Sleepers | Book 8

by Druga, Jacqueline

  Tired of waiting, I cleared my throat and stepped into their view.

  They didn’t attack me, nor was I cloaked.

  They moved to me, in a dazed walk.

  Alex was right, they had a sort of obsession with me. Not in the sexual way that Alex kept joking about, but their obsession with me was real. It also made it easy to take them down.

  Calvin didn’t run or move when I hit his wife with a tranquilizer. He stared at me, curiously, tilting his head and leaning in.

  I hit him as well.

  Both of them were out like a light in a minute.

  I looked at my watch. I hadn’t been gone that long and I had time to get them to Javier.

  After that, I’d look for more clues to Sleeper settlements.

  Taking them out wasn’t the only thing we had to do and really, would we be able to do that? We had to find a way, somehow to keep them from evolving. Stopping the evolution would stop them from getting smart enough to take over this world.

  FIVE

  ALEX

  Damn it, Sonny. I knew it. Took me a second after Danny came bursting in, stirring up all kinds of drama that his mom was missing, but I thought I had it.

  Granted, okay, I got a little panicked, especially since we still had an unaccounted-for Sleeper on the base. A Sleeper no one had seen, and based only word of the flighty former reality star, Stacy.

  Then as Beck was in his usual military guy barking out orders, sending out the troops to find little Mera, it hit me.

  “Stop.” I held up my hand.

  “What is it, Alex?” Beck asked.

  “Who else is missing?”

  Danny didn’t know. He wasn’t there when we realized it, but Beck was.

  “Sonny,” Beck said with a little annoyance.

  “Yep.” I walked over to the radio and lifted it. “Sonny, you there? Come in.”

  Nothing.

  “Sonny, we know you’re out there. Come in.”

  The rush of quick static told me he was about to answer.

  “Yeah, Alex,” Sonny answered.

  “Is Mera okay?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah, she’s fine.”

  “Good,” I said. “What exactly are you doing?”

  “Just…out. I know. I know. You guys said not to go out alone.”

  “I get it,” I replied. “Just if you take Mera out, can you let someone know?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Beck reached for the radio. “Can I?”

  I handed it over.

  “Hey, Sonny, it’s Beck. Where are you out there?”

  “Just out. Not far from home.”

  “Good. Even though you’re close you know it’s not safe out there, right?”

  “Oh, I know,” Sonny said.

  “I know Mera can be stubborn, but can you find a creative way, maybe without saying it was me, and get her back here?”

  “Sure,” Sonny said. “Where is she?”

  What?

  I spun around with shock.

  “She’s not with you?” Beck asked.

  “No.”

  “Sonny, why didn’t you say you didn’t know where she was?” Beck asked.

  “You didn’t ask.”

  “Thanks. Get back here.” Beck placed down the radio. “Thank you, Alex for that waste of time. Alright, everyone, we need to get out there and look.”

  I tossed my hands outward. I didn’t think it was that much of a waste of time. A waste of time was the man power and worrying about Mera. I was certain she was fine and right there on base.

  SIX

  MERA

  “Five years, I suppose,” Peter said. “At least that’s what I was told.”

  “By who?” I asked.

  “Your son, Phoenix. It is very hard to explain. Because the world is so different in my time, we had come back to a time frame close to this to train,” Peter said. “Train to fish, hunt, everything. He recognized me right away. He told me he was six or seven when we met. He said I looked exactly like his mother’s former husband. It all lined up, sort of, with what I was told. Which confirmed that I was going ahead with the mission to come back to this point in time.”

  “I’m confused. You’re from the future?” I asked.

  Peter nodded. “About the same time frame as Randy’s future. Give or take a hundred years.”

  “So you know Randy.”

  He shook his head. “Not even remotely. Phoenix told me about him. He was an adult when I met him. When he saw me he told me about his failed trips back. He said that if he failed again, you would have a return trip for me.”

  “He went back,” I said. “He didn’t die this time.”

  “Then he could have succeeded.”

  “We hope. We hope he put it all in motion. Isn’t it in your Doctrines?”

  He shook his head. “No. We still have the Paler wars. Then again, when did he return to the future?”

  “Not long ago. A couple weeks,” I replied.

  “Then that’s why. The Doctrines I brought will be void because I was here when he returned. We crossed paths earlier. So something changed. We never tried to pinpoint an exact time, we just picked a time frame.”

  “What role do you play in all this?”

  “This is the time frame. It spans about thirty to fifty years. This is when the Sandman began his rise. Still in human form. Historians traced it to a group of people he was with here. So that’s why I came. There was a group before you, it wasn’t them.”

  “Oh, it’s us,” I said.

  “You know who the Sandman is?” Peter asked.

  “We have ideas, yes. Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.” He poured a slight refresher to my drink.

  “Why do you look like Daniel?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  It was rehearsed, perhaps a millions times over in his head. I could tell the way Peter told it seamlessly and with little emotions. “About a hundred years from now, with work from a scientist from right now, they are able to isolate the gene in the DNA that makes children susceptible to the Sleeper virus, along with what makes adults susceptible. Repopulating was difficult because the still birth ratio was high, and many children did not live past thirteen. So, they began DNA manipulation through cloning. Using time travel they went into the past at a point where pretty much everyone was donating DNA for family history, whatever. Historians pinpointed individuals that would have died in the original outbreak who were close to influential people in history. Such as your son, Daniel. Hence…me.”

  “Okay, so why didn’t they just get DNA from people in that time?” I asked.

  “Ever hear of something called a population bottleneck? It’s when the population of a species drops drastically and suddenly. Creating from a bottleneck inhibits genetic diversity.”

  “See,” I said. “That wasn’t very complicated at all. So basically you were chosen to come back from birth, maybe?”

  Peter nodded. “I was. Me and fourteen others.”

  “There are fifteen of you here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know the others? Where they are?”

  “I have an idea. I’m not sure. We were all trained to live in this world, fish, hunt, be self sufficient to the point we could help others, all while on the same mission.”

  “To stop the Sandman.”

  “If he is stopped now, the Palers, or Sleepers as you call them, would have no direction and would easily die out. That’s what we believe.”

  “And you’re going to do what?” I asked.

  “Kill him.”

  I don’t know why, but it made me scoff, perhaps even chuckle in sarcasm.

  “That’s funny?” he asked.

  �
��You make it sound so cut and dried.”

  “It is.”

  “No, it isn’t,” I said. “To you the Sandman is a bogey man. A bad guy. Right now, the Sandman is human. And I think that is why you keep your distance. If you don’t know him or her, your mission will be easy.”

  “I don’t think that will make a difference.”

  “I do.”

  “So, Mera,” Peter said. “What brings you across the lake, other than letting the woman out there dangle her feet in my pool.”

  “I was curious about you,” I replied. “My son had told me I would meet a man named Peter and when I learned the man across the bay was named Peter, I had to come. Plus, I heard you are able to get milk.”

  “I can. I have access. I’m one person though so I have a hard time carrying too much.”

  “What if I got you help?”

  “That would work.”

  “Good. I have about fifteen kids with us that can use the milk.”

  “How many people are there now?” he asked.

  “Over a hundred and we’re expecting about fifty more.”

  Peter whistled and stood up. “That’s not right.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I was told your group arrived with less than twenty people.”

  “The history you know probably told you our camp was hit bad.”

  “So bad no one says what really happened,” he said.

  “We beat it. It came. We were ready thanks to Phoenix.”

  “This could change everything.”

  I smiled. “It already did.”

  SEVEN

  SONNY

  The unknown whereabouts of Mera should have bothered me, but I wasn’t worried. Mera was cautious. She never did anything spontaneously—even if it looked that way, it wasn’t. Just like it seemed she just took off to go back home with Ed, when in reality, Mera knew exactly what she was doing and why, ahead of time.

  We all just wished she had told someone besides Bonny.

  Bonny didn’t like men. I was convinced of it. She wasn’t very nice to us. More so Alex. Most women weren’t very nice to him. They didn’t understand him. I wasn’t sure I understood Alex.

  Chances were Mera was with another woman in the camp, but Alex wouldn’t bother asking them.

  I had a hard time believing how lazy Alex could be sometimes.

  In any group or family, there’s one person who pulls more weight.

  That person was always me. I didn’t complain, I just got it done.

  Just like I collected the Sleepers for Javier.

  While I was happy he didn’t go back to the ARC, and that he was going to work on the cure and annihilation weapon for the Sleepers, he had me running about.

  I guess I didn’t mind. Especially since I’d stepped down as leader.

  Marissa and Calvin—not sure if those were the real names or not—they were a good find. Marissa had just given birth, it wasn’t too long before I got them. It was a well-known fact that Sleepers ate their young or dropped them off with humans.

  At least that was what Randy told us.

  So I was lost as to how they repopulated in the future if they kept dining on their offspring.

  I radioed Javier that I was on my way, then again as I drove up the private driveway.

  “Can you bring the dolly?” I asked. “I have two.”

  “The push one or the one you drive?”

  I laughed. “The one I drive.”

  “Figures.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. “Calvin is pretty heavy.”

  “He was heavy for you?” Javier asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well that’s good news.”

  “Huh? How is that good news that I’m not strong?”

  “Stronger. But…nothing. Never mind.”

  Javier was a strange one. He was spending far too much time alone with Sleepers.

  He helped me move Calvin and Marissa onto the large dolly, even complaining about how badly they smelled. And they did. Far worse than any I had smelled before. I couldn’t figure out why that was.

  Most of the odor seemed to come from Marissa, something we didn’t figure out until we placed her on the flat end of the cart.

  Javier groaned out, cupped his hand over his mouth and turned his head.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Uh…God.”

  “What?” I repeated looking down and seeing that Marissa had landed spread eagle. “Oh, really you need to act like that because she’s flashing you. Yeah, it can be a bit disturbing but…”

  “Look again, Sonny.”

  “I don’t want to look at her lady parts.”

  “Look again!” Javier demanded.

  At that second, it was twisted and perverted, but just to shut him up so we could roll them down to the lab before they woke, I walked to where Javier stood and looked.

  My reaction made Javier’s reaction look mild.

  After gagging, grunting, turning and retching, I pulled myself together.

  Her swollen belly wasn’t from just having given birth, it was from still being pregnant. Marissa was carrying twins. One she gave birth to in her home, the other, still jammed upside her, dead and decomposing between her uterus and vagina, its little hand extended out.

  The rotting of the infant flesh mixed with the horrid standard smell of the Sleeper created something unimaginable.

  What made it even more heart wrenching was it wasn’t even an ivory statue baby.

  I wasn’t even sure I could help him lift Marissa. It made me sick to my stomach. But I went to Javier’s with a purpose and that was to deliver the two Sleepers.

  Together we brought the dolly down to the labs and quickly dragged them into an observation room next to other Sleepers I had caught.

  Javier got them settled. He hated leaving and said he wanted to work on them some more, but I convinced him to return back to Haven Two with me.

  We had been gone long enough.

  Even after we left, I had this nagging feeling that something was different about Marissa and Calvin and it wasn’t just the smell.

  EIGHT

  ALEX

  Beck seemed irritated with me. Then again, he got irritated with me a lot. Go figure. Personally, I was more irritated with Sonny for not just coming out and saying, “Why are you asking me about Mera?”

  I stood firm on the belief that Sonny was the dumbest smart person I ever met.

  Danny, Beck and I made our way to the dining room which wasn’t far from the communications and radio room. Sonny sent others, telling them to spread out.

  “I don’t understand why you just don’t radio Renee,” I said.

  “Because I don’t want another case of miscommunication,” replied Beck.

  “I really think she’s fine.”

  “I do, too.”

  “She probably is just off somewhere Danny didn’t look.”

  “Doesn’t hurt to be sure,” Beck said.

  “I think you’re maybe overreacting.”

  Beck stopped walking. “Alex, let me worry about my wife the way I want to worry about my wife.” He started to walk again.

  “Your wife?”

  Beck stopped. “My wife, Alex. I’ve been calling her that for a while.”

  “I don’t recall any little ceremony or anything.”

  Danny opened his mouth. “I kind of do. A while back at Grace.”

  “Thank you,” Beck said.

  “Where was I?” I asked.

  “Alex, what is your problem with this?”

  “The ownership thing you have happening with Mera. As I recall you gave up that right. Stated as such. But you know, you pulled some move straight out of a country song and bam…”

  �
�Alex!” Beck blasted my name then opened the dining room doors.

  Danny shook his head. “You just like to get under his skin.”

  “Not on purpose.”

  “Right.” Danny followed Beck inside.

  “Ladies,” Beck said with his upstanding portrayal of respect to Renee and Patty. “Have any of you seen Mera?”

  I saw it. The look on Patty’s face. Almost as if she knew something and was hiding it. She nervously pursed her lips. Patty was one of our resident left overs from the religious cult that lived at Grace when we first arrived there. She was one of the very few that never lost that “cultish” aspect. She still wore the dresses, acted quiet and subservient. But she wasn’t fooling me with that look.

  “She does.” I pointed to Patty.

  “Dude,” Danny said. “I asked her. She said she didn’t.”

  “She lied.”

  “Dude.”

  “Alex,” Beck scolded.

  “I did not lie,” Patty said. “That is a sin.”

  “So is premarital sex,” I said.

  Patty gasped. “As is adultery and consumption and possessiveness of devil water.” She lifted an eyebrow as to say “so there”.

  “She has a point,” Beck said.

  “Point about what?” I asked. “She knows where Mera is. When you asked she made this face.” I did my best to recreate the look she gave.

  “I made that face because you walked in the room. You make me nervous because you are intimidating and crude.”

  Danny smiled. “She has a point.”

  “What the hell?” I tossed up my hands. “Patty, where is Mera.”

  “Quit picking on the girl,” Renee snapped. “She doesn’t know. I do. I’m sorry, Beck, I wasn’t here when Danny came by or else I would have said. Mera is with Stacy, the former reality star.”

  “There you have it,” I said. “She’s getting a makeover.”

  “But she’s okay?” Beck asked.

  “She’s a ditzy reality star,” I replied. “Not a serial killer.”