“Not in the old world sense,” Rod replied. “In a way we’re all soldiers in this. Reveille and retreat are signs of respect and honor. I think it’s a good thing. United front in one cause, keeping peace in this world.”
Miles added, “I think Beck wants us to have a sense of normalcy. Something different than we had before.”
The song seemed loud, maybe because of the stillness in the air, and it carried across base. I wondered in a dead world how far away it traveled. Did it matter? I believe I saw the playing of Taps as a sign. Staying quiet and hidden was indeed showing our fear, a retreat from what threatened our existence. That was how we lived in Haven. Quiet. Now we played Taps at top volume. Living without worry, playing Taps, was showing we were not running and hiding. We were there, without fear, and ready to fight to stay.
It was indeed not only the first night in our new home, but the first night of a new way of life.
30. Sonny
It took two weeks for everyone to unpack, start to organize their lives, and get situated at Haven Two. They stayed busy, but I also knew I had to think of jobs and outlets for those who lived in the complex. Once the normalcy set in, boredom would follow.
People for the most part need to stay busy.
Three days after everyone arrived, I put out there that I’d rather be part of council instead the leader.
Even though he was bottom of the four person ladder, I suggested Alex be the leader.
“What if I don’t want to be leader anymore?” Alex commented.
That lasted all of about thirty seconds, then Danny decided he’d rather be on the council, and wanted to step out of second in command. It was too much on his plate.
No one could actually figure out what Danny did as second in charge that kept him so busy. However, in the new home, Alex and Beck ran things. With Beck in a leadership position, he ran things in a tight manner, including daily briefings that were open to all. Most people just put their trust in him and Alex, and the ones that showed up were the ones that ran parts of the camp.
Breakfast was served in the cafeteria from six to eight for those who didn’t want to cook, and at the sound of reveille at seven-thirty, we knew we better be at the Beck briefing.
I had a lot on my mind, a laundry list of things to do for the day, and just wanted to get started. One of my tasks was preparing the fence for an electric charge. We erected a buffer fence ten feet inside camp. An insurance, we hoped, that would prevent any accidental electrocutions.
During the briefing I reviewed my list, lost in my own thoughts.
“Sonny, where are we on that?” Beck asked.
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked. “Where do we stand on getting Lafayette Hall ready for the newcomers?”
I skimmed my list. “Newcomers?’
“Jesus, Sonny.” Alex snapped his fingers in front of my face. “You awake? Beck told us three days ago. We’ve got fifty soldiers arriving.”
“I need a deadline,” Beck said. “When will you be able to house them?”
I exhaled with a whistle. “I thought I missed something. I got Randy running the crew on that. Another four days?”
The arriving soldiers were all part of Beck’s new and improved Beckoning. Since the Sleepers outnumbered us by thousands to one, if not more, Beck made a game changing plan.
Long term he planned on moving another fifty soldiers to Haven Two, along with over a hundred civilians. We had the means to provide for them.
The sweep and kill troops were barely making a dent in the mass of Sleepers out west. In a nutshell, Beck believed it was better to set up a front line protection perimeter north to count on the west side of the Great Divide, with strategic bombings of large masses of Sleepers, all while clearing the east, which had far fewer Sleepers that we could see.
One city, one state at a time. Buying time until they could initiate the Sleepercide.
Extermination of the Sleepers in one fell swoop.
What we believed was a pipe dream while living within the walls of River Correction Facility became a realistic and foreseeable plan.
“We’re getting Javier after we clear and check Kelly and Brock Streets. That’s where Miles and me head today.”
Everyone looked at me oddly.
“What?” I asked.
“I wasn’t going to ask that,” Beck said. “But apparently you’re talking about grabbing Javier. You’re not just doing a welfare check on him
out there?”
“No. He’s been out there three days straight. Last radio call he said he needs a break and has some news to share with Alex.”
Beck nodded. “Hopefully it’s a direction he plans to take with the Sansdemic.”
Alex groaned. “I hate that you call it that.”
“If you can call the Reckoning the Beckoning, I can call the virus used on the Sleepers the Sansdemic.”
Alex gave a thumbs up. “Great. Maybe I’ll take a ride out with Sonny and Miles, see what he’s got happening there.”
“He won’t let you,” I said. “We can’t go in there. We have to radio and he comes out.”
“Ha.” Alex laughed. “For sure I’m going out.”
“Back to what I was going to ask, Sonny,” Beck said. “How we doing on upping the frequency on radar? I hate tossing all this on you, but you’re the tech guy.”
“Oh, good. I amped it, got the panels running, and the dish at East Bay, but no one knows what the hell we’re looking at. Weather-wise we’ll be able to figure out a storm, but ground-wise we do get a ping when Bay Man takes his boat out.”
Miles raised his hand. “I’d like to learn how to read it.”
“How about this?” Beck suggested. “How about Miles stays back with me, we’ll work on the radar, you and Alex head out and do the streets and find Javier?”
It was a plan, and agreeing would also move the morning briefing along.
After about another twenty minutes, Alex and I were able to head out.
31. Alex
I was ashamed to admit I hadn’t left the base since we arrived. Sonny, however, demonstrating why he was the brief leader, had a map and was marking it like Charlton Heston in Omega Man.
He explained that he and Miles were going through each and every house, first assessing then going back, collecting items that were useable from dishes, to bedding, and everything in between. They took them to the warehouse on base where they would get cleaned, inventoried, and stocked.
I was impressed.
We hit a housing plan close to the Naval Weaponry Institute. They were identical townhomes, all connected. I suspected it was a planned rental community close to all the government institutions. We still hadn’t seen a Sleeper, even though Sonny suspected they were around. That was also one of the reasons he was looking in the houses.
Two houses were on the schedule for cleaning out. We got all that we could, loaded it in the truck, and moved on to Kelly Street within two hours. I found a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers I thought Mera would like. I was excited about that.
“We haven’t been to this street yet,” Sonny said, placing the truck in gear. “We’ll hit each house. Some are viable, a lot are not. Windows may have been open, things got ruined. Plus, bodies that decomposed on furniture making it useless.”
“What kind of bodies?” I asked.
We approached the first house, an end unit.
“Suicides. Sleepers that didn’t eat and just died. All kinds.”
We arrived at the front door of the unit and I noticed the door was slightly open.
“Is this normal?” I asked.
“Yeah, you see it a lot.”
I pulled out my revolver just in case. The second I opened the door, it confirmed the bad feeling I had when we were hit with a horrendous rotting smell.
After a grunt, I sniffed outward and br
ought my hand under my nose. “That’s fresh.”
Sonny covered his nose and mouth.
The home was probably nice at one time. The hardwood floors were covered with dust, enough that we were able to see the footprints. Dragging footprints.
“Sleepers,” Sonny said.
Weapons ready, we moved down the hall slowly, watching for any movement.
As soon as I stepped into the dining room, I discovered the source of the smell.
“Well aren’t we just Goldilocks,” I said, lowering my weapons. “Seems the three bears left in a hurry.”
“Oh my God.” Sonny gagged.
On the table was a deer, its eyes wide open as well as its belly. Flies buzzed about the rotting animal that had flesh ripped from it to the bone. It was too decomposed to have produced all that blood. And there was blood, smeared across the table. A piece of intestines dangled from the corner of the table. What made it even more disturbing were the three red-stained plates containing bits of flesh.
“Want the papa plate, mama plate, or baby bear plate, Sonny?”
Sonny gagged and flew out of the house.
I walked into the kitchen and looked around trying to make an educated guess on what, or who, was there. Apparently it was Sleepers, unless normal human beings ate raw dear and pissed and shit in the comer of the room where they dined. Even with the dead animals I could smell the Sleepers. They had been there. They weren’t now.
I left the house to find Sonny outside catching his breath and leaning over a puddle of vomit.
“Hmm,” I said. “I didn’t think a dead animal would get you so sick.”
“What?” Sonny asked. “I didn’t get sick about the animal. Didn’t
you see?”
“See what?”
He opened his mouth to tell me, spun around, and puked again. I didn’t wait until he got himself together enough to stop gagging and tell me. I went back inside the house to see what I missed and what he had seen.
After going back to the dining room, I looked around. It was the same thing I saw until…I moved a foot to my right and started to turn.
It wasn’t a piece of intestines on the table, it was an umbilical cord. I didn’t see it at first because I was focused on the deer. The blood didn’t come from the animal, it came from the newborn baby, or what was left of it. The tiny baby was torn apart, the umbilical cord attached to a glob of flesh, and the only thing recognizable that remained was a tiny hand with the fingers still curled.
My stomach flipped and lurched. I wanted to scream. Like Sonny, I raced from the house.
***
We gave up checking out houses. Neither of us were feeling it. We looked around for the Texas Chainsaw family of Sleepers, but didn’t have any luck.
“How do they take over if they eat their young?” Sonny asked.
“Because it was normal,” I said. “Remember Levi told us that in the future Sleepers that had human babies either dropped them off at human camps or killed them. I’d bet that baby was normal.”
“We’ll ask Javier,” Sonny said.
“I think our future guys would be better to ask, or Randy.”
After a half hour of driving around we were at the facility grounds. Sonny drove directly to the building where Javier had set up shop.
We parked out front.
Sonny raised his radio. “Javier, I’m out front. You can come out when you’re ready.”
Static.
“Hey, Sonny, do you need help?” Javier asked.
“No. I’m here to get you.”
“I take it you didn’t get any?”
That caught my attention. “Get any what?”
Sonny ignored me. “No. You can come up.”
“I’m getting things ready down here. I have a few more to test. You can come down.”
“You said never to come down,” Sonny said.
“Since when?”
“Javier, Alex is with me.”
“Shit.”
I opened the door and stepped out. “What did you not bring, Sonny? What’s going on in there that you don’t want me to see?”
“Nothing. Stuff.”
“Stuff?” I headed to the door. “Now I’m really curious.”
***
Oh, they’re up to something, was the first thought I had when Hot Doc greeted me pleasantly.
“Alex, it is wonderful to see you. Welcome to what I hope will be the end of the Sleepers.” He must have rushed up from his below surface facility. “I didn’t expect you to come hear what I wanted to tell you. I would have—”
“Cut the shit, Doc, what’s going on?”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Seriously?” I stepped closer to him. “I don’t give a shit what you’re doing out here as long as it is for the good of humanity and it doesn’t come onto the base.”
Javier stared, then turned to Sonny. “Sonny, do you mind going down and start closing procedures? We’ll be right down.”
Sonny nodded and walked down the hall.
“I guess Sonny has been here before,” I said.
“Sonny is an intricate part of this all. I credit him for my progress.”
“How is it going?” I asked.
“I am making progress.”
“How is that possible? I would think that nothing in this place was viable.”
“Not exactly true.” Javier led me down the hall, then to a door. After opening it we descended a staircase. “There is a process of freeze drying virus that decreases the infectivity rate. Once I get infection to take hold, I can work on a mutated form of the Sleeper virus…which we will be able to use as a bioweapon on a large scale. I’m working on it.”
We emerged into a hallway. Sonny stood at the end, staring at a line of windows.
“How do you get an infection to take hold?”
“Animals, but mainly…” Javier paused, “sleepers.”
“Sonny has been catching you Sleepers?” I asked.
“Yes. He has gotten ten so far. I need Sonny’s help. He’s able to help me inject them. So far, I’ve given them various strains. Nothing has taken hold. Not every Sleeper has gotten every virus. It’s a crapshoot, but once I get an infection, bingo.”
“Why do you need Sonny?”
Javier led me down the hall a little closer, but stopped me from going farther.
“Walk to the window, Sonny,” Javier instructed.
Sonny did.
I was still a few feet away and I could see a couple of Sleepers walk toward him. They reached out, hands trailing against the window to try to reach him.
“Apparently Sonny is still their sex symbol.”
“Now you walk to the window, Alex,” Javier instructed. “I want to show you why I need Sonny.”
No sooner did I get before the window than the entire room of Sleepers rushed violently toward the glass, slamming against it in an attempt to get to me.
I jumped back. “What the hell?”
“One of the things I wanted to tell you,” Javier said. “The cloaking serum no longer works. It’s either worn off, or the Sleepers evolved. I’m working on it. It was sometime in the last couple days that we discovered Miles was no longer cloaked.”
“So it lasts about six or seven weeks? Can we give it again?”
“I don’t know. We can try,” Javier said.
“But Sonny—”
“Has Michael’s.”
I looked at Javier, locking eyes. “You said you had two things to discuss?”
“Come with me.” Javier walked down the hallway.
We went into a small office down the hall where Javier shut the door and turned on a computer.
“Whoa, Sonny got that running for you?” I asked.
“He did.”
&nb
sp; “What’s going on?”
“When you, then Ed, told me that Michael was this Sandman, I scoffed because scientifically and medically a metamorphosis could not occur that fast.”
“You said he couldn’t hulk out.”
“He can’t. It would take years, decades of changes with the final stages taking part over a two year period.”
“Okay.”
“You brought up that I was dead and Levi made an error.” He pulled up an image. “I showed these to Levi. Look at this. This is Michael’s DNA.” He pulled up another image. “I showed this to Levi as well.”
“Doc, I haven’t a clue what I’m looking at. You are showing me an image and numbers. It looks the same.”
“Yes.” Javier said. “And Levi said it was the same.”
“Alright.”
“No, it’s not alright, Alex,” Javier said. “It’s not the same. At least not the same person. I apologize. You were right. Levi didn’t know, and he wouldn’t know in the future. I would. The second strand of DNA looks like Michael’s, has the same traits, but it isn’t Michael’s.”
I ran my hand down my face and folded my arms. “It’s Sonny’s.”
Javier nodded. “It is. He doesn’t know. But Sonny is…changing. Right now I believe it is slowing down, but continuously changing nonetheless. My prediction is every couple years he’ll do a big change, like he just did.”
“Does Sonny become this…Sandman?”
“I don’t know,” Javier said. “Let’s hope I can stop this so we never have to find out.”
32. Mera
Hope was exceptionally fussy, and didn’t go back to sleep until all the kids went off to school. When she did, I took a late morning nap with her. I put the air conditioner on low with the fan running to create a white noise that zonked us both out.
I was in such a deep sleep I heard nothing until Danny stood above my bed calling my name. I bolted up.
“You all right?” he asked.
“The baby?”
“She’s sound asleep.”
I looked at the clock, it was nearly one pm. I had been sleeping over two hours.
“I was so tired,” I said. “Thank you for waking me.”
Sleepers (Book 7): Sleepers 7 Page 17
