Impetus (16 page)

“
Sandeep,” Mick said over the storm’s fury.

Sandeep
stared at Sarah, catatonic and still. His darker skin had paled.

“
Deep,” Mick said louder. Still nothing. He reached across and grabbed his arm. Deep looked over at Mick, his eyes blank. “Deep,” Mick said again. “I need the tarp behind you.” Sandeep remained still.

Greg got to his feet and rushed behind S
andeep. He handed the tarp to Mick and helped him unfold it.

As dangerous as it seemed inside,
Mick knew that they could not go outside; the storm would eat them alive. He made a decision. Since the beams had already crashed down, at the very least the roof above them could not fall for a second time. So he figured the area below them was probably the safest place to be. He did not know if it was the right decision or wrong one, or if one even existed that could be so clearly labeled. All he knew was absolute sadness and fear.

He
waved Laurel and Kathryn to his side and beneath the tarp that rested over their position, including the body of Sarah and the beam that had taken her life. They would ride out the storm with her. All eight of them together for the final time in the hope that there was an end to the storm at all.

One thing was for sure. If they did make it through this, they would come out the other side in shambles.

CHAPTER 19
 

Inside his room, Sid shoved a few things into a backpack in a methodical, almost thoughtless way. A few light garments, the cellular scanner he’d used when they first began to track the virus’s degenerative process, a few protein bars should he need them, and a mobile tracking device to locate the group that had yet to doom themselves to a quick death.

“
I’m sorry, Sid,” Alex said from the chair he sat rigidly in, “but I can’t support this.”

Sid looked back.
“I’m not looking for your support, Alex. I told you about this so you’d know where I had gone.”

“
You’re going to catch something out there.”

“
It can’t be any worse than what we all caught while in here.”

“
Well, how are you going to explain this to Phillip?”

“
I’m not.”

Alex
paused as if trying to wrap his head around what Sid was saying. “So how are you going to get outside then?”

“
Alex,” Sid said. “Did we let the little things stop us back in medical school? Remember how Professor O’Brien fawned over his prized possession. That skeletal model that belonged to Harry Houdini?”

“
I remember it well,” Alex said. “And do you remember the trouble we got in when we were caught?”

“
I do.” Sid stopped to recollect. They had snuck in through the skylight in Professor O’Brien’s classroom. Down a knotted rope, which they’d then used to hoist the skeleton back up. Pretty impressive feat for two dorky med students. If it wasn’t for that security guard who got their license plate, they might have made a clean getaway. “We should have taken your car,” Sid said. “My old Jetta didn’t do us any favors by backfiring when it did.”

“
Sounded like a gunshot. It scared the crap out of me.”

Sid nodded.
“Terrible timing. The point I’m trying to make is that we didn’t let the fact that the front doors were locked stop us back then.”

“
There’s a big difference here, Sid. You do realize that, right? You’re not stealing some prop this time around. Much worse things can happen to you.”

“
Of course I realize what I’m doing, Alex. All I’m saying is there is more than one way out of this place. And when I leave, it has to be without Phillip’s knowledge. I don’t trust him.”

“
Why risk your life for a group of strangers? Who’s to say they don’t kill you when they find out?”

Sid stopped packing
and sat down across from Alex on a thin plastic chair. “Because this group of strangers have, for whatever reason, escaped the immediate grasp of Phillip’s accelerant. If there is any chance for me to prevent them from becoming victims, I have to take it. I can’t turn a blind eye to what Phillip is doing.”

“
We’re all victims, Sid.”

“
Stop it, Alex. We aren’t victims of anything but selfishness. We live in here protected from what’s out there. If CV-1 didn’t make it through our air scrubbers, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. We’d still be ignoring the glaring truth that’s outside. We were supposed to help rebuild. All we’ve really done is ignore the people we were supposed to help. And I’m sick of it.”

Alex
turned his gaze to the ground.

“
I don’t mean to throw all of this on you,” Sid said. “But this is something I have to do.”

Alex
looked back up, resolutely. “Then I’m coming with you.”

Sid paused.
“You’re a good man, Alex. But you can’t come with me. If you really want to help, figure out if Phillip is hiding anything else from us. When Phillip asks you why I left, just play dumb. Pretend like it came as a shock to you, too. That way you can still do your work without drawing his suspicions.”

Alex
took stock of what Sid said. He then nodded. “All right. That’s what I’ll do. But for the record, I think this whole thing is a bad idea.”

“
Duly noted, my friend.”

Sid zipped his back
pack closed and shouldered it. He realized this would be a one-way trip.

CHAPTER
20
 

It was the first time the kids had really had to deal with death. Aside from having to tell them about their mother’s passing when they were four years old, Mick thankfully had not had to cross this bridge all that often. The kids had been through a couple of deaths in the family before, but only as babies. They remembered their mother, of course—vaguely, but they did. They only had to ask “When is Mommy coming back?” a couple of times before it really sank in. But kids were the most resilient of them all. They bounced back. They forged on and created a new life with what they still had. Yet, in a cruelly ironic way, it was something that seemed to fade as a person aged, becoming weakest when it was needed the most.

While this was the children
’s first time watching a person die, sadly, it was not Mick’s. It felt the same though: losing someone you love. It did not matter in what manner they were loved. Sarah was the closest thing to a second daughter he would ever have. Over the past years, Sarah had had as much of an influence on his kids’ lives as he did. In some respects probably more. She was around during the days while he was out. She was a motherly figure for them while he obviously was not. Now that part was gone, forever, like so much else. He could not help but feel as if he had done something wrong to permanently endanger those he loved. It felt like the universe punished him.

They
waited the storm out beneath the tarp. The lamp had shattered when the roof fell, so it was darker than normal. That was probably for the best. Most of them cried at some point. None of them wanted to leave the shelter. This was their home. But they knew that staying was not an option.

The hardest part
was saying good-bye to Sarah. They had no choice but to leave her body behind. The beam was far too heavy to move. The group even tried, in vain, to move it a few more times after she had long been gone. Mick felt they owed that much to Sarah and, in reality, a whole lot more. In some twisted form of logic, at least her final resting place would be where she’d felt most comfortable in an existence that provided very little of it.

The group said their good
-byes, some of them together, others alone. It was a moment that Mick hoped to never have to repeat, but one that he swore to never forget. He was especially angry because there was no outlet for what he was feeling, no single person he could confront. Let him throw a punch or kick something over. Let him take his revenge on this world that had tormented him, stolen from him, refused to back down at any point to let the light shine through, if even for just a minute. At that moment he hated the world for all those reasons and an infinite amount more.

The
world suddenly felt very intimidating. There had always been a place to leave from and come back to. Now they had neither.

They
were foodless, waterless, and hopeless. At least Mick’s rifle had survived the storm’s onslaught. At that point, anything was better than nothing.

Chester insisted on giving Sarah a proper burial. That meant reading from his book, praying by her side, and cleansing her spiritually
, or so he said. Mick had no problem with any of it. And while he did not believe any of what Chester did had any effect on her, he felt it was best for everyone to remember the person Sarah was rather than how she’d died. Chester spoke briefly of Sarah, how selfless and caring she was. How her passion for life would never falter even under duress. How she’d changed all their lives for the better. All of it true.

Laurel really had not said anything since the storm passed. She stayed as busy as she could gath
ering whatever was salvageable.

“
How are you holding up?” Mick asked. He put his hand softly on her back. Laurel and Sarah had been inseparable at times, being the only two grown women in their group. Kathryn learned things from them that she could never possibly learn from Mick. Some for obvious, natural reasons, while others were more subtle and passed down within the ranks of womankind.

Laurel did not turn to Mick
. She kept her eyes on what was left of the table and sifted through the dirt, stone, and metal. “I’ll be fine, Mick,” she said. Her voice dripped with sadness. She took a large gulp and, he assumed, tried to push the feelings back down.

“
Are you sure you’ll be okay? You haven’t stopped moving since the storm passed.”

Laurel stopped sifting and took a de
ep breath. She then turned to Mick and patted her chest as she tried in vain to hold it back. She shook her head slowly, as if she was trying to negate what had happened by simply thinking it away. And then her eyes flooded with the tears.

“
Why, Mick?” she said, sobbing. “Why her?”

Mick
put his arms around Laurel. He squeezed her tightly. He did not have an answer for that. Why any of them? Why did they have to continue to live only to watch others die?

He
stroked the top of Laurel’s head as she cried harder. She gasped for air at times, and he held her tighter during them. He wanted to cry with her, to fall to his knees, dejected about life as he knew it. He could not, however. He knew his role. It was that of father and shepherd. Be it fate or something else, Mick was there to help guide his herd. And he would do just that no matter how deeply the circumstances pained him. But guide them to what? Where were they to go now? How would they survive without all that they lost? Each time he thought of it, his head numbed.

Laurel forced herself to stop
crying after a few more minutes. She wiped her eyes and looked up at Mick. She smiled. Not out of happiness, Mick could tell, but out of acceptance for things she could not change. She went back to gathering what she could.

“
What are we going to do now?” Greg asked.

Mick
was not sure. “Give me a minute?” he said, nodding his head in his kids’ direction.

“
Of course,” Greg said, understanding. “Take your time.”

His
children sat huddled in the only corner left of the shelter that was free from topside debris. They sat side by side. Kathryn had her head buried in her knees, while Nate watched Mick walk over from behind tired-looking red eyes.

“
How are you guys holding up?” Mick asked. He went down to one knee in front of them. He realized he would need to be strong. He would need to exude a confidence that he did not have. Sometimes being a good father meant shading reality in a better light to help others that weren’t as well prepared to cope.

“
What are we going to do now, Dad?” Nate said. His body looked limp and unmoving, as if he had lost the will to continue. Mick could not let him fall into despair—either of them. For as difficult as it was, he knew his children needed their father. They needed a strong figure to tell them that everything was going to be all right, even if that was a complete and utter lie.

Mick
took a breath. “We’re going to be fine, Nate. It’s what we’ve done for the past ten years, and it’s what we’ll continue to do.”

“
But we have nothing now, Dad.”

“
That’s not true, Nate,” Kathryn said, mutedly, her face still buried in her knees. “We have each other. Sarah said that was always the most important thing. That we have each other.” And with that she began to weep softly.

Mick
moved in between them on the ground. He sat atop a few jagged pieces of debris. The pain reminded him that he was still there, in the present. He put his right arm around Nate and his left around Kathryn. He pulled them in to his body as tightly as he could and closed his eyes. A family bond, while intangible, was something powerful enough to see them through the worst of times.

Children were not the next logical step after marriage
. Mick was sure that was how many married couples saw it. Because that was how he’d seen it initially. But after having children, he’d realized they were not a logical step, but rather the ultimate gift. Their smiles, which unfortunately were fewer and farther between nowadays, could heal his pains in an instant. And their pure souls gave him reason to hope for a better tomorrow. They showed him how it felt to be unequivocally loved. It was for those reasons, and a million others, that Mick would force them to see the light no matter how dark it became.

Mick
squeezed Kathryn a bit tighter. “You’re right, sweetie. We do have each other.” He kissed the top of her head. “But I can’t sugarcoat this, guys. This is a bad situation.” He looked over at the black ratty tarp that hid Sarah’s body. “Losing Sarah …” He gulped to push back down the feelings that so desperately wanted to show themselves. Saying those words made it so permanent.

He continued
. “Sarah will always be a member of our family. And just like Mom, we’ll never forget her.” Kathryn looked up at him. Her eyes were red and puffy from a night of crying. Mick took his hand from around her back and pointed to his head. “They live up here now, in our memories, our dreams. That is something that can never be taken away.” Kathryn’s quivering lips tried and failed to form a smile.

“
That’s great, Dad,” Nate said, now looking him in the eyes. “But seriously, what are we going to do now?”

“
We’ll figure that out together, Nate.”

Nate
looked away, put his head against the wall, and sighed. Everyone dealt with pain in different ways. Nate felt Sarah’s loss just as heavily as everyone else. Mick understood that this was simply his way of dealing with things for now.

“
I love you both more than words could do justice. You don’t deserve this pain. And I wish more than anything that I could take it away.” He gave them each a kiss on the head. “I promise you that we will make it through this.”

Mick stood.
“Can I have everyone’s attention, please?” The words just seemed to come out. They sounded so businesslike, as if he were about to begin some bimonthly sales meeting. Mick had no idea what to say, but he knew something needed to be said. The herd needed unity.

The group
members stopped whatever they were doing and turned to face Mick.

Mick
paused and looked at each of them. He then gathered his feelings, the ones he could grasp at the moment, and said, “Sarah is gone. Our home is gone. There is nothing we can do to change either of those things. And that sucks. It just sucks.” He looked down at the tarp over Sarah. “Sarah certainly didn’t deserve to die, especially in the way she did. And I can’t tell you how deeply I will miss her. How we all will miss her.” He looked back from the tarp, more resolute to stick all of this back in the universe’s face. “But we can’t dwell on the things we can’t control. You know as well as I do that this world doesn’t allow for that anymore. So what we need to do is concentrate on us. We are all a family and have been for a while now. Grieving is important. To remember is even more so. We will push on. We will survive. And we will do it together as we always have.”

“
We’re with you, Mick,” Greg said. “Always have been. Always will be.”

The rest of
them agreed in their own ways.

Once
he got the words out, a sort of finality came over him. It was now time to move on, to find something in a world with nothing to offer. Then it rushed back into his mind, as if Sarah’s ghost pushed it there. The red box. The inoculation to the virus. He reached into his pack and removed the box. He unfolded the letter and read it again.

We will be in touch shortly after you have inoculated yourselves.

He did not understand how they would be in touch, or who they even were, but the herd was out of alternatives. He realized the group needed to make a difficult choice. And now was the time to do it.

He turned to the group and held the red box in his hand.
“I hadn’t given this much more thought because of everything that’s been going on. But now.” He paused. He glanced over at the tarp again. It would do them no good to wallow in despair. Sarah would not have wanted it that way. “I think we should inject ourselves.”

“
Mick,” Greg said, “I still don’t think that is such a good idea.”

“
I understand your reservations, Greg. I share the same ones. But the note specifically said that they would get in contact with us once we had inoculated ourselves.”

“
Anyone could have written that note, Mick,” Greg said.

“
I know,” Mick said, nodding. “But this note wasn’t written. It’s printed, as Chester pointed out. And that means there are things that exist that we thought didn’t. I think we have to take our chances on this one.”

“
Like I said before, if they can print, then they have some form of power,” Sandeep said. He hadn’t said anything since Sarah had died. “I agree with Mick.”

“
Yes. Things like power,” Mick said, nodding his head. It was good to hear Deep’s voice again.

“
It doesn’t feel right, man,” Greg said. “Can’t they pick us up, or whatever they plan on doing, and then give us the choice to inject some blue stuff into our veins?”

Mick shrugged.
“I don’t think we have much say in the matter.”