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We’re in a small reception area. To either side of the door is a leather sofa bookended by a fake plant at one end and an end table at the other, each with a Bible and a few religious tracts lying atop it. Directly in front of us, a desk and chair bar the way to set of double-doors. All the furniture is covered in dust, but everything is neatly arranged, down to the pen and appointment book lying on the desk. It’s as if this whole place is frozen in time. I imagine Reverend Jameson waiting somewhere behind those doors, forgotten by followers who have surrendered hope in him, and in God. The thought warms my heart. I only hope he hasn’t given up the ghost and taken his own life. That’s my job.
I don’t know what I expect to find behind the doors, but I’m surprised as I step into a hospital-like hallway of pure white. White walls and ceiling, gleaming white tile. And light! After the dimness of the compound, the fluorescent lighting stings. Callie has the same reaction, because she covers her eyes at the same time I cover mine.
Big mistake.
There’s no moaning, only a soft shuffle to warn us. Callie screams, and the sound of gunfire shatters the silence as the two of us shred the bugger that has crept up on us from around the corner. The gunshots are like thunderclaps. And then silence.
Callie turns to me, her eyes awash with fear. She holds up her bloody, trembling hand.
“It got me.” She doesn’t sound frightened, exactly. More like she’s in shock. “I’m bit.”
“Maybe it’s not a bite.” I take her hand and wipe it on my shirt. It is a bite, but a tiny one. Our eyes meet, and I can see she knows she’s a goner.
“I’m sorry Kenan. I really am.” She pulls my head down and kisses me with intense passion. “I had to have one last kiss. I’ve never liked anyone this much. I know it’s only been a few hours, but you’re special. I’m glad I had you in my life for a little while.” Her voice breaks and she looks away.
“You have nothing to be sorry for. Besides, it’s such a tiny bite. Maybe you aren’t infected. I take hold of her arm and begin milking it, trying to squeeze the infection back out.”
“It’s no good.” She gently extracts her hand and reaches up to touch my cheek. “I know plenty of people who tried it. They also tried tourniquets, and some even cut off their arm or leg as soon as they got bit. It doesn’t work.”
“But Callie, you can’t just give up.” Everything inside of me wants to cry, but if Callie, the only girl in the world who thinks I’m brave, is about to die, I don’t want this to be her last memory of me. “I need you.”
“You’ll have me a little bit longer, I think. Little tiny bites like this, sometimes it takes days for the person to turn.” I remember Chap telling me the same thing just this morning, and I wonder if I’m the only person in the world who didn’t know that. “Now I really have a reason to kill Jameson. Just promise me that if I start to turn, you won’t let me... You know what I’m saying?”
I nod. I can’t answer her because if I try to speak, I know I’ll cry, and that’s not happening. I take a deep breath and focus on my rage. I have yet another reason to want Jameson dead, and Callie’s fate has only added fuel to the fire that burns inside me.
A glance around the corner to our right, the way from which the bugger came, reveals a short hall dead-ending at a door marked “LABORATORY.” We try the hallway to our left, which also ends at a door. The sign on this one reads “PRIVATE.”
“Sounds like a winner.” Callie’s voice is dull, and I steal a glance at her for signs of the bug, but she looks the same, only paler. Can’t blame her for that.
I know we’re in the right place before we open the door. I hear music playing, some kind of praise chorus like they sing at those meetings where old guys with circle beards give you free pizza and try to pretend they’re not like church because they have guitars and drums. Then you listen to what they’re saying and you realize they might look contemporary on the outside, but their beliefs are more rigid than those of my grandmother.
I catch a whiff of coffee, which also reminds me of grandma. She’d brew a nighttime pot of decaf and have it with a slice of pie while she watched wrestling. I almost smile at the memory, but there’s too much weighing on my heart right now.
I glance at Callie, who nods, and I turn the knob and push the door open.
Even though he is seated with his back toward us, I immediately recognize Walton Jameson from the newspaper photos. He’s tall with graying hair, though it’s much closer to pure silver than it was in the last photograph I saw. Guns trained on him, we circle around to face him.
If he’s at all surprised to see us, it doesn’t show. He sips his coffee and regards us over the top of his porcelain cup, looking from me to Callie, and then to our guns. He takes another sip, closes his eyes and smiles, savoring the flavor, then finally opens his eyes, and heaves a tired sigh.
“I knew someone was coming.” His voice is strong, but it’s a bit on the nasal side, and not deep and rich like I expected. “You made enough noise outside. Did one of the patients escape the holding pen?” He is outwardly calm, but his eyes are flitting around rapidly.
“Patients? What are you talking about?” Callie’s tremulous voice seems to embolden him.
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with. Is there something I can do for the two of you?” He starts to take another sip of his coffee, but I take a step forward and slap it out of his hand. It spatters on the shag carpet, leaving dark blotches on the field of crimson.
“We’ll decide what we need to know. You are going to tell us everything: what you did; how you did it; and, why you did it.”
He stares back at me, eyes burning with defiance. “No.” A wicked smile creeps across his face, and he folds his arms across his chest. “You’ve wasted your time, children. You’ve came all this way, from the Good Lord knows where, but you aren’t going to get the answers you seek. This isn’t one of those silly movies where the bad man, in his overconfidence, tells his story to the heroes, who then manage to escape.” He frowns in mock sympathy. “I am the only person left who can tell the story, and I don’t want to. I guess you’ll just have to kill me.”
A shot rings out and Jameson screams in agony. Blood pours from a wound in his outer thigh. Callie steps forward and clubs him across the forehead with the butt of her Colt. It’s a glancing blow, not nearly enough to render him unconscious, but it splits the skin and sends blood pouring down his face.
“Listen to us, you sick freak! We ain’t going to kill you. I was raised on a farm, and I know how to kill something, but that means that I also know what won’t kill you. I can shoot you all kinds of places that’ll hurt like the dickens, but will leave you all kinds of alive. And we won’t let you bleed to death any time soon either. We can keep you alive and in pain for a long, long time.”
“You’ll both burn in hell for this,” he gasps, his moment of confidence evaporated.
“We’re already in hell.” I like the way my voice sounds. It’s like I’m snarling the words. “Now start talking.” For emphasis, I draw the wooden stake from my belt and place it just underneath his eye. “Do you think it’s true,” I say to Callie in a conversational tone, “that and eyeball will just pop out if you get it in the right place?”
She shrugs. “Try it. He’s got another one, and he ain’t going to be needing either one of them for long.”
I put a little bit of pressure on the stake and Jameson’s will breaks.
“All right! All right! I’ll tell you. Just get that thing away from my eye.” I take two steps back, wary that he might try something, but the Right Reverend has buried his face in his hands and is weeping.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this. We wanted to make the world better.” He sniffs and wipes his nose with his sleeve. The tears continue to flow as he speaks. It takes a while for him to get the explanation out.
Project Eden, he tells us, was an attempt to genetically eradicate any propensity toward violence from the human mind. Jameson and a select few of his followers, scientists who believed in the load of crap he preached, had sought to, in his words, “return us to the garden,” where everyone lived in peace. Jameson doesn’t understand the science, but they used a virus to transmit modified genetic data into human cells.
It didn’t work.
Or rather, maybe it worked too well.
The experiment changed people, but it didn’t simply modify the center of the brain that controls aggression. It fundamentally changed them—reduced them to the buggers that have taken over or world. The fact that they used a virus was what allowed the bug to spread.
“Who did you experiment on?” My voice is as icy as cold as the South Pole as I listen to him explain how he and his cronies tried to fundamentally change human kind, and succeeded in a way they never expected.
“They were church members. All volunteers,” he quickly adds. He groans and clutches his wounded thigh. I’m glad it hurts him. “We kept it under control at first,” Jameson explains. “And we were making progress. I know we would have succeeded, but then a couple of them got out. We didn’t know that a single bite would transmit the virus, and how quickly someone could turn. Before we knew it, the place was swarming with the infected. We lost a quarter of our security force before they figured out that the only ways to kill them were to destroy the brain or pretty much take them apart.” He grimaces and shudders as a wave of pain rattles his body. “We didn’t get them all, not nearly all of them. We were too busy trying to save ourselves. Many, many escaped, and that was the beginning.”
“And you’ve just been hiding out up here while the world dies all around you!” Callie’s voice is dark whisper of hatred. Her hand twitches, and I think she’s about to shoot him in the other leg, but she doesn’t.
Jameson seems to think the same thing, because he hurries on. “No! The day it all went wrong we changed our entire focus. We started working on a cure right then.” His voice cracks as he says the word ‘cure.’ Little by little, though, the bug whittled away at us. Some got infected; others gave up and took their own lives.”
“My brother was killed because your guards refused to let people in, on your orders!” Callie is trembling with rage. “You are a man of God. You’re supposed to help people, not turn them away.”
“I know, but we couldn’t be sure that we wouldn’t let in someone who was already infected. We were trying to survive long enough to find a cure for this.”
“Why didn’t your god protect us?” I don’t try to keep the scorn from my voice. “You know, come down and work miracles? Save everybody. That’s what He does, right?”
“Don’t blame God for this, son. We... I tried to play God, and failed. It’s fitting I named this project ‘Eden’ because I tried to taste the forbidden fruit, to be like God and I unleashed a whole new kind of evil on the world.”
“How can you even believe in God after all this? If he cared a whit, he’d do something about it. It’s all a big joke.”
“God’s real, and he lets people make their mistakes and live with the consequences.” His eyes are closed and he sucks in his breath.
“What consequences are you living with, besides a hole in your leg, I mean?”
He opens his eyes and the desolation I see inside them takes me aback. “I lost my entire family to the bug. My children and grandchildren never even made it here before the bug got them. My wife, bless her soul, she used to visit the patients. One of them, a little girl, bit her. It was a tiny bite. My wife could have lived for days, perhaps a week, but she wife didn’t want to live like that, didn’t want me to see her like that, so she took her own life before she could turn. She condemned herself to eternal torment for me.”
“You’ll be joining her there, I’m sure.” I want the words to bite, to sting, but he doesn’t seem to hear me.
“She missed it by one day. If she had only held on for a day, I’d have her with me still.”
“What are you talking about?” His words are like an icy breeze chilling me to the bone. Can he possibly mean what I think he means?
“We found the cure. Rather, my colleague, Doctor Daniel Black found it. He successfully unturned one of our patients.”
“What happened to him? Where is the cure?”
Jameson opens his eyes and smiles a smile of grim satisfaction. “The strain of it all was too much. He died of a heart attack before he could generate much of the serum.”
“You said ‘much’ of the serum. That means there’s some, right?”
“A little bit, and you have a decision to make, son.” The despair is gone from his eyes, and he’s smiling, but there are no warm feelings for me behind it. “I have in my possession one vial of serum, and a thumb drive containing all of Doctor Black’s research. If you can find a qualified scientist and the necessary facilities, that person can make more serum, and humankind can fight back against the bug. Or,” he glances at Callie, “There’s hypodermic needle in the box with the serum. You can use it to save this girl. She’s beginning to turn.”
I look at Callie, and can immediately see he’s right. Dark circles are forming under her eyes, and her flesh has taken on a pallid, waxy appearance.
“No, Kenan.” She holds up her hands and backs away from me. “I can’t let you do it. There’s the whole world to think of, not just me.”
“We’ll save you first, and then use the research to make more of the cure. I know someone who can help us.” I’m thinking of the scientists whom Chap said were living with him and the others back at the jail. “It’ll be all right.”
“Won’t work.” Jameson shakes his head. “Doctor Black used fluids from the original test subjects to formulate that serum. You need it if you want to have any hope of reproducing it.” Slowly, so as not to alarm me, I suppose, he reaches down and presses a hidden button on the side table. A drawer slides open, and Jameson removes a gleaming silver box the size of a paperback novel. “So what will it be? The world, or the girl?”
The world can go to hell as far as I’m concerned, and I’m about to say so when a gunshot renders me mute. Callie’s lifeless body slumps to the floor, blood soaking the carpet around her head. I don’t want to look at her, but I can’t help it. She looks so weak and tiny in death.
“Callie,” I whisper. I want to take her in my arms and hold her close, but I can’t stand the sight of her ruined face. I take her hand and press it against my lips, tears streaming down my face. “You shouldn’t have done it. You were too good.”
“I win.” Jameson looks down at me in triumph. How he can be so smug, I have no idea. “You thought you had all the power, but you were wrong. You lose.” He flings the box across the room. It bounces off the wall and hits the floor with a clang.
Red rage consumes me. I spring to my feet, grabbing my stake, and raise it above my head. The throw must have taken the last of Jameson’s strength, because he can scarcely raise his hands to try to ward off my attack. His attempt is useless. With strength borne of rage and despair I drive the stake into his chest. Jameson gapes at it, sticking out from his body, gasps for breath, and then coughs up gouts of blood. I consider blowing his brains out for good measure, but maybe this way he’ll live and suffer a little bit longer.
I retrieve the metal case, praying to no one in particular that the contents are intact. Slowly I undo the latch and open the box.
The good news is, there’s no damage. The thumb drive is there, as is the hypodermic needle. The bad news is, there’s not one bottle of serum. There are at least a dozen. My entire body goes numb and I feel like I’m moving in jello as I turn to look at Jameson. Our eyes meet, and the ghost of a grin plays across his bloody lips.
I empty my clip into Jameson but it doesn’t make me feel any better.
In an adjacent bedroom I find a blanket, wrap Callie in it, and lay her gently on the bed. She deserves better, but I can’t bury her, not with buggers roaming about. She would understand.
Through the makeshift shroud I kiss her one last time and leave the room. I grab her Colt 45 and check the clip. I didn’t think to get the reloads out of her pockets before I wrapped her up, and I don’t want to disturb her now, but the clip that’s in it still has a few bullets remaining, so I hold on to the Colt. It might come in handy.
For the sake of sentimentality I pull the stake out of Jameson’s chest. It’s a messy job, and takes a bit of twisting and tugging, which is cool with me. I listen to his ribs crack and I imagine he’s alive and suffering as I do it. What kind of evil person takes his last revenge by letting a girl die for no reason? The stake finally comes free, and I tuck it into my belt. I raise my foot and stomp down on Jameson’s groin just because I can. That doesn’t make me feel any better either.
Part of me wants to give up. Why should anyone benefit from the serum? And what good can it do, anyway? The world has turned, and turning a few people back won’t make a difference. I should just end it all right here. If there’s an afterlife, maybe I’ll get to be with Callie.
But it’s the thought of seeing Callie on the other side that stays my hand. She gave her life so I could try to save the world. What would she think of me if I didn’t at least try? I owe it to her.
So, Colt in one hand, Taurus in the other, I begin the next stage of my life.