With the helicopter gone, they could hear the faint sound of snowmobiles again. Local boys whipping through the woods, probably.
James opened the door and leaned out. “They got one,” he called. “Triangle host trying to get on the I-75 on-ramp. Cope said to stay sharp. They’re sending the backup units to reinforce the on-ramp in case there’s more, so we’re on our own for a bit.”
“Got it,” Dustin said.
James slid back inside the heated Hummer, and Dustin hated him a little more.
“This is kind of trippy,” Neil said.
“What is?” Dustin said. “Fighting little monsters and shit?”
“Well, sure, but what I mean is, even though we’re fighting little monsters and shit, we’re still pulling checkpoint duty. I mean, I’m staying sharp and all, but this is boring, you know? We’ve seen three cars in the past two hours.”
Dustin shrugged. “What are you gonna do? We have to check everyone. They just got one, didn’t you hear James?”
“Yeah, yeah, I heard,” Neil said. “It’s just… I mean, five days ago we shot the bejesus out of that construct thing, and now here we are checking IDs and swabbing civvies. Five days ago we’re shooting friggin’ electric bullets at monsters, and today our primary weapons are these.”
Neil pulled a zip-tie out of his pocket and waved the long, thin piece of plastic. The plastic restraints let them detain large numbers of people, if necessary, and were much lighter than handcuffs.
“I might beat a hatchling to death with this,” Neil said, whipping the zip-tie like a flacid sword.
“Oh relax,” Dustin said. “Colonel Ogden isn’t telling you not to defend yourself. If we’re in danger, we shoot.”
Neil spun 180 degrees and landed in an overly dramatic, wide-legged stance. He pulled out another zip-tie and waved one in each hand like nunchucks.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I bet I can stop bullets with these bitches.”
Joel was cracking up. The laughter made Neil ham it up some more.
Dustin shook his head. Fucking idiots. These were the morons he got to work with?
The sound of the snowmobiles seemed to draw closer for a bit, then stopped. Climer and Neil looked to the trees but couldn’t spot the sleds.
“Joyride?” Neil asked.
“Maybe,” Dustin said. “Doesn’t sound like they’re trying to slip past the roadblocks. If they were, we wouldn’t have heard them all morning. They would have just gone through in the woods.”
“How the fuck can people be joyriding at a time like this?”
Dustin shrugged. “You can’t reach everyone, I guess. Although that one dude turning all black and shit, that has people falling all over themselves to get this test. Fuck, man, I should charge five bucks a head.”
The sound of another vehicle drew Dustin’s attention. A U. S. Postal Service van drove toward the checkpoint, pristine white near the top, spackled with thick arcs of frozen brown slush down on the bottom, particularly behind the tires.
“Mail must go through,” Dustin said. “You want to run the detector this time?”
“Sure,” Neil said. “Something different. Gimme.”
Dustin handed over the plastic detector.
James Eager got out of the Hummer and moved to the other side of the road, giving him and Joel converging fields of fire toward the front of the postal van.
Dustin stepped into the middle of the road. He held up his left hand in a stop gesture. His right hand rested on the grip of his sidearm. The van gently slowed and stopped.
He walked around the driver’s side. The driver opened the sliding door.
“Good afternoon, sir,” Dustin said. “May I have your name and identification, please?”
“John Burkle,” the man said. He handed over his driver’s license. Dustin took it, moved one step back and examined it, then looked up again. The picture definitely matched the man, but John Burkle had a big bruise on the left side of his jaw, and under his hat some gauze was wrapped around his head, holding a big, puffy bandage on his left ear.
“You look like you’ve had a rough time, sir.”
“Dogs,” Burkle said. “One chased me yesterday; I slipped on some ice and hit a tree. Pathetic, right?”
“That’s unfortunate, sir.”
“Well anyway, I already got swabbed,” Burkle said. “I was the guy that found that body.”
Dustin nodded. “Who swabbed you?”
“The paramedics did. I was so freaked out I went to the hospital and insisted they do it again. I tell you what, you couldn’t pay me enough to do your job.”
“I appreciate that, sir,” Dustin said. “However, if you don’t mind, I have to swab everyone who goes through this checkpoint.”
The postman shrugged. “No problem, it’s painless. You need me to get out?”
“That’s okay, sir, please stay where you are.” He handed John back his license, which the man took. Dustin then offered the foil packet with his left hand. “Please open this, pull out the swab inside, run it inside your cheek and along your gum line, then hand it back to me stick-first.”
John reached for the foil packet. Just as he was about to grab it, his hand shot forward and gripped Dustin’s left wrist. Dustin yanked back reflexively, causing John to stumble out of the van. Dustin reached over with his right hand and grabbed John’s wrist. He was about to wrench it free and twist the arm down to put John on his face when he saw something in the postman’s other hand.
It took only a fraction of a second to realize it was a Taser, another fraction to feel fifty thousand volts hit his left hand and course through his body. He jerked convulsively, brain on hold, body doing its own thing. From the far side of the road, past the van, Dustin heard gunshots, the long reports of a hunting rifle echoing through the woods.
Dustin Climer found himself on the ground. He heard automatic weapons firing, the sharp cracks of an M4, the stuttering bark of the M249. Then the echo of more hunting rifles, this time from behind him, on the other side of the road.
The M249 stopped.
He tried to move, but could not. “We’re under fire, we’re under fire!” He heard Neil scream, then two more rifle shots.
The M4 fire stopped.
“Climer…” Neil’s voice. “Oh fuck, man, help me…”
Dustin shook his head, tried to get to his knees. He heard movement in the van, then feet hitting the road.
A gunshot—no echo this time, it was so close. Something hit the back of his left shoulder. His left arm gave out. He found himself facedown again.
He’d been shot. Holy shit, he’d been shot.
“No!” Neil said. “No, please!”
Another rifle shot. This one only ten feet away.
Neil said no more.
Snowmobile engines, getting closer. Another sound, a vehicle approaching, larger than a car or the mail truck.
Noise, pain, movement—it all overwhelmed his senses.
Dustin was flipped onto his back. Hands covered his eyes, hands held his arms, a whirlwind of confusion and pain. He started to kick, but a fist in his stomach ended the struggle, curling him up into a fetal position. Hands on his face, holding his jaw open, something wet in his mouth, burning in his mouth.
Hands pushing him away.
The bigger vehicle’s noise fading.
His body screaming for air, his shoulder just plain screaming.
A crackling sound, a whooshing sound.
Heat. Real heat, nearly scorching the side of his face.
A mini-eternity without oxygen, then a half-gasp that let in just a little, and finally a deep, ragged breath.