The Oasis (14 page)

“Listen carefully,” he whispered to her, leaning in to stroke his lips against her cheek. She reminded herself that he knew exactly what he was doing. Though the situation was terrifying, Lena felt comforted by him, by his voice, by his breath. “I need you to trust me and do exactly what I tell you.” He brushed away a stray hair that lay across her cheek. She looked up at him, letting her eyes fall on his neck. His pulse was so steady and she was calmed by the fact that he wasn’t as completely petrified as she was.

“If they catch us, they will kill me,” he said evenly and looked deep into her eyes. “You will be taken back to that hellhole. They will make you wish for death and I do not want that for you.”

She shook her head, knowing she would never willingly go back to that place. “That is why I need you to trust me.” He held her face between his hands.

Trying not to let her fear take over, Lena nodded her head slowly. She wasn’t really sure if she would be able to do exactly what he asked, but she knew that right now her life and even his own relied on her being able to stay calm.

Releasing her face, he turned over the plan in his head. It was not exactly what he would call stellar, but he didn’t have much of an option. The men he could see out the window were
others
. Except the shooter, he noted. He knew he could outwit and ultimately beat the
others
, but the shooter was a SEAL. He calculated exactly what he needed to do. He did the math in his head, but no amount of statistics was going to save them. It was really just going to come down to either a hell of a lot of luck or an act of God. His training in the SEALs had prepared him to never surrender and it didn’t matter to him who he had to go through to get free. He was going to get Lena out of here.

Grabbing her hand, he pulled her towards the bathroom. Most of the men outside looked like they weren’t the highly aggressive type. Those kinds of men were extremely unpredictable—much more so than the
others
currently surrounding the house. In fact, right now the only thing Jasper had going for him
was
their predictability. He closed his eyes. There was no way to know if anyone else was in the house, if they
did
surround the house. He also was hoping that Eric and Brett wouldn’t start using their brains. Jasper had lasted as long as he had because he had a sense of direction. He knew he needed to survive so he could get to the O.A.S.I.S. For men like Brett and Eric, they had become animal trainers, not leaders of men. Their goal was leading them down the path of destruction. He hoped that they were blinded by that destruction the same way that Jasper was enlightened by his sense of duty.

Looking down at Lena, he realized what separated them. He and Lena still had a passion for living. Lena’s passion for life and his passion to live were what separated them from men like Brett and Eric.

Jasper pulled her into the bathroom, looking around quickly. They couldn’t climb out the window and their chances of getting past Brett and Eric on the stairs weren’t likely either.

“Please trust that I know what I am doing,” Jasper said, and smiled as he saw Lena swallow hard. He knew he was asking a lot, but right now there wasn’t much time for reassurance. Pulling a semi-automatic weapon from his pack, he smiled again as Lena blinked rapidly at him. It was probably her first time seeing such a weapon. He never really used them much, to be honest. It was loud and wasted a lot of bullets, something he couldn’t afford in normal situations. This clearly was something different.

Looking at the gun, Lena wasn’t sure what Jasper was thinking. As he shut the door to the bathroom, she realized she knew even less of what was happening. At first she had thought that they would huddle themselves into the bathroom and wait for the
others
to come to them, but it didn’t seem that was what was going on. Nodding to her, he readied the semi-automatic for himself.

“Do you remember where the back door is?”

Lena’s mind scrambled for the information. She remembered there being a back door, but in her fear and confusion she wasn’t sure where it was exactly.

“Past the kitchen, baby,” Jasper prompted gently, and she swooned a little at the silkiness of his words. He showed neither impatience nor anger that she was scared. Pointing the gun at the tiled floor, he continued. “I need you to get up as fast as you can and run for the door.” He hesitated for only a second. “Kill anyone who gets in the way.”

Grabbing her around the waist, he pulled her to his body.

“Wait,” she cried out. Jasper leaned down and covered her mouth with his own.

Releasing her, he blasted away at the floor. Turning her around, he fired in a circle around them. The floor exploded beneath their feet.

Lena’s heart was racing and she wasn’t sure how close to death she was, but she knew she was in the safest place she could be: Jasper’s arms.

“I’ll always love you,” Jasper whispered into her ear, knowing she probably couldn’t hear him through the firing. Right now his only hope was that the floor would give out before their enemies reached them, and that he didn’t run out of bullets. The floor started cracking under their weight and finally broke free. Lena and Jasper fell through to the ground floor. Finally, Lena let out the scream she had been holding in.

The fall was anything but gentle. The cracking from the floorboards had splintered sharp boards all around them. Bullets ricocheted off the floor and bounced around the room. Lena felt her body falling through the second floor to the first. She was terrified, unsure if they would survive. As they fell, she held on to Jasper and her mind went wild in anxiety. What if Jasper didn’t make it through the fall okay? If he was hurt, would she be able to make herself leave him?

A silence filled her mind and the world seemed to hold still as they fell.

Brett and Eric ran up the stairs, unsure of what the ruckus was. Jasper knew they hadn’t come up before because they were playing with them. However, the heavy firing meant either that Jasper was attacking or, and Jasper hated to think it would ever come to that, they were committing suicide.

As they fell, Jasper held Lena tightly, hoping to help break her fall as much as he could. There wasn’t much they could do to brace for impact. Just as he had anticipated, they fell into the kitchen, landing just in front of the kitchen sink, which was directly below the sink in the upstairs bathroom. Between the linoleum on the ground floor and the broken floorboards raining down with them, the landing was anything but soft.

One of the shattered boards pierced Jasper’s arm, punching abruptly through the skin. The pain was intense and blood suddenly seemed to be everywhere. He groaned loudly as the board was jerked out of his arm as they hit the floor. Lena tumbled on top of him, splinters falling into her hair and scratching up her face and body, but otherwise she was unharmed. Jasper’s blood flowed freely over them both, but he ignored it.

With blinding speed, he stood up among the rubble and grabbed at her arm. Nursing his other arm, he dropped his weapon and pulled her towards the exit. Lena couldn’t believe that Jasper’s plan had worked.

They heard the other SEALs upstairs. They didn’t have much time. Lena tried to move as quickly as Jasper, but stumbled over the rubble on the ground.

By now she could see Eric through the hole in the ceiling.

“Damn it!” he yelled after them.

Jasper didn’t even look up but just pulled Lena toward the door.

As soon as he opened the door, one of the
others
was there, teeth bared. Lena didn’t hesitate and fired point blank with the gun Jasper had given her, her cry filling the house.

The blood from the
other
splattered everywhere as her voice bounced off the walls through the house. As they jumped over the man’s body, Lena let the anger take over. Anger flashed on her face and she fired at anyone coming near them. There were two more
others
out the back, and Lena didn’t even care if they were the free man’s men or just random creatures roaming around the area and drawn to the sounds. She was tired. Tired of being scared and tired of running. She knew that even when they got away from here they would still be running.

The next kill came from Jasper’s gun. He pulled a pistol from the back of his pants and started firing. His aim was precise. Every shot went directly through the head. Even as he nursed his arm, the blood running down his hand, he never lost his grip on his weapon and never once did he lose his stride. Once they cleared the back of the house, Lena took a moment to look behind them.

She saw Eric and Brett in an upstairs window. She stood there blank, amazed, and very shaken. She was too stunned to cry. They had made it out of there. Once again, she had escaped the devil’s clutches.

She could hear Eric calling out to his men, shouting orders. Looking around, she saw no movement in the neighboring houses. The whole area was silent. Nevertheless, they couldn’t stay in any of the houses. Their only hope was to get back onto the road. Jasper’s car with all of his weapons was back in the garage. The only things they had managed to bring with them were the weapons they carried and the pack on Jasper’s back.

Lena licked her lips nervously and tasted the blood there. She looked down at her hands and saw they were dusted from broken plaster, and her arms were covered with cuts. Her body ached and she was tired.

Jasper’s hand slid down her arm and tightened around her wrist. Silently, he pulled her along and they broke into a run. Lena ran with all the energy she had left. They were running for their lives, but deep down she knew what really had to be done. Eric had to be killed. Brett and the other SEALs would likely need to be as well, but Eric was clearly the worst of the lot. His determination proved that he was a man to be feared and a man of action. He would rule the world if he could.

It hurt Lena to know that his death was the only thing that would stop the murdering, but that was how things were, and hiding from the truth wouldn't help anything.

Jasper pulled her through the woods behind the house. She could hear more gunshots from behind them, but she no longer could see the house. Jasper ran like he knew where he was taking her. Lena couldn’t remember how they had gotten to the house to begin with. If Eric had found them once, she knew he would most likely find them again.

Suddenly she heard something she hadn’t in a long time. Barking echoed through the woods. Dogs. God, did Eric have dogs?

“Jasper, you’re bleeding!” she said, worry in her eyes. A chill seemed to grow between them. He had been bleeding since they left the house, and the dogs would easily be able to track the blood. In fact, anyone would be able to do so; Lena could see it trailing on the ground. Her mind scrambled in anxiety and that chill black silence surrounded them.

“We need to keep moving,” he said. As they kept running, he pulled his shirt off and wrapped his arm in the fabric. It would prevent the blood from freely flowing onto the ground, at least for a while.

She could hear the dogs through the woods and she knew it wouldn’t be long before they were on them.

Jasper swayed slightly and she knew he had lost a significant amount of blood and was now feeling the effects of it.

“Oh, thank God,” she whispered, pulling his arm over her shoulder to give him support. Though the woods she could see a road, and that meant there would be cars. Maybe they could use one of them.

As they broke out of the woods, Lena ducked out from under Jasper’s arm and ran to the closest car, opening the driver’s door and looking for a key. There was no sign of one and she hurried to the next one.

Finally she found a car with the key still in the ignition. The gas tank read less than a quarter full—not enough to get them to Coronado, but enough to get them the hell out of the woods.

She hopped in, followed by Jasper, who looked to be in a lot of pain. Turning the key, she waited for the boom of the engine.

The car wouldn’t turn over.

By now she could see the dogs as they broke from the trees and raced for the car. The dogs were thin and Lena wasn’t surprised to see how ferociously they attacked the car. Their claws scraped against the doors as they attacked the windows with their teeth.

“Oh my God!” Lena panicked as she tried again to turn the engine over.

Jasper put his hand over hers, his calm completely contrasting her anxiety. “Take a breath,” he said.

Lena stared at him, confused. He must have lost more blood than she had originally thought.

“I’m serious,” he said again and she released the key, having a hard time catching her breath with the attack dogs right outside her window. “Now,” he said, his voice calm. “Give it a little gas.”

Pumping the pedal, she let him reach over and turn the key. The car boomed to life—just as a bullet blasted past them.

“Go!” he yelled and Lena stomped on the gas, the car fishtailing down the road. The dogs chased after them for a bit, but they were too weak to keep up with the car for long.

Lena looked back and saw the men along the edge of the woods, searching the cars like she had done. It wouldn’t be long before they were on the road too, but for now they were free. They had done it again.

Although she tried to keep it together, she couldn’t. She let out her breath with a sob and began to cry. All of her anxiety and her fear bubbled up to the surface. Being here made her miss the simplicity of her farm once more.

“Stay on the road, please,” Jasper whispered and put his hand over her own on the steering wheel. She laughed a little and rubbed away the tears. She looked and felt like hell, again. But as long as the car kept running, they were safe. For now.

Chapter Eleven

Jasper slept for most of the drive. Lena made few stops to treat her wounds the best she could. Dressing his injuries and keeping him as comfortable as possible she let Jasper regain his strength. He drifted in and out of consciousness as Lena drove on. They had lost everything in the house, everything they’d been forced to leave behind in Jasper’s car. Lena wasn’t even sure how they intended to get where they needed to go, let alone how they would do it with so few supplies. She just kept the car moving forwards. There was one thing left on her mind and when Jasper finally woke up Lena had to have answers.

“Please tell me what is going on.” Lena demanded. She couldn’t keep running without knowing what was happening. She deserved to know and this time she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

Looking over at her, he took a deep breath and quietly began.

“I was Petty Officer 2
^nd
Class Jasper L. Anderson when things started to fall apart. That was five years ago.” He exhaled steadily and Lena could tell that what had happened so long ago still hurt him very deeply.

“I wasn’t new to the SEAL community, but had just arrived back in Coronado. The SEALs are an elite special operations team of the US Navy sent out to do some of the ‘dirtier’ work of the military. We are the best of the best. But I was on my way out; I was hoping to get out of the military and start new work in Africa. I’d done a lot of black ops there and seen a lot of death, a lot of bad stuff, and I knew that I wanted to go back and do some good instead. I’d seen too much destruction. By the end of 2007 I was ready to get out. I’d gone to school, I’d paid my dues to the military and for once I was feeling really good about being able to put my gun away. Of course, that was when things started getting really bad.

“At that point most of the public was unaware of the situation worsening in Korea. People were getting real sick. If I hadn’t seen it myself then I probably wouldn’t have believed it. My chief showed us a video recorded by another team that had done some missions over there. He told me the only other people to see this were much higher up. The president even. People were killing each other. This virus had mutated them, changed them to something sinister. I assumed that the Koreans were the creators, but I was still unsure of what was going to happen. Did this mean war? Was this even a war we could win? Lena, the first victims were like the worst kind of
others
you can imagine. They were just creatures, not really men at all. This virus made people rip each other to shreds. It was a super weapon.

“Then I found out it was actually the US military who had developed the virus. It was our own testing facility that had used humans as guinea pigs. We had developed this super weapon, distributing it in little vials, one person at a time. And still we wanted more. We wanted to develop an even better one. Better than what? I asked. The virus that had started as an injectable, controllable substance had mutated and evolved. This virus started killing millions of people in the most horrendous manner possible. At this point, there was no longer any control; now there was chaos. The disease pitted brother against brother, father against son, and child against mother. The worst part of this whole scenario was that people were no longer people. They had been changed into something worse.

“After that the media finally caught on to the virus spreading over Asia. Although the North Koreans were initially blamed, I knew that our own government had started it, planting it and testing it far from our shores so that, in situations like this, we were the last to be suspected. But the virus spread a lot faster than I think anyone realized it would. The SEAL team that had been involved with the original testing in Korea had initially come back asymptomatic, but it wasn’t long before they started showing the same profile as those originally infected. Then it was determined that the virus had mutated to an airborne strain. The SEAL team who had been put in charge of the medical team that administered the virus to Korean victims had done so hands-off. I call them victims because they were innocent people. I saw the video. These people were not volunteers.

“Anyway, these SEALs had started to show symptoms. They were aggressive and animalistic. The Navy couldn’t afford to let something like this leak. Unlike all the other outbreaks over Europe and Asia, the SEALs were almost identical to the first victims, being in direct contact with the original strains of the newly mutated virus. They changed rapidly and aggressively. Once the virus got out, became airborne, the change slowed down for everyone else. The symptoms mirrored the flu at first and then progressed to what we see now. The virus kills brain cells and eventually the host ends up in some kind of madness or animalistic state. Each victim exhibits different severities, different symptoms of the virus. That is why some people are more violent and others are more insane.

“Not too long after I heard about their symptoms, these SEALs got into an ‘accident’ that resulted in all of their deaths. Although we were told it was an accident due to negligence, I knew that wasn’t really true. They had been killed to protect the military’s secrets, and to try to stop the virus from spreading. We needed to remain a stronghold for the rest of the world. At this point, there hadn’t been any reported infections in the US. How would it have looked if the military was tainted in such a way?

“It was shortly after that that Chief approached me for a meeting. Up until then I hadn’t thought too much about how we intended on combating this atrocity. I was on my way out and, like the rest of humanity, I couldn’t imagine this virus destroying the free world so quickly. I guess I was hoping that it was all a dream and that I would wake up and be on my way out. It wasn’t long before I found out that I was the only one who thought what was happening was just wrong.”

He stopped talking and looked over at her, afraid to continue.

“The worst part,” he started again, “was that I could have saved so many.”

Lena pulled the car over. Her eyes widened in shock and she sat back, staring at him.

Lowering his head, Jasper let the past come back, wash over him. It was a moment he had tried to forget for a long time.