Others were falling, only to rise moments later to seek the lives of their once-friends from the bunker. Bullets whizzed through the air, in all directions. Once in a while, a Skin was hit. Many that fell rose again as though they had been hit by nothing more than a rock. But some that were hit never got up.
Neirioui had picked up Suvan and run, faster than she had ever run in her life. By the time they reached the parking lot, only two others had arrived. Dr. Andrew Jones and Dr. Nelise Fabrisio were already in a hover, waiting for others. Neirioui and Suvan climbed in and the four sped away to safety.
That was the plan. Each hover would be filled with four people before leaving. The next four to arrive would take the next hover. That way, they would have as many hovers as possible for their escape to Cabo Rojo. This first small group had no idea that the plan would fall apart so quickly.
Soon, Dr. Marilyn Swenson, Mr. Javier Franco, and Dr. John Silitzer arrived, closely followed by Mike Petrovsky and Carón Blanchard. Mike and John began to fire at the Skins who were still wreaking havoc behind them. The whole group was moving toward the parking lot. The humans were fighting valiantly, but were losing. They were no match for the strength and speed of the Skins.
There wasn’t much time before it would be too late to leave. Mike fired at a Skin about to overtake Mrs. Chrissy Houghton, but it was too late. She was bitten. Mike watched in horror as she rose, only seconds later, and tackled Ms. Star Lawrence. The two had been close friends in the bunker. That’s how they would remain as they pursued others, together.
“We’ve got to go, now,” John said to Mike, as they continued to fire into the crowd.
“Is there anybody left?” Mike asked, tears in his eyes.
“I can’t see anybody,” John said. “Let’s go, while we still can.” Emotions were spilling over. John was just about to grab Mike to shove him into the waiting hover.
“Wait,” yelled Javier from inside, “Anna is still running this way. Is she still human?” Without waiting for a response, Javier jumped from the hover where he had been anxiously waiting. He ran toward Dr. Anna Wentworth. It was too late to turn around by the time he realized that she, along with nearly everybody else, had her eyes trained on him. He turned to run back to the hover. John and Mike tried desperately to buy him time. It was no use. The Skins overtook Javier and kept going. They were only seconds from the parking lot.
Mike and John jumped in the hover. Carón hit the thrusters. They were gone.
The others watched out the back of the hover as the cabin, and their home underground, faded into the distance. The Skins pursued the hover for a while, but couldn’t keep up. They watched, relieved, as the Skins finally stopped their pursuit.
40 minutes later, Carón pulled up to a small rest area along the highway where Neirioui and Suvan Safar, Dr. Andrew Jones and Dr. Nelise Fabrisio were waiting.
“Where’s everybody else?” Nelise asked as the others approached.
“We couldn’t help them,” Carón replied, lowering his head.
“What? So you just left them there?” Nelise asked, bitterly.
Carón raised his head. “No, we didn’t just leave them there,” he replied, with equal hostility. “They had all been bitten. What would you have done?”
“I would have saved them!” Nelise yelled.
“How? What would you have done? You took off without even waiting to see what was happening? So don’t you give me that crap.”
“Guys,” John said carefully, “nobody did anything wrong here. We all tried. We all stuck to the plan. None of us could have done more. Let’s try to stick together, okay.”
“Yeah, sorry man,” Carón said a moment later.
Nelise turned around and walked a couple of paces away from the group.
The remainder of the small group huddled together under a shade canopy and cried, and prayed. They were all that was left of the brilliant and brave humans who had saved the world from disaster. Dr. Yurgi Shevchuk, their friend and leader was dead. Worse perhaps. He was probably a Skin; and so were the rest.
July 11—Holographic Conference
“It all went to hell,” John said. The small group of survivors had found a holo-café in a town two hundred miles south of the bunker. The electricity was still on. They had stopped to rest, eat and attempt to contact Cabo Rojo, Mexico.
When John hailed the group in Cabo Rojo, Street and Shift had run up from the lab on the bottom level. Steve and Jon Porter were in the gardens, but had dropped their garden tools and run too. Angel was on guard duty at the front doors and walked in, arriving just before the others. Everyone met in the main level communication bay near the front doors.
“What’s wrong,” Anta asked John, fear beginning to take hold inside her.
“The Skins. They got in. They flushed us out. Almost everybody is dead.”
“Or worse,” Carón added very quietly from the background.
“Oh no,” Anta said. Her body began to shake as she slid to the ground. She hugged her knees close to her chest and rocked back and forth. Nobody else had said a word yet.
“What about Yurgi?” Street asked quietly, moments later. Dr. Yurgi Shevchuk had given Street so much attention and generosity, and had treated Street as an equal. Street had never had a father or friend show such love toward him. Never had anyone loved him for anything more than his athletic ability, not even his own mother.
“I’m sorry Street,” John replied.
Street began to cry, great tears of sorrow running down his face. Angel walked over to him and put her arms around his waist, and, laying her head against his strong arm, rubbed her hand up and down his back. Street turned toward Angel, laid his head on top of hers and let the tears fall, wetting Angel’s dark, curly hair.
The whole group was moved by the big man’s sorrow.
“Actually,” Carón said finally, “they didn’t die, at least most of them didn’t. Although I wish they had.” He too had tears in his eyes.
The small group from the Boston bunker had shed many tears over the past couple of hours. Suvan was still dazed, perhaps suffering from shock. She hadn’t said a word since she climbed into the hover at the small parking lot outside the cabin. Even now, her mother cradled Suvan’s head in her lap, brushing her hair with long, neatly-trimmed fingernails. Suvan began to whimper, again.
“Did they all turn then?” Shift asked, finally getting a grip on his emotions.
“Yes, probably,” Mike said. “We couldn’t help them. We tried Shift. We tried . . .” Mike’s voice trailed off as his head slumped forward.
“Can you get here?” Steve asked. “I can get you coordinates. Actually, I’m sending them now, along with a route that should throw the skins off if they’re following you.”
“Following us?”
“Yeah, they followed us for days, until we shot ahead to California and approached from there. We think we lost them. The fact that they found you means maybe they gave up on us.”
“Ok, we can get there,” John said. “Are we safe to travel? We haven’t had any communications with outside the bunker for four days. No communications; no satellite; nothing. We don’t know what’s going on out here now.”
“Well, it’s bad,” Shift said. “But the Skins can’t keep up with a hover at full speed. At least none of them that we’ve encountered.”
“Okay, we’re on our way,” John said solemnly. “Keep the lights on.”
July 12, 2093—Shift
“That’s the last of them,” I said, as I folded down the top of the old laptop.
“What’s the final tally?” Steve asked.
“18,” I replied.
Over the past day and a half, we had contacted 30 of the 32 bunkers Mike and Yurgi had been in contact with from Boston. While there had been several other bunkers at one time, the humans in many of the others had perished when AE seeped into their bunkers via the backdraft fiasco a couple months earlier. Mike had sent us contact and location information for each of
the remaining 32. We had also logged onto the Anthrax E database, combing it for information. 18 of the 32 known bunkers had been attacked in very similar fashion to the Boston bunker. And, most of them were attacked within a few hours of the attack in Boston. Clearly, the Skins had orchestrated a coordinated attack. We couldn’t fathom how they communicated with each other.
“How many people survived from those 18 bunkers?” Anta asked.
“Well, it looks like two of them had no survivors,” I replied.
“How do you know that?” Angel asked.
“Well, each bunker has been in contact with others through all this time. Some seem to know more about other bunkers than we ever did. Kind of like us and the Toronto bunker. Yurgi had kept in very close contact with Toronto due to proximity. Other bunkers shared similar relationships. When the first of the two German bunkers was attacked, they radioed the other German bunker for help. At just about the time the second German bunker was attacked, they received a final com from the first bunker. The man on the line said he was the last and then screamed as he was attacked. Something similar happened in Japan. So, we know that two of the bunkers had no survivors. Of the other 16, based upon the numbers they’ve given me, only 98 people survived. That’s in addition to the six of us and the eight on their way.”
“Are there others out there that we haven’t reached,” Street asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Mike told us about all the ones he knew of. He doesn’t know whether Yurgi might have had contact with others. Plus, only the 32 we know of have ever posted anything in the Anthrax E database. So, even though it seems likely that there are others, nobody from any of the 32 had information about any others.”
“How many people are living in the 14 bunkers that haven’t been attacked?” Anta asked.
“Let’s see. I’ve got those figures here. Um, it looks like there are 203 people between them.”
“Wow,” Steve said, solemnly. “With those numbers, if that’s all the people left in the world, that means we’re down to 315 people. That’s it.”
“That can’t be right,” Street said. “That can’t be all. There’s got to be more. We just need to find them, right?”
Angel walked over to Street and put her arms around his bulky frame. She wrapped him in a bear hug so tight that the greatest linebacker in the NFL would have been proud. Street sagged against her small frame.
July 12, 8:50 PM—Anta
“Shift, come here please,” I called.
“Just a sec,” Shift yelled down the hallway from the kitchen.
We had finally cleared out all the dead bodies from the second and third floors, and hopefully everywhere else as well. The stench was beginning to lighten. Once we got the ventilation system running, the smells began to dissipate. But since we now believed that the Skins found Boston and the other bunkers due to smells coming through the ventilation ducts, we shut off the system. We got a few good days of cleaning out of them first though. Hopefully it would be enough and the smell would continue to fade. Getting used to the stench had been the biggest relief. We had even recently begun to sleep in the dorms on the second floor.
Shift discussed the ventilation problem with the people in the other bunkers and suggested that they determine if they can survive without external ventilation, at least until they can locate a backup location. Only a few of the bunkers have air scrubbers and recirculation systems to prevent external venting. And fewer still have any idea where they could go if they have to leave their bunker. The bunkers were supposed to be the safest places to be.
“What’s up?” Shift asked as he rounded the corner holding two red apples. He handed one to me.
“Thanks,” I said. “Come sit down a minute.”
Shift sat down next to me on the couch in the rec room. We were the only ones in there. With only six of us in the whole compound, and one person on watch at all times, there was plenty of opportunity for solitude or privacy, which is what I wanted now.
“What can I do for you miss?” Shift asked, smiling.
“What can I do for you?” I asked back.
Shift looked confused for a minute, then looked more closely at me. I gave him my best “come-here-and-kiss-me-you-idiot” look. He got it and scooted closer.
I placed my hand on his leg as he lifted his hand to touch my face. With our thighs touching and my hand on his leg, Shift was unable to resist any longer. He leaned all the way in and kissed me. It was warm and soft. His breath smelled like apple. It felt like I had finally gone home.
We kissed for a long time, hands slowly moving across each others’ bodies, slowly feeling and experiencing each other. I had waited for this for a long time. He had too. I was impressed by his ability to control himself.
Finally, after several long, wonderful minutes, I said, “Shift, will you come to my room with me?”
“Absolutely!”
July 16, 2093—Cabo Rojo, Mexico
“They’re almost here,” Steve said.
“What’s the ETA?” Shift asked.
“Some time after 1:00 probably.”
“Let’s make sure we’re ready,” Shift said. “And they’re sure they haven’t been followed?”
“John said they haven’t seen a Skin in over 12 hours. Last ones they saw were back in northern Texas. But there were thousands of them apparently.”
“Well then, I certainly hope they weren’t followed,” Shift said. “That would be the end of all of us.”
“Did they ever have to fight anyone, Dad,” Jon asked.
“Yes, but only once,” Steve replied. Looking directly at his son, who became frightened at even the mention of Skins, he continued, “and they’re all fine. They’ll all be here safe in a couple of hours.”
“Good.”
“What’s the latest from the other bunkers—the ones that hadn’t been attacked yet?” Angel asked.
“Well,” Shift began, “we’ve confirmed that an additional eight of the last 14 bunkers have been attacked. But each of them was ready with an escape plan. They had the benefit of talking with others before it happened. They were ready.”
“So, did all of them survive—from the eight bunkers?” Jon asked.
“No,” Shift replied. “But many more of them survived than would have if we hadn’t had the opportunity to speak to them.”
“What about the rest?”
“The rest may be okay where they are because of their modern ventilation systems. Time will tell.”
“How many people are still alive, that we know of?” Angel asked.
“That we know of?” Shift repeated. “Six, plus eight from our bunker, 98 from the first group attacked. Then, with the other attacks . . . It looks like there are 247 at best. The problem is that we don’t know what’s going on with some of the survivors from the first round of attacks. All we know is that they’re attempting to get here, or find some other place to stay.”
“We’ve encouraged them to come here,” Anta added. “But that’s a bit of a trek for some of them. And most of them can’t fly planes.”
“Do we expect any of them to actually get here, besides the Boston people?” Street asked. “I mean, what’s the chance, really?”
“I’m not too hopeful,” Shift replied. “There are a couple of groups from Argentina and northern Brazil that are trying to get here. They don’t have to fly over any oceans. Getting here, for them, is a realistic possibility. But that’s only 15 people total between the two groups. Both of those bunkers were hit in the first attack. Brazil has nine people and Argentina has six more. I guess they’re trying to hook up and then travel here together, but I haven’t heard from them since early yesterday morning. They haven’t checked in today like they promised.”
“Were they having any problems, other than the Skins?” Anta asked.
“Not that I know of, thank goodness. The Skins are a big enough problem by themselves.”
“So, is there any chance of anyone else getting here?” Stree
t asked.
“I don’t know,” Shift replied. “I really don’t. But I do know that we’re safe here, for now, and that no other group has anything like this. The only reason we’re safe though, is because the Skins didn’t follow us and can’t smell us through the ventilation system. We need to stay mindful of those things. The rules are still in place: nobody goes outside. If you feel you need to, go through the tunnel. The smell of the salt water from the ocean should disperse our smells sufficiently. But don’t leave the cave.”
“We know that Shift,” Street said.
“I know. I just wanted to remind you. Our lives depend on us remembering that one simple thing. Plus, when our friends arrive, we’ve got to pound it into their skulls. And some of them, like John, have pretty thick skulls.” Shift smiled.
July 16, 1:15 PM—Cabo Rojo, Mexico
“Welcome!” Shift cried out as he threw his arms around John’s neck. John hugged him back, fiercely.
The tired group dragged what little belongings they had through the massive double doors at the front of the compound. While they had picked up some supplies en route, they hadn’t spent the time replenishing their wardrobes. Their clothes reeked of sweat and sorrow.
Street, Steve, Jon, Angel and Anta each grabbed bags and helped pull them inside, quickly shutting the large iron doors behind them. The tired group was offered seats and given refreshment. Anta had brought ice water and peaches to the front gallery. They took the food and water greedily.
“Tell me the truth John, were you followed?” Shift asked this question pointedly, looking right into the eyes of his best friend.
“No, we weren’t,” John replied, looking around. “You know; we weren’t sure we were in the right place. Where are your hovers?”
“They’re in a huge iron and concrete garage around the side of the compound. We’ll move yours too, just in case the skins have been able to follow the heat signature from them. But you’re sure you weren’t followed?”
“We haven’t seen anyone walking, dead, alive, naked, bald, or otherwise, since northern Texas, like 14 hours ago or something.”
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