Had the Wrecker been injured days before by John and had been wandering the whole time? Maybe he got lost and starved.
Rusty stood closer and the second his own shadow cast over the Wrecker, he realized what happened.
The Wrecker, like all his kind, had smooth skin, no hair and a slightly elongated head, like a Neanderthal. His nose was wide and flat, a thick substance formed at the base of his small nostrils. His lips were big with a clef that exposed his larger teeth and gums. His mouth was open and from it was more of the thick greenish substance.
However, more than his mouth and nose, it was the eyes of the Wrecker that said a lot. Eyes that always bulged were so red they looked black. His eyelids were encrusted with what looked like scabs and around his thick neck were glands so swollen and purple, they had grown so big, they were splitting the skin.
The Wrecker wasn’t lost or injured, the Wrecker was sick. He died from what ailed him. If Rusty didn’t know any better, he would sworn it was the virus. But that was impossible. It had been dormant for nearly ten years.
Nonetheless, whatever it was that killed the Wrecker, scared Rusty.
FOUR – LOOKING BACK
It was going to be a long trek, time wise to get back to the buggy, but at the speed Jason walked, Nora wondered if they’d make it out of the city before dark.
He dragged. Typically he didn’t, was there something on his mind?
She was able to find a couple of those two wheel carts that had a handle like wheeled luggage. They weren’t in the best of condition, but she cleaned them up and packed them with items she took from the Westin and other items she picked up. They moved easier and carried more than the plastic drug store cart.
She pulled one cart, pen in mouth, map in hand, duffle bag over her shoulder while Jason pulled the other with the guitar over his shoulder. He walked a few feet behind her.
She paused, looked down at the map, pulled the pen and marked off landmarks. It was a tourist style map with businesses marked on it. It was far easier for her to keep track of where they were and where they were headed by landmarks. She marked off another.
Remnants of landmarks were easier to spot than street signs.
“Chernobyl.” Jason said.
“Oh, he speaks.” Nora turned around. “What did you say?”
“Chernobyl. I remember looking at pictures.” He paused and took a sip of water. “I remember in school we learned the eco process.” He walked and caught up to her. “I distinctively recall my science teacher telling me. ‘Look at an empty field. In five years you’ll see this, in ten you’ll see that’.” He shrugged.
“A lot of factors play into what would be overgrown. At least I think...”
“Theoretically and scientifically, this should look like Nashville. Then again, not everyone left Cleveland. Some stayed. We saw that. But Chernobyl, at least the pictures didn’t look like Nashville. No one lived there. Maybe they did and we just didn’t know. Mutants and such.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Jason.”
“Just idle conversation, I guess. Now that my mind unlocked a lot of stuff.”
Nora felt a little jealous. “You’re remembering?”
“Yeah, the bits and pieces are no longer like memories of movies, I know them now as my life. You?” Jason asked.
Nora shook her head. “My full memories don’t really start until my twenties. Hell, I nearly didn’t remember I was in the service.”
“They’ll come.”
“I hope. I want to remember my parents.”
“What if you remember stuff you wish you wouldn’t?”
Again, Nora stopped walking. “That was a really odd thing to say. Did you?”
Jason pouted and shrugged. “Conversation for maybe later.”
“You’re on. Since we don’t have anything else to do.”
“There’s always Yahtzee.”
“Yeah, you did find that.” She smiled.
They walked for another hour, keeping the idle chitchat alive until they arrived at the lot where they had left the Solar Buggy. They had hidden it behind a building near the overpass and barricade. Roads were too overgrown to drive on.
Nora set down her things and cleared the brush that she used to hide the buggy.
“See, from here …” Jason said.”It looks like Nashville, buried. But when you go in, it’s not as overgrown. Like the pictures of Chernobyl.”
“Oh my God, let the Chernobyl thing go and help me out.”
“I’m sorry. Here, I got this.” Jason walked over. “Take a break. I’ll load the buggy.”
“Thanks.” Nora exhaled and stepped out. The lot was like its own mini wooded area, the concrete lifted in a lot of places. Cars and work vans were left behind. Company property that just stayed when people left. The red building itself was partially buried. Jason was right. Cleveland didn’t look like Nashville because people stayed in Cleveland and just when the annoying thought of Chernobyl hit her she got a good look at the work van. It was wedged in the midst of tall trees. She moved the bushes and walked to the van.
“What are you doing?” Jason asked. “That won’t work for us.”
She grabbed her bottle of water, put some on her hand and smeared it on the back of the van just under the window.
“Nora?”
Without answering or acknowledging Jason, she pulled forth the duffle, grabbed one of the shirts she found at the Westin, wet it down and continued to wipe the rear door. Just a section of it. The license plate.
“Nora?” Jason called her name nearly laughing.”Why are you washing the van?”
“What was the name of Malcolm’s Bio Cam Company in Cleveland? The one that had the footage. Remember he said, the footage from the ball room went to his headquarters in Cleveland.”
“I remember that. I don’t know the name of his company.”
“Do you know his last name?”
“No.” Jason shook his head.
“I do. I remember it from the Genesis units. His name is Malcolm Lowe.” She exposed the back of the van and the name painted on it. “Lowe Metro Security. Bet me this building is it.” She pointed. “The registration on the van ... year after we went into stasis.”
“Okay.”
“Okay? For real? This doesn’t excite you?”
“Should it?” Jason asked.
“Yeah, it should. For Malcolm it should.”
“Cool. I’m excited. What now?”
Nora smiled. “Let’s go in.”
<><><><>
Because he resided outside the walls of Salvation and lived pretty much a hermit’s life, Trey was permitted to leave without quarantine. It was believed and known that he would have minimal contact with anyone else. He was asked though to check in using the sky method. The sky method was a means of communication utilizing the old servers and remnants of what was left of the internet.
The word quarantine didn’t sit right with Trey. It bothered him. Were they quarantining his father for fear he would catch something or that his father had something? Trey knew that it didn’t make any sense. If they placed his father in a stasis situation to ensure that mankind would continue on, wouldn’t they give him some sort of cure? An inoculation? Even Trey and his family were given such a vaccine.
He remembered the day well. A group of four men arrived at the house with government identification, but it was an organization Trey never heard of. Then again, he was still a teenager so he didn’t pay attention to that sort of stuff. They were still in shock and experiencing fresh grief over his father’s passing. That was when Trey initially believed his father had died. It was a short-lived belief. The four men triggered disbelief.
When they came, they told his mother that just before Trey’s father left for New York he had been exposed to Typhoid on a recent trip to Puerto Rico. His father had been in Puerto Rico for three days and wasn’t ill, but then again, he went straight to New York after his return.
They vaccinated the entire family.<
br />
Up until his father returned, Trey always believed that he received a shot for Typhoid.
But it was the visit of those men that prompted a mental episode in Trey that took him on a different path of grief than his family.
His last encounter with his father was not pleasant. While the others embraced him goodbye, Trey fought with Malcolm.
“But you just got back,” Trey said, watching his father pack.
“I know. I know. Weren’t you listening? This is top secret. I told you about it. This experimental unit can be my retirement. My legacy.”
“I thought we were your legacy.”
“Yeah, well, this legacy will pay for college,” his father said.
“You’re an absentee parent.”
“Really? Really? An absentee parent?” His father laughed. “Pretty mature words coming from such an immature guy.”
“I take care of everyone when you’re not here.”
“And this is a short trip.”
Trey shook his head. “Why don’t you stay in New York?”
“Yeah, well, maybe I will.” His father shut his suitcase and walked out.
Those were the last words he spoke to his father.
Don’t come back.
I won’t.
He didn’t.
That conversation was the very reason no one believed Trey that his father was still alive. They said it was his guilt talking. It was something else, but Trey just couldn’t say what it was.
He retreated to his room often and was obsessed with the story of the explosion at the hotel. He read every article, opinion piece, and participated in social media groups. When a video emerged of hotel surveillance, Trey watched it over and over despite the warning that it was graphic.
Where was his father?
They showed a ballroom, but he didn’t see his dad.
“Maybe that’s not a bad thing,” his mother said.
Not that Trey wanted to see his father blow up, but a part of him needed that resolution, as sick and twisted as it sounded. Plus family members of the others were saying they didn’t spot their relatives either. Trey wasn’t the only one.
Then within a week of getting that vaccine, the conspiracy theories started. People claimed it was an inside job, done on purpose, and amidst the conspiracy stories, the outbreak began.
The president’s widow insisted her husband was alive.
It happened so fast; his world was turned upside down. Still, he watched that surveillance footage from the hotel over and over.
Was he that blind with the grief that consumed him, that it took his sister’s words to realize what he had to do?
“You should just go to Cleveland, Trey,” she said.
“For what? The virus is there.”
“Uh … did you forget why Dad was at that hotel?”
Trey did. The invention of the century. The legacy. The bio cam.
“Size of a golf ball. Nice thing is, not only will the footage be on the computer at the hotel. It goes to the government and …” Malcolm winked. “We backlog it secretly at our facility.”
His father shared that secret. No one else knew. Trey did. If he wanted to prove the conspiracy theories right then Trey needed to see that footage. After all, it wasn’t the same footage that they showed on the internet. It wouldn’t be. The bio cam footage had vital statistics for each person.
Trey tried to get in contact with Walter, his father’s partner, but was unsuccessful.
For his own sake he needed to see that footage.
His father’s office at the house had been sealed off by his mother. Like some sort of shrine. While she was out getting food Trey went into the office. He took the laptop and brought it to his own room. His mother rarely went in the office and he doubted she would notice.
His father worked remotely from home and as Trey suspected, he was able to network into his father’s system.
It wasn’t until that very second that he put in the password that Trey realized he was closer to his father than he remembered. He was trusted. He knew his father’s password.
It took two days and Trey finally found the files to the footage. They weren’t numbered, but the dates and times clearly confirmed they were from that fateful day.
Did he want to watch them?
He needed to.
After copying all the files, he placed on headphones and watched. Starting from the first one.
That one made Trey smile. It was his dad talking to the camera. His vital stats showed a rapid heartbeat and the smile on his face confirmed how happy and excited he was.
As he went through the files, he felt as if he were watching some boring movie. People moved about talking. Occasionally he’d see his father.
He wanted to skip to the end. To the explosion.
But he didn’t. He watched all two hours. From catering set up to the guests arriving and finally the end.
Trey expected everyone to be unaware, some flash of light or ground rumbling. Instead …he heard the ‘boom’, that was clear. Biting his nails he watched as people started to leave the ballroom. Any second, he figured it would all collapse. The building didn’t, but people did.
He watched everyone reach out blindly, sway and drop to the floor. He would have believed it to be a gas attack, the start of the virus. He expected everyone to flat line. They didn’t. Everyone’s breathing and heart rate slowed down, but they weren’t dead.
They weren’t dead at all.
The last of the videos ended with people in white suits coming in with stretchers to take people out.
Then the video went dead.
Trey tried to tell his mother, but she freaked out on him for having the laptop and took it from him.
She didn’t want to hear it.
Would Walter?
He left message after message. “Walter, please call me. I saw the ballroom footage. Call me. It’s not what you think.”
Finally after two weeks Walter got back to him. He simply asked for the password and hung up. Hours later, Walter called again.
“Listen to me, Trey,” Walter said. “You tell no one about this. The government has been here. Some other group of people are trying to find these files. I’m fearful that we stumbled across something we shouldn’t have. There’s a cover up. Why else would they show bogus video footage? They may think your father was involved in some way.”
“He wasn’t.”
“You know that. I know that. I’m going to delete …”
“No.”
“Listen. I am going to delete them. I suggest you do the same. But I will make copies. I will have it here for you with your name on the envelope. It will be in your dad’s bottom draw. If you can get here.”
“I’ll try.”
That was the last time he spoke to Walter. He didn’t know it, but Walter was sick.
For a teenage boy, it was like some sort of spy movie.
He felt guilty about carrying the knowledge, but by the time he convinced his mother to let him show her what he was talking about, the files were gone. Even the ones he’d copied.
Did she know? She didn’t want to hear that Malcolm was alive and someone took him.
Trey tried to get to Cleveland, but they started quarantining it and an exodus began.
The envelope, if it existed, would never be found. At least not by Trey. The world was falling apart, torn asunder by a virus, and the knowledge wouldn’t help anyhow. Everyone would be too busy dying to listen.
Trey knew. He always knew.
The return of his father was the final confirmation. Now with the president’s arrival and his father being locked down under some sort of suspicion, he hoped that reunion wouldn’t be short lived.
<><><><>
John was without a doubt stoned. He didn’t mean to get that way. However, the medicinal marijuana given to him by Rusty proved pretty potent and after only a few puffs of the pipe, John was mentally history.
He felt one hundred percent physicall
y better and mentally, he was thinking clearly.
Meredith said he was stoned and she was getting there by contact. She didn’t want to be the one to drive, but she also didn’t want John manning the buggy under the influence.
They had driven for hours. After leaving Rusty, they stayed the course, breaking only to eat and for John to indulge. The roads disappeared and navigation grew difficult. Meredith continued on, despite something inside of her that told her things were off.
They were supposed to head east to avoid trouble.
“If you can believe it,” John said. “I never tried the marijuana before today.”
“If you hadn’t said it that way, I wouldn’t have believed it. I do now.”
“What?” John asked then laughed.
“Never mind.”
“Have you ever?” John asked.
“Have I ever what?”
“Smoked the marijuana?”
Meredith laughed. “Yes. I have smoked the marijuana. Actually I was and occasionally am quite the pot head.”
John extended the pipe to her.
“No thank you, I really want to concentrate on driving.”
Meredith knew it was going to take all of her focus. After all, it wasn’t the world before she went into stasis. There was no clear view of the road. Gone were the lines. Trees and large bushes had grown on to the road. She could have been on the edge for all she knew, ready to go over a mountain. She just couldn’t tell.
But as she peered ahead, thinking about where they’d stop for the night, looking out for the best place, the green suddenly stopped.
It reminded her of just before they were attacked. How everything looked dead. “John?” She called his name with concern.
“Hmm?”
“I think we went off course.”
John looked up. “Shit. Turn around. We don’t need another Wrecker experience.”
“I could not agree more.” Meredith slowed down the buggy until it came to a complete halt. Just as she placed her hand on the gearshift, her heart dropped to her stomach when a lone Wrecker emerged from the dry brush.
“It’s just one. Only one.” John said. “We can beat just one.”
“Let’s not take that chance.” As Meredith started to reverse, the Wrecker cried out. It sounded like a cry for attention. The Wrecker held out his hands, palms outward.
Reset (Book 2): Salvation Page 4