Trey shook his head. “Why don’t you stay in New York?”
“Yeah, well, maybe I will.” His father shut his suitcase and walked out.
Those were the last words he spoke to his father.
Don’t come back.
I won’t.
He didn’t.
That conversation was the very reason no one believed Trey that his father was still alive. They said it was his guilt talking. It was something else, but Trey just couldn’t say what it was.
He retreated to his room often and was obsessed with the story of the explosion at the hotel. He read every article, opinion piece, and participated in social media groups. When a video emerged of hotel surveillance, Trey watched it over and over despite the warning that it was graphic.
Where was his father?
They showed a ballroom, but he didn’t see his dad.
“Maybe that’s not a bad thing,” his mother said.
Not that Trey wanted to see his father blow up, but a part of him needed that resolution, as sick and twisted as it sounded. Plus family members of the others were saying they didn’t spot their relatives either. Trey wasn’t the only one.
Then within a week of getting that vaccine, the conspiracy theories started. People claimed it was an inside job, done on purpose, and amidst the conspiracy stories, the outbreak began.
The president’s widow insisted her husband was alive.
It happened so fast; his world was turned upside down. Still, he watched that surveillance footage from the hotel over and over.
Was he that blind with the grief that consumed him, that it took his sister’s words to realize what he had to do?
“You should just go to Cleveland, Trey,” she said.
“For what? The virus is there.”
“Uh… did you forget why Dad was at that hotel?”
Trey did. The invention of the century. The legacy. The bio cam.
“Size of a golf ball. Nice thing is, not only will the footage be on the computer at the hotel. It goes to the government and…” Malcolm winked. “We backlog it secretly at our facility.”
His father shared that secret. No one else knew. Trey did. If he wanted to prove the conspiracy theories right then Trey needed to see that footage. After all, it wasn’t the same footage that they showed on the internet. It wouldn’t be. The bio cam footage had vital statistics for each person.
Trey tried to get in contact with Walter, his father’s partner, but was unsuccessful.
For his own sake he needed to see that footage.
His father’s office at the house had been sealed off by his mother. Like some sort of shrine. While she was out getting food Trey went into the office. He took the laptop and brought it to his own room. His mother rarely went in the office and he doubted she would notice.
His father worked remotely from home and as Trey suspected, he was able to network into his father’s system.
It wasn’t until that very second that he put in the password that Trey realized he was closer to his father than he remembered. He was trusted. He knew his father’s password.
It took two days and Trey finally found the files to the footage. They weren’t numbered, but the dates and times clearly confirmed they were from that fateful day.
Did he want to watch them?
He needed to.
After copying all the files, he placed on headphones and watched. Starting from the first one.
That one made Trey smile. It was his dad talking to the camera. His vital stats showed a rapid heartbeat and the smile on his face confirmed how happy and excited he was.
As he went through the files, he felt as if he were watching some boring movie. People moved about talking. Occasionally he’d see his father.
He wanted to skip to the end. To the explosion.
But he didn’t. He watched all two hours. From catering set up to the guests arriving and finally the end.
Trey expected everyone to be unaware, some flash of light or ground rumbling. Instead…he heard the ‘boom’, that was clear. Biting his nails he watched as people started to leave the ballroom. Any second, he figured it would all collapse. The building didn’t, but people did.
He watched everyone reach out blindly, sway and drop to the floor. He would have believed it to be a gas attack, the start of the virus. He expected everyone to flat line. They didn’t. Everyone’s breathing and heart rate slowed down, but they weren’t dead.
They weren’t dead at all.
The last of the videos ended with people in white suits coming in with stretchers to take people out.
Then the video went dead.
Trey tried to tell his mother, but she freaked out on him for having the laptop and took it from him.
She didn’t want to hear it.
Would Walter?
He left message after message. “Walter, please call me. I saw the ballroom footage. Call me. It’s not what you think.”
Finally after two weeks Walter got back to him. He simply asked for the password and hung up. Hours later, Walter called again.
“Listen to me, Trey,” Walter said. “You tell no one about this. The government has been here. Some other group of people are trying to find these files. I’m fearful that we stumbled across something we shouldn’t have. There’s a cover up. Why else would they show bogus video footage? They may think your father was involved in some way.”
“He wasn’t.”
“You know that. I know that. I’m going to delete…”
“No.”
“Listen. I am going to delete them. I suggest you do the same. But I will make copies. I will have it here for you with your name on the envelope. It will be in your dad’s bottom draw. If you can get here.”
“I’ll try.”
That was the last time he spoke to Walter. He didn’t know it, but Walter was sick.
For a teenage boy, it was like some sort of spy movie.
He felt guilty about carrying the knowledge, but by the time he convinced his mother to let him show her what he was talking about, the files were gone. Even the ones he’d copied.
Did she know? She didn’t want to hear that Malcolm was alive and someone took him.
Trey tried to get to Cleveland, but they started quarantining it and an exodus began.
The envelope, if it existed, would never be found. At least not by Trey. The world was falling apart, torn asunder by a virus, and the knowledge wouldn’t help anyhow. Everyone would be too busy dying to listen.
Trey knew. He always knew.
The return of his father was the final confirmation. Now with the president’s arrival and his father being locked down under some sort of suspicion, he hoped that reunion wouldn’t be short lived.
John was without a doubt stoned. He didn’t mean to get that way. However, the medicinal marijuana given to him by Rusty proved pretty potent and after only a few puffs of the pipe, John was mentally history.
He felt one hundred percent physically better and mentally, he was thinking clearly.
Meredith said he was stoned and she was getting there by contact. She didn’t want to be the one to drive, but she also didn’t want John manning the buggy under the influence.
They had driven for hours. After leaving Rusty, they stayed the course, breaking only to eat and for John to indulge. The roads disappeared and navigation grew difficult. Meredith continued on, despite something inside of her that told her things were off.
They were supposed to head east to avoid trouble.
“If you can believe it,” John said. “I never tried the marijuana before today.”
“If you hadn’t said it that way, I wouldn’t have believed it. I do now.”
“What?” John asked then laughed.
“Never mind.”
“Have you ever?” John asked.