“You were happy enough to pretend it wasn’t happening as long as you could have your upscale lifestyle. Now put down the gun before you shoot somebody,” he said.
“I’m not talking just about that Carson. Did you even try to find me while I was out struggling for my life?”
“He couldn’t,” Kimberly spoke up. “He’s a doctor. He had responsibilities at the hospital and here.”
“Bitch, don’t tell me about my husband. In fact, you’d do well to just keep your fucking mouth shut. He may be a doctor, but that doesn’t excuse him from his responsibilities to me.”
“Alison, put down the gun. Someone could get hurt,” Carson ordered.
“So you were planning on flying out of here without another thought of me, cute. Problem is there seem to be a lot of people here and not many planes or pilots. I bet there’s going to be a space problem, but I bet you weren’t worried about that as a doctor. Well I’m going to make sure they know what a piece of shit you are, and how you left your wife out there while you were here fucking this bitch. I bet the crowd will be real happy about that. Especially the ones being left behind knowing someone could have your seat.”
Alison smiled at him, “I hope you enjoyed fucking her as much as I’m going to enjoy screwing the two of you over."
Mike moved around the desk placing himself in front of Kimberly. “Listen baby, I’ve hurt you. You didn’t deserve this. Leave Kimberly out of it, it’s my fault.”
Carson let his body go limp in a sign of submission then lashed out at Alison. His left palm connected with the side of the gun and sent it sailing harmlessly to the floor. It clanked and skidded to a stop along the office wall.
He swung his right hand at Alison’s head, his fist tightening to a hard knot. The blow caught her full in the side of the face. Her head twisted to the right, and she fell over on the floor stunned. A spatter of dark red dotted the floor near her mouth.
Carson leaned down and grabbed Alison by the back of the hair, and yanked her face around.
“Don’t you ever threaten a man, you worthless bitch.”
He slammed her head against the floor and Alison’s body went limp.
“What did you do?” Kimberly said.
I’m a monster he thought. Get a hold of yourself, Carson. I’m a doctor; I have people’s lives in my hands every day. This is no different than a day at work.
“Kimberly, honey,” he said, “You saw the gun. She was threatening you. She could have killed us, but I stopped her to save you.”
“Is she dead?” Kimberly said.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We have to get rid of her. If people find out, they’re going to come after both of us. We have to be cool, or this could blow up in our face."
"This isn’t right, Carson,” Kim said. “I don’t know if I can do this."
"I know,” Carson said. “I can't believe she would put us in this position, but I won’t let her screw up our lives together."
He put his hand on Kim's bare shoulder. "I’d do anything for you." She leaned her head forward on his chest and hugged him.
I should snap her neck and be done with it, he thought. "What do you think we should do with her, Kimberly?"
"I don’t know, she replied."
He caressed her hair, "We can’t leave her here. Someone could find her."
"We could drive her out of here and leave her somewhere," Kimberly suggested.
Carson held Kimberly close to his chest and smiled. She's my accomplice now, he thought. Hell, I might even be able to blame it all on her if need be. "That’s a good idea, I think it’ll work," he said. "I can use the SUV parked in the hanger and pull it up to the door. We can throw a tarp over her and drive out of here. If someone asks, we can tell them someone died and we’ve been told to dump the bodies outside the facility to keep disease from spreading. We’ll need to do that anyway."
Carson had used the truck a couple of times during the day and still had the keys. The hanger was empty, and he had no trouble moving it right up to the office door. He opened the rear cargo hatch and grabbed a military blanket that had been handed out to him and headed back into the office.
His wife lay motionless on the ground. He knelt down beside her and checked her pulse.
"She's still alive, Kim, find something to tie her hands and feet with." He laid the blanket down beside her and rolled her body over on it.
Kimberly dug through the office utility closet until she found a roll of duct tape.
"Carson, will this work?" Kimberly said.
He nodded his head, and she handed the roll over to him.
He spun the roll on his finger looking for the seam. He peeled several inches of the tape out and stuck it over Alison's mouth. He picked her head up off the ground and wrapped it around her head twice. Carson repeated the process with her hands and feet immobilizing his wife. He then wrapped her body up in the wool blanket completely covering her body. "Help me sit her up so we can wrap her body," Carson said.
Kimberly obeyed his command, but her hands were trembling. Carson watched her face for a moment and gave her his best smile. "It'll be ok, I promise," he said.
"Do you love me?" she asked.
"You know I do," he replied.
He opened the door to make sure the hanger was empty.
"It’s clear," he said. "Grab her feet, and I'll get the head. They carried her to the back of the truck and placed Alison inside.
"See honey," he said, "The tough part is over. Let’s get going." They got in the vehicle and drove off.
###
Rex dumped Mazie off with his wife at the truck. He spent several minutes making introductions and explaining to Ginger how he knew the girl. He cut the conversation off as soon as he could and headed off in the direction he last saw Alison.
A white SUV drove out of the open hanger door and passed in front of Rex a dozen yards away. Inside the vehicle, Rex caught a glimpse of a girl in the passenger seat with Doc Carson driving. The girl was clearly not Alison. Rex scanned the people in the immediate area. He didn’t see her anywhere.
"Alison," he shouted to the crowd, no one responded.
He hurried in the direction of the hanger and passed through the partially open bay door. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. "Alison, are you in here?" Rex said. He felt the hand of warning place its uneasy touch to his back. He ran to the office marked number seven and threw the door open. The office was dark. He reached out along the wall and flipped the light switch, but the office remained black.
Rex grabbed a small key-chain flashlight in his pocket. It clicked on and stabbed light into the darkness of the room. A silver glint by the wall caught the light and he recognized his grandfather's revolver the instant he zeroed the light on it. "Oh, shit."
He bent down and picked up his grandfather's gun. Turning toward the door, his flashlight revealed red spatter on the floor.
"That bastard," he said. Rex took off at a sprint bolting through the door. Outside of the hanger, he ran to the first vehicle he saw. It happened to be a red Polaris 550 with a teenager sitting on top of it. “Hey kid, did you happen to see which way that white SUV went?”
“Didn’t watch,” the kid responded. “But I know where he went. He saw my Polaris and asked me if I was from the area. Told him my father’s farm was just down the road. He told me he was a doctor and said that we needed a place close by outside the fence to dispose of any of the ghoul’s bodies. I told him just where to go.”