Infected

men ar e looking for

us KILL us yikes Yike s

YIKES

Yikes? The word stuck in Perry’s head. Yikes. They used the word yikes. And they had shouted it along with kill. Why were they suddenly talking so funny? The monotone was gone — there was actual inflection in the words. The speech had taken on a slower, dreamier quality, to the point where the Starting Five talked almost with a drawl.

But the important thing wasn’t the new speech, it was their paranoid

fear of cops. Was this some kind of instinctive memory? How could it be that they didn’t know why they were in his body, but they knew enough to fear the police? Were they just plain lying to him? What did they have to gain by being honest about anything? But he’d felt their fear of the police. Or maybe... maybe it wasn’t police at all. Maybe it was men in uniforms.

Perry realized that when he thought of cops or police, his initial mental image was that of a Michigan state trooper. Those guys were always fairly big, with immaculate uniforms, robotic politeness and a very prominent gun.

This was probably the picture the Triangles read, because it was the first thing he thought of when he heard the word cop. And his mental image of the state troopers — with their perfect uniforms and att.i.tudes and guns — wasn’t really that of a cop as much as it was that of...

Of...

A soldier.

Were the Triangles afraid of soldiers? Two possibilities flashed through

Perry’s mind. Either the Triangles knew what soldiers were by experience or instinct, or they had a broader knowledge of the world around them than they let on. Somehow they knew things that Perry didn’t.

A brief flicker of hope flared up in his chest. The Triangles feared soldiers. Was there some group that knew of the Triangles? If so, did it mean that Perry wasn’t the only one suffering through this horror?

"Why do you think they’re coming to get you?"

Pause.

Lumpy sound.

the y W ANT to kill us

kill Kill KILL

"How do you know that? How can you when you don’t even know where you come from?"

A double pause.

talking to friends

Friends. Were there other Triangles? Were there other people infected with these things? Maybe he wasn’t the only one — maybe this was

"What do these friends say?"

Only a short pause this time.

hungr y feed us

"Your friends are hungry too?"

hungr y feed us feed

F eed FEED

"Oh, you’re hungry?"

feed F eed FEED

F eed feed

"Forget about the food," Perry said insistently. "Tell me about your friends. Where are they?"

FEED NO W

The command sounded like a cannon exploding inside his head. His eyes shut tight. His teeth ground in reaction to the pain.

FEED NO W

Perry let out a small, choked groan, he couldn’t think straight, he couldn’t grip what he needed to do to

FEED NO W NOW NOW

NOW NOW NOW NOW

NOW

"Shut the f.u.c.k up!" Perry shouted as loudly as he could, his voice a deep, guttural blast of pain and anger. "We’ll eat, we’ll eat! Just stop screaming in my head!"

okay feed us no w okay

feed us no w no w now

Like the return stroke of a bowstring after release of an arrow, his mind snapped back to normal. A single tear trailed down his cheek. Their shouting had been so intense he’d been unable to move, almost unable to speak.

no w N o w N o w

Perry jumped up as he heard their intensity start to creep higher. He’d hopped the eight hops to the kitchen before he gave it a second thought, his body acting from fear of that pain.

He was snapping to attention like a soldier under orders, not thinking, only doing as he was told, like some good little n.a.z.i carrying out the master plan. Jawohl, Herr Kommandant. I’ll kill the Jews and the Gypsies and the Czechs because I have no mind of my own, and it’s okay because someone told me to do it. He was a robot, a remote-controlled servant. It humiliated him, somehow dug away at his pride as a man. A man, after

all, was in charge of his own destiny, not at the whim of some slave driver, some controller.

He tried to console his damaged pride by telling himself he was very hungry and would have eaten anyway — it wasn’t because the Triangles had told him to. But that was bulls.h.i.+t. Right now he felt like a puppet on a string, doing a funky little dance each time the Starting Five tweaked at one of his nerves. Worse than a puppet — he felt like he was ten years old again, jumping with fear every time his father spoke.

Still had the Ragu. He fished it out of the fridge and pulled a box of Rice-A-Roni from the cupboard. He was almost out of food and would have to shop very soon. Wouldn’t that be a hoot? The condemned man, dying of some freaky parasite, pus.h.i.+ng a cart at Kroger’s and picking out the last meal he would cook for himself. Now that’s a liberal death row.

A flash of cooking inspiration came to him as he put the Rice-A-Roni back and grabbed the half-full bag of Cost Cutter rice. No noodles, but the Ragu looked just too darn good to pa.s.s up. Fis.h.i.+ng a measuring cup out of the cupboard, he set a pot to boil.

no w N o w now

The words drifted menacingly through his head.

"Just hold your horses. Dinner’s going to be ready in about twenty minutes."

no w no w now

"It’s not ready yet," Perry urged, his voice pleading. He poured the Ragu into a mismatched pot and set it to simmer. "Like I said, you’ll just have to wait a few minutes."