A House Divided: Book 3 of The Of Sudden Origin Saga Read online

  “Yes, Councilman.”

  “Quale out.”

  Ragnar took a deep breath and blew it out while gripping his fingers behind his back. Murder. Straight up murder. It was one thing to set a boatload of infected loose on Martha’s Vineyard… After mulling for a while he told himself he’d be doing the captives a favor. It was only a matter of time before they came down with the disease anyway. Hell, by killing them he was protecting his own people. He quickly opened the door, surprising the eavesdropping communications officer, and with firm resolve, made his way toward the sentinel driver. He wouldn’t spill blood. Too much risk with blood. He’d have them tossed overboard.

  Jon screamed a stream of curses as the sentinel lifted him off the deck and over its head. The rest of them screamed too. They’d been sitting huddled in a circle, heads butted together trying to stay warm, when the agile machine moved toward them and grabbed Jon first.

  “You fucking bastards! Put me down!” Jon felt his stomach rise up as he was flung away from the ship. Time stretched out for him as he observed the gray foamy sea below. He automatically arched his back against the landing, as if his body could somehow levitate. Then shockingly, cold dark wetness and thousands of silver bubbles surrounded him. His face rose out of the sea and he gasped for a breath just as the boy landed in the water next. Everyone had their hands tied behind their backs. Swimming was not an option. The boy burst up gasping, his legs kicking furiously. Jon vaguely heard screams coming from the receding boat. His instincts kicked in and he tried to float on his back. In his peripheral vision the boy went down and then kicked back up once again. Another splash. He couldn’t tell who.

  “Float like me, kid. On your back. Like this!”

  Another splash, the accompanying scream silenced as water gushed over his ears. He rose again, coughing up salty brine, his clothes so heavy, pulling him down. A quick calculation brought him to the inescapable; dead. This means dead. Having escaped its claws so many times, Death had him for sure. “Fuck you, Death.”

  The machine flung Eliza into the sea, leaving Nikki last with no hope of escape. She scanned the ocean for Jon, determined to get close to him when she hit the water. The children were beside themselves with anguish, kicking the machine’s arachnid legs as it pursued Nikki. She ran aft as fast as she could, tripping and stumbling hard, hitting her head and tasting blood before feeling it gushing down her face. She managed to reach the matching helm wheels and put herself between the port one and the spider thing, dodging back and forth, staying out of reach.

  Below deck, Ragnar put a hand on the operator and said, “Fine. Shoot this one.”

  On the stern, the sentinel’s auto-shotgun unfolded.

  “Gold!” Nikki yelled. “You’re throwing away gold! We’re immune, you fools! We’re immune to Cain’s! We can save you all!”

  The sentinel suddenly stood still, as only robot can. The twins continued to beat against it, the blows barely causing it to sway.

  “Explain yourself,” came the disembodied voice.

  Nikki pointed off the stern, the people in the water quickly disappearing among the swells. “You threw the fucking doctor who can save you all off this ship! Why do you think we haven’t shown any sickness?” She looked at Hansel and Gretel, got quick mental agreement, then spoke through gritted teeth at the sculpted centurion-looking-face of the machine. “Go back or we all jump and you have nothing.”

  Jon heard the echoing high whine of an outboard engine in the water, mixed with the general cacophony of waves and his haggard spitting breathing. He had linked up with the boy, the two of them lying on their backs, kicking in time with each other. Then Billy began to cough and lost his rhythm. Jon didn’t have the energy left to encourage him. What remained was reserved for kicking and telling Death to fuck off. He flew into a brief panic when the rubber wall of an inflatable boat banged into his head, and was even more surprised when three pairs of gloved hands reached down and heaved him up out of the water. Three men clad in full MOPP gear already had Billy in the boat. One of them turned the engine and gunned it toward Dean.

  When the recovery team had gathered them all back on deck, Eliza wasn’t breathing, her face blue, her lips purple. The recovery team heaved her limp form on deck last and then just stared.

  Dean turned his bound wrists to them. “Get these off! Get ‘em off! She’s not breathing!” The men continued to stand back and watch. “Cut ‘em off now!”

  Jon, Billy and Nikki were yelling at the soldiers as well. Hansel and Gretel were about to take the situation on puck style when finally, one of the men pulled a knife from a leg scabbard and cut Dean’s binding. Stewart dove to the deck and immediately started CPR. Eliza’s body jerked slightly with Dean’s efforts, but was otherwise deathly still.

  “Come on, woman!” Dean slapped her across the face, slamming the opposite cheek against the deck. He lifted her head straight again, breathed into her mouth, then pumped her chest with the rough pressure that he had learned during training so many years before. Nothing. “Elizaandra, you wake the fuck up!” He kept going — for minutes.

  Jon, finally reached out and touched Dean’s shoulder with a gentle tap from his foot. “Captain.”

  Dean lashed out and pushed the foot away. “Back off!”

  The twins stood apart staring at Eliza’s corpse.

  Mother.

  Mother, you must wake now.

  We need you, Mother.

  The entity that had most recently been Eliza, looked down upon the man so desperately trying to revive the body, then the view winked out in a bright flash. The Entity became awash in the familiar sensation, the utter freedom of the dark that was also the light; a void that was not a void. It was filled with the comings and goings of other entities, a universal feeling of love and welcoming. The Entity reveled in the life experience that had been Eliza and felt it meld with the countless lives that had been absorbed during its ancient existence. It found itself at a lavishly laid out dining table, a bounty of delights before it. Others of its kind were there, welcoming it home, celebrating it. They were friends from an eternity whose collective wisdom and knowledge was beyond anything the being that had been Eliza could fathom. Then there were voices, distant voices — Mother, please wake. Mother, we need you. Mother, we cannot find you. A feeling of longing scattered the feast and the setting away. The ancient friends were pushed to a periphery — all of them acknowledging the emotion, accepting the desire. The collective ancient energy urged the freshly released entity to return to its work in the other dimension. The one who had embodied Eliza hovered in this nothingness, conjuring a vision of pastoral beauty — a breathtaking perfection that would break the heart of any observing human. The entity did not want to go back. The experience that was Eliza’s life was wrought with difficulty. Pain and suffering were clearly all that the world called Earth had to offer. Then the Entity recalled the man. An ethereal recollection of Dean’s face hovered before it, a gentle smile creasing his brow. The Entity felt warmth and the many suns within her conjured vision grew brighter.

  Eliza!

  Mother!

  On the cold wet deck, Eliza gasped, her body jerking in a spasm. Water gushed from her slightly parted lips, followed by a long ragged breath. Dean felt hot tears fall down his cheeks as he looked into her eyes for recognition. When he saw it, he pulled her to him, kissing her wet hair, her cheeks. Eliza wanted to hug him back, but her hands were still bound. She saw Hansel and Gretel standing beyond Dean’s shoulder, and she smiled. The relieved pucks stepped forward, and to the astonishment of the soldiers, snapped their own bindings with one easy jerk. They knelt, embracing the captain and his woman.

  Nikki felt her heart rate slowly return to normal. She leaned against Jon’s cold wet arm and he leaned back.

  Ragnar agreed to let his prisoners be free of their bindings. He sent up foul weather gear and blankets for them to wear while their clothes were washed and dried in the yacht’s fancy laundry machine. They were allowed
to shelter in the open cockpit behind a dodger — the sentinel watching them at all times. Warm food and tea was sent up. No further contact was initiated.

  Again the group huddled together for warmth. Hansel gave Eliza his coat. Gretel’s went over Billy’s shoulders — the boy’s teeth chattering incessantly.

  “So these Shore people were the only folks you saw on your expedition?” asked Jon through a bite of some mystery meat sandwich.

  Dean let the steam from his tea warm his face before speaking. “From what we saw, it’s mostly all dead. There was evidence of pockets of survivors, but the towns were all empty, most likely taken by the Chosen.” He squeezed his son tighter around the shoulder. “Billy was captured beyond the Terminus zone across the Hudson. My boy walked all the way from New York to Panama. Didn’t see much in the way of people, did you Son?”

  Billy spoke through chattering teeth. “The only humans I saw were others like me who got caught. Slaves and food is what they made us.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Watchers

  He didn’t go by a name per se. Rather, he, like his brothers and sisters, was known by a feeling. His feeling could be described as the excited sensation they all felt when they saw a patch of blue sky. In a time of near constant overcast, a patch of blue was a jewel to behold. Patch of Blue then was a name of sorts, but never spoken as such — he was the thought of the experience. His hair was long and he liked to tie it together under his chin for warmth. A skimpy beard filled in some of the other gaps where the cold got through. Patch of Blue’s preference was to be naked, but as a Watcher in the cold upper parts of the world, weather necessitated being covered. His clothes were scavenged from one of the innumerable dwellings that existed from the time before The Chosen. His long hock-kneed legs were always an issue when it came to human clothes. However, by cutting longer pants to accept the multi-jointed gait and angles, and tying cloth around his lower legs, he was able to keep warm and dry enough. He lived with four other Chosen, who took sunrise to sunrise shifts watching for signs of the Fresh Ones who dwelled on an island next to the big water. They had been watching this area for two periods of the blazing light in the sky that provided longer days and then slowly shorter ones. Their communication with Paul and the other four of The Five was a matter of routine connections through the ether that allowed all Chosen on Earth to commune.

  When they weren’t watching from a distance, they were following the spider creatures that came across the water to scavenge. The Watchers were stealthy in their movement and made a game of not being seen. Only once were they surprised by the sinister looking things. One had come scavenging into a dwelling that the Watchers used between shifts. They had figured out that the spiders could hunt by seeing the heat that the Chosen gave off — even in the dark. They almost always heard the scavengers before they could be spotted — the hydraulics within the legs giving the creatures away. On a stormy day, a Watcher had become unaware that she had been followed while returning from surveillance. Before they could retreat, the spider had gunned down the one that they had known as Sharp Rocks Under Foot. Later, when they returned to the dwelling to confirm her death, they honored their fellow Watcher by consuming her.

  A new Chosen from the warmer lower lands was sent to replace Sharp Rocks Under Foot. After thousands of miles, she was still spotting a bit between the legs from the alteration that had been made to her. All Chosen had sex with whomever and whenever the feeling arose. Inevitable pregnancies in the field where cumbersome and a distraction. When the Chosen first began to watch, such infants that came forth were simply consumed for the nutrition. However, pregnant females were not light on their feet, and ultimately, before a female was sent to the frozen lands to watch, her uterus was made unsuitable for bearing fruit.

  Exhausted, slightly anemic, and rail thin, Rainbow Of Tree Dweller Feathers, had arrived in the frigid Mid-Atlantic.

  Rainbow Of Tree Dweller Feathers was an inexplicable feeling for her new mates, who had never been to the warmer climate, and seen the vibrant plumage of tropical birds. Though she shared the sensation of it through her mind, it failed to take hold as a way to reference her. Her new companions noted that she had a habit, in her desperation to re-gain weight, of calling two small animals to her mouth at a time. Naturally, she became known as Full Face.

  Full Face was still getting used to wearing clothes and hated how they restricted her movement, making her feel smothered. Her private thoughts, which were never very private among Chosen, were constantly filled with complaints about itchy fabric and a constrained crotch, and her mates offered growing disapproval at the irritation. This was particularly true for the other female in the group, known as Extra One, for the third nipple that was on the left side of her right breast.

  On a dim, cloudy gray morning, Full Face and Extra One were overlapping their watch from the great tree that offered them the best view of their quarry across the long water. Though it was an obvious place from which to observe, the Fresh Ones across the water never took note of it nor even investigated it. Extra One nodded at Full Face as she arrived at the base of the tree. She was feeling stiff from the cold night hours. Though they had built a sling of sorts to rest in while they watched from the top of the tree, the long hours of being stationary took its toll. She was looking forward to getting back to their shelter and getting a good fuck from Patch Of Blue and maybe Smoke In The Air to loosen her up. Maybe Teeth Broken On Bones would join them too. Right away she felt the itchy complaints coming from Full Face. She also felt the strong desire that Full Face was having to have a screw right there at the base of the tree. Extra One made little effort at hiding her feelings of distaste; Full Face was only really interested in sex with Extra One and was particularly enamored with the extra nipple. While Extra One enjoyed sex with Full Face, she was tired of being the female’s sole focus and she was grateful for the rules that said no sex on a watch shift. As she climbed down the tree, she gently batted away Full Face’s effort at a suggestive crotch grab and walked into the forest without looking back.

  Full Face sighed and climbed up the tree. She hated watch. It opened her up to the homesickness she was constantly battling. It was boring. The only activity was eating the occasional bird that was unlucky enough to fly by. Even that got boring as she became full — instead, spitting the half chewed little corpses into a pile on the ground. The pile was always festering with insects, which were the only creatures on Earth, besides some small fish, that she didn’t have mental control over.

  Today was breezy. The gusts shook the tree, causing her to occasionally hold a branch tightly. The big water that the tree looked out over was frothed up with whitecaps. The thin line of land that was normally on the horizon was obscured by haze.

  Hours of boredom passed while she picked at a small festering wound on her ankle, until unexpectedly, she noted one of the vessels with the giant spiders making its way across the water. With an uptick in her heart rate, she mentally called out to her companions, even waking Extra One, who had just taken her turn to sleep. The giant spiders with the upper bodies that looked like a Fresh One had been coming across from the island less and less, so it was with tremendous excitement that the team all began to gather to watch the boat. The game was on. The creatures were always delivered by a couple of Fresh Ones, who would tie off to a dock and wait for their charges. The Chosen never messed with these Fresh Ones. Part of the Watcher’s mission was to stay free from contact with the Fresh; their job not to provoke an attack on themselves. Playing games with the spider creatures on the other hand…

  Great care had to be taken with the big creatures. If one spotted a Chosen it wouldn’t hesitate to shoot fire and metal — and its aim was very accurate.

  As was typical, there were two of them. The creatures usually scrounged in pairs, filling the big baskets that were strapped to their backs. The last time they’d come across the water, they’d gone into a big building and torn into the walls, dragging out long pieces
of orange metal.

  The game was about getting to the periphery of their eyesight — just enough to be seen but not seen. All five Chosen with their connected minds could visualize just how close each of them got and it was a blood rushing thrill to have one or both of the spiders turn and scan. Not shoot fire and metal, mind you, just turn and look at the empty space where moments before a Chosen had stood.

  Full Face was new to the game. The others shared memories of it with her so she could see how it worked. She also saw the death of Sharp Rocks Under Foot. That Chosen had been torn to pieces by the fire and metal. As the memory was replayed for her, Full Face got to feel what Sharp Rocks Under Foot, and therefore all of them had felt, when she was killed. All it served to do was ramp up the thrill of the game. As she watched the spiders come ashore, she forgot all about the itches and scratches and homesickness. The spiders moved with such delicate precision, and she found her focus fall to that of a small actual spider that moved along one of the tree branches close to her hand. Its movement was nearly the same as its giant spider sisters stepping out of the boat, yet it was with the fluid motion of a living thing. None of the Chosen had ever been able to get into the mind of a giant spider. They simply attributed it to the fact that it was also just an insect — a very clever insect. For Full Face, there was something about the way that the giant spiders moved that made her question this logic. Something about them didn’t seem quite alive. She certainly couldn’t detect a heartbeat, but then, little spiders didn’t have heartbeats either; at least not the kind that she could discern. She picked up the one on the branch and let it crawl across her palm. Its thorax was roughly the size of a budding acorn. She held it to her mouth and sucked it off her hand, gently letting it crawl across her tongue. She could just make out the sensation of fluid moving back and forth within its fat little thorax. Then she crunched down, enjoying the bursting sensation and the twisting death throes of the legs. The small creature’s pincers latched on to a few of her taste buds, bringing water to her eyes as she enjoyed the sharp little pain. She continued to chew the surprisingly soft body while she sensed Patch Of Blue coming to join her. The thrill of the game was upon them and they shared the sensations of their hearts quickening, breath increasing, eyes dilating, ears becoming even more responsive, and the blood coursing through their veins.