by Max Lockwood
“I would love to help,” Ariel said.
“That would be great.” Callum grinned. “I’m so happy you’re here.”
Ariel beamed. Bobby Dean scowled even harder.
“Right now, with the influx of new arrivals, we need people to run samples in the lab. Everyone who comes through has to undergo a blood sample to make sure they’re not infected. I know it’s invasive, but it’s one of the few rules we have here. It’s really for everyone’s safety. I’m sure you all feel safer knowing that your blood is virus-free.”
“We haven’t been tested,” Ariel said.
Callum smiled sheepishly. “Actually, you have.”
“What?” Melissa and Bobby Dean interjected in unison.
“I didn’t give anyone permission to take my blood,” Bobby Dean said, pointing a finger at Callum’s chest.
“When did this happen?” Melissa asked. “Was it while we were sleeping? Is that why there was someone outside our door? You took advantage of the fact that we were tired and starving and drew blood without our consent?”
“I’m surprised,” Ariel said, checking her body for a puncture wound. “I’m not really a heavy sleeper.”
“We gave you a little help,” Callum admitted. “I’m sure your sleep was more restful and rejuvenating this way. If you have problems sleeping in the future, just call room service and they can sort you out.”
“You drugged us?” Melissa shouted.
“It was only a mild sedative. Our receptionists indicated that you might choose not to comply. We have to follow special protocol in these cases. I apologize for how it played out, but it’s in everybody’s best interest.”
“That’s okay,” Ariel said. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Speak for yourself,” Bobby Dean grunted.
“It seems like a really shady thing to do,” Melissa said. “To be perfectly honest, I really don’t feel safe in a place that drugs and takes blood from unconscious people. How am I supposed to trust anyone here? Am I going to have to stop eating and drinking for fear of being drugged again?”
Callum looked hurt by her accusations. “I’m truly sorry it had to happen that way. You have my sincerest apologies. I promise that this will never happen again.”
“Yeah, ‘cuz you already have our blood,” Bobby Dean muttered.
“I’m being sincere,” Callum said, placing his hand over his heart. “In fact, I invite you to ask anyone here about me and Safe Haven in general. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about this wonderful town.”
“Okay,” Melissa said, not because she fully trusted him but because his big blue eyes were making her feel guilty for questioning his integrity.
“Great.” He smiled again. “Shall we get on with our tour? There are just a few more things I’d like to show you guys.”
As they walked through town, Melissa paid special attention to the layout of the village. If necessary, she wanted to know where every guard held his post and where every exit was. She did not trust the smooth-talking young man and his utopia.
12
The day after Bethany’s failed escape attempt, she was brought from her room in isolation back to a shared dorm. This bedroom contained rows of bunk beds filled with young women. It reminded Bethany of the youth hostel she stayed in after a solo trip to Europe, a present from her parents for graduating high school. Some girls lay in their beds, flipping through magazines, while others quietly giggled and braided each other’s hair. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits—except for Bethany.
Bethany scowled at the other girls. As far as she knew, they were nice women, but Bethany couldn’t understand how they were so relaxed. When she listened to her roommates whisper in small groups, they weren’t planning an escape. Instead, they were talking about a cute male soldier they saw in the cafeteria and were wondering if he would be interested in any of them.
“I’m sorry,” Bethany interrupted. “I’m having a hard time understanding why everyone here is feeling so lighthearted about our current predicament. I mean, we’re being held here by a rogue army. Is that not problematic to any of you?”
The girls looked confused. A woman in her late twenties with strong facial features was silently elected to answer for the group.
“We’re making the best out of a bad situation. I don’t know where you were before you came here, but I was hiding out in a tree. I hadn’t eaten for days when the trucks came for me. Now, I don’t have to worry about being attacked by an infected person. Do you understand how much of a relief that is?”
Bethany rolled her eyes. Perhaps it was a result of how bad things were out in the world, but she didn’t believe a soft bed and warm food were fair exchange for a total loss of freedom.
“So, if someone wants you to join the army, you’ll just go ahead and join because it’s better than being on your own?” Bethany ranted.
“Uh, probably,” the woman answered.
Bethany clenched her fists. She tried to control her temper, but she had been tested too many times.
“I’m not sure if you realize this, but there is some sinister stuff happening around here,” Bethany said quietly. “There are Infected among us. Any one of us could be taken and injected with the virus.”
The group of women frowned. Someone whispered something into another girl’s ear. She nodded in response.
“Listen,” the woman said gently, leaning toward Bethany. “Sometimes, I need medication to feel like my normal self too. There’s no harm in that. If you went to the medical ward right now and explained how you’re feeling, I’m sure someone can help you get back on the right medication.”
Without another word, Bethany retreated to her bed and faced the wall. She could hear the girls whispering about her, but she didn’t care how she came across to them. No one wanted her help. After the last exchange, she wasn’t sure she wanted to try to help anymore.
It would give her the tiniest sliver of satisfaction if the girls suffered a terrible fate after ignoring her warnings. She smirked as she imagined them pounding at the walls of a locked room, cursing themselves for not listening to what the strange girl had to say.
This fantasy gave her some comfort. That was until someone was summoned to visit the medical ward for mandatory medical testing.
“Is something wrong?” the teenaged girl asked when the soldier motioned for her to follow him down the hall.
“No,” he said plainly. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Dr. Vincent just wants to talk about your medical history and maybe draw a little blood. It’s no big deal.”
“Oh, okay.” The girl sighed, visibly relieved. She followed the soldier into the hallway and closed the door behind her.
Bethany sat up in her bed and looked around the room, ready for the other women to apologize for calling her crazy. But everyone just returned to their activities.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Bethany muttered under her breath.
One by one, each girl was called upon to undergo testing. When one girl returned, another one was summoned. By Bethany’s estimation, each person was only gone for about ten minutes. A few returned with a small bandage on the crook of their arm, but many appeared to not have any blood drawn. There were no changes in behavior like Bethany expected. Everyone just returned to their normal activities as if nothing had happened.
“What’s going on in there?” Bethany asked as one woman returned.
“Not much. I just answered a few questions and they sent me back here. Easy stuff.”
Finally, it was Bethany’s turn. She was not at all surprised that she was called last. When the door opened, Will’s face appeared. He called her name with a sneer, daring her to misbehave.
Without looking him in the face, she reluctantly followed him down the hall where she’d last seen Thomas.
“Where are we going?” she asked. “Are you going to get rid of me like you got rid of Thomas?”
“Who?” he asked, earnestly confused by the question she was a
sking.
“Thomas. You know, scrawny, ginger kid? You smiled as they locked him up for knowing the truth about this place.”
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” he said, his brow furrowed. “I didn’t lock anyone up.”
“Yes, you did! You were moving bodies around, then you got into a fight with Thomas for hurting his girlfriend.”
Will was silent for a moment, as if he was trying to remember. “I really don’t recall that happening,” he finally said.
“Fine,” Bethany said and continued toward Dr. Vincent’s office. She strode through the office door and seated herself across from Dr. Vincent’s desk. Will joined her in the adjacent seat.
“Hello, Bethany,” Dr. Vincent said. “I’m happy to hear that you’ve been behaving yourself since your little outburst. I was just telling Will that you’ve been a difficult resident. I’d still like to invite you to enlist. You could really stand to learn how to behave in a cohesive group.”
“I’ll have to decline your offer,” she said curtly.
“Very well,” the scientist continued. “Now, I just have some basic questions to ask you about your medical history.”
“What if I don’t want to answer?”
He sighed and removed his glasses. “Then I’m afraid we’ll have to hold you in contempt and send you back to the isolation chamber. There are sanctions, you know. These are hardly personal questions. Just give me the information I am asking for and I will send you on your way. This doesn’t have to be a struggle.”
There was no such thing as harmless questioning to Bethany. If Dr. Vincent wanted information from her, then he would surely use it against her. She would lie if she had to. She would do whatever she needed to do to keep him from using her words against her.
“Fine. Let’s get this over with,” she said shortly.
“Excellent. Have you ever had chicken pox?”
She frowned. She wasn’t sure what this question had to do with the virus or any of the other highly illegal operations he was in on. If she answered yes, would she be demonstrating that her body was strong enough to withstand his virus? Or if she answered no, would she be proving that she was in good enough health to withstand an injection? She didn’t know enough about what he was most likely plotting to do next. Plus, she didn’t know enough about virology to understand whether her answers were implicating her.
“Uh, no, I haven’t,” she answered honestly. She prayed that her body would somehow be so unfit to take part in his experiments that she would be sent away.
“Okay,” he said brightly, jotting down a few notes on his clipboard. “See, this isn’t so difficult. Now, have you ever had influenza?”
“Yeah, once or twice, I think,” she replied.
“Okay,” he murmured as he wrote. “That’s pretty normal. Good.”
“But it could have been something else,” she interjected, feeling nervous. “I was never properly diagnosed.”
“Well, most people aren’t, especially during flu season. Have you ever been hospitalized?”
“No.”
“Any genetic diseases in your family?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Any family members who have succumbed to the Morgan Strain?”
Bethany’s eyes narrowed. “I think that’s an obvious question.”
“Very well,” Dr. Vincent said, setting his pen on top of his clipboard. “That concludes my interview.”
“That’s it?” Bethany asked skeptically.
“I told you it was nothing to worry about. You have a fiery personality, don’t you? You like to seem so cool and collected on the outside, but inside, you’re probably just a firework ready to explode.”
Bethany glared at the man in the white coat across from her.
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, it’s meant to be taken as a compliment,” Dr. Vincent said dismissively. “You know, there’s nothing wrong with having a little extra personality. If you weren’t so stubborn, I’d like to have you on my team. I don’t think you’d agree to that, though.”
“You’ve got that right.”
“I’m not surprised. My daughter was the same way. I initially had dreams of having her join me in my lab as an assistant. She wasn’t interested in that, though. She was quite stubborn too. I miss her terribly.”
Bretton Vincent stared longingly out the window. Bethany would have laughed at the theatrics if he weren’t speaking about his dead daughter. She had heard whisperings about Dr. Vincent’s daughter and the rumors that surrounded her death.
“I didn’t know you had a daughter,” Bethany lied. She softened her demeanor in hopes she could coax some information from the egotistical scientist.
“Oh, yes. She was about your age. She got her looks from her mother but her smarts from me. Like many others, she succumbed to the virus. It’s tragic, really. I was perhaps the only person in the world who could save her. But I was too late.”
“What was her name?”
“Natalia.”
Will’s body jolted, as if he were awoken from a dream. Bethany stared at him. During the medical interview, he had been silent and hadn’t moved. In fact, Bethany had nearly forgotten he was in the room. Suddenly, he seemed to come back to life.
Bretton glared at Will for interrupting his melodramatic moment and then continued talking.
“Yes, I miss my Natalia every day,” Bretton said. “I just know that if she could see how much I have accomplished since the virus struck, she would be proud of me. She loved me very much and was my biggest fan. It’s a shame she had to get sick. I’ll never forgive Elaina Morgan for that.”
“No,” Will said, his face in a grimace.
“Are you feeling okay, Will?” Bethany asked. He was sweating profusely, even though he was sitting still in an air-conditioned room. His eyes blinked rapidly and his hands shook uncontrollably.
“You.” Will pointed across the desk. “You’re Natalia’s father.”
“Of course I am,” Dr. Vincent said in a surprised tone. “You know this. We’ve talked about this before. Remember, during your therapy sessions?”
The doctor shook his head, exasperated by Will’s outburst. “My daughter contracted the virus after contact with Dr. Morgan. Will, you were there when it happened.”
“That’s not what happened,” Will groaned.
“Then what did happen?” Dr. Vincent challenged. He was red in the face now.
“I don’t . . . I can’t . . .”
Will’s face strained as he tried to think. He knew Dr. Vincent’s story was completely wrong but couldn’t provide the evidence to back up his instinct.
“He’s traumatized by it, that’s all,” Dr. Vincent said to Bethany as an aside. “We had him work with a therapist to deal with the loss, but it seems like he’s repressed his emotions too much. It’s a shame. He was doing so well, too.”
“You killed her,” Will said, standing up from his seat now. Bethany could see the tiny blood vessels in his eyes breaking. “You injected her with the virus and she went mad. Melissa killed her to save me. It was you!”
“I need a guard in my office, now,” Dr. Vincent shouted into a radio. But it was too late. Will hurdled the desk and clenched his hands around Dr. Vincent’s throat.
“You killed Natalia!” Will roared. “I loved her and you took her away from me!”
Dr. Vincent’s face was turning an alarming shade of red. Bethany scrambled up from her seat and tried to turn the door handle, but it was locked from the outside.
Seconds later, a soldier burst in the door and shot Will, hitting him in the shoulder. This seemed to do nothing but annoy him. Will tackled the soldier into the concrete wall, knocking the guard unconscious. Then, he grasped the guard by the top and bottom of his head and wrenched it so hard his neck snapped.
Bethany grasped at the door again, but it had already locked into place. She could do nothing but cower in the corner and wait for her turn.
No
w, with the guard out of the way, Will turned his attention back to Bretton. Will finished the job, choking the scientist until his windpipe shattered. He tossed him to the ground behind the desk as if he had the strength of two men.
Bethany whimpered as she heard Dr. Vincent take his dying breaths. Will was clearly infected and in a rage. He didn’t like her much to begin with, so he would certainly do her in next.
In a shocking turn of events that Bethany couldn’t begin to make sense of, once Dr. Vincent was dead, Will’s whole personality shifted. He looked frightened and weary.
“Come on,” he said, offering his hand to Bethany. “We have to get out of here.”
He gave her an uncharacteristically tender look before pulling Bethany to her feet. Will grabbed a few charts from Dr. Vincent’s desk, searched his utility belt for the key to unlock the door, then pulled a stunned Bethany out of the virologist’s office.
“You’ve got to trust me,” Will said to Bethany, who was trembling.
“I’m scared,” she said, finally showing a glimmer of vulnerability.
“Me too. That’s why you’ve got to trust me.”
13
When the sun came out, it was so warm that Melissa took off one layer of her borrowed clothing and draped it over her arm. It was unseasonably warm, or at least the trees surrounding the town kept the wind from chilling her bones.
“Let me carry that for you,” Callum said, offering to take her jacket.
“Oh, that’s okay,” Melissa said, clutching the shearling coat in her hand. She didn’t want him to feel like she owed him anything, even kindness.
“Since we don’t know how long this crisis is going to last,” Callum said, nodding to a wide stretch of empty land, “we’re already discussing how to improve our recreation department. We’re thinking it would be nice to have an ice skating rink in the winter. Then, it can be turned into a swimming pond in the summer. Maybe you guys can help us there. We want everyone to be as happy as possible here. We have so many new people arriving every day. We have to keep people busy or they’ll become restless.”