Contagious

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 hoa.r.s.e 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 s.h.i.+t 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 p.r.i.c.k?”

“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 gla.s.s.

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 f.u.c.k, maybe I should just beat you to death right here!”

“No!”

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 b.l.o.o.d.y, 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.

b.i.t.c.hES GET St.i.tCHES

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 a.s.signment 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 spa.r.s.e 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.