Beth wriggled free of her dad’s grasp. Retreating to Ashley’s side, she shook a finger at him. “You’ve been acting weird all morning!”
“Weird how?” he asked.
“You and like three others. You all scratched your cheek at the same time. And another four were eating and drinking in perfect harmony like, like... zombies or something!”
Her dad’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about, Beth?”
“You’re in sync!”
A bemused smile touched his lips. “The band?”
“NO!”
“Can you explain a little more?” Ashley asked.
Beth told her about the synchronized movements at breakfast, and about her dad’s sleepwalking—the episode from last night in particular.
“Is there a chance you might have imagined what you saw at breakfast?” Ashley asked. “There are coincidental patterns all around us all the time, but in your heightened state, you might be more aware of them than usual.”
“Well, what about the sleepwalking then?”
“Is anyone else experiencing that?” Ashley asked.
Her dad shook his head. “No.”
Beth hesitated. “How do you know?”
“Because we spent a week together on the Port Royal,” he explained. “No one else mentioned that to Doctor Wilde.”
“Well, I’m not imagining things!”
“Beth, it’s highly unlikely everyone except for you is experiencing symptoms,” Ashley said. “You were all infected at the same time.”
“I lied,” Beth blurted.
“You what?”
“I thought you wouldn’t let me see the morgue if I wasn’t a good candidate for additional tests.”
“So you didn’t come into direct contact with them.”
Beth shook her head. “No.” Her eyes flicked to her dad and promptly narrowed. “But he did—and James, Allen, Melanie, and all of the others. Only me and Don and James’ family weren’t exposed.”
“I see,” Ashley replied. She half-turned and made a hand signal to the Marine who’d escorted her to the resort. He was standing by the entrance with Corporal Gibson. The Marine ran over.
“Ma’am?” he asked.
“Please take Mr. Steele to the van.”
“You’re joking,” her dad replied. “You can’t force me. You said it yourselves. And I won’t consent.”
“And that’s suspicious enough by itself. If you don’t go willingly, we’ll just zip-tie your hands and take you in anyway.”
“You’re wasting your time,” her dad growled through gritted teeth. His eyes flicked to Beth and narrowed to angry slits.
Beth blinked in shock, watching as the Marine led her dad away. “I thought you weren’t allowed to force people to give you samples.”
“We aren’t. Not without justification. But you just gave me the excuse I needed. Your dad’s exhibiting unusual symptoms. Sleepwalking and other behavioral anomalies—such as supporting your lie about being exposed, possibly to avoid further testing for himself and the others who were actually exposed.”
“How do you know he was supporting a lie?” Beth asked. “Maybe I lied to him, too, or he just didn’t know whether I came into direct contact with a Crawler.”
“Direct contact resulted in bloody welts on the victims’ faces that scabbed and faded within forty-eight hours. If he didn’t know you lied, then he’s blind. No, he knew he was covering for you. The question is, was it out of parental concern for possible consequences, or was it because he has something to hide?”
Beth’s brow furrowed as she thought about that. “Can I go to the center with you?”
“What for?” Ashley asked.
“I want to know what you find.”
Ashley cocked her head to one side. “Why should I take you anywhere after you lied to me yesterday? You wasted a lot of time.”
Beth winced. “I’m sorry. I had to see if Toby was there. I’ll make it up to you, I swear! You can run more tests. Or...” she trailed off. “Please. I have to know what’s wrong with my dad. He’s all I’ve got left.”
“It could take a while to study your father’s samples.”
“I can wait.”
Ashley gave in with a sigh. “All right. Let’s go.”
Chapter 34
“I’m fine, Mom. I promise,” Beth said.
“We’ve been so worried about you! The news said there were over a thousand people killed.”
Her mother broke down sobbing on the other end, and Beth winced.
“A few of them landed next to the Koa Kai, but it’s over now, Mom. It’s okay. They didn’t get me.”
“They landed next to... did you see them? Did they hurt you?”
“I saw them... no, they didn’t hurt me.”
“Thank God! And your father? Is he...”
“He’s okay.”
“But what’s happening? The island is under quarantine!”
“There are doctors here doing tests,” Beth explained. “Dad’s getting some more now.” She decided against telling her mom why her dad was getting tested.
“Have they found anything? Are you sick?”
“No, everyone’s fine. I think they’re just being careful,” Beth replied as she paced the artificial-grass-covered floors of the tent. Ashley had left her here to wait with a group of others who’d come to the center.
“But when are they going to let people leave? We can’t even buy plane tickets to visit you!”
Beth smiled wanly. “I think that’s basically the definition of quarantine, Mom.”
The reassurances and questions went back and forth for ten more minutes before the conversation waned. Beth’s mom made her promise to call back as soon as she learned the results of her dad’s tests.
Beth hit the red button to hang up the phone and went to sit with the others in the waiting area. The woman next to her had to be about ninety, with wispy white hair and lizard-like skin. She sobbed quietly, her brown eyes gleaming with tears.
“I’m sorry,” Beth said, even though she had no idea what the woman was sobbing about.
The woman wiped her eyes and placed a tear-moistened hand on Beth’s, squeezing shakily. “Have you seen my Donald?” she asked.
“Donald?”
“I h-heard you mention the Koa Kai. He went to stay there for a few days. I told him to take a vacation. I told him to go. Have you seen him? Is he okay?” The woman squeezed her hand again, her brown eyes pleading.
“Donald? You mean Don?”
“Don! Yes!”
“He’s fine.”
“Oh my. Thank you,” The woman covered her mouth with her other hand, and her eyes teared up again.
“Are you his... grandmother?”
The woman nodded. “Did he tell you about me?”
Beth smiled and shook her head. “Just a guess.”
Tent flaps ruffled noisily as someone came in. “Beth?”
She turned her head to see Ashley standing in the open doorway. “Did you find anything?”
Ashley waved her over, and she extricated herself from Don’s grandmother.
“Wait!” the old woman cried.
Beth tossed a glance over her shoulder. “I’ll be back. Maybe you can come back to the resort with us and see him.”
“Oh yes! Please.”
Once Beth reached Ashley, the doctor said, “Follow me.”
Beth left the waiting room with her and walked down a corridor with bouncing floor panels that sounded like an old wooden dock. She stepped through another entrance at the end, and then a second one, emerging in the clinic where she’d been tested yesterday. Her dad lay on one of the padded tables. Only one other person was in the clinic. Her dad’s head turned to watch as they came in, his gaze blank, his expression slack.
Ashley led the way to his side.
“Hi, Dad,” Beth said, but he just smiled wanly at her. Her brow furrowed and she turned to Ashley for an explanation. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing. We performed all of the same tests we did to you yesterday, and took all of the same samples—along with a few extras besides. As far as we can tell, he’s clear, but...”
“But?” Beth pressed, her heart suddenly pounding. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Mr. Steele?”
He just went on smiling.
“Are you feeling better?”
He nodded slowly and then his head turned away from them.
“What’s wrong with him?”
Ashley turned to Beth with a frown. “He had a panic attack during the last test, when we performed a head CT scan.”
“A panic attack...” Beth trailed off, trying to remember what Ashley had told her about those yesterday. She’d described it as a psychological issue caused by trauma. “Are you sure? Maybe it was a reaction to the tests?”
“The CT didn’t show any anomalies, nor did any of your father’s samples, but his symptoms all fit perfectly with PTSD—sleepwalking and insomnia, for example. He has post-traumatic stress, and I’ll bet he’s not the only one.”
“That’s what Commander Wilde said...” Beth replied slowly.
“Well, he’s a military doctor, so he should know,” Ashley replied. “Anyway, I’ve prescribed some sleeping pills and a pill in the morning for anxiety and depression. Other than that, there’s nothing more I can do, but he really should see a therapist as soon as he can. You’ll need to make sure he attends regular appointments. Maybe a support group as well.”
Beth’s gaze slid away to study her dad’s face once more. Those blank, staring eyes scared her. It was like he was gone. He hadn’t said a word to either of them since she’d walked in. “Can he talk?”
“He’s in a state of emotional shock. The panic attack broke whatever walls he’d put up to keep it bottled in. He’s suffered a nervous breakdown, and I suspect it has been coming for some time. The current crisis pushed him over the edge. Has he been under a lot of stress lately?”
“Well, I mean, the resort has been having some problems, and he keeps talking about issues with the bank.”
“You mean like collection agents? Does he owe a lot of money on the resort?”
Beth shrugged, then nodded. “I think so, yeah.”
“Then you have your answer. This is the culmination of that stress plus the recent trauma.”
Beth looked away. “But what if it’s not? What if—”
“It is. Listen, if there were something alien causing neurological side effects, one of those tests should have found it. I’m sorry that you have to deal with this. I know he’s your father, and he’s supposed to keep it all together—not you—but he’s shattered Beth, and he’s going to need your help. You’re going to have to be strong for him. Can you do that?”
Beth nodded slowly. “Okay.”
Chapter 35
That night it all came crashing down around Beth like a monster wave: Toby’s death, her dad’s mental breakdown, the quarantine...
Her dad had been lying in bed like a paralytic ever since they’d returned from the center in Lihue. She’d made sure to bring him rations and water, but he’d barely said a word to her. He seemed to be locked in some kind of a daze.
Beth choked back tears and bit her lip hard. The pain focused her thoughts, somehow easing the emotional burden she felt. She had no one to lean on but herself.
The tears came with hot fury. Anger traded places with sadness. Fear morphed into guilt. Why was she alive while so many others had been killed? It wasn’t fair. She grabbed one of the pillows on the other side of the bed and hugged it hard. Shutting her eyes, she pretended for a moment that the pillow was Toby, and they were lying on the beach together under the sparkling night, listening to the calm, summer surf polishing the shore until the sand was smooth and clear as a mirror. She could almost smell the salty water, and feel the sand tickling between her toes.
The crack of a branch snapping intruded, and she sat up. A feeling of hazy numbness told her she was dreaming, but that only amplified her fears. At the top of the beach where sand gave way to dense midnight-green shadows, four pinpricks of light stared unblinkingly at her. Then she heard the shrill trilling of a call to its fellows, and more sets of eyes appeared beside the first, winking through the shrubbery. Four sets of four eyes. Four.
All four of them stepped out onto the starlit sand, their wet, translucent skin flowing over muscle like liquid silver as they approached. Arms unfolded, claws clicked and scraped together in anticipation of the kill.
Beth turned to Toby and shook him by his shoulder. “Tob! Wake up! We have to run!”
He didn’t even twitch. A new fear coiled inside of her, and she turned him over—Gray skin, dead, staring blue eyes.
Beth recoiled from him and jumped to her feet, backing steadily away from the monsters advancing on her. Each footstep the monsters took sounded like a hollow knock on wood. Knock, knock, knock... A scream built deep inside her chest and tore from her lips—
Beth woke up, bathed in sweat. She sat up, rapidly blinking her eyes to clear them. The hollow knocking sounds continued. For a minute she thought it might be her dad sleepwalking again, knocking on her door.
She froze, her heart pounding in her chest, listening...
But the sound was more distant than that, coming from down the hall. Maybe he was knocking on his own door this time?
Frowning, Beth threw back the covers and hopped out of bed. The pulsing stream of adrenaline in her veins made each step feel lighter and easier than it should. Hand on the doorknob, she slowly turned the lock, braced herself with a deep breath, and then eased the door open.
The knocking sounds continued—definitely coming from his room, Beth thought. The cool tiles on her bare feet woke her up a little more, and an odd notion formed in her head just as she reached her father’s door, but she dismissed it. Turning the handle, she opened his door—
“Dad?”
She caught sight of a woman’s naked back arching in the moonlight pouring through the open curtains of her dad’s balcony. The headboard gave a final knock against the wall, and the woman’s head turned, her mouth open, lips parted in silent ecstasy.
Beth gaped at her.
It was Melanie, the grief-stricken widow.
Chapter 36
“Four possible contacts inside the garage,” Lieutenant Spooner said.
“Four? You mean they’re all here? Is that confirmed?” Corporal Gibson asked.
“No. That count comes from civilian eyewitnesses in the house across the street. We won’t know for sure until we flush them out.”
“What’s the plan, sir?” Corporal Gibson asked, staring hard at the double garage of a million-dollar mansion in the community of Princeville. Gibson’s team, Alpha team, stood with team Epsilon guarding the garage doors and broken front entrance of the mansion. They were packing XREP-loaded shotguns, tranquilizer guns, grenade launchers with 40mm HEMIs, and net guns. Between them, they had enough non-lethal force to take down a T-Rex. The problem was, they couldn’t crawl into that garage safely.
Bloody streaks and ragged claw marks on the white doors marked where Crawlers had tried to break in, and a splintered hole marked where they’d got it right. A trail of blood led from the shattered front door of the mansion to the garage, suggesting that one or more of the home’s residents had been dragged in there. While still among the living, those residents had blocked the side entrance of the garage with a heavy pile of furniture, but it hadn’t been enough to keep the Crawlers out. Now Bravo Team was watching that door to make sure none of the aliens escaped.
“We could pop a frag in there,” Private Dekker suggested. He framed an imaginary explosion with his hands. “Boom.”
“Negative, Private,” Lieutenant Spooner said. “We aren’t authorized to use lethal force.”
“Well, fuck, what are we supposed to do, ask them to come out with their hands up?” Private Dekker replied.
“Can it,” Spooner said. “We’re
gonna smoke ‘em out and shoot them as they stick their heads out.” Spooner clipped a smoke grenade off his belt and approached the splintered hole in the doors. “Heads on a swivel! ENVGs down. Prepare for contact.”
“Copy that,” Epsilon One said, and Gibson echoed that sentiment while folding down the monocular night vision goggles strapped to his helmet. Combined with the FSW-I sights on his shotgun, the goggles showed him exactly what his weapon saw without having to physically look down the sights.
A pin clinked as Spooner pulled it out, and both of Gibson’s hands tensed in readiness. He didn’t bring his shotgun into line yet, because Spooner was in the way. The lieutenant rolled a smoke grenade through the hole in the garage and darted out of the way, retreating to safety behind Epsilon Team.
Gibson brought his weapon up, keeping the targeting reticle from his shotgun’s sights dead center on the hole. A loud hissing sound issued from within as smoke dispersed from the grenade. Alien growls and stuttering roars followed, and then smoke began billowing out. Soon it was flooding down the driveway, shifting and expanding like a living thing. The yellow bug lights mounted on the front of the garage refracted in the smoke, turning the air a deep, sunflower yellow. The ENVGs cut through all of it to reveal a faint thermal signature emerging from the hole.
“Contact, twelve o’clock!” someone shouted.
Several shotguns boomed. The alien in the opening screamed and collapsed, blocking the hole. Electric fire raced over its body in bright arcs and its limbs scrabbled for purchase on the driveway.
“Sedate it and drag it out!” Spooner said.
Tranq darts plipped out, and the Crawler’s struggles ceased with a phlegmy sigh.
More sounds emanated from deeper within the garage: scrabbling claws and loud thumping.
Gibson’s radio crackled. “Zeta One reporting, they’re trying to break through the side door. Seems to be holding.”
Private Dekker chuckled. “Eat smoke!”
Under Darkness (A Sci-Fi Thriller) (Scott Standalones Book 1) Page 13