The Last Outbreak (Book 1): Awakening (10 page)

Irritated now more than worried, Emma sat at the kitchen table and visualized what she could not see. The streets leading home were much less of a monumental catastrophe than she remembered from the plane. A few minor collisions near the airport and more foot traffic than usual were the only things to catch her eye. Although for over half the trip, she had stayed glued to her phone.

The two men who delivered her to the front door and were now stationed inside the black Cadillac Escalade in front of her home hadn’t spoken a word to one another or her for the entire twenty-five-minute trip. And that was just fine with her. She responded to each of Goodwin’s messages and before reaching her neighborhood, tried again to contact her brother. Two unanswered calls to his cell, and one to the remote office in Summer Mill, had her massaging her temples as they turned onto her street.

Pulling to a stop along the curb, less than thirty feet from her front door, the driver remained with the SUV as the passenger exited with Emma. Gun in hand, he carried the larger of her two bags and stayed within five paces, glancing left and right as if they were already under attack. He waited for her to open the door, entered first, and made a quick sweep through the interior.

Going back out the way he came, the neatly dressed thirty-something gentleman nodded as he moved back past her and spoke for the first and only time. “Mr. Goodwin will send you my number, text if you need something, and no matter what, do not leave your home or unlock your door for anyone but me.”

Not waiting for a response, he slid in through the passenger door and disappeared behind the blacked out windows.

.      .      .

Forty minutes had passed since walking through her front door, and her phone rang once again.

Unknown
.

She glared at the screen and counted the rings. As Emma let the call go to voicemail, she looked away and caught the first few drops of rain as they dotted the bay window on the other side of the archway leading into the living room. Another sixty seconds and without the mystery caller leaving a message, she stood and walked back to her study.

Seated at her desk, she moved the mouse forward and woke the computer. As the screen came to life, the same error message taunted her for the fourth time since she arrived home.
Problem establishing secure connection, upload failed
.

Attempting to clear the message, she was unable to control her mouse as a dialogue box opened in the upper right corner of the monitor.
Emma, we’ve remoted to your machine. I cannot wait another minute for those files. We’ll take it from here
.

“Goodwin.”

Waiting for additional instruction, Emma began to type, although as she suspected he had control over her peripherals as well. Sliding the keyboard away and leaning back in her chair, an alert quickly pulled her back as the sound of another message rang through the external speakers. “
I’ve disabled your access for the moment. Once the data is retrieved, we’ll get you back online. – MG
”

“Disabled my access, is he kidding?”

Back to the kitchen and her phone, Emma pulled up Marcus Goodwin’s office number and with her right index finger, hovered above the call button. “There’s a first time for everything. I guess if he gave me the number, he would expect that I may someday use it.”

Changing her mind and setting the phone down, she walked into the living room, checked the time, and grabbed the television remote. Powering on, the first images to fill the forty-seven-inch screen caught her off guard. As of eight-fifteen, only three of the local news stations remained on the air.

The first channel she flipped by flashed images of soldiers attacking one another near the entrance to a military base. The area looked somewhat familiar, although with the amount of travel she’d logged over the last year, and the number of security checkpoints she’d run through, pinpointing the exact location would be impossible.

Settling on coverage of the events happening less than an hour away, her mouth dropped open as her mind tried to make sense of what was taking place at Sunny Acres. Along the greenbelt in front of the plush senior center, she witnessed a group of reporters tripping over one another as they attempted to pull away from a half dozen crazed senior citizens. As the over-seventy crowd pushed out into the parking area, they finally overtook the well-coiffed reporters.

The video feed skipped repeatedly just before the camera was dropped and three of the seniors fell onto the male reporter. As the group of four bodies skidded across the blacktop, it appeared as though the elderly residents were not just attacking the reporter, but actually trying to devour him.

The first disturbed senior lunged forward and bit into the reporter just below his jawline. And in pulling back, the woman with failing panty hose came away with what looked like a mouthful of the reporter’s throat. As the station went to commercial, it appeared as though the others piling in from behind also had the same objective.

“What is this?”

Powering off the television, Emma tossed the remote back onto the couch and decided the call would be worth whatever penance Goodwin had in store. Through the archway and back into the kitchen, her phone rang before she even reached the table. Assuming it was the man who signed her checks, she was ready. “Okay, here we go.”

Before depressing the answer button, she noticed the Unknown Caller again attempting to make contact. She quickly ignored the call and before losing her nerve, dialed Marcus Goodwin’s office number.

The man who intimidated nearly every person he came into contact with answered on the first ring. “Yes Emma, why are you calling?”

Not completely prepared, she had dialed the phone out of frustration and anxiety. “Mr. Goodwin, I just wanted you to know that I tried multiple times to—”

“Listen Emma, I appreciate what you’ve done for this company, although with what’s happening out there today, well… things are going to change.”

The confusion in her voice was evident. “Is this something we did?”

Dead air.

Emma paused for a beat and asked again. “Mr. Goodwin, is what’s happening out there related to Project Ares?”

She could hear his breathing on the opposite end and waited. He asked someone to close his office door and for the first time she had the sense that he was losing his calm. “What I’ve created is going to change the world. And with anything of this magnitude, there is always a price to pay. Some sacrifices will always be required—”

Interrupting, she said, “I don’t understand, we weren’t even scheduled to test for another month.”

Again his tone intensified. “You need to realize that this project predates your tenure with this company by many years, and as such, you were only given the information required for you to do your job. Nothing more. What I would suggest is that you pull back on the accusatory line of questioning and settle in. The next few weeks could be very challenging.”

“What are you saying, exactly?”

“I’m not the person most people think I am. This has proven to be an asset in business, although the perception of who I am is simply an illusion. There is no friend, no enemy, and no employer. I’m just a man who decided to make the world a better place, no matter what the cost.”

Emma swallowed hard. “I’m not sure what—”

He was gone, the line dead before she had the chance to finish. Emma quickly redialed the number and after the ninth ring, the call disconnected. Glancing at the screen, her battery showed less than twenty percent. Setting the phone on the table, she moved back through the kitchen and into the study.

Seated in front of her monitor, she tapped the enter key and woke the computer. Again in control of her terminal, she was greeted with a new desktop background. Having been replaced by the stock background image shipped with the unit, the black and yellow logo of BXF Technologies was now simply a memory.

Without having to enter her username and password, she quickly navigated to the search window and typed in the name of the file she last worked on.

No results
.

Back to the search function, she keyed in the name of the folder which contained her new hire documentation and the spreadsheets referencing her lab times for the prior ninety days.

No results
.

Tossing the keyboard across the length of her desk, she stood. “Well, I guess that means no severance package.”

Rubbing her temples and turning into the hall toward her bedroom, her cell phone rang for the third time in the last ten minutes. “Let me guess, Unknown Caller?”

The jacket sloshed from side to side as she moved between the trees. The ground covered in white powder seemed to be sliding under her in fast-forward as each step landed in the same distinct pattern, kicking up mud and snow as she carried on. Cora was running, but it felt more like she was simply falling forward, yet somehow still maintaining an upright position.

Passing yet another tree, she hadn’t looked back to see her pursuers since turning and sprinting away. They were still there, that she knew. And they were close, close enough that their footsteps played like a bass drum against the inside of her ears.

Griffin had joined the chase as well, and as she fought her way around another small outcropping of something resembling miniature Christmas trees, Cora lost her footing. She slid sideways across a small section of ice that formed near the base of a large tree, and into a shrub the size of a small car.

With only her upper body exposed, and as the two repulsive men slowly progressed toward her, Cora rolled onto her stomach. Calculating the speed at which they limped forward and placing that against the time she needed to slide out from under the bush, stand, and get to the opening, the chances of her escaping the way she came in were zero.

Rounding the entrance to the small cove she’d slid into, the bus driver limped in first. His jaws were biting into the air as he pushed off the tree, rebounded back, and slowly stumbled toward the large shrub.

Pulling her knees up under her, Cora instinctively reached to her lower back and drew the weapon she’d been given. Steadying herself and quickly firing off two rounds, she blew apart the bus driver's right leg, just below the knee.

From somewhere beyond her field of vision, Griffin appeared like a silent freight train gliding through the night. Leaping the small overturned tree to her left, Griffin lowered his shoulder and collided into both men, the bus driver shooting forward and into Cora.

Pushed back into the underbrush, Cora fought to pull her arms free of the tangled mess the jacket had become in the broken branches. As she dug her heels into the loose earth, the bus driver lunged headfirst into the bush, but was caught twelve inches short of her chest. He again snapped at the air, as what looked like saliva, blood, and something a dirty shade of orange dripped from his mouth.

Her head on a swivel, Cora looked right and then left and back to the right as the madman above her began breaking through the branches, one small limb at a time. She’d dropped the forty-five as she fell backward into the bush, and although she was unable to locate it, she felt it was close.

Out past the bush, a grey streak rushed through from left to right, catching her attention. She watched as Griffin moved to his feet and fired off three shots into the abdomen of the second man giving them chase.

Stepping back and quickly turning his focus to the bus driver, Griffin hadn’t noticed that the man he’d just shot began to push away from the ground.

“Griffin, look out.”

Cutting his attention back to the left, he eyed the mortally wounded man with curiosity. And as the man he’d known for less than forty-eight hours stood and took two steps forward, Griffin raised his weapon. “Joe,” he said, “I’m sorry.”

Griffin placed the end of his weapon against the man’s forehead and squeezed the trigger once. As the back of the man’s head exploded into the white powdered backdrop, and before his body crumbled to the ground, Griffin turned and strode quickly to the bush.

Still entangled in the mess of broken twigs and with the arms of the oversized jacket holding her in limbo, Cora screamed. As the deranged man’s face crept forward, she adjusted the tilt of her torso and with her arms locked, grabbed the sides of his shoulders, pressing upward.

Struggling to keep his mouth away from her folded collar, Cora again planted her left foot and used the unbalanced leverage to drive her right knee squarely into his man parts. Solid contact—the strike much more violent than she’d thought possible from her awkward position, vibrated from her hip all the way down to her toes.

Focusing on his milky white eyes as her leg drifted back down, the man above her didn’t blink. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even appear to acknowledge the contact.

Her hands now gripped tight to the thick material of the bus driver’s jacket, she began to cramp. Sliding back yet again, she screamed as he lurched forward and buried his head in her right armpit. Through the three layers, she felt his lips fold back and his teeth grinding against the dense fabric.

Leaning back and facing Cora, the driver spit a mouthful of nylon and polyester into the wind, growling as he looked into her eyes.

The cold air now assaulting the exposed skin along her right side, Cora twisted to the left and searched for the man who’d saved her less than twenty minutes earlier. “GRIFFIN—”

“I’m here.”

The driver, now with his hands around her waist, scratched at her belt and looped his fingers between the leather and the denim that sat next to her cool skin. The deep knurled ridges along his left hand oozed a warm river of blood that ran down her side and rested in the crevasse of her lower back.

Griffin’s voice came from somewhere beyond. “Hold tight—I’ll have you out in just a minute.”

Only Cora didn’t have a minute. She didn’t have thirty seconds. From her position and with the incensed older man still bearing down, she was already out of time.

As the bus driver craned his neck forward and down, pushing into her bare right side, Cora slid both of her legs up under him, creating an ever so slight gap between the two. She wedged one knee up and then the other, until the space would accommodate the grimy soles of her tattered deck shoes.

She now sensed that Griffin had joined the absurd game of tug-of-war as the driver’s body inched backward, placing his face directly over her open skin. “WAIT.”

Griffin stopped pulling. “WHAT?”

Releasing her right hand from the driver's shoulder, Cora grabbed a handful of his hair and pushed his face to the left, and in the process ripped away a large chunk of his matted hair. Now free, his head again darted forward as she came around and drove her thumb into his left eye socket, pushing him back once again.

Undeterred, the driver pulled away and bit at her hand as his eye dangled a half inch out of its socket. Locking her toes under the waistband of the driver’s trousers, Cora kicked up and away, sending him into the air, crashing into Griffin, and out onto the snow-covered dirt.

Cora scrambled out from under the tall shrub, retrieved the weapon she’d dropped, and stood over the man still frantically struggling to get at her. Placing her foot over his throat as he clawed at her pant leg, she put two rounds into her attacker’s head.

Dropping her weapon and sliding down the tree at her back, she turned to Griffin. “Why is this happening, what’s wrong with these people?”

Griffin, who from his knees brushed off the filth of his own battle, said, “I don’t know, but I have a funny feeling this isn’t the end of it.”