Rectify [Book 2] Read online

TWLEVE – NEXT STEP

  “You really make a pot of coffee smell amazing,” Grant said as he stepped into the dining section of building three.

  “Well, four coffee shops in one block means ample supply so I have lots to practice with.” Ella sipped from a mug. “How’s Jenson?”

  “Better. Thanks to you,” Grant sat with her. “How’s the arm?”

  “Tight, but it stopped throbbing.”

  “Did you get any rest?”

  “Nah, I will later.”

  “So everything went well?”

  “I got busted.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Taking supplies, I got busted,” Ella replied.

  “You never get busted.”

  “I did this time by a Doctor Ung.”

  “For real? You know his name?” Grant asked.

  “I do. A new guy. He was going to get my walking papers, I was figuring on my eight minutes, but he forgot to ask me something and followed me into the supply tent. He’s uh … he’s a really good guy, Grant. That’s where the candy came from.”

  “He let you go, so he’s a good guy in my book as well.”

  “He said to fake a bellyache next time.” Ella chuckled. “He also said something else. He told me we should get out of here. He said how long will it be before they just blow this place up.”

  “You and I know that’s impossible,” said Grant.

  “I’ve been thinking about this. I have. What if I get a bigger boat?”

  “Ella …” Grant laughed out her name. “And do what? Row multiple trips across the river? Or are you talking Gateway Clipper size boat, load us all up. How do you propose to sneak a hundred people out of Lazaretto?”

  “I thought of that, too. This doctor, he’ll help. He said we aren’t carriers. If he can help us, we can do this.”

  “Okay,” Grant said calmly. “Let’s say this doctor decides to help. Let’s say he contacts authorities. Let’s even say you find a bigger boat. How … how are we supposed to get everyone out of Sanctum to the boat? You know you have to run the entire distance.”

  “I thought of that.”

  “Of course you did. Go on.”

  “There aren’t as many at the river bank side of Sanctum. We take them out at night, and I take small groups. They don’t see that well at night. If we clear them instead of distracting, that will give us time.”

  “Gunshots will attract more.”

  “Use the cross bow. You’re good with it. You’re talking twenty max back there.”

  Grant folded his arms and sat back in the chair. “You have been giving it some though. Alright, let me look at all the logistics of this and …”

  “Ella,” a woman rushed into the kitchen area, her face was flush and she sounded panicked. “You have to come out.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s Bruce.”

  Ella jumped to her feet. She couldn’t imagine what would be the urgency about Bruce. All he ever did was pace at the fence and lose appendages.

  The second she stepped outside all her questions were answered.

  Bruce had turned from docile to violent. Snarling relentlessly, racing back then running full speed into the fence. He grabbed at the links, thrashing his body against it.

  “Oh my God,” said Ella. “What … what happened?

  “I don’t know,” the woman replied. “I was out here and he was acting normal, then he just snapped.”

  Bruce was loud and was attracting even more Codies.

  Ella stepped closer to the fence, Bruce pushed his mouth through a slight opening of the links, trying to get to her.

  Then a single arrow sailed across the yard and landed directly in the center of Bruce’s forehead. His head snapped back, he dropped down to his knees and then finally to the ground.

  Within moments, he was no longer seen as the wave of Codies pushed for the fence, stepping over and on him.

  Ella stood in shock.

  “I’m sorry,” Grant said. “I had to try and …”

  “No, it’s fine,” Ella told him.

  “What do you think happened?” asked Grant.

  “I think the deterioration finally hit the brain. Once that happens, he’s operating as pure animal.”

  “He lasted how long?”

  Ella thought about it for a second. “Months. Which means Liza is next. She died right after him.” She stepped even closer to the fence. “I would have to think what would happened if every one of them got like Bruce.”

  “The fence would come down,” sighed out Grant. ‘And I think maybe I need to give your plan a little more thought. You sure you’re okay?” he placed a hand on Ella’s back.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” She meant it. Ella wasn’t in denial of what Bruce had become. Not only was she expecting one day for him to be rectified, a part of her was waiting on it. Now that it had been done, Ella felt a little guilty, because along with the sadness there was a sense of relief for her.

  THIRTEEN – DELIVERING

  The last time James gave any thought to hot water was right after the virus began and everything shut down. What he wouldn’t have given for a hot shower. Then when it came back on, it went from grateful every time he turned on the knob to once again taking it for granted.

  But after working the shift at the inner city field hospital and hearing about how people in the actual city didn’t have hot water, James wondered if his life was a band aid on a bigger wound, placed there to give a false sense of hope.

  He was guilty of conscious ignorance. He chose not to want to see what was happening in the world. Accepting at face value the reality he woke up to, the reality he preferred to live inside.

  In a sense, doing that was a problem James had.

  After his shower, he wanted to pack a lunch for his shift at Mon Valley, however there was something he had to do. It was something he did, every single day, without fail. He did so at the same time.

  He lifted his phone and dialed his wife’s number.

  It didn’t ring, it went straight to voice mail. Only it was full and James couldn’t leave a message. He knew he was the reason for the messaging to be full. He left a message every day and did so until the system was full.

  ‘The mailbox you are trying to reach is full. Please try your call later.’

  “I love you guys and miss you,” said James, even though they’d never hear it, he knew he was saying it.

  Before he put down the phone, he thought back to the last time he spoke to his wife.

  “It’s hard to say,” Jana his wife said. “The village is simple, it’s not showing signs of a crises.”

  “Well, we’re getting back on our feet here,” James told her. “It won’t be long before I bring you and JJ home, or I go out there.

  That was months before.

  The planes never resumed.

  He hadn’t spoken or heard from her at all.

  At least he told himself that.

  On his phone in the voicemail section was a voicemail from Jana’s mother. It came three days after he last spoke to Jana. It had been after three days of constantly trying.

  James had never listened to that voicemail because a part of him knew what his mother in law was going to say.

  Something happened to Jana and JJ.

  James was sure of it.

  He was also sure that if he didn’t listen to the message, it would never be real.

  Many times he thought about listening, but was fearful. He’d rather not know. James would rather be walking around blind, but hopeful, than eyes wide open and devastated.

  Much like the normalcy of his neighborhood in the midst of such a crisis.

  As he did daily, his finger hovered over the ‘play’ symbol of the voice mail. He never pressed it. James simply closed the app and went into the kitchen to make something to eat.

  While he prepared his meal, he placed the small kitchen television on so he could hear the news.

  The words ‘Breaking News’,
caught his attention and he upped the volume, certain it was news about the outbreak.

  In a sense it was, but not like he expected.

  The anchor team was excited, and the news was plastered everywhere.

  Mass production of a vaccine and the cure were underway. Within one week they would be arriving at medical facilities and camps.

  James didn’t know much about the vaccine or cure, only that mass quantities were arriving in a week.

  It was news that James wanted to hear. Humanity had been raging a war against the virus and barely holding the front lines. Finally they had an upper hand and advantage, more than that, there was legitimate hope on the horizon.

  FOURTEEN – LINE UP

  One week later

  After weeks, months of daily R-Team house and business calls, Major Tom received the notification that all R-Team activity had been suspended until all team members received an inoculation and training on delivering the cure.

  At the one-week mark everywhere Tom looked he saw tractor trailers rolling in with crates of the vaccine.

  It was insane, how were they able to mass manufacture nearly two hundred million doses. Tom asked that question, more of a rhetorical thing, and a truck driver answered him. “Four facilities,” the truck driver said. “That’s not hard to do when, figure five hundred thousand per facility, that’s roughly seventy-one thousand doses a day in a factor running twenty-four seven, that breaks down to forty-nine a minute. Considering the machines can run five doses every three point one seconds, they can exceed that.”

  “Are you a mathematician?” Tom asked.

  “Actually, yeah, no need for a math geek now, right?” He said. “Now ask me about quality control and testing.”

  “Do I want to know?”

  The truck driver shook his head.

  “Bet you were first in line for one though,” Tom said.

  “Oh, hell no. I’ll stick with the cure if I get bit.”

  The cure.

  Major Tom and his team were to deliver the cure to the infected, no matter how far along they were as long as they had not passed and revived. There were just too many revived to waste a dose on.

  The day the vaccines arrived was the biggest inoculation day in the history of the planet. People lined up for city blocks, home visits were placed in order. Anyone who could help distribute the self inoculation kits were on hand to pass them out.

  There was no doctor doing the deed, although some had to, most people just passed out the kits. Each person received a single dose that they would give to themselves.

  Some couldn’t do it and had to wait in line to have it done for them.

  There was a sense of hope that was widespread. The mood in the country had been lifted, people celebrated, to most the crisis was over.

  Major Tom hated being the odd man out, but he just didn’t feel the joy, instead, for some off reason he carried a feeling of foreboding, he just didn’t know why.

  FIFTTEEN – A MOTHER’S ARMS

  To whom it may concern.

  Rhonda’s letter generically began.

  A week earlier when she had heard the news about the inoculation and also the cure it was mere hours after she had sliced into her own flesh in an attempt to remove the infection from the scratch part.

  I hope that when you read this, I am calling out for your help. That I am still alive. I hope that I am.

  Rhonda was optimistic. When her own mother was scratched, within hours she was ill and a day later … she died. Rhonda was counting down the days until the vaccine arrived. Especially when three days had passed and she wasn’t ill. The wound was healing. Rhonda had beaten it.

  Or so she thought.

  My name is Rodney David Daniels. I’m only a few days old.

  Then on day four Rhonda felt achy, she attributed it to just having a child, after all the wound was healing. She knew from watching the television that the virus could be stopped if the site of infection was removed.

  She did that and didn’t waste time.

  Then her temperature began to rise and everything hurt.

  My mother didn’t mean to leave me alone.

  Rhonda fought it, she fought with everything she had, but the virus was stronger than she was. Her skin burned, every beat of her heart caused a stabbing pain in her chest.

  But she couldn’t help it. She loved me very much. More than life. But she had to go.

  She lacked the strength to barely move, but somehow Rhonda managed to make bottles for the baby. Lots of them so as the hours went by it would be easier to feed her child. In her mind, when she passed away, the baby would cry. He would cry enough that someone would have to come and help.

  More than anything Rhonda wanted to walk back to the medical station. In fact she planned on that, but she could barely walk. Every step she took ached, her head spun and the ground seemed to slip out from under her.

  Her fear was dropping the baby.

  That was when she came up with the plan.

  Please take care of me. Find me a good home. Please. Thank you.

  Rhonda knew her time was coming. It wouldn’t be long before she died and revived. She didn’t want to revive and become one of those monsters. She knew well what she could do to her child. How helpless the days old baby would be. Rhonda knew in order to stop the reviving, she would have to destroy the brain.

  She had no means to do that.

  Why didn’t the government pass out self-rectifying kits? She saw that once in a movie. It would be simple and save a lot of problems.

  That was fiction. She lived in a nightmare reality.

  She didn’t want to hurt her child.

  She wrote the note and pinned it to the baby’s chest and moved the crib near the open window. Rodney would cry, he would cry enough to rouse suspicion.

  She would leave him in the back room, and shut the door so she couldn’t get in.

  That was her plan.

  After changing his diaper, Rhonda grabbed a bottle and decided to feed him one more time.

  Once more and then she would put him safely in the other room.

  She cradled her child, rocking him as she fed him. Rhonda shared stories of her life and told him over and over how much she loved him. Her heart broke, she didn’t want to leave him. He was helpless and would be alone,

  Her poor child.

  She finished feeding him.

  One more moment, she thought, one more moment with her son and then she would lay him down.

  That one more moment never came.

  While holding him, loving him, staring at her baby, Rhonda’s head dropped to the left. Against what she hoped, planned and wanted, with the child in her arms, Rhonda died.

  SIXTEEN – FAVOR

  Ella carefully wrapped the bottle of bourbon in a towel, placing it in a back pack. She hated carrying backpacks, because they drew attention, but it was easier to bring the bottle that way and just in case the soldiers asked her about the pack, she wrapped another bottle for bribery.

  She wasn’t making her journey out of Sanctum due to the need of supplies, she was going because of the vaccine.

  If they were going to attempt to leave, they needed the vaccine. That would add extra assurance should someone get bit or scratched. The only way to get that was to find Doctor Ung and hope he would help out.

  According to the radio, the vaccine and cure had been delivered to locations three days earlier, and while Ella worried it would all be gone, she knew her best chance was Doctor Ung and he told he would be at the field hospital on Mondays. So she waited.

  But the weather didn’t.

  The hot and humid weather brought on a typical summer storm and Ella had to wait for a break in the rain.

  “Maybe just try tomorrow,” Bruce told her.

  “He’s only there on Mondays,” Ella replied. “It’s our best bet. Anyone else is going to ask a million questions when I ask for a hundred doses.”

  “You know it’s funny. You were pretty adamant ag
ainst the vaccine.”

  “My opinion hasn’t changed,” Ella said. “You heard the debate on the radio. There’s limited testing on the vaccine. Lab testing only. Not on people.”

  “But the cure, that’s been tested.”

  Ella nodded. “It has. With some ... some success. But the cure is useless to us. We need the vaccine.”

  “Remember, we’d be happy with eighteen doses. That protects all the kids. Anything over that is golden. We’ll do a lottery if we have to.”

  Ella wasn’t going to settle for just eighteen, she knew enough was produced.

  She had to try for it all. While she wasn’t confident in the vaccine, going out beyond the safety of the wall with it would give confidence to those in Sanctum. Where they would otherwise be too scared to leave without it. Just like a non-swimmer would feel safer in water with a lifejacket, having a vaccine, whether it worked or not, would help those in Sanctum feel safer in an attack and more focused on just getting out.

  The rain subsided two hours after Ella’s desired leaving time. The damp air made the smell unbearable and the clouded sky blocked the moon causing the wooded area along the river bank to be exceptionally dark. She ran nearly blinded, her feet squishing in the mud as she fled from her undead pursuers. They followed her sound more than the sight of her.

  The small boat had about three inches of water in it, not enough to weight it down. She made it across to the shore just as another bout of rain began. Ella made certain to pull the boat as much as she could under the covering of the bridge.

  The only advantage to the rain was the soldiers didn’t make a pass by the city steps. The streets were empty and silent. Ella kept her mind clear and stayed focus in case anything jumped out at her.

  Even though Ella was quiet in her run, the steadily falling rain blocked out any noise she could make. She raced through the back alley behind Miss Marcy’s house. It was late and she hoped Miss Marcy was still awake., When she entered her backyard she saw Miss Marcy pass by the kitchen window.

  She sighed out in relief, swiped the water from her face and approached the backdoor.