by Scott Cramer
Mathews leaped to her feet, ready to pounce and keep fighting. Time seemed to stop for everyone. Jordan was aiming the gun at her, his finger firmly on the trigger. Blood streamed from Jonzy’s nose, and Toby, grunting and groaning, lay on the ground, bleeding.
Dawson spotted the remote close to Toby. Mathews saw it, too. He was closer. He was about to leap for it, when Mathews bolted. She ran toward the spot with the fewest motorcycles, beyond which was a field of weeds, and then woods.
Dawson grabbed the M-16 from Jordan and went down on one knee, planting the stock against his shoulder. He filled his lungs to the bursting point and then slowly exhaled to steady his hands. He put his eye to the scope, placing the crosshairs between Mathews’s shoulder blades. He raised it slightly to the back of her head when he remembered she was wearing a bulletproof vest. For someone who had received advanced survival training, she was committing a cardinal sin by running away in a straight line.
She breached the ring of riders and was now in the weeds. Dawson saw the bikers to the right and left, and Mathews beyond them. He had a clean shot. He felt the resistance of the trigger on his fingertip.
He applied more pressure to the trigger, recalling how Admiral Samuels had stumbled backward before he made a final stand like a proud bull, eventually crumpling. Tributaries of rage combined into a forceful river that rushed down his right arm and streamed into his index finger.
He raised the rifle as he pulled the trigger, screaming the bullet above Mathews’s head. The time for killing had ended. It was now time to save lives.
Dawson rushed to Toby’s side and choked out a grunt of relief. Miraculously, the boy was sitting. Jonzy had removed his shirt and was using it as a tourniquet, applying it to Toby’s upper arm. The bullet had gone through the fleshy part of the arm near his shoulder. Dawson checked Toby all over, just to make sure he had no other wounds.
The loud roar of motorcycles captured his attention. He turned and watched three riders accelerate into the field, parting the tall weeds like speedboats powering through water. Mathews was about twenty yards from the woods. The bikers closed in on their prey, and Dawson knew she would never reach the trees.
He picked up the remote detonator, cracked the back of it off, and popped out the small battery. Then he hurled the battery and stomped the remote under his boot.
“I suppose I will have to ensure the future of Generation M.” Doctor Perkins reached into his lab coat pocket.
Dawson’s heart nearly exploded when he saw what Perkins had in his hand.
Perkins positioned his thumb on the remote detonator’s button. “Redundant systems,” the scientist said. “If one part fails, you should always have a backup.” From his other pocket, he took out a two-way radio and brought it to his lips. “Doctor Hedrick, you and your colleagues have one minute to leave the plant.”
5.12
ALPHARETTA
From the faint footsteps slapping the cement floor, Abby knew that several adults were racing toward her end of the plant. Sandy, Doctor Levine, and Ensign Royce? Murph and Sandy? Two of them? All three? Maybe Mark had returned. Maybe they had news. Good news? Maybe … She snipped the wild, loose threads of speculation and focused on the job of squirming another inch.
Abby’s head struck a steel pipe. Every few feet, it seemed, she encountered an obstacle: another steel leg, or another piece of metal that snagged her clothing.
“Doctor Hedrick and Doctor Levine are coming,” Doctor Droznin said.
Wriggle, squirm, wriggle. Abby kept moving.
When Sandy and Doctor Levine arrived, Doctor Droznin cried, “She’s under there.”
The ball of C4 on Abby’s belly lit up in the beam of a flashlight.
“Oh my God, Abby, listen to me,” Sandy said. “Doctor Perkins is going to detonate the explosive in forty seconds.”
The beats of Abby’s heart boomed with such force that she feared her chest would crack apart. Breathing hard and fast, she glanced upward through a new set of eyes. The pipes and wires were as fragile as veins and arteries.
“You now have thirty-seven seconds to get rid of it,” Sandy shouted.
Abby chided herself for wasting three precious seconds and resumed squirming, telling herself she could reach the adults in time for one of them to hurl the bomb to the opposite side of the plant, away from the machinery.
Thirty-six, thirty-five, thirty-four … Abby counted in her head as she maneuvered herself beneath the delicate labyrinth.
The adults shined flashlights. They shouted encouragement and directed her on how to avoid obstacles. They were frightened cheerleaders.
“Hurry.”
“Roll it.”
“Stop, go left.”
“Thirty seconds.”
The words flew past her and faded in the dark maze.
Abby tuned out the adults the best she could, choosing to trust her body to find the way out, advancing by trial and error. Her unrelenting stubbornness, tempered by patience, helped her cope with the bruises and repeated setbacks.
Twenty-seven, twenty-six ….
Her pocket caught on a piece of metal jutting from a steel post. Summoning every bit of strength, she surged ahead and the pocket ripped.
Twenty-three, twenty-two, twenty-one ….
Abby whacked her head hard on a post. She inched back, aimed to the right and whacked it again. A warm gush of blood streamed down her scalp. Undeterred, she inched back again, aimed left and found an opening.
Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen ….
Using her shoulder blades like a lizard uses its front legs, she clawed her way toward the adults, increasing her speed. In a race with a turtle, the turtle might have won, but this was the fastest she’d been able to go. The Twister champ was flying.
Sweat trickled into her eyes, but she couldn’t wipe them with either arm, so she squeezed them shut, trying to wring the salt out.
Fifteen, fourteen ….
Abby could tell she was getting close to the adults from their voices, and when she opened her eyes, the light beam glinted off the web of shiny silver and copper metal above her. She arched her head back and the brilliant eyes of two flashlights ruptured into splashes of blinding light. The shadowy figures of Sandy, Doctor Droznin, and Doctor Levine were so close. If she stretched, she might reach their outstretched hands.
Thirteen, twelve ….
Abby went to grab the C4 to hand off to them, but her heart exploded into a million particles of despair instead. The ball of plastic explosives was gone; it had rolled off her belly.
Ten, nine ….
She reversed direction, sweeping her hands back and forth, patting her palms over the cement. A fire hose of adrenaline coursed through her body and drove her to go faster while a single thought convinced her that she should search in a slow, methodical manner. She could not risk hitting the C4 with her hand and having it roll out of reach.
Eight, seven ….
“Got it!” she cried.
Gripping the bomb tightly, Abby started back but instantly realized she could not make it. The C4 would explode in her hand, or go off as she tried to pass it to the adults. She could not let that happen. A direct blast would gut the delicate machinery.
Abby imagined all her muscles were steel bands and her skin was made of bomb-proof material.
Five, four ….
Pressing the ball against her stomach, she rolled on top of it and pictured her brother and sister in her mind. Abby wanted her final memory to be of her family together and happy.
Three, two ….
The three of them were on the dock at the lake in Maine. It was dusk, the sky a pastel of pale blue with red streaks from the setting sun. Abby pulled Touk and Jordan close to her. Feeling their beating hearts and the warmth of their bodies, she drew in a long, slow breath of the sweet, piney wind.
One.
5.13
ALPHARETTA
Doctor Perkins pulled back the sleeve of his lab coat to check the time. Sun
light flashed off the crystal face of his Omega watch. One minute was up.
Sadly, Doctor Hedrick and his other colleagues had not heeded his warning, but his mind was clear, and he felt at ease.
He glanced at the remote cradled in his palm. The green light indicated a strong battery. He repositioned his thumb squarely on the button.
The ugly sounds of survivors finishing off Mathews subsided. He had kept his eyes averted from the grisly scene, realizing he would soon suffer the same fate.
Perkins recalled the brief flashes of doubt he had experienced over the past three years, questioning if there might have been a better way to do things. Could the adults have organized the survivors in such a way as to provide limited educational opportunities for all children? Could they have done something, anything, to help the children outside the colonies?
The behavior of these savages flushed all doubts away. They would have relished the chance to destroy the colonies and Generation M.
The colonies, once a germ of an idea, had blossomed into a dream that had exceeded his wildest expectations. Imagining their continued growth and success, Perkins closed his eyes and pushed the button.
The sharp boom of an enormous explosion shook the ground. A cloud of dust rose near the area of the security fence on the perimeter of the plant’s grounds. Dawson had obviously removed many of the explosives, but as Mathews had intimated, he had not found them all. Perkins’s dream of Generation M would live on.
They were coming after him now. A horde of vicious, dirty children closed in, some on foot, most on motorcycles, and in the lead was a leather-clad girl on a green motorcycle.
Perkins felt fear like never before as he fixed his gaze on her ghostly eyes. She revved her engine and reared back, raising the front wheel high off the ground. The bike struck him in the face, knocking his glasses off as he fell into a black void and kept falling.
5.14
ALPHARETTA
Jordan took off running toward the plant. He had a dreadful sixth sense that Abby was in trouble.
Propelled by this fear, he pumped his arms and lifted his knees high. He sucked air into his lungs until they were about to burst. He blew out repeatedly.
Debris from the explosion rained down, and he squinted from particles of dirt peppering his face. Dawson came up beside him, his arms and legs a blur, and they ran together, stride for stride.
He tried to stop as he neared the door, but his legs disobeyed his mind’s command to slow down, and he rammed up against the building with his shoulder. He thumbed the lever and swung the door open.
Cursing the cloud of acrid smoke that wafted out, Dawson bolted inside. With Dawson in the lead, they sprinted toward a small group of people gathered at the other end of the plant.
As he got closer, Jordan saw that several adults were on their knees, huddled around a body on the floor. Jordan’s gut told him it was his big sister.
“Abby,” he cried.
Dawson reached the group first. Jordan slowed his pace and stopped ten feet away, choking on the sickly odor of fresh blood that mingled in the haze.
“Tighten the tourniquet,” a woman shouted.
“Stay with us. Stay with us.” That was Dawson.
“Begin compressions,” the same woman said. “Breathe, breathe, breathe.”
Jordan sank deeper into a quicksand of grief, barely able to move, but he forced himself forward. He needed to see Abby before….
A violent sob completed his thought.
Chest heaving, he clenched his fists and shuffled his feet, skating an inch, then another, approaching a scene that would forever haunt him. Icy fingers wrapped around his throat, squeezing tighter and tighter the closer he got.
“Open your eyes,” Dawson shouted. “Keep them open. That’s an order, damn it.”
“Breathe, breathe, breathe.”
The adults frantically tried to save her life, but the desperation in their voices told Jordan that their efforts were in vain.
Realizing that any second could be Abby’s last, he had to be at her side and had to hold her hand. His knees buckled, and he dropped to the floor, where he started crawling.
“Jordan.”
He stopped. That was Abby calling out. From the intense, ongoing struggle of the adults, Jordan must have imagined his sister’s voice. Trembling, he planted one hand on the floor and slid his knee forward.
Movement caught his eye and Jordan looked right, drawing in a sharp breath. Abby was not the person adults surrounded. His sister was lying on her side in a narrow space between the floor and lots of pipes and equipment.
Gasping in relief, Jordan lay flat on his belly and wormed his way toward her. “Abby. Abby.”
When she didn’t respond to his shouts, he feared she had been hurt in the blast.
He reached out and gripped her arm. “Abby, are you okay?”
She looked at him with a blank stare. He patted a hand up and down her legs and then scooted closer to her to check her backside for wounds or broken bones. The only thing he found was some sticky blood on top of her head, but the cut seemed small.
He gripped her hand. “Talk to me. Are you okay?”
She nodded and squeezed his hand. Those were good signs.
Jordan realized the adults were no longer shouting. The silence was bone chilling. They had moved back from the person they had been trying to save. He could see it was an adult, a woman, her white jacket in tatters.
Jordan had no idea how Abby had survived the blast while the one scientist had not, but all that mattered was that his sister was alive.
“Toucan,” Abby said in a raspy voice.
He squeezed her hand, too choked up to speak. Where was Touk? Was she safe? How would they get her?
“We’ll get her, Abby. We’ll get her.”
Abby gave a little nod and closed her eyes. “Toucan,” she whispered.
DAY 6
CDC BUNKER
Abby shook her head and rubbed her eyes, freeing herself from the sticky web of sleep. She squinted in the bright light of an overhead fixture and sat up in bed. Where was she? The small room had a single window that looked out to the incredible scenery of wildflowers and snowcapped mountains. Then she realized it was a poster. The room had no windows. Another poster hung next to the door, issuing a warning.”Emergency Protocols” was written in bright-red letters. She scanned the list of items: radiation exposure, nuclear blast, contamination. By the time she got to “electrical fire,” the events of last night drifted through her mind, and she knew she was in the CDC bunker.
The events were fuzzy with gaps in the sequence. Someone had cradled her in their arms and carried her from inside the pill plant to a truck. It might have been Jordan, but she couldn’t say for certain. Outside the plant, a mob of kids had formed. Angry shouts and the roar of motorcycles had filled the air. She remembered a bumpy truck ride and entering the underground bunker where a medic who spoke with a Southern accent had checked her blood pressure and temperature.
The medic had held out a little, yellow pill. “Take this, it will help you sleep.”
Then the medic had helped her into a wheelchair, and that’s where her recollection of events ended. Abby supposed she had fallen asleep, and someone had pushed her here.
The room had a table next to the bed and a dresser. A door led to a bathroom. The scientist who lived here, must have put the wildflower poster on the wall to stop from going crazy.
The cold fingers of claustrophobia wrapped around her throat, and she closed her eyes, pretending she was at the lake in Maine, drawing in fresh air with each and every breath.
A medic interrupted Abby’s daydream when she entered the room with a tray of MREs.
“Good morning. How are you feeling?” The medic had dark circles under her eyes.
“Who are you?” Abby asked.
“Ensign Rossi. I work with Doctor Hedrick.”
One look at the MREs turned Abby’s stomach. “I’m tired and my ears are ringing.�
��
“The ringing should stop in a few days,” Rossi said. “You were very close to the blast.”
Abby shivered as a vivid memory bubbled to the surface of her mind. She was covering the bomb with her body when something poked her shoulder; Doctor Droznin jabbed her with a crutch. She told Abby to place the C4 in the space at the top of the crutch, which Abby did. The scientist then pulled the crutch back.
“What happened to Doctor Droznin?” Abby asked.
Rossi shook her head sadly. “She died in the blast. She protected the equipment. Thanks to you and her, we resumed the antibiotic manufacturing process last night.”
Abby had trusted Doctor Droznin to help them, and the scientist had sacrificed her life to save the survivors. The news had little effect on Abby. Before the night of the purple moon, a dentist had given her a shot to numb a tooth before filling a cavity. Now, it felt as if she had received that numbing shot to her heart.
Ensign Rossi picked up a MRE and held it out to her.
Abby waved it off. “I’m not hungry.” It felt strange to decline an offer of food.
“You’re still in shock,” the ensign said with a knowing nod. She flashed a light into each of Abby’s eyes to check for signs of a concussion. “You’ll probably feel tired for a few more days, and you will find it difficult to concentrate. I predict your appetite will return in a hurry. You’ve lost quite a bit of weight. Doctor Hedrick will be here soon.”
“Can I see my sister now?” Abby asked.
Ensign Rossi headed for the door. “Wait to speak to Doctor Hedrick first.”
“Why? Where’s Toucan?”
“Doctor Hedrick wants to speak with you first.”
Abby’s blood turned cold. “What’s wrong with my sister?”
“Doctor Hedrick will explain everything.”
“Is my brother, Jordan, here? Where’s Toby? I want to see Toby.”
Ensign Rossi left the room and closed the door behind her.
Abby slid her feet to the floor, but her head rode a wave of dizziness back to the pillow. What had happened to Touk? And where was Toby? Had she really seen her brother? The questions slithered through the muck in her brain, leaving her with a hard knot in her stomach.
