by Maxey, Phil
Bill nodded. “What you experienced was a lifelike recreation of an important event.”
“VR without the goggles,” said Evan.
“Why the tablet showed you that particular place I do not know,” said Bill.
Another symbol on Evan’s screen locked in place, with the word ‘Ruler’ next to it.
“How long will it take so we know all the symbols?” said Joel.
Bill frowned, and Evan looked uneasy. “With this amount of computer power, maybe twenty years! The computer has so far scanned over ten thousand unique symbols and is still finding more,” said Evan.
“It’s a language unlike any I’ve seen or I might say, anybody has seen. It’s multidimensional… we will be able to decipher maybe ten symbols per day.”
Joel looked back at the screen. “So far we have, ‘Memory,’ ‘ruler,’ ‘fire,’ and ‘serpent’…”
Bill produced a wry smile. “Maybe avoid touching the ‘fire’ symbol.”
Joel smiled.
Bill’s face visibly turned grave. “I doubt Copeland will stop looking for the case or his son. We will have to deal with him, once and for all, at some point.”
“I know.”
Over the next hour, fields of dying crops gave way to suburban areas, which gave way to industrial forecourts and multi-story office buildings. The convoy had to slow more often to avoid jackknifed trucks and abandoned cars.
“It’s looking pretty thick up ahead,” said Marina.
“Are we in Denver?” said Joel.
“Have been for twenty minutes,” she replied. “Do you want me to take an exit to avoid the cars, or try and stay on the highway?”
Joel moved forward and leaned down to see out of the windscreen. Vehicles of different sizes and colors laid forgotten across the freeway. He tried plotting a path through them in his mind, but kept hitting a stopping point. “We’re going to have to get off.” He went back to the table and clicked on his radio. “We’re taking the next exit. Stay close, and don’t stop unless you have to. Over.”
Those with radios in the other vehicles acknowledged.
Skyscrapers appeared in the distance as Marina led them to the right, under a green sign that stated ‘Downtown.’
They soon arrived at a wide junction.
“Just keep—”
“I know where to go,” replied Marina to Joel’s suggestion.
They passed apartment blocks, schools, and a bridge on a road which seemed to be a collision course for the most built-up part of the city.
Joel wanted to tell the woman driving that they could stop, that she could check on her sister’s apartment, but he felt as if they were driving into a viper’s nest, and they needed to keep moving.
Jasper sat bolt upright, then pointed to the tall buildings ahead. He looked around him anxiously trying to get the adults attention.
Joel placed his hand on the child’s shoulder. “I know, I can feel them too.”
Jasper placed his palms together and rested his head briefly on them.
“Yes, they’re sleeping.”
Like the sound of crickets on a summer day, the sounds of thousands of vamps scratched at the back of Joel’s mind, but he also sensed that they did not have a coherent thought between them. So far, the convoy was undetected.
“How long before we are through the city,” he said.
“Maybe another fifteen minutes if we keep to the main roads.”
Marina turned the convoy left and right down narrow roads, with buildings looming over them.
Joel looked at the countless windows as they crept by, knowing what was beyond them, and hoping none of the shadows would start moving.
The sound of the vehicles echoed around the empty streets.
Suddenly, Joel felt it. Like the domains in a magnet all aligning to form an unstoppable force. “They know we’re here. Go faster.”
Marina pushed down on the gas and they sped along the tight roads into the heart of the city. She looked in the mirror. “One of the cars is falling behind.”
Joel ran to the back room and looked out the rear window. Shannon was doing the same.
A red sedan was slowing and was already fifty yards behind.
Joel clicked on his radio. “Anyone know why that car’s falling behind? Over.”
“We don’t know. Are we stopping? Over,” said Anna.
“They got some kind of engine problem,” said a gruff voice from another vehicle.
The sound of shattering glass rang out around them. Splinters crashed onto the sidewalks.
“What do you want me to do?” shouted Marina from the front. “Should I stop?”
No guns.
“No, keep going…” the words limped from his mouth. Every part of him wanted to stop, but he could feel them. Feel their hunger from the buildings they were surrounded by. Stopping would mean certain death. He clicked on his radio. “No one stops. Keep following us.”
Over the increased engine revving, the clattering of metal poles and beams came from a building site. From it, two vamps ran across the road and were promptly slammed into by the RV, despite Marina’s attempt to avoid them.
“They’re coming out of the buildings!” shouted Bill, looking out of the side windows.
Marina skidded the RV around another corner at a junction, and then slammed on the brakes. “No—”
The full fifty foot width of the road was submerged in a sea of vamps moving towards them.
She threw the RV into reverse, but they only moved a few feet before slamming up against Anna’s sedan behind that was trying to do the same.
“Get us out of here, Marina!” shouted Joel, looking down the street to the hungry throng descending on them.
The other three vehicles fanned out around them and carried on going straight. Vamps burst out of every store front and apartment, swarming over them like ants attacking a larger prey.
As the vamps clung onto the cars’ roofs and windows, they swerved. One slammed into a streetlight, while the others just slowed to a crawl as the windows exploded and vamps sliced their claws at whoever was inside.
Joel looked to the only possible exit. The road to their right, which still only had a handful of creatures running along it. “Take the right!” He went to click on his radio as Marina threw the RV into a sharp right, but Anna’s car was already speeding off in that direction.
Marina slammed down on the gas and they soon followed.
The RV rocked left and right as vamps slammed into the sides. The window next to the table shattered and claws filled the space.
Joel and Evan moved forward in a blur, each battering the vamps back.
The sedan and RV roared along the road, weaving as groups of vamps appeared from the expensive-looking stores and office buildings.
“Which way?” came Anna’s voice from the radio.
Her sedan screeched to a stop as did the RV close behind it. They were on a bridge. Opposite them on the far side a continuous stream of vamps converged creating a wave which rolled towards them.
Anna began to turn the car around, as Marina tried to do the same.
“Look!” shouted Shannon, pointing out of the rear window from where they came.
Joel’s shoulders momentarily sank. Vamps. Thousands, each one stepping over another, all desperate to get onto the bridge. To feed.
“Ideas!” shouted Marina to those behind her.
Jess pushed herself into her mother’s arms, who clutched her tight. Jasper moved to her too, and she held him as well. Marina looked back to Joel, her eyes wide.
Joel kicked open the door and ran onto the sidewalk. The river was slow moving, but thirty feet below. As the others emerged behind him, he tried to do the calculations as to whether the humans would survive the fall.
Marina, holding Jess and Jasper in her arms, looked into Joel’s eyes and nodded. She tightened her grip on Flint’s leash.
They all stepped closer to the wall as the air filled with the furious cravings of
the creatures wanting to devour them.
“What’s that?” said Shannon, pointing into the air downstream.
The hybrids could see what the humans couldn’t, but soon would. Helicopters, of the gunship variety were flying towards them.
The vamps scrambled forward onto the bridge. Joel whipped his head between the death that was about to consume them and the military hardware.
“What do we do?” said Anna, standing with them.
Before Joel could answer, molten streams let forth from the Apaches and tore through the vamps. Legs, arms, and distorted heads disintegrated as the choppers hovered just in front of the bridge.
A third, much larger twin-engined helicopter appeared behind them and rapidly descended, then landed on the bridge. A group of soldiers sprang from the back, firing as they ran forward.
One of them ran forward to Joel and the others. “I’m Sergeant Hickman, all of you, get in the chopper, now!”
Joel and the rest sprinted forward and ran up the small ramp and into the large space inside. The soldiers quickly followed, and the world outside started to shift downwards as they rose into the air.
Joel looked out of the small round window to the bridge as the other choppers moved off and the vamps swarmed over the vehicles.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Most of the soldiers inside the helicopters cave-like cabin avoided eye contact with their passengers, but Joel noticed the man that introduced himself as the sergeant kept looking at him, as if he was sizing him up.
“Where we going?” shouted Joel, trying to be heard over the loud engines.
“We’ll be there soon,” said Hickman.
Joel looked across to Bill, who was clutching his backpack around his chest.
Marina was seated next to Jess, whose hand she was holding, and her daughter was doing the same to Jasper next to her.
Hardin, looking hot and red-faced, reached inside a side jacket pocket and pulled a small bottle from it, took a sip, then put it back.
Joel turned in his seat and watched as they left the city behind, and moved over suburban areas. Mountains sat to their right, which Joel presumed ended at Cheyenne mountain.
He looked to the direction they were heading. A few miles off, a concentration of roads and buildings heralded another city.
Colorado Springs.
The helicopter started to descend as they moved closer to the craggy rocks of the mountain, and Joel turned back around in his seat as some of the soldiers talked to each other.
The humans inside could not hear their words as they were drowned out by the cabin noise, but the hybrids heard them clearly.
“Wonder what McClure will make of this lot,” said one heavily equipped man.
“Some of them look like they could be infected,” whispered the man next to him in reply.
The helicopter landed with a small bump, and the soldiers sprang to their feet, most holding their rifles but not pointing them at anyone.
Hickman walked forward to Joel, as the ramp lowered at the back of the cabin. “Follow us.”
Joel nodded and the group from the bridge walked forward, emerging into the early evening as the sun started its dive below the horizon.
They were in what looked like a large parking lot, except behind a circular landing area there were more helicopters and military vehicles, and beyond them a series of large white tents, with the words ‘processing’ on a sign above them. To their left were two modern large three-story buildings, and behind them, the mountain towering into the darkening sky.
As they all walked forward they were met by Hickman and another soldier.
“Do you have any guns, knifes, weapons of any sort on your person?” said Hickman as Joel got to him.
Joel shook his head.
“Put your arms out.” The other soldier patted Joel’s arms, body, and legs.
After they were all checked they followed the two soldiers across the landing pad to the entrance of the first tent, just as a woman in army fatigues appeared. Her name badge proclaimed ‘Dr. L. Gentry.’
“They’re all yours, Doc,” said Hickman as he and the other soldier walked away.
“My name is Doctor Laura Gentry. And my job is to make sure all of you are cared for appropriately.”
“I’m not infected!” blurted Hardin.
Gentry smiled. “We will be running tests on all of you to determine if any of you have been infected by the scourge virus. The test will only take twenty-four hours, but during that time you will have to be held in the tent behind me, in quarantine conditions.” She stepped back and pointed towards the plastic flaps which was the entry point into the long flat tented area.
Joel, Marina, and Evan looked at each other while Hardin took a step away from them.
Joel wasn’t able to read the other hybrids’ minds, but he could tell they were all in agreement. They had to be upfront about who they were and hope for the best.
Joel stepped forward towards the doctor. The soldier standing guard next to her moved forward as well, but the doctor held her hand up and the soldier stepped back.
“My name is Joel Garret. Is there somewhere we could talk in private.”
The doctor looked unsure but nodded, and they both walked ten or so feet around the side of the tent. The guard walked to the end so he could keep watch on both of them.
“Are you infected, Mr Garret? Or you know some of your group are?” said Gentry.
“Umm… not exactly.”
“Then, what is it?”
“Have you come across any people who were… not completely vamps, but not completely human either?”
Gentry’s eyes momentarily widened. “You mean hybrids?”
Joel nodded.
“No, but the analysis we have done tell us such a variation is possible. It’s just extremely rare… why?”
“Because I am one.”
*****
Joel sat inside a small room. He had entered handcuffed and blindfolded, but still was able to tell he was deep within the mountain. The constant tingling he would feel from the star above, even when he was inside a building, was gone. The air also smelt musty and damp. A stench he recognized from his own time spent underground.
He knew where he was. It was an interrogation room. He had been in many over the years, although he was always the one asking the questions.
On the small table in front of him was a glass of water. He pulled it towards himself with his bound hands and took a sip. Since his change, he had noticed that water tasted even blander than usual, but he still welcomed the coolness.
He glanced at the wall-length dark glass window and sighed.
Being watched.
He looked at his watch. Roughly thirty minutes had passed since they pulled his blindfold off.
He felt the slight air vibrations before the door opened. A middle-aged woman and similar aged man appeared. The man was smartly dressed, wearing a suit which looked like it was from the 1950s, a large moustache hid his top lip. The woman wore a white shirt. The top few buttons were undone, revealing a silver chain. Joel guessed a crucifix was on the end of it.
She placed a black folder down on the table and sat, opening it to the first page. “My name is Dr. Rachel Frost, and the man leaning against the wall is Dr. Josh Coffey.”
She looked down at the first page of printed information. Even with it being upside down, Joel recognized his FBI personnel file.
“You were a good operator,” she said without looking up.
“Still am.”
She raised her eyes to meet his. “But you’re no longer human.”
“What does it mean to be human?”
She looked back down. “It says here you had a wife and child. Where are they now?”
Joel looked away. “Dead.”
“Did you kill them?”
He flicked his head around to face hers. “No.”
She turned the page. “I guess I’ll have to take your word for that.”
J
oel quelled his anger. “I was vacationing with my wife in LA when the scourge hit. She… was killed by a vamp. I tried to get to my parents home where my son was staying, but I was too late, they were dead when I arrived.”
She stayed looking down at the page. “You have my condolences.”
“Look, if I was a threat I wouldn’t have come here.”
She looked up again. “From what the sergeant told me, you had no choice. The soldiers saved all of you?”
“This was our destination. We were bringing the case here, in the hope that some form of government still functioned out of the Cheyenne base.”
Rachel briefly looked at the man standing with his arms folded.
“Now you got the case, you can thank myself and the others for bringing it to you. There are people who wanted it for themselves.”
“Daniel Copeland?” said Josh.
“You know about Copeland?”
Rachel smiled. “We know about a lot of things, Mr. Garret.”
“Well, great, then we can start to turn this show around. You know about the tablet?”
Josh uncrossed his arms. “What about the tablet?”
Joel hesitated to reply.
“It’s in your own interest to tell us what you know,” said Rachel.
Joel held his cuffed arms up.
“Well, you are quite unusual, we need—”
Joel pulled his wrists apart, snapping the metal links. Rachel sat back in her chair and Josh looked at the door, which opened. A soldier appeared, pointing his M4 at Joel.
Joel smiled. “I’ll tell you all you want to know, but first I want to see my friends.”
A short while later, Joel was led into a long room, one of many with a low ceiling and lights that looked as if they were installed during the cold war. Beds sat along each wall. The others were seated on them. Jess ran up and threw her arms around his waist. “Err… hi, kid.”
“As you can see, your friends are quite safe,” said Rachel behind him.
“You okay?” said Marina.
“I’m fine.” He looked to the older woman next to him. “When are they getting their things back?”