by Tim Moon
“I’m not trying to make anything difficult, I just don’t understand.” Ben held his hands out in confusion.
“My stuff is already moved out,” she said.
“Jesus, Kristin. You’re leaving, just like that?” He couldn’t believe this. “I thought we were happy.”
“I thought so too, but this isn’t the life I want. I want to do things, see places. I can’t be tied down. It feels claustrophobic. It’s not right for me to keep you tied down either.” She gulped her drink, quickly downing half the pint.
“You don’t feel like you can do things and see places now? I wouldn’t stop you,” Ben said, starting to get annoyed.
“I don’t want to be with you anymore, Ben. Why can’t you just accept that?” Her glass slammed the table, the beer threatening to slosh out.
“Because it sounds like bullshit to me. What’s the real reason?”
Kristin gave Ben a sharp look. She bored right into his eyes. He cocked his eyebrow at her. He wasn’t backing down, he deserved a real answer.
After a brief stare down, she looked away and stood up.
“I can’t have a family holding me back,” she said, glaring at him briefly before walking away.
Now Ben was confused. He turned in the bench and looked at her. “Family?”
She paused at the top of the stairs with her hand on the cold metal railing, staring at her feet. The she turned and looked at Ben.
“I was pregnant,” Kristin said. She blinked back tears. With a flip of her hair, she sniffed once. “Goodbye.”
Ben stared at her as she disappeared. His mind tumbled down the stairs after her, trying to catch up with what she’d said.
A small part of him wanted to chase after her. But he was still numbed by what she just revealed, and Ben knew deep down that an irreparable chasm had opened between them.
His stomach clenched and his breath caught in his throat.
Her words replayed on a loop in his head.
“I was pregnant. Goodbye.”
Chapter Twenty
October 10, 2015
Kailua-Kona
0814 Hours
BEN PUSHED THE gas pedal as close to the floor as he dared, racing north on the highway toward the Waikoloa Beach Resort and Spa.
Ty and Anuhea sat in the back with Eric, the guy from the Harley shop. Eric held one of Ben’s spare t-shirts to the wound on his neck. He looked a little pale but insisted he’d be okay. The kid sat in Charlotte’s lap in the passenger seat.
“What’s your name, kid?” Ben asked as he watched the road for cyclists.
The boy wiped his face and glanced up at Charlotte before facing Ben.
“Oliver,” he said softly.
“Nice to meet you, Oliver. I’m Ben. That’s Charlotte. Ty and Anuhea are in the back seat with Eric.”
He leaned forward a little, peering into the backseat then ducked back into Charlotte’s arms.
“Do you know your parents’ phone number? I’d like to tell them that you’re safe,” Ben said, keeping his eyes on the road.
“They’re gone,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Charlotte asked.
Ben got the feeling everyone was listening intently to hear what Oliver would say.
“My dad left a long time ago. He was a soldier and Mom said he died fighting for us,” Oliver said.
“Oh,” Ben said. “He sounds like a good man. I’m sorry he…left. What about your mom?”
“We were watching the race for Uncle Joe. Mom got in a fight with one of the scary people. She got hurt real bad,” Oliver said with a thick voice. “She told me to run and hide, but I couldn’t leave. The bad people took her. I couldn’t help, and now she’s gone too.”
Charlotte hugged him and rested her cheek on his head. Anuhea reached forward and patted his knee.
“Oliver, it’s not your fault, buddy. You’re safe now, that’s what your mom wanted,” Ben said before his throat constricted completely at the pain in Oliver’s face. His eyes prickled and filled with tears. But Ben held them back, turning away from Oliver’s sad little face and focusing instead on the road.
The steering wheel felt hot beneath his hands. Glancing down, Ben noticed that his knuckles were white. He wondered if it was fear of those creatures, whatever they were, or the pain that had hit him when he realized the kid sitting less than an arm’s reach away was now an orphan.
What the hell was I thinking?
Ben wasn’t a parent. He had no idea what to do with Oliver, and now here he was responsible for Oliver’s life.
Ben carefully flexed one hand at a time to relieve the cramps. He took a few deep breaths to ease the tension building in his chest.
Coming around a bend, Ben saw a group of cyclists still thinking there was a race to win, who continued to mash their pedals. Annoyed and incredulous looks contorted their faces as the car whipped past them.
“What was that back there?” Ty asked loudly.
“Hell on Earth,” said Eric, softly.
“Those poor people,” Charlotte murmured, hugging Oliver.
Ty and Anuhea held each other in the backseat. In the rear view mirror, Anuhea looked like she was in shock. A blank look filled her eyes as she stared out the window.
“I don’t know, man. That was crazy,” Ben said, as he swerved to go around another group of cyclists. “It was too much like what happened at The Brewing Company and on the airplane. It all has to be connected, this is definitely not some bullshit disease.”
Ben couldn’t help thinking about how clueless the riders they passed were. They had no idea what was happening back there in town. Ben slowed down as they neared the next group of riders.
“What are you doing?” Ty said frantically.
“These people have no idea what happened. Shouldn’t we warn them in case the crea- those things are still…you know,” Ben said, unable to vocalize what he’d seen. His mind still reeled at the massive attack. Not to mention his own actions in the futile attempt to save Grace.
What’s happening to me?
Ty grabbed Ben’s shoulder, and he focused back on the situation.
“What good will it do, Ben? They won’t believe you. Or worse, they will, and they’ll turn around to go back. They’ll go back and die.”
“Yeah, I don’t see how that’s going to help anyone,” Charlotte added.
“So just leave them to die eventually anyway without knowing anything? No way,” Ben said firmly.
Anuhea leaned forward. “They have a right to know. What they do after that is their problem. Wouldn’t you want to know?”
Ben caught her eye in the mirror and nodded his thanks. He glanced at Eric, but he just stared out the window.
Ben jabbed the switch for the passenger window and pulled up level with the riders. They looked over.
“What are you doing? Get off the road, asshole,” a man wearing a bright blue jersey said angrily.
Ben shouted to make sure they could hear him above the road noise. “I just wanted to warn you that there was an attack back in Kona. A lot of people got hurt.”
“What do you mean? A terrorist attack, like Boston?” said the guy closest to the car. He wore a pristine white jersey with logos printed all over it. He had a sharp look about him and Ben imagined him as a lawyer or some other corporate suit in his real life.
“Not terrorists, I don’t think. But it’s bad. A lot of people are dead or injured. Don’t go back.”
“Seriously?” Blue Jersey said.
“Yeah, cops were shooting and everything. It was nuts.”
“My family is back there,” Blue Jersey said with a curse.
He slowed his bike down.
“No, don’t go back,” Ben yelled at him.
In his rear view mirror, Ben could see Blue Jersey turning around and speeding back the other way. Ty’s head whipped around and watched the man pedal away.
“See! Now he’s going back. He’s going to die, man,” Ty said, exasperated.
>
Oliver looked scared, and Charlotte cradled him close.
Ben shot Ty a sharp look in the rear view. He looked away.
I just told the guy not to go back. But really, who was I to them? No one. Of course he would go back to help his family, Ben thought.
Tension crept back into his chest, and his face burned with anger. It was maddening to feel so helpless. Sure, Blue Jersey’s family could be safe. But it was more likely that his family had been a buffet for those people and he was riding back to be dessert.
No, Ben decided he couldn’t call them people. People do not act like that. People, humans, do not mindlessly attack and eat other people. These were monsters.
Ben conceded that maybe Ty was right. What could he do? He could warn people, sure. But what good would it do? It wouldn’t protect them. Ben slammed his fist on the steering wheel.
“Be careful,” Ben shouted at guy in the white jersey before speeding up and flying down the highway.
Wind whipped through the open window, slowly eroding his anger.
Chapter Twenty-One
October 10, 2015
Waikoloa Beach Resort and Spa
0834 Hours
FROM THE LOOK of it, everything was normal around the hotel. Too normal. It clashed with the chilling event they’d just experienced.
Ben wanted to scream at all the people going about their normal days. He sped down the road, ignoring the 15 mph signs. Shoppers walking around shot them dirty looks. He didn’t care. Dirty looks were not going to rip chunks of flesh from his body.
“What are we going to do?” Anuhea said, breaking the silence.
“We’re going to the hotel to try to get a sense of what the hell is going on,” Ben said, more sharply than he intended.
“Okay.” Her voice was calm, patient. She held Ben’s gaze for a moment in the mirror, and he immediately regretted being so harsh. They were all scared. No one knew what was going on and they’d all seen horrific things.
“Sorry,” Ben muttered .
Nobody else said anything as he pulled into the hotel parking lot. Feeling paranoid, they all rushed inside as quickly as they could. The group entered through the side door and ran down the hall. Their feet pounded up the stairs, until Ben realized they should probably take the elevator since their room was on the sixth floor.
As soon as they arrived, they piled into the room, breathing heavily, and Ben bolted the door shut behind them. Ty handed him the Do Not Disturb sign. Ben snorted but added it to the handle outside anyway and re-secured the door – deadbolt and privacy lock.
Ben checked the hallway through the peephole just to get an idea of the view. A decent chunk of the hallway was visible. All clear.
Charlotte sat down on Ben’s bed. Oliver walked over to the window. Anuhea flipped on the TV and sat down next to Charlotte. Ty sat on his bed and draped an arm over his face, and Eric asked to use the bathroom.
“Of course, man. When you’re done we should clean out your wound and put on a real bandage. Charlotte’s a nurse, so you’ll be in good hands,” Ben said to Eric, patting his shoulder.
His eyes glistened as he turned to Ben. “Thank you. For everything.”
Ben nodded and went over to join the others watching the news.
When the screen came on, it was on the sports channel. Reruns of football highlights played in place of the triathlon. A ticker along the bottom of the screen said live broadcasting of the triathlon was canceled. It didn’t say why. Nothing was mentioned about an incident or terrorist attack. They hadn’t even lied about there being a technical difficulty.
“If you want to find carrion, you have to ask vultures,” Charlotte said as she switched to a 24-hour news channel.
What they saw on the news shocked everyone.
“What a nightmare,” said Ty.
The attack was far worse than Ben had imagined. A large graphic in the corner said “Killers in Kona” while they showed footage shot from the air. Then he remembered the helicopters hovering overhead with their cameras. Of course they would have captured as much of the carnage as possible, tragedy sells.
One particular clip showed the crowd suddenly scattering, people running everywhere. People fell over each other, cyclists crashed. Swimmers, still in the transition area, were getting bowled over in the panic as they attempted to change into their cycling gear.
The newscast cut to another clip, this one with the camera zoomed in. A police officer was backed up against a wall, shooting at the monsters that surrounded him. The creatures’ bodies jumped with each shot, but they kept advancing.
“How can they show this on TV?” Anuhea asked no one in particular.
Then, one of the monsters latched on to the officer’s arm. The video cut to a zoomed out view. They could see the officer beating the monster in the face with his pistol. But in that moment, while he was distracted by the one monster, it was over and the rest of the monsters swarmed him.
The camera cut to newscasters who were having a tough time providing information to match the footage, since even they didn’t have a clue. No one knew what had caused the attack. After a few awkward minutes, the channel switched back to the footage.
With the camera zoomed out and panning all of downtown Kona, the extent of the attack became more obvious. Bodies littered the streets and were scattered on the sidewalks. Lights from police cars and government vehicles flashed. Several buildings burned. The flames consumed the structures like the monsters consumed their victims.
Ben thought he saw a body on the sidewalk stand up but the camera moved on too quickly to be sure.
One thing caught Ben’s attention. All this footage and commentary was about Kona specifically. There was no indication that this was happening on the rest of the island. So, the group might be safe in Waikoloa. Maybe the police could regroup and get a handle on the “Killers in Kona” now that the bulk of the crowd had dispersed.
They’d already seen for themselves that the Waikoloa Shores area was clear. People were wandering around the shopping center without a care in the world.
Ben hopped up and ran to the window, kneeling down next to Oliver.
Everyone jumped.
“What?” Ty said anxiously.
“What are you looking at?” Anuhea asked as she joined Ben and Oliver at the window.
Looking out of the window, Anaehoomalu Bay looked as much like paradise as it did any other day. Families sat on the beach while their kids played in the sand. A small group was paddle boarding, their boards bobbing as the swells rolled past them. Closer to the hotel, people lounged by the pool, sipping drinks. An older couple sat next to each other on a bench reading books. Nothing was amiss.
“No one here knows what is happening,” Ben said, softly.
“Yeah, what’s your point?” Anuhea gazed at him curiously.
“Well, the attack might just be in Kona. If it’s just in Kona then those people, those monsters, can be contained. You guys saw how much security there was, right?”
“Sure, but we also saw those cops that ran past us get torn to shreds,” Ty said.
“But everyone was surprised. It was all panic and mayhem. They will regroup, organize, and come up with a response plan to deal with the attackers.”
“So what are you saying?” Charlotte asked.
“Well, I think we just have to wait it out until it’s safe.” Ben turned from the window and looked at everyone to gauge their responses.
“Pssh, no argument here. I’m not going out there,” Ty said. Then he turned to the girls. “You two okay staying with us until Kona clears up?”
“We have a choice?” Anuhea said with a sad smile.
Fair point. There was no way they’d be going back to Kona, where Anuhea lived, anytime soon.
The girls looked at each other for a moment and seemed to come to a silent agreement. They both nodded.
“Yeah, we’ll stay here,” said Charlotte.
“Okay, good. Well, we should probably contact o
ur families. Let everyone know we’re safe,” Ben said. “If my mom sees the news before she hears from me, she’s going to flip out.”
“Do you have family here?” Ben asked Anuhea.
She shook her head and looked at the floor.
Ben turned to Ty for a clue, but he seemed just as clueless. Charlotte shot him a look and he nodded – message received. That was clearly not a subject to bring up right now.
“You guys use the phone first. I’ll check on Eric and see if he’s ready to get a bandage for his neck,” Ben said.
Oliver still stood by the window, quietly staring out at the bay.
Chapter Twenty-Two
October 11, 2015
Waikoloa Beach Resort and Spa
0732 Hours
LIGHT BLAZED THROUGH Ben’s eyelids, coaxing him awake. He tried rolling to the side to avoid the light, but that didn’t work so well.
Sleep hadn’t come easy. Between the tragedy of the triathlon, concern for an injured man they barely knew, his inability to reach his mom on the phone, and the weight of the responsibility of caring for Oliver, it had been a restless night. He wished it had all been just a horrible nightmare.
Ben’s eye cracked open, and he had to shield it from the sun with his hand. He saw that the curtains were parted slightly, letting in a flood of light right where he slept on the floor. His back was furious at him, but such was the price of growing up.
To be polite, Ben had given up his bed to Charlotte and Anuhea. Ty was in his own bed. Oliver had curled up in the corner of the sofa like a cat.
For a moment, Ben wondered where Eric was. Then he remembered that he’d gone to sleep in bathroom in case he got sick. Apparently, Eric had felt nauseated late last night and didn’t want to vomit in the room.
Ben eased himself up slowly and leaned back against the foot of his bed. Carefully, he began to go through some easy stretches for his back and legs.
From their light breathing, Ben could tell everyone else was still sleeping. The clock said 7:32 AM, and after the day they’d had yesterday, he doubted anyone else would wake up soon.