by Sean Platt
Times like that threatened to crack Brent’s brittle facade to nothing.
Listening to Ben cry for his dead mother, wondering when she’d return, was a cold blade to his gut. But Brent had to stay strong for his son. Had to guide him through the grief, even if he barely knew how to navigate the lonely waters himself.
He looked at his cell phone, hoping to see a signal. Nothing.
He had to reach Ed and let him know about Jade.
But the island was still on lockdown.
The front door clicked unlocked, and Desmond finally came home.
“I’m sorry.” Desmond inside with a face filled with apology. “Everything at the facility is insane.”
“No problem,” Brent lied, standing to meet Desmond in the kitchen, hoping that Teagan wouldn’t wake.
Desmond went to the fridge and pulled out two bottles of Heineken. “Want one?”
“I’m good,” Brent said.
Desmond popped the cap and took a long swig.
“So,” Desmond asked, “how’s Mary holding up?”
“She hasn’t come out of her room.”
“At all?”
“No. We went to her door a few times, but she just kept saying that she wanted to sleep. Teagan went in a couple of times to leave food and drinks. She said that Mary’s back was to the door, and she couldn’t tell if she was asleep or not. So she set them on her nightstand. She went back a few times, but the food and drinks were always untouched.”
“Jesus.” Desmond sighed then finished his beer with four long swallows.
Desmond offered the second bottle to Brent again. After he said no thanks, Desmond asked, “You sure?” then popped it open and started gulping.
Brent didn’t think Desmond was much of a drinker. Maybe it was the stress.
“So,” Brent asked, “what’s the latest on the outbreak, or whatever they’re calling it?”
“They’re calling it ‘Incident 1151,’ officially, between you and me, which doesn’t sound scary at all, eh?” Desmond let out an odd laugh, as if stress was pinching every last nerve.
Brent suddenly felt stupid. He’d not considered how hard Paola’s death might be hitting Desmond. The girl was like a daughter to him, Brent figured, and Desmond had yet to grieve. Work was calling, and he had to secure their safety. Brent felt selfish and guilty for wondering where in the hell he was earlier. Desmond obviously wanted to get home to Mary and process what happened. But he had a duty to keep the island secure, so his own needs, and Mary’s, had to come second.
Brent said, “I’m so sorry about Paola.”
“Thanks,” Desmond said as he finished off the second beer. “And thanks for hanging out today, or rather, tonight.”
“Ben and Becca are in Paola’s room. I hope that’s OK. It was getting late, and … ”
“Yeah, don’t worry about it, man. Thanks for helping. How is she doing?” Desmond nodded at Teagan, still asleep on the couch.
“She’s being strong, but I’m worried about sending her back to her place alone.”
“They can stay here,” Desmond offered.
“I don’t want to burden you all. Plus, I was going to invite them to stay with Ben and me for a while. Unless you think Mary needs us to hang around more?”
“Actually, about that … I was going to ask if you can all stay through the night. I have to go back and take care of a few loose ends. If the kids are sleeping, no need to wake them up just to bring ‘em back to your place, right? I have some inflatable beds in my office; you and Teagan can bunk in there or bring the beds into Paola’s room — it’s pretty big. If you can stay, that is.”
Brent surprised himself. Ten minutes ago he was annoyed and couldn’t wait to get home. Now he felt eager to help Desmond and the others however he could. Maybe in helping others get through their grief he could better process his own. They’d been through hell together, and while he’d lost the love of his life and Ben had lost his mother, he had to focus on what they still had left — for as long as they still had it.
“Yeah, we can stay. Just one thing,” Brent said as he reached for his cell, “how long is the island on lockdown? I can’t get a signal, and I really think someone should call Ed to let him know about Jade.”
Desmond’s eyes narrowed on Brent. “I’m not sure how long Bolton will keep us on lockdown. He wants to make sure that if there are any more infected they won’t be able to contact anyone they might be working with off island.”
“Working with? What do you mean?”
“We have reason to believe there are certain people, not infected, trying to undermine our efforts.”
“Like terrorists?” Brent asked.
“That’s as good a word as any.”
“Who?”
“We’re not sure. But there are some alien vials out in the wild, and someone has released a few already. We’re trying to contain it, and that’s what Keenan’s doing now. He’s doing vital work out there. And as much as I agree that he has a right to know about his daughter, he’s one of the only people who can get these vials before it’s too late.”
“Yeah,” Brent said, not sure how to frame the next part of his argument without seeming insensitive, “but weren’t you using Paola to find the vials? I would think that without her, you might as well bring Ed back here.”
“He has a couple of the vials and should be able to use those to help him find the others. From my understanding, these vials want to be together. Once you have some, they will lead you to the others. And we need to make sure we get them before the enemy.”
“So you’re not going to tell him that his daughter is dead?”
“It’s not my decision. This is straight from Director Bolton. But as heartless as it may seem, I tend to agree. Tell me, Brent, you know Ed best of all. How do you think he’d react if we told him about Jade? Do you think he would finish his job, or rush back here, demanding answers, wanting to beat down everyone who failed to protect his child?”
Desmond had a point. As dedicated as Ed was to his job, he was only helping out to ensure Jade’s safety, and perhaps to a lesser extent Teagan, Becca, Brent, and Ben. But with his daughter gone, there was little to entice him.
Brent said, “Yeah, I think he’d come back here immediately, and heads would roll.”
Desmond nodded, putting a hand on Brent’s shoulder, “So you see how tough a position I’m in?”
“Yeah, I get it. It just sucks so much. He’s going to hate us for not telling him.”
“Maybe, for a bit. But in the long run I’m sure he’ll understand. Hell, I think he’d do the same thing if things were reversed. I don’t know him that well, but from all I’ve heard, Ed was one hell of an agent.”
“Yeah,” Brent said, nodding, as he stared at Teagan’s sleeping form. It was still so odd to not see Jade beside her.
Not odd — wrong.
“OK,” Desmond said, “I’m going to slip out before Mary wakes up. I should be back in an hour or so, but you never know. We’re still processing people we picked up on the island that are potentially infected. And unfortunately, I’m the only person left that can sense if they are.”
“You didn’t bring any of that tech over from the other world when you jumped back here? I remember they had these wands to show infection.”
“No, I didn’t think to, and a lot of that stuff was destroyed with the facility. There’s not much left. Now it’s pretty much just me.”
“Well, thanks,” Brent said, “for working so tirelessly. I know you’d rather be here consoling Mary.”
Desmond nodded, staring at Mary’s closed door. “Yeah, it’s tough. Which is why I need to get going before I say to hell with it and go and lie down next to her for the night.”
Desmond left, taking a third bottle of Heineken on his way.
Brent wondered again if Desmond was an alcoholic. Not that he would tell the man to slow down or say anything at all. So long as it helped him get through this, Brent figured no harm, no f
oul.
He went into Desmond’s office and found the inflatable mattresses along with a battery-operated pump. He filled two, then thought about bringing them into Paola’s room, but didn’t want to wake the kids — or it could be hours before anyone got any sleep again.
He dragged the beds, along with blankets and pillows, into the living room then went to the couch and tapped Teagan on the shoulder.
She wouldn’t wake up.
Man, she must be wiped out.
Brent considered letting her stay where she was, but was near certain she’d wake with an awfully sore neck if he did. He reached beneath her, her body warm, scooped her up, then laid her gently on the bed.
She stirred as he set her down and looked up at him. “What’s going on? Where’s Becca?
“She’s sleeping in Paola’s room with Ben. She’s fine. Desmond asked if we could stay the night, so I got us these beds. Relax, I’ll wake you up if Becca needs you.”
“OK,” Teagan said, eyes delirious before she closed them again. “Thank you.”
Brent covered her with a blanket, then turned off all the living room lights, leaving the TV muted on Disney Junior, in case Ben woke up and came out looking for him.
Brent lay down on the other mattress beside Teagan’s and watched her sleeping bathed in the TV’s dim-blue light.
Teagan looked so peaceful in her sleep, more like the teenager she was, rather than the young single mother and survivor of an apocalypse on the other world that had aged her waking self.
If only we could all go to sleep and wake in a world before this all happened. Have things return to the way they were.
Brent thought of Gina. How much he would give to wake up beside her, and have his family whole.
He closed his eyes, trying to stifle the black thoughts and wishful thinking before they brought tears. But he couldn’t.
Teagan’s voice surprised him.
“Are you OK?”
He looked up, and was going to lie with a yes. He had to be more like Desmond, wear his strongest face to get them through this.
But Brent’s mouth ignored his brain.
“No,” he said.
“Me neither.”
She moved closer to Brent, and for a moment he was startled, thinking she might kiss him or something — which would have been a hundred kinds of wrong.
She wrapped her arms around his body and hugged him, crying into his chest.
“I miss them so much,” she said. “Paola, Jade, and Ed.”
Brent was confused then remembered that she’d been in a relationship with the other Keenan, who had sacrificed himself to save them on the other world. It must’ve been tough for Teagan to be around this other version of Jade’s father, who didn’t have that same attachment to her.
Brent felt stupid for not seeing the obvious sooner, and perhaps helping her through it. Though he wasn’t sure what he could do or say. He didn’t know her nearly as well as Ed or Jade.
But as they lay side by side, holding one another through their tears, Brent realized perhaps this was enough for now — to simply be there for each other.
Fifty-Eight
Desmond Armstrong
Desmond watched as numbers on the elevator’s panel ascended and the box dropped lower.
On the seventh floor, the elevator stopped.
Desmond pressed two buttons, seven and zero, then the elevator lurched, descending again to the unmarked eighth level.
He placed his hand on the panel. The doors slid open, accepting his palm print.
Outside the elevator, Desmond came to a set of double sliding doors, guarded by a Guardsman holding an AR-15.
“Good evening, sir,” the Guardsman said.
“Good evening, Proctor.” Desmond raised his face to the retinal scanner to the right of the double doors, waited for the second scan, then the doors slid open.
Desmond stepped through the doors then headed down the hall, passing several chambers filled with specimen for the scientists’ experiments on The Darkness.
The hall ended in a fork that went left and right. Desmond took the left hall, a long corridor with black metal doors rather than cells. He stopped at the end of the hall in front of a white door with another retinal scanner, this one keyed for his entrance alone.
He brought his eyes to the scanner, and the door slid open.
Desmond stepped inside the cavernous room, which housed eight reinforced, unbreakable glass captivity cells, all dark and empty — save for one.
He approached the cell and looked down at the sleeping figure on the mat, covered by a blue blanket.
He pressed buttons on the touch screen beside the cell door and turned on the light. Another press of a button brought the microphones and speakers to life.
“Time to wake up,” he said.
The figure moved, and the blanket fell.
The girl looked back at Desmond, confused.
“Hello, Paola.”
TO BE CONTINUED …
::Episode 30::
(SIXTH AND FINAL EPISODE OF SEASON FIVE)
“In Your Darkest Hour”
Fifty-Nine
Father Thomas Acevedo
October 9, 2011
Acevedo sat low in his car, watching from the parking lot as children frolicked and laughed in the playground. He hoped nobody noticed him.
A priest hanging out in front a playground — there was a time when most people wouldn’t have thought twice. Nowadays, with the rampant abuse by adults and supposed men and women of God, he’d be tarred and feathered before getting a chance to explain his intentions.
Not that his real reason would be viewed with more sympathy. No one would believe or understand him, even if he tried to explain why he was there and what he was about to do.
Where is he?
Acevedo had yet to see the person he’d come searching for. The boy he’d dreamed of nearly every night for the past few months. The boy who his dreams insisted would be in the park.
Perhaps his dreams were wrong, and the boy who promised the apocalypse didn’t exist.
God, he hoped so — even if that meant Acevedo had lost his mind. Hell, sometimes it felt like he was losing it.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept more than an hour during the past month. It was difficult to sleep through the nightmares. The dreams that said the world would end at 11:15 p.m. on October 14.
Acevedo wished he’d never accepted the vials from Joshua Harmon back in January when the Church of Original Design’s leader had asked him to guard them, saying he had but a few people he could truly trust.
Until then, Acevedo had never given much credence to the things others had said about Harmon and his cult.
They’d had many conversations in the few years since they’d met, spirited philosophical and theological debates, but Harmon had never seemed the least bit like an opportunist or scammer like so many people seemed to think that he was. Did he believe in a false God? Yes, so far as Acevedo was concerned, but Harmon truly believed in his religion, and that made him different from so many of the charlatans and TV preachers who pretended to believe when their true faith was in the Almighty Dollar.
Though Acevedo had never doubted God as he knew Him, he had wrestled with the notion that he could be wrong — that perhaps some other faith had it right. It was difficult to condemn other religions or their followers.
That said, Acevedo didn’t think Harmon’s God was anything close to what He truly was. Still, he respected the man’s faith and his charitable actions. Harmon was by all accounts, a good man. And not the least bit crazy.
At least that’s what Acevedo had thought prior to Harmon telling him that the vial contained another life force, something closer to God than we could fathom, and that he had to protect it at all costs and never allow anyone “impure” to open it.
Acevedo had accepted the vial, along with a coded list of other recipients that Harmon had entrusted him with, because what else was he going to
do? Harmon had seemed like he was genuinely afraid to let it fall into the wrong hands. Acevedo entertained the man’s delusions a bit, no harm done.
But as months passed, and the vial spoke to Acevedo in dreams, he wondered if Harmon’s madness was contagious.
Or … was Harmon actually onto something?
Acevedo had dreamed that the boy would be here by now. It was 5:15 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. In his dream he’d looked at his watch, saw that the time was 5:00 p.m., then saw the boy with his sister and mom on the playground.
Fifteen minutes later, and he’d yet to see the child or his family.
Yeah, maybe I ought not to put so much faith in dreams.
He keyed the ignition and turned his head to make sure he was clear to back out of his parking spot. As Acevedo looked back, he spotted a digital clock across the street, in front of a bank. The time read 4:59 p.m. As he watched it went to 5:00.
Acevedo looked at his wrist, then his phone, which also read 5:00. His watch was fast.
He turned back to the park and saw the boy.
His heart sank.
He killed the engine and sat, watching.
The boy looked around eight years old. His sister a bit younger. They ran to the swings together. Their mother, an attractive woman with long, flowing brown hair, sat on a bench, sipping a cup of ice coffee. She set the drink down and fumbled with her phone.
Acevedo turned his eyes to the boy.
He didn’t look at all like the harbinger of the apocalypse that Acevedo had seen in his dreams. The boy was smiling, playing nicely with his sister, not at all a jerk like so many others kids could be to a younger sibling, especially one of the opposite sex.
This is crazy. I should leave, right now. Even if the dreams are right, who am I to stop the apocalypse? If it’s God’s will, so be it.
