Contagious (29 page)

Snowmobile engines, getting closer. Another sound, a vehicle approaching, larger than a car or the mail truck.
Noise, pain, movement—it all overwhelmed his senses.
Dustin was flipped onto his back. Hands covered his eyes, hands held his arms, a whirlwind of confusion and pain. He started to kick, but a fist in his stomach ended the struggle, curling him up into a fetal position. Hands on his face, holding his jaw open, something wet in his mouth,
burning
in his mouth.
Hands pushing him away.
The bigger vehicle’s noise fading.
His body screaming for air, his shoulder just plain
screaming
.
A crackling sound, a whooshing sound.
Heat.
Real
heat, nearly scorching the side of his face.
A mini-eternity without oxygen, then a half-gasp that let in just a little, and finally a deep, ragged breath.
“I’m gonna kill you, soldier boy.”
Dustin sucked in air. He rolled to his hands and knees, then pulled his sidearm. His right hand filled with the knurled handle, the cold feeling of power, of protection.
“You better pull that trigger, soldier, or I’m gonna shoot ya like I shot your friends.”
Dustin pushed himself to one knee, right hand holding the pistol, left hand dangling uselessly, dripping blood onto the frozen dirt road.
To his right, flames billowed out of the postal van, fat orange tongues licking the air and spewing forth roiling black smoke.
In front of him, a man standing, holding a hunting rifle. It wasn’t the man who had been driving the van. He pointed the rifle at Dustin.
“Gonna
kill you,
soldier bo—”
Dustin’s first shot hit the man dead center in the chest. Two small feathers drifted away from his down coat. The man took one step back, then looked at his chest.
Past the man, far past, Dustin could see the rear end of a white and brown RV driving along the road.
The man looked up. He smiled and started to say something right before two more shots hit him in the chest. Still holding the hunting rifle in both hands, the man sagged and fell to his back.
Dustin struggled to stand. He felt weak, cold, but turned and looked for Neil. Neil lay on his back in a puddle of dark red. Someone had shot him in the face, blowing his brains all over the road. Looked like he’d also been hit in the leg, a fist-size blood spot above his right knee.
Dustin turned. He had to check on the others. He stepped forward, his right hand keeping the shaking gun pointed at the fallen man. The man’s eyes were wide open, a snarl locked on his face. Dead as fuck. Just like Neil. Tit for tat, you infected motherfucker.
Dustin stumbled again, barely catching himself as his foot slid on the snowy road. Oh man, getting shot fucking
hurt
.
He kept moving, checking his squadmates. Joel was slumped facedown over the M249. Not moving. The man with the hunting rifle probably took him out first. On the other side of the road, James was also down, helmet sitting upside down about three feet away from him.
The ground came up and smacked Dustin Climer right in the face. Oh man, oh
man
. . . he’d fallen. He forced his eyes open. So fucking
cold
. No sound but the wind. Then a soft humming, growing louder, growing closer. He knew that sound. A V-22. No, a couple of ’em. Climer put his gun hand on the ground and tried to push up, but his palm weakly slid across the snow-covered dirt road.
Finally he passed out.
IMPROPER EQUIPMENT
If this kept up, they’d need another MargoMobile just to store the bodies.
The live triangle host was on the way. Dew and Ogden had decided to leave the MargoMobile at the Jewell house and transport the host instead of parking the trailers next to a highway on-ramp and off-ramp. Made sense, as the Jewell house was far more rural and somewhat isolated.
The host would go into the containment cell in Trailer B.
The cadaver cabinet was filling up as well. In there they already had the liquefied remains of Donald Jewell, the pitted black skeleton of Cheffie Jones, the burned corpse of Bobby Jewell and the corpse of his wife, Candice. Their daughter would join them as soon as Margaret finished the last of the preliminary autopsies.
Once again a biohazard-suited Margaret stood in Trailer A’s autopsy room, looking at a big body bag filled with a small body. Gitsh was with her. Clarence had suited up and checked each body for himself, making
damn sure
they were all dead before taking up his usual position in the computer room.
She needed to make this fast. Bernadette Smith would be here soon, and that would require all of Margaret’s attention. Also on the way was the body of Ryan Roznowski, the triangle host who had killed those soldiers at the roadblock. He was a low priority—she needed to clear her schedule for Bernadette.
“Gitsh, get Chelsea out of the bags and let’s get cracking. We need to do this fast. Marcus, you there?”
“Yes ma’am,” she heard Marcus’s voice say in her earpiece. “At the cadaver locker, making sure Bobby Jewell’s remains are properly stowed.”
“Okay, finish up and hurry back. We need to get the girl done before the live host arrives.”
She’d already completed preliminary autopsies on Candice and Bobby Jewell. Candice had died from a gunshot to the back of the head, well before the fire scorched her body. Bobby had multiple knife scores on his ribs—Margaret couldn’t say for sure yet, not with such a rush job, but odds were he’d also died before the fire burned him.
Gitsh removed the girl’s small corpse and put it on the table. Burn victims and charred flesh. Always such a joy. The human body doesn’t actually burn up in a house fire. To cremate a body, you need fifteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit for two hours or more. House fires usually hit about five hundred degrees. While some
could
burn as hot as two thousand degrees, at that temperature the flames usually consumed all available fuel material within a half hour or so. Bobby Jewell’s body had been blackened and charred, but preserved enough for Margaret to find one scorched triangle on his cheek, another at the base of his neck.
She’d been on the case long enough to know the story: Bobby Jewell had contracted the triangles, and as a result he’d killed his family. Then he’d set a fire and committed suicide by stabbing himself repeatedly. Sounded crazy, but she’d seen worse—at least Bobby hadn’t chopped off his own legs with a hatchet. The bullet hole in the back of the wife’s skull fit the murder-suicide profile. Margaret was sure the girl’s cause of death would support it as well.
Gitsh folded up the body bag and put it in the incinerator chute.
Margaret stared at the girl’s body. It was curled up in the fetal position, legs and arms flexed, fists tucked beneath the chin. That didn’t mean the person had burned alive and curled up from the pain—dehydration from fire causes muscles, even dead muscles, to contract, pulling bodies into this posture.
The fetal position wasn’t what held Margaret’s attention, however. What really caught her eye was the size of the body.
She looked at the wall-mounted flat-panel, part of which showed stats on Chelsea.
“Clarence, this is supposed to be a seven-year-old girl?”
“Checking,” Clarence said in her earpiece. “Yeah, Chelsea Jewell, seven years, four months, ten days.”
“How tall is she on the medical records?”
“Ummm . . . three feet, six inches.”
“This body is bigger than that,” Margaret said. “And the hips are wrong. Gitsh, roll the body onto its back.”
Clarence’s voice in her ear again. “You don’t think it’s Chelsea Jewell?”
Gitsh moved the body.
Margaret took a good look, then shook her head. “Not unless Chelsea Jewell was more like four-foot-two and had a penis. Get Dew on the line, right now.”
IF IFS AND BUTS WERE CANDY AND NUTS
“How is Private Climer, Doc?” Ogden asked.
“He’ll be fine,” Doc Harper said. “He was lucky the bullet didn’t hit the bone. Took out a chunk of muscle, though. Colonel, I have to request again that we transfer him out of our area and to the base hospital.”
“Request denied, again,” Ogden said. “Unless it’s a life-and-death situation, he’s not leaving our area until I talk to him. And you just said he’ll be fine, so it’s
not
life and death, correct?”
“But sir,” Doc Harper said, “you can pick up the phone and have a replacement for him sent from one of the companies at Fort Bragg here in . . . what, three hours?”
“I don’t need a replacement for him. I need to find out what happened. There’s no way one redneck should have taken out four soldiers.”
“Colonel, we just pulled a .308-caliber bullet out of that boy’s shoulder,” Doc said. “Three hours ago he was facedown on a dirt road bleeding all over the place.”
Ogden checked his watch. “It’s sixteen hundred right now. I want him talking by seventeen hundred, got it?”
“He’s my patient, sir,” Doc said. “As soon as he wakes up, he’s yours, but I’m within my rights to say that I will not bring him out of it early.”
Ogden sighed. Couldn’t have Doc Harper bitching about putting wounded troops at unnecessary risk, not when that general’s star was so close. He’d have to ship Doc Harper out soon, though, get someone else in here who followed orders no matter what they were.
“Who’s with Climer?” Ogden asked.
“Brad Merriman,” Doc Harper said. “The guy they call ‘Nurse Brad.’ ”
Ogden nodded. He knew Nurse Brad. Good kid. Medic first class, but somewhere along the line the boys started ripping on him for being a “male nurse,” and the nickname stuck.
“You and Merriman both sit with Climer,” Ogden said. “If one of you has to take a crap, the other is staring at Climer to see if he wakes up. And when he does wake up, you call me immediately, you understand?”
Doc Harper nodded and saluted, then turned and walked out.
Charlie didn’t like being such a hard-ass, but he needed answers. Three of his soldiers killed. The only known enemy unit a thirty-one-year-old civilian named Ryan Roznowski who had stolen a mail truck and tried to run the roadblock. The postman assigned to that truck was missing and presumed dead.
Roznowski had four triangles. He also had a wife, who was nowhere to be found, and a house that showed signs of a struggle, including blood on the living-room floor. Charlie knew that triangle hosts were dangerous, sure, killers, no question, but a guy with a hunting rifle setting a postal van on fire, then taking out four trained soldiers? It just didn’t add up.
But it wasn’t all bad news. They had finally succeeded in capturing a live host. Mission accomplished. That’s what made the general’s star a lock, just as long as he didn’t fuck anything up.
But that star would come at a price—more names in his Little Blue Book.
Neil Illing.
James Eager.
Joel Brauer.
If he’d been able to put a full squad at each checkpoint, nine men instead of four or five, those boys might still be alive. Maybe he should have brought the other two companies. No, his plan was solid; it allowed for the maximum situational flexibility under the circumstances.
If
they’d had more time,
if
he’d had more men . . .
If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, what a wonderful Christmas it would be.
He’d write the families later that night. The best part of the job, really, telling some proud mom that her son had died while serving his country.
“Corporal Cope! Get in here!”
Cope was in the tent before Ogden even finished the second sentence. He must have been waiting right outside, just in case he was needed. You didn’t get guys like Cope all that often.
“Sir?”
“Where the hell are my updates on the air search?”
“Nothing so far,” Cope said. “All recon flights came up negative. Satellite squints say the same thing. Doesn’t look like there’s a construct within at least fifty miles.”
Damn it. It had to be out there. Bernadette Smith had tried to escape. So had Ryan Roznowski. How many infected
had
slipped out, either between the roadblocks or before Ogden arrived? No maps this time: none in Smith’s car or at her house. Same for Roznowski, and the Jewell place was a cinder. No clues.
If they were going to find the gate’s location, once again it was all up to Perry Dawsey.
APB ON CLAN JEWELL
Dew Phillips sat in the MargoMobile’s computer room. He and Perry had the room to themselves. Gitsh, Marcus, Margaret and Clarence were all in the Trailer B containment cell, locking down a feisty Bernadette Smith.
Dew wanted to hit a certain chief of staff, then rub her face in broken glass and finish up with a nice saltwater spritz on the fresh cuts.
“Dew, you okay?” Perry asked. “You’ve got veins pulsing in the top of your big bald head.”
“I’m not okay,” Dew said. “Fuck, we had them.”
Vanessa Colburn was the reason the Jewells had escaped. If she’d just let Murray do his thing, Dew would have that family in custody right now.
“We almost had who?” Perry said.
“The Jewells. Those bodies we found in the fire?
Not
the Jewell family. We don’t know who the woman is. The man was Wallace Beckett. Identified from dental records. They’re guessing the dead kid is his son, Beck. They searched the Beckett house, found Nicole Beckett chopped up and stuffed into a laundry hamper.”
“But Margaret said the man had triangles.”
“That’s what’s fucked up,” Dew said. “Wallace Beckett
did
have triangles. The Jewell family was a man, a woman and a kid. We found the bodies of a man, a woman and a kid, and the man had triangles. Sounds familiar, right? Man gets triangles, goes gonzo, whacks his family.”
“Wait a minute,” Perry said. “You’re saying the Jewells killed three people,
including
a host, so we would think it was a nice neat package while they skipped town?”
“Try to keep up, college boy,” Dew said. “Clan Jewell pulled the switcheroo on us. We didn’t even bother to search the fucking area.”
“Then who is the woman?”
Dew shrugged. “Who knows? It’s not Candice Jewell, though. They know that from dental records, too. So we have three bodies, none of which belong to the Jewells. The Jewells, who are nowhere to be found. If they took off right when they started the fire, we’re talking a fifteen-hour head start. They could be fucking anywhere.”
“What if they didn’t leave right away?” Perry said. “Maybe they’re still in Gaylord.”
Dew scratched his chin. “Maybe. Or maybe they were part of that attack on the roadblock.”
“Which had another triangle victim.”
Dew flipped through the paperwork. “Yeah, Ryan Roznowski. He killed three soldiers and wounded Private Dustin Climer. Climer returned fire, killing Roznowski.”