The Uninvited (27 page)

Vic let him wind down, then said, “It had to be done, Mike. You'll see that. Soon, I hope. Can't we work together on this?”

“Do I have a choice?” The Baronne Parish sheriff's words were bitter and accusing.

“At first light,” Vic said,
I'm sending people out into the Parish to assess the situation. I would suggest you do the same. Mike? I don't believe you're going to find many people alive out in the Parish. Dr. Whitson believes the creatures exhausted their food supply in the rural areas, then moved into town. Any person who has been bitten, and is coughing up a white, ropy substance, is infected. The doctors say there is no cure, not yet.”

“What are you gonna do, Vic—shoot them?” His words were hard. “The very people who elected you to protect them. That's a laugh, isn't it?”

“Yes, Mike.” Vic's words were just above a whisper. “If I have to do that to protect those unbitten, and if I can bring myself to do it, yes, I will shoot those infected.”

God! You are a cold blooded son of a bitch, aren't you?”

“How do you want me to answer that?” Vic asked.

“There isn't any words to fit you.”

The Baronne Parish sheriff clicked off. Vic felt he would not acknowledge any further transmissions at this time. At least not until Mike witnessed the horror that spawned madness in his Parish.

Vic turned to Chief Lewis. “Seal off everything except these two rooms,” he ordered. “We have to maintain communications and this is where we'll do it. And I mean seal it. Bring in two good men to man this equipment. This is a new, concrete block building. Those windows are tight. This place should hold. You've got half a dozen big fire extinguishers. That stops them—for a while. I'm having canned food and water sent in here for the men.”

“Two men have volunteered to keep the communications open,” Chief Lewis said.

“Do they realize the odds against their surviving this?” Vic asked.

“Yes,” the Chief replied. “They know.”

Vic nodded. There wasn't much left to say on that subject.
Call—no! Go see, personally, the Superintendent of Schools. Tell him we're taking his buses to transport people from their homes. I've got volunteers working now, clearing the churches and the gyms. We've got two big warehouses just outside of town. I'm putting your assistant in charge of seeing to it those warehouses get cleaned out and to have the fire department hose them out. There will be a doctor at each holding point. We'll fill the places in this order. First the old and the sick, then the kids, then the women. Slick has a list of the men I want to report to me. If they report here, tell them to bring canteens of water and food. Gas up their cars and trucks. And come armed.”

I saw the list, Vic,” Chief Lewis said. “There aren't a hundred names on that list.”

“That's just about how many men I know of in this Parish who won't panic under a bad situation.” He turned to one of Chief Lewis's senior men. “I want you to get all the fire extinguishers in this Parish and divide them equally among the holding areas. Make sure the guards know how to use them. You.” He looked at another patrolman. “You get some men and fill containers with gasoline and kerosene and stock the holding areas with fuel. Lots of it. Those bugs can't come through a wall of fire. I've got men building a series of retaining walls around the buildings. We'll set them afire outside-inward, as we need them. Move!”

“Sheriff!” a city patrolman yelled. “Mr. Winston is comin' this way, staggerin' down the middle of the street. He looks like he's got rabies. Foamin' at the mouth. He's snarlin' and howlin' something awful.”

“Shoot him,” Vic said tersely.

Sir?” the young cop questioned. “I beg your pardon?”

“Take your goddamned pistol and kill him!” Vic yelled at the cop.

The patrolman shook his head. “No, sir, Sheriff Ransonet. I can't do that. Mr. Winston is my Sunday School teacher. Isn't there some other way?”

Vic brushed past Slick and Chief Lewis and stepped to the door of the block building on the edge of town. Winston was less than thirty feet away. He was a walking apparition of all that is horrible. His hands and face were swollen, a thick foul-smelling secretion poured from his mouth, and he was howling out his madness.

Vic pulled his pistol from leather, took a careful, two-handed aiming position, and shot the man in the head. Winston's feet flew out from under him and he slammed to the street. He twitched once, then was still.

All eyes save Slick's looked at the sheriff with horror and disbelief. One patrolman removed his badge from his uniform shirt, laid it on a table, and walked out the door, not speaking a word. Another man went to the rear of the building and was sick.

“We don't have time to be polite,” Vic said. “If you want to save your asses, and those of the innocent women and kids in this Parish, that”—he cut his eyes to the bloody form in the street—
is what has to be done.”

“But wasn't he innocent?” Chief Lewis asked.

“No,” Vic replied. “Not in that shape, he wasn't.”

One of Vic's deputies sat down in a chair, put his face in his hands, and began crying.

No sin to cry,” Slick said, then walked out into the night.

All through the night heavy helicopters roared overhead, slap-kawhopping the night with their big blades. They brought in equipment, setting down in the Parishes to the south, north, and west of Lapeer and Baronne. Special Forces troops from Fort Bragg were the first to arrive, taking over from the National Guard and deputies.

Then the press began arriving in droves, only to find a total news blackout had been imposed. They knew only that there was some kind of health problem. No one was allowed in, no one was allowed out. And that was all they were told.

As the volunteers went from house to house in Bonne Terre, rousting people from their beds, herding them into the buses, taking them to schools, warehouses, and churches, many of the men discovered the horror Vic and his people had known and lived with for hours. In many of the homes they found what was left of people after the mutant roaches had come to visit.

It was the beginning of a grisly weekend of terror for those who would live through the nightmare that was taking place in Lapeer and Baronne Parishes.

At the clinic, Tanya dropped a shock into her husband's lap.
I'm going to help Dr. Whitson out at his lab, Bob,” she informed him.

“I'll be damned if you will!”

Tanya looked up at him through icy blue eyes.

“Well,” Bob said, uncomfortable under his wife's steady gaze, “I mean—ah—if you want to, sure, of course. After all, you did take some courses in animal something or another, didn't you?”

“Something like that, Bob,” she said dryly. “While you were overseas and I was at LSU, I worked in a pet shop.”

“Oh.”

“Sarah can come with us. She'll be as safe there as in one of those gyms or whatever. Besides, I want her with me. Kiri's coming too, Brett.”

“I heard a shot a few moments ago, Brett,” Dr. Long said. “Do you know what that one was about?”

“According to the CB radio, the sheriff shot Mr. Winston. He'd gone mad.”

“It's beginning,” Dr. Whitson muttered, too low for anyone else to hear. “It's only the beginning.”

The prisoner in the room at the rear of the clinic howled and screamed, fighting his straps. He sprayed the room with a foul-smelling secretion.

“Dr. Whitson?” Bob said. “All these choppers flying over—they have to be coming out of Polk. Your phone call to Washington must have shook some people up.”

“I suspect it did. But the phones went out before I could finish. Sheriff Ransonet patched me through to another radio and I had to finish the conversation in that manner. No matter. I said what I had to say.”

“We're being sealed in?”

“Yes. I would certainly hope so, son.”

“You're very cold-blooded about this, aren't you, sir?”

The old man nodded his gray-maned head.
Most scientists are, son. Doesn't pay to get too emotional. You'll learn that the hard way before this is over, I'm afraid.”

Brett touched Bob's arm. “We'd better get to work.”

It was only then that the people in the room noticed the sidearms belted around the waist of the school teacher and the ball player turned farmer.

“Both of you, I seem to recall reading or hearing,” Dr. Whitson said, “were heroes in that exercise in futility in Southeast Asia, were you not?”

“We were there,” Bob replied.

The doctor nodded. “That's good. Before this is over, you'll both need all the courage you can muster.” He returned to his microscope.

“I haven't seen that pistol in years, Bob,” Tanya said. “I didn't know you still had it.”

“I didn't know you even owned a gun,” Kiri said. “And I didn't know you were a hero, either, Brett. You must tell me about it sometime.”

Brett shrugged his shoulders noncommittally.

“Those pistols look alike, Daddy,” Sarah observed.

“They are, honey.”

They were .45 automatics.

Kiri's eyes touched Brett's. “I'll see you later,” she said, trying to smile.

“Yes,” was all he would say.

 

 

“I want each house checked,” Sheriff Ransonet told the group of volunteers. “But I don't want any heroics. You will pull in the driveway and blow your horn. Blow it as long as you think necessary. If there is someone home, tell them to pack up and get into town. Tell them why. We are set up to isolate anyone with suspicious-looking bites.

“Out of all the men in this Parish, I've chosen you men because I believe you're level-headed people, and you won't panic. I've got some hard words to speak this morning. Listen to me, act on what I say, and you'll make it. Get soft for one second, and you'll die.”

The men stirred at the words. They stood bunched together as the sun broke through the eastern barriers on the horizon, casting the first shadows of this new day.

“I can't harp on this enough, men. We are in a life and death situation here, just as the folks up in Baronne are, too. So
don't
let
anyone
who is acting suspicious get close enough to you to scratch or bite you. You've all seen the prisoner in the clinic. You've all seen the Polaroid pictures of Winston. All the doctors working here have finally agreed: there is no cure. Any infected person—man, woman, or child—will have to be disposed of. I know that's awful. I know it better than any of you. But you kill a rabid dog for two reasons: to remove a danger from the community, and to protect yourselves.”

“Vic?” a man said. “Level with us. Do we have any chance at all of getting out of here?”

“Yes!” Vic was emphatic. “Yes, we do. The odds are long, but we've got a chance.”

“What does old Doc Whitson say about this?” another asked. “Ain't he the one who asked to have us sealed in here?”

“He told me just about a half hour ago he could find nothing that would kill these creatures. No known chemical at his disposal would stop them.”

“So when it gets down to the nut-cuttin',” a lanky farmer said, “the government will have to sacrifice us to save the rest of the country? Right, Vic?”

If it gets down to that point, yes, they will.”

“Well, at least you're levelin' with us, Vic. You're not tryin' to feed us a bunch of horse shit.”

“One more thing, people. I want to thank you men for standing with me on this. I mean that. You're all very brave men, and I—”

“Ah, hell, Vic!” a man shouted. “Election's three years away. Save it till then. You got my vote.”

Despite the abominable situation, the men laughed, breaking the tension.

There was a lump in Sheriff Ransonet's throat. He cleared away the lump and said,
Go on, and be careful out there.” He turned his head away so the men could not see the beginnings of tears in his eyes. Vic knew brave men, and these were brave men. How many would return from this hunt, he did not know.

 

 

The plane carrying the top government officials did not land in Baronne or Lapeer Parishes. Instead, they circled, with Dr. Boswell of the National Health Center and Dr. Wilkins of the Institute for Disease Control talking with Dr. Whitson by radio.

“Jefferson,” a voice crackled out of the speaker at an air strip in Lapeer. “Been a few years. But I'm glad to see you haven't changed and I'm glad—in one way—you're with us on this one. You always did manage to get yourself right in the middle of something hot.”

“I won't mince words, Dr. Boswell,” the old man shouted into the mic.

“Speak normally, sir,” Sheriff Ransonet cautioned him.

“I am speaking normally, young man,” Dr. Whitson assured him. “I can't hear worth a damn.”

Sorry, sir.”

“This is deadly serious, Boswell. It could spread. If it does, the world, I believe, will be in dreadful trouble.”

“There is an Air Force helicopter right behind us to pick up those samples you told the President about. We'll certainly check them all out, but as for me, I'll take your word. You're the best in the world, Jefferson.”

Not good enough for this one, I'm afraid, Boswell. The only thing I've found to stop them is fire. So before we continue our chat, I want you to order the military to burn out a hundred-yard strip around these Parishes. Completely, Boswell. Do it. Then get back to me.