The Serophim Breach (The Serophim Breach Series)

by Tracy Serpa

“Dad!” Heather shouted.

  Sarah cowered back against the older girl, crying, “What? What is it?”

  She heard several people in the reception area jump up quickly, all talking at once, and Mike’s long strides crossing the room. He was shouting for everyone to be quiet as he rounded the corner to stand in front of the girls. The clamor in the lobby died down enough so they could hear grunting, growls, snarls, and the repeated thud of soft weight against metal bars. Turning to the rookie, Mike hissed, “Who’s back there?”

  Half-hidden by the wall and wide-eyed, the rookie shook his head and backed away. “No one! Everyone left! The back doors are secure, metal, and locked,” he stammered.

  Mike looked around the room and said harshly, “We need weapons. Someone’s back there, and I’m not waiting here unprotected to find out who.”

  “Wait, wait, wait!” the rookie protested. He ran his hands through his hair a few times and looked up at the older man. Watching them from the floor, Sarah realized how young the officer was; he reminded her of Paul.

  “I had those two drunks with me,” he said, trying to keep his voice low. The people who were close enough to hear stifled moans and backed toward the wall farthest from the hallway. “They were totally gone when I picked them up at Big Louie’s. The owner called and said they’d been fighting, and then passed out. I put them in the holding cell to let them sleep it off. It’s standard procedure,” he said, voice shaking.

  Someone in the crowd said hopefully, “Maybe they are! Maybe they’re just drunk!”

  Mike shook his head and briefly summarized his encounter with the jogger at the Kavida farm. “And you guys saw this one,” he said, pointing to the front door. “They all make those sounds, like animals. The one at the farm killed a girl.” Another round of horrified gasps came from the group.

  “But they’re locked in,” said the rookie.

  As he considered this, Mike was taken aback by a sudden thought. “Are they in together?” he said quickly.

  The rookie nodded. “They were both passed out when I brought them in. I didn’t think there was much chance they’d get into it.”

  Immediately Mike grabbed the rookie by the arm and pulled him in close. “And if one of them is like her,” he said, pointing at the woman, “and the other one is like you . . . you know what that means?”

  The rookie’s eyes bulged as he considered the prospect of being locked in a cage with the rabid woman. He shook his head slowly from side to side, mouth gaping.

  “So we better go check,” Mike growled. The rookie whimpered quietly, then swallowed hard and nodded his agreement.

  They had just turned to head for the hallway when they heard an approaching engine outside. Headlights washed along the outside wall, illuminating the dark shadows for a brief second. The broken woman outside on the sidewalk stirred. Mike ran to the door and tried to see the parking lot, but the angle prevented him from getting a look at the truck. Doors slammed, and immediately he saw the figure jerk wildly, lapsing into violent tremors.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “Don’t come up here!”

  Footsteps approached, and he heard a male voice shout something he couldn’t quite make out. Another voice, lower than the first, responded sharply. Then the footsteps were nearer, almost to the door. Suddenly a young man appeared coming up the sidewalk to the door, holding a grisly crowbar over his head.

  “Hey!” he shouted, eyes on the body that lay in his path.

  At the sound of his voice, the woman uncurled her body and leaped to her feet with a wild screech. She hobbled forward, hands grasping for the man, who approached her with a look of grim resolve on his face.

  “What’s he doing?” the rookie asked, horrified.

  The man moved forward with measured steps, winding up as the woman scrambled toward him. She was near enough to grab his shirt as he brought the bar around, crushing it into the woman’s skull. She collapsed to the ground instantly and lay still.

  The reception area was awash with whimpers of horror, the quiet sounds of gagging at the blood spatters that streaked the glass, and whispers of confusion. Without a second glance at the body, the young man stepped forward and motioned for Mike to let him in. Two more men appeared behind him, walking close together and giving the corpse a wide berth. One held a golf club at his side; the other appeared to be unarmed and gaped at the bloody scene for a second before turning pale and hurrying forward to join the others at the door.

  Mike moved to open the door, but before he got near it, a man who had introduced himself as Gordon and had argued with everything Mike had suggested since their arrival stepped into his path. The whole room went quiet.

  “We can’t let them in,” Gordon said fiercely. “They have weapons.”

  “They’re also doing as they were instructed. You got here early enough, so maybe you didn’t need to protect yourself. But I’ve seen enough tonight to know that if I was out there,” he pointed at the door, “I would want something heavy I could swing.”

  Gordon frowned. “Well, he just killed that woman. Without thinking twice, he just beat her skull in. You want to let them in here?”

  Mike nodded and said, “They’ve probably got information, and that’s exactly what we need.”

  Gordon remained still, feet planted wide like he expected the other man to take a swing.

  After a long silence, Mike stepped out slightly so he could see the door. The man with the crowbar was watching through the glass.

  “What’s going on out there?” Mike asked, loud enough so they could hear.

  The man with the crowbar shook his head. “They’ve blocked the road into the city, and they’re telling everyone to get to evacuation centers.”

  “They who?” Mike asked, raising his voice even more.

  “The Marines,” the other man answered. “They’re saying riots and looting in Honolulu, but no one seems to know why the power’s out.” He nodded his head in the direction of the other two men who stood behind him, watching the street. “These two saw guys in bio suits. People are going crazy all over the place. We just want to come inside and be safe, like you guys.”

  The whispering in the small group picked up as they continued their conversation. Sarah found herself hoping Mike would side with Gordon and keep the men out. They looked more like the boys they had seen breaking windows than the people in the lobby, and she tried nervously to imagine how the dynamics would shift with them a part of the group. Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud “thump” from the cell down the hall.

  “Heather?” she whispered, nudging the older girl.

  Although there was something of a scream in the cry that came from down the hallway, it was closer to a roar and full of fury. It was long and loud, and her body went numb at the sound. When it died away, everyone was silent. Sarah turned to look at Mike, who was frozen in place like the rest of them; outside the door, the man with the crowbar had taken a step away from the glass and now stared in wide-eyed.

  If anyone in the room had spoken, they wouldn’t have heard the cry from outside that answered the one that had come from the cell. But through the silence they heard it—another bellowing shout from somewhere not far enough away. Almost instantly, another cry came from inside, this one shorter, like a bark. Again it was answered from outside, and Sarah saw the three men make a move for their truck. The second cry that answered was much closer and easier to hear from inside the station. She couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to be outside of the station, surrounded by the dark and unknown.

  Within seconds the cries were closer and more frequent.

  “We have to let them in,” Mike said to the group.

  “There is no way we’re opening that door!” Gordon shouted. Murmurs of agreement were a terrible harmony to the yipping, barking, barely human cries that grew louder with frightening speed.

  Outside, the man with the crowbar and his friends were only halfway to the truck when the first figure burst out of the darkness, too clo
se for them to evade. The unarmed one was tackled to the ground immediately, screaming for help as he tumbled down the grass with another body flailing viciously on top of his. His friends raced after him and out of sight, weapons in hand. Sarah saw another figure, and another, race past the door in the dark, their shouts and screams trailing behind them.

  She clapped her hands over her ears and buried her face in Heather’s lap; Heather pulled her close and put her hands over Sarah’s as well. But she could not completely block out the sounds of the attack going on outside, the screams like Lani’s screams at the base of her stairs, the way the cries of the lunatics who had appeared from the darkness became frantic yipping, like the time she heard coyotes kill a rabbit on her grandparents’ ranch, and the answering cries from the cell at the end of the hallway.

  She knew it was over when Heather’s hands uncovered her own. Opening her eyes, she saw that most everyone in the station looked like her: huddled quietly against a wall, hands over their ears, eyes closed or vacant. Mike remained standing near the door, eyes focused blindly on the opposite wall.

  “Why did they stop?” she whispered.

  Heather stood and approached her father, arms crossed tightly across her torso.

  “Dad?” she asked.

  Mike blinked slowly, and Sarah saw that his eyes were rimmed with tears. He looked at his daughter without recognizing her, his face a blank mask. Heather put a gentle hand on his arm and repeated herself, quietly.

  “Dad?”

  After a second blink, Mike’s eyes cleared, and he looked at his daughter like he knew her face and could hardly bear to have it in front of his. He covered her hand with his own and straightened a bit before he answered.

  “Yeah. We have to get out of here.”

  Gordon, the rookie, and several others looked up in shock, and all started speaking at once. It was clear that they all agreed that Mike and the girls should not leave. Over the clamor, Mike started instructing both Sarah and Heather to take a few of the radios and some water. With both Gordon and the rookie trailing behind him, he moved to the hallway and started rummaging through desks and drawers in the rooms that lined it.

  “What are you looking for?” Gordon demanded.

  Mike didn’t answer.

  Sarah heard him say, “Probably guns, right?” and continue on as he followed Mike from room to room.

  The two girls waited in the lobby, where the conversation had turned to debate over the idea of leaving the station. A few women were pointing at the cracked glass door and saying, in voices edged with panic, that it was only a matter of time until the animals in the cells called the animals outside again. With no one left outside and unprotected, they would inevitably turn their attention to those of them trapped inside.

  “We should go with them,” said the oldest woman in the group. She had gray roots and wore expensive jeans.

  Everyone else in the lobby began insisting that it was lunacy to plunge into the darkness heading for who-knows-where with limited protection and no knowledge of what was going on.

  “They said people are wearing BioSuits!”

  “I heard something about a terrorist attack . . .”

  “Bioterror. They release some sort of gas that kills anyone who comes in contact with it. We should be taping up all the windows and doors.”

  “How else do you explain that madness . . . ?”

  Mike walked back into the room, and everyone fell silent.

  “You girls ready?” he asked.

  Behind him, Gordon stepped forward with an irritated frown on his face.

  “She’s your daughter,” he said, pointing at Heather. “But that one, she doesn’t belong to you. You should leave her here. Isn’t her family coming to get her?”

  Mike spun instantly, grabbed Gordon ferociously by his shirt collar, and slammed him into the cinder block wall. He moved his face slowly toward the other man’s until his mouth was near Gordon’s ear.

  “And will you let them in, Gordon?” he growled in a husky whisper. “Will you open that door? Or will you wait too long, and make her listen to them die too?”

  Gordon’s face was turning purple as he gasped for air; Mike’s fist was pressed hard into his throat where he clasped the man’s collar.

  “Hm?” Mike pressed harder, and Gordon swatted at his arm in protest.

  No one said a word. Sarah felt as if everyone with them had silently agreed that Gordon was to blame for what they knew to be the massacre outside. She thought they might all let Mike kill him, when without warning, the older man let his captive go and Gordon collapsed, gasping against the wall, hunched over at the waist.

  When Mike turned to look at them, her breath constricted in her chest. The room was not so dark that they could not see one another, but from where she stood, it seemed to her that Mike was a featureless figure, shrouded in the darkest part of the room, only the light from the battery charger reflecting in his eyes.

  He must have seen the fear in her face, because he stepped forward a ways and diminished, becoming only Mike again, the man who was protecting both her and Heather, who would reunite her with her brother, come hell or high water.

  “Sarah,” he said, “Gordon is right. I brought you here thinking that it would be a safe place to meet Kai. But now I don’t think it is. I think we need to go, and go soon.” He glanced at the cracked glass door, then back to them. In that moment, the conflict was plain on his face.

  “I have to go home and check on Teri.” His voice failed him for a moment, and he looked to the ground. Finally, he held up a canister in his hand and said, “I found some spray paint. We’ll leave them a message and tell them where we’re going. They can pick up a radio when they get here, and we’ll be in constant contact from that point on. But, Sarah . . . if you want to stay, I will certainly understand. I don’t think you should. I really don’t think you should. But I won’t make you come with us.”

  She looked away before he finished speaking, out the glass door and into the darkness, hoping desperately that she would see headlights and would be saved the decision. But instead, she saw the bloody mess on the sidewalk and the splintered glass that would not hold up against another ferocious attack.

  “Stay here,” someone else in the room said. “We’re going to lock ourselves in the cells. We’ll be safe.”

  She tried to imagine staying at the station. Maybe it would only be five more minutes, and then Kai would burst through the door and gather her up and take her someplace she could sleep and be warm and not afraid. But it might be longer; hadn’t they said the roads were blocked? She could be locked in here without friends, with no one to fight for her and no one to cover her ears. And with those animals . . .

  “I’m coming with you,” she said without thinking, and looked back at Mike. He smiled warmly, and Heather hugged her against her body.

  “You can’t open that door!” Gordon was back on his feet and shouting, his eyes wide. “We can’t let you open the door again!”

  The blow from Mike’s fist made an ugly, flat sound, and Gordon crumpled to the ground. The older man stood shaking out his hand for a while, and then turned his attention to the cinder block wall. As he shook the spray paint canister, he asked in a voice that meant his question was not a question, “You guys mind if we take two of the guns from the locker?”

  Fifteen

  Consciousness returned to Brandon slowly, bringing with it a strange sort of throbbing in his muscles and the raw ache of thirst. Something about the way he felt reminded him of the times he had scuffed around the house with Kai until their hair stood on end, then played “shock wars.” That same uncomfortable energy pervaded his body, underscored by the dull exhaustion that normally accompanied heavy exercise. And his chest hurt.

  He tried to pull his arms in and roll over, but he met a sudden resistance and realized his wrists were restrained. As he opened his eyes and the light sliced through to his brain, he realized something else: he was completely aware again. The c
loud that had muddled his thoughts for months had lifted, and if he didn’t necessarily feel better, he certainly felt different. Clearer.

  He was still considering this change when a nurse poked her head into the room. Seeing that he was awake, her eyes widened briefly before she could compose herself and murmur, “I’ll get Dr. Lau.”

  Before he could respond, she was gone, and since he was restrained in a prone position, he let his head collapse back onto his pillow to wait. He wasn’t sure how he had ended up strapped to a hospital bed; bits and pieces came back to him when he closed his eyes and concentrated, along with tendrils of the rage and fear, of that insatiable impetus that now repulsed him. Afraid to think further, he opened his eyes again and stared at the ceiling, wondering where his family was.

  The click click of Dr. Lau’s heels on the tiled floor announced her arrival, but Brandon lacked the energy to raise his head again. He felt her come into the room, and then her face was over his, concerned, worried, and guarded.

  “Brandon?” she asked.

  He smiled, or tried to smile, and croaked, “Hi, Dr. Lau. What’s going on?”

  She told him the story of his arrival at the hospital as she raised his bed so that he was in a seated position, and gave him a small cup of tepid water, which he drained in one gulp. Rather than refill it, she handed him a cotton swab flavored with lemon to stimulate his saliva glands.

  “Let’s see if you keep that down before we give you more,” she said, patting his hand. He noticed that she had not made a move to take off the restraints.

  Once she told him that he had slipped into unconsciousness soon after arriving, she paused, and he took the opportunity to ask her where his brother was. The face she made told him she had not even considered this.

  “I’m not sure,” she replied. “I didn’t see him drop you off. His name is just on the admission paperwork. I guess I should have checked on him . . . he’s probably really worried.”

  Brandon nodded. “So . . . why am I strapped to the bed?”

  It was clear that this was not a question his family doctor had been prepared to answer. She cleared her throat uncomfortably, avoiding his eyes for a moment.