by TW Brown
Then he saw him. He didn’t remember if his name was Mitch or Grant, but he knew that it was the man who had been in the hallway.
“You!” Chad hissed and lunged forward.
He went to the ground under several bodies. An arm wrapped around his neck. Chad kicked and struggled. He knew he only had seconds. He felt his world tilt on its side. His gut twisted with fear; fear for his daughter. Who were these people? Why were they being allowed to…?
Chad’s body twitched twice and was still. His lungs emptied in a rush that sounded like a sad moan.
Unable to move, Samantha wished that she’d strapped hersef to a gurney; at least that way, she would be more comfortable. Death was coming. She could taste it in the back of her throat. It was foul like spoiled milk and rotten eggs. She could feel the sweat run down the back of her neck, between her shoulder blades. Her body felt as if it was on fire, yet she was freezing.
Her head swam and she thought that she heard a hiss of air far away. A low buzz intruded on her mind as she struggled to remain conscious. Her fear was twofold: first, that her findings had been incorrect; second, that she would become one of…them.
Her head drooped to her chest and her breathing became slow and shallow.
“Samantha!” Lena breathed. She would have screamed if she’d been able, but what she saw caught her so off guard that words struggled to find purchase on her tongue.
She rushed to the chair where her colleague and, if she dared to admit it, friend, was securely fastened. Samantha’s head was down with her honey-colored hair hanging in sweaty strands over her face. The color of her hands was an almost bluish-white.
“What have you done!” Lena finally cried.
Without considering her own safety, she rushed to Samantha’s side and knelt beside the chair. A sour smell came off her that reeked of sweat, feces and urine. Looking down, the crotch of Samantha’s coveralls was dark from midway up the torso down to almost the knees.
She could hear a wet rasping sound that rattled in the woman’s chest. She sounded like a person in the late stages of pneumonia. A thick strand of saliva dangled from her lower lip and swung like a liquid pendulum.
“What have you done?” Lena repeated.
Standing, her eyes found the binder with Samantha’s precise, tight script filling the pages. Picking it up, she only had to read a few lines to understand.
“You idiot!” She slammed the book down on the counter with a loud bang that echoed through the lab. “How could you do something this irresponsible?”
The hiss of the door announced Darlene’s arrival. “What is that horrid stench?”
“Samantha,” Lena replied, stepping aside and allowing the other woman a full view of their third member.
“What in God’s name happened?”
Lena filled her in, occasionally reading excerpts from the binder. The two women circled the third; they drew near, but came up short of actually making physical contact with her.
“By my estimation, she has been exposed for almost eleven hours,” Lena said.
“I can’t believe she would do something like this,” Darlene spat. She’d probably made that same observation a dozen times as Lena read, but she was at such a loss, she really couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“I think we should move her to one of the isolation rooms,” Lena said, stopping suddenly.
“Actually,” Darlene felt the kernel of an idea forming in her mind, “I think we have a better option. Run to my room and grab the green folders under my bed. Also, bring all your notes from the first two test subjects.”
“What for?” Lena asked. She made no effort to mask her confusion.
“I have a plan, but it relies on a few things. I remember some stuff that you were toying with earlier. I’d always wanted to match up some of my own findings with yours.”
“You want to do this now?”
“There isn’t anything else we can do for her,” Darlene insisted. “If she was willing to do what she did, then the least we can do is to respect her work by trying to make the connection that she felt she was on the verge of…that she thought she had discovered.”
Lena took a final look at Samantha. Something about the way that Darlene was staring at their colleague made her just a bit uneasy. Leave it to Darlene to be so detached, Lena thought.
She stepped into the decontamination chamber and pulled the hatch shut. Twenty minutes later, she stepped into the corridor that led to their living quarters. No sooner had she shut the sally port when the containment alarm sounded.
The sounds of all the auto locks clanged throughout the bunker complex. Emergency lights flickered and a computerized voice advised, “Everyone remain calm, the emergency containment protocols have been activated…please stand by.”
“What the—” Lena gasped. She punched her code into the keypad, knowing full well that it was a futile endeavor. She was locked out of the lab…and Darlene was locked in.
With Samantha!
Slider sat naked on the burlap floor of his personal tent. His legs were folded into the lotus position. He took slow, deep, controlled breaths as he cleared his mind of everything.
It had been ages since he’d put himself through his ritual. Every trained killer he knew—and the military could put whatever fancy title they wanted to on it, but it was still just killing—had his or her own pre-mission preparation. In fact, it had been an Israeli woman who had introduced him to yoga just prior to a mission that he’d drawn in Jordan.
She explained that, while she didn’t have much use for anything from India, she did appreciate yoga, so maybe they weren’t an entirely useless nation. Of course, she also showed him a few other benefits of her regular yoga sessions. He’d never known another woman with that sort of flexibility.
Eyes closed, Slider inhaled and exhaled through the nose. He felt completely at peace. The sounds of the camp had faded into an almost inaudible murmur even as those around him shifted into night mode. The bawdy songs of drunken men swirled with the harsh words of a challenge and eventual brawl. Slider heard none of it as he let himself sink into a complete peace.
The kills of the past did not haunt Slider. Nor would the one he was tasked to perform. Slider killed with a purpose. He felt neither sadness nor joy from his kills. They were simply a job, much like a doctor removing a bad appendix or cancerous tumor. That one small thing was removed so that the body might live.
The mayor of Bald Knob, Arkansas had become a cancerous tumor. He would spread like the disease of cancer and slowly kill the rest of the citizenry. Slider would remove the cancer.
The citizens might need to undergo a few unpleasant days, much like a cancer patient undergoes chemotherapy to cleanse themselves of the last vestiges of that awful illness. Slider would take no part in that. He was a surgeon. Leave that other task to young men like that kid Jody Rafe.
Slider considered the newly dubbed sergeant as he slowly brought himself out of his restful state and began the process of engaging his mind. The kid had a great heart, but lousy instincts. He had completely botched their last run outside the safe zone. His orders had been complicated and caused the men to hesitate in the field as they tried to decipher what the intentions of their orders had been.
Sergeant Jody Rafe had gotten good men killed. He had been so concerned with following some sort of book-learned protocol that he didn’t actually lead his men. He moved them around like pieces on a board with no regard for the reality of their situation.
Perhaps when tonight’s task was completed, he would find the young man and teach him a little about tactics. The kid seemed like the sort who would be easily molded if he only had the right teacher. That had been the problem with the United States Army of the past seven or eight years…too many men trying to be fathers instead of fighters.
Hell, you couldn’t even haze these days without somebody sending video footage shot with a damn cell phone
to one of those trash-media cable news channels. Back when he was coming up, hazing was a right of passage and you looked forward to what ever your superiors had in store. In fact, if you weren’t properly hazed, that was actually a bad sign. It meant that you weren’t accepted.
Slider opened his eyes and let them adjust to the near perfect darkness of his tent. He rose and began to dress. Outside, he heard a wind howling through the trees. It seemed that The Universe was smiling on his mission. This darkness, coupled with the noise of the wind and the steady rain he could hear starting to pitter-patter on his tent, was the perfect shroud.
He would put a quick and clean end to the mayor. He’d already taken a trip into town and wandered around for a while to figure out the quickest way in and out. The captain had been right; there was no security to speak of, and it wasn’t like he would even have to deal with an alarm system.
Doing a visual as well as a tactile inspection of himself when he opened the flap of his tent, Slider was satisfied that he had nothing reflective on his person. Even as easy as this run should be, there was no sense in being lazy. Just like out there amongst the zombies, if you dropped your guard for even a second, it could cost you your life.
As he left the noise of the camp behind and vanished into the shadows of the terrain, Slider felt that tingle. He imagined it was not unlike what a rock star felt just before going on stage.
Two hours later, a dark shadow loomed. The mayor still lived in his expensive house on the edge of town. The closest neighbor was a mile away. Slider knew because he had checked.
Entering through the back door after pausing the seven seconds it took to pick the lock, Slider took a sniff. There was something in this house that was wrong. One of them was here!
Drawing his knife, he crept along the entryway wall that led to the huge kitchen that the wealthy apparently needed to entertain guests. His hand found a door knob and he gave it a turn.
Locked.
Something important was behind this door because it took almost twenty seconds for him to pick the lock this time. A set of stairs disappeared into pitch darkness. Slider breathed in through his nose.
It was down there.
12
No Rest for the Geek
“I went up to the room to tell Erin that it was time for dinner.” Aleah helped Kevin out of his wet clothes as she talked. “She was just sitting at the window staring out at the snow, rocking in that chair.”
One of the first things Kevin had brought back from a scavenger run was a beautiful rocking chair. Erin hadn’t even said so much as “Thank you” for that or anything else. It seemed as if she just expected the things that kept showing up to make her life easier. Kevin continued to try and convince himself that it was her young age. She probably just didn’t know any better.
“I called her name at least a dozen times, but she just sat there…rocking. When I went to her, I saw that the baby was an ugly shade of gray. I reached down to touch it and it was cold! I asked Erin what happened, but she just sat there rocking and ignoring me. When I took the baby, she still didn’t respond.”
“So what did Peter say?” Kevin asked as he began dressing in clean, dry clothing.
“Other than she is in shock? Not a damn thing. He went to her room, spent five minutes in there and then left.”
“So what about the baby?”
“She is in a box out on the back terrace,” Aleah answered. “All I could find was a box that a golf bag came in, but I honestly haven’t been looking much. This whole thing has given me the creeps.”
“And when did Shari and Peter go out to the north wall?”
“Two hours ago…they should be back any minute now, they said they would return before dark.”
“It’s already dark,” Kevin said, nodding to the huge window that provided a panoramic view of the golf course from directly behind the tee of the first hole.
Aleah looked up and her brow managed to crease even more. There was a mix of concern, anger, and…fear. Kevin could see it clearly. Aleah was frightened. She didn’t understand what was going on exactly and it scared her.
“I will go check on Erin,” Kevin said as he stood. “And you say that Valarie has been in her bed and won’t get out of it?”
“She keeps saying her meema won’t let her sleep, and her mom told her to come home soon.”
Great, Kevin thought. He remembered when his sister suffered a bout of chronic nightmares. The hardest part was trying to get her to understand that they weren’t real. There were times when she seemed to understand everything he said, but then there were other times when her handicap was prevalent.
“You keep an eye out for Shari and Peter; tell Heather and Matt to keep a casual eye on our new arrivals and I will go see what is going on with Valarie. Erin will have to wait.”
With that, Kevin kissed Aleah and headed down the hallway to the office that had been converted into Valarie’s room. When he reached the door, he heard soft whispering.
“…but I can’t go back, I live here now with Kevin and Shari. Shari lets me sing her songs with her. Please say that I can stay.”
There were a few heartbeats of silence. Kevin placed his hand on the knob and debated on whether he should knock when the whispering began once more.
“I can’t because I ran out of the white candies,” Valarie’s voice came in a near shout.
Kevin knocked and opened the door. “Hey, Valarie.”
“Hi, Kevin,” the girl said, waving from her bed.
Her hair was a mess and even in the flickering light of the candles, he could tell that her face was puffy from crying. A stuffed animal that he’d never seen before was clutched under her chin.
“How ya doing?” Kevin stepped into the room and slid down the wall beside the door to take a seat on the floor. “I know I haven’t been able to see you very much lately, but I have been trying to get some shopping done.” He made an effort to use words that he knew she would understand. Scavenging wouldn’t make any sense to her, but shopping was a concept he knew that she would easily comprehend.
“My mom and my meema want me to come back home,” Valarie said with a hitch in her voice. Tears rolled down her cheeks causing Kevin’s throat to tighten.
He had hated it when his sister cried. Whenever that happened, he did everything in his power to remedy whatever had caused her sadness. He knew that this was not his sister, but seeing Valarie had brought all those memories to the surface. He hadn’t been there in the end for his sister. He would not fail Valarie in the same way.
“Don’t you want to stay here with me and Shari and Aleah?” Kevin asked.
“I do…very much I do,” Valarie said, nodding her head vigorously. “But my meema is mad because I haven’t had any of my special candy. Whenever I don’t have my special candy, she comes to tell me that I need it.”
“What special candy?” Kevin asked skeptically.
“My clothes pin,” Valarie said, obviously struggling with the name.
“Clothes pin?” Kevin was confused. He had no idea what a clothes pin could do to help the girl. “Can you tell me why you have a special candy…a clothes pin?”
“It keeps my meema from coming to see me…when I have my clothes pin, she stays in her bed with Jesus.”
Kevin was frustrated. Obviously this special candy was some sort of medication. Only, it could be anything under the sun. He sat there, trying his best to decipher what it was that Valarie might be taking.
As he thought over the matter, she sat up and looked to her left…at the wall. She tilted her head just a bit and began nodding.
“I don’t want to go back, meema,” Valarie whined. “I get to see people here that say things to me and not just a bunch of moaning and crying. Shari lets me sing and Kevin lets me help make soup for dinner. I even got to cut up onions. Kevin said since I didn’t cry, I could cut them any time I wanted. Kevin cried and he is brave.”
Getting to his feet, Kevin walked up to Valarie slowly. He
didn’t want to spook her. Moving directly behind her, he looked where he figured her gaze to be focused. It didn’t help; all he saw was the wall. Shadows danced on it, but there was nothing special—
It hit him out of the blue. He thought he knew the secret to Valarie’s “clothes pin” candies.
“Valarie?” Kevin sat beside her on the edge of her bed. “Do you see your meema right now?”
The girl’s head swung around slowly. She had a confused look on her face. She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes.
“The doctor always made me sleep in the uncomfortable bed when I saw people who should be resting with Jesus.”
“I promise that you can stay right here in this bed if you want,” Kevin said, taking her hands in his.
“Pinky promise?” Valarie sniffled.
“Pinky promise.” Kevin held up his right hand, pinky extended.
Valarie hooked his finger with her own. “This I promise, this I swear, if I break the promise, I eat underwear,” she swore with the most solemn look on her face. Kevin had to stifle a chuckle at the ironic combination of her serious face and tone coupled with the vow to eat underwear. “Now you say it.”
“This I promise…” Kevin drew a blank.
“This I swear,” she prompted.
“Oh yeah…this I swear,” he continued. “If I break this promise, I eat underwear.”
She seemed instantly gratified and a hint of a smile crept across her lips.
“So…where is your meema?” Kevin asked as he looked around the room.
“Sometimes she is in the wall.” Valarie pointed. “And sometimes she sits on my bed just like you are.”
“And does your meema always come and talk to you?”
“No.” Valarie shook her head, and once again Kevin saw tears begin to well up and spill over. “Most of the times it is my meema, other times it is my mom, but sometimes…it’s Uncle Jack.”
“Uncle Jack?” Kevin was becoming more confused.
“The police made him get in their car and go away…they promised he wouldn’t touch me in my none-of-your-business places no more.” Valarie whispered it like she was telling a secret, and Kevin supposed that, in a way, she was. “But sometimes he comes and tells me how bad I was for getting him in trouble with mommy, meema, and Auntie Krissy.”
