by Matt Handle
“I understand how traumatizing this must be for you,” Benjamin began, “and I know you must have questions you hope to find answers for…”
Erika offered him a sad smile, silently encouraging him to continue.
“But there’s not much more I can tell you,” he went on. “It all happened so fast and then with the need to avoid further contamination via immediate cremation…”
Ben looked at Erika with what she thought was supposed to be somber compassion, but she realized with a start that the doctor was lying to her. Whatever Ben knew, he was afraid to share it.
Playing a hunch, Erika leaned forward and gazed directly into Benjamin’s eyes, forcing him to truly look at her.
“I know that’s not true, Ben,” she stated. “Whatever you’re scared of, you’re going to tell me. I’m not leaving here until you do.”
Klein feigned shock and in his most dignified voice replied, “Erika, I don’t know what you must think of me, but I would never…”
“Do I need to take it up with Doctor Mechler then?” she cut him off. “Maybe he can shed some light on what’s going on!”
Klein turned white as a sheet, all subterfuge forgotten. “Don’t even think about it!” he gasped. “I assure you, that’s the last thing you want to do.”
“Why is that?” Erika demanded.
Klein let out a long sigh and settled back into his chair, a look of defeat crossing over his features. “Because I don’t want to see anyone else get killed,” he replied.”Losing Albert was hard enough. If we lost you too, I’m not sure I could keep putting on the brave face and coming down here day after day.”
Ben hesitated, as if silently praying all of this would just go away.
“Go on,” Erika prompted him.
Reluctantly, Ben continued. “Albert wasn’t killed by the virus,” he said. “That was a cover story provided by Mechler’s staff. Mechler’s a madman, driven completely insane. He called us to a conference room and had security shoot Albert in cold blood.”
Now it was Erika’s turn to gasp, her heart suddenly galloping in her chest. Tears welled in her eyes again, but she made no move to wipe them away as Ben finished his confession. He told her of Mechler’s accusation, the sudden execution of her husband, and then the CEO’s plans to take control of the country with the assistance of the zyborgs their combined research and development had helped create.
“They’re monsters,” Ben stated. “Unthinking, living, breathing machines integrated with terrible weapons that he can control with a word or the press of a button.”
Erika was aghast. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Learning of Albert’s murder was enough to send her over the edge, but this… she couldn’t even wrap her mind around what Klein was telling her.
“We only developed the means of controlling robotics via thought,” she stammered. “Robotic arms and legs for soldier amputees… we didn’t make any weaponry and we certainly didn’t develop the means of controlling something else’s thoughts!”
“There’s another division Mechler must be keeping secret,” Klein responded. “Something military. I didn’t recognize any of the forces he called in to shoot Albert either. They weren’t our standard security guys.”
Erika felt fury rising up from her stomach and flooding her head. Her heart was still hammering and suddenly all she wanted was to get her hands around Mechler’s neck so she could stare into his beady black eyes as she strangled him.
She stood up from her seat and started for the door.
“Where are you going?” Ben asked as he got up and tried to cut off Erika’s departure.
“We have to stop him!” she declared. “Not just for Albert, but for all of this. We have to stop him before he sets those things loose on whoever else might have survived out there.”
Ben managed to grab her arm before she slipped out the door.
“Stop!” he hissed at her, hoping he wouldn’t be overheard by the scientists that were working just outside his office. “Think a minute! I know how horrible the situation is, but what is it you think you’re going to do? Are you going to march down to his office and demand he turn himself in to authorities? There’s no police; there’s no press. And even if you had a gun and were thinking about killing him yourself, do you really think you could get past his armed guards to do it?”
“Believe me,” Klein went on. “I’ve thought through every scenario. I want to see him pay for this as badly as you do, but if we try to do it on our own; we’re going to wind up just like poor Albert.”
Erika had stopped trying to pull away from Ben. She was standing hip to hip with him in the doorway now and staring into his face.
“So what are you saying?” she asked him angrily. “That we just go about our jobs and pretend our boss didn’t murder my husband? That he isn’t turning our work into the dreams of some mad scientist bent on destroying the world?”
Ben shook his head slowly; his eyes darting around the laboratory to make sure no one else could hear them.
“No,” he replied. “I’m saying we bide our time. Look for the right opportunity. Whether you like it or not, revenge has to wait.”
Chapter 11
“You want to repeat that?” Sawyer asked.
All eyes were glued on the kid, even Angel via the rearview mirror. Sawyer noticed this and nudged her without taking his eyes off the boy.
“Watch the road,” he told her. “We didn’t just kill a hundred Afflicted to die in a ditch because of a car crash.”
Angel didn’t like Sawyer’s tone, but she knew he was right. She focused her attention on her driving, but listened closely as they waited for the boy to speak. Before he could, the factory exploded behind them. The fireball lit up the sky and the aftershock jostled the heavy Humvee, even at their current distance. Jenny gasped in surprise and both Sawyer and the boy looked back at the light, their attention momentarily distracted.
“Looks like we got out just in time,” Sawyer said. The boy looked back at him with wide eyes, the realization of how close he came to being consumed in the blaze just now hitting home.
“Why don’t you pull over up here?” Sawyer suggested to Angel as he motioned toward the aged blacktop and weed-strewn breakdown lane just ahead. “That way we can all talk.”
Angel slowed down and edged the vehicle onto the side of the road. Once they were stopped, Sawyer turned his attention back to the boy.
“I think you’d better tell us the whole story,” he said. “Let’s start with your name.”
The kid nodded and then licked his dry and chapped lips. “My name is Tyler Gibbons,” he began. “My father was a biochemist. He recognized the infection when it first began to spread.”
Angel asked “Why would your father want to wipe out everyone on Earth?”
“He didn’t,” Tyler answered. “He was working on the creation of a new neurotoxin that was meant to treat severe brain injuries.”
“How the hell does a kid your age even know what a neurotoxin is?” Sawyer asked.
Tyler shrugged. “My father was a genius. My mom used to say that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“Okay, so how’d it get released into the public?” Sawyer queried. “It sounds like something they’d have locked up in the V.A.”
Tyler responded “When my father saw the negative side effects, he went to his bosses to shut down the project. Two days later, his firm was bought out by a military contractor. They fired him soon after that and stole his work.”
“I don’t understand,” Jenny piped in. “What does any of that have to do with the monsters?”
“While the neurotoxin did heal brain tissue, the side effects included malignant growths on the hypothalamus and decreased cognitive brain function,” Tyler replied. “My father said they must have tried to mutate the toxin and ended up making it even worse. They wanted to use it for population control.”
Jenny didn’t understand much of Tyler’s answer but before she could
ask anything else, Sawyer spoke up again.
“I’d say it worked,” he growled. “They wiped out the whole damn country!”
“Not that kind of control,” Tyler responded. “Dad said they wanted to pacify citizens. Keep us calm and non-violent.”
“The Afflicted seem pretty violent to me,” Jenny said quietly.
Tyler explained, “Before he died, my dad said they put it in the water supply. Spread it in the air too. He even did some testing but he couldn’t get the press to listen to him. He said they blackballed him. Labeled him a kook and a conspiracy theorist.”
“So why aren’t we infected?” Angel asked. “I usually drank bottled water, but I showered and washed dishes with the same tap water my neighbors did. I breathed the same air as my boyfriend did.”
Tyler shrugged. “Some test subjects were immune to the side effects in my dad’s studies too. We’re just lucky I guess.”
“Lucky, my ass,” Sawyer said as he coughed again, trying to clear the smoke out of his lungs. “What were you doing back there anyway? You could have burned to death.”
“We moved nearby after my dad lost his job. Everyone around here knows about that fertilizer plant,” Tyler replied. “I figured I wouldn’t find a better place to set off an explosion and take out as many of them as I could.”
“You’re not some kind of firebug are you?” Sawyer asked.
Tyler smiled grimly and responded “The plague killed both my parents. Even knowing as much as he did about its nature, my dad couldn’t cure it. Look around, man. All I’ve got left is revenge. I don’t care how I do it. I just want those things dead.”
“Sounds like you’ll fit in just fine,” Angel stated.
Jenny added “You want to come with us?” and looked at Tyler with what Angel thought might be the beginning of a schoolgirl crush.
“There’s nothing left for me here. Where are you headed?” Tyler asked.
Sawyer reached back toward the boy, the bent and blackened Biomech plate Jenny had found back at SOUTHCOM laying in his exposed palm. He asked, “That name look familiar?”
“That’s the military contractor that stole my dad’s neurotoxin,” Tyler replied.
Sawyer clenched his fist, hiding the plate from view. “You think the monsters back at that plant were bad, they turned one of them into some kind of cyborg,” Sawyer told him. “It had built-in machine guns in place of arms and a chassis straight out of Robocop. It took a goddamned landmine to destroy it. That plate is one of the pieces we found afterward.”
“If you’re going after them, I’m in,” Tyler said firmly. “Just tell me what you want me to do.”
Sawyer nodded and then he opened the passenger door to get out of the vehicle. “Hop over here and let me drive,” he told Angel. “You did good.”
Once he was back behind the wheel, Sawyer put the Humvee in gear and pulled back onto the road, heading toward the highway.
“We’re heading to Atlanta,” Sawyer said over his shoulder. “And you’re going to need a lot more bullets.”
A minute later, Sawyer had the Humvee back up to almost 50 MPH, dust and dirt spewing out from beneath the thick, heavy tires. Ahead of them, storm clouds were forming on the horizon. Behind them, only fiery destruction and death.
***
The next 30 miles passed without incident, nothing but hot pavement and the occasional small detour to get around some rusting piece of wreckage. The cloud cover got thicker as they went and by the time they reached the outskirts of Ocala, rain was coming down heavily enough that Sawyer had slowed the Humvee down to 35 MPH just to be safe.
Tyler and Jenny had fallen asleep in the backseat soon after leaving Wildwood, each curled into a ball, their heads resting against the side doors of the vehicle. Meanwhile, Angel did her best to stay awake in the passenger seat in order to provide Sawyer company and an extra set of eyes in case anything came up.
Sawyer hadn’t realized Jenny had awoken until Angel nudged him in the side and pointed out her window.
“Take a look at that,” she said.
As he did, Jenny gasped.
Running along the opposite side of a barbed wire fence that was no more than 20 yards off the edge of the highway was a herd of wild horses. Sawyer counted eleven of them while trying to keep a watchful eye on the road.
“Can we stop, Sawyer?” Jenny begged. “Please?”
Sawyer glanced at her in the rearview mirror and hesitated for a moment, debating whether to argue the matter or give in to her request.
“They’re beautiful!” she exclaimed as she gazed at them through the bullet-resistant glass.
After what they’d been through the past few days, Sawyer decided a few lost minutes wasn’t going to hurt them. He slowed down to a stop after confirming a clear view in all directions. The land here was flat and monotonous, all sand and low scrub. From this vantage, Jenny could get a good look at the herd while he watched for any sort of approach from the road or the fields on the far side of the highway.
Jenny opened her door and stepped outside, the rain immediately wetting her hair and shirt. Tyler woke at the sound of the door being opened and watched along with Sawyer and Angel from the dry confines of the Humvee as Jenny stood grinning, then laughing as the horses sped past, their manes and tails spraying curtains of water out behind them as they raced one another for whatever refuge from the rain they might find. Sawyer was no expert, but to his untrained eye, they looked like thoroughbreds, long and lean in different shades of brown and black. He had to admit, they were impressive animals.
“Look at them!” Jenny said loudly enough to be heard over the downpour and the rumble of the engine. “They’re free!”
And better off now that man is all but extinct, Sawyer thought as he watched the four-legged beasts disappear into the haze of the rain and distance. No more war, no more deforestation, no more pollution, now humans are just one more part of the food chain instead of sitting on top devouring the rest.
“Come back inside out of the rain,” Sawyer called out to Jenny. “We need to keep moving.” Then, grumbling to himself without realizing he was talking out loud, he added. “Big picture or not, they’re still going to pay.”
Angel glanced over her shoulder at Tyler who just shrugged as he continued to wipe sleep from his bleary eyes. Whatever Sawyer was mumbling about, neither wanted to ask.
As Jenny got back inside, dripping water all over the seat, Tyler looked at her with an inquisitive smile.
“It’s only rain,” she said, as if this answered any question the boy might have on his mind.
With that, Jenny shut the door and Sawyer put the Humvee in gear, leaving the horses and soon enough, the rain behind.
It was another two hours of slow travel before they finally crossed the Georgia border, but it gave Sawyer, Angel, and Jenny plenty of time to fill Tyler in on their backgrounds and some of the things they’d been through since leaving Miami. The sun had come back out and most of the ground water had already evaporated, disappearing like the horses, just another ghost of the past.
As they approached Valdosta, the grassy fields and swampy ditches of northern Florida were replaced with forests of pine, covered in kudzu and vast stretches of azaleas in every shade of pink and red. The flowers had grown dense and lush, competing with the stubborn vines for sun and soil. The vegetation had become so thick that it was encroaching on the highway and it covered just about every other thing in sight including trees, buildings, and the occasional wreck along the side of the road.
All four of the survivors traveling down the lonesome highway in their purloined Humvee were staring at this riotous growth as they drove beneath an overpass, oblivious to the monster that crouched atop the guardrail above, waiting hungrily on their approach. As the nose of their vehicle showed itself on the far side of the bridge, the Afflicted leapt with a screech, flying through the air like the largest and ugliest of grasshoppers before landing atop the Humvee with a thud. It managed to grab hold o
f the weapons ring, gaining the necessary purchase to avoid slipping off the rumbling vehicle and becoming so much road grease. Once it had established its handholds, the Afflicted pulled itself forward and leaned over the side of the vehicle, reaching for the door handle on Tyler’s side of the backseat.
Sawyer immediately locked the doors as Angel swiveled in her seat to look in the direction that the sound of the creature’s landing came from. Both kids did the same. Sawyer gritted his teeth in anticipation, but kept his eyes on the road, alert to the possibility that whatever just landed over their heads might not be alone.
The creature tried to yank the door open. Finding it locked, it then began to slam its bony fists against the reinforced glass.
“It’s going to have to do more than that if it wants in,” Sawyer growled. “Those windows are bulletproof.”
As soon as the words were out of Sawyer’s mouth, the Afflicted ripped one of the machine guns off the weapons rack atop the Humvee and started to bash the butt of the weapon into the window with a ferocity that had Jenny shrieking in fear. Sawyer veered the vehicle hard to the left and then to the right in an attempt to shake the monster loose, but it clung to the truck with a death grip.
Sawyer barked “Take the wheel!” to Angel and then drew his gun.
“What?” Angel asked incredulously.
“If we stop, there might be more of them waiting for an ambush,” Sawyer explained. “If we let it keep tearing out all our weapons, we might be even worse off. Drive while I get rid of the thing!”
Angel looked scared out of her wits, but she did as Sawyer asked and reached over to grab the wheel. As she did, Sawyer lifted one hip from his seat in order to allow Angel to scoot into his place. Once she got her foot on the accelerator, Sawyer opened the window and positioned himself on the door frame, the upper half of his body now outside the speeding vehicle, the wind tearing at his shirt as he faced the rear of the truck and the monster that was attacking them just a few feet away.