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Lonnie Silk heard the first bullets burn through the air around him and then vanish into the storm. Then he felt his body—what had once been his body—shudder and tremble as something hit him in the chest, the stomach. The thigh.
There was pain, but only of a kind. So far away, so small, so …
Meaningless.
His mouth opened and the moan was louder now, rising above the howl of the storm.
Rodriguez and the white kid kept firing.
No! cried Lonnie in a voice that had absolutely no volume. His cries were unwanted in that stolen throat. No one heard them at all. Not the soldiers, not the infection, not the storm.
But it was all Lonnie had. He had no control over his body as it lumbered through the mud and into the hail of bullets. The two soldiers were fucking idiots. They fired wildly, forgetting all of their training, all of the captain’s warnings. They tried to bully him down with round after round to his body. Wasting ammunition. Wasting seconds as Lonnie closed from fifteen feet to ten to five to …
Suddenly Lonnie’s left eye went dark and as an aftereffect he felt the thudding impact of the bullet that hit him.
He thought that would be it. A headshot. That’s what the captain told them all. Hit the infected in the head and they go down.
Aim for the head.
Don’t you get it, you stupid fucks, he tried to scream. I’m one of them. I’m infected! I’m …
Aim for the fucking head.
Please … oh, God, please, aim for the head. The head. Shoot the head. Shoot me in my head.
Except that one of these assholes had aimed for his head. Had hit his head. Had blown out one of his goddamn eyes.
And yet Lonnie watched his hands grab at the white kid. Saw the kid’s face come suddenly very close as the hands pulled and his own broken, bleeding head lunged forward.
Felt the tough, rubbery resistance of skin beneath his …
His teeth.
Jesus Christ.
Skin between his teeth.
Lonnie felt the skin compress. Become taut.
Collapse.
Tear.
Rupture.
And then the blood.
The liquid heat of blood against his lips, on his cheeks.
In his mouth.
Please, God, just fucking kill me!
And then he felt another impact. This time over his right eye. He felt it for all of one moment, and then a vast, featureless black mouth opened in the world and Lonnie Silk fell into it. As he vanished into the darkness, he thought he heard Tito Rodriguez calling his name. But soon it wasn’t his name anymore. And the darkness was everything.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
ZABRISKE POINT BIOLOGICAL EVALUATION AND PRODUCTION STATION
