Trellis Page 28

  D was not inclined to take orders from anyone, much less, someone’s mind she couldn’t read, but she knew this man could be trusted. She started to move around the apartment and gather up items shoving them in a small bag.

  She ran back up the stairs to her bed turning the TV on to a news channel in time to catch the charismatic Brock Billingsley announce something that made her certain she was still dreaming.

  “We are bringing you live 24 hour news coverage of a storm pattern that is moving across the land with just more than Mother Nature’s wrath. As the storms move overhead, they seem to be having an effect on the population below the rainclouds. Riots are breaking out, people are in the streets angry with one another for no apparent reason, and violence is appearing in people who otherwise have no tendency for violence. We have a video, right?” He looked past the camera and nodded, then he placed his hand on his earpiece and spoke again with urgency, “We do have the video? Yes, I am being told we have a video, there it is folks. A well-liked mayor in a small town in Virginia was just captured on video. This is graphic folks, if you have small children you don’t want them to see this. The mayor was recorded shooting a man on the street near a gas station in the pouring rain.” A man with a gun in the video moved towards the man pumping gas and shot him point-blank in cold blood dropping him to the ground. D gulped and her eyes were starting to burn. What did this mean? What had she missed the last day?

  Brock continued, “Families are being turned against one another, police, and CCD agents are adding to the confusion with a viciousness. You are not safe if you are in these storm’s pathways. We don’t exactly know what the trigger is that is changing otherwise normal behavior into killing psychopathic behavior, all we know is wherever the storms seem to move overhead, this behavior erupts with wrath. Once the storm is out of the vicinity the trail of devastation stops and people are coming out of the trance they were in. It is a modern day Zombie apocalypse, folks. Taking cover as the storm rages overhead will not protect you. Get in your cars, motorcycles, and bicycles and get out of the way! The Zombie behavior stops when the storms have moved on, people come out of their trance, and can see the devastation they have caused. This is unprecedented folks, how can a justice system prosecute lawbreakers when they aren’t in control of what is happening to them? The ominous storm clouds are doing more than rapping the land in a deluge of weather, it is holding the planets people enslaved to furious anger.

  Is this biological? Is it a high frequency? The world is hostage to whatever is changing our mental states.

  We have a roving media unit that will be following close behind the storm’s movement and will get firsthand updates on the devastation left behind.

  Meanwhile, all flights EVERYWHERE have been grounded. The FFA will not post an estimated time on when the airports will be opened up but this is understandable in the galvanizing chaos. If you are not in the storm’s path, please carry on like normal. Society cannot fall apart, folks. We will get through this. We will endure.

  The National Weather Service has set up an alert system that will send out texts to give you updates on storm cells and mandatory evacuations. The number at the bottom of the screen is an important one, please follow the directions provided across the screen.”

  Colin walked up the stairs towards D and gravely motioned for her to follow him.

  “Colin, I want to see this.”

  Colin softly replied, “No, you don’t. The storm that is causing this activity is moving towards Washington DC and it is going to be total carnage here if we stick around. We need to go. My sister is downstairs waiting in the bookstore. We will drive to your camper and head out from there. We will rendezvous with the guys that are watching Simon. We just need to stay out of the storm’s path. They will be issuing a mandatory evacuation very soon and we don’t want to be caught in the traffic. Let’s go.”

  D nodded at him and was comforted that he had a plan and she was part of his safety measures. She took a moment and finally her thoughts focused.

  D asked, “I haven’t formally met Sissy yet, well for a moment at the search and rescue after you and Jase had crashed your helicopter. What have you told her about me? And let’s not forget I can’t change her thoughts.”

  “I told her you are a friend. We will work with what we have. Her sidekick is with her as well.” He said with his tone sharp as he walked to the doorway.

  “Sidekick?” D asked suspiciously.

  Banks sighed, “Billy Hinkle. They are inseparable. It is disturbing.”

  “I think it is nice. You being the control freak you are, you just don’t think anyone is good enough for your sister.”

  Ignoring her comment he continued, “Also, Spudsy is in my car. I couldn’t leave him. I gave him some cough syrup, which I have never done, it may not even be legal. I am hoping he sleeps.”

  “You have a problem with Billy Hinkle but not the dog that wants to chew my face off?”

  Banks glowered at her in disagreement, “I medicated my dog, doesn’t that count? Let’s go.”

  Reaching the bookstore D sees Billy and Sissy and knows they both have very little knowledge of who D actually was and she was fine with that. Billy, Sissy, Zan, and Mr. Zhao had been gathered around the radio listening to the latest update on the craziness of what was happening in the storm’s route.

  D looked at Colin and tilted her head, “We can’t leave Zan and Mr. Zhao here.”

  “Yes, we can. They are grown men, they can handle themselves.” He said as his brows furrowed together at her.

  “No, they are coming, too,” She hissed at him. “Zan and Mr. Zhao why don’t you grab your coats and come with us?”

  Mr. Zhao shook the radio at D and replied, “No, you people crazy. You have brainwashed zombie brain written all over you face. I take my chance with bookstore.”

  D knew it would drain her mentally but she pushed an inclination of traveling with her and Colin into Zan and Mr. Zhao’s thoughts and they quickly gathered up their things and followed them out of the store into the hollowing wind, locking up as they went. The forceful wind pushed D backwards as she tried to move forward with the group. Zan and Colin both reached for her arms, giving one another sly looks through slanted eyes pulling her along. Neither seemed to like one another.

  D, Colin, Zan, and Mr. Zhao crammed into Colin’s four-door sedan and Sissy and Billy drove behind them in D’s little two door sports car with Spudsy tightly packed in with them. Both cars headed to where D had the camper stored.

  D pulled the small computer out of her bag and set it to a weather radar site, and watched the green storm clouds move across the screen. Watching the radar blob move across the screen, knowing the chaos it was stirring up underneath it made D shudder. What, if anything would it do to an altered brain like hers? Was Trellis behind this nefarious act of behavior altercations? Was another country attacking the US by making the people attack themselves from within its own borders?

  The wind was starting to blow trees tops sideways while charging the atmosphere, no lightening near but they could see it miles away in the distance.

  A spasm of unease stirred D’s stomach and she reflectively began mumbling a memory. She was speaking a loud to herself but aware that Banks could hear, “Coughlin had mentioned something about HAARP and asked me if I knew anything about whether control. He had said the program had been dismantled, but the technology was still out there and it was being used in various ways against the United States… I'm not certain of this but with what I saw on the news with what's been going on for the last few hours with the storms moving across, there is a possibility that some kind of reprehensible act against the United States is taking place. Maybe Coughlin did know something and he wasn't the monster we thought he was, maybe he was trying to warn me of something."

  Swerving in and out of traffic, Banks retorted, "I’m not giving him that much credit. Maybe he unknowingly warned you about this. What kind of detail did he give you again that you remem
ber?”

  She slowly shook her head, trying hard to remember every detail, while simultaneously pushing Banks and her conversation out of the passengers head in the back seat. “He specifically asked me about the weather and an agency called DARPA the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency then he asked me about HAARP, a High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program possibly being used as a weapon. I explained to him I knew very little about the program. He said that HAARP was dismantled because of budget cuts then he went on to say they were baffled by the weather that's been happening, the whole us scientific Community was baffled by it. The state department is not involved and no country is admitting any involvement.”

  She watched lightening flare across the sky in the distance and continued, “HAARP was created to study the consequences of mankind’s changing weather by heating of the atmosphere, literally focusing High intense beams into the ionosphere. If one could theoretically control weather patterns you could hold the Earth hostage, it was a dismantled program, doesn't mean that the technology was dismantled. It is almost as if something is being geared up to wreak havoc across the land. I didn't believe him because I wondered why he was giving me so much information but maybe he was trying to tip me off that something was getting ready to break out.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t the horrible person we thought he was? Yeah, right.” He snorted as he passed another car watching in his rearview mirror that Sissy was keeping up with him.

  D remembered something, or rather someone, suddenly and sat upright in her seat, “Ruby! Ruby Coughlin! We can’t leave her here!”

  “You have been visiting her haven’t you? Against the group’s wishes?” He asked, disappointed.

  “She is on the way, we have to get her.”

  “Answer me, D.”

  “Yes, Okay. Yes, I visit her a few hours in the morning and push the grief from her for an insufficient brief time. It is the least I can do. It is my fault her husband died. Her husband, her life’s joy. I took it from her. No matter how much you don’t like Peter Coughlin, his wife had nothing to do with his behavior. He was killed because of me, and I need to help her.”

  “No! That evil Doctor took it from her, not you, D. We will go and get Coughlin’s widow but that is the last passenger we pick up.” He barked.

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