Storm Front Read online

  “I spent some time searching for weak points. It’s been hard with just the three of us though. We found nothing. Plus, we didn’t want to stir up too much fuss in case you turned up shortly. But I think I know what you’re planning. It won’t work.”

  “Oh, you do, do you?”

  “Yeah. Oldest trick in the book, my friend. They won’t fall for it.”

  Timmy turned his head from one to the other, mouth hanging open.

  “Come on, guys. If it’s so obvious, why not just say it?”

  “Cam here thinks he has a handle on it, why don’t you get him to explain it?”

  Alex offered Cam the chance to describe the plan, waving his hand obligingly.

  “I think—” Cam flashed a toothy smile. “—that you’re going to have one of us fake an injury or an illness. Get them all rushing in here, worried. Then you’re going to knock them out and run through the open door.”

  Alex clapped.

  “It was a bit more refined than that. But that’s the gist of it.”

  “Won’t work.” Cam shook his head.

  “And why not?”

  “You don’t know these folks, Alex. They’re paranoid about getting sick. One hint that we’re not healthy and they’d rather just lean in and shoot us. That’s why we’re in quarantine.”

  “Quarantine?”

  “Yeah, man.” Timmy rocked back and forth, his arms wrapped around his bunched-up knees. “They’re crazy for this virus thing. You don’t even know…”

  “Well, we’re not sick…”

  “They won’t believe us. You see them wearing the masks?” Cam covered his face as he spoke. “They’re always covering up their mouths. Germs and stuff.”

  “All right, then. We can use something else.”

  Alex turned slowly to Joan. She watched him.

  “Don’t you even think about it, Alex Early. I’m not some prop for you to use in your high school play. I’m not going to make a spectacle of myself for some hair-brained scheme. I heal people, I don’t hurt them.”

  “You’d rather sit and wait for them to shoot you?”

  She tapped her fingers against her temple.

  “I am pregnant, Alex. If I fake a problem now, then if – God forbid – I have an actual issue, they won’t believe me.”

  “Real ‘girl who cried wolf’ kind of situation, right, man?” Timmy had turned to Alex, grinning.

  “Fine. Joan, that’s fine. We can do this another way.”

  Alex looked around the stables. Behind him, Joan sighed.

  “Look, Alex. You don’t need me. Think this through. The fact that they’re so worried about the sickness means that they’re not going to fall for someone with medical complaints, right? So what else can you talk about? Something boring. Something to lure them into a false sense of security. You want them to think it’s a chore, not a threat.”

  Alex nodded along. Joan was using her patronizing tone. But right now, with his mind in such a tangled car wreck of a state, he was happy to be talked down to.

  “So,” she continued, “pick something dull. Not me, you can’t use me. But one of the others? Try Timmy, he looks the type.”

  She was right, Alex thought to himself. They’re going to be so concerned about any symptoms, it’s going to make them scared. Worried. Going to affect how they act. He turned to his friend.

  “Timmy, how you holding up?”

  “Pretty strong, man, pretty strong.”

  Timmy flexed his invisible muscles. Alex could tell he was hardly back to full health, even if he was improving.

  “I meant in terms of your mental strength.”

  “Oh.” The flexing arm fell to Timmy’s side. “Pretty good, I suppose.”

  “Think you can fake a bathroom request?”

  “That’s really weak.”

  “Can you do it?”

  “Yeah, probably. But, sheesh, man. We can do better than that.”

  “We need to keep it simple, Joan’s right.”

  “There’s simple and there’s stupid. This is worse. This is just cliché.”

  Cam snorted with laughter at Timmy’s joke.

  “There’s a reason things become clichés, Timmy.” Alex stood to his feet. “It’s because they work.”

  Alex began to walk around the stable block, outlining his plan. Timmy would knock on the door. Calm and careful. Just a regular interaction. He’d wait for the strangers to put on their protective gear and would retreat to the corner of the room. When they came back, he’d feign a trip and a sore ankle. As they inspected, Alex and Cam would jump out of the shadows and attack.

  Simple.

  So they began to take their positions. When everyone was in place, Alex signaled Timmy to begin.

  Knocking politely on the stable door, Timmy shuffled from foot to foot. No answer. He knocked again, a little harder.

  “Don’t oversell it, Timmy.” Alex hissed. His friend nodded and knocked again, gentler this time.

  After another round of knocking, Alex could hear footsteps outside. A voice shouted through the wall.

  “What you want?”

  “It’s me, man.” Timmy shouted to be heard. “Just want to use the restroom is all.”

  Alex held his breath as he listened. Now they were in the middle of it, the plan seemed stupid. Only now was this doubt gnawing away at him, eating through his confidence. But he had to do something. He had to get out. He had to get everyone out. They’d come too far to be locked up like rats in a cage.

  “Wait there.” The voice called before the sound of footsteps took over.

  Timmy sauntered back to the others and performed an extravagant bow. There was still time to cancel everything. They could do something else. They could do nothing. No, Alex thought. We have to act. These people are occupying my farm. Threatening my friends. We have to do something.

  “I’m ready for my Oscar now.”

  Cam and Alex were already on their feet. The one door into the stable, right down the other end, opened both in and out but not all the way. When it opened inwards, a person could easily stand behind it without being seen.

  Alex pushed past Timmy and pointed for Cam to wait in the niche behind the door.

  Joan sat on the mattress at the other end, pretending to be asleep. Medically excused, Alex reasoned. Best not to use up all of her goodwill in case the plan failed. They’d bunched up the blankets next to her, imitating sleeping people.

  When Cam was ready, Alex silently dragged Timmy to the center of the room.

  “Wait here.” He pointed at the spot on the floor while he whispered. “When they come back in, pretend to trip over and hold your ankle. Really sell it.”

  Timmy nodded. Alex looked around. There was no good place for him to stand. The emptiness of the stables meant only one real hiding place and Cam was already there.

  Alex would have to improvise. At regular intervals down the length of the room were small piles of bricks. These were the remains of the dividing walls, now reduced to crumbling masonry and rubble jutting into the room. The one nearest the main door stuck out perhaps half a foot.

  If he was careful and quiet, Alex could crouch beside it. Providing Timmy made enough noise, it might provide just enough cover. He crouched down on one knee, watching the floor. Ready. A sprinter’s start.

  There was movement outside. If he really listened, Alex could tell that these footsteps were different. Slower, more deliberate. But they were coming. He looked up, only for a second, and saw Timmy. His friend was bouncing up and down on the spot, staring intently at the door.

  Do it, Timmy, Alex thought to himself. Let’s get them.

  A bolt scraped its way open. The stable door swung inwards, bathing the room in light. Alex kept his eyes closed. They had adjusted to the gloom. He looked down, not wanting his white face to show up against the brick wall.

  Still, the world lit up in scarlet, the light sun shining through the skin. Alex curled his eyes tight, locking out the light. He kept s
till, crunched up in a ball, trying not to be seen.

  A person began to walk into the room. Just one; Alex could hear the footsteps. They were slow. Methodical. Plodding. One foot heavier than the other.

  Timmy began his routine but something wasn’t right.

  “Oh,” he sounded surprised. Alex didn’t dare look up. “Hey. I was just about to-”

  A loud, dull thump cut him short. Alex heard the door swing closed. The light vanished and he opened his eyes, blinking in the gloom.

  The first thing he saw was Timmy, rolling on the floor in agony. Alex looked up. A man stood in the center of the room. Not someone he’d seen before.

  This man was tall. Taller than Alex by almost a foot. And broad, his shoulders wide and hewn. A long wax coat hung from the man’s shoulders, ending just above the ground. It had been buttoned up to the neck. Brown and scratched and weathered with marks.

  At the end of one arm, the man carried a metal gas tank. His hoary hand wrapped around the handle and swung it as he walked. He stepped backwards, turning to find Cam emerging from behind the door. There was no pause.

  The man swung the tank in a long, lazy arc. It collided with Cam and sent him sprawling to the floor.

  Alex leapt to his feet. Two of his friends down already. He charged at the tall man.

  Leading with his shoulder, Alex hit the man in the gut.

  Rather than falling to the floor, the man staggered back – only slightly - and corrected himself, swiping Alex to the side like a fly.

  Alex looked up into the man’s face. Most of it was hidden behind a plastic mask, held in place by two fabric straps wrapped behind the ears. The man was bald, his head a spiderweb of wrinkles and scars.

  Two tiny black eyes squinted through the gloom, finding Alex. They watched him.

  The only sound was the rustle and whistle of the breathing mask. Timmy and Cam rolled around on the floor, trying to find their feet. Alex raised his fists, hopefully. Foolishly. This giant would be able to knock him back with ease.

  But the man just watched.

  Alex waited for the hit. He waited for the blow.

  But it never came.

  With a clunk, the man laid down the oxygen tank on the stone floor. A thin wire trailed all the way up the sleeve of the coat, connecting with the mask.

  Alex could hear the sound of breathing through the contraption. It was stifled. Distant. Hardly human. More than anything else, he wanted to kick away the tank, rip away the mask, and fight on.

  The door opened again. Two shadows stepped into the light. Alex could hear their guns. He quickly abandoned the idea of attacking.

  “Get down the other end of the room!” The two figures lifted their weapons, one of them shouting. “Do it now!”

  Alex stepped backwards, putting himself between the people and Joan. She had stirred, rousing from her phony sleep to watch the spectacle of their disastrous plan.

  “Who are you?” Alex shouted.

  The man didn’t move. He stood in the middle of the room, the world reorganizing itself around him. Limping, pride dented, Cam and Timmy snuck away, slinking back beside Alex.

  The man turned to his armed friends. He nodded, so they entered and closed the door behind them. Alex recognized one of them, Nelson with the broken nose, but not the other. She was a young girl. Very young. A teenager swinging a heavy pistol. She glared.

  Leaning down to pick up his gas tank, he walked down the room until he was five feet away from Alex and his friends.

  There, he stopped.

  One of the other strangers walked around him, her pistol pointed at the prisoners. She dragged an empty crate to the center of the room. The wood shrieked and scraped as it was heaved along the floor.

  The crate was placed behind the masked man, who sat down and clicked his fingers. The strangers lowered their guns and stood at ease.

  “Do you know my name?”

  The only indication that he was speaking at all was the mask, which twitched and stretched with every word.

  No one answered. Alex looked at his friends, all of them pressed up against the rear wall of the stables. “They told me.” He pointed towards the armed strangers.

  The man breathed.

  “And what have they told you?”

  “They told me you were called Krol. They used that name.”

  Alex pointed at the people with the guns. He had heard them refer to someone, their tone reverent and fearful. This had to be him. The man nodded, closing his eyes.

  “People call me that. People call me that.”

  “What should I call you?”

  Still standing, Alex looked down into the man’s face. He could see the patchwork weaves of the scars and wrinkles on the man’s head.

  As he spoke, the skin stayed still.

  “You can call me anything you like. But I am at a disadvantage.”

  “I’m Alex—"

  “Alex?” Krol cut across Alex, stopping him short.

  “Alex Early.”

  A slow blink, the pinprick dots that were Krol’s eyes disappearing for a second.

  “Alex is an interesting name. Do you know what it means?” Krol didn’t wait for an answer. “It means protector. Defender. It means plenty of things.”

  Alex had never thought about his own name.

  “I think it’s just a name.”

  “Alexander the Great, of course. Perhaps the most famous. Should we be looking on your works, Alexander?”

  “I don’t think-”

  “Should we despair, Alexander?”

  “I—”

  Krol didn’t wait for answers. He simply continued, rolling over any response.

  “This does not matter. My name is Krol. Your name is Alex. Very simple, yes?”

  “I guess…”

  Alex looked to his friends. They had turned their eyes away from Krol. He knew why. The man’s voice made his eyes water. A metallic scratch which could be felt on the skin.

  “Very good, Alex. Now, let me ask, are you a believer?”

  “What?”

  “Do you believe?”

  “Do I believe in what?”

  “In anything. In anything at all. Do you believe, Alexander Early?”

  “I don’t know what I believe.”

  “Ah.” Krol’s tiny eyes widened only slightly. “That is good news. Do you know what we do with believers here?”

  “No, I just-”

  “We do not take kindly to them.”

  Krol lifted his hand, resting it on the machinery at the top of the gas tank. Absent-mindedly, without turning away from Alex and his friends, he adjusted the dials.

  A hiss squeezed through the pipes. Krol rocked back, drawing a deep breath. He opened his eyes.

  “Welcome to my home.”

  The lie chewed into Alex’s anger, fanning the flames of his fury, his nostrils flaring.

  As though sensing the rage brewing up inside his friend, Timmy reached out a hand and pulled back on Alex’s shoulder.

  “This isn’t your home,” Alex said, shrugging off the hand. “It’s not yours.”

  “Ah-ah, Mr. Early.” Krol ticked a withered finger in front of his face. “Let us look at the reality of the situation.”

  Alex didn’t want to argue. He didn’t need to. This was his home. His farm. This man – this intruder – was a liar and a thief. But it wouldn’t help to say that to his face. He could feel himself getting angrier, he could feel the red mist rising. Swallow it, he told himself, save it for later.

  “This was my parents’ farm.” Alex spoke through gritted teeth. “Now it’s mine. It’s not yours.”

  “Is that true?” Krol’s mask rattled. “It does not matter. The past is a strange and foreign land now, Alexander. You are a wanderer, just like me.”

  Alex had never expected to have to prove anything. He’d grown up here. He’d inherited it all. There was nothing to prove.

  “Nevertheless, I imagined you to be stragglers.” Krol spoke with a slow,
deliberate tone. No hint of an accent. Every syllable seemed carefully chosen to cause the most damage, to impart the most meaning. “We get a lot of strays.”

  Cam had been watching everything. He stepped forward. The two strangers behind Krol were quick to raise their weapons.

  “Easy, my friends.” Cam backed off. “I just wanted to get a look at you. Don’t know a lick about you, other than you throwing us in here.”

  Alex really looked at the two-armed guards for the first time. A teenage girl. An African-American man, who Alex had already kicked in the nose. Both wore surgical masks. Neither of them seemed pleased to be there.

  As Cam had moved, both had reached for their weapons without hesitation. A test, Alex knew. Attack Krol and these two strangers wouldn’t pause before gunning them down on the spot.

  But Krol demanded all the attention. There was such a surety to his movements, a careful planning to everything he did. Even as he unbuttoned his coat, not a single twinge of a muscle was wasted.

  “You are in here,” Krol continued, “because you are a risk. A threat.”

  “No, we’re –” Alex tried to interject.

  “Yes. You are. Not this charade.” Krol raised a hand to indicate the stables. “But a viral threat. As such, you have been quarantined. Once we have determined your health, you may be released. But, for now, this is not the case.”

  “But this is my house–” Alex began.

  “As you insist. And yet here you are.”

  “Hey, man. We’re not sick. Not anymore.”

  “A sentiment shared by many people. Especially those about to die.”

  “No, man. You’re not listening. See?” Timmy pulled down the skin below his gray eye. “Look. You see that. You see what that means? Me and her, we’re survivors. We can’t be carriers anymore. And Cam, here, he was in the army. Got all sort of injections. We’ve been around sick people, hasn’t done anything to him. Healthy people, too. And nothing happened. And then Alex…”

  Timmy’s enthusiasm drifted. This was where the story became much more complicated, Alex knew.

  “I’m immune.” Simply say it aloud, he told himself. Get it out of the way. “According to a CIA database. I can show you.”

  “Alexander. A defender of men. A protector of the sick.” Krol laughed. A sound like the old air escaping from an exhumed coffin. The laugh turned into a cough. “Perhaps the most imaginative spin on this particular story that we have heard.”