Author: Brett Battles
Category: Thriller
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She didn’t let go of Kathy until they made the transition back over to Central. Behind them, she could see the lights of the second truck. As she’d suspected, it had stopped near the bank.
She looked out the front. No headlights coming toward them, only empty road.
As they passed a sign pointing toward the entrance to the interstate, she said, “Keep going straight.”
It wasn’t long before the unused space between buildings increased as the city thinned. At the Sun River, the road bent to the north, mirroring the contour of the waterway, then bent again before settling on a western direction once it finally crossed the water.
“Can I turn the lights on now?” Gardiner asked.
With the city truly behind them, there were no streetlamps to help with navigation.
Chloe thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Not yet. Stay in the middle. You’ll be fine.”
The decision turned out to be a good one. When the Yukon topped a slight rise, a lit-up barricade similar to the roadblock on the interstate came into view. It was about a half mile away.
“Foot off the gas,” Chloe said. “But don’t touch the brake.”
The doctor did as ordered, and the SUV slowed to a crawl.
Chloe brought up the map on her cell again, this time switching to satellite view. A glowing dot indicated their position on the map. Just ahead and on the right was what looked like a dirt road that ran up to a farm. It stopped there, but on either side were fields that ran along the highway for at least a mile.
“Okay, let’s go, but keep your speed way down,” she said. “We’re looking for a road on our right.”
The road was heralded by a large mailbox and an old sign that read Fresh Eggs. The ground was bumpy, so the doctor had to lower their speed even more. While the fields that surrounded the farmhouse were open, the home and the barn were fenced in on three sides. Unfortunately, the only way to get to the rear of the fields without being spotted from the road was through the farmhouse area.
“Keep to the right,” Chloe directed as soon as they entered the property. “Past the barn.”
The doctor followed Chloe’s directions, slowing as they neared the fence again.
“Drive along it.” Several seconds later, she pointed out the window. “There. Roll to a stop.”
As she’d hoped, there was a gate in the fence, no doubt to allow farm equipment in and out of the field.
Once the car was stopped, Chloe said, “Mrs. Gardiner, you’ll need to get out and open that for us. I know you might be tempted to run for help, but the moment you start doing anything other than what I’ve asked, we will leave you behind. If that happens, you will never see your family again. That’s not a threat. It’s simply a fact.”
“I won’t go anywhere,” Kathy said.
Chloe put a hand on Emily’s arm, just in case the woman had any plans to pull her daughter out with her. “Make it quick.”
Kathy opened the door, shut it again, and ran over to the fence. It took her a moment, but finally the gate swung open, and she hurried back into the SUV.
“Good,” Chloe said as the woman settled back in her seat. She let go of Emily and tapped the back of the doctor’s seat. “Stay to the back of the field as far from the highway as you can. Keep your speed down, but keep it moving. Go.”
She had not been willing to take the chance of letting the Gardiners grab their winter gear before they left, so it wasn’t surprising that Kathy was now shivering. Using her free hand, Chloe removed the few items she’d been carrying in the pockets of her own jacket, took it off, and handed it to the woman. “Here. This will help.”
“You should have given that to her before she went outside,” the doctor said, a touch of anger in his voice.
“You’re right. I should have. I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it.
She kept an eye on the roadblock as the Yukon bounced and dipped its way across the field. There were no signs of anyone getting out of the truck, no sudden spotlight streaking across the field toward the SUV, no warning shots booming through the air.
When the roadblock had receded to a distant halo of light behind them, Chloe instructed the doctor to head back to the highway. Five minutes later, they were on the snow-covered blacktop again, and able to increase their speed to twenty miles an hour.
“How much farther?” Gardiner asked.
“A ways.”
Silence.
“Is there really a sick man where you’re taking us?”
“Yes.”
“Then maybe we should let my wife drive. She grew up out here. She’s better in these kinds of conditions than I am. And I’m guessing you probably don’t want me to be dead tired when we arrive.”
It was the last point that sold her.
They stopped in the middle of the road, and the two older Gardiners switched positions.
“Can I turn the lights on now?” Kathy asked as she buckled in.
Chloe thought about it, then nodded. “Okay.”
Once they were moving again, the doctor said, “Mind if I try to get a little rest?”
“Go for it.”
“You look pretty tired, too. Maybe you should get some sleep.”
She gave him a humorless grin. “Nice try, Doc.”
December 25th
Christmas Day
World Population
7,165,618,453
Change Over Previous Day
– 11,274,398
Five
THE RANCH, MONTANA
3:52 AM MST
IT WAS NEARLY four in the morning when they reached the turnoff for the Ranch. Trees grew right up to the edge of the long dirt road leading to the home of the Resistance, helping to limit the amount of accumulated snow so far. Still, it took them another fifty minutes before they reached the burnt hulk of the Lodge, which had been the Ranch’s main building.
“What happened?” Emily asked, unable to contain her curiosity.
“We had some unwanted visitors,” Chloe said. She leaned forward and pointed to where the road passed the Lodge and went back up a small hill into the trees. “Go up there, and stop right at the top.”
Kathy steered the SUV around the grounds and up the slope.
As soon as they stopped moving, Chloe said, “Kill the engine.”
Kathy did so.
Chloe held out her hand. “Keys.”
Kathy pulled them out of the ignition, her hand shaking slightly.
“Don’t be nervous. You’re going to be thanking me soon enough.” Once Chloe had the keys, she said, “We’ll be outside for a few minutes. It’s going to be cold, but it won’t be for long.”
“You want your coat back?” Kathy asked. She had taken it off once she warmed up, so it was sitting in the front passenger seat.
“No. You can use it.”
Instead of donning it, Kathy handed it to her daughter. “Honey, put this on when we get out.”
“Okay You all out first,” Chloe told them. “You can run, but as you saw, we’re not close to anything. You’re going to want to stick with me.”
After the Gardiners exited, Chloe opened her own door. She leaned into the front and engaged the door locks in case the others had plans of jumping right back in once she was out. A moment later, she came around the front of the car and found them huddled together.
“Wh-which way?” the doctor asked.
“Follow me.”
She led them through the woods to the emergency tunnel entrance. The hatch opened right before they arrived and Miller stuck his head out. “Wondering when you’d come back. Success, I assume?”
“Yeah,” Chloe said.
“Come on in and get warm,” he said, giving them all a wave before he disappeared back down the hole.
The doctor and his family looked at each other, their expressions uncertain.
Finally Gardiner said, “I’ll go first.” He lowered himself through the opening. A moment later, he called up, “It’s okay. Send Emily dow
n.”
The daughter passed through the opening, but before Kathy stepped into the hole, she looked at Chloe. “If anything happens to my family, you will be the one who pays,” she said. She climbed down into the tunnel without waiting for a response.
As soon as Chloe was inside, Miller closed the hatch and led them down the tunnel.
“How is he?” Chloe asked, hoping they weren’t too late.
“No change,” Miller said.
She allowed herself a brief, relieved smile.
“What is this place?” the doctor asked.
“We call it the Bunker,” Miller told him. “The whole property’s known as the Ranch. We try to keep it simple around here.”
At the end of the tunnel, they stepped around the large, thick, blast-like door into the true Bunker.
“What the hell?” the doctor said, as the Gardiners all stopped in the middle of the hall.
The Bunker was a labyrinth of well-lit corridors and rooms that served as the Resistance’s underground control facility. Despite the lack of windows, its new, clean look made people quickly forget they were underground.
“Come on,” Chloe said. “There’s no time to waste.”
The doctor and his family stayed where they were for another moment before they caught up.
“How big is this place?” he asked.
“Big,” Chloe said. “You can take the tour later. Right now you need to help my friend.”
They navigated to the medical area. Even at this early hour, there were over a dozen people moving around. The door to the patient room was closed. Through the window, Chloe could see Josie Ash sitting next to her father’s bed, asleep.
Lily Franklin looked up from the desk where she was sitting. “A doctor?” she asked, hopeful. In the wake of Billy’s death, her nurse’s training made her the ranking medical officer.
Chloe pointed at Gardiner. “Him.”
“The others?”
“His family.”
Lily glanced at a woman across the room. “Vicky, we need three inoculations.” She turned back to Chloe. “Unless you already took care of that.”
“I didn’t have any vaccine with me.”
“Vaccine? What vaccine?” Gardiner said.
“The Sage Flu.” She looked into Ash’s room. “I’ll get Josie out of the way.”
“Hold on.” Gardiner grabbed her arm. “You have a vaccine for the Sage Flu?”
“Remember when I said I was going to save your lives? I wasn’t lying.”
“No one has a vaccine.”
“We do.”
“How do you know it even works?”
“It works.”
Vicky approached them, three syringes in her hand. “Which arm do you prefer?”
“No one is sticking anything into any of us until I know what’s in there,” Gardiner said. “Who knows what you might be putting into us.”
Lily grabbed one of the syringes, stuck it in her own arm, and depressed the plunger. The whole time she kept her eyes locked on the doctor. “Worse case, it’s not going to hurt you. Best, we’re right, and we’ll have saved you from being one of the billions who are about to die. Or would you rather take your chances outside?”
“How can you have a vaccine?”
“Because we knew it was coming,” Chloe said.
“Then why didn’t everyone else know?”
“People didn’t want to listen.”
“Brad,” Kathy said. “Maybe we should take it, just in case.”
“Either do it or don’t,” Chloe said. “I don’t care. But you need to get in there and help my friend.”
Gardiner looked into Ash’s room, then at his wife. Finally he gave Vicky a nod. While she administered shots to the two women, a fourth syringe was retrieved and the doctor was inoculated.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s see what’s wrong with the patient.”
Six
BOULDER, COLORADO
7:23 AM MST
NOLAN AND WENDY Gaines had been looking forward to this day all year. Last Christmas, their daughter Ellie had not been quite old enough to grasp everything that went with the season. This year, Ellie had fully bought into the idea of a pudgy old man riding through the sky in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, and that he would visit their house on Christmas Eve and leave presents to be opened first thing Christmas morning.
In fact, Ellie had been asking when Santa would be coming nearly every week for the last three months. Instead of being annoyed by it, Nolan and Wendy were totally into it, and had even gone as far as sending Ellie several “update” letters from Santa, telling her how things were going at the North Pole.
When reports of the biological attack began to appear, Nolan and Wendy had been as concerned as everyone else, but they made sure to only watch the news when Ellie was asleep. While their daughter was up, their TV played a continuous loop of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town, and the other holiday classics they’d enjoyed when they were young. Ellie already knew most of the songs by heart, and had no problem singing them at the top of her lungs.
“Come on, sing with me,” she’d say.
And they would.
After Ellie had fallen asleep on Christmas Eve, they’d decided not to turn on the news, and instead listened to Nat King Cole sing about chestnuts and Jack Frost and mistletoe as they filled their daughter’s stocking and arranged her presents in front of the Christmas tree. When they turned in a few hours later, they could almost believe the world was going to be fine.
It was Ellie who woke them on Christmas morning.
“Daddy,” she whispered.
Nolan’s eyes parted. Ellie was standing next to the bed, a grin on her face. “Hi, sweetie,” he said.
“I think he’s been here,” she said, her exaggerated hush laced with excitement.
“Who?”
“Santa.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Presents. In the living room.” She put a hand on his. “Get up, get up. I’ll show you.”
He snickered, and pushed himself up. “Hold on, baby. Let me go to the bathroom first, okay?”
“Okay, but hurry!”
“I’ll be as fast as I can.”
He pulled back the covers and gently shook Wendy’s shoulder. “Time to get up. The elves were apparently busy last night.”
She responded with a low, half-asleep groan.
Ellie moved to the side as Nolan swung himself out of bed. Her eyes were on him the whole time, her face full of anticipation.
“Hold your horses,” he told her as he headed into the master bathroom.
A minute later he was out again. Surprisingly, Wendy was still in bed in pretty much the same position.
Ellie, who had moved over to her mom’s side, looked back at Nolan. “Daddy, get Mommy up.”
Nolan reached down and picked up his daughter by her waist. “Oh, you want me to get your mommy up, do you? You want me to do your dirty work, huh?”
He tickled her ribs, and she squirmed and giggled. “Daddy, stop it!”
“What’s wrong? Stop what?” He continued to tickle her.
“Daddy!” she yelled between screams of laughter.
“Oh, you don’t like to be tickled.”
“No!”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
He tossed her over his wife and onto the bed where he’d been sleeping only minutes earlier. Ellie let out a yelp of excitement as she bounced on the mattress.
Nolan put a hand on Wendy’s shoulder. “Babe, wake up. It’s present time.”
She groaned again, and opened her eyes halfway. They appeared glazed and watery.
“You okay?” he asked.
A blink of surprise, then her eyes focused on him. She opened her mouth to say something, but instead let out a single, phlegm-filled cough.
A sudden chill rushed over Nolan’s skin.
Oh, no. No!
Movement on the ot
her side of the bed. Ellie was about to give her mother a hug.
Nolan quickly grabbed his daughter under her arms, swung her up and over Wendy, and set her on the floor. “Honey, why don’t you go into the living room, and we’ll be right there?”
“You said no last night,” she argued.
Before putting her to bed Christmas Eve, they’d told her she couldn’t go past the end of the hallway that morning unless they were with her.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Just go in, sit on the couch, but don’t touch anything.”
Her smile was back. “Really?”
“Really.”
She ran as fast as her little legs would go, out into the hall. Once she was gone, Nolan kneeled next to his wife.
“Are you okay?” he asked, knowing she wasn’t.
She tried to clear her throat, and coughed again.
“Shit,” she finally said.
Nolan laughed. “Yeah.”
She tried to raise herself onto her elbow, but fell back. “Help me up.”
“You should stay here.”
“It’s Christmas morning. Help me up.”
Reluctantly, he helped her out of bed and half carried her into the bathroom.
“Give me a moment,” she told him, using the sink to prop herself up.
“Sure.”
As he left, she said, “Close the door.”
For the next several minutes, there were bouts of silence surrounding coughs and sniffles and grunts.
“Daddy, Daddy, come on!” Ellie yelled from the living room.
“Just a minute, sweetie.”
Finally, the bathroom door opened. Wendy was wearing her robe now, and though she didn’t look much better, she was at least able to walk on her own.
She smiled as best she could, and said, “I’m sorry.”
Nolan threw his arms around her as tears began rolling down her cheeks. She tried to push him away, but in her weakened state it wasn’t much more than a soft nudge.