Contagious

THE INVASION

Like most jobs, being the president’s go-to, behind-the-scenes man had pros and cons. Black budgets? Pro.Watching the most powerful people in Washington do whatever you told them to do? Pro. Meetings in the Oval Office where you were the center of attention? Pro.

That same meeting at 3:00 A.M. to deliver bad news?

That would be a con. A big con.

“I’m afraid there are new incidents,” Murray said.

The president in his pajamas. Vanessa fully dressed, hair pulled back tight as ever. Maybe, like Murray, she hadn’t even been to bed yet. Or maybe she was a vampire and didn’t need to sleep at all. He wouldn’t have ruled that out.

“With that weather analysis?” Gutierrez asked. “Did Montoya’s idea find this mystery satellite?”

“Not yet, Mister President,” Murray said. “We’re still getting NASA to pull their heads out of their asses and focus all their energies on it, if you’ll pardon my French, sir.”

“Even in an emergency, bureaucracy is what it is,” Gutierrez said. “Keep me informed on that. So, let’s hear about this new development.”

Murray cleared his throat and stepped into the breach. “Two people infected with the rot were found at a rest stop near Bay City, Michigan.

They did not have triangles. Donald Jewell of Pittsburgh and his teenage daughter, Betty. The father died on the spot. The daughter was being kept in one of the portable labs for observation. We flew Doctor Montoya’s team there, they performed the examination, and in the process the girl became violent and killed Doctor Amos Braun.”

“What?” Gutierrez said. “How? How did it happen?”

“She took his scalpel and stabbed him in the throat, sir. The girl then tried to attack Doctor Montoya. Agent Clarence Otto shot and killed the girl.”

“How is Montoya?” Gutierrez asked. “Is she okay? Was anyone else hurt?”

“No sir,” Murray said. “Doctor Braun was the only casualty.”

Gutierrez slumped into his chair. Vanessa seemed to pick up on this and leaned forward.

“And why wasn’t Otto in the room?” she asked.

Murray felt his face flush red, just a bit. “Montoya and Braun were doing emergency surgery on the girl. Agent Otto was in the computer room monitoring the situation.”

“But he wasn’t inside the room where they were operating?”

“No.”

She raised her eyebrows. “And how, exactly, does that happen in a case where all types of people turn into murderers?”

Murray said nothing. If he’d insisted on proper procedure, Otto would have been inside the room and Amos would probably still be alive. The trailer was cramped and extra bodies got in the way, but that was no excuse to ignore safety.

Vanessa had him dead to rights.

“You said incidents, plural,” Vanessa said. “What else?”

“We have a body in Gaylord, Michigan,” Murray said. “Male, Caucasian, found alone in his house. Corpse was black and rotted. Paramedics performed the swab test and got a positive result.”

Gutierrez sat forward again. “When did this happen?”

“About eight hours ago.”

“Eight hours?” Gutierrez said. “Don’t you have an alert system in place for things like this?”

“Yes, Mister President. The paramedics called the hospital, and it seems one of the local doctors wanted to evaluate the body himself. That delayed a call to the CDC, and when that call was made, it took a little while for the information to reach Doctor Cheng.”

“Cheng,” Vanessa said. “He’s the only one outside of Dew Phillips’s team that knows everything about this situation, is that right?”

“Yes ma’am,” Murray said.

Vanessa nodded. “So it’s safe to say that your high level of secrecy is responsible for this delay? If we had a nationwide alert out, we’d have heard about this Gaylord corpse much sooner, correct?”

She had his balls, and she was squeezing.

“That’s possible, ma’am, but we have more pressing issues at the moment. I ran Donald Jewell’s cell-phone and credit-card records. A few days ago, he made multiple calls to a Bobby Jewell in Gaylord. Turns out that’s his brother. We also obtained all of Betty Jewell’s cell-phone text messages from the past week. Messages from yesterday described her feeling ill and said that her father and cousin Chelsea Jewell were feeling the same.”

“Wait one second,” Vanessa said. “You read this girl’s private text messages?”

“Yes ma’am,” Murray said. “All cell-phone text messages are recorded in the databases of the phone companies. Every text message ever sent, I’m told, is still stored somewhere. We acquired Betty’s text history.”

“ ‘Acquired,’” Vanessa said. “Which is war-against-terrorism lingo for illegally obtained.”

“With all due respect, Miss Colburn,” Murray said without even a shred of respect in his voice, “I think we have more important things to worry about right now.”

“I agree,” Gutierrez said. “What else did you get out of the texts, Murray?”

“We think Chelsea has the same strain as Betty and Donald. We don’t know much, but this strain does not show triangle growth. It’s something new. However, Betty’s texts said Bobby Jewell had some small welts on his arm, and that he was itching. We think that means first-stage triangle growths. This is a chance for us to get the infection at its earliest stage, sir.

I’d recommended sending Dew Phillips and his team immediately.”

“Dew’s team,” Vanessa said. “By that you mean Perry Dawsey. No way.

We’re not going through that again.”

Murray’s stomach churned. He needed a Tums and pronto—he’d sent Dew to Gaylord right before he’d walked into the Oval Office.

“We have to send Perry, sir,” Murray said. “Dawsey is the only one who can detect the hosts.”

Vanessa smiled. He hated that smile. Really… fucking… hated it.

“But you already know where the Jewells live,” Vanessa said. “And you didn’t get that information from Perry Dawsey, correct?”

He had walked right into that one. So fucking obvious he hadn’t even realized it.

“Yes ma’am, but they could behave like other infected hosts and run, so we need Dawsey.”

“I see,” Vanessa said. “Well, I would think that if Dawsey had detected this Gaylord infection, you would have already said so. So am I right in assuming he did not detect this one?”

“That’s correct,” Murray said. “He feels that… uh… his ability to detect the hosts is being jammed by some unknown force.”

“So he did not detect it this time,” Vanessa said. “Which means if the Jewells do run, there’s no knowing whether Perry can track them at all.”

Murray’s face felt very hot. “I would say that’s correct, ma’am. But we also don’t know if this jamming will continue, or if he can hear them should he get closer. He’s the only detection asset we have. We need to send him now.”

“What we need to do,” Vanessa said, “is make sure we help the Jewells before it’s too late. After we have them, then bring in Dawsey—under heavy guard—to communicate with the triangles. He can still do that, right, Murray?”

“Yes,” Murray said, although he really didn’t know the answer.

“Then we agree that it’s a bad idea to send Dawsey in first.”

Murray shook his head. “That’s not what I said.”

“Come on, Murray,” she said. “Your tangled web of secrets just isn’t working. We need to stop fucking around.”

“I hardly think Amos Braun was fucking around when he died in the line of duty, Miss Colburn.” The words shot out of his mouth before he could control them.

“Of course that’s not what she meant,” Gutierrez said coolly. “Right, Vanessa?”

She glared at Murray. The eyes sent a clear message: You just embarrassed me in front of the president, and I won’t forget it.

“Of course,” she said. “My apologies, Murray.”

Gutierrez nodded once, as if the apology ended the incident for good.

Vanessa turned to face Gutierrez. “What I meant to say, John, was that we need to step this up a level. We need to send in Ogden.”

Again with calling the president by his first name.

“And have Ogden do what?” Murray asked. “Blockade the town? Go door-to-door and administer Margaret’s test?”

“Exactly,” she said. “That’s exactly what we have to do.”

President Gutierrez looked at her for quite a long time, his fingers tapping a pattern on the desk. He turned and looked at Murray. “Won’t it be impossible to control secrecy if we do that?”

Murray looked at the president, then at Vanessa. Her eyes were cold and emotionless once again. He didn’t like her, but he respected that kind of bold move. She wanted to send in the troops? Lock down an entire town? Vanessa Colburn did not fuck around.

“Actually, sir,” Murray said, “I agree with Miss Colburn. And I believe we can preserve secrecy. Doctor Cheng has been using a story about flesh-eating bacteria as cover for his research. Say a plane is flying over Gaylord with research material for the flesh-eating bacteria, the plane goes off the radar… well, that could inadvertently expose civilians. The local population is at risk, which gets us total cooperation of area law enforcement. We use local cops as our spokespeople; the residents will listen to them. We have enough tests to check all the residents we can find. Testing is an easy sell when we tell people they could rot and die horribly if they have the bacteria and go untreated.

“We evacuate the town, test everyone on the way out, then go door-to-door to see who’s left behind. We either get the infected coming out of town or get them in their homes. As soon as we secure the town, we let everyone back in. Two days at the most.”

Gutierrez raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You rattled that off like you’ve invaded a town before.”

Murray nodded. “There have been instances. If you’re willing to sign the secrecy-assurance documents, I can share any story you’d like to hear.

I have thirty years’ worth.”

Gutierrez tapped the desktop some more before he spoke. “How long will it take Ogden’s men to deploy to Gaylord?”

“Otsego Airport is right in the town proper,” Murray said. “Ogden and his men can land in C-17s, complete with Humvees, and we’ll have Ospreys and Apaches in support. He’ll probably be on the ground in Gaylord three or four hours from the time I make the call. But sir, I still strongly suggest putting Dawsey in play. If he can sniff out the hosts, it could shorten the process. Ogden’s men can make sure he stays under control.”

Gutierrez turned to Vanessa. She nodded.

“Do it, Murray,” Gutierrez said. “Get Tom Maskill an overview of the bacteria-story details, and we’ll coordinate. But I want Dawsey and Phillips to sit tight until Ogden arrives. And I’m not kidding, Murray—they better sit down and get some coffee and not do a damn thing. I am going to check up on that, and if I find out that my orders have been ignored, you’re finished.”

Murray needed to get the hell out of the Oval Office and call Dew before Perry could do anything stupid.

“Yes sir,” Murray said. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to implement this right away.”

Gutierrez nodded. Murray almost ran out of the room.

WAKE UP, MOMMY

Chelsea stood at the foot of her parents’ bed eating a Crunch Bar Eskimo Pie. It was only 8:00 A.M., and this was her third Crunch.

Mommy and Daddy didn’t get to make the rules anymore.

Try to wake them up. But don’t use words.

“For real?”

Speak to me with your thoughts.

Sorry, Chelsea thought.

My connection is going to be the strongest with you. You will help me talk to the rest. Now try to wake the mup.

Chelsea took a bite of ice cream, swallowed it, then concentrated.

Wake up, sleepyheads.

Nothing happened.

Try again. Don’t be nice, Chelsea.

You know how when you get angry, when you scream, your voice gets louder?

Yes.

Thoughts work the same way. Have your parents ever done anything to make you angry?

Chelsea’s smile faded away. Why shouldn’t she have all the ice cream she wanted? Why wouldn’t Daddy let her get her ears pierced? And why couldn’t she get a puppy? She wanted a puppy. That just wasn’t fair.

Maybe Daddy needed protection, but he also need to stop being bad.

Chelsea focused again.

Wake up, Daddy… or I’m going to spank you.

Daddy sat up fast, fully awake. He just stared at Chelsea. She had never seen Daddy’s face look like that before. His mouth was open and his eyes were all wide.

“Did you say something, honey?”

He absently scratched at his left arm. A big orange scabby thing came off in his hand. Without taking his eyes from his daughter, he tossed the scabby thing away and started scratching again.

I told you to wake up or I would spank you.

Daddy stopped scratching. His right hand just sort of hung on his left shoulder, frozen in half-scratch.

“That’s what I thought,” he said in a quiet voice.

Chelsea turned to stare at Mommy. Wake up, Mommy.

Mommy lifted her head, then set it back down, rolled over and groaned.

“Oh, I’m so hot,” she said. “Bob, tell Chelsea to stop screaming and go back to bed. She made me so goddamn sick.”

Daddy kept staring. “Uh, Candy? Uh… you better wake up.”

“I’m not kidding, Bob,” Mommy said in her Daddy Is So Stupid voice.

Chelsea dropped the ice cream stick on the floor.

Mommy, you get out of bed or I’ll make Daddy spank you.

Mommy sat up slowly and pulled the blankets right under her chin.

She stared at her daughter, face full of confusion.

“Chelsea,” Mommy whispered, “am I hearing you… in my… my head?”

“Get up, Candy,” Daddy said. “Please. She’s making me want to… to punish you.”

Mommy looked at Daddy and started to cry. She wasn’t getting up.

Chelsea had told her to get up.

Daddy, Mommy is being a bad girl.

Mommy shook her head. Daddy got out of bed and walked out of the bedroom. Chelsea stared at Mommy as they listened to Daddy walk downstairs, open a drawer in the kitchen, then walk back up. When he came into the bedroom, he was holding Mommy’s heavy spanky-spoon in his shaking hand.

Mommy, this is going to hurt Daddy more than it hurts you.

Mommy just kept shaking her head and crying until Daddy really got going. Then she started to scream.

THE NEED FOR SPEED

Colonel Charlie Ogden looked over Corporal Cope’s shoulder. They both stared at a computer screen showing a map of Gaylord, Michigan.

“Lot of roads in and out of that town, Colonel,” Cope said.

“Noted,” Ogden said. “What’s the population?”

“Over thirty-five hundred, sir. That’s a lot of people to manage with one company.”

“I’m thinking the same thing,” Ogden said. “But we have state and local police helping. How long a flight for the C-17s?”

“About an hour, sir,” Cope said. “Plus an hour to load up and another to fly. We could have X Company offloaded and ready to deploy in under three hours.”

“Call the pilots and the platoon leaders,” Ogden said. “They don’t pay us to have our bags packed for nothing. We scramble now. I want to be offloaded in two and a half, not three.”

“Yes sir.”

Cope left the desk and started making calls. Ogden sat down and studied the map. The airport was right in town. The hatchlings had made that mistake in Wahjamega as well, building a gate so close to a landing strip that Ogden had landed his troops only a couple of miles away from the target.

Cope was right—there were a lot of roads. First glance showed about twenty ways out of town, not counting the highways I-75 and M-32. No real choke points. Ogden could have the police handle the highways, keep a lower profile that way, but he wasn’t going to put a couple of cops on each back road. The infected were just too dangerous for that. He’d need to put a roadblock on each small road, stationed with at least four men.

The smaller roads were mostly paved rural routes through farmland, although there were a lot of vehicle-capable dirt trails that wound through wooded areas. And then the woods themselves, where people could just walk out and avoid the roads altogether. His men would be spread fairly thin to cover it all.

“Cope,” Ogden said.

“Sir?”

“Call Captain Lodge and activate Whiskey Company. We need them for this. We’ll leave Yankee and Zulu companies at Fort Bragg. Best to have a reserve that can react fast, in case we’re tied up in Gaylord, don’t you think?”

“Are you asking my opinion, sir?”

“No,” Ogden said. “It’s a rhetorical question.”

“In that case I agree with whatever you say, Colonel.”

“That’s what I like about you, Cope, you’re so opinionated. Now make the calls.”

“Yes sir.”

Ogden would have felt better using all four companies, but it was just too much to move a full battalion into a small town. Plus, it was prudent to leave two companies of the DOMREC free to react, in case a gate popped up somewhere else. The DOMREC was the only unit that could deploy and be combat-ready anywhere in the Midwest inside three hours. The next-fastest response time would come from the Division Ready Force. The DRF’s mission was to put lead elements anywhere in the world within eighteen hours of an alert. If DRF had to deploy in the continental United States, that would probably cut it down to seven or eight hours, but no way in hell could they be ready to fight in three hours.

When it came to that kind of speed, there was Charlie Ogden’s unit and no one else.

HOW TO DEAL WITH THE DEATH OF A FRIEND

Clarence Otto sat in the modified sleeper cabin of the MargoMobile, Margaret on his lap, her forehead in the crook of his neck and her legs supported by his arm. Her tears and snot dripped onto his jacket. If he noticed, he didn’t seem to care.

She couldn’t stop crying. She wanted to, tried to, but she couldn’t. She’d cried all night until she’d fallen asleep on the computer-room floor, then started again as soon as she woke.

They were driving north to Gaylord. Driving to more death. To more horror.

She was still wearing her scrubs, the same ones she’d slept in, the same ones she’d been wearing under the hazmat suit when Betty Jewell killed Amos Braun.

Killed her friend.

A friend she would never, ever see again. She just wanted him back. Why couldn’t he just come back?

“I’m so sorry, Margo,” Clarence said as he gently petted her hair. He kept saying that. Maybe he didn’t know what else to say. It didn’t matter what he said, really. She was grateful just for the sound of his voice.

She should have been the one to call Amos’s wife. She’d never met the woman, but still, Margaret should have done it. She’d taken the coward’s way out, though—Dew sent a couple of FBI agents to deliver the news.

“I need to get up,” she said. “I have to watch the video from my helmet-cam. Maybe I missed something, maybe I already forgot something when…” Her voice trailed off.

“There’s plenty of time to work later,” Clarence said. “You need a rest. Besides, we’re driving. It’s not safe for you to be in the trailer when this thing is rolling along.”

He kept petting her hair.

The cold lump in her chest wouldn’t go away.

“If only… I could have… gotten his helmet off sooner,” she said quietly, her sobs breaking up her sentence.

“You know that’s not true,” Clarence whispered. “She cut his artery. There was nothing you could have done.”

“But I… was in charge. It’s… it’s my fault.”

She felt Clarence shaking his head, his chin rubbing softly against her hair.

“You’re smarter than that, Margo. I know you’re going to try and blame yourself, because that’s the kind of person you are. You want to take everything on your shoulders. But blaming yourself for his death is stupid, and you know it. That girl had enough drugs in her to knock out an elephant. She had shown no signs of violent behavior. Hell, her hands were strapped down. No one could have seen it coming. In fact, if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine, because I’m responsible for protecting you both. I wasn’t even in the room.”

“But we told you to stay out of our way,” Margaret said. “Too cramped in there with an extra body. If… if you hadn’t been in the computer room, watching it on the monitor…”

“I can override any order you give me if I think your safety is at risk. I could have stayed in the autopsy room. If I had, Amos would still be alive.”

Margaret sat up and looked at him. “Don’t do that, Clarence. It’s not your fault!”

“I know. And it’s not yours, either.”

Another sob grabbed her body, grabbed it and shook it. Amos was dead. Who was going to look after his daughters? Had the FBI agents delivered the news yet? Would his family ever know the truth, or was Murray already dealing another cover story? Amos Braun deserved a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom—his family would get a lie about a lab accident and an insurance payout.

“We can look for blame all day,” Clarence said. “That’s not going to bring him back. All it’s going to do is take our focus away from the job at hand. More people are going to die, Margo, you can bet on that. More good people like my boy Amos. It sucks to say, but we can grieve him all we want once we beat this fucking thing. You want to place blame? Place it where it belongs. Place it on this infection. That’s what killed Amos, not me, and not you.”

Another set of sobs hit, but this time she finally forced them into submission. Clarence was right. This disease had taken Amos, taken all the others. If she could stop it, if she could kill it, that was the greatest tribute she could pay to her friend.

“You know what’s funny?” Clarence said.

“What?”

“I finished up twenty bucks ahead. He’d be so pissed if he knew I won.”

Margaret couldn’t believe Clarence could joke at a time like this. Then she thought of Amos’s face when he took the twenty from Otto, or the scowl when he had to hand it over. For some reason she pictured him looking down on both of them, pointing and laughing.

And despite the pain, she laughed a little herself.

MR. BURKLE THE POSTMAN

John Burkle was a bit behind. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor the gloom of night, but notice how no one ever listed nor horribly rotted blackened corpses as one of the things that could keep you from your appointed rounds.

John had called 9-1-1, then waited for the ambulance and cops to arrive. He couldn’t say for sure if it had been Cheffie in that house. Cheffie was the only one who lived there, but that black… thing …could have been anyone. The paramedics had even given John some test for flesh-eating bacteria, which—thank God—turned out to be negative. He’d gone home after that, a bit shaken up by the whole ordeal, which meant that today he had a double load of mail to deliver.

He stuffed shopper coupons and magazines into the mailbox, shut it, drove back onto the road and checked his next batch.

The Jewells.

It was insane to think that flesh-eating bacteria had hit Gaylord of all places. Nothing happened in Gaylord, which was exactly why John Burkle loved it so much.

He pulled up to the Jewells’ mailbox and put in two days’ worth of mail. He started to drive away, then stopped when he saw Bobby Jewell walking down his long, tree-lined driveway. Bobby was carrying his little daughter, Chelsea, who was waving a letter. What a doll that one was. All those blond curls. If she turned out to be half the looker her mother was, the girl was going to break some hearts when she got into high school.

“Hey there, Chelsea,” John called. “Got some mail for me?”

“Yes sir, Mister Postman!”

About ten feet from the truck, Bobby set Chelsea down. She ran forward, holding the letter up as if it were an object of great importance. Little kids were such a hoot—something as mundane as mailing a letter could carry newness and excitement.

“Here you go, Mister Postman!”

John took the letter with affected importance. “Well, thank you very much, young lady.”

Chelsea actually curtsied. John just wanted to eat her up.

“You’re welcome, Mister Postman. My daddy wants to show you something.”

“Oh?” John looked up. Bobby had closed the distance and just stood there. John knew Bobby from summer softball league, but damn, the guy didn’t look good at all. Sunken eyes, pale skin. Looked like he’d lost at least fifteen pounds.

“Hi, John,” Bobby said. “I got to show you the damnedest thing.”

“What’s that?”

Bobby unzipped his coat, reached in and pulled out a rusty red monkey wrench. “This thing is stuck like you wouldn’t believe.”

John looked at the wrench, then looked at Bobby. Why the hell would Bobby show him a stuck monkey wrench? John’s internal alarm went off—what if Bobby looked like crap because he had that flesh-eating shit?

“Uh… Bobby, I don’t have time right now.”

“Why’s that, Mister Postman?” Chelsea said.

John automatically looked down at the girl. Even as he did, he knew that it was a mistake. By the time he looked up, the monkey wrench was a rusty red blur. He flinched just before the wrench smashed him on the left side of his jaw. He slid to the right, falling off his seat and into the van. He tried to get to his feet, but they were tangled in the gas and break pedals. Time became a dreamy, slow-moving sludge. He knew that the wrench was coming again, the moment before that metallic hit dragged on forever.

His Taser.

His hands searched for his bag, for the weapon that could save him, but it was too late.

The slow-motion sensation evaporated when he felt a blast on his left ear. His head exploded with concussive pain. The van seemed to spin around him. He tried to get up again, but his arms and legs felt so weak. Then he felt weight bearing down on him; he felt strong, callused hands on forehead and jaw, forcing his mouth open.

He felt a small, hot, wet tongue slide into his mouth.

And then he felt the burning…

APPLEBEE’S

Perry Dawsey had never thought normality could seem so surreal.

Or so goddamn uncomfortable.

He sat in an Applebee’s in Gaylord, Michigan, waiting for his burger to arrive. Kitsch lined the walls. Some Top 40 shit played on the sound system. There were tables filled with fat men, fat women and fat kids. Dew sat to Perry’s left. Perry sat across from Claude Baumgartner. Baum had lost the metal brace, but his nose was still a mess. Jens Milner, whose eye remained quite black, sat on Perry’s right, across from Dew.

Add in Perry’s nasty facial cuts and they looked like a foursome back from a fight club—a fight club that Dew had clearly won, since all he had was a little Band-Aid on his head.

Baum and Milner just sat there, staring at Perry, not saying a word.

This was another of Dew’s brilliant ideas. Sure! Why the hell not? Let’s sit down for lunch with a couple of guys I fucked up before I walked into a house and slaughtered a family. Why, a lunch like this is so damn normal it should be in a fucking Applebee’s commercial.

“I don’t get it,” Baum said. “Why don’t we just go to the Jewells’ house?” Baum’s right hand hovered near his left lapel, next to his tit. Sometimes it rested on the table, sometimes Baum pretended to scratch his chest, and sometimes the hand just hung there in midair. His hand seemed to orbit around the pistol in his shoulder holster. Perry didn’t mind so much. He kept his own hand on the table’s edge—if Baum made a move, he’d jam the table into the fucker’s chest and drive him right to his back.

Baum kept staring at Perry, staring with that attitude. It was hard enough to keep things under control without some motherfucker calling you out with his eyes. Perry wanted to smash his face in, but Dew expected more of him. So Perry would hold it in. For now, anyway.

“We can’t go near the house,” Dew said. “Murray’s orders.”

Milner huffed. “That’s to keep Mister Happy here from killing the family, and you know it. We’ve got the address. Baum and I can go.”

Like Baum, Milner just kept staring. Didn’t anyone teach these CIA guys any manners?

“No way,” Dew said. “We can’t go near it until Ogden arrives and sends some boys with us. Believe me, Murray was really specific. Seems the new chief of staff has it in for him. If we show our faces at the Jewell house before Ogden arrives, Murray is screwed. And if Murray is screwed, he’ll make sure everyone at this table is even more screwed. Trust me on that. So we might as well get some grub while we wait. And incidentally, Baum, if you don’t get that hand away from your gun, I’m going to shove it up your ass.”

“The gun or the hand?” Baum asked without taking his eyes off Perry.

“Both,” Dew said. “But I’ll surprise you with the order of entry. And quit staring. Jesus. You’d think you two had never sat down to eat with a guy that kicked your ass before.”

“Sure,” Milner said. “All the time. It’s like a regular outing with my buddies back home.”

Perry smiled at him and held up one hand, waving his fingers toward his palm. Come on, the gesture said, let’s go.

“Knock it off, Dawsey,” Dew said. “All three of you, just can the shit. Perry is here because he wants to work with us, ain’t that right?”

Perry nodded.

“As for you two”—Dew looked at Baum and Jens in turn—“stop being pussies. This is too important for you guys to be all bitchy because he got the drop on you.”

Dew stared at Baum. “Well?”

Baum kept looking at Perry for a few more seconds, then let out a sigh and shrugged his shoulders. “Fuck it,” he said. “He’s not the first prick to break my nose.”

Dew slid his stare over to Milner. “How about you?”

Milner finally tore his glare away from Perry to return Dew’s stare. “Your boy here is bad news, Dew,” he said quietly. “You could track this guy just by following the trail of corpses. He murders people.”

“They’re not people,” Perry said. Why couldn’t anyone understand that?

“Save it,” Milner said. “He’s a fucking psycho, Dew, and I’m not eating with him.”

Jens stood up and dropped his napkin on his plate.

“Sit your ass down, Milner,” Dew said.

“You got a problem with it?” Milner said. “Then fire me. Otherwise, I’ll be in the car.”

He turned and walked out of Applebee’s.

Perry looked down at his plate. Was Milner right? Was he just a psycho? No. Those people were not people at all. They were infected. They had to die. All the infected had to die.

“Don’t sweat it, Perry,” Dew said. “He’ll come around.”

Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. Perry didn’t give a shit what two peons thought. But… maybe he should. Dew seemed to think their opinion was important.

If Dew thought it mattered, well then, it mattered.

OATMEAL

Chelsea squirted the lighter fluid all over the kitchen. Daddy was crumpling up newspapers into big balls. He crumpled, then Mommy squirted them with her can of lighter fluid and put them into the kitchen cupboards.

Family time was really fun.

“Daddy, are you sure there aren’t any guns in Mister Burkle’s truck?”

Daddy nodded. Chelsea wondered if Daddy knew what he was talking about. Mr. Burkle would be awake in a few hours, and then Chelsea could ask him personally.

“Daddy, why don’t we have any guns?”

“Why do you want guns, honey?” Daddy said. “Are… are you going to shoot me?”

Chelsea sighed. Now she understood why sometimes Mommy used the you’re so stupid voice on Daddy. Of course she wasn’t going to shoot him. Why would she shoot someone who had the dollies?

“Well, Daddy, Chauncey says we need guns. So go buy some.”

“We can’t just go buy them, honey,” Mommy said. “There’s, like, a waiting period or something, right Bobby?”

Daddy nodded.

Chelsea frowned. “Well, you two need to find guns. If you don’t, you’re going to have to punish each other.”

Daddy shook his head. “Chelsea, baby… I don’t want to hit your mom with the spoon again. Don’t make me do that.”

“Please,” Mommy said. “No more. And we need to figure out where we’re going to go. Chelsea honey, are you sure we have to set the house on fire?”

“Mommy,” Chelsea said. “If you ask me that just one more time, you get the spanky-spoon for sure!”

“I’m sorry,” Mommy said in a fast whisper. “I’m sorry, honey, I won’t ask again.”

“Not another word!” Chelsea said.

Daddy crumpled the newspapers faster.

Chelsea squirted a bunch of the smelly fluid under the fridge. Would the fridge burn? She wished she could stay and watch, but Chauncey said they needed to leave.

Daddy snapped his fingers. “Mark Jenkins! He’s got guns. Pistols and hunting rifles—he’s got everything.”

“So go get them,” Chelsea said.

“Honey,” Mommy said quietly, “he’s not going to just give them to us. We have to figure out how to take them.”

Chelsea thought on this for a minute. She sensed that Mommy didn’t really need the spoon anymore. Mommy was different from Daddy. Mommy was a protector, like Chelsea. Which meant that Mommy could…

“Mommy, stick out your tongue.”

Mommy did. Chelsea looked close—Mommy had dozens of pretty little blue triangles on her tongue. Information flooded Cheslea’s brain. Each of those triangles held thousands of little crawlers, ready to shoot out, shoot into someone else. That’s how Chelsea had given God’s love to Mommy—and now Mommy was ready to give it to other people.

“Mommy, can you give Mister Jenkins smoochies? Like I gave to you?”

Daddy smiled. “That would work. He’s got the hots for you, Candy.”

Mommy glared at Daddy. It was the you’re so stupid glare that usually went with the you’re so stupid voice.

“Well?” Chelsea said. “Can you do it, Mommy?”

“I… I guess I could.” Mommy sounded sad and excited all at the same time. She had sad eyes when she looked at Daddy, but Chelsea could feel her excitement at the thought of spreading God’s love.

Mommy cleared her throat. “How long will it take after I give him smoochies?”

“He’ll get sleepy pretty quick,” Chelsea said. “You may have to be with him for an hour, but then Chauncey says he will feel sick and want to go to sleep, just like Mister Burkle the Postman. Can you do that, Mommy? Can you get Mister Jenkins to play for an hour after smoochies?”

“Yes honey,” Mommy said. “I think I know a way to get Mister Jenkins to play for an hour, then go to sleep.”

“Well get going, slowpoke! I’ll stay here and watch Daddy.”

Mommy looked at Daddy. “I guess this is how it has to be.”

He nodded. Now he looked sad.

Mommy got her coat and left the house.

Things were changing for Chelsea, changing fast. She had no frame of reference to truly understand what was happening to her, what was happening around her. The Orbital knew this, and put it to use. Her simplicity and lack of experience made her a powerful tool. Chelsea was moldable.

The Orbital had to prepare her for the worst-case scenario: its own destruction. Every day the probability of an attack increased. Should something happen to the Orbital, it had to ensure that Chelsea could still complete the objective. The Orbital could change her brain, make the fibers reproduce, fill in spaces between brain cells and increase her computing power and intelligence. It could make her a focal point of communication. But all the processing power and communication ability wouldn’t help if she couldn’t think for herself.

The Orbital had to turn Chelsea Jewell into a leader.

Chelsea sat on her bed, thinking. The kitchen was too smelly. So was the living room. Daddy had used a whole can of gasoline in there, said it would burn real nice.

Chelsea, the bad guys may come for you soon.

“Oh,” Chelsea said. “That’s why we’re burning the house, right? So they won’t find us?”

Yes, but they will also come for the others.

“Others? What others, Chauncey?”

The others like you, like Daddy.

Chelsea hopped off her bed. She wanted to dance. There were other people like her? How exciting! She started to spin in circles.

“Where are they, Chauncey? How do I find them?”

You need to make them come to you.

You have the power to find them with your mind.

“Can I talk to them like I talk to you?”

Not the same way, not yet, but you can send simple messages. We will start by you talking to me with your mind, not your mouth.

Chelsea stopped spinning and closed her eyes. Yes, Chauncey.

Good. Now reach out. Use your thoughts, reach out and find them.

Chelsea thought. She reached out. What a funny feeling! She felt her consciousness expanding, spreading. She sensed Mommy first. Then Mr. Burkle the Postman, although it was harder to sense him. He wasn’t as strong as Mommy. Chelsea sensed Daddy next—actually, she sensed the dollies inside Daddy. Oh, how fun! They were growing so fast!

Keep trying. More, find more. You must become stronger.

Chelsea took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She pushed. It felt…slippery. Her mind reached out, and made contact! Several contacts.

Ryan Roznowski. He had dollies, although he suspected that his wife was going to call the police soon. Chelsea couldn’t let that happen.

Mr. Beckett had dollies, too. And Old Sam Collins. And a woman named Bernadette Smith.

And…

And…

Beck Beckett, Mr. Beckett’s son. Beck felt different. Not like Daddy or Mr. Beckett. Chelsea knew Beck from school, even though he was a grade ahead. Thoughts of Beck made Chelsea angry, and she didn’t know why.

I have found five, Chauncey. What do I do now?

Tell them to come to where you are.

Tell them to bring guns.

Chelsea nodded. She did what Chauncey asked. But why was Beck coming if he didn’t have dollies? What good was he?

Chauncey? Beck Beckett isn’t like Daddy. Touching him feels like touching Mommy, but I didn’t give Beck smoochies.

That is because he received God’s love directly from me, just like you did. The dollies are very, very important, but people like you and Beck will protect them.

Chelsea suddenly felt mad. Did Chauncey like Beck more than her? Would Beck be Chauncey’s favorite?

Are you talking to him?

Yes, but it is taking him longer to develop.

Chauncey was Chelsea’s special friend, not Beck Butthead Beckett’s. Her anger grew.

What do we do now?

You have to start learning to think for yourself, Chelsea. Let me show you a new pretty picture.

Chelsea waited. Her mind still felt funny, like it was in many places at one time. Slippery? Was that the right word? No, more like… mushy. Like lumpy oatmeal. Ah, the lumps were the people she connected with.

An image exploded in Chelsea’s thoughts. A gorgeous image. Unlike anything she’d ever known. Like four lit-up hula hoops buried halfway in the ground, a big one at the end, three smaller ones behind it. And pointing away from the smallest hula hoop, two big logs. The dollies would make this.

Oh, Chauncey. It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. What is it?

When Mommy and Daddy take you to church, do they tell you about heaven?

Oh, yes! The preacher talks about God, and heaven and Jesus and how Jesus loves us no matter what.

This image you see, Chelse a, is a door to heaven.

She felt joy in her chest. Really? This is really a door to heaven?

You will protect the dollies so they can build it. When they open it, Chelsea, angels will come through.

Angels? Really? Will they have wings?

They are not nice angels, Chelsea.

They are angels of vengeance.

What’s venjance mean?

They are coming to punish people who have been bad. Do you like bad people, Chelsea?

She shook her head. She most certainly did not like bad people.

Chelsea, I will not always be here to help you.

Chauncey, you can’t leave! You’re my special friend!

I’m not leaving yet, but may be soon. So you need to think for yourself. If you must help the dollies build this gate to heaven, how can you make that happen faster?

Chelsea thought. This was like school. She had to help the dollies build the gate to heaven. Only a special girl could do such a thing, but Jesus loved her, the Bible said so. She could do it. But how to make it build faster. Well, she needed…

We need more dollies! And more chosen people to protect them!

That’s right, Chelsea. And how could you find more dollies?

The answer came quicker this time.

I need to search farther.

Chelsea pushed her thoughts. The oatmeal spread. She sensed dollies, out in many, many places. They were too far apart to come together, and she needed many to build the gate. She needed… she needed at least thirty-three dollies.

Chauncey hadn’t told her that number, and yet she knew it. How? She searched her thoughts. The number seemed to come from the dollies. Was that what Chauncey meant by thinking for herself?

She could do this on her own. She could make Chauncey proud.

Chelsea pushed further. More hits, more dollies… and something else…

…something dark…

…something… mean.

Her breath came faster. She couldn’t move. It was like a dream, one of the nightmares when the boogeyman came for her and she ran and then she fell and she couldn’t get up and the boogeyman was coming and he had that sharp knife and he was going to stab it in her back but it couldn’t be a dream she was awake this thing this monster this giant monster was going to get her.

“No!” She meant to scream the word, but it came out a hoarse whisper so quiet she could barely hear it herself. “No no nonono!”

Chelsea, stop, do not connect to him.

“The boogeyman,” she hissed. “Chauncey, the boogeyman is real.”

Chelsea, stop!

The connection broke. Chelsea blinked, then sucked in a big breath. Her whole body shook. Her pants were hot and wet.

She’d peed herself.

Do not connect with that one. He is the destroyer. He wants to stop us, Chelsea. He wants to hurt you. You must remember what that one feels like, recognize it, and never connect with him again.

She nodded. She knew the destroyer was evil. She’d felt it.

Chelsea got off her bed and looked down. Her pants were soaked with pee-pee. She felt her face flush red. She’d wet herself. She was a big girl, and that wasn’t supposed to happen anymore. She’d peed herself because of the boogeyman.

The fear hadn’t left, but Chelsea Jewell started to feel the first embers of other emotions.

The embers of rage.

The embers of hate.

Perry sat very still. He waited for the feeling to return.

It did not.

A tear in the grayness, brief but painfully intense, like listening to quiet static on headphones only to be shocked by an unexpected blast of screeching feedback so loud it made your ears ring for days.

But it wasn’t noise, and he hadn’t heard with his ears. It was an emotion—fear. Pure terror, rich and undistilled by logic or rationality. He’d felt it in his soul. He still felt an echo of that fear. So pure. He hadn’t experienced anything like that since… since he was a little boy.

A little boy so afraid of the shadows under the bed that he couldn’t move, couldn’t look, sure that whatever was under there would grab him and pull him down forever and ever.

But now he wasn’t afraid of the thing under the bed.

He was the thing under the bed.

BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY

Corporal Cope drove Charlie Ogden’s Humvee out the back of the C-17 Globemaster and into the winter night. It didn’t have to go far. Just off the end of the runway, a black Lincoln waited. Four men stood outside it. Even from a distance, there was no mistaking the size of Perry Dawsey.

Ogden tapped Cope on the shoulder and pointed to the Lincoln. Seconds later, Ogden hopped out in front of Dew, Perry and two other men Ogden didn’t know.

“Colonel,” Dew said, shaking hands. Dawsey didn’t offer his hand, and if he had, Ogden probably wouldn’t have shaken it. The other two men just stood there, respectfully silent.

“A damn shame about Amos,” Ogden said. “Please convey my condolences to Margaret.”

“I will,” Dew said.

“Status report?”

“No problems so far,” Dew said. “State troopers have shut down all off-ramps to Gaylord from highways I-75 and 32. They have a dozen troopers at each on-ramp administering the swab test. Traffic is backing up a bit, but it’s not that bad.”

“Any positive tests?”

Dew shook his head. “So far, so good. The cops have people waiting to go over area maps with you, suggest the best places for roadblocks.”

“What about reports of violence?” Ogden asked. “Any of these bastards fighting?”

Dew again shook his head. “Nothing reported. Gaylord police can’t believe how smoothly it’s going, but I guess the small-town rumor mill has been spreading stories of the body the postman found. Tack on the news coverage talking about what necrotizing fasciitis can do and people are only too happy to cooperate, get the test and get the hell out of Dodge.”

Ogden nodded. He’d come to expect smooth sailing out of a Murray Longworth cover story. The slimy bastard knew his shit.

“I understand that you need men,” Ogden said. “How many and for what?”

“Eight should cover it,” Dew said. “Those bodies they found in Bay City? The guy’s name was Donald Jewell. He was probably here visiting his brother, Bobby Jewell, age thirty-three. We have to go bring Bobby in.”

“Bobby have family in the house?”

“Wife Candice, also thirty-three, daughter Chelsea, seven. That’s it.”

“Stay right here,” Ogden said. “I’ll send a full squad, nine men instead of eight. Acceptable?”

Dew nodded.

Ogden walked closer to Dew and talked quietly so that only Dew could hear.

“Murray said we need to watch out for Dawsey going apeshit,” Ogden said. “My men have orders to stop him from doing anything stupid. I’ll load them up with Tasers, but if push comes to shove they will take Dawsey down by any means possible.”

“You going to shoot him, Colonel?”

“If I have to,” Ogden said. “So make sure it doesn’t come to that.”

BECK BECKETT, THIRD-GRADER

Chelsea watched the last car drive down her long, winding dirt driveway. She watched that car very carefully, just as she had the last three. She pushed her thoughts out, wondering if this car might bring the boogeyman.

She could tell that the boogeyman was very close, maybe even in Gaylord. And he would kill her… unless she could kill him first.

Chelsea hated the boogeyman.

She let out a long, slow breath as she connected—he wasn’t in that car. The car stopped behind the others. Two people got out, a man and a boy.

It was a good thing she’d called everyone here. Mr. Beckett had a blue triangle on his cheek. Another one peeked out from beneath his collar, just the point visible past the neckline of his sweater.

Beck Beckett looked fine.

He was a third-grader at South Maple Elementary, the same place where Chelsea was a second-grader. Beck was older. People might listen to him.

She couldn’t have that.

Daddy went out and shook hands with Mr. Beckett, then led him into the house. Beck followed along. The front door led into the kitchen, where Daddy and the Becketts joined Old Sam Collins, Ryan Roznowski and Ryan’s wife, Marie.

Marie was dead, but that was okay.

Mr. Beckett waved his hand in front of his face. “Whoa,” he said. “Someone leave the stove on?”

“Hello, Mister Beckett,” Chelsea said. “Welcome.”

Mr. Beckett stopped waving his hand when he saw her. “Hello, Chelsea. It’s an honor.” The change in his voice was so funny. Grown-ups used to talk to her like a kid. Now they sounded like they were the kids, and she was the grown-up.

“Thank you, Mister Beckett. Sorry about the smell. We had to get some things ready for God.”

Why are you using your mouth?

She looked at Beck. He was smiling at her. It wasn’t a nice smile, either.

You think you’re so smart, Chelsea thought back. You better realize God loves me the most.

Beck nodded. For now.

“We have to get out of Gaylord,” Chelsea said. “Daddy thinks they will come for us.”

“That’s just stupid,” Beck said. “How would they know to come to your house?”

The adults seemed to freeze in place, as if they were afraid to breathe. They all had wide eyes.

“Don’t you call me stupid,” Chelsea said. “You’re in my house.”

“It’s not your house,” Beck said. “It’s God’s house. We should stay right here until the hatching.”

“We’re leaving,” Chelsea said. “You do what you’re told.”

Beck Beckett was going to get such a spanking.

Mr. Beckett took a step forward. “Maybe… maybe we should listen to Beck, Chelsea. He is older, after all.”

Mr. Beckett would have to be spanked, too. That was okay. She’d planned for that all along, but it made her feel better to know that Mr. Beckett deserved it.

“Mister Beckett is a spy,” Chelsea hissed. “So is Beck.”

Mr. Beckett’s face blanched. “No! No, Chelsea, we’re not spies.”

“Shut up, Dad,” Beck said.

Mr. Beckett looked at his son, then took a step back.

Beck smiled again. “God doesn’t want us to argue, little Chelsea,” he said. “We’re not spies, and we’re going to stay here.”

Chelsea smiled her sweetest smile. “You want to stay here? Okay, Beck. You can stay as long as you like.”

She took a quick, deep breath, then thought as hard as she could. Get them!

It was Beck’s turn to widen his eyes. Chelsea knew why. She was much, much stronger than he was. He hadn’t realized how much stronger, and now it was too late.

Daddy stepped up and kneed Mr. Beckett where it counts. Mr. Beckett let out a painful groaning noise and fell to the floor. Old Sam Collins ran up and kicked Mr. Beckett in the face over and over again as Daddy pulled a knife out of the knife drawer and fell on Mr. Beckett.

Kick, stab, kick, stab, kick, stab.

Mr. Beckett screamed, but that was okay.

Beck shook his head, as if he didn’t want to believe what he was seeing. He turned to run, but Mr. Roznowski tackled him from behind.

Chelsea heard Beck’s mental scream. Stop it! God, save me!

Chelsea, what are you doing?

Mr. Roznowski held Beck’s head on the linoleum floor and started kneeing him in the face. It made a weird crunching sound.

He was dangerous, Chauncey.

We need him. Stop this right now.

“You’re not the boss of me, Chauncey,” Chelsea said.

Beck still kicked a little after the third knee in his face. He twitched after the fourth. He stopped altogether after the fifth. Mr. Roznowski stood up. Beck’s face looked very funny.

Then Daddy stood, covered in Mr. Beckett’s blood. Old Sam Collins was limping. Looked like he’d hurt his foot kicking Mr. Beckett in the face.

Chelsea, I am God, you must obey me.

She shook her head. I’m a big girl now, Chauncey. Beck was dangerous. It’s for the best. Someday, you’ll understand.

That was a lie, of course. Beck wasn’t dangerous, but Chauncey might have loved Beck more than her. Chauncey was Chelsea’s special friend. With Beck gone it would stay that way forever and ever.

“Okay, everybody,” Chelsea said. “Time to go play at Mister Jenkins’s house. Someone make two trips so we can get rid of Mister Beckett’s car.

Mommy, you can take me in a snowmobile. Daddy, you clean up here and then come over on a snowmobile, too, okay?”

“Yes, Chelsea,” Daddy said.

Chelsea, Mr. Roznowski and Old Sam Collins got their coats and walked out the front door, while Daddy got the box of matches.

BETTY’S AUTOPSY

Betty Jewell’s autopsy was a disaster.

Margaret could barely think after Amos’s horrifying death, let alone focus on the job. By the time she’d dragged herself into the biohazard suit and started working on Betty, the girl’s body had mostly dissolved.

Margaret approached the trolley, Clarence beside her in his suit. Gitsh, Marcus and Dr. Dan stood next to Betty’s blackened corpse. It made for tight quarters, but Clarence refused to leave her side. Gitsh and Marcus had done an amazing job cleaning up. The autopsy room looked spotless. The trolley carried a steady, slow, thick stream of black goo down the runners and into the white sink.

Margaret wanted a look at those crawling things. They were the key to everything now, but she’d waited too long. Any crawlers in Betty’s body had already dissolved. Even the samples that Amos had taken were now nothing but chunky black liquid.

She’d let her grief get in the way of her work.

Margaret felt weak. She put a hand on the autopsy trolley to steady herself—when she looked at the table, her mind’s eye saw Betty Jewell’s skinless hands stabbing the scalpel at Amos. When Margaret looked down, she saw Amos clawing at the throat of his biohazard suit, unable to get his hands at the cut, unable to stop the blood from sheeting the inside of his visor. When she saw the drainage sink, she saw Betty’s brains splattering against the white epoxy and dripping toward the drain.

Clarence’s hand on her shoulder. “Margo, you okay?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

A lie anyone could see through.

“Dan,” Margaret said, “have you watched the video from my helmet? The video of the autopsy?”

“Yes ma’am,” Dr. Dan said. “Several times.”

“And what did you see?”

“Something crawling in her face. Doctor Braun thought it was crawling along the V3 nerve toward the brain.”

“Do you agree?”

“It certainly looked that way,” Dan said.

Too bad they didn’t have a brain to look at. No chance of that, thanks to Clarence’s bullet and rapid decomposition. When that crawler reached the brain, then what?

Then it would come apart.

It would split up into those muscle fibers Amos saw, split apart…reorganize… come together again.

In a mesh. Just like in Perry Dawsey’s brain.

“The crawlers,” Margaret said. “They want to replicate what we’ve seen in Dawsey’s CAT scans.”

Dr. Dan stared at her. “That’s a pretty big leap. We haven’t seen anything like these crawlers before. I read your reports on the hosts found in Glidden; the father, mother and little boy. You had fresh bodies, yet they didn’t have these crawling things.”

“It’s something new, obviously,” Margaret said. “I don’t care if its a leap. It’s right. These things infect a human body, maybe replicate somehow, then crawl toward the brain. If we can stop them from crawling, we just plain stop them.”

“It’s got a structure,” Dan said. “A shape. It can move. For that it needs a cytoskeleton.”

“The little things have skeletons?” Clarence asked.

“Cytoskeleton,” Dan said. “It’s like microscopic scaffolding that lets a cell hold a shape.”

“Without it, a cell would just be a membrane holding fluid,” Margaret said. “Without a cytoskeleton to hold structure, it would be like a water balloon. Amos thought the crawlers looked like human muscle fibers. If these things are some kind of modified muscle cell, and we disrupted their cell structure, then the cells couldn’t contract. They couldn’t move. They couldn’t crawl.”

“So you dissolve this cytoskeleton,” Clarence said, “and that stops it? That’s it?”

“It’s not that easy,” Dan said. “Our normal cells also have cytoskeletons. Anything that would kill the crawlers would also kill our cells.”

“But it’s something,” Margaret said. “A human body can regrow lost cells, eventually repair damage, but these crawlers are so small, just a few cells. If we disrupt their cytoskeleton, they might just die. At any rate, we can stop them before they reach the brain.”

“I can order a screen,” Dan said. “We can get all the drugs that might work and have them ready when we get another host.”

“If we get another host,” Clarence said. “Let’s hope there aren’t any more.”

“Oh grow up, Clarence,” Margaret said. “You know goddamn well there will be more. There’s always more.”

Silence filled the trailer. Margaret rewound the moment in her head, realized how nasty she had just sounded.

“Sorry,” she said.

Clarence shrugged. “Don’t sweat it, Doc. Can we test these cytoskeleton wreckers on Betty’s remains?”

“There’s nothing left,” Margaret said. “We’re too late for that. I’ll tell you what we’re going to do with this body. We’re going to burn it.”

She stared at Betty’s remains, the blackened, rotting, murderous remains.

“Uh, Margo,” Clarence said. “Don’t we want to… I don’t know…study it?”

She turned on him. “What, exactly, are we going to find? Huh? It’s another blackened corpse, Clarence. Apoptosis chain reaction. Boom, dead, done. That’s it. She has whatever the father had, so we’ll run chemical analysis on his remains. We don’t need this… this thing.”

She turned back to Gitsh and Marcus. They looked at her with pity in their eyes. They were saddened by Amos’s death, she knew that, but they just didn’t understand.

“Incinerate this bitch,” Margaret said. “I don’t want a single ounce of her left, you understand me?”

Gitsh and Marcus both nodded slowly.

She turned and walked out of the autopsy room.

BURN, BURN, YES YA GONNA BURN (REDUX)

Even though most of the Jewell house was already gone, flames still shot into the dark sky. Flashing fire-truck lights added to the visuals, the mixed illumination coloring snowflakes that dropped straight down like slow-motion rain. In the dark isolation of the Jewell property, the place felt like an island of light surrounded by an infinite black ocean.

Hoses from the trucks poured water onto the burning house, turning the yard into a slushy mess filled with cinders and mud. A lead on a triangle case taking him to a house on fire? Gosh, Dew thought, what a surprise. If he’d come as soon as they reached Gaylord, he’d probably have the Jewells in custody right now. Instead, Dew had a feeling all he’d get would be more corpses for Margaret’s collection.

Margaret. She was a mess. Amos had gone out hard. The longer she stayed in this business, in the secret land of the Murray Longworths and the Dew Phillipses, the more she’d understand shit like that was inevitable. He wondered if she’d block it out, or if someday in the future she’d be telling her own war stories.

Dew looked at Perry, who stood expressionless, watching the fire. What was going on in that big melon of his? Three days since they’d tussled, and Perry really seemed to have come around. Looked like Margaret was right again. Dew hoped it was a genuine change. As fucked up as it sounded, and it sounded damn fucked up, he was starting to like the kid.

Dew nudged Perry. “You feel anything?”

Perry shook his head. “Just that gray feeling. Something else is there, but I can’t lock onto it.”

“How about that other feeling?” Dew asked. “The one where they’re mounting the fourth-quarter comeback?”

“Yeah,” Perry said. “I still feel that. Only now it’s stronger.”

A man wearing fireman’s gear stomped through the slush toward them. “You Dew Phillips?”

Dew nodded and offered his hand.

“Brandon Jastrowski. The police chief said I need to help you guys in any way.” Brandon looked at Perry, then offered his hand. “And you are?”

Perry looked at Dew. Dew nodded.

“Perry Dawsey,” Perry said, shaking the offered hand.

“Dawsey? Scary Perry Dawsey?”

Perry nodded.

“Holy shit,” Brandon said. “A real pleasure to meet you. Used to love watching you play. Oh how I hate Ohio State, am I right?”

Perry nodded again.

“And what was up with all that murder stuff in the news a few months back?”

“Mistaken identity,” Dew said. “Perry’s working for the government now. What’s the deal with the house? Any bodies?”

“Unfortunately, there are,” Brandon said. “Adult male, adult female and a child, maybe seven to ten years old. Probably Bobby and Candy Jewell—they owned the place—and their daughter, Chelsea.”

“Probably?”

“Bodies are in bad shape,” Brandon said. “All three were in the kitchen, where the fire started. Definitely arson, no question. And some major foul play. The woman has a hole in her skull, likely a gunshot to the back of the head.”

“We need the bodies,” Dew said.

“Excuse me?”

“The bodies, we need them. Have your men get them out, put them in body bags, then leave them over there, under that little swing.” Dew pointed to a tree in the front yard. Two ropes hung down from a bare, snow-covered branch and ended in a little plank of snow-covered wood.

Brandon looked at the swing, then looked back at Dew. “But… ah…we need to take bodies to the county morgue.”

“Not today,” Dew said. “The morgue is coming to us, so to speak. Put the bodies in the bags, put the bags over there, do it as fast as you can. Understood?”

Brandon stared for a second, then nodded. He went back to the fire.

Dew pulled out his cell phone and dialed. Otto answered immediately.

“Otto, it’s Dew. We’re at the Jewell place. Whole family is dead, house fire, maybe some gunplay.”

“Perry go off again?”

“No, he had nothing to do with it.”

“Seriously?”

“Shut your pie-hole,” Dew said. “Get your team moving, I want the MargoMobile here ASAP. It’s time for Margaret to sack up and get back to work.”

THE MAP

Chelsea sat behind a glass door looking out over Mr. Jenkins’s backyard. She’d pulled the curtain almost closed, leaving only a one-inch space to look through the glass. That was enough to see up the hill and watch the flames lick up from her house. It looked so small from this far away. She couldn’t really make out individual people, but she knew they were there.

One person in particular.

The boogeyman.

Chelsea was very careful not to reach to him, not to connect. If he sensed her now, when he was this close…

“Chelsea,” Daddy called from Mr. Jenkins’s living room, “I think you need to see this.”

Chelsea carried her bowl of ice cream into the room and sat down next to Daddy. Mr. Jenkins didn’t have ice cream bars, but double chocolate almond wasn’t bad, either.

The TV was showing a commercial. Five people were in the living room: Ryan Roznowski, Daddy, Old Sam Collins, Mommy, Mr. Burkle the Postman and Mr. Jenkins.

Mr. Jenkins sat in a La-Z-Boy. He didn’t look well, all sweaty and pale under his big red beard, but he was getting better fast. Chelsea could already sense his mind. Mommy’s smoochies had worked. Chelsea knew that was very important—the ones Chelsea kissed could kiss others. God’s love could spread from person to person to person, until everyone in the world knew the joy.

Mommy was sitting on Mr. Jenkins’s lap, petting his head with a wet washcloth.

It will be okay, Mr. Jenkins. You’ll feel better very soon.

The man looked at her with sunken eyes. He smiled. “Thank you. Thank you for the gift of God’s love.”

“It’s coming back on,” Daddy said. He pointed the remote at the TV and turned up the volume. The picture showed a pretty lady sitting behind a desk.

“Once again, the breaking news tonight is a transport plane that went off the radar somewhere in Otsego County,” the lady said. “The plane was carrying samples of necrotizing fasciitis bacteria, the bacterium that causes flesh-eating disease, which may have been released in the crash and has already been potentially linked to one death. The National Guard has been called in, and state officials have ordered a temporary evacuation of Gaylord.”

The picture changed to show a big man in an immaculate blue uniform. Everyone in the living room stirred uncomfortably at the sight. Chelsea felt a similar reaction, her body recoiling from the uniform, from the gun on the man’s hip. This was an enemy of God… this was another one of the devils.

Below the man were the words MICHAEL ADAMS, MICHIGAN STATE POLICE SPOKESMAN. Below that was a phone number that started with 800.

“It’s only a temporary evacuation,” said the tool of the devil. “It’s important we test everyone for exposure and do a sweep of the town. Then everyone can return. For those without transportation, or for those who can’t travel on their own, we’re providing a toll-free number for people to call. Very soon we’ll be doing door-to-door checks, just to make sure we haven’t missed anyone. The National Guard will be assisting with this.”

“Turn it off,” Chelsea said. Daddy fumbled with the remote, then turned off the TV. All eyes turned to Chelsea.

“They are coming for us,” she said. “That’s what they mean by ‘door-to-door.’ They want to find us and kill us. The National Guard, that means soldiers. They want to stop the gates of heaven.”

“I knew they were out to get us,” Daddy said. He was shaking with anger and excitement. “Chelsea… soldiers …what are we going to do?”

Everyone in the living room nodded. Chelsea heard them all mumbling that terrifying word: soldiers.

“God sent the soldiers to us,” Chelsea said. “You must trust in Him, it’s all part of His plan. He sent us soldiers with lots of guns. Do you see? We need to show the soldiers how much God loves them.”

She pushed out images of men with guns standing around a gate. She felt the images flash in the minds of the others, and then something strange happened—for just a moment, their thoughts melded as one and the image took on startling clarity. Like it was real. As soon as it started, the moment was gone.

“What was that?” Mr. Burkle said. “What the fuck just happened?”

“Bad word, Mister Burkle,” Chelsea said.

Mr. Burkle hung his head. “I’m sorry, Chelsea.”

She didn’t know what had just happened. She knew that she was the cause of it, though. Everyone thinking together, thinking the same thoughts, they had felt so… so… smart.

They all ate their ice cream and stared at Chelsea. They wanted to know what to do next. Chelsea closed her eyes and thought hard.

Chauncey, where do we build the gate?

You have to find a place.

Should we go into the woods?

No, not this time. The devil will use bombs on you there. If you go to a place with many people, the devil will hesitate to use bombs, and that could get you a little more time.

Somewhere with lots of people. The dollies would probably like that a lot. Lots of people to play with when they got there. But Chelsea still had to hide everyone, or the devil would find them.

“Mister Jenkins, do you have a map?”

“Of course, honey,” he said. Mommy helped him out of the chair. He waddled to the kitchen.

Chelsea had to get everyone out of there. She was running away, not just from the devils but from the boogeyman. Running away wasn’t as bad as peeing her pants, but it wasn’t good, either. She was growing stronger, she knew that. Maybe someday soon she could face the boogeyman.

Face him, and kill him.

Mr. Jenkins came back with a folded paper map and walked to the dining-room table.

It was covered in guns—four hunting rifles with those big scope things, two shotguns and one pistol. Boxes of ammo filled in the spaces between the guns.

“Can you guys clear this off?” Mr. Jenkins said. “Chelsea wants to see a map.”

Hands shot in to remove the guns and ammunition. Chelsea liked how fast everyone moved.

Mr. Jenkins spread the map out on the newly cleared table. Chelsea, Mr. Burkle, Mommy and Mr. Jenkins gathered around it.

Chelsea stared at it, but she didn’t really know how to read a map.

Mommy stroked her hair. “Do you know what you’re looking for, honey?”

Chelsea nodded, then shook her head. “How can you tell where there are lots of people?”

Mr. Burkle pointed to a yellow spot on the map. Chelsea saw the word FLINT in big black letters on top of the yellow.

“See the yellow?” Mr. Burkle said. “The more yellow, the more people there are.”

Chelsea bent her head and stared at the map. Her blond hair hung down and touched the paper. She put her finger on the map and raised her head, her face all smiles.

“This place has the most yellow! So that means it has the most people, right?”

Mr. Burkle looked, then nodded. “Yes. There would be a lot of people there, all right.”

“This is where we’re going.”

“So what now?” Mommy asked.

“Well,” Mr. Burkle said, “we have to figure out how to show a soldier God’s love, make sure no one finds out, and get out of town without getting killed.”

“And pick up more dolly daddies on the way,” Chelsea said. “We need enough dollies to make the gate. Mister Jenkins, how many people will your big car hold?”

“The Winnebago?” Jenkins said. “Hmm, probably ten more people, no problem. Will that be enough?”

Chelsea shrugged. It was getting easier to reach out, to find the others. She was in contact with three more dolly daddies. So many things to do—give a soldier smoochies, get past the other soldiers and get to the place with lots of people. How could they do it all?

She had an idea, an idea that Chauncey wouldn’t like. Maybe she just wouldn’t tell Chauncey. She wasn’t sure if the idea would work, though—she needed some help to figure it out.

What she needed was more brain power.

Like a few minutes ago, when they all had that feeling…

“Everyone, think with me,” Chelsea said. She closed her eyes. Even though she couldn’t see, she felt the others close their eyes, one by one. Their thoughts melded together, and they started to plan.