Paul McEuen - Spiral

“WHERE IS MAGGIE?” JAKE DEMANDED, HIS HANDS ON KITANO’S throat. “Tell me, you son of a bitch— where is Maggie? ”

“Kill me, but it will cost you Maggie Connor’s life,” Kitano said. He pointed to the phone. “Pick it up.”

“Tell me now.”

“I do not envy you,” Kitano said, a sudden clarity in his eyes, as if the demons had bizarrely departed. “You are a Tokkō, but your sacrifice is hollow, nothing. It is your fate. Pick up the phone.”

Jake pushed Kitano away and grabbed the iPhone.

The screen flickered, sprang to life. The image was like a kick in the chest. A close-up of Maggie, her eyes darting, panicked, her mouth taped closed. Above her head hung the glass sphere filled with Crawlers. They were swarming inside, thousands of them.

Orchid’s voice came from the phone. “You’re the expert, Jake. How long will she last?”

“You hurt her and—”

Orchid cut him off. “Get Kitano here in fifteen minutes. Follow the UAV. Or in fifteen minutes she’s dead.”

THE TRAIL STEEPENED, AND JAKE HAD TO HALF DRAG, HALF carry Kitano. The UAV shadowed them, turning in circles a few hundred feet overhead. They were on a large island, ascending from the water’s edge up a thin, rocky trail. The rowboat was far below. Kitano’s delirium had returned, worsened. He was now shivering, raving in both English and Japanese, half frozen from the cold.

“I have been dead for sixty years,” he said, as Jake dragged him on. “My mother gave me the cloth, the death service. Since then I have been bones. I have been nothing. Wandering the earth for sixty-four years, desiring filth, eating filth, consuming filth. I have been a hungry ghost.”

“Shut up,” Jake said. Kitano refused to tell Jake anything more about Maggie or the release of the Uzumaki. His words occasionally made sense but more often were incoherent, rambling diatribes about the war.

Jake was increasingly certain Kitano had been infected. He had all the symptoms, the sweats, the smell, the manic delusions. But if he and Orchid were in league, then why would he be infected? Could Orchid have double-crossed him?

However it had happened, if Kitano was infected, there was a good chance Jake was as well. He didn’t feel anything yet, but he’d been around Kitano for only a few hours.

The trail opened up on the left, the trees thinning and then gone altogether. Jake found himself on the crest of a long, U-shaped band of cliffs. A suspension bridge hung above river water rushing toward a dramatic waterfall, the water breaking into mist and spray as it dropped. The old slats creaked as they crossed the bridge. Hundreds of feet below was a marsh protected by steep walls on three sides and connected to the Saint Lawrence on the fourth. Geese were everywhere. A few hundred suddenly took to the air, a wall of flapping wings rising up, circling not a hundred feet from them, squawking and twisting as they rose. Kitano seemed hypnotized by the sight.

A wave of dread swept over Jake as he followed Kitano’s gaze to the thousands of tiny shapes. Thousands and thousands of geese, more than Jake had ever seen. He felt as if the ground were about to give way beneath him. Kitano and Orchid had not randomly chosen this spot.

Faster, Jake. Go faster .

“No more filth,” Kitano mumbled. “I am ready to die. To fulfill my destiny.” He began to shake. Jake didn’t know how much longer the old man would last.

Jake glimpsed a patch of red through a break in the trees. The door of a cabin.

Dragging Kitano with him, he sprinted for the building, heart in his throat.

The UAV was circling like a vulture.

He reached the cabin door and pulled it open. No lock. Just a simple latch.

The cabin was nearly empty, the corners full of dust and cobwebs. In the center of the room was a carefully folded garment, brilliant white. On top was a short Japanese sword with a carved wooden handle and a shorter polished steel blade.

Seeing the sword, Kitano pushed past Jake, but Jake shoved him back. Kitano fell to the floor in a heap.

Jake picked up the sword. It had a wooden handle with a black Japanese symbol stamped on it. What the hell was this doing out here?

Kitano’s eyes were fixed on the sword. “Give it to me.”

“Where’s Orchid? Where’s Maggie?”

“Give me the sword.”

Weapon in hand, Jake stepped back outside, scanning every direction. At the clearing’s edge was what looked like the entrance to an underground storm shelter. Jake spotted footsteps in the snow near the entrance.

“Give me the sword!” Kitano said from behind him.

Jake grabbed him and pushed him along the snowy path to the storm shelter entrance. He paused and grabbed the tiny thread implanted next to his left eye. Pulling the tripwire sent an electric shock through him, as though he’d grabbed a live wire. He momentarily saw spots but steadied himself.

He guessed he had ten minutes, fifteen at the outside, before the bombs started falling.

JAKE HELD THE SWORD AT KITANO’S BACK, SCANNING FOR Orchid as they made their way down the series of steps that ran at a steep angle underground.

A plaintive moan drifted up. His heart nearly stopped.

Maggie .

He saw her now, strapped down to a table, mouth taped closed. The glass sphere was suspended above her, inches from her face. Inside it, the Crawlers were a roiling silvery-black mass, filling the room with a noise like locusts in a field. The rest of the room was cloaked in shadows. There was no sign of Orchid.

Lifting her head and spotting Jake, Maggie tried to scream, then started kicking and twisting frantically.

IN THE DARK BEHIND THE STAIRS, ORCHID COOLLY WATCHED through a broken riser as they slowly descended the steps. Jake pushed Kitano ahead, using him as a shield. It would do him no good. Orchid was behind them.

She waited until Jake reached the bottom of the stairs, the back of his head perfectly framed in her small rectangular view, before she stepped out from behind the stairs and took aim. She preferred shooting her victims in the face, to observe their expression at the moment of death.

“Jake Sterling,” she said.

THE INSTANT HE HEARD HER VOICE, HE DUCKED. AS HE PIVOTED, a bullet grazed his forehead.

He dove behind a small wood-and-Formica table a fraction of a second ahead of the second bullet. The sword clanged to the floor. She shot four more times, the table splintering.

From the floor, Kitano scrambled to his feet, retrieved the sword, and fled up the stairs.

Using the table as a shield, Jake rushed Orchid. She fired, pulling off two rounds at close range, the bullets fragmenting the wood and Formica as he continued toward her. The second shot caught him in the shoulder, but the table had taken most of its power. Jake crashed into her head-on, slamming her backward. Her gun fell and clattered across the floor. Jake dove for it, won the race.

He turned, rolling, aiming and firing at Orchid, who had pulled a snub-nose from an ankle holster. Her right upper arm erupted in a spray of blood. Incredibly, she held her position, firing three shots and sending Jake diving behind a cabinet. The last echoes of the shots settled, leaving only the noise of the Crawlers.