Uncivil War: Evolution

by B. T. Wright

  Then he heard shots being fired from a pistol. Bryan must have switched to his side arm. But that wasn’t going to be enough. The screeches and moans of angry aliens on all sides filled the otherwise quiet night. There was nowhere to run, and nothing to kill these things with. Jake saw an alien woman grab Jess just as he felt two hands around his left arm. The group of aliens in the street started to move forward. They were trapped. Jake had come close, but in the end, he’d failed to save Jess.

  “Jake! No!” Bryan cried out.

  The aliens in front of him were ready to attack.

  Then in an instant, all five of them were gone. The front end of a pickup truck slammed through all of them, knocking them right, left, up, and down. The crunch of bones and cracking of infected skulls woke Jake from his near-death trance, and he threw his left elbow back and up into the jaw of the alien that had a hold on his arm. Bryan had jumped up into the back of the pickup truck and fired twice, dropping the alien that’d had a hold on Jess. Jake grabbed Jess’s arm and slung her forward toward the truck. He push-kicked an alien man away on his left, put his head down, and bull-rushed an alien woman attacking on his right, then took three long strides and a jump. He tumbled over the side of the truck and landed hard on the fiberglass bed below.

  The truck’s engine screamed and the tires smoked beneath them. As the truck moved forward, an alien man jumped into the truck bed on top of Jake. Without stopping its momentum, the alien gnashed his teeth together and came forward. Jake was just able to get a defensive forearm under its chin, stopping it from biting his face. Before Jake could mount any offense, the alien man was lifted off of him. Jake looked back and watched as Bryan almost effortlessly tossed it over the side of the truck. When he sat up, the diner, and the horde of aliens in front of it were getting farther and farther away.

  Jake turned around and got up to his knees. Before he could thank Bryan for saving his ass, Jess threw her arms around him and squeezed him like he’d never felt before. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. Emotion swelled inside of him as he felt her sobbing against him. He hadn’t been sure that he would ever have her in his arms again, and now that he did, he didn’t ever want to let go. The love he felt for her began to overwhelm him. The thought of her not being in his life––no matter how long or short the rest of it might be––nearly broke him.

  Jess pulled back and just looked at Jake. He placed his hand on her jaw and wiped the tears streaming from her eyes with his thumb.

  “I thought I was never going to see you again,” Jess shouted over the truck’s loud engine and the howling wind. “I didn’t think you would come back for me.”

  Those words broke Jake’s heart. He knew exactly why she felt that way. And it was all his fault. He didn’t have any words for her, he just pulled her back in and held her. He’d said enough that day. Any words now would be meaningless. Whatever Jess felt like doing about their relationship thereafter was up to her, but right now, he was going to make sure she felt his love. Other than his brother and nephews, her love was the only thing he had left.

  35

  Emily looked around the room. The right wall was all glass, and she saw no movement in the hallway. She saw no movement because it was somewhere around five in the morning. The hall would be bustling soon enough, but for now it was quiet. So was the lab. The two aliens breathing, the occasional beep of their monitors, and the slight snore of Elaine with her head resting on her arm at the desk next to Emily were the only sounds.

  Emily’s eyes were heavy, but her mind racing through the thoughts of what might be when the two infected humans lying on gurneys in front of her woke up. It was too important. It had been a few hours now since Elaine and Emily had given Karen and John Two double doses of Beritrix, with a carfentanil chaser. Emily had studied carfentanil and its effects on the elephants that were tranquilized by it, and the humans who had actually been using it as a recreational drug. The study she had read consisted of a story showing the doses used by humans and how it affected them. That’s how she had decided on just how much to administer with the Beritrix to completely shut down the system without shutting it down for good by killing them.

  So far, Karen’s, and John Two’s vitals were holding up, but they were completely out of it. Which was exactly the goal. Put the mind to sleep, the human, and the alien, while the Beritrix supercharged their immune systems. Hopefully, and Emily did literally cross her fingers, it would be enough to kick the alien out of their systems entirely. If that was even a possibility, of course. She had a million questions about what would happen to the alien if it did get bounced out of its host. Did it turn to particles in the air until it found a new host? Did the supercharging of the human immune system somehow kill it like the immune system would kill a virus, or a cold?

  Emily stood from her chair and walked over to Karen like she had done at least a hundred other times over the last couple of hours. She looked peaceful. Her eyes were closed, which helped. No matter how sedated the infected were, with their ugly black eyes open, they never looked at peace. Only like death itself. Which was exactly what these black-eyed monsters had been to an estimated ninety-eight percent of the population.

  Over the course of the week, Emily had often wondered why they came to earth. Even more so, why they came the way they did. What was their goal? Was it like in the movies, and their planet was dying so they were looking for a new one? Then, like hundreds of times before, she thought about Amy. Emily had obviously never met her, but Jake had said she seemed to be a normal teenager. But what was she really? If she could talk to the aliens, and they thought of her as their only weakness, wasn’t she really one of them? And if so, how long had the alien been inside her? Emily knew this was a rather large leap in logic, but logic seemed out the window at that point.

  A knock at the door derailed Emily’s train of thought. She looked up and was surprised to see the president standing there. He gave a warm smile and waved for her to come outside. She took one last look at Karen, then moved toward the door and opened it.

  “Mr. President, do you need something?”

  Though it was early, he looked refreshed. More so than Emily had seen in days. His gray hair was neatly combed to the side, and the lines on his face didn’t seem as deep.

  “I just wanted to check in and see how things are going before everything gets busy today. Any news?”

  Emily explained to him what had happened overnight. How Karen had come back but then gone back under the alien trance.

  “This is amazing news, Emily. Why didn’t someone wake me?”

  “It was early and we didn’t want to create any false alarms.”

  “So you’ve done it? You’ve found a way to remove the aliens?”

  Emily looked back over her shoulder at the aliens on the table. The ones that looked so human at the moment.

  “I—It’s—I can’t say that yet. But it’s definitely promising.”

  “Listen, I want to be the first to know when something happens. Contact me directly. There is nothing more important here in this facility than the work you and Dr. Kendall are doing.”

  Emily nodded. “I will. And thank you for believing in me this week. It has made the ups and downs more tolerable.”

  The president smiled. “Have you heard from your soldier friend?”

  Emily felt her bright face falter. That was the other thing that had so easily kept her awake without any sleep. Jake. It had been far too long since he’d checked in. He was supposed to use the small generator he had with him on the boat to power the radio and check in before he had to leave it. But she had heard nothing.

  “No. I haven’t gotten any word from the radio room that he has checked in.”

  Emily could tell that the president was trying not to show his worry, but she could see it in his eyes. Emily knew the president thought their work in the lab was important, but she was also aware that getting Amy to Mount Weather safely was an equal priority. It was killing her that they
hadn’t been able to get a helicopter out to try and find Jake. She knew how much they would need help out there. But she couldn’t help but think there was no way Jake would be able to survive with all of the aliens between him and Mount Weather.

  “Well, that is actually one of the reasons I came down to see you.” The president smiled.

  Emily’s heart raced. “He checked in?”

  “Oh, no. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that.”

  Emily’s racing heart sank.

  “What I mean is we found a pilot that has a helicopter. A man named Bill Burd radioed in a few hours ago. He’s been holed up in a hangar at the Capital City Airport just outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He said there are no infected—aliens—that he can see at the airport. Says he has a helicopter fueled up and ready to go, he just hasn’t been able to find anyone on the radio until now to have a destination. When they told him about the situation with Jake, he jumped at the chance to help. Said he’d been waiting for an opportunity to fight back. The aliens killed his entire family.”

  “So he’s going to try and find Jake?”

  “He has been trying. He’s already in the air. But we have no idea where Jake is. All we know is that he should be in Virginia by now, but we don’t know what his route might be. Bill was told to scour a few of the main highways. If he doesn’t find Jake before the sun comes up, it’s going to be much harder to spot him. Right now, headlights would shine like a beacon with no other lights in working order. I was just hoping we missed something, which is why I asked if you’ve talked to him.”

  “I haven’t. God I hope this man can find him.”

  “We all do.”

  The president noticed some commotion through the window to the lab. His eyes widened, and he pointed over Emily’s shoulder. “She supposed to be awake?”

  Emily turned around, expecting to see that it was Elaine that he was pointing to, but it wasn’t. It was Karen. And her head was turned toward Emily and the president. And she was smiling.

  36

  Jake, Jess, Bryan, and TW had been driving the backroads for about an hour. It wouldn’t be long before the sun said hello to the morning, and Jake didn’t know if there was anything he’d ever wanted to see more. Enough had happened since the sun went down to make him pray there was never another sunset again. And Jake wasn’t much of a praying man.

  They hadn’t seen any signs of life––human, alien, or otherwise––since they pulled away from the diner. The roads wound up and down the Virginia mountains, and there was rarely a straight stretch to take a break from total concentration. Bryan had relieved TW a while ago, and Jess was fast asleep, her head in Jake’s lap. The entire ride he had done his best not to worry about Amy, Tyler, and Mark. There was nothing he could do about it at the moment, so he just had to let those thoughts die. Though he had pretty much been able to do just that, it didn’t really matter, because those thoughts were quickly replaced with worry about his brother Colt and his two sons.

  The last thing he’d heard from Colt, was that everything was okay. He said he and the boys should be at the Mount Weather facility by the time Jake and company got there. But though it hadn’t been all that long since they spoke, Jake knew just how much could happen in a day and a half. The things they’d overcome since leaving the university were enough to fill a lifetime of tragedy. So the concern for his brother held fast to his conscience. All he could do was hope he would see the three of them soon.

  Jake gently rubbed Jess’s hair. Even though they’d been through hell and back, he couldn’t help but feel lucky. He imagined if Vegas had odds on whether or not they would be able to get Jess away from the aliens, they would have been astronomically long. But they’d managed it. A true team effort. Jake wouldn’t have made it without Bryan, and Bryan wouldn’t have made it without TW. He was grateful they had come along. They could have easily waited back in Cincinnati and hoped for the best. Without them, Jake new that all of them would be dead. Including Amy—the apparent chosen one.

  The radio squawked from where it sat on the console and it made everyone in the car jump. It even woke Jess from her nap.

  “Jesus H,” TW said.

  Jake realized that the only reason the radio would sound off was if Tyler was close. A bad feeling washed over Jake as he reached for the radio and pushed the button.

  Beep.

  “Tyler? It’s Jake. Everything okay?”

  Beep.

  “Jake!” Tyler’s voice sounded like it did a few days ago in Lexington when he’d gone out to the car and gotten trapped by the infected. Sheer panic. Ginger was barking like mad in the background. “I’ve been radioing for five minutes! It’s Amy, she’s dead! I think she’s dead!”

  Beep.

  Everyone in the car shifted to look at Jake, and they all had the same look of panic on their faces. Jake pressed the button.

  Beep.

  “Tyler, I need you to calm down. Is Amy okay or not?”

  Beep.

  “Didn’t you hear me? She’s not breathing! There’s blood everywhere!”

  Beep.

  “Tyler!” Jake felt the panic creeping up on him as well. He swallowed hard and tried to focus.

  Beep.

  “Tell me what’s happening. What do you see?”

  Beep.

  “Mark knows CPR and he’s trying to revive her, but I don’t think it’s going to matter. They’re coming. Lots of them. There’s nowhere to hide!”

  Jake took a breath and let what Tyler was saying sink in. The thought that flashed in his mind was that if Amy was struggling, she must have tried to communicate with the aliens again. And the only reason she would do that would be to save herself, Tyler, and Mark from them. And that made sense if Tyler was saying they’re coming.

  Beep.

  “Jake! Are you still there? I’m telling you that we ran into a wall of them. We turned around to come back your way, but Amy was panicking and she opened the back door. I had to pull over and I ran us into a ditch!”

  Just as Tyler radioed again, Jake’s truck was coming around a bend. Up ahead, Jake could see headlights pulled off to the side of the road. Tyler’s SUV was facing the wrong way just like Tyler had said.

  Beep.

  “Hang on, Ty! We’re coming up on you now!”

  Beep.

  “It’s no use, Jake. The last thing Amy said before she went into convulsions was that they were right behind you guys, too. There isn’t a side road for miles. Mark looked. We’re trapped . . . It’s over.”

  Jake tossed the radio to the floor of the truck and immediately picked up his AR-15, rifled through his bag for a fresh magazine, and locked it in. He didn’t have time to think about just how in the hell the aliens could be right behind their truck, too. Speculation on just how far they had evolved served no purpose right then.

  “Mount up. You heard him. Sounds like we’re in for another fight. Bryan, pull around the front of their car and try as best you can to block the road. I have a feeling we’re going to need every second we can get to make something happen.”

  He sounded confident and ready for a fight. However, he was actually anything but ready for another battle. Beyond that, he knew if there were very many aliens out here in the middle of nowhere, they didn’t stand a chance. No matter how much firepower they had left, it was over for them if it was even a fourth of as many aliens as there were back at the diner.

  Bryan steered the truck around the right side of the car, drove ahead about a hundred feet, then parked it sideways in the middle of the road. Jake squeezed Jess’s hand, but he could tell by the look on her face that she had the same thoughts about their chances as he did.

  “I love you,” he said.

  Jess nodded. She knew what Jake meant by the tone in his voice. That it was the last time they would ever say it to each other. “I love you.”

  She leaned over and kissed him.

  “We’re already too late.” Bryan was standing behind the open door of the
truck, looking straight out in front of him.

  Jake didn’t have to follow his stare to know that it was the aliens.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t save us,” Jake told Jess.

  She racked the slide on her twelve-gauge shotgun. “If this is really it, let’s take as many of these motherfuckers with us as we can. We owe them that much.”

  Jake pulled back the charging handle on his rifle, and when he released it, the first bullet in his thirty-round magazine locked into place. He didn’t say it, but he couldn’t have agreed with Jess more. He gave her a solemn nod and stepped out into the muggy night air. TW was in front of him, his door open, and his AR resting in the V where the door and the body of the truck met.

  Jake backpedaled quickly. If there was a chance for them to make it out of there, he needed to know what kind of shape Amy was really in. But the nagging voice in the back of his head told him that it just wasn’t going to matter.

  37

  Emily rushed inside the lab the moment she saw Karen’s smile. As soon as she opened the glass door, she noticed John Two was forcefully trying to break free from his restraints. Elaine had made it to her feet and she and Karen both were trying to calm him down.

  “You have to stop fighting against it, man,” Karen tried to tell John Two. “They are here to help us.”

  But he kept fighting. Much like Karen when she’d first woken up, he had no idea where he was and what the hell was going on. Emily noticed the president walk into the room with her, and the two guards followed as well.

  “Should we sedate him?” Emily said.

  “No, let’s just give him a minute,” Elaine said.

  “Let me out of here!” John Two shouted. “Who are you people? What the hell is going on? You can’t do this!”

  Emily walked over beside his bed. The entire gurney was shaking beneath him. “Sir, we are only trying to help you. Sir!”