by Sean Platt
He declined again. Within two seconds, it rang again. Ian wasn’t even sure how that was possible. Didn’t a connection need to reset?
A text came in: ANSWER NOW.
Alice, watching the telephonic ballet with interest, furrowed her eyebrows. Ian turned the screen to show her.
“It’s our tipster,” she said.
“It can’t be. What, now he’s calling?”
“He? How do you know it’s not a woman?”
Ian was about to dismiss that as the least relevant and most loaded comment he’d ever heard when the phone rang again — number still unknown. This time, Ian answered while Alice pressed close, her face almost against his.
“Hello?” Ian said.
A man’s voice spilled from the speaker, rushed, panicked, out of breath as if running, somehow curiously familiar.
“You have to get out of there,” it said.
“Who is this?”
“Get out of the fucking mall!”
“How do you know where I am? Who are you and why are you—”
“Your wife followed you! Some … some people were following her! Now some serious shit is about to happen and you! Can’t! Be there!”
“Bridget is here? Who’s after her?” Ian’s heart doubled its pace. His head ticked around, and Alice, doing the same, put her hand on his arm, seemingly trying to quell his rising fear.
“They don’t know you’re here! They’re after her! You have to get out!”
Ian’s calm snapped. “Who the fuck are you, and where is my wife?”
“Okay,” the voice said, clearly still rushing but making an effort to be calm, to get his message across. “You have to understand. This is about more than you. You’ve been watched, and Hemisphere doesn’t want you talking. But they don’t want to hurt you. They need you. They only want to scare you and are going to do it through … ” The man swallowed, as if forcing himself past the next bit without riling Ian further. “Through your wife. But it’s just a scare. Do you understand?”
Ian looked at Alice. Sensing a question, Alice shook her head.
“I know you,” Ian said. “I recognize your voice.” But from where, he couldn’t say.
The strangely familiar voice — a notch deeper than average, the slightest, almost imperceptible softening of consonants — went on, heedless.
“You’re too important. They need you saying the right things, not out of the picture. Same for Alice Frank.”
Alice looked at Ian then the phone.
“But they don’t know you’re there, okay? The idea is to make a problem you can’t ignore, that you’ll take personally. But they don’t know you’re there, with her, or that you’ve called August Maughan. And that’s why you have to go. Because if they find out, they’ll — ”
“Where is she?” Ian asked. “You know so much, where is she?”
“There’s going to be an outbreak. A choreographed, controlled outbreak centered on — ”
“WHERE IS BRIDGET? WHERE IS SHE, YOU MOTHERFUCKER?”
Alice grabbed Ian’s arm hard then pointed with her other hand.
“There.”
Ian turned to look across the food court. He saw a thin redhead dressed too elegantly even for this nice mall. Maybe a hundred feet behind her, Ian saw three men in dark suits who seemed to have entered unseen through two sets of brown utility doors at the building’s edge.
They had something with them. Several somethings.
Then they let them go.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
THREE TALL CLOAKS
BRIDGET WAS LOOKING DOWN AT her phone as she entered the mall through the front doors. Once inside and halfway across the main gallery, she pocketed the thing, figuring she’d do the rest with her eyes. The accuracy wasn’t fantastic, and she’d learned what she needed to know, as well as what, frankly, perplexed her.
Who met at a mall? She’d been assuming a motel (a seedy one, surely) all along. Even if Ian and his secret were having a non-sexual date, the mall — the mall in the Skin District — was hardly the classiest option. Ian was better than that. Even in college, when they’d been poor, he’d broken the bank to take Bridget to the best places he couldn’t afford.
There was a fleeting moment of desperate optimism
(I guess that means he likes me better than her.)
And then it was gone.
Bridget looked into the mall. Her Zen pill had taken most of the edge off her emotions, but she could still sense a stew brewing below the surface: nervousness, sadness, anger, betrayal, definitely paranoia after she’d seen that sedan and minivan with the blacked-out windows. But she’d lost the last, and the rest was circling her mind like a plane awaiting the runway.
Of course, she might be wrong about all of this. She didn’t know what she’d find here; it was even possible he’d gone shopping for something to give his adored wife. But Bridget had never been a fool, and when something smelled like shit, it was usually shit.
She paced self-consciously through the open space, wondering where to begin. She felt out of place, overdressed, maybe even a bit delicious in front of all these necrotics.
They’re just people. Same as the bag boy at the supermarket. Same as Terri’s cousin Jack. Same as those three people in your book club. Same as, honestly, a quarter of the population.
But they were everywhere. Everywhere.
Bridget kept a neutral, somewhat friendly expression on her face and crossed the floor. She had no idea where to find Ian because he could be anywhere.
And then she saw him.
Right in the middle of the open, near the food court.
Beside a tall, thin woman with short blonde hair.
Pressed close to her, body to body, his face against hers.
Something broke inside Bridget. She’d known this was coming. She’d known for days, maybe weeks. She’d come here to confront him and get proof in her own mind, not to find out. But still, seeing it hurt worse than she’d been able to imagine.
Ian was hers. Hers.
They’d been together for fourteen years. They had a daughter. They had a home. They played board games, went for walks in the park, had made love countless times. He’d tallied the freckles on her chest, shared things with her he’d never shared with anyone. Almost literally. Ian had only been with three women before her, and she’d told him she’d been with none. It wasn’t true, but she’d said it on impulse and had never been able to take it back.
Maybe this was payback for lying.
Bridget felt her eyes wanting to tear up, but a clanging from behind distracted her. She turned to see three men in suits. The men from the car and the van’s driver, probably, not lost after all.
They’d just come through a set of utility doors and were looking right at her. They had something with them: three tall forms, covered in six-foot-tall cloaks, somehow restrained, held back, still invisible to the mall at large.
Across the space, Bridget heard Ian shout. She looked over and saw him with a phone pressed to his ear, the woman pointing right at her, maybe preparing to laugh at all of this infidelity and Bridget’s general stupidity.
But Ian didn’t look amused, or aroused. His eyes were saucers. Something changed in both of their stares, and Bridget knew that whatever they were looking at now, it was behind her.
Jesus Christ.
It all came together with the force of a punch. Bridget spun in time to see the men duck back through the doors with the pulled-away cloaks, three feral necrotics charging toward her.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
DENIED
DANNY LOITERED OUTSIDE THE ALPHA Building door, reading the posters long enough to garner a few strange looks. But Ian didn’t show, and his usual lunch group (whom Danny knew by sight, but not much better) came out without him.
After a moment’s thought and glance at the door, Danny’s nerves got the best of him, and he scampered after them, calling to a woman with long, dirty-blonde hair.
“Hey, excus
e me,” he said.
She turned.
“I’m sorry. You know Ian Keys, right?”
The woman nodded. “Sure.”
“Is he coming?”
The woman looked back toward the closed door. Probably wondering whether to take Danny’s question at face value. Did he want to get in touch with Ian, or know if he was on his way to lunch?
“He’s out for the morning.”
Danny smiled into the woman’s patient expression. He felt urgent yet needed to act more casual than ever. He needed to find Ian then get him to come along on a very whatever conversational ride. The conversation and subsequent exchanging of key cards had to be very by-the-way and no-big-deal. It also needed to happen RIGHT FUCKING NOW.
“Oh. Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t. Do you have his number?”
“Where is he?”
The woman blinked. He’d not only said it too fast; he’d asked a question he had no business asking. This woman worked with Ian, and Ian himself was near the company’s top. The idea that a lowly salesman (a salesman who wasn’t even authorized to give samples of designer Phage, Danny thought bitterly) would so pointedly demand to know where the boss had gone wasn’t just impertinent; it might even be a red flag that said salesman should be avoided.
“I don’t know,” she said, a trifle more coldly. “You could leave a message at his extension.”
Danny smiled wider, twirling his key card on his finger and running his other hand through his messy brown hair.
“Oh, no, it’s no big deal.”
“Can I ask what you need from Ian? Maybe I can help.”
“I just thought he might want to hang out.”
The woman’s eyebrows bunched.
“After work. If he wanted to get a beer with me. With the salesmen. Or maybe just me.”
Danny kept his winning smile wide, but he could feel himself falling apart. The clock was ticking with Jordache. He’d already lied to her, and that meant he needed to replace her PhageX to make the lie irrelevant as fast as humanly possible. Especially given what he’d seen this morning. She’d been friendly, even loving, sure. And she’d been her usual witty, adorable, intelligent herself. But she’d also walked right by her car keys twice while looking for them, rammed herself into a protruding countertop, and asked Danny if he’d “heard that” twice when the room was almost eerily silent. He’d known she’d probably slide back a bit to where base Phage should’ve left her, but he hadn’t thought it would happen so fast. Apparently, PhageX really was a wonder. She’d improved in ways that had crept up on them both and were now only becoming apparent as they settled back to normal. Danny could tell already, and it wouldn’t be long before Jordache saw it too … then started asking questions about what exactly was inside her supposedly PhageX Gadget.
“Okay,” the woman said.
“I’ll just catch up with him some other time.”
She nodded, gave Danny a final, curious glance, and turned to join her waiting group.
Danny stood near the closed Alpha door, suddenly unsure what to do with his hands. He felt lost, uneasy, more bothered than he should be. Ian had taken the morning away from his office. No big deal. It probably happened all the time. Danny was a salesman, and Ian raked in the big bucks for steering this ship. He surely had many unknown irons in the fire.
But Danny kept thinking of the subtle differences in Jordache this morning. The small changes that made her somehow different, unusual. He’d been counting on running into Ian at lunch more than he wanted to admit. He’d find a way to borrow (or, hell, steal) Ian’s access card then maybe leave early to swipe Jordache’s stash.
She was on Necrophage, and that was all her body needed. It shouldn’t matter, but it did.
There was some commotion down the public hallway, in a lounge. Edging closer, Danny saw men and women in shirtsleeves with their Hemisphere cards on their belts, spellbound by a news report Danny couldn’t yet make out.
Before he reached the lounge, his phone buzzed with a text from Jordache.
It read: I think I met Holly Gaynor last night. How’s the weather tomorrow?
Danny stared at the screen, uncomprehending, until the people in the lounge started to shout.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
WHISTLE AND THUMP
IAN RUSHED FORWARD BUT ACTUALLY collided with the immovable body of a tall man in a suit — a Panacea clarifier if he’d ever seen one. At first, the man’s presence made no sense, like that of the three feral deadheads headed toward Bridget. But then the clarifier asserted himself, extending a hand to push Ian back and turning his body side-on, the side with his gun holster facing away from Ian and Alice lest they try to grab it. Because that’s what was on Ian’s mind right now: confronting cops.
“Stand back, sir,” the clarifier said.
Ian’s eyes flicked to the side. The man had a partner, a woman with brown hair in a ponytail. Where had they come from? And how had they arrived so fast?
“There’s a group of feral—” Ian blurted, trying to point.
“We’ll handle it, sir. Stay back.”
But the shoppers, from end to end inside Grover’s crowded gallery, had seen them and were now screaming. Those who could, ran. But then Ian realized something horrible: He was in the heart of the Skin District. Uninfected shoppers were few and far between. The mall was a Chinatown market, full of natives.
And deadheads didn’t attack the infected.
“My wife is over there! She’s — ”
“Stay back,” the female clarifier said.
Bridget, across the opening, stutter-stepped backward, away from the ferals. Ian’s panicked eyes could see two mall cops — not clarifiers, both necrotic — creeping toward the scene from the side, seeming to take their time. Grover Mall was multi-floored, open to the overhead glass cube in the middle. Through the center loomed a wide atrium that spanned all levels, each floor’s opening surrounded by a railing. Ian watched Bridget’s back touch the railing, inhaled a sharp breath as if he, not Bridget, had just realized she’d come up short.
They were closing in on her: the closest source of warm, untouched blood.
Bridget wobbled. She was in heels, not dressed for flight. One of her feet canted sideways, twisting on the ankle, unseating her. The shoes were loose; Bridget kicked them away and backed in bare feet. The ferals came, slowly. Those who’d released them — clarifiers too, if Ian had seen right and believed the voice on the phone — were nowhere to be seen.
Where was his phone, anyway? Ian didn’t know. He may have stowed it without thinking. For all he knew, the caller was still on the line, now listening to his pocket.
But no one would keep him from Bridget when she was the only thing the oncoming deadheads cared about.
Ian rushed the blocking clarifiers, lowering his shoulder as if for a tackle. The woman raised a hand again to try and stop him, but Ian was already through and running around the circle with Alice behind him.
The exit was behind, just to the left of the utility doors where the ferals had come from. A crowd, mostly infected, had gathered, those with higher levels of function with their hands over their mouths. But those outside must not have received the message because they were still entering, pushing past the crowd, annoyed that idiots were blocking the entrance.
A couple bullied their way impatiently inside then took a few backward steps to yell at those who were inconsiderate enough to form their human wall. Someone screamed, too close. Then two of the three deadheads turned, seeing a closer target, then ran at their marks.
They ran.
“Jesus Christ, Ian. They’re — ”
Ian didn’t listen for the end of Alice’s sentence. He moved faster, pumping his arms, finding the distance around the atrium railing impossibly far. Bridget was accepting the distraction, now edging away in bare feet, but her eyes hadn’t left the remaining deadhead. She looked as shocked as Alice sounded. Normally, avoiding feral
s, if you didn’t get cornered and they weren’t in a horde, was simple. They were animated corpses, sometimes able to spring like decayed jack-in-the-boxes but mostly slow like ancient men. But these weren’t like that. These were something else.
An eighth of the distance between them closed. A quarter.
The uninfected couple who’d entered saw what they faced. Hands raised, the woman’s heavy with a big red purse. One of the ferals was on the man. The other was on the woman, head down, teeth out, hands hooked to straighten their victims’ necks, finding an artery and spraying the floor with an arc of red. There were screams until the shrieking stopped, wet sinew coming away like hungry dogs fighting for a bone.
Bridget turned. Saw Ian. And ran.
Footfalls multiplied behind Ian. He heard the lighter click of Alice’s flats eclipsed by something heavier and faster, then something grabbed his shirt, his collar, the back of his belt. He was wrenched free of his feet, the floor screaming upward toward his face. Ian managed to turn his head and pull his neck back. His chest struck hard, and his head rapped just slightly softer, the blow cold and flat. His vision spun, but fear cleared it, then he felt and smelled breath from behind his neck as someone planted a knee on his spine.
“I said STAY BACK!”
The man was over Ian, now seeming to hold a weapon that his peripheral vision could barely see. Alice, slower on the run, had remained standing but now had her hands up.
“Move, and I’ll shoot you.”
“That’s my wife over there!”
“It’s handled, sir! Stay down!”
Ian disobeyed, trying to rise, and the clarifier kicked him back. Ian rolled instead and watched as the woman went ahead alone, her own weapon out. Not a gun. Guns were for edgy humans, like Ian. The most confrontational parts of a clarifier’s job required something bigger, more direct.
It looked like a small megaphone, its muzzle belled slightly outward like a blunderbuss. She was holding it with two hands, running now, not approaching Bridget because she’d swung too wide. The two making meat from the shredded dead were the more important target, presumably because they’d killed already and might escape through the mall doors.