"Yes," Wesley said. "Along with the eyes and his dick."
"That's odd. In Aztec culture the abdomen was split open, the heart removed and placed in a cup. The body was usually dragged down the stairs of the altar to be disposed of in other smaller ceremonies."
"Didn't other cultures practice human sacrifice?" Tracy asked.
"Yeah, but not to the extent the Aztecs did. The Egyptians, of course, but even what we see here is alien to their usual method. Even sacrifice by various Mesopotamian and Babylonian cultures differ from this." James studied the drawings intently. "Damn, I wish I had access to my library. Ancient spiritual beliefs weren't my forte, but some of the books I had contained chapters on the subject."
"Well, whatever it is they were up to, it ain't good." Wesley looked grave. "I'll be blunt in saying there's something wrong with this. Yesterday they were attacking like a bunch of wild animals and now they're more coordinated, more..."
I quickly told Wesley about our theory—the riled up monkeys in the zoo analogy that James alluded to earlier. Wesley nodded. "That's a damn good way of putting it." He looked at James. "What, were you some kind of professor or something?"
"Medieval history professor," James said. He was still studying the drawings. He looked back at Wesley. "And I concur. Something is very wrong here."
Eight
It was decided that we would drive north for another three hours, which would put us east of Napa Valley. Because the cat was now out of the bag regarding our cabin, I told Wesley about it. He agreed that we probably wouldn't be able to make it to the cabin before night fell, especially at the speed we were going (which was occasionally hampered by having to drive around stalled and crashed vehicles in the road, some quite serious). "East of Napa is pretty barren," he said. "I say we find someplace out of the way, eliminate any primitives we see, then hole up somewhere for the night. We can take turns on watch patrol."
Thanks to Wesley's trip to the base we were all armed except for James, who admitted he'd never held or fired a gun in his life and was not comfortable with one. "Fine," Wesley said, patting James on the back. "Once we get to the Sierras I'll teach you myself."
Tracy reclaimed the Kimber and Lori picked a Glock 9mm handgun while Martin got himself an M4. I reclaimed control of the Ruger. Martin also carried a Glock in a shoulder holster Wesley had brought back. Likewise, Heather had two handguns tucked into a holster she wore low on her hips. Something about her demeanor seemed to change since she'd armed herself. She seemed more confidant yet more aloof from the rest of us at the same time. It was like after arming herself she distanced herself emotionally from the rest of us.
As we drove north following Wesley's jeep, I snuck occasional peeks in the rearview mirror at her. While Heather had proven herself to be capable around guns and had joined in to protect our little clan from the primitives, something still bothered me about her. Tracy seemed to feel the same way. A few times as we headed north she glanced at me, a grave look on her face. Emily lay fast asleep in her lap and last night's outburst from Heather came back to me. Shut that fucking mongoloid half-breed brat up or I'll do it for you! A retort made in fear because the primitives heard our daughter's cries and were descending on our house? And what about Martin's feelings from last night? That Heather had seemed hostile while in his and Lori's presence? I knew what Martin was talking about, being Native American and all, especially a Native American who wore his hair near down to his ass. Yes, racism still existed in the early years of the twenty-first century, and while it was rare when I was in a Caucasian community I sometimes received curious, and on rare occasions, hostile glares. Had Heather been able to pick out my heritage from the bone structure of my face? My hair? My skin color? It was obvious that Lori and Martin were African-American and Hispanic and Martin's homosexuality would be a double strike against him. As for Tracy, she came from pure white Anglo-Saxon stock, making our daughter, Emily, mixed-race. Was that where the half-breed comment came from?
I thought about this on the drive up and couldn't help but wonder. While I was still uncomfortable with the idea of having Heather armed, I also realized that if she truly wanted to do us harm she could have done it easily half a dozen times between the time we killed the last wave of primitives and before we finally left, but she hadn't. She'd even tried to talk James into arming himself, told him she'd help teach him how to handle one of the smaller caliber pistols Wesley had brought back. If she were truly racist, as the paranoid part of me felt, she wouldn't be so friendly with James who, by my estimate based on his last name and his full beard, was obviously Jewish.
Maybe she felt better and more in control because of Wesley's presence. While I didn't know much about Wesley, I knew he was about my age and appeared to be from common white Anglo-Saxon stock judging by the brown hair and blue eyes. Maybe Heather felt better having another white person with our group. Tracy wouldn't count, of course, having spoiled her white heritage by crossbreeding with a redskin Indian.
What the hell was I thinking?
As we drove I noticed vehicles pulled over to the side of the road. In some cases, their doors were open, as if the occupants somehow made it out on foot or were dragged out. There were no signs of people—primitive or normal—anywhere. The few times we passed small towns or rest stops we had to carefully maneuver our way around stalled or crashed vehicles. The sun was still unmercifully hot and we drove with the windows rolled down to save gas with no A/C on. When we passed what had been populated areas we always heard the howls from the primitives. Occasionally we saw them peek out from inside buildings or behind other structures. A few times we were chased, and twice rocks were thrown at our vehicles, but none hit us. As before, they could never get us on foot and we never returned fire. "Don't waste the ammo," I said during the first encounter with the primitives as we passed one such town. Martin had leaned the muzzle of the M4 out the window as we drove through and he lowered it. "We're gonna need all the ammo we have for the future."
By eight o'clock we'd reached the outskirts of another small town and Wesley turned toward another highway that would take us into the Sierras. The evening was growing a little cooler, but not by much. Twice we heard yells from real, unturned people who heard our vehicle pass by. "Hey! Hey over there! Help us! We're over here!" Both times I felt like stopping but Wesley, if he heard them, never slowed down. I kept up with him, a pang of regret burning in my gut both times.
About twenty miles from that last town we came across a rest area consisting of a gas station on one side, two fast food restaurants flanking it, and a small hotel. We pulled off the side of the road at the gas station and got out of our vehicles, armed and ready.
Wesley motioned toward the hotel. "My guess is that hotel is deserted but we have to make sure. You low on gas yet?"
"We're going to need it." The SUV was hovering at a quarter tank now.
"I doubt these pumps will work," Wesley said. He was looking around the gas station. There were four other vehicles, one of them an older model van.
"Don't you think we should check it out first?" Martin asked. He was cradling the M4 like he was born with it.
"Yeah." Wesley motioned to him. "Let's go."
Martin and Wesley headed to the gas station and did their clean and sweep in under a minute. When they came back, Martin called out. "There's a couple of gas cans in here. We can siphon gas from the other vehicles."
"I've never siphoned gas from a car in my life," I muttered.
Heather heard me—she was standing a few feet to my right—and she said, "I have. I can do it."
After filling the tanks in both vehicles thanks to Heather, we did clean and sweeps of both fast food outlets and then the hotel. I found evidence that somebody had occupied the ground floor—the administrative area and kitchen—a day ago, but it was empty now. After moving the weapons and our belongings inside and securing the entrances, we made base on the second level. There was a large conference room we commandeered and it was near
the stairwell that led to the bottom floor. There was a hallway that branched out from it that led to guest rooms and we found one that had been propped open with a piece of luggage. The rest of the doors were locked, and since the power was out at this place they were inaccessible due to the keycard system being kaput. "I'm going to put Emily in this room," Tracy said.
I nodded. "Good thinking." I didn't want Emily in the thick of things, should we face a late night attack.
Once everybody was inside and our supplies were upstairs, we set about getting something to eat. Emily was awake now, feeling a little better, and Tracy fed her some fruit and carrots. The rest of us had a mixture of things; fruit, vegetables, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cold Chef Boyardee spaghetti. And water. Plenty of water.
We also planned out the evening's schedule. Wesley suggested that Tracy and I stay in the one room with our daughter while the rest of them took two-hour shifts on watch patrol and slept in the conference room. I was okay with this and looked at Tracy for some kind of approval or confirmation. She looked uncertain, but nodded. Emily, oblivious to what was being decided, ate her sandwich and played with a doll we'd brought along for her.
The watch schedule was as follows: Martin would go first, followed by Lori, Heather, Wesley, then James and I would take the five to seven a.m. shift. We all agreed to this.
When we were finished eating, Tracy picked up Emily and took her to the room we'd be sleeping in. I told her I'd be in a little later and watched them leave. They left the door propped open so I could get in. Everybody else was hunkering down in the conference room, picking out a spot, laying out blankets and pillows. It was Martin's shift and he was sitting outside the conference room near the stairway. "It might be a good idea to do periodic sweeps of all four corners from this floor," he suggested.
"I agree," Wesley said.
Nobody was really tired yet, so we kind of huddled on the floor near the entrance to the conference room. Lori asked me if Emily was okay and I told her she was fine. Lori had taken a real shine to her and that made me feel good.
We started talking about our current situation.
And the primitives.
"I could tell something wasn't right as early as last week," Wesley said. He was sitting cross-legged in the hall. The only light that came in the building was from a large window that overlooked the stairway. "I remember even as I was at Camp Pendleton and making plans for the conference that things just didn't feel right. And then I started noticing things around me. Like I drove by an all out no-holds-barred street fight four days ago that was happening right on the sidewalk in Seal Beach. The one guy just kept yelling normal stuff, you know, 'Get off me, motherfucker, get the hell off me!' The other guy, he was relentless, like a wild animal, and he was just screaming this gibberish. I didn't think about that incident again until yesterday when everything just collapsed."
I told the group about what I saw in Hollywood, that bizarre homeless person, and as I recounted this my mind flashed back on the picture Wesley drew and—
— the graffiti that dotted the wall—
I stopped, the realization hitting me.
"Did any of you see anything like...well, like those drawings Wesley showed us earlier?" I asked, looking around at the group. "Like drawn on a wall or on the ground or something?"
Martin and Lori shook their heads, as did Heather and James. Only Wesley nodded. "Yeah, you know, now that you mention it I did see something similar in Zuma Beach last week. It was kinda like that...that thing that was on the wall at Edwards...only...well, it was incomplete...it didn't have wings, and it was on a wall along the beach facing the ocean. Didn't really pay attention to it at first."
"I didn't see shit like that," Martin said.
"What day did you see that fight?" I asked Wesley.
He shrugged. "Last Thursday?"
That was the day I saw the weird homeless guy and the wall drawing in Hollywood. I looked around at the others. "Any of you remember anything weird and out of the ordinary from a few days to a week ago?"
James looked perplexed. "I remember walking across the quad after one of my classes and a student came running by making hooting sounds. He sounded like a wild monkey. Ran right by me. Couple of other kids called out to him but he kept going. I figured it was some kind of weird fraternity initiation rite."
Lori suddenly looked ill. "I remember something."
We all turned toward her.
"I was watching the news Saturday, maybe Sunday. There was some story about a killing in Wisconsin, in some big city in the projects. A gang of kids had mauled this other kid, just beat him to death. The reporter said it was the worst thing he'd ever seen. They basically tore this kid apart with their bare hands."
"I remember seeing that, too," Heather said.
Lori continued. "They said it was like these kids turned into animals. Anyway, the camera flashed on the murder scene for like five seconds. And...that thing..." she glanced at Wesley. "...that thing you drew, or something like it, was drawn on an alleyway wall. I only saw it for a few seconds but..."
"What the hell does it mean, though?" I was sitting with my back against the wall.
Wesley was silent as everybody started talking at once, wondering aloud to each other what those strange symbols meant, if there were a connection. I noticed Wesley was wrestling with something, trying to find a way to bring a new topic into the discussion. I think Martin noticed, too, because he nodded at Wesley.
"Remember a few weeks ago when we had those talks with Iran?" Wesley said.
"Yeah, I remember that!" James exclaimed. He shifted into a sitting position on the floor. "That was all over the news for like a week and then suddenly it was gone. It didn't make sense to me."
"Weren't they saying they wanted to nuke us?" Lori asked.
"We confirmed they had nuclear weapons," Wesley said. "Our intelligence found out they were planning to strike Israel, Great Britain, and the US East Coast. That's what was all over the news. We had diplomats trying to appeal to their government and deter things and...well...shit, I might as well tell you what I know, and that ain't much."
"Nobody's around to reprimand you anyway," I reminded him.
Wesley nodded. "Yeah. Anyway..." He looked afraid to tell us, disgusted perhaps, and I wondered if whatever it was had something to do with what happened. "I...we were told that the Iranian threat was going to be dealt with, and it was going to be done in a way that would be under the radar. No big explosions, no massive troops being sent in, no big media sensation. In fact, the only media sensation that was expected and planned for was thought out over a year ago. And the idea was when it happened the American people, if not the world, would rally to help the people of Iran. There would be no finger pointing. It would be seen as a natural disaster, like the tsunami that hit Indonesia and Thailand in late '04. We had the best scientists already on hand to help explain things and they would have the support of other leading scientists, who had no idea what would really happen."
"So what the fuck is it?" I said.
Wesley paused for a moment, then took the plunge. "Human DNA is a very complex thing but it can be manipulated. It can be done with the right chemicals, and it doesn't matter if those chemicals are airborne or whatever...it can be done."
James Goodman seemed to know what Wesley was getting at. "This has something to do with that discovery about the Neanderthal gene, doesn't it?"
Wesley nodded. His voice was a low whisper, tinged with shame. "Yes. It does."
Heather and Martin looked confused. James looked like he'd been sucker-punched. I know how he felt. I think I looked the same way.
"How the hell is that possible?" James exclaimed.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Heather asked, the frustration obvious in her voice.
"Experiments were done on select US prisoners, then terrorist suspects from Guantanamo Bay," Wesley said. "I don't even know what the code name for the project was, but somehow word got out.
It was like an underground rumor within the rank and file, almost like military urban legend and we didn't say anything about it to anyone outside the military. But we talked about it enough among ourselves that there seemed to be some semblance of truth to the rumors."
"What were those rumors?" Martin asked.
"That we'd found a chemical compound that could alter our DNA to activate the Neanderthal strain that's believed to be carried by us. And that this activation would, in essence, flip things so to speak. It would rewire us completely, alter the coding so that millions of years of breeding and refining of our DNA structure would be rolled back and reduced to our most primitive state."
"And why would our lovely government want to do this?" Lori asked. She looked and sounded pissed off.
"You know that saying, 'We're gonna bomb 'em back to the Stone Age'?" Wesley explained. "Somebody in our government took that to heart and authorized that very sentiment when it was learned this DNA structure could be altered. Iran was a threat, North Korea was a threat, Syria was a threat. And China? They weren't an immediate threat but they were building up their military like we've never seen any country do since Germany and Japan prior to World War II. All our enemies making those moves, it was like the years leading up to World War II all over again. It was decided early on that we weren't going to go down that road again, that we would not allow the world to go through another catastrophic war and the stakes were higher this time due to nuclear technology. There was a very likely chance these countries were ready to strike, and with our current troops stretched so thin..." Wesley looked grim. I think we all realized what could have happened in such a scenario. The United States would have been witness to the first enemy invasion by land since the War of 1812, not counting the sneak attacks on Pearl Harbor and Alaska by the Japanese in World War II, and the attack by Al Qaeda on American soil on September 11, 2001. "So...it was decided that if they were bombed back to the Stone Age, so to speak, they would be reverted...they would no longer be a threat. And the phenomenon would be explained by government scientists as...something in the water system or something. The Neanderthal DNA strand would be made public at that time and some form of an explanation would be brought up and—"
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