Undead (16 page)

Excerpt from a Civil Defense broadcast, ten years earlier:

“GOOD EVENING, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. IT IS NOW MIDNIGHT, EASTERN STANDARD TIME. THIS IS YOUR CIVIL DEFENSE EMERGENCY NETWORK, WITH REPORTS EVERY HOUR ON THE HOUR FOR THE DURATION OF THIS EMERGENCY. STAY TUNED TO THIS WAVELENGTH FOR SURVIVAL INFORMATION.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, INCREDIBLE AS IT MAY SEEM, THE LATEST REPORT FROM THE PENTAGON AND THE PRESIDENT’S RESEARCH TEAM AT WALTER READE HOSPITAL CONFIRMS WHAT MANY OF US ALREADY BELIEVE. THE ARMY OF AGGRESSORS WHICH HAS BESIEGED MANY OF THE EASTERN AND MIDWESTERN STATES OF OUR COUNTRY IS MADE UP OF
DEAD HUMAN BEINGS.

“THE RECENTLY DEAD HAVE BEEN RETURNING TO LIFE BY SOME UNKNOWN FORCE AND FEASTING ON HUMAN FLESH. THE DEAD FROM MORGUES, HOSPITALS, FUNERAL PARLORS, AS WELL AS MANY OF THOSE KILLED DURING OR AS A RESULT OF THE CHAOS CREATED DURING THIS EMERGENCY, HAVE BEEN RETURNED TO LIFE IN A DEPRAVED, INCOMPLETE FORM AND THEY HAVE COME BACK AMONG US WITH AN URGE TO KILL OTHER HUMANS AND DEVOUR THEIR FLESH.

“EXPLANATIONS FOR THE CAUSES OF THIS INCREDIBLE PHENOMENON ARE NOT FORTHCOMING FROM THE WALTER READE TEAM, THE WHITE HOUSE OR FROM ANY GOVERNMENTAL AUTHORITY AT THIS MOMENT, BUT SPECULATION CENTERS ON THE RECENT VENUS MISSION, WHICH WAS UNSUCCESSFUL. THAT SPACE PROBE STARTED FOR VENUS MORE THAN A WEEK AGO, BUT THE SHIP SWERVED OFF COURSE AND NEVER ENTERED THE PLANET’S ATMOSPHERE. INSTEAD, IT RETURNED TO EARTH, CRASHING INTO THE ATLANTIC OCEAN. IT CARRIED A MYSTERIOUS HIGH-LEVEL RADIATION WITH IT, THE ORIGINS OF WHICH ARE STILL—WE ARE LED TO BELIEVE—UNKNOWN. COULD THAT RADIATION HAVE BEEN RESPONSIBLE FOR THE EPIDEMIC OF DEATH AND HORROR WE ARE NOW WITNESSING? SPECULATION ON THE ANSWER OR ANSWERS TO THAT QUESTION HAS RUN RAMPANT HERE IN WASHINGTON AND ELSEWHERE, WHILE THE WHITE HOUSE HAS MAINTAINED A CURTAIN OF SILENCE ON SCIENTIFIC THEORIES AND IS ATTEMPTING TO DEAL WITH THIS EMERGENCY ON A RETALIATORY BASIS. THE GOVERNMENT IS ORGANIZING RESISTANCE TEAMS IN THE FORM OF SEARCH AND DESTROY SQUADRONS AGAINST THE AGGRESSORS. THE DETAILS OF THESE MISSIONS ARE NOT KNOWN AT PRESENT. MEETINGS AT THE PENTAGON AND THE WHITE HOUSE HAVE REMAINED CLOSED TO REPORTERS, AND MEMBERS OF THE MILITARY AND CIVILIAN ADVISORS HAVE REFUSED TO CONDUCT INTERVIEWS OR TO ANSWER QUESTIONS POSED BY REPORTERS ON THEIR WAY TO OR FROM SUCH MEETINGS.

I REPEAT:
THE LATEST OFFICIAL COMMUNIQUE FROM THE PENTAGON HAS CONFIRMED THAT THE AGGRESSORS ARE DEAD.
THEY ARE
NOT
INVADERS FROM ANOTHER PLANET. THEY ARE THE
RECENTLY DEAD
FROM RIGHT HERE ON EARTH. NOT ALL OF THE RECENTLY DEAD HAVE RETURNED TO LIFE, BUT IN CERTAIN AREAS OF THE COUNTRY, THE EASTERN SEABORD AND THE MIDWEST IN PARTICULAR, THE PHENOMENON IS MORE WIDESPREAD THAN ELSEWHERE. WHY THE MIDWEST SHOULD BE AN AREA SO GREATLY AFFLICTED CANNOT BE EXPLAINED, EVEN BY THE WILDEST SPECULATION. PERHAPS THE NEARNESS TO OUR COASTLINE OF THE VENUS PROBE’S RE-ENTRY IS A FACTOR. AT THIS MOMENT, WE HAVE NO ANSWERS. PERHAPS WE SHALL NEVER KNOW THE EXACT REASONS FOR THE TERRIBLE PHENOMENON WE ARE NOW WITNESSING.

“THERE IS SOME HOPE, HOWEVER, THAT THE MENACE WILL BE BROUGHT UNDER CONTROL, PERHAPS IN A MATTER OF SEVERAL DAYS OR WEEKS. IT HAS BEEN DISCOVERED THAT THE AGGRESSORS CAN BE KILLED—OR IS IT KILLED AGAIN?—BY A GUNSHOT OR A HEAVY BLOW TO THE HEAD. THEY ARE AFRAID OF FIRE, AND THEY BURN EASILY. THESE BEINGS HAVE ALL THE CHARACTERISTICS OF DEAD PEOPLE—EXCEPT THEY ARE NOT DEAD—AND FOR REASONS WE DO NOT AS YET UNDERSTAND, THEIR BRAINS HAVE BEEN ACTIVATED AND THEY ARE CANNIBALS.

“I HAVE JUST BEEN HANDED A NEW BULLETIN WHICH STATES THAT IT HAS BEEN LEARNED THAT ANYONE WHO DIES FROM A WOUND INFLICTED BY THE FLESH-EATERS MAY HIMSELF COME BACK TO LIFE IN THE SAME FORM AS THE AGGRESSORS THEMSELVES. THE DISEASE, OR WHATEVER IT IS, THAT THESE THINGS CARRY
IS COMMUNICABLE
THROUGH OPEN FLESH WOUNDS OR SCRATCHES, AND TAKES EFFECT MINUTES AFTER THE APPARENT DEATH OF THE WOUNDED PERSON. ANYONE WHO DIES DURING THIS EMERGENCY SHOULD BE DECAPITATED OR CREMATED IMMEDIATELY. SURVIVORS WILL FIND THESE MEASURES EMOTIONALLY DIFFICULT TO UNDERTAKE, BUT THEY MUST BE UNDERTAKEN ANYWAY, OR ELSE THE AUTHORITIES MUST BE ALERTED TO UNDERTAKE THEM FOR YOU. THOSE WHO DIE DURING THIS EMERGENCY ARE NOT CORPSES IN THE USUAL SENSE. THEY ARE DEAD FLESH—BUT HIGHLY DANGEROUS AND A THREAT TO ALL LIFE ON OUR PLANET. I REPEAT, BODIES OF THOSE WHO DIE DURING THIS EMERGENCY
MUST BE BURNED OR DECAPITATED…”

On the screen of the television above the bar, there was coverage of the bus wreck and of the bizarre events which followed. The commentary had been long and sensationaI, the news cameras dwelling unnecessarily, McClellan thought, on the mangled bodies being transported on stretchers from the bloody clearing in the woods. Most of the stretchers were covered and the condition of the corpses could not be seen clearly, but the commentator’s voice filled in the gory details the video was mercifully lacking.

McClellan purposely averted his eyes from the screen. He and Greene had stopped off for a drink, to try and blur some of the day’s images. Both men were completely drained, both physically and emotionally, and needed a quiet place to sit and try and sort out what they had seen. They had chosen this particular place because it was seldom crowded and when they entered the barroom, it was empty of customers as they had hoped. The Sheriff had ordered a shot and a beer, and Greene had followed suit. They downed their shots without a word, neither of them feeling like talking though they were glad for each other’s company and had just picked up their beers when the door to the place banged open and a man entered the dim room. He staggered a little, sizing up the place and its potential for suitable diversion, then walked over to the bar and sat down on the stool next to McClellan.

McClellan tried not to look directly at the man. He did not know him and did not wish to make his acquaintance. He particularly did not wish to be drawn into an inane conversation with a drunk after all he had recently been through. And having the day’s events played back on the television put him even more on edge.

The man was dressed in blue coveralls and was carrying a metal lunchbucket which he slammed down onto the bar while yelling at the bartender to serve him a double-header of Seagram’s 7 and a bottle of Budweiser. Once served, the man quickly downed his whisky and ordered another, then turned his bloodshot eyes to the flickering screen above the bar. While the newscast was in progress, he would belch or snort at passages he found wryly amusing—or would look directly at McClellan as if he expected the Sheriff to belch or snort in agreement. When the belches and snorts got no response, the drunk began to mutter; and when the muttering got still no response, he began to throw in loud comments.

The two policemen were sitting in silence. McClellan tried to keep his head turned toward Greene, in hopes that the drunk would take the hint and keep quiet. But the Sheriff’s eyes darted toward the screen when he heard his own voice, recorded earlier that day during an interview at the scene of the bus accident.

“You tell ’em, Sheriff,” the drunk said, spinning around in time to catch McClellan’s eyes as he glanced at the TV.

“Yeah, yeah,” McClellan sighed under his breath.

Greene looked over and smiled at his partner in an attempt to be sympathetic. He knew the last thing McClellan wanted to do was talk about the afternoon’s events.

The drunk went on talking, slurring his words. “Sheriff, I think them people are right. Let ’em pound the goddamn nails in. Just to make sure, know what I mean?”

McClellan slid off his stool, pulled out his wallet and slapped some bills down on the bar. “Greene, let’s get out of here.”

The bartender came over and counted the money, the drunk shouting after the two lawmen as they went out the door, “It happened before, it can happen again! You
seen
it, Sheriff. You seen it with your own eyes!”

McClellan and Greene stepped out into the night air and kept walking, both wishing to put some distance between themselves and the saloon. The night air seemed very clear, the black sky illuminated by countless stars. A sparse but steady stream of automobile traffic moved along the street where the two lawmen were walking, the street forming one of the outer boundaries of a small park.

“Let’s get out of here,” said McClellan, walking swiftly. “Will you drop me off at home? My wife has the car.”

They picked their way through traffic and headed toward their patrol car, parked on the outer edge of the park. As they approached the car, Greene suddenly stopped and flung out his arm to stop McClellan. “You hear that?” he asked, staring toward a clump of trees twenty-five yards away. His voice was barely above a whisper.

They both stood perfectly still, listening. They heard rustling leaves and what sounded like a scuffle—then a muffled female scream. Pulling out their service revolvers, they began to run. They raced into the darkened park and saw three struggling figures, two of which were silhouetted against the star-studded sky as, noticing the men running toward them, they got up to flee. Two men had been grappling with a woman; the interruption had enabled her to get to her feet, but one of the men knocked her down as he tried to make his escape.

“Halt!
Police!
” Greene yelled.

McClellan fired a warning shot into the air.

Greene, looking down and trying not to trip over the ivy ground cover as they ran deeper into the park, did not see one of the shadowy figures dive into a clump of bushes just as McClellan fired his gun. Greene blinked his eyes, trying to get used to the darkness. He continued to move forward, his revolver drawn.

The woman, still down on the ground, hurt and exhausted, had managed to grab the ankle of her assailant as he tried to escape from the scene and, with the energy that often comes to those during an emergency, she was doggedly holding on. The man was balancing himself on one leg, shaking and kicking his other leg, hoping he could get the woman to loosen her grip. He finally lashed out with a solid kick, his heavy boot heel smashing into the woman’s jaw and, with a loud snapping sound, she went limp, her neck broken.

Greene reached the man at just that moment, leaped at him with a flying tackle, and they both went down heavily, rolling on the ground. The man untangled himself from Greene’s hold and got to his feet, with Greene after him. Suddenly a shot exploded from the bush and Greene reeled, staggered momentarily, and fell.

McClellan immediately fired and hit the man behind the bush, a square shot right in the chest, slamming the man over backwards like a duck in a shooting gallery.

The other assailant was still on the run, going out of the park toward the street. McClellan turned his body slowly, following the running man with the barrel of his revolver, patiently timing his shot. The man began running and dodging through a burst of traffic, brakes squealing as startled drivers tried to avoid the zigzagging figure. McClellan squeezed his trigger and the running man received the blast, jerking, lunging forward, and slamming head first across the hood of a parked car on the far side of the street.

McClellan stepped over to Greene, knelt, felt Greene’s chest and came away with a bloody hand. He put two fingers on Greene’s wrist, but there was no pulse. Greene was dead. McClellan wiped his hand in the grass.

He checked the woman. She was dead, too. Her neck was broken, her head angled grotesquely off to one side. Her clothes were partially torn, her face, shoulders and thighs bruised. Rape sickened him. What had probably started as a mugging had ended like this. McClellan had seen it too many times.

His gun ready, the Sheriff approached the parked car where the man he had shot lay sprawled across the hood. His headlong dive had been stopped by the windshield, his head cracking against the glass and shattering it into a pattern like a spider’s web. McClellan opened the door of the car, left foolishly unlocked by its owner, he noticed, and looked at the wide-open eyes of the dead man through the cracked windshield. Was a wallet or some sex worth dying this stupid way? And the deaths of the two men could not make up for the loss of Greene. Four more dead in a day of death, thought McClellan. There was nothing to do but notify Greene’s family and phone the morgue.

The Sheriff stayed on hand, directing traffic and keeping curious onlookers away, until the patrol cars and the morgue’s ambulance arrived. Then he went home to bed, tired, but knowing beforehand that he would be unable to sleep.

Several hours past midnight, two bodies were delivered to the County Morgue. Unloaded from an ambulance, they rested on wheeled stretchers, wrapped in green clinical shrouds. Two men from the coroner’s office stood by while the morgue attendant and his assistant prepared the delivery papers for signature.

“These the two from the park?” the morgue attendant asked. He already knew the answer to his question, but was making conversation. The attendant appreciated any company during the night shift.

“That’s them,” one of the men from the coroner’s office replied, more tersely than the morgue attendant would have liked.

“How about Deputy Greene and the woman?” the attendant continued, trying to prolong the conversation.

“They’re at O’Neil’s Funeral Parlor.”

The morgue attendant, about to sign the delivery papers, lifted his pen from the form and looked up. “You know, it’s a real shame about that Greene fellow.”

“Yeah,” one of the coroner’s men said impatiently.

The morgue attendant finally completed the signing of the papers. He scratched his head, looking at the shrouded bodies. “We hardly have any room, what with that busload from this afternoon,” he complained.

“I’m sure you’ll manage,” one of the coroner’s men said, as he and his partner wearily climbed into their ambulance and drove away.

The morgue attendant and his assistant watched the ambulance go, then turned toward the shrouded forms on the stretchers. “Let’s give ’em a free ride,” the assistant said humorlessly.

Entering the morgue, they wheeled the stretchers into a large, cold, sterile room filled with table after sheet-draped metal table, the body of a bus accident victim lying on each one. They wheeled the new deliveries into place and turned to leave. Neither man noticed as the arm of one of the loosely covered bodies from the afternoon’s disaster slid out from under its sheet and hung down. The fingers twitched almost imperceptibly.

The morgue attendant and his assistant returned to their office, and the attendant told the other man that it was his turn to make coffee. The small radio in the office was tuned to an all-night talk show. Someone had phoned in to say that ten years ago, when the dead had come back to life, the authorities should have made more of an effort to find out exactly what had caused it, instead of suppressing it as soon as the thing had seemed under control. The caller suggested that it could have been caused by spores or something, and added that if there
was
something capable of sustaining life, or at least preventing complete and total death, maybe the spores or whatever the cause was could be studied and refined and used as a medicine. Maybe it could even be used to increase everybody’s life span.

The talk show host chuckled nervously and said the spores or radiation or whatever had caused the terror ten years ago, had been thought to have come from Venus, and scientists believed now that there was no life on Venus. If there was no life there, he continued, how could the planet possess a substance—or force—that could give eternal life? The man who had phoned in said that he didn’t know, but it certainly ought to be studied.

The morgue attendant got up and spun the dial of the radio, hunting for music.

At O’Neil’s Funeral Parlor, Mr. O’Neil wheeled a casket into place in the chapel room. O’Neil was a neat, slender, conservatively dressed, cheerful-looking man in his mid-fifties, and most people seeing him away from his place of business would have guessed him to be a bank teller or an accountant. Having maneuvered the casket to where he wanted it, he lifted the lid to reveal the embalmed body of Deputy Greene, dressed in a crisp black suit with a red carnation in the lapel.

O’Neil stepped back from the casket, satisfying himself that his work was all it should be, and stooped to move a flower stand into place to the left of the coffin. He decided to bring up the kneeler and the rest of the paraphernalia later. He wanted to do a particularly good job for Greene, as he had been acquainted with the family for some time. He had worked quickly and efficiently throughout the night to get Greene ready, so the family would not have to endure a long, agonizing wake before the man could be buried. Dawn was still a few hours away.

O’Neil bent over the flower stand, and could not see the slight tremor in Greene’s face, a quivering of the jaw muscles accompanied by just a hint of flutter in the eyelids. If O’Neil had seen these things, he would doubtless have dismissed them as the workings of some of the dying nerves, or the work of his own imagination.

A loud noise from the basement shattered the silence of the chapel and O’Neil turned in alarm, heading for the staircase, muttering to himself. He descended the stairs quickly, passed through a basement storage room housing folding chairs, caskets, flower baskets, stands, boxes of funeral flags, candles—all the stock of a funerary establishment neatly arranged and ready for sale or use by clients. O’Neil continued briskly into the embalming room, where the bright light revealed a black and white cat standing on the body of the young woman who had been killed in the park. A sheet covered the still form up to the chin. The pieces of a broken bottle lay next to the body on the marble slab, the last few drips of fluid still dripping onto the floor.

What had taken place seemed obvious to O’Neil and he yelled exasperatedly at the animal, “You bad cat! Now come away from there.”

He shooed the cat away with his arms, wiped up the fluid and then dried his hands. His movements were slow and deliberate; it was late and he was very tired. But he had a full day ahead of him, beginning with an early-morning burial, and he wanted to get all the embalming done during what remained of the night.

Still wiping his hands dry, he moved to the counter where his equipment was spread: scalpels, needles, tubes, bottles of fluid, makeup. There was also a half-eaten sandwich on one end of the counter, the sandwich resting on its crumpled waxed paper wrapper. O’Neil had not eaten in the presence of Greene’s body, although he reasoned that there was nothing really wrong with doing so. But at one point during the long night he became hungry and had brought the sandwich with him into the basement. Spotting its remains, he wrapped up his unfinished snack and threw it into a wastebasket, sweeping the crumbs with his palm and making sure they went into the basket too. Then he reached up and flicked on a radio, found some light music and turned the volume down low.

Upstairs, in his casket, Deputy Greene’s eyes were open wide. The body lay still, unmoving, its eyes fixed and staring toward the ceiling.

In another of the chapel rooms of the funeral parlor, a second body was laid out. The casket contained the remains of a middle-aged black man. Its eyes were open also.

O’Neil stood at his work table, his back to the sheet-covered body, mixing liquids with a steady hand, the soft music soothing his tiredness. He was humming quietly with the melodies. Flask in hand, he turned around to walk to the slab on which the corpse rested. The still basement vibrated with the loudness of the man’s horrified scream. He backed up into the counter, his elbows knocking bottles and tools to the floor, the beaker in his hand crashing in a fountain of glass.

The dead woman had raised her shoulders off the slab, her back arching, the sheet sliding down over her breasts as she sat up further. Her head began to rise, her hair lifting from the cold marble surface, her eyes open wide. Finally she was sitting upright and, turning her head, she spied O’Neil. The man watched, his mouth open in frozen terror, no sound coming from his throat. Sluggishly, almost looking like a woman sleepily getting out of bed, she pushed herself from the table, put her bare feet on the floor, and began walking toward O’Neil.

Upstairs, Deputy Greene moved a finger, then a hand, gradually sitting up stiffly in his coffin. He blinked once or twice, moving his head slowly from side to side and up and down, as if examining his surroundings. At one point he cocked his head to one side as if he heard the scream from downstairs in the embalming laboratory.

The black man sat up in his coffin. He leaned heavily to one side, and he and the casket fell off the platform at the front of the chapel, knocking over and smashing the stands of flowers. The black man’s body lay for a while amid the broken vases and mangled gladiolas, unmoving, as if it could not get up. Then, slowly, almost as if in pain, he pulled himself to his feet. He stood up and walked through the chapel door with his eyes straight ahead of him, then turned and continued down the corridor to the chapel where the body of Deputy Greene was still sitting in his coffin.

Bent backward over his worktable, O’Neil screamed from the deepest reaches of his soul. The body of the dead woman leaned over him, her hands clawing at his throat and at his face, her eyes staring wildly and insanely and hungrily at him. Then, awkwardly grabbing a handful of sharp instruments, she began stabbing at O’Neil, over and over. His agonized screams echoed and reverberated in the embalming room. Again and again she drove the scalpels into his face and chest. Finally the screams stopped. O’Neil’s eyes bulged and blood gushed from what had been his face, as the creature over him continued to stab and stab long after the stabbing had accomplished its terrible purpose.

The strange, unwordly sounds of teeth tearing and chewing newly dead flesh mingled with the sounds of low, sweet music in the embalming room. The dead woman continued to sink her teeth into O’Neil’s flesh, gnawing at his face and neck, until her own face was covered with warm blood.

Upstairs, Greene’s body had slowly crawled out of his coffin and was staggering about, following the figure of the black man who had headed for the front door and was pounding against the glass with the ornate metal flower stand that he had taken from next to Greene’s casket. The glass broke, the heavy metal dropping from the black man’s hands. The door opened, and the body of what had been Deputy Greene followed the striding form of the black man out into the dark street.

The two dead men moved as though they were conscious of each other’s presence but indifferent to each other. They were both pulled by the same force, had the same wants. Indeed, they both did crave the same thing. And what they craved was living human flesh.

The sky over the County Morgue was beginning to lighten. The corridors of the building were quiet except for the faint strains of an all-night country music program coming from the office of the morgue attendant and his assistant. The cold holding rooms were silent, the tables still covered with the sheet-covered bodies, thirteen covered bodies of those who had died so violently that afternoon. The thirteen who had had spikes driven into their skulls that afternoon. Twenty-three tables lay empty.

The office of the morgue employees was not quite empty. It was filled with the chewed, bloody pieces of what had once been two men. Their bones, hair and flesh lay scattered around the room in congealing puddles of blood: red, smeared handprints mute testimony to their struggle to live in a fight with the dead.

In mid-morning Sheriff McClellan was at the morgue, examing the scene of the tragedy. He had made his way inside through a cordon of eager, curious reporters and TV camermen. The police had the entire building roped off, and were not allowing any reporters inside the morgue. Still, the reporters knew what had happened. They had talked to patrolmen, medical examiners and other officials on their way in and out of the building. It was no secret that only thirteen corpses remained in the morgue, not counting the remains of the attendant and his assistant, and the thirteen corpses that remained were the bus accident victims which had had spikes driven into their skulls immediately after the accident by persons who had thus far not been identified or apprehended by the police.

When McClellan left the morgue building he had to face the reporters and the news cameras once again. As a path was cleared to his patrol car, he was barraged with shouts and questions. He knew complete silence on his part would only fire speculation and inspire panic—possibly leading to mass hysteria—so he stopped to answer some of the reporters’ questions.

Microphones were jammed into the Sheriff’s face, and the shouting of questions rose to an incomprehensible babble, making it impossible for him to distinguish any particular question. McClellan shouted for quiet and order, then stood still and refused to say anything until the din subsided and the reporters calmed down.

When the shouting stopped, McClellan announced that he had decided not to answer any specific questions, but that he would make a statement if they were willing to listen quietly. On hearing that, the voices of the reporters rose to a clamor again, briefly, but subsided in favor of hearing what the Sheriff had to say rather than not hearing anything at all.

The Sheriff’s speech was intended to have a calming effect, but it did not entirely succeed. He recited the events of the preceding day, toning them down, and refusing to connect them with the murder of the undertaker, O’Neil. He admitted not having a clue as to who would want to perpetrate the sort of thing that had been done at the morgue. In the face of a further barrage of questions after his statement—which had concluded without giving the reporters any real satisfaction—McClellan stuck to his guns, refusing to say that the phenomenon of ten years ago was definitely repeating itself, and insisting that bodies had disappeared and had been stolen, certainly a bizarre and unsettling state of affairs, but one which could be explained rationally. He added that an investigation was already underway.

McClellan did not believe the things he was saying. He knew he was backpeddling, trying to gain time, not wanting mounting alarm to build to a frenzy too quickly, a state of affairs that was unavoidable if the phenomena continued.

The Sheriff had one fact in mind that gave him some consolation: They had brought this…this plague…under control once before. If it was happening again, they would know how to deal with it.

Unless, maybe, this time it was going to be a whole lot worse.