Chapter Ten

All through the night heavy helicopters roared overhead, slap-kawhopping the night with their big blades. They brought in equipment, setting down in the Parishes to the south, north, and west of Lapeer and Baronne. Special Forces troops from Fort Bragg were the first to arrive, taking over from the National Guard and deputies.

Then the press began arriving in droves, only to find a total news blackout had been imposed. They knew only that there was some kind of health problem. No one was allowed in, no one was allowed out. And that was all they were told.

As the volunteers went from house to house in Bonne Terre, rousting people from their beds, herding them into the buses, taking them to schools, warehouses, and churches, many of the men discovered the horror Vic and his people had known and lived with for hours. In many of the homes they found what was left of people after the mutant roaches had come to visit.

It was the beginning of a grisly weekend of terror for those who would live through the nightmare that was taking place in Lapeer and Baronne Parishes.

At the clinic, Tanya dropped a shock into her husband’s lap. I’m going to help Dr. Whitson out at his lab, Bob,” she informed him.

“I’ll be damned if you will!”

Tanya looked up at him through icy blue eyes.

“Well,” Bob said, uncomfortable under his wife’s steady gaze, “I mean—ah—if you want to, sure, of course. After all, you did take some courses in animal something or another, didn’t you?”

“Something like that, Bob,” she said dryly. “While you were overseas and I was at LSU, I worked in a pet shop.”

“Oh.”

“Sarah can come with us. She’ll be as safe there as in one of those gyms or whatever. Besides, I want her with me. Kiri’s coming too, Brett.”

“I heard a shot a few moments ago, Brett,” Dr. Long said. “Do you know what that one was about?”

“According to the CB radio, the sheriff shot Mr. Winston. He’d gone mad.”

“It’s beginning,” Dr. Whitson muttered, too low for anyone else to hear. “It’s only the beginning.”

The prisoner in the room at the rear of the clinic howled and screamed, fighting his straps. He sprayed the room with a foul-smelling secretion.

“Dr. Whitson?” Bob said. “All these choppers flying over—they have to be coming out of Polk. Your phone call to Washington must have shook some people up.”

“I suspect it did. But the phones went out before I could finish. Sheriff Ransonet patched me through to another radio and I had to finish the conversation in that manner. No matter. I said what I had to say.”

“We’re being sealed in?”

“Yes. I would certainly hope so, son.”

“You’re very cold-blooded about this, aren’t you, sir?”

The old man nodded his gray-maned head. Most scientists are, son. Doesn’t pay to get too emotional. You’ll learn that the hard way before this is over, I’m afraid.”

Brett touched Bob’s arm. “We’d better get to work.”

It was only then that the people in the room noticed the sidearms belted around the waist of the school teacher and the ball player turned farmer.

“Both of you, I seem to recall reading or hearing,” Dr. Whitson said, “were heroes in that exercise in futility in Southeast Asia, were you not?”

“We were there,” Bob replied.

The doctor nodded. “That’s good. Before this is over, you’ll both need all the courage you can muster.” He returned to his microscope.

“I haven’t seen that pistol in years, Bob,” Tanya said. “I didn’t know you still had it.”

“I didn’t know you even owned a gun,” Kiri said. “And I didn’t know you were a hero, either, Brett. You must tell me about it sometime.”

Brett shrugged his shoulders noncommittally.

“Those pistols look alike, Daddy,” Sarah observed.

“They are, honey.”

They were .45 automatics.

Kiri’s eyes touched Brett’s. “I’ll see you later,” she said, trying to smile.

“Yes,” was all he would say.

 

 

“I want each house checked,” Sheriff Ransonet told the group of volunteers. “But I don’t want any heroics. You will pull in the driveway and blow your horn. Blow it as long as you think necessary. If there is someone home, tell them to pack up and get into town. Tell them why. We are set up to isolate anyone with suspicious-looking bites.

“Out of all the men in this Parish, I’ve chosen you men because I believe you’re level-headed people, and you won’t panic. I’ve got some hard words to speak this morning. Listen to me, act on what I say, and you’ll make it. Get soft for one second, and you’ll die.”

The men stirred at the words. They stood bunched together as the sun broke through the eastern barriers on the horizon, casting the first shadows of this new day.

“I can’t harp on this enough, men. We are in a life and death situation here, just as the folks up in Baronne are, too. So don’t let anyone who is acting suspicious get close enough to you to scratch or bite you. You’ve all seen the prisoner in the clinic. You’ve all seen the Polaroid pictures of Winston. All the doctors working here have finally agreed: there is no cure. Any infected person—man, woman, or child—will have to be disposed of. I know that’s awful. I know it better than any of you. But you kill a rabid dog for two reasons: to remove a danger from the community, and to protect yourselves.”

“Vic?” a man said. “Level with us. Do we have any chance at all of getting out of here?”

“Yes!” Vic was emphatic. “Yes, we do. The odds are long, but we’ve got a chance.”

“What does old Doc Whitson say about this?” another asked. “Ain’t he the one who asked to have us sealed in here?”

“He told me just about a half hour ago he could find nothing that would kill these creatures. No known chemical at his disposal would stop them.”

“So when it gets down to the nut-cuttin’,” a lanky farmer said, “the government will have to sacrifice us to save the rest of the country? Right, Vic?”

If it gets down to that point, yes, they will.”

“Well, at least you’re levelin’ with us, Vic. You’re not tryin’ to feed us a bunch of horse shit.”

“One more thing, people. I want to thank you men for standing with me on this. I mean that. You’re all very brave men, and I—”

“Ah, hell, Vic!” a man shouted. “Election’s three years away. Save it till then. You got my vote.”

Despite the abominable situation, the men laughed, breaking the tension.

There was a lump in Sheriff Ransonet’s throat. He cleared away the lump and said, Go on, and be careful out there.” He turned his head away so the men could not see the beginnings of tears in his eyes. Vic knew brave men, and these were brave men. How many would return from this hunt, he did not know.

 

 

The plane carrying the top government officials did not land in Baronne or Lapeer Parishes. Instead, they circled, with Dr. Boswell of the National Health Center and Dr. Wilkins of the Institute for Disease Control talking with Dr. Whitson by radio.

“Jefferson,” a voice crackled out of the speaker at an air strip in Lapeer. “Been a few years. But I’m glad to see you haven’t changed and I’m glad—in one way—you’re with us on this one. You always did manage to get yourself right in the middle of something hot.”

“I won’t mince words, Dr. Boswell,” the old man shouted into the mic.

“Speak normally, sir,” Sheriff Ransonet cautioned him.

“I am speaking normally, young man,” Dr. Whitson assured him. “I can’t hear worth a damn.”

Sorry, sir.”

“This is deadly serious, Boswell. It could spread. If it does, the world, I believe, will be in dreadful trouble.”

“There is an Air Force helicopter right behind us to pick up those samples you told the President about. We’ll certainly check them all out, but as for me, I’ll take your word. You’re the best in the world, Jefferson.”

Not good enough for this one, I’m afraid, Boswell. The only thing I’ve found to stop them is fire. So before we continue our chat, I want you to order the military to burn out a hundred-yard strip around these Parishes. Completely, Boswell. Do it. Then get back to me.

A full minute ticked by. Dr. Boswell’s voice cracked through the speaker. “Being done, Jefferson.”

“I told Wally Hopson to have that done first thing,” Dr. Whitson said. “What’s the delay?”

“Damn, Jefferson!” Boswell said. “These things take time. We’re moving as quickly as we can.”

“It isn’t quickly enough.”

“What have you managed to discover about these mutants?” Boswell changed the subject, before Dr. Whitson began delivering another of his tirades on government inefficiency and bureaucratic nincompoops in general.

Nothing and a lot,” Whitson replied. “I sprayed them with every chemical I have at my lab. Nothing stops them. They are resistant to everything I know of. A couple of times I thought I had it, but they just wait a couple of minutes then shake it off and get up. They are extremely vicious and voracious eaters. They also seem to possess the ability to think, in a primitive manner. In short, Dr. Boswell, they are the goddamnedest things I have ever seen.”

“What about the madness—sickness—their bite causes?”

“I don’t believe there is a cure. The poison attacks too quickly. We’ve thrown every drug we have at it. Nothing. Waste of time. I assisted on the autopsy of two men last evening. One was a prisoner we had in a clinic. He broke his restraints and a highway patrolman shot him dead. The other man was shot and killed by Sheriff Ransonet. Bodies are sealed in rubber bags and will be put on board your helicopter. That must be it behind you. Yes, it’s coming in now.

“Whatever this is we’re dealing with hits the blood stream like nothing I have ever seen. It attacks cells, tissue, completely changing the structure of every organ, including the eyes. Attacks the nervous system. Turns the dura mater, the arachnoid, and the pia mater into layers of pus. You’ll see what it does to the brain itself. Incredible. But there has to be something to stop this.”

We’ll find it, old friend,” Dr. Wilkins said.

“Let me speak with Sheriff Ramnet,” a voice hard with authority cut through the air. Ramon . . . whatever.”

“That’s Ransonet,” Vic corrected. R-a-ns-o-n-e-t.” He spelled it, then pronounced it for the unknown man.

“You Acadian French?” the voice asked.

“Hell, no! I’m a coonass and damn proud of it,” Vic popped back.

The voice laughed, deeply and heartily—a man’s laugh. “I’m a Jew myself—and I’m damn proud of that. We’ll get along, Sheriff Ransonet. I’m General Bornemann. That’s Bo-r-n-e-m-a-n-n. Commanding General of the 82nd Airborne. I have been ordered by the President of the United States to seal you people in. Where is Sheriff—ah—Grant? He was supposed to be there with you.”

“He decided not to show up. He’s got a bad case of the redass at me.”

The red what? Is that a symptom of the bug bite?”

Vic laughed. “No, General. That’s a local expression for being pissed off.”

“Why is Sheriff Grant pissed-off at you?”

“Because I blew the whistle on this problem we have. It was me who called the sheriff up in Ballard Parish and had him seal off the bridge over the Velour.”

“That took guts.”

Or a lot of stupidity.”

“I’ll opt for guts. What’s your first name, Sheriff?”

“Vic.”

“I’m James. Vic? You want me to drop some hard-assed ole boys in to help you? You name it, I’ve got them under my command on this operation. Special Forces, Rangers, Pathfinders, LRRP’s, and all my 82nd. I’ve got thousands of men who have already volunteered to come in and help. You say the word, they’ll be there.”

“I ...” Vic hesitated. He looked at Dr. Whitson.

“Why get them sealed in here with us?” the old man asked.

No, General,” Vic said. “I don’t know what they could do. If we were fighting a man-sized enemy, I’d say drop them in. But I guess we’d better handle this one. We made it through the first night. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Okay, Vic. But I’m standing by if and when you need my men. Warn your people not to try to leave the two-county ... Parish area. You know why. I’m setting up observation posts all along the Velour and Mississippi. The Navy’s been steaming all night to get here from New Orleans. First unit’s just getting here. We have orders to prevent anyone from leaving. I’d hate to see this come to shooting.”

“It’ll come to that,” Sheriff Ransonet warned him. “There will be people trying to escape. Be hard to blame them for doing that, won’t it?”

General Bornemann chose not to reply. “Luck to you, Vic.”

“Thanks.”

 

 

Lee and Chester, FBI agents from the Alexandria office tried all morning to get into Baronne and Lapeer Parishes. All the bridges were gone. Troops were setting up all over the place; military personnel were burning a wide strip around the Parishes, using flamethrowers and gasoline. The north bridge was blocked, sealed off and heavily guarded by Special Forces men in full combat gear. Two tanks were parked on the safe side of the bridge, their .50 caliber and 7.62 caliber machine guns loaded and ready to fire. The main armament, a 90mm gun, was leveled and loaded.

Since they were not here in any kind of official capacity, neither man identified himself immediately as FBI. They had not had a radio on during the short trip, and neither knew what was happening. After they spotted agents they recognized from the New Orleans office, they walked over to join them.

“What the hell is happening here?” Lee asked.

“You guys really don’t know?” an agent questioned, amazement in his tone.

“No,” Chester replied innocently. “We just came over here to do some, fishing.”

“Well, you picked a hell of a place to do that.”

They all watched as a transmitter truck rolled up and parked, its circle antenna slowly rotating, locking in on a frequency. Other huge trucks were setting up in position around the two-Parish area.

“Those are jamming rigs,” Lee remarked. “What in the hell is going on around here?”

Yeah,” a buddy told him. “Those two smaller rigs will be used to jam any signal the radio stations in the area try to send out—should they become operational. The others are to block any CB signal from coming out.”

A chill touched the hearts and backbones of the two visiting FBI men. Chester asked, “Why should they be prevented from broadcasting? And where is the press? They should be swarming all over the place.”

“The press is being held back a couple of miles.” General Bornemann charged up. His eyes took in the ID’s of the men, pinned on their skirts. “You people aren’t assigned to this operation.”

“No, sir,” Lee said.

“Well, boys,” the General said. “You are sure here for the duration, now. Once you’ve seen all this, you’re here.”

“Just our luck,” Chester muttered.

“General Bornemann!” yelled a reporter from a national TV network.

Bornemann spun around, anger in his eyes. “How in the hell did he slip through?” he muttered.

The reporter was red-faced from anger and frustration. “General? I demand to know what is happening here. The people have a right to know. You’ve violated more constitutional rights here today than the KKK does in a year. And I tell you this: I am going to lodge a strong protest about the treatment the press is receiving.”

General Bornemann looked at the reporter and smiled. Then he said something he had longed to say to a reporter since the early days of Vietnam. “Fuck you!”

The reporter’s mouth dropped open. He looked as though someone had just slapped him across the face with a dripping piece of raw liver.

General Bornemann hollered to a group of MP’s standing nearby. “Get this man out of here and don’t allow him back in. Ever!” He wheeled about and stalked to his Command Post.

A huge tent with a hospital designation on it stood about five hundred yards from the bridge. It was there the visiting FBI men went.

An MP stopped them at the entrance, looked at their ID’s, then waved them through. They walked through the maze of sophisticated-looking equipment and white-coated technicians until coming to a group of older men.

“Who is in charge here?” Lee asked.

The eyes of the men flicked to the ID’s, then lifted to the agents’ faces. I am,” a man said. “I’m Dr. Wilkins. How may we help you?”

“I think we know something that might shed some light on this problem,” Lee said. “Is there a place we can talk in private?”

“There!” Brett pointed from the passenger side of Bob’s pickup truck. “I knew I saw something moving.”

Bob drove slowly on, toward the figure trudging down the blacktop. “It’s a kid,” he said. “’Bout fourteen or fifteen years old. Girl, I think. Yeah, it’s a girl.”

They pulled up alongside the teenager, both of them noticing the bites on her arms and the strange wildness in her blackened, feverish eyes.

“Gimmie a lift into town?” she asked, her blurry words pushing past swollen lips.

“Where are your parents?” Bob asked, the window cracked just enough to speak through.

She shrugged. “Dead, I guess. Those things got ’em last night. I ran away.” She coughed up a thick brownish-white substance.

Don’t let her get any closer to you,” Brett muttered. “I can’t get a shot from here.”

Bob looked at his friend, the dread and hopelessness of the situation in his eyes. He returned his gaze to the girl. “You feel all right?” He knew he was stalling, prolonging the inevitable.

“Feel fine. You gonna give me a ride into town?” She moved closer.

She had once been a pretty girl, with a shapely figure, just at the point of blossoming into maturity. But now her face was beginning to swell with infection, and her hands were puffy.

I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Bob said.

She leaped for the cab of the truck, her lips pulled back in a snarl.

Her face was wild with horrible rage as she spit and hissed at the men, covering the window with a runny, jelly-like filth. Bob floored the truck just as she leaped, but the girl managed to grab onto the side of the truck and swing into the bed. There, she hammered at the rear glass and beat her fists on the cab, howling like an animal on the attack.

Bob slammed on the brakes and the girl was flung forward, over the cab. She landed on the hood. She kicked at the front glass. Bob backed up, then went forward, trying to dislodge the girl. Somehow she clung on, her face contorted with madness. Brett rolled down his window, jacked the hammer back on the .45, and shot her twice in the chest. She slid to the blacktop.

Bob put his head on the steering wheel and cursed, loud and long. After a moment, he took his booted foot off the brake pedal and rolled on. He said, “I guess there’ll be more of them.”

“I guess,” Brett said, trying to control his shaking hands, fighting his own feelings of sickness and dread.

And there were many more as the day dragged on. All the volunteers searching the Parish would find but a few who were not sick, dying, or dead.

All the volunteers, though, could not do what Brett and Bob and most of the others found the courage to do. They simply could not bring themselves to shoot men and women who had been their friends and neighbors all their lives, who had sat across from them in church, or at a football game, or who helped in Little League. So a few of the volunteers became as those they had set out to hunt and destroy. And then their friends had to hunt them. So it became a deadly game in Baronne and Lapeer Parishes, the will to live battling years of friendship and love.

 

 

At noon of this deadly day, Bob and Brett came upon a man sitting by the side of the road, a military M-1 in his hands. He was crying.

Bob parked across the road from the man, leaving the motor running and only cracking the window a bit. Both he and Brett thought they had learned all there was to know about survival in Vietnam. But they had learned so much more on this day.

Bob spoke the words that had become the most important in his vocabulary. “Have you been bitten?”

The man shook his head and wiped away streams of tears from his face. “No,” he said, his words heavy with sorrow. “But my whole family was.”

“Where are they?”

Dead.”

“Did you ... ?” He let his sentence die.

“Yes. All of them. My wife—we’d been married twenty-one years. My four kids: Albert, age seventeen; Betty, fifteen; Ruth, twelve; and Ricky, eight. All dead. All dead. By my hand. God forgive me.”

“Don’t you think He will?” Brett asked.

The man shrugged.

“Get in the truck,” Bob said. “We’ll take you into town.”

“Might as well,” the farmer said sourly. Then, as he looked at the men, a strength seemed to come to him. He rose and squared his shoulders. “I did this much to stay alive. I might as well keep on goin’. Although for what, I don’t know.”

“To rebuild,” Bob said. “To start all over. Call it a beginning, not an end.”

The man got in the back of the truck, speaking to them through the sliding glass of the rear window.

“There isn’t going to be any rebuilding, and both you guys know it. I first found them bugs—the big ones—yesterday, I think it was. Maybe the day before. I just don’t remember. Everything’s all kind of run together, you know? Well, I sprayed those bastards with everything I had. Put it on ‘em full strength after I seen the mixture wasn’t going to stop ’em. Nothing stopped ‘em! Nothing! So I stomped on a bunch of the bugs. Know what the other bugs did? They ate ’em. Talk about a will to survive, those things got it. No, don’t talk to me about rebuilding—it ain’t gonna happen. You guys think the government’s gonna just let those bugs keep on producing, multiplying? No way. But fire will stop them. I seen that. So you boys hear my words: the government will burn these Parishes till nothing will live—ever! You just mark my words on that.”

They rode in silence for a time. Brett asked, How about your neighbors?”

“Dead,” the man said shortly. “All dead. I went to a dozen houses up and down my road. Dead. Same in every house. All dead. Eaten. It was awful. Worst thing I ever seen. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

The man put his back to the men in the cab and sat in silence all the way back to Bonne Terre.

It had been a day of almost unspeakable horror for the men who rode the Parish roads, looking for survivors. At times they would see long, seemingly endless masses of mutant roaches, marching toward food. Sometimes the tires of the trucks would crunch over the bugs. Other times the marching bugs would be so thick they would cover the vehicles, ten deep, blotting out the sun as they sought a crack to enter. There were volunteer searchers who never returned. One man broke under the strain and put a bullet through his head. Several were bitten.

“One survivor?” Slick asked, looking at the man in the bed of the truck. “Just one? That’s all you found in your section?”

“That’s it,” Bob said, as he and Brett climbed stiffly from the pickup. “How about the others?”

“Some better. But not by much.”

“What was that smoke we saw just after dawn?” Brett asked.

“Vic burned down the sheriff’s office. Millions of bugs in there.” Slick’s face was dirty from smoke and ash. “We poured gasoline all over the grounds outside the building, then threw bottles filled with gas into the building. Molotov cocktails we used to call them. You should have seen the bugs come out of that building. I got pictures of it—movie pictures, if they ever get developed. Vic waited until the very last minute; he had guys standing around the ground. Then he set the grass on fire.” Slick smiled with grim satisfaction. “We got rid of a bunch of them. When the fire hit them, they popped like firecrackers goin’ off. Filthy bastards! Vic talked to old Doc Whitson about why the bugs seemed to gather in that building. The doc didn’t know. Said he doubted any of us would ever know. Whatever that means, and I don’t really care to dwell on it.” He walked off.

“Let’s go see about the girls,” Bob said.

At Dr. Whitson’s laboratory, located in the rear of his large, rambling, cluttered home on the outskirts of Bonne Terre, they found the women assisting—whenever they could—the old man in running tests.

“Survivors?” Kiri asked. She looked very tired. And still very lovely.

Brett shook his head. “We only found one we could bring back to town.”

She did not inquire as to what Brett and Bob did with the others. Dr. Whitson has ordered us to leave here as soon as you men arrived,” she said, brushing back a lock of hair from her forehead. “He says it’s no longer safe out here. The bugs might come at any time. He says he’s staying—wants to work up until the last minute.”

Bob looked at the old man, bent over a microscope. “You immune to the bites, sir?”

“Hardly, young man.” Dr. Whitson straightened up, easing the strain on his old bones. His back popped and he smiled with relief. “I’m almost eighty years old, son. Had two heart attacks in the past eighteen months. Next one should do it. But don’t worry about me. I won’t be turned into a babbling, howling madman.” He looked at Kiri and smiled his fondness for her. “Excuse me, lady-libber, mad-person. When I see them coming into this building—the bugs, I mean, not women’s libbers—I’ll simply dispose of myself. I’ve been preparing myself for that for some time—months. Like a great many of my colleagues, I don’t subscribe to the popular mumbo-jumbo of life after death. At least not in the manner in which you probably believe.”

“You don’t believe in God?” Sarah asked.

“Not really; young lady—but that does not mean you should not. In my line of work, one deals with fact, not fiction.” He leaned back and sighed. “Nothing,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Can’t find anything that will kill them. No combination of chemicals.” He rattled off a series of chemical names, then smiled. “Forgive me. Probably those names meant absolutely nothing to any of you. Well, I even went back forty years and tried borax powder and sodium flouride. Nothing.”

He slid from his stool and walked to the radio the military had given him. He flipped on the switch. Boswell—Wilkins, answer me.

A crisp feminine voice replied. “That is not the proper procedure used in contacting a position. First, you must . . .”

Dr. Whitson cut her off—abruptly. “Young lady, if I were twenty years younger, and we had the time, I would suggest a position that both of us could assume—together. You sound sweet. Full of yourself, but sweet. But for now, shut your snippy mouth and get off the air. This is Dr. Whitson, and I assure you I am not in the least interested in nor impressed with your military gobbledygook. Just get off your butt and fetch Doctors Boswell and Wilkins for me.”

Silence for a moment. “Yes, sir. I’ll do that, sir.”

“Wonderful.”

“You old goat,” Dr. Boswell chuckled out of the speaker. “Do you have to intimidate everybody who comes in contact with you?”

“I find it gets their attention much quicker. And besides, I happen to derive a great deal of pleasure from it. At my age, I have few pleasures. I hate to tell you this, Bosie, but I struck out finding anything that will kill these damnable mutants.”

“So have we, Jefferson. But we may have something as to why the creatures are in those two Parishes and no where else.” He told Whitson about the FBI agents’ story.

“The government,” Whiston snorted. “I figured that all along, but was hesitant to put my fears in words. Bosie? Please tell me this chemical didn’t come out of Utah. That’s where my one-time associate Billings has his lab.”

“Dr. Billings, Samuel, S. You got it, Jefferson. He’s the one.”

“That fool!” Dr. Whitson spat the words. Where is that idiot?”

“General Bornemann ordered him into the second seat of a jet fighter. Right now, he’s probably flying over the Midwest, dipping south, probably peeing in his flightsuit. He’s afraid of flying.”

“I hope his piss freezes his balls to the seat,” Whitson said.

“Billings says he doesn’t know anything about the bugs. Said as soon as his people discovered the effects on roaches, he shut down the project and ordered the chemical dumped—out to sea. Said he didn’t know what else to do with it.”

“How many people did he lose?”

Boswell’s laugh was bitter. “Three. Bug bite.”

“That man is one contemptible human being.”

“I concur.”

 

 

“General Bornemann!” a reporter said at the first press conference. “The doctors—all twenty of them—have told us about some health problem in Baronne and Lapeer Parishes. Said that’s why it had to be sealed off. Closed. That may or may not be true. But what we would like to know is this: why is the military involved? Why not the State National Guard? Why the entire 82nd Airborne? Special Forces? Rangers? I’ve seen those wild men from the Navy, those River Rats. Why are they patrolling the Mississippi and the Velour? I heard them testing their guns. That’s live ammunition in those weapons!”

“Big bad gun go boom-boom,” a Navy SEAL muttered from the rear of the tent.

“Something else, General,” the reporter said. “The rumor is you’ve ordered the Air Force in to napalm the river banks. Is that true?”

“Yes,” the General said.

“But why?” A woman jumped to her feet. “On the east side of the Velour is a wildlife sanctuary for birds. All that will be destroyed. What are you people trying to do here?”

On carefully rehearsed cue—for if he hadn’t stepped in at precisely that instant, the young Lieutenant would have spent the remainder of his military tour on a penguin count in the Arctic—one of General Bornemann’s aides stepped up and spoke in the General’s ear. Bornemann said, “I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I must go.”

He walked out the rear of the tent and was gone before anyone could stop him. The reporters were taken out the front of the tent. The reporter who had had the silent exchange with the SEAL had another more vocal exchange with the Navy man.

“Uniform lover,” the reporter said as he passed by the SEAL.

The SEAL’s reply was a bit more lengthy, and somewhat cruder. But very much to the point.

In his tent, General Bornemann radioed into Lapeer Parish. “Sheriffs Ransonet and Grant?”

“We’re here,” Vic replied.

“If there is anybody still alive around the banks of the Mississippi and the Velour, pull them back. Centralize your people in the centers of the Parishes. I’ve been ordered to call in napalm, we’ve got to widen the strip and burn out any pockets of mutants that might be there.”

The strain was telling on Sheriff Grant, and telling hard. The man had aged ten years in forty-eight hours. He was shaky, and Vic could see his mental condition was becoming unstable. The Baronne Parish sheriff grabbed the microphone from Vic.

“It’s a trap!” he screamed. “You’re trying to get us all in one spot so you can kill us!”

“Man, don’t be a fool!” General Bornemann said. “Calm yourself. Why in God’s name would we want to do anything like that?”

Vic shoved Sheriff Grant away and took the microphone. “General? It’s all clear in my Parish. But I know damn well my volunteers didn’t find all those infected today. There’s got to be more out there—a lot more. Their bite is terribly infectious, so don’t let anyone out of the Parish area.”

“What have you done with those you and your men have found?”

“Shot them!”

His words were brutal even to Bornemann, who had seen time in three wars.

You’re a hard one, Vic.”

“It’s a hard time, General.”

You’re both insane!” Sheriff Grant screamed. “And I’m not having any part of this wild scheme. I’ll see you both in hell first.”

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.”