by Justin Bell
“Is he coming here?”
“Think so, yeah.” She turned to look at her father. “Is that okay?” A nervous edge carved her voice into a point. Her father had only somewhat gotten along with Jackson, and their relationship had become more strained when he’d pulled Lisa into the big city and away from her roots.
“It’s fine, honey,” her father replied. “What about work on Monday, are they expecting you in?”
“I’ve got four clients Monday,” she replied. “All offsite. I’ll probably have more when I get in. A lot of our business customers will be looking for network redundancy after what went on in Boston. Though with what’s going on in the world today, who knows what things will be like on Monday.”
“That will help the bank account at least,” he replied. “You’re not still sending him money to help with his rent, are you?”
“Dad, do we have to do this?”
“Moving to the city was his idea.”
“We’d calculated a two-person income when he got the apartment,” Lisa replied. “He can’t cover all of the costs by himself.”
“And that’s your fault?”
“Dad. He almost died today. Can you look past this for one lousy day please?”
Her father looked down at the narrow, wooden slats that made up the porch, breathing slow and even. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, not looking up. “All of this with your mom… it’s put a lot of strain on me. On us.”
Lisa stood from the love seat and turned toward her father. “Dad, I know, okay? I get it.” She put her hands on his shoulders and he looked up into her eyes, his own eyes wet with unspent tears. For all of her life, Lisa’s father had been the epitome of strength and resilience, the unemotional rock that held their family in place. Always there. Always dependable. They pressed into each other in an embrace, hard and long, then pulled apart.
“I’m thirty years old, Dad,” Lisa said quietly. “I’m doing what I think is right for someone who means a lot to me.”
“I know.”
“It’s not causing me financial hardship, and it should only be for six more months or so until his lease is done and he finds a job back home.”
“I know.”
He swiped his hand across his eyes. “Six months,” he whispered. “What’s going to change in six months?”
Lisa didn’t answer with her voice, though the tears in her eyes spoke volumes. In six months her mother would be gone. She herself would likely be moving out of the house with her fiancé, if they could salvage this strange relationship they now had. Effectively, her father would then be alone.
Lots of change in a short amount of time. Lisa had always heard once you hit your thirties, the change was supposed to slow down, at least in comparison to your teens and twenties. That was a time when you were supposed to be settling down, finding your direction. Instead she was making peanuts as a network engineer for a local information services firm, her fiancé was entry level at a huge recruiting firm in Boston and hating every minute of it. Her mother was on her death bed, and her father, recently retired, had no idea what the future would bring.
If this was stability, Lisa would have given anything to be back in high school again.
The lights in the house flickered slightly, drawing down to dim, hesitating for a moment in darkness, then slowly lightening again.
“What was that?” Lisa asked. Inside the living room, the flashing white light signaled that the television had turned back on with the brown out. She walked into the house, her father following close behind. They’d purposefully been ignoring the television for the past couple of hours, not wanting to dwell on what was happening in Boston and elsewhere. But as they walked in, they couldn’t help but see.
And what they saw was Hartford, Connecticut consumed by pillars of dark, black smoke.
“Oh my… that’s Hartford,” Lisa hissed and slowly turned up the volume.
The newscaster erupted into sudden sound, speaking in mid-sentence. “… don’t have all of the details, but there are reports of innumerable victims of the mysterious sickness that has already begun to plague New York, New Jersey, and Boston, all of this on the heels of the massive explosion at the Connecticut Chemical Storage facility just south of downtown Hartford. Emergency services, already stretched thin from dispatching to assist in Boston, are mobilizing to the facility now, though officials fear that the death toll is already massive. It is unknown what caused the explosion, though early evidence suggests that a possible collision of a propane truck caused a violent chain reaction.”
“Unbelievable,” whispered Lisa’s father. “What is happening?”
Lisa couldn’t put together an answer, not one that made sense, but all she could wonder was could events in Hartford and Boston possibly be coincidences? Or were they somehow connected?
She wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to that question.
***
“We all buttoned up?” Broderick asked, standing near the entrance of the store and looking out at his team. They moved in expert precision, sealing bags, clacking closed their large metal cases, securing all samples, all while working around the stiffened corpses splayed all over the floor.
“So far, so good,” replied Irkus. “No sign of the kid.”
Broderick had almost forgotten about that. The initial call that had come in to throw the red flag. The paramedic who had called reported a survivor, a young girl, who was surrounded by corpses, yet somehow uninfected herself.
“Finish packing up, then we look for the girl, but don’t waste too much time. We need to get out of here with this data and do a full cross-check with the international database.” Broderick signaled with two extended fingers, and the remaining Team Ten nodded affirmative and picked up the pace, zipping, bagging and closing.
“Hey, Schmidt?” Broderick turned and saw Corporal Felding approaching. She took a few more steps closer to him and leaned in.
“I’ve been trying to radio the bird for the past ten minutes,” she whispered. “I can’t get a signal out.”
Underneath his filtration mask, Broderick grimaced. Getting all these samples together pronto wouldn’t mean anything if they couldn’t get a ride out of the city. The way things were going, they’d be lucky to make it out of the city alive even with the Blackhawk.
“Local interference, or something larger?” Broderick asked.
Felding shrugged. “Could be either. I’ve hopped four different channels, but I’ve got nada.”
Broderick nodded. “All right. Let’s get things buttoned up here and we’ll start moving north, staying to the shadows. See if we can get a signal when we get into thicker civilization.”
“It’s also thicker damage and thicker people,” Felding reminded him. Broderick nodded, but didn’t alter his command. Felding pulled away and went to assist the rest of the team, and moments later they were all packed up and ready. Bags slung over shoulders, thick metal cases closed up and lifted, and in their yellow suits and a cloak of silence, Team Ten vacated the small store.
Chapter Six
Jackson looked behind him, slowing his run down to a jog, and finally down to a trot, seeing Clark lingering a ways behind him. He stopped running, bending at the waist and pressing his palms into his thighs, silently giving the older man credit for keeping up even as much as he had. Judging by the receding hairline and the pressure being put on the front buttons of his blue shirt, the man was past middle age and could have stood to lose some pounds, but he was hoofing it, nearly matching Jackson’s athletic movements pace-for-pace.
“You’ve got some moves, brother,” Jackson said through gasps of haggard breath. “Took that guy down hard.”
Clark slowed to a trot himself, coming up next to where Jackson was recovering. He was breathing quite hard and struggled to get the words out among his blasts of exhaustion.
“Didn’t… want… to do it… that way,” he said.
“Didn’t see as you had a choice,” Jackson replied. “You’
ve fired a weapon before, obviously.”
“United States Marine Corps,” Clark said. “But that was a good twenty years and a hundred pounds ago.” He was already starting to recover his breath, and brought himself back upright, drawing in a huge inhale, and long, smooth exhale.
“Think we lost ‘em?” he asked.
Jackson nodded. “Probably half a mile back. I think we wanted to get away a heck of a lot more than they wanted to catch us.”
“Seems that way, especially after you tossed that buckshot at ‘em.”
Jackson shrugged. “Wasn’t my first choice either.” Clark nodded, bending at the knees and pulling his pistol back out of the holster at his hip. He popped out the magazine and counted the rounds.
“So even after that extra hundred pounds, you still move pretty good, old man.”
Clark glanced up at him, his mouth a crooked line. “Good enough to keep up with a crossfit punk like you.”
Jackson chuckled. “That obvious, huh?”
Clark stood back up, clicking the magazine back into the pistol and loading a round in the chamber. “I was building security. For the past several months I’ve been watching everyone come and go. Lots of retired Marines, they take a job like that and think it’s the same as sitting in front of the TV. I took it a little more seriously.”
“I can tell.”
They stood in the narrow alley in silence for a few moments, listening to the faint whine of sirens and feeling the low, ambient heat of surrounding fires. Jackson’s tongue felt thick with smoke and light fireflies of ash slowly drifted through the dark air.
“So where you headed?” Jackson asked. “Got family somewhere in the city?”
Clark shook his head. “Nope. Married twice, divorced twice. Never had any kids.”
Jackson nodded, but didn’t say anything.
The gray-haired man twisted his face. “Don’t feel sorry for me, kid. All that cash I’d be using for a college fund has been going right into my ‘73 Mustang and the Shelby. Lord knows those are expensive enough without tuition getting in the way.”
“It’s all good,” Jackson said, finally starting to catch his breath. “I’m heading to Connecticut. Could use the back up and support if you want. I’m sure we’ll get a roof over our heads and some nice home cooked food when we get there.”
“Parent’s place?”
“Fiancée. Well, her parents, anyway.” Jackson turned and walked from the alley, shrugging the backpack higher on his shoulder, Clark drifting behind him. “So where are your cars? They lost?”
“Long term storage, south of the city. I rent a few bays along with my buddy Dom. We usually pull ‘em out on the weekends.”
“Don’t suppose they’re accessible now? Might make the trip southwest a bit quicker.”
Clark shook his head. “Engine’s out of the ‘73. I was in the middle of rebuilding it. The Shelby might be functional, but I drained the gas tank before throwing it up on blocks in there. Unless we’re in the mood to siphon some gas and mount and balance…”
“Yeah, walking sounds good.”
“Not sure I’m ready to trust the roadways between here and Connecticut either,” Clark replied. “From what I’m hearing on the news, what’s going down in Boston isn’t a singular event.”
“I haven’t heard much,” Jackson replied as they continued along down the left-hand sidewalk, sticking close to the row of buildings. The streets were eerily empty and devoid of humanity. “I talked to Lisa, that’s my fiancée, a few hours ago, and she mentioned New Hampshire and New York. Jersey, I guess, too. But not really disasters, just this strange super flu.”
“I’m surprised the media hasn’t started connecting the dots yet.”
“What do you mean?” They reached an intersection, and Clark held up a hand, gesturing for Jackson to stop walking, then took a step forward, his pistol out, looking down the road. He nodded and Jackson continued on toward him.
“What I mean,” Clark continued, “is that what do you think happens if this strange super flu hits airplane pilots at the wrong time?”
“I don’t have to think. I know.”
Clark stopped and turned toward him. “Excuse me?”
“I was in a Cessna, flying into Hanscom Field this morning. Drew… the guy piloting the plane had an attack. Coughed his guts out and keeled over right in the pilot’s seat. I had to land the thing myself.”
“Holy—”
Jackson shrugged. “Flew crop dusters as a kid with my dad. He owned an agricultural landscaping company. Somehow, ten years later, I managed to stumble my way through without putting the thing down nose-first.”
“Congratulations. Seems like they could have used someone like you on a few of those big commercial flights.”
Jackson didn’t reply, he just shook his head, trying not to imagine what it was like in those cabins as the plane dipped low and started screaming toward the city below. He remembered how he felt in the co-pilot’s seat of the small single engine, he didn’t even want to consider the hundreds of passengers in the bellies of those other planes, screaming while the skyscrapers reached up to meet them, knowing what was coming but being completely powerless to stop it.
“Look, sorry. Didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject.”
“It’s okay,” Jackson replied. “Today has been…”
“Rough?”
“Worst day of my life, I’m pretty sure.”
“Hold up,” Clark said, lifting his hand. Jackson halted, his eyes drifting toward a featureless shape sprawled across the road a short distance up ahead. He knew what it was before they even got close.
“Seen more of those today than I’d like.”
Clark nodded, then led the way over into the road, giving the corpse a wide berth.
“If this is some kinda super flu, I don’t want to get too close to any of those dead ones.”
Jackson nodded, then thought of those precious hours in the Cessna, closed in with Drew, the pilot who later hacked up his lungs and died right in front of him. He pictured his hand sliding through the thick, congealing blood on the windshield, just so he could see well enough to navigate. In his mind, he could still see the vague rust shadow on the palm of his hand.
Goose bumps raced up and down both arms as he walked, but he pressed forward, nonetheless.
The two men didn’t speak for a while, they just continued their forward progress, walking under the shadows of tall buildings, slowly shifting from city to suburb, hoping upon hope they were leaving the disasters far behind.
***
There was a haze in the air as Broderick pushed his way out of the front door of the small store, back out into the open, and he was glad to be wearing the full chem suit. Although the fog floating past his field of vision was likely just residual smoke from the countless fires now raging through Boston, his vivid imagination could picture the tiny viral spores riding the waves of that smoke, small, multi-pronged, microscopic fingers searching for lung tissue to latch into, growing and multiplying as they nestled into the soft, wet walls. The thought sent chills up his spine, but he tried to push them away as he led the rest of Team Ten out into the front parking lot.
“So, Provlov,” he said, turning back to the other senior geneticist on the team. “Off the cuff, what does this feel like?”
“Tough to tell, boss,” he said. “Without access to our larger, global network.”
“Gut instinct.”
Behind the curved surface of his lenses, Broderick thought he saw his eyes dart left, meeting Davis’s briefly, before coming back forward and looking back at him.
“Like I said inside,” he continued, “designer virus. Genetically programmed. Seriously advanced stuff. Seeks out a specific genetic pattern, activates, becomes attached to the lung wall, then multiplies significantly enough to shred the tissue and liquify the organs. Then the infected guy dies, coughing up all those fresh newly minted viruses which float along and settle in the next guy. The cycle continues.�
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Corporal Felding came up behind him. “I don’t buy it,” she said. “Genetically engineered or not, once the victim dies, the virus dies with it. It can replicate or feed on a corpse, one or the other. With as quickly as the victims are dying, I don’t see how it can reliably reproduce.”
“How long do you think it survives in the air?” asked Broderick.
“I can’t say for sure,” replied Provlov.
Irkus joined the group. “Could they conceivably engineer the virus to be able to survive in the air?”
Provlov shrugged. “This thing already operates in a way we’ve never seen before. It’s tough to trust science on any of this because we’re already living squarely in biological theory here. None of this has ever been done before.”
Sergeant Davis stepped forward into the tightly clutched group of scientists. “Come on, break it up. Let’s worry more about getting out of here and less on analysis until we’re back at Detrick. This whole city is on the verge of collapse.”
As if in response to his comment, sirens wailed in the near distance, and a growling roar of what sounded like motorcycles screamed past, a bit closer than anyone there was comfortable with.
“What was that?” Broderick asked.
“Sounded like a bunch of Harleys,” Quiver replied.
“Probably some looters or something,” Davis said. “Like I said, let’s get a move on. Felding, you get the Blackhawk on the horn yet?”
The corporal shook her head. “Let me try now.” She walked away toward a darkened side of the street, lifting the radio off her vest, a tight coil of cable dangling between it and her backpack.
“We’ll have to make our way back to the LZ,” said Davis. “Butch was having a hard time navigating these buildings.”
“We can start heading that way, maybe reception will impro—”
“Hey! Did you see that?” Randolph barked, taking a step toward the street and pointing. “I saw movement down there.”
Davis came up beside him, weapon lifting, and Broderick took a few steps down the road as well. He saw it, too, a small shift of shadow, a figure peeling away from the darkness, moving slowly, afraid. The shadow was small, like an animal.