Infected: Lesser Evils

by Andrea Speed

  Roan had to stop to get some gas, so he bought a soda and a packaged pastry with indefinable goo (but Homer Simpson said purple was a fruit, so he was going to have to take that as a given), and he got a glimpse of the newspaper headlines as the cashier was ringing him up. The cashier was big and doughy, and could have been any washed-up high school football player that ever existed, but he kept looking at Roan funny, and finally said, “You look familiar. Do I know you?”

  As he scooped his change off the counter, he said, “Doubt it. I get that a lot.”

  That didn’t satisfy him. “Are you an actor or something? I swear I’ve seen you on TV.”

  Roan shook his head as he left the claustrophobic mini-mart. “Sorry, can’t help you.” Oy gevalt—there were definite downsides to sticking out in a crowd. Maybe he should dye his hair. He always thought he’d look good with purple hair; dark, blue-purple as opposed to red-purple. Maybe next time he should say he was on To Catch A Predator and leave it at that, but that was a smartass strategy that could backfire. Say he was on Cops once?

  He ate half the pastry before washing it down with soda and a couple of codeine, and wondered where they could stay for now. Although bunking with any of the Falcons was a funny idea, they generally lived in apartments, and usually together, as there really wasn’t a lot of money in minor league athletics. If you got a ride to the majors, sure, but until then, not so much. Scott and Grey would probably still let them bunk over in spite of the close quarters, even Tank (he had no idea who he lived with, if anyone), but he really didn’t want that much togetherness.

  He could ask Dylan to stay with one of his pretentious art friends, but Dyl had already made it clear they were a package deal, and he wasn’t going to let Roan dance with danger all by himself. So… where did that leave them?

  A motel was out. They could afford a cheap-shit one for a while, but security wasn’t just nil, but deep into negative numbers. This was where you saw America’s class divide: fancy, expensive hotels usually had security comparable to their costs. A very expensive hotel would be ideal for safety, but there was no way in hell they could afford it. What they could afford would have them killed within five minutes of arrival.

  So who did they know that might have room, and wouldn’t have some kind of objection to a couple of gay dudes sharing a bed under their roof? Until now, he hadn’t realized that most of their friends lived in apartments or condos. What about Dropkick and Kim? Didn’t they have a place near Queen Anne? Of course he didn’t know how big their place was, and a couple of gays and a couple of lesbians sharing a house sounded like a bad sitcom waiting to happen.

  Hey—Kevin. He had an inherited house that he freely admitted was way too big for him, and sometimes when Roan talked to him he would drop hints on how lonely he was. And not only did he live in a sort of hard-to-find area, but he was a cop, and how was that for protective custody? He probably had more than enough room for him and Dylan. Okay, he had a buttload of animals at his place, and animals had a tendency to freak out around Roan, but maybe they could work something out. He put in a call to Kevin to ask him, and got his voice mail, which was fine, as it made it easier to ask. Kevin could just respond with a yes or no, and they could move on from there.

  He parked in a commercial lot down from the church and walked in, mainly because he didn’t want any of these idiots seeing his car and deciding they wanted to vandalize it too.

  There were under two dozen protesters outside the church, carrying signs (he looked for misspellings, and wasn’t surprised to see they all knew how to spell “fuck” perfectly) and shouting, and there were three rent-a-cops standing at the edge of the church’s property, ostensibly to keep the crowd under control, but if the crowd got any bolder these guys wouldn’t have much of a chance. Perhaps the obvious security cameras trained on them were keeping the protesters from getting any stupider.

  Roan was hoping to walk up unnoticed, he even hid as much of his hair as he could under an Archie McPhee baseball hat, but someone recognized him and shouted, “Hey, he’s one of ’em!”

  He glared at the crowd as they turned his way. “Isn’t there a Planned Parenthood you could be annoying?”

  They started shouting something at him, more or less in unison, and it could have been “Page the brats” or possibly “Cage the cats,” which made more sense, but he amused himself by thinking they just wanted to page their children and didn’t know how.

  A couple of the bigger men and a pushy woman tried to block his path on the sidewalk, and while he was aware one of the rent-a-cops was coming his way, he didn’t feel like humoring these people who hated him for a disease. As if they were somehow immune, as if they were safe from a virus, as if good straight white Christian people never came down with it.

  He roared at them, a half shout that morphed into the lion sound, not a full-bore one but only because he wasn’t sufficiently mad enough (the codeine had kicked in too, and that sometimes helped keep his anger from slipping the leash so easily). But it was enough to visibly stun them, make the man with the more impressive beer gut stumble off the sidewalk. He kept walking forward, glaring at them in turn, like he was trying to decide which of them would make the best snack (and was he growling a little? Oh, maybe…) and they moved out of his way. They weren’t chanting anymore either. Wasn’t so easy to be an angry mob of villagers when the monster actually decided to bare his fangs, huh?

  But as soon as he was past, someone from the back of the crowd, emboldened by his distance, shouted, “You’re a monster! You shouldn’t be around people!”

  “Monster” and “Freak” began to randomly generate from the crowd, and Roan flashed them the bird over his shoulder as he walked up the porch to the church’s front door. As it turned out, he didn’t even have to knock, as the door opened almost immediately, and a trim blonde woman who looked like she could have been knocked over by an errant breeze (most likely Bolt’s assistant) gestured him on. “Please come in.”

  He didn’t have to be asked twice.

  Once inside, she escorted him to Bolt’s office, which was Eli’s old office. In fact, it was still Eli’s old office. The make of the computer on the desk had changed (probably because Roan had inherited the incriminating hard drives), but otherwise it was exactly the same, from the heavy, almost baroque curtains to the needlessly self-indulgent widescreen TV. Bolt was standing up behind his desk, reading something. “You know, you should have called ahead. We could have arranged an escort for you.”

  “I don’t need an escort.” The woman had already left, closing the door behind her. Holy shit, was she from a temp agency? She was so efficient he wondered if Eli had invested in androids.

  Bolt held up what he had been reading, and to Roan’s well-concealed horror, he saw it was that damned magazine article; he got to see his own feral face staring out at him from a two-dimensional world before Bolt tossed it back down on his desk. “You know, this is superimpressive. I mean, I knew you probably had to face a lot of hurdles, but until it was all spelled out for me I didn’t really realize it, you know? And being gay on top of it? Wow. When they were handing out attributes, you got all the short straws, didn’t you?”

  The worst part was he said it in a jovial manner, like it was a joke, like he meant it in a good way. Roan glared at him. “I was wondering if you were as much of a dick as I thought you were. Thanks for confirming it.”

  Now Bolt looked genuinely surprised. “What? I—it was a joke. I wasn’t trying to offend you—”

  “Tainted burn is making the infected transform out of sequence and go crazy,” he interrupted. “I know it’s being sold in your church. Not only does it have to stop, you need to point me toward the dealer who’s supplying you.”

  Bolt’s shock was permanently etching itself onto his face. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly, then he paused, teeth clicking as he shut his jaw, and tried again. “We don’t sell drugs here—”

  “I have it on some authority that this is the terr
itory of some minor-league dope slinger who goes by the street name Spaz. Ring any bells?”

  He let out the slightest of laughs as he shook his head. “No. Spaz? Are you shitting me? Who would call himself Spaz?”

  He didn’t smell a lie, or at least not a total one. “Someone here is selling it. Apparently it leaves you painless, or at least has that reputation, so I can see why the infected are flocking to it. But it’s a weapon meant to kill us. It’s being sold here, Bolt, and it’s killing your people. Are you going to help stop it or not?”

  Here was a man never cut out for true leadership. He seemed to be mentally flailing, his eyes betraying his thoughts—Bolt was wondering who was doing this, who was screwing him behind his back. After a moment, he said, “Of course I’ll help. If that’s going on, it has to stop. But I assure you, I don’t kn—”

  And that’s when they both heard the first burst of gunfire.

  13

  Stiff Kittens

  BOLT immediately ducked down under his desk, and for a moment Roan wondered if he’d been shot. But he hadn’t heard the bullet, smelled it, or smelled blood—all he smelled was fear.

  By the time Roan had turned and headed for the door, he heard what sounded like shouting and return fire. “What kind of guns are your security packing?”

  Bolt peered cautiously over his desk, just the top of his head appearing over the edge.” I don’t know. Guns. Aren’t you scared?”

  “No.” He opened the door and looked out into the corridor, and he couldn’t actually see anything, but he could hear voices outside, and from the sound of it, the shooting was over. Good. “How many men do you have?”

  “It depends. Today I think we have six out there.”

  “Probably a good idea. You might want to set up patrols.”

  “Yeah, we’re on that.” Apparently deciding the threat was over, and that he was done feeling foolish, Bolt sat up in his plush desk chair and straightened out his shirt, even though he didn’t need to and it didn’t help. But it was some attempt to reclaim a dignity he’d never really had.

  “If you’re serious about me some day taking over this place, you’ll hand over all the info I need on the guy supervising these dances, mixers, whatever the hell you call the get-togethers where the infected meet the willing. And you’ll do it now.”

  Again he was treated to Bolt’s fish impersonation: mouth opening and closing, eyes stark with the need to argue and the need to give in. After a moment’s mental debate, he turned to his computer and tapped out something on the keyboard. His printer clattered to life and hummed as it printed out something. When it was done, Bolt took the piece of paper out of the tray and held it out over the desk wordlessly. It was an odd white flag of surrender, but he looked broken, handing it over.

  “Thanks,” Roan said, taking the paper and looking at it. “I’ll show myself out.” He left without waiting for acknowledgment.

  The man’s name was Pierce Hockney, which somehow seemed just about right, full of unpleasant syllables. Outside, the protesters had pretty much cleared up, while the Church’s security staff was surrounding a car with the driver’s side window shattered and bullet holes marring its door. There was a man on the ground, hands cuffed behind his back, cursing at the security staff, who were surrounding him with their guns drawn. It sounded like sirens were on their way, but Roan wanted no part of it. He’d witnessed nothing and couldn’t help. Besides, it was just a drive-by that did superficial damage to the Church; the lack of a fresh blood smell seemed to indicate no one was actually hurt.

  Once inside his car, he double-checked the address. The guy lived near University Place, which would take Roan out of his way. There was a phone number, which he tried, but he got shunted to voice mail. He almost hung up, but at the last moment he decided to just brazen it out. “Hey, yeah, I was told you were the guy to come to for some burn? I heard it at the Church….” he deliberately hesitated, trying to sound as uncomfortable and nervous as possible. “I just need somethin’, and pills don’t cut it anymore. So, yeah, I’ll call back.” He hung up, wondering if he was a decent actor. He lied well, and that was pretty much the same thing.

  He wondered idly if burn really did make you painless.

  His phone rang, and he thought it might be Hockney calling him back. “Yeah?”

  “Roan, get your ass to the Templeton College campus now,” Seb exclaimed angrily.

  He was about to tell him to ask nicely when he heard gunfire in the background, and Seb cursed. Suddenly Roan was no longer in a joking mood. “Fucking hell, what’s going on?”

  “Some kids had a party at one of the frat houses, and it musta been full of burn and full of infecteds who either didn’t know it or were trying to score some college tail, ’cause we got at least three, maybe four, cats runnin’ around campus going fucking nuts. I don’t know how many we got dead, we got a lotta injured, we have at least one inside one of the main buildings—fuck!” There was another fusillade of bullets, and he heard a member of the cat squad shouting orders to someone else. After that passed, he said, “It’s taking a lot of bullets to put these fuckers down, and we haven’t gotten the campus fully evacuated. We need your supercat powers now—move it!”

  “I don’t have supercat powers,” he replied, but he said it to silence. Shit. How lovely it was to have everything go wrong at once.

  Roan wasn’t far from the campus and traffic wasn’t bad, but he was still afraid he’d taken too long. He illegally parked, figuring if any cop was anal enough to give him a ticket in the middle of a massacre he was more than welcome to, and ran toward the nearest cluster of armor-clad cat squad members on the perimeter of the front quad. As they turned toward him, he shouted, “Roan McKichan, let me through!”

  They parted, obviously recognizing him, as he shucked off his jacket and let it fall as he ran past, headed toward the main building (and the gunshots). One of them yelled, “You need a gun!”

  “Bullshit!” Roan shouted back, slamming into the glass door so hard he was a little surprised he didn’t shatter it. But the pneumatic hinge on the door made a funny noise opening as he paused and took a deep breath, trying to parse the smells.

  There were too many, and now the abrasive sting of gunpowder was overwhelming the other scents, but he still picked up the faint trail of another cat, and followed it.

  In the back of his mind, Roan was aware this was a nice college, that the building he was in had a vaulted roof and skylights, that it had a pleasantly sunny color scheme and an open floor plan. But he really didn’t pay any direct attention to it at all; his mind had already shifted to battle mode, and the lion was sliding into the driver’s seat, ready to take on any cat that dared to cross its territory. Never mind that it actually wasn’t its territory—it would lay claim to whatever it wanted. He was aware of screams, of gunshots, of shouts and fear, but everything was falling away as his senses narrowed, his reason splintered, and the beast started taking over. The crackle of bones shifting and breaking was a calming fireside crackle in the background, his adrenaline too high to feel anything in the way of pain.

  He smelled blood, rich and intoxicating, and found himself in a wide corridor, its marble tiled floor slick with hot red blood. It was one of the cat squad, his face shield up as he yelped in pain, trying not to scream as a couple of his buddies dragged him across the floor, his right leg useless and spewing blood, a chunk of flesh and muscle and useless body armor torn away. His first response to this scene was hunger, an urge to finish off the wounded animal, but he wasn’t completely lion yet.

  One of the uninjured cat squad looked at Roan and suddenly raised his sidearm, but Seb was there, and he pointed down the hall toward some broad double doors. “It went through there. It’s wounded, but it won’t go down.”

  Yes, he could smell its blood even above the Human blood. Roan was beyond speech, so he simply nodded and ran for the doors. He heard one of the cat squad say, “What the hell was up with his face?”

  He
burst through the wide doors into what he knew by smell was a library: old paper and dust, a smell as comforting as home to him. In fact, it was home to him, he had his own “library,” although could you call a bunch of haphazardly assembled books, many of them paperbacks and even more used, a library? It wasn’t like this place, with its cheerful skylights letting in a honeyed glow, vaulted ceiling, and bookcases about as tall as your average mobile home.

  He let out a deep, pit of the diaphragm roar, a scream that tore up his throat and echoed beautifully off the walls and high ceiling, sending out a challenge to all cats in hearing range. It was the “Mine!” roar, the one that told all cats that this place was his and death would be the penalty for trespass. Best-case scenario, all the cats in the area ran. But here, dealing with drug- and pain-crazed cats, there was only one response possible: they would mob him, attack en masse, attack each other even in their frenzy to kill him. And that was the response Roan was counting on.

  Roan tried to hang on to his humanity, not fully transform, as he knew he might get himself shot if he completely let go (and he might bite some big chunks out of the cat squad as well). He wasn’t sure how to keep even the slightest Human part of himself—and it hurt; it was a dull knife buried deep in his brain, being twisted slowly, and he knew the monster would take its claws out of his gray matter if he just gave in—but he couldn’t, if only because he wouldn’t let it win. He tried to focus on Dylan—pretend he was here, make himself believe he was here.