by B. T. Wright
“Ladies and gentlemen,” TW announced from the captain’s chair. “We have ourselves an opening!”
Jake’s stomach fluttered. He looked back at the cockpit and in the glow of the dash lights, he could see TW with his arms raised in celebration. The dam was open, they were able to keep going by boat.
Jess jumped into Jake’s arms, and Jake high-fived Tyler over her shoulder.
“Take me downstairs and have your way with me, soldier,” Jess said. “Use the last of your energy for my greater good.”
Jake smiled and carried her toward the back of the boat. Though he didn’t have the energy for what she wanted, he didn’t have the heart to tell her right then and there. Ten minutes later, he was fast asleep, the drone of the boat’s motor the sweetest of lullabies.
3
Jake shot straight up from where he slept on the floor of the boat. He didn’t hear the boat’s motor running, and he could have sworn he heard—
Ding-Ding! Ding-Ding!
This time he knew it wasn’t a dream. The sound of some sort of bell ringing loudly seemed to be dinging right above them. Jake jumped to his feet and he heard someone in the cabin with him ask what the hell was going on. He jumped over the cache of weapons piled on the floor, shot up the stairs and into the morning light just dawning on the river. He turned his body toward the bow of the boat just in time to see TW punch Jeremy—another of the professor’s volunteers—so hard that it knocked him off his feet.
“I didn’t say ring the bell, you stupid shit! I said grab hold of the rope!” TW shouted as he stood over his body.
The gray concrete wall of a dam rose up into the sky behind him. The nose of the boat was resting against it. Jake rushed to the front of the boat, and he nearly tripped over a couple of loose life jackets on the deck.
“What is going on?” Jake’s breath was hurried.
Even though Jake knew it wasn’t, it felt like the sound of that bell was still echoing off the surrounding hills. When no other sounds exist, a loud one, like the ringing of the bell, seems as though it could be heard for miles.
TW pointed at Jeremy as Jeremy writhed on the ground in pain. “This numb nuts rang the bell. Those aliens will be coming from everywhere!”
“All right, calm down. Just remember your voice carries over water too.”
TW nodded, took a step back and looked over Jake’s shoulder. Jess walked up behind them.
She whispered, “What’s going on?”
“Stupid mistake,” Jake said.
Jess pointed at Jeremy. “He all right?”
Jake grabbed him by the arm and helped him up.
“Go with Jess. She’ll make sure nothing’s broken. If not, I might come down there and break it myself.”
Jess shot Jake a look. “Still not a morning person?” Then to Jeremy,“Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Tyler, Bryan, and a couple others walked up the back of the boat. Jake turned back to TW.
“What’s going on?”
TW adjusted his Gilligan hat. He was a fit man for his age, late sixties. He wasn’t very tall, but apparently, as Jeremy could surely attest, he was scrappy. “Dam’s closed. Our river run is over.”
Jake looked up and down the wall of the dam. It only took him a second to recognize the surroundings. They were in Greenup County, Kentucky. Jake and his brother grew up just twenty miles down the road in Ashland, Kentucky. He’d been across the dam’s bridge at least a few thousand times in his life.
“What’s with the bell?”
TW shook his head in disgust. He was still fuming over Jeremy’s mistake. “I was simply telling that moron what the bell was for. That when everything was up and running four days ago, if you came down here on your boat and your radio was out and you didn’t have a phone, you could ring this bell and someone would come down. That’s how you got through the dam. I was only telling him the story ‘cause he was nervous. I didn’t mean for him to ring it. I guess he forgot that flesh eating monsters were the only dam operators left on earth these days.”
Jake nodded and looked around. They were close to the riverbank. It was mostly just a rocky bank that led up to what Jake knew was open grassland. Then to a few small neighborhoods that surrounded Greenup County High School. He also knew they were just a street or two over from US 23, a major highway that ran North and South for hundreds of miles, and the beginning of the pre-plotted course they’d laid out in case the Greenup dam was closed.
TW started to talk again, but Jake held up a finger for him to wait a minute. “Listen.”
Tyler and Bryan had made it to them, and the four of them stood as quietly as they could. They could hear a quiet breeze rustling through the trees, the tiny splashes of the river lapping up against the bottom of their boat, but thankfully, nothing else.
“You think they heard?” Tyler whispered. He was still wiping his eyes under his glasses, trying to remove the fog of sleep.
Jake shrugged his shoulders and continued to listen. So far, it seemed they were in the clear. It wouldn’t make much sense for the infected to be hanging out near the river. Considering there were no people to turn or eat down there. But that didn’t mean they hadn’t heard that bell.
“What do you want to do?” TW said.
“Only thing we can do,” Jake walked over to the side of the boat closest to shore. “Go get a couple of large vehicles.”
Tyler joined him looking over at the riverbank. “Well, hurry back, buddy.”
Jake looked over and saw Tyler smiling. If he had no other skill, keeping things light was skill enough for Jake.
“Guess that means you’re not going with me?”
Tyler played back, looking down at his foot that he was sweeping back and forth, being coy. “I’ve, uh, got to go count bullets. Otherwise, I totally would.”
“You’re an idiot,” Jake laughed.
Jake turned around and looked at Bryan. He was a big guy, even compared to the 6’ 3” powerfully framed and athletic Jake. He had a bald head and shoulders like The Rock. He was the obvious choice to go along on the vehicle hunt, especially being a Marine. Jake would feel a lot more comfortable leaving the safe confines of the river with a jarhead alongside him.
Bryan already knew he was going to be part of the crew. “I’ll go suit up.”
Jake nodded. “Tell Mark and Jason to mount up, too. They are the most prepared. I’ll be right down.”
Bryan walked away and disappeared below deck.
TW said. “How do you want to play it?”
“Just move out to the middle of the river. Let’s not take any chances. I’ll radio you when we find something. It will most likely be a truck or two from one of these neighborhoods nearby. But there is a picnic area just over the riverbank here. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“Luck,” TW said. “That still a thing?”
Jake smiled and put his hand on Tyler’s shoulder. “Ask Tyler, he’s the luckiest son of a bitch in the world.”
Tyler rolled his eyes. “This oughtta be rich.”
“He gets to spend the end of the world with me.”
TW laughed as he started toward the back of the boat. “That right? In that case, you’re welcome, ‘cause I make both of you lucky. Thank me later when I save the world.”
Tyler and Jake shared a smile.
Jake gave Tyler a pat on the back, then followed behind TW saying, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
4
For the fourth morning in a row, Emily Fraser watched the sun rise over Mount Weather. As beautiful as it was, she wondered if she’d ever get to see it in person. The camera on the outside of the building that faced east had surprisingly high resolution. The flat screen television in her room that was buried deep below the earth’s surface had a quality picture as well, but it just wasn’t the same. Watching the sun rise on screen was almost a tease too torturous to bear when she knew she couldn’t surface anytime soon. That was when she moved her focus to the mass of infected that
covered the landscape in every direction at the bottom of the camera’s view. There were more swarming there every day, and it was the reason they couldn’t get the helicopter to Jake. Having them all hovering above her made her feel suffocated—trapped—yet she was one of the lucky ones.
At least she’d made it another day.
That was more than she could say for probably more than ninety-eight percent of the world’s population. Of course that was just a guess, but with other underground facilities beginning to report all across the globe, and other survivors being reached by radio, there were certainly more survivors than they’d thought a couple of days ago. Whether it was because they were on Beritrix—the medicine taken daily by those with the WD17 virus that has acted as a sort of vaccine—or because they were lucky enough to have access to gas masks and other things that kept them from breathing the contaminated air, more survivors were reporting and being discovered by radio every day.
But none of them were more important to Emily than Jake Maddox’s brother Colt and his two sons. Jake was the only person left in the world that she’d known pre-infection, and she was happy that his family was able to survive the initial infiltration, even though Colt was all the way in Colorado, and Jake was riding along the river somewhere in Northern Kentucky. That was a lot of space between them, but Emily would kill to have contact with her sister. She hadn’t heard from her since everything had broken loose.
Emily finished buttoning her white blouse and ran her fingers through her long dark hair a couple of times. She opened the door and started down the hallway to the conference room. The president had called an early morning meeting, and she still wasn’t sure why she was involved in it. She was only a doctor after all. It seemed President Miller enjoyed her council. Emily supposed being the first to deal with this outbreak in Syria, and the reason the president and the first lady had been spared from being infected was probably why he wanted her in on every meeting.
Emily made a right and started down another long, hospital-like hallway. She counted five doors on her right as she had every day she’d been there, then walked in. Everyone was there at the table and ready to go. The president stood. He was surrounded by George Armstrong, the Secretary of Defense, CIA Director Jerry Wesley, FBI Director Will Dunning, General Terry Ratcliffe, and Susan Thompson on hand to take notes.
“Good morning Doctor Fraser,” the president said.
“Good morning Mr. President.”
“Have a seat and let’s get started. I know you want to get right to your work Emily, so we’ll start with you so you can leave us to our plotting.”
The work the president was referring to was with the three infected—aliens––they had captured and had been studying at the base. Karen was the infected woman that Emily had been working with the most. The evolution of her entire being since Emily had arrived three days ago was astonishing. Though she still wouldn’t talk, she was rapidly increasing her level of engagement with puzzles, shapes, and other exercises Emily and the lead scientist, Dr. Elaine Kendall, were putting in front of her. Emily and Elaine had grown a lot closer over the last couple of days. Especially after last night when they shared not one, but two bottles of a secret stash of red wine. It was the reason she was running a little late to the meeting, but it was worth it. Both of them had really opened up and found out they had a lot in common. For the first time in more than a week, Emily had found a way to laugh again.
“Thank you, President Miller,” Emily said, then she gave a sweeping glance at the rectangular table. “Gentlemen. I was able to speak with Jake Maddox one final time last night before he and his team left for their attempt to start their way here on the river. I updated him on the mass of infected keeping us from surfacing and, as of right now, keeping any others from coming in from the surrounding areas. They are taking a radio with them. Whenever they come to a dam that is closed, they will use the boat’s power source to radio us and let us know their final plotted route. Hopefully by then we can send someone on their way to at least meet them and escort them in.”
General Ratcliffe cleared his throat. He was a big-bodied man, buzzed gray hair in his late sixties. Even in the transformative state the country and the world were in, he still insisted on wearing his uniform as if it were a meeting at the White House. Emily supposed those habits would be hard to break. “I have had some men coordinating with other bases that are near or along their route. As soon as Jake gets word to you, I will have the nearest to them go in to help. If, that is, they are able to leave by then. As you know, they are having the same problem with mass amounts of infected surrounding their transportation as well. It’s as if these things know where our military is located all across the country, and they know they can’t let them leave or we will be able to mount an attack.”
Emily nodded. “Thank you, General. I know that will help, if in fact they are able to leave their bases.”
“Problem is, even if they are able to make it here, I don’t know how they’ll get through what is above us right now waiting for them. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of infected up there waiting.”
The president spoke up. “We’ll cross that bridge when they get here. What’s important is that they keep Amy out of harm’s way. You think Jake will be able to do that?”
“If anyone can, it’s a Delta Operator,” the General said. “None more skilled in all the world, even before this entire mess, than he is.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Emily said.
“If I may?” CIA Director Jerry Wesley spoke up.
“By all means,” the president said.
“This is ridiculous. One, that everyone believes this teenage girl can talk to these infected. And two, that they are leaving a safe place just to get here. And do what? Risk all their lives so we can ask this kid a few questions? You ask me, it’s Jake that is the asset in that group. Not the kid.”
Emily had had about enough of Jerry’s negativity. It had been nonstop since the minute she met him. Emily stood. “First of all, no one said Amy can talk to any of these things.”
“Oh I’m sorry, she can understand them.”
“Second of all . . .” Emily waited for Jerry to interrupt. When he didn’t, she continued. “It is clear they want to communicate with her too. You’ve seen the video, Jerry. All three of our infected here at the facility said her name. So the sooner we get her here, the sooner we can figure out why.”
Jerry rolled his eyes.
Emily continued. “Look, here’s the bottom line. Jake believes that Amy is this Element Zero that the aliens were conversing about on the intercepted transmission. The one where they also stated that this Element Zero is their only weakness. If you need more than that to convince you that she needs to be here ASAP, then I can’t help you.”
Jerry shook his head. “Yeah, and my point is, you’re basing this entire thing on a ‘conversation’ that only one person in the entire world could supposedly understand. And we have no way of knowing if she made the entire thing up or not. Oh, and she’s only thirteen. You know their imaginations are wild at that age.”
Emily was getting frustrated. “And she is immune to being infected without the help of Beritrix. And did we manufacture the video of the three captured infected that we have here all saying her name at the exact same time, in completely different rooms?” Emily turned to the president. “President Miller, this entire conversation with Jerry is a complete waste of time. We have already discussed this. Everyone but him has agreed we need to get her here so we can not only learn as much as we can, but to keep her safe until we can understand why she is the aliens’ weakness, and how we can use that weakness to get our planet back.”
Jerry held up both of his arms, incensed. “Jesus, do you even hear yourself? Get our planet back? What is this, War of the Worlds for God’s sake?”
Now the president showed his frustration and slammed his fist on the desk. This got everyone’s attention. “When are you going to wake up, Jerry?” he shouted
. “If you don’t believe this is where we are as a society, then go up the elevator a few hundred feet, right now, and walk out of the building into the parking lot. Go on, I’ll make sure security doesn’t stop you.”
The room was quiet.
Emily felt validated. The President of the United States throwing his weight behind your argument tends to have that affect.
The president took a breath and used a more even tone. “That’s what I thought. Whether it sounds like nonsense or not, it’s where we are. Emily knows this Jake, and if she trusts him, I do. And with the General speaking as highly as he has about Jake’s time in the military, then that should be good enough for all of us.” He turned his attention to General Ratcliffe. “That said, General, we need to get him help however we can. We’ve failed him by not getting him that helicopter. We can’t fail him if he runs into trouble on that river. We lose Amy, we may very well lose humanity. That’s the importance level we are putting on this. So tell everyone that we know of along that river to stay at the ready. When we call them, they need to go running to Jake’s location, however the hell they need to get there. Understood?”
“Understood,” General Ratcliffe agreed.
“Good. Emily, is there anything else?”
“Yes, sir. Today I am giving Karen Beritrix for the first time.”
“This is the first of the infected to be given the medicine?”
Emily nodded. “It is.”
“Any ideas what it will do?”
“No, sir. But if it keeps us from becoming infected, I am awfully curious what it will do to someone who already is.”
