“So the gov-ern-ment,” I said slowly, making sure to over-enunciate each word. “They got a hold of our great granddad’s research and they did what any self-respecting government would do. They figured out a way to use the bugs as a means of mass destruction on our enemies. Is that a fair assessment?” “Well, yes and no. They definitely took an interest after the Spanish Flu wreaked its havoc. There is even evidence to suggest that they ran tests with it around the time of WWII but besides the deaths of 1918 that were caused by accident, there is nothing to suggest that they did anything with it after that.” “Would they wait a hundred years? And why use it against their own…” I stopped mid-thought. “ Someone else got a hold of it.” Ron put his index finger to his nose to let me know I had nailed it.
“So someone tainted the world’s supply of flu shots. But who and for what purpose?”
“Hell, take your pick little brother. The John Birch Society, the One World Government, the Illuminati, the fucking Girl Scouts, any one of them. To what purpose? Well, that depends on which one of the psychotic groups got a hold of it. Just plain anarchy, control of resources, not enough cookie sales. I can’t imagine they expected this much collateral damage but there you have it.” “What else do his notes say?” I asked.
“There’s a potential for a cure in here, but he never fully perfected it and I’m not sure what effect it would have on the parasite now. Whatever version is running through those zombies out there, it isn’t 1.0.” “If the government…” “Gummint,” my brother corrected me.
“Yeah, them.” I said. “By the time they got through with it, the parasite has to be a fully weaponized creature.” “Do you think your friend Doc Baker along with his research and these notes would be able to do something?” “Possibly, but I wouldn’t even know where to begin to find him. I don’t even know for sure if he made it off the base.” I missed the doc and his family; they were good people and I only hoped the best for them. “And Tommy is my priority.” “Above Justin.”
“I’ve been good so far brother, but I don’t need any extra pushing. If I thought I had a one in a million shot of tracking down the doc with these notes AND, that’s a big AND, I thought he was alive AND could do anything with them I’d change everything in a heartbeat.” “I’m sorry Mike, it wasn’t my intention to make you feel like you weren’t doing the right thing.” “Oh it probably was but you didn’t mean it in a bad way. We have a link to Tommy. There is a potential way for us to track him down, slim sure, but a chance. Doc Baker could be two houses away from us right now and we’d never know it. I promise if I come across a clinical physician I’ll hog tie him and won’t let him go until he figures out how to make this potential potion.” “That’ll have to do.”
“Glad you’re on board,” I said sarcastically. “What’s in the box?”
“I’m not a hundred percent sure but I think you’ll know.”
“Uh oh, I don’t like it already,” I said, and I wasn’t kidding or trying to be funny.
He pulled the lid off the box. The smell of old garlic slammed into my nose. I intrinsically knew, it would have been impossible not to. As he pulled the white gold locket from its case a tremor of unease began in my stomach and wrapped around my spinal column. I was shaking uncontrollably like a bear had wrapped its paws around a small tree and was shaking it violently trying to make the bee hive drop its prize, only the prize in this analogy was my quivering mind.
“Don’t,” I mouthed silently as he opened the jewelry.
A bolt of power seemed to leap from Eliza’s cold eyes as she stared back at me. A small smile pulled up one corner of her lips as she seemed to take a cruel satisfaction in my unease.
“You alright?” Ron asked across a seemingly vast expanse.
“Close it,” I said breathlessly.
I’ll give him this, he didn’t taunt me with it like a big brother is apt to do with an object of fear. Like countless brothers holding a bug up to the frightened gazes of their sisters. Or the glob of spit that is repeatedly drooped in front of the younger sibling’s face to only be sucked up at the last moment, or a countless other myriad forms of minor torture. My anguished look of distress was enough to convince him that this wasn’t a game.
“That’s her then?” he said as he shut the locket.
“Where did you get that?” I asked after I was able to speak again. I reached my hand out, not sure if I truly wanted to touch it.
Ron brought it closer to my hand. “You sure? I thought you were going to pass out just from looking at it.” “Not from the piece itself, only the picture, it has power.”
Ron eyed me skeptically. He was not a big believer in what he could not touch or see, but he still reluctantly handed it over.
“Wow, it’s so cold,” I said as I gripped the chain.
Ron touched the chain to see what he was missing. “It’s cool at best, room temperature I’d say. I think it might be in your head, little brother.” “Well there’s always the chance of that, Lord knows what else goes on in there, it would fit right in.” With my right hand I grabbed hold of the locket, rubbing my thumb over the smooth surface. I pulled back instantly when I felt something prick my finger. “I’m bleeding!” I muttered, looking at the small drop of blood pooling up on the tip of my thumb.
Ron grabbed the locket out of my hands and rubbed every last bit of it. “What the hell did you cut yourself on? This thing is as smooth as buttered silk. Maybe you shouldn’t use so much anti-bacterial on your hands, it’s making them as dry and brittle as Hugh’s notes.” “Funny,” I said as I sucked the bubble of blood off my opposing digit.
“Use a different finger and touch it,” he suggested, pressing the locket back into my hand.
“Kiss my ass. Rub it on your face first.”
And he did just that and nothing happened, no scratch, no mar, no nothing.
I was feeling a little foolish, I angrily grabbed it from him.
“Hold on,” he said. “I want to make sure that you’re not pulling a scab off or something.” “Fine,” I gritted out as I showed him the index finger on my right hand.
You would have thought he was looking for trace evidence at a crime scene the way he analyzed my finger. “Alright, it looks fine.” “So I can continue?”
“Proceed,” he said airily.
I rubbed my finger over the face of the jeweled locket. “Ow !” I pulled back quickly, blood was again pooling on a previously unmarred finger.
“Crap Mike.”
“I told you the damn thing had something wrong with it.”
“I’m not ready to believe that just yet, I think you might be hitting a trigger switch or something that causes a barb to come out. Kind of like an early ages theft deterrent.” “Oh yeah, that must be it,” I said sarcastically, now cleaning blood off of my finger and thumb. “Just put the damn thing away.” Ron put it back in its box and then proceeded to hand it to me.
“No way,” I told him. “I don’t want it.” “Near as I can tell it’s yours.”
I shook my head in the negative like a six year old child being accused of stealing cookies. My face was covered in chocolate and in my hand I still had half a cookie but still I denied ownership.
“Gram Marissa was kind of vague, like she was remembering the details through a veil. But the boy with the incredible baklava told her that this locket was somehow linked to his sister, that it had some power.” Goosebumps the size of small gooses, (geeses?) rippled up my forearms. “Gram Marissa met Tommy?” Ron stopped to think for a moment. “I think she said the name ‘Tomas’ but I guess that makes sense from everything you’ve told me.” “Why is our family the center of this shit storm, Ron?” I asked in despair. Just when I adjusted to the extra weight of a particular event, I seemed to pick up some extra baggage. Eventually I would get to the point of breaking, maybe not today but I could feel it coming like a locomotive in a dark dead-ended tunnel. There would be nowhere to run and by then I don’t think I’d want to.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I wish I knew Mike. But I think we need to think of these items as weapons in this war. They were obviously important enough that Tomas came into our grandparents’ lives to keep them safe and let them know what they had, at least to a degree.” “A book of directions or maybe an instructional DVD would have been awesome.”
Ron laughed. “Let’s get the rest of your stuff.”
I could feel the chill of the locket in my heart as I gingerly rubbed the outside of the box.
