Jeff Jacobson - Sleep Tight

The second Stryker hadn’t missed any of this, and it roared backwards. The top hatch swung open, and a soldier grabbed the .50 caliber. This gunner wasn’t taking any chances, he was already firing, spitting bullets all over the place. He couldn’t aim worth a damn while the Stryker was backing up, but it was clear to Tommy that once it stopped, they were all dead meat.

A dark CTA bus burst out of the darkness of LaSalle and smashed into the Stryker. Bullets sprayed into the night sky as the gunner snapped against the hatch with such violence it didn’t appear that he had any bones at all, and was instead some invertebrate species as his body rolled in the whiplash with all the resistance of a wet towel.

The bus hit the Stryker hard enough that the back tires lifted off the ground a few inches. It dropped back, bounced once, and didn’t move. The Stryker spun counterclockwise, blasting through a few sandbag berms.

The woman was now suddenly at that wreck, casually dropping a grenade inside. This time, the driver didn’t try to use the canon. He may have been running for the hatch, he may have been trying to trap the blast with a shield or whatever was inside, but in the end, it didn’t matter. There was another muffled whump, like a stifled sneeze, and it was done.

The boots left Tommy and ran for the bus. Tommy rolled over and watched the hazmat suit and the woman kick open the door. Tommy climbed to his knees. His ears were ringing and he couldn’t quite nail a perfect balance yet, but he didn’t think anything was broken. His fingers tingled now, where before there was only numbness. He cautiously rose to his feet and took a moment to orient himself.

When he felt he could walk without falling down, he lurched over to the closest Stryker. As he got closer, he found he could clench his fists and loosen his legs. He lifted the gunner’s corpse, and pulled it out. There was nothing there he could use. He took a deep breath, and climbed down. The heat was still incredible. He squinted in the murk, found the driver. The man wore fatigues.

Tommy climbed out, and after some gasping to escape the heat, he dropped back down and went for a storage locker. He felt a couple of dense plastic squares, almost like baseball bases that a family might take to a picnic. He crawled out and rolled down the tank, stuck one square under each arm and went to the bus.

The driver was out now, coughing and holding his side, but pacing around like he was shaking off a bad dream, nothing more. Hazmat suit and the woman started arguing. Tommy walked up and saw that the man pacing around was the detective who had given Tommy his card. Sam something.

The detective started to speak, and coughed instead. His tongue and teeth were dark and shiny at the same time with blood. After a few tries, he said, “I’m fine, goddamnit. Knock that shit off.”

Tommy said, “Thanks,” then limped past them, heading north.

Ed called, “Kid, you okay?”

Tommy stopped and turned. “I have to get my daughter.”

Dr. Reischtal watched the figures of white light start walking up Dearborn. Toward Washington and Daley Plaza. He pinned the microphone, a black bug with the foam head, a battery pack for the thorax, and a transponder antenna as the abdomen, to his new paper robe. He wore nothing underneath. After stripping out of the hazmat suit and his uniform and submitting himself not once, but twice, to the decontamination process, he had ordered his old clothing burned.

“Do not engage,” he told the pilots. “Pull back and continue to monitor.”

The sound of his voice was heard by a dozen satellites, who passed it back down, like electronic rain. A pair of headphones hung on the back wall of his unit, but he ignored those. Apart from the Apache pilots, he would only speak to a living human on the other side of the glass, through the exterior microphone, of course.

Dr. Reischtal was sealed in. Tighter than a bug in a rug , as his mother’s maid was fond of saying.

He called it his unit. A sealed fortress, his own private citadel, secure inside a warship, no less. Austere, composed entirely of gleaming white plastic. Completely sterile, of course. It utilized its own air filtration unit, its own power, its own waste disposal, its own recyclable water supply. Next to the door that locked from the inside, a giant bubble of thick plastic faced a simple table and chair. A scanner sat on the table, so any hard copies could be digitally scanned and downloaded by the isolated computer inside. A wall of monitors covered one wall. Two monitors displayed the feed from the Apaches. The video from the cameras attached to several soldiers’ helmets filled other screens. Several of these had gone dark.

The rest of the monitors were tuned to various television stations. Most had cut to aerial shots of the burning wreckage of Soldier Field. Although Dr. Reischtal was quite pleased with the level of destruction in the death of the stadium, he watched the last station that was still broadcasting the disintegrating press conference with interest. Lee, the fool, was dithering about, still trying to convince people he was in charge. No sign of Krazinsky, but Dr. Reischtal hadn’t expected him to show his face yet. The station finally cut away to its own footage of the skeletal wreckage of Soldier Field, the sagging walls and twisted metal silhouetted by the raging fire inside.

He turned back to the Apache feeds. The four glowing figures crept north on Dearborn, keeping to the shadows near the buildings. They stopped, huddled together. He couldn’t tell, but it looked as if they were trying to see something behind them. All four broke into a run.

Dr. Reischtal almost smiled. They had undoubtedly just become aware of the growing mob of infected five blocks to the south.

He pulled out his phone and dialed a recent number. “Shut your mouth and listen carefully.”

CHAPTER 73

9:01 PM

August 14

Ed pulled at Tommy’s arm. “Slow down, slow down. You go running in there, you’re gonna get shot.” Behind Ed, Qween slowed to a walk, sucking in air through her nose and letting it out in shallow hisses between clenched teeth. Sam brought up the rear, grunting softly every time his left foot hit the ground. He kept his right hand across his chest, holding the left side of his ribs. Every once in a while, he would turn his head and spit. The blood gleamed darkly under the streetlights.

They stood at the intersection of Dearborn and Washington. Daley Plaza was before them. A circle of lights had been arranged in the middle of the plaza. Semi trailers, Strykers, and M939 military trucks lined the streets. A block to the west, the lights of the press conference sent inky slashes of shadow up the sides of City Hall. No soldiers could be seen.

Ed said, “Easy, easy. Catch your breath, first. Let’s think this through.”

“We don’t have time. Those people”—Tommy nodded back down Dearborn—“are gonna be here any minute.”

Ed shook his head. “We got a couple of minutes. Maybe ten. From what we’ve seen, they’re not the most organized.”

Tommy wasn’t convinced. “They go after noise. And light. But mostly noise. And those damn things”—he pointed to the two Apaches that kept circling overhead like a couple of hungry vultures riding the wind—“they’re gonna piss ’em off and bring ’em right into our laps.” He turned to assess City Hall. “Besides, I think the press conference is over. You hear anything from over there? They’re gonna be moving out.”

Ed watched the helicopters for a moment. “Yeah, you got a point. But let’s not go running in there like a bunch of chickens with our heads cut off.” He glanced at Sam. “How you doin’, brother?”