The Virus (29 page)

Geoffrey didn’t need to ask
what she meant. Both parties had been dully, adamantly, and, in
Delilah’s case, repeatedly, informed of a few strict and
nonnegotiable mandates from Dr. Crangler that would be unwaveringly
enforced by Lieutenant Dan and his men while they were out in the
mirror truck. Among these mandates were the instructions that the
mirror truck was
never
to make any unscheduled stops for
any
reason, and that the back door
to the mirror truck was not to be opened for
any
reason, unless it was back at
the heavily-guarded military complex. The mirror truck itself was
also well guarded. Besides Lieutenant Dan and the highly-trained
security detail at his disposal, the entire mirror truck was fully
armored. All surfaces, including the huge one way mirrors
themselves, were bulletproof, the tires were self-sealing. The gas
tank was sealed against an explosion, the undercarriage was triple
reinforced, etc. Dr. Crangler fully intended that Delilah and
Geoffrey remain totally behind these safeguards for every second
that they were not behind the armed guards back at the facility. In
addition, everything about the mirror truck’s armor was, just like
the underground facility, completely state-of-the-art. Actually,
many enhancements were years ahead of their time, since Dr.
Crangler had had the opportunity to borrow from alien technology,
just as he had with the Cleaning Lights.

Though one could easily
understand the prudence in protecting the first permanent and
observable telepath, as well as the very last woman on Earth left
untouched by The Virus that alone was able to bear a child that may
save every other child to come, there was at least one serious
drawback to such airtight protection. There was no way to get food
into the cargo area to the people who were eagerly awaiting it.
Delilah probed the cargo area of the truck more carefully, but
still found no indication of how anything might be transferred from
the outside without opening the back double doors. The only piece
of furniture in the back of the truck besides the bolted sofa that
had been secured for its current occupants, was the equally bolted
table, so it wasn’t as if there were many things to look under or
behind, but that didn’t stop Delilah from scanning every nook and
cranny, and finding, much to her chagrin, that there was no place
by which anything could be handed into the truck from the
outside.

She returned to her seat
beside Geoffrey, exasperated. She didn’t have time to be annoyed
long, because soon the truck came to a smooth halt. Nearly two
hours had passed since the truck had left the base, and now
Geoffrey and Delilah found themselves under a medium sized bridge
on what looked like an abandoned beach resort. The place where they
were parked was only sand and water, but on either side, a little
more than a quarter mile away, loomed rows and rows of all manner
of eateries, hotels, condominiums, that would strongly suggest this
was indeed a tourist area. Or rather, had been. Just as before, the
smaller buildings had been mostly leveled and the larger ones were
no more than scalded, windowless shells. There was a relatively
strong breeze coming in off whatever ocean this beach straddled,
and as that breeze blew through what was left of the buildings
Delilah saw a few pockets of badly-charred debris and only God knew
what else, wafting in the light wind like so much thick, black snow
flurries. The larger and heavier remains of the large ruin, the
stuff that the breeze could not pick up, but only moved around in
eddying swirls, were everywhere. Both Delilah and Geoffrey had
enjoyed their brief distraction from the destruction surrounding
them on every side, but now that they had stopped, there was no
avoiding the dire situation that demanded attention from every
horizon.

“Why have we stopped?”
Delilah asked to no one in particular. At least that’s the way it
would appear, because, though her question seemed directed at the
only person it could be directed to—her fellow captive—her eyes
were tracking something off in the distance. Geoffrey followed her
gaze and soon found what she was staring at. The bridge under which
the mirror truck was now sitting spanned a small gulf of water that
separated the beach in halves. This inlet was about a hundred and
fifty feet across, and the bridge that spanned it was about fifty
feet further inland on either side. It was toward the other side of
the inlet and under the bridge where Delilah, and now Geoffrey,
were both staring. Five men, all covered from head to heel in
completely camouflaged attire, were huddling near the edge of the
inlet, so close that portions of their feet were partially in the
water. The men were far enough away on the other side of the inlet
that Delilah couldn’t discern every detail of their dress, but
close enough that she could tell with reasonable clarity most
everything else. As such, she could tell that they were heaving
something out of the water, but thanks to two of the men who were
standing suspiciously between whatever was being dragged out of the
water and Delilah’s line of sight, she couldn’t quite tell what was
being recovered.

The camouflaged gear the
men were wearing were identical to Lieutenant Dan’s and the
driver’s. She continued to look on, craning her neck to steal any
possible glimpse she could. That eagerness paid off, when, every
now and then, one of the men moved an arm or a leg and Delilah
craned her neck at just the right angle to catch a brief glimpse of
what was being dragged. Her first glimpse gave her the impression
of a thick, writhing snake, but it was attached to something larger
that she could not see. She then caught a glimpse of what it was
attached to, a large, misshapen bulk of some kind, but it wasn’t
good enough to make out what the bulk was either. The men dragged
it further out to show thick tendrils that looked like a torn cloth
streaming from it into the sand. One of these ripped pieces was
longer than the rest and connected to something that was being
dragged along separately by another of the men.

It was here that a vague
image coalesced in Delilah’s mind. It was even more terrifying than
the dire destruction she had already beheld. The thought screamed
in her mind that she should look away before she caught full view
of what she was increasingly certain was being dragged from the
water. She wanted to look away, needed to look away, even tried to
look away, but simply couldn’t. Something stronger than curiosity,
stronger than dark fascination, held her gaze hostage. Whatever it
was, it was as mysterious as what she was seeing, and just as
powerful. Just then, as the men finally finished pulling the thing
from the gently-swaying inlet currents, as if by some cosmic
coincidence, one of the men who had been blocking Delilah’s view,
stepped unsteadily to the side, as if he was about to fall, and in
the process, shoved the guy next to him to the side as well. The
immediate result was that Delilah was given a gruesomely
unobstructed view of what all the secrecy had been about.
Instantly, she wished she had listened to her better reasoning and
looked away before she had been given such a view. Geoffrey, who
was even more intent upon the scene, gasped behind her, but she
didn’t hear it. She was too busy vomiting in the cargo area where
they were.

By now, the men across the
inlet who had broken formation scurried back into their circle, but
of course, it was too late. The sight couldn’t be unseen and the
damage had been irrevocably done. The ‘bulk’ that Delilah had seen
was actually the torso of a woman. The ‘thick writhing snakes’ were
actually the woman legs, pulverized to jelly by her extended stay
in the water. The ‘tendrils’ were neither that nor cloth, as they
appeared. They were thick, torn shreds of human flesh. The longest
‘tendril’ of all was a still-connected umbilical cord. The
unfortunate deceased woman had been pregnant way beyond the normal
nine months because the second thing that had been dragged out
separately, was a child nearly half the mother’s size. It was clear
that the mother had tried to cut the grossly overgrown unborn child
out of her, and, in the process, had ripped her horribly gorged
stomach into literal shreds before ending up in the drink. In fact,
if the child’s body had not been in the water, it would’ve
certainly been covered in its mother’s blood and womb fluid, even
now. The worst part was that many millions had already succumbed to
much the same horrific fate, and many more would follow.

Chapter 27

Delilah was still
vomiting—or at least she would’ve been if she had had anything left
in her stomach to vomit. She hadn’t eaten in quite a while and her
marathon crying spell from earlier had completely depleted her of
fluids, so all she could do was double over on the sofa and heave
in dry, violent spasms. She was so appalled by what she had seen
that, even when she had initially vomited, she had completely
neglected to hold her hair back from the ruinous spew. Luckily,
Geoffrey held her long, styled locks carefully behind her downcast
head. He had been trying not to listen in on her thoughts but
without complete success, and, as such, he knew in advance that she
was going to let loose. He also knew that she would’ve wanted her
hair out of the way when she did. Holding her hair back, he was
oblivious to the fact that he and she were currently the only two
occupants in the mirror truck. Lieutenant Dan and the driver had
exited the cab of the truck, and were now situated between the
mirror truck and another armored vehicle that Geoffrey hadn’t
noticed before. Lieutenant Dan was nearest to the mirror truck,
looking in every direction, presumably for any threat to the cargo
that he had been assigned to protect. He held a very small, oddly
shaped mechanism that Geoffrey couldn’t see well.

Geoffrey looked at the
driver and saw him take a shiny, plastic box that he was being
handed from the armored vehicle. They took it in one hand back to
the cab of the mirror truck. In the other hand, he, too, gripped a
mechanism like the lieutenant general’s. After he successfully
deposited the plastic box, he returned for another and another. All
the while, he maintained a steady grip on the strange weapon. Like
Lieutenant Dan, he kept a wary eye upon the horizon. Looking
around, Geoffrey was shocked to find many other equally-camouflaged
men had flanked the rear of the truck and were watching things as
diligently as Lieutenant Dan. Even with the full panoramic view of
the mirror truck, Lieutenant Dan’s men had moved into position with
the stealth of ghosts. They all had similar, if not identical
weapons, tightly grasped and ready for action. The armored trucks
that had shadowed the truck since it left the base were positioned
in a larger and looser circle around them.

For the first time since
this whole thing started, Geoffrey felt a little less like a
prisoner and vaguely like a head of state. To be certain, he and
Delilah were still captives, but obviously very, very important
captives. Of course, Dr. Crangler had informed them of this fact
many times before, but he never really believed it until now. Once
all the mystery boxes were loaded into the cab of the mirror truck,
the driver gave a signal, and he and Lieutenant Dan reentered the
cab. As soon as they were in, Geoffrey yelled to get the lieutenant
general’s attention through the small window separating them. “Yes,
Mr. Summons?” Lieutenant Dan’s deep bass voice answered from the
invisible speakers in the rear of the truck. With a small
exception, the entire rear of the truck was tinted but otherwise
transparent; there was nowhere for speakers of any considerable
size to be hidden. Just another derivative of alien technology,
Geoffrey thought idly to himself.

Geoffrey answered, “We
need some kind of cleanser back here,” Delilah was not retching any
longer, but she was still bent nearly double as if she could resume
at any moment “and quick. Delilah has had an…an
accident.”

“What kind of accident,
exactly, Mr. Summons?” Lieutenant Dan asked. It may’ve been
Geoffrey’s imagination, but he thought he heard the slightest hint
of concern, possibly fear, in the lieutenant general’s
voice.

“Well,” Geoffrey hesitated
“she threw up…and by the looks of things, she may not have
finished.” He whispered as if he was sharing some dirty secret
about Delilah and didn’t want her to hear.

There was a brief silence,
before Lieutenant Dan finally answered, “Try to stabilize Miss
Hanson, Mr. Summons. I will secure some supplies.”

“That’s great, Lieutenant
Dan, but she really needs to get out into the fresh air, and away
from…” Geoffrey was in the process of advising, but it didn’t
matter because the lieutenant general was already out of the cab
and headed for one of the armored vehicles surrounding the mirror
truck. The lieutenant general spoke into his two-way radio, and
apparently whichever subordinate he was speaking to informed him
that what he was looking for was in a different armored vehicle
than the one he was heading to, because the lieutenant general
turned about face and marched toward one of the vehicles in front
of the mirror truck.

“What’s going on? Is
someone coming to clean up this mess?” Delilah asked.

“Lieutenant Dan is on it
right now. He’s bringing some kind of special sawdust like stuff
that’ll absorb it and a towel so it can be cleaned up. And he
should be here with everything any second.”

Geoffrey had barely gotten
the words past his lips, before, right on cue, the passenger door
of the mirror truck’s cab opened and Lieutenant Dan entered with
one arm full of everything Geoffrey had just described and the
other hand tightly holding his weapon. Thanks to Lieutenant Dan’s
train thoughts, Geoffrey had also learned the secret of just how
anything could be transported to them without the rear doors being
opened. Delilah looked on, simultaneously trying not to vomit again
as she thought—quite reluctantly—about what she had seen, dealing
with the fact that she was in the same room as a rather healthy
splattering of vomit already, and trying to figure out what in the
world Geoffrey could possibly be doing. He was down on his knees,
hovering expectantly over a section of the mirror truck’s flooring
that looked no different than any other section. Delilah gazed at
the spot for a few moments, half expecting something to suddenly
pop out of it like a jack in the box. Of course, there was no
legitimate reason for her to expect such a thing, as there was
nothing out of the ordinary about the spot, just another section of
floor, but if that was the case, then Geoffrey was not privy to
that information. He continued to look on with anticipation that
could not be easily ignored. One would’ve thought that he knew
something that Delilah didn’t.