Altered Genes: Genesis (22 page)

T
he sound
of rubber tires crunching over gravel woke Simmons. He bolted upright to find Gong already awake and crouched at the rear of the van, peering out through the window. The Asian turned back to him, his brow creased with worry.

“We have visitors.”

Simmons pushed his sleeping bag aside and scrambled to the back. A white and green half-ton truck with a set of red lights on the roof was parked on the edge of the clearing.

“Shit, it’s the police.”

Gong shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

The man who stepped out of the truck was stocky, in his mid-thirties with a full beard. He wore a light gray, button-down short-sleeve shirt tucked into a pair of green pants. A woman sat in the passenger seat and Simmons could barely see the top of a child’s head beside her.

He slowly pushed the van’s rear door open. It made a god-awful screech and the man quickly turned to it.

“Morning,” Simmons said. He climbed down from the back of the van.

“Park’s closed, Sir,” the man answered back. “You’ll have to pack up and leave.”

“But we just arrived last night. We only want to stay a couple more nights, Simmons pleaded. “We’ll clean up. We won’t leave a mess.”

“Sorry, Sir, that won’t be possible. Like I said, the park is closed. You’ll have to leave now.” The ranger stepped behind the open driver’s side door. He stretched across the seat.

Out of the corner of his eye, Simmons saw Gong reach behind his back for the gun he had tucked in his pants.

The ranger stepped back into the open. He held a clipboard in his hand. Gong relaxed. The ranger pointed to the tent. “Please pack it up now. I don’t want to have write you a ticket.”

“What’s going on?” Mei asked from the edge of the forest. Everyone turned to her voice. She held a roll of toilet paper in her hands.

Simmons nodded towards the ranger. “He wants us to leave.”

“Now?”

“Yes, Ma’am. Please pack up. The park is closed to visitors.”

The child in the back seat, a little girl, made a noise. The ranger shared a nervous glance with the woman in the truck. She leaned over the seat and shushed the child.

Mei joined Simmons and Gong at the van, her back to the ranger. “He’s lying.”

They both nodded.

Simmons studied the truck.
Pennsylvania DCNR State Parks
was painted on the side. The back of the truck was filled with boxes and what looked to be the contents of a house. “I think this is his place,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Mei asked.

“His bolt-hole, hide-out—whatever you want to call it—and we’re in it. The question is do we want to ask him to share it?”

“No,” Gong replied as a second truck pulled up. It was identical to the first but had two children in the back seat. “We may have arrived first, but this spot is theirs. They intend to stay. We are merely passing through.”

Simmons looked at Mei. She nodded.
They’re right.

“We’ll pack up and get out of your way,” he said to the man. “Just give us a half hour to pack up.”

The man gave him a slow smile and nodded. He looked relieved. “Thank you.” He turned to the woman in the truck as she whispered something to him and then looked back at the three of them. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could you keep your distance? Nothing personal, but we don’t know you.”

“No problem,” Mei and Simmons said at the same time.

T
he parking lot
at the Bandit Truck Stop was filled with tractor trailers lined up in neat rows. Small groups of drivers, all wearing masks, huddled and talked while the giant trucks rattled beside them. Most of the drivers paid no attention to the two vehicles as they searched for a place to park.

A pair of National Guard humvees sat in front of the entrance to the gas pumps. As best Mei could tell, the soldiers were only allowing the big transport trucks to fuel-up.

They didn’t need gas but had stopped to use the restrooms before heading north. It was a little over four hundred miles to the border. A one-day drive under normal conditions but she guessed it would take them two, maybe three days.
And they still needed to figure out how to cross into Canada.

She motioned towards the soldiers and spoke to Simmons. “I’m going to see what the deal is—be back in five.”

She was back in two. “As of yesterday, fuel is being rationed. You can only get it if you have a permit from Homeland security. Do we have enough?”

He shook his head. “For the car maybe, but not the van. We’ll keep our eyes open. There’s probably a black market for it already. Let’s get back on the road.”

She nodded and returned to the van.

A few minutes later, they were back on the road. They didn’t get very far before they slowed and then came to a complete stop. A large semi-truck in front of them blocked Mei’s view.

“Can you see what’s going on?”

Lucia shook her head.

Mei was about to climb out of the van and check when a tired-looking man with worn blue jeans and a denim jacket approached the driver’s side window. He greeted Lucia with a tip of his ball cap and knocked on the window.

“It’s okay—I think—roll it down,” Mei said.

Lucia cranked it down a couple of inches, leaving just enough space for the man to talk through.

“Morning,” he said with a thick southern accent, “Y’all might as well turn off your engine and save some gas. We’re gonna be here a while.”

Mei leaned across the seat towards Lucia and motioned her to roll the window down further. “Was there an accident?”

The man’s face turned serious. “Don’t know that I would call it an accident, but it looks like some fellas had a disagreement and did some shooting.”

“I’m a doctor. Does anyone need any help?”

He smiled grimly. “Not that you can offer. They’re dead. Just waiting for someone to take the bodies away and clear the cars off the road.”

Lucia turned the engine off, pressed her head back against the torn vinyl headrest and closed her eyes.

“You been on the road a while?” he asked Mei.

“For a while,” she said vaguely. “We left New York a few days ago.”

“I hear it’s getting bad there. A lot of the drivers won’t make the trip into the city anymore.”

“Where are you going?” she asked him.

“Harrisburg Air National Guard Base. The Guard’s taken over food distribution.” He motioned to his truck. “Got a load of supplies to drop off, and then I’m going home to Louisville, Kentucky—home to my wife and grandkids. How about you?”

“New York State.”

She felt oddly uncomfortable lying to him.

He leaned in closer and spoke in a solemn tone. “You might have some problems. There’s chatter on the radio that the interstates are being closed.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know.”

The impatient blare of an air horn sounded from behind the van. Lucia’s eyes shot open while Mei jumped in her seat. He leaned away from the window and waved his arm in acknowledgment to the large semi-truck parked a few cars behind them.

“That was quick. Time to go. Since we’re headed in the same direction for the next few hours, why don’t you follow me. I can see a little further up the road—name’s Bill by the way.”

That might make sense
, Mei thought. She glanced at Lucia who nodded.

“Okay. Thanks.”

He gave them a quick smile and returned to his truck. Mei jumped out and ran back to tell Simmons and Gong.

The hiss of airbrakes sounded and a belch of black smoke rose from the chrome pipes that ran up the side of the truck’s cab. They followed him as he drove away. The smell of burnt diesel wafted in the air.

The miles rolled by and they stayed tucked in behind the big truck’s trailer. Broken-down cars littered the shoulder, one every couple hundred yards. The interstate was busy but not packed. Mei guessed it was because of the gas rationing. She leaned over and looked at the van’s fuel gauge.
Little more than half-full.

A dozen miles before the intersection of I-81 and I-76, the truck’s four-way flashers began to blink. They followed the truck as it pulled to the shoulder and stopped.

Bill hobbled up to the driver’s window with a grim look on his face. “We’re gonna have to go our separate ways now. You might want to get off here.”

“Is it blocked?” Mei asked, afraid she already knew the answer.

He nodded. “Only the big rigs are being allowed through. C’mon, you can see for yourself if you want.”

She and Lucia left the van and followed him to the side of truck’s long trailer. He unhitched a light aluminum ladder. Simmons and Gong joined them as he placed it upright against the side.

“What’s going on?” Simmons asked her.

“The road ahead is blocked.” She gave him a worried look. “He says that only trucks are being allowed through.”

“Any idea why?”

Bill looked at Simmons and spoke. “I heard a fella on the CB say that cars are being checked for the bacteria. Go on up and take a look if you want. I’ll hold it, but be careful, it’s a fair ways down.”

He handed Simmons a pair of binoculars, but Lucia snatched them away.

“I’ll go,” she said and hung the binocular’s strap around her neck.

Bill hurried to brace the ladder as she scampered up it. “She’s an odd one, ain’t she,” he said to no one in particular.

Lucia reached the top and disappeared from their sight. A few minutes later she reappeared and beckoned down to them. “Come see.”

Simmons turned to Bill and asked, “Can it hold us both?”

“Sure—these intermodal containers are strong but don’t be falling off. The last thing I need is to be taking any of you to the hospital.”

“I’m coming too,” Mei said and followed him up the ladder.

They joined Lucia at the front of the trailer. Even without the binoculars, they could see the long line of traffic unfolding on the interstate in front of them. It started one or two miles ahead and filled the highway until it came to an abrupt end at an exit.

Mei took the binoculars and scanned the horizon. A group of army trucks had blocked the road. They were diverting everything but the big transport trucks off the highway. Rolling hills and curves in the terrain obscured her view but far off in the distance, she could see what looked to be the tops of immense white tents.

“What do you think?” she asked as she handed the binoculars to Simmons.

He peered through them for a minute and then lowered them from his eyes. “Not good, but I think I know what it is. They aren’t testing the cars for bacteria, they’re testing the people for immunity.”

She listened as he told her about his suggestion to Lexington, the director from Homeland security.

“Should Lucia and I go get tested? We were both exposed to hundreds, maybe thousands of people who were infected.”

Was it even possible? She never gave it much thought.

His eyes darted back and forth between her and Lucia. She could see the gears grinding in his head as he thought about it. “It’s possible,” he said after a pause, “but not likely. You might have just been lucky.”

“But we might be immune,” she said hopefully. “Wouldn’t that be helpful.”

“If you tested positive for the antibodies, they’d take you away to study you,” he said, not answering her question.

“But it would be helpful, right?”

He studied her for a long second before speaking. “Yes,” he said reluctantly. “It would be helpful. But even if you have the antibodies, it will take months or even years to find a way to replicate them.”

She turned away from him and stared off into the distance.
But it would help people. Something she hadn’t been able to do in the hospital.

“Look down there, Mei.” She felt his hand on her arm. “You’d be exposing yourself to thousands of people who might be infected. If you don’t have the antibodies, you’ll be putting yourself and Lucia in grave danger.”

“But we might be immune.”

He grabbed her and spun her around to face him. “Or you might not be—I don’t want to lose you again.” She could hear the anguish in his voice. “If you’re immune or have the antibodies, we’ll find out and we’ll use that knowledge to help people—but not down there, not that way.”

“Promise?”

“Yes, I promise.”

He opened his arms and she stepped into their fold.

T
hey left
Bill and the interstate behind and traveled northeast in a new seating arrangement. Emma and Lucia were in the van and everyone else in the car.

Mei glanced at Saanvi. She was worried about the girl. Other than the occasional muttered word or two, Saanvi was silent most of the time. Even Emma, with her ebullient personality, could only get yeses and noes out of her.

She watched Simmons stretch out in the seat in front of her and smiled at the back of his head.
It was nice being with him again. But even nicer to be away from Emma’s babbling.

“Pull over behind them,” she heard him tell Gong.

She leaned forward to look out the front window and watched the van skid to a stop on the side of the road. Emma climbed out and slammed the passenger side door shut.

“What’s going on, Tony?”

He shrugged.

Gong pulled the car in behind the van as Emma marched towards them.

Mei rolled the window down. “What’s going on?”

“She’s insufferable,” the younger woman yelled. “I’m not riding with her anymore. She has no right to tell me to shut-up.” She put her hands on her hips and glared at Mei, waiting for her to say something. Before she could open her mouth, Lucia stomped towards them.

She yelled at Emma in angry Spanish. “Habla demasiado!”

“I do not talk too much,” Emma screamed back.

Lucia snapped her thumb and fingers together repeatedly as she pantomimed a mouth talking. “Blah blah blah blah blah.”

She stopped and faced Mei. “I put up with her out of the kindness of my heart so that you could have time with the other one, but it is too much to bear. I can no longer tolerate it.”

Emma frothed at the mouth, so angry she could barely get the words out. “You tolerate me—

“Okay you two, that’s enough,” Mei said, tired of their bickering.

She forced the car door open, using it to push the two of them back. She wasn’t even half-way out of the vehicle before they began to argue again.

“I said that’s enough,” she yelled. “We have bigger things to deal with.”

She pointed at Emma and then Lucia. “You get in the backseat…and you get back in the van.”

She turned to face Simmons and Gong. “I’ll drive with—

Simmons had a smile on his face that ran from cheek to cheek.

“Wipe that grin off your face.” She slammed the door and stomped to the van.

T
hey stayed
off the highways and traveled on the local roads that meandered through rural Pennsylvania and New York state. Progress was slow and they burned through precious gasoline.

Simmons was right, there was a black market for fuel but they couldn’t afford it, not without trading away all of their supplies and no one was ready to do that.

A few miles before Binghamton, the van’s engine shuttered and coughed a few times before it finally gave up and quit. Lucia steered the vehicle to the side of the road.

“What is it? Out of gas?” Mei asked.

For the last twenty minutes, they’d both had their eyes fixed on the fuel gauge hoping the needle was on the generous side—It wasn’t.

Lucia nodded.

Shit. They were in the middle of nowhere…nothing but farmer’s fields and forest.

The car was a few hundred yards down the road in front of them. Mei opened the van’s door and waited for Gong to turn it around and return to their location.

“Out of gas?” Simmons yelled when they pulled up.

“Probably—it just quit.”

“Do you think we could buy some from one of the farmers?” he asked Gong, who had joined them.

“No. They will know the value of it.”

“We don’t really have any other options,” Simmons countered.

“I have an idea,” Gong said. He walked to the car to talk to Emma. She climbed out and followed him to the back of the van. They watched as she rooted through the boxes and handed him a blue plastic five-gallon water jug.

He took it. “Are there any large soft drink bottles?”

She shook her head.

He placed the plastic jug on the ground and walked up and down the side of the road staring into the ditch.

What the heck is he doing?

Mei watched him bend over and reach for something. “What are you looking for?”

“This.” He waved an empty two-liter plastic bottle in the air.

He returned to the van and asked Lucia for her large knife. “The one you took from the dead man.” She stared at him for a second and then retrieved it from the front seat.

He took the knife, the water jug, and the pop bottle and placed them in the trunk of the car.

“I will be back in a while.”

“Where are you going? Mei asked

“To get some gasoline.”

She stared at him disbelief. “From where?”

He pointed his finger down the road as if that explained everything.

“I’ll come with you,” Simmons said and took a step towards the car.

“No, stay here. I will return as quickly as possible.”

They watched him drive away in the direction they had just come from.

“What the hell was that all about?” Simmons asked her with a perplexed look on his face.

She shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

A little less than an hour later, he was back. His shirt and pants were dirty and he reeked of gasoline.

He popped the car’s trunk open and pulled out the plastic water jug. It was three-quarters full.

Emma ran over to him, her eyes wide. “Is that gas, Gong? Where did you get it?

“From the broken down cars we passed earlier. Some were out of fuel but others weren’t. I drained the gas from them.”

“How?”

He held out the knife and showed her the pop bottle with its top cut off. “I poked a hole in the gas tank and collected the fuel.”

“You’re crazy…weren’t you afraid it would explode?” She gave him a worried look. “You could have died.”

He smiled slyly. “New cars have plastic gas tanks. There is no spark to ignite the fuel.” He took the plastic jug of gasoline and carefully poured it into the van.

“Maybe we should look for a plastic hose to siphon gas,” Simmons suggested.

“That would be helpful,” Gong agreed, “But it needs to be very small. Many cars have a small ball-shaped valve in the pipe that runs to the gas tank.”

“Why?” Emma asked

He grinned. “To stop people like me from siphoning the gas out.” As he finished pouring the last of it into the van, he looked at her. “There is always another way to do everything. You should remember that.”

Mei squinted into the sky. “It’s probably five or six o’clock and we still need to skirt around Binghamton—that’ll take a few hours. What do you guys think, should we spend the night here?”

No one objected. She didn’t expect they would. After a couple of close calls, they had made it a habit to avoid the larger towns and cities—especially at night.

They packed up the vehicles and Gong led them a few miles down the road to a small dirt lane. It was covered with weeds and hadn’t been used in months. They followed it as it wound its way up to the top of a rolling hill. It ended abruptly at a closed gate that provided access to a farmer’s field with a panoramic view of the valley below.

The last of their bottled water had run out that morning. Simmons gave Emma a large pot to fetch some from the small stream that ran along the bottom of a ravine.

“Even it looks clean, don’t drink any until we purify it,” he warned her.

When she returned, he broke one of the white iodine tablets into small chunks and dropped a piece in each of their cups. The last tablet went into the pot of water they would use to rehydrate the freeze-dried food.

It was dusk by the time they finished eating and Gong insisted they put the fire out. “It’s too open here, we can be easily seen from the houses and roads down below.”

As the sky grew darker, the stars began to appear. Simmons pointed to a bright light that was low in the sky.

“That’s Jupiter, to the left and down from the moon. And way over there, to the right and up, is Orion—the hunter.”

“Where’s the Big Dipper?” Emma asked as she scanned the sky.

“You’re looking in the wrong direction.” Simmons laughed and turned her around. “Up there.”

She followed his pointed finger. “I see it now but what’s that orange glow over the top of those hills?”

“Lights from Binghamton. We’ll drive around it tomorrow.”

Mei laid back and stared up into the sky. It was quiet. The grass rustled as a gentle breeze blew across the field. She heard Emma sigh and speak. “It’s beautiful up here, isn’t it? Almost like there’s nothing wrong with the world. I wish it was always this peace—What the hell?”

Mei shot up, startled by the tone in Emma’s voice. “What is it?”

“They’re gone,” the girl said. “All the lights where Professor Simmons said Binghamton was are gone.”

She followed Emma’s outstretched arm. In the dim moonlight, she could see the outline of the hills around them but nothing else.

“Power’s gone out,” Simmons said. “It’s beginning.”

She knew what he meant.

Seconds later, they heard the drone of something in the distance. It sounded like a lawnmower.

“What’s that?”

“A generator,” Gong answered. “Probably at one of the nearby farms.”

“It sounds so close.”

“Noise travels far in the still of the night. That generator is like a flashing neon sign inviting its owner to be robbed.”

The mood broken, Mei stared in the direction where Binghamton used to be and waited in vain for the lights to come back on. They didn’t.

“Come on you guys, we might as well get some sleep. If we get an early start, we might make it to the border tomorrow.”

But then what?