Scott Sigler - Contagious

The Little Blue Book.

He kept the letter short. He was tired and had to get some sleep. I love you, I miss you terribly, I don’t know when I can come home, but I pray it will be soon . The usual stuff, repetitive only because it was sincere and he had to express it to her every day. Fold, insert, but don’t seal—tomorrow some CIA shithead would read it and make sure he wasn’t writing home about the hatchlings.

The Bible was just the New Testament, actually. Most of the gold lettering on the faux-red-leather cover had flaked off. Half of the back cover had torn off somewhere in the Mideast. Just random damage, not sacrilege.

Every night he read passages from the New Testament, then moved on to the Little Blue Book. Sometimes he’d skim the Bible passages, skip around, read some sentences and not others, but he didn’t do that with the Little Blue Book. With that one he read every single word.

Every single name.

He opened it and started reading.

Lewis Aucoin, 22.

He never wrote down rank. Death was death. You didn’t get a better death because you had a better rank, right?

Parker Cichetti, 27.

He remembered Parker. Good guy. Could juggle.

Damon Gonzalez, 20.

He’d never met Damon. Not even once.

He continued down the list of names, giving each one a moment of remembrance, a flicker of light in the terrestrial world just in case the afterlife was dark and silent. Sometimes he wondered if the souls of the dead could experience heaven only when someone remembered their name. Once you were forgotten, you were truly gone forever. Guys like Einstein, Patton, Caesar… every day people read about them in history books, saw their names in movies and TV—they spent an eternity in heaven. Guys like Damon? Probably would wink out of existence shortly after Ogden himself passed on.

He didn’t know where he’d picked up that strange belief, but it was always at the back of his head, driving him, pushing him to greater and greater achievements. He had to make a name for himself. He’d never thought the name could be as grand as that of a Churchill or a Schwarzkopf, but now he knew better.

He’d been given a once-in-a-lifetime task, and if he succeeded, victory would land him in the history books forever.

Was God testing him with this task? That was definitely possible. God worked in mysterious ways, true, but twenty years in the military had shown Ogden more of man’s inhumanity to man than he cared to remember. Sometimes God just put the players on the field and let them have at it.

Before all this began, he thought he’d spend four or five more years at lieutenant colonel, maybe make colonel near the tail end of his career, then retire as such. He wasn’t that great at playing the political game. He knew tactics and strategy. He knew how to win battles and minimize casualties. That’s what the army should base promotion on, but it doesn’t always work that way.

How things had changed in the past five weeks. He was a full bird colonel. He talked directly with the Joint Chiefs, had their total confidence. He had a black budget, a blank check for resources, for transport, for air support.

A command like this should have gone to a more senior guy, but President Hutchins had been obsessed with secrecy, limiting those in the know. Ogden had simply drawn the lucky card for the first mission, and now he got to keep playing it.

He’d fulfill the mission to destroy any gate he found, and he’d do it while adding as few names to the Little Blue Book as possible. Thirty-seven names was enough, but he knew there would be more.

Many more.

He put the book and the Bible away, then lay down to get his usual four hours of sleep. At least he didn’t have to finish the night by writing condolence letters to mothers, fathers and wives. In the morning he’d start planning again, figuring out how to prepare for an enemy no one had ever fought, an enemy guaranteed to change tactics.

Whatever happened, Colonel Charlie Ogden would be ready.

The Jewell family won the honor of having the most infected, but they weren’t the only residents of Gaylord sleeping away fevers, exhaustion and paranoia.

Bobby and Chelsea Jewell were already in bed. Donald and Betty slept fitfully at a rest stop on I-75 outside of Bay City, Michigan.

Sam Collins was damn old, damn tired and, although he was convinced that someone would probably break in and kill him, he just locked all the doors and went to sleep in his bed.

Wallace Beckett wasn’t quite so brave. He couldn’t stop scratching at his cheek and lower neck. He hid in his pantry, blocked the door with a stepladder, then went to sleep right on the floor. His son, Beck (yes, the lad was saddled with the unfortunate name of Beck Beckett), was so hot he took off all his clothes and went to sleep naked in an empty bathtub. Nicole Beckett, wife of Wallace, mother of Beck, was off seeing her grandmother in Topinabee. Unfortunately for her, she’d be home the next morning.

Ryan Roznowski was also itchy as all get-out. He hated being itchy, a phobia carried over from the time he’d been a kid and gotten poison ivy on his ’nads. His mom had always told him to stop touching himself so much, but did he listen? That incident meant Ryan always stocked a healthy supply of calamine lotion. He doused his four itchy spots, then promptly hid behind the lumber pile in his garage and went to sleep.

Bernadette Smith suddenly had a sneaking suspicion her kids were talking about her behind her back. She sent her son and daughters to their rooms, told them not to come out or make a noise. If they did, they’d get the paddle again. Her husband, Shawn, argued with her about paddling the kids, but she told him to shut the fuck up or she wouldn’t let him go to bowling league. In fact, Shawn, why don’t you just go to the store and get me some tampons, and when you get back, don’t you dare wake me up or let the kids out of their rooms. Do you hear me, Shawn? Shawn did hear her. She didn’t use the paddle on him, but she could control him just the same.

Chris “Cheffie” Jones was a little more off-kilter than the others. Cheffie had hardwood floors covered with a big roll-up carpet. For reasons known only to him, he crawled under said carpet. Confident that this made him effectively invisible, Cheffie went to sleep.

The Orbital had estimated fifteen to twenty infections. Ten was below those projections, but still within acceptable parameters for success. And it broke down evenly, five with the triangle strain, five with the new strain. That part, at least, was on par with the statistical projections.

All of these hosts slept.

The only question was… how many would wake up?

Margaret, Amos and Clarence sat in the MargoMobile’s computer room, waiting for a scheduled all-hands call with Murray Longworth. Right on time his face appeared on the center flat-panel screen. Murray was watching them on a similar monitor back in Washington.

“Where’s Dew?” he asked.

“Talking to Perry.”

“Can’t you guys talk on the road?” Murray said. “I want you out of there.”

Clarence leaned forward. “Perry had a little accident. Margaret wants to let him rest a bit more before we head out.”

“An accident?” Murray said. “What kind of accident?”

“He fell down some stairs,” Clarence said. “Then bumped into a doorway. He’s happy to cooperate with us now.”

Murray smiled thinly. “I guess the good news just keeps on rolling in. We finished the first batch of your testers, Margaret. Ten thousand are being distributed to police, paramedics and hospitals all over the Midwest.”