by Maxey, Phil
All would be pointless though if he wasn’t alone in the station, so he crept along the aisle near the wall, keeping low, his gaze fixed on the far corner. It wasn’t long before his eyes confirmed what his nose already knew. A body, or something that used to be one, lay on the ground. A former detective by the looks of the pieces of suit that resided over the few limbs that still looked human. In a flash of invasive images, it was him on the ground, long since dead. He shook his head to rid the vision from his mind.
He was sweating despite the temperature being not much over zero. He walked closer to the remains.
Immune…
But the individual’s luck didn’t save him as the virus, or perhaps a creature, still tried its best to change the man, killing him in the process.
Landon almost missed it, but what light seeped through blinds in the side windows of the room, glinted off the top of a piece of plastic hanging from the dead man’s neck.
Keycard…
There was no way Landon was going to touch the body, or the brown liquid that surrounded it, so he looked around, finding a pen near a framed photo of the man with his wife then leaned in, doing his best to hold his breath, and poked the exposed chest area until he nudged the—
The body jolted, making Landon jump backwards, almost falling over the office chair behind him.
Eyes.
They were open and for a moment Landon seriously thought he was alive, the idea being worse than if he were dead, but he was dead, for when Landon stood back up, the eyes remained fixed in place, not moving or dilating.
Virus, still… doing something to the body.
He knew Jess would have a better explanation for what just happened, but all he knew was that he needed to get out of the station as quickly as he could. He chose another pen and repeated the procedure, being ready for another movement from the body, but this time the damaged, altered appendages remained still, and he managed to slide the keycard and accompanying strap over the man’s head. He then took it to the water cooler and poured a good amount over it just to be sure. He still wouldn’t let his skin touch it, and by using several tissues, picked it up and slid it into the slot near the secure looking door, which produced a clunking noise and opened a few inches.
Landon pushed it further and moved inside the small room with the racks, which were completely full.
They never even got a chance to fight back.
The idea angered him and he thought about his own station, and the colleges which must have been out on the streets of the Denver when the virus hit. He let out a frustrated breath and looked back into the office, spotting what he was going to need. He quickly walked to a large plastic box which sat on a desk then returned to the armory, immediately filling it with boxes of ammo from the various drawers, then piling four handguns, two twelve gauge riot shotguns, two AR-15s and finally the four radios left on the rack. He also grabbed three, then five flak jackets, placing his arms through the loops, to be able to carry it all, and lifted the heavy box.
A noise came from outside the room. He quietly put the box back down, took out one of the shotguns, making sure it was loaded and crept to the open door, his gun already heading towards the body to the right.
“What are you doing in here?” he said to Tracey, who was halfway between him and the door he originally came in from. “You should be with Josh!”
“You were taking...” She scrunched her nose up. “Man, it stinks in here.”
“Quickly come here.”
She ran forward then stumbled against the wall on seeing the body. “Oh, that’s where the smell is coming from.”
“You handled a gun before?”
“Umm… hunting rifle.”
He showed her the assault rifle. “Safety off. Butt up against your shoulder, aim down the sight and short bursts.” She nodded and he handed it to her then went back in, grabbing a bullet-proof jacket and gave that to her as well. “Put that on.” He did the same and they both quickly left the station.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
12: 21 p.m. Highway 50, western outskirts of Jefferson City.
Jess and Sam sat on the only two seats available in the back of the van. One was close to the small computer desk, which a laptop sat on, and the other was further back, near the stove. Sam had already tried to work the computer, but Arlo somehow sensed when she was near it and shouted. He was a little sensitive about who used the thing.
Thoughts raced through Jess’s mind of how Landon and Josh survived. Despite the reality that they had died, she couldn’t go on unless she believed they hadn’t. And she needed to, for her daughter, but then somehow they had and a part of her still didn’t believe it.
I abandoned them…
A wave of guilt flooded through her. She could have looked harder, she could have done anything but just presume they were dead and leave. The questions wanted to pile up in her mind, but she resisted them. Reckoning would come in four and a half days time when the nightmare was over. All that mattered now was to get to Amos’s home, get the vaccine into Sam and herself, then get to whatever the most obvious landmark was in Jefferson.
Meg will find them, or they will find us.
She didn’t know much about the two that had saved them. Arlo, the older of the two, said he had taken to the road a few months ago. That chat in secret chat servers was mentioning something about a ‘great reset’ was coming and it would involve space. He wanted to be mobile when it happened to avoid the fallout, literally, but hadn’t banked on a virus wiping everyone out, or worse changing them. He also couldn’t believe that he was immune.
The other was a sergeant in the army, stationed at a base outside Kansas City. But the military weren’t prepared for what happened. No one was, but… her company.
Since leaving Rocky Pine she hadn’t thought about Biochron much. But the awkward fact of the vaccine was an itch in her mind that she wanted an answer to. How could they know? There were several possibilities, none of which led to anywhere good. One was they somehow already had a sample of what the probe brought back. Maybe the probe was just one of many, but the only one the public knew about? Or perhaps, and this was the idea that she hated the most, making her stomach churn each time she seriously considered it. Perhaps there was nothing alien on that probe that crashed. Perhaps nothing at all? She found it curious how fast the spores spread. Even with jet streams and storms, could the vaccine have spread across the entire North American continent within twelve hours?
She didn’t want to think about the obvious conclusion, but her scientific mind wouldn’t let her ignore Occam’s razor. The simplest solution to why her family had been running for their lives was that the virus was entirely manmade, and had been released at multiple locations across the country at the same time. But as the van turned off the highway, it wasn’t travel sickness that was making her feel ill, but the fact that she used to work for the company that may have been responsible for genocide. Was her own work involved somehow? She had created numerous breakthroughs for them since working there, some which were patented, and she was fired on the day—
“We’re not far from entering the outskirts of the city,” said Eugene, over his shoulder. “Where exactly do we need to go? Because I don’t want to hang around in this place for long.”
“It’s on the river, few miles east… or maybe north. I… remember thinking, it looked unsafe or something, like it was about to fall down the bank or whatever it was built on.”
“Okay, so we head to the river and follow the road, shouldn’t be too difficult…”
*****
12: 26 p.m. Jefferson City.
“That’s got to be it,” said Landon. They were parked at a high point which eventually led to a bridge which spanned the Missouri River, but a few miles to the southwest sat a gray silhouette of a dome and spire, just visible through mist. The clouds were now uniform and the rain was turning to sleet.
“That’s the state capital building,” said Tracey “Last I heard the army
were using it as some kind of base or something. Before all the radio stations started broadcasting white noise, they told everyone to stay away from that place. Umm…” She looked back to the four-lane road, and the buildings back from it. “How long you want to stay, if your family are not there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yeah but, like, they think you’re dead… so…”
“I don’t know. Depends if there are things there. If there are, not long.”
“Then what?”
“Then we try and find her friend’s home. Maybe they’re there.”
He turned the van around, driving back the way they had come, then took the offramp. He knew the owner of the van wanted a more definite answer, but it was an honest one. She was right though, Jess wasn’t about to wait for her deceased husband and son. She would get the vaccine then try to get to a safe place for Sam. But still, he wanted to check out the ‘most obvious landmark’ just in case.
Overpasses, parking lots, old red-brick blocks of offices came and went, as they continued along the wide road, steering around the occasional abandoned vehicle, the dome growing ever closer. Huge gray and beige block-like buildings with hundreds of windows slid by and everyone in the van was scanning the landscape for any movement.
“I thought you said there were creatures here,” said Landon.
“That’s what I heard. Maybe they all moved on or something.”
They passed a parking lot full of cars, their owners never having returned and took a turning, heading up a hill which was bordered by important looking buildings. The van’s engine echoed off the gray concrete. If there were things hiding in the monolithic structures, they would know their city had visitors, but as they approached an abandoned checkpoint, replete with sandbags and a Humvee, nothing charged at them.
“Looks like there’s no one here,” said Tracey.
Luckily, the checkpoint was a simple gate. Landon got out and pulled it back, then quickly got back in and drove past. Rather than taking the road, he bumped on the curb and drove straight across the muddy faded grass, past trees, a statue and then across a parking lot until he was sat at the base of steps, which led to the impressive Greco-Roman columns of the grand entrance. He immediately turned to Tracey. “Wait here.” He held up the radio. “Use this if you see or hear anything.”
She looked uneasily at the massive building looming over them, then in the rear mirror at the road a hundred yards behind. “Don’t be long.”
He turned the ignition key, turning the engine off and pushed the door open and jumped down, closing it slowly while listening for any echoes or animalistic sounds, but there was just the sound of the icy droplets hitting the concrete and puddles around him.
Are you here, Jess?
The small park which surrounded the building, the roads and the other governmental buildings beyond showed no sign of danger, but his instincts were telling him otherwise. He swung around to his destination and started running up the wide set of stone steps, but stopped before reaching the top. A stench so strong he could almost see it, emanated from the entrance of the old building. He walked slowly up the final steps, straining to see what lay beyond the dark glass of the doubles doors when he caught movement, but it wasn’t coming from inside the building. In the reflection, a dark object silently slid just below the stone colored sky. He turned and watched the helicopter sail over the top of the huge building, then started to run down the steps towards the van. Tracey’s voice came from his radio before he reached the bottom. He pulled the driver’s door open before she could say ‘Over.’
“Did you see it! In the sky!” she said.
He turned the key, firing up the engine and reversing out across the grass. “Yup,” he said, trying to keep track of the direction the helicopter was heading. The van bumped over the sidewalk and back to the road, where he turned and hit the gas.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
12: 43 p.m. Jefferson City.
Jess looked out of the small side window of Arlo’s van as it drove down a dead end road. Brick built single story homes resided on both sides of the narrow road, which contained dew covered beige and green lawns with the occasional leafless tree.
She shook her head. “No, these are not like his. His is a wooden construction. And it’s closer to the river, I’m sure of it.”
Arlo had his laptop in his hand, balanced on the dashboard, displaying a map of the area. “This is the last road for us to look at…” He leaned forward, his eyes squinting behind his glasses. “Well, there’s another road to the north of here, which runs along a creak. Could that be it?”
“I guess… I don’t know.”
Arlo pulled into a driveway, then backed out, turning around. “If it’s not this new road, then are we all agreed to get the hell out of this city?”
The air left Jess’s lungs. They had driven all the roads that the map showed were close to the Missouri River. She was beginning to doubt the details she remembered from her conversation with Amos. Was it even in this area? Maybe on the other side of the river? “I can’t leave. But after this next road, if you want to, go ahead. Just drop us off.”
“We’ve already had this conversation, lady,” said Eugene. “Leaving you here is a death sentence.”
She didn’t want to state the obvious, but she didn’t need to because Sam beat her to it.
“I could turn into one of those things at any moment. You really want that to happen just behind you?”
Arlo and Eugene looked at each other without comment, as they rejoined a wider road, moving north.
Similar homes slid by, brick not wood, but then, as they moved around a shallow bend, the buildings on their right became wooden.
“Um…”
“Yeah?” said Eugene.
“Keep going, keep… Wait, stop, back up!” They had driven past a pale-blue lodge style property. “The front door! I remember him telling me he had it painted to match the rest of the outside, because before it looked like a ‘red nose!’”
The van was stopped outside a pleasant looking single story home, with a dark blue door. There were no vehicles in the drive which sloped down from the road, curving around to the entrance.
“This is it! I’m sure this is it!” She grabbed Sam and briefly hugged her tight to her, then before her daughter or anyone else in the van could say anything, turned and slid the side door open.
“Wait! Damnit!” said Eugene. He pushed his passenger’s door open and jumped down, scanning the buildings close by. “There could be creatures here!” he said, not wanting to raise his voice. “I should go in first and check the place out!”
Jess shook her head while beckoning Sam to get out as well. “No, if Amos is here, I need to talk to him first, just me and my daughter. But I’ll come back out within a few minutes.”
Eugene frowned and sighed. “A few minutes. Then I’m coming in.”
She nodded and with Sam walked down the concrete slope, quickly arriving at the deck, then stepping up to the front door. She rang the doorbell, but there was no answer. She knew there wasn’t much chance he would be there, but she wanted to have a look inside for the vaccine without the two strangers being with her. Who knew how they would react to finding something which would be priceless to survivors. She waited a few seconds then indicated to the two watching in the van, that she was going to go around back, to the lower floor.
Following the deck, they crunched fallen leaves and then cautiously walked down the wooden steps to the ground floor, which had a view of the forests which covered the valley below. She walked to the rear entrance, and—
Two men were standing in Amos’s living room, both in black hazmat suits. The kind she had seen used at her company. One of them stepped forward, and through the condensation on the inside of the visor she could see it was Amos. He stepped to the door and pulled it open.
“Jess! I’m so happy to see you! Please come inside!”
She hesitated, but made sure to keep Sam behind her,
then stepped over the threshold, her hand holding her daughter’s and moved into the moderately sized room. It was then she noticed the other two men, these wearing the same suits, but sporting semi-automatic rifles.
“No need to be worried about these other men, Jess, they are here to protect you and your daughter.” He looked past her. “Where is Landon and Josh?”
“What’s going on Amos?” Her eyes flicked between her work colleague and the three other men.
He turned to a silver suitcase laying on an armchair behind him, picking it up. “I knew you would be here—” He looked briefly at the other man, who remained expressionless. “— As I said in my message to you.” He flicked the latches on the suitcase, revealing a black sponge and two rows of eight, small bottles, together with a syringe with was already filled with a clear liquid.
“Amos! What’s going on!”
He held up the syringe. “I am here to fullfil my promise! This is the vaccine and I believe you are both ready for your next dose?” He looked again to the open door. “Are your husband and son behind you somewhere? Or perhaps in the van outside?”
She remained near the door.
“Jess, you really must take this vaccine now. You could change at any moment, putting the life of your daughter in great danger.”
The eyes of the shorter man next to Amos, remained fixed on her, as did the two soldiers’, ten feet to her right. Everything was wrong. This was not the Amos of the video message, frightened for what the company had done. She looked at the syringe and smiled. “Thank you for being here. I’ve come a long way. Unfortunately Landon and Josh did not make it.” She looked down.
