“So, I’m going to tie this over your eyes,” Olivia said. “And then after that, I’m going to open the door to take a special sort of mask from our friend. I’m going to slide that over your mouth and I need you to keep it there, okay? Don’t move it at all. No matter what. Do you understand? That’s very important to the adventure.”
“Yeah, okay,” Joyce said. She was marching in place, bursting at the seams to start her adventure.
“And because you’ll be blindfolded, I’ll have to carry you. Okay?”
“Aww, like a baby?”
“Yes, but just for a little while. It’ll be fun, okay? You might have gotten big, but I still like to carry you!”
“Fine,” Joyce said. She then closed her eyes and craned her neck forward, “Let’s go!”
As Olivia placed the scarf on Joyce’s eyes she felt hot tears come spilling out of the corners of her eyes. She trembled as she did her best to hold in a sob. She barely won the fight, choking it down as she tied the scarf in a tight knot around the back of her head.
“That too tight?” Olivia asked.
“Nope. It’s good.”
“Okay.” Olivia then looked to the door and took a deep breath. “Okay, Paul. I’m going to open the door.”
She heard a shuffling sound on the other side as he took a step back. She opened the door and he instantly handed her two surgical masks. They were nothing special, the sort you could pick up at a drugstore for a buck or two. Still, she slid Joyce’s on and then her own. Under any other circumstances, seeing Joyce with a scarf tied around her eyes and a too-large surgical mask covering the rest of her face might be funny. Her blonde hair sticking up in a shambles above the scarf was the true selling point.
She then looked back to Paul. He looked a bit older than she remembered; she guessed him to be in his early fifties, fifty-five at most. He was wearing a new mask and had changed out of his police outfit. But he looked determined and almost stoic as he looked at them. She supposed that he now felt about them the same way she felt about Joyce. He felt that they were in his care and he was going to do his best to keep them safe. She felt that from him within those first few seconds, before either of them said anything.
“Well, she’s adorable,” Paul said.
“That she is,” Olivia said. Then, with a wink, she added: “You’ll notice I have her special assignment blindfold on.”
“Ah yes, I see that. Very smart.” He reached out and took her hand, leading her out of the doorway. “Are you ready, princess?”
“Yeah! Where are we going?”
“Well, that’s sort of a secret for now,” Paul said. “But we need to get moving soon.”
Olivia reached down and picked Joyce up. “Remember,” she said. “The scarf and mask have to stay on until I tell you different. Got it?”
Joyce gave a very dramatic nod of her head as she hitched her arms around Olivia’s neck.
“Okay then,” Paul said. “Let’s go!”
There was cheer in his voice as he played the part of Joyce’s adventure guide, but there was something else in his eyes as he looked at Olivia. It was a concerned look, something almost like pity. Almost silently, he whispered, “Are you ready?”
Olivia nodded, trying to push the images of the Lincoln Tunnel and the Coast Guard station out of her mind. With that, she followed Paul across the Little Learners employee parking lot and into a world that was somehow worse than the images she had tried to push away.
Chapter 13
Terrence had the bunker set up by six that afternoon. It hadn’t taken very long, as most of the legwork had already been done. The small closet-sized pantry in the far back corner had been fully stocked for about a year, primarily with canned food with expiration dates spanning well into the future. The cot on the right side of the central room was protected by a dust cover, and he had packed several sheets for it. The generator, tucked inside a small panel near the back, had taken a while to chug to life but had done its job. He also had solar panels hiding out in the ruins of the barn over his head as a secondary power source because the generator did tend to make the place smell thickly of gas. There’d been no point in making the place too functional; he wouldn’t be here long—a month or so at most. After that, he’d be on the move, to whatever location his contact told him would be safe.
The part of the bunker Terrence spent the most time setting up was the back wall. He’d spent the better part of three months learning how to wire it himself because he didn’t want to run the risk of hiring an electrician. He knew people would come looking for him at some point and he wanted absolutely no trace of where he was. So he’d built upon his already respectable knowledge of wiring and electrical know-how to get the bunker just right.
When Terrence was done with the back wall at 6:10 on the day New York City was ravaged by a lethal virus, it looked like a makeshift control panel in a newsroom. He had two laptops hooked up, both feeding into very small flat screen monitors he had rigged into the wall. It wasn’t the most solid work, but it would do for what he needed.
As he ate canned peaches and sipped on a bottle of water, Terrence watched and read, studied and digested. Yes, he’d known this day would come but he had no idea just how bad it would be—and how fast it would happen.
The only new footage coming out of New York came via helicopter or drone. He watched aerial footage of Queens and the place looked like a slaughterhouse. There were car accidents, bumper to bumper traffic, and bodies everywhere. What clued Terrence in to just how quick and deadly the virus was came in the shots of people that had died in their cars—people that either realized they were already sick or wanted to get out of the city before they got sick hadn’t had a chance. They’d died before they’d even got a chance to leave the city.
Another shot (this one clearly from a helicopter, as he could see its shadow passing along the carnage below) showed lower Manhattan in an utter shambles. The most haunting part of this shot was that it showed three people on three different streets, running through the piles of bodies and stalled vehicles. One had a gun and another, a scrawny man from the looks of it, was naked except for his underwear.
Terrence scanned each shot he saw of New York, looking for a military presence. He saw it in the Manhattan shot: several military jeeps and what he thought might be untagged military police vehicles. But the armed forces had apparently fared no better than the rest of the city. The vehicles were caught in the mess and the number of bodies surrounding them showed the ineffectiveness of a military presence.
This is much worse than I was expecting, he thought as he looked away from the New York feeds. He turned his attention instead to a local news program out of Washington DC. Two reporters were having a dialogue with a very stressed-out White House representative. The rep was sweating and looked like he might jump out of his seat to dash to the bathroom at any moment. Terrence turned up the volume on this feed and realized the poor rep wasn’t getting a word in. As the reporters tried speaking to him, they would tilt their heads, concentrating on what was being relayed to them in their earpieces and then break away from the interview to give the audience what served as breaking news.
“Sorry, Scott,” a pretty but frazzled looking female reporter said, interrupting the terrified-looking White House rep. “But we’re just now getting breaking news out of Pittsburgh. Hospitals are beginning to officially report the first cases of this virus—a virus that still, as of now, has no name. As of 6:00 this evening, hospitals within the Pittsburg area are reporting upwards of six hundred cases of the virus and are urging people to stay at home sheltering in place, unless it is a life-and-death situation.”
“Thanks, Mary,” said her co-host. “And on the heels of that, we’re also being told…” he stopped here, listening intently to what was being fed to him through his earpiece. He nodded and continued, looking gravely into the camera. “…sorry, yes, we’re also being told that we have exclusive footage coming out of the small town of Gilbert, New York.
Before we show it, I should warn you that I’m being told that it is content of a very graphic nature.”
He then looked off screen, waiting for someone to roll the footage. It took a moment, but it finally appeared. The shaky nature of the footage made Terrence think it was likely taken on a cellphone. The owner was running down a small street of what looked like an idyllic little town—the only blemish being a dead body in the middle of the street and a middle-aged man hunched over on the sidewalk, throwing up. The footage then panned back to the street and showed a convoy of military vehicles passing through. When the sound of screeching brakes was heard, the amateur journalist wheeled around to show several people standing in the street, blocking the passage of the army convoy. There appeared to be about fifteen or twenty in all.
“Tell us what this is!” yelled a red-faced man. “What the hell is happening?”
“What did you people do?” another member of the crowd cried, this one a woman cradling a child to her chest. “What did you do?”
An announcement came from what sounded like a bullhorn from inside one of the trucks. “Step aside and let us pass or we will use force!”
“No!” the red-faced man said. “You will not get through this town without answering some questions! People are dying! My wife is at home puking her guts out and I think we’re owed some help! And if you can’t give us help, then we need answers at the very l—”
He was interrupted by the sounds of gunfire, rapid popping noises that Terrence recognized at once as from a rifle. He heard four or five burst and could not tell if it was an automatic or a semi-automatic—in other words, if it waws civilian or military. The red-faced man danced backwards a few steps as several red holes seemed to explode outwards from his body. The final one took him right in the forehead and he dropped to the street as if his bones had suddenly turned to putty.
More gunshots sounded out from the truck and more people fell. The footage showed one more atrocity before the phone’s owner decided to run for cover; a man no older than twenty or so was shot directly in the knee. When he went to the ground, screaming, he was put out of his misery by a pair of shots that removed half of his face—and it was all broadcast for the world to see.
Terrence looked away quickly—not because the sight of gore bothered him, but because he knew it was not a fair portrayal of the military. In what now felt like a past life, he’d worked as a Homeland Security Intelligence agent, so he had seen the inner workings of several branches of the military. Seeing the footage from Gilbert, New York told him that the military was just as scared as everyone else. This biological threat had come out of nowhere, and it was too fast to properly study or control. The soldiers that had fired on that blockade of people were scared out of their minds and were reacting in the only way that made them feel as if they had any semblance of control. Of course he pitied the people those soldiers had gunned down, but he pitied the soldiers almost as much.
More than that, he knew that if unfortunate incidents like that were taking place in small town America, there was no telling what orders and measures had been taken in New York City when it all fell apart.
He then checked multiple Facebook and Twitter feeds, not for new stories, but using hashtags. News of an entire East Coast lockdown was being met with a mostly obedient response, though there were the usual dissenters. There were already calls for the US government to come clean with what was going on. Some were insisting that the explosion off the coast of New York in the early hours of the morning had started this mess and that the military was behind it. Even as New York had been laid to waste and the virus seemed to be rapidly spreading in a southwestern direction, some people were finding ways to point fingers and make demands of a government that was just as lost and afraid as they were.
Terrence did understand this mindset, though. Besides, those that claimed the explosion at sea had started the downfall were right. Terrence knew this, he’d been waiting for this day for several years. He’d tried to warn those he worked for; he’d even gone over the heads of his supervisors and to higher offices, but no one had listened. His insistence on the matter was, in fact, why he’d been removed from his position within Homeland Security.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen, he thought to himself as he looked to the screens. He took it all in and tried to keep it orderly, as if he were himself some sort of machine: an estimated five million dead in New York City; likely upwards of a total of eight or nine million in the entire state of New York; rising cases in Pennsylvania; a smattering of cases in Connecticut.
It had taken less than sixteen hours. Less that sixteen hours had passed between the explosion reported by the Coast Guard and the near-annihilation of New York City. And whatever this virus was, it was still spreading.
Terrence looked around his bunker and wondered if he’d be safe even here. He knew he’d have to relocate at some point, but he suddenly felt incredibly trapped—as if the world was falling down above him and he may not be able to get out.
Staring at the screens, he saw a small change in one of them. It was the Gmail screen for the account he and his contact had been using. The draft email they’d been using to communicate had been updated. Terrence went into the email and read the brief message.
Have it on good authority, the explosion was an unmanned vessel.
It’s in CT and PA now. By morning, probably most of the east coast.
Within two days? Who knows?
Won’t matter anyway. It’s just the start. This is how CD was supposed to start.
It’s happening.
I hope you’re staying safe.
Nothing in the message was particularly uplifting but there was one statement in particular that terrified him. He’d known this virus or whatever it was had been the start of something bigger. He’d known it but had maybe not fully accepted it yet. But seeing his contact actually call out a part of it that he had managed to convince himself was just a dark fantasy, brought it all home.
This is how CD was supposed to start.
Terrence thought of those two letters and what they signified. A chill rode up his spine as he set his fingers to the wireless keyboard he’d packed for the bunker and responded. Not sure if he even wanted to know the answer, Terrence typed: Where will the next one occur?
As he waited, he looked at the other screens. More footage of a decimated New York City, footage of military blockades being set up outside of the immediate metropolis area, sick people in the streets in other smaller New York towns and cities.
It was here. It was happening, and there seemed to be no way to stop it.
This is how CD was supposed to start.
Terrence shook the thought away as his stomach started to churn. He went back to the Gmail screen and refreshed the page. The draft email had been updated again, and his contact had responded: Don’t know. But when the next one happens, then I’ll know the trail.
Wasting no time, Terrence typed back: Can it be stopped? Is it too late?
Terrence could imagine his contact, sitting behind his own computer in an isolated place, hidden away—a controversial man who, like Terrence, had once gotten into a lot of trouble for trying to warn people of coming dangers and doom. Picturing him watching this same footage of the east coast going to hell made Terrence feel irrationally uncomfortable.
It only amplified when he got his contact’s response. Terrence read it and sat back in his chair, closing his eyes and trying to accept the fact that this might be unstoppable. That this could very well be the end of the world.
The response, on the screen in front of Terrence’s closed eyes was: Stop it? Why would you want to stop it?
Chapter 14
When they came around the corner where the side street to the rear of Little Learners merged with Fleet Avenue, Olivia’s entire body seemed to shut down. Her eyes locked on the horrors all around her, causing her mind and nerves to seize up. For a moment, it felt as if someone had reached inside her heart, flipped a switch, and shut
down the operating system for her body. She could only stand there, numb and dull, taking it all in.
She had to remind herself that she was holding Joyce, as the little girl’s meager weight started to pull her down. Olivia clenched her arms beneath and around her, keeping her close and held tight.
“You okay, ‘Livia?”
“Sure I am,” she said, but the shaking tone of her voice called her a liar. “Why do you ask.”
“You’re shaking,” Joyce said. “You cold?”
“No, I’m good. Just…just excited about the adventure.”
She looked to Paul, a few steps ahead of them. He had turned back to make sure she was okay. There was a sad look on his face and she could tell he was wondering if this was the best idea. Maybe she should have stayed back at the daycare and hoped for help to arrive—for an end to this madness.
Madness, though, did not seem like a fitting description now that she was standing in the middle of it all.
Right away, she saw four bodies, motionless in the streets and sidewalk. And as soon as her mind processed that, she saw another, then another, then two more. The fading afternoon sun washed it all in an eerie sort of light. It was the kind of New York sunset that would be beautiful out in Central Park on a normal early summer day. But now, falling upon the dead bodies and ruined city streets, it looked absolutely apocalyptic.
There were also countless car crashes, some only two-vehicle affairs while others involved upwards of ten or twelve. Just out of sight, at the end of the block, she saw what looked to be a taxi pitched up on its side, its undercarriage exposed. It was bookended by a car and a truck. She could barely see them, though, through the tangle of twisted and motionless metal between them and that particular scene.
“Olivia,” Paul said, reaching out toward her but clearly not intending to take her arm. “I think it’s best if you just keep moving forward. If it helps, just look at my back.”
It Falls Apart Series | Book 1 | It Falls Apart Page 11