by B. C. CHASE
She screamed with all the force her lungs could muster.
Then she realized that her head was hanging over the edge of the inscrutable deep of the giant sinkhole. Doctor Katz’s captors were beside hers, also holding him at the edge. The men started to swing them by their hands and feet, like one might do with a child in play. But she could not believe her eyes as she felt them release her. She hurled over the edge and began to fall into the abyss, her stomach turning.
From the corner of her eye, she caught the unnerving sight of Doctor Katz tumbling end over end as she plummeted, the wind whipping her hair and clothes. Before long even the stone walls vanished into the blackness of the deep.
Please let it be over soon, she pleaded.
And then, it was. She was no longer falling. She felt nothing except pain. The wind was gone. She felt almost weightless. Then there was a splash of cool water and she was totally submerged. Instinctively, she held her breath.
A muted-blue light appeared in the distance. Though far, it was growing larger, fast. She felt tremendous forces acting on her body as the water moved her, waves of cold and warm, and pressure. The fast-approaching light turned crimson, then blue, then crimson.
Her blood.
Then she started to see innumerable spots of light which began to take on the shape of a giant spiral. She was being sucked from its center to within its immense coils.
A flash of total white. This was the end.
Paradeisia Under the Earth
Adriaan said, “But he didn’t eat me. He kept the females away. That lion stayed there all night with me and into the next day. I didn’t wake up until I was in the hospital. The rangers shot it when they came, shot it dead. They thought it was feeding on me. When I told them what the lion had done, they couldn’t believe me. It’s a pity the beast was killed for saving me.”
“So why did the lion do that? Why did it save you?” Aubrey asked. The tent floor was hard, and she wished she had a pillow.
“Years before that happened, I had been on a hunt with a different tourist, a tycoon, this one. He was going to shoot a lioness. But I saw her cub, and that cub looked me in the eye and I looked right back. I said, ‘Don’t shoot. She’s got a cub.’ The mother’s life was spared. But the cub knew. He knew that I saved his mum’s life, and, by virtue of that, his. The only thing I can figure is that the lion that saved my life was that cub, grown up. So nobody can tell me that lions don’t have souls. That’s why I got the tattoo, Daniel 6:22: My God has sent his angel, and has shut the lions’ mouths, and they have not hurt me; for I have been found innocent in His sight.”
“You think God saved you?” she said, her voice exposing her incredulity.
“God? Destiny? I don’t know what to call it. But there’s more to life than meets the eye, I can tell you that straight.”
“What happened to the tourist?” she asked.
Adriaan laughed, “He didn’t bring me any flowers when I was laid up in hospital. Never saw the dastard again in my life. And don’t wish to, I might add.”
They were quiet for a bit. Then Aubrey asked, “Do you call every girl ‘love?’”
“Not every girl. Only the ones whose names I forget.”
“Uh-huh.”
Qiōnglín, Taiwan
Stacy’s face was awash with grief as she glanced into Gary’s eyes, then down at her son’s body. She kissed his forehead, then sat back while Gary closed his eyes. He stood and offered a helping hand to his wife.
Chiang-gong was outside beckoning them with frantic waves of his hands. As they rushed to the door, Gary suddenly stopped, remembering the other Jeffery. “Jeff?” he called.
His monkey-son uncertainly emerged, loping on all fours, from a dark corner of the room. “Let’s go.” Jeffery eagerly hopped up Gary’s arm and onto his shoulder.
“No car! We run!” Chiang-gong cried as they reached him. He led the way around the house and into the woods. “I know good hiding spot!” he yelled behind his shoulder.
They ran up a slope into a wooded area with thin undergrowth. A JLTV suddenly roared into view behind them and collided with first the Mini and then Chiang-gong’s little car, sending them as piles of smashed metal up the drive and out of the way. Gray-faced soldiers began to pour out of the vehicle as another JLTV squeaked to a stop beside it. Some of the soldiers rushed into the house.
The slope was quickly becoming a steep, rock-faced peak. They slowed as they struggled to navigate the stones. “Hurry, almost there!” Chiang-gong gasped.
The soldiers who had gone into the house emerged again while others had spotted them and launched a terrifyingly determined pursuit.
Suddenly, Jeffery leaped off of Gary’s shoulder and onto a tree, rapidly ascending and disappearing into the foliage. “Go, Jeffery! Get away!” Stacy encouraged.
“He goes by Jeff now,” Gary panted.
“What?” Stacy huffed.
The first of the soldiers was fast approaching. Chiang-gong was at the top of the hill, and he stood to his full height, an enticingly easy target. The soldier raised its weapon to aim, and Gary shouted, “Chiang-gong!”
Suddenly, the soldier’s face was pelted by a fruit. It wiped its face clean before searching the trees for the source of the missile. Another fruit erupted straight between its eyes.
The soldier fired indiscriminately up into the foliage, and the little monkey squeak echoed from the trees. Gary saw a streak of color as Jeffery leaped from branch to branch in a wild frenzy, chattering, collecting fruits, and throwing them with astonishing speed. The soldiers were overwhelmed by the barrage of produce, frustrated at their inability to shoot the target, and Stacy, Gary and Jia-Ling made it over the top of the hill. On the other side was a very steep rocky gradient to a thickly green valley with dozens of overgrown, dilapidated apartment buildings with cracked concrete and long, black streaks from years of rain runoff.
“What is this place?” Gary breathlessly asked in bewilderment as they rushed down the slope.
Chiang-gong said, “Money problem! People go way!”
“Jeff!” Stacy called back as she ran down the rocks uncontrollably.
Jeffery suddenly landed on Gary’s shoulders as he reached the base of the slope. Chiang-gong led them into the first building through a doorway rimmed by thick leaves. Inside it was damp, with dirt covering the floor, moss growing on the walls, and giant cracks running through the ceiling. They ran through what was clearly the layout of a small-sized apartment until they reached an opening which must have been the front door. Here, the ceiling had collapsed for two floors up revealing a soggy concrete staircase. They had gone up four floors when the concrete suddenly gave way beneath Jia Ling’s foot and the Chihuahua in her backpack screeched as she fell. Her foot became lodged between rebar and chunks of concrete. Stacy quickly stooped to assist her, and within a moment she was free and unharmed, though shaken.
As they continued up, the sounds of boots stomping from below alerted them that the soldiers were in close pursuit. On the sixth floor, an opening led to the roof where splintered wooden beams from a frame was all that was left of what had been an angled roof. From here, they could see rows of the connected buildings as they stepped down the valley toward the distant coast. Lush vegetation grew between the rows and grasses dotted the concrete balconies that jutted out from the structures.
They ran under the frame as fast as they could and reached a small concrete barrier that marked the adjoining building. As they jumped over it and onto the next roof, soldiers emerged from the opening behind them.
“Run!” Gary shouted.
As they came to the next rooftop, they leaped down onto it, and Chiang-gong suddenly stopped and yelled, “Gayee!”
When Gary turned to him, Chiang-gong tossed him the Bible. “Go!” he screamed, then picked up a jagged wooden rod with both hands. Kneeling with the pole braced against a concrete barrier, he aimed up at the concrete block wall of the prior building, and waited for the soldiers.
“YOU GO! YOU GO!” Chiang-gong shouted. For an excruciating moment, they paused, then reluctantly turned to run again.
As the first soldier leaped off the edge, Chiang-gong raised the point of the rod and caught it in the gut. The soldier landed face-down on the concrete, the bloody rod protruding out through his back. The second soldier was also snared unaware and was impaled through the chest. Chiang-gong caught the third in the eye, but its scream alerted the next ones, and they looked down. Seeing what had happened, one of them jumped down, rushed up to Chiang-gong, and drew the rod from the writhing bodies of the others. Then, with incredible strength, he shoved it up into Chiang-gong’s side raising his relatively small frame up in the air like a piece of meat on a skewer. Chiang-gong coughed blood and raised his hands. “Give honor TO GOD!” he screamed with all his remaining might. The soldier swung the rod around to fling Chiang-gong off the side of the building where he hurled down into the trees below.
As Chiang-Gong fell, Gary heard his voice echoing on the edifices, “TO GOD!” There was a crack as his body struck the ground.
They had put two building roofs between themselves and the strangely inhuman soldiers thanks to Chiang-gong’s tactic. But it would certainly only buy them a little time, Gary thought as he ran breathlessly.
Suddenly a music tone came from Jia Ling’s backpack. She ignored it, but it persisted as they ran, until another sound suddenly rushed toward them from above the hill.
It was a helicopter.
Debris from the rooftop blew in all directions as the chopper made a dramatic swing down to lower directly in front of them, blocking their path. The door slid open, and a man in a suit shouted above the noise, “Jia Ling?”
Jia Ling answered, “Xiàozhăng Zhang?”
The man responded.
Two other choppers made an appearance and circled around to hover nearby while Jia Ling animatedly motioned to the soldiers and told the suited man something. Then he replied, and motioned for her to come aboard. Before she complied, she pointed to Gary and Stacy and protested. He hesitated, then nodded approval.
Jia Ling said, “Come on!” to Gary and Stacy, ushering them to the chopper door and waiting until they were safely onboard with Jeff before jumping on herself.
The interior was military, with several grim-looking armed soldiers holding onto braces in the ceiling. As they rose into the air, the other two choppers fired upon the soldiers on the rooftop, easily cutting them down until all lay dormant.
Jia Ling introduced the suited man, “This is the head of the China Academy of Sciences, where I attended university, Xiàozhăng Yue Zhang. He has agreed to take you to China with us.”
“And what are we going to China for?”
Jia Ling said, “I don’t know. All I know is, I have been told I must go, so I will go. They will take you to the mainland. After that, I am sorry, but I don’t know what is to become of you.”
Gary felt Stacy’s hand on his. She looked deeply into his eyes with grief. Slowly, she reached around his neck and hugged him, crying into his chest.
“I’m so sorry I lost him,” Gary’s voice faltered.
Stacy pulled back, then said earnestly, “It was not your fault.” Then she managed a smile at Jeff, “And besides, we have one of our sons!”
Gary gave Jeff a friendly pat. Then he looked out the window at the landscape of green mountains. The chopper swerved away toward a crescent moon that was rising over the ocean horizon.
Paradeisia Angel Plaza
Lady Shrewsbury gripped Henry’s arm, saying, "It’s a ship. With people."
The explosion had ripped a gigantic gash in the lower part of the side of a monstrous, white cruise vessel. The tiny dots of a myriad of people could be seen on the decks.
Gonzales said, “It says “SaiLine Paradise. It was supposed to dock here today but was a noshow—without explanation. We were unable to contact them and the cruise line wouldn’t tell us anything.”
“What can we do to help them?” Henry asked.
“Our marinas are equipped with all kinds of boats, but we don’t have enough pilots to—”
“It appears to me that the passengers could make it to shore under their own steam. It’s close enough,” Lady Shrewsbury interrupted.
Henry said, “I’m going to go get a closer look, and then I’ll come back. Pity I sent our Director of Operations down the shaft at a time like this,” Henry said. “What’s the fastest way for me to get a better look? The camera cranes?”
Gonzales thought for a moment, pointed up to the Paradeisia Angel statue, “Your best view would be from the lookout platform. It has spyglasses.” He said curtly, “No change required.”
“All right. Have the announcer tell everyone to return to their hotel rooms or cruise ship and have Jinkins here for me when I get back.”
There was a chilly wind at the statue’s lookout platform. Henry stared out and saw that the plaza was beginning to empty, though with such a large crowd it was bound to take a while. The ship was now leaning far to the side where the explosion had been, and by looking through a spyglass attached on a swivel to the platform railing, he was able to see the destruction and chaos in greater detail. Black smoke was pouring out of a giant gap in the hull, edged by mangled metal. There was chaos on the decks as people scurried all over the place. Some crew were trying to lower lifeboats. Thousands of bodies were in the water, some moving and others not. Some of the swimmers were nearing the shore. He could hear an occasional groan from the ship’s hull and some distant screams, but otherwise there was silence. He saw a commotion developing between the ship and the shore, as people were being dragged under the water. Then he saw the cause: the fins of sharks were slicing through the surface.
The first of the swimmers was dragging himself up onto the beach, but as he stood and started to run toward the line of trees, he abruptly stumbled and fell. The next swimmers made it, and the same happened to them. Henry was puzzled. It was as if some unseen force was stopping them in their tracks. Then he saw that the unseen reason was quite visible: soldiers on the beach were aiming their weapons directly at the survivors. The soldiers were mowing the poor souls down as they helplessly tried to clamber on shore.
He pulled back from the spyglass, shocked. What was going on?
Helicopters were approaching the scene from all directions, shining spotlights down onto the surface of the sea.
Suddenly Henry’s cell rang. He drew it from his breast pocket, “This is Potter.”
“Harry,” it was Gonzales’s tense voice. “You’ve got to come back down here right now.”
Concerned by the tone, he said, “Marco?”
“Right now, Sir. Come right now.”
There was a group of tall soldiers with black eyes, armed, and wearing strange skin-tight armored plates that changed patterns and colors to match their surroundings. They stood in a row near Lady Shrewsbury and Gonzales. In front of them, with their backs to Henry, was a suited man and an entourage of other well-dressed individuals. When Henry came near, the suited man turned around and Henry recognized him at once.
He was the Vice President of the United States, Bob Babel.
Bob held out a hand, not smiling, “Mr. Potter, you have nothing to worry about. The United States government will be assuming control of this island.”
Henry shook hands and said, “What is going on? Why are soldiers shooting the people coming off that ship?”
The vice president nodded, “Very unfortunate, but necessary. Have you heard about a virus in Towson and a quarantine?”
Henry said, “Only a little. A new virus seems to show up every day.”
“Yes, well this one is different. What I am about to tell you is strictly classified information, but I am telling you because I believe you have a need to know. The truth is, the CDC has met its match. We have been unable to contain the virus. It is extremely dangerous, very deadly, and there is some evidence that it is of ar
tificial origin.
“Several days ago, someone carrying the virus boarded that ship in Baltimore and the entire compliment was infected. Thousands have died on board, so much so that they have been throwing the bodies into the sea. If only one person from that ship makes it onto this island, sixty-five percent of the people here will die.”
“It can’t be true,” Lady Shrewsbury said, covering her mouth. “I haven’t heard of a virus run amok. I mean what is going on in Baltimore if it is that bad on the ship?”
“The truth has been kept under wraps fairly effectively so far, but soon all hell is going to break loose. We will be quarantining Baltimore and then I am afraid it will be impossible to prevent the spread of panic.”
Henry said, “What do we do?”
“We cannot ignore even the slight possibility that the island has been contaminated. No one leaves until the CDC authorizes. There are so many people here from all over the world … it would spread like wildfire.”
“How long will it take to know if we’re clear?”
“That will be a question for the CDC. For now, let’s just say indefinitely.”
“All right. I understand that,” Henry said. “But what I don’t understand is why the vice president of the United States wouldn’t be as far away from here as possible, given the risks. Tell me the truth. Why are you here? It’s not because of the ship or the virus, I presume.”
Babel smiled, patted Henry’s arm, “Word to the wise. I’m the one who asks the questions.” He dropped in a profane expletive as he said, “But I have to give you credit: you’re not a total idiot. I like that.” His smile then vanished as he said, “But yes. I will explain.” He pointed to Henry, Lady Shrewsbury, and Gonzales, “You, you, and you come with me. We have to talk.”
They followed the vice president and his entourage toward a large, army green helicopter with rotating blades that was parked beside the Paradeisia Angel. The VP’s suit jacket and tie caught the swirling wind as they approached. The sound was loud, and the vice president shouted, “After you!”