The Uninvited (31 page)

General?” Vic said. “I'll get back to you.” He slowly laid the mike aside and called for Sheriff Grant's Chief Deputy to come in the hut. Vic backed away from the Baronne Parish sheriff, his right hand on the butt of his . 357, suspicions growing firmer in his brain.

Why was Mike wearing a long sleeve shirt in the summer time, as hot as it was? The sleeves were buttoned at the wrist and the shirt was stained with sweat. Didn't make sense on a day like this.

“What's up, Sheriff Ransonet?” Walt asked. Slick stood to one side, a sawed-off pump shotgun in his hands, loaded with buckshot, pushed by magnum loads.

“He's your friend, Walt. Maybe he'll listen to you. Tell Mike to take off his shirt.”

“I don't understand, Vic.”

“How's he been behaving the past few hours?” Vic asked, never taking his eyes off Sheriff Grant.

“Well, I guess I'd have to say not like himself. But, goddamn, who has?”

“Tell him to take off his shirt, Walt.”

The deputy looked at his friend of twenty years, his boss. “Mike ... ?”

“No, goddamn it!” Sheriff Grant screamed. “I don't take orders from you, Walt. You take orders from me. So you get the hell back to Barnwell and get back to work. We're evacuating the people, taking them across that bridge. Those soldiers aren't going to shoot civilians. Move it!”

Walt took a hesitant step toward his friend. Vic's quickly outflung arm stopped him. Both men began backing out of the hut. Mike followed them, stopping at the door. “Don't touch him, Walt. Look at his eyes,” Vic said.

In the light of the sun, Walt took a hard look at Sheriff Grant. “Aw, shit, Mike.”

All heard Slick clicking the riot gun off safety. The flat sound floated through the summer's air. “Take your shirt off, Mike. Take it off or I'll blow a hole in you. Step out of the hut, outside.”

Sheriff Grant stepped outside, Slick following him. The deputy walked to one side, the muzzle of the shotgun level with Mike's belly.

Mike removed his shirt: his arms and chest were covered with bites, infection lines running from the bites. “Early this morning,” he said, his voice dull. “While I was gettin' dressed. My wife, too. Don't know what to do about her. She's bitten worse than me. You son of a bitch!” he directed his venom at Vic. “Maybe we'd have had a chance if you hadn't wanted to play God. The great hero. Big shot.”

“And maybe, Mike,” Vic said, “I had the sense to look past my nose and think of the others out there.” He jerked a thumb indicating the state, the world. “You were a good lawman, Mike. I'm sorry.”

You're sorry, all right. And you're gonna be sorrier.” Sheriff Grant's eyes were burning dark with infection. “'Cause I think I'll just take you with me.”

He leaped at Vic.

The shotgun in Slick's hands boomed twice, the buckshot catching Mike in the belly and chest. The man kicked on the ground for a few seconds, trembled as that final darkness moved over him, then was dead.

Vic glanced at Walt. “You're in charge, Walt. Go on back to Baronne and stay in touch with me.”

“It's a madhouse up there, Vic. People are going crazy with fear.”

“Try to get them calmed enough to centralize their position.”

“Yes, sir.” He walked to his car.

Vic looked at Slick.
Thank you.”

“Like you said, it's a hard time.”

The fighter-bombers came screaming in, dumping their lethal loads, turning the banks of the Mississippi and the Velour into a roaring wall of chemical fire. They bombed for a mile inland, one squadron coming seconds after another, the noise never quite fading. The explosions shook the earth, the fire leaping hundreds of feet into the air. Black, greasy smoke circled the two Parishes while the citizens of Baronne and Lapeer—those that were left—huddled together for comfort and watched and listened and prayed.

You know, of course,” Bob said to Sheriff Ransonet,
this will only drive the mutants toward us.”

“I know. But we're less than twenty thousand. A drop in the bucket compared to what's outside the two-Parish area. We're all expendable.”

The air assault continued unabated, until the thudding, roaring seemed to be a sustaining, never-changing part of their lives. And darkness drew closer. And with the darkness, all knew, the mutants would be coming. Looking for food.

There were those—and this worried Sheriff Ransonet—who refused to leave their homes and apartments and mobile homes, choosing instead to chance the horror on their own. Many of these people were good, decent folks, but a lot of them were punks.

And Vic knew that on this night, while the mutants hunted human flesh to dine on, other animals, the two-legged kind, would prowl the town, looting, vandalizing, killing, and raping.

He wondered where the mutants were hiding, and why they had not attacked any of the churches, the gyms, the warehouses. What were they waiting for? Darkness, yes. But what else? Are they watching us this very minute? Waiting for some signal?

Don't be silly, he chastised himself. Those bastards can't think as we do. Or can they?

After the rolling thunder of the napalm bombings had ceased, with only black plumes of smoke to remind them of the barrage, Vic heard the faint reports of shots. He radioed General Bornemann.

“Who is doing all that shooting?” he asked.

Not us,” the General replied. He thought, At least, not yet.
Vic? At dawn, we're going to send in teams of medics and doctors; I'll get back to you with the locations of the pick-up points. The doctors have come up with a quick, easy test to determine if a person is infected. Don't even have to draw blood. The kids go out first, the old people next, then the women, the men last. Where is Sheriff Grant? I can't reach his CP.”

“He's dead. Walt Burns is in charge up there.”

“No, he isn't, Vic. He's dead. Shot and killed about an hour ago. There is nothing but chaos in Baronne Parish. No organization at all. No one in charge. The people are running wild, looting, killing, raping. A lot of people are massing at the bridge. Looks like they're going to try to rush it after dark. They won't make it.”

“You want me to go up there and try to talk some sense into them?”

No. Absolutely not! You're needed where you are. I've got orders from the top. No one gets out of there without clearance. No one. Now, we'll get you out, but it's going to have to be done slow, careful, and orderly. Those fires are going to keep burning on the banks and inland. We're going to keep them ablaze. We've got watchers for a hundred miles downriver, keeping an eye out for any mutants escaping. All river traffic has been halted. Any unauthorized boat on that river will be blown out of the water—on my orders.

“The doctors and scientists believe the creatures won't leave. that area, but at best that's only an educated guess—so we can't take any chances. Keep your people calm and tell them we'll be evacuating them in the morning. I've got every big chopper within five hundred miles of here coming in. And, Vic? Some of those will be Cobra gunships in case anyone tries to make a break for it. Warn your people.”

“But those in Baronne—”

“Fuck them! They decided to go for broke, disregarding law and order. They are not your responsibility. I'll have to live with whatever decision I make, not you. Talk to you later.”

The set went silent.

 

 

At full dark, Dr. Whitson sat in his lab and listened to the clicking grow louder, coming out of the darkness surrounding his home.

“I knew someday,” he spoke to the silent lab, “we'd screw around with chemicals and come up with a super bug gone amuck. Well, we've done it. God help us all, for we have certainly done it.”

He rose from his workbench and walked to a row of switches on the wall, flipping them all on. Harsh light filled the yard.

Dr. Whitson snorted his disgust as he gazed out a rear window. The lawn was covered with a brown crawling horde that seemed to stretch for miles.

“Nobody can really blame you,” the doctor muttered.
Not really. For you are only trying to survive. That is the nature of things, human and animal. And a human made you what you've become. He—we—are to blame. All of us. More chemicals to produce more crops to feed more people so a few can make still more money.”

The brown filth had halted when the brilliant lights illuminated the night. Dr. Whitson stood by the window, watching them.

“Greed and arrogance caused this to happen.

The brown crawling resumed.

“Perhaps,” the old man spoke, “we might find a way to stop you in a few weeks. Except, for those of us here,
we
don't have a few weeks. Our time is through. The sands are emptying from the glass.”

The roaches crawled over the house, covering the building, seeking a way in.

“Well,” Dr. Whitson said, walking to a cabinet and taking down a bottle and syringe, “you won't find much satisfaction gnawing on this spare old frame of mine.”

He filled the syringe and then carefully, without thinking, wiped a spot on his arm with alcohol. Then, realizing what he'd done, he laughed. “Oh, yes, Doctor, do be careful. Must not risk infection, now.”

He injected himself with the poison, then walked back to his bench. The creatures began pouring into the house. Clicking. The old man looked at the mutants from his workbench. “Well, now, and how are you fellows this fine evening?”

The creatures stopped at the sound of his voice. He watched them slowly resume their march toward him. The poison hit his heart and the man toppled from his stool, and lay dying on the floor. His eyes were still open as the mutants swarmed over him, feeding. Clicking.

 

 

With the coming of night came not only a faint clicking sound to the ears of the citizens huddled in the churches, gyms, and warehouses, but also the sounds of shooting, the squealing of tires rounding corners at too high a speed. And the sounds of screaming.

“The punks are having a fine old time,” Slick observed, his arm resting on the inner circle of wood stacked around the warehouse.

Yeah,” Sheriff Ransonet agreed. “The gutter scum our courts have protected for years have finally found their true place in society.”