Plague

Suddenly Taylor fell flat on her face.

“You tripped me!” Taylor said, more shocked than angry.

“Me?” Dekka spread her hands in a completely unconvincing gesture of innocence. “Hey, I’m all the way over here.”

“I’m just saying: you can see where that could make a long walk just a lot longer,” Sam said.

“You guys are so not fun,” Taylor grumped. She bounced instantaneously to just behind Sam. She grabbed his butt, he yelled, “Hey!” and she bounced away innocently.

“To answer your question, Jack,” Sam said, “we are sneaking out at night so that everyone doesn’t know we’re gone and why. They’ll figure it out soon enough, but Edilio will have to have more of his guys on the streets if I’m not there playing the big, bad wolf. More stress for everyone.”

“Oh,” Jack said.

“The big, bad wolf,” Taylor said. She laughed. “So, when you play that fantasy in your head is Astrid Little Red Riding Hood or one of the Three Little Pigs?”

“Dekka,” Sam said.

“Hah! Too slow!” Taylor said. She was suddenly twenty feet away and behind Dekka.

They had reached the ridge. The trees started in the valley beyond and spread up the next hill. The small valley tended to capture damp breezes off the ocean—back when there were breezes. And a small stream—now almost dry since it was cut off from the high, snow-capped peaks beyond the barrier—ran along the floor of the valley.

“Try not to make too much noise, huh, guys? Hunter may be out hunting. We don’t want to stomp around and scare off his prey.”

“So no more falling on your face, Jack,” Taylor teased.

A sound, a wail, rose from the trees downhill. “What was that?” Jack asked.

It came again. A cry of utter despair.

Jack expected Sam to take off running. Instead he took a deep breath and in a low voice said, “I don’t think you guys need to see this.”

“See what?” Taylor asked.

Sam set off downhill. He didn’t ask them to come with him. But he didn’t order them not to. So they followed.

Once in the pitch-blackness under the trees Sam used his powers to turn one hand into a sort of dull, glowing green light. It made it easier to see the trees, but it turned everything into a nightmare scene.

“Hunter?” Sam called out.

“Don’t come here!” Hunter’s voice, wracked with sadness, was closer than Jack expected.

They followed the sound of his voice. Closer, and now they could hear him crying. It wasn’t a big kid’s cry, it was like a toddler’s. Big, heaving sobs.

Again Sam said, “Guys, stay back. You don’t have to see this.”

But again they ignored him. Not Jack at first but Dekka, who went because she was brave and wanted to help, even though she guessed what she would find; Taylor because she was curious and wanted to see; Jack because he didn’t want to be left behind alone in total darkness.

Hunter was sitting up. He was in the middle of a neat camp: glowing embers from a dying fire, a small tent, a makeshift shelf of sticks and vines where Hunter had a pan and a pot and a plate. A mountain lion hung from a rope looped over a high branch.

Hunter’s entire body writhed and squirmed.

The side of his head was partly gone. A creature, like some monstrous melding of insect and eel, protruded from Hunter’s shoulder and as they stood there rooted in horror it took a vicious bite of Hunter’s flesh.

Taylor was suddenly gone.

Dekka’s face was grim, her eyes wet.

“I tried . . . ,” Hunter said. He held up his hands, mimicked pressing them against his head. “It didn’t work.”

“I can do it,” Sam said softly.

“I’m scared,” Hunter said.

“I know.”

“It’s ’cause I killed Harry. God has to punish me. I tried to be good but I’m bad.”

“No, Hunter,” Sam said gently. “You paid your dues. You fed the kids. You’re a good guy.”

“I’m a good hunter.”

“The best.”

“I don’t know what’s happening. What’s happening, Sam?”

“It’s just the FAYZ, Hunter,” Sam said.

“Can the angels find me here so I can go to heaven?”

Sam didn’t answer. It was Dekka who spoke. “Do you still remember any prayers, Hunter?”

The insectlike creature was almost completely emerged from Hunter’s shoulder. Legs were becoming visible. It had wings folded against its body. It looked like a gigantic ant, or wasp, but silver and brass and covered with a sheen of slime.

It was emerging like a chicken breaking out of an egg. Being born. And as the creature was born, it fed on Hunter’s numbed body.

Jerky movements beneath Hunter’s shirt testified to more of the larvae emerging.

“Do you remember ‘now I lay me down to sleep’?” Dekka asked.

“Now I lay me down to sleep,” Hunter said. “I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”

Sam raised his hands, palms out.

“If I should die—”

Twin beams of light hit Hunter’s chest and face. His shirt caught fire. Flesh melted. He was dead before he could feel anything.

Sam played the light up and down Hunter’s body. The smell was sickening. Jack wanted to look away, but how could he?

Sudden darkness as Sam terminated the light.