S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11) (74 page)

“No,” Lyssa groaned in despair. “It's not us. It's the government. They're trying to lay the blame on us. The government and—”

“No!” Ramon cried. “Stop lying to me!”

“I'm not lying, damn it!” she screamed back. “It's the towers, the new phones. The Stream! You have to believe me. It's not a virus. It's mind-control.” She reached over to turn the radio dial. “You need to listen to the truth!”

“Lyssa! Stop it! Do you know how crazy you sound right now? That man you're talking about believes in zombies, for Christ sake. There's no truth to what he's saying!”

Earlier, we reported that health officials have identified a potential patient zero. We still have not received confirmation of this, but we now have a name:
Sudharaptan Hernandez. If that name sounds familiar to you, it's because she is the mother of the East Patchogue children found brutally murdered in their home a week ago. The coroner's office has released a statement that it now fully believes she attacked them and tried to eat them.

Ms. Hernandez is an employee of the Laroda Island Animal Research Laboratory. She is still at large, along with her only remaining teenaged son.

Lyssa felt her legs go out from under her.

* * *

The size of the crowd on the street had ballooned since the first reports were aired, so that by noon hundreds of people were lined up against the curb. Most of them were protesting, although four people were taken to the hospital after being beaten for claiming the government was lying. One person was arrested attempting to firebomb the house with a Molotov cocktail; he was tackled to the ground before he could ignite the wick. Meanwhile police tried to disperse the crowd, ordering everyone to leave and go home. Their orders could be heard inside the house: “Go home, people. Let us do our jobs.”

Ramon covered all of the front-facing windows with thick blankets and boards, leaving only the upstairs hall window for them to look out through. He stacked boxes up behind the front door, then prowled behind them, unable to sit still for even a moment. He kept throwing Lyssa accusing glances. He clearly did not accept her claim that she wasn't responsible, or at least complicit.

“If they're so sure,” Lyssa said, trying to reason with him, “then why aren't they arresting us?”

“I don't know!” he snapped.

“It's because they have no proof. It's because they know it's all lies.”

“Why?” he hurled at her. “Why would they lie about something like this?”

“You know I wouldn't do anything like what they're saying. Rame, please, think through this logically.”

The look he gave her seemed to suggest he didn't think logic played any role in the equation. “The way you've been acting lately has been far from logical.”

“Me? What about
you
?”

“Oh no, don't you put this on me,” he said. “You and Drew were close. I knew he was bad news from the beginning.”

She shook her head in frustration. She couldn't argue that Drew wasn't involved. Ramon would be able to tell that she had her doubts about him. “They're hiding something,” she repeating. “The government's deflecting the blame.”

He raised his hands in exasperation and walked out of the room.

Outside, the crowd grew throughout the morning despite the police's warnings to disperse. Dire warnings about the disease and its spread aside, it seemed that few considered the risk to be all that great. Or maybe it was the mixture of curiosity and animosity, the sense of invulnerability which accompanied their indignation.

But, eventually, most of the people wandered away. The scorching sunlight and boredom drove them back into their air conditioned houses, where they sat glued to their televisions, ranting at their own walls, and hoping for footage of the Stemples' arrest.

But it never came. And there was little progress to report, which was just as well, since several of the news stations covering the story appeared to be having technical difficulties.

The police and media continued to wait on the street, while the Stemples remained holed up inside their house.

 

Travel restrictions were eased sometime before midnight. However, some areas, primarily those south of the Sunrise Highway between North Patchogue and Hampton Bays, remained under full quarantine. Credit was given to the CDC's rapid response strike teams for their success in containing the spread of the still-to-be-determined disease and pushing it back to an area close to its point of first appearance.

To Lyssa's gratification, various radio stations were beginning to circulate conflicting views regarding its origin. Claims that it had been engineered by the military, rather than at Laroda, were beginning to gain ground. The government vehemently denied these stories, and when officials were asked for evidence implicating the Stemples, none was able — or willing — to produce any.

The police department was accused of being complicit in fomenting vigilantism. A video of the attempted firebombing incident began to circulate on line and on air. In an attempt to head off a potential public relations nightmare, investigators quickly backpedalled.
“Until at such time that we have evidence linking any specific person or group with the outbreak, if indeed this was intentional, we ask that the public please consider only the facts as they are known and made public. Do not take matters into your own hands. Everyone has a right to privacy and an expectation of innocence.”

Ramon wouldn't give her the pleasure of gloating. Not that she would have.

As soon as he heard about the lifting of travel restrictions, he began to prepare for a trip to the lab. “Someone needs to be there,” he told her. “After today, I can only imagine what fanatics might try to do.”

“It's behind chain link,” Lyssa argued. She couldn't believe he would leave her and Cassie to tend to his precious lab.

He put on his jacket and grabbed his computer tablet.

She watched his Audi back out of the garage and make its way past the television vans parked out on the curb. A reporter stepped out and tried to block Ramon's way, but he wouldn't stop. The reporter finally had to step to the side. Lyssa could hear him shouting questions and getting no responses.

She watched as the man pulled out his phone and began to talk into it.

Lyssa feared for Ramon's safety, but she had little patience for his arrogance and utter disregard for his family's wellbeing. If he were a strong man, he'd resist whatever the Stream was doing to him.

With a sigh, she prepared for bed. She was exhausted yet didn't feel tired, and no matter how badly she wanted to sleep, she knew it would be a long time before her mind would release her into its opiate arms. One by one, she turned the lights off in each of the downstairs rooms, then reconsidered and left the kitchen and back room lit. She kept the curtains drawn.

She paused at the top of the stairs, a sense of something unfinished troubling her. She couldn't place it. Was it work? Something about the aborted PGE project? She thought about the dead rabbits still in their cages, their tiny bodies long past rigor and beginning to decay. But she fretted more for the others neglected in their own cages. They were almost certainly verging on starvation by now.

She doubted any of the animal techs had gone in, not after all the negative publicity. She considered calling Ramon to ask him to check on the rabbits, hesitated, then decided to text instead. Food and water was all the control animals needed. Their cages would be filthy, but at least the wire floors kept the waste away. As long as they weren't starving, she could be assured that they wouldn't suffer. She'd go in after breakfast and euthanize them.

Upstairs in their room, the bed was a barren landscape in the moonlight, an empty wasteland. She shut the door to the room and instead went across the hall.

In the corner of Cassie's room, low against the wall was a Tinker Bell nightlight. The tiny digital screen was supposed to look like it was spraying magic pixie dust, but the program had frozen in mid-shower soon after they'd bought it, leaving a scene in which all but the fairy's eyes and hands were blurred. It had always sort of creeped her out, but not Cassie. As long as it afforded light in the otherwise dark room, she was happy.

Lyssa went and sat on the edge of the bed and placed a hand on her daughter's shoulder. After the events of the day, she was surprised that the girl could even sleep, especially since they'd done nothing but sit quietly in the unlit house, as if too much movement might attract the wrong kind of attention. Lyssa had tried to engage her in a card game, but Cassie had whined and fussed about her muscles hurting. “You're not getting enough exercise. Come on, let's do something. How about some jumping jacks?”

But Cassie wanted only to sleep. Lyssa knew it was her way of escaping.

She felt the regular rise and fall of Cassie's breathing, and she closed her own eyes and tried to channel some of the serenity which she saw in her daughter's slack face. The girl didn't stir.

Ever so slowly and gently, Lyssa settled her body against Cassie's and focused on relaxing. She inhaled deeply, her nose buried in the girl's hair, inhaling the sweetness of the shampoo and the mild, sour undertone of sweat and worry. And there again was that same smell she'd noticed before, the damp, earthy tang. This time she knew it wasn't her imagination.

She raised herself onto an elbow and glanced down toward the foot of the bed, expecting to see Shinji there.

He wasn't. Nor was he on the floor below the bed.

Strange. He's always up here.

Cassie moaned and stretched, but her eyes didn't open. She turned onto her tummy and began to snore.

The movement exposed a lump under the covers.

“Damn it,” Lyssa whispered to herself. “That dog is pushing his luck.”

She considered leaving him there, but Cassie was already too warm. The skin along her hairline was moist with sweat.

Careful not to wake Cassie, Lyssa rose and circled the foot of the bed, where she lifted away a corner of the blanket.

“Come on, you,” she whispered at the brown shape nestled there in the darkness. “
Shinji!
Hey, boy, out of there.”

But he didn't move.

“
I said out, you.
”

A shadow passed outside the bedroom door, catching her eye. Lyssa frowned, confused. A moment later, the shape returned. Shinji entered the room on padded feet.

Startled, Lyssa yanked the blanket fully away. And there, in Cassie's bed, was the rabbit she had buried the day before.

 

He felt like a man who'd woken from a terrible dream only to realize that what was real was even worse. Like a man whose tenuous grip on the world, his hold on everything he loved and valued, had finally, irretrievably slipped.

The weeks that followed the death of their son had been tremendously difficult. But he'd expected that. He'd expected the grief, the pain. The denial and the bargaining. And he'd tried so hard to help his beloved Lyssa find a way through her five stages. He thought he'd managed to pull her from the vortex of insanity she seemed determined to slide into. He actually thought he'd saved her. But he could see now that he'd only delayed the inevitable.

You're giving up on her. You can't give up on her.

He didn't want to, but he just couldn't figure out what to do anymore. He couldn't stop it.

Should've let her hit bottom.

The idea sounded heartless. It was what the psychiatrist had suggested.
You're enabling her. Lyssa needs to find her own feet again. How can she if you keep picking her up and carrying her?

He never imagined that she would start keeping secrets from him. That was what bothered him the most. After all he'd done, all he'd sacrificed for her, all his suffering and grief. He'd had to be strong for them both. When had he even had a chance to grieve? He was still waiting.

The memory was still fresh in his mind, the doctor waking them up late that second night in the hospital, telling them that something had happened to their son— was
still
happening. Ramon had been sound asleep in the hospital-provided recliner and the man's words had meant nothing at first. Not until he'd broken fully free of the emptiness of his dreams did he understand. And it was like having his heart ripped from his chest. It was like dying but without the release of death.

And then he'd heard the words coming through the speaker in the ceiling:
Crash team to NICU. Crash team to neonatal intensive care unit, STAT!
That was the moment he knew the baby the doctors were trying to save was his own.

“Why aren't you in there?” he'd wanted to shout at the doctor. “Why aren't you working on my son, my baby boy? Why aren't you trying to save Remy?” But the look on the man's face told him everything. Intervention would make no difference to the outcome. The boy was gone.

Less than forty-eight hours after being born, Remy was dead.

Just two days later, he was in the ground. It had all gone so quickly.

The funeral was when he first suspected Lyssa wasn't right. She'd made it through the ceremony, her eyes staring fixedly at the walls of the grave, so smooth and geometric. But when the first shovelful of dirt was thrown in, she collapsed to her knees. Ramon thought she'd fainted, so he bent down to help her back to her feet. But she slipped away from him, slipped through his fingers and tumbled into the tiny rectangular hole, as if she were just another mound of the crumbling earth.

But she hadn't fainted. She started digging at the coffin. She started screaming for Remy to wake up.

Even now, all these weeks later, the sounds of her strident cries grated inside his head:
No! No, he's not dead! He can't be. He's just sleeping!

The other mourners simply shook their heads in embarrassment. They excused the behavior as maternal grief. What they didn't see was how, in the days and nights afterward, Lyssa grew more and more convinced that she knew how to fix him. “Just give me time,” she begged him. “Please!”