7 Sykos

by Marsheila Rockwell

  “I wish I could, Fallon,” he said. “That’s the house. It’s there, somewhere. It went in, and it never came out. I can’t narrow it down any more than that.”

  “I guess we’ll have a look around.” She was trying to sound more casual than she felt. She really wanted to get in there and kill some Infecteds. Some part of her mind rebelled against that idea—­some part well away from the paralimbic cortex, no doubt—­but it would lose the argument.

  “Listen, Fallon,” Book said. “I have a chopper en route to you. It’ll lay down some covering fire, to keep the Infecteds away from the house while you’re inside, then track you to the basin so it can drop the containment pod, then land. You stay safe in there, and we’ll get you out.”

  “I’m counting on it,” she said. “Watch if you want to. We’re going in.”

  Sansome slid the door up in its tracks, and a light flickered on automatically. There was a car on the right side of the garage. A washer, dryer, and utility sink stood up against the back wall on the left. A workbench lined the side wall, tools mounted neatly on a pegboard above it. Underneath it were toys: a plastic tool set, a play kitchen with a pink plastic stove and refrigerator, a big bin full of Legos. Everything neat, everything in its place.

  Except the chunks of rock on the floor. They were green, and seemed to almost shimmer in the dim glow. A grin spread across Lilith’s face, and she started toward them.

  “Don’t, Lilith!” Fallon said. “If those are pieces of the meteor, we shouldn’t touch them. We don’t know anything yet about its composition, or what else it might have brought with it.”

  “Dude, that’s fuckin’ Kryptonite!” Lilith said. “Don’t scientists watch movies?”

  Fallon sighed. “You getting this, Book? Are we done?”

  “Those are crumbs,” Book’s disembodied voice replied. “We need the whole cookie. The biggest piece of it, anyway. Keep looking.”

  The scuff of shoes on the driveway alerted Fallon. She spun around. The drive had filled with Infecteds again, and there were more behind them, on the street, coming their way. Some of them started up with the “ain-­ja” chant, and soon they were all repeating it.

  “I don’t think they like us being here,” Fallon said, wondering just how far away that helicopter was.

  “If they want us out,” Light said with a grim smile, “then I think we need to get in. The meteor’s got to be in there.”

  Book was trying to keep up with so many screens, he wished he had more eyes. Two UAVs crisscrossed high over the city, sending back forward-­looking infrared footage of the city streets. Fallon was right; the Infecteds were on the move. Every group he saw was headed east, toward her and the others.

  He was also trying to watch what she saw, and to monitor the Apache’s gun camera. It was still a few miles from her location, but closing fast. The radio chatter from the chopper was nonstop, but he was barely listening—­a lot of “roger” this and “copy” that, all of it meant for other ears than his. While Fallon was in the house, there wasn’t much it could do for her, but if Infecteds tried to surround the place, the chopper could strafe them, maybe unleash a ­couple more air-­to-­ground missiles if it came to that.

  Her, he thought. I’m not even pretending to care about the others anymore. Is it the forced intimacy of watching essentially through her eyes, hearing her every utterance, her breathing, even, in rare moments of quiet, the rush of blood through her veins?

  Whatever. I’m not analyzing anything I’m not paid to. All I know is that I desperately want her to come out of there in one piece. Whatever happens then happens.

  The video coming in from the Apache was infrared, like that of the drones. Until the sun came up, it was the only way to get decent images. ­People—­regular uninfected human beings—­came through as bright white objects moving through what seemed like a photographic negative landscape. But Infecteds burned even hotter—­where enough of them were massed closely together, no detail could be seen beyond a big, white mass against a dark background.

  Fallon was looking at Infecteds gathering around the driveway, just outside the garage. Then she snapped her head around so suddenly, peering into the garage, that he felt a wave of vertigo. She was saying something, but the radio chatter from the Apache had turned loud and anxious, so he swiveled to that screen just in time to see a . . . something . . . arcing out of the night, carrying enough heat of its own to show up as a very light grey on the screen.

  He realized what it had to be at the same time one of the guys on the radio said it.

  “RPG! Shit! We’re taking—­”

  A blinding flash, then the screen went black, the radio silent.

  Where the hell did that come from? Book checked the locations of the UAVs, but they were too far out to help—­one over downtown Phoenix and one farther northwest, toward Glendale.

  Who would have rocket-­propelled grenades in the city? His thoughts immediately ran to the Raiders. They’d had all kinds of military-­style weapons and a profound hatred of government.

  But hell, this was Phoenix. Hatred of government was practically the local pastime. Amassing weapons ran a close second. It could have been a drug cartel or a right-­wing “Patriot” group or some kids who’d ransacked an abandoned armory for laughs.

  All he knew for sure was that he’d have to interrupt whatever report Robbins was getting and make sure there was another bird on the way to Fallon, and fast.

  “We’re coming for you,” he mouthed into the microphone.

  He couldn’t tell if she heard, or not. It didn’t really matter.

  She had other things on her mind at the moment.

  CHAPTER 49

  5 hours

  “Inside, then,” Fallon said, and Light nodded. He turned and shot an Infected who’d stepped into the garage. He hadn’t been much of a marksman when they’d first started out, but now he blew the top of the Infected’s head off with one shot.

  Hell of a thing to be proud of, he thought. But I’ll take it.

  “After you.”

  The interior garage door led directly to the kitchen. It was free of Infecteds though there were a dozen of them pressed up against the sliding glass doors, trying to get in. Light watched as one in back shoved against one in front, smooshing that Infected’s face into the glass so hard that her bloody eyes burst like red grapes. Light had no desire to drink that wine, though.

  The kitchen fed into two rooms—­a large family room with a big-­screen TV and a great room. As they passed the archway leading to the great room, a wall of “ain-­ja”-­chanting Infecteds poured through it as though an invisible dam had broken. They slammed into the Sykos, rendering rifles ineffective. Lilith was borne to the floor beneath the wave, while Fallon was forced up against a wall, struggling to get her Glocks out but eventually succeeding, with one in each hand. Sansome withstood the onslaught like the rock he was, using his rifle as a hammer in a game of Whack-­An-­Infected. He looked pale, and Light wondered just how much blood he’d lost.

  Light got off easy; he’d been behind the others, guarding their six, and so missed the initial wave, only to be caught up in a second, smaller one. Three Infecteds surrounded him, one holding a kitchen knife and another wielding a bat. The third had a pistol, but the close quarters rendered it mostly useless. The butt of Light’s M4 across the back of the Infected’s hand made the gun completely useless; she dropped the weapon, and one of her fellow attackers kicked it into the kitchen. Light brought his rifle stock up under her chin with all the force he could muster, snapping her head back so hard a piece of her tongue fell from her bloody lips. His follow-­through jammed the barrel of his rifle into the Infected’s abdomen, and so he did what was now coming naturally—­pulled the trigger and kept his finger on it. The bullets ripped into her, spraying him and the other two Infecteds with blood and viscera.

  Then the one with the
bat struck at Light’s gun, knocking it from his hands just as he’d done to the first Infected.

  Fuckers learn fast, he thought, going for his knife.

  He plunged it into the bat-­man’s neck, listening to the thing’s unintelligible vocalizations become unintelligible gurgling. He tried to pull the knife back out to go after the third Infected, but the tip was wedged in this one’s vertebrae, so he twisted, hoping to sever the Infected’s spine. It must have worked because the Infected dropped the bat and collapsed, still trying to gurgle out . . . whatever it was the lot of them were saying.

  As Light bent to retrieve the bat, he felt a sharp, burning pain in the back of his left thigh. Whirling, he saw the last Infected crouched behind him, her blade bloody. The bitch had tried to stab him in the ass!

  Angered by that in a way none of the other attacks had affected him, Light continued to spin, bringing the bat up. The tip of the bat caught her jaw, and the force of the blow—­of his singular, directed rage—­ripped it half off her face. The dangling bone and flesh didn’t seem to bother her, other than turning her “ain-­ja” into a pitiful and slightly ironic “aye . . . aye.” She swung at his ribs as he twisted, trying to reverse the momentum of the bat. He sucked his gut in at the last moment, and she missed scoring his middle by a hairs breadth, maybe two.

  But he had his own swing under control now, and he caught the barrel of the bat in one hand while he gripped the handle in the other. Then he took a page from Sansome’s book and decided he’d play a game, too—­pool.

  Pretending the Infected’s head was a cue ball, he brought the bat up horizontally, level with her head, loosened his grip, pulled the length of aluminum back, then popped it forward, driving the knob straight in the Infected’s nose, crushing it up into her brain. She staggered forward, made one last swipe at him with the knife, then fell forward onto her knees. Light delivered the coup de grace, bringing the bat down on the back of her skull once, twice, three times. When he was satisfied she wouldn’t be rising again, he looked up, ready for the next wave . . .

  . . . just as Fallon put one of her Glocks to the head of the last Infected and blew it back to the angels the things seemed to want to be with so badly.

  From his position, he could see the front door, through which more Infecteds poured into the great room. He couldn’t see the meteor. Fallon stuck her head into the family room, then shook it.

  “Not here.”

  “There.”

  It was Sansome, pointing down the wide hallway between the great room and the kitchen. It was full of Infecteds who made no move to attack them, instead massing in front of a door.

  “Good call,” Fallon said, “but how do we get to it?”

  Sansome looked at Light.

  “Hand me your bat,” he said, and Light did so without question, then bent to retrieve his—­no, Pybus’s—­M4. When he straightened, he saw that Sansome was smiling. It was a gruesome sight, considering the condition of his face. “Follow me.”

  Sansome waded into the hallway, swinging the bat back and forth like the Grim Reaper harvesting souls. Infecteds fell before him, smashed up against both walls and trampled under his feet. Improbably, he opened a path, and Fallon followed behind, dispatching the Infecteds Sansome didn’t kill outright. Light went behind her, limping, his ankle and thigh both in agony.

  And then they were at the door. Sansome wrenched it open and stood aside. The others looked in and saw stairs leading down.

  “The basement,” Light said. “Of course it’s in the basement.” Then he looked at Fallon. “Ladies first.”

  She side-­eyed him but started down the stairs, the others following. Surprisingly, none of the Infecteds pursued them.

  The stench of death was stronger here. Light had noticed it when they entered the house, but as an EMT—­and especially after all the killing he’d done since leaving the PIR—­the odor had barely impinged on his consciousness.

  The farther down the stairs they went, the stronger the smell became. Soon, Light could see limbs, torsos, and even decapitated heads strewn all over the basement’s unfinished floor, illuminated by a strange green glow.

  At the foot of the stairs, they discovered the source of the glow. Across the room, nestled among more body parts in the bed of a little red wagon, sat the meteor.

  And beside it sat a little girl, maybe six years old, wearing a dirty, shredded pink dress and knee socks, the remnants of a satin ribbon still clinging to her disheveled blond hair.

  Is she immune? Light wondered. A psycho like us? He could barely imagine being trapped in this basement that even he, a bona fide serial killer, found horrific.

  But then the girl turned, and Light realized he hadn’t really understood the meaning of that word until this moment. She wasn’t a girl at all, not anymore. Her skin was green and scaly, covered in open sores, her eyes bleeding and bright red, blood all over her mouth and chin. She finished chewing on a handful of something slimy and grey, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “Hello,” she said. “I’m Jane.”

  CHAPTER 50

  5 hours

  Fallon stared at the girl, momentarily dumbfounded, when she suddenly put two and two together. The Infected weren’t moaning “ain-­ja” over and over again, a sound Light had said he thought might be their attempt at the word “angel.”

  They were saying “Jane.”

  “So, that’s a meteor in your wagon, isn’t?” Fallon asked. “Where did you get it?”

  “From the basin,” Jane said matter-­of-­factly. “I was playing ball in the front yard with my brother and my little sister when we saw it shooting through the air. We went and got it with the wagon. It was hot. So . . . hot . . .” Her voice had taken on a dreamy quality, and her mouth had curved into a smile of pleasure that was far too adult for the face making it.

  “Then what happened?” Fallon prompted, sure she didn’t really want to hear it. Jane had obviously been Patient Zero, and the more they knew about her symptoms and how she’d come to be exposed, the better they would understand the virus and the better they’d be able to fight it.

  But Jane wasn’t finished.

  “ . . . so hot. And it made me angry for a minute, but happy, too. Like when Dory said that mean thing about me at school and I shoved her down and she got hurt and cried. It made me feel strong, like a superhero. And like I didn’t want anybody else touching it. But I needed my brother’s help to get it into the wagon and downstairs to the playroom.”

  So far—­except for her not wanting anyone to touch the meteor—­Jane was describing being infected, only without the cold-­ and flu-­like symptoms that appeared during the incubation period. So why hadn’t she succumbed to the virus?

  Taking another look at the girl’s lizard-­like, weeping skin and the insanity that hovered just behind her eyes, Fallon realized she had.

  “And where are your brother and sister now?” Fallon asked, wondering if they showed the same symptoms. Especially the brother, who, like Jane, had actually handled the meteor.

  Jane shrugged again. “My brother ran away. My sister stayed.” Jane’s eyes flicked over to a pile of pink rags in the corner, back to Fallon. “For a little while.”

  Looking closer, Fallon saw that it wasn’t a pile at all but the remains of a toddler wearing a pink dress like Jane’s. For the first time since this whole thing started, Fallon thought she might vomit.

  A creaking noise above her pulled Fallon’s attention away from the girl. She looked up, saw dust floating down from the ceiling, then looked over her shoulder at Light, who’d gone back up to the top of the stairs, just out of reach of the Infecteds who wouldn’t—­or perhaps couldn’t—­cross the threshold.

  “Getting pretty crowded up here,” he said.

  Their moaning chant, “Ja-­ane . . . Ja-­ane . . .” could be heard more clearly now. It was gett
ing louder as more voices joined in.

  Fallon realized that the chances of the Sykos getting out alive were slim, and getting slimmer with every new Infected who joined the party upstairs. For a moment, she despaired, wondered if a bullet to the head wouldn’t be kinder to her and all of her fellow Sykos than what surely awaited when they tried to take the meteor out of here. The nuke deadline was only a ­couple of hours off, so they’d probably miss it anyway.

  But then her gaze passed over the corpse of Jane’s little sister—­a toddler, like Jason, her life snuffed out horribly, and much too young—­and her resolve strengthened. She had to make it out of here. For him.

  “She’s the Queen,” Lilith said abruptly.

  Fallon looked at her, then at Jane, then back again, not following.

  “What?”

  “Of the hive,” Lilith explained, having put it together before Fallon and the others. “The hive mind. She’s the one controlling the Infecteds. You can hear them calling to her. They know we’re trapped here, so why aren’t they coming down to finish us off?”

  “Because she’s here,” Fallon answered, finally understanding. She looked at the body parts littering the basement floor. “They’re not worthy to be in her presence or do more than fetch her food.”

  “No, that’s not true,” Jane piped up, as Fallon was hoping she would.

  “Oh? Which part?”

  “I am their . . . Queen. But they do more than bring me food. They spread my kingdom, and soon it will cover your whole planet. And then I’ll be Queen . . . of everything.”