Стефани Перри: Zero Hour

Changes in size, aggressive behavior, brain development. Like, say, in a dog? And that bit about “in animals, anyway.” What did this T-virus to do humans? Billy was willing to bet he'd already seen the results.

“Turns 'em into zombies,” he muttered. Or as good as zombies, anyway. The one he'd shot had definitely been looking for lunch. What was it that cannibals called humans? Long pig, that was it. That walking mess had wanted some long pig, no question.

Woods full of cannibals and monsters . . . he'd take his chances with the girl. She'd held her own so far, had killed at least three of those passengers and had managed to hang on to her sanity. He'd stay with her until they got out of this—and then he'd work out an escape before the rest of her team moved in, assuming there was any of her team left—

A girl, the girl screamed from overhead, a sound of pure terror. Billy grabbed his weapon and bolted up the stairs, two at a time, hoping he hadn't waited too long to make up his mind.

At the top of the stairs was a slight curve, then a door. Rebecca opened it slowly, carefully, with the muzzle of the handgun, and stepped inside.

A thin, acrid haze of smoke greeted her, and the low flicker of fire, making shadows dance on the walls. It was a dining car, like Billy had said, and had once been beautiful, the tables covered in fine linen, the windows draped with cream-colored curtains. Now it was trashed, plates and broken glass everywhere, tables overturned, the linens soaked with spilled wine and blood . .. And near the back, a lone figure sat hunched over a table, the hem of the tablecloth burning, the flames licking upward.

Rebecca saw a small oil lamp smashed in front of the table, the cause of the fire. The fire was still small, but it might not be for long.

The man at the table was very still—and as Rebecca walked closer, she saw that he wasn't like the passengers below, wasn't infected by what Billy had suggested was the T-virus. He was an older, distinguished-looking man in a brown suit, his white hair slicked back, his head bent over his chest as though he'd nodded off during dinner.

Heart attack? Or had he passed out? It didn't seem likely that he'd broken a second-story window and climbed inside, but as far as she could tell, there was no one else in the room, no one else who could have made those heavy footsteps they'd heard.

Rebecca cleared her throat as she moved toward him. “Excuse me,” she said, stopping next to the table, noticing that his face and hands were wet, gleaming slightly in the firelight. “Sir?”

No response—but he was breathing; she could see his chest moving. She leaned in, put her hand on his shoulder. “Sir?”

He started to raise his head, turning his face toward her—and there was a sick, wet sound, like lips smacking over something slimy, and the man's head slid from his torso and toppled to the floor.

The wet sound got louder, the decapitated body starting to shake, to bubble with movement, as though filled with living things. Rebecca stumbled backward, letting out a scream as the man's body slid apart like badly stacked blocks, great pieces of it falling to the floor. When the pieces hit, they disintegrated, the cloth of the suit changing color, turning black, becoming many things, each the size of a fist.

Slugs they're like slugs—

Slugs with rows of tiny teeth, not slugs at all but leeches, fat and round and somehow able to mimic a man, even the man's clothes . . . Not possible, this can't be happening!

She stumbled back farther, sick with terror as the individual creatures came together once more, melding into one another, the mass of abnormal, bloated things growing into a glistening tower of darkness. They reformed, took shape and color—and again became the old man she'd seen sitting at the table. She stared in shock, in disbelief. Even knowing that he was made up of hundreds, perhaps thousands of the disgusting things, she couldn't see the spaces between them, wouldn't have known that it wasn't a man except that she'd seen it form for herself. The shade of the suit, the shape and color of the body— the only clue that it wasn't a man was the strangely shining quality of its skin and clothes.

It cocked its left arm back as though about to pitch a baseball, and then snapped it forward.

Thearm elongated, stretched impossibly. Rebecca was at least five meters away, but the glistening wet hand swatted at the air only centimeters from her face. She tripped over her own feet in her hurry to get away, falling to the floor as the arm snapped back into place—then cocked backward, ready to strike again.

Gun, stupid, shoot!

She jerked the weapon up and fired, the first two shots going wild, the third and fourth disappearing into the thing's lurching body. She could see the not-flesh ripple when the bullets hit, the suit and the body beneath it undulating slightly, as though she were seeing it through heat waves off of asphalt on a summer day. The creature barely hesitated before whipping its arm toward her once more. She dodged, but the hand made contact, slapping against her left cheek. She screamed again, more from the feel of the hand than the strength of the blow—it was cold and slimy and rough, like sharkskin dipped in pond scum—and before it withdrew, it slapped at her again, this time knocking the nine-millimeter from her hand. The weapon skittered across the floor, ending up beneath one of the tables. The old man-creature took another oddly lurching step, was now close enough that its next blow likely wouldn't be so easily evaded, and Rebecca just had time to think that she was dead—

—and bam-bam-bam, the creature was staggering back, and someone was firing again and again, the unexpected sound making her cringe as she staggered to her feet. The first few shots disappeared into its form like before, but the shooter kept at it, finding the monster's aged and shining face, its shining eyes. Dark liquid flew from sudden openings in the collective, leeches blowing to pieces, and on the sixth or seventh shot, the man-thing began to melt back into its component parts, the small, black animals slithering toward the broken windows as they hit the floor.

Rebecca looked back at the door and saw Billy Coen standing there in a classic shooter's position, both hands on his weapon, his gaze fixed on the monstrosity in front of them as it finished its silent collapse, becoming many once more. The leeches continued to make for the windows, sliding on trails of slime over the debris-littered floor and up the stained walls, slipping effortlessly over the jagged edges of glass and into the storming night. They had finished their attack, it seemed.

A strange, high singing drifted in over the sound of the rain. Still in shock, Rebecca walked to the window, carefully avoiding the remaining leeches as they streamed out of the car, retrieving her weapon before looking out to find the source of the singing. Billy joined her, making no effort to step over the strange creatures; several popped wetly beneath his boot heels.

In a flash of lightning, they saw him. Standing on a low hill west of the train, a lone figure—male, from his height, from the width of the shoulders— raised long arms, a gesture of welcome, and sang in a surprisingly sweet soprano, his voice young and rich and strong. Latin, like something from church. As if that weren't bizarre enough, he seemed to be standing in a low, shallow lake, the ground rippling slightly all around him. It was too dark to see well, only deep shadow and silhouette marking the lonely singer.

“Oh, Christ,” Billy said. “Look at that.”

Rebecca felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle, her mouth turning down in a grimace of disgust. There was no lake. The ground was covered with leeches, thousands of them, all moving toward the singing young man. She could see the hem of his long coat or robe flapping as the creatures flowed upward, disappearing beneath it.