Marked In Flesh

CHAPTER 41

Windsday, Juin 27

A young television reporter watched the land rush by as the train sped toward the town of Bennett.

“Think that’s the same sign?” another reporter asked, pointing out the window.

WE LERNED FROM YU.

“Didn’t learn much,” someone else in the car said with a sneer.

The young reporter looked around the car and frowned. Reporters and their cameramen from various newspapers and television stations were the only passengers. Sure, there had been a travel lockdown in the Northeast by the loony governor, but that was over and done—just some kind of political maneuver. And there had been other people boarding the train in Shikago. Maybe the railroad had reserved a car for reporters?

WE LERNED FROM YU.

The reporter checked his watch. Another of those signs and the Bennett railway station just minutes away now.

Funny how the Bennett newspaper editor who had sent that first photo hadn’t responded to e-mails or phone calls from any of the TV stations or newspapers that sent out reporters for the follow-up story. It was almost like the man couldn’t be bothered with them after sending out that lure.

The train pulled into the station.

No passengers waiting to board. No station personnel in sight.

The young reporter disembarked with the rest of the newsmen. An odd silence filled the station, a silence that seemed to seep into his skin and awaken a primal understanding.

The newsmen left the station in a group, looking for a taxi or bus so they wouldn’t have to haul their equipment. What they found were cars in and around the streets, many parked haphazardly, as if the drivers had left the vehicles in a hurry.

No people walking. No music coming from radios or television programs drifting out of open windows.

Some stores were closed. Others had lights on and doors open.

A cameraman suddenly stopped and gasped, “Gods above and below.” He ran down an alley toward whatever he’d spotted, and the rest of the newsmen followed him to open land beyond the buildings.

The young reporter caught up to the others and stared at the mound of bodies. Young. Old. Some wearing the uniforms of their profession. Others wearing casual clothes. In front of the mound was another of those signs: WE LERNED FROM YU.

It’s the whole town, the reporter thought, feeling his gorge rise in response to hearing someone else throwing up. Something killed the whole town and piled the bodies to imitate the Wolf packs that were wiped out by the HFL, down to the last pup.

He shuddered. “They’re still here,” he whispered as he backed away, trying to look everywhere at once—and wondering if any of the humans in the town had seen what had killed them. “We have to get back to the train, have to get away. They’re still here.”

Cameramen shot a bit of footage. Newspaper reporters snapped digital photos. But the fear of the train pulling out of the station and leaving them behind snuffed out any desire to do a live report in a dead town.

As they hurried back to the train station, the young reporter heard a sound that might have been the wind in the nearby trees—or the sound of something laughing.