Scott Sigler - Infected

Bill tried to pull free, which made the blades cut deeper still into his ravaged hands. His body simply didn’t have the strength. He slumped back into the couch, a portrait of defeat-his bleeding hands stretching out on either side of his limply hanging head.

“Neighbors,” Perry said in a hiss, his eyes darting first to the window and then to the door. “Nosy goddamned neighbors might be in on it.”

He hopped to the door and stared out the peephole. Even through the distorted view he could see blood on the hallway’s walls and carpeting. Someone would notice it-he didn’t have much time. Time enough, however, to get some answers from the informant nailed to the wall.

Kill him kill him.

Kill him!

Perry stared at Bill. His friend, Bill Miller. His…friend.

“My God, what have I done? What’s happening to me?”

He is Columbo, he is the Soldiers.

“He can’t be.”

He’s here, isn’t he?

Why would he be here now if he wasn’t

Columbo? Killllllllll himmmmmmm

They were right. The emails, the calls, that convenient instant message, showing up at his door. Bill knew what was going on. He knew everything. How callous, how heartless could this bastard be? He had feigned friendship while watching the Triangles grow and fester and swell and chew Perry up from the inside as if he were a fucking goddamned caterpillar. Bill had watched all along.

But he could only watch at work.

What about the rest of the time? What about all the time Perry spent at home, in the apartment, particularly in the last few days? How were they watching him then? Bugs? Hidden cameras? Watching his instant-message and email traffic? Maybe behind a light, maybe inside the TV. Maybe inside the damned TV!

And if they’d watched him all that time, then they were watching him now.

They were watching him carve up Billy the Betrayer.

They wouldn’t just let that happen. They were coming, coming to rescue Billy. Perry took Bill’s head in his hands and stared into glassy eyes.

“They’ll be too late, Billy Boy,” Perry said quietly. “You hear me? They’ll be too fucking late to bail your ass out of this one.”

Bill screamed, but the sock muffled the noise.

“You’d best knock that shit off, boy,” Perry said, still staring into Bill’s terrified eyes, eyes that revealed searing pain and pure, raw terror. “Quit your cryin’, boy, or I’ll give you something to cry about.”

Bill screamed louder, trying to pull back from the bullnecked horror before his eyes.

Perry snarled as he grabbed Bill’s broken nose and shook it viciously from side to side. Bill’s body shuddered with fresh agony. He thrashed like a man in the electric chair, muscles contorting so violently that one knife-pierced hand pulled free from the plaster.

The blade still jutted from the back of his hand. Perry grabbed both Bill’s blood-slick wrist and the knife handle, then slammed the blade back into the wall. This time he felt a distinct and sudden resistance as the blade dug deep into a wall stud.

Old Billy Boy wasn’t going to pull that one free anytime soon, no siree, bub, not anytime soon.

Bill fought down the pain, his mind freaked beyond the point of clear thought. Somehow he found the inner power to stop screaming, stop struggling, despite this seemingly endless torture from a man whom only minutes before he’d known as his dearest friend.

Perry leaned in, so close that Bill felt the heat from his breath. Perry held his fingers less than a half inch from Bill’s nose, thumb and forefinger ready to grab again at a moment’s notice, ready to inflict more of that brain-shearing agony.

“Like I said, boy, stop your crying or I’ll kill you right fucking now.”

Bill stared up through tears that refused to be blinked away. The friend-turned-psycho leaned over him, perched on one leg. Bill’s fresh blood had smeared all over Perry’s shirt, wetting the brown-black stains.

The sock filled his mouth with a sickly dry-cotton feel. It tasted much as Bill imagined a dirty old sock should: moldy and suffocating. Warm blood continued to pour from his nose, down his face and onto his chest. Blood from his punctured hands rolled down his arms to collect in wet pools at his armpits, soaking outward in an expanding tacky-hot pit stain.

How had this happened? He’d come to check on his best friend and now he was crucified to the wall, staring up at the bloody, giant, wild-eyed, snarling, psychotic nightmare that was Perry Dawsey in name only.

“Okay,” Perry said in a whisper. “Now I’m going to take the sock out of your mouth. And when I do, I’m going to ask you some questions. Whether you live or die is up to you-the second you scream, I’m going to pull that knife out of your hand and shove it through your eye and stir your brain like Skippy peanut butter. It’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt a lot. And I don’t give a fuck, but I think you already know that. Do you know I don’t give a fuck, Billy Boy?”

Bill nodded in agreement. Perry’s voice had grown calm, cold and relaxed, but his eyes hadn’t changed. Bill’s chest felt packed with coppery terror. Fear filled his mind, leaving no room for thoughts of escape. Perry was in charge. Bill would do whatever he said. Whatever it took to stay alive.

Oh Jesus, don’t let me die here. Please don’t let this happen, oh dear God, please!

“Good,” Perry said. “That’s good, Bill. I’m sure you’ve been trained well and warned about the consequences of this mission, so I won’t feel a bit of remorse. If your voice rises above conversational levels, you’re not going to be having a whole lot of fun. Do you understand what will happen if your voice rises above conversational levels, Bill?”

Bill nodded again.

Perry dropped to the couch, resting a knee on either side of Bill’s thighs. Bill saw him grimace a bit, but then that fleeting expression vanished, the psychotic stare back in place. Suddenly Perry looked away, his eyes losing focus. He seemed to be staring at the wall, or perhaps some point beyond the wall. His head cocked to the right ever so slightly.

He looks like a dog listening to one of those ultrasonic whistles.

“Look, I’m telling you he’ll talk,” Perry said. “We don’t need to kill him!”

Oh Christ oh Jesus oh my Lord he’s completely insane and I’m going to die here, I’m going to die just like that.

Perry spoke angrily to his unseen companion. “Fuck off! This is my show now. You just shut up and let me think.”

Bill felt his spirit sag down, weighted with doom. There was no hope.

Apparently the voice stopped. Perry’s stare returned, a piercing fixation that drilled into Bill’s eyes, which were wide, white and wet. Bill felt weakness slip over him, slowly pulling him into unconsciousness.

This time he didn’t fight it.

Dew pinched the uncomfortable, thick cellular between his shoulder and ear, steered with one hand, and with the other punched an address into the Buick’s dashboard GPS computer.

“How long since the client sent the form, Murray?”

“About twenty minutes.”

“Have we contacted him yet?”

“There’s no answer at the number he gave us,” Murray said. “We’ve sent a return email, but no response there yet, either.”

“Send Margaret and her rapid-response teams for me. I have to find this apartment complex. Tell the squads to get to Dawsey’s apartment complex, but do not enter. Tell them to wait for my call. Leave my three teams at Nguyen’s place to make sure the media doesn’t get in until they finish scrubbing the place of any triangle references.”

Dew broke the connection and put the cellular away. He almost rear-ended an old woman driving a Civic. He leaned on the horn, trying to get her out of the way. It was Sunday, college on semester break, but there were still college kids crossing the street, slow and calm like they owned the world, like they were immortal. Right about now Dew would be more than happy to put that immortality up against the front bumper of the Buick.