The Next World - RESISTANCE - Book 2 (A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller)

by Jeff Olah

  “I’m sorry.”

  After a few minutes Margaret brushed the hair away from her cheek and wiped her face on her sleeve. She rubbed at her already red nose and finished what was left in her glass. “He was my entire world, and I wasn’t there for him when he needed me.”

  Gentry sat quietly. He could see that she needed to get through this.

  “Once I got settled in the car, I could see only the first few lines of his text and at the same time a notification that he’d sent a video. I thought it was odd because he’d never sent a video before, I didn’t even think he knew how.”

  She looked past Gentry toward another bank of windows that faced the ocean. “I was happy for a second, almost giddy, like a child. I thought it was something that was going to make me smile. He was a very funny man when he wanted to be, but as the excitement was still washing over me, I opened the video. It was a close-up of his face, he had blood running from his eye, and down his face …”

  She stopped.

  “Margaret, you don’t have to do this.”

  “He put his phone on the floor, it looked like he was under his desk. Those things, whatever they are, they took him from me. It was over quickly, but I had to hear him scream, I had to hear him cry. It was only about a half a minute, but it was the most terrifying, heart-breaking thirty seconds I’ve ever had to live through. And the whole time all he wanted to do was to tell me one last time that he loved me. That’s how it ended … he told me that he loved me, he told me to get somewhere safe, and then he picked up the phone and ended the video.”

  There wasn’t anything he could say to help and he could sense that she didn’t need him to try. That wasn’t why she shared the story with him. It wasn’t for him. It was for her.

  There were a few minutes where they just sat in the quiet darkness of the upstairs den, both again watching her home and the street. She reached for the almost empty bottle on the table between them, looked it over, and poured what remained into the two glasses. “So you weren’t a plastic surgeon, but you were a doctor.”

  “Yes?”

  “Then I want your expert opinion. What’s really happening out there, to those people? It just doesn’t seem real, doesn’t make any sense. What do you think it is?”

  Gentry felt the blood draining from his face. There wasn’t going to be a good way to answer her question, at least not if he were to tell the truth. On some level he was involved in what the world had become, but announcing that he had a hand in her husband’s untimely demise wasn’t exactly what he had planned for the night.

  He could lie, say that he had absolutely no idea. He could tell her what he knew based on what he had seen on the news and over the last two weeks, but again that would be a lie. And at the moment, anything less than the absolute truth didn’t seem right.

  But where would he start, how could he loop the whole thing together without talking it into the ground?

  “Have you ever heard of BXF Technologies?”

  30

  She hadn’t been looking at him, but turned at the question, her face a look of obvious confusion. “What?”

  He’d stepped over the line. There wasn’t really a way to walk it back now, but that was okay. He was through hiding what he knew and now wanted to tell someone. It was going to be like running through a minefield, but it was the right thing to do—at least that’s what he needed to tell himself to get through the next half hour.

  Gentry tilted his glass back and finished what remained. “BXF Technologies, you know the company?”

  “I don’t think so, I mean what does this—”

  He responded before she had finished. “What about Marcus Goodwin?”

  “Oh yes, he owns two of the largest homes in California.” She paused, set her glass on the table between them. Looked like she was starting to form a different set of questions. “And he’s the CEO of that company, yes I think I might have heard of it.”

  “Okay, is there anything else you might have heard?” He was stalling, thinking of how to transition back to her original question, but could see that she was growing impatient.

  “I’m not sure I understand. What does Marcus Goodwin have to do with any of this?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Wait,” she said, “you mentioned him on that call earlier tonight?”

  “Goodwin?”

  “Yes, I heard his name.”

  Gentry sat back, ran his hand through his hair, figured that the time had come. “He did this.”

  She shook her head. “Wait, he did what?”

  “All of this, what’s happening out there. Marcus Goodwin is responsible.”

  “I still don’t understand, this virus came from somewhere overseas. It was called something like Intermittent Explosive Disorder or something like that.”

  He paused, knowing how this next part was going to sound. “That’s what the news and everyone else thought, but it couldn’t have been further from the truth.”

  Margaret now looked more irritated than confused. She slowly sat forward in her chair and folded her hands. “Wait, are you saying that you know something about what’s going on out there? Something besides what we’ve all already seen?”

  “Yes.” He paused.

  But she just stared back at him.

  “And there’s not really a good way to explain how all this fits together, so I’m going to just jump in.”

  She raised an eyebrow and bit at the side of her lip. “Okay …”

  Gentry regarded her with a quick smile. “Until six months ago, I worked for BXF Technologies and Marcus Goodwin. He had developed a program that was initially titled Project Lockwood. It was named after Dr. Eugene Lockwood, the biologist he was working with at the time. Marcus Goodwin is a very smart man, but also an absolute sociopath, and a self-made billionaire with too much time and too much money for his own good. When he became bored with the micro-technology business, he thought it would be fun to dabble in genetic engineering.”

  Margaret’s mouth was now slightly open. It looked like she was putting the pieces together. “Are you trying to say that this wasn’t an accident?”

  There wasn’t really a reason to keep it from her, any of it.

  “Well, not exactly.”

  “Not exactly, what does that mean?”

  “Marcus Goodwin was obsessed with redefining the boundaries of human genetics. He knew enough about the way people were wired to understand that we all have certain limitations, ones that we don’t even realize or have the ability to consciously access. He wanted to find a way around that, a way to mute some of the automated responses within our minds.”

  Margaret shook her head, closing her eyes for a moment. “Okay, you’ve completely lost me. How about you try again, this time in a way that I might actually understand.”

  He thought that’s what he’d done, but the look on her face said otherwise.

  “So, Project Ares—” He stared off quickly, now feeling the need to get it all out at once.

  However, she held up her hand. “Uh, that’s not what you called it before, you said …” She looked at the ceiling for a brief second. “You called it Project Lockwood, I think.”

  “Yes, Marcus Goodwin renamed the initiative once Dr. Lockwood left the program. No one really knew why and no one wanted to ask. It seemed to be a hot-button issue for Goodwin, since he had run through more than a half dozen chemists in four years. None stayed longer than a few months after given the full details of the program. That was until I came along.”

  “What do you mean ‘details of the program’? You’re still not making any sense.”

  “It’s actually pretty simple,” Gentry said. “Goodwin was trying to find a way for the human brain to respond at an increased rate, like upgrading the processor on a computer. He wanted to build a more perfect human, a faster sprinter, a better soldier. He wanted to remove the hindrance of empathy or compassion, nothing but reaction. Make the mind process information faster—much faster
. And for a while, it seemed to be working. He sold the rights to the program to a few confidential government organizations and worked with them to perfect it over the last six or seven years, but never got it exactly right.”

  Her eyes narrower now, Margaret just stared at him. “Let’s say that I believe you … how did that turn into whatever this is?”

  “There were side effects from the injectable, some that we didn’t see until the very end. One of which ended up shutting down other parts of the brain. Parts that would be necessary for empathy and impulse control. And then over time, the side effects began to compound. They started closing off everything in the brain except the most animalistic tendencies—hunting and feeding.”

  Gentry waited for the full weight of it to hit her.

  “Then it got bad. Test subjects that had taken the injectable began attacking the doctors, nurses, and guards. Like what you’re seeing out there.”

  Margaret didn’t respond.

  “And then those that were attacked by the test subjects started presenting with similar symptoms. The anger and aggression usually began within minutes—transferred through the subject’s blood. They were placed in quarantine, but the project had completely gone off track. It had morphed into something none of us wanted to be associated with. We knew we needed to stop it, but didn’t know how. And on top of everything else, Marcus Goodwin began separating our teams. He wanted us to push forward without regard for the lives lost. He wanted to find a way to fix the things that were broken without going back and starting over. That’s why, six months ago, I walked into his office and told him I was leaving.”

  She hadn’t changed her expression, but seemed to slump a bit in her chair. She looked to the window and at her glass, but not yet at him. “You were part of this?”

  “I was trying to fix it, but it had been going on long before I started. When I realized there wasn’t anything I could do—”

  “You left, just like the others before you.”

  “You don’t understand, there wasn’t anything I could do. At least not working for Goodwin, he made sure of that.”

  Margaret tilted her head back and again brushed her hair away from her face. She seemed to be considering her response. “If all of this is true, and this whole thing was created in a lab somewhere, is it possible there’s a way to fix it, to help all of those people?”

  With everything he’d already laid out for her, he felt the need to give her at least a bit of hope. “There could be, but I’m not sure there’s anyone left to see it through.”

  She shot forward, her eyes now wide. “You, you could fix it, right?”

  He should have known that this is where she was headed. He’d had the same thoughts a million times over the last two weeks, but wasn’t quite ready to explore what that would entail. “In theory, yes. But at this point, I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

  She nodded. “You obviously knew Major Daniels?”

  “Yes, but what does that have to do with—”

  “You said that man was partnering with the government to finish the project. Was the Major involved with this as well?”

  “He was my friend.”

  “But was he involved?”

  Gentry lowered his head, felt like crawling out of the room. He now wished he hadn’t started down this road. All he wanted to do was arm her with a bit of information that may help her survive a little longer than if they’d never crossed paths, but so far he hadn’t even scratched the surface. “Yes, he was.”

  Margaret looked out toward her home. She sat quiet for a moment, appeared to be letting it wash over her. When she turned back, she looked different, older. Like she did telling the story of her husband. She tried to speak, stopped twice, and then cleared her throat. “What’s Blackmore?”

  “Blackmore?”

  “Major Daniels spray painted it in giant letters on the garage door. Does that have something to do with all of this?”

  “You noticed that?”

  “Hard to miss.”

  “Blackmore is a medical research facility in the Sierra Nevadas. Goodwin had it built specifically for Project Ares and had Major Daniels running it.”

  “Is that where all of this started?”

  Her question hit him in a place he wasn’t expecting, from an angle he hadn’t yet considered. There were always the thoughts of going back and trying to help the man who ended the world—not Marcus Goodwin specifically, more the world as a whole—but in the end he realized there was no helping that man. However, there was an alternative, one that didn’t involve going back into the city.

  “No,” Gentry said, “but it might just be where all of this ends.”

  31

  The room was cold now and he felt like he needed to eat. Owen didn’t remember it being this cold a few hours ago, but then again, a few hours ago, most things were a blur to him. And to exacerbate the problem, he was sitting on the floor, which at the moment didn’t seem to be helping with the temperature or the tightening of his lower back.

  He sat across from Kevin, who he’d helped move into a high-backed leather office chair. His friend was reclined back and had his legs resting on a white and blue cardboard file box. His arms planted firmly on the armrests, sucking in quick breaths every time he shifted his weight, the pain was evident in his face. And at his side, Zeus laid on the floor watching his every move.

  On the opposite side of the room, also seated on the floor, was the man he’d met less than a day before. Travis yawned, rolling his neck from left to right, and took a slow pull of water from a half empty bottle.

  “So,” Owen looked Travis over. “Where you from?”

  Travis stared at the floor. “LA.”

  “Yeah, I figured that. You live here in the city?”

  “At one time, yeah.”

  It had been like this for the last hour or so. Owen would ask a question, get a few words out of the stranger who’d saved them, and then ask another. He’d nearly given up a half dozen times, figuring it wasn’t worth his time. However, it was keeping Kevin from dozing off and on some level, strangely entertaining.

  He turned back to his friend, offered a quick tilt of his chin, and a flat grin. “How ya holding up Chief? Those meds starting to wear off?”

  Kevin hadn’t spoken more than a handful of times and when he did, it was through gritted teeth. He appeared content to simply sit and rest. “I’m good.”

  He wasn’t. His color was better than before, but his face, neck, and hands still held a hint of grey. Nothing that Owen was overly concerned with, but at the same time this was territory he wasn’t completely familiar with.

  Owen gave a quick thumbs-up. “You look good.”

  Kevin held back a laugh, turning his eyes to Travis. “Hey … thank you.”

  Travis finally lifted his head. “Sure thing.”

  Kevin looked like he wanted to respond, but then was overcome by another wave of pain. He pulled his left arm in close to his torso, clenching his jaw and talking in three or four quick breaths.

  Owen reflexively winced. He didn’t like seeing other people suffer, and he liked it on his friend even less. “I’m sorry buddy, you want me to see if I can get you something a bit stronger?”

  Once the moment had passed, Kevin slumped in the chair. He closed his eyes and looked almost at peace. “No, I’m alright. I’ll be fine.”

  Travis sat up straight. “You sure, I can see if—”

  “Yeah, I just wanna sit here and close my eyes for a few. Think about something other than my shoulder.”

  “Just let me know.” Travis took a few seconds and then turned back to Owen. “I lived here off and on a few years ago. Couldn’t decide where I wanted to end up. I always liked the ocean, but with prices what they were …”

  Owen laughed under his breath. It didn’t feel right at the moment, but he thought it might keep the tone of the conversation headed in the right direction. “Ain’t that the truth?”

  “How about you?”


  It was the first time Travis had asked him anything that didn’t have to do with his friend’s injury or the events that played out in the intersection the day before. It seemed an awkward attempt, but on the other hand, there were still a few things he wanted to square away, so this was progress.

  “The valley, just north of downtown. Couldn’t stand the traffic or the heat during the summer, but hey it’s better than what we got now.”

  Travis pushed his back into the door frame, began to nod. “That’s the understatement of the century, nothing but death outside these walls. Almost makes a person wish they were driving in rush-hour traffic, at least then the woman in the minivan in the left lane isn’t looking to eat your face.”

  This time Owen did laugh—he didn’t hold back either. He caught himself remembering what it was like before. Early morning workouts, lunch that involved ordering off a menu, car-line pickup in the September heat, binging Netflix on a Saturday afternoon with Natalie by his side, caffeine by the liter, and every other thing he had taken for granted. There were many things about his former life that that he was going to miss, but at the moment, every single one seemed irrelevant.

  “You out there by yourself?”

  Travis seemed to stiffen a bit. “Mostly.”

  “Since the beginning?”

  “Yeah, except for the couple of days I spent here with Paul and his family. They got me off the streets when things got really bad on this side of town.”

  Owen wanted to ask the question that had been on his mind since the man with the shotgun and the black tactical vest had the side of his head blown off. There wasn’t really a good way to come at it, other than to just ask. “You been in that apartment building ever since?”

  “Made it there a day later. It took a bit to clear the first floor, but the others were a piece of cake. Just get them into the stairwell and let gravity do the rest.”

  “You’re a good shot.”

  Travis now looked at him. He had been before, but now he had something behind his eyes that said he was listening, something that wasn’t there before. “Just lucky I guess.”