Infected (49 page)

It was at least eight feet tall, an L-shaped, segmented red body covered in a strange green iridescent shell that must have been armor. Six thick, multijointed legs on the ground and four strong arms clutching what looked like a weapon. What might have been its head was covered with a helmet made from the same iridescent green material, a helmet that had no holes for eyes or mouth.

And there were
millions
right behind it, waiting to pour out.

It was the only look he got. The first creature stepped out of the arch—the impossible became a reality as the foot set down on the forest floor. Like watching in slow motion, Dew saw the clawed foot step on a twig.

The twig snapped.

Then the sky opened up.

Sixteen missiles smacked home in the span of three seconds. The roar of a dying god, a fireball so huge and violent it knocked small trees right out of the ground, roots and all. The concussion wave picked Dew up and threw him like a straw doll. Soldiers fell all around him. He hit the frozen ground hard but ignored the pain and rolled to his knees.

The fireball rose into the sky, lighting up the forest with the glow of a late-evening sun. A chunk of arch rose majestically into the air, spinning wildly, one end trailing fire and sparks. Two of the arches were completely gone, one stood tall, and one was shattered but half standing, sticking out of the ground like a cracked and broken rib.

A fusillade of Apache chain-gun fire ripped through the site, each thirty-millimeter bullet kicking up a small geyser of mud. The broken arch, the one that looked like a rib, fell to the ground and shattered into a dozen pieces.

Dew stared desperately through the binoculars. Were they gone? Had the missiles hit in time? He cursed the smoke as he hunted for movement, the movement of a million creatures spreading out through the trees, attacking.

The whistling roar of another missile barrage filled the air. Dew looked up in time to see eight more glowing smoke trails streaking toward the archway like striking ethereal snakes. The missiles slammed home, sending up another roaring fireball. Dew threw himself facedown on the ground as clods of dirt, sticks, and maybe even green strands sailed overhead with lethal speed.

And then it was over.

The last fireball floated up into the sky like a miniature dying sun. In a zombielike daze, Dew stood and moved forward.

The green light
had vanished. Someone had shut that door, and shut it with
authority
. Daddy was gone as well, this time for good; he somehow knew that for certain.

Perry’s eyes fluttered open. For the first time in a week, his thoughts were his own. The pain was gone, but he knew that was because of drugs. Pain is the body’s way of letting you know something’s wrong; but he was more in tune with his body now, and he didn’t need the pain to tell him he was in trouble.

The voices were gone, but the echoes of some fifty screams remained. The hive at Wahjamega had been wiped out. He felt their absence. Like a fever finally breaking, their destruction released him from the madness. Some of it, anyway.

He weakly turned his head enough to see the biosuit-clad men on either side of his bed. He was tied down, couldn’t move his arms. The room was all white. Wires seemed to run off his body in every direction. A hospital. A
hospital
. He’d done it, he’d won.

A voice came over a loudspeaker.

“Mr. Dawsey, can you hear me?”

Perry nodded, slowly and dreamily.

“My name is Margaret Montoya,” the voice said. “I’m in charge of your recovery.”

Perry smiled. Like anyone could “recover” from what he’d been through.

“It’s over, Mr. Dawsey,” Margaret said. “You can rest now, it’s all over.”

Perry laughed out loud. The drugs weren’t all that, apparently, as the laugh brought a stab of pain from deep within his right shoulder.

“Over?” he said. “No. Not over.”

It wasn’t over, babycakes, not by a long shot. Not a fucking Howdy Doody chance of that. The Wahjamega nest was gone, but they weren’t
all
gone.

Somehow he could still
sense
them. He could hear their calls, their signal to gather, to
build
. Far away and faint, but he could still sense it.

It was only beginning.

No bout-a-doubt it.

Blackened tree trunks
burned in the aftermath, their branches ripped free by the force of the blast. The two proud oaks were devastated: one was completely aflame, its remaining branches a crown of fire reaching into the night sky; the other was split in two, white wood exposed to the winter cold.

Chunks of the green strands littered the ground, most burning fast with a sparking, bluish flame. A few soldiers appeared, walking slowly through the lifting smoke, their M4 rifles sweeping in continuous, cautious arcs. The moans of wounded men filtered through the air, mingling with the sound of crackling fires.

Fighting back the fear, Dew walked to the area where the archway had stood. There was no sign of the creatures, no sign of the green glow that had stretched outward into infinity.

Ogden approached him, moving through the smoke, his demeanor as calm as if he were strolling through his own backyard. He held the handset to his ear, the radioman following him like a lonely puppy.

“We count fifty-six hatchlings,” Ogden said. “All dead. Some may have gotten through when we were overrun, but the rear guards didn’t see any, so it looks like we got them all.”

“Fifty-six,” Dew mumbled.

“We lost eight men,” Ogden said. “Six from the hatchling attack, two from shrapnel caused by the rocket strike. Another twelve wounded, maybe more.”

“Fifty-six,” Dew said again, his voice distant and strange.

“I’m going to check on the wounded. I’m ordering the Apaches back a half mile and calling in evac for the more seriously wounded.”

“Fine,” Dew said. “That’s fine.”

Ogden strode off, calling out orders in his calm, commanding voice, leaving Dew alone in the center of the obliterated archway.

Dew stared at the carnage, at the dwindling flames, and shook his head.

If there were that many here, how many more are out there? How many more hatchlings on the way, waiting to build another one of these doorways?

Dew didn’t know the answer. For the first time, Malcolm’s death seemed insignificant, a small loss in comparison to the massive threat looming on the horizon. He was exhausted. Too much action for an old fart.

And there would be no rest, not for a long time.

Not for him.

Not for anyone.

For every good thing I’ve ever done, every last success, I can look back and see exactly where my parents taught me that behavior or instilled the motivation that made it possible. All the stupid crap I’ve pulled, well, somehow I managed to figure that out myself.

My father was my high school football coach. He watched his 120-pound son get the crap knocked out of him every day in practice by kids who were a lot bigger, a lot faster and a lot stronger. In a game of strength and speed, I was small
and
slow—physics was not my buddy. Because I was his son, he couldn’t say anything or show any special treatment.

He never tried to paint a happy face on things. He’d just say, “work hard and good things will come.” I believed him. I learned how to get up and come back for more, no matter how many times I got hit. I learned to love being a stubborn little bastard who no one could keep down.

The result of my father’s influence is the novel you hold in your hands. I’ve made it into publication after fifteen years of writing failures and well over one hundred rejections. You have to
believe
in hard work and be a stubborn little bastard, you see, to keep getting up after that many hits. For that, I say “thank you, Coach.”

My mother was a teacher who had to deal with a very,
very
hyper little boy. When the doctors prescribed Ritalin, she told them to go screw (in that nice way mothers have of telling you to go screw so that it actually sounds like a good idea). She would not medicate me into submission. She constantly supported my imagination, from my stories and drawings to the countless weekends I spent geeking out with friends and immersed in role-playing games.

She took me to the bookstore every week and bought me whatever I wanted, sometimes four or five books at a time. She took me to the library, where we’d both check out an armful of novels. I consumed books like they were Pez. No reading lists, no “Honey, put down that silly science fiction” as long as my nose was in a book, she didn’t care what it was. She cultivated a love for words and for stories that will never go away. My mother is the catalyst for the creativity and energy you find within these pages. Class, say “thank you, Mrs. Sigler.”

Thanks also go to Jeremy “Xenophanes” Ellis, who made the hard science in this book accessible, entertaining and accurate.

To Major Thomas Austin, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Sergeant Donald Woolridge, U.S. Army, who took the time to make sure my military facts accurately reflected the brave men and women who are the very reason I have a country to love in the first place.

To Julian Pavia and all those crazy kids at Crown Publishing for getting behind this, working their tails off and believing in the power of the Junkies.

To Byrd Leavell for taking things to the next stage.

To all of my friends in the podcasting and blogging community. You are too numerous to mention here, and if I leave someone out, the link-bait would prove most abusive.

And, most important of all, to my wife, Jody, for putting up with a very,
very
hyperactive husband and being the first victim to suffer through the rough draft of this book. You have given up far too much while I pursued this obsession, and I can’t thank you enough.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2008 by Scott Sigler

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

CROWN is a trademark and the Crown colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

Originally released in slightly different form as a podcast in 2006.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Alfred Publishing Co., Inc. for permission to reprint an excerpt from “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” words and music by Cole Porter, copyright © 1936 by Cole Porter, copyright renewed and assigned to Robert H. Montgomery, trustee of the Cole Porter Musical & Literary Property Trusts Chappell & Co., owner of publication and allied rights throughout the world. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Alfred Publishing Co., Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sigler, Scott.

Infected : a novel / Scott Sigler.—1st ed.

p. cm.

1. Title.
PS3619.14725464 2008
813’.6—dc22                                2007041037

eISBN: 978-0-307-40917-1

v1.0