Scott Sigler - Contagious

I’ll walk, but it’s two miles away, so might take me an hour and a half.”

“Can you take Mister Korves’s motorcycle?” Chelsea asked.

Mr. Jenkins shook his head. “No, I don’t know how to ride.”

“Then walk,” Chelsea said. “And make it fast.”

Mr. Jenkins nodded rapidly.

“Do you have enough money?” Mommy asked.

“I’ll find an ATM,” he said. “I’ll stock up. We’re going to be here for a few more days.”

“Two more,” Chelsea said. “Two more days, and then the angels come. Now get going, and don’t you dare forget the ice cream.”

Mr. Jenkins ran off, his fat shaking with every step. Mommy ran out behind him before the Winnebago door could even close. They did what Chelsea said, and that was as it should be.

They all did what she said—all but one.

Chelsea closed her eyes and spread her mind, reaching out. Where was he? Where was the boogeyman? Was he thinking of her? Was he afraid of her? If not, she would make him afraid.

She found him, but she couldn’t connect. Something was blocking her. Chauncey.

What are you doing, Chauncey? Are you stopping me from scaring the boogeyman?

I told you not to connect to him.

And I told you you’re not the boss of me.

Chelsea, the destroyer is not a toy.

He has stopped the angels four times.

If he finds you, he will kill you.

When you connect to him, you risk everything.

Chelsea felt angry. Not just at the boogeyman but at Chauncey.

No one can tell me what to do. Not anymore.

Chelsea waited for him to reply. He didn’t. Instead, hundreds of images smashed into her brain like rapid-fire visual lightning. Images of the boogeyman burning hosts, strangling them, hitting them, killing them.

Chauncey, stop it.

She started to shake, yet the images kept coming, images of soldiers shooting dollies, stabbing them, stomping them. Pretty dolly bodies smashing, purple stuff squishing out in long, gloopy jets.

Chauncey, no!

She couldn’t breathe, yet still the images came. Images of gates, beautiful gates, exploding, disintegrating, breaking into tiny pieces and the pieces rotting to blackness. She felt that pressure in her bladder again…

Okay, I won’t contact him. I promise!

The images stopped.

Chelsea took a deep breath. The boogeyman, he wasn’t a game at all. He was death. For- real death, not movie death.

Now you understand. If you connect with him, you bring death upon your people.

She ran her hand down to where her bathing suit went. The front of her pants was a little damp. Chauncey had caused that, but it wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t the one who killed, who burned, who destroyed. He wasn’t the one who had made her pee her pants a second time.

It was the boogeyman’s fault.

And sooner or later, she would make him pay.

Another dark night at the ruins of Clan Jewell. Cold as shit. Again. Dew hated the cold. He, Margaret and Perry stood in what had once been the Jewells’ kitchen. A bright half-moon lit up the snow in a silvery light. Barely an inch of fluff already covered most of the blackened remains, a layer of white sitting on top of cindered chunks of wood and warped appliances.

They stood there, out there in the cold, because Perry still refused to go inside the trailer. He wouldn’t go near the hatchlings.

“Perry, they’re locked in individual cages,” Margaret said. “They can’t get to you.”

She had changed; Dew could hear it in her voice. So much anger in her now, so different from the Margaret Montoya he’d met months ago. She’d been devastated after Amos’s death, but now? Now an unhealthy dose of rage brewed in her little chest.

“There’s no way they can get out of those cages,” she said.

“It’s not… not that,” Perry said. His words sounded strained, broken, as if he had to work to complete a sentence. He stood still, but his upper body bobbed slightly back and forth.

“Perry,” Dew said, “you got to sack up.”

Perry shook his head. Shook it violently. Made him look like a retarded dog.

“Look,” Dew said. “Something is blocking you, but if you’re close to the triangles, you can hear?”

Perry nodded. “Yeah, when I was standing right there, I could hear them. I could hear her. ”

“That’s the point,” Dew said. “We don’t know where the next gate is, Perry. The Jewells have to be there. If we find them, we find the gate. Chelsea talked to you. You have to go back in there and see if she makes contact again.”

“You have to do this,” Margaret said, her voice tight and cold. “We are not going to have let that woman die for nothing.”

Perry shook his head again. His eyes remained wide, his nostrils flaring with each breath.

“Perry,” Margaret said, “you’ve fought through so much. Tell me why you’re afraid of this little girl.”

“She’s not a little girl anymore,” Perry said. “She’s something else. She can… she can make people do things.”

“We’re with you, kid,” Dew said. “We’ll be right there, okay?”

“The answer is no, Dew,” Perry said. “You have to stop asking me to go in there. You just have to.”

“Those hatchlings are in their own little cages,” Dew said. “They can not get to you. You need to stop being such a pussy and—”

Dew never saw Perry’s hand. Not even a blur. One second he was shaking and nodding like a rabid Saint Bernard, the next Dew felt a cast-iron vise on his throat and his feet dangled a foot off the ground.

“You don’t get it!” Perry screamed. “You just don’t get it!”

Dew clawed at Perry’s fingers, trying to isolate one, to bend it back and break it, but even the kid’s fingers were strong. Dew couldn’t pry one free.

Margaret grabbed Perry’s arm. She might as well have swung from a tree limb for all the effect she had. “Perry! Put him down!”

Perry shook Dew. Shook him. Dew’s vision blacked out for a moment, then came back—he only had a few seconds left. He kicked out, clumsily, trying to get his actions under control. One foot connected, but he’d kicked Margaret, not Perry.

She grabbed at her left thigh and fell to the ground. Dew suddenly found himself down there as well, coughing and spitting. Perry was so big, so strong, so fast. Dew now knew it had been nothing but dumb luck he’d won that fight.

“I’m not afraid of what she’ll do to me !” Perry screamed. “I’m afraid of what she’ll make me do to you !”

Dew rolled onto his back and looked up. Sooty snow melted into the seat of his pants. Perry was bent over him, staring down with insane eyes. Saliva flew when he talked.

Perry jabbed his finger repeatedly into his temple, punctuating his words.

“Don’t you get it? They rewrote my fucking brain ! And when I go near those triangles, I can hear her. She’s fucking powerful, man. I don’t want you to end up like Bill. She told me to kill you!”

Dew hawked a loogie and spit. It came out thick with blood. “So why didn’t you?”

Perry didn’t say anything. The insanity slowly left his eyes.

“Why?” Dew said. “If she’s so powerful, why didn’t you kill me when she told you to? Why didn’t you kill me just now?”

“Because… because you can take me. You can beat me up.”

Dew laughed, but the pain in his throat changed the laugh to a cough.

“Kid, you could have broken my neck just now. You didn’t. So if this little girl has control over you, why am I still alive?”