Humanity's Edge Trilogy (Book 1): Turn

by Kohler, Paul B.

  “Busy?” Clay asked, already sensing the worst.

  “Busy,” Norah agreed.

  They continued, much like this, dialing all the numbers they could remember. Everyone except Brandon. He seemed to slowly distance himself from the crowd, both emotionally and physically.

  “Oh, come here, dear,” Norah said as tears began to run down his face. She pulled him into a warm embrace, his sobs increasing in intensity as he lowered his head into her shoulder. “There’s no one left for you, is there?”

  Brandon shook his head, barely perceptible to the others. “If it makes you feel any better, hon, I’ll be your family,” Norah said, her eyes sad, and it was clear she was fighting back her own tears.

  “Thanks,” Brandon said as he righted himself, glancing around the room where all eyes were upon him. “I—I’ll be all right. I’m sure I have a distant cousin twice removed out in the world somewhere.”

  “For what it’s worth, champ, I think we’re all a little bit family now,” Ralph added, wiping a speck of dust from the corner of his eye. “I know we’ve only just found each other very recently, but I think I can speak for the rest of us when I say that we’re here for each other.”

  The rest of the group nodded and smiled warmly. After only a few silent moments, it was Clay’s turn at the telephone.

  Clay felt numb as he dialed Valerie’s number, knowing he wouldn’t hear her voice on the other end. Immediately, after the busy signal began, he slammed the phone, sensing Alayna’s eyes upon him. He ignored them, quivering.

  “Did all of you dial cell phones? Or did you dial landlines?” he asked then, trying to find reason in this madness.

  “Cell phone, course,” Ralph said.

  “Cell phone,” Norah agreed. “I don’t know anyone with a landline any more. No one but me.”

  Alayna stepped forward. “Are you thinking all the cell phone towers are down, not just ours?”

  “Not sure,” Clay said, staring down at the phone’s face. The black buttons were menacing, now, offering so much disappointment. “I wonder if I can check my voice mail.”

  He dialed into his cellular service provider, waiting for his outgoing message. After a pause that seemed to stretch on forever, his prerecorded voice began. He stopped the recording by punching in his password easily—his daughter’s birth date—and then waited, hearing the robotic woman tell him that he had seven new voice mails.

  “Seven,” he mouthed to Alayna, gesturing to the phone.

  “Oh my god,” Alayna whispered, her shoulders tense.

  Seven felt like too many. Seven felt desperate.

  Clay shifted his weight against the lab’s block wall, gazing out, his eyes becoming bleary.

  Chapter 66

  The first was from Valerie. Her voice wasn’t as light and friendly as he was used to, but it was her, and that was enough to cause his breath to catch.

  “Hey, baby,” she said. “Wanted to tell you we made it out past the edge of town, but just barely. Strangely, traffic is at a standstill. We’ve not moved in nearly an hour and there’s no sign of that changing. Several of that wretched colonel’s military cars have been blazing along the side of the road. I tried to wave one of them down to see what was going on, but they nearly ran me over, not even slowing to avoid me. Maia and I are staying positive though. She’s still feeling warm from the flu, but we’re going to schedule manicures just as soon as we pull into Austin. I’ll get them painted that deep red that you like. Anyway, just thought I’d keep you updated. Maia and I both love you to pieces and can’t wait until we’re together again.”

  The next message was a bit more urgent. Valerie’s voice was high-pitched, nervous—the one she reserved for those nights when he was a bit tardy after a shift. She worried about him. Always, to her worry, Clay had said, “It’s just Carterville. We’ve moved here because it’s safe. You know that.”

  “Hey, Clay. It’s me again,” the message began. “I know you’re busy. But if you could call me as soon as you can, I really need to talk to you. They lied to all of us. As soon as we got moving again, they wouldn’t let us off the road. We tried to turn onto highway six, but they had roadblocks put up. Now we’re about to head into Helen, and from what it looks like from here, there are more roadblocks ahead. I really need to hear from you, Clay. Please call either Maia or my cell. Love you lots.”

  Concern caused Clay’s brow to furrow, and he could feel the questioning eyes beat upon him from the group surrounding him. He pressed on.

  Valerie sounded terribly hurried on the third message.

  “Clay, I’m officially freaking out here. They’ve taken Maia to the infirmary because of the flu. I told them that she’d be fine with me, but the army doctor was insistent that they could help her.” He heard her take a shaky breath. “And that bastard Colonel Wallace seems to have gotten his way after all. Everyone from Carterville has been quarantined here in Helen. They’re not letting anyone leave. God, Clay. I’m so scared. I know you’ll come when you can, but please make it quick.”

  Clay felt an impending sense of dread as the fourth message began, and then the fifth, and the sixth, all explaining that things were getting worse—that she needed him there.

  Around Clay, the other survivors craned their necks, trying to listen to the messages. But the words were only for Clay.

  Finally, the last message began, with a great howling from his beloved wife. “OH GOD, CLAY,” it began, turning into a screech of fear. “OH GOD. I DON’T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE. But hurry. I don’t know what’s going on, but the entire town’s gone crazy. The colonel said that you knew all about this. Is that true? People are talking, and rumor has it it’s the whole world. Oh god, Clay, and they still won’t tell me what happened to Maia. God, Clay. I really need you.” As she spoke, Clay could picture her beautiful, tired eyes. He could remember the first time they’d kissed as teenagers, how he’d inhaled the scent of her and tucked her close to him in the back of his car.

  The message crept on, and Clay had the sense that she was staggering around, her eyes manic, her voice lost to hysteria. After what seemed like an eternity, Clay began to hear gunshots in the distance. His wife screamed a final time—a gut-wrenching scream that forced the blood to drain from Clay’s face.

  He couldn’t speak. He tapped the phone, forcing the message to play once more. And then again. He tried to get a sense for her surroundings—for any sense of hope. During the third run-through, he made eye contact with Alayna and then hit the speaker function on the phone, blaring out Valerie’s scream to the survivors.

  The moment the scream halted and the message stopped, Ralph punched his fist into his open palm, wrinkles pinching between his eyebrows. A sense of doom settled over the room—another low after a slight high. Clay clutched the phone to his chest, hearing his wife scream over and over again. He couldn’t bring himself to stop.

  Chapter 67

  After several minutes more, Alayna came forward, taking the phone from Clay, and dropped it to the counter. She grabbed onto Clay’s shoulders and shook him, attempting to bring him back to reality. “Clay!” she cried. “Clay. There’s nothing you can do from here. Come on.”

  From here, Clay played over and over in his mind. Around them, the other survivors had grown hysteric. Brandon leaned heavily upon his knees, quivering. “It’s all over. It’s all really over,” he said to himself.

  Norah pushed her cane forward, her eyes to the ground. Ralph began to speak to himself, muttering Connie’s name and some other unrecognizable gibberish. “So, it’s true,” he finally said for all to hear. “They’re all dead now. And—”

  “Maybe not,” Clay spouted, stepping back. “Maybe they’re not dead. We can’t know that.”

  “We heard gunfire,” Brandon said, scoffing. “What else do you think happened? You have to see the reality here, Clay. You’re law enforcement. You know the world.”

  But Clay shook his head vehemently. “That gunfire doesn’t mean that Valerie’s dea
d,” he said, beginning to pace. “Sure, the military had guns for the infected. Not for the innocent.”

  “Who’s to say that your wife wasn’t infected?” Ralph asked, his eyes far away.

  “She didn’t sound infected,” Clay argued. “She wouldn’t have called me if she was. That’s not how this works.” He said it with certainty, internally knowing that the more time passed, the less he seemed to know. He turned his eyes toward Jacobs, but the scientist had backed toward the corner, almost hiding from the rest of them.

  “They were surely just killing the crazed,” Clay declared with finality. “No one else.”

  Daniels burst forward then, chiming in. “Well then, does that mean you think that people are generally alive outside of our quasi-safe zone? Outside of this contained energy field? Even with all those crazed monsters out there, infecting each other, tearing into one another?” His eyes were fierce, bright. He was shifting into action mode, as he’d been trained. And Clay’s inability to “see the truth,” in Daniels’s eyes, wouldn’t get in the way.

  Clay breathed heavily. His mind raced, turning the images of his wife and daughter over and over in his mind. They had to be safe. They had to be okay. He remembered teaching Maia to shoot a gun just the year before, how she’d blasted through the center of the target. He’d told her she was a deadeye. She’d rolled her own eyes, scoffing slightly, but accepted the compliment. “Whatever, Dad. Not like I’ll ever need it.”

  God, how wrong they’d been. Wrong about everything. Wrong about the very way in which he spent his life, spent his time. He felt Alayna’s fingers at the nape of his neck, kneading at his skin—a reminder that she was still there for him, body and soul. But this assurance felt dead.

  Jacobs stepped toward the phone, finally making an effort. Clay looked at him as if he were alien. He lifted the phone and addressed the survivors. “It doesn’t do us any good to panic,” he said.

  “What do you care?” Brandon asked then. “You were perfectly fine allowing us to die before. You didn’t even tell us about the location of the bomb until it was almost too late. It’s like you want the world to end.”

  “And you started all of this!” Ralph sneered from the corner. His face was pale, gaunt. He looked older and more ragged with each passing moment.

  Jacobs gave them a simple smile. “If you want to point your finger at me, that’s perfectly fine. I know every someone needs someone else to detest. And I’ve become that persona.”

  Alayna sneered. Clay turned toward her, lifting a finger. “Let’s listen to what he has to say,” he said.

  Jacobs continued seamlessly. “I think we should call another lab. A friend of mine works in Minneapolis, and I heard from him as recently as four days ago. He was perfectly fine. Microwaving a frozen dinner, in fact, and minding his own business. No sign of crisis.”

  A small spark of hope lit in Clay’s heart. Jacobs dialed the number then pressed the speakerphone button, his eyes grey and blank. The phone blared out a ringing sound as it connected to the tucked-away lab in Minnesota, but no one answered. Thirty seconds of wait turned to two minutes, and still the survivors’ eyes remained upon Jacobs.

  Finally, he hung up and then dialed another lab. And then another. As he dialed each one, his shoulders slumped forward more and more, making him look like a crooked question mark. He was defeated.

  As the tension stretched between them, Clay clapped his hands together, getting their attention once more. “Listen, everyone,” he said, his mind teetering on insanity. As he spoke, he structured some semblance of a plan, recognizing that his troops needed something to keep morale up. As it was, he saw suicide plots in each of their eyes.

  “The voice mails from my wife were more than twenty-four hours old, which means there’s no possible way to know what’s going on.” His voice was firm and confident. “Which means we have to make moves without knowing. I say we should move on to Helen—maybe get all the way to Earlton, where the military base is.”

  “All the way to Earlton?” Brandon asked, raising his eyebrows. “We can’t even get out of Carterville. You saw what happened to Connie.”

  It seemed that after constant devastation, people had allowed themselves to forget about Connie. But people ticked their eyes toward Ralph now, who looked stumped with sorrow.

  “That’s right,” Daniels spouted then. “The energy field is controlled from the outside.”

  “And there’s absolutely nothing we can do?” Alayna asked.

  Daniels shook his head, unable to look at her. “Unfortunately, no. We’re relegated to our fate within the containment zone.” His voice was matter-of-fact, even as it delivered such devastating news. “I’m sorry.”

  Norah began to shake, then. She cowered to the ground, peppering the concrete with her tears. “It was fine to die,” she murmured. “It was fine to die alone. But the entire world is falling now. It’s the end times. The devil. He walks among us.”

  The survivors stood without speaking, the dial tone wailing from the phone that remained off the hook. Clay closed his eyes, feeling a howl of despair try to clamber from his chest. But he kept his lips tightly sealed.

  Chapter 68

  That night, the survivors slept fitfully in their barracks in the basement lab. Clay found himself lying alone, despite Alayna’s pleas of wanting to be with him after such a tragic afternoon. But now that he’d survived the day, Clay couldn’t stop beating himself up about being unfaithful to Valerie. Would she understand and forgive him if she truly knew the reasoning behind the infidelity? He hoped that he would be able to find out.

  Clay entered the lab kitchen early in the morning to find both Daniels and Brandon standing, steaming coffee mugs in hand. They didn’t speak for a few moments as Clay poured himself a cup. He wondered what people had said on the Titanic, right before it had dipped into the ocean. He supposed nothing would have sounded appropriate.

  “There’s been some power fluctuations,” Daniels said then. “The town’s been flickering on and off all night and this morning.”

  “I see,” Clay said. “Any consequences to the lab?”

  Daniels shook his head. “The lab seems to be battery powered. It should last for years, if we want it to.”

  “Great. So we can just lie around here while the rest of the world burns,” Brandon said.

  “Don’t,” Clay said, slicing his hand through the air. “We don’t need your pissy attitude right now. Think about Norah. She’s on the edge and you’re not helping.”

  Brandon bowed his head. The cut had been deep, given Brandon and Norah’s budding friendship.

  “Did you go outside this morning, then?” Clay asked Daniels. “Anything else suspicious? Any sign of the crazed?”

  “Only a few stragglers,” Daniels said, smacking at his gun holster. “Their brains are all over the pavement now. Disgusting creatures.”

  Clay’s thought—that these creatures used to be their neighbors and friends—had no meaning for him any longer. He sighed wearily before resting his coffee mug on the counter and heading toward the exit. He bounded up the steps toward the store entrance. Outside, he stared at the desolate waste of his once-beloved town. The corner stop sign was spattered with dried monster blood. Clay didn’t peer around the corner, certain he’d discover the ruined bodies.

  As he stood, he watched as the stoplight began to flicker before turning black for a full minute. He imagined the next several years of their life in the barracks—that is, if the supplies lasted that long—all the while not knowing what had occurred on the outside. For all they knew, the world outside was humming along fine.

  He had to get out. He had to discover the truth.

  He marched back into the lab, discovering Daniels in thinker mode, his chin rested on his fist. The sterile lights from the lab made his black stubble look all the more stark.

  “When the power goes out, wouldn’t that make the energy field flicker as well?” Clay asked.

  Daniels’s eyes slid towa
rd him. “I assume so,” he said. “Absolutely.”

  “If we could figure out the pattern of the fluctuations, we could free ourselves,” Clay said. “Just walk directly out of the containment zone without bursting all over the pavement.” His words were harsh. He was grateful the others were still tucked in their beds.

  Daniels stood. He shook his head vehemently. “I think that’s a foolish idea,” he declared. “The energy field has been set up for a reason.”

  “But those reasons don’t exist any longer,” Clay said.

  “But imagine what would happen if it flickered for just a moment. In the flash of an eye, the green orb would come down over you, and you’d be dust. Just like Connie. And then what would these people do?”

  Clay tilted his head. “I thought you were of the ‘kill or be killed’ mentality?”

  “Sure. For me,” Daniels continued. “But you’re a man of the people. You’re supposed to stay. To keep them safe. They look to you, Clay. You’re the Carterville Sheriff, for god’s sake.”

  “But there isn’t a Carterville anymore,” Clay said, smashing his fist against the countertop. “And if we don’t move now and get some kind of help, maybe we won’t die today. Or tomorrow. And we might still be scrapping away like rats in a few years. But that’s no kind of life, Adam.”

  Daniels shrugged. “It’s your lot in life, now, Clay. The moment you were elected—”

  “The moment I was elected, I didn’t know I’d lose my wife and daughter. And they were all I had in the world,” Clay hissed.

  As he spoke, he sensed a presence behind him. Daniels’s eyes turned upward, gazing at the doorway. Clay turned to find the entire troop of survivors glaring at him, their arms crossed and plastered against their chests. Their anger and fear were palpable.

  ***

  Far from the laboratory basement, near Crawford Farm, the translucent energy field flashed off, making Carterville just more flat land on which to roam.