Sleepers 3

by Jacqueline Druga

  “No. And you and your people hate the time travel topic, so why are we bringing up?”

  “You brought it up. I’m just curious as to what it is.”

  “Two people,” Levi held up his fingers. “One is assurance. The assurance is a person who was there, at the same time, the same moment, nearby. For example, the husband or wife, perhaps a friend in the next room. They assured the main traveler doesn’t change anything.”

  “So it’s like hypnosis, only you’re actually there? That’s risky.”

  “No. Never had a time instance change.”

  “How would you know?”

  “Mera,” he snapped, rubbing his brow, “the assurance. In addition, the trip isn’t long enough to do damage. The experience is one minute in the past. One minute, one moment.”

  My mind started spinning. “Can you do that to me?”

  “What are we resolving?”

  “Beck.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He sacrificed for me, Levi. He was going to die for my child. I feel that he died without knowing how I felt. We had one moment that was actually the start to an ‘us’. I don’t recall it. I need to know that I told him how I feel. I need to see him one more time. Maybe if I did, then maybe I’d stop hating Alex so much for being the one who lived.”

  “Ouch.” Levi stood. “In all our sessions—and there have been many—never has that come up. I thought it, but it never came from your mouth. Do you really resent Alex for living and not dying?”

  “Yes,” I answered without hesitation. “Especially when something happens and I know Beck would have handled it differently.”

  “All right. But I need you to go through the application process.”

  What was he talking about? Like a job interview? Was I up against someone else in use of the cerebral trip?

  “As you know, Noah is the only other remaining quantum traveler. He holds the keys as well to the two remaining trips. I need you to write for me why this is important. If Noah agrees and we both feel this will stop your anger toward Alex and embrace what he is to—”

  “Please stop.” I held up my hand. “Don’t praise Alex to me. Please.” My gut twisted.

  “Will you write it?”

  “Yes, I will.”

  I was just about to ask him what all it needed to include, how long it had to be when Danny burst into the room. “Mom!” He caught his breath then grinned. “Javier is driving up the road. We just spotted them.”

  “Phoenix?”

  “Hard to tell, but it looks like Miles has him.”

  I jumped up. “Oh my God!” My hand shot to my mouth, and with a huge smile I faced Levi. “I gotta go.”

  “Possibly seeing Phoenix can be the answer, Mera,” Levi stated. “He’s been missing from your life just as long. See how you and Alex are when you see him.”

  “Maybe.” I looked at Danny. “Did you get Alex?”

  “Um, he went out and I don’t know where he is.”

  “Well then fuck him. I’m not waiting.” And I left. To me, I’d rather write the essay. Just Alex being gone knowing full well that Phoenix was en route was enough to get me angry again. I didn’t want any anger in me. I wanted only happiness. I raced next door to get Keller from Mike, and then all of us ran to the gates.

  Phoenix was returning.

  6.

  Alex Sans

  The seal had been broken, birthing was imminent, and even from twenty feet away, I clearly saw the explosion of fluids gush from the Sleeper woman’s posterior.

  Then an eruption of fluid gushed from Sonny. He vomited.

  “You been hanging around Mera too much,” I chided him.

  He ran his hand over his mouth. “It’s barbaric. It’s not right. Something doesn’t feel right.”

  “No shit. This whole thing is wrong. What the hell…?”

  The woman screamed long and shrilly, a noise that came from her gut. Immediately I knew that those in Grace stood a chance of hearing it.

  I raised my crossbow.

  Sonny reached out. “What are you doing?”

  “Putting her out of her misery.”

  “She’s giving birth.”

  “Yeah, well, then I’m putting us out of our misery. “ I took aim, but didn’t have time to press the trigger. More Sleepers ascended and fast.

  Five of them came over the crest racing our way. One stopped and stood guard by the woman and the other four came for Sonny and me.

  I fired immediately. The first arrow sailed forth, landing dead center of a Sleeper’s throat. He still came at us. Sonny fired at the same Sleeper, taking him out.

  That left four, three of them raging our way. I hoped it wasn’t going to be an instance of hand to hand, because those maddened bastards were strong. They didn’t feel pain or fear and operated only on emotion and anger. They attacked brutally, without caring how it affected them. I could slug one with all I had, hit him a million times, and he wouldn’t react to the pain.

  Before I could even engage another arrow, a Sleeper jumped for me. I struggled for my knife; it should have been more accessible. What was I thinking? Never in all the times I’d gone out had I been attacked by a group. It was almost as if they baited us into a trap. Like they’d waited. Went to the field until they knew they were spotted, retreated to the woods, and waited.

  Were they that smart?

  I felt the teeth sink into my arm.

  My first ever Sleeper bite. A burning pain, deep within my arm. The way his teeth attached to my skin, I swore he was going to rip the flesh from the bone. I was going to either succumb to the Sleeper virus or bleed to death.

  Despite my pain, my free hand finally grabbed hold of the knife, and I ejected the sharp object up, into his throat, retracted, and nailed him in the temple.

  His jaw stayed clamped.

  I had to fall down with the Sleeper or risk losing my arm.

  “Sonny!” I called out, but Sonny was busy. He was running. I was ready to blast him for being cowardly when I realized what he was doing. He was trying to outrun the Sleeper, put distance between them and buy enough time to raise his crossbow and take out the Sleeper.

  Ten yards away, Sonny did just that, and then hurried back. I watched him run toward me, and another Sleeper leapt on me. His hands immediately went full force into my gut. I felt the pain, and I reconciled my life. I was done. Before he could rip me open, Sonny got him.

  The jaws of the dead Sleeper were still locked on my arm. With a tromp of those oh so infamous boots, Sonny smashed down on the Sleeper, crushing into the side of his head and breaking the jaw.

  I owed him. I owed him big time.

  My arm was bleeding pretty badly. I needed help, but we still had two problems: The woman giving birth and the man guarding her. I whipped off my belt, making a tourniquet, even though I knew better than anyone they weren’t good.

  All was quiet. The scuffle with the Sleepers caused us to miss the big event, although another was taking place.

  The Sleeper woman had given birth. I was unable to determine whether the child was alive or dead. It simply seemed to be discarded off to the side. Was it even a person? It was curled up, covered with blood, streaked with a white substance.

  The mother and her henchman were too busy consuming something. What looked like the umbilical cord dangled from her mouth and something was in her hands, something thick, big, and bloody. He shared it with her, taking a bite, pulling away and slurping in the substance.

  Were they eating the newborn baby or the placenta? I honestly couldn’t tell. Then I saw Sonny on the ground, one knee quickly fussing with the laces from his boot.

  I started to question why he would pick now to tie his shoes, and then I saw him with the lace. He stood and rushed to the discarded item.

  I wanted to call out to him, forewarning him that what he believed was the child may actually be afterbirth. But he raced to it.

  “Son of a bitch.” I lifted my crossbow, aimed at the male
Sleeper. He seemed to see me the second I caught him in my scope. Mouth red, blood flowing from his raw meal, I fired a good clean, dead center forehead shot.

  The woman snarled outward and sloppily stood.

  “It’s still alive,” Sonny announced, kneeling on the ground.

  I prepped my crossbow as the woman, carrying the placenta, walked toward me. The cord fell from her mouth, and that’s when I realized what Sonny was doing. He was clamping the cord. She chewed, and he didn’t want the baby to bleed to death. That’s what I guessed.

  She didn’t move fast or in a stable manner. I didn’t think she could, she’d just given birth. Then again, she was replenishing like any wild animal, feeding off the afterbirth of her young.

  “I need a blanket. Something,” Sonny called out.

  “Sonny, what the hell?” I yelled then looked at the woman. She wasn’t a threat; she was actually pretty pathetic. Every step she took, blood poured down her legs. Her stomach still appeared pregnant. Unable to take it anymore, and needing to end it, I shot her.

  She went down, afterbirth still in her hands. A stabbing pain shot up my arm, and I grabbed it. “Sonny, come on, I gotta get back. Gotta try to get an antiviral or I’ll turn Sleeper.”

  Sonny took off his shirt and I reached for the baby

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Taking him.”

  “You can’t do that.” I walked toward him and looked down.

  “He’s trying to cry, but I think he’s hurt,” Sonny said. “Look at him.”

  “Stop looking at him.”

  “Alex, he has his eyes, ears, a nose. He’s not stillborn or an ivory statue baby. Look at him.”

  “And I said stop.” I lifted my crossbow. “Turn away.”

  “What the hell!” Sonny blasted. “What are you doing?”

  “Killing it.”

  “It’s a baby,” Sonny argued.

  “It’s a Sleeper.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “Well, considering it’s been over a year. I’d say two Sleeper parents make a Sleeper baby.”

  Sonny whisked up the child into his arms. “Then you’ll shoot it while I hold it.”

  “What the hell is the matter with you, Sonny?”

  “No, Alex. What’s wrong with you?” Sonny snapped. “How about I shoot you right now, too. Okay? You were bit. How ’bout I just end your suffering right now? Have you become so hard and callous that you’d kill a baby?”

  “No, I’d kill a Sleeper.”

  “I won’t let you.” Holding the child wrapped in his shirt, Sonny turned to leave.

  “This is a mistake!” I shouted. “I’m telling you, taking that child is a mistake.”

  Sonny stopped. “No, you have Sleeper virus racing through your veins and I’m holding a dying child. Standing here arguing is the mistake and I’m not doing it.”

  Sonny didn’t just walk off, he hauled ass and left me there.

  Alone, injured in woods filled with Sleepers wasn’t a good situation, so I followed. I don’t know, perhaps, I wasn’t thinking clearly, I don’t know. But my gut screamed that everything that just happened wasn’t right and I kept thinking, somehow, we just witnessed the start of a chain of events we’d regret.

  7.

  Mera Stevens

  I was there when Phoenix came into this world. Tiny, frail and premature, he was barely given a chance.. But he lived. At that time, and to the best of our knowledge, he was the only child born alive. Not only was he not stillborn, he was physically perfect.

  The Doctrines portrayed him as the savior. Not like a second coming of Jesus Christ, but a child whose blood contained a cure to the Sleeper virus, a virus that carried on and mutated for centuries.

  We could stop it the virus with Phoenix.

  But that wasn’t so. Like most of the Doctrine information, that tidbit was muddled and changed.

  No one knew for sure if Phoenix was the cure, because Phoenix was killed before anything was learned. We assumed he was the cure because he was born alive.

  Doctrines be damned, the presence of our future travelers changed time and Phoenix wasn’t killed. But Phoenix wasn’t the cure.

  Yes, he was physically perfect, but internally he carried a pure form of the virus and in a sense was a hub. He exuded it in high levels like a walking, breathing biological weapon. As long as he lived, the virus would as well. As long as he was around those not immune, he would infect them.

  Javier was the doctor in our time who had invented the virus. Its intentions were good. Levi said for population control; Randy said to create a genetically superior race. That backfired. It created a genetically mutated race alright, but they were emotionless monsters.

  Javier lived at the ARC, a place we believed was the New Jerusalem. They’d created it to protect humanity and ensure that life went on.

  The ARC wanted Phoenix. I thought they wanted to kill him. I really believed that. Had I known differently, I would never have hidden Phoenix in that backpack and given the pack to Beck.

  Beck was mistaken for a Sleeper and shot. So was Phoenix.

  Javier took Phoenix and vowed to save him and work on the virus.

  Eighteen months later, while he hadn’t cured it completely, Javier had contained it in Phoenix.

  His work could be continued at Grace, but he was bringing Phoenix home, as promised, back to me.

  When Phoenix left me, he was a few months old. Now he was pushing two. Would he remember me? I doubted it.

  I arrived at the gate before the truck came onto the main driveway. As they moved closer into my view, my heart raced, I found it hard to breathe, and a lump formed in my throat when I saw the blonde hair in the cab of the truck.

  He was no longer a baby, but a toddler. A little boy. I couldn’t wait to see him, to hold him and never let him go.

  They had radioed when they arrived. They’d flown to one location, then driven to the next. Had I known that ahead of time, I would have been so worried. How they survived the trek across Sleeper land was beyond me.

  But they did, and they looked the worse for wear when they stepped out of the truck.

  Miles was in good shape, but he was dirty and tired-looking. He carried Phoenix, stepped out, and set him down.

  Noah greeted Javier, and I heard him tell him that they ran into problems, but were able to escape.

  I stared at Phoenix. I wanted to rush to him, grab him, but I didn’t want to scare the child. I also had Keller by my side. At first I thought Keller would be a selling point, but I worried that he would scare Phoenix. I had so many unanswered questions.

  “Go on,” Miles told Phoenix. “That’s her.”

  Holding Keller’s little hand in mine, we approached Phoenix. He wasn’t very tall, shorter than Keller, and thinner. His hair was white blonde and curly. It needed a cut.

  Phoenix looked up at Miles. Miles nodded with a wink. The child looked at me.

  “Hey, there,” I said softly then crouched down just as I drew closer.

  Phoenix smiled. “Mama. Mama?” Then, like nothing I expected, he ran to me.

  The second his tiny body pelted into me, I was barreled over. My jaws clenched and a warmth of crying swept across my face. “Oh, sweetie.” I felt how tightly his tiny arms went around my neck and I couldn’t do anything but hold him with eyes closed.

  When I had a second, I looked up at Miles. “Thank you.”

  “Been telling him all about you so he was excited to come home.”

  My heart melted. It literally felt like it melted. I truly felt love from him. Then he whispered, “Brother.”

  “Yes.” I sniffled, pulling back some and searching for Danny. He stood a few feet away behind me, and I waved to him. “Phoenix wants you.”

  I turned back around and Phoenix was reaching to Keller. “Brother.”

  Finding it curious, I watched this first interaction. It was odd. When Phoenix touched Keller’s arm, he smiled. Then Keller, feeling the tou
ch, smiled as well, and the two boys locked hands.

  Phoenix looked at me. “Brother, Mama.”

  “Yes, brother and…” I grabbed Danny’s hand, “brother. He’s your brother.” I pointed up to Danny. “And you’ll meet your sister, too.”

  “Hey, little dude.” Danny crouched down. “You know me, right? I came out to see you.”

  “Brother.” Phoenix had a look of euphoria on his tiny face. His eyes shifted around, one hand holding Keller’s, the other Danny’s. He grinned widely at me. “Home.”

  8.

  Alex Sans

  Sonny didn’t say a word to me. I guess he was pissed. I knew he’d get over it. We made it back to Grace before Javier even arrived on the main driveway. My intention was to clean up and head down to see Phoenix. I grew more excited when I heard he actually was en route. However, I needed stitches in my arm and Levi wanted to start an immediate course of antiviral medication. He said we’d fare much better once Javier arrived and could assist.

  I wanted to be at the gate. Perhaps I should have thought of that before I went Sleeper hunting. Then again, those five Sleeper men waiting in the woods could have been waiting to attack anyone.

  I was dejected and lying in the hospital bed, hoping that someone would give me news on Phoenix, tell Mera I was injured, and inform me that the Sleeper baby died.

  None of that happened.

  What did occur wasn’t really a surprise. I was alone in the room, staring out the window from the bed, IV in my arm, and Jessie walked in. Jessie was a great kid, almost like a daughter to me as well.

  Jessie was Mera’s oldest child and only daughter. Nineteen when The Event occurred, she was all the way across the country at the onset. Mera was determined to find her. I had nothing else to do so I went along.

  Beck took on that focus as well.

  The Sleeper era had just started. People were turning, and then they started turning the healthy. Jessie had called Mera a few times before the phone went dead. We went to Washington State where she was in school, and we found a bloody cot.