The Serophim Breach (The Serophim Breach Series)

by Tracy Serpa

  It was a relief to feel the sand rise up to meet his feet, and he crept forward through the water now, keeping his mouth below the surface. Soon he was lying on his stomach, breathing hard through his nose as he dug his hands into the silt beneath him and pulled forward. His face was occasionally submerged by the choppy surf, but he did his best to keep his eyes open and on the beach. The sounds of the horde were carried to him on the wind—whimpers and groans mingled with shrieks and the choking sounds of convulsions.

  Paul had moved farther away from the main group, but he was also farther away from Greg’s truck. He stopped and lay still, letting the surge push him gently forward, then tug him back as he looked for an open route to the lot. A patch of foliage, almost directly up the beach from where he lay, offered him what he thought might be enough cover. If he could get there without being seen, he could definitely get past the pack and into the truck. Still breathing through his nose, he kept an eye on the group as he tried to figure out a way to make it up the beach.

  He was sizing up the height of the bushes when he saw a small light flash briefly from the darkness behind them. It was hard to suppress the urge to lift his head up for a better look; he waited, and saw a second tiny flash of light. He was watching for a third glimpse when a loud splash halfway down the beach startled him, making him suck in a huge mouthful of seawater. Lurching forward onto his knees, he retched against the burning water in his lungs. Most of the horde had advanced almost instantly toward the splash, but now Paul saw them turn and look wildly for the source of his coughing. He shoved himself to his feet and ran, lungs spasming against the last of the brine.

  The screams and shouts rose again from the horde, a horrific chorus of high-pitched shrieks, bellowing, snarls, and cries of pain. They were charging him as he splashed out of the shallow water, sprinting desperately for the truck.

  “Hey! Hey!” he yelled, coughing again. “Stop!”

  They gained on him steadily as he stumbled in the soft sand, still gasping for air. Suddenly, Greg’s engine roared to life, and the glare of the headlights slammed into his tired, stinging eyes. He glanced behind him and saw the frenetic shadows of the horde streaking wildly over the beach. Another scream came from the truck, and for a split second Paul’s heart dropped. Then he realized it sounded different; it didn’t have the rage or the pain behind it. It was a scream of fear and determination. A kamikaze scream. The truck jumped the curb and roared toward him down the beach. As he ran, the horn sounded repeatedly, and a figure leaned over from the driver’s seat to yell out the passenger window.

  “Go left, Paul, go left! Toward the lot!”

  He cut hard into the sand as Greg’s truck circled around behind him, swinging between him and the horde. The fire in his lungs spread into his stomach and his legs as they propelled him forward.

  “Get in!” the driver shouted, throwing open the passenger door. Paul slipped in the sand and clambered back toward the vehicle. “Get in!”

  The truck started moving before he had pulled himself entirely inside. His feet dragged in the sand as he scrambled desperately to hoist himself up into the seat. Bodies slammed into the driver’s side of the truck with horrifying, furious shouts as others tried to hang on or climb into the truck bed. Briefly he imagined losing his grip, falling under the tires, and then under the horde. The image sent a final surge of energy into his limbs, and he hoisted his legs inside and shut the door just before Jones pulled off the sand and back into the lot, squealing away at full speed.

  “Oh my God, dude, I thought you were dead!” was the only thing he could think to say when he saw his friend in the driver’s seat. Jones was bleeding from a cut above his eye, and his hair was caked with sand; his lower lip was swollen and purple, and the collar of his rash guard was ripped down the back. He bounced in the driver’s seat with a strange combination of panic and relief.

  “Why the hell did you sit out there so long? Geez—” Jones shouted over at him.

  Paul was confused by his friend’s angry outburst, and his relief quickly turned to frustration. “What do you mean? How the hell was I supposed to know you were there?” he snapped back.

  “If you were paying attention, I was flashing a light.”

  Paul scowled. He realized he was freezing cold, his teeth chattering as he turned the heater on high. “You didn’t have to wait around for me,” he finally replied curtly.

  “Oh yeah? Where else am I supposed to go? Walk back to campus, alone? Forget that! Did you see those people?” Jones’s eyes were already huge, but they bulged out as he considered the prospect. “Besides, I wasn’t just going to bail on you,” he said more quietly.

  Paul looked at his friend for a long moment. The hot air blew hard onto his chest and face, relaxing his freezing muscles. His eyes stung with the grit and exhaustion of the past few hours. As the adrenaline waned in his system, he felt the sharpness of his fear and anger recede, leaving a dull sense of horror behind.

  Jones cleared his throat. “Sorry about the splash. I thought it would be a diversion.” He fell silent again. Paul realized for the first time what his friend must have been through.

  “Shit, Jones.” He put his head in his hands. “Thanks, man. Thank you,” he mumbled.

  Driving quietly, Jones wrung his hands on the steering wheel and shrugged stiffly.

  “Did you see Boomer?” Paul asked.

  Jones opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again and shook his head. Sitting back in his seat, Paul closed his eyes. A jumbled mass of questions and images rolled over each other, fighting for precedence in his brain.

  “Oh man, I’m going eighty,” Jones said. He eased off the pedal as they approached the highway. “Where should we go, man? I mean, this is like . . . what’s going on?”

  Paul shook his head slowly. He couldn’t think. His eyes hurt, his body ached, Boomer was gone, Greg and Derrick too . . . he sat up suddenly.

  “Did you see if my bag was still in the back?” he asked.

  Jones shrugged again, so Paul opened the window into the truck bed and stuck his head out. He found his bag underneath Boomer’s board, and yanked it back into the truck with him. Unzipping it, he fished around his sunscreen and wax for his cell phone. He had eight missed calls, all from Sarah.

  “Shit,” he muttered.

  “I’m pretty sure some people on the beach called the cops. I never saw anyone show up, though,” Jones said.

  Paul glanced over and held up a finger as he dialed his voice mail. The messages were all whispered, begging for him to come home. She sounded terrified.

  “Who is it?” Jones asked.

  “It’s Sarah,” Paul answered in a tight voice. “We need to get to my house.”

  ~

  The early afternoon had held the promise of a relatively easy day, but the steady stream of traffic that started around four o’clock had banished any hope Karen Lau had of a catnap before the rest of her shift took her through the night. A young woman had been brought in by an ambulance at four fifteen, the apparent victim of a violent robbery. She was still unconscious, although the ugly wound on her neck had been cleaned and sutured. More than likely she would need skin grafts to fully repair the damage; a huge chunk of flesh had been ripped away just under her chin. They were still trying to figure out what kind of weapon had been used in the attack. Then Brandon Kavida had been brought in, bitten by some lunatic and in severe shock. Perhaps she was just wired, but it seemed to her that every case since then was fairly severe.

  She chuckled at herself derisively as she walked toward the nurse’s station. It was, after all, the emergency room. Things here were supposed to be severe. Too much time at the clinic, she thought. After checking with the nurse about the robbery victim’s status, she headed down the hall toward Brandon. As she was passing the waiting room, she glanced out and saw that the boy with the broken arm was no longer in his chair; she couldn’t see his mother either. They had been forced to wait longer than usual for treatment, and
the kid’s brave face had been pretty impressive. She had tried to get them finished up quickly so they could get home before dark. Satisfied, she hurried on down the corridor toward the room where Brandon’s wounds were being cleaned in preparation for stitching.

  When he had arrived, she initially and confidently diagnosed shock. The mottling on his hands and feet, characteristic of hypoperfusion, suggested that his blood wasn’t reaching the tissue with enough oxygen. Brandon’s mouth had been almost completely dry, and in his only lucid moment, he had begged for water. Cold, clammy skin; shallow breathing, almost like panting; she was sure.

  His wounds had been significant, but with prompt and competent treatment, not bad enough to be called life-threatening. She had immediately set her resident to the task of treating Brandon for shock and cleaning his injuries, which would lessen the chances of any complications; she was expecting to find him stabilized, on oxygen and an IV drip. Even a resident could handle that, she thought.

  His whimpering echoed down the hallway, reaching her long before she entered his room. She found him writhing on the sheet, still panting despite the oxygen mask. Dr. Lau frowned at the resident who stood nearby, frantically checking the instruments.

  “How long has he been on oxygen?” she asked.

  “I put it on him almost immediately after you left, Doctor,” the resident replied. He was a good kid, but terrified of her, she knew. She usually did her best not to be too intimidating, but her irritation got the better of her.

  “Can you hold him, please?” she snapped.

  The resident held Brandon’s arms down as she leaned forward and pulled his left eye open to check for dilation. The glassy black of his pupils did not retract at all against the beam of her flashlight. His iris was almost completely obscured by the pupil, which was blown wide open, unflinching.

  “That’s strange,” she murmured.

  “The IV was started twelve minutes ago,” said the resident. Brandon squirmed under his grip, letting out a low wail.

  Dr. Lau looked down to check the site, and gasped. The skin around the needle was turning blue, and blisters had formed along the tracks of his veins. She removed the IV immediately, ignoring the rising feeling of incompetence. Grabbing a nearby hypodermic needle, she ordered the resident to keep his hold on Brandon as she drew blood. Tonight would be one of the many nights she was grateful that the hospital had such an excellent lab.

  Dr. Lau left Brandon under the close supervision of the resident and a nurse, and headed for the fifth floor. A quiet voice in her head told her she had missed something. Obviously, she retorted. But everything had pointed to shock, even the circumstances of his injury. This thought did nothing to quell the wave of self-doubt that followed close at her heels.

  She rounded the corner into the lab and found Thad Kroner bent over a sample, his bald spot prominently displayed. At thirty-eight, he had a round baby face and a body to match. The nurses often giggled to themselves about his ever-present sweat rings and the strange things he packed himself for lunch. But Dr. Lau had never worked with a better lab technician. As she entered, he glanced up and grinned absentmindedly, continuing to work on the biopsy that lay before him.

  “Thad, I need you to run some tests for me. Immediately, okay? Blood and tissue, please. He’s exhibiting signs of shock and suffering from physical trauma resulting from an assault. No change in his condition when we administered oxygen or an IV drip,” she said, walking past him and deeper into the lab.

  “Okay,” he said without looking up from his work. “You have it?”

  She took a small sample of the blood and placed it on a microscope lens before returning to set the vials down next to his elbow.

  “Now, please,” she prodded.

  Wisps of medical school came back to her as she fitted the lens and adjusted the light on the scope; she remembered lab exercises, dissections, charts, and lectures. None of them were very clear or particularly applicable, but she felt compelled to look at the sample herself. Brandon, or at least his family, was a special case. Still, she had spent so much time over the last few years running on autopilot, she wasn’t entirely confident in her diagnostic skills outside of the usual physical injuries that came limping in to the ER and her clinic.

  Peering into the microscope, she called out a little louder, “I’m serious, Kroner. Now.”

  His stool scraped the floor, and she pursed her lips, satisfied. Then she frowned. On the slide, Brandon’s blood looked . . . strange. The cells should have been moving slightly, she knew; the red would only jostle around the tiniest bit, and the white would be a little more active. But Brandon’s sample seemed to pulse, like the cells were responding in coordination to some kind of stimulus or current. Almost like blood moved in veins, with a beating heart propelling the motion. And there were no white cells in the sample.

  “Double-time, Thad,” she said, then hopped off her stool.

  “Yep,” he called from the back of the lab.

  She paced near the door for a few minutes, trying hard to remember something from medical school that would help her categorize what she had just seen.

  “Hey, Doc,” came Thad’s voice.

  “Yeah?”

  “Is the patient on any meds? Any drug use?”

  “None reported. Why?”

  “I’m running a tox screen, and already it’s popping up red. And then there’s—” Thad went quiet.

  “What?” she asked anxiously.

  “Uhhh . . .”

  Dr. Lau gritted her teeth. Despite being one of her best lab techs, Thad tended to get engrossed quickly in results and forget anyone else was waiting for them. Rather than call out for answers from her current position, she headed for the back of the lab.

  She found him sitting at a powerful microscope, fiddling with the lens. His brow was furrowed.

  “What is it?” she repeated.

  “Well, uh . . . it can’t be right, I don’t think,” he stammered. It was unlike Thad to be embarrassed about speculation. He was known for calling lab results before the computers did, and he was right more often than not. Dr. Lau took another step forward to remind him to keep talking.

  “Well, there’s something in his bloodstream we don’t want there. That’s obvious. I just can’t figure out . . .” He stopped again.

  “Kroner, just tell me what you see. We have to start somewhere,” she growled, exasperated.

  “Something is moving in his blood. I mean, moving the blood cells. And from the looks of the tox screen, I think it’s inorganic,” he finished.

  “Inorganic,” she repeated.

  “Yeah, but not like a drug or something. I mean, something’s moving it, but I can’t see anything that shouldn’t be there. This sample should not be behaving this way. Whatever is in his bloodstream, it looks like it’s . . . in charge. That’s the best way I can put it right now,” he said. He looked at her for a moment, waiting for a response or a challenge, and then turned back to the microscope.

  Nine

  There was no way to know how long it would take Kai or the police to get to her. Sarah remained huddled against the back of her closet, listening hard, watching the dim light from her bedroom window slant more and more sharply under the door. There had been no noise in the house for what felt like hours until a floorboard creaked in Paul’s room behind her just before her cell phone died. She had frozen, terrified, listening for another sound, certain the jogger was still in the house that was once again completely silent. The muscles in her stomach contracted as she thought about what lay at the bottom of the stairs. Lani’s voice, the scream for help, echoed in her head. She covered her eyes and worked hard not to let out a sob.

  The silence was finally broken by the grinding of gravel against wheels. Someone was pulling into the driveway. She let out a shaky breath as a substitute for the scream she felt in her whole body and moved carefully onto her hands and knees. Sliding herself along the carpet, she silently begged the house not to creak as she crawl
ed toward the door and edged it open. Her breathing sounded noisy to her ears; she was on the edge of hyperventilating, sucking quick breaths through her nose in an effort to hold back the cries.

  She poked her head out of the closet. The room was almost dark now, with the sun setting out over the ocean, and the sharp lines and defining details receded into terrifying shadows. Staring straight ahead, she waited for motion. Outside, the gravel crunched louder now, and she heard the light squeak of brakes. Desperate for her brother, she crawled out from behind the closet door and toward her bedroom window, where she raised herself up enough to look out. A big white pickup that did not belong to Kai sat in the driveway.

  A male voice said something she could not hear clearly and she nearly collapsed into tears. Mike emerged from the driver’s side and walked around to the back of the truck, where he began unloading crates onto the gravel. With the window shut, he might not hear her call for him, and anyone in the house certainly would. But she couldn’t bring herself to wait alone any longer, and so she dropped back onto her hands and knees and crawled for the bedroom door.

  The hallway outside her room was empty when she peeked out. She stretched out onto her stomach and pulled herself toward the stairs, moving as carefully as she could. The bottom floor came into view; she saw a heavy pool of liquid and the top of Lani’s head, unmoving. Silently, she let the tears fall and her body heave with the sobs she could not let out. There was still no sign of the jogger, so she pressed herself against the wall and crept down the stairs, keeping her eyes off the floor.

  She stopped at the bottom step and peeped her head out to check the hall to the front door. Lani’s body remained in her peripheral vision, a mound on the floor. The front of Mike’s truck was visible through the window next to the front door, and she could see Heather sitting in the front seat, her head bowed over and her face lit by the light of her phone. Sarah wanted to scream for them, but she was still inside the house and far from their help if the jogger were in the kitchen or the den.