Contagious

FUN WITH SNOWMOBILES

The Jewell family reunion was turning out to be a smashing success, and Donald Jewell couldn’t have been happier.

Granted, there weren’t that many Jewells left.

Ma and Pa Jewell had gone to that big snowmobile trail in the sky. Ma five years ago, Pa less than six months later. They left behind their three children: Mary, Bobby and Donald.

Mary Jewell-Slater now lived in London with her husband. She couldn’t exactly fly overseas to see the family every Christmas. She called.

That was enough.

Bobby Jewell now lived in Ma and Pa’s house. He’d married his college sweetie, Candice, and promptly kicked out a bundle of joy named Chelsea, a curly blonde seven years old and worldly-wise.

Donald, the eldest member of clan Jewell, had divorced his bitch of a wife, Hannah, four years earlier. Hannah won custody of Betty, then twelve, now sixteen and hotter than a five-dollar pistol. Hannah moved from their home in Gaylord, Michigan, to Atlanta, taking Betty far away from her family. The divorce stipulated that Donald got Betty for every other holiday. So the first Christmas with Hannah, then Donald and so on.

This was his second Christmas as a divorced father.

Donald—now living in Pittsburgh—talked to his daughter at least every other day on the phone. They also chatted on webcam, emailed and even wrote some old-fashioned letters. They were as tight as a father and daughter separated by seven hundred miles can be.

Mostly from a distance, he’d watched his daughter grow from a gangly twelve-year-old into a stunning teenager who could have graced the cover of practically any magazine. She looked exactly like her mother, which annoyed Donald, because that made him hate Hannah just a little bit less.

He had thought he might be biased about his daughter’s looks, but when he showed pictures of her to his co-workers, their lewd hoots confirmed his fears. Those hoots had also, unfortunately, generated a couple of fights.

The same temper Hannah cited in the divorce papers hadn’t gone away.

His court-appointed psychologist called it “impulse-control problems.”

The shrink prescribed pills. Donald lied and said he took them. Everyone was happy.

His baby girl was growing up fast, and he didn’t want her to lose touch with her family. Thus the family reunion. A flight for Betty from Atlanta to Pittsburgh, then an eight-hour drive from Pittsburgh to Gaylord. Did they dread the drive? Nope, they got to talk the whole way up. Donald learned more about hot music, hot clothes, school gossip and backstabbing friends than he cared to, and he loved every minute of it.

Once she was back in Gaylord, the Southern Girl faded away and the Northern Girl came back to life. Betty hadn’t been on a snowmobile in two years, yet she hadn’t lost a step. In a white snowsuit on a blue snowmobile, she raced across an open field, with her father only fifty feet behind her and closing. Even over the roaring Arctic Cat engines and the whipping wind, Donald could hear her laughter. Let’s see Hannah compete with this. Bobby was at least a hundred yards back. He just didn’t have the aggression of Donald and, apparently, Betty.

Betty shouted something. Donald thought it was Try and catch me, old man, but he couldn’t be sure.

Bobby owned this whole area. Some places in the world, twenty acres was considered an “estate.” Near Gaylord, Michigan, twenty acres was just called “some land.” Mostly old cornfields, along with tall green pines, skeletal winter oaks and birch stands. Bobby lived smack in the middle of it all in total isolation—it took two minutes just to reach his house from the road.

Betty followed the trail into a left-hand bend that cut around a stand of pine trees. She slowed to start the turn, then gunned the engine, accelerating through the curve. She disappeared from sight for just a few seconds as Donald came around the curve behind her.

When he saw her again, he felt his nuts jump into his chest. Up ahead, the trail crossed a snow-covered road, and on that road was a brown and white Winnebago moving along at a good clip.

“Slow down, girl,” Donald hissed to himself. Betty couldn’t hear him or read his mind, obviously, because she poured on the speed. Donald tried to catch up and cut her off, but she had her throttle wide open.

The Winnebago started honking, but didn’t seem to slow. Betty apparently thought it would. Sick in his soul, Donald traced the two vehicles’ trajectories—she wouldn’t make it across in time.

Betty apparently saw the same thing. She locked up the brakes. The Cat’s back end fishtailed to the right, kicking up a wave of powder in front of it. The sled lost most of its speed but still tipped. Betty hopped off as the sled flopped onto its side and kept moving. She actually landed on her feet and slid for a few yards before she fell hard. The Cat skidded along the path for another ten feet, coming to rest right at the edge of the road.

The Winnebago roared by, trailing a cloud of powder. The big vehicle slowed down, working toward a full stop on the snowy road.

Donald skidded to a halt and hopped off his sled. Betty was already sitting up. Sitting up and laughing.

“Betty, are you all right?”

She took off her helmet, black hair spilling out across the shoulders of her white snowsuit. She laughed again, then winced.

“Owww,” she said through a grimacing smile. “Oh, Daddy, I think I hurt my boo-tay.”

He heard the Winnebago come to a stop and his brother’s sled approaching. Donald didn’t care about either; he was too angry.

“Betty Jean Jewell, what the hell were you doing?”

“Trying to beat you, of course,” Betty said. “If I could have made it in front of that RV, you would have had to pull off, and I’d win.”

“You idiot. You could have been killed.”

Betty waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, re-lax. You taught me how to dump a sled, Dad, I’m fine.”

“You’re not going on a snowmobile again, and that’s that.”

Betty’s smile faded. “Dad, seriously, I’m fine. I think you’re getting a little fired up here.”

He was losing his temper again, the same temper that had fucked up his entire life. He took a deep breath and started to get a hold of it.

And he would have succeeded, were it not for the driver of the Winnebago.

“You stupid little brat!” the man screamed. “What kind of a stupid fucking stunt was that?”

Donald looked up. The driver—a red-bearded fat man well past middle age—had gotten out of the Winnebago and walked over. He was only ten feet away. Donald’s temper shifted targets in an instant, fueled by the language directed against his daughter.

“Don’t you yell at her, Dale Junior, you’re the one tearing up the road.”

“I was going the speed limit, dipshit.”

“Daddy, please,” Betty said.

Donny didn’t hear her—he was already too far gone. “Dipshit? I’m a dipshit? You ever heard of a fucking brake pedal?”

Somewhere in the back of his head, Donald heard his brother’s snowmobile slow and stop.

The man pointed to the road. “You see the snow-covered pavement there, genius? You think you can stop a motor home on a dime on that?”

“Maybe you should take some driving lessons then, you prick. You could have killed my daughter.”

“I could have killed her?”

“That’s what I said, numb-nuts.”

“Donny, Mark, stop it!” Bobby yelled, but neither man was paying attention.

“Well,” the man said, “if you’re her father, maybe running her over wouldn’t be so bad for the gene pool.”

That tore it. Donald threw down his helmet and stormed forward.

And found himself looking down the barrel of a gun.

“Daddy!” Betty screamed.

“Just hold your horses, pal,” the bearded man said. “I don’t really care for a fistfight today.”

“Oh, wow,” Bobby said. “Uh, Mark, could you put that down?”

The man looked to his right but kept the gun leveled at Donald. “You know this douchebag, Bobby?”

Donald didn’t move.

“Uh… yeah,” Bobby said. “This is my brother, Donny. Uh… Donny, this is my neighbor, Mark Jenkins.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Donald said. He kept himself very still while he said it.

The bearded man looked from Bobby to Donald, then back to Bobby again.

“Oh,” the man said, and lowered the gun. “Well, sorry about that, then.”

A huge breath slid out of Donald’s lungs.

“Bobby, sorry about drawing on your brother, but he was coming at me.” He clicked the safety on and slid the pistol somewhere in his ample back waistband. They all stood there in silence for a moment.

“This is just a bit uncomfortable,” Betty said.

“So, Mark,” Bobby said. “How was your hunting trip?”

“Pulled an oh-fer,” Mark said. “Got all new rifles, and the deer just didn’t show up. This might not be a good time for small talk, though, Bobby. How about you and the family come over for dinner? Next week.”

“Will do, Mark,” Bobby said. “Be seein’ ya.”

Mark nodded, turned and walked back to his Winnebago. The Jewells watched him get in and drive off.

“That gun legal?” Donald asked.

Bobby shrugged. “Probably. You know as well as I do you don’t ask around here. He moved in last year. Has a bit of a thing for Candice.”

“No shit?”

“No shit,” Bobby said. “He’s fairly open about it. Normally that would chap my ass, but he can look all he wants. I don’t really make a big deal of it, for reasons I’m sure you can now appreciate.”

“Yeah,” Donald said. “I think I see where you’re coming from.”

“Gawd, Daddy,” Betty said. “You can be such an asshole. Can you please pick up my sled so I can go back to Uncle Bobby’s house and die of embarrassment?”

Donald did just that. She hopped on, then raced off down the trail. The Jewell brothers watched her go.

“She can really drive that thing,” Bobby said.

Donald nodded.

“Donny, I’m going to throw out a wild guess here. You haven’t been taking your meds, right?”

Donald shook his head.

“I figured as much,” Bobby said. “What I love about you is your consistency—you never learn. Come on, Candice is working on a big lunch, and my daughter the Blond Tornado wants to watch the Pistons with her Unkie Donny. Think you can manage that without trying to beat somebody up?”

“I can give it the old college try.”

They got on the sleds and headed back down the trail. Donald felt like a complete idiot, losing his temper like that in front of his daughter. What if the guy hadn’t been Bobby’s neighbor? What if he’d just been some jackass with a gun? Then Donald, and his daughter, could have been in real danger. Maybe he’d start taking those meds as soon as he got back to the house.

MOTEL-ROOM COFFEE

Dew sat in his motel room sipping a cup of motel-room coffee. He remembered when it was all fancy to have one of those little single-cup coffee machines in your room. Now they were everywhere, and they all skimped on the vitals—who the hell made coffee with only one creamer and one sugar?

Shitty as the coffee was, he needed that caffeine kick for this conversation. He held the coffee in one hand, his old bricklike secure satellite phone in the other.

“It was a bloodbath, Murray,” Dew said.

“You screwed the pooch this time, Top,” Murray said, using the shorthand for top sergeant, Dew’s rank back when they served together. Dew hated that phrase, and Murray knew it.

“You’ve put me up against it,” Murray said. “The new chief of staff is going to have my balls on a platter for this. I told them Dawsey was under control.”

“Yeah, well, that was a pretty stupid thing to do, L. T.” Murray’s old wartime shorthand for lieutenant annoyed him just as much as Top annoyed Dew.

“It’s not all bad,” Dew said. “At least Margaret has that test for the hosts. That’s a big step.”

“True, that will help some,” Murray said. “I don’t know if it’ll be enough—Vanessa Colburn has it in for me.”

“Something else might help, too,” Dew said. “After I sent my report, the guys found the daughter, Sara McMillian, in a shallow grave in the backyard. Killed by a hammer blow to the head. So it’s not like Dawsey was butchering innocents here.”

“Nice,” Murray said. “How’s the baby and the oldest son?”

“Baby is fine. No infection. Oldest son, Tad, he’s physically okay. Psychologically… well, turns out the father made Tad dig the grave for the sister.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“I shit you not,” Dew said. “That’s what the boy said. And he’s probably telling the truth, because his hands are all blistered. It’s pretty hard to dig through frozen ground. Hence the shallow part of the shallow grave.”

“Jesus. Well, I guess I can say Dawsey actually saved Tad while I’m at it. Less psycho, more brave hero.”

“Murray, listen. I’m thinking maybe it’s time we put Dawsey away.”

A pause. “Define put him away.”

“Not that kind,” Dew said. “A sanitarium or something. A supermax. Whatever.”

“Come on, Dew,” Murray said. “You know we can’t do that.”

“He attacked two agents.”

“Baumgartner has a broken nose and Milner has a black eye, for fuck’s sake,” Murray said. “They’ve probably got worse in a pickup basketball game.”

“Doesn’t matter. Assaulting an agent is a federal offense.”

“Oh, are you going to start obeying the letter of the law all the sudden?

Let’s make that happen, Top. Maybe you and I can share a cell and have some quality time together before they give us the chair.”

Dew said nothing.

“That’s what I thought,” Murray said. “You know what? The kid’s no different from us. He just doesn’t have a badge.”

That one hit home. Was Dew actually like Perry? Willing to do whatever it took to get the job done? No, they weren’t alike for one key reason Dew didn’t want to admit—he’d killed a lot more people than Dawsey had.

“He wrecked that car,” Dew said. “He wants another one.”

“So get him another one. It’s only taxpayer money. Enough bitching about this kid already. Dew, we need a live host.”

“Why the fuck do you think I’m bitching about him? How am I supposed to get a live host when Dawsey is running around killing them like a fucking wild animal?”

Murray was silent for a second. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Oh, Christ,” Dew said. “Are you firing up a rah-rah speech?”

“Just shut the fuck up and listen,” Murray said. “And that’s an order. Your job used to be getting men to follow you, because if they didn’t, they’d wind up dead, and you probably along with them. This isn’t any different. Find a way to get the job done. Do it in the parameters set before you. I don’t want to hear about your obstacles or any kind of pressure you’re under.”

“How about you see this shit firsthand and then you talk to me about pressure?” Dew said. “I’ll switch places with you in a heartbeat.”

“Vanessa Colburn would eat you alive,” Murray said. “You wouldn’t last five minutes here, just like I wouldn’t last five minutes there. What the fuck is wrong with you? You get your partner killed and you think you’re excused from finding a way to get the job done?”

Dew took a slow breath. “You’d best be real careful how you choose your words from here on out, L. T.”

“Oh, can the tough-guy drama,” Murray said. “Malcolm is dead, Dew. Deal with it. You want payback, right?”

“You’re goddamn right I do.” That was exactly what he wanted. More than anything else, save for a magic potion that would bring Malcolm back from the dead.

“Well, you’re the one that can make it happen,” Murray said. “You sure as hell aren’t on this job because of your good looks or your physical prowess. You’re old, you’ve got a gut, and you have a bad hip. You have only two things that make you worth a squirt of piss—you shoot when you’re told to shoot, and you figure things out. Get Dawsey to play ball, and get…me… a… live… host.”

Murray broke the connection.

Maybe he was an asshole, but that didn’t shake a nagging feeling that he was right.

“That’s why they give you the tough jobs, old boy,” Dew said to the empty room. “Because you can figure things out.”

So how the hell was he going to get through to Scary Perry Dawsey?

THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY

Sometimes having a black budget was fun.

Bob’s Breakfast Shack wasn’t a shack at all. It was actually part of the motel—a nice little greasy spoon with twenty tables, four of which were kind of off in their own room. For the small price of five Ben Franklin portraits, Dew’s people had the room to themselves.

Fuck it. It was only taxpayer money.

You could spend just so much time in the MargoMobile’s computer area. Buying out the diner’s back room let them talk openly. Dew sat at a table with Clarence Otto, Amos Braun and Margaret Montoya. Gitsh, Marcus, the black-eyed Milner and the nose-braced Baumgartner sat at another. Marcus was quietly whistling the melody from the Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun.”

Dew had sent the other men home last night after they secured the scene. They were local talent, which he used for muscle when he needed it—the tactic gave him just-in-case firepower yet cut down on people who knew the whole story.

Amos had the menu open in front of him. He could barely see over the top. Dew considered making a crack about a child seat, but he assumed Amos had heard that one a million times. They didn’t get to do this often, maybe two or three days a week. Dew not only looked forward to it, he found time to make it happen. The whole situation had grown so dark, so desperate, that they needed a release. Breakfast meetings provided a rare chance to do something normal, to laugh and joke, even if it was gallows humor most of the time.

“Okay, Margaret,” Dew said. “Give me the rundown on last night’s autopsies.”

She looked up from her menu. “What, here?”

“Yep, right here,” Dew said. “I’m pretty sure the Russkies haven’t bugged Bob’s Breakfast Shack.”

“Russkies?” Otto said. “Doesn’t that phrase show your age?”

“Actually, my uneducated friend,” Amos said, “Russkies is accurate, since we now have a country called Russia. Commies would be inaccurate, since it’s the USSR that’s no longer around.”

Otto frowned, then smiled. “Say, little white man, don’t you owe me twenty bucks?”

“Aw, crap,” Amos said. “That’s right.” He fished out his wallet and handed over a well-folded twenty.

“What’s that for?” Margaret asked.

Otto pocketed the twenty. “He bet that Dawsey would kill me last night.”

Margaret took in a gasp of astonishment. “Amos! You didn’t!”

“I paid him, didn’t I?”

She shook her head and scowled at both men. “Seriously. That’s not something to joke about.”

“If I don’t laugh, I’ll cry,” Otto said. “Or something like that. I won twenty bucks—what else matters?”

The waitress came to take their orders. They sat in silence until she’d worked the room and left.

“Okay,” Dew said. “Let’s get back on task here. First of all, Margo, congrats on developing that triangle test.”

Otto and Amos both applauded lightly.

Margaret blushed. “Oh, it’s a team effort.”

Amos laughed. “Give it a rest, Miss Modesty. It was all your idea, and it works.”

“What else did you find from the corpses?” Dew asked.

“Nothing completely new,” Margaret said. “Although we refined a lot of our knowledge. Amos and I got great pictures of the parasite’s nerve inter face, the best yet. Same thing for the circulatory tap. I think we’ve pretty much documented how the thing interacts with those systems, although the disturbing part is still the brain interaction. These parasites clearly know more about the inner workings of our brains than we do.”

“What about the vector?” Dew said.

She shook her head. “Still nothing. So much of that comes from interviewing disease victims, finding out what they ate, drank, where they went, who they touched, things like that. The only person who can talk about it won’t talk about it.”

“Goddamn Dawsey,” Dew said. “What about the number of hosts this time? There were three of them, and we had those three old ladies that Perry torched. Any significance to that number?”

“Probably not,” Amos said. “There’ve been cases with just one host, like Perry, or with two and even three. What’s more significant here is that this was one family, living under one roof, so they probably ate the same food, traveled in the same patterns. The three old ladies all lived at the same retirement home. They took walks together every day. That shows that whatever the vector is, it can hit some or all of the people in a specific area.”

“Could they have given it to each other?” Dew asked. “One gets infected, gives it to the rest?”

Margaret shook her head. “All the McMillians’ triangles were at the same stage of development, which indicates they all contracted the disease at the same time. Add to that three people under the same roof who did not have triangles. As far as we can tell, it’s not contagious.”

“Which brings up an interesting point,” Amos said. “The gate was finished, right? Built by hatchlings that had already hatched. So if all the McMillians were at the same stage of development, they must have caught it after the other hosts. Why were they behind the times, so to speak?”

“They were obviously infected later,” Margaret said. “Whatever it is, something they touched, something they ate, the infected members of the family were exposed at the same time. That still doesn’t give us clues toward the vector. Amos, did Tad say anything?”

Amos shook his head. “Turns out he’s been grounded for a while. The parents left him alone at the house a few times. They could have picked it up shopping, running errands.”

“The follow-up FBI team will interview him,” Dew said. “And maybe they can get something when they run the background checks on the McMillians.”

Margaret reached across the table and grabbed Dew’s hand. “Dew, that’s all well and good, but we already have someone who was infected. If Perry would open up, provide us an overview of his behavior in the days leading up to his infection, that would give us something to work with. Can you talk to him again?”

Dew rolled his eyes. “What the fuck is this, International Pile On Phillips Day? I just had this conversation with Murray, thank you very much.”

“Right,” Margaret said. “And what did fearless leader say?”

“He said I have to find a way to reach Dawsey. Sound familiar?”

Margaret leaned forward, both elbows on the table. She pointed her fork at Dew. “You’ve threatened Perry, and that hasn’t worked. You’ve tried tricking him, following him so you could knock him out before he killed the hosts, and that hasn’t worked. Have you tried just being nice to him?”

“Be nice to him?” Dew said, his voice rising. He pointed at Milner and Baumgartner. “Look at their faces, Margo, and then tell me we should be nice to Dawsey.”

Margaret tilted her head to the right. “And what were those men going to do when they caught up with Perry, Dew?”

Dew didn’t say anything.

“Well? Come on, out with it.”

Dew ground his teeth. “They had orders to Taser him.”

“Then what?”

Dew looked away. “Then put him in handcuffs and inject him with a knockout drug.”

Margaret just nodded and smiled. This woman was too smart for her own good.

“You’ve been nice to him,” Dew said, surprising himself by how petulant he sounded. “Look how far that’s gotten us.”

“Dew, I’m female. Maybe this is a news flash to you, but Perry’s opinion of women in general isn’t all that high. I spent a lot of time with him when he was recovering. I can be nice all day, and he’ll be nice back, but he doesn’t listen to me.”

“That’s sexist,” Dew said. “I’m rather appalled.”

Margaret nodded. “And we don’t have several months of sensitivity training to get through to him. If we’re going to reach him now, a man needs to connect with him.”

“So what the fuck do you want from me, Montoya?” Dew said. “You want me to whip up a game of poker? You want me to take a warm shower with him and hold his hand until the wee hours of the morning?”

“No,” she said. “And stop quoting Clint Eastwood movies. How about you start simple—did you ask him to join us for breakfast?”

Dew just blinked. It hadn’t even crossed his mind.

“Huh,” Otto said. “I never thought of that.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Amos said. “I’m not sitting at a table with that guy. He might mistake me for a breakfast burrito.”

“Maybe a half stack of mini-pancakes, you mean,” Otto said.

“I want my menu back,” Amos said. “Maybe I’ll order some Black Forest ham and flush it down the crapper.”

“Oh, Amos,” Otto said, smiling as if he’d just had the most helpful idea in the history of man. “Are you upset because you can’t see over the table? Should I ask the waitress for a child’s seat?”

“Like I haven’t heard that one a million times.”

Dew reached out and squeezed Margaret’s elbow, then stood.

“Where you going?” Amos asked.

“To see if Perry wants to join us for breakfast,” Dew said. “Margaret’s got to be wrong about something sooner or later, so let’s find out.”

“He won’t come,” Amos said.

“I bet he will,” Otto said. “Dew here can be very persuasive.”

“Twenty bucks says Dawsey doesn’t even leave the room,” Amos said.

Otto nodded. “You’re on.”

Margaret shook her head. “Is there anything you two won’t bet on?”

“I’m sure there’s something,” Otto said.

“Twenty bucks says there isn’t,” Amos said.

Margaret shook her head some more.

Otto smiled at Dew. “Well, go on and bring him here so I can win another twenty.”

Dew turned and walked out of the restaurant.

WAKEY-WAKEY, HANDS OFF SNAKEY

Bang-bang-bang.

A pounding at the door.

Each bang matching the pounding in his head.

Perry’s eyes fluttered open. Could it hurt to blink? Yes, it could.

Bang-bang-bang.

“Go away,” Perry said. Whispered was more like it.

Bang-bang-bang.

“Go away!” Perry screamed, and instantly regretted it. His hands shot to his head, palms covering his eyes. Why was his face all sticky? The bed reeked of stale beer.

“Get up, Dawsey. Time for breakfast.”

Dew Motherfucking Phillips. At his door at the crack of dawn. Perry sat up and looked at the glowing red clock on the nightstand.

8:45 A.M.

Okay, so it wasn’t the crack of dawn. It was still too damned early to be out of bed.

“Rise and shine, big boy!” Dew yelled. “Let’s go! Everyone is waiting for you, and my food is getting cold.”

Goddamn did his head hurt.

“Dew, go away,” Perry said. “I’m not kidding.”

Dew wanted to parade him around at breakfast so they could all have a good laugh at the freak’s expense? No way. Perry didn’t know what their game was, but he wasn’t playing.

“Come on, kid, I can smell the beer all the way out here. You bathe in the stuff?”

Perry stood and walked to the bathroom. He put the plastic ice bucket in the sink, then turned on the cold water.

“Hold on,” Perry said. “Let me get dressed.”

“That’s the spirit,” Dew said. “And if you smell like the rest of your room, you might want to take a shower. A quick one, though. I don’t have all day.”

Perry turned on the shower’s hot water and let it run. He grabbed the now-full ice bucket out of the sink and walked to the front door.

“Hey, Dew?”

“Yeah?”

“Hey, is it cold outside?”

“It’s the dead of winter in northern Wisconsin,” Dew said. “It’s friggin’ freezing.”

In one smooth motion, Perry opened the door and sloshed the ice-bucket water into Dew’s chest. He had a brief glimpse of Dew flinching before the water soaked him, then the old man’s eyes going wide with cold and surprise. Perry shut the door and locked it.

“I’ll pass on breakfast,” Perry said. “Rain check?”

Bang-bang-bang.

“Open the fucking door, you fuck.”

Perry started to lie down again, then remembered that his bed was soaked with beer. He pulled the blankets off and tossed them on the floor.

“You better go change,” Perry said. “Like you said, it’s friggin’ freezing.”

Bang-bang-bang.

“Kid, I am going to beat your ass.”

Perry laughed, but that hurt even more than talking. He pulled off the sheets and tossed them on top of the blankets, leaving a naked mattress. It had a few beer-wet spots, but it would do. He’d passed out in his clothes—they were beer-soaked as well, so he took them off and lay down. The running shower helped drown out Dew’s shouts a little. Perry just closed his eyes and waited. If Dew didn’t go away soon, his clothes would freeze on him, and he’d catch pneumonia and die.

Either way, Perry won.

A wave of nausea hit him. He slid his head over the side of the bed and threw up on the floor. As if his head didn’t hurt enough already—was a hangover vomit not one of the worst pains in the world? And Perry Dawsey knew pain. He dragged his face back, using the corner of the mattress to wipe the puke away from his mouth.

The banging stopped, and he quickly fell asleep.

ROOM SERVICE

A knock at Dew’s door.

He was still shivering as he buttoned up a dry shirt. He should have hopped into the shower to warm up, but there just wasn’t time—too much work to do.

“Who is it?”

“Margaret. I brought your food.”

Dew hadn’t eaten yet. He’d been so pissed he hadn’t really noticed how hungry he was. He stuffed his shirt into his pants, buttoned and zipped, then opened the door.

Margaret stood there in the morning light. She looked good, as always, dark eyes staring back with that combination of kindness and an ever-present haunted look, the result of seeing too many horrors in too short a time. But what really made her attractive was the Styrofoam food container she held in her left hand and the steaming Styrofoam cup she held in her right.

“Double cream, double sugar,” she said. “That’s how you like it, right?”

“You’re an angel, lady,” Dew said. He took the container. “You want to come in?”

Margaret nodded and walked into the room. She looked around, eyes lingering on the suitcase placed neatly in the closet, at the shoes lined up next to the suitcase, and the wet shirt, sport coat and pants hanging on the clothes rack, each on its own hanger.

“What happened to you?” she said.

“I took your advice, that’s what happened.” Dew sat down and opened the container. Plastic utensils were in there, rolled up in a paper napkin. He pulled out the fork and shoveled eggs into his mouth.

She sat on the bed next to the nightstand. She looked at Dew’s array of weapons laid out there—the .45, the .38, the Ka-Bar knife, the switchblade, the collapsible baton—then casually scooted farther down the bed, away from them.

“So you were nice to Perry,” she said. “And then what, you went for a swim?”

“He opened the door and doused me,” Dew said as he chewed.

“You’re kidding.”

Dew shook his head. “Ice bucket, I think.”

“Looks like Amos won his twenty bucks back.”

“Those guys bet a lot?”

Margaret nodded. “They’ll bet on anything. That same twenty-dollar bill has traded hands at least a dozen times. Must be some guy bonding strategy.”

“It’s called having fun,” Dew said. “Guys don’t have bonding strategies, they just do stuff.”

“Like douse someone with water?”

“That’s not doing stuff,” Dew said. “That’s being a fucking asshole. Pardon my French. His room smelled like a frat house. I think he’s hungover. Bad.”

Dew stabbed the fork until it filled with the last of the eggs. “Kid is a fucking alkie,” he said just before he stuffed the eggs into his mouth.

“He hasn’t had enough time to become an alkie, Dew. It’s only been six weeks since he cut those things out of himself, you know.”

Dew swallowed half the eggs, then picked up a sausage and crammed the whole thing into his mouth.

“Wow, eat much?” Margaret said. “You’d be a classy dinner date.”

“I do sorta reek of class,” Dew said as he chewed. “It’s all in the breeding. We ran a full background check on Dawsey, you know. Kid used cash for everything except the bar, but trust me, his credit-card bills showed he spent plenty at those bars.”

Margaret rolled her eyes, an expression Dew found simultaneously dismissive and alluring.

“He’s in his twenties, for God’s sake,” she said. “Did you spend any time in bars when you were in your twenties?”

“Of course not,” Dew said. “I was busy building churches and helping the poor.”

“Oh, now I can see your halo,” Margaret said. “I missed it earlier. Bad lighting in here.”

“Okay, so you’ve got a point. But you know what? Your calm, doctory logic kind of gets on my nerves. Do you always have to be right?”

“Doctory? I rather like that word. I don’t have to always be right, Dew, that’s just how it works out.”

He took a big drink of coffee. It scalded his mouth a little, but he didn’t care—he felt the heat going into his chest.

“Well, Doc, I’m afraid you’re not always right. I tried it your way and got water thrown in my face.”

“So try again.”

“Why the hell should I?”

“You mean besides the fact that we need a live host to figure out what the heck is going on?”

“Yeah,” Dew said. “Besides that.”

“How about having compassion, Dew? How about being understanding? Perry’s been through hell. He lost his best friend.”

“Yeah? So what? So did I.”

“And did you beat your best friend to death? Did you nail his hands up with steak knives and write discipline on the wall in his blood?”

In his entire life, he’d never been around anyone who made him feel as stupid as Margaret Montoya did. At least not without punching them in the mouth.

Dew grabbed his shoes and started putting them on. “No,” he said. “I didn’t do any of that.”

“Right. So maybe, just maybe, Perry is trying to deal with some things that you can’t understand.”

“That shit only floats for so long,” Dew said. “I’m starting to think he’s nothing more than a glorified bully, and the only way to get through to a bully is to give him a whuppin’.”

Margaret smiled. It wasn’t the kind of smile that said, I bet you’d be a fun roll in the hay, because Dew knew what those smiles looked like on a woman. At least he used to know what those looked like. He didn’t get them anymore. This was another kind of smile, the kind a young woman gives to an old man when the old man says something silly.

“Dew, I know you’re very good at what you do, but just keep some perspective, okay?”

He grabbed his dry coat off the hanger and put it on. “Perspective? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Margaret shrugged. Her smile grew a little wider, a little more condescending. “Well, look at you and… look at him. You’re not going to beat any sense into him, and shooting him won’t work. You already tried that.”

Dew quickly put the weapons in their various holsters and hiding spots. “Doc, you stick to the sciencey and doctory stuff and leave the rest to me, okay?”

She smiled that smile again, then shrugged. “Whatever you say. So what do we do next?”

“We have to finish up some things here. Then I think we’re heading closer to Chicago.”

So far there was no pattern to the location of the four gates. Chicago seemed as central as the next spot, within quick striking distance of Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio.

“How about you make sure the MargoMobile is battened down, Doc,” Dew said. “I want us out of here before the local media stops writing about a white supremacist group getting bombed in Marinesco and decides there might actually be another story afoot.”

He opened the door for her and gestured outside. Margaret walked out, and Dew followed.

DEEEEE-TROIT BASKET-BALLLL!

“Unkie Donny, you sit here,” Chelsea said. She patted the center cushion of the couch. It was Daddy’s spot, but Unkie Donny was a guest. She got to sit in Daddy’s lap all the time. She didn’t see Unkie Donny anymore, hardly ever. Not since he moved to Pittsburgh. She didn’t get to see Betty, either. That was worse.

Betty was so pretty. She had pierced ears. Daddy wouldn’t let Chelsea pierce her ears. Maybe in a few years, Daddy would say. A year was such a long time. A few years? Chelsea couldn’t imagine that a few years would ever come. She’d never get her ears pierced, never be as pretty as Betty.

Unkie Donny sat down on the middle cushion. “Right here, honey?”

“Yes,” Chelsea said. “Right here. And to sit here you have to pay the toll.”

“The toll? What’s this going to cost me?”

“Smoochies!” Chelsea said.

Unkie Donny lifted her clear up off the ground. “Ready?”

She nodded. They both puckered up and made a mmmmm noise as they slowly brought their lips together, then made an exaggerated kissing sound as the mmmmm turned into a loud ahhhh. Unkie Donnie sat her on the cushion to his left. Chelsea immediately crawled into his lap.

Betty smiled and sat down on the cushion to their right.

“O-M-G, that was so cute I could just keel over,” Betty said. She leaned toward Chelsea. “And where’s my smoochies?”

Mmmmm-ahhhh.

Daddy sat on the cushion to the left. He clicked the remote control. The TV changed from a cartoon to show men in white pajamas shooting the basketball.

Chelsea clapped, then leaned back on Unkie Donny’s chest.

He gave her shoulders a little shake. “Honey, do you know what time it is?”

She checked her Mickey Mouse watch. The big hand was on the eleven, the little hand was on the one, so that… was…

“Not that kind of time,” Unkie Donny said. “The game, Chelsea. It’s time for…”

Chelsea took a deep breath, sat up, then screamed in unison with Unkie Donny, “Deeeee-troit basket-ballll!”

She rested against his chest. “Unkie Donny, who is your favorite Piston of all time?”

“Hmmm,” he said. “Well, I’ve been watching them for a lotta years, honey. I’d have to say Bill Laimbeer or Chauncey Billups. Who’s yours?”

“I like Peyton Manning!”

“Wrong sport, baby-girl,” Unkie Donny said.

“Oh,” Chelsea said. “Then I like Chaunney Billups.”

“Chauncey, baby-girl,” Unkie Donny said.

“Chaun-see,” she said, trying the word on for size. “I was going to name my puppy Fluffy, but now I’ll name him Chauncey. Then you can come and play with Chauncey, Unkie Donny.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Unkie Donny said.

Daddy sighed. “We’re not getting a puppy, Chelsea. Don’t start trying to get other people to campaign for you like you always do.”

“But Daddy, I want a puppy!”

“Chelsea, we’re not going to talk about this now.”

Chelsea crossed her arms. “You’re not the boss of me.”

Mommy came out of the kitchen so fast that Chelsea flinched. Mommy had her heavy wooden mixing spoon in her hand. The spanky-spoon. It was still clumped with mashed potatoes.

“Little lady, if you say that one more time, you’re going to get it.” Mommy shook the spoon as she talked, flinging little bits of mashed potatoes.

“But Mom…”

“Not another word,” Mommy said.

Chelsea pouted and fell back against Unkie Donny’s chest.

Mommy nodded once, blond hair bouncing, then turned and strode back into the kitchen just as fast as she’d come in.

“Chelsea is in a bit of a willful stage,” Daddy said to Unkie Donny. “Usually when she doesn’t get what she wants, she throws a tantrum. Seems she’s on her best behavior because you and Betty are here.”

“Be careful,” Unkie Donny said. “Sometimes they don’t grow out of the tantrum phase.”

Betty smacked Unkie Donny on the shoulder. “Knock it off, geezer.”

Unkie Donny laughed, and Chelsea forgot all about the puppy. She watched the men in the pajamas for a second, then grabbed Betty’s hand. “Who’s your favorite player, Betty?”

Betty reached up and stroked her cousin’s hair. “Oh, I don’t know, dolly. I don’t pay that much attention to basketball. If you want to talk about clothes or flowers, I’m your girl.”

The way Betty stroked her hair, it was so nice.

“I like dandelions,” Chelsea said.

“Oh, those are pretty,” Betty said. “Do you like the yellow kind or the white kind better?”

“I like the white kind,” Chelsea said. “I like the way they float and fly.”

Betty agreed with her. Betty always agreed with her, which was very nice. Chelsea had Daddy on her left, Betty on her right, and she was sitting on Unkie Donny’s lap. This was just so awesome.

She watched the men take off the white pajamas. She thought this was the funniest part of basketball. If she took off her pajamas in front of people, she’d get in trouble. She wanted more ice cream. She’d already had one bar, and that was supposed to be it, but Mommy wasn’t in the room.

“Daddy, can I have an ice cream bar?”

“Don’t you mean another ice cream bar, Chelsea? It’s not even noon, and I know for a fact you had one already.”

“Why can’t I have more? I like it.”

“Chelsea!” Mommy shouted from the kitchen. “Do I need to come in there?”

“No,” Chelsea said quickly. “I’ll stop.”

She sighed and fell back against Unkie Donny’s chest again. It just wasn’t fair. She watched the men walk onto the court to start the game.

HELP IS ON THE WAY

Forty miles above Chuy Rodriguez’s backyard, the Orbital finished a probability analysis.

The results showed an 86 percent chance of success. Well above the required 75 percent specified in its parameters.

It began to modify the seeds of batch seventeen. It also broadcast a message to the remaining hatchlings, the ones that hadn’t been able to make it to Marinesco or South Bloomingville in time, the ones that were hidden away. It sent the message to the triangles still growing in hosts, from seeds that had blown around for days before making a lucky landing.

The message said, Stay hidden, stay quiet.

Help is on the way.

VOICES

Perry Dawsey suddenly sat up in his bed. Steam floated near the ceiling. Every glass surface in the room was beaded with water, even the alarm clock that read 4:17 P.M. He still had a hangover, although it wasn’t as bad. Hunger hit him like a wave. Maybe that breakfast place Dew wanted to eat at was close by.

But it wasn’t the hangover that had woken him. It wasn’t the hunger.

It was the voices

Not the same voices he usually heard. Sort of like that, yet different. It danced away from his ability to define it, like having a word right at the edge of your thoughts and not being able to lock it down.

Something had changed. Something big. But it was also something small. Did that even make sense? No, and yet there it was.

He didn’t understand specific words, didn’t even know if the message contained words at all. More like an urge without emotion. The urge made him want to hide, to be quiet, to stay away from anyone.

Hide… and wait.

Perry stood up. The room was a disaster. Beer-soaked blankets in a little mountain on the floor, beer-soaked clothes next to the bed. Oh, for fuck’s sake—he’d thrown up on his jeans. The place reeked.

He walked to his duffel bag and rummaged through it. Shit, all these clothes were dirty. He’d have to get some of Dew’s people to wash them.

Perry did the sniff test and found the least offensive T-shirt, sweatshirt, underwear and jeans. The only score was one pair of clean athletic socks. He carried the clothes into the steam-filled bathroom.

First a shower, then he’d track down Dew.

SIR DICK SICKLE

The probe wasn’t made of solid material. Not permanently solid, anyway. The whole thing was a collection of tiny particles, each smaller than a grain of sand. A special locking shape combined with a static charge made the individual particles act like a solid sheet of material. It was even airtight. Depending on where the bonds were applied to each particle, any shape could be made. This included moving parts like ailerons, containers to hold fuel and nozzles to direct the force created by igniting that fuel. These parts combined to drive the soda-can-size probe through the upper atmosphere and into a thick cloud layer. High winds pulled the probe first in one direction, then the next. It rode with the wind, using the engines more for guidance than for directed flight.

At 6,250 feet the probe passed through the cloud layer. It identified a target zone and shot northwest. To the Orbital and the probe, one place was the same as the next. On human maps, however, this place had a name.

It was called Gaylord.

At 1,500 feet the probe completed its final instruction. It sent a charge through every particle that turned off the static bonds.

The probe didn’t explode. It disintegrated, changing from a solid machine one second to a cloud of grains the next, grains that would spread as they fell and never draw an ounce of attention. The disintegration also released the seeds.

Over a billion of them.

A light southwesterly wind dispersed the seeds like a trail of thin smoke. Each breathy gust spread them farther, some sailing off on a lone journey, some driven in clusters like translucent contrails or intangible ghost-snakes.

The seeds spread.

The seeds fell.

The vast majority of them would land on ground, water or snow. They would sit there until the elements damaged their delicate internal machinery and they simply became lumps of inanimate matter. A few might get lucky and sit around long enough to wind up on a host, but the odds were against them. Of course, that was kind of the point in releasing a billion seeds at a time—even with shit odds, a few were still going to land in a suitable place.

One of the expanding, ethereal seed trails drifted near a house on the outskirts of Gaylord, close to Highway 32. This house was the home of the Jewell family.

The Jewells had had their fill of snowmobiles and basketball, it seemed. Bobby, Candice, Chelsea, Donald and Betty were hard at work on the winter ritual of building a snowman.

Donald even made Bobby promise not to give the snowman a boner, something Bobby had done since they were kids. He always sculpted a prodigious member and called the snowman “Sir Dicksickle.” Funny? Hell yes. But hardly appropriate now that Betty was sixteen. Besides, Chelsea was well into the age where Bobby would have to start acting like a grown man rather than a kid trapped in an adult’s body.

The strand of seeds rose and fell on the light breeze. Dipping to the ground, half of them hit the snow and stuck, doomed to a frigid end. The other half caught the wind coming off the snow and cruised along almost horizontally with the ground.

Donald finished rolling up the snowman head and had Betty help him lift it. It was packed pretty tight, but you never knew if these things would hold when they came off the ground. Besides, Betty was being “too cool” to wear mittens, so having her pick up a big block of ice and snow seemed rather fitting. Bobby wore only a T-shirt and jeans, which didn’t really help show Betty the need for proper winter clothing. They’d probably both catch a cold, and Donald would have the last laugh. The only problem with that was that Chelsea wanted to be like her cousin and had also tossed her gloves aside. If Chelsea caught a cold, Donald would be pretty pissed at Betty.

They successfully set the head on top as Chelsea danced in place, hands clutching a big orange carrot. Her puffy baby-blue snowsuit made her look quite chubby. The carrot was the final stroke in the annual snowman masterpiece (who, sadly, would be Sir Dicksickle only in spirit this year), so naturally the honor fell to the youngest.

Just as Bobby reached down to pick up Chelsea and lift her so she could place the snowman’s carrot nose, the invisible cloud of microscopic seeds whipped through the Jewell family.

They missed Candice entirely.

Bobby’s T-shirt proved to be a disastrous choice—he caught seven on his left arm.

Donald was turned just so and inhaled three of them into his nose. Two more landed on his left hand.

Betty’s hat and thick black hair acted as a defense of sorts, trapping the seeds in the wool or amid her hair-sprayed locks. The wind whipped around her head, however, and four landed on her left cheek. One fell off as soon as it hit, but she would still have to deal with the three that stuck fast. If she had been wearing gloves, she would have at least avoided the one that stuck on her left hand.

Little Chelsea had the worst luck of all. She made a hole in the snowman’s head with her left thumb, then jammed the carrot in with her right hand. As she twisted the carrot, driving it deeper, setting it in real good so it wouldn’t fall off, fifteen seeds landed on her clammy, exposed skin, sticking fast to the backs of her hands, her palms and her fingers.

Still laughing, the family finished the snowman and applauded. Chelsea made everyone give her smoochies. Mmmmm-ahhhh! Mmmmm-ahhhh!

Then they all went inside.

LAYIN’ DOWN THE LAW

Room 207 had become the de facto ops center for the Glidden/Marinesco installment of Project Tangram. A little extra money and hotel management magically made the bed disappear, replacing it with a wooden table and chairs from the restaurant. Add a smaller table for a row of four briefcases that opened up to be computer/phone stations, and you had an instant office. At the moment the office contained Dew, Baumgartner, Milner and Amos. They were handling various cleanup aspects of the McMillian situation. Amos was only there for the free doughnuts, but that was to be expected.

The really sensitive communications still took place in the Margo-Mobile, but there was only so much room in there. Dew wanted to finish debriefing everyone, make sure he hadn’t missed anything. He also had to keep tabs on local law enforcement and the media.

Local police were almost always a snap. Despite jurisdictional squabbles, cops were all in the game for pretty much the same reason, and it wasn’t to get rich. If you told city cops, county cops or even state police that there was some shit going down, shit you couldn’t actually talk about, but it was real serious and that it was over, people were safe …well, ninety-nine times out of a hundred they’d let it go. And for that one-in-a-hundred liberal prick who wouldn’t let something slide? He always had superiors who would play ball, put pressure on the guy to let things lie. Sometimes not even that worked. In those cases Dew would give a last warning, a final face-to-face chat. He’d tell the guy that his whole life was about to turn into a steaming pile of donkey shit, that his reputation was about to be trashed, and if push came to shove he’d be facing some trumped-up charge that would end his career in law enforcement.

If that didn’t work, Dew pitched it to Murray and washed his hands of the whole situation. Murray Longworth made problems go away. Sucked balls for the guy with the burr under his saddle, but every war has collateral damage.

This time, however, Dew wasn’t having any problems. Reports of domestic terrorists, army troops, gunfire and a ground-shaking bomb in Marinesco gobbled up attention. Not that people weren’t interested in the sad story of Thad McMillian Sr. going nuts and killing his wife, his daughter and his little boy. A tragedy, that’s what it was. A shame he was running a meth lab in that house, a real shame, but it explained the sightings of men in hazmat suits carrying guns, and it explained the two big semi trucks parked in the McMillians’ driveway. It also explained the absence of Tad Jr. and the baby. Witness-protection plan. Just for a short time as the feds in town worked through the meth-lab case. The boys were safe, although no one could say when or if they’d be back in town. Seems their grandmother (on the wife’s side) lived in Washington State, and the boys were eventually going to go live with her. The local media bought the story hook, line and sinker. METHED-OUT FATHER MURDERS FAMILY would be in area headlines for another few days, sure. Glidden was so small it didn’t even have its own newspaper. Soon it would all die down. This was America. People got killed. Such is life. What time is the game on?

So Dew Phillips was in as good a mood as could be expected for a man trying to deal with a bizarre parasitical invasion. He had helped shut down the fourth gate. He had dry clothes. He was warm again. The media and local police were playing ball. He had a full belly, and room service kept bringing pots of coffee and boxes of doughnuts from Bob’s Breakfast Shack.

Everything was going great guns, right up to the moment when the door opened and Perry Dawsey stepped inside.

Four heads turned to stare at him. Milner’s hand went to the grip of his pistol and stayed there. Baumgartner’s hands locked down on the back of a wooden chair. Amos backed up against a wall, a chocolate doughnut with nuts still hanging in his mouth.

“Dew, I need to talk to you,” Perry said. “Right now.”

“So talk.”

“Get these faggots out of here,” Perry said.

“I’d be happy to vacate the premises,” Amos said. “If you’d be so kind as to remove your substantial bulk from the doorway, I’ll be gone forthwith.”

Perry stepped aside. Amos shot out of the room like a world-class sprinter coming off the blocks.

“Kid,” Dew said. “If you’ve got something to say, just say it. These guys are part of the team.”

“They’re fucking peons,” Perry said. “Don’t make me beat their asses again, old man.”

Dew Phillips nodded. Yes, that was just about enough of this shit. It most certainly was.

“Milner, Baumgartner,” Dew said. “Take a walk.”

Baumgartner seemed uncertain and looked at Dew. Milner kept staring at Perry and kept his hand on the gun. He wasn’t taking his eyes off the big man for even a second.

“Sir,” Baumgartner said, “I think we should stay here.” His metal nose brace glinted in the hotel room’s light. Between the brace and the mustache, he couldn’t possibly look any dumber.

“I said take a walk,” Dew said.

“Sir,” Baum said. “Uh… you being alone with Dawsey, maybe it’s not—”

“Take a motherfucking walk, boys,” Dew said. “Get out. I want to have a private discussion with Citizen Dawsey.”

Baumgartner let go of the chair. He walked out, patting Milner on the back as he did. Milner managed to follow Baum out the door without taking his eyes off Dawsey and without taking his hand off the gun.

Perry shut the door. “Listen, Dew, something’s up.”

“We’ll get to that in a second,” Dew said. “First I’ve got a pesky little agenda item that we need to address.”

“Dew, you don’t understand.”

“Is there a new gate?”

Perry thought for a second, then shook his head.

“Are you hearing new voices?”

Perry thought again. “Kind of. Yeah, voices, but they aren’t saying any words.”

“No words,” Dew said. “So you’re sure they’re not talking about a gate, then?”

Perry nodded.

“Good,” Dew said. “Then we’ll table the discussion for a few minutes and address my topic of conversation.”

“But Dew, I—”

“Shut your fucking mouth, you little shithead.”

Perry stared for a second, then smiled. “Oh, I see,” he said. “Are we going to have a lecture about my behavior?”

“That’s right,” Dew said. “I don’t give a fuck how loony tunes you are, Dawsey. I’m sick of your shit. You’re going to start playing ball, you got me?”

Perry leaned forward and put his hands on the wooden table. It was the only thing that stood between the two men.

“I call you when I need you,” Perry said. “I can’t roll out a bunch of army assholes with guns and helicopters. You can. Other than that, your services aren’t required, so just keep being a good little bitch and go where I tell you to go.”

Dew felt his temper slip into the bad place. Somewhere in the back of his head, he wondered if he’d come out of this alive.

“Say,” Perry said. “I didn’t see a new Mustang parked in front of my room. What’s the holdup?”

“You’re just a little bastard trapped in a big boy’s body,” Dew said.

“There’s not a fucking thing you can do about it.”

“Boo-hoo-hoo,” Dew said. “So you had a rough time, and now the world owes you a lollipop?”

“You’re goddamned right the world owes me a lollipop. At least my government does. Where the fuck was my government when I was going through hell, huh? Where the fuck were you when those things were eating me up from the inside?”

“You survived,” Dew said.

“I’m the only one who survived,” Perry said. “Because I fought. Because I’ve got discipline. You’ve got to have discipline.”

Dew laughed. “You want discipline? I’d like to give you some discipline.”

Perry smiled. “You want to shoot me? Shoot me. It’s the only way you can put me down. You ain’t jack shit without that gun, old man.”

Dew had him. A fight was a foregone conclusion at this point. He just had to keep pushing buttons, get Dawsey out of control. Put him in a rage.

“You mean this gun?” Dew pulled his old .45 from his shoulder holster. He ejected the magazine, cocked back the slide and held up the gun to show there was no bullet in the chamber. He set the gun between them on the table. He held up the magazine with his right hand and used his thumb to flick out the first bullet. Then the second. He stared straight into Perry’s eyes as he emptied all seven rounds. He held the final bullet, then tossed the magazine away and bounced the bullet up and down in his palm.

“So now I don’t have a gun,” Dew said. “What do you have to say now, boy?”

“Right,” Perry said. “Like that’s the only piece you’ve got.”

Dew gave an exaggerated nod. The kid was smarter than he looked. Dew pulled up his right pant leg and drew his Taurus Model 85 .38 revolver from his ankle holster. He emptied the five-round cylinder and dropped the gun on the floor. From his left leg, he took a steel telescoping baton and tossed it across the room into a wastebasket. As soon as he did, he wished he’d kept it. A flick of the wrist would expand the baton from six inches to sixteen inches—instant steel billy club. The cat was out of the bag, though; he couldn’t exactly go back and get it. Dew then reached to the small of his back and extracted his Ka-Bar from its horizontal sheath. Finally he slid his hands into his crotch and removed a black switchblade. The switchblade and the Ka-Bar followed the baton into the wastebasket.

“What the fuck, old man? You going to war or something?”

“Every day, kid, every day. Now, unless you’re going to give me a body-cavity search for the frag grenade I carry up my poop-chute, you’re gonna have to take my word for it that I’m disarmed. So are we gonna do this, or are you just gonna sit there wankin’ your crank?”

“Are you serious, old man? Look at you. Gut hanging out. I see you sometimes limping and shit. I hit you half as hard as I can, I’ll probably kill you.”

“I’m not your little butt-buddy Bill,” Dew said quietly.

Perry’s eyes widened, a combination of rage and shame.

“You’re a big man, Dawsey,” Dew said. “Killing someone who weighed all of a buck-fifty soaking wet.”

“Don’t you talk about him,” Dawsey said in a quiet voice that sent goose bumps up Dew’s back.

Dew smiled his best asshole smile. “What’s the matter, pussy? You don’t want to take a swing at me? Maybe I can find a midget around here somewhere. Maybe a baby, or a fat woman, or an eighty-year-old grandmother. But that won’t work, because those people wouldn’t be your friends. They wouldn’t be your best friend. Someone who trusted you, who tried to help you.”

Dawsey’s hands curled up into cinder-block-size fists. “It wasn’t my fault,” he said in that same quiet voice. “I… I wasn’t in control.”

“Sure you weren’t,” Dew said. “It’s called accountability, boy. If you actually had any discipline, your little faggot friend would still be alive.”

Perry reached down with his left hand, across his body, and grabbed the right corner of the table. He lifted and threw in one motion, effortlessly flipping the table to his left. It smashed into the wall, legs breaking on impact. The empty .45 bounced across the carpet.

Dew waited.

A snarling Perry Dawsey raised his right fist. Huge muscles rippling, he stepped forward to throw a haymaker.

And just when Perry took that step, Dew flicked the bullet at Perry’s face.

The bullet bounced off Perry’s forehead. He blinked and flinched, an automatic reaction caused by something flying at his face. He turned his head just a little, his fist hung in the air, and he took an instinctive shuffle-step to maintain his balance as momentum pulled him forward.

Dew opened his right hand, making the space between his thumb and pointer finger as wide as possible. He stepped into the oncoming monster, snapping forward with his horizontal open hand. The crook of his thumb smashed into Dawsey’s throat. Dew held back a little—any harder and he would have broken Dawsey’s windpipe, making him suffocate to death. He wanted to hurt the guy, not kill him.

Not yet, anyway.

Dawsey’s hands shot to his neck, and his eyes scrunched tightly shut. He made a single noise, part-cough, part-gag.

Then Dew Phillips thumbed him in the left eye.

Perry flinched away again, turning his head to the left to protect the eye, left hand coming up to cover it, right hand staying clutched at his throat. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see.

Dew stepped forward to kick Dawsey in the knee, but the big man flailed his fist in a wild arc that caught Dew’s right shoulder. The force spun Dew all the way around, and he fell hard, knocking over the table full of open briefcases. Dew felt the sting of a cut on his right temple, and only a second later a bit of blood came trickling down.

Dew had been in hundreds of fights, and he’d never been hit that hard.

He scrambled to his feet. He tried to move his right arm but couldn’t—it was numb and unresponsive.

Dawsey was still coughing, still trying to draw a breath, still keeping his watering left eye turned away, still swinging wildly and blindly back and forth with his right hand. Dew skirted the wall to the broken table. With his left hand, he picked up a table leg by the thinner end. The leg’s thick top made it look like a polished wooden mace.

Dew stepped forward and swung it low. The thick wood slammed into Dawsey’s right knee. Dawsey cried out, his throat capable of producing only a hoarse whisper. He dropped, left knee and right hand holding his weight.

“You want discipline?” Dew said. “I’ll give you discipline.”

Dew swung the table leg in a big arc and brought it down on Perry’s head. The skin split open instantly, blood spilling out of a two-inch-long gash that stained his blond hair. Despite the cut, Dawsey barely flinched. His right lid fluttered open a bit, but his left stayed pinched shut. From his half-crouch, he lunged forward, both hands reaching out.

Dew Phillips calmly scooted backward and jabbed the table leg into Perry’s mouth, splitting his lip on impact.

Perry fell flat on his face, then put his hands down and tried to rise.

“You’re going to play ball,” Dew said. He brought the table leg around in another vicious arc, the club end whistling through the air before it landed on Dawsey’s back with a meaty thud. Dawsey let out another choking hiss and fell on his face again.

“You’re going to do it because it’s the right thing to do.” Dew whipped the table leg in a low swing that hit Perry’s right side, crunching into the younger man’s ribs. Perry rolled to his left, curling up into a near-fetal ball. He still couldn’t see, squinting eyes betraying his blindness. Blood covered his head, poured from his mouth. His knees curled up to his chest, and his hands stuck out in front of him, trying to ward off the attack.

Dew swung again, as hard as he could this time. The club head hit Dawsey’s right thigh. Dawsey managed to push a deep scream out through his choking throat.

“I don’t want any more shit out of you,” Dew said. He swung the leg and hit the thigh again, knowing that it would hurt far worse the second time. “Are you going to stop being such a prick?”

“Stop!” Perry shouted. “Please!”

“You begging for your life, Dawsey? Like your friend Bill did? Like those triangle hosts did?”

“I was helping them!” His voice sounded like he’d gargled broken glass.

Dew jabbed the leg straight forward, hitting Dawsey in the forehead. The wood-on-wood sound accompanied another cut, this one longer than the first and bleeding even worse.

“Helping them? You psycho fuck, maybe I should just beat you to death right here!”

“No!” Still on his side, knees up to his chest, Perry waved his hands blindly.

Dew raised the table leg for another shot to Dawsey’s ribs. He wanted to make this boy hurt.

Perry’s voice was half-scream, half-cry. “Don’t hit me any more, Daddy!

Please!”

Dew stared for a few seconds, the table leg suspended in the air.

“Puh… please, Daddy,” Dawsey stammered. “No more.”

Dew lowered the table leg to his side, then dropped it on the floor. He still couldn’t move his right arm. The bloody, giant-size man lay crying on the floor, big body shaking with sobs.

“I’ll get someone in here to clean you up,” Dew said. “Then go back to your room. I’ll come talk to you there. We’ve got work to do.

Dew walked out of the room.

BITCHES GET STITCHES

Clarence leaned his head into the communications trailer. Margaret smiled at him. She couldn’t help it. She had thought him handsome the first moment she saw him. Now, after three months on this assignment and more than a few nights in his bed, she found him gorgeous. She was falling for him. No, she had already fallen for him. She didn’t know if it would be a temporary romance, if when this insanity ended they simply would go their separate ways. Maybe their attraction was just an outlet, a way to deal with the death that surrounded them on a daily basis.

Maybe he was with her because she was the only woman on the project. That thought had crossed her mind more than a few times. She was older, twenty pounds overweight, and while she still got plenty of attention from men, it wasn’t as much as she used to get. Was she already in love with him? She pushed the thoughts away—if she let it go that far and he didn’t love her in return…

“Doc,” Clarence said, “Dew says you need to go to the office.”

“I’m a little busy,” she said. “Tell him if he wants to see me, he can come to the trailer. Then I’ll get rid of him, and you can give me a nice shoulder rub.”

Clarence shook his head. “Uh, no can do, Doc. You need to get to the office, and bring a first-aid kit. Seems Dew and Perry had it out.”

“Oh, no. Do we need an ambulance?”

“You’re going to have to see this for yourself,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’ll go with you.”

Margaret looked through the comm room’s cabinets. There was a first-aid kit in here somewhere…. She found it, grabbed the white plastic box by its built-in handle and ran out of the trailer toward Room 207.

In a way, Clarence had made her question her life choices, even as she rode a rocket-train of career success and quite literally stood in the path of a potential global catastrophe. She was the man, for lack of a better term, something she always longed to be, but thanks to her feelings for him it was starting to ring empty. When this was over, if they separated, what did she have to look forward to? Her sparse apartment in Cincinnati? A place she really used only for sleep, because she worked all the time?

“You don’t need to be afraid,” he said as they reached the room. “I’ll be right here with you.” He opened the door for her.

“Afraid? Why would I be afraid of Dew Phil—”

Her voice broke off when she saw Perry Dawsey curled up in a fetal position, bleeding like a stuck pig.

“Like I told you,” Clarence said, “I’ll be right here.”

She couldn’t believe it. Dew Phillips had beat up Perry Dawsey? Beat up wasn’t really the term for it. Thrashed him to within an inch of his life.

Yeah, that was more accurate.

“Clarence, leave us alone.”

His head whipped around, looking from Perry to her.

“Are you crazy? He’s down, he’s not dead.”

“I know.”

“He could snap at any second, Margo,” Clarence said. “I’m staying right here.”

She took his hand and led him out of the room, then pulled his head down so she could whisper in his ear.

“Honey, I know you want to protect me, but he’s not going to hurt me.”

“He’s a killer, Margaret,” Clarence whispered back.

“You’re going to have to trust my judgment,” she said. “I’ve taken care of him for five weeks, and I’m telling you he’s not going to hurt me.”

“Fine, then I’ll stay to watch and see how wrong I am.”

“He just got the crap kicked out of him,” Margaret said. “I’m not a guy, but I think that makes you guys feel a little ashamed? Am I right?”

Clarence stared at her, then nodded.

“So maybe having a woman in there, instead of another man, won’t be as bad, because he won’t think I’ll be wondering if I can beat him up, too?”

“Well, that’s not exactly how I’d think of it,” he said. “But yeah, I’d be embarrassed if there was another guy watching me get stitched up. A non-doctor guy, of course. Doctors aren’t embarrassing in a situation like this.”

“Guy logic?”

“Guy logic,” he said. “Listen, can’t we at least get Amos to take care of him?”

She smiled at him. “If you can talk Amos Braun into being in a room alone with Perry Dawsey, I’ll give you twenty bucks.”

“I’m not taking that bet.”

“Clarence, I’m a professional. I love the fact that you want to protect me, but this conversation is over, okay? Stand out here if you’re worried.

If he tries anything, I’ll scream for help.”

“That only works if you can make a noise before he breaks your neck.”

She sighed, then slapped him once on the chest and walked into Room 207. She shut the door behind her.

“Perry? It’s Margaret.”

He opened his right eye. His left was swollen shut.

“Hey,” he said.

“I’m going to fix you up, okay?”

“Just leave me be.”

“No can do. I’m a doctor. You’re bleeding. That’s the math.”

Perry looked at her with his one good eye, then slowly sat up. He scooted until he rested his back against the wall.

“Fine,” he said. “Just till you stop the bleeding.”

She knelt and opened the first-aid kit. She pressed gauze bandages against the cut on top of his head. “Hold that there, please.”

Perry did.

She put another one on the forehead cut. Blood instantly soaked it.

“Okay, Perry. Tell me what hurts.”

“My ego. I just got my ass kicked by the poster boy for the AARP.”

“Maybe you’re lucky,” Margaret said.

“Well, buy me a fucking Lotto ticket. How do you figure I’m lucky?”

“Dew’s told me a couple of stories over the past three months. He’s killed a lot of people, Perry. I know you’re big and strong and athletic. You know how to fight —Dew Phillips knows how to kill or be killed.”

“Ha,” Perry said. “He didn’t do either. Does that mean I won?”

Margaret laughed. “See? You’re cracking jokes. You can’t be hurt that bad.”

“Guess again.”

She tossed the bloody gauze aside, then poured some peroxide on the cut.

“Does that hurt?” she asked.

“Compared to getting hit with a table leg? Might as well be a sensual massage.”

“Good, then just think of this part as your happy ending.”

She proceeded to stitch up his cuts. Six stitches on the forehead, five on the top of the head, and three more on his lip.

“How bad is the eye?” Perry said. “Is it ruined?”

She pulled open his upper and lower eyelids and flicked a penlight at the pupil. The eye was already filled with blood, but the pupil contracted with each flash.

“You’re going to have a hell of a shiner, but I think you’ll be okay.”

She made him take off his shirt. Her eyes lingered on the gnarled, fist-size scar on his right collarbone, then inadvertently flicked to the similar one on his left forearm. She’d treated him for weeks and knew of his other horrible scars: on his left thigh, the center of his back and his right gluteus, along with a smaller one on his left shin.

Margaret checked his ribs and found they weren’t broken. He refused to remove his pants, so she had to take his word for it that the thigh was okay. She finished by checking his knee, sliding up the pant leg and using her fingertips to probe the area. It was swollen, but she didn’t feel anything broken, so she dug her fingers in a little deeper to check for ligament damage.

“Does it hurt when I do this?”

“Yes,” Perry said.

“Describe the pain.”

“Is goddamn near excruciating a standard medical term?”

She stopped. “If I was hurting you that bad, why didn’t you say something?”

He shrugged. “Me and pain go way back.”

“Well, you and your old buddy pain are going to be spending some quality time together while you heal up from this. Can you make it back to your room?”

Perry struggled to his feet. Margaret tried to assist, but he was so heavy she felt like a little girl pretending to help rather than making any actual difference. She found a bottle of ibuprofen in the first-aid kit.

“Take four of these and just go to sleep, okay? I’ll come and check on you later.”

He took the bottle and hobbled to the door. He opened it, then turned back.

“Tell Dew I need to see him,” Perry said. “Tell him it’s important, and that… and that I won’t give him any more trouble.”

“Can it wait until tomorrow morning? I want you asleep.”

Perry thought for a second, then nodded. He held up the bottle, gave it a single shake as kind of a salute, then limped toward his room.

She did want him asleep, but she also didn’t want to risk a second round of fighting. Perry acted different, defeated, but Dew probably hadn’t calmed down yet, and any number of insignificant words might set the two men off again.

The only reason Perry Dawsey was still alive was that Dew Phillips wanted him to be.

Margaret needed to make sure Dew didn’t change his mind.

THAT CAN’T BE GOOD

As the Jewell family slept, the changes began.

The new seed strain behaved much like the one that had infected Perry Dawsey. At first, anyway. Demodex folliculorum —tiny mites that live on every human being on the planet—found the seeds. Since the seeds looked and smelled like the pieces of dead skin that made up Demodex’s only food, the mites ate them. Protein-digesting enzymes in the microscopic arachnids’ stomachs hammered away at the seed coats, breaking them down, allowing oxygen to penetrate and germination to occur.

And also like Perry’s infection, this round began in many microscopic piles of bug shit.

Each activated seed pushed a filament into the skin, penetrating all the way down to the subcutaneous layers. At the bottom of the filament, receptor cells measured specific chemical levels and density, identifying the perfect spot for second-stage growth.

Unlike Perry’s strain and those that came before it, these filaments released one of two chemicals into the bloodstream:

Chemical A if it was a hatchling seed, similar to the ones that infected Perry Dawsey and Martin Brewbaker.

Chemical B if it was the new strain.

The chemicals filtered through the host’s circulatory system. After a short time, the filament measured the levels of both A and B. This produced a simple majority decision: if there was more Chemical A, the hatchling seeds continued their growth and the new strain seeds shut down. If there was more Chemical B, the inverse occurred.

As it turned out, Bobby Jewell was the only one with more standard hatchling seeds. Five of his seven infections, in fact, were the same thing that had infected Perry.

Betty, Donald and Chelsea Jewell would have the honor of incubating the new strain.

From this point the two strains followed almost identical growth patterns. Second-stage roots reached out to draw material from the subcutaneous environment: proteins, oxygen, amino acids and, especially, sugars. Both strains harnessed the host’s natural biological processes to create new microorganisms. There were the reader-balls—cilia-covered, saw-toothed, free-moving things designed to tear open cells and examine the DNA inside, analyzing the host’s biological blueprint like a computer reading lines of software code. There were the builders —they created the flexible cellulose framework that in the original strain would become triangles. There were the herders —microorganisms that swam out into the body to find stem cells, cut them free and drag them back to that framework where the reader-balls would slice into them and modify the DNA.

The new strain added to this list. It modified stem cells to produce tiny, free-floating strands of a strong, flexible micro–muscle fiber. These fibers would self-assemble, binding together in specific, collective patterns. While Bobby Jewell’s body dealt with the activities of reader-balls, builders and herders, his daughter, brother and niece would have to deal with the newest microorganism.

Chelsea, Donald and Betty would feel the effects of the crawlers.