Alive (Sundown Series Book 3) Read online

  Tammy was in trouble, she knew it. What she thought she could handle on her own had quickly spiraled out of control. She had only recently moved to Montana, relocated from her home in Georgia. The only people she had locally were her co-workers. Her mind tried to sift through who she could call. Any of them would be a good option, as they were all doctors in their own ways.

  Decision made, Tammy turned her body to angle back toward her bed. Her cell phone was plugged in on the bedside table. She needed to call a co-worker. Or even 911. Her injured hand no longer hurt, which was a blessing Tammy thought. For a moment she thought she couldn’t actually feel the fingers on that hand, but she told herself it was her exhaustion and flu causing her to feel numb. The darkness hid the blood she had trailed to the bathroom and the additional she trailed heading back to her bed.

  Just feet away from her bed Tammy’s body no longer responded to her mental commands. The woman lay sprawled across her floor, one hand looking to pull her further, her legs spread in useless angles. Blood matted her hair, her nightgown, and the floor. It was in this horror that Tammy’s body shut down and her breathing stuttered to a stop.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Rafe finished his evening chores just as darkness settled across his compound. He stood outside for a moment and looked up at the stars. The evening was crisp and clear. He loved nights like this and often opted to sleep in a hammock within the trees that lined the property. He could name the majority of the constellations across the sky. According to Mitch Duncan, Rafe’s obsession with the stars was a foolish way to spend his time. But as a child whenever there were no chores to do, Rafe would lay on his back outside and just study what he saw.

  He was just turning to head into the kitchen from the mudroom when the alarm from his gate went off. A few long strides took him to the monitor in his room that projected the camera angles and let him speak with people at the gate. He was astonished to see Charlie’s face looking directly into the camera that was positioned to look into the driver’s side window. She waited, patiently but with nerves. He saw her eyes darting around the dark forest that sat outside his stone walls. He pressed the button on his intercom.

  “Charlie?”

  “Rafe. Can I come in?”

  “I guess. Did you forget something here?” Rafe said, as he turned to look around his room, the room she had slept in the night before.

  “No. Can I come in and then we can talk. It’s....well....it’s creepy out here.”

  Rafe didn’t blame her for that. The woods, when you weren’t familiar with them, could hide all sorts of nightmares. Though they weren’t real, and all imagined, it didn’t stop your brain from conjuring beasts. He reached to the opener he kept in his room for this exact reason and buzzed her in. He watched the monitors until her car had passed through the gate and then pressed the button again to close the entrance. He didn’t stop watching the monitors until he knew for sure she was the only thing to enter the compound.

  He was waiting for her when she pulled her car up next to his truck in the gravel driveway. She seemed to prepare herself for his questions before getting out of her vehicle. When he approached, he noticed bags in her backseat, more than the single duffel she had brought for her previous stay. He just waited for her silently. He was learning he couldn’t push Charlie into giving him any information she didn’t want to give up. Their last conversation over the phone at the facility had a finality to it, making Rafe believe she wouldn’t be turning to him for help again.

  She finally opened the door and got out. At first, she looked around the compound again as if she were waiting for a monster to jump out of the shadows.

  “Did you want to come inside?” Rafe said. He thought maybe the lights inside could help her feel more at ease.

  “Yes. Can I....can I stay?” Charlie asked timidly.

  “Stay? What’s wrong?”

  “I just don’t feel safe. I had my locks changed. The doors fixed. But, they know where I live.”

  “They?” Rafe asked though he was pretty sure she wouldn’t tell him who “they” were.

  “I can’t tell you. I won’t put you at risk.”

  “It’s not a risk for you to be staying in my home?”

  “This place?” Charlie laughed as she gestured around. “This place is a fortress. But also, we have no connection. No one even realizes we have met. They wouldn’t send people here looking for me.”

  “So, you didn’t come here to see me, just to use my fortress?”

  “Correct,” Charlie answered with no hint of a smile. Rafe couldn’t judge her motives by her expression.

  “Come in. You can stay.”

  Bags in hand, Charlie followed Rafe into the house. Once inside she waited for his cue and he motioned for her to take his room again. He followed to grab his essentials. While he sorted through his dresser, Charlie sat silently on the edge of the bed, waiting for him to be done. His arms were full of clothing when he turned toward the doorway. He stopped and looked over his shoulder, finding her staring at the wall across from him. He decided silence was his best option at the moment and left her to her thoughts.

  In his father’s room, now his room he supposed, he put away the things he had brought. The dresser had long been emptied of his father’s clothing. Rafe was wider than his father, so his clothes were useless to him. As he sorted and organized he could hear Charlie moving around the house and soon walking up the stairs. He waited for her to speak, trying to not pressure her into talking before she was ready. She stood at the door of the room watching him before clearing her throat.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You’re welcome,” Rafe replied. He continued his task of getting the room sorted for his use.

  “I know this is asking a lot. I’m sorry to put you out of your own room.”

  “Charlie, it’s alright,” Rafe said as he turned to finally face her.

  “It’s really not. I’ve never been this scared before,” she said, her voice getting very quiet at the end.

  “Then why don’t you hand whatever is on that flash drive over to the proper people?”

  “Because I can’t.”

  “You can’t? Why can’t you just do whatever you want?”

  “It’s not safe. I told you that.”

  “Yes, you keep talking about safety. But you never give any details and it’s getting old. Look, I have no issues helping you out here. Frankly I feel some sort of strange obligation to protect someone that’s in need like you are. But if I’m to help you, I need to know what’s happening.”

  Charlie seemed to mull that over for a moment. She looked around the room while he waited for her response. His father’s extensive collection of knives were in a glass case against one wall. She stopped in front of the case, staring at the blades, their intricate handles and sizes. Her eyes looked back at Rafe, a question on her face.

  “My father liked knives. And being prepared.”

  “Clearly,” she said as she looked back at the case.

  Rafe was about to give up on any additional information from her when she spoke again.

  “My job is not what I thought I signed up for. And if I didn’t have a contract I would leave immediately. But I don’t know what they would do to me now if I tried to walk away.”

  “Isn’t it like any other job? You quit and maybe don’t get paid. But they don’t chop off your hand,” Rafe replied.

  “No. It’s definitely not like any other job.”

  “What about it isn’t what you signed up for?”

  “You realize it’s against both of our non-disclosure agreements to talk about this, right? If I tell you what’s happening, we are breaking all the rules,” Charlie said, her voice holding a warning tone.

  “Ok. Thinking we are beyond that now.”

  “The experiments that happen in that lab. They aren’t normal. I worked for the CDC before, did you know that?”

  “No. But I figured you had to be someone that knew labs and the work
that needed to be done. So many seem to come and go,” Rafe said.

  “I know. That’s what scares me. I was friends with one of the last doctors. We had drinks a few times. When all of a sudden it seemed like she just disappeared. It was around that time she was talking about the strange things we seemed to be testing and how she wasn’t sure she could keep doing the job. Then one day, she didn’t show up to work. And she never answered her phone. I had just assumed, ya know, she moved away and was distancing herself from the facility.”

  “You never heard from her again? Ever?”

  “I received an email,” Charlie answered, her voice quiet, almost sheepish. Rafe guessed she knew what he was thinking. But that didn’t stop him from voicing what was on his mind.

  “You didn’t think to notify anyone that your friend was missing?”

  “I got an email. Said she was done with the facility and had moved on. Basically, it explained exactly what I had guessed, so I didn’t try to contact her again.”

  “Remind me to not go missing and hope you’d come looking,” Rafe commented sarcastically.

  “Really? That’s what you’re going to needle me about?”

  “I’ll let it go for now. Talk more about the experiments.”

  “Well, with the CDC I was always working on cures. Ways to solve health epidemics before they happened. If some small outbreak did somehow start, I would be sent to see if the cures we had manufactured would work for the strain that was infecting people. It felt like good work, helping people kind of work,” Charlie said. She was wringing her hands again and twirling a piece of her long hair. Rafe noted it as her obvious tell that she was nervous or scared.

  “Sounds like it would have been fulfilling. Why did you accept the job at the facility?” Rafe asked.

  “I was approached by one of my supervisors. He told me about the opportunity at the facility. I was pulled into a joint meeting with my supervisor, the director of the CDC, and some government executives. It was explained to me as a chance of a lifetime to really make a difference. Looking back now, my supervisor seemed uncomfortable. But I had assumed she just didn’t want me to leave,” Charlie explained. She turned to face Rafe then, waiting for his reaction. He just motioned for her to continue.

  “This isn’t the chance of the lifetime. I no longer create cures. I create toxins and viruses first. Then if they are what the executives are looking for, we figure out if we can cure it,” Charlie finished.

  “Wait. You’re making illnesses? Why?” Rafe asked. He had a sneaking suspicion he already knew the answer to that. But he wanted to see what Charlie thought the purpose was.

  “They don’t tell us what it’s for. At first, I thought it was the idea of us creating things before anyone else. If we created it in our lab safely and then we could create the cure, if someone else did the same thing in their lab it wouldn’t work well against us. We’d be ready for it.”

  “Ok, that’s what you thought at first. And that does make some sense. But you’re saying you don’t believe that now?”

  “No,” Charlie said.

  “Why?” Rafe asked, sounding a bit repetitive.

  “The last few experiments, the executive has been angry with the failures. I thought the last one was going to be what they were looking for, but then the mouse attacked Tammy. The guy you saw me talking to...”

  “The one you were yelling at you mean?” Rafe interjected.

  “Yes, that one. I was yelling that day because he didn’t care that Tammy had been injured. He wanted to know which experiment the mouse had been injected with and if there were any clear signs of infection. When I told him, I didn’t know for sure because it hadn’t been long since the experiment was started, he was very angry,” Charlie said.

  Rafe leaned against the wall, looking over at Charlie who was now sitting on the bed, her hands gripped in her lap.

  “He was angry that you didn’t succeed with that round of experiments? What happened to the mice after? I noticed a bunch were missing.”

  “Protocol for an incident like this is the animals with that specific control group to be disposed of immediately. Then the room had to be decontaminated. We had to wait a day to go back to the lab to ensure its process was done.”

  “You didn’t see the mice taken away, right?” Rafe asked.

  “No. I just assumed it happened because they were gone when we got there.”

  “What were you trying to create?”

  “A biological substance that could create large mood shifts in the subject, mainly focusing on anger. We utilized large doses of antidepressant chemicals and noradrenaline to cause a large shift in the serotonin in a subject’s brain. This dip can create the chance of violent behavior with the right instigation.”

  “And it didn’t work? That mouse was angry enough to bite Tammy,” Rafe commented.

  “There’s no way that mouse was affected that quickly by what had been injected. It had only been a few minutes before Tammy was bitten.”

  “Is there any way to know that? Were there any tests done?”

  “Before the mice were disposed of? I wouldn’t think so. It was a standard accident with one animal acting out,” Charlie said absently. She seemed to weigh what Rafe was suggesting, staring into space. She shook her head as if to wake herself up before looking at him.

  “No. There’s no test. But I just can’t imagine that the test injection had affected the mouse that quickly.”

  “And your tests with that chemical? Are they done? Or will you have to run another round through mice? What does 'The Suit' want you to do?”

  “'The Suit'? That’s a good name for him. Well he wants us to test it again. It was possibly the most promising version of the current assignment. I’m going to put it off as long as I can. But that’s why I came here. If I don’t comply, I’m not sure what they will do.”

  “Probably get someone else for the job,” Rafe said.

  “Maybe. But I’m the lead in the lab right now. It would take time to hire someone else and bring them up to speed. I just need to stall, until I can gather more information. And I have to gather that without getting caught.”

  “Ok. Well, while you’re doing all this, you can stay here. My gates and walls are all alarmed. Someone tries to come in here that’s not welcome, we’ll know with plenty of warning.”

  “And you know how to use those?” Charlies asked, as she pointed at the knives on the wall.

  “That and more.”

  The next few days were not without issue. Rafe had a hard time acclimating to living with someone in his house, let alone a woman. He had to remember to not walk out of the bathroom after a shower with only a towel. He had walked in on Charlie showering on the first day. He almost ran into the doorjamb in his rush to get out of the bathroom with his eyes squeezed shut. Her dainty laugh followed him, which only needled him.

  They were careful to not lead anyone back to Charlie’s hiding place at the compound. They still drove separately to work. They didn’t speak personally at the facility, following their individual routines. Charlie almost slipped on the third day when she passed him in the hallway and she asked if he had remembered the lunch she had packed him. He quickly looked around and felt fairly certain they were alone before answering. The domestic feeling of the situation bothered him. But Charlie insisted on helping around the house while she stayed.

  “I’m not a freeloader,” she had said.

  Rafe went about his normal chores morning and evening. Charlie would follow, watching everything he did and then the third day she offered to help milk the cows. After much laughter and a spilled bucket of milk, she got the hang of it and they were able to feed the pigs and create a meal for the chickens. After seeing the rooster with Rafe the first day she was at the compound, she absolutely refused to enter the chicken coop. She did enjoy standing by the fence laughing in her loudest laugh as the rooster insisted on attacking Rafe. The obscenities Rafe yelled at the rooster were partially directed at her as wel
l.

  The weekend arrived and with nothing else to do besides chores, Rafe walked Charlie around the rest of the compound. He showed her the root cellar, bunkhouse, and storage containers. She marveled at how Rafe was knowledgeable in storing vegetables in a root cellar. When he began to talk about canning fruit, she stared at him as if his head had rolled off his shoulders. He looked back at her, amused by her reaction.

  “Well it’s not nuclear science. But I make sure I always eat well,” he finally said. He pulled an apple from a nearby crate and rubbed it against his pants before handing it to her. She took a bite and smiled at him. Looking around they talked for an hour longer about how he stored carrots, garlic, onions, and sweet potatoes. They looked at the different jars of pears, peaches, pickles, and beans. As he told her the process he went through once a month or so to rotate jars and pack up fresh foods, Charlie was enthralled.

  “I don’t understand. How did this all end up here? How did you learn all of this? Your mother?” Charlie asked.

  “No. My mother died when I was two. My father built all this. Mostly on his own, but when I was old enough I helped with a lot of it. Then he passed away and I’ve just continued things as he did.”

  “So, your father was afraid of the world ending?”

  “Oh, he was afraid of a lot of things. But the world ending in one way or another was his top concern. He wanted this place to be safe and successful for my sisters and me.”

  “You have a lot of land around here. Is it all walled in?”

  “Yeah. My father insisted on the rock walls. He used a tractor to build the majority of it himself. After he passed, I set up a security system with a closed-circuit system with video and alarm. It all runs off of the solar power batteries in the back.”