He’d been doing the same thing for what seemed like hours now, running when the helicopter was far away, then using the trees as a barrier when it came near. So far it had worked.
When he’d left Hayes’s body, he’d been hoping he wouldn’t see any of the helicopters again, but the empty skies hadn’t lasted long, and soon the one he was now hiding from had begun its slow methodical search over the forest.
This time it was flying just above the trees on a line that would take it over his position. Once it reached the point directly above him, the only things between it and his heat-radiating body would be a less-than-solid layer of branches. Would they be enough to hide him?
He thought about running to the side out of the helicopter’s path, but he worried that he’d already waited too long, and would be seen the moment he took his first step.
Go? Stay?
Stay, he decided.
The treetops began swaying from the wind generated by the helicopter’s approach. Another few seconds and it would be right above him. He squeezed his eyes shut as if doing so would make him invisible, and pressed as tightly as he could against the tree.
Fifty feet away now, the rotors so loud he could no longer hear anything else.
He angled his feet so that he could shimmy around the trunk as the helicopter passed above, and hoped that would be enough to keep him from being discovered.
Twenty feet. His mind screamed at him to move around the tree now.
Wait. Wait.
He held his position.
Suddenly the sound of the engine changed as the helicopter stopped in midair.
He shoved his eyelids even tighter together, sure that he’d been seen, and those soldiers he’d been worried about earlier were descending to the ground.
The helicopter hung in the air above him. Why? What were they doing?
Reluctantly, he opened his right eye, then his left. Very slowly, he tilted his head up. Through a small gap in the tree cover, he could see a portion of the helicopter’s tail section. Knowing he was taking a big chance, he leaned a few inches further around until he could see the main cabin.
No ropes. No men hanging below. The door was shut.
Run!
He didn’t move, not because he thought the urge was wrong, but because his feet suddenly felt as if they were a thousand pounds each.
Without warning, the engine noise increased again, this time even louder than before. He looked up just in time to see the helicopter turn. It wasn’t moving toward him now; it was moving away.
Run!
This time his feet obeyed.
Dodging trees and jumping over dead branches, he raced as fast as he could through the woods in the opposite direction of the helicopter. Every few minutes he’d look over his shoulder, expecting to catch a glimpse of the aircraft following him from above, but not once did he see it.
Run!
Since the helicopter had returned, he’d never been able to go for more than fifteen minutes without it flying somewhere close by, but now he’d been racing through the woods for twenty minutes and there was still no sign of the aircraft’s return.
Run!
The gentle downward slope of the ground was a good indication he was heading in the same eastward direction as earlier, but he would feel better if he could get a glimpse of the mountains to be sure.
He glanced over his shoulder again, but could only see the trees. As he turned back around, he caught a split-second glimpse of the dead branch sticking up from the ground just before his shin slammed into it.
Down he went, his backpack crashing into him as he hit the ground, and spilling out several items from inside.
He lay there for a moment, not moving. Once his breath slowed, he pulled the backpack off, and sat up. Head throbbing, he touched the spot where his skull met his neck. His hair felt moist and sticky. He pulled his hand back and saw that his fingers were covered with blood.
He stayed where he was and gritted his teeth through the pain until it dulled enough so that he could check the rest of his body. Cuts and a few bruises, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t broken anything.
He slowly repacked the backpack and pulled it on, then rubbed his hand over the back of his head again. There didn’t seem to be any new blood, so hopefully the wound wasn’t that bad.
He took a moment to figure out the direction the slope was going, and set off again, walking this time. The pain he felt, particularly in the shin that had smacked the branch, lessened somewhat as he walked, but didn’t completely go away.
Twenty minutes later he reached a wide spot amongst the trees, not meadow really, barely even a clearing, but it was enough for him to get a look at most of the sky.
There was not a helicopter in sight. Maybe he was free.
With a sigh of relief, he checked his straps and continued on.
12
A cold wind blew across the waves, occasionally spraying salt water on the decks and windows of the vacation homes that lined the beach. Most of the places were closed up for the winter, while a few were occupied by people who called the area their permanent home.
One, however, was being used by a man and a woman, recent arrivals who had yet to venture into town. Those few locals who knew they were there assumed that they’d come to spend the Christmas holiday along the shore.
But while Tamara Costello and Bobby Lion had basically lived together since the previous spring, they were not a couple. They were friends and colleagues.
And survivors.
When the Sage Flu outbreak had occurred in California, Tamara was a promising reporter for the Prime Cable News network, and Bobby was her equally talented cameraman. They’d been assigned to cover the outbreak, and in the process had started to unearth the truth about what was really going on. If it hadn’t been for Matt Hamilton and his people in the Resistance — an organization she had no idea even existed at the time — she and Bobby would have been long dead.
Instead, while everyone who’d known them thought they were dead, they’d actually gone into hiding and changed their identities. After the full realization of what they were up against finally sunk in, they had agreed to do whatever they could to help the Resistance stop Project Eden. This meant using their professional talents to make a series of anonymous videos warning everyone about what was happening.
But though they tried to get various news organizations interested, no one took their reports seriously. The only way they were able to get them seen was to post them on the Internet. That had only been incrementally more successful, as hackers from Project Eden would diligently remove them before more than a handful of people saw them.
Still, Tamara and Bobby kept plugging away, hoping that at some point, their videos would become more than just white noise that disappeared without anyone noticing.
Then, less than four days before, Matt had called and told them to prepare the Worst Case video, as it might be needed very soon. This was not a video meant to expose Project Eden like the others were. It was a guide to survival and an explanation of events, and was to only be distributed if the Project’s plan went live.
Scared out of their minds, Tamara and Bobby had put the finishing touches on the video, and relocated to their backup safe house on the outer banks.
“If it looks like things are going to shit and you can’t reach me,” Matt had told them, “upload it. Don’t wait for me to give you the go-ahead.”