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The driver spun into a skidding, shrieking stop that kicked up a cloud of friction smoke. The driver’s door popped open to reveal a woman dressed in the black of a San Diego city police uniform. She was short and solid, with a Mexican face and hair that was falling out of a tight bun.
“Captain Ledger?” she yelled, pitching it almost as a plea.
“I’m Ledger,” I said, walking toward her.
“I’m Torres, SDPD. Get in. Now.”
Top was studying her, but Bunny had a flat hand up to shade his eyes as he stared at the people over by the terminal building. He said, “Oh . . . shit.”
And ran for the SUV.
Top and I turned, and that’s when we saw it. Those people were coming toward us. They were ordinary people. Some in regular clothes, some in various airport uniforms. A few soldiers and TSA agents among them. The one uniting theme about them was the color.
Red.
It was splashed on all of them. Hands and arms. Clothes. Mouths.
Maybe seventy of them.
Top threw his gear bag into the SUV and climbed into the backseat next to Bunny. I saw him draw his sidearm as he did so. I lingered for a moment. I wasn’t rooted to the ground by shock or anything like that. I’m not known for hesitating.
No, my heart was breaking.
These were people. So many people. And they were infected.
Which meant they were dead.
Pruitt had told us. One hundred percent infection rate, one hundred percent mortality rate. The parasites in Volker’s bioweapon killed them, and the parasites woke them up again as aggressive vectors. They were dead.
And they were coming for us.
— 8 —
“Drive,” I growled as I slammed the front passenger door.
Sergeant Torres drove. She drove like hell was chasing us.
It was immediately obvious that the Armada was not a government-issue car. No radio or tactical computer, no lights or sirens. There was a bloody handprint on the left side of the windshield and shell casings on the floor.
She spun the wheel and kicked the pedal down as the first of the infected reached us. As the SUV turned, I saw a panorama of faces. White faces, a lot of shades of brown. Their mouths snapped at the air as if trying to chew their way toward us; their hands reached and fingers slashed in our direction. Their lips curled back from bloody teeth but their eyes—damn, that was the worst part. There was nothing in the eyes. No flicker of hate, no anger, no anything. They weren’t even the black eyes of a shark. The eyes of all of these people were empty. Vacant.
Dead.
If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then these windows looked into vacant rooms of empty homes. No one and nothing lived there.
Behind me I heard Top murmur, “God Almighty.”
Bunny said nothing at all.
Torres crushed the pedal against the floor and the Armada shot past the crowd. I heard the slithery, raspy sound of fingernails on the door and then we were beyond the crowd. We looked as they turned and began to follow. It was not exactly a pack response, but something colder and odder. The parasites within each of them reacted with identical single-mindedness and reflexive efficiency. The prey moved and so each of them moved.
“Welcome to San Diego,” said Torres, trying for a glib joke and failing.
There were other people on the airport grounds. We saw bizarre tableaus as we raced past.
A pair of baggage handlers were beating an infected pilot with vicious swings of heavy suitcases. The pilot’s bones were shattered, with white ends stabbing outward through skin and uniform, but even with all that he kept trying to get back up, kept trying to grab them.
A mechanic knelt on the ground, worrying at a co-worker’s throat like a dog tearing up a squirrel. He did not even glance at us as we passed.
