And heartbreakingly familiar.

“Oh … no,” whispered Trout, and the ache in his chest became ten times worse.

The woman’s face was totally unmarked. The rest of her was not. Her arms and legs, her generous breasts and stomach … every other part of her was torn.

Bitten.

“No.”

Trout knew every line and curve of the woman’s face, from her liquid green eyes to her full-lipped mouth. Eyes that always twinkled with wicked fun; a mouth on which a thousand variations of a saucy smile flickered. Now those eyes were as empty as green glass; that mouth slack. Her expression was a total blank. No pain. No fear. Not even the wry, self-aware humor that perpetually defined her. There was nothing.

“God,” said Trout as tears broke from his eyes. “Marcia.…”

Another figure stepped out into the lane. A young man in mechanic’s coveralls and a baseball cap twisted sideways on his head. A stranger. His lower face and throat had been savaged, and even with the rain the whole front of his coveralls was dark with blood. He shambled into the path, turned awkwardly toward the headlights for a moment, and then wheeled around toward the deer. Without hesitation he lunged at the animal, but the deer pelted away down the road, uttering the strangest cry Trout had ever heard a deer make. The mechanic lurched after her.

Marcia, however, stood her ground, her head tilting first to one side and then the other as if she were trying to see past the high beams; but as she did that her expression maintained its bland vacuity. It was as unnerving as it was grotesque. This was the secondary infection that Volker described. Bodies totally enslaved to the parasites. Hosts without conscious control.

But where was the consciousness? Volker had intended for Gibbon to retain consciousness while in the grave. Unable to move, but able to feel and experience. Was that what he was seeing here? Was Marcia trapped in there?

It was the most horrible thing Trout could imagine. Her body hijacked by mindless insects that functioned on a purely instinctive level, and her mind—Marcia’s beautiful, clever, cheeky, delicious mind—trapped and unable to control what the parasite made her body do. Like a ghost haunting a house that once belonged to it in life.

He wished he’d killed Volker. God, he wished he’d taken that gun and beat that fucking maniac to death with it.

Or, better yet, he wished he’d made Volker come with him. So he could see firsthand what horrors he’d wrought. Then he’d kick the son of a bitch out into the rain and let Marcia have her way with him.

He gagged and almost vomited on the dashboard.

Marcia was a monster. An actual monster.

Trout knew that if he stepped out of the car she would attack him. Or … rather, her body would. Marcia would have no control over it. She would have no choice. She would have to watch her body commit murder and cannibalism.

“Jesus Christ,” Trout said.

How widespread was this? How many people had been infected?

Where was Dez?

That thought ignited like a flare in his mind. Where the hell was Desdemona Fox? Was she alive or dead? And, if she was dead … what kind of dead was she?

Tears brimmed in his eyes again. He had the pistol, but Trout had no idea how to use it. He’d never fired a gun in his life. Even if he knew how, he was sure he couldn’t bring himself to use it on Marcia. Or Dez.

Maybe on himself, though. That thought was whispered constantly in the back of his mind. If Dez was infected, if she was truly lost to him forever, then he would use Volker’s gun and give her peace … and then he would join her. If he could not have her in life, then he would follow her into death.

Tears ran down his face and he wiped his eyes on his sleeve.

Screw this. Dez was probably already as dead as Marcia. Maybe everyone in town was. Say good-night, folks, and thanks for coming. So long.

Marcia took a small step toward the Explorer.

“Marcia,” Trout said softly. “I’m so sorry.”

She took another step. Trout tried flicking the lights at her. Her lips curled in a brief snarl, but then settled back to rubbery slackness.

Trout took his foot gingerly off the brake, allowing the engine idle to move the SUV forward a few feet.

Marcia did not move. He stepped down on the brake pedal.

“Come on, Marcia … please,” Trout said, sniffing at the tears. “Cut me a break here.” The pistol was on the seat beside him. Even a bonehead like him could suck on the barrel and pull the trigger.

He thought about Goat and what they had planned to do about this.

There were hundreds of kids at the shelter. Maybe more. If they’d gotten there when the storm started, then there was a good chance they were still alive, still safe within the blocky walls of the elementary school.

And Dez was out there somewhere.

“Fuck!” He yelled it.

Outside, Marcia heard him and took a more definite step toward the car.

Inside, a clock was ticking in Billy Trout’s head.

He eased his foot off the brakes again and the car moved forward once more, slowly closing the distance between the Explorer’s grille and Marcia. She didn’t move out of the way. She reached for the hood, and Trout watched her red nails scratch long lines in the paint. One of her nails bent slowly backward and then broke, tearing away a flap of skin. Trout yelped in imagined pain; Marcia did not.

The Explorer moved against her, bumping into her with a soft, heavy sound that made Trout clench his teeth. Marcia leaned into the car, pushing and clawing at it as if she could tear through it to get to …

A fresh wave of sickness washed over Trout as he realized with perfect clarity what Marcia intended to do. It was something he had known all along but not quite accepted. Until now.

“Please,” he begged. He hit the horn.

She clawed at the hood.

He tapped the brakes to try and jolt her away. The lane was far too narrow to go around, and there was no side road.

But she would not, could not, be deterred. She knew that he was in there. And she wanted him. Even though her eyes were dead, her mouth worked constantly, snapping at the air.

“Please,” he said again, but even as he said so, he touched the gas. Just a tap, but it made the Explorer surge five feet forward. Marcia was flattened against the grille and hood for a moment, her feet sliding in the mud. Then she slipped. Just a few inches, her weight pulling her down as her feet lost their support.

Trout touched the gas again, just a whisper of extra power. The Explorer lurched forward again, and Marcia slipped farther down.

“I’m sorry,” Trout said and then a sob broke in his chest as he pressed down on the gas, driving the car forward and watching Marcia slide slowly backward off the hood and sink down, inch by inch, in front of the car. In front, and under. Her arms were stretched forward, nails scratching and scrabbling at the wet metal. Rain pounded her, dancing along the white skin of her hands and arms.

Another few feet forward, another few inches down.

She was disappearing in horrible slow motion, sinking into the mud as the weight and mass of the Explorer pushed her down. Trout stared into her empty green eyes as they peered at him over the very edge of the hood … and then they were gone as she slid down. Her hands slid away from him, and they, too, were gone.

There was a moment when the car seemed to stall, but then Trout realized with even greater horror that it was because the wheels were trying to climb over an obstacle.

A second, deeper sob tore itself from Trout’s chest as he fed the car more gas and the four-wheel drive found purchase. The Explorer rocked sideways as it climbed awkwardly over the obstruction. Wheel by wheel it thumped back into the mud, and the vehicle rolled forward without further hindrance.

Trout kicked the brake pedal to the floor and bent forward as if in physical pain. His forehead rested on the knobbed arc of the steering wheel. He let go of the wheel and punched it, and punched the dash and punched his own head. Trout screamed as loud as all the pain in the world.

When he finally began driving, he dared not look in the rearview mirror. It would kill him to see Marcia lying broken in the mud. It would kill him to see her getting to her feet.

“Oh, Christ,” he said through his tears. “Dez…”

He gunned the motor and kept driving.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

AROUND STEBBINS COUNTY

“Where is everyone?” asked Jimmy Hobbs as he and his girlfriend, Elizabeth Donald, stepped into the foyer of the offices of Regional Satellite News. He was five years younger than Elizabeth and was the company gofer, doing everything from chauffeuring camera crews to replacing broken toilet seats. With his shocking red hair and freckles he looked like Archie from the comics. Elizabeth had curly black hair and dark eyes and a Goth style she modeled after Marcia’s, minus all the piercings.

“Where’s Marcia?” asked Elizabeth as she shrugged out of her wet coat. She was not smiling. A faint frown tugged at the corners of her mouth.

The receptionist’s chair was pushed back against the wall and her Styrofoam Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup was on its side, still dripping into the pool that was spread under the desk.

“Maybe she went to get the mop,” suggested Jimmy. “I’ll go see.”

Without another word he pushed through the batwing saloon doors that led into the newsroom. Elizabeth bent over to shake droplets from her hair. From that angle she could look under the edges of the flapping saloon doors and for a moment she didn’t understand what she was seeing.

Jimmy seemed to be dancing with Murray Klein’s secretary, Connie.

Dancing?

Even as she saw this, Elizabeth knew that it was wrong, that her perception was skewed, and not merely because she was bent over. The picture she saw would not fit into her mind.

She straightened slowly and peered over the top of the doors.

Jimmy was not dancing. Of course he wasn’t dancing. That was crazy.

What he was doing, however, was crazier by far.

Connie and Jimmy were locked in a fierce embrace and it seemed to Elizabeth that Connie was forcibly trying to kiss Jimmy.

No. Not kiss.

Bite?