Tainted Cure (The Rememdium Series Book 1) (26 page)

BOOK: Tainted Cure (The Rememdium Series Book 1)

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The comment snapped Everett out of his funk. He pulled his gaze up from the dusty table and stared into the eyes of Kevin Warton. “Your loyalty was sorely misplaced, Mr. Warton. As I told Mr. Kincanon earlier, my contribution to mankind was to wipe out addiction. That’s been accomplished, but it certainly doesn’t matter now. The world has been hit—no, invaded—with some sort of biological contagion never seen or heard of before. I can’t fix this. We can’t fix this. It’s over, don’t you get that?”

Thomas moved closer, his bright green eyes full of anger. He stopped less than five feet from Everett and glared down at him. Everett felt the familiar, childhood fear of a burly bully ready to pounce on him.

“Pull yourself together, man! Fall apart later, after you figure out what sort of contaminate we’re dealing with! At the very least, we need to know how it’s transmitted and how to protect ourselves from getting infected!”

“Thomas—please. Anger isn’t going to help either. Dr. Berning? I know you’re upset—we all are. But we’re safe here. No one knows the location and the doors are secured. No one will get in here unless we let them in. We have plenty of food and supplies to last for a year—longer if we ration wisely. Treat this nightmare as your degree thesis. Figure out what in the hell we are dealing with first and then formulate a counterattack. You’ll be graded on your success.”

Everett tried to stop the anger from seeping into his voice. It didn’t work. He focused his attention to Dirk and yelled, “We…we left those people out there and didn’t even check on them! What if they survived the crash and needed our help?”

Kevin started to speak but Dirk motioned for him to remain silent. “Trust me, they didn’t survive. They came in too fast and no one ejected before the jet slammed into the ground.”

“You can’t possibly know for sure! If I recall correctly, you were on top of me plus the cloud cover blocked any visibility. What if one of them did? We condemned them to death without even batting an eye!”

“Dr. Berning, I realize you have no combat experience but we all do. No one could have lived after crashing at such a high rate of speed. With all the shit going on at the moment, that’s what you’re worried about?”

Everett stood and paced the floors. “Yes! It took us what—less than two hours—to turn into selfish creatures? Ones unwilling to help save lives? We just walked away so we could save our own asses, and now all of you are looking to me to save the remainder of the human race? Hypocrisy at its finest! You’re all government grunts for sure!”

“I don’t recall seeing you turn around and run to their aid, Dr. Berning,” Thomas snapped, “nor do I remember hearing you ask any of us to render assistance. Congratulations, Doc. You just discovered you’re as human as the rest of us, and when it comes down to brass tacks, you save your own ass first.”

In a fit of rage, Everett grabbed the closest beaker and threw it against the wall. “You’re right, Mr. Porterfield. I’m a selfish bastard. Which is why I won’t do a fucking thing to solve this—not because I don’t want to—but because I simply can’t.”

The room fell silent after Everett’s tirade. Without looking at any of them, he stormed out of the lab and limped toward his old room. Terror, fury, and shame jockeyed for control of his mind.

By the time he reached the door to his room, terror took control. Everett succumbed to the fear and collapsed onto the old cot, body quaking as the magnitude of the situation swept through his mind.

He sobbed, wishing Dr. Flint and Dr. Thomas were still alive because he had no clue what to do in this strange, new reality.

About the Author

Award-winning and International bestselling author Ashley Fontainne is an avid reader of mostly the classics. Ashley became a fan of the written word in her youth, starting with the Nancy Drew mystery series. Stories that immerse the reader deep into the human psyche and the monsters lurking within us are her favorite reads.

Her muse for penning the
Eviscerating the Snake
series was
The Count of Monte Cristo
by Alexandre Dumas. Ashley's love for this book is what sparked her desire to write her debut novel,
Accountable to None
, the first book in the trilogy. With a modern setting to the tale, Ashley delves into just what lengths a person is willing to go to when they seeking personal justice for heinous acts perpetrated upon them. The second novel in the series,
Zero Balance.
focuses on the cost and reciprocal cycle that obtaining revenge has on the seeker. For once the cycle starts, where does it end? How far will the tendrils of revenge expand?
Adjusting Journal Entries
answered that question: far and wide.

Her short thriller entitled
Number Seventy-Five
, touches upon the sometimes dangerous world of online dating.
Number Seventy-Five
took home the BRONZE medal in fiction/suspense at the 2013 Readers' Favorite International Book Awards contest and is currently in production for a feature film.

Her paranormal thriller entitled
The Lie
, won the GOLD medal in the 2013 Illumination Book Awards for fiction/suspense and is also in production for a feature film entitled
Foreseen
.

Ashley's decided to delve into the paranormal with a Southern Gothic horror/suspense novel,
Growl
, which released in January of 2015. The suspenseful mystery
Empty Shell
, released in September of 2014. Ashley teamed up with Lillian Hansen (Ashley calls her mom!) and penned a three-part murder mystery/suspense series entitled
The Magnolia Series
. The first book,
Blood Ties
, released the Summer of 2015, and was voted one of the Top 50 Self-Published Books You Should Be Reading in 2015 at
www.readfree.ly
.