The Harvest (Book 2): Eve of Man

by Anne Ferretti

  Caleb tugged on his arm. “We should go right away father.”

  Austin made up his mind in that instant. “Let me call Zack first. I want at least one person to know we’re leaving. Then we’ll go. Five minutes.”

  Austin went into the bedroom and dialed Zack’s number, having no idea what he would say. He had to do this and he had to go alone. He thought about lying to Zack, but when he answered Austin told him the truth. He was going to find Ryan and would be back as soon as he could. And they weren’t to say anything to Ed. Zack argued about the sanity, or lack of Austin going alone or going at all. In the end Zack’s protests were duly noted and duly ignored.

  Austin returned to where Caleb waited. “Let’s go.” Caleb took his father’s hand and they vanished into the air.

  Out in the hall Zack was running towards Austin’s suite, but when he opened the door he was too late. Zack spotted the open bottle of Southern Comfort and an uneasy feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. “Damn it man.” Zack pounded on the door frame.

  “What’s wrong?” Luke asked, having walked up on the scene.

  “Austin went somewhere,” Zack answered.

  “Whatta ya mean went somewhere? Did the bloodsucker take him back to Bliss or Paru or whatever the damn place is called?”

  “No. No. No. He went somewhere with Caleb,” Zack replied. “Somewhere in the US. He didn’t say where.”

  Luke relaxed some. Caleb was better than the bloodsucker, although he had his doubts about the boy as well. He wasn’t buying the reason for the kid’s growth spurt. He wasn’t buying any of the explanations they’d been pushing.

  “Why do you hate her so much?” Zack asked, seeing the disgusted expression on Luke’s face.

  Luke’s lip turned up in a sneer. “Why do you like her so much?”

  Zack blew air through his lips, frustrated. “What are we, in high school?”

  Luke shook his head annoyed with Zack’s inability to see Eve for what she really was, and that was evil. “The bloodsucker’s going to get Austin killed or worse. Why don’t you see that?”

  “She saved Jenny’s life,” Zack reminded him. “And the life of my unborn child.”

  “She didn’t do it for you. Austin begged her to. She doesn’t give a damn about you or me or anyone in this bunker. When are you gonna wake the fuck up.”

  “You don’t know that,” Zack argued. “She must care some or why bother with us at all?”

  Luke raised his hand for Zack to stop. He was tired of their ignorance. He knew Eve would stop at nothing to preserve her way of life. They would all see, but they would see too late. “Let me know when he comes back.” Luke walked off before Zack could say more.

  Zack let him go. He knew Luke was more upset over Madison’s death then he let on, but what ate at him went deeper than Madison. Out of everyone in the bunker, Zack worried about Luke the most. He’d never grown close to anyone except Austin and this thing with Eve was eating at him. If he knew the recent development in Austin’s relationship with Eve, he would come unglued.

  Zack returned to Austin’s empty living room. He picked up the bottle and was relieved to see only a small amount missing. He took a swig, grimaced as it burned down his throat and then took another. “Hope you know what you’re doin big man.” Zack took one more swig before twisting the cap in place and setting the bottle on the table. Knowing he couldn’t do anything more, Zack closed the door and headed for the command center. He decided Austin and Caleb had used unconventional travel methods and didn’t hold much hope of seeing anything on the monitors. The bad feeling from earlier returned, reminding Zack of an old blues tune by R. L. Burnside.

  “It’s bad you know,” he sang. “That’s right R. L. I know it’s bad. All the way bad. Flip it, turn it, spin it around. It’s bad you know.”

  21 Saving Ryan

  Austin and Caleb stood outside the open gates of the Port of Los Angeles, once upon a time billed as the busiest in the US, but its glory days were a thing of the past. Austin gazed out over the vast sea of containers. Thousands of cargo containers held goods that would never leave the port, would never reach the intended destination. All those items were slowly deteriorating. All those things people couldn’t live without.

  Caleb took Austin’s hand and led him through the gates. They walked by an abandoned truck. The driver’s door hung at a forty-five degree angle, clinging to the truck by one hinge. Inside, the driver lay slumped over the steering wheel facing the door. The expression on the man’s face, still apparent after all this time, caused Austin to pause. The man might have been in his forties. A silver wedding band hung on his finger.

  They came across a few more corpses, all in a similar pose, caught in their last breathing moments. Upon reaching the containers Austin followed Caleb through the maze of metal boxes. The port was the size of a small town and they walked near one hundred yards before reaching the end of a row. Here, where the port met the ocean, sat an industrial size crane. Dangling from the end of a cable attached to the crane was a blue cargo container. Each time the breeze stirred, the metal moaned, echoing its lonesome sound throughout the port. The doors of the container had come open, spilling its contents on the ground below.

  Austin picked up one of the boxes that had tumbled away from the pile. Inside were several smaller plastic boxes that held self-tapping metal screws, one hundred per box, good for use in brittle material. Austin tossed the box back towards the pile. At one time the world needed such things. He looked around for Caleb and found him a good twenty yards ahead waiting for him in front of a yellow container.

  “This is it.” Caleb said.

  “What is? This container? Ryan’s inside this container?”

  “No.”

  Caleb didn’t explain with words, but opened the container doors using his mind. Austin braced, expecting the worst, but the container was empty. Caleb walked inside to the back where he waited for Austin to join him. Austin wasn’t surprised his son could see in the dark. There probably wasn’t much his son wasn’t capable of doing and an odd sense of pride washed over Austin, which struck him as almost humorous. He imagined comparing his boy to other children, bragging about him to other dads.

  “Ok. So what are we doing in here?” Austin asked.

  “When I open the door you will see a portal--.”

  “A portal?”

  “Yes father. The portal will take us to a where some of the children are being kept. Once we arrive we must hurry. You can’t talk. And try to think about something else, other than what you’re looking at. If we are very careful they won’t hear us.”

  “Who is they?”

  “The Svan.”

  Caleb placed his hands on the container wall and pressed. The wall slid open revealing a portal, different than the one in Cheyenne in shape, but having the same murky center. Caleb pulled Austin through the center. On the other side they arrived in a stark white room, so brilliantly bright Austin had to blink several times before his eyes adjusted. Upon focusing he was able to take in the magnificent and horrid scene before him. A scene of make-believe so remarkable it strained acceptance. A marvel of technology, of human preservation, of something so macabre it fascinated and repelled the mind. Thousands of coffin sized rectangle boxes stood upright lining the walls of a cavernous room that went on forever. The pods appeared to be made of a thick white colored metal. On the front of each, a pane of glass giving a view to the inside. And what Austin saw behind each pane made his stomach turn. He stared at the children’s faces, and was captivated by a sick fascination.

  Austin reached out to touch one, but Caleb grabbed his arm and shook his head, reminding him they needed to be quick about their task. He followed his son past the silent faces of hundreds of children. Their eyes were closed and for this Austin was thankful. About halfway down Caleb stopped in front of a pod and motioned to Austin that this was the one. Caleb tapped a number sequence into the key pad positioned below the glass and then stepped back. The case
filled with a white vapor. After a couple of minutes the locking mechanisms engaged, and the door swung open with a pop and a hiss. Austin stepped forward to catch the occupant from falling out onto the ground. Austin held the boy his arms and recognized Ed’s son Ryan from the pictures he’d seen.

  “You’ll have to carry him,” Caleb whispered in his father’s ear. He shut the case and tapped in a different sequence of numbers. Following this the interior went dark and a solid metal blind covered the window. If they were lucky, the Svan would not notice one more child had died. But Austin noticed, and as they rushed back to the portal, he noticed several cases with closed windows. He didn’t need Caleb to tell him what that meant.

  They entered the portal, exiting on the other side through the container and into the dim light of a fading day. Austin glanced down at Ryan, but his eyes remained closed. He hoped the boy stayed in his current state of unconsciousness until they returned safely to the bunker. Caleb closed the container doors and they continued on down the row back to where they initially dropped in. If they wanted to stand a chance of moving undetected it was necessary to start and stop from the same place. This created the least amount of disturbance in the space continuum and would attract little or no attention. Having no knowledge of how space or time travel worked, Austin didn’t over think this, but did as instructed.

  “Will he survive the trip?” Austin asked.

  Caleb touched Ryan’s head with his finger tip, holding it there for a few seconds. “He will live, but we must hurry.”

  Austin wrapped his arms around Ryan while Caleb took hold of his father’s hand. “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  Caleb squeezed tight and they vanished into the air, returning to Austin’s suite in the bunker. Austin laid Ryan down on the couch, checked that he was still breathing and went to call Zack. He returned seconds later unable to contact Zack.

  “I can’t reach Zack.”

  “He’s in the recreation room.”

  “How’d...never mind. I’ll be back. Stay here with Ryan. Ok?”

  “Yes father.” Caleb didn’t try to stop his father from rushing out of the suite. Humans seldom spent the appropriate time thinking things through, they were always in a hurry. If his father had paused in his thoughts, he could have found Zack on his own. If he had paused to assess the situation, he would have considered his own abilities or that of his son’s, but he hadn’t.

  Caleb knelt by Ryan’s side and placed a hand on Ryan’s head and chest. He’d experimented on the animals on Paru and knew he had the power to regenerate smaller life forms, but Ryan was not a small animal. It wasn’t that being human mattered, but Caleb’s strength, his power, mattered. It mattered a whole lot, but he couldn’t worry about that right now. Time wasn’t the boy’s friend and he wasn’t sure when his mother would return. With his mind made up, Caleb closed his eyes and focused. As when Eve applied her energy to regenerate Jenny’s cells, Caleb performed the same process on Ryan.

  A few moments later Austin and Zack were hurrying down the hallway, stopping when they saw the bright glow of light shooting out from every crack and crevice around the door.

  “Is Eve back?” Zack asked, stopping short from standing in front of the door.

  Austin didn’t sense that Eve was back. “Caleb,” he said almost too soft for Zack to hear him.

  “Your son?”

  Austin gave Zack a cautious look. “Yes.”

  The emanating light retreated from the door. The men listened and were shocked to hear voices, children’s voices. Austin grabbed the knob, which turned under his hand and Caleb opened the door.

  “Come in father, Mr. Zack.” Caleb swung the door open. “Ryan’s doing very well.”

  Ryan sat on the couch looking a bit disoriented, but very much alive. His eyes were human and his cheeks rosy.

  Zack walked over to him and knelt down eye level with the boy. “Hey Ryan. How ya doin’ buddy?”

  Ryan rubbed his eyes, maybe thinking Zack wasn’t real, that none of this was real. “It feels like ants are crawlin’ on me.” He rubbed his arms, looking at his skin to confirm he didn’t have ants. “You don’t suppose cancer termites are eating my bones do you?”

  Zack and Austin exchanged a confused glance. “No cancer termites buddy,” Zack said

  “The healing will continue for a couple of hours,” Caleb informed them. “He will feel various sensations as his body fully acclimates to the change.”

  Zack glanced back at Caleb and then up at Austin. Who was this kid? What was this kid?

  “Eve’s son. Our son,” Austin replied.

  Comprehension dawned on Zack’s face. His mind began to wander down the path of the boy’s mother and vampires. “Do you know your name?” Zack asked Ryan, cutting off his thoughts before they got him into trouble.

  Ryan stared at Zack and then replied, “My name’s Ryan McGrath. I live in Plainfield, Illinois.”

  “How old are you Ryan?”

  “I’m eight.”

  Ed had told them he was seven when he’d been taken. That Ryan knew a year had gone by brought more unanswered questions and raised the moral dilemma bar a bit higher.

  “Where’s my mom and dad?” He peeked over Zack’s shoulder at Austin and Caleb. “Are they ok?”

  “They’re fine Ryan and they’re here. Would you like to see them?” Austin asked.

  “Yes. I’m sure they’ve been very worried about me.”

  “I’ll go get them,” Zack said.

  Austin walked with him to the door.

  “What should I tell them?” Zack asked.

  “Tell them the truth. Best they know before walking in here.”

  “Right that should be easy. Be back in a few.”

  Austin closed the door behind Zack, but held onto the knob for a long time afterwards, thinking too many things at once to focus on any one thing. Ryan had memories, kept circling around in his mind. The implications of this fact ran deep and wide.

  “May I have something to drink please?” Ryan asked.

  Austin snapped out of his trance. “Sure thing.” He grabbed up the whiskey bottle, noticing for the first time it was still on the table, and went to the kitchenette. “Water? Juice?”

  “Do you have Coke?”

  Austin scrounged around in the fridge. “No Coke. How about Berry-Ade?” He held up a bottle of purplish-blue liquid.

  Ryan smiled and nodded his head.

  Austin sat next to Ryan and poured the purple-blue drink into a glass. He set the bottle down. “Is it ok if he drinks this?” He looked to his son, noticing his skin had become pale and clammy.

  “Yes. His body has recovered enough to process the liquid chemicals,” Caleb answered.

  Austin handed the glass to Ryan. The contents did look a bit like something you’d find at the local auto supply store. “Are you ok Caleb?”

  Caleb nodded. “A little tired is all.”

  “Can I get you anything?” Austin was thinking about what Eve had needed after saving Madison’s baby. Did his son also require human blood?

  “No. I’m fine father,” Caleb replied.

  Ryan drank the contents and asked for more. Austin poured him another glass which the boy downed in two gulps. He set down the glass and covered his mouth before letting out a loud belch, followed by another.

  “Sorry,” Ryan said, embarrassed.

  Austin laughed. “That’s ok Ryan. Gotta let that air out.” He patted him on the back, inducing another round of belching.

  They were still laughing when Zack opened the door.

  Ed and Jenny stood inside the doorway wide eyed, mouths open, for a moment doubting the image before them.

  “Mom! Dad!” Ryan jumped off the couch.

  They met in the middle of the room. Ed fell to his knees before Ryan. He touched his face, his arms, and his hair. He was there in the flesh, warm and alive. Jenny knelt down with them, tears streaming down her face.

  “Ryan honey.” She hugged him tigh
t, kissing his face, the top of his head. “Oh sweetie I’ve missed you.”

  Ed turned to Austin. “How? How’d you find him?”

  “It’s a long story Ed. We’ll talk later. Why don’t you two take Ryan to the diner? I think he might be hungry.”

  “I’m starving,” Ryan confirmed and his parents laughed through their tears.

  “May I go with them?” Caleb asked.

  “Sure son,” Austin replied, paying closer attention to Caleb. “You ok?”

  “Just hungry.” He flashed his father a smile.

  Austin raised an eyebrow. He knew that charm worked on the girls, but he wasn’t fooled by it. “You’ll come back as soon as you’re finished?”

  “I’ll make sure he gets back,” Ed replied.

  Ed picked Ryan up in his arms and carried him out the door followed closely by Jenny. “I can’t believe you’re here.” They heard Ed say before the door closed behind him.

  22 Nowhere to Hide

  Austin had Zack call Luke and Kyle. He wanted to meet with them here in his suite. It was time they discussed the future, their future. The news about Europe and the rest of the world wasn’t going to be easy to hear. While waiting, he told Zack about his journey to find Ryan. He described where the children were kept, an incredible scene he still found hard to believe himself. Zack asked the obvious question about saving more.

  Austin shook his head. “Caleb can’t save them all. It was a risk taking Ryan. If we took more the Svan would be alerted.”

  “How did he do that? How did Eve, you know save my daughter? How do they do that?”

  “Transfer of energy or harnessing energy. I’m not sure exactly, but that’s the best way I know how to explain it. I know it takes a lot out of them. Eve near fainted afterwards, and Caleb wasn’t looking too great.”