by Olah, Jeff
“Margaret?”
His mouth felt dry and his tongue thick. His mucus like sour grapes. Sitting forward, he rubbed at his left leg, shaking it as he attempted to stand.
“Margaret?”
His voice seemed to echo through the room and down the stairs. The house again felt empty and sad, like it had the day he arrived. He had lived alone for most of his adult life, but this was different, if only for the fact that his apartment in the city could have easily fit in the space occupied by the living room.
With his hand on the railing, he waited for his head to clear and his world to come to a complete stop. The odds of him missing a step and taking the hard way down were low, but with everything else going on, he just wanted to be sure.
Through the downstairs hall and past the kitchen, he stood at the rear slider. Pulling back the shades only an inch or so, the scene was much different than the day before, even from eight hours ago.
They were starting to bunch up in groups of threes and fours, much like he’d seen leaving his apartment in the city. This was a new phenomenon and something he didn’t have the chance to observe or test during his time with BXF. It also didn’t make much sense. In all the footage he’d gone through, they never seemed to be aware of one another, but on the other hand, the control groups were never larger than five or six.
He made a quick mental note of their movement patterns and then pulled his hand back, letting the shades slowly glide back into one another. It seemed like something he should probably remember, something he may need to circle back to if ever given the opportunity.
And before he let himself go too far down that road, he stepped away from the slider and turned toward the kitchen. Something was different, his subconscious must have picked up on it as he moved through the room before, but with his mind still partially recovering from the night before, he assumed it was still playing catch-up.
He scanned the countertop, the cabinets, and then the face of the refrigerator. What the hell did she do?
Shaking his head, he began to laugh. It was odd, although he really hadn’t gotten to know this side of her. The counter was clean, so much so, that if he hadn’t finished half a bottle of wine the night before, and his stomach wasn’t doing backflips, he could have eaten straight from the glossy marble.
Also at the opposite end, his news clippings and notebooks had been stacked neatly a safe distance from the sink. She either hadn’t slept, and was just trying to keep herself busy, or had an extreme case of OCD.
Either way, he wasn’t complaining.
Around the sofa and starting toward the front door, he noticed something else. A single sheet of paper, turned at an angle to the rest of his documents. It was held down by a stainless-steel pen he didn’t recall being there the night before.
She’d left him a note.
Handwritten and only three lines.
Dr. Gentry, thank you for sharing what you did last night.
I’m still not sure I understand everything, but I do realize that you were trying to help, so again, thank you.
P.S. – You are a lightweight.
Margaret
He took the note, quickly folded it, and started to smile. Gentry slipped it into his back pocket and looked around the room for anything else he may have missed. The walk-in pantry, the dining room beyond the kitchen, and the hall leading to the second bedroom, everything as it was eight hours before.
Almost everything.
As he made his way back through the hall, he stopped ten feet from the front door. The hope he’d had upon waking, the fading belief that she had simply taken one of the beds in another part of the home rapidly began to deteriorate. Although if he was being honest, he already knew what the deadbolt sitting in the unlocked position was telling him.
She was gone.
But where?
The obvious answer, back to her house. But he knew that. What he didn’t know was where the information he’d shared would have taken her. What she thought she knew about the infection and if that had been a factor in her decision to leave.
Gentry didn’t like the thought of her running around out there alone and liked it even less that he had been the reason. He should have known better than to open his mouth and now needed to somehow fix what he’d done. If not for her, then for his own peace of mind.
Back to the office, Gentry set his pack on the desk chair. He loaded a change of clothes, the satellite phone and its charger, his notes, the Ruger SR9 he’d purchased six months before, and a bottle of antacid that sat near the computer monitor. He moved around to the filing cabinet opposite the desk and started with the top drawer.
Within thirty seconds, he found them. If nothing else, Major Richard Daniels was predictable in all the right ways. The hanging file contained a county and three specific city maps, each highlighted with locations unknown to him. He didn’t care. They would more than serve his purpose.
Find a way into the city using what he imagined would be the least traveled roads. It wasn’t perfect, but it seemed better than running in blind. Natalie Mercer was there for him when no one else was; she put her entire career on the line for him and hadn’t blinked an eye. If she and her family were still out there, he was going to use anything and everything at his disposal to find them.
But there was something he needed to do first.
78
Owen opened his eyes, wiped the edges of his mouth, and stretched his arms.
He sat just outside the door to the conference room, having walked the halls between his family and Kevin more times than he cared to remember. His neck was stiff and his hands sore. It reminded him of a time when both of his children were under the age of six and sleep was a rare commodity. The pain in his joints and his heavy eyes were an annoyance, but the fact that he was still breathing air and his wife and children were fast asleep less than ten feet away had him appreciating all that he had left.
With a quick peek back into the room, Owen scanned the faces of his family and the others he’d known for only the last few days. They seemed at peace, sleeping in hunched positions and awkward angles, looking as comfortable as anyone he’d ever seen. The peace of mind of having four secured walls and a roof overhead couldn’t be overstated.
At least not now.
At the other end of the hall, his friend had slept fitfully, awake more times during the night than not. In his previous check, probably less than an hour before, Kevin appeared to have finally drifted off. He wanted to let him get the rest he needed; however, there was something he needed to do.
No way to get around it.
He knew the time would come when he’d have to explain what he’d agreed to, but that didn’t make it any easier. In fact, for the last several hours, it was the only thing occupying his thoughts. And he was looking forward to finally getting beyond it.
One last glance over his shoulder and he was on the move. He tried to imagine how he would frame the idea of how it all happened and was hoping there wouldn’t be a need to state the obvious. Kevin had gone through enough and literally adding insult to injury wasn’t going to be a path he’d willingly choose.
Yeah, that’s not going to help.
Voices came from the doorway twenty feet ahead. He recognized Kevin’s, it sounded better than it had the night before. More volume and less frailty. He sounded much like he had two days ago, before everything went to hell.
The other was the man who had saved him and his family. He appeared to be whispering, it was difficult to make out even a single word. He imagined what they’d be talking about, and then it hit him.
“Oh hell.”
As he turned into the room, he saw that Travis had moved off the floor, and was now seated in a silver folding chair near the center of the room. And only feet from the door, where he had been for the last several hours, Kevin stirred in the leather office chair as Zeus sniffed at his arm and licked his hand.
Owen stopped just past the threshold and stood with his back to the
hall. He nodded to Travis and regarded Kevin with a quick grin. “Hey.”
Kevin began to pull his right arm into his chest and was met with an instant reminder of the day before. His face tightened up, he arched his back slightly, and then clamped down on the arm of the chair with his right hand. Through gritted teeth, he said, “Hey yourself.”
“You get much sleep?”
“Not a lot.” Kevin ran his hand over Zeus’s head, turning to look toward the hall. “But I’m sure I got more than you.”
“Maybe.”
Kevin let out a stilted laugh and turned to Travis. “How many times did you hear him coming up here to look in on us? I stopped counting at eight, I think.”
Travis had dipped down in his chair. He looked like he couldn’t have been less interested, or that he was avoiding whatever he thought this was leading to. “I don’t know.”
“So …” Owen didn’t know how to start. He knew avoiding it didn’t make much sense and continuing with small talk was just going to stoke the anxiety he’d been working so hard to suppress. “Your truck.”
Kevin pulled his hand away from Zeus, straightened a bit in the recliner. “What about my truck?”
To his left, Travis no longer looked like he was about to drift off. He turned from Owen to Kevin, and then back.
Okay, maybe small talk wasn’t so bad.
“We had to make a deal with the man who saved you, he wanted—”
“A deal,” Kevin said, interrupting. “What kind of deal and what does this have to do with my truck?”
“He said he wasn’t going to help you unless …” Owen stopped for a second and peered back into the hall. “He wanted your truck in exchange for saving your life.”
Kevin looked like he was going to jump out of the chair. “And you agreed to that? I mean come on Owen, what the hell were you thinking?”
He was confused. He expected a bit of disappointment, a turn in his mood, maybe a question or two, but this wasn’t adding up. “Are you serious? Did you really expect me to negotiate with your life?” Owen could feel his face starting to warm as the volume in his voice began to rise. “Did you really want me to tell Paul that there was no way—”
Kevin’s lip started to curl at the corner. He relaxed his shoulders and unballed his clenched hands. “Yeah, I know.”
“You know?”
“Yes, I know.”
Owen was still partially stuck behind the dense cloud of tension that had come over the room. He read the change in Kevin’s tone as condescension, but wasn’t absolutely sure. “You know what exactly?”
“I know about my truck. I think Paul might have actually mentioned at some point last night, but Travis just confirmed it a few minutes ago.”
There was a short burst of relief that flooded through him, followed closely by an overwhelming urge to get even. However, the feeling was short lived. “Did he come by this morning?”
Travis sat forward. “Who?”
“Paul, hasn’t he come by this morning?”
“Did he tell you he would?”
“No,” Owen said, “But I just figured.”
Travis stood from the chair. “When was the last time you saw him?”
He didn’t like where this was headed. “Sometime last night, after he cleaned up in here, you?”
“Same.”
Owen paused for a moment, looked from Kevin to Travis. “Didn’t Paul’s wife help Lucas move the truck and the SUV into the garage?”
Travis nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”
“So she already had the keys to the truck?”
Kevin brought the recliner all the way up and looked like he was going to stand. “Yeah, so what? We agreed to give it to them, what does it matter when they took it?”
“It matters because Paul was supposed to stick around and make sure you were okay, and it also matters because they’ve got our supplies.”
There were hurried footsteps out in the hall, more than one set. And before he could turn back, Natalie and Harper were at the door. “They’re gone, and I think that—”
“Yeah,” Owen said. “We know. They’ve got the truck and everything in it.”
Ava and Lucas appeared behind Natalie. They were out of breath and trying to read the faces of the adults. A few paces back, Cookie held Noah’s hand, walking with a slight limp and speaking to him under her breath.
Lucas stood on his toes and waited for Owen to look over. “We might be okay.”
“What do you mean?”
“I got everything out of the truck last night. I heard what you guys were talking about and figured you were going to ask me to do it anyway.”
“Good,” Owen said. “Now we just have to find a way to fit eight people plus a very large German Shepherd into an SUV built for six.”
“I think I might be able to help.” Travis now stood beside the recliner and faced Owen.
“I thought you were leaving?”
“I know where there’s another vehicle. It won’t be easy to get to, but it’s got fuel and some supplies.”
“You sure, last night you said—”
“It’s in the garage, two levels down. The crowds were pretty bad last time I ran through there, so we might not want to wait.” Travis motioned toward Kevin. “I know he needs to rest, but I’m just not sure how much longer we’ll be able to get down there … or get back out.”
“I don’t know.”
Kevin now sat at the edge of the recliner. “Owen, we should take him up on it. We might not get another chance.”
Owen scanned the faces of the others. There was a desperation in their eyes that told him that they felt it too. This wasn’t their home, they didn’t belong. They had an opportunity and they needed to take it. “Okay,” he said.
And then turning back to Travis, he began to nod. “But you’re coming with us.”
79
Declan remembered the building, but not the men surrounding him. They wore three-piece suits and carried rifles on their shoulders. He wanted to get to the stairs or the elevator, the reception desk, find a familiar face, but was unable to take even a single step. They began to close in around him, murmuring incoherently as they moved in tight, shoulder to shoulder. He exhaled slowly, although the air around him began to thicken, his throat feeling like he swallowed the sun, like it may close with each breath that he fought to take.
It was like he was drowning, like he was going to be crushed by the men in the dark suits. He was beginning to lose the feeling in his legs, his feet immovable against the reflective concrete floor.
He tried to turn his head, but was only able to move his eyes. He looked at the faces of the men, although none looked back. They were now a blur, each fading into the next, one indistinguishable from the other, their suits becoming a wall of black, overtaking the entire space, until it was all he could see.
“Hey.”
The voice wasn’t coming from within. Declan recognized it, but didn’t know from where. He tried to answer, to call out, but nothing came.
“Get up.”
He was hit from behind, first a light brushing against the back of his head, and then a more aggressive shove, his left shoulder tweaked forward as he nearly lost his balance.
“Let’s go.”
Now the voice was louder, pulling him from the blackness that was holding him down. He shot above the shadowed men in the dark suits, finally filling his lungs and opening his eyes.
“Come on.”
His neck was sore and his legs ached. Declan looked back and to the left. The twin in the red windbreaker stood only a few feet away, his face saying that he hadn’t changed his mind. He motioned toward the door and pulled down on the straps of his pack.
“I wanted to leave you, but my brother said we shouldn’t. You might want to thank him.”
Declan shook away the sleep, took a moment to stretch his lower back and then turned toward the man at the door. “Thank you?”
Jacob had already moved to his brot
her and started into the hall. “We don’t have much time; the crowds have grown.”
This wasn’t exactly the way he’d expected to start his day, but with a few minor adjustments, he’d get to where he needed to be. There were two ways of going about it, although without the windbreaker twins, things became a little more complicated. He was still situating his weapon in his waistband as he turned out into the hall. “Gentlemen, what’s the rush?”
They were at the railing looking down over the lobby. Jacob turned back, thumbing toward the floor below. “They got in earlier this morning.”
How long had he slept? It didn’t feel like it was more than a few hours, although the sun twisting in through the broken glass of the lobby windows told him it had to be late morning.
“You didn’t think this was worth coming to get me?”
The look on Jacob’s face told him that his question didn’t come across in the exact manner he’d hoped. “You’re really trying to blame us for—”
“No, no, no.” Declan reached the railing, the first-floor lobby much the same as he was imagining. A few dozen Feeders roamed in circles, unaware that he or the twins were twenty feet above. “I’m just trying to gauge your level of familiarity with those things.”
“Familiarity?”
Declan brushed the hair away from his face. “How much time have you spent around them, how comfortable you are going hand to hand, or I guess I should say, hand to mouth.”
Jacob was responding almost before Declan finished. “We’ve done fine out here on our own for the last two weeks. I don’t think we need a lecture from you.”
Joshua leaned around his brother. “Yeah, we’ve figured them out. They can’t climb and loud noises confuse them.”
Declan was impressed. He wasn’t sure how quickly the populous would catch on to that little detail. There wasn’t anything reported on the news when it all broke out—at least not that he’d seen—and other than a handful of individuals, it would have taken quite a bit of observation or luck to see that through everything else.