The Omega Protocol Chronicles (Book 1): Exodus (28 page)

Jenny reached out for Alan but he shook her off, cursing at her to leave him alone as he pushed himself up on shaky feet. He stalked off towards the station and Jenny watched him go, tears in her eyes.

“I warned you, Alan,” Malcolm called out to the retreating man before turning back to Quinton, his eyes narrowed in challenge. “You got anything to say?”

“I don’t have time for this bullshit,” Quinton said with a disgusted shake of his head. “I’m taking that cruiser and I’m going to get my sister. I don’t give a flying fuck what the rest of you do. I’m done here.”

He turned on his heel and grabbed Claudia trying to drag her towards the cruiser but the girl pulled against his grip.

“Quint, wait.”

Her words stopped Quinton in his tracks and he slowly turned to look at her with wide eyes. It was almost as if he was shocked to hear her voice.

Then Malcolm remembered one of the conversations he had with Quinton at the clinic. His sister had gone into a fugue state after they had fled their home. These were probably the first words Quinton had heard her speak since they had lost their parents.

“We can’t find V by ourselves. We need their help. They’re good people, Quint,” Claudia told him.

He looked at her agog for a moment before a smile spread across his face and he pulled the girl into a hug.

“Are you really back?” he asked and she nodded. “Thank God. You had me worried.”

“I’m sorry,” she replied but he shook off her apology, hugging her tighter. All the anger and tension that had been coming off of him melted away as the siblings held each other.

He turned to look at Malcolm with an earnest expression. “I’m sorry that I threatened you. It was out of line. Your people have done right by Claudia and I’m grateful for that.”

Quinton took a step forward and offered his hand to Malcolm. He shook it, giving the doctor a nod of approval. He could forgive a man who owned up to his mistakes.

Besides, Quinton had earned a few points for putting himself between Alan’s gun and the others earlier. As far as Malcolm was concerned that put the doc ahead of Alan in the group ranking.

“Like I said, I get what you’re going through. We’re going to find your sister and Travis. We’ve just got to be smart about this. We need a plan before we go back into that town.”

Quinton considered his words, glancing down at Claudia and then to the dirt road before looking back to him. He seemed to be having an internal debate and Malcolm could guess exactly what it entailed. He was chomping at the bit to take action to find his sister but his rational side was urging him to take the time to think it all through first.

“You also need to get some food and water in you before you go back,” Janet interjected. “You must be starving. We’ve got leftovers from lunch. You can plan and eat at the same time.”

“She’s right, Quint,” Claudia said, “Don’t be stupid.”

Quinton gestured for Janet to lead the way and they followed her towards the makeshift camp kitchen.

Malcolm held back, turning to Kim, who had a comforting arm around a tearful Jenny. He exchanged a look with Kim, his eyes darting towards Alan’s escape route before moving back to Jenny and then tilting his head in the opposite direction. Kim nodded, having understood his silent message.

The pregnant woman didn’t need to be anywhere near her husband when he was this volatile.

“Why don’t we go see if Lorraine needs any help with Craig?” she suggested, steering Jenny’s attention away from Alan and towards the station wagon.  

Kim glanced back at Malcolm, winking at him and hell if that didn’t cause his stomach to do a little flip in his gut. That woman was definitely dangerous to his senses. If he wasn’t careful, she would distract him and he needed all his focus if he was going to put this group back together.

With the idea of keeping his distance in mind, he jogged over to the tables, grabbing up a bottle of water before sitting down from Quinton and Claudia. As he took a long drink from the bottle, his gaze strayed to the station and he was reminded of what had happened to Jose and Ana.

“Can you give me a clearer picture about what happened with Jose?” he asked Janet when she joined them at the table, handing over bowls of macaroni and cheese.

“All of us were stupid is what happened,” she said with a sigh. “Jose said that they were swarmed by a bunch of the infected at a police station and they had to fight their way out. He was covered in their blood. We should have known that it could have gotten in a cut or his mouth or his eyes. He went to sleep in the station with Ana and the kids. We didn’t even realise anything was happening until we went to check on the kids and…we found him…
eating
 Ana.”

She choked up at the last words and Malcolm reached across the table to take her hand. Jose and Ana were good people, they didn’t deserve to go out that way. Losing the two of them was going to do a number on the group’s morale. He just hoped that they could keep it together long enough to reunite Quinton with his sister and return Travis to the camp.

Janet took a deep breath before continuing with the story. “I screamed and the kids woke up. They saw all of it and they started screaming. Jose went after them. If it hadn’t been for Claudia…no, I don’t even want to think about it, much less say it.”

She turned to Quinton and placed a hand on his arm. “Your sister saved my babies. She is an amazing girl and you should be very proud of her.”

“I am,” Quinton replied, smiling fondly at Claudia.  

“We’re going to need to bury them,” Malcolm said. “We can’t leave them to rot in there. Best we wear the hazmat suits when we do it though. Now that we know it can be transmitted without a bite, we’ve got to be careful to prevent contamination. Treat their bodily fluids like toxic waste.”

“Kim and I can take care of it,” Janet offered.

She stood up and cleared the dishes off the table and Claudia stood to follow her but Janet lay a gentle hand on her shoulder, urging her to sit back down.

“You spend time with your brother, sweetheart. Besides, I’m sure they’ve got questions for you.”

“She’s right, Claudia,” Malcolm said. “Jose said Travis was following him. What do you remember about the route you took here? It’s okay if you don’t remember much but any little thing can help.”

“When we left the police station, we were heading north but hit a group of infected blocking the road. We went west on Parkland until we hit Route 5 and then we went north ten miles through farmland and then back into the north end of the town. Jose wanted to look for Travis and Veronica. We found another group of freaks at Mulberry and Oak and doubled back, then went east to Redbush and took that to the park.”

Malcolm was surprised by her exact recall of the flight from Maryville and he looked to Quinton for some insight and he shrugged a shoulder.

“She’s always been very observant.”

“If I give you a map, you think you can show me exactly which way you took?” Claudia nodded. “Good. Now we’ve got somewhere to start looking.”

Subject File # 745

Administrator - What brought you together with the others?

Subject - Coin toss.

Administrator - Seriously?

Subject - Sorry if ya were expectin’ a better story. Couldn’t decide which direction to take so I flipped a coin and here we are.

“God damn it all to hell!”

“Jackson, you’re not supposed to swear.”

He clenched his jaw and ground his teeth together to stop himself from saying something he’d regret to Hannah. Wasn’t the little one’s fault that he was on edge as he watched the fuel gage get closer to the empty side. They needed to find some gas fast if they didn’t want to end up stuck in Virginia.

“Sorry, Squirt,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. “Wasn’t thinking.”

They’d been driving on a back road surrounded by farmland. He hadn’t been able to find any gas stations, not that they’d be operating if he did find one, considering his luck. He’d been hoping to see a farmhouse or some other sign of civilization. If they found another car, he could siphon the gas or hotwire it as a replacement for the van. Problem was these farms were corporate, worked by employees, not owners. There were industrial silos and warehouses but no vehicles in their fenced lots.

He was left with one option. The only way he was going to find a vehicle was to go somewhere with people.

He hated the idea of taking the girls into any place with a decent population. The memory of Hayden and its refugee camp full of infected was still fresh in his mind.

He stopped the van when they came to the next crossroads. The signpost listed all the towns that each road led to, along with the distance. It was pretty much six of one, half dozen of the other when it came to deciding between north and south. The first towns in either direction were ten miles away and they had enough gas to go north and back track south if they didn’t find what they needed.

His fingers tapped on the steering wheel as he looked back and forth, considering both directions. A flash of metal in the corner of his eye had him looking down at the spare change sitting in the centre console cup holder. He picked up a quarter, turning it slowly over his fingers until it sat on the top of his thumb. Why the hell not? Heads, north. Tails, south.

He flipped the coin in the air, the sunlight glinting off it as it spun and he caught it, slapping it on the top of his other hand.
Heads
. With the decision made, he turned onto the north road and headed past the sign that pointed to Maryville.  

It didn’t take long before buildings popped up as they reached the edge of town. He had rolled down the windows, listening for any sound of people but there was only the rumble of the engine and birds chirping. They came to a four way intersection and stopped to look down the other streets, trying to spy what lay ahead. They just needed one or two cars and he could siphon enough gas to fill the whole tank.

He could see a few mailboxes through the passenger window and he figured that would be the best place to start. As he turned back to the wheel, he felt the cool kiss of metal against his temple.

“Get out of the van, nice and slow,” a calm voice ordered.

He closed his eyes and silently cursed, feeling like a complete fucking idiot for letting somebody get the jump on him. When he opened his eyes, they darted to the rear view mirror to look at the girls. They were both wide eyed, the terror he had seen in them at the trailer park back again. He had to protect them.

“Mr. Jackson,” Hannah whimpered and from the corner of his eye Jackson saw his attacker shift to look back at the girls. He used the distraction as an opportunity and grabbed the gun barrel and pushed it up and away, forcing his attacker to stumble back a step. He went for the door and shoved it open, knocking his attacker to the ground. He jumped out of the van while palming his gun and finally looking his attacker in the eyes as he aimed between them.

He was surprised to see a woman sprawled on the ground. She had light red hair that was tied at the nape of her neck with bits of leaves and twigs threaded through it. Her face was marked with streaks of mud and a gash in her forehead that had dried blood flaked around it. She had bright blue eyes that stared up at him, silently pleading for mercy as she put her hands up in surrender.

He was pissed that she got the jump on him but he wasn’t about to beat on a woman. Especially not when it looked like the world had already given her one hell of a work over, if the blood stains and her torn clothes were anything to go by.

Still he kept the gun on her as he kicked her shotgun out of reach and eyed the surrounding trees for any sign of back up. Nothing moved and he finally lowered his gun, taking a step back from the woman.

She let out the breath she had been holding and lowered her hands. He noticed a large duffel bag a few feet behind the woman, rifle barrels poking out of it. Girl was armed to the teeth and he wondered where the hell she had gotten that kind of firepower.

He kept his finger on the trigger of his gun as he cautiously skirted around her to the bag, keeping his eyes on her as he bent down and picked it up. He carried the bag around the front of the van and dropped it on the opposite side before coming back to face the woman.

“I’m sorry,” she told him. “I didn’t know you had children with you. I just…I lost my brother and sister and I needed a car to find them.”

There were tears in her eyes and he saw the truth of her words behind them. She was alone and she was desperate. Hell, he’d have done the same if he was in her position.  

“I get it,” he said, moving back to the driver side door. “Can’t give ya the van though. Ya can get your bag when we’re gone.”

He climbed into the van and put it into gear, taking the right turn, keeping an eye on the woman in the rear view mirror until she disappeared from view. He glanced back at Audrey and Hannah to see they were turned in their seats, looking out the back window at where the woman had been.

“Ya girls okay?” he asked.

Hannah looked back at him. “Why did that lady try to hurt you?”

“She made a mistake is all.”

Audrey snorted. “How is sticking a gun in someone’s face a mistake?”