The End Came With a Kiss (10 page)

"Six
days!
You said the pills would put me under for about an
hour!
"

"Experimental pills," he corrects.

I shake my head and air bursts out of my mouth.
"WHAT?!"

"
Experimental
pills," he says arrogantly. "I did say experimental."

"Lau, I’ve never wanted to hurt another human being like I want to hurt you right now!"

He takes a step back, and Ashlyn winces from the shine of the headlamp in her eyes. "I’m with you," she says. "We don’t even need to make it look like an accident."

I'm not sure why, but her cynicism takes the edge off my wrath. "I don’t understand. It only felt like a couple of hours."

"The dream state only happens when you are in REM sleep. You spent long periods in non-REM. Those would have gone unnoticed in the dreamstate. You probably went deeper every time you hopped from one time period to the next."

"That would have been helpful to know going in. I wouldn’t have hopped around so much."

"Very few test subjects experienced this side effect. How was I to know you have a weak brain?"

I clench my teeth. "If I didn’t need you to save my wife, I’d..." I feel like I’ve been kicked in the chest. "My wife!" I say, ripping the IV from my arm and sliding off the gurney. The cold floor bites into the soles of my bare feet. "Where are my shoes and socks?"

Ashlyn runs to get them.

"You’re in no condition to go out there," says Lau, maintaining his distance, not for fear of me, but because of his aversion to human contact. "Besides, it’s still dark out."

Ashlyn returns with my shoes and socks, and I perch on a lab stool to put them on. "I need to get to my wife. She’s out there alone. God only knows what she did when I didn’t show up to help her do her loop. She could be anywhere."

"She might be fine," says Lau, with a measure of compassion. "She could have gone inside the house and just stayed there. They do that."

"I know. I hope so. But they do a lot of other crazy things when their loop is broken."

Every day, since Kate turned, she has taken a trip to where the food distribution point was—the place where our daughter was lost. Every day I have risked having her loop interrupted by some random event, but this feels different, like the quarantine war all over again. I didn’t know if either one of us would make it. Darkness threatens to engulf me as I tie my second shoe. I lift my head and take a few breaths.

"You won’t get far," says Ashlyn in a cautious voice.

Lau nods in agreement. "Things have changed."

"The hunger has made it impossible to get anywhere," says Ashlyn. "Come here."Ashlyn walks me to the window and pulls the curtain aside. We look down on the dark city that has already been ravaged by the quarantine war. I didn't think it could get worse. I was wrong.

Thick dark plumes rise up into the sky as far as the eye can see. The skyscape glows with a flickering orange. Across the street a strip mall and convenience store blaze from every window as groups of loopers run through the large parking lot like swarms of killer bees.

"They group up," says Ashlyn softly, "following each other mindlessly, unaware that what has caused their panic is inside them. It can't be hunted and it can't be killed. They're starving. And they’re afraid."

"So they don’t eat each other."

"There have been some attacks, but they end quickly. I don't think they like the taste."

I give her a grimace. "Will they die?"

She looks out the window, the light of the fire dances on her hard features. "Your doctor friend thinks they are incapable of dying. But I don’t share his optimism."

"Well, we won’t have to worry about that if we find the compound, says Lau, a good distance behind us. "Did you uncover anything?"

Reflexively, I look at Ashlyn's lovely profile. Her face is solemn as she watches the city burn. She is shorter than Dr. Cross and her frame is thinner. There is no way they could be the same person. She’s too young to be a doctor, and Lau would have recognized her the minute he saw her. Now that I am awake, it seems obvious. "What do you know about Dr. Angela Cross?" I ask Lau, over my shoulder.

"Besides the fact that she’s an irritating busy body?" he says with ire.

"Yes. Besides that."

"Well, she’s a Harvard Medical grad with two Ph.Ds and several theses under her belt. Her studies in biochemical..."

"No. I mean, what do you know about her involvement here at the company?"

"Oh. Well, it was cursory, mostly it only entailed bringing us up to speed on her research."

"Did she have any contact with the compound here in the lab?"

"Not much, but she had the clearance to do whatever she wanted. Hold on a minute, is she the one who switched the samples?"

"I saw her leave the lab with the original red-banded test tubes, but I don’t know where she brought them."

"Yes," he said introspectively. "I noticed the change in color coding as well."

"When you took the pills, did you go back to that day too, the day she switched the test tubes?"

"No. I went farther, to the day we first got our hands on the compound. I wasn’t looking for the switch. I went back to see what I saw in the microscope that day to check it against the markers for the compound we have now."

"So..."

There is a sudden hollow pop, followed by three more. It sounds like they’re coming from outside in the main office space.

My eyes snap to Ashyln. "Were those gunshots?"

10

I grab my shotgun and run toward the door.

"What about the doc? Are we just going to leave him?"

I pull my ammo bag over my shoulder and look back. "Lau's too pretty to go with us."

Lau's face curdles like milk, but I don't have time to enjoy it. I swing the door open, go to the next and look out. The space looks empty.

"I don't see any loopers. You think they're stampeding toward the gunshots?"

"No. Most of them have been hanging out at the food."

"What food?"

"I put food out on each floor."

"All thirty-two?"

She nods sharply. "Yes. All thirty-two."

"Hmm..." is all I can think to say as I turn the handle and push into the open space. Ashlyn stays close on my left hip.

CRACK! CRACK!

The sound is coming from the executive offices on the other side of the cubicle room. We jog through the main office space and down a closed-in corridor at the far end. Getting closer, I hear screaming, snarling, yelling...

"Get him! Get him!
Shoot him!"

"I can't get a shot!"

Snarls and guttural grunts mix with the sound of splintering wood. The sounds are coming from the last office on the left. I ready my shotgun and peek into the room. In the far corner is a terrified young black man waving a pistol. In the middle, under a broken table and a crazed looper, is a fat black man screaming for his life.

"HEY!" I scream. Half hoping to draw the looper out and half warning the two men, so we don't get our heads shot off.

"We're in here!" screams the fat one, wiggling to get out of the way of the punching looper.

"We're coming in to help! Don't shoot!"

I peek again to see how the young man is handling what I said. His eyes are bug wide, but the pistol has dropped.

I walk into the room, strafe left and kick the looper in the shoulder, rolling him to the floor. I come around and bring my shotgun barrel up and take aim on his face. Aw man! It's Kevin! I hate it when it's someone I know! I know his head will regenerate, but the gruesome image will stick with me for days.

BOOM!

Kevin's head snaps back and his body starts flipping around on the floor in spasms. Ashlyn lets out a shriek from the doorway.

"Come on!" I scream at the men. "Follow me!" I pull the mangled remains of the table off the big man on the floor. There’s a mixture of fear and relief in his eyes and a sheen of perspiration on his bald head. The younger man, who looks like he might be the older man’s son, runs over and helps me get him up. It’s a heavy lift, but we manage. Once he’s on his feet, I realize how massive he is. I am nearly six feet, but he towers over me. I’d be afraid, if his face wasn’t so friendly.

We help him out into the corridor, but as we pass the threshold Ashlyn launches herself at me, nailing the long hard barrel of her weapon into my chest and pushing me into the sharp metal door frame. Pain stabs into my back.

"WHAT ARE YOU
DOING?!"
she screams.

I snatch the shotgun by the center of the forestock and push her back.
"What?!"

"You idiot!! You
stupid idiot!"

"WHAT?!"
I say again, louder.

"I thought you said you just shoot them to slow them down! To incapacitate them."

"I DO!"

"That's
how you incapacitate them?" she says, waving her hand toward Kevin, coiling on the floor.

"Yeah! He can't see us now. And if he can't see us, he can’t chase us and draw the others on us."

Her face boils and her head pivots like the head of a caged animal searching for a way out of a trap.

"Look," I say, holding up a calming hand. "We can work this out. Why don’t we just go back..."

Her face tightens and her shoulders square on me. "You shot him in the
head!"

My exasperation boils over. "It’ll grow back!"

"The BRAIN will, but not his MEMORIES!"

And there it is, the reason for her anger. Is it true? Have I taken part of his life by shooting him in the head? If we find a cure, will we be able to restore him? He’s the least productive person I have ever known, but even he doesn’t deserve this. My shoulders sink. "It never occurred to me, Ashlyn. I swear."

"Now he can’t..." She stops herself.

"I know," I say gently. "Even if we find a cure, he’ll never be the same." I look back in at Kevin’s coiling body, his hands groping everything around him. "I didn’t know."

The young black man clears his throat, and points. "More are coming."

He’s right. They’re moving in the shadows of the main office space. From their sluggish postures, it doesn’t look like they’re looping.

Now what? Do I bring these two strange men into the lab—assuming Lau would even allow it—or send them on their way? I’ve seen what desperate men are capable of. Even good men lose their conscience when their back is against a bloody wall. I’m not sure I’m ready to trust anyone else, especially a man this size. I can handle Ashlyn, but this guy would tear me apart.

I look from one to the other. "Are you okay? Are either of you injured?"

They check themselves. The giant man answers. "Naw, we’re good."

"Do you need food or medical supplies?"

"We were hoping we could join you," says the big man with a meek expression, "if you would have us."

"Listen, I’m sorry, but we’ve had trouble in the past, and we can’t afford any more, but we’d be happy to share what we have with you."

"We can’t stay out there any more," says the younger man, panic flickering in his round white eyes.

I tighten my grip on my shotgun. "I’m sorry. We can’t take you in. but we’re happy to give you food and medicine."

The man’s eyes grow even more wild. "You can’t send us back out there. We won’t survive!"

"It’s all right," says the big man gently. "We understand your situation. You don’t know us. So we’ll just have to be neighbors and maybe we can win your trust."

It’s clear this decision does not settle well with the younger man, but there is no disrespect in his voice when he addresses the older man. "Where will we stay?"

"We can hole up in one of these offices. If that’s all right with you, sir." His eyes lock on mine, and I see the respect he expects from his son given to me. This is a man acquainted with authority.

"Are you ex-military?" I ask.

"Marines," he says, proudly.

I look up the corridor at the approaching dead. They hear the racket Kevin is making. I reach out and close the door. I’ll let him out once the danger has passed. "Look," I say with the voice I used to use with my employees, "there are five more offices on this stretch of corridor. All of them are spacious and have heavy doors that lock. You’re welcome to hole up in one for now, but we can’t have you stirring things up. At the first sign of trouble, this agreement will be dissolved. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir. You have my word."

"All right. We’ll bring you some food in a little bit, after things calm down. Don’t shoot anything else if you can help it."

The young man looks down at the revolver he was attempting to hide behind his leg. "Yes, sir."