by Ellis, Tara
Tyler stared into the rough-looking face of a man he’d just met and felt oddly reassured by it. Unlike the placid, freshly-groomed demeanor of Eddy, Jason had a realness to him. A raw-edged, unshaven look of a man who was still in the middle of a battle with death and knew it. He was a fighter, like his mom.
Allowing his strengthening instincts to guide him, Tyler battled his inner turmoil and came to grips with the realization that he had to leave. It would have been so much easier to say no. To admit defeat and go down to where his dad was dying and just lay down next to him and wait for it all to finally end. Except, that wasn’t what his dad would want. It certainly wasn’t what his mom would want.
As Tyler forced his legs to move, and he gave Jason a small nod as he walked past, he accepted that it was also what he wanted. Tyler wanted to live.
Chapter 26
JASON
Black Site, CDC Bio Level 4 Lab
Southern California
“I’m sorry, Dr. Chase, but I was never told you’d be taking them anywhere.”
Jason did his best not to look at Eddy and expose his nervousness to the soldier positioned on the other side of the door, inside the decon area. He had no idea how his friend planned on getting them above-ground. Eddy had been vague, at best, in regard to his plan and told him to simply follow his lead. It was such a typical Eddy thing to say, that Jason had been thrown off enough not to push the issue, and he literally didn’t have any time to. Eddy dragged him out of bed and then immediately led him from the room before he was even fully awake.
“It’s Lieutenant Holiday, correct?” Eddy asked. When the man didn’t correct him, he continued. “I apologize if our schedule wasn’t properly relayed, but as I’m sure you can understand, things are moving quite fast. We’re simply following the same protocol as we did last night with patient one, Ed.”
Holiday looked at Eddy skeptically, the gas mask exposing enough of his features so that Jason could see him clearly. He turned to the rest of them, undoubtedly feeling uneasy that they were all without any protective equipment. “I already made an exception to let the dog stay in here with me. Things like this are normally arranged with the doctor assigned down here, but I don’t know where she is. In fact, no one has shown up for the next shift. I should probably go call upstairs.”
Jason noticed the soldier was petting Marty as he spoke, and had pushed at his temple several times with his other hand. “Do you have a headache?” he asked casually.
Holiday froze. He slowly lowered his hand from his head and audibly swallowed. “A little. I’ve been up all night,” he added quickly.
“The guard at the elevator is already confirming our clearance to my work area on level 2,” Eddy assured the panicking man. “He won’t let us up without it. When I get there, I’ll send someone down to check you out.”
“Yeah,” Tyler said, jumping in. “You don’t look so good, man.”
Jason stifled a grin. He liked the kid’s initiative.
Eddy started walking again without waiting for permission, and as Jason followed, the flustered Lieutenant didn’t make an attempt to stop them. They all stripped out of the thin hazmat coveralls and foot coverings, and washed their hands at the cleaning station as fast as they could, before the soldier stopped worrying about himself and changed his mind.
Once outside in the hallway, Jason grabbed the backpack he’d left there, and then jogged to catch up with Eddy. “Want to fill me in on your plan for the elevator? Because I’m pretty sure he isn’t going to be so easily swayed.”
“I’ve got it covered,” Eddy said evenly without looking back at him.
Jason had a bad feeling as they approached the armed guard. He was of half a mind to just walk up to him and ask to speak with the Admiral. If what Eddy had said was true, what good would it be to keep them all as hostages down there? Why not let them go?
He was on the verge of calling out to the man, when a nagging voice in the back of his head stopped him. He was ex-military. If there was one thing Jason was sure of, it was that the soldiers, and especially the Admiral, would follow orders. Free thinking wasn’t encouraged in their sort of environment, especially not while under martial law. It likely wouldn’t matter how much sense what he was saying made. While some of the people in the CDC lab could be reasoned with, the man in charge could not. At least, Jason wasn’t willing to bet his life and that of the three others on his ability to negotiate.
It was with a heavy mix of excitement and trepidation that he held Marty’s collar and stood aside as Eddy began talking to the guard. Tyler and Devon hovered nearby, doing a surprisingly good job of masking their nerves. Of course, they hadn’t survived as long as they had by being emotional or reckless. He hoped he had the chance to hear their story at some point.
“Dr. Chase,” the guard said, sounding official. He eyed the rest of them with a heavy dose of scrutiny. Even with the mask on, Jason could tell from the moment he saw him earlier that the guy was a hard-liner. “You didn’t say anything about escorting more patients upstairs.”
Eddy motioned to Jason. “My colleague here has some signed paperwork from Trent. You know, Ann’s assistant? It’s coming straight from her. She wants to speak with them, herself.”
Surprised by the comment, Jason started and then began to go through the motions of digging in his pockets. Offering a crooked grin at the guard, he shrugged. “I know it’s here, somewhere.”
Unimpressed, he took a step toward Jason, no longer paying attention to Eddy, who had silently moved up behind him. “Since when did we revert back to signing papers?” the guy barked, before moving to key up his microphone. “I’ll confirm this myself.”
He never completed the motion. A needle was sliding into the base of his neck below the mask, before his finger reached the button. He managed to jerk in surprise and started to twist around to fight off the odd attack.
Jason moved instinctively and grabbed at his arms, subduing the man more easily than he expected. As he maneuvered to wrap him up, he realized it wasn’t necessary. The guard was already going slack in his arms, and he instead ended up supporting him to the floor, where he lay motionless.
“What did you do?” Devon shouted, kneeling down next to them.
Jason checked for a pulse as Eddy pulled the pass-card off the soldier’s chest with an audible “snap” of the clip. “What was that?” Jason demanded, his face clouded.
Eddy waved the card in front of the reader next to the elevator. “Morphine.”
“You gave him a lethal dose!” Jason spat, jumping to his feet. “What happened to not wanting to kill anyone?”
“I don’t,” Eddy said, seemingly unconcerned by the death in spite of his claim. “It was necessary.”
“Necessary,” Jason repeated, his voice dangerously low. He could see Tyler out of the corner of his eye with a hand on Marty’s back, looking scared. He could only imagine what the kid was thinking of the people he’d aligned himself with. “You could have just given him enough to knock him out.”
“That’s illogical,” Eddy countered, finally looking at Jason. “A lower dosing would have had variable effects. You know that. He was most likely going to die from The Kuru, anyway. If you’re concerned about his welfare, this was a much more humane way to go.”
The elevator dinged.
“I don’t think he’d agree with you,” Tyler said as he stepped around the body. Marty stayed close to his side, sniffing at one of the man’s splayed hands as he passed.
The doors to the elevator opened, revealing someone in a Class-A hazmat suit. There wasn’t time to argue about Eddy’s methods, and they all stepped inside before the occupant could see the guard off to the side, on the floor.
“Going up?” Eddy asked pleasantly.
“Dr. Chase?” Trent gasped. “Jason? What are you doing?” He shifted in the suit so he could look at Jason and the others. “You need to stay on Level three. There’s um, a…concern about some recent illnesses amongst the staff.
We need you to all stay together for now.”
Eddy reached around him and hit the button for the ground level. When it chimed an alert, he used the guard’s pass card, changing the light from red to green. Jason grabbed at a siderail as they started accelerating upward.
Trent stared at the card.
“We need to leave,” Jason explained. “There isn’t anything more we can do here to help. We aren’t at risk of spreading it.”
“Like that matters,” Tyler scoffed. Jason looked at the teen, surprised by the venom in his voice. “The whole world is infected!” he shouted. “The whole point to all of this was to study the prions and not get infected while doing it. You failed! So, trying to keep us here doesn’t even make any sense.”
Trent didn’t get a chance for a rebuttal before a red light mounted above the doors flashed on, and an ear-splitting alarm began to wail. The elevator stopped.
Jason pressed his hands over his ears, and stared at the number one icon that was lit up on the panel. They were at the ground floor, but the doors weren’t opening. He tried to dig his fingers into the small space between the two sides, but it was impossible to get a grip.
Devon slapped at a two-way communication panel mounted next to the door, keying up the microphone. Jason recalled seeing something similar on the outside of the elevators for the guards to monitor. “Hey!” he shouted, looking up at the same time at a camera in the corner of the ceiling. He waved an arm in front of it. “There’s people in here. We’re stopped at the first floor. Let us out!”
“They won’t listen,” Trent urged, also yelling to be heard over the alarm. “We can go back down, but not up. That’s, uh… how a lockdown works.”
“In here!” Devon continued his pleas, and Tyler crammed in next to him to add his voice, while Jason began studying the ceiling, looking for any kind of access panel to the outside.
“Help!” Tyler screamed. “We don’t belong here! Open the—”
To Jason’s disbelief, the doors opened. Standing there grinning in at them was one of the most fascinating women he’d ever seen. Her blonde hair was in disarray, framing a square jaw marred by a long scar that ran across one of her prominent cheekbones. She was holding a badge out in one hand, with the rank of admiral boldly displayed across the bottom. “You guys ready to get out of here?”
“Peta!” Tyler shouted, springing toward her. Jason was encouraged by the obvious display of friendship between the three people. Devon hung back, but he was smiling in open admiration at her.
Trent didn’t wait around for the elevator to close again, and shuffled away gratefully.
Stepping out into the hallway, Jason felt an incredible sense of relief to see shafts of sunlight streaking in through several windows. There were a handful of people in various level of protective equipment ignoring them as they rushed past, and he didn’t see a guard. “Is the military pulling out?” he asked, interrupting their reunion.
“Not exactly,” a man hovering next to Peta answered. There were two men in full hazmat suits with her, and based on Tyler’s reaction, one of them was also a friend.
“Hernandez!” Devon blurted, moving up to the shorter of the two. “I thought you were sick.”
“We’ll talk about it later,” Hernandez said without any pleasantries. “We need to get out of here before someone decides to take notice. We’re on borrowed time.”
“Which way from here, Garrett?” Peta asked, her smile already gone. Jason got the sense she was normally an all-business sort of person.
“Follow me,” Garrett ordered, and was already walking down the hall.
“How did you find us?” Tyler asked, as they jogged after him.
Peta hesitated and glanced over at Tyler, then back at Jason and the rest of their group. “I didn’t.”
“Then how—” Tyler started, and Peta cut him off.
“We were on our way out, Tyler. Okay? I didn’t know where you were or how to find you. Thank God you and Devon are such loudmouths.”
Her small attempt at lightening the revelation with humor fell flat, and Garrett took the opening to ask his own burning question. “What are you doing with them, Dr. Chase?”
The group rounded a corner to face yet another hallway lined with doors, but at the end was a large metal one with an exit sign over it. They quickened their pace.
“We’re going with you to Suriname,” Eddy said matter-of-factly.
Jason’s head reeled, and he nearly tripped over his own feet.
Suriname?
The hair at the base of his spine prickled with a sense of premonition he’d only experienced once before, when his mother died. Grabbing at Peta’s arm, he slowed their forward momentum as he stared in bewilderment at her intriguing face. “You wouldn’t happen to be going to the Libi Nati Preserve?” During their brief conversation about the rare group with immunity, Eddy had failed to mention where their quest was taking them.
Peta’s eyes narrowed. “Close. The Libi Nati Resort. Who are you?” She shot a questioning glance at Devon as they all approached the outside door. “You told him?”
“I’m a doctor,” Jason answered before Devon had a chance to respond. “And no one told me. Why there? Why the Libi Nati?”
“Because it might be our only hope to save what’s left of the human race,” Peta said as she used the same Admiral’s badge to swipe at the door panel. She pulled it open and hot air rushed in, carrying with it the scent of arid desert and sage. Jason saw a helicopter sitting in the distance before she looked back at him, blocking his view. “Why are you going?”
For the second time since the initial event, Jason found himself in a state of synchronicity, feeling a profound certainty that he was exactly where he was meant to be. He smiled at her. “To save my daughter.”
Chapter 27
JESS
Amazon Jungle near Kumalu, Suriname
Northeast interior of South America
“Jess! Where are you going?”
Jess cringed and didn’t turn around right away to face Amisha. She thought she’d made it past Mr. Van’s house and onto the trail without being spotted by anyone.
“Does Akuba know you’re here?” Amisha pushed, her voice growing closer.
Jess’s first reaction was to come up with an excuse, but as she faced Amisha, she found herself growing defensive. And angry. “Akuba and I have basically been running this place for the last week by ourselves!” she said, very close to shouting. “I’m responsible for all of the animals, because there isn’t anyone else left to do it. I think, that if I want to take a walk, Akuba will be okay with it!”
Amisha squinted at her. She was wearing her long black hair in the traditional Arawak braids, making her look just a few years older than Jess. With her brown skin and indigenous features, she’d always been envious of the girl’s striking beauty. That day, Amisha also looked tired. A soul-breaking kind of tired that would probably never completely go away. She’d lost too much.
Jess was already feeling guilty about her outburst as Amisha started walking toward her. She was forming an apology when the older girl continued past her, and down the trail. After a moment she paused and looked back at Jess. “Well, are you coming?”
Smiling, Jess scurried to catch up and they moved through the sun-dappled jungle in silence for a few minutes. It was mid-afternoon, and when Jess had finished all her chores well before dinner, she’d gotten the overwhelming urge to retreat into the Amazon. Even though it was guilty of the same transformations as the rest of her world, in the daylight she thought she might be able to pretend it was the same place. And though she hadn’t known it until she’d stepped onto the path, Jess had to try and see her father.
“I need to know what they’re doing,” Jess said, figuring Amisha would understand what she was talking about. The girl knew the trail led to the resort, because she’d hiked it a few times with Jess in the past.
Akuba told Jess that morning before taking them breakfast, that she would fill
the newcomers in on everything that had happened, including her and Kavish’s beliefs as to what it all meant. Though Amisha and her family were locals, her father’s tribe had disbanded long before she was born. He worked in the city and they had a home not far from the resort, which was how Amisha had come to work there.
She didn’t know how spiritual Amisha’s family was, but Jess knew Amisha shared the same respect for the Libi Nati that she did, and valued the traditions of Akuba’s tribe for protecting it.
“What do you think?” Amisha asked. “What’s happened to him, and the others who have woken from the comas?”
The question surprised Jess. Throughout everything that had happened, no one had thought to ask her opinion on anything, really…until then. Maybe it was because Amisha had already lost her own father and brother, so she got why it was important to know someone cared about not just how you were feeling, but also how you saw everything. “I think the Kra Puru did something to my dad’s brain. Like, some sort of brain damage,” she answered without any hesitation. “His soul is still there, Amisha. He just can’t…feel it right now.”
Amisha was nodding. “Yes, I agree. I spoke to someone at the hospital who had woken up. I didn’t know her, but it was still obvious that she wasn’t right. And it was more than being weak, or sick. The woman wasn’t scared, even after finding out she’d almost burned to death in the fire. She told me about the rest of her family dying, without any emotion. She did show a little remorse, but it was more on level with someone getting to a store after it closed, not losing their family.”
The description chilled Jess. It was describing her father perfectly. She looked over at Amisha and waited until the other girl noticed and met her gaze. “I don’t care if it has something to do with a soul-eating ancient monster-spirit, or if it’s a totally ordinary case of brain damage that might heal if we give it enough time. He’s my dad. I have to help him, whether he wants me to or not. I have to at least make sure he’s okay.”