Infected (46 page)

Dew dropped into a shooter’s crouch and brought up the .45 with the stone-still grip of a brain surgeon. He saw everything: the snow-covered dead branches of the winter trees, each iced needle on the frosted pines and shrubs, every car, every hubcap, every license plate, every slushy footprint. Police dotted the lot like dark blue alligators sunning on a riverbank. A trio of gray vans raced in: one from his right, one from his left and one on the far side of the hopping, blood-streaming freak.

Dawsey hopped across the parking lot, a sprint for freedom when there was no place to run. He seemed to notice the police cars, and he slowed. Dawsey stopped, then turned. With the desperate optimism of a madman, he hopped toward Dew.

Dew sighted in on a face contorted with fury, pain, confusion and hate. The massive man raged forward, huge and horrible, every muscle fiber twitching and visible even from a distance. He hopped on his blood-glazed right leg, covering amazing distances with each thrust. His left leg hung at an angle, limp and along for the ride. Third-degree burns covered his right arm. He had no hair left, only crusty black marks and blisters that perched lecherously on his skull. A long streak of black goo decorated his chest, goo that appeared to ooze from a softball-size purple sore on his right collarbone.

Blood streaked down both legs, pouring from where a penis should have been.

Nightmarish above all this were the face and the eyes, eyes that stared straight out with both the cold, intense look of the predator and the wild, panic-stricken flight of prey. A mouth that couldn’t decide between a snarl or a scream, a mouth that hung open, lips curled up to show teeth that gleamed a Colgate white in the afternoon sun.

Dew saw all this in less than two seconds. A brief instant where details stood out like raised letters on a brass nameplate.

That look. That expression. Just like Brewbaker. Just like the man who’d killed Mal.

One .45-caliber slug and Dawsey’s head would evaporate in a cloud of blood and brains. Somebody had to pay for Mal’s death, and this crazy fucker would fit the bill just fine.

Dew aimed for that psychotic smile.

His finger tightened on the trigger.

Dawsey kept coming.

One shot,
one shot…goddamn it, Mal, I miss you.

But Dew had his orders.

He dropped his aim and pulled the trigger.

The bullet smacked into Dawsey’s right shoulder and spun him around like a rag doll. He almost made a full spin before he crashed to the ground, his steaming blood melting into the dirty driveway snow. The map fluttered to the ground.

Dew lowered his weapon and started to move forward, then stopped short. He stared, disbelieving, as Dawsey scrambled back up to stand on his one good leg. His expression hadn’t changed, not one lick, no surprise or agony visible among the tumult of emotions that rippled across his face. Huge muscles twitching, a grin of wide-eyed madness chiseled on his face, hopping on one powerful leg, Dawsey lunged toward Dew.

Dew raised the .45. There was one place he could shoot that the kid wouldn’t get up.

“You sure are one tough bastard,” Dew said quietly, then pulled the trigger.

The round smashed into Perry’s knee, the same knee that had ended his football career. The once-broken patella disintegrated into a bouquet of splintered bone. The bullet ripped through cartilage before it bounced off the femur and exited through the back of his leg along with a misty cloud of blood.

Perry crumbled. He fell face-first onto the snow-covered pavement and slid to a halt only a few feet from Dew. This time he didn’t get up. He stared at Dew, breathing heavily, the insane death-grin plastered on his face.

And his penis was still clutched in his fist.

Dew gently stamped out the flaming map, then picked it up. Keeping the barrel trained on Dawsey’s grinning face, Dew looked at the map. It was burned through in places, but the red line running from Ann Arbor to Wahjamega was still clearly visible. Also in red, a strange, Japanese-looking symbol.

Dew looked at Dawsey—the same symbol, scabbed over and bleeding in places, was carved into his arm.

Dew held the map so Perry could see it.

“What’s here?” Dew demanded. “What the fuck do you want with that pissant town? What’s this symbol mean?”

“Someone’s knockin’ at the door,” Perry said in a singsong voice. “Somebody’s ringing the bell.”

FREE RIDE

Three gray vans closed in on Dew and Perry, sliding to a halt on the packed snow. Like ants rushing from a mound, biosuit-covered soldiers poured out. The police in the area moved toward the vans, but kept their distance from the bizarrely dressed men carrying the squat, lethal FN P90s.

Margaret and Clarence were the first to reach Dawsey and Dew. Clarence pulled his Glock sidearm and tried to cover the damaged man, but Margaret dashed in and knelt next to his charred body, her knee dipping into the steaming pool of spreading blood. She tore her eyes away from the severed penis clutched in his hand.

He was still breathing, although for how long that would last she couldn’t say. She’d never seen a human being so messed up yet still alive. She didn’t see any triangles on him, but with all the blood and the third-degree burns it was hard to tell. Yet he was alive, and that, at least, was something she could work with.

She almost jumped when he spoke.

“Somebody’s ringin’ the bell,” Dawsey said. “I gotta go to Wahjamega. Do me a favor, open the door, and let ’em in.”

Margaret swallowed hard. She could barely believe her eyes—this ravaged man, whose blood was turning the slush as red as a Slurpee, talked through a smile of sheer madness.

“Open up that fucking green door, you fucking bitch!” Dawsey’s thick hand shot out fast-fast and grabbed her Racal suit, pulling her down until his lips mashed against her visor, spreading blood and spit on the clear plastic. His wide, insane eyes were just an inch from hers.

“Somebody’s
knocking at that fucking door!
”

Clarence smashed the butt of his Glock against Dawsey’s cheek, opening up yet one more wound. Dawsey flinched but kept snarling, his eyes burning with the fury of pure insanity.

“Hit him again!” Dew screamed.

Clarence whacked Dawsey twice more in rapid succession. The big man’s grip relaxed, and he fell back to the ground, eyes half-lidded, the smile still on his face.

“You okay, Doc?” Clarence asked.

Margaret fought to regain her composure, her breath coming in irregular gasps. For a second she’d been sure Dawsey would rip right through the suit and tear her throat out. He was so fast, and so damn strong.

“I’m fine,” she said. She stood and waved over two soldiers who waited with a stretcher.

She could only imagine what that poor man had gone through. What kinds of thoughts could make a human being self-inflict that kind of damage? Margaret wondered if he’d provide any answers.

She couldn’t know what terrors awaited in the months to come. For Perry Dawsey, the infection was over. For the rest of the world, it was only the beginning.

THE JUMPER

It had all happened so fast that wisps of smoke still curled from the freshly fired .45. Dew had done his job yet again, but he didn’t feel any better. He was no closer to discovering the parties responsible for this horror, for killing his partner. Dew said nothing, kept a grip on his weapon, watched Clarence Otto direct the rapid-response team as they set up a small perimeter around Dawsey.

A third-floor window shattered outward. Dew looked up, saw the flame tongues billowing out, greasy black smoke roiling toward the sky. But he saw something else, something burning, something falling. A brief flailing comet, whipping, ropelike extensions making it resemble a flaming medusa’s head.

The thing hit hard against the snow-covered pavement, flames seeming to splash outward before they roared upward again. He stared, disbelieving, the back of his mind already making a connection that his conscious thoughts refused to allow. The flaming thing stood, or at least tried to stand, burning, boneless legs supported a body all but obscured by jumping flames. There was a small screech, a pitiful thing, the sound a weak woman makes when she feels severe pain.

A thin trail of fluid shot from the thing to land in a steaming, boiling black streak on the dirty snow. The creature shuddered once more, then
popped,
flaming pieces scattering across the parking lot. The pieces burned brightly like wreckage from a crashed airliner.

Suddenly Margaret was at his side, her protective helmet gone, her black hair hanging about the biosuit, an ashen look of dread on her face.

“Now it makes sense,” she said quietly. “Oh my God now it all makes
sense
. Dawsey, the others—they’re just
hosts
for these
things.
”

Dew let his mind make that connection, let himself accept the unimaginable. This was no time to start doubting the obvious, no matter how fucked up the obvious might be, and he still had a job to do. The sound of approaching men tore his attention from the dwindling bits of flame. Cops were coming on the run, local boys, state troopers, at least a dozen, with more probably a few steps behind.

Dew turned to Otto and the biosuited agents. All of them stood with guns at the ready, casting snap-glances all around the parking lot, looking to see if there were more of the nightmarish creatures.

Dew barked orders in his booming sergeant’s voice. “Get Dawsey in the van! Squad Three, police those pieces and do it now! Move move move!” The soldiers scurried to obey Dew’s commands. He turned to face the cops, who closed on the burning building. He stepped forward, thinking of what bullshit to say, thinking of a way to explain the creature, but the cops rushed right past the burning pieces and through Building G’s main door.

Bob Zimmer sprinted up to Dew, his eyes on the flames shooting from the broken third-floor window.

“Did you get him?” Zimmer asked.

“Yeah,” Dew said. “I got him. He’s dead.” The cops hadn’t seen the falling creature. Or if they had, they hadn’t made sense of it; perhaps they were too far away. Or perhaps, his conscience nagged him, perhaps they were too worried about the
people
in the burning building to care about something peculiar but obviously not human falling from the third-floor window.

“Are there still people in there?”

“Probably,” Dew said. “I didn’t get anybody out before Dawsey ran.”

Zimmer didn’t nod, didn’t acknowledge Dew’s comment. He stepped toward the building, directing other cops inside, shouting orders to the first cops emerging from the building escorting confused and scared residents.

The biosuited soldiers were already dousing the pieces and scooping up what bits they could. Dew watched the last of them hop into the vans. Everyone was loaded up except for Clarence Otto and Margaret Montoya. She stared at the building, a blank look on her face. Otto stood by her side, waiting for Dew’s next command.

Dew pointed his finger south, in the direction of the hospital. Otto put his arm around Margaret’s shoulder and quickly guided her to the van that held Dawsey. Dew closed the doors behind them. The vans quietly pulled away, avoiding the confused rush of policemen, then sped out of the parking lot.

Somewhere in the distance, Dew heard the faint approach of sirens: ambulances, the fire department. He looked up at the third floor one last time—the window was all but obscured by the raging fire, flames shooting up at least twenty feet into the sky. There wouldn’t be anything left in that apartment.

Amid the shouting chaos, Dew calmly walked to his Buick. He shut himself inside the Buick and stared at Dawsey’s singed map, at the strange symbol so neatly drawn there. The symbol matched the one carved into Dawsey’s arm. The words
This is the place
neatly written in blue ink. It wasn’t the same hand that had scrawled
This is the place
on the map in Dawsey’s apartment. This writing was clean, measured.

The writing of a woman.

“Fuck me,” Dew whispered. Dawsey hadn’t run randomly at all—there had been another infected victim in that apartment, a victim that was likely still in the apartment and burning to a crisp. She’d sheltered Dawsey; they were working together.

It was very possible they knew each other before the infection. They lived in the same complex, after all. But if they
hadn’t
known each other before contracting the triangles, then that meant victims could somehow identify each other, help each other.

And, more important, if they hadn’t known each other, it was possible they had independently decided that Wahjamega was the place to be. And if that was the case, then the only possible conclusion was that they wanted to go there because of the infection.

Or, possibly, the
infection
wanted to go there.

Margaret’s words replayed in his head:
They’re building something,
she’d said.

Dew thought back to the burning creature that had fallen from the third-story window, then scrambled for his big cellular.

Murray answered on the first ring. “Did you get him?”

“We got him,” Dew said. “Alive, exactly the way you wanted him. The stakes just went up. Listen and listen good, L.T. I need men in Wahjamega, Michigan, and I need them now. And none of those ATF or CIA commando wannabes. Make it marines or Green Berets or fucking Navy SEALs, but get me men, at least a platoon and then a division, as fast as they can get there. Full combat gear. Fire support, too. Artillery, tanks, the whole works. And choppers, lots of choppers.”