The Walking Plague Trilogy Read online

  “I’m sorry,” she offered quietly.

  I wiped a hand over my face, rubbed my neck. It had been hell these past few shitty days. “Not your fault,” I said.

  How was I going to tell Anna? Looking up into the heavens, I realized I might be staring at the genesis of our problem down here on our little Earth. It made me feel a little inconsequential.

  “You want to come in? Maybe we can talk Anna into a game of Scrabble.” That is, I thought, before I tell her that her uncle has gone missing.

  “I wish I could,” she answered. “But I’m on duty. Jack, your hand...”

  “I know,” I said.

  “You need to get help.”

  “I will,” I said. She looked at me for a long moment. She seemed about to touch me, and paused. I wanted her to touch me, needed her to touch me.

  “Good idea,” I said. “I don’t want you to get sick.”

  And then she surprised the hell out of me by standing up on her tiptoes and kissing me softly on the cheek. “I’ll take my chances,” she said, whispering in my ear.

  I could still feel her soft lips on my cheek as I watched her drive away.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Anna was catching up on some sleep.

  Good for her. I wish I could have said the same for myself. She’d taken the news about her uncle pretty hard. I wanted to hug her, to hold her close, to reassure her that everything would be okay.

  But I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t risk touching her, not with my infected wound, a wound I had now doused with a few bottles of alcohol and a handful of penicillin I had swiped from the zoo’s veterinary supplies.

  I was surprised to see that the wound was getting worse, the darker veins spreading over the back of my hand.

  She’d finally cried herself to sleep, while I sat listening in the living room, scanning the news for anything regarding the outbreak. Nothing at all.

  I opened and closed my hand. The wound burned in a way that I’d never experienced before. In a way, it seemed to be growing hotter.

  I should have been terrified...but I wasn’t. I should be running to the doctor—any doctor.

  But I wasn’t.

  Apathy filled me. Disinterest. Fatigue. I just wanted to sit here and do...

  Nothing.

  All the while, my hand got progressively worse. All the while, I knew in my heart and soul that I had what my brother and friend had. What the people on the Internet had.

  I’m sick, I thought. Infected.

  And yet...and yet, I didn’t give a damn.

  No, I did give a damn.

  Fight it, I thought. Fight it goddammit. Do something. Anything.

  I forced myself up out of the recliner. A monumental effort. I considered what to do next. I knew I needed to see a doctor. At least, I needed to head straight for the closest Center for Disease Control.

  I was diseased. Very, very diseased.

  Shit.

  Maybe it will go away. After all, Joey and Mike seemed better. They seemed alert and healthy.

  Maybe, I thought. But they also seemed...different, too. At least, Joey did. I didn’t know Mike well enough to know the difference.

  Joey had seemed...not entirely there. As if he were moving on auto pilot, perhaps. There but not there.

  I stood there in my living room and considered what to do...and finally opted for some fresh air...but before I did, I automatically checked the gun at my hip. No, I didn’t often wear my ranger-issued Colt .45 around the house. Then again, extreme times called for extreme measures.

  I headed into the back yard.

  * * *

  He was on the hillside above the row of beautiful homes, watching, waiting, growing hungrier...and angrier.

  * * *

  I inhaled the night air deeply, filling my lungs and wondered how much longer I would enjoy such deep breaths.

  I’m sick, dying.

  That I was sick, I now had no doubt. But dying? I didn’t know that. That I might lose my mind, well, that was another matter entirely. My brother was here, but not here. A part of him was here.

  My hand burned, throbbed. I felt it slowly spreading, inching over my skin.

  Where did the infection come from? Space? An alien attack? Or something that’s meant to look like an alien attack?

  I didn’t know, I only knew that I was feeling simultaneously thirsty and repulsed by the thought of water. And angry. A nearby buzzing insect was working my last nerve.

  It’s not me, I thought. I don’t get angry. Not that easily.

  So, I stood outside and looked into the night sky, only lightly speckled with stars. Southern Californians were not privy to many stars. Too bad. The nearby koi pond, filled with fat, lumbering fish, gurgled softly.

  I took in another breath, held it, and as I released it, I heard the rustling along the hillside.

  * * *

  Mike had no intention of leaving the Carters alone.

  No, not when he caught the scent of the young one. He couldn’t remember her name, nor did he care. The young girl, Joey’s niece. The daughter of the son-of-a-bitch who had locked him up.

  Park ranger or not, that motherfucker was going to pay, and he was going to pay dearly.

  So, Lieutenant Commander Michael Mendoza had waited for his one-time buddy to head off in his own direction, and then Mike had circled back into the woods...and waited.

  He grew hungrier and hungrier and, for reasons he no longer cared about, angrier and angrier.

  * * *

  It was nippy enough that I could see my breath.

  It was one of those rare, super-clear nights. The moonlight gently cast silver rays on the surrounding trees and over the rugged hillside, which was crowded with spruce, cedar, firs and a dozen or more different pine species.

  The rustling came again, just beyond the backyard fence. There wasn’t much beyond the fence other than a lot of woods and trails that led up to the observatory. As I well knew, all sorts of critters filled these woods, from coyotes to squirrels to skunks. I sniffed the air. Not a skunk.

  Probably a cottontail, I thought.

  I’d given up smoking years ago, but I sure as hell could have used one now. Just a smoke. Not a drink. For some reason, the thought of anything liquid turned my stomach. And yet...my mouth was damned dry.

  So weird, I thought.

  The sound came again, closer this time. In fact, it might have been just behind the backyard wall. There wasn’t much back there, other than a lot of hillside, trees and God knew what else.

  Again, I automatically checked my firearm. Hell, any good cop would.

  And, yes, park rangers were cops, too. Just not as cool.

  The rustling sound had my full attention, and I tried to imagine what it could be. This last noise was closer to a grate, as in rocks grating over dirt. A big sound. Too big for a cottontail.

  Deer? We had those here, although not many.

  I’d worked in these forests for fifteen years now and little, if anything, made me nervous. I even knew how to stand down a mountain lion. It took nerves of steel, yes, but I had done it on a few occasions.

  Why I felt the need to remove the Colt .45 from the holster, I didn’t know. Cop instinct, maybe. Nerves maybe. It wasn’t every day that meteorites crashed to Earth and infected humans with a bizarre illness. It wasn’t every day that one heard stories of people eating other people.

  Either way, gun in hand, I crept toward the backyard fence, gun held before me.

  * * *

  Lieutenant Commander Michael Mendoza was having an extremely difficult time controlling himself, especially now that someone had exited the home and stood not more than fifty feet away.

  Mendoza’s fingers curled.

  Before this, he had always been a patient man. Hell, the military demanded it. As a lieutenant commander in the Navy, it would take weeks to reach destinations. Sometimes, his ship would be out to sea for nine months at a time.

  And yet, now...

 
; Now he couldn’t control himself. He felt so powerful. So goddamned powerful. Like he could do anything. Like he could easily leap this six-foot wall. In fact, he was sure he could.

  He stood in the bushes and tuned his ears toward whoever had come outside. The person had been standing there, but now, he was coming toward Mendoza.

  He was just on the other side of the wall.

  Mike’s curling fingers formed fists...and now he was running toward the fence, picking up speed, running faster than he’d ever run before. He was powerful beyond all reason.

  He leaped high into the air—

  Chapter Thirty

  I hadn’t gotten halfway across the big backyard when I next heard the sound of running feet.

  Not hooves, not paws...but running.

  Human running.

  Perhaps even more strange, the sound appeared to be coming toward me—

  A shape appeared over my fence, leaping high into the clear night air—

  “Holy shit!”

  I swung my weapon up.

  * * *

  Mike was airborne.

  Wind rushed over him as he arched high above the stone fence. God, he felt powerful, unstoppable.

  Down below, he saw the man—the source of Mike Mendoza’s unrelenting fury. The man who had locked him up like a goddamned animal.

  The park ranger.

  The soon-to-be-dead park ranger.

  As Mike braced for his landing, he wondered how the bastard would taste—

  * * *

  I couldn’t have been more shocked.

  I’d expected to spook at most, a deer. Perhaps even a bum. I hadn’t expected this. No one could have.

  I didn’t shoot, mostly because I hadn’t a clue what was happening, who was leaping over the fence, who was descending down upon me.

  Had I known, I would have fired and kept firing until my weapon was empty.

  As the flying figure descended rapidly, the moonlight caught his features. Interestingly, the first thing I saw were the red eyes.

  No, he was not my brother. The flying figure was his Navy pal.

  Where he had come from, I hadn’t a clue. How he had gotten airborne, I didn’t know either. It took all I had to dive to one side as the son-of-a-bitch came down on me.

  As it was, his boots caught my shoulder and knocked me down hard into the back yard’s soft grass.

  The blow was harder than anything I’d felt perhaps ever in my life. I felt as if a car had hit me. A car with combat boots.

  I was too busy tumbling and skidding on my face to see what he had done, but before I could regain my senses, he was standing over me. His face was in shadow, except for those red eyes.

  I had just enough time to think: Jesus, is that what I’m going to look like, before he picked me up off the ground by my collar, held me before him, and drove his fist hard into my face.

  The burst of light in my skull bloomed magnificently. The burst of pain, not so much. Once again, I found myself tumbling head over ass in the very back yard where I had so often played catch with Anna...and barbequed our dinners.

  From upstairs, above the hulking figure who was reaching for me yet again, I saw a light turn on.

  A window opened.

  A head popped out.

  “Dad!” screamed Anna.

  Lieutenant Commander Mike Mendoza swung his head up and looked, and smiled. I saw the son-of-a-bitch smile. And I saw the hungry look in his crimson eyes. It was the same look I’d seen earlier.

  As if I didn’t exist, the bastard turned and headed for my house. He was stronger than anything I’d ever come across, and that included some wild animals.

  He had me beat on strength, yes, but not on training.

  You see, I was taught to never, ever let my weapon out of my sight, and I hadn’t now.

  I was still holding it, even as the bastard had been pummeling me.

  I was still doubled over in the grass when I yelled, “Hey, fucker!”

  Mendoza paused in a pool of silver moonlight, turned and looked toward me, his eyes flashing red, when I pulled the trigger. The shot, I was certain, caught him in the upper chest. I pulled the trigger again, missed. A brick exploded on the back wall of the old home.

  I pulled the trigger again, and might have caught him in the arm. Either way, Mendoza pitched face-first into the gurgling koi pond.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Mike’s body was still, face down in the water.

  I realized that Anna had witnessed this. Oh, God. I looked up at her and saw something else that briefly startled me—not as much as a man flying over the fence—but startled me nonetheless. Jared was with her in her bedroom, looking out through her bedroom window.

  They both ducked in as I picked myself up out of the grass. My fingers still gripped the weapons tightly. As I finally found my shaking feet, my daughter and her boyfriend appeared in the back yard, rushing through the back door.

  They both looked at the Navy man lying face first in the water, and then my daughter broke free from Jared and ran over to me. “Daddy, are you all right?” She looked at the gun in my hand, and then saw my hand for the first time. The wound, after all, was bigger, now more than ever. And seemingly spreading faster.

  “Your hand, Daddy!”

  “I know, baby.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Of course, baby.”

  “But your hand—”

  “Let’s not worry about that now.”

  I hugged her. She was crying. Hell, I felt like crying, too. Jared—who had a little bit of crazy in him—had gone over to Mike and turned the man over. I was about to shout to him to not touch the man, but realized that if there was a chance to save him, then we should.

  He was, after all, sick.

  Like me.

  My shoulder hurt like a son of a bitch where his boots had driven home. If possible, my hand hurt even more. Sudden images whirled through my mind. Thoughts of chaining up my little brother and this guy. Who would do that for me? I suddenly staggered. I couldn’t help it. I gently pushed Anna away, bent over and vomited.

  When I was done retching, I had sudden clarity. I was sick, infected by the same disease that had stricken my brother and his friend. I just witnessed a man leap over a six-foot wall as easy as if it had been a street curb—a man who was hell-bent on either killing me or coming after my daughter. Or both.

  With the reports of the infected eating people, nothing was ever going to be the same.

  Ever.

  My neighbors would have heard the gunshot. It wouldn’t have gone unnoticed. The police would come. They would find the body. A full investigation would ensue. I would be questioned about everything, even harboring a fugitive. I would lose my job, and possibly get arrested. And they would see the infection. I might never go to a jail. I would probably disappear like my brother.

  I would disappear off the face of the Earth.

  I could think of only one answer: to run.

  “Anna, listen to me,” I said. I know I wasn’t thinking straight. My brain felt sluggish, drugged, sick. I tried again. “Anna, we have to get out of here. Jared, I’m sorry you’re in the middle of this. And what the hell are you doing here anyway…in my daughter’s bedroom?”

  “Anna didn’t want to be alone—”

  I shook my head. “Never mind that. I want you to go home and forget what you saw.”

  He took Anna’s hand firmly. “I’m not going anywhere, sir.”

  I wasn’t expecting him to put up a fight. But he loved my daughter, I could see that. I was just about to argue with him, when I heard a curious sound coming from the koi pond.

  It was a cough.

  * * *

  He spurted water and rolled to his side, coughing.

  “Get back,” I ordered the kids and lifted my gun again.

  Mendoza coughed again and again, and now water and blood bubbled up from his mouth. He coughed some more and gasped. I suspected that a lung had been shot through.

/>   As I cautiously approached, he turned his pale face toward me and looked up. “Jack?” he said, or, at least, I think he said my name. His voice was harsh and guttural.

  I aimed the gun at his face, lining up between his eyes, when I noticed something about just that...his eyes.

  They weren’t red. Sure, they were still kind of red...but not the flaming red that I had seen just five minutes earlier.

  “Wait, Jack,” he said, and sounded a little more clear.

  I paused.

  “Jack. Please don’t shoot me—” He sat up—or tried to. He grimaced and reached for the wound in his chest. Blood was spreading rapidly.

  I kept the gun on him, my muddled brain confused as hell.

  “Dad, wait,” Anna said. “Don’t you see? His eyes. He’s better.”

  Mike looked from me to her. I realized that he was cognitive. In fact, much more cognitive than even earlier today. He did seem better. And, yes, the eyes...

  “Dad, don’t shoot him.”

  It was an absurd, insane sentence. My little girl asking me not to murder someone. And hadn’t I just killed him? I mean, hadn’t I just shot him in the chest and watched him drown? How long had he been face-first in the pond? Five minutes, surely.

  Mike pressed a fist into his bleeding chest. I saw another wound on his arm where my bullet had grazed him. Mike looked alert, awake. But he was hurt. Yes. Damn hurt. Still, he seemed cognizant, aware. The glassy-eyed look was gone. This, I suspected, was the real Mike.

  I lowered the gun as a police siren filled the night air.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  It was later.

  The police consisted of, thank God, Carla. She’d responded to a report of a shooting and, by the time we had explained the situation, she’d decided to report that I had shot at a coyote that had jumped into the back yard.

  The zoo veterinarian, a man I trusted and knew well, was presently working on Mike. The vet had asked only if a crime had been committed. Other than trespassing, which I could live with, I told him no. That was all he needed to know and he went to work on the man.