by Sean Platt
“How can you understand this?” Brent said. “They don’t have your family behind glass.”
Brent wanted to get in Keenan’s face, yell at him, push him, even if Keenan punched right back. It would be worth it if he could wake whatever humanity might still be inside the man. But he had to weigh his options carefully. Michael, his first and only friend outside of Jane, and the person who vouched for him to get the position as Guardsman, had been killed the day before. Right now Keenan was his closest thing to a friend in the Guard, and the only thing allowing him access to see Gina and Ben. If he pissed Keenan off, his access, as limited as it was, would be severed. He’d be left alone, topside, wondering every moment what was happening to his family.
“I’m sorry,” he said to Keenan.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Keenan said. “But I can’t make any promises.”
“Thank you,” Brent said, unable to move his eyes from the viewing window.
Later in the day, a stranger came to see Brent while he was sitting on his bed typing a report into his laptop about everything that happened in the city the day before.
“Hello, Mr. Foster. My name is Sullivan,” a fresh-faced young man with wire-framed glasses said. “I’d like you to come with me. I think it’s time the two of us had a talk.”
Brent looked Mr. Sullivan over, then closed his laptop, stood, and shook his hand.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Brent said, nervous, then gestured toward the door. “After you.”
Sullivan was silent the entire trip to the elevator. Brent stayed a step behind him, observing and absorbing everything from the length of his step to the thread count of his jacket. He had the gait of someone important, and the confident shoulders of someone in charge, but he wasn’t a decision maker. He had the calm walk, but not the decisive step. Mr. Sullivan, Brent was sure, was the guy brought in to make sure things stayed calm; no rocking boats, and, most importantly, no one stepping out of line.
They took the elevator to Level 5, the administrative wing, another area Brent had never been to, even during his initial interview.
“This way, please,” Sullivan said, guiding Brent along yet another sterile corridor that looked like so many of the others he’d been in.
They took a few more turns, Brent taking mental notes of the layout, just in case he ever needed to return. He did this constantly whenever he was brought new places in the facility. When he returned to his room in the evening, he’d draw maps, then study them, committing everything to memory, in case he was ever lost and needed to navigate his way out. Or, needed to break into a place he wasn’t allowed. Though his family had only been imprisoned for one night, part of him was already preparing for the possibility of arranging an escape, even if the notion of breaking into, let alone out of, the facility seemed impossible.
Sullivan led Brent to a dead end where he stopped, pivoted to face a door on the left, then placed his hand on a pad beside it. The door whooshed open.
Sullivan’s office was small and sparsely furnished. A chair, a wooden desk, and a Zen rock garden on the corner of his desk. Opposite the desk was a leather chair where Brent was offered a seat.
Sullivan sat behind the desk, opened a drawer, and slid out a tablet computer, which he placed in front of him on the desk. He left the screen black.
“Captain Keenan said you wanted to see me?” Sullivan began, not unfriendly.
“Are you in charge?”
“No, but let’s just say I have every ear that matters. And, before you say you don’t wish to speak to me, let me say that I am as close as anyone gets to those in charge. So, I urge you to share your concerns. Or,” Sullivan smiled, “forever hold your peace.”
Sullivan’s voice was crisp, well-educated and slightly foreign, though Brent couldn’t place the accent. Perhaps from the United Kingdom.
“I want to know what’s going to be done with my family.”
“You mean the infected that we picked up yesterday?”
“Yes,” Brent replied, stifling a burst of loathing. “They’re my wife and son.”
“I’m sorry,” Sullivan said, never breaking eye contact. “I understand how difficult this must be for you.”
I doubt it.
“I want to know what’s going to happen to them.”
Sullivan paused, as if trying to decide how much he would share. “Do you know why Black Island Research Facility is here?”
“Just what you all told me when I arrived: a facility designed to monitor threats to the country and to proactively act against them when they arise, whatever that means.”
“Good memory. Yes, that’s the short-and-sweet version; the story we tell to the politicians who fund us, and the journalists,” at this he winked at Brent, “whom we speak to. That’s the public face of what we do. Naturally, there’s more.”
Naturally.
“Black Island is also one of four New Eden stations in the world,” continued Sullivan. “A place to begin society anew, should our old society come to an end. These stations are responsible for repopulating the planet, making it hospitable again, something it is not even close to in its current state. It may surprise you that we don’t know much about these aliens despite having captured a few living ones and having dissected many dead ones. We need to know as much as we can if we are to eradicate them from Earth and reclaim our planet.”
“That’s a noble endeavor, Mr. Sullivan. But don’t skirt the question. What’s going to happen to my family as you play hero and race to save the world? Are they to be experimented on as your guinea pigs?”
“Yes, Mr. Foster, more or less,” Sullivan said, as matter-of-fact as Keenan had been earlier. “If these subjects were not your family, you’d want us to find out everything we could, wouldn’t you? In order for science to progress, it must experiment. We’re finding fewer and fewer survivors, fewer still who are infected.”
“Maybe that’s because your Guardsmen have itchy trigger fingers and don’t hesitate to burn them alive,” Brent said, the adrenaline building in his voice. “They even killed a good friend of mine who was willing to let them experiment on him! But they never even gave him a chance. Just shot him dead, no questions asked.”
“Yes,” Sullivan said, as academic as ever. “That is unfortunate. I believe we can agree that our initial recruits were a bit too eager, or perhaps a bit too frightened, after everything that happened. Once we learned what the Guardsmen were doing, we stepped in and put a stop to it, ordering all infected to be captured alive.”
“Are there other infected alive here?” Brent asked.
“I’m not at liberty to discuss the finer details; I hope you’ll understand. In fact, I’ll also be requesting that you keep the details of your family’s capture and the existence of any infected on this island to yourself. There’s no need to start a panic.” Sullivan leaned forward. “Can I trust you to do that, or will we need to have you remanded to the facility at all times? I’m sure that could prove a bit of a problem for your relationship with the teacher and her daughter.”
Brent flinched. If that was a threat, it was the smoothest he’d ever been given. And most effective. He wondered just how carefully they were monitoring his activities. For all he knew, they had the whole island bugged.
“I won’t say a word,” Brent said, more than slightly defeated. “Like you said, no need to scare people. So, truly, what can you tell me about Gina and Ben? What’s going to happen to them?”
“I’m afraid I can’t say, truly. But you can be assured that our scientists will be as merciful as the situation allows. I’m not a scientist, nor do I even pretend to understand all the things they have to deal with it. But suffice it to say our team is one of the best in the world, if not the best that’s left, and they are working for the good of mankind.”
“Do you think they’ll find a cure? Do you think they can cure Gina and Ben?” Brent asked, retreating into his vulnerabilities and feeling the fool for it to expose a lofty dream, only to be
shot down by such a clinical man.
“I wouldn’t insult you or dare to raise your hopes by speculating. I hope you’ll understand. I will say that if there is such a thing as a cure, these are the people who could find it. I say could, not will. Obviously, time and availability of subjects comes into play, as does the basic uncertainty of science. I believe the best thing you can do for now is try and shift the way you think of the subjects. They’re not your family, not anymore. Your wife and child are dead, their bodies are merely puppets for whatever species has infected them.”
“No,” Brent said sharply, abandoning his emotional retreat. “You didn’t see my son.”
“Actually, I did see the subjects.”
“No, if you saw them, you wouldn’t be saying my son is gone. There’s some part of him in there. I see it in the way he acts, the way he clings to Gina. He’s not gone. My son is not some fucking puppet!”
Sullivan stared at Brent for what seemed an eternity, giving Brent time to calm down and wonder if perhaps he’d been too forceful. He didn’t want to appear as a threat that may go off the reservation. He needed to play the good boy or Black Island Research would do what governments do with any threat – eliminate him.
Finally, Sullivan looked down to his tablet, turned it on, navigated to a file on the desktop, and handed it to Brent.
“Please press play, Mr. Foster,” Sullivan said, frost upon his words.
Brent took the tablet, which showed the frozen image of a woman in a chamber just like, if not the very same as, the one his family was in. She was clearly infected: eyes big and black, skin deteriorated significantly. She stood alone in the center of the room, the video shot from outside the observation window. Brent pressed a white triangle over the image bringing the video to life.
A figure in full white protective gear entered the chamber through one of the two doors on the far wall.
“Unlike the others, subject 10-0014 appears to be non-violent on Day Five,” a woman’s voice said. Judging from the echo, it was the voice of the woman in the white gear. The infected woman stood still, watching as the suited scientist moved closer.
“She seems to be responding positively to treatment with HZVT-816 Variant C. We’ve now given her six doses, spaced 12 hours apart. Her skin shows signs of minor healing; pigmentation seems to be returning to her body. I will now take a closer look at the subject’s eyes.”
As the scientist stepped closer to the infected, Brent’s heart felt like it pounded twice as fast, doubling its beat in anticipation and dread of what was to come. Surely, there had to be a reason Sullivan was showing him this video. Was it to foster hope, or crush it?
The scientist turned on a flashlight and raised it to the infected woman’s eye. The infected woman recoiled, mouth opened wide and jaw unhinged, and released an unholy shriek that echoed in the chamber and crackled on the tablet speakers.
The infected woman’s hands seized the scientist by the helmet, pulling her closer. The scientist screamed, dropping the flashlight. Dozens of slippery black tendrils shot from the infected woman’s mouth and pierced the faceplate of the scientist’s helmet, goring through the thick plastic as blood splattered the insides and the scientist’s screams ended in a choking gurgle.
A siren sounded in the video as the chamber suddenly erupted in bright flames from above, engulfing the entire screen.
Sullivan reached out and took the tablet from Brent, hit stop on the video, then spoke. “Burn Protocol. It’s what we do when infection threatens to break free from the chambers. It’s the only way to ensure that what we put inside doesn’t get outside.”
Brent stared in numb disbelief, “Why are you showing me this?”
“I need to disabuse you of the notion that the subjects in there are your family. The scientist in that video was named Lenora Paulson. The subject was her sister, Frankie. Like you, Lenora made the mistake of thinking her sister was still human. She thought that because the infected hadn’t deteriorated at the same rate, wasn’t aggressive, and still seemed to recognize Lenora that perhaps she wasn’t lost. Lenora thought if she tried hard enough, she could cure her. As you can see, these infected, no matter how they appear, are no longer human. Your wife and child died. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can begin to live again.”
Twelve
Ryan Olson
Brookdale, Tennessee
Feb. 17
Morning
He dreamed of Mary again, waking up with a hard-on for the third morning in a row.
Ryan’s hands wrapped around his cock, and he started to tug, imagining the swell of Mary’s breasts and the blush of her nipples against the snow of her skin.
Fuck, I love her tits.
Ryan yanked faster.
Outside, a scream shattered the silence . . . and drained his erection. A gunshot followed, cracking the morning like thunder.
Ryan bolted up in bed, then ran to the window. He was on the seventh floor of an abandoned apartment. He stuck to apartments since they were easier to barricade, and preferred the upper floors because they gave him more leverage if the world went even further to hell down on the ground. The creatures didn’t like to climb the fire escape ladders that were on many of the buildings, nor did they seem to have the patience or intellect to figure out how to move intricate barriers in the stairways and halls, which Ryan happened to excel at creating. Turns out stocking intricate displays on the end caps did serve some purpose, after all. So, as long as he was careful and built good traps, he was safe . . . from the monsters, for now.
He peered out the window and saw a young black kid racing down the street with two men chasing him.
“What the hell?” Ryan said as he tried to make sense of the scene below.
This was the first time he’d seen anybody, let alone three people at once, since the third day after the world flushed its people away. The first person had been a crazy guy pushing a shopping cart down the street outside Warson Woods. Ryan had asked the guy if he’d seen anyone else, but the guy yelled something about yellow cabs that made no sense to Ryan, so he left the stranger to wander aimlessly, knowing full well he would attract the wrong attention soon enough. The last person he saw was some weird guy later that day who seemed to be following Ryan from a long distance, but then vanished never to be seen again.
The men chasing the young black kid were wearing jackets with hoods, one red and the other blue. They appeared to be white, or light skinned, from the best Ryan could tell seven floors up. They also seemed slower and older. But guns were a great equalizer to speed. And the man in red was aiming a pistol at the kid.
The kid stopped in his tracks in the middle of the road, just beneath the awning of Ryan’s borrowed apartment. Ryan cracked the window open so he could hear what they were saying. A crisp, cool breeze floated into the room, and on it, the voices from below.
“Give it back!” the man in the red jacket demanded.
“It ain’t yours,” the kid said, a voice that seemed younger than the kid’s height. Judging by the rising crack in his voice, Ryan pegged him at about 13 or so.
“I ain’t askin’,” Red Jacket said, stepping closer, gun aimed directly at the teen.
Blue Jacket had no gun, but stepped forward to intimidate nonetheless. “Hand the shit over, kid. Now.” he pressed.
The boy reached into his pocket and retrieved something too small for Ryan to see from his birds-eye perch. Red Jacket took the item, then pistol-whipped the kid hard upside the head, sending his six feet or so crashing down to the cement.
Ryan took both the thugs to be in their late teens, early 20s. Grown men picking on an unarmed kid.
Fucking pussies.
Ryan returned to the bed, retrieved the rifle he kept propped against the nightstand at all times, then went back to the window and scanned the street. The two men retreated back down the street while the boy sat on the ground, glaring at them, hand on his head where he’d been hit. He looked as if he was contemplating making a
run at the men, but didn’t know how to level the playing field without a gun. Ryan wondered why the boy hadn’t been armed. It wasn’t as if you needed a license to carry any longer, and there were no shortages of stores to get a weapon without a license, waiting period, or even cash.
Ryan opened the window the rest of the way and leaned out. “Psst, you okay?”
The boy snapped his head up, flinching. For a moment it looked like he was going to bolt. He tried to stand, but lost his balance and fell back on his ass.
“Hold on; I’ll be right down,” Ryan said, then turned and raced from his apartment, already dressed. Ryan always slept in sweats, a shirt, and sneakers because he never knew when he’d need to run next, or in which direction. It was best to be ready at all times. He may not have done the best job of preparing for many of life’s slings before the world went away, but he’d become incredibly resourceful in the past few months.
He unlocked the wooden gate he’d just finished building, then eased his body past the stacked items that served as a barrier blocking the stairwell and ran down the stairs, two steps at a time.
The boy, in jeans and a green, long-sleeve jersey, looked even younger up close, despite his height. His eyes widened to softballs at the rifle.
“Don’t worry; I’m not gonna shoot you,” Ryan said soothingly. “What happened? What did those men take from you?”
“Medicine for my Gramps. I took it from the drug store down the street. I didn’t know it was their drug store.”
“It isn’t,” Ryan said, watching as the men turned the corner a block away, heading toward the drug store. “Were they in the drug store when you went in there?”
“No, they came out of the old Pizza Hut across the street. I didn’t even see them until I came out and they told me to stop. That’s when I took off running.”
“What’s the medicine for?” Ryan asked. “Is it important?”
“Yeah, it’s his heart medicine. If he doesn’t get it, he could die.”
