This is all my fault, and I don’t know how to fix it, and I don’t know if I can.
–FROM THE JOURNAL OF DR. SHANTI CALE, SEPTEMBER 21, 2027
Hello, Internet!
So as you’ve probably heard by now, they’re starting to lock down big portions of the Bay Area. Who are THEY? That’s the big question of the hour, because it seems that NOBODY KNOWS. Yes! Bridges are being closed, and freeways are being spun off into detours that don’t go anywhere, and NOBODY KNOWS WHO’S DOING IT.
I’m taking my camera and heading for the Pittsburg hills. My sources say that there’s a police cordon forming on Willow Pass Road, and there’s no better place for me to find out the TRUTH about what’s going on than by going straight to the source. Can you say CONSPIRACY? I knew you could!
Remember, loyal followers, if I do not return, the TRUTH is OUT THERE, and the LIES are getting STRONGER all the time.
–FROM THE BLOG OF BRIAN “TRUTHSEEKER099” VIBBER, POSTED SEPTEMBER 21, 2027. NO FURTHER POSTS WERE MADE UNDER THIS USER NAME
Iwaited anxious and alone in my purloined hospital room, jumping at every little sound and scuffle from the hall outside. If Nathan was right about my super-sleepwalker pheromones attracting sleepwalkers to me, there was every chance that a stray patient could stumble through the door at any moment, hands outstretched and mouth hungry for a piece of my flesh. It wasn’t the sort of thought that made me inclined to go exploring, even if I was having trouble sitting in the room alone.
What if Nathan couldn’t find me clothes? What if Daisy and Fang were so busy with the sudden influx of patients that they couldn’t get away, and we had to leave them? Dr. Cale was going to stop letting us borrow her people if we kept on not bringing them back.
The doorknob turned. I tensed, hunching down in the bed and trying to look like I was asleep. A fully turned sleepwalker wouldn’t be able to work the door, but a doctor would, and that would be just as bad. What if they decided that I didn’t need a private room, and moved me out to the hall? I’d have nothing to protect me then.
I was getting awfully tired of the words “what if.”
The door swung open, and I closed my eyes, playing dead. Footsteps approached me and Nathan said, “Sal, it’s me. I found you some clothes, and Daisy’s getting Fang out of the ER, but we need to hurry. We don’t have much time.”
There was a degree of urgency in his voice that was out of proportion with the trouble that we were in—something I wouldn’t have thought possible until I heard it. I opened my eyes and sat up, staring at him. “What’s going on?”
“I overheard two of the doctors who actually work here talking in the hall. The CDC is en route to lock this place down for good, and that means that USAMRIID can’t be too far behind. Mom’s going to get the news soon, if she hasn’t already.”
My eyes got even wider. “You think she’s going to move the lab?”
“I think she’ll have to. We’re important to her, but we’re not more important than the entire human race.” He gestured to the clothes on the foot of my bed: jeans, a heavy sweater, a lab coat in what looked like my size, and a pair of worn-out white canvas shoes that would mostly fit. “Get dressed, and let’s go.”
I was still wobbly—which was only fair, since I’d suffered major blood loss and had brain surgery all in the same day—and getting the clothing on was a little harder than it should have been. It felt eerily like my first days after waking up, when I’d been stranded in a body that had muscle memory and nothing else, making the easy things that everyone around me took for granted seem like minor miracles. Nathan helped me with the sweater, twisting it around until I could find the hole for my head, but I did the rest by myself while he watched the door, waiting for someone to burst in on us.
The door was still closed when I finished tying my shoes and shrugging on the lab coat. Nathan tossed me an elastic band. I used it to pull my hair back in a ponytail, concealing the bandages from my operation. “How do I look?” I asked, spreading my arms a little to give him the full effect.
“Like you belong here,” he said, and leaned in and kissed me—quickly, but with an intensity that spoke to his fear, and to our mutual, growing conviction that we weren’t going to make it out of here. I kissed him back, allowing the momentary closeness to distract from my terror. It was going to be okay. We were going to find a way to make this okay, and I was going to spend the rest of my life kissing Nathan, although preferably not in besieged hospital rooms.
The door swung open. Nathan and I pulled away from each other, our eyes going wide and our backs going tight as we prepared to flee. Fang looked at us disdainfully, tilting his chin up just enough to let him stare at us down the length of his nose. It was a surprisingly effective expression.
“Daisy’s already waiting for us in the parking lot, so if you two lovebirds are done celebrating the fact that we’ve made it this far, we’d like to make it the rest of the way,” he said mildly. “Come on.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, cheeks flaring red, and hurried out of the room. Nathan followed after me, and we plunged into the chaos of the hospital.
I’d believed myself prepared for anything, based on Nathan’s description and my own knowledge of what usually happened during a sleepwalker outbreak. I hadn’t been prepared at all.
There were bodies everywhere we looked. Some were on stretchers or strapped to gurneys like the one they’d used to bring me from Dr. Cale’s. Others sat propped against the walls, hands clasped over obvious injuries and shocked expressions on their faces. Those were actually the ones that bothered me the least. They were clearly upset about what had happened to them. Their wounds hurt. They could feel pain, and they were connected enough to their bodies to understand what that meant, to know that they needed to stop what they were doing and have it taken care of. Those people might be infected—the majority of them probably had implants, considering SymboGen’s saturation of the market—but they weren’t sleepwalkers yet.
The ones that worried me were the ones who weren’t clutching themselves. The ones who leaned against walls, staring into nothingness with the characteristically dead eyes of someone whose human mind has shut off, but whose tapeworm mind has not yet started supplying fresh instructions. The ones who seemed to have fallen asleep, but whose chests were still moving smoothly up and down, marking their continued life even as the worms within them worked their way toward a stronger integration. I stuck close to Nathan, trying not to look at those people. It was like I was afraid that eye contact was all it would take to make them come after me.
The air smelled like blood and vomit and human waste, a horrible mixture of urine, feces, and other things that I didn’t want to put a name to. People cried and screamed and shouted profanities, and that was all good, yes, that was all welcome, because those cries were human . The people who made them were still people .
The steady undercurrent of moaning was a lot less welcome.
Fang wove his way through the crowd like a man who’d spent most of his life moving in tight spaces, and Nathan and I followed him, taking advantage of the narrow openings he created in the brief seconds before they could close again. We were like a surgical laser: we didn’t wound the crowd, but we sliced it open and let it heal behind us, leaving no trace, creating no scar.
One of the dead-eyed men turned his head as we walked past, tracking my movement. I whimpered a little and walked faster, nearly stepping on Fang’s heels in my hurry to get out of range. If these people were far enough along to start picking up on my pheromones, we were in trouble. Real trouble, the kind that no clever plan or stolen car was going to get us out of.
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