Contagious

Ogden turned to face Mazagatti. “Sergeant Major, let’s move in. I want to see this thing up close.”

“Sir,” Mazagatti said, “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t say that it’s a stupid idea for you to get that close. Again. Sir.”

“Understood,” Ogden said. “I’m feeling lucky. Again. Proceed.”

Mazagatti flashed hand signals to Ogden’s personal squad. Ogden drew his sidearm and followed. Corporal Cope trailed a step behind and to the right, radio at the ready.

With the gunfire gone, Ogden heard the nonlethals: the whoosh of the foam guns and the normal-sounding reports of ShockRounds. He followed the platoon to within seventy-five yards of the construct before he ordered all platoons to halt. First Platoon was only forty yards away now; a quick sprint would take them right into the construct.

Ogden saw the hatchlings scurrying around inside the glowing arches. Triangular bodies, three tentacle-legs that looked like muscular black pythons. The point of the shortest hatchling would come up just to his knee, the tallest one to his chin.

The sticky foam seemed to be working, reducing two hatchlings to weakly wiggling lumps on the muddy ground, unable to pull those tentacle-legs loose. He counted another five hatchlings moving freely, but they didn’t engage. Did they fear the weapons? Were they aware that the less-lethals might isolate them? If so, why didn’t they at least run north? Why didn’t they try something?

Ogden again sensed a trap—the enemy wasn’t behaving rationally or consistently with the previous two encounters. But trap or no trap, he had his orders.

“Corporal Cope, tell First Platoon to move in. Capture the enemy by hand.”

Cope spoke into his handset and relayed the orders.

Thirty-five yards ahead, Ogden watched a line of men rise up and silently walk forward. The three foam-gunners led the charge, each flanked on the immediate left and right by comrades carrying M4s. The rest of each respective squad fanned out on either side of this lead element.

Ogden watched. The hatchlings seemed to sense the advance. They cl.u.s.tered tighter around the base of the smallest arch.

First Platoon closed to thirty yards. Then twenty. The line of men rushed forward through the snow, moving in....

A spark flashed somewhere beneath the hatchlings, at the base of the arch. Was this it?

Another flash, then a steady glow backlit the hatchlings. This new illumination showed only at the base of one arch. It flickered, jumped, then Ogden recognized it for what it was—fire.

Blue-flamed, not orange, but fire nonetheless. The flames crawled up the arch as if it were made of tinder, shooting along the curve almost like a flamethrower.

All five of the free-moving hatchlings jumped into the flames, igniting themselves. They scampered toward the stuck hatchlings, setting them aflame before running into the other arches and the loglike things, spreading the blaze. Within seconds the whole construct danced with crackling blue flames.

Heat pushed his soldiers back, stopping their advance as surely as a wall.

“Tell the men to fall back and set up a perimeter at fifty yards,” Ogden said. “And don gas masks—we don’t know what kind of fumes that thing might put out.”

It wasn’t an ambush. He had a feeling it was something worse.

Not a trap... a decoy.

STIMULATING CONVERSATION

Dew arrived at Tad’s house only a few seconds behind two unmarked gray vans. The vans parked on the street while he drove his Lincoln onto the wet lawn just before the vans unloaded hazmat-suited gunmen. No one parked in the driveway; they needed to keep that open for the Margo-Mobile.

Dew got out and instantly felt cold rain splattering the bald top of his head. He hadn’t made it fifteen steps before his suit jacket was soaked through. He walked briskly but didn’t run—the two young bucks in full black hazmat suits took care of that. Each toted a compact FN P90 submachine gun, as did their two hazmat-suited comrades who took up positions on the lawn.

One of the young bucks..h.i.t the front door with a hard kick, smas.h.i.+ng it open. He went in, followed by his partner.

Dew slowly counted to ten, giving the young men time to secure the house. Hearing no gunfire, he walked inside.

The two men were in a living room that stood between the front door and the kitchen. Neither of them moved—they had their P90s pointed at a huge, wet man sitting at the kitchen table.

A man drinking a Budweiser with his right hand and holding a blinking baby with his left.

A tire iron sat on the table. Where it bent ninety degrees, it shone with wetness. A clump of scalp and long brown hair clung to the black metal.

A dead woman lay in the open doorway that led out of the kitchen. Dead, Dew knew, because living people’s heads just didn’t look like that, living people’s eyes didn’t hang open with a blank expression, and living people usually weren’t lying in a big puddle of their own blood.

A dead toddler lay on the ground at the edge of the table, only a few feet from Perry’s canoe of a foot. The kid’s back was broken, his spine bent in the middle at a forty-five-degree angle.

The place smelled like someone had s.h.i.+t their pants.

Dew drew his Colt M1911 pistol. He held it at his side, pointed to the ground. “How did you get in here?”

“Back window,” Perry said. “Only about ten feet up. I can still jump pretty good for a guy who once got shot in the knee.”

Dew ignored the dig. “You crazy f.u.c.k. We needed these people.”

“I helped them,” Perry said.

“I wish I could just shoot you and put you out of your misery.”

“Gosh, I am awful miserable,” Perry said. “So go ahead.” He took a swig.

“You gonna kill that baby?” Dew asked, as calmly as you might ask someone to please pa.s.s the salt.