When they got within a half mile of her grandparents’ acreage, Melissa took off in a run down the dirt road. Alec and Bobby Dean, as famished as they were, had no choice but to follow her. They weren’t about to get lost so close to their shelter.
The house was just as Melissa described it. It was old, but in a charming sort of way. It had been well cared for by her grandparents, who took great pride in its upkeep. Sunflowers grew on either side of the house, their giant faces peering up at the clouds overhead.
Melissa knocked on the front door, but there was no answer. She reached under the welcome mat and found a spare key.
“Leave your shoes by the door,” she ordered after slipping hers off. She called for her grandma and grandpa as Alec and Bobby Dean slowly entered the house, glad to be somewhere comfortable for once but feeling the awkwardness of being in a stranger’s home.
While Melissa went down the hall, Alec entered the kitchen in search of something to drink. The kitchen was pristine, as her grandparents were not home. Just a piece of notepaper sat in the center of the kitchen table.
Alec immediately got a bad feeling and quickly glanced at the paper.
“Melissa,” he called. “There’s a note here.”
“What does it say?” she asked.
“Come read it,” he replied, not wanting to disturb her privacy. “Your name is on it.”
She rushed into the kitchen and picked up the note, reading it out loud to the other two.
“Melissa,” she read. “We hope that you and your friends will find your way to our home. We will make sure that everything is ready for your arrival. The water in the well is still good, and there are plenty of canned goods in the cellar. Be safe and stay healthy. Love, Grandma and Grandpa.”
She set the note down and looked around the kitchen, noticing the same thing Alec noticed. The house hadn’t been inhabited for a while. A thin layer of dust coated every surface, but Melissa had described her grandmother as an avid homemaker.
“I don’t think they’re here, Melissa,” Alec said softly.
“No,” she said, looking bewildered. “I mean, they hardly leave the house. They go to church on Sundays and maybe run into the nearest town once or twice a week. If they knew it wasn’t safe to be around people, they would never leave. I don’t understand where they are.”
She looked like she was about to faint, so Bobby Dean guided her to a chair. She pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to figure out where they could be.
“You need some water,” Bobby Dean said, checking the refrigerator and cupboards.
“We have to get it from the well,” she said. “I’m not sure if the running water is working. I’ll show you how to do it.”
The three walked outside with a couple of pitchers in hand. Melissa began to pump water when something caught her eye.
She dropped the plastic pitcher and ran over to a patch of grass in the pasture that had been disturbed. Two rectangular mounds of dirt, identical in size and shape, were covered in dried flowers.
Melissa sat between the mounds of dirt and picked at the tall grass underneath her legs. She didn’t cry, but she suddenly felt an enormous weight on her shoulders. She was the last of her kin. It was a loneliness she had never felt before, not when her brother died or even when her mother abandoned her. There was not another living soul on the planet who truly loved her.
After a few minutes, Bobby Dean sat on the grass next to her.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said, placing a hand on her outstretched shin. “It never gets any easier to lose someone.”
“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s silly that I thought they would survive the epidemic. They were old and not in the best of health already. For all I know, they died peacefully in their sleep. They lived long, happy lives. I just hope they didn’t suffer.”
“Me too,” Bobby Dean said, standing up from his spot on the ground. He extended a hand to Melissa. “Do you want to come inside? I’ll make you something to eat. You can wash up and put your feet up.”
She accepted his offer, letting him lift her to her feet. He put his hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eye.
“You’re going to be okay,” he told her. “Thanks to you and your generous grandparents, I think we’ll all be okay.”
Melissa followed Bobby Dean inside to find Alec already sifting through the canned goods, trying to concoct something for dinner. She couldn’t have asked for better traveling companions. They each had their own quirks, but they had been good to her.
She took a bucket of well water to the bathroom and used it to scrub her hands and face. Studying herself in the mirror, she saw a younger version of her grandma—a tough, weather-worn woman who was a sweetheart but didn’t take crap from anybody. Melissa dried her face and marched back into the kitchen, ready to take control of her home.
30
Alarm bells rang somewhere in the compound, making Elaina’s head hurt. She was told by a lab assistant that there were too many test subjects and not enough solders to handle them. A few researchers were even attacked, causing panic within the base. Elaina wasn’t in an ideal situation, but she was relatively safe until the alarms started going off in her sector of the building. Then, it would be time to evacuate.
Elaina, ever the professional, didn’t care about the cause of the alarms. She trusted the military to get their problem under control. There was always an icky feeling surrounding human test subjects, and now Elaina was correct to feel that way. Workers were risking their lives handling dangerous people.
Poking her head out of the lab, Elaina looked down the hall to see if she could find the source of the chaos. Perhaps if she made it clear that the noise was having a detrimental effect on her progress, someone would find her a quieter spot to work.
She knocked on the Colonel’s door, but he wasn’t there. It was likely that he was giving orders or talking with other important officials in another part of the massive compound. That was fine with Elaina. There was information she wanted, and it would be easier not to ask for it. Using the military’s extensive databases that held just about all the important information anyone could ever need, she found what she was looking for. After scribbling a few lines down on a piece of scratch paper, she shoved it deep down in her pocket, closed out of the database, and went back to the lab.
Her mind feeling a little clearer, she sat back down at the lab bench and glued her eye to her microscope, as she had for the past few hours. There was something extremely important dancing in front of her eyes, but she couldn’t figure out what it was. However, there were a few things she had learned along the way.
Elaina was not technically cured of any infection. While she didn’t show symptoms, she was still a carrier of the Vincent Virus. That was proven when her blood was accidentally injected into the inmate.
However, there was something about her body that caused her to suppress the symptoms. She thought it was the serum, the little half-baked liquid that seemed to work on the Morgan Strain but did nothing to relieve the symptoms of the Vincent Virus.
That was the part that Elaina couldn’t get past. When she looked at her blood, it appeared that the Vincent Virus was weakened by the serum. Over a month after being infected, she could still see traces of both viruses in her body.
Yet, when she replicated her exact predicament in healthy test subjects, they became ill within hours. It didn’t seem like the serum even slowed the progress of the virus. It was heartbreaking to see such a valuable little invention rendered useless. She had worked so hard and sacrificed so much to work on the serum, but it was all for nothing.
She still couldn’t explain why she wasn’t sick, even though she had certainly been infected in more than one instance. What made her different from all the others?
Elaina took out a sample of the Vincent Virus and placed it on a slide. As she looked at it, she became angry. It was so similar to her creation, yet its effects were
so catastrophic. Bretton had stolen her intellectual property, plain and simple. In fact, since she’d used her DNA to synthesize the Morgan Strain, he had essentially stolen her biological identity in the process.
Having a sudden epiphany, Elaina searched the samples for a vial that was marked with her name and the date of creation. She filled a small syringe with the original Morgan Strain and injected it under the skin. While she waited for the virus to enter her blood, she prepared a new set of phlebotomy equipment and microscope slides.
From her prior trials, Elaina knew that her virus strain would cause minor side effects like headaches, nausea, and sores that appeared on the extremities. So if she could become infected by her own, albeit harmless, virus, then the physical symptoms would manifest and she could observe the obvious signs, which should appear within the hour.
Not patient enough to wait for the symptoms to appear, she examined her blood to find that the Morgan Strain was in her bloodstream. She had successfully infected herself with her cancer treatment virus. As she waited, she listened to the alarms, wondering if they had gotten louder since they first began.
Then, she heard the sound of a radio crackling in the adjacent lab. With nothing else to do but wait for symptoms to appear, she stuck her head in the doorway to find a group of scientists huddled around a radio with grim expressions on their faces.
She recognized some of the researchers from various conferences she had attended over the years. They were all much older than she was and were some of the very best in the field. Unfortunately, they couldn’t do much to showcase their talents when Dr. Vincent had created an unbreakable code.
Some of them looked up when she walked into the room, but no one really acknowledged her presence. They were all too focused on what was being said on the radio.
“As of nine o’clock this morning,” the Governor of New York said, “New York has declared a state of emergency. We are mandating self-quarantine practices. Do not leave your homes under any circumstances. We previously issued advice to evacuate city centers, but this has only proven to spread the virus even further. All air traffic has been suspended indefinitely.”
“How could this happen?” a researcher said softly. “Our own lab is going up in flames. There are still people in the testing room. They might not get out.”
Elaina frowned. Last she knew, Dr. Himmler was observing in the testing room.
“Has anyone seen Dr. Himmler lately?” she asked.
They all turned to stare at her as if she had spoken in another language.
“No one told you?” a guy asked her.
“I haven’t talked to anyone in the past few hours,” she said apprehensively.
“Dr. Himmler is dead,” he said bluntly. “He was knocked over when the soldiers were trying to restrain a rogue test subject. He hit his head and had a brain hemorrhage.”
Without saying another word, Elaina strode out of the room and returned to her lab. She gathered all of Dr. Himmler’s notes and tucked them into her book bag.
Elaina was gutted. Dr. Himmler was one of the first experts in the field to take her seriously. While others dismissed her as a nerdy kid with too-narrow interests, Dr. Himmler had encouraged her to work hard and pushed her to be a better scientist. She also knew how eager he was to finally enjoy retired life. He had given so much of his time and energy to the field, and as he mentioned to Elaina several times, he just wanted to find a cure so he could return home and relax.
The sirens were getting louder, she was sure of it now. What began as an annoying sound was now piercing noise. The Colonel marched into the room, his face paler than Elaina remembered it being when she spoke to him earlier.
“You’re being evacuated,” he said promptly. “I need you to gather your most necessary items and report to the rooftop in twenty minutes.”
“I can’t go,” Elaina protested. “I finally think I’m on to something,” she said, taking a mental inventory of her symptoms, or lack thereof. She did not have any sores on her extremities, nor did she feel ill.
“Is this something you can complete and give to us in the next twenty minutes?” the Colonel asked through gritted teeth.
“Well, no, not really,” she said. “But I am finally in the right frame of mind to make a new cure.”
He sighed. “We took a chance on bringing you here in the first place,” he said, looking displeased.
“You weren’t wrong,” she said. “I can prove it to you. It’s really hard to explain, but I’m immune to the virus because my DNA was stolen to make it. Now, I just need to figure out what that means in terms of a cure or a vaccine.”
“Then the evacuation order still stands. You have been deemed essential to this operation, so you will be transported out of here with the other essential staff.”
Elaina frowned. “Not everyone is leaving?”
“We’re doing our best to stabilize the situation. Those who cannot be evacuated at this time will be taken to the bunker. They will be fine.”
Elaina felt guilty. The only reason she was being evacuated and the other researchers weren’t was because of her DNA.
“Where am I going?” she asked. “Can you guarantee that I’ll be in a lab as comprehensive as this one? I’ve tried to work in lesser facilities and it was hard to get the necessary work done.”
“We’re still waiting to hear back from our other facilities,” he said. “Security is a big factor here. Many other cities aren’t faring any better than New York is.”
Elaina frantically looked around the lab. How could she possibly know what was necessary to continue her work and what wasn’t? She started putting her assortment of viruses and blood samples into a case and tucked it into a bag. She stacked glassware and even unplugged a centrifuge when the Colonel gave her a stern look.
“You don’t have much time, and you can’t bring more than you can carry. Notes and samples are fine, but you’ll have to leave the rest behind.”
He marched out of the room, leaving Elaina in a panic. She did her best to fit whatever she could into her bag. Meanwhile, the sirens reached her sector. The danger was near.
Pulling the straps over her back, she ran toward the staircase so she could evacuate onto the roof. The hallway that she had wandered down just minutes before looked like an active war zone. Shots rang out as she dodged infected people. She was nearly grabbed by an infected convict when a sharp shot from a soldier dropped the man in front of her feet.
Luckily, she managed to make it to the roof before the hallway went up in smoke. The pilot pulled her into the helicopter and fastened her seatbelt for her. Before she knew it, Elaina was in the air, staring down at the wreckage below her.
“Where are we going?” she asked over the whir of the propellers.
“I wasn’t given any specifics,” the pilot said. “I was just ordered to make sure you get out of here.”
Elaina fished into her pocket and pulled out the slip of paper with coordinates on it and handed it to the pilot.
He programmed his GPS to her specifications. “If you think that’s your best option,” he said.
“I do,” she replied.
She watched in awe as they glided over cities she had seen on her way into New York. In just a short amount of time, so much destruction had taken place. She couldn’t see a single car on the road. She wondered if they were the only aircraft in the sky.
Eventually, the pilot lowered the helicopter, giving Elaina a better view of the farms she’d researched in the Colonel’s office. She knew they had reached their destination when she saw the house—a perfect match for Melissa’s description. As the blades created a strong wind around the home, three small figures emerged.
Tears formed in Elaina’s eyes as she watched the figures stare up at the aircraft. While she was happy to see her traveling companions again, she was devastated that she did not have better news for them. In many ways, she felt like the helicopter was dropping her off at square one again. She was without a labor
atory, without assistance from the best virologists in the country, and without a working serum.
She counted the three people again, searching around for others. One of the onlookers was someone Elaina had never seen before. But there was one tall figure she would recognize anywhere, shading his eyes from the sun to get a better look.
“Is this where you want to be?” the pilot asked skeptically as he lowered the aircraft even further. He wasn’t given orders, but a farm in Oklahoma didn’t seem like somewhere a young scientist from Seattle would want to go to continue her work.
“This is it,” Elaina said, covering her mouth as Alec’s bewildered face came into view. “This is exactly where I need to be.”
About Max Lockwood
Max Lockwood writes suspenseful, post-apocalyptic thriller and dystopian fiction while living in New York.
Growing up with parents who were preppers and always planning for the worst, but hoping for the best, got him interested in writing in the first place. “What would happen if the world were to change?” is something he asked himself his whole life. Until one day he decided to put it down on paper.
His stories will have you reading on the edge of your seats…you have been warned!
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Also by Max Lockwood
Last Man Standing Series
Zombie Apocalypse (Book 0—Prequel)
Zombie Armageddon (Book 1)
Zombie Annihilation (Book 2)
Zombie Decimation (Book 3)
The Morgan Strain Series
Point Of Transmission (Book 1)
Point Of Proximity (Book 2)
Point Of Destruction (Book 3)
Last Man Standing (Book 3): Zombie Decimation Page 22
