“Thanks.” Kim leaned in and ran her thumb over Jessie’s upper lip. She found that some mold wiped off, though there were smaller circles that appeared rooted in her skin where the mycelium must have penetrated.
“Is it bad, Doc?” Jessie asked.
“Oh, I’m not a doctor,” she admitted. “I used to be a microbiologist and food specialist, but I’ve dedicated the past few years to field work.”
“You were there with me when I found Fiona,” she said, remembering being logged into the CDC network Kim had been monitoring.
“That’s right. Do you find yourself feeling confused?”
“I feel super tired and totally out of it,” she nodded.
“That’s the fungus, too,” Kim said. “It might have already passed through the blood-brain barrier.
“Even I know that’s not good.” Jessie looked glum.
She put her hand on Jessie’s shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze. “Hey, don’t worry. I think we have something that will help you.”
“I’ll take a water, too.”
Kim looked over and saw that Bryant had peeled off his air filtration mask and left it resting on his chest.
“You know we’re all infected now?” Kim said with an arch of her eyebrow.
“I know,” Bryant said. “Hey, about that water…”
“Sure.” She wove between the cots on her way to the mini fridge and retrieved a bottle for him, tossing it over before she stepped out into the hall to look for Paul. She didn’t see Paul, although Fiona was wandering around, looking lost.
“Fiona, over here,” Kim said, waving her over.
The little girl grinned, ran down the hall, and took her hand.
“Fiona!” Jessie exclaimed in a quiet but excited tone. “Bring it in, girl.”
Fiona rushed over and threw her arms around the field agent’s neck. “Hey.”
“This is the best water I’ve ever tasted,” Bryant said with a pleasant sigh. “We’ve been sucking on warm canteen water since we left the base back in Washington.”
“Speaking of which.” Kim shifted her attention back to Jessie. “What happened to you guys?”
“Helicopter crash.” She sounded like the Cookie Monster. “We ended up at a farmhouse with the wounded pilot, but he didn’t make it. From there, I found an SUV and drove to the CDC base in Washington. Turns out we missed you by just a few hours. Then we ended up at the airport where Bryant helped us escape.
“You escaped?” Kim’s right eyebrow shot up. “Sounds dangerous.”
Bryant shrugged. “I pulled a few strings.”
“We got a little lucky,” Jessie added.
Because her throat was so raw, Bryant took over and recounted how they’d talked their way past Miller’s guards, grabbed a Humvee, and got on the road. He went on about how they’d run into trouble close to Zanesville, plowing through a roadblock only to ditch the Humvee a few miles later. Bryant then described their trek through the Ohio farmlands to the barn. Kim gaped in shock as he gave her a blow-by-blow account of the fight in the loft when an intruder tried to sneak up on them unawares.
“That’s an incredible story,” Kim said. She caught up on her side of things, which there wasn’t much to tell. She mentioned that the same people who assaulted their Humvee might have been the same group she’d scared off her bus earlier. Then she briefly talked about arriving at Paul’s and her first impressions of the mycologist.
“Do you think he’ll be able to help us?” Jessie asked, her sick eyes filled with hesitant hope.
“He better help us,” Kim scoffed before she sobered. “In all seriousness, it’s not a cure, but he’s kept the fungus at bay in his own system, so there’s a good chance it will work on us. I just wish Dr. Flannery were here. He could explain things so much better.”
“Where is Dr. Flannery?”
“Burke, or his goon Richtman, shot him.” Kim frowned.
“That stinks,” Jessie croaked.
“It stinks bad,” she agreed, recalling their last few moments together when he’d given her Paul’s name as a resource for a potential cure.
Paul came in carrying three covered syringes. “I didn’t know if Bryant wanted one, so I brought an extra.”
“He’s on board,” Kim said with a glance at the soldier. Bryant gave a slow nod as Paul uncovered one syringe and held it up.
“Who’s first?” Paul grinned.
“Me, definitely,” Jessie volunteered. She sat up straighter and pushed up the sleeve of her sweat stained T-shirt. “What’s in it?”
“Just a little concoction I’ve been working on for years.” Paul pulled up a chair next to Jessie, broke open an alcohol rub, and began swabbing the woman’s arm to clean it. “Working with some protein disruptor's that keep the fungus from reproducing.”
“Kim said it’s not a cure.”
“Not a cure,” Paul confirmed as he took the cover off the pointy end of the syringe and squirted a bit out. “But almost. Without reproduction, most of the fungal cells will die off in our bodies, though they’re always trying to get in from outside. So, without a decisive immune system response, there’s always a risk of reinfection.” He nodded at Fiona. “I hope this little lady can help us fill in those gaps. Would you like that, Fiona?”
The little girl grinned.
“Okay,” Paul said, leaning over Jessie. “Ready?”
“Stick me,” Jessie said, then she took a deep breath and raised her eyes to the ceiling.
Chapter 30
Randy and Jenny Tucker, Indianapolis, Indiana
Three days after the incident with the Twinkie, Randy and Jenny were back out on scavenger duty and getting good at it. They’d learned a few more tricks and had gotten wise to the methods of their other, more opportunistic, teammates like Kirk and Stephanie.
The twins had taken home the highest scores every day that week, and Randy attributed it all to their upbringing on the farm. If a piece of equipment needed to be repaired, or the rains weren’t falling right, their father had to improvise to make sure they got a proper yield. The twins had picked up on that early on, and it had become second nature to them.
They hadn’t been able to retain their wagon from their first scavenging job, although a cart with wheels was the first thing they looked for whenever they entered a home. Randy had even suggested to Tricia that she provide her teams with wagons or carts, and that it would bring in more goods.
Tricia appreciated his suggestions, though she mentioned following Jergensen’s rules. That meant she couldn’t provide scavengers with any advantages prior to hitting the streets. Randy figured it must be part of the competitive system of rewards, and it ensured the teams were hustling for every scrap. They’d be too tired for infighting or causing trouble.
Tricia’s attitude toward him had cooled considerably since the Twinkie incident. The corporal wasn’t being mean, but she wasn’t being friendly, either. Gone was her willingness to joke or let her guard down. The past couple of days had been business as usual with barely a word spoken between them.
“So, are you starting to get me?” Jenny took down some canned goods she’d found on a garage shelf and placed them in a four-wheeled garden cart they’d found out in the shed. It was their first house of the day, and they were already getting lucky. “Things aren’t right here.”
“Keep it down a little, sis,” Randy hissed, glancing out the wide-open garage door where Corporal Ames stood down in the street by their skids, waiting to count their score. “Never know when Kirk or one of those other jerks will overhear us.”
“Right, sorry.” Jenny returned for more canned goods as she lowered her voice. “I mean, aside from Tricia, we haven’t got a single friend here.”
“No kidding,” Randy agreed. “We’ve got a lot more to worry about than Odom. Do you notice how the other soldiers and their buddies look at us at dinner time?”
“Maybe.” Jenny bit her lip. “Have you considered what we talked about?”
“Yeah, I’ve th
ought about it.” Jenny had opened the subject of leaving the Colony days ago. At first, Randy had laughed because she’d made it sound like they were planning an escape, and he’d reminded her they weren’t trapped.
“Oh, yeah,” she’d said to him. “Leave if you can. There’s the door.”
The idea of dying at the hands of United States soldiers had seemed silly at first, but he realized the idea wasn’t so far-fetched. Besides Colonel Jergensen shooting someone within thirty minutes of their arrival, there was a strange, cult-like mentality going around the place. Randy realized his sister was right, and the Colony wouldn’t let someone go without repercussions.
“I get what you’re saying,” he said, grabbing some paper towels and loading them onto the bottom of the garden cart. “But if I agreed to leave, how would we do it?”
“It would have to be while we’re out scavenging,” Jenny whispered. “We could just walk into an unused house and walk right out the back door.”
“And how long will it be before they’re right on top of us?” Randy pointed out. “Thanks to us being so awesome, it only takes us about ten minutes to put together a load. So, we’ve only got ten minutes to slip out the back door with no one seeing us. That’s what we get for being fast.”
“We could slow down a bit, you know?” Jenny said with hope straining her voice. “We could buy ourselves more time.”
“That won’t fly,” Randy replied. “And what about Kirk and Stephanie? You don’t think they’ll be lingering around somewhere? We’d have to plan something like that so perfectly. We’d probably need to find a house with woods in the back yard, too.”
With a shake of his head, he took their first load down to the street and offloaded it onto the skid while Jenny dove deeper into the house to check what they had in the kitchen. He tried to catch Tricia’s eye, but the young woman wouldn’t even spare him a glance. Randy pulled the cart back up the driveway and into the garage and met Jenny where she was just bringing out an arm full of disinfectant wipes.
Jenny straightened. “Did you hear that sound?”
Randy lifted the lid of a freezer and let it fall down again as the rotted meat smell hit him. He always checked freezers, no matter what. Not only were they for storing meat, but his father had always kept seeds in them, too. Randy figured they’d run across someone with the same idea, even if they were in the middle of suburbia.
He dusted his hands off. “What sound?”
A rattling sounded in the distance and then came again from a few houses over. Someone screamed.
“That sound.”
“That’s a machine gun!” Randy rushed to the garage door entrance and watched Tricia drop her pad and swing her rifle into a firing position. She turned toward a house across the street and sprinted toward it along with three other team leaders.
As they drew closer, the soldiers crouched and began making hand signals.
“This would be a good time.” Jenny rested her hand on his shoulder.
“What?” Randy asked, his eyes focused on the scene unfolding across the street. Other scavengers stood in driveways, looking on with captivated fear.
“Let’s go,” Jenny hissed right behind his ear.
He whipped his head around and caught his sister’s secretive facial expression.
“The team leaders are over there,” Jenny said, “and no one is paying attention to us. There’s woods right behind this house. We could be gone—”
“No.” Randy glanced back at the house across the street before he took Jenny by the hand and pulled her farther into the garage. “We need to plan this a little better.”
“You said it yourself,” Jenny insisted. “This isn’t something we can plan. And if we screw around, Tricia will figure it out.”
“She will not,” he said. “What, you think I can’t keep a lid on something?”
Jenny slowly backed away, letting her hand slide across the lid of the freezer. “You can stay here, but I’m going.”
“Don’t.” Randy knew the trick. They’d often used it to get each other to do stupid things. Like the time he’d followed her to the top of the high dive at the community pool after she’d threatened to jump without him. They’d both gone out to the edge and leapt off, much to the lifeguard’s annoyance.
He couldn’t stand to let her do something dangerous without him, and she’d always tested him. He suspected it was part of their bond as twins. Randy often used it as a joke, but Jenny came closest to completing her dares more often than not. He didn’t doubt she’d walk right out the back door and disappear into the woods.
“I’m not kidding, Jenny.”
“I’m not either,” she said, still backing up to the garage door.
“Look, this is serious,” Randy pointed out. “If we get caught, we’ll end up on the wrong side of a firing squad.”
“The more reason to get out of here, brother.”
“Listen, Jenny—”
She skipped up the stairs and disappeared into the house.
Randy cursed and looked back over his shoulder at the street. Escalated sounds of gunfire echoed from the other side, and there were no signs of the team leaders anywhere. Realizing it was a do or die moment, his heart slamming inside his chest, he leapt up the stairs and into the house. He flew down a short hall and bounded into the kitchen.
“Jenny, where…” His words drifted off as he found Jenny standing in front of a sliding glass door with her hand held over her mouth as she stared outside.
Randy followed her gaze and spied two people standing on the back deck. They were dressed in camouflage and wore air filtration masks on their heads, though they weren’t soldiers from the Colony. They carried rifles, hands covered with blood.
He leaned in close and grabbed his sister’s arm, hissing, “Jenny, let’s go. Let’s get out of here, now.”
The rifles raised, and Randy froze.
One of them lowered their weapon and stepped into the house. The man’s green eyes looked back and forth between the twins before he raised his hand and stuck out his thumb, angling it to the side.
“When we come back, flash the sign,” he said in hushed tone. “Always flash the sign.”
“But we want to go now,” Jenny insisted.
“It’s not safe,” the man insisted. “Wait. Watch.”
Jenny nodded as the man’s eyes shifted to check if Randy agreed. While Randy wasn’t sure he agreed at all, he still nodded because he didn’t want to get his head blown off.
The man backed up and shut the door behind him. Then the intruders flew down the deck steps and sprinted for the woods behind the house. The twins watched with looks of awe as they merged with the green woods and disappeared.
“Oh, they left blood,” Jenny said, and she grabbed a paper towel off the counter, got it wet from the sink, and wiped down the door handle and glass.
“How did you know they wanted to help us escape?”
“They caught me sneaking out the back door,” Jenny said, shrugging. “And they didn’t shoot me. What else would they think?”
“Jenny! Randy! Are you two, okay?” Tricia called out, coming down the hallway.
He shot Jenny a harsh look, and she turned and threw the bloody paper towel over behind the sofa in the living room. Tricia’s rifle barrel came into view just before her cold, hazel eyes followed, and Randy stooped and yanked open the cabinet doors to peer under the sink.
“Oh, there you are!” Tricia said, lowering her rifle.
“What was all that noise?” He stood up with a container of bleach in his hand. He placed it on the counter and turned back to Tricia with a quizzical expression.
“The enemy,” Tricia growled. “They lured one of the team leads into the house and killed them. Now two of our scavengers are missing.”
“Were they kidnapped?”
“Unsure,” Tricia said, and she made a lowering motion with her hand. “You two stay out of sight here until I get back, okay? I mean, don’t even take any suppl
ies down to the skids, got it?”
Randy nodded. “Yeah, Tricia. No problem. We’ll hang tight.”
Tricia’s eyes moved around the room one more time before she turned and tromped back down the hallway into the garage.
“That was a little too close for comfort,” he said, collapsing into one of the kitchen chairs.
Jenny agreed, slumping into a chair across from him. She raised her hand to her chest, and Randy noticed it shaking, though her face harbored no fear. “I thought those guys were going to shoot us.”
“That’s what you get for trying to leave me,” he joked to soothe his sister’s angst.
“I knew you’d be right behind me, brother,” Jenny grinned. “You’ve always been there for me, no matter what.”
“Yeah, I’ll do whatever stupid thing you put me up to, apparently.”
Jenny laughed, and it was a good sound. So good, it made Randy laugh, too.
Chapter 31
Bishop Shields, Ft. Collins, Colorado
Bishop rested in his recliner in the foyer of their home with his coveralls and boots on. His head rested back and eyes lay half closed behind the visor of his air filtration mask, he stared at their front door with his eyes half shut and his jaw working back and forth. They’d done a quick plastic “tape up” job to quarantine the foyer from the rest of the house. Any fungus spores that got inside wouldn’t escape into the house.
He tapped the fingers of his hand on his leg in mild annoyance, though his feet rested squarely on the floor. He breathed low and deep, saving his energy for what he was about to do.
His daughter’s softball bat lay against the arm of the recliner on his right, and he ached to swing it.
The 2-way radio in his lap crackled to life. “You need anything down there?” Riley asked.
Bishop picked up his radio and hit the talk button. “Negative, Riley. I’m just waiting. See anything outside?”
“Not yet.”
“Just keep looking.”
“Okay,” Riley replied. “How about you, Trevor? You need anything?”
“I’m fine,” Trevor replied on their third radio.
Spore Series | Book 2 | Choke Page 18