Scott Sigler - Contagious

The soldiers slowed, then stopped. Hands went to throats, to eyes, to ears. They scratched at themselves. They clawed. They screamed. They fell. They writhed and kicked.

The cloud billowed past Margaret, tiny spores covering her airtight suit.

Tears rolled down her face. This was it, this was the final stage. There had to be millions of the spores. Sanchez had caught the disease from a tiny puffball, maybe a thousand spores landing on his hand, and even though he’d washed the hand immediately, it hadn’t mattered—the stuff penetrated almost on contact.

Every one of these men, including Dew, including Perry, was already infected with a dose at least a thousand times more concentrated.

She looked away from the men, looked at the air around her. The pollenlike dust drifted away, a grayish cloud carried by the wind. The spores were already starting to fall, but only slightly—they might travel a mile or more before they finally came to rest.

A mile would carry them into downtown Detroit, even beyond, spreading them across the tens of thousands of panicked citizens trying to hide from gunfire. Spores were far smaller than bullets, far more dangerous, and from those spores there was no place to hide.

People stumbled out of the house. The hostages. Clawing at their eyes and throats and ears, running in any direction, every direction. It wasn’t just the wind that could spread the contagion—these people would take it much farther.

How many of them would leave the city in a panic? Find a car, a way out, and just start driving? How many would travel three or four hours before they fell asleep?

And how many of those would change into another gasbag, like Chelsea’s mother?

She saw other civilians, stumbling out of buildings where they had hidden, hands rubbing desperately at eyes, digging at exposed skin. They ran in a panic, aimlessly scattering in all directions.

“Clarence, does your HUD say anything about suit integrity?”

He said nothing. He just stared at the carnage.

“Clarence!”

“Uh… no, nothing about suit integrity.”

Thank God. He was safe.

“We have to get out of here,” she said. “We have to get to the decon trailer at the football field. Can you drive that motorcycle parked in front of the building?”

“Yeah, but what about Dew? Perry? We have to help them.”

Margaret swallowed. Dew writhed on the ground. Perry just lay on his back, barely moving. She wanted to go to them, but the cold, mathematical part of her brain knew the score.

“We can’t help them,” she said. “Do what I say, and do it now. If you don’t, the world is fucked.”

Clarence looked at her, then looked back at the men crawling across the ground, at the people running into the city. It seemed to click home for him. He closed his eyes tight. Tears dripped down his cheeks. He opened his eyes, grabbed her hand and ran for the motorcycle.

Get up, Perry. I need you.

Coughing.

Dust, the taste of smoke, the taste of dirt, the taste of…

(don’t think about it)

…of scorched flesh. In his mouth.

More coughing.

But not just from the brick and dirt and smoke and wood and the (don’t think about it) scorched flesh, coughing from something deeper, way down in his lungs.

Something that burned.

Perry knew. He felt stabbing pains all through his skin, his face, in his muscles and eyes. They were inside him.

It’s time for you to join me.

It was her again. In his head. He’d thought the gate was the most beautiful thing he would ever experience. He was wrong. As rapturous as that gate was, it paled in comparison to the voice.

Come to me, Perry. Get me out of here.

So beautiful. He’d heard her before, but he’d been hundreds of miles away. Now there was no distance, no jamming, no grayness—her pure, raw power raged through his soul.

Perry stood and stumbled down the street. Men were all around, the brave guys of Whiskey Company, rolling on the ground, coughing, spitting up blood. They were all totally fucked.

Just like Perry.

And there, lying in the middle of the street… Dew Phillips.

Just relax and let it happen. You’ll be stronger now. You’ll be like me. Come to me, Perry. Protect me.

Perry shuffled toward Dew. The man was on his back, mouth opening and closing. He saw Perry and managed to smile, then shrug.

Dew knew the deal.

“Sorry… kid,” he said, his voice a hoarse croak. “Looks like… we’re not going fishing after all.”

Kill him.

Dew’s face screwed into a pinched mask of agony. Perry knew what Dew was feeling, because he felt that same pain himself. The difference was, Perry and pain were long-lost buddies.

Dew’s wave of pain seemed to fade for a second. He blinked rapidly, then coughed, bloody foam splattering onto his lips.

“Kid… get my radio. See if Margaret got out.”

Perry nodded. “I will.”

Kill him. Do it now.

“I’m proud of you, Perry,” Dew said. “Maybe you don’t… have testicles… but you sure got balls.”

Dew Phillips actually laughed. Or started to, then he coughed up a little blood.

Perry saw his .45 lying on the ground. The one that had belonged to Dew for thirty-some years.

Kill him!

“Thank you, for everything,” Perry said. “And I’m sorry about this, but I have to.”

Perry put the .45 against Dew’s forehead.

“Kid? What…”

Perry closed his eyes, kept his hand perfectly still and pulled the trigger.

Then he turned away and walked toward the building.

Chelsea had called for him, God had called for him, and he had to obey.

The black Harley Night Rod Special roared down the sidewalk of East Jefferson Avenue. Shell-shocked people ran out of the way, only too eager to flee from yet another potential threat—a loud-as-hell motorcycle carrying two people in black hazmat suits.

Bodies lined the sidewalk and the street, the corpses of people who had resisted the hostage roundup of Ogden’s men. Clarence wove around those bodies, around cars that had driven onto the sidewalk and crashed into buildings, and around a few people wandering aimlessly, clawing at their eyes, their faces, their arms. Margaret saw traces of gray dust everywhere. As they drove, the dust thinned until she saw no more of it. They’d driven out of the puffball’s expansive blast radius.

Now the only spores would be on their hazmat suits.

Even with the parking-lot-like traffic jam, the Harley moved along at a brisk pace, its obscenely loud engine a long-distance warning to anything that might stand in its way. Within minutes they saw the high-school football field on the left. Sitting on it, a MargoMobile and two Ospreys.

An icon illuminated on her heads-up display—wireless connection. Her suit computer had picked up the communication net from the new MargoMobile.

“This is Doctor Margaret Montoya!” she shouted as Clarence turned sharply on Mount Elliot. “Prepare for immediate evacuation. Patch me through to Murray Longworth on this frequency right now , open the airlock door, then everyone out of the trailers and onto the Osprey. Get it warmed up. We’re out of here in three minutes. Do not approach me, I am contagious.”

A block later they reached the football field’s main gate. A guard had been there, but she saw only his back as he sprinted for the Osprey. Clarence drove the roaring motorcycle through the gate onto the field and stopped at the MargoMobile’s airlock door.

As soon as the bike’s engine died out, Margaret heard Murray’s voice in her helmet speakers. “Margaret, what’s going on?”