by Sean Platt
He turned to Desmond. “No worries, Desmond. I understand how you feel.” He held out his hand. Desmond shook it, and John said, “We’re all trying to survive and make the most of this. Breathe in, breathe out, be merry.”
They checked the surrounding woods and were all the way up the hill, ready to descend the backside, when Desmond’s thoughts derailed. He’d heard that last expression from John before. But not from John. It was out of place coming from him, eerie even. Not just the words, but the tone. The echo was odd, and ominous. He felt like he was pulling splinters of thought while trying to place it.
They were at the top of the hill, looking at the horror on the other side when Desmond realized with a sick, slippery dread where he’d heard that expression before.
We’re all trying to survive and make the most of this. Breathe in, breathe out, be merry.
That was something Jimmy had said.
Seventeen
Ryan Olson
Brookdale, Tennessee
Feb. 17
Morning
“How long will this medicine last?” Ryan asked, inspecting the pills as they headed up the street toward Carmine’s apartment in the opposite direction of the drug store. Ryan didn’t want the kid walking back there alone with those ass clowns still out there. The more he thought about it, the more Ryan wished he’d shot the bastards when he had a chance. He pissed them off, so they’d likely want vengeance, against him or Carmine, or both.
“I think he takes one a day. There’s 100 in each bottle, so a while.” Carmine answered.
“How bad a shape is he in?”
“He’s in a wheelchair; lost a leg to diabetes a few years back.”
“Shit,” Ryan said. “Does he have diabetes medicine?”
“Yeah, he’s good on all that other stuff. I got those last week. Those men weren’t there then. Or maybe they just didn’t see me.”
“Well, for future reference, I’d find another place to shop, okay?”
“Yeah, there’s another drug store a few blocks the other way, but it’s a bit farther and I like to keep as close to Gramps as possible. I’ll go there next time, though.”
“And maybe stick to homes and stuff for food, just to make sure you don’t cross paths with those guys.”
“Yeah,” Carmine said as he continued to lead Ryan down another street.
“You see any monsters around here? Or any other people?” Ryan asked.
“You all are the first I’ve seen since November. But yeah, I see the monsters every now and then. I hide. They haven’t seen me yet. I don’t see them near as much as I used to, I don’t think.”
“What about your grandpa?”
“He don’t leave the house, so as long as none of those things hears us or sees us, we’re okay. What’s your deal?” Carmine asked. “You from here?”
“No, I’m looking for my wife and daughter. Well, my ex-wife.”
“Ah,” Carmine said as if he’d been there, done that. “You heard from them at all?”
“No.”
“How you know they’re alive?”
“I don’t,” Ryan said. “Just a feeling.”
“Do you know what happened? Where all the people went?” Carmine asked.
“Nope, no idea. What do you think happened?”
“I dunno. I ran into this dude a while back who said everyone was taken by the government. Some big, secret experiment going on.”
“And they grabbed up everyone all at once?” Ryan said incredulously.
“I didn’t say I believed him, just sharing what I heard,” Carmine said, smiling. “Gramps thinks God took everyone. Said God got good ‘n pissed off and rinsed the planet, but left some of us behind on accident.”
“Some accident,” Ryan said. “How does Gramps explain the monsters?”
“He ain’t seen ‘em yet. I told him a little bit, but I didn’t want to scare him too much or he’d never let me out.”
“So, what are you two gonna do? You gonna go somewhere? You got anyone else?”
“Not that I know of. My mom died when I was born. Don’t know my Dad; he cut out shortly after. Gramps said he’s an asshole and if God got rid of all the bad people, he surely got rid of my dad.”
They turned another street, and Carmine pointed out a faded, peach-colored apartment building a block away, six stories and rundown before October, in all likelihood. A depressing-looking place, from the outside anyway.
As they reached the parking lot, a gunshot cracked and echoed off the buildings.
Ryan spun around and saw Red Jacket and Blue Jacket, both armed this time, aiming and firing.
“Duck!” Ryan screamed as he dropped behind a black pickup truck.
Carmine scrambled inside the apartment building. Ryan wished he’d not done that. Now the fuckers knew where he lived.
“Hey, Marine! You hiding? That ain’t very brave!” Red Jacket shouted, suddenly ballsy and brave.
A spray of bullets slapped the surrounding metal. Ryan kept his head low. Blue Jacket made a beeline across the street, heading for the apartment, probably after Carmine.
Ryan swung into the clearing, hoping to tag Blue Jacket, but didn’t have time to aim. In his periphery, he registered blood-colored movement as Red Jacket flew into view, about five car lengths ahead, then settled behind a blue Buick, taking aim at him. Ryan twisted and fired at Red Jacket, missing by a mile, then rolled out of the way as Red Jacket fired, his shot spitting up asphalt where it struck the road five yards behind Ryan.
Ryan rolled to a spot between a sedan and a truck, and paused.
Blue Jacket laughed, turning away from the apartment’s entrance where Carmine had gone, his attention now on Ryan as he eyed the street in search of him. Ryan was across the street, insulated by a row of cars on Blue Jacket’s side, and his own.
“You see that, Jessie?” Blue Jacket called. “You ever see a Marine who shot like a drunk retard before?”
Red Jacket returned the laugh, then said, “Maybe he meant he’s a cook for the Marines.”
Ryan crawled behind a truck, staying low, pretty sure neither man knew exactly where he was. They were fishing with their insults, hoping he’d bite, but it wouldn’t be long before they found him. He had to put some distance between himself and Red Jacket before Blue Jacket flanked him from behind and had him trapped.
The going was slow, but Ryan stayed low. Both men were too close for him to peek his head up. On the other side of the street, he heard a patter of 20 or so footsteps. Ryan finally risked a peak and saw Blue Jacket jogging north, likely looking to flank him from behind.
He could hear Red Jacket’s footsteps approaching, maybe two cars ahead. They’re getting closer. Ryan squeezed under the truck, praying he’d fit. Somehow, he did, just barely.
He held his breath. It was game over if either of the Jackets knew where he was.
“Hey, Marine?” Red Jacket called. “You’re not calling your mommy to cry, are ya?”
Ryan wanted to yell any one of the seven smart answers in his head, but swallowed every one. He heard Blue Jacket a second before he saw him coming from behind. There was no way to get a shot off, though. Blue Jacket retreated a step, suddenly unsure, as though he felt Ryan was near even though he couldn’t see him.
If Blue Jacket retreated completely, Ryan would lose his chance. He glanced back and saw that Red Jacket had crossed the street, putting a bit more distance between them. That gave him the opening he needed to strike. Ryan slid his rifle up, took careful aim at Blue Jacket’s gut, and squeezed the trigger.
The bullet’s scream was punctuated with one from Blue Jacket as he fell to the ground. As he fell, Ryan took a second shot, this one zeroed in on the man’s face. Direct hit.
Ryan rolled free from under the truck, then raced around the side and searched for Red Jacket, who had vanished from sight.
Or not.
Red Jacket popped up at Ryan’s 2 o’clock and fired, but missed.
Ryan returned fi
re, hitting Red Jacket in the shoulder, a few inches from where Ryan was aiming. Red Jacket dropped his gun, screaming in agony, and fell to the ground behind an ancient, powder-blue Honda.
Ryan raced across the street to finish Red Jacket off once and for all.
As he reached the curb, he landed awkwardly, twisting his ankle, and fell hard to the ground.
“Fuck!” Ryan cried out, as Red Jacket stood up, cackling like a hyena. The man’s injury couldn’t have been too bad. Judging from the small amount of blood, Ryan figured he must’ve grazed the man, who then overplayed his injury to lure Ryan over.
Ryan struggled to locate his rifle, which ejected from his grasp in the tumble. Where? Where? There! He wormed a foot to his left, retrieved the rifle, and flipped onto his back in one fluid motion. He already knew he was down to his last round. No second chances. No misses.
He instantly found his target a dozen yards away and took aim.
Red Jacket’s smiling eyes went from fuck you to fuck me. He looked down, searching for his pistol. Not seeing it, he glared at Ryan, then ducked between the cars and ran off, disappearing into a maze of alleys.
Great.
Ryan picked himself up gingerly, dusted himself off, then limped toward the apartment building, calling for Carmine and unsure of what awaited him inside.
Eighteen
Brent Foster
Black Island, New York
Black Island Research Facility
March 22, 2012
5:01 p.m.
The phone rang again, the third time in 10 minutes. Brent didn’t bother to answer.
If it were Guardsmen on the other end, they’d simply come to his dorm and get him. So it had to be Jane. And the last thing he needed to do right now was deal with distractions. He needed to keep his head clear, a task impossible enough with the world missing, but now it felt hopeless. The scenes he saw the other night, along with his adulterous guilt, presented a near fatal distraction from what he needed to concentrate on most: a solid plan to save Gina and Ben.
The phone blared again only to fall silent after the sixth ring.
Sitting at the table in his room, doubling as desk and dining area, Brent used a black rolling ball pen to sketch the new areas of the facility’s map into his small, black journal, one of few items he owned, which he got from the commissary a month earlier. As he drew, ideas for an escape plan began to take root in his head. The toughest part would be gaining access to Level 6. There was no way he’d be able to pass the security devices. Hacking into complex computer systems might work in the movies. But in reality, most people could barely remember their banking security questions, let alone crack passwords or infiltrate complicated firewalls.
He’d have to be resourceful. And ruthless. He knew what that meant ...
A hostage.
He’d need to force whoever was in charge to provide him access to Level 6, then access the chamber, and then permit him to escape with Gina and Ben. It was a plan fat on assumptions. For one, would Black Island Research ever allow one hostage’s life to outweigh the safety of the entire facility? That seemed doubtful unless he could find, and get to, a valuable enough target. Yet, even after months on the island and now working for the Guardsmen, he still had no idea who the hell was in charge. Whoever it was had gone through great trouble to keep themselves and the scientists insulated from everyone else. While such lengths seemed mysterious and almost conspiratorial to Brent, they were also perfectly logical.
That was how you set up governments. You put the leader at a safe distance from the people. You didn’t allow the president and the vice president to travel together for fear that some lunatic with a gun and nothing to lose might try to change history with bullets. And when the world went to hell, and people turned desperate and savage, the leader had to be at a safe distance, perhaps even veiled in secrecy, to steer clear of danger.
That meant Brent wouldn’t have access to anyone too high profile. And anyone beneath a leader might be expendable. The moment he stepped into the chamber with his hostage, someone might seal the doors and execute a burn protocol, killing them both and the threat of an escape. Perhaps he could get to Ed Keenan, or maybe Sullivan. Both seemed to have value to the Island. Ed would be the tougher of the two to catch by surprise. Sullivan might be easier, but there was something Brent didn’t trust about the man. He was too calm, too sure of himself, too used to wielding power. Sullivan definitely seemed like someone you didn’t fuck with.
Brent stared at the page for what seemed an eternity, waiting as if in prayer for an answer to bleed through the ink. Though he had been a features writer at the paper, there were times he had to write about complex subjects he knew little about. That’s when he’d break out the sketch pad and map out what he knew, what he needed to know. He’d work at it, hard, immersing himself in the subject until the fog lifted and the answers showed themselves.
But that wasn’t happening now. The longer Brent stared at his map, the more holes he found in his plan. The biggest of which was his wife. What if Gina went full-on monster and attacked him? Hell, what if Ben did, too? What would he do? What could he do? Would he defend himself against a 3-year-old by bashing his son’s skull in or shooting him dead? Brent doubted he could bring himself to ever choose his own life over his son’s, even if it was a husk of his son with a monster inside. When it came right down to it, he would allow his wife or son to kill him rather than fight back.
Another fear, and perhaps the most realistic: What if he failed to even get to the chamber? He’d be shot for sure, or worse, excommunicated back to the ravaged wastelands of the outside world. No power, dwindling supplies, nuclear hotspots, bandits (he’d heard stories of from some of the other Guardsmen), and aliens.
He had to admit it: Black Island was, for all its limitations and restrictions, an oasis in a sea of chaos.
The more Brent considered his half-cocked plan, quarter-cocked more like, the more he resigned himself to the knowledge that he was at the mercy of Black Island. As was his family. He thought about what he’d told Luis so many months ago, how Black Island might be able to cure him. Brent wondered if they could cure the infection, or if the people who were bitten were already dead. The real question, Brent supposed, was whether the scientists were acting to find a cure or find a way to simply eradicate the cause. What motive would they have to synthesize a cure unless one of their own had been infected?
Wait, that’s it!
If he could infect someone else on the island, someone too valuable to lose, those in charge would be have to be compelled to accelerate work on a cure. Right?
But again, there was the problem of determining who, if anyone, on the island held that sort of value. If there were such a person, what were the odds Brent could get to them? And how would he even begin to go about infecting them? Could he lure them to the chamber? Or was there another, better way?
Could he somehow inject them with the blood of the creatures? Perhaps the blood of the infected would work just as well. Shit, could the virus, or whatever it was, be introduced via the blood at all?
Even if it could, Brent shook his head, there was still the problem of access.
Despite this plan’s flagrant flaws, the idea of infection seemed more likely to be pulled off when compared to a brute force, smash-and-grab approach, even if that likelihood was minimal. Brent scribbled at the bottom of the page:
Who to infect? WHO?
Brent needed a break. He dropped his pen on the page and watched it roll to the edge of the table, then stood, went to his pantry, slipped the journal inside a baggie and then slid the baggie into a canister of rolled oats. He placed the canister on the shelf next to two other identical canisters.
The phone rang again.
Perhaps he would see Jane, after all. Last night, he told her he wasn’t feeling well. And he’d yet to tell her about what happened in the city. Had yet to tell her that his wife and son were still alive.
Though dinner was full of aw
kward adult moments, Brent was able to maintain playful conversation with Emily.
“Aren’t you gonna have some more green beans?” the girl teased playfully, pointing to his plate, still heaped with his original serving of the vegetables, though he’d just piled second helpings of grilled chicken, instant potatoes, and gravy. This was an inside joke between the two of them. During a prior dinner, she noticed he hadn’t eaten all his green beans on two separate occasions, and asked if he liked them. He lied and said yes, so he wouldn’t offend Jane. However, on a third night, a night when Emily was missing her dad and feeling withdrawn, Brent waited until Jane left the table to get something from the kitchen, and scooped up some green beans from his plate and put them on the girl’s.
Her expression was priceless, mouth wide open in shock which turned to a smile. “Hey! I thought you . . . ”
“Shh,” he whispered, holding a finger to his lips. “Truth is, I hate the things. Can you help me out and finish them?”
Emily laughed and said, “Sure!” then stabbed the remaining green beans onto her fork and began to eat them. When Jane returned from the kitchen with a pitcher of tea, Emily got a case of the giggles that wouldn’t go away, which of course, made Brent fall into his own fit of laughter.
Now, as he dug into his chicken and gravy, Emily repeated the question, “Aren’t you gonna have some more green beans?” with a huge grin on her face.
Jane pretended Brent hadn’t told her about the little joke and feigned ignorance, “Yeah, Brent, don’t you like my green beans?”
Brent cast a sideways glance at Emily, who was trying to keep the giggles inside.
“Sure,” Brent said, overly animated, “I LOVE your green beans! In fact, I think I’ll have a whole lot more!”
Jane handed him the bowl and Brent ladled a heaping spoonful onto his plate. “One scoop,” he said, then got another, and another. “Two servings. Three. Should I have even more?”
