The Darwin Protocol: A Thriller (The Last Peak Book 1)

by William Oday

  Iridia yanked up the sweatshirt and wiggled into them. Right there in the living room. Like it was her own private changing room.

  Mason looked away and caught Beth watching him as he did. Her arms crossed and lips pressed tight together.

  “We have a bathroom, Iridia. Feel free to use it for changing or whatever.”

  Iridia adjusted and primped the ratty old clothes like it was a fashion shoot.

  “No need.”

  Beth exhaled, in a pointedly exasperated way that nobody could miss.

  Iridia did. She combed fingers through her hair and then put it up in a bun with a red hair band.

  “Go Trojans. That’s UCLA, right?”

  Beth groaned and shook her head. “No, the Trojans are USC.”

  Iridia rolled her eyes like the correction was so minor as to not merit a mention in the first place.

  “It’s all sports stuff.”

  Mason stifled a laugh.

  Beth turned on her heel and marched to the kitchen.

  “Go check on the cat. I’ll get your juice.”

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWO

  One small bite of bread with butter tasted delicious, so rich Mason could barely swallow it. He washed it down with more OJ. Liquid wasn’t a problem. He set the glistening triangle of toasted wheat back on the saucer.

  “Where’s Theresa?”

  “She’s sleeping in our bed with Elio.”

  The hackles on Mason’s back prickled up. His jaw clenched and teeth ground together. The next bite of toast forgotten.

  Elio was a good kid. And Mason was overjoyed that he’d made it through the night. But that sure as hell didn’t mean he got to sleep in the same bed as his daughter!

  As weak as he was, his brain urged him to stomp in there and toss the injured boy out on his ear.

  Beth giggled.

  “You are such a dad.”

  Mason hardly heard.

  “Relax. He’s in no shape to do anything that might set off your dad alarms.”

  “No more sleeping together.”

  “What are you worried about? What could they be doing in there? All alone. No adult to monitor their blossoming desires.”

  Mason knew she was playing him, and he still got more worked up. But he knew how to play games, too.

  “Iridia seemed to really like my sweatshirt. Fit her well, too, don’t you think?”

  Beth’s game face cracked and she scowled.

  “Don’t you even start that!”

  They both giggled and she snuggled up under his arm. Their lips touched and her needed warmth spread through him. She was the most amazing woman he’d ever known.

  Even if she could be a little jealous for no reason.

  The enjoyment of their intimate moment shattered with a scream coming from outside. Mason thought it was Iridia, but he couldn’t be sure. He was certain it came from next door.

  “Help me up.”

  Beth paused while the doctor and the wife inside her battled to make the call. She helped him up and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. He was grateful she understood when a protective doctor needed to compromise with a protective husband, father, and neighbor.

  Biting through the sharp, stabbing pain in his left calf, Mason got to his feet. With a little help from his doctor, he made his way down the front steps, remembering to skip the second one even in his diminished state.

  Especially now, when a slip would assuredly send him on a collision path with the pavement.

  They walked next door and found the door open. As they entered, Iridia nearly bowled them over on her way out. Her face washed white with panic. Words stammered and stumbled out of her mouth, over and on top of each other like an avalanche.

  “I came, the door, walked in, was open.” She waved toward Oscar and Mabel’s bedroom. “Just walked in.”

  Of course she would just walk in. The world was an open door for her.

  “I can’t, alive, he’s there.”

  Mason held her shoulders, trying to calm and bring her back to the ground.

  She went silent and looked at each of them with eyes wide as dinner plates.

  “The blood.”

  A warbling scream burbled up in her throat.

  “The blood.”

  It was clear she would offer no more.

  “Stay here.”

  He walked toward the bedrooms in the back, Beth following along in his wake. As he drew near, the sweet stink of putrid flesh assaulted his senses. He knew the smell. He’d fought through a devastated city choked with it.

  Death.

  He gagged and covered his nose and mouth with the blanket.

  “Mason,” Beth said in a whisper at his ear. Her hand pulled on his shoulder.

  He stepped into the open doorway and wished he hadn’t.

  Mabel Crayford lay sprawled on the bed, posed indecorously with her legs sprawled wide. There was no shame. That and every other human emotion no longer remained. Dark blood soaked the bed sheets and congealed puddles covered the floor. Crusted over open sores covered her gray skin. Like the skin simply split apart and spilled bile onto the bed. Her lips were drawn up tight above her teeth, showing too much gum. The torment of her suffering frozen on her face.

  Oscar sat next to her, his back to the door. He wore what once might have been a white t-shirt. It was mostly black with dried blood. It stuck to his torso in damp patches from sores seeping pus underneath. More weeping wounds oozed from his exposed skin.

  The stench poisoned the air. Mason tasted it, swallowed it. Breathed it into his lungs.

  His stomach heaved and he fought to keep vomit down. He swallowed hard.

  “Oscar.” He waited. “Oscar.”

  Oscar didn’t respond. He dipped a filthy rag into a bowl of dark liquid. He then dabbed at Mabel’s eyes. Or what was once her eyes. Her sockets were crusted black.

  She had not died easily.

  Oscar whispered incoherent words.

  Mason started to take a step into the room and Beth dropped an arm in front of him. She shook her head and mouthed the word No.

  Oh God.

  This was the sickness. The contagion. Whatever the hell it was. The thing affecting those people on TV.

  At the very hospital where Mabel was receiving treatment.

  Mason took a step back and the wood floor creaked.

  Oscar turned. Bright red blood trickled out of his nose, over his lips, and dripped from his chin to the sheets. Huge red veins in his eyes crowded out the whites. The center a black pit.

  Dark streams leaked from his eyes, painting his cheeks variations of red, brown, and black.

  He barely looked human.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THREE

  The old man blinked and wiped at his eyes. The pressure burst fragile veins and fresh blood seeped down his cheeks.

  “Is someone there?”

  He couldn’t see. A small blessing.

  “Oscar, it’s Mason.”

  Are you okay?

  The words almost came out, but he cut them off knowing how absurd the question was. This man was as far from okay as was physically possible.

  “What happened?”

  The old man reached for his wife’s hand, patting the blanket until he found it.

  “How is Mabel? She went quiet some time ago. She needs rest. Some time to get better.”

  Mabel wasn’t going to get better. She was gone.

  “I won’t leave her now. Not after fifty years together. Where she goes, I go.”

  Mason wondered if he knew what he was saying. Because it looked like he was dead right about that.

  “Oscar, what happened?”

  The cloth dropped from his hand and he licked his lips, licking a break in the line of red dripping from his nostrils. The line continued and spilled over his lips in its continuing descent.

  “I went to pick up Mabel this morning and the hospital was a mess. Doctors and nurses running around like chickens with their heads cut off.”

/>   He coughed and blood spewed out onto the filthy sheets. The new addition only visible by the wet sheen it caked on the older, dried areas.

  “They’d moved her and nobody knew where she was. What kind of yahoo operation does that?”

  He shook his head.

  “It took forever to get someone to help me. To find her.”

  He covered his mouth and coughed. A wet, crackling hack. Blood oozed between his fingers.

  “Such a disgrace. The way she was. Unforgivable.”

  He turned back to his wife and ran his fingers along her body until they found her face.

  He continued speaking, his words wet and mushy.

  “I brought her home. So we could be together.”

  He doubled over, hacking and spitting chunks of fibrous slime onto the sheets. A fresh wave of putridity filled the room. His arms went limp, one on each side of his wife. One final hug before going to join her on the other side.

  Beth pulled Mason back.

  He didn’t budge. It didn’t compute. Or maybe it computed too easily. He’d seen gore as bad as this in another place, another time. Mangled bodies left to rot in the streets. Bodies turned inside out like a pair of pants.

  Having endured it before didn’t make it easier now.

  This was closer to home.

  Right next door to home.

  Beth dragged him back down the hall.

  “We can’t be here. We have to leave, Mason.”

  They found Iridia at the entrance and pulled her outside. Mason closed the door, thinking that he’d never walk through it again welcomed by the delicate, rich scent of homemade rhubarb muffins. He’d never sit with Oscar on a lazy Sunday afternoon and hear about how much the world had changed. Hear about the cases he’d won in his long career.

  Oscar either had a perfect record or he never chose to discuss the times he lost.

  The Crayfords had survived wars, depressions, and more. And they’d done it together. Side by side through the best and the worst. As horrific as their end was, Mason was glad that they at least faced it together.

  He wondered what future he and Beth might have to endure.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FOUR

  His chest ached. A suffocating sadness bore down like he was breathing against double the usual gravity.

  Beth crossed over to the Crayfords’ flower bed and plucked the tallest Gerber daisy of the bunch. Its petals shone like sunlight. She carried it back and gently set it by the front door.

  A single flower at the peak of its ephemeral vigor.

  The most pitiable meowing echoed through the closed door.

  Beth cracked it open and Mr. Piddles slunk out, his head low. He howled and sniffed at Beth’s outstretched hand.

  “What are you doing, Beth?”

  Mason had a pretty clear idea. He just didn’t know if it was a good one.

  Beth picked up the rotund cat and crossed back to their driveway. She stopped.

  “Hold up here.”

  She turned to their house. “Theresa! Theresa, come outside!”

  Theresa stumbled out a moment later in her second favorite pajamas. Beth had thrown out the ones she wore last night. This set was long sleeves top and bottom too, thankfully. Mason had never realized how much of a blessing long sleeved pajamas could be. Never realized it until his daughter woke up in bed next to a boy two years her elder.

  “Get the mop bucket and a few rags from the pantry closet. The bleach and a heavy duty, black trash bag from under the kitchen sink. And four towels from my bathroom.”

  Theresa stood there, her brows knitted together in confusion.

  “What are you doing with Mr. Piddles?”

  “Now, Theresa!”

  “Okay. Okay.”

  She reappeared a few moments later with the requested items.

  Beth pointed at a spot ten feet away on the driveway. “Put them there. Don’t come closer!”

  “Okay. What’s going on, Mom?”

  “Just do it, honey. I’ll explain later.”

  Theresa did as she was asked.

  “Get back now.”

  Theresa backed up to the bottom step of the porch.

  “Go inside, Theresa.”

  “Why?”

  “Theresa!”

  She turned and sprinted inside without another word.

  Beth turned to Mason and Iridia.

  “We need to dispose of our clothes and wipe down completely with a bleach solution.”

  “What?” Iridia asked.

  Beth started stripping down.

  “Get naked. Isn’t that what supermodels do?”

  “Often, yes,” Iridia responded without a tinge of sarcasm.

  What a strange world she lived in.

  Then again, the normal world wasn’t all that normal lately.

  Beth set Mr. Piddles on the ground. He sat back on his haunches and watched. The occassional sorrowful meow testament to his grief.

  Mason took the blanket off his shoulders and stretched aching, exhausted muscles. Sharp pain radiated from his calf and numerous places on his back.

  They all peeled out of their respective clothes, right down to their birthday suits. Mason and Beth stood awkwardly, not knowing where to put their hands. Wondering if they should or should not be covering this or that part. Their eyes darted here and there, trying to find a comfortable place to linger and being drawn to places they didn’t consider appropriate.

  Iridia looked as natural as ever. She stood with her hip cocked to the side and her hand resting on it. She was a vision. Utterly confident without a stitch of clothing on. She studied both of their naked bodies without a hint of discomfort.

  “You two keep fit for being so old.”

  Beth’s nostrils flared. “Thanks. I think.”

  She turned and piled their clothes in the trash bag and then knotted it closed. She knelt down by the bucket and measured out capfuls of bleach.

  “One part bleach to eight parts water will kill anything known. Get the hose, Iridia.”

  Iridia brought it over and Beth filled the bucket. The biting antiseptic scent filled the air.

  “We need to scrub every part of our bodies with this solution. Thoroughly. And leave it on for a few minutes.”

  “You want me to put that on my body?” She said it like the bucket contained hydrochloric acid. It wasn’t quite that strong. “That will murder my skin!”

  Beth grabbed a rag and swished it around in the water. Mason couldn’t help but admire the curve of her backside as she knelt there.

  Beth stood up and held a dripping rag out to Iridia. “There are very likely microbes on your skin right now that will murder you. Murder you like they did those poor souls next door.”

  Iridia gulped and her deer legs quivered. She accepted the rag.

  “You have moisturizer, right?”

  She started wiping down her chest and neck.

  “Ugh, it stinks.”

  “That means it’s working.”

  Mason accepted a soaking rag and started scrubbing his shoulders down. Water slid down his back. He winced as the ammonia washed over fresh wounds.

  Beth joined in the cleansing ritual.

  “What are you guys doing?”

  Theresa on the porch. Her eyes wide and jaw dropped open.

  Mason looked at himself, at Beth, at Iridia. They shouted ludicrous. They looked like a high school car wash gone old and illicit.

  “Your mother told you to get inside!”

  Theresa squeaked and flew back through the door.

  They all finished wiping themselves down. All the parts they could reach.

  Mason looked over as Iridia strained to wipe the center of her back. The rag got close but never quite hit right in the middle.

  “Let me help,” he said without thinking.

  He grabbed the rag and scrubbed her back and only when he finished did he feel Beth’s gaze burning holes in his back.

  He turned and her face was red. Her eyes practically
smoking.

  “Just being helpful.”

  And it was true. It wasn’t until he’d swiped her back a few times that his eyes unconsciously dropped lower. Even then, he didn’t let them linger.

  “You’re a saint,” she said. “Mind getting my back?”

  “My pleasure,” he said with a wink.

  Gallows humor. He’d been here before. When the ugliness of the world pushed you to the edge, humor was the thing that kept your toes attached to dirt.

  Mason scrubbed his wife’s back, making damn certain he spent twice as long so there would be no question later.

  He finished and, for a brief moment of black comedy, wondered if he should ask Iridia to scrub his. One look at Beth told him she wouldn’t understand a soldier’s humor.

  Her lack of understanding pleased him. Normal people shouldn’t have to endure so much misery and suffering.

  The thought stopped him cold. He shivered despite the warming morning sun.

  What if the normal world no longer existed?

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIVE

  The Jefferson Hotel

  Washington, D.C.

  Dr. Anton Reshenko touched the ancient silver Dirham in his left pocket. Genghis Khan himself may have once held it in his hand. He rubbed the inscription, marveling at how the coin connected their souls through the ages. A popped blister on the pad of his thumb made it a painful meditation.

  He didn’t stop. Pain was an obstacle to be overcome, like anything else.

  He paced back and forth across the immaculately shined parquet floors in the living area of the Thomas Jefferson suite. The Washington Monument proudly reflected the warm afternoon sun through the open doors to the veranda. There had been many such uncharacteristically warm winter days of late.

  An elaborate chandelier hung from the ceiling in the center of the room. Tiny electric candles, one of the few concessions to a modern sensibility, cast warm light through hundreds of sparkling crystals.

  They’d tried to dump him in a deluxe suite and only acquiesced to reason after he’d threatened to leave.

  The analog clock on the wall indicated his meeting with Senator Rawlings should’ve started three minutes ago. His teeth squeaked as he ground his jaws together.