Final Days: Escape

by Jasper T. Scott

  Roland removed the plastic from the first filter, and tossed it to Tony, who caught it deftly. “Filter day. Aren’t you excited?”

  “I am, because every day in Eden is a day in paradise.” Tony’s smile wouldn’t fade, and he acted far too euphoric about life. Roland fought the urge to slap the kid across the face to knock some sense into him.

  He peered over his shoulder, where Eve was walking in the opposite direction. There was no sign of her counterpart. She was guarding the lake alone.

  “Come on. They won’t change themselves.” Roland stepped into the water, glad the thick weeds had been cleared off the lake bed.

  Tony dropped his smile a minute later as he glanced at Roland with worry on his brow. “Dude… things are not good.”

  “What do you mean?” Roland asked, wondering if this was the real Tony after all.

  “Val. She drank something, and Morris talked, and like two seconds later she was praising the Saints. It was bizarre!” Tony said this too loudly, and nervously looked toward Eve’s last location. She wasn’t there.

  Roland sighed. “Thank God. You didn’t drink it.”

  “Well, I did, but only a little bit. I faked as best as I could. I never felt the compulsion to follow them, though. I played along for Val’s sake. I had to see what they were doing in there.” Tony waded ahead of him, turning to face Roland.

  “Where’s the drug being stored?” Roland asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think it wears off? Are they re-administering it to the Saints?” Roland asked, forming an idea.

  “I think so. I’ve seen them adding something to the wine. She calls it Communion. It’s really sick. They actually believe Hound is their new God. New Earth, new God. They treat Mary like…”

  “Morris. She’s not Mary,” Roland said.

  “Right. They treat her like a queen. This is bad. There’s more coming each day. If we don’t do something, we’re screwed, man.”

  They arrived at the water pipes, and Roland began unlocking one, sliding the filter access open. He twisted the used one out, dropping it into the water, and clicked in the replacement. “You need to watch over Valeria. Got it?”

  Tony nodded emphatically.

  “Then you need to do some digging. Find the stash of this chemical. Stop the flow, stop the danger. Capiche?” Roland said, mocking Eve’s choice of words.

  “I promise I’ll do it. What’s going on otherwise?” Tony asked. “Is the plan in action?”

  Roland paused, trying to assess Tony. Was he really on their side, or was this all put into place by the reverend? “No. We had to disband. Andrew’s sick.”

  “I heard that… I just thought…”

  “Maybe when he’s better,” Roland lied, hating every word of it. Tony might be a teenager, but he’d quickly become a friend to Roland. No, more than that; more like a younger brother.

  “Okay, keep me posted. Valeria wasn’t even that worried when she heard someone mention her dad was in quarantine. Probably because Morris told her not to be concerned.”

  Roland moved to the side, the water lapping against his chest while Tony replaced the second filter.

  “Be safe, kid. I don’t want to see anyone get hurt here. Track the supply, and we’ll take care of the rest.” Roland had no clue how they would do this, but with Andrew and Kendra’s help, perhaps even Eric Keller’s, they’d find a way.

  “Deal.”

  They returned to the shore, Roland thinking about Andrew the entire time. Had he been able to sneak out of camp? They’d heard no commotion to indicate he’d been caught, but maybe he hadn’t left. Only time would tell.

  The pump in the lake kicked on, alerting Roland that they were watering the fields, which meant the rover with the huge water drum was due to arrive any moment. The noise of the rover’s engines carried through the forest path, and it arrived with a young man in the driver’s seat. Caleb had been a professor of entomology, or something that didn’t matter any longer. Not under this regime.

  Roland waved at the guy and reached for the filtered water hose, bringing it to the rover to fill the container.

  “I wonder what Val’s doing right now?” Tony asked as he kicked a pebble.

  * * *

  Val

  After lunch, Val stood in Communion Courtyard on the ground floor of the residences, waiting in line with the others for her chance to drink from the Chalice of Unity. The walls of the apartment complex rose high on all sides of the courtyard, with balconies overlooking the space. Square concrete blocks formed the floor, with a grid of trimmed red grass growing in between them. Concrete benches lined planter boxes that were still empty, but would later contain native species of plants and flowers. Alien bugs buzzed around. One of them caught Val’s eye: bright red and green to match the grass, and circling ever higher in corkscrewing motions.

  Val looked away, her vision blurring as she moved too fast. Her mind felt thick and fuzzy, her head light, and her skin crawled with the desperate need for her daily dose of the living water.

  The line shuffled forward.

  “We are one,” the man at the front of the line said as Mary tipped the Chalice to his lips. He drank and then departed the altar, walking by the others with a rapt expression on his face.

  Lucky, Val thought. She couldn’t wait for her turn. She didn’t feel like herself right now. It had been a whole day since she’d last partaken of the Saints’ Communion. Too long, but it felt like forever.

  The man and a woman in front of her were speaking in hushed tones, the urgency in their voices catching Val’s ear.

  “He’s still missing,” the woman said.

  “One of those predators probably got him,” the man added.

  “A tigerwolf?”

  “A what?” he asked.

  “I thought they needed a name,” she said.

  “Tigerwolf. Yeah, I suppose that fits,” the man replied.

  “Who’s missing?” Val asked. Both speakers turned to look at her. They seemed vaguely familiar, especially the man. He was the round-faced guard Val remembered from the mess hall aboard Eden. She struggled to remember his name. Lieutenant... Fox.

  “None of your business,” the woman said.

  “Hey, come on, Alice. She’s with us now,” the lieutenant said.

  The woman’s freckled features screwed up in a reluctant expression. “Fine. John’s missing. You know him?”

  Val nodded slowly.

  “He was watching the med bay last night where they have your dad quarantined,” Alice went on, tucking a stray lock of brown hair behind her ear.

  “My dad is quarantined? What happened?” Val asked, her eyes flying wide.

  “He’s sick,” Alice replied.

  A new imperative intruded on her thoughts, and Val glanced back to the entrance of the courtyard. A dozen other people were lined up behind her. She peered around them for the exit, her heart pounding in her chest.

  “I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Lieutenant Fox added. “It’s probably just something he ate.”

  “You don’t put people in quarantine for food poisoning,” Val pointed out, anxiety building in her chest.

  Fox’s brow furrowed, lifting his thick black caterpillar eyebrows. “I’m sure it’s just a precaution.”

  “I need to go see him,” Val added, glancing behind her again, then over to the front of the line to see how many people were still ahead of her.

  Alice shook her head. “You can’t. That’s the whole point of a quarantine. The doc’s not letting anyone in or out until his symptoms clear. For all we know, it’s some alien pathogen that could wipe out this entire colony. We can’t be too careful.”

  “But...” Val leaned around her and the lieutenant, to see Mary giving the next person in line a drink from the Chalice.

  “We are one,” the woman said.

  “I have to talk to Mary,” Val decided.

  She left the line and strode past almost a dozen people in front o
f her to reach Mary. The reverend regarded her with her thin eyebrows raised in question. “Is something wrong, dear?”

  “I need to see my father. Why didn’t you tell me he’s sick?”

  “Because I didn’t want to worry you.”

  “Too late. Now I’m worried. Take me to him.”

  Mary smiled thinly. “Of course. But Communion first.”

  Val eyed the Chalice, her mouth watering and skin crawling again. “I can’t wait.”

  “Then jump the line. I’m sure everyone else will understand.” Mary nodded to the others waiting. “Isn’t that right?”

  A wave of grumbling answered her, but no one openly challenged Mary’s suggestion.

  “There, you see?” Mary poured water into the Chalice from the spout of a ten-gallon water tank that sat on a concrete pedestal beside her. Once it was full, she turned and handed it to Val. “Drink your fill, dear. You need to keep up your strength.”

  Val nodded and cupped the Chalice in both hands as she drank. A flood of warmth and contentment spread through her. Her eyes shut and her chest filled with a deep breath of air that suddenly smelled so much sweeter than it had a moment ago. The sun shining down into the courtyard seemed two shades brighter, and all of the dark and brooding thoughts about her dad evaporated.

  “Val, aren’t you forgetting something? You need to say it.”

  She smiled. “We are one.”

  “Amen,” Mary said. “Now, return to your classroom. I wouldn’t want you to get behind with your studies.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Val said, handing the Chalice back.

  She turned and crossed the line of waiting Saints, her steps lighter and quicker than they’d been a moment ago. She felt vaguely like she was forgetting something, but it didn’t feel important anymore. The world looked so much more vibrant and colorful. Even the dirt in the empty planter boxes was beautiful in its way.

  Val passed through the sliding glass doors of the courtyard and into the residences, a blast of cool air sweeping over her as she crossed the threshold. Polished concrete floors squeaked under her feet. Corridors leading to ground-floor apartments branched off to either side. She walked by them all, past a stairwell and the banks of elevators, to the front doors—these were solid metal, rather than glass. They couldn’t be too careful with the heathens living beyond the walls. They hadn’t pledged themselves to Mary and they didn’t believe in Hound. That meant they couldn’t be trusted. If they’re not for us, then they’re against us, Val thought. But they’ll come around soon.

  The living water was meant to be for everyone. Mary had promised that she would share it with them soon, and then they’d see who really could and couldn’t be saved.

  TEN

  Andrew

  Andrew backtracked, grid-searching the forest for the umpteenth time in the six hours since dawn. His brown jumpsuit stuck to him, drenched with sweat. His overgrown hair was matted in thick locks and dripping stinging rivers of salt into his eyes. The canteen he’d stolen from John was empty. His stomach ached with hunger, and his entire body felt like lead. He couldn’t go on like this much longer.

  He’d been up all night. Val’s directions had been too vague. Had he gone too far? Not far enough? Or maybe the tracks he’d found were from the wrong rover. There was no sign of a pond anywhere above the beach. He’d walked straight up from the tracks for at least three kilometers, and he’d grid-searched about half a kilometer to either side. She’d told him to walk for twenty minutes and then he’d come to a depression in the forest floor that would lead him down to a grassy clearing and a small body of water.

  So far he’d seen nothing but dense walls of trees. Smooth black trunks swept by. Cottony leaves crunched and sparkled as the toes of his boots dug in and kicked up matted clumps of rotting vegetation, stirring up alien pollens and molds that made his nose itch and his eyes water. His head swam and his vision blurred. Every now and then he saw shadows creeping around him in the gloomy forest, but he couldn’t be sure if he was seeing actual threats or just hallucinating because of whatever compounds he walked through. The dry weather lately was having a similar effect to the rain—turning the hallucinogens in the ground into airborne particles. At least the concentrations weren’t as bad as they were with the mist.

  Andrew pressed on blindly, no longer confining his search to a logical grid, walking in random directions and hunting for any sign of crimson grass peeking through the trees.

  Another fifteen minutes passed, or maybe it was an hour. He couldn’t tell anymore.

  A distant peal of thunder rolled through the air, drawing Andrew’s eyes up to the blue and purple leaves—a tangled ceiling of vegetation, turned bright and luminous with the sun winking through it. The sky was clear. If that was thunder, there was no threat of rain falling anywhere close. Maybe in the mountains, but not here. So far, it looked like the seasons on Eden were going to be brutal for farming. If the lack of precipitation continued, the lake might even start to dry up, and then they’d be in real trouble.

  Andrew was so deep in his thoughts that he almost missed the slash of color bleeding through the trees: grass waving in the wind, green flowers. Andrew’s eyes widened, his heart rate kicked up a notch with a burst of adrenaline, and he waded through a thick wall of underbrush, heedless of the brambles scratching through his jumpsuit and pricking his arms and legs.

  The clearing lay bright and shining in a pool of sunlight, but dark clouds were rolling in. So much for the sky being clear, Andrew thought. He scanned the clearing for signs of the pond Val had mentioned.

  And sure enough, there it was: a black oval of stagnant water peeking through the undulating field of grass. Andrew ran toward it, his rifle clattering and jumping against his ribs, the strap tugging on his neck. Grass swept past his legs in a continuous rustling roar. He hit the water’s edge and kept going, splashing up sparkling waves of dirty water in the shallow pond. He ran to the center of it, exactly as Val had instructed, and his boots thunked on the submerged metal hatch.

  The water barely reached past his ankles. He fished around with his hands, feeling for the handle to pull up the hatch. Finding something to grab onto, he stepped off the hatch and pulled up, wrenching hard with his back. It pried open and water poured into the darkened hole that emerged, cascading down a long, dark staircase. But that soon stopped as the pond poured into a gap around the opening, getting sucked away in a square waterfall that probably bubbled up again somewhere else.

  Flicking on his stolen angle-head flashlight, Andrew descended the stairs. He pulled the hatch shut behind him, and followed the staircase down. The beam of his light vanished endlessly ahead of him. He walked on for at least seventy steps before coming to a landing with a metal door and a handle at waist height.

  Andrew grabbed his rifle in one hand and the door handle in the other, testing it. It turned easily. The door was unlocked. That gave Andrew pause. He hesitated, his heart slamming in his chest. Why would Hound leave the entrance unsecured?

  This felt like a trap. He considered turning around, before it was too late, but he’d come too far and risked too much. He had to see this through.

  Steadying his nerves with a deep breath, Andrew yanked the door open. A bright wash of light dazzled his eyes, and he aimed blindly into it with his rifle as his finger tensed on the trigger.

  * * *

  Hound

  Lewis Hound answered the furious knocking on the doors of his sanctuary. The doors slid open with a wash of bright sunlight. Reverend Shelley Morris stood there in a gleaming white robe. Hound’s own jumpsuit shimmered with iridescent reflections. He’d added a cape to it as well: what he assumed would fit people’s ideas of godly attire.

  “Yes?” Lewis asked, as pleasantly as he could manage.

  “We need to talk,” Morris said quietly.

  Not the way a god expected to be addressed, but Hound let it slide. He and the reverend both knew that not even she believed the drivel she was feeding people.


  “About what?” Lewis replied.

  “The compound. I’m almost out. I need more. If I lose my grip on them...”

  “I told you it was a temporary measure,” Hound replied. “When it’s gone, it’s gone.”

  “But you can make more.”

  “I can, yes.”

  Morris’ gaze turned flinty. “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I’m not sure you’ve fully grasped what it means to be a good leader.”

  “Lower your voice,” the reverend hissed, glancing quickly over her shoulder.

  A few people walked by at the foot of the ramp, glancing up at their exchange—rapt expressions fading to confusion, as if they’d overheard their deity and their beloved Mary arguing. Hound smiled and nodded at them. They smiled back and continued on their way.

  “Careful how you speak to me,” Hound said.

  “So you won’t make more.”

  “Not to give to you, no. I’m running out of patience with this regime. Find another method to keep people in line, or else I’ll do it for you.”

  “Is that a threat?” Mary demanded.

  “Oh, no.” Lewis smiled. “It’s a promise. Next time use the intercom. I don’t appreciate being summoned by your banging on the doors like an artless animal.” And with that, he waved the doors shut in her face.

  Lewis turned and stalked back through Eden Five with a scowl and his thoughts turning in a new direction. The silent alarms at his underground control center had just been triggered. Surveillance clearly showed that the intruder was Andrew Miller. The question was, what was he going to do about it?

  I suppose I could kill him, Lewis thought.

  * * *

  Andrew

  Andrew’s vision cleared, and he saw that the chamber beyond the door was empty. No signs of life. There were shining walls of screens and equipment. The room was vast and echoing with bright lights overhead, hanging from long cords that vanished into darkness above. He grabbed the angle-head flashlight clipped to his jumpsuit and directed it up. The ceiling was made of bare, rugged rock, like a cave. It had to be at least thirty feet to the top. That’s what this is, Andrew realized. A cave. Hound had built the stairwell and installed this equipment, but he hadn’t dug out the space.