Contagious

“What if they didn’t leave right away?” Perry said. “Maybe they’re still in g.a.y.l.o.r.d.”

Dew scratched his chin. “Maybe. Or maybe they were part of that attack on the roadblock.”

“Which had another triangle victim.”

Dew flipped through the paperwork. “Yeah, Ryan Roznowski. He killed three soldiers and wounded Private Dustin Climer. Climer returned fire, killing Roznowski.”

“What the f.u.c.k,” Perry said. “Was this Roznowski, like, a Special Forces Rambo guy, or what?”

“A plumber,” Dew said. “Roznowski is married, but the FBI can’t find his wife. That’s not a cause for alarm in itself, because this whole town just bugged out, but there are signs of a struggle at the Roznowski house, blood on the living-room carpet, so do your college-boy math.”

“Roznowski’s wife is the burned woman in the Jewell house?”

“Probably,” Dew said. “We’ll see if we they identify her, but that all adds up. Roznowski kills or hurts his wife, then brings her over to the Jewells’ house.”

“And the Becketts either go there or are brought there.”

“Nicole Beckett was murdered,” Dew said. “So maybe someone kills her and kidnaps Wallace and his son, but I’m thinking that maybe Wallace killed her, then went to the Jewell house on his own, just like Roznowski.”

“Went on his own,” Perry said. “Or maybe was called. Summoned.”

“Like the triangles put you and Fatty Patty together?”

Perry shrugged. “Maybe. So what do we do now?”

“We get some pictures of the Jewell family, for starters, and put out an APB on them. h.e.l.l, we’ll use the media again, say the Jewells are carrying the flesh-eating bacteria.”

Perry nodded. “Okay, that will work, but what about their cars?”

“All the cars registered to the Jewells burned up in their garage.”

“So they took someone else’s car?”

Dew nodded. “Probably. They had three snowmobiles registered, two of those are gone. If they stashed them in the woods somewhere, we won’t find them for weeks. So maybe they did take someone else’s car, but this whole town just evacuated—we have no way of knowing what cars should be here and what cars were taken by the evacuees. We can search neighboring houses for signs of a struggle, though, maybe get lucky and find a body. But if we don’t find one, there’s no way to connect them to a specific vehicle.

“Bottom line? The Jewells got out. All we can do now is circulate their pictures and hope they f.u.c.k up.”

THE TOWER OF POWER

Performance far beyond projections.

The Orbital measured the growing abilities of Chelsea Jewell. Not only was her communication ability developing faster than expected, it showed signs of immense power—eventually more powerful than even that of the Orbital.

Reasons for this remained unclear. The crawlers in her skull continued to divide and grow, adding length to the dense mesh that melded with her brain. The denser the mesh, the more processing power, and yet there was something more. Triangles could interface with a human brain, use it for their purposes, but Chelsea was human to begin with. No need for informational conversion or translation. Her thoughts were a native tongue. All she needed was a connection, which the crawlers provided.

How strong might she become? The Orbital did not know. What mattered was that her development was ahead of schedule. She would handle most of the communication, the organization, allowing the Orbital to focus on blocking the sonofab.i.t.c.h.

STRANGE THINGS ARE AFOOT . . .

Mio, Michigan, is a tiny town about thirty-five miles southeast of g.a.y.l.o.r.d. Mr. Jenkins’s Winnebago stopped at a gas station in Mio to fill up and to pick up a pa.s.senger by the name of Artie LaFrinere.

Artie had heard Chelsea’s call, but since he was outside the checkpoints, he drove to Mio, ditched the car, then walked to the gas station and waited. To be precise, he waited near the gas station, because Artie LaFrinere didn’t look so hot.

Four days ago Artie had gone tobogganing with his friends. He lost control of the toboggan, slid into the woods and plowed into a drift. Artie’s friends laughed at him as he wiped snow out from under his jacket and the crack of his a.s.s. Unfortunately for Artie, that snowdrift had been a landing pad for a big gust full of seeds, which—of course—wound up all over his belly, his back and yes, the crack of his a.s.s. Artie didn’t know it, but he was now a world record holder with his thirteen triangles. He coughed up blood every fifteen minutes or so. He didn’t talk much. Everyone understood. They welcomed him into the Winnebago and made him as comfortable as possible.

Artie was actually the second pa.s.senger: they’d picked up Harlan Gaines on Country Road 491 just outside of Lewiston. He and his four triangles were getting along just fine. With Mr. LaFrinere’s thirteen, plus Mr. Gaines’s four, Daddy’s five and Old Sam Collins’s three, Chelsea had twenty-nine dollies in the Winnebago.

Only four to go! Math was one of her favorite cla.s.ses.

Chelsea sensed one more dolly daddy out there, a man named Danny Korves, trying to make his way to meet up with the Winnebago. She also sensed something even more exciting—free-moving dollies that had already hatched weeks ago, sneaking across the countryside, trying to reach her. She told them where to go, but since they could only travel at night and they had far to run, she doubted if they could make it in time. Everything would come down to Mr. Korves. Chelsea pushed out to him and told him that he had to reach her no matter what the cost.

She just might have enough dollies to build that gate, and that made her happy. Another thing that made her happy was that Mr. Jenkins had bought all the Nestlé Crunch Eskimo Pies the Circle-K gas station had in its little freezer. The Winnebago was still in the parking lot. Everyone sat in the back, enjoying that yummy ice cream on a stick.