by Rob Horner
“Just a sec,” the little brunette said as they worked their way out of the building.
She grabbed one of the Tupperware bins in the supply closet, dumped out the cardiac monitor electrodes it had been holding, and began filling it with bandage supplies—plastic tape, paper tape, 4X4 gauze, betadine swabs, non-adhesive bandage, Coban, and rolls of Kerlix.
“What’re you doing?” he hissed.
“Being prepared.”
Buck tried to tell himself it was theft; she was taking from his station’s supplies and that’s what bothered him. It wasn’t the truth.
He was worried about his family, silently cursing the time they’d wasted coming into the station. They should have climbed into his Ford the minute Jessica dropped them off.
That sense of a ticking clock was back, only now each second clicked by with real weight, like the boom of an anvil dropped onto a stage floor, a certainty of time wasted never to be recovered. What would have happened had they gone straight to his house? He would never know, and those wasted moments would forever gnaw at his heart.
Then Caitlin was coming into the garage, overstuffed Tupperware held close under her left arm. Buck resisted the impulse to sigh impatiently. The short brunette set the plastic container on the back-passenger seat before climbing into the front.
“How old?” she asked, nodding her head to the back, where an empty juice box nestled in the back door behind the driver.
“Jacob’s nine,” Buck answered, thumbing the ignition button with one hand while he yanked the seatbelt with the other.
He pulled so hard the seatbelt locked.
“Shit!”
Caitlin didn’t say anything. Maybe she felt the urgency, too. Maybe she picked up that he felt anxious and didn’t want to add to it.
This time he did sigh before allowing the belt to retract fully. When he pulled it a second time, it slid smoothly across his chest.
Shaking his head at his own urgency and impatience, Buck backed the car out of its parking spot and pointed the nose away from the building.
Caitlin pulled a large smartphone out of her scrub pants and held it, not turning it on. When he sneaked a glance at the young nurse, he caught her looking down, almost like she didn’t know what to do with the thing in her lap.
“Bad news?” Buck asked, wanting to talk about anything except his nebulous fears. A strange certainty had set in, now that they were moving. If he could make it to his house without thinking about the worst scenario, then the worst scenario wouldn’t come to pass. (He deliberately avoided qualifying what constituted a worst-case scenario as well, because that might dispel his magical thinking.)
“Just something my dad sa—”
The phone buzzed once, and the screen lit up.
Caitlin uttered a small squeal and a quick juggle, bouncing the phone from one hand to the other in her surprise.
There was no repeat buzz.
Caitlin fumbled her thumb across the screen, unlocking the device with a complicated pattern of swipes. The screen lit and stayed lit.
“Son of a bitch,” she swore.
“What is it?” Buck navigated a turn which was more than ninety degrees, angling onto the last major street before his neighborhood.
“It’s my dad. He’s a general, and he ordered me to come to DC.”
“Okay.” Buck didn’t know what to say in response. There was a measure of defiance in Caitlin’s voice when she talked about being ordered. But there’d also been a good bit of pride when she called him a general.
“Now he’s pissed I haven’t responded. Said we’re in the middle of a Blood & Fog situation and he needs to know I’m coming so he can brief the guards outside the Pentagon.”
Buck turned right, barely slowing, as he entered his residential area. If there was a cop waiting to nab him running a Stop sign, so be it.
The streetlights were on, as were many of the porch lights. Lawn chairs and cold grills dotted several driveways, most tucked away near garage doors so as not to impede any cars coming in. It was late, or early, whichever way sounded best. 3 am—much too late (or early) for any kids to be playing outside, or for the sweat-suit clad oldsters to be out powerwalking their Shih Tzus.
“Blood and Fog is a reference to an experiment the military performed over San Francisco back in the 1950s, when they released a harmless biological agent over the city to see if it had any use as a biomarker in other tests.”
“What—”
“Nowadays it’s used as a code to mean a biological attack, but one done with our own materials.”
“So, we did something that maybe caused…this?”
Caitlin shook her head, visible in his peripheral vision despite the dim lighting coming into the vehicle from outside. “It means an attack with our materials but doesn’t specify a guilty party. Could be us, could be a terrorist who got his hands on something of ours.”
“Could it be an accident?”
“No, all the accident codes have ‘Broken’ in their names. As in Broken Arrow.”
“I thought that was just a pretty good Christian Slater and John Travolta action film.”
“We have very different opinions on what constitutes a good movie,” Caitlin quipped.
Buck chuckled. “Okay. That aside, what does it mean for us?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, looking down at her phone.
Buck slowed for a right turn into a modest middle-class neighborhood—houses close together, but each with a backyard large enough for a boy to have his own playground and the dog to have his choice of poop spots.
“Can you ask him what happened?” he asked.
“I can,” she said, after a moment, “but he might not tell me. I’ll have to let him know if I’m coming. He won’t give up anything without a response to his order.”
Buck thought for a moment before answering, slowing to pull into the driveway of a mid-size, two-story house. It looked like half a dozen other houses on the street—postage stamp front lawn, Bradford Pear with its dirty coochie smell and branches drooping after the hot, dry summer, American flag hanging limp from a short pole beside the front door. The only thing to differentiate it from its next-door neighbors were the black numbers on the garage siding.
It looked like home. Olivia and Jacob were in there, waiting for him.
This wasn’t an isolated incident. It couldn’t be, not if Caitlin’s father had sent her a warning…
“When did you get the first text?” Buck asked.
“I don’t know. A while ago.”
“Can you check?”
She flipped through the text chain. “Looks like the first one came in around nine last night.”
Her father, a general at the Pentagon, had known something was happening while they were still processing the deaths of Lisa and the old man, while he was still trying to come to grips with how his rookie could have turned into a cannibal. No way that was local to Gaffney, South Carolina. If the general knew what was happening, might be he was also somewhere safe, somewhere he could affect the outcome.
To keep his daughter safe, the general might be willing to allow a few others to come along with her.
“If you go, could we come too?”
She started to shake her head but checked the motion. The look she turned on him was considering, calculating.
“You were bitten by your patient, right?”
He reached up to feel at his ear. It gave a twinge, a momentary increase in the dull ache he’d learned to ignore. “Yeah, but we don’t know that he was the same kind of crazy.”
“Still, if he was and you got bit but didn’t get sick, then you could be immune to this…whatever it is. I’ll bet my dad would love to have someone like you come along.”
“We don’t know if I’m—”
“And we don’t know you’re not,” she interrupted. “So, we’re going to go with, ‘We think you are,’ and leave it at that.”
Buck didn’t know how to take that. He certainl
y wasn’t excited about the prospect of heading into the Pentagon, of all places, as a potential lab rat.
Still, if it could keep his family safe…could he say no?
“Okay,” he said. “Send the text. See if you can find out what we’re dealing with and tell him we’re coming in.”
“On it.” Her thumbs began flying over the face of the smartphone.
“I’m going to go get my family.”
Buck exited the car and started up the short sidewalk to the front door.
Before he could grab the knob, the door jerked open and a handsome boy of nine, head full of tight, dark curls, hurled himself out of the house and into Buck’s arms.
“Dad! I’m so glad you came home. I couldn’t get you on the phone and I was going to go for help!”
“What’s wrong, Jake?”
“It’s Mom. Come on. Mom’s really sick.”
* * * * *
The van didn’t go far from the hospital before it made its first stop at a single-story utilitarian building which seemed to be more garage than anything else.
Two people exited the vehicle here before the remainder drove away.
The hunter stopped, sniffing the night air.
One man. One woman.
The man was Joseph Davis. The woman was Caitlin Boyles.
The hunter didn’t know how his brain put names to scents any more than a dog could explain how a single sniff of another canine’s anal glands could tell everything from what kind of food it ate to whether it was sick or healthy. It was, and that was enough.
The same enhanced sense of smell told him the woman was armed; her scent carried an edge of cordite to it, like the acrid char of a chemical fire which lingers long after the blaze is extinguished and the smoke has dissipated in the wind.
They’d gotten out of the van and…what?
Another smell of carbon monoxide and ozone began here, no doubt another vehicle. Hybrid, his mind informed him, which explained the stronger electrical odor.
The garage door was open, beckoning him into a large room full of light. The people smells continued, stronger here because there was less wind to diffuse it, not because the scents were any fresher. Other smells blended in—old motor oil and exhaust which had baked into the walls from engines left running for long periods of time, body odor and cologne from men congregating, swapping stories and celebrating a patient brought back from the brink, even the faint aroma of food from a barbecue buffet delivered by the loving spouses of the dedicated EMS workers the previous weekend—creating a mélange that enticed even as it informed.
There was something else, a dusky odor. Not fresh but running away out the large door and down the street. Some had become here before leaving. The become-scents were older than the Buck-Caitlin scents; the two had not fallen here.
But someone had.
A new scent reached him, an odd combination of dusky become and ashen death. Curious, the hunter opened the door leading from the garage and into the building.
Another become lay sprawled just outside a door across a small room. The hunter drew deeply, and the man’s name sprang to life in his mind. Jerry Fisher.
Buck-Caitlin had ended Jerry’s new life even as it started. The acrid scent of cordite remained strong and thick. Caitlin shot him.
They would pay.
Back through the garage and into the night. The hunter sniffed. The Buck-Caitlin smell mixed with several vehicles, numerous residues coalescing into a singular scent. He couldn’t sort the people into a specific vehicle yet. Instead, he focused on their scent, drawing deeply, wandering away from the building as the scent moved. It faded quickly, undetectable in the open air because they’d trapped themselves inside a car.
Leaving the parking lot for the small crossing street, the hunter lost the trace of people, but picked up the only remaining scent of exhaust. Carbon monoxide and ozone. The hybrid.
The scent led into the city.
Chapter 12
The front door was open.
Jessica paused with one foot on the only step separating the crunchy, sunburnt grass from the low, wood-plank porch.
The door shouldn’t be open. Not at three in the morning. Not in a million years.
The room beyond the door was dark. Not the darkness of a house without a single light burning, but rather the blackness of an open well under a moonless night, or the yawning nothingness of the mouth of hell.
For a moment, Jessica hesitated on the step, torn by a desire to be in her home and a burning fear insisting she climb back in the van and drive away.
She strained, listening, but heard nothing.
And wasn’t that a little strange?
Shouldn’t there be some sound coming from inside, even if it was only the soft whisper of a sleeping house?
The silence, more so even than the darkness, was ominous.
Like the blackness, it had weight, a pregnant expectation.
Jessica shook her head, trying to banish the unruly fear.
It’s nothing. Johnny probably got drunk and left the door open. It’s not like we live in Chicago or New York, one of those places where a thing like this would invite a home invasion. You’re just scared because of all the crap that happened tonight. And why not? Who wouldn’t be? It’s been a helluva night. But it’s over now. Let’s just get our ass inside and try to get some sleep.
She didn’t believe the explanation, but she hoped it was true.
The porch creaked under her weight and she froze, but the silence from inside the home remained absolute. Jessica craned her head left and right, reassuring herself that power remained on in the neighborhood. Other houses had light. Not much, probably nothing more than a dim bulb left burning over a stove to prevent a stubbed toe in case someone wanted a drink in the middle of the night. But the porch lights were on.
Johnny keeps his pistols in the bedroom. His side of the closet. Small fire-proof boxes on the shelf. He never locks them, and there’s always a full magazine stashed with each pistol.
She could get the pistol, at least. If something happened to Johnny, she wouldn’t be unarmed. Maybe he wasn’t even in the house; wouldn’t that be great? She could lock it down, throw away the key, and maybe ride out this…whatever it was.
Another step and the creaky board relaxed with a softer sound than the first. She moved the last few feet in silence.
Her eyes strained to see into the home, but it was like a black curtain had been drawn across the open door, something more solid and substantial than a dark house opening out to a dark night. She leaned forward, head turning so she might pick up any sound from within. But the house held its breath, not so much as the whisper of forced air from the vents disturbing the silence.
Every cliché from a lifetime of horror movies filled her as she reached a tentative hand into the home, feeling for the light switch to the left of the doorframe. She could almost hear the screams from an imaginary audience…
Don’t do it!
Don’t you know he’s waiting for you?
Man, if that was me, my ass would be waiting in the car!
…but nothing grabbed her wrist. No teeth clamped down on her hand. She found the small bank of switches—three of them—and flipped them up.
The porch light came on, as did a small spotlight mounted on the corner of the house. Even better, the overhead light in the living area filled the room, showing an empty space full of secondhand furniture, a two-hundred-pound tube television, and a threadbare piece of rug protecting the scratched and scuffed floor from the wobbly coffee table.
But no Johnny.
A sudden sense of danger fell over Jessica. The porch was too exposed. Maybe whatever was wrong was outside and not inside.
For all her caution in approaching the door, now she rushed into the lighted space, reaching behind her to find the door handle, give it a twist, and close it as gently as possible. The night outside had been quiet, but even a quiet night carries some sound—the occasional car passing on
a road two blocks away, a neighbor’s air conditioner kicking on—general noises the modern person became used to. Now, with those ubiquitous sounds shut out, the house was even more ominous.
The light fell into the small, combination kitchen and dining area, where everything appeared to be in its place. The chairs were tucked under the small table; the lazy Susan with its compliment of condiments sat in the center.
And no Johnny.
Jessica moved quickly, emboldened by the silence and stillness. She crossed the distance to a short hallway and flipped another switch, illuminating the doorways of two small bedrooms and a single bathroom.
When Johnny was sober and acting right, they sometimes talked about what they’d do when Jessica got pregnant. It was always a when in Johnny’s mind, never an if. The second bedroom would make a great little nursery, he said. They’d have to move his hunting gear and her treadmill to the garage, but that wouldn’t be a problem.
Jessica wanted more for any child of hers than a run-down two bedroom on the outskirts of Gaffney. When Johnny talked about clearing out the smaller bedroom, she dreamed of buying something bigger. Buying. Not renting. There was such a sense of stability with the idea of owning a home, rather than continuously paying someone else while they borrowed a place to live.
But first, they needed to get married. And that wasn’t going to happen until Johnny got his shit together. Unlikely, considering he drank the same amount now as he had when they met.
She shook her head, banishing the unwanted thoughts.
There were only three places in the small house left in darkness, and with the hall light blazing, even those weren’t completely shrouded. The master bedroom came first, with its large, walk-in closet. The hall light illuminated the unmade bed, the overflowing clothes hamper against the far wall, and the open door of the closet in the back-right corner.
And nothing else.
Turning on the overhead light brought color to the room, showing the scrapes and dings on the secondhand furniture and the worn nap of the old beige carpet.