Page 32 of A Wilderness Within

“I don’t know. It’s possible that any immune survivors will have formed sufficient antibodies that might be passed down to their offspring. There’s no guarantee that Hydra won’t somehow mutate eventually, though. It is a virus, after all, and mutations are easy to achieve if they run across another virus and copy part of their RNA strand.”

Caroline was silent a long while after that. She tried to imagine a world where she felt safe enough to have a child, or to trust a man to help her raise it. She glanced at Lincoln and then back to the road. She and Lincoln? Not likely. Yes, the man was fucking hot and kissed like out of some X-rated fantasy, but he didn’t seem like he wanted to be a father. There was a shadow around him, a tragedy he didn’t speak of that seemed to bleed over into his life. She wasn’t sure she could ever banish whatever demon had created that shadow.

“What happened when you were at the airport?” Lincoln asked. “When you realized they weren’t going to let you go?”

Caroline went white-knuckled on the steering wheel as she tried not to let the past create a fresh sense of doom within her.

“Only if you tell me something first.”

“Shoot.”

“Why don’t you want to check on your parents?”

Lincoln growled. “Truth? My father was an abusive son of a bitch. I promised myself when I joined the army that he would never hit me again. If he did, I’d kill him. I have a feeling that if I went to visit and they were still alive…I’d end up doing what I promised.”

“I’m sorry.” Caroline wished now that she hadn’t asked him anything about his family.

“Your turn. What happened at the airport?” he urged.

She drew in a deep breath and began to speak about the horror she had endured.

“You can’t keep us in here!” the woman beside Caroline screamed. She and a hundred other people were pressed against the glass of the security doors that led out of the airport terminal. A row of thirty police officers stood on the other side of the glass, wearing white masks over their noses and mouths. Each officer had an assault rifle ready.

“I have a family!” someone else shouted, beating a fist on the glass. “You’re killing us by leaving us here!”

Caroline anxiously studied the officers’ faces. Many were impassive, but a few were wide-eyed and shifty-footed with fear. Someone broke through the police ranks and came to the glass walls. It was a woman wearing a navy-blue coat that had CDC printed on the left side.

“Excuse me! Can everyone be quiet?” the woman announced loudly. Most of the people nearest the glass barrier grew silent.

“The man removed earlier today was confirmed infected with a contagious virus. It is fatal if contracted. The symptoms are fever, thirst, and dehydration. You may experience vomiting and diarrhea.” The woman searched the faces of the crowd, likely already trying to gauge the symptoms of the people nearest her.

“We will be providing water and food and any assistance possible, but you must be patient. Once we are able to determine the extent of the situation, we can find a way to start releasing you to go home.”

Caroline watched the woman speak softly to a policeman behind her, and his look of pity as he glanced at Caroline and the others filled her with dread. They were being quarantined. They weren’t going to be allowed to leave. The second the people around her realized that, they were going to cause a riot. She had to get somewhere safe.Now.

She backed up, pushing her way through the crowds until she was free of the mass near the glass security doors. Struggling for air, she slumped down in an empty gate area near the glass windows facing the airport runways. All of the planes had been grounded, and the ground crews were gone. Caroline dug around in her backpack for her phone. She dialed her parents again. Her mother answered on the first ring.

“Honey! Thank God, what’s the matter? Natalie said something about you being stuck at the airport?”

“Mom… They aren’t letting us go home.” She tried to keep from crying. “It’s bad. Really bad.”

Her mother’s panicked breathing wasn’t a comfort. “Is it the virus from the news?”

“Yeah. A man behind me in line died today. He was infected. He coughed on me. I could be infected with it.”

“Oh no,” her mother said harshly. “You’re not sick, you hear me? You were so ill as a baby when you came a month early, but we got through that. You’ll get through this too.”

“This isn’t the flu, Mom. You don’t survive this. The lady from the CDC was just here, and”

“The CDC? Oh my God!” Her mother’s tone turned shrill with panic.

“She said it was fatal. I don’t think they have a cure. They aren’t letting anyone leave our terminal. It’s under quarantine. I don’t know how much time I have left. I”

“Caroline Marie Kelly, you won’t die. When you were born prematurely, I held you in my arms, praying for you as you struggled to breathe and fought to live. I knew then that you were special and you were meant to do great things in life. Whatever this is, you will beat it.”

Caroline closed her eyes, feeling more hopeless than ever. She talked to her mother for another hour, but then she heard the screams and shouts of an angry mob.

“Mom, I have to go. I love you.” She hung up and crouched down.

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