Away From the Sun

by Jason D. Morrow

  I slowly walked through the doors that opened to the steps descending into the basement. I had never been in there before. It had been mentioned in passing when I was on a campus tour in high school. The student ambassador told the group that it was one of the more advanced science labs in this part of the country. I couldn’t remember what it was for or who ran the lab, but I did remember that most students weren’t allowed to go down there. I figured that perhaps in all the chaos, someone might have left the door unlocked.

  I was right.

  However, it wasn’t so much unlocked as it was broken. My throat started to tighten when I saw that two of the hinges were snapped off the door. Had the crazy people been here, too? I slid through the opening, and immediately wished I hadn’t. Shattered glass was sprinkled all over the floor. Pieces of broken lab equipment littered the tables. Worst of all, there were three bodies on the ground. Lifeless.

  The sight made my stomach churn worse than when I had seen Andy bite into the woman. It was dark, so it was hard for me to tell if these people had the same sickness.

  I knew I should have just turned and left, but what I saw compelled me to move forward. When I got closer, I had to hold my breath, the smell was so bad. These bodies weren’t fresh. At least, not within the last few minutes. The one closest to me was muscular. He had a deep gash in his shoulder, maybe a bite mark, and there was a bullet wound in his head. Next to him was a much smaller man. Old-looking. He didn’t wear a shirt, and there were bullet holes in his chest and part of the top of his head was simply gone.

  My mouth hung open, and I couldn’t look away. Beyond these two was another muscular-looking man. He lay face down on the floor, but the blood on the wall behind him indicated that he had been shot as well. What could have happened here? Why were these people murdered?

  It was time to leave. I don’t know what brought me here in the first place. I was looking for a safe hideout, but this clearly wasn’t it. I almost made it to the door when I heard a noise at the top of the stairs. My body froze in place, my ears straining to detect the movement. Was the sound coming this way? Was it a regular person or a sick person? I hoped that it was just a professor, searching the halls to make sure everyone got out all right.

  A step.

  Someone was coming down the stairs. My breath was shallow. I wanted to run, but fear kept me still. I didn’t want anyone to know I was down here, but if I stayed, they would find me.

  I decided to take a small step backward. That’s when I heard a guttural moan coming from whoever was walking down the stairs. The steps didn’t seem deliberate. If someone wanted to go down the stairs with purpose, they certainly would have already been in the lab. I took another step back. It had to be one of those diseased people.

  Someone took another step down. I couldn’t keep myself from shaking. I had the police officer’s gun in my hands, but I didn’t want to make more noise than I needed. I figured if I did, there would be many more crazy people coming after me.

  I got lucky. There was a sudden pop of gunfire echoing from another building and the diseased person stopped walking down the stairs. Instead, it seemed to turn around and walk back up, searching for the source of the noise. I finally let out a breath, relieved that the person had left, but still too scared to go back where I had come. I scanned the room. The wall on the other side was a mess. It seemed that a shelf had fallen. Broken, glass cages lay in a pile. They looked like cages that might have been used for lab rats. Directly in front of me, behind the last muscular dead guy was a room with a gurney. There were IV’s and monitors, though nothing was turned on. To the left, everything seemed pristine. Whatever had gone down in this room, never made it to the other side. I decided to walk that way. I passed by several large tables with microscopes, test tubes, and all kinds of lab equipment set up for immediate use. At the other end of the room there was a door. I assumed it was a closet. I was right.

  When I opened it, I half expected something to jump out at me, but I was happy to find that it was a simple storage closet with more lab equipment. I looked at the mess behind me before going into the closet. For a brief second, I thought I was being stupid, trying to hide away like that. But a crashing noise somewhere on the floor above me changed my mind quickly. I fumbled for a light, but found nothing. I reached into my pocket to pull out my phone and it wasn’t there. I cursed at myself silently, remembering I had left it in my backpack. I had dropped the backpack near dead Andy and the dead cop. It was a rare feeling, but I wanted to call my family. I wanted to know if they were all right. I wanted to tell them that I was all right—at least for now. But I couldn’t. I wondered if this was one of those catastrophes where calls didn’t go through and the army would have to be brought in. Was this something going on just at Elkhorn University? Was this regional? Global? I knew nothing. I was in the thick of it, but people a hundred miles away probably had a better idea of what was happening.

  I sat there in the dark for hours.

  Hours.

  Every time I thought I was clear to come out, I would hear another noise. Be it a gunshot, screams, or a crash, something would always keep me in the closet.

  A day went by.

  I remember falling asleep. Because it was so dark, I couldn’t keep track of the time. I braved opening the closet to get a glimpse of the outside world, but I heard more screams. If I went out there, one of those screams would become mine. Then my screams would keep someone else in a closet.

  Another day went by.

  I felt like I was going crazy. I started to wonder if the screams I heard were just in my head. I would go out into the lab every few hours to drink some water from the faucet. I even relieved myself in the corner twice. Other than that, I stayed hidden away.

  I fell asleep again, but this time when I woke, it was from a noise right in the lab. Underneath the crack of the closet door, I could see the light from a flashlight. My first instinct was to cry out for help—to open the door and tell them that it was safe down here for now. But then I thought better of it.

  What if this someone mistook me for a diseased person and shot me? A whole list of scenarios filled my mind and most of them were negative. I kept my mouth shut and my sore body still.

  “This is him,” a voice said. It was a man.

  The other voice came from a woman. “The one without the shirt? I know that already. Remember, I found him for you.”

  “Yeah,” the man said. “Right, well I wasn’t sure you would recognize him.”

  “Why, because you blew his brains out all over the floor?” The woman didn’t sound happy. “Who are the other two?”

  “I hired them. They were meant to keep the girl here so she didn’t escape.”

  “A lot of good that did you,” the woman said. “We really shouldn’t be here. Let’s get the canister and leave.”

  The man laughed at her, but it quickly turned into a cough. “What are you afraid of?” Cough, cough. “The police aren’t coming here.” Cough, cough. “I hired someone to kill the police that were investigating the lab. Then I killed the man I hired.” Cough. “All other law enforcement is so preoccupied with the virus that’s spreading, they won’t come looking here for a long while.” Cough, cough.

  “Are you sick?” the woman asked the man.

  “I think I might be coming down with something, yes,” he answered.

  “I can’t believe you messed all this up,” the woman said. “The virus was supposed to spread, yes, but this is sloppy. This was the first trial run…” She ended her sentence with a huff.

  I could feel my hands shaking again. This time it was because I knew I was in the same room as the murderer. Had he created this sickness…this virus? I held the pistol close to me as I listened.

  “We’ve been over this,” he came back. “I know what kind of situation we are in now. We just have to work a bit harder.”

  “I don’t know why you had to pick the girl,” the woman said. “You were infatuated with her.”


  “Willow was the perfect test subject.”

  Willow?

  “She trusted me, and her family lives a thousand miles away,” he said. “These two were supposed to keep her here. I’m not sure what happened. I left for one minute.”

  A thought hit me like a truck. The text I got from Willow. She was supposed to meet with a professor. They met. I never heard from her again. This was the man that she made plans with. This was the man that killed her. And now some virus had spread across the entire campus. For all I knew, it had spread further. I wanted to throw up, but I knew I had to stay silent. I held my hand against my mouth, trying to stifle my shaking body. What was going on here?

  “Reporters are going to figure out it started in this lab,” the woman said. “They might even figure out that it was your super-vaccine gone bad.”

  “And I will deal with them accordingly,” he said. “They may ask questions at first, but soon, the news will divert from here. This thing is going to spread like wildfire. The world won’t know what to do.”

  “I don’t care about all that right now,” the woman said. “Let’s just get what we came for and get out of here. Where is the canister?”

  The man didn’t answer, but I could hear his footsteps moving closer to the closet. I just knew that’s where he was going. Was he going to find me? I gripped the gun tighter in my hands. I might have been shaky, but it would be hard to miss from this short of a distance. I sat on the floor, waiting. The doorknob twisted and I held the gun up, pointing it to where I thought his chest might be when the door opened. Light broke through as the door cracked outward. My finger was on the trigger ready to pump him full of bullets.

  But he stopped.

  “Hold on,” he said. His hand let go of the doorknob. “That’s right, I moved the cooler over here.” His steps carried him away from the closet. I didn’t know I had been holding my breath until I finally breathed outward. I wasn’t sure who had been luckier—him or me.

  “You only want the one?” he asked the woman.

  “It’s the only one I care about for now,” she says. “I’ll make sure it is kept safe and stored away.”

  “You won’t keep it with you?” he asked.

  “It will be safe,” she answered.

  “Things could get ugly out there,” he said. “What if you find out that you need it and you aren’t near it? I highly recommend that you keep it near you.”

  “You shouldn’t worry about it,” she said. “I will find a way to transport it to me if I need it.”

  Nothing more was said. I don’t know what came over me, but for some reason I gained the confidence to move closer to the crack in the door. I wanted to see the killer. I wanted to see the man that was responsible for Willow’s death, for the crazy people that attacked anything that moved.

  I didn’t touch the door. I tried to see out the best I could. At first, all I could see was the back of their heads as they walked toward the exit, the woman leading the way. Then, she stopped suddenly and turned around. Her blonde, cheek-length hair framed her face. She was pretty, maybe in her forties, but her blue stare was fierce.

  “Get out your gun,” she said. “We don’t know how many of those creatures are out there.”

  The man reached into his coat and pulled out a pistol.

  Turn around, I thought. I want to see your face. I want to see the face of the man who is responsible for Willow’s death. The man that created this…virus.

  I never got that chance. Before I could blink twice, the two of them were out of the room and I wouldn’t see either of them again until this morning, when I saw the woman who was instructing Samuel—the woman who, now I’m sure, is Shadowface.

  Chapter 6 - Waverly

  I sit on a cot in the same room I was locked in earlier, but now the door stands wide open. I stare at the cylinder in my hands, not knowing what to do with it. What I said in the meeting still sounds like a good idea to me. Smash it. Get rid of it. Would Shadowface really kill me out of spite if I did such a thing? What would be the point?

  I unscrew the canister and look at the glass vial inside.

  Blood. Blood of a Starborn. I wonder who it might have come from. If he or she is dead or still alive. I’m assuming dead. And the power…the power must be particularly unique if someone is willing to kill over it. I think about myself. Would someone kill over my power? I nearly laugh at the thought. I would almost kill just so I didn’t have it. I don’t like seeing the future. Especially when that future consists of the death of people I care about.

  Like Ethan.

  The thought of him being shot in the middle of the street plays in my mind over and over. I can’t get it out. And every time I see his face, I’m reminded that I need to keep a close watch on him. Though last night proved that I can change the future I see, it doesn’t mean it’s easy. And the feeling of regret fills me every time I think about how I could have tried to save Lucas. But I was so shocked the first time it happened that I didn’t know what to do.

  I now look at a flash of the future as a warning for me to spring into action. Only once did I see a future that had a positive outcome, and that was when Ethan and I had been sitting next to a fire and a greyskin came up on us. I had grabbed Ethan’s hand and a white flash burned in front of my eyes and I saw him kill the greyskin. I now know that I could have done something to change it, or leave the future as I saw it.

  No other vision has been good. There was Lucas. Hank. Gilbert. I feel like there must have been something I could have done for each of them. At least Hank wasn’t dead. He was only missing a hand. But that was a moment when I tried to change what I saw in my future and couldn’t.

  I wish I could talk to someone about this, but there isn’t anyone that would understand. Ethan knows, and I’m pretty sure Gabe knows, but it’s not like I can talk to them about it. They wouldn’t know what to say. I wouldn’t know what to talk about. I know that if I told Ethan about the vision that I saw of him, he would just tell me not to worry so much; that we would figure it out.

  But it isn’t that simple. I assume the only reason I was able to change the future I saw with Scarecrow was because it directly involved me. I was in the situation and the outcome was based off my decision. That being the case, I changed my mind. So, the outcome changed. It seems to me that I can’t change anyone’s future unless I am directly involved with the vision.

  But I can’t think that way about Ethan. Though I may have not been in the vision, that doesn’t mean I can’t do something. I am still so new to this ability, so I know that it will just take some thought and preparation. My ability is not meaningless, or useless. It is there for me to change the outcome. It’s just a puzzle that I have to solve.

  An unfamiliar smell hits my nostrils. It’s like smoke mixed with something I can’t place. I look up and jump slightly when I see Jeremiah standing in the doorway.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says. “Stephen told me where I could stay, but he didn’t show me. I guess I’m in the wrong place.”

  I shrug. “I don’t really know what to tell you. I haven’t been here much longer than you have.”

  He nods, smiling. He leans against the doorframe and looks down at the floor. I can’t help but stare at his face. His eyes look tired. Maybe like he’s having an allergic reaction to something. He seems pale, too. He looks up at me again and I turn my eyes down.

  “What you have in your hands is very powerful,” he says.

  “But you don’t know what power it holds?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “Wish I did.”

  “So, all I have to do is drink this and I’ll have whatever ability the previous Starborn had?”

  “That’s the idea, I think,” he says. “There’s a lot of theory that floats around when Starborns are researched. A lot of guessing. Truth is, drinking that blood could kill you. Or you could gain the power and lose control of it. Or you might be perfectly fine, with an amazing gift.”

  “Gift,” I
repeat, looking down at the blood. I’m tempted to tell him about my gift. He really would be the person to talk to, wouldn’t he? If he has studied people like me in the past, he might know what I should do about it. Or he might be able to give me some answers. I decide to play it safe.

  “How does a Starborn gain the power in the first place?” I ask.

  “It’s in their blood,” he says.

  “I know that, but why does it show up at different times for different people?”

  “I think it comes about when the person needs it the most,” he says. “When a person with Starborn blood is in danger, it just manifests. It’s a survival instinct. Then they have the power forever.”

  “Are there ever unexplainable ones?” I ask. I hope I’m not being too obvious.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, like if a person found that they could read someone’s mind…or see someone else’s future or something…but it didn’t necessarily help them immediately.”

  “Sounds pretty specific,” he says, grinning. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “There is a lot that I’m not telling you,” I say, setting my jaw firmly. “I don’t know you from Adam. I’m not saying I know anyone with Starborn powers. I’m just interested is all.” I feel like I’ve given myself away; that I’ve said too much.

  He narrows his eyes, but the smile on his face hasn’t faded. “There was one case I studied that had me perplexed,” he says. “There was a man that had the gift of long life. He didn’t know it until he was diagnosed with a rare disease that should have killed him within weeks. But as soon as he learned of it, he started getting better.”

  “So,” I say, shrugging.

  “So, he didn’t die for another one hundred and fifty years or so. And even then, he only died because he was killed by someone.”

  “Why would someone kill him?” I ask.

  “Wrong place at the wrong time,” he says. “But the point is, I’ve never come across a case where the power manifested itself unless it was necessary for the Starborn’s survival.”