Time Clock Hero (23 page)

Phoenix took the back way to Franklin, heading south towards Murfreesboro, just as Phillip Mercer had told him to do.  But instead of taking I-440, he opted instead to take Highway 96.  From there, he took Dr. Carson’s advice and followed a poorly-paved, seldom-used, tarred and chipped road that roared continually beneath the wheels of the Jeep’s knobby, off-road tires.  The road, a car-and-a-half wide lane running through dense forests and thickets, seemed to lead anywhere except in the direction they needed to go.  But Dr. Carson, riding shotgun, assured Phoenix he knew where he was taking them.

“We don’t have much time,” Dr. Carson said.  “But we have enough time.”

Phoenix glanced at him and then back at the winding road.  “And that means …”

“Once the generators run out of fuel, the power will go down, and that will be that – we’ll be doomed.”

“How long?”

“Twenty-four hours, give or take.”

“And you’re waiting now to tell us?”  Alaia said.

“We’ve got time,” Dr. Carson said, looking at his watch.

“Not when we’re talking about my son,” Alaia said, with edge in her voice.  “And you’re looking at your watch?  Why?  To make sure you’re right?”

“And how do we keep the power from going down?”  Phoenix asked.  “Drive a tanker up and refuel it?  Like that’s going to happen.”

Dr. Carson rubbed his hand over his face.  “Once we are inside the lab, we merely throw a switch and we’ll have all the power we need for however long we need it – which will be for a long time.”

“Nuclear?”  Alaia asked. 

“But we have to make the switch to nuclear while we still have generator power,” Dr. Carson said. 

Alaia started crying.  “Why are we doing this – my boy, my boy – I ain’t never gonna see him again.”

Phoenix looked over again at Dr. Carson.  “Let me get this straight.  You’re telling me that we have twenty-four hours, or about that, before the generators stop generating.  And Phillip Mercer told me a day ago that this mess is supposed to go airborne in two days’ time.”

“Yes,” Dr. Carson said.

“Now, I want to know, once and for all – who’s behind this whole … this whole Psyke Virus thing.” Phoenix asked.  “I know my knowing isn’t going to change a thing here, and I suspect you’re the one behind this.  But you’re saving people – odd if you’re the man who’s killing everyone.  I also think, in some twisted and not-very-profound way, that you’re the man who can stop this.  Would you care to enlighten us?”

“Not really,” Dr. Carson said, staring straight ahead.  “But I’m amused that you suspect me in all of this, as if I am responsible for the death of untold millions of people.  Please.”

“Millions?”

“What are you talking about?”  Alaia asked.

Dr. Carson pointed towards the front of the car.  “Just get us to the lab.”

Phoenix, guided by Dr. Carson, came off the winding, narrow roads onto a deserted four lane highway just south of Franklin, Tennessee.  His phone rang just as he approached the on ramp.  He pulled off onto the gravelly shoulder, not because of traffic, but out of habit. 

“I’m here,” Phoenix said.  “I mean
we
are here … just a few miles south of---” Phoenix nodded. “We’re driving as fast as we can … Midnight?  Why---? … You’re kidding, right? …  Are you sure?”  Phoenix sat there with the engine running and nodded for the next two minutes.  “What does she have to do with this? … Okay, okay, okay …”  Phoenix handed the phone back to Alaia and he rolled his eyes.  He craned his neck backwards, looking put out, and looked at Alaia.  “Mr. Mercer, if that’s who it is, wants to talk with you.”

Alaia, in an uncertain tone that smacked of defeat, said, “Why me?”  She nodded her head slightly, paused a second, and took the phone.  “What do you want?”  She listened for a few seconds, threatening to end the call, but she held on.  “No … I don’t – I don’t want you playing with me, do you hear me?”  Alaia screamed into the phone; and then she began to cry and stutter, shaking her head from side to side.  “No … no … please don’t do this.”  She kept the phone up against her ear, looking like she wanted to keep it there.  Then she began acting like she was ready to smash it into teeny, tiny, itsy, bitsy pieces.   “I’m … I’m gonna hang up, I’m going to---”

Phoenix turned around in his seat.

Alaia’s slender and perfect face hinted at a brief, fleeting smile that went suddenly frown, and she closed her eyes.  She sobbed gently, shaking her head as if to say no, but she kept the phone pressed against her head.  With her left hand, she gently rubbed her chest in small, slow circles.

A minute later, Alaia pulled the phone away from her ear and ended the call.  She handed the phone back to Phoenix, then she unlocked her seat belt and slid up in between the two front seats and hugged Dr. Carson.  “Thank you,” she said, her voice barely audible.  She leaned over and kissed Phoenix on the cheek and sat back in her seat.

“What did he---?”

Alaia waved Phoenix’s question away with a gesture of her hand.  “That’s not for me to say.”  She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her camouflage.

“Phillip Mercer is everywhere,” Dr. Carson said.  “What did he tell you, Detective Malone?”

Phoenix took a deep, lungful of air and released it.  “We have until midnight.  Not only do we have to clear out your lab, but we have to get into it first.”

“The CDC, right?”  Dr. Carson asked.

“They’re expecting you.  And I would guess that that is a bad thing.”

“Well, be thankful they can’t get into the lab.”

Phoenix tilted his head back and looked up at the ceiling of the Jeep.  “Okay – question time.”

“We’re wasting time, Phoenix,” Alaia said.  “We need to move, and I mean now.”

Phoenix pulled onto the onramp to I-65 North, towards Franklin, and picked up speed.  “If it’s a cure we’re looking for, why not just cooperate with these guys?  I mean, how hard can that be?”

“Because, Detective Malone, I’ve completed what I set out to do,” Dr. Carson said.  “I’ve done everything that can be done.”

“So there’s no cure?”  Phoenix said, a bit of impatience ringing in his voice.

“Yes, Phoenix,” Alaia said.  “There is a …  a way we can defeat this thing.”

Phoenix could tell by the sound of Alaia’s voice she was holding a pair of aces in her hand.  No doubt a hand of cards Phillip Mercer must have just dealt her.  They must have been good ones because he could see a smile, a small one, a fragile one, spreading across Alaia’s face.  That was good enough, maybe, for him.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out his inhaler.  “Oblivium – it’ll take the edge off things.”

“The CDC believes only what they want to believe, Detective Malone,” Dr. Carson said.  “They are convinced this Psyke Virus, as you call it, is only transmitted from person to person via contact.  But they also know that water is a vehicle through which it can be contracted.  And, of course, everyone knows Psyke was fed into the public utilities system.”

“But you can stop the virus, right?” Phoenix asked.

“There is no question about that – I designed the virus, I have the cure,” Dr. Carson said.  “But the cure isn’t answer.”

Phoenix glanced over at the doctor.  He wanted to understand something about the crap he’d been hearing for the last few days and hoped Dr. Carson would spoon him a half dose of intellectual Pepto Bismol to solidify the mess that was running through him like a freight train.  “You have the cure, but the cure won’t cure anybody?  That’s … that’s just freaking brilliant, Dr. Carson.”  Phoenix slammed his hands on the steering wheel.  “So why are we wasting our time driving you to the research lab?”

“Phoenix,” Alaia said, and she leaned forward.  She handed him back his Oblivium.  “Darkeem---”

Dr. Carson turned around, shook his head, and Alaia returned to her seat.

“All in due time, Detective Malone,” Dr. Carson said.  “Phillip Mercer is running this show now and we’re on his time table, I’m afraid.  All I can tell you is that, since you have retrieved me from the CDC, there is still a chance.  That is all I can say.”

“We need to get through the CDC guys, clear the lab, and then do whatever else it is you’re supposed to do,” Phoenix said.  “I don’t get it.  But I can’t think of anything remotely as logical as what we’re doing now – which isn’t saying much.”

“How many CDC are there?” Dr. Carson asked.

“All of them,” Phoenix said.  “Phillip Mercer said the CDC has fifty armed personnel with them and a couple of  vehicles.”

“Well, I suggest we drive into the parking lot, talk to whoever is in charge, and walk into the lab.”

“Isn’t that what you should have done a few days ago?”

“They’ll take over the lab and, when they do, they’ll inadvertently destroy all of my work.”

“And that means?” Phoenix asked, rolling his right hand forward over and over again.

“Well, for one, they will lock down the nuclear reactor and prevent me from turning it on and---”

“They won’t even ask you about---?”

“And when they do, the game is over,” Dr. Carson said with calmness in his voice.  “We might as well inject ourselves with the virus – that would make the end easier for us.”

“And if we can get into the lab – I mean, just you, me, and Alaia – then everything will be like it’s supposed to be?”

Dr. Carson nodded.

“And how do plan on getting us past the CDC and into the lab?”

“That’s for you to figure out, Detective Malone.”

“There’s got to be a civilized way of getting into my lab other than by doing this,” Dr. Carson said.  “And besides, Phillip Mercer will probably be calling us to threaten you for even thinking about it.”

“Then Phillip Mercer – may he rot in hell – can call me and offer his suggestions,” Phoenix said, putting the Jeep into park.  “Sure, he can talk all he wants, and he does talk a lot, but he sure doesn’t know how to get his hands dirty.”

Dr. Carson raised his eyebrows.

“The idea’s sound,” Alaia said.  “Stupid, but sound.”

Phoenix had to agree with the general consensus, two votes against one.  Driving a side-paneled, flatbed trailer into the parking lot of the Cool Springs shopping mall and using himself as bait to fill it up with hundreds of infected was anything but civilized.  He’d spotted the truck on an off ramp just before Cools Springs, came up with the idea in a pulsing, flash of inspiration, and pulled off as quickly as he’d seen the truck.  The trucker wasn’t around or, if he was, he was wandering around aimlessly.  The driver’s side door was open.

“Hey, Miss eye-for-details,” Phoenix said.  “Any idea how to fill this thing up with Psykotics?”

Alaia made a stupid grin, raised her eyebrows a few times, and pointed at Phoenix.  “We need a ramp – probably a whole lot of two by sixes we can pick up outside at Lowe’s.  There’s rope in the cab, probably.  We put you in the back and you holler.  When the back end is full, you climb out, I shut the back end, and that’s all she wrote.”

“That won’t work because I’ll be dead before it fills up,” Phoenix said.  “But a ladder will do the trick.”

Dr. Carson nodded.  “We use the rope to tie the ladder into place, you stand on the highest rung, and you’ll have as long as you want to fill up the bed.  Then you climb out and drive off.”

“Who closes the back end?” Alaia asks.

“I got this,” Phoenix said.  He handed Alaia his pack.  “Just take care of this for me.  I’ll take the twelve gauge, though.”  He climbed into the brand new Kenworth, started it up, and drove it up the ramp and onto the road. 

As Phoenix neared the shopping district, he saw tall office buildings and even taller hotels.  The closer he got, the more difficult the way forward became.  Cars, hundreds of them, all sitting at intersections bumper-to-bumper, though not blocking their way completely, proved to be a puzzle at first.  No matter.  He’d find a way through; and every time, he did.

Masses of infected saw the moving vehicles.  They mixed in among the cars, wandering and staggering on every street and on every embankment.  Some were bloodied and dismembered.  Others looked clean and well-dressed.  A good number of them, incited by the movement of the vehicles, especially the loud throbbing noise come from the truck, sprang to life like children being offered chocolate.

Phoenix reached the Lowe’s parking lot without any trouble, finding it an hour later.  The parking lot area was filled with infected.  He called Alaia.  “I’m going to pull up close and grab the wood.  Can you get their attention?”

“I got it,” Alaia said.

Phoenix pulled in front of the lumber side of the store just as Alaia began turning doughnuts in the center of the parking lot.  His idea worked.  Large numbers of infected began walking in her direction, moving with a speed that frightened him.  He grabbed his shotgun and looked outside – through the front windshield and the side view mirrors.  It looked doable.  A few infected remained between him and the store, a small child and an old woman – that was all.  He climbed down out of the cab through the passenger-side door and hit the ground running.

He released the swinging gate on the rear of the truck.  On the other side of the truck, up against the curb, he found a stack of kiln-dried two by six by twelves, and he began the heavy work of loading them up.  Instead of sliding them forwards onto the smooth metal bed of the trailer to be carried elsewhere, he began creating the ramp.  Two infected came towards him.  He stopped, fired off two rounds in quick succession, decapitating both of them, and continued building the ramp.  Eight planks later, the job was finished. 

Without a second’s hesitation, he ran towards the glass doors and hip-fired a single shot.  The glass blew apart, shattering into millions of tiny, sparkling fragments and, without missing a step, he ran on into the store.

Ladders, ladders – where are you?

Three minutes later, Alaia saw Phoenix hurrying up the ramp into the back of the truck, lumbering along, dragging a long, aluminum ladder behind him.  Several infected, who must have followed him out of the store, kept pace with him.

They followed him up the ramp and into the truck.  Alaia hit the horn and drove Nascar-style in his direction.

“He’s got the ladder up,” Dr. Carson said.  “There he goes!  He actually did it!”

“Hooray, Phoenix,” Alaia said.  “Way to go, white boy!  Let’s just hope those things can’t figure out how to climb.”

Phoenix climbed up to the top of the ladder, turned towards the Jeep, and waved.  He picked up his cell phone and called Alaia.

“You did it,” Alaia said.

“I need to you draw the infected towards the truck,” Phoenix said.  “Just don’t let them box you in.  When they start up into the truck, I want you to back away a bit.  When it looks like it’s full, come back around and draw off the others.  Then I’ll jump down and close up the back.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Alaia said. “Just make sure it’s clear – and don’t take any chances.”

Phoenix unslung a section of rope and fastened the ladder to the top of a steel rod that ran along the top of one of the panels.  Just in time.  The first couple of infected reached the ladder and, though they didn’t seem to know what to do with it, they bumped into it, scooting it across the metal floor of the flat bed.  Phoenix felt his heart jump.

“Come on, everybody!” Phoenix yelled, and he swung his one free arm in the air, hoping to lead the hundreds of wobbling, walking corpses up the ramp and onto the trailer.  He counted them as they came.  He stopped at one hundred fifty, finally losing count when the surging wave of near-humanity looked thicker than bugs on a front bumper.  Some of the infected, in their struggle up the ramp to get to Phoenix, were either pushed or lost their balance, and some fell from the ramp onto the pavement below.

“So this is what it feels like to be a rock star,” Phoenix said aloud to himself.  “Woo-hoo!  Come and get me!”

The trailer reached capacity in less than twenty minutes.  The infected, moaning and screeching, packed as tightly as any can of Sardines he’d ever seen, could no longer move forward or backwards.

Phoenix didn’t have to call Alaia.  She must have been watching.  She brought the Jeep back into the parking lot, squealing the tires and laying on the horn.  More than a hundred infected remained on the ground, but Alaia pulled in close, opened her window, and shouted.

The mass of left overs, like quivering sushi chasing customers on a conveyor belt, began moving away from the rear of the truck.  Alaia nudged the Jeep forward a few feet at a time.

The crowd at the back of the truck started to thin out noticeably; and Alaia, now a couple hundred feet out and still moving, had tricked the majority of them into following her.

Phoenix took the shot.  He climbed carefully up to the top of the ladder, holding onto the ropes, and dropped over the side of the front panel and in between the cab and the trailer.  He did it quietly, without a sound, and he climbed down onto the pavement on the passenger side of the cab.  He opened the door and climbed in. 

He put the truck into first gear and tapped the gas pedal.  The truck jerked forward five or six feet, and the ramps, and any remaining infected standing on them, fell away, falling to the ground.  He put the vehicle into neutral and set the parking brake, then he exited the cab through the passenger door, hit the asphalt, and ran to the rear. 

The infected, who had fallen with the ramps, struggled and fell again as they tried to get up onto their feet.  Phoenix quickly grabbed onto the rear gate and swung it closed with all of his might.  It slammed into place with a rattle and a bang, locking itself into position.

When Phoenix turned to run, he tripped and fell over an infected person.  In a millisecond, another infected was on top of him, screeching and clawing.  He felt a sharp pain in his right shoulder and he cried out, turning to face his attacker.  He struggled to free himself, wiggling like a mad man, throwing punches and head-butting, and he kicked the infected woman away.  He jumped to his feet and picked up his shotgun.  The eighteen round magazine still held sixteen rounds, and he took aim at the woman and fired, decapitating her with the first blast. 

Other infected came towards Phoenix.  He held his ground, firing the semi-auto Saiga shotgun point-blank into the faces of the infected, showering the pavement all around him in a rain of blood and flesh.  He counted off fifteen shots and pulled back, reserving the last shot for an emergency.  He hurried back towards the passenger door of the cab and climbed in.

How long Phoenix had before he turned, before the infection took him, he couldn’t guess.  Maybe a day, maybe a half a day.  He didn’t know.  He picked up his phone and called Alaia.

“You’re a rock star, Phoenix Malone,” Alaia said when she answered.

“Who would’ve guessed?”  Phoenix said, reaching up to touch his left shoulder.  “Time to head to Carson Research Labs – we aren’t stopping.”

“Phoenix,” Alaia said, “I don’t want you to get hurt.  Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Just text me the address and stop asking questions,” Phoenix said.  “There isn’t much time – not if we’re going to get Dr. Carson back into his lab.  Stay close behind me, but don’t let anybody see you.  When the CDC is under control, I’ll call you.”

“I got it.”

In less than a half minute, Phoenix received the text from Alaia.  He memorized the address to Carson Research Labs and then voiced it into his GPS app.  He put the truck into gear and drove away.