He looked up. A normal house in a normal street. The only thing a little out of the ordinary was there was some sort of mess on the front lawn — a pile of gray sludge that had a red, rubber dog bone sticking out of it. Oddly, there was a glistening slime trail of flattened grass leading from the front path, as though the mess had somehow slid across the bowling green smooth lawn before coming to a stop.
Murphy and Bennings approached the door, and slowed as they got to the stoop. There was smoke billowing from the door.
“It’s open.” Murphy turned side-on. “We’re only supposed to identify this guy and then call NASA’s Greenbelt labs, right?”
“Yep, Luke Vincenzo, aged thirty-six. Also in residence should be his wife, Jenny, thirty-four, and daughter, Angelina. Not expecting trouble, but…” Bennings also turned side-on and placed one hand on the butt of his gun.
Both men stood either side of the door and peered in. The late afternoon sun was waning and it was dim within the house. The smoke was thick, but didn’t smell like fire. More like compost or body odor.
“Phew, they cooking something in there?” Murphy asked.
“If they are, I’m not eating it.” Bennings rang the bell, and leaned around the frame. “Hello? Maryland PD. Anybody home?”
Murphy reached in and pushed the door. “Jezuz, that stinks. I don’t think that’s something cooking.” He rapped on the doorframe, and raised his voice. “Mister Vincenzo, police.” He waited a few seconds. “Mister Luke Vincenzo, we are entering your premises.” Murphy turned and nodded to his partner, and together they headed in.
Murphy found a light switch and flicked it. The room lit up, and the pair stood in the center of the living room with wrinkled noses. The stench was even more powerful inside — now, like someone had upended the compost pile over an open sewer.
“I can barely breathe,” Murphy said over his shoulder.
“Well, least it doesn’t smell like death,” Bennings added. “Maybe just a broken sewer line.” Bennings headed in a few dozen more feet and then passed the door to another room. He pulled up. “Hey, look.”
Murphy joined him. “What the hell is that shit?”
There was another pile of the greyish mucus-looking matter. This bigger one had what looked like a headless doll sticking from one side.
“Dunno, but it looks freaking disgusting. Maybe that’s where the smell is coming from.” Bennings grimaced and stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “You check out the back, I’ll take a quick look up here.” He took a single step and then heard something shift above them. Both men froze, waiting and staring up at the ceiling.
They stayed watching the ceiling as if their eyes could penetrate the plaster. After another moment, Bennings spoke softly out of the side of his mouth while keeping his eyes on the stairs.
“Hey buddy, why don’t we both have a little look-see up here first, huh?”
“Right with you.” Murphy pulled his revolver, held it in both hands but pointed at the ground.
Together the men headed up the stairs, Bennings taking the lead, Murphy one step behind.
Murphy was on his toes but was glad the steps were new and there were few creaks or complaints from the wood even for someone of his size. He tried to tell himself it was just a suburban house with an average family, but for some reason he wanted to be quieter than he’d ever been in his life. He could feel the hair on his neck rising from fear, and he didn’t know why.
He turned back momentarily to peer over his shoulder. He frowned in confusion. The pile of sludge he had seen in the room they had just passed was now visible in the doorway — was it that close before?
Murphy licked dry lips and swallowed hard in an even dryer throat. Damn it — focus, he demanded of himself. He faced forward to the landing and stepped up. It was hot on the second floor as the heat had risen, and thankfully there weren’t any piles of that creepy shit up here. But unfortunately, the weird spotty smoke was thickest on the upper floor, and now was more like a summer fog. It swirled in and out of the rooms, and stung his nose, throat and eyes.
“Fucking haunted house, man,” Bennings said over his shoulder.
“Happy Halloween,” Murphy retorted and chuckled nervously. He edged toward the first bedroom, Bennings now right on his shoulder. The policemen went in quick.
A woman, arms and legs spread wide, was laid out on the bed, the sheets a glistening red. Even more horrifying was that the cavity of the stomach and chest had been prised open, and the contents of the torso was missing. Murphy could only guess what that meant.
“Oh, my fucking god.” Bennings fell back out the door.
Murphy held his breath and took a couple of shaking steps forward — he didn’t know why, as there was no reason to check for a pulse or even investigate cause of death.
“Mur-Murphy!”
He spun at Bennings’ high and tremulous voice as he felt the man coming up behind him.
But when he turned, he saw it wasn’t Bennings behind him at all, but instead some hulking mottled monstrosity with soulless black eyes that must have been hiding behind the door.
Murphy’s mouth dropped open, and his mind fizzed with indecision and fear. He vaguely heard his partner’s voice.
“No shot, no shot.”
Fuck, I’m in the way. Take it anyway, his mind screamed. Pleeeease.
One large, three-taloned hand came up and then swiped down, scraping deep gouges from his forehead to his groin. He suddenly felt ice cold and something warmly wet plopped at his feet.
He thought he heard his partner scream as he sank to his knees. There was the sound of running feet — away.
Bennings is getting help. He hoped. Nah, running for his life. He knew.
Hammerson paced, his jaw jutting and glaring up at the wall screen as if it was a hated enemy. It showed the Greenbelt, Maryland suburb where the Vincenzo house was located, and the quarantine perimeters that had been erected.
The first was a mile-wide radius around the family house and everything inside that ring was colored red. Then a larger five-mile radius in orange, followed by a final twenty-mile ring, colored brilliant yellow.
Everyone they could find and identify in the red zone had been evacuated and was being held in isolation. Everyone else who refused to identify themselves was regarded as infected, and that went for every man, woman, dog or squirrel still in there. Everything unidentified or hostile was subject to a burn-on-sight order. The plumbing was cut off, and all drains sealed — nothing, not even a goddamn housefly, was getting in or out.
Luckily there was no breeze that evening and the air was heavy. The house and cloud of spore-laden gas was contained and was designated ground zero. Initial confusion as to what to do about the toxic environment was solved by Hammerson in ten seconds — he’d seen what worked in at NASA’s lab-45. He recommended an immediate burn using a volumetric weapon. His order was carried out instantaneously.
From the air, a laser-guided thermobaric device had been deployed. It was at the bottom end of the scale, and usually used on hidden or deeper sites that were only between twenty and fifty feet below ground.
The high-temperature incendiary weapon was ideal against chemical and biological facilities or environments — which was what Hammerson knew they were dealing with now.
Hammerson had watched dispassionately as fifty houses had been vaporized in the 4,000-degree heat it generated. In a thermobaric weapon, the fuel consisted of a monopropellant and energetic particles that detonated similar to TNT while the particles burned in the surrounding air. The result was an intense and irresistible fireball. All that was left was a giant pit of bubbling magma.