Contagious

Gitsh’s voice, urgent and sharp in her earpiece, cut off Clarence in midsentence.

“Company!”

Gunfire erupted, amplified by the overpa.s.s’s brick walls. Margaret’s arms flew up around her head, an instinctive reaction, a panicked reaction. A hand grabbed her wrist, yanking her into a run.

Sunlight. She came out the far side of the underpa.s.s before she even knew that it was Clarence who’d pulled her along.

“Margaret, come on!”

Breath locked in her throat; she stumbled, then regained her feet and ran. That put the sound of gunfire behind her.

In front of her, below the next underpa.s.s, two cars. A compact and a convertible. Just people looking for a place to hide, probably, but apparently Clarence didn’t want to find out for sure.

“This way!” he yelled, then he turned right and started sprint-climbing up the steep, tree-spotted, snowy-dirt slope. Margaret followed, arms pulling, legs pumping, heart hammering.

A hissing sound from behind.

Then a shattering roar.

She looked back—a ball of fire and smoke billowed out from the underpa.s.s, so thick she couldn’t even see the MargoMobiles.

A hand on her a.s.s, pus.h.i.+ng her.

“Move!” Daniel said. “They’ve got f.u.c.king rockets!”

She scrambled up the hill, knees grinding into the dirt and rocks until she remembered the hazmat suit, and then she ran on feet and hands only. Sharp bits poked through the PVC into her palms and fingers, but she could tape those later. They reached the black fence on top of the incline. Her gloved fingers clawed at the rubber-coated chain-link, and she swung over the top before she even knew what she was doing.

More gunshots from behind. Things whizzing past her head.

Daniel crying out.

Margaret pushed off the fence and hit the ground hard. She stood and looked around. White building, Ford dealers.h.i.+p. Behind her, the fence, behind that... Daniel, rolling limply back down the incline.

Clarence’s hard grip on her wrist again. “Move!”

They ran away from the dealers.h.i.+p and into an eight-lane road choked with b.u.mper-to-b.u.mper traffic. No buildings on the other side of the street—an empty lot to the left and a parking lot to the right. Some people were looking out of their car windows, but most had heard the explosion or seen the rising smoke and were already abandoning their vehicles, sprinting for cover anywhere they could find it.

Margaret finally regained her balance and yanked her hand away from Clarence.

“Just go.

“Dead,” Clarence said. “And Dan took a round in the head. He’s gone.”

They skirted cars and ran into the half-empty parking lot ringed with trees growing up through the asphalt. On the far side, they hopped a smaller fence and found themselves on a cobblestone street, old bricks b.u.mping under the soles of their thick biohazard boots. Two blocks straight ahead, across yet more tree-dotted, wreckage-strewn vacant lots, she saw an abandoned three-story brick building. Faded white letters on faded blue paint at the top of the building spelled out GLOBE TRADING COMPANY. She started toward it, then stopped when Clarence again grabbed her.

“No, don’t,” he said. “Look at the bottom there, by the corner.”

She did and saw two men in army uniforms running out of the building. A second later, two more.

“They have men stationed in there,” Clarence said. “That’s their f.u.c.king headquarters for all we know. We gotta get out of here. Come on!”

People ran in all directions. It wasn’t the screaming sprint of a monster movie, but rather silent running, people moving fast in a half-crouch, looking every which way for the next threat. Margaret and Clarence must have appeared to be such a threat, because one glance at them sent people running the opposite way.

Margaret and Clarence ran left down the old brick road, putting the abandoned lot and the Globe building beyond it on their right. She heard gunfire behind her again—the men who’d killed Gitsh, Marcus, and Dr. Dan, they were giving chase. s.h.i.+t-s.h.i.+t-s.h.i.+t, was this how her life would end? A bullet in the back?

The road changed from b.u.mpy brick to b.u.mpy pavement. On their right a red brick building, one story, loading-dock doors open. Clarence aimed for it.

Margaret was already exhausted. “Where are we going?”

“Away from the bullets.” Clarence stopped at the loading dock, lifted her by her waist and set her on the ledge, then hopped up behind her.

“Just run, Margo. We have to find a place to hide or we’re dead.”

12:38 P.M.: Corporal Cope’s Big Day Out

The convoy roared down I-75. Three Humvees, followed by two M939 five-ton troop trucks, followed by two more Humvees. With that much heavy vehicle ripping along at ninety miles an hour, cars just got the h.e.l.l out of the left lane and let the convoy roar by. Farmland spread out on either side, snow covering the broken remnants of last year’s crops. Beyond the fields, rows of trees, at least a quarter mile from the highway. Beautiful scenery.

Corporal Cope rode in the third Hummer, feeling his connection with G.o.d. Soon they would see the glorious gateway and, G.o.d willing, would be there when the angels came through.

G.o.d, it seemed, was not willing.

The lead Humvee suddenly morphed from a hardy piece of military gear into an orange blossom of fire, spewing bits of metal and body parts all over the highway. The explosion engulfed a slow-moving VW Beetle in the right lane, and sent part of a rear axle through the winds.h.i.+eld of the Ford Explorer directly behind it.

The second Humvee swerved to the right, around both the suddenly tumbling Explorer and the newly burning Beetle. The Hummer driver showed amazing reaction time, but at ninety miles an hour the heavy vehicle quickly lost traction. Its rear end fishtailed, making it almost perpendicular with the road when the wheels dug in and it flipped violently, barrel-rolling into the ditch. Cope saw a freeze-frame image of a man thrown free, already missing an arm and part of a leg.