The Pandemic Sequence (Book 3): The Tilian Cure (13 page)

Eventually, after turning and twisting their way through a series of side streets, they arrived before the entrance to the targeted home. She was disturbed to note that during the journey neither had seen any signs of healthy humans. Preparing herself to accept that the island held no survivors, Michelle clung loosely to the hope that perhaps there had been enough warning for people to escape or at the least barricade themselves in safety.

Striking quickly, Matt kicked open the door as Michelle took point guarding their rear. Once she heard the call of “All clear,” she followed him inside and closed the door as tightly as possible. The fires that had destroyed much of the area had not yet reached the block, so it was a relief to remove the soot-caked bandana and take in somewhat fresher air.

“Where do they keep the guns?” Matt asked her, after he likewise uncovered his mouth. Leading him up the stairwell off the kitchen, she brought him to the home’s second bedroom. Furnished as an office and study, Paul and Lisa had converted the double door closet into an impressive armory. Whistling with wonderment, Matt immediately began removing several of the various hand guns. After filling a black duffle with several boxes of ammunition, Michelle then selected a trio of 9mm Berettas. Simply holding the cool silver metal, she felt a resurgence of confidence. Whatever happens, I won’t be taken down easily.

Matt slid open the top drawer of a cabinet and pulled out several holsters, which the two split between them. Ignoring her exhaustion, Michelle moved about to adjust to the additional weight. Satisfied with the placement and fastening of weapons upon her body, she took one of the high-powered rifles from its hooks. Even at the height of the outbreak, when Mike Allard had led a group of scared teenagers through a crumbling world, Michelle had never been armed with such an amount of deadly force.

With greater ease than she could have managed, Matt lifted the ammo bag and returned to the first floor. Before joining him, she pushed the tangle of chin-length blonde hair behind her ears and strapped a large hunting knife and sheath to her calf. Knives were always a last resort when fighting Tils; using one usually signified a dying effort. Still, the remembered tale of Mike averting death’s grasp by having a knife at hand served as enough reason to spare the moment to attach the blade.

Upon entering the kitchen, she was surprised by the hasty work in which Matt had been engaged. Set out on the table were two plates of steaming beef stew with equally hot sides of creamed corn.

“Not really a breakfast meal,” he smiled as she walked in. “But they didn’t have much to choose from in the pantry. Least it’s hot.”

“Power’s still on?” she asked him as she settled into a chair opposite him. The hearty aroma wafting towards her caused her stomach to grumble with hunger that she had been forced to ignore for some time.

“So far, yeah. Nothing like microwaved stew from a can,” he answered through a forkful of the cubed meat. With no complaints, Michelle consumed bite after bite until her plate was all but licked clean. Time and a greater understanding of priorities had long since removed any teenage embarrassment she once had eating so slovenly in front of a member of the opposite sex. Especially a guy that looks like… NO! Her appetite fled as the thought broke from the chains in her mind. It’s not right, she scolded herself.

Having not noticed the sudden frowns of her face, Matt continued to finish his meal. “Do you want me to watch while you shower?” he asked her after his last swallow.

“What!?”

“Shower. There’s still power and water, if you wanted to shower, I can keep watch down here,” he explained with a quizzical look over her reaction.

“Oh, no. No, I’m fine. I can just splash some water on my face,” she told him with overly forced casualness. Feeling her cheeks color and hoping to hide that visual, Michelle pushed her chair back and carried her dish to the sink. As she began to wash the plate, she realized how incredibly foolish the action must seem. All hell’s broken loose and I am washing a dish? Rinsing the soap from her hands, she cupped them under the hot flow and did indeed splash herself. The warmth was refreshing, and she was startled to see the blackness of the runoff. Scrubbing more vigorously, the skin on her face began to feel less stiff as the dried soot washed away.

“Here,” Matt said at her side. Looking up through water logged eyes, she found the bath towel he had retrieved for her.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, as she reached for the cloth and dried her face. She never failed to be amazed by the rejuvenating effects of a cleansing, even one as brief and superficial as one from a kitchen sink.

Re-locking her thoughts of Matt, she turned to him. “Ready to head to Tumi’s?” Even amidst the destruction and chaos outside, she refused to believe that the little grocer and his stern wife had succumbed. She reminded herself of the couple’s survival of Fidel Castro’s turbulent rise to power, and equally impressive perseverance through the Tilian Virus outbreak. They have to be okay, her mind demanded.

“Ready when you are,” Matt said. Retrieving her rifle, and Matt his shotgun, the two made their way to the front door. Peering out the decorative glass at the top, Matt reported an empty street. Easing the broken door open, the pair slipped back out into the street. Once again donning their makeshift air masks, freshly rinsed by Matt in the kitchen sink, they made a steady progression towards Tumelo’s neighborhood. It did not go beyond their notice that as they drew nearer to the center of Havana, there was less and less evidence of fires and tumult. While there was a decrease in visible destruction, signs of life were still absent from the surroundings. Several homes and shops stood with doors ajar, potentially indicating an abrupt departure.

Pressing onward, they eventually reached the outskirts of Tumelo’s neighborhood. The homes here had retained the festive decoration and feel of native Cuban occupants. Houses of pink and mint green, most two stories, though a few stretched to three, lined the street. Each balcony held window boxes and planters filled with a variety of wild blooms in all the colors of the tropics. While most Cubans did not object to the influx of immigrants after the outbreak, almost all held furiously to their native beliefs and customs. Tumelo was a member of the minority that had fully embraced the new arrivals, though he and his wife had resettled in a strictly Cuban area.

Thinking of the grandfatherly grocer, Michelle increased her pace as she recognized the man’s street. Moving to a light jog, the weight of the weapons and her weariness prevented faster movement, she soon found herself banging loudly on the front door of his home. When no response came, Michelle pressed her ear against the wood.

“Anything?” Matt asked as he caught up to her.

Raising a finger for quiet, she then resumed knocking. “I think I heard something.” With a furtive glance along the length of the block, Michelle called out. “Tumelo! Itza! It’s Michelle! Are you in there?”

The scuffling of wood on wood sounded behind the door. “Michelle?” came Tumi’s voice, making her name sound prettier than she thought it with his lilting accent. Soon the door opened a crack and she could see the man’s wary eye in the crack of space. Once he realized it was in fact Michelle Lafkin, Tumelo swung the door open and wrapped his arms around her as he sobbed in Spanish.

Seeing Matt behind her, Tumelo expanded his embrace, crying. “Mateo! Dios mio! Son seguras y han regresado!”

Smiling, the younger man replied. “Yes, we’re safe and back, but I’m thinking we need to get in off the street now.” Michelle had been so caught up in the greeting that reality had momentarily slipped. Agreeing in fast words of broken English, Tumi ushered them inside the home. Performing what seemed to be a practiced ritual, the grocer placed a large metal bar across the door’s width before sliding a tall bookcase in front of it.

Tumelo immediately called out to his wife whom he explained was resting upstairs. “We must take turns watching the house,” he told them as they waited for his wife to descend. “These new demons are smarter, they work together. They know to be quiet when they need to be!”

A moment later, Senora Sardina entered the living room. If she had been asleep, Michelle assumed the woman slept like a statue. The tight bun at the back of her head was perfectly formed with not a stray hair out of place. Her house dress looked as if it had just been ironed flat. The only crack in the woman’s stoic appearance was the twitching smile and gentle tear that ran down her face once she saw the two guests on her couch. Less accustomed to English than her husband, Itza all but gushed with indecipherable speed as she clutched Matt and Michelle to her chest. Closing her eyes, Michelle’s body slackened as she accepted the first mothering embrace she had had since… since Andrew’s mother was alive, she realized.

In that moment, the strength provided by the weapons on her body smashed as glass upon a stone. Sobbing without care or control, she told Itza about Andrew. Holding her tight, the Cuban woman sat and listened and smoothed her hand along Michelle’s hair.

She was not sure how long her tears had lasted, but eventually no more came. Her heart still ached, its wound never to be fully healed, but she knew in that moment, her crying had ceased. Gathering herself, wiping away the wet remnants on her cheeks with a handkerchief of Itza’s, Michelle realized that both Matt and Tumelo had exited the room at some point and were now conversing in the kitchen. With a smile of gratitude, Michelle held Senora Sardina’s hand as she stood and walked to join the men.

Tumelo’s tanned face showed his offerings of condolence as he slid back a chair for her. As Itza moved about the kitchen preparing a meal, Michelle was surprised to feel hungry again so soon. Matt finished explaining the past several weeks since leaving New Cuba.

“So, this ARC, it can stop them?” he asked.

“It did at the base,” Matt nodded. “Once we get them out of Gitmo, we can try to hook one up to a tower in Havana.”

“That will be dangerous, Mateo! The demons are everywhere. And the military shoots anything on sight now. The only people spared are the ones already inside the compound.”

“What compound?” Michelle asked him. “Tumi, what’s been going on here?”

Taking a steadying breath, Tumelo began his telling of the events on New Cuba since they had left. If not for the nagging hunger, and the powerful scents of the food, Michelle’s anger would have ruined her appetite as she listened to husband and wife share their story.

After Dan Seldis and the other four representatives from the refugees departed, Derrick ducked his tall form into the tent. Paul relayed the information to him, and from his expression, he was just as shocked. The possibility of confronting several thousand Tils had seemed daunting at the very least. But, if Seldis’ numbers were accurate and Paul’s impression was that they were, then the entire camp was in dire jeopardy, no matter how large its arsenal.

“I’m assuming this changes your plans?” Derrick asked.

With his chin resting atop interlaced fingers, Paul stared off into a shadowed corner of the command tent. “There’s no way we can meet the Tils directly. And we have to start thinking of them as more than just infected and crazed. From what you and I have seen, and based on the attack of the refugees’ town, the Tils have managed to learn and adapt. Maybe even think, but at the least problem solve.”

“But still, so many in one place? It just seems hard to believe,” Derrick responded. In truth, Paul’s first reaction had been the same. But his time as a park ranger, and a youth nearly consumed with the study of nature, soon took him through a series of rationales and explanations.

“Is it though?” he began to walk Derrick through the same elucidations. “Most animals’ initial instinct is self-preservation. If the Tils have evolved to something just short of full human thought, then likely they developed that preservation instinct. Power in numbers, for both defense and offense. Like a pack of wolves, or a flock of birds, or a school of fish.”

“Okay, so they’ve learned that by sticking together they are more protected. I’ll give you that. But, hundreds of thousands of them in one spot? For starters, wouldn’t food be scarce to feed an army of Tils that size?”

“Depends on what you assume they eat,” Paul continued the dialogue. “Most of our interactions with them have been when they are frenzied and coming after us. However, we know that wildlife, domestic animals and the like, have also been a target. But biologically, Tils are still human. Omnivorous humans.”

“Plants? The Tils are making salads?” Derrick asked with an amiable grin.

“Probably not having sit-down dinners, but self-preservation, why wouldn’t they eat grass, flowers, anything that keeps their body going.”

The two sat silently for several moments. For so long, those that had escaped the outbreak unscathed had created an idea of what the infected had become. It was a necessary coping mechanism, Paul understood, assigning a different status, a “less than,” in order to ease a troubled soul and mind when one was forced to kill a Til. Even the name, Tils, served that purpose. After so many years of that perspective, to suddenly be faced with the idea that the enemy had grown beyond its “less than” status, evolved to a level perhaps second only to healthy humans in terms of dominant species, he knew exactly the conflicting emotions through which Derrick was now sorting.

Finally breaking the stretching silence, Derrick spoke. “So the bad guys got more bad ass. Now what?”