I was absolutely shocked that she was finally being straight with me. “Holy fuck balls. It gets worse?”
“From what I have observed, it can,” she said and took a drink. “I have already said too much.”
“Why didn’t you mention this earlier?”
“Because I stupidly thought your government could handle it.” She shrugged and turned away. “However, I have seen the error of my ways. Also, I’ve been drinking out of that gin bottle for the last hour.”
“So what do we do now?”
“You go back to your life and I’ll go back to England.”
“So you’re really leaving?”
Elizabeth moved into her main room, picked up a remote, and turned on the television. She flipped to a local channel and then turned up the volume. She pointed at the screen and nodded. “Yes. I’m leaving.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s very simple, Jake. I get on an airplane, it takes off, and within a half of a day I will arrive back in London, at Heathrow, to be precise.”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it,” I said in exasperation.
The scene on the television was similar to the one we had seen earlier, and suddenly I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. There was a new ‘incident’, at a different location, this time a condo, and there were helicopters flying overhead. Multiple police cars, fire trucks, and even a vehicle marked DHS were on the scene.
“I didn’t come here for this, for any of this,” she said as she pointed at the screen. “It’s spreading and I’m afraid that it can’t be stopped.”
“But I just left the city, and it was quiet.”
“You left a part of the city. Atlanta is spread out over one hundred and thirty of your miles. There could be an outbreak a mile from your home and you wouldn’t know it until it was too late.”
“Well, that doesn’t make me feel one bit better,” I replied with a frown. “But if the virus was created, then surely there is a way to end it.”
“It’s not that simple,” she said. “I could spend a few hours attempting to explain it, but it would make little sense to you.”
“So explain it to the fucking media, or a government hotline, or something. You can’t unleash this thing and then run away,” I said in frustration.
“I didn’t unleash anything. I seem to remember you being the one who opened the floodgates.”
There it was. Well, there’s your proof just as plain as day, but a lot better looking. Elizabeth Breeze had just called me out.
“You had a guy locked up in a big glass cage and he was crying for help. What would you have done in my situation?”
“I would have minded my own business.” She crossed her arms over her chest and crossed her legs, then her foot tapped up and down.
“I’m not saying I’m blameless, is that what you want to hear?”
Elizabeth picked up her drink. She wrinkled her nose, then downed most of the cup in a few deep swallows. Then she shook her head.
“I’ll take one more of those if you’re on the way to the kitchen, and then maybe I’ll fill you in a little more. What harm can it do now?” She proffered the cup.
I took it and got up from the couch but my eyes strayed to the television screen. “You say that like it’s the end of the world.”
She picked up her cell phone, and read a message. Then she locked the screen and put it back on the end table.
“The end of the world,” she muttered. “Bit too soon to call it that.”
“Pardon?”
“That was one of my bosses up in Baltimore. It is possible that it has spread out of state. On a positive note, they also feel that it will quickly be contained. In 2014 a number of cases of Ebola were reported. Those affected were quickly taken to a facility and treated. I expect the same will be the case here.”
“Well, that’s something,” I said and went to the kitchen to make a pair of drinks so strong we would be cross-eyed by morning. “I mean, not that those guys got their shit fixed, but that it may have spread out of state. Zombies, man. I hate ‘em.”
“They are not zombies. Good lord,” Elizabeth said in exasperation.
“Sure. Not zombies. Maybe that will be the title of my book,” I said with more than a little sarcasm.
“That, or a memoir on your sex change operation.”
Zing. She got me again.
12
I’m not sure what time we fell asleep. Or I passed out. It seemed to me that we were laughing, hooting, she cried, I may have cried (fuck you), and at some point she went to her bedroom and told me that I was welcome to sleep on her couch and not to bother her. Then she mentioned a lock, and she may have said something about a gun. It’s a blur after that.
My head felt like someone had inserted a knife right into the back of my neck and then twisted it in rhythm with my heartbeat, and I’m sure a cat rubbed its ass across my mouth during the night. All in all it was a fine hangover for a Sunday morning.
I found the bathroom and relieved myself. Then I quietly opened her medicine cabinet and looked for some Tylenol. I found some gel caps, pocketed a half dozen, and then looked at her prescriptions. She had some antidepressants and a bottle of something for heartburn, so I took one of those bad boys too. The good stuff was in the back in the form of some Hydrocodone. Now why in the hell hadn’t she gotten those out last night? I unscrewed the top and then had second thoughts. I guess I could be a complete asshole and steal her pills, but she had let me crash here last night, and that was cool.
“Are you in the loo?” Elizabeth banged on the door. “I need to go, or throw up, or a little of both.”
I flushed the toilet, picked up her mouthwash, did a quick swish while I ran the water, and then opened the door.
She wore the same thing as last night and she looked like hell. Her hair had been close to perfect the few times that I had seen her but today it looked like she had slept with a fan blade wrapped around her head.
“Take a picture,” she muttered as she brushed past me and slammed the door shut.
I went into her kitchen and looked around for some coffee, because I hadn’t seen any energy drinks the night before, then I realized that the fancy black machine in the corner took some little round metal pods, instead of the Keurig kind. I fired it up, popped a capsule in, and then looked for a cup in the cabinets. The Tylenol may have started to kick in, or maybe it was the fact that I had downed what felt like a gallon of water a few minutes ago.
“Coffee?” I yelled.
She mumbled something, so I took that as a yes. While the machine bubbled out some fancy shit that would probably cost three dollars at a coffee shop, last night came back to me. Specifically our talk about the virus.
“Shit!” I yelped.
Digging out my cell phone, I found Roger’s number and gave it a call.
“Yo,” he answered.
“Want to help save the world?”
“Not really. I’m moving supplies into the bunker right now.”
“You don’t want to help with a cure for the virus?” I offered, hoping it was a tantalizing prospect.
“No.”
I pulled the phone away from my head and mouthed “fuck you” at the screen. Then I took a deep breath. “You know that doctor I told you about?”
“The porno chick?”
I rolled my eyes. “She knows what’s up, and she may have an idea how to fix this, but we have to get to a lab in Atlanta near the CDC.”
“Are you sure about all of this, dude? Word on 4Chan is that this is from out of country. I could spend an hour filling you in…”
“Roger!” I yelled. “Stop it and listen to me! I work for these people and I’ll get you a scoop that will blow 4Chan, Reddit, Fox and Friends, whoever you want to call, a new asshole. Okay? You’ll be the one reporting the truth instead of the the guy reading it.”
“I’m listening,” Roger said after ten second pause where I wondered if he had simply hung up.
“We need to meet, and you should drive The Beast, because the streets are going to start filling with panicked people in the next few hours.”
“Where do we meet?”
“Eh,” I told him where I was.
“Give me a minute and I’ll find somewhere we can both easily access. Then I’ll text you the location.”
“Cool. See you then.”
“Hey. We’re going to need more help, so call up the M’s.”
“Mitch and Mindy. On it.”
“Later, fucker.” Roger hung up.
“Who was that?” Elizabeth asked as she walked into the kitchen, went straight to the coffee machine, and picked up the cup I had just brewed.
“Roger. He’s going to meet us and then we’re going to do the thing,” I said.
“The thing?”
“Like we talked about last night.”
Elizabeth buried her nose in the coffee mug while she stared at the floor. Clearly she had forgotten everything we’d discussed.
“Remind me?”
I repeated back what I could remember from the night before, then I snapped my finger, as I recalled that I had written some of it on a piece of paper and put the note in my back pocket. I snapped the yellow sheet of paper out and stared at my already terrible handwriting made worse by being drunk.
“It’s going to be a hell of a day,” I said then nodded at the coffee machine. “Aren’t you going to make me one?”
“Are your arms broken?”
I shrugged and nudged her out of the way. She moved, grudgingly, and then went back to staring at the floor.
“You’re kind of a pain in the ass, you know that?” I asked.
“You’re not that charming either,” she said.
“That’s why I like you.” I grinned.
“Whatever puts the wave in your hair. Speaking of which, you must take a shower before we leave, and I don’t suppose you have a change of clothing?”
“I have some chinos and a cardigan out in the car,” I said in a terrible British accent. “Be a dove and fetch them for me.”
“I suppose you think you’re funny.”
“No one else does,” I said as I snagged my coffee and put it in the freezer.
“What in the world are you doing?”
“You’re out of ice, and I’d prefer to drink that as quickly as possible. No offense, but it smells like coffee. Gross.”
“I thought you liked coffee?”
“You assumed I did because you tried to make some at my apartment. I drink Red Bull.”
“Those are not good for you. Do you know how many chemicals are inside of a standard energy drink?”
“Enough to wake my ass up every day,” I said with a genuine shrug.
“I supposed that page contains an accurate description of the plans we made last night?”
“More or less. More less than anything else, but it’s a start.”
“What?”
“Read it,” I said and went to her bathroom to crawl into the shower.
Good thing too, since I didn’t get another one for a long time.
* * *
As I stood under a stinging hot faucet, water pooling around my feet before whirlpooling itself down the drain, most of the night came back to me even if it was in broken images, and most of it likely to be unreliable.
We had demolished her bottle of gin. The flavor hadn’t grown on me, but hey, it was free alcohol, and I’m not really one to pass up a free drink or six. Then we had started on the beer, which she had said, to my surprise, that she enjoyed the simple flavor. Apparently beer in England was a bit more robust. We had watched the television as it got later until finally they had switched from news coverage to infomercials.
“I was so close to fixing his mess, and then it all went to hell.” Elizabeth had lamented.
“You were close to fixing Latimer?”
“I think so. I had all of the components, but then he got out and they took it all.”
“Who’s ‘they’ and where did they take it?”
“Classified.” She had giggled. “I would surely lose my security clearance if it was revealed that I’d revealed, that which I am not supposed to reveal.”
“And there’s nothing we can do? Nothing at all?” I’d asked in disbelief.
“Not here. They took every single file. The computer hard drives, the samples, all of the equipment. It’s gone.”
“But where did they take it?”
“To an offsite laboratory. It’s one of those places the government runs, but it’s off the books, that sort of thing.”
“So they have Jason fucking Bourne running this place, or what?”
“Doubtful. You would be surprised how easy it is to get into locations like that. All you need is an ID card and an attitude.”
“That’s true.” I had nodded. “That is exactly how I got past the crack security guard at the front gate. He even gave me helpful directions to your house.”
“If we just had all of Latimer’s notes, as well as mine,” she had said.
“Tell me more about Latimer.”
“French bloke. Tall, thin, handsome, accent to make a girl drop her knickers. The first day in the lab he attempted to get me into bed.”
“Good thing you avoided that,” I’d said with a grin.
She had shrugged. “He was very good at his job. He was in the process of sequencing some genes when the incident with Copley happened.”
“Copley was the first dude, right? He had it and gave it to Latimer.”
“Copley may have accidentally stuck himself with a needle through his glove. At first he didn’t say anything because he thought it hadn’t happened. But as the day went on I caught him looking at his hand more and more. I finally asked him what was wrong. We left the secure lab and I examined him. By then he was beginning to show early signs of dementia. He couldn’t remember my name, or where we were. Then he would snap out of it, and he would seem to be himself once again.”
I had opened two more bottles of beer while Elizabeth had talked.
“I took him back to Abraxin and with Latimer’s help we began to test his blood, but by then he his symptoms had advanced. Hours later, when Latimer went in to take another blood sample, Copley went crazy.”
“The other two you mentioned,” I’d said.
“Yes. They were a good team, and I will miss them a great deal,” Elizabeth had looked away for a second, and then wiped at her eyes before continuing. “It was later in the day when Latimer began displaying serious signs of confusion, and his eyes showed the first hints of mucus. All of us wore thick protective gear, but it wasn’t going to hold if he continued to fight. He seemed to get stronger as the day wore on. I guided him to the chair and used sweet words as I strapped him down, secured the room, and then I planned to make a call to my bosses in the morning.”
“That didn’t happen?” I had asked.
“Of course not, because you decided to play the hero.” Elizabeth had turned to me. “I did report it as soon as you were gone, and that’s when they came in and snapped up everything. But it was too late. Frank ran away, and I somehow ended up spending my entire morning tracking him down. Then, when I brought him in, they said ‘thank you, Elizabeth. We’ll take it from here.’”
She’d stood up and kicked the couch.
“Me. Excluded from my own project! Well, I say to hell with them, or as you Americans are so fond of saying, they can all go and fuck themselves, and quite forcefully, I should add.”
“You’re really cute when you’re angry,” I had said with a hiccup.
“Don’t make me regret this.” She’d put her hands on her hips and turned to face me. “And don’t make me kick you out.”
“Sorry. Listen. Don’t you want to get those assholes back before you leave? They took your research, and you just told me it’s easy to get into the building. Why don’t we go break in and take the files? At the very least we can hand them over to one of these n
ewscasters, or a newspaper, hell, an online news site.”
“That’s a brilliant idea,” Elizabeth had said and then sat down hard on the couch. “Brilliant, all except for the breaking in part.”
“I have an idea for that, too. Do you still have Latimer’s personal shit, like his wallet?”
“Yes. I took it with me when I left the lab.” She’d trailed off. “Oh.”
“Yeah. How close can I get to looking like him?”
“Let’s say Latimer is George Clooney. Are you with me so far?”
“Yep.”
“You’re more of a, I don’t know, who is the man with the large eyes? I enjoyed him in Fargo.”
“You think I look like Steve Buscemi?” I laughed.
“A bit. It’s the eyes, and that mean streak. And you use a lot of rather crass language. Come to think of it, your teeth are sort of, well, out of order.”
I’d touched my front teeth. “Hey. My mom spent a fortune on braces when I was a kid.”
“You did ask,” she had said.
“You’re mean whether you’re drunk or sober, you know that?” I’d frowned.
We’d chatted for a few more minutes but at some point she had disappeared and I may have been talking to myself. At any rate, I’d passed the fuck out not long after.
13
I pored over my messages from the night before and found one from Roger naming our time and place to meet at a Home Depot, for some reason. Then I remembered that I had wanted to pick up something to use as a weapon that might work better than my little camping axe. Unfortunately, I doubted they sold flame-throwers and .50 cal machine guns. Even if they did, I was also broke and would be lucky to have enough money to buy something I could use as a club. I had thought of a big wrench, but that shit would look dumb in my hands.
Elizabeth let out an exasperated sigh when I told her where we were going. I could already tell that it was going to suck being stuck with her today. As soon as we got in the car it was all “don’t talk”, “my head hurts”, and when I asked if she knew how to get to the location I got a stern “shush”. I would have had my navigation hooked up to the Bluetooth receiver in my car, but she wouldn’t have any such option, since her car was still equipped with a cassette player. Instead, she punched the address into her phone, stared at a map for a few seconds, then turned the device off and put her phone back in the center console. I couldn't help but peek inside to see if she had replaced the brandy. Just what I needed, the hair of the dog that had savaged my head last night
Dawn of the Rage Apocalypse Page 9