Brian O'Grady - Hybrid

“He is right,” Amanda said quickly.

“Look at this logically, Amanda. Your virus killed hundreds of people, and that’s just not happening now.”

“No, they aren’t dying — at least not yet. Someone has changed the virus.”

“Amanda, this sounds a little fantastic and more than a little irrational. There are other more reasonable explanations. Or is this another thing that you. . can do?”

“There are no other possibilities; someone is purposefully spreading this new virus. He is close enough that I can almost feel his mind, and I know that he is aware of mine.”

“I see.” Emily began to fidget with her gown. “So you are going there to find this person.”

“I’m going to get some answers,” Amanda said.

“And once you have those answers, will you stop him or help him?”

“I won’t help him,” she said flatly.

“But will you stop him?” Emily countered.

“I’ve already tried. I contacted the CDC this morning and they ignored me. I’m done trying to help”

“You’re done! I won’t accept that from you, Amanda, and you can’t accept that from yourself. You may have been changed, but not to the degree that you’ve grown comfortable lying to yourself. If you’re going to claim that you’ve tried to stop him, then really try to stop him. Go to Colorado Springs, get your answers, and then if you have to, kill this bastard in the most painful manner possible. Then make a decision as to how you’re going to restart your life.” Emily’s face was bright red and spittle flew from her lips.

Amanda waited for her aunt to calm down. “Maybe you haven’t changed.”

“There’s no reason to change when you’re always right. So what are you going to do?”

“What I have to.”

Rodney Patton did not need this; he did not need this at all. He watched Phil Rucker walk out the Van Ders’ back door, and all he could do was shake his head. Of course, he had heard all about Rucker before this morning, but even those estimations fell well short of the mark. Rucker really did live on another planet, one without the realities of this one.

A uniformed officer eased into his view and waited for Patton to compose himself.

“What is it?” Patton said gruffly.

“We’re done with the scene; nothing much to report, except for some footprints that lead out to the road. We’re having some trouble getting a casting. .” He spoke slowly, hoping Patton would take the hint.

“Castings in snow,” Patton said bitterly. This job was not turning out to be what he had been promised. Over a year ago, the Colorado Springs chief of police had personally recruited him out of the Baltimore Special Homicide Unit. That unit had been his life for eleven years, and he had been its chief for seven of them. He had hated to leave, but the success he had achieved, and the pride he felt, was easily overshadowed by the pain of the familiar surroundings. He saw his wife, Connie, everywhere. Each time his desk phone rang, he expected to hear her voice; every time he reached for his car keys to go home, he remembered the thousands of nights he had taken solace in the fact that no matter how bad work got, he would sleep next to a woman he loved. He felt her presence in the grocery stores, the dry cleaners, and the gas stations. He never realized how much of their life had become routine, or how special that routine really was, until he had tried to live without her.

Connie had fought breast cancer for four long, hard years, and he had balanced work with helping her through biopsies, radiation therapies, chemotherapies, and surgeries. His unit deserved more loyalty than he had shown them. They supported him through all of it, but after she died, he saw her in them, and that was just too much to take. He should have retired like he had planned, maybe written a book. Lord knows he had enough material to write about, but his chief knew the Colorado Springs chief, and before he knew it, he was moving to Colorado. A change of scenery seemed a reasonable alternative to premature, boredom-induced senility. He was only fifty-eight, and a thirty-two-year veteran of some of the meanest streets in America. He had earned a change of pace, but maybe not yet a gold retirement watch. Only the sleepy little town of Colorado Springs had chosen this moment in time to come apart at the seams.

“Don’t bother with trying to cast footprints. It doesn’t work, despite what the book tells you. Take photos with a ruler.” He ratcheted down his frustration. It wasn’t their fault that they didn’t have the necessary experience. “Is there a bullet out for the Taurus the witness described?”

The uniformed cop stared blankly at Patton. “A what, sir?”

“Sorry, old habits — an APB. I doubt there are many vehicles out now. Maybe we’ll catch a well-deserved break.”

“Already done, but our patrols were limited by dispatch this morning. It seems that everyone is out with the flu. We’ve got the main streets covered, but not a lot else.” He spoke in his most professional voice.

Patton guessed that the officer was in his early twenties and anxious to please. “What’s your take on this, Officer Yaeger?”

“You mean the body, sir? I think Mr. Van Der died of natural causes. There are no signs of a struggle. No marks on the body. No real motive. I don’t think we’re going to find much here.” Yaeger was excited that the new chief of detectives had asked for his opinion; it would make for a good story back in the precinct.

“What about the witness’s account of a man standing over the body?” It was strange, but Patton was starting to see things a little from Rucker’s point of view. What were the odds that someone had driven by just at the instant that Van Der fell over? Especially on a morning like this. And then, after stopping to help, why did he calmly walk away when Rucker showed up? Good Samaritans didn’t do things like that. His brain began to itch, a sure sign that he was missing something.

“I’m sure it was someone stopping by to help,” Yaeger said, proud he had a reasonable answer at the ready.

“Probably,” Patton said with less conviction than a few moments earlier. The overheated kitchen was starting to close in on him, and he began to sweat under his new suit. “Thank you, Yaeger. That will be all.”

Patton wanted to express his final condolences to the widow and her newly arrived son and get back outside, where he could breathe.

Ten minutes later, he was inhaling large gulps of clean, cold mountain air as he stood in the middle of a set of tire tracks that cut through the snow of the unplowed street. He considered the situation. A single set of tracks. Only one car had driven down this road since late the previous night. All the police units had been directed to park at the opposite end of the street and walk down to the Van Ders’ house. The original responding unit was still parked in front of Rucker’s house, just behind the idling ambulance. No one except Rucker’s mystery man had come this way. What are the odds of that? He thought. His brain itch was really going now.

Rucker’s garage door opened with a loud scraping sound, and Patton jumped. He watched the coroner’s GMC Power Wagon bound over the snow effortlessly. Rucker expertly spun the four-wheel-drive vehicle in the street and drove north, towards the city’s downtown, away from Patton and his solitary tire tracks. The crime scene unit, or more properly, what passed for a crime scene unit in Colorado Springs, watched Rucker drive off, and almost as if on cue, they turned as one to Patton. Their collective intent was obvious: Okay, the bizarre man is gone. Can we stop now? Patton turned away, feeling their disappointment on his back, and trudged up the street. Following the tracks was a little obvious, and in real life, they never led anywhere, but still, someone had to do it.