He didn’t.
It wasn’t a matter of mercy, even now.
He tapped his earbud. “Converge on me. I need a spit hood and flex cuffs.”
The man crawled like an arthritic toward Sam, and as he did so he uttered a low, terrible moan. Was it hunger? Or was it something else? Sam thought he could hear desperation in that moan. Like a person trapped in a burning building.
The rest of the Boy Scouts swarmed in, coming at the infected man from four points. Moonshiner, the biggest of the team, swept the man’s hands off the muddy ground and as the young man collapsed, the big man dropped his knee onto his back. He caught the back of the dead man’s neck and forced the pale face into the mud, keeping it there despite all of the struggling. Sam observed those struggles. There was no art to them, no plan. It was pure reaction.
Gypsy pulled a spit hood over the man’s head and the others bound his wrists with plastic flexcuffs.
“What do we do with him?” asked Gypsy. “Leave him here?”
“Pop him,” suggested Moonshiner.
“No,” Boxer said quickly. “What if the doctors can do something for him?”
Shortstop shook his head. “Intel I read says that this disease is a one-way ticket. No one comes back.”
“That’s theory,” insisted Boxer. “We don’t know that. It’s not like this thing’s ever been field tested.”
Moonshiner made a dismissive sound. “Kid, look at this fucker. He’s cold. I’ll bet his body temp is already down five, six degrees. Take his pulse if you want to. Check for pupillary dilation. Do whatever you need to do, but he’s not sick, Boxer, he’s dead.”
But Boxer shook his head. “Seen a lot of dead, man, and he doesn’t look dead to me.”
“Okay, then deadish. Deadlike. Pick whatever word you want to use. Make something up. Point is, this stuff’s already eating his brain. What do you think the docs could do for him? Build him a cage with an exercise wheel?”
“It’s not—”
“No,” said Sam, cutting him off, “it’s not fair and it’s not right and it’s damn well not normal. But it is what’s happening. The assholes who invented this took the concept of death and broke it. Doesn’t mean what it used to and we have to accept that. No matter how it looks, this man is dead. He’s also infected and dangerous.”
“Okay,” said Gypsy, “so what’s the call?”
“We have a to-do list and one item on it is to determine if all of the infected are at the same level of coordination, aggression, and mobile speed.”
“We saw some variety right here,” said Gypsy. “All three of these cats were different.”
“Yeah,” agreed Shortstop, “but why?”
“I’ll take all theories,” said Sam.
They thought about it as they watched the bound infected struggle.
“Damage,” said Moonshiner after a few moments. “That could be some of it. Head trauma, joint damage, even other infected gnawing on their tendons.”
“Jesus,” breathed Boxer.
“It makes sense,” insisted Moonshiner. “They’re all injured, right? So, think about any group of ordinary people who are injured in a battle or an explosion. You get all kinds of different mobility.”
“Makes sense,” agreed Gypsy. “These are all going to be walking wounded.”
“That covers coordination,” said Sam. “What about speed?”
Boxer said, “Maybe … rigor mortis?”
They looked at him.
“C’mon,” he said, “think about it. If these things are really supposed to be dead, and only some of them are functioning because of those parasites, then wouldn’t the rest of them do what pretty much all dead bodies do?”
Gypsy glanced around. “How fast does rigor set in? Three to four hours, something like that? Up to that point the infected—actually, can we call them zombies? Infected makes them seem like sick people.”
“And what?” asked Shortstop. “‘Zombies’ is easier?”
She shrugged. “It’s not as real.”
They all got that. Everyone nodded.
“So, these zombies start stiffening up within a couple of hours, so that’ll account for different rates of movement right there. Freshies move more like real people, stiffies kind of stagger, like we saw on the video feeds we watched.”
Shortstop nodded. “Rigor hits maximum stiffness in something like ten, twelve hours, right? Makes me wonder if there are any zombies out there who can’t move at all. Or can’t move worth a damn. Standing there, or maybe lying in a field somewhere ’cause they can’t move.”
“Okay,” said Boxer, playing devil’s advocate, “but nobody’s reported a bunch of human scarecrows. These things are walking.”
“But not well,” observed Shortstop. “General Zetter’s report talked about a lot of the infected moving in a slow, shuffling manner. I think that’s full rigor right there.”
“What about when the rigor wears off,” asked Boxer. “It does that. Wears off.”
“Sure, but in like four, five days after death,” said Gypsy.
“Even so, how will they be able to move then? Will they get fast again?”
Sam said, “We don’t know. There hasn’t been that much time yet. The first infection was early yesterday, so we’re not even one full day into this thing.”
The bounded infected continued to struggle.
“So…” drawled Shortstop, “what do we do with Sparky here? Do we take him back so they can study him? Is that what they want?”
“No,” said Sam. “The Guard can get as many samples as they want. We’re on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary. And yes, I realize how that just sounded. Zombies and all.”
Everyone grinned at him.
“Point is that if we go on the basis that there are zombies and that a combination of injuries and the onset of rigor will explain most of how they walk and act, then what we look for is something that doesn’t fit that model. A mutation, maybe.”
“Why?” asked Moonshiner.
“Because we’re hoping this disease isn’t as perfect as everyone thinks it is,” said Sam. When the others looked blank, he explained. “A mutation, should one even exist, is more likely to tell the scientists something about the stability of Dr. Volker’s variation of the Lucifer plague. If mutations are possible and—better yet—reproducible, then that opens a door for introducing other mutations that could disrupt the function of the parasite.”
Boxer said, “Wow, I actually understood that.”
They stood for a moment longer, all of them in a loose circle around the writhing dead man.
“Again,” said Shortstop, “what do we do with Sparky here? Strap him to the hood like a six-point buck?”
“No,” said Sam. “We leave him.”
“Like that?” asked Boxer, pointing to the cuffs and spit hood. “It doesn’t seem right.”
Gypsy shrugged. “It’s not like he’s suffering, man.”
Moonshiner leaned close and whispered, “He’s dead, Jim.”
Boxer shoved him away. “Yeah, yeah, very funny.”
“Leave him,” repeated Sam.
Nobody moved, though. They glanced around, at the rainswept road, at the body that lay struggling at their feet, and back the way they’d come.
“Boss,” said Shortstop, “if these three kept walking down the road they’d have come right up to the checkpoint we passed.”
“Uh huh,” agreed Sam.
“Three of these fuckers against those two kids back there?”
“Uh huh.”
“You think those kids would have stopped them?”
“What do you think?” Sam said, making it an open question.
They looked down at the infected. The man continued to writhe and fight against the restraints. His jaws snapped at the material of the spit hood. Gypsy made a disgusted noise. Moonshiner’s grunt was dismissive. But it was Shortstop who answered the question.
“Not a chance in hell, boss,” he sa
id. “Not one chance in hell.”
Together the Boy Scouts walked up the slope to the Humvee. The big Browning .50 mounted on the roof looked ominous. Waiting.
Hungry.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
STEBBINS LITTLE SCHOOL
STEBBINS, PENNSYLVANIA
“Ground-floor windows are a priority,” said Dez.
“All of the windows are security glass,” said Mrs. Madison, “with wire mesh in each pane.”
“Won’t stop a bullet,” said a farmer.
“So we block the windows,” said Dez. “Look, this school is built like a blockhouse. There aren’t all that many windows anyway, not on the first floor.”
“Twenty-two,” said Mrs. Madison, and Trout felt like kicking her.
“Twenty-two, okay,” conceded Dez. “So we lock them and cover them with paper or cloth so no one can see in. Then we stack stuff in front of them. Cans with marbles or pieces of metal, anything that will make a lot of noise if the window is forced. We’ll post people in the halls and if anyone hears those cans falling over then they shout out and we all come running.”
Several people nodded, and Trout felt the first splinter of encouragement.
“All of the classroom doors open out,” said Jenny DeGroot. “We can get benches from the gym or other stuff and put them in the halls. If we hear someone breaking in, we can wedge the benches crossways so the doors won’t open out.”
“Great idea,” said Dez, jumping on it.
And suddenly everyone was throwing ideas out. Some were poorly thought out, just things to say from people who needed to be part of a solution—any kind of solution; but there were some good ones, too.
“There are tools and hammers and nails and all that stuff in the janitor’s office,” said one of the teachers.
Someone cleared their throat loudly and the crowd turned toward one of the farmers, a young man with old eyes. Trout fished for his name. Uriah Piper.
Piper shook his head and said, “There’s a better way to secure the doors.”
“Okay, Uriah,” said Dez, “what have you got?”
“Well, first,” he said, speaking in the slow way some farmers do, “we don’t need every door to even open. Once we secure the windows, we can seal off a bunch of the rooms. We can set those noise-making cans you mentioned, but otherwise make sure those doors won’t even open.”
“How?”
“Easiest and fastest way would be to nail a piece of wood along the bottom of the door. Nail it, or better yet, screw it right into the floor, and position it so that it also attaches to the wall right there at the bottom, and maybe again at the top. Or we could erect a brace at an angle to the floor and toe-nail it in, then nail another piece to the floor behind that. Take a battering ram to open a door like that, and even then it wouldn’t be easy. You’d have to tear the whole door apart to get through, and I don’t think even soldiers can do that without us knowing about it.”
“Are you a carpenter?” asked Clark, one of the teachers, his tone filled with skepticism.
“No, sir, I’m a dairy farmer, as I believe you know.”
“Then how do you know that will work?”
Piper gave him a small, cool half-smile. “You live in farm country, Mr. Clark. How do you not know that would work?”
That coaxed a few chuckles from the crowd.
“Okay, okay, you’re right,” interrupted Dez, clapping Piper on the shoulder. “It’ll work and it conserves our supplies. Uriah, you’re in charge of securing the doors and windows. Everyone else helps you. Set up work parties and get going.”
She glanced around, saw some nods, a few blank stares, and Clark’s doubt-filled scowl. Dez locked her eyes on him.
“We’re not going to have a problem, are we?” she asked.
Trout wondered how long Clark could meet that uncompromising blue-eyed stare. As it turns out, the teacher lowered his eyes after maybe a full second. Trout was pleased that Dez wasn’t so small that she nodded to herself to acknowledge the victory. Clark wasn’t a bad guy or an asshole. He was scared and confused and defiance or resistance was probably the only way he knew to try and find solid ground or a scrap of personal power. Dez apparently knew that, too.
“Okay, then let’s get started,” said Dez. “I want this all done an hour ago.”
The group started to break up, but then Gerry Dunphries, the man who’d sung the fractured lullaby, grabbed Dez’s arm. “Wait, wait, hold on, let’s not go crazy here.”
Everyone paused, looking at him. His eyes were wide and wild and Trout was sure the man was a very short step away from screaming.
“Hold on for what, Gerry?” asked Dez.
“We’re acting like this is all really happening,” he said. “And it’s not. It can’t be. None of this is really happening. I mean, come on, people going crazy and … eating each other. That’s not happening. That’s not what’s really going on.”
Mrs. Madison took a step toward him and in a gentle voice asked, “Well, Mr. Dunphries, what do you think is happening?”
“It’s something in the water,” he said. “I mean, that’s obvious, isn’t it? It’s happened before. Like when they put LSD in the New York subways. They did that at the Chelsea Hotel, too. And in France back in the 1950s, the CIA did it in France, they put psychedelic mold in bread and freaked all those people. It was in, in, wait a minute, in … yes, in Pont-Saint-Esprit. And remember what Jim Jones did at Jonestown with the Kool-Aid. That’s what this really is. They’re doing something to us. They’re messing with our brain chemistry. This isn’t really happening. It’s something in the water. Maybe they seeded the clouds and that’s why it started happening when it started raining. Nobody’s really killing each other. My wife didn’t kill anyone. My kids are fine. Tracy and Sophie are just fine, and don’t you dare try and tell me different. They’re fine, but they’re probably freaking out, too, and we have to get out of here, not lock ourselves up. We have to get out and—”
And Dez Fox spun him around and slapped him across the face.
It was, after all, what you do with hysterical people. Trout had seen it a thousand times in movies and on TV. You slap the crazy out of them and knock some sense into them with a big opened-hand wallop across the chops.
The sound was as loud as a gunshot. Gerry Dunphries spun in nearly a full circle and caromed into Clark, who tried to catch him and failed. Gerry crashed to the floor, his face blossoming with a bright red handprint.
Dez loomed over him, hand raised for a second blow, her mouth starting to form words that Trout knew would be some variation of the “cowboy up” speech.
But Gerry screamed.
He scuttled away from her, tears breaking from his eyes, his mouth trembling as terrified sobs tore their way out him. He crawled all the way to the wall and huddled there, hunched and cowering, arms raised against the next blow. Against the next inevitable hurt.
The moment ground to a halt.
Everyone froze into a tableau that came close to breaking Trout’s heart. Dez was caught in a role for which she was totally ill-suited—that of a bully terrorizing a helpless person. The other people looked shocked but there was guilt there, too; everyone was complicit in this moment. If the slap had worked—and Trout doubted that it ever did outside of Hollywood or a bad novel—then they would have tacitly supported what Dez did. Instead they were bystanders to injury and there was no way to step back onto the ledge.
“I…” began Dez, but even that small a thing, a single tentative word, made Gerry flinch again. He buried his head under his arms and wept brokenly. Dez turned right and left as if looking for the doorway back to a minute ago. She spotted Trout. “Billy, I…”
Trout moved past her and knelt in front of Gerry, who instantly shied away. But Trout made very soft, very slow shushing sounds. He sat down on the floor next to Gerry, wrapped his arms around the man, and pulled him close, rocking him the way the man had rocked the little girl. Trout fought to find the words of that o
ld nursery rhyme. Found some of it. Sang it quietly, leaning over Gerry to comfort the man with the warmth of another body.
“Come along,” said Mrs. Madison in a hushed voice. “We have work to do.”
One by one everyone left until only Dez lingered, looking wretched and guilty and confused. Trout met her eyes. He gave her as much of a smile as he could muster, then a small nod. He mouthed the words “It’s okay.”
Near to breaking herself, Dez Fox backed away until she reached the far end of the gymnasium, then she turned and fled.
“It’s okay, Gerry,” Trout said to the sobbing man. “It’s all going to be okay,” he lied.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
THE OVAL OFFICE
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Scott Blair had a hard time keeping himself from committing a federal crime. He wanted to punch the president in the mouth.
No, he wanted to do more than that. He wanted to beat some sense into the man.
“Mr. President,” he said with as much control as he had left, “the intelligence we are getting from Captain Imura clearly contradicts the reports being filed by General Zetter. The situation in Stebbins is far from stable and—”
“And we have ten thousand additional troops inbound,” said the president. “We have another five on standby. The NBACC field team has arrived and they are making their assessment and, frankly Scott, I think they are in a better position to assess this kind of threat than a former special operator.”
“I couldn’t disagree more strongly,” insisted Blair. “Sam Imura is one of the most experienced people we have, with the except of Captain Ledger who is, unfortunately, out of country and out of reach.”
“Captain Imura is retired from active field work,” said Sylvia Ruddy. “He’s been out of the field, in fact, for years.”
“So what? I’d still trust his judgment more than anyone else on the ground in Pennsylvania.”
“That’s not your call to make,” said Ruddy.
Blair stiffened. “Mr. President, may I speak with you privately?”
The president scowled. “All right, that’s enough. I don’t want you two throwing rocks. This isn’t the time or place.”