Sick

James Ellison was a dead man, and he knew it.

After guiding Captain Ash and the other man-a man whose name he never knew-to the exit and making sure they got out, his plan had been to return to the supply closet where he’d left Sergeant Causey after he’d drugged the man’s coffee. He had a second, weaker dose that he was going to take himself so that they’d both be found unconscious together.

He had been on his way there when he heard Major Littlefield’s voice in the distance. He pulled out his radio and turned it up just loud enough so he could listen in on the conversation.

What he heard made his blood turn to ice. The door to cellblock 50 had been left open. He’d been sure he closed it, but apparently the lock hadn’t engaged. It was his biohazard suit-it made it hard to hear the click of the latch.

Though Ash and the other man had still been in the facility when the emergency power came back on and the dosing cycle started again, they were so far away at that point, there was no chance the bug could have reached them before they got outside.

He, on the other hand, was toast.

He told himself the reason he needed to get out of there was because someone had to report in the fact that Major Littlefield was no longer in the picture.

His cell phone was in his bag in the observation room, and therefore permanently unavailable, so he would have to find an out-of-the-way pay phone. After he made the call, he could stumble into the desert and die, hopefully from exposure before the bug took him down. That was the best plan he could come up with.

But while the information about Major Littlefield was important, it would also be something the others would learn soon enough without him.

The coming Protocol Thirteen firestorm-that was the real reason he turned and ran.

9

The gas station was right where the guide had told Ash it would be. It was an old, adobe-style building with a low concrete pad out front where the pumps used to sit. By the look of it, it had been left for dead a long time ago.

Ash raced across the highway, thinking that whoever was going to be picking him up must already be there, perhaps parked out of sight. But when he got there, no one was around.

Had his ride already come and gone? Had he missed his opportunity to get away from the base? Or, he wondered, had the driver been scared off by the explosion? It certainly wouldn’t be out of the question.

Just then he heard a whine, low and from the South. Tires on asphalt. It had to be.

He peered down the highway. Everything was dark. No headlights, no sign that anyone was coming, except the whine.

He didn’t see the car until just before it turned off the road, its headlights off. He watched as it pulled in like it was going to fill up with gas.

For a few seconds, he considered making a run for the desert and disappearing. He had no idea who these people were, and had no clue as to why they were helping him. What he did know, though, was getting a ride in a car was considerably better than wandering through the desert.

He stepped out from the building and walked toward the sedan. As he neared, the driver’s-side window slid down.

“Morning,” a female voice said from inside. She sounded nervous.

Ash leaned down so he could see her. In the darkness, she wasn’t much more than a shadow, with shoulder-length hair he thought was probably blonde.

“Could have sworn there was a town around here,” she said. “Know of some place I could get a little breakfast?”

“I…I can show you.”

His response was a lot less polished than her question, but it served the purpose of identification as her door locks clicked up.

“Hop in,” she said.

He moved around to the passenger side. But as he opened the door, the woman shook her head.

“No. In the back.”

He hesitated a moment, then shut the door and opened the one behind it.

“Lift the seat,” she told him before he could climb in.

“What?”

She pointed at the seat cushion. “There's a latch in the back near the center. Pull and lift.”

He did as the woman instructed. The only thing under the bench was the metal body of the car. He looked at her, confused.

She reached under the car’s dash. A second later there was a dull thud, and the metal under the backseat popped upward several inches. Not needing to be told, he pulled it open as far as it would go, revealing what could best be described as a storage area. It was identical in length to the back seat, maybe a foot wider, and about two and a half deep.

“Get in,” the woman said.

“You've got to be kidding me. I'm not getting in there.”

“You get in there or you don’t get the ride.” She glanced toward the fire that was still burning in the valley. “You’re lucky I stopped at all. Please tell me you didn’t have anything to do with that.”

He started to speak, but she shook her head and held up a hand. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.” She looked back at the secret compartment. “It's vented, so you’ll get plenty of fresh air, and the lining’s padded.” She grabbed a water bottle off the front passenger seat and held it out to him. “You’re not going to want to drink this all at once. You won’t be getting out for several hours, so taking a leak can get a little messy.”

“I'll just sit in the back seat if it's all right with you.” He started to close the metal lid.

“It'snotall right with me!” she shot back. “I don't know who you are, or why you need to get away from here, but I do know if we get stopped and they find you, I'm going to be in as much trouble as you are. Now you can either get in the hole or start walking. It's up to you.”

She stared at him defiantly, the bottle of water still in her outstretched hand.

He looked at the compartment, then at the water, then at the woman. “I don’t know who you are, either.”

“And you won’t,” she said.

He stood there a moment longer, then took the water and awkwardly lowered himself into the hiding space. Once he was in position, the woman leaned back and started to lower the lid.

“I didn’t start that fire,” he said.

“I told you. I don’t want to know.”

She shut him in.

For the first hour, he was sure they would be stopped at a roadblock and the car inspected. But as the road kept passing a few feet beneath him, he began to think they might have made it away undetected. Eventually, he dozed off.

When he woke again, he could hear other vehicles surrounding them-semi-trucks mostly, cruising at high speeds. He figured they must be on an interstate. Which one, he had no idea. Having just recently been transferred to the Barker Flats Research Center, he didn’t know this part of the country that well and had no clue which highways were within a few hours’ drive away.

Both he and Ellen had grown up in the Midwest-Ash in Ohio and his wife in Indiana. They’d met at college where he was going through ROTC training and working on an engineering degree, and she was studying to be an accountant.

For him, at least, it was one of those instant attraction kind of things. Ellen had always said it was the same