Authors: K.M. Malloy
Chapter Thirty
Thursday May 6, 2010
4:35 a.m.
Population: 193
It was hot inside the canvas covered humvee. The full body suit made him sweat in places he didn’t know he could sweat from. The thick material clung to his sticky skin, making his movements heavy and exaggerated. He felt trapped within the suit that made it difficult to bend at the joints, and Jackson found the only way to be semi comfortable in the cramped truck was to slide his rear to the edge of the bench seat and stick his legs out as far as he could without playing footsies with the marine across from him.
The marines
naked faces looked bored and groggy. A couple drooling mouths hung open in sl
umber
as the men tried to catch a quick nap before reaching their destination. He was grateful for the quiet ride. It gave him time to think, time to plan. He’d have to act quickly when they reached the city limits. A second too slow and the whole thing was done for.
It had taken quick thinking and a sly tongue for him to even be on this mission. He’d earned his computer programming degree while serving in the U.S. Air Force, and his previous combat training had been the only reason why Manning had approved him to go along for the ride. Money was tight, the facility understaffed even with contributions from the Blue Lion Group. Why would
n’t
he want to add another man trained in combat to the undermanned mission, Jackson had argued.
He also suspected it had something to do with the initial security breach. The world outside was getting smar
ter, so much so that a nineteen-year-
old on the east coast had created such a powerf
ul computer virus that even one of the
best expert
s
in the country hadn’t been able to wipe it out after almost a month.
“This is the exact technology we need to study,” Jackson had argued. “This virus is so complex,
so unique. What would happen if
something like this got out when they
begin implanting the entire country with the chip?” Manning had agreed, and so had the board of directors at the Blue Lion.
Now he was sweating
his
balls
off
next to the two marines on his team as the truck jostled and jounced over the dirt road into the mad house. He and two
other
soldiers had blue bandannas tied around their arms to signify their team and mission of flagging down any uninfected units with tranquilizer darts to bring back to the lab for additional testing. That would give him almost forty units to experiment with as he tested the virus in pursuit of finding a means to eradicate it. That’s what he’d told Manning, anyway.
Jenkins sat next to him, an orange bandanna tied to his arm with special orders to terminate
the Wild Card
. He kept his eyes to the floor as the truck jolted across the ruts and bumps in the road, his jaw clenching and unclenching. Jackson made a conscious effort to keep his face lax and devoid of any emotion. The moment was coming, and he couldn’t
risk
be
ing
sent back before he got to
Air
e first.
The red team,
an
assassination team of twenty, travelled in the humvees behind them. All infected units would be pegged with the lethal red darts, their bodies brought back to the lab dead on arrival. There their chips would be removed for further observation and their bodies sent to the
burner
for disposal.
Jackson looked out of the back of the truck as it separated from the other four humve
e
s behind them heading further sout
h. Red team would create a semi
circle around the south east end of the population, driving any uninfected to the center of town while terminating those who were unsalvageable. His team and Jenkins would set up in the center of town as the uninfected were sure to run to City Hall for help. He crossed his fingers the girl wouldn’t be far from their station, and began to pray.
***
Thursday May 6, 2010
4:35 a.m.
Population: 192
She wiped the sweat from her face as she continued her trek towards Parker. She’d been walking for only a half an hour or so, but already the woods were becoming unfa
miliar.
The trees were becoming more dense in this unknown part of the forest just as she’d hoped, sometimes so thick she had to squeeze through the tightly placed trunks.
An anxious knot caught in her stomach, and every step increased her fear of setting out alone. She paid conscious attention to the feeling, afraid she too may
be
suffer
ing
the same symptoms as the others as she wandered farther away from John’s Town. She sang songs to herself to quelch the fear, but every little sound made her jump.
She came upon a sparse patch in the woods, the trees here becoming younger and more evenly spaced. She stopped when she heard the faint sounds of running motors. It didn’t seem plausible that so many vehicles suddenly decided to drive into John’s Town. Aire told herself it was in her mind, auditory hallucinations brought on by her fear and paranoia.
It’s probably just one Army truck
, she told herself,
it only sounds like ten because you have the jitters
. The rest of the noise was just the chugging of motorcycle engines of the residents as they got up and began to go to work and run errands. The illusion was there because the trees were thick and distorted the sound.
“Just distorted sound,” she whispered.
From the moment she’d left her house, Aire felt something wasn’t right, that something was more
unright
than the madness plaguing the city. That feeling she had chalked up to being nervous about meeting Gary.
But w
hen she’d entered the woods after leaving Mrs. Amos’s house
, the feeling seemed to
intensify. That, she decided, was caused by having seen the woman murdered and stolen away
under
the cover of darkness.
It’s something more though,
a voice whispered within,
it’s something much more
.
The sound of motors began to fade. She shook her head and continued her journey, her thoughts mangled within her mind. Once the sound of the motors passed she could hear rushing water ahead. It had to be Christopher Creek, but she couldn’t be positive. She’d never been this far upstream to tell if Christopher Creek was its own entity, or if it was fed by other meandering streams running down from the mountains.
Or was it Cienga Creek? Wasn’t that close by?
Focus
, she reminded herself.
She turned her mind back to her emotions, trying to sort through why she had such a sick feeling in her gut. She’d been stressed about the happenings in town, about Troy. Most of all she had been afraid to have the meeting with Gary. Not because she was fully afraid of him, cautious was a better word to describe her feelings about him. She was fully afraid to find out the answer to the horrors of the small town, afraid that wha
tever was causing all this was an inescapable
fate she couldn’t change no matter how hard she tried.
Gary had never shown up, though. He had been losing his mind over the last month, but wasn’t so far gone that he’d miss their rendezvous. Or maybe he
had
finally snapped and the Army snatched him away in the night, just as they had taken Dustin and Mrs. Amos and dozens of others. A lump stuck in her throat at the thought of them taking Gary away, snarling and kicking in the night. Her
skin turned to gooseflesh
as she imagined one of them shooting him with that little dart, bending down to check his pulse to make sure he was dead.
She shuddered and shook her head.
Keep moving
,
she told herself. Hope wasn’t lost yet as long as she kept moving.
The stream grew louder, drowning out her thoughts. The trees began to thin as she got closer to the water
, but the b
ushes
began to thicken, making walking close to the water
next to impossible. She stopped for a moment to
watch it rush by, transfixed by the gurgling sound the water made as it moved its way around the rocks
.
Examining the terrain, Aire determined following the stream directly was not the best plan. This close to it, she couldn’t hear the highway. And with the shrubbery so dense she knew she’d be torn to pieces within minutes by the thorns. She decided to cross
it instead
and stick to it as close as safely possible.
Shoving the brush aside, Aire began the small hike across the lazy stream. As she approached, the sick feeling knotted her stomach to the point of pain, as though the rock lined river bed were an invisible vice grip clenching at her organs. Breathing hard and clutching her stomach, she stopped for a moment to calm herself. She bent down to cup the cool water in her hands, hoping that the chilliness of it splashing on her face would help settle her stomach. Her hands were just about to
embrace the cool moisture
when a faint sound caught her ear.
Aire froze, straining to hear over the g
arbling
stream. She heard it again. It was faint, but not far, sounding like a low growl from a threatening hound.
She looked over her shoulder. Even from her low point she could see the tips of the bushes moving in the distance. She slowly arose and began making her way towards the sound. It
heightened
in decibel as she approached. At first it sounded almost like mumbled
snarling
. When she was close enough to hear it clearly, she was certain it was a man’s voice humming and mu
ttering
to himself. The tone grew familiar as she snaked through the bushes, yet it sounded distorted, as though the man had been muzzled while trying to hold a conversation. Another
sound came into the mix as she slinked close enough to make out the figure. It was very quiet, almost inaudible, like the tearing of silk.
Closer and closer Aire inched towards it. Within twenty feet of the figure her stomach twisted even tighter when she realized who it was. She closed her eyes as she stood
facing
the stranger, her stomach burning as she
hoped
that she was wrong in her assumption of the accompanying noise.