Pandemic Page 136

And, of course, Chicago.

“It’s everywhere,” he said. “Everywhere.”

He clicked for additional news on Chicago. More stories appeared. All roads and highways had been blocked off, sometimes by trenches or collapsed overpa.s.ses, more often by miles of burned-out cars.

Cooper finally understood why the military hadn’t come in to save Chicago … because the military had instead blockaded Chicago. At least that’s what the news said. The military wasn’t letting anyone in or out. The story said troops were preparing to reenter the city and take it by force: until then, all citizens were warned to remain inside, to not answer the door for anyone, not even family. Stay off the phones, don’t overwhelm the cellular networks.

He nodded rapidly, yes, yes they were coming in, he just had to stay alive a little while longer …

And then he noticed the story’s date. It was from yesterday. He started clicking through links, found that the entire site hadn’t been updated in the last twenty hours.

Could CNN actually be down? The whole thing?

Cooper tried the Yahoo home page; it came up instantly with a huge, red headline:

CHICAGO: ABANDONED

“No,” he said. He read the story, each word a crus.h.i.+ng blow to his soul. “This can’t be f.u.c.king happening.”

The U.S. government had written off Chicago. No troops were coming in. Troops weren’t even surrounding the city anymore … too much territory to cover. Those forces had been moved to protect cities that had not yet been overrun.

He couldn’t be alone here, trapped with madmen and monsters.

Cooper kept searching, kept clicking, hitting the track pad so hard the desk vibrated. After five minutes of panicked reading, a story caught his eye:

GOVERNMENT WORKING ON BIOLOGICAL WARFARE AGAINST CONVERTED

(Reuters) — Anonymous sources out of Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., are reporting that the government is developing a biological weapon that will target the “Converted” who are raging across the country and are responsible for thousands of deaths worldwide.

An unnamed source said that the new weapon is actually a modified version of the pathogen responsible for creating the violent Converted in the first place. This “disease for the disease” is lethal to the Converted, but reportedly does no harm to people who have not yet been infected.

The modified version originates from people who have had a rare form of stem cell therapy known as “HAC-12b.” When those patients become infected, the modified stem cells alter the nature of the pathogen, turning it into the biological weapon sorely needed to combat the Converted.

Anyone who has had this therapy should contact the government via the attached links at the bottom of this story.

Cooper couldn’t breathe. He stared at the screen until the words blurred, until they moved on their own, jiggling on the screen like wiggly black cartoon worms.

Everything connected.

His stem cell therapy … no way, no way.

This disease began with whatever Steve Stanton pulled up from the bottom of Lake Michigan. Stanton apparently became some kind of Grand Dragon leader or something. Jeff got sick, turned into that thing.

Cooper got sick, too, but then he got better.

He thought back to the hotel, that first night with Sofia. Chavo had come in while they slept. Had Chavo already been sick, or did he get sick because he was in the room with Cooper?

When the Tall Man and his friends first caught Cooper and Sofia at the Walgreens, they’d seemed healthy. Then they’d spent the night in the hotel lobby with Cooper, breathing the same air as Cooper … and now those people were all sick, just like Chavo had been.

Cooper felt at the back of his neck. A shred of hanging skin, still there, left over from the blister Sofia had pointed out the day before. It had popped like a little puffball, squirted out a tiny cloud of white …

He forgot about the icy temperature, tore off his coat and s.h.i.+rt. He examined his body, found a dozen small, puffy spots filled with air, and at least another dozen that had already torn open.

It’s me … I’m the reason …

Cooper rushed out of the office and back into the ruined lobby. He looked at the Tall Man, who was clearly dying. Two of the others were already dead, lifeless eyes staring out at nothing.

“I’m contagious,” Cooper said. “I’m the reason they’re dead.” He looked to the blackened corpse above the dying fire.

“You hear that, Sofia? I got them for you. I got ’em good. I’m real sorry I had to eat you, real sorry. I just have to find a better place to hide, maybe a room upstairs, wait for the government to send people to save me, and then …”

His voice trailed off. Someone would come for him, sure, but what then? Would they lock him up and study him? The government barely gave a s.h.i.+t about civil rights when everything was fine; with the world going straight to h.e.l.l, they would do anything they wanted with him.

Contacting the government, telling them he’d had the HAC therapy, that was his only chance to live. But he also had to find a way to make sure regular people knew about him, knew what he had inside of him — otherwise, he might vanish at the hands of the good guys just as easily as he could at the hands of the psychotic f.u.c.k-stains who had taken over Chicago.

The laptop … at the top of the screen, there had been a tiny, reddish dot …

… a camera.

Cooper rushed back into the office.

DAY TWELVE

YOUTUBE

IMMUNIZED: 84%

NOT IMMUNIZED: 10%