Jeff Jacobson - Sleep Tight

When the initial blast of the four rounds had faded, leaving Dr. Reischtal alone with five corpses tangled together before him, he holstered his pistol. Two other soldiers came running at the sound of gunshots. They gaped at the pile of bodies.

Dr. Reischtal said, “These men were infected. I want them burned immediately. And hazmat suits are now required for all personnel. The bugs are spreading beyond the confines of the city and the stadium.”

“Yes, sir,” one of the soldiers said. “We have reports that our squads are encountering severe resistance, mostly along the Blue Line subway system. We have lost contact with at least three squads. Based on their last transmissions, it appears that they were being overrun.”

Dr. Reischtal nodded. “Tell the remaining squads to redouble their efforts. They must succeed. The future of mankind depends on it. Call my launch. I am now relocating the command center out to the ship.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dr. Reischtal clasped his hands and stared at the sky. There were no stars, not yet. But he had a feeling they would appear soon, triumphing over the light pollution. He shifted his gaze to the silent city.

There was no denying it now. The situation was officially out of control. The wild dogs had pulled loose, ripped free of their master.

He turned to assess Soldier Field and made his choice in less than three seconds. Again, once the decision had been made, there was no dithering, no second-guessing, no doubt. He would incinerate everything, burn the virus out of existence, wipe Chicago off the map. In a few years, they could start over, if they were so inclined.

He called Reynolds. “Are the trucks in place? Has everything been arranged?”

“No, sir. Three miles down the tunnel, we found a collapse. Looks like they brought it down on purpose. Recently too. We’re digging it out. A couple of hours maybe. Your guy say anything about this?”

Dr. Reischtal ground his molars into each other and this time, he couldn’t stop himself. Lee would suffer for his lies. “Call me when the trucks are ready.” He hung up and walked down to the shore and stepped onto the launch that would ferry him out to the warship.

At least the trucks under Soldier Field were in place and armed.

As the boat skipped across the surface of the lake, he thought about calling and informing the president, but then another, more efficient idea blossomed. He considered the angles briefly, and decided the loss of his men would be acceptable. And only he and the truck drivers knew the truckers were even there, let alone what kind of death they carried.

Yes, he thought. Soldier Field first. Then, when they had the trucks in place under the Loop, in a few hours, then downtown.

As the warship grew closer and the single tower loomed overhead, he called a very specific number and waited for the security system to come online. The launch slowed and stopped at the stern of the Sachsen-class frigate. Collapsible stairs descended from the low deck.

Dr. Reischtal waited until he heard the recorded message, then climbed up to the deck. He gazed back across the moonlit waves at the bright lights of Soldier Field. He spoke his name, slowly and clearly into the mouthpiece, and answered the random question and ended with the date, then waited for the voice-recognition software to access the remotes under each truck. He heard the series of beeps, and knew that the steady yellow lights on the remote receivers were now flashing red.

He keyed in the code and hit SEND.

Dr. Menard flipped the jump drive over and over as he shoved it into the USB port on the laptop. His fingers trembled and he couldn’t seem to get the drive to slip into the port. Finally it snapped into place, and a few seconds later, a new icon appeared on the desktop screen.

He steadied the laptop on the steering wheel, then opened the Internet browser, and had to type in the name of his university’s email server three times before he got it right. Sweat dripped off his nose and hit the trackpad. His forefinger smeared it, and the cursor flitted wildly across the screen. “Goddamnit,” he whispered. “Please, please work.” He tried to dry it with his shirt, then tried again.

Someone banged on the bus door.

Dr. Menard flinched and saw a man in a reflective orange IDOT vest outside, lips pulled back in a feral snarl, eyes wild. Blood dripped from his hair. It looked like he had taken a gardening fork to his scalp. The man hit the door again, rattling the plastic windows.

Dr. Menard ignored him and concentrated on attaching the contents of the jump drive to an email. An empty sliding bar popped up, indicating the percentage of information that had been loaded. A blue bar began to eat up the remaining blackness of the gauge in lurching increments.

“C’mon, c’mon!” he shouted.

His voice attracted the attention of an older woman on the other side of the bus. She bounded up the steps on the passenger side and smashed her head into the plastic cocoon, leaving a streak of blood and makeup. She howled and scrabbled at the plastic, enraged at the movement inside, furious that she couldn’t reach him. Her cries brought more of them, like bees swarming to their queen.

The blue band had filled up at least half of the bar.

The infected surrounded the bus and so many were attacking it in a mindless fury it began rock and shake as the suspension shuddered under the onslaught. If too many gathered in one area, they would set each other off in a new frenzy, attacking each other, anything to eliminate the immediate threat. They would use anything close at hand. A backpack, used to choke the other, or a shattered bottle, to slash and jab. Usually it was something big and heavy, and used as a club. Out at Soldier Field, they didn’t have anything really big and heavy. One guy carried a gearshift off one of the older buses and used it to bash away at the bus door.

Dr. Menard didn’t care. He held onto the laptop, eyes never leaving the screen. Seventy-five percent now.

Eighty percent.

Ninety percent.

Then, a flash. A curious floating sensation for the briefest moment, as if everything were suspended, like motes of dust in sunlight. A feeling of intense, horrible heat.

Then, nothing.

CHAPTER 71

8:53 PM

August 14

At first, Tommy didn’t realize that the Strykers were shooting at him. The road in front of him didn’t erupt in great geysers of smoke and the trees around him didn’t explode in showers of sparks like in the movies. He heard a few dull thuds. That was all.

He raced down Lake Shore Drive, with Lake Michigan off to his right, and the ominous shadow of the warship growing out of the horizon like a tumor. After successfully negotiating his way through the barricade, he didn’t want to think that anything could go wrong. So he ignored the tight, tickling feeling that crawled over his scalp and pushed the thoughts of the bullets singing above his head out of his mind. Then he saw the two Strykers in the rearview mirror, closing fast.

One of the back windows exploded and his passenger mirror disintegrated. Now, through the open back window, he could hear the bursts of automatic gunfire, even if he couldn’t pinpoint the damage. He couldn’t ignore the truth any longer.

Tommy yanked the wheel to the left and jumped the curb and tore across the baseball fields. He tried to keep an eye on his driver’s side mirror and rearview mirror. He noticed that the Strykers couldn’t change direction as fast as the ambulance; they couldn’t navigate as nimbly as he could. Of course, they could smash their way through obstructions like cars and sandbags, but when they had two or three cars caught up on the front, it slowed them down, at least until the pitiless front wedge ground the cars along the asphalt and pushed the crumpled vehicles aside.