Jacqueline Druga

RESET

ONE – Awakening

It is said, that in the moments before awakening, that an outside stimulus can be registered by the brain, therefore influencing the dream. A change in temperature, alarm clock, noise, anything can influence and invade the dream of the slumbering individual.

A dream lasts only a few moments.

That is what happened to Nora.

She was dreaming. An odd dream, she was on the beach with her two young daughters, yelling to her husband Rick not to let them go in the water. It was too cold.

But, he allowed them and they went under.

Horrified, she raced into the water for her family, only to become engulfed by waves that felt thick, too thick. She couldn’t move, couldn’t swim, couldn’t breathe.

Nora was drowning.

A bright light passed over her eyes, the water changed from warm to cold and trying to gasp, she opened her eyes.

She had been asleep. But she wasn’t in bed, she wasn’t lying down. Her position, what was going on, was secondary to the fact that she couldn’t breathe.

Something was lodged somewhere between her throat and chest, and Nora coughed. Coughing wasn’t easy, because she couldn’t inhale enough air into her body to produce the cough.

Calm, she thought. Stay calm.

Using what little air she had remaining in her lungs, Nora gave it all she had. The object moved up to her throat and she went from unable to breathe to downright choking.

She was dying.

Suddenly, a sense of ‘release’ hit her and she fell face forward to the floor. In an attempt to stand, her body slid on the smooth cold surface. She pushed and pushed from her diaphragm and throat, but couldn’t clear the object. Surroundings fading, Nora, through her vision blurring, spotted a chair not far from her. She reached, gripped it, and after slipping once, stood and lunged her body full force, mid-section first into the back of that chair.

The object dislodged and she gasped for the much needed air.

Then she felt the horrendous pain to her stomach and chest. She broke a rib in her self-attempted Heimlich maneuver.

She caught her bearings and her breath, then she saw the object that came from her. It was thick, about the size of an egg and blue. Clear and gel like, it looked as if she had choked on some sort of gelatin dessert.

After a very brief moment, reality set in. Choking done, breathing normal.

What was going on?

She was completely naked, and she shivered freakishly out of control. Her skin felt damp and she turned around slowly.

Behind her was an open glass door. It looked like it was attached to a closet in the wall. A panel of lights beside it blinked and more of the blue thick gel lay on the floor and in the encasement.

That had to be where she had fallen.

Where was she? Her mind felt full and in the fog, it took her a second to even remember who she was.

My name. My name. My name is Nora. I think. Is it? Nora Something. What?

It wasn’t a large room, but it wasn’t tiny either. More compact with space utilized to the fullest.

An unmade single bed, the sheets and blankets were folded and in bags on top. A desk and a chair, above the desk was a flat screen adhered to the wall. Next to the bed was a door that resembled something from a prison.

Against the other wall were two white doors and what looked like a chest of drawers, white as well, built into the wall.

Very clinical.

Very clean.

Her body still shaking, arms tight to her, she looked back to the small coffin closet.

Then she remembered…

Moving, on her back, rolling down a hall, white fluorescent lights blinking above her.

“She’s still awake,” a voice said.

“We don’t have time.”

“Should we hit her again?”

“No, it’ll kill her. It’ll kick in.”

Whatever they had given her made her unable to speak or move, she was drugged.

They moved her from that cart and placed her on something else. It wasn’t comfortable. She merely balanced on a thin metal rod that pressed against her back.

Nora wanted to cry out, to scream, to fight. But she couldn’t.

Something wrapped around her head, then her chest and waist. Leveled to a standing position, Nora was then lowered down.

The encasement.

She remembered the encasement and seeing that room before she passed out.

A clear view of the room and someone in there, she may not have been able to speak or move but she could see. Who was he? He wore a white lab coat. There was a hiss, a click and then a warm thick liquid encompassed her feet. It crept up to her shins, her thighs and then her body.

She recalled the fear of drowning as the fluid hit her chin, and that was the last Nora remembered.

All went black.

Her immediate thoughts after the memory were to get warm, get dressed and find out what was going on. It hurt to walk and her body was rigid, not only that, but her skin began to tighten from the liquid as it dried.

A step toward the bed and the monitor above the desk blinked and came on.

The picture was bad, it flickered and distorted. A man in a lab coat stared at the camera.

“Good morning,” he said. “By now you have awakened. Please, for your health, as quickly as possible, relieve your bladder and wash any remaining residue from your skin and hair. You will find we have provided you with clothing. At this point, you are wondering what…”

The monitor shut down.

Her eyes widened. ‘What?’ she thought. ‘Wondering what?’

Nora was wondering a lot. However, just in case the fluid that covered her was indeed dangerous, she sought out the bathroom so she could wash.

It wasn’t the first white door, it was the second and Nora stepped inside and immediately followed her brief instructions of relieving herself and washing.

TWO – Coming to Senses

It took the lukewarm water of the shower to bring Nora to a more aware state. She was groggy and tired, her stomach wretched in hunger and she craved caffeine.

However, she wasn’t home. She just couldn’t go to her kitchen, pour a cup of coffee and start her day.

Nora had no clue where she was other than in a clinical style bathroom.

Very clinical, prepackaged toiletries perched on lid of the stainless steel commode

She was no longer cold when she left the bathroom, the temperature was average and she had to find clothes, see what was in the small room and get out. If she could.

Her room was a step above a cell, had she been taken prisoner? Apparently she had been drugged.

Think, Nora, think. She hit her fist to her head. What happened? Where were you?

Recall your life.

It was blank. It was absolutely, positively blank up until the point she was rolling down the hall.

Folded bedding set upon the mattress and next to it a clear bag of clothes. They had to be for her. Boots, drawstring pants and a long sleeve tee shirt, along with generic style undergarments.

She immediately ripped open the sealed bag and placed on every item, all the while speaking aloud; hoping the sound of her own voice would jar her memory.

But no real sounds emerged. Nora couldn’t speak.

She chanted in her mind what she knew, what she remembered.

My name is Nora Lane. Lane. Is it? She didn’t remember fully. The dream of a husband named Rick and two daughters… was it a dream? Was it a memory?

She just didn’t know. Nora closed her eyes tightly as if pinching them closed would cause clarity. It didn’t and she walked to the closet. More clothing, all the same, hung in there. There was a backpack on the floor, she opened it. It was empty.

Something clicked. At least a little.

Nora Lane. Yes. It is Lane. That’s it. I’m from… I’m from Akron Ohio.

The monitor above the desk was blank, yet the power was on. Outside her room door she could see a light, possibly a hall and Nora, not only in a mental search for who she was, sought out physically where she was and reached for that cell like door.

Unlocked.

It was her chance to venture out, find answers. She hoped.

She fought the foggy memory, trying to decipher how she ended up in that room. But all she could recall was the final few moments leading up to her black out.

That and the vivid dream she had just before she woke up choking.

The door slid, almost automatically into the wall with a hiss and she stepped out. Her legs weren’t strong, they felt rubbery, her eyes failed to focus fully and the painful knot of hunger grew.

The dream. A few slow steps and when she thought of it, the husband, the children, she was positive they were reality.

But why did she get a lump in her stomach at the thought of them?

Answers she didn’t have and she figured it would eventually all come to her. Just like the simple task of walking with ease would return.

She felt as if she had been sleeping for days. Her head started to pound, she guessed if she had been sleeping that long, she was dehydrated. The hallway seemed like a mile journey, her weakened state and faulty sight caused the hall to seem slanted causing a vertigo that sickened her some.

Door after door, just like hers, lined that hallway. All of them closed. It was brighter at the other end of the hall and she set that as her destination. All she heard was the electrical humming surged in and out as if it were going to go out at any moment.

A part of her felt as if she was alone, but there were so many doors. Were there others, like her, behind them? She tried to peek through the glass panel of the first door, but the room was dark and she couldn’t see inside. Then she reached for the door. It wasn’t locked. Just as she started to open it, she heard a scuffing of a footstep. Or at least that’s what she thought it was.

She tried to call out but her voice only gurgled, so Nora decided to look for the source of the sound. She couldn’t move very fast. It was taking everything out of her to walk.

It was another fifteen feet, a few doors later and she came across an open door. She walked inside. It was exactly like her room, Down to the monitor, the bedding on the mattress, the opened bag of clothing and the chamber. Only the blue, gel like fluid looked dry and dusty. With stiff knees she crouched down to touch the fluid. She ran the powder like substance across her fingers. Someone else emerged. Someone else was there.

Where?

Grabbing the edge of the bed for support. Nora stood. She now had a quest, to find whoever it was, that had been in the room. But they could have been long gone.

One more step toward the door and a man appeared. His presence startled her to the point, that not only did she jolt, she lost her balance and stumbled back and on to the bed.

“My God,” he said, reaching for her. “I am so sorry. Number Seventeen, right?”

She couldn’t answer. Seventeen what? What did he mean? She took his hand and used it as leverage to stand. He looked upon her with familiarity and a partial smile. But Nora couldn’t return the smile or anything. He obviously was far more aware than she was. Nora… was clueless.

THREE – Hydrate

Four doors down was a storage room with boxes of water, juice, and dry goods. Nora sat on a box, downing her second bottle of water. She could feel the hunger in her stomach, it hurt some. But she started to feel better.

He had brought her to the room, and reached out midway through her water and stopped her.

“Easy or you’ll vomit. I did,” he said. His voice smooth and deep with southern Kentucky dialect. “Can you talk yet?”

Nora opened her mouth and tried. Her voice felt stuck. She shook her head.

“Can you cough?” he asked. “Whatever substance we absorbed or inhaled, gets stuck in the throat, lines it. It needs to soften or liquefy more. Try coughing.”

After a deep breath, Nora cringed and again shook her head.

“Are you hurt? Did you fall?”

She lifted a finger and cringed a little and nodded that she did, but then waved him off as a signal that she was all right.

“It will itself work out. Give it a few minutes.”

Great, work itself out, she thought, I’m going to cough up another fur ball.

He handed her a cracker. “Try eating this. I know you’re hungry. I was. Still am. But my stomach still feels funny.”

After accepting the cracker, Nora looked at him. His face was strong and chiseled with a hint of boyishness that offset any guess on his age. His dark, short hair was still damp, he wore the exact same clothing as she did. Preplanned, pre-bagged clothes. She deduced he had more than likely just went through the same routine as her, wake up covered in goo. Snippet video, pee, shower, rinse, repeat.

Yet, what was up with the stranger? He seemed unaffected by all that was going on. Or perhaps it was an act.

He pulled up a box and sat down across from her. “I hope you talk soon, because I need someone to talk this over with.” He shook his head then handed her the remainder of her water.

“I know you’re seventeen because that was the number on your door. The only other room with a light. My name…” He placed his hand on his chest. “Is Jason. I’m sorry. I should have told you that. I’m sure your name isn’t seventeen.”

She shook her head and drank more water.

“I haven’t seen a clock yet. I checked my room, none of my belongings are there. Then again, I don’t know if I would know if they were mine. Does that make sense?”

Nora nodded, it did make sense to her.

He lifted his hands. “I’m gonna just keep talking until you can. Is that okay?”

Nora closed her mouth tightly to convey her agreement. What else did she have to do but drink that water and listen? Besides, she did want to know what was going on with him. Who he was. What he had to do with everything.

“So I don’t know how long I have been up. My guess is about a half an hour,” Jason said. “I just know when I ventured out of the room, the hall was lit, but all the rooms were dark. I couldn’t call out, my voice wouldn’t work. It was confusing. This room wasn’t far, door was open. Almost as if set up like that on purpose. Or maybe it was on automatic, like my lights. Like yours. I found the water. Drank it like you. I paced a minute or two, threw up…” He cracked a partial smile. “Then coming back up the hall, I heard water and saw your light on. I went to get you water, figuring, and heck if the same thing happened to you that happened to me, you’d need it. I planned on meeting you but you beat me to the punch.”

Nora brought the bottle to her lips.

“I just was confused. I mean all I got was some short video, cut off after the guy told me to take a leak and shower.”

The video.

Upon hearing that, mid drink, Nora cocked her head and when she did, the ‘it’ dislodged in her throat and the water in her mouth involuntarily shot out.

Jason inched back.

As if the water went down the wrong pipe, Nora violently coughed, and the spell ended with the expulsion of a small dime size chunk of the blue gel substance,

“There it is,” Jason looked down to it. “Now try talking.”

Nora exhaled, then breathed in. “I…” She paused and smiled, the words came out with ease. “I’m Nora.”

“Nora, pleased to meet you.”

She shifted her eyes around. “Where… where are we?”

“Now that is the million dollar question. And the answer to that is…” He lifted a finger and flashed a closed mouth smile. “I don’t know.”

FOUR – Discovery

When Nora was six years old, she had her tonsils removed and suffered an odd reaction to the anesthesia. She woke foggy from it, slightly sickened, but in spiral of so much confusion, Nora didn’t recognize her mother. Eventually it all came back.

She likened what she was experiencing in ‘The Hall’ to that day. She christened the place ‘The Hall’ because that was all she saw. One long well lit hallway, with doors every eight or so feet. Each door was like hers, with a small window. But the rooms were dark.

Or at least she couldn’t see inside.

There were two doors at each end of the long hallway. It was strange because she had no desire to go to those doors, no desire to do anything. She dreamt of having a family. Deep within her she felt it wasn’t just a dream, yet why didn’t she feel any emotional urgency for them?

She had no overwhelming sensation to get out of The Hall. It was as if she either was just born or somehow knew why she was there. She just didn’t recall. In fact there wasn’t much she recalled at all. She was from Ohio. She knew her name.

The buck stopped there.

A gnawing feeling filled her gut, frustrating Nora because she could feel the memories, pulsating in her brain, yet unable to surface. On the tip of her tongue, like she was trying to remember a name. It was there, right there. Nora supposed once she had a breakthrough then she would scream to get out. Until she knew why and where, there was nothing she could do.

It would come.

Until then, she felt safe in that room filled with supplies and began to see what all was there.

Jason said he was going to walk the hallway and see if anyone else happened to be around.

He had lost just as many memories. In fact he didn’t even know his last name. Nora knew hers, at least she thought she did.

Jason didn’t know if he was married, had children. Unlike Nora, he didn’t remember being lowered into that fluid.

He did, however say he remembered a phone call. That was his last memory. A phone call. What that call entailed… he was lost.

Did Nora receive a call and not remember? Clearly Jason was lowered into fluid. Maybe together, the bits and pieces they did know would fit together like a puzzle.

She could hear him trying the doors, knocking on them. Her focus was deciding on what to eat. She was still weak, her legs didn’t want to move much.

Nora checked out the boxes. There were so many, lined up, stacked high. From what she could see, some were marked.

She grabbed a box, marked protein, and opened it. It was filled with four inch, airtight sealed silver packs. She grabbed one.

“Someone’s up,” Jason called into the storage room. “The light went on.”

The protein pack slipped from her hand and Nora stood. She lost her balance as she turned to face Jason who stood in the doorway.

“You all right?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Nora moved to him. “Did you look inside?”

“I did. I didn’t see anyone or that fluid.”

“So they’re waking up now.” She walked with Jason.

“Maybe their video will work. This way.” He pointed. “Number Twelve.”

She quickly followed him. “Do you think the door is still locked?”

“I don’t know. I just want to get there before he comes to.”

“And falls out of the contraption. Like I did.”

“Me, too,” Jason said and stopped to the door. “I just splashed out with the ooze. Woke up choking. Of course, you did, too.”

They stopped before Door Twelve.

Jason looked at her then peeked in through the window. “It’s a man.” He reached for the door and it slid open.

They rushed inside.

Clearly, to Nora, things were happening different with the man.

Small red dots of lights blinked on the top of the box contraption. The naked man was suspended by a ring clamp that wrapped around his waist. There was a respirator tube in his mouth and his eyes were closed as the fluid slowly lowered.

“Is he dead?” Jason asked.

“I don’t…” Nora shook her head and stopped. Her eyes lifted. “Heming.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Heming. The name under the red lights. Heming. Do you think that’s his name or the name of the machine?”

Jason shrugged, “Do you remember having a breathing tube?”

“No. Then again, I didn’t grasp anything until I was face first on the floor in a puddle.”

“Choking,” Jason said. “Yeah. Me, too.”

Nora stood a few feet from the encasement, her eyes shifting from that to the monitor on the wall. The gel like fluid drained completely from the man and the red lights turned blue. A hissing noise was released and the encasement filled with a steam. So much so the man could not be seen.

The lights turned green, the vapor disappeared and then it did, the man’s eyes were open. The tube ejected from his mouth and the clamp released him.

He became aware.

That was evident.

In a panic, he swiped his hands frantically up and down his arms, shifted left to right and as the door began to open, he grew impatient, shoving it and slipping through.

He didn’t fall face first to the floor in a puddle of goo. However, with rubbery legs, he lunged forward, nearly losing his balance. He was a man in his forties, maybe older. It was hard to tell. His hair was thin and gray, balding on top. He seemed oblivious to the fact he was naked his awakening was more mentally traumatic. At least it seemed that way to Nora. Physically he seemed fine.

His temper flared and angrily he blasted, “What did you people do to me? Where am I?”

“Sir…” Jason spoke softly.

He grabbed for Jason, yanking and holding on to his shirt. “What did you do? Oh my God. My wife. My family.”

“We did nothing.” Jason fought the man’s grip. “We are in the same boat as you.”

“Boat? We’re on a boat?” he asked.

“No.” Jason shook his head. “Figure of speech. I …”

“I’ve got to get out of here.” He took a single steps and the monitor came on catching his attention as well as Jason and Nora’s.

The image wasn’t quite as bad as Nora recalled, he same man in a lab coat, speaking to the camera. “Good morning. By now you have awakened. Please, for your health, as quickly as possible, relieve your bladder and wash any remaining residue from your skin and hair. You will find we have provided you with clothing. At this point, you are wondering what is going on, All those questions will be answered when you…”

It was the same message Nora received with only a few more words.

“When?” the man asked, his body began to shiver and his voice trembled. “When will it be answered?” He stared hard at Jason.

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. My message cut off right after he said to shower.”

“Well, she knows,” the man pointed at Nora.

“I don’t.” Nora answered helpless.

“Really?” He asked with sarcasm, his voice increasingly trembling as much as his body. “I find that hard to believe. You were there. I know that face.” He reached out. “You were the last person I remember seeing.”

Then the man collapsed to the floor.

FIVE – Malcolm

“Do you think this is why they said to wash?” Nora asked Jason in a near state of panic, staring above Number Twelve as he lay naked and motionless on the floor.

“More than likely,” Jason reached for the man. “He’s breathing.” He then hoisted him to his feet, bracing the man’s back to his chest as he dragged Twelve toward the bathroom. “Get the water. Turn it on.”

“He’s out. How are you going…?”

“I’ll hold him up. Go on hurry.”

She did as requested, reaching into the shower stall, turning on the water and testing it.

Jason was struggling, Nora could see that, but he held tight to the man as he stepped into the shower. He placed his back flush on the wall as a means of support. “Aim the water on him, please.”

Nora did. She adjusted the flow to hit the man. “He’s not waking.”

“Give him a few seconds he will.”

She stepped back, then noticed the man’s fingers moved and his arm swayed some. She hurriedly grabbed a towel from the shelf and as she did she heard it.

Another voice.

“Anyone?” a male yelled. “Hello!”

It seemed that Jason didn’t hear, if he did, he didn’t acknowledge.

“Oh, shit,” Nora looked behind her.

“What is it?”

“Someone is calling out.”

“Go. Go. I got this.”

Nora nodded stepped back at the same time Number Twelve cocked his head. She spun from the bathroom and raced out of Room Twelve.

No sooner did she step in the hallway, she saw the man down the other end of the hall where the high number rooms were located. A thicker built man, completely nude, staggered, holding on to the wall and walked in the opposite direction. He stopped at a room and knocked on the door.

“Hello,” he called out. “Someone. Anyone.” He placed his hands flush against the door and lowered his head in defeat.

Nora moved as quickly as she could toward him. “Hey.”

He slowly lifted his head and turned, gasping out when he saw her. “Where am I?”

Nora reached for him, the substance still covered his body. “Did you get the message in your room?”

“What … what message? What’s going on? I…”

“Listen, you have to wash this stuff off of you. Look at your hands.”

He lifted one and his fingers trembled.

“Whatever this is. Whatever covered us has to be washed off. Come, I’ll help you back.” She grabbed hold of his arm and looked around. She spotted the open door of Room twenty. “This way.”

The man, no older than thirty had to have woken minutes after Number Twelve. With each short distance they moved, the man’s body trembled more and Nora feared he too, like Twelve would collapse.

But he didn’t. He made it into Room Twenty and into the bathroom with little assistance from her. She asked him if he needed any help and he declined. He sounded confused and lost, then again, Nora knew what he was feeling.

Her heart raced from the double awakening. There were so many rooms, and really she had only been in that hall, no further. There could be a whole facility around them.

Taking a breather she stepped from Room Twenty with the full intention of finding Jason and asking him about Number Twelve. He was already in the hallway, soaking wet.

“Is there another awake?” Jason asked.

“Yes. What about Twelve? Is he okay?”

“He’s in the shower. He’s better. I’m gonna grab dry clothes. How is…”

“Twenty,” She said. “Confused. But fine. Washing.”

“Just watch him and you may want to grab him a water.”

It was a good idea and while Twenty showered, Nora went to the supply room for water and crackers. She passed Room Twelve en route and thought about the man in there. He said he knew her, recognized her. In fact, she was the last person he recalled seeing.

How was that possible? Nora didn’t recall knowing him.

Another piece of the puzzle.

She returned to Room Twenty, the shower water was running. She could hear it. She glanced at the dark television monitor and wondered if it played a partial message and the man just missed it. She set down the water on the desk under the television then tapped on the bathroom door.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. I’ll be out in a moment.”

Nora glanced to the bed. Like with her, plastic bags were there, sealed clothing inside.

“There are clothes out here. They left clothes for us.”

“Whoever ‘they’ may be.”

She huffed a slight laugh of agreement and looked around the room. It was the same as hers, as Number Twelve. The encasement was the same. It too had a respirator tube. Seeing that again made Nora wonder if her unit had malfunctioned, Jason’s as well. Since they both were choking or rather drowning when they woke up.

It baffled her, maybe she physically woke up before the process ended. Clearly it was something to render them unconscious, maybe part of the process included a clear breathing awakening .

As with Number Twelve, the encasement unit had a name on top. This one ‘Lowe’ confirming to her that Number Twelve was Heming.

“Lowe,” she said out loud.

His voice startled her. “That’s my last name. My first name is Malcolm.”

She turned, he wore towel, and quickly to be polite, she turned away. “I’m Nora.”

“Whoever did this, had their eye on us at least long enough to label our liquid coffins,” he said.

She listened to the sound of rippling plastic as he opened the bags. “Or they labeled us after.”

“I take it you woke up in one of these?” he asked.

“I fell out. Was choking, that fluid was stuck in my throat.”

“You must have spit your air tube out. Or maybe you were in there too long. You can turn around, I’m dressed.”

Nora did. He was pulling the shirt over his head. “Why would you say that?” She reached and handed him the water. “Drink.”

“Say what? About being in there too long? I don’t know.” He shrugged, opened the bottle and took a long drink. “I just likened it to a womb. You know when a baby is overdue, there is a danger that they can start to breathe or try and they inhale the amniotic fluid. I don’t know, something like that.”

“Do you remember anything, Malcolm? Anything at all?”

“It’s foggy. Very foggy. Like my life… it’s bits and pieces.”

Nora closed her eyes. “I know that feeling. A part of me feels it will break through. But the last thing I remember is being lowered into the encasement.”

He whistled and took another drink. “I don’t remember that. The last thing I remember was the explosion.”

“An explosion?”

“Yeah, I don’t know where I was. But I do know I was being ushered somewhere and…” He closed his eyes. “Someone was saying, ‘This way. Go this way. The explosion took out that wing.’” He opened his eyes. “I remember the rumbling. The noise. But everything else…”

“A blur.”

“You got it.”

His memories didn’t help nor did they jar anything in Nora. Instead of being more enlightened as the minutes past, she grew more confused about what exactly was going on.

SIX – Normal

John Heming wondered what was wrong with the others, especially the man named Jason who helped him in the shower. He was calm, too calm. Did he know what happened and was pretending that he didn’t?

Why didn’t they feel frantic? John did. He felt confined and wanted nothing more than to get out, to find his family and get home to them. An urgency to leave, run, and escape, as if he had been a prisoner.

But a part of him knew he wasn’t a prisoner. If he was, where were the guards? There were no cameras in the room that he could see. What was holding him there? Once dressed he fled from the room and looked down the hall. His room was dead center.

It was the longest hallway he had ever seen. Eight feet wide, nearly a hundred feet long if not more. A white hall with overhead lights and at each end of the hall was a door.

The one door had no handle, it was flush and the square above it didn’t even have the word exit on it. The other wasn’t marked either but it had a silver push bar and John ran there.

He shoved on the door and it didn’t budge. He banged and pushed filled with insanity to leave.

“Twelve,” Jason called out. “Stop.”

“I need to get out of here.” John turned from the door. Staring at him were Jason, the woman, and a new guy. “What’s wrong with you people? Don’t you want to leave? You seem content to be here. Can’t you tell they did something to us?”

Jason stepped forward. “We don’t remember anything. I barely remember my life, it’s like a dream. I’m not…” He closed his eyes tightly as if frustrated. “I’m not feeling like I know anything.”

“Well I do,” John said. “I do. My name is John. John Heming. Not Number Twelve. I am forty-six years old, from Chicago Illinois. I am a writer. I have four sons, a wife… who… my God.” He turned toward the door. “Was in the middle filing for divorce when I left. I need…” he pounded. “To get out.”

The woman yelled. “Stop. Please. Pounding on it isn’t getting us out.”

“There’s more here.” John waved his hand around. “More to this place than just this hall. What is behind all these doors? More people? Why are we the only ones awake? You people may be missing memories, but I feel we are missing something. Something we need to do. I feel it.”

“John,” The new guy walked to him. “My name is Malcolm. I’m just as confused as everyone else. If we are gonna get out or get beyond that door, we need to figure out how instead of just banging on it.”

John nodded. “You’re right.”

Jason snapped his finger. “Nora, you were looking at the boxes in storage. Did you see anything that wasn’t food? Like tools?”

“I didn’t notice, but then again, I didn’t really look,” Nora said. “Twelve… I mean… John woke up.”

“Then we look,” Jason said. “Maybe there is something there we can pry it open with. John? Does that work? You and I will look. Malcolm and Nora can keep watch in the hall, and check their rooms for anything.”

Reluctantly, John stepped from the door. “Fine. Let’s look. Because there are two doors that don’t open. Someone wants us in here and that means…” John walked toward Jason. “We in this hall are not the only ones in this building.”

SEVEN – Boxes

Jason took John to the storage room and then after saying he’d return, he went back to his room. Room Nine.

He returned there to change but didn’t look. Now he had to. The name above the encasement chamber.

Jason looked.

Rudolph.

As soon as he looked at it the name registered in his mind. Jason Rudolph.

He repeated it several times until it felt like a sledgehammer nailed him. He had some sort of physical reaction. His body swayed and suddenly, he had a full-fledged memory.

At first it didn’t make sense. He was standing before tens of thousands of people, holding a microphone and speaking.

Jason Rudolph.

Was he a singer?

No.

His eyes widened.

He had a wife. Melissa. He remembered her, he saw her in his mind, her red hair. Her beautiful face. Instantly he felt love for her. It consumed him, overwhelmed him. How could he forget her? And his child. A daughter. A baby. A new baby.

It was all coming back to him and quickly too. Suddenly Jason felt excited, enthused and then he felt like John. Frantic to get out, to get home. He didn’t remember why he was there or even how he got there, but he knew he was supposed to be elsewhere, with his family and home.

Surely, a door in his mind opened. Soon, Jason believed, he’d remember it all. With motivation he ran back to storage.

He could barely breathe, speak, he was excited and scared all at the same time.

“John,” He called out as he ran in.

“I think I have something here,” John said. “All of these boxes are survivor materials. Food, water, rations, medical supplies. This box is heavy, bet me it has tools. It’s not marked. Although for the life of me I can’t figure out why they’d give us tools if they were keeping us prisoner.”

“I’m a preacher.”

John paused in opening the box. “I’m sorry, what?”

Jason spoke rapidly and with enthusiasm. “I went back to my room. I looked at the gel box I came from. My name. When I saw it I started to remember. I am a preacher. Or a pastor. Not sure. I have a family. I know that. I also know what you meant now. We need to get out of here.”

“Well, thank God.” John cleared his throat. “No pun intended to you being a preacher or pastor. Funny, one would think it would be embedded in your soul…” He pulled the tape seal from the box. “This is really heavy it’s…” He opened the flaps. “Guns.”

“Guns, as in like a weapon?”

John only glanced at him. “Um yeah, Preacher, guns. Bang.”

“Why would we need guns?”

John closed the flap slowly. “I read a book once. They locked eight people in this compound to see who would survive. A game of sorts.”

“You don’t think this is the case, do you?”

John shook his head. “I don’t know. The writer in me is really thinking outside…” He glanced down. “The box. But these weapons. Why do we need them in here?”

“You’re a writer?” Jason asked.

“Yeah,” He nodded. “That’s how I paid the bills.” He pushed the box aside and looked around. “So many boxes here. How long did they expect us to stay?”

“There are forty-eight rooms. I have an empty backpack in my room. Maybe we’re in the wilderness somewhere and all this is to fill our backpacks.”

Again, John shook his head as he searched. “No, we’re in New York. Or at least that’s the last place I was when I saw Nora.”

“But how…”

“Oh. Wait. Stop.” John moved a box. “Bingo.” He pointed to the fire emergency sign on the wall, and the ax in the glass encasement.”

“We can use that.”

“And it tells me a lot,” John said and walked back to the gun box. He grabbed a pistol. “Guns, weapons. We aren’t prisoners. We were put in here for a reason. But what?”

“If this was your book, John, why would we be here? I mean, you’re a writer. How would you write this?”

“First thing that comes to mind is an experiment of sorts. The fluid caused some memory loss. But you remembering tells me it is short term, so they don’t really want us to forget. Let me think about this.” Shielding his eyes, John turned from the case and then using the handle of the pistol, after a short snapping hit, he broke the glass on the case.

After handing Jason the pistol, John retrieved the ax.

Clenched in his grip, John turned. “Let’s go break that door.”

“Which one.”

“Not the one with the broken Exit sign, that’s for sure.”

The two men had taken a few steps across the room, when Nora came barreling in.

“Guys, we need help. Number One just woke up and is choking.” She flew back out.

John set down the ax and raced out with Jason.

Room Number One was only a few doors down and when they arrived, Malcolm had performed a Heimlich maneuver hold on Number One.

All Jason could see was a dangling arm, lifeless. Malcolm’s back was to him, his feet slipping on the gel like substance all over the floor. Obviously, like with Jason, Number One’s encasement malfunctioned.

“Come on.” Malcolm urged. His back heaved as he clenched. He was bigger than the man he tried to help. “He may need CPR. Unless he starts breathing.”

“What if you lay him down?” John suggested. “Do it that way.”

“Good idea,” When Malcolm turned his body, the object flew from the man’s mouth and landed on the floor.

It merged with the other fluid there.

The man silently gasped. His eyes widened and hand reached out. He released noises that were vain attempts at talking.

“Shower. He needs to go into the shower,” Nora said and placed her face first to the man. “You need to shower to get this guck off. I know you can’t talk. Nod if you understand me.”

He did.

“I got him,” Malcolm said, helping him.

“Careful, don’t fall,” Nora said as she led the way.

Jason thought, About this point the video comes on and he turned to see it. He didn’t want to miss the message. Maybe it would have more to it.

He looked. There was no monitor.

No television.

Jason, puzzled looked at John. “Why doesn’t he have a monitor?”

“More than likely, he knows what’s going on. This is a big piece of the puzzle and tells us who is behind this all. He doesn’t need a video message.”

“Why would you say that?” Jason asked.

“You didn’t look at him. He’s Number One, all right,” John said. “That’s the president.”

EIGHT – Lights On

John worked the ax against the corner of the door with as much determination as frustration. “This has to open. It has to.” He banged against the silver bar.

“What do you suppose the other door is?” Jason asked.

“Jason,” John exhaled. “I’m not an expert. I know as much about all this as you do.”

“I’m just having you guess.”

“I don’t know. I’d say exit, but they blocked out the word exit. This we can safely guess is an exit. It’s not locked.” John pushed the bar again. “I think something is against it. But in case it is just jammed.” John wedged the ax in the frame. “I’ll get through this son of a bitch.”

“You’re different, John.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean. When I woke up. When Nora woke up. We were confused, near shells of human beings. You have it together. You know who you are, where you came from, what you were doing. We’re still piecing it together. A part of me thinks this door and the other will open when the forty three other people wake up.”

John stopped and stood upright. “That actually makes sense.”

“All this is preparatory. The supplies, the clothing, I just wish I knew when the others were waking.”

“It’s preparatory, but there’s more. It’s behind this door.”

“I wish President Thomas knew.”

John laughed.

“What?” Jason asked. “What’s so funny?”

“He knows. Don’t let him kid you.”

“He says he doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t even know he’s the president.”

John shook his head. “He knows. That’s the preacher in you believing the best. No. Where is he? In his room, while the rest of us are out here trying to figure this place out, trying to figure out what is going on. He’s staying away because he knows.”

“Why wouldn’t he tell us?”

“You are full of questions. And son of a bitch, this thing won’t budge.” On his final word, John slammed the ax into the door. When he did two things occurred.

The door opened.

Turning around to smile at Jason, John saw it.

Every door of every room slid open. Lights from the rooms flowed into the hall.

“I did not cause that, did I?” John asked.

“No, I think it was a coincidence. It’s time.” Jason glanced at John. “They’re all waking up.”

On that, John placed down the ax between the door and the frame. That door was finally open and it wasn’t the only one.

NINE – Awakening

Good morning. By now you have awakened. Please, for your health, as quickly as possible, relieve your bladder and wash any remaining residue from your skin and hair. You will find we have provided you with clothing. At this point, you are wondering what is going on, all those questions will be answered when you have had the time to adjust. You have emerged from what is called a Genesis Unit. This experience hinders long-term memory, may cause cognizant problems, and may delay comprehension. Expect a full return to normalcy in forty-eight hours at which time, another message will play.

That was it.

The full message by the man in the lab coat.

Forty-three monitors played it all at the same time, but only the monitor in Room Three played the entire message.

Unfortunately, the occupant of that room didn’t make it. His Genesis Unit never drained and he was nothing more than a gray being, mummified in a thick bluish fluid.

In fact, most of the remaining forty-three people never woke up.

Something went wrong.

Two women and one man were all that emerged.

Some of the units drained, the occupants were still attached, they never woke, and the respirator was still perched in their lips. Malcolm tried with diligence to revive Number Seven. Her color was good, she wasn’t gray, but she didn’t return.

It was a quiet synchronized sequence of events. The hum of the lights sounded off and then a hiss as every door unlocked at the same time.

“Split up,” Jason instructed. “Someone may need help.”

Nora was nearest to Room One, she knocked on the closed door, and then without waiting for an invitation, she entered. “President Thomas, the others are waking. We may need some help.”

He was seated in a chair by the foot of his bed, hands folded, he merely glanced up and then back down.

“Did you hear me?”

He didn’t reply.

Giving up, Nora left the room.

“Something is wrong,” Malcolm said. “They aren’t moving.”

“This one is,” John yelled from down the hall. “I’m going in.”

Nora watched then as Malcolm frantically slid open the door to Room Six, it hadn’t opened. “Oh my God.”

She hurried in after.

The encasement was void of any fluid. A man was still attached. He didn’t move. His feet darkened from settled blood right before their eyes.

Malcolm reached to him. “He’s ice cold. What the hell.” And then Malcolm ran back out of the room.

Nora supposed he was seeing who else needed help.

She went into Five and the unit was dead. No lights, no blinking. No emptying of the fluid. The woman looked peaceful. Her hair flowed back and formed in the gel.

It was disheartening and sad. She looked the name Farris and mentally conveyed an “I’m sorry,” to her.

Figuring, she too needed to see who needed help, Nora left the room. She paused passing Room Seven.

Malcolm was detaching the woman.

“Malcolm?” Nora questioned.

“She’s still warm. She’s not breathing, but she’s still warm.”

Nora stayed only a moment, she realized Malcolm was going to try to revive her. The lifesaving technique wasn’t even a reaction to Nora. She felt deep inside her she didn’t have a clue on what to do.

In the situation with Number Eleven, Nora knew there was nothing anyone could do. It was, out of all of them, the most horrific

The name on the Genesis unit read Coyne. The woman was younger, possibly in her thirties. Her hair pulled back, the respirator had detached from her and was only a few inches from her mouth. Her skin wasn’t mummified, shriveled or gray, she was white, even her hair.

The fluid did not drain. To Nora, that was a good thing. The Genesis unit was a see through coffin and the woman perfectly preserved. But the young woman’s remains were completely different than anyone else’s.

The blue gel like fluid at the base of the unit had a swirling purple color. More than likely from settling blood. From between her slightly parted legs emerged an umbilical cord that floated upwards to the full term infant, curled in a fetal position infused in the gel right above her left thigh.

Throughout the fluid in the Genesis were speckles of red and white.

Seeing Miss Coyne caused an emotional and physical reaction in Nora. A wave of sadness blasted her, and physically she dropped to the floor.

Nora wanted to scream. It was a mix of anger and anguish that swept over her. Stomach knotting and tensing, it took Nora all that she had not to vomit. Instead she cried. Unable to move, unable to go on. Nora stared at the poor young woman, and in an added state of confusion, she sobbed.

TEN – Countdown

John found her. In the old cliché, that it was like a train wreck, Nora couldn’t turn from the science fiction Madonna in Genesis Unit Eleven.

“Come with me,” John said, holding down his hand to Nora. “Jason and Malcolm are helping the ones that survived. I opened the door at the end of the hall. Let’s go explore.”

Nora used his hand to stand and took one more look at the woman and child.

“Makes you wonder how long we were in those things.” John said.

“Yeah it does.”

“A lot of thought and science went into this project, whatever it is. It’s sad to see it fail so miserably. And it did. People died. They weren’t supposed to.” At the door, John led Nora to the hall, shut off the light in Room eleven and slid the door closed.

“How are the ones that made it?” Nora asked, walking with John.

“Confused. I’m not really sure what they remember and what they don’t, I didn’t talk to them much. Here…” John handed her a small LED flashlight. “I got that from storage. It’s pretty dark on the other side of the door.”

“How far did you go?”

“I opened it and thought, I’m not doing this alone. I wasn’t scared, mind you. It’s just not something I want to do alone.” They walked further and arrived at the door. John turned on his light.

“Do you think we’ll find answers?”

“I want to say yes. But I don’t believe so. Not all. We are going to have to put it together. Ready?”

“Yes.”

John pushed on the bar of the door and it squealed as it opened.

They stepped into complete blackness. John’s light illuminated what looked like another hall, only shorter. After resting the ax in the doorframe to prop it open he moved forward to the next door with Nora.

“From what I figure,” John said. “We are part of something. I mean physically part of something else. Someone else may be here or is supposed to be. Those monitors are hard wired. The wires lead somewhere.”

He placed his hands on the horizontal silver bar. “Let’s hope this isn’t locked.”

It wasn’t.

He pushed the door open and again was greeted by a blackness. Only this dark carried a stench of dust and old.

An immediate tickle hit Nora’s throat and she coughed.

“You’re not scared, are you?”

“No.” Nora shook her head. “I don’t feel I know enough to be scared. If that makes sense.”

She coughed again and noticed how it echoed as they crossed the threshold.

“A big room?” John said. His voiced bounced off the walls. “Stay still.”

He moved the beam of his light around, it only spotlighted things. Tables, doors, a metal staircase. The steps led to a second floor with a metal railing and more doors.

“Looks like a prison,” Nora commented.

“Oddly it does.” John took a step and aimed his light around. “This is the door, there has to be…” He moved to his left. “Yep.”

“What is it?” Nora asked.

“Looks like a circuit box.”

Nora watched him walk to the wall space a few feet from the door. She aided him in shining her lights. John flipped open a metal cover and after an ‘A ha!’ began flipping switches.

They clicked and shifted as he did and with each breaker he switched on, lights came on.

“Oh, wow.” Nora said and turned.

The room was spacious. It held six, eight seat tables, a counter and refrigerator were against the far wall, along with other kitchen items.

“We found our dining room,” said John.

Nora noted the rooms. Five on the bottom, five on the top. Positioned on one side of the dining room. No other exit doors. At least not that she could see. The other side of the room was just a wall.

“They expected us all to survive,” John said. “What do you remember, Nora?”

“Not much. I remember being put in unit and feeling very panicky. I believe I have a husband and children, but I don’t know if it is a dream or real. It doesn’t feel it.”

“According to that video, you’ll know in two days. Hopefully.”

“Hopefully.”

“I think after everyone gets mentally oriented, we should sit down and start talking about what we remember.”

“Piece it together,” Nora said.

“Exactly. Pin down the president.”

“He says he doesn’t remember.”

“He’s full of shit. “

“Jason believes him.”

“Jason is a preacher.”

“No.” Nora said.

“Yes. Sounds odd, doesn’t it?” John asked. “I mean, really, one would think if he dedicated his life to God, even if he didn’t remember his life, spiritually he is vested enough to know he has a connection to the big guy.”

“That’s true. But it makes sense. Jason is very kind. What about Malcolm?”

“Don’t know. I do know the president is here. This was a government thing.”

“What if it was a terrorist thing? A kidnapping. Something new.”

“It’s possible,” John said. “Whatever happened, we were in the same place. All of us. Or at least you and I.”

“I’m so sorry I don’t remember. Were we talking?”

“Laughing,” John said. “I don’t remember, but you said something funny.”

“Really? Where were we?”

“New York.”

“But I’m from…” Nora paused. A slight lightheadedness hit her. “Wait. Wait. I was in New York.”

“You remember.”

“Not why. I know I was there. I just can’t recall the reason.”

“It’ll come. Let’s go check out these rooms.”

Nora agreed. “Do you think its day or night? There are no windows.”

“It’s afternoon. Mid afternoon. Close to four by now.”

“How do you know?”

“The clock at the bottom of the monitor. I looked for a date and saw the time,” John said. “The message played at 3:22 PM.”

Nora was impressed that he had done that. It was simple, yet something she herself didn’t think of.

They began to explore.

Of the ten rooms, eight of them contained lockers. Each with a number. John guessed and told her since there were forty-eight lockers; he supposed they were numbered according to the rooms.

They were locked.

“Where are the keys?” Nora asked. “Do you think there are any?”

“I’m gonna guess they are in our rooms or storage. I mean, have we had the chance to check?”

Nora shook her head. “No. We haven’t been up all that long.”

They left the locker rooms. Not much they could do there. The final room on the top floor was locked, and something they knew they had to investigate. And the last room checked, on the bottom floor, was a computer room. None of which were turned on. There were file cabinets and boxes.

“Should we dive in?” Nora asked.

“I would love to, but we should check back with the others. Maybe see if anyone else wants to come back. Also, we need to look for keys. They’re here somewhere.”

“Maybe behind the locked door?”

“That’s possible.”

“The video said we might not comprehend. I know I’m not thinking clearly,” Nora said. “When we all have our wits then…”

“Hello?” Jason’s voice called to them.

Nora and John stepped from the small computer lab.

“Look at this place,” Jason said. “What is it?”

“Near as we can tell,” John explained. “This is our dining area. We have locker rooms with lockers that are… locked. Yet numbered.”

“Forty-eight?” Jason asked.

“Yep.” Then John pointed up. “A locked door up there. And behind us,” he indicted. “A computer room. My guess, that’s where a lot of our answers lie.”

“This is amazing, thank you for finding it,” Jason said. “Did you by chance touch something? Turn something on.”

John glanced at Nora with a quizzical expression and smiled. “Just the circuit box. I flipped the switches.”

“That’s what I thought.” Jason turned. “Come here.”

“What is it?” John asked.

“It’s easier to show you than explain.”

Curious, Nora followed the two men. The small hall was now lit and the door that was propped with the ax was marked Block B. She turned to look back at the door that led to the dining area. It was marked Block C.

Where was Block A.

The second they stepped back into The Hall, Malcolm raced forward.

“Guys, you did something, right?”

“What are you talking about?” John asked.

“That.” Jason pointed. “You weren’t gone five minutes. We heard the humming of electronics and then that.”

Nora looked. Jason pointed to the door at the other end of the long hall. She moved forward to get a better look.

Malcolm stated. “That isn’t a busted Exit sign.”

In a whispering voice of shock, John said, “Oh my God.”

Above the door, the box that they all assumed should have said ‘Exit’ contained the numbers – 4:08:22:23.

The last two numbers decreased every second.

“Four days,” John said. “Eight hours, twenty-two minutes. It’s counting down. It’s a countdown.”

“Yeah, it is,” Jason said. “But counting down… to what?”

ELEVEN – Who Am I

Nora rolled the tiny key between her fingers, feeling the texture, finger to finger while she sat on the bed in her room. Seventeen.

It didn’t take much searching. Actually it was the first place she looked. The lone item in the top desk drawer. She didn’t tell the others where she found hers or even that she did. Somehow she didn’t want to be motivated to go check that locker. She would in the morning. A part of her felt that she had no connection to what was in it.

The countdown clock threw her back some. But she felt she knew what it meant. It immediately drew questions and conversations from Jason and Malcolm. The other three who survived and emerged from their units were still processing the events that just occurred.

In a way, everyone was still processing one thing or another.

How could they make an educated guess when their minds were all over the place?

Nora did try talking to the president once more. Again, he declined to speak, saying he didn’t remember anything and asked her to stop calling him the president.

“If indeed I am the president,” he said. “Then I am ashamed because if I am not a prisoner here, and if this was a government plan, then I am being protected from something.”

Protected.

Nora didn’t even think of that.

Before retreating back to her room, she spoke with the three new people.

The one woman, Amy was around the same age as Nora, an African American woman who was strikingly beautiful and showed no signs of being worn out from the process. She wrung her hands a lot and was bitter because she couldn’t remember anything.

Meredith was in her forties, maybe fifties, it was hard to tell. She had a healthy build and a line free face, but her hair was prematurely gray. Totally gray. Nora didn’t know if that was the process. She wore glasses, because like John, they were on the desk. Meredith presented herself uppity and spoke educated, even though she claimed to remember very little.

The final newcomer was Grant. He was more than likely in his late twenties, handsome and slender with blonde hair that fell right into place.

“I play the piano,” he said. “I know that, because that’s the last thing I remember.”

A piano. An explosion. New York.

Nora hoped the next day, things would be clearer. They planned to meet after they all woke up and had something to eat.

John wasn’t resting, he told Nora that. He set his sights on the storage room and what was in there. He found a box of watches. Wrist watches with a compass. An odd find. He handed them out and guessed the time of day.

Last she heard Malcolm went to the computer room. He remembered he knew about them.

A light knock on her door drew her attention from her thoughts and that key. “Come in.”

The door slid open and Jason peeked inside. “Hey, I’m not bothering you, am I?”

“No. Not at all. Come in.”

He shut the door. “Are you sick?”

“No. Why?’

“You kind of just disappeared.”

“I was done for the day.”

Jason reached for a chair and paused. “May I?”

“Please.”

He pulled it up then set a bottle on the nightstand. “John found wine. I’m gonna have a glass to relax me. You?”

“That sounds wonderful thank you.”

Jason poured. “We may need it to rest. We don’t know how long we’ve been asleep.”

“Long enough to give birth.”

He hesitated before handing her the glass. “Maybe she was close to her due date when they put her in there.”

“I don’t know.” Nora accepted the glass and sipped it with a gasp of enjoyment. “Thank you.”

“Hey…” He reached forward. “You found the locker key.”

“I did. Top drawer. I’m in no hurry to check the locker. I figured I’d do it tomorrow.”

“I’ll look in my drawer.”

She placed the key on the nightstand. “Clock still ticking out there?”

“Yep.” Jason said. “I just hope it isn’t counting down to an explosion.”

“Nah, I think it’s counting down to the door opening.”

“That’s so odd. Why are we in here for a time period?”

Nora shook her head. “Maybe we’re on a spaceship and were abducted by aliens.”

Jason laughed. “Really? Where did that come from?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have my own thoughts. I’m so foggy still, like… John said New York and Bam. I knew I was in New York for something. What? I don’t know.”

“An event.” Jason said almost with revelation. “An event.” His eyes widened. “I don’t know what kind. But it was big. Holy crap.” He ran his hands through his hair. “The phone call. It was asking me if I would do the honors of doing the benediction at something in New York. I just remembered.”

“So me, you and John were all in the same place.”

“Yeah. Something big, the president was there.”

“Well….” Nora tilted her head. “Unless like John believes, he is part of it. Are you remembering anything else?”

“It’s coming back. I know I was a preacher or pastor. I know I was a pretty big deal because my memories have me in front of thousands. Like an arena. I’m a husband and father. I feel a sense of sadness for my wife. Like I hurt her or abandoned her. You.”

“Nothing. Just the New York thing. But there’s one thing I do know.”

“What’s that?”

“That Event, this whole being stuck in a vat of fluid…” Nora shook her head then sipped her wine. “I’m a mistake. I’m not supposed to be here.”

“How can you say that?” Jason asked. “Forty-eight people were handpicked. That’s what I believe. I think once we all remember, we all will know why.”

“Not me. I’m a mistake.”

“I’m curious,” Jason said. “Why you are adamant?”

“That.” She pointed at the Genesis unit.

“What about it?”

“The name. Look. I emerged from that unit. They were labeled.”

“I know. That’s what made me remember my last name,” Jason said.

“Yeah, so, that name above my unit is Rosewood. And that is not my last name.”

Jason was hesitant before saying anything. He looked at Nora then the unit. “Are you sure?”

“Oh, I am positive. I don’t remember much, but I know my last name isn’t Rosewood. So why am I even here?”

“And where is Rosewood?” Jason poured her more wine. “Drink up. Your mystery is even deeper than the rest of ours.”

“Don’t I know it.” Sitting on the bed, Nora sipped the wine. It was an even bigger mystery for her, compiled with the one everyone else was trying to solve.

Nora wanted answers. She wanted her memory and she only hoped that she got her answers before the clock hit zero.

For some reason, she believed that when the countdown was over, she was on her own. And that thought scared her even more than not knowing at all.

TWELVE – Breakfast Club

Being the first to arrive had its advantages. Nora didn’t miss anything, in fact, she was pleasantly surprised to smell coffee.

“Morning sunshine,” John said. “I found the coffee pot and coffee. Grab some.”

“What time did you get up?” she asked.

“I haven’t been to bed,” John replied, “Neither has Grant. Malcolm either. I think he finally powered up the computers. Grant and I got everything logged in storage. You wouldn’t believe the stuff in there.”

“Really?” Nora poured coffee.

“It’s like they have enough stuff for each one of us to survive longer than the three days remaining on the door.”

“What about your locker?”

“I found my key,” John lifted it. “But I was going to wait until everyone was ready. I figured we’d all do it together.”

Nora absorbed her first sip of coffee. It was an instant fix. Suddenly, that slight headache she carried with her all day long, started to fade. “I’m a caffeine junkie,” she said.

“So you got your memory back.”

“No. I don’t remember anything. Just the way this coffee is making me feel, I am betting I’m a coffee drinker.”

“I know I was.”

“Where are you from, John? New York?”

“No. Connecticut. So if we are still in New York, then I don’t have far to travel to get back home.”

“Have you given any more thought as to why we could be here?”

“I have. But all of them are just theories.”

“Hence,” The woman’s voice entered the room. “My specialty.”

It was Meredith, she pointed to the coffee. “May I?”

“Please.” Nora said.

“I’m sorry for intruding. But I know what I did. I was a teacher, a professor at Yale. That’s about where my memory stops, but I know that to be certain.”

“Theoretical physics?” John asked.

“No, A professor of Evolution Psychology and Epistemology. Which is…”

John stated, “The study of knowledge. The theory of thought process. So in a nutshell you are a people expert in how people evolve, think, and act.”

“Exactly.”

“Wow.” John stepped back. “That just adds a lot to this mess. I think knowing everyone’s field will help. I wrote science fiction. Then again, I wrote science fiction based on fact and circumstances of the now.”

Nora scratched her head. “All of this is foreign to me. I don’t know what I did.”

“I do,” Another voice entered the room. It was Amy. “I’m a scientist. More so an Astronomer, particularly the sun and the study of solar storms. . I know that. I study storms. In particular odd weather patterns brought on by the sun.”

Nora crinkled her brow. “A scientist. A writer. Malcolm says he did computers or so he thinks. Grant is a musician. Jason is a preacher. What do we all have in common?”

“Easy,” Meredith replied as she took a sip of her coffee. “We all contribute to the factors to what makes society civilized. And that my friend is a big clue as to why we are here.”

<><><>

The president was crying; sobbing more like it, at least that was the observation Jason gave when he arrived with Grant. He told how they stopped to see President Thomas and the president was distraught.

“He lifted his hand to me,” Jason said. “And told me to give him a minute. I told him where we were and what we were doing.”

Cynically, John stated. “He knows. He remembers. He probably remembers it all. My memory was good when I woke. Jason? Yours?”

“It was weird,” Jason replied. “When I woke up, I was blasted by it. Everything. Almost every detail. It now is real to me, unlike yesterday where I didn’t know if it was a dream or not.”

“Same with me,” Amy said. “Foggy yesterday. Real today.”

“But…” Meredith spoke. “Do any of us remember the events that led us to right here? Right now. I don’t.”

No one replied.

“I didn’t think so,” Meredith said.

“But that is why we’re here,” John rebutted. “Let’s tell our stories. Let’s put them together. Maybe if each of us remember a piece of the puzzle, combined we can figure out the chain events.” He stepped away briefly, and returned with Malcolm. “We appreciate,” John said. “You taking time away to do this.”

“I’m kinda in the zone but that’s fine.” Malcolm took a seat.

“We were opening up discussion on who we are, what we did and what we remember,” John said. “Trying to piece it together. All of us…” He looked at Nora. “Most of us,” he corrected. “Woke up with clarity to about 90 percent of our lives.”

“I know I did,” Malcolm stated. “I woke up knowing a lot. My wife’s name, my children, my job. I am from New York. City. But we had just moved to Boulder. I’m an inventor. I started with computer chips and my biggest to date is… well, was, who knows, the bio cam.”

Everyone looked at him.

Using his hand to demonstrate, Malcolm explained. “It’s slightly bigger than a golf ball. It looks like one, the ribbed surface, but all those ridges, are cameras. Lasers. The bio cam is placed in a room, pretty much unnoticed. It does a three-sixty-camera camera, but while it does, it is looking for increased heart rates, out of place body temperatures and if it finds any, the camera will lock in.”

“Holy cow,” Nora sat back, amazed. “That’s unreal.”

“Yeah, it was my contribution to stopping terrorism. The main frame is not on site, so even if the cam is destroyed the footage can be retrieved. Maybe the monitors can pick up a threat before it happens,” Malcolm said. “I remember everything up to being at the Astoria. An event, a big one, and my camera was making its debut. Actually three of them were placed throughout the hotel. I was asked to bring it and monitor it on site, but my onsite computers weren’t their only hub. Footage is somewhere in Cleveland. Anyhow, things were going. Someone was speaking, I wasn’t paying attention to that. I was focused more on the two men in the back of the room. The bio cam picked up their heart rate, body temperature, they were abnormal readings. I wasn’t watching the speaker and when they left, the ground shook. Things fell, there was panic.”

Nora said, “The explosion you mentioned.”

“Yes,” Malcolm nodded. “It happened fast, just as I registered something had happened outside the ball room, they were escorting people out. I remember thinking, ‘oh, yeah, bet bio cam B caught the culprit’, then I got dizzy. I started to pass out. I noticed a lot of people were falling. Gas leak. Gas attack. Those were my thoughts and that was the last I recall.”

Grant spoke up. “The passing out, I remember. The explosion is… faint. I was in the ballroom. That is clear. I play with the New York Symphony. I was asked to play with my strongest string quartet. We received a lot of money to do so. I don’t do shows such as that, but my father coordinated the event so I did it for him. Everything else before that, I recall.”

Amy lifted her hand to speak. “I remember the explosion. Well, I didn’t feel it. I was at the Astoria as well.” Her eyes shifted about as she spoke. “I wasn’t at an event. I was actually at a conference. My room at a much cheaper hotel had a problem and the management put me up at the Astoria. I remember thinking how I lucked out. How I was going to embrace every moment in this plush hotel away from my children. I was asleep. Two men pounded on my door, they were wearing masks. I don’t know anything after that.”

Jason spoke. “I don’t remember the explosion. I know I was nervous. I got a call to do the prayer and introduction at a big awards ceremony. The whole thing is sketchy. My life before that isn’t. But the event is.”

“That would have been my event,” John said. “I was there for a prestigious writing award. My vision of the future from reality based science fiction. It is up there with the Pulitzer, the event was at the Astoria. So at least four of us remember being there.”

“Five,” Meredith said. “I was there. I was at the awards. My current lecture tour dealt with where the human race would be in fifty years if it follows the current path of economy, population, and so forth. It was frightening and I, too, had just won an award and that’s why I was invited to attend. So that leaves you…” She turned to Nora.

Nora tossed up her hands. “I’m blank. I know my name and that I am from Ohio. I am certain I have a husband and kids. But I don’t remember them any more than if I dreamt them. I don’t feel them. A part of me knows I was in New York, but again, it’s like a dream. Real? Not real? That’s how it feels. It’s frustrating because I was one of the first ones awake. Here’s something odd…” She shuffled in her chair. “I keep thinking I’m funny. Like…” she crinkled her brow. “Like I am a really funny person. I’m remembering myself being full of life… funny.”

John cleared his throat. “Don’t take this as an insult. Based on how you are now, that may be the dream portion of your memory.”

“No,” Malcolm snapped his finger. “No, it’s not. It’s not. You are. You are funny. I knew you looked familiar. You do a feature once a week on Late Night with Johnny Cramer. You do insane dares. That portion is a huge part of your life. You are funny.”

Unexpectedly, Nora heard John’s voice in her head.

“Aren’t you just funny,” John said.

Nora looked over to John and she saw him, not at that moment, but in the ballroom, wearing a tuxedo.

She heard her own laughter.

“Pretending not to know the guest of honor,” he said, reaching out, grabbing her arm in a flirtatious way.

Nora stood, her heart raced.

“Nora?” Jason called out.

Instantly, her mind was filled with images, a fast moving pictorial slideshow that played in her head quickly. With each fast beat of her heart, came that sensation of ‘knowing’ and ‘feeling’ that Nora fought to gain.

It was there. She had it. She got it.

Not only was she mentally barreled over, it physically caused her to stumble back and fall to the ground.

Suddenly Nora remembered, she remembered everything.

THIRTEEN – Nora’s Flashback

“You’re crazy, you know that, right?” It was Liza. Her friend of twenty years. Liza always went with Nora when she had her appearance on the late night show.

“This is perfect,” Nora said, placing her outfit neatly on the bed. “I mean, seriously, how often is it that we stay here?”

“Yeah, well there’s that UN Conference in town, so everything affordable is booked, but this is not your excuse to take advantage.”

“Um, hello, yeah it is. Johnny will love it if I pull it off.”

“He knows?” Liza asked.

“Yep. Where do you think I got the dress? Network props.” One arm crossed over her waist, Nora stared at the long black evening dress. It wasn’t what she normally would wear for one of her outrageous dares. Usually she wore everyday clothing. In fact the dare wasn’t even a ‘dare’ submitted to her, Nora thought of it herself, inspired by the sign when she walked into the Astoria lobby.

The Galloway Award Dinner and Ceremony.

She was going to crash it.

“I just have to figure out where to put the camera,” Nora said. “The dress is kind of …”

“Skimpy?”

“Yes.”

“Go. Go make a final pass through, I’ll figure it out and then you need to get dressed.”

It was a good idea. Typically Nora had her ‘dares’ set up in advance, but seeing how it was last minute, she wanted to make another rehearsal pass.

She took the elevator down to the lobby, found her way to the grand ballroom, and did a slow inconspicuous walk by of the table.

Perfect gold name cards were being placed out. Hundreds of them. Nora was certain one of those people wouldn’t up. She just hoped it wasn’t Wallace Hinstrom, one of the names on the cards. Not that she couldn’t pull it off, but it would be tough.

“Are you attending?” A male voice asked.

Busted.

“Yes,” Nora smiled. “I am. I was curious though, what time do they close the doors. I have meeting and I am going to be cutting it close.”

“Doors close at eight PM. That’s when cocktail hours begins.”

“Thank you, I should be here long before that.” In actuality, Nora wouldn’t be there too long before that. To successfully sneak in, she’d have to cut it close.

Her plan was to be some sort of writer, telling a different tale of who she was, to each person she met. See how far she could take it and their reactions to what she said. If it didn’t work or it failed she still had the library prostitute dare she could do.

She got dressed, and planned to arrive their fifteen minutes before the doors closed. She would do a quick scan of the place cards, claim one and go in. However the elevator was taking far too long. When it finally arrived, the doors opened and she was greeted with the loudest yawn she ever heard.

“Oh my Goodness, I’m sorry.” The woman said, stepping off.

Nora giggled. “That was funny. Get some sleep.”

“I will.”

The woman was… an African American woman, still wearing a ‘Hello my name is Amy’ name tag.

No sooner did Nora make it to the first floor, she stepped off and was stopped before she could even get across the lobby.

“Ma’am, just stand here. Please. Thank you.” The man wore a black suit and held out his arm.

“But I need to…”

“One moment,” he said.

Nora looked around. There were many men in suits securing the lobby. Just as she wondered who the ‘big wig’ was, an entourage of people made their way to the exit.

The entourage surrounded the president.

She registered that it was the president, made a mental note of how cool that was and nearly ran across the lobby to the ballroom.

When she arrived they were cleaning up the check in table.

“Miss Rosewood?” The gentleman from early approached her. “Thought you weren’t gonna make it. Talk about cutting it close. You weren’t kidding.”

Nora smiled and accepted the nameplate. “Thank you. I got held up in the lobby.”

He motioned toward the door, “They’ll seat you inside.”

“Thank you again.” Nora stepped into the grand ballroom and was immediately greeted and escorted to a table.

People were mingling. It was cocktail hour and Nora decided to do the same.

As she made her way to the table the beautiful, soft music drew her attention to the stage area, where musicians played. Led by a brilliant pianist.

She placed her small handbag on her chair. There was a lone woman seated at the table fiddling with her phone.

“Meredith, would you like a drink?” a man paused behind phone woman.

The woman on the phone, shook her head, then looked again at Nora as acknowledgment.

Nora passed her a smile, said nothing, and turned. She needed to find someone to engage, and not to mention grab one of those drinks being served.

Looking as if she knew where to go and that she belonged there, she moved through the tables, eyeing a waiter.

Drink. Engage.

Just as she stepped to him, a man cut in front of her. He was preoccupied, holding an earpiece to his ear as he spoke.

“Yeah. No it’s not Charlie, it’s Malcolm. Get your voices right. Learn who you are talking to. And check on camera B. I’m right under A and…” Malcolm said, then stepped aside, out of her way with an apology.

She nodded ‘No problem. Thank you.”

Finally salvation. The waiter. There was one last drink on his tray and Nora reached for it at the same time as someone else.

“Take it, I am so sorry,” he said. Dashing and handsome. Southern drawl. Perfect hair and smile.

“Really? Thank you.” Nora took the drink. He was perfect. Victim one. “You are?”

“Jason Rudolph. And you are…”

Nora didn’t get to answer, a voice from behind her did.

“Miss Rosewood.” The male voice said.

Damn it, Nora thought. Someone knew her?

“Excuse me,” she said to Jason. Then, with her best smile, she turned.

“Are you Miss Rosewood, I was told you arrived.”

“I am. And you are.”

“Not as funny as you,” he said. “Aren’t you just funny?” He reached out and gingerly took hold of her arm. “Pretending not to know the guest of honor.”

“I am so sorry.” She laid her hand to her chest, while quickly taking a drink and remembering the name of the award winner. “John, right.”

“You got it.” He winked. “This is so interesting. How long has it been, Summer?”

“Hmm. Winter maybe.”

He laughed. “You are funny. It’s not like you to joke about your own name since you are so sensitive about it. How did you say it?” He looked to the ceiling. “I resent my parents for naming me after a season.”

“Ah, Summer. Yes.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “I didn’t think you were coming. I know you’re busy with the newest projects.”

“Busy. Busy. Busy.”

“But I told you ahead of time my wife wasn’t going to be here.”

“That’s too bad, I wanted to meet her.”

John laughed loudly and then turned serious. “Okay. Jig is up. Who are you and why are you pretending to be Summer Rosewood”

“How do you know I’m not?”

“For one, I know Summer. She has red hair. You do not. And second, I certainly would know the woman who has been my mistress for three years.”

Nora gasped. “Wait. Seriously? Or is this a joke for me crashing this event.”

“No, I’m serious.”

“You just blurt it out like that?”

“Well, if you’re gonna crash my event. Doesn’t matter. My wife filed for divorce four months ago…”

“Still. You dick.”

“What?”

“You cheated on your wife for three years.”

“Do I need to call security?”

“Um. No. How about the moral police. Good Lord, mister.”

He laughed again, “Look at you judging when you crashed my event.”

“Um, there’s a bit of a difference between crashing an event and crashing a marriage.”

“Deceit is deceit, don’t you think?”

The microphone squealed just a little and the Master of Ceremonies said, “If I can have everyone return to their seats.”

“I believe you are at my table.” John, with a gentle hand, escorted her.

“Yeah, I’m not your mistress, keep that in mind, so I’m not putting out.”

“Ah, too bad for you.”

Nora opened her mouth to gasp in shock. He had to be joking, but she never found out.

A loud and deafening ‘boom’ resonated through the ballroom and the ground shook.

The entire room erupted with chaos. People screamed and ran about. Security made their way in, yelling out they were escorting people from the hotel.

John actually took interest in holding on to Nora, grasping her arm to see her out.

But he stopped in the middle of the ballroom.

“John?” Nora called him.

His hand released her and he swayed.

“Are you okay?”

“I can’t… I can’t see…” He blinked and then without warning, he toppled to the floor.

Nora shrieked and that was when she noticed, everyone started to drop. Thump. Thump. Thump. as they hit the floor.

Knowing that she had to get out, Nora raced toward the exit, stepping over fallen bodies. She nearly made it before her vision went. Things switched from cloudy to gray to black and then Nora, like John and everyone else, dropped to the floor.

It didn’t end there for her. She woke up to being wheeled down a hall.

She remembered everything. From the moment they put her in the encasement, until they shut out the lights in her room.

It was cold, so cold. She sensed her own heart rate dropping and breathing growing shallow.

This is death, she thought, then closed her eyes. I am dead.

Nora conveyed the entire sequence of events to everyone. It brought about ‘breath holding’ silence as they listened to every detail she recounted.

She snapped out of that memory a different person than the one who woke up in the Genesis unit. Nora knew who she was. Suddenly she felt who she was, she felt changed, and she also knew the reality that she had a family and missed them horribly.

“This is unreal,” Meredith said. “But it makes sense. Complete sense. This is a tank. A survival tank. John, what did the real Summer Rosewood do?”

“She was a scientist. She…”

“Perfect.” Meredith cut him off. “All of us have something to contribute to society. All of us had to have been placed here because there was an event. It makes sense. We are here with supplies to wait out some sort of catastrophic event.”

Jason scoffed. “That’s nonsense. What do I have to contribute?”

“Spirituality,” Meredith argued. “We need to check every locker to find out who was here and let Malcolm get back to cracking that computer.”

“No need,” The president entered the room speaking in a weak voice. It was sluggish, thick with phlegm. He coughed and sniffed. “No need. I remember a lot now. I think I can explain it. Or try.”

FOURTEEN – The Genesis Project

It wasn’t the captive audience he wanted. President Wilfred Thomas dreaded standing before the seven people he had only recently come to know in person. On paper, he knew them well, or at least their names.

All but Nora, he didn’t know her and there was a reason for that.

His memory wasn’t spot on. He didn’t have all the logistics. He knew enough that he could at least shed light on why he believed they were all there.

When he was released from the Genesis unit, he had very little memory. They were calling him ‘Mr. President’ but he wasn’t certain of that. As hours passed it felt right. But still no strong memory.

Then as he slept, it all came back. It crushed him emotionally and with a feeling of, “My God what have I done?” he folded. He cried for his family. He cried for humanity.

“It’s called the Genesis Project. Or at least I believe that is what this is,” Will said. “Eight years ago, before I was president, a study was completed that stated the human race, without a doubt was heading for extinction. Not by any outside influence such as bombs or a comet, but by nature. Less disease, better medicine, more people. Population was on a baffling incline and at its current rate, it was predicted that natural resources would be depleted in less than three generations. The consumption, the CO2, emissions, all would contribute to the degradation of the environment. That alone would put at risk our ability to produce food. A starving population, existing merely to try to eat would be a society focused on growing what food they could with the resources they had. Technology eventually would be secondary. It is or was a crisis. Our children, grandchildren would not have any quality of life. Eventually Earth would not be able to sustain life. Something had to be done. Dr. Hassleman is very aware of this.” He looked to Meredith.

“That was a study I worked a decade on. I was working on a solution.”

“And what, doctor, was the only solution you could find?” Will asked.

“There were two. Find another planet to terraform or population control. One child law, but that would be a long process and more than likely wouldn’t work.”

Will nodded. “So another plan was devised. Mother Nature often takes care of these things. She’ll clean house every hundred years or so, but despite her best efforts, man found a way to cut her off at the pass. It was time for mankind to play Mother Nature and clean house.”

Jason held up his hands. “Wait. What does that have to do with us and…” he faced Meredith. “Do you know what’s going on?”

“I’m guessing.” She replied.

“Doctor Hassleman was not part of the plan,” Will said. “Her findings were, she was not included. She is just as much in the dark as all of you. I was onboard at first. But then I made the initiative to try to stop it.” He looked around. “I failed. With only eight of us standing here, I’d go as far as saying, the entire Genesis preservation plan failed. Let’s just hope the rest of it didn’t.”

Jason asked. “Rest of what?”

John replied “Meredith said it earlier. She nailed it. This is a tank. A preservation tank. We… all of us, were to ensure or insure, that a sampling of humanity would still be here. Forty-eight people. Tucked away… why?” He peered at the president. “What was the Genesis plan?”

“To decrease the world’s population by thirty-five percent. To do so by mass distribution of a virus. Some places in the world hit more than others. The idea was to place the human sampling into stasis until the virus has run its course. Preserved in case, by some small chance things went wrong. An insurance that life would go on.”

Malcolm asked, “So the timer on the door, that is our release into the world?”

“Yes,” Will answered.

Amy asked. “How long have we been asleep? Weeks? Days? Months?”

“I don’t know.” Will shook his head.

“So let me get this straight,” Grant held up his hand. “That door opens and everything may be just fine, less a few people.”

“That’s the Genesis Project,” Will answered.

“And if it didn’t quite work out the way it was planned?” Grant asked. “Then what will we see?”

Jason stood, sadly shaking his head. “Our worst nightmare.”

FIFTEEN – Knowledge

The news seemed surreal at first. Jason took it in as if a story. It didn’t happen, there was a mistake. If some sort of virus had been released then what of his family? How did ‘whoever’ took him explain his disappearance.

That was his first reaction.

Sort of like the stages of grief. Shock and disbelief then anger.

Never one to lose his temper often, Jason was outraged. How dare someone take control of his life like that? How dare someone take it out of God’s hands?

He made the mistake of saying those exact words to John.

John tried to be philosophical. “Maybe it was God’s plan.”

“God’s plan to have someone release a virus and stick me in some sort of vat of fluid to freeze me?”

“Maybe. If God indeed gave man freewill, and if God indeed created man, then didn’t somehow by proxy, God did all this?”

John wasn’t the best person for Jason to talk to.

In fact, after a few days to stew about it and Jason was no better than when he initially heard the news. He just started at the clock on the door as it dwindled down.

Grant, like Jason felt betrayed. How dare they take him without his permission? He had no idea how long he was in that blue coffin of fluid. It could be years, decades, it was conceivable that even if the virus didn’t go awry, enough time could have passed and everyone he knew and loved was gone.

His room had a backpack, at first he thought it was for the items in the locker, until he opened the locker and found another backpack. No, the one in his room was for him to carry supplies.

In the locker were his clothes, wallet, money, identification and other items. Grant changed from the pajama clothes into his jeans and sat by that countdown door. The second it opened he was leaving.

He didn’t know if he was still in New York or not, but New York was his destination. That was where his family was, his girlfriend.

It was possible that the world outside was fine, normal and a team would be waiting for them the door opened. Just to be on the safe side, he made the second backpack a bug out bag. In case all was not glowing and good. If it was bad, then at least Grant would cross the barren world with supplies.

“I think everything is fine,” Amy stood, arms crossed in the storage room with Meredith and Nora. “Whoever did this was prepared. We are an assurance. That’s all. A plan B.”

Nora asked. “Is that why you aren’t packing a supply bag.”

“Yes, I am that certain. We’ve been frozen for about six months, that’s what I think. I think that door will open and a team of scientists will be there to debrief us back into the world. And if it isn’t, it’s not like this place will self-destruct and I can’t turn around and come back in.”

“You demeanor is commendable,” Nora said. “Wish I could have a better demeanor.”

“Don’t confuse my confidence with content,” Amy said. “I’m mad as hell. My poor children. What did they think? My God, I missed six months of their lives.”

“Me, too,” Nora said. “My youngest is three. Come on, you know how much they grow and change. Plus, it all better be good. The only items I have belong to Summer Rosewood.”

“You crashed the event,” Amy stated.

“Sounded like a brilliant prank at the time.”

“Nora?” Meredith called her name, “Was there anything in Summer’s belongings that could give us a clue?”

“She has a journal in there.”

“Did you read it?”

Nora shook her head. “No, just in case Summer is out there, arms folded with attitude waiting for me. I don’t want to emerge to confrontation. What about you, Meredith? What do you think?”

“I think we’ll know in about twenty minutes, now won’t we? No use guessing, right?”

“Guess,” Nora said. “That was your forte. You dealt with theories. I know you have one. I know you have thought it out.”

Meredith exhaled and paused in packing her supply bag. “I don’t think we’re in New York. Where would they build the facility? They wouldn’t take a chance on placing it anywhere that could be a ground zero. Ravishing diseases bring panic. Panic breeds war. We are somewhere close to an intellectual center point. MIT, NASA. And this place more than likely…” she shifted her eyes to Amy, “will seal up once we walk out. They’ll want this buried. This place is proof that the population control method was intentional. So pack your survival bag. And I think at the very least we’ve been in stasis long enough to be forgotten. My hair is white. I didn’t have gray hair. It didn’t grow, but it lost all color.”

Nora asked. “So you think we’ve been in stasis for a while and everything is fine.”

“Depends on fine. I’m going to be the pessimist here. The virus failed. Knowing the state of the world, I’m willing to bet war broke out as well. We need a plan for when we leave here and one that doesn’t involve heading home to our families and returning to normal. Because that’s not going to happen.”

“Ladies,” Malcolm spoke rushed as he stepped into storage. “I cracked the code. I found the rest of the video.”

With no more being said, they hurriedly followed Malcolm.

Malcolm excitedly, positioned himself in front of the computer while the others circled around. “We all got to see the whole wake up video. The one that said that after forty-eight hours we’d get more info? Right? Well, the forty-eight hour mark came and went, no video. The reason was, the first video was timed with the wake up setting for each unit.” Malcolm looked at Jason. “Your unit and Nora’s were first, then after a half hour, the others were timed to play every five minutes to coincide with the units. Understand?”

Jason nodded.

“Well, the second video wasn’t on automatic. It was in there, but my guess… someone from outside the doors was supposed to play it. No one pressed play so the video didn’t roll.”

Nora gasped. “No one is out there.”

Malcolm held up a hand in defense. “I’m not saying that. I’m just saying someone didn’t press play. There are cameras. Four of them.” From the far side of the computer he pulled forward a small ball shaped object. “This is my invention. My cam. They were here. I actually found the uplink to these first. The signal for the camera was sent when the units released us all.”

Nora asked. “We don’t know if anyone saw the images the camera sent.”

Malcolm shook his head. “No.”

“Have you watched the video?” Jason asked.

“Some.” Malcolm answered.

“Play it,” urged John. “What are you waiting for?”

Malcolm turned toward the computer. He clicked the video.

The same man from the previous videos appeared.

“Good morning. My name is Dr. Raymond Harrison. By now, you are oriented and remember who you are and where you were. If by chance, you are having problems, I am sure Dr. Rosewood has talked to you about the side effects.”

Everyone looked at Nora.

She cringed with an apologetic look.

Dr. Harrison’s video continued. “On September 17, all of you were in New York City and in the same hotel. This is not by coincidence. Each of you were carefully selected because of your skills and knowledge. Each of you represents many aspects of humanity. Law, music, mechanical, agriculture and so forth. I could go on, however I am sure you know by now what each other represents. You were chosen because in the event that the human race or civilization needs to be rebuilt, each of you possess a part of a whole system that would work together to do such a task.”

John turned to Grant. “Considering there are only eight of us, there goes that theory.”

“This is a plan that has been in motion for many years. At the hotel a diversion was set so that each of you could be retrieved. You were placed in what is called the Genesis unit, they were designed by Rosewood Institute for cryogenic studies. Not even Dr. Rosewood knew the date that the project would be implemented. She was released from the unit at the same time as Reverend Rudolph. She was to explain and he was to be the spiritual guidance.”

Again, all eyes shifted for a moment to Nora.

“On September 24, in an extreme attempt to save humanity from extinction by way of mass culling, a virus was released. A hybrid measles based virus that would infect fifty percent of the population and kill seventy five percent of those infected. Overall the effect would be a 35% decrease in population worldwide. You have been in stasis for seven months in a special facility under Marshal Space Flight Center outside of Huntsville Alabama. This is a time frame we determined safe. Three months for the virus to take hold globally, three months for distribution of the cure, and one month added insurance. You are here in case things go or have gone badly and the plan did not go as projected. Rest assured, your families were notified and given the cure. You also have been given the cure. We are confident that when the door opens, you will be greeted by our prepared staff who will brief you and update you on all events. Your family members will also be present. Please note that as we have protected you to ensure humanity continues, we have provided you with supplies in the event things did not go as planned. This facility will go through an equipment decontamination process fifteen minutes post your release. Take precautions and supplies. You will be well compensated for this inconvenience. Thank you for your service. God Speed.”

The video ended.

Jason laughed maniacally. “Inconvenience? Compensated for our inconvenience. They took seven months of my life. Seven months of my family’s lives.”

Nora stepped to him. ‘But our families are alive. They’re out there waiting on us.”

“Maybe,” John said. “We don’t know.”

Meredith added. “It’s longer than seven months. I feel it.”

“No,” Amy gasped out. “You heard the video. Everything is going to be fine.”

“If everything is fine,” Grant said. “Why didn’t the video play?”

President Thomas stepped forward. “We can argue and guess all we want. But that door is opening soon. We’ll find out everything then.”

“Six minutes,” John said. “So I suggest, since there are extra backpacks due to our losses, that each of us packs up. Just… in case.”

“Go on,” Jason said. “I’ll grab things in a minute. I want to watch the video again.”

“Why?” Malcolm asked.

“To take notes this time,” Jason replied. “To listen again with an attentive ear. Just like food and water are vital to survival, so is knowledge. This video has information I want to remember…” his eyes shifted around. “Just in case.”

SIXTEEN – Tick Tock

There was something about Meredith that drew Nora to watching her. She was too smug, had it together, didn’t emotionally waiver.

Nora was a mess.

She wanted her children, but a part of her was scared something went wrong. Repeatedly she reminded herself that all was well and a great big roast beef sandwich along with her family waited for her.

Nora couldn’t get beyond Meredith in those final minutes waiting for the door to open.

“She has no family,” Jason said. “There’s no worry. If all is fine, nothing changes, if it’s not, she loses nothing emotionally.”

“She knows,” Nora whispered. “She knew about this whole thing.”

Jason crinkled his brow. “Nora, she is in the dark as much as us.”

“No. She knows. When I walked into the event. She was at the table. On her phone, texting or something.”

“Ok.”

“No, it’s this uppity gala and she’s texting.”

“Yes, Nora, people text.”

“She knew the whole thing. Her behavior is odd.”

“If you want to discuss odd behavior.” Jason nodded once toward the door.

Nora looked over.

Exhaling heavily, John sighed out as he dropped yet another box by the door. “They were stacked there.”

Malcolm followed and placed a box down. “Last one or you wanna grab one more?”

“This should be good.” John said. He opened the flap of a box and pulled out an object. “I only took four of these, they are heavy. Any idea what this is.” He lifted it up. It was half the size of a car battery, with a handle and reflective top.

Malcolm took it and examined it. “It’s a solar battery. It’s a backup source for solar powered equipment. But it can be utilized elsewhere…”

“Sweet. We will need these.” John smiled.

Guiding Nora toward the door, Jason stepped to them. “John, what are you doing?”

“In case this door opens and nothing is there. I want everything out of here before the timer ticks down.”

Jason drew up a quirky look. “Are you that convinced things are bad?”

“I’m smart.” John said. “And this is my plan B. Seriously, if it is bad. It’s best to be prepared. If it’s early, we could emerge to a violent world, if we overslept, nothing will be good anymore.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Jason said.

“Call me what you may, but you’ll be calling me for food when you’re hungry.” John stated smug.

“Guys,” Amy said and pointed. “Twenty seconds.”

The digital time counted down while the eight of them waited by the door. Jason, Nora, Malcolm and Grant had two backpacks each.

John, of course, had what he could grab from the storeroom.

Amy, Meredith and President Thomas optimistically had nothing.

Ten seconds…

John inhaled deeply and bounced from heel to toe. He was closest to the door and he turned to look at those behind him. Each had placed on the clothes that were in their locker, no longer did any of them wear the comfortable drawstring pants. No longer did they look like lab experiments.

“Aren’t we all going to look silly with all this stuff when this door opens and people yell ‘welcome back’?” John asked the group.

Jason tossed a serious stare his way.

“Maybe not,” John cleared his throat.

Five.

Four.

Three… Two… One.

A deep buzz rang out and the door slid open.

SEVENTEEN – Lifting

John’s allergies, would act up for sure, after all, according to Dr. Harrison, it was April. At least he missed those dreadful winters in Connecticut. Those were some of the thoughts that raced through his mind. None of them ever considered an elevator was behind the countdown door.

Yet, sure, enough it made sense why they couldn’t get it open, when it slid from left to right.

The opening of the door exposed a huge freight like elevator, one everyone hesitated in entering.

Using his foot, John pushed a box to ensure the door remained open, they started moving their belongings in there.

“None of you are gonna help?” he asked. The others just entered, moving to the side of the items John shoved inside.

Appearing frustrated, Jason set down his backpack. “I’ll help. Only because you’re so darned adamant about this. You’re scaring me.”

“Little voice of your savior not chiming in and telling you give it to him?” John asked with sarcasm. “Get it, the big Christian saying, Give it to God.”

A slight growl rolled from Jason’s throat, yet he continued to help move the boxes inside.

Soon enough Malcolm and Grant joined in, along with Nora. Meredith was agitated and the president urged them to hurry because he just wanted to get topside.

They got what they could inside, not everything fit, and John didn’t want to waste time, especially knowing the lab would be decontaminated.

The door to the elevator closed. John turned and faced the rear of the lift. Another door was there and he was willing to wager, that was the one that would open once they were lifted to the top.

With a shift, the elevator moved and they began to rise. It moved slowly and steadily for a long time. John figured they were deep in the belly of the complex.

Very deep.

Supplies surrounding him, John waited impatiently but didn’t show it. Even with his doomsday attitude and ‘just in case’ ways, John was optimistic. To him, when the elevator doors opened those supplies wouldn’t be needed, he’d be the butt of all jokes when the group of scientists, along with his pissed off wife, were there to greet him.

The spark of nerves fluttered in the pit of Jason’s stomach when he thought about reaching the top. He closed his eyes and said a prayer. To those outside the elevator it was seven months, to Jason it was only five days, but he missed his wife as if it were a year. His daughter, just a baby at the time he left, was probably walking.

He had missed so much.

Jason spent five days not only mentally preparing, but losing the anger. He was angry, someone took control of his life, his family’s life, and he wasn’t given a choice.

He wanted answers and those answers were just moments away. After he greeted his family, Jason was going to demand the truth. Why was he chosen? What made him special? Why would they do this to the world?

Who exactly was it that released the virus? Whose decision?

Mind racing, eyes glued to the door, the elevator jolted to a stop and Jason’s stomach flopped once more.

Hundreds of feet below they spent days with white, fluorescent style lighting. The elevator had the same clinical white lights. Jason expected when the doors opened to see the same light.

Instead… there was no light.

The door slid open and there was a wall of darkness. The elevator lamps cast enough light into the room for them to see it was empty.

No one was there.

No group of scientists, no family… not a single soul.

Tiny particles of light pushed through the slats of the tightly closed blinds on the windows to the room, doing very little to brighten the lab.

A large lab, void of people, filled with the stench of ‘stale’ was abandoned and apparently had been for quite some time.

Jason caught the sound of Amy’s whimper when he himself groaned out a quiet ‘no’ stepping from the elevator.

‘Someone jump out and yell surprise’, Jason thought. ‘Please jump out’.

No one did.

“This is a mistake,” Jason said with rushed breath. He spun and looked behind him. The others barely moved, they were in some sort of state of shock. “This is a mistake.”

Using the glow from the blinds as a guide, he hurried through the lab, bumping into chairs and other items as he made his way to the end of the lab.

He heard the call of his name, but he ignored it.

He had to see.

Where was everyone? Where were the scientists waiting to greet him? His family? Perhaps they actually woke up early. After all, Malcolm said the door timer started once the first Genesis unit revived.

At the end of the lab, to the left, was a door. A solid door with window panels on the side. He pushed on the door and stepped into a small reception area.

No bigger than a bedroom, the room had four chairs and a desk that contained a computer, no power of course. As Jason moved toward the next door, he paused and trailed his fingers across the surface of the desk.

Dust.

So much dust his fingers created an embedded mark. He rolled the dirt between his fingers and walked to the double doors in the reception area. He turned the handle.

“Jason,” Nora called his name.

He paused. “I have to see. Look at the dust, Nora.”

“Jason, listen. You only need to look out the window to…”

“I need to see. I need to feel it.” He clenched his fist and brought it to his chest, then continued on and opened the door.

He didn’t step into a hall, but rather a lobby, huge and open. It was bright, the sun blasted through the glass wall that he could only assume was the front of the building.

Through the sunlight he saw the dust, smelled it, and felt the thick humidity. It was hot.

He let his eyes adjust then turned to Nora. “Are you coming?”

She nodded and joined him.

Slowly Jason walked to the glass doors. Hands to the handle he pushed. The door barely budged.

He pushed harder and finally, with resistance, it opened.

The door wasn’t locked, weeds had grown through the cracks of the concrete and stopped the door from swinging outward.

Jason lost his breath when he stepped out into the sun. The heat added to the ‘slam’ of reality and he wheezed inward, trying to comprehend it all as he looked around.

It was a mainly concrete area, small buildings around a parking lot. But where there was grass it was overgrown. Weeds had grown wildly and high, looking more like odd shaped miniature trees. The seams of the sidewalk were filled with bright green growth. The buildings weren’t clean and shiny, they looked weather worn.

Not a car.

Not a sound.

Not a person.

After looking around, he raced toward the parking lot and stopped. The view before him was a barren world. Barren… dead.

“Hello!” He cried out. “Hello!”

His voice echoed back at him.

Face tensing with emotions, he spun and looked at Nora. She stood arms held tight to her body.

“Where is everybody?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Look at this.” He held out his hand. “This isn’t seven months. It can’t be.” He closed his eyes tight and with a painful realization that things had gone horribly awry, Jason, feeling defeated, released one quiet single sob and dropped to his knees. “What happened to our world?”

EIGHTEEN – Precautions

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be a source of support, but Nora couldn’t stay outside. Even with the sun shining, it exuded a sense of gloom and she returned to the small lab type office.

She felt hollow, empty and hadn’t a clue on how to process all that was going on. A feeling of loss washed over her. Her daughters, her husband. What had become of them? One thing Jason was correct about.

It was longer than seven months. It had to be. The growth of weeds and foliage was far too great.

When she returned, John had opened the blinds to all the windows and the room was brighter. The moods weren’t. Grant sat in a swivel chair staring out. Amy was in the corner staring at an empty backpack.

Malcolm was rummaging through desks, Meredith stood off watching him and John stood by the window.

“He’s still out there,” Nora said.

“Yes, well, maybe he is doing that praying thing he was famous for,” John replied.

“John, please.”

“He’s kneeling.”

Nora looked out the window. “That’s not a prayer kneel. That’s a ‘my world is over’ kneel.”

“Yes, well, emotionally we’re all doing that.” He turned from the window. “How are you?’

“Numb. Trying to process. Did the lab below decontaminate? Think we should get out?”

“I estimate it was two hundred feet below. Decontamination will be a fireball that will extinguish quickly, we’re fine. I believe and I also know…” He peered down to his watch. “We have about six minutes remaining. About right now, though, I can use some of that humor you said you had.”

“I don’t think there is humor in this.” Nora folded her arms tight. She turned her head to the banging of drawers. “Malcolm?”

Malcolm ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “Did these people just up leave or not come to work?”

“What do you mean?” Nora asked.

“I mean the dates on papers stop on December fourteen. What the hell. I wish I could get into the computer.”

“What about the solar…” Nora’s eyes shifted. “Where’s the president.”

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked around, as if the president would suddenly appear.

“Did he go outside?” John asked.

“No,” Nora replied. “I was out there. He didn’t come out.”

“Where in the world could he…” John stopped and looked beyond Nora.

She turned.

The elevator.

The door was closed.

Nora hurried to it. “You don’t think?”

“Unless he slipped out somewhere else,” John said.

There was a keypad next to the elevator, Nora lifted the cover and pressed the button.

Nothing.

She pressed it again.

“Come on,” she beckoned. “Open… damn it.”

“Nora,” Grant hurried her way and grabbed her hand. “We don’t know that he’s down there.”

“Where is he?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes. If we are all that’s left.” She kept pressing.

From across the room, John commented. “Maybe he should have thought of that before he agreed to this population control plan.”

Nora paused only briefly to glance John’s way and then she returned to hoping on that elevator. “Is no one else concerned?”

“What if you go down there?” Grant asked. “And he’s not there? Then you are there when decontamination takes place. We don’t know. None of us paid that much attention. He could have slipped out after you. He could be in this building somewhere.”

“Again,” John said. “What does it matter? He was useless.”

Nora gasped out. “How can you say that?”

“He woke up, claimed he remembered nothing,” John said. “And then he tells us the entire plan. He was depressed, remorseful and he came up here and faced a reality he caused. Let him go. If he’s down there, let him burn. But please, for my sake, because I like you, step away from that elevator shaft… just in case.”

Malcolm said. “I think we should all go outside just in case.”

“They aren’t going to destroy a whole building in Marshal Flight center, or Redstone,” John stated. “We on a military base. No. It will snuff out.”

Softly, Grant spoke to Nora. “Come on. Nothing you can do.”

Hand still reaching to the elevator button, Nora backed up, rolled her fingers into a ball and turned around. “Maybe you’re right,” she said to Grant. “Maybe he’s in this building somewhere.”

“No,” Meredith said. “He took his life. I didn’t see him go down there, but it makes sense. Guilt will do that. None of this turned out as they planned. We see this.”

A squeaky chair caught Nora’s attention and she looked at Malcolm who plopped back down. He lifted a clipboard and began flipping pages.

“What are we doing?” Nora asked. “Dazed and confused, sitting around, staring out a window. Falling down emotionally?”

“I’m trying to find answers,” Malcolm said. “Something, anything that will tell us what went wrong.”

“The germ went out of control,” John added. “What more do you need to know?”

“How long we’ve been out? What exactly happened? I mean… really, think about it,” Malcolm said, “How do we know, maybe this base wasn’t just contaminated. You realize there is a nuclear power plant not far from here. What if the germ did more damage, what if power went down before they could secure that plant? There are also a million reasons why this portion of the base is abandoned. We haven’t left this room to find out.”

“I don’t see you jumping out the door,” John commented.

“No, because I wanted to see if anything was left behind.”

Grant spoke up. “Clues to whether or not it is just here or everywhere?”

“Yes. Unfortunately, this is turning up nothing. But I’ll look further.”

“Times up.” John said. He pursed his lips while staring at the watch. After a moment, he exhaled. “Didn’t feel a thing.”

Nora looked at him. “How can you be so cold and callous?”

“I’m not,” John said. “I’m in shock. I’m angry; I’m dumbfounded on what my next step is. I want answers and there are none. Not here. And unfortunately, the only person who has an inkling of what was going on or some sort of answer is two hundred feet below us living the lyrics to a Bon Jovi song and going out in a blaze of glory.”

Meredith spoke up. “That’s… that’s not necessarily true.”

“Which part?” John asked. “The Bon Jovi song or the fact that he is below us.”

“Oh, I believe he’s down there,” Meredith replied. “But I am talking about him being the person with all the answers. That isn’t necessarily true.” She paused. “Because I believe I have answers. I think.”

NINETEEN – Worst Case

He hadn’t moved. Jason was still in the same spot, thirty feet from the entrance of the building, knees to the ground, in the center of the overgrown parking lot.

Questions started to fly for Meredith and at her. Especially from Amy, who suddenly turned angry? She cried out she felt cheated, robbed and misled. “I listened and trusted both you and the president. And you both knew,” she said. “I believed all would be fine. I brought up nothing and now I have to barter my soul for a bottle of water from John.”

In a sense, Amy was right. Although Nora still hadn’t determined what Meredith knew. She had information, she admitted to it. That alone was a game changer. And in all honesty, it wasn’t Meredith’s fault that she was confidante in the project.

A part of Nora felt vindicated because she didn’t believe Meredith to be as oblivious as she portrayed convincingly to everyone else.

But before Meredith divulged her information or theories, Nora wanted to get Jason. He deserved to know.

Apprehensively she made her way to him. His head was down. Nora recalled her first encounter with Jason. He was a positive person despite his circumstances. He went through quick mood swings after hearing what the president originally said of the Genesis Project. Anger and sadness, but after they subsided, he was hopeful. He had something no one else had… a deep rooted faith.

“Jason,” she called to him softly. “I don’t want to interrupt you if you’re praying.”

He didn’t turn around. His voice cracked softly. “Praying.” He shook his head and laughed emotionally. “Nora, I don’t think I have a prayer to say.” He slowly swayed his head and looked over his shoulder at her. “From the time I was a child, I believed in God. I preached His word for as long as I remember. Give it to God was a stock phrase of mine. Give it to God.” He laughed again. “At first you know, I was mad because Man and Science took it from God’s hands. But now… I’m torn. I’m torn between being angry at the God I gave my life to and angry at myself for believing in a fairy tale.” He slowly stood to his knees. “The God I worshipped would not let this happen.”

“I have news for you,” Nora said. “Probably not a news flash considering what you did for a living, but the God you worship, if all those stories are true, He has a pretty good track record of doing this.”

His eyes widened as if to say, ‘I can’t believe that just came from your mouth’.

Nora shrugged. “I’m just saying. And I’m here to ask you to come in.”

“I don’t know what I want to do.”

“Just don’t pull a President Thomas.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means …he’s dead,” Nora said. “He went down to be part of the decontamination process. He couldn’t handle this. None of us can. I’m not. It seems surreal, like I’m so displaced from my life, my world, that to me this isn’t earth, that this isn’t reality.”

“Look around Nora, its reality.”

“Here. We don’t know what’s beyond here. And… Meredith knows some things.”

“We discussed this. She doesn’t.”

“No, actually,” Nora said. “She does. She said it and we’re waiting on you to hear what that is.” She held out her hand. “Let’s hear what she has to say and then we can figure out our next step. Staying out here, looking at this, is not the answer. We need to find our answers. But we need information to get there.”

“Do you really think Meredith has it?”

“She has something.”

After a moment of debate, Jason took her hand and they went back inside the building.

Despite the fact that John said he felt nothing, he did indeed feel a slight vibration under his feet. The explosion below had to be intense. The president, if he were caught in it, felt nothing, His pain was over.

John didn’t see him go down the elevator and couldn’t figure out how he did so without being noticed. But what were the options? He ran amuck around the building? For what purpose? He had no supplies. The logical deduction was that he committed suicide.

In John’s mind, President Thomas was useless. He had knowledge, but he was weak and broken. Marshal Flight Center was a starting point for John, not an end, and the last thing he needed was a weak person following him North. And North was exactly where John would head, back home, once he figured out how to get there.

“All of that,” Meredith pointed to the boxes and supplies John took from storage. “Is needed. You didn’t take it all but you took at least one from every box, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Three years ago, I was asked to come up with a worst case scenario theory,” Meredith explained. “Because of my work, NASA pulled me in, right here, to this compound for a meeting. I honestly believed it had something to do with space.”

“Worst case scenario, Dr. Hassleman,” the director asked her. “What would be the situation if six astronauts returned from space to find the earth had been wiped clean from a plague?”

“That would be impossible,” Meredith said. “Everyone on earth? No. There would be survivors. There would be those who didn’t get it, It would appear, though, that the world was empty.”

“What would be the obstacles for them?”

“How long are we talking about? Is the plague or virus still in the air, are they completely safe from being victims. If it were long enough for it to be safe, then they face a whole different battle.”

“How so?”

“First let’s look at the emotional side. Their family, friends, civilization in general, gone. They will be desperate and in disbelief until faced with the reality and that reality would be to seek the truth and find resolution with family. Therein lies the next problem. Every resource, already in place, will be useless. If it is years, then food on the shelves is bad. Water is a problem. They’d have to rely on ground sources. Any animals that remain are deadly and they could possibly be without weapons. How would they find their families? Unless every member of every family is within walking distance of their landing site, they’re out of luck. Gasoline will be bad, batteries… dead, horses, if they could find them would be wild.”

Meredith emerged from her recount of the meeting and said, “Then they asked me to make a list. What would be needed for them? Honestly, I thought they were doing a just in case scenario with all the recent space exploration.”

John said, “Plausible. I’d think the same way. Did you do the list?”

“Of course. It took me months. I was thorough. I told them the supplies would have to be stored airtight or some way to preserve. Everything down there was on my list, John, everything in that storage. Those solar batteries are for vehicles somewhere on this base. Where? I don’t know.”

Jason asked. “So you knew all along?”

“No.” Meredith held up her hand. “I’m guessing on the solar batteries because they were on my list. Power vehicles similar to the rovers they place on planets. If the batteries were there, the vehicles are somewhere. All those boxes were in an airtight preservation room, that door opened when the units released. The design is called the time capsule vault.”

John spoke up. “Summer’s design. She did it years ago, so that in case the world was destroyed and aliens found it or people in the future, they could taste and experience all that we had. You acted like you didn’t know her.”

“When we discussed Summer,” Meredith stated. “I was frightened to say anything. And I would have, had the president not stepped in and talked.”

“So he was lying,” Jason asked. “When he said you weren’t part of the plan and that you didn’t know.”

“No, he wasn’t lying because he had no idea that I knew. I knew Summer. Summer knew.” Meredith faced John. “She knew. It was her cryogenics design, her units down there. She gave me enough information about the plan, problem was neither of us knew when it was going to be implemented. For it to remain secret, no one was told. She found out hours before the event. That was why she didn’t show. In fact, my phone died and when she finally sent me a text, I didn’t have time to leave. Or else I would have. I didn’t want to be a part of this.”

Exhaling slowly and loud, Nora moved to Meredith. “You didn’t plan this. You were just part of the plan.”

“But I’m guilty by association. I knew and said nothing. That guilt is the same reason I didn’t pack a survival bag, because I didn’t want to survive when we emerged. But unlike the president, where ever he went, I lack the courage to take my life.”

“Wait.” Grant snapped his fingers. “You sound like you knew it failed before we came up here.”

“If Genesis was a success none of us would have woken up in our room. We would have been removed from stasis before waking and brought to another facility in a nice cozy bed surrounded by family. That was the plan. Us waking up on our own was only the plan if things went wrong. Things went wrong and they knew it, so as a safeguard, they changed the setting, changed the wake up time, we were left here longer. Hence the supplies.”

“How long?” Jason asked.

Meredith lifted her hands. “That I can’t tell you, I don’t know. I can guess when the world went bad. Malcolm, what was the last date you read?”

“December Fourteen.” Malcolm answered. “Last date on that clipboard.”

“Then that was the day they knew they erred. We talked about the world being reset, well, they knew there was no turning back and someone came in here that day…” Meredith paused. “And hit our reset button.”

TWENTY – Split Decisions

The first thing Malcolm did was take the four solar battery units and placed them out in the sun. If they had drained at all, the sun would recharge them. Or so he thought. If they were indeed a power source for the vehicles, they needed them. Transportation was vital. Malcolm couldn’t stay in Kentucky. Even if decades had passed he needed to have closure, find out what happened to his wife, Jenny, and their four sons. Malcolm supposed everyone else had the same goals and he would do what he could to help everyone to achieve those goals.

There was a flat folded case, and Malcolm opened it exposing the tools. “These will have to do.”

“That’s all they had,” John said. “Couple dozen of these, but basic tools.”

“I’ll make do. I’m resourceful.” Malcolm examined what he had and closed the case again.

“What are you doing?”

“Batteries are charging. Jason and Nora went out to look for life, and I’m going out to look for cars. Really how hard is this gonna be to find a garage around here. That’s where they’ll be stored if they’re here.’

Grant set down and opened up a map. “Marshal is located in Redstone Arsenal. Take a look. It’s big.”

Malcolm moistened his lips, then drew in his bottom lip in thought. “I’m gonna guess they are somewhere in the Marshal Flight Center section. Just a guess.” He tossed the tool bag over his shoulder and grabbed a bottle of water.

“Can I come?” Amy asked. “Please, I need to get out of this room, feel like I’m doing something.”

“I’m dividing supplies,” John said. “You can stay here and you won’t have to sell your soul.”

She shot daggers at him, then returned to Malcolm. “Can I? I do have a good level of mechanical knowledge when it comes to solar energy.”

“Sure,” Malcolm answered with an nod up to his head then reached for the map. “Can I?”

“Be my guest,” Grant said.

Malcolm took the map, folded it, grabbed a pen from the desk, scribbled on the corner of the paper until the pen worked, then he and Amy headed out of the office.

Despite the fact that it was hot, it felt cooler outside with the airflow. Malcolm walked to the center of the lot and started peering around. It seemed even more barren then when he stepped out to leave the batteries to charge. “If you were a garage, where would you be?”

“I’d be a warehouse,” Amy said. “Like there.” She pointed to a building across the lot and to the right. “How many do you think there are?”

“Well, if there are any.” Malcolm started to walk. “Not more than eight, because that is all the batteries there are.”

“You realize they can be used to start a car battery, right?’

“Oh, I know.” Malcolm forced a closed mouth smile. “See any cars.”

Amy stopped and looked around. “No. None. Maybe there are some on base.”

“If there are, we need to find a way to start them. I mean, gasoline, if it’s been over a year… and it looks like it has been, will be bad.”

“Diesel?”

“Depends on the time frame.”

“Military vehicles.” She snapped her finger. “My husband was in the Army. A mechanic, I remember he told me those things can run on anything.”

Malcolm bobbed his head in thought. “Maybe. But I do know we are not finding any solar cars.”

“Then why are we looking?”

“Because Meredith’s list to them said transportation. They left the batteries, there is something? I just know it’s not a solar car. The solar cars that were out used hydrogen and electricity. Some… even platinum.”

“Maybe the battery sources we have start them, and they are limited like the rovers used on Mars.”

“Not sure how they operated.”

“Well they didn’t look like the solar cars that were placed in California. They worked using a reserve power pool, power source gained by the solar arrays or panels on the unit. It didn’t move fast, and it only ran when it was daylight and it could draw from the sun. The more sunlight, the faster it moved. Keep in mind, we are dealing with NASA.”

“True.” Malcolm exhaled. “Well, what are the odds?”

“Of?”

“This being the warehouse?”

“My opinion… they’re good. If they left transportation they would have left it protected and where we could easily find it. This is the closest big building.”

“Fingers crossed.” Malcolm tried the garage door to the right.

Nothing. Locked.

He moved over and tried the other one, that too was locked. Knowing that more than likely the door to the building was locked as well, he pulled his tool pack from his shoulder, opened it on the ground and slid out the small crowbar.

It was small and he hoped it would work without bending.

After several minutes, he was finally able to pry open the door. The crowbar was useless afterwards. He shoved it aside and opened the door wider.

Amy stepped in first. “It’s really dark.”

Before following her in, Malcolm propped open the door, grabbed the flashlight, turned it on and walked in.

“Malcolm?” Amy said with a slight smile.

Malcolm aimed his flashlight beam into the large warehouse. It didn’t light much, but it did eliminate enough for him to see that they had found what they were looking for. “Bingo.

Step one. Before they could figure out how to operate the dune buggy looking vehicles, they had to get more light in the warehouse and for that… they needed to work on the garage doors.

<><><><>

They lab office was a room twenty feet by twelve. Filled mostly with desks and computers, John figured it to be more of a monitoring station. They moved some of the desks out of the way to make room as he and Grant went through supplies.

“Seventy-five bars,” Grant said. “Ten each, five for this evening to divide.”

“Works. Water tablets?”

“Twelve boxes. Divide the extra?”

“Yes.” John made a note on paper. “Water is going to be tough.”

“The one thing you didn’t grab much of.”

“It was heavy. So everyone gets an eight pack… oh wait, the president isn’t here, we all get an eight pack plus a bottle. I get the extra.”

“Fair enough. Veggie bits … Twelve packs each.”

“How many first aid kits.”

“Twelve.”

“We’ll divide up the extra,” John said. “Everyone should have enough each.”

Meredith, who had been staring out the window, spoke up. “Then what?”

“This land is your land,” John said, “We hopefully find a farming region, food may still be growing wild. Again, we don’t have a clue how long we were down there.”

“Why are you dividing all this?” she asked.

“Because Meredith, as much as I am a dick, it would be too much of a dick move to keep it all myself. We all need it for our travels.”

Grant asked, “We need to come up with a route. All of us live spread out over this country.”

“We can work it out. Unless Malcolm finds more than one vehicle.”

“Hate to see us split up.”

“What choice do we have?”

Meredith answered. “Don’t split up. There is safety in numbers. Stay grounded. Find one place, make it center base and two at a time go out searching, when they return, the next two go. If by some chance things are barren out there, the last thing we need to do is not be together.”

“Don’t you want to find your family?” John asked.

“I have none. There’s no one to find.” She stood up. “We need a long term plan.”

Grant looked at her. “We need answers first. I don’t think any of us can just settle down and accept this without answers and closure.”

“Exactly,” John added. “We are on a base. Everything outside of here could be fine. This illness could have hit only one city or state or part of a country. We don’t know, we really don’t and until I find out the extent of all that we missed, I can’t make any long-term plans. The answers most certainly aren’t in this dark room.”

Just as he finished saying that, a deep hum rumbled and within seconds, the lights flickered and came on.

John looked up. “Well I’ll be damned.”

Grant pointed to the computer that started a boot up sequence. “You were saying.”

The moment of shock and silence was broken when Malcolm rushed in the room.

He released a gleeful and proud laugh. “Yes! It worked.”

“You did this?” John asked.

“I did.” Malcolm looked around and chose a random computer. “Well, we did this.”

Amy replied. “Don’t let him fool you. He did it. When he saw the controls he knew.”

“Back up plan,” Malcolm explained. “In case everything went off line. Like an EMP caused them to go off the grid. They needed to be able to communicate with those on the space station. The batteries, the buggies, not to mention the solar arrays on top of the building 4601. Told me it was our jackpot.”

“You’re a freaking genius.” John said.

Meredith pointed to Malcolm. “If we split up. I’m going with him.”

Malcolm smiled, and then returned to the computer.

There was a slow demonic howling sound to the steady wind that swept around them. In fact it was the only sound.

Nora and Jason walked in silence.

It was Nora’s idea to leave the confines of the area deemed for the Marshal Flight Center, hit the base and see what was out there. She told Jason, he didn’t say much and then she left.

He followed her with a simple, ‘wait up’ and he didn’t speak another word until they reached the edge of the base.

His mood was low before Meredith said anything, after… he just sank.

Nora had children, a husband, she was devastated to think what could have become of them. But she wasn’t ruling anything out. She wasn’t giving up hope. The only issue she had was how long she was in stasis. For all she knew, her eldest daughter, Lilly, who was eight, could be a fully-fledged adult.

She doubted it was a decade, simply because of the amount of growth. Some reason the world from her memory of science class, would look like a jungle in ten years.

Redstone Arsenal, the military base was the key. Just because the NASA section was empty didn’t mean the base was, and even if that was void of people, that didn’t mean beyond it was barren.

To her, Jason, the man who was strong and positive below suddenly was an anchor to her, holding her back. Emotionally tiresome. She knew and felt where he was coming from. But Nora put her energy elsewhere. Like everyone else, she was seeking answers. She hoped to get some when she returned back to the office.

The Arsenal limits were about a mile outside of Marshall and an idea stuck her when she saw the PX, or Post Exchange on base. Some PX’s were small, and some were like large chain bargain store. This PX was large and shared an overgrown parking lot with a BBQ restaurant.

For the first time, she saw a car. Two of them were in the parking. Both had weeds that grew up to the side of the car doors and were two rows apart. Jason walked straight and Nora walked up toward the PX.

“What are you doing? I thought we were going to look for the base.”

“PX. This is like a Target. I wanna check it out. See if they have bikes. Be a lot easier to peddle across than walk.”

Jason looked humbled, nodded and said, “That’s a good idea.”

“Plus, it’ll tell us a lot. If the store is empty, there was enough time for those who were ill to get supplies. If the shelves have a lot of items, the base emptied out fast.”

She approached the first car, it was locked. She tried to clear the window, but the dirt was too thick so Nora moved to the second vehicle. A blue compact car. She tried the driver’s door and it opened.

“What are you looking for?” Jason asked.

“A date. Maybe a receipt or something.” She looked in the car and when she did, she immediately saw the toddler car seat in the back. Even though the car seat was empty, a sickening feeling hit Nora’s gut.

She looked around the car, it had a musty smell to it and a thick layer of dust formed on the dashboard and seats. There was a takeout receipt deep in the console, but that was dated a month before they even went into stasis.

She popped open the glove compartment and pulled out the plastic folder. “Louisa Martin.” Nora said. “The car is registered to her.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Thought you were the big prayer guy. Thought maybe you wanted a name to toss on your prayer list.” Nora exhaled. “Nothing. She had a child and this car was clean. To me that’s odd. She wasn’t traveling or running somewhere.”

“How do you know?”

“Think Jason, you have a child. Is your car ever clean when you travel with a child? I know mine had cheerios or crackers or something over it”

“I have a baby,” Jason replied. “I never got to that stage.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Let’s just try the PX.”

“Yeah,” Nora said sliding out and then shut the door.

They walked across the lot to the large warehouse style building. The windows were dirty, yet intact, and the automatic sliding doors were partially open allowing for them to slip inside.

The store, though dark, was untouched, almost as if they closed for the night and never reopened. Merchandise was still on the shelves. Nothing disheveled. Perfect displays, the only thing that indicated something happened was the large cold and flu supply set up near the front of the store. A dust covered sign read, ‘Flu Season is here.’

That was it.

The farther back they walked, the less dusty it was. Sealed off from the world. It was as if the world just stopped and everyone disappeared.

Nora and Jason located the bicycle department in the back of the PX. They lifted two bikes from the display rack, and found a hand pump in the store.

While Jason prepared the bikes, Nora grabbed a hiking backpack. She wandered the store, getting items she knew she needed that weren’t in those boxes from storage.

Soap, packaged tee shirts, safe from dust and deterioration, undergarments still in packs, were just some of the things. She hit the camping section, bearing in mind what she would be able to carry on the bike.

When he located her, Nora was crouched on a section of the floor she had cleaned.

“Done shopping?” Jason asked as he approached. “Bikes are ready.”

“Sorry, yeah. Almost done here.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m, making Skivvy rolls.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Skivvy rolls.” She tossed him what looked like a stuffed half, tube sock. “You wouldn’t believe what is in those.”

“It’s a sock.”

“A pair of socks, underwear, tee shirt. Each roll is different.”

“Impressive. How did you learn to do this?” he asked.

“My father and… eight years of service. Including two combat tours.”

“You served. You never mentioned it.”

“I didn’t…” Nora stood. “I didn’t remember until I walked in here. Saw the BCU’s and it all came back to me. I served then got married. Weird isn’t it? You would think I would remember that.”

“Makes you wonder what else we aren’t recalling.”

“Yeah. Most of my childhood is a blur.”

Jason blinked slowly. “So is mine.”

She handed him his sleeping roll. “We can take turns lugging this thing.” She placed the pack on her back.

“Bikes are over here.” Jason pointed, then walked ahead of her, and took one.

“Wouldn’t it be funny if we didn’t remember how to ride?”

“Yeah, real funny.” Jason said with little emotion as he pushed his bike toward the front of the store. “Nora, did you by chance look at any of the names on the other Genesis units?”

“Some. Not all. Why?”

“Are you sure you weren’t supposed to be there and just got put in the wrong unit.”

“Why do you say that?”

Jason shook his head. “You were at the Astoria, right? Have you ever been there before? I think you said the station put you there because everything was overbooked. What if that wasn’t the case? What is you were meant to be there.”

“For what purpose.”

“Maybe you’re more important than you remember. Not that you aren’t important and all. But I think you know what I mean.”

Nora didn’t respond because just as he finished saying that, she saw them.

“Nora.”

“Why didn’t I think of this?” She perched the bike against a bin and hurried to the checkout line. “Impulse shopping. Magazines. Tabloids.”

“Okay.”

“They come out weekly.” The front magazines were hard to decipher, worn and dirty. Nora reached to the back of the first bunch of tabloids and grabbed one. She flicked on her pen flashlight to see the date. “Odd. November. So this shut down before our experiment. Malcolm said that last date was… the fourteenth.” She moved behind the register and pulled out the trash bin. “Yep.” She lifted a receipt. “November tenth. Doesn’t look like anything unusual. So that tells me in that month everything…” she stopped talking when she noticed Jason stared in horror at a tabloid. “Jason?”

His hand shook as he extended the tabloid to her. He used his light so she could read it.

The ‘sensationalized’ gossip sheet called The Globe News had a picture of the first lady on the cover.

It read, “My husband is not dead!”

With the sub headliner: ‘Top scientist claims president was not killed in explosion. He is cryogenically frozen to survive impending Apocalypse.’

“Oh my God,” Nora flipped it open.

“Wanna take a bet on who that scientist is?”

Nora lifted her eyes. “Summer Rosewood.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah it is.” She rolled up the tabloid and looked, there were more. One was a dedicated edition to the explosion in New York. Nora grabbed that as well. In fact she grabbed several, so the others could read. And they would. The magazines were a source of information, sensationalized or not.

Loaded down, they hopped on the bikes and made their way across the parking lot and down the road.

The store, the magazine, like they had been, the world seemed frozen in time.

Unlike any books she read, documentaries or movies, nothing Nora had seen depicted a major event such as a plague or war. No remnants of panic shopping, looting or violence. Everything was just a dusty, overgrown normal until they hit the first main intersection of base.

They had to stop, literally they could go no farther. It was clear to Nora. There was no more second guessing.

Abandoned military trucks obstructed the intersection alongside the blockades. Signs marked ‘Quarantine Zone’ were everywhere. Buildings were taped off, some were covered in plastic. Biohazard symbols were plastered everywhere as frequently as cracks in the sidewalks.

Abandoned cars, doors open scattered across the street. Papers and debris blew about among spilled personal belongings.

At the barricade, there were bodies, or rather skeletal remains in tattered clothing. A huge dump truck was filled to the capacity with body bags.

The carnage, the desolation and desecration of the virus extended as far as the eye could see.

The hybrid virus intended to decrease population wreaked havoc, at least on base it did.

TWENTY-ONE – Oblique

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Harrison stared into the camera. His face was worn, he looked tired and thinner than the messages they had seen when they were below. “Truly I am. I’m sorry.” He reached up and the video ended.

With an exhale, Malcolm sat back. “That’s the only one. The rest is data that I can’t make heads or tails out of.”

“We should have waited,” John said. “Until Jason and Nora returned.”

“I don’t mind watching it again,” Malcolm said. “At least we know the facts about transportation.” He lifted a folder.

Amy asked. “How long will it take to get them ready?”

“Not long,” Malcolm answered and his head turned quickly to the right when he heard the scuffling of feet.

Nora and Jason walked in.

Jason peered up. “We have power?”

“Solar,” Malcolm answered as he stood. “I don’t know how long it will last. Did you guys find anything?”

Jason replied. “It’s dead out there. Bad.” He shook his head.

“What we saw at the main portion of base,” Nora added. “I hope to God isn’t what we’ll see everywhere.”

“What did you see?” Amy asked impassioned. “What?”

“Chaos, death,” Nora answered. “Just everything you would imagine.”

“Did you see any bodies?” John asked.

Meredith gasped out an offended, “John!”

“No, it’s important,” John said. “Did you?”

Nora nodded. “We did. A lot.”

“So you saw bodies. Any exposed, not wrapped?” John quizzed.

“Yeah.”

“What state were they in?”

Again, Meredith gasped out. “John. Why is this important? It’s morbid.”

“It’s a time frame,” John stated. “We don’t know how long we were out. Nora, were they pure bones, partial bones, just decay?”

“Bones,” Nora answered.

“Good. Good.” John looked around. “At least we know we aren’t hundreds of years in the future. Maybe a few at most. We’ll know more when we leave here. Malcolm found our transportation. What are those?” he asked, nodding his head at Nora.

She dropped the magazines on the desk. “Apparently, New York had the worst terror attack in decades. Started another war, I’m guessing it wasn’t what they planned. I didn’t read it all, but I brought those. It might give us some insight. Things look like they fell apart before Thanksgiving.”

“They did,” Malcolm said. “The war wasn’t part of the plan.”

Jason asked. “How do you know?”

Malcolm returned to his chair and turned toward the computer. “Watch.”

After clicking on the file, Dr. Harrison appeared.

“Good evening… or whatever time of day it is. If you are seeing this, then you have uncovered the power source, that gives me hope. You have emerged from the Genesis project, or maybe you are from a distant planet or future inhabitants of this planet, in any event, this video should shed some light. Before I continue on, you will need to examine the brown folder in the bottom desk drawer. This will give you information regarding a means of transportation for you off of this base. God willing you brought the supplies from below.”

Malcolm lifted the folder and showed Nora.

“In an attempt to perform a population cull, a synthetic version of Measles was introduced into the population by way of air travel,” Dr. Harrison said. “An aerosol form was placed into the air ducts of one hundred aircraft, the passengers were unknowingly exposed to this airborne invader. We believed it would decrease the population by thirty-five percent. We expected half of those exposed to become sick. It was going as planned, but somewhere somehow it got out of control. The vaccine that had been created was useless, the virus mutated quickly, rendering any cure we believed we had, useless. That was one of the problems. There were twenty-four Genesis projects across the globe. I can speak for only this one. The diversion, the explosion, caused a ripple effect, bringing countries to the front lines of war. All this, while the virus ravaged our world. No singular focus was in one place. Which, I believe was a downfall. Things cascaded, less people worked as more grew ill. We were unable to handle the sick. Violence, riots, all that you could imagine… took its toll. By mid-November it was obvious that the cull was out of control and millions were dying by the day. The Genesis project was shut down on tenth of December and four days later, I returned to the office and activated the reset. Which means, I restarted your stasis. It is automatic and at this time, I do not know when you will wake. I do hope that when you do, you emerge into a beautiful world that has healed from this godforsaken illness. This virus, I believe was our punishment for our arrogance. Mother Nature’s way of saying it was time to clean up and thank you for helping out. Now I must be honest with you. You had been promised your family. You had been promised compensation. Obviously if you are seeing this, none of that is waiting for you. Despite the fact that your families were informed that you passed on in the explosion, they were indeed given a vaccine. I hope that you find them well. Best of luck in all that you do. I’m sorry.” He lowered his head. “Truly, I am. I’m sorry.”

Jason tossed out his hands. “So we know nothing more.”

“No,” Nora corrected. “We know a lot more. We know there was a war, the virus didn’t work, it was out of control, the vaccine was a bust, and we aren’t decades into the future. We know more than we did four hours ago. Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I sure want to know when those vehicles will be ready, because I need to find my family.”

“We all do,” John said. “But before any of us take off, we need a plan. We need to find a way to stick together or make it back together, because as hard as it is to face…” John looked at each and every person. “We here, may very well be all that’s left of the human race.”

TWENTY-TWO – Motor Pool

Just before sundown, Nora, John and Grant made their way back to the PX and gathered more sleeping bags for the others. Along with three small tents and other camping supplies. Following Nora’s earlier lead, they also grabbed some items to wear. Even though there would be chances to get supplies on the road, it still was better to be prepared. Beyond the confines of the base was a great mystery.

They had moved from the small inside lab office to outside, creating a campsite.

“It could be fine,” Amy said, glancing across the campfire. “I mean. I once saw this movie that an area was quarantined, and the rest of the world was fine. This is where the project started. Maybe this is where they quarantined.”

Grant smiled peacefully at her. “That’s a cool thought. That we’re all packed up for some hardened journey and we pull out onto a busy highway.”

“Life goes on,” Meredith added. “It finds away. There’s life out there beyond this base. What kind of life, I don’t know. But it’s there.”

Nora didn’t join in the fire conversation, she lay off to the side, reading by the light of a lantern and some of the campfire glow. Before her was an open notebook, along with the tabloids and magazines she grabbed from the PX.

John had moved across the lot where Malcolm worked on the ‘buggies’, probably being more of an annoyance than any help. Jason was quiet, he didn’t say much. Nora figured he was still processing. Everyone had to deal with things their own way and their own time frame.

She took to starting a journal. It was her way of dealing. Taking notes, writing thoughts. She slowly withdrew from paying attention to what was being said by the campfire until she reached the point that the silence finally caught her attention. She had been so engrossed, she didn’t notice everyone had fallen asleep.

Nora wasn’t tired. In fact she hadn’t slept much or well since she woke from stasis. She closed her journal, picked up the wristwatch, saw the time of three AM, and was going to call it a night, when she heard the clank of metal and Malcolm cursing out, “Oh, goddamn it.”

He was still at it.

Not that she could help, but Nora decided to see if he needed anything.

Malcolm had moved three of the buggies more to the center of the lot. Supplies were already loaded in them and she followed the light that came from the open garage door of the warehouse.

As she neared, John walked through the darkness, staggering some.

“You all right?” she asked.

“Yep. I finally have hit that level where I think I can sleep.” He lifted a bottle and dangled a cup from his other hand. “Since I didn’t want to take a chance on the expiration of the Go-Doze pills, this worked. Want a hefty night cap?”

“No. But thanks.”

“Suit yourself. I know you’re not sleeping either.”

“On second thought.” She said.

John stopped walking, he finished the few drops that remained in his glass and poured a healthy amount in the cup, handing it to Nora. “Enjoy. Night.”

“Night.” Nora watched him drunkenly walk away, sniffed the brown liquid and cocked back. It was strong and burned her nostrils. It was something she’d sip, and she did as she walked to the garage.

She stopped cold in the garage when she saw all the parts scattered on the floor.

“Come to help, watch, or ask a million questions?” Malcolm asked from his seat on the floor. He was surrounded by parts.

“All three. What… are these? Is this buggy broke?”

“It is now,” Malcolm said. “We only need three, so I figured the best way to learn this thing was to take it apart and put it back together. Only now…”

“You can’t get it back together?”

“Nope. I will though.”

“No doubt.” Nora said and joined him on the floor.

“Can’t sleep?” Malcolm asked.

Nora shook her head.

“Me either. I see John gave you some sleep aid.”

“Maybe you should try some.”

“Oh, I did.” Malcolm picked up a part and examined it. “A third of a bottle. I feel nothing.”

“That could be the reason you can’t get this back together.”

He laughed. “It might be. I saw you working on something.”

“Oh, just writing in a journal and reading and learning all I could from those magazines.”

“Anything interesting?”

Nora took a sip of her drink. “The explosion was a dirty bomb. Or so they say. Flattened six blocks of New York, contaminated most of the city.”

“So they say.”

“So they say,” Nora took another sip. “Malcolm, from what I read, no one is in New York. It was evacuated.”

He glanced beyond her to the camp. “Does Grant know? He’s from New York.”

“He has the same magazines, I do. So I don’t know if he read them or not.”

“Anything about the war?” Malcolm asked.

“Nothing. Then again, I grabbed gossip magazines. There was also nothing about the virus. Just the rag sheet where they predicted it.”

“So in that one month, from that last magazine, until our reset, everything went to shit.”

“Looks that way. Amy and Grant are so optimistic.” Nora looked back.

“What about you?”

“I want to say I’m realistic. But the love of my family puts me in the optimistic category. Jason, I think he is wrestling between fear and faith.”

“That’s good.” Malcolm lifted a tool and pointed it at her. “John isn’t optimistic, he’s being a realist. He’s not holding high hopes that his family made it. At least what he told me. He said, he’ll grieve when he knows.”

“What about you?” Nora asked.

“Me? I may not seem it but I’m crushed.” He squinted his eyes. “We all are and must face what we find. I just hope, if anything I find my oldest son.”

Nora furrowed her brow in confusion. “Why just him?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I want them all to be alive. But him… I was a young father when he was born. Too young and he and I butted heads all the time. Before I left for New York, we got in the biggest fight. He called me an Absentee Dad that I was never around. And I keep thinking how that kid had to feel when he heard I was killed and his last words to me were, ‘Why don’t you stay in New York, not like we’ll notice if we never see you again’. And in my anger, I told him that maybe I would. Stupid.” He tossed a small part, reached out and grabbed the cup from Nora’s hand and took a drink. “And on the other hand, a part of me is thinking, why bother? Why go look? That maybe it is for the best. I’m actually thinking of fixing this buggy and heading right to Champaign.”

“Why would you say that?”

“It’s selfish. But they mourned us, Nora. They lost us, grieved us, and got over us. If they are alive, they have nothing to lose if they never see us again. Us on the other hand, we have a lot less to lose if we never know.”

“If you really believed that you wouldn’t be working so hard to get our transportation going. You’re just scared like the rest of us. But come tomorrow, we’ll get up and we’ll go. We’ll all go. We’ll be more fearful than hopeful. But we’ll go, because not knowing is really not an option.” She exchanged glances, catching his unspoken words through expression that he was in agreement, and then Nora took her drink cup and finished off the nightcap.

NORA’S ENTRY

Day One AR (After Reset)

Suddenly I am cast into a surreal existence. Trying with all that I am to decipher if what I am experiencing is real or a dream. Perhaps I am still in a state of stasis or that explosion has me in limbo.

This is Day One. Not because it is the first day that we are awake, it isn’t, but rather, the first day that we emerged from our reset state.

We were reset, for how long, remains to be seen. I can’t think of that aspect of it, I did for a small amount of time and it can be insanity inducing. I decided to place my focus on my family. After witnessing the fall of civility on the base, my heart is completely and utterly broken. Jason mentioned that perhaps I was indeed supposed to be in stasis. That maybe, like Amy, I was going to be snatched away from my room in some late night, post explosion covert operation. Deep in my heart I know that not to be true. In my deepest wishes that my family received the inoculation, I know they didn’t. I was not supposed to be there. They all believed I was Summer Rosewood.

I wonder if Summer, the real Summer, got the inoculation?

In some aspect the cure had to work. According to Meredith, someone, somewhere, actually a lot of people, had to be immune to it.

My family.

What they must have gone through when they heard that I died in that explosion. How devastated they had to be. I hate that they felt that pain, I hate thinking of them suffering through an illness. Of Rick trying his hardest to care for the girls. What if Rick died and no one was left to help my daughters. What of Mia who was only three? What if she was never ill and was left to care for herself. That scared me. She didn’t know. Her survival of the virus wasn’t a guarantee of her survival in the world.

I was quite a distance from my hometown, but not so far that I couldn’t get there.

There are seven of us remaining. I am not convinced, like the others, that the president jumped into the elevator and rode down below for a fiery death. I think he ran. I think he slipped out, ran and kept going.

A part of me wants to run, too. I just want to take the supplies John gave, grab one of those buggy type vehicles that Malcolm is fixing and go. Run. Head home. That was not a possibility. Over our evening meal we decided that we would pair off.

Malcolm and Amy would head west toward their homes. Jason and I would go straight north. Grant, John, and Meredith would head northeast. But there also was a secondary plan. Three weeks. We had three weeks to find our answers or family and make it to a meeting point. It was the only way if things were truly bad and everything gone.

We had to stick together.

With Amy living as far west as Albuquerque and John living as far north east as Stamford, Malcolm found a center point on the map between us all and the meeting place was set for a little town called Champaign, Illinois.

Grant and Meredith were both familiar with the town and believed it to be a good meeting point. It stood a good chance of being there. After all, war had broken out. To what extent remained to be seen.

Was it nuclear war? Biological war. Was it a ground exchange overseas? We just didn’t know.

Three weeks to return. To start things over and follow through on the objective of the Genesis Project. That’s why we were saved, that was the intention.

Four hours after sun up, the vehicles will be charged enough to go. Malcolm gave us instructions and we will depart.

The questions remain, if we find our answers, will any of us really care enough to return? Will our journey for answers bring us life, or take so much from us that there is really no reason to begin life again?

TWENTY-TWO – Journey

Nora marked the words ‘Two AR’ in the journal, scribbled ‘journey’ and closed the cover. She’d write later when she had the time. The course was set and the first destination was Jason’s home in Louisville, Kentucky. At nearly three hundred miles away, in a vehicle that moved no faster than 40 MPH, they were looking at a nine hour trip. But that wasn’t happening, because they had to stop and recharge after six hours. A simple drive would turn into a three day trip and a very uncomfortable ride. The dune buggy type vehicle had the name NASA Mite-2 on the side, and was small with little room. A back area hatch for supplies and two very exposed seats. It didn’t offer any protection from the elements at all and Nora through it felt flimsy. Malcolm assured her it wasn’t.

They were the last ones to leave, because theirs was the last vehicle to charge.

At noon, they were fully charged. Nora took the driving position, Jason rode in the passenger seat. She quietly said a prayer, and pulled out of Redstone Arsenal. They had a direction, but which route they’d end up taking was all in the air. They hadn’t a clue what was ahead. But it was a journey they had to take.

<><><><>

There was a tad of guilt on Malcolm’s part, just a tad. After all, he got the buggies up and running so he deserved to have the souped-up one. While the others slept, he had taken the fourth vehicle apart, and enhanced the NASA Mite-3. The dual batteries allowed for nearly eight hours of travel and the buggy moved near fifty MPH. Although, he didn’t go that fast. He just didn’t trust it. It moved and felt like a golf cart to him.

Three hours into their trip they were half way to their first destination of Memphis.

It was the next biggest city off the highway. Perhaps if any civilization remained it would be in that area.

They didn’t see much of Huntsville. They got right on the overgrown highway. The grass was high in some spots, and the thick tires of the buggy cut through. There was a traffic jam of sorts, a graveyard of cars outside of Redstone and the Huntsville area. The nimble and small buggy zigzagged on and off the road to get around it.

Despite all the abandoned cars, there still was no sign of people.

He and Amy had the longest journey. Twelve hundred miles of roadway, at least. He took the first two batteries that hit a full charge and he and Amy were on the road before nine AM. They moved with the hot sun, so there was no relief, which also told Malcolm it was summer. The nights weren’t cool, they were still muggy. The skies were clear. If he were to guess, he’d say it was probably July.

Malcolm conveyed his theories on the weather, and the seasons, and Amy laughed

“Why are you laughing at me?” Malcolm asked. “Is that funny?”

“Well, yeah, it is.”

“How is that?”

“Well, finally, I can say I am an expert in something going on around here.” Amy proudly stated.

“What do you mean? Explain.”

“Okay. I may be a star and sun person. And study solar weather. But, I did my internship on the Weather Channel for two years.” Amy said.

“How does that make you an expert?”

“Really? Seriously? You are asking me that.” Amy laughed. “For starters, you are forgetting Where we are geographically. We are south and west which means seasonably these areas are warmer this time year.”

“This time of year?” Malcolm asked. “What time of year is it?”

“Let’s break it down. Look around you. Look at the grass. Yes, it’s high but it’s not vivid green. Which tells me it’s lived through a bad winter. Nothing here is vivid and fresh green. Nothing is new. Look at the trees. Things are just barely budding. That along with the size of the sun in the sky, it’s the month of May.”

“You really think it’s May?”

“I do.”

“We should bet on it.”

“And how will we determine the winner?”

“Once we find people. There has to be people. Somewhere. Somehow. Out there.”

Amy chuckled and turned her head. “Malcolm. Look. Slow down.”

Malcolm saw that she was pointing. “What is it?”

“Tire tracks.”

Malcolm brought the buggy to a crawl and looked. The highway may have not shown any signs that anyone had driven on it, but perpendicular to the highway was a set of tracks. They cut through the foliage, went across the field in their own make shift road. One that was worn… one that told them it had been used.

“Life,” Malcolm said and turned the wheel.

He drove off the road to follow the tracks.

<><><><>

Richmond, Virginia wasn’t that far and John had no problem heading there first. Meredith didn’t want to go. She had no family, anyone to look for and to her it was a waste of time.

“Head north,” she said. “You two need to find your loved ones. We should, however, aim for Washington DC. I think we’ll find answers there.”

“In our nation’s Capital?” John asked.

“Yes, if anything happened here, such as a war, there would be a telltale sign.”

Grant asked. “Don’t you think that we should avoid big cities? I mean, I would think they’d be the most dangerous. In fact, traveling the highway is dangerous.”

“It’s a straight route,” John said.

“But we’re easily spotted. We have things, that if people are desperate. They’ll want.” Grant said.

“If there are people,” John commented. “We haven’t seen a soul. One would think we would have.”

“It all depends,” Meredith explained. “There are people out there. Just a whole lot less. We need to find them. And it all depends what region was hit hardest by the virus. If the southern states were hit the hardest then people moved north. They ran from it. The traffic outside of the cities and Huntsville told of a desperate situation.”

“There were cars,” Grant said. “No bodies. Where did they go?”

Meredith shrugged. “Where would you go? Back to their homes.”

“Or there.” John pointed ahead.

Beyond them, set off the road at an exit designed merely to fuel the tanks and stomachs of travelers. A huge camp had been set up that took up most of the road and parking lots. It was so large, there was no denying what it was even at a distance.

White tents lined up for as far as the eye could see. Big tents, square in shape with windows. Military trucks were parked sporadically. The exit ramp ahead was jammed packed with cars and there was no way to get down there with the buggy.

John slowed down. “Should we stop and see?”

“We’d have to walk,” Grant said. “You think this will be safe.”

John finally stopped the buggy. He looked left to right. “I don’t see anyone. I’d say yes. It’s safe.”

“Then I’d say stop.” Meredith said. “Someone down there took notes. There has to be something.”

Grant asked. “That looks like a medical station. Is that something we want to see?”

“No.” Meredith shook her head. “Absolutely not. But it is something we need to see.”

TWENTY-THREE - 6522 Red

Dust was limited. For a camp that stood for an unknown amount of time, surprisingly there was no dust. Of course, that was still at a distance, and Grant kept looking back to make sure that the buggy remained untouched. He was obsessed with it. Fearing someone was going to pop out and steal it.

John had parked it in the deep grass, trying to camouflage it, but the solar panels were a huge reflector and flashed specks of light every time the clouds parted.

They walked slowly, past the cars that were abandoned.

“We should check these,” John said. “If we find nothing there.”

“We’ll find something,” Meredith replied.

Grant wasn’t as cool and calm as the others projected. He kept peeking in the cars, hoping each time he did, that he wouldn’t see a body. He ran his hand over the one car. There was dust, but not a lot. Not years’ worth.

When they were in Huntsville and Redstone Arsenal, the dust was so thick, that every time the window blew it moved and hovered over things before settling again.

Maybe they were too out in the open for the dust to settle. Grant looked down. It wasn’t on the ground. Why wasn’t the pavement cracked?

He followed behind John and Meredith, she led the way as if she knew exactly where she was going. From the highway, down the exit, toward the setup. The cars stopped long before the camp. A line of military trucks blocked all traffic.

When they made it beyond the trucks, the camp was more in sight.

Meredith and John moved steadily and focused. Like them, Grant wanted answers, but he wanted those answers to be about his family. He wasn’t married, but he had a mother, father, siblings and a slew of nieces and nephews.

It was quiet. Too quiet. The four rows of tents lined the road and they made a flapping sound when the wind rustled by them. As they drew closer to the camp, finally, Grant saw black dust, it danced close to the ground, moving with the breeze.

Meredith stopped walking about fifty feet from the camp, just before the line of roadblock horses. Her hands were to her side as she peered to her right over her shoulder, then she pivoted, moved at a snail’s pace about ten feet and stared out.

“What’s going on?” Grant asked. “What do you see?”

Meredith didn’t answer, neither did John when he joined her. So Grant picked up the pace and closed the distance between them. “What is it?” He then looked.

It wasn’t in his line of sight. In fact, one had to be upon it to fully grasp the huge pit. A hundred feet long, and the depth was undeterminable. The black dust came from there. It hovered over top, almost as if the air served as a suction, bringing it up just a little, moving it around and letting it drop.

Every few seconds, the thick black dust would clear enough to expose the massive amount of bodies in the pit. All burned, most of them to ash… explaining the black dust that moved about.

“Do we need to do this?” Grant asked. “Can’t we just go? It’s a dead camp.”

“It’s an organized dead camp,” Meredith quipped. “Someone took names, notes, kept records, even if early on. Even if for distribution of medicine.”

“Where do we begin?” John asked. “I mean, there have to be a hundred tents on this road.”

Meredith pointed back toward the camp. “The first tent. It’s the only one without a flag.”

Grant thought, ‘Without a flag? What did she mean?” and when he squeezed by the first road block horse, he saw.

Plastic, thin triangles were attached to the outside of each tent. Just one on each tent. The type of triangle flags Grant would see at a carnival, and just like at a street fair or carnival, the flags were different colors.

Red. Yellow. Blue.

Each tent was marked in one of those colors.

Meredith walked in the first tent, was there a moment and she stepped back out. “This is definitely the main tent. No cots or beds here. Just tables and boxes. Let see what we can find. Grant? Why don’t you look around and see what you can surmise.”

“Me? Why me?” Before Grant got a response, John had slipped into the main tent with Meredith. He supposed that was their way of making him do something. He wasn’t really contributing. Other than when he helped organize supplies, he had nothing to add.

He knew nothing about viruses or post apocalyptic worlds.

The first tent to his right had a blue flag. He inched his way to it and as he reached for the flap, his foot caught something. He felt it under the sole of his shoe. He looked down to see a small stuffed toy.

Grant cringed. He closed his eyes tight as a sickening feeling hit his gut and his chest tightened. A stuffed toy meant a child.

It was a dead camp.

Suddenly he thought of his nieces and nephews, all of them young, all of them children. He bent down and lifted the toy. It was a bear, not much bigger than the palm of his hand and pink.

Trembling he reached for the flap of the tent and pushed it aside.

He was holding his breath and immediately exhaled when he looked inside. Cots were lined up orderly, some contained disturbed bedding, but all of the cots were empty. There was sense of relief when he saw that and confident, the entire camp was empty, he moved to the next tent.

Blue flag. Empty.

He crossed the row to the other side, and just as certain he’d see the same, he walked in.

Grant was wrong. Cots lined up like the other tents, IV poles were the bedside ornament, but the cots were not empty. Every single cot held a body.

It wasn’t like the movies. The skeletal remains weren’t just bones lost in clothing and covered by a blanket. Two steps in, he caught his first real look. The body of the person lay on their side, the blanket pulled up to the shoulder and the arm dangled outward. IV tubing hung by it. The head didn’t rest on a pillow. It was surrounded by a black stain, that formed a halo around it. In fact the same blackened stain was under the body, some on the edge of the blankets and on the floor under the arm. Was it blood? Grant didn’t know, he had seen enough, backed up and turned to hurriedly leave. As he did, he bumped into a cot and not only did he feel the physical pain, he felt it emotionally as well when he saw the small body. It was a girl, of that he was certain, she wore a pink night gown and a ribbon was by her head.

Grant’s heart broke.

An innocent victim of the entire establishment control mechanism.

It angered him. He wanted to scream, cry, released emotions. He felt horrible for the child. He grabbed the blanket to cover her completely. It was the least he could do. Was she alone? Did she die without anyone by her? When he looked down to lift the blanket, he received his answer.

Drooping from her wrist was a red band.

Red.

On it was the number 6522.

The poor child had no one around, no one to hold her hand. In the war to control the population, the little girl lost. She wasn’t a person, she was just a number.

Grant placed the tiny pink bear next to her head, covered her quickly and left the tent. He had seen enough and headed straight toward the main tent.

His mouth was dry from nerves and he hastily stepped inside the tent, John and Meredith were so engrossed in reading from thick stacks of papers, that they didn’t see him.

“How is this possible?” John questioned while reading. “This looks like this camp was set up in April after we were put in Stasis. Didn’t Harrison say it got out of control right away?”

“He said by November it was obviously out of control. Millions died by the day. But he didn’t say where. There are billions of people on this planet.”

“I understand that,” John said. “But the base was clearly shut down in November, the magazines…”

“Came from the PX. That could have been closed in November. Lots of explanations.”

Grant cleared his throat.

John glanced at him. “Grant. You all right?”

“Yes.” Grant paused. “No. No. I want to leave. Please can we leave?”

John faced Meredith. “Can we take this with us?”

“I don’t see why not. Let me look through to see what may be useful.”

“A lot of these are just names next to numbers,” John said as he looked.

“You don’t see number 6522, do you?”

John looked up from the papers. He gave a curious look to Grant. “That’s an odd question.”

“I need… I need to know her name. I don’t know why, I just need to.”

John peered around the stacks of papers. “This one starts at five thousand.” He flipped pages. “Ah, yes. Hmm. Douglass Oldowski. Not a she.”

“Then it’s wrong.” Grant said. “I know the number I saw. She was wearing a red band.”

“This says 6522 red.” John read. “Douglass, male, fifty-two years old.”

“There has to be a mistake.”

Meredith’s airy, “Dear God,” rang out.

Grant looked at her.

With a horrified look, Meredith raised her eyes. “It’s not a mistake. John, check the date on Mr. Oldowski’s admission.”

“April seven, the year after we were put in Stasis.”

“Then he would be long gone, burned or buried,” Meredith stated. “The name Grant is searching for is another 6522.”

John chuckled. “How do you know?”

“Because that…” She pointed to his stack of papers. “Is seven months after we went to stasis, right?”

“Right.”

“This…” She held up a stack of papers and dropped them. “Is five years after.”

TWENTY-FOUR – One Shot

The red flag on the weather worn mailbox was lifted and it tilted on the post. Even beaten by the elements, the names Brad and Cindy, painted on the mailbox were still readable. Only Brad’s name had a huge black ‘X’ over it.

The mailbox rested at the edge of a fenced in property, grass had grown well over the height of the fence, and the gate was barely held on by the hinges.

Malcolm and Amy followed the tire tracks and that lead them to the gate.

They paused there.

“Where do you suppose they go?” Amy asked. “I mean they use the road regularly, right? Or else it would have grown in.”

“There’s a whole world out here. Maybe they went for supplies, there are farms in this area. Maybe other survivors.”

“Let’s go look.”

Malcolm nodded and moved the buggy forward. They turned the bend and drove on a gravel roadway. Parts of it were overgrown, but it was clear someone had been driving on it. They turned another bend. Large trees greeted each other from both sides of the road creating a tunnel effect. When they emerged from it, they reached the home.

A truck was parked on the huge front lawn in front of an old one story home. The wooden siding was worn and the paint chipped away. It looked barren.

Malcolm stopped the buggy a good twenty feet from the truck. He didn’t turn off the engine. “It doesn’t feel right.”

“Someone is here,” Amy said. She opened the door and stepped out.

No sooner had she done that, the front door opened, the screen door slammed outward with a squeal and a woman, just as weathered as her home stepped out with a shotgun.

“I suggest you get back in that space vehicle and be off.” She aimed at them, then engaged the chamber. “Go.” Her voice was harsh, raspy. Her blonde hair was straw like and she wore a man’s shirt.

Amy raised her hands. “Ma’am, we are sorry for trespassing. We are. We don’t mean any harm, we just…”

Then the woman screamed. It was maddening and out of control. “Go! Get out. I said leave. Go!”

Malcolm moved for his door and the woman swung her aim his way. Knowing the buggy offered no protection without a roof, he sat back down, lifted his hands and whispered. “Amy, get back in.”

“You have three seconds,” the woman warned.

“Ma’am, we’re leaving.” Malcolm said, “Amy get in.”

Amy ignored Malcolm. “Ma’am. Cindy, right? That’s your name it’s on the mailbox.”

“One.” The woman counted.

“Amy, get in.”

“We’re sorry, we just need to ask…”

“Two.”

“Amy, Goddamn it. Get in.” Malcolm scolded, lifted some from his seat and reached out for her.

Amy swatted him. “This is ridiculous. We just…”

“Three.”

The woman fired.

A single shot rang out and echoed across the hollow and barren land.

It happened so fast, Malcolm barely registered it. The shot hit Amy somewhere on her right side. The force of the hit blasted her like a spinning top, around and backwards, slamming her into the side of the buggy with a ‘thunk’.

Malcolm let out a scream, shoved the buggy in gear and lunged forward to grab Amy as she slid downward.

“Should I count again!” The woman yelled and pumped the chamber once more.

“Let me get my friend!” Malcolm had a grip on her left arm, and without getting out, using all of his strength, he pulled her toward the buggy,

Amy was alive, and with rubbery legs stood enough to roll into the buggy’s passenger seat.

As soon as she was in, Malcolm tossed it in gear, backup, spun around and sped as fast as the cart would move. He kept driving, going from looking back to looking at Amy who had slumped forward nearly on his lap, her leg half out of the vehicle.

Down the gravel road, through the gate and onto the field, Malcolm didn’t stop until he was sure he wasn’t followed. Then he tossed the buggy in gear, bringing it to a jolting halt.

“Amy.” He breathed heavily and lifted her gently to sit back in her seat. When he did, he saw her entire chest was saturated with blood. Her right arm was completely gone and there was a gaping hole in her chest where her shoulder should be.

Amy’s face was completely drained of life, eyes wide open.

He whimpered, touching her face. “Amy. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Her lips moved, and her eyes rolled back. “Malcolm.” She said weakly. “For me. Find out what happened. My family. Please.” On her last words, her head slumped forward to his hand and Amy died.

He was at such a loss. One of the only people he knew, had left in the world, had died. In that empty field, he just wanted to break down. He was in complete shock. Malcolm trembled, not knowing what to do, where to turn. He turned off the power to the buggy. In danger still or not, truth was, his melting pot of emotions at that moment had beaten him, Malcolm couldn’t move.

TWENTY-FIVE – Linked In

Finally Jason started to talk. It took a good half hour into the trip before he said a word, and the conversation opened up with his history of carsickness.

Nora offered to pull over and let him drive if that would help. He declined.

“I’m good for now,” he said.

“All the way around?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, when we first woke up down below, you were positive and upbeat.”

“I was vague about everything, it was surreal. Once reality kicked in with my memory, it all hit me.”

“I understand.”

“And really, can we be positive and upbeat right now. This sucks, Nora. Sucks. We don’t know how long we were in stasis, it was at least a year. They didn’t tell our families we were alive. So they suffered believing we died. It’s a heavy load to carry.”

“There’s a reason that we are alive.”

“Yes, someone decided that we were prime specimens and needed to be saved for a rainy day.”

The corner of Nora’s mouth lifted in a smile. “That’s a really good analogy.”

“It works. How are you? Honestly?”

“Scared. I have a painful knot in my stomach that isn’t going away. We woke up to tragedy. We woke up to a different world. Only none our families may not be a part of it. Every time I think of it, I get sick. I’m inwardly obsessing about it. I am going over it in my mind, what I’ll do if I can’t find them. What next? Once I realized who I was, I realized I missed them and love them so much. But when I realized what had happened, I also realized I may never see them again.”

“I hear you. We weren’t there for what they went through. We were robbed of being there.”

Jason got ‘car sick’ and Nora had to pull over. He wasn’t sure if it was the ride, the heat or his emotions that caused him to get ill. Stopping the buggy just outside of Franklin Tennessee, didn’t make things any easier on him. At least emotionally, it was completely different than the highway or even Redstone Arsenal.

They both knew when they got back in the buggy, it was going to get more difficult by the mile.

The amount of foliage increased the further they drove north, until they could barely pass on the road. Vines and trees crept through the concrete highway, there was no distinguishable ‘side’ of the road, and it was as if the highway merged into a forest.

Nora stopped and stepped out of the buggy and peered ahead. “What did we miss?”

“Apparently, a lot.” Jason, too stepped from the buggy, only he spread out a map. “We’re five miles from Nashville.”

“Where is it?”

“Beyond the trees.”

“This isn’t right,” Nora said. “I mean, how can this be so overgrown and Redstone wasn’t.”

“I don’t know.” Jason grabbed a bottle of water, took a drink and stared at the map.

“We can’t drive through. We don’t know how thick this is or how deep this goes.”

“I say we give it a try. Go as far as we can, see what’s ahead.”

“Keep in mind, once the sun is blocked out, we have one hour of power or we’re gonna be stranded until the battery recharges.”

“I still say we chance it. Once the reserve light kicks on. We power down or turn around. Either way, I think we need to see.”

“Yeah, me, too.” Nora got back in the driver’s seat and waited for Jason.

They only made it a mile and three quarters before the reserve light kicked on and they powered down the buggy and decided to walk a little farther to see what was ahead.

Nora focused on her footing, more so to make sure they were still on the highway. The deep arms of nature that reached out across the road, lessened some as they moved further.

“Maybe we could have taken the buggy,” Nora said. “What do you think?”

“Possible but…” Jason picked up the pace, just a little and moved ahead.

“What is it?” Nora jogged to catch him. He had stopped and was slightly bent over pulling vines and tossing them to the side.

“Concrete barriers,” Jason said. “They go straight across the highway to the side of the road.”

“You think they’re on the other side?”

Jason shrugged.

Nora assessed. The median strip was apparently trees beforehand and now they were completely full. “We could go see.” She suggested.

“It all depends. I mean, why concrete roadblocks. To stop people from coming in or from leaving.”

“Both maybe.”

Jason climbed over the barrier, waited and held out his hand for Nora.

It was awkward for her, they were just a bit too high for her to comfortably step over. When she did, her foot caught and tangled in something. “Wait. Wait.”

“What’s wrong?”

“‘I’m stuck on something…” She stood balancing on one leg, the other leg was extended on top of the barrier.

“Hold on.” Jason grabbed her ankle.

“Is that a rope?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He pulled it loose, then drew it in, to see where it came from.

Nora brushed off. “What are you doing?”

“I just wanted to see where it went. They barricaded and roped this place off.”

“But where are the cars? Everywhere else had cars right up to the barricades.”

“This is bizarre.” Jason ran his hand over his head and turned clockwise. “What… no.”

The tone of his voice dropped.

“Jason?”

“No.” He took off running.

“Jason, what do you…?” Nora never finished asking. Because she knew what he saw, why he reacted. At just the right angle she caught a glimpse of it, but after running to catch up to Jason, she saw it fully.

“What the hell.” Jason slipped his fingers through and gripped the high link fence. It was thick, at least fifteen feet high with three feet of barbed wire on top and unlike the concrete barriers, it was easy to see that the fence extended to the left and right with no clear end in sight. Beyond it was a sea of cars buried in high grass and bushes. The cars extended as far as they eye could see.

“They put a fence around Nashville?”

Jason visually scaled the fence, and darted to his left. “It’s a gate.” He reached for it and pulled. “Stuck.” He kicked it. Vines and roots had grown around the edges making it impossible to move. When he stepped back he saw it.

A sign or at least it looked like one. It was attached to the fence a few feet above his head.

Ignoring Nora’s questioning, he climbed up and used his hand to clear the dust and dirt on the three-foot metal sign. It was at least two inches thick and he had to use his fingernails to pick it apart.

His legs ached and arm weakened from holding on, but he was diligent, especially after the first portion cleared exposing the word ‘Quarantine’

He lost his breath as the remainder of the words began to clear. Jason peered over his shoulder to Nora. She stood below, her hands on hips, watching him.

“This is where the first plane carrying the virus landed,” he said. “And the reason for the fence.”

“How do you know?”

The rest of the dirt fell, the sign was faded but clearly visible.

The words on the sign were bold.

“Warning. Quarantine Zone. Ground Zero.”

<><><><>

Greg’s impatience worked Meredith’s nerves to the point she just wanted to shake him, yell and blast him to “grow up, the world you knew is gone!” she refrained, and instead she ended up grabbing whatever she could when they left the highway medical camp. What she really needed was more time to decipher the papers, what they were, and dates on them.

She failed.

What she grabbed was useless. Names and numbers with dates that just stopped. It left her to wonder if those who worked the camps quit keeping track all together.

The world had fallen apart but didn’t do so with consistency.

Some areas looked like they were only a year post apocalypse, some looked like years and one area, appeared decades. But Meredith kept that opinion to herself. Grant grew more unhinged the farther they traveled.

They made good time and distance on the first journey and Meredith was grateful for stopping. They set up camp off the road in what looked like an old rest area. It was overgrown, like everything else. It was a break from driving. She needed that. The buggy wasn’t a smooth ride. It drove slow and daunting and offered no protection from the elements.

John was a good traveling companion. He spoke about his family, but Meredith noticed he did so in past tense. Almost as if subconsciously he accepted their fate.

Meredith was perhaps the most prepared mentally and emotionally. The only thing she had to lose was her reputation and job security. No family, no significant others, her circle of friends were limited to acquaintances because she traveled a lot.

The virus ravaged world just didn’t have the modern conveniences.

She could live with that.

Like Malcolm and Amy they had a lot of miles to cover. New York then Connecticut. She didn’t question why she went; after all, she could have stayed back or headed to the meeting place. Meredith was certain she wanted to know what happened to the world.

There were paper maps at Marshal Flight center and Meredith took one of the United States. It wasn’t for traveling, John had that. She used it for notes along with a spiral bound notebook she found.

She started marking the maps with her own, markings she called, “Phases of the Apocalypse’.

When Meredith was nine, the house next to her was tore down. It was nothing but a lot. That same year, in science, Meredith learned about the stages of nature. The ecosystem. She distinctively and always remembered her science teacher saying, “If you see an empty field, watch it. If it is untouched, in ten years there will be trees”

So Meredith noted the changes in the lot next to her house.

Of course, she lived up north, where the climate was different. Devastating winters delayed growth. Had she lived in the south, in the humidity, growth would be different. A real telltale sign for her would be to see Washington DC which was built on swampland. If it was void of humans for ten years, it would be completely green.

All those were factors into why she labeled an area what she did.

Redstone was a Phase One. It was under two years since people had been there. The Medical Camp was also a Phase One. Yet ten miles down the highway it looked like a phase two, vegetation had grown so much it, it could have been five years since a soul had stepped foot there.

Phase three was five to seven years. Phase four took it to ten and Phase five was more than ten years.

Meredith found a quiet spot to spread out her data. John had asked her to keep him informed, and she would. Once the light of day had diminished, she used the lantern to illuminate her reading. It was tough and she had to strain her eyes, but she took notes as she studied.

The medical camp was more than a camp, it was a make shift hospital. From what Meredith read, people traveled hundreds of miles to get there. To be cared for in tents in a barbaric way, tossed into a fire when they died.

She imagined family members just dropping off the ill. Meredith wanted to know the virus, the symptoms, and the time span. How long was a person ill? How ill did they get? Nothing like that was mentioned in the archives of papers she had.

Only, Red, Blue, Yellow.

The color of the flags.

When a person was marked ‘red’, they were without any uncertainty going to die. Yellow was an undetermined fate and blue meant it looked good. So, like the president originally said, the virus wasn’t supposed to kill everyone that got it.

Harrison stated millions died by the day, but at that rate, it would take years for a virus to wipe man into a point of extinction or at least such a minimal population that the world looked empty. And it did.

Where was everyone?

Where were the animals? The birds?

The world was void of life. In Meredith’s opinion it had been empty a lot longer than they could imagine or wanted to know.

<><><><>

Was it guilt that he felt? Malcolm was pretty certain it was sadness as well. He just didn’t know why he felt that way.

He didn’t know Amy all that well, yet he felt the sense of loss and guilt. He wished he knew the woman better. Although technically he had spent a few years with her. The thought of that actually made him smile on such a gloomy day. He likened it slightly to his first marriage, he spent a few years with her as well and never really got to know her before she left either. Perhaps that was why his oldest son, Trey, has such issues with Malcolm leaving for business trips all the time.

Not that Malcolm was gone all that long. It was only for a few days at a time. Sometimes at most a week. And he always made it up to the children when he returned home. But Trey always threw the guilt and anger at him. He hated when Malcolm left and made him pay for it emotionally. A therapist once told him it was Trey’s insecurities with abandonment. He was afraid that Malcolm would go away and would not come back.

Unfortunately, that was exactly what happened and for Trey, who was only 17 years old, it was a confirmation of his fears. Though almost an adult, he was still a child and it would mar him for the rest of his existence.

“Why don’t you just go away for good this time,” Trey told him.

Why was that the last thing he had to say to this father?

Jennifer, his wife, tried to calm him down.

“Malcolm, don’t worry about it. He’s a teenage boy. He will be fine. Take him somewhere when you get back,” she said

Malcolm let it bother him only a little. Then mentally planned a father son outing for when he got back. He finished packing, kissed and told Trey about the plan, despite not getting any response and left. The others were fine.

He had three sons altogether Sam and Jenner, eight and ten years old, were absolutely fine with him leaving. They would be kicked back with their feet propped up playing their video games, Their goodbye was a nod of acknowledgement, telling him to have a good trip, and they knew that they would get reimbursed in a fatherly way when Malcolm returned. Nearly everyone always told Malcolm that he should be happy he had sons. That boys were much easier to raise than girls. Those same people never had a child like Trey. He was always emotionally needy and moody. Malcolm related that to his mother’s leaving at such an early age. Jennifer, was the only mother he really ever knew.

Malcolm thought a lot about his family as he sat parked off the side of the road deep in the brush on his break for the evening. He thought a lot about Amy. And feelings of guilt resurfaced in him. He didn’t have time to bury her, he had to leave her where she was. He also felt bad because one of the last things she said to him was a request for him to find her family.

Please, find them, she said. And Malcolm was again, barraged with feelings of guilt. Not only did he leave her in that field, he took the route to Denver, his hometown, instead of Albuquerque.

His thought process was to find his family first. Perhaps if any of them were alive, he could get answers. If not, he would go to Amy’s home next. He wasn’t even sure where that was.

But going there first was not an option. Malcolm often placed everything before his family. Especially work and leaving for trips. But this time, he was making them his top priority.

Even if he never saw them again, for once and possibly the last time, they would come first.

NORA’S ENTRY

Day Two AR

Unintentionally bragging that we had the shorter journey inadvertently caused a chain reaction of bad Karma to come our way. Suddenly our route was no longer short. There was no way around Nashville. There was no end of the fence in sight and even if we could break through the overgrown wilderness, I was not quite so sure I wanted to see what happened to that city.

It was ground zero.

We learned that the virus was released in air ducts in planes.

The percentage of planes being affected depended on the population of each country.

I’m left to wonder how this happened.

If this was a government plan or some scientific group plan to decrease population, then why did the government step in and set up such an extensive quarantine area to stop the virus is spreading?

I suppose these were just questions on my mind, ones that I hope got answered

After backtracking a good distance, we found a road that veered far west, and could take it around into Kentucky.

Just as the buggy puttered out and it’s last little bit of energy we pulled off to the side of the road. We set up a nice camp in the open, but protected by nature’s foliage.

Jason’s mood got better. Almost as if seeing Nashville changed him. To him he received answers. They tried to stop the virus. He held a lot of hope.

I only pray that he’s not headed into a cascading world of disappointment and hurt.

He spoke a lot to me on the way to find a camping spot. And then he spoke about his wife Melissa for the first time. The woman he talked about seemed like a wonderful person, understanding, and a sweet beautiful perfect wife.

I was far from the perfect wife. I didn’t cook, I cleaned when I felt inspired or if we were having company. Just wasn’t my thing. But I was, however, a very good mother. My heart aches for my children. I miss them so much. I hope above all things that I can see them one more time. But there is this tiny spot inside my chest saying don’t count on it.

I started for the first time, feeling tired, I hadn’t felt tired in days. Although, I have been sleeping for years, at least I think.

I likened myself to Sigourney Weaver in the movie Alien. Waking up after a long time in stasis. Waking to a new world. Everyone I knew and loved, gone.

I hope I’m wrong. I did, however, learn something new.

Those protein bars weren’t actually protein bars. Those nifty foil packs that were sealed airtight. The ones that contained the square that looked like nothing more than the bark of a tree. They were actually meals. I guess I was flashing back to my days in the service. I was still baffled on how that was not something I recalled right away. Especially after seeing the foil wrapped food. I assumed what there was in the packs was what we ate.

Nothing fancy.

Nothing hidden, once I learned that, and read the package, I submerged it in a glass of water. The unappealing substance went from the brown rock to a gravy and vegetable stew. Not only did they taste better, they were much more filling.

I kind of thought they were tasty before. In fact, everything in those tightly air sealed packs were ‘submerge and go’ food. We stuck the contents in the water and suddenly they grew.

Sort of like the toys I used to buy the girls, little tiny figures you would stick in a glass of water and suddenly they were big. The water made them expand.

The warm food was a welcome relief. It helped at night. The temperature dropped drastically. That was to be expected. Even though I had grabbed the camping gear, I didn’t pull out the sleeping bag. More than likely it was my not wanting to roll it back up. Instead I opted for the thermal gear. The space age blanket, as thin as it was, did a nice job keeping me warm. For some reason I have a lot of apprehension about lighting a fire. We don’t know what’s out there. Even though we haven’t seen anyone, it doesn’t mean it’s safe. The light would travel for miles and only invite trouble. The small pen flashlight worked enough for me.

At night there isn’t much to do but, write in the journal and hope that the battery charges enough to keep us moving. The buggies were amazing vehicles. A few hours after the sun rises, we will be ready to roll.

I am filled with anxiety over the uncertainty.

Tomorrow is another day. Another day traveling, another day of wishing for a bright outcome.

TWENTY-FIVE – Trekking

John thought he was the first one awake. Then he saw he wasn’t. Grant was awake. He was staring out, sitting with knees bent, arms crossed over them. Just staring at nothing saying nothing. Meredith was still asleep. Out like a light. John supposed she had worked all evening and it showed. Using her backpack as a pillow while wound tightly in her sleeping roll, papers sprawled out everywhere around her head, held down by rocks to keep them from flapping and flying in the wind.

No matter how wrong, and inappropriately timed it was, John sort of found her adorable. Of course, John was womanizer. Meredith was the type of woman that he would have an affair with. Not a one night stand. Those were for floozies and young girls. For a long-term commitment outside his marriage, it was an intelligent woman he needed.

John was a piece of shit in his marriage. He wasn’t always that bad. In fact at one point in time he was a dutiful and wonderful husband. That was back in their humbling days of living in a trailer, while he taught first grade at the local Catholic school. His wife worked two jobs to make ends meet at times while carrying a child. Then John decided to write a novel and then another. His wife was supportive in his endeavors even with how much of an ass he turned into once he achieved success.

Along with the book tours, came the affairs, one right after another. John wasn’t a bad looking guy. Better looking in his youth that he was in his seasoned years. But he was a charmer with a perfect smile and a still handsome face.

His wife forgave him time after time. John supposed was because she knew she was going to get a ton of money if they ever divorced, or maybe she had it in her mind to kill him and make even more money.

It wasn’t that John didn’t love his wife. He did. Actually he adored her. She was a wonderful person. But as time grew the conversations were boring and she let herself go a little, and at times, intellectually stifled him.

As Nora told him upon their first meeting, he was a dick. John wouldn’t argue. His wife deserved much better than him. She deserved to be happy. John did nothing but give her misery.

Using the Coleman stove, John made some coffee. He’d let it percolate and when it was finished he would wake up Meredith. After she got her wits about her with a few ounces of caffeine then he’d question what she learned in her paperwork. After that, it was time to move on. With any luck they would be in Washington DC or on the outskirts by the end of the day

<><><><>

Revitalized. If there was a word that Nora could use to describe Jason it would be that word.

Revitalized.

Nora had no idea what time she went to bed. She only knew that the birds were chirping and the sun was starting to come up.

Birds.

It was the first time she heard any signs of life at all. The birds chirped, not many, and not like the summer or spring mornings she recalled sitting on her deck reading, being captured into a good book, drawn in by the words, then hearing the insane amount of chirping. That would always cause her to lift her head from her electronic reading device and see the sky had started to become light.

That was what she heard before she fell asleep. It wasn’t the birds that kept her up. Not the noise but the essence of life. She hadn’t seen an animal or bird at all. It was a sign that things may actually be brighter than she had imagined. Because in Nora’s mind, things were dim. She prepared herself for darkness. And the lights would be a welcome surprise.

How long had she been sleeping? She didn’t know, and she looked at her watch that had been placed in the stasis units with them. If she only knew what time she fell asleep she’d be able to gauge how long she slumbered.

She felt rested, and the time was after nine AM. That alone told her the battery was charged enough for them to get moving. Jason moved around at a high energy level. He fixed coffee, and made breakfast out of that yellow powder which turned out to be eggs.

“We have to watch our water,” said Jason

“I know. We don’t know what it’s like out there, or if there is fresh water anywhere to be found. Hey, at least we have the purifiers.”

“Yeah,” Jason said. “At least we have that.” He then snapped his finger as if he just remembered something. “You said you were in the service, right?”

“Right.”

“So I’m guessing you have mad survival skills.”

Nora laughed. “Hardly.”

“But don’t they teach you that stuff in the service?”

“Yes, they do. I have some. But not like you would think.”

“I thought you saw combat.” Jason said

“I did. I was a radio operator.” I said. “So I have some technical skills. I also am pretty smart to know that we shouldn’t drink the water unless we find it in a fresh well. Even then, we should run it through our purifier bottles.”

Following what normally was inane conversation, they ate their breakfast and packed up what little things they had set up as a camp. Things would look bright. The sun was shining pretty well, the weather was perfect and the slight breeze would keep it cool.

Within hours they would have the first of their answers. Because within hours… they would be at Jason’s home.

<><><><>

Malcolm lost a good hour and a half of travel. He figured that out because when they began their journey they were heading west. Amy’s family was the first stop. Now, since her passing, all that had changed.

He switched gears, and direction. He now headed north. And then he would head more westward when he neared where he had to be. He figured by the end of his day’s journey, he would be west of St. Louis and a little bit closer to home.

It was more gut instinct that told Malcolm it was a good thing they didn’t head north to begin with. That Nashville was a bust. It wasn’t just the closed highways that would head that way, but something more telling. The most ominous thing he saw was the green ‘miles to go’ sign. A simple guide for travelers became a source of sadness for Malcolm. On the green sign, in red paint, not only was ‘Nashville’ crossed out, but in droopy red spray paint across the top, were the words, “all dead there.”

Of all the signs on the road, all the city names he had seen, not once did another sign have a town crossed out.

He took the back roads, which added to his time. That was fine with him. After the run in with the crazy Cindy lady, Malcolm didn’t want to meet another person. In fact, he pulled out his revolver that had been packed for him, from the “just in case” supplies. He placed it next to him on the passenger seat. He wouldn’t hesitate to use it. It was loaded and ready to go. After that incident, he wasn’t giving anyone a chance to countdown his death.

His travels were filled with semi-clear roads, dusty roads, and nearly impossible to drive across roads. It was discouraging when he ran into those patches and had to hold his breath that the buggy would make it through. Just about two hours in his trip on the road, Malcolm felt a twinge of hunger in his stomach. He knew he should’ve eaten before he left. But he just wanted to move ahead. The faster he got ready and drove, the faster he would get home. He was making remarkable time and hated to stop. But his lower back was killing him and his knees ached from being cramped. He waited until he found a clear spot and then he pulled over into the brush.

Again he didn’t want to take a chance of being spotted or running into another crazy person. Obviously, if there was one, like Cindy, there were others.

He paused only briefly to eat quickly, walk off his aches, and then he got back into the buggy.

Another mile down the road he ran into a stoppage.

“Not again,” he said out loud

Another barrier. Workhorses painted yellow with some sort of faded signs were on them. It wasn’t the first time he ran into a road barrier, and it would not be the last.

As he had done every time before, he put the buggy in gear, stepped out and walked towards the barrier that ran across the road. It looked easier than the others. There weren’t many cars there. In fact he had to stop and remember where he was, what city was nearby, the road barriers tended to block off exits and sections before any towns.

He walked to the barrier. There were only two to move.

‘Those have been there while,’ he thought. He visually assessed them. They were overgrown and the weeds were entangled around them. He wasn’t thinking. It had become a habit. A new routine. It was close to the tenth time he had to stop.

Malcolm grabbed hold of the first horse then shoved it to the side and when he grabbed hold of the second one he felt the searing, burning, rip to the side of his forearm. He whipped back his hand, with a, “God damn it” and shake of his arm. Blood flowed from it, seething at the sliced.

Was it a nail? Maybe a shard of wood, he didn’t know. He couldn’t even see if there was a large splinter in his arm, the blood flowed so profusely.

It irritated him.

He returned to the buggy quickly, rinsed it with some water, and wrapped it in a cloth. He hurriedly went back to the road barriers and cleared them away. His arm was a secondary thought.

He didn’t need another obstacle, or another delay. He just wanted to keep moving.

TWENTY-SIX – Cold

Unlike Malcolm’s buggy, Nora and Jason had to heavily rely on the sun to keep their buggy going. Theirs didn’t have a dual battery system so they only had about four hours’ worth of driving power. That was, if they didn’t hit any heavy cloud coverage areas.

As it dribbled on the last of their power, dragging at a speed of twenty mph, they made it to the upscale neighborhood of Indian Hills, located just outside of Louisville, Kentucky.

They made it.

They pulled the buggy over to the side of the road carefully removing the battery, taking it with them so they could place it in the sunlight to recharge. Then they made their way on foot to the gated community.

Jason perked with excitement when he saw the gates closed, some of them vine covered, some bushes had grown up among it. But it wasn’t a lot of foliage. A large hand-painted, keep out, sign hung on the gate and there were signs that there was at one time an armed guard. A SUV was parked by the gate. It was black and expensive looking, a symbol of those who lived inside. The door to the SUV was open, the windows were broken, a rifle lay by it and everything was dusty.

“They tried to fend off the virus,” Jason said with enthusiasm. “They had guards.”

Nora only nodded. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to tell him that meant nothing. She didn’t want to squash his hopes.

The gate was a bust. They had to find another way in. Jason knew a back way. A wall did not encircle the entire property. On the outskirts of the community, all around it, was a forest planted by the developers to add a lush look and a natural privacy. It was better than a cold hard wall. On foot they made their way to the east side of the community. Jason told Nora they’d make their way up the Bowens Family backyard and to Main Street.

As if she knew who the Bowens were.

Nora couldn’t believe the homes.

They’re all the same, but different shades of white and brown. All of them modern all with long winding driveways. They must of each cost upwards of six figures, more than likely seven.

“There.” Jason pointed up the road. “That’s my home.” He stopped walking, put his hands on his knees, and bent over slightly, with his head cocked gazing outward.

“You okay?” Nora asked

“Just taking a moment.” Jason said. “I’m frightened.”

“You need to make yourself a promise right now.”

Jason stood upright. “What do you mean?”

“I mean… I mean you need to face the fact that everything just may not be alright.” Nora cringed when she said that, waiting for backlash.

“I am.”

“Are you?” Nora asked. “I don’t mean to sound cold, or callous, but I am getting prepared myself. You should, too.”

“Why would you think I’m not?”

“Not saying you aren’t prepared. I’m not saying that you aren’t ready. I’m just making sure, does it make sense?”

“No. It sounds pessimistic.”

“You’re right. You’re right.” Nora lifted her hands in a surrender move. She said no more. She didn’t say what she wanted to say. If she did, it would be to tell him, ‘Take a look around. Do you see anyone? Is anyone living here? Look at the grass.’

Didn’t Jason notice the grass?

It was high. Too high, four to five feet some areas and Nora was pretty certain those bushes weren’t planted by the owners of the home. They were new. They had grown in the world void of people.

Jason began his journey towards his house. At first he moved slowly, then as he rounded the bend of a cul-de-sac, he began a quicker jot. He sprinted straight up the jungle of a yard, to the front door. Nora caught up to him. She looked around. She assumed it was his home. The grass was very high. The windows were dark with dirt, the drapes were drawn. The front door was cracked from the weather and vines and weeds grew all around the archway.

Jason reached for the handle and turned it, it was locked. All it took was one good shove with his shoulder, and the door blasted open, cracking in several pieces. He turned around and looked at her over his shoulder with a smile. “I feel like the Hulk.” And then he went inside.

Nora was hesitant but she followed him in. The door led into a foyer and she stood there looking around. A wide staircase was in the center and extended upward to an open upper interior landing of the huge home.

“Melissa!” Jason yelled as he charged up the steps. “Melissa!”

If he were to find them, he had to do it on his own. Nora checked out the foyer. Boxes lined the hallway. Some marked as water, some marked as food. From where she stood she could hear Jason moving around upstairs and she could see the kitchen ahead of her. She walked in the direction of the kitchen, everything was so dusty. Just as she made it to the kitchen archway, she paused. There was a small table in the hall and on it was a picture of a beautiful woman with long hair, holding a little girl that looked to be about three. The little girl had to be Daisy. That’s what Jason said her name was.

As soon as Nora stepped into the kitchen she saw the medication on the counter, the empty pill bottles, the dishes.

The well preserved home was remarkably tidy, sans the dust and dirt that gathered through the years. But the kitchen was a mess. Totally disabled. Cabinets open. There was food in the cabinets, indicating it wasn’t looters. It reminded Nora of the time that her and Rick in the girls were sick with the stomach flu. How they just wandered around the house not caring if it messed up. Pepto-Bismol on the counter in the kitchen and it reminded Nora of that time.

Someone in the home was sick. She turned back around to head towards the living room. Jason came down the stairs.

“There are no bodies upstairs,” Jason said with a gasp of relief. “Thank God.”

Nora remained silent.

Jason walked into the living room and Nora followed. The furniture in there was covered with plastic, on the mantle were photographs and Jason want to the mantle. He stood before them with a puzzled look on his face.

“What is it?” Nora asked. She stepped closer to him

Jason ran his fingers over the photographs, clearing the dust from the frames to expose the faces. “Who is this man?”

As if Nora would possibly know, she took the photograph and looked at the man and a little girl. “Do you know the little girl?”

“No. I mean it could be Daisy, a little older.” Jason said. “But who is the man? Maybe she sold the house.”

Nora grabbed another dust cover photograph and cleared the film. It was a photograph of Jason. She handed it to him. “You’re in the right house.”

Jason took a third photo from the mantle, and cleared the dust. Nora didn’t need to hear the gasp when she saw the expression on his face. She peered over his shoulder to see the photograph. Jason wasn’t in it. It was a woman, Melissa, a toddler girl and the same man. They posed like a happy family with Easter baskets.

“This is good. This is very good.” He smiled at Nora. “She remarried.”

“Okay.” Nora was confused.

“No think about it. She remarried. This is Daisy. She’s about one year old. The virus was released three months after we were put in stasis. Which means she outlived the virus. They had an Easter. Which was the same time we were supposed to get out of stasis. Things were bright here in this neighborhood. Or at least in this area.”

Nora moistened her lips. Her mouth was dry. Jason had a point. The little girl had grown. If it indeed was Daisy, and Jason should know his own daughter, then they did beat the first wave of the virus. But where were they?

Yet, another question popped into Nora’s mind, if things were all that fine in Kentucky at least, why did they hit the reset button? Someone hadn’t told them the whole truth.

“They covered the furniture. They beat the virus. They went somewhere.” Jason said. “We just need to…”

His words trailed as his eyes widened. Nora drew a curious look. “Jason?”

“Oh my God.” He said airily and brushed by her, seemingly in shock. “Oh my God.”

Nora didn’t get to ask. She spun around to see him race from the living room through the dining room, and to the double French doors. He shoved on them until they opened and he raced outside to the yard.

From what she could see the yard was not that big, there was a pool. But the patio and what little yard there was, was completely overgrown except for… three small white crosses. Or they used to be white. The weather had worn them, causing most of the color to be gone, and the wood eroded. All of her breath escaped her. For a moment, a split moment, Nora had been drawn into optimism, and that was crushed when she went outside. As she arrived Jason had dropped to his knees and began to frantically pull the grass and the weeds that had grown around the white crosses.

“No.” Jason said sadly. “No.”

Quietly and softly Nora walked to him. She folded her arms to her body. Her voice was whispering, “Jason.”

He pounded his fist hard to the ground, shoulders bounced and then he looked over his shoulder at her with a devastating expression on his face. “They’re gone.” Jason indicated to the crosses. Each had a name deeply engraved on it. Three female names. Candy, Melissa and Daisy. “Whoever that man was, he is not in one of these graves,” Jason said with sadness. “He was the one that probably buried my family.”

<><><><>

They were useless. That was what Meredith told John and Grant as the reason that she left the documentation behind. Pages upon pages of names and numbers. None of them were from the area so the chances of their family being on that list were slim to none. Other than the color-coded flags and a few dates, the information was a waste of time.

John was glad to hear some information. That perhaps some people had survived. But it couldn’t be proven by him. The one thing he was certain of was, there was no way, no how, that they were making it to Washington DC by the end of the day.

Just as the sun began to set, and the vehicle cranked out the last of its power, John pulled over to the side of the road a mere twenty miles from Washington DC.

“This is bullshit,” Grant blasted. “I don’t understand why we’re going to Washington DC anyhow.”

John explained, “Because if we’re going to find any answers, if by chance your family is not around, then DC offers us an opportunity to learn something.”

“It was the nation’s capital.” Meredith said. “I know that sounds cheesy, but if anything happened as far as war, it happened there. If anything happened in the plan for trying to save the world, it happened there.”

John added, “Plus their records, and the Smithsonian Institute is there.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Grant asked.

“I don’t know about you, but I would like a little bit of history from when I was on this earth. When I lived my full life. If we are in the future, then we should secure some of the past. “John said.

“I agree,” said Meredith.

“There’s something wrong with both of you,” Grant complained, “I just want to get home. And it’s not a good idea to set up camp here.”

John tossed out his hands. “What do you expect us to do? Where do you expect this to go? The buggy is done for today.”

“Then, as long as it’s still light out, we should walk to a safer location spend the night.” Suggested Grant. “Maybe even hide the buggy if we can.”

“Are you nuts?” John left already Joe. “Hide the buggy? Walk to a safer location?”

Grant nodded. “Yeah, look around, something is not right.”

Again, John laughed. Almost scoffing.

“John,” Meredith called his name softly. “He’s right.”

“You too?”

“Seriously, John,” Meredith said. “Take a look around.”

Up went John’s hands and they fell against his thighs with a slap. “I’m looking.”

“What do you see?” Meredith asked.

“Nothing,” answered John. “What am I missing?”

Grant spoke up, “what don’t you see? It’s something we saw everywhere.”

Meredith answered. “John, life. There’s no life.”

John chuckled. “No shit. The virus wiped out the world. We’re pretty much extinct.”

“No.” Meredith said softly. “Human beings aren’t the only life. Again, look around, where is the life?”

John was at his wits end. He thought they had gone mad. Was he missing something? Apparently he was and when he looked around ready to ridicule them once more. He saw they were right. There was no life. Life, meaning trees, grass, even weeds. It was something so visually commonplace that John grew used to it. But right there outside of Washington DC, there was nothing. For the first time in the journey. Anything green with life that surrounded them up to that point, was no longer there. The grass the trees, everything… Was dead

<><><><>

It was by far the weirdest dream that Malcolm could ever recall having. It was a conglomeration of old and new. In it he had taken his sons, Sam, Daniel, and Trey skiing for the weekend. None of them were very good and most of their weekend was spent playing in the snow and hanging out by the fire. The dream started out as more of a memory. It was of the latest trip they had taken the mountains to ski. Jennifer his wife was having “female” problems. And Malcolm, being very courteous and the sensitive husband that he was, decided it was best for him to leave the house. He took the boys and gave her the weekend off. They had a blast that weekend. Trey barely fought with him at all. The only time that Trey did fight with him was to give more money to play video games in the lobby, because Malcolm refused to bring the video game console. That was the dream. Eating barbecue wings and ribs by the fire, still damp from playing in the snow.

Then the dream turned from reality and memory to nightmare. The window in the cabin crashed open, bringing in blowing snow at the same time the rerun of Full House turned into the emergency broadcasting system.

This is an emergency, the announcer stated, the dead are rising.

How ridiculous, Malcolm thought in the dream. The dead don’t rise.

He remembered in the dream, looking over to his youngest son, Sam. He was really little. He sat on the floor legs crossed Indian style, with the saddest eyes looking up the Malcolm,

“Don’t let the monsters get me, Daddy.” Sam cried. “Please, Daddy.”

“No, Sam,” Malcolm told his son. “There are no such thing as monsters.”

“Dad,” Trey said sternly. “There are monsters. They’re out there.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Malcolm argued. “You’re scaring your brother.”

“Why don’t you ever believe me?”

“Why must everything be a fight with you?” Malcolm yelled.

Then, Daniel screamed. With that, the walls collapsed in a barrage of walking, rotting, dead cascaded into the room, arms extended hungrily.

Trey yelled out, “See? I was right.”

They were being invaded by carnivorous creatures and all Trey could do was make his point. Focused on Trey, he noticed that Daniel stopped screaming. Malcolm turned only to see the corpses tear his son apart. The young child was lifeless, his limbs and insides dangled from his body.

Sam kept crying out, “Daddy! Daddy!” But Malcolm couldn’t see him or find him.

“Where are you?” Malcolm asked. “Sam, answer me.”

Malcolm tried to move in dream, but it was difficult, the zombies grabbed for him, reaching for his arms and head.

“Dad! This way!” Trey called out.

“Your brother. Your brother. I have to help your brother.” Malcolm said, his heart raced and it felt so real.

“Dad.” Trey’s voice faded, it was further away.

What to do? Where to go? Malcolm desperately searched for Sam, but couldn’t find him. He cried in that dream, his heart aching and screaming out for Daniel who was torn apart.

After feeling a rush of cool breeze, Malcolm saw the door to the cabin was open. Trey must have run out there, he thought. And then Malcolm, too, with no choice raced out that door.

He could see his son in the distance. The snow came up to Trey’s midsection. Yet the teenager kept trying to run. He kept waving his arm to Malcolm to hurry up. The snow was hindering Malcolm. He tried lifting his legs high, trying to move in that snow. He got cold, very cold. The snow pelted him in the face and his body froze, and shivered. He couldn’t believe how cold it was, and as he tried to take another step, he felt the pain in his arm and he looked to see one of the walking dead gnawing on his flesh.

“No!” Malcolm screamed out. “No!” He pulled his arm away and when he did, Malcolm sat up, waking from the dream.

How much of that dream was part subconscious, and reality? He was cold. Freezing cold. In fact, his body trembled out-of-control with the shivers. What was wrong with him? His head pounded and ached. The bite he received in the dream still hurt him. Why? Then Malcolm remembered the injury. The one he received while removing the barricade. He looked at his arm. It felt as if it were swollen twice its size, and the flesh was hot to touch. The slice that would have needed stitches in the old world, was seeping. The bandage was damp. It was too dark to see. Malcolm knew by the feel of his arm, how cold he felt, he was feverish. He had an infection. He should’ve taken the time to fix that arm and clean it, but he didn’t. He had other things on his mind. Malcolm hardly thought about anything of the world. It really wasn’t that bad. Infection never crossed his mind. As he wrestled with the sleeping roll to try to warm up, Malcolm also thought of one other thing that it could possibly be.

The virus. What if it were still in the air? What if it was still viable out there? So much went through his mind, he couldn’t process it, but one thing was for sure infection or virus, Malcolm was without a doubt, very sick.

NORA’S ENTRY

Day Three AR

Time.

In my life I always thought how valuable time was. I always needed time for this, for that, never did I realize that at one point in my life, time would not be an issue. That I would be afforded so much of it that I couldn’t process it. That was how I felt. When Jason asked for more time to stay home before we moved on, I couldn’t argue. I was always asking for more time. He was devastated. All we could tell was that his family died. There was an extra grave, a female. In my mind, Melissa had another baby. We searched the entire house. At least I did. I was looking for clues and answers to who this man was. It was obviously Melissa’s new husband.

They were newly married when the virus broke out. In fact, from what I saw. Melissa wasted no time getting married after Jason’s supposed death.

Maybe they rushed to the altar because in the thick of things, this virus was ravaging the world. Maybe they thought, hey, let’s make the best of what we have left in this life.

Her getting remarried did not seem to bother Jason much at all. I found that very chivalrous. Because I myself would be not only devastated, I’d be pissed if Rick remarried that fast after my passing. Jason was more forgiving. He held high hopes, but I actually began to think that he started to relinquish those hopes to reality the closer we drew to his home. Grasping at life’s last little straws when he saw his neighborhood.

While I searched his home, Jason sat by the little graves, clearing them and making them perfect. I suppose he talked to his wife and his daughter. Conveying his love. I know he prayed. Because he told me when he came in, that God was watching over them now. They were in a better place. Then he asked if I found anything. In addition to the marriage certificate and lots of memories that they created pretty quickly, I did. I told him we could talk when his head was clear.

From what I pieced together this new man in their lives took care of Melissa and Daisy up until the last moment.

But where was he?

How did he survive? I would have enough time to look for those answers. Again… Time. Jason didn’t want to leave first thing in the morning, but conveyed that he would if that was what I wanted. He wanted to stay back, find some photographs, and whatever else he could take with him.

I was fine with that. We could stay a day or two, even a week. After seeing Jason’s home, our little three bedroom house in Cleveland, was probably not where I would find my family, even if they were somehow miraculously alive.

Oddly enough, I was starting to think, those who survived the horrendous event, were really somewhere out there. All together and we just had to find them.

TWENTY-SEVEN – Stunted

The bloodcurdling scream caused John to snap out of his sleep. It wasn’t one of those subconscious sounds, or an animal, it was a scream. A human scream. It was real. It was Meredith.

Immediately he was consumed with panic. What was going on? He jumped up. Where was she? When they all went to sleep, they were in a small circle not far from the buggy, and now John was alone. No Grant. And Meredith screamed in the distance.

He took a moment to assess. He needed a weapon. If there was trouble he needed something to defend himself and her. Damn it, he thought, why didn’t he break out the gun? He knew why. His arrogant and confident self didn’t think there was a soul left to bother them

Grant had an insight. He felt it. He knew there was trouble. And not just from the fact that there was no brush for nature’s camouflage. The only thing that John could grab was a stick. It wasn’t big. It was dry and brittle, rendering it useless. John couldn’t waste any more time, he followed Meredith screams.

Racing toward them, he heard something else. Laughter. Not only male but female laughter. Hooting and hollering and whooping it up as if at some sort of party. To John it was the quintessential post apocalyptic game. Ravaging the world. A scenario he labeled complete and utter fiction bullshit. Nothing like that would ever happen. He had more faith in mankind. He was wrong.

Right then and there, in front of him, on the old highway, was every bad apocalypse movie playing out. It was game. From what he could see, six men encircled Meredith.

Two women were off to the side

She crawled on her hands and knees, trying to get away. Her clothes were tattered and torn from her. They kicked and pulled at her and another man grabbed her. It was well rehearsed event to them. Throwing her to the ground, laughing. One would yank her back, another would hold her, while the third mounted her. The invasion to her body caused her to cry out.

It wasn’t happening.

Grant had conveyed his fear about everything John witnessed before him.

Where was Grant?

Did he run?

Everything moved in slow motion. John’s heart pounded in his chest and he drew in the courage he needed to help.

Alone he was useless. Knowing that each second was too much and too long, John backtracked, and ran back to the buggy. The only real way to help was to get the gun.

Their vehicle wasn’t too far from where they camped out. Down off the side of the road, where they always hid the buggy when they stopped. John was certain it was still there, there was no way those people would even begin to know how to drive it, and if they did, they couldn’t do it. Grant in his neurotic state hid the battery.

He made it to the buggy and as he expected it had been ransacked. The book bags that they had left behind were empty; there were no contents to be found. He supposed they did not know what the purifier bottles were, because they were off to the side. They obviously didn’t search under the seats either. John knew that was where Grant hid the gun. He lifted up the back seat to expose the hidden compartment with the extra supplies. His hands trembled as he hurriedly grabbed the pistol and clips. After shoving one clip in the back pocket of his pants, with a trembling hand he loaded another into the handgun. As he did so, he was grateful that Grant was as scared of problems as he was. Or else, if left up to John, all the items would have been taken. Weapon loaded John raced back on the highway.

Meredith wasn’t moving at least not from what John could see. His heart pounded even more, inside he screamed, “No!”

He was a good shot. Always had been. From the time he was a boy until the time he disappeared from the face of the earth, John could fire a weapon. He had 10 good shots in that clip and another load. But he had to be fast. He moved closer to get a good aim. It was dark and the human beings gone wild, didn’t even carry any flashlight, or fire.

They probably were adjusted to the dark.

Who to hit first was the question in John’s mind. He aimed at the three men having their way with the motionless Meredith. It was a semi-automatic handgun, chamber engaged, John took aim as best as he could in the darkness lit only by the moon.

Three consecutive shots were dead on, taking out two of the assailants, and the third was hit in the shoulder. At that point John had to hurry and shoot the others. He took down the two females off the side.

Three more to go and they started to scurry around. They weren’t an easy target now and John had to move closer to where Meredith was to get a good shot. Weapon in hand, he raged forward ready to fire, ready to take charge. He had counted eight people. Six men, two women.

He didn’t see the ninth. He never saw the ninth.

As he raced in, directly center of them, he hovered above Meredith, in a protective stance. One hand on Meredith, he extended his arm in an aim. Finger on the trigger, ready to depress, John only got to fire one shot.

He felt the excruciating slamming pain to the back of his shoulders and John, with the force of the hit, went down, landing on Meredith. Beneath him he could feel her breathing. She was still alive. The blood from her chest seeped through onto his shirt. He cocked his head, reached out his hand for the gun and when he did, he saw Grant. The young man was off to the side; his bloody and motionless body was curled in an unnatural position, as if a rag doll just tossed aside. That brief second of looking at Grant afforded his assailants the chance to take control again. Just as his fingers grazed the gun, a bare foot slammed down on his hand and his legs were grabbed. Suddenly, he was yanked backwards, and John was literally dragged from Meredith.

He was pulled with such of force, his chin and arms ground against the pavement. He could feel the skin scraping from him.

How far did they pull him? It seemed like a mile, but it wasn’t, Meredith was still in his peripheral vision. John was maybe twenty feet away from her when the three of them stood above him.

When they grabbed him and flipped him over, John’s head collided hard with the ground.

Immediately everything faded, his vision blurred and filled with specks of light until John’s eyes rolled to the back of his head and he passed out.

TWENTY-EIGHT – Healing

DAY FOUR AR

There were a lot of things in the medical bag that Malcolm found useful. Problem was, he should have used them earlier. When he woke in the morning, an hour later than he wanted to, his arm was swollen, and it was beet red. He opened the bag found the ibuprofen and took not just one, but downed a handful and washed them back with a pint of bourbon. He took the antibiotic ointment and lathered the wound then rewrapped it. After that he took some antibiotics. Malcolm held on with weakened confidence that it wasn’t that bad, his life depended on it.

He wanted to rest. He was tired. His head pounded like he never experienced, he knew he was still fevered because felt cold. Shivering constantly, everything was a blur, and he just couldn’t focus clearly on anything. His mind, though not as sharp as he wanted it to be, wallowed in how badly he felt. But more than that, more than being sick, getting home was on Malcolm’s mind. And he would do it. Even if it was the last thing he ever did. He would get home or die trying to get there.

<><><><>

A natural well fed the water fountain in the center of the gated community’s park. It no longer flowed upwards, in fact, the pool of the fountain was thick and filled with algae and swarming life forms that resembled snakes. The water fountain pump did work. It took Nora about thirty minutes of work to get enough water to fill one third of a bucket. She boiled it and ran it through the purifier bottle, saving a little to wash dishes.

It had been a while since she ate off a dish, nearly ten days since her awakening. She fixed a meal for her and Jason, opened a bottle of wine she found in the house, and they ate a simple meal on the patio. Nora placed some of the items she found in the house on the table.

“You did a nice job,” Nora sat back, referring to the small section Jason cleared in the yard.

“I loved this yard. It’s just so weird, not long ago I was swimming in the pool. Sitting here like this, the world… was normal. It’s shell shock.”

“I hear you.”

“So.” He placed down his glass. “Aside from finely aged wine, what do you have?”

“I found a blast from the past.”

“Nora, everything is a blast from the past.”

“True.” She set a plastic CD case on the table. “How’s that?”

Jason laughed. He lifted the CD. His picture was on the front with three other young men. They all wore the same clothing, and they were young. Possibly teenagers. “Okay, you win. Blast from the past. It was a Christian Boy Band.”

“How’d that work out for you?”

“Ever hear of Trinity?”

“Nope.”

“Then that answers your question,” Jason said.

“So you sing well.”

“I like to think so,” Jason said. “I won a Dove.”

“That’s awesome.”

“And you’re stalling. What else did you find?”

“Some things that didn’t make sense,” Nora picked through her pile. “This certification states that they were inoculated against the virus on November 12.”

Jason folded his hands and nodded.

“Here’s what I don’t get. We have Harrison saying he flipped the reset switch in December. We have the PX shut down in November. Base itself, a little later. Nashville, completely, one hundred percent closed down, and it looks like a jungle. Here not so much. And that picture. The baby is like a year? It’s Easter. They had baskets. The reset button was hit months before that. Yet, they’re all dressed up and happy.”

“I have a theory.”

“Oh, I’ll call you Meredith,” Nora joked.

Jason smiled and lifted a finger as he stood. He came back with a foil pack and opened it.

“What are you doing?”

He dumped the small tan square on the table. “Let’s say this is Nashville.” He pulled his glass closer. “This is Louisville. That plate… Cleveland.” He raised his fist. “Nashville infected.” He slammed down his hand and pieces went everywhere.

“I’m lost.”

“The virus spread out from Nashville. It bled from there. Some places sooner, some places later. Some not at all.”

“Maybe we just need to find where the crumbs didn’t go.”

“This isn’t scientific. This is a visual aid to accompany my theory.”

“What if I’m right?” Nora asked. “What if the virus crumbs never hit somewhere. What if we are just in a dead zone?”

“Then we’ll know when we leave. Which, by the way, thank you. Thank you for staying an extra day or two.”

Nora sipped her wine and shook her head. “I have a strong feeling my family isn’t there.”

“You should have faith, Nora.”

“I do. But… that still doesn’t mean they are there. A lot of time has passed. More than we realize.”

“How do you figure?”

“Well, the baby’s picture, the one on the hall table. She looks to be about three. So that’s at least three years. I was the breadwinner in my family. My husband wouldn’t be able to afford that house. He moved.”

“We should still check.”

“We will.” Nora said. “Now back to the crumbs…”

“No. You’re stalling. What else do you have?”

“We were talking about the crumbs.”

“The virus talk and theories can wait. What did you find?”

“They were living here long after the grid went down,” Nora said. “Ashes in the fireplace. The partial woodpile, they used it to heat. There were homemade oil lanterns all over the place. And I got the bucket from the laundry room, that’s why I asked about the well. It was one of many.”

Jason nodded. “What else? I know you found the marriage license.”

“I did. His name was Eugene Robert Roy.”

Jason squinted his face, pursed his lips and started to shake his head. “Why does that name… oh man. Robbie Roy. He was the head producer out of Memphis for my music.”

“How did you not recognize him?”

“I never met him face to face. Melissa was the one who handled that end.”

Nora bit her lip.

“What?”

“Well… they were married on December 20.”

“What year?”

Nora’s reply was only a glance.

“Wait. Wait. The same year they told her I died?” Jason’s voice cracked. “How is that possible? How did she meet him, decide she was in love and get married so fast after she heard of my death. When did she mourn me? Unless…”

Nora nodded. “Keep going. You’ll get there.”

“No. No way. Not Melissa. She was a good Christian woman.”

Nora held up three fingers.

“What’s that?”

“Three months. Three months from death to I do. Just sayin’.”

Jason groaned. “This is still fresh for me. It’s only been two weeks since I saw them.”

“A barren world puts mental processing on fast forward. Maybe not the emotions so much. Wanna talk about it?”

“No.” Jason stood.

“Where are you going? You’re not gonna waste any more food are you?’

“No, I’m getting our map. I want to talk about the virus theories again.”

He slipped away from the patio and into the house.

There were other items Nora found, but she would save them for another day, another evening when they needed things to talk about. For the moment, she gathered the crumbs to make room for the map. Even if it wasn’t ‘scientific’, Jason’s smash and spread virus demonstration made sense, and Nora was curious to look at the map as a whole.

TWENTY-NINE – SURPRISE

DAY FIVE AR

A flicker of light caused John to immediately wake up and open his eyes. He shut them when he felt the pain. It was all encompassing. There wasn’t a spot on his body that didn’t hurt.

Emotionally he was crushed. Even thinking about Meredith and Grant caused a physical pain in his chest.

It had to be morning. Although he couldn’t feel the heat of the sun, he knew he had to still be on that road. His mouth was dry. His arm and legs burned, the slightest movement caused a pain to shoot up his back and through his abdomen. He probably had been knifed.

His friends were gone, his supplies diminished. For all he knew, John believed he was probably fatally injured and would die at any moment. Gutted and left to die on a highway.

Why didn’t they finish him off?

He didn’t have any strength, none at all, he was completely drained. But did he want to lay there, rotting in the sun, a carnivore feast for the animals to enjoy?

No. John decided, sick or not, in pain or not, he was going to try to move. He wanted to try to get up and wander off to die with dignity. Just like his dog did years before.

John moved his fingers to grip the ground.

He paused in shock.

He groaned out a ‘huh’ in confusion and opened his eyes.

It was bright, but not daylight bright. Where was he? He turned his head to the right. A burning shot up his neck. When he did, he not only saw an open window, he saw Meredith.

She rushed over to him.

“Oh my God. You’re awake. I didn’t think you’d ever wake up.”

His eyesight was blurry, but he could clearly see Meredith. Her face was swollen and bruised, her left eye complete shut. Her lips twice their normal size and crusted over with fresh scabs.

John was immediately overcome with emotions. At first he couldn’t speak. He huffed out breaths and his eyes welled with tears. “You… you’re alive.”

Meredith grabbed his hand and moved closer. “So are you. You had me worried. You’ve been out an entire day.”

“Where… Where…”

Meredith turned her head and shouted. “Rusty. Come quick. He’s awake.”

It took John aback. ‘Rusty?’ he thought, and then against his will, he passed out again.

<><><><>

Home.

How many times did he have to stop on the side of the road to vomit? How many times did Malcolm black out on the drive? Passing a sign that said it was three hundred miles to Denver, and then in the next second, it was only two hundred. He had ingested nearly every ibuprofen, every antibiotic pill and used the entire tube of ointment.

He wasn’t any better, in fact, Malcolm knew he was worse. The only thing that kept him going was the fact that the farther north he drove the less overgrown everything was.

Nature hadn’t claimed that area, which meant to Malcolm that people had lived there longer. Of course it could have been a hallucination. He had plenty of those.

The best one he had was the old Spanish man with the straw hat, parked on the side of the road with a camper. Malcolm even slowed down for that one so he could read the hallucinatory sign that the man held.

‘Last stop for corn fuel before Salvation.’

He figured that sign was his sign he was dying soon.

After waving to the man, Malcolm picked up speed again. He was close to home.

His house was on a large lot of land. Malcolm had purchased it not long before the explosion in New York. It was a private home, with a road that was gated. It was once a government testing site for new aircraft, and Malcolm snatched it up for a steal and built his own home right on the land.

The gate was closed and surprisingly not overgrown. He paused the buggy to open it, pulled through, closed it again and drove up the driveway.

When he reached the top of the small grade, something wasn’t right. Was he hallucinating again?

The entire yard around his house had been made into some sort of farm. It wasn’t overgrown at all. The fields of green were organized and there was a new barn erected off in the distance.

Either he was imagining it or someone had purchased his home after they told his wife he had died.

The house was in remarkable shape. Clean and not worn. When he saw it, he knew, he had slipped from lucidity into his own world, because his home was nothing like he had seen.

Even the city of Denver was barren and in some places burnt.

Not his home and not his property. They were blessed and unscathed. Malcolm stopped the buggy and with wobbling legs stepped out.

Immediately, he cried and dropped to his knees.

He made it.

After taking an emotional moment, he stammered to a stand, walked up the three steps to the porch and opened the screen door.

He expected his wife to run to him. After all, he was in a dream.

The inside of the house, though clean, was different. There was very little furniture and it had a burning smell to it. He walked through the ranch home’s entry hall and into the family room.

The old green couch was still there. That and a sofa table were the only furnishings. Pictures in frames spread out on the table.

Malcolm took a single step toward them.

“Can I help you?” The male voice called out.

“I’m sorry,” Malcolm said weakly and turned around.

A man stood there. He wore a tee shirt and jeans, was sweaty and had a glaze of dirt on him as if he had been outside working. His hair was thick and wavy. He was older than Malcolm, maybe pushing fifty. He held a bat, almost as if he was prepared to use it as a weapon against the intruder.

“I didn’t mean to intrude,” Malcolm said. “I used to live here and…”

“Oh my God,” he dropped the bat and ran to Malcolm. “Dad.”

THIRTY – Answers

Jason didn’t need the time he claimed he did. In fact as soon as the battery showed enough charge, they left and headed to Cleveland.

They talked about returning to his home. It was a good option to settle. It was already prepared for a non-electrical world and it did have the well water.

Cleveland was closed. Just the same as nearly every city they passed. Borders set up, barricades keeping people out and in. While it wasn’t fenced in, Cleveland resembled Nashville. A city submerged in a new forest. The big difference was there weren’t any cars. No sea of traffic at the city’s exit ramps.

To Nora, it looked abandoned.

One thing was for sure, they couldn’t drive through. Nora took them, as close as she could to her home, and after hiding the buggy, they walked.

It was hard to find a point of direction, a recognizable landmark to follow. The moisture and humidity from the lake caused everything to be covered in moss.

After making it to her neighborhood, Nora was able to gauge where to go. Some of the small buildings and shops had crumbled. Some had trees that had taken over and grown straight through them.

She found it hard to breathe. Even though Nora convinced herself that she wouldn’t find her family, it still crushed her when she arrived at her home.

It, like the others, looked like an old shed abandoned in the woods. The roof had partially collapsed, the windows broken.

Her shoulders dropped and she looked at Jason. “Told you they wouldn’t be home.”

“We need to go inside,” he said. “We need to see.”

“They aren’t there.”

“Maybe there’s a clue. Nora, we have to. You have to.”

She wanted to say, ‘No, I have seen enough.’ But she didn’t. She took a few steps toward the house and stopped. “Can you go in first? I don’t want to see remains.”

“Absolutely.” Jason grabbed his flashlight. Even though it was day, the wooded area was dim as he walked to the house.

He couldn’t get the door open and he climbed through the first floor window. After a few moments, he emerged from the side. “Come around back. It’s fine.”

Nora thought there was no way it was fine. What possibly could remain at the house?

Apprehensively and with some fear, she went inside. As soon as she stepped through the side door, she knew, her husband hadn’t sold the home; in fact, the house was empty not long after she had presumably died.

The furniture was the same. Every piece was moss covered. The light green substance grew on the walls and every surface. Going upstairs wasn’t an option, it just wasn’t safe with the roof collapsing.

When she walked into the living room, a mouse scurried across the floor and ran into the couch which was full of holes.

“If I knew you were coming, I would have cleaned up,” she joked halfheartedly.

Jason gave her a closed mouth smile. “Where did you keep things? Pictures? Papers? Anything that could possibly tell us what happened to your family.”

“In the kitchen, the junk drawer. Upstairs in my room. The pictures…” She looked around. “The pictures are gone.”

“Are you sure?” Jason asked.

“Yeah. The girls’ school pictures and our family picture on the wall. Gone.” Nora turned left to right. “Maybe he sold the house. Maybe he just left the furniture and sold it.”

“You check here, I’ll go in the kitchen.”

Nora nodded. After Jason walked out, she examined the living room. It was surreal. Two weeks ago, in her mind, she was complaining that no one ever vacuumed and now the carpet was a pool of slime. The television was the same, the drapes the same. The two books she never finished reading were on the shelf.

“Nora,” Jason called from the kitchen. “Come here.”

She walked across her small first floor and into the kitchen. Jason held an envelope in one hand. It was moldy. In another, he held up paper, two sheets stapled together. “Rick was your husband’s name. Who was Catalina?”

Breathy, Nora answered and rushed to him. “My youngest. Why?”

He handed her the papers. “I found this on the table under the centerpiece. There are no contents in there other than this. Read it.”

Nora did. “Dear Mr. Lane. We are pleased to inform you that you and your daughter tested positive for the immunity factor to MES5. Enclosed please find a copy of your application and your admittance papers for Salvation. Please bring the certificate of approval along with proper identification on the date the facility opens.”

“Salvation? That must be the place you theorized about. You said it. You said they put everyone together. Nora, this means your family is alive. We need to find this Salvation. Is there a location?”

“Yeah, it’s right…” Nora flipped the page. She closed her eyes.

“What is it?”

“Lilly died. The application has her and I both as deceased.”

“Any dates.”

“Lilly died six months after I went into stasis. Wait this can’t be right.” She flipped back and forth.

“What is it?”

“The facility open date.” Nora looked at him. “It’s fifteen years after we went into stasis. Jesus, Jason how long were we out?”

<><><><>

Rusty had a full head of hair and a beard to match, and not a strand of it wasn’t gray. He more than likely was pushing seventy, but it was hard to tell. He could have aged badly, after all, it was a harsh world. He didn’t look like a man who was starving either. A healthy built man with a few extra pounds. In fact, John worried that he was slated to be Rusty’s next meal. How was he not starving in a post apocalyptic world?

“You looked pretty pathetic on the side of the road,” Rusty said, helping John sit up in bed. “Like road kill. I thought you were dead until the woman called out for help. Both of you were in bad shape. My son and I loaded you in the cart and brought you back here. She woke up before you. At least you ain’t stupid. That bleeding head, you could have been rendered stupid. Then again, you were in Wrecker Land.”

Meredith asked. “Wrecker?”

“That’s what we call them. Wreckers. The ones that claimed the land. Well, what was left of it in these parts. They only come out at night. Most of them are products of post war. Their parents tried to stay. Not right in the head and can’t see too well. Sun bothers their eyes. Catch them in the day, you can run right around them. Boy they did a number on you.” Rusty whistled. “Course, you’re not too right in the head being in that area at night.”

“How come they don’t come after you?” Meredith asked.

“I live too far for them to walk, plus my dogs will tear them up.”

“What were you doing there?” John asked. “I mean, when you found us.”

“It was daylight. I was duck hunting. Since DC took a nuclear nosedive, the swamp lifted and the ducks are plenty.”

“DC?” John asked. “Nuclear nose dive. When?”

“During the war. What? You been living under a rock?”

“More like in a refrigerator,” John said. “Pretend I don’t know anything. What would you tell me?”

“Well, you ain’t from Salvation or you’d know. Plus, you wouldn’t leave there.”

“Salvation?” asked John.

“The place where all good immune go to live out their lives normally away from the rest of the shithole world. It’s huge. Never could get in there. They said I wasn’t immune. Ha. What do they know?” Rusty said. “So we bide our time out here. We do well. Got horses, a nice farm.”

“When did they build it?”

“Christ.” Rusty looked up to the ceiling. “They started building the wall on year three of the virus. Took a while to complete. That was after the war, though. Was a short war.” Rusty winked. “Took out everything north of here. All along the east coast. Gone. Dust. Probably not dust anymore, but things don’t grow.”

John was trying hard to process what he was being told, decipher it and get information. There was no way Rusty would understand that he and Meredith had been in stasis.

Then Meredith asked. “Rusty, how old were you when the virus first broke out?”

“I wasn’t young,” Rusty answered. “Hard to recall.”

“Think,” John said. “How long ago was it that the virus began?”

<><><><>

“Thirty years. Or it will be thirty years in September.” Trey said as he placed a steaming cup of tea before Malcolm. “Dad, you really don’t look well.”

“I … know. I’m sick. My arm is bad. But I have to know.” Malcolm said. “I have to.”

Trey joined him at the table. “This is unreal. I knew it. I knew it. I told Mom you weren’t dead.”

“They probably dismissed it as you not accepting it.”

“They did. But my gut kept saying you weren’t dead. I wanted to go to New York to the explosion site, but they closed it off. There was an exodus from New York shortly before the virus. It was weird, too, we were one of the first people to get the vaccine.”

“Trey, I am so sorry. I am so sorry that we fought before that.”

“Me, too.” Trey reached out and laid his hand on Malcolm’s.

Malcolm looked at his son’s hand. They were worn and old. “What about your mother? Your brothers?”

“They didn’t make it. They passed away. I stayed here. Made this a farm.”

“I missed your life.”

“You missed a mess. Be grateful for that.” Trey said. “The terror attack. The president was killed…” He paused. “Or so we thought. The new president vowed revenge on the attack and just sent out troops. Then the virus broke out in Singapore. From what I recall, it was a big deal because right after, it was discovered that it was deliberate. The president came on TV and told how he uncovered the plot by some organization called the Genesis group. They tried to stop it, Dad, they did.”

“How?”

“Shut down all infected cities. Shut them down. Locked people in. No questions asked. They found the flight information on where the virus was released. All around the world they quarantined cities. But it didn’t help.”

“How long ago was this?”

“I was in high school. I never finished because they shut it down. Then, countries started blaming the U.S. for the virus and the war escalated, we were hit with nukes. The East Coast is gone. Several bases. We surrendered.”

“We what?”

“We surrendered. But then before any details of that surrender were hashed out, the virus just… Raged. It looked bleak and then in spring, it stopped. By then, the world was in disarray, trying to pick up pieces.”

“Trey, it’s been thirty years. Where is everyone if the virus stopped after a few months?”

Trey whistled. “That was round one. It came back, mutated, took out a good chunk of the population and stopped again. By the third outbreak, they started building the wall. Violence was everywhere. If the virus wasn’t killing people, people were doing the job. It was a means to protect those who wouldn’t get sick. The virus hit like the Bubonic Plague, like the flu, it came seasonally, it conquered, and it went dormant. I think it finally stopped about ten years ago, maybe less.”

“The wall?”

“To Salvation. It took four years to build it. Thirteen hundred miles from Duluth to Montana. They built it where it’s cold and the virus barely touched. It’s where I’m taking you to get that arm looked at.”

“Salvation? They named it Salvation?”

“Yeah, it’s life. It’s the world you remember protected behind a wall. A big one too.”

“How do you know it’s still there?”

Trey laughed. “Uh, Dad, you think I eat this food. Mr. Diaz and I manufacture the corn fuel for them. Go up there once a week. And really, we need to go before sun down. It’s a good three hour drive.” He stood.

“I can’t. I have to get to a town called Champaign, Illinois. The others, the ones with me, we’re meeting there.”

“Dad… listen to me. It may have only been weeks since you saw me, but it’s been decades since I saw you. I am not losing you now. Please.” He held out his hand. “Your friends will find Salvation. They will.”

Malcolm didn’t have the spark in him to argue. He was sick and without help, more than likely he would die.

Trey was right, he lost his father once.

Malcolm let his son down before, and even though he committed to meeting the others from the Genesis project, he owed it to his son.

He took another sip of his tea, and grateful that he still had his son, he took Trey’s hand and followed his lead.

NORA’S ENTRY

Day 11 AR

I think we finally all reached the general consensus that it was the month of June. John determined it by his allergies as they started to act up like they did every year.

Meredith said he was insane, that a world without industry didn’t pollute the air.

It felt like June. So we all agreed.

Jason and I didn’t stay in Cleveland. We went back to his house for a few more days before heading to the meeting spot in Illinois.

On the way there, we crossed through farmland and met a woman named, Grace. She and her husband were denied entry to Salvation. Their application rejected. She told us that many made a pilgrimage there, but rumor had it, they died while camping outside the wall.

She didn’t go because she was uncertain of its location. Her husband said it was out west and hard to miss. But, like her, he wasn’t sure where.

Someone once told her in was in Iowa.

Grace gave us fresh supplies. We were grateful and noted her location to one day return.

There were actual survivors living in Champaign. Not many, maybe fifteen. They welcomed us and had it not been for the buggy, they would not have believed our story. Four days after we arrived, John and Meredith showed up. They looked the worse for wear.

“We’ve been to hell in back,” John said.

I believed it. His face had healing bruises, as did Meredith’s. Grant had been murdered, but actually in a sense, saved their lives, because when the ‘Wreckers’ looted their belongings, they never found the battery to the buggy.

After resting, they headed our way.

They never made it north. Upon hearing nothing was left, they figured, why bother.

Against the advice of the Champaign survivors, we packed up to search out Salvation. We were given an invitation to return.

Even though it hadn’t been a long time, enough time had passed that we all had clear minds and determination.

My family survived the virus.

They were possibly at the place called Salvation.

I need to go there and Jason vowed to stay by my side in my search. For that, I was grateful.

John and Meredith wanted to go, if civilization was booming behind a wall, they wanted to be there.

It was a real place, out there, somewhere in the west. We didn’t know where, but that didn’t stop us from looking.

Our search has begun.

We would take it one day at a time.

The name of our destination was ironic. It was called Salvation, and that was what we searched for in this godforsaken world.

I believed and was certain, in time, we would find it.

<><><><>

End

Thank you so much for reading this book. I hope you enjoyed it. Please visit my website www.jacquelinedruga.com and sign up for my mailing list for updates and new releases.

Your support is invaluable to me. I welcome and respond to your feedback. Please feel free to email me at greatoneas@gmail.com

Copyright

RESET

By Jacqueline Druga

Copyright 2015 by Jacqueline Druga

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Thank you so very much to Kira R and to Shona for your editorial help services.

Cover Art by Christian Bentulan

www.coversbychristian.com

Content

Jacqueline Druga
RESET

ONE – Awakening

TWO – Coming to Senses

THREE – Hydrate

FOUR – Discovery

FIVE – Malcolm

SIX – Normal

SEVEN – Boxes

EIGHT – Lights On

NINE – Awakening

TEN – Countdown

ELEVEN – Who Am I

TWELVE – Breakfast Club

THIRTEEN – Nora’s Flashback

FOURTEEN – The Genesis Project

FIFTEEN – Knowledge

SIXTEEN – Tick Tock

SEVENTEEN – Lifting

EIGHTEEN – Precautions

NINETEEN – Worst Case

TWENTY – Split Decisions

TWENTY-ONE – Oblique

TWENTY-TWO – Motor Pool

NORA’S ENTRY Day One AR (After Reset)

TWENTY-TWO – Journey

TWENTY-THREE - 6522 Red

TWENTY-FOUR – One Shot

TWENTY-FIVE – Linked In

NORA’S ENTRY Day Two AR

TWENTY-FIVE – Trekking

TWENTY-SIX – Cold

NORA’S ENTRY Day Three AR

TWENTY-SEVEN – Stunted

TWENTY-EIGHT – Healing

TWENTY-NINE – SURPRISE

THIRTY – Answers

NORA’S ENTRY Day 11 AR

Copyright