Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
ADRIAN
By Saturday, the building had stopped pretending it was business as usual.
I hadn’t gone home.
That wasn’t unusual during sustained anomaly events—sleep was a luxury, and meals became whatever fit in one hand. Forty-eight hours blurred into a single, continuous day.
The meteor shower was no longer on my screen.
The weird anomalies occurring now were.
People who worked in departments other than mine here at Johnson Space Center (JSC) hadn’t shown up for work, which was very unusual.
I began monitoring Emergency intake graphs and 911 calls.
The call volume skyrocketed after the celestial event.
People were falling ill, with symptoms similar to the flu, including fever, cough, and severe vomiting.
Some officers even reported that they’d encountered violent behavior in people whose eyes had clouded over that involved… biting.
All of this could have been a coincidence unrelated to the meteor shower, but I didn’t really believe that was the case.
I leaned back in my chair and rubbed my eyes. I was exhausted. I needed a plan of action, but more urgently, I needed a cup of coffee.
Hopefully, the caffeine would revive me enough to think.
I grabbed a cup from the machine I kept in my office and took a sip as I returned to my desk.
I was in the process of running more data when my phone rang.
Lucas.
I was surprised he was calling so soon after our last conversation. He usually stayed pissy for a few days after I’d annoyed him.
I answered but didn’t get a chance to say hello.
“What the fuck is going on?” Lucas asked, with no preamble.
I glanced at the clock. Late morning.
“School is in session today?” I sighed.
I thought it might have been canceled.
“Not regular classes, it’s Saturday.” He sighed. “There are students doing make-up exams and some remedial classes. After the upcoming investigation, I didn’t think I’d be here on a Saturday.”
“What investigation?”
“You’d know if you hadn’t fucking hung up on me the other day.” He huffed.
Pissy. Just what I expected.
“I was busy. Explain.”
“Your lovely stepsister accused me of inappropriate behavior with her,” he growled. “So, I was suspended pending an investigation.”
I sat up straight and felt my face get hot. “Did you do it?”
“Fuck no! I can’t believe you’d even ask me that.” He sounded pissed off and hurt.
I wasn’t concerned about his anger. Taryn was mine.
“I’ve seen the way you look at her when you think no one is watching.” I reprimanded him.
“How in the hell would you be able to see that?” He asked, in confusion.
“There are cameras everywhere,” I said distractedly as another rash of 911 calls came out of Dallas.
“You’re one creepy son-of-a-bitch.”
“That’s not relevant,” I growled. “Why are you at school if you were suspended?”
“Temporarily suspended.”
I rolled my eyes even though he couldn’t see it. “Fine. What’s going on there?”
“They called me back in,” he continued. “Not officially, but because half the staff didn’t show up.” I could tell he was worried. “I just had to lock a student in the classroom because she bit another student and was acting like a dog with rabies.”
“Was the student ill, and did her eyes change?” I asked worriedly.
I began running a cross-reference on emergency room triage notes with police assault reports and traffic cam footage.
“Shit,” I murmured.
It seemed that every subject who developed corneal opacity showed the same progression—disorientation, agitation, then targeted biting behavior.
“They looked cloudy. Almost like someone developing cataracts. And one other thing… she fought like—” He stopped, searching for a word that wouldn’t sound ridiculous. “Like pain wasn’t registering.”
That matched the data.
“Lucas,” I said, firmly, “listen carefully. I don’t know what this is yet. But I think that contact matters.”
“Contact how?”
“Bites. Blood. Saliva. Anything that involves the breaking of skin.”
There was movement on his end—doors closing, voices muffled.
“You’re saying this spreads?”
“I believe that is correct. Yes.”
A pause. Then, quieter, “You should know that I swung by Taryn and Ben’s and no one was home. She didn’t show up to the game last night.”
I pulled up her dashboard.
Still dark.
No passive pings. No residual signals. No movement history after Friday night.
“She’s off grid,” I murmured.
Lucas exhaled slowly. “I called Ben on Friday. I thought—”
“I’m sure I can guess what result you were aiming for,” I interrupted, annoyed that Taryn was probably out of range because of him.
Silence stretched between us, thick with the weight of consequences neither of us could fully calculate yet.
“What do I do here?” Lucas finally asked.
“You leave,” I said immediately. “If anything escalates again, you disengage. You do not intervene physically.”
“What about the students? I can’t just leave them behind!”
“They’re not your responsibility anymore. And Lucas?”
“What?” he bit out.
“If you check on the student who was bitten, I believe you’ll notice he shows signs of sickness or aggression.” I sighed, “Leave now.”
I knew the stubborn bastard was going to ignore my advice. I comforted myself with the knowledge that he could take care of himself.
“I’m going to come home.”
The fact that I still thought of it as home after all these years reflected my feelings towards the girl with storm clouds in her eyes.
“When?” Lucas asked.
I looked at the screen—at the rising patterns, my missing coworkers, and the 911 calls.
“Now,” I said firmly. “I need to be with Taryn.”
“Okay,” He paused. “I’ll see you when you get here.”
I could hear what sounded like glass breaking in the background.
“I have to let you go!”
“Wait—”
He hung up. Shit!
I stood and shut down my workstation, ignoring the alerts stacking in the corner of the screen. I grabbed my jacket and headed for the exit, already rerouting in my head—roads to avoid, supply points, where I was most likely to find Lucas.
And now that Taryn had disappeared into the blind spots of every system I trusted, it was time to pay a visit to my dear old stepfather.
The parking garage was half-empty.
It shouldn’t be. We worked 24/7.
Badge-ins were down across the city—hospitals, transit, utilities. I’d been monitoring all of these closely. People didn’t stop showing up all at once unless something was wrong or something had convinced them it was safer not to.
I adjusted my route before I reached the freeway. Surface streets first. Fewer bottlenecks. And more options.
Houston traffic was no joke, but today the city looked like it was fleeing a hurricane. Cars were honking at each other, and sirens seemed to be coming from every direction.
Stores were open, but most of the parking lots I saw were nearly empty, with everyone heading to hospitals or urgent care centers all over town.
A bus was stalled in the right lane, and as I slowed, I could see the driver vomiting.
People were arguing in the street, and while I watched, one man suddenly lunged at another like a wild animal.
Fuck! Things were escalating fast. I needed to get out of this city immediately.
I entered my apartment complex a couple of hours later.
I was lucky I’d made it at all. I needed a few things from here before I could get on the road.
Thank God, I always kept a full tank of gas because after the crazy route I had to take to get here, I was down to half a tank.
I knew any stations in the city would be overrun with cars, so I’d have to look for a place further out of town.
I pulled into my assigned parking space and got out of my truck, locking the doors. I’d picked this apartment complex because it was one of the few in the city with a lobby and security.
The front desk was empty, which wasn’t normal. I started to enter the elevator, then changed my mind and took the stairs. I thought it was too early in the game for a power outage, but I was better safe than sorry.
I entered my floor quietly, glancing around before heading down the hallway. As I approached my door, I was glad to see nothing out of place. Stepping inside, I locked it behind me and moved through the apartment in a practiced sweep—windows, bathroom, bedroom.
Nothing was disturbed.
I crossed to my closet and grabbed a bag, stuffing spare clothes and my laptop inside. I didn’t know how long it would be useful, but for now it would come in handy. If Taryn came anywhere near civilization, I’d know.
I stopped at the wall by the desk.
The safe was flush-mounted, matte black, and easy to miss if you didn’t know it was there. I pressed my thumb to the biometric pad and waited for the soft click that meant access granted.
Inside, everything sat exactly where I’d left it.
I reached in and lifted the handgun free—a Glock 19, compact, unadorned, and boring in the way reliable things usually are. Nine-millimeter. Factory sights. Clean. Maintained, even though I hadn’t fired it in years.
I set the magazine, chambered a round with a controlled pull, and holstered it at my hip.
I closed the safe and stood there for a second longer than necessary, trying to ground myself. I wasn’t afraid. I was just coming to terms with what I would have to do to reach Taryn and Lucas.
I’d loved Taryn since I was old enough to understand what love was. It didn’t become romantic until I went home to visit on her sixteenth birthday. Some people might say that a man in his early twenties who falls in love with his stepsister is beyond redemption.
I didn’t give a fuck.
Taryn was my world, and I’d made that more than clear to Ben. I tried my best to stay aloof and keep my distance when I did visit, but as soon as she graduated, all bets were off. Now, with this shit going on, it looked like the timeline was moving up.
I took a deep breath and turned toward the door when something scraped in the hallway.
Not footsteps exactly.
More of a dragging.
I paused, listening.
A voice spoke—slurred, wet, trying to shape words that didn’t seem to come easily.
“Help…pl—please…”
I didn’t move.
The scraping came closer. A shadow moved under my door, disturbed by the flickering emergency lights that had just activated.
I stepped back, controlled my breathing, and waited.
The door rattled once.
Then harder.
Wood groaned. The hinges protested.
That’s when I moved.
I stood to the side and wrenched open the door. A man I vaguely recognized from the second floor fell inside. Late thirties. Gym shorts. Blood smeared across his mouth and chin. His eyes were cloudy. Wild.
Empty.
He lunged.
I sidestepped, seized his wrist, and with strength I didn’t know I had, forced his arm down. He hit the wall with a thud but didn’t appear to feel or register the pain.
The man snapped at me.
I shoved him back hard, using momentum instead of force, and he stumbled—but didn’t fall. He came at me again, faster this time.
I didn’t hesitate and grabbed the fire extinguisher outside my door, landing a solid hit against his temple. Once. Twice.
He went down, twitching. The side of his head caved in.
I backed away slowly, pulse steady, my eyes cataloging every detail even as my shaking hands tightened around the metal.
I returned to my apartment and washed my hands several times.
Longer than was necessary. More for my peace of mind than anything else.
I knew I was most likely in shock after killing a man, but I had to put it in the back of my mind.
Taryn was my priority, and I couldn’t waste time dealing with my trauma.
I left the apartment for what I was certain was the last time without looking back.
The elevator chimed behind me. I drew my gun, but when the doors opened, no one stepped out.
The door closed. I didn’t wait around to see if it would happen again.
I took the stairs, and after hearing several growls from below. I exited on the second floor.
It seemed like things had escalated in the few minutes I was inside my apartment.
I noticed a woman leaning against the wall, her knees drawn close to her chest. She gently rocked, softly mumbling incoherent words, face flushed with fever. One hand was placed on the tiled surface next to her, stained dark with a sticky, dried substance.
She didn’t look up when I passed.
I took an alternate stairway and reached the exit without further incident.
Outside, the parking lot felt wrong. I could hear screams in the distance and saw a plume of smoke that looked like a large fire.
A sedan idled near the road, turn signal ticking endlessly, the driver’s door hanging open.
A shopping cart lay on its side near the curb, groceries spilled across the concrete—scattered like someone had gone through it without knowing quite what they were searching for.
Across the street, two men shouted at each other, movements sharp and erratic, bodies pitched forward, growls emanating from their mouths.
I didn’t slow down.
I reached my truck, unlocked it, and got inside, locking the doors before I was fully seated. Only then did I take a calm, deliberate breath, glancing at the mirrors, exits, and blind spots.
I pulled out of the lot and merged into traffic that barely moved, the city grinding forward on momentum alone.
I needed to get to Taryn.
Now.