Sick (38 page)

When he got back to the monitor, the indicator for the door between the second and third airlocks was already in the open position. As soon as it closed, the door to the lab would open.

He started punching in the code.

49

Ash pulled the door between the second and third airlocks shut, then jammed down the handle that created the final seal. Already having positioned herself at the door to the lab, Chloe began pulling up its handle the second he finished. Ash got there just in time to grab the edge of the door as it released and yank it open.

“No one move!” he yelled as he and Chloe rushed into the room.

There were three men inside. Two were standing next to a wide window that looked into what appeared to be another room, while the third was at a counter along the right wall in front of a computer. Ash knew this third man. He’d seen a picture of him at the ranch. He was the man responsible for the hell Ash’s family had gone through.

“Dr. Karp, where are my children?”

The doctor’s head tilted slightly to the side, then his eyes narrowed. “Captain…Ash?”

“Where are my children?”

“I’m impressed, Captain. I didn’t know you were this resourceful. Unfortunately, I’m afraid you’re too late.”

“What do you mean?”

“They died in the outbreak at Barker Flats,” the doctor stated matter-of-factly. “You were told that before.”

“We both know that was a lie.”

Dr. Karp lowered his hand, his fingers now resting on the edge of the counter. “Why wouldn’t we have told you the truth?”

Ash took three quick steps forward, closing the gap between them to less than ten feet, and pointed the SIG at the center of the doctor’s face. “Where are they?”

“Seriously, Captain. They’re dead. There’s nothing you can do.”

Dr. Karp’s fingers tapped nervously against the counter.

Without looking at her, Ash signaled Chloe to check the rest of the room. As she moved past Dr. Karp, he eyed her nervously.

“Where are they?” Ash asked the doctor again.

The ends of Dr. Karp’s mouth went up and down in a quick smile. “It doesn’t really matter, you know. You’ll all be dead soon enough. Well, maybe not
you
, but everyone else. The whole world will be different then.”

“They’re in here!” Chloe yelled.

Ash turned to look. Chloe was standing next to an open door that appeared to lead into the room the window looked in on. Before Ash could react, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and turned back just in time to see the doctor hit one of the keys on the keyboard.

Ash wanted to run over to Chloe, but he sprinted to the doctor instead, grabbing the man by his collar.

“What did you do?” Ash demanded.

“It’s closing!” Chloe yelled.

“I told you,” the doctor said. “There’s nothing you can—”

Chloe screamed out in pain. “Stop it! Stop it!”

Ash looked over. She’d put her leg between the door and the jamb, preventing it from sealing shut. But whatever was closing it was keeping the pressure on her.

“Help her!” Ash yelled at the two men cowering by the window. They hesitated a moment, then jumped up when Ash pointed his gun at them, and moved quickly over to Chloe.

“I’m not sure you want them to do that,” the doctor said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Look for yourself.” Dr. Karp nodded toward the window.

Ash wasn’t about to leave the doctor behind, so he manhandled him across the room, then looked through the window. Josie and Brandon were on the floor. While his son looked like he was asleep, Josie was sitting up, her eyelids only half open.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” the doctor said. “The sound must have woken her. I was hoping they’d both just sleep through it.”

Ash turned on him, and leaned in so that their faces were only inches apart. “What did you do?”

“Once that door seals shut, they die. Moving your friend’s leg will make that happen all the sooner.”

“Open it!”

“Sorry.”

Ash jammed the gun into the side of the doctor’s head. “Open it!”

“If you’re going to shoot me, then shoot. It doesn’t change the fact that once the sequence is initiated, I can’t undo it.” He grinned. “Oh, and if the door remains jammed for more than three minutes, this entire lab will be sterilized at a nice toasty 3000 degrees.”

“Three minutes?”

The doctor shrugged. “Sorry I can’t be of more help.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

Ash moved the gun from the doctor’s head, and shot the man in the hip. The doctor’s face went slack in surprise. Before he could fall to the ground, Ash caught him and dragged him around to the doorway.

The two men had made no progress in getting Chloe free. The moment they saw Ash they started to back away.

“You’re going to help me, or I swear to God I will shoot both of you, but not kill you. Do you understand what I mean?”

Apparently, they did.

Ash directed them to grab the edge of the door and pull back as hard as they could.

“More!” he said, as he watched the gap.

At first it didn’t grow at all, then suddenly it moved a quarter inch, a half. When it reached three-quarters of an inch wider, instead of pulling Chloe’s leg out, Ash shoved the doctor’s injured leg in.

Dr. Karp screamed in pain, then yelled, “What are you doing?”

Ash felt no need to answer as he then eased Chloe’s leg out. Once it was free, he said to the two other men, “All right. Let go.”

The doctor screamed out again as the door smashed against him.

“You going to be okay?” Ash asked Chloe.

She clenched her teeth, fighting off the pain. “Don’t worry about me.”

He knew her leg was probably broken, the bone perhaps even crushed. But she seemed to be in control. “Cover them,” he said.

“My pleasure.” She pointed her gun at the two men. “Sit down. Both of you.”

Ash didn’t stay to see if they cooperated. He knew if they didn’t, she’d shoot them. He moved back around to the window. It was the only other way in, but it wasn’t something he could just break through with a chair.

He pulled out the little bangs, choosing the four special white squares. These were the ones Pax said did more than just cause noise. He quickly removed the projection sheets off the adhesive backs, and placed the crackers near each corner of the window. He thought about adding a couple of the noisemakers just in case they might help, but decided against it. He pulled out the controller, then moved back around to the side where the door was. As expected, Chloe’s two friends were sitting on the floor.

Ash stepped over the doctor, then said into the gap, “Josie! Josie, can you hear me?”

“D…dad?”

“Yes, sweetie, it’s me.”

“Dad? But…but…they told us—”

“Josie, I don’t care what they told you. I’m here and I’m going to get you out.”

“Dad!” She crawled toward the door. “Dad! Oh, my God!”

“Sweetie, you need to listen to me. This is very important. We don’t have any time, okay?”

“Dad. Please get us out of here.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do. Now, listen, I need you to grab your brother and take him against the wall that the window’s on. But in the corner, off to the side. Not in front of the window. Do you understand?”

“Um...uh…I think so.”

“Please, baby. If you don’t do it, none of us are getting out.”

“Okay, Dad. I can do it.”

“Excellent. Do it now. And be ready. There’s going to be a loud bang.”

He moved back around, and watched Josie through the window as she pulled Brandon into the front corner. Once they were there, he returned to the door.

“Cover your head,” he said.

He didn’t look to see if Chloe and the others did the same; he just hit the button.

• • •

The two security men who’d been sent out to check for the missing car came back after fifteen minutes. They’d found the car ten minutes earlier, abandoned at the side of the highway not far from the road to NB7, but when they called it in, no one had answered. After being unable to reach anyone for five minutes, they decided to come back.

Everything looked the same out front as it had when they’d left, so they were starting to think their boss had just gone on a bathroom break without feeling the need to have anyone fill in for him. That was, until Collins, the younger of the two, opened the front door.

“Oh, Jesus,” he said.

His partner, Edwards, started to push by him, but pulled up short when he caught sight of the scene inside. “What the hell?”

The lobby was riddled with bullet holes. And there were five bodies that they could see. The two men moved in and checked for pulses. Two of their colleagues were still alive, their hands and ankles cuffed with the same ties the security team used.

“What happened?” Collins asked.

Edwards shook his head, then headed over to the security room. That’s where he found their boss sprawled across the threshold, cuffed and dead.

“Do…do you think whoever did this is still in the building?” Collins asked.

“I have no idea.”

The younger man hesitated, as if he didn’t want to say what was about to come from his lips. “Should we check?”

Edwards looked down at his boss, then at the other men strewn across the lobby. “I’m not sure that would be a good idea.”

Four minutes later, with the pair of unconscious men slumped in the back seat, Edwards and Collins pulled out of the compound then headed south on the highway as fast as they could go.

• • •

Even though Ash had covered his ears, the noise was deafening. Debris flew across the room, smashing into the wall where the counter was, and destroying the monitor the doctor had been using.

Ash immediately jumped back to his feet and returned to the window. However strong the glass had been, it wasn’t strong enough to stand up to the little white squares. He climbed through the opening and went to the corner where Brandon, awake now, clung to his sister.

Ash couldn’t believe it. He was looking at his kids. They were alive.

He grinned broadly and held his arms out, but instead of hugging him, they drew back.

“Who are you?” Josie asked, sounding scared.

“It’s me, baby. Dad.”

“You’re not my dad,” she said.

The bandages. The surgery. Even the contacts. He must look like a stranger to them.

“It’s me. I swear. I’ve just had…an accident. We can talk about it later. We need to get out now.”

Reluctantly, they let him guide them out of the room.

He had no idea how much time they had left, but he knew it was probably less than a minute.

“You see that door?” He pointed at the airlock.

They nodded.

“Go in there. I’ll be right behind you. I just have to help my friend.”

They both looked over at Chloe, then back at their father, more confused than ever.

“Go!” he said.

That got them moving.

He knelt down next to Chloe. “Put your arm around me,” he told her.

Once she did, he started to lift her, but then remembered there was one more thing he had to do. He moved over to the doctor.

“I hope you enjoy your trip to hell.”

The doctor forced a smile. “You can’t stop anything, you know that. Your kids would have been better off to go now instead of being alive to witness the world they know melt into nothing.”

“I have a feeling you’re the only one who’ll be doing any melting in the near future.”

“Humor’s not one of your best traits, I’m guessing.”

Ignoring him, Ash said, “Before I go, I have a message for you from an old friend.”

The doctor looked at him, a smirk on his face.

“Olivia says hi,” Ash said. “I got the feeling from her she wasn’t too happy you left her to die. Pointed out something about the irony that you’ll be dead before she is.”

“Olivia? But she’s—”

“Goodbye, Doctor.”

Ash lifted Chloe off the floor and headed for the airlock. Just before he passed through the door, he yelled to the other two men, “Once we clear this airlock, I suggest you get in it, if there’s still time.”

It turned out there wasn’t.

50

It wasn’t the starting of the truck that woke Tamara and Bobby. It was the pothole they hit sometime later. According to the clock on the camera, it was 7:12 a.m.

“Do you think whoever’s driving knows we’re back here?” Tamara asked.

“I don’t know,” Bobby replied. “I would think so, though. Wouldn’t you?”

The world seemed to have flipped on its end, so she didn’t know what to think anymore.