“We’ve seen that since the outbreaks here—constant changes.”
“Right,” he says nodding. “Originally the virus would just cause a nasty infection and spread easily. The cannibalism took them by surprise and your father insisted that they shut down the program.”
“But…”
“But PharmaCorp had an outside buyer—and they wanted a return on their investment.” Again the worry lines are deep on his forehead.
“Holy crap.”
“As soon the first wave of infection took place in Sudan, the government knew they had to shut it down. They called your dad back in to complete his work on the antidote and vaccine. That’s when he started using you and your mom in the trials.”
I sit up so I can see him better. “Hence the weekly blood tests.”
“Right.” Cole tented his fingers between his knees. “From what I understood he was close to a breakthrough when the non-travel state of emergency happened.”
“When he came to visit me? When you came to my house?” I ask. That day feels like a lifetime ago. I try to recall my kitchen. The way my house smelled like baked goods. My mother.
“Yes, he’d requested two more weeks for trials. He was confident he could work it out by then. His plan was to return home and get you.”
“That never happened.”
“No. I came into the lab and he was gone. The entire facility was wiped clean and surrounded by armed guards. I had twelve hours to gather my things and head to my assigned evacuation center. I picked up Chloe and made my way to the high school.”
“But you didn’t stay?”
“No.” He shook his head. “The day before your dad disappeared he asked me to check on you if anything happened. I think he knew it was coming. What I don’t know is if he left on his own or if they took him somewhere.”
“They?”
He shrugs, his shoulders meeting his ears. “These guys? The military? The CDC? PharmaCorp? I don’t know.”
I study Cole—LabGuy. The man-boy I had flirted with for months. I want to trust him but his story…it’s too easy. “What did you do for my dad? Lab assistant or something?”
“Like I told you before, I am in med school, but what I didn’t tell you was I did a volunteer stint with the Peace Corps in Africa during the Ebola outbreak. Your father found out about my experience and added me to his team.”
“How much do you know about this cure?”
“Not much,” he admits. “Your father was very secretive about his work. It’s not like I had clearance.”
“That’s an understatement.”
Neither of us speaks. I try to absorb the information he’s shared and not freak out about my dad. It’s no different than what I’ve suspected. Simply confirmed. He’s either dead, in hiding or being hidden. None of it helps at all.
I ask the question I can’t get past. “What do these guys want with me?”
“I guess they think you and I both know something.”
“Well they’re SOL with that one. He never told me anything.”
Cole opens his mouth to speak but seems to think better of it. He glances around and finally silently points to me and then to his chest. The pouch. The blood and the data. No, my father never told me anything but he left information with me. Information Cole knew about. This was getting weird.
I swallow. “If we work with these guys can we help people? Can we stop the Eaters? Knowing my father it would have been his ultimate goal. He would have sacrificed everything to stop this and save people.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen any sign of the epidemic slowing, have you? Why wouldn’t Dr. Ramsey have given them the cure by now?
I think of the burning bus. The way the military divided the people and then murdered half of them. Would that be necessary if they had a cure? A vaccine of some kind?
“If they had my father they wouldn’t need me,” I say, aware that this may be the truth about him. They wouldn’t need me if he was alive.
***
Cole and I wait in the room for hours. My body, unused to being so still, can’t help but seek recovery. I sleep, stupidly, but life has come to this. You sleep while you can, even if you don’t trust the one you’re with.
I’m pissed at Cole. He put us both at risk. He should have come to my house immediately when my father went missing. He should have told me about the tracker and information immediately. How do I even know he’s telling the truth now?
The lock unbolts with a loud clink and I lurch to a sitting position, banging my head on the top bunk. Cole hasn’t moved from his spot on the floor. No surprise really. He’s a doctor—or a wannabe doctor, not a fighter like Wyatt.
God, Wyatt. He’s probably halfway to Georgia by now. With the truck and the pouch of information I’d foolishly shoved under the seat. The odds are good that I’ll never see it or the truck again. I glance at Cole, at his blond shaggy hair and a narrow sharp jaw. I wonder if Chloe will come back for him. The idea of Wyatt ditching her pleases me, which is just so, so dumb.
A second bolt moves and we both hop to our feet. My hand moves to my belt, feeling for the butt of my hatchet but of course it’s gone. Either left at the campground or they took it somewhere in this facility. From the corner of my eye, I see Cole’s hands ball into tight, useless fists.
The door opens and a woman in fatigues walks in carrying a green plastic tray. Her bright red hair tied in a tight knot at the base of her neck, the rest of her head encased in a camouflaged cap. She stops three feet away and I can see the smattering of freckles on her nose. She’s young-ish. Probably around Cole’s age.
The waft of food—cooked food—hits my senses and I look at the tray. Fried chicken and mashed potatoes…there’s even something green. Beans maybe. My mouth waters on cue.
She holds out the tray and Cole and I glance at one another. Do we take it? Hell yes, we take it. I can’t figure out how to get out of here if I’m starving to death.
“Thank you,” I say out of habit.
The tag on her chest says Walker. She ignores me and walks out of the room, the same shifting click of the lock a distinct reminder we’re captive.
“Guess they want us alive, huh?” Cole says handing me my plate.
I shove a plastic sporkful of potatoes in my mouth and try not to cry. From the food, from what this all means, at the overwhelming idea of trying to get out of here and most of all, the fact I’m trapped with a freaking traitor.
***
Walker returns two hours later to collect our licked clean plates. This time I say, “Why are we here? Can we talk to someone? Where are we?”
Again she’s silent and avoids eye contact. I spot the black handle of a firearm holstered at her side. “Seriously though,” I try again. “We’re just going to sit here?”
She moves to the door and opens it, conversing quickly with someone on the other side. Between the gun and the backup in the hallway it’s clear they don’t trust us. But why? I’m an eighteen year old girl with a Peace Corp volunteering doctor guy. Sure he’s good with a crossbow but without it I don’t see there being a huge problem.
Walker turns back to us with a bundle of green cloth in her hands. A small box sits on top and with a wrinkle of her nose, she says, “Feel free to take a shower and change.
“What if we refuse to?” Cole asks.
“Your loss.” She shrugs. “But they won’t let you out of here until you’ve cleaned up.”
She leaves again and we stare at the clothing and towels. Cole opens the box and finds shampoo and hygiene supplies. He opens a bottle and sniffs it. The room fills with a sweet floral scent. Like the food, it seems stupid to waste an opportunity to shower.
“Here,” he says handing me the smaller bundle and the box.
“No you go.”
“I’m offering,” he says.
“I don’t want to.” God, I really want to take a shower, but I’ve had time to think and I don’t like the wormhole I traveled down.
> He holds out the bundle again. I don’t take it. I just stand across from him, arms across my chest. Cole frowns. “What’s going on?”
“Just because we’re in this room together doesn’t mean we’re on the same side.”
The frown deepens, his eyebrows basically furrowing together. “We’re not?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“How did you come to that decision?”
“Because you lied to me, Cole. Like, I knew you…I had a nickname for you. You’ve been in my house. You’ve handled my fluids. In the post-apocalyptic world, we’re basically family and even through all of that, you lied to me. And that lie ended up with me here, locked up like a prisoner, unable to complete my father’s last request.”
My voice is shaking by the end. I’d been unaware how angry I really was. How scared. Maybe I wouldn’t be if I hadn’t seen these people blow up a school bus filled with people, but I did. That image, the smell, would never leave my mind.
“You led them right to me,” I say. “To the information. Why the hell didn’t you tell me about the tracker in my arm? Why didn’t you identify yourself when we first met back at the lake?”
“I can explain if you want me to.”
“Does it matter? Will it change anything?” I ask rolling my eyes. “It wasn’t just me this affected. My mom and Wyatt and even Chloe.”
“She wouldn’t go to the center on her own. I tried.”
He looks like he’s been hit by a blow and from the resigned look on his face I know he has no real defense. I snatch the bundle and box of cleaning products from him. “I’ll go first and you better watch my back,” I tell him. “I don’t trust you, but you owe me this much.”
He nods. “I’ve got your back.”
I roll my eyes and walk away. “Sure you do.”
Chapter Forty
~Before~
2 Weeks Ago
The bluish glow is so familiar, so comforting, that I want to cry. I grip my mother’s hand. She tightens hers in return.
Way outside of Cary, in a single country home not far off the highway, someone has on a television.
The light beckons me and we move toward it even though it’s dangerous. People are dangerous. We’ve spent days avoiding them. But news? It’s always alluring—to learn something. Know anything about what is going on. An explanation. That need overwhelms the base sense of safety.
“How do you think they have power?” Mom asks, then quickly suggests, “Maybe the grids only failed in the city.”
That doesn’t sound right. In fact we know better. Before we lost all service power outages were happening all over the quarantined areas. Maybe this means things are back online. Maybe this is over.
I take a step closer and look at the house. The owner’s did an okay job boarding up the windows but from the outside there was a sliver of space, just enough for the light to seep through.
On the roof I see rectangular grids reflecting off the half moon. “They have solar panels.”
We move quietly toward the house, ducking down beneath the window sill. We listen to the quiet, for the sounds beneath the chirping crickets and buzzing mosquitoes.
The voices are muffled. My mother’s forehead wrinkles in concentration. “It’s Roger Upton,” she whispers the name of the most famous newscaster on TV. I don’t need to see his face to conjure the image of his silver-gray hair and bushy eyebrows. A feeling of excitement bubbles under the surface. Oh, my God, maybe this really is over. My mother and I dare to smile at one another.
I catch snippets of his words, his voice covering me like a salve. “Outbreak…quarantine…get to the nearest shelter…”
“Anything new?” I ask.
My mom holds her finger to her lips.
“The state of Georgia announced today that they will shut down all travel to and from the state…”
Her smile fades and her eyebrows furrow.
“What?” I ask.
She begins to mouth words, the same ones coming from Roger Upton, the same warnings we heard over and over before everything shut down.
“It’s a recording,” she says.
“Like they’re replaying something—like the emergency stuff?”
“No it’s old. I swear I watched this same report months ago.”
We both move from the ground to try to catch sight of the television inside and I convince myself she’s crazy. That they are just being safe—keeping the quarantine up. Things obviously just got running again. They would take precautions.
I can’t see much through the slit, just the objects found in a living room. There is a TV, and yes, the top of Roger Upton’s head bobs up and down the screen—silver-gray hair included.
My mother, for once in her excessively easy-going life, refuses to budge. Her fingers clamped down on the edge of the windowsill. Her eyes shift back and forth, wild and searching.
“There,” she says in the lowest voice.
“What?”
“That box. The VCR.”
“VCR?” I ask like I don’t know what this is. I know, but really, no one uses a VCR anymore.
“The red light is on. And the green. It’s a tape. From before.”
I peer at the TV, looking for something, anything, to prove her wrong. I push up on my toes and crane my neck. I don’t see the VCR but I do see something that gives me pause. I blink, hoping I’m making it up, but when I open my eyes again there it is. From this angle I see the thin spray of red across the bottom of the screen. I see the foot. Pale and bare.
The sense of elation crashes down, replaced with familiar dread. The brief snapshot of the past crumbles. We’re still here. In this modern day hellhole called Earth.
“Alex,” my mom says tugging on my arm. I feel her—hear her, but she seems far away. She calls my name again and something metal and hard clinks behind me.
“We need to get out of here,” I say but my voice is drowned out by a low growl in the dark. “Get out your gun.”
I’ve removed my hatchet and hear her fumble with her own weapon. “Run that way, to the left, around the house. Find somewhere safe and wait for me,” I tell her, but beyond that I’ve got no other directions. I have no idea where we are. Other than the traitorous light from the house it’s incredibly dark outside.
The growling shifts, turning into the painful cry I’ve come to recognize so well. My mother runs left and I dash to the right, banging my hatchet against the house to get its attention. The method works and as I run through the overgrown yard, I hear the Eater follow me, hot in pursuit. It’s hungry, they’re always hungry, and I can only run so long across what seems to be an endless field.
Stupid rural North Carolina.
A breeze of air blows across my sticky with sweat face and the moon appears from behind a cloud. I stop, forced to catch my breath. The Eater wails sending a chill up my spine. Every step elicits the same rattling clank. I turn to face it, can’t tell in the shadowy night if it’s a male or female. For the first time I don’t think I care.
I only see the creature in front of me as nothing more than a dead man walking. His shrieking cry turns ragged as he approaches, feet tangled in the weeds, a long chain clamped to his wrist.
“Did you leave that video on for me?” I see him clearly now. Metallica t-shirt, face oozing with sores, eyes black and spidery. “Hoping to lure me in? God, trolls exist even after the internet is gone.”
He lunges forward, swiping an arm at me. I step back, dodging the chain. Had he been restrained?
“I guess it’s gonna be either you or me,” I tell him, clutching the handle of my weapon. This will not end like the night I met Paul, when he had to save me. “Unfortunately, I’ve got a job to do and I’m not letting a rotting, parasite filled bastard keep me from doing it.”
Eliciting my own feral cry, I lift my hatchet and swing.
Chapter Forty-One
~Now~
Cole’s hair is still wet when Walker returns to our cell. We’re both dres
sed in drab green military fatigues. Clean clothes are a luxury. They’ve hit us with our basic needs—wants. Food, shower, clothing. Add housing into it and I can see the allure. Except we’re not here by choice. We’re prisoners.
“Turn around,” she says and we both comply after a moment of notable hesitation. My wrists are then bound with thick plastic zip ties. A quick glance tells me the same is happening to Cole. Again, whatever is going on here, they don’t trust us.
But why?
Walker and another solider, this one a black male in his late twenties or thirties, walk us down a long corridor. His tag says Richardson. Doors line the hallway. There are no windows. The fluorescent lights buzz overhead. Walker stops abruptly, causing Cole and me to stumble in reaction. Richardson’s hand never leaves the butt of his gun.
“Where are we?” I ask again, not expecting an answer.
I watch, intrigued as Walker enters numbers into a security pad and then presses her palm flat against it.
“Shaw Air Force Base,” Richardson replies.
“We’re in South Carolina?” Cole asks.
“I must have really been out of it,” I mutter.
The security box lights up green and the door opens with a sigh, cool air slipping out. “Got something important down here?” Cole says lightheartedly.
I don’t know what I expect, but it isn’t a full lab, similar to my father’s at Duke. Scientists in crisp white coats and blue vented face masks work at the long rows of tables. I search each face for my father—for his familiar eyes, the mole next to his temple. If he’s here I don’t see him.
“You’ve continued the work?” Cole asks.
“It never stopped,” a voice says from a small office beside us. The man from the trailer park steps out. The one with the mustache. His hair is cut short, and he’s lean and muscular. He’s got the same stance and demeanor as Wyatt but twenty years older, without the man-bun and in distinct military dress. This furthers my theory Wyatt has military training.
Beneath the stars and medals a name tag declares his name: Colonel Erwin. “We moved everything here after Raleigh fell. It’s more secure.” He gives me a once over. “Feel better after that shower and meal?”
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