Contagious (24 page)

needles
? Well, now Chelsea was in charge. Chauncey had said so. And Mommy wasn’t going to make her do anything anymore.
Chelsea stood at the edge of the bed, looking down at Mommy. Mommy had such a pretty face.
Chelsea reached out with her finger and thumb and slowly, tenderly, pinched Mommy’s nose shut. Not enough to hurt her, just enough to stop the air from going in. There were a few seconds where nothing happened, then Mommy’s mouth opened and she took in a sharp breath. Chelsea let go of Mommy’s nose and dropped to the floor, lying flat against the edge of the bed. If Mommy woke up, she’d have to look over the edge to see Chelsea down there.
Chelsea waited, but Mommy didn’t seem to move. It was so hard not to giggle.
Chelsea slowly got to her knees, then to her feet, real quiet, like it was slow motion in the movies. Her head rose up until her eyes peeked over the edge of the bed.
Mommy’s mouth was still open.
Her eyes were still closed.
She was breathing real slow.
Mommy was asleep.
Make her obey.
Chelsea nodded. She moved her head forward slowly. Chelsea waited three more seconds to see if Mommy would wake up.
One
-one-thousand . . .
two
-one-thousand . . .
three
-one-thousand . . .
Ready or not, Mommy, here I come.
Chelsea put her lips over Mommy’s lips. Her tongue caressed Mommy’s tongue. There was a fizzing sound and a feeling like putting a bunch of Pop Rocks in your mouth. Chelsea fell to the floor again, this time rolling under the bed, trying
so hard
not to giggle.
“Eaungh,” Mommy said. Chelsea felt the bed move as Mommy awoke and sat up fast. She made a noise that was like coughing and spitting at the same time. The bed twitched with Mommy’s sharp movements.
“Unh!” Mommy said. “My mouf!”
“Hon?” Daddy said in a sleepy voice. “Hon-bun . . . you okay?”
“No, my mouf is on fiah!”
“Did you just eat something?”
“No, ah wah sleepin’!”
Even with a burning mouth, Mommy could still do that thing with her voice where she made it sound like Daddy was really stupid.
“Just relax. You must have had a bile burp or something. A little acid came up.”
“Unh!” Mommy said. “Un-huh.”
“Go rinse out with mouthwash,” Daddy said. “Take a Rolaids.”
Chelsea felt the bed move again. She kept herself very still. Mommy’s feet hit the floor, than she walked to the bathroom. The bathroom light came on for a second before the door shut behind her, leaving just an illuminated outline of the door.
Chelsea felt the bed thump again. Then, only two seconds later, Daddy snored. Wow, was he
good
at that! She bit down on her hand to choke back some major giggles. Daddy sounded so
funny
!
Chelsea Jewell slid out from under the bed and quietly ran to the bedroom door. She eased out into the hallway, carefully shutting the door behind her, and in seconds was back in her own bed.
“I did it, Chauncey!” she whispered. “I did it!”
She will not make you go to the doctor now . Tomorrow, you will be in charge.
“For real?”
You don’t have to speak out loud to talk to me. If you think really hard, I can hear you.
Chelsea squealed and hid her face in her pillow. Chauncey
was
special.
“For
real
?”
Try it. Tell me your favorite color.
Chelsea controlled her giggles and tried to think hard, whatever that meant. She liked pink. But blue was real nice, too, and she had those light-blue socks with the brown stripes that Daddy bought her on his last trip, and then—
Focus. Your mind is full of thoughts.
Concentrate.
Chelsea took a deep breath. She closed her eyes and
thought.
Pink.
She opened her eyes and looked at the ceiling. Could Chauncey
really
hear her thoughts? If he could, then he
had
to be God.
“That’s a lucky guess, Chauncey.”
Then pick your favorite number.
She nodded and closed her eyes. When she thought of the number, she smiled to herself, then concentrated really hard.
Number one.
Chelsea threw her face into the pillow and squealed with delight.
It will get easier them ore you doit.
Now go to sleep. Tomorrow is an important day.
Good night, Chauncey,
Chelsea thought, as loud as she could. She rolled over and closed her eyes.
It was so cool to have a special friend.

THE INVASION
Like most jobs, being the president’s go-to, behind-the-scenes man had pros and cons. Black budgets?
Pro.
Watching the most powerful people in Washington do whatever you told them to do?
Pro.
Meetings in the Oval Office where you were the center of attention?
Pro.
That same meeting at 3:00 A.M. to deliver bad news?
That would be a
con
. A
big
con.
“I’m afraid there are new incidents,” Murray said.
The president in his pajamas. Vanessa fully dressed, hair pulled back tight as ever. Maybe, like Murray, she hadn’t even been to bed yet. Or maybe she was a vampire and didn’t need to sleep at all. He wouldn’t have ruled that out.
“With that weather analysis?” Gutierrez asked. “Did Montoya’s idea find this mystery satellite?”
“Not yet, Mister President,” Murray said. “We’re still getting NASA to pull their heads out of their asses and focus all their energies on it, if you’ll pardon my French, sir.”
“Even in an emergency, bureaucracy is what it is,” Gutierrez said. “Keep me informed on that. So, let’s hear about this new development.”
Murray cleared his throat and stepped into the breach. “Two people infected with the rot were found at a rest stop near Bay City, Michigan.
They did
not
have triangles. Donald Jewell of Pittsburgh and his teenage daughter, Betty. The father died on the spot. The daughter was being kept in one of the portable labs for observation. We flew Doctor Montoya’s team there, they performed the examination, and in the process the girl became violent and killed Doctor Amos Braun.”
“What?”
Gutierrez said. “How? How did it happen?”
“She took his scalpel and stabbed him in the throat, sir. The girl then tried to attack Doctor Montoya. Agent Clarence Otto shot and killed the girl.”
“How is Montoya?” Gutierrez asked. “Is she okay? Was anyone else hurt?”
“No sir,” Murray said. “Doctor Braun was the only casualty.”
Gutierrez slumped into his chair. Vanessa seemed to pick up on this and leaned forward.
“And why wasn’t Otto in the room?” she asked.
Murray felt his face flush red, just a bit. “Montoya and Braun were doing emergency surgery on the girl. Agent Otto was in the computer room monitoring the situation.”
“But he wasn’t
inside
the room where they were operating?”
“No.”
She raised her eyebrows. “And how, exactly, does that happen in a case where all types of people turn into murderers?”
Murray said nothing. If he’d insisted on proper procedure, Otto would have been inside the room and Amos would probably still be alive. The trailer was cramped and extra bodies got in the way, but that was no excuse to ignore safety.
Vanessa had him dead to rights.
“You said
incidents,
plural,” Vanessa said. “What else?”
“We have a body in Gaylord, Michigan,” Murray said. “Male, Caucasian, found alone in his house. Corpse was black and rotted. Paramedics performed the swab test and got a positive result.”
Gutierrez sat forward again. “When did this happen?”
“About eight hours ago.”
“Eight
hours
?” Gutierrez said. “Don’t you have an alert system in place for things like this?”
“Yes, Mister President. The paramedics called the hospital, and it seems one of the local doctors wanted to evaluate the body himself. That delayed a call to the CDC, and when that call was made, it took a little while for the information to reach Doctor Cheng.”
“Cheng,” Vanessa said. “He’s the only one outside of Dew Phillips’s team that knows everything about this situation, is that right?”
“Yes ma’am,” Murray said.
Vanessa nodded. “So it’s safe to say that your high level of secrecy is responsible for this delay? If we had a nationwide alert out, we’d have heard about this Gaylord corpse much sooner, correct?”
She had his balls, and she was squeezing.
“That’s possible, ma’am, but we have more pressing issues at the moment. I ran Donald Jewell’s cell-phone and credit-card records. A few days ago, he made multiple calls to a Bobby Jewell in Gaylord. Turns out that’s his brother. We also obtained all of Betty Jewell’s cell-phone text messages from the past week. Messages from yesterday described her feeling ill and said that her father and cousin Chelsea Jewell were feeling the same.”
“Wait one second,” Vanessa said. “You read this girl’s private text messages?”
“Yes ma’am,” Murray said. “All cell-phone text messages are recorded in the databases of the phone companies. Every text message ever sent, I’m told, is still stored somewhere. We acquired Betty’s text history.”
“ ‘Acquired,’ ” Vanessa said. “Which is war-against-terrorism lingo for
illegally obtained
.”
“With all due respect, Miss Colburn,” Murray said without even a shred of respect in his voice, “I think we have more important things to worry about right now.”
“I agree,” Gutierrez said. “What else did you get out of the texts, Murray?”
“We think Chelsea has the same strain as Betty and Donald. We don’t know much, but this strain does
not
show triangle growth. It’s something new. However, Betty’s texts said Bobby Jewell had some small welts on his arm, and that he was itching. We think that means first-stage triangle growths. This is a chance for us to get the infection at its earliest stage, sir.
I’d recommended sending Dew Phillips and his team immediately.”
“Dew’s
team
,” Vanessa said. “By that you mean Perry Dawsey. No way.
We’re not going through that again.”
Murray’s stomach churned. He needed a Tums and pronto—he’d sent Dew to Gaylord right before he’d walked into the Oval Office.
“We have to send Perry, sir,” Murray said. “Dawsey is the only one who can detect the hosts.”
Vanessa smiled. He hated that smile. Really . . . fucking . . .
hated
it.
“But you already know where the Jewells live,” Vanessa said. “And you didn’t get that information from Perry Dawsey, correct?”
He had walked right into that one. So fucking obvious he hadn’t even realized it.
“Yes ma’am, but they could behave like other infected hosts and run, so we need Dawsey.”
“I see,” Vanessa said. “Well, I would think that if Dawsey had detected this Gaylord infection, you would have already said so. So am I right in assuming he did
not
detect this one?”
“That’s correct,” Murray said. “He feels that . . . uh . . . his ability to detect the hosts is being jammed by some unknown force.”
“So he did
not
detect it this time,” Vanessa said. “Which means if the Jewells
do
run, there’s no knowing whether Perry can track them at all.”
Murray’s face felt very hot. “I would say that’s correct, ma’am. But we also don’t know if this jamming will continue, or if he can hear them should he get closer. He’s the only detection asset we have. We need to send him now.”
“What we
need
to do,” Vanessa said, “is make sure we help the Jewells before it’s too late. After we have them, then bring in Dawsey—under heavy guard—to communicate with the triangles. He can still do that, right, Murray?”
“Yes,” Murray said, although he really didn’t know the answer.
“Then we agree that it’s a bad idea to send Dawsey in first.”
Murray shook his head. “That’s not what I said.”
“Come on, Murray,” she said. “Your tangled web of secrets just isn’t working. We need to stop fucking around.”
“I hardly think Amos Braun was
fucking around
when he died in the line of duty, Miss Colburn.” The words shot out of his mouth before he could control them.
“Of course that’s not what she meant,” Gutierrez said coolly. “Right, Vanessa?”
She glared at Murray. The eyes sent a clear message:
You just embarrassed me in front of the president, and I won’t forget it.
“Of course,” she said. “My apologies, Murray.”
Gutierrez nodded once, as if the apology ended the incident for good.
Vanessa turned to face Gutierrez. “What I meant to say, John, was that we need to step this up a level. We need to send in Ogden.”
Again with calling the president by his first name.
“And have Ogden do what?” Murray asked. “Blockade the town? Go door-to-door and administer Margaret’s test?”
“Exactly,” she said. “That’s
exactly
what we have to do.”
President Gutierrez looked at her for quite a long time, his fingers tapping a pattern on the desk. He turned and looked at Murray. “Won’t it be impossible to control secrecy if we do that?”
Murray looked at the president, then at Vanessa. Her eyes were cold and emotionless once again. He didn’t like her, but he respected that kind of bold move. She wanted to send in the troops? Lock down an entire town? Vanessa Colburn did not fuck around.
“Actually, sir,” Murray said, “I agree with Miss Colburn. And I believe we can preserve secrecy. Doctor Cheng has been using a story about flesh-eating bacteria as cover for his research. Say a plane is flying over Gaylord with research material for the flesh-eating bacteria, the plane goes off the radar . . . well, that could inadvertently expose civilians. The local population is at risk, which gets us total cooperation of area law enforcement. We use local cops as our spokespeople; the residents will listen to them. We have enough tests to check all the residents we can find. Testing is an easy sell when we tell people they could rot and die horribly if they have the bacteria and go untreated.
“We evacuate the town, test everyone on the way out, then go door-to-door to see who’s left behind. We either get the infected coming out of town or get them in their homes. As soon as we secure the town, we let everyone back in. Two days at the most.”
Gutierrez raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You rattled that off like you’ve invaded a town before.”
Murray nodded. “There have been instances. If you’re willing to sign the secrecy-assurance documents, I can share any story you’d like to hear.
I have thirty years’ worth.”
Gutierrez tapped the desktop some more before he spoke. “How long will it take Ogden’s men to deploy to Gaylord?”
“Otsego Airport is right in the town proper,” Murray said. “Ogden and his men can land in C-17s, complete with Humvees, and we’ll have Ospreys and Apaches in support. He’ll probably be on the ground in Gaylord three or four hours from the time I make the call. But sir, I still
strongly
suggest putting Dawsey in play. If he can sniff out the hosts, it could shorten the process. Ogden’s men can make sure he stays under control.”
Gutierrez turned to Vanessa. She nodded.
“Do it, Murray,” Gutierrez said. “Get Tom Maskill an overview of the bacteria-story details, and we’ll coordinate. But I want Dawsey and Phillips to sit tight until Ogden arrives. And I’m not kidding, Murray—they better sit down and get some coffee and not do a
damn thing.
I am going to check up on that, and if I find out that my orders have been ignored, you’re finished.”
Murray needed to get the hell out of the Oval Office and call Dew before Perry could do anything stupid.
“Yes sir,” Murray said. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to implement this right away.”
Gutierrez nodded. Murray almost ran out of the room.
WAKE UP, MOMMY
Chelsea stood at the foot of her parents’ bed eating a Crunch Bar Eskimo Pie. It was only 8:00 A.M., and this was her
third
Crunch.
Mommy and Daddy didn’t get to make the rules anymore.
Try to wake them up. But don’t use words.
“For real?”
Speak to me with your thoughts.
Sorry,
Chelsea thought.
My connection is going to be the strongest with you. You will help me talk to the rest. Now try to wake the mup.
Chelsea took a bite of ice cream, swallowed it, then concentrated.
Wake up, sleepyheads.
Nothing happened.
Try again. Don’t be nice, Chelsea.
You know how when you get angry, when you scream, your voice gets louder?
Yes.
Thoughts work the same way. Have your parents ever done anything to make you angry?
Chelsea’s smile faded away. Why shouldn’t she have all the ice cream she wanted? Why wouldn’t Daddy let her get her ears pierced? And why couldn’t she get a puppy? She
wanted
a puppy. That just wasn’t
fair
.
Maybe Daddy needed protection, but he also need to stop being
bad
.
Chelsea focused again.
Wake up, Daddy . . . or I’m going to spank you
.
Daddy sat up fast, fully awake. He just stared at Chelsea. She had never seen Daddy’s face look like that before. His mouth was open and his eyes were all wide.
“Did you say something, honey?”
He absently scratched at his left arm. A big orange scabby thing came off in his hand. Without taking his eyes from his daughter, he tossed the scabby thing away and started scratching again.
I told you to wake up or I would spank you
.
Daddy stopped scratching. His right hand just sort of hung on his left shoulder, frozen in half-scratch.
“That’s what I thought,” he said in a quiet voice.
Chelsea turned to stare at Mommy.
Wake up, Mommy.
Mommy lifted her head, then set it back down, rolled over and groaned.
“Oh, I’m so hot,” she said. “Bob, tell Chelsea to stop screaming and go back to bed. She made me so goddamn sick.”
Daddy kept staring. “Uh, Candy? Uh . . . you better wake up.”
“I’m not kidding, Bob,” Mommy said in her
Daddy Is So Stupid
voice.
Chelsea dropped the ice cream stick on the floor.
Mommy, you get out of bed or I’ll make Daddy spank you.
Mommy sat up slowly and pulled the blankets right under her chin.
She stared at her daughter, face full of confusion.
“Chelsea,” Mommy whispered, “am I hearing you . . . in my . . . my
head
?”
“Get up, Candy,” Daddy said. “Please. She’s making me want to . . . to punish you.”
Mommy looked at Daddy and started to cry. She wasn’t getting up.
Chelsea had
told
her to get up.
Daddy, Mommy is being a bad girl
.
Mommy shook her head. Daddy got out of bed and walked out of the bedroom. Chelsea stared at Mommy as they listened to Daddy walk downstairs, open a drawer in the kitchen, then walk back up. When he came into the bedroom, he was holding Mommy’s heavy spanky-spoon in his shaking hand.
Mommy, this is going to hurt Daddy more than it hurts you
.
Mommy just kept shaking her head and crying until Daddy really got going. Then she started to scream.