by Jeff Olah
“CORA.”
Nothing.
Down to his knees, her peered into her eyes and watched her irises fade into thin brown rings just before her lids dropped over them. “CORA, LET’S GO.”
Again nothing.
Scanning the narrow margins between the white fluffed Junipers, Griffin slid her upper body onto his thighs. Her body convulsed as he felt his way to her carotid and applied enough pressure to confirm she was still present. “Okay, stay with me. We’re getting out of here.”
As the first of their five pursuers trudged out into the open, Griffin had already pulled her another twenty-five feet. At his back, a row of Ponderosa Pine large enough to hide a small plane rose out of the earth nearly thirty feet.
Plowing through the snow blanketed lower branches, he flinched as buckets of the white powder slipped in between his last layer of clothing and onto his bare back. Shielding Cora from much of the deluge, he looked back one last time before disappearing into the treeline. “You gotta be kidding me.”
Two out in the open and both had seen them. He had five seconds, maybe ten to figure out what to do.
Propping her up against the base of the tree, Cora smiled. She was still here, at least for the moment. “Are we there?” she asked.
“Yes,” he lied. “Just say here and sleep. We’re almost home.”
Before heading back out into the unknown, Griffin quickly recounted the items left inside the jacket now draped over Cora’s diminutive frame. He unzipped the right pocket, withdrew a black Patagonia wool-lined beanie and slipped it down over her head. She didn’t react. Her eyes were still closed and with one last look at the rise and fall of her chest, Griffin pushed through the trees.
There were two, and then three. They moved slower than before, but came from opposing directions, essentially closing off any chance of exiting to the north. The first two, coming in from the left, were a few paces behind the leader as he made eye contact with each individually.
Pacing right, Griffin waited as they turned and started toward him. “Let’s go, that’s right just keep coming. I’ve got a surprise for each and every one of you.”
Continuing to follow his every step, the group trailed him out away from Cora’s shelter and into the next clearing. As Griffin quickened his pace and moved to the center, the leader growled. Baring her teeth, the former prison worker moved closer, exposing the jagged mess her teeth had become. Twisting her head curiously to the left, ragged pieces of flayed skin and an orange tinted mucus hung awkwardly from her mouth.
The group of three were now within a few feet of one another and less than a car length behind. His plan was to bring them out away from his traveling partner, use the open space to scatter the echoes from the three shots he planned to take, and then blow the backs of their heads into oblivion. In the off chance the other two were anywhere within earshot, they’d likely not find this location until he was back to Cora and off the mountain.
“Let’s go ladies, just a few more feet.”
Raising the Glock 17 nine millimeter pistol, Griffin sighted his first target. “Oh no.”
On the outer edges of the glade, weaving in and out of the giant pine, were two more women from the bus. Dead eyes and branded in blood, they obviously hadn’t come to help. They were also much closer to Cora than he was comfortable with.
“Here we go.” Firing three close-range head shots, Griffin turned and ran as the trio of faceless, blood-saturated bodies dropped into the ankle-deep snow.
25
The sweet stinging stench of antiseptic crept into his nasal cavity, partially blotting what drifted from the three dozen corpses lining the rear hall. What did make its way through forced Ethan’s hand up over his mouth and nose, gagging as he looked back at David. And finally nodding toward the end of the hall, he slowly lowered his hand. “The last cot on the right, looks like we’re gonna have some company.”
The blood-speckled white linen sheet shifted from side to side, as whatever it covered attempted to free itself. An arm dropped off the side of the cot and then both legs. The sheet folded into itself and then slipped into a heap next to the wall, as the man with less than half a face pushed away from the wall and attempted to right himself.
The overhead fluorescent lights flickered, illuminating the man who stood slightly above six and a half feet tall. Summer Mill’s largest resident moved slowly into the center of the hall, turned toward Ethan and David, and sniffed at the air. The skin along his severely disfigured face hung in thick swatches and his eyes… had both been eaten out of their sockets.
Stepping into the recessed doorway to the right, Ethan motioned for his friend to follow. “Isn’t that Franklin?”
. . .
They’d known the gargantuan beast, still clad in his shapeless denim overalls and shredded flannel long-sleeve shirt, for nearly their entire lives. The slender young man who initially strode into their first grade classroom carrying a lunch sac fashioned from a discarded pair of his older brother’s trousers somehow grew into the biggest human Ethan or David had ever laid their eyes on.
As a youth, the son of a millet farmer came to be known by only his last name. Leslie Franklin had only ever answered to his given name once. In front of eighteen other snickering six and seven year olds, he corrected Mrs. Belzer. From the second morning he attended Summer Mill Elementary school, the boy with the abnormally long torso was just “Franklin”.
As gentle as a mother hen, and without a callous cell in his body, the younger Franklin was nearly invisible to his peers. He stepped through adolescence without so much as raising his voice to his classmates or teachers. He blended in and never spoke first. He wasn’t embarrassed by his given name, he just “liked Franklin better.” And no one, including those who normally would, questioned it.
The giant man who’d never used his imposing size or strength in an aggressive manner stepped slowly through the draped cots. He continued forward with his nose in the air as heavy trails of black blood ran from the holes in his face. He bit at the air and growled as his right foot caught the leg of cot number twelve. Reaching down with one hand, the angered beast who was once the most reserved boy in town gripped the makeshift bed and tossed it, along with its occupant, nearly fifteen feet backwards and into the wall.
. . .
Leaning out of the shadows and into the hall for a second look, David said, “Yeah, that’s Franklin alright, at least it used to be. Uh, and I think we’re gonna need to find another way.”
“What?”
Taking Ethan by the collar and holding his head out into the hall, David said, “You wanna try to get past him?”
Holding up his pistol, Ethan said, “He can’t see us, he doesn’t even know we’re here. You could take him out from here. Put one into his head and then let’s go get Carly.”
As the behemoth stepped to within twenty feet, David stepped back into the alcove and gripped the door knob. “Of course, it’s locked.”
“David, just shoot him.”
“No. We do that and every single one of those things knows exactly where we are. If it were just him, maybe. But we don’t know what the rest of the building is like. Carly said she is hiding and I’m sure she’s not doing it just to play games. We need to get to her without making ourselves another target.”
“But—”
“And now that you bring it up, what’s wrong with your weapon?”
“No, you’re right,” Ethan said. “We need to move through here without too much racket. So—”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it. Back there in the street, you hesitated. You know what those things will do to you and to me if they get ahold of us.”
“Yeah, but I—”
“That’s not all,” David said. “You also missed at least two shots.”
“Yeah so, it happens.”
“Not with you. You never miss. I’ve seen you uncap a bottle of Jack at fifty yards. You know that, so why now? What’s with you?”
/> “I don’t know,” Ethan said. “I just can’t seem to wrap my head around the fact that these people aren’t actually people. They were living breathing humans less than a day ago, and now what, we’re just supposed to kill them? Just put a bullet between their eyes and walk away?”
“If we’re lucky.” David leaned out once again and then looked at his watch. By his estimation, they had less than ten seconds to decide what they were going to do and how they were going to avoid their old school mate as Leslie Franklin staggered toward them. “Listen, I have no idea what’s happened here and why people are acting the way they are, but as much as I hate saying it, we need to worry about us, and no one else. I would have thought that after the year you’ve had, it wouldn’t be so hard to pull the trigger.”
The words felt wrong even as they left his tongue. And as Ethan bit into his lip and shook his head, David reached out. Laying his hand on his friends shoulder, he spoke before Ethan could respond. “Buddy, I’m sorry. That was totally insensitive. I really shouldn’t have—”
“It’s okay. You’re probably right. Let’s go get Carly.”
The thunderous footfalls out in the hall now quite obvious, David gently shook on the door handle and pressed his ear to the cold steel. Turning back to Ethan, he said, “Alright, we need to go. Whatever or whoever is on the other side of this door now knows we’re out here. So I say we go with the known threat out in the hall. I’ll take down the big guy and then we move through the rest of the building like we’re on fire. You good?”
“What about not making any noise?”
David peered back into the hall and quickly pulled back. “I think it’s too late for that, just promise me one thing.”
Ethan readied his weapon. “What?”
“If I ever turn into one of those things, please take me out before I hurt anyone.” And looking directly into his best friend’s eyes, David said, “Promise me. I want you to say it.”
Ethan faked a smile. “Yeah, okay. I promise to shoot my best friend in the head if he tries to eat my face off.”
As the overhead lights blinked again, the stench of their childhood friend rounded the corner only slightly before his darkened shadow blotted out what illumination remained. And as David stepped in front of Ethan, he raised his weapon and found a spot between the two gaping holes where Franklin’s eyes should have been.
26
She didn’t remember drifting off, however lying flat on her back, enveloped in the light-weight Siberian Down Comforter, it was easy to understand how it happened. With less than three hours of continuous sleep in the last day and a half, Emma just wanted to stay in bed.
She would have estimated it to be late afternoon, although up onto her right elbow and turning toward the clock, she’d only been away from her phone for just over two hours. The short unavoidable nap wasn’t nearly long enough, but with the images from the news still fresh in her mind, and the possibility that BXF was somehow involved, she tossed her feet off the bed and stood.
Across the antique European Brushed Oak flooring, she strode into the bathroom, opened the spigot, and looked into the mirror as the water warmed. Staring into her own reflection always brought a sense of peace, centered her, and brought her back to her childhood. Having nearly the identical facial features of her mother, she sometimes spoke into the mirror as if they were face to face.
“Mom, I pray that you and dad are alright. I don’t know what’s happening out there, and when I’ll see you again, but I want you to know that I love you.”
Patting the warm water against her face and neck, Emma reached for a hand towel, dried off, and before turning, stared at her own image once again. “For them, for all of them.”
Into the hall and stopping at her study, she scanned the room. As it came to her, she moved to the filing cabinet and knelt beside the lower drawer. Sliding it open, movement beyond the trio of frosted twelve-inch square windows caught her eye. She focused on the last window as the light came through in fits and starts. “Must be the trees again. They should have cut them back by now.”
Flipping through the individual files, she found what she was looking for. Precariously labeled “Research – Project Ares” she pulled out the inch-thick file and set it aside. Quickly rifling through what remained at the bottom of the drawer and then into her personal files, the second folder was nowhere to be found.
“Must have left that one at the office, damn it.”
Stepping back into the hall, shadows again danced beyond the study windows as she started for the living room. Before heading into the kitchen, she turned on the television, hoping for a bit of background noise, but all that remained was a snowstorm of static. Every channel from local broadcasts through the bigger cable networks had gone dark.
Moving to the cordless phone near the front door, she pressed the talk button. Nothing. No dial tone. No incessant alarm that typically signals a low or dead battery. Just dead silence.
Placing the handset back in its cradle, Emma turned and moved back into the kitchen. Having forgotten to eat anything since last night’s early dinner, the fuzzy light-headedness told her it was time to get something into her stomach.
Gripping the handle on the door to the refrigerator and reading the note she’d left for herself, it didn’t initially make sense. “You’re in trouble?”
Pulling the door open, she stepped back. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
Two half-gallon containers of “100 Percent Florida Grown Orange Juice” and three packets of fast food hot sauce weren’t what she was hoping to find. Looking through the clear glass into the fruit and vegetable drawers, they were as bare as the other four shelves.
Three glasses of mostly orange flavored sugar water and she was seated at her kitchen table with more questions than answers. First and most troubling was the problem going on in the city she had called home for the last year. How could this have happened so far from any of the facilities managed by BXF?
With the nearest base over five hundred miles to the north, it appeared unlikely that the two situations were related. She could attempt another call to Mr. Goodwin, although after the unusually awkward conversation they’d had earlier, she thought it better to wait a few days. If she were to get any definitive information from him, Emma needed to think through the conversation she intended to have a bit more before dialing.
If she had been relieved of her position at BXF, she would also need instructions on just how they wanted to transfer the responsibilities of the operation in Summer Mill. As far as she was aware, there were only a handful of people who even knew it existed. And those who did already had full-time positions.
“I need to call home.”
Reaching for her cell phone and powering it on, she smiled. “Damn persistent, I’ll give ‘em that.” Having missed another seven calls from Mr. or Mrs. Unknown, Emma was now more curious than irritated. And as she opened her favorites, with the intention of again trying to reach her brother, their timing could not have been better.
As the Unknown Caller again appeared across the top of the phone’s display, Emma took a deep breath. “If this is a sales call, they’re going to wish they never dialed this number.”
Pressing Accept and then Speaker, she set the phone on the table in front of her. “HELLO?”
“Emma… Emma Runner?”
“Yes, this is Em—”
The voice on the other end cut her short before she could finish. The man’s gritty voice and near perfect diction told her he was either a news reporter, a politician, or possibly military. “Ms. Runner, we don’t have much time, so I’m going to need you to listen very closely.”
“Wait, who is this and why the hell have you called me like fifty times this morning?”
“My name is Richard Daniels, Major Richard Daniels. I’m a business associate of your former employer. Now, I need you to listen. I need you to do exactly as I say. No more and no less.”
“Excuse me Major Daniels, but why on earth would I—
”
The mystery man barked into the phone. “Look, there’s no time for pleasantries. Haven’t you seen the news this morning?”
“Yes, Los Angles is like a war zone, but I’m safely inside my home and don’t plan on leaving any time soon. And not that it’s any of your business, but I’ve also got a security team right outside.”
“Emma, your former superior Marcus Goodwin is and always was a waste of human DNA. I know he ended your employment with BXF earlier this morning and want to help. Actually, I think we may be able to assist one another.”
“Wait,” Emma said as she grabbed her phone and walked into the living room. “Are you offering me a job?”
