by Paul Mceuen
Maggie watched her rhythm. Get ready. Get ready. Get ready.
Orchid stopped before her, syringe in hand.
Then Orchid hesitated, looking down to the floor.
Oh, shit. She had seen blood dripping off Maggie’s wrist.
Orchid looked up, into Maggie’s eyes. Maggie shifted her grip on the tweezers, holding them in her fist like an ice pick.
She went for it. With a great sweep of her arm, Maggie jammed the sharp end of the tweezers into Orchid’s face.
Orchid screamed, twisted her head and body to the right. That sealed Maggie’s fate. Maggie released the tweezers and reached for Orchid’s handgun. But when Orchid twisted to the right, her body blocked access to the gun. Either by chance or instinct, Orchid had cut off Maggie’s only hope.
Chance or instinct, it didn’t matter. Orchid stepped back, the tweezers impaled in her cheek, leaving Maggie grasping at air with her one free hand.
“I’ll kill you!” Orchid bellowed, blood streaming from the wound. She pulled out the tweezers and threw them across the room.
Orchid stepped back, wide-eyed and panting. She picked up a strand of rope and rushed Maggie, grabbed her free arm and tied it down. Maggie fought, but Orchid was much stronger.
Once Maggie was secured, Orchid picked up the glass sphere. Maggie was shocked to see that it was filled with Crawlers. Orchid tossed a spool of thin wire over a bar in the ceiling and rigged the ball so that it dangled over Maggie, inches from her face.
Orchid moved her gloved hand, and the Crawlers came to life. They were manic, running like a nest of crazed spiders. The noise was a high-pitched cacophony, thousands of razor-sharp legs scratching wildly at the glass.
Orchid roughly grabbed a hammer from a nearby bench and held it high, her eyes wide, her teeth bared. Her entire body shook with anger. “Your son is infected with the Uzumaki. Did you know that? He must be half dead by now. He’ll be dead by the time I deliver the cure to the Chinese and Japanese. Your protector, Jake? I’m going to shoot him in the face.”
Maggie fought against her restraints. Orchid loomed over her, snarling like a crazed animal. “Get ready for the moment. Your protector is dead. Your son is mad. The Uzumaki is spreading everywhere.” She clacked the hammer against the glass sphere. “I break this open and they fall on you, cut through your eyes, crawl inside your goddamn skull, and feast on your brain. And I will enjoy watching you die. I will revel in it.”
50
“WHERE IS MAGGIE?” JAKE DEMANDED, HIS HANDS ON KITANO’S throat. “Tell me, you son of a bitch—where is Maggie?”
“Kill me, but it will cost you Maggie Connor’s life,” Kitano said. He pointed to the phone. “Pick it up.”
“Tell me now.”
“I do not envy you,” Kitano said, a sudden clarity in his eyes, as if the demons had bizarrely departed. “You are a Tokkō, but your sacrifice is hollow, nothing. It is your fate. Pick up the phone.”
Jake pushed Kitano away and grabbed the iPhone.
The screen flickered, sprang to life. The image was like a kick in the chest. A close-up of Maggie, her eyes darting, panicked, her mouth taped closed. Above her head hung the glass sphere filled with Crawlers. They were swarming inside, thousands of them.
Orchid’s voice came from the phone. “You’re the expert, Jake. How long will she last?”
“You hurt her and—”
Orchid cut him off. “Get Kitano here in fifteen minutes. Follow the UAV. Or in fifteen minutes she’s dead.”
THE TRAIL STEEPENED, AND JAKE HAD TO HALF DRAG, HALF carry Kitano. The UAV shadowed them, turning in circles a few hundred feet overhead. They were on a large island, ascending from the water’s edge up a thin, rocky trail. The rowboat was far below. Kitano’s delirium had returned, worsened. He was now shivering, raving in both English and Japanese, half frozen from the cold.
“I have been dead for sixty years,” he said, as Jake dragged him on. “My mother gave me the cloth, the death service. Since then I have been bones. I have been nothing. Wandering the earth for sixty-four years, desiring filth, eating filth, consuming filth. I have been a hungry ghost.”
“Shut up,” Jake said. Kitano refused to tell Jake anything more about Maggie or the release of the Uzumaki. His words occasionally made sense but more often were incoherent, rambling diatribes about the war.
Jake was increasingly certain Kitano had been infected. He had all the symptoms, the sweats, the smell, the manic delusions. But if he and Orchid were in league, then why would he be infected? Could Orchid have double-crossed him?
However it had happened, if Kitano was infected, there was a good chance Jake was as well. He didn’t feel anything yet, but he’d been around Kitano for only a few hours.
The trail opened up on the left, the trees thinning and then gone altogether. Jake found himself on the crest of a long, U-shaped band of cliffs. A suspension bridge hung above river water rushing toward a dramatic waterfall, the water breaking into mist and spray as it dropped. The old slats creaked as they crossed the bridge. Hundreds of feet below was a marsh protected by steep walls on three sides and connected to the Saint Lawrence on the fourth. Geese were everywhere. A few hundred suddenly took to the air, a wall of flapping wings rising up, circling not a hundred feet from them, squawking and twisting as they rose. Kitano seemed hypnotized by the sight.
A wave of dread swept over Jake as he followed Kitano’s gaze to the thousands of tiny shapes. Thousands and thousands of geese, more than Jake had ever seen. He felt as if the ground were about to give way beneath him. Kitano and Orchid had not randomly chosen this spot.
Faster, Jake. Go faster.
“No more filth,” Kitano mumbled. “I am ready to die. To fulfill my destiny.” He began to shake. Jake didn’t know how much longer the old man would last.
Jake glimpsed a patch of red through a break in the trees. The door of a cabin.
Dragging Kitano with him, he sprinted for the building, heart in his throat.
The UAV was circling like a vulture.
He reached the cabin door and pulled it open. No lock. Just a simple latch.
The cabin was nearly empty, the corners full of dust and cobwebs. In the center of the room was a carefully folded garment, brilliant white. On top was a short Japanese sword with a carved wooden handle and a shorter polished steel blade.
Seeing the sword, Kitano pushed past Jake, but Jake shoved him back. Kitano fell to the floor in a heap.
Jake picked up the sword. It had a wooden handle with a black Japanese symbol stamped on it. What the hell was this doing out here?
Kitano’s eyes were fixed on the sword. “Give it to me.”
“Where’s Orchid? Where’s Maggie?”
“Give me the sword.”
Weapon in hand, Jake stepped back outside, scanning every direction. At the clearing’s edge was what looked like the entrance to an underground storm shelter. Jake spotted footsteps in the snow near the entrance.
“Give me the sword!” Kitano said from behind him.
Jake grabbed him and pushed him along the snowy path to the storm shelter entrance. He paused and grabbed the tiny thread implanted next to his left eye. Pulling the tripwire sent an electric shock through him, as though he’d grabbed a live wire. He momentarily saw spots but steadied himself.
He guessed he had ten minutes, fifteen at the outside, before the bombs started falling.
51
JAKE HELD THE SWORD AT KITANO’S BACK, SCANNING FOR Orchid as they made their way down the series of steps that ran at a steep angle underground.
A plaintive moan drifted up. His heart nearly stopped.
Maggie.
He saw her now, strapped down to a table, mouth taped closed. The glass sphere was suspended above her, inches from her face. Inside it, the Crawlers were a roiling silvery-black mass, filling the room with a noise like locusts in a field. The rest of the room was cloaked in shadows. There was no sign of Orchid.
Lifting her head an
d spotting Jake, Maggie tried to scream, then started kicking and twisting frantically.
IN THE DARK BEHIND THE STAIRS, ORCHID COOLLY WATCHED through a broken riser as they slowly descended the steps. Jake pushed Kitano ahead, using him as a shield. It would do him no good. Orchid was behind them.
She waited until Jake reached the bottom of the stairs, the back of his head perfectly framed in her small rectangular view, before she stepped out from behind the stairs and took aim. She preferred shooting her victims in the face, to observe their expression at the moment of death.
“Jake Sterling,” she said.
THE INSTANT HE HEARD HER VOICE, HE DUCKED. AS HE PIVOTED, a bullet grazed his forehead.
He dove behind a small wood-and-Formica table a fraction of a second ahead of the second bullet. The sword clanged to the floor. She shot four more times, the table splintering.
From the floor, Kitano scrambled to his feet, retrieved the sword, and fled up the stairs.
Using the table as a shield, Jake rushed Orchid. She fired, pulling off two rounds at close range, the bullets fragmenting the wood and Formica as he continued toward her. The second shot caught him in the shoulder, but the table had taken most of its power. Jake crashed into her head-on, slamming her backward. Her gun fell and clattered across the floor. Jake dove for it, won the race.
He turned, rolling, aiming and firing at Orchid, who had pulled a snub-nose from an ankle holster. Her right upper arm erupted in a spray of blood. Incredibly, she held her position, firing three shots and sending Jake diving behind a cabinet. The last echoes of the shots settled, leaving only the noise of the Crawlers.
To his right, Maggie struggled against her bindings. The glass ball dangled above.
IGNORING THE PAIN IN HER SHOULDER, ORCHID WAITED FOR a clean shot. She knew she was the superior fighter, but Sterling had the better weapon and more rounds remaining. She had to change the rules.
The noise of the Crawlers’ legs on glass was the only sound in the room. Seeing Maggie straining at her bonds, Orchid glanced back to Jake’s position.
Let’s give you something else to worry about.
She aimed her pistol at the glass and fired. Its glass shell cracked.
JAKE REALIZED HE HAD ONE CHANCE NOW TO SAVE HIM AND Maggie both. To pin Orchid down, he fired once more, then ran toward Maggie. Diving over her, he was in the air, propelled by rage and fear and sheer determination, grabbing the sphere of Crawlers, praying it didn’t break. If it did, the Crawlers would rip him to shreds.
His momentum snapped the wire, and he and the sphere flew through the air, headed for the ground. Twisting so his back hit the floor first, he held the orb above him like a baby, the gun still in his hand.
Fighting to keep his breath, he didn’t hesitate. With an arching hook shot, he launched the sphere at Orchid and then he fired.
The ball exploded.
Jake heard a cry of surprise, then, a second later, a scream.
Frantically trying to rid herself of thousands of razor-sharp Crawlers, Orchid bolted to her feet, screaming and writhing, firing wildly in Jake’s direction until the trigger clicked, the chamber empty. She threw down the gun, grabbing at her face.
She was covered in blood from a thousand razor-blade cuts. She staggered and fell against the wall, sliding to the floor as the Crawlers sliced unceasingly. Her eyes were shredded, blood flowing down her face. Her screams diminished, her motions reduced to jerky spasms, then nothing.
Jake was at Maggie’s side, gently pulling the tape from her mouth. Her first words were “Is Dylan infected?”
Jake nodded. “I’m so sorry. But we’ve got to get out of here. In a few minutes, this place will be blown to hell.”
“Jake—there’s a cure.”
52
OUTSIDE, JAKE SAW NO SIGN OF KITANO.
Maggie was in front of the cabin, trying to establish a connection to the outside world using Orchid’s computer. “It’s password-protected. I can’t get through.” She was scared and beat up, her right hand bruised and bloody, but she was also completely determined to save her son. They had gone through Orchid’s backpack: no cellphone, but it was loaded with dozens of vials filled with the glowing fungus that was the Uzumaki cure. Jake still couldn’t believe it—a cure. But any doubt was dispelled by the yellow sheet of paper they found in Orchid’s backpack. It was the decoded message Liam had left them, the one Orchid had killed Vlad to get.
He let himself believe they were going to make it. Maggie was alive. Dylan would be cured. Kitano and Orchid had planned to deliver the cure to the Japanese and Chinese after the outbreak had taken hold in America. But now he and Maggie had the cure.
They ran, Jake carrying Orchid’s pack, Maggie ahead of him. In just a few more minutes, they’d be over the suspension bridge, down the hill, and beyond the blast zone.
KITANO TIGHTENED HIS GRIP ON HIS SEPPUKU SWORD.
It took every ounce of will to hold on to his thoughts, to keep the madness from interfering with his mission. The soldiers had been with him since the morning, floating above him. They had watched silently at first. Thousands of ghosts, the spirits of the young Japanese Tokkō who had given their lives to stop the Americans. Now they surrounded him, singing old songs, more real than the bridge on which he stood. More real than the steel weapon in his hand.
Kitano unsheathed the short sword, its silver blade blinding in the sun. He wrapped the sword’s upper part in cloth, then held the sword by the blade, keeping an eye on the woods. Kitano took three sharp breaths. The mind had to be clear, the body ready. Kitano would have no kaishaku to help. No assistant to decapitate him when the pain became too great.
JAKE AND MAGGIE EMERGED FROM A COPSE OF TREES INTO an open area. Twenty yards away was the suspension bridge.
Kitano stood in the middle of the bridge in white ceremonial robes, sword in hand. Spotting them, he carefully set the sword down and pulled a gun from a fold in his robes. Taking aim and firing, he drove them back into the woods.
“Is there another way down?” Maggie asked.
“I don’t know. There’s a fork in the trail about fifty yards back.”
Jake’s eyes met Maggie’s—both understood what Kitano was doing. “Christ, Jake. The geese. This is a major migration flyway.”
Jake thrust the backpack at her. “I’ll stop him. You get as far away as possible. Don’t wait for anything.”
“Jake—”
“Give Dylan a hug for me,” he said, taking a last look at her before turning back to face Kitano.
Behind him in the sky, Jake saw the approaching planes. They were minutes away. He had to keep Kitano occupied for those crucial minutes. Otherwise, the old Tokkō would at last execute his mission, sixty-four years after his first attempt. The sociopathic monster was going to kill himself and set off the worst pandemic in history. Infect the geese with the deadly spores and blanket the Northeast with Uzumaki in twenty-four hours, the entire country within a week. In a month, it would cover the globe.
“It’s over,” Jake called, stepping into the clear, palms open before him. “Orchid is dead. She’s not going to deliver the cure to Japan. You set the Uzumaki loose, the cure won’t get anywhere near Japan, but the Uzumaki will.”
Kitano took aim at Jake. “This is my destiny.”
As Jake sprinted toward Kitano, the impact of the first bullet spun him around. The pain in his shoulder joint was ferocious, but he didn’t halt his charge.
Kitano’s next bullet missed, but the one that followed took Jake’s leg out from under him. He staggered to the edge of the bridge. Another shot, this one in his side.
He went down.
THE SOUND OF THE FIRST GUNSHOT BROUGHT MAGGIE TO A temporary stop.
More gunfire.
Maggie started running again, barely able to see through the tears. Tripping on a branch, she fell, scraping her arms and face and dropping the backpack. She stared for just a second at the streaks of her blood on the snow before retrieving the pack. S
he had to get the cure off the island. To save Dylan.
She heard another shot.
The cure—Dylan would die without it. And maybe thousands, millions more.
She pushed on, but the trail suddenly ended at a sharp dropoff. Her heart sank. No way down. She was trapped. She couldn’t go down.
She looked to the sky. The planes were so close. She wouldn’t get far enough away. She was dead, she knew it, but could she still get the cure off the island?
Though comes the darkness, though the cold winds blow,
This will banish the worst, set the whole world aglow.
Recalling Liam’s poetic message, hands shaking, she opened the backpack and stared at the vials of glowing fungus. She dug out the yellow page that Liam had left for them, desperately scrutinizing her grandfather’s words. “Liam. Oh my God, Liam.”
JAKE FELT THE LIFE DRAINING FROM HIM.
His thoughts were disjointed, flashes of scenes. Jake was at the bedside of his mother on the day before she died, her lips on his cheek. He was in the trenches of the Iraq desert, watching bulldozers push mounds of dirt. He felt the rumble of the machine as it chugged through the earth, tearing it up, coming to bury him. He imagined hearing Maggie’s voice, saw her running toward Dylan with Liam’s cure, but then she was obscured by a wall of black.
Struggling to rise, Jake saw that Kitano was half off the bridge, his torso dangling over the water, a knife protruding at a right angle. The old man had eviscerated himself. A shock of bright red spread across his belly and the white silk robe.
Jake got to his feet and crossed the bridge. He reached for the blood-slick Kitano, but it was too late: the old man slid over the edge, splashing into the river. In an instant he was over the falls. Kitano had won.
Jake collapsed in pain. A white streak shot across the sky. With each labored breath, he felt his connection to the world slipping away. Closing his eyes, the pain flared, then dulled. His senses muted. The roar of the river receded to a background murmur.
