Caplan swallowed hard as he remembered the look in Tony’s face. That strange, savage look. Like the man had ventured into some other dimension and seen sights not meant for human eyes. “I ran to the fence. There was still time to help him. But I froze. I can’t explain it. I just… froze.” His emotions flooded out of him, gushing through his pores. And then he felt drained. Drained and empty. “The things, I assume they were 1-Gens, swept over him. They killed him, dragged him away. I never saw him again.”
“But Roadster… it was in Sector 84…”
“Because I put it there.” He exhaled. “Truth is, I panicked. I knew something big was happening in 48A. And I was afraid of what would happen if anyone found out I’d been there. I figured they might kill me. You too, seeing as how Tony was your brother. Anyway I couldn’t face you after that. So, I resigned and moved as far away from nature as possible, to Manhattan.”
She exhaled a long sigh, as if releasing her own pent-up sea of emotions. “So, you’re a coward.”
“I know.”
“I don’t mean because you didn’t save Tony. Bottom line, Tony was responsible for Tony. He put himself into that situation. And if he were still here, he’d tell you the same thing.” She shook her head. “No, you’re a coward for one simple reason. You ran away.”
New emotions, strange and unexpected, flooded back into Caplan, filling the temporary void in his soul. A deep sense of shame, tempered by the slightest hint of relief. Self-disgust offset by an odd euphoria. And most of all, intense grief mixed with a longing. A longing for normalcy. For the life he’d abandoned. For a life that just might be within his grasp.
The crumbling concrete gave way to crumbling schist, damp moss, and flies. They hiked a little farther and Caplan caught sight of the Vallerio Forest. Ancient pine trees stood firm, impenetrable columns of Mother Nature’s most wicked city. Their gnarled branches stretched to the cloud-covered sky, as if preparing an onslaught on the heavens themselves. Black corridors, laced with horrible secrets and desperate monsters, pulsed between the trees. A stream, furious and opaque, twisted in and out of the blackness like a slithering snake.
A familiar energy, malevolent and older than time itself, washed over Caplan. It swept away his newfound emotions, replacing them with anguish, fear, and revulsion.
Morgan stopped on the cusp of the cave. “Where to?” she asked.
Caplan gazed upon the ravine. “48A,” he replied.
She gave him a questioning look.
“We have to get to Corbotch’s helicopter,” he said. “It’s the only way out of this hellhole.”
She nodded and took a hesitant step into the ravine. She slipped a bit on soft mud, but quickly got control of her footing.
Caplan’s gaze drifted to Morgan and he didn’t see Tony’s sister. Instead, he saw her as a lover, a friend, a heroine, and many other things. Her complexity, like a die with infinite sides, staggered him to the core. His mistake was all too apparent. Five months ago, he’d reduced this outstanding woman to a cardboard cutout. She’d become nothing more than Tony’s sister to him, with utterly predictable emotions and thoughts.
Well, no more. He still yearned to protect her, still hoped to earn her forgiveness. But no longer would he view her as a one-dimensional being that, if soothed correctly, could salvage his soul.
A seed sprouted within him. His dark emotions withered a bit, making room for something else. Something new.
Something good.
Chapter 49
Caplan inhaled sharply as he caught sight of the sheared wires, the trampled metal bars and posts, and the crumbling concrete blocks. This particular section of giant fence, once a mighty beacon of man’s control over nature, had been reduced to mere rubble and scrap metal.
He walked out of the forest, still recuperating from the difficult trek through Sector 12, and stood before what remained of the curving fence. Two metal posts, fifteen feet long and painted to look like trees, had been heavily scratched and ripped out of their respective concrete blocks. Now, they lay on the mud alongside bent metal bars and long strands of wire.
Looking past the fence, Caplan saw familiar evergreen trees, dripping with rainwater and framed by the inky black sky. The pines, cedars, and hemlocks triggered something in his subconscious and he shuddered. The landscape was just as picturesque as he remembered.
And just as evil as well.
The next few seconds felt like hours. And as he stared at the forest, all the old memories and feelings came rushing back to him. He recalled the crunching snow, the nightmarish roars, the pulsing corridors, and the snarling, frenzied, living darkness. But most of all he remembered the screams. Those ungodly, anguished screams of insanity.
“This is the place,” he said softly. “This is where he died.”
Morgan looked at him, then at the conifers. “You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.” Caplan stepped over the mud-embedded posts, bars, and wires. He saw scattered footprints of different sizes. Clearly, numerous creatures had escaped 48A. That fact should’ve made him feel better, but it had the opposite effect.
He stopped at the edge of the former fence line. Again, he looked at the dense columns of evergreen trees, at the black corridors, at the streets of mud and green needles. Was it sheer coincidence he’d come to this exact spot? Or had his subconscious driven him to it?
Taking a deep breath, he stepped across the fence line. Paranoia hit him hard and he began swinging his rifle in arcs, searching for signs of pulsing blackness.
He made his way to the tree line and checked his heading. Then he slid into one of the dark corridors. For several minutes he hiked, heading deeper and deeper into the bowels of the strange, ancient city.
“Wait.” Morgan tugged his arm. “Over there.”
Caplan’s gaze — and rifle — shot to the southeast. His heart skipped a beat as he caught sight of a large silken mass nestled within a clump of trees. Although the incubator was still in one piece, he noticed numerous cracks lining its dirt-stained side.
“We should destroy it.” Morgan’s jaw hardened. “Before whatever’s in there has a chance to come out.”
The proposition would’ve tempted the Caplan of several hours ago. But that Caplan no longer existed. “Why go to all that trouble? Why not just kill ourselves and be done with it?”
She glared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’d have to be suicidal to mess with those things.” He hiked forward, skirting well clear of the incubator. “Trust me. I should know.”
Morgan hesitated for a split-second before hurrying to catch up. For a minute, she tried to match his quick pace and quiet gait. Failing that, she settled for speed over silence. “You don’t understand.”
“What don’t I understand?” He arched an eyebrow. “That you’ve got a death wish?”
“The gene sequencing, the incubators, the 1- and 2-Gens… I’m responsible for all of it.”
“Not by yourself.”
“Maybe not, but everyone else is dead.” She exhaled. “That makes it — all of it — my responsibility. I have to fix this, Zach.”
“Getting yourself killed won’t fix anything.”
She inhaled a deep breath of air. “What am I supposed to do?” she asked. “How do I make this right?”
Her questions jostled Caplan’s brain. He thought back to his own failure all those months ago. He thought about how he’d reacted to Tony’s death, then and now. And he thought about what he’d do if he could go back to that moment in time, when the whole world seemed to be crashing down upon him. “First, you forgive yourself and get your head straight,” he replied. “Then you go with your gut.”