by Greg Dragon
Breaking his dang neck on a pointless mission wouldn’t bring her home. Wincing, his fingers explored the tender bump on his forehead. Time to move. As his mind cleared, he suspected the dull buzz in his ears combined with Jenna’s bizarre behavior had made him go a little nutty today. Kimmy was dead and he needed to deal with it.
Rett stood, swaying. Every bone and muscle made their presence known to him. Feeling lucky he could walk, Rett searched for the rifle and picked it up. He brushed it clean and almost fired it up at the sky, in a resignation salute, before leaving town. He cocked his head. A scream? No. Two screams?
He looked up the hill and climbed fast, as the old man had taught him. At the top he felt woozy, but didn’t stop to rest. He went over the side and skidded the last twenty feet on his ass. More shouts. Rett slung the rifle over his shoulder and jogged to the sound.
“Daddy!” a girl shouted.
Adrenalin flooded Rett’s body and he ran faster.
“Run, Anna!” a man yelled.
The girl shouted again but the wind blocked her words.
Rett stepped up his pace to render help when he heard a loud whistle shriek. He froze, heart thumping against his chest like it wanted to break out. Joe’s warning echoed in his head. Joe was country but not a fool.
“Daddy!”
The girl was close, and Rett responded as any father would.
“Run honey, run!” a man screamed.
The man’s voice scared Rett. He almost knocked the blond girl over as he ran from the woods. To his shock, he saw two younger girls playing with colorful neon-light sticks on a blanket.
The oldest girl backed up, eyes wide, and fell down at his feet. She opened her mouth to scream and made a hiccup.
He felt the cold wind on his face. Rett had an obligation to get the kids to safety and then return to help the adults. He yanked the girl to her feet. “Land is shaking. I’m taking you girls to shelter! You hear me?”
Her eyes grew wider and she nodded. A whistle gave one last blast and stopped. Leaves fluttered down on their heads.
Rett picked up the other kids, holding one under each arm. “Follow me! You hear me?”
He didn’t wait for her answer. Rett jogged away. The little girls shrieked, “Anna!” One kept screaming while the other fell silent. Rett didn’t look back. He didn’t need a compass now, he knew the way back to the road.
Seconds later, Anna caught up with him. “Wait! We didn’t come in this way.”
“Don’t stop,” he said. “Not till we reach the fence.”
Once or twice she stumbled. She caught back up. “Earthquake?”
Gunshots fired. She turned to look back and tripped.
“Get up,” he shouted. “Move it!” The girl jumped to her feet.
More shots came from behind them. Quitman’s men, he supposed.
He acted like a drill sergeant. “Keep up, Anna. Run hard, run hard, run to the fence.”
“Wait, mister!” she shouted, stopping. “Our parents.”
Rett dropped the other two and whirled around. “Your dad told you to run! Do it!”
He picked the two girls up and sprinted.
“What if they’re hurt?” she cried out, stumbling behind him.
Rett ran faster, praying she followed. He saw his SUV.
More shouting, followed by two more shots. How many people were on Quitman’s land?
He felt the wind shift prior to seeing the effect on the trees. They reached the fence. Rett turned and handed one child to the panting girl, climbed over the fence, and shoved a child inside the SUV. Mapping out the best route to take in his head, he jumped back on the fence and leapt right over to the ground.
Anna said, “I hear running. Maybe Mom or Dad.”
Fear galvanized him. Rett tore the younger girl from her arms and picked Anna up. He slung her over the fence. She landed in the mud on her bottom.
He grabbed the last cowering child and climbed over. Rett opened the door and put her in. No time for niceties like seatbelts. Sobbing, Anna tried to karate kick and claw him. He lifted her, heaved her inside, and slammed the door. He evaluated the sounds—right on top of them.
Rett readied his flashlight. He wanted to see who chased them. The brilliant moon lit up the field and the wind carried a foul odor. His nose itched and his stomach cramped. What the hell?
He heard the person running in full stride right for them. No slowing down, no calling out, just running sounds. “Hold up!” Rett shouted and took aim.
“No!” the girl shouted from inside the SUV. She leaned on the horn.
Crack! He hit the fence like a bull. The wood bowed but held. Rett jerked his head up and stared into its face. His mind went numb. A wild man? He beamed the flashlight on him and his stomach flip-flopped. No longer a man, something else, and not nature-made.
It began trying to push its way through the fence, growling. Rett hoped it didn’t notice the tree lying over broken fence. He...It ripped off the loose top plank. Where did its strength come from? In the distance, more running sounds. How many?
He had kids to protect. Years of hunting and target practice with his old man and uncle came back in a flash. Before the thing could growl or rip off another plank, Rett blew its right eye out—well, the shiny black cavity where an eyeball used to be. The thing dropped and excreted a burnt sugar odor. Another ran across the soggy field. Rett had the impression the things followed sound and scent.
He didn’t intend to wait around for the pack or Quitman’s henchmen. Rett shoved Anna across the seat. He cranked the engine and stomped the gas. The second monster, because that’s what they looked like, plowed into the fence and broke through. The younger girls sobbed, and Rett wanted to cry with them.
“What’s attacking us?” Anna asked, looking back. He turned on his headlights.
His heart fluttered in his chest, his throat had clenched in a spasm, and cold made him numb. He had to talk to Joe, but he couldn’t answer the kid until he turned on the heat.
“Animal with rabies,” Rett said, hoping she believed him.
He noticed Anna had the shakes as well. The other two kids pressed against their sister like puppies trying to get warm. “Everybody okay? I didn’t mean to hurt y’all.”
One asked, “Mommy?”
Rett shook his head. “I dunno. I’ll take y’all to the sheriff. Who was with your parents?”
“Aunt Barb and Uncle Jeff and their three friends. They decided to take pictures of the night sky for their blog.”
“They left you?” he asked.
“I’m twelve,” Anna answered in a soft voice.
He couldn’t tell those kids their parents were fools. Rett reached to turn on the radio and noticed a tremor in his hand. “Did you girls forget it’s Halloween?”
“We don’t celebrate Halloween. It’s about a night when demons walk the earth.”
Rett nodded. “Amen to that.”
Louis
Ever since he removed the microbe from Grandpop’s brain, Louis wondered if he was infected with the same micro-organism. Doctor Peterson had confirmed microbes could follow a genetic pattern generation after generation on the Skype interview with the COGS. Louis sat on Ava’s chair, but she said, “Not while it’s still processing my brain map.”
She turned on the other chair. “Three minutes to warm up. Relax.”
Louis sat on the seat with feet on the floor and pretended to be excited. If he had a microbe in his head like his Grandpop, he would be forced to take drastic measures for his end-of-life planning. Could he face that? He kicked off his shoes and stretched out.
Ava adjusted the viewing screen and keypad. She hit a button and the chair back rose to a comfortable height. “Just right,” he told her. Louis listened as she reminded him how to use the different keys.
She pointed to a green button. “When it lights up, you’re ready to rock. Make sure you’re comfortable and be still. You’ll find the helmet will contour to your height and big head.”
Louis laughed and forced his back and neck muscles to relax.
“I’m going to duck into the hallway and make sure Quitman hasn’t arrived.”
“Okay.” Louis studied the keypad a few more seconds and then closed his eyes.
Ava muted the lights. He felt a tad anxious. What if the brain mapping caused the microbe to react and would he feel it?
His fingers gripped the end of an armrest and the table titled backward into a flat position. The leather seating molded to his body. His eyes jerked open. He hadn’t noticed the chair doing the same with Ava. The keypad adjusted, so he wasn’t alarmed. He probably hit a wrong button as he was prone to do.
Louis stretched his arms out on the armrest. He was so comfortable it would be easy to snooze if he wasn’t careful. A few seconds later the light popped on. Before he could lift his fingers to the keyboard, he heard a snapping sound and restraints tightened around his wrists and ankles. Then a big one shot across his chest and another over his thighs.
He sucked in his next breath and lifted his head. Seeing his extremities tied down sent Louis into a reactive panic. Restrained against his will was his chief childhood nightmare. He succumbed to a momentary madness. Louis screamed and struggled to free himself from the prison chair. “Ava!” He gave in to the looming terror and yanked against the restraints.
He fought to exhaustion. “Ava!” Fear made him urinate. The warmth felt obscene. The machine made loud noises and his bowels loosened. Shame washed over him when he pooped his pants. “Ava! Get back in here!”
Louis howled, shocking himself. He forced control over his panic even though he had never felt so alone and neglected. His muscles ached and became flaccid. Sweat made him shiver. Terror sent his heart racing in tachycardiac bursts. His fright turned him into a quivering lump of skin and bones as powerlessness swept over him. He made bleating sounds as he took normal breaths. This was his secret fear, the one that terrorized him during full moons. Being restrained and experimented on against his will.
“For God’s sake Ava, come back!” Panting, he tried to slip his thumb underneath the strap. A policeman once told him a prisoner slipped out of handcuffs by breaking his thumb. Louis tried and failed. Impossible.
The chair tilted upright. He looked up and the helmet came down and adjusted to his head. His brain appeared on an inner screen. Shaking took over his body as waves of terror chills swept up his spine. Despite his fear, he couldn’t help noticing his brain revealed classic early atrophy signs. He jerked against the straps.
“Stop this,” he pleaded, “right now.”
“I’m sorry, Louis,” Ava spoke from a speaker in the helmet. “I’ve given my youth to this drug. I didn’t drag you out here to read my paper or to hire you as a consultant. I plotted to inject you with XB-11 before you disappeared into dementia. Among neurologists, you’re famous. If I cure you, then XB gets fast-tracked.”
A sick, syrupy sensation passed over him. “Listen to what you’re saying,” he said. “You don’t have my consent.”
“Yes, I do. You should read documents you sign in the future. Even Susan Cho thinks you’re here as a volunteer subject.”
Sweat rolled from his forehead into his eyes. He had been suckered. No one had ever duped him or reduced him to a lump of spineless fear before Ava. She was the maestro of power and seduction. “You hate me?”
“You dismissed me in Orlando like a whore. You stood on stage and with your birthright of arrogance proclaimed the Alzheimer’s cure at hand—in your hands. No way could the daughter of a security guard and secretary steal your limelight. Worse than your pious conceit was your pathetic determination to follow outmoded rules during an epidemic of brain abnormalities. You could’ve changed the face of brain research and proposed a new vision, a cure agenda. Instead, you contracted delusions of grandeur.”
Louis felt naked, exposed. “You’ve confused arrogance for dedication.” He wondered if his colleagues thought the same. Louis Janzen, a victim of his own fiction?
Ave laughed and asked, “Did I?”
“I followed a time-honored scientific process designed to promote patient safety. It exposed the flaw in my drug. Release me.”
“Flaw? It showed no statistical benefit. A placebo in all but name.”
He’d been humbled by failure. The data forced Louis to retract his bold proclamation about a cure. But he never gave up hope, never. “The point is by following the established path my drug was found to have no benefit, and it killed no one.”
“It killed hope.”
True, he had nasty letters to prove it. Louis sighed. “I understand that far better than you.”
“The process is too long and non-clinicians make too many decisions.”
“You’re insane. The system works.”
“Says the man afraid of risks and who soiled his pants. You never once questioned why I’d have sex with you both times with little encouragement. You’re not hot, but you are gullible and predictable.”
Louis almost begged, but stopped himself.
“We’re mapping your dying brain. Then I’ll inject XB, which I’ve renamed Avalonium for public use. We’ll remap in a month. Once you see the improvement, feel invigorated and able to concentrate again, you’ll become an XB convert. A talking head for XB, much like the other bozos on TV hocking stock options.”
Anger flooded through him and the heat helped him to fight. She must have brought Peterson into the lab in the same manner. “Did you do this to Doctor Peterson?”
“My field is Alzheimer’s disease. Peterson’s conflict was with Quitman Delaney. Q has a penchant for getting rid of troublemakers. Guess I caught the itch from him. Like you, Peterson pretended to go along so he could leave and out us to the authorities. Swarm disease scared him. Louis, your acting sucks.”
Bitch.
“Ah, from the way your brain is lighting up you’re putting two and two together.”
“If I live, you’ll never be sure you can control me.”
Ava laughed. “I’ll take my chances. The treatment won’t leave a scar and in a few short days the drug will exit your body. I predict you’ll be begging me to give XB to your brothers. You can start the family you’ve always wanted. Your name will be forever linked to the cure as the first test patient. Isn’t that what you’ve always dreamed? Your name associated with the Alzheimer’s cure?”
Was he really such a fool? “Go to hell.”
“This brain map—the before and after—will prove I have the cure.”
“Bitch.”
“You didn’t call me names when you were nailing me.”
He heard a few musical tones and then Ava said, “There’s your little hitchhiker, Louis. A sound vibration from the helmet destroys its camouflage. You did the same in your lab, except with a chemical. Notice how well it’s situated? Almost like it was born there? It’s a parasite and it’s widespread throughout the country.”
His soiled clothes burned his ass, but he asked, “Yeah, how? What source?”
“This town is a safe deposit box for ancient bugs and germs. Quitman bottled mineral water from a local spring to fund his research. The parasite and another virus from the mist were discovered in CloudMist bottled water in May. You drank some on the plane, remember?”
“How is contaminated water sold to the public?”
“The microbe’s cloak failed and the testing process found them. I gave you the water to feed your microbe.”
“Thanks.”
Ava sounded amused as she continued. “Your father had the water shipped to Boston because he thought the mineral water was responsible for the good health found in local residents. Quitman believes a chemical imbalance in brain chemistry is critical to the microbe’s survival. Its by-products eat away at the brain like Swarm disease, except Swarm happens much faster. I believe it’s responsible for the pandemic of neurological problems we’ve been facing. Q’s granddaughter, the so-called faith healer, calls them Anchorons. Religious babble.
Nothing like seeing a live bug inside your brain, is there? Look, it’s moving. Wait, you have more than one.”
Louis hated her voice—clear and void of emotional entanglements. Still, he couldn’t take his eyes off the Anchorons. He liked the word. “Ava, go no further. You’re behaving like a petulant child. Don’t you have colleagues to consult for ethical guidance?”
She laughed, sounding thrilled. “Petulant child? And here I thought you would call me certifiable.”
He felt sick to his stomach.
“I’ll inject XB right through your hair. You’re going to feel a damp gel-like substance. It’s disinfecting your scalp and hair follicles.”
A not-unpleasant cleansing followed. “Anesthesia?”
“None.”
He gasped, shocked. “You’ll torture me?”
“The brain doesn’t feel pain. I advise you to hold still. It’s your hippocampus, after all.”
He heard a beeping sound, followed by a burning inside his head. Louis screamed and couldn’t stop.
“All done. You’ll feel a sting in your wrist for sedation. See you soon.”
Eddie Jean
Eddie Jean woke thinking she was underwater with her foot caught in a submerged tree limb, drowning. She kicked hard to break free. Sunlight blinded as she stretched her face to the surface. Well, maybe it wasn’t sunlight. As her mind calmed and her eyes cleared, Eddie Jean realized she lay underneath warming lights. She raised her head and discovered she wore a hospital gown. Soaps and disinfectants saturated the humid air. Eddie Jean guessed they hosed her down and called it a bath.
She tried to sit up, but something held her back. A restraining strap released. She sat on the side of the bed dangling her legs and stared past the intense lights at the overhead bridge. The lab had a viewing theater, like older hospitals have over operating rooms. She saw Quitman Delaney arguing with the ice queen, Doctor Allen. His angry face looked crimson, but the blond-haired doctor looked serene. After what he had done, she could no longer call him “Granddad.” “Q” would do instead.
