Backwoods

by sara12356

  She blinked at him, tearful again, her bottom lip quavering. “The virus will eventually overtake them.”

  “You know about Moore’s retrovirus?” he demanded and she nodded.

  “I helped him design it,” she whispered. “The restriction enzyme that breaks down the host cell’s DNA, anyway. That’s what allows the virus to encode its own genetic sequence.”

  “What?” Stricken, Andrew shook her again. “You’ve been helping him all along? You knew what he’s been out here doing, and you never tried to stop him?”

  “How could I?” she cried. “No, I wasn’t helping him. I told you before, I work with his daughter, not his research. Not anymore.”

  “But you used to,” Andrew said. “I saw your picture in the scrapbook Alice made. You used to be Moore’s lab partner.”

  She nodded, then uttered a harsh, scraping laugh. “Back when he was just Edward Moore, before he became a Nobel Laureate. That son of a bitch. He wouldn’t have won that goddamn prize if it wasn’t for me. It was my enzyme that made his precious vascular endothelial growth factor work, anyway.”

  She flapped her arms furiously and he let her go. Suzette staggered over to her messy blankets and bent over, lifting the vodka bottle off the floor. Tilting her head back, she opened her mouth wide, tongue protruding, and dribbled the last trickles down her throat. When she’d finished, she threw the bottle aside, sending it clattering across the floor, while she yanked another from her box.

  “He left me behind,” she told Andrew, unscrewing the cap and pitching it behind her. “Isn’t that just like a man? You dip your dick, then you hit the road.”

  “You were sleeping with Moore?”

  She tipped the bottle at him, a mocking toast. “When he left Cold Spring Harbor, he left me, too. He said they’d give me his post. Said he’d lined it up for me. You know what I got instead? Fired. This was his idea of making things up to me. This.” She motioned to indicate the room, the lab, and vodka slopped messily over the lip of the bottle top. “Being stuck out in the middle of godforsaken nowhere, U.S.A. playing Nanny-goddamn-McPhee to his half-wit, retarded brat.”

  “Alice isn’t retarded,” Andrew said, bristling.

  “You know what they had the nerve to tell me at Cold Spring Harbor?” Suzette continued, oblivious to his comment or choosing to ignore it. “That I had a drinking problem as well as a…” She cleared her throat, affected a, exaggerated stuffy, prim expression, her lips pursed, her nose wrinkled. “…‘demonstrated moral turpitude. ’ Whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean. Anyway, they told me that they couldn’t turn over the helm of a multi-bazillion-some-odd dollar bioengineering research facility to a woman with a bottle in one hand and her ex-boss’s dick in the other.” Another long swig. “Never mind you can’t fill a kindergartener’s hand with Edward’s pathetic excuse for a cock.”

  Glancing at him now, her brow arched, her lips uncurling in a thin smile. “Now your cock on the other hand,” she murmured, sidling toward him, stumbling unsteadily and marking a meandering path. “I can think of a few places I might fill with it.”

  “Suzette,” he said with a frown, even as she reached for him, tickling him lightly along the collar with her fingertips.

  “Andrew,” she replied, mimicking his stern tone, then following up with a drunken titter. Setting aside the liquor bottle, she hooked her fingertips beneath his waistband. “Why don’t we start at the top…work our way down?” The tip of her tongue swiped her lips suggestively as she dropped to her knees, trying to ease his pants down with her.

  “Stop.” He caught her elbows, his grip tight enough to make her wince, her expression bewildered at first, then pained. “Get up.”

  “You’re hurting me,” she whimpered, then she yelped as he hauled her to her feet.

  “Tell me about the screamers,” he said. “You said in another week, it would be alright. What did you mean?”

  “Let go of me,” she mewled, squirming in his grasp.

  “Tell me what you meant,” he snapped.

  “The virus can’t be stopped,” she cried. “Once it’s inside you in a large enough dose to overwhelm the immune system, it replicates out of control. The skin growths it causes, the tumors…they’ll cover their mouths and noses, crush their lungs from the inside out, stress the heart to the point of cardiac arrest.”

  “You’re saying they’ll die?” Andrew asked. “What’s happening to them, it’s eventually going to kill them? How long until that happens?”

  “I told you, another week,” Suzette said. “Maybe a little longer, maybe a little less. But once it’s started, there’s no way to bring it back into check. It’s like trying to find the square root of pi. It’s impossible. It never ends.”

  Andrew gave her a little shove, sending her reeling back from him then unslung the M16 from his shoulder. Grabbing Suzette by the elbow again, he headed for the door, hauling her in struggling tow.

  “What are you doing?” she whined. Her free hand flapped feebly for the vodka, knocking the bottle off the table, spilling alcohol all over the floor.

  “Taking you with me. You’re going to show me where Dr. Moore’s lab is.”

  “Why?” Suzette tried to dig in her heels and stop. “It’s not going to do any good. It’s too late. I told you—there’s no way to stop the virus. There’s nothing you’re going to find in there that’s going to make any difference.” Even as she spoke, realization dawned on her, cutting through the thick, belligerent haze of drunkenness. “But that’s not why you want to go, is it?”

  She jerked mightily against him, pulling herself free. “She’s there, isn’t she? Dani Santoro, that fat-assed Hispanic bitch. Well, fuck you, Andrew, and fuck her, too. I’m not helping you do shit. You hear me?”

  He reached for her, but she staggered away, her brows furrowed, her eyes flashing in furious challenge. “Fine,” he said. “Suit yourself. I don’t have time for this shit.”

  Wheeling around, he marched to the door, throwing it open wide.

  “I hope they’ve broken down the door and taken turns fucking her,” Suzette screeched from behind him. “I hope they tore her apart and are waiting for you there so they can rip your sorry ass to shreds right along with her!”

  Andrew glanced off his shoulder. “Good bye, Suzette.”

  “Fuck you!” she screamed, snatching the fallen vodka bottle in hand, winging it at his head. He slammed the door on her, and heard glass shatter on the other side as it struck.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Following the numbers on the office placards, Andrew cut to his right shortly past Suzette’s door. To his amazement, he realized he’d inadvertently come to find his way along the path Moore had given him, because the fourth door down on his left was, sure enough, room number one hundred twenty-seven.

  “Dani,” he cried, pounding on the door. “Dani, it’s me!”

  He was so abjectly relieved to see the door intact, no signs of forced or attempted entry, he nearly burst into tears. And when he heard her voice, frightened and strained, from the other side, he laughed out loud.

  “Andrew?” she called.

  “Dani!” He fell against the door as if collapsing physically into her arms. “Are you alright?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was closer to the door now, as if she’d come to stand directly on the other side, and like him, had pressed her cheek to the wood. “Are you? Dr. Moore locked me in here. He had a gun. He was talking crazy, said you’d done something to Alice and he was going to find you, make you talk. I thought…oh, God, I thought he was going to hurt you.”

  She’d begun to cry. He could hear her soft, hitching breaths through the door as she hiccupped against tears.

  “I’m alright,” he said, pressing his palm to the door.

  “I thought he was going to kill you,” she said. “He had a gun and he…he told me he was going to shoot you.”

  “Dani, I’m alright,” he said again. “Open the door. Let me in.”

 
; “I can’t,” she whimpered. “He did something to the door, messed up the code somehow. It’s locked from the inside. Even before the power went out, I couldn’t get it open.”

  “What?” Andrew drew back from the door now in dismay. He grabbed the knob, but it was locked from his side, too. Still, he tugged at it, feeling panic swell inside him again. Clasping it in both hands, he twisted furiously, until the entire door shook in its frame.

  “Andrew, I’m scared,” Dani said. “Get me out of here. Please get me out.”

  “I will,” he promised. “Stand back. Let me try something.”

  The hall was narrow, but still allowed him enough space for leverage. He backed up to the far side, then charged forward, ramming his shoulder into the door, hoping he could force it open. All he managed to do was knock himself backwards in the recoil, his shoulder aching and nearly bludgeoned out of its socket.

  “Damn it,” he said, then tried again. Over and over, he backpedaled in the corridor, then lunged forward again, slamming into the door once, twice, three times, all with no effect whatsoever.

  “Damn it!” he shouted, grasping the knob again, shoving his shoulder forcibly against the wood as he tried to shake it loose. From the other side, he could hear Dani trying, too, grabbing the knob and jerking with him. “Damn it, damn it, goddamn it!”

  He shoved his hands through his hair, uttered a hoarse, frustrated cry, then kicked the door. “Goddamn it,” he yelled.

  “Wait a minute,” Dani said. “I can take the door off the hinges.” She uttered a quick, strained laugh. “Why didn’t I think of it before? I can take the door off its hinges. I’ve got a screwdriver on my multitool, a knife I can use to wedge under the main pin. I can…”

  She’d sounded so excited, he’d felt it, too; he’d gone back to the door, laughing along with her, forgetting about his frustration, his own futile attempts, until her voice abruptly faded from the other side.

  “What?” he asked, his own smile faltering uncertainly. “Dani? What’s wrong?”

  She laughed again, but it fell flat, a humorless sound. “It’s on my keychain,” she said. “My little multitool. It’s on my goddamn keychain.”

  He realized. Which is in my pocket.

  “Shit,” he said. “Wait. I can slide it under the door.” Pulling it out, he dropped to his hands and knees, setting the flashlight down to aim the beam beneath the bottom of the door. “Do you see my light?”

  Within that equally narrow, illuminated space, he suddenly saw a sliver of her face come into view, her eye and cheek, the side of her nose. It was enough to make him smile. “Hey, you.”

  She managed a miserable laugh. “Hey, yourself.”

  “Here.” He tried to slide the Gerber Clutch under the door, but it wouldn’t fit. The tool case was too wide. With a frown and a grunt, Andrew turned it lengthwise, then tried forcing it, shoving it repeatedly, uselessly. “Goddamn it,” he snapped, frustrated, frightened, hurling the keychain down the corridor, sending it skittering and clattering into the darkness.

  “I’m sorry, Andrew,” Dani whispered.

  He looked back into her eye, saw it glistening with tears, then wedged his fingertips under the door, brushing against hers. “I’m going to get you out,” he promised.

  From the far end of the corridor, back in the direction he had come, came a sudden, terrified shriek. Andrew jerked at the sound, eyes flown wide as his head snapped up, his eyes darting in that direction.

  Suzette, he thought, as another piteous scream, shrill and agonized, ripped through the lab building. Oh, Jesus, that was Suzette!

  “Andrew,” Dani cried. “Oh, God, what’s that? What’s going on out there?”

  “Nothing,” he told her, peering under the door again, meeting her panic-stricken gaze. “It was nothing.”

  I have to get her out of there, he thought, scrambling to his feet. He’d shrugged the M16 over his shoulder, but took it in hand now, raising it over his head. With a desperate cry, he rammed the stock down into the key pad beside the door, hoping against hope that this would somehow disable the locking mechanism in the door. He hit it again, then again. With the fourth blow, he managed to knock the key pad casing loose and it listed severely to port, revealing a tangled mess of multicolored wires beneath. Another shout, another blow, and the case clattered to the floor, leaving the inner workings of the key pad vulnerably exposed.

  Still, the door remained locked. Another shriek echoed down the hallway, but this time it wasn’t Suzette. The sound was visceral, scraping and shrill, something brutal and primal, the triumphant howl of a wolf pack’s alpha male claiming first dibs on a kill.

  “Andrew, you have to go,” Dani pleaded through the door. If Suzette had been able to hear the gun blasts as Barron, Spaulding and the other soldiers had tried to fight off the screamers, then Dani likely had, too. She may not have understood fully what was going on, but she’d been able to deduce enough to recognize the peril.

  “Not without you,” he replied, gritting his teeth, turning the battering ram of his rifle’s butt against the door knob now.

  “Andrew, please,” she cried. “I don’t know what’s going on out there, but people are screaming. Something’s wrong, there’s something very, very wrong, and you have to get out of here!”

  “I’m not leaving without you,” he said again. Backing up, he leaned down, grabbed his flashlight again. Propping it beneath his arm, he clasped the rifle between his hands. “Stand back,” he called to her. Then as a second thought, he added, “Way back. Get underneath Moore’s desk. I’m going to try and shoot out the lock.”

  “Andrew,” she protested.

  “Just do it,” he cried. “I’m not leaving without you. I’m going to get you out of that goddamn office and out of these godforsaken backwoods, and I’m going to personally drive you all of the way back to the Bronx so you can see your kids again, do you hear me? Then we’re all going to go to North Pole, Alaska so I can introduce you to my mom and tell her she was right, that everything happens for a reason because you’re my reason, Dani Santoro, whether you like it or not, now just shut the hell up and stand back so I can shoot this goddamn door!”

  And with that, bracing himself, readying for the thunderous report as it fired, he squeezed the trigger. Then blinked, bewildered, at the hollow click that followed.

  “What the hell?” He frowned, cocking the gun to get a better look at it, trying to figure out what he was doing wrong.

  “What is it?” he heard Dani say.

  “I’ve got an assault rifle,” he called back. “It won’t shoot.”

  She said something, but he couldn’t understand. Moving back to the door, putting his ear to it again, he called, “What?”

  “Turn the safety off,” she said again. “There’s a switch on the side panel. Turn it to semi.”

  He tilted the gun again, spied the little toggle she’d mentioned, then did as instructed. “Okay. Now what?”

  “Is your bolt open?”

  Another glance at the gun. “How can you tell?”

  “It’s a slide bolt on the top of the gun. Is it pulled back?”

  “Uh. No.”

  “Then you’ve got a round chambered in there already. You’re ready to shoot.”

  “Okay. Got it.” He backed away from the door again, raising the rifle. “Stand back. I’m going to try again.”

  This time, when he squeezed the trigger, a loud series of rapid-fire shots blasted out. The rounds ripped into the doorframe, door and neighboring wall, pulverizing the drywall, punching through the metal door, clanging noisily off the chrome knob and lock plates.

  “Jesus!” he yelled, because the gun had a mind of its own, and even though he’d gripped it tightly, the shots went wild, a meandering semi-circle arcing wildly toward the ceiling.

  When he’d stopped shooting, he stood there stupidly, listening to the soft patter of drywall dust peppering the floor, watching it dissipate in the air in a thin haze.

  “H
oly shit,” he said as the door to Moore’s office slowly swung inward, then listed on its bullet-ridden hinges and crashed to the floor. He could see Moore’s desk inside through a lingering haze of gun smoke and shattered plaster dust.

  Dani slowly raised her head from behind the desk, eyes wide. “I said switch it to semi, not burst.”

  Sheepish, he let the gun fall from his hands, clattering to the floor. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t do that again,” she said, then scrambled out and rushed across the room, stumbling over the fallen door. With a gasp and a cry, she flung her arms around his neck and fell against him.

  He allowed himself the luxury of holding her for a long, lingering moment. “Come on,” he whispered through the tangled mess of her hair and into her ear. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  She nodded. “Sounds good.” As they drew apart, she caught him by the hand, cutting a glance down at the M16. “But I think I’d better handle the rifle from here on out.”

  “Yeah.” He nodded as she hefted it in hand, snapping the safety back on. “That sounds good, too.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The hallway leading to Moore’s office stopped at a dead end. Which means we’ve got to go back the way I came, Andrew thought. Back toward the office where Suzette was hiding. Where we heard her screams coming from.

  Shit.

  “Stay behind me,” he whispered to Dani once they reached the mouth of the hall, the juncture from which he could look to his left and see Suzette’s door, half-ajar and plainly in view. He had snapped off the flashlight before reaching this point and stayed in the relative shelter of the wall for a long moment, unmoving.

  “What are you doing?” Dani whispered.

  “I’m listening,” he whispered back.

  “For what?”

  For sniffing, he thought, because even when the tumors had grown over the screamers’ eyes, they’d been able to smell their quarry, a distinctive snuffling. Truth be told, he was also listening to an equally telltale sound—that of chewing. Because Lucy and the other primates in the stockroom hadn’t just been mauled to death. They had been eaten.