Under Darkness (A Sci-Fi Thriller) (Scott Standalones Book 1)
Page 17
Corporal Lee stayed with them, standing guard by the door to the clinic. His presence made a candid discussion impossible. If that Marine was infected and Don was right, then talking openly in front of him would be a very bad idea.
Unable to talk about what was really on her mind, Beth passed the time in silence, alone with her thoughts. Those thoughts ran in anxious circles, wondering about the so-called infection they were investigating, and who they could actually trust.
The time passed with agonizing slowness. Beth’s stomach growled, and her mouth felt dry. That gave her an idea. “Hey, can I get something to drink?” she asked.
Corporal Lee glanced at the door he was guarding, then back to her.
“What do you think we’re going to do if you leave us alone?” Don asked in an amused tone.
“You could compromise the integrity of the center,” Lee replied.
“Relax, Corporal,” Don said. “I did two tours myself. The last thing I want to do is get you into trouble. I get that you have a job to do.”
Lee sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. “All right. Don’t go anywhere.” With that, he turned and pushed out through the waiting room doors. The flaps sealed themselves behind him along a magnetic seam.
“Come on,” Don said, pulling Beth to her feet and heading for the door to the clinic. “This is taking too long.”
“But he just said—”
“He’s infected, kid. The director sent him to keep an eye on Ashley and us.”
They swept into the clinic to find Ashley still peering into the microscope, scribbling notes furiously on a pad of paper. She was so absorbed in her work that she didn’t notice their approach.
“Ash,” Don said.
She jumped at the sound of his voice and whirled around. “Don’t do that!” she whispered. “Where’s the corporal?”
“Out to get us water, but he’ll be back soon. What’s the verdict?”
“You were right. The samples were all normal until I irradiated them with the CT scanner. Yours were all fine, but it was like the Corporal’s blood short-circuited. The radiation killed one in ten of his cells, and they started changing as they died.”
“Changing how?” Beth asked.
Ashley shook her head and shrugged. “Becoming alien.” She gestured to the microscope. “Take a look for yourself.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Don said.
Beth hurried to peer into the lens. She saw light pink circles and larger purplish ones. In between, were amorphous blue structures, smaller than the other cells, with delicate, web-like structures inside of them.
“See the blue ones?” Ashley asked.
Beth nodded. “They just appeared out of nowhere. Gradually changing from red and white cells into that. I call them chameleon cells.”
“Enough with the biology lesson,” Don said. Lowering his voice to a whisper, he said, “What have you been doing all this time? We should be getting the hell out of here before we get caught. We need to get this information out before it’s too late and they lift the quarantine.”
Ashley nodded quickly. “I’ve been checking old samples.” She pointed to the microscope beside Beth. “That one is your dad’s. He’s definitely infected, and so is almost everyone else from the resort. I only found two other immunes—Corporal Gibson and Commander Wilde.”
Beth felt hope stirring inside of her again. “But we can cure them, right?”
Ashley shook her head. “I don’t know. I hope so.”
Don let out an impatient sigh and glanced around quickly. “Let’s cut the chatter,” he said. “We need to bug out, now, while we still can.”
At that moment the tent flap doors leading from the waiting room flew open, and Corporal Lee stormed in with two bottles of water dangling from one hand, his other holding his shotgun at a threatening angle.
“I told you not to move,” Lee said.
“Sorry,” Ashley replied in a bright voice. “My fault. I called them in for more tests.”
“I see... find anything interesting?” he asked, his eyes flicking between them.
Ashley shook her head. “Same as ever. Empty-handed. It looks like I’m going to have to go back out into the field to gather more samples.”
Ashley removed the slide from the microscope and tossed it into a tray with the others for cleaning.
“Where are you going?” Corporal Lee asked.
“Not sure yet,” Ashley replied. She walked over to a big rectangular black bag and started packing it with medical supplies.
“You should have an escort,” Lee said.
“That won’t be necessary, Corporal. You’ve done enough.”
He walked over to them, and Beth watched his approach with wide eyes and a pounding heart.
“Your water,” he said, handing each of them a bottle.
“Thanks,” Don replied. “We should get going, too.”
“Yes, we should,” Beth agreed.
Ashley finished packing her bag and zipped it up. “I’ll walk you out,” she said.
The Marine Corporal shadowed them across the trampled, overgrown grass to the fence. He was about to follow them to the parking lot, too, when Ashley turned to him and nodded. “Thank you, Corporal. You can return to your post now.”
He nodded back hesitantly, and the three of them walked the rest of the way alone.
“I’ll follow you in one of the center’s vans,” Ashley said in a low voice.
“Follow us where?” Don asked as they reached the side of his truck. “If you’re looking for suggestions, I have a boat in the harbor with our name on it.”
“No.” Ashley shook her head. “The harbor is under heavy guard, and the whole island is still under quarantine. We won’t even reach it before we get arrested.”
“Then what are you planning?” Don asked.
“We go to the Koa Kai and speak to Commander Wilde and Corporal Gibson. They’re also uninfected, and they might be able to help us get off the island.”
“I guess we could use some reinforcements,” Don replied. “But how are you going to convince them?”
Ashley patted her case of supplies. “Wilde is a doctor. I’m going to show him.” Ashley glanced back to the fence, probably checking to make sure none of the Marines had followed them to the gravel parking lot. “On the way there I’m going to call HQ in Atlanta to see if I can stop them from lifting the quarantine.”
“Good idea,” Don said. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 45
“This is what Doctor Carter was doing?” Director Coben asked, picking through the bin of slides next to the microscope.
Corporal Lee nodded. “Yes, sir. She claimed that she didn’t find anything, but she seemed to be acting suspiciously.”
The director wore a hazmat suit, but they both knew that was just to keep up appearances.
“Let’s take a look, shall we?” Coben said, fishing one of the slides out of the bin at random. He checked the label. “Private Nolan Dekker. Blood sample.” He placed the slide under the microscope and peered through the lens. “You were right to be suspicious.” Coben withdrew from the microscope. “She knows.”
“What are we going to do?”
The director appeared to think about it. “We need to proceed carefully. Who was with her?”
“Two civilians. Immune like her.”
“Then it’s safe to say they’re working together,” Coben said.
Lee struggled to recall more details. “Beth and Don, I believe, were their names.”
“Beth Steele and Donald Hale,” Coben clarified.
Lee cocked his head. “You know them?”
“Only by name. They’re both from the Koa Kai group. Beth is the owner’s daughter. Did Doctor Carter have contact with anyone else at the facility while she was here?”
“No, sir. She was in here by herself the entire time.”
“Good. She probably doesn’t know who to trust. That will make this easier. Did they say where t
hey were going?”
“Negative,” Lee replied.
“Hmmm.” The director pawed through the bin of slides once more, checking labels. “These samples are all from the Koa Kai group. Check there first. Take a team. Our kind only.”
“Yes, sir,” Lee replied. “What do we do when we make contact?”
“Wait for them to make the first move. We don’t want to look like the bad guys. If you can, bring them back here. Tell them I want to follow up on their test results.”
“Copy that. What if they have a chance to tell someone what they know before we catch up with them? This could spread beyond our ability to contain. Especially if one of them makes a call to someone on the mainland.”
“I’ll take care of the phones, but you’re right about the potential for this to spread. We can’t have any loose ends, and we also can’t be seen tying them off.”
The director drummed his fingers on the table, and Corporal Lee fought the urge to do the same.
“What about the Seeders?” Lee asked. “There’s still one of them out there. If it were to somehow free the others, they could hunt down the immunes and take care of the problem for us. That would give us an excuse to explain any casualties.”
“Yes,” Coben replied. “Unfortunately we can’t release them until nightfall, and we have no contact with the missing Seeder, but it’s still a good idea. I’ll have Sergeant Colton take another team to Barking Sands. They’ll release the Seeders once the sun goes down. In the meantime, you’d better hurry out, Corporal. We don’t want to lose track of Doctor Carter. Be discreet, but do what you must. We can always have the Seeders cover it up afterward.”
“Understood.”
* * *
Ashley drove like a maniac down Route 50. Her helmet lay on the passenger seat beside her. Hopefully, she was immune and not just one of the lucky ones who’d somehow escaped contamination. Her right hand held the wheel as she followed the winding road behind Don’s truck. She used her other hand to clumsily search through the contacts on her phone. She needed to reach someone from the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, someone senior enough to override Director Coben’s authority. She glossed over the number for the Director of the CDC; he was impossible to reach directly. But Principal Deputy Director Schuman was more promising. They’d met on several occasions, and Ashley actually had her cell number.
Ashley stabbed Dr. Schuman’s name with her left thumb and placed the phone to her ear. The phone rang and rang, and...
“Hello?”
“Dr. Schuman!” Ashley said.
“Yes? Who is this?”
“It’s Doctor Ashley Carter from the CDC. You might remember me from the 2017 STD Prevention Conference in Washington. We went out to dinner together to discuss my research.”
“Ah, that Ashley. Yes, I remember you. What can I do for you, doctor?”
“I’m currently assigned to the quarantine zone on Kauai,” Ashley explained.
“Oh, that must be fascinating work—unprecedented, I would say. It’s just a pity you haven’t found anything. Did you have a chance to study any of the... extraterrestrials?”
“No, not directly—”
“That’s a shame. I imagine there’s a lot we could learn about infectious disease from alien biology. For instance, how do their systems react to our viruses and bacteria?”
“I’m sure that would be interesting, Madam Director, but I’m actually calling about a much more urgent concern...” Ashley trailed off as a familiar beep sounded in her ear. “Hello?”
No reply.
Ashley removed the phone from her ear to check it. The call had dropped, and now she had no signal. Seeing the dense foliage and lack of civilization on both sides of the road, Ashley could guess why. Blowing out a shaky breath, she tossed her phone onto the passenger’s seat. The island’s spotty cell coverage might have just cost the human race their survival. Calm down, Ashley. There’s still time. The quarantine doesn’t end until tomorrow. She’d call again once she reached the town of Koloa.
Chapter 46
Beth listened to long grass rustling as they drove by. Don focused on the task of driving while Beth thought about everything she’d just learned. If radiation was the cure, how would that even work for her dad? Would they have to give him a lethal dose, or would it just be like getting an x-ray to look for cavities? She thought back to the CT scan they’d performed on him and remembered how he’d been afterward—a zombie with dull, staring eyes—until later that night when Melanie had revived him through carnal means. The pieces snapped into place, and Beth’s eyes widened. “It wasn’t a panic attack...”
“What?” Don asked, glancing at her.
She explained about the CT scan and her dad’s reaction to it. “That was his reaction to the die-off of alien cells, not a delayed reaction to trauma.”
“Makes sense,” Don replied. “But what’s your point?”
“We just have to get him to a CT scanner, or something like it, and we can probably cure him. That’s why he and Melanie hooked up. I think she was trying to re-infect him. And now they’re engaged, so it obviously worked.”
“They’re engaged?” Don asked.
“Yeah. We have to find some way to get him away from her.”
“One thing at a time, kid. First we have to make sure we live through this.”
Beth blinked. “Live through this?”
“If Ashley stops the CDC from lifting the quarantine, we become enemy number one to the infected who would rather spread their alien spores far and wide, and we’re inside that quarantine zone, so we’ll be stuck on an island full of hostiles. Not to mention, once the Crawlers realize that the jig is up, they might just skip ahead to the real invasion. We need to play this carefully, or we’re dead.”
Beth took a minute to process the implications of that. “But... what are we supposed to do?”
“I’m not sure yet. My place in the mountains is an option if we can get there before they realize we’re onto them.”
Beth nodded slowly, silently and stared out the window at a blurry wall of grass and trees.
“Maybe we don’t need the CT scanner. How did you irradiate those chickens? You have something that emits radiation? Would it work on my dad?”
“I didn’t irradiate them. Not exactly. I got to thinking about what killed the Crawlers. Why did they all die when their ship moved away from the sun? Radiation was the answer.”
“But the sun isn’t radioactive.”
“UV radiation, kid. It’s milder stuff, sure, but the Crawlers obviously don’t get a lot of sunlight where they came from, so they don’t have any defenses. I took blood samples from the infected chickens and laid them out in the sun; then I examined them under a microscope, and bingo, I found the alien cells, just like Ash.”
“So you’re saying all we have to do to cure the infected people is get them to lie out in the sun?”
Don snorted. “I doubt it. Blood doesn’t have protection from UV, but our skin does, and we can’t exactly turn people inside out to cure them.”
Beth’s heart sank. “Then it won’t work.”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, kid.”
Beth studied Don curiously.
He noticed her scrutiny and asked, “What? Do I have a monkey on my face or something?”
“It’s just that you don’t seem like the type to own a microscope.”
Don smiled at that. “What’s the type?”
“I don’t know... academic? You were a soldier.”
“A helicopter pilot, to be specific, and more recently an EMT—until the PTSD got me fired.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. I was planning to retire anyway.”
The highway curved away and down, and the town of Koloa appeared in the valley below.
“Almost there,” Don said. “Remember, play it cool. The minute they figure out we’re onto them, they’ll kill us to shut us up. Best let me and Ash do the talking.”
Chapter 47
Don parked in front of the Koa Kai and then reached over Beth’s lap to the glove compartment.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Getting my insurance policy.”
“You...” Beth trailed off as he withdrew a gleaming silver pistol with a brown grip. “What’s that for?”
Don leaned forward and tucked the weapon into the waistband of his jeans. “I told you. Insurance.” He opened his door and hopped out, making sure to cover the pistol with his loose-fitting Hawaiian shirt.
Don slammed the door. Bang. Beth jumped with the noise, then opened her door and jumped out, taking a moment to close it more gently than Don had. Beth went to stand by the tailgate with Don while they waited for Ashley to park her van beside them. Staring up at the entrance of the Koa Kai, everything looked so normal. The brown roof gleamed in the sun; palm trees waved in the breeze with the muted clattering of their fronds; plenty of cars were parked out front—well, there was one thing that broke the illusion of normalcy: a green Humvee with a machine gun mounted on the roof.
“Looks like Gibson’s team is here,” Don said, nodding to the Humvee as Ashley came to join them.
“Remember, we need to speak with him alone,” she said, her voice muffled by her hazmat suit’s helmet. “The other three are infected.”
“Yeah... or maybe we should just go,” Don said. “Would be nice to have extra guns and boots, but the risk might outweigh the reward.”
Ashley wasn’t listening. She was busy fiddling with her phone, frowning deeply at it behind the glass faceplate of her helmet.
“What is it?” Beth asked.
“Do you have a signal?” Ashley asked, looking up from the phone.
“I don’t know,” Beth replied. “Phones aren’t allowed at school, so mine’s up in my room.”
“Hmmm,” Ashley replied, and her gaze roved on to Don.