But that was just a wasted fantasy. The car had Maryland plates and slightly tinted windows. The plates weren’t government issued, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. As soon as he’d woken up yesterday morning to the news of the explosion off the coast of New York and the ensuing wave of sickness, he’d wondered if someone would come looking for him. And now, his eyes locked on that car, he thought that was exactly what had happened.
Terrence quickly dashed into the woods, making a series of soft, leaping motions. He scurried about ten feet deep into the tree line, fully encompassed by the trees and their soft-edged morning shadows. He walked briskly towards his house, hidden by the forest. Passing by the trees and kicking up the dry foliage on the ground, he now heard the slight buzzing of insects around him. The sun wasn’t even fully blasting yet and there were already gnats circling about. But Terrence barely even noticed them as he passed by elms and oaks, hidden in shadows as he finally drew up alongside his house.
He looked for any sort of movement, looking to the windows in case anyone moved by them. He watched the door, almost willing it to open so he could see who was inside. Based on the car and the not-very-subtle approach, he guessed it was probably someone with Homeland Security or maybe the CIA. Local police or the FBI would have likely kept a distance, hoping to catch him coming out; CIA and Homeland Security were a little more brazen and unapologetic in their approaches.
Again, his world became nothing more than the sound of his breathing in the mask as he looked to his house. After fifteen minutes passed without him seeing or hearing anything, he wondered how long these people would stay here. Would they stay for days, hoping he’d return? Were they looking for something specific and would leave after thoroughly searching? Or would they maybe—
A branch snapped behind him. He wheeled around, his hand slapping at his hip for a gun that he hadn’t had to fire in years. It was holstered securely but may as well not even have been there. Though his old instincts came back eerily quick, he’d already been found and cornered. He could only stare behind him with wide, terrified eyes.
A man stood about three feet away, a handgun drawn and pointed directly at Terrence’s chest. He was a younger guy, dressed in a light blue button-down shirt and jeans. He was not wearing a mask of any kind, making it easy for Terrence to see the thin smile touch the corners of the man’s mouth.
“Hey, Mr. Crowder,” the man said. “I need you to join us inside.”
Terrence was furious with himself for allowing the man to get the drop on him. His senses were usually sharp and his attention to detail was unparalleled. Well, there’s a lot on my mind right now, he thought.
“Who are you?” Terrence asked.
“Agent Rick Trainor, Homeland Security. I’m going to ask only once more…get inside your house. We need to talk.”
Without a gun or the full knowledge of the situation—as in how many agents were here and why they were here—Terrence knew he had no choice but to obey. He turned his back to Agent Trainor and started walking through the trees, back toward his house. He could feel the barrel of the gun still pointed at him, but it didn’t bother him. He’d been in this situation before, a gun to his back and the odds stacked against him.
Of course, back in those days there had been no apocalyptic illness unleashed on the world. Throw that into the mix, and a few Homeland Security agents visiting his property might be a bit more dangerous than it seemed.
***
He stepped through the front door and heard the sound of someone shuffling around in the back of the house—near the kitchen, it sounded like. Agent Trainor stepped up behind him and nudged him further into the foyer. Trainor then called out: “Hey, Rogers! We have a visitor!”
The shuffling sound stopped and a set of footfalls could be heard approaching. As he waited for who he assumed was Rogers to appear, Terrence chalked up the one bit of information Trainor had just dropped. He only called for one person. That means there’s only two of them.
A second agent appeared, coming out of the kitchen and down the hall toward them. He regarded Terrence with an unimpressed sort of scowl and then nodded to the right, toward the living room sitting just off the foyer. He looked about Terrence’s age, his face outlined in five o’clock shadow with a touch of grey here and there. His eyes looked hardened and somehow shallow. Terrence could tell he was an agent that had seen some action. He wore a simple grey t-shirt and jeans. If these guys were both agents, they were very casual about it…though Terrence figured when the end of the world was on the horizon, some of the formalities of government dress codes were probably loosened.
“Let’s have a seat,” Rogers said.
Terrence, usually something of a wise-ass at heart, bit back a comment about how it was odd to be invited to take a seat in his own house. Instead, he followed Rogers into the living room, Trainor flanked behind him. When they were in the living room, Rogers stood in front of the coffee table, his arms folded. He was making it clear that he had no intention of sitting down. Terrence took this into consideration as he sat down on the right side of the couch. Trainor took a seat on the opposite side, turned towards Terrence.
“Nice mask,” Rogers said. “Are you that scared about what’s happening a little farther north?”
Again, Terrence wished he’d watched even the smallest bit of news before venturing out. These men knew much more about the state of the nation, giving them something of an advantage. He wondered, though, if he might still hold at least one advantage; these men didn’t know him personally, meaning anything they’d heard about his history and his skills had all come from other sources. And if that were the case, he assumed they likely didn’t buy it all.
“Just being cautious,” Terrence said.
“Take it off,” Trainor said. The gun was no longer held on Terrence, but it was still drawn, resting alongside Trainor’s leg. Terrence added this little detail to the notes he was compiling as to how he might get out of this situation.
Terrence did as asked. He figured it was safe if these two weren’t taking any such precautions. And while Terrence had his own well-informed contact, he knew that the agents with Homeland Security would have some pretty accurate intel, too.
“Where were you going just now?” Trainor asked. “Why were you out in the woods?”
“You guys aren’t exactly stealthy,” Terrence said, coming up with a story as quickly as he could. “I was about to make coffee and heard the car on the gravel. I peeked out, saw you two, and ran for it.”
Trainor and Rogers shared a look, as if weighing how truthful this might be. “And you didn’t like the look of us, is that it?” Rogers asked.
“Yeah. You looked a little too official.”
“Seems like you’ve been expecting a visit from people like us,” Rogers said. “I bet you got spooked when New York started to fall yesterday, huh?”
“A bit.”
“So, you know why we’re here?” Trainor asked.
“No,” Terrence said. “I figure there could be several reasons.”
But of course he knew why they were here. He was simply trying to buy some time—trying to earn a few more precious seconds to figure out how to best these two trained agents.
“We’re here because we need to find George Kettle,” Rogers said. “And based on what we know, you may very well be the only man in the country that would know where to find him.”
“Doesn’t say much about you guys, huh?” Terrence said, unable to hold the quip inside. “Or the FBI, the CIA, and on and on.”
“You’ve seen footage from New York City, right?” Rogers asked. “I’d think a sight like that would take some of the humor out of all of this. The Blood Fire Virus is already tearing through Pittsburgh and there’s still no end in sight. Projections say it’ll show up in Baltimore sometime around tonight. So if you know where George Kettle is, you need to let us know.”
“Why?” Terrence asked. “You think he’s going to have some magic formula to
stop the virus?”
“No,” Rogers said. “But we do think he’ll have the blueprint from Chaos Dawn. And with that blueprint, we can probably prevent what comes next. Because according to Chaos Dawn, this sickness is just the first step, isn’t it, Terrence?”
Again, that comment from the message flashed across Terrence’s mind: This is how CD was supposed to start.
CD. Chaos Dawn.
“You seem shocked that we know about Chaos Dawn,” Trainor said.
“No. Of course you’d know about it. If you’ve done your research, you know that I tried to give warnings about it eight years ago. But instead of working towards preventing it, I was relieved of my duty and—”
“We can play the violins for you later,” Rogers said. “Right now, we need to know where George Kettle is.”
“I don’t know where he is.”
“I think you’re lying,” Rogers said.
“Why would he tell me where he is? What would he—”
Trainor’s right-handed jab came out of nowhere. It landed squarely across the left side of Terrence’s jaw and sent him reeling, nearly falling from the sofa. He restrained himself from fighting back. He simply sat back up, making himself not look at Trainor. It had been a good hit, causing a slight ringing in Terrence’s ears and little red blurs along the side of his vision.
Rogers stepped forward and hunkered down in front of Terrence—not on his knees but on his haunches, like one might lower themselves to speak to a toddler. Terrence knew the move; Rogers was trying to get on his level. Next, a sympathetic and relatable comment would come. It was textbook for running an interrogation in casual settings.
“What happened in New York with this Blood Fire virus…it’s just the start of it right?” Rogers asked. “According to George Kettle’s Chaos Dawn, there’s more to come, right?”
Terrence relied on his lackluster acting skills to get him through the rest. If Rogers and Trainor bought it, he may get out of this. He might have to kill them but given the situation and the possible consequences, he was fine with that.
He said nothing, only nodded. He forced something of a faraway and zoned out look into his eyes.
“There’s much more to come, right?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve seen your record, Terrence. I know you’re a good man. You’re a good man that got wrapped up in George Kettle’s madness and lost yourself. I know there’s no way you’d want to let the rest of this thing run its course. So help us….please. We just need to know where he is. And if you want, we won’t even tell him we spoke to you.”
What Rogers and Trainor would never understand was that George Kettle would not work with them. George Kettle was, at times, manic with his beliefs and paranoia. If he knew any sort of government authority was coming after him, there was no telling what he might do. He may kill himself…he may reach out to those behind Chaos Dawn and attempt to speed things up.
Terrence looked into Rogers’s eyes. He tried to bring some tears forward but was unable to do so. It was apparently a very hard acting technique. Instead, he made his voice light and haggard, thick with regret.
“If I tell you…you have to handle him with kid gloves,” he finally said. “And I may have to go with you. I’m the only person he trusts. If you go by yourself—you or any other agents, there’s no telling what he might do.”
“We’ve considered that,” Rogers said. “We are going to take every precaution we can and make sure—”
Terrence acted so quickly that he nearly lost control of himself. He closed his eyes and brought his head forward as quickly as he could. There was about a foot of space between his forehead and Rogers’s nose, which he closed quickly. When contact was made, there was a sickening crunch. A sharp ache raced through Terrence’s head as he felt blood come bursting out of Rogers’s nose as it was pulverized.
Still on his haunches, the unsuspecting attack sent Rogers sprawling back with a wet cry as he tried to shout through the blood. Terrence did not see any of this, though. Even as the sound of Rogers’s nose cracking still echoed in his ears, Terrence lunged across the couch for Trainor’s gun. To any bystander, he figured it might look almost laughable. He stretched himself out like a teenage guy trying to quickly and deftly make a move on his date while his parents’ backs were turned.
His hand landed on Trainor’s gun at about the same time Trainor understood things had just taken a very drastic turn. The moment Terrence grabbed the gun, Trainor started pulling at it. At the same time, Trainor also brought his left arm around, attempting to trap Terrence’s neck. Before he could find purchase, though, Terrence laid flat out (furthering the posture of a guy trying to get lucky with his date), and drove his right knee upwards as hard as he could. It connected squarely with Trainor’s crotch. He let out a howl of pain, his grip on the gun loosening significantly.
Terrence tore it free at the same time Trainor threw a right-handed jab. It caught Terrence in the chest, sending him tumbling from the couch. When his back hit, he saw Rogers getting to his feet, fumbling for the sidearm holstered to his hip. His face was a mask of crimson, his nose cocked at a sick angle to the right.
Terrence gave Rogers no time. He aimed Trainor’s gun and fired twice. One shot took Rogers square in the shoulder, the other low in the gut. He then spun around just in time to see Trainor come springing off of the couch at him. The two men collided just as Terrence pulled the trigger. The gunshot was muffled by the close contact as it tore through the center of Trainor’s chest. For the second time in less than ten seconds, Terrence felt an agent’s blood washing over him; this time it was Trainor’s, the blood pouring over Terrence’s hand and wrist.
With a groan, Terrence shoved Trainor off of him. He slid away from the agent’s still-gasping body. He wasn’t exactly in shock, but his brain seemed to be struggling to catch up with all that had just happened. He’d killed men before—more times that he cared to remember—so that wasn’t what had him so shaken. He’d never killed fellow agents before. And while he had not been a member of Homeland Security for a little over eight years, he still felt absolute disgust over what he had done.
Shakily, he got to his feet and surveyed the room. Rogers was taking in shallow, shuddering breaths and letting out a moan of pain with each exhale. He was bleeding freely onto the hardwood floor from both his ruined face and the gunshot low to the stomach. Just a few inches away from him, Trainor was staring to the ceiling with eyes that were slowly closing. His breath was deep and wheezing, without much power.
Had he gone too far? Had he really needed to kill these men? These were questions he was afraid to answer. Sure, he knew they would have done whatever was necessary to get the information they needed, but he didn’t know if they would have killed him if he had not complied. What he did know was that if Trainor and Rogers had managed to get a search team rushing after George Kettle, things would have gotten bad. As far as Terrence knew, George Kettle was the only person alive that could stop the events still to come. And Terrence might be the only person who could talk some sense into him.
But this might not even be Chaos Dawn, Terrence thought. This could have been some strange, isolated incident brought on by another country.
But he knew that was not true. The speed of the virus, the way in which it had been unleashed. No…this was Chaos Dawn. It was a disastrous blueprint that would be confirmed by another tragic event. And the terrible part of it was that there would be no way to know how to stop it until at least one more catastrophic event occurred.
Trembling now, Terrence looked away from the agents and hurried to his bedroom. He looked into his bedside table and found Trevor’s necklace. He slipped it over his neck, the chain still somewhat tight, the little conch shell settling in just below his throat. He rubbed at the shell, his eyes closed, and tried to remember that day on the beach—the tide coming in, the litter of small shells at his son’s feet. Trevor, picking the little shell up and scrunching his face at it. “This one’s we
eeird,” Trevor had said.
A desperate moan from the living room snapped him out of his thoughts. It was Rogers, no doubt tormented by the gut shot. For just a moment, Terrence considered going back into the living room and putting a bullet between Roger’s eyes just to put him out of his misery. But the thought of that act flipped his stomach.
Feeling a healthy dose of self-hatred and guilt, Terrence marched back through his house. He went into the living room to retrieve his mask but didn’t bother to look back as he made his way to the front door. He walked out onto the porch, took a deep breath of the morning air, and then put the mask back on. Before starting back down the gravel road, he stopped by the agents’ car. He found it unlocked and took a moment to look it over. There were no cellphones, and no sign of a radio anywhere.
He did find a single folder on the passenger side floorboard, though. He thumbed through it quickly and discovered that it was information about the Blood Fire Virus. He saw numbers pertaining to estimated number of deaths, projected timeframes of infection, and other details. He took the folder, closed the car door, and started walking.
On his way back, there were no butterflies this time—just the slowly growing heat of the sun and those damned gnats. His shirt clung to him, already growing sticky with Trainor’s blood. But that was the least of his concerns. His mind had already turned away from killing Trainor and Rogers, now focusing on George Kettle—the contact he’d been communicating with for the last few years.
He thought of warning George the moment he got back to the bunker, of dropping a message in the email draft. But George was incredibly fragile. If he freaked out over the idea of people coming after him, there was no telling what might happen. It had been one of the most terrifying parts of Terrence’s life after his time with Homeland Security—knowing that if George Kettle died, whether by others or his own hand, there would be absolutely zero chance of stopping the project only a handful of people knew as Chaos Dawn.
It Falls Apart Series | Book 1 | It Falls Apart Page 16