Pandemic

  @LongIslandIcy-T:

  If anyone gets this, we’re trapped on roof at W139th & Amsterdam. Cops aren’t responding to 911. This guy is trying to kill us! Please send help!

  @AlabamaCramma:

  Explosions in downtown MLPS. News coverage spotty, says 30-40 dead, many more injured.

  @Boston_Police:

  Emergency notice: 24-hour curfew in effect. Stay in your homes. Do not let anyone in. Do not go into public areas. Do not approach police officers.

  @WhiteSoxChum:

  Where the FUCK is the nat guard? Riot in street. I see dead bodies. Where are the cops? This is insane.

  @BACOemergency:

  Power is out throughout Baltimore. No ETA on recovery. Conserve cell phone power. Fill all available pots with water. Do not drink tap water after 5pm.

  THE CITY OF LIGHTS

  Murray watched it unfold on the Situation Room’s big monitor. The estimates were changing: some for the better, some for anything but:

  IMMUNIZED: 43%

  NOT IMMUNIZED: 50%

  UNKNOWN: 7%

  FINISHED DOSES EN ROUTE: 70,115,000

  DOSES IN PRODUCTION: 58,653,000

  And, at the bottom:

  INFECTED: 976,500 (1,800,000)

  CONVERTED: 250,250 (187,000)

  DEATHS: 13,457 (30,000)

  They’d added parentheses to the bottom numbers, representing global totals. The outbreaks of America and England were already producing cataclysmic numbers. China remained silent; that nation’s numbers could only be estimated based on limited satellite data and the stories of the refugees trickling into Myanmar and Vietnam. No refugees were hitting Japan, however — the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force sank anything that came near the coast. Murray didn’t know if those casualties were counted in the tally.

  As for France, well … the number of deaths in parentheses would need to be updated.

  Paris burned.

  The screens showed different angles of a city ablaze. Fire raged, consuming buildings both classic and new. The dancing orange demons cast tall, flickering spires up to the night sky, spewing pillars of smoke into the blackness above.

  Motherfucking Paris.

  Some of the shots were from helicopters, some from the ground well outside the city proper, and two came from satellites. The scenes reminded Murray of watching the shock and awe of Desert Storm, but it was even worse than that — this level of destruction hadn’t been seen since World War II, since Dresden: he was watching a firestorm.

  The unthinkable scenario had begun just a few hours earlier. There was no chance of controlling it. The French government had stopped giving death toll updates. The president, his cabinet, and much of the legislature had fled the city, hoping to set up somewhere else, to maintain government, to keep the head attached to the snake. Everyone who could get out of Paris probably already had.

  Those who remained in the city were either dead or about to die. Black, white, Arab. Native sons and daughters. Immigrants. Today there was no confusion about French identity — burned bodies all look the same.

  “This can’t be happening,” André Vogel said. When China shut off communications, Vogel’s veneer of confidence had shattered and hadn’t returned. “The fire crews … where are the fire crews?”

  “They’re dead.”

  All eyes turned to Pierce Fallon, the director of national intelligence. Fallon always had a seat at the table — he just didn’t say much unless he was asked, or unless he knew exactly what was happening. He was as unassuming as he was quiet, the kind of man who could effortlessly fade into the background.

  “Those flames will rage until there’s nothing left to burn,” Fallon said. “We have multiple reports of firehouses being attacked at noon, Paris time. Assault and murder of fire department personnel, destruction of vehicles and equipment, fires set to the stations themselves. This drew an immediate police response, but armed gangs were waiting to ambush the police.”

  He paused as something exploded on-screen. Another building collapsed.

  “At twelve-thirty P.M., Paris time, there were reports of attacks on petrol stations, stores, anything that would burn fast and spread the fire to neighboring buildings,” Fallon said. “With the city’s fire response crippled, the results” — he gestured to the screen, where the Eiffel Tower looked like a black spike jutting up from the flames of hell — “were quite predictable.”

  Blackmon looked shocked, a rare crack in her emotional armor. “You’re telling me this was a coordinated attack?”

  Fallon nodded. “No question, Madam President. We estimate about a thousand insurgents were involved.”

  A single word instantly changed the tone of the room: not infected, or converted, but insurgents — an organized force.

  “One thousand,” Blackmon said. Her shoulders drooped. “The city stood for centuries. Just one thousand people destroyed it.”

  Murray’s soul sagged with the hopelessness of it all. No invading force. No trained army. Paris had been destroyed by people who knew the city’s streets, the routes, knew how the police acted, knew where all the fire stations were — Paris had been destroyed by Parisians.

  Blackmon turned to Murray. “A coordinated strategy,” she said. “Can that happen here?”

  Once again, he was out on a limb, giving his best guess at something not even the smartest people he’d ever met could understand.

  He gestured to the monitor. “Right now, we’re looking at a feed from CNN. The entire world is watching the same images we are. These Converted are obviously more organized than we’ve seen in the past. We have to assume some of them are watching this, and are seeing a strategy that works. If their goal is to destroy, now they know how.”

  Blackmon put her hands on her face, rubbed vigorously. She lowered them, blinked and raised her eyebrows.

  “Get the word out to law enforcement in the major cities — and especially Chicago, New York, the places most heavily infected — that they need to protect fire stations.”

  People started to talk, to protest, but the president held up her hands for silence.

  “I know every police force is already spread thin,” she said. “But if a city can’t fight fire, then we lose that city. Even if it’s a couple of cops in each firehouse, at least that gives us a chance.”

  She put her hands on the table, leaned heavily. She looked at the image of a burning Paris.

  “Not here,” she said. “Not on my watch.”

  THE COOK

  Cooper Mitchell awoke to darkness. Darkness, and the sound of a cough.

  A cough that wasn’t his — and wasn’t Sofia’s, either.

  He was on his back. He’d bunched up his coat as a pillow. Sofia lay next to him, her head on Jeff’s folded coat. Cooper could feel her breathing.

  The cough again … a man’s cough, coming from inside the dark room.

  Cooper had a moment of panic — where was the gun? His right hand slid out snake-strike fast, feeling for the weapon, found it almost immediately. He flexed his fingers on the pistol grip, then sat up.

  Another sound: a light snore. Like the cough, it came from the other side of the overturned table.

  Was it a man? Was it one of the yellow things?

  The conference room’s door remained closed; no light from the hall, just the red glow of the Exit sign.

  Cooper swallowed. He drummed up what courage remained in his quivering chest.

  He stood.

  The room lights flickered on, illuminated the familiar white-tableclothed tables, chairs, the dead man in the suit — and a new body. A man, facedown, wearing a cook’s uniform.

  The cook’s chest rose with a breath, then spasmed with another cough. Sleeping. Maybe he and Sofia could slip out of the room without waking him up.

  Cooper knelt back down. He slid the pistol’s barrel into the waist of his pants. He reached down slowly, then simultaneously slid his left hand behind Sofia’s head and cupped his right over her mouth.
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  She feels so hot …

  Her eyes opened wide. Her hands shot to his, grabbed and scratched. Her legs kicked and she let out a muffled scream. Cooper fell to the floor next to her, put his mouth to her ear, spoke so quietly his words were nothing but breaths.

  “It’s me, Cooper! Be quiet — one of them is in the room.”

  Sofia went rigid. Her unblinking eyes stared at him.

  She was burning up. A fever. Not as bad as Jeff’s had been in the boiler room, but still, a bad one.

  Cooper let go of her head. He helped her to her feet. She winced as she stood. He pointed to the man in the cook’s uniform.

  She leaned in close, spoke in a hissing whisper. “Is he asleep?”

  “I think so.”

  “Shoot him.”

  “What? No, we need to get out of here. If we shoot him, it’ll make noise, maybe bring others.”

  The sleeping man coughed again, this time much harder, the lung-ripping sound pulling his body into a fetal position.

  Cooper thought about throwing Sofia over his shoulder, making a run for the door. He thought about it a moment too long: the cook sat up.

  Cooper drew the pistol and pointed it at the man’s chest.

  Just shoot him, just shoot him now — but what if he’s not one of them?

  The man had reddish-brown spots all over his white uniform. Cooper knew those stains weren’t from preparing some dish in the kitchen.

  The man looked at the gun. Then at Cooper. Then at Sofia.

  “Are you guys friends?”

  That word again. Friends. When the bald man had thought Cooper was his friend, everything had been fine. Maybe Cooper could bullshit his way through this — maybe he wouldn’t have to murder this man.

  “We’re friends,” Cooper said. “We’re all friends here.”

  The man wiped his white sleeve across his nose; the fabric came away streaked with red. Sweat gleamed on the cook’s face and forehead. He sniffed deeply, the sound choked by snot clogging his sinuses.

  “I’m all stuffed up,” he said. “Can’t smell a thing. If you’re a friend, why you pointing that gun at me?”

  The man had obviously come in here looking for a place to sleep. He hadn’t bothered to look behind the tables — Cooper and Sofia had been lucky.

  “My name is Chavo,” the cook said. “What’s yours?”

  Chavo. Cooper hadn’t wanted to know the man’s name, hadn’t wanted to think about him as a person.

  “Don’t worry about our names,” Cooper said. “How long have you been in here?”

  Chavo shrugged. “Since sometime last night. We were taking care of business.” He smiled when he said it. Taking care of business meant killing people.

  He stuck out his tongue, showing the blue triangles that dotted the pink surface. The man’s smile widened as his tongue slid back into his mouth.

  “See? I can prove I’m a friend.”

  Cooper felt Sofia squeeze his arm.

  “Shoot this fucker,” she said.

  Chavo started coughing again, his fist at his mouth, his body nearly convulsing, yet his eyes never left Sofia.

  He pointed at her. “She’s not a friend.”

  The man lifted his right knee and planted his foot as if to stand.

  Cooper leveled the pistol at Chavo’s face.

  “Don’t you fucking move.”

  Sofia’s fingers dug into his left bicep, so hard they felt like dull metal needles that couldn’t quite penetrate the skin.

  “Shoot this fuck,” she said. “Waste him before he calls for help!”

  Her hands let go of his bicep; Cooper felt them grabbing for the gun.

  He used his free arm to keep her away. “Sofia, stop!”

  Chavo stood and ran for the door. His hands reached for the horizontal bar, hit it, knocked the door open.

  He made it one step out before the gun fired twice, bam-bam, the second shot surprising Cooper even more than the first.

  The man lurched forward, landed hard on his face and chest.

  Cooper felt stunned … he’d just shot a man in the back. He hadn’t thought, he’d just done it.

  Chavo wasn’t dead. His arms came up, hands pressed against the floor — he started to crawl. Two spots of red spread across the back of his white uniform.

  Cooper saw Chavo’s chest fill with a big breath, saw the man’s head tilt back …

  “Killlll them! They’re in here!”

  He shouldn’t be able to scream, I shot him in the back, he should be dead …

  Sofia yanked the gun from his hand.

  She limped toward the door, one hand pressed to her side, the other holding the pistol.

  Chavo crawled a little farther. His belly left smears of blood on the carpet.

  Sofia reached him. She put the gun to the back of his head and fired. Chavo’s face flopped onto the carpet. He stopped moving.

  Cooper ran to Sofia, stood next to her. Blood soaked into the carpet beneath Chavo’s face — or what was left of his face — a thick stain that slowly spread outward.

  Sofia sagged against Cooper, weakly held the gun up for him to take. “You’ve got five bullets left,” she said. “Try not to be … be such a pussy … okay?”

  She started to fall; he slid an arm around her waist, held her up. He could feel her heat even through her clothes. He had to get her to a hospital, find a doctor or something.

  Cooper took the gun from her hand. He stared down at the dead man.

  Then, he heard the roar.

  It was a sound both human and not, a sound that carried through the hall. It came from somewhere off to the right. Then, from the left, a man answering with a guttural shout.

  Cooper again looked at Chavo’s body. The blood streaks pointed back to the door, like an arrow that said the people you want to kill are in here.

  He pulled Sofia tighter. “Come on, we have to move.”

  She seemed to gather the last of her strength. She gently pushed away, stood on her own two feet. “Move where?”

  Where? Good question. Whatever was coming would check this room, check the nearby rooms as well. If he and Sofia were going to survive, they had to find something better … maybe find a car and get the hell out of Chicago, maybe reach the Mary Ellen.

  “Hold on a second,” he said, then ran back into the conference room and grabbed the two coats. He shrugged his on, offered Jeff’s to Sofia.

  “Outside,” he said. “We have to go outside.”

  Sofia rubbed her face. She nodded. “Well … shit. Had to happen sooner or later, I guess.”

  She put on Jeff’s coat. Cooper slid under her shoulder and helped her forward. He held the gun tight as the roars grew louder.

  SERMON ON THE MOUNT

  Steve Stanton stood tall, his hands resting lightly on the balcony’s marble railing. Wide stairwells descended on the left and the right, but his followers were packed in so tight Steve couldn’t see a single step. Below, a sea of reverent faces gazed up at him. Skylights above shone a pale yellow, letting in the scant late-morning sunlight that managed to penetrate the winter storm blowing outside.

  He was in the Art Institute of Chicago, a place dedicated to the beauty of the human race. With the help of the people packed in to hear him, to follow him, he would destroy that beauty, and that race as well. This place was a fitting cathedral for the newly born flock to hear his message.

  The Converted murmured in anticipation, in excitement. They waited for him to speak.

  Until just a few days ago, Steve hadn’t believed in a higher power. Now he knew one existed, and knew that this divine being had chosen him to lead — when God stands with you, no man can stand against you.

  The people on the stairs, the faces down below, they were all God’s children, but they were not all the same. Some had the mark of the triangle on foreheads or cheeks. Others of that type had no visible marks, because clothes hid their blessings.

  Even if the signs were hidden, Steve could jus
t look at a person and know their caste.

  Those marked with the triangles were hatchling hosts, walking incubators who were soon to give up their lives for the glory of God’s very first creation.

  Then there were the mothers- and fathers-to-be, people already swelling with God’s love. Soon they would be moved away from the city center to areas where humans huddled in offices and stores and apartment buildings. When these parents blossomed, the winter wind would carry spores to places that the Chosen could not reach.

  The triangle-tongues made up the main body of Steve’s growing army. Stable and reliable, but also vicious, hungry and smart. Not as intelligent as he was, of course, but capable of thinking for themselves, able to follow orders to the letter or problem-solve when those orders no longer made any sense.

  A scant few of the faces below belonged to leaders, people closer to Steve’s own intelligence. Like him, these individuals showed no outward sign of any kind. Yet, they had something inside of them, something that called to the other castes, made the hatchling hosts and triangle-tongues and parents-to-be want to follow, made them need to please and obey.

  And God’s final creation: the bulls. Steve didn’t know who had first used that nickname, but it fit perfectly. Something to do with local sports teams, apparently. There were very few bulls so far; many had perished during the conversion process, either in their cocoons or shortly after hatching. Whole-scale restructuring of the human body carried a high risk of failure.

  Steve had ordered his few “finished” bulls to stay out of sight for now. Bulls were harder to control. They were more violent than even the triangle-tongues. The last thing Steve needed was fighting among the people.

  Soon, however, he’d let his bulls run.

  All of these castes would do anything he said. They would obey. They would kill. If he asked them to, they would die.

  He raised his hands; they fell silent.

  “My friends,” he said. “This is the start of something wonderful.”

  His words echoed slightly off the stone walls, making him feel far more grand, far more powerful. His speech carried the will of God.