MESSAGE 634X179
Dual access? She opened the log and rooted around for a moment.
“Oh, great,” she said to herself.
She grabbed the phone.
“It’s me,” she said, after Chloe answered her call. “I’ve traced the car to a house about seventeen miles from your current position.”
“In the mountains or below?”
“Mountains. Hold on.” Christina accessed the texting function, typed in the GPS code, and hit SEND. “You should have the coordinates now.”
There was a pause. “This is where he is?”
“It’s where he went last night. I haven’t followed the images forward enough yet, but thought you should get going.”
“Might be better if we wait until—”
“Chloe, someone else just accessed the same satellite data. Project Eden’s hunting for him, too.”
ROCKY MOUNTAINS, COLORADO
“CALL ME AS soon as you can confirm.” Chloe hung up the phone without waiting for Christina to reply.
“Did she find him?” Josie asked.
Chloe tossed the phone to her. “I just got a text. Copy the number and enter it into the cell’s map function. It’s GPS coordinates.”
“For where Brandon is?”
“Was, at least.” Chloe shifted the car into Drive and returned to the highway. “So, which way?”
“Left,” Josie said.
They sped through the valley and up the other side.
When they reached the intersection that had earlier aided in their escape, Josie said, “Left.”
Not long after they made the turn, Chloe’s phone rang again.
“It’s the Ranch. You want me to answer it?” Josie asked.
“Put it on speaker.”
It was Christina.
“I was able to trace the rest of the satellite history,” she said. “As of two minutes ago, the Suburban is still parked in front of the house.”
“Finally some good news,” Chloe said. “We should be there in fifteen minutes, tops.”
“You won’t be the first.”
“Wait a minute. What?” Josie said. “What do you mean?”
“Where are they?” Chloe asked.
“On the road about three miles in front of you.”
“The truck or the sedan?”
“Both.”
“The Project Eden people?” Josie said. “They know where Brandon is, too?”
“Is there a back way?” Chloe asked Christina. “A back road that’ll give us the chance to get ahead of them?”
“There’s only the one route,” Christina said.
Chloe tensed. One way or the other, they would have to deal with these assholes head on.
“We’ll try to take them out on the road before they can get to the house,” she said.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Christina said. “I might have a better idea.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“I need to check something first. For now, try to get as close to them as you can without letting them know you’re there. I’ll call you back in a minute.”
“Hold on,” Chloe said. “What’s the idea?”
The line was already dead.
__________
FOR THE FIRST few hours after they had broken into the house, Brandon had been unable to sleep. When he finally did, he was greeted with nightmares of chases and monsters and death.
It was a shake of his arm that woke him.
He opened his eyes to find daylight streaming into the house. By the angle, he guessed it was at least midmorning.
Ellie was sitting on the floor next to him, clutching her bear to her chest.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“Everyone’s asleep,” she told him.
“Well, you should be, too.”
“I can’t. I’m…I’m scared.”
He sat up. “You don’t have to be scared now. No one here’s going to hurt you.” When her expression didn’t change, he said, “Come here.”
He opened his arms and she crawled onto his lap. Remembering how he’d loved to be rocked by his mom whenever he felt scared, he gently moved side to side, hoping it would help the girl. After a minute or so, he could feel her relax.
“How about something to drink?” he asked.
It took a few seconds, but finally she bobbed her head up and down.
“All right. Hop up.”
He tickled her ribs. She didn’t laugh, but she did squirm in protest as she rose to her feet.
Spread around them were Miss Collins and the other children. No one had wanted to be separated, so despite the fact that there were three bedrooms, they had all slept in the living room.
Brandon led Ellie around the others and into the kitchen. He located a glass and filled it with water.
After she took a drink, she said, “Breakfast?”
“Breakfast? Don’t tell me you’re hungry,” he teased.
She looked at him with sad eyes and nodded.
“I’m just kidding,” he said, tousling her hair. “Let me see what I can find.”
He opened the refrigerator, totally forgetting that he had checked it the night before, and quickly shut it again. Still empty. The pantry, though, was half filled with canned goods and boxes of crackers and cereal and the like. He found some Ritz crackers and an unopened jar of peanut butter, from which he made half a dozen tiny sandwiches and put them on a plate for them to share.
“This isn’t breakfast,” Ellie said.
“Oh, well, then I’ll eat it all myself.”
He pretended to pull the plate away.
“No, no,” she said, grabbing his arm.
“So you do think this is okay for breakfast?”
She thought for a moment, then nodded.
The dozen miniature sandwiches disappeared in a hurry, so he made another set.
He had just popped one into his mouth when something rang, loud and close. Startled, he jumped and nearly choked on the cracker.
When it rang again, he realized it was coming from the cordless phone, sitting on the counter next to the refrigerator. From the living room, he could hear people stirring.
“What is that?” Miss Collins asked.
Brandon was about to answer her, when behind him Ellie said, “Hello?”
He whipped back around. The little girl had the phone to her ear.
“I’m Ellie,” she said, and listened for a moment. “Uh-huh. Yeah. You want to talk to him? Okay.” She held out the phone. “For you, Brandon.”
“Me?” he said.
She nodded.
He assumed the person on the other end was asking for someone older than Ellie. He took the phone and raised it to his ear. “Hello?”
“Brandon? Is that you?”
“Who is this?”
“Christina. From the Ranch. God, I wasn’t even sure the phone would work there.”
“Chr-Chr-Christina?” He could hardly allow himself to believe it.
“Yes. You need to listen to me. There’s—”
“Where are you?” he asked.
“At the Ranch.”
“You’re alive?”
“Yes.” She sounded confused at first, then she said, “Oh, God. You don’t know. We’re fine. We survived.”
“My sister?”
A slight hesitation. “Your family’s fine.”
“You mean Dad, too? You’ve heard from him?”
“He’s here.”
“Please, let me talk to him!”
Miss Collins stepped into the kitchen, her brow furrowed. “Brandon, who is it?”
He looked at her. “A friend of mine.” To Christina, he said, “I just want to talk to him.”
“He’s…not in the room with me, but he’s anxious to see you.”
“Well, have someone go get him.”
“There’s no time. Brandon, some bad people are on the way to the house you’re in. How many others are there with you?”
“
Um, eleven.”
“Eleven?” she sounded surprised. “Okay. Well, you need to get them out of there right now.”
“Where are we supposed to go?”
“Take them into the woods. Find someplace to hide.”
“Wait. On foot? We have a car.”
“I know. A Suburban, but the people coming for you can track it. If you can go out the back of the house, that would be best. The woods come right up to it, and if you stay under the trees at all times, you’ll be safe.”
“They’re Project Eden, aren’t they?”
A pause. “Yes.”
Brandon could feel his skin grow cold in fear. “If we go into the woods, they’ll just come after us, won’t they? We should at least try the car.”
“No. Chloe is only a few minutes behind them.”
Chloe? “By herself?”
“No.”
His heart rate started to decrease. He trusted Chloe. If she was coming, they had a chance. “Okay. We’ll go into the woods.”
“Get them moving right away. The sooner you’re out of there, the better chance you’ll have.”
“I understand.”
He hung up the phone.
“What was that all about?” Miss Collins said.
He knew she was going to be the hardest to convince. He was only a kid, after all. Then again, he had proven himself already, so…
“You trust me, right, Miss Collins?”
“Trust you? Um, sure. But what’s that have to do with—”
“There are some bad people on their way here.”
“What bad people?”
“People who want to hurt us!”
She looked skeptical. “Brandon, relax. Now, who was that on the phone?”
He huffed. “We don’t have time for that. We need to get everyone out of the house now. Please trust me on this.”
“It’s cold outside. Everyone’s tired. We’re safe here.”
“We are not safe! These people have already killed friends of mine! They…they killed my mom!”
“Your mom?”
Project Eden had actually killed friends and family of everyone, but he knew saying that would complicate matters. “Miss Collins, I was right about last night, and I’m right about this. If you want to stay, you can, but I hope you don’t.” He raced into the living room, intending to wake everyone up, but they were all sitting up and staring at him, scared.
“Is that true?” Loni asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Everyone up! Put on your jackets and shoes. Right now. Hurry!”
Loni immediately jumped up. The others hesitated a second before joining her.
“Hold on,” Miss Collins said. “I think we first need to take a minute and figure out what’s going on here.”
A couple of the kids stopped what they were doing, while the rest continued getting ready.
“We don’t have a minute,” Brandon said. “Even if I’m wrong or…or lying, it’s not going to hurt us to go out for a little bit, right?” He could see she still wasn’t buying it. He thought for a moment. “I saved you last night. You owe me for that.”
“Brandon—”
“Just do this for me and we’re even.” He stared at her, and added, “Please!”
Not looking happy, she said, “Fine, we’ll leave, but when someone starts feeling cold, we’re coming back in.”
“Okay, okay. No problem.”
When everyone was ready and gathered at the back door, Brandon said, “Miss Collins, I’ll be in front. Can you be in back?”
Still looking uncertain, she said, “Sure.”
“Loni, Vincent, and Carter, you three spread out between us and make sure the little kids don’t wander off.”
“Okay,” Loni said. The other two nodded.
“All right. This is really important. Everyone keep quiet, okay?”
“I need to potty,” one of the younger kids said.
“Can you hold it?”
“For a little.”
Brandon gave him a smile. “Good. The faster we get out of here, the sooner you can go. I promise.”
“Okay.”
“All right, everybody. Follow me.”
He led them single file out the door and into the forest.
Less than two minutes later, as they were climbing a small rise behind the cabin, Brandon heard the unmistakable sound of a car engine in the distance. He caught Miss Collins’s gaze, and saw from the surprise on her face that she’d heard it, too.
29
ISABELLA ISLAND
11:07 AM CST
THE ANSWER TO Dominic’s problem was right in front of him. Perhaps if he’d been feeling better, he would have seen it sooner. As it was, it took him nearly thirty minutes to realize what he’d been staring at was a way to prevent him from exposing the others to his disease-ridden body.
He’d been sitting on the beach, looking out at the ocean. With each passing minute, the water pulled farther and farther back from the island.
The tide was moving out.
He’d been on the island long enough to know low tide was still a few hours off. Though he had dismissed swimming out as an option before, he hadn’t taken into consideration an assist from the receding ocean. The tide could do a lot of the work for him, and he could then use what energy he saved to swim out into the current that swept past the island toward the mainland.
As he stared at the water, wondering if he could really do it, he coughed, deep and violent. Phlegm flew out of his mouth and landed on the beach. It was a blood-speckled, sickly yellow blob. He covered it with dirt and rose to his feet. The longer he waited, the less chance he had at succeeding.
The water was warm on his bare feet. He was tempted to leave behind the shirt and shorts he was wearing, but he knew the virus could very well be clinging to their fibers.
He looked back. His shoes were sitting near the supplies he’d been given. He should take those.
The supplies, too, he thought. Everything could be tainted.
But there was no way he could haul it all out with him. Perhaps he should write a message in the sand, warning people to stay away.
Robert will figure it out, he told himself, as he stepped farther into the surf.
__________
AFTER DELIVERING DOMINIC’S breakfast, Robert returned to the hotel to find a small group gathered in the bar, discussing the possibility of returning to the mainland.
When he realized what was going on, he said, “Do you not get it? Did you not see what’s been going on everywhere else?”
He looked at the TV. Though the news channels had gone off the air, one of the movie channels was still broadcasting as if nothing was wrong. Its current selection: an old black and white gangster film.
“It can’t be everywhere,” one of the men at the table said.
“Maybe not, but it’s in Costa Rica. Where else are you going to go?” Robert asked.
The man shared a look with the others. “We thought we’d head north. For Texas.”
Robert stared at him. “And how exactly are you going to get there?”
“One of the boats.”
“First off, due north is Cuba, not Texas. And even if you did take a boat, which is not going to happen, there’s not enough gas on the island to even get you as far north as the Nicaraguan border, let alone all the way to the US.”
This last fact seemed to throw a wrench into the group’s plans. They grumbled for a few more minutes, then scattered, no doubt hoping to come up with an alternative idea.
Robert found Renee in the office, and they went over the inventory list.
“So this gives us, what? A month before we run out of food?”
“Maybe six weeks if we don’t do anything else,” she said. “But once we start fishing, we should be fine.”
He nodded. The sea would become their main food supplier if they were going to be on the island for an extended period of time. He and Dominic had discussed using the scuba boats to fish beyond the i
sland, but had agreed it would be a good idea to wait until everyone settled in and got used to the idea they weren’t on vacation anymore.
“We’ll start up in a few days,” he told her. “Do we know if there’s anyone who can—”
“Come in, base,” a scratchy voice over the radio speaker said.
Robert snatched up the mic. “This is base. Who’s this?”
“Chuck Tyler.”
“Go ahead, Chuck.”
“Um, I think there’s someone in the water.”
Robert and Renee shared a puzzled look. “A body?”
“No, swimming. Away from the island.” A pause. “I think it might be Dominic,” Tyler said.
“Dominic?”
“Looks like whoever it is came straight out from his beach.”
Robert was sure Tyler had his geography wrong, and was about to say so when he remembered something from his visit with Dominic that morning.
His friend nowhere to be seen. Robert calling him, his panic growing. Then Dominic stepping out from behind a rock and telling him to relax, that he was just relieving himself.
Was that really what he’d been doing? He could have answered Robert even if he was in the middle of taking a piss. And why had Dominic stayed by the rocks while they’d talked? On other occasions, he’d always come a lot closer so conversation could be easier. And he had looked tired that morning. Robert had assumed that was from worry over his ordeal, but could it have been something else?
“Oh, my God,” he said.
He grabbed a spare walkie-talkie and raced out of the office.
“Where are you going?” Renee called after him.
Not answering, he ran through the bar and down the path to the bay. The two speedboats rocked calmly in the water next to the dock. He untied the lines mooring the nearest one and jumped on board. The engine rumbled to life on the first try, and instead of easing the boat away from the pier like everyone was supposed to do, he gave it all he could, and the boat shot away from shore like a rocket.
Dominic’s Beach was on the opposite side of the island from the bay. So even going all out, it took Robert fifteen minutes to get there. As the beach came into view, he raised the walkie-talkie to his mouth.
“Come in, Chuck.”
“This is Chuck.”
“Give me an update.”
“That you in the boat?”
Ashes (A Project Eden Thriller) Page 22