by Scott Sigler
Dew unwrapped the candy and again dropped the wrapper on Murray’s immaculate carpeting. “So how’s it work?”
“We don’t know for sure. The logical theory is that the growths produce drugs, which are dumped right into the bloodstream. Kind of like a living hypodermic needle pumping out bad shit.”
“How many people know about this?”
“A few people know bits and pieces, but as far as those that know the whole enchilada, there’s myself, the director, the president and the two CDC doctors listed in the reports,”
Dew stared at the photos. They gave him an uneasy feeling, down deep, at an instinctual level.
“I need you on this one, Top,” Murray said. The name chafed Dew as badly as L.T. chafed Murray. Top—short for Top Sergeant, the rank he’d held when he’d served under Murray back in ’Nam. For years that had been his only name, a name that commanded respect. Once upon a time, everyone he knew had called him Top—now the only one left who even knew the name was Murray, the guy who wanted to pretend that Vietnam had never happened. Somehow Dew didn’t find humor in the irony.
“And I don’t care how old you are, Top. As far as I’m concerned you’re still the best agent in the field. We need someone who will do whatever it takes to get the job done. And even if you only believe half of what’s in that report, you know we have to find out what’s going on and damn fast.”
Dew studied Murray’s face. He’d known that face for over thirty years. Even after all this time, he could tell when Murray was lying. Murray had asked for help before, and on each of those occasions Dew knew damn well it was to benefit Murray’s career. But all those times Dew had done it anyway, because it was Murray, because it was L.T., because he’d fought side by side with the man during the most nightmarish period of their lives. But now it was different—L.T. wasn’t doing this for personal gain. He was scared. Scared shitless.
“Okay, I’m in. I’ve got to bring my partner in on this.”
“Absolutely not. I’ll get you someone else, someone I know. Malcolm doesn’t have your clearance.”
Dew was taken aback for a moment, shocked that Murray knew his partner’s name. “What’s clearance got to do with it, L.T.? You just want someone who’ll pull the trigger whenever you need it pulled, and as much as it pains me to admit it, that’s who I am. But I’ve been with Malcolm for seven years, and I’m not going after this crazy-ass hullabaloo without him. Trust me, he’s reliable.”
Murray Longworth was a man used to getting his way, used to having his orders followed, but Dew knew he was also a politician. Sometimes politicians had to give a little to get what they wanted—that was the nature of the game that Dew could never grasp, the game that Murray played so well.
“Fine,” Murray said. “I trust your judgment.”
Dew shrugged his shoulders. “So what do we do next?”
Murray turned his gaze to the window.
“We wait, Top. We wait for the next victim.”
He’d waited then, and he was waiting now. Seven days ago he’d been waiting for something to happen, for a chance to see if this crazy Project Tangram crap was for real, a hoax or something whipped up to earn Murray another promotion. Now, however, he was waiting for his best friend to die.
A death that would have never occurred if Dew hadn’t insisted—insisted, God dammit—on getting Mal involved.
Rested but still weary, fueled more by anger than sleep, Dew sat alone in his hotel room, the big cell phone pinched between his shoulder and ear.
“Your partner still in critical?” Murray asked.
“Yeah, still touch and go. He’s fighting his ass off.” On the table in front of Dew lay a yellow cloth, on top of which sat a disassembled military-issue Colt .45 automatic. The dull, smooth metal winked blue-gray under the hotel room’s glaring lights.
“The docs are working on him?” Murray asked.
“Day and night,” Dew said. “That CDC bitch came in to take a look at him, too. Can’t she at least wait until the body is cold, Murray?”
“I sent her in, Dew, you know that. She needs all the information she can get. We’re grasping at straws here.”
“So what information does she have?”
“I’m flying in tomorrow. I’ll get a firsthand report and then I’ll fill you in. You just sit tight until then.”
“What’s the national picture? We have any new clients?” Dew finished oiling and assembling the gun. He set it aside and pulled out two boxes, one full of empty magazines, the other full of .45-caliber cartridges.
“Not that we know of,” Murray said. “All’s quiet on the western front, it seems. And if we do have any other clients, you don’t need to worry about them. You need a break. I’m working on bringing some more people in.”
With mechanical, habitual speed, Dew loaded the first magazine. He set it aside and started on the second. Dew sighed, as if his next words would seal his friend’s fate. But duty came first…
“Mal ain’t gonna make it, Murray. It may suck to say that but it’s the truth.”
“I’ve got someone lined up for you. I’m going to brief him shortly.”
“No more partners.”
“Fuck you, Dew,” Murray said, his calm tone suddenly turning angry. Murray hid his emotions well, always had, but now his frustration rang through. “Don’t you start flaking out on me. I know I wanted you solo on this, but it’s getting too big. I want someone with you. You need some help.”
“I said no more partners, Murray.”
“You’ll follow orders.”
“Send me a partner and I’ll shoot him in the knee,” Dew said. “You know I’ll do it.”
Murray said nothing.
Dew continued, his voice halting only slightly, colored by a tiny sliver of emotion.
“Malcolm was my partner, but he’s as good as dead. The shit I saw was crazy, Murray. People infected with this crap aren’t human anymore. I saw that for myself, so I know what we’re up against. I know that Margaret needs something to work with, and she needs it fast. I can get that on my own. If I have to get used to someone else I can’t move like I need to. I fly solo from here on out, Murray.”
“Dew, you can’t make this personal. This is no time for stupid thoughts to cloud your judgment.”
Dew finished the second mag. He held it in his left hand, staring at it, staring at the glossy tip of the single exposed bullet.
“This isn’t revenge, Murray,” Dew said. “Don’t be a dumb-ass. The asshole that got Malcolm is already dead, so what can I take revenge against? I’ll just work better sans partner.”
Murray fell silent for a moment. Dew didn’t really care if Murray agreed or not—he was working alone and that was that.
“All right, Dew,” Murray said quietly. “Just remember we need a live victim more than we need another corpse.”
“Call me when you get into town.” Dew hung up. He’d lied, of course. It was personal. If you thought about it enough, everything was personal in one way or another. Sooner or later he’d find out who was making these little triangular buggers. Malcolm was gone, and somebody was going to pay.
He popped a magazine into the .45, chambered a round, then walked to the bathroom. Holding the gun in his right hand, finger on the trigger, Dew carefully examined himself in the mirror. He wasn’t going out like that, not like Brewbaker. His skin looked fine, but small red spots seemed to fade in and out, catching the corner of his vision and then disappearing when he stared. His imagination, fucking with his head. If he contracted the infection, would he be sane long enough to know the symptoms? He didn’t need to hold on to his sanity for long—just long enough to pull the trigger.
Dew walked to the bed. He set the loose magazine on the nightstand, slid the .45 under his pillow, lay down and immediately fell into a light sleep.
He dreamed of burning houses, rotten corpses and Frank Sinatra singing “I’ve got you under my skin.”
21.
THE FIZZLE
“After a few hours, the fiber dissolved,” Amos said. “They still can’t figure out why. It seemed rot-free when we cut it out, but something triggered the effect.”
“But this report came before that, right? This is from the fiber itself, not from the rot?”
Amos nodded. He was also thrilled to finally be free of the suit. He looked as relieved as a teenage boy who’s just lost his virginity.
“That’s right, they were able to analyze it before the effect kicked in. Pure cellulose.”
“The same material that made up that triangular growth.”
“Exactly. Well, almost. The growth’s cellulose seemed to be a structure—shell, skeleton, elements responsible for form. Most of the growth was the cancerous cells.”
They were out of the suits because there was no more point in examining a body that was nothing but black, liquefying tissue and a strange green mold that covered half the table. They’d done all they could, as fast as they could. They hadn’t really found any answers, just more questions. One such question bothered her to no end—the cellulose.
“So the blue fiber, same material as the triangle structure, both sources composed of cellulose, a material not produced by the human body,” Margaret said. “And we think this is some kind of parasite. You have any theories on the blue fiber?”
“I think it’s a fizzle,” Amos said.
“A fizzle?”
“I think the blue fiber is part of a parasite that didn’t quite make it to the larval stage.”
“We know the stages now?”
Amos shrugged. “For lack of a better term, let’s call the triangle in the body the larval stage. Obviously, there’s a prelarval stage. The triangle is mostly cellulose, the fiber is cellulose, you do the math.”
It made sense in a way. Some cellular automata producing raw materials that were never quite used, or perhaps a mutation of the parasite that just produced cellulose and never moved to the “larval” phase, as Amos suggested.
And that word bothered her as well.
“So if there’s a larval stage,” she said, “I suppose it turns into something else in the adult phase.”
Amos clucked his tongue at her. “Don’t ask stupid questions, Margaret. Of course it does. And no, I don’t know what that is. Right now I don’t care—I want a shower before I have to face Murray Longworth.”
Maybe Amos could turn off his curiosity, but Margaret could not. Perhaps more accurately, she couldn’t turn off her fear.
If this was a larval stage, just what the hell awaited them in the adult form?
22.
DON’T WAIT, EXFOLIATE
Perry sat slumped on his couch, a Newcastle Brown Ale in one hand and the remote control in the other. He flipped through the channels without really seeing the programs.
He’d known the blue and green plaid couch since he’d been a kid, when his dad brought it home from the Salvation Army as a surprise for his mom. At the time the couch was in pretty good shape for a hand-me-down, but that was some fifteen years ago. After his mother died, the couch—and the dishes and silverware, none of which matched—was all he’d taken from the old house. As far as he knew, the house was still sitting on that dirt road in Cheboygan, crumbling into nothingness. During Perry’s childhood, Dad’s repetitive handyman-special repairs were the only thing that kept the place standing. Perry knew that no one else would ever want the ramshackle house; it was either rotting away or already bulldozed under.
He’d had the couch for several years, first at college, then in his apartment. After that long it fit the contours of his big body as if it were custom-made for him. But even the couch, a beer and the remote control couldn’t remove the blackness that had followed him home from work. He’d been sent home early. Sent home, for crying out loud, like some undisciplined, lazy worker. That alone would have been enough to crush his spirit, but the Magnificent Seven simply refused to subside.
And they didn’t just itch anymore. They hurt.
It wasn’t just the thick, crusty scabs that throbbed incessantly. There was something else, something that ran deep. Something in his body told him that things were spiraling out of hand.
Perry had always wondered if cancer patients knew something was horribly wrong. Sure, people always acted surprised when the doctor gave them that “x-amount-of-time-to-live” shit, and some of them probably were a little surprised, but a lot of people suffer pain that they know isn’t natural. Like his dad.
His dad had known. Although he never said a word to anyone, he grew even quieter, even more serious and even more angry. Yeah, although Perry didn’t put the pieces together until his father entered the hospital, the old man had known.
And now Perry knew. He had a weird feeling in his stomach. Not an instinct or intuition or anything like that but a feathery, queasy feeling. For the first time since the rashes had flared up on Monday morning, Perry wondered if it might be something…fatal.
He stood and walked to the bathroom. Removing his shirt, he stared at his once-buff body. Obviously, the lack of sleep caused by his condition (it was a “condition” now, because of the feeling that something was really wrong) was getting to him. He looked pathetic. He always rubbed his head when he became nervous, and his hair stuck up wildly in all directions. His skin appeared paler than normal, even for a German boy trudging through a Michigan winter. The darkness under his eyes was pronouncedly unattractive.
He looked…sick.
Another detail caught his eye, although he wondered if it was his imagination. His muscles seemed slightly more defined. He slowly rotated his arm, watching the deltoid flutter beneath his fatty skin. Was he more cut than before?
Perry unbuttoned his pants and kicked them into the corner. He opened the medicine cabinet and grabbed the tweezers, then sat on the toilet. The cold seat made goose bumps run up and down his flesh.
He gave the tweezers a flick with his finger. They vibrated with a soft tuning-fork hum.
The rash on his left thigh was the easiest one to get at. He’d done a lot of damage to it, both from intentional scratching and his unconscious attack during the previous night. Scabs, both crusty-old and newly red, caked the three-inch-diameter rash. Seemed like as good a spot as any to get rolling.
He pinched the area around the scab-encrusted rash with his right forefinger and thumb, making it bulge out a little. Part of the scab’s edge had begun to peel naturally. He started picking with the tweezers, pinched them down on a flake of scab and gently pulled. The scab lifted, but stayed firmly affixed to the skin.
Perry leaned forward, eyes narrowing with determination and intensity. It would hurt like the proverbial bitch, but he was getting that thing off his body. He squeezed the tweezers harder and yanked. The thick scab finally gave, accompanied by a flash of pain; it came free with the tiniest of tearing sounds.
He set the tweezers down on the counter, then pulled off a strip of toilet paper. He dabbed at the bleeding, open sore. After a few seconds, the bleeding stopped. The exposed skin underneath didn’t look right. It should have had that wet look, that shiny look, like skin-in-progress or something. This looked different.
Too different.
The flesh looked like an orange peel, not only in color but in texture as well. It smelled faintly of wet leaves. Tiny tears oozed watery blood.
A chill of stabbing panic knifed through his body. If this had happened to his leg, had it also happened to…?
He reached down to his testicles and slowly lifted them to get a good look, hoping to God they would look normal.
In effect, God told Perry to piss off.
It was the scariest thing he’d ever see
n. Pale orange skin covered the left side of his scrotum. The area was mostly bald; only a few curly pubic hairs remained.
He’d been nervous up till now, even heading into the wonderful world of pure dread, but these were his balls. His balls, for crying out loud! He sat, frozen, the toilet seat refusing to warm up, the drip under the sink suddenly so loud he wondered in amazement how he’d ever managed to sleep in the tiny apartment.
His mouth felt paper dry. He heard himself breathing. Everything seemed so quiet. Perry fought to control the panic dancing back and forth through his mind; he tried to rationalize the situation.
It was just a strange rash, that’s all. He’d go to the doctor and get it cleared up. Might take a shot or two, but it probably wouldn’t be worse than the gonorrhea and syphilis tests he’d had in college.
Gathering his courage, he let his fingers explore the area. It felt firm and unnatural. This wasn’t something a shot of penicillin could clear up, because it wasn’t just on the surface. He felt something inside his scrotum, something that had never been there before, something just under the thick orange skin.
A coppery chill hit Perry as he realized, suddenly and with perfect clarity, that he was going to die. Whatever this shit was, it was going to kill him, slowly, as it grew into his sac and up into his dick. A terror sat inside him now, growing just as surely as the Magnificent Seven grew, creating a dark, cold, shaky vibration in his soul.
Breathe, he told himself. Just breathe. Control yourself. Discipline. He forced himself to let go of the nasty, growing, firm lump and the thick orange skin. That peculiar mental fuzziness overtook him again, and he stared at the wall with a blank expression.
Without conscious thought, he clutched the tweezers and viciously jabbed them into the side of his thigh. The needlelike points slid effortlessly into the skin and poked out through the top of the scab-wound. Perry screamed in pain; his mind cleared—he realized both what he was doing and what he had to do.