Embarrassingly, the Black Ones had succeeded in retrieving the other book from the boy, and were patiently waiting for success on their part. One that now seemed quite elusive owing to the losses they were incurring in the course of this physical expedition.
Amidst the gloom pervading their tortuous beings, their leader, a tough veteran of the Beginning, meandered about with a message of hope and eventual success. This gave the weaker ones some form of consolation for their kind already lost to the white book’s defensive mechanism, which was a hellish protection that had exhibited its raw power time and time again.
The grotesque demon leading the group came to a halt above the land mass down below and identified their target leaving the upturned vehicle with her two companions and the mysterious book. The book’s unearthly protection was weaker when they had only her to contend with, but now that there were three travelers, things had become a bit more complicated. The said spiritual defense appeared to have been strengthened by the coming of the other two individuals, who, it seemed, were yet to understand what was going on. The problem these two naïve humans posed for the demons was clearly highlighted by the events that had occurred near the damaged car moments ago, when the demons had pressed home three attacks to no avail.
Angrily, the faceless demon leader unleashed multiple thunder strikes on the surrounding countryside. The number of fallen angels already destroyed by Lucifer’s breath was staggering and the mission could not afford to continue on this wasteful path.
A new plan was needed, and quickly, too.
* * *
He’d been riding the motor bike for almost three hours now despite the developing storm, tensing up whenever a police or military truck sped past. The authorities would still be searching for a stolen Toyota RAV4, he thought with a wry smile, increasing the motorcycle’s speed.
Of course, the RAV4 had been a big mistake. Replacing it with a Honda bike near a gas station was the best decision he could come up with, and he did this after he saw himself on a TV newsflash walking out of a deceased woman’s house with a frying pan in one hand.
He had taken the helmet with a tinted visor, gloves and scarf from the bike’s dead owner. These items were doing a good job of hiding his identity from the soldiers and policemen he had been coming across these past few hours. He just hoped the signposts along the way were accurate about the distance he still had to cover to get to Freetown.
Three kilometers outside Freetown, Carl Bain came across an accident few feet from the dusty road he’d been traveling on. A Toyota Sienna rested on its roof facing a direction perpendicular to the road. The ploughed soil markings behind the minivan gave one the impression that it had flipped over and then slid off the road when the accident occurred. The boy crying while kneeling beside the upturned car’s front end had blood on the front of his T-shirt, and this only increased the American hitman’s curiosity. Why were cars just swishing past without stopping to offer assistance to the victim of such a calamitous accident?
Carl Bain stopped the bike and alighted from it. Without a word, he stepped over to the Toyota and peered into it, missing nothing. The vehicle had a shattered rear windshield, and the explosive force that did this could be assessed by observing the numerous tiny glass fragments scattered all over the car’s ceiling.
Walking past the tearful boy without saying a word, Mr. Bain frowned at what he saw next. Two burnt figures still sat upside-down, strapped to the car’s front seats. He wondered what relationship these two had with the kid. Were they his parents? Probably.
Slowly, the foreigner looked his present companion over. The kid’s bleeding nose could have been due to the accident, he thought, or something else. Ebola? That could explain why no driver wanted to stop and help. How he knew about symptoms of the disease he could not tell. “Hey, boy,” he began, “what’s your name?”
“David.”
“What happened here, David?”
No reply. Just tearful sobbing and sniffling. Carl Bain sighed and scanned the area. He noticed the scorched grass and small dried-up shrubs surrounding the car. He squatted to look into the Toyota through its right open passenger door. Nothing to see inside. Just more sand and ash.
Ash?
Looked like ash, really. The area surrounding the upturned Sienna had heaps of the thing littered about, as if dumped around chaotically. And what of the caked brown sand inside the car and on its ceiling? The American felt the dirt was more than enough for a boy traveling with his parents.
“Did you have any other passengers with you, kid?”
“Yes, sir,” David replied.
“What happened to them, then?”
“They went that way,” the boy said, pointing towards the direction Carl Bain was headed. “They did not wait for me.”
“Why not?” the American asked. “Why did they leave you behind?”
“I do not know them, sir,” the boy replied. “They are not my people, so I refused to go with them.”
“What do you mean they’re not your people, kid?”
“They have white skin, sir. They are your people.”
“Interesting,” Carl Bain said slowly. “How many were they?”
“Three, sir. A female doctor, a boy and a girl.”
“Thank you, son,” the American said, striding back to the bike with a renewed sense of purpose. As he distanced the area, he saw an ambulance appear on the road behind the upturned Sienna.
It started raining heavily.
Chapter 7: Ezra
THE downpour continued to pelt the vehicle’s roof and reduce the visibility of its side windows. The truck’s windshield wipers were at full speed, repeatedly swishing to and fro in the merciless rain as the Toyota Hilux sped through the deserted streets of Freetown, evading portholes and bumping around whenever it couldn’t dodge these road traps. Presently, Kimberley noted the many police and military checkpoints they had passed along the way. President Ernest Bai Koroma was clearly leaving nothing to chance, and how she got to know his name she couldn’t tell.
“The streets are empty,” Aiden quipped.
“Can’t you see it’s raining?” Kimberley asked him.
“What of the outbreak?” Aiden began. “It’s raining now, but…”
“Yes, the government ordered a lockdown due to the outbreak,” the police driver who had picked up the three time-travelers on the outskirts of the state capital said. “We know it’s a desperate move as well as a face-saving measure.”
“Why do you call it a face-saving measure?” Kimberley asked him.
“Our leaders have lost the fight to contain the epidemic without outside help, doctor,” the man said. “Some families are anonymously leaving dead bodies in the streets of various towns and cities around the country for fear of being quarantined by the authorities if they properly deposed of these bodies.”
“Wow,” Kimberley said.
“They are also aware of the accompanying castigation if the news of death gets to neighbors,” the police officer added.
“So they follow a more contagious line of action,” Kimberley concluded for him.
“Yes, exactly, doctor.”
A gray dress pegged to a line and fluttering in the heavy downpour reminded Kimberley of the Gray Ones as the pickup truck sped past. The Portwood police sergeant marveled at the persistence of Rachel’s infernal pursuers, wondering how long they could withstand these ferocious attackers with the strange girl before something tragic happened. The bizarre shifting entities were yet to attack Kimberley and her co-travelers again after their third offensive that day. Risking the ride into town became necessary due to the urgent need to shelter from the rain and find Rachel’s link as soon as possible. So far, no unfortunate event had unfolded as a result of that decision.
Ironically, Kimberley thought, their second threat and very agile human nemesis, who’d followed them all the way from Portwood with the aim of retrieving his small metal cube, had remained markedly absent ever since they appe
ared in the small West African country of Sierra Leone.
Kimberley hoped that this mad man had lost his way in the labyrinth of time and space, maybe showing up in Jupiter or one of those Godforsaken planets seven hundred years after the present date. That would be comforting to know, really, since she feared dying in another time and place through the activities of this unwavering fellow, who appeared bent on snuffing out their lives at all cost.
The ominous possibility of facing a similar fate in the hands of the Gray Ones equally horrified the sergeant-turned-doctor. She hated this madness Rachel’s book had unleashed on her life, as well as Aiden’s. How were they going to revisit Michael in Afghanistan, and Jim, her boyfriend, and all those now dead in their wake, and possibly bring these individuals back to life, if at all such a miraculous phenomenon existed? Impossible. Could the book do that? Could the book reverse time?
“The rain is slowing down,” Aiden said. “The vehicle’s wipers are doing less work.”
“Sure,” Kimberley said, deep in thought. Had Rachel been telling them the truth when she said that the book could only make one go forward in time? Was there some way these horrendous events could be erased and things returned to the way they used to be? If there was such a way, Kimberley thought, then shouldn’t she force it out of Rachel if she had to? Shouldn’t she do this now that she thought they were running out of time?
The Toyota Hilux slowed down and stopped. Their guide had brought them to one of the city’s two Ebola treatment centers, and as they jumped down from his police truck in the drizzling rain, Kimberley felt relieved that they had made some progress in their journey despite the odds against them. “Thank you,” she told the police officer as she took in the surrounding countryside.
“The man you’re looking for is the new head of the laboratory here, doctor,” the driver said. “Your description fits him exactly.”
Silently, Kimberley thanked Rachel for earlier describing the man they had all come to know as Ezra. She had only relayed to the police officer what the little girl had told her about the man’s features: short, fat and always happy. “I never knew he had…”
“Yes, this Israeli arrived a few days ago,” the driver interrupted, grateful to be of help. “I got the information from one of the men working here with the burial teams.”
“And what of the boy?”
“He was picked up by an ambulance a few minutes ago. They’ll bring him here very soon and run some tests to know if he has the virus.”
“Okay, good job then,” Kimberley said, glad that David would get the care he deserved after the tragedy his family had gone through while helping strangers.
“Good luck, doctor,” the officer said, starting his car and putting it into reverse, “and thank you for all the work you’re doing for my country.”
“Thank you, too,” Kimberley whispered as the vehicle zoomed off. Hopefully, they would find Ezra in time for him to help them defeat the Gray Ones before their viral symptoms showed up. It didn’t matter where they went after this, as long as they left that place and time with the book’s help, thereby ridding themselves of the scourge called Ebola.
“What now?” Aiden asked, staring at the EBOLA CENTER sign before the health facility’s heavily guarded gates. “I hope they’ve got food. My tummy’s rumbling.”
Kimberley looked him over. Though danger still loomed, the tension had dissipated enough for her to notice what her fellow travelers had on. Aiden looked good in his gray T-shirt and blue denims despite the muddy smears on him, while Rachel’s pink sweater and purple pants reminded Kimberley of her younger days. “Yes, let’s go in,” she finally said. “I hope they’ll have some food, too.”
A military guard at the gate gave them a cursory nod before flinging open a small side gate for them to pass through, his fellow soldiers looking on. “Welcome, doctor,” he said, nodding a second time towards Kimberley, who nodded back.
“How do they...how did he?” Kimberley whispered as soon as they were out of earshot.
“You have an ID card on your coat pocket,” Rachel pointed out, eyes straight.
“Oh, right,” her senior companion said, noticing the small tag for the first time. No wonder the police driver identified her correctly. He’d left her wondering about that little thing, really.
White makeshift tents surrounded by more traditional structures filled their view. Medical personnel, health workers and some soldiers completed the busy picture. Four men in personal protective equipment stepped out of a building carrying a body bag and headed towards a parked ambulance near the gate as the trio crossed a busy road before this building. Burial team, Kimberley thought.
She steered the children towards a central structure she felt was the command post. “If he’s in charge of the laboratory, I think we’ll get Ezra’s location from staff here,” she explained to Rachel’s puzzled stare. “No need to start looking for the research lab on our own, right?”
“Yeah,” Aiden supported. “My hunger won’t allow for such a waste of time.”
“Maybe, we should find a place to eat first,” Kimberley proposed, eyeing her younger male companion.
“No,” Rachel objected. “We must find Ezra first.”
“And die of hunger in the process?” Aiden asked her. He grinned when she couldn’t reply him despite his discomfort. He could hear his stomach groaning as he stepped into the building and his smile turned into a scowl.
The building had air-conditioning. Its structure consisted of a locally sourced wooden frame, which bore the weight of its hurriedly attached plywood wall panels well enough. Several tables lined one end of the vast room into which the entrance door introduced any visitor, and behind these set of identical furniture sat a squad of young men and women attending to telephones on the tables.
“Excuse me, but can you direct us to the research laboratory in this facility, please?” Kimberley asked the first person she came across.
“Sorry, doctor,” the young African lady said with a smile. “I joined the center yesterday and I’m not yet familiar with its management arms. You can ask someone else, or maybe you’ll meet who you’re looking for here.”
“Okay, thanks,” Kimberley said and looked around her.
“Let’s look around,” Rachel proposed. “Maybe we’ll find him faster that way.”
“Okay,” Kimberley agreed. She searched for a foreign face in the sea of humanity sweating away despite the air condition humming in the background, but found none. “Remember, don’t touch anything or anyone,” she told her kids, watching Stacey look around for their target as if her life depended on it. “We’re not in the clear, yet.” She doubted if they heard her since they seemed to have gone out of earshot. Well then, she must...
A face she knew too well had come up on a flat screen mounted on a corner of the large room’s wooden wall support. A newscaster was warning the public to be on the lookout for the foreigner on the display, who had killed a motorcyclist that day. Disturbed by this new twist to their unfolding situation, Kimberley watched their human nemesis climb into a Toyota RAV4 and zoom off, wondering how he had been able to remain on their trail ever since he started chasing them. A piece of torn paper from Rachel’s book, perhaps? The fellow must have come into the country behind them, and should be looking for them at that very moment. How she wished they would be able to find this Ezra in time and...
“Can I help you, doctor?”
“Yes, sure,” Kimberley said, turning to the voice she thought had a tinge of Middle Eastern flare. “I guess I’ve found you,” she added, smiling. Of course he was short, fat and looked very pleased with himself. “You must be...”
“Dr. Isaacs, borrowed by the UK government from the Israeli Center for Disease Research,” the fellow wearing a pair of thin-rimmed glasses chuckled. “And you must be Dr. Katie from your pocket tag.”
“Yes, of course,” Kimberley agreed, gratefully taking his outstretched hand. “I’m Doctor Katie Halverson from Médecins Sans
Frontières, or Doctors without Borders in English.”
“So, can I help you, doctor?” Dr. Isaacs, who Rachel also called Ezra, asked the Portwood sergeant, smiling contagiously.
“Well, sure, I’m...I’m bringing in a boy I met on my way here. He appears to be showing symptoms of the disease.”
“No problem,” the man said, still smiling. “Our laboratory is now fully functional and we’ll get a result as soon as possible when he arrives.”
“Okay.”
“As you know, the British government is putting together a huge response unit for this crises and the RFA Argus will dock here in Freetown a few days from today. We have supplies coming in on that ship and I must excuse myself now, doctor,” the Israeli said, stepping backward.
“Great,” Kimberley began, realizing what she must do. “We equally have heavy machinery on that ship and I hope you don’t mind if I can run through some specifics with you in your office?”
“Fine by me, doctor.” The man’s smile remained unwavering.
And Kimberley sighed in relief. She saw Rachel and Aiden coming back, their faces unabashedly expressing their excitement.
“And these must be your kids, doctor,” the short jovial man before her said.
“Yeah,” Kimberley replied, seizing Rachel’s right hand as the little girl walked up to the man with determined steps. “They are leaving for the airport a few minutes from now.”
“Okay, this is the right time to leave, right?” Ezra said, shaking Aiden’s right hand. He laughed heartily. “Just a joke, doctor, just a joke. Come, let us all go to my office.”
As the disease researcher led the way towards his office, Kimberley dropped Rachel’s hand by her side. “Not yet,” she whispered to the impatient girl.
“But we have to hurry!” Rachel shot back, tucking the white book underneath her left armpit. “There’s no time!”
The White Book Page 8