by Jeff Olah
“What… what do you mean? We haven’t seen anything, or for that matter anyone, in the last five minutes?”
“Check your mirrors.”
Dense black smoke sat somewhere in the distance. Below that, pulsing flames that stretched for what looked like two city blocks. “Looks like Saul’s place or maybe out as far as Travers field.”
“No, Carly says it’s Saint Mark’s. She’s hearing that there are people inside and she can’t get ahold of anyone at the firehouse. I guess the landlines keep going in and out. The boys are either already there or on another call.”
Shaking his head, Ethan said, “This doesn’t make any sense. How is this thing spreading so fast? This is the first we’ve heard about any of this.”
David smiled. “That’s true, but when was the last time you watched the news, or actually read a newspaper?”
With his attention pulled back out into the street, Ethan didn’t respond.
“Ethan, I think we need to maybe put off today’s run—”
His focus shifting between the street, the parking lot, and his mirrors, Ethan removed his seatbelt and sat forward, resting his forearms on the steering wheel. He looked past David, out the opposite window, and then again back into the street. “Hey, uh… where’d Ralston go?”
David fired off another text and looked up. Nodding toward the parking lot across the street, he said, “Better question, where’s Lamar?”
Both men were now gone. The only thing remaining from the vicious attack was a speckled trail of bloody mucus, which led out into the street and disappeared behind the vacant building nearest the driver’s side.
Setting his phone aside as it again beckoned for his attention, David also removed his seatbelt and sat forward as Ethan pulled slowly out into the intersection. “This can’t be happening; nothing about this make sense. Even Carly is scared and you know nothing freaks her out.”
Both men craning their heads to the left, Ethan pulled even with the edge of the abandoned building and stopped. They spotted a red trail that ran up onto the sidewalk and disappeared into the recessed frontage of what was once a vintage clothing shop.
“They’re gone, and I really don’t see the point in trying to find—”
David shook his head. “No, we’re not making this run today. I’ll take full responsibility. I can’t tell you what all of this is or what it means, but I do know the people of this town are going to need us here today. We have to do what we can to make sure that everyone is safe from whatever this is.”
“Do we? Do we really have an obligation to the same people that—”
“Let’s just allow the past to stay in the past, at least for today. Let’s make sure everyone is safe and then tomorrow you can go back to feeling however you want about the residents of Summer Mill. But I’ll bet you may just have a change of heart.”
“You sure you want to deal with my sister? You gonna be the one to call her later?”
“Emma loves me,” David said. “I’ll bet she even gives me a raise.”
“A raise? I thought you knew my sister?”
“If she finds out I actually convinced you to do something to help someone other than yourself, she may just nominate me for a Nobel Prize, and I may just win.”
“I swear, I don’t know why I put up with your crap.”
“Because,” David said, “who else you gonna find to drag your sorry ass to work every day and then help you find your way home every night. You need me more than you need that weapon on your hip.”
Still looking out the window to the left, although unable to find where the two disappeared into the building, Ethan removed his foot from the brake. “Okay, I’ll let you take the fall for this. And you’re buying the first round later—”
A flash of red and then they were rocketed sideways, Ethan slamming headfirst into the roof and then falling violently back into his seat. David was forced against the door at his right, and as the armored truck moved up onto two wheels, he bit down hard into the meaty part of his tongue.
The jarring impact tore free the passenger side quarter-panel on the armored truck as the massive vehicle they’d collided with came into view. Engine two, one of only three emergency vehicles to service Summer Mill, rolled to a stop not more than thirty feet away.
Ethan cut the engine and paused as Engineer Stratton opened the driver’s door and stepped out into the street. He and David also exited their truck and began to make their way over to the damaged fire engine.
Ethan was familiar with every single man who wore a Summer Mill Fire Department uniform and his least favorite was the man he’d just cut off. Engineer Thomas Stratton, or Tommy to most anyone else, walked faster toward Ethan and David with each step. He swung his arms and pointed as the men drew near.
“Ethan Runner, I should take your head off. You have to be the dumbest—”
From out of the shadows afforded by the former antique shop came the men who’d disappeared moments earlier. The first and smaller of the two, tackled Tommy Stratton without warning and shoved him back-first onto the asphalt.
As Tommy struggled to get free, the second and much more massive of the two men came in on top. Tommy’s arms became a blur, moving side to side as he attempted to stave off their advances. He called out for help as the captain and firefighter moved in quickly on both sides, each grasping for one of the two attackers.
David started into a dead sprint heading toward the chaos as Ethan came in from behind. They both arrived as the men in blue fought to free their colleague from the bottom of the pile. The eldest of the city employees, Captain Faust, pulled at the larger of the two attackers. And upon losing his grip, the father of five stumbled backward and tripped over the curb.
Sliding into his spot, David reached out for the same attacker, although he was jerked from behind by Ethan. And as the two crazed men continued their assault, he turned to Ethan and threw up his hands. “What the hell are you doing?”
Pointing at the attack taking place three feet from where they stood, Ethan said, “What are YOU doing? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
“Ethan, damn it, we need to help.”
“It’s too late,” Ethan said, pointing toward the pile of bloodied bodies. “Tommy’s gone.”
Stepping to the right, David turned away as the smaller of the two attackers pressed his hand into his victim’s eye sockets and pulled free a majority of his face and nose. Tossing aside his trophy, the crazed individual lunged forward and took a massive bite out of Tommy’s throat.
Frozen in place, David hadn’t noticed that the firefighter had also moved away and circled in from behind. He was caught off guard as the younger man grabbed his weapon from his hip and pushed him to the side.
The firefighter stepped to the two men taking apart his friend, raised the weapon, and put one round into the back of each of their heads. He then walked calmly back to David, turned the weapon on its side, and handed it back. “They don’t die—they just keep coming and they kill everything in their path, unless you take out the head.”
17
Irritated now more than worried, Emma sat at the kitchen table and visualized what she could not see. The streets leading home were much less of a monumental catastrophe than she remembered from the plane. A few minor collisions near the airport and more foot traffic than usual were the only things to catch her eye. Although for over half the trip, she had stayed glued to her phone.
The two men who delivered her to the front door and were now stationed inside the black Cadillac Escalade in front of her home hadn’t spoken a word to one another or her for the entire twenty-five-minute trip. And that was just fine with her. She responded to each of Goodwin’s messages and before reaching her neighborhood, tried again to contact her brother. Two unanswered calls to his cell, and one to the remote office in Summer Mill, had her massaging her temples as they turned onto her street.
Pulling to a stop along the curb, less than thirty feet from her front door, the
driver remained with the SUV as the passenger exited with Emma. Gun in hand, he carried the larger of her two bags and stayed within five paces, glancing left and right as if they were already under attack. He waited for her to open the door, entered first, and made a quick sweep through the interior.
Going back out the way he came, the neatly dressed thirty-something gentleman nodded as he moved back past her and spoke for the first and only time. “Mr. Goodwin will send you my number, text if you need something, and no matter what, do not leave your home or unlock your door for anyone but me.”
Not waiting for a response, he slid in through the passenger door and disappeared behind the blacked out windows.
. . .
Forty minutes had passed since walking through her front door, and her phone rang once again.
Unknown.
She glared at the screen and counted the rings. As Emma let the call go to voicemail, she looked away and caught the first few drops of rain as they dotted the bay window on the other side of the archway leading into the living room. Another sixty seconds and without the mystery caller leaving a message, she stood and walked back to her study.
Seated at her desk, she moved the mouse forward and woke the computer. As the screen came to life, the same error message taunted her for the fourth time since she arrived home. Problem establishing secure connection, upload failed.
Attempting to clear the message, she was unable to control her mouse as a dialogue box opened in the upper right corner of the monitor. Emma, we’ve remoted to your machine. I cannot wait another minute for those files. We’ll take it from here.
“Goodwin.”
Waiting for additional instruction, Emma began to type, although as she suspected he had control over her peripherals as well. Sliding the keyboard away and leaning back in her chair, an alert quickly pulled her back as the sound of another message rang through the external speakers. “I’ve disabled your access for the moment. Once the data is retrieved, we’ll get you back online. – MG”
“Disabled my access, is he kidding?”
Back to the kitchen and her phone, Emma pulled up Marcus Goodwin’s office number and with her right index finger, hovered above the call button. “There’s a first time for everything. I guess if he gave me the number, he would expect that I may someday use it.”
Changing her mind and setting the phone down, she walked into the living room, checked the time, and grabbed the television remote. Powering on, the first images to fill the forty-seven-inch screen caught her off guard. As of eight-fifteen, only three of the local news stations remained on the air.
The first channel she flipped by flashed images of soldiers attacking one another near the entrance to a military base. The area looked somewhat familiar, although with the amount of travel she’d logged over the last year, and the number of security checkpoints she’d run through, pinpointing the exact location would be impossible.
Settling on coverage of the events happening less than an hour away, her mouth dropped open as her mind tried to make sense of what was taking place at Sunny Acres. Along the greenbelt in front of the plush senior center, she witnessed a group of reporters tripping over one another as they attempted to pull away from a half dozen crazed senior citizens. As the over-seventy crowd pushed out into the parking area, they finally overtook the well-coiffed reporters.
The video feed skipped repeatedly just before the camera was dropped and three of the seniors fell onto the male reporter. As the group of four bodies skidded across the blacktop, it appeared as though the elderly residents were not just attacking the reporter, but actually trying to devour him.
The first disturbed senior lunged forward and bit into the reporter just below his jawline. And in pulling back, the woman with failing panty hose came away with what looked like a mouthful of the reporter’s throat. As the station went to commercial, it appeared as though the others piling in from behind also had the same objective.
“What is this?”
Powering off the television, Emma tossed the remote back onto the couch and decided the call would be worth whatever penance Goodwin had in store. Through the archway and back into the kitchen, her phone rang before she even reached the table. Assuming it was the man who signed her checks, she was ready. “Okay, here we go.”
Before depressing the answer button, she noticed the Unknown Caller again attempting to make contact. She quickly ignored the call and before losing her nerve, dialed Marcus Goodwin’s office number.
The man who intimidated nearly every person he came into contact with answered on the first ring. “Yes Emma, why are you calling?”
Not completely prepared, she had dialed the phone out of frustration and anxiety. “Mr. Goodwin, I just wanted you to know that I tried multiple times to—”
“Listen Emma, I appreciate what you’ve done for this company, although with what’s happening out there today, well… things are going to change.”
The confusion in her voice was evident. “Is this something we did?”
Dead air.
Emma paused for a beat and asked again. “Mr. Goodwin, is what’s happening out there related to Project Ares?”
She could hear his breathing on the opposite end and waited. He asked someone to close his office door and for the first time she had the sense that he was losing his calm. “What I’ve created is going to change the world. And with anything of this magnitude, there is always a price to pay. Some sacrifices will always be required—”
Interrupting, she said, “I don’t understand, we weren’t even scheduled to test for another month.”
Again his tone intensified. “You need to realize that this project predates your tenure with this company by many years, and as such, you were only given the information required for you to do your job. Nothing more. What I would suggest is that you pull back on the accusatory line of questioning and settle in. The next few weeks could be very challenging.”
“What are you saying, exactly?”
“I’m not the person most people think I am. This has proven to be an asset in business, although the perception of who I am is simply an illusion. There is no friend, no enemy, and no employer. I’m just a man who decided to make the world a better place, no matter what the cost.”
Emma swallowed hard. “I’m not sure what—”
He was gone, the line dead before she had the chance to finish. Emma quickly redialed the number and after the ninth ring, the call disconnected. Glancing at the screen, her battery showed less than twenty percent. Setting the phone on the table, she moved back through the kitchen and into the study.
Seated in front of her monitor, she tapped the enter key and woke the computer. Again in control of her terminal, she was greeted with a new desktop background. Having been replaced by the stock background image shipped with the unit, the black and yellow logo of BXF Technologies was now simply a memory.
Without having to enter her username and password, she quickly navigated to the search window and typed in the name of the file she last worked on.
No results.
Back to the search function, she keyed in the name of the folder which contained her new hire documentation and the spreadsheets referencing her lab times for the prior ninety days.
No results.
Tossing the keyboard across the length of her desk, she stood. “Well, I guess that means no severance package.”
Rubbing her temples and turning into the hall toward her bedroom, her cell phone rang for the third time in the last ten minutes. “Let me guess, Unknown Caller?”
18
The jacket sloshed from side to side as she moved between the trees. The ground covered in white powder seemed to be sliding under her in fast-forward as each step landed in the same distinct pattern, kicking up mud and snow as she carried on. Cora was running, but it felt more like she was simply falling forward, yet somehow still maintaining an upright position.
Passing yet another tree, she hadn’t looked back to see her pu
rsuers since turning and sprinting away. They were still there, that she knew. And they were close, close enough that their footsteps played like a bass drum against the inside of her ears.
Griffin had joined the chase as well, and as she fought her way around another small outcropping of something resembling miniature Christmas trees, Cora lost her footing. She slid sideways across a small section of ice that formed near the base of a large tree, and into a shrub the size of a small car.
With only her upper body exposed, and as the two repulsive men slowly progressed toward her, Cora rolled onto her stomach. Calculating the speed at which they limped forward and placing that against the time she needed to slide out from under the bush, stand, and get to the opening, the chances of her escaping the way she came in were zero.
Rounding the entrance to the small cove she’d slid into, the bus driver limped in first. His jaws were biting into the air as he pushed off the tree, rebounded back, and slowly stumbled toward the large shrub.
Pulling her knees up under her, Cora instinctively reached to her lower back and drew the weapon she’d been given. Steadying herself and quickly firing off two rounds, she blew apart the bus driver's right leg, just below the knee.
From somewhere beyond her field of vision, Griffin appeared like a silent freight train gliding through the night. Leaping the small overturned tree to her left, Griffin lowered his shoulder and collided into both men, the bus driver shooting forward and into Cora.
Pushed back into the underbrush, Cora fought to pull her arms free of the tangled mess the jacket had become in the broken branches. As she dug her heels into the loose earth, the bus driver lunged headfirst into the bush, but was caught twelve inches short of her chest. He again snapped at the air, as what looked like saliva, blood, and something a dirty shade of orange dripped from his mouth.
