A Wilderness Within

by Emma Castle

  “This is fucking messed up, Atwood,” Julian Holt muttered from the driver’s seat.

  “Agreed.” Lincoln glanced at his friend. He’d been with Julian since they were both in their twenties and recruited into Delta Force.

  “How long will everything be like this?” Julian asked, his light brown eyes full uncharacteristic worry.

  “I have no idea. Adam says it could be months before the CDC works out a vaccine. The army’s testing samples from the O’Hare airport victims.” He remembered hearing about that one. One survivor after six days. All the other passengers trapped in the quarantined terminal had perished. One out of so many.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this, man. A real bad feeling, you know. Like when things went to hell in Syria. I still have nightmares about Cruz and Ross.”

  Julian’s dark skin and soft eyes made a contradiction of solemnity and playfulness that Lincoln liked, but not today. Julian had the look of a man who’d seen death up close and personal.

  Haven’t we all? Lincoln stared out across the sea of the military forces on the move. He and Julian were under strict orders to protect the president and vice president. Lincoln would be boarding a military transport flight to Omaha tonight. At least, that was the rumor. Julian was supposed to return to the Supreme Court and act as the justices’ protection detail.

  “Fucking Omaha,” Lincoln muttered. The end of the line. The last plan during a national crisis. They watched as a civilian tried to escape by driving his car at the barriers in the distance. The soldiers guarding the barriers opened fire on the vehicle, but it kept coming until it crashed into the barriers and the car crunched like a tin can before exploding seconds later.

  “Shit,” Julian cursed. “They should know there’s no way out.”

  “There’s always a way in and out. Just a matter of finding the weak spot,” Lincoln reminded his friend.

  Julian was silent a long moment. “You know, I gave up smoking for my girl. But man, I would do anything for a drag right now. I’d even take a fucking e-cigarette.”

  “Me too.” Lincoln had never smoked before in his life, but now seemed as good a time as any to start.

  “Delta Two to Delta One. Major Atwood, come in.” A voice came over the radio, and Lincoln picked it up.

  “Delta One responding. Atwood here.”

  “Major, we have a situation.” Lincoln recognized the voice as one of the newer members of the force, Jesse Poole.

  “What is it?”

  “Satellite footage is being sent to your phone, Major.”

  Lincoln pulled out his secure phone. A video clip was uploading on the screen. He clicked on it, and Julian leaned over to watch. It was satellite footage of Russia, or what was left of it. Moscow was in ruins. Smoky black pits were all that was left.

  “What the fuck?” Julian grabbed the radio and responded.

  “Poole, what the hell is that?”

  “Russia went nuclear to try to cut off the infection. Millions are estimated dead. Millions.”

  Lincoln’s blood ran like ice water in his veins. This really was the end of the line. They were done. They were all done.

  Lincoln jolted awake, his heart racing and his throat tight. He reached for Caroline.

  She wasn’t there.

  He scrambled to his feet, shoving the sleeping bag down his body. He scanned the dark library and saw a distant lantern light deep in the fiction section. Creeping closer, he heard Caroline speaking. When he saw the satellite radio in her hand, he knew what she was doing. He lingered in the shadows, listening to her speak.

  “This is Caroline Kelly. I’m just outside Memphis. Still headed to Atlanta. Please join me there. The CDC needs blood samples to find a way to stop Hydra-1. I need you to join me. We are better than this. We can put aside our fears and distrust. We can work together to save each other and ourselves. I don’t know if any of you have ever read this, but there’s a poem called If by Rudyard Kipling that my father used to read to me. It’s got me through dark times, and I want to share it with you. It gives me hope. I hope it gives you hope too.” Then Caroline began to read:

  * * *

  If you can keep your head when all about you

  Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

  If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

  But make allowance for their doubting too;

  If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

  Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

  Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

  And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

  If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

  If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

  If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

  And treat those two impostors just the same;

  If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

  Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

  Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

  And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

  If you can make one heap of all your winnings

  And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

  And lose, and start again at your beginnings

  And never breathe a word about your loss;

  If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

  To serve your turn long after they are gone,

  And so hold on when there is nothing in you

  Except the will which says to them: “Hold on!”

  If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

  Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

  If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

  If all men count with you, but none too much;

  If you can fill the unforgiving minute

  With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

  Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it.

  * * *

  Caroline wiped her eyes, but her voice never faltered.

  “This is what we’re fighting for. The nobility inside all of us, the purity of our purpose, which is to save each other. I’m Caroline Kelly, and I’ll be speaking tomorrow on the next channel up. Caroline out.”

  She clicked the radio off, and it was Lincoln who noticed the small book of poetry she held. Her father’s.

  Lincoln slipped back into his sleeping bag, not wanting Caroline to know he’d woken and worried about her. Then he waited until he heard her light steps on the tile floor as she padded over to him. She climbed back in the sleeping bag and cuddled against him again. The words of Kipling’s poem ran through his head as he drifted back to sleep.

  * * *

  And so hold on when there is nothing in you

  Except the will which says to them: “Hold on!”

  15

  Excerpt from the private journal of Dr. Erica Kennedy, interim director of the CDC:

  November 11 – We have sent an agent into the field to investigate rumors of a virulent new disease. The agent has failed to report. I am now on site in China to follow up on the situation. These are my findings:

  The virus started in a wet market. Bats were caged too close to civet cats. An apartment owner fell ill while tending to the animals he was selling. The virus jumped from the civets to the human, and the virus entered his skin presumably through a minor cut. This man fell ill seven days later and was taken to a nearby hospital.

  While waiting for treatment, he collapsed on the floor. He suffered internal bleeding, liquification of his liver, and his intestines shed their lining, producing a bomb of lethal infectious bacteria. He was rushed into an emergency room, where he vomited blood and bile. After this he slipped in and out of consciousness as his body began to expel all moisture. Over the course of a week, he became fully dehydrated, a process that continued even after his death on day nine, ending up as what the staff translated to me as a mummy. His remains were sealed in a plastic waterproof bag and
stored in a hospital freezer rather than the morgue.

  I examined the remains in a sterile setting, taking full precautions. But I admit, I felt terrified, and it was not just the usual bout of nerves when entering a hot zone. This was true terror. I saw what this virus did to him, what he looked like…

  I took blood and tissue samples from the victim and examined them with the equipment they could provide. The structure of the virus formed a strand like a piece of string with a knot at the end. If I had to guess, it may be part of the family Filoviridae, or filoviruses that form infectious viral particles. They encode their genome in the form of single-stranded negative-sense RNA, most commonly associated with diseases like Ebola or the Marburg virus.

  This virus starts out with a similar form of viral hemorrhagic fevers before it dehydrates the body faster than the body can be replenished until the host dies. What’s most unusual is that this process somehow continues past death, but this is not caused by the virus itself, but rather the conditions created in the cell left behind. I am unable to determine how long the virus stays alive once the host is dead, but that is a crucial question. Will the bodies carry the disease, like other viruses, or do the host remains seal the fate of the microbes inside it?

  * * *

  Caroline watched the sun light illuminate faint freckles on the bridge of Lincoln’s nose as he lay sleeping beside her.

  Sunlight. The brightness of the glorious sun filled the room, warming everything, including the sleeping bags she and Lincoln were cocooned in. Caroline held her breath, counting the freckles, so faint, but visible there in the light of the sun. It made her think of Tyler, her first crush. She’d been in middle school, and he had been the playful redhead with cinnamon-hazel eyes and a wicked smile. He’d had freckles like these, though more of them than Lincoln. Seeing them now on Lincoln made her smile, and that love she felt swelled inside her, like a building tidal wave, strong and unstoppable.

  I love you, Lincoln Atwood, and I’ll never stop. Even when my last breath is gone. You’re mine and I’m yours. She exhaled slowly as time seemed to freeze, and he slowly opened his eyes.

  “Morning,” he said. His sleep-roughened voice filled her with a feminine awareness that made her blush.

  “Morning,” she replied, content to watch motes of dust catching the beams of light streaming through the windows.

  “The sun’s out,” he murmured, childlike wonder striking him the way it had her a moment before.

  She lifted a hand to touch his lips, and he kissed her fingertips. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Best thing I’ve seen in months, aside from you.” He rolled her beneath him in their large sleeping bag, and she laughed softly.

  He settled into the cradle of her thighs. Their mouths met in slow, sweet kisses that turned hot and intense. She let his tongue explore her mouth, and she reached between them, pulling her panties down a little. He chuckled and gave one hard yank, ripping them off. Then he shoved his pajamas down and retrieved a condom from his bag close beside them. It was a little difficult to get in a comfortable position in the tight confines of the bag, which made her laugh. It took him a few times to get it right. When he buried his shaft inside her, she arched her back at the sensation of being filled by him. There was no point where she could feel an end to her and a beginning to him.

  She moaned against his conquering lips as they moved together, making love. Each time he sank inside her, that burning core of love within her seemed to burn even brighter, like the birth of a new star that would burn for millions of years, maybe longer. The pleasure between them built until they came together, shivering and shuddering as ecstasy rippled through them like rocks dropped into a still pond.

  “I love you,” she whispered as the sunlight turned his dark lashes a softer burnished gold.

  He stole a sweet kiss that melted every bone in her body into a delicious puddle beneath him. “I love you too.”

  Ellie gave a little wakening cry from her travel crib. Caroline and Lincoln shared one more kiss.

  “I’ll be right back,” Lincoln murmured, he headed to the restroom to dispose of the condom.

  Caroline climbed out of the sleeping bag and found a spare pair of underwear before she went to retrieve Ellie. She bounced the baby in her arms, murmuring a gentle lullaby her mother used to sing to her and the baby gazed up at her with wide eyes. Ellie stretched her tiny hands up, touching Caroline’s cheek. Caroline gently caught one of the baby’s hands and pressed a kiss to the little palm. The baby cooed, gasped and squirmed in response. When she looked up she saw Lincoln had returned from the restroom and stood there in nothing but pajama pants, watching her with a stark longing in his eyes. She understood that look all to well and it made her heart quiver like notes upon a harp.

  “My turn to feed the little tyke.” He gently took Ellie from Caroline and carried her around, whispering softly to her while he prepared a bottle for her. Kirby watched them, his tail wagging, sending small clouds of dust up from the floor.

  Caroline gazed at them a moment longer before she took some fresh clothes to the ladies’ room, along with one of the boxes of the pregnancy kits. It was time she tested one out. She followed the instructions, then got dressed while she counted the minutes. Then, with a shaking hand, she retrieved the test from the counter and looked at it. A single blue line. She checked the symbol against the box. Negative. Not pregnant. She was torn between relief and disappointment.

  We have Ellie. Her niece would be a delight to them, always and forever. No matter what happened in the future. She dropped the test in the trash and came back into the center of the library.

  “She’s fed but needs a change,” Lincoln said, handing Ellie to her. “Your turn.”

  “Thanks.” Caroline changed Ellie’s diaper and put her back in the crib so she and Lincoln could eat.

  “So…I used the test,” she said quietly as she took a bite of the canned peaches they’d brought in from the car.

  Lincoln watched her intently. “And?”

  “Not pregnant,” she said.

  “Are you okay?” Lincoln covered her knee with one hand.

  “Yeah. It’s probably for the best. I guess I was excited about the idea of a baby, but right now? We have Ellie, and until we figure out a vaccine, I don’t want to risk another innocent life.”

  Lincoln nodded. “Agreed.”

  They packed the car, and she took a moment to collect a few books. Classics by Dumas, Brontë, Austen, some modern ones by Graham Greene, J. K. Rowling, and C. S. Lewis. She took books that meant something, books that were part of humanity’s legacy, a legacy she would fight with her last breath to preserve for Ellie and future generations to come. When she carried the box up to Lincoln, he couldn’t hide his smile.

  “Only one box? I was convinced you’d try to sneak another one.”

  She chuckled, but her heart ached as she faced the library again.

  “I wish we could stay here forever.” Safe, surrounded by the stories of people long dead. The place of the written word had become more of a sanctuary than a tomb. No one would come back here, not for a long while. She sensed it deep inside her bones, and it filled her with sorrow.

  We were your last visitors, and I’m sorry we couldn’t stay. She bid farewell to the library and tried to ignore the pain in her heart that stung sharply for having to leave it all behind.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Lincoln asked as he curled an arm around her waist and pulled her into his embrace.

  “Yeah. I will be,” she murmured. For the hundredth time, she marveled at the thought of their chance meeting, of how they’d almost killed each other, and how he had casually stated he’d have her in his bed. He had been right, damn him. But she had no regrets in letting fate or instincts make that choice easier. Lincoln was her man, now and always. Just as Ellie and Kirby were hers, in a different but equally important way.

  “How far to Atlanta?” she asked once they got back to the road.

 
; “Maybe two days if we don’t have any more major issues on the highways and if we continue to stop for supplies.”

  They drove for three hours before Ellie’s cries made it clear she needed a change, and Kirby took to whining as well. Lincoln found a shopping center not far off the highway, and they piled out. Kirby ran to the nearest bushes, and Caroline took Ellie into the burger joint they’d parked next to. She used a lantern to illuminate the dark women’s bathroom as she changed the baby’s diaper.

  Ellie kicked her chubby legs and squawked loudly for such a tiny creature. Caroline laughed and tickled her tiny feet, playing peekaboo with her. Then she fixed her onesie and tucked her back in the portable car seat and opened the door to leave the restroom.

  She froze as she stared down the barrel of a gun.

  She knew only what Lincoln had taught her about weapons, but she recognized the extended barrel of a silencer. Her gaze went from the gun to the man holding it. He was dressed similar to Lincoln when she’d first met him, wearing black military pants and a dark sweater. Another gun was tucked away in a shoulder holster. He wore a backpack, and his eyes were cold and expressionless. Military? The three men in Nebraska who’d tied her up had dressed like it, but according to Lincoln they hadn’t been. But something about this man was different. He held himself still, utterly calm, not high from a killing spree. He was a true soldier, like Lincoln was.

  Caroline didn’t move, but when Ellie sighed and wriggled in her car seat, Caroline wanted to push the baby carrier behind her. Where was Lincoln? Or Kirby?

  “Please… Don’t hurt my baby,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “Let’s talk it out. Tell me what you want.” She nodded at her backpack. The man’s eyes didn’t leave her face. “Please. She’s innocent. We need to band together, not hurt each other.”

  The man’s eyes widened. “It’s you, isn’t it?” He suddenly grinned, but that smile terrified her. No one smiled like that now, not unless they found something they wanted. That wasn’t a good sign. She slowly set the carrier down behind her. The man was still grinning, and he started to lower his weapon.