Scott Sigler - Contagious

You know what you need to do?

Dustin nodded. “Yes.”

Then hurry, but be careful. Don’t get caught. You are a protector now. You and the others must join us, because we want to open the gates to heaven.

The tent curtain opened, and two men came in. Doc Harper and Nurse Brad.

“Well, look who’s up,” Doc Harper said. “You jabbering to yourself in here?”

The men walked over to the cot.

Dustin shrugged. “I guess so, Doc.”

“Well I’m not surprised,” Doc Harper said. He slid a stool next to Dustin’s bed and sat. “You’re probably a better conversationalist than Brad here.”

“Ha-ha-ha,” Brad said. “Keep it up and I’ll stop letting you win at chess.”

Doc Harper picked up Dustin’s wrist and checked his watch. “Brad, you couldn’t beat me in chess if I played with my queen shoved up my rectum.” Doc released Dustin’s wrist, then pulled a penlight out of his breast pocket and started flicking it in Dustin’s eye.

“Just stare straight ahead, Private,” Doc Harper said. “Everything looks okay. How’s your head?”

“Hurts a bit,” Dustin said.

Harper nodded as he switched to the other eye.

“Describe the pain on a scale of one to ten,” Doc Harper said.

“Um, maybe a three.”

“Doesn’t sound like a major problem,” Doc Harper said. “Well, since you’re alert, the colonel wants to see you ASAP. I’ll let him know you’re ready to talk. Brad, grab some Tylenol packets. Four should do the trick.”

Brad knelt down to open a drawer of the cabinet next to Dustin’s cot.

Dustin grabbed the back of Doc Harper’s neck and head-butted him in the nose. Before Harper even slid off the stool, Dustin picked up his M4 with both hands.

Brad turned his head to see what was happening, just in time to catch an M4 stock right in the mouth. He sagged to his left butt cheek, mouth bleeding, staring out with eyes that didn’t really focus on anything. Dustin hit him again. Brad fell to his back, arm resting awkwardly against the open medicine drawer.

Dustin looked down at the two men. Doc Harper blinked like mad. Tears poured from his eyes, and blood gushed from the bridge of his broken nose. He tried to back away, a reverse crab-walk, but he couldn’t seem to send enough strength to his feet. The heels of his shoes pushed weakly at the floor.

Dustin pulled his zip-ties from his pants pocket.

“Does that hurt, Doc?” Dustin said. “Let me kiss it and make it all better.”

Chelsea let hermind spread farther and farther. This was so cool. Better than all her best toys combined. She’d felt Dustin hit those men, like she had been there, like she had hit them herself.

She liked it. It was really fun.

Every time she spread her mind, the feeling got stronger, the connections got stronger. Each host, each dolly, each converted person—they all felt a little different. Kind of like how vanilla ice cream tastes one way and chocolate another way. That was it; each had its own taste.

Dustin was a long ways away, but she could still connect with him. She could connect with Bernadette Smith, too, with each of the three dollies growing in her body.

Those three tasted like anger. Anger and fear.

Sending Bernadette to the highway worked, but Chelsea had thought the soldiers would shoot the woman. Chelsea even had Bernadette kill her daughters and bring the knife. But the devils captured Bernadette, and that was bad.

Bernadette’s dollies were growing so fast ! Maybe soon they would come out to play, come out to build. Chelsea sensed needles poking into them, so many needles. Just like the doctor had always stuck needles into her. Poking, prodding, testing. Dollies didn’t feel pain like she did, though. The needles were really just kind of annoying to them.

So why were they so scared and angry? None of the other dollies tasted like that. Chelsea concentrated on those three dollies, listened to their thoughts, and she found the answer.

The sonofabitch.

The boogeyman .

They were staring right at the boogeyman! Of course they were angry, of course they were afraid. Chelsea felt a stab of that same fear, a stab of that same anger. Chauncey had told her not to connect to the boogeyman, but that was before. She was stronger now. The dollies were so close to the boogeyman, maybe only a few feet away. She could connect through them and talk to him.

The boogeyman made Chelsea afraid. That wasn’t fair.

Now it was his turn to be scared.

Perry Dawsey had never been claustrophobic. Then again, he’d never been crammed into a full-body suit obviously not made for someone his size, then walked into a friggin’ semi trailer so jam-packed with stuff he had to turn sideways to walk through these pitiful excuses for aisles.

But claustrophobia was the least of his concerns. The naked woman in the clear glass containment cell took up most of his attention.

Her, and what was on her. In her.

Tight restraints held her wrists, ankles and waist. She was crying. Perry felt shame wash over him, shame at how he’d treated Fatty Patty. He’d screamed at Patty. He’d hit her. Cut her. Watched her die, hoping that in the process he could learn something that might help him save himself. He hadn’t even been a man then.

Milner was right.

Perry was a monster.

The woman in the chamber pulled weakly against the leather straps.

“Those restraints tight?” Dew asked Margaret.

“Goddamn right they are,” Margaret said. “I put those on myself. Any tighter and she’d lose circulation.”

Margaret’s voice sounded colder than before. Colder and harder , as though maybe cutting off that woman’s circulation wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world after all. That wasn’t the voice she’d used when she was helping him recover, or sewing up the cuts Dew had given him. Then she’d sounded like she cared, like she really wanted to help. Now? Now she had a touch of disgust in her voice. Maybe even a slight helping of hate.

“Please,” the woman sobbed. “Please, let me go. I swear, I won’t tell anyone.”

“Try to relax, Bernadette,” Margaret said. “We want to help you.”

“ LIAR !” the woman screamed. “You’re the POLICE ! You want to cut me up! ”

She couldn’t move anything but her head, so move it she did, thrashing it around as if she were being electrocuted. Her sweaty brown hair flew in all directions. Her face carried an expression of wide-eyed terror one second, psychotic fury the next, then back again.

The triangles stared out. With their black eyes, they could have been looking anywhere, but Perry knew they were looking right at him.

Sonofabitch.You will die. Your death will be worse than the rest.

Perry took a half step back. That sensation of grayness remained, but whatever was jamming him, it didn’t work this close to a triangle. He hadn’t expected that—he’d hoped to come in, not hear a thing, then get the fuck out.

Perry didn’t realize he was shaking until he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Take it easy, Perry,” Dew said. “They can’t get to you.”

“I gotta get out of here, Dew. I gotta get out.”

Dew’s voice stayed low. Low and calm. “What you gotta do is focus. We need to talk to these things. We need the location of the next gate, and you’re the only one who can get it.”

“But Dew—”

“Listen to me,” Dew said. “Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to. You can’t bring Bill back, but this is your chance to make it right. You have to take it.”