The Oasis Read online

  “Damn it!” he yelled after them.

  Jasper didn’t even look up but just pulled Lena toward the door.

  As soon as he opened the door, one of the others was there, teeth bared. Lena didn’t hesitate and fired point blank with the gun Jasper had given her, her cry filling the house.

  The blood from the other splattered everywhere as her voice bounced off the walls through the house. As they jumped over the man’s body, Lena let the anger take over. Anger flashed on her face and she fired at anyone coming near them. There were two more others out the back, and Lena didn’t even care if they were the free man’s men or just random creatures roaming around the area and drawn to the sounds. She was tired. Tired of being scared and tired of running. She knew that even when they got away from here they would still be running.

  The next kill came from Jasper’s gun. He pulled a pistol from the back of his pants and started firing. His aim was precise. Every shot went directly through the head. Even as he nursed his arm, the blood running down his hand, he never lost his grip on his weapon and never once did he lose his stride. Once they cleared the back of the house, Lena took a moment to look behind them.

  She saw Eric and Brett in an upstairs window. She stood there blank, amazed, and very shaken. She was too stunned to cry. They had made it out of there. Once again, she had escaped the devil’s clutches.

  She could hear Eric calling out to his men, shouting orders. Looking around, she saw no movement in the neighboring houses. The whole area was silent. Nevertheless, they couldn’t stay in any of the houses. Their only hope was to get back onto the road. Jasper’s car with all of his weapons was back in the garage. The only things they had managed to bring with them were the weapons they carried and the pack on Jasper’s back.

  Lena licked her lips nervously and tasted the blood there. She looked down at her hands and saw they were dusted from broken plaster, and her arms were covered with cuts. Her body ached and she was tired.

  Jasper’s hand slid down her arm and tightened around her wrist. Silently, he pulled her along and they broke into a run. Lena ran with all the energy she had left. They were running for their lives, but deep down she knew what really had to be done. Eric had to be killed. Brett and the other SEALs would likely need to be as well, but Eric was clearly the worst of the lot. His determination proved that he was a man to be feared and a man of action. He would rule the world if he could.

  It hurt Lena to know that his death was the only thing that would stop the murdering, but that was how things were, and hiding from the truth wouldn't help anything.

  Jasper pulled her through the woods behind the house. She could hear more gunshots from behind them, but she no longer could see the house. Jasper ran like he knew where he was taking her. Lena couldn’t remember how they had gotten to the house to begin with. If Eric had found them once, she knew he would most likely find them again.

  Suddenly she heard something she hadn’t in a long time. Barking echoed through the woods. Dogs. God, did Eric have dogs?

  “Jasper, you’re bleeding!” she said, worry in her eyes. A chill seemed to grow between them. He had been bleeding since they left the house, and the dogs would easily be able to track the blood. In fact, anyone would be able to do so; Lena could see it trailing on the ground. Her mind scrambled in anxiety and that chill black silence surrounded them.

  “We need to keep moving,” he said. As they kept running, he pulled his shirt off and wrapped his arm in the fabric. It would prevent the blood from freely flowing onto the ground, at least for a while.

  She could hear the dogs through the woods and she knew it wouldn’t be long before they were on them.

  Jasper swayed slightly and she knew he had lost a significant amount of blood and was now feeling the effects of it.

  “Oh, thank God,” she whispered, pulling his arm over her shoulder to give him support. Though the woods she could see a road, and that meant there would be cars. Maybe they could use one of them.

  As they broke out of the woods, Lena ducked out from under Jasper’s arm and ran to the closest car, opening the driver’s door and looking for a key. There was no sign of one and she hurried to the next one.

  Finally she found a car with the key still in the ignition. The gas tank read less than a quarter full—not enough to get them to Coronado, but enough to get them the hell out of the woods.

  She hopped in, followed by Jasper, who looked to be in a lot of pain. Turning the key, she waited for the boom of the engine.

  The car wouldn’t turn over.

  By now she could see the dogs as they broke from the trees and raced for the car. The dogs were thin and Lena wasn’t surprised to see how ferociously they attacked the car. Their claws scraped against the doors as they attacked the windows with their teeth.

  “Oh my God!” Lena panicked as she tried again to turn the engine over.

  Jasper put his hand over hers, his calm completely contrasting her anxiety. “Take a breath,” he said.

  Lena stared at him, confused. He must have lost more blood than she had originally thought.

  “I’m serious,” he said again and she released the key, having a hard time catching her breath with the attack dogs right outside her window. “Now,” he said, his voice calm. “Give it a little gas.”

  Pumping the pedal, she let him reach over and turn the key. The car boomed to life—just as a bullet blasted past them.

  “Go!” he yelled and Lena stomped on the gas, the car fishtailing down the road. The dogs chased after them for a bit, but they were too weak to keep up with the car for long.

  Lena looked back and saw the men along the edge of the woods, searching the cars like she had done. It wouldn’t be long before they were on the road too, but for now they were free. They had done it again.

  Although she tried to keep it together, she couldn’t. She let out her breath with a sob and began to cry. All of her anxiety and her fear bubbled up to the surface. Being here made her miss the simplicity of her farm once more.

  “Stay on the road, please,” Jasper whispered and put his hand over her own on the steering wheel. She laughed a little and rubbed away the tears. She looked and felt like hell, again. But as long as the car kept running, they were safe. For now.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jasper slept for most of the drive. Lena made few stops to treat her wounds the best she could. Dressing his injuries and keeping him as comfortable as possible she let Jasper regain his strength. He drifted in and out of consciousness as Lena drove on. They had lost everything in the house, everything they’d been forced to leave behind in Jasper’s car. Lena wasn’t even sure how they intended to get where they needed to go, let alone how they would do it with so few supplies. She just kept the car moving forwards. There was one thing left on her mind and when Jasper finally woke up Lena had to have answers.

  “Please tell me what is going on.” Lena demanded. She couldn’t keep running without knowing what was happening. She deserved to know and this time she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

  Looking over at her, he took a deep breath and quietly began.

  “I was Petty Officer 2nd Class Jasper L. Anderson when things started to fall apart. That was five years ago.” He exhaled steadily and Lena could tell that what had happened so long ago still hurt him very deeply.

  “I wasn’t new to the SEAL community, but had just arrived back in Coronado. The SEALs are an elite special operations team of the US Navy sent out to do some of the ‘dirtier’ work of the military. We are the best of the best. But I was on my way out; I was hoping to get out of the military and start new work in Africa. I’d done a lot of black ops there and seen a lot of death, a lot of bad stuff, and I knew that I wanted to go back and do some good instead. I’d seen too much destruction. By the end of 2007 I was ready to get out. I’d gone to school, I’d paid my dues to the military and for once I was feeling really good about being able to put my gun away. Of course, that was when things started gett
ing really bad.

  “At that point most of the public was unaware of the situation worsening in Korea. People were getting real sick. If I hadn’t seen it myself then I probably wouldn’t have believed it. My chief showed us a video recorded by another team that had done some missions over there. He told me the only other people to see this were much higher up. The president even. People were killing each other. This virus had mutated them, changed them to something sinister. I assumed that the Koreans were the creators, but I was still unsure of what was going to happen. Did this mean war? Was this even a war we could win? Lena, the first victims were like the worst kind of others you can imagine. They were just creatures, not really men at all. This virus made people rip each other to shreds. It was a super weapon.

  “Then I found out it was actually the US military who had developed the virus. It was our own testing facility that had used humans as guinea pigs. We had developed this super weapon, distributing it in little vials, one person at a time. And still we wanted more. We wanted to develop an even better one. Better than what? I asked. The virus that had started as an injectable, controllable substance had mutated and evolved. This virus started killing millions of people in the most horrendous manner possible. At this point, there was no longer any control; now there was chaos. The disease pitted brother against brother, father against son, and child against mother. The worst part of this whole scenario was that people were no longer people. They had been changed into something worse.

  “After that the media finally caught on to the virus spreading over Asia. Although the North Koreans were initially blamed, I knew that our own government had started it, planting it and testing it far from our shores so that, in situations like this, we were the last to be suspected. But the virus spread a lot faster than I think anyone realized it would. The SEAL team that had been involved with the original testing in Korea had initially come back asymptomatic, but it wasn’t long before they started showing the same profile as those originally infected. Then it was determined that the virus had mutated to an airborne strain. The SEAL team who had been put in charge of the medical team that administered the virus to Korean victims had done so hands-off. I call them victims because they were innocent people. I saw the video. These people were not volunteers.

  “Anyway, these SEALs had started to show symptoms. They were aggressive and animalistic. The Navy couldn’t afford to let something like this leak. Unlike all the other outbreaks over Europe and Asia, the SEALs were almost identical to the first victims, being in direct contact with the original strains of the newly mutated virus. They changed rapidly and aggressively. Once the virus got out, became airborne, the change slowed down for everyone else. The symptoms mirrored the flu at first and then progressed to what we see now. The virus kills brain cells and eventually the host ends up in some kind of madness or animalistic state. Each victim exhibits different severities, different symptoms of the virus. That is why some people are more violent and others are more insane.

  “Not too long after I heard about their symptoms, these SEALs got into an ‘accident’ that resulted in all of their deaths. Although we were told it was an accident due to negligence, I knew that wasn’t really true. They had been killed to protect the military’s secrets, and to try to stop the virus from spreading. We needed to remain a stronghold for the rest of the world. At this point, there hadn’t been any reported infections in the US. How would it have looked if the military was tainted in such a way?

  “It was shortly after that that Chief approached me for a meeting. Up until then I hadn’t thought too much about how we intended on combating this atrocity. I was on my way out and, like the rest of humanity, I couldn’t imagine this virus destroying the free world so quickly. I guess I was hoping that it was all a dream and that I would wake up and be on my way out. It wasn’t long before I found out that I was the only one who thought what was happening was just wrong.”

  He stopped talking and looked over at her, afraid to continue.

  “The worst part,” he started again, “was that I could have saved so many.”

  Lena pulled the car over. Her eyes widened in shock and she sat back, staring at him.

  Lowering his head, Jasper let the past come back, wash over him. It was a moment he had tried to forget for a long time.

  * * * * *

  The conference room was dim. The lights were turned down and the shades drawn. Every person in the room was part of the elite SEAL Team 3, a team he was relatively new to. Jasper looked around and saw mostly unfamiliar faces. It wasn’t hard to detect the camaraderie between the men. They all remained silent, knowing that whatever the Chief had called them together for was much more important than the training they had been working on. Jasper’s eyes scanned the room before settling on the forms that he was given. Most of it was standard, but the medical information they were requesting was not what he would call the norm. Being a SEAL often meant that his personal information was less accessible than that of the average sailor. The documents in front of him didn’t even require him to put his name, rank, or any other identifying information. The plan was obviously for them to fill out the information and carry it to the doc, after which it would be shredded. A little bit unorthodox, but who was he to try to decode why the military did anything.

  The Special Warfare Group commander, Captain Dwain Livingston, walked into the room and they were all reminded of the seriousness of the meeting. All present personnel stood at attention and the commander quickly gestured for them to sit. Jasper sat back down and waited to hear the news.

  “I’m not going to beat around the bush here,” the commander said. Jasper saw some of the other SEALs shifting in their seats. He already knew what they were thinking. As trained warriors, most of them hoped for some secret mission. Where most of the rest of the free world prayed for peace, SEALs were always ready, willing and often eager to go to war.

  “We have a situation in Korea.”

  A soft chuckle resonated in the back of the room. Jasper knew the man who laughed. He was a trigger-happy fighter. Every one of them was itching to fight. They were trained to do so. To keep them at bay was like training a dog to kill upon command and then tying him to a tree. These men were ready to bite.

  The commander chose to disregard the SEALs’ reaction. It was often better to let little things like that ride. Jasper had seen his share of fights over trivial things.

  “There has been an outbreak of a virus we are calling H5-37. We have surveillance from the SEAL team that infiltrated the center.”

  As the commander played the video, Jasper could hear the men behind him settle into their seats. There wasn’t a man in that room whose mind hadn’t shifted from war to death. The creatures that had mutated in that video were something they hadn’t seen before. “As you can see, we have an epidemic on our hands.”

  The lights were turned back on and Jasper could see that everyone in the room was affected by the images. Jasper knew that no amount of conditioning could get those images out of his head. Nothing could have prepared him for seeing a man devour another man’s flesh, and he had seen some wicked things.

  “We thought H5-37 was contained in Korea. However, we have found cases of infected people across Asia. We expect the virus to spread across Europe and enter the continental US by the end of the week.” Someone behind Jasper dropped their pencil. “The victims are extremely dangerous.”

  You think?! Jasper thought. His mind was reeling with the new information. He still had family in Africa and he knew that any information he was given during this meeting was for his ears only. His career had been built on hiding things. Even this monstrosity had to be kept a secret.

  “The infected first experience mood changes as the virus attacks the brain cells. After that, the virus kills off nerve cells and the victim loses many normal physiological functions. There is reason to believe that the infection affects hearing and the moral conscience. Scientists are unsure whether the victims lose their hearing or j
ust lose their ability to communicate. No one has been able to get close enough to the victims to study them.”

  The commander paused and cleared his throat. “The end result seems to be dementia on an extreme level. The victims no longer resemble normal human beings in action or physical appearance. So far the virus hasn’t directly killed any of its victims, but it is deadly in that the victims turn on each other and any uninfected people around them. The virus awakens some kind of mania that makes many of them extremely violent.”

  He paused there. Everyone in the room was silent. Gone was the camaraderie Jasper felt before the Captain came in. Jasper couldn’t imagine what was next for them.

  Although the room wasn’t hot, the commander wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead. Jasper was not surprised by his anxiety. He felt uneasy with the information in front of him. His training kicked in, though, and he tried to concentrate on the problem at hand. SEALs didn’t become SEALs because they dwelled on problems. SEALs are problem solvers.

  “We have developed a vaccine for H5-37.” There was an audible release of breath in the room. “This experimental vaccine is being distributed and tested among the SEAL teams. As the days progress, it is imperative for the US military to remain a stronghold. Others will be looking to us for strength and guidance and we need to have our best people at the forefront. You have been chosen to receive this experimental vaccine in hopes that the medication will be distributed among other military personal down the road.”

  He paused here and held up one of the packets that had been placed in front of each man. “You need to fill these out with your medical information now, and then you will be taken to get the vaccine.” Everyone looked down at their packets with fresh eyes. “I don’t need to remind you that this information is completely confidential and no one is to be told about either the virus or the vaccine that you will be getting.”