by Maxey, Phil
Flint sprang up and followed Joel out of the room.
*****
Joel sat in Jim’s police pickup. The street in front of him looked like it hadn’t changed in over a hundred years. The sun above beamed down from a deep blue sky, and it was easy to imagine the tourists shopping for that special gold mine souvenir.
The tall man finished a conversation with a woman Joel didn’t recognize, then got into the driver’s seat.
“I thought I’d take you on a tour of our little hillside town.”
“Okay…”
“And maybe you and I could get to know each other a little better.”
He pointed back up the hill. “There’s only one way into Bellweather and one way out. You came in from the west, the exit heads east. Everything else is either mountain or as you go further into the valley, wilderness.”
“How many people are actually left?”
“Last count, eighty-nine.” Before Joel could ask the obvious question, Jim continued. “That’s down from over four hundred.” He pulled off, driving slowly along main street.
“And the others, are they all dead?”
“Some, not all.”
“Any idea where the ‘not all’ are?”
“We’ve been looking, haven’t found them yet. Maybe they just all wandered off.”
The silence from both men just confirmed that neither of them truly believed that.
Antique shops, more diners, and a barbershop were amongst other quaint buildings on both sides. Some of which had boards across the large glass fronts.
Jim pointed at one of the terraced buildings to their right. “That’s the town hall and police station.”
Joel looked up at the large steel mast standing a hundred feet at the back of it.
“That radio mast was the only communication we had with the outside world when it all went sideways.”
“You still in contact with authorities?”
“Not since a month ago.”
They continued driving along the narrow road which dissected the town. It was bigger in the daylight Joel thought. He switched his view to the other side and looked down into the valley. Desert, and the occasional building, stretched out for miles into a haze which eventually became mountains on the horizon.
“The last we heard, the army had been sent into the nearby larger towns, but if they were planning to make it to Bellweather, they never did,” said Jim.
They drove along the same mountain road Joel walked the night before, passing the mine entrance.
“What’s the deal with the mine?”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you tried looking there for the missing?”
Jim sighed. “Getting anyone to go into the mine since it all kicked off is not an easy task. Me and my two deputies took the tourist trail, at an entrance higher up the mountain, and couldn’t see anyone, or thing, in there.”
“They seem to want to stick to the dark mostly. They could be deeper in.”
“Yup, but we found it better to draw them out, lay a trap. They might be strong, but they’re not too bright.”
“Right.”
Images of frenzied bloodthirsty beings filling the streets of LA entered his mind. He wondered why he was different, but for now was just glad he was. He noticed they were moving lower into the valley. “Where we going?”
“To see an old friend.”
“I was hoping to get my guns and supplies back, and head out.”
“Alone? I thought you and the lady were together.”
“She’s not with me.”
“I see… well, we’ll visit Bill, and then I’ll take you back to the hotel. I’ll give you some of your weapons back and supplies, and then if you want, you can be on your way.”
“I’d prefer to leave a good while before the sun goes down.”
“I’ll have you back in time.”
The road flattened out, and after a short while, the police pickup pulled onto a gravel parking lot, with a boarded up wooden shop at the edge of it. They both got out.
Joel looked further along the road, which again fell away on one side, with a sharp cliff on the other. A barricade of a truck, a few cars, and assorted beams and logs was hard to miss. “What’s beyond that?”
For twenty miles, not much, then you reach the town of Wyton, population just over three thousand. That’s also the direction the previous holder of the title of sheriff went three weeks ago.
“I take it he never came back.”
Jim’s expression gave Joel the answer.
“And you think that—” He nodded towards the awkward jumble of vehicles. “— Is going to stop them?”
Jim frowned. “We feel safer with it there.”
“What about those last night? On the street?”
Jim started walking towards the ramshackled building. “Those were from within our own borders.”
Joel followed. As he did, he realized there was a larger two-story building further back, and that it was covered in wooden beams at haphazard angles, and nailed into them, wooden crosses.
He had already walked past countless crucifixes even after he discovered he was different, and his heart never skipped a beat. But as they walked down the side of the abandoned truck stop, and over the broken paving slabs to the front yard of the other building, he started to feel uneasy.
“You okay?” said Jim, noticing Joel starting to slow down.
Joel forced a smile. “I’m fine, just my breakfast coming back at me.”
“Tell me you didn’t eat the pastries?” Jim smiled, and walked up the steps of the porch to the front door.
He lifted his hand to knock on the partition but stopped when the inner door opened. Stepping back, the outer also opened and a sinewy elderly man stood, wearing a gray shirt. He looked past the sheriff to Joel.
“Who’s this?”
“That would be Joel, he wandered into our town last night. He’s from the big city.”
The old man raised his eyebrows. “Phoenix?”
“Los Angeles,” said Joel.
“I see. Well, if you’re standing in my front yard, I guess there’s a reason for it. I’m Willian Sawyer, but just call me Bill. Come in, and I’ll put some tea on.”
Joel followed Jim into a chaotic hallway. Somehow, the inside of the house seemed older than the outside, as the magazines, and old newspapers sat in piles, and most of the antique furniture had a thick blanket of dust on top of it. The walls were covered in striped and pattern wallpaper the like of which Joel thought only existed on filmsets, together with gilded picture frames of silver, and sepia photos.
“I know it’s a bit cramped in here, but after a life of collecting things, that’s going to happen,” said Bill.
Joel had spent some time at Quantico doing a profiling course and felt like he was inside the old-timer’s brain as he weaved between the narrow channels available to get to a kitchen and dining area.
Bill started to boil some water, while bringing down some chipped mugs from a cupboard. “Ryan told me you got quite a few of them last night on main street.”
Jim sat on a single stool near the kitchen counter, while Joel sat on a ragged sofa.
“Yeah, eighteen to be exact. None of them got anywhere near us either, so no new infections,” said Jim. “Joel here is FBI.”
Bill briefly turned around raising his brow, then started to pour the bubbling water into the mugs. “Is that so. I take it your people had a theory as to what was happening? Chemicals in the water, or maybe an attack from a rogue state?” He emphasized the word ‘rogue.’ “Making everyone go crazy?”
“The CDC had a working theory along those lines, yes.”
“But they couldn’t find any cure, or treatment to stop it, right?”
Joel sighed. “No.” He wondered what the purpose of him being there was.
A noise came from the hallway, and a young man appeared, wearing shorts and T-shirt. “Hey, Jim.”
“Hey, Evan.”
�
�This is FBI man, Joel,” said Bill to Evan.
Evan froze. “I don’t hack anymore.”
Jim smiled. “I’m going to guess the FBI doesn’t care about that, bigger things on their mind and all that.” His eyes then betrayed his thoughts. “That’s even if there is a FBI left.” He looked back at the young man. “We’re not here about that.”
“So why is he here?” said Evan.
Joel was thinking the same.
Bill handed Jim and Joel their mugs, then sat opposite both. “So, what’s your take on what happened, then?” he said to Joel.
Joel took a sip from his tea, despite how hot it was. “Some kind of virus.”
I know that’s not true.
“Yeah, it’s not a virus,” said Evan. “Well it—”
Bill frowned at his grandson.
“I’ll be in the war room.” Evan disappeared back down the hallway.
“My grandson and I used to run a website. About, you know, strange goings on in the world.”
Joel did his best to hide his sigh, by taking another sip of the tea, which despite the heat was pretty good.
“I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking, this is a crazy old coot.”
“Bill used to teach history at the high school.”
“I did, and you should have studied more!”
Bill and Jim shared a smile.
“Where was I. Right, well my son… umm” Joel could sense the old man’s heart, a skill he had picked up since his change. It was missing a beat or two. “We were both interested in esoteric goings on. He’s a professor at Cornell.”
Joel smiled and made sure to nod to seem suitably impressed.
“He called me before all of this started and warned me about Daniel Copeland, and what he was getting up to. Have you heard of Mr. Copeland?”
Everyone in LA knew of Copeland. The CEO of the Copeland Corporation. The slogan, ‘Find hope at Copeland,’ and the accompanying jingle started to play through Joel’s brain. “What about him?”
“Umm… what do you know of the Sumerian King List?”
The word ‘Sumerian’ vaguely rang a bell from a documentary he had seen a decade before, but apart from that, his mind was drawing a blank. He briefly looked at Jim, then back to the older man. “No idea, but what has that got to do with Copeland?”
“Justin, who’s my son, called me to say Mr. Copeland had repeatedly asked him to help find the lost temple of Annunaki kings. He believed the secret to everlasting life was to be found there.”
Joel smiled, then looked at both men, then laughed. “Everlasting life?”
Both men looked back at him, their faces not giving him the reaction he sought.
“Right.” He looked into his mug, it was half full, but he felt he had had enough. He looked at Jim, standing up. “I think it’s time I got those supplies we talked about.”
Jim raised his hand. “Just hold on a minute, and hear out the rest of the story.”
Joel sat back down.
“So, as I was saying, Justin told me Copeland had become obsessed with not dying. He had spent close to a billion dollars on secret laboratories, whose sole purpose was to find a ‘cure for aging,’ was how Copeland put it to Justin. But after almost a decade of trying, they were no closer to giving him what he wanted. So, he decided to look elsewhere, darker places. He chose to look at the ancient occult texts for such a cure.”
“What does this have to do with the world ending?” said Joel, his composure slipping.
“He found the temple, he found his cure!” said Bill.
Joel started to feel hot. He placed the mug down on the floor by his feet and blew out his cheeks. “Well, this is a great story, but—” A noise, which sounded like a horn, echoed from his mind, and for a moment he could see a stone wall etched with carvings, bathed in flickering orange light. As he tried to focus, the image was gone, and he was back in the living room with the two men looking at him.
“So?” said Bill.
“So…?”
“The Sumerian King List?”
“What is it?” He looked down at the mug.
What was in that tea?
Bill frowned, then continued. “The Sumerian King List is an ancient stone tablet, that details the reigns of the kings of Sumer, which I presume you know was one of the earliest human civilizations.”
Joel had a vague recollection from being told about it in high school and nodded.
“Well, one of the strange things about the list is the length of time some of the kings are meant to have reigned.”
“Okay…” Joel wanted this history lesson to be over, he reckoned by how bright it was outside it was already midday, and he wanted to be long gone by early afternoon.
“The tablet says the earliest kings reigned for thousands of years. In other words, we’re able to cheat aging, death, all of it.”
“That’s… err… very interesting.” The horn sound was still ringing in Joel’s ears.
“Justin told me Copeland was convinced he had found where these ancient kings were buried. That it was somewhere in southern Iraq, and that inside the tomb or temple he would find what he was looking for.”
Joel looked at Jim for a sign that they were just there to humor an old man, but the sheriff remained stony faced.
“It all sounds crazy, I know, but…” said Jim.
“But?” said Joel.
“Evan!” shouted Bill.
Evan immediately appeared from the hallway. “I’m just here…”
“Get your computer? He needs to see.”
“I need to see what?”
Evan ran down the hall, then down some wooden steps to which Joel presumed was the basement, then back up, and eventually reappeared in the living room with a laptop covered in stickers. He looked at his grandfather who nodded. Evan sat next to Joel, opening the laptop, and after a few mouse clicks, tilted the screen towards him.
“So, this is a map of the United States,” said Evan.
“Yeah, I can see that…”
“Okay, well when I still had access to the web, I recorded as much info as I could on the scourge, I mean outbreak… if that’s what you want to call it.”
“Okay…” Joel looked at the map of the United States, mostly covered in a red hue.
“What you’re looking at is how things ended up before I lost connection. But I’m now going to play the outbreak in reverse, slowly.”
Joel nodded. This strange lecture was beginning to be more interesting to him.
The red hue wavered and retreated from the far right and north of the country, across the central states, becoming a huddle of red sparks around New Mexico, Utah, Oregon, until, eventually, even that receded, just leaving a group of spots around northern California.
Joel looked closer. “That’s…”
“San Jose,” said Evan. He slid the pointer around some more, and the screen zoomed in even further.
“They all seem to be clustered around whatever that place is, looks like a compound?” said Joel.
Evan went to talk, but Jim beat him to it. “That’s the Copeland headquarters.”
CHAPTER SIX
Jess threw the faded small rubber ball at the wooden fence. It bounced once before Flint jumped high into the air grabbing it, then returned it to Jess, dropping it at her feet.
She frowned, picking it up gingerly due to all the saliva that had made it damp. “Eww.” She giggled, and went to throw it again, when the gate at the back of the yard clattered in the wind making her jump.
Both her and Flint looked at the gate. The dog walked up to it, seemingly expecting it to open.
Jess looked up at the sun, feeling the heat bearing down on her. Marina had told her to stay in the yard, and keep away from the tied up dog, but after Flint started to whimper she knew he wanted to play, and she untied the rope and let him roam the confined space.
He looked back at her and let out a small bark.
“No… I can’t let you out, I’ll get
in trouble.”
He barked again, this time a bit louder.
She looked at the rope she had just untied.
Maybe I can make a leash.
She walked over to the five-foot piece of rope, picked it up and examined it. It was partly frayed, but when she pulled on it, it seemed pretty strong still. She looked back at the rear door of the hotel.
Just a small walk should be okay.
She quickly untied the other end from the fence, then walked over to Flint, and tied it best she could to his collar.
Taking one final glance back at the hotel, she pushed the latch up on the tall wooden gate and pulled it open.
In a burst of energy and strength she couldn’t believe, Flint sprinted forward into the empty alleyway, tearing the rope from her hand and burning her palm.
Momentarily forgetting the burning sensation, she screamed out after the dog, which was now almost at the end of the dank and squalid space. “Flint!”
She flinched looking at the redness on her hand, but walked outside, pulling the gate closed behind her, then took off running after the naughty dog.
“Flint!”
Running as fast as she could, she got to the end of the alley just as she saw the rope, which was trailing behind the dog, disappear around the corner of the small street which ran along the side of the hotel. She was already out of breath, but the idea of losing Joel’s dog wasn’t something she could contemplate.
Running across the street, she made it to the main street. It was completely empty, although she could hear voices from the upstairs’ rooms of the hotel. She looked up hoping she didn’t have an audience, but there was no one looking back. Guilt was already weighing on her. She couldn’t return without Flint.
Ignoring the red stains on the concrete in the middle of the road, she strained her eyes towards the steep hill, where they entered the town the night before. A plume of dust hung in the air.
Has to be where he went.
She took a last look at the hotel, then ran along the sidewalk, trying not to be distracted by the cool-looking wooden sculptures that resided in the shadows of one of the shops. After a short distance, she could see him in the distance, but the sight just depressed her even more, for he was now far away, and heading up a road which seemed to lead to wilderness.