Catalyst (Book 1): Decay Chains (15 page)

“We can get money and supplies if we link with others,” Stormy said.

“There you go getting ahead of yourself again,” Ian said.

“Well, are we all in agreement on this much at least?”

“Read us the terms again,” Ian said.

“Ian and Josh will stay out of direct harm as much as possible,” Stormy said. “We will devise a plan and obtain the resources to go after Cold World and kill the supers.”

“I’m in,” Stan said.

“I’ve been in since we had this conversation in the M-RAP,” Purdy said. “Don’t know why we have to go talking about everything three and four times before we can get anything done around here.”

“Come on, Josh,” Stormy said.

Josh pushed back from the table and took off down the hall with Ian in tow. A door slammed, but their muffled voices floated back into the kitchen. She couldn’t resist trying to decipher their words, even though it was senseless. In a moment, she would know what they were talking about without straining to hear.

Purdy leaned back in his chair and reached down to pet Killer, while Stan and Stormy cleared the dinner dishes. Ian’s voice boomed over Josh’s, but to Stormy’s surprise, Josh held firm. Part of her felt horrible for coming between them like this. It made her think of Vicky’s lament about young lovers. Best friends shouldn’t have to make decisions like this either. It wasn’t right or fair, or any of those things life was expected to be. Lately life had been coming up short on all of the above, thanks to Cold World. Here was yet another reason she wanted to bring them down in misery, look what they were doing to her friends.

She didn’t hear them return to the kitchen because the faucet was running. Josh leaned close to Ian and whispered. Some hand gestures and eye rolling later, they sat down at the island. Stormy abandoned the sink to join them.

“You make the announcement,” Josh said.

“No, you do it. It will show where you stand,” Ian said.

“I’m not doing it.”

“You are such a child when you don’t get your way.”

“You are such a follower—”

Stan held his hands up in protest. “We get it. You’re both in.” He pushed away from the sink and moved to the fridge. “Where’s that pie, Stormy?”

“I’ll get it.” Delight rang out in her voice. “We can enjoy it while we go over a few more things.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

DAYS UNTIL THE SUPERVIRUS GOES GLOBAL: 26:17:14

Killer’s gaping mouth held fast in a clumsy grin all week long. Purdy suggested that his training start once he was familiar with his surroundings. For the time being, his main jobs were to eat and follow Purdy around. Everyone else divided up the work and moved at a breakneck pace to get trained and prepared for the inevitable.

For once, Josh and Ian’s preparations were paying off. Money they had saved for almost this exact purpose dispersed daily for equipment, supplies, and the full-size dog. It was all on their dime, because only their money was safely accessible. Ian assured Stormy she would quit feeling like a mooch soon enough, but it would take a few more days, maybe a week, for Ian to hack their accounts and safely conduct transfers. 

In the meantime, Josh moved the china cabinet into the shed and set up computers in its former home. The nerd’s makeshift command center, affectionately referred to as the War Room, became the hub of the house. Ian and Josh never left their computer desks once they built them, except for restroom breaks.

Thankfully, no one objected to his or her assigned lot. Purdy set about fortifying Aranchea in the stylings of Fort Knox. Stan was gone all the time picking up supplies and equipment. When he was at Aranchea, he was busy establishing new contacts for more supplies. Stormy’s hands were in everything. She poured over lists, schedules, and intel notes till her back spasmed and forced her from the kitchen table. Everyone was in a hurry and she had to keep ahead of them, so she upped her caffeine intake and gave up on sleep. She didn’t realize an entire week had passed until Ian made his rounds to tell everyone they could make calls out to family, but they had to get the authorized cell phone first.

Phone in hand, Purdy drifted upstairs. Everyone went back to their normal affairs with an added tinge of anxiousness. Everyone except for Killer, who had been off all morning. His fur stood on end as he paced and growled like a maniac. Stormy was headlong into creating an equipment inventory when he finally settled down at her feet. When she petted him he growled. She gave up and left him to himself.

Ian’s chair spun around. “Found those sons of bitches!”

This propelled Killer into a barking frenzy so intense, Purdy damn near ripped the door off its frame to bellow down the stairs at him.

Stormy jumped up from her chair. “You found Cold World?”

Ian balked at her. “No.”

“Then which sons of bitches?” Stan asked.

“I found the other survivor group, I think. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I got a lead.”

Josh rolled his chair over to Ian’s computer and leaned around him to peek. Ian slid the laptop’s screen out of view.

“They aren’t that far from here, like an hour and a half north,” Ian said. “Go by the name Phoenix, which is awesome. We need a group name, by the way. They seem legit from what I can tell. They’re wanted by the Feds and the names I checked were all connected to that attack before Reamer. It looks like one of them went missing not too long ago, but the rest are all there.”

“See, I told you so,” Josh said.

“One of the times I’m sort of glad you have an unhealthy addiction to conspiracy theories, my friend.”

Josh leaned over to open the laptop back up. In the process, he spilled his soda on Ian’s legal pad. Flustered, Ian slapped the laptop shut right on Josh’s fingers.

“What the fuck?” Josh said.

“That’s rude.” Ian opened the laptop slowly and turned it toward Josh. “Ask next time.”

“I’ll take a ride out there and do some surveillance on my next run,” Stan said.

“Oh shit,” Josh said.

“What?”

Josh scooted back to his station. “Nothing.”

Out of nowhere, Killer went ballistic and burst through the screen door. They watched from the window as he darted around the house in a fury.

Stan motioned to the front door. “Josh, help me head him off out front.”

When Josh opened the door, he didn’t expect to see a six-foot tall black biker in the yard, looking up at the house like a prospective buyer.

Stan pushed Josh back and flung the door open. Before the door banged against the living room wall, Stan’s gun was pointed at the biker.

Killer wound around the house and went in for the kill. The biker reached into his back pocket for something.

“Ian, Purdy, help,” Josh shouted as he ran back to the War Room. He returned with his rifle leveled on the screen door. Purdy’s rushed footsteps thumped down the stairs.

Stormy scrambled out of her chair. Ian had already skirted out of the War Room and they collided at the entry to the kitchen. Back on their feet, they took up the rear of the armed assault in the living room.

The biker knelt down and held out a palm full of dog treats. Killer slowed to a comfortable walk. Two feet from the handful of treats, he sat down on his haunches.

“Damn it, Killer. Get outta there,” Purdy said. “I expected more from you boy. You embarrass me.”

“Hello, friend,” the biker said.

“You’re no friend of mine and I don’t think anyone else here knows you,” Stan said. “Don’t freaking move again.”

“I know you don’t know me.” The biker gave Killer the entire handful of treats. “I came here to get to know you.”

“Troy, is everything okay?” called a female voice.

Stan looked beyond the biker to a striking female leaning against a jet-black motorcycle.

“You don’t freaking move either,” Stan said.

Troy waved two fingers behind him without looking back.

“Is this some kind of neighborhood welcome committee?” Josh asked.

“She don’t live around here,” Purdy said.

Troy grinned. “Well, I guess I could say welcome to the community. We’re from Phoenix. That sound familiar to you?”

A half-hour later, everyone was still assembled, but all weapons were concealed. The kitchen heated up quickly with so many bodies clustered together. Troy didn’t seem to mind the heat. His jacket and bandana never came off. Every time his sister spoke, an ear-to-ear grin traced its familiar path across his face. According to him, Mina wasn’t only beautiful. She was also trained in tactics, firing, assaults, and an incredibly smart and warm woman. Purdy seemed to agree with everything Troy thought.

“So, you mean to tell me you haven’t gotten a single one of my emails?” Troy asked.

“Can’t say I have,” Stormy said. “That’s really weird.”

“We’ll check into it later tonight,” Ian said.

“All right, all right. I’ve been deleting them,” Josh said. “Thought they were spam. Sorry.”

Purdy made a motion with his hands from across the table that implied he was going to throttle Josh. Stormy considered letting him this time.

“That’s why we decided to make a house call. Figured you guys might need some help getting off the ground. Maybe you could help us with a few things too.”

“Sounds good to me,” Purdy said. “Anything in particular I can help you with, Mina?”

“Not at the moment,” Mina said.

“What’s the word on the street?” Ian asked.

“That you troublemakers are all over Cold World’s radar,” Troy said.

“Beg your pardon?”

“Have you been sniffing around in their affairs?”

“Perhaps.”

“Buying supplies to take them out?”

“Ours is more of a defensive posture,” Stormy said.

“Takes less than that to get their attention. They have the resources to track down survivors who’ve had direct contact. They see everything and like to burn away all the loose ends.”

“Especially the ones who refuse to go quietly,” Mina said.

“They’re very powerful if you haven’t already figured that out.”

“Yeah, we got that much,” Ian said.

“What do you know about their targets?” Stormy asked.

“The attack at Reamer seems to have been completely random, but that’s not to say it was unplanned. We have no idea why they pick their targets. Reamer was too big. We weren’t ready to intervene yet. There’s more to come and we want to be ready when we pick up a line on the next one.”

“How many is we?” Purdy asked.

“Roanoke Compound is all survivors, no converts. There are eight of us, I mean seven. The only family there is Mina and myself. We had a brother, but Cold World murdered him.” Troy’s eyes glistened even more when Mina hugged him.

“This is everyone from your group here, right?” Mina asked.

“This is everyone,” Stan said.

“We don’t have a cool name yet,” Josh said. “We’re still working on it.”

Troy smiled. “Just remember Phoenix is taken.”

“I know,” Josh said. “We’ll find something better.”

“Are they going door-to-door in this area yet?” Troy asked.

“Door-to-door?” Josh asked.

“Yeah. In our area they started with the white sheets,” Troy said. “Right after the attack. You hung one from your window if you had a person in your dwelling with Super-flu symptoms.”

“But the effects are immediate,” Stan said. “There’s no incubation period.”

“Precisely,” Mina said. “Their nonsense made this worse from the get-go.”

“Two weeks after that, they announced the CDC would be going door-to-door on the government’s dime to immunize children and the elderly,” Troy said.

“Well, I don’t have to tell you what they were really doing,” Mina said. “No one shows up to do immunizations in chem suits.”

“We told them we would shoot on sight and they believed us,” Troy smiled. “Ain’t come back to Roanoke since.”

“People were so scared,” Mina said. “They knew something was wrong and they wanted to believe anyone who gave them hope. They would run me out of their homes when I tried to warn them.”

“They showed up with police escort and quarantined anyone with supposed signs of infection,” Troy said. “Late last week, people were being notified that they could come collect cremated remains. Gave them thirty days.”

“How are we not hearing about this on the news?” Stormy asked.

“You’d have to get a reporter who isn’t scared to death to go in,” Mina said. “Between the police blockade, the riots, and the infection mortality rate, you’re safer covering that nuclear reactor that went haywire in Japan, from inside the reactor.”

“The virus is running rampant, but they’re handling this wrong and making it worse,” Troy said. “They need to concentrate on the infected areas and leave healthy people on their own. What I’m wondering is if the government will have the audacity to bill the families.” Troy’s agitation grew palpable. “That would be something.”

“Unbelievable,” Ian said. “What the fuck?”

“Don’t talk like that in front of female company,” Purdy said.

“Thanks, son,” Troy said.

“My sincerest apologies to both the ladies here,” Ian said. “I meant, what the fudgesicle.”

Mina pointed to Stormy’s running shoes in the far corner. “Who’s the runner?”

“Me,” Stormy said.

“Mina runs like a gazelle,” Troy said.

“Perhaps we could go sometime.”

“I’d love that. I have a great trail around Aranchea.”

“Awesome. It’s a date.”

“I’m mighty sorry this happened to you all,” Troy said. “I wouldn’t wish this life on anyone.”

Stormy reached across the table and covered Troy’s hand. “You aren’t responsible for this.”

“But we’re glad you all are here,” Mina said. “It’s nice to see new faces and get off the compound.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Purdy said.

Troy stood up. “We have to get going now. It’s a long drive back. Be sure to check your email. I’ll be in touch.”

Josh sat lower in his chair. Purdy jumped up when he saw Mina stand to leave.

“Mina, why don’t you exchange numbers with me?” Purdy said. “That way we’ll have a more reliable form of communication.”

Mina’s hand covered the edge of her cell that peeked out from her pocket. “The email should be enough, don’t you think?”

Purdy leaned over the table and talked lower. “You can’t trust him. What’s your number?”

Mina looked over at Troy, but he was in a sidebar with Stormy.

“Tell you what. You find the number and you can call it.” Mina glided to Troy’s side.

Purdy leaned forward until he was nose to nose with Josh. “Find the number now.”

The visit threw the phone schedule completely off track, but regardless, Stormy’s turn finally came. She caught a chill from her call with Misty. But the hurt brought on from her sister’s disbelief was worse than the stabs of her curt words. Stormy shivered as she fought the urge to snap back at her with brute force.

“Stormy, some men came here looking for you,” Misty said. “They had a warrant.”

“Don’t let them in the house,” Stormy said. “I know you don’t believe me, but they’re dangerous.”