Scott Sigler - Contagious

Another set of sobs hit, but this time she finally forced them into submission. Clarence was right. This disease had taken Amos, taken all the others. If she could stop it, if she could kill it, that was the greatest tribute she could pay to her friend.

“You know what’s funny?” Clarence said.

“What?”

“I finished up twenty bucks ahead. He’d be so pissed if he knew I won.”

Margaret couldn’t believe Clarence could joke at a time like this. Then she thought of Amos’s face when he took the twenty from Otto, or the scowl when he had to hand it over. For some reason she pictured him looking down on both of them, pointing and laughing.

And despite the pain, she laughed a little herself.

John Burkle was a bit behind. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor the gloom of night, but notice how no one ever listed nor horribly rotted blackened corpses as one of the things that could keep you from your appointed rounds.

John had called 9-1-1, then waited for the ambulance and cops to arrive. He couldn’t say for sure if it had been Cheffie in that house. Cheffie was the only one who lived there, but that black… thing …could have been anyone. The paramedics had even given John some test for flesh-eating bacteria, which—thank God—turned out to be negative. He’d gone home after that, a bit shaken up by the whole ordeal, which meant that today he had a double load of mail to deliver.

He stuffed shopper coupons and magazines into the mailbox, shut it, drove back onto the road and checked his next batch.

The Jewells.

It was insane to think that flesh-eating bacteria had hit Gaylord of all places. Nothing happened in Gaylord, which was exactly why John Burkle loved it so much.

He pulled up to the Jewells’ mailbox and put in two days’ worth of mail. He started to drive away, then stopped when he saw Bobby Jewell walking down his long, tree-lined driveway. Bobby was carrying his little daughter, Chelsea, who was waving a letter. What a doll that one was. All those blond curls. If she turned out to be half the looker her mother was, the girl was going to break some hearts when she got into high school.

“Hey there, Chelsea,” John called. “Got some mail for me?”

“Yes sir, Mister Postman!”

About ten feet from the truck, Bobby set Chelsea down. She ran forward, holding the letter up as if it were an object of great importance. Little kids were such a hoot—something as mundane as mailing a letter could carry newness and excitement.

“Here you go, Mister Postman!”

John took the letter with affected importance. “Well, thank you very much, young lady.”

Chelsea actually curtsied. John just wanted to eat her up.

“You’re welcome, Mister Postman. My daddy wants to show you something.”

“Oh?” John looked up. Bobby had closed the distance and just stood there. John knew Bobby from summer softball league, but damn, the guy didn’t look good at all. Sunken eyes, pale skin. Looked like he’d lost at least fifteen pounds.

“Hi, John,” Bobby said. “I got to show you the damnedest thing.”

“What’s that?”

Bobby unzipped his coat, reached in and pulled out a rusty red monkey wrench. “This thing is stuck like you wouldn’t believe.”

John looked at the wrench, then looked at Bobby. Why the hell would Bobby show him a stuck monkey wrench? John’s internal alarm went off—what if Bobby looked like crap because he had that flesh-eating shit?

“Uh… Bobby, I don’t have time right now.”

“Why’s that, Mister Postman?” Chelsea said.

John automatically looked down at the girl. Even as he did, he knew that it was a mistake. By the time he looked up, the monkey wrench was a rusty red blur. He flinched just before the wrench smashed him on the left side of his jaw. He slid to the right, falling off his seat and into the van. He tried to get to his feet, but they were tangled in the gas and break pedals. Time became a dreamy, slow-moving sludge. He knew that the wrench was coming again, the moment before that metallic hit dragged on forever.

His Taser.

His hands searched for his bag, for the weapon that could save him, but it was too late.

The slow-motion sensation evaporated when he felt a blast on his left ear. His head exploded with concussive pain. The van seemed to spin around him. He tried to get up again, but his arms and legs felt so weak. Then he felt weight bearing down on him; he felt strong, callused hands on forehead and jaw, forcing his mouth open.

He felt a small, hot, wet tongue slide into his mouth.

And then he felt the burning…

Perry Dawsey had never thought normality could seem so surreal.

Or so goddamn uncomfortable .

He sat in an Applebee’s in Gaylord, Michigan, waiting for his burger to arrive. Kitsch lined the walls. Some Top 40 shit played on the sound system. There were tables filled with fat men, fat women and fat kids. Dew sat to Perry’s left. Perry sat across from Claude Baumgartner. Baum had lost the metal brace, but his nose was still a mess. Jens Milner, whose eye remained quite black, sat on Perry’s right, across from Dew.

Add in Perry’s nasty facial cuts and they looked like a foursome back from a fight club—a fight club that Dew had clearly won, since all he had was a little Band-Aid on his head.

Baum and Milner just sat there, staring at Perry, not saying a word.

This was another of Dew’s brilliant ideas. Sure! Why the hell not? Let’s sit down for lunch with a couple of guys I fucked up before I walked into a house and slaughtered a family. Why, a lunch like this is so damn normal it should be in a fucking Applebee’s commercial.

“I don’t get it,” Baum said. “Why don’t we just go to the Jewells’ house?” Baum’s right hand hovered near his left lapel, next to his tit. Sometimes it rested on the table, sometimes Baum pretended to scratch his chest, and sometimes the hand just hung there in midair. His hand seemed to orbit around the pistol in his shoulder holster. Perry didn’t mind so much. He kept his own hand on the table’s edge—if Baum made a move, he’d jam the table into the fucker’s chest and drive him right to his back.

Baum kept staring at Perry, staring with that attitude . It was hard enough to keep things under control without some motherfucker calling you out with his eyes. Perry wanted to smash his face in, but Dew expected more of him. So Perry would hold it in. For now, anyway.

“We can’t go near the house,” Dew said. “Murray’s orders.”

Milner huffed. “That’s to keep Mister Happy here from killing the family, and you know it. We’ve got the address. Baum and I can go.”

Like Baum, Milner just kept staring. Didn’t anyone teach these CIA guys any manners?

“No way,” Dew said. “We can’t go near it until Ogden arrives and sends some boys with us. Believe me, Murray was really specific. Seems the new chief of staff has it in for him. If we show our faces at the Jewell house before Ogden arrives, Murray is screwed. And if Murray is screwed, he’ll make sure everyone at this table is even more screwed. Trust me on that. So we might as well get some grub while we wait. And incidentally, Baum, if you don’t get that hand away from your gun, I’m going to shove it up your ass.”

“The gun or the hand?” Baum asked without taking his eyes off Perry.

“Both,” Dew said. “But I’ll surprise you with the order of entry. And quit staring. Jesus. You’d think you two had never sat down to eat with a guy that kicked your ass before.”

“Sure,” Milner said. “All the time. It’s like a regular outing with my buddies back home.”