He did as requested and the soldier disappeared behind the car.
Ramon fingered the paper copy of the driver’s license folded up in his shirt pocket and hoped he wouldn’t be asked to show identification.
“No supplies?”
Ramon looked up, frowning. “Excuse me?”
“You’re going on the water tomorrow, but you don’t have any supplies?”
“Oh,” he said, relieved, “I packed the boat today— well, yesterday, before they said to stay home.”
The marine nodded and waved him on. “Be safe, sir.”
Ramon gave him a wan smile. “Anymore checkpoints?”
“Between here and the Bay? No. You’re good to go.”
And beyond? But, of course, he didn’t ask.
“But if you were thinking of going south, say, through the base at Hubbard County Park down to Hampton Bays, that whole area is still under lockdown. I’d avoid it.”
Ramon was tempted to push for more information, but he just mumbled a thank you and pulled away from the stop. Once out of the glow of the tan truck’s headlights and into the darkness beyond, he let out a deep breath.
Now’s when having a boat would really come in handy.
He soon passed Riverhead and was on his way to Mattuck, and while there were signs of checkpoints — military and police vehicles — they appeared to be unmanned. He finally arrived at the gate to the laboratory compound just shy of one-thirty in the morning, both surprised and perplexed to find it completely deserted. Given the publicity, he’d expected someone to be here.
In the glare from the perimeter floodlights, he could see nothing amiss. The fence wasn’t charged. Instead, it was topped by a double coil of razor wire. There was no sign that anyone had tried to gain access by cutting the chain link.
This was the advantage of having the lab located so far off the beaten path, out at land’s end. Nobody ever came out here unless they had business. It was simply too remote, too far from civilization, even if only by a half-hour, that not even protesters found it worth their while to come all the way out here. Sure, the location had worked against them in the past, making recruitment of qualified talent difficult, but it now seemed to work in their favor. He was utterly alone.
He pressed his identification badge against the keypad and waited for the gate to roll open, rattling heavily on its metal track. After passing through it, he slowed, watching in the mirror as it slid shut again. Nothing came out of the darkness of the woods alongside the road; nobody sane would be out at this hour unless they had to be.
When the clanking ceased, he drove the winding course around the corner of the compound to the parking lot. And although he couldn’t see the ocean out to his left, he could feel its presence, could feel the weight of the waves battering themselves against the rocks. Around the corner, the sound was cut off by the building. But then the darkness pressed in on him, and it felt like the spirits of those he had tragically lost.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
Lyssa dropped the blanket and stumbled backward away from the bed. One of her heels caught the sharp corner of Cassie’s dresser. Wires of pain shot up the back of her leg, turning her moan of horror into a sharp cry of anguish.
She crashed back, knocking objects to the floor. A snow globe of downtown New York thumped onto the carpet and wobbled beneath the bed. A jar of pennies tipped and spilled behind the dresser.
And yet, despite the noise, despite Lyssa’s choked cries, Cassie didn’t move. She slept on without stirring, oblivious to the terror she had created in her mother by sharing her bed with the battered, bloody, mud-caked corpse of her pet rabbit.
A sound, like a massive cataract, filled Lyssa’s ears, flooding through her head, her whole being, drowning her insensate. She crouched at the base of the dresser, the back of her shirt yanked halfway up to her shoulders by the drawer pulls jabbing into her spine. Why? was all she could think. Why?
The lump at Cassie’s feet seemed to grow. Lyssa stared at it, waiting for it to do what she willed herself and yet could not do: move. But it did not. Her mind registered the tiny rise and fall of Cassie’s breathing, but the form further down remained as still as a statue.
Gradually, she became aware again of the burning sensation in her heel and the cold hard knuckles pressing into her back. She shifted awkwardly, forcing muscles to release themselves and obey her commands. It seemed a herculean effort, willing her body to ignore the dueling urges to flee and pull Cassie from the bed, to throttle some sense into the girl.
Why why why?
There was no sensible reason for the desecration, no possible explanation for her daughter’s defiant act. The girl knew about death, how permanent it was. Lyssa knew Ramon had spoken to her about it, reasoning with her as if she were a person twice her own age with twice the ability to comprehend. Despite the inappropriateness of his bumbling attempts to make her understand, Cassie had to know that once something died, it didn’t come back.
The government discovered a way to reanimate people.
She wanted to shout at Ramon’s voice inside of her head, wanted to tell him to shut up.
No such things as zombie rabbits. Only people.
It was Ramon’s fault for saying that.
But when did Cassie do it? When did she dig up the carcass?
And how had she managed to slip it past her and Ramon?
Lyssa pushed herself shakily to her feet, knocking the dresser back against the wall in the process. A picture frame toppled over, smacking the surface. She reached instinctively back and pushed it away from the edge. That thing in Cassie’s bed, she was totally focused on it now. She had to get it out of the room, out of the house. Out of their lives. It was dangerous— not in any physical way, but what it represented. It needed to be destroyed.
She took a tentative step forward, hesitated, torn by indecision. Even in her current state, she knew that she could cause Cassie more psychological harm unless she handled the situation properly. She thought about sneaking it out from under the sheet.
No! Cassie needs to know this is unacceptable behavior!
On the other hand, what if she hadn’t even been aware she’d done it? What if she’d unburied the body while in a sleeping-pill-induced torpor?
The uncertainty froze Lyssa. She couldn’t remember if she’d given Cassie a pill earlier that evening.
It explains why she hasn’t woken.
It was wrong to give Cassie those pills, she knew it. And now it was coming back to bite her in the ass.
This is all your fault, taking the easy way out.
She took another step forward and reached for the crumpled blanket, touched it with trembling fingers, tips curling around to grasp an edge to peel it away.
It moved!
She stared wide-eyed at the lump.
It’s bigger!
It did seem bigger. But it hadn’t mov—
Lyssa stumbled back, sure she had seen it shift. This time her foot landed on the snow globe and down she went. Her head cracked hard against a drawer pull.
Consciousness fled from her. Into that darkness she fled, chased by the image of the dead rabbit and the sound of its angry growl.
* * *
The phone was ringing.
She was standing on a barren windswept hilltop and the sun was out and it was too bright. She was all alone, lost, and screaming. And the phone was ringing.
Somebody really ought to get that.
Her cheek was wet. She tried to raise a hand to touch it, puzzling at the cloudless sky, bewildered at how blood-red it was instead of blue. Red, yet still dazzlingly bright.
But her hand wouldn’t move. And yet she knew that her cheek was wet. She could feel the coldness there every time the hot wind pressed itself against her.
She realized she’d stopped screaming. Nevertheless, the sound of it continued to echo about her, which seemed strange, given that there was nothing around to throw the sound back.
Like the wet cheek, she
knew her surroundings without visual proof. Without turning to verify it with her own eyes. She just . . . knew it.
Riiiiiiiing.
What the hell is this place?
She couldn’t seem to remember how she’d gotten here or what she was doing before she’d arrived.
Another gust of hot air on her face, hard this time, rough, almost physical.
Lyssa opened her eyes. She turned her head toward the light and saw Shinji, and she blinked at him and thought, Bad dog. Get off my bed.
But she knew in the next instant that she wasn’t in her own room. It was daylight. The sun was shining in the window and falling on her face. She was lying on the floor and the pounding in her head was so fierce that it felt like something inside of her skull trying to hammer its way out. This time when she tried to turn her head, the pain exploded, sending hot waves of nausea through her body.
She was going to be sick. Her stomach clenched and tried to force itself up her throat. It didn’t matter that it was empty. The muscles in her abdomen contracted and she convulsed. A silent scream filled her head and the ringing—
That damn ringing! What is that?
The nausea rose and just as quickly fell away again, leaving her gasping for air.
Now on one elbow, tears streaming down her cheeks. The clamp on her throat felt like a metal vise.
Eventually, the fog in her head cleared a little. She remembered Shinji behind her. She turned, still wondering how she’d managed to get on the floor. Had she fainted from exhaustion and hit her head? Where was Cassie? And Ramon?
The last thing she remembered was darkness falling and her husband pacing in the kitchen, accusing her of conducting illegal experiments.
She reached blindly out and laid a hand on Shinji. Her mind simply couldn’t register why he was cold and rigid, not until the memory of what had befallen her last night came flooding back.
And then she really did scream out loud. And this time the sound didn’t echo at all. Not even when Cassie rose from the bed, her eyes dark circles in her pale face.
Not even when the girl kneeled down beside her and opened her mouth wide and began to scream with her.
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
Lyssa made Ramon take the carcass outside. She didn’t ask him what he did with it, though he told her anyway. “It’s Sunday,” he reminded her, after she’d come back downstairs after her shower, after she’d ripped the filthy, muddy, blood and gore-stained sheets from Cassie’s bed and replaced them with clean ones from the linen closet. After she’d scrubbed Cassie down in the bathtub with the toilet brush until the girl’s skin was raw and they were both screaming and their throats were sore and neither of them had anymore tears to cry. “They’ll pick up the trash bins first thing tomorrow morning,” he quietly told her.
Out on the curb, to be trucked away. Far, far away.
The curb wasn’t far enough, but it was good enough for now.
Warily, Ramon watched Lyssa settle into her chair at the kitchen table, her delicate fingers gripping a fresh mug of coffee in her hands as if she expected it to take wing and fly away.
He could see that she was shivering, but he couldn’t tell if it was part and parcel of the mania she seemed to be suffering from or the sleeping pills she was going through like candy. He was tempted to ask her if she was giving them to Cassie. He suspected that she was, because it didn’t seem natural for the girl to be sleeping so much. But he found that he was actually leery of bringing it up. At least the poor little girl wasn’t screaming anymore.
He had arrived home to find them in the downstairs bathroom, Lyssa yelling for Cassie to wash herself, and Cassie shrieking about the water. “What’s going on?” he’d cried. “Lyssa, what are you doing to her?”
Lyssa stepped out, her hands and arms red from the scorching hot water. She dragged him up to show him the horror in Cassie’s room. He hadn’t been prepared for what he found. The moment he saw the carcass on the floor and the stains in the bed, his anger turned to shock, and shock became horror. Lyssa didn’t even wait for him to ask what happened. She’d just hissed, “Get rid of it.”
The screaming soon resumed in the bathroom, and from it he’d been able to piece together what had happened. Lyssa seemed to believe that Cassie had dug up the dead rabbit from the garden. But Ramon had his doubts. The act seemed too familiar, too reminiscent of what he’d witnessed at Remy’s grave.
I just can’t deal with this anymore. I can’t.
But where could he run to now? The opportunity with the Ames people was completely lost. The laboratory’s reputation irrevocably damaged. No one in their right mind would want to work with them now. It was gone now, all of it.
He’d come to this conclusion while wandering the darkened hallways, only the security lights to light his way. Into the animal test room, immediately gagging at the stink of disease and decay. But, incredibly, he saw that they were all alive, every single one despite what Lyysa had texted. They were all standing at the fronts of their cages, their opalescent eyes fixed upon him, their mouths hanging open. Their faces appeared to be covered in blood or shit. They needed to be cleaned up, fed, watered. They needed to be euthanized.
Can’t do this.
He retreated back into the hallway and shut the door.
Sitting in his office for an hour . . . two . . . three, he’d allowed his mind to wander aimlessly until he finally realized what he needed to do. It was the thing he should’ve done from the very beginning. He needed to refocus his efforts on taking care of Lyssa and Cassie. He got up then and left.
Maybe if he hadn’t been in such a hurry to come home, if he’d only spent a few minutes actually thinking it through, he might’ve burnt the whole complex to the ground.
He gently extracted the cup from Lyssa’s hands and set it aside. She hadn’t even tasted the coffee.
“I called Ronnie,” he told her. “Left a message for her not to come tomorrow.”
Lyssa looked up at him, her eyes glassy. “Ronnie? Oh, I forgot about her. I hope she doesn’t believe what they’re saying about us.”
“She didn’t pick up.” Ramon sighed and his whole body seemed to deflate. “I don’t blame her for not taking the call. We—”
“We should leave,” Lyssa said. “The island, I mean. We should pack the car and take Cassie and go. Just . . . go.”
Ramon raised his hands in frustration. “Where?”
“I don’t know! Stay in a hotel somewhere. Somewhere away from these towers.”
“Are you getting on that again? There’s nothing wrong with—”
“I don’t care!”
He sighed. “Fine. Okay. We’ll get packed up and leave.”
Something flickered in her face. He wasn’t sure if it was relief or surprise. Maybe it was suspicion. He didn’t want to leave, of course. To do so would be to admit defeat. It would be an irrevocable acknowledgement that he had failed.
Neither of them moved.
He thought when he agreed to go that she’d jump right up and start packing, ordering him to do the same. He almost wished she would so that he wouldn’t have to take charge. He was so tired of taking charge.
“Did you take care of the dead rabbits?”
He stared at her, frowning.
“In the lab. There were six dead. Maybe more now. I texted you last night after you left.” She reached up and rubbed the sore spot where she’d hit the back of her head and winced. “And the others. Are any still alive? Did you feed them?”
He opened his mouth. But all he could manage to make was a strangled sound.
She nodded and sighed. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“The roadblocks are gone,” he offered. He glanced at the clock on the wall. “Although the highway’s bound to be packed with cars by now. Weekend traffic. News seems to be back to normal. Not a word about the outbreak. Now that they’ve ruined our lives.”
She shook her head. “What about the reporters?”
“Out front?�
� He shrugged. “Mostly gone, too. Short attention spans. They’ve already moved onto the next thing.”
“Which is?”
“Who knows? As long as it’s not us.”
Lyssa stood up then. “I’ll go pack some bags.”
He watched her go without speaking.
Maybe this is rock bottom, he thought.
If it was, then maybe Lyssa could finally start crawling her way out of Remy’s grave.
He got up and started to pack.
* * *
They left, but Cassie brought them back. They got as far as the end of the block before she forced them to turn around.
After he had loaded up the trunk with their bags, Ramon carried her down from her bed upstairs and placed her into the back seat of the car where Lyssa was already waiting. Cassie felt so light in his arms, like she might suddenly just float away. Her skin was blotchy, pale white and pink from last night’s scrubbing. Her eyes were sunken from so much crying. In her slumber, she seemed frail. Her breathing was so shallow that he feared even the slightest disturbance would somehow make it stop.
He wanted to yell at Lyssa, even planned to say something to her again about giving Cassie sleeping pills, but as he was settling the girl onto the seat, her eyes fluttered open and focused on him with such intensity that he doubted she was sedated after all.
“Where are we going, Daddy?”
“We have to leave, honey.”
The slack in her face drained away. She struggled to sit up, but Ramon pushed her back down and told her to lie still.
“Just for a couple days,” he told her. “Another camping trip.”
He slammed the door shut and slipped into his own seat and started the engine.
“No!” Cassie cried, struggling against her seatbelt. “No no NO! We can’t leave!”
“Cassie, hush!”
She grabbed the back of his seat and started thrashing.
“Stop it!”
The garage door was rolling open, illuminating them with afternoon sunlight. Ramon impatiently nudged the car forward, as if the act of driving might be all that was needed to quiet her.
S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11) Page 58
