Behind the Wall Part I

4 Part 1 - The File Of A Mother

Someone gently shook my shoulder, causing me to open my eyes. My father stood by the bed and motioned for me to follow him. Carefully, I untangled myself from Max to avoid waking him, slipped on my shoes and jacket, and stepped outside onto the veranda where Papà was waiting for me. He glanced around as if making sure no one could hear us.

"What's wrong?" I asked quietly.

After one last look toward the main house, he turned to me. "We've lost contact with the other camps. The radio signal isn't getting through."

Shit, shot through my mind immediately. "What do we do now?"

"Alex is sending a few people out right now to check the power lines and radio towers. We think they've been cut or someone shut down the main power station. Until we know more, we're not supposed to tell anyone. Alex doesn't want to cause a mass panic."

I nodded. "Okay."

He studied me briefly. "You brought your phone, right?"

"Yes," I said, pulling it from my jacket pocket. Even on the lock screen, I could see there was no signal. It also showed no messages and missed calls. Either nothing had gone through or no one was looking for me. The latter seemed unlikely, after all, they didn't live in the city or anywhere near it and they should have heard about the outbreak by now.

Unless they had been affected too.

"Papà." His eyes shifted from the gravel path to me. "The message last night said, 'Greensburgh and its surrounding cities.' What if the experiment was faster than the precautions? Do you think ...?"

He understood what I meant, and his face took on a sorrowful expression. "I can't tell you, Astrid. We can only hope it hasn't come to that and that they're all safe." He placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it.

I looked down at my useless phone, but as I stared at my background photo, I remembered something. "Why was I supposed to bring my laptop?"

That seemed to jog his memory as well, because his eyes widened. "Your mother. She told me on the phone that we'll find all the information we need on it."

We went back inside the cabin, waking Max in the process. His eyelids fluttered for a moment before he opened his eyes and let out a long yawn. Meanwhile, I pulled my bag from under the bed and dug out my laptop. The screen lit up, showing me four smiling faces from last year's Halloween before prompting me for my password.

"Where would Mamma hide the information?" I asked as my laptop loaded.

My father sighed, thinking for a few seconds. "Somewhere you wouldn't look often. Somewhere it wouldn't be obvious, so you wouldn't find it right away. Maybe in old photos or under documents."

I was right to check Documents, because there I found a folder I had never seen before. Inside it was another folder labeled 'Open only in case of emergency.' I clicked on it and after a brief loading time, a PDF opened with its first page being dark blue. Virus B7 was written in silver letters in the center. I turned the screen toward my father.

"Well, at least now we know what we're dealing with," he said, his brow furrowed.

"What's a virus?" Max asked, who was now sitting beside me and looked at the laptop.

"It's something really small that gets into your body and makes you sick," I explained. "Like the flu."

"Is that why the people were screaming so much?" he asked. "Because they felt it getting inside them?"

My breath caught in my throat. I didn't know how to respond, even though he was probably right. I couldn't think of another explanation for the screams, except that the test subject had attacked them all. The message said it moved inhumanly fast, so it wouldn't be surprising. But how could I put that into words without giving him even more nightmares?