by A. Giacomi
She nods looking sadly at me. “Yes you’ve known me many years, Cameron Jackson, and I’ve loved you just about all of them.”
She takes my hand and squeezes it a brief moment, and then leaves just like Rachel had, of into the dark night alone. I suppose I could have kept asking her questions, a small part of me wanted to know more, but I was also scared. Being Cameron without any memories seemed easier, the only thing I had to worry about were zombies and killing them.
***
The sun rises and Corporal Clark Campbell is there to greet us like clockwork. I had been awake all night, so his presence doesn’t startle me. Rachel however, nearly jumps out of her skin.
“Rise and shine, little birds. It’s time to take flight.”
I hadn’t realized it yesterday, but the Corporal had a bit of a sense of humor.
Eve and Vincent thank him for his acceptance and help as the Corporal leads them to a vehicle waiting outside. I take this moment alone with Rachel to speak to her about what I’ve been thinking about all night.
“Rachel, put down your stuff. You’re not coming with us,” I say without any softness.
“What do you mean?” she says laughing slightly.
“I mean you’re staying here. Right here,” I say pointing to the ground. “We will be moving on to Ottawa without you. Understand?”
“No I don’t, Cameron. Why would you leave me here all alone? What if we never see each other again? Doesn’t that bother you?”
Hardly, sadly it would be a blessing. Forgetting was what I did best, so making Rachel disappear would simplify things.
“Rachel, let me be honest with you a moment….I don’t trust you…I won’t trust you ever again. Taking you with us doesn’t feel right. You’ve lied to protect yourself and you’ll do it again. Whatever mission we need to complete, it’s important, and you…you’re not going to be of any use. So stay here, be safe, have a nice life.”
That’s how I leave things with Rachel, I don’t look back and I don’t care if I ever see her again. I just hope what I said hurt her enough to never betray someone like that again. She needed to learn about loyalty, and love was all about that.
CHAPTER TEN
EVE
Cam gets in the truck with a scowl on his face. I see Rachel standing outside of our sleeping quarters with tears streaming down her face. I don’t dare ask what happened now. We had important business to attend to, but I couldn’t help but feel for her as we drive off. I look behind us as we go. Rachel stands there, damaged, broken, and sobbing behind us. She might have made mistakes, but currently, we were all she had. She was truly alone now. This wasn’t the Cam I knew, he cared deeply for people, even beyond their flaws. The only good thing about this new Cam and his don’t give a shit attitude is that it might actually keep him alive longer.
As we continue our drive, I can’t help but notice that Corporal Campbell drives right past the Parliament Buildings. “Hey!” I shout out. “Aren’t we supposed to go there?” I say pointing to the elegant gothic architecture that was our country’s core.
The Corporal chuckles, or gags, I’m not sure which, he had a quirky way about him.
“No silly dead girl. That would be too obvious a place to attack. Do you really think we keep our leaders there? Before all this mess, tourists would come every day for tours hoping to meet the Prime Minister, yeah right, he’s never there. We did, however, hire an impersonator from time to time to appease the crowds, he’d wave and shake hands and no one was the wiser.”
He keeps laughing to himself in his strange way, proud of this little ruse Parliament had played for so long, but why was he telling us all this? Wasn’t this private information? Either he could read minds, or he just loved to hear himself talk, but my question was answered quickly.
“I suppose you’re wondering why I’m telling you all this?”
I nod quizzically.
“It’s because you’ll all have to be killed after learning of our secret location. So why not share some secrets with you now? You’re never leaving!” he says chuckling louder, more hysterically now.
Vincent looks ready to attack at that point, I hold him in place. We shouldn’t react just yet. He might just be pulling our leg.
“You’re serious?” Cam asks looking angry and puzzled. He was on a short fuse, not a great time for jokes.
The Corporal lets the question hang in the air a little longer before responding: “Of course I’m joking, you idiots. You should have seen your faces!” he says as he views us in the rearview mirror shaking his head from side to side. “We won’t kill you unless we have good cause. So don’t give us cause and you’ll be just fine.”
We don’t laugh, which the Corporal finds even more amusing.
“Fine! Suit yourselves, but I tell ya laughing makes this whole situation a lot easier. You know that saying, ‘if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry?’ Well, it’s that sort of world now. Must make the best of it.”
He doesn’t say anything further for the rest of the ride, but he does continue to smirk to himself, he thought himself pretty clever, didn’t he?
About twenty minutes past Parliament Hill we reach a hillside, many grand homes lay atop it, but we will be heading through the hillside it seems. The Corporal makes a quick call and part of the hillside reveals an opening. We continue our drive through the opening and lower, deeper into the ground. What was it with the government and underground lairs? It’s freaky!
Heading down below felt like driving back to the CSIS labs, if I had a pulse it would quicken and perhaps I might have even begun to feel sick, but being dead, all I had was anger toward the flooding memories. Cam takes my hand and squeezes it. I wasn’t sure if it was because he sensed my discomfort or if he sensed his own. Perhaps he would begin to remember everything soon enough.
When we arrive I am horrified to see a vast resemblance to the entry way in my former prison. I shudder slightly, human habits die hard.
“Do they all look like this?” I ask myself, but clearly not quietly enough because Corporal Campbell responds.
“Yes, they all match. It’s easier for the frequenters to remember the layout that way. It is quite the little maze in there, but I wouldn’t know. I’m not allowed access much further than here. All I can say is that if you’ve seen the inside of one of these places, you must have had a very horrible time there.”
I almost sense some sympathy in his voice. “Why ever were you in one of these before, Eve?” he asks furrowing his brows.
“Corporal that is a very long story, but I sense you can guess by my appearance that this virus I carry might have something to do with it.”
“Ah yes of course. Not exactly human,” he says as he observes the blue veins around my face and my fiery red eyes.
“Nope, not at all, Triple C,” I say smiling. He doesn’t grin back, perhaps he didn’t like his little nickname? I hope I hadn’t offended him.
“Triple C? Hmmm, I like that. You’re clever,” he says pointing and winking at me before getting back into his truck.
I felt a twinge of sadness as I watch him drive away. He was the nicest person I had met in a long time, and I most likely wouldn’t ever see him again. My thoughts are soon interrupted by a woman approaching us with quite a few guards. Evidently, she was important.
She introduces herself as the Deputy Prime Minister, which really was just some fancy name for second in command. Her full name is Karyn Kloss, and rather than have us call her Deputy Prime Minister or Mrs. Kloss, she asks us to just call her “Karyn.” I found it refreshing that someone with so much authority could appear so down to Earth. Her appearance didn’t really match that, she sort of looked stuffy in a grey pantsuit and a black bob haircut without a single hair out of place. She leads us into the facility with such an air of confidence and grace that I had never known, and would never pull off anyway, it was en
viable.
As we pass each hallway and each corridor I can see that Cam looks more and more uncomfortable. Sweaty even. “Cam, are you alright?”
He nods. “I think so. Just something about this place makes me, I don’t know anxious?”
“You’re not claustrophobic, are you? The old Cam wasn’t,” I say stopping him to check his breathing.
“No, I’m not, it’s something else. I can’t put my finger on it,” he says shaking his head. “Let’s just keep moving.”
We continue walking, but I feel quite a bit of concern having Cam down here, if it wasn’t memories flooding back, then his body was definitely having some adverse reaction to being down here. He was tortured after all in a facility much like this one, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he had gone through, and although he couldn’t remember, it was clear that he felt something, at least a twinge of familiarity with the place.
The tangled web of white hallways was disorienting, but we eventually arrive at a red door. Karyn ushers us inside. A large meeting table awaits us. Many men are seated at it, including the Prime Minister. He asks Cam, Vincent and myself to have a seat across from him. Karyn takes her rightful place beside Prime Minister Lessard.
The Prime Minister was not extremely old like some of our past Prime Ministers, but he looked roughly the same age as Karyn, about fifty or so. His face was commanding yet gentle, his dark hair and eyes gave him a grave look, but as he spoke his face softened. He had no smile lines, and I ventured to assume he wasn’t much of a smiler like his Deputy, but his voice made him more pleasant as he greeted us and introduced his personnel.
“Eve, I am told that you are the one I should be directing the questions to? Am I correct in that?”
He was straight to the point and I liked that. “Yes, I hold most of the information you seek. Our friend Cameron here suffered a head injury recently and won’t be able to give you much information, unless of course you have a serum for that.” I wink at them but they don’t seem amused. Clearing my throat I continue, “And my friend Vincent here, well he was frozen much of his stay in our last facility, but he’s the expert in the origin of this virus. I warn you Prime Minister, some of this is going to sound insane, but it’s the absolute truth.”
“Well alright then, let’s get started from the beginning, shall we? It seems we have much ground to cover.”
Vincent begins telling the tale of how he and Dr. Augustus initially went to Hierakonpolis, Egypt, in search of unseen treasures and stumbled upon a hidden tomb where he recovered a red stone from a rotting corpse in a sarcophagus. Already I begin to feel eyes rolling and laughter building in their bellies, but this wasn’t some mummy fairy tale, this was more real than anyone could have ever imagined!
Although they don’t believe Vincent, thankfully they don’t interrupt him either. He continues to explain the legend behind the city and the tomb they discovered. That the stone belonged to the Dark King of Hierakonpolis, and that it was a small piece to a larger stone that he had sold his soul to gain, this red stone was called the Eye of Ra. He wanted to own the stone in order to protect his city and his people, but many other cities fought over the stone’s power and after many years of war, it was time for the devil to collect his payment. The king tried to return the red stone, he begged the devil to let him complete his battle and save his city, but a deal was a deal. In a rage, Satan burst the stone apart and greedy soldiers took pieces of it and fled, ending the war. The devil had saved his city again, but as all deals with the devil, they are sneaky and come at a high price. In return for the Eye of Ra, the devil took the Dark King’s pure heart and ate it, but the king did not die, instead he rose as one of the undead, which earned him the title of the Dark King. He was the start of all this.
When Vincent is finished, he looks to me for approval. I nod, he had covered it all. That was the legend we were working with, now it was a matter if they believed us. A couple of scientists chatter at the table, clearly they had been studying the virus, to say it stemmed from an ancient evil would make their work obsolete, so naturally, they disagreed with our little story.
One of them shouts out, “This is preposterous! Surely you don’t believe this nonsense, John!” He says, directing the question to the Prime Minister.
He says, “Remain silent.” The Prime Minister places his hands in front of him pensively. “What happened next? Let’s say I believe you, and that we’re dealing with demons rather than a contaminant. What now?”
It was my turn to speak, and I had to make it count or our visit here wouldn’t be worth a damn. “I know this sounds impossible, but you’re looking at two impossible things right in front of you. Vincent and I were infected in Hierakonpolis, apparently, the City of Hawk’s has many hawks that are either carriers of the ancient virus that attacked Vincent, or they are being controlled by something or someone. I was bitten by something in the tombs, an extension of the Dark King, well what was left of his body. He’s also an entity, he’s dangerous because he can appear as thin air or a physical form, I’ve seen this myself and there is no way to trap him. What he wants is my friend Cam here, he believes that his pure heart will remove his curse. Now I don’t know what exactly will happen when the curse is removed. He could become more powerful for all we know. I’m not willing to hand Cam over to whatever darkness wants him.”
I hang my head, it’s hard to go on. I love Cam, but these people didn’t, they might sacrifice him if the Dark King appeared. One person didn’t count if they could save the rest. When I look up at Cam his face is twisted with sadness and anger.
“When were you going to tell me all this, Eve?” he says through clenched teeth.
I know I dropped a bomb on him, but I wasn’t sure he’d come along if he knew everything. Telling him he was in danger was enough to get him to follow me, and if he followed me I could fight to keep him alive.
“Cam listen to me, this is the safest place for you. I needed to get you here. You lost your memories and I was trying to spare you any sort of reminder. You’ve been through more than you can imagine. Just trust that I want to save you.”
He shakes his head. “How do I trust you when you played me? You move truth around to get what you want. You’re just like Rachel.”
That stung, but I wasn’t about to let him get the last word in. “Well if you hit your head hard enough again I’m sure you’ll forget Rachel, myself and your apparent destiny. What did you want me to do? Leave you there to die?”
Cam doesn’t say another word, he turns away from me. If only he knew how his rage increased my own. I didn’t want to get hungry now. I fight the voices in my head that scream “feed…feed.”
Vincent notices my struggle first, as I clutch the arms of my chair.
Vincent calmly interjects, “Prime Minister. It appears that Eve is peckish, do you have any lab animals that she might be able to snack on perhaps? Live ones of course.”
The Prime Minister nearly looks ready to vomit at Vincent’s request, but he sends two of his guards off to retrieve the animals anyway. I try to fight the voices in my head as I wait for my meal to arrive.
“I’m so sorry you have to see this, Prime Minister. I fight it with all I have, trust me, I will not harm anyone. I refuse.”
Speaking put the room at ease, real zombies didn’t talk, and although it was difficult to block out the voices and speak at the same time, I had managed to do it. The hunger grows intensely, but luckily the guards are back just in time with a cage of animals.
“I don’t think you want me to do this here,” I say smirking at everyone in the room.
The Prime Minister agrees, “Of course, please escort Eve to the meeting room down the hall. We rarely use it.”
That was a good thing, because I was about to make a real mess.
***
The Prime Minister has Vincent and me go through the story a few more times before be
ing sure he’s got it straight. Even then he still looks on in disbelief, this new information was not at all what they were expecting. Rising from the table he shakes our hands. “Well, I think that’s enough for today. We will discuss this information tonight and call you back in tomorrow to help with the details. You’ve all been out there, and have seen more than I have. I’ll need your intel to move forward, but for now, I will have a few of my soldiers lead you out of the facility to a nearby residence where you’ll spend the night under surveillance. For your own protection of course…”
For “their” protection of course. I keep my snarky comments to myself. I couldn’t blame him for being cautious, could I?
Cam doesn’t look at me once as we enter a large van and leave the underground headquarters, and he continues to ignore me once we reach our home for the evening. The residence is a lovely colonial style home. Quaint and brightly painted yellow, not at all the sort of place you’d expect to find a couple of zombies lurking. Perhaps that was the point. A place that didn’t look like a threat wouldn’t be the first point of attack.
The guards position themselves in the hallway. They weren’t much for conversation, but they were functional. I explore the home to find a lovely country kitchen with a few cats in cages sitting on the rather large counter. “I guess that’s dinner,” I say to Vincent who sneers. Where I didn’t mind eating animals, Vincent minded quite a bit, it wouldn’t satisfy him. I only hoped he would manage his cravings somehow. We didn’t exactly have any delicious felons lying around.
I catch a glimpse of Cam heading outside through the sliding doors in the next room over.
“He’s avoiding us,” Vincent says gruffly.
“No Vincent he’s avoiding me. Can’t say I blame him. We didn’t leave things on the best of terms. Even if his memories returned, there’s no guarantee he’d be treating me any differently.” I let out a huge sigh before deciding to play with my dinner. The cats hiss at me as I try to stroke at their fur, they didn’t seem to like me much either, but they had even more cause.