by Jeff Olah
As the men in the black and grey fatigues stood and started for the door, Dalton followed. He stepped in beside Goodwin and held out the tablet. “They’re close, real close.”
Goodwin turned his focus from the men that darted from the door to the eight-inch screen. “What am I looking at?”
“Three, maybe four of them. This one, the mass near the south corner, just split. So I’m assuming there are at least three.”
Goodwin moved to the doorway and stepped out. He watched the six men disappear into the trees and as he spoke to Dalton, his eyes darted between the massive rows of spruce at the rear of the property.
“He’s out there, isn’t he?”
“Yes, I believe he is. But …”
Goodwin turned back quickly, looking right through him. “But what?”
“Sir,” Dalton said, “there are at least two others, maybe three. And there is no way to tell if they are armed or if there are others waiting further back.”
“Mr. Dalton, did you not just see the men that exited this chopper?”
Dalton didn’t respond because he knew that Goodwin wasn’t looking for an answer. The man with his hand around the throat of the entire world had come to finish what he started and there wasn’t a damn thing Dalton could do to change that. He’d used everything at his disposal to give those inside Blackmore a chance to retreat, to run from what was coming. Now it was up to them.
As Goodwin turned his attention back to the treeline, Dalton looked through the cabin toward the cockpit and noticed that Nicholas was staring back. The older man was now smiling and appeared at ease. Gone from his face was the tense, worn-down look from only minutes ago. The sudden shift was off-putting, but with everything that had taken place over the last twenty-four hours, Dalton knew where his friend had gone.
And maybe the forty-five-year-old pilot was right. Maybe there was a way out.
Offering a quick nod, Dalton turned back to the door and noticed the man walking out of the trees only slightly before Goodwin.
Just above a whisper, the words drifted quietly from Dalton’s mouth. “Oh God, that’s him.”
Stepping forward, Goodwin rubbed his hands together and filled his lungs with the frigid mountain air. “Outstanding. Look for my signal and DO NOT leave this helicopter, not for anything.”
172
Behind the former security desk outside the closed-off food court, Ethan was able to see back into the area where Jonah and his people slept, and also straight through to the rear entrance. For the last two hours, he sat alone, fighting the inevitable. He’d drifted off more than once; however, it was the image of sister’s face that brought him rushing back each and every time.
“Emma …”
He just wanted to hear her name in his own voice. He wanted to remind himself why he was here and what exactly he still needed to do. She was out there. He didn’t care that he’d lost all communication, or even that he had absolutely no trust in Boone. There was something he couldn’t describe, something in his gut that told him she was alive and that she needed him desperately.
Ethan’s eyes closed yet again. This time, he decided to let himself go, to find out where his mind was wanting to take him. Almost instantly, he slumped back in the chair and nodded off, again picturing his sister.
She was eight years old and sat alone in the front yard of the home he’d walked away from only a few weeks earlier. The garage door was open and from his vantage on the opposite side of the street, it appeared his mother was in the living room talking on the telephone.
The warm afternoon sun drifted through the low cloud cover and as the sprinklers kicked on, his sister squealed loudly and jumped to her feet. The cool water came at her from all sides, her cream colored t-shirt and tan capris turning a darker shade as she looked back toward the house.
Emma first shouted for her mother and then beginning to run across the damp grass, called out to him. She appeared to be laughing and although the smile on her face said otherwise, her words came out much more desperate.
“ETHAN, PLEASE … PLEASE HELP ME!”
He jerked his chin back toward his mother behind the large bay window at the front of the home. She had moved closer, but didn’t appear to have noticed anything out of the ordinary. Quickly turning back to Emma, he could only watch as she slipped, moving around the tree at the center of the yard and fell face-first into the wet grass.
“EMMA!” He tried calling out to her, but his voice only came out as a whisper. She didn’t hear him and appeared not to know he was even there.
On her feet again, she looked back over her left shoulder and began to scream for him once again. “ETHAN, THEY’RE HERE! PLEASE HELP ME!”
He followed her eyes back across the yard and through the gentle streams of water to a grouping of twelve massive Feeders. Each one bigger than the one in front, they moved much faster than he’d ever seen and would be on his sister in only a matter of seconds.
Without another thought, Ethan leaned forward and attempted to step off the curb. His body wouldn’t move and as he struggled, he could feel himself being pulled backward. His feet moved below him, although he couldn’t seem to gain any traction. It was as if he was running at full speed, but the soles of his shoes hovered just above the ground.
He called out again. “EMMA!”
His voice again came out as a whisper.
Quickly back to the bay window, he tried to signal his mother, although she had already turned away and was headed further into the home. He could see from her leisurely pace that she hadn’t noticed the events playing out in her own front yard.
And where was his father?
Still unable to move off the sidewalk, and having been pulled backward onto the neighbor’s lawn, Ethan now had a clear view of his family’s garage. The SUV had been pulled to the opposite side of the driveway and a pair of black loafers protruded from just inside the open door.
Thomas Runner, his father, lay on his back in a growing pool of his own blood. A black river ran from between his legs and flowed sluggishly down the slight incline of the water speckled driveway. Behind his father, a man dressed in black hid in the shadows peering back toward the home.
Ethan again cried out. “HEY!”
His voice came out only slightly louder than before, although it still wasn’t nearly enough to draw the attention of the horde about to descend on his sister.
“OVER HERE!”
Not one turned. They moved onto the wet grass, blocking his view of his sister. The first few dropped down on top of her, fighting one another for position.
Ethan’s hands shook and his face began to tremble as she started to scream his name.
“ETHAN PLEASE. PLEASE HELP ME!”
She didn’t seem to know he was there, so why would she be calling out to him and not their father? She hadn’t looked over at him, but she must have been able to feel his presence. Strangely enough, he could also feel hers.
The massive Feeder that lay atop his sister pulled free its right hand and held it toward the sky. It clutched a large piece of bloodied fabric and what he knew to be a piece of Emma’s torn flesh.
As a single line of blood ran down the wiry forearm of the aggressive monster, Ethan felt the stabbing pain deep within his own stomach. It burned from the inside, and instinctively reaching down, he pulled back a handful of his own blood. He again tried leaning forward, but the more he fought the forces pulling him back, the faster he slipped.
“Emma, I love you.”
“Ethan.”
Her voice was different. There wasn’t any pain. There was no desperation.
“Ethan, wake up.”
It wasn’t her voice calling out to him. And as he looked back toward the front of the home, he could see her. She now stood just beyond the bay window and was waving at him. She smiled softly, nodded, and then turned away. Slowly, she disappeared into the home as the voice again called out to him.
“Ethan, come on, wake up.”
&n
bsp; As the pain in his abdomen slowly faded and the world around him began to change, Ethan opened his eyes. He blinked away the confusion and looked up to see Frank standing above him, the older man’s right hand resting on his shoulder.
“Son, you were out.”
“What?” Ethan pushed himself up in the unforgiving chair and looked around.
“You fell asleep again. And by my count, that’s the fourth time.”
“Yeah?”
“Why don’t you head back there with the others?”
Ethan pushed away from the chair and stood. His legs shuddered as he looked back toward the food court. “Everyone else?”
“Mostly asleep.”
“Boone?”
“Griffin’s bringing him out. We’ll take turns sleeping, but there’s no need for you—”
“What about his phone?”
Frank nodded. “Griffin has it. We’ll come get you if someone tries to reach him, let you decide how to handle it.”
“Frank …”
“What’s on your mind, son?”
“The others, are they okay with … well … I mean—”
“Ethan, if it wasn’t for you, none of us would be here.”
“I’m not sure that’s exactly true.”
“Listen, there’s only one person you need to worry about right now, and if I were you, I wouldn’t wait until tomorrow.”
Ethan glanced again over his right shoulder. “Shannon?”
“She’s sleeping back there with the others.”
“Thanks.” Ethan started to turn, but stopped. “You sure that you and Griffin—”
“Go,” Frank said, “you need some rest.”
Ethan nodded and then slowly walked back toward the darkened food court. He moved through his sleeping friends and found Shannon just beyond the fountain with the decorative pink flamingos. She was wrapped in a bright orange blanket that only covered her from shoulder to calf. As he approached, she rolled onto her back and looked up at him through blinking eyes.
Shannon’s voice was slow and quiet. “Hey.”
Ethan quickly sat down beside her and reached for her hand. “Go back to sleep.”
“I will, but I want you to promise me that you won’t leave again.”
He looked back toward the doors and shook his head. “No, we’re all staying together from now on.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Well then, lay down mister. You need some sleep.”
“Yeah, everyone keeps telling me that.”
Shannon slid half of her pillow out from under her head and pulled him down beside her. She offered a small corner of her undersized blanket and then curled up beside him.
His eyes again felt heavy and as he continued to hold Shannon’s hand, he began to drift off. “Thank you.”
173
Emma continued staring out the window watching as the storm began to move to the north, leaving behind wet asphalt and darkened skies. She took another long drink from the bottle of water and offered what remained to Tom. She couldn’t remember the last time the two of them had eaten anything of substance, and although she desperately needed sleep, her mind was racing.
“Maybe they were here for me?”
Tom sat across from her staring out in the opposite direction. “Whatta ya mean … why would they be here for you? And how would they even know where to find you?”
“I think I have an idea.”
Emma dropped her backpack in between her legs and rolling the stiffness out of her neck, reached in and pulled out her phone. She hit the home button, moved quickly to her messages, and reading the last one she received from Ethan, she powered it off.
Tom looked away from the devastated city and narrowed his eyes at Emma. “What is it?”
Just before her screen went black, she noted the battery percentage and ran a quick calculation in her head. “I’ll turn it on twice a day. Once in the morning and once at sundown, and I think I may not want to be in the same place when I do.”
Tom leaned forward, his feet nearly touching hers now. “Wait, you think they tracked you here? Really?”
“I don’t know, but nothing that man did toward the end made any sense.”
“Well maybe they were here to help, take you to find that guy … Goodman?”
“It’s Goodwin, Marcus Goodwin. And I really don’t think he sent Cecil Philips here to help. He just wasn’t that type of man.”
“Then what?”
Emma dropped her phone into her bag and leaned back into the wall. She blew into her hands, rubbed them together and turned toward the window as if the answer was somewhere out there on the wet city streets. “I don’t know, but I’m fairly certain it has nothing at all to do with helping us.”
“How do you know?”
Emma took in a slow breath and met Tom’s eyes. “The day of the outbreak …”
“Yeah?”
“That very first morning, I was on a private jet coming back from New York and Marcus Goodwin had his driver take me to my home. He knew what was happening out there. I think he knew how bad it was going to get … and he sent me home alone to fend for myself. He never cared about anyone or anything. Within the first few hours, he had completely cut off my access and told me I was no longer needed. There’s no way he’s here to help.”
“I don’t understand, I thought his men were the ones rushing you out of the city when you got in the accident?”
“No, it was someone else, a business partner of Goodwin’s. A man who I had heard of, but never met, Major Richard Daniels. I’ll never get to thank him for what he tried to do. He lost three of his own men that morning. They we’re trying to get me out of the city when we were overrun. I wish I could repay him somehow, or at least say thank you. I would have died alone in my living room if it weren’t for him.”
“So,” Tom said, “you think those men out there may also have a connection to this Daniels guy? Maybe they know something we don’t?”
“I’m sure they do, but I can guarantee that they weren’t here to help. Cecil Philips never did anything to help anyone unless he was getting something out of it.”
Tom’s expression quickly changed. “Sounds personal?”
“Not completely, but I did some digging on him while I was at BXF. One of the women on my team—I’d only known her for a few months—told me that he’d had multiple harassment complaints filed against him and that I needed to be careful when he was around.”
“And?”
“I had a friend in IT give me temporary access to a few of the encrypted files and couldn’t believe some of the things he was accused of, really sick stuff.”
“You do anything with the info?”
“No, it wouldn’t have made any difference. Each case had been reviewed by Marcus Goodwin himself and essentially buried.”
“Why, who was this guy?”
“I don’t know,” Emma said. “His employment record dated back to the first year that BXF was in business. He’d been around almost as long as Goodwin himself.”
“So, he was a bad dude. That still doesn’t tell us why he’d be out there looking for you.”
Emma set aside her pack, looked around the room, and sliding up onto her knees, checked the street below. “They went back that way, right?”
“Yeah,” Tom said. “Why?”
“I think we should go. I think we should go right now. Maybe the next building over or back toward the highway. That’s where we need to go anyway, right? Your friends, that’s where they’ll be coming from?”
“Yes, but I really don’t know when. It could be tomorrow, could be the next day, maybe not at all. I think we should start thinking about how we can get out of here on our own.”
Emma leaned closer to the window and now looked south beyond the highway. “How far is it?”
“Harbor Crest?”
“Yeah,” Emma said without turning back.
“Listen Emma, my
friends and I were only there for a few days. They may have already moved on.”
“But they said that they were coming back here every single day looking for you, maybe they’ll come back tomorrow. Why can’t we get a head start and try to meet them somewhere along the way?”
“And,” Tom said. “you were sick as a dog—like what—two hours ago?”
“I’m fine. I just get a touch of anxiety every once in a while, and considering all that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours, I’d say—”
Tom reached for her arm and gently pulled her toward him. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead. “We can’t go out there at night and you know that. We wouldn’t last ten minutes. How about we get a solid night’s sleep and check things out in the morning. There are plenty of abandoned cars out there, but we also need to be smart about this. We don’t really have much of a choice.”
“What about that gun you found?”
“Won’t do us much good, it’s only got two rounds left.”
She knew he was right. They had no real way of defending themselves and with visibility near zero, it would be almost impossible to navigate the streets without eventually running across one of the many hordes destroying the city.
“You think we’ll be safe here for the night … are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
He was lying to her and she knew it. But for now, she’d act like she believed him and pray that they’d live long enough to prove him right.
174
Dalton’s mouth dropped as the man walking out of the trees marched with confidence toward the center of the courtyard. From a distance, he eyed Goodwin and began to shout into the dying storm. His words came through in fits and starts, Dalton only able to catch maybe every fourth of fifth partial syllable.