Innocence Ends

by Robinson, Nikolas P.

  The passion in Gale’s voice transforms to anguish by the end, and tears are visible trailing down his cheeks.

  “There is no cure though,” he says after a minute. “I wasn’t smart enough to develop one or maybe I was too close to it all to see what I might have been overlooking.” He pauses before locking eyes with Hewitt and patting his friend on the shoulder reassuringly. “You’re welcome to check my work. Every bit of research is thoroughly documented here, disconnected from any external networks. Maybe you’ll see something I didn’t, but even as smart as you are, I think maybe I just outdid myself with this.”

  He tries to smile and it’s the saddest thing Hewitt’s seen, the reality of what he’s done seems finally to have gotten through his barriers of arrogance and righteousness and there is nothing he can think of that justifies a smile at this point.

  Hewitt gives up, lifting himself to his feet and drifting away to one of the rooms meant for the absent staff to sleep up here at the top level of the facility. As he enters the room he tries not to imagine himself standing atop a teeming mass of sickness and plague like the king of some pestilential mountain.

  He drops heavily onto the glorified cot and falls quickly asleep, letting exhaustion ferry him across the divide and into oblivion.

  There is only silence in the cavernous space after Hewitt walks away, no one has anything further to say and no one wants to listen to anything else for fear that their world might be further shattered by new revelations.

  Emotionally drained and worn as thin as she thinks she can ever be without snapping like a twig, Mariah follows Hewitt to bed only a few minutes later, finding him already asleep.

  Devastated and reeling from everything they’ve heard, the others aren’t far behind. Abraham finds himself secretly hoping that if he just goes to sleep, he can wake up and find that all of this has been nothing more than some awful nightmare. He knows it’s a childish fantasy and that it’s an escapist mentality to even entertain such thoughts, but he makes the wish just the same.

  Miles finally walks away, casting one final glance over his shoulder at Gale as he retires to a room of his own. Gale can’t properly read the look, but it isn’t hatered so much as disappointment and it isn’t fear as much as disgust.

  37

  Gale is left alone, the only one still awake and intent on remaining so. He is moderately surprised that Miles hadn’t tied him up or bound him in some fashion before retiring for the night. Even so, he doesn’t move from his seat for more than half an hour, the time spent staring blankly ahead with an expression on his face that any of his friends would recognize. He had always lapsed into this same expression when the gears were turning behind his eyes and his thoughts became so frenzied that he lost track of the world outside and became enmeshed within his mind.

  When he finally does move from the chair he doesn’t go far. Seated in front of the main computer terminal, he opens a series of windows and his fingers type furiously away at the keys for nearly an hour before he glances over the product of his labor with grim satisfaction.

  Gale stands, walks around this upper level of the facility, checking in on his sleeping friends and retrieving various entry cards from a locked drawer before labeling them and placing them on the desk before the terminal where he’d been working.

  From another locked drawer Gale retrieves a Glock 9mm handgun and he leaves through the front door. No one hears him pass through the airlock on his way out.

  At the entrance to the mine itself, he sits on the gravel, gazing out over the forested distance, recalling the fighting that took place over the last few hours and the disappointment of his friends. For the first time since he started down this path so many years before, he actively wonders if he was wrong but knows that it doesn’t matter anymore. They will never forgive him either way, and there’s nothing he can do to change the events he’d set in motion.

  No one inside hears the gunshot and in the town below the echo reverberates across the valley as little more than a pop, its origin lost to anyone who might have been listening at the time to hear it. Gale slumps to the ground in the faint light from a sun struggling to penetrate the thick cloud cover with even feeble illumination.

  Miles is the first awake, discipline from years of pre-dawn maneuvers and activity never fading away. He walks the perimeter of the large interior space, checking in on his still sleeping friends and noticing that Gale is nowhere to be found.

  He considers the possibility that the nut job had ventured deeper down into the facility, but tells himself that he can’t imagine why. In reality, he can imagine numerous reasons for Gale doing so but none of them are good and they all pile horror upon horror and he doesn’t want to think about those things. He’s given up on trying to understand Gale’s motives though, and nothing much would surprise him at this point.

  He sincerely believed that nothing would surprise him.

  The monochromatic display being fed by the security cameras pauses on an image that manages to surprise him. It shakes him to the foundation of his being. The view has changed again before he’s even had a chance to process what he’d seen and he remains there, unmoving, while he waits for the feed to cycle back through again.

  The image returns and Miles sits hard in the chair behind him, hardly noticing that he’s moved at all. The camera feed keeps on cycling through the various angles and locations and each time it returns to that image of Gale he unconsciously swallows and releases a breath he hasn’t noticed he’d been holding in.

  He is still in the same position, unaware that he is quietly crying, when Hewitt pads sleepily up behind him an hour later. Seeing the same heartbreaking image for himself, he silently puts his arm around Miles’ shoulder and Miles reaches up to grab it with his own hand. The feed continues cycling and Hewitt joins him in shedding tears for another wasted life.

  38

  Still reeling from the horrifying revelations, having finally had a chance to process the loss of Kateb and the horrifying sequence of events that followed, Hewitt stands at the entrance to the Mine, staring into the night. Reflected on the low-hanging clouds he can see the impressions of the few lights still shedding their glow on the streets below that are out of sight through the trees. From the distance, he could fool himself into believing there’s a place of sanctuary and life down there. He knows there’s nothing to be found there but death.

  “It’s only a matter of time before the more lucid members of that mob think about the mine and come for us here,” he mutters as Mariah approaches and stands at his side. “They will remember this place exists and those fuckers, whatever we call them, will think to search for outsiders up here.”

  “Maybe they’re already too far gone for that,” she replies. “Gale said that the progression from the early stages to final expression is pretty rapid.”

  Fingers curl together as they take each other’s hands.

  “He also said that it varies considerably,” Hewitt pauses to look up at the sky, the thick clouds he knows are up there hidden by the darkness. “But this rain isn’t going to last forever and the floodwaters are going to recede. Nothing will stop these monsters from getting out of here and spreading.”

  “You heard Gale. By now this same thing is happening in every corner of every civilized nation as well as most of the places we wouldn’t think of as civilized.” Mariah pauses as she inhales a shuddering breath, “We’ve lost. Any of them that shuffle their way out of here are hardly going to be a drop in the bucket.”

  He turns to her, tears welling up in his eyes. “We still have to fight. Every one of them that we stop could mean dozens of lives saved.”

  Mariah releases his hand, wraps her arm around his waist, and whispers, “No matter what Gale said to rationalize this shit, this is not your fault.”

  The embrace lasts only a few seconds before she lets him go and retreats to the interior of the mine where their friends are still sorting through the facts and looking through the lab. She knows that he
r presence won’t help Hewitt right now and that he’ll need to process everything on his own.

  She joins Miles and Abraham where they are digging through paperwork, trying to decipher Gale’s notes. So far there’s been nothing that points to a cure or any way of stopping the plan he’s implemented. Exhausted, mortified, and in shock, they can’t help but try to find a solution.

  No one realizes how much time has passed when Hewitt returns to the lab, wiping his eyes as he exits the darkness of the mine and crosses into the stark contrast of the room. They all look up as they hear him come in. His voice is steadier than he feels, by far, “We need to go on the offensive here. We have to start here and we have to act quickly.”

  As he speaks he feels a sense of calm descending over him. “This may be a losing battle and the world may just be ending, at least the world as we know it. If we can make even a small difference in how this all plays out, we have to try.”

  Hewitt replays the words in his head, feeling like a third-rate actor in a B-movie, spouting off some inspirational, poorly scripted, delusional dialogue that’s supposed to serve as a rousing speech.

  “Cue the musical score, poorly imitating Williams. This is where it reaches a crescendo,” Hewitt mutters to himself, loud enough for his friends to hear him.

  Miles and Mariah both start laughing and Miles crosses the distance to his friend, wrapping his huge arms around him, squeezing too tightly for comfort.

  “You’re right, brother,” he says.

  “Mariah, you were right too,” Hewitt says after taking a moment to catch his breath. “This may only be a drop in the bucket, but it could be that single drop that breaks the surface tension and causes everything to spill over the edge of that bucket. It could be the final drop that strains the dam. We may not be able to make much of a dent, but even a small chance of that seems like a good enough reason to get active here.”

  He takes another deep breath, looking from one friend’s eyes to another, “Besides, if this is the apocalypse, we should clear out this fucking place so that there’s a haven of some kind. We’re isolated up here, with only one effective way in or out, and honestly no one knows this town exists. If I were going to plan a place to rebuild from, this wouldn’t be too far off from ideal. We aren’t far from Spokane or even Missoula in the other direction and there are numerous smaller places dotting the region. Supply runs from here and recovery of survivors to somewhere safe and sheltered could be managed from here. I know it seems crazy, but this place is about fucking perfect.”

  Miles is quiet while he mulls over his friend’s words.

  When he finally speaks, it’s with an analytical tone, “Hewitt’s right. If we can sweep this town and keep it intact in the process, this place could be a good jumping-off point to everywhere West of the Rockies. This place is maybe six hours from Seattle, less than that from Boise. There are going to be survivors all over the place, people who didn’t get the tainted vaccines and who managed to avoid being slaughtered. There are definitely going to be plenty of supplies. Even if everything has already gone to shit out there, and I’m not sure that it has, we can’t just hide out here in a cave while we wait for the road to clear out, leaving these fuckers to our rear.”

  Heads begin to nod all around the room.

  Abraham looks down at his son before responding, “There could be some uninfected people still here in town as well, as unlikely as that seems. The deputy certainly was. The odds might be slim, based on what we’ve seen, but we can’t know for sure unless we act here and now.

  It’s wet and gloomy as the five of them gaze down at the mostly darkened town with only the first faint hints of dawn brightening the sky behind the mountains to the East. From the high vantage point, they can make out the occasional flashlight or lantern as the residents who still have some of their faculties scurry about, probably searching for the outsiders who were right now cataloging the movements.

  The rain has temporarily died down, but they all know it can pick up again at any time and none of them are sure which will be better for what is coming.

  Miles is nominally in charge of their group at this point; his years of combat experience and familiarity with conflict of a sort similar to what they are all anticipating with varying degrees of fear and apprehension.

  Miles had committed the map to memory while he was inside and he is seeing it overplayed on the scene stretching out before him. The map was all fine and good but it neglected too many details of the terrain and overall environment. He may not have been the intellectual equal of some of his friends, but this is his wheelhouse.

  He reaches over and pats Hewitt on the upper arm before gesturing back to the direction of the mine entrance. Hewitt nods and gets the attention of the others.

  Back in the dryer confines of the lab, Miles gazes down at the map from the same angle they had from the hill outside.

  After a few minutes, he begins sketching out symbols representative of trees, hedges, sheds, and other items not appearing on the map.

  Miles looks up, apparently satisfied with the small number of updates he’s made, indicated by a grunt-like sound he makes unconsciously as he evaluates and reviews it.

  “Is there anything else you guys want to add? Anything you recall from your time down there?” Miles asks. “Close your eyes for a minute or two and try to visualize everything you recall and see if you can locate it on the map.”

  Ben jumps up from his seat, gesturing to his father that he should come with him.

  The two make some notations together after spending a short while conferring about it and discussing their attempted retreat to Gale’s house only a couple of nights before, it isn’t much but it’s more than they had.

  Mariah and Hewitt each take turns making their own additions to the map.

  After they’ve all finished, the unfolded paper is hardly similar to its original appearance.

  Hewitt has to admit to himself that it does look a lot more like what they’d seen from above with the alterations in place. It’s hardly perfect and what they could pick up from above in the dark was limited.

  “There’s not going to be any more of that splitting up bullshit when we go back out there,” Miles says, laughing. “You know, to cover more ground like we’ve all seen in movies. That shit is only for Hollywood.”

  Every set of eyes is on him and all of them nod in response, a couple of them even smiling.

  “Even if we had twice our number, that wouldn’t be an option under these circumstances,” Miles continues, his tone suddenly more serious.

  “That sounds fine to me,” Hewitt replies.

  “Same here,” says Abraham.

  “You are staying up here, kid,” Miles says, pointing to Ben. “I know you’re a bright kid and you can handle yourself just fine, look at what you went through with your old man just to get here. You and the old man made it through Hell the other night, no doubt about that, but shit is going to get real ugly down there and we need your dad focused on what’s directly in front of him and not worrying about you.”

  Ben looks like he’s going to argue for a few seconds before he sits back in a slump, nodding his head, “I understand.”

  The planning begins in earnest.

  Miles plots a route skirting the town as best they can to get back to Gale’s house where more of his firearms are locked in the hidden compartment at the rear of his SUV. What they have on them isn’t going to be enough for the clean-up Miles has in mind.

  It’s already afternoon by the time they finish going over preparations and since they have a busy night ahead of them, they all attempt to sleep.

  Fitfully and sporadically, they do finally sleep.

  39

  As night approaches, they fortify themselves as well as they can and Ben shuts himself away in a room he can lock from the inside.

  Slowly the four friends navigate the wet hillside, staying to the side of the gravel road to remain hidden in case someone happens to be watching. Miles’
precautions may have seemed paranoid on the surface, but none of the rest of them felt like they should argue.

  They venture from the road where Miles indicates they should and they venture more slowly through the forested area, leaving the road to their back.

  As they approach the first house along the way, they halt in the thick brush just beyond the yard and form a huddle.

  “Guns are our last resort here,” Hewitt reminds everyone.

  Miles nods, “The last thing we want is to be drawing any attention when we’re not ready for it, and right now we are not outfitted to be drawing any unwanted attention. Those fuckers will tear us apart if we get swarmed.”

  They cross the lawn as quickly and quietly as they can.

  The rear door handle doesn’t move when Abraham tries it and they move on to the side entrance near the driveway. That handle turns without any difficulty.

  Starting with the first floor, they check each room with low-light LED flashlights Miles had picked up from his car before heading to the mine before he realized everything was well and truly gone to shit. The faint, red illumination makes it seem like their surroundings are coated in a film of blood. Hewitt can’t help but consider how appropriate that is.

  The first house is thankfully empty and they continue.

  Skirting the scattered homes on the outskirts of town they manage to travel a good distance before reaching the trailer that serves as the next space needing to be swept.

  Neither front nor back door is open and Miles is forced to kick the back door in, splintering the frame away from the wall in the process.

  Mariah steps in first, buffeted by the coppery scent of blood, sweeping the living room with the eerie red light as the others enter swiftly behind her. Wood and glass curio cabinets showcase dozens of Hummel figurines and the rest of the decor isn’t any more tasteful. It’s like some unsettling, horror movie tribute to grandmothers everywhere, she thinks as she follows the path of the light over the interior of the trailer.