by C. J. Boyle
The doctor shook his head, “Dump her onto the floor and shield yourself?”
Brody’s eyes went wide, “Wouldn’t that be like throwing a cat into the bathtub?”
Wallace stifled a laugh, “Good analogy.” He considered for a moment. “Close your eyes and pretend to be asleep. Let go of her.” Brody furrowed his brow a little confused but he did what he was told. Dr. Wallace got to his feet and walked the few steps over to them and put a hand on Kera’s shoulder. He shook her gently. “Kera,” he whispered, “Kera. Wake up.” She opened her eyes and looked at him. Her eyes went wide when she realized, first where she was, second… where she was. He grabbed her by the forearm and guided her up. “You were molesting Brody while you slept. It’s time to get up.”
Brody couldn’t help it, he busted out laughing. “Wallace, you dick.” He sat up and looked at Kera. “He’s lying. You weren’t molesting me. I liked it.”
Kera’s mouth dropped open, “Excuse me?”
Brody put his hands up. “That came out wrong!” He shook his head. “So so wrong.”
“Alright, children, that’s enough.” Wallace took Kera by the elbow and gently pulled her to her feet. “We’ve got some trouble.” He turned in the close quarters and walked two steps to the monitors. Kera followed him. Brody leaned in close behind her so that he could see. She briefly looked at him out of the corner of her eye and then back to the monitor. She couldn’t help noticing that she could smell him all over herself. It was distracting. They looked at the large flat screen monitor. It was filled with dozens and dozens of tiny video boxes. Wallace poked one with his finger, isolated it, then with his thumb and forefinger he flipped it open wide. It showed one guard and two inmates sitting on the floor of a walk-in refrigerator.
“Carl, Mammy, and Rose.” Dr. Wallace looked at Kera to gauge her reaction. She didn’t look pleased. He isolated another video box and opened it. “And this is the view just outside that refrigerator.” About half a dozen Links were lying on the floor in a pile just outside.
“Are they dead?” Kera squinted at the screen to see if she could see signs of life.
“Asleep.” Brody chimed in from behind her. “Go back to Carl.”
Wallace opened the previous box showing Carl again. Carl was a very smart but very zealous rookie. He was a black man from “the hood” and was determined to be a good role model for his three younger brothers. He was sitting on the floor with his head in his hands. Rose was sitting next to him leaning against some shelves. She was everyone’s grandma. A sixty-year-old white woman with gray hair as long as she was tall rolled up into a bun. She appeared to be sleeping but she could have just as easily been dead. Mammy paced back and forth looking like she was ready to bust out and kick some butt.
Wallace handed Brody his radio. “I tried contacting him already but the radio doesn’t work in here.”
Brody pointed at the screen, “Naw, man. See the mic in the corner? Hit it.” Dr. Wallace poked the microphone for him. The icon turned green. He leaned in a little, "Carl? Can you hear me, buddy?"
Carl instantly got to his feet and started looking around, trying to find where the voice came from. "Brody? Is that you?"
"Yeah, man. Long time no see. So, how's it been goin'?" Brody laughed.
Carl finally located the camera. He walked toward it and looked straight into it. "Aw, man, it's been great, yo! I be hangin' with my homies!" He smiled and gestured to Rose and Mammy. He let the smile drain away from his face and he put his hands together in prayer towards the camera. "Please tell me that you're coming to get us out of here?"
Brody didn't hesitate, "Yeah, man. Just sit tight. I'll get you. I promise."
Carl nodded, "I believe you, Bro."
Doctor Wallace poked the microphone on the screen shutting it off. Brody stared at it for a moment. "Those better not be his last words." He turned to the Doc, "What do we know about these things?"
Wallace isolated the video box showing the Links sleeping in a pile just outside where Carl and the two prisoners were trapped. He flipped it open with his thumb and forefinger. "Not much. Before yesterday all the changes that the virus made were actually good. They are more able to tolerate extreme temperatures - cold or hot. They could see exceptionally well in the dark. They could lift three times more weight than a normal human being." The doctor shook his head trying to remember any information that might be of use to them. He sighed.
Brody didn't like what he was hearing. "Any vulnerabilities that we can take advantage of?"
"They don't like bright light." Kera chimed in, "Like Gremlins. Their eyes are sensitive."
Brody looked at the doctor, "Gremlins? What the hell is she talking about?"
Wallace looked up at Brody and grimaced, "Everyone knows what a gremlin is."
"Look, this is fun and all but I have to go find Charlie." Kera turned toward the door.
As she put her hand on it Brody grabbed it away. He held her arm by the wrist and looked her in the eye. "First things first."
Minutes later the three of them crept slowly down the hall. Their eyes opened wide looking into every corner and through every open doorway. They all held the high-powered flashlights that each guard at the prison was issued as a standard part of their uniform. Kera tried to be brave but it was very hard after the night they had. The hallway smelled like a mixture of shit and blood. She felt sick and weak. Each step she took made her tremble. She couldn't hear anything except her own heartbeat. Any second a Link was going to jump out at her. As hard as her heart was beating at the moment, it was entirely possible she'd have a heart attack and die before a Link could actually take a bite of her.
Brody towered above both Kera and the doctor as they shuffled slowly down the hall. Even so it was as if they were one being moving in unison. If he stopped, they stopped. If he moved, they moved. He held his gun as he scanned the hallway back and forth. His eyes fell on a spot where something terrible obviously happened. The remnants of blood on the floor and wall. He didn't want to ask the question but it had to get out of him. "Where are all the bodies?" There were none. Once they got to the end of the hall the stairwell waited for them. The stairwell would be the darkest part of the building. If there was a Link in the building, it was probably in there.
Dr. Wallace stared at the door as the dread started creeping up inside of him. "Can't we just jump out a window or something?"
"We're three stories up." Brody shook his head.
"I'm good with a few broken bones." Wallace frowned with a sigh as he reached for the door latch. "I really don't want to do this."
Brody looked at Kera and then back to the doctor. "Man up."
~ The Mountain ~
Deep in the heart of Norad, Colonel Cockran stood behind a dozen or so rows of dedicated men and women sitting at computers. All of them with very somber expressions. All of them very tired. High up on the walls were large monitors depicting the state of the world. He liked to call it 'The Command Center.' Cockran was focused on the one in the middle. It was showing a real-life horror movie. Video from the previous night played. Links ran around like animals attacking and killing any human or animal that moved. He watched as four police officers fired on a bunch of Links attacking an old lady. The bullets entered their bodies just as they would any human.
They caused just as much damage as it would to a human. The Links fell in the streets and died. Eventually, the officers ran out of bullets and were overwhelmed by Links who shredded them like they were paper. Blood poured from their bodies as if it were water from a faucet. Someone from the floor retched and then sobbed. Cockran turned to see a young officer turn away from the screen.
"That's enough. Shut it off." Cockran looked at his tired staff. He knew he should dismiss half of them so they could get some much-needed rest but he couldn't do it just yet. He needed to get things squared away. He watched as Reese approached him. He was thirty, lean and mean, physically but a loyal puppy dog emotionally. He looked broken but he pushed on.
Reese saluted and stopped in front of him. "Sir."
"We need to get some public service announcements out there. We need the cities evacuated before I give the order." Cockran looked Reese in the eye. Reese held his gaze. He nodded. Cockran walked down the hall to his office and Reese followed.
"Sir, I got a few reports back about the nuke teams." Reese closed the door as they entered the office.
Cockran sat down behind his desk. "And?"
"We have twelve reporting back that successful shutdowns have been initiated. But as you know, you can't just turn off a nuclear reactor. The rods take several months to cool." Reese looked at the couch.
Cockran read his mind. He motioned for him to sit. "What about the hackers?"
Reese smiled. "They managed to take control of five of them and start the shutdown procedures. They think they may be able to do it with eight more of the older, antiquated ones."
Cockran nodded again. "What does that leave? Thirty or so?" He shook his head. "Managing the apocalypse is hard." He knew Reese well enough to know he was concerned about something. "Reese?"
"Sir. This facility can take on at least a thousand more people. Fifteen hundred if we replace the Links we booted before "The Turn."
"Absolutely not. Military men and women and their families will undoubtedly be headed here for safe haven and we owe it to them. We can't do that if there is no room." Cockran obviously felt very passionate about the matter.
Reese scooted to the edge of the couch. "But Sir," he sighed, "that means you're asking our troops to leave people to die. Kids, Sir. Leaving kids to die."
Cockran's eyes glazed over as if he was imagining himself doing such a thing. He knew he couldn't. Which means he couldn't ask his men to do it either. He suddenly looked up and raised his hands. "The Academy."
Reese smiled in appreciation, "That's brilliant, Sir."
"Yeah," the Colonel nodded, "have it cleared out, cleaned up. Reinforce the perimeter, and start moving people in, ASAP." He tapped the desk and stood up, "I'm going to the basement to see my wife." Wife. He had trouble saying that word. She wasn't his wife anymore. She was something else. A savage animal. He loved his wife. He mourned her. No, that thing wasn't his wife. It was a wolf or an alligator. When a wolf or an alligator makes a meal out of a child people go crazy. They hunt it down and string it up by its tail. But if one could remove emotion from the equation, one would realize that the wolf just wanted something to eat. Reese looked up at him. The Colonel guessed that it was because he had been standing there stuck in thought for longer than he should have been. Cockran looked at the floor and cleared his throat. "Make sure those public service announcements go out before the cities start to lose power." As he walked out of the room he heard Reese's, "Yes, Sir."
Cockran walked briskly down the hall hoping that no one would approach him. He made it to the elevator and got in quickly. He punched the button praying the doors would close and he would get a second or two to himself. When he was briefed the night before he was informed of the timeline of the apocalypse. They weren't actually calling it the apocalypse but they might as well be. Nearly half of all humans had turned into Links. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason as to why some people changed and some didn't. According to the experts, when the Links "turned" and started attacking and eating everything that moved, they would probably succeed in killing half of the humans that were left. Leaving barely two billion people worldwide. He had been on the phone with seven world leaders that morning and the statistics were the same. Mankind was being exterminated. Everyone knew that one day the human race would come to an end. And everyone knew it would be humans that caused it. But no one knew it would be like this.
It would take approximately three days for most of the cities to lose power because no one would be maintaining the power plants. Which is why he sent out teams to shut down the nuclear power plants. Who wants Chernobyl times fifty during the apocalypse? With no power, there will be no access to the internet. Cell phones would cease to function even if you could charge them. There wasn't enough time to prepare. In the last few weeks, he stockpiled satellite phones, food, and weapons. What more could a boy want?
He stared at her with indifference. After the squirrel incident, he convinced his wife to accompany him to Norad under the guise that they were having an Officer’s Ball. Lillian had put her favorite red dress on and did her makeup just the way she would have if she hadn’t been a Link. He had known something bad was coming. He didn’t know what it was but it was going to be bad. Lillian cried and looked at him with those beautiful blue eyes of hers that were still the same as they always had been. He’d betrayed her. It was something that he would have never done. Not ever. He loved her more than he loved anyone. He had tried to console her but she got angry and slapped him across the face. He could almost feel the sting of it even then.
He watched her lunge toward him as if she could attack him through the glass. She had been in the cell with two other women when they “turned”. Faced with the fact that there was no other food they attacked each other. No one was willing to open the cage to separate them. Lillian was the victor. Lucky him. He knew she was gone. His Lillian didn’t exist anymore. She didn’t even look human anymore. Her skin wasn’t pink anymore. Instead, it was a dull gray. There was no hair anywhere on her body. Unless you were carefully scrutinizing her, you wouldn’t even know she was female. Her chest was almost flat and her vaginal area was almost smooth. He supposed there had to be a hole down there, but he wouldn’t be checking for that anytime soon. She also appeared to be growing a tail. These Links were starting to look more and more like a mixture between an alligator and an ape. She tried to lunge at him again. This time she threw herself up against the glass giving herself a bloodied lip. His lovely Lillian. A monster. He sighed and nodded to the camera. As he expected, the glass darkened and he could no longer see her.
He walked down the long white hallway toward the lab. When he finally reached the door, a young guard saluted him, “Sir.” He opened the door for the Colonel. Cockran tried like hell not to look like someone had just died when in his mind, someone did. As soon as he entered the lab he saw Doctor Decker. She was a crass woman in her fifties who... was never afraid of speaking her mind or hurting anyone’s feelings. Even so, her eyes were soft and she shook her head softly when she saw him. “I’m so sorry, George.”
Cockran cracked a slight smile, “I told you not to call me George.”
She smiled back, “And I told you that I’m not military. I’ll call you fuck-face if I want.”
“You know the only reason I keep you around, right?” The smile fell away from his face. She looked past him for a moment and nodded. “Here.” He handed her some papers.
“What’s this?” She shook her head.
“It’s my wife’s living will.” They locked eyes for a moment. “It says that if she’s ever in a coma or a vegetative state that I should pull the plug. And she wants her body donated to science.”
“George, this isn’t the same and you know it.”
“That... is not my wife! She doesn’t exist anymore!” He pointed behind him and practically spit in anger. “And nothing is going to bring her back,” he added softly.
“You don’t know that,” Decker whispered.
Cockran jammed his hands in his pockets and nodded. “Yes, I do.” He considered his words carefully. “Look, I’m not saying that you should kill just for the sake of killing her. I’m saying…that if during the course of your research you need a…specimen. And it would result in the specimen's death...Then…”
“I get it,” she cut him off there.
“Okay.” It seemed like a really bad way to end a really bad conversation, but there it was.
“Good.” He walked towards the elevators and his sat-phone rang. “Cockran.” He pressed the UP button. “I don’t care if you have to burn Hawaii from one end to the other. I want that island Link free by the end of the week so we can start sh
ipping people there.” He suddenly turned around and yelled across the room. “Hey! Can those fuckers swim?”
~ The Rescue ~
Brody, Wallace, and Kera had made it to the Watch Tower and Armory without even seeing one Link. Brody scanned his badge and pressed his index finger on the scanner. The familiar click of the door unlocking prompted Brody to pull it open. They all went inside. Brody felt pretty confident that there were no Links inside the Armory. No one should have been in there when the shit hit the proverbial fan. He glanced at the doctor for a moment. His eyes were darting from one side of his face to the other. If Brody were to scream BOO at that moment, poor Doc Wallace would probably pee himself. Kera, on the other hand, didn’t look afraid at all. She kept a watchful eye out like all of them did, but she looked prepared to bash in a head with the flashlight she carried like a bat. He led them down the hall to the armory. He scanned his badge again and pressed his finger against the scanner again. He let them walk inside ahead of him. He felt so much happier just knowing he was going to have a shotgun in his hands…even if it was only going to be loaded with pellets.