by Jeff Olah
“I guess, but that’s only because—”
“Ethan, none of that matters now. Who we were, what we used to be, or even who we used to be. What does matter is Emma, and I just may know exactly where to find her.”
17
California Coastline - Day Six…
Approaching the intersection, Thomas Whitlock slowed the vehicle. Thick layers of sunlight poured in through the passenger window and almost completely obstructed his view. Earlier that morning, he was only able to catch a fleeting glimpse of whatever moved along the third level of the parking structure, but now he was certain of what he’d seen. There was a woman not fifty yards from where he sat and she needed his help.
He could drive back and get someone else to come or step out and do this himself. He was only supposed to be a scout. Do not engage, only report. That was his job. He agreed to it and promised Mary he’d do nothing more. And after nearly getting himself killed three days earlier, he wasn’t necessarily ready to test fate yet again.
He talked to himself quietly. “Come on Tom, just keep driving. You don’t know who she is and there’s no reason to risk it. She’ll still be here in a few hours when you get back. Just drive.”
Slowly letting off the brake, he began to pull through the intersection while still looking back. As he moved into the shadow of the next building, he saw her again. She was watching him from above the retaining wall along the third floor and knew he was here.
Why wasn’t she calling for help? Maybe she didn’t need him or maybe she wasn’t alone. But if there was another group out here in the city, he most certainly would have seen them by now.
Rolling to the curb, he pulled the parking brake and turned off the engine. Three Feeders moved out of the demolished coffee shop thirty yards ahead. They stumbled out into the street and were more or less heading in his direction.
“Okay, this changes things a bit.”
Retrieving his pistol from the passenger seat, he climbed into the back and checked through the windshield once again. Still only three, the trio hadn’t drawn any followers. And although they moved slow enough for him to quickly dispatch all three, he knew the sound would most certainly bring others. He knew better.
He sat for a moment longer and then slammed his fist into the backseat. He already knew what he was going to do. He didn’t like it, but he also knew he wasn’t just going to drive away. That wasn’t him. Sometimes he wished he were someone else, but right now, he needed to be the person who was going to save that woman.
Sliding to the rear passenger door, he gripped the handle and pulled it open. Stepping out, he didn’t look back. He tucked his weapon into his waistband and looked toward the east end of the structure.
Two exposed staircases, one on either end of the parking garage and an elevator that ran along the outside. Continuing along the sidewalk, he decided on the stairs at the far end. Although the elevator was much closer, that would only be a consideration if all else failed.
Jogging to the three-foot retaining wall at the east end, he hopped over and turned back to see the three Feeders stopped at his car. They appeared to have taken an interest in it and were clawing at the door. His plan was to get to the woman on the third floor, get her out and back to the vehicle, all without having to draw his weapon. He needed them to be somewhere else.
Digging into the planter at his side, he pulled out a small stone and tossed it back toward the elevator. Two of the three looked up and began moving away from the car. The third hadn’t noticed and continued to struggle with the closed door, scratching at the roof and windows.
Tom shook his head and turned toward the garage. He ran the short distance and started up the first flight of stairs. Staying along the outer edge and climbing the steps two at a time, his head was on a swivel. Continue to monitor the floor below while still maintaining a ten-foot safe zone from anything above, this was his plan for the stairs. Stop at each landing, check the floor above, move to the next, and repeat. No surprises.
Rounding the next set of stairs and immediately below the exit to the third floor, he slowed his pace. Sluggish, heavy footfalls echoed from somewhere above. It could have been as close as the fourth floor or maybe the fifth. He wasn’t sure and couldn’t be until he rounded the next set of stairs.
He gripped the cool metal railing and pulled free the nine millimeter pistol. Taking in a long slow breath, he held the weapon out in front and moved up three stairs to the next landing. More pounding against the hollow metal stairs boomed from above, this time much closer.
Sliding with his back against the railing, he clutched the weapon with both hands and craned his neck to get a glimpse of the next set of stairs. Clear, except the thick layer of dried blood running along the left side of the stairwell and the puddle it formed below the last step.
Moving around the mess, Tom looked up and spotted the entrance to the third floor. He paused on the second stair and leaned against the railing. Waiting and listening. Two loud thuds and then a thunderous explosion. He flinched and nearly fell backward as two misshapen bodies smashed into the landing eight feet away. They weren’t walking down the stairs, they were falling.
Two Feeders, a mess of arms and legs attempting to right themselves, had yet to take notice he was there. Tom instinctively moved down a step. He turned to run, but something in his gut pushed him forward. Before he realized the gravity of what exactly he was doing, he was within a few feet of the beasts. They clawed at one another, but had yet to stand.
Four feet, the space separating the bodies to the left and the opening to the third floor. He was fast, but was he fast enough? Better to be safe than sorry. Tom leveled his weapon and fired two quick head shots. Their movements dropped away instantly, although the sound echoed through the open stairwell and pushed out onto the devastated city streets. He was no longer hidden. It was time to move.
Out onto the third floor, he looked to where he had guessed he’d seen the woman. Three vehicles, mostly untouched, sat quietly near the retaining wall at the northeast corner of the garage. A large, extended cab pickup truck, an aging red sedan and a massive, charcoal grey sport utility vehicle.
He couldn’t see her, but he knew where she was.
The truck and the sedan had a thin layer of dust covering the windows; however, the SUV had at least two of its windows wiped clean, obviously within the last few days. The windshield and the rear driver’s side window. Someone was living in that vehicle. Someone that needed to keep watch for whatever was coming. Maybe also desperately praying that they’d be found, that they’d be saved.
Checking the stairwell at his back and also the one that sat a little over thirty yards beyond the SUV, Tom moved quickly to the three vehicles. He ducked behind the bed of the truck and scanned the interior of the cab. Doors locked and nothing of interest inside.
From a crouched position he rounded the front of the truck and dropped to his belly. Scanned the floor under the three vehicles and then moved to the sedan. Again, nothing noteworthy other than a few magazines, what looked to be a random pair of reading glasses, and a black leather briefcase. Not worth breaking a window to get in.
Moving around the front bumper of the sedan, he detected movement from inside the SUV. Unsure of just who he was dealing with and lacking the time for subtleties, he slipped the pistol back into his waistband and held his hands in the air.
Slowly walking toward the front of the SUV, he looked inside. “My name is Tom. I saw you from the street. Are you okay? Do you need help?”
Stepping to the driver’s door, he used his sleeve to wipe clean the window and began to reach for the handle. She moved quickly into the third row seats and for a moment locked eyes with him. Dark shoulder length hair and steely blue eyes. Her face was striking, yet her expression terrified. She wasn’t a threat, at least that’s what his gut was telling him; it was also saying that she was alone. And as he pulled open the front door, he only hoped he was right.
Stepping around the door
, Tom slowly peeked inside. The woman, possibly in her late twenties or maybe early thirties, slid down onto the floorboard behind the second row seat. The top of her head and her eyes were the only things showing.
A large knot above her right eyebrow had stopped bleeding, but was still swollen. Probably a recent injury. She blinked incessantly as she stared back, but had yet to speak.
“I’m here to help,” Tom said. “Are you alone?”
She just stared back, no emotion and no response.
“If you want my help, we’re gonna have to go right now. I know you heard me fire those shots, and in a few minutes, this place is going to be crawling with those things.”
She slid up. Now her entire face was visible. The trail of blood that ran from the injury above her eye had settled somewhere below her chin. She was still one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. For the first time in six days, he was okay with risking his life.
“I’m with a group of six. We have a home. We have shelter and food. It’s not much, but we can help. Do you want to come with me?”
She nodded.
“Can you talk?”
Again she nodded.
“What’s your name?”
She paused for a moment and licked her lips. Her voice came out as though it was broken from use, rusted and weak. She only managed three words.
“I don’t know.”
18
He’d walked out of the room more than ten minutes earlier. No one went after him. They stayed in their seats and just listened as Ethan ripped apart the office on the other side of the hall. He hadn’t said a word after Shannon described her relationship with his sister, one that he knew nothing about. What was the point in Emma keeping this from him? Why had Shannon not told him anything about this over the last six days? There had to be an awfully good reason and he was going to find out.
Walking back into the kitchen, he looked only at Shannon, but spoke to everyone. “You all can stay here and listen to what she has to say, or you can walk out now. I don’t care. I want to know the truth about my sister and she’s going to tell me, no matter how long we have to sit here.”
Frank leaned forward in his chair and began to speak. “Ethan, I think you need—”
Cutting Frank short, Ethan moved to the far table, closest to Shannon, and leaned over her seat. He continued staring at the petite blond and waited.
Shannon looked around at the others and then back at Ethan, but didn’t yet speak.
“I don’t understand, what is it?” Ethan said. “What the hell do you know about Emma? You, me, her… we all worked for the same company, that’s about it. If there were anything more, she would have told me. And if you knew anything at all about my family, you would know exactly how important she is to me. You wouldn’t have waited six days to finally—”
Interrupting Ethan’s rant, Shannon stood and stepped away from the chair. A good ten inches shorter than him, she looked up and met his determined stare. “I’m sorry, but there is no way that you’re ready to hear everything I have to say. You weren’t six days ago and you aren’t now. And even if I were to give you all the details, you wouldn’t completely understand.”
“What’s there to understand? My sister is out in California and I’m here. I’m taking that truck out back and going to get my family. My mother, my father, and then Emma. Whatever friendship you think the two of you had means nothing to me. It doesn’t change a thing. Why would it?”
Also now on his feet, Griffin stepped toward Ethan. “Why don’t we at least hear her out? She hasn’t done anything to deserve this.”
Ethan turned and stepped forward. He and Griffin were now nearly nose to nose. “This has nothing to do with you. Feel free to step out into the hall if this is making you uncomfortable. But do not get in my way, I won’t ask you again.”
Laying his hand on Ethan’s shoulder, Griffin smiled. “Listen, we’ve all agreed to go with you. I don’t think anyone is questioning that. And whatever she has to say won’t change what we have to do. She isn’t the reason we haven’t left this town and you know it, so whatever she can tell you about your sister may just help. Why don’t you just listen?”
Pulling away, Ethan turned back to Shannon. “Okay, what is it? What is it about my sister that you’ve been hiding?”
She didn’t hesitate. Stepping back so that the others could also see her, she began. “It involves your sister, but it’s also much bigger than that.”
“So, start with why you think she may be safe and then fill in the rest as you go.”
“Ethan, what do you know about what your sister did for BXF? What did she tell you about her role in the company?”
“Not much. She was some sort of chemist, I think.”
“And do you know what she was working on?”
He was already growing tired of the way this was conversation was shaping up. “No, not really, but that’s not important. You said you may know where she is, why don’t we get back on track.”
Shannon paused. She was attempting to find a place to start. One that would make sense to Ethan and to the group. She was also searching for a way to explain what was happening to the world in a way that would actually make sense, because right now it didn’t.
“Emma wasn’t just some chemist. She wasn’t just some scientist. Your sister was the Lead Biochemist for BXF Technologies. She was brought on to oversee a project that had more potential than anything this world had yet to see. She never told you or anyone else exactly what she did for two reasons. First, she signed a confidentiality agreement that tied her to BXF for the next ten years, so she wasn’t allowed to speak about her work. And…”
“And what,” Ethan said.
“Okay, none of this will make sense, but her access to the project she was working on was restricted. Marcus Goodwin wasn’t sure he could trust her. He didn’t trust anyone. So he only gave her the information she needed to keep Project Ares moving forward.”
The others looked around in confusion as Ethan stepped closer and shook his head. “You’re not making any sense. I don’t care about Marcus Goodwin or whatever he had her working on. None of this means anything to any of me. My sister’s job doesn’t matter—I just want to know how I can find her.”
“But it does matter, that is what I’m trying to tell you. Because of her job and who she is, it means that she may actually have survived this thing. She would have been taken somewhere safe to ride out the initial wave. She is very important. Emma is literally one of maybe a handful of people on this planet who may know how to fix this whole thing.”
Frank sat forward. “Wait just a minute. Are you trying to tell us that you know something about what is going on out there? Something other than the obvious?”
Shannon took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. She looked around at everyone and then paused when she met Ethan’s eyes. “Yes. But there’s no way to explain how this all fits together. Not in a way that will make any kind of sense to any of you. Hell, I’m not even sure I fully understand it myself.”
Moving back to his chair, Ethan sat down. “Why don’t you give it a try?”
“Well,” she said. “I guess I’ll start at the beginning.” Shannon paused, looking toward the ceiling and attempting to collect her thoughts. “Until six days ago, Ethan and I worked for a man named Marcus Goodwin, so did Emma. About seven years ago, he developed a program that was initially labeled Project Lockwood. It was named after the scientist he was working with at the time. Mr. Goodwin is a brilliant man, but also a self-professed sociopath with a very low threshold for incompetence. He’s a self-made billionaire and was running BXF simply as a micro-technology business before coming up with an idea that could turn the world upside down.”
Griffin nodded. “Are you saying this thing is man-made?”
“I’m not completely sure,” Shannon said. “But it looks a lot like some of the things that we were seeing.”
“We?” Ethan said.
“Yes, I w
as part of the team that transitioned away from Project Lockwood and into Project Ares.”
Ethan folded his arms. “Project Lockwood or Ares or whatever it is, how on earth does that relate to anything I’ve asked you?”
“Okay, Marcus Goodwin went through more chemists than we could count. After Dr. Eugene Lockwood left, the program was renamed Project Ares—after the ancient Greek god of war. He continued to hire one person after the next and no one ever stayed longer than a few months after realizing the full extent of the program. That was until your sister came on board.”
“What do you mean full extent of the program and why would she have stayed when others left? You’re still not making any sense.”
“She stayed because no one told her what we were actually doing. No one showed her the videos of soldiers ripping one another apart and devouring handfuls of flesh while sitting in puddles of their own blood. No one told her what a madman Marcus Goodwin was and no one told her that this was being tested in every country around the world. She stayed because she didn’t know. She stayed because she thought what she was doing would help.”
“What she was doing?” Ethan said. “You still haven’t told us what the hell this Project Ares was and why you—some supposed big shot—worked out of a small office in the middle of nowhere. None of this is adding up.”
“I was sent to this town as punishment. I was no longer willing to keep quiet about the atrocities that were happening during the tests. That’s the same reason why Marcus Goodwin never fully trusted your sister. He sensed a goodness in her that he knew might blow up in his face. She was brilliant and could potentially fix all the problems with the program, but he knew if he showed her everything, she’d probably walk away just like all the others.”
Holding up his index finger, Frank said, “Elephant in the room… you’re going to have to explain what Project Ares is, and try to use small words. My head is already spinning.”
