Family Secret by Adrian Vladimir | Part 4 | Read It For Free Today

In a world ravaged by a deadly supervirus, survival relies upon one thing: isolation. For the Walsh family, quarantine isn't just a precaution – it's a way of life. Trapped within the confines of their home, they grapple with the mental toll of isolation while navigating the ever-present threat of infection lurking beyond their walls.

But as the weeks blur into months, temptation beckons. Forbidden freedoms whisper promises of normalcy as the strain on their family grows heavier. Amidst the chaos, a secret lurks within the heart of the Walsh family – a secret that could unravel everything they hold dear. Will they succumb to the irresistible call of freedom and discover what awaits beyond their quarantine walls? Can they survive?

In Family Secret, a gripping science fiction short story, author Adrian Vladimir delves into what we'll go through to protect our loved ones.

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FAMILY SECRET

Copyright 2024 by Adrian Vladimir

This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system of any kind, without prior written permission of the author.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I'd like to thank my wife, Jordana, who never complains no matter how many times she has to go over a manuscript with her savage red pen.

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FOUR​

The crazy has come out to play, John thought. Newbury. 100 miles north. Somewhere else …

“Where did you escape from?” John asked, stepping forward again.

 “What? I’m from Riverside–”

“No, you’re not. Newbury is a long commute from Riverside Commons, especially if you’re running triple shifts on a burnout job for two years.”

“I was staying with a friend.” The stranger snapped, but the pitch of his voice rose, and John knew he’d struck the truth.

“Out on the front lines, exposed every day? No one would take you in, and you know it.” John moved forward.

“I’m a supercarrier. That’s why I’m alone, okay? Happy now?” the stranger shouted.

“He’s one of the shunned,” Janice whimpered. Her knees buckled in fear, and she very nearly fell.

“I hate that word!”

 “Please, sir. Let her go before she gets infected. Please.”

“Maybe she will, and maybe she won’t. Maybe I’m contagious, and maybe I’m not. Want to roll the dice?”

“Only a government test can tell you that,” John said. “Multiple tests. Very expensive. They put you in medical quarantine, didn’t they?”

“I … I …” The stranger stammered, his face crumpling with fear, memories surging forth. “They forgot me once. I was alone for so long.”

Facts tumbled through John’s mind. Supercarriers housed the virus in their bodies but were unaffected by it. Symbiotic with the virus, they went about their lives, infecting others for variable cycles. A day? A year? It depended on the person. Once this scientific discovery leaked out, terror spread through the people, social distancing igniting paranoia and neighbors turning on neighbors. Supercarriers were shunned, hunted by the authorities, captured, and shipped off to … somewhere else.

There was a military medical facility up near Newbury. John was circling closer to the truth. It felt right. Somehow, the stranger escaped into the world only to be shunned, hunted, a pariah. The stress, the loneliness, had made him rabid. It made a mad sort of sense why he wanted Becca.

As terrifying and revolting as it was, it was very simple: touch.

Touch is the first sense people experience after birth. Without touch, babies die. Adults wither in heart and soul. A hug, a handshake, a gentle caress, a simple pat on the back form one of the pillars on which sanity rests. Knock it down, and a soul can crumble.

I just want to borrow the girl. 

Maybe he didn’t want to do anything … bad. Maybe he just needed companionship.

And maybe not.

John moved forward, slowly but relentlessly. “Riverside Commons was your fault, wasn’t it? You escaped from Newbury, and somehow you got in there, and it spread.”

“Stop it!” The stranger began to retreat, pulling Becca along with him.

“When they came to round everyone up, you hid. You got away again. You must be good at that.”

“Daddy! Help me,” Becca pleaded. Her face had gone white as a sheet, her lips quivering, tears spilling from her eyes.

Adrenaline pumped through John’s heart, stirring a dark instinct, an ancient impulse. The fear slipped away. He felt calm and cold and … precise.

“Are you ready to hang out with me, Becca? Do you like games?” The shunned man asked in a sing-song voice. The stranger’s grin was like a flash of lightning slashing through black thunderheads, and the effect on John was instantaneous: he wanted to kill the man. “I’m just going to borrow her for a while. Just a few days.”

“No. Please, no. She’s my baby,” Janice whispered.

John charged, bag or no bag, a madman was trying to abduct his daughter, and that could not be allowed. His son was out there somewhere, lost or hurt or tied up. The bag was a stupid weapon, a deadly weapon. It didn’t matter.

A rock the size of a baseball shot out of the bushes, streaking through the air, striking the shunned man on the side of the head. It was a glancing blow, but it was enough.

“Leave my sister alone!” Billy shouted. The boy had been hiding in the bushes all along!

The stranger groaned, stumbling back toward the riverbank, tugging Becca along with him.

“Get the kids away!” John screamed.

He closed the distance, seizing Becca by the shirt and flinging her back toward Janice. He glimpsed his daughter, stumbling into her mother’s arms. Billy stared in open-mouthed shock from the bushes, a second rock held limp and forgotten at his side.

The two men collided, the stranger’s powerful hands locking onto John’s windpipe and squeezing, the plastic death bag pressed against John’s neck. John gagged, flailed, face to face now, hands grappling for the other man’s wrists. The stranger’s thumbs pressed into John’s throat, and John heard a wet, strangled gasp coming from his body as a flare of lava pain erupted in his throat.

The man was too strong. John hadn’t been in a fight since elementary school. He didn’t know what he was doing. He flailed with his fists, striking the stranger in the face once, twice. It was useless, and his vision dimmed the edges, darkness closing in. Panic! John clawed at the stranger’s face, gouging an eye. The man screamed and let go, stepping backward onto … nothing. His eyes bulged as he started to fall, but somehow, he managed to hook the collar of John’s shirt with two fingers.

“You’re coming with me!” the stranger growled, yanking John forward.

The two men toppled over the edge. John’s head struck the embankment, stars exploding across a black universe. Sunlight again as he tumbled down the riverbank, rolling end over end, nothing making sense, Janice screaming his name from some distant realm, gnarled tree roots and sand rushing by, a brutal impact driving the breath from his lungs. Cold … wet. Wet!

Get up! Get up, or you’re dead! the primal instinct screamed.

He felt stone beneath his hands, water burning his lungs, a jagged point slicing into his knee as he struggled to push himself up. He surged above the surface, wobbling to his feet in waist-deep water, coughing up the river, the current trying to knock him back down.

“Behind you! He’s behind you!” Janice shrieked from above.

John spun around, still gagging up river water. The stranger’s mouth bared in a snarl as he sloshed forward, yanking the sodden tissues from the plastic bag and dropping the bag in the water. He held the virus out before him, brandishing it like a knife. John tried to focus on it, but his head spun in a fishbowl haze.

“Why couldn’t you just let me borrow the girl? We could’ve been friends.”

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