Plague (36 page)
Authors: Victor Methos
She thought of this and other things; her career, her relationship to Ralph, anything that would take her mind off the idea of reaching down and tearing at her flesh to relieve the pain.
By the time she looked up she was in familiar surroundings; the clearing right before the village where she had left Benjamin and Cami. The sun was setting but it was still light and she crouched down and watched the sunbeams glisten off the leaves and grass.
She wasn’t sure how long she stayed there or what she was even looking for, but after a
lengthy
time she felt comfortable enough to get up and start making her way into the village.
It was
as
quiet and empty as it had been before. As she walked toward the hut she had left Duncan in, she kicked herself for not checking Benjamin for his cell phone as hers would soon be out of power.
T
he hut
was
right in front of her and she froze.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, but when she did move her heart was beating so fast she felt like it might tear out of her chest.
Samantha made her way to the hut and looked in. Dunc
an sat up, holding leaves to his
shoulder just above the acromion bone. She ran in and threw her arms around him.
“Easy easy easy,” he said, grimacing from the pain
.
“I’m okay. I’m okay.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes as she cupped his face in her hands
.
“I’m so sorry. I never should’ve left you.”
“It’s okay. It’s okay
.
We’re
okay now.” He pulled himself up a little stiffer, glancing down to the wound and then back up at her. “I need stiches, Sam. In Benjamin’s bag I had a med kit.
Can you get it?”
“Yeah, wait here,” she said, wiping the tears away from her face and taking a deep breath.
“Wait, where’s Billy? What happened?”
“I don’t know.
He came after me
.”
“Forget the med kit, we should get outta here. He’ll be back.”
She helped him to his feet and wrapped his arm around her neck. He didn’t need stitches, Sam knew. She could see that the wound was only lightly bleeding now but he appeared ghostly white and was trembling; he was bleeding internally. Something had been nicked or punctured.
She stepped out of the hut and was startled by an image next to her. She saw Cami standing next to the hut, her face red and caked in sweat. Before Sam could say anything, Cami raised a small, black Beretta handgun and placed it against Sam’s temple.
“What the hell
are you doing?” Duncan said.
“Both of you back in the hut, now.”
“Cami—”
“Right now or I finish the job.”
They stepped back a few paces as she entered the hut with them.
Sam noticed the quill of arrows and walked in front of it.
Cami
kept the firearm away from her body and up at shoulder height, not low. Sam leaned against a wall of the hut and kept Duncan’s weight on her.
“He’ll be back soon,” Cami said
.
“
We’re
all just gonna wait right here.”
“Who are you?” Sam said.
“You
don’t need to know
.”
Duncan said, “There’s no need for this. Just let us go
. We
won’t tell anybody anything. We don’t know anything
. We
don’t even know your real names.”
“And you guys will just go back and not tell anyone that your own country gave a biological weapon to our enemies? You’ll be able to keep your mouths shut, huh? You must have some serious
self-
control
‘
cause I couldn’t do that.”
“Cami, he’s going to die if we don’t get him to a hospital.”
“He’s going to die anyway.”
“Fine, but he won’t die here because of me. I’m taking him to a hospital
.” She took a few steps
toward the door
and Cami put the gun
to her
forehead.
“Then I guess you
die with him,”
Cami said.
“
Y
ou first.”
Sam swung out with the arrow she was holding behind Duncan’s back. It jammed into Cami’s neck up to the shaft. Sam grabbed the gun and lowered it to the ground as Cami
screeched
. Sam ripped out the arrow, tearing away a large chunk of flesh
,
and lifted it above her head
. She
sw
u
ng down and
slammed
the arrowhead into Cami’s eye. It went through it like a knife into a tomato and the blood began to pour as Sam took the firearm and stepped away.
Cami fell to her knees, screaming as she frantically pulled at the arrow, causing more pain as it tugged at the flesh and arteries. Sam aimed the weapon at the back of her head. One shot to the back of the head was instant death, but
she
couldn’t do it. She lowered the weapon.
Duncan had fallen on the ground and Sam
rushed over to help
him
up and
out of the hut, the screaming from inside fading in the distance as they hobbled down the road.
CHAPTER 50
They had walked through the night
and it wasn’t until dawn the next day that a few of the Penco tribe happened upon them. They didn’t speak a word of English or Spanish but they un
derstood that Duncan was severely
injured and
they
led them ba
ck to a village that had a land
line. Within two hours, a
Jeep
had arrived to take them to an awaiting plane and a hospital forty-five minutes from there.
She stayed with Duncan in the hospital. Partially, it was her affection for him, but it was also the fact that they didn’t use sterile surgical equipment and the ceiling in the operating room was caked with dry blood. She scrubbed in and stood by his side as they removed the slug from his shoulder.
The recovery was short and they were on a Boeing 747 within three days, heading to Mexico, then LAX, then their separate ways.
Duncan insisted on buying a ticket on her flight but she assured him she was fine and that they both had business to take care of before meeting up. He didn’t seem convinced and bought the ticket anyway, but Sam
persuaded
him to reserve his own flight back to Maryland.
Duncan promised to come down to Atlanta as soon as he had recovered and she promised to come up as soon as everything was settled with the CDC. There would be massive reports to file, investigations, and possibly even some interviews with law enforcement.
As she walked down to her gate, she turned and saw him standing against the wall, watching her. She would have preferred if he came with her; she didn’t feel like being alone right now, but she
wanted to be pragmatic
.
As her plane descended into the airport
in Atlanta
, she felt a powerful sense of welcoming. Atlanta wasn’t her hometown and she had few
memories
there, but there’s just something about landing in the city you live in that calms you and fills you with
optimism
.
After landing and heading out to the curb for a taxi, her first call was to Ralph,
but he didn’t pick up;
her second to her direct supervisor to apprise her of what
had
happened. They agreed that they would call the FBI tomorrow morning for a full briefing on Agent Billy Donner. But Sam had been through this before. Without any information to guide them, a report would be drafted and then filed away in an open case drawer somewhere, left untouched for years, even decades, until some agent with time on his hands decided to take a look at it.
If lucky, because a federal employee was involved, the bureau might assign a special agent to follow up. Perhaps even send him to Honolulu.
The cab driver had to wake her as she got to her house. She went to pay and realized she didn’t have cash. She told him to wait and ran inside to find her money. Sam kept some cash in a drawer in the kitchen and she took a fifty and ran back outside to pay the cabbie.
The night air was hot and
the
moon
was
out but it was partially hidden by the few clouds that were dotting the night sky. She walked down her porch steps and stared at the stars as she came to the driver side window.
“How much was the fare
again
?” she asked. The driver didn’t respond. She bent down, closer to the window. “Excuse, how much was the fare?”
As she reached in to
get his attention
, she noticed the trickle of blood from behind his ear that was soaking the collar of his shirt. His eyes were glazed over and his head tilted just enough to the right that she couldn’t have noticed it at first.
She felt soft cloth around her neck and then it tightened like a vice. It tightened so violently that she was lifted off her feet and
her
air was cut off instantly. She began to gag
,
and drool began to slop from her mouth.
“You know,” Robert Greyjoy whisper
ed in her ear
.
“
It
would’ve
been far easier for you in the jungle. One quick shot and it would’ve ended. Now, I’m going to take my time.”
He began dragging her into the home, her feet kicking the pavement as she tried to scream but nothing
escaped
her throat. She was dragged up her porch steps and into the house as he kicked the door shut behind them.
He threw her into the living room. As she lay on the floor, he lunged and kicked her in the ribs. She spun over with a groan, the air knocked out of her, as he smashed down on her hand with the heel of his shoe.
Robert paced a few seconds and then stomped on her ribs
,
and then
on
her Achilles tendon, sending a shockwave of pain up and down her body. He kicked her again and again in the head and ribs and chest until she lay flat on her back, silent, the blood pooling around her and her vision spinning. He stomped on her stomach and when she didn’t move because of how numb her body had become, he stopped and stood over her.
“She wa
s the only person in the world that I gave a shit about
. The only one that actually knew who I really was. And you took that away from me.
Do you know what that feels like? To be absolutely alone in the world? I was alone my entire life and for a brief period I thought, maybe, there was something else. Now I know there’s not. You’ve shown me something, Dr. Bower. You’ve shown me that the universe is the cold, dark place I always thought it was. And I hate you for it. I hate you more than I’ve ever hated anything in my life.
” She mumbled something and Robert leaned down over her. “Was that begging that I just heard?”
“No,
”
she said
.
“
Turn
around.”
Robert looked up just as the 9mm Smith & Wesson fired. The round entered his cheek and exited out the back of his head, spattering brain matter, blood
,
and bits of skull over the carpet and wall. The corpse fell back over Sam
,
but she didn’t have the strength to
heave
it
off her
.
Duncan leaned down and lifted the corpse, moving it to the side. He helped Sam to her feet, putting her arm around his neck as they began to walk out of the house.
“You came for me,” she said, her voice hardly
a
whisper.
He looked to her, placing a soft kiss on her cheek. “
There’s nowhere else I want to be
.”
BY VICTOR METHOS
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