper clicked over to the keypad and dialed 9-1-1. Just like earlier, he was greeted with the same message. “Shit!” He handed the phone back to the kid. “Where’s the nearest police station?”
“Like I know! I’m not from around here. I tried calling the cops before I came outside. Actually, I’ve been calling them for hours. Nothing happens but some weird recording. I heard gunshots, so figured I’d at least get evidence of what was going on to give the police when they did arrive. Just because I’m young doesn’t mean I’m a heartless fucker.”
Motioning for the kid to follow, Cooper walked away from the bodies and back toward the edge of the parking lot. He didn’t want either of them to contaminate the scene any more than what they already had. Glancing around to see if anyone came outside to investigate the sounds of gunfire, Cooper grimaced. No one appeared to be interested. “What’s your name, son?”
A flicker of distrust sparked behind dark blue eyes before he answered. “Mason Hall. Yours?”
“Cooper Hollingsworth, Chief of Police in Malvern, Arkansas.”
Mason cocked his head in curiosity. “You’re a cop? No wonder you’re such a good shot. You on vacation, too?”
“Yes, with my wife. You mentioned you’ve been callin’ the police for hours. Why?”
A look of sorrow flashed across Mason’s face. “My parents never came back from town. They left last night to see a show. I’ve got a wicked case of altitude sickness and stayed here. I gave up calling them when their cells went straight to voicemail. I thought maybe they had an accident or something. That’s when I started calling 9-1-1. Then, I watched the news and changed my mind about them having a wreck.”
The dread in Mason’s voice put Cooper on guard. “You mentioned the news earlier—what did you mean?”
Mason put his phone back in his pocket and replaced it with a cigarette. He lit up and Cooper noticed his hands were shaking. “Man, I can’t believe you don’t know, being a cop and all.”
Frustrated and cold, Cooper’s temper flared. Just as he was about to give Mason Hall a piece of his mind, more gunfire broke the stillness of the morning, followed by faint screams. Cooper looked in the direction of the noise, cringing as the morning sun’s rays bounced off of plumes of dark, black smoke. Judging from the location, Cooper assumed it was from downtown Steamboat.
Gunshots? Screaming? Fires? Where’s the sirens? Where’s all the emergency personnel?
Tamping the rising fear back down, Cooper said, “Wife and I were hikin’ all day yesterday and into late evenin’. When we got back, we crashed. Made a rule about cell phones and TV—no watchin’, textin’, surfin’ the net—while on our vacation. So no, I missed the news. What’s goin’ on?”
The expression on Mason’s face shifted. Cooper could see the fear in his eyes. “Bio attack of some sort. People are dying in droves all over the world. President Thompson was in the middle of a news conference yesterday morning, talking about what the government would do in response. He gave a nice little speech until several reporters went all nuts and attacked each other. It was a bloodbath for several seconds until the transmission ended. The emergency broadcast service came on right after. Said everyone’s supposed to get to their local high schools for testing of some sort. Then bam! The screen went black and TV’s been out ever since. Not long after, the net went down, too.”
Before Cooper had a chance to digest the news or even respond, Karla appeared on the walkway. “Cooper? Cooper! You okay?”
“I’m fine, Karla. Any luck gettin’ through to the police?”
“No. TV seems to be out, too and I—”
Karla’s comments were interrupted when the security lights went out.
“See? Told you the power’s next,” Mason muttered.
“Get back inside, Karla. Right now,” Cooper instructed. He grabbed Mason’s arm and tugged. “You too. Come inside with us.”
Mason didn’t offer up any resistance.
Once back inside the warm condo, Cooper ushered Karla and Mason into the living room. He addressed Karla first. “Honey, I need you to keep calm. Somethin’s wrong, like you said, and Mason here is gonna share all the information he has about the situation with us. Right, Mason?”
Mason sank into the soft folds of the couch and nodded. Karla’s faced blanched. Cooper knew she sensed his own fear. Years of being the wife of a cop taught her to recognize dire situations.
“Mason? Start from the beginnin’ and tell us everythin’ you know. Don’t leave any details out. Okay?”
“If you really want to know what’s going on, watch this,” Mason answered. He held out his phone to Cooper. “I downloaded two videos from the news to my phone before the internet died. Just watch.”
Cooper took the phone with trepidation. Karla moved over behind him to view the screen as well. Taking a deep breath, Cooper’s other hand instinctively found Karla’s. By the time they finished watching the disturbing videos, Cooper was shaking and Karla was crying.
“Karla, how fast can you pack?” Cooper whispered.
“Five minutes and we’re outta here,” Karla replied through her tears. She took the stairs two-at-a-time.
After handing Mason his phone, Cooper asked, “Where’s home for you, Mason?”
“Phoenix and Santa Fe. We alternate between the two for my dad’s job.”
“You’re welcome to come with us. We could try to get you close to Santa Fe.”
Tears glistened in Mason’s eyes as he shook his head. “I’m going to wait here in case my parents…”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Mason. Not after what we just watched.”
“I really don’t care what you think. I’m staying,” Mason said. He stood and headed for the front door. “If…when…they come back, and I’m not here, they’ll come looking for me.”
Cooper glanced at the kitchen then back to Mason. He sensed the kid wouldn’t budge, and he certainly had no right to make him. “Let me give you some extra food and water.”
Mason opened the door and walked out. “No thanks. I’ve got plenty. Good luck, Chief. Hope you make it home.”
“Stay safe, Mason,” Cooper replied. He watched the kid walk away then closed the door.
“Cooper? Bags are ready. Help me carry them, please.”
Without a word, Cooper bounded up the stairs and helped tote their luggage down to the main floor. Karla was bundled in her ski gear. “Let me bag up the food and water and then we’ll head out.”
Karla paced back and forth in front of the door. “Hurry, Cooper. I can’t get in touch with Charlie or Charlene. Jesus, what’s goin’ on? Were those videos even real? How can they be? People were eatin’ each other! That can’t happen! Maybe it’s some sort of trick or somethin’?”
Cramming the food and water into the big cooler they brought with them, Cooper wanted to lie to Karla. Smooth her frazzled nerves by telling her things would be fine and they’d be home soon, yet he couldn’t utter the words. He’d seen the real deal with his own eyes—even though he didn’t want to believe what he’d witnessed.
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If he lied to Karla, she wouldn’t stay on guard and that might cost them both their lives. “Yes, they’re real. Those boys I shot looked just like the ones on the videos. And they attacked the girls and…well, just like in the videos. We’ll talk about this once we’re on the road. Stay here and let me load up the truck. Okay?”
“Hell no. I’m not leavin’ your side. Ever. We go together,” Karla responded, picking up a suitcase. “We can get all this in one trip. I want to go home. Now.”
Cooper finished with the supplies and walked into the living room. He could tell by the look on Karla’s face she wasn’t going to change her mind. “Fine, but let me go first. I’ll get the suitcases and you grab the food. Ready?”
“Ready to wake up from this awful dream,” Karla whispered after grabbing the box of supplies.
“Hang on,” Cooper replied while walking to the window. He clicked the key fob and remotely started up the SUV. “Go straight to the passenger side and get in. Don’t stop. Okay?”
Too frightened to respond, Karla simply nodded. Cooper picked up the two suitcases and motioned for Karla to open the door.
The morning sun was bright and gave them plenty of light to see. As they made their way down the walkway and out to the parking lot, Cooper heard Karla gasp when she saw the bloody corpses. More random gunfire erupted in the distance and the screams intensified. Dark, thick smoke filled the sky.
“Dear Jesus,” Karla whispered. “Please protect us!”
They made it to the SUV. Cooper opened the back hatch and tossed the suitcases inside while Karla stuffed the supplies in the backseat. He looked around once more when he heard footsteps crunching on the snow near the passenger side. Assuming Mason changed his mind and decided to join them, Cooper shut the door.
“Cooper!”
Karla’s scream sent Cooper’s heart rate sky-high. He moved too quick and lost his footing on the slick snow and landed hard on his ass.
“Oh, my God! Get away!”
Forcing his sore body to move, Cooper stood, clinging to the bumper with one hand, using the cold metal as a safety measure. He gained steady footing and came around to Karla’s side of the SUV.
What he saw made his mind gridlock for a split second.
All three dead girls were on their feet, only steps away from his terrified wife. Karla clawed at the door handle, desperate to get away from the bloodied monsters heading her way.
“Open that fuckin’ door and get inside!” Cooper screamed.
The sound of his voice made the three women turn their attention on Cooper. They shifted direction and lumbered toward him, giving Karla a chance to open the door and slip into the passenger seat.
Cooper stopped, yanked his weapon from his back pocket, and blew the heads off of the already-dead three girls. After they each fell to the ground, he felt dizzy and sick at the same time.
This. Isn’t. Happening. No way. I’m dreaming.
“Cooper! Let’s go!” Karla yelled from inside the SUV.
The terrified plea from his wife brought Cooper back to reality. He spun around and slipped and slid across the pavement until he reached the driver’s door. Once inside, he shoved the gear into reverse, tromped on the gas, thankful for the snow tires and four-wheel drive, and left the bloody mess in the parking lot.
Karla cried softly in the passenger seat and muttered, “So much for our Christmas and anniversary.”
Cooper didn’t answer. He was too busy driving.
They made it out of the main part of town with only seconds to spare. When Cooper heard the roar of U.S. fighter jets in the crystal blue skies above, he looked up in time to see the wisps of smoke from missiles streak across the air. The impact from numerous bombs made the SUV shudder and shake as Steamboat Springs was obliterated.
By its own government. The thought made Cooper’s stomach churn again.
The snow had been thick and numerous times, Cooper nearly lost control of the vehicle after hitting patches of ice. By the time he and Karla arrived in the small town of Heeney almost twenty hours later, Cooper’s fingers were numb from his death grip on the steering wheel. Karla had been catatonic after attempting several times to use her cell phone with no luck then listening to the EBS blare over the radio. Thankfully, once they entered the mountain passes, the radio went silent.
What they heard before it went to static—and what they saw during their drive—terrified them both.
Now, Cooper stood in front of the SUV he’d rented four days ago, his mind on the brink of shutting down. The entire town of Heeney was dark except for the solitary streetlight at the edge of the gas station they’d stopped at to refuel and use the restrooms. Shifting his gaze, Cooper stared at the small storefront. “You should’ve waited for me to clear the place, Karla. You fuckin’ should’ve waited!”
Cooper took one final glance at his dead wife. The small bullet hole between her eyes, and the explosion of red behind her head on the snow, made tears run down his face. He didn’t know much about what sort of biological contagion the world was dealing with, but what he did know made his head spin.
During the drive, Karla seemed fine. Yet the minute they arrived at the gas station, all that changed. She got out and ran toward the building to pee. Cooper yelled at her to wait, but Karla was afraid she couldn’t hold it any longer. By the time he exited the SUV, Karla was at the front of the store. When she opened the glass doors, everything became blurred.
Four dead bodies lumbered out, groaning, moaning, lurching toward Karla. They moved fast and Karla didn’t have a chance to run far. One latched onto her leg and down she went.
Cooper had pulled his gun and fired. In the middle of the melee, he missed the head of the one on top of Karla, the bullet hitting the shoulder. Karla’s screams drove him to the brink of madness. The other three creatures closed the gap fast, so he popped them each in the head, dropping them in less than two seconds.
When he took aim at the one on Karla, he was successful the second time.
Unfortunately, he was too late. The creature had bitten a large chunk of flesh from Karla’s calf muscle.
He’d ran to her side, yanking off his jacket to use as a tourniquet. Cooper wrapped her leg and tried to calm Karla down. She’d been in a complete state of panic. He finally convinced Karla to stop screaming and picked her up off the ground. He made it to the passenger door, opened it, set his wife on the seat, and then she screamed again. “Cooper! Look out!”
He’d spun around and noticed another corpse rounding the back of the store. Cooper grabbed his weapon and fired, but nothing happened.
He was out of bullets.
“Shit!”
He’d secured Karla in the seat then shut the door. His hands shook while fumbling around for the extra clip in his jacket pocket. The frigid air numbed his exposed fingers to the point they were nearly useless.
Cooper moved away from the SUV, hoping to draw the corpse away from Karla. It worked. Fresh clip inserted, Cooper fired and the body collapsed in a heap less than ten feet away.
He’d run back to check on Karla, and that’s when Cooper’s life changed.
His once beautiful wife was gone. Black, dead eyes stared back at him, the lovely, sweet lips that used to kiss him with passion, were pulled back into a snarl. She’d jumped out of the SUV and landed on top of him, growling, hissing, clawing at his face.
In the midst of overwhelming sorrow and shock, Cooper had no choice. His sobs were drowned out by the sound of gunfire as he blew a hole in his beloved wife’s head.
“Can’t do this now! Fall apart later!”
Cooper refused to dwell any longer on the carnage he’d created seconds before. To bring his focus back, he slammed his head into the metal doorjamb several times. The impacts weren’t hard enough to knock him out, yet enough to ring his bell and clear his thoughts. With each smack, he repeated, “Charlie and Charlene. Charlie and Charlene. Got to get home and make sure they’re safe.”
The idea to smac
k some survival sense back to the forefront of his thoughts, worked. He couldn’t stand outside, weeping and puking like a child, any longer. Though no longer young children, the twins were only twenty-two, and they needed their remaining parent to keep them safe.
“Yeah, like I did such a good job of keepin’ Karla alive,” Cooper muttered. With one last smack of his head, he dislodged the thoughts of his incompetency of being protector of his wife. “No, get it together and think, fool! Stand out here any longer and I’ll just attract more of those things. I’m the Chief of Malvern Police Department for God’s sakes! Act like a man and move your ass!”
Cooper needed more gas. He assumed a generator kept the pumps and lights on since every other place previously passed didn’t have any power. A click from the gas pump, signaling the tank was full, brought Cooper out of his funk. After putting the nozzle back, he paused.
“Think. Calm down and think. Stop lookin’ at what I just did and plan ahead!”
Knowing he had more than a thousand miles to go before making it back home to Arkansas—alone because he’d just shot and killed what used to be his lovely wife—Cooper trudged through the snow toward the door to the station. He reasoned if the power grid was down way up here in the mountains, it was probably down everywhere. Finding working gas stations along the way would probably be impossible, so Cooper decided to look for anything inside the store he could use to fill up with gas.
He welcomed the distraction—any distraction—to keep from going insane.
Cooper found four, empty gas containers inside on the shelves. After taking them outside, he returned to the store and grabbed several plastic bags from the counter. He filled them up with water bottles, protein bars, cans of soup, and some cereal boxes. He stowed them in the backseat then went about the task of filling the containers with gasoline.
Once the gas was put away, Cooper struggled to walk away. The thought of leaving Karla’s body behind made him woozy. He couldn’t get past the feeling it was wrong to just leave her corpse in the snow, alone, without a proper burial. Charlie and Charlene would never forgive him.
Tainted Future (The Rememdium Series Book 3) Page 2
