Rogue Delivery

Chapter 2

Rogue Delivery

By Gareth Vaughn

Hair still damp, Curtis chopped the fresh dill and rinsed the knife. Wednesday was bagel day. The toaster oven dinged and he pulled out the warm half of bagel, spread cream cheese over it, added the dill and smoked salmon. The way his apartment was set up, he could see the television from the breakfast bar if he sat at the end seat, so that was where he ate every day, staying informed with the latest news before packing lunch and getting his shoes on.

The routine would be unbearable to some people, but Curtis liked it. It was predictable, got him out of the door at the right time every day, and most importantly, made him feel like he actually had his s**t together. He got out coconut water and slid into the seat, thinking how far he’d come in the past few years. He was a completely new man—no one could possibly guess he’d once been someone who couldn’t get out of his home, or left dirty everything around.

He had his life turned around. He was going places. He had a laboratory job that promised to get him advancement, he paid his bills and was nearly out of debt, and he was finally at a place where he could start thinking about goals for himself other than “avoid being a colossal failure.”

If only he hadn’t made watching the news part of his morning routine.

Curtis bit into the bagel, the weather forecast giving way to an update on a mysterious outbreak sweeping the country. The worst of it seemed confined to the Midwest, with at least six confirmed cases in nearby Peoria. Curtis frowned, his predictably delicious breakfast turning to tasteless mush in his mouth as dread and then shock burrowed their way through him.

The doctors were stumped. The reporters warned people to wash their hands, properly cook their food, and other basics of cleanliness and hygiene, but Curtis was focused on the locations, the symptoms. This couldn’t be happening.

Breakfast forgotten, he grabbed up his keys, his phone. His shoes were on and he was out the door so fast he didn’t even pack himself lunch.

Curtis had to get to work now.

* * * *

Lyndon was supposed to be back home by now, stripping off his clothes and crashing into bed after unluckily catching a double shift, but no, here he was on really-the-last-courier-run-this-time-then-he-could-go, and he was too tired to even be pissed about it. He hated days like these, when all he’d have time for was to sleep, shower, and find something to eat before hauling his ass up and doing it again. But he needed a job, and this one at least meant he didn’t really have coworkers, just interactions picking up and dropping off s**t.

Still, the corn outside the windows confused him. He’d been driving a while now, and he couldn’t remember coming this far out of town before to pick anything medical-related up. There must be a new clinic up this road somewhere. First Lyndon heard about it. Not like people told him about s**t anyway. And right now he was too tired to care one way or another, any part of his mind he could spare daydreaming about bed.

He thought something was weird when he found the place, down a long drive off the main road, and had to announce himself at a gate. There was an armed security guard, and a series of large buildings beyond. Lyndon didn’t get a good feeling about any of this, but he rarely allowed himself to back out of anything for fear of looking weak, so he drove on through when the bar was raised and focused on making this go as fast as possible.

There was a lot right behind the gate, where a man stood shuffling from foot to foot, cart containing the containers to be transported next to him. Another strange thing, that the specimens came to Lyndon and not the other way around. But at this point he wasn’t going to question anything he could just let slide. He parked and got out.

“This it?” he asked, but the man was already opening the back to the van and loading the containers—without attached paperwork, Lyndon noticed—himself. Lyndon frowned, irritation managing to find a way through his exhaustion. “Come on. Paperwork.”

“You don’t already have it?” asked the man, not pausing.

Lyndon crossed his arms. Nope, this s**t really wasn’t right. And now the man was glancing over his shoulder at the looming buildings like he was waiting for them to fall over and crush him.

“Look, we both know we have to do this the right way. If you forgot it…” Lyndon trailed off as the other man shut the door, posture far too tense.

“f**k,” he muttered.

Lyndon stared at him, considering he might be more tired than he thought. This man was well dressed, tie and all that s**t, and he was swearing, and trying to—what, smuggle some biological who-the-hell-knew-what to…where? Lyndon couldn’t figure it out. He was just supposed to take these containers to a local hospital laboratory. But none of what was going on here fit with something so normal.

He opened his mouth to ask what was going on, then half-turned as the man took a step back. In the small building behind Lyndon, the guard was on the phone.

“We have to go,” said the man. “Now.”

Lyndon frowned.

“I don’t know what the hell’s going on here, but I’m not going to mess with the procedure. You get me the documents, I’ll take this over. Are those containers even labeled? I can’t show up with random biological things with no documentation—I’ll get fired.”

“You don’t understand,” said the man, and went for the driver’s door.

Lyndon grabbed the man by the arm and yanked him back before he’d really thought about what he was doing. He was surprised when he did it, and he was more surprised it worked—but then, the man was probably off balance and certainly he wasn’t thinking straight. A moment later Lyndon had shoved him away from the door and was weighing his options—stay here and see what screwed up s**t happened next, or drive off with specimens he had no authority to take.

He got in the courier vehicle. He was too tired for this s**t. He’d figure some explanation out on the way back. It was better than being shot anyway, and right now the security guard was coming out of the building, hand moving toward the gun at his side. Whatever the f**k this was, Lyndon wanted nothing to do with it.

He shifted into reverse, the man in the tie suddenly in the passenger seat and shutting the door.

“I have a pass that’ll get us out the back gate,” he said, buckling the seat belt.

Lyndon backed up, not wanting to drive this man anywhere, but the guard was approaching, one hand up to motion Lyndon to stop, the other resting on his gun. Lyndon was too tired to think of anything but that he really didn’t want to get shot. He didn’t trust anyone in authority, and if it was between this guard at a creepy-ass mystery facility or some nervous nerd, he’d go with the nerd. He could drop the man off with the containers.

Lyndon put the van in drive and angled away from the security guard, who sped his pace to follow, then started running.

“To the right,” said the man in the passenger seat, pointing.

Lyndon sped up, seeing the security guard stop running after them to plant and draw his weapon. Lyndon weaved to the side, but the guard didn’t shoot. Lyndon sucked in a breath, watching him run back to the guard building.

“Oh, s**t,” said the man in the passenger seat, watching the same thing in the sideview mirror. “Speed up. If we don’t make it through the gate before he warns everybody…”

Lyndon got the picture. Whatever this place was, there weren’t many people in yet at this hour of the morning, and he cut across two more near-empty parking lots before finding the gate the passenger directed him to. Lyndon stopped, not sure what to do, but the man got out, crossed in front of the courier van, and flashed a lanyard I.D. at the guard, motioning and talking.

The bar went up. Lyndon considered taking off without the man, eased his foot off the brake, then pressed it back down again as the man turned back to him. Whatever was going on, he didn’t feel he could just leave this asshole to get shot or anything like that. He waited until the man was back in the passenger seat, then pulled out and onto the road.

“You want to go right up ahead.”

“Is that toward Peoria?” asked Lyndon. He heard how pissed he sounded, but didn’t much care at the moment, even when the man flinched. Let him be uncomfortable. Not like Lyndon asked for any of this strange s**t to happen.

“Well, no…”

Lyndon turned left.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m taking you to the drop point, where you can explain to the hospital lab why you have unlabeled containers and no paperwork.”

“That’s not—we can’t—”

Lyndon glared at the road before them, stretching between the corn. It was tall this year.

“We can’t what? I was supposed to pick up specimens here and take them in. That’s it. No we, no weird-ass s**t, just a normal delivery. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you can handle it on your own, ‘cause I’m not getting involved.”

“We can’t take the—containers—to the hospital lab,” said the man. He sounded lost. He sounded like he was choosing his words carefully. “They’ll know that’s where I was going. They’ll be waiting.”

“What did you steal?” asked Lyndon, the first thing that came to his mind, then immediately took it back. He still didn’t want to get involved. “No, don’t tell me. It’s probably something you can sell to raise money for your mother’s cancer treatment or something. I don’t want to end up being the asshole here.”

“It’s nothing like that.”

“So you didn’t take whatever’s back there without authorization.”

The man in the passenger seat said nothing. Lyndon was getting angrier. He didn’t know what to do and this man wasn’t helping at all, and worse, Lyndon actually thought he felt something for the guy, something like sympathy. The man seemed genuine enough, and he definitely hadn’t planned out what he’d just done. Might be a well-intentioned fool. Lyndon didn’t like the idea of turning him in or letting him fend for himself, but he also didn’t like that he was feeling sorry for the asshole.

“Turn us around,” said the man.

“You are not f*****g telling me what to do,” said Lyndon, bubbling over. He couldn’t handle this, not right now, not on low sleep and the worsening depression that had been slowly taking over his life otherwise. “Who the hell do you think you are? I’ve been out here driving around for over sixteen hours now, I should be in bed, not screwing around with some asshole in my van who stole a bunch of s**t from whatever the hell that place is. I’m f*****g tired. I’m dropping you off and I’m getting my ass to bed. So shut up and stop giving me orders.”

It wasn’t Lyndon’s brightest moment, it occurred to him as the silence fell. He was pretty sure he was driving a criminal around, and the man might snap if he thought Lyndon was going to take him somewhere he’d get turned in. But instead the man gripped his knees with his hands and lowered his voice.

“That’s a long time to be behind the wheel.”

“I don’t need your sympathy, I need you out so I can get home.”

“Right,” said the man. “Right.” He leaned his head back against the seat and stared at the roof of the car.

When Lyndon glanced over at him, he looked as tired as Lyndon felt.

* * * *

He expected the man to try to talk him out of driving to the hospital at least once more before they arrived, but to Lyndon’s surprise his unwelcome passenger kept silent. He did, however, grow more agitated as they passed into Peoria and made their way downtown, twisting and turning in his seat to look behind them, to the side. He took out his phone and messed around on it, clenched his free hand to a fist and put it on his knee. His knuckles went pale.