Missy smiled and nodded.
Faith tapped her on the shoulder. “Okay, let’s get this done.”
“Talk soon,” Missy replied in a hushed voice.
That left Faith standing at the edge of the audience. A quick survey of faces nearby didn’t reveal the person she was searching for, so she casually walked down the aisle next to the wall. When she made it to the front corner, she stopped and looked around some more.
Come on, be in here.
She feared outsiders might have been removed from the SNAKE facility completely. Dr. Johnson had mentioned something about quotas, and he celebrated the fact more scientists had been brought in, but he didn’t say anything about kicking out the reporters.
Benny was nowhere in sight.
Faith walked in front of the stage and tried not to think about all the men with guns a few yards away.
“Dr. Sinclair!” Benny raised his hand to flag her down. He and his wife were about ten rows in, and a few seats away from the middle aisle.
She acknowledged him by walking his way. When she arrived at his row, she sat in an empty seat next to him.
“What brings you down here? Have something to report?” It was a joke, and meant as such, because Benny was in quarantine with the rest of them. “It might be a while before I can pass it along.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get you a scoop, Benny, but I had every intention of letting you in on what we’d found down in the ring. Did they tell you General Smith died saving us all?”
“They said something about that when we were rounded up, but they didn’t give out any details.”
Her heartbeat sped up as she moved closer to doing something sure to get on Dr. Johnson’s bad side. She took a deep breath and gripped the arm of the chair to help her stay calm.
“Benny, what would you say if I had the story of the century? Maybe…ever.”
“Pass,” he said immediately. “I’m like Charlie Brown and the football, doctor. You’ve screwed me over since I came to SNAKE. Now, I’m thankful you got my wife in here, but we’ve done nothing but live under armed guards. I’m beginning to think I jumped the gun on all this. Maybe we should have gone to her mom’s like she wanted.”
“I know it’s tough,” she readily admitted, “but please understand none of that was by choice. General Smith was protective of his operation, and Dr. Johnson’s people make Smith look like a teddy bear. This is literally the first time I’ve been able to talk to you about what’s really happening in here.”
Benny looked at his wife, then up to the stage, and finally back at her.
He whispered. “And what, pray tell, is that?”
She told him everything.
Australia
Dez stayed on the main deck of the Majestic for much of the morning. The ship departed the harbor without her jumping into the water, and Zandre left her alone once he was sure they were too far from land for her to bail.
She did not feel good about her decision.
I’m on my way, Faith.
She had tried calling her big sister, but the network didn’t respond. She had no idea if it was because she was at sea or if the mobile phone network was still jiggered.
After pocketing her phone again, she walked the deck, noting how crates of supplies had been haphazardly stacked everywhere possible. Some of it was marked as food, some as dry goods. Russian letters were printed on one, along with the numbers 7.62x39. By all indications, her people in the Sydney Harbor Foundation had taken her warning to heart, and they had loaded everything they could carry on the boat.
What bothered her was that they had been willing to leave without her.
“No good deed goes unpunished,” she mouthed.
Destiny stood near the bow when the front of the ship rose out of the water a couple of meters. The speed was cut in half as if they’d hit something or run aground.
“Fuck me!”
She tumbled against the railing.
The hard knock caused everything on the deck to shift too, like someone failing to whisk a tablecloth out from under the place settings.
Motion down in the water caught her eye, and it was apparent they’d run into a giant animal. Its gray back was similar to that of a crocodile, although no croc was big enough to be the mammoth thing below.
“What the hell are you?”
She ran along the side rail as the weight of the ship finally forced the monstrosity back under the water. It didn’t appear to move, and it stayed almost directly below her as she jogged toward the back.
The engines growled as if the captain had decided to hit the throttle after contact was made.
“It’s a—” she shouted to anyone who could hear her. “It’s a giant!”
The animal rolled forward as its body slid along the hull, a lot like a baker rolling dough under her palm. It allowed her to get a view of the animal in profile, but it was now about twenty feet under the water, so visibility was far worse.
Men and women ran out of the side compartments, intent on seeing what they’d struck.
The beast continued under the ship as she ran to the rearmost railing to watch it emerge.
“What was it, mate?” a man yelled as he arrived next to her.
There was some red blood swirling in the propeller churn behind them, but the animal wasn’t to be seen. She hoped that meant it was only injured and was still able to swim away.
“I saw it, clear as day, but I don’t have any clue what to tell you. It was big like a whale, tough like a croc, and vulnerable like a fish.”
“And big as an island,” the man added. “Do you know how big it had to be to lift our hull?”
“I guess we’ll never know,” she said dryly.
Destiny watched from the stern for a long time. Mainly to see if the creature would show itself again, but she also noted how far they were from mainland Australia. It was a sliver of gray on the horizon.
“So many new animals to catalog, and here I am running to save myself.”
After pulling out her phone, she tried Faith again.
“Come on, sis. I really need to hear a friendly voice right now.”
Kansas City, MO
“How many police cars do you think we’ve seen?” Connie pointed to another group of law enforcement vehicles speeding the opposite way on the highway.
“Too many to count. Hey, look. They have a fire engine!” The red safety vehicle seemed to have a dozen flashing lights. It went as fast as the cop cars.
“This is all kinds of fucked up, Connie. Where are they all going in such a rush?” It wouldn’t surprise him to see police and fire during the end of the world, but they were all going the same direction on the same highway at the same rate of speed. It was as if a bulletin had been posted on a police-only website and these guys had heeded the call.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, even back in 2003.”
The first thing that came to his mind was from the 1990 Gulf War. He had been a kid at the time, but he remembered the Highway of Death from the news broadcasts. He’d also seen films of it on the History Channel. Allied forces had caught Saddam’s army while they retreated down a single highway in the desert. Aircraft tore them apart and left miles of wreckage in their wake.
“It’s like a giant retreat,” he said without getting into details. “They are all going to the same place, I guarantee it.”
“Where is that, do you think?”
“No idea, but I’d be willing to bet they know something we don’t.”
He picked up the CB mic. “Break 9. This is Buck Rogers. Any of you Smokies got your ears on?” He used generic trucker slang on the emergency channel, praying someone would pick up.
To his surprise, a man responded right away.
“Go ahead, break.”
“Yeah, uh, I’m heading west on I-70. Mind if I hang out on your bumper?”
“Negative. You can follow us, though. We’re going to…Wichita.”
“Why the delay?�
�� whispered Connie.
“Doesn’t sound like you’re too sure. Any chance you’re going somewhere else?”
Buck had no fear of being caught. Even if the police wanted him, they would have no way of tracking him down while doing a hundred miles an hour. It was one of the advantages of using the citizen’s band.
“Wichita. Over and out.”
The line went silent for a few seconds, but then another male voice broke in.
“Bull. Shit.” The signal was weak and filled with static, but it continued, “I’ve been tracking these assholes since Centralia, Illinois.”
Buck wanted to talk to the new person, but his signal faded fast.
“Come again? What’s your twenty?”
No reply, so he let it go.
If he had to guess, it was someone driving west along with the police. There were a few civilian cars, and sometimes even one or two big rigs trying to keep up with each group of law dogs.
Buck faced east, chasing his own target.
Garth was close. He felt it.
Seventeen
I-70, Missouri
“And that was the last time the McCurry boys tried to pick up a snake, I’ll tell you!”
Lydia had been doing her best to keep him awake, but the setting sun, long day, and stressful driving ganged up on him constantly. His eyelids drooped closed and popped open with disturbing regularity, no matter how hard he listened to her interesting tales of life in her time.
“It sounds great,” he answered.
“No, haven’t you been paying attention? It was terrible. Both brothers got bit that summer because they loved trying to scare us girls.”
“Oh, right,” he replied in a dreamy tone.
The headlights of traffic in the far lanes reminded him of fireflies dancing in the dusk. It was almost nine o’clock at night, and nothing was left of the sun but a warm smudge on the horizon. It was another tip-off for his tired mind to call it quits.
“How does my dad drive all day every day? I think I would die if I had to drive this much all the time.” Garth happened to look down at the speedometer. “Oh, shit! I’m doing a hundred and ten!”
“It does feel as fast as lightning, Garth.”
They had lost the police escort before they left Columbia, Missouri. Since he was late getting to the fuel pumps, everyone was done by the time he got started. He watched helplessly as the police caravan peeled out of the station and got right back on the interstate. A couple other civilian cars were late following too, but he had been dead last. By the time he finally got on I-70 to give chase, they were long gone.
He’d been driving dangerously over the limit for the past ninety minutes to try to catch them.
“I think this is the one time Dad would actually get out his belt and smack me with it. No joking this time. I’m going way faster than he would approve.”
The taxi blasted by a much slower car doing the speed limit on his right side. It was almost routine for Garth, after doing it for a few hours, but deep in his last functioning brain cell, he acknowledged that one mistake might result in a crash that would kill all involved in an instant. That was what would anger his dad the most: he was taking too many risks.
“I wonder if Sam ever drove this fast? His parents would kill him if they ever found out he went over a hundred.” He glanced down at the speedometer again. The number looked even more impressive in kilometers. “We’re going almost 180 kilometers per hour.”
“Is that different than miles per hour?” Lydia asked over the wind noise.
Garth had a hard time remembering. “We learned about it in school, I think. There’s a conversion…” He tried to remember the formula, but he had a hard time concentrating on it. Something about a mile being one-point-something kilometers long.
“Garth!”
He jerked his head up. It surprised him to see a steering wheel in his hands.
“You were asleep!” Lydia shook him from side to side.
The rocking action was soothing.
“Garth!” she shouted again.
“What?” he replied with a touch of anger. “I’m fine.”
She pinched the soft part of his upper arm.
“Ouch! What was that for?”
Lydia did it again even harder.
He recoiled from the pain. “Damn! Why?”
“Garth, you aren’t acting normal. You were talking to yourself and adding numbers out loud. You’ve been pointing to the dial on the front there, and you get surprised every time you see it.
He looked where she pointed. The speedometer was now most of the way around the dial, and it pointed to the number 120.
“Da-amn!” he blurted.
“Slow down!” she shrieked.
It hurt his feelings to anger his pretty pioneer passenger, so he took her counsel seriously.
“I’m slowing down.”
The motor had been throbbing as it struggled to deliver the needed horsepower to go as fast as a sports car, but it wasn’t designed to do it for hours. When he let off the gas, the engine sounded angry.
“That’s not good.”
He hadn’t given the car an ounce of care on their journey. He absently wondered if the taxi was overdue for service, and he was now paying for the delay. Or maybe Dawson the car thief had taken it from a taxi service depot, and it had already been broken. Or maybe—
“Garth!” Lydia grabbed the wheel this time. “You can’t let go!”
He blinked about twenty times to make his mind comprehend what he saw ahead. There were the lights of a city, and a giant pair of golden arches hanging in the sky on the left side of the highway. With great effort, he pawed the wheel again.
“I can make it,” he strained to say. If it were anyone else in the world, he would have willingly given up driving so his partner could take over. However, three days ago, Lydia had never seen a car, much less driven one.
On the other hand, Lydia had watched him drive nonstop for a whole day. Maybe she had picked it up? Would it be safer to let her try?
As he got closer to the truck stop, he was drawn to the bright glow of cheeseburger heaven like a moth to the light. He wasn’t sure if he made it to the exit, but he figured he was close enough to get off the highway…
“Garth!”
Blue Springs, MO
Buck experienced a profound sense of dread after listening to the police lie to him on the CB radio. They weren’t going to Wichita any more than he was going to White Plains. As more groups of police streamed by the parking lot of the McTruckStop, he knew they were the key to his family’s survival.
“When Garth gets here, we’re going after those guys. We’re going to wear those police cars like pants and be on them so tight they can’t kick us off.”
He and Connie stood together on the wide parking lot of the mega-sized fast food restaurant and truck stop. She put her hand on his back as she leaned against his side. “You know I’ll go wherever you go, but this seems like a long shot. We’ve only seen these police cars since we got on I-70. Why didn’t we see them on I-80?”
“Maybe I-80 doesn’t go where they need to go? What if, instead of driving west on I-80, the police up there decided to go south into Kansas.” He was talking himself into believing they really were going to Wichita, but that still didn’t feel right. They’d gone south from Nebraska too and seen a billion bugs, but not one police car.
“Well, all I know is we can’t stay here.” He pointed to the hamburger sign high in the sky. “And failing a miracle where we are instructed exactly where and when to go somewhere, I’m inclined to stick with what we know: go back out to Denver.”
She studied him seriously for a couple of seconds, then relaxed. “I’m fine with going to Denver. It will keep me closer to home, for sure.”
“I guess we’re committed, Buck.” Sparky and Eve had snuck up on them.
He turned around to face them. “You are going out west with us?”
Sparky shrugged. “I could have p
eeled off at any time. Eve could have done the same. I think we both want to see you find your son and then go wherever you think we’ll be safe.”
Buck suddenly felt the press of leadership. One wrong decision…
“I’m glad to have you with us. Do you know if Monsignor has made up his mind?”
Eve flipped her hair as she looked back at the other driver. His hood was open, and Buck figured he was cleaning out bug carcasses. “Not yet. I think he wants to go with us, but we are relatively close to his drop. I think he can taste it.”
Buck chuckled. “A week ago, I would have done anything to get this trailer to the depot. Today, I’d drop it and my semi if I believed it would save my family. Funny how the end of the world gives you a new perspective on the people in your life.”
Eve absently swatted a big flying bug out of her face before freezing in place. “Uh-oh.”
They all looked into the darkness to see if a swarm of locusts might be upon them, but when nothing else attacked, Eve sighed. “I guess it was a loner.”
“Maybe it came back to life from among the millions stuck to our trucks,” Buck suggested. Their rigs were still caked with insects like someone had draped big, ugly blankets over their hoods and front bumpers. If he ever found an industrial truck wash and had the luxury of some time, he was going to spring for the most expensive cleaning package to get all those bugs off his beloved Peterbilt.
Connie laughed. “Zombie bugs. That’s all we need.”
“Well,” Sparky began, “they still aren’t saying shit about the nuke hits down in the Southwest, but at least they haven’t reported any other cities getting blown up.”
“You noticed that, too?” Buck shot back. “We’ve been listening for news all day, and it seems like the more miles we put on, the less they say about what’s happening in America and elsewhere.”
“And the news is all the same, no matter which channel.” Eve brushed her legs as if to shove off any bugs. “They talk about the bombs going off, then list a bunch of cities where the government has set up help centers.”
End Days Series Box Set [Books 1-4] Page 81