Cochran followed, easily keeping pace since it moved so slowly, keeping his penlight trained dead on it. Again, the suit was a double-edged sword. On one hand, it protected him. But at the same time, he couldn’t make a phone call. Not only would he have to unzip the suit, he would have to take off his glove, because it would only unlock once he placed his thumbprint on the screen.
He wanted to let the bastards upstairs know that he was one hundred fucking percent certain now, and to make them understand that the fungus was not only here, it was moving up the goddamn food chain.
He felt for the phone under the suit, just to reassure himself it was still there, and looked down for just a second when he touched the shape. He looked back up. The tiny pool of light was empty, just dry leaves and dirt. He waved the beam around and jumped back when he saw the thing. It was crawling closer. And moving faster. “Son of a bitch!” He took another step backward.
Something touched his left foot.
He whipped the penlight down and cried, “Oh fuck!” as another creature tried to crawl up his leg. He dropped the light trying to shake it off and took another step back. The penlight bounced and as it flipped over, he saw two others scuttling out of the row to his right. Three more of them appeared behind the first one. Cochran stumbled forward, reaching down, but in the suit, he kicked the light before he could grab it. It spun, slashing the light through the corn. What he saw made his blood run cold.
They were everywhere. Dozens, maybe hundreds.
Something broke inside his mind, something ancient, and a primitive reflex took over completely. He bolted, a hysterical shriek echoing around the inside of his faceplate, and he crashed through row after row of corn, trailing leaves, corn silk, and cobwebs, as he ran deeper into the night.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 4th
CHAPTER 18
When Sandy turned on her phone that morning, she saw she had almost twenty-four messages. She wasn’t surprised. She checked on Kevin’s door. It was shut. She went downstairs and made coffee before bothering to listen to the messages. The first two were from Sheriff Hoyt, before he had met her in the driveway. He was smart enough not to say anything incriminating, but his voice was full of vaguely threatening promises. The next was Liz, checking to make sure Kevin was okay. Sandy closed her eyes; it hadn’t taken long at all for the news to spread about her son. The next five were from reporters. She erased them all.
The ninth call was from Dr. Castle. “Sandy, this is Mike. I, uh, tried your home phone, didn’t work. I’ve started the external examination on the, uh, suspect.” Dr. Castle was also aware that his voice was being recorded and he didn’t want to say Jerm’s name. “I, uh, I think it would be a good idea if we spoke. Sooner rather than later. Please give me a call at the office. I’ll be here a while, and I’ve left instructions with the front desk to transfer your call to the basement.” Parker’s Mill’s morgue was located in the basement of Dr. Castle’s practice. “Please give me a call as soon as you get this message.”
The next two voice mails were from reporters. Then Dr. Castle again. “Sandy, this is Mike. Listen, you need to call me. This, this is not something I feel comfortable taking to Sheriff Hoyt. Please call me back.”
The next message was from Dr. Castle as well. “Sandy, this is urgent. Call me.”
Every message, Dr. Castle’s voice got more and more strained. “What I’m finding, it’s nothing that I am prepared for. I don’t have the right equipment. This is, I simply don’t know. All I do know is that this facility is woefully inadequate. I… I’ve never encountered anything like this.” He started coughing. “I’m at a loss. We may need to involve the CDC.”
Sandy swallowed. Had her son been exposed to something?
The next message. “I don’t think it’s contagious.” He gave a sad laugh. “Hell, I don’t know. It’s… I called a friend, an expert in mycology, at the Argonne labs. Teaches at the University of Chicago. He wants pictures. I have no idea of the legal ramifications of all this. Please, please call me.”
Next message. “This is… beyond the scope of my experience. I had to stop the necropsy. It’s…” His voice softened, and it was clear that he wasn’t worried about being recorded. He just needed help from a friend. “I hope to see you here tomorrow morning. I’ll be here no later than eight.” That was the last message, left around ten o’clock last night.
Sandy checked the clock. Six a.m. After Kevin cracked and it had all come pouring out—how he had figured out the combination of the Browning gun safe and how he had stolen her key for the trigger guard and all of the preparation he had taken and how it had only worked because Sandy didn’t like to look at the gun and left it buried back in the back of the safe—she had held him until he fell asleep.
She had climbed into her own bed and tried to figure out if she should meet Sheriff Hoyt at the county courthouse in the morning with Kevin or not. If she took him down there, odds were, he’d end up in juvenile detention, a place full of damaged kids who would eat him alive. If she kept him home, the DA would look at it as if she was giving her son preferential treatment, and would push for a maximum sentence.
Either way, she was screwed.
She poured another cup of coffee and went upstairs to look into Kevin’s room. Her son was still sound asleep, mouth open, legs sprawled, arms akimbo. Puffing Bill was curled up in a tight coil between Kevin’s legs. The dog raised his scarred head and regarded her with calm eyes. Sandy whispered, “Lay down. Go back to sleep.” She shut the door softly.
She went downstairs, took a sip of coffee, and eventually realized that the reason she thought it had taken so long to make a decision was because, deep down, she knew that it wasn’t a choice at all. She’d known what she would do from the moment Sheriff Hoyt gave her the order. She opened her closet and looked at her uniform. Might as well go all the way.
She pulled the uniform out of the closet and got dressed. After dialing Elliot’s parents’ number, she let the coffee put some cheer in her voice. “I am so sorry to call you so early, but I’m afraid something has come up. You know this job,” Sandy chuckled, letting that hang, hoping she wouldn’t have to resort to the commitment to community service speech.
While Elliot’s mom dithered about and finally managed a good morning, Sandy cut right in and asked, “Could you, if it’s no trouble, would you mind looking after Kevin today?”
Slight hesitation from Patty. “I, uh, we, uh, well, um, no, no that shouldn’t be a problem. We… we were going to go to the parade.” Her tone made it clear that she fully expected everyone in town to be there. Then she remembered the shooting yesterday. “Oh my gosh, do you think there will still be a parade? I mean, they wouldn’t cancel it, would they?”
Sandy thought about everything she knew about the mayor and Sheriff Hoyt. “I seriously doubt they would cancel it. This town will have a parade.”
“Well, is it okay if we take Kevin?”
“Of course. Have a great time. I’ll take the boys fishing next weekend, give you and Randy a day to yourselves as a thank-you, as one parent to another. I appreciate it.” Sandy decided not to mention Puffing Bill just yet. “I’ll drop Kevin off in a half hour.”
Cochran knew it was all his fault. He would admit that much at least. He should never have panicked. Never should have bolted from the first sign of the fungus, never should have run screaming into the night. He should have headed back to his car, instead of running in the completely opposite direction.