Growth (18 page)

When Sandy turned on her phone that morning, she saw she had almost twenty-four messages. She wasn't surprised. She checked on Kevin's door. It was shut. She went downstairs and made coffee before bothering to listen to the messages. The first two were from Sheriff Hoyt, before he had met her in the driveway. He was smart enough not to say anything incriminating, but his voice was full of vaguely threatening promises. The next was Liz, checking to make sure Kevin was okay. Sandy closed her eyes; it hadn't taken long at all for the news to spread about her son. The next five were from reporters. She erased them all.

The ninth call was from Dr. Castle. “Sandy, this is Mike. I, uh, tried your home phone, didn't work. I've started the external examination on the, uh, suspect.” Dr. Castle was also aware that his voice was being recorded and he didn't want to say Jerm's name. “I, uh, I think it would be a good idea if we spoke. Sooner rather than later. Please give me a call at the office. I'll be here a while, and I've left instructions with the front desk to transfer your call to the basement.” Parker's Mill's morgue was located in the basement of Dr. Castle's practice. “Please give me a call as soon as you get this message.”

The next two voice mails were from reporters. Then Dr. Castle again. “Sandy, this is Mike. Listen, you need to call me. This, this is not something I feel comfortable taking to Sheriff Hoyt. Please call me back.”

The next message was from Dr. Castle as well. “Sandy, this is urgent. Call me.”

Every message, Dr. Castle's voice got more and more strained. “What I'm finding, it's nothing that I am prepared for. I don't have the right equipment. This is, I simply don't know. All I do know is that this facility is woefully inadequate. I . . . I've never encountered anything like this.” He started coughing. “I'm at a loss. We may need to involve the CDC.”

Sandy swallowed. Had her son been exposed to something?

The next message. “I don't think it's contagious.” He gave a sad laugh. “Hell, I don't know. It's . . . I called a friend, an expert in mycology, at the Argonne labs. Teaches at the University of Chicago. He wants pictures. I have no idea of the legal ramifications of all this. Please, please call me.”

Next message. “This is . . . beyond the scope of my experience. I had to stop the necropsy. It's . . .” His voice softened, and it was clear that he wasn't worried about being recorded. He just needed help from a friend. “I hope to see you here tomorrow morning. I'll be here no later than eight.” That was the last message, left around ten o'clock last night.

Sandy checked the clock. Six a.m. After Kevin cracked and it had all come pouring out—how he had figured out the combination of the Browning gun safe and how he had stolen her key for the trigger guard and all of the preparation he had taken and how it had only worked because Sandy didn't like to look at the gun and left it buried back in the back of the safe—she had held him until he fell asleep.

She had climbed into her own bed and tried to figure out if she should meet Sheriff Hoyt at the county courthouse in the morning with Kevin or not. If she took him down there, odds were, he'd end up in juvenile detention, a place full of damaged kids who would eat him alive. If she kept him home, the DA would look at it as if she was giving her son preferential treatment, and would push for a maximum sentence.

Either way, she was screwed.

She poured another cup of coffee and went upstairs to look into Kevin's room. Her son was still sound asleep, mouth open, legs sprawled, arms akimbo. Puffing Bill was curled up in a tight coil between Kevin's legs. The dog raised his scarred head and regarded her with calm eyes. Sandy whispered, “Lay down. Go back to sleep.” She shut the door softly.

She went downstairs, took a sip of coffee, and eventually realized that the reason she thought it had taken so long to make a decision was because, deep down, she knew that it wasn't a choice at all. She'd known what she would do from the moment Sheriff Hoyt gave her the order. She opened her closet and looked at her uniform. Might as well go all the way.

She pulled the uniform out of the closet and got dressed. After dialing Elliot's parents' number, she let the coffee put some cheer in her voice. “I am so sorry to call you so early, but I'm afraid something has come up. You know this job,” Sandy chuckled, letting that hang, hoping she wouldn't have to resort to the commitment to community service speech.

While Elliot's mom dithered about and finally managed a good morning, Sandy cut right in and asked, “Could you, if it's no trouble, would you mind looking after Kevin today?”

Slight hesitation from Patty. “I, uh, we, uh, well, um, no, no that shouldn't be a problem. We . . . we were going to go to the parade.” Her tone made it clear that she fully expected everyone in town to be there. Then she remembered the shooting yesterday. “Oh my gosh, do you think there will still be a parade? I mean, they wouldn't cancel it, would they?”

Sandy thought about everything she knew about the mayor and Sheriff Hoyt. “I seriously doubt they would cancel it. This town will have a parade.”

“Well, is it okay if we take Kevin?”

“Of course. Have a great time. I'll take the boys fishing next weekend, give you and Randy a day to yourselves as a thank-you, as one parent to another. I appreciate it.” Sandy decided not to mention Puffing Bill just yet. “I'll drop Kevin off in a half hour.”

 

 

Cochran knew it was all his fault. He would admit that much at least. He should never have panicked. Never should have bolted from the first sign of the fungus, never should have run screaming into the night. He should have headed back to his car, instead of running in the completely opposite direction.

Maybe then he would have escaped.

Now he was stuck.

Fear and adrenaline had fueled his flight as he plowed through what felt like miles and miles of cornfields. He realized now, with the morning sun peeking through the wide, thin windows up near the ceiling, that his panic was the reason that he was now trapped. If he only could have kept his head, he would be out on the expressway, practically in the next state by now, leaving this nightmare behind him.

Instead, he was caught in the dead center of the infection, like a dying fly in a cobweb.

He'd run and run, slapping cornstalks out of his way, until he burst out of the corn onto somebody's lawn. He'd fallen and slammed into the long grass. He worried that the fall had torn a gash in the knee of his biohazard suit, but couldn't tell. Since he'd dropped the damn penlight, he could only see by the faint light of a sliver of the moon and the gleam of stars.

He staggered to his feet and lurched over the closest structure. From the chicken wire he guessed it was some sort of henhouse. He curled his fingers through the holes in the wire, trying to catch his breath under the riot gas mask. He sounded like Darth Vader having an asthma attack.

The henhouse looked empty. Until a single wing laying in the dust and chicken shit decided to go berserk, spinning and flapping at the dirt like a fish gasping for air.

He looked down and found the entire bottom half of the structure covered in white cobwebs. But those pale filaments, the long threads clumped together like cotton candy, they weren't cobwebs. He'd caught enough of what the Allagro scientists had been trying to say, and knew to step back immediately.

He moved too late.

Things that looked like centipedes were already climbing up his boots. He scraped them off, leaving a gray sludge, streaks of wet ashes smeared against the rubber. He turned and started across the wide lawn.

Even over the gas mask's rasping breathing, he heard the buzzing from the barn. A couple fluttered in front of his face mask, and he caught a glimpse of a fluttering ball of brown wings. One landed on his arm. Again, like the insects, it looked like the fungus had taken the wings from grasshoppers, cicadas, even wasps. He didn't look long; he took his gloved hand and smashed it, smearing the insides down the Tyvek material.

A roaring buzz from above made him look up.

The cloud of insects above made the stars blink in and out in a twinkling static, and for a moment, he didn't know where to run. He glanced back to the corn. More of the crawling things came out of the field, like black crabs scuttling up a cold shore. Then the flying creatures were on him, swirling around in a quivering and buzzing storm. He tucked in his chin as far as he could, pressing the respirators to his chest. If they got to the soft skin at his throat, he was finished.

The farmhouse was his only chance. He couldn't see it very well through the cloud of insect wings, and it had no lights on inside. He ran up to the back steps and tried the door. It was locked. He stumbled back, knowing that if he broke a window, they would just fly right in behind him.

The constant jagged humming of the insects swarming over him made it hard to think. He turned and tried to head down the steps but slipped off and fell hard on slanted wood. He realized he'd fallen on the cellar doors. His fingers found purchase and he pulled.

The right door swung up and he jumped inside, slamming it behind him. He sat in total darkness for a few minutes, just trying to slow his breathing. When he heard or felt one of the insects, he smashed it, but otherwise was content to sit for a long time, trying to listen. He didn't think that any were getting through the doors. He kept crushing any that he heard fluttering around his head, but they were growing more and more infrequent.

There was less and less scratching at the door as well. Maybe they had forgotten about him and moved on. Maybe. He didn't want to open the door and find out. So very, very carefully, he scooted down the stairs until he hit the floor. He stood, waving his hand around for a light switch or chain. He found a chain and pulled. A click. But no light. Either the bulb was burnt out or it was missing. By this time, his eyes had peered into the gloom long enough to spot the whisper of light that allowed him to make out the shapes of the windows up near the ceiling.

He got closer, stumbling over and through awkward black shapes scattered throughout the small basement until he stood in the faint spill of moonlight, and tried to peer at the biohazard suit. He couldn't find any more of the insects. If he could just get to his phone, he could use that light to see, but that would involve opening the suit.

He decided that since he was in no immediate danger, he would simply wait until morning. It couldn't be that far off. Then, when he could see, he would take a chance on opening his suit where he could get to his phone. And his gun.

Hours later, when the dark shadows in the basement gradually became gray shapes until golden light finally crept across the rough timbers of the ceiling, Cochran took stock of his situation. He could not find any more bugs on him. Couldn't find any more bugs in the basement. Maybe the sunlight chased them off. He listened for a while at the cellar doors, but he couldn't hear anything else.

He went back to the far wall, put his back against the cement, and unzipped his suit. He quickly pulled out his gun and phone, then zipped back up, straight away. Setting the phone aside for the moment, he checked the clip on his Nighthawk T4. The gun nuts in town might have scoffed that it was only a nine-millimeter, but advances in modern ammunition had made that particular argument irrelevant, as far as Cochran was concerned.

What he was most worried about was that it only held nine shells.

That left the phone. He hadn't wanted to call the men upstairs, not until he had gotten out of town, but now he had no choice. He peeled off his glove, dialed, and as it rang, he put his glove back on.

“Hello?”

Was there a wisp of surprise in the voice? Cochran didn't waste time. “I'm one hundred percent sure.”

“You are certain?”

“Without a doubt.”

“Very well. We will initiate eradication efforts. An extraction team is on the way. We'll have you out of there shortly.”

“Good. I—wait a minute,” Cochran said, staring at the phone. “How do you know I need an extraction?”

“Isn't it obvious? We know you have been in the same location for almost five hours, roughly a mile due north from the contamination center. Seems clear that you require assistance.”

“Of course,” Cochran whispered to himself. He held up his phone and looked at it. They'd been tracking him the entire time. He had been a fool. And now, this extraction team, they were already on their way. He had a feeling that this team wasn't coming all the way out to this farmhouse to escort him out of the area.

The next question confirmed it.

“Paul,” the voice asked. “How are you feeling?”

“Fucking fantastic,” Cochran said, and whipped the phone into the corner of the basement, where it cracked and bounced back, landing on a square of two-by-fours. It wasn't enough. He got up and drove his boot heel into the shell of the phone, grinding it into the old wood. He grabbed the pieces and flung them away.

He stood and was trying to peer through the grimy windows when he heard a new sound. Something that scratched and scrabbled at wood. He crept toward the cellar doors.

The sound came again. It wasn't on the other side of the doors.

It was from something down in the basement with him.

He went back and retrieved his gun. It didn't make him feel any better.

Something moved in the corner of the basement. He looked to where he had thrown the phone the first time. The square chunk of two-by-fours shifted slightly. Something was moving it from underneath. It moved again, revealing a dark hole.

A pair of fingers appeared, curling over the edge. A thumb followed. And . . . that was all. The three digits formed a tripod and moved clumsily toward him.

Cochran couldn't breathe. The fingers looked like they'd been glued together with black sludge and held tight at the joints with gray tendrils. A fuzzy patch of white cobwebs hung down from the center of where the fingers were joined.