The Night Sweeper: A Zombie Conspiracy Novel (The Sweeper Chronicles Book 1) (14 page)

My side, back, and head are killing me, and my weakened legs are starting to protest working without sufficient nutrition. I ate some of the fruit Mira found in the dome last night, but I've long since burned through it. After another fifteen minutes, I'm wobbly, tired, and frustrated with myself. Mira doesn't even limp from the bullet wound she took yesterday.

It would suck to collapse from hunger and weakness in front of my new girlfriend. Maybe it's chauvinistic, but my manly pride hurts at being so brittle in comparison to her, although I feel assured she wouldn't see it that way. But a sudden thought hits me, causing me to break into a huge smile. Girlfriend. I’ve never had one of those before. Truth be told, I had never even kissed a girl before last night. I just tried to go with it and not make an imbecile of myself. But then I smile even wider, as I realize that the butterflies that would normally accompany such a thought are not present.

That single, tender kiss shattered the insecure Cray hiding under the surface. Maybe I'm still a little nervous around her, but knowing her acceptance has given me confidence I’ve never felt before, and replaced the fear that was there. It’s a breath of fresh air.

“How much farther does this thing run?” I ask Ilana.

“We’re about a third of the way there,” she says. “We’ll be at the laboratory soon, but I have to warn you, there’s not much left.”

“What happened?” I say.

“Damian's people destroyed a lot of it.”

“Why?”

“Probably to hide his work.”

“Are they the ones who smashed the computers in the dome?”

“Yes.”

She picks up her pace. Not much of a conversationalist, this one.

I watch her walk. Her stride is strong, graceful, and familiar. And I keep thinking about how she always refers to Harbin as Damian. Perhaps it's just a quirk, the way she speaks, but it makes me think she knew him personally.

“How’s the leg?” I ask Mira again, mostly just for a reason to talk to her and to pass the time.

“Okay,” she says. “It doesn’t hurt, but the muscles are kinda tight. A lot of trauma in there I’m afraid. It would be nice to have a real doc look at it.” She looks over at me, shadows playing across her divine features. “Must be nice to have your own physician to check you out every day.”

“Truth is, I hate being a patient. I’d usually rather just be left alone. I mean, Doc’s a nice guy and all, but unless my arm is hanging on by one tendon, I’d rather just take care of it myself.”

“You didn’t object to me treating your wounds,” she says slyly.

I clear my throat. “Yeah, well, I can’t reach some parts of my back. And you can’t blame me for wanting to be close to a hot girl.”

Mira snickers, and I realize what I just said. I can feel my cheeks start to burn, and I'm thankful for the shadows.

“Ooohhh,” she says. “So I’m hot? Is it just me, or would any hot girl do?”

Ahead, of us, Ilana makes a noise that sounds a bit like a laugh. We're still within earshot. A fresh blanket of embarrassment smothers me, but Mira reaches over and squeezes my hand, and the feeling subsides. We walk a little farther before she speaks again.

“So you have a hard time getting your mind to settle down?” she says.

To say the least.

“Yeah. Things get crowded in there. It’s useful, but sometimes it’s just a big pain in the butt.”

“Does anything help?” There's more than curiosity in her question. It’s tinged with concern.

“Some. I like watching movies. I can sort of zone out with that. And I’ve been working on sitting quietly in a room and just letting my mind be still.”

“Like meditating? Sounds like a real party,” she says sarcastically.

“Hey, don’t knock it,” I say pretending offense. “And recently, I’ve found something else that helps calm my thoughts.” She looks at me waiting for my new revelation, and suddenly I feel like a shy freshman confessing his love to the prom queen, but I steel myself and charge ahead. “When I’m with you, it’s better.”

She holds my gaze for a while before leaning over to kiss me on the cheek. “I’m glad,” she says tenderly, but then the playfulness is immediately back. “After all, it’s not every day a guy tries to compliment you by saying you cause him to be dumber.”

“Exactly, but don’t let it go to your head.” We both laugh. This time, Ilana turns and glances at us, a smile brightening her face. Again, I'm struck with a familiar feeling, and suddenly, the understanding sinks in and I come to a complete stop.

“Oh, God,” I whisper.

Mira stops and faces me with a look of concern.

“What's wrong? Are you okay?” she says.

Ilana continues forward. She hasn't noticed we stopped.

I ignore Mira's question, and run all of the information through my mind, comparing and calculating, until I'm sure. When I am, the sinking feeling turns into shock and dread.

By now, Mira looks like she is ready to shake me.

“I want to ask you something,” I say.

Mira lowers her voice to match my tone. “Is something wrong?”

I answer with another question. “Have you noticed anything about you and Ilana?”

“Not really,” now her concern is tinged with curiosity.

“Don't you think you look alike?”

She eyes me warily, unaware of where I'm leading her. I decide it's best to just say it.

“Mira, accounting for aging and other factors, she has the exact same facial symmetry as you, minus an almost imperceptible indentation in her left cheek bone that could have been the result of trauma.”

Mira shakes her head a little. “Okay, you’re losing me. Are you trying to say she might be related to me?”

“No, Mira. I’m saying she
is
you.”

Mira

“Cray, I’m still not following. You didn’t hit your head again did you?” I say half-jokingly.

He grips my shoulders gently, and looks me hard in the eyes. “What I mean is,
she
is
you
, and
you
are
her
.” Something clicks and a terrible comprehension begins to dawn.

No, it’s not true. I can’t believe that! I won’t believe that!

My voice comes out in a shocked rasp. “You’re talking about cloning aren’t you? You’re saying she’s a clone of me, or I guess, I’m a clone of her.” All my life I’ve wanted to know more about my past, my lost childhood, what made me like I am, but never once did I suspect something so dehumanizing.

Cray speaks, his empathetic tone interrupting my thoughts. “Perhaps, or maybe you’re both a clone of someone else.”

I feel sick, and sink down against the wall. “Human cloning was forbidden, Cray, and no one even tried it to see if it was really possible.” But even as I say the words, I know they’re hollow. Damian Harbin didn’t care about laws, as evidenced by everything else he’d done. Everything we knew about him said he would try anything without regard to whom or what it hurt. In fact, it made perfect sense.

I can’t think of anything to say. I trust Cray, but about this, I wish I didn’t. My emotions are in turmoil and I’m struggling to keep it together.

Cray gently takes my hand and pulls me to my feet, dragging me behind the woman who is me. Up ahead, she’s rounded a sharp turn to the right, out of eyesight.

Cray keeps looking at me with concern, and I want to respond, but my mouth won’t work. I feel lightheaded and faint. Is this how shock feels? I’m still trying to get control of my emotions when we round the corner and come face to face with Ilana.

She stands in the middle of the tunnel, a weak bulb flickering behind her, casting an eerie light on the scene. She comes toward us and I tense, unsure what to expect. Beside me, Cray does the same, ready for anything, but as she draws closer, her hands hanging by her sides, I see her expression is sad and drawn.

She looks at me with a deep sense of pity. “It’s true,” she says. “What the boy says is true. I’m afraid neither of us are the original Ilana, or Mira, or whoever it was we came from. I knew we were the same the first moment I saw you.”

Pain is etched deep into the lines of her face, and I’m suddenly aware of just how old this version of me looks. Maybe not in actual years, but in the heavy expression that has come from a life of hardship and struggle.

I feel like my individuality is slipping away. As if “Mira” is just a figment of my imagination. “Why didn’t you say something before?”

She sighs deeply and her shoulders sink a little farther. “I hoped you wouldn’t figure it out.” Her eyes take on a faraway expression. “Some things are better left unsaid. What good does it really do?”

Despite my lifelong wish to understand where I came from, right now I agree. My whole existence has been reduced to a science experiment, and I feel like I want to vomit. I’ve always known about the genetic tampering, but this is too much. And Eckert surely knew what I was.

My head spins, and I grip Cray’s hand tighter to steady myself. He senses my unsteadiness, and places a warm hand on the small of my back, his presence and strength a comfort.

“Why?” I finally manage. “Why did he make us?”

Ilana gives a sad shrug. “Why did he do any of this?”

I wonder if she's holding back information, but I’m not sure I can take any more revelations right now, even if she was willing to share.

“How many others?” Cray asks.

“I honestly have no idea. For myself, I don’t want to know. I’ve had enough deceptions and hidden truths to last a lifetime. I don’t want any more,” she says flatly.

Beside me, Cray looks as if he’s about to say something, but lets it go.

“Come see for yourselves,” Ilana says. “The lab’s not far now.”

We stand in front of a darkened doorway, two huge metal doors hanging askew from their hinges, forced open at some point in the distant past. The darkness is thick inside, and the lights from the tunnel only penetrate a few feet into the gloom.

“Hmm. I meant to grab some night vision goggles before you threw me out of the plane,” Cray says in an effort to lighten the mood a little. It doesn't work.

“Don't suppose you have a lighter?” he asks Ilana.

“That won’t be necessary,” Ilana says. “Just step inside.”

Cray lifts an eyebrow, but takes a step forward, and suddenly, the room is illuminated by overhead and recessed lighting in the walls.

We move carefully inside. Ilana trails behind us, allowing us to explore. Her eyes are hollow and empty.

To say this is a lab is a gross understatement. More like an expansive series of labs that are all interconnected. And they look like a war zone – equipment and computers smashed to pieces, evidence of fire apparent in the many scorch marks and melted plastic, shattered glass all over the floor. Still, there’s enough left to see that this place was state-of-the-art, even by today's standards, much less twenty-five or so years ago.

Cray and I move through the debris while Ilana waits outside the entrance. Her lack of desire to come in is a little disconcerting.

“Look at this,” Cray calls from the doorway to another room. I step over the debris, careful not to trip, and move in his direction. “It looks like this was some type of quarters,” he says. “Probably for people on staff down here.”

This room looks relatively untouched, with two rows of bunks built into the walls. A long set of metal lockers covers the far wall, all of their doors standing open and empty. I wonder what kind of people lived here, if they stayed for long periods of time, and if they ever got hungry for the sunshine. And what kind of professionals agreed to experiment on human beings, especially without the people’s knowledge or consent?

Continuing down an adjacent hallway, we pass two bathrooms with rows of stalls and showers. I wonder fleetingly if the showers work. After that is a common area with furniture, reminiscent of an expansive living room. Dust-covered couches and chairs sit in disuse. A television screen is mounted on one of the walls, one side hanging precariously lower than the other.

We come to a cavernous room with a high ceiling, the remains of a mechanical lift in the center, its steel cables stretching into the darkness above. The only lighting here comes from recesses in the walls. The room is rectangular, with rows and rows of various-sized cages lining it from wall to wall. Long-dead animals lie here and there inside them – bones exposed, skulls, and ragged pieces of hides and pelts.

I turn to Ilana and raise my eyebrows in question. “The remains of the animal experiments Damian was working on,” she says. “As far as I can figure, the lift would take them to the surface where he would release them onto the island. I’ve never seen the outside access. It must be very well hidden, not that I’ve really tried to look for it.”

We walk in a broad circle, studying the remains of the freakish creatures. They all resemble animals we know, elephants, predatory cats, bears, even small ones like deer and antelope. But they’re all irregular in one way or another. Some are incredibly large like the tiger we encountered on the surface. Others have extra limbs, or distorted features. Still others have bizarre coloring patterns where the remains of the hides are visible.

“Did Harbin's people kill them?”

“I did.”

Cray and I both turn to her in surprise.

Ilana kicks through the bars of a particularly large cage at the skeletal remains of what looks to have been an elk.

“Damian left them to starve. I came and put them out of their misery. Such crimes against nature should not be allowed to survive,” she says with bitterness. “Things God never intended.”

“Like us?”

She looks at me and her expression gives me a chill. “Perhaps. Come on, the best is yet to come,” she says sarcastically.

We move into another corridor, the lights flicking on. Equipment lies smashed all over the long rectangular room. Unlike the previous room, this one contains strange tubular constructions of metal, tiny windows inlaid on their sides or tops.

Cray leans in close, looks through one of the portholes, and breaths a heavy sigh.

“What is it?” I ask. “What are those things?”

Beside me Ilana stirs, and I look at her tortured expression. “Those…are the things where we were made."