Fall of Night (Dead of Night Series) (12 page)

Another storm was coming, though. The National Weather Service was calling for nearly five inches of rain over the next sixteen hours. The levees were going to fail, no doubt about it. And that would be proof that God or the Devil was using Stebbins as a urinal. Just like Scott thought.

The sergeant studied the ID, then handed it back and went through the process with everyone in the car. The credentials said that Sam Imura was a captain, which was true, but it identified the others as lieutenants, which they were not. All four of Imura’s group had once been sergeants of significant rank, from the former master sergeant at the wheel to the gunnery sergeant seated directly behind Imura. Sergeant was the most common rank among shooters in U.S. Special Forces. Each of them was certainly sharper, more knowledgeable, and more competent than most officers of any rank, and Sam Imura knew that was no exaggeration. But staying as an enlisted man kept them out of military politics. A nice, safe, sane place to be.

None of them, however, currently held rank in the United States military. Nor did Captain Imura. They were all officially retired, though because they were private contractors working for the government, their ranks clung to them like comfortable clothes.

The sergeant glanced at the other man working the roadblock. He was an even less authoritative slice of local white bread, stood on the far side of a sawhorse barrier that would provide no real defense against a determined intrusion. He held an M16 at port arms and tried to look like G.I. Joe because there was a Humvee filled with officers.

Imura accepted his ID case back. “How are you doing out here, Sergeant?”

“All quiet and secure, sir.”

An answer that meant nothing.

The young man gave the “officers” a crisp salute, which was returned in the casual manner used by career officers. Nice theater.

Imura said, “This should be a four-man post, Sergeant. Where are your other men?”

The young sergeant took a moment on that. “Sir, we’re pretty thin on the ground. As far as I know there are two men on every road.” He paused as if uncertain he should have said that. “They have four-man teams on some of the bigger roads.”

That last part sounded like a lie to Imura. He figured there were only two men on every road. Maybe fewer on some. Between main road, side roads, farm roads, fire access roads, and walking paths, there were ninety-seven ways to leave the town of Stebbins by wheeled vehicle. That was a minimum of one hundred and ninety-four men per shift. Figure twelve-hour shifts and that’s roughly four hundred men just working roadblocks. That didn’t cover supervisory personnel, reconnaissance, the men needed for reinforcing the levees, the men guarding the survivors at the Little School, and patrols hunting down stray infected.

It also didn’t really address all of the ways out of Stebbins on foot.

And the infected don’t drive, he thought.

There was no point in discussing this further with someone at the sergeant’s pay grade.

“Stay sharp, Sergeant,” he said. “It’s going to be a long night.”

The white boy picked up the sawhorse and walked it to the side of the road. The Humvee began rolling through the mud into the town of Stebbins.

Imura caught the driver looking in the rearview mirror. “What?” he asked.

When alone, there was always a speak-up and speak-plain policy with Imura’s team.

The driver, whose name was Alex Foster but who was known on the job as Boxer, said, “You realize that if anything really comes out of the woods those two kids are a late-night snack.” It wasn’t a question.

“Can’t all be that bad,” said Rachel Bloom, combat call sign Gypsy. She was second in command of the Boy Scouts. A tough woman with five full tours under her belt, running special operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and many more since signing with Sam.

The man seated behind Boxer, DeNeille Shoopman, known as Shortstop, said what they were all thinking. He was a pragmatic man who preferred maintaining a big-picture view of everything. “It only takes one hole.”

“These infected sonsabitches aren’t armed,” said Bud Hollister—Moonshiner, the rowdy former biker-turned-soldier. “You see the footage from the school? They walked right into the bullets and didn’t give much of a wet shit.”

“Headshots put ’em down,” observed Shortstop.

“Yeah?” Moonshiner snorted. “And how many soldiers do you know who can reliably get a headshot in a combat situation? In the dark? In the rain? In a running firefight? Please.”

No one answered. Everyone cursed quietly. Gypsy and Shortstop turned to look back at the small glow of lantern light that was quickly being consumed by darkness and distance.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR

THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Scott Blair put down the phone and sat there staring at it. Wanting to smash it. Wanting to burn his office down just so the damn thing wouldn’t ring again.

Dr. Herman Volker was dead.

God almighty.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

BORDENTOWN STARBUCKS ON ROUTE 653

BORDENTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA

A bloody hand shot out and clamped around the throat of the zombie a split second before those teeth could snap shut on Goat’s flesh.

“Hold on a minute, slick,” said Homer Gibbon. He was smiling and there was a crooked playfulness in his voice. “I’m trying to have a conversation here.”

The zombie tried to pull free. It clawed at Homer with its fingernails and squirmed around, attempting to bite the wrist of the hand that held it. Goat shrank back from it, and then he saw the look in Homer’s face. There was no trace of fear. Nothing. The man squatted there, his face and body covered with fresh blood, maggots wriggling in open wounds in his skin, and yet his mouth wore a smile of curious wonder like that of a child watching a butterfly. Homer’s eyes were filled with dark lights.

“I know you,” he said softly, directed his words to the struggling zombie. “I see you with the Black Eye, yes I do. I see all the way into your soul. Do you believe me?”

The creature writhed and snapped, but he was helpless in Homer’s powerful grip.

“The Red Mouth has whispered to you, hasn’t it? You understand its secrets now, don’t you, boy? Yes … I can see that you do. And that Red Mouth is screaming so loud inside your head that you have to do something. You have to let it speak through you. You have to feed it because it’s so goddamn hungry, tell me if I’m lying.”

The zombie did not respond, though Goat turned to look at it, to seek for something in its eyes. Was there something there? Was there a flicker of something deep in those dark wells?

They say that the eyes are the windows of the soul. Goat had heard that a million times. If so, then these windows looked into a landscape that had suddenly become blighted, like the floodplains of Mississippi and Louisiana after the levees failed. Like Japan after the tsunami. There was wreckage that proved that life had once existed there, but the life itself was gone.

Or … was it?

“Yes, you’ve heard the Red Mouth speak and you’ve listened, haven’t you, boy? You listened real good and you took it all to heart. That’s nice. That’s real nice.”

For the briefest of moments, as Homer spoke to the infected in his slow, rhythmic backwoods voice, Goat thought he saw a shadow move behind the zombie’s eyes. Was it the mind of the dead leaving a deserted house? Or was it something else? A lingering trace of the man Homer had killed? A ghost haunting the body it once owned.

Whatever was happening, it was horrible from every angle. A life destroyed. A monster created. And a soul …

What?

Lost?

Trapped?

Goat’s mind rebelled at placing too precise a label on it.

The zombie pounded at Homer’s hand with soft, clumsy fists.

Without turning to Goat, Homer spoke to him, “I done this, you know.”

“What?”

“I done this. This plague thing. It ain’t no bioweapon like they’re saying on the radio. It was me that done this. The Black Eye opened in my mind and now I speak with the voice of the Red Mouth. Used to be I was a slave of the Red Mouth, or at least I thought I was, but after I died and woke up in that body bag…? Well, hell, I knew. I realized that all this time the Black Eye was my own mind’s eye, and the Red Mouth is my mouth. You understand what I mean by that, son?”

Goat didn’t know how to answer that question. It seemed like there was a thin tightrope between possible answers and that rope was covered in slippery grease. He clamped his mouth shut and shook his head.

“Go on, son,” said Homer, clearly understanding Goat’s reluctance. “Don’t be shy. I won’t bite.”

There was a beat after that last phrase came out and then Homer realized what he’d said and what it meant, and he burst out laughing.

The zombie pounded on his arm, tore at the flesh of the hand holding him. Black saliva dribbled from the corners of his mouth.

Suddenly Homer got to his feet and dragged the zombie upright. It was a display of enormous strength because the struggling infected had to weigh at least two hundred pounds. Homer let go of the creature’s throat, grabbed both shoulders, spun him around, and shoved him toward the door. The zombie staggered and tripped over the twitching leg of a barista who was just now returning from some dark place to a world that was darker still. Homer looked down at her and at the man he’d just shoved.

“This is about to get twitchy,” he said, though Goat didn’t know if he was speaking to himself or not. Then a slow smile began to form on the killer’s pale lips and he turned fully toward Goat. That smile was perhaps the most frightening thing Goat had ever seen. Homer once more stabbed a finger at Goat. “You tell stories, right? I mean, that’s what reporters do, right?”

Goat nodded. A tiny, frightened nod, but there didn’t seem to be any traps built into so simple a question.

The zombie Homer had shoved, spun back around, and he lunged forward. Not at Homer, but to try and barrel past him to get to the only person in the whole place who wasn’t dying or dead. Goat.

Without a blink, without a fragment of hesitation, Homer drove an elbow into the zombie’s face with such sudden, shocking force that the infected’s whole upper torso froze in place while his legs ran up into the air. Then the creature’s body canted backward and he fell bonelessly to the floor. The back of his head struck the marble floor and exploded, spraying red and black outward in a starburst pattern. His legs and arms instantly stopped moving and he lay dead. Truly dead.

“Impolite motherfucker,” muttered Homer. Then he smiled once more at Goat. “Where was I? Oh yeah, telling stories and shit. During my trial and when they killed me, you were one of those asshole reporters who was there nearly every day. Telling the court’s version of my story. Only the thing is it isn’t really my story. It isn’t the story of the Black Eye and the Red Mouth. No, sir, it is not. It isn’t the full story and it sure as shit ain’t the right story. And, let’s face it, son, I got a story worth telling. Look at me. I mean, seriously, look at fucking me.”

Goat couldn’t take his eyes off of Homer Gibbon.

The man was huge, powerful, covered in blood, and …

And he was a monster.

An actual monster.

Something the world had never seen before.

Dead and yet not dead. Infected with the Lucifer 113 plague and yet still capable of thought—though whether that was “rational” thought was up for debate in Goat’s mind. A man who had been the nation’s most notorious serial killer—up there with legendary murderers like Ed Gein, Albert Fish, Saint John, and Ted Bundy—and who had been tried, convicted, and executed.

And who was now what, exactly?

Was he a victim of Dr. Volker’s insane desire to punish criminals of this kind? Yes.

Was he the brutal and sadistic maniac who slaughtered
__ __
people and deserved the punishment given him? Absolutely.

Was he patient zero of a new plague, something that, should it be allowed to spread, could become an unstoppable pandemic?

Yes.

God almighty, thought Goat. He felt like fireworks were exploding inside his head. Everything was too bright, too loud, too massively wrong. And all of these thoughts tumbled through his brain in a burning moment.

Homer was still speaking, but his smile had dimmed. “You listening to me, boy? You’d better be ’cause it looks like you’re ankle deep in shit right about now. Tell me I’m wrong. No? Nothing? But I got your attention, right? Give me a nod or something, boy.”

Goat nodded.

“Good boy,” said Homer, his grin returning. A few of the other dead were starting to rise. “We ain’t got no time at all, so how about we cut the shit and get to it?”

Goat found himself nodding again, though he had no idea what the “it” was Homer wanted to get to.

The twitching woman rolled over onto hands and knees and began to rise. Homer took two short steps closer and snapped his foot out in a powerful kick that sent her sprawling into the path of two other dead who had managed to get to their feet. The three of them collapsed into a hissing tangle of arms and legs.

Homer snorted, amused by it. But at the same time he seemed momentarily uncertain as he watched his clumsy victims.

“Shi-i-i-i-i-i-it,” he breathed, drawing it out. Then he blinked and turned back to Goat. “Okay, boy, here’s the deal. I’m going to get my ass out of here before this becomes a buffet. I don’t think these fuckers will hurt me—not with the Black Eye open inside my mind—but they’ll definitely go ass-wild on you. You’re a bag of bones, but I’ll bet there’s some tasty meat on you, yes, sir.”

Goat felt blood drain from his face.

“But I think I’d rather let you keep sucking air. For a while, anyway. You game with that?”

The sound that escaped Goat’s throat might have been a yes, but it sounded like a mouse’s squeak.

Homer took it as assent, though, and he nodded. “So, here’s the deal. You come with me. You do what reporters do. Interview me, whatever. You do that for me, you tell my story, my side of it, you let the Red Mouth speak through me and you write down every word and then pretty it up some for the newspapers. What do they call it? Edit it? Rewrite it? Whatever. You do that, and you play fair with me while you’re doing it, you make sure to tell the whole truth, and you might just walk away from this. How’s that sound?”