by Maxey, Phil
“What Jess? What is it? What do you see?”
She looked at her husband, placing a finger on the young man almost out of focus behind her father. “That’s Charles Rackham.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
12: 46 a.m. Highway 70.
Landon looked between his wife and the photo. “Are you sure?”
She pulled it back, bringing it closer to her once again. “Yes… that’s him, and he’s… with my father.”
“When was that photo taken?”
“Late 80s I think… it was in a bar, near the facility where he worked… Rackham looks so young there, that’s why I never recognized him…”
“So. Your dad knew the guy who ended the world?” said Lachlan. Landon threw him an angry look. “I’m just asking…”
Jess’s eyes remained on the photo. “I had no idea…” She flicked through the other pages, scouring the other photos, but Biochron’s chief scientist was only in that one.
“So… what does that mean?” said Lachlan.
She looked at her husband. “What, does it mean?”
He wanted to give her answers, but he was as perplexed as she was.
“Maybe… that tells us something about—” Lachlan looked at Landon. “— That motive thing you were talking about?”
Landon looked at his wife. “He might be on to something. Can you remember anything more about what your father did? Or that time?”
She dropped her hands and the album to her lap, while looking into the distance, trying to dredge up long forgotten memories. “He was always so secretive about his work. As you know, he died when I was still very young, so I don’t remember much, but he always seemed happy. He would say that I was special… that one day I would change the world… I always thought all fathers said that to their children…”
“Didn’t Rackham say they used your patents? That your discoveries made this happen? What does that have to do with your father?”
She looked down, taking a deep breath… “I worked damn hard on them, but… some of the ideas, I got from my father’s notebooks… He would write down his thoughts, just stuff he wanted to work on one day. I always felt I was furthering his work. Doing it in his honor…”
“You never told me this,” said Landon.
“I never told anyone.”
Lachlan looked confused. “So… all of this is your dad’s fault? You just made…” Landon looked at him, making him stop talking.
Landon looked back to Jess. “So that’s why you’re special, because you are your father’s daughter?”
Jess looked down then back to her husband. “Maybe… I don’t know.”
“So… why has Joan taken Sam?” said Lachlan. “What does this Rackham dude want with her?”
Jess shook her head then looked back to the road. “The storms easing. Let’s get our daughter back.”
*****
1: 34 a.m. Highway 70.
Jess looked over at her husband. He was sleeping, then up to the rear mirror. The teen in the back was also. She still didn’t fully understand how his change didn’t progress to its full stage, but he said it started to happen when he was with Joan, and he doesn’t remember much. She was sure the woman that kidnaped Sam, also played part a part in what happened, or rather didn’t happen to Lachlan. Maybe the middle-aged woman needed a youngster to help befriend, Sam? Who knew.
She had spent the last hour going over glimpses of conversations from long in the past. From when her world consisted of five rooms of the single-story house her family had, and the front and back yards. Any image or sound from the time when she still had a father. But there was nothing amongst the memories which was of any use. Just fragments of emotions. Sadness, guilt, curiosity.
The notebooks…
Most of her father’s writings had been lost over the years, even since the time when she had them while at university, but a few remained at the apartment in… Denver.
Not going back…
That was one of the only things she was sure of. She wasn’t going to return to the apartment. She couldn’t. She returned to piecing together pieces of the puzzle they were all caught up in.
Rackham worked for my father… Rackham becomes chief scientist of Biochron, at least for the secret stuff. Continues my father’s work?… I apply to work there and despite being under qualified, they take me on with a high starting salary... I use my father’s ideas to win patents for the company… Did they know I was using my father’s work?.. But then on the day they release the virus, they fire me… because they didn’t need me anymore? And Amos gave me the vaccine…
She shook her head. Each time she felt she was starting to get a grip on how to navigate the maze, a wall would change and she would be lost again. She let her head fall back on the headrest. At first she didn’t notice the mass of darker shapes on the horizon but then she leaned forward trying to see through the blurs of the remaining ice and rain on the windshield.
Trees? No… they’re across the highway… cars?
She slowed in preparation then reached over, pulling the roadmap from Landon’s lap, flicked on the cabin light and scanned the page. A town was a few miles—
A buzzing took off in her mind so loud it sent a shudder through her arm then hand, making her lose grip of the wheel. The pickup jolted left then right as she regained control.
Landon’s heavy eyes opened. “What’s… I need water,” he said, smacking his lips.
Jess didn’t hear his request because her vision was fixed on what lay a few hundred yards ahead.
Is… it… are… they… moving?
She applied more pressure to the brakes, reducing the pickup’s speed to around twenty, but still they appeared to be rapidly getting closer to whatever was in front of them.
They’re… moving… this… way…
She slammed on the breaks, jolting Landon and Lachlan awake then placed the pickup into reverse. Turning in her seat, she hit the gas, the pickup surging backwards.
“What’s going on!” said Lachlan, but Landon had seen the awkward dark silhouettes upon the lighter sky.
“Are they gaining?” shouted Jess.
“I… don’t think so,” said Landon.
She slowed then swung the wheel, swinging the pickup around then eased down on the gas again, taking off in the direction they had just come from. “Find me another route west… No…” She hit the brakes again.
They could all see the tiny moving dark shapes on the edge of the barren landscape.
“They’ve been following,” said Landon. “Probably from each of the towns we passed through.”
“I thought they were dying?” said Lachlan, his voice tinged with nervousness.
“They… were, they are…”
Jess was looking at the map. They were already on the only major east-west route.
“They’re not far!” shouted Lachlan, looking through the rear window.
“Everyone hold on!” She pushed down on the gas. The dots ahead quickly taking on form, some far larger than others. “There’s a road that goes south, we just got to get to it before they do!” The pickup bumped and shuddered as they sped along the snow-covered highway. “We’re almost there!” The headlights illuminated a wall of demonic anger as she applied the brake, turning the wheel to the right, the pickup skidding laterally, then accelerating again as she dropped her boot hard on the gas.
The gravel lane was barely wide enough for their vehicle as branches scrapped along the sides. She looked in the mirror but a cloud of rocks and snow clouded her view. “Are they following?”
While holding on to the dashboard with his one good hand, Landon looked in the side and rear mirrors. “I can’t see!”
“He’s trying to stop us from getting to our daughter!” she swung the wheel left then right, following the snow-covered track best she could.
Landon looked at her, not fully understanding.
A farm house and outbuildings became lit then plunged back into darkness as they
sped across an intersection, re-joining the lane, still heading south.
“I think we lost them…” said Lachlan.
The pickup left the ground slightly, quickly coming back down as they moved over a hump of a bridge, the sheets of ice on the river below glistening.
Jess slowed.
“There’s a road east, coming up,” said Landon. “Take the next right.”
She let out a breath, looking in the rear mirror. There was nothing but darkness beyond the glow of rear lights and the sensation in her mind was subsiding. “We got to stay off the highway. Stick to the smaller roads.”
Landon nodded. But her earlier comment stuck in his mind. “What did you mean, ‘He’s trying to stop you from getting to our daughter?’ The creatures were drawn to the noise and heat of our truck…”
She looked at her husband. “There’s more I haven’t told you…”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
2: 01 a.m. Somewhere in central Kansas.
“It’s insane…” said Landon, looking away from Jess.
“Yup… and that’s what I thought I was going when I first heard them…”
A memory pinged inside him. “You know something… I heard them talk before… first, when I escaped in the town of Collier… I was in an old house and outside I thought I heard noises which sounded like words, but I just put it down to the wind and my mind playing tricks but then I heard it again when I… rescued Joan and Lachlan….I thought I heard your name…”
“So they’re like a hive mind?” said Lachlan, leaning between the front seats.
“That’s a good way of looking at it,” said Jess. “Yeah, but now I think it goes beyond just shared thoughts. They’re… some at least are being controlled by a central source. It’s Rackham, I’m sure of it, although I don’t know how that’s even possible…”
Landon shook his head. “I don’t know what to make of any of this… it’s beyond my pay grade.”
She reached over and gently held his shoulder. “We’ll figure it out. I’m a scientist, remember?” She smiled and he briefly returned the expression.
“If what you say is true… then that’s a problem.” He looked down at the map. “There must have been a hundred of those things after us, back there. And this is out in the middle of nowhere, just passing small towns. What’s it going to be like when we have to move closer to larger towns? Cities?”
She didn’t have an answer. “We’ll figure it out,” she repeated. A mantra she needed to believe.
A green sign came and went in the headlights, most in the pickup missed it. Jess slowed.
“Why you slowing?” said Landon.
They almost came to a stop at an intersection, but she swung a right, heading north. Another sign, larger, approached.
‘City of Hillbirch. Population 47204.’
Landon looked at his wife. “What happened to avoiding larger towns?”
“We’re defenseless. I’ve got a machine gun thing below my seat but no ammo and I would rather look for somewhere to get guns and ammo in a smaller city, rather than say Denver.” She looked at Landon. “I know its a risk…”
He nodded. “It’s worth taking.” He looked down at the map. “The City of… Hillbirch. Covers maybe sixteen square miles. Has to be a gun or hunting store there somewhere.”
“And… monsters… controlled by a psycho…” said Lachlan.
“We’ll be quick,” said Jess.
“Jess is right. We need tools to fight back with.”
Barns and farmhouses almost hidden at the back of plowed fields slid by the two-lane road.
“How we going to find a gun store?”
“We drive around until we see one,” said Jess.
Lachlan sat back with a sigh. “Great…”
“Hey, keep looking outside, we need those eyes of yours!”
He frowned then leaned forward, wiping the condensation off the inside of his window and looked outside to snow and ice. “Nothing moving out there.”
After a while they found their way onto the main north route, a four-lane road. Block-like buildings appeared in the darkness then parking lots and show rooms with new vehicles buried under a few feet of snow.
“We’re only a few miles from the center,” said Landon, looking between the map and the street.
Jess increased their speed as they moved past large flat buildings of an industrial park. A few cars sat abandoned at the entrance. They sped through an intersection, the structures lining the ice white streets becoming hotels and restaurants.
“There’s a superstore coming up on the left, might be worth checking out,” said Landon.
Jess agreed, changing lanes, weaving around more abandoned vehicles.
“Umm… can you guys here that?” said Lachlan.
Jess hadn’t, but then she concentrated beyond the engine noise and could. Her heart skipped a beat on hearing the screeching, but then relaxed slightly on noticing the mechanical sound that accompanied it. She slowed the pickup to a halt at another intersection, trying to ascertain which direction the noise was coming from.
“Look!” said Lachlan, beating her to it. He pointed ahead.
Two lights twinkled in the night, growing in brightness.
“It’s another vehicle,” said Landon.
The pickup, just visible beyond powerful beams, stopped twenty-feet away. Figures jumped down and ran towards them.
“What do we do,” said Lachlan.
Landon pushed his door open. “See what they want.”
Jess reached down and pulled out the MP5. She was the first to spot the double barrels waving in the glare of the lights. She pushed her door open, lifting the gun and balanced it on the door frame.
A bearded man, wearing a hoodie, skidded to a halt. His female companion doing the same. “Who are you!” he shouted.
“No one that’s any threat to you,” said Landon. “We’re just looking for supplies.”
“Ain’t nothing here for you. This is our town!” said the woman.
Lachlan turned in his seat, looking out the back window, past the pickup’s bed to the long straight road they had just driven. He couldn’t say why he did, he just felt as if he was being watched.
“My name’s Landon, this is—”
“We don’t care for your names, stranger,” said the man. “Turn your truck around and get the hell out before you draw the things here!”
Jess flicked her eyes from the two in front to her husband. “They’ll be other…” She looked down. The man and woman glanced at each other, then back to the strangers.
“What’s wrong with her?” said the man.
Landon already knew. “How long we got?” he said to her.
She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “They’re already—” She felt the air pressure change before the draft and stench hit her face. The woman, covered in the man’s blood, let out a guttural scream as parts of him fell to the snow. She thrust her hand with the handgun into the air and started firing, but the nightmare that had descended from the sky had already returned to it.
She staggered around, eyes wide, just clicks coming from the trigger in her hand.
“We can’t leave her,” said Jess.
Landon ran forward, the woman raising the empty weapon in his direction. He raised his hand anyway. “I’m not here to hurt you… I’m sorry about what happened to him, but more things are coming!” As he spoke her head shook, his words not having any meaning beyond the shock visible on her face. “Can you drive?”
“What?” She looked up at the sky.
“Can… you…”
“It’s coming back!” shouted Jess.
Instinctively he leaped forward, bundling into the woman, taking her to the icy ground as a gust of wind blanketed both of them. He scrambled to get to his knees as a creature, wings the width of the four-lane road landed near the woman’s truck. A malformed human-like head coiled on a long neck with a body that consisted of skinless muscle and legs belonging to a different s
pecies. It tore into her vehicle, the lights shattering, the engine dying, tires deflating.
Landon dragged her upright, both running back to the pickup where he pushed her into the back, the door already open. “Drive!” he shouted to Jess who pushed hard down on the gas, steering them to the left.
“Across the lot! Go to the super—”
Something heavy clipped the back, sending them skidding then spinning on the icy surface a full hundred and eighty degrees, glimpses of claw and wing flashing past. Jess ignored what direction they might end up in and floored the gas and they surged forward, bumping over a curb, destroying bushes and landed heavily on the snowy concrete of the parking lot.
“The side entrance!” screamed the woman.
Jess caught the vague shape of a door in the darkness and steered towards it. As soon as the pickup skidded to a stop the woman threw her door open and ran for the door. All it took was the slightest of nods between Jess and Landon and they were following, Lachlan doing the same. A screech rang out without any discernible source other than above and they ran through the door past the woman who immediately pulled it closed and placed a heavy plank of wood up against it.
“This way,” she said to the three who were waiting.
A single light at the end of the narrow corridor provided some hint of where they were going, and they moved quickly to it, where she pushed a door open to the cavernous space of the warehouse section of the superstore.
A forty-something man with gray-black hair stood up.
“One of the flying things, got Herb.”
He looked shocked. Landon noticed the revolver in a holster across the man’s shoulder.
“Was it their fault?”
Jess took a step forward. “Wasn’t anyone’s fault. We were just driving through.”