Chapter 11
ALEX
Alex tucked his arms closer to his sides, careful to avoid letting any part of him touch the chair’s arms in the cramped security office where he’d been stuck.
He would have much rather completed this task from the comfort of the motel room–or even better, from the comfort of his own sanitized home.
He hated sitting here only feet away from rooms brimming with sick people, but he wouldn’t let Ava deal with this on her own. He wanted to be by her side, to support her, especially if she had another blackout.
He worried that this type of stress could push her over the edge again, and he wanted to be there for her if she needed him.
He flicked his gaze from his screen to his wife as she ordered the security guards to call in reinforcements to secure the hospital and ensure no one left, except in a body bag.
One guard hurried from the room to make the necessary calls.
A shiver snaked down his spine as he considered how many of these people would end up dying. He shook his head at the audacity of The Board to do something like this. His fingers flew across the keyboard as he accessed the security system.
A chair squeaked as one of the guards twisted to face Alex. “You’re going to need access credentials if you plan to open the system on your laptop. I can–”
“No need,” Alex said with a dismissive wave. “I can get in without them.”
The guard screwed up his face as Alex raised his eyes to him.
“I’m literally the world’s best hacker. I don’t need credentials to get into your system.”
The man raised his eyebrows, a chuckle escaping him. “Uh, okay.”
“He’s right,” Ava answered as she crossed to him and rubbed his shoulder. “Once you’re in, could you also pull access to the patient charts and build a timeline for Doc?”
“Will do, Sparky…er…Agent Slate.”
The guard rocked back in his chair, a grin on his features. “Sparky, huh? Are you two, uh–”
“Married,” Ava answered him, flashing her left ring finger at him.
Alex’s chest puffed a little as he continued to type before a low power warning popped up on his screen. “Ugh, you’re kidding me.”
“Tell me you brought the cord.”
“Of course, I brought the cord,” Alex answered, climbing from his chair and handing the laptop over to her. “Hold that a second, and I’ll go get it. Oh, do you think your partner extraordinaire locked the car?”
Before she could answer, he shook his head. “Never mind. I’ll just…hack the frequency and open it with my phone.”
“You can do that?” the guard asked.
“With my hands tied behind my back, bro,” Alex answered with a bob of his head before he kissed Ava’s cheek. “Be right back.”
He tugged his phone from his pocket as he stepped into the hall, tapping around on it while he made his way toward the entrance. He sidestepped around a few people before he bumped into someone.
“Oops, sorry, I was–”
The person, clammy and pale, reared back before then sneeze all over him.
He stood frozen, his lips pulled into a tight grimace as he stared down at the droplets on his phone.
“Sorry,” the person murmured before skirt around him and continuing down the hall.
Alex remained stuck in his spot for a moment before he finally came back to his senses. He wiped the phone off against his shirt, shaking his head before he shoved it into his pocket and reached for the hand sanitizer dispenser on the wall near the door.
He growled in frustration as he found it empty. With a curse under his breath, he hurried through the door and past the patients waiting to be seen, cringing at every cough.
Relief washed over him when he finally took in a deep breath of cool mountain air after stepping outside.
With a shake of his head, he crossed to their rental and pulled open the back door, finding it unlocked. “Thank you, Sebastian.”
He rummaged around in his bag, grabbing a cord and the hand sanitizer. He squeezed a generous amount of the cool gel into his palm before he rubbed his hands vigorously, coating every inch of his skin.
“There we go,” he said, shoving the small bottle into his pocket and closing the car door.
He made his way back to the security office, grabbing his laptop off of Ava and plopping into his seat again. With a plug located, he ran the cord to his laptop and settled in to dig up some information about the patients.
Ava rubbed his shoulders as his fingers hammered against the keys.
“I’m in,” he murmured as the camera on the monitors across the room bloomed to life on his computer screen.
“Awesome, now the patient records,” she said as she leaned closer to him.
“On it,” he answered. “Hey, how long is Doc going to be here? We can do all this from the motel.”
“He’s doing a round with Dr. Meade. I don’t know how long they’ll be.”
“Well, maybe Shadow can hang here with him and me, and you can abscond to the motel where there will be less germs.”
“Which motel you at?” the guard asked.
“Pelican Inn,” Ava answered. “Outskirts of town.”
“Oh, yeah…hate to tell you, dude, but there may not be less germs there.”
Alex’s lips parted as he winced at the words. “Ugh, seriously?”
“Sorry, nicest place we have here is the Falls B&B over on Second Street.”
Alex opened another window, quickly finding the B&B’s number before he dug his phone from his pocket. “That’s perfect, Av–Reb–Becky. We could walk there right now.”
“Ahh, sorry, buddy, no can do. The owner’s in the hospital with this crazy flu, so you’re out of luck on that. They’re closed.”
“What?” Alex let his head drop back between his shoulders. “You’re kidding me. So, we’re stuck in Germlock Falls at the Germ-ican Inn.”
“Use your hand sanitizer, babe,” Ava said with a rub of his shoulders.
“I’m going to have to bathe in it.” He shook his head, dismissing the page for the prospective accommodations and returning to gaining access to the patient charts.
He cracked the system to access them, bypassing any of the credentials needed to see specific charts.
“Okay, I’ve access to all the charts. Is there some sort of code I can use to find the people with this flu.”
“Good question,” Ava said. “I’ll ask Doc. Be right back.”
Alex nodded, shifting in his seat as he brought up a new window, quickly writing some preliminary code to search the system for the first case, then determine how quickly the virus was spreading.
“So, uh, how long have you and the missus been a thing?” the guard asked as Alex worked.
“Almost twenty years.”
“Wooo, that’s a long time. And she still rubs your shoulders?”
Alex raised his eyebrows, lifting his eyes from the screen. “Yeah?”
He didn’t want to mention that they were sort of newlyweds since they were only married almost two decades ago for other reasons. But would Ava not act like this after a few years of marriage? Would their relationship lose its luster? He was determined to make certain it didn’t.
“Yeah, my lady did that for two months, then I was on my own.”
“Sorry to hear that. Av–Becky is pretty awesome, though.”
The man puckered his lips and nodded. “Seems like it. I can’t believe Homeland Security is involved in this.”
“Yeah, well, this could become the next pandemic, so the department really wants to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“Right,” the guard answered as he turned back toward the screen. “Ohh, we have incoming. Looks like an entire family coming in.”
Alex glanced at the cameras on his screen, his nose wrinkling as more sick people poured into the tiny hospital. With a heavy sigh, he continued laying the groundwork for his program when Ava popped back into the room.
“Doc says this is being tagged as code nine, general influenza.”
“Got it,” Alex answered with a nod as he made the appropriate change to his program to pull records for anyone who had been received that diagnosis, search for the first case, then generate the number of cases by the hour.
He then programmed in the necessary code to extrapolate that into future times so they could determine how the spread may progress along with the casualties.
As he waited for his program to run through the patient charts, he drummed his fingers on his laptop.
“Easy, Ace,” Ava said. “Doc said he won’t be too much longer, then we can head to the hotel.”
“Good,” Alex answered. “I can’t wait to wipe down that room and sit in solitude.”
Ava chuckled at him as he shuddered again. By the time Kyle had finished his initial assessment of the patients in Hemlock Falls, Alex’s program had finished.
The numbers showed a fast and horrific progression through a wide swath of the community, leaving the majority of dead. The grim picture did not get any better when Kyle indicated that none of the patients were responding to any treatments.
They left the hospital behind in relative silence, the news bleak.
As they pushed into their room at the Pelican Inn, Alex heaved a heavy sigh. “Ugh, is it just me or are you wiped out?”
Ava rubbed his back as he dug the bacteria-killing wipes from his bag and tore them open. “It’s the worry, babe. You’re stressed about getting this virus.”
“Yeah, well, you saw the numbers, Avs. I’m stressed about any of us getting this virus.”
“Even Shadow?” she said with a teasing grin.
“Yeah, even him. Although, you more, then Doc. So…he’s last on the list, but he’s still on it.”
“Well, maybe tomorrow, you should stay here,” Ava said.
Alex wiped down the television remote before he moved on to the nightstand surfaces. “And you, too. Sparky, this looks dangerous. I don’t want you anywhere near it. Plus, if you get sick, what if it triggers another blackout?”
She eased onto the edge of the bed with a heavy sigh. “I have already thought of this. But I have to trust Doc’s treatment.”
“It’s not Doc’s treatment I’m worried about, Ava. It’s this modified virus from The Board. For all we know, this stuff could be laced with something designed to trigger your blackouts.”
“I’m not sure they thought that we would figure this out, Ace. So, I’m not certain this is a trap. I think, for once, we’re ahead of the game here.”
Alex shifted his weight from foot to foot. “I don’t feel ahead of the game.”
Ava rose and crossed to him, wrapping her arms around him. “I know. And I don’t think we ever will until we’re rid of them completely. And even then, I think we’ll have an adjustment period where we’re always looking over our shoulder.”
“I’d rather that than this. Ava, I’m worried.”
“So am I.” She leaned forward to give him a kiss on the lips. “But we are together, and we are fighting back.”
He pressed his forehead against hers. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Ace. Now, let’s get some sleep. We’ll decide what to do in the morning after Kyle calls in to get the latest news.”
“Please, please, please stay here no matter what that news is,” Alex said as she pulled the covers back and fluffed her flat-looking pillow then disappeared into the bathroom with her bag.
“We’ll see, Ace. We may need to stop there and make sure everything is under control.”
Alex huffed out a breath as he rummaged through his bag for sleepwear, tugging off his clothes and changing before she slid between the sheets.
Ava emerged from the bathroom a few moments later and slipped into bed next to him, cuddling close.
He wrapped his arm around her, kissing the top of her head. “Good night, Avs.”
“Good night, Ace.”
He sucked in a deep breath, trying to slow his racing mind, but he couldn’t manage to fall asleep. Too many disaster scenarios raced through his mind, accompanied by a nagging ache in his neck—probably from sitting in that stupid, poorly designed chair.
Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, he dozed off, his dreams filled with flu-ridden zombies chasing him and Ava through the small town of Hemlock Falls.
When he finally awoke, his clothes were drenched in a cold sweat, and his neck was stiff.
Ava was already awake and in the shower when he dragged himself out of bed and fiddled with the crappy coffeemaker to brew something he hoped was drinkable.
When she popped out of the bathroom, he’d already drank half a cup, still barely awake.
“Good morning,” Ava said with a kiss to his cheek as she poured herself a cup. “You look rough, babe. No sleep?”
“Barely,” he answered. “Hopefully, a shower will help. Let me know what Doc finds out when he calls.”
“Okay,” she answered.
He dragged himself into the shower, allowing the hot water to cascade over him, though it did little to ease his sore muscles or wake him up. When he climbed out, he felt no better.
He pulled on his clothes and stumbled out of the bathroom, finding Ava, Sebastian, and Kyle all in his room.
“Whoa, babe, you look worse than you did when you went in,” Ava said as she hurried to him.
“Yeah,” he answered. “I didn’t sleep. How’s it looking at the hospital, Doc? Can Ava and I have a free pass to stay home?”
Kyle frowned at him, his eyes narrowing. “You feeling okay?”
“I’m tired. I didn’t get much sleep. And I have a stiff neck from that stupid chair they have. Remind me to bring my own chair next time I have to save the world from a deadly virus.” He tried to grin, but he felt too exhausted to even do that.
“Babe, you’re burning up,” Ava said as she pressed a hand against his cheek.
“Probably hot from the shower,” he murmured, his head starting to pound with a dull ache at the temples.
“Uhh, you may want to sit down, Mav,” Kyle said.
“Yeah, maybe. I feel really tired. I’ll just–”
He stopped mid-sentence, his vision narrowing to pinpoints of light. The world around him blurred, sounds muffled as if they were underwater. His limbs felt heavy, like lead, and his heartbeat pounded in his ears. He blinked, but the darkness crept in from the edges of his vision.
“Ace?” Ava’s voice sounded far away, distorted.
He tried to respond, but his lips wouldn’t move. His legs buckled beneath him, and the floor rushed up to meet him as everything went black.