The Pandemic Sequence (Book 2): The Tilian Effect

by Tom Calen

  Once again alone, Paul questioned Hicks. “Isn’t it risky spending more time with them? It’ll mean more questions.”

  “When we go, they’ll already have had a few drinks. We’ll be sober and able to shift the conversation however we want,” Hicks replied, the edge had returned to his voice. “They’ll be giving us way more information than we’ll give them.”

  “What information do we need? We already know where the prisoner pen is,” Paul attempted to answer, but Hicks cut him off.

  “There’s something else going on here. I’m not sure exactly what it is yet, but I could sense it in the conversations from the line, and in something James said.”

  Hicks continued talking but Paul had stopped listening once his attention was drawn to the gathering of men outside a large circular tent. The face he had so briefly glimpsed earlier stood among them. I’m not seeing things. It is him, Paul’s internal voice almost screamed. What the hell is Derrick Chancer doing with the Horde?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  By the time Mike and Erik made the crossing into the adjacent store front, the sun had long since set. Leaving behind a glow stick of red, they hoped that any watching eyes would assume their small party still rested within the gift shop. Though not one to suffer from claustrophobia, Mike was breathing heavy with anxiety when he was finally helped down from the duct’s mouth. Gazelle had gone through before him, and was currently lounging in Michelle’s arms. Taking a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkness, Mike felt himself being guided forward.

  “We cleared a path to the window,” a voice, which he recognized as Andrew’s, said at his left. The hands on his arms leading him to the window eventually held him back gently. Squinting into the darkness, Mike could see a slight lightening through the glass. The fractional moon and starlight brightened the area beyond the window’s glass.

  “Did you try it?” Mike asked the shadows. His vision was improving, however, as he could now see distinct shapes in the blackness.

  Matt supplied the answer from Mike’s right side, “We opened it once. The window swings in like a door. The lock was a bit stuck but we managed to work it open.”

  “All right,” Mike said as he slid back into leadership. “You know the plan. Once you’re out, cut across the street to the alley. Hold your position until we are all there. And no lights!”

  One by one, the outlines of his companions lifted themselves through the window and out onto the street. Even with his night vision improving, once those outlines moved a few feet into the street, they were swallowed again by the blackness.

  “Pass me Gazelle,” Michelle whispered from the street. Not realizing she had placed the dog back on the floor, Mike bent over and blindly reached to his right. His fingers grazed the dog’s soft fur and with a practiced motion scooped the canine up and passed her to Michelle’s waiting shadow. With everyone safely through, Mike made the last exit from the travel agency and softly padded his way over to the alley. The impenetrable blackness of the office was replaced by the waning moon’s natural light. Though still not light enough to distinguish great detail, Mike was at least able to see the faces of the group.

  “Erik, what’s ahead?” Mike asked. Erik had been the first to slip out and had used the intervening wait to scout further down into the alley.

  “All clear. It stretches the length of the block,” the younger man whispered back. “There’s a lot of junk on the ground, so watch your step.”

  “Lead on,” Mike replied.

  Six shapes crept slowly through the narrow alleyway, stepping gingerly to avoid any noise. Mike’s steel-toed boots bumped several objects along the way causing him to hold his breath on each occasion. With deep relief, the group reached the end of the alley without creating much of a disturbance. Using the night’s scant light, he let his eyes wander the area as he selected the next direction. The alley had brought them some hundred yards from the original location. If anyone watched the building, it was unlikely they would be able to see over that distance unaided. There was a risk of the attacker having night-vision equipment, and Mike did not know enough about this enemy to discount any possibility.

  Forced to trust his luck, he was about to direct the group to the left, when a soft growl rumbled from the ground. Over the years, he had learned to identify Gazelle’s variety of warnings. If a Til was approaching, the growl would have been followed by aggressive barking. The sound she made now indicated a human scent drawing near. Lowering himself to a crouch, he found her standing on all fours, tension coursing through her short legs. Her head faced down into the alley behind them.

  “What’s she got?” Erik said with little volume.

  “Human. Back down the alley.”

  Mike’s hand found Erik’s shoulder and he pulled the man backwards so they were blocked by the bricked side of the building. Michelle and Andrew, attuned to Gazelle’s alarm, did the same with Matt and the three hugged the façade opposite Mike. Holding both of his guns, Mike strained to hear approaching footsteps. When he was met with silence, he inched his head further into exposure. A deafening shot sliced the stillness and grazed the edge of brick directly above Mike’s head. Pulling his head back into safety, Mike forced himself to not focus on how close that shot had been to killing him.

  “Shooter’s maybe halfway down the alley,” Mike updated Erik.

  “High-low?” Erik asked.

  “Sounds good to me,” Mike replied. “One. Two. Three.”

  In unison, Mike and Erik rushed across the alley’s opening, Mike in a crouch firing a series of bullets into the dark, and Erik standing tall above him pumping off three rounds from his shotgun. A brief flash indicated their target had shot back. Slamming into Michelle and the others across the way, Mike stumbled as he hit their legs.

  “I’m hit,” Erik grunted the clenched teeth.

  “Bad?” Mike asked.

  “Well, Mike, I have a new opening in my body, so, you know, it’s not the best,” the wounded man retorted.

  “Least it didn’t hit your sarcasm,” Mike replied. “Andrew, toss a glow stick down as far as you can.”

  A soft crackle of bending plastic and glass was followed by a green glow that Andrew heaved into the alley. Peaking around the corner as it flew, Mike watched the illumination move down the urban canyon. Seconds before the glow stick landed, it passed over an eagle-sprawled body lying still on the ground.

  Without a word, Mike ducked into the alley and jogged towards the figure. He kept his eyes glued to the body as he ran and noticed a struggling rise and fall of a ribcage. Reaching the man, Mike kicked aside a rifle, and bent to examine him. Several shots had flown true and riddled the man’s body with wounds. Likely in his late fifties, the man’s eyes were beginning to glaze as he fought for his last few breaths.

  “Who are you with?” Mike demanded with intensity. “How many are with you?”

  “Can’t… can’t let ‘em feed,” the man gasped as blood bubbled on his lips. “Gotta… st… starve them. Have to kill…” The end of the sentence was lost as the man began to choke on the blood pooling in his throat. Mike slid a hand behind the man’s head and angled it up to clear the passage. “Kill their food.”

  If the man had more to say he would speak it only in the afterlife. Several small spasms shook his body before all tension evaporated from him. Mike eased the man’s head back to the ground and ran his hands over the body’s clothing. he removed several rounds from the breast pocket and stood. Holstering one of his sidearms, he walked over to the rifle, slung its strap over his shoulder, and hurried back to the others.

  Erik sat on the ground with his legs stretched out in front of him. Michelle stooped near him with a medical kit at her feet. His shirt had been cut off and Michelle held a small flashlight in her teeth as she examined the wound.

  “How is he?” Mike asked.

  “Lucky,” she said in return, forming the words over the flashlight. “It went right through his shoulder.”

  �
�I’m thinking ‘lucky’ would be if I didn’t get hit at all,” Erik frowned and flinched as she poured alcohol over the front of his shoulder.

  Andrew swallowed a small laugh as he replied. “Lucky would be if you lost the ability to speak.”

  “Clean him and close him,” Mike directed. “The shooter was likely alone, but I want to be out of here ASAP.”

  --

  Little time passed—though for Mike it seemed interminably long—as Michelle finished sewing Erik’s wounds closed. For his part, Erik had bit back all but a few winces of pain as she worked. Though Mike believed the shooter to be alone, he was still eager to be away from this place. In the dying man’s eyes, he had seen the same fear and panic that had stared at him through the mirror each morning of the past year. He could not help but wonder if in time his own mind would fracture so completely. For the dead man, killing humans was a way of fighting the Tils, denying them food until they died off. It was a reality that had warped irrevocably, yet, Mike understood it. He understood how the memories, the sleepless nights, the tremors and the fear, could unnerve a person. The icy debilitation fought to control him as he wondered if the shooter had experienced the same, but perhaps been unable to claw his way out of the horrors of the mind.

  “All set,” Michelle said as her voice broke through Mike’s fog. Turning, he could see the white bandage that looped around Erik’s left shoulder. One arm was across his chest, supported by a fabric sling, while the other worked to slip a jacket across his back. As comical as it was to watch Erik flail about trying to secure the jacket, Mike reached over and brought the left side over the injury and zipped the front halfway up.

  “I almost had it,” Erik said with a defensive grin.

  “Sure you did.” Mike smiled through the lie.

  Once the medical kit was returned to Matt’s pack, the group set out at a light jog, turning right onto the wide boulevard. Mike knew Erik would not ask for it, but he made sure to stop more frequently than he would have preferred. The sliver of moon continued its arc across the sky as the group pushed themselves over the distance. After the third hour, Mike signaled for yet another stop. From the labored breathing and the gulping of water, Mike realized that Erik was not the only one needing a rest. Whatever athleticism he had maintained during the years on the mountain, he could feel how weak his body now was after the life-saving surgery. Even a year of recovery had not prepared him for this night’s exertion. It seemed the others, while in better shape than he, had also lost some of their steam. Only Matt seemed to be holding up under the physical strain.

  “I play a lot of tennis,” he told them when Erik asked how the man could possibly be maintaining his strength. The response seemed oddly out of place given their current situation.

  “Ah, tennis,” Erik replied. “I’m more of a croquet guy.”

  A few laughs sounded into the night as their muscles relaxed and their hearts returned to a normal rhythm. The relief was short-lived, though, as Mike called for the group to resume their jog. He knew he was pushing them hard, but he wanted to be well away from urban areas when dawn broke. Laden with their packs, save for Erik, the party of six continued the jog-and-rest pattern through the final hours of the night. Only when Mike realized they were resting longer than they had been jogging, did he call a final halt.

  He estimated that they had travelled somewhere between ten and fifteen miles which pleased him, since they were moving in darkness and one of them was wounded. The buildings and pavement of Naples had steadily given way to more rural surroundings, until finally they found themselves on a dirt trail. Dawn was still more than an hour off and the tree coverage blocked the faint moonlight, so Mike cracked two of the glow sticks taken from Matt’s boat. The red glow cast an eerie dome of light around them. The path in either direction stretched further than the sticks’ illumination. The gnarled tree trunks that lined the trail’s borders huddled close together, making distance beyond them impossible to judge.

  “Uh, Mike?” Andrew asked.

  “Yeah, bud?

  “Where are the Everglades?” the youngest of the group asked. His tone hinted at further questions.

  “South of here,” Mike replied. “Why?”

  “The sign next to this tree has its scientific name, and says this place is the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary,” Andrew offered.

  “Swamp sanctuary?” Erik asked. He had already dropped to the ground and rested his back against one of the trees. “Does that mean…”

  “Alligators,” Matt supplied the end of Erik’s question.

  “Oh, come on,” Erik said loudly with sarcastic laughter. “Some crazy guy blows up our boat, I get shot, and now we’re sleeping next to alligators?”

  “Keep your voice down,” Mike corrected, his tone sharper than he intended. His familiarity with Florida stemmed mostly from college spring breaks. The plan to seek an area away from buildings was one that had always proved wise in avoiding the Tils. He certainly had not allowed for the possibility of alligators and swamps. With a conscious effort to adjust his tone, he told them, “We keep watch in pairs. Matt and I will take first shift, then Andrew and Michelle. No, Erik, you need more rest than us. We stay for a couple hours and then we either backtrack to a road, or cut through this sanctuary.”

  Though none voiced opposition, he could see their worried glances darting around them. Not trusting himself to sit and stay awake, Mike took up a position facing the direction they had come, while Matt watched the path ahead. It’ll be fine, he tried to assure himself. There’s probably not many alligators here. And if there are, well, I got Gazelle to warn me. As the thought finished, he looked down at the dog. She circled the ground at his feet twice, then curled herself into a tight ball before tucking her head down and settling in for sleep. Okay, let’s just hope there are no alligators then.

  --

  The night passed without incident, and Mike had managed to claim a full hour of sleep. The consensus of the group was to continue forward through the sanctuary. Daylight had made them bolder, and they disliked the idea of losing ground. A quick breakfast of oatmeal bars ended in minutes, and once again the weary travelers forced their feet to carry them onward.

  While the sun’s rays failed to reach them through the canopy of leaves above, its heat was unavoidable. Mixed with the moisture of the swamp, Mike felt as if he was walking through a thick wall of heavy mist. A heavy mist that smelled exactly like what he thought a swamp would smell like. The dull ache in his legs paled in comparison to the burning strain in his lungs.

  At several junctures, the trail would branch into narrower stretches, but Mike believed it wise to stick with what he assumed to be the main trail. Eventually, they came to a long wooden boardwalk that was raised several feet above the ground. Stepping up to the structure, Mike could see the vast pockets of actual swamp that dotted the surrounding area. They continued along for the better part of an hour. Occasionally, one from the group would stop and point towards one type of wildlife or another. The bridging boardwalk allowed them to spy several alligators that glided slowly just below the surface of the bog water.

  Initially, Mike joined the others as they marveled at the slightly exposed eyes and snout that preceded the shadowy body beneath the water. His interest, however, waned when his mind connected the submerged predator with the monsters of the land. Tilian Virus, he thought grimly. Reptilian death all around us.

  Time slipped by quickly, and the boardwalk soon ended and opened up into a wide, wood-planked pavilion. A large building filled Mike’s line of sight. Green letters over the main doors identified it as the Blair Audubon Center. Instinctively, Mike reached for one of the Glocks holstered across his chest. Fear of alligators may no longer be an issue, but now they had returned to the man-made world and the dangers it contained. Sweeping through the vast building took little time as much of it was large open areas ideal for tours and exhibitions.

  “Scout the area around us,” Mike told Andrew and Matt. “But stay in ears
hot.” As the duo dropped their packs and took off, Mike helped Erik to the smooth floor of the front hall. The nighttime jog and morning hike had taken a great deal out of the man, and Mike could see the exhaustion in his eyes.

  “We need to change the dressing,” he explained as he slipped the jacket off Erik and handed it to Michelle. She had already retrieved the medical kit from Matt’s pack and exchanged it for the jacket. Erik clenched his jaw as Mike worked to unwind the blood-stained bandage. The heat from Erik’s body concerned him each time his hand grazed Erik’s skin. The day was unseasonably warm, or seasonably common Mike realized, but Erik’s body temperature seemed feverishly elevated.

  With the bandage off, Mike examined the wound. Michelle had done a superior job stitching the entry and exit wounds, especially since she had worked by flashlight. He unscrewed the cap from the alcohol and poured a stream directly over the needlework. Understandably, Erik groaned deep in his throat from the sting.

  “Skin looks good,” Mike began, hoping to distract Erik from the pain. “I don’t see any signs of infection, but you’re going to start on the penicillin we have just in case.” The kit provided a week’s worth of dosage, but Mike hoped the center would have additional medical supplies. Rewrapping the wound with fresh bandages, Mike fished out the bottle of penicillin and handed two pills to Erik. As he washed them down with water, Andrew and Matt came racing back into the center.

  Mike readied himself for action when he saw them nearly fall over each other trying to reach him. Rising from the floor, he was about to question them, when both men began speaking excitedly.

  “There’s five cars…” Andrew began.

  “…untouched and keys in the visor…” Matt broke in.

  “…tested two and they started right up…”

  “…full tanks, and extra jugs in the shed…”

  The two men continued to explode with information almost to the point of incomprehension. From the jumble, however, Mike had heard enough and could feel the corners of his mouth turn up into a wide smile. The moment washed over them and the four standing hugged and shouted while Erik wrestled with Gazelle in his lap, humans and canine celebrating with abandon the discovery that might well save their lives.