The Susquehanna Virus Box Set

by Steve McEllistrem

  “Truman’s men were already here,” Julianna said. “See the broken branches?” She pointed them out.

  Jeremiah nodded. “They might have missed something.”

  “They probably bugged the place,” she warned. “Motion sensor, heat sensor, microphone, camera.”

  “So?” Jeremiah said.

  “So, even with the camos, I don’t think we should go inside.”

  “You’re right. You shouldn’t. They might detect your presence. But I think they already know I’m out here.”

  “What do you expect to find?”

  “I don’t know. But those soldiers might have missed something. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  Julianna sat at the base of a tree to wait while Jeremiah advanced on the building. The door had been removed long ago. Dirt, leaves and twigs cluttered the open doorway. Inside, along the walls that still stood, hung the remnants of conduit and wiring, great electrical boards that had been corroded by time and the weather—an electrical substation. A stairway led downward. Flicking on the flashlight, he descended slowly into a large damp basement. Like the last building, empty food containers littered the floor, as well as a couple crumpled blankets. Jeremiah kicked the blankets aside, but they only covered cracks in the cement. Two hastily mounted cameras covered the stairway and the room. He recognized them as standard military issue. Nothing fancy.

  He disabled them, then wondered about their clumsy placement. Surely Weiss and Truman would be more circumspect than that. Were these cameras decoys of some sort? Jeremiah spent a few minutes checking the walls and floors for hidden sensors or cameras. Just as he was about to give up, he found a tiny sensor lodged in a crack on the wall—nearly invisible. He spent another five minutes examining the walls and ceiling before finding another sensor and a tiny camera—so small he almost missed them. That kind of subtlety was more like Weiss. He smiled and waved at the camera. This basement looked something like his stone dungeon. It felt good not to need that device. Was that Julianna’s doing? Was he that happy to be with her? He couldn’t recall ever being this happy with Catherine—at least since Joshua had been taken. Immediately he felt guilty. Damn it! He refused to feel bad.

  “Cameras and sensors,” he said to Julianna when he got back outside.

  “Anything else?”

  “No sign of the Escala.”

  “Right,” Julianna said. “Have you been watching that disturbance off to the southeast?”

  “I saw it on my scanner. What do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s unusual. We definitely have to check it out.”

  The terrain as they ran to the southeast grew more hilly, the undergrowth more dense, the abandoned homes less frequent. On his scanner, the strange reading loomed larger. As they neared the spot, Jeremiah detected a lightening of the sky.

  “Oh, no,” Julianna said, fear in her voice. She sprinted ahead.

  Jeremiah smelled burning wood—and something else: bitter and poisonous: vaguely familiar. He couldn’t identify it but he knew he’d smelled it before. He took off after Julianna, catching up to her as she slowed. Together they approached a large home set apart from the rest of the development. Flames worked their way up the sides of the house—the fire not yet out of control.

  “What is that odor?” Julianna asked.

  Jeremiah suddenly remembered. He said, “EOs—Elite Ops.”

  “That’s what they smell like?”

  “Not always. But they can emit a neurotoxin that induces panic. It has that terrible smell.”

  “Like death,” Julianna said. “So they’re here already. But they wouldn’t just burn this place for no reason.”

  An odd shape caught Jeremiah’s eye. Julianna put her hand on his shoulder and pressed him forward. She must have seen it too. And then he recognized it: a pile of bodies, mostly sliced in half.

  A strange choking noise came from Julianna’s throat.

  They ran to the bodies and stared down at them. Some were just kids. Acid built up in Jeremiah’s throat. He swallowed it. There had to be thirty people here. Murdered. Julianna knelt by one of the bodies: a little girl with curly hair who hadn’t been completely cut in half. She appeared to be seven or eight years old. Julianna touched the child’s face briefly.

  “You think Devereaux could be here?” Jeremiah said.

  The heat from the burning house grew more intense. Julianna ignored him, moving from body to body, turning corpses over so they faced the sky. Jeremiah glanced up at the Moon through a hole in the clouds. It looked almost pink, like a bleached bone wiped with a blood-soaked rag. Then the clouds covered it again. Seeing the bloody Moon reminded Jeremiah of a vid of the EOs, one in which they’d rounded up a group of terrorists. The EOs had sent a pulse of red laser fire through the terrorists, cutting them apart. That must have been what happened here.

  A ragged, almost-human cough sounded from the house. Jeremiah glanced toward the front door, where an ancient scatterer stood. The machine coughed again, mingling with the crackling of wood burning. After a few seconds, the scatterer succumbed to the blaze and died. Finally Jeremiah found the will to move. He approached the corpses, examined their faces. How would he even know if Devereaux was among them? “Devereaux might be dead already,” he said.

  “No, he’s not here.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  Julianna looked up at him and he realized the truth. “You know who he is.”

  She nodded. Then she gestured to the bodies and in a tired voice said, “Why?”

  “They must have tried to fight the EOs. I don’t see any weapons, but somebody must have pulled one. The house probably caught fire during the fight.” He searched the ground, checking for footprints, and found several heavily indented sets. At least three EOs had been here.

  “Such a waste,” Julianna said as she straightened up.

  “You knew them?”

  Julianna nodded. “Doug—one of the men at the shelter—brought me out here to treat a little girl. She had a bad fever. West Nile.”

  “Who were they?”

  “Nobodies. Fugitives and their families, homeless and poor, just trying to survive.”

  A window in the house exploded. Flames danced through it, flickering at the siding, slowly moving up toward the roof. Jeremiah’s face grew painfully hot. He backed away a few steps, but Julianna stayed next to the bodies. How could she endure that inferno?

  She shook her head as she stared down at five children. He realized that she was studying the little girl whose face she’d touched earlier. The child looked tiny in death, almost doll-like.

  Jeremiah walked over, the heat almost unbearable, his eyes moving past the girls, settling on the boys: two of them, both older than his son—eleven…or twelve. He was surprised to find himself relieved that neither one looked like Joshua. Part of him felt sickened by that. He longed to strike out at an EO. Instead, he blinked three times, sealed himself back in his dungeon. He had to stay focused. Save the pain for later. He grabbed Julianna’s arm. When he led her away from the fire to the edge of the wood, she didn’t object, just kept her head down. He put his hand under her chin, lifted it and said, “The Army will arrive shortly. With the scatterer out, their scanners will be able to detect this energy output.”

  Julianna stared right through him, unfocused. Then her eyes narrowed, the muscles of her jaw working angrily, and she finally saw him. Her voice came out throaty and raw: “Think those assholes are still around?”

  Jeremiah heard the murderous resolve in her voice, the fanaticism she’d always been able to tap into. She was steeling herself for battle, locking herself in her own little dungeon or whatever trick she used to insulate herself from the distractions of the outside world. He knew she was capable of anything when she got like this.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “But
we can’t take EOs on.”

  “Why not? There’s only a few of them.”

  “All we could do is die. We can’t match their firepower.” He held her gaze until she closed her eyes and nodded. After a moment, she sighed and looked up at the sky. “It’s going to rain soon.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Can’t you smell it?”

  “Now I can,” he said, catching the moisture beneath the smell of fire and death.

  “I need to sit for a second,” she said. “I feel like crap.” She walked to a fallen tree and lowered herself to its trunk. Staring into the yellow flames, her shoulders hunched over, she looked small in the flickering light. Even from here the fire felt uncomfortably warm. Soon it would completely engulf the house.

  Jeremiah wanted to tell her that she couldn’t stay here, that the Army would arrive soon, but he decided to give her a moment. His eyes drifted again to the pile of bodies and he realized that despite being inside his dungeon, he didn’t have his emotions under control. A slow anger rumbled up from inside. The damned EOs just threw these people in a pile like so much garbage. Were they sending a warning? It was easy to hate the EOs. And then he remembered Jack Marschenko, locked in a basement with nothing but nutri-water to sustain him, driven by hormones and drugs and conditioning until he couldn’t tell right from wrong: a big naïve kid who thought he was on the side of the angels. Guilt mixed with Jeremiah’s anger, intensifying it.

  Julianna interrupted his thoughts. “What are we going to do, Jeremiah?”

  He stepped to her side. “Who is Devereaux?”

  She shook her head—a long, continuous movement that went well beyond an answer until he knew her mind was elsewhere. Finally she said, “We have to help him get away. Or he’s going to end up like this.”

  “Are you really a Devereauxnian?”

  “I’m only about the money, is that it?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Not anymore. Screw you.”

  He felt incredible compassion for her at that moment. He longed to put his arms around her and comfort her. Then he reminded himself that she was very likely playing him and he kept his hands to himself.

  Julianna let out a yell, an indecipherable roar of anguish. Then her shoulders slumped, her head sagged and she turned away from him as the first few drops of rain fell. He checked his scanner. The soldiers seemed to have finally spotted the anomaly of the burning house on their scanners, for they had begun to draw closer. When he looked up, he saw a drop of water running down Julianna’s face. It couldn’t possibly be a tear. It had to be a raindrop.

  He took her arm above the elbow and walked her into the forest.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Doug followed the blond Amazon, Zeriphi, on a tour of the cave. She showed him the kitchen, the bedrooms, the bathrooms—all without doors. As they passed a bathroom, an Escala urinated into a toilet unconcernedly. Zeriphi introduced him as Nulk. He nodded to Doug, showing no embarrassment over his actions. Doug said, “Hello,” keeping his eyes focused on Nulk’s face. Although privacy had been impossible in prison, since Doug’s escape, he’d grown to relish closed doors.

  “You all got such unusual names,” he remarked. “I don’t remember that from the articles I read about the Mars Project.”

  “We’ve taken new names,” Zeriphi answered. “The old names were burdened with psychological meanings that dragged us down. Our new names have no historical meaning. We chose them only for their sound and beauty.”

  “Zeriphi,” Doug said. “That’s a beautiful name—musical.”

  Of all the rooms he saw, only two had doors: both shut. Zeriphi told him that the first one opened on the monitoring center and was kept closed to keep the noise and dust levels down. The second door led to a tiny room with orange lights in the ceiling. Zeriphi opened the door but stopped Doug from entering. A naked Escala stood inside, basking in the warmth of the lamps.

  “Our genetic makeup has been enhanced with an altered kineococcus radiotolerans bacterium,” Zeriphi explained, “which allows us to tolerate hundreds of times the radiation you could.”

  “So you deliberately radiate yourselves?” Doug asked.

  Zeriphi nodded. “It’s necessary for our survival. It stimulates our immune systems and increases our energy levels.” She closed the door. “If you were left in that room for a few hours, you would die.”

  During the tour, Doug found himself increasingly attracted to Zeriphi. Her muscular body had initially seemed almost masculine, though there was nothing male about the way she moved. It was just the fact that she was bigger and so obviously stronger than him that made her appear other than feminine. Now, however, she struck him as sensual. The sway of her hips as she walked, the lilt of her soft voice, the almost animal muskiness of her body: everything about her brought him to a state of arousal. He reached down and adjusted himself as he followed her down a curved hallway. Finally they reached a room with beds, chairs and dressers built for normal-sized people.

  “The children sleep here,” Zeriphi said, pointing inside.

  Doug glanced at the small bodies under their covers but found his eyes drawn back to Zeriphi. She tilted her head slightly, leaned forward a little and sighed almost imperceptibly, as if just the sight of the children had brought her great peace. Then he remembered something and said, “I thought I heard that you people are sterile.”

  “We cannot breed with our own kind,” Zeriphi said. “But we have adapted.”

  Estrus! Doug suddenly remembered what the word meant. They wanted him to sleep with Zeriphi. Why did that make him nervous?

  Zeriphi studied his face, as he searched her dark eyes. Then she looked down and saw the bulge in his pants. She said, “You’re ready.”

  She led him to a bedroom much like the others but at the far end of a darkened hallway where they were less likely to be disturbed. Slowly she removed his shirt.

  “You don’t mind that I undress you?” she asked.

  “No,” Doug said. “But can’t you find no room with a door, or at least turn off the light?”

  “Why?” Zeriphi said. “You look fine.”

  She unzipped his pants while he stood unmoving, aroused. Lowering his pants and underwear to his ankles, Zeriphi gently lifted Doug and placed him on the bed. He remembered his grandfather handling him just as effortlessly when he was a small boy. There’d been something comforting about that—and the sensation he experienced now was markedly similar. He felt safe and warm. As he tried to wriggle out of his pants, his shoes got in the way and he lacked the energy to sit up. He laughed as his legs flailed against the clothing. Zeriphi smiled as she finished undressing him.

  Naked, Doug watched Zeriphi unzip her coverall. She seemed embarrassed at having to disrobe before him, hesitating before slipping her arms out. As she did so, she kept her eyes on his, but he dropped his gaze to her breasts. She wore no bra. She had no need of one. Her breasts were firm, not overly large, and her stomach flat.

  Zeriphi stepped out of her coverall and Doug whistled softly. Her brown triangle of hair drew his eyes for a second. Then he took in the whole of her body—shoulders, arms, thighs, hips. The hair under her arms was bushy and dark, but light peach fuzz covered her stomach. Desire for her surged through him—something almost inexplicable. No question she was a beautiful woman, strong and healthy. Yet she was also huge—the largest woman he’d ever seen naked.

  Zeriphi tentatively climbed onto the bed, blushing as she lay next to him.

  “I don’t know what it is,” she said. “I didn’t think it would scare me like this.”

  “I scare you?” Doug said.

  “I’ve never tried to breed before.”

  “You’re a virgin?”

  Zeriphi laughed. “No.”

  “We don’t gotta do this,” Doug said.

  Zeriphi caressed his face with
her fingers. She studied him with her dark brown eyes. “Do you want me to leave?”

  Doug shook his head emphatically. “No. I’m an idiot. I guess I’m nervous too.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know nothin’ about you—who you are, what you do, how you came to be here.”

  “I was a graduate student in chemistry when I applied for the Mars Project,” Zeriphi said as she stroked Doug’s chest and stomach. “When I was accepted, I underwent the genetic surgery that enhanced me so I would be able to thrive on Mars. Do you want to know anything else?”

  “I want to know everything else,” Doug said, “but I can’t concentrate right now. I need you.”

  Zeriphi rolled over and mounted him, cooing and warbling in some ancient song that stirred him. He caught an animal aroma, a muskiness that grew with her rocking—pungent and powerful. Doug wanted to reach up and touch her, caress her, but he could barely move. Even as he lifted one hand, he shuddered in ecstasy and all thought vanished as he surrendered to the pleasure. Afterwards, Zeriphi reached over and grabbed a coverlet at the foot of the bed. She pulled it over them and caressed Doug until he fell asleep.

  * * *

  When Doug awoke, Zeriphi was gone, though her scent lingered. He could smell her on his body, the odor intoxicating, arousing. Stretching and yawning, feeling refreshed and relaxed, he embraced the warm glow that suffused his core. Although Doug figured that the drugs Zeriphi had given him enhanced or perhaps created his desire, he nevertheless wanted her again. Where had she gone? The room’s glow globe, darkened now, floated high above the bed. He had no idea how to turn it on but the light from the hallway provided sufficient illumination for him to see. He needed to relieve himself and he also wanted to look for Zeriphi.