When he sat down to plan that day’s route, he realized he needed to take several factors into consideration. The first was NB191, the Project Eden facility right outside Columbus, Ohio. Like the majority of other facilities, its main function was that of a warehouse and would have only a small staff. Still, he wanted to keep away from it. The second issue would be the survival station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Again, avoiding the city altogether would be the best course.
If not for the third item, he would have passed Pittsburgh to the south and cut north through the center of the state into New York and then on to his final destination. But the third item necessitated turning north prior to Pittsburgh, then heading east through the middle of the state. Unlike the others, it was a stop he had to make.
Heading out, he saw patches of snow here and there that spoke of severe weather sometime in the not too distant past. Though it had warmed at bit since then, Wicks was freezing, even with his jacket zipped all the way up and his scarf wrapped tight around his neck.
He couldn’t help but smile when he reached the I-80 north of Pittsburgh. It had been years since he was last in this part of the country. When he was a kid, he used to visit often. It had been a magical place of trees and farms and streams and secret paths through the woods. The people who had lived there were all gone now, many dying naturally as they grew older, but the majority taken by the flu.
That thought forced him to the side of the road, the bike skidding a bit on a patch of ice as he stopped. He pushed out the stand and was barely able to get off before the tears flooded his cheeks.
Safe inside Project Eden’s facilities, he’d been able to distance himself from what was happening to the world around him. He’d even told himself, because he passed on information to Matt and the Resistance, that he was on the side of good.
But for the last few days, he had driven through the silent towns, passed over the deserted roads, smelled the rotting corpses. And now here he was, a few miles away from a town where he’d known people.
He could distance himself no longer, nor could he disavow his part in the horror.
He fell to his knees, his hand covering his face, and sobbed.
There was nothing he could do to make up for what had happened.
Nothing.
He had killed them.
Killed them all.
Even after his tears ran out, he knelt there, staring at the ground.
His soul was not lost. He knew exactly where it was — in the lowest pit of hell, irredeemable.
When he rose to his feet, he was no longer shaking. Since leaving Texas, he had feared what might happen to him on the mission he was undertaking, but no more.
The damned have nothing to fear, he realized.
He took the Allegheny Boulevard exit in Brookville ten minutes later, and soon was turning off Jenks Street onto Cemetery Road. He slowed as he passed between the two columns that had flanked the entrance since long before he was born. Carved in relief in the capstone on the left was BROOKVILLE and the one on the right CEMETERY. No fancy names here, just telling it like it was.
He had no problem finding the headstone he was looking for. It wasn’t ornate or as high as many of the others, but even if a hundred years had passed, he would have found it just the same. It was his grandfather’s, a humble monument Wicks had helped his mother pick out.
The gravestone was a five-inch-thick slab of granite that rose a foot into the air from a wide base flush to the ground. He squatted next to it and brushed away a crusty chunk of snow from the bottom.
He’d always loved his family’s trips here to visit his grandfather, had loved playing in the sweet old man’s barn, and walking with him through the fields. Wicks had been fourteen when his grandfather died, and — until he’d come back seven years earlier for a short, purposeful visit — the man’s funeral had been the last time Wicks was there.
He ran his palm across the front of the stone, outlining his grandfather’s name before moving his hand to the very top of the monument. As much as he would have liked to spend hours cloaked in the good memories, that was time he did not have.
He gripped the stone with the other hand and yanked it forward. The first jerk barely moved it, but with each back and forth motion, the marker tilted more and more until finally it tipped over onto the grass and snow.
Moving around behind it, he reached into the hole where the base had been. After clearing away some clumps of dirt, he found the box and pulled it up. The container was made from a hard, durable polymer that was guaranteed to last a hundred years. It probably did not gain the favor of the ecologically minded but was exactly what Wicks had wanted. With the exception of being a little dirty, the box looked like new.
He twisted the top counterclockwise and looked inside. It was still there, like he knew it would be. He closed the top, set the box to the side, and tilted the marker back into place.
“Thank you,” he said, looking down at the grave.
His grandfather would be shocked at what Wicks had been a part of, but he hoped the old man would at least be supportive of what he was trying to do now.
He picked up the box as he stood. The container felt so light for something so important.
Please still work, he thought. Dear God. Please.
27
“Here,” Crystal said, handing a headset to Ash. She then donned the second set and clicked CONNECT.
The line rang only once before it was answered. “Nyla.”
“It’s Crystal. I have Captain Ash here.”
“Afternoon, Nyla.” Ash had met her in passing, but had never really talked to her.
“Hello, Captain,” she said. “We have a situation here we need some guidance on.”
On the way to the communications room, Crystal had briefed Ash on Nyla’s assignment in Los Angeles, but had no details on why the woman wanted to talk to him.
“All right. I’ll do what I can,” he said.
“I think it’s probable we have a unique group of survivors here.”
“Unique in what way?”
“Sir, we believe they are immune.”
“You mean they’ve been vaccinated?” It had happened in India, so it wouldn’t be completely surprising if the same situation had occurred here.
“No. Not vaccinated. Immune.”
Ash knew a few people with a natural immunity were to be expected. He and his kids were examples of that. “How many are we talking? Two? Three?”
“At least twenty. And, if I’m right, there’s probably many times more than that.”
“Start at the beginning,” he said.
She had barely begun when Pax entered the room.
“Nyla, hold for a moment,” Ash said. He motioned for Pax to join them and then touched Crystal on the shoulder. “Put her on speaker.”
“What’s going on?” Pax asked.
Instead of answering, Ash said, “Nyla, Rich Paxton is here with me now. Do you mind starting over?”
“No problem.”
She told them about Martina Gable and her friends, all of whom were survivors, and all of whom had been stricken with the flu the previous spring. She described the special holding area at the Los Angeles survival station, and that a head count of the people inside was larger than the group Martina had been with.
“The other holding areas have been pretty much emptied out,” she said. Though the pattern was sporadic at the moment, teams had reported similar purges at other stations. They all knew this meant Project Eden had begun eliminating the survivors they’d collected. “Thankfully, we’ve had a drastic reduction in the number of new arrivals here since Tamara’s message started playing, and out of those, we’ve been able to get to most before they reached the station. What I’m concerned about is what the Project’s going to do about this immune group.” She paused. “Sir, I’m tired of watching people die. We need to get them out.”