Contagious (4 page)

Sammy’s eyes were closed.
Oh no it’s
him!
The voices in Thad’s head. They had been quiet most of the evening.
It’s the
sonofabitch!
“I’m here to help you,” the sonofabitch said.
Little Stephen raised an arm and pointed at the man. He spoke in his baby-boy voice.
“Da-dee,” he said “Kill dis moderfucker.”
Stephen suddenly squirmed and kicked. Thad dropped him. The little boy fell clumsily, but scrambled to his feet. Stephen’s little Milwaukee Bucks T-shirt slid up when he stood, exposing a light blue triangle on the skin at the small of his back. The boy screamed a murderous, gravelly battle cry that sounded almost comical from such a tiny voice, then charged the giant man.
The sonofabitch took a step forward and kicked, swinging his hips into the blow. Stephen made a little staccato sound when the foot connected, a half-cough, half-squeal. His small body shot across the room like it had been fired from a cannon. With a sickening snap, Stephen’s right side slammed into the edge of the kitchen table. The impact tilted the table back, spilling beer bottles onto the linoleum before it rocked back to level. Stephen’s body, still bent at an odd angle to the right, hit the floor.
The boy’s little fingers twitched a bit, but other than that he didn’t move.
Thadeus reached the counter, yanked open a drawer and pulled out a butcher knife.
Yessss kill
him KILL HIM!
He turned to face the man murdering his family, but as he did, he saw a flash of spinning black, then his head filled with a sudden darkness and pain. He fell to the floor, blinking, thoughts slipping in and out. He tried to spit. A chunk of tooth barely escaped his lips and hung on his right cheek, plastered there by blood and saliva.
Get up,
get up!
A hand around his neck, lifting him.
His feet, dangling.
Kill him,
KILL HIM!
His breath . . . non ex is tent.
Thadeus opened his eyes. The man-monster’s face was only an inch away. Two days’ growth of reddish beard. A snarl. Thadeus stared into blue eyes wide with madness.
“You shouldn’t hit your kids,” the man said.
Thadeus heard an approaching siren, but it was too late. The hand around his neck might as well have been an iron vise. It squeezed, slow and steady.
“It’s okay,” the man said. He smiled. “I’m here to help you.”
Breathe!
said the voice in his head, the same voice that had made him kill his only daughter. Fight! You have to breathe!
Thadeus felt his bladder let go, felt the heat of piss filling his underwear and jeans, then felt his sphincter offer up the same betrayal. Even in the act of dying, he somehow had a flash of embarrassment.
He would’ve liked to have said one last thing. He would’ve liked to tell the voices in his head to stick it where the sun don’t shine, but he couldn’t make any noise at all save for a tiny, hissing gurgle.
THE MARGOMOBILE™
Margaret Montoya, Clarence Otto and Amos Braun sat in comfortable seats in the customized sleeper cabin of a semi tractor-trailer. The massive eighteen-wheeler rolled north along Highway 13, followed closely by a second, outwardly identical rig. The two trailers, designed to work together as one unit, were worth about $25 million and had come to be known collectively as the “MargoMobile.”
The three sat biggest to smallest, a cross section of cultures—Clarence’s chocolate skin and tall, muscular bulk on the left; Margaret with her long black hair and Hispanic complexion in the middle; and the diminutive, oh-so-Caucasian Amos on the right. Those two men constituted one half of Margaret’s team. The other half drove the rigs. Anthony Gitsham handled this one, Marcus Thompson drove the other. Murray’s single-minded mission to keep “those in the know” to the absolute minimum had landed Gitsh and Marcus this choice assignment, thanks to their rather unique set of skills.
Both men had logged at least a hundred hours driving a semi, had medical-assistant training, combat experience and—the big one—hands-on experience with biohazard procedures and gear. Gitsh had driven army rigs in the Mideast and traded small-arms fire a few times, but Clint Eastwood he was not. Clint wasn’t as pale, wasn’t as skinny and didn’t have a ’fro that made him look like a white Black Panthers wannabe from 1974. Marcus was something of a study in contrast to Anthony, with his deep black skin, shaved head and enough wiry muscle for both men. Marcus’s combat experience, apparently, was rather extensive. He didn’t talk about it, and no one asked. From what Margaret could gather, being assigned to drive a truck and lug around rotting corpses that might or might not be fatally infectious . . . well, that was like a vacation for Marcus. Maybe it was why he whistled all the damn time.
Her whole team was already dressed in black biohazard suits, completely covering them in airtight PVC material save for their exposed heads and hands. She was so used to the suit that she didn’t give it a second thought anymore. A silly, uncontrollable part of her liked the the fact that it hid the extra weight on her hips.
When it came time to go in, they’d all don the gloves clipped to their belts and the helmets sitting at their feet, pressurize the suits, and they’d be ready to face the latest horrors in an endless, gruesome parade.
Horrors that always seemed to involve one “Scary” Perry Dawsey.
Margaret didn’t know how or why Perry could still hear the triangles. CAT scans showed a network of very thin lines spreading through the center of his brain, like a 3-D spiderweb or a spongy mesh. While she was fighting to keep him alive, she hadn’t dared risk trying to get a sample of the material. Any additional trauma on his ravaged body could have been the final straw. Since he’d regained consciousness, Perry wouldn’t even talk about the incident—it was no surprise he wouldn’t let anyone slide a drill into his skull.
Even if they could get a sample, it probably wouldn’t do them any good—the National Security Agency, the group that handled signal intelligence and cryptography for the government, detected no signals of any kind. The triangles and hatchlings communicated, yet no one knew how. The NSA’s prevailing theory involved some form of communication via quantum tunneling, but that was guesswork at best without a shred of data to back it up.
Whatever the science behind it, Perry’s homing instinct had been the only thing keeping them in the game. Unfortunately, when he found infected hosts, he killed them. First Kevin Mest, who had butchered three friends with a fireplace poker. Perry claimed self-defense for that one, and everyone bought it. His self-defense claim for burning three eighty-year-old women alive? Well, that was a little harder to swallow.
But whatever he had done, however ugly, he found the constructs. Kevin Mest’s death resulted in Ogden destroying the one at Mather. The three elderly ladies Perry had burned to death? Because of them, Ogden was in South Bloomingville right now, hopefully taking that construct out as well.
Glidden would be different. Dew had said so. His men, Claude Baumgartner and Jens Milner, were watching Perry at all times. They
would
deliver live hosts. When they did, she knew she could operate on the infected and successfully remove the parasites.
Murray wanted live hosts for other reasons, reasons that created a bit of a catch-22. He wanted to interrogate the triangles. Good in theory, but Margaret would operate to remove any growths she found. If that killed the triangle but saved a host, too bad for Murray. Her job was to save lives, not keep someone chained up as a parasite interpreter.
Clarence studied a map resting on his knees. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, then let out an exasperated sigh.
“Come on, Margo, this suit is annoying,” he said. “I’m taking it off.”
“Clarence, give it a rest,” Margaret said. “I don’t want to go over this again.”
“But there’s no purpose for this thing,” Clarence said. “Dew has been around dozens of corpses—he hasn’t contracted anything.”
“Yet.”
Amos smiled. “You look like a black Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. It’s not a good look for you.”
“And you look like a short KKK grand dragon who washed his whites with his darks,” Clarence said. He looked at Margaret again. “And what about Dawsey? You fixed him up, you didn’t start growing triangles. This suit is making me sweat, and sweaty is
definitely
not a good look for me.”
Margaret would beg to differ on that. She’d seen CIA agent Clarence Otto all sweaty, seen him that way up close and personal, been all sweaty herself at the same time, and she couldn’t imagine a better look for him.
Amos laughed. “You serve up a softball about being all sweaty? I’m not even touching that one. Seriously, Otto, you have to make it a little harder to make fun of you two boinking whenever you think no one is looking.”
“That suit will stop microbes,” Clarence said. “But I’m afraid it doesn’t offer much protection against a pistol-whipping.”
Amos laughed again and held up his hands palms out:
okay, okay, take it easy.
Clarence talked tough, intimidating gravel voice and all, but over the past three months he and Amos had become fast friends. Clarence Otto was just flat-out likable. Witty, helpful, respectful and with a major streak of deductive common sense, he often put a strategic perspective on Margaret and Amos’s scientific discoveries. As for Amos, his multidisciplinary expertise and sheer brilliance had helped the team stay one step ahead of the infection. More like a half step, maybe, but at least they were still ahead.
At some point in the past three months, both men had revealed a love for basketball. Otto, a former Division III point guard and a lifelong fan of the Boston Celtics, discovered that short, frail little Amos Braun had a wicked outside jumper. Well, calling it a “jumper” was a stretch—he came off the ground
maybe
three inches when he shot. Amos couldn’t play one-on-one to save his life. At a game of H-O-R-S-E, however, he could beat Otto six times out of ten. Amos was also a lifelong hoops fan, although he preferred the Detroit Pistons, giving the two men plenty to argue about in the many hours when there wasn’t a corpse on the autopsy table.
“Clarence,” Margaret said, “no one has been infected by contact
,
but that doesn’t mean the disease isn’t contagious. There could also be toxins we haven’t seen yet, or something else that could hurt you. That suit will keep you safe, so it stays on.”
Otto sighed. “Yes sir.”
“You made her this way,” Amos said. “I remember when Margaret was a total pushover. You’re the one that got her on the Gloria Steinem express, all women-libbed and everything.”
“I know, I know,” Otto said. “I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. Keep her barefoot and in the kitchen.”
“Don’t forget pregnant,” Amos said. “But you’re working on that.”
Margaret felt her face flush red. “Amos! Knock it off!”
“Amos, my diminutive white friend,” Otto said, “you’re just mad that a fine-looking black man is getting all the action.”
“Fine-looking until you put on that suit and get all sweaty,” Amos said. “Then you look like a half-chewed Tootsie Roll.”
Margaret sighed. The juvenile name-calling never ceased. She just didn’t get men.
Otto smiled and nodded, which meant he had a killer comeback, but his cell phone chirped before he could speak. There was only one person who would be calling. Clarence answered.
“Otto here.” He listened. His smile faded into an expression that was all business. He pinched the cell phone between his shoulder and ear, then looked at the map.
“We’ll be there in three minutes.” He hung up.
“What’s the matter?” Margaret asked.
“Baum and Milner are down,” Otto said. “A kid named Tad found them, said Dawsey was going to his house.”
Otto leaned forward to give Gitsh directions.
Margaret cursed under her breath. If Perry got to the hosts first . . .
LESS LETHAL
Staccato gunfire echoed through the woods as Third Platoon opened the engagement, making the dark western tree line sparkle with bright muzzle flashes. First Platoon waited exactly three minutes, then pushed due north, straight toward the construct. Second Platoon swept east and curved north, ready to flank the hatchlings should they flee directly away from Third Platoon’s fire.
Fourth Platoon held their position. If the hatchlings fled northwest, they’d run directly into the Fourth. If they ran due north, the Fourth would strafe their flank the whole way.
Predator drones circled low to the northeast, ready to launch Hellfire missiles that would either herd the hatchlings back into the action or kill them outright.
There was nowhere for the creatures to run.
Ogden watched through night-vision goggles, ready to adapt his strategy if something unexpected popped up.
But nothing did.
“Corporal Cope, status of air support?”
“Apaches, Predators and Strike Eagles still on station, sir,” Cope said. “Ready if you need them.”
“Very well.” Ogden watched as First Platoon moved in, methodically marching forward in a squad-after-squad leapfrog style that allowed a steady advance with constant fire on the enemy position. As First Platoon closed in, Third Platoon ceased fire to avoid any friendly casualties.
Two soldiers in each nine-man squad carried a less-lethal weapon. Like all the platoons, First had three squads, putting six less-lethal weapons into the initial infantry assault.
Such weapons had once been called
non
lethal, but in combat there was never a guarantee of preserving life. If you killed half the people you fought instead of all the people . . . well, then that wasn’t actually
non
lethal, now was it?
They didn’t know what would work against the hatchlings, so they’d brought two less-lethals: the sticky gun and ShockRounds.
The sticky gun fired jets of foam that would, theoretically, tangle the hatchlings’ tentacle-legs. The guns had been used with mixed success against people in Somalia—the “mixed” part was that the foam sometimes got in the targets’ eyes, blinding them, or clogged up their mouths. Put a clogged mouth together with hands immobilized by that same foam, and within minutes you had a dead target. Somewhat unacceptable against human targets, but hatchlings were a different story—it was worth the risk.
Compared to sticky guns, the ShockRounds seemed almost normal—5.56-millimeter bullets that delivered a concentrated electric charge. These were untested, but his men didn’t have to do anything different from what they were trained to do—point their weapons and fire.