by Paul Seiple
"Something is going on over there," Ann said, reaching for the phone.
"What are you doing?" Dan asked, pausing the football game.
"I'm calling 9-1-1. Two men just came down the driveway carrying something. I think they’re robbing Maggie and Ken," Ann said.
Dan looked through a gap in the curtain. Another man headed toward the SUV. He held something wrapped in a Superman comforter.
"I'll be damned, you're right."
Dan started for the door. Ann pulled him back.
"I'm going to stop them," he said. "It takes a special kind of asshole to rob someone on Christmas."
"You're not going out there. Let the police handle it," Ann said.
Dan thought back to the firework sound that he was sure was a gunshot now. He glanced through the curtain again as the Escalade pulled away. "Tell them to get here fast."
The pickup's engine sputtered. Dark gray plumes of smoke shadowed in the rearview mirror. The truck was dying. Alan massaged the steering wheel as a weird form of CPR, hoping it would make it up the steep hill. The snow wasn't going to help the climb. The steering wheel jerked from his hand. The truck slid toward a ditch. Alan fought to regain control. He was doing everything in his power to will the truck to get him to Randle. Once there, he could borrow some of Ken's warm clothes and swap vehicles.
Alan exhaled when the pickup topped the hill. His warm breath fogged the windows, reminding Alan the heat never worked. Alan's fingers were numb. He hoped it was from the death grip he held on the steering wheel and not hypothermia setting in. As he turned on to Randle, the pickup's engine hiccupped, sending another cloud of noxious smoke into the air, before shutting down. Alan laughed and tapped the steering wheel. "Thank you," he said before opening the door and braving the weather. It was no longer a nice snow shower on Christmas Eve. It was a full-blown winter storm. He pulled the collar of his shirt tight to his neck, ducked his head, and fought through the wind to 2610 Randle. The chill attacking his body made Alan forget the news he was going to have to deliver to Ken's family. The most joyous time of the year would be forever ruined. Reality crashed back into Alan with a force as strong as the wind when he came to the Barber house decorated with lights and Santa and Rudolph figures on the lawn.
A bang shook Alan. He dropped to his knees in the wet snow and took cover behind the plastic Santa. The front door of the Barber house swung open. The wind pushed against it, slamming it against the inside wall of the house. Alan got to his feet and grabbed a railing and scaled the stairs to the porch.
"Hello? I'm a friend of Ken's. Anyone home?"
Alan waited a few seconds for a reply. Nothing. He stepped into the living room. It's a Wonderful Life played on the television. The smell of apple pie hung in the air, reminding Alan how much he had missed while being held captive.
"Hello?"
Alan walked down a narrow hallway. Doors to every room were open, but no one answered his call. The first sign of struggle was a bedroom in shambles. Judging by the superhero posters on the wall, it belonged to a child. A bed sheet was balled into a knot on the floor. The comforter was missing. Toys were strewn around a chest of drawers.
"What the hell happened here?"
The answer sank deep into Alan's gut. His years of training told Alan something bad had happened at the Barber house, and it had ARMA's fingerprints all over it. Alan felt his stomach quiver when he noticed several specks of blood on a white baseboard.
"My god, they're infected."
He searched from door to door, looking for Ken's family. The house was empty. Alan moved to the kitchen. Something wasn't adding up. If the Barbers were infected, Christmas movies and pies would be the last things on their minds. Alan opened the oven door. Heat and the home-sweet-home aroma of a still baking apple pie slapped him on the face.
"The infected want human flesh, not pie."
Another sickening feeling settled in Alan's stomach.
"What if the infected got to them?"
There wasn't enough blood to suggest an attack occurred in the house. Those suffering from Judas were opportunistic. They would have eaten the Barbers right away. Alan switched the oven off and turned to see blue and red lights flashing through the living room window.
"Shit."
Alan ran down the hallway to a laundry room that led to a back door.
"Charlotte Police. Come out with your hands above your head."
The chubby cop's orders echoed through the house. Alan thought about obeying. He hadn't done anything wrong. But would they believe him? Months ago, he was the Deputy Director of the FBI. Alan didn't know what story Mitch dredged up to explain his disappearance. He had no way to prove his identity. A family was missing, and there were signs of a struggle. The odds were against the cops believing in his innocence. Alan wasn’t going to be a prisoner again. He decided to run. Alan opened the back door just as a uniformed officer rounded the side of the house.
"Stop."
Alan's loafers held no traction. He slid on an icy step and missed the next three, landing on his knees.
"Stay down or I'll tase you."
Alan sprang to his feet. The cop held true to his word. He fired the taser gun. The prongs hit a bush next to Alan, giving him time to scale a fence into a neighbor's backyard.
"Got a runner. He's heading east," the officer said.
Alan didn't turn back. He sprinted through the yard and hopped another fence. Alan was no longer bothered by the lack of proper footwear. Adrenaline took over. He ran along a creek bed below the backyards. He paused to catch his breath. The bark of dog echoing through the trees cut the break short.
"Shit, K-9."
Alan tried to run up a slight embankment that he could normally scale in two strides. The frozen ground provided no traction. He grabbed a tree limb and dragged himself upwards. Alan was once again on level ground and just feet from a city bus parked at a stop. He sprinted to the bus.
"Hey, rides ain't free," the driver said, stopping Alan before he could grab a seat.
Alan fumbled for the cash he had taken from Reggie. It was gone. "I don't have any cash," Alan said between strained breaths.
The bus was empty.
The driver shook his head. "You're lucky as hell it's Christmas. Grab a seat."
Alan fell back on a seat just behind the driver who, with a gray beard and rounded glasses, slightly resembled a skinnier version of Santa Claus.
"You didn't rob anyone, did you?" the driver asked.
"If I robbed someone, I could pay the fare," Alan said.
"Good point. Why ya running then?"
"I'm late for Christmas," Alan said, emptying the snow from his loafers onto the bus floor. He looked up at the driver. "Sorry."
"Not dressed for winter either, huh?"
"The snow took me by surprise," Alan said.
"I know, right? It's not like it hasn't been all over the news for a week."
Alan laughed. "I don't watch the news."
"Can't blame ya. That new virus is pretty scary," the driver said.
"Virus?"
"Some sort of new flu. Widespread and at Christmas."
"How widespread?" Alan asked.
"Five maybe six states. Looks like an East Coast thing. Anyway, where ya headed?"
Alan didn't answer. The virus he helped create was spreading and surely killing everyone it infected. He held on to the seat and tried to fight back the urge to vomit.
"Hey, where ya going? I can't chauffeur you around all day. My shift is ending."
"DC."
The driver laughed. "That's not on my route."
"Can you drop me off on Sixth?" Alan said.
"Not on my route either, but doable, since it's Christmas."
Going home was risky, but Alan didn't have another choice. The world was going to get much darker now that Judas was spreading in the wild. He needed to save Liz. Alan couldn't fathom Liz dying from this thing he had a hand in creating.
"Well, my car is still
here," he said, scoping out his house from an adjacent street.
There was a small part of Alan that didn't think ARMA would have bugged his house. What was the point? He had been held prisoner for the last month. Alan had no one else. There was no reason to keep tabs on him.
The snow eased to flurries, but the temperature kept dropping. Alan's joints ached. His feet were numb from the wet and cold. The loafers were shot. He placed his hand on the back window of his SUV and swiped through the snow.
"I hope you run," he said.
The car hadn't been cranked in at least a month, probably longer, since Alan always took his ARMA vehicle. Alan couldn't remember the last time he was home. He spent most of October in DC with ARMA curbing rumors of Judas. Alan stared at the porch and cursed himself for not hiding a spare key. A red sign signaling the home was protected by a security system was nearly covered with snow. The alarm was surely disconnected since the bill hadn't been paid. Alan walked around the side of his house to the back door.
"Alan! Home time just in for Christmas."
Bill, Alan thought.
Bill Hamilton was the typical nosy neighbor, but for once, Alan was glad to hear his voice.
"Been on some super-secret government mission?" Bill asked.
"You could say that. Do you still have that spare key I gave you last year?"
"Of course. You locked out?" Bill asked.
"I caught a ride home and left my keys at the office," Alan said.
"Lucky for you I'm home. Be right back," Bill said.
Alan eyed the camera on the side of his house. Usually, if motion was detected, a green light would blink below the lens. Nothing.
"No surprise, the power's out too."
"I thought about going in a few times. You've always told me to watch the house if you were going to be gone for a while," Bill said, handing the key to Alan. "But Cathy told me I shouldn't. It's probably going to be cold in there. I think your power got cut off earlier this month. I did grab your mail, though, after it started piling up. Want me to get it?"
"Thanks, but not now. I'll get it later," Alan said.
"Ok. Glad to have you home, but I need to get back to Cathy. She and the boys aren't feeling well, and on Christmas. Can you believe that?"
"What's wrong with them?" Alan asked. "It's not that new flu, is it?"
"I sure as hell hope not. Looks like bad colds. Anyway, I gotta get back to them. Ring me up if you need anything or just stop over and get some homemade chicken soup later."
"Thanks, Bill," Alan said.
The cold was the first thing to hit Alan after opening the front door. Then the odor assaulted him. Two-and-a-half-month-old sesame chicken smelled worse than a dead body. Alan gagged and covered his face with the wet collar of his shirt. He kicked off the loafers. His wet socks stuck to the cold floor. He tore them off and stripped the rest of his clothes on the way to the bedroom. Alan stopped by the bathroom to grab a towel. He cringed as the cold fabric made contact with his skin, but it felt good to be dry. Finally, Alan could catch his breath. It also meant he could try to process what happened to Ken's family.
Alan sat on the corner of the bed and slipped on dry socks. He worked through plausible scenarios in his head. There was blood and obvious signs of struggle. Not enough blood to suggest an attack from someone suffering from Judas. Alan didn't think the Barbers were sick. The infected didn't bake pies. Someone had taken the Barbers.
"Mitch had the cell bugged," Alan said, putting on a hooded sweatshirt with Property of Notre Dame Football imprinted on the front. "He knew we planned to escape and sent Reynolds and Morales in without warning."
Mitch became the primary suspect. He knew Alan was going to honor Ken Barber's wish.
"There's no way I can save them if Mitch did this," Alan said. "They're already dead."
The thought of breaking the promise to Ken weighed heavy. He clenched Ken's dog tags in his fist until it felt like the metal would cut flesh. Alan wasn't a nice guy, although he tried to be. But no good deeds could erase the fact that he was guilty of the oncoming apocalypse. The Judas Project had been pitched to him as the greatest war deterrent the world had ever known. The money ARMA would receive from it would make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. Alan never thought of the consequences of his actions. He grabbed an oversized hiking backpack and layered a row of socks on the bottom, followed by underwear, two pair of jeans, and several shirts.
"He wanted me to escape. Why?"
There was no answer that satisfied Alan. Mitch knew there was a risk of Alan spilling everything about ARMA and Judas and yet he allowed him to walk away from the cells. Mitch needed something from Alan.
Alan slung the backpack over his shoulder and grabbed his 9mm. There were only two bullets. Alan cursed himself for not having more ammo. He thought back to the all those prepper talks with Liz. She would scold him for not stockpiling ammo. An image of Liz faking a frown made Alan smile. He gave one last walkthrough before saying goodbye to his home forever.
Five
"Dawson narrowly escaped the cops," the guard said, monitoring a blue dot on a map on the mounted television screen.
"Good. It would have pained me to slaughter some of the city's finest." Mitch carved a slice from an apple. "Where is Dawson now?"
"He's in his house, sir."
Mitch ate the slice. "Tracking percentage?"
The guard hit a sequence of keys. A small bubble titled ARTEMIS appeared on the screen. It was a simple graph, much like a rain gauge.
"Still at one hundred percent, sir."
"Fantastic. This is almost as impressive as Judas."
Artemis was a human tracking system developed by ARMA's Team DaVinci. Unlike devices implanted beneath the skin, Artemis was undetectable. It was a dye, similar to food coloring, injected into food. Artemis contained trace levels of modified mercury that, once ingested, attached itself to a person's DNA and created a unique code. Mitch referred to it as a personal bar code.
"DaVinci outdid themselves with this one," Mitch said, tossing the apple in the trash.
The food given to Alan and Ken in the cell was laced with Artemis. Team DaVinci created software that could identify a subject based on the unique code created by Artemis latching on to a strain of DNA. It was an internal fingerprint. Alan Dawson had the honor of being named S1 for Subject One and Ken Barber was S2. It only took Artemis eight hours to find and alter DNA. At first, tracking was boring and unreliable due to limited movement. After a month in their bodies, Artemis went dark in Ken. It was the first sign to the scientists at ARMA that Ken was infected. Judas destroyed Artemis in Ken's body, proving it was still the apex predator. But Artemis flourished inside Alan with little to no side-effects. Only an occasional headache that Alan blamed on the repeated Christmas music.
"Scott Wright approaching," the robotic voice said.
"It's impossible to sneak up on you," Scott said.
"That's the point," Mitch said. "Here, look at this." Mitch pointed at the blue dot moving across the screen. "It's tracking remarkably. Dawson is at home. I'm assuming he's readying to leave the city."
"Are the levels holding?" Scott asked.
"Yes, sir," the guard said.
Scott pushed by the guard and enlarged the ARTEMIS bubble on the screen. He clicked the gauge to reveal a breakdown of Artemis in Alan's body.
"It's blended with eighty-three percent of Dawson's cells. The human body has around ten trillion cells. You can do that math."
Mitch smiled.
"We should be able to track Dawson until he leads us to Preston or is dead," Scott said.
"And we are sure he's immune?" Mitch asked.
"Positive. Dawson had H1N1 in 2009. Also, Judas would have eliminated Artemis. It attacks any foreign substance introduced to an infected patient almost immediately."
"Then we need to make sure Alan stays alive until we find Nick Preston," Mitch said.
"Mary Hamill approaching," the robotic voice said.
"I hope you come bearing the best gift," Mitch said. "It is Christmas after all."
"Well..." Mary took a deep breath as though she was hyperventilating. She placed her hand against her chest and took a few more breaths. "It could be damn good gift. We have introduced a modified strain of H1N1 into Subject 54... and Judas seems to be weakening."
"Who is Subject 54?" Scott asked.
Mary took her phone from her lab coat and swiped at the screen.
"Katherine Davis. Thirty-four-year-old school teacher. Single. Crossfit junkie..."
Mitch cut Mary off. "I don't need her life story. Are you telling me you've found a cure?"
"It's too early to tell. But this has survived longer than anything we've tried before," Mary said.
"Sounds promising. Keep me posted," Mitch said.
Mary smiled, nodded, and left.
"Do you even remotely feel bad for leading her to think she's developing a cure?" Scott asked.
"No. Technically, she is working on the cure. I just have different ideas for it. We need the cure. But not to stop Judas. We need it to control the infection. Right now, Judas is unstoppable. The number of infected continues to grow..." Mitch turned to the guard monitoring Alan Dawson. "What's the latest stats?"
The guard swiveled his chair to a laptop and typed JUDAS REAL TIME. A fifty-five-inch television on the wall behind the computer lit up with a map of the United States. Red splotches were visible in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, DC, and one appeared in Georgia.
"Five states and DC, sir. Two-hundred and fifteen cases in North Carolina with the majority of them appearing in Charlotte."
"Previous stats?" Mitch asked.
"Overall, infection is up fifteen percent from last week."
"We need the cure. Judas must be a controlled burn," Mitch said.
"It is starting to worry me that Judas is spreading so fast," Scott said.
Mitch smiled. "No need to worry."
