Chronic fear f-2 Read online

  An engine roared somewhere down in the distant valley, someone climbing the steep, winding grade. The road turned to gravel near the wilderness area, at which point traffic was limited to the occasional logging truck or maintenance crew.

  They’re coming.

  Gundersson said bringing them together would give them a fighting chance, allow them to hone their cover stories and make it easier for him to provide protection. But it also made them easy targets for Gundersson’s betrayal.

  Roland pocketed his revolver. Gundersson wasn’t the only possible chink in the armor. Alexis Morgan was a Briggs protege, and Mark had been employed by the pharmaceutical company that funded the Monkey House trials. He couldn’t fully trust either of them.

  And that brought him to Wendy.

  She might still harbor some sort of twisted loyalty to Briggs. After all, he’d entrusted her to carry the Seethe formula, even if she wasn’t fully aware of what she’d done.

  No. You love her. You went through hell for her. And if she turns out to be the devil, at least you made your choice with your heart instead of your head. Because you never COULD trust your head, could you?

  He checked the bullets in the revolver. It held six. 38 caliber rounds. If he went to his fallback plan, and his aim was accurate, he’d have two bullets left. The one destined for his temple probably wouldn’t miss.

  But before he cleaned Seethe and Halcyon from the face of the Earth and tore down the Monkey House once and for all, heads had to be counted. If anyone else knew about it, then their deaths would be wasted.

  Roland gave a gruff laugh. David Underwood would survive. David, the most broken of them all, would carry the secret of Seethe’s grim potential.

  Kurr-rrrack-uhh.

  The morning stillness was shattered by the reverberating gunshot, and its abruptness caused Roland to drop his pistol. He scrambled down to the rough pine boards of the porch, reaching under his chair for the weapon.

  He found it and squatted, pointing it over the porch railing in the direction of the shot. After a minute, Gundersson came out of the woods, wearing a camo vest. A dark tuft dangled from his right hand to about the level of his knee.

  Without a word of greeting, Gundersson kept walking until he reached the porch. He flipped the object onto Roland’s chair. The foxtail still bled from the upper end where Gundersson had cut it off.

  “Nice piece of tail,” Gundersson said.

  “Are you one for symbolism?” Roland said.

  “Not unless it fits what I need to know.”

  “The fox is a creature of the afterlife, a sly messenger who guides people between worlds.”

  “So, I guess that means one of us is going to die?”

  “We’re all going to die. It’s just a question of when.”

  The door swung open and Wendy came out in her bathrobe. She looked from Roland to Gundersson, as if searching them both for bloodshed. “I heard a shot.”

  “Roland missed, but I didn’t,” Gundersson said. She looked down at the foxtail lying between them. “Your chickens are safe now.”

  “Lex and Mark are coming up the road,” Roland said to her, ignoring Gundersson. “You’d better get dressed.”

  She went back inside. Roland picked up his revolver and rested it in his lap. Talk about your symbolism. Let’s see who’s got the biggest barrel.

  “Here’s how we need to play this,” Gundersson said.

  “Wait a second. There’s not going to be any ‘play’ here. Lex and Mark are our friends. We’re fellow survivors.”

  Gundersson dropped his voice. “You know it doesn’t work that way. If too many people know, then the information is worthless.”

  “Alexis knows more about Seethe and Halcyon than anyone alive.”

  “But Mark’s a liability. According to my field director, he has too many suspicious connections. CRO Pharmaceuticals, Senator Daniel Burchfield, and a new cover story as a law-enforcement trainee.”

  Roland pondered letting Gundersson do the killing. And maybe while Gundersson was busy with Mark, Roland could put a bullet in the agent’s back. Alexis wouldn’t be too difficult to kill. All he had to do was picture her as the depraved savage in the Monkey House, holding a bloody tool as she stood over her victim.

  “You’d better hide,” Roland said. The car was nearer, barely a hundred yards away through the woods.

  “I’ll wait with Wendy.”

  Roland thought of the painting, with its graphic ladder of molecules, leaning against the wall. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “They won’t suspect anything.”

  “We’ve been exposed to Seethe.” Roland let one side of his lips twitch. “We’re suspicious all the time.”

  Before Gundersson could protest, the car came to a stop and its engine fell quiet, still out of sight and far from the yard.

  “That’s weird,” Roland said. “The road gets a little rougher, but it’s passable.”

  “It’s not them,” Gundersson said, drawing his firearm from a shoulder holster tucked inside his camo vest.

  “But we’re expecting-”

  “Get inside.”

  “Hold on, cowboy, you’re not my boss.”

  “I told you I’d protect you, but I can’t do that if you’re going to be a hardheaded jackass.”

  “If it’s not them, who else would it-”

  Gundersson leapt forward and shoved him just as an explosion ripped across the mountains. Splinters kicked up from the rail as Roland tumbled to the porch floor, pinching his fingers in the armrest of the chair. His revolver skated across the porch and his face was pressed against the foxtail, its pungent, primal mammal scent flooding his nostrils.

  Another shot rang out, the report much louder than that from Gundersson’s Glock, and one of the windows behind him shattered.

  Wendy!

  Moments ago, he’d been contemplating her death, followed by his own, but now that someone was taking the decision out of his hands, Roland was fueled by a savage desire to survive.

  Gundersson crouched behind a support post, his pistol arm tracking the forest, looking for the source of the gunfire. “Rifle,” he said under his breath. “Saw the reflection of the scope.”

  The door opened again and Wendy stood there, wearing jeans and a bra. She didn’t speak, but her eyes were wide in surprise. Roland waved her back inside then rolled toward the door. Another shot plowed into the wood inches from his head, the bullet’s passage causing his ears to ring.

  He scrambled through the door and was about to kick it closed when Gundersson fired twice, duck-walking backward a few steps before rolling into a ball and taking a tumbling somersault through the door.

  Wendy slammed it shut behind him and leaned against the wall, breathing rapidly. “Ro?”

  “I need answers,” Roland said to Gundersson.

  “Do you need a scorecard?” Gundersson said. “Somebody found out, that’s all.”

  The agent untangled his limbs on the floor. A red blotch had collected on the outside of his thigh, and Gundersson pressed against it with his palm. The effort didn’t stanch the flow much.

  Roland snaked along the wall to Wendy and put his arm around her. She appeared to be catatonic, helpless and vulnerable. Just like in the Monkey House. “I thought they wanted us alive,” he said to Gundersson.

  Gundersson rose, locking the door and limping to the nearest window. “I guess they changed their minds.”

  Wendy stuttered as if wanting to say something, but Roland put a finger to her lips. “Shh. It’s going to be okay, baby.”

  He thought about sending her upstairs, but she might be visible through the windows as she climbed the steps. The walls of the cabin were made of thick beams of yellow pine, so she was safer staying where she was.

  “How many are there?” he asked Gundersson.

  “Hard to tell. The shots came from two different locations, but they could have a backup so they can cut off any escape.”

  Gundersson lifted
away the curtain with the tip of his Glock, craning his neck to peer out.

  “Pretty convenient, don’t you think?” Roland asked.

  “What?” Gundersson was barely listening.

  “Staging an attack so we would trust you.” Roland pointed his revolver at Gundersson, who didn’t notice. “But you made a mistake. You should have waited until Alexis and Mark got here.”

  “Quit the goddamned crazy talk, Roland. They shot me in the fucking leg! My field director warned me that other agencies might be closing in. I just didn’t think they’d be hostile.”

  “You guys are all on the same side to me. The wrong side.”

  Gundersson must have heard the menace in Roland’s voice, because he finally turned. He might have said “Oh, shit” under his breath, or maybe he was wheezing in pain.

  Wendy was moving behind him, but Roland didn’t dare move his gaze from Gundersson. The revolver was his one chance to control the situation.

  God, grant me the wisdom to know the difference…

  “Just tell me one thing,” Roland said. “Who is behind it?”

  “We don’t know. My field director was checking into it, and that must have raised some eyebrows. It wouldn’t have been hard to track my location by satellite if you had the right gear.” Gundersson was talking fast but calmly, and Roland almost believed him. But people lied to save their necks. Roland knew all about that.

  “According to our information, a rogue element-”

  “Well, I’ve got some new information,” Roland said. “I have the formula for Seethe. The candy that everybody wants.”

  Gundersson checked outside the window once more. Roland had to admire the guy. Here he was with a pistol pointed at him from six feet away, and he was acting more worried about the guns out there a hundred feet away. Gundersson gave a little nod that Roland didn’t understand, and then Roland’s head exploded in violent flares of electric yellow and solar-flare red.

  The dull klung filled his skull like a funeral bell, and as he slumped to the floor, his last image was of Wendy, standing there in her bra, a black cast-iron skillet in her hand.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “Wendy’s not answering,” Alexis said.

  “Try again.” Mark had grown more edgy and hostile the deeper they’d penetrated into the Blue Ridge Mountains, and in the first light of dawn, Alexis was horrified by her husband’s appearance. He was unshaven and his hair was mussed, but it was his eyes that made him seem wild and dangerous. As she watched his face in the rearview, his eyes flitted from side to side, then to the back of Forsyth’s head, and then to hers in the mirror.

  They’d passed several recreational entrances to the wilderness area, and the houses had thinned out accordingly as the asphalt turned to gravel. Alexis was afraid they might be lost.

  Finally she came upon the unmarked side road that was little more than two ruts running through the forest. There were only two mailboxes at the intersection, one of them dented and missing its flap. She pulled up alongside the mailboxes and on one of them, hand painted, were the words “Roby Snow Rd.”

  “This is it,” she said.

  “Try them again,” Mark said.

  She concentrated on punching the correct numbers, even though the reception was spotty and she only had half a bar of signal. Forsyth watched her with eyes like a vulture’s.

  “Did you hear that?” Mark said.

  Alexis, who had been intent on the ringing of the phone, shook her head. “What?”

  “A gun.”

  “Probably a hunter,” Forsyth offered. “This looks like Daniel Boone country.”

  “Except hunting season ended four months ago.”

  Alexis lost the signal, but seven rings had failed to get an answer. She dropped the phone in her purse. She glanced at her husband, who was hunched in the backseat. The Halcyon had not seemed to ease his condition, and she was afraid to lure him into trying another dose. Maybe Darrell Silver’s new formula wasn’t as new and improved as he’d promised.

  “Do you think Roland and Wendy set us up?” Mark asked.

  “They wouldn’t tell anyone,” Alexis said. “They have as much to lose as we do.”

  “And as much to gain.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Drive.”

  Alexis pulled forward, dodging the depressions and rocks in the road. The car jerked, slamming Forsyth against the door.

  “Are you okay, Wallace?” Alexis asked him, slowing to about four miles per hour.

  “‘And the Lord instructed the angels to pour out the seven vials upon the Earth,’” the old man muttered.

  “You can take that as a yes,” Mark said. “He’s never been better.”

  “I remember,” Forsyth said. “I remember the Monkey House. That’s when I had the vision.”

  A second gunshot sounded. “They’re in trouble,” Mark said. “Speed up.”

  The vegetation was thick on both sides of the road, waxy rhododendrons and laurels casting permanent shade. The trees were thick with green, and Alexis saw menace in their tangled branches, slowing the car to a hushed crawl.

  She soon rounded a curve, swerving to avoid a large jagged stone, and ahead of them was a black SUV with tinted windows. It was pulled to the side of the logging road, two wheels in a ditch.

  “Government license plate,” Mark said. “Looks like the bad guys got here first, Forsyth.”

  Alexis braked to a stop. “Now what?”

  Mark answered by racking a round into his Glock. “Now I go see what the hell’s going on. You stay here and keep an eye on our friend.”

  “What if somebody comes?”

  Mark passed the AR-15 over the seat, nearly bumping Forsyth’s head with the muzzle. “The road looks pretty dead. But if anybody comes out of the woods carrying a gun, you want to make sure they’re pretty dead, too.”

  She held the rifle as if it were a stiffened snake. Although Mark had shown her how to operate it before, she’d barely paid attention, because she’d been intimidated by it. “I can’t.”

  Mark pointed to a small swivel knob. “Turn this safety. Pull trigger. Go boom.”

  “No, I mean I can’t fire it.”

  “It’s no harder than smashing a man’s skull.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “What do you think it means?”

  Something rippled in her gut like a greasy eel. “That never happened.”

  “You have thirty rounds. Just pull the trigger every time you want to shoot. The gun will do the rest.”

  “You don’t want to play at this level, Mark,” Forsyth said. “You thought things were bad in the Monkey House, but you’re way out of your league here.”

  “Haven’t you been listening to my wife? I’m a lunatic freaking out on a rage drug. I’d say this is the perfect league for me.”

  Mark opened the door as another shot sounded, apparently just over the hill. The echo of the gunfire drove an icy spear into Alexis’s heart. She awkwardly cradled the AR-15, resting it against the steering wheel.

  “If I’m not back in five minutes, turn around and head back to Chapel Hill,” Mark said, stepping out of the car.

  “I can’t go back without you,” Alexis responded.

  “I’m feeling a little better.” Mark twisted the vial open with his gun hand, slid out a couple more tablets, and closed it. “Maybe Silver got it right. And you might be the only one who can keep Halcyon safe.”

  He leaned over the seat and gave her a kiss on the cheek, dropping the vial beside her. She turned her head, acknowledging the trust he was placing in her, and kept turning until their lips met. After a moment, and another shot sounding in the woods, he broke contact and put the two tablets to his lips.

  “I hope this works,” he said, before popping them and crunching them between his teeth. “And if I forget who you are, it’s nothing personal.”

  “I love you,” she said.

  “I know. And I’m sorry I g
ave you hell about sneaking the Halcyon. You were doing it to save me.”

  I was doing it to save both of us.

  She squeezed his hand. “Protect Wendy and Roland. We need them.”

  He pulled away. “Doesn’t it seem convenient? They invite us up here, and suddenly it’s a survivalist showdown? But I think the feds jumped the gun. Right, Mr. Vice President?”

  Forsyth remained silent, his head down and eyes closed as if he was praying. As Mark closed the door and headed for the woods, he jerked alert.

  “You should do your husband a favor and kill him now, while his back is turned and he still trusts you,” Forsyth said to her. His eyes were bright with secret, inner knowledge-or manic delusion.

  “You’re crazy.”

  “We all are. But I saw God in the Monkey House, Dr. Morgan. And I don’t mean a presence, a feeling, a theory. I mean God. And He gave me a purpose.”

  “Come on, Wallace. You were dosed with Seethe. We all freaked out that night. It was a chemical reaction and nothing more.”

  She was only half listening, watching Mark through the front windshield. He waved from the edge of the woods and then slipped between the dark trees.

  “Don’t you believe in destiny and prophecy?” Forsyth said.

  “I believe in science.”

  “Then here’s some science for you.”

  Before she could stop him, Wallace grabbed the vial from the seat. “We knew Darrell Silver was refining Halcyon, but we didn’t know where he’d hidden it. I apologize for using you as bait, but he wouldn’t trust us. Especially when he started playing with Seethe.”

  “Seethe was destroyed.”

  “Silver is a genius. He was able to fill in the gaps and extrapolate it from Halcyon, just like Sebastian Briggs did. He claims he gave Seethe an upgrade, like he told you. But you didn’t believe him.” He held the vial up as if it were the sacramental chalice at a communion. “But I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”