“Um…uh…I think so.”
“Please, baby. If you don’t do it, none of us are getting out.”
“Okay, Dad. I can do it.”
“Excellent. Do it now. And be ready. There’s going to be a loud bang.”
He moved back around, and watched Josie through the window as she pulled Brandon into the front corner. Once they were there, he returned to the door.
“Cover your head,” he said.
He didn’t look to see if Chloe and the others did the same; he just hit the button.
The two security men who’d been sent out to check for the missing car came back after fifteen minutes. They’d found the car ten minutes earlier, abandoned at the side of the highway not far from the road to NB7, but when they called it in, no one had answered. After being unable to reach anyone for five minutes, they decided to come back.
Everything looked the same out front as it had when they’d left, so they were starting to think their boss had just gone on a bathroom break without feeling the need to have anyone fill in for him. That was, until Collins, the younger of the two, opened the front door.
“Oh, Jesus,” he said.
His partner, Edwards, started to push by him, but pulled up short when he caught sight of the scene inside. “What the hell?”
The lobby was riddled with bullet holes. And there were five bodies that they could see. The two men moved in and checked for pulses. Two of their colleagues were still alive, their hands and ankles cuffed with the same ties the security team used.
“What happened?” Collins asked.
Edwards shook his head, then headed over to the security room. That’s where he found their boss sprawled across the threshold, cuffed and dead.
“Do…do you think whoever did this is still in the building?” Collins asked.
“I have no idea.”
The younger man hesitated, as if he didn’t want to say what was about to come from his lips. “Should we check?”
Edwards looked down at his boss, then at the other men strewn across the lobby. “I’m not sure that would be a good idea.”
Four minutes later, with the pair of unconscious men slumped in the back seat, Edwards and Collins pulled out of the compound then headed south on the highway as fast as they could go.
Even though Ash had covered his ears, the noise was deafening. Debris flew across the room, smashing into the wall where the counter was, and destroying the monitor the doctor had been using.
Ash immediately jumped back to his feet and returned to the window. However strong the glass had been, it wasn’t strong enough to stand up to the little white squares. He climbed through the opening and went to the corner where Brandon, awake now, clung to his sister.
Ash couldn’t believe it. He was looking at his kids. They were alive.
He grinned broadly and held his arms out, but instead of hugging him, they drew back.
“Who are you?” Josie asked, sounding scared.
“It’s me, baby. Dad.”
“You’re not my dad,” she said.
The bandages. The surgery. Even the contacts. He must look like a stranger to them.
“It’s me. I swear. I’ve just had…an accident. We can talk about it later. We need to get out now.”
Reluctantly, they let him guide them out of the room.
He had no idea how much time they had left, but he knew it was probably less than a minute.
“You see that door?” He pointed at the airlock.
They nodded.
“Go in there. I’ll be right behind you. I just have to help my friend.”
They both looked over at Chloe, then back at their father, more confused than ever.
“Go!” he said.
That got them moving.
He knelt down next to Chloe. “Put your arm around me,” he told her.
Once she did, he started to lift her, but then remembered there was one more thing he had to do. He moved over to the doctor.
“I hope you enjoy your trip to hell.”
The doctor forced a smile. “You can’t stop anything, you know that. Your kids would have been better off to go now instead of being alive to witness the world they know melt into nothing.”
“I have a feeling you’re the only one who’ll be doing any melting in the near future.”
“Humor’s not one of your best traits, I’m guessing.”
Ignoring him, Ash said, “Before I go, I have a message for you from an old friend.”
The doctor looked at him, a smirk on his face.
“Olivia says hi,” Ash said. “I got the feeling from her she wasn’t too happy you left her to die. Pointed out something about the irony that you’ll be dead before she is.”
“Olivia? But she’s-”
“Goodbye, Doctor.”
Ash lifted Chloe off the floor and headed for the airlock. Just before he passed through the door, he yelled to the other two men, “Once we clear this airlock, I suggest you get in it, if there’s still time.”
It turned out there wasn’t.
50
It wasn’t the starting of the truck that woke Tamara and Bobby. It was the pothole they hit sometime later. According to the clock on the camera, it was 7:12 a.m.
“Do you think whoever’s driving knows we’re back here?” Tamara asked.
“I don’t know,” Bobby replied. “I would think so, though. Wouldn’t you?”
The world seemed to have flipped on its end, so she didn’t know what to think anymore.
“I wonder where we’re going,” Bobby said several minutes later.
“Can’t be far.” The quarantine would prevent any long travels.
But either they drove around in circles or she was wrong, because six hours passed before the engine was turned off for the first time. After a few moments, they could both hear fuel flowing into the tanks.
“Maybe we should get out now,” she suggested.
“We haven’t heard the knock.”
“Maybe there’s not going to be a knock. We’re not on the base any more.”
But neither of them made a move to open the door, and soon they were on the road again. Nearly seven more hours passed before the engine cut out once more. This time, though, there was no sound of tanks being filled. In fact, except for the opening and closing of the cab door, there wasn’t much sound at all.
After thirty minutes of not moving, Tamara said, “I’ll bet we’re in another parking lot.”
“If nothing else, we’re going to get a great story out of this,” Bobby said.
“If we have a job.”
Bobby was quiet for a second, then, “Do you…do you really think Joe is dead?”
She was silent for a moment. “They killed Gavin, didn’t they? And those kids in the desert. So…”
A few silent minutes passed.
“How far do you think we’ve come?” she asked.
“Impossible to know.”
