by Susan Lowry
“Lucy’s in trouble. We have to find her!” he shouted, panting.
Jack rushed out from the bedroom, zipping his shorts. “What is wrong, son?”
“I don’t know… she’s just afraid!” His voice was even higher than usual. He grabbed Kate’s hand and tugged her toward the door.
“What on earth?!!” Kate gasped, while Jack slipped his shirt over his head and followed them outside.
“We’ll take Chris’ car,” he said,” and the three dashed over to the Lexus.
Just as all doors were shut and Jack had turned the ignition, Kate noticed Chris pacing toward the car. Jack opened the window. “What would make Lucy take Ben in the Chevy? Travis says she’s in some kind of trouble,” he said.
Chris scrunched his brows. “I have no idea, but I’ll follow you,” he said, heading for his Hummer.
Sarah, appearing seconds later, had obviously overheard. “I’ll tell Rose, but, be careful though, okay?” Kate saw her sister’s look of worry as Jack pulled away and sped toward the road.
***
The vehicle bounced over the ruts and careened around the bends towards the highway. Travis could see the anguish in Kate’s eyes as she turned toward him. “Are they okay, Travis?”
But he just didn’t know. All he was getting from Lucy were surges of blinding panic. “I’m not sure; I told you, she needs us to find her!”
He put his head in his hands. Kate and Jack should get a handle on their own telepathy so they didn’t have to depend on him. In such an altered and unpredictable world they simply needed to do better than this.
Beyond the realm of Moonstone the corpses were innumerable; and every one of them was a terrifying reminder to Travis of whatever it was that had caused the plague. They were all unrelenting proof of something so incomprehensible that the boy hated to leave the grounds.
But even the resort was not completely safe and only he seemed aware it. After the bodies had been hauled away from their supposed sanctuary, a few of the dead had remained. They were the angry ones in life whose rage had twisted into a malevolence that death could not kill. That part of them lingered as malicious manifestations of evil and Travis still struggled to understand why he’d become their target.
It was the night Lucy first stayed at the lake when he’d seen that monster in the thunderstorm that seemed to have given the demons their power. Since then, the days that he’d been able to avoid them, were increasingly rare. From the corner of his eye, he was sure he could see them in the shadows.
Kate was fraught with worry. He could see how bad it was, though she was attempting to maintain her composure. Of course, she couldn’t bear to have anything happen to her Ben. “Well, can you calm her down somehow Travis, so we can find out what’s happening?”
“I’m doing my best!” But he was failing.
“We’re trying too Travis,” Kate insisted. “Why aren’t we getting anything from her?”
It took him a moment to think of the answer but then he knew. “She’s not focused on you. She’s used to me saving her, that’s why.” It wasn’t their fault.
“How far is she?” Jack snapped edgily, though he hadn’t meant to.
Travis felt the engine accelerate, watching the lake shrink in the distance as the highway curved away from the western shore. His head buzzed with Lucy’s terror. An outlying of trees finally blocked all sight of Moonstone and he gazed through the rear window, discovering the astronaut staring down at him from his yellow hummer.
For a while no-one spoke. Lucy’s overwhelming anxiety grew even stronger in his mind as Travis gazed at the service center up ahead.
“Stop! She’s in there!”
He was pitched forward and then against the door as Jack suddenly braked and swung into the large lot, tires screeching.
“There!” Travis shouted, pointing past the looping entranceway where she was parked to the side of a building beneath a grouping of well-established trees.
Kate opened her door before Jack had completely stopped and as soon as they could, the three of them jumped out. The astronaut was right behind them.
Lucy lifted her head from the steering wheel of the silver Chevy and peered through the open window. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m so sorry.”
“Ben!” Kate flung open the back door.
“He’s okay; he’s just sleeping,” Lucy assured weakly.
“What on earth is going on Lucy?!” Kate cried as she unlatched Ben’s safety strap and pulled him from his seat.
“Your car cut out on me and I just managed to swing in here before it stopped. I didn’t want to be out in the open where I could be seen!” Lucy began to sob.
She stared up at the astronaut and continued. “There was a car Christopher, and I couldn’t just let it go by! I would have caught up to it too, if this hadn’t happened. I’m sure of it.”
Travis felt his heartbeat beginning to slow.
“We were stuck here all alone! And that’s when I began to think: what if it was all a trap? I had Ben. I’ve never met a survivor who I didn’t know telepathically first! What if whoever was driving that vehicle was –”
She put her hands up to her mouth and shook her head as if she was envisioning the worst of what could have become of them.
“It was this horrible feeling, we’re so… exposed! I felt doomed, and I can’t even explain why, but it was real, and I was so afraid.” She began to sob uncontrollably.
“But you’re okay Lucy,” the astronaut consoled, stepping in front of Travis and pulling her out of the car. Taking her into his arms.
“It was always both of us together out here in this wasteland Christopher. I felt safe with you. There are corpses over there and… there too. What was I thinking?”
Still holding her head against the astronaut’s chest she glanced over at Kate who was clinging to Ben protectively. “I didn’t want to scare you Kate.”
“You’re both okay, that’s all that matters,” Kate insisted, her brows still creased with worry.
When Lucy finally managed to peel herself away from the astronaut she wiped her eyes and turned to Travis as if she wanted to hug him. “Thank you. You did it again darling. You saved me.”
“You shouldn’t have panicked like that!” he hissed, kicking a rock across the pavement.
“I’m sorry,” Lucy pleaded. “I know how much I frightened you!”
Travis jumped back into the rear of the astronaut’s Lexis with nothing left in him to offer her. He slammed the door and waited for the rest of them, twiddling his thumbs impatiently.
Chapter Seven
Secrets in the Lab
(July 8th, Year Two, PA)
“Genetics,” Jack mumbled as he leaned against the hospital laboratory’s small window, suspecting that he’d not even been heard.
It was getting late – a long day had been stretched further by Chris’ redundant obsession with the body, and Jack was beginning to lose his patience. A wide slash of afternoon light framed the scar on Jack’s calf below his lab coat where a shark had once bit him. He tapped his finger on the thickened skin, waiting for a response.
Hunched over the corpse they’d slid onto the examining table hours earlier, Chris persisted with his inspection, too absorbed to reply.
“We’d be dead otherwise.” Jack continued provokingly.
Finally, Chris glanced up at him.
Jack frowned beneath his surgical mask. “The virus is dormant in us. Doesn’t seem probable that it would reactivate now, but, it could. Has to be a genetic mutation we were born with and, obviously – she doesn’t have it. There’s no other explanation for us being alive. But why the virus didn’t take her out the first time, I — I just can’t say.”
Chris was separating the fingers again. “This goes down to the bone,” he grumbled. “Imagine her making it to the resort in this condition.”
“Like I said before,” Jack explained, “those lesions formed within an incredibly short time; the virus spreads like wi
ldfire – inside and out.” He’d had enough; his worry over Kate and Ben was wearing on his nerves and he just wanted to be with them.
He tore off his mask and tossed it into the trash can. “The mask is of little use to you now Chris.”
Chris had nudged the big toe sideways. “Worse than her fingers, will you look at that? Hardly any flesh at all.”
Jack walked over to the table and gave the foot a casual glance. He’d seen it already the day they found her, brought her to the hospital and put her body in the cooler for crying out loud. They had spent enough time there already.
“There is fucking little chance that whoever drove that car yesterday didn’t know this woman,” Jack ventured. “Makes me wonder how long they’ve got. They could be getting sick as we speak.”
Chris stood up straight finally, and turned away from the body, facing Jack. “Poor Lucy, that was hard on her. Breaking down out in the middle of nowhere with Ben. Travis too, you saw how upset he was. But, they’ve got uncanny skills, those two.”
Jack kicked the heel of his shoe against the speckled floor. The whole incident had him on edge and he really wanted to get home.
“But yeah, they could have been looking for her,” Chris gestured at the corpse.
Jack threw his gloves in the garbage and paced back to the window. “The women are putting a sign up today by the highway. Should have done it long ago. Should have expected there’d be others, sooner or later.”
Jack stood beside the window gazing out into the parking lot and massaging his brow with his thumb and forefinger. “They could also be avoiding us; anything’s possible.” He heard the snap of Chris removing a glove.
“Shit,” Chris said, “I really wish the boy hadn’t seen her. Can you imagine what that did to him? She looks nothing like the other corpses. And after losing his entire family. Poor kid.”
Jack suddenly remembered something.
He paced back and forth while he thought out loud. “The night Kate was here after the accident, she’d lost a lot of blood. And she had a concussion. I had her on pain meds that night. So I just assumed that what she was ranting on about, well, that she was delusional.”
Chris leaned against the sink’s countertop and crossed his arms. “Delusional? What was she saying?”
“Something about a fenced-in house, and people, and a lab. It was frightening to her, whatever she was seeing. A series of visions, could have been a hospital — but it was more like a laboratory, by her description. People living there – not like us she kept saying. I mean, normally I wouldn’t have thought about it again. But after yesterday, the way those kids reacted.”
Jack was pacing again. He suddenly stopped, gazed at Chris and shrugged. “Would you have believed a few years ago that you could be telepathic? That a plague could… Maybe her visions meant something, Chris. Anything seems possible these days.”
“Has she said anything about it since?”
Jack shook his head. “No, I think she’s forgotten.”
Chris sighed. “Well, maybe it’s best to leave it that way.” He went over to the examining table with his camera again.
“Let’s bury her Chris. Our work is done here and, we’ve been away too long.”
“Guess you’re right. I’ve got enough,” Chris said, finally pulling off his surgical mask. “If we’re going to get sick, it won’t be from her. That makes sense all right. Even if it wasn’t already inside us, we can’t avoid the water or food.”
“We can only hope to remain immune to it,” Jack said, glad that they had already dug the grave. They just had to put her in it, and throw some dirt on her before they headed home.
Chapter Eight
Shattered Dreams
(July 25th, Year Two, PA)
Travis paced to one end of Lucy’s porch and then back again, pausing by a container of flowers hanging from the railing.
“Are you ready yet?” he called, gazing past the pink blossoms to the shimmering lake. He pressed his thumb on a blistering splinter of paint and peeled it away from the planter.
“Coming darling, just give me a sec.”
Lucy finally stepped outside. “There now, think I’ve got everything,” she said. While she was rummaging through her bag, Sarah came out of the cottage wearing a bathing suit and huge sunglasses.
“Travis, what a glorious sight that is,” Sarah exclaimed, beaming at the view, tucking her towel under her arm and then following them down to the lake. For a moment Travis thought she’d decided to accompany them. Relieved when she wished them a good day and continued past the dock, he threw his things into the boat and climbed in.
“Put your lifejacket on,” Lucy instructed, jumping on board and bundling the mooring line beneath her seat. Travis obliged, and after fastening the zipper, he began to row them away from the beach immediately remembering the blisters he’d had on his palms last week. Fortunately they had healed.
“Now do you see why Christopher and I took our time getting here darling?” Lucy said. “Imagine having to live without the Google archives or all that wonderful material we salvaged from the Library of Congress.” She had pulled out her binoculars.
“When will I be able to plug my computer in?” He was tired of the hassle of solar which didn’t give him nearly the length of time he required to do his work.
“Patience Trav darling; it isn’t as easy as Christopher thought it would be. Not at all I’m afraid. There’s much to be done here at Moonstone, toil for every one of us,” she said, squinting back at the shoreline.
As Travis heaved on the oars he watched his upper arms, hoping for a bulge. “Next year we’ll know how well the animals did over the winter,” he puffed. “Thanks to the records we’re making. I’m really glad you backed up all that stuff Lucy. I didn’t like not having it. And I kind of enjoy learning.”
Before he knew it, they were out in the middle of the lake. Lucy had been peering through the binoculars the entire time.
“Are you enjoying the lessons Kate’s giving you? I am. It’s pretty important stuff nowadays, Lucy?”
When she finally gazed over at him, Travis could tell by her blank stare that her mind was elsewhere.
“The lessons about the environment,” Travis continued, hoping he had her attention. “I wonder what we’ll see next spring when we compare our notes. I’m going to draw the fish and take pictures of everything I can.”
Travis pushed them forward faster and faster as Lucy pulled her hat so it shaded her nose and held onto the side of boat. “Lucy, did you hear me?”
“Oh, we will, darling. That’s why we’re here,” she said with the binoculars to her face again. “But, there isn’t much else we can do Travis, just record everything and hope and pray. We’re not miracle workers.”
For five years all Jack did was read in his prison cell. He must be almost as knowledgeable as the astronaut. Travis made up his mind right then and there that one day he would know more than the astronaut and Jack combined.
“What are you looking at?” he complained, finally dropping the oars with a frown and opening his water bottle.
Lucy held her binoculars steady. “Sarah and Christopher, they are frolicking in the water together,” she said, soberly.
Travis knew that already. Their noisy splashes, shouts, and laughter could be heard across the lake.
“He makes a lot of that stuff he says up you know. I bet his children are going to be space-cadets,” he laughed.
Lucy looked up at him. “We’ve got a lot of mileage to cover Travis,” she snipped, “Do you want me to row now?”
He grabbed the oars. “No, it’s not your turn yet.”
They drifted over the colourful pebbles in the shallow water of the bay at the west side of the lake. Travis put his camera strap around his neck, stepped into the water, and being careful that his flip-flops didn’t slide on the moss, he waded to shore. Lucy followed, dragging the boat onto the bank until it was secure.
“I’m pretty sure the turkeys I s
aw here are Rio Grande,” Travis explained. “I already put that in my notes. When Jack was staying in that cottage over there, that’s when I discovered them. I really hope snakes or racoons or something like that didn’t get the babies.”
As they crept through the tall grass, they counted nine depressions in the ground, which were lined with twigs and leaves; but there were no eggs to be seen. Then, they heard a gobble further along in the brush and suddenly a gang of turkeys appeared in the clearing. They were followed by their young. Travis crouched with his camera, zoomed in on them and managed to get several good shots.
They stopped for lunch at the far side of the lake. Travis chewed his sandwich while Lucy examined the cottages through her binoculars again. Travis was getting tired of this. He groaned. “Now what do you see?” he snipped.
“Well, Rose is out there, washing your clothes probably.”
He stretched out on the flat rock a few feet away from Lucy, picked up a long, thin branch, and began to draw with it, marking lines in the soil and then twirling it in his palms. “Aren’t you going to eat your lunch?”
“I am darling. But you know I don’t like to eat fast.”
Travis stretched out his arm with the branch in it so that it touched the back of her neck ever so lightly. She scratched the area absently, still peering across the lake through her glasses.
He sighed. “I think you might want to know that there is a very large insect on your neck.”
Lucy jumped to her feet shrieking, swatting at whatever horrible thing it was that she had felt touch her. Then she glowered at Travis, unimpressed that he was rolling on the ground holding his sides.
“It’s not funny,” she grumbled, coldly.
He thought it was.
“Travis, look at your hands darling, you’re bleeding. Didn’t you know? For heaven’s sake, I’ll row now.”
***
Lucy heaved a final propelling pull with the oars and let the boat drift. The sandy tones glistened through the crystal waters in the late afternoon light and she grabbed the dock. “You should try to read those articles I bookmarked darling. They’ll answer your questions. We’ll talk about it on our next excursion, okay?”